Smarty Bones (26 page)

Oh, I looked forward to it. Nothing like watching a self-proclaimed lady’s man get worked over by a Daddy’s Girl.

“I have to go.” Cece put her empty glass on the table.

I realized then she’d been too quiet. “Either I’ll go with you, or Graf will. One of us needs to stay here and make sure Tinkie doesn’t tie Webber in a knot.”

She stepped back from the table. “No. Please. I need a walk. And I need to decide what to do. You’ve held back, Sarah Booth, because one of the prime suspects is my brother. We can’t do that anymore. Things will only worsen.”

“Cece—”

“I think of everything I gave up just to be me.” Her voice broke, but she didn’t cry. “I only wanted my family to love me for who I was. I asked too much of them. And now this is visited on me by Jeremiah, who got everything. Every scrap of love they had, they lavished on him. And this is how it turns out?”

She was out the door before I could turn around. Graf caught my wrist, just a gentle tug.

“Let her go. She has a lot to think about.”

“She shouldn’t walk home.” Cece was in terrific shape, and a walk down the deserted streets of Zinnia was about as safe as a nocturnal jaunt could be. It was loneliness that I wanted to protect my friend from, not danger. Her only living relative had hurt her, yet again.

Graf read my concern. “Wait for Tinkie. I’ll go after Cece,” he said.

When a man truly loves a woman, he loves her friends. “Thank you.” I kissed his cheek and held him close for a moment. “I don’t deserve you.”

“Keep thinking that way.” His grin was crooked and naughty. “I’ll tell you what I want from you later tonight.”

“Whatever it is, it’s yours.”

He walked out the door and I had an incredible impulse to follow and stop him. I couldn’t bear to let him out of my sight. What if something happened to him? I’d never recover. Love was such a handicap in the PI business.

The bartender drifted over to pick up our check and the money Graf left on the table. Misty was a respectable distance from Webber, so I asked her if he’d been in the bar all evening.

“Most of it.” She put the dirty glasses on a tray. “He left for about half an hour. He was talking to that old codger, Buford, and his friend. Then he disappeared, and I thought he’d stiffed me for the tab. He came back and paid, though, and he’s been right there ever since.”

“Thanks.” Thirty minutes would be enough time to sneak into Olive’s room, tear it up, and conk her on the head. Webber was the only person who might find value in her research—if anything was taken. It could as easily have been a Heritage Hero who just wanted to destroy her research and belongings.

Tinkie and Webber had their heads together like two old lovers. When he woke up from her spell, he was going to be pissed, but it would be too late. My partner would know everything, all of his sordid little secrets.

She signaled she was ready to go. Keys in hand, I sidled out of the bar and waited for her in the hallway. I nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw movement in the gardens. Night had fallen, and the multitude of fairy lights Gertrude normally kept on to illuminate her exquisite plants were oddly dark.

I almost called out, but then I caught the glint of moonlight on Gertrude’s red hair. She carried a stack of linens and hurried across the yard. Probably a minor emergency like a guest needing clean sheets. The life of a B and B owner was not for me, of that I was certain.

Tinkie breezed up beside me. “Let’s go.” She didn’t wait for me to agree. She grabbed my arm and kept walking.

“Did you learn anything?”

“Buford and Jeremiah plan to kidnap Olive. Tonight.”

*   *   *

We rushed along the porch to Olive’s room. Tinkie’s tiny little fists beat hard against the solid wood door. No answer.

Very slowly she turned to me. “Maybe Olive and Coleman don’t want to be disturbed?” She made it a question in an effort to spare my feelings.

I slammed my hand on the door much harder. With the same result. No one came to let us in. If they were in there, they weren’t answering. And if they weren’t in there, where were they?

Tink scuffed her toe on the floor. “Maybe they went to the courthouse to take a statement or something.”

“Let’s get out of here.”

“I’ll try calling him.” She suited action to her words. After several rings, it was apparent he wouldn’t answer. “That’s not like Coleman. He always answers his phone.”

“While Webber was eavesdropping on Buford and Jeremiah, did he say how they intended to abduct Olive?” Perhaps they’d already nabbed her, and Coleman, too.

“No details were forthcoming.” Tinkie came to the same conclusion. “Gertrude can open the room. Coleman could be in there injured.”

We hustled to the front desk, which was empty. The key to Olive’s room dangled from a pigeonhole, and I snared it. Two minutes later, Tinkie and I barreled into the room.

Papers still littered the floor. Shelves were overturned. The computer was smashed—all as it had been earlier. No Coleman or Olive.

“Maybe they went to dinner.” Tinkie backed out of the room. “I’m about to starve myself.”

“Coleman would answer the phone.” I was worried and annoyed. “He knows the Heritage Heroes are up to something. We should have told him about the attacks at the hunting camp.”

“If Olive is with him, she’s safe. Drive me home and Oscar and I will search for Buford. Maybe we can talk sense into him. I’m sure Graf is back at Dahlia House now, waiting for you.”

“We can stop at the courthouse and talk to DeWayne.”

“Oscar and I will stop by to talk to Coleman. Buford is really our problem, and Oscar needs to handle it. Wrangle a bit of together time with Graf before he takes off for the West Coast.”

We left The Gardens and walked to the parking lot—in the dark. All of the artistically placed outside lights remained unlit.

It didn’t take ten minutes to reach Hill Top. I stopped at the cobblestone walk, and Tinkie put a hand on my shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“I am.”

“I don’t understand what Coleman sees in Olive. Maybe he’s just lonely. But keeping her safe tonight is his problem, not ours. Be thankful.”

I had to draw a line in my mind and my emotions. I wasn’t confused. I loved Graf deeply. I also cared for Coleman. He was my youth, my childhood. He’d known me before I was an orphan or a PI. We had a history.

She leaned over and kissed my cheek. “Tomorrow, we need to fill Coleman in on everything. We can file charges in Washington County. Which may be an asset. I’d prefer to have them in the Sunflower County jail where I can watch them, but a little distance from their cohorts might be a good thing.”

“Call me when you find Buford, okay?”

“Will do. You aren’t really worried they’ll pull off a kidnapping, are you?”

I wasn’t worried about Olive. Not really. They could cook her but they couldn’t eat her—she was that unpalatable. But something niggled at me, made me uneasy. “I’d just like this to be over. The whole thing’s a tempest in a teapot. Who cares what Olive writes? But a young man is dead. That’s bothersome to me. The stakes aren’t high enough to warrant murder, yet Jimmy Boswell is dead.”

Tinkie tapped her toe. “You’re right. This doesn’t add up. This should be a piece of cake, but nothing plugs in quite right. Not Webber, not Olive, not Boswell. Not even those kooks Buford and Jeremiah. I see why you’re edgy.”

“And I’m tired.” I hated to admit it, but exhaustion was making me dull.

“Get Graf to rub your shoulders.” She blew a kiss and ran up the sidewalk to her house. The front door opened, framing Oscar. Chablis shot out of the house like a rocket. I doubted the little dust mop weighed two pounds, but she was all heart. She barked and sprang into Tinkie’s arms.

Oscar came down the walk and swept them both into a huge hug. Tinkie was welcomed back into the bosom of her family.

14

I fought the temptation to go by the courthouse to see if Coleman was there with Olive. The truth was, she annoyed the snot out of me. I despised her. I fought an unrelenting urge to stuff her on a jet plane headed for Maine, where she belonged. I’d never wanted this case—and in fact wasn’t contractually on it—yet I felt like a wolf in a leg trap.

My headlights illuminated the cotton growing close to the road. The pulsing thrum of insects was better than any radio. I drove and pondered the chambers of my heart.

I’d never loved anyone the way I loved Graf. I had no doubt that my impending marriage was the answer to my prayers for a partner. He’d been my first adult love, and he’d broken my heart. But that heartbreak had also sent me home to Zinnia to save Dahlia House. Struggling to keep my home from foreclosure had focused me and given me a purpose I’d never experienced.

Coleman had been such a part of that journey. He was more like me than any other man I’d known. The land had a grip on him the same way it did on me. We forged a bond that only his commitment to another woman could shatter. And Connie had done that. She’d refused to release Coleman from his marriage, even when she didn’t want him.

He wasn’t a man who could sneak around his vows, and I’d been smart enough to know it. Had he thrown Connie over, no good would have come of it. If Life, the capital “L” kind, is all about timing, I had a lot to learn. When Coleman and I collided, our timing sucked. By the time he and Connie divorced, it was too late for us.

And then Graf came back into my life. He’d come looking for me, aware of what he’d lost. He’d been willing to give up everything to get me back.

The twists and turns of true love were hairpin at times. One degree different, and I might be living an alternate reality. I could have been the sheriff’s wife. Maybe even a deputy. The bottom line: I would always love Coleman. No woman would ever be good enough for him. Certainly not Olive Twist. It was unimaginable. She would wreck Coleman’s life, ostracizing him from his friends. Yet it was his choice. One I had to respect no matter how much I disagreed with it.

My thoughts had accompanied me home, and I turned down the drive to Dahlia House determined to push the case from my mind. To my surprise, Dahlia House was dark. When I exited the car, Sweetie came tearing across the porch, barking like crazy. “Where’s Graf?” I asked.

He’d had plenty of time to drop Cece at home, then drive to Dahlia House. Unless he was consoling Cece. I tried to calm Sweetie as I accepted, yet again, the solid truth about my fiancé. He was a good man. In the world of Zinnia and my friends, this was far more important than being a movie star, though I had no doubt he would attain that, too.

With Sweetie at my side and Pluto, almost invisible in the night, following behind, I went to the barn. While the horses ate, I groomed them. The heat was getting to all three of them, but soon October would blow in on cool, dry air and my early-morning rides around the cotton fields would be the perfect start to my day.

I finished barn chores and put the horses out. It was nearly nine o’clock. No word from Graf. I went inside and checked the answering machine. Not a single call. I didn’t want to interrupt a heart-to-heart with Cece, but worry nibbled at the edges of my brain.

I called his cell phone. On the fifth ring, he answered.

“Where the heck are you?” I kept it light.

Heavy breathing.

“Cece?” She was a prankster, but not ridiculous panting like a bad horror movie.

“Okay, guys, cut it out.” I grew testy. “This isn’t funny.”

A long, slow inhale and exhale of breath.

“Whoever this is, I’m not finding the routine amusing.” My temper kicked in, right on top of a gut-wrenching fear.

My answer was a click and a disconnect. I called back and the phone went to voice mail. “This is Graf, leave a message.” I hung up and called Cece’s cell phone.

“So at last you call, dah-link. I’m perfectly fine,” she said, “though had I been suicidally depressed. I could already have done the deed by now.”

“Where’s Graf?” I wasn’t intentionally brusque, but my throat constricted.

“Why would I know the whereabouts of your handsome fiancé?”

“Stop it, Cece. Is he with you?”

She heard my fear. “He isn’t, Sarah Booth. I haven’t seen him since I left The Gardens. I walked home and I’ve been here ever since.”

I sat down heavily on a kitchen chair. “He left right behind you to pick you up and drive you home.” The words fell out of my mouth but I wasn’t certain they made any sense.

“He never showed up. I walked home and I’ve been here, drinking a bottle of wine. Don’t panic, Sarah Booth. I’ll bet he’s trying to help you with the case.”

“I called his phone and someone answered but they wouldn’t talk.” I couldn’t help it. Tears leaked from my eyes. I felt them crawl over my cheeks. “He’s in trouble, Cece. Bad trouble.” The worry that had followed me all day jumped hard.

“Sarah Booth, don’t do this to yourself. I’m sure he’s fine. Where’s Tinkie?”

“Searching for Coleman and Olive.”

“Maybe Graf is with them.”

I grasped at hope and clutched it to me. “We have to find them.”

“Meet me at the courthouse.” Cece took charge, and a good thing. I was in a state.

*   *   *

Sweetie was in the front seat waiting when I went back outside. The dog was psychic. And walking over the hood was Pluto. I picked him up and put him on the ground, but he jumped back on the car.

“Not now.” I was gentle but firm as I removed him again.

Pluto leaped on the fender and hissed at me. I’d seen the damage he could do when perturbed. Once more, I shooed him to the lawn. His green eyes pierced me as he sat down.

“I’ll be back,” I promised him. “Graf may need me.”

I jumped behind the wheel and eased away from the house. Pluto was lost in the inky blackness of the night. The doggy door was available to him in the kitchen, and I hoped to be back shortly with Graf.

It wasn’t terribly late, but Sunflower County is still basically a farming community. Even though cotton harvesting is mechanized, farmers still rise with the sun and work all day, then hit the sack early.

I didn’t think it unusual that I passed no cars on the county road into town. When I came to a sharp ninety-degree turn we called Donnie’s Dogleg because of the horrific wreck Donnie Longmire walked away from his senior year in high school, I applied the brakes and slowed.