by Edie Claire
Allison nodded emphatically. “Aunt Lydie said that before, but we didn’t understand how important it was to reading the map right. Look, Mom,” she urged, pointing to the squiggle she had previously designated as Theodore’s gravestone. “I thought this was just past the edge of the woods, because that’s how Dora explained it. But our woods now go all the way down to here!” She swept her finger down the hill, past the squiggle and halfway to the creek. “If you think about it, all those trees are skinnier and younger than the ones higher up. They didn’t even exist when this was drawn!”
Leigh’s eyes pored over the sketch, imagining the woods as Allison described. A light dawned. “Of course,” she said, looking at Cara. She pointed to the squiggle. “This is the rock you and I sat on the other day, when we were out looking for the puppies!”
Allison nodded so vigorously her whole body shook. “Exactly! Parts of the map still aren’t perfect, like this farm—but I think that’s because Theodore didn’t come over here much. As long as you center the map right, the places he does know are drawn pretty well!”
“As soon as Grandma told us about the trees, I knew what the squiggle was,” Lenna said proudly. “That rock’s really cool. When we were little, Matt used to pretend it was his throne!”
“So what does all this mean?” Cara asked her cousin. “In terms of what’s been happening in the neighborhood?”
Leigh’s enthusiasm fizzled. “Nothing, really. Archie must have figured out that ‘The Guide’ was in the cellar. Although how he—” she broke off. “Of course. The hydraulic excavator. He and Lester probably took a half-hearted stab at chiseling out one of the stones, and then decided to heck with it. They would just dig the whole thing up and search through the rubble. I bet they still don’t know where in the cellar it might be.”
“I just hope Theodore didn’t put it in the cabin walls or ceiling,” Allison added bleakly. “If he did, it’s already lost forever.”
“I do think it’s rather odd,” Lydie mused, “that the mapmaker was so specific with the Xs, but left so little guidance about where in the cabin ‘The Guide’ might be.”
Five heads lowered to stare at the map again. After a long moment, Allison squealed. “Mom! The stone that Mr. Pratt started to chisel—what did it look like?”
Leigh blinked. Had she told Allison about that?
Never mind. “There were smaller stones someone had worked on, too,” she answered. “But the one that—” she hesitated a moment, then decided more secrecy was pointless. “The one that’s received the most attention lately was in the middle of the wall opposite the stairs.” She fell silent a moment, castigating herself. She had never stopped to think why that particular stone had been chosen. But it was certainly the focus of their ‘headless ghost’ as well. “It was close to rectangular, and it was the biggest stone in the wall. Maybe that made it the most likely candidate? Unless Archie knew something we don’t know.”
“Maybe he did!” Allison exclaimed. “Look at where it says ‘The Guide.’ Look close!”
Leigh looked close. All she saw were the same two words, circled by an irregular border with an arrow pointing to the house.
“The shape!” Cara exclaimed. “At first glance it looks like somebody’s scribbled attempt at an oval. But what if those irregularities were intentional?”
“It’s telling you what stone ‘The Guide’ is hidden behind!” Allison practically shouted. “It must be!”
Leigh stared at the shape. It did not seem to match her memory of the large stone, but that wasn’t saying much. She had not paid close attention.
“I’m not sure,” Lydie said, frowning. “I remember that stone as being pretty smooth on the edges. Besides, it wouldn’t be easy for an elderly man working without power tools to pull out any of the larger ones by himself. Much less get one back in afterwards. And although you couldn’t tell it now, putting in new mortar would have been a dead giveaway for quite some time afterwards.”
Power tools. Lester said he had heard some kind of a motor running. A power chisel?
“But look at it!” Allison insisted. “I’m sure that’s what it means!” She turned to her mother in earnest. “Couldn’t we—”
“Absolutely not!” Leigh said firmly, anticipating the request. “No way, no how! No one is going back in that cellar until whoever hurt Mr. Pratt is behind bars. Period.”
“Your mother’s right, Allison,” Lydie said gently. “There will be plenty of time to finish the puzzle later, when it’s safe.”
Allison’s head bowed. “I guess.”
The crunch of tires sounded on the drive, and Cara rose and walked to the window. “It’s Aunt Frances,” she announced. She looked at her mother and Leigh in turn. “Were either of you expecting her?”
Both heads shook.
“Aunt Lydie,” Leigh asked fearfully. “Please tell me you didn’t already tell her what happened to Archie.”
Lydie’s face remained impassive. “Actually, no. I haven’t.”
“Oh well,” Cara said with cheer, returning to her vegetables. “I’ll have plenty of casserole. The more the merrier! Leigh, would you let her in?”
Leigh did a temporary disable on Cara’s security system—which had been on “high alert” ever since Lester was assaulted—and opened the door. Frances strutted in with her usual air of authority, offering Leigh a stiff nod of welcome and then smiling indulgently at the girls. “Hello, darlings,” she said sweetly. “Can you run along upstairs for a moment? I need a word with the other adults.”
Allison displayed no reluctance, but quickly refolded the map, stuffed it in a back pocket, and retreated with Lenna in the direction of their brothers’ still-raised voices.
Leigh wished she could escape as well. She especially wished she could do what Allison was doing now, lurking in the hallway outside listening to the conversation without having to be there.
“What’s up, Mom?” Leigh asked.
Frances scowled. “You are living in an unsecured house in an unsafe neighborhood with no men present, and you ask me what’s up? I’ve come to bring you and the children home with me for the evening. Your father won’t be home till seven, but at least our house is in a nice area. Cara dear, you’re welcome to bring your children, too. We’ll have my meatloaf surprise. The children all adore it, you know.”
Leigh froze. How did Frances know that Warren couldn’t make it home? There was only one way.
Her loving husband was in serious, serious trouble.
Cara smiled, slowly and sweetly, without the slightest hint of insincerity. Leigh had always admired her cousin’s acting chops. “Oh, Aunt Frances, that is so thoughtful of you! But really, there’s no need. I’ve already got dinner started for everyone. The security system is on and Gil won’t be too much longer. Won’t you join us? Please?”
Damn, she’s good.
Frances melted a bit. “Well, I—” she looked at her sister, who made no appreciable movement, but was probably twin-telepathing some form of encouragement. “All right, I suppose. Thank you.” She looked at Leigh. “Did you get my message? I’ve learned to text! Isn’t that wonderful? I thought it was too complicated, but I was chatting with this delightful young man in line at the bank, and he offered to—”
Leigh’s phone buzzed, and she swooped it up immediately. “Sorry, Mom,” she lied. “I have to take this call.”
She stepped aside and viewed the number with trepidation. It was the Browns’ landline. She started toward the hall, but knew she would bump into Allison. Instead she turned, stepped out onto the sun porch, and closed the door behind her. “Hello? Emma?”
“It’s Adith,” a voice whispered. “Can you come over here?”
“What’s going on?” Leigh asked, her heartbeat quickening.
“It’s Harvey,” Adith responded, distraught. “He’s gone!”
Chapter 20
Leigh drove, rather than walked, to the Brown’s house. She had no desire to be wandering alone around
the neighborhood, but even if she did, the weather had turned ominous. It was not yet dusk and the sun had already given up, submitting to strangulation by an ever increasing mass of blue-black storm clouds. She could only hope that the mother dog had gotten her litter under cover somewhere, because the coming storm promised to be a doozy.
Leigh had told the other women only that Mrs. Rhodis wanted to see her about something, and that she would return before the casserole was done. It was a promise she intended to keep. She had barely shifted the van into park when Adith appeared at the front door of the house and shuffled out toward her as rapidly as her arthritic joints would allow. Leigh got out and met her in the middle of the yard, and Adith scanned the area warily before speaking. “Shhh!” she ordered, a finger to her lips. “You never know who’s listening around here!” She led Leigh a few more paces away from the house, then let her story fly.
“Harvey’s gone, he’s missing, and Emma’s totally frantic! We only just noticed a while ago, but there’s no telling how long he’s been gone. Lester doesn’t know—his head was aching and Emma put him straight to bed and won’t let him talk to anybody till he’s better. She’s such a fussbudget, you know. Why the last time I had the flu—”
“I thought Harvey was at the library?” Leigh interrupted.
“He was!” Adith insisted. “His friend brought him home hours ago and of course I met him at the door and told him about Archie straightaway. He seemed awfully upset but he didn’t say much—just made a beeline for his bedroom and shut the door. When Emma got back with Lester, Harvey didn’t come out to greet them, which I thought was strange. So a little bit later I went and knocked on his door. He didn’t answer, so of course I had to open it. And he wasn’t there!”
“Isn’t there somewhere else he could be?” Leigh asked, desperate to come up with some nonviolent, non-Civil-War-related theory for his disappearance. “Maybe he went for a walk?”
Adith dropped her chin reprovingly. “Now when have you known that bag of bones to walk more than ten feet in any direction? Harvey doesn’t go anywhere. He’s always in his room, the sitting room, or the dining room. In nice weather, maybe the porch or deck, but even then he hates the sun. Emma and Lester are always offering to take him places, but he never wants to go. Only to the library. And not even that very often. Besides, will you look at this sky? No one in their right mind would be wandering around outside now!”
As if on cue, the clouds opened. Heavy raindrops at first fell sporadically, making scattered thumps on the grass and the women’s heads. By the time they reached the cover of the porch, the rain was falling in sheets, and they hustled inside.
“I think you should call that detective friend of yours,” Adith said, her voice dropping back to a whisper. “Whatever’s happened to Harvey, I’m telling you…” Her usually mischievous eyes suffused with fear. “It’s no coincidence!”
“I called her just now,” Leigh admitted. “And I left a message. I’m sure she’ll get back to me.” Leigh was sure, although she would not lay odds on when. The call had gone straight to voice mail. Maura was technically off duty and almost certainly in the midst of a serious and personal conversation with her husband.
Leigh’s phone buzzed, and she pulled it quickly from her pocket. Her shoulders slumped. It was another text from her mother.
Did you remember to vacuum behind the lint trap in your dryer?
Leigh stuffed the phone back in place. “That wasn’t Maura,” she explained dully. “Where is Emma, by the way?”
The question answered itself as rapid footsteps creaked on the stairs and Emma emerged from the hall door, her hair disheveled and face glowing with sweat. “Oh, Leigh! It’s you,” she said with obvious disappointment. “I heard the door slam and thought—. Well, never mind. Did Adith tell you? Do you have any idea where he could have gone?”
Leigh shook her head. “I’m sorry. No. I haven’t spoken to him since yesterday afternoon.”
Emma’s countenance fell even further. “Well, I’m at my wit’s end. I called his friend Amos and he was already back in West Mifflin—said he dropped Harvey off hours ago and hasn’t seen or heard from him since. Adith and Nora and Pauline all saw him go into his room, but none of them saw him come out again. And I’ve searched everywhere! Upstairs, downstairs, every corner of the basement, the closets in the garage—I even called for him out in the yard. The man is just not here! He’s never done anything like this before!”
“Under the circumstances,” Leigh said as calmly as she could manage, “I think you should call the police.”
Emma ran a hand through hair that was now half up in a bun, half down over her neck, attempted briefly to correct it, then gave up. “I think you’re right,” she agreed. “He’s been acting so strange lately. Almost paranoid. I should have asked him about it, but with everything that’s been going on with Lester—”
“Don’t blame yourself,” Leigh commanded as moisture welled up in Emma’s eyes. “We’ll find him. But we need the police. None of us can go out searching right now. It isn’t safe.”
“Amen to that!” Adith added.
Emma nodded. “I’ll call 911 right now. Unless you want me to call your—”
“No,” Leigh insisted. “You’re right. Call 911 and get an officer out as soon as possible.” Any officer, she thought to herself.
As Emma headed to the sitting room to pick up the phone, Adith grabbed Leigh’s elbow and steered her—rather painfully—through Harvey’s open doorway and into his room. “I looked on his desk already,” Adith bragged, “and in his closet. His desk looks like he’s cleaned it up. Almost like he was hiding something!”
Leigh cast a glance at the giant mahogany writing desk, which was indeed clear of folders, loose papers, and most anything else that would give evidence to what Harvey had been doing. Even the books he’d had out before were all back on their shelves.
“He doesn’t even own a coat,” Adith mentioned as she rummaged through the clothes in his closet. “Whenever he does go out, Emma makes him take one of Lester’s. But he’s not wearing it now. He wore it to the library—but he left it on the bed. See?”
Leigh did see. It certainly did not appear as though Harvey had prepared for a lengthy stroll on a stormy night. But it did appear as if he had prepared for something. “Have you ever seen his desk as clean as this?”
Adith shook her head emphatically. “Never! What do you make of it?”
Leigh’s eyes roved the room, coming to rest on the small trash can by the side of Harvey’s chair.
“Oh, I already went through that,” Adith said dismissively. “It was full of scribbled notes yesterday, but it got emptied before… Well, all that’s in it now is some tissues. That’s what you usually find in Harvey’s trash. Scribbled notes and tissues. Every once in a while a bandage wrapper or a toothpick. But those usually wind up in the bathroom.”
How Adith knew these things, Leigh chose not to ask. But as she looked closer into the trash can, a flash of white just beyond it caught her eye. She reached down and picked up a small piece of notepaper, well crumpled, that had evidently missed its mark.
“Ooh!” Adith cooed. “I didn’t see that! What does it say?”
Leigh unfolded the small square. It was covered with large, childlike printing, awkward and difficult to read. Three lines crossed the paper.
Have what you want
Will sell cheap
Meet me at dusk at Archie’s
Leigh’s breath caught in her throat. Behind her shoulder came a gasp.
“Ooh, Lordy!” Adith crooned. “I knew it! I knew something was up with that man! Who could it be from? How could he fall for something like that? Why would he go? Oh, mercy! They’ve lured him! Lured him just like Archie and Lester!”
Outside in the sitting room, Leigh could barely hear Emma’s frantic call to the police over the omnipresent buzz of Pauline’s television. “This isn’t good,” Leigh muttered unnecessarily. “Not good at all.” A loo
k out of Harvey’s window confirmed the worst. The wind was howling, the rain was pelting, and dusk would almost certainly be setting in for real… right about now.
Leigh stared again at the note, trying to make sense of it. Where and how had Harvey received it? Had it been sent directly to him… or was it intended for somebody else?
Emma appeared in the doorway, her face drained. “The police are on their way,” she announced. “I’m not sure they understood what I was saying about Archie and Lester and everything… but they’re coming.”
“Well, praise the Lord!” Adith said heavily, dropping into Harvey’s chair.
A thought struck Leigh. “Where is Gimli?” she asked. “Has anybody seen him?”
Both women’s eyes searched the room. “I’m sure he’s here somewhere,” Emma insisted. “Poor creature can barely stir himself to get to the litter box and back.”
Adith’s expression turned suddenly intent. “Fat old thing don’t even get to the sitting room. He’s always in here.”
Leigh’s phone buzzed with a text. She clenched her teeth and pulled it out. It could be Maura, after all. But it was not. It was Frances.
OH MY LORD! ALLISON HAS DISAPPEARED! SH
The text cut off. The phone buzzed immediately with another.
SHE’S RUN OFF TO THAT CELLAR!!!
Leigh’s body flashed with heat. Her pulse pounded in her veins. She dialed her mother’s number and Frances picked up immediately.
“She’s gone!!!” Frances screeched. “They were talking about how to find that silly rock, and we had just put the casserole in and then the other children came down and she wasn’t with them and they said they’d just seen her five minutes ago but now she’s gone and I just know she sneaked out with that silly map to see if—”
Leigh didn’t hear anymore. She stuffed the phone into her pocket and the crumpled note into Emma’s hands. Then she ran out the front door into the storm.
***
Allison can’t be in the cellar, Leigh told herself as she ran. She just can’t. Leigh’s orders had been too explicit. Allison was smart; she wouldn’t go against them unless it was a matter of life and death…
