Chapter 71
If you're a granny who watches baby grands as often as I do, it's really smart to learn how to make Mac 'n Cheese super fast and in vast quantities. These are a Monday afternoon's leftovers. I'm ready for the rest of the week!
Hidden Secrets
Leona Palmer Haag
Chapter 71
The second basement.
As clear as day it dawned on Jenn. There was someone living in the second basement. It was an
apartment. A control center. A watchtower—except it was underground. Kristina
said it was as big as the main floor of the house. That was plenty big for
comfortable living and working quarters. It fit together. It was easy to give
her Internet access because an electronics guru lived beneath her. It wasn't
hard for Matt to insist she stay because she had a bodyguard nearby. Her
personal, practically live-in spy could use the ladder anytime he chose. He
simply hadn’t returned it properly. He should be demoted.
After breakfast Jenn hustled Katie to the SUV. She had
to leave. Had to get away to think. It gave her the creeps knowing someone was
only a few feet below her. Jenn drove around aimlessly for at least an hour.
She stopped to browse through a few stores. She plunked down the credit card a
few times. Katie began to grump so they resumed driving. Finally Jenn decided
to go home and pack. She was leaving Honeysuckle Pie Drive forever and nothing
could stop her.
As Jenn entered her neighborhood an idea emerged on
her mind. She'd drive behind her house and look up. What was it like from
below? She found the street at the bottom of the ravine and peered between the
houses. There wasn't anything to see but the tip of her roofline. Thinking
about it, she should have known that. The backyard ended in a steep drop off
into a ravine. She was certain that no matter which house below she stood in,
she'd never be able to see her home, just as she couldn't see down into them
from her upper balcony or loft windows.
Jenn pulled onto Buttercup Biscuit Drive. She rounded
the corner and dropped into the ravine and then started uphill toward
Honeysuckle Pie Drive. She noticed a slight foot trail leading into the ravine.
Not much more than a deer and rabbit track, she decided, recalling her lessons
while with Matt in Montana.
It was insane, but Jenn did it anyway. She parked the
SUV and unbuckled Katie. "Want to take a nature walk?" she asked.
Katie had been cooped up long enough and couldn't get
out fast enough. Jenn took her hand and stepped over the curb and into the
rabbit brush and desert scrub. It was early spring and the grasses were
brilliant green against the umber dirt. Jenn spotted a lizard skittering across
a rock. She pointed it out to Katie and a game of chase began. The lizard
slipped into a crack, gaining victory.
The trail angled up the hillside under a few low trees
at one point, then sharply veered upward. Jenn clung tightly to Katie as they
made their way over the steep part. It leveled out for a few yards, then angled
up in easy zigzags. They paused and looked at the warm blue sky. Innocent
looking clouds drifted in the distance. "This is only inches from
breathtaking," Jenn said, taking in the raw beauty.
"Breath take," Katie mimicked.
Jenn resumed the hike, tugging Katie along. The
sunshine was warm and comfortable. The air fresh. It was amazing how secluded
the hillside was from the houses backing it in the bottom. She suspected she
could climb to the top and never be seen from anyone below.
Back and forth
they went. Up, up, up. She finally spotted the white vinyl fences on the edge.
They still had a little way to go. The trail dipped and rose. Swung wide around
some boulders and rose again through a mass of brush. Jenn hesitated. She'd
heard this was rattlesnake country. She'd never seen a rattlesnake before and
dreaded meeting one in person.
Katie picked up a rock. "Oh, that won't
help," Jenn said, deciding it might. She grabbed a few herself and
launched them into the brush. There was the sound of twigs rustling, but no
rattles. Jenn picked Katie up and pressed on. Up. Around a boulder. Past a
bush. Around another sun-warmed rock. Past lizards gasping with open mouths. Up.
Around another rock and they'd practically be in her back yard. Maybe twenty
feet below.
Jenn stopped. "Oh, Katie," she moaned,
quickly looking away from what blocked their path. She grasped Katie tighter in
her arms, pressing her face into her shoulder so she couldn't see anything, and
scrambled back downward as fast as she could, not as cautious about snakes.
Shak ing. Quaking. Terror
stricken.
"No," she whispered over and over, forcing
her feet to go faster. "No!"
The man was dead. Clearly. She'd seen dead before. The
blood on his chest and dried pools of dark blood on the ground were further
evidence. The swarms of flies and wasps. The angle of his right leg and left
arm. The gun in his hand.
Jenn quickened her step. It was steep. Rocks tumbled
from the side and clanked their way down the ravine. "Mommy?" Katie
whined as she clutched her shoulder for security.
"It's okay, baby. We've got to hurry," Jenn
said. Her mouth was dry. Her hands were clammy. Hurrying stopped abruptly. Jenn
set Katie on a rock before she leaned to one side and threw up. Once. Twice.
Three times. She wiped her mouth and looked frantically around. Then she saw them.
Drops of blood.
As plain as day. Splashes here. There. How had she
missed them on the way up? That changed all the thoughts running through her
mind. She had assumed the man had been shot trying to enter her property by
climbing over the back fence. But why would he be up there in a pool of blood
while there was blood below? He couldn't have been wounded below and climbed up
where he finally laid down to die. That was crazy. The sequence was out of
order.
Jenn grabbed Katie from the rock and balanced her on
her his as she scrambled to get back to the SUV. She pulled out her phone and
flipped it open. "Kevin," she gasped when he answered.
"Yeah, what is it now," he said in a bored
tone.
"The man from the black minivan. You know, the
rental? The guy from Boston? He's dead. In my back yard."
"What?" he yelped.
"He's dead! He was shot!" she frantically
said.
"Whoa! Wait a minute. What are we talking about
here? Who?"
"He's dead!" Jenn repeated. Whispered, this
time. She wanted to shout, but was almost too terrified to speak.
"Who? Tell me exactly who and where!"
"The ravine. He's in the ravine behind the house
and…" Jenn tripped. The cell phone went flying as she grasped Katie so she
wouldn't fall and get hurt. They landed with a thud, but the phone skittered to
the edge of the trail and slid over. Jump, bang, thump, thump, thump. It
finally stopped several feet below, wedged between a rock and rabbit brush.
Jenn swore. It wasn't something she did much anymore.
Not since Matt had quit. It wasn't anything too terrible—in her estimation—but
not something she wanted Katie to repeat. Her daughter did anyway. "Sorry
about that," Jenn said, wishing she hadn't sworn, dropped the phone, or
taken Katie hiking.
There weren't a whole lot of decisions to be made at
the moment. Either leave the phone at a crime scene, or go fetch it. Neither
pleased Jenn. The ravine was steep. She couldn't safely climb down and back
with Katie. She'd leave the phone. But she had no way to communicate without
it. She'd retrieve it.
Katie wiggled from her arms. "Sit. Don't
move," Jenn commanded, easing her bruised bum toward the edge. Katie sat.
Jenn wiggled over the side and slipped and scrambled her way to the phone,
starting mini-avalanches in her wake. She grabbed the phone and pushed it to
her ear. Kevin was swearing a blue streak. Yelling. Screaming.
"Shut up and listen!" Jenn hissed. She
turned and stared up at the hillside where Katie stood teetering on the edge.
"I'll call you back in two minutes." She snapped it shut and shoved
it into a pocket and started back up the hillside, grabbing roots and brush on
her way. The phone rang and stopped. Rang and stopped. It had to be Kevin. She
turned a branch loose to switch it to vibrate only. It vibrated and stopped
over and over again.
Going up wasn't easy. The rocks were loose. A big one
dislodged and crashed down to where her phone had been sitting. Jenn was glad
she hadn't sent it into motion on her way down and smashed her only hope for
help. After all, where were her guns? One was hidden under one front seat and
the other in her purse under the other seat!
The phone vibrated and stopped. On second thought, she
wished it had been smashed. No. She only wished Kevin knew her plight and would
stop calling every ten second and give her time to rescue Katie.
Jenn looked up. Katie teetered on the edge. If she
tumbled down she'd turn into a bouncing rubber ball if Jenn didn't stop her.
"Wait there, Katie baby bear," Jenn frantically called out, trying to
sound nice, happy, and cheerful instead of desperate. It worked. Katie plunked down,
sending rocks tumbling her way instead.
When she reached her, Jenn snatched her daughter up
and started off again. This time more carefully. Watching her step. She saw the
blood. It was obvious now. A big splotch near the edge. She reached the
steepest part and eased her way down. Slowly. She didn't dare look over the
side. If they fell, they'd die. If they didn't die, they'd be broken and
bruised. Katie would end up in a full body cast. Jenn peeked over the edge as
they neared the bottom. She gasped. She yanked her cell phone out and answered
the phone with, "Kevin, I found the guy who shot Mr. Black Minivan."
"What? Who?" he hollered.
"Davis. Davis Turpin. Ivan. Whatever his name is.
Seemore. Saymore. You know who I mean. He's dead. In the ravine. I have no clue
how or…" Jenn paused to throw up again. The motion was so violent it
landed her on her behind and she and Katie slid down the rest of the steep part
without standing up. Jenn snapped the phone shut, shoved it into her pocket and
raced as fast as she could for the SUV with the phone vibrating over and over
again.
"Answer me!" Kevin was yelling, along with a
number of explicative, when Jenn finally opened the cell phone on the tenth or
twentieth call.
"Should I go home?" she whispered.
"Yes! Go home! Lock the doors. Stay on the phone.
Don't hang up on me again or…"
"Don't threaten me. I don't need it right
now," Jenn snapped.
"Okay. Okay, settle down. Tell me where you are
and what you're doing. Did you take any pictures?"
"Huh? I'm supposed to be the newspaper
photographer now? I very nearly got killed out there and you want it documented?"
"No! I want you to send me information! Where's
your brain?"
"Stop shouting or I'll hang up!"
"Then settle down yourself!"
Katie was screaming from the front seat next to Jenn.
Halfway up the road incline she realized she was driving. She eased the SUV to
a halt and buckled Katie down. The screaming didn't stop. "Okay, Kevin,
let's be quieter. Katie is scared to death and I don't blame her."
Suddenly Jenn swore. She shoved the SUV into park and pushed her door open and
leaned her head out to throw up again. It was terrible. Jenn rested her head on
the steering wheel and waited for the nausea to ease. A car passed her going up
the hill. It slowed and stopped. It backed up.
Kristina.
"Jenn, are you okay?" her neighbor called
from her rolled down window.
Jenn shook her head. "I'm feeling queasy. I must
have eaten something bad."
"What can I do to help?"
Jenn shook her head. Katie was still screaming up a
storm.
"Let me take Katie. Go home and get some rest.
Call me when you're ready to have her back." Before Jenn could object,
Kristina had opened the other door and pulled Katie into her arms. Katie
whimpered and settled down. "She can play with Dallin. You look pale. I'll
follow you home. Get some rest."
Jenn weakly nodded.
Once she was driving again Jenn picked up her phone.
"Kristina has Katie."
"Get her back. Fast."
"I will," she weakly said.
End Chapter 71
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