The Blood We Spill: Suspense with a Dash of Humor (The Letty Whittaker 12 Step Mysteries) (25 page)

I walked over to Baara, careful to avoid the
chomping teeth. I had grown up on a farm, but we had beef cattle. Horses always
seemed like exotic animals to me, and despite reading every Misty and Black
Stallion book that hit the market, they secretly scared me.

The horse blew out a huff of air, making me jump
back. It looked at me like I was crazy and pulled its head back into the dark
recesses of the stall. Baara laughed.

“You don’t have to scream,” she said.

“I didn’t scream. I just… It got snot on me.”

“She just had a nose tickle, didn’t you, Nanna?
Nothin’ to be scared of.”

Right.

“I just wanted to see if you were okay,” I said.
“You got so upset at Rachel.”

The smile evaporated from Baara’s face. She turned
to lean on the sill of the window. Nanna shuffled around inside, and I
approached warily. Horses have been known to jump over obstacles at least as
high as the window. Nanna seemed more interested in her hay, but you never
knew. She could be a fooler.

“Baara, I know you don’t agree with some of the
things that are worrying Rachel, but she’s still your friend.”

She stiffened. “The Bible says, ‘Everyone must
submit to the Authority which God has established. He who rebels against the
Authority is rebelling against God, and those who do so will bring judgment on
themselves.’ Father taught me that. And Father is the Authority, so—”

“I thought that was God,” I said.

She looked confused. “Well, it is, but Father is
our leader, so first it’s him and then it’s God.”

“You said it’s in the Bible. Do you know where?”

Baara shook her head. “I don’t know, but it’s in
there. Rachel needs to get with the program. If she keeps disobeying Father,
I’m not going to be her friend anymore.”

“How is Rachel disobeying Father?” I asked. “By
asking questions?”

“It’s not right to argue with Father, and asking
questions is arguing with him.”

The stubborn set of her face told me I wouldn’t be
able to talk her out of it. Maybe it was time to change the subject. “Baara,
where’s Casper? Isn’t he feeling well?”

“He had to go talk to the police. Father’s going
to go get him when he’s done.”

“Father is?” I said.

Her eyes narrowed when she picked up the disbelief
in my voice. She wasn’t smart, but she had a sensitive streak when it came to
protecting Father.

“I mean, it would make more sense for him to send
someone,” I said. “Like Moses, maybe. He shouldn’t have to run errands like
that himself.”

Her face cleared, and she nodded.

“Are you worried about him?” I asked.

“About Father?”

“No, Casper. Your husband.”

“Oh,” she said. “Him. Father says he’ll be fine.”

“What did the police want with him?”

Her eyes shuttered again. “Father told me not to
worry about it.”

The horse shoved its head back out the window,
cleaving the space between us. I
might
have made some noise that sounded
like
nyaaagh
.

Baara laughed so hard she almost wet herself, and
she ended up running out of the barn in search of a toilet. I followed at a
slower pace.

What did the police want with Casper?
  

T
here was so
much going on I was afraid I couldn’t keep it straight. I had no idea why Maggie
hadn’t been at the supposedly mandatory temple meeting. The police had Casper,
and while I guessed it had to be about Enoch, I couldn’t quite picture mild,
numbers-oriented Casper taking a cleaver to a man’s hand and then toting it
back across the country as some kind of macabre trophy. Or was it meant as
proof of his deed? Thinking about Casper reminded me I still needed to examine
the papers Rachel had stashed in her journal, and I wanted that deeds file,
too.

My room had grown cold, and I was feeling the
particular sort of loneliness that breeds middle of the night ruminations.
Especially when the ruminations included psychopaths and killers and amputated
limbs.

I decided to get Beth. Aside from two tiny
children’s night-lights, all the hallway lights in the lodge were turned off
after nine. An unspoken rule that we weren’t supposed wander around at night
kept most of us tucked away in our bedrooms. Domino roaming the grounds kept us
inside the lodge altogether. Of course, the bathrooms were located at each end
of the hall, and nature necessitated the occasional midnight trip. It was on
those trips that I would notice Gabriel, and sometimes Moses, patrolling the
grounds and common areas with a flashlight. Times like those made me yearn for
a lock on my door.

But at least the lack of locks meant I didn’t have
to worry about being barred from Beth’s room. By now, it was well after
midnight, and I assumed Jazzy, who was assigned early breakfast duty with Jala,
would be asleep. I tapped lightly on their door. No answer. I tried again.
Still nothing.

Afraid if I knocked any louder I would wake the
others along the hall, I eased the door open. Although some ambient light
filtered in, their room was dark. And smelly. Jazzy’s tummy must have been
acting up again. I tiptoed to Beth’s bed and almost wet my pants when I spied a
bleached, utterly blank face staring up at me. My strangled gasp awakened the
mummy and she bolted up. Beth’s eyes now appeared over the top of the white
towel that swaddled her face. I snatched it off and slapped my hand across her
mouth before she could let out a shriek.

“Mmff.”

“Sh!” I whispered. “It’s just me. Don’t wake up,
Jazzy.”

Her eyes squinted in anger and I briefly debated
gagging her with the towel, but she finally nodded and I took my hand away.

“What—”

“Sh,” I said again. “Follow me.”

When we reached my room, she smacked me in the
shoulder. Hard. “Don’t you ever do that again. You scared me half to death.”

“You? How do you think I felt when I found out I
was trying to wake up the Mummy from the Black Lagoon?”

“Mummy from the…? Look, I was just trying to keep
from being poisoned in my sleep. I need some kind of filter. They served pork
and beans for supper. I can’t believe the EPA hasn’t shut her down. That
woman’s ass is more toxic than Chernobyl.”

I rubbed my arm. “In that case, I saved your life.
You should be more grateful.”

“Oh, I am, believe me. But I’m guessing that’s not
why you dragged me out of my toasty, albeit, stinky bed. What’s up?”

I told her about the notes Rachel had taken and
the deeds file and how, as far as I knew, they were both still hidden away in
the stack of files.

“But you have no idea what she was looking for?”
Beth asked.

“Not really, but if she was hiding it, it might be
important. It’s obvious something has been bothering her, even to the point of
her not trusting Father. Unfortunately, I haven’t had a chance to sneak them
out, and I go into isolation tomorrow. That means you’re going to have to get
in there and slip the papers out of the office without getting noticed. If you
volunteer to file, they’ll all be thrilled. Nobody wants that job. But you’ll
have to—”

“Letty,” Beth interrupted. “I’m not going to be
able to sneak them out from under Maliah’s nose any easier than you did. We
have to try something else.”

“Like what?”

“I guess we’ll have to figure out a time when no
one’s around,” Beth said with a grin. “Like when the office is closed. And when
it’s dark. Like at night.”

Groaning, I pressed the heel of my hand into my
suddenly throbbing forehead. “Please tell me you’re not suggesting what I think
you’re suggesting.”

She leaned over and patted my leg. “No guts, no
glory. In for a penny, in for a pound. If at first you don’t suc—“

“Oh, shut up,” I said.

Chapter Twenty-Three

W
e played around
with the idea of breaking into the office from the inside the lodge, but my
education had involved unlocking traumatic secrets from the past, while Beth’s
lone fling at education had been a fashion-design course twenty years ago. And
she’d flunked it. Neither of us had any useful skills like lock picking or
breaking and entering. We waited inside until after we saw Gabriel do a
walk-through of the lot, heading up to the dining hall and temple. Once he
disappeared into the dark void, we scurried out to huddle in the shrubbery next
to the office window. October had turned the corner, moving away from autumn
and trudging with grim determination into winter. The night chill sliced
through the fabric of my sweater, cutting an icy trail along my spine.

Beth, demonstrating previously unforeseen criminal
tendencies, giggled and held up a rock and the towel she brought along to
deaden the sound of breaking glass. On second thought, her tendencies were
pretty foreseeable.

“What are you mumbling?” she asked.

“I’m not mumbling. I’m praying there isn’t an
alarm.” I felt like I was going to throw up. Just as she reared back to take a
swing with the rock, I grabbed her arm.

“Now what?” she whispered.

I pointed to a crack an eighth of an inch thick
running along the bottom of the window. Despite the evening chill, it had been
a gloriously warm fall day. I shoved at the frame and the window eased up. Beth
scowled and set her tools aside.

Once it was raised, I tried to figure out how to
get inside. It wasn’t as easy as it looked in the movies.
Or maybe I’m not
as limber as I used to be,
a little voice whispered. I hauled myself head
first over the sill, scraping my thighs raw and almost kicking out the window
as gravity deposited me in a contorted mess onto the floor. I lay there,
moaning.

Beth stuck her head through the window, gazing
down at my inert form. “Well, that was entertaining. Now get up and find those
notes.”

The moon poured so much light into the office that
I worried about being seen through the windows. The sooner I was out of there,
the better. As long as I was already on the floor, I crawled over to the box
filled with the to-be-filed files I had shoved against the wall. Since I had
stuffed it in next to Rachel’s confession journal, I found the deeds file
fairly quickly. Despite my thumping heart, I took a minute to use the mini
flashlight from Beth’s key ring to scan through Rachel’s notes.

The loose sheet of paper had been folded into
quarters and stuffed into the middle of the journal. She had written a list of
six familiar names—the Seven, minus Enoch and, of course, Eli. Rachel had
titled it, SEARCHERS, and listed four cities: Houston, Philadelphia, Chicago,
and Las Vegas. I remembered Talitha—or maybe it was Rachel—telling me that
after Enoch had taken off, Father had sent people out looking for him. Had it
been to these four cities?

Next to Houston, Rachel had penciled in, “
Gabriel
.”
I wondered what proof she had, but maybe he had mentioned it to her. Next to
Vegas, she had written, “
Moses,”
but it had a series of question marks
after it.

Given Moses’s high creep quotient, I had no
trouble picturing him as a murderer. I could even see him bringing back a
grisly souvenir appendage to show to Father, but Rachel had also penciled in a
couple of notes. The first said “
extra Delta ticket?-who else?
” And
she’d jotted, “
Ad-hosp
” next to it.

An extra Delta ticket? So what did that mean?

Beth hissed from the window and I almost wet
myself. Knees popping, I crawled over to her and explained what I’d read.

“A list of cities the searchers went to? That’s
what I call a clue, Watson. Haul your ass out of there and let’s—”

“I thought so too, but look what she wrote there,”
I pointed to the Delta notation. “Someone else must have gone looking for Enoch
too, but for some reason, he or she took a Delta flight. And I don’t know what
the heck the other note means. A hospital ad?”

Beth thought for a few minutes. We were whispering
through the open window, barely making any sound over the slight breeze
rustling the few remaining brown leaves. But with the nearly full moon, Beth
would be sighted pretty quickly by anyone walking up the driveway. Every few
seconds she scanned the parking lot.

This was stupid.

“Move. I’m coming out.” I decided to go feet first
this time, but Beth needed to get out of the way or I’d land on her.

“Wait. There’s got to be other paperwork,” Beth
said. “It’s a church, but it’s a business too. I have no idea if these flights
could be used as a tax deduction, but I bet Father would try to figure out some
way to use them as one.”

“Do churches need deductions?” I asked. “They’re
nonprofits.”

“It’s America. Everybody needs deductions. Try to
look for a file with travel receipts. Even if they use accounting software,
they would keep hard-copy receipts.”

“Damn it.” I scurried back to the files, but I was
certain I hadn’t seen a travel or receipt file when I had been sorting them. On
the other hand, if it was information that was referred to frequently, maybe
they kept it in easy reach. I checked Rachel’s desk first, just in case she had
done deeper research. The little flashlight flicked, then dimmed. Afraid the
batteries were about to die, I crawled over to Abigail’s. I could feel bruises blooming
on each kneecap.
How did babies—or hookers—do this all day?

The bottom desk drawer was locked, but her keys
were in the pencil tray of the middle drawer. Duh. But helpful for nefarious,
criminal types like me.

And there it was. TRAVEL RECEIPTS.

I snatched the whole thing out and duck walked
back to the window.
Way
worse than crawling. By the time I reached Beth,
the flashlight had completely died and my thighs were threatening to burst into
flames. I took a moment and lay there whimpering, trying to massage the cramps
out of them. Where was Justus when I needed him?