A Treasure to Die For Read online

  Oh, God, dear God!

  Her heartbeat added its heavy thrum-thrum to the ringing in her head. She couldn’t catch her breath, gagged, and the vise-like hold on her throat was removed. His fingers dug into her upper arm. She started to twist away, and the knife pricked her side.

  “Now, now, Carrie, none of that.”

  Dear God! Think. Pray. “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High...under the shadow of the Almighty... he shall give his angels charge over thee...” The 91st Psalm, her companion in emergency now as it had been many times before. Help me, help me, God. Her mind couldn’t seem to manage anything more coherent. Terror buried any other words, all other thoughts.

  Step-stop, step-stop, step-stop. “Keep going,” he said as he pushed his legs against hers, left-right, left-right, forcing her to move. “Now open that door. It’s not locked, no matter what the sign says.”

  It wasn’t locked, and it led to a stairway that probably offered access to all floors.

  Down they went through the empty stairwell. Everett shoved at her with a knee whenever she slowed down, and she felt the prick of his knife point each time. They came to a wide landing area stacked with file boxes and, only after they’d squeezed past, she wondered if she should have tripped, falling away from the knife and sending boxes crashing down the stairs.

  Her thoughts had calmed, and she began to evaluate her situation. Surely Everett didn’t plan to kill her. He could have done that easily as soon as they entered this empty stairwell. He might hurt her badly, but reason now suggested Everett Bogardus had no stomach for outright killing. He was too...fastidious. He could not cause violent death with his own two hands, he could not watch it happen. The attack on Rusty Hobbs must have come in reaction to surprise. Everett had not meant to kill.

  They’d started the descent in silence, but now he began talking, more to himself than to her. Her panic bubbled up again as she realized the familiar purr had changed to a twisting whine. He sounded like a small child totally focused on himself. Was the man deranged? If so, what did that mean for her?

  “Meddling witch, should have known the boyfriend saw me...wasn’t sure...and he told this meddling witch, and someone said something to the police, probably this mouthy witch right here. Getting the rest of the money will have to wait. But the old man was right. It’s been here all along.

  “Fah, all those years of doing without, working nights, going to school days, and the money was here, right here. I should have had it, he knew how hard it was, said the struggle was good. Good for who? Him and his righteous religion, him the upstanding preacher? But it’s here like he said, even though I wondered if he was off his head that day he died. Baking powder tins! The fool, why not use bigger cans? So much easier. Only two cans so far, but I will have it all. Just a short setback now because of this witch.”

  Everett’s voice changed again, the whine becoming a raspy sing-song. “If only he’d told me...too bad for me he got religion. Sin of my father, his sin punishing me. Too bad.”

  Maybe he was so absorbed he wasn’t paying attention to her. She started to twist away from the knife. A sharp stab in her side stopped the motion.

  The sing-song voice went on without a break. “No, no, you can’t stop me now, can’t!”

  His last word was a shriek. Carrie prayed someone had heard him.

  They reached the bottom of the steps. Everett pushed her under a rope barrier hooked across the open doorway, and they came out into the hall next to Fordyce Spring. No one was there, no one to hear his shout or any cry she might make.

  Where were all those crowds of tourists, where was Agent Bell? Where was Henry?

  There, oh, there at last, thank God! A woman from the Elderhostel group came from the elevator and headed toward the restroom. Carrie took a deep breath to cry out, but the knife ripped sharply into her blouse and, she was sure, into her skin.

  The voice, quiet and purring again, said, “Smile. Say hello only. Be afraid for yourself, Carrie, be afraid for that woman.”

  She murmured, “Hello,” and heard a second, purring, “Hello,” from behind her right ear. Would the woman—Diane, that was her name, Diane from Iowa—notice anything wrong? Could she see the terror on Carrie’s face? Could she see the mouthed word, Help?

  Carrie realized her best move would be to break away from Everett right this minute. “Women should never go with an abductor without a fight,” Henry had told her. “The first moments are the time to break away, especially if people are in the area, because what’s coming is usually going to be much worse than those first moments.”

  But Everett’s hand held her arm so tightly it was cutting circulation off. She couldn’t pull free. The knife pressed a hot line into her flesh, pricking her, again and again. He seemed to enjoy using it to torment her, hurt her, cut her skin. Could she risk large, vicious slices into her body? Did she have enough courage, expecting knife wounds, to twist and yank, to make a defensive move, to kick Everett as Henry had said she should kick any man trying to hurt her?

  She didn’t, she couldn’t. Fear had obliterated courage, and she couldn’t muster the strength to defeat that personal enemy.

  Carrie wanted to weep, to wail out her grief to the skies. She was a coward, a coward after all.

  Since she’d come to the Ozarks, she’d finally begun to believe in her own strength, and Henry had praised her bravery. But the fear of being hurt held her prisoner now as much as Everett himself did.

  In front of them, intent only on her mission, Diane barely glanced their way and disappeared inside the ladies’ restroom.

  Oh, no. Oh, dear God. Diane, remember, remember seeing us here.

  Everett pushed Carrie ahead of him through the “Alarm will ring” door. No alarm rang, no people came. Break room? Empty. Locker room? Empty. The Legal Sea Foods pen was gone from the floor. On to a third door Carrie hadn’t paid any attention to earlier. The door was closed, but Everett said, “Open it,” and she did, flipping a light switch at his command. A storage room. The door thudded shut behind them.

  Now what? Would Everett lock her in here? Would he...Please, God, abide with me, cover me with angels’ wings. Help, oh, help me.

  A plain room, used for storage. A few folded tables and chairs. Boxes. Everett was dragging her across the floor toward a steel square...trap door...ring handle.

  He shoved a box off the metal square and reached for the ring, almost pulling her over sideways as he bent to lift the door without losing his hold on her. Finally the heavy metal square banged back against the wall.

  Black-black-hole.

  Oh, God, oh, please...

  It wasn’t like her to beg, but she was so scared. Tears blinded her now, and she sobbed, pleaded, “Please, Everett, please, oh, no, no, please, no,” as he pushed her toward the black hole.

  She heard him laugh. “Let’s see you escape from this one, detective lady. You...won’t...get...my...money.”

  Still laughing, he shoved, and shoved, and she could cry no more, it was too much to bear.

  The knife...

  A final shove. The solid floor became space. Space, and nothing, and blackness.

  God with me...

  Silence. Falling. Harsh and painful against the buzzing in her head, fighting the silence, a metal door clanged shut, and she heard a woman’s long, undulating scream.

  Chapter X

  Henry

  Agent Colin Bell pushed between the chairs and shoved aside a stack of papers on the desk top with no apparent concern for their order. Park Curator Shirley Sandemann, whose desk it was, began a protest that was cut off mid-squawk by a warning glance from Superintendent Adahy Hinton.

  Guess the FBI is boss, even here, Henry thought, as he sent a sympathetic look toward Sandemann. Her tiny office had been chosen for the meeting of park personnel and law officers because—no matter how crowded—it had more floor space than the other cubicles built into the area formerly occupied by bathhouse state rooms. The park service obvio
usly hadn’t wanted to disrupt any more of the original Fordyce floor plan than necessary.

  Agent Bell laid a white square of paper on the cleared area of the desk, tipped up the paper bag he was carrying, and slid a cheap-looking plastic pen onto the white surface.

  It’s obvious that pen has great significance in Bell’s mind, Henry thought. He’s treating it as if it were a diamond bracelet.

  The agent squeezed his way to a corner, placed his feet carefully on either side of a waste basket, and leaned against the wall, surveying them. Those already seated in the room—Henry, the superintendent, Curator Sandemann, Law Enforcement Ranger Kandler, and FBI Agent Willard Brooks—stared back.

  Henry, who was closest to the agent, watched him for not more than three seconds. He wasn’t going to risk a crick in his neck just to stare at an FBI agent’s face. Instead he glanced around at the others in the office to see how they were reacting to the plastic pen.

  Agent Brooks as well as Sandemann, Hinton, and Kandler—all looked blank.

  “Significance?” said Agent Brooks, who, Henry had already observed, was a man of few words.

  “How about the significance of this pen, Major King?” asked Bell. “Ever seen it before?” He took an elegant silver pen out of his pocket and used it to poke at the plastic pen. It rolled over to reveal a lobster printed on the barrel.

  “No. I don’t remember seeing it.”

  “The printing on the side says it came from a restaurant called Legal Sea Foods. Have you ever eaten there?”

  “I’ve never heard of the place. Where is it?”

  “Boston. It’s a chain in and around the Boston area.”

  “I haven’t been in Boston for more than thirty years.”

  “Do you know anyone connected to Boston who’s here in Hot Springs at this time?”

  Ahhhh. Henry looked down, worked one fingernail under another as if chasing an annoying piece of dirt, and decided it was time to talk about Everett Bogardus.

  “Yes, a man in our Elderhostel group is from there. His name is Everett Bogardus.”

  “Interesting. Just before she left to join that same Elderhostel group, Ms. McCrite mentioned a pen like this, described it fully, said she’d seen Mr. Bogardus with such a pen. And what do you know, on my way up here I found the pen she’d described lying in the hall just outside the break room. Can you think of a reason she might have put it there?”

  He paused, but Henry said nothing.

  “Ms. McCrite also told me she’s been to Legal Sea Foods more than once on visits to Boston. So she, as well as Bogardus, could have a pen like this.”

  Outwardly Henry looked no different than he had when Agent Bell joined their group, but now his senses were zinging. Did this idiot think Carrie was involved in the attack on Ranger Hobbs or the search of the basement?

  He decided to copy Agent Brooks’s conversational style.

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why would you assume she had a pen like that and perhaps dropped it in the hallway for you to find? To what purpose?”

  Henry spoke the words in a low growl, and everyone in the small room leaned forward, straining to hear him.

  After a pause he continued, managing to make his more normal tones sound condescending. He ignored the inner voice warning him not to antagonize any law officer, especially an FBI agent.

  “I find it amazingly easy to understand how that pen got where it was, and why she told you about it. Neither she nor I have wanted to implicate Everett Bogardus in the attack on Ranger Hobbs when we had no proof, but now I will say that we both believe he was the person hiding in the basement this morning and also the person who attacked Hobbs. She was evidently trying to lead you to think about that issue yourself. She must have seen the pen in the hall, remembered seeing it earlier in the possession of Bogardus, and realized the significance of it being in the employee area. You notice she was smart enough not to pick it up herself and bring it to you? This is no rocking-chair granny you’re dealing with, Bell. She’s smart, she’s intuitive, and she’s a darn good detective.”

  Agent Bell’s steel-blue eyes froze on Henry’s face for just an instant, though he had to twist his neck down and sideways to manage it.

  “I never suggested anything different, did I?” said Bell as he moved his head up and glanced around at the group, smiling as if all of them but Henry were in on some secret. “And I would like to hear why you and Ms. McCrite think this man is involved in the incidents here. But first, I suggest we all go down to the employee break room. These offices are far too small to allow for efficient work.”

  Even Adahy Hinton flinched at that remark.

  Just then a man with military bearing stuck his head into the office, and Henry recognized him as one of the two Hot Springs Police Officers who’d responded to the emergency call for Rusty Hobbs.

  “Excuse me,” the man said, “but I need help here. I joined the Elderhostel tour to keep an eye on Ms. McCrite as you”—he nodded at Bell—“requested. Ms. McCrite was with the tour when I caught up with them, but now she, and a man whose name is Everett Bogardus, have both disappeared. I’ve already searched this floor, which is the last place all but one of the group remembers seeing either of them. One woman says she left the tour to visit the restroom facilities and saw them together in the basement hallway. Says she paid little attention because of the urgency of her errand, but does recall they were standing very close together and both looked serious, as she puts it. So, don’t we need to do a building search at once?”

  Carrie...missing? Henry leaped to his feet and, giving no one time to object, said, “Agent Brooks and I will go directly to the basement since I think that’s the most likely place to find them if they’re still in the building. I suggest the rest of you divide into two teams and sweep the floors downward to the basement. Be sure someone is watching the exterior doors. And I think you should consider Bogardus dangerous.”

  Before Agent Bell or anyone else could say a word, Henry and Agent Brooks had rushed out of the office and were running for the stairs.

  It only took a couple of minutes to check the public areas in the basement, then Henry led the way through the no-alarm door. He glanced into the empty employee break and locker rooms and was heading for the mechanical area with Agent Brooks right behind when a third door stopped him. It was probably the door to a closet but, whatever it concealed, he wanted to see inside.

  The door wasn’t locked. He opened it, felt for the light switch, clicked it on, and froze in place, hand still on the switch.

  Agent Brooks pushed past him, then began swearing—the most words Henry had heard him say at one time.

  “Know who it is?” asked Brooks.

  “Everett Bogardus,” Henry said as he stared at the sprawled body, the knife, and the pool of blood.

  Oh, Carrie...

  Chapter XI

  Carrie

  Gu-gu-uck!

  Warm. Floating. Couldn’t focus...drowning?

  Carrie tested that, concentrating. In-whoosh, out-whoosh. In-whoosh, out-whoosh. Breathing air. Not drowning. Another sniff. Wet dirt.

  She moved her hands and felt mud. Warm mud, cradling her head, wrapping gently around her body, supporting her back. Never had mud bath...nice, but why...dark? Maybe dark...part of mud bath...

  She floated away again, cushioned in mud.

  When she awakened the second time, the pleasant feeling, and some of the moisture, had evaporated. There were drying, itchy patches of clay behind her ears, around her neck, along her arms.

  Something tickled her face. She scratched at the tickle with dripping, mud-coated fingers, and a small creature scuttled away.

  Carrie opened her mouth to suck in air for an involuntary scream, then spat sandy goo. Oh, uck, UCK. She hoped what she tasted was clean mud.

  There was a soft, sucking sound as she rolled sideways, hoping to distance herself from the creature. She pushed up on one elbow, then on into a sitting positio
n, extending her legs straight out and thinking of...messy diapers.

  The thin edges of the mud that encased the back of her body were drying, but there was still plenty of warm, wet mud under her. When she wiggled, she could hear squishes and feel the suck of mud against her slacks.

  Guh-thump, guh-thump.

  Funny noise.

  She tried to focus, to remember, until memory rushed at her, bringing a wave of terror and shaking her so violently that dried chunks of mud cracked off her upper body and fell silently into the wet muck she was sitting in.

  Knife! Everett...shoving at her...grabbing for knife. Pushed down to...

  Here? Oh, dear heaven, where was she? She reached one arm out and felt a wall, concrete, maybe. She scooted back, felt another wall. Sideways, and there was more concrete. A concrete septic tank?

  No, of course not, couldn’t be. Catch basin of some sort? What?

  It was too dark to see the trap door, but it had to be above her. Everett was above her...had to get away...

  Another shudder. She was in the place where she was meant to die.

  Tears washed into the mud on her face, and for several seconds all she could say to herself, over and over and over, was “God, God, God, oh, God.”

  Guh-thump, guh-thump.

  Carrie turned her head in the direction of the noise, then inched forward, expecting to bump into another wall. The wall was there, but the noise clearly came from beyond it. Moving her quivering hands up the wall, she came to the edge of a large hole; getting on her knees to look through, she saw a faint patch of daylight. Reacting only to the stimulus of light, she pushed up and through the rough hole, down onto rocks, and began crawling toward the overhead glow.

  Her knees hurt. She was in warm water moving over bare rocks. Scent of something...exhaust from a badly-tuned car?

  When she was under the light source, she sat in the water, looked up, and saw the bars of an iron grate. Tires rolled over it while she watched—guh-thump, guh-thump.