by Lauren Carr
“What did you do to Sterling to make him try to eat your face?” Nikki asked.
“It’s a long story,” Elliott said with a sigh.
“I understand the schools are closed tomorrow,” Doris said.
With wide grins, the girls confirmed that they were.
“I guess a lot of evening activities are canceled because of the ice storm,” Doris said. “Elliott, is your book club still meeting?”
“Yes, it is,” Elliott said. “Storm isn’t supposed to start until ten o’clock tonight. Our meeting ends at nine. Everyone will be home long before it starts.”
“You know, Christopher,” — Doris patted her son on the shoulder — “you should join Elliott’s book club. You love to read.”
Chris tore his attention from the dog to look up at his mother. Her smile of encouragement reminded him of the time she pushed him into joining a group of boys his own age to go fishing along the river. It was fun until they started drinking and smoking pot and hatching a scheme to get some easy money. Chris reported their plans to break into the home of an elderly neighbor to his father and his new friends ended up in jail.
“They read mysteries, thrillers, suspense—all crime books,” Doris said. “The same books you read. Not only that, but the members of Elliott’s group are retired law enforcement. Your dad was the founding member.”
“On account that your mother kicked us out of hers,” Elliott said.
“Gramps got kicked out of a book club?” Katelyn asked. “What’d he do?”
“He and Elliott would go on tangents,” Doris said. “After your grandpa retired, I thought it would do him good to get out and make friends—not hold himself up here on this farm—”
“Like I’m doing,” Chris said in a low tone.
“Exactly.” From behind the chair, Doris tapped Chris on the top of his head. “So I talked him into joining my book club.”
“Nagged,” Chris said.
“And he joined,” Doris said. “That’s where your grandfather met Elliott.”
“And then you kicked them out,” Katelyn said.
“Because they would only read the book if it had a dead body in it,” Doris said. “If it didn’t have a dead body, they weren’t interested. Love stories were out of the question. We tried to read more crime fiction to make them happy. But then, they would rip the books apart. They’d go into everything the writer got wrong. Heaven forbid if the plot reminded them of one of their cases. Then they’d go off on tangents rehashing every gory detail. It was a book club, not a cold case detective squad.” She sighed. “We had no choice but to vote your grandfather and Elliott out.”
“So, we started our own club,” Elliott said. “All of our members are retired law enforcement professionals.”
“And you read crime fiction?” Chris asked.
“And rip them apart,” Elliott said with a grin. “We have lots of fun doing it, too. We meet the first Tuesday of the month. Everyone brings in a snack to eat and Bruce Harris provides the wine.”
“I bought a cheese tray for you to take, dear,” Doris said.
“Wine?” Chris said. “Sounds awfully fancy.”
“Not really,” Elliott said. “Bruce Harris is a good guy. Retired attorney general from Virginia. He owns a winery over in Purcellville, right across the state line and brings a few bottles to our meetings.”
“You like wine, Christopher,” Doris said.
“I didn’t read the book. Besides, I won’t fit in with their group.”
“You’re a retired FBI agent,” she said.
“I’m only forty-six. I’m sure Elliott’s friends are—”
“We’re not exactly ready for the home,” Elliott said. “Our youngest member is fifty-six. But we’re all active.”
“I’m sure you read the book. You read everything,” Doris said. “What was your book this month, Elliott?”
He picked up a paperback novel resting on the end table next to Chris’s chair. “This one.”
“You have to pick up my car at the library tonight anyway,” Doris said. “I left it there when Elliott took me to get Sterling.”
Chris turned to look up at his mother, who was grinning at him.
“As long as you’re at the library, you might as well have a glass of wine.” Doris arched one of her elegant eyebrows at him.
She turned to her granddaughters who were cooing at how Sterling was allowing Thor to sniff his snout without biting the rabbit’s long floppy ears off. “Girls, wash for dinner. We’re having tuna casserole.”
There was a collective groan throughout the room—with Chris’s being the loudest. Their tails between their legs, Sadie and Mocha hurried up the stairs to the second floor.
Chris pushed up from the chair. “Give me twenty minutes, Elliott, to shower and change my clothes.” He jogged up the back stairs to his bedroom, which occupied the attic.
Doris winked at Elliott. “Never underestimate the power of my tuna casserole.”
Chapter Three
In 1859, John Brown kicked off the Civil War by raiding the federal armory in Harpers Ferry. From then on, the tiny town nestled in between the fork of the Shenandoah and the Potomac Rivers became the prize of the War Between the States. It changed hands no less than fourteen times.
After the war, Harpers Ferry embraced its important role in history by becoming a national park and a popular tourist spot for Civil War buffs. The town’s middle school rested next to a field where one of the war’s many battles had been fought.
The Bolivar-Harpers Ferry Public Library made its home in a cozy single story building among a grove of tall ancient trees behind the school.
The last thing on anyone’s mind was reading books. Locked inside their homes, residents prepared for the ice storm threatening to paralyze the nation’s capital and neighboring area for two to three days.
To Chris’s surprise, the library appeared to be bustling with activity when Elliott pulled his big old SUV into the main entrance. A Mercedes, a mid-sized SUV, and a pickup truck were lined up next to Doris’s dark blue sedan. Elliott parked under the bare branches of an oak tree.
“Considering the bad weather coming in, I expected a thin turnout for your group,” Chris said.
“Our members are devoted.” Elliott threw open the door to allow an icy burst of wind to cut a knife-like path through the passenger compartment. He hunkered down inside his thick winter coat and slid out of the driver’s seat. “Ray Nolan texted that he wasn’t going to make it.” He ushered Chris up the front steps. “He’s in a wheelchair. Had to retire from Homeland Security after he took a bullet in the back. He’d set up their cyberwarfare task force after September eleventh and his name got leaked out to Al-Qaeda.” He held the door open for Chris, whose hands were full with the cheese tray his mother had purchased for the meeting. “A homegrown terrorist tried to make a name for himself by shooting Ray in front of his grandson in a Chuck E. Cheese parking lot.”
Chris stopped. “Tell me they got the guy.”
“Ray’s daughter put three bullets through his black heart. She’s one soccer mom you’d never want to mess with.” Elliott followed him through the entryway. “Ray’s got a remote hook up at home—so he’ll be joining us—no matter what the weather.”
“Using a remote hook up to attend a book club meeting?”
“I told you. Our group is devoted.”
“Hey, Chris!” Sierra Clarke, the librarian manning the checkout desk, paused in processing a stack of books to greet him with a wide grin. “Great to see you! Are you joining Elliott and Jacqui’s group?” She handed the books to an older woman with long blond hair, who she referred to as Jacqui.
“Our club is by invitation only.” Jacqui looked Chris up and down with her blue eyes narrowed to slits. Chris had difficulty judging her age. She had the slender, sensuous build of a
young woman, but the lines around her eyes and mouth suggested that she was older.
“Chris is a legacy,” Elliott told her. “He’s Kirk’s boy. Retired FBI.”
“Retired?” Jacqui cocked her head at Chris. “I have shoes older than he is.”
Chris suppressed a laugh. Never had he heard of a book club being so picky. Usually, they begged for members. He preferred to turn around, jump in his mother’s sedan, and leave before the ice storm hit. The scent of Swedish meatballs reminded him that he’d be returning home to tuna casserole.
“He did a stint with the army’s special ops to pay for his college before he became an investigator with the FBI,” Elliott said. “So, he was able to retire at forty-five.”
Eyeing Chris with suspicion, Jacqui took the cheese tray from him and moved into the adult book section where four tables had been arranged to make one big table. Someone had attached a webcam to the side of one of the library’s computer monitors and set it at one end of the table.
To change the subject, Chris shifted his attention to the perky high school student manning the check-out desk. “I’m surprised to see you here, Sierra. If you were my daughter, I’d have you off the roads by now.”
“You sound like Mom,” Sierra said with a roll of her dark eyes. “The storm hasn’t even started and she refused to let me drive. She’s picking me up—” She pointed behind Chris. “There she is now.”
Chris felt a rush of cold air hit him in the back of the neck.
A petite woman bundled up in a dark uniform coat of a West Virginia State Police, including the gold shield pinned to the upper chest drew the door shut behind her. Her short dark hair caught in the wind to blow across her face. Shaking off the chill, she brushed it out of her eyes. When she saw Chris, she let out an audible gasp.
Chris’s eyes grew wide with recognition. He had known Sierra for at least four months—since she had moved into the area from southern West Virginia. Since her parents’ divorce, Sierra had often spoken about her mother, to whom she was close.
Never, in all those months, had they met.
“Helen,” he said in a soft voice.
She swallowed. “Hello, Chris.”
“I had no idea Sierra was your daughter.”
Helen smiled. “You mean your mother didn’t tell you.”
“Hey, Chris!” Elliott called to him from where he, Jacqui, and another man surrounded the cheese tray. “If you want any pinot noir, you better get your butt over here.”
“I’ll be right there.”
Jacqui and Elliott exchanged soft smiles.
Helen urged her daughter to pack her school books and put on her coat. “We need to get home before it starts sleeting. I don’t feel like walking up the mountain in the dark.”
“Sierra told me that you were with the state police,” Chris said.
Helen nodded her head. “I’m just sorry that I transferred back here after your father had passed. I would have given anything to have him as a mentor.”
“Dad always did like you.” He held the door open for them. “I thought you wanted to be a lawyer.”
“Changed my mind about that in my second year of law school,” she said. “A soon as I got my degree, I signed up for the police academy.”
“Where she met my dad,” Sierra said, “who dumped us for a twenty-five-year-old personal trainer with size-D implants.”
“TMI, Sierra,” Helen said in a low voice. “Let’s go.”
“What department are you working in, by the way?” Chris asked her.
“I’m lieutenant in charge of homicide.”
“Dad’s old job—before they promoted him to captain.”
“So I heard.” While her daughter ran to her mother’s police cruiser, Helen stopped to gaze up into his face. “It’s good to see you again, Chris.” She smiled. “You look good.”
“So do you, Helen.”
He watched her hurry out into the cold. A gust of wind ruffled her hair while she yanked open the door and climbed into the car.
“Why didn’t you ask her out?” Jacqui called over to break the memories of adolescent romance flowing through Chris’s mind.
“Why is it that every time a man admires a hot woman, people think they should immediately slip between the sheets?” Elliott asked.
Meanwhile, Bruce was pouring red wine into a goblet. His muscular frame and sun kissed face indicated long days working in his vineyard. Peering at Chris with green eyes, he held out the glass. “Taste and tell me what you think, Christopher.”
While Chris tested the wine, Jacqui waved her arm to indicate the work room behind Doris’s office. “I didn’t ask why he didn’t take her into the back room and hook up with her here and now. I asked why he didn’t ask her out. I was thinking about lunch. Your mind went straight to sex.”
Disregarding his colleagues’ conversation, Bruce stared at Chris. “Well?”
“It’s good.” He picked up a cracker which he covered with a slice of cheese from the tray.
“Maybe he didn’t want to be pushy.” Elliott handed a paper plate to Chris. “It isn’t like he doesn’t know where to find her. Her daughter works here.”
Chris set his copy of the book down on the table to fill his plate with Swedish meatballs, and cheese and crackers.
“Good?” Bruce’s expression was similar to that of a man who had just lost his job, home, and family. “He said it was… good?”
Cursing under her breath, Jacqui struggled in setting up the computer and monitor for the remote hook up. Ray snapped instructions to her from a speaker phone.
Sitting down to eat, Chris noticed that he was the only one who had the copy of the book that Elliott had said they were covering that evening. Everyone else had folders and binders.
Must be some heavy duty reading group.
“Screw it, Jacqui!” Ray said. “Where’s Francine?”
“I’m right here, Ray.” A short woman dressed in a thick winter coat with a furry hat pulled down over her ears ran in from the side entrance. She dumped a book bag thick with folders and notebooks into a chair. “Sorry I’m late!”
With a sigh of relief, Jacqui backed away from the equipment. She moved on to fill a plate with cheese and crackers.
“The internet went out at home just as I was leaving,” — Francine checked the settings and pressed buttons on the keyboard — “and my grandson promptly became mildly hysterical. Luckily, all I had to do was reboot the system.”
Jacqui took a sip of white wine from a goblet. With a grin, she held up the glass in a toast. “This sauvignon blanc is lovely, Bruce. Delicate but strong. Its sweet taste complements hearty boldness of the cheese. Yet, it’s not a wimpy wine either.”
“So, you don’t think it’s good?” Bruce shot a glance in Chris’s direction.
Elliott took the seat between Chris and the vineyard owner. “Now, Bruce, not all of us are wine enthusiasts.”
“I said it was good,” Chris said, “which is a compliment.”
“Yeah,” Jacqui said, “he could have said it was bad.”
The face of a man with a gray beard and thick eyeglasses filled the computer monitor.
“Hey, Ray!” the members of the book group called out almost in unison.
“Nice to see you guys, too.” Ray saluted them. Abruptly, his smile dropped. “Who’s the kid?”
Francine spun around to notice Chris on the other side of the table. A broad grin crossed her wide face. “Well, it’s about time we got a touch of class.”
“Kind of young if you ask me,” Ray said with a grumble.
“This is Kirk’s boy, Chris,” Elliott said. “He’s retired FBI.”
“He’s forty-five,” Jacqui said.
“Forty-six,” Chris corrected her.
“Still not even fifty.”
“I�
��ve got underwear older than he is,” Ray said.
“And he doesn’t know anything about wine,” Bruce said.
“I said it was good. Look, I had no idea this book club was so selective about new members.” Chris rose from his chair.
With a hand on his shoulder, Francine, who had rushed to move her seat next to his, shoved him back into his chair. “Elliott says he’s retired FBI. That’s good enough for me.” She leaned over to whisper in his ear. “I’ll do the talking, sweet cheeks. You just keep sitting there looking handsome.” With a salacious grin, she admired his attractive features and let out a moan of pleasure.
“Doris suggested that I invite him to—”
“That explains everything,” Jacqui said with a heavy sigh.
“What explains everything?” Chris asked.
“Doris,” Jacqui said. “Elliott can’t say no to Doris Matheson.”
“I can so say no to her,” Elliott said. “As a matter of a fact I said no to her just today.”
“In reference to what?” Francine asked.
“She asked if I’d gotten a haircut.” Elliott raised his voice to be heard over their laughter. “But that’s not important. Point is, Kirk was our founder, which means Chris here has a right to be a member of our group. Our primary rule for membership is retired law enforcement. Chris is retired FBI. If that doesn’t allow him in, then what does?”
“His retirement is basically only a technicality,” Jacqui said. “He’s too young. Some agency or contractor will make him an offer and he’ll be back out there talking about the Geezer Squad.”
“I’ve said nothing to him about the Geezer Squad,” Elliott said with a crooked grin.
“What’s the Geezer Squad?” Chris asked.
“Hey!” Bruce sat up straight in his seat. “What’s the number one rule about the Geezer Squad?”
“Never talk about the Geezer Squad,” the group, including Ray on the monitor, said in unison.
In silence, Chris peered at each of them. He pushed his paper plate, still half-filled with food, to the center of the table. “Since you aren’t interested in any new members—”