Last Seen Alive (37 page)

Scott’s eyes widened. “I thought we got that straight a few hours ago.”

“I know what we said, but one night together doesn’t mean you owe me anything, Scott.”

“How about if I
want
to owe you something? I told you—”

“You could have been light-headed from the warm milk.”

Scott pulled the pillow from under his head and acted as if he were going to hit her with it. “Will you quit bringing up the warm milk?” She giggled. “How about if I want to give you everything I can, Chyna? Of course I’m probably scar-

ing you, talking about giving you everything as if you even want everything, or anything, from me, especially since I’m not exactly at my peak—”

Chyna kissed his neck. “Scott, quit babbling.”

“Babbling?” He drew back as if affronted. “I’m pouring out my heart and you say I’m babbling?”

Chyna began floundering out of bed, tossing back her thick hair, stepping over Michelle, and reaching for her robe. “I didn’t mean ’babbling.’ I loved every word.”

“I could tell.”

“But I woke you up for a reason. I dreamed of Gage Ridgeway.”

“Oh great. You were in bed with me and dreaming of Gage Ridgeway.”

“We have to see him because the dream has something to do with Deirdre.” Chyna pulled a pair of jeans out of the closet and slid them on. “You said he lives near the cemetery. He dated Edie Larson and she went missing.”

Scott squinted at the bedside clock. “Chyna, it’s seven-thirty. You want to go see Gage at seven-thirty?”

“Yes.” She struggled into a turtleneck sweater, realized she had it on backward, and turned it around. “I can go alone if you’re too sleepy.”

Scott threw back the covers. “I am not letting you go to Gage Ridgeway’s house alone when you obviously think he had something to do with Deirdre’s abduction. Maybe we should call the police.”

“And say what? That I had a dream about Gage? I don’t think so.”

“What did you dream? Did you see him holding Deirdre prisoner?”

“No. I saw Edie Larson. She was with a man, arguing with him. Then I saw Nancy Tierney. She was lying naked on a bed and a man was standing over her. In both scenes, I saw the girls clearly, but the man was fuzzy. I kept struggling to see him and suddenly I did. He was up on a ladder, cleaning leaves and debris from a gutter. He was singing ’Satisfaction.’ Scott, that happened the day after I got home. I

heard singing, looked out, and Gage was cleaning the gutters and singing ’Satisfaction’!”

“And what are we going to do?” Scott was fastening his own jeans and reaching for a sweater. “Make a citizen’s arrest? Drag Gage into the sheriff’s office, where he’ll spill his guts without asking for a lawyer?”

“We’re going to sit on him for a while. Where are my boots?” She didn’t notice Scott’s quizzical look as she located the boots in a corner. “I have a feeling Gage won’t be in his house or anywhere else around here much longer.”

“You mean he knows Deirdre’s been found. She’s unconscious, but he’s going to take off before she wakes up and accuses him?”

Chyna frowned. “I’m not sure. I don’t know exactly what’s going on.” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “All I know for certain is that I feel compelled to go to Gage’s house.”

The sun shone softly on the Black Willow Cemetery. In the daylight, the place looked sad but benign with its gravestones and flower offerings for the dead all set in carefully maintained grounds. Chyna thought of how it had looked last night—vast, moon-bleached, and cold. She shivered. She could not rid herself of the image of Deirdre’s slender, crumpled body lying at the bottom of an open grave.

“I’ll never be able to look at that place the same again,” Chyna said.

“You should be proud of yourself,” Scott countered. “Without you, Deirdre would have lain there all night and maybe died of exposure.”

“I felt her being taken, Scott. I should have been able to find her then, before she spent a night God-knows-where, a prisoner, and got free only to wander around blind and freezing and then fall into that grave.” She shuddered. “I wonder if she’s still unconscious.”

“I guess we’ll find out when we finish whatever it is you have in mind for Gage.” Scott turned off the highway onto a side road leading to the Ridgeway farm. “You still haven’t told me your master plan.”

“That’s because I don’t have one. I’m waiting for inspiration to strike.”

“Well, can you do anything to speed it along? Because we’re half a mile from Gage’s house.”

“Don’t rush me. You’re making me nervous.”

Scott looked at her, half in amusement, half in astonishment. “I know you think Gage probably took Deirdre. Are you suddenly getting nervous about how
we’re
going to capture him and turn him over to the police?”

“I didn’t say he took Deirdre.”

“You didn’t
say
it, but I assumed…” Chyna looked at him. “I guess I shouldn’t assume anything where you’re concerned.”

“Where my power, or ESP, is concerned, you shouldn’t assume anything. Even
I
can’t assume anything,” Chyna replied, thinking of the things she’d said to him in the night. “Where my emotions are concerned … well, I know myself fairly well. I mean exactly what I say.”

“Oh.” She heard the poorly muted relief in his voice. “I’m glad you know where you stand emotionally.” He looked straight ahead. “I’ve heard Gage doesn’t like uninvited visitors and he keeps a shotgun by the door. He might not take too kindly to our just dropping by before eight in the morning. I really think we should call the police.”

“Considering that Gage was a suspect when Edie Larson disappeared, I assume they went to Gage’s right after Deirdre was found,” Chyna said.

“So he might already be in custody.”

Chyna shook her head. “I don’t think so. And don’t ask me how I know because I don’t know how I know. I’m not even sure I know.”

“That was too complicated for me. I’m not going to ask anything else,” Scott said in a resigned voice. “I’m just going to take orders like a good soldier. I know when I’m out of my league.”

“You’re not out of your league.”

“Oh yeah, I am.
Way
out. You’re the one with the connection to the Powers That Be.”

Chyna grinned. ’The Powers That Be. I’ll remember that. It sounds a lot better than ’the Spirit World.’”

Scott slowed down as they passed the large red barn and drew near the large two-story white house with green shutters. The place looked like it had been freshly painted in the summer and everything was in perfect repair, just as Chyna would have expected of a Ridgeway Construction owner. Gage’s truck was parked in front of the house, and sparrows and cardinals took turns at a bird feeder a few feet away from the porch.

“Ready for the assault?” Scott asked, putting the car in park.

“I thought we’d just knock on the door first,” Chyna said. “If we assault, Gage might get out that shotgun, and all we have is a flashlight.”

“Excellent point.” Scott turned off the car. “Sit still. I’ll open the door for you and, once again, I go up to the door first like a true man protecting his woman.”

His woman.
Chyna felt a thrill run through her, but she tried not to beam at him. No sense acting like I’m sixteen, she thought, even though she felt sixteen. And happy. And in love.

Scott opened the car door with a flourish and she climbed out. He gently pushed her behind him as they climbed up the porch steps. Scott knocked and they stood, both staring at the door as if they were ready for it to fly open to reveal a wild-eyed man holding a shotgun. Instead, there was only silence.

“Knock again,” Chyna said. “Louder, but not loud enough to scare him.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Scott knocked. They waited, both beginning to glance around the well-swept porch, the old barrels obviously used as planters in the summer, a gray wooden rocking chair sitting at the corner of the porch where Gage could look out over acres of land bearing no crops. “One more time?” Scott asked.

“Yes. A little louder.”

The knock. The wait. No answer. “He’s not here,” Chyna said, reaching beyond Scott and turning the doorknob. The door opened. “He left without his truck or without locking his house door.”

Chyna pushed the door open and leaned inside. Scott pulled

her back. “We can’t go in there, Chyna. It’s private property and we aren’t law enforcement officers with a warrant.”

“Of course we’re not law enforcement officers. We’re concerned friends. There’s nothing wrong with concerned friends stepping into someone’s house and calling for him, especially when the friends are afraid something bad has happened.”

“Something bad?”

“I told you, Scott. I dreamed about Gage and I woke up feeling like something wasn’t right. Maybe that feeling meant he’d been the person who took Deirdre. But maybe it meant something else, like
he’s
in danger.”

“From whom?”

“From someone who thought he took Deirdre when he didn’t. Maybe from the person who did take Deirdre.”

“I thought you believed the person who took Deirdre is the same one who took Zoey and Edie and Heather.”

“I do.” She looked at him. “What I never told you is that I’m not sure it was a man. Oh, it probably was, but no one has ever
seen
these girls being taken. Not even me.
I felt
Deirdre being grabbed, chloroformed, and dragged away, but I didn’t see who did it.” Scott was looking at her in astonishment. “Okay, odds are it is a man, but that doesn’t mean another man is safe from him, especially if he thinks he’s suspected as being the killer of those girls and the abductor of Deirdre.”

“I can’t imagine a woman… Chyna, why would a woman take these girls?”

“Jealousy? She picks out certain girls she hates? I don’t know.” She looked into Scott’s eyes. “I’m just tossing out a theory that crossed my mind a few days ago when I was looking at a picture of Zoey and me taken at the Fourth of July barbecue the day before she vanished. The party wasn’t only attended by men. I believe Miss Irma Vogel was there.”

“You think
Irma
kidnapped these girls?”

“Even you said she’s jealous of pretty girls. She’s large, to put it politely. We saw out on my lawn that she doesn’t have the sweetest disposition in the world. In fact, she might be crazy.” Chyna lifted her shoulders. “I don’t know, Scott,”

she said impatiently. “I haven’t thought this through. I have no otherworldly knowledge on this particular matter. I’m just making a suggestion.” Scott continued to stare at her and she leaned into the house again and shouted, “Gage!”

After thirty seconds, Scott asked, “You didn’t really expect an answer, did you?”

“Are you reading my mind?”

“No. You just haven’t acted like you were expecting him to be here.”

“I was hoping he was.” Chyna paused. “Maybe he’s here, but he’s hurt or something. Let’s go in.”

“Oh no, Chyna, that would be breaking and entering.”

“We’re not going to break anything—not a window, not a lock.” Scott frowned. “Well, I’m going in,” Chyna announced. “You can wait on the porch if you want.”

“And act like a scared little girl?” Scott demanded in reproach. “I’m coming in, too. Ahead of you.”

“I don’t know why you always insist on walking ahead of me. You aren’t armed, either.”

“My mother taught me that when a gentleman is with a lady, he always walks nearest to the curb, in case a passing carriage splashes water, and he always leads the way into dangerous situations.”

“I had no idea your mother was so wise,” Chyna said lightly, although she had to admit she felt a bit nervous walking into Gage Ridgeway’s house. She didn’t trust him. At the same time, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was meant to find him, for what reason she had no idea. “Gage?” she called again. “It’s Chyna Greer. And Scott Kendrick. Are you awake?”

They both stood absolutely still in the silent house. Chyna glanced around. The furnishings were old, the house not exactly dirty but not neat and clean, either. Sun shone through an eastern window and she saw dust motes floating in the air. She also noticed that the walls were bare. Gage obviously was not interested in interior decoration.

“I’m going upstairs,” she whispered, although apparently they were alone.

“I don’t think he’s up there. He hasn’t answered.”

“Maybe he
can’t
answer. Come on, Scott. It will only take a minute. Then we’ll get out of here.”

With a sigh, Scott led the way up the wooden stairs badly in need of refinishing. They walked down a long hallway, pausing to look into three bedrooms, each with the bed made and a layer of dust on the dressers. Then they came to the fourth. Gage’s room, Chyna knew at once. It was the largest and the messiest, the dressers covered with keys, belts, boxes meant to hold tie clasps and cuff links Chyna was certain Gage never wore, magazines, shoelaces, and a couple of dirty glasses.

A wallet lay near the edge of the dresser, not ten feet away from her, with some bills stuffed carelessly at the top. Immediately Chyna saw that two of the bills were fifties. Glancing around the room, she also spotted a police scanner on a table near the window. The bed was unmade. In fact, it was badly rumpled, the top sheet and spread barely hanging on to one of the bed’s corners. On the floor lay a lamp with a broken base and a shattered glass. Chyna tiptoed toward the lamp and glass.

“Chyna, don’t,” Scott said firmly. “I think this might be a crime scene.”

“I won’t disturb anything. I just want to see if there’s any blood.”

“Don’t—”

“I won’t touch anything! I watch TV, too, you know. I know not to contaminate evidence.” She stayed a foot away from the lamp and glass but studied them carefully. Then she walked backward, keeping her feet in the prints she’d made walking toward the broken objects. “No blood that I can see.”

Scott gazed at the bed, the lamp, and the glass. Finally, he said, “Do you think that after Deirdre was found so close to Gage’s house, someone decided he’d taken her, came here, and dragged him away?”

“To kill him?”

Scott nodded.

“Who would get carried away enough to do something like that except maybe Deirdre’s father?”