Killer Honeymoon (6 page)

“What about Hannah? Was she a rebel?”

He frowned. “You heard about that?”

Jane shrugged lightly.

“She’s back, you know. Has been for a while, but
hiding out. She’s crazy, I think. Wants people to think she’s in trouble or
something. Tired of being overlooked all these years. My brother used to date
her. She looks quiet, but she’s always been starving for attention.”

“You say she’s home, though?” Jane pushed her plate
away and leaned in. “Sorry for being such a gossip, but the whole town is
buzzing about the missing kids. It’s really caught my attention.”

He lowered his eyebrows and leaned in even
closer. “I don’t blame you. A few girls are missing from Astoria, too, and
Seaside. I mean, Cherry and her friends just skipped out, I’m sure. But what
about all of the others? I think something bad is happening. And I think Hannah
just wanted to look like she was a part of it. Otherwise, why isn’t she back at
work?”

“But how do you know she’s home?”

“I don’t know for sure, but my brother said
something the other day. Something that made me think she was.”

“What did he say?” Jane whispered.

The waiter shook his head. “It wouldn’t mean
anything to you. But if you were really bored, you’d swing by her place and
peek in the windows. Or ring the bell and pretend you’re a journalist. I’m sure
she’d open the door if she thought it would get her media attention.”

Jane giggled. “Now that would be something I’ve
never done on a vacation before. Where does she live?”

The waiter looked over his shoulder and then
back to Jane. “That would be so wrong. I can’t tell you where Hannah Laing lives,
even if she is listed in the yellow pages. That would be totally inappropriate
of me.” He winked. “But if you happened to figure it out, and happened to go
there and pretend to be a journalist, and happened to come back here for
another lunch, you just might happen to get a plate of free starters.” He stood
up and smiled. “Sometimes we have very good promotions.”

Jane caught Flora’s eye. Flora did not look
happy.

“Too bad you couldn’t direct us there. Could
have been fun.” Jane lifted her drink and took a sip.

The waiter chuckled and walked away.

“So what’s his deal?” Jake asked. “Better tips for
selling gossip or a blackmailer?”

“And how did Paul know we’d get that particular
waiter?” Jane scanned the small bistro. Two waitresses leaned on tables,
whispering to the guests. There were only four lunch servers that she could
see. “Or is fresh, hot gossip always on the menu at Jackstays?”

“I don’t recommend pretending to be a journalist,”
Flora said, her face a study in disapproval.

“Nope,” Rocky added. “If this Hannah is hungry
for attention, she’ll be just as happy to talk to a private detective.”

Hannah Laing’s townhouse was in a row of ten
gabled numbers that were just two blocks from the beach. The roof was a bit
mossy, but she had a planter with pretty rust-colored flowers at her doorstep. Being
the middle unit, there was no easy way to peak in her windows, so Jane rang the
bell and hoped. If Hannah was pretending to be kidnapped, there was no way she
would answer the door.

Jane counted to sixty-two and rang it again.

Jake climbed the wooden rail and leaned over to
look into the window. “Dishes in the sink. She’s home.”

“If she was kidnapped, she’d have dishes in the
sink.”

“She wasn’t kidnapped.” Jake hopped down.

“What makes you so sure?”

The door opened.

A woman a couple of years older than them with a
very red nose and red eyes, wearing a turquoise bathrobe, stared at them.

“Good afternoon. Hannah Laing?”

Hannah looked around them and then nodded, her
lips forming a silent yes.

“We’re private investigators with SCoRI and were
hoping to speak with you about some recent incidents in town.”

Hannah’s face paled, but she opened the door and
ushered Jane and Jake in.

“I’m sorry,” she said with a raspy attempt at
speech. “I’ve come down with something and just can’t speak much.” She held her
hand over her mouth and coughed—like a dull saw on dry wood.

“May we come in?” Jane stepped forward, trying
not to betray her fear of the cold germs.

Hannah led them into her living room. The room
was sweltering—a gas fire glowed in the corner. Hannah was bundled up in
sweaters and a bathrobe whose pockets were stuffed with Kleenex.

“We’ve heard you have information about where
Cherry and her friends may have gone.” A light sweat was already breaking out
on Jane’s forehead.

Hannah held one of her crumpled tissues to her
mouth and rasped out another cough. “Who said?”

“Everybody.” Jake sat on the corduroy love seat
and leaned forward. “It’s all over town that you followed them. Thing is, it’s
not all over town that you’re home again.”

Jane sat next to Jake.

Hannah sank into a recliner. “I know a thing or
two.” She pressed her hand to her eye. “This cold is killing me.”

“If you have the energy to help us, to explain a
few things, we’d really appreciate it.” Jane bit her lip. Hannah didn’t seem
like a weirdo, and if she’d been sick like this for a couple of weeks, no
wonder she wasn’t at work.

“Who are you working for?” Hannah asked with
great effort.

“We have a client.” Jane looked at Jake. He
shrugged slightly. “A body was found in our shed. We also happen to be private
investigators. We are our own clients.”

Hannah leaned forward, deep chest coughs racking
her body.

When she had gotten ahold of herself, she asked,
“What do you want from me?”

“When did you get so sick?” Jane turned the
conversation, an idea nagging at her.

Hannah smiled. “Good question. Remember that
rainstorm that hit us two weeks ago?”

Jane shook her head. She hadn’t been keeping up
with weather on the coast.

“Big one. Very wet and cold. Not a good time to
be lost in the woods.”

“How did you end up lost in the woods?”

Hannah had another fit of coughing. “I didn’t
like what I saw with those cousins of the Smith girls.” She wiped her nose.
“Cherry’s mom doesn’t talk about her past, but we’re a small town, so we do.”
She paused to catch her breath. “Those cousins reminded me of something I had
heard a long time ago. I may not have known them well, but after they hit the
road, I had a really bad feeling. I tried to ignore it, but when I couldn’t
shake it, I stayed up all night trying to place the thing those boys reminded
me of.”

“Did you?”

She blew her nose. “Yes. But I thought I might
be too late.”

“But what did they remind you of? What was wrong
with them?” Jane leaned forward, trying to catch each of the half-voiced words
Hannah was able to get out.

“Ever heard of Warren Jeffs?”

Jane tilted her head and thought about it.
Familiar, but she couldn’t place it.

“That Mormon guy with all the child wives,” Jake
said.

“Not Mormon exactly, but you get the idea,”
Hannah corrected. “The cousins reminded me of the kid I saw on this TV show…they
interviewed him about how he got out of the cult. He had that same accent, like
Wisconsin married Texas and invented a new language. Not like anyone else I’ve
ever heard before.” She sat back and closed her eyes.

“Are you sure?” Jane asked. “It couldn’t have
been something else?”

Hannah shook her head but didn’t answer.

“Can I make you a cup of tea?” Sympathy for the
sick, misunderstood librarian poured over Jane.

Hannah shook her head again. “I’m sure I’m
right. I listen. I pay attention. Everyone has always said something was weird
about Daisy—the mom. When I looked at her from the idea she had escaped a cult,
it all made sense.”

Jane let the words sink in. Cherry’s mom escaped
a cult. Her cousins came to stay. They all disappeared again. Probably off to
the cult to become child brides or something. “What do you think all of that
has to do with Colorado? Or Arizona?” she asked.

Hannah smiled weakly. “Colorado City, Arizona,
is where Warren Jeffs’s cult lives.”

“So that’s where they are.” Jane sat back, her
heart heavy. What would make perfectly normal Oregon girls want to run off to
join a cult? “And you decided to go get them? Even though they had a head start
of a few days?”

Hannah sighed. “I called in my vacation time and
hit the road. There was always a chance I could catch up to them. That many
people in one car won’t go fast. And I was on my own. I thought I might be able
to do it.”

“But how did you end up in the woods?”

This time Hannah leaned forward, her eyes narrow.
“I saw one of the girls. Rose. I saw her in the woods. I pulled over and chased
her.”

“Uh…”

Hannah doubled over in another vicious cough.
When she was done, she stared at Jane with red, but cold eyes. “You don’t have
to believe me. I know what I saw. I parked on the nearest shoulder and ran back
to the spot where I had seen her. I called out her name and listened. I heard
someone hiking, so I went after her. And I kept trying to find her until I was
completely lost. Then it rained for two days while I tried to find my way back
to my car.”

Jane scratched her head. “But this was a couple
of weeks ago already. Why are you still hiding? How are you still sick?”

Hannah gritted her teeth. “I’m still sick
because I have a compromised immune system. It’s the luck of antirejection
drugs.”

“Ah.” Jane blushed.

“And I’m not hiding. I’m here at home. Just
because no one else has come to see me doesn’t mean I’m hiding.”

“But being sick and compromised, you can’t run
around or you will get worse.” Jake’s voice was both soothing and
understanding.

Hannah relaxed back into her chair. “Exactly. If
I want to get over this someday, I have to stay home.”

“Do you think you could describe the place you
saw Rose?” Jane rubbed her thumb on the arm of the love seat. Hannah’s story
had been good all the way to seeing the missing girl in the woods. Then it went
crazy. But she was very sick, that much had to be evidence that she had at
least gotten caught in the rainstorm.

Hannah took some slow, deep breaths. When she
was sure she wasn’t going to cough again, she answered, “Yes. If I had a map, I
could find it.”

“Do you think maybe Rose ran away from the group
and was trying to find her way back?”

“No.” Hannah was interrupted by another long
cough. “I saw her right at the edge of the road. If she had wanted to go home,
she would have kept to the road.”

“Unless maybe she was trying to follow the road
and not be seen. Like maybe she was afraid of getting caught again.”

Hannah nodded. “Could be.” She yawned.

“Do you have any thoughts on the body in our
shed?”

“They said it was a man?”

“Yes.”

“Then maybe one of the boys from the cult didn’t
make it into the car.”

They sat in silence with the thought. If the
cult, which Jane intended to read as much as she could about when she got home,
was about child brides and stuff, then maybe they didn’t need any extra men.
And if they didn’t, then the girls from Warrenton, and possibly the ones from
Astoria and Seaside, really had run off with murderers.

Or had become murderers.

“Do we scour the woods for Rose or not?” Jake
laced his fingers through Jane’s as they walked on the beach. “It’s a long
shot, but what if we could find her?”

“Do you think our body is one of the three out-of-towners?”

“He might be, but how will we find out?”

Jane stopped. “Flora called the ME her friend.
Let’s see what she found out.” She slipped her phone out and sent a text to her
boss. “If the body has been identified and they have released the information
to Flora, we’re a step ahead.”

“Sure, if they can release it. I think they have
to notify next of kin first.”

“And if next of kin is stuck in a cult…”

“But they might not be. Next of kin, or
whatever, could be Aunt Daisy.”

“What do you know about this cult thing in
Arizona?”

“The ministry I work for focuses on rescuing
girls around the world from modern slavery, so we’ve talked about this group
before. It’s an offshoot of LDS, though they would claim they are the true
church and LDS are apostate. There is definitely not good blood between the
groups. But this one, the leader is in prison for sex crimes against children,
yet the people still follow his directions and consider him a prophet.”

Jane shivered. “Okay, I think I know the group
you’re talking about.”

“They practice polygamy—one man, many women.”

“Do you think a handful of modern teenagers
could be convinced to run off to join some old guy’s harem?” Jane watched the
ocean as it rolled over the sand. “I can’t imagine it.”

“I guess it depends on how they were used to
hearing about God at home. Maybe the handsome young strangers had a persuasive
case.”

“Or maybe it’s unrelated. Maybe they all drove
off to Disneyland. Maybe they went to Mexico and were kidnapped. Maybe
anything. Maybe the guy died in our shed because it was a warm place to sleep.”

“In August?”

“True. He didn’t need shelter in August.”

“And there was the bullet hole in the body board.”

“We’ve seen Hannah. I still think Daisy is our
next best bet. She knows more about what her nephews and their friend were
doing here than anyone else.”

“I’ll see whoever you want to see. But if she
escaped a cult and is hiding, she might not want to tell a couple of private
detectives in training all of her secrets.”

“But she might, if she’s scared for her
daughters.”

Jake stopped and took her into his arms. “I’m
thankful for your optimistic outlook. That is exactly what the world needs.”

Jane leaned her head on his shoulder and sighed.
She didn’t know how to survive a life surrounded by crime and murder if she
didn’t have an optimistic outlook.

In the distance she heard the sound of feet
slamming against the hard wet sand, and someone calling out her name.

Taylor caught up with them on the beach, her
hand pressed to her side. “Coco was poisoned.”

“Uh.” Jane looked at Jake. Jake looked away.
“Listen, we are so sorry. We brought that beer and then the lady who made it
said it was too yeasty and not to drink it.”

“No, not that. It was alcohol poisoning.”

“Is she going to be okay?”

“Yeah, but she didn’t drink that much. One beer
before you got there, and like half of the one you gave her.”

“But she was acting kind of…I don’t know. She
seemed like she had had a lot to drink.”

“That’s her usually. She’s like that. Gets all
riled up and stuff. But see, if she didn’t drink enough to get alcohol
poisoning on her own, then someone poisoned her.”

“How?”

Taylor looked grim. “If they had spiked her
drink with denatured alcohol, they could have done it.”

“Because denatured alcohol has that poison stuff
in it?”

“Exactly. You a chemist too?” Taylor looked at
Jake with new appreciation.

Jane tried to remember what she had learned in
high school science class about not drinking rubbing alcohol. It was treated
with a poison so it could be sold and used and not considered a beverage.
Wouldn’t that stuff taste awful? And would it function just like alcohol
poisoning?