Gretchen Birch Boxed Set (Books 1-4)

by Deb Baker

  Anything, else? Oh yes, let’s add a few physical problems. A broken wrist and second-degree burns on her face and feet.

  To top it off, she had absolutely nothing to show for her efforts to save her mother except a key of unknown origin. Instead of clearing her mother’s name, she’d implicated her further. If she stayed longer, who knew how much more physical harm she could inflict on herself, how much more physical evidence she could dredge up against her mother.

  She decided to call Steve from the house, then catch the next flight home before Courtney permanently displaced her.

  She lifted Nimrod out of his purse and held him on her shoulder. He licked her ear. “Right now,” Gretchen said to him, “you’re the best thing I’ve got going for me, and you’re only a temporary visitor. Sad isn’t it.”

  __________

  You can’t go home!” Nina wailed. “I can’t handle this by myself. What about the key? It’s going to open the right door. You’ll see. If you don’t stay and fight for Caroline, who will?”

  “Why isn’t she here fighting for herself?” Gretchen threw clothes into her open suitcase lying on the bed. Wobbles watched the action with a steady gaze, his ears flatter on his head than usual.

  “What about a flight? You can’t go to the airport without a ticket.”

  “I’ll wait on standby. Nina, I’m desperate. I can’t let my whole life pass before my eyes.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Name one thing that’s going right in my life.”

  “Let me make you a cup of green tea.” Nina pulled several pairs of shorts out of the suitcase and returned them to the dresser. “This is impulsive. Let’s talk about it. I know, call Steve. Work it out on the phone.”

  Gretchen tossed her hiking boots into the suitcase and stomped into the kitchen to retrieve the cordless phone. “I’ll call and let him know I’m on my way,” she said, carrying the phone into the bedroom and closing the door.

  “Explain,” she said to him after waiting an inordinate amount of time while his secretary located him, annoyed that she still wasn’t on the interruptible list, that special group of coddled clients that commanded instant attention. Instead she had to resort to intimidating an overworked secretary.

  “This is bad timing, Gretchen.” Steve said, sounding rushed. “I’m in the middle of sensitive negotiations. Why didn’t you return my call earlier?”

  In a meeting at 9:30 in the evening, Boston time? “I needed time to think.”

  “I don’t know what to say for myself. I love you, you know. Sometimes, I admit, I’m a bit misguided.”

  “That’s it?” Gretchen said. “That’s all you have to say for yourself?”

  “It’s over with Courtney. It hadn’t really even started. She got carried away.”

  “Does she understand that? That you were a little misguided and she expected more than you were willing to deliver?”

  Steve hesitated. Gretchen could hear his breath, labored and anxious. “Yes. She understands clearly.”

  “Maybe I should give her a call,” Gretchen suggested, lightly. “After all, she’s practically a child. She must be devastated.”

  “Ah. That wouldn’t be wise. Might even make the situation worse. Besides, she’s on vacation. Someplace in South Carolina.”

  How convenient, Gretchen thought. She watched Wobbles snuggle into the suitcase surrounded by her clothes. “You haven’t asked about me or my mother, about what’s happening in Phoenix.”

  “I really don’t have time right now, but I want to ask. I’ve been thinking about you. Later. I’ll call later after my meetings.”

  Later, Gretchen thought wearily, wait till later. Wasn’t that always the response? Maybe later. Gretchen had waited all these years for a later that never arrived.

  She saw a flash of lightning out the window and heard the immediate crash of thunder. Rain pounded hard against the roof, and she thought about flipping on the bedroom light. Instead she sat in the gathering gloom and watched nature’s dramatic interpretation of fireworks.

  “What about us, Steve? I’m coming home so we can figure out where to go from here.”

  “I love you, Gretchen. We can work this out. We can’t throw away the last seven years.”

  “I’ll come then.”

  “I have to go to Hilton Head for a few days. Business. A conference, and I’m the keynote speaker. Right after that we can get together. I know I’ve disappointed you, but I’ll make it up to you. Promise.”

  Gretchen stared into the mirror, saw her eyes pale and pained. Courtney vacationing in South Carolina, Steve on his way to Hilton Head. Gretchen hoped Steve was more convincing when he went to trial with his court cases. Was it a nervous slip of the tongue, or merely coincidental these two people would be traveling to the same state?

  No, Gretchen thought, I’m becoming exactly like Nina. I no longer believe in coincidence.

  “Call me later,” Steve said, hanging up and leaving her holding a dead phone.

  __________

  When Gretchen opened the bedroom door, she gave a loud start.

  “You scared me, Nina,” she said, peering at her motionless aunt who stood in the hall. “We need to turn on lights. Who’d guess it’s only four o’clock in the afternoon. It feels more like midnight.”

  Nina remained rigid in front of her.

  “What’s wrong?” Gretchen asked.

  Nina, moving woodenly, took her hand, and led her to the workshop doorway. “Martha’s bag is gone,” she said, her voice leaden. “Someone must have been here when we went to see Bonnie.”

  “We should have hurried right home,” Gretchen said, after the initial shock. “What were we thinking when we stopped to eat? Are you sure it’s gone?”

  “It’s gone all right. And there’s more.”

  Nina flipped a switch by the door. A fluorescent light hanging over the worktable illuminated the room.

  Gretchen saw something hanging over the padded table and moved closer. She drew in her breath, sharp and quick.

  Someone had hung one of her mother’s Shirley Temple dolls from the overhead light with a piece of restringing elastic. Blood dripped from its face and pooled on the floor. The doll swayed gently from the noose around its neck, eyes wide and sightless.

  __________

  The screen glowed, casting an eerie light over Caroline’s intent features. She quickly registered as a member and hesitated briefly at the password prompt. She keyed in an appropriate password: Counterattack. If this were a game of chess, she would be planning multiple moves into the future, but she hadn’t studied openings for this particular game. Besides, she couldn’t have anticipated her opponent’s deadly first move.

  All that mattered now was the end game. A draw wasn’t an acceptable finish. There could be only one winner.

  Caroline’s hands trembled in anticipation as she worked her way through the red tape associated with Internet bidding. She clicked on the French Jumeau Bébé listing and frowned. The seller had set up a private auction, effectively cloaking his, or her, identity until after the final accepted bid. Only the highest bidder would be allowed full contact information about the seller.

  She entered her first bid, determined to win.

  Someone else’s bid immediately cancelled hers out.

  She keyed in a higher amount determined to avoid the other bidder’s strategy of proxy bidding. Allowing the online service to bid for her until her maximum dollar amount was reached would have stripped Caroline of her feeling of power. She wouldn’t relinquish control.

  Besides, she had no maximum level at which she would withdraw.

  She had to win, and she had to win her way.

  Chapter 21

  Gretchen stared at the hanging doll, cold fear jettisoning through her body. Was the intruder still in the house? She quickly closed the workshop door and locked it. She picked up a pair of scissors lying on the table, and, with Nina as backup, she opened the closet door and peered in. No
thing inside but more bins. She sighed with relief. “It’s empty,” she said.

  Nina dropped the repair hook she had grabbed as a weapon. It clattered to the floor. “I almost died of fright.”

  Gretchen retrieved the hook and placed it on the workbench with the scissors. “I’m calling the police. Let’s stay in here until they arrive.”

  “What about the animals?” Nina asked, shrilly.

  “I’m sure whoever did this is gone by now,” Gretchen said, dialing 911. “But let’s stay smart. If it was me, if I was the bad guy, all I’d care about would be a safe way out of the house.”

  “What if we came home while he was here,” Nina said. “And he’s trapped inside with us.”

  “Then staying in the workshop will give him time to escape.” Gretchen wasn’t sure she liked the idea of hiding, but after another glance at the swinging doll, she decided not to risk a confrontation.

  She gave the dispatcher the necessary information, alerting him to the remote possibility that the intruder might still be in the house before hanging up.

  “Red paint,” she said after touching the pooled liquid on the floor and noting an open jar of paint on the table.

  “Don’t contaminate the crime scene,” Nina advised. “I hope they dust for prints.”

  “How many people knew Martha’s bag was here?” Gretchen asked.

  “Bonnie, April, Rita, Larry and Julia, Karen Fitz.” Nina ticked them off on her fingers. “And anyone they might have told. We weren’t trying to keep it a secret.”

  “We really botched this one,” Gretchen said, thinking, What else is new? “Who had a key to the house?”

  Nina shrugged. “I don’t know.” Then she widened her eyes. “We gave a key to Larry at the hospital when we thought Daisy was Caroline. He checked on the animals, and I suppose he could have had a copy made.”

  Gretchen shook her head. “The sliding door was unlocked before I gave Larry the key. I think whoever did this was also in the house earlier. Who else?”

  “Clients and friends were in and out of here all the time, but I never knew Caroline to give out her keys.”

  Gretchen heard sirens in the distance, growing louder and stopping outside. With all the noise only a bungling fool would still be inside the house.

  After a thorough search, a police officer with a perky ponytail and a cautious stance discovered the point of entry. “Jimmied the lock,” she said, studying the patio doors leading to the pool. “Probably came over the fence and forced the lock.”

  “Anything else gone?” another officer said, holding a notepad and pen. “Other than the bag?”

  “I don’t see anything else missing,” Gretchen said.

  “Me either,” Nina said, plopping on the living room sofa surrounded by canines, a firm hand on Enrico, his incisors bared. “I should take him home. He isn’t handling all the excitement very well,” she said to Gretchen. “I’ll come right back.”

  “You have to fill out this report first,” the woman said, handing a clipboard to Nina and keeping a wary eye on Enrico. “Why would anyone break in to steal a bag of old clothes?”

  “Someone wanted the key,” Gretchen said. “Someone knew what the key would open.”

  “And what does it open?”

  “We don’t know.”

  The officers observed Gretchen and Nina with steady stares. “And you don’t know why anyone would hang the doll and smear red paint all over it,” the officer with the notepad said.

  “Right,” Gretchen and Nina said simultaneously.

  “Looks like a warning to me,” perky ponytail said. “Or a threat. There’s a warrant out for Caroline Birch. Could she have done this?”

  Gretchen gaped at the police officer. “Why would my mother break into her own home? Wouldn’t she let herself in through the front door?”

  “That’s right,” Nina said, the pen in her hand poised midair, jabbing at the officers. “She wouldn’t try to scare her own sister and daughter.” She shook her head. Gretchen smiled. She could hear the wheels turning in Nina’s head, berating the cops for what she considered total ineptness.

  Their eyes met. We’ll have to take care of this on our own, won’t we? Gretchen thought.

  Nina nodded slowly and Gretchen blinked. Nina’s psychic thing was getting scary.

  __________

  “Most of it is simply intuition,” Nina said, explaining what Gretchen referred to as her psychic abilities. The police officers had departed, and Nina had returned the cheeky Chihuahua to his owner. “Nothing magical about it. And it usually runs in families, so you probably have it, too, but you haven’t figured out how to channel your powers.”

  “Did you hear what I was thinking when that officer suggested that my mother had broken into her own house?” Gretchen asked, dishing up food concoctions for Tutu, Nimrod, and Wobbles. All thoughts of finding a flight to Boston had vanished from her mind.

  “Not exactly. I caught the gist of it, though.”

  “Well that isn’t so hard. You probably could tell from my expression that I didn’t have any faith in their ability to solve the burglary.”

  “That could be true.” Nina placed two bowls on the floor and watched Wobbles jump onto the counter to eat his. “Cats on the countertop are disgusting,” she said, making a face.

  “Wobbles knows he can only go on this section,” Gretchen said, gesturing to the countertop farthest from the food preparation area. “Right here on the corner.”

  “Anyway, you should work on your own psychic abilities.”

  “If you’re so good, why haven’t you solved Martha’s murder and found my mother?”

  “It doesn’t work like that.” Nina watched Tutu lick every last crumb from her bowl. “Sometimes I have a clear mental image of fragments of the past or future, but mostly I analyze my feelings through auras. An image of Martha’s murderer won’t pop into my head, but I might see an evil aura emanating from the killer if I encounter him.”

  “And have you seen any malevolent auras lately?” Gretchen picked up the canine’s bowls and soaped them in the sink. Wobbles jumped to the ground, challenging the two dogs to rush him. They kept their distance, although Nimrod wagged his short tail ferociously.

  “To tell you the truth, my energy connection seems to be on the fritz lately,” Nina said. “To make it work I have to clear my mind and concentrate, and there’s too much turmoil right now to see through the haze. That hanging doll, for example.” Nina shivered visibly. “I don’t have to be a psychic to read that message.”

  “I agree,” Gretchen said. “Steve’s going to be away from Boston for a few days, and it doesn’t make sense for me to go home now. I can’t leave you here alone with some psychopath running loose.”

  She hoped Nina wouldn’t pursue a discussion of Steve. She wasn’t anxious to share her confused feelings with her aunt. Her emotions were too close to the surface, and she needed time to think about what she wanted to do next.

  Nina was delighted when she learned of Gretchen’s change of plans to follow up with any comments about Steve. “Let’s get started then. The key, obviously, is important. Important enough to risk breaking and entering.”

  “But the thief wants us to know he’s angry.”

  “Or she,” Nina said. “I still think we need to watch April more carefully. My aura might be off, but every time I’m around her I get mixed signals and a confusing blend of colors.”

  “And how about Bonnie,” Gretchen said. “She was lying about the Rescue Mission.”

  Nina held up her copy of Martha’s hidden key. “Let’s start with April and Bonnie and see if this fits in either one of their door locks.”

  A crack of lightning struck nearby, and Nimrod’s ears flattened to his head. His tiny poodle body shook violently. Gretchen picked him up. “It’s storming outside. Can’t we wait until it passes?”

  “During Monsoon season in Phoenix?” Nina said. “It’ll continue to storm at least until midnight. Besides, we can
use the rain and darkness as cover.”

  “Great. Just what I want to do. Stand in the rain.”

  “Slink around in the rain,” Nina corrected her, ignoring the sarcasm. “We are going to slink like an Arizona rattlesnake.”

  __________

  They drove toward Tempe, taking one detour after another to escape entrapment in flooded washes. On the left side of the road, coyotes appeared in the Impala’s headlights, gaunt, running loosely in packs, eyes red and glaring. Their heads swung in unison to look at the car, but they continued moving on through the spears of rain.

  The windshield wipers slapped against the window in high gear. Occasionally, Nina pulled over to the side of the road until visibility returned. At times, all they could see ahead of them were taillights and streams of water rushing down the windshield.

  April’s modest home came into view through the descending gloom. Nina parked across the street and killed the lights, and Gretchen saw April’s car parked in the carport. Through the rapidly fogging windshield of the Impala they watched an undulating glow behind April’s front curtain.

  “She’s watching television in the dark,” Nina said, rubbing her palm in a circle on the driver’s window to clear her view. “This isn’t going to be as easy as I thought.”

  Gretchen clutched the key. “Only one of us needs to go,” she said, watching April’s window for movement.

  “You can,” Nina said, looking away.

  “Who’s idea was this in the first place?”

  Rain hammered on the roof of the car, reminding Gretchen of one Boston hailstorm so intense that it pounded circular dents into the hood of Steve’s Porche.

  “I have an umbrella,” Nina said, reaching onto the backseat floor and pulling out a long white umbrella with pink polka dots. She handed it to Gretchen.