Lost Bird (26 page)

“You all right?”

He nodded, smiling. “Great. Thank you.”

“Huh?”

He pulled her in for a hug, his breath warm against her scalp. “Thank you for figuring it out.”

“Yeah, well, it’s just part of the puzzle. It doesn’t explain what I saw in the bathroom.”

“I don’t care if you saw Thomas freaking Edison in the bathroom, this means Aunt Tammy isn’t losing her mind.”

Oscar stepped in close. “Can I join this group hug?”

“Of course,” John said.

Both their auras had taken on a clearer color, the tension they’d been experiencing during their walk through the woods now completely gone.

It was almost one in the morning when they returned to Tammy’s house, another deputy with them to take statements from Mandaline and Tammy, since Mandaline had seen the light with Sachi. After he left, Mandaline hugged Sachi.

“Good work, you.”

“Yeah, well, I’m still bummed I didn’t catch the aura or any EVPs.”

“Hey, we can keep investigating,” Mandaline assured her.

Tammy looked unsettled. “I’m glad you figured it out, but I almost wish it’d been a ghost doing it. Now I don’t even feel safe. Not that that’s your fault, Sachi,” she quickly added.

“Well, guess it worked out that we moved in,” Oscar said.

Yes, it had worked out well, but it also bummed Sachi. She knew it was more than a tad on the selfish side, but it would be hard to have happy time with her guys while they were living with Tammy.

Yet she didn’t feel right about asking them to move in with her, either, and leave the elderly woman alone considering what they’d discovered.

Especially since the deputies hadn’t yet found anyone associated with the grow operation. Once it was dismantled, no telling what might happen, or if the person or people would come after Tammy for revenge.

Sachi knew she and her guys would just have to make do. If it meant stolen moments here and there when they weren’t snuggled on the couch and watching TV at Tammy’s, then that was what it would have to be.

At least she’d made a huge positive change in her life. And it wasn’t like the men were going anywhere. A few months to settle into their relationship, get to know each other better, with some extra sexual tension thrown into the mix, wouldn’t hurt any of them.

Maybe it’d even help make their alone times that much sweeter.

It would also give her time to get rid of the last vestiges of fear still coursing through her, indecision, worry that maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all. Wanting to make sure her brain agreed with her heart and her libido about the guys and this relationship, and that it wasn’t simply loneliness and horniness that made her feel the way she did about them, auras notwithstanding.

She pulled the guys aside, into Oscar’s bedroom. “I really don’t feel right about you guys not being here with her at night. At least one of you. I can come over every night, but it might mean for a while that we don’t…you know…at least not here. I’d feel horrible if someone hurt her one night because we were out boinking.”

The men both let out sighs of relief. John squeezed her hands. “Thank you, sweetheart. You read my mind.”

“Mine, too,” Oscar said, pulling her in for a hug. “We can take our time. I know how you feel about us, and it might frustrate all of us at times, but I’m okay taking it slow. For Aunt Tammy’s sake.”

Well, it also meant it would get her out of having to admit it to her dad anytime soon.

And it would give her time to rid her soul of the niggling doubts that wanted to creep in anytime she was away from the men and couldn’t see their auras for reassurance.

Maybe she needed to slow things down. Maybe just taking the leap of faith was enough for now to put her life on the right path.

She forced a smile and nodded. “This will be okay.”

They returned to the porch, where no one was currently sitting at the monitors, considering all the excitement of what had happened. It looked like at some point the stationary IR camera in the backyard had gotten knocked askew again.

“Dammit,” she muttered. She walked out into the backyard to adjust the camera, then back to check it on the monitor. She wasn’t sure whose turn it was to babysit the monitors, but she was too tired to get into it with anyone. Besides, they’d figured out the issues outside were human in origin.

She saw several of the others trying to coax EVPs in other parts of the house, including Anna and Mina crammed together in the powder room, Anna sitting on the counter and Mina on the toilet lid, both of them focused on the corner.

The backyard camera was still a little off. More out of habit than anything, she went to adjust it again. When she turned, she thought she caught a flash of greenish light out of the corner of her eye. When she wheeled around, heart pounding, she didn’t see anything.

Just the garden shed.

The camera’s location, on a tripod in the yard, meant she’d have to pass the garden shed to get back to the house. She could take the long way around and go to the front door, but that felt silly.

She started to call out, then remembered her phone in her pocket and texted Ellis, keeping one eye on the shed.

Get ur ass onto back porch. Now. Quiet.

She returned her phone to her pocket and waited.

When Ellis opened the back porch’s screen door a moment later, she held up her arm and pointed at the shed.

Then, knowing it was possibly one of the stupidest things she could do, she headed for the shed.

Ellis sprinted to intercept her, now with John and Oscar standing on the stoop just outside the porch. She twisted away from Ellis and rounded the back side of the garden shed.

Nothing.

He tried to drag her away, but she yanked her arm free and held up a finger at him. Pulling her phone out, she started to text him to call the cops when a flash of greenish glow caught her eye from the garden shed window.

She grabbed Ellis and pulled him back from the shed so she could whisper in his ear.

“You stay here. He’s inside. I’ll go call 911.”

Ellis nodded, drawing his handgun and keeping it ready.

She hurried back to the house, dialing as she ran. She grabbed Oscar and John and the others and pulled them back into the house as she went.

The first two deputies rolled into the yard less than five minutes later, without lights and siren, as Sachi had suggested. When the deputies converged on the shed, Ellis holstered his gun and retreated to the house. A third deputy with a K-9 arrived moments later.

One of the deputies, with the key to the padlock in hand, started to unlock it while the K-9 handler held back, his dog excitedly pulling and barking on the leash.

The third deputy, standing behind the shed, let out a shout as something exploded out of the back of the shed toward him.

All hell broke loose, the K-9 handler going after the dark shape running across the yard and releasing his dog. Seconds later, screams of pain and fear filled the air as the dog attacked and locked on, the deputies shouting orders at the suspect.

Finally, one of the deputies approached the house. “All clear.”

Everyone poured out into the yard. “How’d he get out of the shed?” Tammy asked.

“A panel on the back was loose,” the deputy explained. “Looks like he’s familiar with it.”

“I suspect,” Sachi said, “that he’s the one who was using your garden tools. Either the shed was like that, or he pulled the boards loose himself.”

“Well I’ll be damned,” Tammy said, making Oscar and John chuckle at her expletive.

As two of the deputies marched the handcuffed suspect through the yard, another got the shed door unlocked and found the green glow stick he’d had, shoved into an open bag of potting soil.

“Wait a minute,” John said, walking up to the deputies. “Son of a bitch!”

“What is it?” Sachi asked.

“This fucker works for me! What the hell?”

That led to several rounds of questions. It turned out that the suspect, whose name was Matt Dennis, had once overheard John talking about his aunt and her property. Knowing it was private property that was never used, at least that portion of it, he and his roommate, who’d helped him set it up and run it, considered it a safe place for their budding grow operation.

And they’d been using water from her hose, rather than trying to haul it all the way in. His car was actually parked in one of the day-use areas on state land where camping was permitted, meaning it wouldn’t raise suspicion. He had a small tent and supplies set up to explain his presence if anyone stumbled across him that night, and had prepared the explanation that he’d gotten turned around and lost if anyone found him outside of the camping area. The men took turns tending the operation, and tonight was his turn.

The glow sticks were easier and lighter to deal with than flashlights, and he thought they would be harder to spot.

Before the deputies left with the suspect, they reported that other deputies had already gone and arrested the roommate at the men’s apartment.

“I think it’s time we pack up,” Mandaline said. “It’s after two, and frankly, we’ve all had more than enough excitement for the night.”

Sachi, her nerves fried and adrenaline still surging through her system, agreed. “I think we’ve done more than enough damage for one investigation. I can come out by myself on a different night to try to figure out what I saw in the powder room.”

Tammy hugged Sachi. “Thank you, dear.”

She glanced over at her men. “You’re welcome. Sorry it wasn’t what you thought it would be.”

“No, it’s better.” She smiled at Sachi and dropped her voice. “Herbert said he’ll still talk to me.”

After packing their equipment and returning to the shop, Mandaline shooed Sachi home. “We’ll unload in the morning. For now, I want to go home and sleep.”

Brad and Ellis nodded, and Anna and Mina needed no convincing.

Sachi nodded. “Me, too.” It wasn’t quite four, but she felt like she’d been up several days straight when combined with how she’d spent the night before. She made her way home and sat in her car in the driveway for a moment. It was weird seeing her dad’s SUV parked there with a Florida license plate on the back.

Weird in a
good
way.

Then again, there was that. She didn’t want to sneak around behind her dad’s back. She was proud of Oscar and John, proud to be with them.

Sneaking around would look like she felt she was ashamed of what she was doing, and she wasn’t.

But she wasn’t sure how her father might react.

She rested her head against the steering wheel.
Why can’t I let go of my fear?
With the drug guy and his roommate apprehended, it meant she and John and Oscar could now be free to carry on with their relationship without the guilt of making sure Tammy wasn’t alone at night in the house.

In every other aspect of her life, she’d gone after what she wanted with a vicious tenacity her friends seemed to admire.

Why
not
this? I survived the Clarys and what they did to me and Mom.

Julie’s voice piped up in her brain.
“Anything else is easy, now, if you quit using your fears as both a crutch and a shield. Just believe.”

She let out a ragged breath. She didn’t know if that was Julie’s spirit speaking to her, or just wishful mental conjuring on her part.

It didn’t matter. The voice was right either way.

She started the car again and drove, letting her instincts guide the way. Her dad wasn’t expecting her home until after he left for work, anyway. When she pulled into the end of Tammy Evans’ driveway, she stared down the dark, curving expanse illuminated by her headlights.

Just knock on the door. Or call them so you don’t wake her up.

She didn’t have to do either. When pulled up behind the men’s cars and shut her car and headlights off, the front door opened. John and Oscar both emerged and walked down, standing and waiting for her.

Nut. Up.

She opened her car door and slowly got out, not trusting her legs to hold her. Shaky, from nerves as much as the lingering effects of the earlier adrenaline rush, she walked as far as the front of her car, where she leaned against it.

With her gaze focused on the ground, she crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m scared,” she whispered.

Then they were both there, surrounding her, their arms around her, holding her and not even trying to feel her up or anything. Just…there.

For her.

With her.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m terrified, not just scared. I know you guys were okay if we needed to back up and take things slow, but that won’t work for me. I
need
you guys. I need
forever
. I can’t do this for fun or just friends with bennies. I’ve been alone for so long, and I don’t want to go back to that. And I’m scared how my dad’s going to react, but I know I have to deal with that, too.”