"Tess!" Aunt Ruby came running up to us from her position next to the first float. "Why did you take your head off?"
I snarled at her, too. "Buy these kids funnel cakes. All of them."
And then I turned to the ringleader. "I hope you choke on it."
Rooster ambled up just then. "Tess? That you, girl? You need help?"
"Rooster. Thank goodness! Please help me out of this stupid costume. Aunt Ruby, call 911 and tell them to get somebody out to Mellie's house. She's in danger!"
Between the two of us, Rooster and I ripped that costume off me, and I started running, leaving its shredded remains right there in the street, praying that Jack—that traitor—had already made it to her house.
First, we'd save my friend. Then, we'd catch Vern.
And then it was going to be Revenge of the Swamp Cabbage alloverthis town.
19
By the time I reached my car, I was gasping for air and praying that my out-of-the-way parking spot wasn't blocked in.
"Thank you, thank you, at last something goes right," I chanted frantically while I fired up the car and drove carefully until I was outside of the festival traffic and heading for Mellie's. When I got there and skidded to a stop in front of her house, I was glad to see Vern's car—a gray sedan, perfect for an accountant—wasn't there.
But Jack's truck wasn't there, either. Maybe he'd gotten blocked in? If he was on his way in tiger shape, he'd still be close behind me. Maybe I should wait.
Then I remembered the coughing that I'd heard when I'd dropped off the soup. Mellie could be sick. She was almost certainly in danger. What if Vern got here before Jack?
I jumped out of my car and raced up to her porch and banged on the door, but nobody answered. I realized Mellie was almost certainly too ill or too locked in chains in the attic to come to the door.
I looked under the flower pots on the porch with no luck and then tried the lintel over the door.
Bingo!
I hurriedly unlocked the door, scanning the street for Vern's car or Jack, and then went inside.
"Mellie! Mellie, are you here? It's Tess!"
Silence.
Dread trailed icy fingers down my spine. Maybe I was too late. Maybe she was already dead, or locked up somewhere else, or…
"Stop it," I told myself. "Get looking. She might just be too sick to answer."
I ran into the kitchen, just in case she was chained to the refrigerator or something, but there was nothing unusual except a stack of sturdy logs of palm hearts, cut to the same size as the ones in the basket he'd sent me.
"Mellie!" I ran back into the front room and started for the stairs, only to see the door hanging wide open.
I'd definitely closed it.
"Jack?"
A nasty laugh floated down the stairs toward me. "No, it's not Jack."
Vern. But not Vern as I'd ever seen him. He had an expression of such hostile malice on his face that I barely recognized him. Worse—he was dragging Mellie with him.
And he was holding a knife to her throat.
"Why are you doing this, Vern?" I tried to keep my voice calm and even in spite of how afraid I was for Mellie. She looked so sick and weak, and her wrists were red and bleeding from where he must have had rope or some kind of restraints on her.
Vern looked down at his cousin blankly, almost as if he'd forgotten her. "Oh. She's nothing, Tess. I just used her to get to you."
