The Cemetery Club (Darcy & Flora Cozy Mystery Book 1) (19 page)

It missed. The jar smacked
Drake’s hand and exploded. His gun flew across the cellar and slid along the
floor toward me. I did not think; I reacted. Adrenalin surged through me and I
lunged for the gun. Grabbing the weapon, I pointed it toward the man who had
caused my mother and me such anguish.

The exploding jar had
sprayed its contents all over Drake’s face. He wiped peaches out of his eyes
and glared at me. “That wasn’t too smart. You know you’re not going to shoot
me,” he muttered.

At that moment, fury gripped
me such as I had never known. The cellar receded and all I could see was
Drake’s obnoxious grin, daring me to shoot.

“Just watch me,” I said.

Mom’s voice penetrated the
haze. “Darcy!” she shouted. “Don’t shoot! He’s not worth it.”

Drake sneered, “Sure, go
ahead. You know you don’t have the nerve.” He started toward me.

At any moment, he would jump
and grab the gun. Pointing the barrel in Drake’s direction, I closed my eyes,
and squeezed the trigger.

The gunshot, in that
confined space, sounded like a cannon. The bullet hit the wall behind Drake,
zinged across the room, and clinked into a shelf beside me. I hadn’t considered
a ricochet. For the space of half a dozen heartbeats, the three of us stood
motionless.

Then, a big, black-looking
blob appeared and spread across Drake’s trouser leg, just above his knee.
Staring at it, then at me, he croaked, “You shot me.”

Evidently, the slug went
through his leg before it bounced around the cellar. Glaring at me with pure
hatred burning in his eyes, he slowly crumpled, like a disjointed puppet, to
the floor.

Glancing at Mom, I expected
to see her faint, but she astonished me. Her voice was strong as she said, “All
right, he’s not going to hurt us. Let’s get out of here before that snake
Hammer comes back.” She plucked the gun from my suddenly limp fingers and
slipped it into the pocket of her shirt.

“We are taking this with
us,” she said.

Turning our backs on Drake,
who was screaming things no lady should ever hear, we hurried up the cellar
steps to freedom. The feel of fresh, clean, moving air propelled me into the
brightness of day-light. The rain had stopped at last and the sun had slipped
toward the western horizon.

The longest day of my life
was drawing to a close. I felt as if I had been underground for a week.

We
paused on the cellar’s top step. “Thank You, Lord,” Mom
whispered.

The spring day smiled
innocently at us as if it knew nothing of storms or murderers or dead bodies. A
raucous crow flew above the roof of Ben’s red barn.

Mom pointed to an old,
crumbling stone wall near the barn. “Let’s get behind that fence,” she said.
“Hammer may come poking out of the cellar at any minute and, remember, he has a
gun too.”

We were halfway to the stone
fence when the explosion came. A roar like a dozen freight trains crashed
against my eardrums. The ground shook, an acrid smell filled the air, and it
felt as if a giant hand pushed me to the earth.

Dazed, Mom and I stared at
each other. “What happened?” I asked.

Slowly, I raised up on my
knees and helped my mother from her prone position. A cloud of dust and smoke
poured from the open cellar. Its door lay on the ground beside us. I watched,
hypnotized as a yellow-black cloud drifted up into the sky and dissipated.

Like a gray ghost rising
from the depths of the earth, a figure emerged from the cellar. It staggered
toward us and flopped down at our feet.

“He bumped against the wire
to my trap,” Jasper said, gasping for
air.
“I didn’t want to hurt nobody but anyhow, he won’t bother you no
more.”

I put out my hand to touch
Pat’s dirt-covered son, just to be sure he was real. My voice sounded faintly
over the ringing in my ears.

“He? Who, Jasper? Was it
Hammer that set off your trap?”

Jasper nodded.

Mom scooted beside him. “And
Drake? What about Drake?”

Jasper wiped grime off his
face with his shirt sleeve. “He’s still there in the cellar. He’ll be there
when Grant comes, I reckon. I knew Hammer was going to bump that wire. I yelled
at him to stop but he shot at me. I started back to the cellar and the explosion
happened and knocked me down.”

An overwhelming weariness
filled every muscle and bone of my body. I did not think I could move, even if
I saw Drake and Hammer both coming at me.

“Your trap, Jasper, what
kind of trap did you build?” I asked.

He breathed deeply and said,
“I borrowed some dynamite from that ol’ geezer that was damming the creek. I
just took one stick and I wedged it in a crack close to that shelf that has the
gold. I ran a wire from the stick and let it dangle above that wall that turns.
I don’t see how you all missed gettin’ blown all to smithereens if you were
around that turnin’ wall.”

Shaking my head, I admitted
that I didn’t understand either. But my mother did.

“God sent an angel to
protect us,” she said.

Somewhere down the road that
led from Ben’s place to town, came the wail of a patrol car. Or maybe it was an
ambulance. Whichever it was, some worried neighbor must have heard the
explosion and called the authorities. I was glad. It would be good to see Grant
again. I wouldn’t even mind if he yelled at me.

Chapter 26

I didn’t remember much about
the ride to Dr. McCauley’s office nor Grant helping my mother and me into her
house many hours later. The next day, I learned that both Pat and Jasper stayed
the night with us. Pat made tomato soup and carried it to my bedroom and across
the hall to Mom. Later, Pat told me that I drank that soup like I was starving,
but I don’t remember any of it. I do recall snuggling under warm blankets and
the soft feel of my pillow under my head, but it was a feeling more than a
memory. I slept until noon the next day.

When at last I awakened, I
felt as if I had been kicked down the road and back by my neighbor’s mule. Mom
probably felt the same, although she never complained about her own aches and
pains.

Easing my feet to the floor,
I got out of bed and stumbled to the shower. The feel of warm water and the
fragrance of soap washed away all lingering remnants of smoke and dirt from the
day before. Everything except the memories was washed away. I had a feeling
that the horror of my mother’s and my flight through rain, briers, and an
underground vault, plus the trauma of looking down the business end of a gun,
and the terrible memory of that explosion would stay with me for a long, long
time.

Drying off, I slipped on a
gray, over-sized sweatshirt, a pair of my oldest and softest jeans, and stepped
into warm, fuzzy blue house shoes. Pulling my damp hair into a ponytail, I
glanced at my reflection in the mirror above the dressing table. I looked as if
I had been fasting for a month. My cheeks were gaunt and shadows circled my
eyes. My bangs only partially covered the stitches Dr. McCauley had put in my
forehead, but I was alive. And so was Mom. Neither of us had broken bones or
bullet holes.

“Thank you, Lord,” I
whispered. “You brought us through.”

As I limped downstairs, I
heard voices coming from the kitchen. Grant sat at the dining table watching
Mom pour coffee into his cup. I marveled at how well she looked, wearing a
perky red print dress and white apron. Her hair was fluffed into a halo around
her face.

“Mom, are you all right?
Shouldn’t you be resting?” I asked, coming into the kitchen.

She smiled at me. “I feel as
if a weight were lifted from my shoulders. Our long nightmare is over. Last night,
I slept like a rock and today, I have more energy that I’ve had for a month.
I’m glad to see you up, Darcy. Sit down and have some coffee and orange juice.”

Grant rose and pulled out a
chair for me at the table.

“Do you feel like answering
a few questions?” he asked.

Direct and blunt, that was
Grant Hendley. I knew these questions would be coming and I dreaded confessing
my lack of honesty, but it would be a relief not to keep any more secrets.

The coffee was hot and
strong and burned all the way down. Looking at Grant, I managed a smile. “Fire
away,” I said.

His blue eyes were as cold
as gunmetal. “First of all, why didn’t you tell me your plans for yesterday
morning? The first inkling I had that you were not here at home was when a
passer-by reported the broken guardrail on Deertrack Hill and the crushed
undergrowth showing a car had gone over. Then, when Jim and I found your
Passport and you and Miss Flora weren’t anywhere around . . . .” He paused and
gripped his coffee mug with both hands.

I reached across the table
and touched his arm. “I tried to let you know Mom and I were leaving town;
after all, you told us to go, if you’ll remember. We were just following
orders, but you didn’t answer your phone. I’m truly sorry I didn’t tell you
what we knew about Jasper. He wouldn’t go talk to you, Grant; he was afraid of
jail. And now, I can see that he thought he had to keep Ben’s secret, sort of
loyalty to his friend. So Jim Clendon was with you when you found the
Passport?”

He nodded. “Jim had been in
Chicago, digging up information on Hammer and Drake. He just got back a couple
of days ago.”

So much for my suspicions,
then. I wondered who chewed Red Man tobacco, Drake or Hammer?

Mom sat down with her
coffee. “How’s your head today, Darcy?” she asked.

“It doesn’t hurt. My head is
the hardest part of me, I suppose.”

Grant snorted but, to his
credit, he merely continued with his story.

“Jim found out that Hammer
had gotten in with some big time bad guys in the windy city and wound up owing
a lot of money in gambling debts. A crime boss set Drake on Hammer. That must
have really put the fear into him and he remembered his uncle and the story
about gold, so he came back to Levi and went to see Ben. I guess Hammer
pestered him for a long time about that gold, but Ben was stubborn.”

Mom ran her index finger
around the rim of her cup. “That must have been what Ben meant when he said he
thought something was going to happen to him.”

Grant’s mug banged against
the table. “Ben Ventris told you that, Miss Flora? What else? I’ve known all
along you two weren’t telling me everything you knew about this case.”

Taking a deep breath, I
said, “Grant, I’m sorry. You’re right. We
shouldn’t
have kept all this from you. I hope we didn’t break any laws.
I’ll tell
you everything, but first—I have to know—did Hammer and Drake cook up this
elaborate scheme between them, Drake pretending to be with the FBI and trying
to scare us into telling him about the gold?”

“Well, what a relief that
you’re finally going to let me in on what you should have told me a long time
ago,” he said.

The sarcasm was back. Good.
It was a shield against any tender emotions this man might evoke in my heart.
At the moment, I wanted no romantic entanglements.

“Yes,” Grant answered,
“Hammer and Drake were in this scheme together and Hammer even engaged that
high-priced lawyer, Rowley, thinking he could scare you into believing he had a
legal right to Ben’s treasure. Hammer will never have a chance to unburden his
soul, but tough guy Drake is singing like a bird. I think his courage leaked
out through that hole in his leg, Darcy.”

Squirming in my chair, I
closed my eyes against the memory of that awful time in the cellar. “So, is he
going to be all right?”

Grant nodded. “Sure.
Eventually. He asked for a guard outside his door because he’s scared that some
of his pals in Chicago might get to him before the law does. You were filling
me in on your investigation, Darcy. I find it all very interesting.”

Taking a deep breath, I
began with Ben’s will and Skye’s letter and map. When I finished, thirty
minutes later, I felt drained of the last dregs of energy. I had re-lived every
excruciating moment. My hands shook as I lifted my coffee cup to my lips.

“I guess that’s all, Grant,”
I said.

“And I guess that’s enough,”
he muttered. Reaching for his Stetson on the chair beside him, he pushed away
from the table.

“I’ll go out this way, Miss
Flora,” he said, nodding toward the kitchen door. “Thanks for the coffee. I’ll
be in touch.”

Shocked, I watched him go.
Wasn’t he going to say any more? I’d expected he would read the riot act to me
and talk about the dangers of interfering with police matters or withholding
evidence. He could at least have said, “Thank God you’re safe.” But he didn’t.
He just got up and left.

Mom and I looked at each
other. She and I had lots to talk about too, but not today. Today was simply a
time for recovery and a celebration of being alive.