Erin Solomon Mysteries, Books 1 - 5

by Jen Blood

  “What about work?” I prompted.

  “She doesn’t work—retired, I think.” She frowned. “Though come to think of it she’s a little young to be retired, can’t be more than fifty. Maybe she comes from money. She volunteers, though—that’s how she spends most of her time. Churches, the prison, hospitals, a couple of local schools.”

  My stomach bottomed out. How many people had she accessed during her time in the area? “How long would you say she lived here?”

  “When we met, she said she’d been here a few months. I don’t know how long, exactly.”

  “Okay. One last question. I don’t suppose you have a picture of her, do you?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do,” Edie whispered conspiratorially. “I knew Lilah would have a fit—she’s pretty, but she’s awful camera shy—but I snapped a pic of her and Nate one day. Hang on.”

  After she’d retrieved the picture from her phone and e-mailed it to me, I felt a brief surge of triumph. I didn’t have a clue what J. had planned, but at least now I had a face to put to Lilah’s name. Edie was right: Lilah was pretty, with dark hair and dark eyes and a quiet intensity about her that seemed menacing, even in a picture.

  As I was leaving I reminded Edie to be careful, and from there got in the back of Jack’s Honda Civic. We drove off just as Sheriff Finnegan was driving in, Diggs and I both ducking down as Jack drove past.

  “I’ve got a picture of Lilah,” I said to the guys. “But she’s been here almost a year—which means she’s talked to a hell of a lot of people. Nate, Mike Reynolds, and the reverend could just be the tip of the iceberg. Any sign of Jenny while I was in there?”

  “I haven’t seen her,” Diggs said. “But that doesn’t mean she’s not here somewhere.”

  My mind was reeling. There were way too many things for us to keep track of alone. “Look, it seems like we’re a little over our heads at this point. Or a lot. I mean, where do we even begin from here? Especially if something is really about to happen tonight, like Cameron has suggested.”

  “So, you want to pack up and head home?” Diggs said. “Ready to call it a day?”

  “No, smartass,” I said. I rolled my eyes. “But I think it’s time to bring in reinforcements. At the very least, we could let Sheriff Finnegan know about Lilah and Jenny.”

  “Already done,” Jack said. He glanced back at me over his shoulder. It was four o’clock, the snow flying in earnest now, the sky already dark. Jack drove us back toward Littlehope’s main drag at a crawl, windshield wipers on high.

  “Excuse me?” I said. “What do you mean?”

  “I just finished with him,” Jack said. “Just left Sheriff Finnegan’s office. That’s why it took me so long to get here.”

  “What did you tell him?” I asked.

  “I told him the FBI has some evidence that there may be some trouble in Littlehope tonight, and it could be tied to the deaths of Reverend Diggins and Mike Reynolds and his girlfriend. Then, I gave him the description of Jenny. I’ll send him the photo of Lilah next.”

  “What did he say?” Diggs asked.

  “He’d already gotten word from someone else, actually,” Jack said. He pulled into the parking lot at Bennett’s. The place was filling fast.

  “What do you mean?” I asked. “Who?”

  Jack put the car in park and turned to look at both of us. “Trent Willett contacted him yesterday. Said he’s on his way into town, but in the meantime the sheriff should be on high alert.”

  “Trent Willett, the douche bag who shot my dog?” I demanded.

  “And you,” Jack and Diggs reminded me at the same time. Like I’d forgotten that part.

  “Finnegan also asked me if I’d heard anything from either of you,” Jack said. “Willett was apparently asking.”

  Shit. Like there weren’t enough things to worry about, now we had a government spook headed to town.

  “Did he say when he’d get here?”

  “Sometime today,” Jack said. “Which means it might be a good idea for you to follow Cameron’s suggestion and get the hell out of town.”

  “We’ll keep a low profile,” I said. “But I want to stay here a little longer, at least—especially if Lilah’s around here somewhere. Getting to her is the best chance we have of actually reaching whoever leads the organization.”

  Jack didn’t say anything, but the look on his face was damned unnerving. I kept going. “Jack… That means if we are able to find Lilah, you have to keep her alive,” I said. “You can’t just off her, no matter how much you might want to.”

  “I know that,” he said. At the look in his eye, I wasn’t so sure of that.

  “Just as long as you do.”

  “What about targets?” Diggs said. “If we can’t figure out who the actual operatives are at this point, maybe we can figure out what their target will be.”

  “We’re talking county wide, then?” I asked. “From here all the way to Boothbay Harbor and Bath? You’ve got city New Year’s celebrations, schools, hospitals, churches… Where do you suggest we start?”

  “It seems like Lilah’s been focused primarily on Littlehope—that’s where Diggs’ father was based, and so was Mike Reynolds. With the storm, it seems unlikely that they’d be traveling too far from here,” Jack said.

  “So you think they’re actually going for something here in town?” I said doubtfully. “The only place where anyone will really be is Bennett’s, and with the storm it won’t exactly be Times Square there tonight.”

  “But they’ve had plenty of small targets before,” Diggs said. “Two or three victims at a time. Bennett’s would still mean a higher body count than that.”

  I hedged. “It’s not much to go on.”

  “It’s the best we’ve got right now, though,” Jack said. “Bennett’s is pretty much the only place open at this point—there were some other school dances, that kind of thing, but everything’s shut down for the storm.”

  “Okay,” Diggs said. “So, we’ve got Bennett’s. The Trib. The island, though that’s pretty much evacuated so I don’t know what the point would be. Edie’s place. There are no schools in session. Church services?”

  I shook my head. “New Year’s Eve isn’t really a God holiday.”

  Diggs sighed. “Let’s focus on what we’ve got so far, then. Come on. I want to go in and have a quick chat with Mimi, show her the picture we got. If nothing else, she might have some idea how to find Lilah.”

  Jack looked out at the blowing snow distastefully before he shut off the car. “It’s coming down fast,” he said. “Finnegan said most people will stay in tonight, anyway. He doesn’t think many cars will be on the road.”

  “Maybe, but we can’t just count on that,” I said. “People are pretty hearty around here. A little snow won’t get between them and their favorite brew on New Year’s Eve.”

  “A little snow?” Jack said as he slammed his car door. He leaned into the wind and put the hood up on his jacket.

  “Okay, more than a little snow,” I conceded as a gust of ice-cold wind took my breath away. Australia really was looking better and better.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Jack went into Mimi’s before Diggs and me, to scope things out and make sure Trent Willett wasn’t lurking in the corner ready to gun me down again. When he was sure it was clear, he waved us in.

  The place had livened up significantly, so I was guessing Mimi hadn’t gotten the bad news from Sheriff Finnegan yet. Or maybe she had, and was just ignoring it. Diggs and I approached the bar while Jack went to a cell-friendly corner to send Lilah’s picture to the sheriff.

  Mimi took one look at Diggs and me, and shook her head. “You hear Finnegan’s trying to shut me down?” she said. “This is my best day of the year next to St. Paddy’s, and I got two new knees to pay for. No way in hell I’m closing down.”

  “Are you sure about that?” I said. “If the sheriff thinks it would be a good idea, maybe he’s right. I mean, the weather’s getting bad ou
t there.”

  “There’s nobody in this damn town who doesn’t live within walking distance of this bar. Everybody who comes in tonight turns their keys in, and they don’t get ‘em back till I give them the go-ahead. Problem solved.”

  Only if our only problem really was the weather, but I was thinking that ranked low on the list of things we needed to worry about.

  “What did Sheriff Finnegan tell you?” I asked.

  “That the storm was coming in and it looks like it’ll be bad. And he had some horseshit about somebody making a bomb threat. Honest to god, somebody looks at you cross-eyed these days and the whole state shuts down. I hope to hell I’ve got more spine than that.”

  “I don’t think it’s a matter of spine,” Diggs argued. “I think it’s a matter of being smart.”

  “Well, I never claimed to be a genius, hon, but I can do basic math. And I shut down tonight and the numbers don’t add up.”

  Diggs looked at me helplessly. Mimi held up her hand before he could argue any further. “I’m done, Diggs. Gotta get back to work. And you…” She leveled a look at me, then jerked her head in the direction of a booth in the corner. “You got company. Bring this over, would you?” She handed me a tall fizzy drink and gave me a little shove. “Now, go on.”

  I looked at Diggs, who appeared as wary as me. With extreme caution, I made my way through the growing crowd. It was eight o’clock, the band—Storm Warning, Mimi announced at the top of her considerable voice—just getting started. Between the music and the growing masses, I could barely think straight.

  When the booth was in sight, I stopped dead. Diggs grinned. He nodded toward the table. “Go on.”

  “You knew?” I hissed at him.

  “Jack saw when he came in looking for Willett,” he said. “Now, don’t just stand there.”

  I took a couple of steps closer. “You ordered this,” I said.

  My mother looked up from the table. She looked good—like, really good. Tanned, rested, toned. Well groomed. Totally sober. She gave me a kind of awkward half smile when she realized who it was, taking in my bruises and puffy lip in a glance. I started to hand her the drink, then took it back and tasted it. Sweet and syrupy, but definitely alcohol-free. Classic Coke, straight up. I set it in front of her, then sat down on the bench across from her. Diggs slid in beside me.

  “You know, if you’d stop being such a smartass, maybe people would stop beating you up,” she said.

  “I’ll take that under advisement,” I said. “Hi, Mom. You look good.”

  I’d never called her mom before. It felt good, though, and she didn’t look like she wanted to kick my teeth in for using the dreaded word. I figured maybe I’d stick with it for a while, see what happened.

  “I wish I could say the same,” she said to me. She eyeballed me, head to toe. “What did you do to your hair?”

  “Dyed it. We’re fugitives,” I reminded her.

  “Right. Well, it doesn’t look good. You’re a redhead. You should just stick with that.”

  “Okay,” I agreed readily. I was too glad to see her to even be annoyed. I hadn’t realized just how much I’d missed her, all these months away. I used to go long stretches without seeing Kat, but somehow all the death and mayhem over the past two years made me appreciate her more. She was prickly bordering on downright mean a lot of the time, but at least I knew what to expect from her.

  “Hey,” I said, as if it was a thought that had just occurred to me. “So here’s a question: What the hell are you doing here?”

  “I got word there was a reunion. I just figured my invitation got lost in the mail.”

  “We thought about getting in touch,” Diggs said, “but given what may be about to happen here, we were trying to keep people we care about out of harm’s way.”

  “Sucking up doesn’t suit you, Diggs,” she said. She paused, and got a little more serious. “Cameron wanted to keep me away from here, too. But if the town’s going up, I’d like to at least try and help put it back together again afterward, if I can. If we can’t stop it from happening, that is.”

  “Does that mean you’re back to stay?” I asked.

  “Not sure. It gets old on the run, though—how many cabana girls can a woman possibly seduce? I’d rather just take these sons of bitches down, and get back to my life.”

  “And Maya?” I said. “Are you going to call and let her know you’re back?”

  “Whether I do or don’t doesn’t have a damn thing to do with you,” she said shortly. “So don’t start playing matchmaker.”

  “I heard she still comes around here regularly. She’s even asked Mimi if anyone’s seen you around.”

  Kat looked at Diggs. “I don’t know how you’ve put up with this one all these years.”

  “It’s a mystery to me, too,” Diggs said. He stood, then leaned in and kissed the top of my head. “You two catch up. I’m just going to talk to Mimi for a second. Can I see your phone?” he asked me.

  I handed it to him. He squeezed my shoulder, and left us.

  “So,” Kat said when Diggs was gone. “You two are still together?”

  “Seems like it,” I said.

  “And he’s still sober.”

  “Yeah. Five years now.”

  She shook her head. “I’ll tell you, I never envisioned this when you were following him around while you were still in high school. I figured you’d get knocked up, he’d disappear in the night…”

  “We were friends. He didn’t touch me back then. Not that way.”

  “So you’ve said. I think I’m actually starting to believe it.” She paused. “Turns out he’s a pretty good man.” For Kat, this was tantamount to calling Diggs Christ himself.

  “He is.” I paused. “Did you know Reverend Diggins wasn’t his father?”

  She didn’t look surprised. “I had my suspicions. I didn’t know Ethan or the family when Diggs was growing up, though—I was, what, nine when he was born?” I stifled an inward groan at the reminder. It’s one of the disadvantages of dating an older man when your mother was a teenage bride—the age gap between Diggs and me is only slightly less than the one between him and Kat. “Who the reverend’s wife three towns over was screwing wasn’t exactly on my radar.”

  “Yeah, I guess not. Any idea who his real dad might be?”

  “No clue. It’s kind of a relief he doesn’t have that son of a bitch’s blood running through his veins though, isn’t it?”

  I laughed. “Kind of,” I admitted. I let the subject drop and moved on to more pressing matters. “We’re still not sure what the town’s in for tonight.”

  “What does Cameron have to say about it?”

  “He doesn’t seem to know any more than we do.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Out on the island—I thought he was coming back to the mainland, but now I’m not so sure. He may end up stuck out there.”

  “Alone?” she asked.

  “Yeah. He wanted to keep an eye out.” She didn’t say anything. “Why?”

  “It just seems strange to me—him just sending you all out here, knowing what’s at risk. All the people after you right now.”

  “It wasn’t his preference,” I admitted. “He tried to get us to leave town. We’re staying to see this thing through, though.”

  “Stubborn idiots,” she murmured. Her eyes shifted from mine. “What about Jenny?”

  “She’s out there, skulking around.” I motioned to my lip. “She’s the one who did this, actually. I think I tagged her once, but she’s tough. She’s been killing people left and right since she got here. I don’t see her stopping anytime soon.”

  “But she’s not working for this…what are you all calling it? J.?”

  “No. She’s trying to take them down—basically, by murdering anyone they come in contact with. Not a lot of finesse in the plan, but to be honest it’s better than anything we’ve come up with so far.”

  The band kicked into a song I’d never heard before, abou
t a cowboy whose buddies refused to party it up with him. He seemed pretty upbeat about the dilemma, and the lead singer was good—lean, goateed, and a total monster on the guitar. I watched for a second, letting my thoughts settle, until I pulled myself back to Kat. I considered asking her about what I’d remembered the night before, but couldn’t imagine doing it without having some kind of emotional breakdown so figured it could wait.

  “Did Dad ever say anything to you about the organization?” I asked. “Or maybe Isaac let something drop?”

  Her eyes darkened when I mentioned Isaac’s name, a reaction I’d seen from her before. “Isaac and I didn’t have a lot to do with each other. And your father never really talked about his past. He told me about his sister, and a few things about Jonestown. But I knew very little about the organization until I talked to Cameron.”

  Before I could respond, Diggs appeared by my side. “Hey—sorry to interrupt, but we have to go.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Willett just pulled in.”

  I got to my feet. Kat started to rise as well, but I shook my head. “I think maybe you should stay here for now.”

  I’m sure she would have argued, but just then something caught her attention at the bar. I followed her gaze, and smiled. A tall, lean woman with curly gray-white hair sat talking to Mimi: Maya. She must have come in while I was talking to Kat.

  “We’ll come back for you,” I promised. “Just stay out of trouble.”

  “Yeah,” Kat said. “Because I’m the one who needs to be told that. Be careful out there.”

  I nodded as Diggs took my arm and swept me toward the back door, back into the storm.

  Jack stayed inside to figure out what was going on with Willett, but Monty met us out back. He was covered in snow and hunched in his winter jacket, looking more ruffled than I’d ever seen him.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.