“Now, let me go in first,” Jessie announced, reaching for the light switch.
But Stephanie darted past her through the doorway, and made a beeline for the bathroom off the kitchen. Jessie had left the light on in there.
“I gotta go, too,” Jody said, heading toward the facilities by his bedroom.
Rolling her eyes, Jessie turned and saw the door open to the front closet, with the light on. Had she left it like that?
She remembered setting the alarm code before hurrying out of the house earlier. It should have started beeping when they came through the front door. Something was wrong. “Steffie? Jody?” she called.
Starting toward the kitchen, Jessie glanced around the living room, and stopped dead. “Oh, no,” she murmured. She felt this awful sensation in the pit of her stomach. For a few seconds, she couldn’t move.
The drawers to the antique cabinet were left open. One drawer was taken out completely and dumped on the floor.
She heard a toilet flush. Continuing toward the kitchen, Jessie saw that someone had been through the dining room breakfront, too. More open drawers, a few of them dumped out and scattered on the floor. The silver candlesticks on the dining room table were missing. All Jessie could think about was getting the children out of there, and then calling the police from a neighbor’s house.
“Kids, we need to leave!” she called nervously.
“What?” Jody called back. “What’s going on?”
Jessie turned and saw him coming from the bedroom hallway. But Jody suddenly stopped in his tracks. His mouth open, he gaped at Jessie and shook his head.
She realized he was looking at something behind her. She heard a whimpering sound, and recognized Steffie’s cry. Jessie swiveled around, and for a moment, her heart stopped.
Stephanie stood trembling in the kitchen doorway. Tears streamed down her face. She’d wet herself.
Standing behind her was a young man with black hair and sunglasses. He wore a shiny black suit, and held a gun to Stephanie’s head.
Chapter Twenty-one
“Holy crap, I think I found something,” the deputy said. He stopped digging for a moment and gaped down into the hole.
George hadn’t had much difficulty persuading Tyler to follow him out to the Schlessinger ranch. The deputy had had a little crush on Sandra Hartman back in high school, and for a while, he’d obsessed over her sudden disappearance. And George had been right about Tyler’s hatred for his boss. He’d suggested that if they found a body buried on the ranch, Tyler could say he’d gotten suspicious and followed George out there while off duty. And yes, wouldn’t the sheriff look stupid after that?
Tyler had a flashlight in his car, and they’d set it on a tree stump so it shined in the general direction of the wildflowers. They’d chosen a patch, and started in. George had worked the pick, and Tyler had manned the shovel. While they’d worked, the deputy had gone on and on about how much he couldn’t stand that ballbuster boss of his. They hadn’t even dug two feet down when Tyler had noticed the bones.
George grabbed the flashlight from the stump, and directed it into the pit. He figured Lon must have been lazy and careless about disposing of his victims’ bodies, because the grave was way too shallow.
And the bones were way too small.
“It’s a fucking cat,” Tyler grumbled. He leaned on the shovel, and glanced at the other wildflower patches. “You were right about these pretty little buds indicating a grave. But I bet this is a boneyard for fucking cats. Ranchers and farmers often have a mess of cats to keep mice and rats away.”
“Well, let’s try one more,” George said, putting the flashlight back on the tree stump. He grabbed the pick again. “Just to be sure, okay? I mean, if it’s another cat, it won’t take us long to find it.”
“I think we’re wasting our time here,” the deputy said. “And I don’t want to miss
“Just another fifteen minutes,” George said, swinging the pick into a new section of wildflowers. “Just think, you might help solve Sandra Hartman’s disappearance. What was she like, anyway?”
They dug for twenty minutes, while Tyler talked about what a knockout Sandra had been. Then George got a call on his cell phone. He checked the caller ID. It was home. He dropped the pick, and clicked on the phone. “Jessie, is that you?” he asked.
“Yes. Hello, George,” she said.
He could tell immediately that something was wrong. “What’s going on?” he asked warily.
“Oh, we have a situation here,” she said. “Y’see, my sister’s sick, very sick, and I need to go see her. She lives in Denver. Anyway, how soon can you come home?”
“Um, it’ll take at least two and a half hours,” he said. “Jessie, I’m so sorry about your sister-”
“Well, we had a family emergency here, too, George,” she said stiffly. “Steffie had a bad asthma attack. I called the doctor. She’s fine now. She’s resting. But she’s asking for her daddy.”
He could tell from Jessie’s tone, it was more serious than she let on.
“If it’s worse than that, Jessie, please, tell me,” he said. “I’d rather know now.”
“No. But I need you to hurry home.”
“Well, could you put Steffie on the phone? I’d like to talk to her.”
“Um, I can’t, George. Like I said, she’s resting. Just come home as soon as you can, okay?”
“I will, Jessie, thanks. I’m leaving now.”
“Be careful,” she said. Then there was a click and the line went dead.
He hit the disconnect button. “I’ve got to go,” he murmured. “A family emergency up in Seattle, my daughter needs me.”
Tyler leaned on his shovel. “How are you getting back there?”
Wringing his dirty hands, George shrugged. “On the way down here, I flew to Portland and then rented a car.”
“It would be faster for you if you took a charter from McNary Field here in Salem,” Tyler suggested. “You’d zip home in no time at all. The airport’s not too far from here. Want to follow me out there?”
George hesitated. “Thanks, but could you give me directions instead?” He glanced down at the new crater they’d dug. It was at least three feet deep
The deputy gave him a wary look and chuckled. “Holy crap, you want me to keep digging?”
“Just ten more minutes, please,” George said. “If it was a cat, we would have found it by now. Something else is down there.”
Tyler took a moment, then nodded. “Okay, I’ll keep at it,” he sighed. “So, let me tell you how to get to McNary Field from here.”
The man with the sunglasses took the receiver away from Jessie’s face and hung up the phone.
“Good job,” he said, with a tiny smirk.
While holding the phone for her, he’d kept the other extension-George’s cordless-to his own ear. He clicked that off, and then set it on the kitchen counter.
Jessie was tied to a kitchen chair, her wrists bound together behind her with duct tape.
She’d been tied up like that for the last twenty minutes now. Their intruder had forced Jody to strap her into the chair. He’d used Jody’s little sister as a negotiating tool, and the 11-year-old boy had been very cooperative.
“That’s right,” he’d told Jody, one hand over Steffie’s mouth. The other held the gun to her head. “Now, wind the tape around fatso’s stomach and the chair back. Strap her in real tight. Huh, you might need a few yards to get around all that blubber….”
Shooting him a look, Jody hesitated.
“Just do what he says, honey,” Jessie whispered. She was worried Steffie would have an asthma attack right there. The little girl trembled and quietly wept while the intruder tickled her earlobe with the revolver barrel.
