Past Forward- A Serial Novel: Volume 2

by Chautona Havig

  As he turned onto Larkspur, Chad pointed out the Chief’s house and then Bentley’s. “I like what they’ve done with their lawn. From what I hear, it was bare for years but Greg’s the landscaping guy—” He stopped talking when Willow erupted into a fit of giggles.

  “Oh my. There’s no rhyme or reason to those lights! They’re just encrusted on that house! Why—”

  “The Chief says that they let their kids do it. All. They bought out all of the lights from the feed and seed and then the mom went to Ferndale and seriously depleted Wal-Mart’s stock.”

  “Oh it’s just ugly.”

  “Roll down the window.”

  Jingle Bell Rock assaulted her ears until she managed to roll the window back up again. “Oh my. Isn’t it against some law…”

  “They turn off the music every night at nine o’clock sharp and the lights at eleven. There’s not much he can do unless he wants to make people antagonistic to all of us.”

  Willow gave the house one last horrified glance and begged him to take her somewhere else. She watched as he considered her request and then put his truck in gear and drove back down the street. “There’s this house down the road from Alexa with lots of lights and music. You’ve got to see the difference.”

  “Oh Chad no!”

  “Seriously, you’ll love it. I promise.”

  She glanced at the truck dashboard. “Isn’t it time to go to the church?”

  “We’ve got half an hour, you nut!” He teased. His hand found hers and gave it a quick squeeze. “You’ve got to learn to trust me.”

  “Well after you took me to that—”

  They drove past Alexa’s house. “She did a Victorian Christmas theme this year. Every year she does something else.”

  “Different every year? That would be fun, but so much work.” Her mind raced with the possibilities. “I wonder if I could do one of those little trees somewhere—change it every year. It wouldn’t be so much work that way. What kinds of trees does she do?”

  “I heard she was looking for someone to make her origami stars and doves and other Christmas ornaments, but she didn’t find them in time. I guess she’s trying for a rainbow Christmas next time.”

  “I’ll have to remember that and make her some.”

  “Do you know how?”

  Willow shrugged. “I’d probably have to pull out the book to remember, but yeah… I know the basics.”

  The house Chad wanted to show her sat at what appeared to be the end of a street with a sharp curve at the end. One house, covered in white lights, blinked in strange patterns. “Roll down your window again,” Chad urged.

  From the yard, a recording, not obnoxiously loud but loud enough to recognize, played “The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” as the lights blinked on and off with the notes. “The children from that other street were trying to copy this?”

  “Probably. Poor guys.”

  “Next year, you should keep a lookout, and when you see them out there, walk by and see if you can get them to invite you to help. You might be able to influence a nicer look.”

  Chad shook his head. “That’s Joe’s department. He’s the one with the mission to save the kids. I’m just a cop.”

  Willow tore her eyes from the beautiful sight and met Chad’s gaze, disappointed. “I thought you were passionate about law enforcement.”

  “I am.”

  “Then you’d better consider that preventative maintenance might be a good idea.”

  “Time to carol,” Chad muttered and whipped around the corner, retracing the roads to the church. “They need to fill the flatbed with hay anyway.”

  At the church, Chad and the men piled straw bales around the edge of the feed and seed’s flatbed, broke open a couple to pad the bed, and mounted two battery powered lanterns on garden hooks that they plunged deep into straw bales. Willow watched, excited, as she realized that this was the modern equivalent of a hayride. For a moment, she felt a little Anne Shirleyish, but instead of enduring a “lifelong sorrow,” she would soon fulfill a lifelong dream.

  At the sight of Alexa Hartfield, Willow nudged Chad, stood on tiptoe and whispered, “Please tell me she isn’t singing.”

  Chad choked back a laugh and shook his head, tears from restrained laughing streaming down his eyes. “She brings hot chocolate and cookies for us when we get back. Shh, she’s coming.”

  “Willow! That is a lovely ruana. I’ve bought several but none were exactly what I wanted. Where did you find that?”

  “Mother made it last year. I’d offer to make you one, but my loom is broken.” Alexa started to reply, but Willow continued, “Chad’s fixing it, though. I don’t know how long it’ll take him. He’s kind of busy…”

  “Well, I—”

  Assuming the woman was disappointed, Willow interrupted. “But if you tell me what color you would like, I’d love to make you one when I get the loom back.”

  “She says she can do origami for you next year if you still want to do that,” Chad mentioned as if desperate to impart that bit of information.

  The woman nudged them toward the flatbed. “Go. Sing. We’ll talk later. Besides, if I stand here too long, I’ll start making people nervous.” With a wink at Willow’s blushing cheeks, Alexa hurried away from the crowd and into the church.

  Willow sighed as she pulled herself onto the truck. “She’s what Mother would have called a ‘very classy woman.’”

  Chad helped Willow to a spot at the back of the flatbed. Most people loved the front where they could jump off and on easier, but Chad preferred to sit and sing from the truck bed. The truck rolled slowly away from the building, but not a single person vocalized anything.

  “When do we sing?” Willow asked curiously.”

  “Pick a song, Willow!” Bentley called cheerfully.

  The night erupted in song as the voices of carolers sang of a night long ago. Up and down the streets they sang, telling people everywhere of the birth of our Lord. The stars above twinkled and added their own wonder as they sang of a star followed by “three kings,” and hearts were tugged far away as their voices told of hay, cattle, and a babe in a manger.

  As the night air grew colder, Willow inched closer to Chad, drawing her arms up against her and surprised that she felt it so keenly. “I told you,” Chad murmured into her ear drawing her closer and wrapping an arm around her. “You’re used to generating heat with work. You have no body fat to help you in a situation like this.”

  “I wouldn’t say none,” Willow muttered to herself unaware that he could hear. A snort from Chad made her glare at him, daring him to say it.

  His attempt at ambiguity failed. “Let’s just say you have none where it’ll do you any good then.”

  She whacked his arm with the back of her hand. “Chaduck.”

  “Chadwick.”

  “No, Chad plus Chuck makes Chaduck,” she growled.

  “Hey, I’m not anything like him.”

  “Talking about a subject like—”

  Chad pulled her head closer and whispered into her ear, “But you’re the one who brought it up. Not me. It’s more like Chillow.”

  Their voices erupted in laughter just as Lily Allen’s voice rang out clearly, “Angels we have heard on high!”

  Gary Novak took up the tune. “Wildly laughing o’er the plain!”

  Chad picked up the parody. “And the carolers in reply,”

  Willow carried it out, “Wonder if they are insane!”

  As they burst in the front door, laughing, “That was so much fun! Thank you for taking me.”

  “I used to go with my family every year in Westbury, but this was so much more fun. I missed it last year—had to work.”

  “Want another cookie? Alexa sent me home with about fifty.”

  “I don’t know how she expects you to eat them all,” Chad mused glancing around the room. “What’s wrong with this picture?”

  “Candles are out.”

  Chad held up a finger saying, “Just a
minute,” and rushed back out to his truck. Bursting through the door and shaking off his coat, he held up a flame igniter. “I got this so you wouldn’t keep burning your fingers.”

  “Mother never let me light candles,” Willow mused, examining the few pinkish spots on her fingers. “Not if she could help it. I’m really bad at it.”

  Chad demonstrated proper lighting technique until she mastered it. Once the room was aglow in candlelight, they removed their shoes, sat them near the fire, and Willow pulled on her slippers. Chad lay back in his corner of the couch, covering his eyes with his hand. Slowly, he pulled it away and glanced around the room once more.

  “Does anything strike you as odd?”

  Willow sat up and let her eyes roam the room. She was tired and cold, but everything seemed normal enough. “Not in particular, why?”

  Chad stood and slowly climbed the stairs, glancing down behind him as he went. “Where did you leave your quilt stuff?”

  Willow reached down beside the couch for her basket and then looked over the edge. “That’s odd. I thought I left it here. Maybe I took it upstairs with me. It’s probably on my bed.”

  She heard him rummaging around upstairs and froze when she heard him call, “Willow, get up here!”

  “What’s wrong?” Willow tried taking the steps two at a time but fell. Her gimpy leg rarely bothered her, but she was obviously not ready for skipping steps.

  “It’s a mess up here.”

  “Well duh, you told me to leave it.”

  Willow went cold as Chad paused before asking, as she reached the top of the stairs, “Did you have your mother’s papers out too?”

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Chad jerked out his phone, calling for Judith and the forensics kit. When Willow stepped into the room, he waved her back. “Don’t touch anything. Go downstairs and check out the library, bookcases, and kitchen. See if you notice anything different. Try to watch where you’re going.”

  Her voice sounded very small. “Chad, why?”

  This he hadn’t expected. A feisty girl like Willow should be angry, livid. She shouldn’t be whimpering as though someone called her a dirty name. “You’re fine. We’re fine. We’ll get them. Just go check the house.”

  He didn’t notice the absent way she turned and left the room. Focused on what now felt like his job, he mentally tried to separate the things Willow had left out from the things disturbed by the intruder. Intruder. The word burned like fire in his heart. How dare someone enter her home, uninvited!

  The gift bins in the spare room tugged at his heart. Her hard work now layered the floor in odd heaps. The questions followed in rapid succession. Who was it? He couldn’t ignore the potential Solari connection, but it made little sense. They seemed to desire a relationship, and this was the last thing to encourage that. Had the article prompted some kind of strange obsession? Now you’re thinking like a TV drama writer, he chided himself.

  Distracted by his thoughts, he didn’t hear when Judith arrived, calling out from downstairs. “Chad?”

  “Up here. The mess is concentrated in Kari’s room, but the spare and craft rooms were also hit.” He pointed to the rooms as Judith topped the stairs. When Willow didn’t appear behind him, he asked, “Where’s Willow?”

  “I thought she was up here with you?”

  “She didn’t answer the door?”

  Judith shook her head. “But to be fair, I didn’t really knock. Just a couple of raps and came on in. Chief is coming. He’s still spooked from the Plagiarist case.”

  “Willow…” Chad called but heard nothing. “I bet she went to check her animals. I’ll be back in a minute to help.”

  He thundered down the stairs, shoved his arms in his jacket pocket, and jerked open the back door. “Willow!”

  Silence. Even Saige didn’t run to get her ears scratched. The barn was bare, the chickens roosting, and he heard nothing that hinted at her location. He called. The wind had picked up, and it swirled around him, tossing her name through the yard and back into his own ears.

  Come on, Chad! Think. Where would she go if she felt scared and violated? You aren’t stupid! Where… He groaned. “Oh no! Lord, please no.”

  He sprinted down the driveway, his lungs complaining at the cold icy air. As he reached the post directly across from the large oak tree, he looked for Willow but saw nothing. Though his instinct was to turn back and get a flashlight—anything to help—he knew she must be at the grave. With a deep breath of a prayer, he hopped the fence and stumbled over the ground until he reached the tree. Saige bounded to his side and licked him. “Where is she girl?”

  The dog whimpered and returned to the headstones. As Chad followed, he almost tripped over Willow’s legs. Seeing her prostrate over the grave stirred emotions he could not afford to consider. “Hey, hey.” Without hesitation, Chad pulled her into his arms and held her, rocking her and assuring her that all was well. “We’ll find them. We’ll protect you.”

  “The doors were locked,” she whimpered through chattering teeth.

  Chad’s EMT training jumped to the forefront. He picked her up and began carrying her across the field toward the house, but she protested. “Put me down!”

  “Will you walk?”

  “Yes. Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Why,” he began patiently, “would you walk out here in the freezing cold and curl up with your mother without telling anyone where you were going?”

  “Because I wanted my mother! I didn’t do it because I chose to be difficult!”

  “Keep up the anger,” Chad encouraged. “We need it to keep you warm. You’ve been chilled twice tonight.”

  “I know the symptoms of hypothermia, and I’m not even close, Chad.”

  They burst into the kitchen, startling Judith and just seconds before the headlights from the Chief’s car approached. “She’s fine. Just out for a midnight stroll in the lack of moonlight.”

  Chief Varney knocked confidently and opened the door. “Miss Finley? May I come in?”

  The three officers went upstairs, but Judith returned seconds later, calling for electricity. “We can’t see a thing with that little oil lamp. Flashlights just don’t cut it.”

  “Oh, sorry. I should have thought of that.”

  Once she flipped the circuit breaker, she grabbed a light bulb from the dining room fixture and carried it upstairs. “Is there one in Mother’s—yeah, I thought it was bad. Here.”

  The tone turned businesslike as the three officers did their job. Willow overheard phrases like “dust for prints,” “evidence bag,” and “list of people with access” and wondered why nothing could be simple and beautiful as it used to be. She answered all questions thrown at her until the others were satisfied with her answers. The only people with a key to the Finley Farm were Chad, Willow, and Caleb Allen, and all three of them had spent the night away from the farm and in one another’s company.

  “Solari,” Willow suggested. “She was here just the other day. Maybe she found a way to pick the lock or something.

  Chad looked at the chief and asked, “Key mold maybe?”

  “Not likely but possible, I guess. We’ll send Joe out to question them in the morning.”

  “Can I go to bed? I’m tired.” Willow’s voice sounded almost petulant.

  Chief Varney patted her shoulder and promised that they’d take good care of her. As she turned, Willow heard him speak low to Chad. “Son, I want you here until tomorrow at two. Your shift just changed. You’ll come back at six.”

  “You don’t have to do that Chief,” Chad insisted. “I wasn’t going anywhere anyway.”

  “But I want you here until at least two and back again by six—not leaving her alone out here after dark. At least until we check out these Solaris, Bill Franklin, and that reporter fellow… Bieler?”

  “Yessir.”

  Chad found Willow folding her clothes and putting them away. He re-hung the jeans, replaced books, and helped clear her bed. As she grabbed her pajamas,
Chad loaded the hall stove and lit a fire. “I think I’ll ask Judith to bring me an air mattress. The search was concentrated in your mother’s room, so I’m going to leave that until morning. Maybe in daylight we’ll see it better.”

  Willow emerged from the bathroom wearing paisley flannel pajamas and braiding her hair. “I’m sorry our lights weren’t very adequate.”

  “That’s ok. We’ll look again in the morning.”

  “Where will you sleep?”

  Chad stared at the hallway and then at her floor. “I’d sleep out here, but you’d probably trip over me if you got up in the night, so I’ll sleep at the foot of your bed.”

  “You’ll get your cold feet on me.”

  Laughing, Chad shook his head. “No, on the floor you nut.”

  “How uncomfortable!” She didn’t like the idea. It seemed rude. “You can sleep in my bed—”

  “No!”

  “—and I’ll take the couch,” she finished, shaking her head. “I’m not completely without understanding of social norms. Unmarried people don’t share beds. I get that. But you can’t sleep on the floor, and I can sleep on the couch.”

  “I will sleep on the floor, and you will not sleep on the couch. I’d have to sleep on the floor in the living room if you moved down there, so can we just quit arguing? I’ll go get my sleeping bag from the truck, and—”

  “Why do you have a sleeping bag in your truck?”

  “I keep one in there this time of year. It gets cold fast, and if I’m ever in an accident or my truck breaks down, I want to be warm until the tow truck arrives.”

  “Smart.”

  “Took you long enough to figure that out,” he chided as he jogged downstairs.

  His first snore woke her up. She listened, fascinated to the nasal orchestrations, amazed at how much louder and… resonant it was than her mother’s soft snores. Sleep finally overcame her. Now I understand why Mother called it “sawing logs, she thought as she drifted to asleep.

  At four-twenty, Chad barreled down Willow’s driveway, the tires of the cruiser, sliding at the curve. Her phone skipped to voicemail at every attempt to call, and for cathartic purposes, he shouted at her all the way. Willow rounded the corner of her house, feed can in hand, and stared at him dumfounded as he raced toward her.