“Beau?”
“Callie’s dog. Remember? I took him home for safe keeping, but when he walks, he likes to wander, and—”
Quinn held up the leash that he’d dropped on the table when Montello had cornered us.
She waved a hand at me, stopping my rush of words. “Okay, okay. I get it. Take your leash and clear out. You two are screwing up our stakeout.”
I backed toward the door. “Thank you.”
Quinn nodded noncommittally to the young cop, who looked as if he was expecting to be reamed out as soon as we left. “Officer Montello. Good luck with your stakeout.”
Montello didn’t meet his eyes, but muttered thanks through gritted teeth.
I paused at the door. “Officer Runyon? You’ll let us know if you hear anything about Callie?”
She grimaced. “Long as you do the same.” At that moment I wondered if she’d seen through us. Maybe she’d be staking out our house later.
“Of course,” I lied. “I’ve got your card on the fridge.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She turned her back on me and faced her underling. I closed the door behind us and followed Quinn to the boat by the dock.
***
I closed my eyes against the wet spray that cascaded over the bow, and let my thoughts take me away. Fingering the vial that bounced against my chest, I wondered what formulation lay within. Was it an oil blend? Something new and intriguing? Something Sky would give his life to hide?
I decided to get it analyzed, very discreetly.
Had Sky given his life for this vial?
Was he dead, or alive? Captive, or in hiding?
Tears of frustration ran down my cheeks, mixed with the lake water. Minutes later, we arrived at our dock, and with a soft thump, Quinn tied us fast to the dock.
“Come on, sweetheart. Let’s make that call.”
My husband’s sure voice made me stronger. I took his arm and jumped up to the deck. “Okay.”
Beau met us halfway to the house. My confidence faltered. “Beau? What are you doing outside?” Anger flared within me when I realized my mother must have come home from her dinner date with the bridge club. “Damn! Did she let him out?”
Stomping up the walk with one hand under his collar, I yanked open the storm door and yelled for her. “Thelma! This is Callie’s dog. Did you—”
It wasn’t my mother who’d let Beau out. It was the guys who’d tossed our house and tied her to the chair with duct tape. Squirming and red-faced, she moaned and gurgled beneath the gag. Her legs and wrists were taped to our old Windsor hall chair and a taut rope secured her portly torso. Debris surrounded her. Boxes of food had been pulled from the kitchen cabinets and their contents scattered over the linoleum floor. The refrigerator door stood open, its light winking in surprise. Couch cushions lay on the floor, ripped.
Lamps tilted on their sides, drawers emptied and upside down. Pictures had been ripped from their frames.
And all for the want of something to do with Sky or his damned backpack.
I was sure of it now.
In the millisecond that I stood stunned in the doorway, Quinn rushed to Thelma’s side, stepping over piles of books and broken glass. With Ruby squawking in the background and Beau barking at her, the house sounded as chaotic as it looked.
I followed him and untied Thelma’s gag while he ripped the duct tape from her arms and legs.
“Quinn Hollister! You just pulled gobs of hair off my arms!” She half sobbed, half screamed at him.
Quinn held it back. “You’re welcome, Thelma.” Under his breath, I heard him mutter, “Guess I should have left her tied up.”
“I heard that!” she shrieked, then turned to me as I helped her wobble to her feet. “Oh my God, Marcella! There were two of them. They were professionals; I just know it. From the mob or something. They had ski masks on and had guns and…”
She fell sobbing into my arms. I shot Quinn an apologetic look over her shoulder and walked her to my destroyed couch. Beau followed closely, licking at her hands.
“They broke in when I was just coming out of the bathroom. They tried to force me to tell them where some stupid flash car was.”
“Flash drive?” I offered.
She nodded. “That’s it. I told them I didn’t even know what they were talking about!” She hiccupped a few sobs and squeezed my arm. “I said they had the wrong house, then they started asking me about Skyler Lissoneau. As if I’d have an idea where he is! I told them they were nuts, that he’d been missing for years.”
I patted her back. “I know. I’m so sorry, Thelma.”
Ruby squawked again. “BAD men, BAD men!”
Quinn went to her and took her from the cage, where she’d been rapidly shuffling back and forth on her perch. “BAD men! BAD men!”
“I know, honey. It’ll be okay.” He soothed her feathers and let her snuggle up under his chin. “Calm down.”
“Cookies. Gimme cookies!”
While Quinn tended to Ruby’s urge to gorge, I led my mother into the bathroom. Beau followed close behind, his big eyes full of worry.
“Sit.” I pointed to the commode and looked into the opened medicine chest. They hadn’t destroyed all of the contents, although my feet crunched on Tums, and I had to avoid the gooey pink mess from the emptied Pepto Bismol bottle. As if I’d hide a memory stick in liquid.
Idiots.
I found the tube of antiseptic ointment behind the toilet and Band-Aids scattered in the tub. With care, I cleaned the wound on her cheek. “Did they hit you?” I figured I knew the answer, but wanted to keep her talking, as unpleasant as the prospect seemed.
“No. I wrenched away from them and smashed my head into the side of the movie cabinet.”
“Ouch.” I cleaned the wound with hydrogen peroxide, surprisingly not emptied and crushed, then dabbed on the ointment and covered it with a Band-Aid. Afterwards, I soothed some salve on her wrists and ankles, and led her back into the destroyed living room to settle on the torn up armchair.
Quinn perched on the arm of the couch with his cell phone to his ear. “That’s right. It happened while we were at Callie’s place.”
I mouthed Runyon’s name to him, and he nodded once. With Ruby still on his shoulder, he walked to the fridge and put the officer’s card back under the magnet. “Okay, see you in ten minutes.”
With her head in her hands, my mother wept. “Marcella! Who did this?” Her voice was weaker now.
I worried about her high blood pressure and wondered if I should call her doctor. “I wish I knew. But the police are coming.” I found my navy blanket—the one that had warmed poor Callie earlier—and covered her legs with it. “Sit tight. We’ll get to the bottom of this.”
Inside, I worried that they’d murder us all before we figured out what was happening. They must want the memory stick really badly. I fingered it while making small talk with my mother, trying to keep her calm.
Was it safe on my person? Should I find a better spot to hide it? Give it to Runyon?
Better yet, should I figure out the damn password and get the files into someone’s hands who could do something about Callie?
A cold thought settled over me.
Maybe I could use the files as leverage for her safety.
For now, the memory stick stayed with me.
I braced myself for the police’s visit, and tried to decide how much I really wanted to tell them.
Chapter 9
The night had dragged on endlessly. After taking my mother’s statement, Officer Runyon and five of her crew had gone through the place looking for evidence, putting things into little bags and taking hundreds of pictures. Runyon explained that this wasn’t the normal course of action for a robbery—what a surprise—but she was convinced it was related to Willow’s death and possibly Callie’s disappearance.
Still unwilling to admit Callie hadn’t been part of it, she refused to listen to my pleas about my missing friend. Right or wrong, I didn’t tell her about the b
ackpack, oils, or the phone call about Sky. And when my mother mentioned the flash drive, I’d shrugged as if I had no idea what they were after.
They’d questioned the far neighbors, who had seen nothing. The cottages on either side of us were almost always empty, since their families lived in Rochester, and they came down just on the occasional weekend. So the bastards had had a pretty clear sweep of it, with no one to hear the crashes and no one to call the cops.
At midnight, I stood in the doorway with my suitcase in hand and Sky’s backpack over my shoulder, staring back at the mess that used to be my beautiful home. Quinn waited in the van after searching for each and every bottle of essential oil that had rolled under furniture and lodged in corners. He’d carefully packed them and the reference books into his own suitcase.
I smiled, for the first time in hours. I had a feeling he wasn’t going anywhere without those oils. He’d discovered earlier that he could use them for cleaning and killing germs, and planned to throw out all of our cleaning chemicals in lieu of spray bottles he’d make up with water and a few drops of lemon, peppermint, or Thieves blend.
I chuckled and took one more look at my living room. Too tired to clean it, especially after wasting an hour convincing my mother she needed to stay in a safe place, we’d just returned from taking her and poor little Ruby to her friend Fran’s house up in the village. Runyon insisted we get out of there, pronto. She’d registered us under a fake name at the Days Inn in Geneseo, where she figured we’d be safe. But I had no intention of going to Geneseo.
One of Runyon’s officers sat in an unmarked car, parked on the far side of our garage, watching and waiting in case the culprits returned. Since they hadn’t found what they were looking for, chances were they’d want to come back when they thought we were there, to intimidate us into giving up the memory stick. He had a good view of the back of the house, but if anyone approached from the lake, he wouldn’t see them.
I started to lock the door, then shrugged. Why bother? There wasn’t much left to protect.
With Beau at my side, I rolled my suitcase toward the van and opened the back door for him to jump in. He hesitated for a minute, looking at me for reassurance.
“It’s okay, big fella. Go ahead, now.”
He put his front feet on the floor of the van and lunged inside.
“Good boy. That’s a good boy.” I patted him and showed him the quilt I’d brought down for him. “You lie down now.”
He circled a few times, then obeyed. I climbed into the passenger seat beside Quinn and took out my phone. “Before we go anywhere, I’m making that phone call.”
My husband dug his notebook out of his sweatshirt pocket. “It’s awfully late, hon.” He read the number he’d recorded from Callie’s phone, then returned the book to his pocket and put the van in reverse. “Just don’t tell them anything about us. They might be the bad guys.”
I hadn’t thought of that. Had someone known Callie was going to receive a package from Sky and wanted to connect with her, so they could somehow convince her to hand it over?
No. That didn’t ring true. I was convinced the person who called either knew Sky or knew of him. I shook my head as the phone jangled on the other end. And even though it was midnight, I let it ring at least a dozen times before thumbing my iPhone off. “No answer.”
Quinn maneuvered the van up the narrow lane and onto West Lake Road. Before he could take the right to head north, I put my hand on his sleeve.
“What about the shop?” A sinking feeling hit me. Had they known about our antique store and ransacked that, too?
Quinn’s mouth tightened. “You don’t think—”
I shuddered. “Come on. Let’s check it out.”
He took a left, then a sharp right up Cratsley Hill. With the van in low gear, he carefully wound up the steep hill and around the bends. We reached the old red barn in minutes and pulled up beside the sliding door that used to admit cows and tractors when it was part of a working farm.
I unlocked my door and started to get out.
My husband laid his hand on my arm. “No. Let me check first.”
Exhaustion seeped into me like black dye in water, spreading through me until I felt like a floppy dishrag. I couldn’t even give him a token argument. “Okay. Be careful.”
He jogged toward the front door, twisted open the padlock, and disappeared inside. Seconds later, lights flooded the inside and the front doors slid wide open. I put on Beau’s leash in case he needed a potty break and walked him toward the light. He piddled and walked closer to the barn with me. “Everything okay?”
No answer. Beau seemed nonplussed and sniffed the ground by the old well pump. “Quinn?” Icy nerves danced in my spine. I stepped closer. “Quinn?”
He surprised me by coming around the back of the shop. “It’s okay. All clear.”
A wave of relief washed over me. “Man. You scared me.”
“Sorry.” He disappeared inside again and turned out the lights. With a brisk snap of his wrist, he slid the door shut and locked it.
When we turned back onto West Lake Road, I turned to him. “Honey?”
“Mmm?”
“I don’t want to go to Geneseo.”
“Why?”
“I want to go to Tall Pines.”
“What?” The look on his face could have shattered glass. I knew he was exhausted, and a four-hour drive up north was the last thing he’d want to do tonight.
“We need to find Callie. That number I just called has the same area code as Tall Pines. And the postmark on the package said Speculator.”
Quinn’s right eyebrow rose. “No kidding?”
“No kidding. If we’re going to follow the trail, we’ve got to head north.”
With an expression of determination on his face, he turned east on Route 15. “We’ll need coffee, lots of coffee. Cash. Dog food. Bug spray. Linens. Towels. People food.”
I could see his gears turning, and the list he made out loud hovered square in his comfort zone.
I gave him my best smile. “Right, baby. Let’s stop at Walmart.”
Chapter 10
At four fifty-five A.M., we rolled over the root-rutted dirt path toward Tall Pines, our rustic Adirondack cabin situated on a twenty-five-foot bluff overlooking the Sacandaga River. With no neighbors except one to the north that was barely visible through the thick pines, across the stream majestic mountains guarded our deep woods refuge. It had become a place of solace since we bought it last year. We’d never seen a soul at the cabin to the north of us, and wondered when, if ever, the owners stayed there.
Okay, so I lied. Again. In addition to the large screen T.V., the new van, my MacBook Pro, and the iPhone, we’d purchased this place. It had been in my stepfather Raoul’s family for years, and when we rediscovered it, in addition to a number of family secrets, I’d bought it back from the nice couple who’d purchased it from my aunt, Roberta Mendoza, the year before. To sweeten the deal, we let them stay for three free weeks every year, after twisting their arms to sell the place.
Until you’ve been away from civilization, you don’t know dark. And if you haven’t lived in a cabin under a canopy of thick pines, you can’t even imagine it. The blackness was complete, shrouding us in inky mist that swirled in the headlights when Quinn brought the van up over the roots and stones to park next to the back porch. I ran up and fished the key out of our hiding place, turned on the porch lights, and signaled Quinn to shut off the van.
The instant I stepped foot on the spongy pine needle-covered ground, I felt a sense of home. The river murmured in the background, always present and infinitely comforting. Its sound, a gentle sursurrance that reminded me of the wings of hundreds of birds taking flight, or the soft whisper of a mother’s words to her child, filled my soul with tranquility that I never felt on the shores of our lake.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Honeoye Lake. Its character invades my spirit in its own special way. But to be honest, it’s the mass of populace t
hat lives around the shore that sometimes weakens my affection. Too many Jet Skis can do that to a person.
I opened the van side door. Beau hopped out and immediately began sniffing the ground. I wondered if deer wandered up to our porch when we were gone. Maybe they looked in the windows, touching their noses to the cool glass.
I walked through the cabin, running my fingers over surfaces as if reconnecting with old friends. The ancient Triumph wood stove stood at attention, its smokestack ready to warm our fingers and toes on cold mornings. I ran my fingers over the back of one of the twin maple rocking chairs, and then opened the front porch and turned on all the outdoor lights. The clean scent of balsam surrounded me, washing away the troubles of the day.
Had it only been one day? It seemed impossible.
One day since Callie had erratically steered her boat to my dock. One day since her sister died. One day since she cried on my shoulder and talked about Sky. And one day since she disappeared. Tuesday promised to be full of worry, yet graced by the presence of the ever-comforting Sacandaga.
As tired as I was, I needed this place to help me think, to make me feel closer to Sky, and to get my brain focused so I could find Callie.
Our green Adirondack chairs beckoned. The mountains across the stream were almost close enough to touch and although I couldn’t see it in the darkness, I knew the water swirled and frothed white over the submerged rocks. As always, the setting called to me.
“Honey? Let’s sit out front and watch the sun come up.” Beau followed me and touched his nose to my hand. I probably imagined it, but it felt like a faint electric sensation passed between us. I leaned down to pat his head, pushing away the extraneous thought.
Quinn stifled a yawn. “Let me just get the rest of the stuff inside, turn on the fridge, and I’ll bring out a few pillows and blankets.”
Tall Pines Mysteries: A Mystery/Suspense Boxed Set Page 29
