“Really, Nina, no problem. It’s not snowing that much yet. The streets are fine.” I handed her the books.
She set them down on a small table in the entry. “Would you like a cup of coffee? I don’t get many visitors. Adam says the strain isn’t good for me.”
The last thing I wanted was Nina Hoffman entertaining me, dressed in her robe, and plying me with coffee. She looked so lonely, though, that I agreed.
I followed her through the living room into the kitchen. Everything in the house was white and in pristine condition. No homey touches, no clutter. It looked empty, uninhabited. In fact, the house was devoid of all personality. It said nothing of the couple who lived there. I tried to imagine Adam Hoffman kicking his shoes off and watching a football game, but the image eluded me. I felt a chill from the cold, sterile environment.
Nina chattered while she poured the coffee, mostly about the latest self-help book she had read. I tuned most of it out. While she talked, I thought reading a few books on decorating wouldn’t hurt her, either.
I drank my coffee as quickly as possible and refused Nina’s repeated efforts to give me more. The all-white room was making me jumpy. I wanted out of there. When I stood to leave, Nina stood, too.
“Would you like to see the rest of the house?” she asked eagerly.
I searched for an excuse, but my mind blanked. Unless I wanted to appear rude, I had to agree. The house was big, but maybe I could hurry her along.
We went from one white room to the next, each as clean and clutter-free as the living room and kitchen. I made all the appropriate comments and praised her choices. When she opened the door to the last room, I blinked, and blinked again. The room was full of riotous color. It hit me in the face like a bucket of paint.
“My goodness, Nina,” I said, at a loss for words.
Nina’s eyes fluttered around the room as if she were searching for something lost long ago. “Do you like it?”
“Well, yes. It’s certainly different than the rest of your house.”
“I know, this is where I keep Ashley’s things.”
“Ashley?” Did I miss something here?
“Yes, Ashley, my daughter,” Nina said while she walked around the room and traced her fingers lovingly over the dust-free surface furniture.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you and Adam had children.”
“We don’t, not now.” A tear crept down Nina’s cheek when she picked up a photograph and handed it to me. “This is Ashley; isn’t she lovely? She died. And Adam says I haven’t been right since.”
I was about ready to agree with Adam until I looked at the picture. It was the girl from my dream. She wore a pink dance costume with a long flowing skirt. On her head was a cap with a short veil, a Juliet cap. That was it—the song—the theme from Romeo and Juliet.
“Yes, yes, she’s lovely,” I stuttered. “She looks like Juliet.”
“Exactly. ‘Romeo and Juliet’ was her favorite song. She selected it for her last dance recital,” Nina said, gently taking the picture from my numb fingers. “This photograph was taken then. She wanted to be a ballerina desperately. Her plan was to graduate early, leave Texas, and move to New York to study ballet.”
“You lived in Texas? I didn’t know that.” My eyes flared in surprise.
“Yes, Adam was career Army and stationed there. Fort Arnold. But we don’t talk about it.” She hesitated for a moment. “Adam left the Army after Ashley’s death. Five years ago. She was raped and murdered, you know,” she said in a whisper.
I scowled, looking around the room at the rest of the pictures. Rape and murder? It didn’t fit what I saw in the dream. A picture sitting on the desk caught my attention. It was of Ashley standing beside a bright red convertible.
“This is of Ashley, too?”
“Yes, Adam insisted on buying her the car for her sixteenth birthday.” Nina picked up the picture and stroked the smooth surface of the glass. “She loved that car. We couldn’t bear to sell it after her death. No one has driven it since she died. He spent a small fortune having it transported to the farm.”
“The farm? The one Benny rents?”
“Yes, Adam has it stored in the machine shed. Benny doesn’t mind.”
I resisted the urge to smack myself on the forehead. Abby had said find the connection and I’d have my answers. Well, this was the connection, the red convertible. Except for the first dream, the car had been in every one. But I’d been so focused on finding the soldier that I hadn’t paid attention to the convertible. Ashley was in the car the night she died, and now the car was here. A physical link between what happened in Texas and what was happening in Summerset. I didn’t understand how they were linked, but I knew I had to see that car. Only problem—how could I get away from Nina gracefully?
My dilemma was solved when Adam’s car pulled in the driveway.
“Oh my, Adam’s home.” Nina wrung her hands.
I didn’t think I wanted Adam to find me standing in this particular room. The whole thing was so strange—a shrine to a dead girl, a car no one would ever drive again.
“Nina, I need to get back. Thanks for the coffee,” I said, exiting the strange room. I looked over my shoulder and saw Nina following me, still wringing her hands. We were in the entry when Adam came in through the kitchen.
“Nina,” Adam said, his eyes drilling right into her. “I didn’t realize you invited Ophelia to stop by.”
“Oh, oh, I—I didn’t invite her over exactly.” Nina’s eyes flicked back and forth from the ceiling to the floor, never once meeting Adam’s stare. “She dropped off the books I ordered from the library and had coffee with me.”
“That was kind of her but unnecessary, I would have picked them up for you, dear. You had only to ask,” Adam said, his smile tight and forced.
Nina’s eyes continued their rapid movement. “But Adam, you’re so busy at the bank, I hated to bother you.”
I watched the whole scene in disbelief. Nina’s fear blipped across my radar. It came in short pulses. What was she frightened of? Adam? He never struck me as the abusive type. Or was she afraid he would find out that I’d seen the room? Whatever the reason, the fear was contagious, and I felt a surge of adrenaline. Fight or flight. Flight won.
“Adam, Nina, I really must be going. Nina, enjoy the books,” I said, struggling into my coat.
While I walked to my car, I could feel Adam’s eyes on my back. My steps faltered but I finally reached the car. I tugged at the door. Damn, I’d locked it. Stupid, stupid, why did I lock it? I fumbled in my pocket for the keys. The first one didn’t work. Wrong key. Meanwhile, Adam watched from the window. Finally, I used the right one. The door opened and I got the hell out of there.
Several blocks away I pulled over. The cold sterility of the Hoffmans’ house had penetrated my very soul. I rested my head on the steering wheel and let the trembling I’d been fighting take over.
Twenty-nine
The cold pinched at my nose while I tromped through the somber woods. The snow fell faster now. It drifted down in gossamer flakes from steel gray clouds that seemed to hang just above the treetops. My steps were muffled while I waded through the deep snow. My muscles began to tire from the effort, but I had to keep going. I knew the answer was in the red convertible.
My duplicity troubled me slightly. I had called Darci from my cell phone and made a lame excuse for not returning to the library. If I had told her my real reason, she would have insisted on coming, too. I also felt I was inadvertently lying to Bill. I hadn’t forgotten my promise to stay out of this and let him do his job, but it would’ve been pointless to call him. What could I tell him? “You need to check out a dead girl’s red convertible. It has the clue you need.” No, I’d look at the car first, then go to Bill.
Rick was another matter. I could only imagine his anger when he learned I’d gone to the farm by myself, but I couldn’t wait. He would be spending the entire day with Agnes and her cats, and I had to go now, when I
knew where Benny was. I didn’t want Benny to come home and find me snooping around the property.
Finally, I reached the barbwire fence separating Abby’s woods from Adam’s farm. In the gray light, I could see the farm buildings through the curtain of snow. It seemed to be falling harder on the plowed field that lay between the buildings and me. Walking would be treacherous across the uneven ground. I grasped the barbwire fence with my gloved hand and carefully climbed over.
The wind picked up as I crossed the field, and the once gentle flakes pelted my face. I pulled my hat down and my collar up to protect it from the stinging little crystals. With this much wind, the blowing snow would drift across the roads, blocking them. I’d be stranded. One more reason to hurry.
I walked past the feed lots, but I could barely see the cattle huddled together in a tight group, their heads hung low and their backs covered with a frosting of snow. The only sound was the clank of metal against metal as the pigs in the next lot lifted and dropped the lids of their feeders. The sound rumbled in the white stillness.
The machine shed suddenly loomed in front of me. The old boards were covered with chips of rusty paint that clung tenaciously to the rough surface. My gloves caught on them while I edged my way to the window. I grasped the window ledge and pulled myself up to peer inside. Thirty years of grime made it difficult to see. I could barely make out the car covered with a tarp.
A hand clamped across my mouth and an arm thrown around my shoulders pulled me down and backward into a hard body. My heart jackhammered in my chest.
“What in the hell are you doing here?” a man whispered, the warm breath tickling the side of my face.
My body slumped with relief, but the relief was followed by acute irritation. I brought the heel of my boot down hard on top of his foot. The hand and arm quickly released me.
“Ouch. Why did you do that?” Rick asked.
“How dare you scare me like that?”
Rick’s eyebrows gathered in a frown. “You deserve to be scared. What were you thinking of, coming out here by yourself? You were supposed to stay out of trouble, remember?”
“Long story—I told you in the note.”
“What note?”
“The note I left with Georgia, telling you where I was going and what I found out. Didn’t you get it?”
“No, I’ve spent the entire afternoon with Agnes. I found a great picture of our friend, the sergeant, locked in deep conversation with Jake Jenkins.”
“Jake? Jake’s the bad guy?” I shook my head. “I can’t see Jake as a murderer.”
“Maybe not, but Jake’s involved in this somehow. I tried to reach Bill, but he’s covering an accident on 925. I decided to come out here myself. Now, why are you here?”
“I know who the girl in my dream was—Ashley Hoffman. She died five years ago in Texas, when Adam was stationed at Fort Arnold. Adam stores her car here. The car from the dream.”
“Did you say Fort Arnold?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Wow.” Rick sounded surprised. “No one mentioned Adam had been in the Army or that they had a daughter.”
“No one knew. The Hoffmans don’t talk about it. Strange, don’t you think?”
“Not only strange, but a pretty big coincidence that Adam was stationed at the same base as Fisher.” Rick stopped and looked me over. “I don’t suppose I can persuade you to leave and let me go in by myself?”
“Nope, I’ve got to see that car.”
“Didn’t think so. Come on,” Rick said, taking my arm. “We’re not accomplishing anything standing here talking. Let’s check out the inside.”
We walked around to the front of the building. The rickety wooden door faced away from the feed lot.
Rick rattled the door’s handle. “It’s not locked. Either whatever’s in there isn’t important or they’re not worried about visitors.”
I peered over Rick’s shoulder into the gloomy building. “Oh, it’s important, all right. Come on.” I pushed past him into the shed.
“How do you know it’s important?” Rick thought for a moment. “Never mind, dumb question.”
I stopped a few feet inside the door and looked around.
“I don’t suppose you have a flashlight?”
“No, but here’s a lantern.”
In the faint light of the lantern, the machinery cast huge shadows around the building. Cobwebs drifted from the rafters. They danced in the cold drafts that seeped through cracks in the old structure. The drafts seemed to circle around me and goose bumps prickled my skin. My ears began to ring with a faint buzzing. It grew louder, louder—
“Ophelia.”
I jumped. “Huh?”
“What’s wrong with you? Didn’t you hear me?”
“No.” I looked at Rick. He was holding the corner of a tarp in one hand. The rest of the tarp lay in a crumpled pile at his feet.
“I said, is this what you’re looking for?”
It sat gleaming in the lantern light—a cherry red convertible. Not a speck of dust could be seen on its shiny surface. Someone had to wash and wax this once a week for it to be this clean. Was it one of the jobs Benny did for Adam?
“Do you need the light, or can I take it?” he asked. “We need to see what else is in here.”
“No, I don’t need a light,” I said, still staring at the car.
I wouldn’t need light for what I was going to do.
I got in the car and rubbed my hands lightly over the white leather steering wheel. I emptied my mind of all thought, but the resistance I had built over the past four years acted like a shield. It wasn’t working. I rotated my head to loosen the stiff muscles in my neck. Focus, I needed to focus. I stared out the windshield. What little light there had been was failing, and all I could see was the front end of the car. Everything else hung in deepening shadows. I closed my eyes and thought of the picture of Ashley.
It came gently at first, soft and indistinct. I strained to hear, and as I did, the melody became louder. I could once again see Ashley dancing with such power and grace. My thoughts reached out, drawing the girl closer and closer. In some part of my brain, my increasing grip on the steering wheel registered. Finally, my thoughts touched the image of Ashley. I felt what she felt. A smile curled at my mouth while the song picked me up and carried me with her.
I felt wild joy while I experienced the dance with her. I was lost in the music just like Ashley. My heart raced with hers in exhilaration as she moved through the complicated leaps and turns. Her desire for perfection tugged at me.
It ended with a final leap, and while she knelt on the floor, I felt her nagging disappointment. The last arabesque was a half beat off. Never get into ballet school with that kind of performance. It must be perfect, perfect.
The scene in my mind shifted, and we were driving down the gray ribbon of highway with the top down. I felt the wind tossing my hair, and Aerosmith played at a deafening level on the radio. This is so cool—my own car. Daddy is the best. I have to take it with me when I go to New York to study. Mom won’t want me to, but I’ll talk Daddy into it.
A slow smile spread across Ashley’s face. I wonder if Blake could get transferred to New York. Daddy could pull a few strings. She laughed. No, Daddy would kill Blake if he found out. We’ve been careful, so careful.
Excitement seemed to coil within her and I knew. She was on her way to pick up the soldier, to pick up Blake. And tonight was the last night of her life.
The knowing made me sick to my soul. I couldn’t stop what would happen to her—her death was five years in the past—but it still made me sick. I couldn’t bear to see her in my mind and know her life was about to be snuffed out. Turning away from Ashley, I watched the telephone poles rush by. Faster and faster, until they became a blur.
Darkness began to shadow the vision, until I saw nothing. I felt a deep, quiet grief tight in my heart. Was the grief mine, or did it belong to someone else? I didn’t know. My hand rhythmically stroked the smoo
th leather of the seat next to me while the tears built inside of me. They slipped silently down my face. The weight of the grief pressed down on me till I felt like I was crumbling. I had to open my eyes or be smothered by the awful grief.
I forced my eyes open and found myself looking in the rearview mirror, only it wasn’t my face I saw. It was a face contorted with anger and hate. No gentle grief there. The eyes were wide and the pupils dilated. The mouth was fixed in a snarl, and his white, even teeth looked predatory. It was a face I had seen many times, but always smiling, never like this. Now it was misshapen into a mask of vengeance. How could Abby have missed this?
The terror I felt threatened to crush me. I had to break the connection. I pushed my body back against the seat and searched desperately for the door handle. My fingers curled around the cold metal and I pushed with all my strength. It opened and the next instant I was lying facedown on the dirt floor. Fine, gritty dust rose around my mouth and nose while I lay there panting. I had to leave, now.
From a great distance I heard Rick calling me. The instincts for self-preservation tightened my throat, making sound impossible. I staggered to my feet and stumbled toward the faint light in the back of the shed.
Rick stood by a workbench. Its top was covered with paraphernalia. The light flickered off a dozen mason jars and glass gallon jugs, the kind apple cider is sold in. A thick coil of plastic tubing lay beside them. Boxes of over-the-counter cold medicine were scattered everywhere. Several cans of drain cleaner stood in a straight row behind them.
The floor under the bench had boxes stacked two high. In the faint light I could read the words “starter fluid.” Next to them were several bright red plastic gas cans.
“Looks like we’ve found the meth lab.” He turned and looked at me.
In the dim light, I knew he couldn’t read the fear on my face. How could I get him out of there?
“Benny?” I croaked, my throat still tight.
“Looks like. The brothers have been busy boys—one is hooked up with the militia and the other is cooking meth. We’d better get out of here.”
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