“I have a dog howl set for my ringtone, and I guess Clarence sympathized with it.”
Laughter so loud Holly had to hold the phone away from her ear was Tessa’s response.
Finally, Tessa spoke again. “That’s hilarious, Holly. I wonder if he’d chase you around the house if your phone meowed.”
“I’m not finding out.” Holly couldn’t stop her own smile. “Did you need something?” Like to tell her Luke called and asked her to straighten things out for him?
“You know how forgetful I am.” That was putting it mildly; the car alarm letting her know the door was open had saved her many times.
“Yes.”
“My teaching certificate expired last week. The state board gave me an extension after I called and whined and begged, but they need the forms in the office by tomorrow morning.”
“Okay.”
“They’re somewhere in my bedroom, Holly.” Tessa sounded guilty. “I remember putting them in a pink envelope from my stationery collection so they would be easier to find, but that’s all I remember.”
Holly didn’t want to ask. “What do you need me to do?”
“Will you find it and have Hank run you to the school? I can fax it and this proof of continuing education to them tonight.”
Did she want to wade through the disaster Tessa called filing and find a pink envelope? No. “Yeah. I’ll be there as soon as I find it.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
She set the phone down and turned to the dog. “Come on, Clarence. You stay in there when you think she won’t notice. Help me find a pink envelope with state forms in it.”
Over an hour and three pink envelopes containing checks, two with out-of-date rebate forms, and one full of expired coupons later, Holly finally found the right one.
“Okay. I’ll be right back.”
As she headed for the door, Clarence suddenly jumped in front of her and blocked her path.
“Clarence, I don’t have time to play. Now, move.”
He stayed put.
“Clarence, I mean it. I’m going outside and walking across the road. A policeman with a gun will be watching me. I’m safe. Now, move.”
His expression clearly said, “Make me.”
She felt guilty, but what else could she do? “Want a Peppy Pup treat?”
Clarence hopped to his feet, and before he could move, Holly was around him and out the door. Her storm door groaned in protest as the large dog jumped on it.
Holly turned and looked at the forlorn expression on Clarence’s face.
“See? You can watch while I walk over to Hank’s car. And then, he’ll be with me when I come and lock up. Okay?”
A growl began deep in Clarence’s chest and erupted in the most ferocious bark Holly had ever heard.
“What’s the mat—“
A hand covered her mouth as a strong arm surrounded her chest and pulled her back against a hard body.
“You’re mine, Holly.”
She began to struggle in earnest, but this guy was strong and she was terrified. She vaguely noticed Clarence had disappeared. Was he afraid of this guy, or did he know him?
“Let me go!” sounded nothing like that with her mouth covered. “Hank!” she tried to scream.
“If you’re hoping that Barney Fife across the road will come, well, my Holly, his coffee put him to sleep. Now, come on. I’m taking you to our dream house. You’ll love it.”
“No!” She managed to pull her face back far enough and bit his hand.
His cry of pain was almost drowned out by the loud sound of breaking glass and crumpling aluminum. Then, Clarence was there.
Deep growls were his only noise as he forcefully shoved his head between the stalker and Holly.
A second cry of pain and hard shove from the culprit told Holly Clarence had hurt him.
She hit the ground hard, the wind knocked out of her. Somehow, her need to know the man’s identity gave her the strength to roll over. Unfortunately, by the time she raised her head, all she saw was the silhouette of a man—appeared large—running past the squad car and down the alley. Clarence nuzzled her hand.
“Thank you,” she told him before climbing to her knees to give him a hug.
Then she remembered.
“Hank!” What if he used the same poison on the deputy he used on Jack Wallace? She scrambled to her feet and took off at a run with Clarence beside her.
The young officer’s head slumped over the wheel, but the door wasn’t locked. Holly quickly checked for a pulse.
“Thank you, God.” It was steady. And his breathing seemed okay.
Now, what should she do? Not leave him and go home for her phone. She ran around and slid into the front passenger seat and grabbed the radio microphone.
“Hello? Can you hear me?”
“Who is this?” Crystal Stanley’s perpetual bad mood was firmly in place. “It’s against the law to play with a police radio. I’m sending somebody to arrest you right now.”
“Send somebody!” Holly yelled. “This is Holly Morris, Crystal, and I don’t care if you send out the National Guard! Hank has been poisoned, and we need help. So, stop griping and get off your high horse long enough to send somebody out here!”
She didn’t know how, but Holly could hear a siren before she was back out of the car.
“Help is coming, Hank. Hold on.”
Please, Dear Lord, don’t let this man die because he was protecting me. One man has already nearly died because of me. I’m asking from my heart, heal Hank. Amen.
Hank was in God’s hands.
Chapter 36
“More coffee, Luke?” Sandra Kinsey held the pot over his cup, prepared to pour.
He had probably already drunk an entire pot, but he just wasn’t ready to go home yet. “Just one.”
He came to town after supplies. His south fence was down again, only this time it wasn’t an accident. Unless one of Mrs. Pickler’s goats had learned how to use the discarded wire cutters he found next to the fence row.
If things weren’t so lousy with Holly, he’d have waited and picked Clarence up when he made this trip. He hadn’t, though. Instead, this was his second trip to Shadow this morning.
At least, Wilkins Diner wasn’t busy. The breakfast rush was over, and it was too early for the lunch crowd. Only a couple of the other tables were occupied.
“Sure you don’t want a piece of pie?” Sandra asked. “Maisie baked them fresh this morning. The apple just came out of the oven.”
“No thank you.” He didn’t even have an appetite for apple pie.
“Let me know if you change your mind.” Sandra turned and walked away. She was a permanent fixture in the diner, having worked there as long as even Luke’s dad could remember. With her gray hair and sparkling blue eyes, she was one of those people whose age was impossible to gauge. She reminded him of Aunt Bee on the Andy Griffith show. He never could tell how old she was, either.
“Excuse me.” The softly spoken words brought Luke’s head up to look at the man standing across from him.
“Hi, Mr. Roper.” Luke had always liked the school maintenance man. “Have a seat.”
The older man sat down. He didn’t say anything more to Luke until he allowed Sandra to fill his coffee cup and told her he didn’t need anything else. Then he turned clouded eyes to Luke.
“Do you have any ideas about the missing equipment?”
Missing equipment? “I’m sorry, Mr. Roper. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Mr. Roper was noticeably surprised. “Miss Morris told me she wouldn’t tell anybody else, but I assumed you were an exception.”
“I guess I’m not.” At least, not anymore. “But if you want to tell me something, I promise it will stay between us.”
“I don’t know.” The janitor’s voice was hesitant, but then he seemed to reach a decision. “Maybe you’ll have some ideas.” He nodded. “I told Miss Morris about some equipment
that’s gone missing from the big storage room in the school basement. At first, I thought maybe I moved them and didn’t remember. You know, with my Maude being so sick and all. Now I’m sure I didn’t. No, sir.” He shook his head. “Somebody’s taken those things.”
Luke knew the kind man well enough to know if the janitor were responsible for the loss of equipment, he would willingly admit it. He believed Mr. Roper.
“What’s missing?” Maybe it would help to know. It was a logical place to start, at least.
Mr. Roper spoke with assurance. “Some chains—at least six of them, eight floor jacks, six pulleys—the large ones, and the swivel base.”
It was an odd combination. “What is a swivel base? I’m not familiar with that piece of equipment.”
“It’s new on the market. Mr. Glendon had to go to the board four times before he persuaded them to buy him one.” Luke could tell the loss of this particular item bothered the older man more than the rest combined.
“What does it do?”
“It looks like a giant floor jack, with a saddle about six feet in diameter. You can roll it under vehicles and use it to lift them. After it’s up, a man can actually swivel the car until it’s facing a different direction. Mr. Glendon wanted it so he could fit more cars in the shop for the students to work on.”
Luke was trying to picture such a tool. “It’ll lift cars?”
Mr. Roper nodded. “It’s hydraulic. Mr. Glendon said if a bus weren't so long, it would even lift that, too.”
Luke shook his head in amazement. He kept up on new equipment for his farm, but it always amazed him when something like what Mr. Roper described came along. Yet, what would anybody have to gain with those things? What could they be used for?
“Do you have any ideas?” he decided to ask the maintenance man.
“Not one,” Mr. Roper admitted.
Luke thought again. Floor jacks, pulleys, chains, and this swivel base. “Maybe we should consider what somebody could do with them.”
Mr. Roper frowned. “I guess they’re all tools to help lift something. But, you’d need a hoist to use the pulleys. And I can’t imagine a bunch of kids wanting to move a car in a circle. They’d only succeed in turning it sideways or backward to what it was.”
A thought was at the edge of Luke’s mind, but he couldn’t quite grasp it. “With all those tools, they could stabilize something heavier or shaped differently long enough to use the swivel base.”
The other man slowly nodded. “Like a bus.”
Then Luke knew. “Or a tractor.”
Puzzlement wrinkled Mr. Roper’s brows. “I don’t follow you.”
“I can’t explain right now, Mr. Roper, but I’m pretty sure I know what the equipment is being used for.” He quickly pulled enough money out of his wallet to pay for his and the other man’s coffee. If Luke were right, the janitor had just helped clear up a situation that was driving him crazy. “Thank you,” he told Mr. Roper. “I appreciate this more than you know.”
He stood and left a puzzled man sitting at the table. Instead of climbing into his pickup, he walked the three blocks to the station. It wasn’t until he saw Mitch’s squad car in its customary spot that the thought his friend might not have been there occurred to him.
“I need to speak with the sheriff,” he told Haley Johnson, who was at her regular post.
“Just a min—” was all he heard as he walked on past and into Mitch’s office.
Mitch looked up from a photocopy he was studying. “You heard about last night?”
Last night? “No. I’m here about the nonsense at my farm. I’m pretty sure I know what’s going on, even if I don’t know exactly who’s doing it.”
Mitch slid the paper to the side of his desk and gave his full attention to Luke. “Let’s hear it.”
Luke explained what Mr. Roper told him, and what the swivel base was for.
“My tractor. If some kids were using the tool, they’d have been able to turn my tractor around without starting it.”
Mitch slowly nodded. “They could have used the chains and pulleys to stabilize it since its weight wouldn’t be evenly distributed.” Then he frowned. “But what about the ATV?”
Luke’s brows furrowed. “The only things I can think of are those chains and pulleys. Somehow, they used them to pull the ATV into the pond. I haven’t figured out exactly how, though.”
Mitch seemed to consider Luke’s theory. “It makes sense. But who has the equipment?”
“That’s the twenty-five-thousand-dollar question, isn’t it?” And the one he had absolutely no answer to.
“Before you go, Holly didn’t tell you about last night?”
Luke’s heart broke a little each time he said it. “Holly has ended things with me. We don’t talk.”
Mitch frowned. “Not even when you drop Clarence off or pick him up?”
“Dad dropped him off, and she just sends him out the door when I pick him up.”
“Well, you better sit back because you’re liable to launch when I tell you what happened.”
Luke wasn’t sure if he wanted to know. “Just tell me.”
“Last night, Holly’s stalker slipped something into Hank’s coffee—they had to pump his stomach, but he’ll be fine.”
Hank. “Hank was watching Holly.” Fear hit him in the solar plexus.
Mitch nodded. “The guy had Holly, Luke, until your dog busted through the door. She’s certain he’s nursing a dog bite or two this morning.”
Luke started to rise. “She’s okay? Tell me she’s okay.”
“She’s furious,” Mitch replied. “Her dad came to town and got Cliff to open the hardware store so he could replace Holly’s door last night.”
“She wasn’t hurt.”
“Not at all. But, she bit him, too.” Mitch grinned. “Too bad we can’t just drive around looking for dog bites on arms or legs and a human bite on a finger.”
Luke sank back to the chair. “Did she…did she ask for me?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Figures.”
“You sure she ended things?” Mitch’s doubt was evident.
“I wish I wasn’t, but she made things pretty clear. Said I smothered her.”
Mitch frowned. “That doesn’t sound like Holly, Luke.”
“I didn’t think so, either,” Luke said. “But I heard her; it was Holly.”
Mitch still looked doubtful. “If you say so.”
“I do.” But, oh, how he wished he didn’t.
Chapter 37
Given that the moon was full, Holly should have been prepared for anything. Yet, when she arrived on Monday morning to discover star senior quarterback, Sammy Lewis, anxiously pacing the floor outside her office, it surprised her.
“Miss Lincoln hates me.” He voiced his complaint before she had her door open. “She hates football players—all of us.”
Finally inside her office, Holly turned to the belligerent teenager. “Why do you say that?”
Like a race car waiting for the green light, Sammy shifted into hyperdrive. “She waits until a couple months before school ends and gives us too much homework. And she grades them wrong—changes my answers and gives me D’s and F’s.”
The poor boy evidently didn’t know who Miss Lincoln’s housemate was. “How is she changing answers on homework you’re not turning in, Sammy?”
The proverbial hand in the cookie jar look flitted across his face before he tried again. “She throws my homework away.” He nodded, enthused about his newest concocted complaint. “Yeah. I work real hard on that stuff, and I saw her throw it in the trash like it was nothin’.”
Well, she was the one who insisted on coming to work today. Dr. Potter would have gladly written her an excuse for the week, due to the stress she’d been under, if nothing else.
She walked around her desk and sat down. “Sammy, if you can’t lie any better than that, give it up.”
His chest expanded, but before he could speak, Holly wa
s ready. “Acting isn’t your thing, either. We both know you haven’t been doing your homework, so knock it off, Sammy. Before I write a detention slip for the rest of the year.”
The teenager slumped into a chair, but he still wasn’t ready to give in. “Miss Morris, I’m going to be a pro football player; everyone knows that.” His tone was that of a genius talking to a simpleton. “I don’t need math, so I shouldn’t have to do those assignments.”
Unaffected by his attitude, Holly nodded. “Uh huh. So, when the reporters ask you how far you ran to get that touchdown, you’ll just grin and say, ‘Oh, I’m Sammy Lewis—I don’t need to know how far. I just run when they throw me the ball.’ You do realize how that sounds, don’t you?”
She watched as her point sank in, only she didn’t get the hoped-for response.
“I don’t care what you say. It’s stupid, and I shouldn’t have to do those assignments.”
Okay. It appeared to be time for cold, hard facts.
“Sammy, I’m going to lay it on the line for you.” He appeared surprised by her sternness. “Pro football scouts aren’t exactly flocking in droves to Shadow, Illinois. If you want to be noticed, you need to play college ball. You have to graduate high school to attend college. And you, Sammy Lewis, are not going to graduate unless you pass math. To pass math, you have to turn in the papers you’re late on. You should be grateful you have a teacher willing to let you make them up. She doesn’t have to. And on top of that, I know for a fact Miss Lincoln is eating her lunch in her room so any of you who need help catching up, can go in there and get it. So, pull up your big boy pants, and do your assignments.”
“It’s not fair,” Sammy muttered as he stood and walked out the door. But Holly saw his expression before he left; he’d heard her. Only time and Tessa would tell whether Holly had helped the situation.
Breathing a sigh of relief, she slid her purse into its usual desk drawer. When she straightened, her heart jumped into her head as she discovered Tasha Hart standing there.
“I’m sorry.” The girl placed her hand over the growing baby she carried. “If it’s a bad time, I can come back later.”
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