Grave Danger (A Boarding Case Mystery Book 4) Page 3

  Who sent me that address? Tina tried to trace the number, but it was yet again from a burner phone. With no clear leads on finding Nick, she took the lead and decided to follow it up. She considers the possibility that with the young age of the file, the address she was sent will lead her to someone pertinent to her case. Tina hopes the result is the latter and she’s not just walking into a trap.

  Tina calls Tim to verify no other information was found on Janet. She would like to know more about her before she arrives. The cell connection where she is, breaks up in certain spots then the call finally connects. “Tim!”

  “James, are you already driving to Baggs?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re making good time. And don’t worry about the scenery, you won’t see much in that area.” Tim then goes on a tangent about the last time he visited his aunt in Colorado and drove through Baggs. Tina listens politely then he says, “Before you ask me, I looked up Janet. Nothing has come up yet, so you’ll need to visit her and see what you can dig up in person.”

  Tina enters the small town of Baggs and follows her GPS – not that she really needs her GPS in a town of less than five hundred residents. She could easily stop the car at one isolated home, ask for Janet by name and locate her. From her first glance, Baggs already looks like the sort of place where everybody knows everyone. “I meant to tell you thanks for the tip on finding out what might be holding me back as an agent – I now know and I’ve handled it. You may want to consider being a therapist part time. You have a knack for these things.”

  “The money sure would help me with my child support.” They laugh as Tina turns into an open trailer park neighborhood. For someone who just left Hartford to come to Baggs, Tina wonders if she’s in the right place. The seemingly abandoned homes are a stretch from the lavish homes that she has gotten used to seeing. “I’m glad you took the time to find out what was hindering you James. So, does that mean you and Dale will get back together now?”

  “You would love that wouldn’t you. I think that ship has safely sailed.” Tina is sure being with Dale is not what she wants anymore. She has her eyes set on someone else now and just as her luck would have it, her new interest, Nick, has gone missing.

  “Too bad, he was growing on me.” Tim says and drops the matter. He has been a great support for Tina. He jokes about her love life, but he’s careful to not interfere with it and that’s something Tina respects about him, unlike her mom’s indiscreet hints about wishing she had grandchildren and Tina’s biological clock ticking. If I have to hear one more person time my biology… she thinks.

  Love, to Tina, is a precarious matter. It is both gentle and fiercely intense; it is both slow and fast; and if that’s not confusing enough, it is both compromising and selfish to the one who guards it.

  Tina says goodbye to Tim and thinks, It would be nice to enjoy Christmases with someone I love for the rest of my life.

  She has found the address and in front of her is unit 4-D. There are plants on the porch, a wind chime hanging from the ceiling and a Christmas gnome village decorating the windowsill next to the door. Her first impression of the home is it’s safe and unassuming, but Tina feels differently.

  Her heart pounds forcibly, her palms sweat and her ears are perched for any sign of danger. Yet there is no outward sign, except for the suspicious number of bolts on her lead’s door. Still, Tina is not yet sure if she is safe or in danger.

  This is it, Tina thinks. She is already here and there is no point turning around. She is about to meet her lead and know once and for all if she is a friend or foe; if she is of help or a distraction to her case – sent to pull her away from the school. Right now, right here, she will find out. Tina takes a deep breath and knocks on the door.

  She hears dogs awaken in the trailer homes around her, but not in the home she’s interested in. She searches her perimeter while she waits for someone to answer the door. The back appears to be clear – there is no chance anyone can run out of the back because it’s hedged up high with a wall surrounding the entire campus. She hears footsteps approaching from inside the home. A woman in her fifties answers the door in a long, dark skirt and lavender sweater. She is guarded and her shoulders hunch forward timidly. Behind her is a brown cat with white frost around its face. “May I help you?” she says, and Tina notices even her voice is as tender as her appearance.

  For a moment, Tina thinks she is at the wrong home. Though the woman seems kind and gentle, nothing about her suggests that she would know anything about what’s going on in Hartford. She may very well have just interrupted this poor woman from her peaceful dinner. To avoid wasting the quiet woman’s time, Tina flashes her badge and says, “Yes, ma’am. I’m Detective Tina James. I’m looking for a Ms. Janet Branning.”

  “I’m Janet. Is something wrong?” Ms. Branning is a slender woman. Her eyes light with fire, showing that she is strong, but her reclusive demeanor looks like she is someone who has gained inner strength through life experience.

  Tina is sure there must be a mistake. She can’t place any correlation between Ms. Branning and the school case, but she cannot leave this stone unturned. Worried that her time might have been wasted or she has been sent on a wild goose chase, the one thing Tina wants to ask is, Can you tell me why someone sent me to speak with you? But she opts for a more tactical approach. “Nothing to alarm you ma’am. Um… what do you know about Hartford Boarding School?”

  “Only that my son works there.”

  Her answer piques Tina’s interest. “And who is your son?”

  “Charlie Clark.”

  Clark… Clark… The janitor? Tina thinks. As though to confirm she just heard correctly, “You’re Charlie’s mother?”

  “Yes.” Janet answers with a questioning look.

  Chapter 5

  Tina is dumbfounded by the connection of Ms. Branning to the school. The last name she expected to hear today was Charlie. Her long pause at the door is noticed, “I’m sorry, who did you say you are?” Ms. Branning asks, her face growing suspicious.

  “Detective James, ma’am.” Tina says as she clears her throat and composes herself.

  “Is Charlie in trouble? I can’t imagine any other reason why you would be here or why you would even come to me.” Mrs Branning says this with her body fully facing Tina, her hand on her hip and covering the door entrance. Her timidity has disappeared and she is clearly not ready to welcome Tina in.

  From multiple encounters with her leads, Tina has seen people show a great amount of respect for the FBI, but she knows that to really make headway in a case she has to gain the lead’s trust. She does not, however, have much time to do this today. Nick needs her help.

  “Ma’am, may I please come in? I think you can really help me with a case I’m investigating at his school.”

  Ms. Branning’s shoulders drop when Tina states her need, she pauses before speaking for a moment, then she invites Tina in and asks her to call her Janet.

  Tina looks over her shoulder one more time before she furtively enters Janet’s home. Though she has been granted access into the home, she is not yet certain that she or Janet are safe where they are. Her radar is still up as she enters the neatly decorated home. There are corduroy couches framing the wood-floored living room; a wooden case on one corner houses CD albums, records and a well-kept record player. Perhaps she’s a collector, Tina thinks as she assesses Janet’s seemingly young age. Her file said she was fifty-three. Janet walks past the living room into the kitchen, “I have food on the stove. Please make yourself comfortable while I set it aside.” She disappears around half a wall behind the cat’s bed into what Tina concludes must be the kitchen, while Tina continues to check out the living room. She is not only looking for clues, Tina is also looking for conversation topics to build rapport with Janet. Family pictures on the wall immediately catch her attention and she sits closest to them, while keeping a good view of the front window.

  She glances around the room again and down
the hallway at the number of doors. Apart from a few cat’s meows and clanking pans in the kitchen, Janet appears to be alone in the home. Tina’s search has revealed two things so far, Janet is a family woman, but she lives alone. This will be Tina’s angle.

  “Shoot!” Janet says loudly, from the kitchen.

  “Are you okay?” Tina asks.

  “Yeah, I just spilled some soup. I’ll be a few more minutes.”

  “Alright.” Tina uses this opportunity to take a closer look at the pictures. She recognizes a picture of a mother and son sitting on a swing, smiling. She picks it up and pulls it close to her, when she sees that the picture is folded, cutting someone out of the frame. Why would she cut someone out of the picture? Tina turns the frame to open it when she hears someone slam a car door outside. With the picture frame safely in her hand, she peeks out of the window to see who it might be – the cat closely follows behind her quietly, also making sure the home is safe. The feeling of being watched and quite possibly in danger is still lingering in Tina’s heart. She sees a man exit the car and enter a home across the street from her. She does not recognize the person.

  When she turns around to return to her seat, she accidentally steps on the cat’s tail sending the cat yelping into the air and scurrying under the couch. Tina, who is already on the alert, is startled by the cat and drops the frame out of her hand. The frame shatters on the floor and sends glass whizzing through the air. The broken frame reveals something shiny, hidden behind the picture now on the floor.

  “I’m so sorry Janet,” Tina shouts as she kneels on the floor to pick up the frame and shattered pieces. As Janet runs into the room, Tina quickly grabs the shiny object and slips it into her pocket.

  Janet turns to the cat and says, “Beetlejuice, you scaredy cat. I told you to be quiet when we have visitors.” She turns to Tina and starts to apologize for her cat, “I’m so...”

  “Your picture frame. It was my fault.” Tina interrupts and holds up the frame. Which Janet grabs out of her hand and holds close to her heart. She shows affection and pain as she interacts with the picture.

  “It’s you and Charlie isn’t it?” Tina says softly. She can tell that Janet treasures this picture by the obvious heartache on her face. Janet clings to the picture a while longer then stands up and sits on the couch facing her small television. Tina follows suit and sits on the opposite couch facing the window, as she thinks of how Charlie, the kind janitor, could be involved in the suicides at the school. “And your husband must be in the back.”

  Janet remains silent, but her eyes widen at the mention of her husband. Tina can tell there is tension between them and she would like to understand further.

  “Janet, I know you care about Charlie,” Tina pleads, “please, six girls have already died at his school. What are you not telling me?”

  Janet shakes her head. She is fighting within herself to not speak.

  Tina tries again, “What if his life is in danger? Please, you have to tell me what happened so I can help him.”

  Janet, unable to bear hearing Tina’s pleas any further, grabs the picture more tightly and runs into the kitchen, avoiding the glass on the floor. “I forgot to get you some water.”

  While she can run after her, Tina sees that she needs to give Janet time to collect her thoughts. In the meantime, she has another matter to attend to and she thinks it’s right there in Janet’s home. She reaches into her pocket and locates the shiny key that she found moments ago. The key looks like it is too small for a box seated to the right of the television. Tina walks over to the wooden case near the window and feels around for an opening where she can try out the key. She even tries a drawer at the front of the wooden case with no success. Meanwhile, she looks over her shoulder to make sure Janet does not find her. There is no sound of footsteps leaving the kitchen yet.

  Then she pulls back the records. She neatly lays them on the couch beside her, then, in the space that she clears, Tina feels along the edge of the wall. There is a tiny lever that she can barely reach with her finger tip. She caresses over it a couple of times and nothing happens.

  Next, she clicks on the lever and it pops open a drawer right under the CDs. Tina is certain that drawer was not visible to the eye a moment ago. Without wasting another second, Tina lodges the key in, as she turns to look for Janet. The lock fails to turn a few times, then she pushes the drawer in while turning the key and it slides out. It opened!

  Tina has yet to find out what’s in the drawer when she hears footsteps drawing closer to her from the kitchen. She glances down and ruffles through the sea of documents. The footsteps are nearing the entrance to the kitchen. Tina scurries trying to skim through the papers and sees one document near the bottom that stands out. She snatches the document out of the drawer and puts it under her jacket. When she turns, she sees the edge of Janet’s foot on the corner of the door, knowing that she is about to get caught. How will Janet trust me now?

  The foot turns back to the kitchen and buys Tina more time.

  Tina, who was almost caught red-handed, turns and closes the drawer. Next, she closes the lever that popped open and throws back the records into place. Tina hears a squeaking noise as Janet closes the kitchen door.

  “I hope I’m not making you hungry with the smell of my dinner.” Janet appears around the corner to find Tina seated on the couch next to the pictures on the wall. Everything but the glass on the floor and the picture she is clinging to under her armpit is right where she left it – everything, that is, except for the document under Tina’s jacket. She serves Tina her water and sits on the couch near the window again. The picture frame also sits next to her on the couch.

  “No, I’m not hungry thanks,” Tina responds. Then she asks, “Can you tell me why you’re no longer in Charlie’s life?”

  “I wish you would drop the topic detective.” Janet says, with an ounce of annoyance in her voice.

  “I’m afraid I can’t. Why would someone send me to talk to you regarding your son?”

  “If I told you, I...” Janet’s lip quivers as she says this.

  “Would what?” Tina moves from her chair next to Janet, to console her. She picks up the picture and shows it to Janet. “You clearly still love your son and I can tell it hurts you every time I mention him. Why are you not together Janet?”

  “It’s his father.” She unfolds the hidden section of the picture and reveals a man who could be the spitting image of Charlie. “He kept him from me.” She pulls the picture out of the frame and with distant eyes, she begins to recall what happened to her family. “Charlie was only a young boy when his father… banished me from the family.”

  “Banished you?”

  “Everything was going well. Our little family was doing well in Denver when Clark started acting strange.” Janet points at Charlie’s dad as she says this. “He would come home paranoid, claiming all sorts of conspiracies in politics and even accusing me of things I didn’t do.”

  “Had anything changed leading up to that?”

  “Yes. He joined some cult that was shut down years ago. They were bad people, Detective. My husband, who was an honest, working man started to have hallucinations, he became controlling. His loving words turned into spiritual abuse and he made living in this home hell for us. The last straw was when I confronted him and I became the enemy to him.”

  “Enemy?”

  “Enemy. The worst part is that cult did this to us.” Anger is forming on Janet’s face. Tina continues to listen to her. “I thought Charlie was safe from it because he would be asleep when his father came home. But, I later found out that he would stay up and hear his father accuse me of infidelity and his wild claims that I needed to atone for my sins.”

  “What did you just say?” Tina is evidently alarmed to hear the same words the girls said at the school now being repeated by Janet. Was it Charlie? She ponders. He just seems so sweet, like someone who wouldn’t hurt a fly.

  “Yes, he wanted me to… I wasn’t going t
o say anything until you told me the girls have died.” Janet trembles. Tina can see that it hurts her to recall the past, but she fights through her pain to continue sharing with Tina. “He wanted me to take my life and he even told me exactly how.”

  “What did he say to do?” Tina is sure she’s about to hear something along the lines of wearing a white bed sheet; the similarity of Janet’s story to the girls at Hartford is no coincidence.