“Kate,” I called, for she’d taken the lead and was ten yards ahead of me. “Come on back. There’s nothing to find up there.”
“You don’t—slap!—know that. Maybe something’s just ahead. Maybe all we have to do is go a little farther. Wouldn’t it be too stupid to give up just before—slap!—dang these mosquitos!”
“Come on back,” I repeated more firmly, and this time she did so. “Tell you what,” I said. “I’m as disappointed as you are that we didn’t find anything. But”—I held up my hand to silence her upcoming protest—“maybe you’re right, and what we want to find is just ahead. However, we need to come prepared. We need mosquito repellant. Plus water, a compass, and a decent pedometer to tell us how far we walked. And we need to tell someone where we’re going.”
She sighed, but it sounded less a teenage sigh of the-world’s-so-unfair and more a sigh of resignation. “Fine,” she said, but the surliness was mostly absent. “That makes sense.”
I let out a small breath. “Now let’s get back before Eddie starts to worry.”
Side by side, we traipsed our route in reverse. “Isn’t it funny,” I said, “how things can look so different depending on the direction you travel?”
Kate glanced around. “Not sure what you mean.”
“Well,” I said, gesturing. “I didn’t notice that tree on the way out. See all the holes? That means it’s old, or diseased, and insects are starting the decay process.”
Her eyes went wide. “Bugs did that?”
“No, but yes.” I laughed at her expression. “Sorry. But the bugs are in there, eating away at their dinner, and that’s what attracts the pileated woodpeckers. They’re big birds, and—” I stopped.
“And what?” Kate had continued walking, but now saw I’d fallen behind. “What’s the matter?” Then she saw what I’d already spotted, the faintest hint of a trail, which we hadn’t noticed before because of a log blocking the view from that direction.
“Well,” I said. “It seems we’ve found something.”
“Yeah. And look at this.” Kate pointed at the log. “Its bark is different from this tree.” She thumped the woodpecker’s lunch buffet.
“Or,” I said slowly, “any of these other trees.” Not that I was Nature Girl, by any stretch—the pileated woodpecker’s habits was pretty much my full knowledge of woodland creatures—but even I could tell the difference between the bark of deciduous trees and that of conifers. Given that we were surrounded by maples, birches, and beeches, why were we looking at a pine log? “And,” I said, “it’s been cut. You can see the saw marks.”
Kate squatted down to get a closer view. “Okay, I see them now.” She popped upright and looked at me.
I looked back.
The conclusion was obvious. Someone—read Courtney and her cohort—had created this path and hidden its entrance. The big question now was, where did the path lead?
I tucked my curiosity away and put on my Aunt hat. Two people had already been killed and I was not going to put my niece in danger. “We need to leave,” I said. “Now that we have something solid to tell Detective Inwood, he and Ash will follow up on this and—Kate, wait!”
Because she had bolted away from me faster than a runner out of starting blocks. She tore through the trees faster than her aunt could follow, which I was doing, of course, because I wasn’t about to let her go down that trail all alone, but she had youth and—yes, I can admit it—fitness on her side, and her lead on me grew longer and longer.
“Kate!” I called. “Stop!”
She didn’t.
I summoned the biggest, best Librarian Voice I could muster. Through my panting breaths, I yelled, “Katrina Abigail Hamilton! Stop right now!”
To my surprise and shock, she did. At least the noise of her crashing through the underbrush stopped, and I suddenly found that I could run a little harder and a little faster, and my thoughts ran along with me.
Please don’t let her be hurt. What happened up there? Please, please, don’t let her be hurt. I’ll never forgive myself. Please, please, please . . .
I rounded a bend in the path and saw my niece, sound and whole, standing next to a small building. It was a classic Up North structure: a patchwork siding of half metal and half plywood, with a complicated roof that from a distance looked like a bunch of rusty highway signs tossed up every which way. Bigger than an outhouse and smaller than most sheds, its solidly wood door might or might not have had ancient barn origins, but the chain and lock that fastened it shut were bright and shiny.
Hmm.
“Aunt Minnie?” Her voice was unrepentant. “You need to look at this.”
With relief, I slowed to a walk for the last few yards. “What I need to do,” I said firmly, “is get you out of here and back to the car. Let’s go. Now.”
“But look!” She pointed. “See?”
And since I was human, I felt compelled to look. What I saw was a small and dusty window, just high enough off the ground that I couldn’t see inside, even standing on my tiptoes.
She saw my difficulty and took a knee. “Here. You can get up on my leg.”
“Kate—”
“Just a quick look. Then we can go.”
Thinking things that would instantly disqualify me for the Aunt of the Year Award, I grabbed the edge of a piece of plywood and clambered on top of Kate’s leg. As the shed’s interior was illuminated only by the light that came in through that window, it took a moment for my eyes to identify what was on shelves.
And I suddenly understood everything.
Because on those shelves were hundreds of short plastic bottles.
Prescription medications.
“What’s in there?” Kate asked.
“Pills,” I said. “Lots of them.” I flashed back to that day at Ann Marie and Rupert Wiley’s house. Courtney’s over-the-top reaction when I’d walked into the room. How she wasn’t supposed to be handling medications at all.
“They’re stealing them, aren’t they?” Kate’s voice was high and excited. “Selling them on the black market.”
I slid off her leg and hit the ground with a bump. Nicole. She’d had back problems. Could she have been addicted to opioids? Had she been buying from Courtney?
Even though Up North lacked many Big Box types of shopping opportunities, there were avenues for selling stolen goods. It was my guess that Courtney’s stash had a high percentage of opioids and she was making a pretty penny on sales, enough money that she and her partner were willing to kill to keep the operation going.
Only . . . who was the partner?
A metallic click made me freeze, and a male voice said, “Hold it right there.”
Chapter 20
Kate and I stared at each other, then, as a single unit of Hamiltons, turned to face a twenty-something man, his thick blond arm hairs visible even in the mottled forest light.
Luke Cagan.
Though the very fact of his presence was disturbing, even more troubling was the handgun pointing directly at my niece’s midsection.
I stepped in front of her. “Hey, Luke,” I said as easily as I could. “It is Luke, right, from the hardware store? How are you doing? I’m pretty sure you can put that gun away. We were out here hiking, is all, came across this cool little shed. Do you happen to know who owns it?”
“Cut the crap.” He gestured with the gun. “I saw you looking inside. You know what’s in there.”
I put on an expression of innocence and shook my head. “Not really. It’s so dark in there I couldn’t make out a thing. All that reading I do, it messes up my night vision.” This wasn’t true—at least not yet—but I figured flat-out lies to get Kate away from a guy with a gun wouldn’t count against me in a final life tally. And even if they did, I didn’t care.