Criminal Crumbs (12 page)

Chapter 18

W
e found the other group
standing in front of the gazebo. “Did you have any luck?” Nicole asked us as we approached them.

“Hank wasn’t where we saw him yesterday,” I said as I shrugged. It was even true, since Hank had managed to crawl a little before he’d died.

Nicole looked perplexed. “Then why doesn’t he show himself?”

“I don’t know, but we found this,” Grace said as she approached the others. “It was stuck to the sign for the resort.” She handed the TUIT button to Nicole, who passed it to Georgia.

Janelle took it in turn, studied it, and then started to hand it back to Nicole. “I still don’t get why he valued this thing so much.”

“Hank loved wordplay and puzzles, basically anything that took a little creativity and cleverness to get,” Celia said as she stepped up and took it before Nicole could. “He cherished this. He’d have sooner gone out without wearing pants than this button. The fact that we found it says volumes. I just wish I knew why he was hiding.”

“It’s pretty clear, isn’t it?” Georgia asked.

“Not to me it isn’t,” Celia said. “Explain it.”

“Hank is the only one of us who knows who tried to push Nicole off that cliff. I’ve got a hunch he’s waiting for the right time to spring, and then whoever did it had better watch out. After what he must have been through, he’s not going to be very happy with the person who pushed him.”

“His fall was an accident,” Nicole said. “He was trying to save me, remember?”

“Do you think he still won’t be upset just because he wasn’t the original intended victim?” Georgia asked her.

“I take it you didn’t have any luck finding Dina,” I said, doing my best to change the subject.

“It’s a mystery. She’s vanished,” Janelle said.

“I keep telling you, that’s impossible,” Georgia answered testily.

“Then where is she?” Janelle asked. “We’ve looked everywhere.”

“Have you tried calling out her name?” I asked.

They all frowned, so I called out, “Dina! Dina! Where are you?”

“I’m in the maze,” we all heard her say. “Is that you, Suzanne?”

“It is,” I said as I glanced at the others. They hadn’t even checked the maze in all the time that we’d been gone?

“We were going to look there next,” Nicole said almost apologetically.

“But we got distracted by Georgia’s constant complaining,” Janelle replied.

“Hey, I can’t be the only one who’s cold and hungry,” she answered.

“Are you okay?” I asked Dina loudly, ignoring the squabbling coworkers.

“I’m fine,” she said. “Only I tried to get back out, and I’m afraid I’m a little lost.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll be right there,” I said as I headed for the maze.

“You’re not going in there alone,” Grace said.

“We can’t all go,” Georgia added. “Why don’t you two go retrieve Dina, and the rest of us will go back to the lodge and see about dinner?”

“Are you actually offering to cook?” Janelle asked her. “We both know that you could burn water.”

“I can do a little better than that, but I was thinking more along the lines of seeing what wouldn’t need too much prep work. You’re the mom of the group. Surely you can cook something edible for the rest of us.”

“Just stay out of my way,” Janelle said. I wasn’t at all sure when she’d gotten so assertive, but it was working for her. Even Georgia seemed to be grudgingly respectful of her attitude.

Nicole hesitated before following the rest of them. “Celia, are you coming with us?”

“If you don’t mind, I thought I’d go with Grace and Suzanne,” she said softly.

“We don’t have to stay with the same groups we were in before,” Nicole replied.

“I know. I’m just not ready to deal with the two of them yet,” she said as she pointed to Georgia and Janelle.

“At least you were spared some of it,” Nicole said, adding a gentle smile. “I’ll see you inside.”

“Okay,” Celia answered, and then she turned to us. “Do we need to look at the map again?”

I tapped my forehead. “That won’t be necessary. It’s all up here.”

“Then we’re in serious trouble,” Grace said with a grin. “You know, you really could have gone back with your sister, Celia.”

“I can see her any time,” she said. “Besides, you two are a lot more fun to be around at the moment than she is.”

“I won’t argue with that, but then again, no one tried to kill either one of us,” I said as I started toward the maze. “Dina, how about talking loudly so we can get a fix on exactly where you are?”

From inside the maze, she asked, “What should I talk about?”

“Anything will do. What interests you?”

“I could talk about investing,” she volunteered.

It might put me to sleep before I found her, but if it was truly what she knew best, who was I to stop her? “Okay, that’s fine. I have to warn you, though. Your advice will be falling on deaf ears as far as I’m concerned. I keep my life savings in a coffee can under my bed. I’d put it somewhere safer, but I can’t imagine anyone being interested in my three hundred eleven dollars, can you?”

“You’d be amazed by what that little bit could do for you, if you invested it wisely,” she said. The woman had nerve, I had to give her that. She’d recently lost what must have been a great deal of Nicole’s money in the stock market, and here she was trying to give us financial advice. I had a hunch that my money was safer right where it was. Sure, it wouldn’t grow any, but it wouldn’t vanish, either. As far as I was concerned, that was a victory.

“How would you go about it?” I asked her.

“Well, first we’d put you in the market. With that amount, I believe I’d go for more aggressive stocks in hopes of quick growth.”

Grace shook her head as she looked at me, and then she asked aloud, “Doesn’t the prospect of fast growth also mean that it’s by definition high risk?”

“What’s life without taking chances every now and then?” Dina asked. “Besides, it’s not nearly as risky as you might think.”

Tell that to Nicole, I felt like saying, but I didn’t think that would do me any good with the investment counselor. I knew that many people swore by their investments, but the one time I’d bought a little stock, it had unfailingly dropped from the moment of my initial purchase until it was virtually worthless. All in all, I preferred to hold onto what little I had.

“Do you have any ideas about what I should do with my inheritance?” Celia asked her. “I’m about to come into a fairly healthy amount. No one thinks I can be prudent with it, so I’d love nothing more than to prove them all wrong.”

You could almost hear Dina salivating at the news. “We need to talk, dear girl. I have a few things in mind for you, but trust me, I’m going to make you rich.”

I touched Celia’s shoulder, and then I shook my head, indicating that I thought it was a very poor idea to take financial advice from this woman.

Celia grinned at me, and then she said softly, “I’m not letting her anywhere near my money. I’m just trying to keep her talking so we can find her and get out of here. I’m getting cold, too,” she added, shivering a little from the chill in the air. The sky was definitely beginning to darken, and I knew that before long, we’d never be able to get Dina out of there.

Her voice sounded closer, though.

“I’ve got an idea. Why don’t you sing the alphabet song,” I suggested. It really didn’t matter what she said or even sang, but I was tired of her pitches, so I wanted an alternative to home in on.

“That sounds a bit silly to me,” she said.

“Then I don’t care what you sing. Just give us something to help us find you.”

Surprising me with her choice, she began to sing an old-time hymn, one that I hadn’t heard in years. To my amazement, Dina had a fairly decent voice. Using it to guide us, we soon found her.

“That was nice, Dina,” Grace said. “You can really sing.”

“Thanks. I used to sing in my grandmother’s church choir when I was younger. I don’t know what made me think of that song. I haven’t sung it in years.”

Grace looked at me, a little mortified. “Suzanne, I was so intent on finding Dina that I lost track of how we got in here. Are we lost, too?”

I grinned at her. “No worries. I kept track.”

“How?”

“In my mind,” I said with a smile.

“Then we’re doomed. We’re all doomed,” she answered with a grin of her own.

I only led us down one false path before we made our way out of the maze. Considering the circumstances, I thought that was pretty good.

Once we were all free of the maze, we headed back to the lodge. There still weren’t any electric lights on in the massive stone building, but I could see flickering lights and shadows being thrown off from the fireplace within. No one would go cold tonight, and based on what I’d seen in the pantry on my previous raids, no one should go hungry, either. I fingered the bandana in my pocket, still safely tucked away. I wasn’t sure how I would use it, but I knew that having it might come in handy, so I wasn’t about to reveal its presence without coming up with a very good way to scare the killer into making a mistake.

“Did you ever find Hank?” Dina asked me, pulling me from my thoughts.

“When we got there, he was gone,” I said. That was true as well, since in my world, being gone could mean that someone just left or that they’d died, taking a rather more serious leave of the rest of us.

“That is so weird,” Dina said. “I’m not happy with this game of hide-and-seek he’s playing with us.”

“I’m still not sure that it involves all of us,” Celia said, speaking up for the first time in a while.

“What do you mean?”

“I have a hunch that he’s just interested in the person who tried to kill him last night, don’t you think?”

“You’ve probably got a point, but then again, I’ve never had that kind of experience before myself, so it’s hard to say.”

I found it difficult to believe that no one had threatened Dina before, especially given the fact that it was highly likely that Nicole hadn’t been the only client she’d bankrupted. “You’re lucky, then. I’ve even had people come after
me
in the past.”

For some reason, Dina found that amusing. “What could you have possibly done to someone to make them angry enough to want to kill you?”

I answered her with dead sincerity. “The truth of the matter is that I’ve backed more than one murderer into a corner in the past, and let me assure you, there’s no more dangerous man or beast.”

“But you make donuts for a living, right?” Dina asked me skeptically.

“And great ones at that,” Grace said, rising to my defense. “But what she’s really known for are her amateur sleuthing skills.”

“I suppose that makes you her sidekick,” Dina said disparagingly.

“Grace is my partner,” I said proudly. “She’s not anybody’s sidekick. I wouldn’t have been able to do most of what I’ve accomplished if it hadn’t been for her.”

“Thank you,” Grace told me.

“You’re most welcome. It’s true, you know.”

“I hate to interrupt your mutual admiration society,” Dina said, “but I’m cold and hungry. Let’s go in, shall we?”

“I just have one question before we rejoin the others,” I said as I placed a hand lightly on her shoulder, keeping her from going in.

“What’s that?”

“Why did you really run away earlier?”

Dina stopped, turned, and gave me a critical glance. “I told you when I left. I went to see if Hank was still there.”

“But we never saw you on our search,” Celia interrupted, getting into the swing of the investigation. “If that were true, we should have bumped into you somewhere on the trail below.”

“I glanced over the hill, but I couldn’t see him, and unlike you three, I must have missed the other trail. I didn’t want to go back inside, though, not the way everyone else was acting, so I decided that what I really needed was a little time alone.”

“So that’s why you got lost in the maze?” I asked her.

“I didn’t do it intentionally,” Dina protested. “I probably should have studied the map before I went in, but I thought, how hard could it be? After all, I’d done it once before.”

“These things aren’t always easier the second time you go through them,” I said.

“No kidding. Is that all, or do you have more questions for me?”

It was a legitimate inquiry, but I wasn’t sure how to ask the most pressing question in my mind.

Once again, Grace took care of that for me.

“If you wouldn’t mind sharing with the rest of us, were you the one who tried to push Nicole over the edge of the cliff?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she snapped.

I didn’t let go of her shoulder, though. “That’s not really an answer, is it?”

“I don’t have to reply to such insane questions,” Dina said as she broke free of my grip.

“Maybe not,” Celia said, “but if you didn’t do it, you should be more than happy about freely admitting your lack of involvement in what happened.”

“Is that what you all want from me, a declaration of my innocence?” she asked, nearly at the point of tears. I hadn’t realized how stressed she was until I could see the hopelessness in her gaze. “Fine. I didn’t try to push Nicole over the edge, nor did I shove Hank by mistake. There, are you satisfied?”