He called it out to Maggie, and she scribbled it down. “What do you plan to do?” she asked.
“When Carl Lee makes an appearance I want to be there. I can talk to him. I can try to convince him to—”
“You said when,” Maggie said.
Silence.
“He’s already in Beaumont, isn’t he,” she said. “He called you so he could tell you he’s already here.”
“In so many words, yes.”
“What words, Dr. McKelvey?”
The man took a deep breath. “He called me and told me to get a message to you. He told me to tell you that he’s closer than you think.”
Chapter Fifteen
Zack stopped outside Maggie’s bedroom door and tapped lightly. He found her sitting on the edge of her bed, her eyes red and swollen. He closed the door. “How are you holding up, pretty lady?” he asked as he sat beside her and placed his hand on her knee.
She looked at him. “I need to be out there searching for my daughter, Zack. I’ll go mad if I have to just sit here and wait.”
“Babe, you need to be here in case you get a phone call.”
She wanted to tell him she had already received a phone call, but she hesitated. She didn’t know if McKelvey would be able to help or not, didn’t know if the man was even competent or if Carl Lee would listen or sooner kill him than anyone. But the police had given her nothing, nothing, and now her daughter was missing, and Maggie was frozen with fear. She couldn’t think or make the slightest decision. It was like trying to find the shallow end of a pool and discovering both ends were deep and well over her head. She pressed her fists against her head as though it would push aside the mental pictures, all worst-case scenarios that her daughter might be experiencing at this very moment.
“Maggie, we’re going to find her,” he said. “I won’t stop looking until we do.”
She swung her gaze in his direction. She tried to read his expression. Sorrow? Dread? Pity? “What if it’s too late?”
“Maggie, you have to trust me. I care about Mel, too. I will do whatever it takes.”
Maggie’s eyes were suddenly hard. “I know you will, Zack, but there’s something else I want you to do for me. Once you find Mel, I want Carl Lee dead.”
Zack disabled the alarm for Queenie. She looked weary as she came through the back door. In one hand she grasped her purse and a plastic bag emblazoned with the Full Scoop name, beneath it a strawberry ice cream cone dusted with colorful candy sprinkles. In the other hand she gripped a worn and faded gift bag announcing someone was fifty and over-the-hill. “Reinforcement,” she said, putting the bag of ice cream in the freezer. “If Abby Bradley didn’t have our favorite flavor I would never set foot in her place again.”
Maggie sat at the kitchen table in the chair nearest the telephone. Waiting. Checking her caller ID each time it rang, avoiding calls from the well-wishers and the concerned. Lamar and his men had cleared off the property, but they weren’t far away. Zack’s rifle sat at the bottom of the stairs.
Max walked into the room. “Okay, sorry it took so long, but the phones are up. The calls are routed to my computer where they’ll be scanned immediately. We’ll be able to check numbers that are otherwise unavailable. “Jamie’s still lying down?”
Maggie nodded. Jamie had felt queasy so Maggie had insisted she lie down in Mel’s room. “I gave her a couple of magazines. She’ll be fine.”
Max and Zack returned to the living room. Queenie stared at photos clipped to a magnet on the freezer door. Maggie and Mel had taken pictures of each other during Mel’s spring break when they’d gone to Disney World in Orlando. Queenie’s face drooped, Maggie noticed, and the light had gone out of her eyes. And Maggie was unable to comfort her because she had nothing left inside.
“You should have seen Abby Bradley holding court with the women customers in her new Gourmet Coffee Parlor, as she calls it. You would have thought the Queen of England had personally flown over and crowned that woman Duchess of Blabberville. And there’s poor Travis, just getting out of school and working like a one-armed paper hanger trying to keep up with customers. You’d better believe Abby shut her face when I walked through the door, let me tell you. Next time I give her laryngitis I’m going to make sure I—” Queenie winced, but the words were already out. She averted her gaze.
“Make sure it lasts longer?” Maggie said dully.
“That stupid bird hasn’t laid egg one.” Queenie sighed. “I’ve been hexed by a hexing hen.” She set her purse and birthday bag down on the table and joined Maggie. They sat there for a moment, thinking their own thoughts.
Maggie could hear Zack on his cell phone in the living room. Agents had searched every house on Zack’s list and found nothing, and Maggie’s hopes had plummeted to new depths.
Queenie reached into her bag. “I ran by the house and put together a few things,” she said. “Oops, I almost forgot, I brought Zack some smart weed. Snake weed would have done just as well, but I didn’t have any on hand.” She set a small homemade pouch on the table. “He needs to carry it in his pocket. Clears the mind,” she added. “It also attracts money, so that’s an added feature.” She reached into the pocket of her blouse and unfolded a square of tissue. “Silver dime,” she said. “You need to put this in your shoe to keep you safe. I brought a bunch of stuff,” she said, rummaging through the sack. “Always be prepared, I say.”
For once Maggie didn’t comment on Queenie’s practices. She could see that the woman was upset but doing her best to hide it.
“And look, I brought goofer dust. I always keep it in this can because it’s so powerful. You want to lay a good jinx on some old mean person, this will surely do the trick.” She paused and rubbed one eye. “I remember when we lived in Charleston and Mel got her hands on my goofer dust and flushed it down the toilet. Do you remember that?”
Maggie nodded. “I remember the plumbing bill.”
“That toilet never worked the same after that. I told that girl then if she belonged to me she would have gone down that toilet right behind my goofer dust on account of it takes forever to make a batch.”
“Queenie?”
Maggie propped one elbow on the table and leaned against her fist. She knew Queenie talked a lot when she was nervous or upset. Like the night Maggie had gone into labor, the time Mel had fallen from her bicycle and needed stitches. “Are you going to go on like this much longer?” she asked. “You’re going to end up with laryngitis like Abby did.”
Queenie looked at her. Her black eyes were moist. “I’m going to beat that girl into next week when she gets home.” She waited. Hesitated. “I don’t guess you’ve heard anything.”
Maggie shook her head. “You know, I’ve been sitting here thinking.” Maggie said. “Mel should have a little Halloween party this year. Not a kiddie party like in the past, something a little more, um—”
“Age appropriate,” Queenie supplied. “Meaning no tequila shooters.”
“Right. And since you and I would be here acting as chaperones, I don’t think parents would have a problem with boys attending. And I think it would be okay if Mel and Travis got together once in a while, like on Saturday. They could play putt-putt or go to the library. I would drive them, of course.”
“Travis is really worried about Mel,” Queenie said. “He wants to get a bunch of his friends together on bicycles and look for her. I told him you’d call him if you wanted him to set it up. I hate I had to lie to him about Zack being gone. He’s such a nice boy. On the honor roll too,” she added.
“Yes, he’s very polite,” Maggie said, remembering how respectful he’d been when she’d called and taken him to task for slipping out of the theater with Mel.
“Of course, Mel is going to have to realize that if she wants to have a little more freedom, she has to earn it,” Maggie continued. “She’ll have to take on more responsibility around here, and improve her attitude.”
“Amen to that,” Queenie said.
?
??And she has to regain my trust.”
“Are you going to ground her when she comes home?”
“Damn right I am. She’s going to read David Copperfield.” Maggie gave a tremulous smile. “This is too hard, Queenie,” she whispered.
Queenie took one of her hands and held it tightly. “Hold on, Maggie. I’m not going to let you fall.”
Carl Lee sipped his beer on Lydia’s sofa in silence while she sat across from him and glared. He had been drinking for two hours, his mood becoming progressively worse. “Does Maggie still have that old trunk that belonged to her grandma or her great-grandma or somebody or other?”
Lydia tapped her fingers impatiently on the arm of the chair. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“It’s sort of grayish-brown and has leather straps on it.”
“Oh. She keeps it in her living room. Why?”
“I just remember it being in Maggie’s parents’ barn. A friend of mine had one just like it.” He took another sip of his beer and wiped his mouth. “Does she have a boyfriend?”
Lydia gave an enormous sigh of disgust. “I don’t know, and it’s none of my business. The woman is trying to build a practice and raise her child as best she can. Why can’t you just leave her alone? And why would you take an innocent child who has never done one thing to you?”
“You need to shut up, Lydia,” he said, waving the gun at her. “I don’t think you know what I’m capable of.”
“Well, if you think I’m going to let a child and an old man lie upstairs without food and water you’d better think again. I’d rather be shot than watch suffering.”
She stood and squared her shoulders.
Carl Lee immediately straightened. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I just told you.”
Lydia turned and started toward the kitchen, her fingers touching the pocket that held Ben’s syringe. She jumped when she heard Carl Lee pull back the hammer on his gun. Lydia closed her eyes and took a deep breath. And waited.
Carl Lee laughed.
Zack walked into the room with his coffee cup, and his gaze immediately sought out Maggie. “How are you doing?” She shrugged and looked away because her tears were too near the surface, and her eyes already ached from crying.
Queenie reached for the small pouch and handed it to Zack. “Keep this in your pocket,” she said. “It’ll help you find Mel.”
“Really?” He looked it over. “Is it some kind of tracking device?”
“You don’t really want to get on my bad side right now,” she said.
He grinned and stuffed it into the pocket of his jeans, then filled his coffee cup and returned to the living room.
Max walked down the hall, obviously to check on Jamie.
“Excuse me for a minute, Queenie,” Maggie said and joined Zack in the living room. She took in the makeshift office, which had started out with Zack’s laptop and had turned into a conglomeration of complicated-looking equipment with Max’s arrival. Several telephones had been connected to various blinking apparatuses, and cords sprouted from every direction and coiled like snakes on the wooden floor. She wasn’t sure what they were doing, but she knew they were doing everything they could to find her daughter. That was enough.
“Didn’t mean to mess up your living room,” Zack said, reaching out to her. She joined him on the sofa, and he took her hand and held it for a moment. He turned it over and traced the lines inside her palm.
His touch made her stomach quiver. “I appreciate all your hard work,” she said. “Max’s, too,” she added. “I’m sure you had to lean on Lamar to get things moving so quickly.” She suspected he felt as guilty as she did that Mel had slipped from the house unnoticed.
Zack gazed into her light blue eyes. “You’re one of the bravest people I’ve ever met.”
Maggie shook her head. “No I’m not. My guts feel like they’ve been crammed into a washing machine and turned to the spin cycle. I’m hanging by a very thin thread, Zack.”
Queenie shouted to them from the kitchen. “Hurry, come look at this!”
The small countertop TV was on, turned to CNN. “It’s too early for Paula,” Zack said, as he and Maggie entered the room.
“Da-um!” Queenie said, as a dog food commercial came on. “You missed it! But it’s coming back on so they’ll have more.”
“More what?” Maggie said.
“That man that was with Carl Lee,” she began quickly. “Not the one that got shot, the other one. Ray or Roy—”
“Ray Boyd,” Zack said.
“Okay, well, guess what? Ray and Carl Lee stole a car with a dead man in it!”
Maggie frowned. “Huh?”
“This old guy named Ed White left Alabama because his daughter was going to put him in a nursing home, right? He was gone for a couple of days; it was on the news and in the papers. Anyway, Carl Lee and Roy—”
“Ray,” Zack said.
“Okay, Ray. Somehow they ended up with Ed’s car.”
“And he was in it, dead?” Maggie asked.
“Nobody knows yet when he actually died. But this is where it gets weird.”
“I think what you just told us is pretty weird,” Maggie said.
Queenie went on. “Ed’s daughter looked out the window this morning, saw her daddy’s car in the driveway, ran out to it, and you won’t believe what she found!”
“What!” Zack and Maggie said in unison.
“She found her daddy propped in the backseat wearing an Elvis costume and sunglasses! And he was dead! And guess what? Ray Boyd left a note. Said her father died of natural causes and did not suffer.”
Max and Jamie came into the room. “Hold on,” Queenie said, “it’s coming back on.”
“They’re doing a story on Carl Lee and Ray Boyd,” Zack said.
Queenie waved her hands in the air “Quiet!”
Max and Jamie came up beside them, pretending to tiptoe and zip their lips.
“Who is that ugly woman taking Paula’s place?” Zack said.
Queenie glared at him and turned up the volume.
In a follow-up to our story, police and FBI are still searching for convicted killer Carl Lee Stanton who escaped outside of a hospital near Texas Federal Prison in Houston after complaining of severe chest pains. Roy Boyd—
“Ray!” Zack and Queenie shouted in unison.
Excuse me, that was Ray Boyd. Boyd and another ex-convict named Luis Perez assisted in the escape as Stanton was being led by authorities to the emergency room. Gunfire was exchanged and several guards shot, but all are recuperating. Perez suffered a fatal injury, and his body was later discovered near Birmingham, Alabama. Stanton was serving a life sentence at Texas Federal for robbing and shooting an ATM driver, as well as the shooting death of FBI Agent Robert Hamilton, shown here in a family photo shortly before he was gunned down in the parking lot of a motel in Richmond, Virginia . . .
Maggie and the others leaned in to see the photo. “Da-um,” Queenie said. “That agent’s son looks like you, Zack.”
Agent Hamilton’s stepson, also FBI, has worked undercover for ten years and recently put a Colombian cartel out of business, after arresting a dozen key players and confiscating two thousand pounds of cocaine. Paula Zahn will air an interview with this agent in days to come.
Max and Jamie exchanged looks as Maggie and Queenie stared at Zack in disbelief. Queenie reached over and turned down the volume.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Maggie asked, trying to make sense of what she’d just heard.
“That’s what I’d like to know,” Queenie said. “Do you have any idea what I would give to meet Paula Zahn? Why, I love her almost as much as I love—” She paused and her voice became hushed, reverent. “Oprah.”
“It was a long time ago, Maggie,” Zack said. “I didn’t think it was important—”
Max led Jamie quietly from the room.
“Wait.” Maggie pressed her hand against her forehead where every
thing seemed to be swirling about in all directions. “Your stepfather was the agent that Carl Lee Stanton killed in Virginia fourteen years ago.”
“Yes.”
“And the FBI assigned you to work this case? To bring in your stepfather’s killer?” she asked.
“Unofficially,” he said.
“And you didn’t think it worth mentioning to me? Why is that, Zack?”
“Uh-oh,” Queenie said, slipping past them and joining Max and Jamie on the front porch. “I don’t want to be in there,” she whispered, “when this place blows.” Her eyes widened as she looked into Jamie’s face. “You’re pregnant!”
“Yes,” she said, sharing a private smile with Max. “I have my first doctor’s appointment the end of the week, but I passed seven in-home pregnancy tests,” she said proudly, “and I’ve already started having morning sickness.”
In the kitchen, Zack tried to explain his position. “I didn’t feel it was a good time to discuss my stepfather with you.”
“That makes me feel pretty dumb since I shared everything with you.” Maggie suddenly felt very sad, and it showed on her face. “But then, you already knew my secrets when you signed on for this job.”
Maggie marched to her bedroom, picked up her phone and dialed the number she’d left on her bedside table. She suspected McKelvey was en route to Savannah, but she could leave him a message. She was surprised when he picked up.
“Bad news,” he said. “The plane has been delayed due to some kind of problem with the electrical system. I may have to take a flight into Charlotte, North Carolina, and fly to Savannah from there. I’m so sorry.”
“I understand,” Maggie said.
Maggie stepped out on the front porch a few minutes later. Max and Jamie shared the porch swing; Queenie sat nearby in an old rocking chair, one foot pushing it back and forth as though she were priming it to shoot right off the porch. They were quiet.