Take Me Back (Paradise, Idaho Book 4)

by Rosalind James

  “How can you tell?”

  He set all three of the letters down flat on the desk, one on top of the other, so all of the simple sentences were visible.

  “First letter has ‘don’t’ without the apostrophe,” he pointed out. “Second and third letter, though, you’ve got the apostrophe again. First one has ‘your’ with no apostrophe, which is right, and the second has it spelled Y-O-U-R-E. It’s like they’re trying to pretend they don’t know how to spell it, instead of really not knowing how to spell it. Then the third letter leaves out the apostrophe again, in ‘we’ll.’ You get the feeling that’s their big tell of who’s a redneck or not—the apostrophe. But they’ve forgotten which way they did it before. And they used the comma here, see? ‘You don’t listen, comma, do you?’ That’s not an . . . not uneducated punctuation.”

  “I never thought I’d hear Jim Lawson use the phrase ‘uneducated punctuation,’” Hallie said.

  His head shot up, and now, he was the one who was frowning. “Because I’m dumb, maybe.”

  “No!” She looked horrified. “No. Of course not. Obviously you aren’t dumb. You noticed this, and I didn’t. Something felt off, but I couldn’t have said what.”

  “It’s my job.” He was studying the letters again. “I don’t think of this—sending letters—as the kind of thing somebody would do if they hated what you were teaching, or how you were teaching it. They’d be getting together with the other parents, going to the principal. They’d be talking, not being anonymous. Why be anonymous?”

  “You’re right,” she said. “People who are very ideological—they want you to know what they think. They want to engage you. They want to argue.”

  “So have you had anything like that? You had your phone number up there on the board the other night. Any calls? Anybody going to the principal?”

  She shook her head. “No. But everyone knows that calls can be traced. If you wanted to do something threatening, you wouldn’t do it on the phone, and Paradise isn’t exactly full of pay phones. Same thing with e-mail. You could send one from computers at the library, maybe, but—the library’s small, too. Not anonymous. And e-mail leaves a trail.”

  “Yep. It does.” He replaced the letters in their envelopes. “You got a big envelope or something that I could put these in?”

  “Sure.” She rummaged around again and found a folder. “Will this do?”

  “Yeah. Just don’t want to smear them around any more than they have been.”

  He put them carefully into the folder and removed the gloves, and when he didn’t say anything else, she asked, “What are you thinking?”

  “That these have nothing at all to do with your teaching, whatever smoke screen the person’s trying to throw out. Never heard of anything like that, and we have a lot of liberal teachers. You get that in a university town. Besides, you’re a sub, here for a few months. Why would anybody get their panties in a wad? I don’t think they’re about that at all. I think they’re about the same thing as the guns.”

  “The guns weren’t about making me leave town, though.”

  “But they were about money. They were about somebody who knew what was in Henry’s house—which wasn’t hard to know—and where it was going, which was a little harder to know. Either a target of opportunity, or not. These letters . . .” He tapped the folder with a finger. “If they’re trying to scare you into leaving town, and thinking that’ll make you do it—well, first, they don’t know you very well.”

  “They could think they know me fine. I never used to be anything you could call tough. I’m not that tough now, for that matter.”

  “No? Not what I’d say. I’d say that everything you’ve done so far, here in town and before you came back, shows that you know your own mind, and you don’t mess around. You’ve been here a month, and you’ve sold off or given away half of Henry’s house. And these things—” He tapped the folder again. “How do they make you feel? Like running?”

  “No,” she said. “Like staying.”

  “Because that’s the part of your old man you did end up with. But sometimes, people think things like what you’ve done are weak, not strong. So that’s how they could be looking at that. But I’d ask—who’d want you to leave? Somebody who benefits if that happens, most likely. Somebody who knows you had half a mind not to stay. Somebody who’s going to get millions, maybe, if you go. And maybe who’s also thinking that you don’t deserve those millions. Because there’s hostility in those letters. That part—that didn’t feel fake.”

  “Which would mean . . .”

  “Anybody who was in Bob Jenkins’s conference room that day.”

  She said, speaking slowly, “The main person who would benefit if I left, of course, would be Cole.”

  “Trust me,” he said grimly, “that’s occurred to me.”

  “But if the guns weren’t just a target of opportunity,” she said, “that makes it different. One thing was as direct as it could be, and this, the letters, is so indirect. Sort of soft, really. Anyway, you wouldn’t have two people doing . . . some kind of crimes, even for money. Not in that little group. This isn’t some English mystery novel, it’s normal people. Cole might be resentful, but he seemed awfully normal to me. Normal fifteen-year-old boys from strong families who do well in school—does he do well in school?”

  “He does great, actually. In most subjects. Not too interested in English, maybe, but I’d guess he knows how to use an apostrophe.”

  She nodded. “Well, teenage boys like that—they don’t typically have criminal connections they can call on at a moment’s notice to steal major firearms, in my experience. Boys in a gang, sure, but Cole? No.”

  “You known lots of boys in gangs?”

  “More than my share,” she said, and he thought, Yeah. Seattle. He still tended to think of her as Henry Cavanaugh’s sheltered daughter—and so did somebody else, he’d bet—but she wasn’t that. Not anymore.

  He said, “Which leaves, of course . . .”

  “Well, your mother,” she said. His head went up at that. “But—same thinking. Your mother might write a few letters to make me leave town, but she wouldn’t send scary people to your house to rob her own son with her granddaughter in the house. At least the woman I remember wouldn’t have done that.”

  “No,” Jim said. “She sure wouldn’t. If she wanted money that bad, she’d have gotten it out of Henry. She didn’t do that, though, because it would’ve hurt Cole. She’s not a ruthless woman. She’s never been that.”

  “Obviously. Or she wouldn’t have raised you and Anthea so well.”

  “I wasn’t what you’d call a model citizen.”

  “But you are now.”

  “Well, could be. And maybe not. Considering, ah, recent events.”

  The pink was rising in her cheeks again. She was still scooted close, half turned to face him. He’d noticed what she was wearing the second he’d seen her. A long, stretchy top with skinny black and white stripes, with black leggings underneath it, and black boots this time. She looked curvy. She looked sweet. She looked good enough to eat.

  So to speak.

  “Know what DeMarco—the deputy you talked to—called me today?” he asked her.

  “No, what?”

  He smiled ruefully. “Dudley Do-Right.”

  “Ha. Shows how well he knows you. Dudley Do-Me-Right, maybe.”

  “Man,” he said, still looking at her, because he liked doing it, “that’s a nice image.”

  “You’re staring at me that way again,” she said. Her voice was husky, and he loved it.

  “What way?”

  “Like you want to . . .” Her cheeks were even pinker now, her breath coming fast. “Eat me up.”

  “Ah. Yeah. Well . . . could be.” He didn’t say, Maybe because I remember how good you taste. And all that noise you have to make while I do it. But he thought it.

  “We can’t.” She didn’t move, though, and she was breathing too hard all of a sudden.

&nbs
p; He rubbed a hand over the back of his head and tried to get a grip on himself. He was in uniform. He was on duty. “Yeah,” he said, and stood up, since she wasn’t going to. “But tell you what. Let’s maybe put some security cameras up at your place. Just in case. I don’t like that ‘commies burn’ idea.”

  “I’ll do that.” Now, she stood up, walked around her desk again, and put space between them.

  “And,” he said, “think about your aunt and uncle.”

  She wasn’t pink anymore. She was looking troubled again. “I was trying not to.”

  “The letters—that could be her. Faye. Seems like something she’d do. Although maybe a little sneaky for her. All that messing around with the grammar. I’m guessing she’d just be flat-out poison.”

  “My uncle, though? He’s my uncle. He’s always been nice to me. Not going out of his way, but still. Nice. Softer than my dad. And Faye—do you think she’d be able to arrange for the guns? I don’t think she’d do that. That would seem so . . . dirty, to her, I think. Too lowlife. Too messy.”

  “Could be,” he said. “We’re guessing here, on all counts. Get those cameras. You need any help installing them—call me.”

  “Or not. It’d be a bad idea for me to invite you over. I think that’s obvious.” She was looking wary now, and that was—well, it was annoying. Or more than that.

  “Let’s get one thing straight,” he said. “If you tell me that’s it—that’s it. I have a mother. I had a wife. I have a daughter. If you say yes, I’ll be pushing it all the way. And the minute you say no, it’s no. If you don’t believe I mean that, you don’t know me at all.”

  “Jim.” She wasn’t looking wary anymore. Distressed, he’d call that. “No. Of course not. It’s not . . . not you I don’t trust.”

  “Oh.” His muscles relaxed, and then they didn’t, once he thought over what she was saying. He had to get out of here, and he didn’t want to.

  Focus. It’s your job. It’s her safety. That tingle at the back of his neck? It was real. “I’m going,” he said in order to make himself do it. “I’ll let you know if we lift any prints, and you let me know if you get more letters. Don’t open them, even if you just think that might be what they are. Drop them by the station with a note on them that they’re for me. And if you talk to either of those two—your aunt and uncle—it might not hurt to tell them about the cameras. Just in case.”

  DANCING AROUND IT

  Hallie did that the very next week, because her aunt and uncle had invited her to dinner again on the following Friday. Something she hadn’t been looking forward to at all, but on the other hand—they were her aunt and uncle.

  Her uncle, at least, seemed to feel the same way, because after some stilted early conversation, he finally said, “I’m sorry we got off on the wrong foot last time, Hallie. Those guns were—well, I guess I was startled, that’s all. But I hope we can leave that in the past. Family’s family, after all. The more I think about that, the more I know it’s true.”

  “You’re right,” Hallie said, taking another bite of the tuna-noodle casserole, complete with peas and crushed cornflakes on top. “And you and my mother are all the family I have left, other than Cole, of course.”

  She said it from defiance, and to hear the reaction. Faye’s mouth hardened some, but Dale said, “That’s true. And he’s our family now, too, isn’t he? That’s a strange thought.”

  “As much as I am,” Hallie said. “Maybe we should do something about that.” You’re an adult, she’d thought the night before. Time to act like one. You don’t like the situation? Take it in two hands and change it. “How about you two coming to my place next time for dinner? It’s about time I paid you back for your hospitality, and I can show you what I’ve done with the house. I thought I could invite Cole, along with Anthea and her husband and the kids. That might break the ice—and maybe make it easier for Cole, too, if he had his other sister there. It feels pretty strange for me even to say that, but how much stranger must it be for him? At least I’m an adult, and I knew my father. And on a lighter note,” she said, seeing Dale’s troubled expression and Faye’s intent eyes, “it could be my first dinner party. So far, the only meal I’ve eaten with anybody out at the house is pizza. Pretty sorry showing for a new homeowner.”

  “Would that be with Jim Lawson?” Faye asked, her tone nothing but sweet. “I heard you were running through town with him last week. Very early in the morning. You’re such a big exerciser now, aren’t you? I guess that’s how you’ve gotten rid of most of that puppy fat you used to carry. I was so glad to see it. Losing weight isn’t easy, I know, especially when you’ve always had that smidge extra. It’s almost like you feel destined to stay just a teeny bit overweight. I’m so glad to see you’re starting to push past that. Pizza, though—you’ll want to watch what you eat, especially now that you’re getting older. ‘A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips.’” She sighed. “Isn’t it the sad truth?”

  Hallie’s knees pressed together under the table. Puppy fat? That smidge extra? She had to force herself to ignore it and speak calmly. “Thank you. It hasn’t been too hard, fortunately. I find I enjoy it. I did see Jim one morning, and we ran together for a ways. He’s incredibly fit, but he slowed down and kept me company, which was nice of him. He had some good tips for me on my upper-body strength, too,” she threw in, just in case anybody had witnessed the chinning-bar scene. “And, yes, he and Anthea had pizza at my house the day the will was read. They helped me clean up after the sheriff’s department did their investigation. The house was a mess. There was fingerprint dust everywhere, for one thing.”

  “Goodness,” Faye said. “I hadn’t heard about that. We wondered what was taking so long, getting the . . .” She touched her napkin to her lips. “Body released. Did they find anything suspicious, then? That’s the first I’ve heard of it. I thought Henry fell and hit his head, so why on earth would they be looking for fingerprints?”

  Dale’s fork jerked, and some noodles fell onto his plate.

  Faye said, “I’m sorry, hon. I know it’s upsetting.” She took her hand out of her lap and put it on her husband’s. “But there poor Hallie is, having to face it every day. No wonder if she wants some company to make her feel more . . . secure.” Her round blue eyes rested on Hallie again.

  “I did, that day,” Hallie said. “Thank goodness Anthea and Jim were willing to come over and help me out for a few hours. And as for what the sheriff’s department found—I know they had questions and weren’t completely satisfied, but I guess they didn’t find anything conclusive, or they wouldn’t have said it was an accident. Isn’t that what they told you?”

  She looked inquiringly at Dale, and he shook his head and said, “That’s what they told me, all right. Accident. Said he choked, then tripped and fell. I was never aware that they thought it could be anything else, but I guess they have to check every possibility, especially with a man of Henry’s stature. He had enemies, no doubt about it. I suppose that’s the curse of the successful man.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t ask Jim about it, Hallie,” Faye said. “After he went to so much trouble with those guns and all. He went around checking up, too, after somebody tried to steal them, did he tell you that? He wasn’t in uniform, though, which we thought was strange, didn’t we, hon? Like it was personal, not official at all. And I know you have those crazy terms in the will,” she told Hallie, “and that word’s gotten around, so—just a tiny hint—you might want to watch that. People can be so suspicious.”

  “Honey,” Dale protested, “he told us why. It wasn’t his jurisdiction.”

  “There was an official report, yes,” Hallie said. “To the Paradise PD. Jim told me about it.” After she’d confronted him with the knowledge, but still. “But since it happened on his property, I suspect he did take it personally and put some extra time into it on his own. I know he wasn’t one bit happy about it, especially coming so soon after my father’s death.”

  “He’s th
e quiet type,” Dale said, “but I don’t think he’d be a good enemy. My gosh.” He shook his head. “If you’re saying there might have been something suspicious about Henry’s passing—that puts a new spin on things. Huh. Jim Lawson. That sure is a thought.”

  “What’s a thought?” Hallie asked. “That Jim had something to do with my father’s death? And that he arranged for somebody to steal my father’s guns?”

  “Whoa, now,” Dale said. “I’m not making any accusations. But you do have to wonder, when you put it that way. Did somebody try to steal Henry’s guns? I didn’t get the impression that anybody but Jim saw it happen, and the Paradise PD never came by here to ask us, either. Are you sure he actually filed a report and didn’t just question a couple people who’d get back to you with it? I don’t want to bring up episodes from the past that might be painful, but Jim sure could have a grudge against your dad, and against you, too. I think you might want to keep that in mind. Going forward, if you want to put it that way.”

  He looked at Hallie, and she couldn’t read his expression one bit, but—her father had told his brother what had happened? If he had, Dale would have told Faye. How much?

  It was fourteen years ago, she tried to tell herself. She did her best to will her face into serenity but was sure she wasn’t doing it well enough. How could she, with Faye watching her so sharply?

  Faye said, “Well, since you mention it, Dale—I’ll admit I was surprised, Hallie, to find that you and Jim had been so . . . close since you came back. I hope I’m a forgiving woman, but I’m not sure I could’ve forgiven all that.”

  All that.

  Hallie groped for something—anything—to say. Her heart was beating too hard. She realized she was still holding her fork and set it down carefully across her plate, leaving her casserole unfinished, because her stomach was a lump of lead. She couldn’t talk to them about this. Instead, she changed the subject. “I think that attempted burglary might have made the sheriff’s department more suspicious about my father’s death, yes. And then I’ve been getting anonymous letters, too. Four of them, now. It’s like somebody wants me to leave town.”