“Honey, I don’t have time to explain right now,” Wanda Nell said. “Hold on a second.” She put the phone down to finish turning the truck around. Once she was heading in the right direction, she picked up the phone again. “I’ve been talking to Lily Golliday, and now I’m going to get Rusty. I know where he is.”
“You can’t go by yourself,” T.J. said, his voice sharp with concern. “Come get me, and let me go with you in case there’s trouble.”
“There won’t be any trouble,” Wanda Nell said. “Rusty is certainly not going to hurt me, and nobody else knows where I am. Nobody followed me here, so I’ll be just fine.”
T.J. sighed heavily into the phone. “I know it’s no use arguing with you.”
“Nope,” Wanda Nell said. “But y’all be ready when I get back with Rusty. We’re going to have to figure out what the heck to do with him. I’ll call you when we’re on the way.”
“Okay,” T.J. said. “I’ll tell Tuck.”
“One more thing,” Wanda Nell said. “That Ford truck I thought was following me. Can you go see if it’s still out there parked across the square?”
From Tuck’s office windows there was a clear view across the square, and if the truck was still there, T.J. would see it.
“Hang on,” T.J. said. “I’ll go check and be right back.”
Wanda Nell concentrated on driving while she waited for T.J. She needed to get to the highway and head west a few miles.
T.J. came back on the line. “There’s a Ford pickup parked across the square,” he said. “And there’s a guy sitting on one of the benches facing in this direction. I can’t see who it is, though. You think it’s the guy who was following you?”
“Probably,” Wanda Nell said. She took great satisfaction from the thought that the guy had been sitting there all this time, waiting for her to come out of the building. He’d be waiting quite a long time.
“You be careful,” T.J. said.
“I will. I’ll have my phone with me, and if I need help I’ll call.” Quickly she told him where she was going, and before he could protest further, she ended the call.
She half-expected him to call her back and continue fussing at her, but he knew her too well. He might try to follow her, if he could remember how to find the place.
Well, if he did, he did. She’d deal with that if she had to. Right now, she concentrated on threading her way through the streets to the highway.
Once she hit it she headed west, past the interchange with the interstate highway just west of Tullahoma. Her destination lay only about four miles west of this intersection, and she watched the speedometer as she drew closer and closer to it.
Wanda Nell glanced into the rearview mirror a few times as a precaution, but she didn’t note any suspicious vehicles. A couple other trucks and one car passed her, evidently impatient with her slower pace.
If she hadn’t known where to look, she might have missed the road where she had to turn. She saw the faint tracks ahead and slowed down for the turn. She made a quick check for traffic in both directions, then turned left and was almost immediately swallowed up by the trees and bushes lining the old road.
Most of the gravel was gone now, leaving a deeply rutted dirt track nearly engulfed by the vegetation around it. Wanda Nell winced repeatedly as she heard the scrapes against the sides of the truck. She might owe T.J. for a paint job by the time this was over.
She traveled slowly for a mile and three quarters, watching for any landmarks she could remember. She thought the old house lay about two miles from the highway and about three hundred yards into the woods from the road.
Up ahead was a gnarled old tree she recognized. Its trunk grew straight for about two feet, then it angled sideways almost ninety degrees for about five feet before growing upright again. Judging by its size, the tree had to be well over a hundred years old, and Wanda Nell had always wondered what had made the tree grow in such a bizarre shape. With this tree as her guidepost, she could find the old house.
Wanda Nell peered ahead, hoping to see a spot large enough to allow her to turn the truck around and point it back out toward the highway. A few yards ahead there was a small clearing, and Wanda Nell drove toward it.
The canopy of leaves was thick here, keeping much of the sun from penetrating, and Wanda Nell switched on the headlights. She hated to do it, in case Rusty saw them and disappeared before she could find him. But she didn’t have a lot of choice. She was afraid to turn the truck without some illumination.
As she was backing around in the clearing, the lights glinted off something through the trees. Wanda Nell paused in her maneuvers and stared into the gloom.
Sure enough, her lights had picked up either chrome or glass. As she kept looking, Wanda Nell gradually made out the outlines of a small car.
Her heart beating faster, Wanda Nell finished turning the truck. Once she had it positioned to her satisfaction, she switched the lights off. She checked the glove compartment for the flashlight she knew T.J. kept there and put it in her purse. She got out of the truck and locked it.
The car she had glimpsed must be the one Rusty had borrowed from Lily’s mother. And that meant Rusty was somewhere nearby.
Wanda Nell examined the ground around her for a large, stout stick. She hated snakes, and she didn’t want to go charging through the woods without some kind of weapon, just in case.
She found a sturdy limb, stripped off a few small branches and leaves, and tested it against the ground. It would do.
Shouldering her purse, she made for the gnarled tree. Once there, she paused to get her bearings. From here, a short walk should take her to the old house. She uttered a quick prayer for protection from snakes and anything else that might be lurking in the woods.
She set out, moving cautiously through the underbrush. The light was better here, and she shifted her gaze nervously back and forth from the ground in front of her to the woods ahead of her.
Her progress was slow, but she didn’t want to risk falling and spraining an ankle, or worse, getting bitten by a snake.
After she had gone about two hundred yards by her estimation, Wanda Nell paid more attention to what lay ahead of her. Praying that she hadn’t lost her bearings and was still heading in the right direction, Wanda Nell forged ahead.
She pushed through a clump of trees dense with vines and ferns and stepped into the edge of a small clearing.
There was the house, sixty feet ahead of her.
Wanda Nell paused to catch her breath and examine the scene.
The house appeared much the same as the last time she had seen it. The roof had a few holes in it, and the porch sagged on one end. The windows had been broken out long ago, and vines grew through them into the house.
Wanda Nell shivered. What a terrible place to have to seek refuge. It had been exciting and full of adventure when she and Rusty were kids, but now it looked awful. Why would Rusty prefer to hide out here, rather than ask for her help? He really must hate her to go to extremes like this.
She pulled the flashlight from her purse and moved cautiously ahead. She approached the front of the house and stared at the rotting steps in dismay. How was she going to get up to the porch and the door without falling through? How on earth had Rusty managed it?
Then she remembered that there were stone steps at the back of the house. She circled around, switching on her flashlight and pointing it toward the ground.
At the rear of the house, she found the steps. They were overgrown with moss, but as Wanda Nell examined them, she saw recent scuff marks in the moss. This had to be how Rusty went in and out.
She went carefully up the steps and stepped onto the back porch. It, too, sagged on either end, but in front of the door it seemed solid enough when Wanda Nell tested it.
The door stood slightly ajar, and Wanda Nell pushed it farther open, wincing at the screech it made. She flashed the light inside and called out, “Rusty! Are you here?”
For a moment, she heard nothing
. Then Rusty’s voice called out to her, “Help me!”
Chapter 23
“Rusty! Where are you?” Wanda Nell stood rooted to the spot. It was dark inside the old house, and the musty scents of decay and dampness crept into her nose.
“In here,” Rusty called. “In the next room.”
At least his voice sounded fairly strong, though tired. Wanda Nell expelled a sigh of relief as she moved carefully through what had once been the kitchen. The floor groaned but did not give way.
“Hurry up!”
“I’m coming,” Wanda Nell yelled back. “Just hang on a minute. I’m trying to be careful.”
She stepped into the doorway into the next room and paused. She cast the beam of the flashlight around, trying to find Rusty.
“Where the heck are you?”
“In here, dammit!”
Following the sound of his voice, Wanda Nell spotted where Rusty must be. Near the wall was a door that led into a closet, if Wanda Nell remembered correctly. She drew in a sharp breath as she steadied the light in that direction.
Part of the ceiling had collapsed, bringing with it a beam and other debris. That mass was lodged against the door of the closet, holding it shut. The beam lay at an angle, wedged in such a way that Rusty couldn’t push the door open.
“Are you in the closet, Rusty? Are you hurt?” Wanda Nell stepped cautiously closer to the closet and the debris.
“Yes, I’m in here, where the heck do you think I am?” Rusty banged hard against the door. “I ain’t hurt, but I been stuck in here for more’n a day, and I want the hell out of here.”
Wanda Nell played the light against the door. It looked surprisingly sturdy. If it hadn’t been it would have shattered from the impact of the beam falling against it.
“Let me see how I can get you out,” Wanda Nell said. She stood and assessed the situation.
If Rusty had tried to break through the door, he would have run the risk of the beam pressing further against the door and pushing in on him as it fell.
“Well, hurry up,” Rusty called, obviously exasperated. “I ain’t sure how much longer the hinges of this door is gonna hold, and I could get mashed.”
“I see that,” Wanda Nell said. She moved right up to the pile of wood and dirt blocking the door. She put her hand against the beam and pushed. It moved ever so slightly. She flashed the light up and down the length of it. The other end rested solidly against the wall. Maybe if she got hold of it and pulled it toward her, she could dislodge it enough for Rusty to open the door safely.
“Does the door open in or out?”
“Out,” Rusty said. “Toward you.”
“Okay.”
There was a fireplace to her left, and Wanda Nell scanned it. The mantel appeared solid enough, so she set her purse and the flashlight atop it, pointing the light toward the beam. Some light filtered in from outside, but it wasn’t enough.
When she had the beam of light directed to her satisfaction, she called to her brother, “Now I’m going to try to pull this beam out of the way. Just hold tight.”
“Be careful,” Rusty said. “Won’t do neither one of us any good if you get hurt.”
Wanda Nell ignored that. She was pretty strong, and she did a fair amount of lifting heavy boxes at Budget Mart. The beam was pretty solid and no doubt quite heavy, but she thought she could manage to move it out of the way. If she couldn’t she was either going to have to find some other way for Rusty to get out of the closet or she would have to call for help.
Where the beam rested against the closet door was chest high on Wanda Nell. She sidled up to it, squatted a little, then pushed up until she felt the beam touching against her right shoulder.
She brought her right arm up and tucked it carefully around the beam. Using her left hand to steady it, she pressed with her legs and stood up.
Straining with the effort, Wanda Nell pushed until she had loosened the beam from its wedged position. Grunting, she stepped slowly sideways. For one panicked moment, she thought the beam was slipping away before she was ready to release it. She grabbed on, though, and steadied it.
One step sideways, then another. From the beam of the flashlight Wanda Nell saw that one more step would bring her far enough away from the door so she could let the beam go.
Panting from the exertion, she readied herself. She let go of the beam with her right hand. Tensing slightly, she pushed with her left hand while rolling her right shoulder.
As the beam began to slip toward the floor, she jumped free of it.
With a loud crash the beam landed, and Wanda Nell felt the floor tremble with the impact. She was afraid for a moment that the floor would give way beneath her, but it held.
While she stood there trying to catch her breath, Rusty began pushing against the door. There was still debris against it on the floor, but without the beam locking it into place, Rusty was able to push the door open wide enough to escape. He slipped out and stepped carefully over all the mess until he was standing near his sister.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
Wanda Nell nodded. She flexed her right shoulder. “I’m probably going to be real sore for a couple of days, but I’m fine.”
“Thank the Lord you found me,” Rusty said. “Be back in a minute.” He scrambled past her before she could say a word.
“What are you...” Her voice trailed off as she realized where he was headed.
She retrieved her purse and the flashlight from the mantel and slowly made her way back through the house to the back steps. Standing there, she breathed the fresher air of the outdoors and wished she had some water or something to drink.
Rusty emerged from the woods a couple of minutes later, a slightly sheepish look on his face. He was grimy and exhausted-looking, but otherwise he seemed to have suffered no ill effects from his ordeal. One of his eyes was decorated with a yellowing bruise, but that looked as if it had happened before he got trapped in the closet.
“Sorry about that,” he said as he walked up to the back steps. “I just hope that wasn’t poison ivy I grabbed ahold of.”
Wanda Nell had no comment for that. She started to sit down on the steps, but Rusty hustled her back inside the house.
“Come on back in here, just in case,” he said.
“I don’t think it’s very safe,” Wanda Nell said, exasperated. “Let’s get out of here.”
“No,” Rusty said. He went back through the kitchen into the room where he had been trapped, and Wanda Nell followed him with great reluctance. He scrambled across the beam and climbed back into the closet. He came back with a flashlight, his cell phone, and a blanket. He spread the blanket on the floor near the door into the kitchen and motioned for Wanda Nell to sit down. She made herself as comfortable as she could on the floor. He made another trip to the closet and came back with two bottles of water and several candy bars.
Rusty sat down beside her. He handed one of the bottles to her, then opened his and drank almost the whole bottle. He offered her a candy bar but she declined. He opened one and wolfed it down.
Sipping at her water, Wanda Nell eyed her brother. Now that she had found him, what should she ask him first?
She decided on the obvious. “How did you get stuck in that closet?”
Rusty laughed bitterly. “Just my luck. I thought I heard somebody in the house, and I scooted into the closet with my blanket. I barely got the door shut, and that’s when all that came crashing down.” He waved a hand toward the beam. “I thought I might die in that closet. But I was hoping you might turn up.”
“It’s a good thing I came along when I did.”
“I guess Lily must have found you.”
Wanda Nell nodded. “I found her, just a little while ago. She came by the restaurant to talk to me, but she disappeared before I got there. One of the other waitresses recognized her though, and I was able to track her down.”
“What did you think of her?” Rusty shifted back and forth from one foot to another.
<
br /> “She’s a pretty girl,” Wanda Nell said, “and it sounds like she’s in a real bad way. She needs help.”
“She does,” Rusty said.
“How do you know her?” Wanda Nell asked. “You’ve got to start talking to me. Rusty. I want to know what’s going on, and why two men have died. It’s all connected somehow, and you’re the only one who can tell me how.”
“Two men?” Rusty was plainly startled. “Who else died?”
“Scott Simpson committed suicide,” Wanda Nell said.
Rusty swore violently.
“Look, come on back outside. Let’s find somewhere to sit. You’ve got to talk to me.”
“Yeah, I know,” Rusty said. “I can’t do this on my own anymore. But let’s stay here. I don’t want to be outside, just in case.”
She didn’t try to argue with him. He had a mulish set to his mouth. “Why didn’t you call me?” Wanda Nell asked instead, pointing to his phone.
“It’s dead,” he said. “I forgot to turn it off, and by the time I realized it, it was too late. And I didn’t have any way to recharge it.”
“Bad luck,” Wanda Nell said.
“The only kind of luck I seem to have,” Rusty said in a tone of self-loathing. “I screw up everything. Look at the mess I’m in now.”
“Things are bad, I’m not going to lie about that,” Wanda Nell said. “But you don’t have to do this alone, whatever it is you’re doing. If you’re trying to help Lily, I’ll help you. And I know I can get other people to help, too.”
“You’d do that?” Rusty shot her a sideways glance.
“You’re family,” Wanda Nell said. “Of course I’ll help you. I don’t believe you killed anybody.”
“Thank you,” Rusty said. He bumped his shoulder briefly against hers.
“But why the heck are you trying to blackmail Bert Vines and Marty Shaw? What did they ever do to you?” Rusty drew away from her, the moment of closeness gone.
“It’s a long story,” Rusty said. “Are you sure you want to hear it?”
“Yes,” Wanda Nell said, rapidly losing what little she had left of her patience. “It’s about damn time. People have been following me, trying to break into my house, and I don’t know what all. I want some answers, Rusty. We have got to put an end to this.”
Best Served Cold (A Trailer Park Mystery Book 3) Page 21
