Stipulations and Complications

by Becki Willis

  “It’s a shame, isn’t it?” he said, his voice calmer now, more philosophical. “Most of the ambitious ones can’t wait to get out of here. Which leaves us with the slackers, the ones who are content to do little or nothing with their lives.” He looked over at her, the moonlight revealing the passionate glow of his eyes. “I’m not one of them, Genny. I have dreams. Ambitions. I want to be more. I just don’t think I have to sell out to do it. I can stay where my roots are, plant new ones. And I can make The Sisters a better place to live.”

  Moved by his enamored speech, Genny began to see him in a new light. He was right, of course: he could still live in The Sisters and be successful. She knew he was highly regarded within the community. His dedication to the fire department was admirable. He ran his own successful welding business, which was a testament to his initiative and drive. Now she discovered he was building his own house, mortgage free. Obviously, the young man was wise beyond his years. He was already making his mark upon the community, and he still had his entire life before him. Genny had no doubt that if anyone could be successful here, it was Cutter Montgomery.

  They made small talk as they drove back into town. When the conversation fell into a comfortable lull, Genny wondered about the lucky girl who would one day share the home with him. Shilo Dawne? More than likely, it would be Callie Beth Irwin. They had dated on-and-off for a while now. Or perhaps it would be someone else, someone he might already be seeing. Shortly after Valentines, there was a rumor he had admitted to being bitten by the love bug, but so far, she had noticed no one new in his life. Not that she knew very much about him. She certainly hadn’t known about his college degrees.

  “Genny?”

  “Yes?”

  “We’re here.”

  Lost in thought, she had not realized they were stopped in front of the café. “So we are.” She laughed at her own wandering thoughts.

  As she groped around to find her purse, inadvertently knocked to the floorboard from the rough road up to his house, Cutter came around to open her door. He put his hand on her back to usher her up the walk.

  “I enjoyed that, Cutter.” Her genuine smile revealed her dimples. “You have a beautiful house. Or least, you will.”

  “You’ll have to keep up with the progress. Come out often and keep me on track.”

  “I might just do that.”

  “I hope so.” They stepped up to the door of the café. Genny tested it and found it locked.

  “Do you have to go back in?” he asked.

  “Yes, I still have a few things to do.”

  “You want me to wait for you?”

  “Thanks, but I’ll be fine. I know you have better things to do on a Saturday night than watch me count down the register.”

  Cutter frowned. “I don’t like the thought of you handling the money so late at night, all alone in there. I don’t mind waiting.”

  “Cutter, I do it all the time. I’ll be fine, really.”

  His reluctance to leave her there alone was obvious.

  “Honestly, Cutter, I’ll be fine.” She gave him a gentle push. “Shoo. Go on. Like you told Benny, the night’s still young.”

  “I don’t late-date,” he told her solemnly.

  “Date?” She laughed, realizing he was teasing. She decided to play along. “Well, then, thank you for my lovely date, kind sir. I had a nice time.”

  He wasn’t laughing. His eyes were thoughtful. “So did I.” He nodded toward the door. “I’ll wait for you to go in. Be sure and lock the door behind you.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said obediently. She twisted the key into the lock, stepped inside, and disengaged the alarm. “See? Perfectly safe.”

  She stood in the door while Cutter backed his way down the sidewalk. “Thanks for going tonight, Genny. And thanks for the input.”

  “My pleasure.”

  He turned to go, then spun back around. “Genny?” he called, just before she shut the door. She looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to go on. “I’m no slacker.”

  His words surprised her. Apparently, she had offended him more than she realized. Though he stood halfway down the walk, she could hear the emotion in his voice. “I have no doubt of that, Cutter,” she said sincerely. “And you’ll make some lucky girl a very good husband, I am certain of that.”

  “I don’t want to marry a girl, Genny. I want to marry a woman.”

  With those strange words, he turned around. Puzzled, Genny watched him go. When he reached his truck door, he stopped to look back at her, still standing there with the door half-ajar.

  “And Genesis?” he called.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m not as young as you think. I turned thirty-one last fall.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Madison began her new job on Monday morning. It did not occur to her to wonder how Brash managed to get her salary approved so quickly. She had no way of knowing he paid it out of his own pocket, just as he had done before. All she knew was that she was bringing in a paycheck, she was helping with her own case, and she could spend more time with the man of her dreams.

  “I hope you know what you have gotten yourself into,” Brash said. He hefted a large cardboard box onto the desk he assigned as her temporary workspace.

  “I don’t suppose there’s a picnic in there.”

  “Nope. Just tax rolls for the years 1945-1950.”

  “You mean they’re on paper?” she cried in dismay. “Not computerized?”

  “We’re working on it. I know we’re back as far as 1972. Not so sure about the other twenty-two years.”

  “Twenty-two?”

  “I’m working with a loose theory that if the person in the basement was murdered, the crime occurred sometime between the mid-40s and early-90s.”

  Madison cast a horrified glance to the box brimming with files. “But-but this is impossible!” Madison sputtered.

  “Nothing’s impossible, sweetheart. All you have to do is start with the computerized records. Search for families who lived in the area in ’72 and remained here in the early ‘90s. Cross-reference that list with paper records prior to ’72. You should be able to narrow it down somewhat.”

  Madison glared at him. “I take back anything pleasant I may have said or thought about you since Saturday night. I hereby change my mind. You, sir, are a slave driver. A monster.”

  Brash chuckled, zeroing in on only one part of her rant. He settled a lean hip on the edge of her desk and leaned in. “So you’ve thought about me since Saturday, huh? That’s good. Because I haven’t been able to get you out of my head.”

  “I thought we were going to keep this thing secret!” she hissed between her teeth.

  “No one’s listening. And no one will see us, when you meet me in the back interrogation room at noon.”

  “Isn’t that the room with a two-way mirror?” she asked sweetly.

  “Don’t worry. We’ll keep the lights off.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

  Madison buried her face in her hands and groaned. “Brash! How am I ever going to go through all these records? And no foolishness. I have to keep my mind on what I’m doing. When am I supposed to look through the journals?”

  “We agreed to a half-day’s pay, remember? You’ll have the afternoons free to read the journals, barring other jobs you have.”

  “Unfortunately, there aren’t many of those.”

  “See? It’s all working out.” He flashed her a killer smile, but she felt oddly immune to his charm. Most of it, anyway.

  “I’ll be back around lunchtime,” he said, moving off her desk with a creak of his knee. “Old football injury,” he explained.

  Feeling spiteful, Madison smiled sweetly. “Or maybe just old.”

  By lunchtime, she had a partial list of names. She swore her eyes were permanently crossed. Brash brought lunch from Genny’s and they ate together in the break room. Fortified by the meal and a fresh cup of coffee, Madison tackled the first of the journals. That, too, was a slow p
rocess.

  By the second day, she had found one journal of interest. With Brash’s blessing, she disguised it with a paper jacket from one of his procedural books and carried it home as homework.

  Work had resumed at the mansion on Monday. Running dreadfully behind schedule, Nick kept crews late in the evening to make up for lost time. Three days of the grueling schedule passed without any sign of ‘ghosts.’

  On the fourth day, Madison awoke to find Granny Bert’s house had been wrapped. It was a common enough prank in small towns everywhere; nothing was safe from the streaming white rolls of toilet paper, particularly trees and yard ornaments. Regarded mainly as a favored Halloween tradition, pranksters could strike at any time.

  While childish, there was a certain edge to the papering of the rambling craftsman house on Sycamore. The porch columns were wrapped in red crepe paper, the color of blood. Along with an excess of paper, white sheets were strung across the porch, tied at the neck to resemble a ghost. And as luck would have it, the cameras on the porch had been disabled, failing to catch the perpetrators of the prank.

  Madison doubted luck was involved, particularly when the news van pulled up at the house at the same time she discovered the morning mess. The reporter confirmed an anonymous tip called in to the station, citing a new development in the case.

  “Mrs. Reynolds, do you have any idea who would have done such a thing, or what their motive might have been?” The reporter thrust the mic into her face as she went to her car.

  “No comment.”

  “Sources tell us you are conducting some sort of search at the mansion, looking for clues to the skeleton’s identity.”

  “No comment.”

  “We understand you’ve been at the police station every day this week, demanding action from the police.”

  “No comment.”

  “What can you tell us about the new investigation the IRS is conducting on your late husband’s failed business?”

  Madison faltered. This was the first she had heard of a new investigation. “No comment,” she said, but her voice was weak.

  “Is it true he embezzled millions of dollars from his clients over the past five years? You were his partner at the investment firm, isn’t that correct?”

  “No comment.”

  “Were you aware of the duplicity? Has the IRS contacted you personally?”

  Madison’s voice gained strength. “No. Comment.” She slid into her car, slammed the door with purpose, and jerked the gearshift into reverse.

  She could smell it before she saw it. Sniffing the foul air inside the car, Madison glanced down at her feet. Had she stepped in dog doo? She looked into her rearview mirror, mindful of the news van parked behind her. When she saw the pile of dead chickens in her backseat, their blood and worse smeared across the leather upholstery, her foot slipped from the brake. In her horror, she jerked the wheel and her moving car rammed into the side of the van.

  Not stopping to put the vehicle into park, Madison jumped from her car, screaming vehemently.

  The news camera was there to catch it all on film.

  ***

  “Can I bring you anything else, sweetie?” Genesis asked in concern.

  “No, I’m fine.”

  “No you’re not,” her best friend challenged. “You are two inches away from having a nervous breakdown.”

  Madison stared up at her bedroom ceiling, willing the tears away. “More like one inch, but who’s counting?”

  “Have you taken anything?”

  “I don’t need drugs, Genesis!” Madison snapped. “I need a lawyer!”

  “Why do you think you need a lawyer?” Genny pushed the covers aside to sit by her friend. The bedroom was one of the few places in the house they could have a private conversation.

  “For starters, Brash is out there right now, arguing with Nick and Amanda about the cameras. He’s threatening to get a court order to take them down. They are making counter-threats, saying to do so would void my contract with them. If my contract is voided, I have to pay for the work already done on the house. Money that I do not have, now nor ever.”

  “Don’t worry, Maddy, they’ll work something out.”

  “I don’t know about that. Nick is livid. His face is all red and mottled. And Brash is so deadly calm and focused that it’s scary. Remind me to never cross that man.” She shivered.

  “As in, not to break his heart?” Genny asked, her eyes alight with mischief. “Come on, Maddy, you’ve hardly told me a thing about you and Brash! Is this any way to treat your best friend? Don’t you know I live vicariously through you? Your love life is my love life.”

  Madison buried her face beneath her pillow. “Just smother me. Go ahead, get me out of my misery. If I have to watch that stupid video of myself one more time, I swear I am going to shoot somebody. Then I truly will need a lawyer!”

  “Come on, it wasn’t so bad. Most of it, anyway. And at least Granny Bert convinced the network to pay for all the damages to both vehicles, in exchange for not charging them with trespassing.”

  “They just wanted rights to the video. So they could play it over. And over. And over, again.”

  “But at least your insurance rates won’t go up. That’s something.”

  “What does it matter?” Madison groaned. “I may be in prison soon. If it’s true about the IRS, they may come after me. Annette and Charles won’t even try to bail me out.”

  “They will if it means saving their precious son’s good name.”

  “How did this happen, Genny? How did all of this go so wrong?”

  There was a knock on the door. “What’s the secret code?” Genny called playfully.

  “Jack Daniels.”

  Genny grinned at her friend. “I love your grandmother.” She hustled off the bed and opened the door for the older woman. She took two of the three glasses from her hands and sniffed appreciatively. “Heavy on the Jack, light on the Coke. Good call. Here, Maddy, drink up.”

  She curled her nose sullenly. “I prefer wine.”

  “This is stronger. Drink,” her grandmother ordered. “It will soothe your nerves.”

  Madison took a tiny sip. It was strong, but the burn going down was oddly comforting. “What’s going on out there? Dare I ask?”

  “Your man is really giving them the what-for. Nick is doing pretty good at holding his own, but the woman has already folded. She keeps staring at Brash with this stricken look upon her face.” Granny reported the scene in the living room with relish, her eyes twinkling. “The show out there is even more entertaining than watching you jump out of your moving car, screaming at the top of your lungs.”

  “You can go now, thank you,” Madison said drolly, taking another sip of her drink.

  “I came to tell you that your cousin Charlotte called. She’ll be happy to represent you, should this thing end up in court.” Granny cocked her head to listen. “Hey, the shouting has stopped.”

  A few minutes later, there was a sharp rap on the door. “It’s me,” Brash said. He didn’t wait for an invitation. He came right in.

  Madison flew off the bed and into his arms. She ignored the look of surprise upon Genny’s face. She also ignored Granny’s face, now split with pride and a smile bright enough to power five light bulbs.

  “It’s about time,” her grandmother crowed. She slapped Genny on the arm. “Did you know about this?”

  “Apparently not everything,” she said under her breath.

  “How you doing, sweetheart?” Brash asked, soothing Madison’s hair as he held her.

  “Humiliated. Horrified. Worried sick.” She pulled away to look up at him. “Brash, I can’t afford to break my contract. The cameras have to stay.”

  “The cameras can come back,” he corrected. “After. After we find out who is doing this.”

  “But—”

  “We’ve already worked it out, sweetheart. We came to a temporary solution.”

  “Don’t you think you should have consulted me
first?” she snapped.

  “Not really. This is police business, not a personal matter.”

  “I think this is where we leave,” Genny said, seeing the standoff about to take place. Brash and Madison were already engaged in a staring contest. “Granny, we should go.”

  “Why? This is just getting interesting.”

  “Granny Bert, I have a favor to ask of you,” Brash said, breaking his gaze with Madison.

  “Anything for a friend of Maddy’s.” She wiggled her eyebrows, putting emphasis on the word friend.

  “I want you and Genny to go out there and stage a conversation. Be talking about the lost journals. Say it was a shame to find out they had been destroyed. Moan about Maddy wasting all that time looking for them, when now we know they were destroyed years ago.”

  “How did it supposedly happen?”

  “You’re creative. Make up something.”

  Granny Bert slapped her hands together and rubbed them in delight. “Finally! Someone who appreciates my unique talents. Come on, Genny, let’s go put on a show. Just follow my lead. And Maddy?”

  “Yes ma’am?”

  “You got a good man there. Don’t mess it up.”

  Brash laughed as the two women hurried out the door. Both were obviously eager to play their part for the cameras. He turned back to Madison. “You heard the woman. We’re supposed to kiss and make up.”

  “That’s not what she said.”

  “Okay, it’s what I’m saying.”

  “Wait a minute,” she said, pressing her hand against his chest. “Why did you put my grandmother up to that?”

  “I think whoever is doing this has access to the cameras and mics here at the house. Before we take them down, I want to feed them some wrong information. Let them think there are no journals. If they believe their secret is safe, maybe I can keep you safe.”

  “I suppose it’s worth a try.”

  “Anything is worth a try. I’d do anything to protect you, Maddy. You know that, don’t you?”

  She nodded, stepping into the comfort of his embrace.

  ***

  A while later, Granny Bert checked back in on them. Brash sat against the bedstead, holding a sleeping Madison in his arms.