Blaze

by Dale Mayer

  “And how did he get your email?”

  “That’s easy,” Blyth said. “It’s the one from the website. Anybody with her card or anybody who knows her name could get that email address.”

  “What about the phone number?”

  She looked at her cell phone and nodded. “It’s my business line.”

  “Okay, so that makes it even easier for somebody to get a hold of you,” he said. “The question now is, what’ll he do next?”

  “I’m not going to think about that either,” Camilla said, “otherwise I’ll never sleep tonight.” She spun on her heel and headed back to the room she’d come from.

  Blyth gave him a hard look and said, “You’re not leaving her alone to her own devices, are you?” Without giving him a chance to answer, she went after Camilla.

  He cleaned up his hands from the repairs and thought about it. So far, it had been easily accessible information. The question was, What did this guy want? Because motivation in something like this was everything. If her stalker was trying to make her life difficult, why now? The only thing Blaze could think of was his sudden arrival in town. He hadn’t let anybody know he was coming ahead of time, so he found it hard to believe these recent harassing events had anything to do with him.

  Unless it was more about Camilla’s interest in him. If that was the case, it would likely be a suitor who she had either ignored or had broken up with, but who had expectations of getting back together again with her. He frowned and pondered that. And then he walked over to the big room and, standing in the doorway, asked, “Do you have any ex-boyfriends or anybody you were dating before I arrived on the scene?”

  Blyth snorted. “Nope. I’ve been trying to get her to date for a long time.”

  Camilla hesitated, turned to look at him and said, “My last boyfriend and I broke up a few years back.”

  “Why did you break up?”

  Her face turned mutinous.

  He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the doorjamb.

  “Point of view issue.” She glared at him. “I don’t have to tell you everything.”

  “No, but any secret you keep right now,” he said, “could be the last secret you keep.”

  She jumped to her feet and said, “You’re just trying to scare me.”

  “Good,” Blyth said in a hard voice. “He’s trying to keep you safe. Remember that.”

  Camilla delicately brushed the hair off her forehead as she visibly calmed herself. “Money. We broke up over money.”

  “That he had none, or that you had some?”

  “Isn’t that the same thing?” she asked, puzzled.

  “No,” he said. “It’s all about motivation. It’s all about perception. Did you have too much, or did he have too little?”

  Blyth stepped in again. “He had too little, and he saw her as a chance to gain much more.”

  He glanced around the room while Camilla continued to glare at him. “How much longer do you need in here?”

  “We’re almost done,” Blyth said.

  “Good,” he said. “I need to run back into town, return some of these tools to Scott. What do you want me to pick up for dinner?”

  Camilla’s mouth opened, hung there a second, then snapped shut. “You don’t have to pick up anything,” she assured him. “I’m sure I have groceries.”

  “I’m sure you do,” he said lazily. “But not enough for two.”

  She narrowed her gaze at him. “You aren’t staying.”

  “No,” he said helpfully. “I’m going into town, remember?”

  This time she crossed her arms over chest to add to her frown directed at him. “I have enough dinner for tonight, thank you.”

  He snorted. “There isn’t enough food in this house to feed a bird. And you eat definitely more than a bird.”

  She could feel the telltale flush rising up her neck. “That’s not very nice of you.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Okay, if you’re not choosing, I will. Blyth, it was nice meeting you. Good luck getting the rest of that stuff finished.” He gave a wave, and he disappeared out the kitchen door.

  Blyth chuckled. “I can see why you didn’t like any of my suggestions.”

  “What are you talking about?” Camilla asked crossly.

  “My friends are younger. Less hard, more easygoing,” she said. “I didn’t realize somebody like him was around.”

  “He’s very easy to get along with. I don’t understand.”

  Blyth chuckled. “Never mind,” she said. “Let’s hurry up and get this done. I want to go home.”

  With that, the two women galvanized into action and very quickly finished what they needed. With everything packed away in boxes for the morning transport to the center, Camilla looked around at the neat and tidy room once again and said, “Boy, am I glad that job is done.”

  “Right?” Blyth said. “Just think about it. You’ve got the whole evening off.”

  “I don’t know about that. I’m always worried about things to be done tomorrow. I’ve got this big to-do list still to sort out, bills to pay, invoices to send.”

  “I hope you at least got some of the money up front for this wedding weekend,” Blyth said. “We know perfectly well how ugly things turn if there’s a problem at the rehearsal or the reception, and you’re looking for money afterward.”

  “But nobody wants to pay until afterward. They want their wedding hoopla first.”

  “Did you not get a deposit?” Blyth asked in an ominous tone.

  “Of course I did,” she said. “I got fifty percent down.” From Blyth’s surprised look on her face, Camilla nodded. “I might be too easygoing many times,” she said, “but weddings are the one thing that make me really nervous. And, in this case, we have at least half.”

  “I think we should start advertising ‘Weddings must be prepaid on the assumption that something will go wrong,’” Blyth said.

  “Maybe. We’ll see how this one goes. Hopefully it’ll go off with flying colors.”

  Blyth left soon after, leaving Camilla to wander the big house on her own. “Grandma, how did you stand it all this time when you were alone? Didn’t you miss people?”

  She could almost hear her grandmother’s laughing voice calling down from above, saying, “I had lots of people in my life, even right up to the end. They were usually here when I called.”

  That, of course, was one of the problems—Camilla didn’t have anybody to call. On that note, her phone rang. She glanced down at it, half expecting it to be Blaze. Instead it was her eldest sister. She groaned. “Hello, Char, what’s up?”

  “I told you to stop calling me that,” her sister Charlotte said. “You know I hate it.”

  “Whatever. I’ve been calling you that since you were little. It never mattered until you got married.”

  “It’s hardly dignified, is it?”

  “Maybe not. Did you have a reason for calling?”

  “Yes, you’ve really upset Mother.”

  At that, Camilla sat down hard on the closest chair. “What have I supposedly done?” she asked. “I haven’t done anything.”

  “Well, apparently you’re really close with that boy,” Char said.

  “What boy?”

  “Enid’s son. You know, any other man in that village would be fine, but that one is an insult.”

  “It’s hardly an insult,” Camilla said in exasperation. “He’s not a boy. He’s a man. Enid is no longer around, unfortunately for her and her family, and Mom didn’t even know this ‘boy.’”

  “Everybody’s talking about you,” Char said crossly. “Isn’t it bad enough you create enough gossip without this, and now you’ll be all over the newspapers again?”

  “What do you mean by again?” Camilla asked in an ominous voice. “The only press I’ve had is from all the events I’ve been hosting. Don’t go making up stories where there aren’t any,” she warned her sister.

  “Humph,” her sister said. “You better make it up to M
om.”

  “And why is that?” Camilla asked sadly. “She’s always got something in her bonnet. You know that.”

  “Only because you put it there,” Char said. “Make Mom feel better. You know she’s hell on wheels when she’s upset.” With that, her sister hung up.

  Of course that was the real reason why Char had called. Because her mother was making life difficult for her sister. Not because of anything that concerned Camilla. Only for Char to get her mother off her back.

  Camilla pocketed her phone and decided to go for a bit of a walk to clear out the cobwebs in her brain, just to change the air around her for a few minutes. She walked out the kitchen door, marveling at how quickly that glass had been fixed, and headed toward the gardens. There were big lilac bushes and a fence that held all kinds of crawling vines she thought were honeysuckles, and she wasn’t sure what the other one was, but it had beautiful flowers with great big long stamens. They were purple with stripes.

  “Passionflowers,” she cried out. “That’s what they are.” She stopped to sniff and admire them, taking her time as she strolled along the bounty Mother Nature had gifted her. “You guys are supremely gorgeous,” she said with a big smile. She had a large piece of property, just about an acre. Any more and she’d have a hard time keeping up with it. As it was, she had to hire somebody to come in and mow the lawn.

  As she looked off to the side, she caught a rustle of movement in the nearby bushes. She froze, not sure what that darkness was. It was a shadow. She waited at the edge of the fence and saw what looked like a dog creeping along the fence line. She frowned nervously. Blaze might like dogs, but she, on the other hand, was definitely a little less comfortable around them. But maybe this was the one Blaze was looking for.

  In a faint voice she called out, “Here, puppy, puppy.” She knew she sounded stupid and foolish, but if this dog was the one he was looking for, she didn’t want the shepherd to go missing again. The shepherd stopped, took one look at her and then bolted across the road. She shook her head, raised both palms. “Great,” she said. “Now he’ll think I scared you away.” Her phone rang.

  “I’m leaving town now. Do you want me to pick anything up?”

  “Dog food,” she said. “I just saw a shepherd come across my fence line and race away to the road.”

  “Interesting,” Blaze said, “but we don’t need dog food. I have it in the truck already. I’ll be there in a few minutes.” And he hung up.

  She frowned at her phone. “I didn’t say you can come back, you know?” But, by mentioning the shepherd, she had more or less invited Blaze to return and take a look. She sighed and headed back toward the house. She thought she heard a vehicle come up the road, expecting it to be Blaze, but it stopped and didn’t turn into the driveway. Neither did it go past her driveway.

  Suddenly wary, she dashed to the side of the house and peered around the corner, looking at the road, but she couldn’t see anyone. She looked around the yard and saw a long hedge she could hide behind. If she could get a picture of the vehicle or someone, at least it would give the sheriff something to go on.

  With that thought uppermost in her mind, she raced for the cedars. When she got to the corner, she peered around the side to see a small car—old, gray, a make and model she couldn’t identify—sitting in front of her. And it had no rear license plate. She didn’t recall seeing this vehicle before. She took a picture, didn’t see any driver inside. She crept toward the vehicle but still saw no one.

  She turned to study her house behind her. Had the guy crept up the driveway or crept up the inside of the cedars? That would be way too funny, only she wasn’t laughing. And then she heard a sound on the other side of the road. She turned to see a tall skinny figure approaching the car at top speed, trying to escape before getting caught.

  As she stood here, she heard the powerful engine of a big truck coming up the road. Relief flooded through her. But then the old gray vehicle in front of her took off, spitting gravel at her. Instead of pulling into her driveway, Blaze took off after it. She grinned. “That serves you right for doing whatever the hell you’re doing out there,” she muttered.

  Of course, he might have been doing nothing. He might have been completely innocent, and maybe he was looking to help the shepherd he’d seen run across the road. Then she had a horrible thought. Maybe he had hit the dog, was searching for it. She dashed across the road to see if anything was there. The last thing she wanted was to put the animal to sleep because some guy had hit him, and the shepherd couldn’t recover from his injuries.

  If it was injured, it would need help regardless, and she wanted to make sure she gave it. She had money, and she’d save an animal before she’d put it to sleep if she could. She might not be very animal-minded, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have a soft spot for them. She made her way carefully down the ditch. “Hello,” she cried out, “are you okay, honey?”

  She didn’t hear a sound. She stepped in a few feet, looking around, but she couldn’t see any sign of blood, and no dog lay injured in front of her. Now she felt foolish, thinking that the dog would have either taken off a lot faster and got a lot farther away if it could still move. And, if it was injured, she was beyond foolish to approach it. Chances were she would be in more danger than anything. She slowly made her way back up to the side of the road and saw Blaze’s truck come toward her.

  Blaze pulled over and called through the window, “What are you looking for?”

  “It occurred to me,” she said, “that maybe he hit the shepherd. I didn’t know, so I went in there looking.”

  “Who is he?” Blaze raised his eyebrows at her.

  She explained.

  “I’ll take a look as soon as I park and we eat,” he said. “Too bad I didn’t get here earlier.”

  She shook her head. “We can eat afterward. If the dog’s injured, we don’t want to leave it out here.”

  “Good enough,” he said, and he pulled in and parked up at the front of the house. He was already back to her side before she had a chance to get very far. She marveled at the length of his legs and at his stride that ate up the miles. “I’ve put our food on the doorstep. Go on in before some critter grabs it and we end up with nothing for dinner.”

  She nodded and walked up toward the front of the house, but she kept looking back to see if he was having any luck. She picked up the bag of food, noting he’d picked up Chinese from the local restaurant and saw him striding toward her empty-handed.

  “No sign of blood,” he said, “and, if she’s not that badly injured, she’ll have gone quite a ways. I’ll track her after dinner.” She frowned at him, and he just shook his head. “I’ll need the dog food and leashes if she’s out there. I was planning on going over to the other location anyway. So let’s eat up, and then I will go look for her.”

  He stepped out the door, waved goodbye and walked toward his truck.

  She called out behind him, “You’ll check across the road first?”

  “I will,” he said, “but I’m moving my truck up the road a bit, just in case somebody is keeping an eye on your property. I want to make sure my truck isn’t around for them to see.”

  He could hear the worry in her voice as she asked, “You really think that’s likely?”

  “Let’s not take the chance, shall we?” He climbed up into the truck, reversed and pulled out onto the road. There was a corner not too far up ahead. He pulled to the side, did a U-turn and parked on the shoulder. There, he got out and, walking down into the ditch so he was less visible as he made his way into the first copse of trees, he walked back until he was almost across from Camilla’s house. He knew he had one spot where the shepherd took food, but, if she had another home location here, that would help too. He walked quietly in the late afternoon sun, and, seeing a log up ahead, he sat down and called out for Solo.

  He was about a mile, a mile and a half away from where he’d left the food before and hoped she hadn’t been hit by any vehicle. He sent out several
light whistles, calling for her, using the same tone he always did. “Easy, girl. Come on. Easy, girl. Solo, are you around here? Come say hi.”

  He’d brought a bag of treats with him, and he gently shook the bag and laid one at the end of the log and then sat down at the far end. And he waited.

  He pulled out his phone and went through his emails, sending an update to Badger and to Jager before Blaze put his phone back down again. He glanced to where the treat was and smirked because the treat was gone. Solo—if it was Solo—appeared to be a very quiet dog. And that was worth a lot in keeping her safe. Blaze placed a second treat on the same spot, walked back to the far end where he was basically out of view again and waited. But this time, he leaned forward, and he stayed still, as if looking at his phone and disinterested, but waited and then heard an ever-so-slight crunch beside him. He studied the dark head of the shepherd as it came forward and took the treat off the fallen tree.

  “Hello, Solo. How are you doing?”

  She disappeared, but he didn’t hear any more sounds as if the dog had fully retreated. He stayed where he was and just talked to her in a low voice. “You’ve had it pretty rough, haven’t you, girl? Don’t like people anymore? Can’t say I blame you. An awful lot of problems come once you bring people into the mix. But you can’t just spend the next few years running and trying to feed yourself like this. It’s not a good way for you to live.”

  He stood and leaned forward a bit, trying to look for the dog. He put another treat down and, instead of retreating, he backed away so he was a little more in view. He waited. Obviously she didn’t like his new position. And then suddenly, she appeared, snatched up the treat and was gone again.

  He smiled as he watched her lope off through the woods. That answered one question. She hadn’t been hurt. And it did appear to be the same dog. He didn’t try to take a picture of her; he just noted the dark markings and the white on the underside of her tail. Relieved, he walked back to his truck, and, just as he was about to enter, he thought he heard something like a scream or a shriek. Frowning, he hopped into the driver’s side and drove up to the front of Camilla’s house again. He exited his truck, ran toward her house, opened the front door and called out, “Camilla, you okay?”