Victoria Hamilton - Vintage Kitchen 04 - No Mallets Intended (24 page)

She drove, drove, drove… and the other driver—Prentiss, she thought—gave in, swerving into the ditch as she charged down the gravel road away from town. She floored it.

Prentiss had made it clear that Dick had killed Theo. Jaymie had conjectured, from their interactions, that he loathed the doctor, but just because Dick was working for Prentiss did not mean that still wasn’t true. Valetta had let slip that in her opinion Prentiss overmedicated his patients. Was that one of the charges that had gotten his license suspended? Some medications caused paranoia, and Dick did seem paranoid; he was a classic example of someone who was fragile and fell under the influence of a stronger, more devious mind.

She drove. It was dark now, but there were still headlights in her rearview mirror. If she could just get to Marsh Road she could double back and get to the Queensville police station on the riverside highway on the way to Wolverhampton. Her heart was still thudding, but she forced herself to breathe deeply and plan ahead. As if sensing her intention to drive her way out of trouble, the driver behind her roared up and she felt an awful, shuddering bump to her rear, like a clumsy attempt at a PIT maneuver.

She struggled to regain control and clenched her fists tighter on the wheel, her breathing quickening. They were
not
going to best her; she’d been in tight situations before and always got out. Still… doubts assailed her. Yes, she’d been in tough situations, but never on the road in a vehicle and alone. She checked her rearview mirror; damn! She hammered the wheel. The driver was still following, and the car seemed closer than it had been a few moments ago.

Forget about the police station or Queensville; she just needed to find a house with people, but it had to be the
right
place. There had to be someone home, or she would be putting herself in jeopardy for nothing. She sped up and navigated a tricky corner onto the highway with ease, the van’s back end sliding just a bit before she stopped it from fishtailing. She was quickly leaving behind the area she knew best, but she had been driving since before she was legal and knew she could handle it, come what may. There was a side road that she hadn’t been down in some time… maybe it would be just as mystifying to her follower.

She swung onto a gravel road. She was used to gravel roads, but a lot of townsfolk wouldn’t drive them; it was all too easy to skid out of control if you didn’t know what you were doing. Her van was clumsy, but she knew it well. There, ahead… she could see a dwelling with faint light showing through curtains. She sped up to get some distance between her and her follower, then abruptly slowed and swung into the driveway, bouncing down the slope and skidding on the gravel drive as she jammed the brake. The other car rocketed past, and she flung herself from the van and ran to the door, beating on it. “Help, I’ve been followed! Call the police!”

At the last minute she thought…
What if they don’t let me in? What then?
If she lived in the country would
she
let someone in if they were beating on her door and shouting? No. They might be in the sticks, but stuff still happened in the sticks.

However, the door was flung open and a big, dark-haired fellow in jeans and a flannel shirt with a dish towel slung over his arm stepped out and said, “What’s going on?”

She looked up into dark brown eyes set in a stubbly, masculine face. Trembling all over, she said, “I don’t have time to explain.” Her tone was too close to hysterical; she could hear her pursuer coming back along the gravel road toward the house. “I’m being followed. I need to come in to use your phone to call the police. I called on my cell, but I’m not sure I got through and I don’t dare go back out to get it.”

He appeared indecisive for a moment and looked back over his shoulder.

A child’s voice called out, “Daddy? Who is it?”

Just then the car pulled into the drive, not quickly but as if the driver were coming for a visit, with all the time in the world.

“Please!” Jaymie pleaded, grabbing the man’s forearm. He was reassuringly solid. “This guy is crazy and he’s a killer,” she muttered, pitching her voice low so as not to alarm the child. “Just let me call the cops from here!”

The car door slammed and Prentiss’s voice cut through the night. “Jaymie, this is Doctor Dumpe. Let me help you, my dear! We need to get you back to the psych ward so you won’t hurt yourself… again.”

Twenty-four

J
AYMIE
’
S
HEART
THUDDED
and she looked over her shoulder.

Prentiss strolled toward them from the gloom, his hands out in a beseeching gesture. “I’m so sorry you’ve been disturbed, sir, but this young lady needs my help. I’m her psychiatrist; she’s suffering a psychotic break after a prolonged period of stress. My apologies, but I really need to take her to the hospital so she can be treated properly before she becomes a danger to herself or others.”

“Please don’t believe him,” Jaymie murmured, looking up into the brown eyes.

A child appeared beneath the man’s elbow, blond curls drooped over an adorable elfin face. “Who are you?” she asked.

She took a deep breath. “My name is Jaymie. What’s yours?” She tried to calm her trembling, but it didn’t help. She could hear Prentiss walk on the gravel path toward the porch. As long as she had been in her van, she had felt in control of her fate, but she couldn’t drive forever.

“Jocelyn Eleanor Müller,” the child said, no hint of baby lisp, even though she looked about three.

“What a pretty name!” Jaymie looked up into the man’s eyes. She lowered her voice again and said, “My name is Jaymie Leighton. I live in Queensville and I’m
not
his patient. He is a psychiatrist, it’s true, but…” She looked down at the child’s face and tried to find the right words. “But he’s a… a dangerous man.”

“Jaymie, you need to come with me,” Prentiss said, his words measured, his voice closer and clearer in the frigid air. He mounted the steps, the wood creaking under his weight.

The householder held her gaze for a long moment. He matched her low tone as he replied, “My name is Jakob Müller, and I believe you.” His words were comforting. “Hey, friend,” he said, raising his voice and putting his arm around Jaymie’s shoulder. “Why don’t you just take a seat on the porch. The lady is coming inside and we’ll sort this out.” Prentiss started to protest, but Jakob raised his voice and talked over him. “A few minutes more or less won’t make a difference.”

He pulled her inside and shut the door, snicking the lock into place and leaning back against it. “Jocie, why don’t you go put the kettle on so we can make tea for our guest?”

Jaymie, stunned by the turn of events, watched in surprise as the little girl toddled off. “Isn’t she a little young to be putting a kettle on?”

“She
is
eight years old.” He eyed her; his tone had not been impolite, but there had been reproof.

Jaymie kept her mouth shut. Eight? The child appeared the size of a three-year-old, but that was neither here nor there at this moment. She blinked rapidly, and the fog of fear began to lift as her rescuer gently took her arm and led her forward into a big open room with rustic log walls. To the left the ceiling lowered to create a kitchen space; Jocelyn was up on a stool and with deft movements put a kettle on a lit burner. It occurred to Jaymie suddenly that Jocelyn was a little person, compact but every bit her age, and perhaps, given the gravity of her manner, a little overly mature for eight.

Taking a deep breath, her heart rate subsiding, Jaymie looked around and noted that the kitchen was decorated with antiques: an old rocking chair with a handmade quilt thrown over it, a trestle table with only a bowl of fall flowers as decoration, a pepper and coffee mill collection, which was gathered on a shelf over the old-fashioned stove. Rustic kitchen implements from many years ago hung from a pot rack over the trestle table alongside copper pots and cast-iron frying pans. If she had a few minutes she’d check it all out, but her gaze swung to the right, to an expansive family room with a gigantic stone fireplace and two chairs pulled up in front of the fire, lit on this chilly November evening. She shivered.

He had been silent while she looked around, but now Jakob said, “You’re cold. Come sit by the fire. I
would
get the phone but the electricity is out—it won’t work without it—and my cell phone is dead right now. I was going to charge it up, but the electricity has been out for a while.”

As he guided her to the fireside, Jaymie noticed for the first time that the only light in the place was from the fire and some lanterns hung from hooks on the supporting log posts dotted through the space. She sat down in a soft, comfortable chair that made her want to curl up and vegetate. But this was not home, and she was in danger.

“What am I going to do?” she asked, more of herself than Jakob. Jaymie had thought her troubles were over, but now she was not only still in trouble, she had potentially put this man’s child and whomever else was here in danger.

“Tell me what happened,” he said. His tone was assured and calm.

The warmth started to seep into her. She was grateful that this once, she had not brought her little dog into danger, and that it was just her. She stared into the man’s long-lashed brown eyes, and then glanced back where his little daughter was efficiently getting out a teapot and filling it with hot water from the kettle. The child was adept, more than most kids even at eight.

“You probably heard the news; a week or so ago I found the body of Theo Carson, a writer, at the historic home in Queensville.” She briefly told him the rest of the story, and what she now believed about Prentiss Dumpe and Dick Schuster working together.

There was a knock at the door at the exact moment she finished, and Jakob crossed the floor toward the door, putting out one hand to keep his daughter at bay. She watched, her eyes wide, with a stillness uncommon in children. Jaymie followed and stood by his elbow.

“I’m very sorry to intrude,” Prentiss said through the door. “But I’m freezing out here. Could I at least come in and warm up? We can talk this all over.” He paused for a moment, then said, “I don’t know what tales that girl, Jaymie, is spinning, but you must know…” He paused, then raised his voice and continued. “I don’t like to say it, Jaymie, but I must. Sir, the young woman is delusional and possibly violent. She has been unbalanced by recent events, and I’m afraid for her. I see you have a child; don’t be fooled by Miss Leighton’s semblance of a sane person. She could harm you both, and I couldn’t live with myself if that happened!”

It was surreal and frightening how rational he sounded, and how irrational she must seem. Jakob did not meet her gaze, so she couldn’t tell if he was buying what Prentiss was selling. She heard the low thrum of another motor, which quickly cut. “Dick Schuster!” she exclaimed, shaking all over. “That’s his car. He’s in on it with Prentiss, just as I told you.”

Jocelyn examined her with a calm, brown-eyed gaze so much like her father’s it made Jaymie blink. “Is he a bad man?” she asked.

What should she say? Jaymie looked to Jakob, and he smiled slightly, a crooked, engaging expression.

“Sweetie, why don’t you get your photo album out?” he said, instead of answering. “Maybe Jaymie would like to see some of your pictures, like the ones from Halloween.”

Her eyes lit up. “I was a princess!” she said, with a bounce. “And I went to a party and I won for my costume!”

Jaymie’s eyes filled with tears, and she took in a shaky breath. This place, this family… it was all so normal, and yet she had brought them this horribly abnormal visitation of danger. But the reassurance of Jakob’s composed demeanor gave her courage. Despite all obstacles, she would prevail. “I’d
love
to see the pictures!” she exclaimed.

“Go get your photo album,” her father urged, and he gave Jocelyn a little push. She skipped off to some cupboards in the hall past the kitchen.

“You have to believe me,” Jaymie repeated. “He’s dangerous.”

He nodded. “You will just have to wait, Doctor,” Jakob said through the door. “Go back to your car if you’re cold, and I will tell you what I have decided soon enough.”

He led her back to the fireside and pushed her gently down into the chair. He sat, too, but moved forward, leaning with his elbows on his knees so he could speak quietly. “I believe you; you don’t need to try to convince me. I’ve known men like him.” His mouth tightened in a grimace, but he didn’t say anything further about that. “If you say he’s a quack, I believe you.”

“He’s worse than a quack, Jakob, he’s dangerous,” she said, grabbing his flannel-clad arm. “I meant every word I said. They talked about the murder in front of me, so they can’t afford to let me get out of here alive.” Saying it felt so melodramatic, but there was not a word that was not true. If not for one thing, she would already be dead: Prentiss hadn’t counted on Jaymie being decisive.

He covered her hand on his arm; she looked down at it, broad with brown hairs across the back, roughened by work. “It’s okay. We’ll take care of it together.” He stood and straightened. “We’ll hold them off and figure something out.”

She was not alone in this, and her heart lightened. Jakob seemed to be one of those men who are good with animals and children and anyone scared; he oozed confidence and reassurance. Jocelyn skipped out, carrying a big scrapbook album.

Jakob said, “Jaymie, why don’t you sit on the rug in front of the fire with Jocelyn so she can show you her scrapbook?”

There was weight in his words. She examined his eyes; he didn’t intend to go out there, she hoped. The way Prentiss was talking he planned to make Jaymie look like the villain of the piece. He could do some serious damage and
still
claim that. It wouldn’t be the first time that had happened to her. She shivered and said, “You’re not going to… to…” She stopped, afraid to say more.

Jakob shook his head slightly, and she relaxed.

“I will never put my child or myself at risk unnecessarily. Now… sit. Let my daughter show you her scrapbook. Warm yourself by the fire.”

Jaymie slipped down to the rug in front of the fire and felt the warmth bathe her face. Her mind raced. What could she do? Prentiss and Schuster couldn’t kill her in front of this man and his child, right? Every possible solution she could think of seemed to lead down a dangerous road. Normally when she was in a desperate situation she didn’t have time to think, and maybe that was a blessing, because her fears were inventing dangers. What if Prentiss blocked the doors and set the house on fire? No one would ever know what had happened. It would just be one of those things… a family that had a fire and lanterns going because of a power outage, and it got out of control.

Jocelyn carried her scrapbook over, then plopped down on the floor, her little legs splayed out. Jakob was near the door listening; he had the same stillness about him as his daughter, a rare calm energy.

Jaymie sat cross-legged in front of Jocelyn. It had not escaped her notice that by sitting down on the rug she and the little girl were concealed from the door by the big easy chairs. The child opened the scrapbook and proceeded to point out pictures and explain who and what they featured. Jocelyn was in tumbling classes, it appeared from the photos, and took music lessons. But though Jaymie tried to pay attention, this was no time to be caught unawares.

Her nerves were humming, and she was conscious of her host’s movements, even though for a big man, he moved quietly. Jakob checked all the windows to be sure they were locked, then went to the door. “Doctor, are you still there?” There was no answer. Jakob looked over at Jaymie and put his finger to his lips.

Above them the sound of glass breaking made Jaymie start up in fear. She exchanged a look with Jakob, then said, brightly, “Jocelyn, you know what I’d really like to do? I
love
to play hide-and-seek.” She thought that if the child were concealed she could not be a target. “How about you find some place to hide down here, and I’ll count to a hundred and come find you, okay?”

“That is a
good
idea,” Jakob said, sending her a warm smile.

Jocelyn jumped up, willing, it seemed, to interrupt her scrapbook explanations for an impromptu game. She trotted off, and Jaymie could hear her crawl into one of the hall closets.
Perfect
. Jakob had already picked up a heavy pepper mill from his collection, and he hefted it in his hand.

There was a sound upstairs, a heavy thump. That exact moment lights came on, the television in the corner blinked to life with a cackle of kids’ show noise and a clock radio somewhere blipped on with an alt rock song and a beeping alarm.