Sandrift: A Lin Hanna Mystery (31 page)

At each place
he inquired as to whether or not the employee had been working the previous
day.
 
He explained carefully that he
was seeking to locate a missing person and showed the picture of Lin at the
Canyon.
 
He was careful to mention
that the Sheriff’s department was searching for her, and he was seeking
information to share.
 
Neal wanted
to make certain that everyone he talked to knew this was a serious matter.
 
The entire process took longer than he
wished.
 
Sometimes he had to wait
while customers were served.
 
The
morning was fast disappearing.

Over and over
he was told that no one had seen Lin in his or her place of business.
 
He did enter one small shop that dealt
in art and antiques where the proprietor recalled seeing her earlier the
previous week, but he was certain she had not been in since that time.

After a full
morning with no success, Neal was becoming discouraged.
 
He decided to call Tom and see how he
was doing, even though he felt certain Tom would’ve called had he learned
anything.
 
He was right about that;
Tom was having no luck either.
 
“Guess we’ll just have to keep at it,” Neal said, “I’ve still got a lot
of shops to cover before I get to the waterfront.”

The
unsuccessful hunt continued.
 
It was
well past noon when Neal’s cell phone rang.
 
It was Tom. “I finally hit pay dirt,” he
reported. “I’m at the coffee shop in that complex near the waterfront, and the
guy here says he remembers Lin stopping in yesterday afternoon. He thinks it
was about
two ,
give or take.”

“Wait for me
there,” Neal was glad that, finally, they had some type of information to share
with the Sheriff. “I’m only a couple of blocks away, and I only have one more
shop to check on this street.”

He ducked into
the lone remaining business before the waterfront area. It happened to be a
beauty salon.
 
It didn’t take long
to determine that Lin hadn’t been there.
 
Neal had covered all his assigned streets.
 
If Tom had completed his, all that
remained were places in the waterfront district.
 
Neal wanted to feel encouraged, but he
realized that they still didn’t have much to go on.
 
He was grateful that he hadn’t heard
anything from the Sheriff, fearing that he would only be bearing bad news if he
called.

Tom was waiting
for him when he entered the coffee shop.
 
The proprietor was waiting on a customer, but when he’d finished he came
over to the table where they were sitting.
 
Thankfully, Tom had already gotten coffee for them both.
 
The warm liquid helped to dispel the
chill of the rainy day.

Signaling to a
young woman who was filling urns to indicate he was leaving the register, the
shop owner pulled up a chair and joined them.

Tom had already
explained their search.
 
The owner
looked at the picture Neal offered, comparing it to the one Tom had shown him.

“I’m quite sure
that’s the lady who was sitting right over in that far corner yesterday,” he
said. “She seemed to have something on her mind when she came in.
 
She was quiet, didn’t have much to
say.
 
Had a mug of dark roast and
ordered a cranberry muffin, then got a refill on her coffee.
 
I’d say she was here about forty-five
minutes, maybe a bit longer.”

“Did you talk
to her?
 
Did she mention where she
was going when she left, or what she’d been doing before she came in?” Neal was
hungry for information.

“No, no,” the
proprietor shook his head. “Like I said, she was real quiet, sorta thoughtful,
I’d say.
 
Just drank her coffee, ate,
and left.”

“About what
time was she here?”
 
Neal asked.

“I’d say she
came in about two or maybe a little after.
 
It would’ve been close to three when she left.” He looked at the
snapshots again, “Real pretty lady.
 
I hope you find her soon,”

“Me too,” Neal
sighed, “me too.”

The owner got
up and returned to his post by the register.
 
“I’m hungry,” Tom announced, “How ‘bout
I get us a couple of sandwiches.
 
I
could use a break and I’m sure you could too.
 
It’s lunchtime anyway.”
 
He was already heading for the counter
before Neal could say yes or no.

Tom returned
with the sandwiches and refilled their mugs.

“There, that’s
better,” he said, “hard to accomplish anything on an empty stomach.
 
Besides, we’ve been canvassing out there
in the rain for almost four hours now.”

Neal nodded his
agreement as he bit into a particularly flaky croissant loaded with chicken
salad. “I’ve covered all my streets except for these shops along the
waterfront.
 
Nothing though.”

“This was the
first actual information I got,” Tom added.
 
“I did all my streets and all of the
shops on this side of the waterfront complex.
 
That only leaves a couple of shops down
the block.”

“Yeah, and one
of those is Mark Simon’s gallery and the Sheriff already talked to him.
 
He said Lin came in to get her ring and
left about three so we probably don’t need to go there.”
 
Neal was beginning to feel frustrated
again.
 
The information provided by
the coffee shop owner really hadn’t told them much at all.

“Oh, I think we
should go by the gallery anyway,” Tom suggested. “We know she went there but
that’s all.
 
Maybe she talked with
someone other than Simon while she was there.
 
She might’ve mentioned where she was
going next or something.
 
It’s worth
a try.”

Neal couldn’t
disagree, although he was still feeling discouraged.

When they’d
finished eating, the two men headed back outside.
 
The rain was still pouring down and
showed no signs of letting up. “I thought this stuff would’ve ended by now,”
Neal was beginning to lose hope, and the weather didn’t help his mood.

“Not ‘til
tomorrow, late tonight at the earliest,” Tom spoke with resilience as one used
to this type of weather, “Now, lets get started.
 
I’ll check those two small shops down
the street near where they found her car.
 
Why don’t you talk to the folks at that little café across the street,
just in case someone might’ve seen her pass by, and then we can meet at the
gallery.
 
After
that we can call for someone to pick us up.”
 
He secured the top of his raincoat and
headed out.

***

Lin wasn’t sure
how long she’d been pushing herself across the cabin floor, but her legs and
back ached with the effort.
 
She was
exhausted.
 
She lay against the door
for several minutes, breathing deeply and trying to regain some strength.
 
The rocking motion of the boat continued,
but surprisingly, the nausea seemed to be gone.
 
Maybe she was adjusting to the
motion.
 
She hadn’t eaten anything
in a long time; she wasn’t sure how long.
 
Maybe it helped to have an empty stomach.

Having decided
to rest before resuming her effort to stand up, she tried to remember what had
happened to her.
 
Her head still
ached, but her thoughts were certainly clearer than they’d been earlier.
 
The last thing she remembered was a room
spinning around and everything going black.
 
Where had she been?
 
Who was she with?
 
How did Mike Clark catch up with her?

Finally, she
began to recall what had happened.
 
She’d gone to pick up her ring and been sent to the Simon home to get
it.
 
She’d met Mark’s wife who
seemed to behave strangely from the start.
 
She was a gardener and a beekeeper.
 
Slowly it all came back—Millicent’s crazy words, her attack with
the gardening shears, her reference to “taking care” of one of Mark’s lovers,
the bee boxes on the shelf in the greenhouse, Mark rescuing her, drinking tea…

Suddenly it all
fell into place.
 
The tea had been
drugged.
 
Somehow she’d been
rendered unconscious and brought to this boat—wherever it was.
 
Now she had a clearer picture of what might’ve
happened to Dorrie Johnson.
 
She
couldn’t say what the details might’ve been, but she felt sure that Dorrie’s
death was no accident.
 
The sting
she’d suffered had probably come from one of Millicent’s bees, and it might’ve
been delivered via the bee box.
 
That would account for the irregular bruise on Dorrie’s shoulder that
seemed to match the size and pattern of the box.
 
Dorrie had been drugged all right, but
not on Thursday night, not for purposes of date rape.
 
She’d been drugged at the Simon
home—mostly likely by Millicent who must’ve thought she was getting rid
of one of Mark’s many lovers.

Lin realized
that she didn’t have time right now to figure all this out.
 
If she couldn’t escape this place, no
one would ever be able to sort it out.
 
Maybe they’d never figure out what happened to her either.
 
She thought about Neal and about their
newly formed plans for their future; she thought about her family coming next
weekend for the holidays.
 
I’ve got
to do something she determined, and with renewed energy, she began striving to
push herself up against the wall.
 

She soon
realized that the back and forth rocking of the boat could be used to her
advantage.
 
When the boat rocked
forward it pushed her harder against the door.
 
She tried shoving with her feet in
rhythm with that, taking care to brace herself so she wouldn’t slide back with
the opposite motion.
 
It was slow,
and she missed several times, but gradually she was able to attain an upright
position.
 
Now the trick was to
avoid falling back down as she tried to navigate the short distance over to the
desk.

Finally, she
was there.
 
She noticed that the
light in the cabin seemed to be dimmer than before.
 
Were the clouds growing darker or had
she already been working all day?
 
Was nightfall coming?

She braced her
butt against the shelf that formed the desk and dug her feet into the carpet to
try to maintain her position.
 
Placing her wrists over the chain she began to move them back and forth
in a sawing motion.
 
At first she
seemed to be getting nowhere, but eventually she heard a tearing sound; she’d
made a break in her bonds.
 
Focusing
her efforts on that spot she tried to work harder.
 
Her arms and legs ached mightily, but
thankfully, she noticed that her previously injured shoulder seemed to be
functioning properly.

Finally she
felt the tape break on one side.
  
She slipped her wrists sideways, hoping to catch the edge of the tape
against the chain.
 
When she felt it
snag, she began to pull, trying to force the tape away from her skin.
 
The pulling made her wrists burn.
 
She could only imagine what it was doing
to her skin, but this was her only chance.
 
She kept working the tape against the chain—pulling then working
it more.
 
Finally, her left hand
sprang free.
 
After that it was only
a matter of minutes until she loosened the other hand and pulled the tape from
her sore ankles.

When she’d
accomplished this, Lin stumbled back to the bed, sat down, and began to
determine what she could do next.
 
She waited until she felt steadier and then tried the door.
 
The lock appeared to be solid.
 
She probably wasn’t going to be able to
get out that way.
 
She began to
search for other possibilities.

It seemed to be
growing steadily darker, and her ability to see her surroundings was sharply
curtailed.
 
She realized that there
was still a small amount of light coming in around the blinds on the window;
she was free now and could open them.
 
She carefully rocked her way over to that side of the cabin, following
the cadence of the boat.
 
She was
getting used to this method of getting around.
 
She got to the window and raised the
blinds to the top.
 
The window was
larger than she’d originally thought, maybe three feet wide with half that
height.
 
She couldn’t see outside as
it was too high, but it looked as if her body could easily fit through provided
she could get up that high.

There was
nothing in the cabin to stand on other than the bed, which was on the wall
opposite the window, and the small shelf of a desk, which was on the right wall
but positioned somewhat to the left of the window.
 
She wasn’t sure that the shelf would
hold her weight, but she really had no other choice.
 
The window was a slider and had only the
usual type of flip lock.
 
If she could
reach it, she could open it, and if she could open it she might be able to
escape.
 
She didn’t know if the
window rose over a deck or if it was right over the water.
 
She might be able to see more if she
could get up there.