Unexpected Sparks

by Gina Dartt

  Kate didn’t have to use too much imagination to read between the lines of how the conversation had actually gone. “All right.” She felt a lump in her throat, an acid taste of sorrow and anger, though she knew it wouldn’t help to display it. “I’m sorry to lose you, Sheila. You’ve been a good worker, and I think this job has been good for you.”

  “It has.” Sheila’s eyes shimmered with tears of frustration. “It’s not fair!”

  Kate reached out to comfort her, to put her hand on her shoulder, but stopped as Sheila subtly flinched away. It wasn’t obvious, and perhaps the girl wasn’t even aware of her movement, but it was detectable, and Kate drew back, feeling sick inside. Was this what Nikki had experienced since coming out? Suddenly, she better understood why Nikki had refused to hold hands while walking down the street, or had difficulty showing how she felt while in public. Kate’s confident assurance about her place in this town had made the morning encounters with the women of her social circle entertaining. The fondness she had for the teenager made her hurt with a profound pain.

  “I’m afraid life isn’t fair, Sheila,” she said quietly. “Hopefully, one day, a person won’t be judged on where they come from or what they look like...or who they fall in love with. But we have to live in the now, and unfortunately a lot of misconceptions and prejudices remain. I’m sorry that you’re caught in the middle.”

  “I guess.” Sheila finally managed to glance at Kate. “I never would have guessed you’d fall in love with...a woman. You were married and all.”

  “I didn’t know it when I was married.”

  Sheila stared at her, eyes widening. “You didn’t know? I mean, aren’t you always supposed to know, only just be hiding it?”

  Kate shrugged. “I have no idea.” She searched for a way to explain the whole situation, to put it into words that Sheila would understand. She glanced at the girl, wondering if she had been a little more like her, more of an outsider while growing up…if she had not been perceived as so “normal”…would she have been quicker to realize her true nature? What was her true nature?

  Defeated by the complexity of things that she was only starting to consider, Kate forced a smile. “I’ll give you a letter of recommendation. As well as two weeks’ severance pay. That way, your employment record will show your dismissal as due to lack of work rather than...well, quitting without just cause.”

  Sheila flushed. “Thank you, Mrs. Shannon. You don’t have to do that.”

  “I know. But none of this is your doing, Sheila. I’ve found that in unpleasant situations, a person can choose to make it worse, or they can make it better. When possible, I try to do the latter.”

  Unfortunately, she didn’t want to make it better. She wanted to scream out her hurt and anger at the small-minded people in this town and their insidious influence on yet another generation. She wanted to call up Sheila’s parents and tear strips off them, making them accountable for their prejudices, for forcing their daughter to do their dirty work. Mostly, she wanted to fall into Nikki’s arms and weep, not only for the hurt she had discovered this day, but for all the hurt that her lover undoubtedly had experienced in her own life and that she was only now beginning to taste.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Nikki’s fingers were tight on the steering wheel as she navigated the logging road behind the Gilles farm, and she gave thanks for studded tires every slippery inch of the way. She noticed that the forest had been extensively cut in the last few years. The old man had responsibly harvested the softwoods and replanted them, the new growth of firs and spruces only about eight feet high, while he had left the hardwoods standing. Birch trees poked from the deep snow on either side of the road, reaching starkly for the azure sky overhead, while the darker trunks of maples and poplar swayed slightly in the light wind.

  As the car crested the ridge, Nikki felt her stomach lurch and had to keep herself from slamming on the brakes. Instead, she dropped into low and pressed her foot down carefully, gradually stopping the vehicle. Before her, the road seemed to drop straight down to a white expanse, obviously the frozen surface of the lake. It was beautiful, but no way did she dare drive down the sharp incline. Even if she managed to get down in one piece, it was highly unlikely she could drive back up again.

  Fortunately, she noticed a cleared area, the snow plowed some distance back to the tree line as if others had also found it wise to park on the crest of the hill, and she took a few moments to laboriously turn the Honda around, grateful that it was a compact. Edging close to the snow bank, she jammed the car into park before turning off the ignition.

  After Nikki got out, she stood for a moment as she searched the lakeshore laid out beneath her, able to see most of it from the rise. Only the sound of the tree branches creaking quietly in the breeze and the minor clicks and ticks of the Honda’s engine cooling down broke the eerie silence of the woods in midwinter. Draping the binoculars around her neck, she fastened a small fanny pack around her waist. She had retrieved it from her apartment before leaving town because it contained the basic survival equipment that no experienced person would go into the woods without.

  She hadn’t been able to see a cabin from her vantage point on the hill, but she suspected it wouldn’t be too far away from the road that appeared to run along the lakeshore. Her glasses shaded to dark to protect her eyes from the glare reflecting off the snow as she tramped along the icy dirt lane, impressed as always by the incredible peacefulness that pervaded the forest...no cars, no planes, no constant hum from power lines, no incessant buzz of civilization.

  Nikki was grateful that such nature was so accessible, only a twenty-minute drive from her apartment, and she found it ironic that this area had been earmarked for a resort, destroying the very thing that had attracted the developers to it in the first place. She could see several excellent places to camp along the lake and knew that its waters probably contained trout and possibly even fresh-water bass or salmon.

  She knew this was really why she was reluctant to return to the city. She might have had to move to Truro from the farm for purely logistical reasons, but her heart would always remain in the country. Even in the dead of winter.

  As she turned the corner near a small inlet, she noticed a bridge crossing a stream that led into the lake. Beyond it, a small log cabin resided in a picturesque clearing, looking as if it had been taken from a greeting card or a painting.

  Sam Madison certainly did have an eye for beauty, Nikki thought. However, he never seemed to be able to look beyond it. She noticed the way the land sloped and immediately realized that the stream would undoubtedly overflow its banks during the spring melt of the more snowy winters, as this had been, and inundate the low-lying area, including the meadow where the cabin sat.

  Shaking her head at the shortsightedness of the cabin’s construction, she approached the front porch, wondering if she could find a way in. Despite her desire to discover all its secrets, Nikki wasn’t about to break in, and she was dismayed to discover a heavy padlock on the door. The windows looked tight, sealed against the outside, and, cupping her face with her hands, she peered through the frosted glass, unable to see much. Stymied, she left the porch and trudged around it, struggling briefly through the thigh-deep snow before it occurred to her that she didn’t even know if there was a back door.

  Returning to the front porch, she eyed the door again, the thought of the desk in Edwards House and how available its key had been abruptly surfacing in her mind. She removed her mittens and ran her fingertips along the top of the frame where she discovered a metal object. People were creatures of habit, and Katherine Rushton obviously had a problem forgetting her keys, developing this quirk so she could always have access to where she wanted to go.

  Nikki fit the key into the padlock and turned it, needing to exert some effort to pull it open because of the ice around the edges. She understood that technically this was still trespassing, but it seemed a far lesser crime than if she had deliberately broken a window or doo
r. It was probably only a matter of semantics, but where she would fudge a little on one, she refused to on the other. Taking a deep breath, she wrapped her fingers around the handle and pushed the door open.

  Golden woodwork accented the interior, which featured a combination of expensive antiques and cottage country pieces. A fieldstone fireplace dominated one end of the living area, and if she dared, she would have lit a fire, the inside of the cabin seeming much colder than outside in the sunshine. But she discarded the idea as unwise and began to systematically search the little hideaway.

  She discovered some rather interesting devices in the chest in the bedroom, forming several theories on just what kind of sex life Sam and Katherine had shared. Her find did make her pause briefly to wonder if Kate had any interest in “toys,” forgetting that she was upset with her lover, and she made a mental note to take her to the Venus Envy women’s shop the next time they were in the city. Inspired by this thought, she returned to the living room where she yanked out a drawer in one of the end tables with unnecessary vigor.

  She froze when she saw the file she was looking for. Hands shaking from cold and excitement, she pulled it out and began to leaf through the papers that implicated Sam and Katherine, along with Terry Bishop, in a scheme that involved using stockholders’ money to cover up the losses they incurred with the Gilles property and the renovation of Edwards House. She was so involved in what she was reading she didn’t hear the footsteps until a board on the porch creaked.

  She froze as the door swung open, the figure outlined in the bright light from outside, impossible to identify from within the dim interior of the cabin. Nikki’s chest grew tight, and she could scarcely hear for the pounding in her ears.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  Although she knew that Katherine Rushton was a fraud and embezzler, that she might also be an arsonist and murderer, Nikki felt guilty. Straightening with an effort, Nikki faced her and attempted to look cool. “Uh,” she said brilliantly.

  Rushton spotted the file in Nikki’s hand and, eyes widening, rushed toward her and tried to snatch it. Nikki, not really thinking about what she was doing, immediately clutched it to her chest and backed up. For a few seconds, they shuffled around the living room in a ludicrous sort of tag, and then Rushton lunged, landing on the sofa as Nikki neatly avoided her.

  “How dare you?” Katherine panted, scrambling to her feet. “That’s mine.”

  “I’ll say it is,” Nikki said, deciding that a good defense came by presenting a good offense. “Evidence showing your criminal activity. Embezzlement, arson, murder…is there anything you won’t do?” She couldn’t actually justify her accusations from what she had read, not business-minded enough to understand all the various papers, but she knew what she had heard in the restaurant.

  The accusation, stated so plainly, froze Rushton. A wealth of emotion played over her face, and then she took a shuddering breath, staring at Nikki in horror. “I didn’t kill him,” she said in a small voice. “I didn’t try to run you over. I didn’t burn down anything.”

  Suddenly drained, she sagged to the sofa, and Nikki, still clutching the file to her chest, hesitantly stepped a little closer. “Who did?”

  “I don’t know,” Katherine whispered, then buried her face in her hands and burst into tears.

  Things didn’t happen like this in the books Nikki read or on the dramas she watched. The villain didn’t suddenly fall to pieces and start blubbering like a baby when her nefarious deeds were uncovered. Sometimes there was a fight, sometimes gunplay, and once in a while, even an explosion or two. This reaction was very anticlimactic.

  “What’s going on?” Nikki asked, slightly disgruntled though she tried to hide her dismay, actually reaching out and patting the woman clumsily on the shoulder.

  “It was just a deal, you know.” Katherine sniffed. Nikki glanced around, found a box of tissues, and presented one to her. “I met Sam when I was evaluating Edwards House. It was...” She shook her head, dabbing at her eyes. “It was too large for me, but it would have made a great hotel. The problem was, there was nothing around until Sam discovered the lake.”

  “Whose idea was it to turn the area into a resort?” Nikki wanted to keep her talking as long as she could, needing to understand what had gone on.

  “Sam’s,” Rushton said, in a fond sort of tone. “He thought we could make this one big deal that would set us up for life. We brought Terry in to handle the legal stuff, and he was the one who suggested how we could come up with all the extra funds we needed to get started...” She paused, her face hardening. “It just went wrong so quickly. It was Gilles’s fault. He demanded so much, and then we had to cover other costs...”

  Nikki supposed that old man Gilles had been wise to take off for Florida as soon as he had, particularly with the amount of arson and mayhem going on, not to mention the look presently in Rushton’s eyes. Or were people only assuming the man had made it to Florida? Unobtrusively, Nikki edged back a few feet. “What happened the night Sam died?”

  “He called me to come over,” Rushton said, her voice becoming unnaturally calm.

  Her tone made Nikki shiver.

  “He showed me the divorce papers. I know everyone says that it was just a deception, a game he played with women, but I know he meant it when he said he loved me.”

  “I’m sure he did.”

  “He told me about the other women,” Rushton said dreamily. “He admitted that he played around and that he always went back to his wife...until me. I was different.”

  Nikki felt another shiver. Similar words. Had Sam meant them as much as Kate did? That finally he had found someone that filled that piece he hadn’t even known was missing until it appeared? Or were both he and she blowing smoke? Of course, Nikki knew she shouldn’t compare Kate to Sam, not even privately. Kate deserved far better than that. Taking a breath, Nikki refocused on Rushton. “Then what happened?”

  “We celebrated, had a little champagne, and then I left at eleven-thirty. I swear he was still alive when I drove away. There was no fire, no sign of a spark anywhere.”

  “What was Sam intending to do? After you left, I mean.”

  Katherine blinked, obviously not expecting the question. “Go home, I guess,” she said slowly, as if she had never thought about it before. “Tell his wife about us, and that he was leaving her. Get her to sign the papers.”

  “That would have gone over well,” Nikki said, remembering what Kate had said about the scene at the funeral home. “He never went home.”

  “No.” Katherine’s voice broke.

  “He told you first that he was going to divorce his wife?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yet she knew all about you,” Nikki said slowly. “No one else in town even knew you and Sam were partners, but Margaret knew about the affair. That’s why she was so infuriated at the memorial service.”

  Katherine stared at her. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “She only knew about the deals, the money. That’s why she was mad at me.”

  “You think?”

  Gradually Rushton seemed to realize what Nikki was saying. Finally she said, “Sam had a set of my car keys.”

  “Your car really was stolen?”

  She nodded solemnly, as if the two were the closest of friends sharing confidences at a slumber party.

  Nikki settled into the chair opposite her, propping her chin on her palm. “Okay, let’s say that someone else went to the insurance office that night,” she said, thinking out loud. “He or she meets with Sam, there’s an argument...Wait a minute. The gun. You swapped the gun?”

  Katherine started and then looked uncomfortable. “When I saw it in the desk at Edwards House, I panicked. It was Sam’s, and when I found it I knew someone was trying to frame me, so I switched it with the gun in my purse.”

  Obviously no one had heard of the stringent gun control laws in the country, Nikki noted with annoyance. “Where is it now? Was it in Edwards House?
”

  “No, I brought it here with the file,” she said, and reached for the drawer beneath the one where Nikki had found the file.

  Nikki had a very bad moment, thinking that she had been incredibly stupid to leave a weapon within arm’s reach of Rushton, chastising herself that she ought to be conducting this investigation in a more intelligent manner. She almost sighed with relief when Rushton came up empty-handed, before the paleness of her face made her realize that maybe the lack of a weapon hadn’t been a good thing.

  “It’s gone.”

  “What do you mean, it’s gone?”

  A shadow fell over both women, and abruptly everything seemed to move in slow motion. Nikki realized someone stood in the doorway, blocking the light from outside, and she saw Rushton’s eyes widen as she stared over Nikki’s shoulder. Her mouth opened as if she were about to call out.

  Then Nikki heard a small bang, a little crack of sound, and she stared dumbly at the hole that suddenly formed in the center of Rushton’s forehead, a shocked expression appearing in her eyes before the light in them faded and went out. Nikki started to cringe away, uncertain as to what exactly was going on but very much afraid of where the next hole would appear. Something struck her on the back of her head before she had gone very far. Pain seared through her skull, and she surrendered to deep darkness, the blow sending her spinning into oblivion.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Kate smiled in satisfaction as she scanned the table, set with fine china, crystal, and unlit candles. A small gift-wrapped box containing the diamond necklace sat carefully by Nikki’s plate. They were finally going to have their romantic dinner that had been preempted so many times, surprising Nikki, who was supposed to drop by after work. Dressed in a silken sapphire blouse, to set off her eyes, and a tailored skirt that reached to her knees, Kate was feeling particularly good about her appearance. Her skirt may have been a little formal for a private dinner, but she knew she looked good in it. The fact that Nikki appreciated running her hand up a nyloned thigh to the delights hidden beneath such a skirt was purely incidental.