Her face turned a pasty color. “What even gave you that idea?”
“Come with me. You need to see the nanny’s room. It’s disturbing.”
Sarah flung the door open and let Carol go in first. Carol stood in the middle of the room and turned a slow circle just like Sarah had the night before. She watched Carol take in the pictures, watched emotions flicker across her face. “Are you going to tell June about this?” Carol asked.
“Not until I know more.”
“Yeah, if you were wrong it would only make things worse.”
“Way to make me feel better.” But Sarah knew Carol was right.
“How do you plan to figure this out?”
“While I’m pricing things for the garage sale, I’m going to be searching for clues.”
“What are you looking for?” Carol asked.
“Anything that will tell us where they could be.”
Carol glanced at her watch. “We’ve got about fifteen minutes before June comes back. I don’t want her to find us up here.”
“I hear you. I’d love to take all these pictures down so June doesn’t have to deal with it.”
“Why don’t we?” Carol asked.
“Because it might be part of a crime scene. We have to figure out what happened first.”
They searched for ten minutes before Sarah held up a passport. “Look! It’s the nanny’s. Looks like they didn’t flee the country at least.”
“Do you know where the nanny is originally from?” Carol asked.
“I found some paperwork last night that said Minnesota. June used an agency to hire her.”
“And you always hear how nice people from Minnesota are. All that water and fresh air.” Carol paused. “Are you sure you don’t just wish that Roydon hadn’t run off with the nanny. That you aren’t just trying to make things right for June? Remember she found that phone with the text messages.”
“Messages but no pictures,” Sarah said. “It would be easy to pick up a couple phones and fake messages back and forth between them. Then plant one of them.”
“But why do that?”
“To make June believe the narrative. That Roydon’s a cheat who fell in love with the nanny.”
“That’s one diabolical nanny.” Carol didn’t sound convinced. “We’d better put the rest of our search on hold. Let’s go back to the house and start pricing things. Maybe something will come to us.”
* * * *
Sarah had been working in Roydon’s study all morning. She was certain that if there was a clue around, it had to be in here. She’d already searched his desk. Thank heavens for the wooden floors in hall. June’s heels clicked down them and alerted Sarah before June came in.
“June, this picture is an original oil painting. It’s worth around twenty thousand dollars.” Sarah had looked it up online when she recognized the artist’s name.
“Put fifteen on it,” June said. “It’s one of his favorites.”
“Fifteen dollars?” Maybe Sarah should buy it all and give it back when June and Roydon came to their senses. Surely, one of them would.
No use arguing now. Sarah drifted over to the old maps. “These look really old.” They were hand drawn on old parchment paper. Yellowed with age.
“Oh, they are. They’re from his great, great, great granddaddy’s homestead.”
Sarah studied the maps. One of them had streams and forests and little buildings scattered across it. Things were marked—Ford Creek, Pickens Cabin, Washington’s Woods. “I’m just going to try to figure out a price on this,” she told June.
As soon as June left, Sarah brought up a maps program on her phone. From what she could tell, if the Pickens cabin was still there, it was only about ten miles from here.
* * * *
Twenty minutes later Carol and Sarah bumped down a dirt road with more ridges than an antique washboard. Trees were thick and flamed with fall colors.
“Good lord. It feels like my head is going to rattle off,” Carol said.
Sarah kept a tight grip on the wheel of Roydon’s red pickup. “Look. There’s the cabin.” The porch slumped to the right and the roof sagged to the left. Sarah pulled the truck off the road. “We’d better walk from here.”
“I don’t see any cars or signs of life.”
“I might be wrong, but what better place to stash someone?” It was quiet out here. The creepy kind of quiet or maybe Sarah was just to used to living in a metropolitan area where there was always some level of noise. “Maybe we should take something with us.” Sarah looked in the bed of the pickup truck. There was fishing gear, a collapsible shovel, and a heavy-duty flashlight. Sarah tossed the flashlight to Carol and kept the shovel.
They crept toward the cottage and tried to peek in the windows, but all of them had shades pulled down or curtains closed. They stood on the porch looking at each other. Carol nodded and Sarah opened the door. It slid open easily.
Sarah walked in with Carol on her heels. Roydon was tied to a bed with duct tape over his mouth. A scene ripped right from the book Misery. But a wide-eyed Roydon shook his head and tilted it frantically toward a closed door.
Sarah whispered to Carol. “Go outside. Call 9-1-1.”
Carol took out her phone. “No signal.”
Sarah looked at her phone. She didn’t have one either. “Go back up the road until you get a signal. Take the truck if you have to.”
As Carol left, Sarah tiptoed over to the door. She put her ear against it, but didn’t hear anything through the thick planks. Sarah glanced back at Roydon. He nodded. Go on, he seemed to be saying. Sarah slowly twisted the knob, her palm a bit damp. Now or never. Sarah flung the door open.
The nanny was out cold. Tied to the cast iron headboard of another bed.
Sarah froze in the doorway, looking back and forth between the nanny and Roydon. The nanny couldn’t have tied Roydon up and then herself. Someone else did this, but who? Sarah decided to free Roydon, since at least he was awake. He could explain what the heck was going on and help her with the nanny. Sarah hadn’t taken two steps when the front door of the cabin banged against the wall. Carol was shoved in, and Ella Mae followed her. Holding a gun. She looped an arm casually around Carol’s neck.
“Why’d you have to come here and snoop around,” Ella Mae said. “You’ve complicated my life.”
“I don’t think we’re the ones who complicated it.” The shovel Sarah held felt as useless as a feather. “Looks like you’ve done a fine job of that yourself, kidnapping the nanny and Roydon.” Ella Mae was delusional if she thought Roydon would fall in love with her.
“Why?” Carol asked.
“Because Roydon and me were meant to b
e. Hey, that sounds like one of those stupid songs June Baby writes.” Ella Mae lowered the gun to her side. “But I bided my time waiting for the perfect moment to make sure Roydon and I could get away together without anyone figuring it out.”
“You thought if you waited long enough, Roydon would just go with you?” Sarah asked.
Ella Mae nodded. “I told June Baby to leave you two out of this. That she didn’t need you. But you turned up anyway. And I’m sorry to say, it ain’t going to end well for either of you. The sheriff will think the nanny killed you both, along with Roydon.”
Roydon made a squeaking sound.
“Now don’t you worry Roydon honey, I’m not going to kill you. If you’re a good boy. We’ll just leave a bit of evidence around to make them think the nanny buried you before these two made their rescue attempt, and that she killed them and offed herself.”
I noticed movement behind Ella Mae. June stood there with a baseball bat.
“Buckle,” Sarah yelled at Carol hoping she’d remember the story Sarah had retold last night about Monterey Bay. Hoping Ella May wouldn’t.
Carol plopped down like a hound dog on a hot day. June whacked Ella May’s gun arm and then her head for good measure. Once Ella May dropped the gun and crumpled to the floor, Sarah ran over and picked up the gun.
Minutes later, Roydon was untied and Ella May was hog-tied. Carol went up the road to call for help. Everyone else helped the nanny.
Thirty minutes later they watched while the sheriff tucked a handcuffed Ella May into the back of a squad car and an ambulance transported the drugged nanny to the hospital. Roydon explained that Ella May had found out the nanny had faked her papers for the agency and started blackmailing her. She’d made the nanny put up the pictures over time and send the texts to the burner phone.
“How did you find us, June?” Sarah asked.
“I was a might suspicious when you asked to borrow Roydon’s truck to run errands, so I followed you. When I got here and spotted Ella May’s Cadillac, I knew something was wrong.”
Roydon had his arm around June. “Might be the best day of my life,” he said, kissing the top of June’s head.