Southern Sass and Killer Cravings

by Kate Young

  “It’s okay. You’re going to be okay.” I stroked her hair with one hand and whipped out my phone with the other. I called for an ambulance first, then Alex.

  “You leaving?” he asked.

  “Listen, I’m at Heather’s. She had an intruder and is hurt bad. An ambulance in on the way. You’ve got to get ahold of Felton.” My tone was as steady as I could make it. Heather didn’t need me blubbering along with her.

  “Got it,” he said tersely.

  I slid the phone back into my pocket and continued to stroke Heather’s hair while she cried for a few minutes.

  “I should have locked the doors. Felton told me to keep them locked,” she choked out.

  “This isn’t your fault,” I told her firmly. “We shouldn’t have to be afraid to open our doors and windows.”

  “Everything is so messed up.” She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “Peach Cove used to be such a safe place to live and raise a family.” It had. “I thought he was going to kill me. My kids would have had to grow up without their mother.”

  Had I just missed the intruder? I hadn’t seen anyone running away. Nor had I passed . . . oh shit . . . the van.

  “I’ve got to get some clothes on.” She tried to stand but stumbled.

  “Here.” I tied her robe for her. “Don’t worry about it. You’re decent. Where are the kids?”

  “At my brother’s. He and Mindy just put a pool in,” she said with a hiccup. “Thank God they weren’t here.” More tears fell down her cheeks.

  Sirens were audible now, and the next face we saw was Felton’s. He filled the doorway, his eyes full of fury.

  “Felton,” Heather cried, and I moved aside for him to take my place beside her.

  “What the hell happened?” He looked her over.

  I relayed what she told me as she bawled her eyes out on his shoulder. “I’ll give y’all a minute.”

  “Thank you,” Heather said. “I’m so glad you came by.”

  Felton grabbed my hand. “Thank you for looking after her until I got here.”

  I nodded and rose to my feet. “I’ll be outside.”

  The ambulance arrived next. I directed the crew to the room on my way out the door.

  Alex was right behind them. He swung open his car door and was shouting the second he saw me. “You didn’t call me!”

  “I forgot,” I said wearily. “I decided to bring food by for Heather and her family since she was ill. Calhoun was by my car when I went out and he had found some information he wanted to share with me, so I was on the phone with him the entire ride over. When I got inside, I heard Heather. Someone beat her up bad, Alex.” A tear leaked down my cheek. I’d managed to hold it together for Heather. Now, my fissures were separating.

  “Come here.” He pulled me into his arms. “You’ve got to shake that reporter loose. Something feels off about that guy.”

  “I think he’s just trying to help.”

  “What did he tell you?” Alex asked.

  “I’ll tell you everything he told me, I promise. I just can’t right now.” I pulled away and wiped my face. “There was a van.”

  “What van?” Alex asked.

  Felton was making his way over to us. “Yeah, what van?” His eyes were close to slits, his jaw clenched tight.

  “How’s Heather?” I asked and wiped the tear from my cheek.

  “She’s been given a sedative. They’re taking her in for X-rays.” Felton told Alex and me.

  “She was so shaken up.” I took in a shuddering breath.

  Alex’s hand rested on my lower back. Felton seemed to notice.

  “Tell me about the van,” Felton said more calmly.

  I did.

  “Do you remember the name of the company?”

  I thought hard.

  “Comfort Zone, Cozy Comfort, something like that. I wish I could remember. It was swerving all over the road. Out of control–like. Scared the living daylights out of me.”

  “Did you see who was driving?”

  I shook my head. “I wish I had. I was trying not to wreck.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  “Marygene, give me a minute with Felton. I’ll drive you home.”

  “Should I go in and put the food away? She might want it when they release her.” I felt like I had to do something to help.

  “That’s a good idea.” Felton said, and I walked back toward the house.

  On autopilot, I unpacked the food. I set the meals together on each refrigerator shelf to make it easy for her. When I had collected the bags, and was on my way out the door, I considered tidying up the house but stopped myself. This was a crime scene. I shouldn’t be touching anything. They probably shouldn’t have allowed me to come back inside, period.

  I was glad Detective Thornton was no longer involved with the sheriff’s department. At this point, I would be questioning me too. Three violent crimes, and I had been present either before or immediately after each of them.

  Chapter 33

  When I walked back outside, Alex said, “We have to wait until the sheriff arrives. He’s contacting forensics. They’ll need to dust for prints.”

  “We still have access to that team?”

  “They’re available to the department through the end of next month. Eddie is in talks with the mayor about electing our own coroner and putting together a team.” That was a good idea.

  I hoped that having a team in place on the island would prevent Detective Thornton from being called back in. I had my concerns that, with this incident, he may be recalled. Not an ounce of me wanted to cross paths with that man again.

  “Before we can go, Eddie will want you to show him where you were run off the road.”

  He wrapped an arm around my shoulders, and I squeezed his midsection in response. He groaned.

  “What is it?” I asked, as he winced.

  He favored his left side. “It’s nothing.” He dropped his arm.

  Before I could question Alex further, Eddie drove up. His brow was furrowed and his face weary.

  I met him at his truck. “I’m sorry,” I said penitently the instant he opened the door.

  “What do you have to be sorry for?” He rose to his full height and I had to step back to meet his gaze.

  “I’m the first on the scene at yet another crime. I swear I’m not doing this on purpose.”

  The weariness of his face made me want to go back and erase this day and the weeks prior.

  He gave my arm a squeeze. “What do we have here?” he asked Alex, staring over my head.

  Alex ran down what he knew.

  “Where were you all day? You were supposed to be shadowing my daughter.” Eddie’s tone was intense.

  “It isn’t his fault. I forgot to call him when my shift ended. I was concerned about Heather and brought her food from the diner.” Where had he been all day? That Eddie didn’t know concerned me.

  “I had an errand off island,” Alex explained. “I left word with dispatch. I planned to be back before she ever got off her shift.”

  “But she came by to check on Heather?”

  Alex and I nodded.

  “Which was exactly what her nanny and mama would have done if they’d been in her shoes.”

  Shocked by the gruffness and irritation in his tone, I kept my trap shut. I would wait to speak until spoken to. Forgive me for caring about my Peach family. I just wanted to get into my car and drive home. Some distance between us was what I needed.

  “Don’t you walk away from me, young lady.”

  “You want some distance from me right about now, trust me on that!” The door slammed shut after I slid into the driver’s seat. It was hotter than Hades and I would pass out from heatstroke if I didn’t get some airflow. With the top now closed, I blasted the air on high. The cool air on my face was bliss for a couple of seconds.

  Then Mama was in the seat next to me. “I’m sorry. I know this is a trying time in your life. And it’s my fault.”

  �
��What do you mean, your fault?” I asked, not following.

  She let out a huge sigh. “When one of us is forced to remain, it creates an energy around the person we’re communicating with. An aura, if you will. The deceased will be drawn to you.”

  I stared at her, unblinking, “You mean to tell me that since you’re having to make amends, all the dead will want to die near me?”

  “Not exactly.” She rubbed her forehead with her index finger. “It’s more like they will try to alter space and time to have your path intersect with their bodies.”

  “Why?”

  “To help put them to rest. Solve their crimes. Or at least be their voices, since they no longer have one. They can’t speak to you or interact with you. They can only direct energy toward your aura.”

  “Heather’s alive,” I said.

  “Yes, well, that I have no reasoning for. Other than wrong place, wrong time.”

  I considered what she had said. “You’re telling me that more dead bodies are in my future?”

  “I don’t know. If someone dies by way of a crime, perhaps. It depends on the deceased. At least that’s how I understand it.” She sounded remorseful that needing me was costly.

  My limbs quaked. The last thing I wanted to encounter was another dead body. She might be able to control things from that side, but I controlled the reality of this side. At least as much as I could. “I could ignore you. Make you go away. All my problems would be over then.”

  “You’re bitter. I get it.”

  I slammed my hands on the steering wheel. “You don’t get it! You’ve never gotten it! That’s why I left in the first place. And now that I’m back, you’re once again making my life a living hell.”

  “Calm down. You’re making a scene. They’re going to think you’re a lunatic,” Mama hissed as her image vanished. Of course, bail out while I deal with the aftermath.

  Nanny used to say things such as “Everything happens for a reason.” And, “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.” I wasn’t a believer in that school of thought. How could everything happen for a reason? That didn’t make a lick of sense. Sometimes stuff just happened. And we were forced to deal. I was wading through a boatload of it today.

  Eddie came over to the car, and I lowered the window.

  “You okay?” His face was full of concern.

  “Not really,” I said.

  “It’s been a long day and you’ve had a real shock.” He paused when his name was called, turning.

  He was managing me. It wasn’t his words, although they were generic. It was his tone that gave it away. I had witnessed Eddie firsthand when he interrogated a petty thief. He played the soft sympathetic friend to get the perp to confess. Later he taught me that that was a well-known approach. And far more effective at getting confessions and other information. I didn’t believe for one second he thought I had anything do with this. He was simply doing what he did best. It hurt. He had no idea what I was dealing with here. I have no idea what he’s dealing with on his end.

  “Sorry about that,” he said.

  Time to pull my big girl panties up. “Okay. Sorry I lost it for a minute.” I made direct eye contact with him. “You want me to show you where I was run off the road?”

  He gave me a nod.

  “Let’s go.”

  He opened the car door for me and I got out. The adrenaline that had been thrumming through my veins made my joints ache. Nevertheless, I showed no weakness. My shoulders were straight and squared. I climbed into the truck smoothly and placed my hands in my lap. I had practice pretending everything was okay, and I was good at it.

  “Can you recall any distinctive markings on the van that could help us locate it?” Eddie pulled out of the driveway.

  I thought hard. Yes, I did recall something. “There was a large dent in the driver’s-side door. I remember thinking this wasn’t the first time he had driven so haphazardly and that there should be a number on the back of the van. You know, like those ‘How’s my driving?’ signs you see on the back of tractor trailers and commercial work trucks.”

  “Anything else?”

  “There.” I pointed to the side of the road, where there were obvious tire marks from my skidding.

  Eddie pulled over and we got out. He took several pictures with his phone and then sent a text to his team, I supposed. His phone rang. I walked over to the opposite side of the road and squatted down. There, I found the dirt stirred up and a cigarette butt. Had there been another person in the van?

  “Eddie,” I called and he came over. I pointed to the tire imprint and the butt. “If, and I don’t recall clearly, but if there was another person in the van, this could be his butt. The van was swerving on both sides of the road. We could have a getaway driver freaking out.”

  Eddie regarded me with interest before he stalked around the back of the truck. He came back wearing gloves and holding a ziplock bag.

  “You might want to check for tire marks and butts in Heather’s yard. If the guy was nervous and, from what I could see, he was shaken up, he may have been chain-smoking and carelessly dropping butts on the ground,” I said.

  “Astute observations.”

  “I have a brain. Imagine that.” I stalked toward the truck.

  “No one said that you didn’t, Marygene.” Eddie sounded cross.

  His team arrived, and I climbed back into the truck to wait. My cell phone rang. It was Calhoun. I wondered what he got from his source. I sent him to voice mail.

  “Alex is going to come and take you home. We’ll need to go over your statement again later tonight. I’ll come by the house after I wrap things up here and find out about Heather’s condition and get her statement.”

  “Sure.” My tone sounded flat, even to my own ears.

  “No one is blaming you. You don’t have to be all defensive.”

  I cut my eyes in his direction.

  “What have I done to make you distrust me? And don’t say—”

  “Please,” I cut him off.

  “Listen,” Eddie began, his tone stern, “I’m sorry, little girl, but—”

  I pierced him with my gaze. “I’m sorry too.” My teeth were on edge. “I’m sorry Mr. Ledbetter and Judy died, I’m sorry someone took it upon themselves to try and kill me, I’m sorry Heather got beaten up and I had to find her, I’m sorry all of this puts you in a precarious predicament, and I absolutely hate the fact there is nothing I can do to stop all of this.”

  Eddie ran a hand through his hair before he placed his hand on my shoulder. “I forget,” he grumbled. “Sometimes I forget that you’re just as fragile as Heather and Jena Lynn, and, God, I don’t mean that in a condescending way, just that this is affecting you the same way it is them.”

  His acknowledgment made me feel ridiculous, well, cared about and ridiculous.

  I wasn’t the victim here. “I’m okay, really. This isn’t about me. I just hate this. Please, come to the house to take my formal statement and bring Felton, because this has to end.”

  Chapter 34

  When I emerged from the shower, I pulled out a pair of blue cotton sleep shorts and a T-shirt. I was exhausted after retelling the events as I recalled them backward and forward a dozen times or more.

  I felt heartbroken for Felton, who’d said he felt helpless about Heather. She had a broken collarbone, a concussion, a bruised cheekbone, and, worse, emotional scars that would take much longer to heal. Alex told me they hadn’t found any cigarette butts at Heather’s. They did find a partial tire print they could match to the one on the road. And, if they got lucky, the butt I found would be a DNA match for someone in the system.

  They were also running with the theory, after I was shot at, that this criminal might just be targeting young women. A thief who had graduated to assault and battery. I wasn’t so sure I bought all of that. What happened to me didn’t quite fit the profile. All the other victims incurred injury or were dead. Not me. Then I had to recount what I recalled about Heather. The de
partment was going to have to canvass the island without respect to persons. Not that that information would be made public.

  It was late when I finally listened to Calhoun’s voice mail. I had several missed calls from him.

  “Marygene, this is my fourth call. Why aren’t you picking up your phone? I don’t want to share this on your voice mail. Let’s just say my source was a wealth of information, and there’s something not kosher about the Peach Cove Sheriff’s Department. I’ll drive to your house tonight. It may be late, but I need to talk to you.”

  I softly padded down the stairs at 2 a.m. Alex was asleep on the couch as the slow crunching of tires was audible. When I gently nudged his shoulder, he jumped. “Sorry,” I whispered. “Calhoun is outside with information and I think you need to hear it.”

  Alex rubbed his face and sat up. “What?”

  I eyed his gun on the end table. This meeting had to be civil. That he didn’t like the man shouldn’t matter.

  “Calhoun is outside. He went to speak to a source and has information.”

  There was a soft knock on the front door.

  Alex was on his feet now. Shirtless and in boxers, visible by the moonlight streaming through the blinds.

  “Um, you might want to put some pants on.”

  “What is he doing here at,” he checked his watch before shoving a leg into a pair of cargo shorts thrown over the back of the couch, “two in the morning?”

  “He’ll tell us. Listen,” I placed both palms on his chest to make a connection, for him to hear me. “I won’t hide anything from you anymore. I see the error in my judgment now. We need to put our heads together to get to the bottom of the crime wreaking havoc on our island.”

  Another soft knock.

  “You have your suspicions of Calhoun. Fine. Hear him out, and if you find cause to investigate him, so be it.”

  Alex took one of my hands and squeezed. His gaze bored holes through my eyes. “He means nothing to you?”

  “He’s a friend.”

  “You think.”

  “Yes, I think.”

  “Let’s go see what he has to say.” Alex held my hand tightly as we both walked toward the front door. He flipped on the porch light and opened the door. The foyer and living room were still dark.