Murder on the Horizon

by M. L. Rowland

  The revving engine of a large vehicle engine climbing up to camp intruded on the peace. Gracie rolled the excess paint from her roller, then wrapped it in a plastic grocery bag to keep it from drying out.

  She stepped off the ladder onto the grass just as a pickup truck roared up the final rise into view—a dark green Ford F-350.

  Gracie went very still.

  She had seen that same truck before, on the day Lee Edwards had tried to use his son as a punching bag.

  She watched the pickup turn into a parking spot next to the Ranger and stop. The door opened and Winston Ferguson climbed out.

  There was no time to hide, no time to pretend she wasn’t there.

  Winston had already seen her.

  Gracie’s eyes moved to where Minnie was lying in the shade, curled up on the mat before the front door. At Winston’s appearance, the dog had raised her head, tail swishing the sidewalk.

  “Stay, Minnie,” Gracie said, sidling over until she stood beside the dog, so that, if need be, she could grab her, jump inside the building, and lock the door.

  Perhaps Gracie’s trepidation revealed itself on her face or in her posture. Or perhaps Winston had a sixth sense for it. But, for whatever reason, the huge man stopped a nonthreatening twenty feet away, and said in his characteristic high voice, “Hi, Grace.”

  Also nonthreatening was the pink Oxford, button-down shirt he wore, perhaps, she thought cynically, for that very reason. The casual-day-at-the-office look was marred by steel-toed boots with red laces and a California Angels baseball cap. Winston’s use of ball caps, sometimes incongruously, now made sense to Gracie. He used them to hide his shaved head in public.

  She was reminded again how puny and weak and defenseless she felt in the face of such brawn. Being able to fend off any unwanted attack with a soggy paint roller didn’t seem likely. Still, wanting to leave no mistake about exactly how she felt about seeing Winston again, Gracie lifted her chin, folded her arms in front of her, planted her feet apart another foot. Feeling like the boy shepherd in front of the giant Goliath, she asked, “What do you want?”

  “Well, first, I want to apologize for barging in on your day unannounced. I don’t suppose ‘I was in the neighborhood and thought I would stop by’ would fly.” He smiled at her, showing surprisingly white, even teeth. The blue eyes with light, sloping eyebrows were soft, almost kind.

  “Don’t suppose it would,” Gracie said.

  “Well, to be honest, I wasn’t in the neighborhood. I drove up here specifically to see if I could find you, talk to you.”

  “What do you want?” she asked again, having no trouble maintaining her stony glare.

  “I wanted to say again how sorry I am for what happened this morning—for frightening you. I wanted to check on you. Make sure you’re all right.”

  Don’t get sucked in, Kinkaid. “I’m fine.” She cocked her head. “You can go now.”

  Instead of being put off by her rudeness, Winston smiled again, this time wide and appealing, so disarming that Gracie almost shook her head in an attempt to retain her sanity and not succumb to the apparent remorse, the smile, the easy style, the kind eyes. This was, she reminded herself, the same man who might very possibly be a neo-Nazi, who most certainly allowed very small children to run around with semiautomatic weapons and point them at people, at her.

  Winston’s eyes slid over to Minnie “Is that your dog?”

  “She’s a trained killer,” Gracie said.

  Ears perked, Minnie wagged her tail as if begging to be noticed and petted.

  Thanks, Minnie.

  “She’s cute.” Winston glanced over at the ladder, the paint can, the half-painted front wall. “Sprucing things up a little? It looks nice. Makes a big difference. Good Christian people own this camp?”

  “A church in L.A.”

  “Ah,” he said, nodding his head. “Could you use a hand?” Without waiting for a reply, he rolled up his sleeves, crossed the lawn, picked up the hedge clippers lying on the grass, and began to trim back the shaggy yews in front of her office window.

  Undecided, Gracie watched Winston. Then she shrugged. Why not?

  Not wanting to work with her long, bare legs at Winston’s eye level, Gracie moved the ladder to the other end of the building and started painting the Gatehouse wall from that end.

  What would have taken Gracie an additional afternoon to complete took her and Winston three hours. With steady work, the big man’s muscle, and minimal conversation—light and congenial for Winston’s part, terse and clipped for Gracie’s—they painted the rest of the front wall, as well as the window trim, gutters, and front door, installed a new front doorknob, trimmed the bushes, disposed of the clippings onto a new compost pile just outside the maintenance yard, pulled up the weeds in the sidewalk cracks, and returned the lawn mower and all the painting supplies to the shop.

  Gracie stood at the far end of the front lawn, hands on hips, admiring how one afternoon’s work had transformed the entrance of the camp from the dour grimace of Baba Yaga’s hut into the cheerful welcoming smile of Snow White’s little cottage in the woods.

  She turned toward Winston, who was standing next to his truck. “Thanks for your help,” she said, and almost stuck out her hand to shake his.

  “You’re welcome,” Winston said with a nod. “I wondered . . .” He stopped, thrusting his hands deep into his pockets, scraping at little stones on the asphalt with his boot. “I wondered if you would honor me by having a cup of coffee with me sometime.”

  “Uhhh.” Whatever she was expecting from Winston, it wasn’t this. “Probably not a good idea.”

  “I didn’t think so. But I figured there was no harm in asking.” He smiled again. “In case I’m lucky enough for you to change your mind, here’s my phone number.” He reached through the driver’s window of the F-350, grabbed up a piece of paper, tore off one corner and scribbled a phone number on it with a pen, walked over, and handed it to Gracie. “Call me anytime,” he said, backing away again. “If you need help with something. Anything. I’m happy to come.”

  Winston climbed into the pickup and started the engine. He backed out of the space and, with a lift of his huge hand, drove out of camp.

  As the cloud of dust drifted into the air and dissipated, Gracie ciphered on the walking conundrum that was Winston Edwards. Every time she had spoken with him, he had been polite, well mannered, almost deferential.

  Yet, in spite of his kind eyes and easy smile, in spite of the good manners and benign temperament, there wasn’t a doubt in her mind that she had just spent the afternoon tap-dancing with a Nile crocodile in a top hat.

  Gracie had just turned off the computer in her office for the day when she heard another vehicle rumble up the dirt road and into camp. “Who’s this now?” she wondered, pulling the front window curtain aside to peer outside. “I’m a busy woman. Got people to do. Things to see.”

  She watched as a red Jeep Wrangler convertible, the top down, pulled into a parking space next to the Ranger, the same space Winston had vacated less than an hour before.

  A man climbed down from the Jeep.

  Gracie’s mouth dropped open. A jolt of electricity traveled all the way down to her fingertips.

  It was Rob.

  CHAPTER

  16

  GRACIE sprinted up the hallway into the little bathroom. A glance in the mirror told her there was no hope. Fading bruises on her forehead and upper lip. Face devoid of makeup. Hair hastily caught up into a knot at the top of her head. She scraped tiny spots of Calypso Blue from her nose and chin with a stubby fingernail and did the old-fashioned thing by patting her cheeks to bring a little color into her face. She drew off the powder blue Camp Ponderosa sweatshirt she had turned inside out while painting, turned it right-side out, and hauled it back on. Not much she could do about the paint-spattered shorts.

 
Then with a sense of unreality, she walked through the outer reception area and out the front door.

  Hands on his hips, Rob was standing next to the Jeep, looking around. Gracie noticed immediately that the hard “city” look had relaxed since the first time she had met him. Gone were the black pants and V-neck sweater. Gone were what she had dubbed butt-ugly roach-killer city shoes—black leather, over the ankle, alarmingly pointed. He was dressed now as any other stunningly gorgeous SoCal native going for an early autumn drive in the mountains—faded Levi’s, blue, green, and white–striped rugby shirt, and sneakers. His hair shone like corn silk in the late afternoon sun. The only sign of extraordinary monetary wealth was the gold watch on his wrist.

  Rob caught sight of Gracie walking down the front walkway and smiled, turning her legs into instant mashed potatoes.

  He cut diagonally across the grass, put his hands on her upper arms, and kissed her on both cheeks, first the left, then the right. Nothing romantic. Nothing sexy. A kiss an acquaintance might give.

  Or a brother.

  Still, Rob’s touch sent shock waves of electricity coursing through Gracie’s body.

  He smiled down at her with obvious affection and said, “Hi, twit. How are you?”

  “Hi, dolt,” she said, managing a tight smile in return. “Good. I’m good. What . . .” She swallowed, her mouth dry. “What . . . are you doing here?”

  In an echo of the words Winston had spoken earlier that same afternoon, Rob said, “I was in the neighborhood.”

  Thumbs hooked in the back pockets of his jeans, Rob studied Gracie—her hair, her clothes, her face, the scrutiny making Gracie squirm. “Using the same makeup artist, I see,” he said without smiling.

  “I’m not . . . what?”

  “The bruises on your face, love.”

  Love, Gracie thought, then reminded herself that Rob used the term of endearment frequently. It meant nothing, signified nothing. “And I see you’re getting out of your cave once in a while.” Ignoring Rob’s look of consternation at her deliberate change of subject, she added, “The first time I saw you, you were the color of the down side of a right-side-up fish.” She looked up into his face, trying to resurrect the smile. “Remember?”

  He smiled then. “I remember.”

  “Your pants were soaked and Cashman gave you his pants to put on . . .” She knew she was chattering. “And you were hopping around on one foot . . .” She giggled at the memory. “Holy cow, were you white!”

  He studied her face for a moment, brows merged into a line above the dark eyes. “Gracie, I—”

  “Would you like . . .” she interrupted again. “I mean, can I . . . ?” She stopped. Everything she said sounded so stilted and formal. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Would you like to see around camp?”

  “Love to,” Rob said with a sigh. “I haven’t given up, you know.”

  Pretending she didn’t know what he meant, Gracie said, “The only group in camp is at dinner, so we shouldn’t see anyone. Unless you need to eat. We could always . . .”

  “No. I grabbed some take-away on the way up,” he said. “Bloody awful. Tasted like cardboard.”

  “We have to walk,” Gracie said. “That okay? No cars allowed past the main lodge.”

  “Of course. Lead on,” Rob said with a dramatic sweep of his arm.

  A brief introduction of Minnie to Rob resulted in instantaneous mutual adoration. With Rob holding Minnie’s leash, they walked along the little road leading down from the Gatehouse, a modest two feet between them.

  Like opposing magnets, Gracie thought.

  In the cool shade of the cottonwoods, they strolled across the little creek.

  “So, you’re manager here now?” Rob asked.

  “Interim manager, really.”

  “I know you’re amazing and all, love, but wasn’t that a fast ascendency?”

  “It was. Good timing really. The previous manager . . .” She stopped, not wanting to relate the entire sordid tale of how she had acquired her job, then finished with, “left unexpectedly.”

  The two emerged back into the open between the Serrano Lodge parking lot and the rec field. They skipped a tour of the main lodge with the accompanying dinner crowd and continued in the dwindling daylight down the Main Road hill leading to the lower portion of camp, past two double-wide mobile homes, formerly employee lodging and now sitting empty.

  As they walked, Gracie recovered from her initial shock of seeing Rob again. Her hands steadied. The horizon leveled. And the warm feeling in the pit of her stomach she felt whenever she was with Rob returned.

  At the bottom of the Main Road hill, at the base of the driveway leading up to Mojave Lodge, Rob stopped, hands in pockets, studying an old wooden sign, painted brown, lettered in white. “What’s this?”

  “Names of movies filmed on the property.”

  His face lit up like a ray of sun emerging from behind storm clouds. “The Trail of the Lonesome Pine was filmed here?”

  Gracie grinned at him. Once again, she had forgotten how Rob loved anything and everything to do with old American westerns.

  “And High Sierra?”

  Gracie studied the man examining the sign. The curling hair. The sparkling dark eyes. Heavy brows. Mouth curving up at the sides.

  I’m in the right place when I’m with you, she thought. On solid footing. At my best. Whole.

  This time there was no suffocating feeling of panic. No mental ping-pong game back and forth. No What if this? or What if that? No making excuses that it would never work. No dredging up of old hurts and rejections, telling herself she wasn’t ready or that it was too soon.

  I am all-in, she thought. Full-body immersion. Heart and soul. In love with you.

  Then the champagne bubble of joy that had welled up inside burst as reality full-body-slammed into her.

  He’s engaged.

  To someone else.

  Gracie coughed to disguise an escaping sob.

  Rob glanced over at her. “You okay, love?”

  Gracie faked another cough, stepping back and turning away. “Yeah. Fine. Dust.”

  “I’ll have to watch them all again,” he said, eyes back on the sign. “Now that I’ve been here. Seen the camp.”

  “There are some rustic cabins up ahead there,” Gracie said, gesturing farther down the road. “They were used for some segments of Bonanza.

  “That’s just brilliant!” he said. “I’m loving this!”

  “They’re used for storage. But I want to show you the team challenge course first. It’s across here.” Rob followed Gracie across a narrow wooden plank leading across a gully, rushing with water after a rain, but now dry and filled with fallen leaves and spent pine needles.

  Standing among the tall pines on a soft, thick mat of shed needles, Gracie explained the purpose of each of the low-to-the-ground elements, designed for problem solving by teams of people, how each element was accomplished and its intended lesson.

  Back out on the road, they walked past the three side-by-side single-wide trailers on the left, one occupied by twin sisters in housekeeping, one by Allen.

  Gracie unlocked one of the rustic cabins, taking Minnie’s leash, so that Rob could walk around inside, examine the thick logs and beams, and exclaim how it was “all-fired brilliant!”

  Outside again, they stopped to drink out of the artesian well water by cupping their hands and catching the icy water as it gushed out of the ground. Then they continued alongside the lake and down the railroad tie steps to the high ropes course.

  They stood on the mulch in the middle of the course, looking up to where thirty feet in the air cables stretched from tree to tree forming individual challenges. No need to mention that only a few months before, Gracie had almost been killed in a fall from the central belay cable fifty feet up. That sordid story could also wai
t for another time.

  If, she reminded herself, there is another time. The full force of Rob’s engagement hit her again and sadness almost overwhelmed her. She looked over at him standing next to an enormous ponderosa pine, head tipped back, scrutinizing the cables overhead.

  The idea that she might never see Rob again hit her with a fresh shock that left her feeling chafed and raw. Never see those dark bright eyes. Never touch the soft hair. Never witness firsthand the brilliant smile. Or taste those soft lips. Or feel those hands—

  Rob swung around toward Gracie, the golden smile at full wattage. “This is fantastic, Gracie.” He walked up to where she stood in the middle of the mulch. “I got the numbers from The Sky’s the Limit camp.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Suddenly anxious, she mentally hunched her shoulders, preparing for the bad news.

  “Why are you getting all tense?”

  Gracie had also forgotten how, as an actor, Rob was a student of mannerisms, inflection, body language. How he missed almost nothing.

  “They were great, love,” he said, bending to look into her face. “You did a fantastic job.” He put his hands on her upper arms and kissed her cheek.

  Again, very chaste. Very brotherly. Very irritating.

  “Really,” he said. “Fantastic. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” Gracie said, turning away. No need for patting her cheeks to make them pink up. She could feel the hot flush travel up her neck and onto her face.

  Gracie led Rob back up the railroad tie stairway, across the strip of sand that was the swim beach, and stood on the shore of Ponderosa Lake, the water a mirror, reflecting the opalescent sky, striped with long, dark tree shadows.

  Minnie’s ears perked as a pair of mallard ducks sailed in from the right, landed on the water with a faint splash, and paddled along the far shore, widening ripples in their wake.

  “It’s beautiful here,” Rob said in a low voice, as if in reverence of the tranquility. “Stunning. I’ve been wanting to visit for months.”