Page 109 of The Murder Club
“Did anyone know where they were?”
“No. I even asked around,” Kari admitted. “You know me, I have to know what’s going on with everyone in town. But no one has heard from them since they left work on Friday.”
“That’s odd.”
“Really odd.” Kari glanced around, making sure no one was close enough to overhear her words. “Lorene is freakishly predictable. She gets to work at the exact same time every morning. She leaves the exact same time every night. And she is always at church on Sunday, sitting in the middle of the third pew with her cross on and her lips pursed in righteous disapproval.”
“Hmm.”
Bailey struggled not to overreact. Okay. The Donaldsons hadn’t missed church in thirty years. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t a legitimate reason for them not to be there. A death in the family. The stomach flu. A broken-down car.
Or they were fleeing town because Logan had stolen from the residents and murdered at least four people . . .
“Crap,” Kari muttered, her gaze locked on the nurses’ station. “I’m getting the stink eye from your replacement. I need to get the residents back to their rooms so we can clear out the guests and set up for dinner.”
Bailey stepped forward, hugging the woman who’d always brightened her day when they worked together.
“Good to see you, Kari.”
“Call me.” The older woman squeezed Bailey tight before stepping back. “We’ll go out and I can live vicariously through your stories of romance with that gorgeous male.”
“You got it.”
Bailey watched Kari disappear among the clusters of people filling the dining room. Then, with a nonchalance she was far from feeling, she strolled toward the back of the building. Thankfully, the staff was too busy with the ice cream social to stop and chat, allowing Bailey to turn into the short hallway without any awkward questions.
Once out of sight, she scurried to the end of the hall. She couldn’t shake the fear that Logan knew they’d discovered his connection to the thefts and had already disappeared.
Grasping the doorhandle of Lorene’s office, she gave it a shove. Locked. Bailey muttered a curse, turning to try Logan’s door. She shook the handle, but it refused to budge.
It wasn’t unusual. The Donaldsons always locked their offices when they left the building. But it did mean that she couldn’t search them. Which was annoying as hell. She had to know if anything was missing. After all, if they intended to sneak out of town, they would surely take their prized possessions, including Lorene’s key to the city, which she’d been given by the previous mayor, and Logan’s expensive golf clubs, which he kept handy so he could sneak away to play on nice days.
Thwarted for the moment, Bailey turned away, heading back down the hallway until she reached her old office. Pulling out her keys, she glanced around before she let herself in.
It wasn’t like she was doing anything wrong, she told herself. She was still employed by the nursing home, and this was still technically her office. Her reassurance didn’t slow her racing pulse, but it did give her the courage to cross the cramped space to the bulletin board on the wall behind her desk. Before everything had been computerized, the board was used to display the weekly work schedules as well as any changes in medication for the residents. Bailey had covered the board with various pictures of the residents as they enjoyed special events. The Easter egg roll, the ragtime sing-along, the children’s reading hour . . . Reaching the board, she grabbed the picture of Nellie that showed her standing next to a large Christmas tree. It was one of the best pictures she had of the older woman, but that wasn’t why she was shoving it into her purse. The picture clearly captured the emerald ring Nellie was wearing as she placed an ornament on the tree. They might need proof that the ring they’d bought from the pawnshop was the same one that had been stolen from Nellie.
With the photo safely tucked away, Bailey quickly left the office and returned to the front lobby. She halted as she realized that most of the crowd was streaming out the door and the aides were assisting the residents back to their rooms. Soon the place would be empty and the staff would start to wonder why she was there. She needed a reason to be hanging around when she obviously wasn’t on duty.
She hesitated before she abruptly turned to the left and headed across the lobby. The one place she could reasonably hang around for an extended length of time was the employee break room, she decided. It would, hopefully, be empty this time of day, plus she could always claim that she was there to clean out her locker. She had a few personal belongings she’d left behind.
Entering yet another hallway, she was debating whether to call Dom and warn him that the Donaldsons were potentially trying to escape when the door next to her swung inward. She moved to the side, not particularly concerned.
It wasn’t until an arm reached out and a hand painfully slammed across her mouth that she realized she was in danger. And then it was too late. Yanked into the large room that was lined with washing machines and heavy-duty dryers, she had a glimpse of the long, stainless-steel tables covered by stacks of folded towels before she was lifted off her feet. The world tilted in a dizzy circle as she was turned upside down and roughly shoved into one of the fifty-five-gallon barrels they used for their laundry detergent.
Stunned by the speed of the unexpected attack, Bailey belatedly cried out for help as her head hit the bottom with a painful thud, but the lid was already being snapped shut. Not that it mattered. The sound of the numerous machines running at the same time was loud enough to drown out any other sound.
No one would hear her scream.
Chapter 23
Bailey tried to brace herself as the barrel was tilted onto a dolly and she was wheeled out of the back of the nursing home. It was a futile effort as they rolled over the rough ground, banging Bailey from side to side while her head was pressed against the bottom at an awkward angle.
She had no idea where she was being taken, but each minute she remained locked in the cramped container, the more difficult it was to breathe. Was she running out of oxygen? Or was it fear making her feel as if she was being smothered?
Swaying and jolting over the rough ground, there was a pause before she was rattled over what she assumed was a doorjamb. Bailey felt a faint stir of hope. They had to be in the abandoned building next to the nursing home, right? They hadn’t gone far enough to reach anywhere else.
Which meant she wouldn’t have to go far for help once she managed to escape.
And she had every intention of escaping.