by Kathi Daley
“Do you think he’s going to be mad?” I asked Quinn after she confirmed a time with Sam.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. But I’m not sure Sammy being mad or not is really the point of any of this. If there is one thing I learned a long time ago, it’s that you do what you need to do and let other people worry about how they want to react.”
“So, you never worry about making others mad when you’re after a story?” I asked. “You never worry about hurting them or worrying them or even doing something that might do permanent damage to your relationship?”
“Nope.” She set her mug on the table and stretched her arms over her head. “As a reporter after the truth, I can’t worry about any of that. I have a job to do, and I do it. End of story.”
Wow. I knew Quinn had a hard side, but I guess I never realized how hard it might actually be.
“What about people you know and care about?” I asked. “If you found something out about me that would hurt me deeply if that fact was made public, would you print it anyway if instructed to?”
She hesitated. “That’s not a real situation, so it doesn’t make sense to spend time analyzing it. All I can say at this point is maybe.”
“Maybe?” I asked.
She shifted in her chair, settling one foot on the ground, but keeping the other leg tucked up under her body. “I don’t mess around with minor news stories or unsubstantiated leads, so theoretically, if I had been investigating your secret, then it stands to reason that your secret must be a pretty big deal.” She adjusted her position just a bit. “It’s not like I write for a gossip rag. I write hard-hitting exposés about very real crisis in the world,” she reminded me. “If, in the course, of my search for the truth, I found out that someone I knew and loved was somehow involved in something newsworthy, and if not exposing their involvement might lead to innocent people being harmed in some way, then yes, I would expose your secret even if it caused you harm. But that’s unlikely to ever occur unless you’re actually a double agent or undercover operative, so it isn’t a scenario I really need to worry about.”
“So, you’re not at all worried that Sam will be hurt that we went sneaking around behind his back?”
She shrugged. “I suppose I would be lying if I said I didn’t care if he was hurt, but we knew when we came up with the plan that he might be hurt or angry, and we did it anyway. Ryder, too, for that matter. At this point, worrying about something happening that we knew from the beginning could very well happen seems like a waste of energy.”
I supposed Quinn had a point. We did know from the beginning that both Sam and Ryder might be upset that we’d left them out of the plan. I supposed all we could do at this point was live with any fallout caused by our decision.
Carrie still hadn’t come down from her suite by the time Quinn and I needed to leave to meet Sam, so we left her a note. It was probably best that she stay out of this anyway. Neither Quinn nor I lived on the island, so if our action caused friction with Sam, that discomfort would only last a few more weeks. Carrie, on the other hand, lived here full-time and had to face the man on a regular basis.
“Is your life always this stressful?” I asked Quinn as I drove toward Sam’s office.
She laughed. “This is nothing. The degree of stress I normally live with on a daily basis makes our little outing last night seem like a cakewalk.”
“Do you ever tire of the constant pressure?”
Quinn shrugged. “Sometimes. I told you when I came to the island that I was burnt out and ready for a break. And I was. In fact, I still am. I know my boss is confused about my unwillingness to take a break from the vacation I requested to do these little jobs for him, but I really feel that I need to completely step away for a while.”
“I don’t blame you.” I pulled into a parking spot next to the sheriff’s office. “What you do is very demanding. Most people would have burnt out long before this.”
Quinn opened her door and stepped out. I stepped out of the driver’s side onto the street. “So, how should we handle this?” I asked.
“I guess we just jump in and see where we end up,” Quinn said, heading toward the front door.
“Morning, Sam,” I said after entering the room.
“Kelly; Quinn,” he greeted. “I’m surprised the two of you are out and about so early. Is something going on?”
“We’re just looking for an update on the investigation,” Quinn said to Sam after he’d offered us seats in the conference room.
“Is that why you wanted to meet? To get an update?” Sam asked. “When you texted, you indicated that you had something to share.”
“We do,” Quinn answered. “But I figured we’d get an update from you first.”
He frowned. “Okay. I do have news. Several things, in fact.”
“We’re all ears,” Quinn said.
“First of all, I was finally able to track down Carl. It turns out he’s in Portland this week and hasn’t been monitoring his cell as often as he usually does. He confirmed that Grace had called him on Saturday night to ask about a house he has listed for sale on the island, which belongs to a man named Rain Spivey.”
“That name is familiar,” I said.
“Rain is a musician,” Quinn provided. “He’s actually a pretty big deal with the under thirty crowd.”
“Okay, so Grace called Carl to find out about a house Rain is selling. Why?” I said.
“Carl told me that Grace told him that she had a friend who was interested in looking at it if it was still available. He explained that he was out of town and wouldn’t be able to show it until he returned. Grace asked for the address. She said the friend wanted to drive by it. He gave her the address as well as the phone number of a woman who works in his office. Carl said he told Grace that the house was unoccupied, so it would be okay if they wanted to look in the windows, but if her friend wanted to go inside, he should call his colleague. I called the woman whose number was given to Grace by Carl, but she said that Grace never called.”
“That’s weird, right?” I asked. “Why would a sixteen-year-old girl be calling about a house for sale on the island? If Grace actually did have a friend who was interested in the house, why wouldn’t the friend just call?”
“I thought the same thing,” Sam said. “I asked the woman Carl had referred Grace to to meet me at the house. She agreed to do so, and we looked around. We found a broken window at the back of the property, and the security system had been disabled remotely. It seemed obvious that someone had broken in. I had the guys from the county dust the place, and was able to determine that Grace and at least two other people were in the house at some point.”
“But you don’t know who she was with or why they broke in?” I asked.
“Not yet. According to the Realtor I spoke to, nothing obvious seems to be missing, but she didn’t have a complete inventory and planned to call Rain. The guys from the county office are still running the prints. Nothing popped right off, but I’m still hopeful we’ll be able to identify the individuals with Grace.”
“Why would Grace run away from home and then help someone break into a vacant house?” I asked.
Sam blew out a breath. “I don’t know. I figure either they must have been looking for something specific, or they just thought it would be a rush to hang out in the home of someone famous. I don’t know why Grace did what she did, and I hope her taking off is a result of teenage rebellion, but given the fact that the security system was disabled, I sort of doubt a group of teens is behind the break-in.”
“I don’t know, there are some pretty tech-savvy teens out there these days,” Quinn pointed out.
“Maybe,” Sam agreed. “Whomever Grace is with, I just hope she is hanging out with them voluntarily.”
“So, do you think she might have been forced to call Carl about the house?” Quinn asked.
“I think that’s a possibility,” Sam answered. “If Grace simply needed a place to cool down after her fight with
her mother, why not just go to a friend’s house? Breaking into a vacant house seems like a drastic step to take.”
“So if Grace left the party on Saturday night to help someone, who has yet to be identified, break into this house, where is she now?” I asked. “It’s been four days. That’s a long time to hang onto a grudge, no matter how mad she’d been at her mother.”
“I wish I knew the answer to that,” Sam said.
“Anything else?” Quinn asked. “Either about Grace or one of the other missing girls?”
I couldn’t tell if Quinn was really interested or if she was stalling. Maybe she was more nervous about Sam being angry with us than she would admit.
“About Grace, no,” Sam answered. “But I did receive a lead yesterday relating to the disappearance of Veronica Smith. That lead took me north, almost to the Oregon border. That’s the reason I couldn’t get together with you yesterday.”
“I remember you said you had to go out of town for the day. What’d you find?” Quinn asked.
“I found out where Veronica has been up until a few days before drowning in the ocean, and I found the greenhouse that produces both the Kadupul flower and opium poppies.”
My eyes widened. “You did. Where?”
“The greenhouse where Veronica seems to have picked up both the petal from the Kadupul flower and the seeds from the opium poppies is located on a commune north of here. The property is pretty remote, with only a single dirt road accessing the small commune, which isn’t even featured on the map I was working from. I drove up to the community yesterday and spoke to a man who lives on the commune. He confirmed that Veronica had spent time on the property, although she did tend to come and go. Apparently, she showed up five years ago with a man named Indigo. According to Kai, the man I spoke to, Indigo had been an occasional resident of the commune and asked for permission for him and Veronica to stay. Kai said it appeared that Veronica was desperate for a place to hide out, so permission was conditionally granted.”
“Conditionally?” Quinn asked.
“It seems that the structure under which the commune operates is pretty rigid,” Sam explained. “There are rules that must be adhered to. If you don’t adhere, you’re out. Kai told me that a year or so after Veronica arrived, she decided she didn’t want to follow so many rules, so she left. She came back for a short stay about a year after that and then left again. Most recently, she showed up about six months ago, but when it became apparent that she was not willing to do her part, the council kicked her out. They gave her a week to vacate the property. On the third day of her seven-day grace period, she snuck out in the middle of the night with plants from the greenhouse. Initially, Kai was reluctant to specify what sort of plants she took off with, but I was finally able to determine that the plants she stole were opium poppies.”
“Isn’t it illegal to grow opium poppies?” I asked.
“It is,” Sam verified. “But this group is a peaceful group that doesn’t cause any problems and is mostly left alone by local law enforcement. The poppies are utilized by the group for spiritual ceremonies, and I’ve been assured they are not sold for use on the street. Of course, having said that, they do have value, and I imagine Veronica realized that.”
“So Veronica is kicked off the commune and needs cash to settle somewhere else, so she steals the poppies with the intent of selling them?” Quinn asked.
“That’s my guess,” Sam said.
“So how did she end up dead on the beach?” I asked.
“I don’t know for certain, but I’m going to speculate that her deal went bad, and she either voluntarily jumped from a boat with the hope of escaping, or she was pushed. I don’t know who she met or where she went, but Kai did say that Veronica was last seen on Saturday evening, and we know she was found dead on the beach on Tuesday morning. Where she was between the two pinpoints is anyone’s guess.”
“What if she was killed by someone from the commune?” I asked. “When the plants turned up missing the same day that Veronica left, they must have figured out that she was the one who took them. What if someone from the commune tracked her down and killed her?”
“I suppose that is a possibility,” Sam answered. “I’m afraid we’re in the same situation as we are with the Montgomery estate. Without a warrant, my hands are tied, and without a compelling reason to link Veronica’s death with a commune more than a hundred miles away, I’ll never find a judge to issue a warrant. So what’s the interesting news you have to share?”
I froze. I looked at Quinn. She nodded toward me and then began to speak. “Kelly and I thought, wrongly as it turns out, that the petal from the Kadupul flower and the seeds from the opium poppy had come from a greenhouse we knew existed on Montgomery Island based on aerial shots I managed to obtain. We knew that the island was impenetrable without an invite, and we also knew that you were never going to get an invite without a warrant, a warrant we all know would only be forthcoming with some sort of evidence to indicate that Grace and perhaps the other missing girls were being kept there.”
He raised a brow. It did sound as if the very articulate Quinn was rambling.
“Quinn and I found a way to sneak onto the island for a quick peek, and we took it,” I jumped in.
“What!” Sam spat.
“Don’t worry, we had a plan,” Quinn jumped back in. “A good plan. All we wanted to do was prove that the two flowers in question existed on the island.”
“They didn’t,” I added.
“Of course, we didn’t know about your lead up north,” Quinn said, looking a bit more shaken than I was used to seeing her. “We didn’t know that you’d already solved that part of the puzzle.” She paused. “We knew it would be illegal for you to access the island without permission, so we decided to leave you out of it.”
“It was illegal for the two of you to access the island without permission as well,” Sam pointed out. “It’s called trespassing.”
“We were only on the island for twenty minutes, and no one knows we were there,” I assured Sam, realizing that the woman who saw us did know we were there.
“How did you manage to access the island that is famous for being inaccessible without an invite?” he asked.
Quinn explained about the fence and the high tide loophole.
Sam paled visibly. “You could have been shot.”
“We could have been, but we weren’t,” Quinn argued.
“Maybe not, but you took a huge risk, and, as it turns out, that risk was for nothing.”
“Not nothing,” I countered Sam’s statement. “We think Peggy might be on the island.” I took the photo we’d printed out of my purse.
Sam took the photo, his frown deepening as he looked at it. “You took this photo on the island?”
I nodded. “Just last night. It does look like her. Right?”
He furrowed his brow as he studied the image. “It looks like it could be her.” He walked out of the room. I looked at Quinn. She shrugged. He walked in a few minutes later with a file in his hand. He opened a file and set several photos of sixteen-year-old Peggy on the table. He then set the photo Quinn had taken next to them for comparison.
“Look at this little mole on the right side of Peggy’s upper lip,” Quinn pointed. “This woman has that same little mole.”
Chapter 6
I honestly thought it would take Sam days to gain access to the island, but as it turned out, he simply called Wilson and asked to speak to him about a girl who’d been missing for the past twenty-five years, and amazingly, Wilson agreed to allow not only Sam to access the island but Quinn and me as well. I felt bad leaving Carrie out of things, but Wilson hadn’t included her in the invite, and I didn’t want to muck up the works by trying to have her added to the guest list after permission had already been granted.
When we arrived at the island’s private dock, we were met by an armed guard. He checked our ID’s and then led us to a room that was located in one of the long buildings behind the ma
in house. We were told to wait and that someone would be with us shortly.
“This Gavin Montgomery guy runs this island like a small country,” Quinn said. “Very impressive.”
“Impressive or creepy?” I asked.
She lifted a shoulder. “Maybe a bit of both.”
“I wonder if Gavin Montgomery knows we’re here?” I asked.
“I’m sure he does,” Sam replied. “I would be willing to bet that nothing goes on that he doesn’t know about.”
I supposed Sam was right. Not that he’d make an appearance. Based on what I’d heard, no one other than Wilson and a few select staff had access to the reclusive billionaire.
About fifteen minutes after we were shown to the room, the door opened, and Peggy walked in.
“Peggy?” I asked.
She nodded, tears streaming down her face.
“Oh my God,” I said as I crossed the room and wrapped her in a hug. “I can’t believe it’s really you. I thought you were dead. We all thought you were dead.”
“I know,” she cried into my shoulder. “I’m so sorry. So very, very sorry.”
I glanced over Peggy’s shoulder to find Quinn frowning at her. “Very sorry for what?” Quinn asked in a tone that seemed to lack warmth.
Peggy pulled back from me. She looked at Quinn. “Hi, Quinn.”
“Sorry for what?” Quinn asked again.
Peggy took a deep breath. “I guess we should talk.” She looked at Sam. “It’s fine if you stay, but the reason I asked Wilson to allow you on the island was so I could have a chance to explain things to my friends. Your invite does not extend beyond this room.”
“I understand,” he said. “I just need to ask you one question, and I need you to answer honestly.”
“Okay.”
“Are you currently being, or have you ever been, held here against your will?”
“No.” Peggy indicated that we should all sit down. I was so happy to see her that I didn’t want to let go of her, so I sat down next to her, clinging to her hand all the while. Quinn and Sam both looked less than thrilled, which I didn’t really understand. Peggy was alive. They should be turning cartwheels, not staring at her like she was somehow the bad guy.
