After arriving very late in Cherokee, Graham had insisted she sleep at his place for the night. The road to the Perdue place was treacherous and not lit by street lights. The steep inclines she had passed on the ride into Cherokee made Bella agree to his suggestion although she had wanted to get there quickly.
Graham made her breakfast that morning and then offered to drive her on up to the cabin. He had told her he knew of the place and its location although he knew no one had lived there for a very long time. He also suggested a stop at the local thrift store for supplies she might need first. Bella thanked him for his kindness and thoughtfulness as he helped her pack up two carts of cleaning supplies, rags, a mop, brooms and a bucket. He kept adding things to her pile as she perused the aisles and his additions had all proved very useful.
While shopping, she confessed she'd never been there herself but her mother had when she was a very little girl. She was relieved when Graham didn't ask her what her mother's name was as she wouldn't have known what to tell him. She needed to be more careful when she spoke. But Graham was kind and didn’t pry when she clammed up at her own mistake.
He just nodded and asked no questions. On the ride to the cabin afterwards he had filled the time by talking about his own life and growing up in Cherokee.
She learned he was eighty-four years old. He was retired and hadn’t worked for the last ten years, just made crafts for local vendors to fill his days. He also revealed he had no living children. His one son had died in Vietnam. But his family was huge. He still had two living sisters, over twenty nieces and nephews, and over forty great nieces and nephews. And most of them still lived on the reservation. He had his own home with a small workshop where he made Native American jewelry and other arts and crafts he sold to vendor’s who sold them to tourists passing through Cherokee on their way through the Smoky Mountains to Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, and Nashville.
After she thanked him for his help for the umpteenth time, he told her he simply liked to keep busy. “In our community, no good deed goes unanswered. You helped me when I was in need and I'm only returning the favor."
As they passed through the small town, he indicated a turn up ahead tucked away into the bend of the road. “That’s Perdue Road. Yours is the only place on it. You’ll have privacy.”
Bella smiled kindly. She was glad for that little tidbit. Not having too many neighbors right now would be a good thing. “I’m okay with that,” she mumbled self-consciously.
“It’s two miles, maybe a bit more,” he informed her. “Straight up.” He held his index finger up and laughed.
Once they were on the road, Bella had to laugh too while the vehicle climbed the road. He hadn’t been joking. It was practically straight up. The incline made her dizzy as did the drop offs that appeared out of nowhere on either side of the road. Bella clung to the dash board or the side of the truck a time or two as he weaved his way up the mountain road.
Growing up in Memphis hadn't prepared her for this. The geography there was not nearly as treacherous. She was surprised the truck actually made it up the incline although it began to level off for the last mile. When they finally turned into a clearing Bella breathed a sigh of relief. She could see the small cabin off in the distance.
It was dilapidated to say the least. It needed painting but the roof looked intact thankfully. The front porch sagged and would definitely need to be repaired. Graham gave her a sympathetic look as he looked from the cabin to her.
"You sure you want to stay here, Izzy?" he asked giving her an opportunity to change her mind.
"I do, Graham," she gave him a tentative smile. "I need time to think, just figure out who I am. I'm not afraid of hard work and this is going to be good for me."
Graham gave her a confidant and reassuring smile. "I can understand that," he murmured. "We all have our trials, and hard work, well, sometimes that can help more than anything to help us forget about our problems." He reached over and patted Bella’s hand which lay on the seat next to him. She gave his gnarled hand a squeeze. She liked him. A lot. Her first friend, she thought.
"Exactly. I'm glad you understand," she glanced at him under eyelashes meant to hide her emotion. This man's words of wisdom soothed her doubts. Getting lost in this project would help her immensely. "Plus, I expected the place would need a lot of work. Thanks for stopping and letting me buy some things before we came all the way up here, and it was a good idea of yours for me to bring this bed roll. Thank you so much. The things I had weren’t going to be enough," she admitted.
"Well, let me come in with you Izzy and make sure it's safe though. I’ll check in on you tomorrow to see if there's anything else you need. I got the time, and I don’t mind helping out and running some errands for you here and there."
"Oh, you don't need to do that Graham. You've done so much already," Bella stated as she climbed out of the old pick-up truck.
"Nope. No trouble at all Bella. I insist. I'm an old man and what else do I got to do anyway." Bella walked slowly to the front door with Graham following behind her. She took her time walking over the tall overgrown grass growing along the worn path to the front of the house.
"It's going to be a lot of work Izzy," he huffed and puffed behind her.
***
And it had been. That first day and night Bella had serious misgivings. She needed a better broom, a shovel, and some paint she concluded within the hour. By night fall, she knew she needed some plywood, and one window was broken so it would need to be fixed or boarded up. She definitely would need to take Graham up on his offer, and began to mentally make a list. Oh, and that reminded her, she needed some pens and paper too.
When Graham showed up the next day it look like she hadn't even made a dent in what needed to be done. Almost as if reading her mind he arrived with garbage bags, a shovel and a wheelbarrow and several large brooms. She almost cried when she saw him. He hadn't stayed long, he saw she was overcome with emotion, but again he promised to return the next day. And he had.
When he came the next day he fixed her porch and she had all the debris from inside the house that was falling apart hauled out into a pile in the yard. She was finally making a dent. Just clearing out all she couldn’t use had made a big difference. He promised to bring up one of his nephews and load the pickup and bring it all to the dump. Again, he came to her rescue. The man was an angel sent by her mom to look after her, she thought on more than one occasion.
That day she thanked him profusely and invited him to stay for lunch. She didn't have much, not even electricity. But they enjoyed a peanut butter sandwich and a glass of warm lemonade.
Those first two weeks had flown. Graham had stopped in every day a couple of times with one of his nephews who helped her with some task or another that needed to get done by someone a bit stronger than she. Other times he brought more supplies, and sometimes he just brought food. But each and every time she felt blessed to have him show up out of the mist of the mountains in the morning to break the monotony of her days. And they seemed to fly. She was so grateful, and not just because of the errands, or the food that was much more appetizing than her staple of peanut butter sandwiches, crackers, apples, and beef jerky, but the company was welcome too.
Bella also gave him money for the supplies he brought. At first he refused to accept it but she had insisted. She told him she had some money but she needed to make it last. He never asked any questions. Not even about her not getting the electricity hooked up although he did mention he thought the electricity would still work.
Her only reply was yeah you're probably right. The reason she hadn't hooked it up though was because she didn't know how she was going to get around having an electrical account without showing her identification. She needed some kind of identification, and that she didn’t have. Two days later when Graham showed up he flicked on the switch and she was blessedly surrounded by warm light. She’d been startled at first, but he quickly explained his niece worked at the electric company and he’
d made a call. Her bill, in the name of Izzy Perdue, would come to him until she had a way to get to town and get her own mailbox. Again she thanked him. And to Bella it seemed like she would always be thanking Graham.
"Bella, my people are all about helping each other. We are a community. You’ll find us all approachable. All we expect is if there's an opportunity for you to help someone else then you do it."
Bella choked back her tears but promised him the first opportunity she saw to help another human being she would take it. When he left that day she slipped two hundred dollars into the front pocket of his shirt to pay for the cost of hooking up the electricity. He’d not only gotten her electricity, he’d gotten her a new identity. The man was truly a gift.
He just shook his head at her, gave her a gentle hug and departed.
***
In her third week she regretted not tackling the upstairs loft first. The dust came down in waves on her clean kitchen and living area. She had no appliances yet and thought about asking Graham to take her to a few secondhand shops, but the hotplate he brought was definitely most welcome. It was nice to have warm food on occasion. He had also brought her a small cooler that plugged into the wall. It only held a few bottles of iced tea, milk and eggs, but it did the job. Even these small luxuries she cherished.
Using towels she soaked in a bucket of water she was able to get most of the dust and debris removed from the loft without creating a larger mess below. Broken items were thrown out of the upstairs window into the ever-growing trash pile below. Graham promised to cart everything to the dump again in a few days.
All the furniture that wasn't made out of solid wood was practically rotted. But she had a kitchen table and three chairs. Two small dressers. And one bedframe.
She was still sleeping on her bed roll Graham had encouraged her to buy and she planned on moving it up into the loft that night.
By the end of the third week the place was livable. Though he wouldn't be needed as much, she knew she would miss Graham’s daily visits terribly. He stopped by every morning and usually left by noon. But she still had a ton of projects she wanted to do that would keep her busy.
She planned to work on the outside of the property too, fixing it up. She even asked Graham about paint. The next day he showed up with three five gallon buckets. "The place looks good Bella, but this project is going to take you weeks. I'll bring you a ladder tomorrow." Again when he left she slipped money into his pocket. That's when he told her tomorrow evening he’d be leaving for a few days. She couldn't hide the disappointment that crossed her face.
"Don't worry Izzy. I'll be back. I'm just going to another powwow in South Carolina. These are important activities for our younger generation. It's one of the ways we can teach them about our culture." Graham was special. He was always telling her stories, and she cherished him sharing this part of himself with her. Her father had been half Native American and she never had learned about her own heritage from him. He’d died when she was still a toddler.
"I understand Graham. It's just that I've got used to you being around." Bella attempted to mask the disappointment from her voice.
He smiled down on her kindly. "I'll be by tomorrow and bring you the ladder. You'll have plenty to keep you busy around here. And I’ll have Clara come by and check up on you," he promised.
***
The next day he showed up with the ladder as promised. With his friendship, and her occasional visits to Clara, she was getting comfortable. Soon, she hoped, she’d be able to breathe again, and to not jump in the middle of the night when she heard the slightest noise. With Graham leaving, fear pervaded her thoughts once more; around the next corner the police would find her and all of what she was doing would be for naught.
Blaze was absolutely disgusted with himself. It'd been weeks and still they had no leads on the whereabouts of Miss Bella Chase. He’d spent three days in Tallahassee chasing his tail. They'd found Bella's mom’s Toyota Camry in a Walmart parking lot. It was open 24 hours so no one had picked up on the abandoned vehicle right away. The girl was smart. He'd give her that. With cars coming and going all day and all night long in a university town, no one had noticed the dumped car. It wasn’t until an older gentleman, who had inadvertently scraped the side of the vehicle while pulling out of his parking space, had done the right thing and reported the accident. He’d gone inside the store to have the car’s owner paged, and when no one came in response to the call, the Walmart manager had taken his information and kept a close eye on Bella’s car for the next twenty-four hours. The car sat there for another day and only then did the manager call the police to report an abandoned vehicle.
Once the car had been brought to the police lot and been entered into the system, they were finally alerted. Blaze had gone to Tallahassee in the hopes of tracking her from there, but he'd had no luck. He checked the bus stations and the airport. He even made all the rounds of the taxi cab services in the area flashing her picture around.
After he struck out there, a thought had come to him that had given him a break. He asked the Walmart manager to give him the tape recordings of the parking lot. He spent six hours reviewing them and finally got his first glimpse of Bella Chase—she was a knockout. She'd actually gone into the store. He watched her on the inside cameras shopping for some clothing. She made her purchases with cash. Then she walked out of the store, and out into the parking lot, but instead of going to her vehicle she kept walking right out of his line of vision.
Without any other leads, he canvassed the area. He flashed her picture in a few restaurants and some of the smaller stores nearby. Again, he struck out. The girl had simply vanished.
***
All in all, three days in Tallahassee had turned up nothing. After that he headed to
Tennessee. Andreas and Angela believed she would go there next. The girl had been born and raised in Memphis. So that's where he went.
He'd gone to her hometown, her neighborhood, her old high school. Looking at her yearbook and the clubs she joined, he tried to get an idea of the type of girl she had been. Also to see who she had hung out with, socialized with. The girl didn't have any family left. All had either died or moved on.
Her mother had sold their house. A young family was living there now. The few close friends she had in high school were married and living elsewhere. It seemed like another dead-end. After four days he headed back home to Tampa.
It was two weeks later and they still had nothing. The trial for the Roman brothers was coming up. It would have been her trial too. The young men's attorney was in the news daily. He kept making a stink about her disappearance and the police not doing anything about it. His clients, he claimed, were getting a raw deal just because of who their father was.
"Fuck!" Andreas exclaimed, shutting off the television mounted on his office wall. "I can't believe we can't fucking find her."
"You'll find her," Angela retorted walking into his office with a big stack of papers and nodding at Blaze who sat on the sofa against the far wall.
"From your lips…" Blaze muttered under his breath feeling like a fool.
"Hey, this isn't your fault," Andreas put in. "I took this case because I felt bad for her mother. I should've done my homework a little better. Then maybe we'd have some idea where she went."
"Maybe I could go back to Tallahassee. Look around again," Blaze offered, but was not convinced he’d find anything new. The trail would be too cold by now. Three weeks was a long time for people to remember seeing a face in the crowd even if it was as beautiful as Miss Chase.
"I don't think that will be necessary," Angela quipped raising one perfectly manicured and penciled in eyebrow. Both men looked up at her suddenly as she placed the heavy stack of papers she was carrying on the corner of Andreas's desk. She picked up the manila folder from the top and handed it to Andreas. He just looked at her and gave her a slow smile.
"What's that?" Blaze was suddenly very interested. "Did you find us a lead?"
"I think she did," Andrea's mumbled already scanning the contents of the folder.
"What is it?" he asked getting up and coming around the corner of the desk so he could look at what was in the mysterious file that had Andreas all of a sudden very interested.
"Looks like a Last Will and Testament to me." Andreas broke into a grin and shut the folder handing it to Blaze. "And a lead."
"Whose is it?" he asked, already scanning the contents expecting it to be her mother’s. But that wasn't the case. It was her aunt’s. He scanned the document.
He’d known Bella’s aunt had passed away in an automobile accident nearly a year ago. Her will had taken that long to go through probate. Her sole beneficiaries were her sister and her niece Bella, and since she didn’t have a trust it had gone through the courts. Probate courts were the worse, and took the longest. These papers had been filed months ago, and just now had been settled and distribution granted after the state took their share.
According to the document he held in his hand, Bella and her mom were splitting a small life insurance policy, 100Gs, they got all the jewelry the aunt had owned, and a house. A house? He scanned the document again. Zeroing in on those words. He thought the aunt had lived in a rented condominium after moving to Florida. He flipped to the next page which listed the property named in the will. BINGO. There was a property in North Carolina. He had a place to look. Cherokee, North Carolina. Nowhere near where he had been looking.
He shut the file and looked up at a beaming Angela. Andreas was making coffee humming. Blaze shook his head. Andreas humming?
He put the file down. “I’ll go pack a bag. Ang, can you . . .”
“I’m on it,” she replied over her shoulder already leaving the office and headed out to her desk in the reception area.
Beautiful Chase Page 4
