The House Across The Street

by Melanie Jones Brownrigg

  “Okay, I’ll find out,” I placated her. “Actually, Mom, can you ask them if they know anything about David Hutchins’ family. David is from the San Diego area and Logan met him when he visited his parents over Christmas. David came down a short time later and has been living with him ever since. I don’t trust the guy and would appreciate anything you can find out about him.” I wanted to tell her Mrs. Foster felt like he pushed her down the steps. But since Mrs. Foster didn’t want to accuse him of something that she wasn’t certain of, I kept my mouth shut … for now.

  “Well, I’ll definitely ask them,” Mom agreed.

  We talked all the way home, but without me mentioning anything about Richard strangling me. She and Dad were having fun and I didn’t want to worry them. For the same reason, I didn’t apprise her about the undercover officers or anything else that was going on. And for sure, imagining my mother would give me an earful, I kept my mouth closed about my bizarre feelings for some stranger who’d spent a week with me.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Jackson

  “If our captain gets word about our undercover being blown, he’ll pull us off this job,” I worriedly discuss with Rob. “I was just trying to keep Rachel from going to the trouble,” I explain about Rachel moving those boxes to make closet room for me. “She got all huffy about it. And then she pushed past me and wouldn’t even look at me.”

  “Sounds to me like she doesn’t want you to leave,” Rob suggests.

  I shake my head. “No, that doesn’t make sense. She didn’t want me here in the first place.”

  Rob chuckles and rolls his eyes at me. “She cooked you a roast and called me all worried about where you were. Dude, she likes you.”

  “No,” I argue, continuing to shake my head. “We went to a comedy club the other night and she made it clear that I was just a friend. And when I called her ‘hon’, she almost bit my head off. She doesn’t like me … not like you’re insinuating.” When I envisage Rachel having deep feelings for me, I can’t stop my imagination from taking over, picturing myself kissing those luscious lips, feeling her soft and warm body next to mine. It’s a fantasy I’d love to become a reality, if only she did like me. But she doesn’t.

  “What’s happening to you? You’ve always been the kind of guy who saw what he wanted and took it. You two are playing games with each other. You need to level with her and tell her you have feelings for her.”

  “I do not,” I adamantly protest. “I’m a lone wolf. I don’t get into relationships. I’ve been trying my best not to take advantage of her. You know me … notches in the bedpost. Love ’em and leave ’em. Jesus Christ … me with just one girl. That’s crazy talk.”

  “You’ve been with Veronica for a long damn time and you barely even like her. Yet there she is, living with you and you’re supporting her, without much in return. When’s the last time she cooked you a roast?”

  “I can’t just kick her out on the street. She doesn’t have anywhere to go.” I may like a different woman in my bed every night, but at the same time, I do have a heart.

  “How many women have you been with since Veronica?” he pries, even though he already knows the answer.

  “None,” I admit. “But Veronica is very satisfying.”

  “But she’s just one woman and not a selection,” Rob is quick to point out. “Dude, you want to settle down. You’re doing it, even at the cost of staying with a woman you don’t love.” He shakes his head at me. “Come clean with Rachel. Tell her you’re interested.”

  “I don’t want to scare her off,” I counter. “Besides, there were several times I made it crystal-clear that I found her attractive and she didn’t reciprocate.” I think about the first night when she threw me out of her bed. What a rejection that was. I don’t want to torture myself with lifelong dreams of Rachel when I know it can’t come true. I remember Brenna’s take on me. How I drawl out Rachel’s name. I’m a Neanderthal, reminding her of the Geico caveman. And she was sickened by food getting caught in my Brillo of a beard. Rachel didn’t defend me. Instead she bashed Richard and pointed out how judgmental Brenna was. Because Rachel didn’t stick up for me, per se, it must mean she isn’t attracted to me. I’m not relationship material anyway, not to mention that I’m far beneath her standards. Being married to a heart surgeon, she’s used to a lavish lifestyle, one I can never afford to provide her. We’re simply not compatible. End of story. There’s no need for me to torment myself into thinking otherwise. And at any rate, I am not the commitment type. Rob has this all wrong.

  But when I see her car pull into the driveway, I feel anxious to see her. And when she sits in her car talking to someone on the phone, I wonder if it’s a guy she is interested in. I tell myself I am only concerned about my lunch getting cold and simply want her to hurry up and bring it to me.

  “Food,” I say enthusiastically when she finally comes inside. See I was just hungry.

  “Did you enjoy your lunch?” Rob asks her.

  “I did,” she says as she empties a sack of delicious smelling Mexican cuisine and hands us each a to-go box. She spreads out some hot sauce, cheese sauce and a bag of tortilla chips. “Enjoy,” she says when she has served us.

  “Thank you, Rach,” I tell her. She is so sweet, I tell myself. She grabs forks for us, gets us something to drink and gives us napkins. She is also thoughtful I think to myself.

  “Do you guys like chili?” she asks when she has us situated.

  Rob and I bob our heads up and down. “Yes,” we say in unison.

  “Then I’m going to start a crock pot of beef chili for supper.”

  She makes her way into the kitchen and Rob jerks his head at me and nods after her, suggesting I should go and talk to her. When I don’t move, he hauls off and kicks me under the table. “Ouch,” I complain.

  “Go,” he whispers in a commanding voice.

  “No,” I tell him with a forceful shake of my head.

  She really is special, I tell myself. While she chops onions and does stuff in the kitchen, I dwell on what Rob is suggesting and decide maybe I will talk to her. While I eat my lunch, I work up my nerve. In my head, I work out a whole speech and then I go into the kitchen. She has her back to me and her hourglass figure beckons me, forcing me to lean against the counter with my hands gripping the countertop to keep from wrapping my arms around her. “Rach, when you get a chance, can I talk to you?”

  She twists around to look at me. “Did your captain pull you and Rob off undercover?” she asks with a worried expression forming on her beautiful face.

  “No. Not yet.” I pause wanting a little more distance between us and Rob’s big old ears. Sometimes when I’m nervous, I say stupid shit. If he overhears me, he’ll make fun of me. “I’ll wait until you’re through. I’d like to talk to you in the back room.”

  “This can wait,” she says, looking really worried now, like I have bad news to tell her. She quickly washes the onion off her hands and uses a cup towel to dry them. I follow her out of the kitchen, down the hall, through her bedroom and to my couch. We sit together and she fixes an apprehensive gaze on me. “Just tell me … what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” I say, though now I realize I have pulled her out of the kitchen to have a private conversation with her. I have really made a big deal out of this discussion. Suddenly I am overly nervous and wishing I had applied extra deodorant. “Uh, I just wanted to say thank you for bringing the food … and for making the chili. I appreciate everything you’re doing for us. And thank you for letting Rob stay here too.”

  “Well, you’re welcome,” she says. “Is there something else?” she asks, not buying I have called her aside for a private thank-you chat.

  “Nope, that was it,” I answer, having completely chickened out. I am so lame.

  “Are you sure?” she questions me with a doubting look on her face.

  “Absolutely,” I lie, giving her my best straight-face look.

  “Well, okay. If that’s all …” She sc
oots to the edge of the couch and begins to rise.

  “No, Rachel,” I blubber out. “I … I wanted to tell you … uh … I like you.” I stop myself just before asking her if she likes me too. Jesus Christ. What am I … ten years old!

  Her face is a cross between shock and possibly laughing out loud at me. “I like you too,” she says. And thankfully, she did it without ridiculing me.

  I smile, but it’s a stupid one I’m sure. Upon reflection, I remember having more guts when I asked Emily Mitchell to the senior prom. What the hell is wrong with me? “I was wondering if you’d like to get to know me better … you know … if I get pulled off this case.” That was semi-better, but still it needed some balls behind it.

  She gazes straight into my eyes and she looks serious. “I’d love too,” she answers, and my heart does a happy dance.

  “Good, that’s good, because I’d like to get to know you better too.” I’m still sounding like an idiot. Thank goodness Rob can’t hear me. “Uh, I was thinking … if you’re okay with it, I might like to have some closet space after all.”

  Rachel may bring out my inner shy little boy, but the cad in me is moving his ass in here. As my eyes settle on her lovely blue ones, my heart fills with a deep urgent longing, one so potent I can barely breathe. It takes all my strength to resist grabbing her and pulling her lips to mine. I want to feel my hands on her skin and kiss every inch of her perfect body. But for now, I’ll play it slow.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Rachel

  It seemed I’d just agreed to go steady with Jackson. At least it was how the strange conversation played back in my head. When he wanted to know if I liked him, for a moment I thought I was back in third grade when Timothy Watkins asked me the same question. When I told Timothy I did, he’d followed up with asking if I’d be his girlfriend. Jackson didn’t go that far, simply taking a middle-road stance and suggesting we get to know each other better. I supposed it was the mature way to approach whatever was going on between us. We’d only known each other a short while and I was still married. There wasn’t any reason for me to jump out of one frying pan into the other. Heck, I couldn’t even get out of the frying pan I was in. It made perfect sense to move forward cautiously.

  His soft, shy approach had really appealed to me. His vivid blue eyes had been filled with fear of rejection. When I responded that I liked him too and wanted to get to know him better, he had blinked his long, curly eyelashes at me in disbelief. Then he had thanked me for giving him a chance and then he basically ran out the door. “Thank you again,” Rachel he’d hollered over his shoulder. “I’m going to finish my lunch … and thank you again for bringing it.”

  Now I was back in the file/copy room, once again taking the boxes out to make room for his clothing. Placing each one at the end of a row of file cabinets, I began shifting everything across the room, one handful at a time.

  Only being a short distance away and within earshot of the dining room, I heard Rob asking, “What’d she say?”

  “It went easy as pie,” Jackson bragged. “She fell all over me and now she’s my woman.”

  “See dude, I told you she liked you.” Then I heard what sounded like a pat on the back.

  “What’s not to like?” Jackson crowed. “I don’t know why I was sweating the subject. She ended up being putty in my hand.”

  Inwardly I chuckled, thinking he had been sweating bullets. Good thing I didn’t reject him, or he would’ve probably cried. After a while they switched topics to baseball and so I tuned them out. After several trips back and forth across the room, I had the closet mostly empty. There were a few of my overflow jackets still hanging, but Jackson hadn’t brought in a big wardrobe. Finding a stack of empty hangers, I went to move his clothes but couldn’t discern the clean ones from the dirty ones. And sniffing his shirts wasn’t helping as they all smelled gamey. “Jackson, are all of your clothes dirty?” I yelled from the back room.

  “Uh, Rachel …” I heard him rapidly clomping down the hall. He stuck his head in the doorway. “I was going to wash those myself. I’ll take them home and bring them back.”

  “Sounds like a lot of trouble. I’ll just wash everything for you,” I offered.

  “But …” Jackson looked embarrassed to death right now and it dawned on me he didn’t want me to see his underwear. Perhaps they were yellow-stained, brown-stained, or stiff as a board. Now after I’d thought about it, I didn’t want to see them either. And, after dwelling on it more, I felt certain this wasn’t what Jackson was suggesting when he said he wanted us to get to know each other better. “Why don’t you gather your things and put them in the washing machine here? It’ll save you having to cart them home.”

  “Okay,” he readily agreed and began loading up his arms with strewn clothing.

  “I’ll take the hangers on to the laundry room,” I let him know. Placing the stack on the dryer, I went back to the kitchen and placed my ingredients in the crock pot.

  “Chili’s on,” I told them as I passed by the dining table on my way to my desk.

  “Rachel,” Rob called, grabbing my attention. “I’m going to run home and gather up some small cameras and my detector. I’d like to plant some in the house and teach you how to detect them. We can do some practice runs so you can become proficient at it. If we can get you inside Dawson’s house, I don’t want you fumbling around for any length of time hunting for hidden devices. You need to be quick and concise.”

  “He’ll have one on his computer,” I brought up.

  “Yes, he will. While you two were chatting, I used my binoculars to inspect his front room. It looks like his door opens to the side of the computer. The computer is only going to record what it can see, and I don’t think it’ll pick you up if you stay crouched down to search the desk drawers and hover close to the front wall. It looks like there’s a file cabinet to the right of the entrance, which is also to the side of the computer. I don’t see a bed, so he must be using this area as an office.”

  “What about the other side of the room or a closet?”

  He shook his head. “That’s a no-go. Don’t go anywhere directly in front of his desk. We can’t risk it.”

  “Okay,” I agreed, thinking it sounded more and more like I was going to be trespassing and unlawfully entering someone’s premises. The idea sounded bad and I imagined a multitude of events going wrong to land me in jail … cop friends or not.

  “I’ll be back in under thirty,” he announced getting to his feet and pulling on his coat.

  As soon as he left, Jackson turned his gaze to me. “I don’t like the idea of you going inside Dawson’s house. If he catches you inside, he’ll press charges. Worse, he has every right to shoot you dead.” He grimaced and swallowed hard. “If you don’t want to do this, just say the word and I’ll tell Rob it’s not happening.”

  I nodded, thinking I was too big of a coward to do it anyway. “I’ll practice with the equipment and we’ll go from there.”

  Once Rob returned, I told him I needed to work until at least five o’clock and then he could teach me about his gadgets. In between stirring my chili, I worked on several tax returns and helped Jackson hang his shirts.

  “Thank you, Rach,” he said as he spread them out in the closet. “I have another load to go and then my laundry will all be clean.”

  Around five, I pushed my work aside and we broke for bowls of chili which hit the spot on a gray, misty day. While I was tidying up the kitchen, I heard my phone ringing. Dashing to my purse to catch it before going to voicemail, I quickly dug it out and saw it was my mother calling. Since we’d talked earlier, a terrifying shiver had me holding my breath, hoping they hadn’t been in an accident.

  “Mom, is everything okay?” I yelped into the phone, unable to curb my concerned tone.

  “Yes, of course,” she assured me right away. “I didn’t mean to frighten you by calling again so soon … sorry.”

  “No, it’s okay,” I said in a relieved voice. “You can
call me as often as you like.”

  “Well, I wanted to let you know we’ve already touched base with Larry and Sharon. Your dad and I wanted to see when a good time would be to take them out to dinner. Knowing their availability determines how we plan out the next few days of our trip.” She paused for a breath. “Anyway, since I had Sharon on the phone, I asked her about David Hutchins. She said Larry came to Texas a few weeks ago to check on his mother. While he was there Imogene gave Larry the impression that she didn’t like David one little bit. When Larry returned home, he asked one of his friends at the police department if he could do a background check on David. It turned out that David was brought in for questioning on a slip and fall case. Some old man slipped by his pool and the police thought it looked fishy. The police couldn’t pin anything on David, who was the handyman at the time, or even David’s stepfather who lived next door to the old man and had a key. So, at this point, the case has been ruled as an accident.”

  “David’s stepfather lived next door to the man who fell?”

  “Yes, some insurance salesman,” my mom provided.

  I felt a knot forming in the pit of my stomach. “What’s David’s dad’s name?” I dared to ask, though I already had a good inkling.

  “Jarrod Dawson. David is his stepson, but he’s the only father David has ever known. Apparently, they’re remarkably close, according to the police officer’s investigation.”

  “Jarrod Dawson lives in the middle townhouse unit, between Mrs. Jenkins and Mrs. Tuttle,” I explained. “As far as I know, neither of them mentioned a stepfather/stepson relationship to anyone.”

  “Oh my,” my mother gasped. “I wonder if Larry knows. I’ll be sure to mention it to them when we visit.”

  “Yes, you should,” I strongly urged. “I think Mrs. Foster doesn’t like David for an exceptionally good reason. There may be more to those two than the police officer realized.”