Shadows 02 Celtic Shadows

by K C West

  How civilized. When had we Americans decided that boiled eggs should be smashed and served like a semi-solid soup? We could take a lesson from our British friends.

  This egg was cooked to perfection. I spread my toast liberally with chunky orange marmalade, thinking that, under other circumstances, I would have enjoyed the rather simple, but delightful meal.

  By the time we stepped outside of the cafe, the rain had stopped. A gentle breeze felt warm and soft against my face. Since my heavy shirt and pants felt uncomfortable in this milder temperature, I suggested that Terry go on ahead to the police station while I returned to the inn to change.

  I knew that I didn’t have to worry about Pup, who was quite safe with Geoff, so I climbed the twisting narrow stairs to our room. Arwel and her staff had been in to make the bed and tidy up. I looked around and was struck by the emptiness. Once, this room had been a source of solitude for us and a respite from our wild escapades through the Welsh countryside. I remembered driving along the coast, hiking over flower-blanketed hillsides, and exploring countless shady glens with PJ at my side.

  Her clothing hung where she had left it, in the wardrobe and draped across the wooden chair by the bed. I didn’t have the heart to move any of it. Leaving everything as it was made me feel that she had just stepped out and would be right back.

  A stack of travel brochures had been scattered over the nightstand, but someone had straightened them into a neat pile. As I pulled on my cargo pants and a lighter shirt, I found myself staring at those folders, feeling a prickling sensation at the back of my neck. I swore the stack seemed to glow. I rubbed my eyes and took a deep, steadying breath.

  “Damn, what is happening to me? I must be losing my mind.”

  I looked around the room and then back at the pile, afraid to approach it. The glow intensified.

  “This is insane. I must be insane. Can grief drive a person crazy?”

  Faint laughter seemed to bounce from wall to wall. Then a softly vibrating haze materialized into a form over our bed. An Amazon. Not Marna. Not a warrior, but no less an Amazon.

  “Who are you?”

  “Shh,” the voice cautioned. “Those parchments. You must read them.” Her hand gestured toward the end table.

  “The travel brochures?” My mind refused to function. “You want me to read those? Why?”

  “You must,” she said, her voice fading out. “For your soul mate.”

  A sob caught in my throat. “For PJ?”

  The image vanished.

  I turned in a circle, searching for her, but there was no one in the room but me. “Please. I have to know. What is in these that I should study them now?” There was no answer. “I don’t have the time.”

  The stack no longer glowed. I picked up the pamphlets and flipped through them. Was PJ sending me a message? Was there a clue in here somewhere?

  I stuffed the brochures into a tote and left the room, determined to read every word in them if it would bring us closer to finding my partner.

  I saw Geoff in the lobby with Pup. “Trevor is on the telephone,” he said, “following up on some leads. Nothing of importance. A lot of people claim to be eyewitnesses to this or that. Most turn out to be cranks, and when it comes right down to it, we end up in the same old dead end.”

  I wanted to lie down and cry. “You’d think that in a place this small, someone would have seen something, some little thing that would give us a clue.”

  “Don’t give up, Dr. Blair. Something’s going to open up soon.”

  “It has to be soon, or else… ” I choked on the words.

  Geoff squeezed my shoulder. “Here, now. Hang in there.”

  I paused a moment to calm myself. “I’ll take Pup with me. You and Trevor have enough to do without tending to him.”

  “He’s been no trouble at all.” Geoff patted Pup’s head and handed me his leash.

  *

  The tape played back and forth as we searched its contents for any clue that would lead us to PJ. Constable Williams kept us supplied with tea, and he gave Pup water and dog biscuits from a stash he kept in his desk drawer for the K9 corps. During each break, I studied PJ’s stack of travel brochures. Many were of locations we had already visited, but there were some of places we had hoped to see together before we left Wales.

  A lump formed in my throat. There was still time for that. There had to be.

  “She refers to her captors as amigos,” Terry said, bringing me back to the present. “Maybe she’s telling us that they’re Latinos.”

  “Or Americans, since she stresses that the ransom be paid in American dollars.”

  “Then there’s Sandy and Max.” I stood up and arched my aching back. “Who are they?”

  Terry’s gaze tracked me as I paced beside the table. “You know Sandy, and so does PJ. It wouldn’t surprise me if he’s behind this whole thing.”

  “You’re wrong,” I said. “Sandy, PJ, and I are close friends, and he’s a successful scientist.”

  “Successful, maybe. Poor, probably.” She poured another cup of tea for herself. “The lure of money has led many a young man into a life of crime.”

  “No way. Not Sandy.”

  “Okay, okay.” Terry took a sip and stared silently into her cup.

  “Are you going to sit all day reading tea leaves, or are you going to come up with some worthwhile suggestions?” I sat back down and opened my notebook.

  “Patience, darling. Goodness, what am I saying? You never did have much of that, did you?”

  “Damn it!” I hit the table with a clenched fist. “Time is wasting while you’re busy with your little games.”

  “I’m not in any hurry. After all it’s not my little tart who’s - ”

  Terry grabbed my arm before my hand connected with her cheek. “I do love to see you burn, you know.”

  I pulled away from her, reaching for my cell phone.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Calling Frederick to tell him I want you off this case. He’s not getting his money’s worth.”

  “Oh, come on, where’s your sense of humor?”

  She tried to look contrite.

  I glared at her.

  “All right, I’ll get down to business, but you can’t blame me for taking advantage of a rare chance to niggle at you. Call it payback.”

  I ignored her last remark and responded instead to the first one. “You had damn well better get down to business.”

  I was so furious by this time that I wanted to cry, but I wasn’t about to give Terry the satisfaction of seeing me fall apart. I faced her. “Just remember that you’re being paid to help find PJ. My relationship with her has nothing to do with your assignment. Do you hear me? It has nothing to do with it. Now cut the crap and get to work.”

  Terry stared at me with intense dislike before rewinding the tape, so that we could start again.

  It felt good to be off the uncomfortable chairs, so we remained standing while waiting for the tape to rewind.

  “Let’s think about those names again.” Sandy and Max, Sandy and Max. I ran the names through my mind. “There has to be a connection, but what? Sandy and - wait a minute. Peter. Maybe that’s it. Sandy is a nickname. His real name is Peter, Peter Arnold.”

  “So what’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Are you hiding Sandy behind his alias? Sandy didn’t do it, but Peter Arnold did. Is that it?” Her laugh was taunting, daring me to react.

  I did, whirling around and this time connecting.

  Terry turned in the nick of time, avoiding the full impact of my hand. As luck would have it, Constable Williams chose to appear at that very moment. I was mortified by my action and by the fact that the constable had witnessed everything.

  “Here now, Dr. Blair, Dr. Simms, what is going on?”

  If I hadn’t been so embarrassed, I would have found his startled expression comical.

  “Nothing,” Terry said. “I provoked her by be
ing my usual bitchy self.”

  The constable looked from one to the other of us. “You’re sure that everything’s all right?”

  “Fine,” Terry said, and then turned to me. “I’m sorry. I was just trying to get your goat.”

  “I apologize for slapping you. That was uncalled for.” I felt like a jerk for acting just the way she wanted me to. In her mind, it was a small victory. “I haven’t been myself lately,” I added.

  “I’ll get a fresh pot of tea,” Constable Williams said, backing through the door.

  Terry and I looked at each other. Then we laughed at how we must have looked to him, and that he apparently believed pouring more tea into us would solve everything.

  When he returned, we were studying the tape once more.

  “Constable,” I said, trying to resolve a question that had been nagging at me. “I remember hearing something about a place where harps are manufactured, or used to be. Do you know of anything like that around here?”

  The young man thought for a few seconds and his expression brightened. “Yes, Llanrwst.” He helped us locate it on the map. “It was once known for its harps.”

  “Thank you.” My smile matched his.

  “Want to fill me in on this?” Terry asked, after the constable had left.

  “Remember, you pointed out the emphasis on ‘harp’ in PJ’s words: T don’t mean to harp on the subject.’ It didn’t occur to me then, but she and I were planning on doing some more sightseeing while we were here. She mentioned going to this place where they used to make harps or sold harps, or something. I thought there was a pamphlet about it, but so far… Geez, I wish I could remember what she said about it.”

  “Never mind, we have the name of a town which may or may not mean anything.” She made a notation on her pad.

  I went to the door and called to Constable Williams. “Is there something about a shaking bridge connected with Llanrwst?”

  “Oh yes, Dr. Blair,” he said, returning to our open doorway. “The Shaking Bridge dates back to 1636. Though it has been modified since then, it’s still quite a landmark.”

  “Thank you, Constable. You know your local history well.”

  “It’s a hobby, Dr. Blair. I hated history when I was in school, but I love it now.”

  “I think we have to have history of our own before we can appreciate history in general.”

  “Yes, quite so.”

  “I think we may have stumbled onto something,” I told Terry, after the constable left.

  She gave me a puzzled look. “What’s with this Shaking Bridge?”

  “PJ was shaking her hands. Maybe it was another way of identifying the town where she’s being held.”

  Terry tapped her teeth with her pencil. “Hmm. Pretty clever. Okay, let’s see what we have.” She took one of the yellow pads and wrote Llanrwst, harps, and Shaking Bridge in capital letters. Underneath that, she wrote the names Sandy and Max, then on the next line, Peter Arnold. Next, she wrote Max with a big question mark. She slid the pad over to me. “This is like an algebra problem, and Max is the unknown quantity.”

  “Exactly. It’s been obvious all along what PJ was telling us, but we didn’t see it.” I dropped my head into my hands and rubbed the bridge of my nose, feeling the onset of another headache. “Now if we can just find out how Max figures into the equation.”

  “Then we put the names together, come up with the right combination, and go to Llanrwst.”

  “But without knowing who Max is, we’re up a creek.”

  I stared at the names on the yellow pad while Terry left to go to the bathroom. We were missing something obvious. I doodled around the neatly blocked name. “Wait a minute.”

  I was on the cell phone, holding for Frederick, when Terry returned.

  Once I heard his voice, I couldn’t contain my excitement. “We may have a line on something, but we don’t have all the pieces yet.”

  “Quickly, what is it? I’m supposed to deliver the ransom in three hours.”

  “Believe me, I haven’t forgotten.” I felt that trickle of fear along my spine, and I glanced at the old clock ticking away on the wall. It wasn’t reassuring. “I’ve just got one or two pieces left to fit into the puzzle.”

  “Kim, I need to know.” His normally calm voice quivered, and I knew - we both knew - that we were reaching a point of no return.

  “I’m not sure yet, but I’ll explain as soon as we complete the puzzle.”

  “What can I do to help?”

  “I think I’ve heard you speak of a Max something or other.”

  “Yes, Max Gibbs, my VP in charge of Grant Evaluations. Don’t tell me he has something to do with Priscilla’s kidnapping. I’ve known him forever.”

  “No, nothing like that. She mentioned Max as a clue, just like she mentioned Sandy.”

  I hung up after assuring Frederick I’d get back to him the moment we had something he could use.

  I filled Terry in on the conversation. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of him before.”

  She added Max Gibbs to her list. “Okay,” I said, pointing to her pad, “let’s take those two names and mix them up a bit. Max Arnold is a possibility, or Peter Gibbs.”

  “Could be Arnold Gibbs,” she added, “or Max Peter or Peters, Max Arnold, or Arnold Peters.”

  “Let’s see if the constable can run down our combination of names and locate a match in Llanrwst.”

  Terry took a clean sheet of paper and wrote down the various combinations. While she took it out front to the constable, I poured us another cup of tea. I was getting as bad as the Brits with my tea fixes.

  “He’s calling Llanrwst as we speak,” she said, when she returned. She proceeded to do some stretching exercises while I ran through the tape once more.

  Less than fifteen minutes had passed before the constable came in. “There’s a Peter Gibbs who owns a cottage on the outskirts of Llanrwst. He’s not there now. It seems he spends most of his time in London. He has some very uninspiring government job.”

  Terry straightened up. “I wonder where he is right now. I’d sure like to talk to him.”

  “He’s at work,” the constable said. “I took the liberty of finding that out.”

  “Good man.” She gave him an expansive smile.

  “Please get him on the phone.” I looked at Terry. “Do you want to talk to him, or shall I?”

  “Be my guest.”

  Within moments, I was talking to Mr. Peter Gibbs of Llanrwst. “No,” he told me in clipped English accents, “I haven’t been back to the cottage for three months. I have a contract here, and it doesn’t run out until the end of the month.”

  “We have reason to believe that criminals are keeping a woman hostage in your cottage.”

  “My God!”

  “Who else has a key?”

  “No one. I sometimes hire a cleaning service, but I was called back here so suddenly that I didn’t have time. I have the only keys here with me.”

  “And your call back to London was legitimate?”

  “Why yes. Although, come to think of it, my boss seemed surprised to see me so soon. I thought it a bit strange, because he was the one who must have issued the call back. I put it down to his being preoccupied with a heavy schedule.”

  I wondered if his call back to work had been part of an elaborate setup.

  After gaining as much information as I could from Peter Gibbs, I told him that the police would be in touch after they had investigated the situation. Then, I hung up.

  I looked from Terry to the constable. “We have permission to search his property, breaking in if necessary.”

  “I’ll get right on it,” the constable said. He hastened out of the room.

  “Good.” Terry gathered her gear.

  “He told me his place was well-concealed behind a grove of large trees. He likes his privacy.”

  “So would the kidnappers, I’ll wager.”

  Her words sent a shiver down my spine.

 
“I’m going to Llanrwst with the police,” I said.

  Terry faced me, clutching her jacket and supplies. “Okay, then. I’m with you. Let’s do it.”

  I sat down for a minute, going over all of this in my mind.

  “Now who’s wasting time? What’s the matter, Kim?”

  I looked at my watch. “We have less than three hours to coordinate this rescue before the ransom deadline.”

  “Okay then. All the more reason to get going.”

  “You don’t understand.” I was sure she could hear the panic in my voice. “This is our one and only chance to save PJ. What if I’ve figured it wrong? What if we’re on the wrong track?”

  Chapter 20

  I finished off fifty crunches and thirty push-ups while waiting for my captors to escort me upstairs. Sitting on the lumpy cot, my body coated with a light sweat, I longed for a fragrant bath and my favorite back-scrubber.

  Would I ever see Kimmy again? I shivered and wiped my eyes with my shirtsleeve. Sweat? Tears? Probably a mixture of both. The exercise made my body feel stronger, but there was little I could do for my spirit.

  This was the day of the ransom pickup. Time was running out. What if this escape plan of mine didn’t work? I was way out of my depth here. Had I considered all possible angles, covered all the things that could go wrong?

  I felt heat across my chest. My heartbeat quickened.

  Stop it, I told myself. This was no way for an Amazon to think. An Amazon was fearless. And that was precisely why I was no Amazon. I was only a hair’s breadth away from a panic attack right that moment.

  I looked around the room for a trace of my late-night visitor, then stood up and practiced some kickboxing moves. Shit. I was so rusty.

  The butterflies in my stomach were on an acid trip. It didn’t help that I was jumping around the room so much.

  My roundhouse kick flew too close to the bookshelf and made it wobble.

  “Oops! Sorry about that, Brownie - and family.” I groaned. Now I was talking to a mouse and his offspring. At this rate, I’d be ready for the loony bin before lunch.

  I sat back down on the cot and looked at my watch. My bladder was sending me faint alarm warnings. “Damn it. On top of everything else, guys, you’re late this morning.”