Missing in the Desert Page 11

  He pursed his lips. “I’m inclined to come around to your way of thinking. Too much trouble cropping up to be pure accidents, but—” he cleared his throat “—I want you to know that Teegan isn’t capable of that kind of thing. He’s a gentle man. When my wife died...” He swallowed. “She died of cancer when he was a young teen, and it killed him an inch at a time to see her suffer. Killed all of us, but Teegan took it hard. Felt like he tumbled into a well, and I couldn’t drag him out because I was grieving, too. That kind of loneliness can blacken someone’s soul, but it didn’t with Teegan. I am grateful that he came out of it and got himself a wife and a son. Family’s the only thing that can save a man.”

  Mara hesitated. “We didn’t accuse him. We’re trying to figure out if any of what’s happened is connected to my sister Corinne’s disappearance.”

  His eyes widened. “Your sister? But that was almost five years ago. What would it have to do with the present?”

  “Good question,” Levi said.

  His attention wandered to Teegan, who had hoisted his son onto his shoulders. Both were smiling. Amelia sat behind her watercolor booth, gazing up adoringly. “Teegan’s a good man and a good father. Much better than I ever was. I’d do anything for him.”

  Someone called out to Gene, and he waved. When he turned back to them, his face was troubled. “Truth is I’m a simple man. Not savvy about investigations and police matters and such, but I can tell you without doubt that Teegan did not hurt your sister and he did not cause any of these troubles for you and your brother.”

  Mara nodded. “I appreciate you coming to talk to me.”

  “Sure. I’m glad to have this all cleared up.” Gene left, stopping to give his grandson a tickle. Teegan noticed Mara. His grin vanished, and he lifted the boy down and handed him to Amelia. Then he turned away.

  “Do you believe Gene?” Mara asked Levi. “That Teegan is innocent of any wrongdoing?”

  “Seems like Gene believes it, but he said he’d do anything for his son so he might know something he’s not willing to come clean about, to cover for him.” Levi realized he was tense, muscles rigid. He didn’t know anymore who to trust.

  Yes, he did. Family. Willow, Austin, Beckett, Jude, Seth...and Mara.

  He tried to hold on to that surety as the morning rolled into noontime. Mara stood and stretched. “I’m going to look around at the booths. The flyers can take care of themselves for a few minutes.”

  Levi didn’t ask permission, he simply sidled up next to her, and they began their rounds. Hard as it was to believe, someone had shot Seth and attacked Mara, someone who could be any one of these jolly, bearded participants.

  Mara admired a necklace which held a tiny bottle filled with Death Valley sand.

  “If you want sand, I got plenty over at the ranch,” he said. She laughed, but when she and Willow went to use the ladies’ room, he bought it for her and slid it into his pocket. Would he ever have the courage to give it to her? Willow snapped a picture of him standing next to a pile of woven blankets, arms crossed.

  “You look like some sort of cowboy secret service agent.”

  He shrugged, realizing that every minute Mara was out of his sight was a minute too long. Just doing it for Seth, he reminded himself, but the sentiment rang hollow. When Mara rejoined him, they kept on perusing the various vendors until they reached Amelia’s table. Crates of small watercolor paintings cluttered the surface. Amelia chatted amiably with a customer as she bagged up their purchase.

  When she noticed Mara and Levi, she seemed to shrink a little. “Hello. How’s business at your table?”

  “Lots of visitors,” Levi said. “Yours?”

  She shrugged. “Okay, I guess.”

  Levi noticed Peter playing underneath the table. “You’ve got a helper.”

  Amelia squirmed and stepped closer as if to shield her son from them. “My husband wouldn’t like us talking here, especially after what you said to him at Jerry’s.”

  “Just looking,” he said. “But if it makes you uncomfortable...”

  A gasp from Mara brought him up short. She was flat out staring at a small painting in one of the crates. He looked closer. It didn’t look like much to him. Truthfully, it was more crudely done than the others, at least to his unpracticed eye. Mara bent to scan it more closely.

  “This painting. It’s yours?” she asked Amelia.

  Amelia picked it up. “No. Weird. Mine are much better. I don’t know how it got into my stacks.”

  It was an attempt at a landscape, a depiction of a twisted rock formation. Overhead was a cloud shaped like...

  “A teapot,” Mara said, exhaling. “How can you not know where this painting came from?”

  She looked helpless. “Honestly, I don’t know. We’ve done a few local events. Maybe another artist’s got mixed up with mine.”

  Excitement radiated off Mara in waves. “There’s no signature. And I don’t see any others like it.”

  Amelia said sharply “That must be what happened. It’s the only explanation.”

  “I want to buy it,” Mara said at last.

  Amelia shook her head. “No. It’s not for sale. I wouldn’t feel right selling someone else’s work.”

  “Please.”

  “Why?” she said warily. “Why would you want it? It’s not very well done.”

  “It reminds me of my childhood. I’ll give you a hundred dollars for it.” Her cheeks were flushed.

  Levi was stunned at the generous sum, but he knew Mara was privy to something he wasn’t. She was almost feverish.

  Amelia thought it over. She looked around quickly, perhaps to see if her husband was watching. “Okay.” Speedily she stuck the painting in a bag and handed it to Mara, sliding her credit card on the handheld machine.

  Mara thanked her and practically pulled Levi back to their table. “Willow, can you watch our table for a minute? I need to show Levi something.”

  Willow sat down at the booth’s table. Her expression was alive with curiosity as she picked up on Mara’s mood. “As long as I get to hear about it, too.”

  “Promise,” Mara said as Willow settled onto the card chair. Levi didn’t need any urging to follow Mara outside. The parking lot was almost full, but there were hardly any people around. They sought the shade of a tree on the edge of the lot where she unbagged the painting.

  “Are you ready for a bombshell?” she asked.

  He straightened. “Lay it on me.”

  “I think my sister painted this.”

  Her sister, Corinne, back from the dead.

  TWELVE

  Mara didn’t wait for Levi’s questions. “The cloud, see? Right above this four-pointed mountain?” She stabbed a finger at the white blob. “You thought it looked like a teapot, didn’t you?”

  He nodded.

  She rushed on. “That’s a long-standing family joke. Seth and Corinne and I would lie on our backs and look up at the clouds. We’d imagine all sorts of fanciful shapes, animals and castles and such, and my brother would always say ‘I only see a teapot.’”

  Levi stared from her to the painting. “Well...”

  “Corinne painted this,” she insisted. Her mind was spinning out the theory faster than her mouth could keep up. “Maybe she’s alive, Levi, right here in Furnace Falls. Teegan’s keeping her prisoner or something, all these years. That’s why she didn’t call. He’s kept her locked up.”

  “Hold on a second. You might be getting ahead of yourself. It could be that the cloud just happens to resemble a teapot.”

  “No. You see the handle here and the spout?” She pointed, amazed that he would even suggest such a thing. “It’s deliberate, a kind of message, I’m sure of it. My sister might have heard somehow that Seth and I were coming to Death Valley for Camp Town Days, and she was trying to send us a message, like the text, but she had t
o be careful not to be caught.”

  He frowned. “Seems far-fetched to think you or Seth would actually spot this one tiny painting. What are the chances—”

  “It must have been all she could do.”

  He held up a palm to stop her rebuttal. “Mara, slow down a minute. Let’s say your sister did paint this, and somehow it turned up in Amelia’s things. If Teegan had something to do with holding her prisoner, he sure wouldn’t have given her paints. And if you’re right, and this is Corinne’s work, isn’t it possible she painted it years ago before her disappearance? Might it have been in a box of old things or something? Maybe she gave it to Teegan when they were in high school, and he forgot about it?”

  Mara’s excitement began to ebb. “I didn’t think of that.”

  “I sure don’t want to crush your hopes, Mara, but you heard what Jude said.”

  “That she’s dead.” Mara blinked back sudden tears. “But they never found her body. I didn’t realize how I was hanging on to that part.” If they didn’t find her body...there was the slightest possibility that Corinne might be alive. The painting had brought that slender thread rocketing to the surface. For a moment, she’d felt a surge of wild, impractical hope, like she’d experienced in the weeks after Corinne disappeared when there would be a call or a knock at the door.

  She’s come back.

  My sister.

  But the knocks and calls had never panned out. And Levi was right: this painting was probably nothing, either. How had she come up with such a wild theory in the space of a few minutes? She felt foolish. Her cheeks were wet, and she hadn’t even known she was crying.

  Levi hugged her close. “I’m sorry, Mara. Likely I’m wrong.”

  She sniffled and wrapped her arms around his waist. “No. I was being stupid.”

  “Maybe not. What do I know, anyway? I agree it was weird that Amelia didn’t know how it got into her collection and the picture reminds you of your past. I’m not sure it amounts to proof your sister is alive is all. I just don’t want to see you hurt.”

  She buried her damp face against his shirt, loving him for trying to comfort her. Loving him? She thrust the thought away. “It’s okay. For a minute, I wanted to believe it so badly.”

  “I get it.” He held her close and laid his cheek onto the crown of her head. He rocked her there in the circle of his arms, the rough fabric of his shirt whisking her cheek. Though she had no right to, she clung to him for comfort.

  “With Seth’s situation so unsettled,” he murmured, “it’s bound to ratchet everything up to a high level.”

  She squeezed him close and then pulled in a deep breath. Slowly her senses seemed to come back online. Wiping her eyes, she straightened out of his embrace.

  They looked again at the painting, and she sighed. “I’m glad I bought it, anyway. It was nice thinking about Seth and his silly teapot clouds. I’ll show it to him and remind him about that memory next time I see him.” She tried to inject some strength in her words, but she still felt ridiculous and depleted.

  “Is there anything written on the back?” Levi asked.

  She turned it over. Nothing but a smudge of brown paint. “No.”

  “We’ll show it to Jude. See what he thinks.”

  She knew he was trying to help her feel less of a fool. After another steadying breath, she said, “I guess I should go explain to Willow that I jumped to a highly improbable conclusion.”

  “She won’t judge you for that. She loves her siblings as much as you do yours.”

  My siblings, she thought miserably. One dead and one in the hospital in who-knew-what condition. She shook her head to clear away the self-pity. “I’ll leave it in your truck for safekeeping.”

  He unlocked the truck, and she slid it under the passenger seat, out of sight of anyone who might be looking, and they returned to the Grange Hall. Willow looked up expectantly, and Mara’s face went hot. Quick as she could, she whispered an abbreviated explanation to Willow. She was surprised when Willow took her hand and gave it a firm squeeze.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “If anything happened to Levi or Austin, I would have grasped at any straw, too. Don’t feel silly at all.” Their clasped fingers conveyed the sentiment. Whatever animosity Willow had harbored toward her had been forgotten in that precious moment. Mara bit her lip, unable to express her mixture of emotions. And all of a sudden, she felt as if she might have a new friend in Willow, or at least an ally.

  During the remaining hours, she plastered on a smile, greeting passersby and trying to keep from looking at Amelia. The space began to get stuffy, and her back felt sticky with perspiration. A dozen or so people signed up for the Rocking Horse Ranch newsletter, which cheered her. Others stopped to get flyers, and they added a pair of sisters to the Johnson tour. Perhaps they might be convinced to provide some testimonials she could use in the newsletter she intended to start work on later that day.

  Finally, as the vendor fair came to a close, Levi helped her cover the table. They would leave the flyers and a fresh sign-up sheet, even though they would not be manning the table anymore due to their tour activities. She grabbed her bag. Levi opened the door to the parking lot, and she followed him.

  There was a tinkling of glass. It took them both a moment to identify the sound.

  Though Levi’s truck was hidden by a row of other cars, somehow she just knew from where the sound had originated. Levi sprinted toward the truck. She grabbed her cell phone, ready to call the police and followed after him.

  She heard Levi shout “No!” followed by a crash of metal on metal.

  * * *

  Levi got only a vague impression of the vandal, big shirt, hat low on the brow, bandanna over the face before a tire iron was flung at him. He ducked but not quite in time. The tool glanced off his cheek and careened into a parking sign as it sent him over backward.

  When the stars cleared, he scrambled to his feet, ignoring the pain radiating through his face. Mara hurried over. “Jude’s after him.” Her brow crinkled in worry. “You’re bleeding.”

  “I’m okay.”

  He took the stack of tissues she handed him from her bag and pressed it to his cheek which stung like it was on fire. Tears streamed from the affected eye, and he realized Austin and Willow had emerged from the Grange Hall to join them. Willow insisted he pull the tissues away so she and Mara could examine him. He squashed the mess back to his cheek and tried to wave them off.

  Jude returned, breathing hard.

  “I chased him around to the front, but they were loading bales of hay for the parade spectators to sit on, and I lost him. Need medical attention, Levi?”

  “No,” he said quickly before either of the two women could answer for him. “I don’t suppose you got a better look at him than I did?” Levi asked hopefully.

  “Face was covered. Medium height, baggy clothes. Wearing gloves so I didn’t even see his hands. Or hers. Could have been a woman.”

  They approached Levi’s vehicle, and he caught the gleam of glass, bits of broken pieces lying on the paved surface of the lot.

  Jude stood next to Levi’s broken passenger window. “All right. Let’s hear it. What did you have in there that someone busted your window to get?”

  “He didn’t leave anything in there. I did.” Mara’s face was pale. “A painting I bought at the vendor fair, under the passenger’s seat.”

  Jude gingerly slid a gloved hand under the seat. “Nothing there now. What kind of a painting?” he prodded.

  She told him about her theory that the piece had been her sister’s work. “But I slid that painting all the way under the seat. There’s no possibility it was visible. No one could have known it was there unless...”

  Levi frowned. “Unless the person who busted in was watching us the whole time.”

  Watching....the whole time. It made something inside him roll up tig
ht.

  “Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?” Willow said.

  “Wonder what?” Austin asked.

  “If there really was some kind of message in that painting Mara bought.”

  A message...from the grave? What could possibly be going on in this town?

  Jude looked at Mara after he finished talking into his radio. “A sheriff will be here in a minute to secure the scene. After he arrives, how about we go have a talk with Amelia and Teegan?”

  “Yes,” she said calmly. “Let’s.”

  In less than ten minutes, Jude’s compatriot arrived. He stayed with the truck while the rest of them returned to the Grange Hall. Levi didn’t make direct eye contact with Jude in case his cousin might tell him to stay back while he questioned the Warringtons. There was no way he was going to let Mara go anywhere unless he was glued to her side. Willow and Austin stayed back from Amelia’s table, but he knew they were watching curiously. It occurred to Levi that both Teegan and his wife were wearing baggy jeans and loose-fitting shirts.

  Teegan stood with his arms crossed and his back to them, speaking to Amelia. They both appeared hot, sweaty. Could one of them have busted into his truck, eluded pursuit and strolled back inside as if nothing had happened? Probably, but the temperature in the hall was climbing, and they’d been packing boxes so everyone was feeling uncomfortably warm, including Levi. Amelia blinked as though she might burst into tears when Jude, Levi and Mara showed up. She broke off from the conversation, cheeks red. “Oh, hi. Did you all need something?”

  Teegan was not so solicitous. He wiped a hand over his brow. “What do you want?” he demanded. “I heard you bought some painting that didn’t belong to us. Pressured Amelia to sell it to you. What’s going on now? Are you back to harass her some more?”

  “Teegan,” Jude said. “No harassment going on here. You sell art. She bought a piece that reminded her of Corinne. Nothing wrong with that.”

  “And like I said, she paid well for it, Teegan.” There was a petulant quality to Amelia’s statement. Levi realized they must have been having a little spat about the sale. “Not like we can’t use the money.” Her last comment was mumbled.