“No, ma’am.” Colton’s tone was hard, his words firm and confident. “He’s probably long gone by now, but I’m going home to see if he left a clue I can use to find him. Lucky for me, cocky usually leads to careless, and him thinking that I’m losing my touch is going to work in my favor.”
I turned the phone off and put it in Colton’s empty cup holder, distancing myself from the taunting image of a cold-blooded killer. “Maybe I need a security camera doorbell,” I muttered, a new, crankier thought emerging as the previous one was voiced. “How does this guy know where you live when I don’t?” It was probably the wrong time to be hung up on an irrelevant detail, and the answer was obvious, but why didn’t I know where Colton lived? We were friends, weren’t we? He’d been to my place dozens of times. As sheriff, he had to live in the county, but did he live in Blossom Valley?
“I’ll have you over sometime,” he said, “when a killer isn’t potentially lying in wait for me to arrive.” Colton hit the blinker a few minutes later, indicating a right-hand turn. Then we sailed into the gravel lot outside Murphy’s auto shop.
Sally gleamed under the cone of security light.
The office door swung open a moment later, and Mr. Murphy appeared. He held a ring of keys over his head in one hand as he locked up behind him with the other.
I hopped out to greet him. “Thank you!”
“On the house,” he said. “All she needed was a good scrubbing, and that was my pleasure.”
I accepted the keys and said good night to Mr. Murphy, then hurried in Sally’s direction, eager to be behind her wheel once more. No longer dependent on the Wise brothers or anyone else for rides. “Thanks for the lift,” I told Colton through his open window. “Are you going to be okay on your own?” I asked, imagining Samuel Keller waiting in the shadows to ambush him. “Maybe you should call and ask your deputies to meet you at your place? Just in case.”
Colton shook his head and rearranged his grip on the wheel. “I’ve got this. Drive safely so I don’t have to worry about you anymore tonight. Keep watch for deer along the road, and lock up when you get home. Call me if you need anything.”
Panic swelled in my chest once more, whether for his sake or mine, I couldn’t say.
“I will.”
Colton waited until Sally and I were on our way before leaving the parking lot. He tailed us down the county road as far as town. We split at the intersection past the Sip N Sup. I went east, him south, and that was that.
I pressed the gas pedal a little lower as Sally climbed hill after hill with ease. She hugged the inky asphalt curves, her headlights illuminating the dark road ahead.
Pairs of glinting green eyes lined the tall grasses and trees as I flew through the night. Colton had been right to warn me about deer.
Still, my thoughts roamed. Mostly back to Birdie in the ladies’ room. I hadn’t seen her come out, and I hoped she wasn’t still in there, hiding. I wasn’t sure what to make of her claim that Mr. Potter had been having an affair. If it was true, then the number of potential suspects in his death had increased. Mrs. Potter could have wanted to punish him for his infidelity. The other woman could have wanted to keep him quiet so her husband wouldn’t find out. Maybe her husband had found out and wanted to punish Mr. Potter, though that seemed unlikely. Brittany Ann’s husband didn’t strike me as the murderous sort, but then again, I reasoned, Brittany Ann didn’t strike me as the adulterous sort. Maybe anything was possible.
My instincts about people were usually on target. I wrinkled my nose, remembering instincts weren’t perfect. I’d dated Hank for nearly five years.
I turned onto the orchard’s long gravel drive a few minutes later and noticed a number of vehicles at Granny’s house. She must’ve invited the ladies over for needle-pointing. A perfect turn of fate, because Granny’s ladies were the ultimate resource for gossip in Blossom Valley. Assuming one of them knew someone who knew the Potters or Brittany Ann’s family, I’d be in business. Facebook was good, but Granny and her ladies were better.
I parked Sally between our homes and debated. I definitely wanted to run my evening past Granny and her stitching crew to see what they thought, but I preferred to do it in jeans and a sweatshirt.
I sent Granny a text message to let her know I’d be there in a minute to talk to her and her ladies about my night. Aside from gaining information on Mr. Potter’s possible affair, I needed to tell her that Samuel Keller had been to the cider shop.
Granny responded immediately to let me know she was putting on a fresh pot of coffee. The tension in my shoulders eased instantly.
I took two steps in the direction of my home before I noticed a slow, waddling shadow moving in my direction. My heart rate sped at memories of being chased around parks and lakes by cranky mama geese as a child.
I picked up my pace, and so did the goose.
“Shoo,” I said, motioning with my hands. “I’m not a fan, and I don’t want anything that’s yours, so go away.” A bit of guilt pinched my cheeks. The goose had nearly been killed this week, and it would never fly again. Maybe the poor thing just wanted company, love, or a companion. I took another look at its tiny bear trap of a beak, then broke into a jog. “It’s not you. It’s me.”
The goose honked and dove for my calves, flapping its good wing and trying to get a little air.
I squealed and leapt for my porch steps. “Stop! Bad! No!”
The goose craned its long, winding neck in my direction and made a horrendous goosey sound.
“Ah!” My fingers grasped the post at the end of my handrail, and I used the sturdy wooden anchor to throw me forward, like a pole vaulter jumping the short flight of porch steps.
The goose honked and flapped in the grass below, babying its injured wing.
I bent at the waist, puffing crisp autumn air and giggling slightly over the whole ordeal. Was this my life now? Dodging an adopted goose every time I left my porch? Would it be able to navigate the steps once its wing healed? I laughed at the ridiculousness of the possibility, contrasting it with my other problems. “We should be friends,” I said, smiling more warmly at the goose moving away through the grass. “But it’s not nice to bite or scare people. My heart can’t take it,” I muttered, confident the goose was no longer listening. “I’m under enough stress as it is.”
I turned back to my house and screamed at the silhouette of a man seated in the rocker beside my front door. His stillness sent a surge of panic through me, and I fumbled back down the steps, desperate not to fall or twist an ankle like the stupid women in horror films. No longer caring two figs about the goose and effectively scaring him back across the field with my outburst.
I mentally tallied the speed at which I could reach Sally before the man reached me, but he had the advantage, moving forward instead of backward and with the ability to leap from the steps to my side. I raised my hands to defend myself until my feet found solid ground, but the man didn’t move.
A burst of cold wind lowered my arms and froze me in my tracks. The air lifted and tousled a sheet of paper attached to the figure’s chest, and I realized, senses on high alert, that it wasn’t a man at all. The figure was inanimate. A scarecrow had been removed from the fields and positioned at my door.
I crept forward, back up the steps, to read the message, which was obviously meant for me.
Stop asking questions.
Chapter Thirteen
I watched from the safety of my living room window as Colton collected the scarecrow and note. I sat on my knees like a child, turned backward on the couch to peer through the curtains at the porch, now awash in light. Kenny Rogers and Dolly had likely seen who’d delivered the threat, but they weren’t talking, other than to demand more treats. I cuddled them to me, taking advantage of their snack obsession and nabbing squeezes while they munched. “This is no good,” I told them. “This is where the snowball begins to gather mass and speed.” First someone had smashed pumpkins on my car. Then a fugitive had visited my shop. Now
Mr. Potter’s killer had been to my home. The culprit knew what I drove and where I lived. So did the fugitive. Mr. Potter’s killer probably knew everything about me. We were likely both residents of Blossom Valley, the world’s most quintessential country town. There were folks around here who knew what I weighed when I was born. Finding my car or home was as easy as asking the next person you saw. I supposed that was how Samuel Keller had found me last summer as well.
Colton stuffed the bagged scarecrow into his truck, then headed for my front door. I scrambled off the couch to meet him.
“Hey.” I pulled Colton inside and waved to Granny and her ladies, all lined up in her front window across the field. I’d waited with them for Colton to arrive, and they’d watched every move he’d made since. The curtains fell closed at Granny’s, and I knew they knew I was okay. “I don’t suppose whoever scared me tonight accidentally dropped their driver’s license or other form of identification in the process.”
“Afraid not,” he said, hefting a messenger bag off his shoulder.
“What’s that?”
“Laptop,” Colton said, unzipping the top. “What’s your Wi-Fi password?”
I shifted. “Why?”
“I thought I’d do a little work from here. I hate to leave you after that.” He tipped his head toward my porch while liberating the computer from his bag. “Do you mind?”
“I guess not. Here, let me enter the password for you,” I offered. “It’s a little long.”
“Nah. I’ve got it,” he said, taking a seat in the armchair beside my couch and positioning the device on his lap. “Shoot.”
“Cider Boss for you,” I said quickly, turning for the kitchen. “Capital C and B, the number four and capital letter U.” I busied myself putting on a pot of coffee instead of waiting for his reaction to my goofy password that no one, besides Granny and Dot, was supposed to guess or need. I gave the filter an extra scoop of ground energy to work on because there was no way I’d be able to sleep tonight. Jangled nerves or not, I might as well make the most of my time with a caffeine pick-me-up.
Colton made himself at home in the living room, typing in the password I’d given him without comment.
“How’d it go at your house?” I asked. “Any signs of Samuel Keller?”
“One.” Colton lifted his head and grimaced. “A photo. And a few colorful notes in the mud around my house. Probably drawn with a stick.”
“How colorful?” I asked, my curiosity and quick tongue beating the only partially working filter in my addled mind.
“Mostly references to where I should go and what I could do when I got there.”
I laughed, and Colton swiveled on his seat to look at me. “You think that’s funny, boss?”
“A little,” I admitted, ignoring the blatant throwback to my goofy Wi-Fi password. “It’s definitely juvenile. Kind of makes the big bad boogeyman feel a little more human. I was starting to think of him as something untouchable.”
The human-shaped shadow from the tree line last summer had slowly become a twenty-foot-tall smoke monster in my imagination. Something capable of swallowing me whole and leaving no traces. Something uncontainable by authorities. Now he’d ruined the image. He’d provided a glimpse of his true self with those stick-drawn notes. Samuel Keller wasn’t an uncontainable smoke monster. He was a petty, egotistical criminal who gained pleasure from taunting others. And I couldn’t wait to see him in cuffs.
“He’s not untouchable,” Colton said. “He’s cocky, and his ego is going to cost him.”
I carried two mugs of coffee into the living room and set one on the end table beside Colton’s chair. I took the other with me to the couch and brought my legs up, crisscross-applesauce. “Did you say he left a photo? Of what?”
“Us.” Colton inhaled long and deep before releasing the breath just as slowly. He set his computer aside and shifted to remove his phone from his pocket. He tapped the screen, then started at the sight of the coffee. “Is this for me?”
I smiled. “Yes.”
“Thanks.” He handed the phone to me. “I took a picture of the photo before I sealed the original into an evidence bag.”
I set my mug aside in favor of taking Colton’s phone in both hands. A million ideas of what might await me on the screen raced through my mind. Who was us? A snapshot of Colton and Samuel taken when he was still Colton’s informant? Or maybe something more recent, evidence of how much the predator knew and saw? Maybe something with Colton and his brother? My blood went cold as I realized Colton’s parents were in town, and they weren’t trained law enforcement like their sons. How easily could Samuel Keller reach them if he tried? Could Blake protect them while Colton chased Mr. Potter’s killer and tried to keep me safe? Was Blake in danger too?
I turned my attention to the screen in my suddenly trembling hands. An image of Colton and me stared back. I wasn’t sure when it was taken, but we were in town, the frame tight on our torsos and faces. I was smiling, broad and wide, my head tipped back in an apparent burst of laughter, eyes pinched shut in the moment. Colton’s smile was much smaller, the barely there hint at humor I’d come to appreciate on him. His eyes were trained on me. The image raised gooseflesh on my skin. His expression was one that every woman wanted to see when she met her man’s eyes, but I’d never seen that look before now. I’d never expected to see it on Colton. “Wow,” I uttered, stupidly.
Colton fixed his gaze back on his laptop and cleared his throat. “He’s obviously fixating on you. You’re not safe alone, so I think you should consider staying with me awhile.”
I raised my eyes to him and gawked while I tried to knock the cuckoo off that suggestion. Stay with him? As in, at his house? “That is a very bad idea.”
“Why?”
“Why?” I parroted. “Because I can’t go shack up with the sheriff. What would people say?” They’d probably be thinking hot dog! And lucky duck! But they’d say other, ruder, more judgmental things. Especially at church. “Besides, Blake is staying with you. Isn’t he?”
“Blake can stay too. I have room, but if he doesn’t want to, he can stay with our folks or get his own room until the reenactment is over. Despite his goofy, carefree, YOLO personality, my little brother really is a grown man.”
“People will talk.”
“I don’t care.”
I mulled that over. He clearly wasn’t from a small town and didn’t comprehend the damage a little bad press could do to a person. Some of Granny’s friends still called the cobbler Up Chuck, because his name was Charles and he’d gotten sick in class as a middle-schooler. Fifty years ago. “I can’t leave Granny,” I said, realizing the most important reason I needed to stay. “She was hurt because of me last year, and I won’t let it happen again. Besides, there’s more than just one killer harassing me. Don’t forget the nut who left me a note-wielding scarecrow. I need to stay here in case Granny needs me.”
Colton bristled at the mention of a second killer on my tail. “Then I’ll stay here.”
I nearly swallowed my tongue. “You can’t stay here. Same problem as the first. What will people think?”
He made a grouchy face. “That I’m trying to protect you?”
I narrowed my eyes.
“Fine. I won’t stay all night, but I’ll be here, awake and in the living room, until almost dawn. Then I’ll wait in my truck until I see you and your Granny have started your days before I leave.”
“Fine,” I echoed, stretching onto my feet. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m a nervous eater, and I didn’t finish my dinner. I’m making grilled cheese. Would you like one?”
“I’d like ten.”
I smiled, then went to town in my kitchen, preparing and serving the two best grilled-cheese sandwiches of my life, blissfully thankful for the quiet time. I’d needed to process Colton’s wackadoodle proposals for my safety. Stay at his place? I’d never even seen his place. Let him stay here? I could think of at least four of Granny’s friends who’d have immedia
te coronaries at the first wind of that gossip. Mostly because they wanted Colton for themselves, age differences be darned.
I ferried the plates back to the living room, warm scents of buttery bread and salty, stringy cheese filling the air. “I’ve officially decided I hate scarecrows,” I said, delivering his plate to him. “Dot warned me they were trouble, and I’d argued.” I retook my seat on the couch and bit into the pickle spear beside my sandwich. “I was wrong. Dot is wise.”
“Don’t go blaming the scarecrow,” Colton said. “He didn’t get there on his own or write that note. Scarecrows save crops, and they’re fun to look at.” He set his laptop aside and pulled his plate onto his lap. “Thank you. This looks and smells like heaven.”
“Yeah, well, you haven’t tried it yet,” I warned. “Things aren’t always what they appear.”
“Amen,” he muttered, sinking his teeth into the warm, melty sandwich. His eyes slid shut a moment later, and he groaned in delight.
I beamed, then scooped half of my sandwich off the plate. “It’s mayonnaise,” I said, answering his unspoken question. How did I make it taste like nostalgia, childhood, and joy? “I melt butter in my pan and spread mayo on the bread. I went a little heavy on the cheese too, but that’s because I love cheese. It’s American. The best kind for melting.”
He looked at me as if I’d told him the meaning of life. “This is amazing.”
“Mayonnaise,” I repeated, this time with a wink.
“It reminds me of my grandma,” he said, a twinkle in his eye. “She made the best grilled-cheese lunches with cups of homemade tomato soup for dunking. No one ever came close to sandwiches like those.” He looked younger as he ate, more carefree, bopping his head with each bite.
“You were close to your grandma?” I asked, the answer already visible on his face and in his tone when he spoke of her. I instantly liked him a little more for it.
“She taught me to cook. She could make a meal out of nothing, probably because there were days when she’d had to. The skill served me well in college and in the military. Grandpa died when my mom was young. Grandma raised eight kids on nothing but faith, sweat, and determination. She made do with whatever they had. Nothing was wasted, and everyone worked. My mom and every one of her siblings can do just about anything because of Grandma’s example.”
The Cider Shop Rules Page 12
