“So when someone’s dad dies it turns him into a killer?” Nick wasn’t too happy.
“Of course not. Don’t be stupid. But look at the circumstances. He’s left alone, at fifteen, with a mom and three little sisters. He’s suddenly the man of the family, and the normal high school stuff is over. Cross country, the thing he loved the best, becomes something he does alone.”
“Cross country’s all about being alone.”
“But not without support. His mother never even came to his meets. Can you hand me that hammer?”
Finding the boys digging through lumber that morning had reminded me of some stalls that needed repairing. After I got home I found Nick awake and needing something to do, so I dragged him out to the barn, where the two of us tried to do together the work of one person. It felt good to do something physical and see some actual development, even if it was slow going. My brain was tired.
Nick put the hammer in my hand. “What about at MontCo? What did they have to say?”
“Nothing.” After North Penn I’d driven out to Montgomery Community College, where I’d found out exactly zilch about Bryan. Nobody really remembered him, he’d participated in nothing extra-curricular, and the yearbooks had one of those generic “No photo available” graphics in place of a headshot. “Waste of time.”
Queenie, who was lying a few feet away, supervising, leapt to her feet and went racing out of the barn, barking. I hit my thumb with the hammer, then stood up too quickly, getting a head rush in conjunction with my throbbing thumb. I squatted back down.
“You okay?” Nick knelt next to me.
“I’m fine. Can you go see who it is?”
A minute later Carla was standing over me.
She was smirking. “Now what?”
I stood up, slower this time, and held out my red thumb. She winced.
I put my hand down and clenched my thumb in a fist. “How’s your head?”
“Real good, actually. I feel pretty much back to normal.” She was grinning like all get out.
I peeked behind her, but didn’t see the skinny running cowboy. “Where’s Bryan?”
“Work.”
“So how’d you get here?”
She grinned even wider. “Come see.”
It was a brand spankin’ new F250. Shiny silver paint, tires with the little rubber tags still on, and not one scratch or dent or fleck of dust to be seen.
“Wow.” I didn’t know what else to say.
“Went and got her this morning. Isn’t she beautiful?”
I stepped a little closer and took in the perfect leather interior. “You’re allowed to drive?”
“Got the okey-dokey this morning.” She put a loving hand on the hood. “Bryan took me right to the dealer, and I picked her out.”
“She’s gorgeous.”
“Not that I didn’t love my old one.”
“Of course not.”
We had a moment of silence.
“What about a Port-a-Vet?”
She turned around and leaned against the warm truck. “Had to order that special. Should get it by early next week. I’ll have to drive down to Philly to pick it up.”
“Need me to come?”
“No, thanks.”
“Bryan?” I tried not to sound whiny.
She laughed. “No. I can drive myself. They’ll put it right on the truck and I can drive it home.”
“Oh. Right.”
She stepped away from her truck and looked at Nick’s Ranger. “Kinda makes yours look like a little baby.”
Nick grinned. “At least I don’t need a ladder to get into mine.”
“Yeah. It is kind of high, isn’t it? Higher than my old one.”
Another moment of silence.
“So,” Carla said. “Got any ice cream?”
We dug through the freezer and found an old tub of cookies-and-cream. Carla scraped off the top layer and said the rest would be fine. Nick and I watched her eat right out of the box.
“So Willard called me this morning,” she said around a mouthful.
“Yeah?” Before court, I guessed.
“Have you heard the latest?”
I shook my head.
“I thought you were always in the loop.”
I’d thought so, too. “Anyway…” I rolled my hand.
She took another bite. “Anyway, a guy called the police to say that not only did he see someone walking along Route 63 in Green Lane on Sunday, but he stopped and picked him up. He gave a description to the police, but from the description it could be anybody. The guy had on a jacket—”
“In this weather?”
“—and jeans. Sunglasses. And, unfortunately, a Phillies cap.”
Damn. There went the whole regional loyalty thing. “White guy?”
She nodded.
“Hair?”
“Brownish. The guy
thinks
. He didn’t study him real hard because how was he to know the guy was a criminal? Besides, they just talked about the Phillies for a few miles and the rider wanted out.” She looked at Nick. “Guys and their observation skills.”
He held up his hands. “Don’t blame me. I’m not responsible for
every
guy.”
Carla pointed at him with her spoon. “I’ll bet you a million bucks if it had been a blonde with big boobs he woulda remembered
that
.”
“Yeah,” Nick said. “But he wouldn’t have any idea what they talked about.”
She laughed.
“Hey,” I said. “You went out to the Hershbergers to check on their dog last weekend.”
“Who?”
“The Hershbergers. They were just moving in.”
“Oh, that’s right. A cute little terrier. Some kid had stepped on him. I wasn’t sure how it was going to turn out, but the poor thing was just bruised. Why?”
“Carla…that’s the
Hershbergers
. The new minister at Kulpsville Mennonite. The one whose office was vandalized.”
She stared at me, mouth open. I was glad there wasn’t any ice cream in there. “I am so…dense. I just didn’t connect it from what you said before. And I was busy that day. I was headed to Freddy Hill for a dislocated hip when I got the call, and just swung on by their house. We didn’t talk about why they’d moved. I mean, how many people move to this area every day? Zillions. I don’t even think I saw the woman.”
“Who did you see?”
“I don’t know. Moving people.”
“Like…”
She closed her eyes. “Well, Lenny was there. Can’t miss him, since I know him… There was another big guy. He and Lenny were moving a huge bureau, just the two of them.” Had to be David, the brother-in-law. “And lots of other people.”
“Teen-agers?”
“Actually, yeah, now that you mention it. Pretty many of them.”
The Kulpsville MYF.
“Oh,” Carla said. “And some college girl. The Hershbergers’ niece, maybe? Seemed pretty excited to see a woman doing my job.”
“Yeah. She’s into that. Going to be a lawyer. Change the world, you know.”
“More power to her.”
I thought about Carla’s truck. “Did you have the medication on board that day?”
“You mean the Ketamine that got stolen? Yeah, I had some. During on-call days you never know what you’ll need, and I usually take some.”
“And was your Port-a-Vet open so anyone could see in?”
“I don’t know. It wasn’t locked, since I was using it. Anybody could’ve gotten in it, but I’d think they would’ve been noticed.” She studied my face. “Why does all this matter?”
“Because of the connection. It’s the first one between you and any of the other women. What if someone there saw you?”
“Like a church teen? Or the family? Come on.”
“Well, it had to be somebody.”
“Yeah, Stella, a random mugger.”
I stared at her. “You really think so?”
She took another huge bite and gave it time to melt in her mouth before swallowing it. “Willard told me about the signs at the church and the doctor’s office with the nasty stuff. I didn’t get anything like that. All I got was the concussion and the stolen truck. And the stolen drugs. Don’t you think the drugs are all the connection we need?”
She wasn’t getting it.
“So, does Bryan know your routine?”
“What do you mean? I talk to him about work. And he talks to me about his.”
“But does he know about your being on-call and how you take the drugs with you?”
Nick inhaled sharply at the same time Carla slammed her bowl down on the table. “What exactly are you trying to say?”
“Just that—”
“That you can’t stand it that I got a boyfriend and you didn’t know about it. Well, just for your information, Miss
Nosy
, I don’t have to get permission from you. I don’t have to get permission from
anybody
. So you can just take your accusations and your suspicions and your…your
jealousy
…and stick them in somebody
else’s
business.”
And she thundered out of the house—without finishing her ice cream—and down the drive, swerving to miss Queenie and sending gravel flying.
Nick looked at me. “Well, that went well.”
I glared at him and dropped my head down onto the table.
“Oh, shit,” I said.
I turned off the bobcat and watched Bryan’s Tundra pull up beside the barn. Once Carla had left I needed some personal space, and I’d managed to scrape most of the paddock, a bum leg not making much difference with a machine. Nick, who seemed a little annoyed with me, helped Tess, who’d decided to stay after lunch, to clean out the calf hutches. I had a feeling more calf-petting than cleaning was getting done, but they seemed to be having fun.
I slid down from the bobcat and limped out to the fence to see what Bryan wanted. Probably to yell at me for the way things had ended up with Carla. Queenie had stopped barking by now, and was busily smelling Bryan’s pant leg.
I leaned on the gate. “Help you?”
He jumped, then took a deep breath before coming toward me, Queenie following. Bryan didn’t look mad, but then, I really didn’t know him.
I leaned over the fence to scratch Queenie’s head. “What’s up?”
Bryan looked behind me. “Is Carla here?”
“Nope. She was, but she left a little while ago.”
He frowned. “I can’t find her. She’s not at her house.”
“Try her cell phone?”
“Yeah, but it’s not on.”
Probably because she didn’t want me calling her. Even if I did want to apologize.
I looked at his work shirt, with the name tag:
Hi! I’m Bryan. How can I assist you?
“Aren’t you supposed to be at Home Depot?”
“I was. The boss over-scheduled, so I volunteered to leave so I could take care of Carla.” He looked at a loss, and I wondered what he ever did before he met her. Like, a month ago.
“Think maybe her phone being off is a sign?” I asked.
“Of what?”
“That maybe she’d like some alone time?”
“Alone time?”
I swallowed a growl. “You know, like time without someone hovering over her shoulder from dawn to dusk.”
He opened his mouth, then shut it into a firm line. “I can’t imagine what you know about it.”
I blinked. “About what?”
“Anything. Me and Carla. Taking care of someone. Letting someone take care of you.”
“I take care of—”
“Sure. Of course you do. You want to take care of everybody. But do you ever let anyone do anything for
you
? You may not know it, but some people
like
being taken care of.”
Exactly what Nick had been saying about Carla yesterday. “But maybe it’s too much.”
“I’ll tell you what’s too much.
You
. You go around trying to tell Carla what to do, hating me because Carla has someone else in her life now, not letting her enjoy having a man to care about her. But you’re a bad one to say anything. You’re so bent on doing everything yourself you wouldn’t be able to accept help even if it was offered. Oh, yeah, Carla’s told me about you.”
And what exactly had she been saying? I stood frozen, wondering what the hell was going to come out of his mouth next. He plowed on.
“I don’t know what Nick’s thinking, being with you. All you do is boss him around and make him feel like less of a man. One of these days he’s going to realize he wants something more than a one-sided relationship. He’s going to want to be with a
real
woman, who has a soft side and makes him feel needed. Who looks up to him and wants him to be the strong one. So you’d better count your days with him. Because they’re numbered.”
His face went suddenly white, probably at the realization he was actually talking to me—a regular speech, at that—and he turned on his heel and stalked to his truck. The engine gunned into life, and he spun a U-turn and raced out the drive, as Carla had done not long before. I watched as the dust settled back onto the ground, thankful no one else had been close by to hear his rant. I leaned my elbows on the fence and rubbed my face.
Was I really such a monster?
I turned to head back to the bobcat, and stopped. Nick stood about a stone’s throw away, his face a blank.
I looked at him, my breathing heavy through my mouth.
“He doesn’t know me,” Nick finally said. “Or you. Not really.”
I studied his face. “You don’t think so?”
“No.” A small grin appeared. “If he did, he would’ve been much more afraid of talking to you that way.”
If I’d have been closer, I would’ve slugged him. Instead, I said, “You don’t want me to be more of a real woman? With soft edges?”
He laughed. “If you were any more of a real woman I’d be dead by now.” He walked over and put his arms around me. “You are stubborn. And independent. And—”
“Crabby, according to Tess.”
“Well, you can’t help that.”
I punched him lightly in the gut.
“But you’re
my
woman. And it’s going to stay that way.”
I rested my head on his shoulder, the tight knot in my stomach starting to unravel. I stepped back. “Do you think he’s our guy?”
Nick blinked. “What?”
“Look. I haven’t felt right about him since I met him. And now we know how his life changed when he was a kid, forcing him to take care of his mom and sisters. What if that’s what he wants now? What if he thought he was getting a
real woman
, but he’s finding out she’s not what he expected? No matter what he says, she’s pretty independent, too, just like me. She’s got her own career, her own house, her own friends. She doesn’t
need
him. Not like he’s talking about. What if he got frustrated and something snapped? And he’s not just taking it out on her—he’s taking it out on all of these other women, too?”
Nick watched me, shaking his head.
“What?”
“You really want it to be him, don’t you?”
I put my hands on my hips. “It could be.”
“Sure. It could be. It could also be me. Or Zach. Or Lucy’s pastor Pete. Heck, it could be a
woman
for all we know.”
“Carla saw a man.”
“She thinks.”
“The guy in Green Lane picked up a man.”
“Who could’ve been a regular hitchhiker.”
I let out a rush of air. “Look, Bryan’s new on the scene. He’s got a warped sense of what a woman should be.”
“Most men do.”
I stopped. “Do you?”
He smiled. “Probably. But then I did grow up with two sisters.”
I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples. “So you think I’m crazy?”
“Nah. No crazier than usual, anyway.”
I didn’t know what else to say. So I turned and stomped back to the bobcat. When I got there, my foot throbbed. I’d have to learn to walk softer when I was pretending to be mad.