Thirty-Four and a Half Predicaments: Rose Gardner Mystery #7 (38 page)

I pulled it out a dozen times before he was satisfied.

“You better go, Mason.”

He looked into my face with an expression I couldn’t read. Then he smiled and gave me one last kiss. “I’ll see you tonight.”

My stomach twisted with nerves. “Good luck at your meeting.”

He got into his car and started to pull out. He’d wonder why I wasn’t leaving too, so I grabbed my phone and held it up to my mouth, pretending to talk. I pointed at it and smiled, grateful that he seemed to accept my excuse.

As soon as he disappeared from sight, I pulled my truck around the corner of the building. A couple of minutes passed before Jed showed up, riding a motorcycle. Once he climbed off and removed his helmet, he opened the back door of the truck and climbed in.

“I saw your boyfriend leaving. Complications?” he asked.

“Maybe.” I wasn’t sure what to make of what Mason had told me, but I wasn’t sharing this detail with Skeeter or Jed. “I’ll deal with it.”

“So do you have a plan?” he asked.

“Other than find Hattie, get my answers, and get out, no.”

“And you just want me there as backup.”

“It seems like the best bet. She thinks I’m comin’ alone.”

“Then we’ll create that illusion. Don’t worry about her seeing me.”

If things went south, as Skeeter said, I wasn’t sure how I’d explain Jed’s involvement to the sheriff, but I’d deal with that later. With any luck at all, I’d get my information without an incident. Jed was just my insurance policy.

Just five minutes later, I pulled into the parking lot of the burned-out factory. The outer walls of the brick building were mostly intact except for one section that was blackened and caved in. Weeds had grown thick against the wall.

Hattie’s gray sedan was parked in front of a door that led to the factory itself rather than the offices. Jed poked his head up over the top of the seat and looked around. “It looks safe enough. I’d go first to make sure the coast is clear, but she’ll probably be watching. Once she sees you go in alone, she’ll feel secure enough. After you’ve been inside for a minute, I’ll follow behind.”

I swallowed, trying to settle my stomach. “Thanks.”

He nodded. “If you need me, just call out my name. I’ll be close enough to get to you in seconds.”

“Okay.” I took the personal journal out of my purse and hid it under the front seat, then climbed out of the truck, patting my right coat pocket to reassure myself that the Taser was still in my pocket. After I slipped my phone into my other coat pocket, I headed for the metal door. There was a single rectangular window set into it, and sure enough, Hattie’s face was peering out at me from behind the windowpane.

The door pushed open and I walked through the opening. “Took you long enough,” Hattie said. She kept peering out of the window for a moment longer.

I gauged our surroundings—we were in a small foyer, opposite another metal door leading inside the factory. “I had to run by my house to get it.”

“Do you have the journal?” she asked. “The coded one?”

“Yes,” I said, although her adamance made me uneasy.

“Were you followed?”

“No. Do you have a reason to think someone would follow me?”

She shook her head and turned around and opened the other door.

“Where are we goin’?” I asked.

“You’ll see.”

I could push the matter, but I’d find out soon enough. Besides, Jed was nearby, so I’d be protected if she tried to pull anything.

The factory reeked of mold and rot. Metal contraptions filled the warehouse-like building. There weren’t many windows, but plenty of sunlight spilled in through the partially missing walls and roof on the eastern side of the building.

“Ever come here before?” she asked, leading the way.

I trailed behind, watching where I stepped and clutching my purse tighter. The floor was covered in toppled machine parts and tree limbs that must have blown in from the outside, along with beer cans and bottles. “No.”

“Not even as a teenager?”

That explained the beer cans. “No,” I murmured, looking around. This place looked like even more of a tetanus trap than the metal pieces in front of Weston’s Garage, Daniel Crocker’s old base of operations. “Where are we goin’?”

She didn’t answer, just continued through the metal maze.

“I take it that
you’ve
been here before?”

“Yeah, not that it did me any good. I needed the journal.”

“For what?”

“I’ll tell you when we get there.”

This whole situation was beginning to stink worse than a three-day-old dead catfish. “I thought you were gonna tell me about Dora, not lead me on some sort of treasure hunt.”

She stopped and turned to look at me. “This is about your mother. I promise. Trust me.”

I’d learned not to trust people who were this secretive, particularly when I didn’t understand their motives, yet I had no choice but to follow her if I wanted answers. One thing I’d learned as the Lady in Black was not to show your hand. I would still have some leverage as long as Hattie didn’t realize how desperate I was for answers. A small part of me realized the very fact that I was following her through this metal jungle tipped my hand, but I chose to ignore it.

Finally we emerged from the junkyard into an open area with metal beams supporting the ceiling. Several large broken windows lined the western wall, spilling light onto the dirty concrete floor. But dark clouds had blown in, obscuring the sun.

Hattie continued walking, but I stopped, holding my purse close to my side. “I think this is far enough.”

She turned around and studied me. “I know you don’t understand—”

“You’re right,” I said. “I don’t understand
any
of this. Normal people meet for coffee. Or lunch. They don’t meet in burned-down factories.”

Something in the building creaked and Hattie swung her head around, searching out the source. When she turned back to face me, her eyes were wide with paranoia.

I was having major second thoughts.

“I’m sorry,” she said, taking several steps backward. “But I think she knows. We don’t have time to dilly-dally around.” Then she turned and kept walking.

“Who knows?” I asked, but her answer was silence. It wasn’t a leap to put two and two together. Was “she” Beverly? I decided to not to tip Hattie off that I knew about Beverly’s existence. Shoot. For all I knew, Hattie was the one who had left the notes on my car. She’d already admitted to keeping track of me. She could be planning on killing me in here, figuring it would take ages for anyone to find me.

That was a comforting thought. Now I really wished I knew where Jed was.

But I had to wonder what purpose it would serve for someone to kill me. Was it for the inheritance? Everyone at the plant had already suspected Henry was my birth father. One only had to follow the path of publicly acknowledged men in Dora’s life to figure out who I actually was, even if Momma had passed me off as her own. In fact, why not just announce I was his heir when I was a baby, then arrange for my death and clear the path for probate? Why wait? None of it made any sense.

We reached the end of the building and Hattie finally came to a stop outside a door. Several desks, file cabinets, and chairs were scattered throughout the open space, as though someone had ransacked the offices and pulled everything out. Considering the mass devastation on the opposite end of the building, though, this end—including the furnishings—looked fairly untouched. It was closed off from the open-air area, so it was darker than the rest of the building, but Hattie had come prepared with a flashlight. She pushed the door open and went inside.

I hesitated, glancing around for Jed. There was no sign of him, but I trusted he was out there, which was good since I
didn’t
trust Hattie. I knew she expected me to follow her, but the only leverage I had at this point was the journal.

I pulled it out and tucked it under my arm as I moved past one of the catawampus desks. Before following her into the room, I stuffed it into a desk drawer, grateful the metal drawer didn’t squeak.

“Give me the journal,” she ordered, rummaging around in a closet, the flashlight beam bouncing around as she juggled it.

“No.”

She came back out and shined the light into my face. “I thought you wanted answers.”

I lifted my arm to block the light from my eyes. “I do. But most of what I want to know I think you can answer easily enough. Then if I think you’ve told me the truth, I’ll help you with whatever it is you’re doing in here.”

I took a step toward her, my eyes adjusting to the light. Jed was probably having a conniption fit about me being in this room with only one door. I didn’t like it much better. “How about we go back out there where I can actually see so you can answer my questions.” I didn’t give her a choice in the matter; I just turned and walked out into the factory. She wanted the journal and she thought I had it. If nothing else, she’d follow me out to tackle me.

I continued past the office furniture and into the empty space. Sure enough, she followed me out and stopped several feet away at the edge of a desk. I took several steps backward, keeping at least ten feet between us in case she decided to pull something, then put my hand on my hip, tired of her nonsense. She studied me for several seconds, then smiled. “You’re a lot like her, you know.”

I lifted my chin. “I wouldn’t know, seein’ as I didn’t even know she existed until a few months ago.” I did a poor job of keeping the hurt out of my voice.

The wind blew and metal creaked all around us, making an eerie sound that only added to my uneasiness. I really wished I knew where Jed was hiding.

“I told you,” her voice softened. “We did it to protect you.”

“From what?” When she didn’t answer, I pressed on. “Was Harrison Gardner my father?”

“Oh, Rose. He claimed you as his own.”

I fought my rising panic. “That doesn’t answer my question.”

She was silent for several seconds. “People judged her. They didn’t understand what a scared little girl she was. She may have been in her twenties, but she took her grandma’s death pretty hard. It made her feel so alone. She wanted more than anything to be loved, and men took advantage of that.”

I wanted to ask her what she meant, but I suspected. I didn’t need the nitty-gritty details spelled out for me. “Did she have an affair with Henry Buchanan?”

“No,” she sighed. “She saw him more as a father figure. She’d known him for years. We went to school with his daughter. I’m sure that’s part of the reason he hired her when she came back from Shreveport. He felt sorry for her.”

I swallowed my fear and pushed on. “Her journal says she was having an affair with an older married man around the time she got pregnant with me. Was that my daddy?”

She groaned and shook her head. “The key to the mystery of what happened here in this factory and to Dora and Henry and even Bill Niedermier is in that journal!” She flung her finger toward me, her voice rising with every word until she was shouting, her words echoing throughout the plant. “And you’re focused on finding out who your
biological father is?
”

“Yes!” I shouted, stomping my foot. “I don’t care what you think of me for wanting to know, but it’s
my
history! It’s
my
DNA! I have a right to know!”

Some of her fight bled out of her, and her voice softened. “Just accept that Harrison Gardner is your father and leave it at that.”

I shook my head, surprised my eyes were dry. “I’m not giving you a damn thing until you tell me the truth.”

“How do you know I’m not gonna lie to you?”

I lowered my voice. “Because I have ways of finding out.”

Her eyes widened and I knew she thought I’d resort to something unsavory. I wondered if Jed thought the same thing as he waited in the wings, prepared to do just that if I asked it of him. But it wasn’t what I meant. I could always force a vision. Very few people had secrets they kept entirely to themselves, and I suspected Hattie was the same. All I had to do was force a vision while focusing on the question of my paternity, and I knew there was a good chance I’d see her telling someone.

I nearly gasped as I realized how far I’d come since last June when Joe had encouraged me to force a vision for the first time. But my work as the Lady in Black had prompted the most growth. Skeeter was right. I was good at this. I was learning how to read a situation and ask the questions that would get me the answers I needed. Neely Kate was right too. My visions could actually be a gift, not a curse, and I was going to use them to my advantage.

But my pronouncement still hung out there, and apparently Hattie didn’t take kindly to being threatened. “You want to know that Dora wasn’t sure who your father was?” Her tone was ugly.

At the moment I didn’t care, further proof of how much I’d changed. “Yes. I want you to narrow it down. The list can’t be
that
big.”

She jutted out her hip and held out her hand. “Let’s see. It could have been Bill Trousseau, the bank president. Or maybe Jim Collins. Or—” But I could see the terror in her eyes. She really didn’t want to tell me.