Nightmare in Nantucket (Garden Girls Christian Cozy Mystery Series Book 14)

by Hope Callaghan

“Check this out!” Ruth hurried to the driver’s side of the van, opened the door and slid behind the wheel. Seconds later, a round bubble popped out of the top.

  Surrounding the bubble were small lenses. The lenses reminded Gloria of eyeballs. “What in the world?”

  Ruth leaned out of the open door. “Smile. You’re on camera.”

  The women circled the front of the van and stared at the contraption. Seconds later, the device disappeared and the only thing visible was a small round bump.

  Ruth scrambled out of the van and slammed the door before making her way back onto the sidewalk. “It’s a recording device. I just had it installed, which was why I was late.”

  Gloria wrinkled her nose. “Recording? What on earth are you recording?”

  “It’s for street maps. I signed up for a part-time job working weekends where I drive up and down back roads and streets, recording everything.”

  “You already have a job,” Dot pointed out. “Working at the post office.”

  “Yeah, but my job can be boring.” Ruth clasped her hands together and gazed at her vehicle admiringly. “This is so much more exciting.”

  “Oh, I get it.” Rose shoved a fisted hand on her hip. “You’re working for one of those companies who hire people to drive around, recording the streets and then it ends up on the internet.”

  “The drive by,” Lucy said. “What a perfect job for you, Ruth.”

  Ruth had a knack…well, an obsession, with spy and surveillance equipment. Gloria could see where this would be right up her friend’s alley. “After all these years, you’ve finally found your calling,” she teased.

  “That’s not all.” Ruth ran her hand over the hood of her van. “I’m also testing a new bulletproof coating for this company I found online. It’s called a D65 shield.”

  Lucy patted the hood. “I’d love to bring my Ruger Super Redhawk over and take a shot at it.”

  “You want to shoot at my van?” Ruth clutched her chest. “That’s crazy.”

  Lucy frowned. “I thought it was bulletproof.”

  “That’s why you volunteered to be one of the designated drivers for this road trip,” Gloria guessed. “So you could test all the new gadgets.”

  “Yep.” Ruth eyed Lucy nervously. “Not only that, the company has given me a gas per diem so we won’t have to cover the cost out of pocket.”

  “Lordy.” Rose placed a hand on both sides of her cheeks and shook her head as she gazed at Ruth’s bulletproof, camera recording, souped-up set of wheels. “What have I gotten myself into?”

  “Don’t worry.” Dot patted Rose’s shoulder. “We’ll take good care of you.”

  “This will be one road trip you won’t soon forget,” Margaret predicted. “Not if it involves Gloria.”

  “Paul will keep us in line,” Gloria said as she glanced at her watch. “I better head over to Andrea’s place to see if I can track down Alice.” She climbed into her car and with a small wave to her friends who were still standing on the sidewalk in front of Dot’s Restaurant, she backed out of the parking spot and pulled onto Main Street.

  Gloria drove up the hill and then turned right onto Andrea’s gravel drive. She eased Annabelle past the metal gate.

  Alice, who had passed her driving exam and gotten her driver’s license a few months back, had recently purchased an older four-door sedan.

  The gray car was sitting in the drive and Gloria parked Annabelle behind the car. She dropped her car keys into her purse and strode to the mini-mansion’s front double doors. It took a few raps on the brass knocker, as well as several doorbell rings before a harried Alice swung the front door open.

  “Miss Gloria. I’m so glad you stopped by,” Alice said. “I was just going to give you a call.” She grasped Gloria’s hand and pulled her into the house. “I try to call Andrea yesterday and today, but she no answer,” she said in her thick Spanish accent. “I try her parents, but they no answer their phone either.”

  Brian’s words echoed in Gloria’s head, how Andrea had not answered when he had tried calling her. She hadn’t replied to his text either.

  “Let me try.” Gloria fumbled inside her purse and pulled out her cell phone. She dialed Andrea’s cell phone and the call went to voice mail so she tapped out a text message, ‘Please call me right away. Alice and Brian have been trying to reach you since yesterday.’

  Alice motioned Gloria to follow her to the kitchen. “Would you like some coffee? I’ll make a pot?” She flitted back and forth across the kitchen as she started a fresh pot of coffee, rambling the entire time. “Andrea’s parents, the Thorntons, they always call me back and also Andrea.”

  The coffee finished brewing and Alice poured two cups. She set one of the cups in front of Gloria. “I make a fresh batch of churros. You try one?” Alice placed a basket of deep fried, sugarcoated sticks next to Gloria’s coffee.

  “Thank you. I’ve never had one.” Gloria absentmindedly reached for one and bit the end. “These are delicious.”

  “I make samples for Brian and Andrea’s engagement party.” Tears filled Alice’s eyes. “But maybe I no need now.” Alice clasped her hands. “You think I have to move back to New York?” she asked.

  “I hope not.” Gloria set the churro on a napkin and squeezed Alice’s hand. “We’ll get this straightened out. Don’t worry.”

  The women chatted for several moments as Gloria attempted to ease Alice’s mind, all the while wondering what was going on in Nantucket.

  “Perhaps her cell phone died and she needs to charge it. You know how forgetful these young people are about charging their cell phones.”

  “I…maybe you’re right. I hope so,” Alice said.

  “The reason I stopped by is because Andrea is threatening to break off the engagement so we…all of the Garden Girls, as well as Brian and Paul, have decided to drive to Nantucket to talk some sense into Andrea. I’m here to ask if you’d like to go with us. You’re like a mother to Andrea and she loves you. Maybe she’ll listen to you, if no one else.”

  “I dunno. Andrea, she stubborn.” Alice shook her head. “What if she not come back?”

  “As least we can say we tried.” Gloria finished her second churro, downed the last of her coffee and reached for her purse. “We’re leaving at 6:00 a.m. Monday morning. Do you want to go with us?”

  “Si.” Alice nodded. “I hope Miss Andrea is okay.”

  Gloria’s cell phone chirped. She reached inside her purse and pulled out her phone. It was Margaret.

  “Hello?”

  “I hope you’re sitting down,” were the first words out of Margaret’s mouth.

  The tone of Margaret’s voice caused Gloria to do just that. She eased back onto the barstool she’d just vacated. “I’m sitting.”

  “I was doing some research, checking out the ferries that travel from the mainland to Nantucket and I ran across an article in the Nantucket Morning News from this morning.”

  A chill ran down Gloria’s spine. Margaret was about to drop a bomb.

  “I’ll read you the headline on the front page,” Margaret said. “Former New York socialite, Andrea Thornton Malone, has mysteriously vanished from the island of Nantucket while vacationing with her parents, David Thornton and Dr. Libby Casteel-Thornton.”

  Chapter 3

  “You’re kidding,” Gloria said.

  “Check it out yourself. I won’t go into detail, just to say Andrea and an unnamed friend visited the local farmer’s market yesterday morning. They became separated when Andrea told the unnamed man she needed to use the restroom and she never returned.”

  Margaret continued. “From what the paper said, police and local volunteers have torn the island apart and they can’t find her…or her body.”

  Gloria pressed two fingers to her temple and shot Alice, who stood nearby, a guarded look. “I’m going to check it out now. I’ll call you back.” Gloria hung up and turned to Alice. “There may be a reason Andrea isn’t answering your calls. We need to log onto th
e internet.”

  The women hurried to Andrea’s library and over to her desk where Alice settled into the chair and turned the computer on. “What is going on Miss Gloria? You’re white as a ghost.”

  “I’ll tell you in a minute,” Gloria said, her mind reeling at Margaret’s discovery.

  After the computer fired up, the women switched places and Gloria opened a search screen, typed Nantucket Morning News in the search bar and then clicked on the icon.

  Both women leaned in and read the article Margaret described. It was brief and to the point. Andrea had gone to the farmer’s market the previous morning with an unnamed friend and then vanished into thin air.

  According to the story, authorities had questioned David and Libby Thornton, Andrea’s parents, as well as the unnamed person, who was the last person seen with Andrea.

  The article finished by saying so far, no other details about the case had been released and authorities were not divulging information about the case to the public.

  “Miss Andrea is missing.” A stunned Alice dropped into a nearby chair and clutched her chest. “We need to go there Miss Gloria.” She turned wild eyes to Gloria.

  “We will, Alice, just as soon as we can cobble this trip together.” Gloria shot out of the chair and hurried around the side of the desk. She gently hugged the woman. “Don’t worry, Alice. We’ll get to the bottom of this,” Gloria vowed. Hopefully before it’s too late she silently added.

  ***

  “I can’t go.” Ruth stood on Gloria’s back porch and kicked at a leaf that had blown into the corner. “It’s late and no one from the district branch has approved the time off.” Her shoulders drooped. “I even sent in a backup for LWOP, just in case.”

  Gloria shifted to the side and gazed out into the yard. She watched Mally patrol the perimeter of the garden. “What is LWOP?”

  “Leave without pay.”

  “Are you saying you don’t have vacation time?” Gloria asked.

  “Yeah, I’ve got plenty. The only time I’ve taken off this year was for our cruise,” Ruth said. “I could always call in sick.”

  “We might be gone for several days.” Gloria didn’t think it sounded like a good plan. “Can’t you call someone else? Surely after all these years they will understand you have a family emergency.”

  If Ruth couldn’t get the time off, it would throw a wrench into their cross-country road trip. There was no way nine adults could fit in one vehicle. At best, Annabelle could comfortably carry four people. Five would be tight.

  Dot owned a van, but Ray used it for transporting restaurant supplies. Margaret drove a newer SUV but even that would be tight.

  “I’ll try again, but no one in management typically works this late in the day.” Ruth turned to go. “I was so excited about this trip.”

  Gloria watched as her friend shuffled to her newly renovated van and climbed inside.

  Paul was waiting in the kitchen when Gloria made her way back inside. “Judging by the look on Ruth’s face, she had some bad news,” he guessed.

  “Yeah. She hasn’t gotten approval for time off from the post office so she doesn’t think she’ll be able to make the trip.”

  Mally, Gloria’s springer Spaniel, padded over and nudged her hand with her snout. Gloria absentmindedly patted her head. “Are you sure Allie won’t mind taking care of Mally and Puddles while we’re gone?”

  Allie was Paul’s youngest child. She had moved back to Belhaven from the Detroit area a short time ago and was living in Paul’s farmhouse until she could get back on her feet, which wouldn’t be long since she’d recently been hired by the Montbay County Sheriff’s station working as a dispatcher.

  “Nope. I think she’ll enjoy the company,” Paul said. Gloria knew Paul worried about Allie, living all alone out in the middle of nowhere in the big old farmhouse. Mally loved everyone and wouldn’t harm a flea, she was a good watchdog and would alert Allie if anyone tried to come to the door.

  “I’m so worried about Andrea,” Gloria confessed to her husband. “Do you think she ran away?”

  Paul, a former Montbay County Sheriff, had seen it all. It was not unheard of for someone to become overwhelmed by their circumstances and just up and disappear. More often than not, they would eventually return home although, to him, Andrea didn’t seem to be the “flighty” type.”

  “I don’t know, Gloria. We won’t know until we get there.” Paul wandered over to the door and grabbed the keys to the garage. “I’m going to head out to the shop to finish my fall planter box. I’d like to get it done before we leave Monday.” Paul had set up a small workshop in the back of the garage for his woodworking projects.

  He bent down and planted a kiss on his bride’s cheek. “Try not to worry. I think she’ll turn up. She probably just needed to get away.”

  “I have a feeling her parents were pressuring her to move back to New York,” Gloria said.

  “There’s not much we can do from here. We’ll have to wait until we get there.” He wandered down the steps and disappeared from sight. Mally trotted after him.

  Gloria poured a glass of lemonade before she picked up her cell phone a second time. She dialed Dot’s cell phone and a breathless Dot finally answered. “Hi Gloria.”

  “Hi Dot. Sorry to bother you.” Gloria glanced at the wall clock. “You sound busy.”

  “No problem. What’s up?”

  Gloria briefly explained how Margaret had stumbled upon the Nantucket local news and discovered Andrea had disappeared. “Ruth was just here. She doesn’t think she can make the trip because she hasn’t gotten approval for the time off.”

  “I heard. She stopped by here, too, threatening to call in sick if they refuse to give her the time off. She said she already cleared it with Kenny and even contacted her part-time replacement, Mary, who said she’d be happy to cover for her.”

  “We need a backup plan,” Gloria said. “Do you think Ray and Johnnie can get by if you drive the van?”

  “Yeah, we already talked about it but you know I don’t like driving long distances,” Dot said.

  “Maybe Rose could drive,” Gloria suggested.

  “No way! I want to get there in one piece and Rose is a maniac behind the wheel.” Somehow, that tidbit of information didn’t surprise Gloria. Rose was a real firecracker.

  “Maybe Brian can drive.”

  They discussed the possibilities of who might work best as a second designated driver and finally decided if push came to shove and Ruth wasn’t able to make the trip, they would ask Margaret.

  Gloria kept her cell phone close the rest of the day as she washed several loads of laundry and pulled her suitcases from the spare bedroom upstairs to begin packing for the trip. She’d never been to Nantucket or even the State of Massachusetts and decided a little research into the summer weather and temperatures was in order.

  She headed to the dining room and settled in front of the computer. Puddles, Gloria’s cat, leapt onto Gloria’s lap, circled several times and then curled up to take a nap.

  Gloria absentmindedly stroked Puddles’ head as she studied the weather. “At least the weather looks good,” she told her sleeping cat. “Highs in the 70’s, lows in the 50’s.” She would need a little of everything…shorts, t-shirts, sweatshirts and maybe even a sweater.

  Gloria checked her email, balanced her checkbook and finally shut the computer off when the dryer beeped. She scooped Puddles into her arms, holding him close as she carried him into the living room to set him in her recliner, one of his favorite napping spots.

  The afternoon flew by and the more time that passed, the more certain Gloria became that not hearing from Ruth meant bad news. She had suggested to Ruth several times it might be time to retire or even cut back on working full time at the post office.

  She had a feeling Ruth didn’t need the money, but working gave her a sense of purpose. Ruth loved chatting with the Belhaven locals. It was the perfect job for Ruth. She loved to gossip. People loved to tal
k.

  Gloria folded several pairs of blue jeans and carefully packed them in her half of the suitcase. She added a couple thick fluffy sweaters, a hoodie, plus a pair of capris and lightweight V-neck shirts.

  When she finished, she realized she wasn’t even close to finishing her packing and her clothes were already creeping onto Paul’s half. There was no way around it. He would need his own suitcase.

  She flipped the top, zipped the cover and then dragged it over to the side of the dresser. Mally darted into the bedroom and tromped over the top of the suitcase before flopping down on the floor. “You’re done working in the workshop?” she asked her pooch.

  Gloria finished folding her laundry and then wandered into the kitchen to check on dinner. She dug out her crockpot and decided to throw together a slow cooker chicken dinner. They still had a surplus of vegetables from the previous summer’s garden and she wanted to use up as many of the vegetables as possible before harvesting this year’s garden.

  Gloria had given away many of the fruits and vegetables from her bountiful garden to the area shut-ins they visited every Sunday afternoon. It seemed that this year, the list of elderly and homebound had grown. What had once taken the girls a couple hours on a Sunday afternoon, now took all afternoon and they weren’t finished with their rounds until early evening.

  The women were tossing around the idea of splitting the list with half visiting one group and the other half visiting the other. Divide and conquer. It was a rewarding volunteer project and Gloria wasn’t sure who enjoyed it more…the shut-ins, or the group of friends who made the rounds.

  One of the locals, Shirley Jackson, had fallen in her bathroom the previous Saturday and been unable to crawl to the phone. If it hadn’t been for the girls visiting after church the following day, who knew how long she would have lain there, waiting for someone to find her.

  Gloria lifted the lid and waited for the burst of steam and heat to escape before she peered inside. The aroma of rosemary and simmering chicken wafted up. She reached for the fork sitting next to the crockpot and stabbed the chicken. The meat easily peeled off and she pulled a small piece out for the chef’s taste-test.