Absence of Alice Page 10

  “It was. My girlfriend—now ex-girlfriend—runs an art gallery in Rome. It was a fascinating world. Very different from the one I grew up in. Poor in Cambridge.”

  People always thought of Harvard when someone mentioned Cambridge, but there was another side to the place too. One where people struggled to survive from day to day. Interesting that Emil didn’t talk about what he had done for work in Italy. An international man of mystery.

  When my phone rang I was surprised to see it was already eleven fifteen. The night had flown by. The number was blocked, but of course I answered anyway. It was him—the kidnapper. “Hold on,” I told him as I stood.

  “Are you okay?” Emil asked. “You just got very pale.”

  “Um, yes. I just have to go. Please apologize to Rosalie and Angelo for me.” I brushed past him and hustled out the door before I said more.

  “What?” I snapped when I was out on the sidewalk.

  “Is that any way to greet me?”

  It’s the only way.

  “Did you get what I asked you to this morning?”

  Did he really not know or was this part of his game? “I got it. Lot five.”

  “Perfect. You need to take the pocket watch and the rest of the lot to the Queen of Harts at midnight.”

  “Where’s the queen of hearts?” Was he talking about a deck of cards?

  “You think you’re smart. Figure it out.”

  I stared at my phone. He’d disconnected before I had a chance to ask anything else.

  * * *

  I ran home to my car, climbed in, started it, and turned on the seat warmer. The box of stuff was still on the backseat where I’d put it when I picked up Harriet. I reached around, grabbed it, and hauled it to the front seat. I stared down at the items willing them to give me some kind of answer. They didn’t.

  Queen of Hearts? There were no stores or restaurants by that name that I knew of. I searched on my phone for Queen of Hearts and Ellington, Massachusetts. Nothing came up. I broadened my search, but didn’t find anything in the surrounding towns. I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel. Who could I call who might have some idea of what the kidnapper was alluding too? It had to be someone who would still be up this time of night.

  I dialed a number. Miss Belle answered a few moments later. “I’m sorry to bother you this late.” I had helped sell Miss Belle’s collection of mysteries to raise money for the local library last summer. She’d lived in Ellington for many years and knew almost everyone across all walks of life.

  “You know I’m something of a night owl. What can I do for you, dear?”

  “Have you ever heard of a store or restaurant or business around here called the Queen of Hearts?”

  “Not a business but a woman.”

  “There’s a woman here called the Queen of Hearts?”

  “Was. Belinda Hart. H-a-r-t. She had a big brood of kids, but she called herself the Queen of Harts. Everyone always got a kick out of that. She’s buried in the cemetery off Great Road. Her tombstone is a six-foot obelisk topped with a tiara.”

  “Thank you. That’s a big help.”

  “You’re welcome, dear. Anytime.”

  I loved that Miss Belle didn’t ask me why I needed to know this. I had plenty of time to get to the cemetery, but I was reluctant to go. It wasn’t the dead I was afraid of but the living.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I was alone. There was no one to call on such short notice. No one who wouldn’t require a lot of explanation anyway. No one who I wanted to wake at this time of night or put into danger if there was going to be any. I drove around the perimeter of the cemetery. I didn’t see any cars parked or people lurking. Not that that was much comfort. I parked on a side street, as the cemetery was officially closed. Fortunately or maybe unfortunately I could still walk in.

  I slung the strap of my purse over my shoulder and picked up the box. It was just big enough that I needed to carry it with both hands. It left me feeling a bit defenseless in case something happened even though I was still relying on the wine bottle and hairspray as weapons. Tonight, if I wanted to use them, I’d have to drop the box and grab my purse off my shoulder before I could use it. Not good. Not good at all.

  The cemetery was planted with tall oaks, pines, and shorter maples. During the day in full bloom it looked lovely, but tonight the leafless trees looked like skeleton hands stretching toward the dark sky. The half-moon played peekaboo behind clouds that scurried across the sky. The wind lifted my hair, blew it in my face, and then tossed it aside. Not helpful. My eyes adjusted to the dark.

  The half-moon provided a little light, as did the lights out on the street. But it was darker than I liked. Much darker. Especially since I didn’t know why I was here. I creeped along the paved path toward the interior of the cemetery where the older, taller grave markers were. I’d figured that out as I’d driven around the perimeter.

  I stopped every once in a while to listen for other footsteps. I had a terrible feeling that I hadn’t been sent here for any good reason. But so far I hadn’t heard a thing. When I reached what seemed to be the middle of the cemetery, I stopped again and looked around. The moon peeked out. I spotted the tiara monument about thirty yards to my left and headed toward it.

  That was when I heard voices. Hushed voices—both male. But not hushed enough that I couldn’t tell some kind of drug deal was going down. Great! How to ruin a night in ten easy lessons. There was a lot of back-and-forth about “show me the money” and “not until you show me the drugs.”

  “Where’s Alexer?” one of the men said.

  “Not until you show me the money,” the other answered. A raspy voice.

  Elixer? Was that what he meant? I wasn’t up on street drugs, but maybe that was the name of one. The men sounded like they were between the tiara and me. I stepped off the paved road onto the soft grass and circled around, hoping to wend my way to the tiara without being seen.

  I scurried from one monument to another. Crouching when necessary. Trying to keep the voices away from me. I checked my phone. Almost midnight. I had to get this box there now. I peeked out from behind a grave marker. The coast seemed clear, the voices farther away or at least softer. I made my move and dashed over to Belinda’s grave. Just as I set the box down, the alarm on the clock went off.

  It sounded like Big Ben in the quiet night, and I froze.

  “Who’d you bring?” a male voice demanded. “You double-crosser.”

  “It wasn’t me. It must be you.”

  “Let’s go find out who’s the liar.”

  There was no time to fumble with the alarm and turn it off. I turned and ran as footsteps pounded toward me. I tripped on a root and fell, barely catching myself before my face hit the soft dirt. A gunshot banged, and I threw my arms over my head, as if that could save me.

  “Let’s get out of here,” one of the men yelled.

  The footsteps pounded away. If they hadn’t shot each other, who had fired the shot? I still wasn’t alone here or safe. I crawled to the nearest grave marker. Was that rustling a person or a bit of breeze scraping branches together? I couldn’t stay here all night listening. I kept my head down and snuck from marker to marker, but they kept getting smaller as I headed toward the entrance. Now or never. I leaped up, dodged around a tree, and smacked right into someone.

  “Come on.”

  It was Emil. He grabbed my hand. Gave it a yank. We ran to the front entrance, out onto the street, around the corner to where my Suburban was parked. I was gasping by the time we got there.

  “What are you doing here?” I was bent over, hands on knees. I looked over sideways and up. I saw the lump of a gun under his jacket. “You shot someone?”

  “I shot into the dirt. To scare them off. I have a concealed carry permit.”

  It was hard enough to get a gun permit in Massachusetts. Let alone a concealed carry permit. Rosalie said he was in “international business.” Now I wondered what the heck kind of business it was. I straighte
ned up. Leaned against the Suburban. “How did you just happen to be out here?”

  “You looked scared when your phone rang.” He shrugged. “So I followed you.” He tilted his head toward the Suburban. “It’s not like it’s hard when you’re driving that. What were you doing out here?”

  My Suburban had been a problem in the past because it was big and white. “My problems are mine, not yours. As are my reasons for being out here.” The last thing I needed was for a man with a knight-in-shining-armor complex to stumble into the kidnapper’s way and accidentally put himself and Stella in an even worse situation. I dug my keys out of my pocket and unlocked the car. I sighed and turned toward Emil. “But thank you.”

  * * *

  I drove home watching my rearview for headlights to see if I was being followed. Emil had gotten in his own car, but had peeled off a couple of blocks ago. There wasn’t much traffic in Ellington this time of night. Why had the kidnapper sent me to the cemetery? Had he just wanted to scare me? Or was it something worse, like he had hoped the drug dealers would kill me? If Emil hadn’t been there. If the drug dealers had found me. Just stop. They didn’t.

  I had just turned onto my block when headlights flashed behind me. I squinted at my rearview mirror. Great. A police car. Just what I didn’t need. Instead of stopping at my house, I drove on by, turned right, wound around past the town hall, and then to the parking lot behind the library. The car pulled next to me. Pellner for the second time today. This time he climbed out of his car.

  I wanted to bang my head against my steering wheel. I rolled down my window as I tried to figure out what to say about why I had driven here instead of just stopping at my house. I couldn’t risk Stella’s captor seeing me talking to the police. Who knew if he had put up another camera? A smaller one that I hadn’t spotted.

  “Why are we here?” Pellner asked.

  “You flashed your lights at me, so you should know.”

  He blew out a breath. “Why did you stop here instead of in front of your house?”

  I guess my weak attempt at a joke didn’t sit well with him. Pellner’s dimples were deep, and that was never a good sign. “I think the neighbors get nervous when the police are around all the time. They’re starting to think I’m a jinx.” I had no idea if that was true or not, but it sounded good.

  Pellner stared at me for a moment, but didn’t press the issue.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “I talked to Chuck this evening.”

  Rats. Pellner called CJ “Chuck.” I’d always hated that. CJ had promised he wouldn’t say anything about my call. “Oh.” I wasn’t going to say more until I knew what was up.

  “He found out you’d found another body, and he was worried. Called to see if I’d check on you.”

  Okay, I guess CJ hadn’t told Pellner the real reason I’d called. “Pellner, you don’t need to check on me.” Not at all. Not this week when being seen with him could hurt Stella. “I’m fine.” My voice quavered a little. Oh, that was convincing. “You have five kids and a wife to worry about. Plus, keeping the town safe.”

  “What are you doing out so late anyway?”

  This just kept getting worse. I didn’t want to answer him. I didn’t have to answer him, but he’d think something was off if I didn’t. “While I was heading home, I drove by the cemetery. Just a few minutes ago. I thought I heard a gunshot, and I saw two guys running out.”

  Pellner’s eyes went wide. He clicked on the mic on his shoulder and repeated what I’d just told him. “I’ve got to go,” he said. Pellner slid into his car and took off, lights flashing. Whew. No more questions at least for tonight anyway.

  * * *

  I dragged myself up the stairs toward my apartment. I hoped whoever was sitting outside Mike’s door was someone I knew who wouldn’t hassle me as had happened in the past. Usually it was Francesco, Diego, and one or two other guys taking rotating shifts. When my foot hit the top step, I glanced to my right. Mike himself was sitting there. Oh, no. He’d never been the one sitting outside the door. The whole reason he was here was to keep him safe.

  “Where have you been?” Mike asked.

  What? Was he my father? This was the third man tonight who was worried about me, and I was over it.

  “Not really your business,” I told him.

  He stood up. His body tense. Mike could be helpful or menacing. Tonight he didn’t look helpful. I thought about lying and saying I’d been with Seth. But he knew Seth. He’d helped Seth. Their history went way back to a private high school they had attended. And Mike could easily find out if I had been with Seth or not. The easiest thing to do would be to give partial truths. I had a lot of that going on these past couple of days, and I didn’t like it.

  I gave an exaggerated sigh. “If you must know I drove a friend to Rhode Island and back. She doesn’t see well at night.” I hoped he hadn’t seen my car in the parking lot on the side of the house while I was at DiNapoli’s or me coming and going.

  Mike reached out toward me with his hand. I pulled back so he dropped it. “You have dirt on your face.” He looked down. “And on your knees.”

  He was right. My jeans had two big brown marks from when I’d fallen over the root. “The friend I drove to Rhode Island was helping a relative plant a tree. It’s dirty work.” I made a couple of swipes at my knees while I said it so I didn’t have to look Mike in the eye. I straightened. “Any word on the threat against you?” I hoped this would distract him.

  “We think it was a false alarm.”

  “Does that mean you’re going back to Boston?” Please, please, please, say yes. I would have crossed my fingers like my five-year-old self if I could have done it without him seeing it.

  “Not yet.”

  That was a disappointment. I hoped my face didn’t show it. I went for neutral with a side tilt of my head. “Why not?”

  “I’ve just got this itchy feeling. Something’s up.”

  Rats. I’d worried about this exact situation when Mike and his brothers had first showed up. “Dry skin? I’ve got some lotion that might help.” Mike’s eyes got icier. Apparently he didn’t appreciate my humor. There was a lot of that going around lately.

  He lifted his chin and looked down at me. “You okay? There’s a chair wedged under the door to the basement.”

  “I’m tired,” I said as I turned toward my apartment.

  “You know what they say,” Mike said.

  I walked to my door and unlocked it. I was too tired for mind games with Mike. “No. I don’t.”

  “You have an itch, you’ve got to scratch it.”

  That’s the last thing I needed. I looked back at him. “Scratching makes everything worse, Mike.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  I wanted to fall into bed and pull the covers over my head. But when I looked at Stella’s phone there were a bunch of messages and missed calls from Awesome. I shot off a few texts. Still at practice. The director’s a perfectionist. But he’s good and I’m excited to be here. Miss you. Love you.

  My face was flushed when I finished and reviewed what I’d written. My hands shook a little. I couldn’t bear to type “talk soon” to Awesome. Moments later a kissy face emoji popped up. Awesome might never forgive me for keeping Stella’s kidnapping from him, but it was a price I’d have to pay if I could bring Stella back to him. I couldn’t risk her life—not before I was certain I couldn’t find her myself. The kidnapper knew too much about me. I only had one more day on my self-imposed schedule to find her before I talked to the police.

  I took a quick shower and climbed in bed. Went over the day in my head. Was I any closer to finding Stella? I didn’t think so. Why had I been sent to the cemetery? It didn’t make that much sense. The kidnapper knew the clock would go off at midnight. The stuff must have been his. Was he hoping the drug dealers would find me? Kill me for him, I thought again. Or did he want the police to know there were drug deals going down at the cemetery, but didn’t want to tell them himself?r />
  What did that say about him? Was he using me as some kind of vigilante because he didn’t want to be one? Had he killed Crystal or did he know who did? But why kidnap Stella to clean up problems in the town? Too many questions, and I was way too tired to figure them out.

  * * *

  Monday morning came too early, after another restless night that involved dreams of a lot of men trying to tell me what to do. I showered, drank some coffee, and searched Stella’s phone. Today I was going to try to track Stella’s ride share, find out who the driver was, and talk to him or her. During the night I’d realized I hadn’t done a thorough search of Stella’s phone—other than looking through her texts with Awesome and shutting off her location tracker. I was going to see what else was on her phone—go through all of her text messages and emails. I should have thought of doing this before, but between almost sleepless nights and the stress of the whole situation, I’d forgotten. It made me worry what other things I hadn’t thought of. I knew I wasn’t even close to the top of whatever game I was playing.

  I also wondered why I hadn’t heard from the kidnapper last night or yet this morning. Did he know what had happened at the cemetery? And if so how? Was he one of the drug dealers? Since I again didn’t have any answers, I focused on Stella’s phone. I read for the next half hour, but didn’t find anything out of the ordinary.

  I opened her ride share app. It was for a local company instead of one of the bigger national ones. She’d ordered a car at seven a.m., requesting an arrival time of eight ten. I gripped the phone tighter. Whoever picked her up could be her kidnapper. According to the app the car was a black SUV with license plate XORSOX. How could I find someone to run this plate? I looked at the photo of the driver. Seriously? Why did it have to be him?

  It was Elmer Norman, the town curmudgeon. The one I had just outbid for lot five. It didn’t seem possible that he was the kidnapper. Why would he have me outbid him at the auction or send me to the cemetery? I needed to know what had happened after Elmer picked Stella up, but he’d be about as likely to want to help me as CJ would, which was never.