by Kate Morris
“Where are we going?” she asks and takes over by pulling the cinch tight.
Today, Simon tacked up her horse with a western saddle. She doesn’t need to be in trouble on an English one. She’s the best rider on the farm outside of Reagan, but the Western saddle is a better fit if they get into trouble out there. The English ones are more comfortable, according to Sam, but at least the Western ones have a big horn she can grab onto if she would lose balance.
“Wide perimeter this time,” he tells her. “It’ll take a while.”
“Oh, I wondered why Hannah packed us water and snacks,” she says and hooks her small, insulated bag to the saddle ring and hands him one for his.
When he turns back, she has already mounted and is waiting for him. Then they move out, Cory’s dog following closely. The sun hasn’t been around for days. It’s as if it, too, has felt the full weight of this dark, ominous cloud covering their farm and touching their lives right now.
As they plod through the woods, carefully searching trees for markings, the ground, and their surroundings, Sam puts forth a question for him, “How did you figure all that out about Parker?”
He shrugs, finding it difficult to answer, “Not sure. It was just a series of hunches and instincts that have been bothering me for the past few months.”
Sam snorts, “I mean, it wasn’t that big of a stretch. Parker’s a freak. But that was a lot to piece together.”
“True, but I never got the impression of pure evil from him. And that’s what he has to be in order for this to all be true. It’s hard to swallow. Even for me, and I’m the one with all the theories and ideas about him.”
“I don’t think they’re theories, Simon,” she corrects and veers her horse closer as if she’s nervous to be out here. “He is strange, but I think there is something dark within him. Maybe some people are just born that way. Maybe something happens to them when they are young that turns them this way. I mean, we’d know, right?”
Simon knows she is referring to the group with his aunt and the torment they were served by them on a daily basis. It causes him to scowl. “Right.”
“When I saw him that night in Grandpa’s office, it freaked me out. He was weird. Well, weirder than normal. He acted like I’d just caught him doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing, but then Grandpa said that he was allowed to be in there. It was spooky. I kept thinking if he was able to come into the house in the middle of the night undetected like that to use the radio, then he could come in and do other things if he wanted to. And so could other people.”
This sends a shiver of surprise up his spine that slowly turns to budding dread of apprehension. She’s right. Parker just let himself in and went into Doc’s office. He could’ve gone upstairs and raped Sam. Or his sister, who he obviously lusts after. Or killed some of the men who were sleeping. Or set the house on fire. He might move into the house instead of remaining in his cabin until this is all over. The man knows his way around their farm all too well, and he could and probably has shared that information with others. Simon’s not sure who, but he has to have people around him that he trusts and has told about the McClane farm or their neighbors’ properties.
“What are you thinking about for so long?” Sam asks him, pulling her horse to a halt.
Simon also stops and answers, “I’m going to move back into the big house until this all blows over.”
“Why?”
“I’d feel better if I was there watching over…the house,” he lies and gets a sassy tilt of her head in answer as if she finds his reason unbelievable, which it is.
“I don’t need you to watch over me, Simon,” she says. “Besides, Parker has the hots for Paige, not me.”
“He won’t get past Cory or I’d be moving in with them,” he tells her honestly. “First he’d have to get past Damn Dog.”
“Shadow,” she corrects the dog’s real name with a grin.
“Right,” he smiles. “But you’re more vulnerable. You’re upstairs in that bedroom by yourself now.”
“I sleep with a pistol and a knife. I think I’ve got it under control. And besides, you aren’t moving into my room.”
He pauses, considers this, and has to adjust his seat in the saddle at the thought of being in the same room with her as she slept.
“No,” she repeats adamantly and wags her small index finger at him.
Simon chuckles, “I meant the basement, not your room.”
She stares at him keenly as if she’s not sure she believes him. Then she says, “I was kind of hoping you were going to say that Angelica was Dr. Eliza Avery.”
Sam says this very quietly and then risks a peek at him. Why does she always use her first and last name and title? She also always looks like she just tasted something sour when she has to say it.
“Dr. Avery? Why would she be Angelica? We’ve worked with her for quite some time in town with the sick children,” he explains with solid reasoning. “I would certainly hope I’d notice if she were some sort of evil villainess since I’ve been working next to her for so long. I know I’m not always the most astute person, not when it comes to you especially, but I’m not a total idiot.”
“Not most of the time,” she comments haughtily.
“Why would you hope it was Eliza?”
“Oh, Eliza, huh?” she asks as if she is trying to convey something he doesn’t even understand in the first place.
Simon shakes his head. Then it hits him. Maybe Cory was right when he suggested something to him the other day. “Are you…are you jealous of Eliza, Sam?”
She blows hard through her nose. Then does it again through her open mouth with a bunch of sounds that seem as overexaggerated as the huffing and puffing. “As if I’d be jealous of her! Get real, Simon.”
“Oh,” he says but eyes her with suspicion.
She chuffs with the same sense of drama. “Hey, maybe she’s still involved. Ever think of that, Mr. Super Smarts? Maybe she’s the real mastermind.”
Simon considers this quickly so that he can keep up. Nothing adds up in his mind, though. It makes zero sense, and he cannot tie her to any of it. He shakes his head.
“Maybe it wasn’t Parker. Maybe Dr. Eliza Avery is the real problem here. She could be hiding stuff and just fooling you because you’ve become infatuated with her. Ever think of that?”
Simon frowns hard. “Infatuated? No, I’m not infatuated with Eliza. My infatuation lies elsewhere. She’s just a colleague.”
“Whatever you say,” she says, pouting and turning away.
If he was a smarter man, wiser about women, someone probably like Cory or John or Kelly or Derek or even Herb or most men, he’d try to use this against her. Unfortunately, he’s just a dork without much to no experience with women other than Sam, and he never seems to get anything right where she’s concerned.
She trots her horse ahead and glares every once in a while over her shoulder at him. It doesn’t matter. She still looks like a character from a Disney princess movie. He just sends her a smile or a wave. Like a dork.
They don’t find any other markings or signs that people have been on the property or even close to it, minus the dead woman’s location, which he skirts wide and clear so as not to upset Sam. Isabella is now buried on the hill next to Cory’s sister and Grams. Herb said it was only right to afford her a proper burial.
By the time they have made their full circuit, it begins sprinkling. They end up trotting the last mile towards home from the Johnson’s, using the actual gravel road that has become a mostly overgrown path since they have had it blocked off for so many years. The oil well right of way, the same one they use to enter and exit the farm with vehicles is normally the way they take to visit their neighbors, too. Today, though, Simon understands they need to cover as much territory as possible. There are ATV tracks on the road, but he knows they are from Wayne Reynolds the other day likely confronting Parker, also on an ATV. It makes him wonder how many times Parker has been on their property or
close to it or their town or Dave’s without any of them even knowing it. He slinks around like a snake.
“I wish this would just all be over,” she complains as they slow to a walk going down the steep McClane driveway.
“I know,” he concurs.
Then she hits him with, “I just want to go home.”
“You are home,” he comments, earning a sidelong glance of irritation from Sam. “Right. You meant Dave’s compound.”
“Yes, my home,” she retorts angrily.
“This was your home once,” he says, nudging his gelding closer to her mare. “It could be again.”
“No, my uncle is there. I want to be with him.”
The subject gets dropped unfortunately because Huntley races towards them on his paint horse, bareback of course.
“The family’s back,” he calls out before reining his horse to a sliding stop. “Derek’s sending people out.”
“Oh, good,” Simon replies. “We’ll be right in.”
“Race ya’!” Huntley says to Sam, who is immediately enticed. They take off leaving Simon in the dust. His horse responds as he knew it would by picking up the pace. It also recognizes that the barn is close and this means so is the end of the ride. He pulls back slightly, giving the horse its head just enough to canter but no more.
When he arrives at the barn, Sam is already inside removing her horse’s tack. Simon hooks his gelding to a single tie attached to a thick beam and also removes his saddle.
“I’ll turn them out, Sam,” he says to her.
“’Kay, I’ll store the tack,” she answers, obviously in a better mood after the race than when he was questioning where her home should be.
After he has sent the horses galloping away in the paddock to join their friends, he returns to the barn where he hefts his western saddle and carries it to the tack room.
“Hey, I said I’d do that,” she states, coming toward him.
“I know. I just finished before you,” he says and hands her the bridle. “There. You can carry that.”
“Gee, really heavy,” she jokes with a chuckle.
“That’s ok. You don’t need to do the heavy lifting, literally,” he quips.
“Yeah, seems like if you keep working out with Cory, you aren’t going to fit into your clothing anymore,” she comments as he places the saddle on its rack.
There is something in this comment that catches his attention, so he turns toward her with one arm still resting on the horn of the saddle at shoulder level. “You’ve been noticing, huh?”
“What?” she blurts with transparent embarrassment and turns away quickly to hang the bridle.
She puts it in the wrong place, which is entirely unlike Sam. She and Reagan laid out the tack room precisely the way they wanted it and expected everyone else in the family who rides to keep it that way. Neat and organized. Reagan is somewhat of a slob, so he figures that it mostly came from Sam’s penchant for organization and tidiness. Simon walks casually over and hangs her bridle where it should’ve gone but keeps his hand resting on the high hook. It just feels better to stretch out his shoulder muscle a bit. He and Cory got into a competition yesterday doing push-ups, and for the first time, he beat his friend. Now he’s paying the price.
“You’ve noticed I’ve been adding bulk?” he presses, wanting her to admit it. Paige has, too. She commented last month that if he kept it up, he was going to get as big as Cory. Sam has never seemed like the kind of girl who was attracted to muscles, but perhaps she is. If so, he’ll get as big as Kelly if it means catching her attention. He wonders if he could get his hands on some steroids.
“Sure. Yeah. Whatever. I mean, it’s totally impractical to build up so much muscle, though,” she replies with hostility.
“Why would that be?” Simon asks, genuinely confused.
“’Cuz, your clothes won’t fit. It’s not like we’re going to knit you sweaters to wear.”
“I’d wear one if you knitted it,” he reveals with a grin.
She pokes her chin in the air and says, “Then I’ll knit you one in pink with fluffy kittens on it.”
Simon smirks and chuckles. “I’d still wear it.”
She gives a funny sound, almost as if she is trying to growl at him but it mostly comes off as adorable, as usual. He taps his forefinger to the tip of her nose, getting a deep scowl. However, along the edges of that pursed mouth is just the barest hint of a grin trying to peek out at him. Simon can’t help it. He cups the side of her soft face briefly.
“We’d better get in there. The family’s waiting,” he remarks, snapping her out of her self-appointed staring contest.
She says nothing but turns in what Simon can only describe as a huff of impatience and struts ahead of him, every step an attempt to put distance between them. It doesn’t work. His stride is too long to be left behind.
Once they are gathered in the office with the others, Derek starts their meeting. “We’ve been working on this while you were riding and while you guys were in town,” he says to Reagan, Cory and his brother.
“What is that?” Reagan asks, stepping closer.
“One of the maps Simon brought back that he found in Parker’s office,” Derek explains. “We think the places he has marked aren’t something significant to us. But they were to him, though. He circled areas in red marker. We think this could be a clue. Remember before we thought he was marking highwaymen camps or trying to put markers on us? Well, what if he wasn’t? What if he was marking his own secret camps?”
“Shit,” Reagan says. “We missed that.”
Simon feels the same way. There are six red circled spaces on the hand-drawn maps of western Tennessee.
“This could be bad,” Sue remarks worriedly.
Cory snorts, “Yeah, for him. If that’s what these places are, he’s in trouble.”
“Think that’s why he fled? Or where he fled?” John asks the rest of them.
Simon answers, “I would think so. He realized I found the red files, or that one of us did, and he knew we’d figure out the racetrack. He was already acting strangely lately.”
“There’s an understatement,” Cory states with a laugh and is joined by others.
“Right, but he was disappearing a lot more than normal,” Simon tells them. “Even up at the base. He would go away for a few days at a time before he came back. Dr. Avery even noticed it. She confirmed it that Parker was leaving a lot and that he was staying away longer than usual. She said that a lot of the people who were on the supply run teams were even commenting about how much he was leaving the base lately.”
“He was either moving these groups, if that’s what these marks represent, or he was getting a stockpile set up somewhere for himself,” Reagan says.
“Probably the latter,” Simon comments. “He’s not the kind of person who would worry too much about people who were following him. He only looks out for himself. We’ve seen that time and again.”
“I would agree with that assessment,” Herb says and offers Simon a smile, which he returns.
“Simon, Sam, we’re sending you two this way tonight,” Derek says, pointing with a pen at the red circle on the map just west of Clarksville.
“Yes, sir,” Simon answers quickly and firmly and then looks over just in time to catch Sam frowning before she tries to disguise it.
“John and Kelly will take this one,” he adds, indicating the one just southeast of Nashville. They agree to the plan. “Dave’s going to meet you in town,” he continues. “I’ve drawn copies of the maps and the landmarks he’s sketched. I’ve tried to make them as clear as possible. John, you’ll get this copy to Dave and one to K-Dog so they and their men can check out a few of the other circled areas.”
“What about me?” Cory asks.
Derek shakes his head, “Sorry, man. I need you here unless Kelly wants to swap out.”
“Can we? I’d like to go,” Cory requests.
His brother only smirks. “Sure, bro. I’ll switch with yo
u.”
Hannah says, “Good. You need a night off.”
Kelly just chuckles and tugs her close by slipping an arm around her slender waist. Hannah thinks her husband is going to spend the night relaxing with her. Simon’s done this, though. It’s not at all relaxing staying behind on guard with very minimal backup on the farm. There will be no downtime for Kelly tonight, not with the responsibility of the farm’s safety resting on just his and Derek’s shoulders alone.
Derek reviews the plans, gives everyone a notebook to make their observations on, and calls an end to the meeting. Then they have dinner, which is an unusually quiet affair. After the meal has wrapped up, they prepare for the night ahead of them.
Chapter Sixteen
Cory
They take the truck that runs on natural gas because they have the farthest to go tonight. After dark, he and John leave the farm. He insisted that Paige stay in the big house with Tess tonight until he comes back. He doesn’t want her out in the woods alone while he’s gone so far away and some of the others are, as well. It makes him uneasy just being away from her, especially with the farm’s security at risk.
“Think your brother’s right?” he asks as John drives them.
He nods and answers, “Yeah, he usually is on this sort of stuff. It’s why he used to make the big bucks.”
Of course, John is joking, and they both chuckle.
“I hope you’re right,” Cory says. “I’m about sick of this shit.”
“Agreed,” John says, staring out the windshield. “The sooner this ends, the better.”
“No doubt,” Cory agrees. “I can’t believe Parker is telling people that he’s the President.”
“It’s more unbelievable that people are actually buying his line of crap.”
Cory snorts. “I don’t know, though. He’s kind of like the car dealer if you think about it.”
“Yeah, I guess he is.”
“He’s a weasel. He’s got a God complex. He thinks people were put on this earth to serve him alone.”
John thinks about this a moment before saying, “I think the senator must’ve been just like him.”