“Daisy, stop!”
Her feet went faster. She was already down the porch stairs and across the gravel driveway. She had reached the side garden and was heading toward the creek.
“You don’t know what’s out there, Daisy! You don’t know who’s out there!”
Ethan must not have heard the shout. Or if he had, he didn’t connect it with Rick. But she did. She knew that it was Rick out there. And Daisy knew Rick. He didn’t shout without a reason. Especially not right before an explosion.
“Damn it, Daisy! Stop! It could be—”
The words became garbled in her ears, like static filtering through a radio. Daisy didn’t listen anymore. She couldn’t. She was too busy watching the red-hot sparks rocket into the air. They were coming from the cemetery. But what could burn like that in the cemetery? Nothing. At least nothing natural. There was only grass and gravestones. A brush fire expanded gradually. It didn’t detonate with the force of a missile.
The night was warm and humid. Whether it was made any warmer by the sudden inferno Daisy couldn’t tell. The land in the distance glowed crimson, but there was little light directly in front of her. She moved into the dark shrubs with only a general sense of direction. The hollies scratched her arms and legs. The forsythias slapped her face. But she pushed determinedly through the brambles and branches, knowing that they wouldn’t last long. The thicket wasn’t wide. On the other side lay the creek.
Daisy stumbled down into the muddy water. There wasn’t much of it. A trickle no more than a generous inch at its deepest. Not the swift knee-high current from a week or two earlier. The mud was sticky, and within half a dozen steps, she lost a sandal to the gummy mire. She stopped and tried to search for it, but it was no use. She couldn’t see well enough, and the sandal had been sucked beneath the glop.
Slipping over the damp rocks, she crossed the creek. Daisy almost smiled as she reached the opposite bank. It was her momma’s land that she stood on now. It would always be Berger land. The soil firmed beneath her, and she tried to run again, except she found that she couldn’t. Not with only one shoe on. She pulled off the remaining sandal, tossed it over her shoulder, and started up the embankment.
The dirt slid out from under her as she climbed. It was powdery dry from too much sun and not enough rain. Daisy scrambled higher. Only a few more feet. Then she would be at the top. She could take a good look at the situation and have a better idea of what to do about it. The smell of scorched earth struck her like a violent squall as she crested the hill. It was acrid and stung her nostrils. Her foot struck a stump, and she tumbled to the ground. When she lifted her head from the clover, Daisy saw them. And she froze.
There were men. At least ten, maybe more. Inky figures racing toward the fiery ball, trying to douse it. They weren’t firefighters. She knew that instantly. They weren’t dressed like firefighters. They didn’t move like firefighters. And they didn’t have the equipment of firefighters. They had other equipment though. Bulldozers and massive shovels and towering rigs. They were drilling. Or preparing to drill. To test the uranium no doubt, as the exploratory permits allowed. But something had exploded, without any warning from all indications. It was most likely a storage tank. Gasoline or propane. Whatever powered all that machinery.
For a long minute Daisy gaped at the scene before her. She hadn’t expected it. Not anything like this. And then she thought of Rick. Rick shouting. She looked more closely at the men. Was Rick among them? Daisy didn’t recognize him. But she couldn’t really recognize anyone. They were no more than bulky shapes moving hurriedly around the blaze. Could she have confused Rick’s voice with someone else’s? It was possible, of course. Except she had been so certain that it was him. She hadn’t hesitated for even a second jumping off the porch swing and racing away from Ethan into the darkness.
Ethan. She had forgotten all about him while struggling through the brush and muck to reach the cemetery. He had come after her, and Daisy saw him now standing not far from where she lay. His gun was in his hands in front of him. His body was turned toward the flames. She whispered his name. He didn’t respond. She tried again, a little louder. Still no success.
Daisy wavered, debating how loud to get. She was afraid of attracting the attention of anyone other than Ethan. There was plenty of noise around her. Snapping and crackling from the burning vegetation. Men hollering back and forth. Surely they wouldn’t notice one extra yell. One name called out. Her mouth opened. She promptly snapped it back shut. There were more men. A small group that she hadn’t spotted before. These men weren’t darting around. Nor were they dealing with the fire. Instead they were talking together intently. She couldn’t hear their words, but she could guess who they were. Big-city folks.
She had to get away. Daisy understood that immediately. She was too close to them. Dangerously close. They had murdered Hank and Fred. And several of them were carrying what appeared to be AR-15s. That was a serious rifle with a clip holding something in the neighborhood of thirty rounds. At least Ethan had his Glock. If only she had her momma’s .380. It might have been a small pistol, but when push came to shove, it fired bullets just like the big boys. Bobby and his bloody thigh could attest to that fact. But the Colt wasn’t there. She had left it at the inn before going to see her momma in the hospital.
Her eyes went to Ethan. Did he see the group? He did. His head was turned straight toward them. And he must have seen the AR-15s too, because he was walking slowly backward, trying to slink silently to the creek. Daisy held her breath as she watched him. Step by stealthy step. Only another couple of yards. Then he could disappear down the hill. Meanwhile the men continued talking. They didn’t seem to notice Ethan or his retreat. Now was the perfect time for her to follow suit. She wouldn’t stand up. She would just crawl away. And they wouldn’t know that either of them had ever been there.
Daisy rose to her knees. She crouched as low as she could, like a panther trying to pass undetected through the pampas. First one knee back, then the other. One palm, then the second. Inch by precarious inch. No noise and no rapid movements. The ground was so rough in spots, it tore open her hands, but she ignored the pain. A few cuts and bruises were nothing in comparison to the barrel of an AR-15 pointed in her face. And if their past acts were any guide, she had little doubt that the men would be more than willing to pull the trigger. She glanced over at Ethan. He was closer to the embankment than she was. He was almost out of sight now.
A soundless sigh of relief passed through Daisy’s lips. At least one of them would make it. Then Ethan could get help. He would know who to call and what to do. If he was fine, she would be fine. But in an instant everything changed. Without warning, a man suddenly appeared behind him. Ethan began to turn, but it was already too late. The AR-15 in the man’s hands went up, the butt of the rifle came down with a startling crack against Ethan’s temple, and he slammed to the ground.
“Hey!” the man with the rifle hollered to his comrades. “Look what I caught!”
The group went over to examine Ethan. A flashlight clicked on. They were studying his face.
“You messed him up good, Joe.”
Daisy bit her tongue. She knew that name. Joe was the one who had paid Bobby to go after her momma.
Joe shrugged. “I couldn’t let him leave.”
One of the other men kicked Ethan hard in the gut. When Ethan didn’t respond, he said with a laugh, “Doesn’t look like he’s leaving now.”
The rest of the group laughed with him, and Ethan received several more hard kicks.
As hot as it was outside, Daisy’s bones felt numbly cold. Ethan was in trouble. Serious trouble. He lay stiff and motionless on the grass, like a sack of feed somebody had pushed from the back of a pickup. There was no moan. No twitch. Nothing at all. She had to help him. Again she wished that she had her momma’s .380. She couldn’t have shot all the men by herself. The Colt had only seven rounds at most, and her aim was far from perfect. But any shots—even just one—would hav
e scattered them. Then she could have run. Run back to Fox Hollow. Called Sheriff Lowell. Found Rick and his ever-present arsenal. And helped Ethan.
Even without the gun, she still had to run. It was her only option. Daisy understood that. She couldn’t stay crouched in the clover forever. They would see her at dawn. And there was a darn good chance that they would discover her before then. She was awfully close to them. All they had to do was shine their flashlights a bit to the right, and there she was. A field mouse just waiting to be pounced on.
Ethan provided a distraction. As long as they were focused on him, they wouldn’t be looking around for her. Speed had suddenly become far more important than silence. Daisy had to get to the creek. Even if the men noticed her before she made it down the hill, she could lose them when she hit the thicket on the other side. No one knew Fox Hollow as well as she did. She could have hidden on the property for days. Not even her momma would have been able to find her. Except Ethan didn’t have days. He needed her help now.
Daisy fixed the plan in her mind. Jump up, whirl around, race toward the embankment. Don’t look at anything. Don’t listen to anything. Don’t stop for anything. Just go. Go fast. Worry about everything else—her soon-to-be-raw feet, the proximity of the AR-15s, her strategy when she reached Fox Hollow—later.
Taking a deep breath to steel her nerves, she counted to three. Then Daisy went. She stood up. She turned around. She took four or five flying steps. There was a yell. It was rapidly succeeded by more yelling. The men were yelling in her direction. They had spotted her. She pumped her legs furiously. She could see the shadowy drop-off leading to the creek up ahead, waiting for her like a shimmering, beckoning oasis. Just a dozen more steps. Then the odds of her getting away shifted significantly in her favor. They couldn’t shoot after her into the thicket, not with any real accuracy. Six or seven feet farther and then—
And then the ground vanished. It dropped away beneath her without the slightest warning. One moment there was steady, solid dirt under her toes, and the next moment it was gone, replaced by open air. She began to fall. Instinctively Daisy kicked and flailed about, but she touched nothing. There was nothing to hold her or for her to grab onto. She simply continued to fall, until she landed with a jarring thud on a rough surface that was as dense and unyielding as concrete.
Black, pulsating waves of confusion followed. Daisy lay sprawled on her side with one arm twisted painfully under her. Her brain was jumbled, and her spine sent searing lightning bolts up into her neck and along the length of her back. There were voices. Men’s voices. They were loud and sounded agitated. Who were they? She shook her head, trying to clear it. What had happened?
She remembered running—and falling—and crashing down hard. Why had she been running? Daisy shook her head again. It made her neck throb violently, but the waves pounding through her brain subsided somewhat. Slowly she sat up. Her shoulders hurt. Her hips and ankles hurt. One of her arms really hurt. Her whole body felt weak and clumsy, so much that she didn’t try to rise any further.
Where was she? She was surrounded by darkness. Daisy blinked. Still darkness. She put out a tentative hand. Clay. There was clay in front of her. She knew it even though she couldn’t see it. Nearly every inch of Pittsylvania County soil consisted of heavy, compact red clay. Daisy reached behind her. More clay. Shifting on shaky muscles, she felt around gingerly. Clay beneath her. Clay on all sides. She was in a clay pit. She was sitting at the bottom of a clay pit.
A pale light fell on her face. Daisy looked up and blinked some more. She could make out the top of the pit. It was eight feet high, give or take a few inches. The edge was too dim for her to judge exactly. A row of eyes stared back at her. She could see their reflection like a group of raccoons clustered around a Dumpster in the middle of the night. One pair of eyes was more distinct than the rest. The flashlight shining down on her was closest to this pair and to the thick shock of curly silver hair above them. It wasn’t a raccoon. It was a poodle. A wet poodle. It was Carlton Waters.
CHAPTER
28
In an instant Daisy’s mind cleared and she remembered everything. The explosion. The big-city folks and their drilling equipment in the cemetery. The butt of Joe’s AR-15 cracking against Ethan’s temple. She didn’t know how, but she had found help. She didn’t know why he was there, but Carlton would help her and Ethan.
Daisy looked up at him eagerly, waiting for an explanation—and reassurance—and instructions on how to get out of the strange pit that she was sitting in. Carlton looked back at her for several long seconds, then he laughed.
“How convenient,” he said.
“Isn’t she that waitress?” Joe asked, squinting down at her.
“She is.” Carlton went on laughing. “And she’s saved me a hell of a lot of bother. I’ve been trying to find a way to trap that little bird for some time now. But I don’t need to no more.”
All the men laughed. It was a harsh, contemptuous laugh that seemed to increase with wicked glee as it echoed down the clay walls toward Daisy.
“Oh, my dear,” Carlton drawled in his raspy Appalachian accent. “You look so surprised.”
Surprised wasn’t a sufficient description. The shock paralyzed her. Daisy’s mouth didn’t move. Her eyes didn’t blink. Even her brain was partially frozen. She couldn’t understand. Why was Carlton laughing? Why was he talking to Joe and the other men? Why wasn’t he helping her out of the pit?
“Well, I suppose we should get down to business.” Carlton shrugged. “Since you’re here you must know what I want.”
Daisy didn’t respond. She couldn’t.
He clucked his tongue at her. “Don’t play dumb with me.”
She struggled to breathe. To think. Think smart, Ducky. That was what Aunt Emily always said. She had to think smart.
“So I’ll ask you again. Do you know what I want?”
What did Carlton want? He was with Joe. That had to mean he wanted the same thing Joe wanted. Her momma’s land.
Carlton’s voice rose. “Do you know what I want?”
This time Daisy answered with a small nod.
“Good. And are you gonna give it to me?”
“I—” Her lips were stiff. “I can’t give it to you. It’s not mine.”
“I’m aware of that, but you can tell your momma what she ought to do with it.”
“My … my momma feels very strongly about family. And it’s her family cemetery.”
“Hank told me the same damn thing. I told him family’s only as good as what they can do for you today.”
At the mention of Hank, Daisy’s stomach churned and a thick lump swelled in her throat.
“He was loyal to you,” Carlton said. “Like you and your momma were his real family, even though you weren’t. I’ll give Hank that. Stupid loyal he was. I offered him a deal. Told him I’d give him a cut of what I got out of this place if he’d take care of you like I took care of old man Dickerson when he started getting in my way. I figured it’d be easy for Hank. You ate his food every day. What’s a little rat poison mixed in the chicken stew? Nobody would find out. Nobody would even care after a week or two. That’s how it is when you die. Here yesterday, forgotten tomorrow.”
Her stomach churned harder. It wasn’t the big-city folks. It was Carlton. Carlton had poisoned Fred.
“But he wouldn’t do it. Not stupid loyal Hank. Said he wouldn’t betray your daddy by hurting his baby girl. Of course I couldn’t have him go squealing to you afterward. Or to the sheriff neither. Something had to be done with him. So Hank ended up taking a long drink from a short creek.”
Daisy felt all the oxygen go out of her lungs. It wasn’t just Fred. It was Hank too. Carlton had killed Hank. Hank had been his friend, and he had murdered him. He had even gone to Hank’s funeral!
Carlton chortled. “Will you listen to me? Crowin’ like a fool cock. Telling you all my dirty secrets. I guess now I’ll have to do something with you too.”
A wave of
panic rose in her chest. It seemed impossible to get any air. The stench of charred earth was so strong, and the pit was so deep and dark. It felt as though the clay walls were closing in on every side.
“The funny thing is”—Carlton chortled even harder—“you’re already in a grave. It’s not one of our holes you fell into. We haven’t started drilling yet. So it’s an honest-to-goodness gravesite. I don’t know who it was dug for, but it looks like it belongs to you now!”
Daisy cringed in horror. Aside from Hank’s final resting place near her daddy, there had been only one new grave dug at the cemetery recently. Fred Dickerson’s. And as far as she was aware, it remained empty. They were still waiting for his remains to be sent back from the autopsy. That meant she wasn’t sitting in the bottom of some pit. She was sitting in Fred’s grave.
It was a gruesome realization. And in that moment Daisy knew she had to make a decision. She could either cry and beg and curl up in a ball like a petrified possum, or she could fight. It was an easy choice. She was a Berger. The Bergers were a family of fighters. Just ask Great-Uncle Jacob. Did he lie down and wait for the redcoats to roll over him and his wagon? Of course not, as proven by the fact that Virginia was no longer a British colony. And she wasn’t going to be rolled over either, not if she had anything to say about it.
“One Berger almost dead,” Carlton continued cheerfully. “That leaves just one to go. It shouldn’t be too hard to get rid of your momma. She’s a sickly croaker as it is.”
Daisy forced herself not to get mad. Fear and rage were futile. She had to think smart. That was the only way to get out of the damn grave.
“So we’re dead,” she replied with a coolness that surprised even her. “You kill us. There are no more Bergers in Pittsylvania County. What good is that going to do you? You’re still not going to own the land.”
For the first time since he and his silver shock of hair had gazed down on her with his flashlight, Carlton Waters grew solemn. Daisy hoped that was a good sign.
Murder and Moonshine: A Mystery Page 24
