Blaze

by Dale Mayer

  She shrieked back at him, “No, no, come here, please.”

  He raced inside to the room where he’d seen her and Blyth working. Several of the boxes had been ruined. “Did you see who did this?” he demanded.

  She raced toward him. Instinctively he opened his arms. She threw herself against his chest and cried, “No, I didn’t. After you left, I made myself a cup of tea and thought, Well, I’ll just sit here in the kitchen and work on my list. And I was probably in there for maybe twenty minutes, maybe longer. I don’t know. Then I walked in here to check something and realized these boxes were destroyed.”

  Over her head and holding her close, he tried to assess the damage. “Are things ruined inside the boxes?” he asked cautiously. “Have they undone all your day’s work?”

  “I don’t know,” she whispered. She grabbed his shirt with her hands and fisted the material in her fingers. “I didn’t see him,” she said, leaning back to look up at Blaze. “How is that possible? That means he was in the house when I was in the kitchen.”

  His gaze went around the room. “You have patio doors here. Are they unlocked?”

  “I always keep them locked,” she said.

  “Let’s take a close look,” he said gently. “It’s quite possible the intruder came in this way and left this way.”

  She shook her head. “They might have left this way,” she said, “but these doors are always locked.”

  “You were working here all day. What’s the chance Blyth opened the doors for fresh air?”

  She shook her head and then stopped. “I don’t know,” she said. “I didn’t think to check.”

  “Well, let’s see.” He led her to the glass doors, and, sure enough, they were unlocked.

  “Well, I didn’t unlock them. I always keep them locked.”

  “Any reason why?”

  “I don’t use these doors, so I keep them locked.”

  “But that doesn’t mean Blyth didn’t unlock them,” he said.

  She nodded, then called Blyth. “Hey, did you unlock the patio doors while we were working today?”

  “What are you talking about?” Blyth asked.

  Camilla held out her phone so Blaze could hear the conversation. “In the room where we were working, did you unlock and open those doors today?”

  “Sure,” Blyth said. “We had them open while we were talking. Remember, about flowers?”

  Camilla groaned and closed her eyes. “Right, we did. Damn it.”

  “It’s a good thing,” Blaze reminded her.

  She shook her head. “Just because we know how this asshole got in doesn’t mean I’m happy about it.”

  “What are you talking about?” Blyth asked, her voice rising in alarm. “What happened?”

  “Somebody came in and destroyed the boxes of all our hard work today.”

  Blyth’s gasp filled the room. “Oh my God,” she said, “is it all destroyed? We can’t get more supplies in time.”

  “Thanks for that thought,” Camilla said morosely. “I’m trying not to think about it, but I have to go through the boxes. I know all the napkins have been untied, and an awful lot of them are on the floor. I just don’t know if anything has been destroyed or not.”

  “If you need me to come back, just let me know.”

  “Give me a few minutes to take a look,” Camilla said. “Blaze is still here. I need to figure this out.”

  “Okay, but remember. I can come and give you a hand, and we can fix this if stuff doesn’t need to be replaced.”

  “It better not need to be replaced,” Camilla said in an ominous tone. “We need all of this fixed tonight, and there’s no way to get back into the stores in time.”

  “I know,” Blyth said. “Check it out and then call me back.”

  With Blaze’s help, the two sorted through the boxes. “So, napkins unfolded, ribbons untied and mostly nothing damaged, outside of nuisance value to redo all the manual labor,” Blaze said.

  She sighed. “And the head table’s decorations are over there, and they’re still undisturbed.”

  “Okay, call Blyth back, and I can help you retie all these ribbons, refold these napkins.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked. “It’ll probably take us a couple hours.”

  “Yes,” he said, “I’m sure.”

  She made the phone call as Blaze laid things back out on the tables, and, after assuring Blyth that she’d call if things ended up being worse than she originally thought, Camilla soon made her way over to help him. “As for these napkins,” she said, “they must be folded in a very specific way so that the cutlery, once put inside, sits properly.”

  He just nodded and said, “Show me.”

  She did, and the two got to work. It did take another hour. By the time she sat back and looked at it again, she said, “Well, it was just a nuisance, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, somebody trying to cause you trouble but nothing serious. Although this could have been, if these were made of crystal or something equally valuable and then destroyed.”

  “The value was in the ability to replace them at the last moment. Thank you for coming to help.”

  “Not a problem,” he said. “I am quite disturbed that you keep having people—somebody, hopefully just one person—coming around and harassing you. This again, it’s nuisance value, but at what point do they get tired of that and move on to something more destructive?”

  “Like what?”

  “Theft,” he said, “or vandalism on a much larger scale. Imagine all your white carpets if the intruder were to come in with cans of red paint and throw it all over your furniture and your carpets and the walls and windows.”

  She stared at him, wide-eyed. “People do that?”

  “I’ve seen it before,” he admitted. “Usually there’s a lot of hate involved in something like that. In this case it’s just wasting your time, and I don’t get that.”

  She looked around. “It’s almost as if somebody wants me to fail with the wedding reception. But this is minor. Although”—then she froze, looked at the boxes, the color wiped out of her skin—“did they take a box?”

  He looked around, then picked up the manifest and counted. “Looks like they are all here.”

  “Good, that’s the last thing I need right now.” She held her hand to her chest. “I’m getting paranoid.”

  “You didn’t get the security fixed either, did you?”

  “It’s not damaged,” she said. “I just never turned it on last night, and I haven’t had it on today.”

  “So, you don’t know if it works. Do you have cameras outside?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know where you were coming from, but did you see a vehicle?”

  “No,” he said, “so whoever it was headed back to town, not away from town. Did you hear a vehicle?”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t hear anything. Being at the back of the house has both advantages and disadvantages. I’m not sure what we’re supposed to do about finding who it was who entered my house.”

  “Do you have any neighbors?”

  She pointed to the left. “Thomas lives there. He’s around sometimes but not always. He’s a bit of a loner. I don’t keep track of him.”

  “I’ll take a drive to his house and see if he saw anybody.” As he walked to the kitchen door, he turned to her and said, “I want you to go around and lock all the exterior doors. I’ll be back in about ten minutes, okay?” And he headed out.

  Chapter 9

  Camilla felt like she should go with him. And, with that decision, she called out, “Let me come. He doesn’t know you.”

  Blaze frowned, then nodded. “Did you lock the back doors?”

  “Give me five minutes,” she said, and she locked the doors, grabbed her purse, set the alarms, and met him out front. He’d turned the vehicle around and was waiting for her.

  She hopped up into the passenger side of the truck and said, “Thomas is a little odd. I don’t know if he would talk to you or
not.”

  “Well, let’s go see,” he said. They pulled onto the road and shortly turned into Thomas’s long driveway.

  At the house, they both hopped out, and she rang the doorbell. When the door opened a few minutes later, Thomas glared at her. She gave him a winning smile and said, “Good evening. I just wondered if you happened to see anybody driving down the road or hanging around my place recently?”

  His eyebrows pulled together, and he frowned at her. “Recently, as in how recently?”

  Blaze stepped in. “Somebody threw a rock through her rear French doors early this morning, about six a.m. And then within the last hour, hour and a half maybe, somebody destroyed property inside Camilla’s house.”

  Thomas looked at Blaze. “Don’t I know you?”

  Blaze grinned. “Hello, Thomas. I’m Blaze, Enid’s son.”

  Thomas reached out a hand, and they shook. “You’re home from overseas service, are you?”

  “Permanently, yes,” Blaze said.

  Thomas nodded. “It’s not a life you can keep up forever.” He switched his gaze to Camilla. “A vehicle went by not all that long ago. I don’t remember much about it, but it had a rattling sound to it.”

  “Right,” she said in frustration. “That won’t help much.”

  Blaze stepped forward again and asked, “Do you have any security cameras here?”

  “I do, but they’re directed at the driveway, not at the actual road itself,” he said.

  “Would you mind giving them a quick perusal to see if there’s any sign of a vehicle?”

  Thomas stepped back and invited them in. He led the way to his little security system hooked up to his iPad. There, he went through the cameras, backtracked the video feed, and they slowly watched. There was nothing, … nothing, … nothing, … and then a gray vehicle pulled up, parked on his side of the driveway right at the fence line, and they could see somebody getting out, all dressed in black, and walking along this fence before they lost sight of him in the camera.

  Camilla looked closely but couldn’t see any sign of the dog. Then the angle wasn’t quite right so she still didn’t know if she’d seen Solo or not that morning.

  “So he used my place to get to your place,” Thomas said, shaking his head. “What has this world come to?”

  “I have no idea,” she said, “but this is not cool. That looks like the same person I saw running away from my house after he threw that rock at my French doors.”

  “I’m not so sure that’s a man though,” Thomas announced, leaning forward. “The person is pretty long and lean, but I’m not sure we can assume it’s a male.”

  “Good point,” Blaze said. “But the vehicle, I guess there’s no clearer picture of that?”

  As they watched, someone appeared on the right side of the feed, raced over Thomas’s fence and out onto the main road. Moments later the vehicle backed into Thomas’s driveway and turned around to race in the opposite direction. Thomas froze the feed when they caught a clear shot of the vehicle.

  Camilla said, “That’s the same vehicle we saw this morning.” She looked over at Thomas. “Do you recognize it? Do you know anybody who drives one like that?”

  Thomas shook his head. “Nope, I don’t, but the sheriff probably will. There’s always a criminal element, no matter how small a town. Now that I think about it, maybe it’s that lanky teenager caught for breaking and entering not too long ago. A couple years maybe.”

  Camilla frowned. “That was like five years ago,” she said.

  “Maybe,” Thomas said. “Kind of losing track of time these days.”

  “Who’s this kid?” Blaze asked.

  “A kid who got lost along the way. His parents passed away when he was in eleventh grade. He finished school, but he seemed pretty aimless at the time.” Thomas rotated his neck, as if trying to lower his stress level. “I know my mother had a fair bit to do with him at the beginning, trying to help him out, but I thought he’d left town.”

  “Camilla,” Blaze said, “check with the sheriff. He might have an update.”

  “He might,” she admitted. “Thomas, any chance you can take a screenshot or share a photo of that car so I can send it to him?”

  Thomas nodded. “I can take a couple photos here and email them to you two. Do you want me to send a couple to the sheriff?”

  She nodded. “Thanks. I don’t know how much value this is, but it’s something.”

  “But what’s his motive?” Blaze asked slowly. “There’s no reason for him to suddenly, out of the blue, come in and start vandalizing your place. If he’s trying to ruin your business, that’s one motive. If he’s trying to do something else, that’s an entirely different motive. But the bigger issue behind this is, Why now? And without a connection to you, Camilla, it makes no sense, … unless he’s working with someone … or for someone …”

  “That could be anybody,” Camilla cried out in frustration. “I’ve never been targeted in this way before. I really don’t like this.”

  She didn’t like Blaze’s grin as he flashed it at her. But she understood. She thanked Thomas profusely and then, as they walked out, she said, “Make sure you check your own security system, Thomas, and make sure it’s on too. I don’t know if this guy is just after me or if he’s been planning to move over to you.”

  “Well, he can try,” Thomas said. “You should get yourself a guard dog because, you know, with my dogs, it’s pretty hard for anybody to get in without me knowing about it.”

  She looked over at two black labs sound asleep on dog beds. “They don’t appear to be too bothered by us.”

  “That’s because I already told them who was at the door,” he said. Thomas snapped his fingers. Both dogs came alert immediately and walked over to sit beside him.

  “They didn’t bark when I knocked on the door though.”

  He shook his head. “They did when we saw you coming up the driveway, but I recognized you in the passenger side of the truck, so I told them to stop.”

  She reached out a hand toward one of the dogs. He wagged his tail and waited for his owner to give the okay, and, as soon as Thomas did, the dogs came sniffing around, letting both Camilla and Blaze pet them.

  “Nice to see well-trained dogs,” Blaze said.

  “It’s the only way to have dogs,” Thomas said. “Your father would completely agree with me.”

  “Absolutely,” Blaze said. “My father is a huge advocate of every dog having proper training. Speaking of which, we saw a shepherd I’m trying to rescue. She’s skittish but I’m hopeful I can gain her trust. I’ve come across it a couple of times and I’ve been leaving her some food in this area, but I wondered if you’d seen her, and if you had any idea how long she’s been hanging around.”

  “I have seen it,” Thomas said. “But only in the last month or two. It’s starting to look a little run-down and skinny. It won’t come close to me though, and it doesn’t like the dogs.”

  “That’s too bad,” Blaze said. “I was wondering about bringing a couple of my dad’s dogs to make it feel better.”

  “It seems terrified of everything,” he said.

  They took their leave soon afterward. As they climbed up into the truck, Camilla said, “Are dogs really supposed to be that well-trained?”

  “It’s a combination of allowing a dog to be off-command and still be a dog and to train him enough that he’s not barking unnecessarily or attacking people. So, yes, they were nicely trained dogs.”

  “Would we have heard the dogs barking as we drove up?”

  “Not likely. It’s a well-built house, and, if Thomas stopped them fairly quickly, we wouldn’t have heard.”

  She nodded but frowned.

  “What’s bothering you?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Just something about that feels creepy.”

  He chuckled. “That’s because somebody broke into your house, so that feels creepy, and maybe it’s just an extension of that.”

  “It’s possible
,” she admitted. “So now what?”

  “Now I’ll take you home, and you’ll have a good night’s sleep,” he said, “because you have a really big day tomorrow.”

  “I do at that,” she said, “and you …” As soon as she thought about it, she could feel her stress levels rising. “You’re sure that window pane in the rec center is fixed, right?”

  “It was this morning,” he said. “While we’re in the vehicle, do you want to take a quick trip down there?” he asked as they were at the end of her driveway and had to make a decision which direction to turn.

  She twisted in her seat. “Would you mind?”

  He turned toward town. “Of course not.”

  “Good,” she said. “I’d just sleep better.”

  “Understandable. What time are they coming to the center tomorrow?”

  “Noon. I must have it all ready by eleven. Flowers are being delivered at nine,” she said. “I need everything done early as some people try to get here ahead of the wedding party.”

  “Okay, let’s make sure everything’s okay at the center.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “I appreciate it.” They drove in silence for a few minutes. “How can you get close to that shepherd if it doesn’t like people?”

  “Partly she doesn’t like people because she’s scared. She doesn’t know who to trust, and her world has been upended,” he said, “so I must get her to trust me first.”

  “So you say,” she said. “I just can’t imagine a dog wanting to trust anybody.”

  “Meaning, you don’t trust anyone?”

  “That’s not what I meant,” she said, “but maybe it is.” She shrugged. “This has unsettled me, and I don’t really understand what I’m supposed to do about it.”

  “What you do about it is find out who’s behind it. If this does happen to be somebody in and out of trouble in town, there’s got to be a reason why, all of a sudden, he’s targeting you. And my money says somebody’s paying him to.”

  “Why would they do that?” she demanded.

  “Because it keeps them one step away from the actual criminal activity and gives them a fall guy for the crime, so they aren’t held responsible, and it gives them the pleasure of causing you trouble. The question remains, what is this all about?”