Necessary Detour

by Hornsby, Kim

“Send it, Ted. By email. I need to call Quinn. Hang on.” With the house phone, she punched in Quinn’s number. Hearing her daughter’s voice on the other end allowed Nikki to exhale. “Sweetie, I got a weird letter from a stalker and just as a precaution, we’ve sent over a federal agent to check on you.”

  “She’s here now. I’m fine. Jarrod and I are just getting ready to go to class.”

  “Just ignore her, like Dwayne.” Quinn would be trying to think of an argument, so Nikki preempted any protests she might make. “Indulge me, okay?”

  “Mom?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you safe?”

  “I’m fine out here. You know that.” Just then the security system buzzed to indicate someone was on the property. “I’ll call you later, sweet girl.” Nikki hung up just as someone wrapped on the back door. Ted was still on the other phone. “There’s someone at my door, Ted. Hang on, I’ll read the letter in a minute.”

  “Nikki, don’t open the door without…”

  After looking at the video monitor, she disarmed the system and opened the door to a woman in a yellow rain slicker and a boy cowering behind her. Both were dripping wet. “Come in,” Nikki said.

  The woman pushed her son inside and, grabbing the edge of the half-open door, slammed it shut behind her. “I’m Connie Bayer and this is my son, Tony.” She stood with her arm around the boy. “I’m sorry to disturb you, but there’s a squirrel in our house and while Pete is trying to take care of it, I was hoping we could wait here.”

  The boy glanced from his mother to Nikki and back again, his brows knit together.

  “Of course, come in.” Nikki couldn’t imagine how big and dangerous the squirrel must be to make them this frightened, but after she locked and bolted the door, she took their coats, armed the security system, and walked down the hall with her guests. The email jumped out at her from the computer screen across the room.

  The boy followed his mother to the great room, where the fire crackled in the hearth. His eyes were glued to her.

  “I’m Nikki.” She smiled at Connie Bayer, like this was a perfectly normal social call. “I was just going to make a cup of tea. Would you like to join me?” Her voice sounded anxious, but her distracted guests didn’t seem to notice.

  “That would be nice.” The mother nodded and smiled reassuringly at the boy.

  Remembering Agent Gateman, she told Ted she had company and would call him back.

  “Tell me who your company is.”

  “My neighbors, Connie Bayer and her son, Tony,” she whispered as she walked into the open kitchen area to start the kettle.

  “Call me in twenty minutes. And Nikki, be careful.”

  She promised, then hung up and filled the kettle with water.

  “This is such a pretty house,” Connie commented from the far side of the great room.

  “Thank you. My husband and…” She caught her slip. “I mean, my ex-husband and I built it years ago. Our daughter was ten at the time.” She smiled at them from the kitchen. “How old are you, Tony?” Before the boy answered, he checked with his mother.

  “Eleven.” Connie smiled at Nikki as if to say children are funny sometimes. “He just turned eleven,” she clarified, forcing a pinched smile.

  Not wanting to make Connie and Tony concoct a story they weren’t prepared for, Nikki opted to forget the squirrel and pretend it was perfectly normal to have them run down the road in the pouring rain to avoid a rodent. It was a remote possibility that Connie Bayer was terrified of small wildlife and had transferred that phobia to her son, but something told her that wasn’t the case. Something strange was going on and she had to stay out of it.

  Chapter 8

  “Are you enjoying Louisa Lake?” Nikki took three mugs from the cupboard and retrieved a packet of hot chocolate from the pantry.

  “Yes,” Connie answered. “Tony.” She motioned with a nod for the boy to get away from the window.

  Nikki pretended not to see. “It’s rainy today, but we’ve had a nice September, haven’t we?”

  “Lovely.”

  “I hear your husband is a writer?”

  Connie looked uncomfortable. “Computer manuals.”

  “Oh, not novels and memoirs?” She laughed lightly.

  “No.”

  Nikki wanted to believe her. “Where were you before this?” The conversation sounded like a job interview as Nikki waited for the kettle to boil.

  “New York.” Connie shifted uneasily.

  “Oh, I lived in New York for a while,” Nikki said, but her guest didn’t seem to care, or hear. Nikki got the distinct impression they were hiding at her house. She poured the hot water into the teapot and carried the tea tray to the table.

  “It’s a pretty house, isn’t it, Tony?” Connie said. Tony strained to look out the window from his perch on the couch.

  She tried again. “Isn’t this a nice house, Tony?”

  “Mom, should we check on…the squirrel and see if…Dad is ok.” He spoke in jerky spasms as he took the hot chocolate from Nikki.

  “He’ll let us know.” Connie smiled at Nikki, but a moment passed between them when both women understood there was no squirrel. Nikki wasn’t sure if the secrecy was for the boy or for her, but she nodded almost imperceptibly at Connie.

  Connie Bayer was in her late thirties, shorter than Nikki and bursting out of her black jeans and sweater. She had a brown curly hairdo, suggestive of a bad appointment with a far-sighted hairdresser and, without makeup, her high cheekbones and large, deep-set eyes gave her a haunted look.

  Staring at her teacup, with hands clenched in her lap, Connie looked pained. Maybe she didn’t like tea. “It’s a beautiful house, isn’t it, Tony?” She had a slight accent that Nikki couldn’t place.

  “Mom, you already asked me that.” Tony got up and ran his hand over the books’ edges, almost lovingly. “You have a lot of books.”

  “My daughter and I like to read. How ’bout you?” Nikki leaned against the corner of the couch, hesitant to sit down.

  “Yeah.” His lanky frame didn’t remind Nikki of Pete Bayer at all. Even if this was a second marriage, something didn’t quite fit.

  “If you see one you like, you’re welcome to borrow it.”

  “No, thanks.” Tony spoke too quickly.

  Connie lifted the tea mug to her lips slowly.

  Nikki sat down. “Are you spending October on the lake?’

  Connie set the mug back on the table, without a sip. “I don’t think so, but we’ll see.”

  “Pete’ll tell us,” Tony blurted.

  Connie looked at her son disapprovingly, and he turned to face the books, hiding his embarrassment at either calling his father Pete, or talking overtop of his mother.

  “It’s all right,” Nikki whispered to Connie, not sure why she said this, but the look in Connie’s eyes conveyed a trust. “Don’t worry about me.” On closer inspection she noticed that Connie’s hair was a wig—just another question mark on a page of unanswered strangeness. The edge of the wig was visible through a curl at the back.

  Nikki tried to fill the gaps with chit chat while Connie kept the tea cup at her lips, looking like she was trying to keep her mouth busy in case words started to pop out.

  “Nice town.” “Touristy lake.” “Days getting shorter.” Nikki’s words were stilted.

  “Yes.” “Hmm.” “They are,” Connie answered.

  She was about to ask Connie if they’d like to go boating some sunny day, when the boy yelled, “There’s the police!”

  Nikki’s first thought was that Gateman had sent the police, but when she looked out the window, the sheriff’s car sped past Birch House, coming from the direction of Dickerson’s.

  “There’s Pete…I mean, Dad.” Tony craned his neck.

  Connie’s face went white and she turned to Tony with wide eyes. “Tony, get away from the window!”

  “Looks like the police got the squirrel,” Nikki said. What was going on? The sheriff had be
en summoned to the log house. All Nikki could think of was that Pete had done something to frighten Connie and Tony, and she’d called the police.

  “Was Pete in the cruiser, Connie?”

  Connie looked flustered but chose that moment to return to her seat on the couch to quietly add sugar to her cup of tea.

  “Did they take Pete away? Connie, you must know this looks strange.” Nikki followed and looked into her guest’s eyes. She dropped her voice to a whisper, for Tony’s sake. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  A loud knock sounded at the back door. If Pete was in the squad car, who was knocking on her door? Tony rushed to his mother and shrank in to her side.

  The video monitor revealed Pete at her back door. She disarmed the system and opened the door slowly. He stood on the threshold dripping wet, wearing only a clinging shirt and jeans, no coat, no shoes. “What’s going on?” she asked tentatively.

  “Are Connie and Tony here?” He spoke quickly.

  “Yes.” Why didn’t he know that? “Are you coming in?”

  Pete’s cheeks were high with color. He shook his head. “I shouldn’t. I’m really wet. I just came to get …my family.”

  “Step in so I can close the door. Why were the police here?” Nikki heard herself asking the million dollar question.

  Pete looked at her strangely for a few seconds. “I didn’t see them.”

  Daring him to continue to lie to her, she squinted and held her gaze. “Really?”

  “Probably a routine call.” He shrugged. “I heard they cruise around checking on people in the off season.” He stepped in and closed the door. “Connie!” he called.

  “We’re here, Pete.” Her voice was wobbly.

  Pete’s hair hung in strings and his shirt clung to his form, giving Nikki more of a view of his physique than she wanted. She gulped and retrieved a fluffy beach towel for him. After throwing him the towel she returned to the family room. “Looks like the coast is clear.”

  Connie and Tony didn’t move. Just looked at each other.

  “Maybe your husband would like something hot to drink.”

  “No.” Connie said this so quickly that Nikki stopped in her tracks.

  “I can wait for them,” Pete called from the back door, annoyance leaking into his words.

  Tony watched his mother.

  After a long pause, Connie set her mug on the coffee table and stood to leave. “Time to go, Tony.”

  The disappointment in the boy’s face prompted Nikki to tell him to wander over anytime. “Come to dinner tomorrow, if you like. All of you. I can make a pot of spaghetti.” The invitation was in the air before Nikki thought about it. It might be a good opportunity to dispel any theories she was tossing around about Pete being an abusive husband who’d just had a warning from the police.

  “I don’t think tomorrow works.” Connie patted her synthetic hair.

  “I love spaghetti!” Tony was at the window again and Connie waved him back.

  “Maybe the next night?” Nikki shrugged.

  “I’ll check with Pete, but I don’t think we can.”

  Nikki leaned in to whisper, “You could come without him.”

  Connie took her mug to the sink where she rinsed it and set it on the counter. Her delicate hands were so graceful. They were hands that would never provide protection against a man as big as Pete.

  At the back door, Connie glanced at her husband holding out her rain slicker. “We’ve been invited to dinner tomorrow, Pete, but I told Nikki I didn’t think we could.” She didn’t make eye contact with her husband.

  “Sorry.” Pete’s look of annoyance was barely masked. Why was he mad?

  Nikki threw him Burn’s bush coat. “Return it later.” She didn’t give him a chance to refuse. “How’s your writing going?”

  Pete didn’t miss a beat. “Good.” He looked at Connie. “Ready?” He opened the door and stepped out before his wife, which Nikki thought strange until she saw him scanning the forest.

  Nikki wanted to offer help, but for what? And she wasn’t even sure they needed it. She and Connie had only exchanged a look that verified something was going on.

  “Connie.” Nikki touched the woman’s sleeve as she passed. “You can always come here.”

  Pete stood on the deck with the boy. Hearing Nikki whisper, he spun around.

  “Thank you, Nikki, the tea was just what I needed.” And with that, the Bayers set off down the road through the rain without looking back. Pete’s arm around Connie’s shoulders looked stiff and assertive.

  Nikki had to remind herself to not judge their relationship based on what she saw. Pete and Connie could be perfectly happy even though they seemed different in every way. The only thing Nikki was sure of was that there was no squirrel in their house. Something had chased those two out fast enough that running to Nikki’s place was a better choice than staying in the house with Pete.

  Nikki was reminded of a documentary she’d once watched on killer whales. The cameraman had filmed a seal jumping into the research boat to escape the attack from its predator, the whale. The seal’s fear of humans was less than its fear of the whale and weighing that out, had chosen the boat. In this instance, Connie and Tony were the seals.

  With her back to the wall and Elvis beside her, she read Shakespeare’s latest letter:

  My Dearest One,

  Why have you forsaken me? I am in waiting for your return. Or are you close and teasing me? Have you followed Quinn to Seattle, my love?

  Wherever you are, you must return and we must finish this. You will succumb. Your blood will run freely over my trembling body.

  The courses of true love never did run smooth.

  Your Beloved

  It was short, not as graphic as usual, and his words indicated that he was going to wait for her return to L.A. His question of her whereabouts was a good sign. Just as Nikki closed her laptop, her cell phone rang. Caller ID indicated a name she knew to be Agent Gateman.

  “Nicole Crossland?” he asked.

  “I got the letter, Ted, and it’s not as bad as all the others. Isn’t that a good sign?”

  “Nikki, listen carefully. In the last hour, a man was apprehended on your property, and the local police have taken him into town for questioning. I’m sending someone to Louisa Lake.”

  “Oh, God!” Nikki hadn’t locked the door or set the security alarm behind the Bayers. Running to the back door, she bolted it and punched in the numbers to the security system.

  “It doesn’t mean we got Shakespeare,” the agent continued, “but a Caucasian male was coming through the trees from a parked rental car, big guy, 40ish, with a gun.”

  “He was here at Louisa Lake, just now?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “And Harold caught him?” It didn’t seem possible. Harold was all doughy and smiles, close to retirement.

  “Yes.”

  Was that what the last hour was all about? Had Connie and Tony been threatened somehow with someone who was coming through the trees? “I saw the police car pass my house.” Nikki was frozen to her spot, imagining what could have just happened. The only way Harold Gaines could take down a man running through the woods was if the stalker was in worse shape. “Did Harold shoot him?”

  “No shots fired.”

  Agent Gateman took another call, and Nikki waited. Pete must’ve been the brawn in that operation. What the hell?

  “I recommend you get a bodyguard, Nikki, until we verify the identity of the perpetrator. I’ll get in touch, within the hour. And don’t open your door to anyone until you talk to me.”

  When the call came from Gateman twenty minutes later, Nikki and Elvis were sitting in the great room, waiting to hear the rest of the story, her handgun on the table in front of her. Nikki hadn’t expected what came next.

  “Nicole Crossland?”

  “Hi, Ted. What’s going on?” She imagined the FBI team searching a stinking North Hollywood hovel, sifting through incriminating evidence, thumbing throug
h photos of her and copies of the horrific letters Shakespeare had written her.

  “This is Agent Gate—”

  “What’s happening?”

  “Do you know a Dwayne Capleoni?”

  She froze. “Yes, he’s my daughter’s bodyguard in Seattle.”

  “He’s not in Seattle. He’s the man in the Louisa Lake jail right now, waiting to be questioned on charges of armed trespassing.”

  ****

  Fuck. Living beside Goldy was not as safe as Pete had originally hoped. When the signal alerted him to a visitor on the road, he ran to the bedroom where all visible points of approach were being monitored. A black sedan drove slowly along the dirt track. He hit “zoom” on the keyboard and saw it was one man driving, alone.

  Connie was making peanut butter cookies—Tony’s favorite. “Connie, someone’s on the road, approaching the gate,” Pete shouted above the video game noise. The road in was long enough that it would take at least three minutes to make it to the gate and several more to run through the woods. Pete could find this guy in five minutes. “Get under the bed. Both of you. Now! Lock the door behind me.” Running through the kitchen, Pete fingered the gun in his holster and bolted outside into the pouring rain.

  He cut through the forest to where he’d intersect the intruder on the road. One minute later, he was close to Nikki’s house in the trees and caught sight of Connie and Tony in yellow rain slickers knocking on her back door.

  Shit. Didn’t Connie know it was dangerous for her to run around outside like that? Her stupidity was going to get her killed. And Tony. No matter what he told her to do, she found her own plan. He’d have to chew her out after this one.

  When Pete saw the perp exit his car at the gate and sneak through the brush, he anticipated his path. The man did not have a weapon in either hand. Pete slipped behind a big tree. As the man plodded through the woods, Pete readied himself. Just as the perpetrator passed, Pete crept out silently. Undetected, he closed the distance between them in two strides and grabbed the man in a choke hold. Good resistance made it a challenge but the forest creeper didn’t have a chance. He brought the intruder to the ground and dug the gun into the man’s side. His victim stopped squirming.