Celtic Sister (15 page)

“I want to read it in the original booklet form first,” Sam said.

“Oh, here’s an idea. We can cut the copies out. Fashion them into booklets. Do you have tape?”

Sam looked at her incredulously. “Who doesn’t have tape?”

“I don’t know,” Amy retorted. “I was just asking.”

He grinned. “It’s a good idea. There may be something in the placement of the pages. Are you ready?”

“Absolutely.”

Amy leaned in as Sam slowly opened the cover.

The very first page was simple, a rudimentary sketch of a crosshair.

“Oh my God,” Amy shouted. “This is a murder.”

“Relax. It’s also a circle and a plus sign.”

“Is there some mathematical significance to a circle and a plus sign?” Amy asked hopefully.

“Not that I know of, but I wouldn’t jump to conclusions just yet.”

“A murder would explain the need to send her far away and shut her up.”

Sam frowned ever so slightly. Amy could tell he doubted his own advice about not jumping to conclusions. “It could also be a globe, an indication of position.”

“So she’s somewhere along the equator? In Ecuador… or Nigeria perhaps?”

“Possibly.”

He flipped a page. On the left there was a picture of a well. On the right, a poem.

“A well, Sam. People can throw bodies into wells.”

“Really, Amy? Calm down.”

“You have to consider the possibility.”

“Duly noted. May I read the poem?”

“Of course.” Amy settled down and listened to the odd pairings.

a pot of gold

has taken my tongue

to the realm of Pat

where I’m now from

your silver hides

in his peaceful spring

together at last

it will us bring

as I change

moons will grow

eternal love

I now know

“Weird, but clearly full of clues,” Sam muttered.

“The first one is obvious. They paid her for her silence. She would assume you didn’t know that if she’d only just disappeared. You wouldn’t know about the Richardsons.”

“Something keeps bugging me,” Sam said, distracted and frustrated. “She assumed I would find this and start searching for her. But how in the hell did she expect me to find this thing lodged between the boards of her birdhouse?”

“Did she leave a card with the birdhouse?”

“She left no notes, no messages, nothing.”

“It was the last birdhouse she made, right?”

“That’s it,” he shouted. “Thank you, Amy. That’s it. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it.”

“What?”

“She left the
Build Your Own Birdhouse
book on the desk. It was the only book there. Didn’t faze me because I knew she had just finished the clover-covered one. It seemed only natural that the book was still out. Everything else was in the drawers.” He put his head in his hand. “As a matter of fact, it was too tidy. The only thing on the desk was the book and her pencil holder. No scattering of paperwork. Her desk never looked that neat. Why didn’t I notice that?”

“Don’t beat yourself up. When a girl disappears, people are thinking abduction or runaway, not cryptic clues in a birdhouse.”

He turned to Amy and looked her in the eyes, years of heartache etched in his own. “If I were thinking straight, I would have looked more diligently for clues. Not just clues she might purposely leave behind, but crime scene clues, and clues like the ridiculously clean desk.”

Amy touched his hand. “You weren’t thinking straight, Sam. Be gentle with yourself. Let’s focus on what we have here and we may find her yet.”

“Right. The notebook.” He reread the poem silently.

Amy said the first line aloud. “
A pot of gold has taken my tongue.
We agree that this is about the hush money?”

“Agreed.”

“
To the realm of Pat where I’m now from.
” She shook her head. “Brent is such an idiot. If he were smart, he would have taken the notebook and destroyed it right then. Emma wouldn’t have been the wiser. The use of
where I’m now from
is clearly an attempt to tell you where she was going.”

“That seems logical. Pat is the only thing capitalized, so it’s probably a name.”

“Realm means kingdom but also, how do you say it, area of specialty?”

“Yes, so Pat is either a leader or a specialist of some sort.” He put a finger on his chin. “Realm could also mean social class, Amy. If you stretch it.”

“As in ‘Amy is not from the Richardsons’ realm’?”

“If you stretch it.”

“And maybe this Pat is the person who was murdered. Then the realm would be the land of the dead.” She pointed to the well on the left page. “They threw Pat in a well. I’m telling you.”

Sam’s face went white. “If the realm is the land of the dead, that means they killed Emma too,” he said solemnly.

Amy looked at the words
where I’m now from
and realized the implications. She wished she’d kept her macabre ideas to herself. On the other hand, Emma’s death could be a real possibility. Sam’s spiritual epiphany was most likely the delusion of a loving brother grasping at straws.

He shrugged, suddenly unconcerned. “I don’t believe she’s dead. I already told you.”

“Okay. I understand.”

“How could she write a poem about being dead before she was dead? That’s silly.”

Unless she knew the end was near.
“You’re right, Sam. I’m sorry.”

He moved on. “
Your silver hides in his peaceful spring.
”

“That one is very interesting,” Amy said. “Silver, not gold like in the first line… but it could still refer to the general concept of money.”

“Money in the mattress springs?” Sam proposed.

Amy chuckled. “Too cliché.
His
might refer to Pat. And I have to say it, peaceful can mean death—”

“All right! I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Or perhaps, whatever the secret is, it happened in the spring.”

“Or in the winter which is volatile. In the spring, all is quiet again, peaceful. The deed is done. The secret is safe.”

“Except Emma knows the secret.”

Sam nodded. “And that’s a problem.”

Amy took a turn and read the next passage. “
Together at last it will us bring.
”

Sam looked very pleased. “Now that makes it clear Amy isn’t dead.”

“How?”

“She wouldn’t want to draw me to the realm of the dead, to be together in death.”

Unless she’s waiting for you there,
Amy thought but had the sense not to say aloud.

Sam continued. “She definitely wants me to follow the clues to find her. But why didn’t she make the clues easier?”

“She had to get them by Brent. Although I wish I could’ve consulted with her at the time. The boy’s not all that bright. A little less ambiguity would have sufficed.”

“She couldn’t just come out and say, ‘They shot an important guy named Pat and dumped him in a well.’”

“Important guy. Realm. Good, Sam. People like the Richardsons live in their little kingdoms, one bigwig ready to dethrone the other. We could easily search the names of Colorado’s most influential persons for the name Pat, Patrick… Patricia even.”

“Wouldn’t we know of the murder of a Colorado bigwig?”

“Maybe. Unless people assumed he went on an extended vacation.”

“Permanent vacation.”

“Or there’s a cover-up that involves the press,” Amy said.

“Now we’re talking conspiracies?”

“Almost every unsolved murder is a conspiracy.”

Sam grimaced. “How do you come up with that?”

“The odds of a person committing a murder that absolutely no other human knows about are low. Whenever there are two or more people who know something and agree to keep it quiet, you have a conspiracy. That’s the dictionary definition. Look it up.”

“Okay, I get it.”

“Besides, I wouldn’t put it past the Richardsons to be involved in a huge conspiracy involving threats and money. The whole nine yards. Politicians, reporters, anyone can be bought.”

“All right then. We’ll look into missing Patricks and Patricias. Shouldn’t be that difficult. Then again, they are not necessarily from Colorado. Could be anyone across the globe who interfered with something the Richardsons were up to.”

“Something else illegal,” Amy whispered. “Something big, worth murdering for.”

“All right. Let’s keep that in mind. Next verse.
As I change moons will grow.
”

“Not sure about this one. Aging? Passing of time?”

“Yes. She may be indicating it will take many months to find her.” Sam put his head in his hand. “It would have been months. Now it’s years.”

“Sorry. But it’s a good guess. She may have anticipated it would take several months for her to properly relocate. Maybe she traveled to several spots to hide her trail.”

“It makes a lot of sense. If she wanted to disappear completely, it would take some effort. She couldn’t just move to Colorado Springs and call it a day.”

“Wait a minute,” Amy said. “Springs, a well. Don’t discount that entirely. There are probably dozens of cities with the word Springs in them. Not all of them are in Colorado. It would tie in both the
peaceful spring
and the well drawing. A well is a spring.”

“Good point. And Emma could be my silver. She is someone valuable to me. She is hiding in a spring, or a place called spring.”

Amy smiled. “Let’s look at the last one.
Eternal love I now know.
That is about as basic as it gets. She had a lover, someone helping her.”

“Remember she was a spiritual person. God is also eternal love.”

“Oh,” Amy cried. “That gives credence to your old nunnery theory.”

“It does. And I find that more plausible than a lover, frankly.”

No guy wants to picture his sister in bed with a boy, but you can let this go for now, Amy.
She touched his shoulder. “We’re getting somewhere. Lots of possibilities to explore.”

“I agree.” He flipped to the next page.

On the left an intricate woven pattern and on the right a crescent moon and a math problem.