UNEASY PREY

by Annette Dashofy

  Zoe closed both eyes. “Don’t mention my head. It wants to fall off right now, and I don’t think I’d stop it if it meant the pain would go away.”

  “The distraction might make you feel better. Now, what do you remember about yesterday afternoon?”

  “I already told Pete. Nothing. I didn’t see who did it. Or at least I don’t remember seeing them.” But thinking about creeping around the Krolls’ house brought back her other concern. The one she hadn’t mentioned to Pete.

  Sylvia patted Zoe’s arm. “I can tell you’re thinking about something. What is it?”

  “Lauren Sanders.”

  Sylvia pondered the name a moment before brightening. “The reporter.”

  “That’s the one.”

  “What about her?”

  Zoe scrubbed her face with her palms and leaned back, letting her hands rest in her lap. She told Sylvia about the reporter’s presence at the barn and later at the house.

  “You think this Sanders person had something to do with it?”

  “Probably not.” Zoe heard the doubt in her own voice. “Maybe.”

  Sylvia heaved herself out of the chair and started to pace. “She was at my place, right?”

  “After the break in. She’s a reporter, you know.”

  “A reporter after a big scoop.”

  Something else occurred to Zoe. “It was kinda strange…”

  “What?”

  “She showed up at the funeral home for Oriole’s visitation.” Zoe remembered the sight of Lauren with Pete and the suspicion she had about the reporter’s interest in him being more than professional. But she brushed it aside. “I thought it was odd, a reporter waltzing in like that. She said she’d become friends with Janie, but…”

  Sylvia sniffed indignantly. “After a scoop, I’m telling you. Some of those news people don’t know when to stop.”

  The clothes rack in the corner started swaying again. She fought to steady it.

  “You know what I think?”

  Zoe fixed her gaze on Sylvia, who also swayed, but maybe she really was. “I have no idea.”

  “I think this Lauren Sanders is in cahoots with these guys. I think she’s helping set up the robberies so she can chase a big story. And…” Sylvia planted her hands on the table, leaning toward Zoe. “…I think maybe she’s the one who whacked you on the head.”

  “I hate to admit it, but I’ve had that same thought myself.” She pushed up from her seat and clung to the table a moment until she was sure the floor wasn’t about to rush up and slam her in the face.

  “What are you doing?” Sylvia asked.

  Zoe straightened. Inhaled. And headed for the swaying coat rack. She took down her parka and Sylvia’s coat. “Let’s go.”

  “You’re not going anywhere.”

  “Yes, we are. Do you honestly wanna let Pete get away with thinking we’d just be good little girls and play nice together?”

  Sylvia scowled at the idea. “Where do you want to go?”

  “To the Krolls’ farm. I’m worried about them. And maybe being there’ll jog my memory.”

  A smirk crept across Sylvia’s face. She took her coat from Zoe. “I’ll drive.”

  Pete found nothing had changed at the Engle farm. Zoe’s farm, unless he could talk some sense into her.

  The crime-scene tape hadn’t been tampered with. The barn remained empty since the wrecked van had been towed to county impound. The sons of bitches must have found another place to stash their loot.

  Pete phoned Nate and ordered him to make a sweep of other vacant properties in the township.

  “I stopped at the pawn shop,” Nate told him. “Bub McDermott insists it had been over a week since anyone had brought him any firearms to sell.”

  “Do you believe him?”

  Pete could almost hear Nate’s grin. “The dude’s scared shitless of me. Yeah, I believe him.”

  Pete chuckled. Nate was often mistaken for an NFL linebacker. He never forced the intimidation factor, but nor did he downplay it. “Good. Keep me posted.”

  Next stop, the Krolls’.

  As Pete’s SUV chugged up the farm lane, tires spinning and grabbing hold on the icy surface, he spotted Sylvia’s small Escort halfway up the hill, nosed into the snow. Stuck. He swore. What was she doing there? Had she left Zoe alone?

  Mrs. Kroll wasn’t as perky as she’d been the last time he’d seen her. She ushered him into the living room where her husband, Sylvia, and Zoe sat with cups of coffee.

  He shot a glance at both of them. “I should have known.”

  “We’re still babysitting each other,” Sylvia said. “That was your plan, right?”

  True, but he hadn’t intended for them to realize it. “You were supposed to stay inside. I think doctor’s orders included resting for both of you.”

  Zoe made a point of putting her feet up on an ottoman. “We are resting.”

  “Can I get you some coffee?” Mrs. Kroll asked. “The thieves took my Keurig that Alexander got us for Christmas. But they left the cheap coffee maker I had stashed in the cupboard.”

  “No, thank you. I’m good.”

  Mr. Kroll waved a hand at her. “Oh, get the man a cup anyway, Bernice.” Pete started to protest as the older woman tottered to the kitchen, but Mr. Kroll stopped him. “You don’t have to drink it if you don’t want, but it keeps her busy. She’s been a wreck since yesterday. Worse when she just sits and frets.”

  Pete surveyed the room. Wires hung from the wall where the television had been. A stand beneath it sat bare. No DVD player. “I understand a county detective took your statement and listed everything that was stolen?”

  “Yeah. Could’ve been a lot worse, I suppose. We have full replacement on our insurance. And they didn’t damage the house at all.” Mr. Kroll growled. “We’re moving at the end of the month, so no use buying new stuff until we get settled. Would just have to pack it up again. But it’s hard on my wife.”

  “Might be worth replacing some of it before you go,” Zoe said. “Just for her.”

  Mr. Kroll tipped his head side to side, as if weighing the options. “Maybe. Depends on how fast the insurance company mails us a check. At least we feel safe those scumbags won’t bother with us again as long as there’s nothing for them to steal.”

  In spite of Pete having said basically the same thing earlier, the comment soured his stomach. “I intend to have them in custody by the time your check comes.” He glanced at Zoe, still wearing a bandage on her head. As if murdering a defenseless old woman and almost giving Sylvia a heart attack wasn’t enough, now they’d made it as personal as it could get.

  Mrs. Kroll shuffled back into the living room and handed Pete a mug. “You take it black, right?”

  He smiled at her. “Good memory.”

  She took a seat next to her husband. “Sometimes.”

  The comment made Pete think of his father. He winced as he sipped the coffee, and not because it was hot. “Speaking of memory, I don’t suppose you’ve remembered anything else about the day they came to your door.”

  Mrs. Kroll pursed her lips and shook her head.

  “Any distinguishing marks you may have neglected or forgot to mention before?”

  “No.”

  “How about his speech? Did he have an accent or an especially deep voice?”

  “No. Nothing noticeable. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be.” He looked at Zoe. A silent “what about you.”

  She responded with a shrug and headshake, followed by a pained grimace.

  Still feeling the effects of her concussion.

  “You have my number if you do think of anything.” Pete took another sip. “I’ll be going now.”

  “Where to?” Sylvia asked.

  Not only was she babysitting Zoe, however poorly, she was
also keeping tabs on him. “I promised Pop I’d drop by.”

  Sylvia’s eyes brightened. “Wonderful.” She slapped the arm rests and stood. “We’ll go with you.”

  Zoe shot Sylvia a puzzled look. Pete imagined her thinking, “We will?”

  He narrowed his eyes at Sylvia. “Your car’s stuck, isn’t it?” It wasn’t really a question.

  She scowled, a child busted with her hand in the proverbial cookie jar. “It’s not stuck. I couldn’t make it any farther up the hill is all.”

  “Uh-huh. Right.”

  “Sarcasm does not become you, Pete Adams.” She gathered her purse and motioned to Zoe. “Come on. We’ll make sure Harry’s new digs are acceptable.”

  Zoe climbed to her feet, wobbling a bit. Pete reached for her, but she held onto the chair a moment. “I’m okay.”

  “Thank you so much for the coffee, Bernice. Marvin.” Sylvia marched past Pete toward the door, thumping his arm as she went. “And when we get back, you can get my car out of that snow drift.”

  TWENTY

  With Sylvia and Zoe in tow, Pete found his father in the activities room. Other residents sat—some in upholstered chairs, some in wheelchairs—playing a word-association game. Harry, however, stood near the bank of windows, staring out at the snowy hillside beyond.

  Pete placed a hand on his father’s shoulder. “Hey, Pop.”

  Harry flinched and turned. “Son? What are you doing here? Not that it isn’t good to see you.”

  What was he doing here? Harry had called him. Pete should have known better than to expect him to remember. “I came to see you.” He gestured toward Zoe and Sylvia. “I brought some friends.”

  “Well, isn’t that nice. Any friends of my boy are friends of mine.” He extended a hand to Zoe. “I’m Harry. And you are?”

  Pete plastered on a fake smile. At least Zoe always dealt with Harry’s memory loss better than Pete ever had.

  True to form, she introduced herself as if she and Harry had never met.

  His brow furrowed as he looked at her, fixated on her bandage. “Did you hurt yourself?”

  Zoe touched the gauze. “I bumped my head is all. It’s nothing to worry about.”

  “Oh, good.” Harry turned to Sylvia, who also introduced herself.

  He winked at Pete. “You’re in the company of two lovely ladies, son.”

  “Yes, I am.” He noticed they were garnering the attention of a number of the other residents, distracting them from their game. “How about we go to your room to talk. In private.”

  “Uh-oh. That sounds om—omin—oh, damn. What’s that word?”

  “Ominous?” Zoe said.

  “Yes. That’s it. Ominous.” Harry looked toward the double door. “Only problem is…I don’t know where my room is.”

  Pete offered him an arm. “I do.”

  Harry brushed him off, instead offering both of his to Zoe and Sylvia. “Ladies?”

  Pete led the way down the hall, his father being his charming self, a woman on each arm, trailing behind.

  After reintroducing Harry to his room—“Are you sure this is mine? I don’t remember it”—Pete dragged in a couple of extra chairs from the hallway, and everyone found a seat.

  Sylvia reached over and took Harry’s hand. “So are they treating you well here?”

  Pete could tell his father was searching the corners of his befuddled mind. “I guess so.”

  “Pop, do you remember calling me yesterday?”

  That befuddled look again. “Of course I do.”

  Of course he didn’t. Just as well. Dropping the whole “murder” thing suited Pete just fine.

  “What did he call you about?” Sylvia asked.

  Pete shot her a look. Don’t help. “It was nothing.”

  “Well, clearly it was at the time.” Her jaw tightened as she repeated, “What did he call you about?”

  “I’ll tell you later,” Pete said, his own jaw as clenched as hers.

  Harry watched them, his eyes widening by the moment. “Is everything okay? It’s not Nadine, is it? Is something wrong with Nadine?”

  “No, Pop. Nadine is fine.”

  But Harry wasn’t appeased. “Don’t you go keeping shit from me. If something’s happened to your sister, I want to know.”

  Pete glared at Sylvia. See what you’ve done? “Honest, Pop. Nadine is fine. I would never keep anything like that from you.”

  Harry fell silent, but worry still shone in his faded eyes. Sylvia and Zoe both stared expectantly at Pete.

  “Dammit,” he muttered. “He had his nurse call me yesterday and told me he thought someone had been murdered here.”

  “I did?”

  “You did.”

  The entire conversation—and Harry’s half-ass train of thought—derailed as a knock came on the open door. The elegant woman on the walker, the one who had so beguiled Harry the other day, stood there. “Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you had company.”

  Grateful for the interruption, Pete leapt to his feet and moved to her side. “That’s quite all right. Please come in.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of intruding on family time.” She smiled and Pete once again imagined she had been a real knockout in her younger days. She offered him her hand. “My name’s Barbara Naiman. I live right across the hall.” After a quick round of introductions, she motioned in the direction of her room. “My grandsons are visiting me as well. I wanted to tell Harry to stop over and meet them.” As if an afterthought, she added, “You can all come over too.”

  Pete eyed Sylvia and hoped this time she caught his unspoken command to keep quiet. “That’s sweet of you, but as you said, we wouldn’t dream of intruding on your family time. We won’t be much longer and then I’ll drop my father off at your door.”

  “That would be lovely. Thanks so much.”

  Barbara maneuvered a slow but graceful turn with her walker and tottered off to her room. Pete glanced at his father. The old man appeared smitten.

  “She’s quite attractive,” Sylvia said.

  Harry kept his gaze on the doorway. “Yes, she is.”

  Pete nudged him, glad for a better topic. “I think she likes you, Pop.”

  Harry shot a fierce scowl at him. “Mind your manners, son. Barbara is a lady and any relationship between us is none of your business.”

  But Pete could tell the bluster masked Harry’s embarrassment. Pete chuckled. “We should go so you can meet Barbara’s family.”

  Harry shooed Zoe and Sylvia out of the room ahead of them, saying, “Ladies first.”

  Pete walked with his father to the doorway to Barbara’s room. Inside, she sat holding hands and laughing with the same two young men Pete had seen with her days earlier. It struck him how life had come full circle. Instead of a young man meeting his girlfriend’s parents, Harry was about to meet his girlfriend’s grandsons. “Here we are, Pop.”

  But he caught Pete’s arm, drawing back from the room rather than going in.

  Pete chuckled. Apparently, meeting the family never became any less terrifying. “It’s okay. They’ll adore you. You have the Adams’ charm, remember?”

  “No, no,” he whispered, pulling Pete closer, “it’s not that. Son, you need to do your cop thing and check this place out. There’s some weird shit going on around here.”

  The same thing Harry had said on the phone.

  Pete eyed him. “Oh?”

  Harry lowered his voice further. “People are dying. And not because they’re just old. Someone here is a murderer.”

  Zoe called dibs on the front seat for the drive home. She’d never experienced motion sickness before, but the drive to Brunswick in the rear of Pete’s Ford Edge had aggravated her headache. The front was definitely better.

  Sylvia hadn’t let go of the topic of Harry’s earlier phone call
, and Pete grudgingly shared his father’s suspicions, calling them “foolishness.”

  “How can you be sure?” Sylvia demanded. “A residence like that? It would be the perfect setup. Did you see the pearls that woman, Barbara, was wearing? A person has to be well off to live in that kind of place. I can see someone killing them for their money.”

  “Harry’s not exactly well off,” Pete reminded her. “Neither am I or Nadine.”

  Sylvia didn’t let up until Pete vowed to run a background check on Golden Oaks and its employees.

  Even with her brain fog, Zoe couldn’t imagine where he’d find the time. She suspected he’d only made the promise to shut Sylvia up.

  Twenty minutes later, they were back at the Krolls’ farm, standing around the snowbound Escort. Pete lugged a tow chain from his cargo compartment and grumbled as he crawled under the small car to hook it up. From there, it was an easy feat to drag Sylvia’s vehicle out of the drift with his SUV.

  “Go home and rest,” he ordered both of them before driving away.

  Zoe stuffed her hands in her pockets as the cold chilled her cheeks. She fixed the older woman with a determined gaze.

  Sylvia looked skeptical. “Why do I get the feeling we aren’t going home to rest?”

  “Are you feeling okay?” Zoe asked, gripped by a moment of guilt. She wasn’t the only one who was supposed to be taking it easy.

  “I’m fine, dear. But how about you?”

  Her vision had cleared a bit even if her brain hadn’t. And the headache had subsided to a dull throb. “Actually, I’m feeling better. Let’s go check on Janie Baker. I wanna see how she’s holding up. Besides, it’s on the way home.”

  As long as Zoe had known Janie, she’d never been inside her house. Located on the same hillside in Dillard as Oriole’s, but two streets over, the structure appeared tiny compared to Janie’s grandmother’s place. One story, square, with ancient aluminum siding that looked more dingy gray than white, the house seemed better suited to be a storage shed than a home.

  When Janie answered their knock at the door, her appearance startled Zoe. Her face was as sallow and drawn as someone more than twice her age.