Avenging Autumn (23 page)

“I heard what Robert said about your mother,” said Mia. “That’s crazy. I mean, we would have known, surely. Or had some kind of clue, or someone would have spotted her. It’s one hell of a story he’s telling, you know that, right?”

“Yeah, but he’s damn convincing.”

“That doesn’t mean what he’s saying is true. He might have his own agenda. You don’t know that you can trust him. I’m frightened for you, Autumn. So many people seem out to hurt you.”

Autumn pressed her lips together, considering her friend’s words. “I know that, but if he hurts me and I can’t go back to the courts when I am told to, he’s going to lose one hell of a lot of money.”

“Okay,” she relented. “Just be careful.”

Autumn noticed Mia standing with her hand pressed against her stomach. “Are you still unwell?”

Mia whipped her hand away and clenched it at her side. “Oh, no, I’m fine. Just tired, that’s all.”

Autumn gave a small smile. “Mia, honey. Is there something you need to tell me?”

Her friend bit her lower lip, her eyes darting from side to side to see who else was near. “I can’t ... Not until I talk to Peter.”

Autumn widened her eyes. “Are you ...?”

Mia stopped her with a wave of her hand. “I don’t know for sure yet. But I’m late. Very late, and I’ve been feeling sick and tired all the time.”

Autumn resisted clapping her hands together in delight. “You are! I just know you are! How exciting.” She took a couple of steps and enveloped her friend in a hug. “I’m going to be an auntie!”

“Shh,” she said, though her cheeks glowed with excitement, her eyes shining. “I haven’t told Peter yet. He needs to hear it from me.”

“Of course. You have to look after yourself now. No dangerous stuff, okay?”

Mia smiled. “Okay.”

Feeling lighter on her feet, in her heart, Autumn ran down toward the truck where the others waited, the engine running. Even though she knew she was about to help dispose of a body, the idea of Mia having a baby created a bubble of happiness inside her. Nothing could bring her down from that.

The smile must have been plastered on her face. Blake looked at her with a quizzical frown, but she gave a shrug and climbed into the back. Wenona glanced over to her, the many lines around her eyes creasing deeper.

She knows, too!

Perhaps Wenona had been the one to tell Mia about her condition. She wasn’t sure, but she had a feeling Wenona knew. Autumn reached out to give Wenona’s hand a squeeze, and the two women locked eyes and gave each other a secret smile.

Chogan got the truck moving, driving around the side of the house, and heading into the back of the property, rather than out toward the main road. They left the graveled area surrounding the house and went off road, Chogan choosing a track Wenona pointed out. The ruts of tire tracks in the dirt already marked the way, and Autumn assumed the wheels of the other guy’s truck had left the imprints. They’d have to make sure the route they took also destroyed the possibility of the police taking any imprints from the tracks and matching them to Madison’s husband’s vehicle.

The truck bumped and jolted along the trail. They took a number of different trails, Wenona pointing from the back seat each time they needed to take a new turning.

“Over there,” said Wenona, eventually, pointing into the undergrowth. Not far from the trail, a truck had been driven into a tree, the hood crumpled and he driver’s door left wide open. “We wanted it to look like he’d had an accident and then wandered off, disoriented into the forest,” Wenona explained.

“Where he then shot himself and buried himself in a shallow grave?” Autumn replied, eyebrows raised.

She shrugged, color rising to her cheeks. “It wasn’t a flawless plan.”

Chogan had packed a number of items into the trunk, including a couple of shovels. He jumped out and headed around the back. He opened the rear door and started to unload.

Autumn got out to help, and Wenona joined her.

“Can you help me down?” Blake called out to his cousin.

“You don’t have to leave the vehicle, Blake,” said Chogan. “It’s not like you can dig or anything, and we didn’t bring the wheelchair.”

“I know, but I should be there with you. This was the result of my handiwork. It feels wrong to be hanging out in the truck, while you guys have to deal with all the shit.”

“I’m strong enough to do this on my own,” said Chogan. “Seriously, Cuz, stay in the truck.”

“No. Now stop arguing with me, and help me out.”

Chogan rolled his eyes. “Jeesh.” But he didn’t argue further with Blake. Instead, he made his way back over to the vehicle, and put his arm around Blake’s waist in order to help Blake from the vehicle.

Autumn watched, admiring Blake’s mental and physical strength as he took hold of a shovel and used his upper-body muscle to manoeuvre himself across the ground and toward where the man had been buried.

Autumn look past him to where an area of the ground had obviously been disturbed. She shuddered, picturing the body of a man beneath, his face covered in dirt, bugs sliding and scuttling across his skin. As the men got busy digging up the top dirt, she busied herself by unloading the other items Chogan had filled up the back of the truck with—another shovel, a jerry can of fuel, and a roll of tarp. She gathered the items up and walked back to where the body was quickly being unearthed.

A foot and leg had been revealed, the skin and clothing encrusted with dirt. Autumn pressed her lips together, forcing her revulsion away. She wanted to be as mentally strong as the men, and couldn’t let a weak stomach let her down.

She approached with the items, now able to see over Blake’s shoulder as he used the rounded tip of the shovel to scrape away the last of the soil from the body.

“Autumn, look away!” Blake cried, as the body was revealed.

But it was too late for her to avert her eyes.

“Oh, God!” Her hand went to her mouth and she spun away, instinctively shielding herself from the sight.

Instead of a stranger’s body being uncovered from the dirt, she recognized the almost bald head, the tall, gangly body, and, something new, the bloodied stump where his hand had once been.

––––––––

M
IA HAD STOOD on the porch, her hand instinctively placed across her stomach, as she’d watched the truck containing her best friend bump and jolt around the outskirts of the property, and then disappear behind the house. The growl of the engine had grown fainter as it had driven away, and she’d heard the crack and crunch of sticks and foliage being ground beneath the wheels as they’d made their way into the surrounding pine forests.

She’d not moved from that position, instead lost in thought, and awaiting her friend’s return. She didn’t know what the others were up to, but she figured it wasn’t good. She longed for this whole thing to be over and for life to get back to normal—or at least as normal as it could be now.

The door behind her opened, and she turned toward it. Peter appeared in the doorway, concern in his grey-green eyes. “Everything okay?” he asked as he approached, his arm slipping around her waist. “You’ve been out here a while. Waiting out here for them isn’t going to make them come back any quicker.”

Mia nodded and circled his waist with her own arm, so they stood hip to hip.

“Yeah,” she said, nodding. “I know that. I’m just worrying about what my friend is getting herself involved with now.”

“I don’t think this is Autumn’s doing. Whatever they’re trying to sort out now happened while we were away.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’ve known Blake long enough to pick up on when he’s being cagey about something. I think Autumn is trying to help Blake this time. I don’t think this is her mess.”

Mia gave a repressed smile. “I don’t know if that makes me feel better or not.”

“They’re partners now,” he said. “Just like you and me, right? If one of us had something going on that we needed help with, I hope we’d always feel we could trust the other one. I don’t want any secrets between us, Mia, no matter how big or small.”

She smiled, but internally her stomach contracted with guilt. She was hiding something from him now, something others knew about before him. She’d hate it if Autumn or Wenona let something slip about their suspicions and Peter felt as though he’d been kept in the dark.

He must have noticed her anxiety on her face. “What’s wrong? Are you still feeling ill?”

“It comes and goes,” she said truthfully. “I’m feeling okay at the moment.”

“But something is wrong.” It was a statement not a question.

Her heart beat harder at the thought of telling him. What if he was furious? What if he hated children? It wasn’t something they’d even discussed, and it was so early in their relationship. She didn’t want to say or do anything to jeopardize what they had, but by not telling him what she was going through right now, she was keeping secrets.

She shook her head. She didn’t want to say the words, her fear at his reaction causing them to freeze on her tongue, but she had to say something. If he heard the potential news from someone else, it would only make things worse.

“I don’t even know for sure. I mean, it hasn’t been confirmed, so I might be completely jumping the gun ...”

The faint lines around his eyes and on his forehead deepened with worry. “Mia, please, just tell me.”

She looked up at him, tears shimmering in her eyes. “I think I might be pregnant.”

A wide smile broke out across his face, the lines of worry vanishing. He scooped her up around the waist and spun her around. Mia laughed, and thumped him on the shoulder. “Put me down, crazy man!”

“Sorry, sorry.” He gazed down at her with those serious eyes and reached out to tuck her hair behind her ear. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

“No. I’m not going to break.”

He stood and stared at her with wonder in his eyes, and then leaned in and kissed her. He reached around the back of her head, his fingers locking in her hair. The kiss left her breathless, and she broke away wanting to wrap herself around him, but aware they still stood, exposed on the porch.

“We can’t get too excited, Peter,” she warned. “It’s not been confirmed yet.”

“No, but you feel like you are, right? And your period is late?”

“Yes, and yes,” she admitted. “Wenona was the one who told me. She said she has a sense for these things, or something like that.”

“Well, I hope she’s right. I think it’s fantastic news.” His hand reached for her belly. “You, me, and a baby. We’ll be a family.”

––––––––

B
LAKE HAD TOO many questions.

What the hell had happened to A.J.’s body? He didn’t doubt that Wenona and Lakota had buried it in that spot, but it clearly wasn’t there anymore. Someone had switched the bodies, and he had his suspicions about the culprit.

Autumn had refused to leave her father’s body lying in the dirt. Instead, Chogan had fully unearthed it, and then wrapped the body in the length of tarp in which the shovels had been bundled. Together, they’d lifted her father’s body into the back of the truck, and now they were driving back to Wenona’s house. Blake wondered what would be waiting for them there. Nothing appeared to run smoothly in their lives at the moment.

“This is Vivian’s work,” Autumn said from the back seat, her jaw tight. “She’s here.”

Blake couldn’t argue with her. Vivian leaving Autumn’s father’s body was one thing preying on his mind, but the other thing was that Vivian had also taken A.J.’s body. What reason could she have for doing that, apart from using the body as evidence to cause trouble for him, Autumn, and the others?

“We’ll find her,” he tried to assure Autumn. “She’s still going to be close. She’s going to want to see the fallout of leaving your father’s body.”

“We need to flush her out,” said Chogan, as he drove. “She must be around here somewhere. We just need to find a way of making her come out of hiding.”

“She must have lost the men supporting her,” said Blake. “It’s the only reason for her to have not attacked the house, as she knows exactly where we are. That she’s lost her men and so has no physical backup is the only thing that makes sense.”

Autumn leaned forward. “I agree. But she still wants her revenge on me. It’s the only reason she’d leave my father’s body like that.”

Blake shook his head. “Not the only reason. She took A.J.’s body, remember? She must have been watching the house for the last twenty-four hours for her to even know about his death. She’s planning on using that against us.”

“Shit.”

Chogan glanced over, taking his eyes off the trail momentarily. “Can’t we just shift and sweep the forest? We’re bound to pick up a scent and be able to hunt her down.”

Blake pressed his lips together in contemplation, and tried not to think about the fact he wasn’t able to shift with his cousin. “It might be exactly what she wants. We might be walking into a trap.” He noticed Autumn had gone quiet, and turned back to her. “What are you thinking, Autumn?”

She gave him a forced smile. “Only that I want my father buried before I start worrying about that bitch.”

“A funeral? Where? Here, or back in Chicago?”

“That depends,” she replied.

They pulled up to the house, and Autumn climbed out of the vehicle. She walked to Blake’s door and opened it for him.

“I need to talk to Robert Carter,” she said. “I figure after all these years of secrecy, he owes me a favor.”

A group of the others exited the house onto the porch, running down to meet the vehicle. Peter wheeled Blake’s chair out toward them, Mia hurrying along just behind him. The sight of the wheelchair made his stomach sink, but he pushed the sensation away. He needed to think positively now. His recent experiences had taught him that much.

“Everything okay?” Peter asked as he got closer. “Did you do what you needed?”

Blake shook his head. “Not exactly. Vivian Winters is close. We all need to be prepared that she might try something soon.”

Peter glanced around at the surrounding area, as though expecting the woman to come bursting from between the trees with an army at her back. “Like what?”