Whispering Pines (Celia's Gifts Book 1)

by Kimberly Diede

  After the lodge cleared out, Matt suggested they head up to the library where it was more comfortable while they discussed the events of the evening. Renee smiled her appreciation at him, and he gave her hand a quick squeeze as she followed Grace and Julie out of the smaller sleeping quarters.

  Hoping to ease the tension, Matt whispered in Renee’s ear as she climbed the stairs in front of him, “By the way, you’re the cutest damn witch I’ve seen in a long time.”

  The fire smoldered low in the fireplace behind glass doors. Matt threw another log on to chase away the chill. Grace and Julie took a seat on the long, comfy couch, and Renee sat down right next to Julie, needing to stay physically close to her. Matt pulled two club chairs in to face them and the men took their seats, too. Thompson nodded to Matt, signaling he should lead the conversation.

  “Julie, can you tell us what happened tonight?”

  “I . . . I can’t remember everything.”

  “That’s OK. Tell us what you can remember,” Matt encouraged her.

  “Well . . . we were almost out of apples, and I knew we still had one big bag out in the shed. There were so many people around, it wasn’t like I was afraid of getting snatched up or something, you know? I forgot how dark it can be back there. I got back to the shed, and it took me a minute to get the door rolled back. I went into the shed but it was pitch-black, so I had to feel around. I couldn’t find the apples. My hand brushed against something. It felt like someone’s leg, and I heard this creepy breathing sound, too, all heavy. It scared me so bad, I freaked. I tried to run, but . . .” Julie shook her head, tears standing in her eyes. “That’s the last I remember until I saw you, Matt, in the little cabin.”

  “Did you hear or see anything else?” Matt prodded.

  “Maybe someone saying something? I kind of remember a guy’s voice, but not what he said.”

  “Do you remember seeing anyone?”

  She thought for awhile before replying, “I’m sorry, I don’t.”

  Matt turned to Sheriff Thompson to give Julie some time to think.

  “Tell me exactly what you saw and heard in the cabin, Sheriff.”

  So the sheriff told him, step by step, what happened between the time he left the lodge up until Grace came barging into the cabin.

  “All right. So you thought you heard someone in the back of the cabin, and the guy was muttering about being ignored, when Grace came in.” Matt didn’t want anything the sheriff reported seeing or hearing once Grace got there to influence what Grace remembered, so he said, “Let’s stop there and let Grace tell us what she remembers.” He turned to her, and was glad to see that she seemed to be doing slightly better since he’d found her in the Gray Cabin. “Grace, tell us everything you remember.”

  Nodding, Grace gave a little shiver of apprehension and began. She told Matt how the sheriff had given her his cell and left, and how she’d forgotten the code.

  “And where was Val when this happened?” Matt cut in. “Why couldn’t you have gone to her about it?”

  “I . . .” Grace frowned. “I don’t know. I guess the whole night had me shaken up. She was up here in the library with the kids, I think, and I honestly didn’t even think about it. I knew you or Dad might freak out when no one answered his phone,” Grace said, nodding her head in Thompson’s direction. “Plus, I’d heard something about his having a heart attack recently, so I was getting a little worried about him.”

  Matt nodded. “It’s hard to think clearly under pressure like that, Grace. I understand, trust me. Go on.”

  Grace smiled appreciatively, then continued. “I never imagined he found anything. When I came out of the lodge, I noticed a light on in the littlest cabin. No one ever goes back there so I thought it was odd—”

  “Nobody had told you about everything that had been happening there,” Matt interrupted again, “over the summer?”

  “I . . .” Grace stammered, her apprehension back. “My dad mentioned it, I think, but it’d slipped my mind. I just wanted to find Sheriff Thompson. I know how stupid that sounds, but it seemed like the right thing to do at the time.”

  Grace shifted uncomfortably on the sofa. She was exhausted.

  “I had a flashlight. I could see where someone had walked through the grass, back in that direction, so I followed the path. The door wasn’t locked, and I thought I heard a voice inside. Again, stupid, I know, but I went in. Sheriff Thompson was standing with his back to the door. It took me a minute to realize he was talking to someone I couldn’t see at first. He grabbed my arm so I wouldn’t walk past him, wouldn’t go any farther into the cabin. That’s when I saw him standing back by the fireplace. He was wearing a long red cape with the hood up so I couldn’t see his face, but I could hear him talking.”

  Grace visibly shivered. “I have to admit, what the guy was saying gave me chills. It was like he was talking about me when he saw me standing next to the sheriff. Then there were voices hollering outside and the guy spooked. He ran at us, and when Sheriff Thompson tried to block him, he ran right into him, and they both fell down. The guy was crazy, kicking and yelling. He wasn’t going to let anyone stop him. He was able to get back up first, and when he ran to the door, he grabbed for me but missed. He kept going, thank God . . . you got there pretty much right after that.”

  Matt nodded. “Did you ever see his face?”

  Here Grace paused for a minute, looking down into her lap and wringing her hands.

  “Yes. I saw his face. When he was fighting with the sheriff, his hood fell off,” Grace said, pausing again before continuing in a rush. “Before, when he was saying stuff, I thought his voice sounded kind of familiar, but I wasn’t sure. At first, when his hood came off, all I could see was a scruffy guy, and I didn’t recognize him.”

  Now Grace was fiddling with her phone. Matt didn’t know if she was stalling. He gave her time.

  “I got a good look at him when he tried to grab me. I’m pretty sure it was him,” she said, handing her phone to Matt. On it was displayed a picture of a clean-cut young man, smiling at the camera.

  After studying the picture, he handed the phone to the sheriff and asked Grace, “What’s his name?”

  “Lincoln Sorenson. He lived next door to us.”

  “Wait . . . what did you say?” asked Julie. “Let me see that picture.”

  She got up off the coach and took Grace’s phone from Thompson.

  “Oh my God. Are you sure? Are you sure it was Lincoln?”

  “How do you know Lincoln?” Grace asked Julie, confused now.

  “OK, girls, let’s slow down here,” Matt said. “Grace, let’s start with you. Tell me what you know about this kid.” He gestured at the phone still in Julie’s hands, its screen displaying the college kid Matt himself had tried to check out.

  Grace shrugged. “His family moved next door to us a few years ago. Lincoln was a little younger than me. He used to come over to our house, and we got to be friends. When I was a senior in high school, and he was a junior, he asked me to go to prom with him. But I always thought of him like a younger brother, not like someone I’d date. I tried to explain, but he got mad. We didn’t see much of him for a while. I graduated and then started college in the fall. He was a senior in high school.”

  Grace looked down at her hands, back to their wringing. “But then I got sick, and he started to visit again. He never mentioned the prom incident, and things seemed to go back to how they had been between us before. He and Dad got kind of close, too. Lincoln is good with computers and finding stuff on the Internet. He helped us research my disease and look for possible cures. When Grandma died and Dad found clues in her paperwork about his twin, Lincoln helped research that, too. Together they did a bunch of digging and found Jim’s parents. Once Dad had their names, he wanted to take it from there. Dad wanted to be careful with how he approached his brother’s parents, you know? Lincoln, on the other hand, wanted to contact them right away and find out if Jim’s kids might be a match for me. It was
like he was obsessed with the notion. Again, I had to tell Lincoln to back off, and so did Dad. Reluctantly Lincoln agreed, but he stopped coming around again. I was too sick to do much and Lincoln left for college. We didn’t hear from him again, and his parents moved.” She shrugged again. “I never heard where they went.”

  “OK, thanks, Grace, that’s helpful.” Matt turned to Julie, who was sitting on the couch again. “And you know this boy Lincoln, too, right?”

  ***

  Renee eyed her daughter carefully, still scared for her welfare despite the fact she was sitting right next to her now. Julie nodded her head, her skin pale. She’d listened quietly to everything Grace had to say, and now that it was her turn to talk, she seemed reluctant to start.

  “Come on, honey, it’s all right, tell us what you know,” Renee encouraged her daughter. She was thinking back to the time in Fiji, when her daughter confided in her about the boy she dated at college, but he had become too serious too fast and Julie hadn’t been interested. She also remembered the stream of texts on Julie’s phone from a Lincoln.

  “I met Lincoln at a football game on campus, and he invited a bunch of us to a party afterward. He was nice, and cute,” she said, holding up Grace’s phone as if to say that was obvious from the picture. “I wasn’t the only one that thought so, but he seemed to like me, too. He called me the next day, after the party, and we studied together in the library. Over the next few weeks, we saw more and more of each other, and all of a sudden it was kind of like we were a couple.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about him right away, Julie?” Renee asked, a little hurt that Julie would have kept something like that from her.

  “Mom,” Julie said with an eye roll, “it was fun to be off on my own. I was making lots of new friends. I thought if I told you about Lincoln, you’d lecture me to be careful, not let a guy put a damper on meeting more new people as a freshman, all that kind of stuff.”

  She turned back to Matt, color coming back to her face. “Anyway, I was already starting to feel overwhelmed by all the attention Lincoln was giving me. He got upset when I told him I wouldn’t go home with him for Thanksgiving, that I was going to a friend’s house with a group of girls. I ignored his calls and texts while I was gone that weekend. When I got back, he said he was sorry, said he was embarrassed he had gotten so mad and it wouldn’t happen again. He seemed so sincere . . . I kinda believed him. We started studying together again, and we did some Christmas shopping for our families. He even helped me work on that photo album I made for Robbie. But it didn’t take long until he wanted to be with me all the time again. I started to feel claustrophobic, just like the last time. I tried to tell him I wanted to cool it before leaving for Christmas. He said he understood, but I think he was just saying that. When I got home for break, he kept texting and calling. I only answered him a few times. When we went to Fiji, I left my phone home, and it felt so good to be unplugged from everything.”

  I should have taken Julie’s comments about the boy more seriously, Renee thought. I was too wrapped up in my own drama. She forced her attention back to Julie.

  “By the time we got home, he’d stopped. No contact. I figured he finally took the hint. I was nervous to see him when we got back to school. I felt kind of bad, totally ignoring him like that, but nothing else seemed to work. I didn’t hear from him when we got back, and about a week into classes I ran into his roommate Joe. He told me Lincoln didn’t come back after break. All his stuff was gone from their room and he’d left a note saying he switched schools. Joe sent Lincoln a couple texts, tried to call him, but never heard from him again. It was weird, but I was also relieved . . . I figured we were done with any of that business.”

  “Matt, what do you think it all means?” Renee finally asked, once Julie seemed to be done sharing.

  Matt shook his head, frowning. “I don’t know yet. It seems like an awfully big coincidence that Lincoln ended up at the same school as Julie after helping Grace and Grant try to find out more about Jim’s family. And I learned a long time ago that true coincidences are pretty rare. But I don’t want to speculate too much. Obviously we need to talk to Lincoln and dig into his background. Grace, how sure are you the guy you saw tonight was Lincoln Sorenson?”

  “I’m sure,” Grace responded. She shivered a bit, but this time there was no hesitation in her answer. She was sure.

  A knock at the lodge door echoed up from below and everyone but Matt and the sheriff jumped where they sat.

  “That would be the doctor,” Sheriff Thompson said, hoisting himself out of his chair.

  Chapter 61

  Gift of Answers

  The man injured in the car accident was indeed identified as Lincoln Sorenson.

  He suffered a broken arm, broken collar bone, and a deep cut on his head, along with a concussion. Lincoln’s parents were called, and they drove over the following day. According to his folks, Lincoln was supposed to be on meds to help control severe mood swings and other challenges he’d battled since childhood. When he came home for the holidays last December, he was severely depressed; he stopped taking his medication and started using street drugs, and his parents kicked him out of the house as a result. He checked himself into rehab, but that only lasted a few days, and then he left the facility and disappeared. His parents had given up, not knowing where he was or how they could help him anymore.

  Lincoln’s father insisted he not talk to anyone until they arrived. While it frustrated Matt, he knew that was the right call for a parent to make. Besides, Lincoln was incoherent; little of what he said made sense.

  Law enforcement combed through the Honda. Lincoln had been living out of the vehicle—when he stopped squatting in the Gray Cabin, of course. A pillow and blanket were in the backseat along with plenty of trash. In the trunk was a small suitcase full of things sure to keep Matt up at night: numerous pictures of both Grace and Julie—some were old, and it was a mystery how he got his hands on those; others were newer, taken at the resort—and small mementos Lincoln stole from the girls, including hairbrushes, trinkets, and even undergarments.

  Matt knew this whole situation could have ended horribly if they hadn’t found Julie so quickly. Lincoln was a sick young man.

  Once Lincoln’s parents arrived, they hired a lawyer to determine next steps. Their son faced possible assault, stalking, and kidnapping charges. A doctor examined his mental state and worked to get his medications back in balance. The local hospital wasn’t equipped to keep him for an extended period of time, so he was admitted to a high-security facility for violent individuals with mental illnesses. It would be some time before they could even determine if Lincoln was fit to stand trial for his crimes.

  Julie suffered no physical injuries requiring treatment. She confessed she’d received disturbing texts over the past couple days leading up to the attack at the resort but hadn’t wanted to upset Renee. She didn’t recognize the phone number and it turned out to be one of those burner phones.

  Among the pictures, two were taken on campus, date-stamped the same day as Julie’s first attack. There were also a few from the backyard of Renee’s duplex. Based on the angle, Matt guessed they came from the camera he’d pulled out of the tree in July. He remembered that when he’d taken it down, the SD card was missing. There were other pictures with backgrounds Matt didn’t recognize. He showed them to Ethan (consciously deciding against showing them to Renee). Ethan confirmed some were outside Renee’s home in the city, and others were outside George and Lavonne’s home.

  Christ, Matt thought. This kid was following Julie around more than any of us imagined.

  In piecing together the puzzle, Matt doubted it was a coincidence Lincoln and Julie ended up at the same state university. Lincoln may have first been obsessed with Grace but when he wasn’t able to get anywhere with her—and after she became so sick—he transferred his obsession to Julie. And why not? As far as Lincoln was concerned, they looked alike and were first cousins, something Lincoln could hav
e known based on his research with Grant. While Grace wasn’t interested in a relationship with Lincoln, Julie was attracted to him—up until his possessiveness turned her off.

  It took a few days for nerves to settle down at the resort, but there was an immediate sense of relief. While Matt and the rest of the sheriff’s office dealt with Lincoln—Matt’s first official case in his new position, some would say—Renee tried to move on and made the final push toward their first retreat. The open house helped generate interest and eight registered for the weekend before Thanksgiving. Another half a dozen registered for a December weekend retreat. They planned to hold a combination of both week-long and weekend retreats throughout the winter months.

  Matt just hoped—and he was sure Renee felt the same—this retreat would help everyone at Whispering Pines move on and enjoy a safer resort.

  Chapter 62

  Gift of a Tribe

  Soft morning light bathed upturned faces. All paused to reflect and breathe following an early yoga session. The earthy scent of fresh coffee floated up the stairs. A fire crackled in the hearth, chasing away the morning chill. Music played softly.

  Women sat on the wooden floor in two semi-circles on green yoga mats with fluffy white towels around their necks. Guests ranged in age from mid-twenties to late-sixties. Each shared a bit about themselves the previous evening during their initial group discussion. Most were mothers; two were not. Half were single; half were not. Some worked outside of the home; some did not. All were battling issues. Some were tight-lipped about their troubles while others were more open, and this was OK.