Stubborn. That’s what my mother had always called me, too. Said I must have been born half mule. Had told me that even when she’d been in the hospital, with all the machines beeping, her skin falling from her bones. She hadn’t wanted me to see her that way, had wanted me to remember her healthy, with those bright and shining eyes of hers. But I’d refused to leave.
I pulled through Enchanted Rock, driving past the little greasy spoon all the locals seemed to eat at, pulled past the Curious Turtle where Sheila sometimes helped out, then turned onto a side road, rolling past one of the fancier restaurants I met the girls at a couple nights a week when we were all in town. I pulled through to the other side of town and headed out on the highway that led south.
Father, of course, hadn’t had the time to spend with her towards the end. There was a big deal going on back then, too, so big even his dying wife was put aside for it. His dying wife, and his young, scared, lost daughter.
No worries, though, he had another wife quick enough after that. One that was only a few years older than me, too. So I guess he got a two-for-one on that deal. A woman who was young enough to be his daughter to share his marital bed. That was just like father, of course. He always liked a good buy.
Her name was Elizabeth.
Or, as I referred her: the bimbo.
The memory of the wedding he’d forced me to attend pushed my previous uncertainty away. I slammed my foot on the gas pedal and raced back to the cabin in the mountains.
I had guests, after all.
Chapter Seven - Frank
I was leaning against my Mustang, my pride and joy, as Ashley Maxwell pulled up in her new Audi SUV and parked right in front of the house. She climbed out, bag in hand.
“Sorry I’m late,” she called. “Ended up being on the phone with my father’s office longer than I thought. Hope I didn’t keep you guys waiting.”
Even as she climbed out of the car, I realized I couldn’t keep my eyes from her.
“No,” I said with a smile as she approached, “you’re fine. Jake is just circling the perimeter anyways. He likes to look over the scene a certain way. Everything alright on your end?”
She nodded, sighed. “Yeah. Frustrated, I guess. Came home last night thinking everything was fine, and now all this is happening. Came right out of the blue, you know?”
I nodded and caught her looking at my car.
“This yours?” she asked.
“Sure is. Got it from my uncle when it was falling apart. Built and restored it myself, kept it in storage till I came back to the states and brought it up here.”
“Yourself, huh? Why didn't you just pay someone?”
I laughed. “Why would I when I enjoy doing that stuff? Working with my hands and making it run on my own. Haven’t you ever finished a big project before, one that you worked on yourself?”
She gave me a weird look. “Well, I’ve planned parties and events, that kind of thing. My mother and I used to be involved with a lot of non-profit work, and there’s always some fundraiser that had to happen. That count?”
I shrugged. “I haven’t ever planned anything like that, so I have no idea. Non-profit work, though?”
She ran her hand down the car, stroking its sleek, silver paint job. “My mother, before she passed, always said we needed to be sure to give back.” She walked around the car and peered inside through the open passenger side window. “She came from an old money family, just like my father, and she always said charity was the foundation her family had been built on. That was her life goal, making other people’s lives better.”
I walked over to the driver side and leaned in through the open window. “Still do it? The charity work?”
She shook her head, almost wistfully. “I haven’t been back to New York in a long while. My father and I, we don’t have the best relationship. I doubt he’d help.”
“Doesn’t mean you have to depend on his help for everything, does it?”
She smiled a little, but only for a moment. “Guess not.” Something about the way she said the words made it seem like she didn’t want to discuss any kind of help from her father, and her face seemed to harden until she looked back to the Mustang. “Did you really do all this? Even the interior?”
I nodded. “Oh yeah. Paint job, the leather, the engine. Everything.”
“How much do you think you could get for it?”
“No clue. She ain’t for sale, you know? She’s my baby.”
She laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“You called it a she, just like a boat. My father used to take me out on his sailing boat when I was younger, back when we were closer.” Something about her eyes, about the set of her mouth, was a change from the way she looked earlier when she’d been discussing her father. Gone was that uncertain guard she'd put up, replaced instead by an eager openness. “Never understood that. Why she? Just doesn’t make any sense.”
I smiled, straightened up. “Well, I’m from the Texas Panhandle. If I hadn’t seen them in movies growing up, I wouldn’t have believed you that sailboats even existed. Would’ve thought that was all lies and make-believe.”
She laughed, pulling her head from the open window. “Well, she is beautiful,” Ashley said, a knowing smile on her lips. “You did some lovely work.”
“Thanks.” I straightened up and went around the front of the Mustang to join her. “Ready to head inside so I can take a look at the scene?”
She nodded. “Couldn’t have gotten any worse,” she groaned, taking the lead to the front door.
“Damn, this place is big,” I muttered as we approached the oaken double-doors. “How many rooms in this?”
“Really?” she asked. “I think it’s cozy.”
I laughed. “I’ve seen aircraft hangars smaller than this. You really need all this space?”
She shook her head as she unlocked the door. “Well, my father’s the one who built it for the family to use. I was just up here visiting my friend Sheila, is all. I think it’s kind of small, actually.”
She pushed open the door, the heavy thing swinging open easily with just a touch.
“Shit,” I muttered as I saw the destruction. “You weren’t kidding, were you, about it being ransacked and all?”
We headed inside.
I subtly sniffed the air. Immediately, something seemed off. Sure, there were hints of the outside world, the spruce and elm and all the other trees on the land. That was to be expected when the window had been left open like that all night. But there was just a bit of something else, something that didn’t seem to belong here.
Then, it hit me. I knew what it was.
“Your father,” I asked as we went through the wreckage of the entrance hall and stopped in the living room, “he keep any guns in the house?”
She shook her head. “Not that I know of. I know he’s gone hunting in the past with business associates, but they’ve always done one of those full package deals where a guide takes you out, or gone to one of those ranches where they keep the deer and birds and stuff.” She looked around the room. “Why do you ask?”
“Just checking,” I lied. “See if there might have been something you and Deputy Glick missed when you were walking through the house, make sure there weren’t any firearms floating around town now. Stolen guns get sold pretty frequently, is all.”
The reason I really asked was a bit more sinister. I smelled gun oil in the air, and not my own. Without shifting into my wolf form, though, I wouldn’t be able to tell how much of it had been in the house. But something told me whoever had come in here had come in packing heat. Of course, that still didn’t exclude teenagers from just thinking they could get their jollies with a little B&E, but it made it seem less likely.
I looked around at all the paintings, at the X’s sliced into the canvas, the pictures busted out. I stopped at an empty frame that sat on the bar separating the kitchen from the living room. “They take that?” I asked, picking it up.
&nb
sp; She shook her head. “They broke it, but I took the picture out. It’s one of me and my mom from my birthday, years ago.”
I smiled a little. “Must’ve been nice,” I said. “Having family like that.”
“It is. Until it goes away.”
“Believe me, I’ve got family that just wouldn’t.”
“No mom or dad, then?”
I shook my head as I walked around and inspected where they’d ripped an electric socket from the wall, pulling the wiring out. “Uncles,” I murmured as I knelt next to the hole in the wood and fingered the wires curiously. This was way more than just being obnoxious punk teenagers.
“Find something?” she asked curiously.
“They really did a number on this place, didn’t they?”
“Yeah, they did.”
What struck me as odd, though, was the level of damage. If your average punk teenager was the type to go cow-tipping in the middle of the night, the people who’d done this were the ones who went out and mutilated the cattle in the next pasture over. “Mind if we look upstairs?”
“Sure thing.” She led me up the stairs to the rest of the bedrooms, glass crunching beneath our shoes as we trekked through the cabin. This place was just absolutely clobbered. Like they’d given some bears PCP and turned them loose inside to wrestle over a side of beef.
There was more of the same upstairs. Each room was practically destroyed. Stuffing was scattered all over the place, pictures shattered, art cut open. What puzzled me, though, were the restrooms, specifically the toilets. All the lids were taken off the tanks.
“Huh,” I mumbled as we stood there in the guest bathroom, with her leaning against the frame of the open door. “That’s odd.”
“The lid being on the toilet seat like that?”
“Yeah,” I mumbled as I stepped closer and peered down into the water-filled tank. “If I were some punk ass kid and looking to some damage, don’t know if I’d go through the trouble of opening it up like this.” I glanced back at her. “Would you?”
“I really wouldn’t know,” she said. “We didn’t do this kind of thing when we were kids.”
“Right,” I said with a little smile. “You were on sailboats. Well, when I was a kid, video games and boats were expensive, and we had to entertain ourselves. All the toilets like this?”
“Yeah, I think so. Deputy Glick put the one in the master bedroom back on for me, the lid I mean. I remember that from last night. He didn’t think the toilets were so odd, though.”
“Well, Glick’s just looking for an open and shut case,” I said. “Most cops don’t even want to write a report most of the time. I’d be surprised if the deputy is any different.”
“Is that why your partner Jake isn’t a cop anymore?”
I laughed. “Reckon it’s something like that, but you’d have to ask him to get the full story. He doesn't talk much about his past, though.”
She nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind. The only reason I ask is he gave me a funny look earlier, when you two were leaving.”
I glanced back at her. “Funny look?”
“Well, it was like he was intentionally trying not to look at me.”
“Don’t let that worry you,” I said as I glanced around the bathroom one last time, “he’s just an odd duck. He’s from California, after all.”
She laughed. “You know, he probably thinks you’re the weird one, since you’re from Texas. Probably expects you to ride a horse to work every morning.”
I grinned. “Probably.”
“Hey, Frank? You up there?” called Jake from downstairs. “Got a minute?”
“Excuse me,” I said, squeezing past her through the bathroom door before I realized what I was doing. I hadn’t even thought about it, especially with how small she was compared to me.
She sucked in a breath as my body brushed against hers. “Yeah,” she said. “Excuse you.”
Damn, she had felt good, though, and I blushed despite myself. “Sorry about that. Didn’t even think before I tried to get through.”
She looked me up and down, smiling a little. “I was just joking, Frank. It’s not a big deal.”
The crimson stayed burning in my cheeks, though, as I rushed out to the landing that looked out over the living room. “Find something?” I called.
Jake shrugged, that same look as always on his five o’clock shadow-covered face. “Why don’t you come down and tell me if I did, huh? You know how this works.”
Jake and his damn cold-reads. I groaned. “Ashley, we’ll be right back. Need anything, just yell.”
“Sure thing.”
I headed downstairs and we took a back door off the den and headed into the rear of the property.
Damn, it was pretty, with the way the forest sloped back up the mountain at a slight incline, looming over the cabin like a giant over a dwarf. During winter, it was probably even prettier.
“See anything interesting inside?” Jake asked as we tramped off into the woods.
I snorted. “Thought you wanted a cold read?”
“Well, I smelled gun oil, and I know it’s not your brand.”
I nodded as we navigated around a large stump. “Yeah, got that, too. Her father doesn’t own any guns, not any that he keeps in the house, at least.”
“Lucky you,” he jabbed.
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” I growled, looking at him sharply.
“Come on, Frank, I can see the way you’re looking at her. If she was Little Red Riding Hood, you’d have killed her grandma by now.”
I gave him a wry smile. “Not my type, Jake. Believe me. All this land, all her daddy’s money? And that fancy car of hers? Thank you very much, but no fucking sir. Peter already told me my rent couldn’t cover her wardrobe.”
He laughed. “Yeah, well, maybe your sorry ass needs a sugar momma.”
“Lay off, man,” I groaned. “Got enough to worry about without you poking the bear on this one. Now what’d we find up here?”
“You tell me.”
I rolled my eyes. “Dammit, Jake,” I muttered, sniffing the air and getting a sharp, fumy odor that seemed to lead both back down to the house and further up onto the mountain side. “What is that?”
“Think it’s vodka.”
“You follow it yet?”
“Yeah. You wanna take a look?”
I nodded, and we headed further up into the trees, following the trail. About three hundred yards back, Jake and I settled on a little clearing where someone had been maybe staked out. What little grass was here was tamped down, flattened by boots and knees. I stepped into the clearing, the smell of a fancy, expensive cologne hitting my nose. I’d bet it all that it wasn’t Old Spice, that was for damn sure. This was the good stuff.
“Perfect view down to the cabin. Cuts right through the trees. And Ashley would definitely never see someone tucked away this far back.”
Jake grunted his agreement.
Turning in a tight spin, I scanned the area around my feet. A little pile of cigarette butts, maybe a pack or two’s worth, were pushed up against the tree behind it, and a small bottle of Stoli vodka lay underneath one of the small bushes, almost hidden from view. The label looked barely aged by neither sun, rain, nor snow. I reached into my pocket, pulled out a pair of rubber gloves, and slipped them on.
“Do anything with it yet?” I asked as I picked up the bottle.
“Figured you’d want to see it this way before I touched it. Peculiar, huh?”
I unscrewed the top of the bottle and smelled it. Vodka. Definitely. I held it up and looked at it. There was just a smidge left in the bottom, less than a shot’s worth. Whoever had been here had been here a while, judging by how little was left in the bottle. Or they drank vodka like water.
“Think someone’s been watching the house?” I asked, looking back at the pile of the cigarette butts. “Someone’s been stalking her?”
He grunted. “That’s one theory. But if I were a stalker, would I go in a
nd tear up the place while she was gone? Or would I wait till she was home, then make my move? She’s pretty enough, so say we got a perv on this, some guy who’s obsessing over her. Why would he tear the place apart if he wanted to use her toothbrush or sniff her panties? Doesn’t add up, though. Most cases like that, you want to make sure the victim doesn’t know you’re watching. So why announce it like they did last night?”
I winced as he mentioned the words stalker and perv, and the idea of him going into her house, handling her unmentionables. I’d helped Richard Murdoch out with a case like that, with the woman he was now engaged to, and had been there when we finally busted the woman who’d been threatening her. Hadn’t been sexual in that case, but it had been like something right out of American Psycho. Almost disturbed me more than my time in Iraq.
Jake, though, didn’t flinch, didn’t even change the tone of his voice. His clinical nature when he was examining scenes, that’s what always got me. He seemed to have zero feeling on some of this stuff, and I never understood it.
I was about to say something to him about it, about how this was about a real person and not just another vic from his days on the force, but my words were cut short.
A woman’s scream punctured the near complete silence of the mountainside and echoed back and forth between the mountains, barely softened by the needles of the pine trees that blanketed the area.
Jake and I didn’t even look twice at each other. We just bolted down to the house at a dead sprint. We ran, dust and dead needles kicking up around us, leaping over deadfalls and stumps, moving almost as fast as we did when we were on four legs.
“Take the front,” I grunted to my partner, my chest heaving with the exertion as I drew my sidearm and headed for the back door.
He nodded, pistol already in hand, and streaked off to the front of the house, staying low and clear of the windows as he crossed through the side yard.
I slammed into the wooden logs of the cabin, right next to the back glass door. I strained my ears so I could hear over my racing heart.
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