Love on the Horizon (A Northern Woods Novel) (21 page)

“So that’s why they were over at
the Larson’s today,” Mariah said, and looked up at Nick, worried as to what
might have happened. “I told you several times, that Sarah and I thought she
was being abused.”

“Mariah, they don’t know anything
yet. Perhaps she’d been abducted on her trip to the store. They’re still
gathering information.”

“We saw her, Nick. The same day
her husband had last seen her. She was in a hurry and wouldn’t talk to us; but
Nick, she wasn’t at a grocery store. She may have been to one, but we saw her
just as she was leaving the mall.”

“You’re going to have to report
that to the police, Mariah. They need to know. I’ll drive you over in the early
morning, and you’ll be back before your riding class begins.”

“Okay,” she said, and he reached
out to help her up from the couch.

“Let’s get some sleep. We’ll both
be quite busy tomorrow.”

* * *

“Yes, I told them.” Mariah stood
from the kitchen table and dumped what was left of her coffee in the sink. “I had
to, Sarah. They said they wouldn’t need to talk to you since we were together.”

“Good. I don’t like the idea of
saying anything. I’m afraid of her husband. If he knows we saw her, he might
come after us for information.”

“I mentioned that to the police,
and they promised that the information I gave them won’t be revealed to anyone.
So don’t worry, we’ll be fine.”

“So we can stay out of it? No
more questions?”

“Yes, we can stay out of it and
no, there won’t be any more questions. I told them everything we knew,
including the way I saw her looking at me from behind the bedroom shade. I also
let them know about Carl telling us she had Alzheimer’s, and that he told us
she didn’t want visitors. They’re going to locate her doctor. They told me
they’d be getting a search warrant. They saw the awful state of the home and
the backyard filled with garbage. They’ll probably condemn that place. It’s
hideous. I don’t know how anyone could live in such filth. I can’t forget that
day I went to their house. It was so obnoxious when he opened the door, it
turned my stomach.”

“Well, I have to get my hair cut
in an hour. Thanks for the update, Mariah.”

“Yes, they didn’t think they’d
need any more from me. I’ll talk to you later.” She said goodbye, then stood in
front of the sink and stared out the window. She heard the twins awaken and
headed to their bedroom to help Bess with their baths.

* * *

When the babies were down for
their afternoon nap, Mariah made a ham sandwich, grabbed a can of Pepsi and sat
on the sofa. She turned on the television to watch the news while she ate her
lunch. She had one hour before she’d need to head out to her riding class. The
newscasters were showing a horrific scene of an accident in Duluth, on a road
that runs along Lake Superior. The reporter was pointing to a two-hundred-foot
cliff where a car had plunged. “We don’t have the details at this time, but it
appears as though another automobile ran into it from behind, causing it to
plummet over the edge. They don’t know how many passengers were in the vehicle,
if any.”

She shook her head and felt bad
for the family members. Finishing her lunch, she turned off the television. It
was getting late, and she hurried out the door to meet with her students.

Chapter
Thirty-three

Mariah dialed Sarah’s phone
number, then sat at the kitchen table and sipped her fresh lemonade. She was
about to hang up when Sarah finally answered.

“Hey girl, you sound like you ran
a marathon.”

“Practically,” Sarah answered,
breathing heavily. “I was on my treadmill. What’s up?”

“Nick finished packing the
camping gear. They’ll be over to your place soon. Would you like to come over
and spend the night again?”

“Sounds like fun. It gets too
boring with them being gone. The boys were excited when the men decided to take
them once more before the cold temps roll in.”

“So was Nicky. He’s been running
around like a wild animal since Nick mentioned it. They should be there within
the hour. Bess is off for the weekend. We’ll have another sleepover.  It’ll be
four girls, just like our younger days, the house will be full of women.”            

“Don't forget about the stinky
diapers,” Sarah muttered.

“Hey, you don’t have to change
them!”

“I’m kidding, Mariah. They’re
sweethearts – and the quietest babies I’ve ever seen. I’ll be over as soon as
the men are on their way.”

Mariah shook her head with a
smile and closed her cell phone.

“Okay honey,” Nick said when he
and Nicky came back into the house. “The truck’s all packed and ready to go.”

“Yes, Mommy, we’re off!” Nicky
said excitedly, and gave his dad a high-five.

“Okay, I want the two of you to
be very careful now, you hear? I want you back safely. Oh, and bring lots of
fish home for daddy to clean.” She hugged and kissed each of them.

“Mommy, I help daddy catch the
fish and
clean
them too,” he said proudly.

“That’s good. I’m glad you’re
learning, because I don’t like to do that. I cook ‘em.”

“It’s not so bad, is it Daddy?”
Nicky looked up at his dad with a grin.

“Nah, kind of fun actually,” he
said, and kissed Mariah goodbye when she wrinkled her nose. “We’ll see you on
Sunday.” He told her to enjoy her weekend with Sarah, and they went out the
door. Mariah followed them to the end of the deck and waved goodbye as they
drove away.

* * *

Sarah helped Mariah feed the
twins, and then they bathed and dressed them in their look-alike sleepers.
Mariah and Sarah quietly left the room and went out to the kitchen.

“How does a pepperoni, sausage
and onion pizza sound?” she asked, after she searched through the freezer.

“Delicious; I’m starving. I
haven’t had a chance to eat all day. I was too busy packing everything for the
boys.”

“Okay, I’ll get started while you
check to see what’s on TV. Maybe there’ll be a juicy romance.”

Lucky watched Sarah flip the
channel from one station to another. He found it boring and fell asleep on the
braided rug near the fireplace.

When the pizza was ready, Mariah
slid it from the oven, sliced it with the pizza cutter, and placed it on a
large plate. Sarah pulled two cans of Pepsi from the refrigerator and together
they carried their dinner into the living room. They’d been watching the news
and about to take a bite of their pizza when a special bulletin appeared. The
cameras showed live coverage of the automobile pulled from Lake Superior.

“Oh my God… that looks like
Nattie’s car, doesn’t it?” Mariah looked at Sarah, both appalled at what they
saw.

“That
is
hers, Mariah!
Turn up the volume, quick!”

“… When lifted from the deep
waters of Lake Superior there was no one in the vehicle. Divers have been
searching the area where the car subsided, but no bodies have been located at
this time. The search will continue tomorrow morning. Stay tuned for the
weather forecast, coming up next.” 

They looked at each other, and
both felt a sudden chill by the frightening possibility that Nattie had
drowned.

“Sarah, we don’t know for sure if
that’s her car. Maybe they’ll announce it on the ten o’clock news.”

“I’m positive it was hers. It
showed the same large dent on the hood.”

“That doesn’t mean anything.
There were dents all over that car, from going over the rocky cliff. We’ll find
out more later, now let’s eat this pizza before it gets cold. I'm famished.”

When the late news came on, the
newscaster reported that the vehicle retrieved from Lake Superior belonged to a
woman by the name of Natalie Larson, a resident of Pinewood Hills, Minnesota.

“Oh God, that really is her car.
I knew the minute I saw it, that it had to be hers.”

“Listen,” Mariah whispered.

The newscaster continued, “Her
husband was notified. When reporters went to his home, he was unavailable for
an interview. Natalie has no other immediate family members. The search will
resume at daybreak tomorrow.”

“I wonder if they’ll find her body,
Mariah.”

“I don’t know. Lake Superior is
huge, and so deep. If they don't find her soon who knows how long they’d keep
diving. You heard the weather forecast. They predicted heavy winds for tonight.
Her body could drift a great distance by morning.”

“Thank God it’s only for Duluth.
Our boys should be safe in Grand Rapids. Nick said they’d be at a campground
not far from town. Now let’s watch something funny, to pick up our spirits.”

“Do you like
Three’s Company
?”

Mariah laughed, “Okay, that’s a
pretty good one. It should put us in a better mood.”

* * *

The twins woke up immediately at
the break of dawn. After feeding them breakfast, Mariah put them in their
playpen and retrieved the Sunday Tribune from the porch. Sarah sat at the
kitchen table and Mariah poured them each a mug of coffee. She laid the paper
on the table before them. When she removed the rubber band holding it together,
it fell open to the front page displaying a four by six inch photograph of
Natalie’s car.

Mariah remained standing and
placed the palm of her hands on each side of the newspaper. Looking down, she
read the article aloud. “With high winds reaching gusts of up to fifty miles
per hour, the divers who had been working with the Duluth Police Department
were unable to continue in their search for the body of Natalie Larson, the
owner of the automobile. It had been located at the bottom of a
two-hundred-foot cliff in Lake Superior by a young couple who had been hiking
on a trail close by. They spotted the trunk of the vehicle in the water Friday
afternoon, and immediately reported it to the police. The officers discovered skid
marks alongside the south end of the guardrail where Mrs. Larson’s sedan
evidently plummeted over the cliff. The police are still looking into the cause
of the accident. The vehicle had bounced against the rocks along the cliff. It
was demolished, and left little evidence for them to work with. They may never
know whether a hit-and-run driver forced Mrs. Larson off the road or if she’d
taken the curve at a high speed and skid over the gravel on the parking lot,
causing the car to plunge over the edge.

“Mrs. Larson had been reported
missing one week ago by her husband. They reside in the town of Pinewood Hills,
Minnesota, which is located sixty miles west of Duluth.”

Mariah sat in the chair across
the table from Sarah and looked at her. “I can’t believe this. We may never
know what actually happened.”

Sarah shook her head then took
the paper and read on. “Her husband informed the police that she had
Alzheimer’s and could have driven off the cliff purposefully. He let them know
she was very upset after learning of her disease, and she shouldn’t have been
driving. He said he looked out the window and noticed the car was gone, and she
never returned.”

“He lied to them, Mariah. We both
know that he sent her out to pick up his beer.”

“Don’t worry, I told the police
everything. They already knew he wasn’t telling the truth. I’m going to hop in
the shower and get dressed before our men come home. If you'd like to take one,
go ahead and use the guest bath.”

“Thanks. I hope they’re wrong,
and she wasn’t in the car at the time it went over.”

“So do I Sarah, so do I."

Chapter
Thirty-four

“Okay Art, you ready to go?”

“Just have to fill the thermos.”

“Bess packed a lunch in my
insulated saddlebag. It’ll be enough to hold us over ‘til we return. I brought
plenty of water for both of us. Forecast said it would be sweltering today.”

“Won’t be for long; I heard this
morning they predicted winter to arrive early this year.”

“Well I hope they’re wrong. We
have a hell of a lot more preparation now that we took on the rescue horses.”

“You wouldn’t have turned them
down. We’re both too softhearted to pass up those poor animals. You’ve been
doing a good job with it."

“It’s Jake who’s been handling it
all, and quite well, along with Garrett. He’s proven he’s the best horse
whisperer in the entire state. Billy also turned out to be a godsend.”

“Yup, it’s been working out much
better than I thought it would. I was worried at first, but Jake has proven to
be quite a manager.” Art put the thermos in his saddlebag. The horses were
ready to go, and they led them out of the stable.

Nick looked up and saw Mariah
driving toward them. She was taking Nicky shopping for new school clothes. In
another week, he’d be starting kindergarten.

Mariah rolled down her window.
“We’re off to Huntington.”

Nick walked over and looked into
the backseat. “Hey cowboy, you’re going shopping?”