Authors: Marion Faith Carol J.; Laird Lenora; Post Worth
Tags: #Fluffer Nutter, #dpgroup.org
“Does everybody know why I'm staying there?”
“Yup. Don't let it bother you. I've stashed witnesses at the ranch before.”
“Oh.”
Why was that notion so disturbing? Did she want to be the only person he'd ever helped? She was being silly and selfish.
The humid summer air was heavy with the scent of pine and wildflowers as they drove the last three miles to the ranch.
Finally, Matt drove through the gates and around to a house she hadn't noticed last night. It was behind the lodge, a few hundred yards away.
“This is the old family house. It was built in 1866 to replace the cabin the Union burned during the War, and added onto up until about 1890.”
“Do you all live here?”
Matt shook his head as he opened his door. “We did growing up, but each of us has our own place now. I live in town, but I still have my rooms here. When I retire, I'll probably move back out here to the ranch. There's enough acreage to go around.”
Matt opened Lorie's door and gave her a hand out. She was almost getting used to the warm electricity she felt every time they touched. Almost.
The front door opened and a woman stepped out onto the wide porch.
“You must be Lorie. I'm Sandy, Matt's sister. It's so nice to meet you!”
When they reached the top of the stairs, Sandy engulfed Lorie in a hug, which surprised and gratified her.
“Come on in and meet everybody. Dinner's about ready.”
“Thank you. It's nice to meet you, too.” The words could have been meaningless, but Lorie felt as though if she'd met Sandy under different circumstances, they would probably have been friends at once. She hoped they could be, anyway, despite her current circumstances.
“Who's manning the desk?”
Sandy glanced at Matt. “Terry. I filled her in on your instructions.”
“Oh. Okay.” He looked at Lorie. “You won't be meeting my niece Terry right now, but you're probably stuck with everybody else.”
Sandy laughed. “Now, what a thing to say! Isn't he terrible?”
“I hadn't noticed.”
“There's nobody like family to malign your character.” Matt gave Lorie a slow smile that sent her interior into a tizzy.
“Who else knows you so well?” Sandy led the way through the old-fashioned living room into the dining room, which, like the one in Lorie's old house, was attached to the kitchen. “Here, let me introduce you.”
It wasn't quite a bewildering mob, but as Sandy introduced her to “my husband, Gene, our daughter Missy, Jim you've met already, Jim's wife, Alana, their children Billy and Lila, our brother Rick, our sister Clara, our sister Henny-short-for-Henrietta, and our baby brother, Jake,” Lorie felt as though her head was spinning.
“And I'm Lorie, Matt's current case.”
“Oh, you're a case all right.” Jake had a heartbreaker's grin.
Another brother chimed in. “And I'm guessing he's got a case on you.”
“Rick!”
“Now, Matt, don't get all bent out of shape. She's a pretty lady. And not nearly as geeky as she was in high school.”
“Yeah, if you don't want to date her, how about giving your little brothers a recommendation?”
Lorie felt the tension draining from her. Now she remembered Ricky MacGregor, class clown.
When Jim prayed over the meal, the heavy weight of fear in Lorie's heart lifted.
“Lord, bless this food, the hands of those who prepared it, and bless our guest, Lorie. Give us all the strength we need from it, and make us be a blessing to those around us, in Jesus's name. Amen.”
Lorie blinked away tears. “Thank you.”
Jim just nodded.
Only one problem came to mind: if Lorie became truly comfortable here at the ranch with these wonderful people, she might forget to be cautious. And that would put not only her, but all of them, at risk.
ELEVEN
M
att tried to watch Lorie surreptitiously as her plate was filled with corn pudding, fried chicken, salad, mashed potatoes and gravy, but she caught him looking and smiled. His sisters and sisters-in-law drew her into conversation and made sure Lorie didn't feel left out. The kids clustered at one end of the large mahogany table, the grown-ups at the other.
He could get used to having Lorie's gentle presence among them. He imagined her at the small dinette in his kitchen in town. She would light up the whole house.
Pain clutched at his heart as he remembered the plans he and LorieâLoreneâhad made. He'd wanted to make
her
his whole life, and see where that had gotten him! No, now was not the time to be thinking about Lorie Narramore as anything more than a case. Maybe it never would be time.
* * *
“I got a liberry card.” Billy gave Lorie a snaggletoothed grin.
“Me, too.” His sister elbowed him. “I saw you at the library before, Miss Narramore.”
Why didn't she remember?
“Mrs. Jen checked out my books for me.”
Of course. Whew. They hadn't actually had a meeting that she'd forgotten. With so many patrons, it was hard to keep them straight out of context, and she'd been greeted many times in the grocery store by familiar faces whose names she couldn't recall.
“You're welcome in the library anytime.”
“I'm glad.” Alana handed Lorie a plate of hot scratch biscuits. “I was afraid they'd turn into little computer geeks and never open a book, but I got to them early.”
Jim laughed. “More likely to have turned into little cowhands here on the ranch.”
“That, too.” Alana set down the plate. “I'm a teacher at Flavius Holt Elementary, so I try to make sure my students get the best of all worlds, not just technology, in the classroom.”
“That must be a challenge.”
“It is, but I love it.”
“Do you ride?” Rick asked.
“No.” Lorie felt the disappointment in the room, but most of it came from Matt. “I never had the chance growing up, and then it was too late. We didn't have the money, either. Mamaw and Papaw had chickens and a few cows, but no horses. I think Papaw was going to get me a pony, but he had a heart attack when I was nine, and after that...”
“Did he die?” Lila's sky-blue eyes were wide.
“Yes.”
“Is he with Jesus?”
Lorie nodded, and she felt another tear slide out the corner of her right eye. “Yes, honey. He's with Jesus. That's my biggest comfort, knowing I'll see him and Mamaw again.”
“We lost our memaw.” Missy spoke directly to Lorie for the first time. “I miss her so much.”
“I miss mine, too.”
“Are you coming to church with us tomorrow?” Billy shoved half a honey-and-butter-slathered biscuit in his mouth.
“I don't know.”
“I hope so.” Lila smiled. “We got a real nice church.”
“So do I.”
“Where do you go?” Sandy asked.
“Wolf Hollow Community Church, but since it's so far from here...maybe I could go with y'all tomorrow.”
Matt spoke up. “We'd love to have you.”
Lorie looked at Matt and wondered whether he meant for church, or if they'd love to have her in their lives. Could she deal with that?
It was too soon to tell.
* * *
After lunch, the family scattered. Jim and Rick told Matt they were planting the back forty today. Jake was off to take a few dudes on a trail ride.
Matt led Lorie back outside to the car. It was so peaceful here. She couldn't imagine why anyone who lived here would want to work anywhere else.
“Why did you go into law enforcement?”
Matt looked surprised as he opened her car door for her. “You mean, instead of settling down and ranching with my family?”
“Something like that.”
“I wanted to make a difference. To help people who needed me.”
“Didn't your family need you?”
“Yes, but in a different way. Besides, once they found out my heart wasn't in giving riding lessons to city kids, they told me to follow my dream.”
Matt got into the car, and they drove the half mile to the cabins in silence.
“I don't know what made me become a librarian. I've always loved books, of course, but I thought I might work in a bookstore, or be an editor.”
“You never thought about writing?”
Lorie laughed. “Not with the English courses I took. They made it seem like work. All that syntax and grammar and dissecting themes. The writing exercises I took in college made me able to write good essays, but I guess I don't have the novelist gene in me. I get my imagination fix by reading the works of others.”
Matt opened the door to Lorie's cabin, and Colleen bounded out to greet them, the neck cone framing her face.
“She's looking better today.”
Lorie nodded as she petted the collie. “I pray she heals soon, and that nothing opens her wound back up. At least it's where she'll have trouble scratching it.”
“We should drive back out to your place and see if we can find the cats.”
A pang of joy shot through Lorie's heart. “That's thoughtful of you.”
“I'll bring a camera and get more photos of the evidence. Then we'll see if there's anything left to salvage.”
Matt's words tore through Lorie. Most of her memories of Mamaw and Papaw were tied up in that house, in that land. Last night, she'd been in too much shock to take in specifics. Part of her dreaded seeing all the damage in the clear light of day, but she knew that Matt was right. She needed to get out to the farm and go through things.
* * *
As they inched up the gravel driveway to the house in Wolf Hollow, it was hard to see that any destruction had been done. Whoever their perp was, he'd made sure nothing showed from outside on the road. At least it showed he wasn't trying to leave a message for anyone but Lorie.
“It doesn't even look damaged.” Lorie echoed Matt's thoughts.
“We'll need to get a locksmith out here.”
“I'll call my cousin's husband, Ike, again. He replaced the window and the door lock at the library for me.”
“Good idea.”
The front door was still secure. The perp had broken in through the kitchen, and the chair they'd wedged under the door before they left last night was still in place.
In daylight, everything looked worse. Not one item appeared to have been left in its original spot.
“Nice place you've got here.”
Lorie laughed.
“No, I mean it. The old house has good bones. What was it, a farmhouse?”
“Yes. It was homesteaded in the 1850s, and then Mamaw and Papaw put in electricity and running water when they bought it back in the 1950s.”
“Well? Septic tank?”
Lorie nodded. “The only bad part is when the lights go off, I lose the water. However, I don't know if you noticed in the kitchen, but I had a hand pump reinstalled.”
“I did notice. I wondered.”
“The lights go out too often to suit me. I'm a city girl, remember.”
“A city girl with country roots.”
“The best of both worlds.” Lorie stood beside the overturned sofa. “If you help me, I think we can put this upright again.”
Matt put his muscle into it, and they pushed the sofa against the south wall. “There you go, Dobbin. Good as new.”
“I'm thankful they didn't slash him to pieces.” Lorie patted the sofa as if it were another pet. “That would have been too much.”
“At least the piano looks all right.”
The old upright's crocheted Victorian piano scarf lay askew, half on and half off, giving the piano the air of a drunken floozy. The glass oil lamp that used to sit on it had been overturned. Lorie wrinkled her nose at the odor of scented lamp oil rising from the soaked carpet.
“You'll need to clean that.” Matt picked up the lamp. “At least it didn't break.”
“I'm glad.”
“How many things can you find to be glad about here, Pollyanna?”
“Hmm. That's a hard one, but here goes. One, I wasn't here when they broke in and trashed my place. Two, my lamp isn't broken. Threeâ” she straightened the piano scarf “âthey didn't steal the piano. Four, Dobbin's all right. How's that?”
“A good start.” Matt snapped his fingers. “I forgot to take more pictures. Be right back.”
He ran out to the car and fetched the camera.
When he returned to the living room, he found Lorie standing by a large framed reproduction of
Christ in Gethsemane.
He'd last seen it hanging over the fireplace.
“They broke the frame.”
The ornate gilded plaster was cracked. Several pieces had fallen onto the native stone hearth. Plaster dust coated everything in the vicinity.
“How old was it?”
“It belonged to my great-grandparents. I think it was a wedding present, so it must date from about 1919. Now it's ruined.”
Matt wanted to offer to buy her a new one, but it wouldn't be the same. “Maybe it can be repaired.”
Lorie nodded, but he could tell her heart wasn't in it.
“Let me get some pictures.”
“Be my guest. I'll go outside and look for the cats.” The screen door squawked and slammed, and a moment later, Matt heard her calling the cats by name.
Matt made his way through the house, snapping photos, taking measurements, and in general following up on what the CSI team had done. He'd worked crime scenes often enough to know what to do and how to do it.
Lorie reappeared in the kitchen doorway with the three cat carriers.
“Is it okay to fill the cats' dishes with stuff from the kitchen?”
Matt followed Lorie into the kitchen, where all the cupboards had been emptied. Dishes littered the floor, some broken, others helter-skelter on top of the shards. Seeing it like this fueled an angry fire. Destruction for destruction's sake always did.
“Wait a few minutes, okay?”
Lorie nodded. “May I remove our booby trap?”
“Yes. See if you can remember where it was before we moved it last night.”
Lorie picked up the heavy Rococo dining chair and laid it on its side in the pattern of spilled rice and flour, then moved out of Matt's way.
He photographed everything. As he did a circuit of the room, taking enough photos to make a 360-degree collage, he spotted canned cat food next to a box of kitty kibble.
“I've got what I need in here. Don't use the kibble, in case they poisoned it. The cans should be all right.” Setting the chair upright again, he handed Lorie the broom and picked up the dustpan. “We need to get this clear before we try to feed the cats.” She'd been through enough. Matt didn't want her cats to be harmed.
Lorie swept up all the kibble and other spilled staples she could see and, with Matt's assistance holding the dustpan, deposited the mess in the trash can.
“Thanks. That ought to be safe. I only hope they didn't eat any already.”
Lorie picked up three cat dishes from the floor and ran water in them before taking cans to the can opener. Before she opened the first one, she opened the window over the 1950s-era white metal sink.
“Maybe they'll hear the can opener. It usually works.”
The roar of the motor from the can opener was loud enough to bring in more than three little cats. It could have called in wolves from the wild.
“You ever consider replacing that?”
Lorie turned to look at him. “What? Mamaw only bought it in 1978. It's still perfectly good.” Her laughter sent warmth through Matt's veins. He ignored it.
“What did you do with your stuff when you moved back from California?”
“Sold most of it at a garage sale. My friends helped me. I gave away a bunch of it.” She smiled. “Although I must admit, if I'd remembered how bad this old thing was, I would have brought my own can opener.” She placed their dishes into the cat carriers, hoping it would attract them, since the vandals had destroyed their familiar ones.
Three cats appeared at the screen door and loudly demanded entry.
“There you are! You girls scared me last night, you know that?”
Lorie passed between the dining room table and the sideboard to push open the screen door. The cats, a calico, an orange tiger-kitty and one white cat with a gray tabby tail and ears streaked into the kitchen and straight to their bowls.
Matt quickly helped Lorie fasten the carrier doors before the cats could change their minds.
“Typical felines. Just want a meal.”
Lorie looked at Matt. “Don't you like cats?”
“Wouldn't want to do without them. Ours live in the barn and keep the mice from getting out of control.”
The house phone rang. Lorie started.
Matt spoke before the second ring. “Do you have a speakerphone?”
Lorie shook her head.
Matt followed her to the living room, where they found the phone under a chair cushion. Lorie picked it up and held the receiver out where they could both listen. Her apple-scented shampoo tickled his brain.
“Hello?”
The voice on the other end was run through some kind of processor, but the message was perfectly clear.
“
Murderer
.”
* * *
Panic seized Lorie, and she couldn't speak. Matt mouthed the words “Keep him on the line” and punched a few silent numbers on his cell phone.
“Uh.” Brilliant. “Who is this?”
“That's unimportant.”
The processor made the speaker sound like a robot.
“You stole a life. Now yours is forfeit. But first, I'm taking away everything you love. And everyone. Starting with your parents.”
Click.
“No!” Lorie met Matt's eyes. “Were you able to trace it?”
Matt shook his head. “Not long enough. We'll get the records from the phone company.”