Path of Secrets

by D. F. Hart

  After that Beverly was by his side whenever she wasn’t working. And in those three weeks, the half of Benji’s soul that had shattered so long ago when Maggie died slowly began to heal.

  Now, four weeks later, he was well enough that he was about to travel home.

  “It’s about damn time,” Benji Patterson grumbled as the nurse walked into the room with his discharge paperwork.

  “Now, honey,” Beverly admonished him gently as she sat in the visitor’s chair, patiently waiting while the nurse removed Benji’s IV drip.

  The nurse glanced over at her, so she stood and said, “I’ll be just outside, honey,” and left the room so he could get dressed.

  As he ditched the gown and the nurse helped him into his clothes, Benji marveled again at his unexpected fortune.

  “I’ll be right back with the wheelchair,” the nurse said briskly.

  “I don’t need no damn wheelchair. I can walk just fine,” he snapped back.

  “Now, now,” she said, standing her ground. “It’s hospital protocol. You want me to get in trouble?”

  “No, ma’am,” he grumbled.

  “Good. Me neither. I’ll be right back,” the nurse summarized, and left the room.

  Beverly poked her head back in. “Almost out of here,” she announced gaily. “Would you like to go straight home from here, get some rest?”

  “The first thing I’d like is some real food,” he answered.

  She smiled. “I bet we can manage that.”

  ***

  “You ready?” Donny asked on Monday morning as he closed the hatch on Lizzie’s SUV. “You got everything out of your dorm room?”

  “Yep,” Lizzie nodded. “I am so ready to get home and start my new job Monday. But before then, I am looking forward to some time alone with you to just relax.”

  She tossed him the keys and he grinned as he climbed behind the wheel.

  “So where are we spending tonight?” she asked as she fastened her seat belt.

  “Well, I’d thought we’d drive until we get tired, then wing it,” Donny told her, and watched her face scrunch up in confusion.

  “Wing it?” she echoed. “This from the man that planned out our stops in precise intervals back when we drove up here?”

  “Well... yeah,” he shrugged. “We were on a little bit tighter timeline back then. Now we have all week to get back. Not as strict a pace. Besides, who knows when we’ll get a chance to just travel like this again?”

  As long as we’re back by Saturday night, but not before, he added in his brain. I told everybody be at the house by six.

  ***

  “Trish was right,” Joe told Nathan over lunch that afternoon at the café just down from the Dallas County courthouse. “I’ve had three cases in just the last two weeks. Catching cheaters is big business. Who knew?”

  Nathan laughed. “My question is, if everyone knows catching them is such big business, why are so many people dumb enough to cheat in the first place?”

  “My thoughts exactly,” Joe agreed, and picked up another forkful of mashed potatoes to go with his bite of chicken fried steak.

  “Now, let me tell you about the latest one that’s come my way,” Joe said once he’d chewed and swallowed. “I’ve had a family approach me. They’re convinced someone on the nursing home staff is stealing from Grandma’s bank accounts, and they want me to investigate and see if I can find any evidence before they get the authorities officially involved.”

  “Sounds interesting,” Nathan observed.

  “I thought so, too,” Joe said. “So, I started digging into the grandmother’s banking records, and I realized I need some assistance with this one. There’s nothing immediately obvious that I’ve been able to find. I was wondering if you had someone in your group that does forensic accounting.”

  “As a matter of fact, I do,” came the reply. “I’ll have my guy get in touch this afternoon.”

  “Thanks! Lunch is on me, by the way,” Joe added, and snatched up the slip of paper their waitress had just dropped off at the table.

  ***

  “One down, four to go,” Bella revealed as she kicked off her shoes and sat on the couch.

  “When are your other finals?” Jandy asked.

  “One tomorrow, one Thursday, and two on Friday,” Bella said with a grimace.

  “I’m sure you’ll do just fine.”

  “I’m just ready to have them done,” Bella admitted, leaning back and closing her eyes for a moment. “How was your day?”

  “Well... the final walk-through was completed today. We can move in whenever we’re ready,” Jandy relayed.

  “Already? That went so quickly,” Bella observed.

  “It feels that way, doesn’t it? But here we are. The appliances were delivered and installed this morning, and the furniture store delivery should be complete by this time tomorrow. All Tony and I should have to do is go buy our food and some more clothes. I’ve already got all my kitchen and bath stuff tucked away. We should be completely moved in before the weekend gets here.”

  “What will you do after that?”

  “Throw one hell of a housewarming party, for starters,” Jandy said, and her tone resulted in Bella opening her eyes to witness the mischievous grin on her sister-in-law’s face. “Break the place in right. I do believe we’ve all earned it.”

  “Sounds good to me. When did you want to do it?”

  “How about next weekend?”

  “Perfect.”

  ***

  Since they’d decided to take a more leisurely approach to getting back to Pantego, Lizzie and Donny stopped for the night in Fayetteville, North Carolina, a mere three and a half hours from Quantico. They checked into a bed and breakfast, then spent the afternoon hand-in-hand wandering around the town square. A charming sidewalk café caught their attention and they enjoyed a great meal as a break from poking around antique stores.

  Donny gazed at her as they sat at their little bistro table, and it made him happy to see her so relaxed.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Just... looking at you,” he said tenderly. “You look peaceful, relaxed. I love seeing that.”

  “I am. And I love feeling that way, believe me,” she told him. “Because for a really long time, I wasn’t.”

  He nodded in solidarity.

  “I just...” her brow wrinkled, and she paused.

  “Just, what?”

  “Well,” she said on an exhale, “I know this is gonna sound selfish, but I really wish we didn’t live so far apart.”

  “Me too,” he commiserated, and resisted the temptation to drop to one knee and reveal his grand plans right then and there. Instead, he said, “Maybe at some point, we’ll need to fix that, huh?”

  “Yep,” she said, taking a sip of her tea. “At some point.”

  She closed her eyes and turned her face to the sun, enjoying its warmth as well as the slight breeze that kept sitting out on the café’s patio from being uncomfortable.

  Whew, that was close, he thought. I almost slipped up and blew five months of planning!

  He kept his expression casual, but behind the mask it was all Donny could do not to shout. He was thrilled down to his core to hear that Lizzie wanted the same thing he wanted – for them to be together.

  Saturday cannot possibly get here soon enough.

  ***

  With Tuesday morning came Grant’s next bout of travel. Although Fort Belknap was not even a half-day’s drive, he packed an overnight bag anyway, just in case, and left his house at nine-thirty a.m. to allow himself plenty of time.

  His perpetual road-trip companion was well ahead of him; the killer had toured Fort Belknap on Monday afternoon, and before Grant even left home his unseen nemesis was holed up in a tiny motel in Newcastle questioning his plans to dispatch Timothy Overton.

  And with good reason, he told himself. Since being shot at in Abilene, his sense of self-preservation was on high alert.

  It would have to be, gi
ven that his next target was also known throughout the county as Deputy Overton.

  Too risky. It’s just too risky, the logical side of his brain chanted over and over again. Forget this one. Move to the next...

  ***

  By ten a.m. Bella Thomas was seated in her graduate-level Linguistics class and had started her final exam. She carefully read each question in the multiple-choice section, fielding them easily before moving to the essay portion of the test.

  An hour and a half later, once she’d re-read her answers and was satisfied that she’d done her best, she carried both her exam booklet and the final paper she’d been required to write to the front of the room and handed them to the professor, and left the classroom.

  “Another one marked off the list,” she sighed, her hand straying to her temple to rub it lightly. She stopped at the water fountain in the hall so she could take the aspirin she’d retrieved from her purse, then continued out to the parking lot for the drive home.

  ***

  “See this right here? That’s definitely an anomaly,” the forensic accountant pointed at a line item on the February statement, then to a canceled check. “Looks like whoever’s doing this to your client’s grandmother has had a lot of practice. They’re pretty damn good at it, actually. The casual observer would never notice these.”

  Joe made copious notes as the man spoke.

  “Anything else I should be looking for?”

  “I believe what I just showed you is the only method going on here,” Nathan’s staff member replied, “but I think you’re going to find a lot of these transactions. Feel free to reach out if you have any other questions.”

  “Thanks, Agent Kinley. I appreciate it.”

  ***

  “You must be Grant,” the deputy called out as he approached the writer. “I’m Tim. Nice to meet you. Come on, we’ll take my car.”

  A mere fifteen minutes later they’d arrived at their destination.

  “How many acres is Fort Belknap?” Grant asked, sweeping his arm out to indicate their surroundings.

  “It’s the smallest one on the Texas Forts Trail,” Tim answered. “A little over fifteen acres. So, what would you like to know?”

  “Fifteen acres? That’s it? But... that’s so... small.”

  Deputy Overton chuckled.

  “Small, but mighty. Among other things, this location served as a hub for several major routes through this territory – including the Butterfield Overland and the Ft Worth-El Paso Road.”

  ***

  Once he’d made up his mind, he threw his bag into the back seat of the rental car and moved toward the tiny office to return his room key to a very surprised desk clerk. An overabundance of caution had trumped both desire and strategy; after some deliberation he’d realized involving law enforcement so directly in the game was unwise.

  He climbed behind the wheel, fastened his seat belt, and turned the key. Glancing at himself in the rear-view mirror, he set his jaw, then left the lot and pulled out onto the roadway, heading home to regroup and plan for the next round of play along the Texas Forts Trail.

  ***

  Donny and Lizzie strolled through the Historic District of Savannah, Georgia on a breezy late Tuesday afternoon.

  “Paddleboat ride, or carriage? Your choice,” he said.

  “Hm. I’m thinking carriage ride this evening. After dinner, maybe?”

  He reached over and interlaced his fingers with hers.

  “Sounds perfect.”

  ***

  “I think it will just take one more trip,” Jandy told her brother and sister-in-law over dinner. “Tony and I will be sleeping in our own house again starting tomorrow night.”

  “Did you get all your furniture set up?” Nathan asked.

  “They showed up right on time and yes, everything is in its proper place. And I’ve already made the beds and put the bathroom stuff away. Tomorrow is all about setting up the kitchen.”

  “Want some help tomorrow? It’ll be a nice break for me between final exams,” Bella offered.

  “Sure!”

  ***

  Grant had just parted company with Deputy Overton when his phone registered a new message. Upon investigation he discovered a new email from Sally Rutherford, inviting him to come walk Fort Mason with her on Friday. He fired off a confirmation for their appointment, then began his journey home to Pantego.

  On the way, Grant got a call. He pressed the button on his steering wheel to remain hands-free, and said, “Hello?”

  “Mr. Forrester?”

  “Yes, can I help you?”

  “Hi. This is Kelly Wolfe. You’d reached out about coming down and touring Fort McKavett?”

  “Hi, Miss Wolfe. Yes, I’m writing a series of articles about forts along the trail, and I’d very much like to visit the site.”

  “We definitely can make that happen. How’s your weekend looking? Any plans?”

  Grant grinned, then answered, “This weekend would be perfect. I’m actually coming down to see Fort Mason Friday afternoon. Can we meet Saturday morning?”

  ***

  He’d already seen the email from Rutherford about Fort Mason. In his living room, he listened as Kelly and Grant’s planning session for Fort McKavett came through loud and clear, and felt his spirits lift immediately. His mouth curved into a feral smile.

  Double header, huh? Ambitious. Sounds like fun. Guess I need to plan to travel south this weekend.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Once he’d put Charlie to bed Thursday evening, Nathan settled in at one end of the kitchen table, files spread across his half of the usable surface. At the other end, Bella glanced at her handwritten notes, then typed away on her laptop’s keyboard as she put the finishing touches on her last paper of the semester.

  “How’s it going?” she asked between keystrokes.

  “Pretty well, actually,” her husband answered. “I’m just about done with this additional profile Steve wanted. Glad I’m not primary on this one, I can tell you that.”

  Bella grinned.

  “I’m almost through, as well. Any plans after this?”

  He raised his gaze from the page in his hand to meet her eyes.

  “What’d you have in mind?”

  “Soak time. With wine,” she revealed, and wiggled her eyebrows at him.

  “Alone time with my wife, in a hot bath, with wine? Done. Let’s go.”

  Bella’s tinkling laugh filled the space as she saved her work and closed her laptop. She stood and moved to the cupboard for two long-stemmed glasses, then grabbed the wine bottle from its place inside the refrigerator door.

  She crossed the room again, leaned down and whispered against Nathan’s ear.

  “Come on then, Romeo,” she murmured silkily, then shrieked when he scooped her up and carried her, bridal style, toward the master bath.

  ***

  By mid-morning Friday, Donny and Lizzie were enjoying breakfast on their private patio in the heart of the French Quarter. They’d spent the night Wednesday in Montgomery, Alabama in a gorgeous bed and breakfast before driving leisurely into New Orleans.

  It was the first trip to the historic city for both of them, and they took full advantage, sightseeing in the afternoon before enjoying the sights and sounds of Bourbon Street in the evening from their loft accommodations once the sun went down.

  “We’ve got some time to kill,” Donny told her. “Want to try our luck in one of the casinos before we leave town?”

  “Sure,” she said with a grin. “Could be fun.”

  He smiled back as he thought and it’s a good way to stretch this out a little bit. We can’t be back before six tomorrow.

  Lizzie arched an eyebrow. “What are you thinking about right now?”

  “Nothing. Why?’

  Her eyes narrowed. “It sure seems like you’re up to something. I just can’t figure out what.”

  “I just want to spend as much time alone with you as I can, that’s all,” he said earnestly.
“And if that makes me selfish, then I guess I’m just selfish.”

  Her cheeks went warm as she leaned over and kissed him.

  “I like having you to myself, too,” she admitted. “Especially since once we get to Pantego, we’re both going to have to go back to work, and then try to figure out when we can see each other again.”

  The wistful look on her face spurred Donny into action.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said, and left the patio.

  “Okay.”

  Lizzie turned her gaze back to the still-awakening city, lost in her own thoughts.

  ***

  Donny strode over to his suitcase and pulled out the box containing her engagement ring.

  Doesn’t get much more private than this, he told himself. And I just can’t wait until tomorrow night.

  He crept stealthily back to the French doors leading out to the patio, and as quietly as possible got down on one knee, the open box extended in front of him.

  He silently took a deep breath to steady himself, then gently cleared his throat to get her attention.

  When she didn’t turn and look at him, he called out softly.

  “Lizzie?”

  “Yes, bab...” She swiveled her head to look at him and her voice trailed off, her eyes huge as she saw what he held in his hands.

  “I had this big elaborate speech planned,” Donny told her. “All these things I wanted to say. But looking at you, how beautiful you are, how lucky I feel...words escape me. All I can think of to say right now is... marry me, Lizzie.”

  Her hands flew to her mouth as her hazel eyes sparkled with tears.

  Donny held his breath as he waited for her to speak.

  Please say yes... please, please say yes...

  She nodded, the tears spilling over and tracing down her cheeks. Lizzie closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and finally found her voice.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes.”

  Donny, grinning ear-to-ear, started to stand up and was astonished when she rushed over to him and flung her arms around his neck. Her momentum bowled them both over onto the plush carpet just inside the patio doors, and Donny landed flat on his back, with his new fiancée sprawled across him.