Grave Danger (A Boarding Case Mystery Book 4) Read online

  LAURA GREENE

  A BOARDING

  Case Mystery

  GRAVE DANGER

  Copyright © 2020 Laura Greene – All rights Reserved

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Also by Laura Greene

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  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  “What did you do to her?” Dale says, as he suddenly storms into the room and pushes past Amy. He walks to Tina’s side whose breaths are shallow and eyes are now closed. “Tina, can you hear me? Can you hear me Tina?” Dale says as he gently shakes Tina to awaken her, but Tina’s eyes remain shut. It is as though she is sinking deeper into an abyss of sleep and Dale’s voice is becoming more and more distant with each utterance.

  “I just…” Amy says as she steps back involuntarily. Her face is a ghost, her mouth is not moving, her words are choppy and her own body is pushing her away from Tina and Dale, telling her to hightail it out of there.

  “Just get out of here.” Dale says without thinking of how his words might affect Amy. She does just that.

  With one swipe of the foot, Amy turns and runs out of the room. She is undoubtedly running to the only place that has provided her solace thus far, Newport. She is far from home. She did not want to leave so abruptly. She came in the hopes of breaking to Tina gently the news of her dear friend Nick. In her eyes she was there to help. Now, she’s certain she has had the opposite effect. Amy can’t imagine the impact of what her visit may have caused. Instead of staying and fighting off her fear, her brain tells her to flee the scene and live to fight another day.

  She has seen how strong Tina is, so seeing her feeble comes as a shock to her. Tina lying still in front of her was a horrific image that will leave her pained for days. Nonetheless, she can at least say that she is no longer a threat to Tina. She has walked out of the small hospital and Tina’s fate is now in the hands of Dale and the hospital staff attending to her. As for Amy, she silently bids her bon voyage and makes her trip back to Newport.

  In the hospital, Tina’s vitals are dropping. Her vibrant glow is rapidly diminishing to a faint gray. She is pale, she is feeble and any hope of leaving the hospital quickly that she had, is decreasing with each labored breath that she gives. Surrounding her are long and short wires and tubes connecting her to the monitor. They beep regularly at first, then, they speedily sound until a loud, climactic crescendo hits and the note holds without pausing for a breath. As though drawing the breath from her through her arm, the sharp note holds on the monitor, while Tina’s heart holds still without air to sustain it.

  Dale runs to call the nurse who runs in and calls a code blue. Behind her is the doctor who comes in and commands the emergency rescue effort. A student nurse bars Dale from re-entering the room and ushers him to the waiting area. He takes one look at her slender arms and he knows he can easily take her out of his way, but he concedes. Hearing a loud, “Clear!” shouted in the room, Dale jerks his head back in protest and sees another nurse swish the curtains shut. Then, he falls to the ground, helpless and sobs. It could be the lack of sleep that has overcome him because Dale is not one to reveal much emotion, or it could be the devastation of losing the only person he has known as family for years now. Tina is the only family Dale has in his life though she is not a blood-relative or a relative at all. She is the woman he loves. While he tried to move on from their relationship, even moving back to Boston, seeing Tina ‘s limp body on that hospital bed, sent all his feelings for her rushing back. The thought of a single threat coming upon the woman he still loves, fills his heart with dread. He is powerless.

  For a moment, the white-washed hallway is silent and the only sound Dale hears is his heavy breaths and the distant, dense voice of a nurse. But Dale sits on the floor in pain.

  The student nurse in dark blue scrubs and comfortable, black crocs gathers two aids to assist her in getting Dale back to his feet. Their arms are bulky and their grip is firm, proving them capable of fulfilling the duty at hand. With one command from the student nurse, they bring in a wheelchair and swoop Dale to his feet. Next, they sit him in the chair and push him into the waiting room.

  Like two bodyguards with a client in their custody, the two aids sit in silence on either side of Dale and stare at the off-white wall in front. Dale can tell they have no plans to go anywhere until they can confirm his hysteria has seized. He thinks of Tina and how she is fighting for her life right now, then realizes that each hospital staff he draws to himself is one less person that can help Tina in her hour of need. He calms down.

  Indeed, Tina is fighting for her life as she lies in that hospital bed on Martha’s Vineyard. A week ago, her lungs collapsed and she passed out in the Atlantic ocean. Thankfully, the coast guard had just appeared over the horizon to retrieve both her and Ella from the water. Perhaps if Ella had not lost her footing on Jaws Bridge, neither one of them would be fighting for their lives in the hospital now. But Tina awes so much of who she has become to Ella and the strong winds of that day. That morning, she had woken up confident, aloof to her fear of opening up emotionally to those she loves. She had shut off the compassionate valve in herself years ago when Casey was attacked by a shark in the ocean. Tim even warned her of the impact it had had on her as an agent and how it’s the one thing still holding her back from becoming the great agent that he knows she can be. Tina, however, had brushed off the counsel until she came face to face with death. The moment that she froze dead on that bridge as she watched Ella fall and sink into the ocean, she knew she had to make a decision – something had to die. Ultimately, the choice was either the death of her and Ella or the death of her fear. Tina chose to kill off her fear and she conquered.

  She coughs and sputters blood. Her lungs hurt when she coughs. Doctors and nurses shout commands around her rushing to stabilize her heart, but Tina does not see it. Her eyes are still closed. The pungent smell of stale blood invades her nose and moments later, the putrid taste of blood and medicine pervades her tongue and makes her gag. She coughs again and this time hears the beeping sounds again. There are muffled voices around her saying, “She’s back,” and “the patient has been recovered.” Yet, Tina’s mind has not yet adjusted to the scene around her. She wants to open her eyes and see what is going on, but her eyes are heavy with sleep.

  Tina is not one to enjoy being dotted over and if all the fuss is over her, she would like to stop it. Her eyes, however, are not cooperating; she has an overwhelming need to sleep. Before she dozes off, she hears, “Morphine is taking effect and heart rate has stabilized.”

  *

  Three days later, Tina has almost returned to full strength; the fatigue on her lungs is almost fully gone, her heart rate has remained stable, and she has taken steps around the ward. The d
octor has assured her that she will be released soon if her vitals remain strong. She is also ready to leave the hospital. She is a field agent and being cooped up in a room for days makes her feel suffocated. Hospitals are especially not how she wants to spend any of her days – especially Christmas holiday. She longs to get back to the school and finish her case. Ideally, she would like to tie a bow on the investigation before school is out, but right now her biggest concern is getting better.

  Normally, when an agent is down, Tim would have sent in another agent to complete the case, but he insisted that Agent James will be back on her feet in no time and didn’t assign a replacement for her. Tina knows it was his way of motivating her to get back up to her feet and recover quickly.

  She sits up in her bed and picks up a stack of letters Amy left, before she ran out of the hospital. They are letters from the students neatly decorated with art, hearts and well-wishes. Holding the letters close to her heart with affection, Tina feels connected to the students. She has really taken a liking to them and it touches her heart to now know that they have as well.

  When Dale handed Tina the letters yesterday, he said he wanted to wait until she was more stable before giving them to her. He has been very careful to not upset her, unlike Amy who said something to Tina and caused her heart rate to fall. Dale was not sure what Amy was talking about nor did he care to know as long as Tina was safe. Tina, however, remembered well what Amy had said. She knew that Nick was still missing and while it pained her heart that she is stuck in this hospital while he is out there possibly fending for his life, she knew the best way to be of help is to get better so she can be released. Tina just wants to leave the hospital and go find Nick. At this point, she’s not sure if she’ll be in search of a fugitive or a victim of kidnap. The only way she can get answers is if she finds him and that’s exactly what she intends to do.

  She opens one letter from Ben O’Connor:

  Thank you for giving me a second chance. I hope you will have a second chance at life too.

  She is opening a letter from Olsen Hunt when Dale walks in with two trays of food. “Did they have it?” Tina says excitedly, sitting on the edge of her bed.

  “You’ll have to wait and see!” Dale says as he lays the trays down on the side table and unveils their dinner. It’s her favorite, grilled cheese and tomato soup. Tina’s face lights up with joy. The one thing Tina asks for when she is sick, is a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup and that is what Dale brought her. The gooey cheese on freshly toasted bread, the buttery smell of toast and the smooth, richness of warm soup soothing her throat with each bite calms her and brings back fond memories of her nannies caring for her as a child.

  She jumps up carefully, making sure she does not overwork her body and gives Dale a big hug. With a big smile planted on her face, Tina misses the papers flying off the bed and falling on the ground beside her.

  When she lets go of Dale from her embrace, Tina notices that he holds her a while longer before he releases her. This is how he used to hold her when they were together and it meant so much to her then. She is flattered at Dale’s gesture; it wouldn’t have been a problem before, but now that she is trying to move on and Nick is in her life, or so she still thinks, the longer hug now makes her feel uncomfortable. Maybe my feelings for Dale have waned and I’m more into Nick now.

  They eat their food and play a card game that one of the nurses brought in for them. The nurses really like Tina; they’ve made her stay very comfortable. Just yesterday, one of the nurses brought in an extra pack of jello for Tina and in the evening, the nurse gave her an additional pillow because she knew Tina wouldn’t bother her for one.

  “So any good letters today? I saw you reading when I walked in.” Dale says as he makes himself comfortable on the chair and picks up the stack of letters Tina was working on a while ago.

  “Oh, those? I forgot all about them when I saw my grilled cheese,” Tina says while she makes a satisfactory noise and rubs her belly. They both laugh as Dale reminds her that she is a Foodie.

  When Dale hands her the letters he collected from the ground, Tina picks up one of the letters and shows it to Dale, “This is from that kid, Olsen I told you about. He can be a real sweetheart.”

  “Isn’t he the one you thought was stalking you at the house?” Dale says, rather skeptical that she called him a sweetheart. “Are you sure they didn’t put something in your soup?”

  “You tell me, you got it.” Tina says, then she chuckles. “He really is. I don’t think it was him stalking me though. I actually thought about what you said the other day, how someone might have been watching the house when you opened the garage? Do you think...” Tina asks Dale with a telling glance that only he can interpret the meaning of.

  “No.” Dale’s voice drops an octave as he says this. The idea is despicable to him, “It couldn’t be.”

  “Do you think they may have followed us all the way from Boston?” Tina is still not convinced they are free from harm yet. She suspects the danger may have followed them.

  “But how? They were all put in prison. There’s no way The Gangs of Boston could know where we are.”

  “We were very careful to not leave any trail when we left. But, they could have someone on the outside who found out where we went,” Tina says. She is concerned.

  While she has told everyone that they left Boston for a quieter life together, the real reason they left was because they were in a sort of witness protection program. It was one that permitted her to remain an agent under a different alias in a different state.

  “If you’re right Tina, then we both need to be really careful. This may be far from over. Promise me you’ll be careful when I go back to Boston.” Dale says, as he looks at her with worry in his eyes.

  “I will. And you too. They could come after you as well.” Tina says with a slight reassuring smile. But neither one of them feels reassured.

  Chapter 2

  Tina is driving in her SUV. Earlier today, she was discharged from the hospital then accompanied from Oak Bluffs to Woods Hole by Dale. Though Dale fought relentlessly to accompany Tina to her home, she insisted that she would be fine. It was the assurance that two police officers were guarding her home that finally persuaded him to get into his car and make the long drive to Boston. Even though Tina still has some pain in her chest from receiving CPR at the hospital, she does not want to keep Dale away from work any longer – and they could both use the time apart. He needs to move on with his life and this is the best way I can offer that to him.

  While break-ups can be hard and laborious, Tina thinks some distance will help heal both of their hearts. She hits a bump on the road and grunts as she feels for her ribs. The doctor warned her the pain would linger for a few more days before it subsides.

  The cold of winter hangs, crisp in the air, but the wind remains still. Tina has come to realize that strong winds in Newport indicate strife is on the horizon. She has learned to appreciate this forewarning and ready herself for trouble. Once, she read somewhere that, “The punch that knocks you out is the one that you don’t see coming.” With all the secrecy surrounding her in this small town, she has found this statement to be true on many occasions; and the last thing Tina wants, is to be caught unaware. Her goal is to anticipate every move of the enemy. It’s how she cracked many cases in Boston and it’s how she plans to crack this one.

  Several cars zoom past Tina’s car, they are probably rushing to finish their Christmas shopping before the kids arrive home from school. Above the hurried shoppers, are majestic oak trees, standing tall in their greenery and sealing their beauty with a large wreath and signature red bow. They herald the townsfolk into the festive season and directly deliver them to the best shopping in downtown Newport.

  She sees Mademoiselle’s just beyond the traffic light. Should I stop there? It’s been over a week since I saw Julia. She ponders visiting with Julia for a moment, then decides against it. The two times she has met Julia, she has had d
ifferent men with her: first, Dale then, Nick. Julia is smart enough to recognize that both men were interested in being more than friends with Tina; so, Tina avoids drama for one day and drives past the chic cafe. She knows that if she stops by, Julia will not hesitate to ask her about the two men. And she is not in the mood to entertain small town gossip about the men in her life.

  Before long, Tina turns the corner onto Sharon Ave. She curves around the bend and up ahead she sees her home. It’s the only home missing Christmas decorations, and her two protectors are parked outside her home. Without getting out of her car, she waves hello at the officers and parks her car in the garage. A thought then pops into her mind, Maybe I could ask these officers to help me put my Christmas decorations up. It will, at least, give them something better to do than sitting out there twiddling their thumbs. As she imagines trying to explain to Barnes why his officers were on ladders putting up Christmas lights, Tina giggles.

  While unpacking the few belongings she took with her to Martha’s Vineyard, Tina recalls how she wanted nothing to do with Newport when she first arrived. She had come reluctantly and couldn’t wait to complete the case and move on. Now, after spending a week away from here, she realizes she actually missed it. Home is what you make of it, she thinks. I think I may end up liking it here after all.