Lost and Gowned

by Melissa F. Miller

  My parents exchanged a look. I already had a pretty good idea as to who might’ve told them, but I wanted to see if Mom and Dad would be honest with me.

  My mother plucked at the hem of her khaki jacket absently while she formed her answer. “Well, honey, I stay in contact with your Aunt Ruby. Not that often, but every now and again. And I just happened to get a new burner phone a day or two after she received your invitation in the mail. So, of course, she mentioned it.”

  Of course. I left aside the incongruity of my mother tossing around the phrase ‘burner phone’ as if it were ‘lemon balm’ or ‘skein of yarn’ and focused on the incompleteness of her answer. “That may have happened. But there’s no way Aunt Ruby helped you come up with this ridiculous ornithology cover story and snuck you into the resort and into one of the cottages.”

  “True, true,” my father agreed.

  “And Simon as your alias? That has Kay written all over it.”

  Dad laughed. “Yes, Kay helped.”

  “Anybody else?”

  “Chelle,” my mom admitted in a small voice.

  Chelle, who had created the beautiful gown I was currently dragging through dust and dirt, had been keeping a giant secret from me. I looked down at the cream-colored skirt involuntarily.

  “It’s gorgeous. And you’re lovely in it—even more so than the picture she texted me,” Mom said.

  “You’re the out-of-town friends she’s visiting with tomorrow, aren’t you? That’s why she’s not coming to the wedding.” Pieces of the puzzle were starting to fit together.

  My dad smiled sadly. “You always have been a smart cookie, honey. Yes, Chelle didn’t want us to be alone. She planned to sit with us under that stand of elm trees and watch from a distance.”

  I ignored the wave of sympathy and tenderness welling up inside me and pushed on. “But, let’s be honest. Ruby, Kay, Chelle—none of them was the mastermind behind this harebrained scheme. Was it Sage or was it Thyme?” I demanded.

  My parents exchanged another look. Then my father mimed zipping his mouth shut, while my mom turned an invisible key over her lips and tossed it into the corner.

  “Very mature.”

  We lapsed back into silence, and I thought it through. Thyme was a realist. Sage was the one who harbored fantasies of a familial reconciliation worthy of a movie on the Hallmark Channel.

  “Sage,” I muttered, more to myself than to them.

  My dad’s blue eyes sagged with worry. “Don’t be mad at her, Rosie Posie. She just wants—”

  “I know what she wants. She wants us to pretend to be one big happy family, She wants me to forget you abandoned us, saddling us with your debt, so you could shirk your responsibilities and sail off, literally, into the sunset.”

  “Rosemary, please, don’t ever say we abandoned you. That’s not the choice we made. We panicked. We knew we were in over our heads, and we couldn’t imagine being strong enough to make things right. But we knew you girls were.” My mother’s tone had started off sharp, almost as biting as my own; but, by the end, her voice was breaking.

  She sagged against my father’s shoulder, and he wrapped his arms round her. “Don’t cry, love.” He patted her back and then turned to face me. “We’re going to make things right. That’s why we intercepted the ransom demand and followed you here. We’re going to get you out of this.”

  I stared, hoping I’d misheard. “There was a ransom demand? And you … took it? So, not only does nobody know where I am, they don’t know what these guys want?” I was shaking with anger. “You asked about my fiancé? He’s a police detective. He’s far better equipped to handle a kidnapping than two aging hippies are.”

  My mother’s eyes flashed. “Rosemary Harmony Love Field, I’ll remind you we are still your parents, not just two random aging hippies. And your father and I are trying to fix this mess.” She yanked a folded piece of paper out of one of the multitude of pockets in her khaki vest. “This ransom demand came from Hercules. This is still about us.”

  She shook the paper at me crazily. I snatched it out of her hand and scanned it. He wanted one hundred thousand dollars to be delivered to the old bank in town by six p.m.

  I shook my head in confusion. “Herk the Jerk. I don’t understand. We don’t owe him anything anymore. The remaining debt is all held by a legitimate bank. Hercules isn’t even in the picture.”

  “Payback,” my father said.

  I sighed. In what should come as no surprise to anyone, my sisters and I didn’t have an extra hundred grand lying around.

  “Where are we, anyway?” I asked, realizing they would know, since they presumably hadn’t traveled here in the cargo hold of a windowless panel van.

  “Halfway between Seashore and Atlantic City,” my dad told me. “I imagine Hercules is at least a part owner of this storage facility. And I’m sure any partners he may have are from the Atlantic City area.”

  Even without his meaningful tone, I would’ve caught his drift. “Mob.”

  “Probably,” my mother agreed. Then her curiosity got the better of her, and she switched gears. “So, you’re going to marry a police detective. Not who I would’ve imagined for you. How did you meet?”

  “Not now, please, Mom. We need to focus on getting ourselves out of here. Do either of you have any brilliant ideas?”

  They stared at me blankly for a moment. Then my father shook his head. “No. We were hoping we could find Hercules and reason with him.”

  I held my tongue as to my thoughts about that plan and moved on. “Okay, I have nothing with me. No shoes, no phone, nothing. I assume Mr. Hospitality out there took your cell phones and car keys?”

  They nodded.

  “What about your Swiss Army knife?”

  My father always had a Swiss Army knife attached to his belt loop. He looked down at the spot where it should have been. “He took that, too.”

  I appraised my parents. “Well, between the two of you, you have about a million pockets. What didn’t he take?”

  My dad started patting himself down. “I have my antacids.” He reached into his breast pocket and removed a small pouch. “Would either of you like one?” he asked proffering the package as if it contained after-dinner mints and not chalky sodium bicarbonate.

  We both shook our heads.

  “No thanks, Dad. But maybe you want to dissolve one. Is your indigestion bothering you?”

  “I’m fine, pumpkin. Just fine.” He finished searching his pockets. “Well, that’s about it.”

  “Bart, what about your cash?” Mom asked anxiously. “Did that man take it from you?”

  “No, love, not to worry. I left it in the room.”

  “But how are we going to pay the ransom without it?” she persisted.

  I didn’t want to know any details if my father had a hundred thousand dollars socked away in his underwear drawer. I turned to my mother and asked, “What about you, Mom? Do you have a nail file, cuticle scissors—anything we could conceivably use as a weapon?”

  My mother’s eyes widened in shock at the notion of attacking our captor, but she shook her head no. “Let’s see. I have a small bottle of essential oils. Frankincense, I think. And some chewing gum.”

  Unlike Dad, she didn’t offer me a piece of gum.

  I exhaled, thinking. I reached for one of the bottles of now-very warm water and took a swig. “How do we get ourselves out of here with the package of fizzy tablets, a bottle of essential oils, and a pack of gum?”

  It didn’t look promising.

  Ever the completist, my mother added, “And some half-empty bottles of water.”

  I almost rolled my eyes, but the memory of an experiment I’d done with Dylan and Skylar, the kids in the family Sage works for, stopped me cold. My irritation turned to excitement, and I laughed.

  “What’s so funny, honey?” Mom asked.

  “I have an idea.” It wasn’t elegant, but it might be serviceable.

  Chapter 17

  Sage


  As soon as Roman and I got outside and headed back along the path I had just walked with my sister, he took my hand in his. I waited for him to ask why I hadn’t told him about my parents, but he didn’t.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” I said after a moment’s silence.

  He shook his head. “No. You don’t owe me an apology or an explanation.”

  I managed a smile.

  Then he went on, “But I have to tell you … I thought we already learned our lesson about secrets.”

  His voice was measured, showing no sign of disappointment or anger. But I squirmed under the weight of what he said. He was right, and I knew he was right. His mom’s attempt to keep family secrets had unraveled with a lot of fallout. Ever since, he’d tried to practice radical honesty. Muffy, who was his stepmother and my boss, shared Roman’s devotion to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

  And while I understood intellectually that secrets inevitably came to light, emotionally, I just hadn’t been able to bring myself to be open with him about my parents.

  “I know. I did want to tell you, but I knew if I told you I’d have to tell Rosemary and Thyme, too. And that would’ve been ugly.”

  “You mean because Rosemary wouldn’t want them at her wedding? Don’t you think that was her decision to make, Sage?”

  I nodded miserably. The truth was, though, I thought I knew better than she did. I had convinced myself that Rosemary was holding on to anger toward our parents and that her grudge was unhealthy and unproductive. But, to be totally honest, I was holding on to an improbable fantasy of being a functional family.

  We reached the front door of the cottage.

  “Do you have the master key?” he asked.

  “I don’t need it. Unless things have changed dramatically, my mother wouldn’t have locked the door behind her.” I turned the handle and, sure enough, the door swung open.

  Roman gawked in amazement. There was no way to explain Mary Jane Field’s belief that barriers to community, such as locked doors, served only to create negative energy without sounding like I was on a mystical trip of my own, so I just walked inside. After a few seconds, he followed and turned on the light by the door.

  The cottage was tidy. Aside from the field guides and birding manuals stacked on the small table there was little physical evidence to show the cottage was occupied. The unmistakable scent of patchouli hanging on the air left no doubt someone with an affinity for incense was in residence. Roman wrinkled his nose, and I laughed. For me, the smell was redolent of my childhood and brought happy memories rushing back.

  “What exactly are we supposed to be looking for, do you think?” I asked.

  Roman considered the question then shrugged. “I guess something tied to Rosemary’s disappearance. I don’t know. Remember, you’re the Field sister dating the golf caddy, not the one dating the homicide detective.”

  I leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Right. I’m the one dating the caddy who helped solve a murder and put a blackmailer in jail,” I reminded him.

  I moved through the seating area and poked around the kitchenette but didn’t find anything of interest. Roman crouched and opened a small refrigerator set under the counter.

  “Almond milk, rice milk, soy milk, and hemp milk. What’s wrong with milk milk?” he asked as he twisted his neck to peer up at me.

  I shook my head. “Dad likes options. But not the exploitation of our friends in the bovine world.”

  I wondered if Roman would get the chance to meet my parents. I’d met his mom and his passel of aunts and I worked for and lived with his dad, stepmom, half-brother, and half-sister. I tried to picture Roman meeting Bart and Mary Jane, but my imagination failed me. He closed the refrigerator and joined me in the hallway outside the bedroom.

  I really didn’t relish the idea of snooping through my parents’ bedroom. But if there was a chance it could help us find my sister, I’d do it. I opened the deep drawer in the bedside table. My mother’s embroidered pouch-style bag was folded neatly inside. I removed it from the drawer, eased the zipper open, and peered into it; it held a bottle of citronella and geranium oil, which she had used as a bug repellant for as long as I could remember; a dog-eared paperback copy of A Room of One’s Own; two passports rubber-banded together; and a handful of chamomile tea sachets.

  “Nothing helpful,” I announced with relief.

  “Sage.”

  I turned at the clear alarm ringing in Roman’s voice. He had opened the top dresser drawer and was holding a thick wad of cash. My father’s familiar silver money clip hardly seemed up to the task of containing the bills.

  “These are all hundreds.” He waved the clip at me.

  “I’m sure they pay cash for everything. They can’t risk leaving any sort of paper or electronic trail, you know?” I had long since internalized the reality that my parents were on the lam. But I could see the realization hitting Roman that his girlfriend was the daughter of a pair of criminals. Not just criminals, international criminals.

  He held my gaze for a long moment then slid the money back into the drawer.

  “Let’s go. We’re not going to find anything here.”

  We ran into Dave just outside the cottage door.

  “Hey,” I said, pulling the door closed behind me.

  “Aren’t you going to lock that?” Dave wanted to know.

  Roman snorted. “Don’t ask. Did you find anything interesting in Rosemary’s room?”

  Dave leaned forward and spoke with an intensity completely at odds with his usual genial temperament. The last time I’d seen him so serious was when I met him in Los Angeles, and he was investigating Rosemary as a murder suspect.

  “I did,” he said now, energy thrumming in his voice. “There were four sets of footprints in the garden outside the patio.”

  “Four?” I echoed.

  I hadn’t even thought to look for footprints. Maybe that’s why I was an accountant turned nanny, and not a detective.

  “And a fifth set further back near the blueberry bushes,” he continued.

  “Five sets of footprints?” Roman mused. “Some of those must have been us, though. Right?”

  I nodded. It had to be.

  “Nope,” Dave said with certainty, ticking off on his fingers as he spoke. “One set belongs to Rosemary. She was barefoot when Thyme left her, and her bare toes left an impression in the mulch.”

  “Her sandals are still in her room,” I confirmed.

  He twisted his mouth into a frown. “She was dragged off the patio through the garden, judging by the tracks. Her abductor is a big, heavy person—likely male—going by the depth and size of his shoe prints. And, at some point, her prints disappear and his get deeper.”

  “As if he picked her up and carried her,” Roman mused.

  “Right. The extra weight would have caused a deeper impression. Now, Rosemary’s wiry, but she’s strong from all that catering. So, this guy has to be fairly competent to have managed to carry her off. We’re looking for a big, strong man.”

  “She would have fought him like a hellcat,” I murmured.

  Dave flashed a hint of a smile my way. “Yes, she would have.”

  After a brief silence, Roman cleared his throat. “What about the other three sets of footprints?”

  “Two of them belong to Mr. and Mrs. Field. I’m almost certain of it. They seem to have been crouched in some hedges that afforded a good view of Rosemary’s room. They must’ve have stayed there for a while, watching her. They would have been concealed from both Rosemary and her kidnapper by an overhang of blooming branches. Oh, also, the little enclosure smells like patchouli.”

  “That was them,” Roman agreed with a glance back at the cottage. “The breeze died down this afternoon, I guess the scent is still hanging on the air.”

  “So my parents would have seen Rosemary being abducted, which squares with what Kay said.”

  “Right,” Dave said, his expression still tight.

>   “And the final set of prints?” I asked.

  He furrowed his brow. “Someone wearing men’s dress shoes was standing in the copse of blueberry bushes just up the hill from the garden. He definitely would have been able to see the abduction from where he was.”

  “Men’s dress shoes,” I mused.

  “Thyme’s suit guy,” Roman said.

  Dave’s eyes sparked with interest. “A witness. Call Thyme and see if she’s seen any trace of him in town.”

  Chapter 18

  Thyme

  I parked the car Victor had rented for the weekend into a spot two doors down from the Sugar Plum.

  “There’s an open spot right in front of the dress shop,” Victor said as he got out of the car.

  “I know. I thought we could walk a bit and see if anyone’s following us before we go strolling into Chelle’s place. You know?” Even though she hadn’t hesitated to meddle in our family business, I definitely didn’t want to bring trouble to Chelle’s door.

  “Good point.”

  We sauntered up Main Street, taking our time stopping and looking in shop windows. The sidewalks were mostly empty, and I didn’t have the feeling we were being followed or watched.

  “Are any alarm bells ringing for you?” I asked.

  Victor scanned both sides of the street casually. “No,” he said. “I think your guy’s gone.”

  We passed the candy shop and stopped in front of Chelle’s Sea Belles. I rang the bell. After several seconds had passed, I cupped my hands together and peered through the window where I’d been sitting just hours earlier.

  “Her sign says the shop’s closed,” Victor pointed out.

  “I know. But she usually closes around four and spends a couple hours catching up on paperwork and working on her sketches and patterns. Maybe she stepped out to get something to eat.”

  “Well that’s just great. We don’t really have time for wasted trips if we’re going to find your sister before nightfall.”

  “I guess I should have called first.” I dug my phone out of my bag and selected Chelle’s number.