Alex’s cell rang as she turned onto Eagle Ridge Road. Nathan. Her adrenaline spiked again as she thumbed the answer button. “You’re waiting for me, aren’t you?”
“It’s after ten. Is there a problem?”
They’d been engaged since Christmas and had fallen into a comfortable pattern—coffee around ten most mornings at the Bean Factory Coffee Shop. “Afraid so.” She explained about Mae. “Mark thinks she’s had a stroke. He also thinks that because her door was open and she called 911, that someone may have broken in. I’m on my way to her house, and the CSI team will check it out as soon as they finish with a break-in at the drugstore.”
Another call buzzed in, and she glanced at the screen. Ben Tennyson. “Can I call you back? I tried to call the mayor earlier since Mae is his aunt, and he’s ringing me.”
“No need. I’ll meet you at her place,” he said. “And be sure to count your fingers and toes when you finish with Ben.”
“Nathan!” Alex shook her head. The two men were like nails on a blackboard to each other. She switched over to the mayor’s call. “Thanks for returning my call, Ben.”
“What’s up, Sheriff?”
“I’m the chief deputy,” she reminded him.
“Just until the next election.”
“Which is eighteen months away.” Alex would have her year residency in Russell County completed this October, but she hadn’t made up her mind yet if she’d run for her grandfather’s office next year. “Have you talked to your aunt this morning?”
“Mae? No. Is something wrong?”
She repeated what she’d told Nathan. “Do you know of anyone who would want to harm your aunt?”
“Not really. I’m sorry to say I haven’t visited her as much as I should have since returning to Pearl Springs. But she doesn’t live in town, and I just don’t get up on Eagle Ridge that often. I’ll leave now.”
“No, just meet us at the hospital.” Alex disconnected.
Ben and his sister, Morgan, had been born in Pearl Springs, but their family left when Alex was in grade school. Their leaving broke her heart, and while Nathan had always been her hero, Morgan Tennyson and Danielle Bennett had been her BFFs. Best Friends Forever. Only forever hadn’t lasted. But what a sweet time it had been with sleepovers and hours of playing make-believe. Did kids even do that anymore?
Alex slowed to take the S curves on the mountain road. She hoped Mae was all right. Especially since it was probable they’d found Danielle.
She smiled, thinking how Mae had often been tasked with watching the three of them to make sure they didn’t get into mischief. That had been like putting the fox in charge of the hen-house.
Her phone rang again. Ben once more. “Stone.”
“Morgan told me Mae’s granddaughter, Danielle, has been located. Should someone call and let her know what’s going on? She may want to wait about coming.”
“We’re not 100 percent certain this Dani Collins is Danielle. Besides, I’m pretty sure she’s already on her way from Cincinnati. I’ll see you at the hospital.”
Alex passed Mark’s house, then the road Danielle had lived on as a child. She’d never visited the house where Danielle’s parents had died, even though it was a cold case her grandfather still talked about. Maybe now that she was chief deputy, she would look into it. A few minutes later, she pulled into Mae’s gravel drive and parked beside Mark’s Expedition. A medevac helicopter waited in the clearing near the house.
She climbed out of the SUV as paramedics came down the hill with Mae on a stretcher with Gem trotting beside them. Alex reached the chopper before they did. While the paramedics prepared to load her, she took Mae’s hand.
The older woman’s eyes fluttered open briefly, and she mumbled something unintelligible. Alex sent Mark a questioning gaze, and he mouthed, “Definitely a stroke.”
She leaned closer to the older woman and brushed a twig from her short hair. “It’s me, Alex,” she said softly. “We’re going to get you to the hospital, where they can help you.”
Mae gripped Alex’s arm with her left hand. Her mouth worked, but no words formed.
“We need to get in the air,” the lead paramedic said.
“Of course.” Alex turned to Mae. “Ben and Morgan are waiting at the hospital in Pearl Springs for you, and I’ll be there soon.”
Mae’s eyes blinked open. “Neva?”
Alex’s heart sank. If Mae didn’t know Neva was dead, the damage from the stroke might be bad. Alex moved out of the way as the medics loaded her in the chopper, then she and Mark stepped back as the rotors whipped the air around them and the chopper lifted off the ground. Once it was out of sight, she walked toward the house with Mark. “Where did Gem find her?”
“About a quarter of a mile from the house. She’d crawled into a bramble patch. She indicated someone was in her house, but she didn’t see them.”
Like Alex, Mae had a healthy respect for snakes, and blackberry and dewberry patches were known habitats for the area’s copperheads and rattlesnakes. She must have been frightened to brave the thicket. They’d reached the porch where Hayes waited. “Did you notice any vehicles parked on the road when you got here?” she asked him. “Or maybe on a side road?”
The deputy shook his head. “If someone was here, they must’ve hiked in through the woods.”
Tires crunched on the road, and her heart lifted as Nathan’s pickup pulled in behind her SUV. While she waited for him to join them, Alex pulled on a pair of nitrile gloves.
His generous mouth curved into a smile when their gazes met. Six months ago, no one could have made her believe she’d leave behind the Chattanooga Police Department and her dream of being the first female chief of police to be Russell County’s chief deputy. Or that she’d fall in love with her high school crush again.
“How’s Mae?” Nathan asked when he reached them.
“Hard to tell,” Alex said. “She was conscious, but she thought Neva was still alive.”
He winced, then nodded at Mark. “I understand Gem found her.”
“Pretty quickly too.”
“She’s well named.”
The K-9 officer grinned his agreement as Nathan took a pair of the black gloves from his back pocket and pulled them on. Then he stepped up on the porch. “What are we looking for inside?”
“Evidence someone was here,” Alex said. “When Mark checked to see if Mae could’ve fallen, he noticed a photo had been moved. Of course, Mae could’ve moved it herself.” The screen door creaked as Alex pulled on it. “I don’t know how many times I opened this very door when I was a kid. Even after Morgan moved and Danielle disappeared, I came with Gram to visit Mae.”
“I’ve heard Judith speak often of Mae,” Mark said. “Mostly of ways to get her to move to town.”
She laughed. “I’ve heard it too. She and Gram have been friends ever since grade school.”
Alex and Nathan stepped inside, and she scanned the room. Everything looked neat and tidy as always. If someone had searched this room, they went to a lot of trouble to put things back the way they were.
She ran her gaze over the books on the shelves and walked closer. Alex rubbed her chin and scanned each title. Mae’s fiction titles were on one shelf, a collection of poetry books on another, and several Bibles were lined up beside a set of commentaries. If anyone searched through the books, they’d been careful to put them back in the right order.
“I don’t see anything wrong here,” Alex said. “I’m going to check out the rest of the house.”
Nothing looked out of place in any of the other rooms. Could Mae have been wrong about someone being in her house? But why would anyone break into her house? It was the question she asked Nathan and Mark when she returned to the living room and they moved outside under the shade of an old oak tree to wait for the forensic team to arrive.
Mark kicked a rock. “I’ve been asking myself that very question. Mae told me once she didn’t keep much cash here, that her customers usually paid with a check or credit card. A lot of her orders are online.”
Nathan chuckled. “Mae has always amazed me the way she taught herself how to operate a computer.”
Alex smiled. “She’s never been afraid to tackle anything.”
“Including a murder investigation,” Mark added. “Have you seen her crime board?”
Alex nodded. “You think this could be related to her daughter’s murder?”
“That was twenty-five years ago,” Nathan said. “Why now?”