Strung Out to Die (24 page)

“Told ya.”

“Confuse!” Startled, I jumped around with my fists in the air only to see Agnes standing there. “Agnes! You scared me!”

“I said I was coming with you.” She planted her hands on her hips. “Now, let’s go.”

I shifted my weight onto one foot and leaned over toward Agnes. “I think you should stay here and wait for…”

“Marlene to come back and kill me?” Agnes shook her head. “You’re crazy if you think I’m going to stay here alone. We can go on over to the police station together.”

“I have to stop by the cottage to get the rest of the evidence, and then we will go.” My cell rang. I brushed the dirt off my hands and grabbed the phone out of my pocket. It was Donovan. “Ugh. Missed the call.”

He was going to have to wait. I had to get this information to Noah.

“What is that?” Agnes tilted her head to one side and inched a little closer. “Holly Harper, is that a cell phone?”

I jammed it back into my pocket. Obviously, her eyes were getting better.

“Are you going to wear that?” I asked, ignoring her question.

“What’s wrong with my outfit?” Agnes looked down, confirming her eyes really weren’t that much better.

“How long did the doctor say your eyes would take to heal?” I asked and motioned for her to come on.

There was no time to take her in the house and change her clothes. We were in a race against time. We had to get to Noah.

“I’m coming.” Agnes yelled from behind me, waving her hands in the air.

Chapter Thirty-Six

I tried calling Bernadine on my way home to tell her to row over to my cottage, but she still wasn’t home.

I was going to have her go with me to see Noah, just in case he pulled something funny and put me in jail. I could also tell her about Diva Agnes and have Bernadine take Agnes to the police station.

Jim’s truck was parked next to the garage when we got there. Seeing it made me feel so much better. Donovan clearly didn’t want me to be here alone, and I didn’t call to tell him I was stopping by to get the evidence. But with KooKoo Marlene running around, it was nice knowing that Jim was there.

“Wait right here,” I instructed Agnes. There was no time to help her out of the car, and have her following me all over the place. “I’ll be right back.”

Before I went into the house, I decided to go find Jim to let him know I was home. I wasn’t going to clue him in on why I was there, but I didn’t want him to find me running and screaming away from Marlene if she did show up. I also didn’t want him to be scared off by Agnes and her circus outfit.

I’d never stepped foot in the barn before now. It was very neat and tidy. There was a lot of lumber from the hardware store on rows of shelving stacked up to the ceiling. There were several different lift machines along with what appeared to be extra inventory.

“Whoa!” I swung my arms in circles trying to steady myself.

It didn’t work. I landed square on my rump. With my hands, I parted the hay on the floor to see what made me fall. I hit something with my hand, and it went rolling into a crease.

“What in the world?” I ran my finger along the crease and stopped when I felt a hinge.

There were actually two hinges that looked like they were attached to a door.
A secret door?

I lifted up the door and whatever made me fall bounced down some steps. I watched it bounce down each step, revealing itself when it rolled to a stop.

A black and white cat eye bead?

I gasped and clapped my hand over my mouth. I looked around for Jim, but he was nowhere to be found.

For a brief moment, and I do mean brief, I thought about going down those steps, but that was the mother of all
Unders
.

I couldn’t think of anything more
Under
than deep in the ground under a barn.

My head began spinning with many different scenarios. Images of Marlene killing Doug with the cat eyes, kidnapping Sean, tying Agnes up, and now Jim being missing were flashing through my mind.

Marlene was picking us off one by one. I looked back at Agnes, who was waiting patiently like I asked her to and slowly glanced back down into
The Under
.

I felt panicky, but I had to see what was down there.
Be aware of your surroundings
. I took off like a lightning bolt into the ultimate
Under
with my keys firmly planted between my fingers.

It wasn’t as scary as I thought it was going to be once I got down there. Jim and Ginger had taken a lot of time making this a very nice barn basement.

I bent down and picked up the cat eye bead and tucked it into my pocket with my ePhone.

There was a nicely lit, tiled hallway leading into a room with Berber carpet, a flat screen TV, and a couple of leather couches. The kitchenette was equipped with a refrigerator, microwave, and sink. Everything someone needed for a snack.

I wondered why after all these years, Ginger had never mentioned this place. Even though she was an honorary Diva, this would have been a great place for the divorced Divas to meet.

I flipped on the TV to see if it worked. There must’ve been a satellite hooked up to it because we couldn’t get cable this far out of the city. I had to remember to ask Jim to tap my cottage TV into it.

It looked like some kind of CSI show, because there were a couple of people bound and gagged on the screen. I went to push the off button when I looked into one of the unlucky guy’s eyes.

I grabbed the remote to turn up the volume, but instead I accidently hit another button that changed the channel.

“Oh!” I was shocked to see the inside of The Beaded Dragonfly.

I pushed the button again, and the screen showed the inside of my cottage.

“What the hell?” I whispered, and continued to flip, looking at familiar places, including Agnes Pearl’s house.

When I flipped back to the CSI show, I figured out it wasn’t a show at all. My face was almost pressed up against the screen looking at Sean, Bernadine, and Marlene, all tied up, unable to move.

Marlene?

I didn’t have time to question why Marlene was there. She was the one who was supposed to be doing all the tying up, not being tied. She was the one who I thought was creating havoc on the innocent, not the other way around.

Sean was slumped over, looking tired, almost weak. There were bags around his beautiful green eyes. His shaggy blonde hair was greasy. Even his fake-and-bake tan was beginning to fade.

Marlene had some sort of camouflage pants on instead of her usual skin-tight leggings. The way the camera was angled, I could see she was missing some of her fingernails.

Bernadine’s eyes were as dark and angry as a thundercloud. Her light blue silk pajamas had mud stains around the bottom.

I couldn’t stand it any longer. This situation was getting more and more complicated–not to mention dangerous. Everything I thought I had figured out was all turning out differently.

I pulled out my ePhone and touched the screen to turn it on. I quickly dialed Noah’s number from memory. Surely, he was back at the office by now. Agnes had called him over fifteen minutes ago. I pulled the phone away from my ear and looked at it when I heard it beep. There was a big red ‘X’ in the upper right corner of the screen.

“No service?” I shook the thing and held it over my head like I’d seen Flora do on several occasions.

I looked at it again. Nothing. Just a big red ‘X.’

I had to do something. I didn’t have time to try to get the phone to work. There was no time to wait on Noah. This was all in my hands, and I had to find them. I looked back at the TV.

I wasn’t scared anymore. I was angry. With my hands held high, I did some defense moves to get warmed up. I didn’t know who I was going to use them on, but I would be ready when I did.

“I’m going to find you.” I said through gritted teeth, looking at the TV screen as if they could hear me.

Sean looked up at the camera as if he did hear me. There was some hope left in his eyes.

Think, think, think.
I tapped my forehead with my finger, hoping this action was going to make me smarter.

I’m just a beader, not a detective or crime fighter. Everything was messed up. Nothing made sense. I was sure I’d had it figured out. Right now was not the time to try to figure it out. I had to get them out of there. But where were they?

I looked at the screen to see if I recognized anything in the room where they were being held. The camera was strategically placed so you could only see the four of them.

“Berber carpet, brown walls.” I looked closer.
Berber carpet?
I tapped my foot on the Berber carpet I was standing on. They must be somewhere in this barn.

I ran my hand along the wall for any switches or trap doors like Veronica Mars would have done, but I didn’t feel anything. It was just a plain, painted wall.

Thump, thump, thump
. There were footsteps coming down the hall. I held my breath. The footprints stopped. I stuck my head around the corner, and in a flash, Marlene, or someone with the same teased out hair, disappeared into a secret passageway off the hallway.

Before the door closed, I tiptoed down the hall and slipped into the passageway just in time. The Marlene look-a-like moved down the long hallway and around a corner.

There were a few doors along each side of the secret passage. I was about to look into one of them when I saw a shadow form on the corner of the wall, coming toward me.

I opened the closest door and shut it behind me. I held my breath until I saw the shadow move past the crack at the bottom of the door. The secret passage door brushed the Berber carpet as it closed.

The light switch on the wall pressed into the side of my arm. I flipped it on. Stacks upon stacks of boxes were all over the padded room
. Padded room?

I panicked and opened the door. Then I shut it. Where was I going to go? I had no way of knowing where the Marlene look-alike was. She could be outside the door, up in the barn, or in my cottage. Being in here was the safest place to be, for now.

Out of curiosity, I ripped open one of the boxes, and then another, and then another. Box after box was filled with glass beads. One in particular was filled with yarn strands of cat eye beads, just like the ones that I ordered for the shop, and was found around Doug Sloan’s neck.

There was no time to waste. I needed to get a hold of Noah. No doubt about it. The big red “X” was still displayed on my ePhone. I snapped pictures of the evidence. I have no idea why, but it seemed like something Veronica would do.

After my impromptu photo shoot, I put my ear back up against the door. It had been a few minutes. I was hoping the coast was clear, because I knew I had to get a hold of Noah and getting out of this barn was the only way to do that.

With my keys gripped tightly in-between my fingers, I slipped out into the hall. A hand gripped my shoulder. As if instinct kicked in, I jumped around, jamming my keys into the attackers gut, bring the attacker to his knees.

“Confuse! Leave!” I yelled, and then I stood over the attacker, ready for another round.

“Stop,” he gasped with his hand in the air. “It’s me, Donovan.”

“Donovan?” I grabbed his hand to help him up. “How did you find me?”

“When I hadn’t heard from you, I pinged your ePhone.” He stood up and held his stomach. He pulled up his shirt, and in-between the fourth and fifth muscle of his six-pack, there was a deep scratch from my keys.

I really had given him some good jabs.

He held his ePhone up. “I told you that. Your phone can ping other ePhones and see where they are. Kind of cool.”

“Thank God, you found me. Did you see anyone in the barn that looked like Marlene?” I asked, grabbing and pulling him into another room when I heard the secret passageway door begin to swing open.

We stood as still at statues until we heard the footprints walk past. Fluorescent lights buzzed and crackled above us when Donovan flipped the switch. This room was much different from the other one. It was empty, with a concrete floor and another door at the far end.

“I didn’t see anyone,” He whispered into my ear, holding me tight to his chest. “Your car and Jim’s truck are parked out there.”

“Agnes?” I asked, and pulled away. I walked over to the door and put my ear up to it to see if there was any noise.

“Agnes, what?” He tried to turn the handle, but the door was locked.

I took a stab at it, as if I was stronger than he was, and twisted, pulled and jerked, but it wasn’t going to budge.

I stepped back and brushed my hair from my face. “I left Agnes in my car. Did you see her out there?”

“No. I told you I didn’t see anyone.” He jiggled the handle a couple more times. He looked at me. “What?”

“Agnes insisted on coming with me. I left her in my car.” I quickly explained that I was looking for Jim when I stumbled upon The Basement
Under
, what I had seen in the other room with the videos, and how I thought they had to be down here somewhere because of the identical carpet.

“You go check on Agnes. I’ll keep looking.” Donovan tugged on the door a little harder, giving a good few kicks to the handle. With the third kick, the handle flew off and the door popped open.

We slowly peeked around to see what was on the other side of the door.

“A closet?” There was a bunch of clothes hanging from a rod. “Sean?”

There was no mistaking the crappy overalls Sean wears when he’s working. I’ve always told him that just because he was a handyman, didn’t mean he had to dress the part. He wouldn’t listen.

“I’d be able to tell these from a million pairs of overalls.” I shivered. “We have to find them.”

“Go. Call the police.” Donovan shooed me out of the room, and out of
The Under
.

I dropped the overalls on the floor on the way out, not looking back.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

The sun stopped me dead in my tracks. My eyes opened and closed trying to focus on my VW. Even with the big sunspot in the center of my eyes, I could tell that Agnes wasn’t in the car.

Agnes.