by Sara Davison
Summer wrinkled her nose. Other than a few glaring holes—the fact that she would be lying and misrepresenting herself to someone looking into hiring her, and that she would actually have to be able to perform whatever workplace duties she claimed to have experience in, when in all likelihood she didn’t—it was a perfect plan.
She searched through her bag for a few seconds before remembering she no longer had a phone and closed the bag again. She flicked a straw lying on the table and watched it spin around in a circle before dropping between the wooden slats. Summer didn’t move for a few seconds, until her conscience got the better of her and she slid off the bench, crouched down, and retrieved the straw. After depositing it in the nearest garbage can, already overflowing with empty cups and napkins, she brushed off her hands and trudged back to the picnic table.
Now what? There had to be a library in town. Would they have computers available for public use? She should go and search to see if there were any rooms or apartments for rent in town. Although the possibility of finding one that didn’t require first and last month’s rent and a credit check was slim. Summer sighed as she propped her elbow on the table and rested her head on her hand. Trying to stay positive when at every turn she hit a wall as solid as the stone one she’d walked along moments before was exhausting.
Maybe she should go back to the home she didn’t recognize as hers and take her chances that the man who had attacked her there had been bluffing and wouldn’t actually come back to finish the job that he had started.
Chapter Ten
Díaz propped a shoulder against the stone wall that ran along the side of the Elora Mill, down to the river, and pressed the phone to his ear, waiting through three rings. He was shivering, although he had no idea whether that was because of the light dusting of frost clinging to the wall or apprehension over his impending conversation. Both, maybe. Finally, the call connected, and a deep, raspy voice on the other end barked out, “Dígame.”
“She’s in Elora.”
“Excelente.”
“You want me to bring her to you?”
“No, todavía no. Solo obsérvala.”
“Just watch her?” Díaz shrugged. “You’re the boss. Shouldn’t be too hard. She has no idea I followed her here.”
“¿Que hay del otro?”
“Kendrick?” Díaz shot a nervous look toward the street. “No sign of him yet. I don’t think he knows she’s here. I’ll watch for him though.”
“Dame cualquier información inmediamente.”
He scratched his eyebrow with his thumbnail. “Of course I’ll let you know everything that’s going on. That’s what you pay me for, isn’t it?”
His boss chuckled. “Eso, y otras cosas.”
Díaz winced. A few other things was right. Truth was, he did a lot of things for his boss. Things he never thought he’d do. He had to take care of his family, though. “I’ll call when I have news. Let me know when you want me to move in.” He stabbed the disconnect button before the voice on the other end could issue any further instructions. If he didn’t hear them, he didn’t have to carry them out.
Díaz leaned against the wall and watched the water tumbling over the dam until the cold of the stone seeped through the arm of his jacket and he pushed away. Shoving the phone into his pocket, he shot one more look toward the river. Then he went to do his job.
Chapter Eleven
From halfway down the block, Jude watched Summer as she sat at a picnic table, seemingly oblivious to the people passing by. A pair of binoculars lay on the seat beside him, but with all these people milling around, he didn’t dare use them. When she rested her head on her hand, he frowned. She’d only been out of the hospital for a few hours—was she exhausted or in pain? Or was it hitting her all of a sudden that she had no place to go, nowhere to stay? All three, most likely.
Would she give up and go home? He actually preferred her in a small town where it would be easier to keep tabs on her. Although, to badly misquote Humphrey Bogart, of all the small towns in all the provinces in the country, why did she have to wander into this one? Any town would have been better for him than Elora. What could have enticed her to come here, of all places? He wiped away the beads of sweat that had formed on his forehead, despite the cold day, with the side of his hand.
At least she was out from under the influence of her meddling parents. It had been impossible to get close with the two of them hovering around her all the time, filling her head with lies. Now that she was away from them, nothing would stop him from getting to her. He just had to keep her from leaving town so he could choose the time and place.
Jude grabbed his phone and did a quick search for rooms for rent in the area. A couple of them were way out of her price range—and his—but the third one on the list caught his eye. He scanned the details before hitting the phone number in the ad. The woman who answered sounded friendly enough, and he made arrangements to come over right away to look at the room. That done, Jude shot one last glance down the street. Summer hadn’t moved. If his plan was going to work, she needed to stay put for the next half hour or so. Given the lines of fatigue grooved into her face, chances were she wasn’t going anywhere.
He pulled onto the street and stopped at a bank where he made a withdrawal from the ATM before driving the few blocks to the address the woman had given him. The street the house was on was lined with tall, overhanging trees, and the homes were large and looked to be at least seventy or eighty years old. Jude pulled up to the curb in front of the one in the ad and turned off the car. The house was one of the biggest on the block. Although it hadn’t been kept up as well as it might have been—the paint was peeling in spots and the curling shingles suggested the roof could definitely stand to be replaced—the word that sprang to his mind when he looked at it was stately.
The white clapboard house was nestled far back on the property and surrounded by towering maples. A stone walkway wended its way from the sidewalk to the double front doors. Large windows graced both stories, which meant the inside would be bright and warm. Jude shoved open the car door and half-jogged up the walkway.
Before he could reach the front doors, they both swung open. A tall, thin woman stood in the doorway. She looked to be in her mid-sixties, with long, red, frizzy hair that was doing its best to escape the clip at the back and spring up all over her head. She wore some kind of flowing navy dress covered in flowers nearly as bright as the grin that spread across her face as he approached. She stuck out her hand. “Nancy Snodgrass.”
That fit. Jude grasped the cool, bony one in his and shook it firmly. “Nice to meet you. Thanks for letting me come by.”
“My pleasure. You said you were looking at the room for someone else?”
“Yes, actually. A woman who arrived in town today and has nowhere to go. I thought of her when I saw your ad.”
Nancy let go of him and swept her arm through the air with a flourish. “Come on in. You can tell me a bit more about her while I show you the room.”
The smell of a roast cooking filled the air, and his mouth watered. When was the last time he’d had a home-cooked meal? Pushing back the thought—and the sudden surge of nostalgia—Jude followed her across the spacious entryway and up the Gone-with-the-Wind-style staircase. Like the outside, the inside of the house showed its age. The wooden floorboards creaked when he stepped on them and the carpet on the stairs was worn thin in spots. Still, everything looked neat and clean and antiques graced every shelf and table in sight.
At the top of the stairs, he followed Nancy down a long narrow hallway to the last room on the left. When she opened it, Jude nodded. This was the place. A four-poster bed took up half the room. The rest was filled with a tall dresser that lined one wall, a wardrobe, and a rocking chair in a corner by the window, a wool blanket tossed over the back of it invitingly. A round, plush carpet covered almost the entire floor. The walls were white and the sheer curtains were covered in pastel flowers. The room was perfect.
“H
ow long will your friend be staying?” Nancy crossed the floor and pushed open a door.
“I’m not sure. I can pay you for a month up front, if it’s okay to go month to month.” Jude stuck his head into the small washroom with the clawfoot tub and washbasin sink.
When he stepped back, Nancy leaned against the frame, crossed her arms over her chest, and tapped a foot. For a long moment she studied him, as though assessing his intentions.
Jude met her gaze steadily. She had to agree to let this room to Summer. Although that would be the easy part of his two-step idea.
“What’s her name?”
He hesitated. Was Summer using her real name now that she was on the run? She’d been smart enough to lose her phone, she’d likely think of that too. “I’ll let her introduce herself to you, if you don’t mind.”
The landlady shrugged. “Does she have a job?”
“Not yet. But she’s a hard worker. She’ll be out first thing tomorrow, looking for something.”
Nancy pursed her lips. “And you say she has nowhere else to go?”
“That’s right. It was a spontaneous decision, coming here. She didn’t have time to make plans.”
“Hmm.” She continued to study him as though he were a piece of art hanging in a museum she felt compelled to interpret. When he was growing up, Jude’s mother had watched a lot of re-runs of the sitcom Alice, about a waitress in a diner called Mel’s. Nancy reminded him of another of the waitresses in the diner, Flo. Could have been her sister, actually. He half-expected her to pull a pencil out from behind her ear and point it at him. “Running from the law?”
That stopped the smile that had been about to cross his face fast. Jude blinked. “No, of course not. She wouldn’t jaywalk if someone paid her to.”
Nancy huffed out a breath. “All right then. I don’t know why, but I’m inclined to trust you to vouch for her. She can stay one month, and we’ll see how it goes.”
“Excellent.” Jude tugged the wallet from the back pocket of his jeans. “I do have a favor to ask though.”
She tilted her head and more red curls sprang loose and boinged around her ears. “What’s that?”
“She can’t know that I’ve paid for her room. She’s kind of proud and independent. Any chance you could tell her that she can pay you at the end of the month, to give her time to get a job and earn the money?”
“I’m not in the habit of lying, mister.”
“And I’m not in the habit of asking people to. But I know her, and I’m pretty sure she’d sleep on the street rather than take this room if she thought I was somehow involved in getting it for her.”
“How’s she going to know about the place then?”
Jude took a deep breath. This was the tricky part. “I, uh…”
She planted a fist on one flowered hip. “Spit it out.”
“Well, I was sort of hoping you might be willing to go downtown and, if she’s still where I saw her last, kind of bump into her, start a conversation. Somehow work around to the fact that you’re looking for someone to take the room you’ve got for rent. That way she’d think it was coming from you, not me.”
He hadn’t realized she was chewing gum until she snapped it loudly. Exactly like Flo. “Got it all figured out, don’t ya?”
It felt like a rhetorical question, so Jude held his tongue.
After a few interminably long seconds, Nancy pushed away from the frame. “Lucky for you, I blocked out the afternoon to show the room to potential renters, so I’ve got a little time on my hands. And I happen to be in the mood for a challenge.”
Jude let out a breath. “That’s great, thanks so—”
She held up a hand. “I haven’t done anything yet. I might not be able to find her. Even if I do, she may not agree to come home with me, a perfect stranger. Hold off on any thanks until we see if this cockamamie plan of yours even works.”
He pulled four one-hundred-dollar bills out of his wallet and held them up. “I’m willing to bet this much that you’d be able to talk anybody into doing pretty much anything.”
She hesitated before reaching for the bills. “Takes a smooth talker to know one, don’t it?”
Another rhetorical question. Jude grinned.
“How will I know her?”
He found a picture on his phone and handed her the device. Nancy studied the screen for a moment before handing it back. “I guess I can see why you’re so willing to help her out.”
Heat coursed through his chest. “It’s not like that.”
“Sure it ain’t.” She snapped her gum again and started back through the bedroom. “Let’s go then. If she’s the kind of person you described, she likely won’t sit around doing nothing for long.”
That was true. Jude caught up with Nancy in the front foyer and touched her arm. “Thanks again for doing this. And could you do me one more favor?”
Nancy bent down and tugged a pair of boots on over her knee-high striped socks. When she straightened, her green eyes met his. “Seems you’ve about used up all your favors for one day.”
“I know I have. But would you mind pretending you don’t know me if I show up here at the house? I really don’t want her to figure out I had anything to do with her finding this place.”
Nancy tugged on a wool coat and pulled open the front door. “Since I don’t know you, not even your name, that shouldn’t be a problem.”
Jude suppressed a smile as he followed her out the door. Yes, Nancy was going to do just fine as a landlady. Now all he had to do was pray that Summer would think so too. Otherwise it would be on to Plan C.
Chapter Twelve
I can’t sit around here all day. Summer closed the map book with a snap. Except that she had no idea where she should go. She rubbed her hands together, trying to keep the circulation going. God, could you show me? Give me some kind of sign? I really have no—
“Excuse me.”
Summer looked up, shading her eyes with one hand and trying not to wince at the pain the bright light sent shooting through her head. A woman wearing a beige wool coat over a floral dress, curly red hair poking out beneath a cream-colored knit hat, stood on the other side of the picnic table clutching a paper takeout cup. The rich aroma of chocolate drifted on the steam that curled out of the hole on the top.
“The other table is taken. Do you mind?” The woman gestured to the bench across from her.
“Of course not.” Summer grabbed the book and her purse and started to get up. “I was about to leave anyway.”
“Oh, please don’t rush off on my account. I’d enjoy a little company while I drink this.”
The hint of wistfulness in the woman’s voice stopped Summer and she sank back down on the bench. Where do I have to be? “I can stay for a few more minutes.”
“Wonderful.” The woman lifted the skirt of her dress with her free hand and swung one leg over the bench. When she was settled, she reached across the table. “Nancy Snodgrass.”
Summer’s mouth went a little dry. Could she do this? She grasped the woman’s hand. “Ana Santos.” The surname slipped off her tongue before she had a chance to second-guess it. Too late now. She had committed to being Ana Santos for the foreseeable future. Better get used to it.
The woman nodded and let go of her hand. “Beautiful name. Spanish, right? Where are you from?”
“Mexico. Although I’ve lived in Canada for ten years.” No dés tanta información. Way too much. Keep your answers brief. She swallowed. Living a double life was going to take a bit of getting used to.
“And how long have you been in Elora?”
Summer licked her lips. “About an hour. It’s a lovely town.”
Nancy glanced around. “It is that. One of the prettiest in Ontario. We’re quite proud of it. Are you passing through?”
She hesitated. Something about this woman invited trust. Which could be dangerous. Summer shifted on the bench. “I’m not sure yet. I was thinking about maybe staying awhile, but I’ll have to see if I
can get a job.”
Nancy took a sip of the hot chocolate and wiped a smudge of whipped cream off her upper lip. “Where are you planning to stay?”
Summer let out a nervous laugh. “I haven’t quite figured that out yet.”
For a long moment the woman studied her. A drop of melting whipped cream slid down the side of the cup before she made a tsking noise with her tongue. “Well, you can’t sleep on the street. This might sound a little crazy, but I have a room for rent.”
Alarm bells went off in Summer’s head. A complete stranger happened to have a room available in her home?
Nancy tugged a napkin from the pocket of her coat and swiped it over her fingers. Then she pulled a phone from the large yellow purse she’d set on the bench beside her. “I can see what you’re thinking. A perfect stranger offers you a place to stay, out of the blue. Likely running one of them rings you hear about on the news, right?” She typed something into the phone and turned the screen toward Summer. “I don’t blame you—pretty girl like you can’t be too careful. Not that there’s a lot of that sort of thing happening in our little town. That I know of. But to set your mind at ease, here’s the ad I placed this morning.”
Summer scanned the screen. Sure enough, a woman named Nancy had placed an ad for an available room. But the monthly rate, while reasonable, was a lot more than she had access to at the moment. She shook her head. “I don’t have a job yet. I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to pay you.”
The woman slid the device back into her purse and zipped it closed. “I’ll be honest with you. I rent out the room less for the money than to have another human being in the house. I never want to become one of those crazy old women who talks to their cats and no one else. So I only have one cat—you aren’t allergic, are you?—and I let out one room so my voice isn’t the only one echoing off the walls of the old place.”
Summer struggled to keep up with the stream of words coming from the woman. Clearly she was in need of someone to talk to. The room must have been empty for a while. She repressed a smile. “No, I’m not allergic.”