Reg blinked in surprise at this. “Plenty of Christians commune with the dead,” she protested. “Seances and Ouija boards and other methods of communication, they’re just as big with Christians as with pagans and mystics.”
“No,” Bella shook her head emphatically. “No more. I don’t feel right about this.”
There was a loud snap in the trees beside the barn, a brittle branch someone or something had stepped on that sounded like a gunshot in their ears, their nerves stretched taut by Reg’s performance.
Bella grabbed Erin’s arm. They all looked as one in the direction it had come from.
“Who’s there?” Bella demanded. “Who’s back there?”
Chapter Thirteen
T
hey all waited, straining for another sound. Erin thought she could hear the soft rustling of footsteps. The wind was rushing through the leaves and there were birds calling back and forth to one another, all of the little wilderness noises competed with each other so she wasn’t sure what she could hear.
“Is someone there?” Bella demanded again, her voice loud in the stillness.
Erin and Reg looked at each other. The three of them started moving, slowly and as quietly as possible, into the trees that grew right up to the walls of the barn. Erin scanned back and forth, searching for the shape of a person or maybe a deer in the thick growth. The smell of the grasses and weeds they crushed under their feet as they walked was fresh and pungent. Everything seemed peaceful, but Erin’s guts churned, her heart thudded hard and fast, and her muscles were bunched, ready to run.
They didn’t see anyone else. The property was isolated, and Erin couldn’t imagine that anyone was out walking in the woods. It had to be an animal. A random noise. That was all. They stood there, looking around, for a few minutes. Bella was scanning the ground, but apparently didn’t see anything that was worth pointing out to Erin and Reg.
“That was weird,” she said breathlessly.
“You haven’t had that happen before?” Reg asked.
Bella shifted uneasily. “I try to stay away from the barn,” she said. “It always freaks me out. Mom said—” She cut herself off abruptly, frowning.
“Your mom said what?” Erin prompted.
“She’s always told me to stay away from the barn,” Bella said.
Erin was sure that wasn’t what she’d been about to say. “Why?” Had Cindy said that it was dangerous in there with all of the equipment? It wasn’t necessarily a great place for a young child to be hanging around. Or was she the one who had planted the seed in Bella’s mind that it was haunted?
Bella shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said abruptly. “She just told me to stay away from here.” She looked around once more. “This is creeping me out. Let’s go back to the house.”
They made their way back the way they had come through the trees. There was a blur of motion from a tree right beside her, and Bella shrieked and threw her hands up in front of her face to protect herself. It was Erin who recovered first.
“It was just a cat,” she said, looking at the sleek, silver gray form that had stopped at the edge of the clearing and was looking back at them, clearly as spooked by them as they were by it.
“Oh!” Bella let out a whoosh of breath. “Thank goodness! I though the ghost was going to get me for sure!”
“Here, puss!” Erin called softly. She made kissing noises, trying to call it over like she did with Orange Blossom. “Come here. Come see us.”
“We have a lot of feral cats around here. They aren’t tame,” Bella explained. “There are one or two of the mommas that will come up to you, but not that one. I’ve seen it around once or twice. It’s pretty wild.”
Erin made a few more noises. The cat watched her, then eventually slunk away, disappearing into the trees.
Cindy was expecting Davis to be by today to help with the farm and called me to find out if I had seen or heard from him. If the boy wants to hold down a job, he needs to be more reliable! There are too many days that he sleeps in or “isn’t feeling well enough to work.” I hate to unjustly accuse him of doing drugs, but I’m afraid that may be the case.
But today it was not his fault. This time it was Trenton. He had a serious allergic reaction and Davis drove him at breakneck speeds—without a license, I might add—to the city hospital to get him emergency treatment. The doctors said that Trenton was lucky to make it in time; he might easily have died on the way. Apparently, he is allergic to soybeans. He’s lucky he had his brother to look out for him.
Curled up in the living room with the two animals for company, Erin read and re-read the journal entry. There was the proof in black and white that Davis knew about his brother’s allergy to soy. It might not be proof that he and Joelle had conspired to murder Trenton, but it was close. It would shore up the case being developed against Davis. Throughout the journal, there were a number of underlines and annotations that Erin had come to believe Joelle had made while the journal had been in her possession. She had marked little bits of knowledge and gossip that she planned to use in her blackmail campaign. There was a margin bracket marking the passage about Trenton’s allergy attack, with a little smiley face beside it. Erin felt a rush of anger at Joelle over her callousness. A smile for the fact that Trenton had had a life-threatening allergy that she had used to kill him? Even if it could be argued that Joelle hadn’t intentionally killed Trenton, the smile removed any doubt that she had been happy about the result. The woman really was cold-blooded.
“I have to say I’m not unhappy that you are gone,” she told Joelle aloud.
Orange Blossom and Marshmallow both looked up at the sound of her voice.
“Not one bit,” Erin reiterated, shaking a scolding finger at the absent party to emphasize her point. The animals looked at her for a moment longer, then went back to napping.
There was the sound of a door slamming behind the house, and Erin looked up, frowning. In a few moments, there was a soft knock at the back door.
“Come on in,” Erin called.
She was a little surprised when Willie poked his head in the back door. She’d been expecting Vic, though Vic would not have knocked.
“It’s me. Are you decent?”
“As decent as I’m going to get. Come in.”
Willie slunk into the kitchen, closing the door behind him. He looked at the burglar alarm panel. “You should have this armed. What’s the point of having a burglar alarm if you don’t use it?”
“I’ll arm it before I go to bed and when I go to the bakery in the morning. Just like always. It didn’t exactly stop my last burglar.”
“No… I suppose that’s true.”
Willie stomped into the living room and slumped into one of the easy chairs. Erin didn’t say anything about Willie’s apparently grimy face and hands and whether he was going to get her furniture dirty. She knew from experience that his skin was stained dark from the mining and refining work that he did. It wasn’t going to wash out, it was like a permanent tattoo.
“What is it about women?” Willie demanded.
“I don’t know. What happened?”
“Why can’t a woman just accept it when her partner tries to do something nice? Why do they have to suspect your motives and argue about it and act like you’re just doing something to irritate them? It doesn’t make any sense!”
Erin closed the journal and put it to the side. Orange Blossom yawned, stretched, and curled up the opposite direction. “What did Vic say?”
“I’m doing this for her! I want her to have a good, stable life. I want her to be happy. I want her to know she can rely on me. Why can’t she just accept that? Why is she fighting me?”
“About what?”
Willie snorted and lapsed into silence, folding his arms across his chest. Erin waited.
“I don’t know what you two are actually arguing about, unless you tell me.”
“I’m sure she’s talked to you about it already.”
Erin th
ought back over what Willie had said and anything Vic might have said that was related the last couple of weeks.
“Oh. About you getting a regular job.”
Willie nodded. “It’s not like I’m not bringing in good money right now, but it ebbs and flows, and I can never predict how much I’m going to have in any particular month. Women want stability. A predictable flow so that they can save and plan household expenses. No one wants to be left not knowing whether there’s going to be five dollars or five thousand dollars coming in during a given month. A salaried job gives you that. A regular, predictable income.”
“Until it doesn’t,” Erin pointed out. “You get downsized or get fired or quit. Or a huge expense comes up that you weren’t planning on and you have to figure out how to pay for it.”
“Obviously that stuff can still happen.” Willie flapped his hand to wave it all away. “But at least with a regular, salaried position, you have some expectations.”
Erin let a few breaths pass in silence. “But that’s not what Vic wants.”
“It’s so maddening!” Willie huffed. “I go to all of this work to try to change my lifestyle to something more suited to a long-term relationship and shared household, and she doesn’t appreciate it at all! In fact, you’d think I had offended her by suggesting she deserves a partner who can provide a steady income!”
“Maybe she didn’t want anything to change. Maybe she doesn’t actually mind the way you work at several different projects at once.”
Willie stared at Erin. “I should have known you’d automatically be on her side. Vic deserves to have someone who can take care of her properly.”
“Maybe she doesn’t want to be taken care of. She does already have her own job and her own place. She’s not looking for someone to come rescue her. She’s looking for someone to spend time with her and cherish her.”
“That’s what having a proper job would do. I wouldn’t have to go away to deal with out-of-town projects. I wouldn’t be off at the mines by myself, with her wondering if I was safe. I’d be there for her.”
Erin raised her brows and shifted her position, bothering Orange Blossom. “You wouldn’t even continue your mining on the side? You’d close the mines? Sell your claims?”
He spread his hands apart in a dramatic shrug, like that should have been obvious. “She wouldn’t have to worry anymore. I’d be working a safe office job, home with her during the evenings and weekends. Isn’t that what she wants?”
“I don’t know. What did she say to you?”
“She said she liked me just the way I am.”
Erin laughed at how exasperated he sounded. “Well, maybe she does!”
“But that’s stupid! There are already enough differences between us without her having to worry about where I am, if I’m safe, and how much money I’ll bring home. She should be happy that I’m willing to change for her.”
“Would you want her to change the kind of person she is? Maybe you’d like her to be the kind of person who shrieks at spiders and needs a big strong man to protect her from all of life’s disappointments and inequalities. Maybe you’d like her to be home all day instead of working, just waiting for you to finish your new office job and make her feel fulfilled.”
Willie opened his mouth to snap back at her. He closed his mouth and scowled.
“Don’t you want her to be a fragile little homemaker?” Erin persisted. “That’s what all men want isn’t it? Someone to protect?”
“I’d never want Vic to turn into something like that. I’d never want her to think that she has to pretend to be something else just to make me happy.”
“Maybe that’s not what she wants from you either.”
“But I’m not talking about… I mean, she shouldn’t have to…” Willie blew out his breath. He sat there for a few moments, stewing and occasionally sputtering out a few words of protest.
“Is that what I’m doing?” he demanded finally.
Erin shrugged. “I don’t know. Is it?”
“Well… I didn’t know I was.”
She laughed.
Willie swore and pushed himself up out of his chair. “Don’t ask me why I should apologize for trying to be nice and be a good provider,” he growled.
He marched back out of the house. Erin saw his silhouette cross the yard to the garage and climb the stairs. She couldn’t hear his knock, but saw the sliver of light as the door opened and stayed open just an inch or two while Willie talked to Vic, before she finally opened it the rest of the way and let him in.
Vic was in a better mood the next morning than she had been for several days. Erin eyed her as they mixed and poured batters, getting ready for the day ahead.
“I gather you and Willie came to an understanding?”
Vic laughed. “I thought he was gone for good last night. I mean, not forever, but for the night. I never expected him to come back telling me that he’d been wrong and maybe he should have asked me what I wanted before he decided to go and make a big life change like that.” Vic shook her head. “Nothing like an abject apology to improve a relationship!”
“You guys have certainly had your ups and downs. I’m glad Willie decided he could see your point of view. That’s the first step!”
“I could see his point of view all along. It’s just that it was wrong.”
Erin laughed and started spooning out dollops of filling into tart shells from the freezer. “In your humble opinion.”
“It’s my opinion, all right. Humble it is not.”
“I gather.”
“Thanks for talking to him. It was good for him to have someone else to talk to about it. He doesn’t really have a lot of friends around here, and I don’t know what any of his guy friends would have told him. He needed to hear a woman’s perspective.”
“Glad to help. Do you want to return the favor and do something for me?”
“Sure,” Vic agreed, without waiting to hear what it was.
“You could really get yourself into trouble, agreeing without knowing what it is first!”
Vic shrugged. She wiped a smear of flour off her chin with the back of her wrist. “It’s not like you’re going to ask me to murder my grandmother. It’s probably not even anything very big. I know you.”
“I need someone to go with me when I go out to the Prost farm again to interview Cindy. I don’t want to do it alone.”
“Why don’t you take Terry with you? He wouldn’t let anything happen to you.”
“Terry and I… don’t exactly see eye to eye on this. I haven’t told him I’m going out there, and I don’t think he’d be too happy if he knew.”
Vic tsked, shaking her head. “Here you are, fixing my relationship, and running yours into the crapper. I think sooner or later Officer Terry Piper is going to have to realize that you’ve got a mind of your own and he isn’t going to be able to stop you from looking into every crime that happens in your area code.”
“It’s not that bad. And I’m not going to keep looking into other crimes, this is just… once. For a friend.”
“Mm-hmm.” Vic did not sound convinced.
“So will you?”
Vic gave her batter a stir. “Come out with you? Sure. I’ll tag along.”
“Good! I appreciate it. And if Terry knew, he’d be happy you were coming with me too.”
“Do I need to bring my gun? Keep an eye out for any dangerous varmints?”
“I don’t think so! There were a lot of birds in the barn and a cat scared the heck out of Bella, but we’re mostly going to be indoors talking to Cindy, if she’ll let us in. I’d like to look around the property, but I don’t know if she’ll permit that.”
“Just tell me the time and place, and I’ll be there.”
Erin stopped by the police department after work, not knowing when the next time was that she’d be able to see Terry. It was late enough that Clara Jones was gone for the day, but Melissa was there filing.
“Hi, Melissa. Is Terry in?”
“No, I wanted to show him something. Police business.”
“Oh.” Melissa raised her brows curiously. “Really. Well, let me page him for you.”
“I could just call his cell,” Erin suggested.
“If it’s police business, then I should page him. I don’t get to do it very often! It always makes me feel… official!” Melissa gave Erin a wide smile and tossed her wildly curly hair.
“Oh, well… okay…”
Erin waited while Melissa sent the page from one of the computers. Melissa pressed the last key with a flourish.
“Like I said, he isn’t far, so it shouldn’t be very long.”
Erin waited a little awkwardly. She hadn’t thought about the possibility of Melissa being there; if she’d known, she would have picked a different day or time. But there wasn’t much she could do about it. She was there, she couldn’t exactly duck out and say she’d come back another time.
“So… you and Charley seem to have become fast friends,” Erin commented, looking for a safe topic. “That’s kind of cool.”
Melissa’s smile faltered. “I thought so at first,” she said tentatively.
“Oh… things didn’t turn out so well…?” Erin immediately felt guilty. She didn’t have any control or influence over Charley, but she still felt responsible for Charley being in Bald Eagle Falls to begin with. If Charley had done something to hurt Melissa…
“She seemed like a lot of fun. I don’t have a lot of close friends, even though I’ve always lived here. I thought… it was kind of like being in the popular clique at school all of a sudden. I should have known it would turn out to be a joke.”
“She didn’t… a joke? I’m really sorry, Melissa…”
Coup de Glace Page 9