"That's the key to everything," she had said. The message couldn't have been recorded the day Jane disappeared because she mentioned the vigil on the call. So . . . keys. Jane wanted me to think about keys. I pulled out of the parking area and headed for Surcie Island.

  What kind of keys? Whose keys? Mine? I've had SpongeBob on my key ring for years. Jane went with me to buy a replacement when my keys were stolen.

  What would SpongeBob have to do with any of this? Pineapple? SpongeBob lives in a pineapple. Nah. Starfish? SpongeBob's best friend is a starfish. Nah. Squirrels? One of the characters is a squirrel. Nah. I mentally ticked off places and things in the SpongeBob SquarePants cartoon as I drove.

  My stomach complained that I'd skipped breakfast, and suddenly I realized what Jane would associate with the cartoon.

  Food!

  Jane loves to cook and is always interested in what's being eaten in books and movies. When I read one of those mystery books with recipes in them, Jane has me read the recipes to her. She brailles the ones that sound good so she can try them later. What's the food in Bikini Bottom, where SpongeBob lives? Krabby Patties. They eat Krabby Patties made at the Krusty Krab.

  Bone had said he'd worked construction on a new crab restaurant that hadn't been finished because the owners ran out of money. Jane heard that when he said it. The restaurant was on Flower Island. What were hippies called? Flower children.

  I screeched the fastest, tightest U-ee the Mustang has ever made. Big Boy ducked down and tried to put his head under the glove compartment. I hit 911 on the cell and told the dispatcher to send help to the unopened crab restaurant on Flower Island. Folks who live near the ocean usually know the approximate times of the tides. I knew high tide was approaching even if I didn't know how the tides were involved in Jane being held in a partially constructed crab restaurant.

  The Mustang jerked to a stop in the middle of the unpaved parking lot. I jumped out without unsnapping Big Boy's seat belt. He howled, but I didn't go back for him. I ran to the restaurant door. It wouldn't open.

  "Jane!" I screamed, hoping she'd hear me over Big Boy's howling. Hoping I'd understood the clues right. Hoping she was here and alive.

  I looked through the windows. The place was empty. No people. No furniture. A good place to hide someone. I ran to the back where a patio had been built for outdoor dining. I was looking around for something to crash through the glass of the doors when I glanced at the dock. Someone was there, a woman in jeans. "Jane!" I shrieked over and over while I ran toward her, silently praying, Oh, God, please let her be alive, please let her be safe.

  The woman lay across the dock on her belly with her head and arms over the water. Was it Jane's dead body? As I ran closer, I saw it couldn't be a corpse. The arms were moving. They were pulling on long, red hair that swirled in the water. I'd found Melena. With one hand, she pulled the red hair. With the other, she thrust her open bug jar toward its owner.

  "Breathe it. Breathe it. You won't feel any pain. Just breathe," she shouted. "I don't want death to hurt you. Just breathe the jar."

  When I got closer, I could make out Jane in the water and Melena trying to pull her head up by her hair while yelling for her to breathe from the container. I dashed to Melena and kicked the jar out of her hand. It rolled off the dock into the ocean. Melena ran back toward land. I grabbed Jane's hair. Her head wouldn't come up. I leaned over and saw Jane's face.

  Duct tape. She had duct tape across her eyes and her mouth. Her arms were taped behind her. A rope was wrapped around her neck and tied tightly to the dock support, so her head wouldn't rise any higher than it was. Waves lashed in at the exact level of her face, right where Melena had been trying to put the jar to Jane's nose. I dived into the water beside Jane and tried to untie the noose around her neck.

  Got to get her loose, I thought. Got to get her loose fast or the tide will be over her face. Got to get her loose fast or I'll never get her out in time. I groped for Jane in the water and tried to pull the noose off. Pulling it was like trying to uproot a giant oak tree by hand.

  I swooped underwater and shoved Jane up as high as I could. It wasn't far enough. She gasped air, but jerked right back down under the waves. My shoes and clothing filled with salt water, and I wished I'd kicked my shoes off. No way to do it now. I felt like someone had hit me in the chest with a hammer. I couldn't breathe. My head filled with a loud ringing. I pushed Jane up again, pulling at the rope and tape holding her down. I felt dizzy. I was losing it. My vision darkened at the edges as though I were going blind. Like Jane. Blind like Jane. Underwater. Drowning like Jane.

  She kicked and struggled. Fighting for her life. The sound of my own heartbeat deafened me. Blind and deaf. I couldn't think. We'd both die right here. I couldn't untie the rope.

  Suddenly, my mind flashed on something that seemed irrelevant: the broken string on my banjo. The new D string I'd trimmed with the wire cutters that were now in my pocket.

  Wet, the jeans molded to my legs. I forced my hand into the tight pants pocket and managed to pull out the cutters. I struggled to open them, not knowing if they would cut the rope or not.

  The blades parted, and I wedged one side under the rope. I squeezed as hard as I could. The rope split and the wire cutters fell. I pushed myself up out of the water, pulling Jane with me. I tore the tape from her lips. Her mouth opened and closed, opened and closed, but no sound came out.

  I wrapped my arm around my friend and dragged her to the shore. By the time we were out of the water, I couldn't pull any more and was shoving her limp form onto the beach. I crawled up beside her and panted. I wanted to give her resuscitation, but I couldn't catch my breath. Jane gasped. She clutched her chest, then whimpered. It wasn't a good sound, not a strong sound, but she was alive and breathing.

  We lay on the sand, side by side, desperately sucking in air. I pulled the tape from her eyes. I couldn't understand why anyone would tape over blind eyes, but I didn't like it. I rolled over onto my belly and tried to catch my breath as questions bombarded my mind. I seemed to float in and out of reality.

  Where was Melena? Why hadn't she sedated Jane before trying to drown her? Why hadn't she given Jane the ether before tying her to the dock? Fred and Kenny had been unconscious before they were killed.

  A shadow fell across Jane and me. Fear shocked me into reality. Was it Melena? What would she do now? I tried to get up, but it was all I could do to roll myself over and look up at the figure above me. A khaki uniform. Not Melena. Deputy Jim Smoak with his transmitter to his mouth. I could hear him demanding emergency medical attention now!

  I managed to sit up by the time he reached us. Jane was still stretched out, but she rolled to her side and spit up. Her breathing was better. Not great, but better. Deputy Smoak used his pocketknife to cut the duct tape from her hands and feet.

  Sheriff Harmon and the EMTs arrived simultaneously. I convinced them not to send me to the hospital, but Jane had to go. She had come too close to drowning and her body temperature was below normal. I followed the ambulance to the hospital in Beaufort, oblivious of the soaking wet clothes clinging to my body, hardly noticing Big Boy beside me.

  Jane was back. She needed medical attention, but she was alive. Back and alive.

  Chapter Thirty three -

  Back and alive, but Jane wasn't okay. In addition to the

  aftereffects of almost drowning in cold water, the medical technicians said Jane had suffered a memory loss. They weren't sure how severe it was or how long it might last, but she couldn't remember anything since being in the band bus on Surcie Island before the storm.

  A doctor I didn't know talked to me while I sat on the hard chair in the intensive care waiting room, but he wouldn't let me see Jane. The sheriff came by and took my statement. He returned two hours later while I was still sitting there.

  "We picked up Melena Delgado," Sheriff Harmon said, "driving a rented Mercedes, speeding down I-95 trying to get to Florida."

  "What did she say about Jane?" I asked.

  "Nothing. She's not talking without a lawyer, and she's waiting for her brother to bring one."

  "None of it makes sense," I said. "Why tie Jane to the dock post? All Melena had to do was make her breathe the stuff in the bottle until she was unconscious, then roll her into the ocean to drown."

  "Melena must have been the one who kidnapped Jane," Sheriff Harmon said.

  "She couldn't have. Melena sat by me from the time I walked Jane back to the bus until the storm came up."

  Sheriff Harmon went to the coffee machine and brought back two cups. He remembered that I like sugar and cream, but it wasn't nearly sweet enough. I sipped it anyway.

  "What about Dean Holdback?" The sheriff chugged a big swallow of coffee between words. "He seemed real interested in talking about Jane." He gulped from the cup again. "Could he and Melena Delgado have been in this together?"

  "Anything's possible," I said, "but Dean was onstage right after I walked Jane to the bus and didn't come off until the storm began."

  "My hinky cop feeling makes me like Melena's brother as a suspect. Maybe for both homicides and the kidnapping, but according to our notes, Jones was in front of the stage from the time Broken Fence started playing until Deputy Smoak interviewed him. He couldn't have killed Fred Delgado or put the body in the bass case."

  "That's true. Bone was sitting by Jane and me when Kenny Strickland took his bass out and still there when Little Fiddlin' Fred's body was found. I know he was there because he kept making goo-goo eyes at me. Later that night, Bone was at parking lot picking when I arrived from the Winnebago. He was still there when Jane and Dean found Kenny."

  "Melena was the one with the ether, but she swears she didn't get to the campground until after Broken Fence started playing. I'm hoping we'll get some answers when Jones shows up. Melena used her phone call to leave a message on his cell for him to get her an attorney. She'll probably clam up even more after she lawyers up. Right now, she only says she's been arrested for trying to save Jane from pain. She was sobbing the whole time. That woman's cried more in the past hour than all the days since her husband's death added together."

  "She's probably lied more, too," I said. Couldn't help it. I didn't like Melena Delgado even before I caught her trying to kill my best friend.

  The sheriff patted my leg. Not the thigh, way down toward my blue-jeaned knee.

  "Your clothes are still damp, Callie. Why don't you go home and change, then come back?"

  "I'm not leaving until I see Jane. The doctor told me she's got some kind of amnesia."

  "Yes, but it may be shock. I'm hoping in a day or so she'll be able to tell us what happened."

  "Callie?" I recognized the smooth, mellow voice and looked up. Dr. Don Walters smiled down at me.

  "Sheriff Harmon," the doc said and nodded toward him before looking back at me. "I checked on Jane the minute I arrived." Don knelt down in front of me and looked directly in my eyes. "She's stabilized and resting. I'll take you back for a minute to peek at her if you won't try to wake her or ask any questions." He stood and offered me his hand.

  I walked with Don holding my right hand and the sheriff touching my left elbow as if I were an old lady. We went through a couple of doors, then behind a curtain, where Jane lay on a gurney with blankets pulled up to her neck.

  She looked too much like the way Otis and Odell covered clients with sheets before bringing them to me at work. I blinked my eyes several times to hold back my tears. I didn't know if I'd ever go into my workroom at Middleton's again without seeing Jane in my mind instead of the corpse waiting to be cosmetized.

  I've seen Jane sleep with her eyes open without it freaking me out, but thank heaven her lids were closed. Her hair was spread across the pillow, all tangled and matted, and she had oxygen prongs in her nose. Don noticed me looking at them.

  "She's breathing fine on her own. The oxygen is just to keep her more comfortable right now," he said. He motioned toward the curtain surrounding Jane's cubicle. "You can come in for five minutes every two hours, on the odd hours. Her admitting physician plans to keep her in intensive care until tomorrow, so don't get upset that she's still here when you come back."

  He looked at my well-inflated chest. "Callie, if you're not going home, I'll find a smock or something for you to put over that wet T-shirt."

  Ex-cuuze me. You'd have thought my nippies were showing, but I knew better because my inflatable bra didn't have nippies, and my real ones were about two inches below my underwear.

  "She's going home now--aren't you, Callie?" said Sheriff Harmon.

  "Only if Don promises to call me if there's a change," I answered.

  "I'll call you." A sheepish expression crept across his face. "And yes," he said, "I still have your numbers." Dr. Don Walters and I dated for a while and still went out occasionally, though not nearly as frequently as before.

  I stepped forward and leaned toward Jane.

  "Don't wake her," cautioned Don.

  I kissed my friend lightly on the cheek, turned, and, as they say about Elvis: Callie left the building. Sheriff Harmon walked me to my Mustang.

  "Where's Big Boy?" I panicked. "I left him in the car. He couldn't have gotten out of his seat belt."

  "That was hours ago," the sheriff said. "I called your family to come get him. John and Bill took him to your daddy's house."

  "Thanks," I said, waved good-bye, and drove to that dark Munsters house I grew up in.

  Big Boy bounded out the front door and jumped up with his front paws on my shoulders when Bill answered my knock. Daddy and The Boys crowded around my dog and me, all talking at the same time, telling me how much it upset them for me to be involved in dangerous situations. "Where was your .38, Calamine?" Daddy said.

  "In the drawer of my bedside table," I answered.

  "I think we ought to talk to Wayne about getting Callie a license to carry concealed," Frank said.

  "Wouldn't make much difference. Do you keep it loaded?" Bill said.

  "It's loaded all the time except when I have company with children," I answered. "Then I unload it and put it on the top closet shelf."

  "Let's just get off Callie's back and be glad Jane's all right," John intervened.

  "But she's not," I said. "The doctors say she doesn't have any memory of what happened to her."

  "That could be a blessing," John said. "Wayne told me you found pieces of her sunglasses in the Jones crypt."

  "The last time he talked to me about that, he wasn't positive the pieces came from her glasses."

  "But he also said some long red hairs were mixed in the trash that was swept out."

  "So that's why Sheriff Harmon wanted Jane's hairbrush, to check DNA," I said.

  "Yes, the results aren't in yet, but pink shades and long red hairs in the same place make it look like Jane was locked in that crypt until Melena decided to put Little Fiddlin' Fred's casket in there."

  The thought of Jane being kept in that mausoleum with all those spiderwebs, bugs, and that fifty-year-old corpse made me shiver. Bill gently led me to the couch. Mike brought me a Coke, and Frank came from the kitchen a few minutes later with a sandwich. "Here, you probably haven't eaten anything today," he said.

  I tried, I promise I tried, but I couldn't get the food down. It was egg salad, which happens to be one of my favorites, but I choked on every bite.

  "Why don't you spend a few days here, Calamine?" Daddy asked.

  "Thanks, but I really want to go home and take a bubble bath. Try to sleep a little before I go back to the hospital to see Jane."

  "Stay here and I'll give you the Gibson," Daddy said. That was tempting, but he always let me play it when I wanted to anyway. I shook my head no.

  "You don't need to go to the hospital by yourself," John said.

  At the same time, Daddy was telling Frank, "Go to the drugstore and buy Calamine some of that smelly bubble bath stuff."

  "No, I want to go home," I insisted.

  Big Boy gobbled the egg salad sandwich while Daddy and my brothers all offered their opinions about what I should do. After too much talk, we compromised. Big Boy and I would go to my place, but in an hour, John would come pick me up and drive me back to the hospital.

  Bill insisted on walking me to the car alone. "I need a few minutes by myself with Callie," he said.

  "No need to get all girly with sentiment," Daddy snapped. "Calamine's fine now that her friend's safe. Won't matter if Jane forgot some things. That girl's smart. She can learn 'em over."

  "Sure, Dad," John told him, "but let Bill have his time with Callie. One Parrish man is enough to walk a lady to her car." He closed the door behind Bill and me.

  At the car, Bill fastened Big Boy's seat belt, then came around to my side and checked mine. "Callie, I have something to tell you," he said.

 

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