Лори Касс - Gone With The Whisker

Kate, for once, did as I said without putting up a fuss. I held the plate as tight as I could, bracing its sharp edges with my fingers, but it took way longer than I could have liked for the twine to break apart.

“Free!” Kate shouted, throwing her arms high in a victory salute. I wanted to shush her, but since I also didn’t want to worry her about the possible imminent return of Courtney and Luke, I quietly said, “Nicely done.”

She whirled around and took the plate out of my hands. “You know,” she said, sawing away, “this thing isn’t nearly as sharp as I thought it was. If I’d known how dull it really is, I might never have tried.”

“Well, sometimes it’s better not to know.”

“Ignorance is bliss, right?” she asked.

I wondered if anyone ever quoted Thomas Gray accurately. “Well, that’s not—” I stopped as my wrists came apart. “That didn’t take long.”

“You’d already picked half of it away.” Kate came around to my front and studied my hands. “Aunt Minnie, you’re bleeding. We should put something on it.”

“Later. We need to break out of here.” I eyed the shed’s interior. “That piece of plywood looks pretty weak.” And it was the side most out of view of the trail. “Shall we?”

The two of us kicked and shoved and heaved and hip-checked, and it didn’t take long for us to loosen a corner that looked Kate-size. “Go,” I said, and she went out ahead of me. Then she held the corner of the plywood up, and I crawled out . . . and realized that the light was gone out of the day. Dusk was here and darkness fast approaching.

“Let’s go,” I said, scooping Eddie into my arms. “Quietly.”

“Wait.” Kate scurried to a nearby tree, shuffled around in the carpet of last year’s leaves, then crouched. “Got it!” she said triumphantly, holding up her cell phone.

“What . . . how?”

She grinned. “Just before I jumped at that Courtney, I tossed it over here.”

I gave her a quick hug. “Do you want to call nine-one-one, or shall I?”

“Aunt Minnie!” Kate whispered. “Up ahead!”

But I’d already seen the bobbing lights. It had to be Courtney and Luke, coming back to finish their list of chores.

“Follow me.” I took a hard right off the trail. This deep in the woods, there was no understory to hide us and no handy shrubs to hide behind. What we needed was a big rock, or anything big. But what out here was big enough? And then I saw it.

“Here.” I pushed her down behind a fallen tree and dropped to my knees next to her, with Eddie in my arms. As I moved to flatten myself, Eddie squirmed out of my arms and took off.

I wanted to call him, but I couldn’t. Courtney and Luke were only a few yards away and any noise now would give away our position. All we needed was for the two of them to get past, then the three of us could scurry off. But now one of us was gone.

Eddie! I shouted silently. You get back here right now!

He didn’t, of course.

“That’s weird,” Luke said. He stopped where we’d taken the turn off the path and danced his flashlight around. “I don’t remember seeing this before.”

Courtney’s flashlight joined Luke’s. “I don’t see anything.”

“Because you’re not a deer hunter. Those leaves there? They’ve been turned up in the last few hours. You don’t think—”

“Mrr!!” Eddie streaked into and through their fields of light, disappearing into the dark on the other side.

Courtney jumped. “Geez, he scared me!”

“Just a stupid cat,” Luke said. “Want me to shoot it?”

My heart froze.

“Nah.” Courtney turned away and started walking. “Let’s get going. If we want to watch that movie tonight, we need to get this done.”

When they were around the bend, I tugged on Kate’s hand. “Time to go,” I whispered.

“But what about Eddie?”

“He’ll catch up.” At least I hoped he would. If he didn’t, I’d be out here at first light. “Don’t worry about him.”

I trotted off, measuring in my head the time it would take Courtney and Luke to find the shed empty of Hamiltons. Five minutes? Maybe less. As soon as we left the trail and hit the two-track, I increased my speed and was soon running flat out, with Kate at my shoulder.

Eddie galloped up behind us as we burst out of the narrow part of the road and onto the gravel proper.

“Where did he come from?” Kate gasped.

The better question was, where had he been, but I didn’t have the wind to say it out loud.

“Hey!” Luke called. “Stop! Stop or I’ll shoot you in the back!”

“Just do it, Luke,” Courtney shouted. “They’re getting away.”

“They’re right behind us,” Kate cried. “How can that be?”

I didn’t know. “Keep running,” I panted out. “Keep running until you get to the road. Someone will help you.”

“Aunt Minnie—”

“Run!” I yelled, and slid to a stop. Then I dropped into a crouch and turned to face Luke Cagan.

Three sets of blindingly bright headlights flashed on all around me. “Police!” a megaphone boomed out. “Hold it right there! Put your hands up!”

“Not you, Minnie,” Ash said, walking into the light cast by the sheriff’s vehicles. “Those two.”

“Oh. Right.” I dropped my hands and watched as deputies hurried forward to handcuff Luke and Courtney. I looked around for Kate, and saw her being attended to by a female deputy.

“Minnie!” Rafe ran out of the darkness. I bleated a bit as he hugged parts of me that hurt, but not very loudly. “You haven’t answered your texts for hours,” he said. “I knew something was wrong.”

“So you called out the cavalry?” I nestled my face into his shoulder. “So romantic.”

“I’ll show you romance.” He dropped to one knee and took my hands. “Minerva Joy Hamilton, I love you, you love me, and we belong together like . . . um, like . . .”

“Peanut butter and jelly?” Ash suggested.

The female deputy talking to Kate said, “Bogie and Bacall.”

Another deputy laughed. “With Niswander, it’s more like Abbott and Costello.”

I looked around. At the deputies, at Kate, at Ash, at the empty expressions of Courtney Drew and Luke Cagan. This was a night that would forever be shadowed by how close Kate and I had come to being killed.

Putting on a smile, I tugged Rafe to his feet as Eddie, who had again appeared out of nowhere, bumped his head against my shin. “Don’t you dare propose to me like this. I want a marriage proposal we can tell our kids about. Besides, I’m a filthy mess. What I want more than anything else is a long, hot shower.”

He pulled me tight. “You got it.”

Two hours later, after all the questions were answered, all the papers signed, and all the necessary phone calls made, I fell into bed. And I never did get a shower that night.

Chapter 22

Aunt Frances added another piece of bacon to my plate. “But where did all those medications come from in the first place?”

Rafe, Kate, and I had walked up the hill for an aunt-cooked breakfast, and I was almost hoarse from telling the story of what had happened the day before. It was now clear that I had to eat before answering any more questions, because if I didn’t, everything would get cold and that was no way to treat my aunt’s cooking.

I ate a bite of bacon and took another gulp of coffee. Aunt Frances’s question was a good one. The array of prescription medications in the shed had rivaled a pharmacy’s, and it had taken Ash, Hal Inwood, and the sheriff herself a fair amount of time in the interview room with Those Two to get the full explanation. They’d been interviewed separately and Courtney had remained silent until Luke had started talking. And talking. And talking.