Once An Alpha (The S Files: Paranormal Investigation Agency – Book 1) (8 page)

Chapter Eight

The next morning, I felt a little nauseated as I showered and brushed my teeth before brushing on some mascara and moistening my parched lips with balm. Chinese food always did that to me, dammit. Nice enough when I ate it, but the greasiness always did a real number on my guts.

Sheriff Mills called to tell me that no trace of the two Australian hikers had been found yet, and I sighed as I came crashing back down into the real world. It was time to really take things seriously and get out of the bubble of lust and passion. Lyndon must have had the same idea, because after I was done in the bathroom I emerged to see that he had gone.

He texted me saying that he wanted to get a jump on things, and that he was already down at the office. Humming to myself to try and lighten my sour mood, I stopped by a café and picked up some hot drinks for the two of us. Tea for me today, strong black coffee for Lyndon.

As I rounded a corner on my way to the police department, a little girl came barreling around the corner with a kite and almost ran straight into me.

“Oh! I’m sorry, miss,” she said, looking up at me with wide crystal-blue eyes.

“That’s okay, sweetheart,” I said, giving her a fond smile. She was adorable. I’d never been much of a kid person, but if I had a child with innocent eyes like that I’d be a goner. “I bet you’re on your way to the park to fly that kite of yours, huh?”

I gestured towards the red and blue kite she was holding, and she nodded emphatically. “Uh-huh. My Mom and little brother are coming with me. But they walk too slow!”

She giggled, and then looked at me curiously. “I haven’t seen you before. Do you live here?”

“No, just in town for some business.”

There was no way that I was going to tell a kid who couldn’t be older than eleven what sort of grim business I was here for, but she didn’t press me for more.

“Oh. My name is Rachel,” she replied.

“Nice to meet you, Rachel. I’m Myla.” I smiled and then continued on my way as little Rachel dashed across to the green park, where colorful play equipment stood on a bed of white sand in the middle of an expanse of neatly-cut green lawn. I fought the urge to just go crazy, shirk my duties and play on the swing set all morning, and then continued on to the office.

Yawning, I took a sip of tea and went into the office, where I found Lyndon peering at an old case file. Handing him his coffee, I sat next to him and picked up my laptop.

“Ah, I thought I left this here,” I said. “I was going to check my emails this morning but couldn’t find it. Remind me to take it home tonight. Any progress?”

“Nah,” he replied. “But let’s keep our fingers crossed. We just need one break.”

Something was playing on my mind, but I couldn’t figure out what. Instinctively, I reopened the case file for the town’s first documented disappearance; the ten ski hikers from the 1950’s, and suddenly there it was, literally staring me in the face.

“Hey Lyndon,” I said. “Come here for a sec. I want to show you something.”

“What is it?” he asked, moving over to me and hunching over the table.

“See this picture?”

I pulled out a picture that had been taken of all ten ski hikers before they went missing. It was black and white, but their faces were still clear. They had all been smiling and waving at the camera when the picture was taken, and I pointed to a petite woman standing in the middle of the group.

“See her? Her name was….um… Hilda Beaugard.”

I rifled through the sheaf of photographs under the main group picture until I located one that was just of Ms. Beaugard, closer up. An old yearbook picture of some description.

“What about her?” Lyndon asked, one eyebrow raised.

“I don’t know if this means anything, but I just ran into a girl out on the street who looked uncannily similar to this woman. Add a few years of puberty and she’d be the spitting image of her.”

“So what are you thinking?” he asked.

I hesitated. “Well…this is going to sound crazy. But you did encourage me to think outside the box. What if this woman was abducted that night and forced into some sort of arranged marriage with a man from the town?”

I was expecting Lyndon to comment on how my marriage abduction conspiracy theory was a real stretch of the imagination, but he didn’t. Instead he grinned. “You might be on to something there. Why don’t you go and find the girl and ask her some questions?”

Part of me wondered why Lyndon had been so quick to accept my idea, but the rest of me was simply too excited. It was a wild theory, but something in my gut told me I was right.

Dashing out of the main building and turning back towards the park, I saw Rachel running around on the grass in the park, trying to get her kite to soar higher and higher. Several yards away, I saw a brunette woman playing with a much younger boy, and I assumed they were Rachel’s mother and little brother that she’d mentioned.

The mother seemed distracted with the boy, so while she wasn’t looking I attracted Rachel’s attention. “Hey, Rachel! Remember me?”

She looked down from her kite, saw me and smiled before running over to me. “Sure. Hi, Myla!”

“Your kite looks awesome up there,” I said. “Anyway, sweetheart, I was wondering… could I ask you a couple of questions about the town?”

She nodded. “Uh-huh.”

“How long have you lived here?”

“My whole life,” she replied. “My family’s always lived here.”

“And do you have any grandparents or great-grandparents still living here?”

She nodded again. “Yes. My grandparents are still here, and I have a great Grandma too. But she lives in a nursing home now. Mom says she was getting too sick to live on her own anymore.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the brunette woman peering closely over at us, and she picked up her son and began to walk towards us, cradling him on her hip. I had to speed this up.

“Okay. And do you have any idea how old your great Grandma is?” I asked. “And what’s her name?”

Rachel shrugged and then looked to the left, squinting her blue eyes as she thought. “Um. I would have to ask my Mom. But she’s very old…maybe eighty-something? Her name is Heidi. But I always just called her Great Grandma.”

“Rachel, sweetie, what are you doing?” The brunette woman had reached us now, and she narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms as she looked at me.

“Oh, sorry,” I said with a bright smile. “I was just telling your daughter how great her kite looks. I used to have the exact same color kite when I was around her age.”

She relaxed a little, but I could tell she still wasn’t entirely happy about her children talking to strangers. “Okay, honey, I’ve got some candy in my bag for you and your brother. Want some?”

“Yes!” Rachel replied before dashing towards her mother’s bag, which was sitting on a park bench near the play equipment. She looked back for a second and grinned at me. “Bye, Myla!”

I waved and returned her smile, and then looked at her mother. “Anyway, I better be off. Have a nice day.”

She watched me leave, and I tried to stay as calm and collected as possible until I got back to the office. I couldn’t explain it, but I had the distinct feeling that she wasn’t the only one watching me. I’d been having this vague paranoia for the last few days, and it seemed to be getting stronger. My gut was definitely trying to tell me something.

Lyndon stared at me curiously when I returned.

“Did you find her?”

“Yep,” I replied. “She has a great grandmother in a retirement home here, and while she wasn’t sure of her exact age, I think it could fit.”

I went back into the file to check out the birthdates of the missing ski hikers.

“She was born in 1930, which would have made her twenty-four when she disappeared, and if she was still alive, she’d be…” I did some quick mental calculations. “She’d be eighty-one.”

“Well,” he said, rising to his feet. “Looks like we gotta go get ourselves a great Grandma.”

Chapter Nine

“We can’t just go charging into a retirement home hoping to interview her,” I said to Lyndon as we drove to the Bakewell Springs Retirement Home. “Might scare some of the old folk. And I doubt the locals will be too happy if they hear we are sniffing around, thinking someone here has something to do with all the missing people. Even if it’s true.”

“True.” He nodded. “How about we pretend to be relatives, come to visit our long-lost great aunt?”

I snorted. “I don’t think I can pass for a relative. Hilda Beaugard was white, and I’m decidedly
not
white. And we don’t even know what last name this woman is using, if it even is her. All we know is that her name is Heidi. Come on, Lyndon, at least pretend like you’re a qualified FBI agent.”

Lyndon looked at me, put his hand on my thigh and squeezed. “Well, I’ll be the relative. And you can be my girlfriend. We’ll figure out the rest. What did you say that little girl’s name was again?”

He smiled at me, his eyes crinkling up at the sides with amusement. My heart fluttered slightly at the idea of being his girlfriend, even if it was just for show. Lyndon didn’t have girlfriends. He just had girls.

The Bakewell Springs Retirement Home stood next to a spacious park complete with a lake, walking path and bridge over the water. Perfectly-manicured hedges lined the winding drive up to the facility, and we pulled into the parking lot and exited the car, briefly stretching our legs before heading inside.

The woman behind the desk at the main reception area of the retirement home was a petite, harried-looking middle-aged redhead, and she looked up and smiled briefly at us as we entered, little bell dinging above the door to alert her to our arrival.

“Hello. How can I help you folks today?”

Lyndon immediately turned on the charm and looked down at her nametag. “Howdy, Julie. My name’s Andrew Logan. I’m here to visit my great aunt Heidi. Came into town to visit my cousin and her lovely little kids, and I figured I better stop by for a while.”

“Okay,” the woman fiddled around with her computer for a moment. “Heidi Urquhart, I assume?”

Lyndon nodded slowly. “Sure, I think so. I can never remember her married name, but Urquhart sounds right. Maiden name was Brent, if that’s any help.”

“Well, luckily for you we’ve only got one Heidi,” Julie said, her smile faltering for a moment. Oh no. She was starting to get suspicious. “You must be Dora’s cousin. How are her kids?”

“Rachel’s doing great, growing up real quick. And her brother’s a handful,” Lyndon said.

Julie smiled again and nodded. Crisis averted. The fact that he’d known Rachel’s name had certainly helped ward off suspicion.

“And who is this lovely lady you have with you?” she asked, nodding in my direction.

“This is my partner, Amy.” He leaned closer and put an arm on the reception desk. “Might have to marry this one. Unless you’ve available for dinner.”

Julie cackled as her face turned slightly pink, and I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes. God, Lyndon could even make women in their mid-fifties blush and giggle like love-struck teenagers.

“Okay, well, Heidi is just in our main living room at the moment watching some TV. I assume Dora has told you of her condition?”

“Sure, she mentioned it,” Lyndon said.

“Good. Well as you know then, she might have trouble recognizing you. Some days it’s like she doesn’t have dementia at all, but others she barely even remembers her own name. So don’t be too upset if she acts strangely.”

Lyndon nodded and adopted a somber expression. “I understand.”

“I’ll just need you and your partner to sign in here, and then I’ll get one of the nurses to take you through.”

We signed in with our fake names, and as I was putting pen to paper, Julie leaned in and whispered. “You’re a lucky girl. Gorgeous man you’ve got there. How’d you pull that off?”

I smiled weakly. “Thanks. I don’t know, I guess I am lucky.”

I knew she was just trying to be nice, but the way she’d worded it made it sound like I was some sort of hideous swamp creature who was lucky that someone as sexy as Lyndon was anywhere near me.

A caramel-skinned nurse directed us into a lounge room, where elderly people watched TV, played cards and chess and leafed through books. She steered us over to a sofa.

“Here we are. Heidi, dear, your great nephew Andrew is here to see you, and he’s brought along his lovely girlfriend.”

The old woman turned her head to look at us. Her hair was light grey and her once-smooth skin wrinkled, but her eyes were exactly the same crystal-blue as Rachel’s.

“I don’t know you,” she said, her eyebrows creasing together in confusion. “I don’t have a great nephew named Andrew.”

“Now, now, Heidi,” the nurse boomed, throwing us a sympathetic look. “You know how you have trouble remembering things some days. These people are here to see you because they love and miss you, so be a good girl and have a chat and some cookies.”

Heidi still looked confused, but she smiled at Lyndon. “Oh…of course, dear. Have a seat.”

She patted the floral-printed sofa cushion next to her, and Lyndon sat down. I sat in a chair across from them, and the nurse brought us a plate of chocolate chip cookies. “Here you go. Hope you enjoy your visit!”

Heidi looked at Lyndon, and then slowly turned her head to stare at me. “Who are you people? Now, I might be an old lady, and some days I have trouble remembering things, but other days I’m as sharp as ever. And I know that I don’t have a great nephew named Andrew.”

Lyndon tentatively patted her on the shoulder. “You’re right, Heidi. Please don’t be concerned; we just want to talk. We’re from the FBI, and we think you might be able to help us.”

She drew in a sharp breath, and her blue eyes widened slightly. “I don’t know how an old woman like me could possibly be of any help to the FBI.”

“You really don’t need to be frightened, Heidi,” I interjected, leaning forward and giving her my most sympathetic look. “We’re investigating all the disappearances in this town over the years, and we wondered if you could just look at a few pictures and see if you recognize anything.”

She slowly nodded, and I pulled out the picture of Hilda Beaugard. I passed it to her, and there was no missing the look of recognition that flitted across her face.

“Do you know that woman, Heidi?” Lyndon asked gently.

“Please show me your credentials,” she whispered. “So I know I can trust you. So I know you’re not one of them.”

We surreptitiously flashed her our badges, and she stared into my eyes, her own eyes wide. “That…that picture is of me,” she said quietly. “I used to be Hilda Beaugard.”

“What do you mean by that?” I asked. “What happened to the ski hiking group that night, Heidi?”

She stared into space, a slightly glazed expression crossing her face as she recalled the incident that had occurred so long ago now. “There were ten of us. Seven men and three women including myself. We all thought it would be such an adventure, hiking and camping in such a beautiful part of the world. We reached the eastern shoulder of the mountain and set up camp, and then we settled in for the night.”

She paused and tilted her head a bit, as if she were having trouble recalling exactly what happened.

“It’s okay,” Lyndon said. “Anything you can remember at all is great.”

“I think…well, I’m not certain of the time. But we all woke up sometime in the middle of the night. Bobby was the first to wake, and he told us he had been hearing strange voices around the tent for a while. But that was impossible…we hadn’t run into any other ski hikers on the trail that day, let alone anywhere near our campsite. And what kind of people would go hiking in the snow on a freezing night?”

“So Bobby woke because of the voices. Did you hear the voices?” I asked.

She hesitated again, and then nodded. “Ah. Sorry, it’s all a bit of a blur. It’s been decades, after all. Bobby woke us, and we all listened. He was right. Footsteps, voices…and they were getting closer. We were all frightened, and none of us knew what to do. Then we heard an unearthly growling sound coming from somewhere behind the tent, and it was getting closer by the second. Mitchell grabbed his pocket knife and sliced the front of the tent open from the inside because with so many layers on the tent, there were at least three zippers, and we needed to get out as fast as possible. We didn’t even have time to put shoes on. And then we ran. We ran…”

“What happened?” Lyndon asked.

“I…I’m not sure. It was so dark…so cold. Bobby and James slipped and fell into a ravine, and out of the corner of my eye I saw some…some creature jump in after them. To make sure they were dead, I presume. Then something grabbed Leanna and Trish up ahead, and I remember their screams. I tried to run to them to help, but then something grabbed me.”

“What happened then?”

“I’m not sure. I woke up at some stage in a new house. I had a few injuries and a touch of frostbite, and a man had been treating me. My Bill. You know, he wasn’t a bad man. What he and the rest of them did was terrible, but he always treated me well. He loved me, and after a fashion, I loved him too. I gave him five children, and when he died two years ago I mourned as any other grieving widow would.”

She turned her now-steely gaze to me. “Bill was a good man, despite what he did.”

Lyndon looked at me, and I returned his gaze with a shrug. Heidi/Hilda hadn’t exactly been specific about the circumstances under which she ended up with her husband.

“Heidi,” I said gently. “We need to know more about what happened to you. Did someone force you to marry Bill? Why did you stay and take on a new identity, and never try to escape?”

Heidi stared into space again, and this time the glazed look in her eyes was even more noticeable.

“Heidi?”

“Oh, hello,” she said, looking across at me. “Who are you? It’s lovely to have visitors. I don’t get many these days, you know.”

Lyndon shook his head at me, and I leaned across and grabbed Heidi’s hand. We’d lost her. “Heidi, it’s been wonderful chatting with you. You’ve really helped us a lot.”

She looked confused, but nodded. “Oh, all right then. Would you care for a cookie before you go?”

“Sure,” Lyndon said, grabbing one and then patting her on the shoulder. “Bye, Heidi.”

She smiled, totally unaware of the lucid moments she’d just had and the information she had shared with us, and Lyndon and I dashed back to the car. I drummed my hands on the dashboard as he drove us back to the police department, my mind racing.

“I knew it,” he said, looking at me. “I’ve had a feeling there was something weird going on here, and now we know there is. You were right!”

“Lyndon, we still can’t be entirely sure. It’s exciting, but you saw what Heidi was like. She has dementia. Maybe she had heard about the missing hikers and her brain sort of just invented that story.”

Lyndon narrowed his eyes at me. “This was your idea. You were the one who found this lead and thought there might be something going on here. You were the one who thought Heidi was Hilda Beaugard.”

“I know, I know,” I replied. “But there’s still something missing. If she was kidnapped and made to marry a man here, then that still leaves about a million questions. Why did she stay, and never try to escape and tell anyone who she really was? Why was she even kidnapped in the first place? What about the rest of the hikers that have gone missing?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. But I can feel it, Myla. We’re close to something here.”

I nodded. He was right. Even though there was still a whole load of unanswered questions, I could feel it too. We were on to something.

We spent the rest of the afternoon going through town records to see if we could find anyone else who had seemingly moved to the town and married a local not long after there was a missing person case, but it was difficult with half the records missing. Grumbling, I went and asked Ted.

He sighed. “Yeah, I know what you mean. Annoying, isn’t it? Most of our records are digitalized, and they were all taken from the paper records in the town archive. Unfortunately a fire destroyed a lot of those records about fifteen years back. So we make do with what we’ve got.”

Dammit.
“Thanks anyway, Ted,” I said, forcing a smile.

“Why do you need townspeople’s records anyway?” he said.

“We’re just trying to get a feel for the town and pursue every angle we can,” I replied. “You never know.”

“Good for you, Myla. The FBI’s lucky to have someone as sharp as you,” he said. “You know, you could always try the local Gazette down on High Street. They might have back issues that could help you find useful information on the town.”

“Hmm, that’s a good idea.”

“But Myla…” Ted hesitated, a concerned expression knitting his brows. “Just be really careful. Make sure it doesn’t get out to the townsfolk that you’re digging around. People here are very protective of their town and preserving their way of life. If they think you’re snooping around them, they might get scared that things are changing, and then the blowback from that could hit us all.”

“I understand. Don’t worry, Ted, we’ll keep it under wraps.”