Christmas Stalking

by Margaret Daley

  Sheriff Quinn shook her hand. “Harold called me and told me. I understand the Bakersville police chief is looking into the matter of the threatening letters.”

  “Yes. I believe the person has upped his game. I haven’t had a chance to search the whole property outside, but I feel the dogs have been taken. I did search the house and it’s secured.”

  The sheriff turned to his deputy and said, “Take a look outside. Miss St. James, which part of the fence was cut?”

  “The west side about halfway down.”

  “Let me know, Rod, when you’re through checking the premises and the doghouse.” Then to her, the sheriff asked, “Where’s Winnie?”

  “In the living room.”

  When the sheriff entered, Winnie smiled. “I’m so glad you’re here, Bill. Did Ellie tell you what went on tonight?”

  “Harold filled me in. It’s a good thing Miss St. James and your grandson were here.” The sheriff nodded toward Colt. “You couldn’t have picked a better time to be home.”

  Winnie blew out an exasperated breath. “It would have been even better if they had clued me in on what was going on. Goodness, Bill, I’ve been out power walking. The man took a picture of me while I was.”

  “Maybe with all that has happened you should curtail that for the time being. It’s gonna snow this weekend if the weather reports are correct.” Sheriff Quinn sat on the couch where Ellie had been.

  She assessed the law enforcement officer. He was probably in his early fifties but looked to be in excellent physical condition, well proportioned for his medium height with none of the potbelly she’d seen on others as they grew older and less active. She’d worked with her share of good ones and bad ones. From all of Harold’s accounts, the sheriff fit into the good category. She hoped so because tonight the person after Winnie had stepped up his game.

  She filled him in on what she’d seen outside. “Someone pulled a vehicle up to the fence recently. It rained hard a couple of days ago. The tracks could have been left maybe up to a day before, but they aren’t deep enough for any longer than that. But I’m pretty sure it was this evening. We walk the perimeter every morning, and I haven’t seen any evidence on the other side of the fence like what is there now. Also there are drag marks and a few paw prints beside those left by the mountain lion.”

  “So you think the tracks were made this evening?”

  “Yes, Sheriff. That’s the way it looks, but in the light of day we—you—might find more.”

  He smiled. “I’ll take a look now. I’ve got a high-powered flashlight. I’ll see where the tire tracks lead. The west side of the fence isn’t the closest to the road out front.”

  “But it’s the most isolated,” Colt interjected.

  Sheriff Quinn headed for the foyer. “When he gets back I’m gonna leave Rod here. I’d like you to come with me, Miss St. James.”

  “Would you mind, Winnie?” Ellie asked her client, eager to go with the sheriff.

  “No, go. I’ll be well protected with Colt and the deputy.”

  As Ellie left, Colt told Winnie that he’d escort her to her bedroom. Ellie chuckled when the woman said, “Not on your life. I want to know what they find out there.”

  The doorbell sounded again while Ellie crossed the foyer. She’d relocked the door after the deputy had left. When she answered it, Harold stood there with the young officer.

  He charged inside, slowing down only long enough to ask, “Where is she?”

  “In the living room.”

  While he went to Winnie, the deputy came into the house. “I couldn’t find any signs of the dogs. They’re gone, Sheriff.”

  Quinn grumbled, his frown deepening. “Rod, stay with Mrs. Winfield.” To Ellie, he said, “I don’t like this. They were excellent, well-trained guard dogs.”

  “Yeah, that was the only part of the security here I liked.” Ellie went ahead of the man onto the front deck.

  “And possibly the only threat the person behind the letters needed to get rid of.”

  “Maybe. Something doesn’t feel right.”

  “Any thoughts on what?”

  “No. Just a vague feeling we’re missing something.” Ellie slipped into the sheriff’s car.

  As he drove to the road then toward the west part of the property, he said, “Harold told me the Bakersville police chief is looking into past employees. I can’t believe one of them would be this angry with Winnie. She’s the reason Bakersville is so prosperous. People around here love her.”

  “Someone doesn’t. Maybe they aren’t from around here. Maybe it’s something we haven’t thought about yet. Harold is having a private investigator look into Glamour Sensations’ competition.”

  “Corporate sabotage?”

  “It’s a possibility. Winnie is the creative force behind the new line. From what I hear Endless Youth will change the playing field. It’s not unheard of that a competitor will try to stop a product launch or beat a company to unveiling their own similar product.”

  “Mr. Winfield was the guy who talked me into running for sheriff twenty years ago. The best move I ever made. I owe the Winfield family a lot.” He eased off the road and parked on the shoulder, directing a spotlight from his car toward the area where someone had driven off the highway and over the terrain toward the back of Winnie’s property. “We’ll go on foot from here.”

  Following the tire tracks led to the hole in the fence. Ellie knelt near the place where she’d seen the mountain lion’s prints as well as smaller dog prints. No sign of blood or a struggle. When she had shined the light on the big cat earlier, she hadn’t seen any evidence it had killed a dog. And she hadn’t heard any noise to suggest that. So it meant the dogs had been taken recently by whoever drove the vehicle.

  “These tire tracks look like they’re from a truck or SUV. I’ll have a cast made of them and see if we can narrow down the vehicle.” The sheriff swung his high-powered light on the surrounding terrain. “These boot prints might help, too.”

  “It looks like about a size nine in men’s shoes.”

  “Small man.”

  “Or a woman with large feet.”

  Ellie rose and searched the trees and brush. With some of the foliage gone because it was winter, she had a decent view. “No sign the dogs went that way.”

  “It doesn’t look like it, but in the light of day we’ll have better visibility and may find something. At the moment, though, I think the dogs were stolen. They’re valuable. Maybe someone has kidnapped them.”

  “I don’t think so. This is tied to the threats against Winnie somehow.” Ellie ran her flashlight along the ground by the fence and caught sight of something neon green. She stooped and investigated closer. “Sheriff, I found something partially under this limb. I think it’s from a dart gun. It would explain how he subdued the dogs so quickly.”

  The sheriff withdrew a small paper bag and gloves, then carefully picked up the long black dart with a sharp tip and a neon green cap on the opposite end. “Yup. I’ll send this to the lab and see if there are any fingerprints on it. Hopefully they can tell us what was in the dart—poison or a knockout drug.”

  “At least there are a few pieces of evidence that might give you a lead.”

  As they walked back to the sheriff’s car, Ellie kept sweeping her flashlight over the ground while Quinn scoured the terrain.

  When he climbed into his patrol car, he said, “I have a friend who can repair the chain-link fence. I’ll have him out here first thing in the morning. You don’t want the return of the mountain lion.”

  “I’ll be talking to Winnie and Harold about electrifying the fence and setting up a system to monitor the perimeter. If it hadn’t been for the dogs, we might not have known about the hole in the fence for a while. That area is hidden by thick foliage from the house. We might not
have seen it on our power walk in the morning, either.”

  “Yeah, she’s definitely gonna have to beef up her security. She’s been fortunate not to have problems in the past.” As the sheriff returned to park in front of the main house, lights blazed from it. He chuckled. “She must have gone through and turned a light on in every downstairs room.”

  “I can’t blame her. She all of a sudden realizes someone is after her.”

  * * *

  Colt watched his grandmother as Harold explained his reasons for not letting her know what was going on with the letters. After he saw to Winnie, he was going to have a few words with Ellie and Harold. He should have been contacted right away when his grandmother first was threatened.

  “The bottom line, Winnie, is that I didn’t want you to worry about it when you have enough to deal with,” Harold said.

  Colt nearly laughed and pressed his lips together to keep from doing that. Harold was pulling out all the stops to persuade his grandmother not to be angry with him.

  Her back stiff as a snowboard, Winnie narrowed her gaze on Harold, her hands clasped so tightly in her lap the tips of her fingers reddened. “I’m not a child, and you’d better remember that from now on, or no matter how long we have worked together, you’ll be fired.”

  Harold swallowed hard. “My intentions were to protect you without worrying you. I have the police chief in Bakersville and a private investigator working on finding the person behind the letters.”

  “So you would never have told me if this hadn’t happened. Was that your plan?”

  Harold dropped his gaze to a spot on the carpet at his feet. Finally he nodded.

  “I have to be able to trust you to inform me of everything that goes on at Glamour Sensations. Now I don’t know if I can. What else are you keeping from me?” She lifted her chin and glared at her longtime friend.

  Harold held up his hands, palms outward. “Nothing. But, Winnie, I promised Thomas I would look after you.”

  “I can look after myself. I have been for seventy-three years.” Her rigid shoulders sagged a little.

  Colt rose. “Winnie, let me escort you upstairs. We can hash this all out tomorrow.”

  She turned her glare on him. “Don’t you start, young man. I don’t need to be mollycoddled by you, too. I’ll go to bed when I want to.”

  Harold interjected, “But you’re starting the final tests tomorrow and—”

  She swiveled her attention to him. “Losing a little sleep won’t stop me from doing that. I’m not the fragile person you think I am. I want to hear what Sheriff Quinn has to say about the situation before I retire for the night. Or I wouldn’t sleep a wink.”

  Colt heard the deputy greeting someone in the foyer. “I think they’ve returned.”

  Not five seconds later Ellie and Quinn came into the living room. Colt couldn’t read much into Ellie’s bland expression, but the sheriff’s indicated there were problems, which didn’t surprise him given what had happened an hour ago.

  Sheriff Quinn stood at the end of the coffee table and directed his attention to Winnie. “Your guard dogs were drugged and stolen. We found a dart they used and tire tracks where they came off the main road, probably in a good-size four-wheel drive. Can’t tell if it was a truck or SUV yet. A cast of the tire tracks might narrow it down for us.”

  Colt’s gaze latched onto Ellie. She focused on Winnie, too, except for a few seconds when she slid her attention to him. But her unreadable expression hadn’t changed. He saw her military training in her bearing and the way she conducted herself. Ellie had certainly performed capably tonight, but what if the person after Winnie upped his tactics to more lethal ones?

  When the sheriff finished his report, Winnie shook his hand. “Thank you, Sheriff Quinn. As usual you have done a thorough job. I want to be informed of any progress.” She shifted toward Harold. “I want the Bakersville police chief and the private investigator you hired to be told that, too. No more secrets. Understood?” Her sizzling stare bore into the man.

  Harold squirmed on the couch but locked stares with Winnie. “Yes, on one condition.”

  “You aren’t in a place to dictate conditions to me. For several weeks you have kept me in the dark about something that concerned me. Don’t push me, Harold Jefferson.”

  The color leaked from Harold’s face. “I won’t,” he bit out, his teeth snapping closed on the last word.

  “Good, I’m glad we understand each other now. That goes for you, too, Ellie and Colt. Also, I don’t want this common knowledge, and I certainly don’t want anyone to know that Ellie is a bodyguard. She is my assistant.”

  “Agreed,” Harold said quickly. “Sheriff, can you keep this quiet?”

  “Yes. All my deputies need to know is that someone took your dogs. Nothing about the reason or who you are, Miss St. James. We’ll play this down.”

  “I appreciate that. I don’t want a media circus until I’m ready to unveil my new line, and then I want the focus on Endless Youth, not me.”

  The sheriff nodded toward Winnie. “We’ll be leaving. I’m going to post Rod outside your house.”

  “You don’t have to do that. I have the very capable Miss St. James.” Winnie winked at Ellie.

  “Humor me, ma’am, at least for tonight.”

  “Fine.”

  Colt hid his smile by lowering his head. His grandmother would have her way in the end. The deputy would be gone by the morning, but Colt planned to have some other security measures in place by tomorrow evening.

  Harold stood. “I’ll show you out, Sheriff, and give you the name of my P.I. working on the case.”

  “I’m sorry that Harold put you in the position he did. He told me you wanted to inform me from the first. We’ll proceed as usual, but my grandson will return your gun. I don’t like weapons, so I’ll ask you to keep it out of view.” His grandmother struggled to her feet.

  Colt rose quickly but didn’t move toward Winnie. She would rebuke his offer to help, especially when he had made it obvious that he considered her fragile. In her mind she equated that to weak. His grandmother was anything but that. After all these years, Harold

  really didn’t understand Winnie like Colt’s grandfather had. If Harold had come to him, he would have told him his grandmother could handle anything.

  He started toward the door when Winnie did.

  She peered back at him. “Don’t you buy into Harold’s thinking I’m fragile. I hate that word. I am not going to break. Endless Youth was Thomas’s project. I will complete it. I can find my own way to my bedroom. I have been doing that for years now.”

  Colt stopped and looked toward Ellie. Her mouth formed a thin line, but her eyes danced with merriment.

  When Winnie left the room, Ellie took a seat on the couch. “I think she told you.”

  “It wasn’t as bad as Harold got. He mismanaged this situation. All because he’s in love with Winnie and doesn’t really know her like he should.”

  “That’s sad.”

  “I have a feeling my grandfather knew Harold has been in love with Winnie since the early days. That’s why he asked Harold to watch out for her. He knew he would. But Harold envisions himself as her knight in shining armor coming to her rescue. My grandmother is not a damsel in distress.”

  “What happened when your grandfather died?”

  “She did fall apart. She’d nursed him back to health after his bout with cancer and was planning a month long vacation with him when he fell asleep behind the wheel and went off the mountain. For a short time, I saw her faith shattered. I was worried, but Harold was frantic and beside himself. He went into protective mode and hasn’t let up since then.”

  Hearing footsteps nearing the doorway, Colt put his finger to his lips.

  Harold came through the entrance, kneading his neck. “Winnie d
idn’t even say good-night when she went upstairs. She really is mad at me.”

  “I’m afraid so.” Colt waved his hand at the bouquet of flowers on the coffee table. “She isn’t delicate like these roses. As soon as you accept that, you might have a chance with Winnie.”

  “A chance?” Harold opened his mouth to say more but clamped it shut.

  Colt grinned. “Just so you know it, you have my blessing to court my grandmother. I’ve known for a long time how you felt about her, and once this line is out, she deserves something more than working all the time. She’s been driving herself for the past few years.”

  “What makes you think...” Harold’s fingers delved into his neat hairstyle, totally messing it up.

  “Because I see how you look at her when she isn’t looking.”

  Harold’s face flushed a deep shade of red. “She thinks I’m too young for her.”

  “You’re sixty-five. That’s not too young.” Colt settled into his chair again. “Sit. We need to talk about securing the house and grounds.”

  “You stole my line,” Ellie said as she angled toward Harold at the other end of the couch. “You need to electrify the fence, put in a new security system tomorrow and, since she doesn’t want people to know what is going on, at least replace the guard dogs. That may be the biggest challenge. They need to be here with a handler right away.”

  Colt spoke up. “I have a high school friend who trains dogs. I’ll give Adam a call tomorrow. If he has a dog for us, he only lives in Denver so he should be able to help us right away.” He leaned back, trying to relax his body after the tense-filled past hour.

  “This place needs a minimum of two dogs. Three would be better.” Ellie looked at Harold. “How about the security system? The one in place is old and can be circumvented.”

  “I’ll have someone here tomorrow. With the right kind of monetary incentive, I’m sure they could start right away. Maybe tomorrow afternoon. They probably could take care of the fence, too.” Harold glanced toward the entrance into the living room. “Do you think Winnie will forgive my judgment call on this?”