Whittaker 02 The One We Love

by Donna White Glaser

  CHAPTER FIFTY FIVE

  It took three tries, knocking, before Mitch came to the door. I’d decided the kids weren’t here since my banging hadn’t started any ruckus. Their daddy was a lot less scary looking than I had imagined from the restraining order. For one thing, the Grim Reaper was more cartoonish than demonic and had the motto “Live as if there’s no tomorrow” ringing it. I suppose descriptions given on a restraining order might bias a person.

  His height was intimidating, but he had the tousled bed-head and sleepy smile of a young boy. Bare-chested and wearing gray, sweatpants with a red Wisconsin Badger logo that hung dangerously low on his hips, he looked like a big, stretched out version of his son. A vastly sexier version of his son, my id hastened to add. I told my id to shut up. I had enough trouble.

  “Can I help you?”

  For being woken up on a dreary Sunday morning, he was polite. He even managed a discreet body scan with a slight (gratifying) smile as he reconnected with my eyes. Apparently, it made a difference when a cute guy did it. I reminded myself of his married, abuser status.

  “I sure hope so,” I finally managed, sounding way too chipper. I cleared my throat to a less annoying level.“I’m sorry for waking you. Ha ha ha.” Yes, I actually said, “Ha ha ha.” Geez, Letty, get a grip! “I’m looking for a builder.” Why did my eyes dart to his muscular arms and broad, smooth chest? “I have some remodeling work I need done. I was on my way to … um … church—” Church? Yes, church, go with it. “—when I saw your truck. It seemed like a sign.” A sign of insanity perhaps.

  My speech garnered me the sleepy smile again, which I was in no way paying any attention to.

  “What kind of … job … are you looking for?” I was pretty sure his eyes dipped to my cleavage. Apparently, we had just convened the first Mutual Chest Admiration Society. I kept my own gaze pinned to his face and tried not to read anything into his question. It didn’t help that he ran his hand through his hair, increasing the tousle-factor exponentially.

  I’d been dating too many geeks. My bad-boy triggers were completely out of whack.

  “Kitchen,” I said, picking the least romantic project I could think of. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a lot of concrete work needed in a kitchen. Except? “Counter,” I added, feeling proud and back in control. The time I’d spent zoned out watching the DIY cable channel finally came in handy. Concrete countertops were quite popular. My libido nearly ruined it by conjuring up images of countertops and jars full of honey and … “Are you bondage? I mean, bonded. Your company, I mean. There are two of you?” I pointed at his truck, just in case he’d forgotten that he had a partner.

  His mind had apparently hooked onto my faux pas, his grin flashing across his face like lightning. “Uh, what? Two of us?” His eyebrows raised, possibly wondering what my interest was in by having two guys for the job. “My cousin, Tyler. He’s like a brother to me. We’ve been partners for years.”

  Good lord, he was still grinning. He leaned against the door frame in that timeless, James Dean pose.

  I refocused on my purpose for being here. “Oh, I thought maybe you had a little helper.” I smiled, nodding at the Big Wheel in the yard.

  A crease formed in his brow and he straightened up. “Uh, yeah, but they’re too young to come to a job.” His turn for throat clearing. My question unsettled him, but I hoped he dismissed it as a brush-off, a reference to his married state rather than someone trying to locate his wife and kids. I could tell he was trying to balance not losing a potential client with being cautious.

  “Listen,” he continued, all flirtation cast aside. “Why don’t you give me a call when you’re ready for the job. I’m gonna have to get to work now.”

  “On a Sunday?” I asked.

  Frowning, he stepped back into the house. “I do what I have to.”

  “So do I,” I said to the closed door.

  Walking back to my car, I felt Mitch watching me and I didn’t think he was checking out my butt. He had been well and truly spooked when I brought up the kids. I resisted the urge to look back, knowing that would just confirm his suspicions. Instead, I glanced at the truck trying to memorize the two phone numbers.

  Paul was a jittery mess by the time I slid into the driver’s seat. He had his cell phone out, holding it poised as if to dial 9-1-1 at the first sign of trouble. Which would leave approximately fourteen minutes for a homicidal maniac to dismember my body and stuff it down the septic hole in the basement. More than enough time, but I appreciated the thought.

  “Down! Get down!” I shoved his head down past the dash, trying to fold his gawky frame like an accordion. “I don’t want him to see you.”

  “Glack!” he said, or something similar that translates to “Dear god, my neck doesn’t bend that way. Please stop before I’m paralyzed for life.”

  Digging through my purse, I pulled out an old receipt and a pen and thrust them at Paul. Despite my attempt at instantaneously acquiring a photographic memory, I couldn’t remember more than three digits so I was forced to sit there and squint at the truck. They really needed to get bigger magnets. “Write this down,” I said, reciting the phone numbers off the truck to my crumpled compadre.

  “What are you doing?” Paul whispered, apparently forgetting that not wanting to be seen is not the same as not wanting to be heard. “Let’s get out of here.”

  I pulled the car away from the curb, trying to drive casually—a difficult thing to portray—and not as though I were a killer-stalker hunting for his wife and children. After two blocks I told Paul he could sit up and made a series of right turns that brought me back to the corner of the Dillards’s street, but on the opposite side from where I’d first parked. A large, overgrown shrub hid much of my car from casual view, but it also obscured my vision. Telling Paul to stay put, I got out and scurried up to the foliage, peeking through the branches so I could watch the house.

  Paul powered the window down and whispered, “What are you doing?”

  “Shh!” I flapped a hand at him. I figured we only had a few minutes before somebody called the cops. If Mitch didn’t act right away, I’d have to leave.

  But he did. A few moments later, he came out of the house, stopped briefly to pick up the kids’ toys that were strewn about the lawn, and then climbed in the truck and drove off heading in the opposite direction—thank god—from my bush hiding place. I hobbled back to my car, knees aching from squatting for so long. Admittedly, only five minutes, but I hadn’t had a chance to exercise lately. Months, actually.

  Grabbing the keys and my purse, I said, “Come on. We’re taking your car.”

  “We are?” Paul bailed out of my car so fast he almost fell over. We ran over to his Buick sedan.

  “Let me drive,” I said, holding my hand out for the keys. Okay, I might have snapped my fingers in that “gimme now” kind of way.

  “No, you can’t.” He jumped in the driver’s seat and I had no choice but to get in the other side.

  “Then, you better drive fast. You have to catch up to him.”

  “We don’t even know where he went. He’s long gone.” Paul objected, but he headed off in the direction Mitch had gone.

  “Just head toward the highway. It’s only three blocks up. If he turned off anywhere, we’re out of luck, but if he took 53 we can still catch up.”

  “North or south?”

  Oh, crud. I hadn’t thought of that. South to Eau Claire or north. I thought of the deer dangling in Mitch’s garage.

  “North.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY SIX

  We didn’t have to worry about Mitch catching on to his “tail” because we didn’t catch up with him until seven miles later. Paul and I were both hyperventilating by the time we saw the back of the pickup hove into view. Me, out of fear that I’d guessed wrong; he, from the speed at which I insisted he drive in order to catch up to Mitch. I ended up having to promise to pay any speeding ticket fines, and he wouldn’t let me talk in case I would distract him.

&
nbsp; We were going 72 MPH.

  Although he kept a white-knuckled grip at ten-and-two on the steering wheel, Paul relaxed enough to allow occasional speech once we had the truck in view and he was able to slow down to a sedate 71 MPH. I made him stay a quarter mile back to lessen the chance of being noticed. Most of the traffic at this time of day was heading south; weekenders heading home after a trip “Up North,” so we didn’t want to get too close.

  As we neared the Bloomer exit about sixteen miles out of Chippewa, Paul said, “How far are we going to go?”

  “For as long as we can, I guess. Why?”

  “What if we need gas?”

  I leaned over to look. Less than a quarter tank. Way less.“Really, Paul? Really? I thought you’d be one of those guys who always has a full tank. Weren’t you a Boy Scout? What if he’s heading to Canada?”

  “Well, you didn’t tell me what we were doing. I thought we were going to just sit there. I brought donuts, didn’t I? Besides, I have to be careful about how much gas I go through. D’you have any idea how much it costs to fill this car?”

  I forced myself to stay calm, because if I started banging my head against the dash, Paul would get distracted. I’d been kidding about Canada, but not by much. Lots of people had cabins hidden away in isolated areas of Northern Wisconsin. For all I knew, Mitch had stashed his wife and kids in the family cabin clear up in Hayward or Spooner or points north.

  “Besides, I don’t want to put too many miles on. My … um,” he broke off the sentence, his face reddening.

  The blush caught my attention. I thought about his reluctance to let me drive and his concern about mileage and gas use, and took a good look around the interior of the car. Spotless. A tiny white statue of a saint, an ever-present reminder of the dangers of travel, was fixed to the dashboard. A box of tissues swathed in an intricate white-and-yellow crocheted cover rested on the seat between us. But it was the earthy, cola scent of Youth Dew that confirmed my suspicion.

  “Paul, is this your mom’s car?”

  He went scarlet. “She just doesn’t like it if she thinks I’ve been cruising around wasting gas.”

  Cruising around? I decided—for once—not to crack a joke. I’d been a little snippy with Paul lately and making fun of his mother’s perception of him as a man-about-town or the fact that he was driving a mommy-mobile would be excessive, even for me.

  “Maybe you could just tell her you were helping a friend,” I said.

  He liked the friend part, I could tell. His already impeccable posture straightened another notch and he smiled. He even punched the speed up to a rousing 76. Luckily we didn’t have to maintain such a dangerous pace for long.

  Mitch took the exit at Hwy. 64, heading east toward the little town of Cornell.

  Half a mile later, the “low gas” light came on and the little alarm went ding, ding, ding.

  I went home and took a nap. I’d run out of ideas, I’d slept badly the night before and gotten up too early, and my head hurt. Drinking was no longer an option, but self-pity sleeping ranked high on my reality evasion techniques.

  When I woke, it was raining. It was also the next day. It took my foggy brain a while to accept that the clock read 5:47, because it was very dark outside. Twilight came early in the fall, but not this early. The glowing red AM light on the alarm clock finally clued me in to the fact that after getting home from my adventures with Paul, I’d slept through the rest of Sunday. Monday morning was too much reality to face without warning, so I snuggled back under the covers.

  The steady downpour drummed on the windows, making my apartment a cozy haven. Siggy lay curled up next to me, sleep-buzzing. Unfortunately the sound of the rain made me realize that not only had I slept nearly eighteen hours, I’d not gone to the bathroom in that length of time either.

  After using the facilities, I wrapped myself in a fuzzy throw blanket and shuffled out to the kitchen. The apartment was cold; I refused to turn the heat on before November, but in Wisconsin that meant wearing layers indoors as well as out. I peeked into the fridge, but there was nothing I felt like eating. I grabbed a box of cereal from the cabinet and ate a handful, dry.

  Penance for my stupidity.

  Of course, the phone rang just as I’d palmed a handful of dry cereal into my mouth. My greeting sounded particularly crunchy.

  “Letty? It’s Astrid.”

  Holy crap. “Astrid? What’s up?”

  “We had a visitor this morning. Have you been harassing Mitch and Karissa Williams?”

  “Harassing? No. Of course not.” Stalking might be a better term, but why quibble?

  “He was really angry, Letty. I was afraid some of the women might see him and be triggered. Apparently he thinks you’ve been misrepresenting yourself and trying to weasel information from him about Karissa’s whereabouts. Those were his words.”

  “Really? How weird.” My heart was racing and my mouth had a pile of sand disguised as breakfast food wadded into the side of my cheek. I decided to go with part of the truth. Sometimes that worked as good as a lie. “I did go to talk to Karissa a while ago. Just to check on her since Regina had been seeing her. I told you guys that.” No, I didn’t.

  “No, you didn’t. Anyway, Clotilde would have a fit if she knew you were upsetting a former client. Maybe you meant well, but you’ve got to remember how afraid and distrustful these women have to be. They’re on constant alert.”

  They weren’t the only ones. “Look, Astrid, I was just trying to fulfill Regina’s wishes. You know? And I was worried that she and the boys had been re-traumatized.” Damn! I wished I hadn’t brought that up. “By, um, hearing about the accident.”

  “I understand. If you promise you’ll be more careful next time, I won’t mention it to Clotilde. She seems to be really stressed lately. I think she’s been worried about Karissa, too. Will you be coming in this morning?”

  “Why do you think Clotilde is worrying about Karissa? Did she say something?”

  “Oh, never mind. I’m sure it’s my imagination. Are you bringing that man back? I think that’s another thing that’s bothering Clotilde, and I’m sorry to say I agree with her on that one. We just haven’t had good experiences with male therapists working here.”

  “I didn’t set it up, Astrid. It’s just his internship. Besides, Paul is as harmless as you can get.”

  “Maybe to you, but this is a refuge, Letty. It just feels strange. He did look pretty mild, though, from what I saw. Just follow Clotilde’s instructions and keep a close eye on him.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY SEVEN

  Hanging up, I sat back to ponder the conversation. Mitch must have gone straight to Karissa after we’d talked. She’d have told him about my visit to the trailer and he’d have connected the dots pretty quickly. On top of my worry that he might pursue the complaint—and how would I explain my “kitchen work” ploy?—was the sour realization that if we’d just stuck with him, he’d have led us straight to Karissa. Now I didn’t know how I’d ever find her.

  Before dropping me off at my car, Paul had made me promise that I wouldn’t do anything without him. He had way more faith in my ability to come up with a new plan than I did.

  Unfortunately, I could foresee no clever ideas on the horizon. I stretched out on the couch and entered into a serious funk over how I’d blown it. Despite Paul’s lack of gas-preparedness, I knew the real failure had been mine. I’d spooked Mitch and now he was on alert. For me, in particular. If that meant he’d be more protective of his family, in general, that was good. Unless he was so busy watching for me that he’d let Lachlyn slip by. Or Clotilde. Or Astrid, or Joyce, or whoever the hell it was. Even if I went back to him and tried to explain who I was and what I was doing, he’d never believe me. And if I tried staking out his house again, he’d either call the cops or kill me dead. The man had access to concrete and basements after all.

  Siggy hopped up on the coffee table.

  “Siggy, get down.” I flapped a hand at him. He ignored me with c
atly indifference and began biting a slip of paper. He loved chewing paper. Maybe he needed more fiber in his diet.

  I took the paper away, receiving an irritated tail flick in response. It was the scrap that I’d had Paul write the phone numbers on. No help there. It wasn’t like phoning Mitch or his cousin would be of any use.

  But I could Google the cousin’s number.

  I snapped myself up and flung myself across the room toward the desk. Plugging in Cousin Tyler’s phone number brought me to one of those “find your high school boyfriend” sites, and for a mere $39.95 (with 20% off, mind you) I could find not only his full name and address, but his marital and divorce history; relatives, including those living at the same address; bankruptcies; property ownership; sex offender status and criminal background. I shuddered at how easy it was to invade nearly every area of a person’s life in this new age. The loss of privacy was staggering.

  Then I got my credit card out.

  I’d promised Paul I wouldn’t go off on my own. It wasn’t that I hadn’t broken promises before. I had. Lots of them. But I’d never broken a promise—not since getting sober at least. It would suck. I’d have to admit my dishonesty in a meeting. Sue would kick my butt. Worse, I’d have to look Paul in the eyes if I broke my word. And I had been a wee bit bossy with him yesterday. So I owed him honesty, at the very least.

  Of course, he was home and happy to join me. Lucy and Ethel ride again.

  I picked him up just after noon. When I GPS’d the address that Big Brother had helpfully provided, I found that Cousin Tyler lived just north of Bloomer on County Highway F. Rural. Very rural. Even if we had followed Mitch we probably would have had to abort the mission because there’d have been no way to blend into the surroundings traveling down those back roads.

  It was a beautiful drive, especially when we turned off on F. Autumn had sparked off a thousand different shades of orange and red. It wasn’t hard to find the mailbox with the address painted on the side. Bright green-and-yellow John Deere with a teensy little tractor fixed to the top. Quite the eye-catcher.