Dosed to Death

by P. D. Workman

  “What are you doing all the way up there?”

  “I was climbing.” Mason’s voice was thready and uncertain. Had he figured out how much trouble he was in for taking off? Where was Zachary? Kenzie figured the barn would be the first place Zachary would have looked for him.

  “Is your Uncle Zachary up there with you?”

  “No.” She could see Mason’s head shake. “It’s just me...”

  “Why don’t you come down now. You still want to help make lunch, don’t you? Alisha said that the two of you had it all planned out. You don’t want her making it all herself, do you?”

  “No! It was my idea. She has to do what I say!”

  “Come on down, then. Let’s go back to the cabin and make lunch.”

  “Me and Alisha. Not you.”

  “Okay.” Kenzie waited for him to decide to come down from his high perch. Had he imagined climbing Mount Everest to get there? He was several stories high. Kenzie tried to avoid thinking of what would happen if he slipped and fell. Unfortunately, she knew way too much about those kinds of accidents. The kind of tragic case that made them all shake their heads and say how they would never have let that happen. The parents must have been crazy to let the kids get away with climbing so high or taking part in other risky behavior.

  Yet when it happened, there really wasn’t anyone to blame. Parents did blame themselves, and so did the public, but Kenzie knew that if there was any way they could take back what had happened, they would. They would give up anything to have the child back safe and sound.

  Mason’s head disappeared, which meant that he had backed up and was on his way to picking his way down, climbing back over the mounds of hay and the ladders or ropes or whatever else he had used to climb to the pinnacle. She waited, trying not to be impatient with him. If he thought that he was going to get punished for his little adventure, he would be far less likely to come down and go back to the cabin with her. She needed to act as though it were nothing.

  “Kenzie?”

  She tried to follow Mason’s voice, but she could only hear him, not to see him. “Yes?”

  “Are you my auntie?”

  Why would he be concerned about such a thing while climbing down from the loft? Kenzie rolled her eyes and tried to keep her voice relaxed and soothing.

  “If you want to call me auntie, you can. Zachary is your uncle. We’re not married, but we’re together, and I don’t think anyone minds.”

  “Auntie Kenzie.” Mason tried it out to see how it sounded and felt.

  “Yes?”

  Mason giggled. “I wasn’t calling you.”

  “Did you see Zachary? He was looking for you.”

  “Yes,” Mason admitted. “I saw him.”

  “Did you talk to him? Did he find you?”

  “Well... no...”

  “You hid from him?”

  “Well... not exactly.”

  “We’d better let him know that you’re found. Do you know where he went after he looked here?”

  “Yes. Into the woods.”

  Kenzie’s throat felt tight. “Into the woods? Why would he go there? Did you go into the woods?”

  “Yes. That’s where the knife is,” Mason said quietly.

  51

  Kenzie walked to the back of the barn, craning her neck to see up into the loft where Mason should be. “What knife, honey?”

  “I found... I was going to build a snowman. I was looking for sticks. You need sticks for the arms, and rocks or something for the eyes and mouth.”

  “And a carrot for the nose,” Kenzie said lightly.

  “Yeah. I was looking for sticks, but I found the knife.”

  “Where are you, Mason?” Kenzie called softly.

  “I’m here!” Mason jumped down from somewhere above Kenzie, tumbling into a pile of loose hay. Kenzie was so startled that she let out a shriek.

  Mason laughed. “Auntie Kenzie!”

  “Mason!”

  He laughed again.

  “We’d better go back to the cabin now,” Kenzie said.

  “I want to stay here with Mr. Burknall.”

  “Where is Mr. Burknall?” Kenzie asked. “He brought me over here, and then... he disappeared.”

  “He didn’t disappear. He just went to check on the animals. There are lots of animals, and he has to take care of them all.”

  “So where is he?”

  Mason shrugged. He waved in a random direction. “Maybe looking after the pigs.”

  “There are pigs?”

  Mason nodded. “There are lots of animals. I always thought that pigs were little. Like in that book about the spider. And Templeton the rat.”

  “Charlotte’s Web?”

  “Yeah. The pig in that was just really little. But Mr. Burknall’s pigs are big.”

  “Okay.” Kenzie’s mind went to the stories she’d heard of pigs and how good they were at disposing of dismembered bodies. Something she didn’t want to be thinking of and certainly didn’t want to talk to Mason about. “We need to get back to the cabin. Unless... maybe you should show me where you found the knife, on the way back. Did you tell Zachary where it was?”

  “No.”

  “You just hid from him.”

  Mason looked down at his feet. “Yeah.”

  “You should have told him.”

  Mason nodded.

  “You should have come out from hiding and told him where to find the knife. That was important.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Okay.”

  “Do you want me to show you where it is?”

  Kenzie hesitated. She knew she should get back to the cabin. That was where Tyrrell and Zachary would go when they failed to find Mason. And that’s where Alisha was waiting, all by herself, where Kenzie had abandoned her. She shouldn’t have left the little girl there alone, but when Burknall had come calling, it was the only thing she could think to do.

  “Yes. You’d better show me.”

  Mason led Kenzie out the back door of the barn, through a couple of muddy, trampled paddocks, into the woods that the cabins backed onto. Whoever had killed Brooke had probably thrown the knife away, hoping no one else would find it.

  Mason looked around as they walked into the woods, his head swiveling back and forth. Kenzie hoped that he knew where the knife was and could find the cabin again. The last thing they needed was to get lost in the woods. Everything looked alike to Kenzie. She didn’t know how he would be able to navigate through it.

  “Do you remember where it is?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay.” She let him lead the way.

  Mason looked down at the snow as he tromped through the trees. “That’s where Zachary went.” He pointed at a footprint.

  Kenzie looked down at the zigzag pattern in the footprint. It looked about the right size, but she hadn’t noticed the tread on the bottom of Zachary’s boots. If Mason said it was one of Zachary’s footprints, he was probably right.

  “But he went the wrong way,” Mason said after a minute, looking at the footprints as they diverged to the left.

  “Maybe he saw something. Or someone.”

  “Maybe,” Mason said doubtfully. “But I think everyone is in their cabins.”

  “Not everyone!”

  Mason chuckled, nodding. He rubbed his face, red with the cold. “Was Daddy mad?”

  “No, not mad... but he was worried about you when he didn’t know where you went. You weren’t supposed to go off on your own.”

  “Yeah... I forgot. Kind of.”

  “And kind of wanted to go off even though you weren’t supposed to.”

  Mason looked at her sideways and didn’t answer. After a couple of minutes, he motioned to the underbrush. “Over here. I thought it would be a good place to get sticks.”

  Kenzie bent down and looked where he pointed. She could see a long, thin-bladed knife. A kitchen knife of some sort, not something that was intended to be used as a weapon. She could not see any
blood on the blade, but it might have been wiped off. The police would send it to the lab to see if they could find microscopic amounts of blood.

  “Did you touch it?” she asked Mason.

  He shook his head. Kenzie continued to look at him. After a minute, he dropped his eyes.

  “Yes, but I put it right back where it was.”

  Kenzie hadn’t brought her phone with her to take any pictures. She hadn’t even thought about it when Burknall had knocked on her door. Kenzie looked around.

  “Are we close to the cabin now? I’m turned around.”

  “It’s just over there.” Mason pointed. He smiled proudly. “Mommy says I have very good visio-sp...” He struggled to remember and form the word.

  “Visual-spatial memory?” Kenzie suggested.

  He grinned. “Yes!”

  “I bet you hardly ever get lost.”

  “Nope. I can always find my way home. Daddy plays this game, where he asks us how to get home when we’re out in the car. I always know how to get home. Alisha doesn’t. Sometimes she does, but not always.”

  “You’re very lucky. That’s a great skill to have. If we can go back to the cabin, then I can get my phone to take some pictures, and a bag or something to put the knife into, so we don’t destroy any evidence. That would be a big help to me.”

  “Okay. This way.”

  Kenzie followed her small guide to the back door of the cabin. They knocked and called out to Alisha.

  It was a few minutes before Alisha finally opened the door, cracking it open and peering out at them. Mason pushed on the door. “Let us in, Alisha!”

  Alisha finally stepped back from the door and let Mason open it the rest of the way.

  “Where were you, Mason?” she demanded, as Mason bent over to pull off his boots. Her face was still red and visibly tear-streaked. “Daddy was really scared.”

  Mason tried to put on a brave face. “I was just over at the barn. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “You weren’t supposed to go anywhere. You were supposed to stay in the yard.”

  “But I just went to the barn. Dad should know that I would go to the barn.”

  “You hid from the people looking for you,” Kenzie reminded him. “So you knew it was wrong and you tried to keep anyone from finding you.”

  “I didn’t hide from you.”

  Kenzie admitted this was true. “No. You were good about telling me where you were and coming down. But you shouldn’t have hidden from Zachary and your dad. You should have stayed in the yard like you were supposed to. Someone out there... could have wanted to hurt you.”

  “I can run really fast,” Mason protested. “If anyone tried, I would run away.”

  Kenzie made sure that the back door was shut and locked. “If I was you, I wouldn’t give your daddy those excuses when he comes back.”

  Mason bit his lip, looking away from her. Kenzie wondered again about Tyrrell’s past relationship with his family. He seemed stable now, a loving father, patient with the children most of the time, but what had he been like when he had been married? When he had been drinking? Was Mason afraid of him because of the way he had been before he sobered up? Or was it just the natural reaction of a child to a parent who was in authority, knowing that he was going to be in trouble for having broken the rules? The fact that he had come down for Kenzie and not for Tyrrell or Zachary suggested that he was more comfortable with women than with men, which was natural for most children.

  “Let’s see if we can see them outside. I want to get back to that... spot... to take pictures.”

  Mason nodded wisely, looking at Alisha and not telling her about the knife.

  “And maybe you and Alisha can make that lunch, once your dad is here to supervise.”

  “We’re going to make—”

  “Alisha!” Mason shouted her down. “You’re not allowed to tell! It’s a surprise!”

  Alisha closed her mouth and didn’t give it away. Mason glared at her fiercely to make sure she didn’t think about opening her mouth about it again.

  “What about Uncle Zachary?” Alisha asked. “If he comes back, we can cook, right?”

  “Well... I think you’d better wait for your daddy.”

  “Zachary doesn’t like to cook,” Mason said with authority.

  “He doesn’t mind cooking. But it is hard for him. And with that camp stove... he doesn’t like it. He’d rather use an electric stove, when we have the power back again.”

  “He was in a fire when he was little,” Alisha offered, surprising Kenzie. She hadn’t known that the children were aware of this.

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Like Daddy. But he got burned. Daddy’s not scared of fires, but he didn’t get burned.”

  Kenzie nodded. “Different people are afraid of different things. Fire makes Uncle Zachary very nervous. He might be worried about you getting burned, even if you were being careful and safe.”

  Alisha and Mason both nodded understandingly.

  Kenzie opened the front door, looking around for either of the men.

  52

  Kenzie spotted Tyrrell coming out of the trees on the other side of the road. She waved at him.

  “Tyrrell! Tyrrell! Hey!”

  He looked up and saw her. His face was still a frozen white mask. Worried and angry and trying not to let it all out.

  “He’s here,” Kenzie shouted at him. “Mason is back.”

  Tyrrell looked at her for a minute as if unable to process what she had said, then headed toward her at a quick clip.

  “He’s back?” Tyrrell demanded. “Mason came back?”

  “He’s here,” Kenzie confirmed, nodding in an exaggerated way to make sure he could see it. “Come on back.”

  Tyrrell made his way across the snowy road to the cabin. “Where was he? I’m going to tan that boy’s hide!”

  “He was at the barn. But he’s back and he’s safe.”

  “I checked the barn.”

  Kenzie nodded and didn’t reveal that Mason had hidden from them. “He’s kind of worried about being in trouble, so...”

  “He should be,” Tyrrell agreed.

  “I’m just saying that maybe...”

  “Don’t try to tell me how to parent. He knows he’s not supposed to take off like that.”

  Kenzie stepped back to let Tyrrell in, then shut the door against the cold.

  “He’s hoping that he and Alisha can make lunch now,” Kenzie said, hoping that would distract Tyrrell from a focus on punishing Mason. “They’ve got something all planned out. I’m going to go up to the farmhouse, see if Zachary is up there. He’ll be relieved to know that Mason is safe.”

  “I should go up there,” Tyrrell suggested. “He didn’t want you to be out on your own.”

  “I’ll be okay going that far. I’ll be visible the whole time. And there will be people up at the house. I won’t be alone.”

  She didn’t mention that she and Mason had just been off in the woods alone. She would have to find a way to tell Zachary about that without upsetting him too, which might not actually be possible. She was all right. Nothing had happened to her. Like Mason, she hoped to avoid censure by pointing out that the outcome had been good. Nothing had happened, therefore she hadn’t been in danger, therefore she hadn’t made a bad choice by leaving the cabin when she had been warned not to.

  “I’ll just be a few minutes,” she told Tyrrell. “Why don’t you get the kids started on lunch, and then Zachary and I will be back in time to eat it?”

  Kenzie climbed the hill to the farmhouse, thinking about Mason. She hoped that Tyrrell wouldn’t be too hard on him. He had disobeyed and walked into a situation where he could have been hurt—both into the woods where Brooke’s killer had disposed of the knife, and up into the barn loft where he could have fallen—and she could understand why Tyrrell was upset about that. But Mason hadn’t intended any harm and hadn’t been hurt, so it had worked out okay in the end.

  She knew that
Zachary had dealt with parents who were abusive when he had broken the rules or been distracted due to his ADHD. Both his and Tyrrell’s biological parents and foster families that he had lived with. She could see how parenting a kid like Mason, who couldn’t conform to the rules, could become a power struggle, with a parent trying to force his compliance. And a power struggle could quickly lead to being too harsh physically or emotionally.

  Even trying to get Zachary to stick to a short set of rules for their relationship and the upkeep of the household frequently failed. He was an adult and he was willing to do whatever it took to keep their relationship on the tracks, but the way that his brain was wired, all of the good intentions in the world did not result in his being able to stick to the program. He would forget to tell her about something. Abandon a job right in the middle. Forget how she had told him something was to be done a hundred times before. Not because he didn’t care what she had to say, but because he frequently didn’t have the executive skills to follow through. And that was something he couldn’t control, no matter how he tried to focus or to remember the simple steps she had given him.

  She sighed. Maybe Mason would grow out of the worst of his symptoms. Scatterbrained or willful children could still become adults with good jobs and family relationships. It was impossible to tell how their brains would mature and how their interests might lead to success. Despite all his challenges, Zachary was still a good investigator, photographer, and partner. He nurtured a number of friendships and professional relationships, and he was very close to his siblings.

  She reached the house and paused for a moment for a breath. “Okay.”

  She knocked briskly on the front door and entered. It was not yet time for lunch to be served, but Raven was sitting reading a book, a glass of wine at her side, and Jack was fiddling with the blinds, presumably trying to get them at the right angle to take the best advantage of the sun, weak though it was through the clouds. Kenzie smiled.

  “Hey. Is Zachary up here?”

  They both looked at her as if surprised to see her there. Eventually, Raven replied. “He was. Check the kitchen; see whether he’s with Mrs. Hubbard, I guess.”