“Ms. Holmes, are you still there?”
“Yes. I mean no. I don’t know. Mr. Watkins and I were in the mountains yesterday looking for clues to his grandfather’s disappearance. We thought we might have found something, but this doesn’t make sense.”
“What doesn’t make sense?” Alana Holmes walked into the capacious kitchen snatching a coffee with a grin.
Covering the phone with her hand Susan turned to her grandmother. “Mr. Watkins was in an accident last night.” She held up a finger as the officer on the other end of the line spoke once more.
“Did you find anything?”
Susan glanced at her grandmother who was busy peeling the plastic lid off her cup and pouring the contents into a large mug. “No,” she lied. “We didn’t find anything. I told him there wouldn’t be anything up there after all these years. I was just humoring him. He seemed very upset.”
“Thank you,” the officer’s voice was calm. “I’ll let you know if there are any further developments.” As the phone went dead, Susan sagged into the nearest chair. Had someone tried to kill the man she was helping?
“What’s wrong?” Gram took a seat across from her flinching when Susan sipped from the large paper cup.
“Mr. Watkins was hit by another car last night on his way home. “It sounds like a hit and run, but the man I spoke to wanted to know if anyone might want to hurt David.”
“They think it was intentional?”
“Apparently.”
Gram looked down into her mug, then back up at her granddaughter. “What do you think it means?”
“I think it means someone doesn’t want us to discover what happened to Harcourt Watkins all those years ago.”
“What will you do?” Alana leaned toward Susan. “Maybe you should go see your young man and make sure he’s alright.”
“He is not my young man,” Susan snipped. “I’m simply trying to solve this mystery, and he might be able to help.”
“You should still go see him.” Alana touched at her hair in annoyance. “What if someone thinks he knows something, or what if he knows something, but doesn’t know he knows it?”
Susan felt a headache behind her eyes and sagged taking a large gulp of her coffee and reaching for a banana muffin. “I’ll go. After all he’s the one who has those bits of glass we found on the site. He was very methodical about searching the area.”
Gram stood, walking to the tall bank of glass fronted cabinets that made up the butler’s pantry, taking down a small gold framed photo. “Who would have believed that finding two lost horses in the national forest all those years ago could cause so much trouble?” she smiled looking down at the bay paint horse in the picture. “He was a sweet little terror, that horse. If only he had been able to speak, none of this would be necessary.”
Susan rose from the table walking to her grandmother and wrapping an arm around the trim woman’s waist. “We’ll figure it out Gram. We’ll know why those horses were left to fend for themselves, and how they connect to the disappearance of Old Mr. Watkins.”
“You just be careful,” Gram said pulling her sweet little Susan into her arms. “I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you.”
“Nothing is going to happen to me,” Susan assured. “I’m sure this accident is simply some drunk driver who fled the scene. It probably has nothing to do with what David and I were doing yesterday.” The words felt hollow on her lips even as Susan spoke them. There was more to this age-old mystery than she had ever believed, and she needed to see Mr. Watkins. She needed to make sure his journal and the bright shards of glass were safe. They were the only clue they had to go on, and she wasn’t letting them slip by.
Slowly slipping back into her seat at the small oak table, Susan smiled. “Come finish your breakfast, Gram,” she insisted. “I didn’t go all the way to the bakery for nothing you know.”
“You might have,” Alana grumbled picking up the oversized muffin and examining it. “I’m not sure this second generation of bakers is as good as the first. That bakery has been a part of this town for as long as I remember, and I do hate to see it fading away.”
Susan’s chuckle was full of cheer as she watched her grandmother nibble the pecan-pumpkin muffin. Perhaps the old timers who used to run the bakery had retired, but the food was still good.
“Knock, knock!” Susan tried to infuse her voice with a wealth of cheer. “I brought gifts.” She pushed into the hospital room where David sat upright in a hospital bed, his emergency issued gown far less faded than the tan on his face.
“Gifts?” David spoke through the dull thud in his brain.
“Gifts,” Susan’s smile was bright as she lifted a paper cup in one hand and an orange cranberry muffin in the other.
“Thank you,” David groaned as his mouth began to water. “That is the best bakery in town.”
“In town?” Susan teased holding the items away from him. “Don’t you mean in the world?”
“I haven’t been out in the world,” the corners of David’s mouth turned up in a grin. “I just know that anything beats hospital food, and that bakery has the best of everything.”
“Good enough,” Susan placed the muffin and coffee on the table across the man’s lap. He looked pale, and a dark bruise showed along the side of his face.
“Thanks,” David’s eyes were pinched with pain and Susan’s heart squeezed.
“How bad is it?” she pointed to the bandage on his cheek.
“I have a concussion, a small cut by my eye, and a roaring headache. This should help though.” He lifted his cup taking a long sip of the hot brew, then scowled. “Milk?”
“I didn’t know how you took it, so I just had them make my favorite.”
David
