Sneaking Suspicions (The Tharon Trace Mysteries Book 1) (13 page)
Read Sneaking Suspicions (The Tharon Trace Mysteries Book 1) Online
Authors: Jan Hinds
It started with rain. Big dolloping drops fell and stung when they pelted Tom’s face, as if the center of each drop held a tiny chunk of ice. He tried to tip his head forward for the brim of his baseball cap to shield him, but the wind was so strong he still got bombarded.
He ran harder, since a heavy rain meant he’d lose Tharon’s trail. He glanced back at Dana and saw her slip and fall in the loose gravel next to the track. He hurried back to help her up. “Are you okay?”
She sounded annoyed when she answered. “Yeah. I’m used to running on paved roads and trails. Guess I need to add some cross country to my workout.”
Tom took her by the elbow and picked up the pace again, shining his flashlight for both of them. Part of him wanted her to call Max to come get her and let him go on by himself. The other part of him was glad to have her along in case they ran into trouble. She’d been keeping good pace with him and he found something in her nature and bearing reassuring. It gave him comfort and hope to not be alone.
He looked ahead and said, “There’s an overpass up there. We’ll stop and see if Tharon left any messages.”
Dana nodded and scrambled along by his side. When they reached the overpass she doubled over with her hands on her knees gasping to catch her breath. She straightened up and shivered involuntarily. Her jaws clenched and her teeth chattered as she spoke. “I didn’t know farmers stayed in such good shape.”
Tom held the flashlight so it didn’t shine in her eyes as he looked at her. Her face looked pale; her lips blue. This wasn’t good. “You’re going into shock.” He peeled off his jacket, removed his wool sweater and put his jacket back on. “Here, put this on,” he ordered as he helped her out of her leather coat. He slipped the sweater on over her head and fed her shivering arms through the sleeves and then helped her struggle back into the wet leather jacket. He buttoned her coat up and pulled her into his arms and then wrapped his jacket around her and rubbed her back and arms.
After a few minutes her shivering subsided. Through chattering teeth she said, “Thanks. I guess I didn’t choose my wardrobe too well after all.”
“For what it’s worth, you don’t look like a cop if that’s what you were going for.” He continued holding her, feeling awkward. He’d never touched another woman besides Lista before. But if he didn’t get her warmed up soon they couldn’t go on.
“Thanks,” she said, pushing free of him when she felt the worst chills subside. She pulled an elastic hair band out of her coat pocket. With shaking hands she squeezed the excess water out of her hair and twisted her hair into a wet ponytail.
Tom took his red baseball cap off and put it on her head. The hat sank down over half her face so he adjusted the strap in the back to fit her head.
Only when he was sure she was out of danger from shock did he start looking for signs from Tharon. With the flashlight he scanned the concrete walls. He found the message she’d written on the concrete, “Do you have an idea where the Korean War Veterans Memorial is?”
She shivered as she studied the crude map and letters and said, “Yes. Let’s head up to the overpass and see what road we’re near and have Max come pick us up.”
Tom noticed the dull and listless look in her eyes. “You stay down here out of the rain. I’ll go find out and then you can call him.”
He was only gone a few minutes but by the time he got back she was slumped against the wall of the underpass. He lifted her and wrapped his jacket around her again. He fished her phone from her pocket and found Max’s number. “Detective, we’re under the overpass over the railroad tracks on Hillegas Road just south of Bass Road. Hurry. Dana’s taken quite a chill. Park toward the south side of the overpass and sound your horn when you get here. Hurry,” he repeated. “I’m worried about her.”
Dana tried to cling to consciousness. She thought of the children out in the same conditions and prayed they made it to shelter before the rain started. Through chattering teeth, she said, “Talk to me. Tell me something about your daughter.”
Tom thought for a moment. When he spoke his deep voice rumbled in her ear. “When Tharon was seven, she noticed my apple picker didn’t reach to the apples in the top of the trees and that I couldn’t harvest them before they dropped. She asked if she could climb the trees and pick the apples. She wanted to sell them and have the money. I gave her permission and she climbed every tree in the orchard. You should have seen her. That girl loves to climb.” Pride shined in his eyes.
“Lista and I thought she’d buy herself a doll or toys, maybe a bike. Not Tharon. She saved her money. She’d heard Lista and me discussing a family in our church. The mother caught the flu during the pandemic and survived but she’s never been the same. I guess it affected her heart. The father lost his job and had been out of work for over a year.
Tom smiled as he spoke. “Tharon had me take her shopping before Christmas. She didn’t want anyone to see us. She made me promise to not even tell Lista. She brought the prettiest doll I’d ever seen. And she bought a new shirt and tie. She kept fretting about what size shirt to get. I asked her who it was for, thinking it was for me and she just didn’t want me to know.”
Dana closed her eyes and warmed to the deep timbre of Tom’s voice.
Tom shook his head and his love and pride for his daughter was evident in his voice. “But she said, ‘It’s for Sarah Felger’s daddy. He’s out of work and I heard him at church telling the minister that he didn’t even have a decent shirt and tie wear to an interview. I guess that’s why he always keeps his coat buttoned up at church.’ That’s my Tharon. She had the minister give Ron Felger the new shirt and tie, and the doll for Sarah; and she gave him the rest of her money for Ron to buy presents from Santa for the rest of the family. She made Reverend Harper promise not to tell anyone it was from her because it might make Ron feel funny taking money from a child and she wanted Sarah to think the doll came from Santa.” He paused and with a smile and his voice filled with love he said quietly, “That’s my Tharon.”
They heard Max blast his horn above them. Through her still chattering teeth, Dana said, “We’ll find her, Tom. I promise we’ll find her.”
Burt punched the steering wheel in frustration. He knew the brats had to be heading west, but he’d crisscrossed every road and trail and he couldn’t find them. He wondered if they’d already been rescued, though he dismissed that when the amber alert repeated again on the radio.
He’d tried to go back to his dealership to switch cars after he killed the old lady and her dog, only to see it swarming with police.
That big detective, Bohman, kept calling him. He knew better than to pick up. It was stupid to take the dealership van, even the old one, to check out the bus routes, but how was he to know Wil Silar was a spy? It wasn’t like he planned on killing him.
It was all those kids’ fault. What in the heck were three kids doing in the top of a tree in freezing weather?
And Carl, big, dumb Carl whose heart was ten times bigger than his brain—Carl was dead. That was them kids’ fault too. Because of them the whole operation would have to be scrapped. Ten years of planning down the drain. His life was in ruins.
All evening, every time he heard the scanner announce a possible sighting of the kids, the police beat him to the location, and the kids were nowhere in sight. He could tell from the calls they were heading west. He’d zigzagged through every street and neighborhood since the report on the Main Street Bridge. The only thing he could figure was they were heading west along the railroad tracks.
He checked the map on his computer tablet and picked a crossing he knew they couldn’t have reached yet. He planned to hide his car and wait under the overpass for them to come to him. He fondled the gun in his pocket. If it was the last thing he did, he’d kill those kids, and then he’d find Marty and kill him, too—kill him for Carl.
The rock hard resolve of revenge steeled his body against the cold. He chugged whiskey from a flask, whose permanent address was his inside jacket pocket, and thought of his poor soft-hearted and soft-headed brother. Carl wouldn’t want him to kill the kids, but Carl wasn’t around anymore to stop him. Nothing mattered anymore.
Burt knew he was a dead man. If the cops didn’t kill him, Hamron’s goons were sure to. Either way, he was bound and determined to get those kids first.
He smirked to himself. His one chance to get out of this with his skin intact was getting the girl back. If that didn’t work, he’d kill her too.
He blew his nose into a handkerchief and turned up the police scanner to listen for any news on the brats.
When Max saw Tom carrying Dana up the embankment he scurried out of the car and helped Tom wedge her into the front passenger seat. Tom climbed in the back but Dana refused to let them take her to the hospital until they checked to see if the children were at the memorial.
Max knew where it was and lead footed it to O’Day Road.
Rain poured steadily and darkness pressed around them; Tom knew there’d be no tracks to see and no path to follow.
Dana sat in the front seat with the heater blasting on her, but the chills still shook her body.
Max and Tom exchanged a worried glance in the rear view mirror.
Tom hoped they’d find the children and be able to get all of them quickly to the hospital. He jumped out of the car as soon as Max pulled into the Korean War Veterans Memorial.
Max turned to Dana, “You stay put and get warm.” He grabbed the flashlight from the cup holder where he’d stashed it.
Tom ran to the side door of the oblong building at the edge of the parking lot. “Tharon, Kaid, Helm! Are you here? Tharon, it’s Dad! Are you here?” He banged on the door facing the parking lot, then joined Max as he shined the flashlight in the windows. They checked every door and window in the building, finding no trace of the children.
Tom ran to the pavilion and checked every inch of it. He found no sign of Tharon or the boys. He checked the out buildings while Max searched the memorial. The children were not there. They hadn’t been there.
Tom’s shoulders sagged as he slumped into the back seat, “They must still be on the tracks. Can you drop me off and I’ll backtrack to find them?”
Max was somber. “Tom, what do you think your daughter would do?”
Tom thought a moment. “If she couldn’t make it here for some reason, she’d find a farm and call me. But my phone hasn’t rung.”
“Do you have any messages?”
Tom pulled out his phone and slammed his fist against his thigh. “The battery’s dead.”
Max frowned. “I hate to say this but we have to do what takes priority. Dana has to get to the hospital; I’m worried she’s going into shock.” He took a deep breath and said, “And there’s something you need to know. Your wife didn’t want you to be told, but I have some bad news for you. Doc couldn’t reach you and he called the Sheriff. Your wife is in the hospital. I’m sorry to tell you, she lost your baby.”
Dana gasped and tried to speak but her words were strangled in shallow gurgling coughs. Tom got out and opened her door. He slid her seat back as far as it would go and lifted her onto his lap as he sat down in the passenger seat. He pulled the door shut and turned his face to the side window.
Max cranked up the heat and whipped the car around in the parking lot. He floored the gas pedal as he sped toward Route 30 to Whitley County Hospital on the east edge of Columbia City.
Dana felt Tom’s warm tears drip on the side of her face. She cuddled into his warmth as he rubbed her back and arms. All she could work out of her tense jaws was a ragged, “Sor—ry.”
Max called Simon to let him know they were bringing Dana to the hospital with possible hypothermia.
Tom kept rubbing Dana furiously, hoping that at least
she
would live through the night. He realized in that instant that he had not said one prayer for Tharon’s safety. He didn’t care what Max and Dana thought of him as he prayed aloud, begging for the Lord to save the children and Dana. He couldn’t speak aloud the loss of his unborn child or the anguish he knew he shared with Lista.
When Tom ended his prayer, Max whispered, “Amen.”
The distance to O’Day Road took much longer than they anticipated from the map. Every muscle in Kaid’s back ached as he struggled to see through the driving rain. When he crossed the tangle of tracks near Yellow River Road, he was nervous to see all the small houses lining the road. Most were boarded up or dark, some with the entire structure gone except for the foundation. He wondered if this was the path the tornado had taken the year before. It had wiped out a newer subdivision in Sandy Creek and he’d heard that its destruction extended all the way to Fort Wayne.
He stopped to shine the flashlight on the street sign and found a rusted metal sign next to it with an arrow to the Memorial. “I see the memorial,” Kaid said after he steered Tharon and Helm onto O’Day Road. Their progress had been agonizingly slow and he was grateful to be breaking into a run as Tharon and Helm burst from beneath the poncho. As soon as they entered the parking lot the security lights flickered on.
The main building looked more like a house with a brick facade on the front and Kaid searched for any signs of light or life in the building. When he found nothing, he searched the homes across the road but they too were darkened and devoid of any signs of life. All the houses they passed had the dried remnants of tall weeds and grasses in their yards.
Helm tried to jimmy the lock on the door facing the parking lot.
Kaid felt exposed in the bright security light. When Helm shook his head at the deadbolt lock, Kaid picked up a rock and broke the door window to reach in and unlock the door.
Inside he found the thermostat and cranked up the heat. In the meeting room he huddled up next to Tharon with Helm on her other side, as they warmed their feet at the same heating register. After a small meal of jerky, candy bars and water, each retreated into their own thoughts.
Helm broke the uncomfortable silence. “Tharon, I think Kaid and I would be dead by now if it wasn’t for you getting us free. You have to be the bravest girl I know.”
Tharon hid her face in her knees. “Me brave? Ha. I was so scared I couldn’t move. If Kaid hadn’t dragged me out of there, I’d have died with Carl.” She nudged Kaid with her elbow. “Thanks for saving me.”
Kaid tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “I hate to think where we’d be if you didn’t bring that money with you. Can you imagine walking through that freezing rain without the poncho? How come you had all that money in your coat pocket anyway?”
Helm dipped his head to look her in the eyes. “It’s your Secret Santa stash, isn’t it?”
Tharon’s eyes opened wide. “How do you know about that? No one is supposed to know. It’s a secret.”
Helm shrugged his shoulders. “I saw you the first year you came to my parents’ store to Christmas shop with your dad. I’ve watched you every year since.”
“What Secret Santa stash?” Kaid was beginning to feel like the odd man out. He didn’t like it.
Tharon wrapped her arms around her knees and held her hands over the forced air of the register. “Do neither of you know the meaning of the word secret?” She lay down and pulled the silver blanket up to her chin.
The boys lay down next to her. They were quiet for what seemed like a long time when Kaid said, “Speaking of secrets, what do you make of what we heard those men talking about?”
Helm bent his right arm behind his head. “We have to tell someone what we heard, but who can we trust?”
Tharon chewed on her lower lip. “We can trust Detective Stephens. His wife is Maisy’s best friend. Do you think he’d know who to tell?”
Helm turned on his side and propped himself on his elbow to face Tharon and Kaid. “I’ve heard my dad talk about Governor Talbot. He says he’s a good man. We need to get word to him somehow.”
Kaid turned on his side and faced Helm. “What if they push up their plans because of us? They could take our friends hostage tomorrow before we can even tell anyone.”
Tharon chewed on her lower lip. “I still don’t get why anyone would want me, but since they don’t have me and I’m not home yet, maybe they will wait. What we have to do is find out who wants to kidnap me and why.” She poked the air with her index finger as she spoke. “How can we trust any police? We have to trust someone and we have to tell them soon. Who do we trust more than anyone?” She thought a moment. “I trust my dad. He’ll know what to do.”
“I trust your dad and I trust my dad too,” Helm said. “He understands politics and government. What about you, Kaid?”
Kaid thought before speaking. “I trust both your fathers too. I think we should tell them and let them decide what to do.”
Tharon searched Kaid’s face. “What about your dad? Don’t you trust him?”
Kaid rolled onto his back. “I trust him as a doctor—but something like this?” He shook his head. “I think it’s beyond him to know what to do.”
They all laid on their backs under the blankets, still in their coats and damp shoes. Kaid took hold of Tharon’s left hand and Helm found her right as they snuggled together for added warmth.
She smiled and sighed then whispered out loud. “Thank you for helping us get here tonight, Heavenly Father. Please help us get home tomorrow. Amen.”
The boys each squeezed her hands and said, “Amen,” then fell into the quiet of exhaustion.
Kaid turned his head and studied Tharon. Her eyelids drooped like she was on the edge of sleep when he asked, “Will someone tell me about the Secret Santa?”
She yawned. “I pick the apples in the tree tops and my dad lets me sell them. I use the money to help someone in need have a nice Christmas...”
Kaid raised his eyebrows and looked at Tharon. His dimples accented his grin. “That’s cool.”
He laid back and stared at the ceiling thinking. After a long pause he asked. “Does anyone want to talk about what was said right before Carl attacked Marty?”
“No!” Tharon and Helm said in unison.
Kaid’s dimples danced in his cheeks and he let go of a tension in his shoulders he hadn’t realized he was holding. Maybe she was still choosing not to choose. The thought filled him with a small measure of hope.