Upstate Uproar (26 page)

Pierre introduced himself. Deputy Young, who
had dark circles under his eyes, asked, “Can you tell us what
happened?”

“We were on our way back to Turlington
Farms,” Lucy started.

“From where?”

She looked at Vivian, who answered, “The
hospital. We had gone to see Nicole Jones.”

Young looked back to Lucy, who continued
telling the story with the help of Pierre, Wendy and Vivian.

“Can you describe the vehicle at all?”
Stokola asked.

Vivian shook her head. “It was something high
off the ground, like a truck. The lights shone into the back glass
and not below, like a car’s would.”

Young looked at them. “Any idea why someone
would try to push you into the lake?”

Vivian felt Lucy’s eyes on her, but she
didn’t look her way. She didn’t want to talk about the stop at
Nicole’s and the files. She didn’t think admitting to breaking and
entering was a good idea. “No,” she answered, “no idea who would
want to hurt us.”

The paramedic who had been evaluating Kate
walked up. “We need to get her to the hospital for an evaluation
and an ultrasound. The airbag deployed and she’s pretty shaken up.
Her blood pressure is elevated.”

Vivian’s heart skipped a beat.

She nodded. “Thanks, Billy.”

“I’m going with her,” Wendy said to Stokola.
“Buddy system.”

Kate was moved off the bench in the
ambulance, put on the gurney and strapped down.

Vivian wanted to cry.

Larson put his arm around her. “I’m sure it’s
just a precaution.”

Wendy climbed in, sat on the bench and
grabbed Kate’s hand.

A sheriff’s deputy closed the ambulance doors
and patted them, indicating it was ready to roll. The ambulance
took off, lights flashing but no siren.

Vivian shuddered as the ambulance pulled
away. She couldn’t believe one of her best friends was on her way
to the hospital, her baby potentially at risk. The cold enveloped
her, and she put her chin to her chest, staring at the ground.

“She’s freezing,” Larson said to Deputy
Stokola. “Can’t this wait?”

“How about we sit in the patrol cruiser?”
Stokola said.

Vivian nodded, and they all walked over to
her car and got in.

Stokola turned the heat on high and got back
to business. “Has anything else strange happened to you since you
found the jawbone two days ago?”

“Just the boat fire on the lake today,”
Vivian said, “but that didn’t have anything to do with us. We just
happened to be there.”

Stokola nodded, then asked some additional
questions, mostly about where they had been, if Kate had done
anything on the road to tick someone off, etc. After about 10
minutes she said they could go.

“We’ll get the car towed first thing in the
morning, and we’ll call you to come get your belongings.” She
paused. “Actually, we’ll call the B&B, as I imagine your phones
are ruined.”

Lucy sighed. “That would be correct.”

“Come on,” Larson said and got out of the
SUV. “I’ll give you a ride. I promise to crank up the heater full
blast.”

Vivian wrapped her blanket tighter around her
and shivered. “I need some heat, all right.”

“Can we stop by the hospital?” Lucy asked. “I
really want to get out of these wet clothes, but we should check on
Kate.”

Larson opened the back door of his truck.
“I’ll take you anywhere you need to go.”

Pierre climbed in beside Lucy, and Larson
started up his truck. He turned around in the road, squealing his
tires, and headed back toward town.

“So what’s in the briefcase?” he asked.

Damn!
I was hoping he wouldn’t
ask.

When Vivian didn’t answer immediately, Larson
said, “Is there something else going on here I need to know
about?”

What the hell, he didn’t run us off the
road.
“We think Nicole was poisoned on purpose. We stopped by
her office after we left the hospital and borrowed some files. I
hope they’re still legible.”

“Why would someone poison her?”

Lucy and Vivian gave him the rundown on them
looking into Mary Beth’s and Rebecca’s deaths. “We’re not sure who
could be behind all of this but we wanted to help.”

Larson pulled into the hospital parking lot.
“I’ve got some friends who work here, even someone in the ER. I’ll
go see what I can find and ask them to keep a special eye on
Nicole. I won’t mention any particulars, just that she not have any
visitors, that kind of thing.”

They all walked into the ER, and the
receptionist smiled at Larson. “You keeping my husband out of
trouble?”

“That’s a tough job, Betsy, you know that,”
Larson replied.

Lucy asked to see Kate, and Betsy gave them
her ER room number and buzzed them back. Vivian and Lucy went to
check on her while Pierre and Larson stayed in the waiting
area.

The door to Kate’s room was cracked so Vivian
knocked as she gently pushed. “How’s our Little Plum?”

Kate’s color had returned, as had her
pregnancy glow. She was wearing a hospital gown and was strapped to
a fetal monitor that displayed a constant baby heartbeat. “The
baby’s just fine. The ER doc called the on-call obstetrician. He
did an ultrasound and checked me from head to toe, literally. We’re
good.” She tapped her tummy and smiled.

“Thank goodness,” Vivian said and gave her a
long hug. “I was so worried.”

“Me, too,” Lucy said and got her own hug.

“I called Shaun and told him my phone is
kaput for now,” Kate said. “I told him we’d probably get new ones
tomorrow. I’ve got to call him back tonight, though.”

Wendy sat in a chair beside the bed. “While
the doctor was with Kate, I checked with the lady up front about
Nicole, and she said they moved her to a room.”

“That was pretty much what we thought would
happen,” Vivian said. “Larson is our ride tonight, and he said he’d
swing by and check on her while we’re here.”

Another knock sounded at the door, and a
nurse walked in with a clipboard. She handed it to Kate. “Looks
like you’re good to go, if you can please sign here. The doctor has
provided instructions for care.”

“What kind of instructions?” Vivian
asked.

“He was afraid I might have some stiffness
from the airbag. He gave me some meds, just in case. I’m okay,
Viv.”

“You be safe out there,” the nurse said,
removing the fetal monitoring wires and sticky patches from Kate’s
belly.

Kate scratched her signature and handed the
clipboard back. “Thank you.” She threw the covers off and looked at
her wet clothes in a bag. “I think I’ll just walk out in my
gown.”

Vivian looked at Kate, then at her
waterlogged self. “Can I get one of those?”

The ER nurse brought Kate an extra hospital
gown so she could wear it backwards and amply cover her derriere.
She also brought a gown for Wendy, Lucy and Vivian since they were
still in their wet clothes.

“I don’t think Larson wants my butt touching
his seat,” Kate said as she tied the strings in front and then
slipped on her soggy Clark’s.

It was all Vivian could do to keep from
laughing at their appearance. Four girls in hospital gowns. She
wrapped a hospital blanket around Kate as they walked to the lobby.
“It’s chilly out, you’re going to need this.”

Pierre waited for them by the door and did a
double take but didn’t say anything.

He probably wishes he had a gown,
Vivian thought.

“Larson’s outside.” Pierre led the way as the
automatic doors opened. Larson’s truck was pulled into the
emergency drop-off.

“How are we all going to fit in there?” Kate
asked.

“It’s roomy,” Vivian said and bumped Lucy
with her hip. “Besides, Lucy can sit on Pierre’s lap.”

Larson held the door for them and they piled
in. “How’s the baby?” he asked Kate.

She tucked the blanket around her and smiled.
“Perfect. Did I miss anything at the accident site?”

“Not really,” he said and pulled onto the
road. He drove back the way they’d come and slowed as he approached
the accident scene. The sheriff deputies were gone and the flares
had burned out, but three construction barrels sat across the
broken guardrail.

“Good thing my insurance deductible was met,
since I couldn’t have given the hospital a payment,” Kate said. “I
didn’t even think about that when I called Shaun.”

Larson handed her his phone and called her
husband. As expected, he had freaked out about the accident but was
calmer now knowing she and Little Plum were fine.

Kate handed the phone back to Larson and
looked over her shoulder at the girls and Pierre in the back. “He
was about to book the next flight here. I had to work hard to
reassure him I’m fine and that we won’t have any more issues.”

Vivian patted her arm. “We’ll be extra
careful.”

“I’ve been thinking,” Kate continued.
“Brandon has that big old SUV. Could it have been him who rammed
us?”

“I don’t think so,” Wendy said. “The truck or
SUV that hit us looked like an old Ford and had an aftermarket
exhaust, which makes it louder than typical.”

“I’m impressed a girl notices these things,”
Larson said, turning down the drive to Turlington Farms. “That is
something you definitely need to tell Stokola.”

“Way to be sexist, Larson,” Wendy said, “but
so you know, I have Flowmaster exhaust on my Trans Am. Gives it the
growl, so I just notice these things. If I heard that truck again,
I’d know it.”

“I’m going to point out every old Ford we
see,” Pierre said. “I’d like to crush whoever ran us off the road
tonight.”

Larson pulled to a stop at the B&B and
ran around to the passenger door to help Kate out. He walked them
to the porch and gave Vivian a hug goodbye. “I’ll check on you
tomorrow. Get some rest.”

Pierre walked up the front steps with the
briefcase. He clicked it open. “This thing wasn’t completely
waterproof. The papers are wet. What do you want to do with this
tonight?”

“We can’t leave it out here,” Wendy said in a
low voice. “We’ll spread the files out in the bathtub or something,
so the pages can dry.”

Vivian reached for the door, but before she
could turn the handle, it opened. Tracy stood in the entry in a
bathrobe and motioned them in. She took in Kate’s blanket and the
hospital gown brigade. “My goodness, what happened to you? We were
worried with it being so late.”

“We had an unexpected dip in the lake
tonight,” Vivian said.

Tracy shut the front door and turned around.
“Where’s your car?”

Vivian fell onto the sofa, exhausted. “In the
lake.”

V
ivian awoke, sheets
tangled around her and three pillows thrown off the bed.
What
the hell?
Then she remembered the scattered images and funky
dreams she’d had. She got out of bed and stepped around the files,
making her way to the bathroom.

Wendy was at the sink brushing her teeth.
“Mornin’.”

“Mornin’,” Vivian mumbled and picked up her
own toothbrush. Her mouth was unusually dry so she cupped her hands
under the faucet and drank some water before brushing. “How’s
Kate?” she asked.

“She got up, went downstairs for a bite, then
got back in bed. I think she’s still pretty tired.”

“Yesterday was a really long day, and a bit
on the treacherous side,” Vivian said, squeezing toothpaste onto
her brush, “but today will be better.”

“It has to be. Today we will not wind up in,
or on, the lake!” Wendy dried her face on a towel.

Vivian put her toothbrush into its holder and
threw it in her toiletry bag. “We need to get new cellphones, but
we can’t do that until we get a new rent car. Maybe we can look
through the files this morning, while Kate’s asleep? Have you heard
from Lucy or Pierre?”

“Negative, not one peep. Let me run down for
a cup of coffee first. Be back in a jiff. Want anything?”

“I’m good, thanks.” Vivian threw on jeans and
a sweater, went back to the bathroom and put some mousse in her
curls, then brushed her face with powder. Since Wendy wasn’t back,
she decided to go ahead and keep going with the makeup, something
she usually didn’t do. Ten minutes later she was done.

Wendy must have decided to eat
breakfast
, Vivian thought as she snapped open Nicole’s chrome
briefcase. She pulled out the top file: Brandon Holt. She perused
Grandpa’s notes, his handwriting now more familiar and easier to
decipher, and took her time reading about Mary Beth’s death.

Warm summer day, not a cloud in the sky.
Brandon had been at work, but on his lunch break. No sign of forced
entry to the house and no indication that anyone else had been
there. Mary Beth had been known to go swimming in the lake by
herself. Police didn’t find any foul play, and the coroner didn’t
find anything suspicious. Her death was ruled an accident.

Vivian closed the file as Wendy opened the
bedroom door. “Did you decide to get something to go with that
coffee?”

Wendy quietly shut the door. “I went
downstairs and didn’t see Tracy or Brandon, so I went out back and
tried to get in the garage. I wanted to see what kind of cars they
have.”

Vivian shifted on the bed, intrigued. “What’d
you find?”

“Nada. The garage was locked up tighter than
Queen Elizabeth’s jewelry. Plus, the window in the side door was
covered with a black curtain, so I couldn’t see anything. I tried a
few different ways to get in, but got nowhere.”

“I hope they didn’t see you sneaking around,”
Vivian said as she set Brandon’s file on the bed. “Brandon could
have been involved in Mary Beth’s drowning. I remember passing the
hardware store in town and it’s not far from the house. He could’ve
come home on his lunch break and done something. The neighbors are
far enough away that he could’ve been here without being seen.”