Murder by Artifact (Five Star Mystery Series) (30 page)

Nodding his understanding, Tony let each boy talk briefly to Theo before he took charge again, promising to call again later. “Can you tell us anything about Vicky’s car?”

“It’s a silver Ford, not real old or new, with four doors. It does have North Carolina plates on it and one of those air freshener trees hanging from the mirror. A red one.” Theo frowned. “The car was full of smoke.”

“That’s enough.” Tony listened as Sheila talked to Rex. “Let’s get you to the doctor.” He lifted Theo in his arms and headed for the Blazer. He looked at Sheila. “You drive.”

They left Mike and Wade setting up lights and stringing crime scene tape with Dammit supervising. They’d have all the help they could use in a few minutes.

Sheila opened the back door for them and Tony climbed in, holding Theo high against his chest. It was awkward. He managed it without banging her head on anything. He couldn’t say the same for his own. He whacked his forehead on the back door frame but he didn’t drop Theo. Still very concerned about her, he thought she felt boneless in his arms, reminding him of a bird that once flew into a window. He’d picked it up and it rested in his hand, panting, bill open, eyes wide. He put in on the grass and guarded it until it was recovered enough to fly away.

Theo stretched across the seat, her head in his lap, clutching his forearm to her chest. She held on with both hands and drifted away, whether into sleep or unconsciousness, Tony couldn’t tell.

Sheila drove down the narrow mountain road as if she were being chased by one of Orvan’s banshees. Watching over her shoulder, Tony saw the headlights flash off trees growing by the side of the road. The world was a gray-and-black blur.

The radio crackled incessantly. Rex sounded almost bored as he monitored the calls. Tony knew better; the more tense the situation, the calmer Rex’s voice. Everyone was looking for Vicky Parker and her uncle Nelson. No one had seen either one of them.

Light bar flashing, Sheila steered the Blazer toward the clinic, making it there in record time. Tony thought she might have taken them off-road for a bit. He didn’t care, as long as they arrived safely.

The ambulance area was eerily empty. Only the reflective paint that delineated the helicopter landing area greeted their arrival.

Doc Nash and the indomitable Nurse Foxx stood just inside the double doors, waiting with a gurney. The moment the Blazer parked, Doc trotted forward and opened the vehicle’s door, leaving Foxxy to bring the wheels. His alert brown eyes swept over Theo, assessing her obvious injuries. Ignoring Tony, he asked questions and waved his flashlight over her. His smile was reassuring, if tinged with anger.

Tony understood. The doctor had no tolerance for cruelty.

“You and your family are my very best customers,” Doc teased Theo as he gently lifted her onto the gurney. “Not everyone gets curb service.”

Theo nodded and lay back onto the spotless sheets and closed her eyes. Tony thought she might have passed out.

After the darkness, the light inside the clinic seemed intolerably bright. The gurney was barely through the clinic doors before it turned right into the fully stocked emergency room. Nurse Foxx and Doc Nash went to work without fanfare.

Foxxy made soothing clicking sounds with her tongue as she gently peeled off Theo’s clothing and dropped each item into a separate paper bag. The doctor began his examination.

Tony wasn’t offended when he got pushed aside. He perched on an incredibly uncomfortable plastic chair and watched the process. The doctor and nurse worked together with the speed and efficiency honed by long practice.

Within seconds that felt like hours to Tony, they took a sample of Theo’s blood, inserted an IV into her arm and began hydrating her as they asked her a series of questions. He couldn’t hear all the answers.

Nurse Foxx left the room several times, either carrying a vial or returning with something Tony couldn’t identify. She changed the IV once. Drawers were opened and closed, revealing bandages, bottles and jars, basins and mysterious sealed bags.

Doc Nash continued to ask Theo questions, often making them simple so all she had to do was nod or shake her head. Wielding long tweezers, he pulled numerous thorns, stingers and splinters from her skin, dropping them into an orange plastic basin. With no apparent haste, he checked every inch of her skin.

Nurse Foxx handed the doctor a paper and spoke with him, her voice no more than a whisper.

Finally Doc waved Tony over to Theo’s side. He thought the doctor’s expression held a curious combination of anger, satisfaction and amusement. Amusement?

As Tony reached for Theo’s hand, he noticed that her eyes looked brighter and she breathed more easily. When she smiled and twined her fingers with his, he felt a wave of relief surge through him. He looked into the doctor’s face. “She’s okay?”

“Yes.” Doc’s eyes twinkled. “We’ll keep her here for a bit longer and get some more fluids into her. She was pretty dehydrated.”

“That’s all she needs?” Tony’s knees wobbled, threatening his balance.

“Yes. And a bit of rest and time.” The doctor’s amusement seemed to grow. “I think that I can promise even the fainting will stop in about six months.”

“Six months?” Tony and Theo spoke in unison. “Why so long?”

“You’re pregnant.” The doctor patted Theo’s shoulder.

“No way.” Theo stared. “It’s not possible.”

She looked as stunned as Tony felt. He looked into the doctor’s face, searching for any sign that the man was joking. “There must be some mistake.”

Shaking his head, Doc snickered. “I thought you two were still on friendly terms.”

Theo’s eyes filled with tears. The sight of them erased the doctor’s grin.

In a voice as soft as a whisper, Theo said, “You know we wanted another baby. We finally gave up.”

The grin returned, wider than before. “I guess you kept practicing anyway.”

Theo blushed. The pale side of her face matched the burnt one. Crimson.

“Is that why she’s been fainting?” Tony was elated and scared. Jamie had been a difficult pregnancy and Theo had miscarried baby Anna in the fifth month. “I thought it was the heat.”

“That certainly didn’t help.” Doc nodded. “I’ll leave you two alone.”

Tony leaned over the gurney and kissed her. She smiled and whispered. “A baby?”

Too stunned to speak, he nodded as he smoothed the springy blond curls away from her face and gazed into her bright eyes. They seemed more gold than green in this light. “Doc Nash is pretty good at his job. If you think he’s wrong, we can get a second opinion.”

“I never guessed.” Theo laughed then. “I thought it was just the heat that was making me sick. Heat and all those carnations.”

Without releasing her hand again, Tony hooked a foot around the leg of the uncomfortable chair and pulled it close enough for him to sit. He more or less collapsed onto it. “It’s been quite an evening.”

Theo grinned. “I think we’re getting too old for this much excitement. I want to go home.”

“When Doc releases you, I’ll call Gus and get him to bring the wild bunch home. He and Catherine are older than we are. They’re probably sound asleep sitting in their chairs.”

“And I suppose you have some questions to ask?” Theo ran her free hand over the side of his face and smiled when he turned his head and kissed her palm.

He nodded. “Wade will be up on the mountain for hours, so I’ll get Sheila in here and you can tell us both how you ended up sliding downhill with a chair taped to your back.”

Theo’s narration was brief and chilling. Sheila handed Tony a small recorder and she sat, taking notes while Theo talked.

Tony knew his wife could have easily died up there on the mountain. His cell phone rang, cutting into his angry, morbid thoughts. A glance at the screen forced a groan from his throat. “It’s Martha.”

“You’d better talk to your aunt or she’ll call your mom to get information.” Theo pushed against his shoulder with her index finger.

Normally he preferred she not do that; tonight the annoying gesture reassured him. He nodded and cleared his throat before he pushed the green button, connecting the call. “Hello, Martha.”

“Tony.” She hesitated. “Is everything okay with Theo?”

At her simple question, Tony felt the muscles of his stomach tighten. What if she’d made this call when he couldn’t see Theo or smell the residue of a killer’s cigarettes on her hair? “Why?”

“I just received a very disturbing phone call from one of my old students.” Martha’s normally musical voice sounded harsh and strained. “It was all about Theo and sounded really bad.”

“I’m with Theo now.” Tony considered his options. “Who’s the student?”

“Vicky Parker. She was a student, only briefly, hmm, maybe twenty years ago.” The pitch of her voice rose. “Frankly, Tony, I was afraid of her and was happy when she moved away. She said Theo died in an accident and also said we’d soon be relatives. What’s going on?”

He saw no choice but surrender. “I will tell you only in strictest confidence, and only if you swear you can put a muzzle on mom until we locate Vicky.”

Martha groaned. “I can only promise to do my best.”

Theo watched Tony and Sheila, gratified by the anger and outrage on their faces. She’d told them everything she remembered and now that she was safe, her brain began operating again. Every other thought she had touched the idea of being pregnant again. Terrifying and wonderful.

Still talking to his aunt, Tony held the phone to his ear with one hand and kept the other arm wrapped around her waist. Theo pressed it closer with both hands. The idea that Vicky was still loose was simply too frightening to ignore. “She thinks I’m dead by now and called your aunt to gloat.”

“Yes.” Tony’s head came up and he met her gaze.

“So, let’s give her what she wants.” Theo lifted a hand and pressed it to the swollen side of her face. She wouldn’t mind if Vicky ran into a brick wall. “We can make her believe I’m dead. We can even make her believe I was unconscious when you found me and I never recovered. It’s close enough to the truth.”

Tony told Martha to stay off the phone and that he’d call back and explain the whole thing. He disconnected before she could ask a question.

Sheila grinned at Theo. “You’re right. If she thinks she’s succeeded in killing you, she’s probably crazy enough to think the rest of her plan will work.”

“You’d have to disappear.” Tony looked reluctant. Theo noticed a glint of amusement in his eyes and guessed he had already considered the idea. “I could call in a favor from Calvin. The man owes me big-time.”

Theo giggled, remembering Tony’s description of Calvin packing up Doreen’s stuff and unpacking it again when she returned from the dead, so to speak.

Tony quickly called and explained the situation to Martha. “With any luck, it will all be over before Mom has a chance to get involved somehow.” Still looking apprehensive, he flipped the phone closed.

“Can we play it low key?” Theo didn’t mind going into hiding, although she didn’t relish the idea of everyone believing she was dead. “I’ll hide at the shop, upstairs in my office. There’s the daybed, and I’d have a kitchen and bathroom. It would be like a mini quilt retreat. You can put a message on the phone and a note on the door stating a ‘family emergency’ forced the shop to close temporarily.”

Sheila frowned. “Wouldn’t you have to sit in the dark?”

Theo shook her head. “When we moved back here and built the shop, I had two little boys and was expecting another baby. I wanted the office to be a combination of workspace and nursery/playroom so we put up heavy curtains to block most of the light.”

“And if Tony turns on the lights while he’s inside, she would think nothing of it,” said Sheila.

“And if I accidentally leave them on, Vicky wouldn’t be able to see you moving around. I like that.” Tony reached for his phone. “As long as they can talk to you on the phone, we can tell the boys to stay with Gus because we’re playing a spy game. They love spy games.”

“No, you’re the one who loves spy games.” Theo giggled. “You always did want to be James Bond, didn’t you?”

“No, I wanted to be Marshal Dillon.”

“We’ve got extra help from agencies all around this end of the state. We’ll have to notify them what we’re doing.” Sheila wrote a series of names in her notebook. “Other than that, we’ll have to tell Calvin, Doc Nash, Nurse Foxx, Gus and the kids. Who else?”

“Don’t forget Mom and Martha.” Tony sighed. “If there’s a leak, it will be from one of those two. If they don’t know what’s going on, they’ll blow us out of the water for sure. We’ll have to trust that Martha can handle Mom so we’ve done all we can to plug that one.” He stared at Theo. “I’m not leaving you alone up there.”

Theo laughed. “Maybe you can find some handsome deputy who doesn’t mind hanging around a fabric shop all night. That daybed is a trundle bed and big enough for two.”

“Sheila will stay with you.” Only after the words were out did he seem to realize how he sounded.

“Call Calvin.” Theo grinned, pleased by Tony’s flash of jealousy. It served its purpose and defused some of the tension. “It’s time to drag me off to the mortuary.”

Tony and Doc stood under the lights, watching Calvin. Whatever sixth sense Tony possessed told him Vicky Parker was watching as well. Calvin carefully maneuvered the “body,” stacks of towels and some wadded up newspapers zipped into a long, white bag, placing it in the hearse.

At the same time, Tony knew Sheila was escorting Theo around the back of the clinic and into the alley. The women, dressed in dark sweatpants and hooded sweatshirts delivered by the grateful mortician, vanished into the shadows. Even though he knew where they should be, the strong lights on the back of the clinic threw everything nearby into absolute darkness.

He didn’t find it difficult to appear grief-stricken as the hearse from the Cashdollar Mortuary pulled away from the clinic’s emergency entrance. Chilled to the bone by his deep fear, followed by an almost unbearable sense of relief, he shivered. Even the sweltering night air couldn’t melt the ice in his veins. It was a miracle Theo had survived.