The Charity

by Connie Johnson Hambley

  “I have been released from my engagement by the Queen herself. It seems her goal for the evening has already been achieved.”

  Jessica’s blue eyes sparkled with merriment and the hint of a shared conspiracy. “I feel completely out-gunned by that woman! She certainly knows how to structure her games!”

  Michael walked around the barn and checked the doors. “I’ve known Electra for a long time. When she takes a liking to a person, there is nothing that can hold her back from helping them. She has a knack for getting to know what a person’s strengths and weaknesses are and using her money and connections to do what she thinks is best for them. If she doesn’t like you or senses an ulterior motive, she’ll use those same connections to bring her foe down. Most of her victims never knew what hit them.”

  Jessica shuddered involuntarily. Unknowingly, Michael voiced Jessica’s concerns over her relationship with Electra. Electra liked Tess White, but Jessica had to tread carefully or she would be sucked into the vortex of that human storm. Jessica had to keep pace and a little ahead of the tempest or be destroyed. Perc was a small town where everyone knew one another. The horse community was similar to a small town in that same way. Her encounter with Mr. Howe at Electra’s ball firmed her desire to keep Electra at an arm’s length as best as she could.

  “You seem to know a lot about her. How did you get to meet her?” Jessica focused the conversation on Michael.

  “Electra needed help on a problem she was having with one of her servants when I first arrived here. Lainely recommended me to her. Electra thought her maid was stealing from her and wanted to know what to do about it. At the time, I was hardly the person who could help her. I referred her to a private investigator I had worked with on another matter. She appreciated my help, and we have been friends ever since.” He moved into the doorway of the tack room and leaned against the doorjamb. His broad shoulders nearly filled the expanse.

  She looked at Michael standing so close and felt herself wanting to be even closer. Yet, in a reflex built upon years of hiding, a warning flag waved in front of her eyes. The beginnings of the familiar throb returned to her temples. It was not just the fact that Michael had worked with or had a need for an investigator. Merely the thought of being so close to anyone dealing with investigators or detectives as such caused a mild panic. Sweat seeped from her palms, and she wiped them nervously on her jeans.

  Jessica tried to moisten her lips, but the inside of her mouth was dry. “Oh?” she responded in a tone that she hoped sounded slightly disinterested in Electra’s problems and non-committal. “Tell me about where you grew up. I’m beginning to be pretty good at spotting a foreigner when I hear one. It’s actually nice to hear someone talk without a drawl once in a while.”

  Michael’s mouth firmed to a straight line. “I was brought up in New England. After my mother died, I moved away.”

  Jessica’s heart skipped a beat, and she tried to search for words that would be of comfort to him. “I’m sorry. Your father must have really needed you for support after her death.”

  “My father’s dead, my whole family is dead.” Michael spit out the words and looked at Jessica with a gaze that had suddenly become as dark as storm clouds, and as dangerous.

  Jessica stumbled over herself in trying to redirect the conversation. She was finding it difficult to think clearly.

  “I... I am so sorry. I... I didn’t mean to pry. It’s just that know what it’s like to lose everyone you love.” The words, barely a whisper, came out of Jessica before she could stop them. Pressure pulsed in her head, and tears formed in her eyes. The fleeting vision of her family caused her to swallow hard, and she became concerned that perhaps she had revealed too much.

  The storm passed out of Michael’s eyes as quickly as it had formed. He took a step toward her and placed his hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that. I had no idea.”

  Pete nosed his way between the two to get his share of attention. Jessica, relieved for the interruption, bent down and gave his shaggy neck a hug. “Oh, Pete, you’re a dog after a girl’s own heart, ya know that?” She glanced at her watch. “Look at the time! The candidates for the stable hand jobs are going to show up soon, and I have to finish with the horses.”

  Michael followed her into the barn and watched her for a long time. Streaks of the now dried mud caked off her chaps and jeans. While she was busy feeding the last of the horses, he allowed his eyes to follow the line of her strong legs and fit waist. He admired her assured, athletic grace and was amused at her unselfconscious air at being covered with so much mud. An unfamiliar stab of longing went through him.

  Chores completed, Jessica walked Michael to his truck and leaned against the door as he sat inside.

  “I’m not very good with people,” she began slowly, looking for safer ground for a conversation. “I’m better with animals. So I want to make sure I tell you how much your thinking that Pete and I would be a good match means to me. Thanks.” She hated how lame she sounded, but she just could not think of anything else to say.

  “I just have to make sure you’re safe, that’s all. It’s the least I can do for a new neighbor.”

  The truck rumbled back down the mountain with the empty horse trailer bumping along behind it. Jessica walked back to the house with Pete at her heels. She knew once she had made her decision to find a more permanent place to live that she was going to have to give up the distance she usually built around herself from others. That scare she had at Electra’s party was enough to make her question her decision to buy the farm. In the past, it had taken a lot less than some drunken dolt thinking that he had seen her before to send her changing her hair color and dodging police cars. She had not bargained on meeting a human radar like Electra. Or Michael.

  She frowned with the effort to filter and catalogue all of the impressions that bombarded her in the last hour and rubbed her throbbing temples. She knew so little about Michael and was hesitant to ask anything more about him.

  The pieces to Michael’s puzzle fit uncomfortably together. His knowledge of promotions to detective or proximity to investigators bothered her. Jessica had an abiding hate and distrust for police officers. She felt they were a group of misguided, inept men and women who looked to that profession as a way to bolster their meager self-esteem. She hardly felt they deserved their reputations as trusted protectors of society. Michael did not strike her as shallow, as she felt most police officers were. She resigned herself to look at the pieces of the puzzle on another day when she was not so tired. Perhaps she would come up with a different and more palatable solution.

  She showered and dressed for the evening’s round of interviews in a tan knit turtleneck sweater and a pair of khakis. A growing urge to call off the interviews and begin packing to leave town was pushed back down. She chastised herself for the skittish habits she had developed from so many years of running. As preparations for the night’s interviews continued, she vaguely noted that her headache was gone.

  Jessica settled back into the old lumpy easy chair and wrapped her hands around the steaming mug of tea. Pete wound himself in several small circles before thumping down at her feet on a pile of old horse blankets that served as his bed. She looked at her new companion and smiled. In the few days she had him they had become good friends, and she was grateful for his company tonight. The storm that had been threatening all week had finally begun with a vengeance.

  She spent the past few days getting the new stable hand established in his job and making sure the horses and the barn were handled to her high standards. Out of the ten or so people that she interviewed, only the one she hired passed her inspection. He was not of the quality she was accustomed to working with, but she knew that her farm had to gain a better reputation before she could be choosy. Right now, she had to focus her efforts on training. It did not take a lot of skill or brains to muck out a stall, so Jessica rel
uctantly settled on the least objectionable help she could find.

  The wind howled through the trees and blasted against the side of the house. The old wooden frame of the building creaked in resistance to another assault. Sheets of rain pelted the side of the house, now filled with an assortment of groans and chatters. Jessica listened to each sound in the night and tried to label it. The wind turned and shifted, bringing the sounds of the barn to her ears. She heard a distant scraping and the nervous whinny of a horse. Storms could really rile animals, especially pregnant ones. Michael and his friend may have been mistaken as to how far along Snugs was with foal, and Jessica wanted to be careful.

  She got up from her soft chair and grabbed her raincoat, pulling it on over her sweater and jeans. Pete bounded up beside her, anxious not to be left alone. He wagged his tail with a signal that told Jessica he did not like the storm too much either.

  “You stay here and keep the house warm. No need for two of us to get soaked.” She flipped on the floodlights that lit the area between the house and barn from the switch on the main panel she recently had installed by the door. Leaving the lights on in the barn was something she hated, and having to go back out at night to turn them off sent shivers up her spine. She could not recall why she hated that so much. On a night like this, she was glad she had spent the extra money. She steadied herself as the door was forced open by a blast of wind. Wet leaves and cold rain swirled into her kitchen.

  Jessica braced herself against the gusts of wind racing up the mountainside as she trudged to the barn. The downside of her farm’s location was its exposure to the elements. People in the valley were tucked away in their homes far away from the tempests that ravaged the hillsides around them. Most probably never suspected the additional magnitude a storm would have on a mountaintop. She learned that lesson the hard way from her time out west. The difference in the weather between a valley and a summit could be that of warm sun versus a heavy squall. The force of the wind made her push her way up the small knoll to the barn.

  She found the source of one of the odd sounds she had heard in her living room. The great sliding door swayed and bumped heavily from the force of the gale, working its way open. Irritated, she made a mental note to talk to the hand about securing the latch better. The growing gap in the door allowed the wind to whip around the inside of the barn. The horses grunted anxiously at the lack of protection. The mare stuck her head over her stall door and gave off deep nickers of concern even when Jessica stroked her neck.

  “Take it easy, Snugs. We don’t want you to have that foal of yours on a night like tonight, do we?” Jessica let herself into Snugs’ stall to get a better look at her. The animal calmed considerably with her presence. Its breathing became easy and abdominal muscles were relaxed. Jessica determined that labor was going to wait another night. Satisfied that the other occupants of the barn were settled, she made her way back to her house.

  She thrust her back up against the kitchen door to force it closed. Shutting the storm outside, she took off her dripping coat and replaced it on the hook. “Well, Pete, I sure am glad I’m in here and not out there.” She looked down at the spot the dog normally occupied by the side of her knee. “Pete?”

  A flash of lightening filled the kitchen with its bright white glow, and the house was plunged into darkness. It was instantly followed by a sonic blast of thunder. Jessica felt the rumble in her knees as the storm rolled across the sky. There was the sound of scratching as if leaves were trying to scrape their way through the kitchen door. “Pete?”

  Jessica groped her way to the kitchen drawer where she kept the flashlight. Finding it, she turned it on, and its weak yellow light barely reached the floor. “Damn it!” She hit it against the heel of her hand in an effort to beat a brighter light out of it.

  More scratching could be heard from another room. Jessica took the nearly worthless beam of light and searched for her dog. A menacing sound of an animal emanated from the corner of the dining room.

  “Pete? C’mere buddy! Did you corner another mouse?” The occasional rodent would stray into her house, and Pete would make short work of them, enjoying the mighty hunt as he did so. “C’mon Pete, leave the poor thing alone.”

  She entered the room, and wind blew through a window on her right. It surprised her. She thought the windows on that side of the house did not need work and were strong enough not to blow open. It must be a stronger wind than she first thought or the latches needed repair. She pushed the windows shut and tried to assess the condition of the latches, but she needed more light. She used her shoulder to push the windows shut, securing the extra lock as well.

  Jessica slowly continued her way across the dining room toward the sounds. Using a shuffling kind of walk to keep from tripping over the many cans of paint, tarp and ladder she kept there from her redecorating efforts, her feet hit an unfamiliar pile of blankets, rocking her off balance. She placed her hands on the floor to break her fall. They slipped in a warm, sticky substance.

  “What?” She was bringing one hand up to examine it in the dim light when she touched soft fur. “Pete? What’s going on, buddy?”

  The fading shaft of light pointed down at the pile she had tripped over. The dim light showed Pete lying in a pool of dark blood. His neck was nearly completely severed.

  A floorboard creaked. Her head whipped back in the direction of the sound. Racing out of the room, she flung herself against the front door. Something was holding it shut against her. She fumbled with the locks and heard another sound coming at her. A flash of lightning ripped across the mountain. Jessica turned in time to see two figures, one in the hall, and one in the dining room. Both were coming at her.

  She bolted up the stairs to a small bedroom at the top. As soundlessly as possible, she crawled as far back into its closet as she could manage. During her repair work, she had found a loose panel and discovered it hid a narrow crawl space between the bedroom she entered and the one next to it. She worked the panel free and wiggled her way into the space. Sounds were more muffled in there, but she could still hear the soft creak of the stairs as they protested the weight of the men climbing them.

  Her mind frantically raced all of the details of the house through her mind. She knew the next bedroom had a much larger closet and something else. What was it? Why was that room so important? Finally, it came to her. It held a trap door in the ceiling that led to a larger space inside the huge attic. If she could get there, she had a chance.

  She listened again to the house, sorting the sounds of the storm outside from conscious thought. The creaks and shifts inside of the house gave away the location of her intruders. Another floorboard groaned at the entrance to the small bedroom. One more grating sound elsewhere told her the intruders had separated and were searching the rooms on both sides of the hall.

  She slithered her way down the passage and worked loose the second panel leading to the other bedroom. Soundlessly, she removed the panel and squeezed herself through the opening. Her heart stopped as she heard metal scraping against wood close by. She put her hand down and found a long rusted nail. Grasping it tightly, she crept to the closet door and peeked out of a crack. A near blinding flash of lightning lit an empty room. She made her move.

  Springing from the closet, she placed her foot on the windowsill, vaulting further upward. The momentum enabled her to knock aside the heavy ceiling panel of the trap door to the attic, and her fingers clung on to the edge of the opening. The door from the hallway burst open, and a heavyset figure bounded toward her. She swung herself up through the opening and tried to scramble her legs the rest of the way through. Two hands yanked her legs from their task.

  Grimacing with the effort to hang on, she tried to kick herself free of the force pulling her down. Skin on her hands shredded with the effort to grip the wooden floor joists. Still fighting, she fell with a gasp onto the hard floor.

  A light seared into her vision. “
Miss Jessica Wyeth. Why I thought that you’d be most pleased to entertain an ol’ friend or two. Especially now that yer the toast of the town, an’ all.” The voice belonged to the man from Electra’s party.

  A second shaft of light hit the side of his head. Jessica could see the small black eyes of the repulsive man staring at her through the eyeholes of a ski mask. Rowdy Howe squinted, eyes narrowing into dark slashes.

  “My name is Tess White.” She got up slowly, forcing strength into her words. “I don’t know any Jessica Wyeth.” Her mind raced to absorb every detail. It was too dark to make out shapes in the room. Jessica felt the unworldly cold of the stare coming from the other figure. She glared at the source. “Who are you? What do you want? Take whatever you want. Just leave me alone and get out of here!” A pleading tone crept into her voice, edging her words with its shrill presence.

  “I think what we want is right here.” Jessica felt a chill as she detected a soft brogue. “Hold her arms.”

  Rowdy moved in back of Jessica, dropped his flashlight and pulled her arms tight behind her. His experienced motion told her he had been on excursions like this before. Jessica sensed she was to be tortured and killed. Why?

  The bright light again searched her face. “Aye. There is no mistake. It looks like we have a murderess back from the dead.” The second masked figure bent down and retrieved something from his leg. The stainless steel blade of the knife flashed as lightning lit up the room. He rolled up his sleeves exposing his pale forearms. Calm. Business-like.

  A wave of bile boiled its way to her mouth. She choked as the sharp acid burned her throat. Images of past and present collided in her head. They knew her, but who were they? She recognized Rowdy Howe almost immediately, but the other man she could not place. She heard his voice, his beastly laughter. But she knew he meant her more harm than she could imagine. Who was he? Who?