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Beverly checked herself in the mirror, making sure her blond wig tied into a braid was safely in place. She’d opted for a professional brown pantsuit for this outing, two sizes too large to accommodate her bulky “tubby pack” underneath. The new fake mole on her cheek was just the right touch. And of course, she wore her wrist-length leather gloves. Elegant in a Grace Kelly way, and no fingerprints.
She grabbed the box from the passenger seat and headed into the office marked “Garvin Kirschner, Esq.” She’d been surprised to find out the law offices were open on a weekend, but the secretary said something on the phone about a critical case with a high-powered client that was making them put in extra hours.
A few minutes early for her appointment, she took the opportunity to study the office as she waited. Typical law joint. Lots of dark wood paneling, shiny fingerprint-free glass, and beige carpeting. The only interesting thing in the lobby was the triptych painting on the wall of three stylized Egyptian women silhouettes with touches of cherry red.
A frowning secretary, obviously not happy to be working those extra hours, greeted her and motioned for her to follow, and they headed toward the back. Garvin Kirschner was younger than she’d imagined, decked in a three-piece suit, gold tie, and sporting a buzz cut worthy of a Marine.
After the secretary had left them alone, he asked, “Miss Hood, you said something on the phone about an item of interest you wanted to show me?”
Beverly placed the box on his desk. He eyed it but didn’t reach over to open it. So she did it for him and pulled out the contents. “I believe your client, Coral Dockett, reported this bowl as stolen?”
Kirschner stared at it, then picked it up and looked at the bottom, and the word “REVERE” etched in a rectangle. “Where did you get this?”
“It came into my possession. Legally, I assure you.” That was mostly true. She’d come across the bowl in a pawn shop, recognizing its worth even when the store owner hadn’t, and she’d paid a couple hundred dollars for it. But a stolen bowl hadn’t been hers to buy, had it? And if Forsythe had recognized it as being stolen when she showed it to him months ago, that proved he knew it was stolen and just didn’t care.
Beverly added, “I believe there is a reward of ten percent, no questions asked?”
Kirschner walked over to a file drawer, pulled out a file, and extracted two pictures from it of a silver bowl. He compared the first to the bottom and then the second to the interior of the bowl, fingering a small, jagged scratch. “This is the same bowl, all right.”
He puckered his lips into a question mark expression. “You could have simply sold it on the black market.”
She’d bet the full value of the bowl that Kirschner, Esquire, himself would have done it. And she would have considered it if the rightful owner were another Forsythe. But from what she’d read in the newspaper article on the burglary at Miss Coral Dockett’s home, the woman was a sweet old lady who was devastated at the loss of her favorite piece. It was in her family for generations.
Beverly replied, “The reward will be plenty. Cash is preferred.”
“Ten percent of the eighty-thousand reward is eight thousand, Miss Hood. We don’t keep that amount of money on-site, but I can write you a check.”
She pulled out a card and handed it over. “Have it wired to that address.”
He read it, then said, “You don’t look like you’re from the Seychelles.”
She smiled. “Appearances can be deceiving. Then we have an agreement?”
He placed the bowl back in the box. “I’ll get my secretary to write you up a receipt.”
Feeling lighter—both literally and figuratively—than when she’d come, she drove the hour back to the Junction listening to an interesting program on Vermont Public Radio about monarch butterflies. She was on the road to the resort when she spied a familiar figure seated in a car in the parking lot of an abandoned clothing store two miles outside of the Junction.
Reggie Forsythe was arguing with a man she didn’t recognize standing next to the car. Beverly turned the wheel sharply to point the car onto a side road, ending up on the street behind the two men. Closing the door quietly, she crept forward, getting as close as she could to the lot while hiding her presence around the corner of the building. She strained to hear what the men were arguing about.
She heard Forsythe say, “You know I don’t like meeting this way,” and the stranger’s reply, “I like it neutral. Just out for a stroll, ya know? All nice and normal.”
Then the two voices lowered, still angry, and Beverly decided she should hightail it out of there in case they headed her way. But then, she caught the stranger’s words, “Adam Dutton?”
Feeling uneasy, Beverly inched back to her car, climbed in, and drove it slowly down the street toward the front of the parking lot. At the sound of a car peeling away, she nosed her SUV forward just in time to see Forsythe’s car disappearing. Then the stranger got into his maroon car, which had a rifle rack mounted in the window, and cranked up the engine. Should she follow Forsythe or the stranger? Or neither?
Since the stranger had mentioned Adam’s name, she made up her mind to follow him instead of Forsythe. The man drove aimlessly around, as near as she could tell. She wrote down the license number on a piece of paper in case she lost him—or in case she decided to abandon this bizarre chase altogether.
Her quarry slowed down, and she saw he was on a cellphone. Then he pulled over to a curb, and she did the same while keeping her distance. Moments later, Adam strolled out of the building that she now saw was the local newspaper office and climbed into his car. He drove off down Elmwood Lane, taking him through one of the prettier tree-lined parts of town.
The stranger followed behind Adam for a mile or so. They passed cars carrying leaf-peeping tourists but when they reached a lonelier stretch in the road, the man gunned his motor, pulled in front of Adam’s car, and swerved over into a shallow ditch. Adam slowed down and pulled in behind him.
Beverly nosed her SUV into a curved cutout along a steep bank with some tall trees, hoping it hid her well enough. Adam got out to check on the welfare of the other driver—who promptly charged out of his car, a gun in hand.
As Beverly watched helplessly, the man pushed Adam to the back of the man’s car, popped open the trunk, and motioned for Adam to climb in after he’d forced Adam to hand over his police weapon. Beverly’s heart sank when she noted the car was an older model that likely didn’t have an escape trunk release. But his kidnapper would have done that by design.
When the driver took off again, Beverly followed, keeping as far in the distance as possible without losing the other car in a line of more tourists with their out-of-state plates. She wanted to call someone, but she needed to concentrate on the car with Adam. She was terrified that if she got distracted, she’d miss the car when it made a turnoff.
With her eyes glued to the car in front, she felt around in her purse for her cellphone to have it handy. When she found it, she also felt the cold metal of her gun and slid it out of the purse onto the passenger seat.
This was pure madness, she knew it, but she didn’t care. She was not going to leave Adam to the mercies of another maniac who might torture him again. They drove along a road for about a mile, with Beverly keeping her distance so the other driver wouldn’t hear her or spot the tail. She wasn’t really how far they’d gone because she didn’t want to look at the gauges even for a moment.
Finally, as she rounded a bend in the road, she spied the tail of the car pulling off onto another road. She followed on the narrow road, offering a prayer of thanks it was paved—barely—but didn’t see the other car and panicked she’d lost it.
She drove for what felt like another half mile and then saw a flash of maroon through the trees ahead. After pulling off onto a turnaround slot at the side of the road, she slid out of her SUV, slowly and quietly, holding her breath.
Realizing she was making a habit out of skulking through the woods around these parts, she threaded her way through the pines and oaks until she got close enough to see the kidnapper opening the trunk of his car. He immediately sprayed a liquid into Adam’s eyes as Adam attempted to jump out.
Adam fell to the ground, holding his hands over his eyes, and the now-masked kidnapper promptly grabbed Adam’s wrists and slapped handcuffs on them. He half pulled, half-dragged Adam into a small cabin behind them.
Beverly was terrified for Adam and unsure what to do. She looked up the number she’d added to her cellphone’s address book for Eliot Jinks. But when she called it, she got a canned voice responder that Jinks was out of town for the day and to leave a message. Beverly hung up. She could call Mr. X, but he was too far away. It would take him over an hour to get here, and that might be too late.
Should she call the Junction PD anonymously, give them the GPS coordinates of the cabin, and flee before they arrived to keep from being questioned? What to do? One thing she did know beyond a shadow of a doubt—Adam didn’t have much time for her decision.
