Secrets at Sweetwater Cove

by Sally Roseveare

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Wednesday morning

  Carole retrieved the mail and the Smith Mountain Eagle from her mailbox. She would read the Eagle while waiting for eager clients to rush to her door. Ha! I wish, she thought. Even though she didn’t like Win Ford, if she could sell him a house, she’d be able to pay her bills the rest of the year and into next year. The commission on a $1,000,000 plus house would be significant. Until he’d shown up, she’d worried about making her payments. Now if Win would just buy a house….

  Carole had seen the for-sale sign on the real estate property a year ago when she drove home after work. Never had she dreamed of owning a real estate agency, but teaching high school math had lost its appeal. Seemed like most of the kids these days had no desire to learn. And what had happened to students’ manners?

  Owning a real estate agency appealed to her. She liked challenges, enjoyed taking something that didn’t work and fixing it. Now she wondered if buying this nearly bankrupt business had been a good choice. She’d made a few sales and rented some vacation homes. But now it was October. Sales and rentals wouldn’t pick up again until late spring, perhaps not even then. Because of the economy, prospective buyers were having trouble getting mortgages. No, the slump in the housing market wasn’t helping. Could she hang on? Probably not if Win didn’t buy a house.

  And where was Win? It wasn’t like him not to call or be pounding on her door by 9:00 a.m. at the latest. He hadn’t called yesterday, either. He’d been furious when she’d refused his unwanted advances on Monday. But what else could she have done? He’d acted like a jerk. No, she told herself, I did the right thing. If he called her again, she’d insist they take her car from now on. That way she would have more control over any situation that arose. She dialed his number. No answer.

  That should make Aurora happy, she thought. Her friend had called Monday night, warned Carole to stay away from Win.

  “He’s bad news, Carole, dangerous. What does he do for a living? He must have a lot of money to be looking at such expensive houses.”

  “He told me that he deals in big ticket commodities. I don’t know what specifically.”

  “Like I said before, he’s dangerous. I should have warned you sooner. Please don’t do business with him.”

  Carole unfolded the newspaper, checked to see if her real estate ad was correct, read about the progress on the retirement complex under construction near the lake. She looked at the picture of the Fountain powerboat on the front page. The caption underneath read, “Have you seen this boat? New Jersey resident discovers boat missing when he returns to lake home.”

  Carole opened the magazine insert and sighed. So many homes for sale. So many real estate agents competing for clients. So many bills to pay. She jumped when the phone rang. The sound of Win’s voice excited—and scared—her.

  “Hi, Carole,” he said.

  “Win. It’s you.”

  “Carole, I’m sorry. I owe you an apology.”

  Carole said nothing.

  “I acted like a jerk Monday evening. I’m so sorry.” He waited. When she said nothing, he continued. “It’s just that you are everything I want in a woman: smart, gorgeous, sexy, and I love the way you smile, and …. Sorry. I’m not helping matters, am I?”

  “‘I’m sorry’ was a good start.”

  “I’m relieved. At least you’re speaking to me. I came on too strong. I didn’t take into consideration that you’re engaged to Luke, that you have feelings for him.”

  “Win, do you plan to purchase property or not? I need to know. There are other clients who need my services. To put it bluntly, if you have no intention of buying, then we can end this conversation right now.” Carole crossed her fingers. She needed his business desperately.

  “I intend to buy a house in the next couple of days, and I want to purchase it from you. Unless you say otherwise, starting now, you and I will be on business terms only.”

  Whew, she thought. “Okay, Win, I can work with that. But from now on we take my car. Agreed?”

  “Agreed. Can you pick me up here at the bed and breakfast at 11:30? I’ll treat you to lunch. And if you bring your laptop, I’ll even swallow my pride and take some of those virtual tours while we eat.”

  “Yes!” she wanted to shout. She’d be able to pay her mortgage in November. Instead she answered in a calm voice that she’d see him at 11:30.

  “Thanks, Carole. I really appreciate it. You won’t regret it.”

  Carole checked the clock on her desk. She had just enough time to brush her teeth and go to the bathroom before leaving to meet Win. This time when she pulled her purse out of the file drawer, she added her .22.

  Just in case, she thought.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Wednesday, 10:30 a.m.

  King whined, pawed Aurora’s knee. Little Guy barked and ran to the door. Intent on finishing a particular segment of the Lexington travelogue, she ignored the dogs. Little Guy jumped in her lap and licked her chin. King pulled on her shirt sleeve. She looked at the Lab and the Jack Russell terrier and laughed.

  “Okay, guys, you have my attention. You want to go out?” Both dogs barked. “Don’t get into any trouble,” she called after them as they bounded down the hill toward the lake.

  Back at her computer, Aurora edited video scenes of a horse-drawn carriage pulled by a dapple-gray mare clip-clopping down Lexington’s Main Street. She and Sam had taken the same tour a few years ago. Shots of the storefronts and historic homes from the carriage would be perfect for the travelogue, especially with the rhythmic sound of the horse’s hooves in the background. She made a note to drive to Lexington later in the week while the fall colors were still vibrant.

  On Smith Mountain, Hessie Davis was hungry and cold. And terrified. Nothing looked familiar to her, but nowadays not much made sense. She knew she was losing her mind, but who was left to care? She wanted her Momma and Poppa. Where were Momma and Poppa and home? A child shouldn’t be lost in the woods. She wondered how she had gotten so turned around. Maybe if she kept moving away from the bad man who hit her, Momma and Poppa would find her before he did. But she was so tired, so cold. And the bad man wanted her. She didn’t want him to hit her again.

  Her red flannel bathrobe snagged on a tree, jerked Hessie backwards. She fell, struggled to pull herself up, tumbled back to the ground. A branch scratched her cheek.

  And then he was there, licking her face, pawing her arm, whining.

  “Hey, Doggie,” she said. She patted his head.

  King barked, yanked at Hessie’s robe, freed it from the branch.

  “Doggie.” She sat up, hugged her knees. She was safe now; Doggie would protect her from the bad man. She liked Doggie. “I’m hungry, Doggie. I want Momma.”

  King sniffed the hundreds of scents riding on the mountain breezes. Gently he grabbed Hessie’s wrist as he tried to pull her up and lead her down the mountain.

  “No, Doggie.” She slapped his head, yanked her wrist from his mouth and curled into a fetal position on the ground. Tears ran down her cheeks. King licked her tears and snuggled up against her. Little Guy stretched out next to her on the other side. In the distance, a coyote howled. Both dogs lifted their heads and sniffed. King sighed and rested his head on Hessie’s hip. He wanted Aurora, but he would not leave Hessie.

  Aurora worked on the travelogue until her stomach rumbled a lunch-time tune at noon. Opening the door, she stepped outside and called for the dogs. She heard no answering bark. Back in the kitchen, she spread some tuna salad on whole wheat bread, topped it with romaine lettuce and a slice of tomato, peeled and sectioned an orange, and set the plate on the table. She checked again on the dogs. Where were they? She’d let them out over an hour ago. King never missed Aurora’s meal times where he stretched out under the table at Aurora’s feet just in case crumbs dropped to the floor. Little Guy had learned to do the same.

  When the doorbell rang, she looked up. Robert Reeves waved to her through the glass do
or. She pushed herself away from the table and motioned for him to come in. She searched his face as he crossed the room. A sense of peace and calm seemed to envelop him. They hugged. He held her tight for a minute, then relaxed his hold. He burst into tears.

  Aurora led him to the sofa, sat down with him, held him in her arms. Sobs racked his body. Aurora bit her lip to keep from crying, too. Robert raised his head, smiled. “I’m sorry, Aurora. I don’t know what ….”

  “Jill and the baby …?” she interrupted.

  “They’re both doing well. I can’t believe it, but for some reason my family survived the wreck.” Robert took the tissue she handed him, blew his nose. He reached for another and wiped his eyes. “Don’t know why I broke down like that. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize, Robert. That was your body’s way of reacting to the stress you’ve been under since Monday. I understand. I’ve been there myself. Could I fix you a sandwich? I was about to eat lunch. Tuna sandwich okay?”

  “Whatever you’re eating is fine.” Aurora fixed another sandwich identical to hers, poured two glasses of tea, and joined him at the table.

  “So where are the dogs?” he asked.

  “Outside. I let them out nearly two hours ago. I’ll check on them after we finish eating.”

  “Since Jill and the baby are out of danger, I decided to follow Jill’s orders and come home for a good night’s rest. Those chairs in the hospital rooms aren’t the most comfortable. Thought I’d take Little Guy home to keep me company, then if you don’t mind, I’ll bring him back here tomorrow morning before I leave for Roanoke.”

  “That’s fine. If you have things to do, I can call you when he and King come back.” She looked at her watch. “Shouldn’t be too much longer.”

  “That would be great. I need to check in with the office. My secretary returned to Washington on Tuesday and forwarded files to my laptop. I need to work on them. Couldn’t concentrate while I was in the hospital.”

  “I can understand that.”

  “Thanks again for your help. I’ll catch up with you and Little Guy later.” He waved and headed out the door.

  After Robert left, Aurora cleaned up the kitchen and attempted to work more on the travelogue. No use. Her creativity had vanished.

  She hadn’t talked to Carole since Monday, and wondered if Win had bought a house. She called Carole’s cell.

  “Hey,” she said when Carole answered. She heard a man’s voice in the background. “Are you with a client?” She hoped the voice didn’t belong to Win.

  “Hello. Yes, I’m with a client.”

  “Are you with Win?”

  “Yes. May I call you tonight, around seven?” she asked, glancing at Win. He smiled at her from the passenger seat.

  “You know I don’t like that man, Carole. I don’t like you spending so much time with him. I don’t trust him.”

  “Neither do I. Like I said, I’ll call you tonight.”

  “Are you in his car or yours?”

  “Mine. I’ll talk to you later.”

  Aurora hung up. At least Carole was driving.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Wednesday, 1:00 p.m.

  In Sheriff Rogers’ office, Conner and Johnson handed over the information they’d collected about the black van.

  “Good work, guys.” The sheriff studied the contents of the folder.

  “So a kid is the one who placed the van at Ms. Davis’ home.” He read on, chuckled. “Leave it to a teenager to be up at 2:30 in the morning, and still have enough nerve to sneak in his parents’ room and take his dad’s high-tech night vision goggles. Glad he thought to get the license number. Smart boy.”

  “Yeah, he is,” said Deputy Conner. “He’s pretty sure it’s the same van he saw at Tom Southerland’s house that night. He didn’t get the license number that time, however.”

  “Interesting thing is,” said Deputy Johnson, “a black van was seen at the Southerland house. Tom Southerland disappeared that night. A black van nearly ran over Hessie Davis, and Kurt saw a black van at Hessie’s house. Then Hessie disappeared, too.”

  “The license number of the van at Hessie’s house is the same as the van that nearly ran her down,” said Conner.

  “So do we know who owns the van?” Sheriff Rogers shuffled through papers.

  Conner bent over the file, pointed to the registration. “It belongs to a Wallace Smith, called ‘Butch’ by his buddies. He’s in construction, worked for a while at Sweetwater Cove a few years ago. He’s been arrested for petty stuff a couple of times, but there was never enough evidence to convict him.”

  “We need to talk to Smith. Find him and bring him in.”

  The conversation moved to the car that hit Jill Reeves. “We don’t have much. We know it was a dark vehicle, one low to the ground, not a mini-van or an SUV. The license number started with either an ‘I’ or the number ‘1’. My witness said it was definitely a Virginia plate,” said Johnson.

  “Tell you what. Get one of the gals in the office to contact all the car rental agencies in the area, see if they have any vehicles matching what little description we have with our meager license number.”

  Conner and Johnson looked at each other. “Getting that information won’t be easy, Sheriff. The rental folks are just gonna laugh.”

  “I don’t care if they roll on the floor laughing. Just get that info. I know it’s a long shot, but we’ve gotta try. DMV would have way too many plates to check, so there’s no point in calling them until we either know the whole number and/or what make the vehicle is.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Wednesday, 1:10 p.m.

  In the hospital in Charlottesville, Blanche studied the tubes running from her husband’s nose, mouth, and arms to all kinds of medical equipment. Monitors told how well—or badly—he breathed, how his heart beat. She didn’t fully understand all these gadgets, but she did know that when an alarm went off and the nurses and doctors came running in Tom’s room, he was about to die. That had happened twice since she’d been here. Somehow he had survived.

  The drive from the lake with Estelle yesterday had been a nightmare. Her chit-chat had been almost constant, so unlike the submissive Estelle she knew. Blanche had wanted to scream at her to shut up, maybe even stuff a rag down her throat, anything to stop that grating voice. But it was the actual driving that really upset Blanche. She hated the way Estelle gripped the wheel, ran off the road onto the shoulder continually. Where had the woman learned to drive? Blanche had wondered if she’d even live to see Tom in the hospital.

  Before Estelle had driven the car into the hospital parking garage, Blanche had strongly suggested that she needn’t stay, that she could just turn around and head back to the lake. Estelle had refused, had insisted she wanted to be with Blanche “in your time of need.” Thank goodness for the nurses. They finally convinced Estelle to go home after four hours that had seemed more like 40.

  She looked at Tom, wondered how they’d stayed together all these years. Could he still love her after the way she’d treated him? She stared at her reflection in the mirror over the sink. Could their marriage survive?

  Blanche had first met Tom Southerland 40 years ago at a Washington and Lee dance in Lexington. A classmate of hers from Sweet Briar College, who had dated Tom for nearly a year, had asked Blanche to go on a double-date with one of Tom’s fraternity brothers. Tom couldn’t take his eyes off Blanche. The next day he called her, asked her out. After one date, Tom was hers. Her friend never spoke to her again.

  Everybody at their schools said Blanche and Tom made the perfect couple. They attended house parties at the beach, danced at the best clubs on the east coast, skied the mountains in Austria together. Paparazzi covered all of their jet-setting travels and pre-nuptial parties. International newspapers plastered pictures of their wedding and honeymoon on the society pages.

  She had loved Tom then. Or had it been the idea of love and reveling in the glamour and fa
me that their two big-money political families attracted?

  Had her feelings for Tom changed when he insisted numerous times that they have a child and she had refused each time? At first she tried to make him understand how much pain women went through when they bore a child, how dangerous childbirth could be. When she was 15 years old, their family’s housekeeper had gone into early labor. Blanche had heard her screams coming from the kitchen. Blanche’s mother had called the rescue squad, but by the time the ambulance had arrived, the baby had died in childbirth on the kitchen floor. She remembered hearing the medical personnel saying what a shame the baby was breech. The housekeeper never recovered emotionally. Eventually, Blanche answered Tom’s question with one word—never.

  From then on, their life together had changed. Tom threw himself into his different jobs and hobbies, never staying long enough with one company to become really efficient at anything. For Blanche, happiness and fulfillment came with acquiring high status in the community. Money and her organizational skills had earned her the sought-after rank those trying to climb the social ladder wanted to achieve. Blanche had thought she had everything. Now she wondered.

  “Tom, I’m sorry for the way I’ve treated you.” She leaned over him, kissed a spot on his forehead not bruised or covered with bandages. “Don’t die, Tom.”

  “Mrs. Southerland,” said the nurse as she slipped quietly into the room, “why don’t you go get something to eat?”

  “I don’t want to leave him.”

  “You need to eat. You didn’t have lunch, did you?”

  “No.”

  She glanced at her watch. “It’s lunch time. Go eat something. If you don’t take care of yourself, you won’t be any help to your husband. I’ll be with him.”

  “You’re right. Thank you. I’ll be in the cafeteria if you need me. I won’t be gone long.” She touched Tom’s cheek before she left the room.