by Karen Harper
“I’ll wait inside here,” she told him.
He got out of the new truck in front of the lodge, slammed his door and came around to open hers. He was trying to control his temper and not doing very well. Royce had mentioned something about finding out who had shoved him off the cliff, but by having him stalked?
“Maybe you should blame Orlando,” Char said as she got out into the increasingly heavy snow. “Royce thought he would be in Columbus, picking up the new school van, so maybe he didn’t know—”
“He knew,” Matt insisted, steering her toward the lodge. “I’ve never seen Orlando be anything but a good soldier. Orlando wouldn’t do that on his own. He follows orders from Royce.”
“Matt, look!” she cried as she caught sight of a tan van with Falls County Schools stenciled on the side. “That must be the new van. Wow, that was fast! I’ll just peek inside, then come in. I’ll find your office and wait there.”
“Ask for Jen, my secretary,” he said, and strode up the paved walk. At least someone had put salt down on it, but it would have to be shoveled soon and the plow would be needed from the maintenance garage to keep the streets and driveways clear. Woody would have been on that already. Since Joe Fencer was due for his interview in—he glanced at his watch—twenty minutes, he’d have to have it out with Royce fast. Sure, he’d watched over Matt for years. Royce’s finances had built and backed this community, which supported Matt’s management job. Matt owed him a lot, but putting someone on his tail without asking permission was way over the line.
Jen, who worked for them both when Royce was here, was not at her desk. Matt walked down the hall. He opened his office door, clicked on the light and tossed his jacket and gloves in a chair, then backtracked to the hall with Royce’s office. The door was ajar, and he could hear his voice inside. One thing Royce had never adapted to was speaking quietly when he was talking long-distance, as if he had to shout to be heard. And he had an open-door management policy Matt had emulated.
“Make sure they stay off our backs on that,” Royce was saying. “Of course it’s under control. Yeah, got the adjoining property, that is, across the road. Always onward and upward, you know that.”
Still furious, Matt decided to make his point, make a scene. He knocked once on the door and swept it open. Royce was still talking on the phone. “Wish I could close that road, but that’s going a bit too far.”
“You’ve already gone too far!” Matt said, and stalked into the room.
“Call you back, Myron. Right,” Royce said, and stabbed his finger at the phone. Appearing completely calm, he looked up at Matt. “What are you talking about? And what’s worth interrupting me? I just got word we’re going to have a group of radical greeniacs called Green Tree on our backs, picketing like that ragtag bunch Woody organized. So I may have to stay here for a while long—”
“You forgot to mention you were siccing your bodyguard on me! Anything else I should know?”
“Sit down and calm down. Yes, I asked Orlando to keep an eye on you, especially up on Pinecrest, since you were nearly killed there.”
“Even little kids are told when the babysitter’s coming.”
“And, since you were with Charlene, don’t you want her kept safe, too?”
“You could have asked, Royce.”
“I know what you would have said. ‘Thanks but no thanks.’ I promised your father on his deathbed I would take care of you, and I meant it.”
“That was years ago. Call Orlando off. Thanks for caring, but that’s not the way.”
“Oh, when you see Charlene, tell her the van’s sitting out front.”
“Nice try to remind me how helpful you can be. She saw the van. She’s thrilled. Keep Orlando off her back, too. As a matter of fact, let him just stick to you—and Ginger.”
“You know about that?” Royce asked, steepling his fingers in front of his mouth. “I figured he could use a little R & R. And speaking of leveling with each other, Ginger told Orlando you’re trying to trace an arrow that was shot into Charlene’s door when you were standing there, so don’t you think you should have shared that? You know,” Royce went on, still completely unshaken by Matt’s tirade, “Orlando is totally loyal to me, and I need that—from him, and from you. I can’t apologize for wanting to protect you. I hope you feel the same about me, no matter what happens.”
Matt forced a nod but didn’t trust himself to say anything else. The nod meant to him that he’d said his piece, not that he agreed with everything Royce said anymore. He turned and walked out.
* * *
“Matt, would you quit pacing and sit down,” Char said. “Are you worried about the snow closing the roads?”
They were at the Mannings’ house that evening. He’d brought pizza and beer from the lodge. It was snowing like crazy outside, but he was still revved, still upset.
“I’m still mad Orlando was stalking me—us. At Royce’s royal command, of course.”
“You’ve been walking from window to window. If Orlando’s out there looking in, he’s going to be frozen. Okay, everything’s ready.”
He sat across the table from her in the bright kitchen. She’d laid out dishes and even poured the beer into tall glasses, though he was used to drinking it straight from the bottle. The small table, her so close made everything seem—well, cozy.
“I usually don’t get this way,” he said, “but it’s like a betrayal—not to have Royce consult with me, at least.”
“He went about it the wrong way, but at least he cares. If you’d ever had a father who deserted you—I mean, I know your dad died fairly young—but you’d be grateful. Family and good friends are important.”
“So your advice is to cut him some slack?”
“Yes, but I have to admit when the ones we care for deeply let us down, it’s doubly hard, like breaking something special that’s bound us together. I still can’t believe the terrible choices my cousin Lee made to take his wife and kids to live in that Hear Ye dictatorship. And can I even trust him since he’s under Bright Star’s thumb?”
“If you ever want someone to go back to the cult with you, I’m willing. And I still think we should follow up on Lee’s hint to check out the water below the old cult grounds. The snow and ice will make it hard, though. Maybe tomorrow if the snow lets up. If Lee means it’s being poisoned from fracking runoff, I’d need to have Royce take a look at that before a new antifracking group in town called Green Tree sets up protests.”
“Green Tree? I think Kate said that’s headed up by Grant’s ex-wife out of Cleveland. Her hanging around is all Kate needs about a month before her wedding. But—you don’t think Lee could be baiting a trap to get us there, then someone takes shots at us from that high tree stand you saw? They could claim it was a hunting accident. Maybe Bright Star wants to get rid of me, set me up somehow. There’s a big time-factor, cause-and-effect thing there. Just a few hours after I found that peephole and made a big deal of it, an arrow whacks into my door. Bright Star pretends to be caring and concerned, but he’s dangerous, and his robots will do anything he says.”
“Which is why you have to be careful about trusting Lee or even poor Grace. But they can’t trap us near the creek—unless someone’s camping out there in this blowing snow—because they’d have no idea when we’d show up. We won’t park on the road above, but walk in a different way, be sure we’re not followed. Talking about trust, I swear, if I didn’t know Orlando wasn’t in the area when I got shoved off the road, I’d put him on the person-of-interest list. But I know Royce would never have ordered that. Orlando has never really liked me, especially since I turned down an interest in EEC. I suppose he thinks I was disloyal to Royce.”
“Matt, you’re not eating. How about time-out?” she said. “We both need to relax or we’re going to go off the deep end—well, you know what I mean.”
&nb
sp; “Okay, okay. I just wish we could figure out if someone is out there in the dark watching me—us.”
“Oh, that reminds me. I’d never seen night vision goggles, so I looked up Nemesis, the brand name of the pair Sam had. Would you believe they sell for over a thousand dollars? Where is he getting money like that?”
Matt shrugged. “Wounded veteran pension? Maybe he took them when he left the army.”
“I checked. They don’t use that kind. And the word nemesis—it sounds like a warning.”
“Thanks for checking all that out, but you’re clutching at straws with that guy. Sam’s a sick man.”
“Who seems to have money for something like that when his family’s hurting for groceries and winter coats. Big bucks, as Lee put it, talking about Bright Star in that note. Oh, I know, it doesn’t make sense.”
“It doesn’t, but what does right now? Except us.”
She smiled at that. He sighed. They clinked their glasses together.
“And there are other good things,” she told him, a slice of pizza halfway to her mouth. “You hired Joe Fencer.”
“Right. And he’s out with the guys clearing our roads already.”
“You built a bond with Jemmie and honored your friend Woody’s wishes that his grandson got his coonskin cap. And you got Sam to agree to his son’s schooling.”
He could feel himself start to relax. She had a bit of spinach from the pizza on her front tooth. Despite his distress over Royce and at least one attempt on his life, when she licked the spinach off, he found it incredibly appealing. If it took that little to make him want her, he was in trouble here, too.
“Mmm, good pizza and good to see you smile,” she said. “And I never had a beer called Tuborg.”
“Danish,” he told her and took a piece of the pizza—veggie on her half, pepperoni on his. “Not the brand they imbibe out in Navajo land?”
“Definitely not.”
“The grounds staff is going to get the sleigh out early with this snow. Want to take its maiden voyage with me after we eat? I can have them bring it around.”
“You don’t have a horse or stables on the grounds, do you?”
He shook his head with his mouth full of pizza and took a minute to swallow. “We rent horses from the farm just to the north, but stables are on the drawing board for the very near future. You like to ride?”
“I learned to out West. But like to? It seemed I always got on a horse that had its own idea about everything, always wanted to go its own way.”
“You should have named it Royce. Tell you what. I’ll give the crew a call and see if they can get the sleigh and the horse here tonight.”
“You don’t drive it, do you?”
“No, we pay the farmer’s son, and he doesn’t mind a little canoodling in the backseat, either.”
She burst into laughter. “Canoodling? Where did you hear that?”
“It’s hills talk. A sleigh ride in the snow is very romantic—if you’re with the right person. And I am.”
She actually blushed. Charlene full-steam-ahead-take-charge Lockwood blushed. For him. It was as revealing as if she’d taken off all her clothes.
* * *
Char loved the sleigh. Shiny dark green with fancy runners, it looked old-fashioned, elegant yet sturdy. It had an elevated perch for the driver and seats in the front and back, so it could carry at least eight. The horse was a big Belgian, and the deepening snow let them slide smoothly down the roads and lanes the snowplow hadn’t scraped clean yet. Where the plow had already been, near the lodge and the road around the lake, the farmer’s son, Brady, took them over the grass. The teenage boy was polite and discreet and dressed for the weather in a fur cap with huge earflaps.
They had a blanket over their knees but huddled shoulder to shoulder and thigh to thigh for warmth against the sharp wind. Snow swirled around them in big, lacy flakes, as if they were in a shaken snow globe. And with this man, and the things that had happened near him, her world had been shaken.
“Here with you like this,” she told him as her breath made small, puffy clouds in the cold air between them, “it seems like smooth sledding with everything.”
His arm around her shoulders tightened. “Don’t I wish.”
“I know. Me, too. Just dreaming.”
“Wait a sec,” he said. “If we’re dreaming, let’s make dreams come true.” He kissed her gently, then harder. The mere touch of his lips warmed her more than this blanket could. She tipped her head to open her mouth to his. His warm tongue intruded, tasted her, but she tasted him, too. Pepperoni, the bite of oregano—and the lure of Matt Rowan. Beneath the blanket, his free hand moved to her waist under her short down-filled coat, skimmed lower to caress her hip, then squeeze her thigh as they deepened the kiss, breathing in unison, lost in the swirling wonderland of each other.
“I think,” he said, finally coming up for a breath of air, “we’re canoodling. But I don’t mind missing any of the scenery. Let’s go back and get warm. How about my place? We can build a fire, and I’d rather not do that at the Mannings’.”
“All right,” she whispered, feeling she was ready for the kind of fire he built in her.
“Hey, Brady,” he called. “Drop us at my place on Oak Lane, okay?”
They were swiftly, smoothly turned in the other direction. Matt’s home was up on a slight rise at the end of a cul-de-sac, set in thick but now-leafless trees. The wood-and-stone houses were widely spaced, similar in style, yet distinct. Two houses on the street were already decorated with colorful Christmas lights. Old-fashioned lamps on poles threw small gold pools of light into the snow, and windows with electric candles peered at them through the flakes. They swung around into Matt’s front yard, since the street and driveway had been plowed. No doubt, they did the boss’s place first, she thought.
With all the snow, perhaps she’d have to stay all night. Her stomach did a little flip-flop. Maybe that was exactly what Matt had planned.
Brady stopped the horse and called back to them. “You sure left a bright light on out in back, Mr. Rowan.”
Matt sat up and craned to see where Brady pointed. Through aligned front and back windows in the dark house they could see a big golden glow in the backyard.
“I didn’t,” Matt cried, throwing the blanket off himself and jumping out. “The house—something’s burning!”
Char fumbled for her purse, long lost on the floor of the sleigh, while Matt ran around his house through the snow. She found her phone. She knew dialing 9-1-1 meant the call would go through Gabe’s night receptionist to a volunteer fire department. But as she jumped from the sleigh, her phone fell into the snow.
“I can call, ma’am,” Brady said, jumping down, too. “Dad got me a phone.”
“Yes, good. Thanks!” she cried, even as she dug hers out and ran after Matt. His house was not on fire, thank God, but a large bonfire blazed in the backyard under a picnic table, which was also aflame. The heat had melted a big ring of snow. For one moment, the scene reminded her of the wreck of his burning truck with the fire-blackened grass and leaves.
“I’ve got a fire extinguisher in the house,” Matt shouted. “But it will burn itself out.”
“Brady’s calling 9-1-1.”
“Have him cancel it. Nothing Gabe can do here till morning, so why should we roust him or the volunteer firemen out of warm beds?”
Char only hoped it wasn’t too late to learn who was tormenting Matt and why. She turned back to tell Brady not to bring the volunteers out tonight, but in the flickering light, she saw a piece of paper stuck on the wooden wall of the house by the back door—stuck there with an arrow pierced through it. It bore a crudely sketched skull and crossbones. In bold letters, wavering in the backyard blaze, were the familiar words,
YOUR FIRED!
14
It was too late to stop the Falls County Volunteer Fire Department from arriving and bringing out the neighbors. But, at Matt’s request, Char went inside to call Gabe’s home phone number. He and his deputy, Jace, were both out on calls, but the dispatcher put her through to Gabe. He said not to touch things and he’d be there as soon as he could.
“I’ll have to bag that note,” Gabe told Char as she stood in Matt’s kitchen, watching the firemen put out the last remnants of the blaze. She saw that, besides the picnic table, it had been fed by firewood someone had taken from Matt’s own woodpile out back. “Char, were you at his house when it started?”
“Not exactly. We ate at the Mannings’, then took a sleigh ride. The fire was really going when we got here. Gabe, Royce Flemming’s assistant, Orlando, followed us up on Pinecrest today on Royce’s orders. Matt was mad because he wasn’t asked or told. It’s been quite a day.”
“Don’t lose the note Lee printed for you that you told Tess about. I’ll compare the handwriting and get a specialist, if I have to.”
“Lee wouldn’t do all this—the truck wreck, the arrows.”
“You and Tess have been telling me Bright Star has complete sway over his people. You don’t really know Lee anymore—can’t trust him. That’s what I’ve told Tess.”
“But I think Lee’s note might have been accusing Bright Star of something. Lee had to hide it from the guy next to him, who would probably rat on him. That’s why I’ve got to get to Grace again—to make sure she and the kids are safe.”
“Char, do me—and Tess—a huge favor. Don’t involve her in that. If she finds out you’re heading there again, she’ll insist on going. I’ve got to worry about her pregnancy now, more than Grace’s.”
“Okay. I’m just feeling desperate and so is Matt.”
“At least the two ‘Your Fired’ notes have to be from the same person, but why? When we get the why, we’ll get the who. Take care of yourself. At least the arrow wasn’t aimed at the two of you this time.”