“It has been a wonderful time, hasn’t it?” Rafael said, reaching across the console for Victoria’s hand. “I hate for it to end, too. But this won’t be our only trip, honey. We haven’t been everywhere yet. And there are some places I’d like to go a second time. Some of the states we just barely were over the state line, and didn’t get to see much. So we’ll do this again. I promise.”
Victoria squeezed his hand and looked at him with so much love in her eyes that he had to quickly focus back on the roadway so that he didn’t wreck. When she looked at him like that it was all he could to do concentrate on whatever else was at hand or he would be lost in her eyes. Just thinking about her made him look for the nearest rest area where they could pull off the road.
After he had parked the rig, he took Victoria by the hand and said, “Come here to me. I can’t wait for tonight.”
He led her through the coach to the bedroom, slid the door closed, and laid her down to make love.
“I love you so much,” he murmured in her ear, as they lay entwined together in their afterglow. “You make my life worth living.”
“I love you, too, babe,” she murmured back. “Without you, I don’t know how I would have survived this past year and a half. You’re my rock and my hero.”
He possessed her lips again in an intensely intimate kiss that fanned the smoldering fire into burning flames again. Once again the two became one flesh as their bodies joined, seeking to assuage the fire that roared within.
An hour later, they were dressed again and back on the road. Their immediate destination was St. Joseph, Missouri, and the last known home of Jesse James. This site was on Rafael’s list of must-see places. He had grown up on tales of outlaws, and Jesse James was his favorite.
The road west took them through Kansas, Colorado, Utah, and Nevada. They took two more weeks covering these four states, driving leisurely and stopping often wherever their whims were so inclined. They spent time in Rocky Mountain National Park and around Salt Lake City and the Great Salt Lake. They also took their time going through Nevada, checking out the small towns the highway went through or close to.
On the northern outskirts of Las Vegas, there was another RV park for sale. Victoria had found it online, so when they neared the area, she directed Rafael to it. They rented a space for the night, and then walked around to see what it was like. It was a decent park, but they could both see the potential to turn it into a really great park.
The price was relatively low, as the owner knew it needed work, and he was getting up in years and was just tired of fooling with it. They stayed for several days, talking with the owner and the resident manager, discussing similar issues as they had prior to buying the park in North Carolina.
After some negotiation, Rafael and the owner agreed on a selling price. Then it took Rafael a little while to transfer some funds from a money market account to the business checking account on which he wrote a check for the full price.
They spent another week there, listing all of the things that needed fixing, upgrading, or completely replacing. Rafael worked closely with the resident manager, partly to see what kind of worker he was, and partly because he had to, to prioritize the projects, estimate costs, and outline how to go about getting each project done.
He could see that he would be making frequent trips over to this park for a while until all the upgrades were complete. But that was all right. The park would remain open during the process, which would keep the income coming in. There would come a point in time when one row at a time would have to be closed down to pave the RV sites. But until that time, there were more pressing projects to complete, such as renovating the restrooms and showers.
Before they left, Rafael went over the process once more with Ben, the resident manager, to make sure that he understood what Rafael wanted to happen and in what order. Ben assured him that he would carry out Rafael’s plans, and happily, as he had wanted to have these upgrades done for quite some time. They agreed that they would keep in close contact so that Rafael could monitor the work.
Because this park had been allowed to get run down, and the website reviews weren’t the greatest, Rafael chose to rename the place as soon as he got his name on the papers. They tossed names around for half a day before settling on ThornRiver RV Park, which was a combination of their two last names. They thought that maybe eventually they might have a whole string of RV parks across the country under that name.
It was October 30, a Tuesday, when the motorhome finally came to a rest in their own driveway. They had been gone four months and one day. When Rafael turned off the engine, they just sat there and looked at each other.
“I know I should be glad to be home,” Victoria said. “Everyone I know always says that they like to travel, but they’re always so glad to get home again. But I can’t say that I really am. This has been such a wonderful summer. No problems, well, except for that one blowout, but nothing really bad.”
“I know what you mean,” Rafael said. “It has been great. But I confess to being a little anxious to go over and see how the park is doing. Aren’t you?”
“Yeah, kinda,” she answered. “Yeah, I am. But then I’d be ready to roll again.”
“We’ll take some shorter day trips, or weekenders, or whatever, real often. We have proven that we can leave and everything still functions according to plans. And, at least at this point, we can afford it. That’s another thing. I want to scout out some more RV parks to buy, so that’ll give us another excuse to bum around some more. And we’re gonna have to run back and forth to the Vegas park over the next several months until the work gets finished there.”
“Okay, sounds great. I’ll be looking for some more parks on the Internet again, and make us a list. Then we can drive to the ones we’re interested in.”
“I guess we’d better get out and go in,” Rafael said. “I wonder if Mama Lena is home. If she is, she didn’t hear us pull in, or she’d have been out here by now to greet us.”
“I have missed Mama,” Victoria admitted.
The two got out of the RV that had been their home away from home for four months, and went inside the house. It was quiet inside, and when they went downstairs to Lena’s suite, they found it empty.
“It is Tuesday,” Rafael said. “She’s probably working in the gift shop.”
“Oh, yeah,” Victoria replied. “I guess she would be. Well, do you want to unload the RV first, or go over to the park first?”
“Let’s go down to the park first,” Rafael said. “We can unload anytime. Although, I guess we’d better get what little food is left in the fridge out and bring it into the house.”
“Good idea.”
After they had done that, they got on the quad and rode down to the park. The gift shop was full of people, and there was a line at the register of people waiting to check out. But when Lena looked up and caught a glimpse of her daughter and son-in-law, her face lit up like a thousand-watt bulb. She never missed a beat, however, in waiting on the customers.
“I’m going to find Mickey,” Rafael said to Victoria. “You can stay here and see your mom if you want to. We’ll find each other later.”
“Okay.”
Victoria walked around behind the counter and gave her mom a quick squeeze between customers.
“So good to see you, honey,” Lena said softly. “You just get home?”
“Yeah, just a little bit ago.”
Victoria stood beside Lena and bagged for her to speed up the line just a tad bit. Victoria was pleased to see that the gift shop was busy, and that people were buying, and that the shop itself looked well stocked and clean and tidy. It was true. She wasn’t needed at all here, except to do the ordering. That gave her mixed feelings of satisfaction and a feeling of not being needed.
When the crowd thinned a bit and Lena had a break in the line, she turned to give Victoria a proper welcome-home hug.
“So how was your trip?” she asked. “You look fabulous. The vacation
has obviously been good for you.”
“It was a wonderful trip,” Victoria said, her eyes shining. “It was so great to have four whole months in which nothing catastrophic happened. We had a tire blow out early on, and that was scary, but other than that, the entire trip was absolutely perfect. We saw so many cool places and did so many fun things it’s almost unbelievable. I’ve got tons of stuff to show you. We almost had to rent a trailer to put all of our souvenirs and stuff in that we bought.”
Lena laughed at that and said, “I’m anxious to see all your pictures, too.”
“We had to buy two more photo albums like the ones you gave me, because those two weren’t nearly enough.”
“Good grief! You must have really taken a lot of photos.”
“Oh, I did! Lots and lots and lots. I wanted to be able to remember everything we saw, and I wanted you to be able to see it all, too.”
More customers came to the counter just then, so Victoria told Lena that she would see her after closing. Then she went to find Rafael. He was talking to Mickey over at the barn. Victoria looked over all the animals and saw that they all looked healthy and happy. The calves and lambs both had grown so much they weren’t babies anymore. Victoria thought that they should get some new babies right away. The baby animals are so much cuter and more appealing to children.
“I hear you had a great trip,” Mickey said to Victoria by way of greeting when she walked up to him and Rafael.
“It was fabulous,” Victoria said. “I am just sorry that it’s over. Looks like you’ve done a wonderful job of keeping the park going while we were gone.”
“That’s what I was telling him,” Rafael said. “Everything looks great around here.”
“Looks to me like we need some new baby animals. The ones we had grew up,” Victoria said.
“We were just talking about that,” Rafael told her. “We’re talking about getting the cow bred, too. Both of the calves are heifers, so when they are old enough we can breed them also. That way we can produce our own calves on occasion.”
“What are you going to do with them all when they grow up? We’ll have to buy a cattle ranch somewhere to keep them all,” Victoria said.
Rafael and Mickey laughed at the thought.
“Since you’ve got good Jerseys here,” Mickey said, “you could sell them to a dairy. Surely there’s one within driving distance that would be interested.”
“That’s a good idea,” Rafael said. “We’ll keep that in mind when the time comes.”
Chapter Four
Victoria went back to the gift shop at closing time and helped Lena to close up. Rafael took the money, and relieved Mickey of that duty for that evening. Then the three of them went home. Rafael took care of the bank deposit while Lena and Victoria rustled up some supper.
Lena introduced her new little poodle to the two of them. She was a darling little black poodle about four months old.
“Her official name on her AKC registration is Black Rose, but I call her Rosie,” Lena told them.
“Rosie is a cute name,” Victoria said, picking up the puppy and cuddling it.
“I’ve pretty well got her housebroken,” Lena said. “If it’s okay with you guys, I’d like to have a doggy door put in downstairs so that she can come and go at will, whether I’m home or not.”
“That’s a great idea,” Rafael said. “I’ll see about that tomorrow.”
After supper was over, the three of them went out to the motorhome and worked to unload it. After everything was in the house, they showed Lena all of their souvenirs, and gave her the gifts that they had picked up along the way for her. They sorted out the gifts they had gotten for Manuela, Grandma and Grandpa Ericksen, and the three manager couples, and put them all in separate bags.
They were up late that night looking at photos and telling Lena stories about the things they had seen. But just before eleven o’clock, they unanimously agreed that it was way past bedtime and tomorrow was another day to catch up with each other.
It almost seemed strange to be home and to sleep in a bedroom that was bigger than seven and a half feet wide and no longer than that. They had gotten accustomed to the RV and its cramped quarters. They wanted to sleep in the following morning, but there was too much to be done. It was Hallowe’en and they were expecting several groups of kids to come through the park that day. They had also advertised that anyone coming into the park in costume could get in for half price.
Victoria had been raised to more or less ignore Hallowe’en, but Rafael had grown up making the most of the trick or treating night, always competing with Mateo for the scariest, ugliest costume, and the most candy received. Because their house sat up a long driveway that was gated at the foot of it, they didn’t expect to have any trick-or-treaters at the house. But they had made plans to have buckets of candy at the train station for all of the visitors who came that day.
It was indeed a very busy day in the park. The people came in droves, and the kids began pouring in after school was out. They had jack-o-lanterns on the front porch of the farmhouse and at the train station. They had corn shocks around the barn and barnyard.
They had hired a dozen extra security guards from a company in the city just because it was Hallowe’en, because it’s a day known for vandalism, pranks, and Satanic ritualistic activities. So they wanted the park to be extra protected, not only to keep themselves safe, but also for all the good people who would be coming that day.
Things seemed to flow smoothly all day, just as usual. Some of the kids seemed a little more rambunctious than usual, but everyone just chalked it up to the fact that it was a holiday and the kids were all ODing on candy. There were a few minor incidents, but the security guards handled them in a professional manner, and none of them erupted into anything serious.
Eventually it was closing time. Everyone closed up their particular area of duty. The security guards walked the grounds making sure that everyone had left the park. Just because of the holiday, Rafael asked a couple of the security guards to escort him and Victoria home with the money.
When the park was completely closed and all the workers had gone home, Rafael and Victoria heaved a sigh of relief. Truth be told, they had both been a bit on edge that day, just hoping that nothing bad would happen. It seemed as though everything had gone well.
Rafael’s phone rang at five-thirty the next morning. He rolled over, opened one eye to look at the time, and reached onto the nightstand for his phone. It was Mickey.
“Hey, Mickey, what’s up?”
“Sorry to call so early, Rafe, but you’ve gotta come down to the barn as quick as you can. You’re not gonna believe this.”
“What’s going on?” Rafael sat up in bed.
“Somebody’s been here in the night and slaughtered one of the sheep and one of the heifers. Looks like a ritualistic killing. There are Satanic symbols painted in what’s probably blood on the fence posts. They’ve gutted the animals and left the carcasses.”
“Oh, swell. Call the police and I’ll be down just as soon as I can get dressed and get there.”
“Okay. See ya.”
“What’sa matter?” Victoria asked sleepily.
“Somebody has killed one of the sheep and one of the heifers, some time in the night,” Rafael replied.
“Oh, no!” Victoria exclaimed, sitting upright in bed. “When? Why?”
“Some time in the night. Mickey says it looks like a Satanic ritual killing. Says there are Satanic symbols on the fence posts.”
Victoria was up by this time, too. Rafael took the quickest shower he’d ever taken, brushed his teeth in record time, and threw on a pair of jeans and shirt.
“I’m going down there right now,” he called to Victoria, who was now in the shower.
“Okay, I’ll be down soon,” she yelled back.
Rafael got down to the barn just before the police arrived. Mickey showed him the gruesome sight and the inverted pentagrams that were crudely painted in blood on sever
al of the fence posts that surrounded the carcasses.
The police officers were shown the dead animals and the graffiti, and took the report. There wasn’t a whole lot that they could do at this point in time, because there were no clues as to who could have been responsible for the reprehensible deeds. But just filing the report was important, because if any further vandalism occurred, they had a precedent to reexamine to see if there might be any links.
Victoria arrived before the policemen left, and got in on the tail end of their visit. She was horrified at the sight of the gutted animals lying on the ground, drying blood everywhere. Sarah Dixon, Jim and Jan Williams, and Ted and Darlene Carsten were all out there by now, too. Jan and Darlene particularly were upset over the death of those two beautiful, gentle animals, as they had spent a lot of time with them and had watched them as they grew. It was like losing beloved pets.
After extensive photos had been taken to document the scene, both by the police and by Mickey and Rafael, Rafael told Mickey, Jim, and Ted to bury the carcasses somewhere out in the woods. Then he asked the women to try to clean off the fence posts of the offensive symbols.
“If you can’t get them to wash off, we may have to replace them,” Rafael said.
The fence posts had been left natural, as would have been typical of a nineteenth century barnyard, so with the blood having soaked into the wood grain, it was not too likely to come out, even with strong bleach water. But something had to be done quickly before opening time. Rafael and Victoria would not allow guests coming in to see what had happened.
Everyone worked fast and furiously to get things done before ten o’clock. Rafael sent Jim to the closest lumberyard for half a dozen fence posts, when it became obvious that the blood wasn’t going to wash off.
“In fact, get a dozen,” Rafael told him. “That way we’ll have extras on hand if we ever need them again.”
Ted brought several wheelbarrowsful of clean dirt from the garden area to throw over the blood-soaked earth in the barnyard. With everyone working, the mess was cleaned up by eight forty-five, which gave everyone time to hurry home and grab a bite of breakfast and clean up before time to be back on duty.
The Perfect Revenge: The Couplete Series Page 58