“What do you mean?”
Axel went at it again.
“They are one of three families who refused to sell their land to you so you could build your dude ranch, right? With their cattle being killed, their land being affected and their main workers gone, you have way more leverage to convince the Graber family to change their minds.”
Ms. Ferry’s brow furrowed. Just as she seemed genuine in her desire to commiserate with the Graber matriarch over being a widow, she seemed to be genuine in the confusion that followed.
“The dude ranch project was tabled. The Grabers were one of three families who refused to sell. So I let it go when it was clear they weren’t interested at all.” For effect, she shrugged. “I’ve turned my attention back to some other projects outside of Potter’s Creek since then. I even have a flight booked after the start of the new year to go to Tennessee and talk to a friend about turning my focus to more charitable pursuits instead.”
“So you’re not interested at all in the dude ranch anymore?” Carly asked. “Just like that?”
Ms. Ferry nodded. Then her demeanor changed. She lowered her voice. Not to a whisper, but not as flamboyant as she had been.
“Honestly, I came up with the project on a whim in the first place—I mean the scenery around here is like being in a movie, why would I not try to capitalize on that if I could?—but it was my son who really ran with it.”
That was news.
“Your son?” Axel asked.
“Yes. Dylan.” Once again, her demeanor changed. She definitely was no longer feeling whatever excitement she had been before. “He’s had a...rough time of it lately, and so I told him that if he cleaned up his act and flew straight then I’d let him be in charge of the entire ranch when it was up and running. Something he could call his own and that would give him a sense of purpose.”
Carly and Axel both straightened a fraction. Carly saw it out of her periphery just as she knew he had seen her.
“What do you mean by cleaned up?” she asked.
“And what do you mean by rough time?”
Shame.
Guilt.
Frustration.
All three flashed across Ms. Ferry’s expression and perfectly applied makeup.
“Dylan’s father, my first husband, had a drug problem when Dylan was younger. After we divorced, Dylan went through a sort of rebellious phase...one that included gambling.” She deflated a little with a sigh. “He’s been in and out of different rehab programs to kick his addiction to it over the last few years. It got so bad that I had to...cut him off. No more money from me. He was going to have to learn how to fend for himself. I thought that it would help him value the things he earned himself, instead of seeing them as just more ways to fuel his addiction.”
“Did he follow through?” Axel asked. “Did he fend for himself?”
Ms. Ferry sprung back up like a flower in spring. She was out of her mood.
“He did! He completed a program, got himself an apartment, kept going to meetings and told me he was ready to take on more responsibility.”
“But then you ran into the issue of getting the land to build,” Carly added.
Ms. Ferry frowned.
“He took the news poorly, I’ll admit.” She sighed. “Which is why he’s in a rehab facility in Austin, Texas, at the moment. He relapsed after I broke the news to him.”
After that they asked a few more questions, but none with answers that led them anywhere new. They got alibis from Ms. Ferry for the time frame when the attacks were estimated to have occurred and learned enough about her personality to make the leap that she hadn’t been behind the attacks.
She also didn’t know David Lapp or Rodney Lee.
“What is it about this case?” Axel asked when they were back outside. “If it is just one case we’re looking at right now.”
“You think it could be two.” It wasn’t a question. In fact, it was a theory the team had already kicked around. “Our original anthrax attack case which leads us to David Lapp who is somehow mixed up in something different with Lee. Which makes David Lapp our soft connection?”
Axel gave a half shrug.
“I know we’re not big on coincidences, but that doesn’t mean they don’t happen.”
Carly didn’t believe Lee wasn’t somehow connected to it all, and same with the still-missing David, but she didn’t have any proof one way or the other.
Like Axel said, just coincidence.
And he was right. She wasn’t a fan of those. Not in their line of work. Yet, if it was...if something else was going on unrelated to the anthrax killings...
Another attack could come soon and hurt more people.
“Until something else happens, I’ll keep Max and Aria on trying to find out how the anthrax was transported and purchased, and I’ll check in again on my lab sources to see if they’ve found anything more about the strains used,” she decided. “Once Opaline finds Talia, you and Rihanna head over there with local PD as backup. If Rodney is there, take him in. If it’s just Talia, question her for every ounce of information she has on Rodney, David, and if she knows anything about that damn chair in his basement.”
Axel nodded. His approval of the plan gave Carly an added confidence boost. She was staying objective in his eyes.
Which was good, because her last part of the plan didn’t feel as professionally detached as it should have.
“Before then, I need to pick up my rental and head to the Miller farm. I need to ask for our tour guide’s help one more time.”
Chapter Fourteen
Gina had her shotgun on the kitchen counter. Noah had a cup of coffee. Both were staring at Carly with their full attention.
“You two have lived around here your whole lives, right?” she asked. It was a one-question follow-up to her asking if she could come inside to talk.
Noah had been hoping she’d stop by—for what he wasn’t sure—but it was an easy yes from him. Gina also seemed eager to talk, something that was definitely rare from the closed-off woman.
“Yes, ma’am. In this county and the next,” she answered.
Noah nodded along.
“On an Amish farm and then on this one. Why?”
Carly had something rolled up beneath her arm. She motioned to the dining room table across from them.
“May I?”
“Go ahead.”
They all circled the table while Carly unrolled a good-sized map. It was laminated and looked like a Potter’s Creek–wide survey. The top corner read that it had been drawn up in 2012 but, from a quick first pass, it appeared to be more or less the same as the town now.
Carly pulled out a dry-erase marker, held up her finger as a ‘hold on’ sign and started to draw a line on the plastic. Noah and Gina leaned over and watched as that line started at the town limits, then went directly into backstreets through town for a bit, before moving to a network of back Amish-land roads that led to the Yoder, Graber and Haas properties. Then she was done.
“That’s the route I would take if I was bringing in enough anthrax to poison three families.” Carly tossed him the marker. Noah caught it with one hand and an eyebrow raised. “Now, as locals, you tell me how you would do it.”
Noah shared a look with Gina. Her gaze was already on the map.
“Well, first of all, if I was coming from anywhere outside of town, I wouldn’t take these.” Gina pointed to the first network of backstreets. “I’d take the main road as far as I could before turning off of it.”
“And why is that?” Carly leaned over again. Her hair shifted at the movement. Noah noticed that she’d gone back to her more natural look while working. While he wasn’t against her undercover style, he liked the sight. Her focus and determination to get to the bottom of the case was more appealing to him than glitter.
“The m
ain road has less traffic than the back ones do around that area, believe it or not,” he explained, agreeing with Gina. “Plus there are a few one-lane neighborhoods those open up into. If you drove an unfamiliar car around there, especially at night, it would stick out more.” He drew a line along the main road and paused when he got to another that split through the heart of the Amish community. Instead of following Carly’s line through the backroads she’d chosen, he drew his own while Gina made sounds of approval next to him. When he was done at the Yoder farm, she took the marker and got back to the road that went through the heart of the Amish community and went to the other side of the map, leading away from the town’s main road.
Carly pointed to the first change Noah had made.
“Okay, explain why you went there.”
“It’s not really about why I went there, it’s why I didn’t go there.” He tapped her original plan. At least, one road in particular. It didn’t have a name on it. “That’s the road that runs behind the Kellogg property. It’s abandoned now, which makes it a good, out-of-the-way spot, but—”
“That’s the road you said gets so muddy it’s pulled wheels off of buggies,” Carly finished, remembering their earlier conversation from their tour.
Noah nodded.
“Even when it’s not muddy it’s pure hell on a regular vehicle. No local would use it unless it was on foot or they had no other choice. Not with an unnecessarily high possibility of breaking down or damaging your vehicle.”
“And what about leaving after the deed is done?” she asked Gina. “Why would you leave Potter’s Creek on this side of town and not the other?”
“Even if you came in that way, I’d leave that way, too. Cops are never on that road. Don’t ask me why. It’s just been that way since I was a girl.”
Carly didn’t say anything for a moment. Noah watched as her gaze swept the map, thoughtful. Her wheels were spinning.
“Does that mean you think it really is David Lapp behind it? Someone who grew up around here?” he finally asked.
“I honestly don’t know at this point. Everyone is out there chasing down leads from what we learned last night and from what we already knew coming into the case.” She tapped the map. “But spreading that much anthrax on that much land requires a lot of work, labor and at least one vehicle large enough to transport it to and from.” It also required someone who knew how to spread it without risking self-contamination, something she’d already mentioned to the team. The health and safety group tasked with mitigation had suggested this to her as they’d worked in Hazmat suits, cleaning up the fields. “If you’re right then, if a local did it, they would take a completely different path and, if someone who wasn’t local did it, then—” she ran her finger across the plastic until she was on the road behind the Kellogg property “—maybe they made a mistake we haven’t looked for yet.”
The thoughtful silence that followed ended in a flash. She rolled up the map and gave them both a quick smile.
“Thanks for this,” she said, already backing up to the door. He realized with a start that she was about to leave.
Without him.
And he didn’t like the feeling.
For a lot of reasons.
“Do you need me to come along?” he offered, coming around the table and trying to avoid the intrusive gaze of Gina caught in the middle.
Carly hesitated.
He might have imagined it, but it sure did look like Carly had turned a darker shade of crimson.
Gina spoke instead.
“You should take him,” she said. “You’ll make a good team. A local and an out-of-towner, like you said. You’ll probably see more with him tagging along. Plus, he already helped me mend the fence this morning and that’s all I needed from him today.”
Gina cracked a grin at that. Noah snorted.
“She’s right. About both of those things.”
Carly seemed to think about it for a little longer than Noah liked, but then she agreed.
“You can make sure I don’t destroy my rental on these backroads.”
“I think I can swing that.”
Noah drank the last of his coffee and offered Carly a cup. She hesitated, then declined.
It was the second time she’d stopped and started with indecision just within the last minute.
Probably because you kissed her out of nowhere during a damn FBI investigation, he chided himself. The one guy from the community tasked with helping her and you lip-locked her at a bar.
Noah didn’t regret the kiss, but he did regret how it had happened. The fact that they hadn’t talked about it at all since then, not even in the car ride back to the inn, didn’t help. It also didn’t help that he’d spent the morning waiting for her to show up or call only to have to remind himself several times over that Carly Welsh wasn’t in town for the scenery.
She certainly wasn’t there to fall for the shunned farmer of Potter’s Creek.
That had been a wise, rational reminder.
Though thinking about Carly falling for him? Well, that was a slippery slope right into another question: If he was wondering about her falling for him, did that mean that he was falling for her?
Was that possible?
To have such strong feelings for someone whose middle name you didn’t even know?
To know something in your heart before your head got the memo?
Now Carly was standing next to her rental, peering down at her phone, brow furrowed and lips downturned.
It wasn’t a special moment, in fact it was downright normal.
Yet, it happened all the same.
One moment he was looking at her and, in the next, he was thinking about the yellow house and dreams for his life.
It was the second time in his life that he’d felt exactly what he was feeling now.
And that to him was the most surprising thing that had happened so far in Potter’s Creek.
“So Opaline found Talia’s address and Axel is there now with the city PD.” Carly didn’t look up as she spoke. Noah didn’t think he would have been able to hide the feeling unraveling in his chest if she had. “I’m hoping that means we can finally figure out this whole Rodney Lee and David Lapp thing at least. Give us some solid ground to work with.”
Noah cleared his throat and went to the passenger’s side of the SUV. A new excitement was emanating from Carly as they got in, and she turned the engine over and started out of the drive.
“If we can get Talia to talk, then I’m hoping we can be done with Rodney and David.”
“You don’t think David was responsible for the attacks now?” he asked. They hadn’t talked about the case at all after he’d dropped her off at the inn the night before. The map discussion with him and Gina was the only talk about it they’d had since their night at the bar.
“At this point, I’m hoping what we do or don’t find during this little trip will help point us to a local being behind this or not.” She slapped her hand against the steering wheel. “Wait! I didn’t even tell you about what we found out today, did I?”
Noah laughed.
“No, ma’am, you didn’t.”
“Well hold onto your butt and listen to this.”
Carly told him all about Caroline Ferry and her son, Dylan. Noah had met Caroline once at the market but hadn’t known much past the fact that she hadn’t been able to convince the families to sell. He’d never met her son or her late husband.
“So what would Dylan’s motive be?” Noah asked when she was done. “Trying to get back at the community as a whole for messing up the deal? Or maybe scaring those who hadn’t sold to try to sell now?”
“Neither option makes that much sense. Again, getting and spreading that much anthrax, and not even against all of the families who stopped the development before it could even begin, is a lot of work. Especially fo
r an uncertain outcome. Then again, I’ve seen people who are startlingly good at the follow-through and nothing else.” She sighed. “But, while Dylan would be my lead suspect now, he couldn’t have done it. He’s been at one of those fancy rehabs in Florida for two months. At least that’s what his mother said. Opaline is chasing that down, too, just to cover all of our bases.”
Carly ran a hand through her hair. He thought she was going to sigh again, yet she caught herself with a light laugh.
“You know, with all of this going on, I keep forgetting Christmas is days away,” she continued. “I actually think I would have forgotten completely had Dot, the innkeeper, not reminded me before I left this morning by filling up the kitchen with platters of Christmas tree–shaped cookies.” Her laugh this time dipped a little. “I always think one year I’ll nail the whole holiday spirit and have this big party with all my loved ones and Secret Santa and all the Hollywood stuff you see in sitcoms. Like I’d really put the effort in and feel it. Yet, here I am having to be reminded by cookies that this year it’s not happening.”
“Well, this Christmas you’re also working an attack that was first flagged as bioterrorism, right? That would take the holiday cheer right from anyone’s sails, I’d think.”
Carly moved her head back and forth, like she agreed and didn’t all at the same time.
“One thing I’ve been learning, and I think the rest of my team has been trying to learn, is the whole light and darkness balance of what we do.”
“See the good in everything so the bad doesn’t crush you,” he guessed.
She nodded.
“So, sure, I’m in Potter’s Creek investigating a biological attack with a lot of unknown variables and seemingly unlimited questions because of those variables, but—” Noah caught her gaze as it swept to him. Just as quickly, she looked back out the windshield. “It sure is pretty here.”
Noah couldn’t help but laugh.
“That’s one thing Potter’s Creek will always have going for it, thick or thin—it’s hard not to see its beauty through it all.”
“You’ve got that right. I mean, I love my apartment and my job, but if I woke up to this, even just on the weekends?” She motioned to the forest in the distance, blue sky framing the expansive field in front of the trees like a painting. “I think finding the good in life might be easier.”
Toxin Alert Page 12
