Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Rachel wasn't very talkative. She kept asking who I was and why I wanted to know about her time working with the professor. The third time she asked for my name, I took a deep breath. "Rachel, did something happen between you and the professor that you don't want to talk about?"

"I don't know what you mean," she sputtered.

"You seem a little wary of giving out basic information about the guy. You weren't involved in his death, were you?"

"No! I loved Professor Wellborn. I mean, I respected him. He was nice, and kind, and he treated me like a colleague, not like a lot of the other professors treat their graduate assistants."

"I'm glad. I thought he was an amazing guy too. I took his California history class a few years ago. He had so much knowledge on the subject." I tried to calm her down a little.

"He was writing a book about the area. That's why he was so excited when he heard about the journal being found. He said it was his way out of academia. Or at least worrying about tenure." She paused. "I don't know if this is important, but he called me a few weeks ago. He said he needed me to work for him on the book. He was bringing in a few of his old assistants to help out, and he'd get back to me. The money he offered would have paid my rent for the next year. It's not often you get a job like that you can do in your free time."

Okay, now I wondered if I'd even guessed correctly earlier. "So was his current assistant part of the team?"

"Heck no. Eugene was worthless. He only got the fellowship because his mom works at the university. Eugene Bell. That's the name of his current teaching assistant. I didn't want to tell you because his mom is in the financial aid department, and I have one more semester to go. I didn't want her to think I didn't like him."

"Do you know who else the professor called about helping him with the book?"

Rachel gave me Eugene's information and his mother's. "I don't know who the other two were that he called. We were supposed to meet everyone this Tuesday at the professor's home."

I started to say goodbye, but then I paused. "Rachel, do you think the Santiago treasure is real?"

The silence on the other end of the line went on for a while. I checked the phone to see if she'd already hung up. Finally, she said, "I do. I don't know why anyone would kill Professor Wellborn unless they thought the treasure was real and they wanted it for themselves."

"Thanks for talking with me. I'm going to give your name and number to Greg King at the South Cove Police station. He might have more questions."

"That's fine. I should have called someone when I heard the professor had been killed, but I thought it might just be random. You know, a coincidence or just bad luck."

As I put my phone away, I wondered if this was all about the money. Most times, violent acts like that were caused by our base needs. Envy, jealousy, fear. And money hit all of those buttons. Even if the treasure was just a legend.

I turned to Esmeralda. "I guess we're done here. We need to know who Professor Wellborn invited into his writing group about the treasure besides Tank and Rachel."

"I wonder who could tell us that." She stood and held out her hand. "Let's go back to South Cove before the real police get here and realize the campus guy let us walk away."

"Sounds like a plan." I fell in step as we headed outdoors. "Do you want to grab some lunch at that new place out by Highway One?"

* * * *

When I got home, Emma waited at the door. She'd taken her leash down and was walking around with it in her mouth. I guess she figured if I wasn't going to take her on a walk, she'd do it herself.

I took the leash from her and set it on the table. "Give me a few minutes to get changed, and we'll go."

After letting her outside, I ran upstairs and got ready. While I was changing, I thought about my to-do list for the rest of the day, probably the weekend. My paper was due on Wednesday. I needed to spend some quality time with it. I felt almost guilty about taking the time to run, but Emma needed her exercise as much as I did. Besides, my head would be clearer after running. Maybe I'd be able to think about something besides Mandy and Professor Wellborn.

I texted Greg my intentions and got a quick thanks response. Normally I didn't keep him apprised of my every move, but since there was an investigation going on, I knew he liked to know if Emma and I went running. Being part of a couple sometimes meant including the other person's feelings in my decisions. A habit it had taken me a few years to get used to or even understand.

Emma and I took off for the beach, and again, the sight of Mandy's empty farm stand made my stomach twist a bit. We took the stairs down from the parking lot, and we both stretched. Emma had started doing it when I did a few years ago. I thought it was adorable and probably praised her for stretching before her run. Which likely made her do it more. Or my dog was a genius. Which I totally believed anyway.

When we got back to the house, I cleaned up and drank a glass of water. Seeing Mandy's farm stand reminded me of the card I'd found for Bakerstown Investigations. I pulled it out of my jacket and called the number. It had been disconnected. I set the card on the table to remind me to give it to Greg. Then I pulled out my laptop and started working.

I was still at the table when Greg showed up with a bag from Diamond Lille's for dinner. I could smell Tiny's fish-and-chips as soon as he walked in the door. "Hey, I thought I'd find you here. Although I got nervous when you didn't answer my text asking what you wanted for dinner. I took a chance and ordered the fish. Carrie said you hadn't been in for a while."

"I think I was there a few days ago, but my concept of time has been warping a bit with trying to finish up the project and classes." I saved my work and put the computer away. "Professor Wellborn's office was a bust for clues, but I did find out that he'd called three of his students to help him with Josh's journal. Tank, Rachel, the teaching assistant that Deek dated, and someone else. Here's the girl's name and number, I told her you'd probably be calling. Oh, and here's a card I found at the farm stand the other day. The number's disconnected."

"You've been busy. We just spent the day checking out abandoned sites that callers from the community tip line are sure Mandy's being kept at. Mostly, we just found some homeless guys. I hate not having affordable housing in the area." He glanced at the card and put it away in his pocket. He pulled plates from the counter and set up the takeout from Lille's. "Oh, I saw Harrold at the diner. He says they've scheduled an Alaskan cruise for July. I didn't realize she'd be taking off that soon."

I sighed as I moved the laptop off the table and filled glasses with iced tea. "Neither did I. It's fine. We'll make it work. I've just been realizing how much I've depended on her and how much I'm going to miss her."

"She's not moving away. She just won't be working in the business anymore. We should invite them for Sunday dinner next week, if I'm able to put away the investigation by then. After so long, I just have to face the fact that we might not find Mandy." He set up his meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and gravy on a plate and dumped the salad into a bowl. Lille was trying the less-energy-wasting paper containers for takeout, but they didn't stand up to actually using them to eat out of. So we always transferred the food to real dinnerware.

The seriousness of his words cut into my thoughts. "You don't think she's alive."

The silence at the other end of the table answered my question. He finally looked up and met my gaze. "Mandy's been gone over a week. No one has reached out with any kind of a ransom demand. Unless she left Josh and he didn't get the memo, she'd be back by now. And you know how many people disappear off of the highway. My current working theory is she was picked up as she closed the stand and taken somewhere."

I shook my head. "I don't think she's dead. I just have a feeling."

"Well, I haven't given up hope, yet. But it's close. Josh is going to hate me." Greg pushed his salad around in his bowl. "I hate it when it's so close to someone in town. It makes it personal."

We ate our dinner in silence, and I sent up a prayer of protection for the missing Mandy. Greg was right, if she was gone or dead, Josh wouldn't recover. He had made Mandy his entire life.

As we were cleaning up the kitchen after dinner, Greg asked, "How's your paper going? Are you going to meet your deadline?"

"Yeah, I'll have it done by Monday and will be able to edit it for a few days before I hit Send. But I need to change my meeting with Aunt Jackie. The good news is the beginning is perfect, since I've gone over it so many times. I don't know how Deek does this. I'd go over and over the story until I'd taken out all the fun and questioned myself on everything. I'd still be on my first book." I put the plates in the dishwasher after Greg rinsed them.

"I don't think so. You're a lot like Deek. You like things finished, and then you're ready to move on to the next thing." He glanced around the kitchen. "We're done here. Do you want to go out and sit on the back deck for a while?"

"I'd like that." I watched as Emma stretched and then waited for us at the back door. Greg opened the door and handed me a blanket.

"It's a little chilly tonight."

As we sat down on the swing and watched Emma police the yard, I turned toward him. "You really don't think Mandy's coming back?"

He didn't look at me. Instead, he looked up into the sky. "This one's going to take a miracle."

* * * *

As I walked to the shop on Sunday morning, I spied Bill's church down the side street. I sent up a prayer again for Mandy. If she was going to come home, we needed all the help we could get.

At the shop, the first hour was usually slow, so I pulled out my paper and reread the section I'd worked on yesterday. All I needed to do was write the conclusion and make sure all the footnotes were appropriate and correct. I had the header for the summary but nothing below. I thought I'd proven my points, but I'd need to go through them one by one again.

Writing this paper was a lot like investigating. You thought you were going one way, then you read something or find something that made you question the path you'd been following. I knew that business-focused community development and management could work, in a perfect world. It was when you added the wild card of real people into the mix that the model had issues holding up. But there were some good examples of working models that I could use for the paper.

Mandy had been gone for almost a week and a half as of today. Her family didn't know where she was. At least the cousin I talked to at the farm didn't. But Mandy's uncle had cut short our conversation. Taking over and basically getting me out of there. Was he trying to spare his daughter's feelings about losing Mandy? Or was there something else?

I saved the changes I'd made on my paper and went to scroll through Mandy's Facebook page. I'd found what I was looking for last week. An old picture. The same one that was in the scuba shop. On the post, Mandy had written the following: Blast from the past. I heard from my high school sweetheart today. The only man my family has approved of me dating, before or after. Great time catching up over a long lunch.

I checked the date. Tank had been in town a full week before he'd claimed and Mandy had disappeared. I called Greg and told him what I'd found.

"Hold on a second."

I heard the file cabinets rattling in his office. He typically didn't work on Sunday unless I opened the shop, like today, or he was on an investigation. Today was both. I was working until eleven, when Evie would take over for a few more hours.

I would have to expand Sunday hours during the summer, but for now, we were just here for the stragglers who were in town for the day.

"Tank said he came the weekend you had your girls' thing in the city. Mandy was already missing by then."

"According to this Facebook post, he lied. Another thing, Mandy's uncle was acting weird when I saw him. I thought it was grief, not wanting to talk, but there may be more." I didn't want Greg to harass the family, but maybe they might have information they didn't realize was important.

"It's a stretch, Jill," Greg warned. "But the Facebook post gives me a reason to interview Tank and Mandy's uncle again. So if it was Tank, and Mandy is alive, where would he keep her that she wouldn't be able to talk to Josh?"

"In a mountain cabin with no internet or phone service," I said. I drove past tons of mountains and hills that divided our coastal community from the farmland farther inland. "Maybe she thinks they're going to dinner. Then he presents her with one last getaway before she gets married. But by now, she has to be questioning it."

"And she didn't walk out with Tank being in town for all this time? Don't answer that. I've never hoped one of your crazy ideas was right as much as I do this one. Let me do some research. Maybe his family has property in the mountains." Greg sounded hopeful. And that made me feel the same emotion. Hope. It was a wonderful thing. Especially since last night I'd been sure I'd have to just accept she was gone. "Jill, right now, it is just a crazy idea. Don't get too committed to it."

"So don't get my hopes up?" I laughed. "I think it's way too late for that. I'm going to be bathing you and Mandy in positive thoughts until you break my heart again with reality."

After I hung up, Deek showed up to write. I loved that my staff loved the bookstore enough to be here even when they weren't on shift. I took him a coffee and a cookie as he set up his writing station.

"Thanks. I hope you don't mind, but the muse loves me writing here. I can usually get twice as much done in a day if I spend some focused time here. Diamond Lille's works too, but only if Lille's not there. She doesn't like me tying up a table that long, even when it's quiet." He bit into the cookie. "Sugar rush. Now some caffeine and I'll be ready to write the great American novel. Or something like that."

"You do you." The bell rang, and I saw Evie come inside the front door. "Hey, you're early."

"I know, but I'm finished with classes for the semester and summer hasn't started yet, so I needed some reading material anyway."

Deek laughed as he sipped his coffee. "It's the comfort of having a schedule. When you lose that, it's hard to not just work because you can. Of course, when I started writing, I felt the void. I could write something for class with a deadline, but when I didn't have one, I was afloat in a sea of endless time."

"Well, I don't have endless time, since I'm older," Evie said as she stepped toward the bookshelves. "Give me a few minutes to browse, and I'll be ready to take over the shop. I figured there would be more people popping in from all the traffic outside."

"Sometimes it takes a while. Most people might think we're not open, since we were closed on Sunday for years." I stepped back to the coffee bar and pulled out the morning shift-closing list. "I'll get ready to hand over the reins."

Esmeralda, Amy, and I had brunch plans, but I wanted to outline a timeline of Mandy's disappearance and put Tank's arrival on the line as well. And if the scuba shop was open, I had a few questions to ask Steve about the couple's history. Maybe Tank had come home just in time to save Mandy from marrying Josh. Whether she wanted to be saved or not.