Missing in Lavender: A Time Travel Romance (Lavender, Texas series Book 6)

by Barbara Bartholomew

Suddenly the whole thing was no longer amusing. He knew where Esther was coming from. Her life had been torn apart by gossip and speculation. If she had not been such a strong, independent woman she and her children would have been crushed beneath the weight of public opinion.

  Well, what the cost. Let her play at being detective. “All right.” He held up both hands in surrender. “At the next council meeting, I’ll make a motion that Mrs. Esther Myers be named Lavender’s official investigator.”

  Sylvie cheered and Betsy clapped while the others smiled and nodded. McKinley, deep in thought, didn’t seem to be listening and only on Eddie’s face did a brief look of concern appear and no one Forrest saw it there.

  Chapter Eight

  Strengthened by the thought that he was in Lavender, Jerry struggled against his bonds and felt he had made a little headway in loosing the rope around his wrist when he heard a sound at the doorway and a man was thrown in to join him.

  The door was locked behind him without any attempt to tie him up and Jerry could see why. The poor guy lay sprawled on the floor nearby, looking half beaten to death with bleeding cuts and darkening bruises on his face.

  “Hey! You all right?” Jerry didn’t know why he asked that question. The man looked barely alive. Jerry hurt just to look at him.

  He looked youngish. Maybe in his early thirties and probably decent looking before his face had been pounded so hard that even his own mother wouldn’t have known him.

  Then, eyes half swollen shut, he looked at the trussed up man on the floor nearby. “Esther?” he groaned the question.

  The name made Jerry shiver. The only Esther he knew was Mrs. Myers. Was it possible that this young man was a relative of the family’s foster grandmother?

  “She’d not here, buddy. Just me. My name’s Jerry.”

  “Jerry,” the voice that spoke his name was harsh and raspy. “So you’re the one.”

  “The one what?” Jerry asked, reasonably enough, he believed.

  For a minute he thought his new companion had passed out, but then the response came. “The one they were hiding here in my house,” his voice rose in anxiety with each word. “And where’s Esther and the girls. Did they hurt them?”

  So his captors had taken over somebody else’s home here in Lavender. He wondered exactly where they were. Out in the back country where he’d never visited, no doubt. But how had they gotten across the border? Only Betsy could cross the time barrier and it was with her help that anyone else crossed.

  Then awareness jolted through him. Zan’s experiments, things he’d helped with himself. This time the groan was only within. He’d told them. He’d given the info that allowed them to carry him into Lavender.

  But he had to answer the man at his side. “I haven’t seen a woman or any girls.”

  “Maybe . . .maybe they aren’t back yet. Maybe they’ve stopped at her grandma’s.”

  “In Lavender?”

  A puzzled look crossed the swelling features. “Not Lavender. Korn. Esther’s folks live in Korn. And we’ve got to get out of here and warn them before they start home.”

  Jerry didn’t see how this badly injured man had any more chance of escape than he, but was grateful to be was included in his plans. “We’ll do our best,” he agreed and wondered where in the heck Korn was. “Corn,” he said, then spelled the name to be sure he understood. “C-o-r-n.”

  “Korn with a K,” the other man said. He reached out as though to extend a hand, then cried out in pain at the attempted motion. “Only a few miles away.”

  So he wasn’t in Lavender after all, but in a town of which he’d never even heard.

  “I’m Jerry Caldecott,” he whispered the introduction.

  Surprisingly the other man heard him. His eyelashes flickered up again as he replied, “Name’s Herbert,” he said. “Herbert Myers.”

  The celebration came to an end at seven when Eddie reminded the others that she and Zan must say goodbye. Never demonstrative, she accepted the kisses and hugs of relatives who did not know when they might see her again and rightfully considered the strange and violent world of the 21st century a horrifying place to which they must trust their child. Nobody expected Zan, who was such a strange young man, to even properly bid them goodbye, but he was Eddie’s husband and, as such, belonged to them and over the years they’d grown cautiously fond of him. So they waved to both as they climbed into the Carr family buggy and Betsy and Caleb, along with their two youngsters and, surprisingly, McKinley Alva, drove out of town to take them to the border that lay between their early 1900s community and the future those living in Lavender hoped to never know.

  They drove past the comfortable farm owned by Betsy and Caleb, chasing a chicken from the road in their passing, the men silent, but the women talking eagerly as they tried to exchange all the news they’d been storing up since their last visit.

  When they got to the winding creek near the end of what still existed of Lavender, Betsy felt her heart drop. She came here on the first of every month, the only one left who could time walk now that Violet had gone back to her own life. She was the bridge that allowed Eddie and Zan to enter, but so many times they weren’t free to come home and she went back to the farm without them.

  She’d been rude, Mac knew, in insisting on going with them. But she had to get back to Jerry, even if she had to throw a fit at the border to insist on returning with them. She belonged with Zan and Eddie searching for him, rather than kept safe like a hot-house rose in locked away Lavender.

  “Look!” the usually silent Zan suddenly spoke up. “Geese.”

  “Lots of geese around here,” Caleb who was driving the team spoke before he had time to look, but when he saw the two large birds down by the creek, he frowned. “Not our geese,” he said.

  Betsy explained to Mac. “The geese raised on our farms are big white domestic birds. These are different.” They were multi-colored, large, but somehow slimmer. Wild geese.

  Mac didn’t know why they were surprised. Of course they didn’t see geese like this in the city with its protective shield, but when she’d lived in the country, they’d been a frequent sight, flying high overhead.

  “Migratory birds,” Zan announced.

  “But we’re not a stopover for migrating birds,” Eddie protested. “Lavender is sealed away in time. They could never get in.”

  Mac nodded, suddenly understanding. In Lavender birds were permanent residents, their species familiar.

  “It’s one of the things I miss,” Betsy, who had spent her early childhood elsewhere, spoke up. “Seeing the migratory birds fly over.”

  “Let’s take a closer look,” Zan said, his keen eyes focused on the birds.

  The hours passed and nobody came. Though up until now Jerry had been provided with food and water on a fairly regular basis, he began to feel real thirst and, to only a slightly lesser degree, hunger.

  Even more he felt growing concern for his companion in captivity. Herbert Myers’s cuts crusting over and his bruises deepening into purple and black, moaned for water almost as often as the names of his loved ones passed his cracked lips.

  Finally Jerry slipped into the darkness of sleep, waking with a start to daylight and the sense that someone plucked at the ropes that held him fast.

  He felt a hand against his mouth, shutting in the protest he would have called out. “I’m cutting you free,” a man’s voice whispered and he looked up to see Myers, a wickedly curved knife in his shaking hands as he hacked carefully at the rope.

  The man with his swollen and blackened face looked like a gargoyle but Jerry welcomed his attentions. “Where did you get the knife?”

  “Mine,” the word came out painfully through the damaged lips. “My house. I kept the knife hidden under a floorboard where my little girls couldn’t find it.”

  The broken hands shook so hard that he was having trouble using the knife without injuring Jerry, but he cut deliberately and in slight strokes until Jerry’s hands were free, then handed h
im the knife so that he could himself free the remainder of his body.

  His limbs tingling from the release of the bonds that had constrained blood flow, Jerry stumbled awkwardly to numbed feet, reaching automatically for ballast toward the other man, but pulling back instantly, knowing the pain his touch would bring to that battered body.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” he said, leading the way to the door.

  The other man nodded, following him in a staggering walk that barely kept him on his feet. “Got to find Esther and the girls,” he said grimly.

  “First thing,” Jerry agreed, “once we get out of here.”

  He started working on getting the door open, which to his surprise proved to be a primitive latching which he was quickly able to force. When he shoved the old wooden door open, he stepped out into fresh air and sunlight, breathing deeply and looking around for the attack he thought would come.

  Somehow he’d expected his high-tech captors to have guarded him with the latest in equipment, but they’d only used the metal latch and the pressure he’d placed had crushed it open.

  They’d counted on drugs and ropes to keep him in place. Either that or they hadn’t much cared what happened to him after they’d dumped him here in the past, confident he’d never be able to follow them.

  Supporting Myers as best he could he hurried him away from the site of the pretty little cottage, finding his way through the thick woods where they stumbled over brambles and tall grasses. He heard his own heavy breathing and that of his companion and knew neither was in condition for this run and still he kept going, convinced that they had to get away from the cottage as quickly as possible.

  Not quick enough. He heard the sound of running footsteps behind them and knew they had not escaped unseen.

  “Leave me. Go on. Can not keep up.” Myers breath came in hard pants as he dragged to a stop and Jerry, pausing, saw that this attempt at escape was killing the other man.

  “We’ll both stay,” he said grimly, pulling out the wicked looking knife Myers had left on the floor and which he’d secured as their only weapon. “We’ll take them on.”

  “No! Go on. Find my family.” Even as he choked out the words, Jerry could hear the pounding of heavy footsteps coming closer in pursuit. “Save them. Esther, Ruth, Laura,” the names were spoken in a whisper. “Jerry, tell Esther I love her. Jerry! Run!”

  Jerry felt the push of those damaged hands and the urgency of the cracking voice and obeyed even as he heard the pursuit come down upon them. He ran and as he fled into the shelter of the trees, he heard the sound of a buzz gun and the falling of a body and prayed they had shot to stun, not to kill, and that if he could get away, he would have a second chance to rescue Herbert Myers.

  It was only when he was well on his way that he had wit enough to wonder if, injured as he was, Myers would be able to survive even being downed by a buzz gun set to stun.

  Chapter Nine

  Caleb nodded and clicked the reins, moving off the narrow little road across the grass toward the creek. Surprisingly the geese didn’t startle and fly away, but simply stirred slightly, seeming stunned.

  Mac saw the limp figure stretched toward the creek, half in the water and half lying on the ground. “There’s somebody!” She didn’t know if she yelled or whispered.

  Caleb brought the buggy to a halt. Zan jumped out first, racing toward the creek. This time the geese did alarm and fled into the air, their great wings carrying them out of the way.

  Betsy, who had some basic medical training from mother and step-father, bent over the man who lay, face-down, his booted feet dangling in the water of the creek. Mac, wishing to draw her eyes away from the site, still found her gaze resting on the long, limp figure as Zan helped turn the body over so that they could see his face.

  To her surprise, she saw the eyes half open, and heard a tortured voice call, “Run, Jerry!” And then, “I love you, Esther.” His body jerked into spasms and then grew still. She had little doubt that life had fled, but watched as the woman kneeling at his side checked for vital signs. No breath. No pulse.

  “He’s gone,” Betsy said.

  “Who is he?” Eddie whispered, her tone solemn and Mac had to hold back bitter laughter. That face, so bruised, cut and swollen would have been hard to identify even by next of kin.

  She closed her own eyes, reminding herself that this was peaceful Lavender where every accident on farm or in homes had personal repercussions. The man lying there with his dead face turned to the sky would be someone they might know well, or at least an acquaintance. There was no features in the community that would not be familiar to them and they would immediately be able to count the cost in pain to family and friends at this or any death.

  She could only be glad that the lean form, the general structure of the damaged face could not be that of the man she loved, though she shivered as her mind replayed his words. “Run, Jerry,” he’d shouted as though in urgent warning.

  Could it be her Jerry to whom he had called?

  Caleb, the civil war veteran who had dealt too closely with the dead in his earlier years, carefully and reverently reached down to close the dead eyes.

  He looked young and sturdy, his face contorted with pain, his death having come hard. She not only could claim no close acquaintance with the man, she felt fairly sure she’d never seen him before.

  Then her forehead puckered in puzzlement. But how could that be true for Betsy, Eddie and the others? Surely there was no one in Lavender with whom they did not have at least a nodding acquaintance.

  She glanced questioningly at Eddie, who had the best memory of anyone she knew. There lay a bare possibility that Betsy would have forgotten an infrequently seen face, but that wouldn’t happen to Eddie. Eddie shook her head. “Nobody I’ve met,” she said.

  Of the four of them, methodical Zan was the first to look beyond the face. “He’s been beaten beyond recognition.” He nodded at the white shirt stained with the dark of drying blood, and at the bruises that covered not only the face, but every visible inch of well-tanned skin.

  “Good Lord!” Caleb exclaimed quietly. “Somebody beat the poor man to death.”

  Eddie and Zan did not go home that day after-all. The two men loaded the body into the buggy and Betsy covered it with a blanket. Then they crowded in to drive back to town.

  “Mrs. Myers will have her first investigation,” Zan said, breaking the silence after a few miles.

  “But it can’t be,” Betsy protested, obviously feeling a sense of unreality. This incident was more like something from one of her stories than an actual happening. People didn’t beat people to death in Lavender, not in her experience. Oh, of course, there were disagreements that occasionally turned violent, but friends intervened, keeping things from turning serious.

  “Things like this don’t happen here.” Mac couldn’t help sharing her feelings. Lavender was her private sanctuary. Any sense of peace she’d been experiencing lay smashed to pieces inside her.

  “People are people everywhere,” Caleb commented grimly, his gaze on the road ahead and Mac knew he and Betsy was reminded that their own little community had split so tortuously back when he’d been young so that he’d seen brother set against brother, neighbor against neighbor even as distantly as they’d lived from the great battles of the war between the states. Betsy had told her he still bore visible scars of those battles and would limp for the rest of his life.

  “Mrs. Myers has a surprisingly logical mind,” Zan, who noticed things other people missed, went on to say. “She might make an excellent detective.”

  Mac couldn’t help thinking this was a sour joke. This was so not funny. The sweet motherly housekeeper investigating a crime. Still she’d probably do better than the two hulking constables who represented official law enforcement in Lavender.

  Esther Myers , trying hard to keep busy as she always did when her beloved Eddie left, looked up from her task of cleaning out the broom closet when she heard the front
door open and close. The two little ones, Emilee and Ben rushed in to tell her the news

  To her surprise when she got to the living room, she found not only Betsy and Caleb, but Eddie and Zan returned to her. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Somebody get sick?”

  Hearing their voices, Cynthia and Evan came from their offices inside the house.

  Zan spoke for them all. “We found a dead man,” he said. “Down by the creek.”

  Cynthia stepped forward. “Who is it?” she asked.

  Betsy shook her head. “Nobody we know, Mama,” she said, circling her mother’s shoulders with one arm.

  “Dead?” young Ben asked with acute interest, startled from his awe at the recent experience and glad to be back at his grandparents’ home. Betsy seemed pleased when her younger sister came rushing into the room.

  “Take the children up to bed, will you, Sylvie?” Betsy asked.

  “But we’re not home,” Ben said. “We’re going home.”

  “To feed chickens,” his little sister added. “Dead man,” she added irrelevantly.

  “Not tonight. We’re going to have a sleepover with Sylvie.” She nodded to her sister and Sylvie, though frowning at being left out again, recognized the need to remove the two little ones from the scene.

  Coaxing them upstairs with the promise of a story, she got them away and the others were left free to talk.

  “He’s in the buggy, Dr. Stephens,” Caleb, who was more formal than the others, told his father-in-law. “We thought you might want to take a look before we take him to the funeral parlor.”

  Evan frowned.

  “You see, Papa,” Eddie told her father. “He appears to have been killed by violence.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “The fact that he’s been battered to death,” Zan explained without hesitation.

  While the two doctors hurried outside with the young people to take a look at the corpse, Esther stood in the middle of the living room, looking down to find she still held a broom in her hands. Setting it aside, she wondered if she should go out as well, since she’d only this morning taken on the role of investigator.