by Caron Todd
“Turtlenecks are a torment. I kept looking at you this evening, boots to your knee, tights and tweed, sweater to your chin, hair hiding your ears. It drove me nuts.”
“You were supposed to be watching the concert.”
“I was! I can prove it. There were skits and songs.”
Liz laughed, enjoying how that felt when she was surrounded by chest and arms.
“I forget why we came to my house.”
“To pick up your coffeemaker.”
“Oh, right.” He made no move to let go of her. “Can we take five minutes?”
“What self-respecting man would say such a thing?”
“Ten? Ten minutes now, and a hour or two after the party?”
“Done.” She eased out of his grasp. “I’ll meet you upstairs.”
“You’re looking mysterious. What are you up to?”
“No questions. No peeking. Not at this time of year.”
When he was gone, she pulled a small package from her coat pocket. She glanced up the stairs to be sure he wasn’t lurking, then went into the living room and tucked it deep into the branches. It wasn’t much. A wooden guitar decoration, with real strings. She kept seeing little things that made her think of Jack, and each time she came to the house she hid something on the tree.
She hurried upstairs and out of her clothes and slid into bed beside him. As soon as she was there, she knew she wouldn’t want to leave. It was getting harder to spend only part of her days with him. She wanted to go to sleep with him and wake up with him, have meals with him and read the paper with him…she pressed her hand against his chest, holding him back. “Wait a minute, Jack.”
“One of our ten minutes?”
“There’s something I have to tell you.”
“I hear good things about nonverbal communication.”
“It can’t wait. If I don’t tell you now, it’ll be hours before I can.”
He moved back, focusing on her face. “Is this what you mentioned at the concert? The good thing?”
She nodded. “I hope it’s a good thing. You remember my attempt at math?” She wanted to keep things light. “About percentages of heart space available?”
There was a flash of his old caution. “Oh, that math.”
“I was wrong.” She patted her chest. “I have here an entire heart, just for you.” Whatever she’d been expecting in response, it wasn’t that worried frown.
“There’s turning the page, Liz, and then there’s tossing the book out. I never wanted that for Andy.”
“I’m not tossing anything out. I’m done with tossing parts of my life away. He’ll always be with me. I hope that’s all right.”
Jack nodded. “Of course.”
“You, I love in a different way.” There. The word was out. “It’s more grown-up, more real than it ever got a chance to be with Andy. And, if you don’t mind sharing my left ventricle, it’s complete.” Talk about throwing caution to the winds. He said she should take a risk. Now she needed to hear something back. It didn’t have to be eloquent. Me, too would be all right.
“I’ve been checking out some property in British Columbia,” he said. “There’s nothing appropriate really close to Vancouver, but I found an existing Christmas tree farm that’s not a bad commute.”
Liz smiled, amused and relieved. Content, too. He’d grown up without a mother’s hugs. As a declaration of his feelings, it was fine. “There’s no need for you to move. I’m staying.”
“Here?” He looked as if he didn’t dare believe it. “You’re moving back?”
“I’m buying Grandma’s house. I’m going to get old in Three Creeks. I’m going to learn to make baskets from straw, cream butter with my bare hands, stuff like that. It’s got the added benefit of averting a family crisis.”
“You mean your grandmother won’t have to move? Unless she wants to, of course.”
“I mean I’ll own the land, and you can rent your field forever. Grandma was going to sell it to you, you know.”
“Oh, boy.” Jack looked surprised at first, then touched, and finally, relieved. “I would have been thrown off the hockey team.”
AS MUCH AS JACK LOOKED forward to experiencing one of the Robb’s traditional pre-Christmas evenings, it was hard to pull himself away. He kissed Liz one last time, then flipped back the covers. “If we’re any longer we won’t be able to explain it to your family.” He hurried into his clothes, jumbled on the chair. Liz still stretched across the bed, completely uncovered. “Aren’t you freezing?”
“I’m seeing if I can entice you back.”
“It’s your Aunt Edith I’m thinking of right now.”
“Oh!” She thumped him with a pillow.
“You know how she is. She’ll say something embarrassing in that vague tone of hers. ‘Oh look, it’s Jack and Liz at last, we wondered what the two of you were up to on your own for so long…’”
Liz had pulled the sheet over her head at the thought of what Edith might say, but she came out from under it to add, “But oh, how becomingly pink your cheeks are, my dear.”
And laughter made them even pinker. It was good to see Liz light-hearted. What if living in Three Creeks turned out to be as bad for her as she used to think it was? “Are you sure about this? Because I can go to British Columbia, no problem. Growing balsams would be a breeze there. I don’t have a lot of reason to stay in Manitoba, other than habit. My parents’ roots were here, but I’ve never felt them.”
“Both of our roots are here.”
Jack shook his head. “Some days I think the land I bought is already in my blood. The rest of the time I wonder if I’m just trying to convince myself I can make a life here because I don’t want to admit the whole thing is a huge, expensive mistake. An impulsive mistake, just like my old computer buddies say.”
Liz got hold of his sweater and gave it a gentle shake. “Your old computer buddies are wrong. You haven’t made a mistake. And I’m sure.”
Jack kissed her hand, then pulled himself away. “I’ll find a box for the coffeemaker. It’ll be ready by the time you’re down.” When he got to the door, he looked back at her still sitting in bed, rumpled covers and bare skin and wild hair. “I love you, Liz.”
Before she could answer, he kept going, out to the hall and down the stairs. Hard to believe he’d got this old without ever saying those words. He and Jerry knew how they felt but never mentioned it, and although he’d cared about other women, it was never like this.
He was in the kitchen packing the coffee machine and a few varieties of coffee into a box when the back door opened. He half expected it to be Edith. Now, Jack, I realize you’re from the city and people do things differently there, but this is no way to treat a young lady like Liz…
It wasn’t Edith.
It was Reid. And the two other men on the videotape.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THEY STOOD JUST INSIDE THE DOORWAY, a man Jack didn’t know, but remembered from the surveillance tape, with Scott Webb and Reid on either side. Scott was Legs? That was hard to grasp. They’d worked together in the spring and part of the summer. Somehow you didn’t expect the worst from a guy who planted pumpkins with you.
He couldn’t take all three of them. Jack forced his muscles to relax. His plan, such as it was, had never included an all-out fight. Behind them on the hat stand, he could see the sleeve of Liz’s coat. What if she’d heard them come in? She would race from the bedroom, expecting relatives, looking guilty and embarrassed, blurting some cover story about searching for coffee filters upstairs.
Hoping she would hear and know to stay where she was, he spoke as loudly as he dared. “Reid, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about this. You’ve got to learn to call before you drop in.”
“Door was open, bud.”
Jack hadn’t got into the rural habit of not locking his door, but he and Liz had only meant to nip in for the coffeemaker. At least his old friend had trouble meeting his eyes. Reid looked haggard. Jack felt a moment o
f pity, but it disappeared fast.
His attention moved to the other man he’d trusted. “Found new employment, Scott?” Scott sniffed wetly, and mumbled an embarrassed greeting. He’d been barely visible on the videotape, but Jack was surprised he hadn’t noticed anything familiar in the small figure. “Or was the job always about keeping an eye on me?”
Scott shook his head and started to say something. He stopped at a sound from Leather Coat. The man who was clearly in charge came further into the room. Jack tensed when he approached the staircase, but he went past it, into the living room, straight to the VCR. A glowing green light showed the machine was on, and a red light that it was taping. Too bad he hadn’t noticed that when he first came downstairs. The man hit the eject button and threw the tape to Reid. “You have another tape, I believe. Where is it?”
“I took it to the police.”
From behind Jack, Reid said, “He wouldn’t involve the police, Croker.”
The man’s eyes swiveled to Jack. The expression—or lack of it—in them stopped any idea Jack had of denying it further. He didn’t want those eyes searching the house, coming to rest on Liz. “Second shelf, in the Charlie Chaplin sleeve.”
Croker took the time to insert the tape into the VCR, checking to be sure it was the right one. “Any copies?”
“No.”
The empty eyes flicked over him. Jack got the feeling no one could convince this guy of anything. He believed what he wanted. Did what he wanted.
“What does the tape show, anyway?” Reid said. “Couple of friends knocking at the door, someone letting them in. Nothing more than that.”
“Maybe.” Croker headed back to the kitchen. He sat at the table and turned on Jack’s laptop. “Every day we’ve spent on this exercise has cost money. And here it is, the middle of December. I don’t know about you, Jack, but I don’t like to go into the New Year with old business hanging over me.”
Jack was almost sure he’d heard a sound from upstairs. There was no sign that Croker had heard it, but he seemed like the kind of man who could file away a creaking floorboard and investigate it later. He had to get them out of the house. “You’re looking for a code I made a number of years ago.”
Croker smiled. “It’s so much easier to accomplish things when everyone is straightforward. Yes, the code. You have it. I want it.”
“Didn’t Reid also mention that I destroyed it?”
The man’s voice got softer. “I see. We’re not quite done playing games.”
“Jack,” Reid said.
It was a warning. Remnants of loyalty, or a simple threat?
“I couldn’t risk keeping it. There was always a chance someone would try to take it.”
“Such a conundrum for you. Dangerous to keep, impossible to destroy.”
Jack shrugged. “It had to be done. I burned my notes, wiped the hard drive and reformatted the disk. Even then, I worried about some hotshot rescuing the data, so I took a hammer to it and threw away the pieces. You saw me do it, Reid.”
“I saw you destroy a diskette.”
Croker rubbed his finger over the laptop’s touch pad, highlighted one of the icons on the screen and double-clicked. A box appeared, requesting a password. “You know what I think? I think you keep your algorithm right here, close to you.”
“On a laptop? Do you know how often these things are stolen?”
“All the time,” Croker agreed. “We tried to hack into your machine. Couldn’t do it. Eventually, we realized your computer wasn’t hooked up to the Internet. Ever. An odd thing for a man like you. What possible reason could you have? Then I saw it. You don’t want to risk anybody getting in, breaking through your fire-wall, finding your treasure. Tell me, Jack. What’s the code worth to you?”
“Millions if I’d kept it—”
“Is it worth the old lady down the road?”
Jack went still.
“Or maybe the lovely Elizabeth. We had coffee the other day in Pine Point. Charming town. Like those little houses people put on their mantels at Christmas. You know the ones I mean, with the candles inside?”
This was the man Liz had met for coffee?
“Friendly woman, in a restrained way. And easy on the eyes, eh, Jack? Really quite an attractive combination, warmth and coolness at the same time. Tempting.”
Scott cleared his throat the way he always did when he was nervous.
“But lovely young ladies are a dime a dozen, aren’t they, for a man in your position? The old lady’s special, though. Sort of a surrogate grandmother. Nice for both of you, I’m sure.” Croker looked at his watch. “I can give you five minutes to think it over, Jack. The code, or the old lady. No, make it two minutes. Then I pay Grandmother a visit.” He smiled. “Show her what big teeth I have.”
LIZ WAS AFRAID TO MOVE AWAY from the grill. The floor was bound to squeak. When she’d first heard voices downstairs she’d started out of the bedroom, hoping she didn’t look like someone who’d just had a very satisfying experience in bed. She was preparing an excuse for being upstairs—maybe she could say Jack needed a warmer sweater?—when she’d heard Jack say Reid’s name.
She’d almost forgotten about the men who’d broken into the house. She’d almost forgotten about Jack’s code. Unbreakable codes and traitorous friends didn’t seem quite real, not as real as falling in love and deciding where to live and getting ready for Christmas.
This time, they weren’t sneaking in. Jack’s truck was in the driveway, lights were on in the house. They could see he was home. That meant the guessing games were over. One way or another, they intended to take the code tonight.
At first she’d thought keeping quiet and out of the way might be the best thing to do. Jack would know how to deal with them. Reid was a friend of his after all, though not a very good one, and Scott Webb…well, Scott was Jeremy’s dad. She couldn’t believe they meant much harm. Everything changed when the third man, the one she knew as John Findlay, threatened Eleanor. She had to make sure he didn’t get any closer to her grandmother than he was at this minute.
At last there was movement in the kitchen, a chair scraping back, a door creaking—enough noise to cover any she would make. She went to the spare room, the one over the living room. Through the heating vent, she heard Scott say, “We looked there.” He sounded defensive. “Three times.”
Looked where? What had they found?
“Just what I complained about, isn’t it? Old houses are a real pain when you’re trying to find something important.” It was Findlay, or Croker, again. His tone was almost conversational, except that it was so cold. “All right, Jack. Do your stuff.”
Liz heard a beeping sound, the kind Jack’s laptop made when he turned it on. Her heart twisted when she heard him speak, his voice so calm. “We still have a problem.”
“I sincerely hope not.”
“The computer’s hard drive is divided in two parts. Not equal parts, I set aside just a few gigabytes. Each section is run by a different operating system. It’s not apparent when you boot up.”
“A hidden partition,” Reid said. “Nice.”
“Don’t tell me about it. Just open it.” It was Findlay, or Croker, whoever he was, sounding a little less conversational.
“I’m afraid I can’t. I got rid of the boot disk.”
There was a silence. Liz found herself holding her breath.
Then Reid spoke. “He’s screwing with you, Croker. He can make another boot disk easily. Hang on—I’ve got Linux on my machine.”
More noise. From what she could tell, someone was going outside. Liz got her fingernails under the grill and lifted, tensing when dust caught under its frame rained down into the living room.
The ceiling was eight feet from the floor, not ten as it was at her grandmother’s, so by the time she got through the grill’s opening, she wouldn’t have all that far to drop. Still, landing wouldn’t just make noise. It would shake the floor.
Whoever had left the house was coming back. The
re was noise from the door again, louder voices. Liz sat so her feet went through the opening in the floor, then her legs, and, with another scattering of dust and her skirt pushing up to her waist, her hips. Tight fit. One more piece of pumpkin pie, and she’d be stuck.
Now her shoulders. She was through, dangling from the living room ceiling. And still, they didn’t seem to have heard her. She stretched her leg toward the armchair. Too far. She hooked her foot under the end table, and pulled. It slid, protestingly, a few inches across the carpeted floor, a pile of books on top tilting. She tugged again, moving it a few more inches, and again, until it was right under her. By then the books had had enough, but she caught them with her foot before they fell. The table was so full it was hard to find anywhere to stand. Balancing her weight on either side, she eased herself down, then stepped onto the floor.
Now to get out. She was reluctant to leave Jack alone. She reminded herself what his priorities would be: the code, and Eleanor’s safety. Getting out and finding help was the best thing she could do.
Liz’s heart, already thudding, found a way to beat harder. When she got to the front door she would be almost in line with the path to the kitchen. If they moved backward, they would see her. If she’d heard them open the back door, what would happen when she opened the front?
She moved as lightly as she could, past the armchair where she usually sat and past the Christmas tree, over the very spot where they had laid together. Through the kitchen doorway, she could more clearly hear them browbeating Jack. He was staying calm, sounding as if he really wanted to help them, if only he could. She recognized an artificial quality in his tone. Did Reid? Did Scott? A feeling of dread filled her, the fear that when she went out the door she would never hear that quiet, strong voice again.
She turned the deadbolt with a little click, then the doorknob. At that moment Scott Webb moved a few steps back, steps that brought him into view.
He blinked rapidly when he saw her. And then looked away, clearing his throat loudly. A moment later he was seized by a prolonged coughing spell.