The tires crunched the gravel driveway at Mrs. Hodge’s small Victorian. My heart stopped when I glimpsed the busted front door.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Stay in the car.” Joe slid from behind the wheel with his hand on his weapon. I reached for the door handle as he made his way to the front porch.
“Joe said to stay put.” Ethan’s lips pressed in a thin line.
A rapid volley of shots rang out. The windshield shattered. Glass showered Ethan’s head like diamonds in the sand. Joe sprinted from the house and took cover behind the thick trunk of a massive oak. Bullets gouged the bark of the ancient tree.
“Find out where my backup is! I called them ten minutes ago.”
Ethan fumbled for the radio, then lifted the receiver to his mouth. “Officer needs assistance. I repeat—”
Thankful I wasn’t one of those shrieking females who lost their mind in a crisis, unless chased by a demon pig, I dove to the floor as another barrage of shots flew past. When the gunfire quieted, I peered over the back of the seat. Joe took a step out from behind the tree. A single shot caught him. My cousin spun like the ballerina in a child’s music box before he fell.
“Joe’s been hit!” I fumbled with the lock, shoved the door open, and fell to my knees in the gravel. The impact sent shock waves through me. “We’re sitting ducks. Get me out of here.”
“Officer down. Officer down! We’re on Highway 64, Hodge’s house.” Ethan dropped the radio. “Bumbling country cops. Sorry, didn’t mean that.”
He yanked me to my feet and slammed me against the car. “Make for the trees and keep the car between you and the house. I’ve got to get Joe.”
“Don’t leave me. Please.” So much for nonhysterical female. I clutched at his shirt front. Even weaponless, Ethan’s presence made me feel safe.
His eyes searched my face. “Okay, come on.” In a crouching run, Ethan led me into the thick woods surrounding Mrs. Hodge’s house. We circled wide, slapping branches away from our faces and shoving through dense foliage, until we were mere feet from where Joe lay.
“Stay here,” Ethan said.
No worry. There was absolutely no way I wanted to present myself as a target. I’d been shot at before. That time I’d been running, not squatting behind a bush. On second thought, I’d choose the action anytime rather than the inactivity of hiding.
“God help us. God help us.” I whispered the prayer as Ethan darted to the oak Joe had sought shelter behind. I continued to pray when he reached for Joe’s feet and dragged him into the bushes. Fear wiped my mind clear, allowing only the three words that I chanted: God help us.
“I’m fine,” Joe told us. “Get away.”
“We aren’t leaving you. I’ve called for backup. Any minute, buddy. Hold on.” Ethan peeled away Joe’s shirt to reveal the gunshot wound. My stomach lurched, and I clamped my eyes shut. “Summer, put pressure on his shoulder. This isn’t mortal. I’ve got to stand guard.”
I shuffled over and pressed my hands, one on top of the other, over my cousin’s wound. Bile rose against my continuous swallowing. I won’t be sick. I won’t be sick.
Joe groaned.
“Sorry.” I pressed harder. My hands turned a shade of crimson I would never wear on purpose. I worried about the elderly Mrs. Hodge while I struggled to keep my cousin’s blood inside him where it belonged. Where was her boyfriend, Pete? Her son, Richard Bland, had been the murderer and diamond thief from the case I’d solved months earlier. Alone, she’d turned to me when she needed help. How long had it been since I’d visited? One week? Two? Guilt rose in me.
Dried brush crunched about twenty feet from us. Still crouching, Ethan turned and pointed the gun in that direction. My pulse pounded in my ears so loudly, I didn’t hear Joe speak. His lips moved but nothing issued forth. “What?”
“Go. They’re coming. You and Ethan get out of here.”
I met Ethan’s gaze as Grizzly Bob stepped out from behind the trees. I shifted my eyes to stare down the barrel of the man’s weapon.
“You should have stayed out of things, Miss Meadows,” he said, his voice gruff, gravelly. “Should’ve just let us go about our business. But no, you’re a meddlesome woman. Millie was bad enough, then Lacey. We had us a nice little group until they got nervous.”
Ethan moved to stand.
“Stay put or I’ll put a bullet through this little woman’s brain. Drop the pistol.”
Ethan placed the gun on a pile of dead leaves.
“Now scoot it this way.”
My hands trembled as I fought to keep pressure on Joe’s wound. “What now? Are you going to shoot us all? You shot a police officer! What did you do with Mrs. Hodge?”
“Stop with the questions. She’s another worrisome woman. The world is better off without the bunch of you.”
My heart sank at his words and rose again at the far-off sound of sirens. Bob turned, and Ethan lunged. He caught the older man around the knees. Gunfire blasted the branches above our heads as the two men hit the ground. I lay across Joe to shield him from the falling debris.
They tussled, each grasping the weapon. If the barrel dropped with Bob’s finger on the trigger, Joe and I’d be riddled with bullets. Not the way I’d envisioned dying. I much preferred the falling-asleep-in-bed-as-an-old-woman approach. Ethan would be holding my hand, spouting words of love.
Two squad cars, followed by an ambulance, roared onto the property. “Over here! Over here!” I waved my arm and prayed they’d spot me through the bushes.
The vehicles stopped as close to the line of trees as possible. Four armed officers, ducking and using whatever cover was available, rushed across the yard. Three of the officers ordered Bob to release his weapon while the fourth tackled him and wrestled the gun from his hands. I stood and glanced in dismay at the blood covering the front of me. “You hurt?” One of the officers asked.
“No, but Joe is. And there may be a couple of bodies inside the house.” I turned and threw myself into Ethan’s arms.
“Come on, baby.”
I pulled away. “No, I’ve got to check on Joe.”
“He’s in good hands. We’ll only be in the way.” Ethan led me back to Joe’s car, where he took a blanket from the backseat and wrapped it around me.
“Thanks. Guess I was right about the embezzlement.” Ethan laughed. “A piece of paper with a number in red doesn’t constitute embezzlement. With the money gone from Foreman’s safe, either he took it, or it’s robbery.”
Embezzlement sounds bigger, doesn’t it? I sighed. “You’re right. Who else do you think is involved? Bob mentioned ‘us’ as in more than one.”
Ethan pulled me to his chest. “It’s time to step out of it, Summer. At least four people are dead, if Mrs. Hodge and Pete are lying inside. It’s not a game.”
“We don’t know that Lacey is dead.” I peered up at his face. “We’ve got to find out what happened to her. I need to find out.”
We were interrupted by the sight of two body bags being rolled on gurneys. Tears welled in my eyes. “Poor Mrs. Hodge. One blow after another in her life.” Another emergency technician followed with a blanket-covered Joe. I took a step toward him and grasped his hand. He smiled. “Ethan and I will follow you, Joe.”
I’d been too busy to visit Mrs. Hodge as often as I would’ve liked, believing the woman no longer needed my company since Pete courted her. I choked back a sob.
An officer approached us. “Your cousin is going to the hospital. Let me take your statements, and you can follow.”
“We came in Joe’s car,” I pointed out. “What about Lacey Love? Did you find her?”
The officer frowned. “I can’t divulge that information to you at the moment.”
He’d just told me all I needed to know. I’d failed her. Sobs erupted from deep within me, rising with the violence of a volcano. Besides Lacey’s killer, I was most likely the last one to see her alive. Just like my parents. Now, Mrs. Hodge and her boyfriend joined the list of vict
ims.
The officer glanced at Ethan. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t aware you two knew the victim.”
“I—didn’t.” I buried my face in Ethan’s chest. “Well, not Lacey, but I knew Mrs. Hodge.”
“Why don’t you two come down to the station later, and we’ll take your statements there?” He waved over an officer who looked like he belonged in high school. “Officer Sweeney will drive you.” With an obvious sense of relief, he turned over the care of us to the younger officer.
We made the trip to the hospital in silence, broken only by my sniffles. I rode burdened beneath a mountain of guilt and ineptitude. Ethan’s arm around my shoulders did little to comfort me. My pain came from inside. From my inability to solve this mystery and save lives.
How many more people would die while I fumbled my way through the case?
Chapter Twenty-Six
I made my way to the chapel. In this country city, the hospital’s chapel wasn’t much larger than some people’s master bedrooms, but it was quiet. Aunt Eunice knelt before the wooden altar, not rising as I entered. God didn’t care what size the room was anyway.
The wooden pews were polished to a high sheen, and a simple oak cross hung above a podium. I chose a seat a few benches from the front and collapsed. My forehead rested against the pew in front of me.
Prayers for my uncle and Joe rose within me, not getting any further than my clamped lips. How could I pray when guilt threatened to choke me? Tears poured down my cheeks to land with splats on my folded hands. Empty-headed, ditzy, goofy were all adjectives used at one time or another to describe me. Guilty and empty—never. I swallowed against a sob. I was tired of hiding my guilt. I wanted release from my burden. My throat ached from the effort of restraining my grief.
Someone had left a Bible on the pew, and I reached for it. April once told me of a time when she’d desperately needed a word from God and asking, had let the Bible fall open. The pages fell on a verse that suited her needs to perfection. I shrugged and held the book by its binding, letting the pages ruffle open.
The words of 1 John 3:20 leaped at me from the onion skin pages. Whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.
Yes, my heart condemned me. Yes, God is greater and knows all things, but how did I forgive myself?
Aunt Eunice straightened and glanced over her shoulder. “Summer? You all right, sweetie?”
I shook my head. My aunt pushed to her feet and bustled to my side, scooting in next to me. She pulled my head to her bosom where it had rested many times over the years, through millions of tears and hundreds of childhood heartaches.
“What is it? Maybe I can help.”
“Joe was shot today when we drove to Mrs. Hodge’s house. Mrs. Hodge and Pete are dead. Grizzly Bob killed them.”
Aunt Eunice stiffened. “Joe’s dead?”
“No. A shoulder wound, but it’s all my fault! Just like Mom and Dad and Terri Lee and Lacey Love and…”
Aunt Eunice stroked my head. “You’re quite a powerful person, aren’t you, dear?”
That stopped me in my tracks. Powerful? Hardly.
I pulled away from her and focused through my tears on her face. “What?”
Aunt Eunice took my face in her hands and brushed my cheeks dry with her thumbs. “To have done all that. You started young, too.”
“I don’t understand.”
“That’s obvious.” She pulled a tissue from inside her shirt and handed the soggy scrap of Kleenex to me. “Sit up, blow your nose, and listen to me. I don’t profess to completely understand God and all He does, but your moping around lately has got to stop. If I’d had any idea you felt responsible for your parents’ death, well. . .I don’t know.”
I stuffed the used tissue into my pocket. “I threw a temper tantrum that last day because they were going to a party without me. Mom waved and tried to smile, but I’d stressed her out so much, she couldn’t. I didn’t return the smile or the wave. Dad roared out of the driveway. If I hadn’t have put so much pressure on them and made them late, they’d still be here.”
“You don’t know that. Summer, you were five years old. Not responsible for your actions. A drunk driver killed your parents. Not you. And you’ve carried this around with you for twenty-five years?”
I nodded. “I didn’t realize it until lately, but that’s what’s driving me to solve these cases I get mixed up in. A chance for rectification. To undo a wrong I’ve done. I’ve failed so many people.”
“I knew you were spoiled, but I had no idea you had such a lofty opinion of yourself.” Aunt Eunice picked up the Bible from where I’d let it fall. Confusion clouded my brain. If this was my aunt’s way of making me feel better, I’d choose to stay a wreck.
“Do you believe what this book says?”
“Of course.”
“All of it? Or just parts? What verse did you read just now?”
“First John 3:20.”
“Uh-huh.” Aunt Eunice thumbed through the book until she found the verse. Her lips moved silently as she read. She closed the Bible, keeping her finger inside as a marker. “I guess that verse must be a lie, considering you’re still sitting here feeling sorry for yourself.”
I scratched my head, frowning. “I don’t understand what you’re getting at. Nothing in the Bible is a lie. God doesn’t lie.”
“Really? So you just don’t believe it.” She lifted her chin. “Tell me what the verse means.”
“That God knows everything. That He is greater than our hearts.”
“But what does it mean? Did you read the verse before that one? What about the ones after?” She reopened the book and began to read. “ ‘This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask.’ ” She lifted her gaze back to mine. “What have you asked for, Summer?”
I opened my mouth, then clamped it shut. Nothing. Out of my sense of shame, I hadn’t felt worthy to ask for anything.
Aunt Eunice set the book down and gathered my hands in hers. “God knows our hearts, our motives, our every piece. God will not condemn us.” Her lips spread in a slow smile. “And he isn’t going to hand over control of the universe into these soft hands of yours. You aren’t responsible for the death of these people. Your parents or anyone else. Your desire has been to help, not hurt.”
“How did you get so wise?” For the first time in a long while peace began to fill me, tiny crevice by crevice, and the burden of guilt I carried lifted an inch.
“Do you know who I was praying for before I fell asleep on that very uncomfortable pew?”
“Uncle Roy?”
“No, he’s going to be fine. I was praying for you. I knew the moment you walked through those doors you carried a whole mountain of hurt.” She cupped my cheek. “Now let’s go check on that cousin of yours.”
“I’ll be there in a minute, okay?”
“Okay.” Her hand rested on my shoulder for a second before she rose and left.
Alone, I sat. No tears, no shudders, just the ever-present lump in my throat as I absorbed the healing words my aunt had spoken. I’d accepted God’s salvation at the age of thirteen, but never had He seemed as real, as loving, as He did this very minute. Thirty years old and I’d finally grown up.
Ethan waited for me outside the door. I stepped from the peace of the chapel to the warmth of his embrace.
“Are you all right?”
I nodded. “Wonderful. It took me a while to take myself off the pedestal I stood on and let God take over. How do you put up with me?”
“Blinded by love, I guess.” Laughter rumbled in his chest.
“Ha, ha. How’s Joe?”
“Not bad. Doctor said the bullet went straight through.” Ethan slid an arm across my shoulders. “Ready to go home
?”
“Very.” My mind returned to Grizzly Bob and the missing carnival funds. Did he kill the people and take the money or was none of it related at all? Was the case solved? If so, where was Mr. Foreman? Was he involved or an innocent victim? I gnawed my lip. With Joe laid up, there was no one at the station I could go to for answers. My nosy personality left me unsatisfied. I knew there were still parts of the story left untold. Despite my resolve to stay out of the investigation, I had too many unanswered questions.
I yawned. Tomorrow, after I gave my statement to the police, I’d go back to the carnival grounds and speak with Big Sally. She seemed to be the hub of the carnival and a close friend of Grizzly Bob’s.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Folks huddled in small clusters of three or four when I arrived at the fairgrounds the next morning. An autumn chill hung in the air, and people’s breath puffed like dragon smoke. What could be dismantled had been. The other buildings and rides were unplugged and boarded up. Because my family owned the land these people rented, my first stop of the day should be Eddy Foreman’s. I shuddered and pushed open the car door.
Even my footsteps sounded muffled as I made my way across the dirt-packed ground. Last year, once they’d finished the breakdown, the carnies threw a party. The air had been full of gaiety. Lack of money definitely put a damper on things.
I rapped on the door of Eddy’s trailer. As usual, he seemed happy to see me and still wore his signature polyester. “Summer!”
“Eddy.” I peered past him. He appeared alone although several empty beer cans littered the battered coffee table. Eddy could learn some tips on cleanliness and interior decorating from Washington.
“Come in, please.” With a swipe of his arm, he cleared a section of the green sofa of old newspapers and offered me a seat.
“Thank you.” I shoved aside the curtains, allowing any passersby a clear view of the inside of Eddy’s trailer. “Want to keep everything above board and proper, don’t we?”
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