Original Secrets: A Whispering Pines Mystery, Book 3 Read online

  ORIGINAL SECRETS

  A Whispering Pines Mystery, Book Three

  Shawn McGuire

  Copyright © 2018 Shawn McGuire

  All rights reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and/or electronic sharing of any part of this book without the written permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. Thank you for supporting the author’s rights.

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  Cover Design by Steven Novak

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  Chapter 1

  Meeka sat and watched me, her head cocked curiously, as I sat on the edge of the pier and placed my feet into the well of the kayak. The last thing I wanted to do was to have to haul myself back out of the boat after managing to get into it, so before making another move, I went through the mental checklist in my head: Dry bag with cargo shorts, T-shirt, and uniform shirt, check. Hiking shoes and socks, check. Keys for the station, check. Notebook and pencil, small flashlight, pepper spray, handcuffs with keys, check. Holster with Glock, check.

  Funny, if someone didn’t know I was the sheriff, they’d wonder what exactly I was planning to do with all that.

  “Okay. I think I’ve got it all,” I told my dog. “If I forgot anything, you get to come back for it.”

  She yawned and turned away, my threats having no impact on her.

  Using my feet, I held the orange and yellow kayak tight against the piling then lowered myself down onto the seat with shaking arms. I really needed to get back to doing the upper body workouts I used to do, pushups and triceps dips in particular. My heart raced, sure the boat would tip as soon as I released my white-knuckled grip on the edge of the pier. This fear was not unfounded; it had happened before. Three times. Today, no problem. I was securely on the seat, my feet resting comfortably on the foot pegs. Cheers went off in my head for the accomplishment. Then I realized I’d forgotten one item not on my sheriff list.

  “Meeka, can you push the paddle over to me?”

  The little West Highland White Terrier looked from my pointing finger to the double-bladed paddle sitting about six inches out of my reach. She snorted, a mocking sound that said she wondered just what she had done to deserve me as her owner. Using her nose, she pushed the paddle one inch, and then another inch, then looked at me and wagged her tail as though expecting a reward.

  “Good, girl. Keep going.” I stretched my arm and wiggled my fingers. “I can’t reach it yet.”

  She repeated the process until I could finally hook my fingertips around the shaft.

  “Success! I knew we could do it. What a team.”

  “Jayne, you could’ve called for help.”

  I spun to look over my right shoulder, causing the kayak to tip precariously to the left. Friend, business partner, and man hoping for more than friendship, Tripp Bennett was standing thirty feet away with his arms crossed over his lean, muscular chest.

  “How long have you been there?” I asked.

  “Here?” He pointed at the ground near his feet. “A few seconds. I did, however, enjoy the entire show from the far side of the boathouse.”

  “You were spying on me?”

  “I wouldn’t call it spying. More like ensuring your safety in case you tipped. Again.”

  “I do have on a life jacket.” I hooked my right thumb into the armhole of my yellow vest.

  “That’s true,” Tripp said. “Then maybe I was spying. Either way, you got into the boat with far fewer gymnastics today. Good job. Anything else you need while I’m here and able to help?

  He was such a brat. “Nope. We’re good to go.”

  “Is this really how you’re planning to get to work today?”

  “We live in northern Wisconsin. We have to take advantage of the warm weather while it’s here. I figure in about six months, I’ll be able to cross-country ski across the bay and through the village to the station.” I reconsidered this. “Maybe snowshoe. I don’t know how to ski cross-country. Or downhill for that matter.”

  He shook his head, amused by my babbling. “You do realize that when you’re able to cross-country ski or snowshoe it will most likely be below zero? A balmy twenty-something if you’re lucky.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “I’ve seen you turn on the deck heater when the temperature drops below seventy at night.”

  He knew me too well. “Shouldn’t you be getting to work?”

  “Yep. The crew will be here any minute. So unless you want to have an even bigger audience . . .”

  I signaled for Meeka to get into the kayak. Cautiously, she stepped her front paws on to my left leg, crossed one and then the other over to my right leg, and then stepped down with her back paws. Once she had settled herself into the well between my legs, Tripp came over and gave us a gentle push away from the pier.

  “Have a good day at work.” He flipped his shoulder-length blonde curls out of his face. “I hope it’s slow and boring.”

  I started paddling and once I had my rhythm down, Meeka stood on her back legs, front paws braced on the side of the kayak, and tried to catch the drops of water that came off the paddle.

  Mornings on the lake were the perfect way to start the day. Sometimes that meant simply standing on the sundeck with a cup of coffee, watching the early-riser fishermen trying to catch their limit before the tourists hit the water with their speedboats, jet skis, and wakeboards. Other times, like today, it meant going for a paddle.

  The thumb of land holding my house, garage, and boathouse jutted out into the lake and formed a circular bay between it and the village. Directly across the bay from my pier, the marina marked the entrance to the village commons from the lake. The three- or four-hundred-yard trip was easy. One I could make in a few minutes, but I wasn’t quite ready to head to work yet. Meeka looked at me, confused, as I headed south instead of east.

  “We have time,” I told her. “Let’s go for a little ride first.”

  She wagged her tail and pranced her paws, happy for this side trip.

  In the distance, one of the half-dozen or so fishermen was just heading in. Normally, the old guy, who reminded me of my grandfather with his white goatee, would have gone in a half hour ago.

  “You’re usually in by now,” I called out to him. “Did you catch anything?”

  “Perfect morning on the water,” he called back. “Hit my limit fifteen minutes ago. Just been sitting out here enjoying the peace.”

  “Good plan. It’s supposed to get humid again today.”

  “No doubt. We just can’t catch a break from it this summer. Have a good day, Sheriff.” He gave me a salute and headed into shore.

  A second or two later, gentle waves from his outboard motor rocked the kayak, exciting Meeka enough that she hung her head over the side of the boat and snapped at the waves. I knew what was coming next.

  “Don’t do it,” I cautioned. “You’re going to smell like wet dog all day.”

  I had no sooner said the words than she dove in and dog-paddled around the kayak in big, lazy circles.

  We went another fifty yards or so away from the village, following the shoreline into a little cove, when I heard
someone calling for help.

  “Where are you?” I shouted while scanning the water’s surface left and right. “I hear you. I can’t see you.”

  “Here!” He made big splashes in the water. “Help me!”

  Meeka swam ahead, looked back, and barked, alerting me to the proper direction.

  “Meeka, come.” I didn’t want her near the struggling man. He’d likely grab onto anything that came close to him, and I didn’t want that something to be my dog.

  She paddled over to me, staying next to the boat on my left. The man splashed and called out again, sounding more frantic. He was struggling in a cluster of water weeds not far from us. I grabbed onto Meeka’s harness, hauled her into the kayak, and set her down in the well between my legs.

  “Meeka, down,” I ordered. She immediately dropped to her belly. “Stay. No moving. The boat might get a little tippy.”

  She froze, as though she were a little Westie statue. Good girl.

  Getting close enough to offer the man comfort, but far enough away that he couldn’t grab the boat, I took off my life jacket. “Can you hear me?”

  “Help me!”

  “I’m going to throw my life jacket to you.”

  “Throw it already.”

  The jacket landed two feet in front of him, too far for him to reach easily, so I got closer and pushed it with the paddle.

  “It’s right in front of you. Reach out. Hug it to your chest and try to catch your breath.”

  His head went underwater before he got a good grip on the jacket, and I was afraid he wasn’t going to come back up. Finally, he wrapped both arms around the life preserver, leaned back in the water, and gasped for breath.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “I’m stuck. My legs are tangled in the weeds. I’m okay right now, but I can’t get out.”

  “I have some rope in the cargo area. I’m going to toss it out to you and tow you out with the kayak. Do you understand me?”

  “I understand.” He sounded much calmer now, nowhere near as panicked, but dangerously tired.

  Using slow, cautious motions, I turned and unhooked the bungee straps keeping the lid on the kayak’s cargo well. There was a small emergency pack in there, one that either Gran or Gramps had added long ago. I retrieved the small skein of paracord from the pack, dropped the little bag back into the cargo area, and reattached the lid. Then, I secured one end of the cord to the handle of the cargo lid and turned back to find that the man had managed to put on the life jacket. He was still breathing hard, but at least he was bobbing in the water now. Good, this just got significantly easier.

  I tossed the free end of the paracord out to the man. “Wrap this around your wrist a couple of times. Make sure you’ve got a good grip so it doesn’t slip out of your hands.”

  Floating on his back, he wrapped the cord around his right wrist two or three times and then around his palm twice more. He clutched the rope tightly in his fist and gave me a thumbs up.

  “Okay,” I said, “now relax and let me do the work. I’m going to start paddling slowly at first. Hopefully that will pull you free from the weeds. Don’t kick your feet, if you feel like the weeds are tightening around your legs, tell me and I’ll paddle harder. Just don’t kick. You’ll only get wrapped up even more. Ready?”

  “Ready.”

  Using firm but slow strokes, I aimed for the middle of the lake. Weeds grew in the shallower spots all around the lake, where the water was warmer. Once we’d gotten out of the cove and away from these weeds, I’d tow him to the marina. Gil, the marina owner, hired a crew to go through the bay every day and clear away the weeds to ensure that they didn’t get wound up in boat propellers.

  After a minute of paddling, the man called out to me that his legs were free.

  “See that pontoon in the distance?” He pointed past me to a spot on the lake near the public swimming area.

  “I see it.”

  “Those are my friends. Would you drag me over to them?”

  Questions immediately filled my head. These people were his friends? Did they know he had swum so far away from them? If they did, were any of them looking for him? If they weren’t, what kind of friends were they?

  It took another two minutes of steady paddling to get to the pontoon. When we were thirty or forty yards away, one of the women on board spotted us.

  “Barry?” she called out. “Oh, thank God.”

  The other eight or ten people on board the pontoon gathered near the woman and looked our direction as well, shouting and waving.

  I came to a stop at the stern and hung onto the pontoon’s swimming platform to help keep the kayak steady. One of the men pulled Barry onto the platform and unwound the paracord from his hand. The exhausted man lay on his back, his chest heaving, his arms limp at his side. I gave him a minute to catch his breath and then called out to him.

  “Barry?”

  He sat up, and I pointed at the life jacket.

  “Oh, yeah, you probably want this back.” He sat with his legs dangling in the water, unzipped the jacket, and handed it to me.

  Feeling instantly better to have the jacket on again, I asked if he was all right.

  “I will be now. I can’t thank you enough. You saved my life. I couldn’t get out of those weeds. The more I struggled, the tighter they wrapped around my legs. If you hadn’t come when you did, I would’ve drowned for sure.”

  A few bits of black slimy-looking weeds stuck to his legs and just that fast, I recalled a vision that Lily Grace, the village’s youngest fortune teller, had a few weeks earlier. She claimed to see “a lady in the water with black stuff on her.” Obviously, Barry wasn’t a lady, but he did have black stuff on him. Lily Grace’s visions were spot on, even if the details weren’t exactly accurate. Perhaps this was the event she had seen.

  “I’m glad I was there for you, Barry. Are you sure you’re okay?”

  He coughed and nodded his head. “Swallowed some water, and I’m a little winded, but I think I’ll be okay.”

  “Whispering Pines has a clinic of sorts,” I told him. “It’s called the healing center. Straight across from the public beach is the library. You’ll find the entrance for the Fairy Path right in front of the building. There are plenty of signs along the path that will lead you to the center.”

  “I’m okay,” Barry repeated. “Thanks, though.”

  I motioned for him to lean closer to me. “You came with these people?”

  “Yeah, we rented two of the cottages for six weeks. Everyone’s been here off and on since the middle of June.” He pointed north across the lake to the area where the guest cottages were scattered throughout the woods. “This is the first weekend we’ve all been here together.”

  “Did they know you went out swimming?” I asked.

  “We’ve been out all night. Partying on the party barge, so to speak. We were getting ready to head in and get some sleep, when Angel decided we should have a swimming contest.”

  “A swimming contest?” After being awake all night and probably still somewhat inebriated?

  “I’m not saying it was a good idea, but that’s what we decided to do. We were to swim to that point, the one just before the cove where you found me, and back to the pontoon. Three of us went out at the same time. I wasn’t paying attention to how far I’d gone.” He gave a sheepish shrug. “I wanted to win and just focused on swimming fast. When I turned to go back, I realized I’d gone too far. That’s when I got tangled up in those weeds.”

  “You’re telling me that three of you went out, two returned, and no one came to look for you?”

  His face paled at that revelation. “I hadn’t been gone that long.” He looked away from me. “I know what you’re thinking, and you’re wrong. They wouldn’t have let anything happen to me.”

  “But they did let something happen to you. You said that if I wouldn’t have been there, you would have drowned.”

  Uncomfortable with my accusation, Barry pulled his legs out of t
he water and prepared to join his friends.

  I held my hand out to him. “I’m Sheriff Jayne O’Shea. I’m glad you’re safe and sound. If there’s anything else I can do for you, come to the station.”

  He hesitated before nodding his agreement and shaking my hand and wholeheartedly thanked me again for saving his life.

  As we paddled toward the marina, I couldn’t help but wonder again if there was some kind of ill will between Barry and his supposed friends. Why the sudden need to race? From where the pontoon was anchored, there was no way they could have seen him in that cove. Had they even tried to look for him?

  As I closed in on the shore, I made a mental note to find out which cottages Barry and his friends were staying in and go check on him before going home tonight. Then I told myself to stop being so suspicious of everyone. Not every accident was an attempted murder.

  Chapter 2

  The Whispering Pines marina had four piers, each with five or six boat slips per side. Larger boats could moor in the bay and one of the marina employees would motor out and bring the passengers ashore. The piers were too tall for someone in a kayak, so I aimed for the small beach area near the cottage that served as the marina’s office. When I was about ten feet from the shore, a tall and lean teenage boy came out to greet me.

  “Good morning, Sheriff.”

  “Good morning, Oren. I swear, that hair of yours gets bigger every time I see you.”

  He laughed and patted the Afro that was easily twice the size of his head. “We’ve been so busy this summer, I haven’t had time to get a haircut. It’s driving Lily Grace crazy. She keeps threatening to bring over a pair of clippers and shave it all off right here on the beach.”

  I frowned and shook my head. “Don’t let her do that. I kind of like the ‘fro.”

  Oren stepped into the water, took hold of the front of my kayak, and pulled us onto the rough sand. As soon as we were on land, Meeka leapt out of the boat and back into the water.