thirty

GD leapt onto the museum’s counter and touched my hand lightly with his paw. He angled his head as if concerned, and hysterical laughter bubbled in my throat.

I swallowed it down.

“Kendra Breathnach?” Paling, Cora tugged on her scarves. “Kendra? The developer?”

Stomach roiling, I grabbed my black vest off the wall peg and slipped into it. “There’s no time to explain. Leo, keys.” Cora would argue or insist on coming if I asked for her car keys, and I knew Leo’s bike was close.

He tossed them to me and I caught them in both hands.

“You two have to tell the cops what’s happening,” I said. “Try to get through to Detective Slate.” I scribbled his number on my yellow pad. “He’s no longer in charge, but he’ll make sure the police take action.”

Cora shook her head, her loose, gray hair tumbling around her shoulders. “But—”

“I’m on it.” Leo pulled his cell phone from the pocket of his leather jacket.

“Not yet,” I said sharply.

His dark brows pulled downward.

“Kendra said no police.” In a shaky hand, I scrawled the address on a piece of paper. “This is where she told me to meet her. Give me fifteen minutes before you call the cops.”

“Maddie,” Cora said, “I understand how you must feel, but—”

“It’s my mom. I have to go.” Breaking free, I raced to the bookcase and pressed the hidden latch.

It swung open.

“Maddie!” Leo shouted.

I turned, and he tossed me his helmet.

“Thanks.” I raced down the tea shop hallway and nearly knocked a waiter flat.

“Wait! Maddie!” Cora shouted behind me.

I burst through the metal alleyway door.

Belle jerked up short, but not quick enough for me to avoid her. I ricocheted off her shoulder.

“Sorry.” I brushed past the hairdresser.

Belle turned, her brown eyes wide. “Maddie, I have to tell you—”

“Glad you’re back,” I said. “Can’t talk now.”

Cora ran into the alley. “Maddie, you can’t go alone!”

An elderly woman shook her cane at me. “Young lady—”

“Sorry!” I jumped onto Leo’s motorcycle.

“But Maddie—” Whatever Belle would have said was lost when I roared down the street. No experience is wasted. Thank you, Mason, for teaching me to ride. Let me be quick enough to save her.

I drove as fast as I dared, at the edge of the acceptable limit in town. But once I reached the open fields and straight country roads, Leo’s bike flew, and I claimed the center of the road.

Horn bleating, I veered around a truck loaded with onions. I’d eaten up too much time explaining things to Leo and Cora. But they were my insurance now that they knew the truth.

I hit a pothole. The shock jolted my bones, snapping my teeth shut.

Cora and Leo would follow my instructions and tell the cops. And no matter what happened—nothing would happen, my mom would be fine. But Kendra had already killed two people, all because she wanted the area around her development to be rezoned. Bill Eldrich had wanted to save those dairy farms. He had influence over Tabitha—they were having an affair—and Tabitha had backed him, signing her death warrant.

I roared past an orchard, its skeletal branches scraping the bottom of the low fog. The engine’s vibration rattled through me.

Kendra wouldn’t hurt my mom before I arrived. She’d wait to make sure I was in her clutches. She had to. My eyes burned, and I told myself it was due to the onion truck.

Kendra must have overheard the boys planning the attack on the Christmas Cow—all the planning had happened in her garage—and she’d decided to take advantage.

I screeched around a corner, my rear wheel skidding, one foot on the ground, and narrowly avoided a vineyard signpost.

Why had it taken me so long to figure out it was Kendra? She’d asked me about my finding Tabitha’s body at the Wine and Visitors Bureau the morning after the body was discovered. But my role hadn’t been in the paper. Only the cops and my mom and Penny knew I’d been on the scene, and I couldn’t imagine Penny telling her. The only way Kendra could have known was if she’d been there too.

A gust of wind buffeted me from the side, and I felt the bike tilt beneath me. I jerked upright, over-compensating, wobbled, and continued on.

What the hell had my mom been thinking, confronting Kendra?

I knew what she’d been thinking—that none of this was evidence. So she’d confronted Kendra to get some.

I sucked in deep gulps of air, steaming the helmet’s visor, and tried to calm myself. It didn’t matter how this had happened. What mattered was what happened next. I could stop this. I had to believe that or I’d never pull it off.

I passed the sign for the agrihood. The nearby fields had been scraped clean of vegetation, leaving flat, barren tracts of earth. Ahead, the street signs for Walnut and McKay came into view, and a construction site littered with equipment.

The bike skidded to a stop beside a trailer. Expecting an arrow at any moment, I knocked the kickstand into place and swung myself off the seat.

Before me was a deep, muddy pit the size of a building—for a parking garage? A swimming pool? An excavator rumbled at the edge of the pit, its bright yellow paint nearly blinding against the iron gray sky. Its arm angled away from the pit, but no one manned the machine.

Overturned mounds of dirt, like graves, littered the field. I’m not too late. Please, don’t let me be too late. A sickening tug in my gut pulled my attention toward the sad mounds of earth, ideal for dumping a body. I swallowed a hard lump and looked toward the trailer. Kendra wouldn’t be lurking in a dirty pit. And Kendra was the one I wanted.

I ripped off the helmet and set it on the bike. “Mom?”

No one answered.

I slunk to the trailer. My back to the corrugated metal, I edged around its side. I scanned the open ground, reached up with one hand, and rattled the door handle above me.

Locked.

My chest ached. I jammed my hands beneath my arms. Mom, where are you? Safe, safe, she had to be safe. Kendra had chosen the perfect daytime murder site. No one was around. I stared at the grumbling excavator.

Nausea clutching my throat, I hurried, bent double, to the excavator.

No body sprawled in the pit beneath its arm. My legs wobbled with relief.

I clambered into the excavator’s seat and turned the key. The machine coughed and its rumbling stopped. Silence fell like a shroud across the development.

From my vantage point, I could see more gaping grave holes. Not graves, stop thinking about graves.

A murder of crows shot from behind a pile of dirt. I started. Their cawing shattered the air.

“Mom?” I croaked. Slithering from the excavator, I stumbled toward the mound of earth the crows had abandoned. A piece of fabric fluttered in the breeze.

She’s not there. It isn’t her. A smell, sour and cloying, rose from the opposite side of the mound. Throat tight, I circled around the small pile of earth.

A garbage bag, sliced to ribbons. Rotting food and cardboard spilled from its black plastic.

And that was all.

I blew out a shaky breath.

So where was my mother? Kendra had lured me out here, presumably to put arrows through us both. What was she waiting for?

I prowled the development, skulking around mounds of dirt, past empty pits. “Mom?”

Kendra was playing with me. With us. My mom was still alive. She had to be.

Blood pounded in my ears. “I’m not taking another step!” I screamed. “I know you’re here. Show yourself!”

My shouts fell flat, absorbed by the loose earth.

The door to the trailer opened and my mom tumbled out, her hands raised.

“Mom!”

I raced toward her across the uneven ground.

Kendra emerged on the trailer steps. “Some detective. You can’t even figure out how to open an unlocked door.”