“Whoa,” Jake said. “Slow down or you’ll burn out.”
Archer leaned on the end of his shovel. “Guess I’m trying to work out my frustrations. I don’t like not knowing who’s lurking out there. Did Carothers share any updates with you?”
“He questioned Withrow at the jail, but the guy won’t talk. Carothers also requested the bow-hunting information and pulled the incident report for when the arrow was fired at Emily. There was nothing you wouldn’t expect in the report.”
“Can I get a copy of it anyway?” Archer hoped when he got a look at it that he would find a lead of some sort.
“I’ll email it to you.”
“What about forensics? Anything there?”
“No prints on the gas can, but the good news is that it’s a proprietary item from one of the big auto parts stores,” Jake replied, flicking a glance his way. “It’s a newer item sold only in the last few months so Carothers is working on getting video footage for customers who purchased that model.”
“Could be a lot of footage to go through.”
“Depends on how long the stores keep their video files. Also, you should know that the cans are sold online. Carothers is requesting sales information for those transactions, too.” Jake’s eyes narrowed. “Did you turn up anything new in the pictures Emily took the night of the fire?”
Archer shook his head. “We passed the pics and Emily’s list on to Carothers. He has a team interviewing everyone on the list, but there’re fifty or more names on there.”
“It’ll take weeks to get through all of them.” Jake propped a hand over his eyes to block the sun as he stared over Archer’s shoulder. “That doesn’t look good.”
“What?” Archer asked.
Jake pointed across the lot. A lime-green sedan drove up and parked at the road a quarter mile from Emily’s driveway. A man climbed out of the driver’s seat. He leaned on the roof of the vehicle, lifted a pair of binoculars and peered at the house.
Archer’s brain fired on all circuits and his innate sense of danger put his senses on high alert. The guy tossed the binoculars into the car and started up the driveway. He walked in a halting, limping gait and seemed to be filled with purpose. Archer shot a concerned look at Emily. She was sitting at the picnic table with the other women. Right in the guy’s intended path.
He wouldn’t try to hurt Emily in front of them all, would he? Withrow hadn’t minded an audience, in fact, he craved one.
Archer’s adrenaline surged. No way he would let the man get close to her. He dropped the shovel and charged for the ladder.
“Slow down,” Jake warned. “Remember. Safety first.”
“I’m thinking about safety,” Archer muttered. “Emily’s safety.”
TEN
Emily got up from the picnic table. She would have liked to continue talking with Darcie and Krista, but she had a lot to accomplish while Birdie napped. In addition to cleaning up from the fire, several loads of laundry waited for her. There were eggs to collect, a garden to water and produce to harvest.
“Emily!” Archer shouted from his ladder. He was descending so fast she suspected the house might be on fire again. He hit the ground and charged in her direction.
She glanced at Jake, who held his hand over his eyes and stared at the road. Was there another problem? Another imminent attack?
Her heart started racing and she faced Archer again.
“In the house. Now!” His authoritative voice rang through the clearing as he rushed to her side and directed her toward the door. “There’s a guy on his way up the drive. He was watching the house.”
“Cash,” Jake yelled. “Check the guy out.”
She heard movement behind her, but didn’t slow down to confirm Cash was on the move. She hurried up the steps and inside the house where Archer locked the door after them. She went straight to the big picture window in the living room to see what was occurring outside.
Archer joined her and jerked the curtains closed. “Stay away from the window.”
She stared at him. “Aren’t you overreacting?”
He lifted his gaze to her face. Worry hung in his eyes. “This guy could be a threat.”
“Do you really think this guy is going to try to hurt me with you all here?”
“I suspect it’s not every day that a man sits in his car at the road and watches your house with binoculars.”
His statement brought back similar incidents that had occurred in the past few months. “Not every day, but it has happened. Did you get a good look at this man and can you describe him?”
“Short, bald, pudgy.”
“Lime-green car?” she queried.
“Yes, you know him?”
She nodded. “Freddie Baumann. He’s a disgruntled guest who stayed here six months ago. He was injured when he fell through a rotten floorboard on the third floor.”
Archer raised a brow. “What was he doing in your personal living area?”
Emily hated to tell this story, as she’d had to recount it so many times, and even ended up testifying in civil court when Freddie sued them for his injury. But if Archer was going to continue to help them, he needed to know about the situation.
She took a deep breath and blew it out before starting. “The injury occurred before I moved back here. I was visiting for the weekend, and Freddie nagged me to go out with him. I kept saying no, but he wouldn’t give up. On his last day here, he snuck upstairs hoping to find me.”
“Persistent guy.” A crease appeared between Archer’s brows. “Not that I’m surprised. I can understand why a guy would go to extreme lengths to get your attention.”
“You can?”
Archer held her gaze for a long moment, and she was unable to look away. “Of course. You’re beautiful. Generous and caring. Why wouldn’t a guy want to date you?”
“Maybe because I try my best to give a hands-off vibe to all men.” She crossed her arms for emphasis.
“So that’s what’s going on here.” He gestured between them. “It’s not just me you’re pushing away, it’s all men.”
“Most guys get my signals.” She gave him a pointed look. “Some, like Freddie, don’t and I need to verbally tell them to back off.”
A flash of irritation darkened his eyes. She’d hit a nerve. Good. Maybe he’d ease up on the interest he was transmitting, and she wouldn’t have to work so hard to keep her guard up around him.
He parted the curtains and peered out before turning back. “Looks like Cash has everything under control. He intercepted Freddie and is talking to him.”
“I really don’t think Freddie’s a threat. He’s angry, yes. And hates me? Totally. But kill me? I doubt it.”
“So let’s sit down and you can tell me about him.” Archer gestured at the sofa.
Emily perched on the edge of a club chair instead to prevent him from sitting close enough so she could catch a whiff of the minty soap from his morning shower.
He leaned against the wall, his pose meant to appear casual, she supposed, but his gaze was razor sharp, and his hand rested on his sidearm.
“Like I said,” she stated, “Freddie followed me upstairs and waited in the hallway for me to come out of my room. When I did, he hurried toward me. There were several rotten floorboards that we hadn’t gotten around to fixing so I yelled at him to stop. He ignored me like he’d been doing for days and kept coming. The wood cracked, and he fell through.”
The frustration of the day came flooding back, and she released a shaky breath. “He asked me to help him free his leg. I recommended we wait for professional assistance, but he kept harping at me until I finally complied. I shouldn’t have. I knew better. And when the jagged wood ripped his leg open, I was mortified. He ended up being hospitalized, where he developed a staph infection, and the
y wound up amputating his leg.”
“They say people often get sicker in a hospital than when they went in.”
“I know, right?” She swallowed past the emotion clogging her throat. “But he blamed me for the loss of his leg. And maybe he was right, I don’t know. If I’d waited for help, he wouldn’t have been injured.”
Archer pushed off the wall and planted his feet. “But he badgered you to help.”
“Still, that’s not how he told his side of the story, and it was his word against mine when he sued us.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Maybe not, but I had suggested we wait for professional help to extract him and then went against my own plan of action. His lawyers brought that up in court. Made me look like an idiot for trying to help him.” Sighing, she clasped her hands tightly in her lap. “But the real kicker was that he claimed we were negligent in maintaining the building.”
“But he was trespassing in an area where guests didn’t belong,” Archer argued.
“Our attorney tried using that in our defense, but the judge claimed that the burden of guests’ safety fell on our shoulders. If we didn’t want our customers in the private quarters then we should have secured the area.”
“I can see his point but still...” He lifted a shoulder in the briefest of shrugs.
“The good news for us is that Freddie didn’t go to a follow-up doctor’s appointment so the judge claimed he was negligent in not seeking appropriate medical care on a timely basis, too. As a result, he got very little money. The bad news is that our insurance rates skyrocketed and the attorney bills...” She shook her head. “Those bills are what started the financial downfall of the B and B, and the reason I put all of my savings into the business, then came back here to try to revive it.”
A contemplative look crossed Archer’s face. “So why does Freddie sit at the road and watch you?”
“He’s mad. Simple as that. He was a roofer but with his leg issue he can’t work anymore so he sits there glaring up at the place instead. Seems to make him happy. If we pass by, he curses us and goes into a tirade. It’s like he wants to do something to get back at us, but he’s trying to figure out what to do.”
Archer chewed on the inside of his cheek for a moment. “You said you once thought the pot rack and arrow were accidents, but the other things that occurred—didn’t you wonder if Freddie could be behind them?”
“Honestly, no. In hindsight, I guess I should have questioned it, but the computer repair guy said many businesses get hacked, and I thought the computer issues were just a run of bad luck. And if I had questioned it, as a roofer, I wouldn’t think Freddie possessed computer skills.”
“Do you think he’s capable of starting a fire?”
“Capable?” Emily considered it. “I don’t know. I mean anyone can start a fire, right? And if he’s mad enough, I suppose he might choose that route to get back at us.”
A gleam appeared in Archer’s eyes and he angled a look her way. “Think back to the days when you saw Freddie. Did any of the strange events or even the attempts on your life happen on those days?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Can you pin down the days Freddie visited?”
She caught sight of the B and B calendar sitting on the sign-in table in the foyer. “I can look at our calendar of events to see if I can figure it out.” She hurried to the foyer to grab it.
Archer came after her. “You’re too close to the window.” He put his hand on her back and urged her toward the living room.
His touch gave Emily a sense of comfort—of well-being—but at the same time, it worried her. She thought telling him about Freddie would ease Archer’s concern and he’d stand down a bit, but his hypervigilant expression stayed in place, leaving her just as uneasy.
She returned to the chair and ran her finger over the reservations and events to see if she could reconstruct her days. Furrowing her brow, she spotted Mrs. Wicker’s reservation. She was the sweetest bird-watcher who’d spent a week at the B and B. Emily smiled as she remembered how famously the woman got along with Birdie. Mrs. Wicker had a ready laugh and was short and stout because she loved her desserts. Particularly cheesecake.
Cheesecake. Emily’s heart skipped a beat.
“Here.” She jabbed her finger on the last Saturday of Mrs. Wicker’s visit. “The day the pot rack fell. Freddie was here. I didn’t see him, but I remember because I was in the middle of making a cheesecake for Mrs. Wicker that day. She’d gone to a bird-watching meeting, and when she returned, she told me about Freddie’s car at the road.”
“Then Baumann should definitely be added to our suspect list. He’s as viable as Taylor or Fannon.”
Emily shot a glance his way. “But Delmar already admitted he did it.”
“He also denied it, so we can’t take his word for anything,” he reminded her.
“Then how did he know about it?”
“News travels fast in small towns. He could have heard about it and simply mentioned it at the standoff to scare you.” Archer started for the foyer, his hand firmly planted on his sidearm.
“Where are you going?”
“To talk to Baumann,” he got out between clenched teeth.
“Sounds like you’re going to do more than talk.”
He eyed her. “Let me be clear about this, Emily. I don’t like what the guy did to you. Dragging you through court for something he did. Don’t like it one bit. But all I plan to do is ask him a few questions. Now, if during that time, he tries something...” The side of Archer’s mouth curved up. “That will be a different matter.”
He stepped to the door. “You stay here and away from the windows. I’ll have Noah stand duty on the front porch.”
“Noah, really? Don’t tell me he’s a deputy, too.”
“We’re not all deputies, you know.”
“I didn’t think you could be.”
“He’s a Portland police detective.” Archer winked and stepped outside.
Despite his warnings, she went to the window and watched. After speaking with Noah, he marched straight to Freddie. Archer held his shoulders in a hard line and he fisted his hands at his side.
She’d never met a man like him. One who put others first. Her father was a taker. Everything was all about him. And the other guys her mother had ended up with? All takers, too. Her mother seemed to attract the type. Emily had had the same problem in the past, making it easy to stay detached.
Until now. Until Archer.
He seemed genuine. Not hiding some big secret that would blow up a relationship. Not living only for himself. When he decided to settle down, he’d make some woman very happy. It just wouldn’t be her.
She continued to watch him talk to Freddie. Nearly thirty minutes passed when Freddie raised a fist as if to punch Archer, but suddenly let his hand fall and limped down the driveway with Cash as his escort.
When Freddie was out of view, Archer jogged back to the house. He mumbled something to Noah, then stepped inside and joined her in the living room.
She returned to her chair. “What did Freddie have to say?”
“Not much. He was belligerent about most everything. I had no authority to pressure him and he knew it. He claimed he’d heard about the fire in passing and came by just to see if everyone was okay.”
“Right, like he cares about us,” she said. “And he lives in Portland so I doubt he heard about the fire in passing.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
“Doesn’t mean he started the fire, though.” She couldn’t believe she was defending Freddie.
“You’re right, but when I asked him where he was that night, he just smiled.”
Sighing in frustration, she slid him a look. “So what happens next?”
“I’ll call Ca
rothers and make sure he brings Baumann in for questioning. If he’s guilty, hopefully he’ll lose his bravado under interrogation and confess.”
The door opened and Cash marched inside. “Baumann’s on his way, but you should know, I saw ammo clips in his car.”
Archer’s eyes widened. “You think he’s carrying?”
Cash nodded. “I had no right to search his car or even ask for his permit, but man, you gotta think he’s carrying. Otherwise, why would he have ammo in his car?”
“No reason,” Archer said, concern oozing through his words. “No reason at all.”
* * *
In the cottage, Emily grabbed fresh fruit draining in the colander and arranged it on a platter to round out the lunch she’d prepared for Birdie and the team. The men kept working on the roof and the women used a shop vac connected to a generator they’d brought from Portland to remove water upstairs and prepare the guest rooms. Emily helped them for a while, but then spent the rest of the morning with Birdie and their electrician. The fire hadn’t damaged any of the electrical lines and they’d been cleared to use the power again.
Emily put the platter on her tray. She half expected Krista or Darcie to offer to help set the table. That’s the kind of women she’d discovered they were. Emily didn’t need to give them a task. They just pitched in wherever needed. And Emily would like to call them friends. But she was rusty in the making-friends department. Rusty, ha! She was just plain out of her league.
So many times over the years her mother moved in or married a guy. Not really caring that meant Emily moved, too. New schools. Upended at a whim. Meant Emily had very few friends. As an adult, she was socially awkward much of the time. But these women? This group? They were proving easy to get to know. How amazing that they gave up their day to help her out. Then there was Archer’s kindness in arranging it all.
She heard shovels scraping on the roof. Saw through the window, the shingles tossed to the ground. Archer worked so hard on her behalf. If it had been up to her to find local volunteers to do the work, she would have gone to Birdie’s church family for help. Emily was always welcome at that church even if she hadn’t attended much since she’d come back. But asking for help? She’d feel like she was taking advantage of them. The same with the Oregon Free group. She tried to make meetings and assist in the causes, but she had to stay with Birdie most of the time. So she took on keeping their books. A solitary activity.
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