Lifeless in the Lilies (Lovely Lethal Gardens Book 12) Read online

  With that, she slowly made her way back to her bedroom, then realized her clothes were bloody and dirty as well, and managed to get changed in an attempt to at least feel fresher. With that much done, she headed downstairs to her trusty coffeepot.

  As soon as she had a pot dripping, she opened the back door and let Mugs and Goliath, who had come downstairs with her, outside to do their own business. She walked out to her deck and felt the same pleasure she had felt every other time. She was just so thrilled to have it.

  The old rickety table and two chairs were serviceable but just barely. It was in her plans to update them, when she had money, whenever that was. Pulling one chair back, she went to sit on it, when the leg buckled. She cried out and just managed to stop herself from falling.

  A closer inspection showed the other chair was in a similar state. The table didn’t look much better. Stacking the three pieces against the side of the house, so she didn’t forget and try to sit again, she slowly walked the edge of the deck, her hands instinctively going to the railing to give her some support, as she looked out at the beautiful stamped concrete path and edging. Although the edging itself was a little bit on the blurry side along the grass, she was so delighted to have it.

  She moved cautiously onto the cobblestones and headed toward the river. She really should put a bench down here, where she could just sit and relax. As it was, she managed to slowly lower herself to the grass and looked at the water. It was still amazingly high and flowed with a ferocity that surprised her. The odd branch went by; a lone duck swam past, and she wondered what the devil he was doing out there in the strong current. There must have been a heck of a storm up on the mountain to have this much water down here.

  Doreen hadn’t seen much in the way of wildfowl, like the ducks, since the river had risen. Which made sense to her, as fighting the current had to be exhausting. But then, maybe like her, that solo duck was trying to buck the system.

  She smiled at that, thinking she could certainly relate. She knew that Mack wouldn’t give up on her seeing his brother. And she had no business giving up on Mack either, as he’d been there for her every step of the way, even if she hadn’t been terribly welcoming. Mugs walked over and nudged her gently. She scratched his long silky ears. “Hey, buddy,” she said. “Any idea where Thaddeus is?”

  They sat in a morose silence, as she waited, enjoying the peace and quiet, though her heart was heavy as she thought about her missing pet. Who would have thought Thaddeus would be the one to go missing? But then, talking parrots were something else to begin with and probably not all that common. Just as she sat here, considering that she should make her way back up to the house because the coffee would be ready, she heard a shout upriver.

  She saw two teens chasing something in the river or across the pathway. She leaned forward, trying to see what they were up to. As they got a little bit closer on the far side, they pointed at her. She looked at them and called out, “Hello?”

  They shouted at her across the river, but she couldn’t hear for the roar of the water. She slowly stood, as they pointed frantically at something coming toward her. She looked up, and there was Thaddeus, riding on the back of a branch down the river.

  Just like a homing pigeon, Thaddeus was on his way right to her. Or, as she judged the speed of the water, right past her. She instinctively stepped out into the water to catch his branch as he raced past. She caught it but fell into the tumbling icy water herself.

  Gasping and crying out, she fought the current and only managed to get herself pulled several houses downriver, where the waterway took a slight bend in the angle it flowed. Gasping in the cold water, she stood. Shakily, she struggled onto the riverbank, hung on to the side of the fence, realizing she was almost to the corner where they headed down to Nan’s. Thaddeus and Goliath raced toward her, and Mugs led the charge. They all barked, meowed, and cawed terribly at her. She stood here for a long moment, feeling icy cold, but then her gaze landed on Thaddeus, and her face lit up.

  “Thaddeus,” she cried out and held out her arm. Perfectly dry, Thaddeus hopped off the back of Mugs, where he’d been perched, and landed on her arm. Quickly he raced up her arm to her shoulder and gently stroked her cheek.

  “Thaddeus, oh, Thaddeus, you’re here.” Laughing and crying, she stroked his head and his body. “Oh, sweetie, what happened to you?”

  Somebody else called out, “What happened to you?”

  And, sure enough, there was Mack, glaring at her.

  She stared at him in surprise. “Look!” she cried out. “Look who’s here!”

  He looked at Thaddeus, at her, and shook his head. “Where did he come from?”

  She gave him a lopsided grin. “You won’t believe me.”

  He gave a long-suffering sigh that she had come to recognize. “Nope, I probably won’t, but try me anyway.”

  She glared at him. “You could at least keep an open mind.”

  “Ahem,” he said, with a quick nod at Thaddeus. “Do you want to get to the point?”

  She explained about the boys drawing her attention, the branch coming downriver with Thaddeus, and how she ended up in the cold water. He stared at her, looked at Thaddeus, then at the various debris flowing by, and said, “You realize he could have flown off the branch at any time, right?”

  She considered Thaddeus for a moment, then turned toward Mack. “Oh.” But then she added, “He doesn’t fly well, and there’s no telling what he has been through.”

  “Maybe not,” he said, “but, if he got onto a branch, I’m sure he could have gotten off.”

  “He was scared,” she said defensively.

  “So you jumped into a raging river at high water levels to save the bird?”

  “Yes!” she said determinedly. “And I would do it again too.”

  He groaned. “Well, at least you’re safe, although that head wasn’t supposed to get wet for a couple days, was it?”

  She shrugged, then grinned. “If you don’t tell the doc, I won’t tell him either.”

  Rolling his eyes, Mack reached out a hand and said, “Come on. Let’s get you back home again.”

  “It’s only around the corner,” she said, as she walked with him, but her clothes were soaking wet, and she felt the chill, even though it was a hot summerlike day.

  “As soon as we get home,” he said, “you need to get into dry clothes.”

  “I will,” she muttered. But she was overjoyed at having Thaddeus back. “What do you think happened to him?” Then she noticed something around his ankle. “Mack, look,” she said. “Something’s on his ankle.” She reached up to check his leg, but Thaddeus flapped his wings at her.

  “Thaddeus is here. Thaddeus is here,” he cawed out.

  “I know, Thaddeus,” she said. “Let me see what’s on your ankle.”

  But he shook his head and afterward shook his leg, as if something were irritating him. Which something was of course—that band on his leg. She looked at Mack. “Do you think you can get it off?”

  He reached up with one hand and gently stroked Thaddeus, then said, “Let me check your leg, big guy.”

  “Big guy,” Thaddeus crowed, and then he stood tall, flapped his wings. “Big guy, big guy, big guy.”

  She laughed. “Oh, I’m so happy to have him back again,” she said to Mack, who quickly unclipped what was on his tiny leg.

  “I am too,” he said. “He’s quite the character, and I’m glad somebody didn’t try to keep him.”

  She looked at Mack, fear in her eyes. “Do you think Thaddeus was kidnapped? Bird-napped?”

  Mack stopped, looked at the band in his fingers and the folded piece of paper, and said, “I don’t know about bird napping to keep him, but it’s obvious that somebody had him. Otherwise how did he get this?”

  She gave her head a shake. “I must be more tired than I thought because that didn’t even make sense until you said it.”

  He hooked an arm around her shoulders and said, “Come on. Let’s get you ba
ck up to the house.”

  Soaking wet, with every step, she left a puddle. The shivers occurred long before they hit her property.

  He looked at her in concern. “I’m just glad you made it out of that river,” he said. “It’s flowing really high. Even now,” he said, looking at the pathway that was just underwater.

  “I know,” she admitted, struggling to stay upright. But having Mack beside and slightly behind her was like having a huge timber of support. They finally made it back to Nan’s house, and he helped her up the little grassy bank, so she was standing at the top. He bent down and picked up Mugs and Goliath, then put them back on the grassy edge too because they were scrambling around, so excited to see her safely home again. Quickly they all trooped to the house.

  Noticing she was still shivering, Mack nudged her to the back door. “Go on, get up to the bedroom and get changed.”

  “Only as long as you don’t open that note right away,” she said, pinning him with a gimlet eye.

  He rolled his eyes. And then he sniffed the air. “You have coffee on,” he said in delight.

  She glared at him. “I know, and I didn’t even take a cup down to the river with me.”

  He chuckled. “All the more incentive to get up and get changed,” he said. “I’ll pour two cups.”

  With that, she made her way to the stairs, leaving a wet trail behind her. Up in her bedroom, she struggled out of the wet clothing and into dry clothes, thinking she would have to do laundry at this rate. She gently patted her wet hair with a soft towel, careful of her stitches, before she made her way back down. “How is it I can be so cold on such a beautiful warm day?”

  “Well, not everybody is taking swims in icy water.”

  “I didn’t think it could be anywhere near that cold,” she muttered. She accepted the cup of coffee he handed her gratefully and sat down at the kitchen table and hugged it close.

  “Glacier fed, remember? And those ugly storms in the mountains explain the flash flood down here,” he said, as he sat down beside her. His gaze was concerned, as he looked her over.

  She gave him a wan smile. “I’m much better now,” she said firmly. “Especially now that I have Thaddeus with me.”

  Thaddeus immediately hopped up on the table and walked toward her. “Big guy, big guy,” he cried, earning a chuckle from both of them.

  “You are my big guy,” she said, reaching over to gently stroke his chest. He hopped up on her shoulder and crooned against her cheek. She closed her eyes and leaned into him. “I missed you, big guy.”

  “Thaddeus missed Doreen.”

  Her eyelids flew open, and she stared at Mack. “Did he just say that?”

  Mack looked confused. He looked at Thaddeus and back to her. “What did you say, Thaddeus?”

  But Thaddeus just looked at him and said, “Big guy, big guy.”

  “Doreen loves Thaddeus,” she said and then repeated it over and over, but he looked at her like she was a lunatic. She sighed. “I’m sure he said, Thaddeus missed Doreen.”

  “Well, I’m not sure,” Mack said. “It sounded something like that, but I’m not positive that’s what it was.”

  In her heart of hearts, she knew that’s exactly what it was, but if Mack hadn’t heard it himself, he wouldn’t believe her. Still, it didn’t really matter. She knew. As she sat here, she looked at the band Mack now held and asked, “What is it?”

  “What it is,” he said, “is a piece of paper held on by this little clip.” He held it out.

  Like a paperclip. “Wow, it’s amazing that he didn’t lose it.”

  Mack nodded. “It is meant for something small, like this note.”

  “Maybe,” she said, “but his leg is very small too.” Leaning forward, she watched as Mack carefully opened up the tiny piece of paper, only about three inches by one inch when totally unfolded. As she stared at the message written there, she gasped. “Oh, my gosh,” she cried out. “Surely that can’t be what I think I’m seeing.”

  “I’m afraid so,” he said, his voice grim.

  She snatched the piece of paper from his hand and stared at the message.

  Help. I’m being held captive.

  Chapter 4

  “Somebody is being held captive. Thaddeus found them, and now they’re asking for help.” Doreen stared at Mack in shock. “There’s no way to know where Thaddeus was.”

  “No,” Mack said, “that’s a problem.”

  She looked at the piece of paper, then turned it upside down and flipped it over. “What are we supposed to do with this?” she asked. Then she remembered the boys who had been chasing Thaddeus—or at least following him downriver. “There were two boys,” she said thoughtfully.

  Mack immediately leaned forward. “What two boys?” She told him what she’d seen, and he asked, “Would you recognize them?”

  She stared at him and shrugged. “I’m not exactly myself right now,” she said apologetically. “And they were quite a ways away.” She paused. “And once I caught sight of Thaddeus riding that branch,” she said, “I didn’t even think about the boys.”

  “Of course not,” he said. “Do you remember how far up the river they were?”

  She nodded. “At least a little way up the river,” she said, “not far. Maybe thirty or forty feet, but they were on the other side.”

  He thrummed his fingers on the table, before jumping up and saying, “I’ll go take a look.”

  She hopped up too. “I’m coming with you.” He spun and glared. She took a step forward and glared right back at him, shoving her chin up pugnaciously. “And I’ll bring Thaddeus.”

  His eyebrows shot up, as he contemplated Thaddeus and then her. “Fine,” he said, “but we’ll just see where the boys might have gone.”

  “Fine,” she muttered. She quickly swallowed half the cup of coffee in her hand and said, “What a waste of coffee.”

  “Put it in a travel mug,” he suggested.

  She looked at him, smiled, and said, “See? I’m really not myself right now.”

  He just rolled his eyes and waited long enough for her to pour the coffee into a travel mug, then topped it up from the pot. And then the three of them trooped down to the creek again. Only the rest of her clan wasn’t having anything to do with that. As soon as they hit the river, Mugs barked, and Mack realized that the whole group had come along.

  He pointed at the river, turned, looked at her, and said, “That’s another reason why you need to stay here.”

  “Not happening,” she said.

  “And what will you do to get them across the river?” he asked.

  She smiled, immediately scooped up Goliath, and shoved him into Mack’s arms. “That’s what I’ll do,” she said. She then snatched Mugs, who was much heavier, and picked him up herself. “I should have given you Mugs though,” she muttered, earning a snort from him.

  “Serves you right for trying to get into trouble all the time.”

  “I’m not trying to get into trouble.”

  “That’s the problem,” he cried out, as he walked across the small bridge, which even now had water splashing over the top of it. “You get into trouble without having to try.”

  “That’s just mean,” she said. “I didn’t get into trouble. Trouble found me.”

  He sighed. “But it always finds you,” he muttered. “How is that possible?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I mean, I was just trying to say goodbye to a friend at the funeral,” she said. “Who could have seen me there?”

  “Anybody who was at the funeral,” he said.

  She nodded, considering that. “Did you ask if anybody saw what happened?”

  “We’ve got officers right now out checking cameras, looking and questioning anybody who was there earlier today,” he said, “and, so far, nobody saw anything.”

  She shook her head. “How is it always that way?” she muttered. “It’s almost like criminals know exactly when nobody is watching.”

  “Well, of cour
se,” he said, “it’s not like they’ll do anything wrong while people are watching.”

  “Yeah, but they can’t be in the shadows all the time,” she said. “Besides, isn’t it true that a lot of crimes happen in broad daylight, and people just don’t recognize what they’re seeing?”

  “Well, it’s possible,” he said, “but an awful lot happens when nobody is looking too. It appears to be innocuous because they are very good at what they do.”

  “Well, I just got hit,” she said. “They didn’t kill me, and they didn’t try to move me, so I’m not sure what the whole purpose was.”

  “I’m not sure either,” he said, “but not to worry. We’ll get to the bottom of it.”

  And she knew he would. If there was one certain thing about Mack, he was nothing if not tenacious. And, if he said he’d do something, he would do it.

  At the other side of the little bridge they turned right and headed upriver. Even there it was soggy and wet, and she knew she would have to change out of her pants again when she got home because the cuffs were already wet. Then she noted that Mack had soaked his shoes and socks too.

  “You’ll ruin your shoes,” she announced.

  “They’re already ruined,” he snapped. “That’s hardly an issue right now.”

  “Are you sure though?” she asked worriedly. “Those are expensive shoes.”

  He stopped and looked at her, then smiled and said, “Yes, but that’s also an occupational hazard,” he said. “You have to work a budget into your life for clothing and necessities.”

  She shrugged. “You can only work a budget if you have an income.”

  He pondered that for a moment, as they walked forward, and he nodded. Up ahead, the pathway raised ever-so-slightly, and it was dry all the way. He immediately put Goliath down, and Mugs followed very quickly. When Doreen straightened up again, she looked at Mugs and said, “You’re going on a diet.”

  “He’s getting fat,” Mack noted.