“They really have chickens roaming round—on the ground?” Ralph shook his head. “I’d like to see it.”
“Drive on out. If you ask, they’ll give you a tour. Chad and Willow are the best.” She tapped her pen on the menu. “I recommend the farmer’s omelet. You’ll love it if you love eggs.”
“Sounds good. I’ll take it.”
“Roasted potatoes or hash browns?”
Ralph didn’t hear most of Kelsie’s questions. Lost in thought, he grunted now and then. Half a minute later, he glanced around him, wondering where the server had gone and if she had taken the menu with her. A hazy memory of agreeing to an omelet niggled at the back of his mind, but the sight of a young woman pushing a double stroller with a baby strapped to her chest diverted his thoughts again. She looked so fresh—carefree. She waved at the officer, laughed at something she saw, pointed it out to the little ones—boys it seemed—in the stroller seat, and covered the baby’s head as a gust of wind whipped her skirt around her knees.
“A place like this—maybe this is what I want.”
“Did I miss something?” Kelsie paused, half-eaten plates filling her hands on her way to the kitchen.
“No, I just keep thinking this might be exactly the kind of place where I’d like to retire.” He rubbed his jaw, embarrassed. “Sorry. Something about Fairbury almost enchants me.”
“We get that a lot. Just remember when you’re deciding, we had a string of murders here a few years ago.”
“I’ll have to look that up. Sounds fascinating.” The mother passed by the window, the breeze flipping stray tendrils into her face. “I bet I’ve seen that hundreds of times all over the country, but it just seems more wholesome here somehow.”
Kelsie grinned. “That’s because it’s Willow. She owns Walden Farm. You should really go out and see it. I think you’d love it.”
“I might.”
Hurrying toward the kitchen, Kelsie called back, “I’ll be right out with your omelet.” When she returned, she refilled his coffee and slid the check at the table, tugging at the strings of her apron. “It’s time for my break, but if you need anything, Maeve will be happy to take care of it.”
“Do you have somewhere to go?”
“Nah… I keep myself to the break room. Saves me money. If I leave, I go get a coffee, buy a book, check out the new things in the music shop—dangerous stuff when you don’t make much. I’ll write out directions while I’m in there, though.”
He gestured toward the other side of his booth. “Are you allowed to sit with a customer? I’d like to hear more about this Willow and Walden Farm.”
“Well, sure but…”
“Put your coffee and something to eat on my check. Just talk. I’m fascinated.”
As Ralph ate his omelet, potatoes, and a biscuit so flaky it seemed unbelievable, he listened to a story that definitely was. Living alone, so close and yet so far from town—only with her mother. What an odd life. Still, something in it resonated with him. “So there is electricity on the farm, then. They just don’t use it?”
“Right—well, not in the house. Chad says he turns it on if it gets too hot—to run fans and everything. And he sometimes turns it on so they can watch a movie on his laptop if the battery is low. Otherwise, only the barns keep on the electricity.”
“Seems backwards, doesn’t it?”
“To us, sure. She’s more of a, ‘makes perfect sense to me’ type. I think she regrets some of the changes they’ve made. When I was out there, she said something about losing the vision of the farm if they weren’t careful. At the time, I thought she meant their vision—hers and Chad’s. Now, I think she meant her mother’s.”
“Why,” Ralph asked, wiping his mouth with a napkin, “do you think that?”
Kelsie jumped up and poured herself a cup of coffee before continuing. “Well, first she hired that girl—one of Adric’s girls, Becca—to do the work around there. People think that it’s because she’s tired of all the work, but Willow said she loves the work—or the work she used to have. Becca’s job is to do whatever she can’t.”
“Why can’t she do what she’s always done?” Ralph watched as the stroller crossed the street, Willow pushing it with one hand and waving at a cop with the other.
“The children. They’re so little. Willow said she doesn’t know how her mother managed with one, much less three.”
“What kind of work are you talking about?”
“They do it all—everything. Make candles and soap, grow their own food, chop their own wood—even replant trees to make up for the wood loss. It’s a self-sustaining place almost.”
“Wow. How do they have time?”
Kelsie laughed.
“What?”
After a sip of coffee, one she choked on, Kelsie said, “It’s just that word—wow. Inevitably, everyone says it about Willow.”
The stroller bounced over the drive, but Willow became distracted by an unsettled feeling. Kari’s hat slipped off, and the wind tossed it against the fence. As she dashed for it, something at the end of the drive arrested her attention. Heart pounding, she forced herself to put the baby’s hat back on, take a quick but deliberate look at what might be there, and— The sight at the end of the drive halted her plans. “Jason,” she whispered.
Should she act like she hadn’t seen him? Wave? Neither? Choosing the latter, she pulled her phone from her pocket and punched Chad’s number. One-handed, and quite ineffectually, she tried to push the stroller up the lane. “He’s here.”
Chad sounded confused as he answered, “What?”
“Jason Ross. He’s at the end of the drive, just standing there.”
“Are you in the house?”
She pursed her lips. “No, I’m trying to push the lads with one hand—not working very well, by the way.”
“Get inside and then call me back.”
“Chad, I don’t have a gun.” Her voice trembled, and she stumbled, tripping over a rut in the road.
“Call me back.”
Willow stared at the dead phone and glanced over her shoulder. Though again, not moving, Jason now stood thirty to forty feet closer. Mouth dry, Willow pocketed her phone and shoved the stroller. She no longer tried to hide the fact that she wished to avoid him. The boys whimpered and then cried as she ruthlessly forced the stroller over the rough, dirt drive. “He needs to drag it again,” she muttered. The irrelevance of that thought hit her hard.
By the time she reached the porch, Jason stood only twenty or so yards from the house. Willow unstrapped the boys and dragged them up the steps, their little ankles hitting the tops of each one in her haste. They shrieked even louder. She locked the front door, panting with fear. As she rushed to the back door to lock it too, Willow pulled out her phone and hesitated. Chad or Becca? Frustrated, she punched Becca’s number.
“Where are you?”
“Southeast pasture— why?”
“Get in your trailer. Jason’s here. Gotta go.”
She disconnected the call and before she could punch Chad’s number, her phone rang. The name read “unknown.” Willow swallowed the lump in her throat, and wrapped her arms around her wailing boys. “Shh… let Mama answer this call. We’ll get a snack.” Still, the lads wailed, following her every step. “Hello?”
“Why didn’t you wait for me, Willow? I came to see you.”
“Jason?” Mouth dry, she grabbed her sons, frustrated when Kari took up their cry of protest.
“Your children are frightened. You shouldn’t scare children. Fear scars them—holds them captive.”
“I have to go, Jason. You need to leave. Chad is coming. I have told you to leave. If you don’t go, he can arrest you for trespassing when he gets here.”
Jason’s laugh unsettled her further. “The Finley women don’t call the police on trespassers. I’ve read the news reports. The Finley women shoot them on sight. You didn’t shoot me, though, did you?”
“I am not my mother. I am not living in fe
ar of what someone did to me.” As she spoke, she stepped into the kitchen doorway and saw Jason staring back at her through the living room window. The desire to hang up and call Chad pressed on her, but she kept talking, praying that Chad would try to return her call.
“And, you don’t want to hurt me. You like me. You feel the bond we have—one we can thank your mother for, can’t we?”
“Jason, I liked you in Fairbury that day, but since then, you’ve made me uncomfortable. I don’t want Chad to have to arrest you—”
“I know you don’t. That’s why you’re going to call and tell him I’m leaving so he doesn’t have to come.”
She shook her head. “I can’t do that.”
“I can break this window, Willow. I can get in. You don’t want me to do that. I’m not going to hurt you, but I do want to talk to you, so just call Chad and tell him not to come. Then call me back.”
“I don’t have your number.” The moment she spoke, Willow wondered at the insanity of the words. Why would she want such a thing?
His chuckle unnerved her. “I forget about your lack of experience with simple technology. You find me in your recent calls. I’ll be waiting. Comfort your children too. I’ll be on the swing. Come out when you’re done.”
“Um…”
“Or, I can break the window and insist,” he added.
“I’ll call. I need to settle the boys. If they’re still screaming, Chad will come anyway.” Was it the right thing to say? She didn’t know.
“I’ll wait. I’ll always wait. I’m very, very good at waiting—a lifetime of it for a man who never returned. You will return, though, won’t you?”
Such bizarre words. What was he talking about? “Um, yeah. Are you okay?”
“I am now. You’re here. I’m here. Everything is exactly as it should be—or almost. Go call Chad or he’ll get here before you can. We wouldn’t want that.”
“Okay. Bye.” Hands trembling, she punched Chad’s number and began unwrapping Kari from her chest. “He won’t go, Chad. He told me to tell you that he’s gone so you won’t come. I want my gun. I am terrified. Mother—I get it now.”
“I’m almost there. Go in the library. In the closet—top shelf to the left, behind that set of medical books—there’s my spare gun in a small safe. Combination 3219.”
“Okay.” She set Kari in the Moses basket on the couch and tried to shush the boys on her way to the library. “He says he’ll break the window.”
“I’ll break his neck.”
A giggle escaped in spite of herself. A sound made her shudder. “He’s knocking on the window. I better go.”
“What? Lass, you’re not going—”
“Hurry.” She disconnected the call and sludged her way through the arms and legs attacking hers and found the hidden gun safe. Gun in hand, she glanced around her. She couldn’t take the boys out onto the porch. She couldn’t risk Jason breaking in. If she left them alone in the library, who knew what havoc they’d wreak, but what other choice did she have?
The temptation to lock herself and her children in the cellar until Chad arrived presented itself, but despite it all, she couldn’t do it. He’d get away. Jason Ross would get away, and who knew when he’d return or what he would do? Her hand shaking, she opened the library door and squeezed between it and the jamb, forcing the boys to stay behind. Their wails increased to epic proportions, but she steeled her heart against them and turned the front doorknob.
The empty porch terrified her even more than the idea of holding a man at gunpoint had. Dust in the lane told her Chad would arrive in seconds. The cruiser tore into the yard and Chad flung himself from it without turning off the lights or the engine. “Where is he?”
Willow shrugged. “I came out and I don’t see him.”
“Get inside.”
As Chad crept around the side of the house, Willow reached behind her, tried the door, and frowned. Locked. When had she done that? How— How didn’t matter. She held the gun, ready to fire, and scanned the property before her. By the time Chad stepped around the house again, she’d lowered the gun, frowning. “I can’t open the door.”
“You locked it? With the boys inside?”
She passed him the gun and crossed her arms. “Yes. It was better than risking his getting to them.”
Chad unlocked the door and barely stepped out of the way before she burst past him and freed the boys from the library. One lad on each hip, she carried them to the couch and snuggled in the corner. Little chests heaved with semi-repressed sobs as Willow murmured soothing words and wiped away tears. “See, everything is going to be just fine. Just fine. Mama’s here, Kari’s sleeping—somehow—and Daddy’s right there to protect us.”
“You’re all leaving.”
“We can’t go, Chad. We can’t leave Becca here alone—”
“She’s going too.”
Willow stared at him. “And the animals?”
“I’ll do my best, but you’re going.”
“I had someone getting into my house and you didn’t try to make me leave. We knew it had to be due to an evil man like Solari, and you didn’t try to make me leave. Why—”
“I didn’t have the right then. I do now. You’re going. Call Becca and tell her to go home until I—Joe—the others—we find Jason.”
Chapter 188
Another dead end. Chad typed the name again, this time spelled as Jayson. Another flop. Jasen. None. Ros. Rooss. Every spelling he could imagine, Chad plugged into National Crime Information Center, but of the eight hundred plus results, none fit.
Frustrated, he shoved himself away from the computer and stormed to the coffee maker. Empty. “Is it so hard to pour some more water and coffee into this thing when you take the last of it?”
“Someone’s a grouch.” Judith glared at him. “If you don’t like it, do it yourself.”
“I have to. I’ll be sure not to bother about it next time I use the rest.”
“Because that’s mature.” She leaned forward. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Crane, in here, please.”
Judith turned toward the chief’s door and tossed Chad a disgusted look. “I swear, I’ve heard of teacher’s pets, but—”
“Now!”
By the time the scent of fresh coffee filled the little station, Judith arrived at Chad’s side. “Sorry.”
“You didn’t know. That’s what you get for taking your vacation. You miss out on the exciting stuff—that I’d rather do without.”
“And you were the kid who thought working here was too boring—nothing exciting. You wanted to go to Rockland and work the projects.” At his lack of response to the continued banter, Judith shooed him back to the computer. “Try again. I’ll get the coffee. How about a pastry from The Confectionary?”
“If you’re going that way, I’ll take a sandwich from The Deli instead. Didn’t have breakfast or lunch.” Chad turned, sighing. “I just had a feeling he’d turn out to be related to the Solaris or even that guy that Kari killed.”
“But he’s not.”
Chad dropped into his chair, hands covering his eyes. “He probably is. Who knows what his real name is?”
“Does anyone know where he stayed? What kind of car he drove? Has anyone—”
“Don’t you think I’ve asked these questions? Man, Judith. This isn’t my first week on the job. I know how to do a search. I just can’t find him!”
Seconds ticked past as Judith stared back at him. “I’m still going to ask the obvious. Did you look for a list of known associates of Solari—either one of them? Did you call the family of that guy and see if they have any unstable members? Did—”
Chad grabbed the mouse and clicked the screen. “Thanks. Sorry.”
Page after page of information showed nothing—no one related to the Solaris. His gut told him they weren’t involved. It didn’t sound like their style, even if someone wanted delayed retaliation. Solaris might torment you, but they wouldn’t confront you directly.
Based upon what Willow had told him, Ross acted more like a stalker than someone involved in organized crime.
“Still, the more I think of it, the more familiar the name sounds.”
“What?” The door shut with a whoosh, and Judith passed him a hot meatball sandwich and bag of chips.
A glance at the clock told him he’d spent twenty minutes searching for something that he’d never find. “I just said that the name Jason Ross sounds familiar. It always did. I just can’t tell why.”
“No lead on the Solari front?”
“Well, there are hundreds of names here, but most are aliases and no Rosses at all. Three Jasons. Two African-American and one Caucasian guy about fifty.”
“So it has to be the guy Kari Finley killed—someone connected with him. What was his name? Do a search on that.”
His finger hovered over the mouse, ready to click a new search, but Chad hesitated. Grabbing his sandwich, chips, and coffee mug, he shoved the chair back and stood. “I’ll be back in a bit. I need Kari’s letter.”
Just as the door closed behind him, Judith called out, “It’s not like a Google search won’t show it in thir—aaand he’s gone.”
I, Kari Anne Finley, confess to the murder of Jason Rosser, a man with physical characteristics…
The words bored into his mind, taunting him. “I knew it all along, Lord. Deep down, I knew it. Too convenient—too close to the settlement. Too many comments about mothers. I wonder that Willow didn’t see it.”
The moment he spoke the words, Chad knew the answer. She didn’t see it, because Willow didn’t think that way. She’d never blame someone else’s children for the actions of their mother.
Still, if he had wanted to harm Willow or the children, he’d had ample opportunity. “What do I do?” The answer came before he finished asking. Verify.
Without hesitation, he punched Bill’s office number, but a glance at the clock told him the man wouldn’t be there anymore. He disconnected and tried again on Bill’s private number. “Hey, Chad here.”
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