by Dale Mayer
“Grant, did you do all this woodwork? If you did? Nice job, man.” Indeed, a beautiful butcher block countertop was in the kitchen, and it was obvious a lot of time and love had gone into it. He opened a few drawers, looking to see if people had come in and cleaned out the place, but it was still fully stocked with dishes and cutlery in the utility drawer. He stopped when he saw a bunch of letters tossed on top. He pulled them out curiously.
“What was your life like, guys?” he murmured.
Shambhala went to the rug in front of the fireplace and lay down. That seemed to have been her spot.
He looked over at her, smiled and said, “You like that place, do you?”
Shambhala gave a heavy sigh and stretched out on her side.
That was the first time he realized she had dried blood on her underbelly as well. He frowned from a distance and then decided she should just stretch out and relax a bit, and he’d check it out later. After she was more comfortable around him.
As he studied her, he remembered the note in her file about loving music. He himself played the trumpet a bit, but had her adoptive family known about her favorite things? Living out here, they may not have indulged in a lot of electronics, especially if electricity was spotty out here. So maybe they wouldn’t have played the radio constantly, nor had he seen any musical instruments. Right now she looked like she didn’t have a care in the world.
Whatever the injury, it couldn’t be too bad. She’d been very active since he’d gotten her, so she clearly wasn’t hurting or slowing her down that he knew of. As he looked at the envelopes, he realized they were bills—one for truck insurance, and another one made his blood freeze.
Nothing was on the envelope except a single word. Die. He grabbed a set of tongs, flipped it over and realized the tongs would be useless because whoever had opened it had already put fingerprints all over it. But Weston wouldn’t add any of his. Being as cautious as he could, he pulled out the letter with the tongs. It was a single piece of paper ripped off a notepad.
I told you to pay up, or you’ll die. There was no signature. He laid it out on the kitchen counter and took several photos of it, then sent the pictures to the detective he’d spoken to earlier, Detective Kruger. Because, if you saw something like this, and then the people died, you have to wonder if something wasn’t suspicious about the case. As soon as he sent the photo, he sent a text message. Are you sure the deaths were accidental?
He went through the rest of the mail but found nothing else suspicious. He put the rest of the mail back into the drawer. Then he did a quick search around the living room, looking for anything that might be out of the ordinary.
Shambhala hadn’t seemed to be too bothered. She’d come in and gone straight to the fireplace, but that didn’t mean that, with the cops having been in here, somebody else hadn’t been as well. Weston searched the cupboards, high and low, and the bathroom, then went into the bedroom. Also a sleeping loft was upstairs, and, as he went up to see it, he found it was used more as a family den or sitting room with a great big soft couch for reading and lots of bookshelves stuffed full.
He wandered through the shelves, smiling when he saw the eclectic mix of fantasy, fiction and business books, right along with homesteading books. He shuffled some of the furniture around because it was light and easy to move, but nothing more was here to see.
He slowly made his way back down to the main part of the cabin, and, when he stepped into the first floor, it had a different sense to it. A different air about the room. He stepped back, looked around at the small house, wondering what it was he sensed, then took another step forward. He stopped in the doorway and just surveyed the structure. A log cabin with log outer walls, and the interior wall was some drywall on part of it and some tongue-and-groove on the other. It was an eclectic mix, again as if Grant had done some of his own work after-the-fact.
A small bathroom was attached. He wandered through it again, back to the bedroom, wondering what it was about the room that bothered him.
Then he realized only one pillow was on the bed. He made note of that and walked over to the closets, checking to see if it was still full of both sets of clothing. He opened up the doors to see only men’s clothing. He frowned at that. Just as he was sorting it out, his phone rang. It was the detective.
“Where did you find that?” the detective asked harshly.
“I’m in the cabin now. That envelope was in the utility drawer with other mail. And, yes, it was open already.”
“And now you’ve got your fingerprints all over it too, I suppose.”
“No, I used a pair of tongs,” he said. “I wasn’t born yesterday. I’ll be happy to put it in a bag and bring it in to you.”
“I’m on my way out there,” the detective said. “I had to come out that direction anyway.”
“Yeah, and maybe you could tell me why no women’s clothing is in the closet.” There was an odd silence. “There should be, shouldn’t there? Did the brother come up here after all?”
“Not that I know of,” the detective said. “I’ve spoken to him on the phone, but he didn’t say anything about coming.”
“The closet is empty of female clothing. And only one pillow is on the bed.”
“I’ll contact him and see if he did then.”
“Otherwise, who’s had access?”
“I can’t tell you that, but, if people know they’re dead and gone, it’s possible a squatter has moved in.”
“It’s possible.” Weston turned as he hit the End Call button on the phone and caught sight of movement.
Instinctively he dropped to his knees, then turned as a blow came out of nowhere. It was enough to shake him but not stun him. He reached out with his right fist, connecting with a jawbone. The man went to his knees, and Weston followed up with a hard left and dropped him.
Shambhala stood in the doorway, whining.
He looked over at her, surprised. “Come here, girl,” he said. She came forward, wagging her tail, but obviously upset. He looked down at the man on the ground. “So, do you know who this is?”
She whined, but she didn’t bark at the intruder.
Weston picked up the man in a fireman’s carry and took him to the kitchen, where Weston propped his captive up on a chair at the kitchen table and tied his legs together. For all Weston knew, he was the intruder and not this guy. He went over in his mind the first few minutes that he’d been in the house, but there’d been no sign of anyone. There’d been no call out or anything. And Shambhala hadn’t acted surprised. That was the odd part of this.
While the guy was unconscious, Weston went through his pockets and came up with a name that made him stop. This guy was Grant Buckman. As in, the man who lived here.
Weston frowned. The guy carried credit cards in his name too. Weston went through the rest of the wallet. The guy had a cell phone in his other pocket. He took several photos of the Contacts list and checked most of the texts from the last couple weeks. Apparently Grant had been gone for six weeks.
So, what the hell was going on here? The guy was just starting to wake up when Weston heard the sound of a vehicle coming up the driveway. Keeping his eye on Grant or whoever this guy was, Weston opened the front door as the detective hopped out of his vehicle.
“You got that letter for me?” the detective asked.
“Yeah, but we’ve got bigger problems than that.”
“What’s up?” The detective stepped inside, took one look at the prisoner tied to the chair and gasped.
“I don’t know what the hell’s going on here,” Weston said, “but, according to his ID and credit cards, this is Grant Buckman. And, if this is Grant, who in the hell got buried along with Ginger?”
Chapter 7
Daniela set out all the prep work for dinner, but she wasn’t sure when Weston would make it home. She checked her phone several times to see if he’d texted her, but she found no message. Sari was enjoying building with her blocks and playing with her dolls. She had this pecu
liar habit of creating little monuments and having her dolly sit right beside them. She wondered if she’d seen a lot of people taking selfies or something. It wasn’t something Daniela did, but she’d certainly seen enough other people taking photos of themselves all the time. Maybe so did Sari.
Keeping busy with cleaning had been Daniela’s strategy this afternoon in order to avoid rehashing the conversation she’d had at the grocery store earlier. Finally she sat beside her computer with a heavy thud. Daniela looked over at Sari, who was completely oblivious and happily getting her dolls to build blocks. Daniela smiled at the innocence of the little girl at eighteen months old. She wasn’t a baby but wasn’t quite a toddler yet either. She walked and talked and garbled sentences, but she wasn’t superclear on her diction yet.
Daniela looked around at the kitchen in the house she rented, wishing she had a nice home of her own. But, when her husband got ill, they hadn’t had enough money for the medical bills, so they ended up selling their home and getting this rental. It seemed like everything she had done and sacrificed had been to keep him in good health. The fact that he’d repaid her the way he had was something that still burned.
She couldn’t be upset with her sister because Davida was just concerned about her. Yet Davida didn’t understand how her attitude just made life harder on everybody.
Enough of trying to distract herself. Daniela opened her laptop. She was due to go to work in two days, but she was a temporary employee doing part-time work and always had to be checking on her shifts. Sure enough, her shift had been canceled. That was both good and bad right now. She needed the time with Weston, but it meant a smaller paycheck. She was building a sideline business with an online store, like an Etsy, but not quite. She was looking at the big vendors, trying to see if she could do something like that, but she was running a tea shop, growing her own tea herbs. It was small and fairly minor, more of a hobby than anything really successful. But it was something that made her smile. Something that put a sense of pride back into her spine. Maybe down the road she’d do more with it, but, right now, it was all about putting food on the table and keeping a roof over their heads. The last thing she wanted was any more of this emotional upset.
When she opened up her email, she realized how unlikely that last thought would be because she found an email from Angel. Daniela shut her eyes, just at seeing the name. Forcing herself to click on it and open it, she read the short missive with horror. Hope Sari’s well. I’d like to come see her. I miss her and want her in my life. Maybe permanently.
And that was it. But the fact that Angel had even contacted her and then said she wanted Sari in her life was terrifying. They were both things Daniela didn’t want to deal with. But the phrase, maybe permanently, that undid her. She glanced at Sari, feeling her heart tighten, as if somebody had squeezed all the life out of it. She could barely catch her breath.
Sitting back from the laptop, she looked at her shaking fingers, clenching them into fists. She wanted to run across the room and snatch up her daughter and race to the other side of the world, where no one would ever find her. Even if she picked her up gently, Daniela would surely hug her daughter so tight that she would frighten Sari, and yet it still wouldn’t be enough for Daniela. She wanted to absorb her daughter into her very essence, so she could never lose her. Because Angel came with that threat of loss. Threat that the birth mother would try to take her daughter back again. Daniela didn’t know where she stood on that legally.
They had a contract and paperwork, saying she had adopted Sari, but almost any judge would have to consider the birth mother’s request to get back into her daughter’s life, and it didn’t seem to matter what Daniela wanted. Or what was best for Sari. It wasn’t fair.
As she sat here shaking, her phone rang. Afraid it was Angel, she didn’t want to even look at it. When it didn’t stop, she finally nudged her phone and saw it was Weston. She snatched up the phone. “Hello?”
“What’s wrong?” Weston asked, his voice instantly alert. “Are you okay? Is the baby okay?”
She took a deep, slow breath. “We’re both fine,” she said. “Sorry, your call surprised me.”
“That didn’t sound like surprise,” he said, not giving an inch.
She shook her head. “I’m fine. I’ll tell you about it when you get home.”
“Fine,” he said, “but we need to get to the bottom of it.”
“Why?” she asked. “What’s happened?”
“A lot of things have happened, but I haven’t figured it out yet. I’m just calling to say I won’t be home probably for at least an hour and a half.”
She checked the clock. “Okay, it’s about four now, so we can tentatively plan dinner for sixish, if that works for you. I’m sorry but I forgot to pick up steaks for dinner.”
“That’s fine,” he said. “But I don’t know if I’ll make it to the grocery store to pick them up either.”
She laughed. “If you’ll be late, then chicken breasts would be easier.”
“I’d rather have a steak,” he said with a more amused tone, “but we can have that tomorrow night. Anyway, I’m just checking in,” he said, then he hung up.
She stared down at the phone with a smile. “Maybe you were just checking in, but it’s nice nonetheless,” she murmured. And it was nice. Nice to know somebody out there cared enough to let her know when he was coming. And who she cared enough about to be thrilled to know he was staying until tomorrow.
She didn’t have a relationship with him, not in the way most people defined a relationship, but she really liked the man. Something was just so damn special about him. His bond to Sari made her pause and worry, but she didn’t want to go there. No, all any of it did was emphasize how lonely Daniela was, and how lonely she’d been for a very long time. Sari filled the gaping wound in her heart, but a child wasn’t a substitute for an adult relationship.
Daniela hadn’t even considered moving forward with another relationship in the past year, though certainly men had been interested. Even though she still wore her wedding ring in an attempt to keep most men away.
But Sari had come first. And now somehow Sari’s father had made himself a spot in her home as well. Sure, she’d asked him to come into Sari’s life, but somehow she hadn’t really realized that coming into Sari’s life also meant coming into hers as well. It had seemed so completely normal and natural that he would check in and let her know when he would be back, so she would know how to plan for dinner. Even still, she was checking her phone all the time to see if anything new came from him.
She shook her head. “It’s time for …” she announced, as she hopped to her feet and walked into the kitchen.
“Tea?” Sari called, as she toddled behind her.
Daniela looked down at her sweet baby. “How about milk for you?” Daniela reached down and scooped her up, setting her in the special little chair at the table, and poured her a sippy cup of milk, giving her something to enjoy. She quickly put the teakettle on for herself.
She was a great connoisseur of teas of all kinds, from black to green to many herb concoctions. Those were what she grew and sold on her website. As she made herself a cup of tea, she sat here, wishing she could grow and brew the other missing parts of her life. A cup of tea was a cup of comfort, but it was a small bandage over a much bigger issue. She sat down with a heavy sigh, then picked up her warm cup of tea and smiled at her daughter. “Not to worry, sweetheart. We’ll be just fine.”
Sari looked up at her and cried out, “Doggy, doggy.”
Daniela laughed. “He’s coming back too. Both of them.”
Their prisoner wasn’t cooperating. It had taken a while to get him conscious, and, once he realized he was tied up and facing the deputy now too, he’d gotten very still. When he realized the cops had his wallet, he buttoned his lip and hadn’t said a word.
Weston looked at the detective. “Do you know him?”
“No.”
“Do we know anybody who did? This is
either Grant or it’s somebody impersonating him, and, if so, where the hell did he get his wallet?”
The detective nodded, walked a few feet away and pulled out his phone to make a call.
Weston was hoping to listen in, but the detective had stepped out on the front porch. Weston sat down across from the man. “Dude, if this is your house, speak up. I’m the intruder here, if that’s the case. But since we’re trying to solve what happened to Ginger and Grant, who died when they went off the road, we’re a little confused as to who you are and why you are carrying Grant’s ID.”
The man just glared at him.
With a sudden thought, Weston got up and looked around at the photos in the house and brought one back. It showed the couple. He held it up against the man’s face and frowned.
“It could be you. But, if you are Grant, why wouldn’t you say something?”
The man still didn’t say a word.
Weston looked over at Shambhala, who was lying in front of the fireplace. She came to attention when the detective arrived, but she hadn’t growled or barked. And she seemed to be perfectly comfortable with this guy. If it was Grant, then, of course, she’d be comfortable. But, if that was the case, why hadn’t he brought the dog home with him, six weeks ago? “No excuse leaving the dog to suffer on her own,” he announced.
The stranger’s eyebrows shot up. He glanced over at the dog and frowned. Shambhala didn’t seem to care one way or another.
“She either knows you really well,” Weston said, “or she doesn’t see you as a particular threat.”
At that, the corner of the man’s lips turned down, but he still didn’t speak.
Weston shrugged. “Well, you’re not going anywhere for a long time anyway.”
“You can’t hold me here,” the man said. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“You’re squatting inside someone else’s house,” Weston informed him. “That’s the least of it. If you’ve assumed another man’s identity, then that’s a whole different story as well.” Weston could see the other guy hesitating. “And, if you are Grant, you have a hell of a pile of explaining to do.”