Shattered Secrets (Cold Creek #1)(83)

But the back workroom was a bit cluttered, which surprised her. Boxes and padded envelopes looked partly unpacked. Some sets of large books were stacked on wooden shelves.

“The so-called ebooks and those electronic tablets and phones are making perfectly good sets of encyclopedias and other reference volumes dead as the dodo,” Miss Etta said with a shake of her head.

“You know, I had an excellent idea we should discuss,” Miss Etta went on. “You’d be the perfect person to help me with groups of elementary students who come to visit the library or go on field trips to my house, where I talk about the Falls County pioneer days. I’ll bet you miss working with youngsters.”

“Yes, I do. That sounds great, but I’m not sure how long I’ll be around.”

“I hope you’re not getting too close to Gabe McCord, I mean, if you’re leaving soon. Ah, here we are.”

The old bookmobile was parked so its back door aligned with the library door. Tess realized Miss Etta must have driven it to work, because she didn’t see another car nearby. The woman unlocked the door to the old truck and went up a step, clicking on the inside light. Tess followed. The interior smelled musty. The scent seemed vaguely familiar and suddenly overpowering. It reminded Tess of the basement in her house.

“Ah, yes, here it is, far superior to that other book,” Miss Etta said. Pointing, she made room for Tess to pass her in the narrow, single aisle.

As she moved farther into the bookmobile, the smell grew stronger and Tess was overwhelmed by a memory. She was in the big, tall room where she was allowed to draw pictures if she was good, the room with all the books along the walls, the room where Mr. Mean lived and terrible things could happen.

Tess gasped and turned. She had to get out of here!

The paper bag crinkled loudly as Miss Etta took something from it and jabbed Tess’s neck with a needle. Just like that day in the cornfield.

“No!” Tess shouted, and tried to shove her away, but she was so strong, the rows between the corn so narrow.

“It’s all right,” Miss Etta said in a crooning voice. “It will be all right....”

Tess felt pain. Had she been stabbed or cut? She swung a fist at the woman but missed. She bounced off a shelf of books, kept in place by a cord in case the road was rocky. Tess grabbed for it to keep from falling, pulled it loose with several books and fell to her knees. Would she be smacked with Mr. Mean for messing up the books?

“I’m sorry,” Miss Etta said, in a calm voice as if she were reading to children who had to listen or they would be punished and hurt. She helped lower Tess to the soil in the cornfield. “I needed to do that before you remembered more, my dear. A drink of wine would have been kinder, but you gave me no choice. I must risk taking you now.”

Tess tried to hang on to her thoughts. Didn’t the drugs in the wine tie in to Dane? She could see the needle on the floor. It had blood on it. Maybe it would explode, because something was exploding in Marva’s kitchen and in her brain. However hard she fought it, Tess knew she was going under....

*

If the leaves hadn’t been off many of the trees, they might not even have seen the cabin before they were right on top of it. Gabe was amazed the decent-sized building had no view of the creek, distant waterfall or valley below. But then, he realized, Reese Owens hadn’t built it for the view outside but the one inside.

He held up his hand to halt Vic’s progress. Instinctively, they both lifted their rifles, despite the fact that they’d found no vehicle parked nearby.

“You go around back,” Gabe whispered.

“Roger that,” Vic said. He limped toward the upside of the hill.

Gabe was grateful to have Vic with him. He still missed his father. If they had both been law officers at the same time, going out on a dangerous call, it might have been like this. And without Vic, he would have had to pull Jace away from the search for Sandy. But what if he could find her first, bring her back...?

Vic glanced at him before disappearing behind the cabin. Gabe bent low and moved closer to the front door. There was no porch for sitting out, nothing fancy or fine. It was a far cry from the mayor’s mansion in town, more like the small house where Reese had been reared.

His rifle ready but pointed down, Gabe put his back against the exterior front wall, crept along and twisted his neck so he could peek in a front window. Blackout drapes of some kind blocked his view. His gut twisted. He was going in.

Vic came around the front. “No back door or windows,” he said to Gabe.

Gabe nodded. “Police!” he shouted. “Come out with your hands in the air!”

Nothing. No sound but the birds and wind in the tree branches.

“That door looks pretty sturdy,” Vic said, pressed to the wall between the window and the door. “But I say we go in. We’ve got cause. The heck with waiting again for a search warrant. He’ll find a way to stop it. If it turns out to be nothing, that’s the breaks.”

“Literally. I’m going to bust out this window,” Gabe said.

Vic shrugged. “That or get a downed tree limb for a battering ram.”

Gabe broke out the window with his rifle butt. There was no sound but shattering glass, still no reaction from inside. Shoving the heavy curtain aside, he stuck his rifle barrel through, then his head.

“Clear,” he told Vic. “I’ll climb in, unlock the door. There’s all kinds of stuff covered by black drapes in here. On the back wall, I see newspaper articles and pictures of girls, some in strange poses.”