The Surprise Princess (12 page)

He kept his head down as he swept up the sloped ramp toward the outside, while keeping his peripheral vision on the lookout for “just a guy.”

Nothing. He kept sweeping, stopping to pick up the accumulation and dump it in the can.

He was two-thirds of the way up when a man arrived, nearly five minutes late. He gave Brad a sharp look, then seemed to dismiss him. Brad kept sweeping and dumping. Only now, as he dumped with one hand, he shot as many pictures as he could with the other, shooting under his arm to mask the phone from the guy.

At the top of the ramp, they were only ten feet apart. Brad had to be more careful taking pictures, but surely some would be useable. Slowly, he started back down, stopping to resweep areas, still shooting.

The guy paced, looking around at every sound.

With Brad nearly back to the bottom, the guy swore loudly and strode off.

Brad could see Corston, his eyebrows raised, asking a question. Brad shook his head and kept up his charade for another minute – the time it took to complete his task, and to disappear from view of anyone who happened to be looking down the ramp.

“You take the path toward the lake, I’ll take the path toward town,” he told Corston as he pulled off the jacket. “Give it twenty minutes. If you don’t spot him, go back to the office. If you do, call me, I’ll do the same.”

As he moved quickly along the path, Brad swept through the photos, sending three good ones to Hunter and emailing himself the complete set.

But maybe that cost him some time, because he never spotted the guy. Even going beyond campus and over the twenty minutes, walking up and down streets, ducking in to a couple garages, trying to spot the man.

Finally admitting defeat, he turned and headed toward the basketball office across campus.

He made use of the time to call Corston, who was back at the office and hadn’t seen anything. “Uh, Katie would like to know where you are, when you’re getting back, and what you’re doing.”

“Tell her I’m heading back. Everything still calm with the kid?”

“Yeah. She’s been feeding him, and hearing his life story.”

Brad muttered, “Don’t let her adopt him before I get back.”

Next he called Hunter and reported.

“Good work, Spencer. Got the photos you sent. Don’t recognize him and initial review shows no links. A detailed review is going on now. I should be there in thirty or forty minutes.”

Brad checked his watch and whistled. “Air traffic control know you’re around? And how did you look at the photos driving like that?”

“I’m not the one driving.”

But Hunter was alone when he eventually knocked at the locked basketball office door and they let him in.

Brewster and Corston had left as soon as Brad returned, but C.J. said he wasn’t going anywhere. They sat with Katie and the kid, whose name was Tim and who’d clearly enjoyed a generous picnic all over his desk.

When Hunter arrived, they left Tim where he was and updated Hunter in the main office.

At the end, Katie declared, “You can’t hold that boy indefinitely.”

Hunter spoke over Brad and C.J.’s arguments to hold on to the kid. “Not indefinitely. I’d like to have a word with him. But first, I have a favor to ask you, Katie. Will you please go home right now?”

“I don’t see why I—”

He leaned down and said something into her ear, too quietly for anyone else to hear.

She clearly wanted to keep protesting, but didn’t. “That,” she said to Hunter, “is dirty pool.”

She got her purse from her desk, stood, and walked out.

C.J. let out a soft whistle. “Can you teach me that trick? I’ve never won any discussion with Katie, much less one so short.”

Amusement came into Hunter’s eyes, but didn’t reach his mouth. “Maybe later, Coach Draper. Right now, I want to talk to this young man. Brad, I’d like to have you in there as a witness, but you can’t say anything. Understood?”

“I don’t like Katie going home alone. You can say it’s Ashton and the kid only went after a coffee mug, but—”.

“You stay, help Hunter,” C.J. interrupted. “I’ll follow Katie home then head home myself if that suits you, Hunter.”

“Sure.”

“That good enough, Brad?”

He nodded, because the feeling that it damned well wasn’t good enough was irrational and he knew it.

“Call if you need anything, Hunter.” C.J. took off. His long legs would make up enough time on Katie that she’d be in his sight before she reached the parking lot.

Hunter cleared his throat.

“Brad, unless I hear something unexpected from this kid, I don’t see a serious threat to Katie’s safety. I have a good bit of experience with this, plus I ran it by my boss on the phone on the way up. I’m telling you this to try to put your mind at ease, not because we aren’t going to pursue it full-out. We are.

“One more thing before we go in there, would you mind giving me a ride to Katie’s house when we’re done?”

“What happened to the car you came up in?”

“It’s not here anymore.”

Which gave Brad a strong suspicion of how Hunter had gotten Katie to go home. He’d bet she’d gone to meet April, who’d dropped off Hunter, then driven to Katie’s house.

Brad’s suspicion was confirmed in a little over an hour. A rental car was parked in front of the house. He and Hunter found April Gareaux inside.

Katie let them in and gestured toward the kitchen. They’d probably have gone there without the gesture, drawn by mouth-watering smells.

“Oh, good,” April said immediately. “Now that you’re here, we can have an early dinner, then go to the festival.”

“Festival?” Hunter repeated with disapproval.

“It’s the Ice-Out Festival. It’s to celebrate when Lake Ashton’s no longer iced in – get it? Katie’s been telling me about it. That’s why you couldn’t find a hotel room.”

“That’s right. No rooms anywhere.” Hunter turned to Katie. “Any chance you can put us up tonight?”

“Of cour—”

“She’s putting us
all
up tonight,” Brad said. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe what Hunter had said about this not being a serious threat, but that didn’t mean he was letting her out of his sight.

“I’m happy to have you stay here, April and Hunter. But I don’t need security,” she added pointedly to him.

“What you need is a dog,” April said. “They’re great security.”

Hunter coughed.

“Okay, so ours aren’t great guard dogs, but they’d discourage someone from trying to break in.”

“Nobody’s going to break in,” Katie protested. She swung back to Hunter. “After talking with Tim, I’m sure you know– Oh, did he give you more information? You didn’t get him in trouble with campus police, did you? Most students would have been tempted to make some money from a harmless prank. He’s a kid—”

“A kid who scared you and invaded your privacy,” Brad said.

Katie ignored him.

Hunter said, “We let him go after he went over the details. We got his contact information, and, uh, emphasized the need for absolute discretion. More people, more leaks, more attention focused on you. Low-key is best. Coach Draper knows, but the other coaches—”

“They won’t say anything,” Katie said.

“Corston and Brewster don’t know much to say even if they wanted to.” Brad lifted the lid off a slow cooker, the source of some of the good smells.

April chuckled, tipping her head to direct his attention toward Katie, who frowned fiercely at him.

“Hey, I’m not saying they
would
say anything, I’m just being practical. What is this?”

“Beef stew Katie made. Biscuits should be done soon,” April said. “And after dinner we can go to the festival.”

Before Brad could say what a lousy idea he thought that was, Hunter said to April, “Remember, the reason you came straight here to Katie’s house was to stay out of the public eye.”

“Unless that was a ploy to get me out of the office,” Katie inserted with a glint of mischief.

“It was not,” Hunter said firmly. “If April’s recognized it’ll stir up talk about how much you two look alike. Do you want that, Katie?”

“No,” she conceded.

But April was saying, “Oh, we’ve got that covered.” She pulled a blonde wig and oversized gray hoodie from a bag. “Isn’t this perfect? Katie had the wig from Halloween. And with the hoodie pulled up nobody’ll see much of my face. And I have some truly awful makeup planned. You’ll hardly recognize me.”

Hunter eyed the items, but all he said was, “No sense chewing on this until we have more information.” He cracked the oven door. “Though I wouldn’t mind chewing on something.”

April laughed. “Subtle, Pierce.”

Katie went into overdrive, preparing fruit salad with April, directing him and Hunter to move the table out from the wall and bring more chairs. Soon they were digging in.

Conversation about anything but food flagged, not resuming until they’d each had a healthy wedge of apple pie with cheese on it.

Hunter received a call as he finished and went outside to take it. They were cleaning up when he returned.

“Nothing definitive,” he said in response to their questioning looks. “So far, there’s no indication anything more serious than trying to snatch the mug was involved.”

“Good. Then we can go to the Ice-Out Festival,” April said.

“No way,” Brad said.

Katie frowned at him. “It was no—”

“It
is
a big deal. What if whoever hired your pal Tim also hired other people to come after you?”

“Good point, Brad,” Hunter said. “But that’s a reason for us to go — to flush out any more Tims, we’re both on hand. If Katie stays out of sight all weekend, we leave, then she returns to work next week, someone could try then.”

He muttered.

There was no way Katie could have heard what he’d said, but she must have figured out the gist because she declared, “I am not going to lock myself inside. And I am going to work Monday and every day after.”

“Okay,” April said with great cheerfulness while he and Katie frowned at each other, “well, I’m thrilled we’re going to the Ice-Out Festival. What—”

“In disguise,” Hunter interposed.

“—I want to know is how it started?”

Hunter groaned, but also put his arm around her shoulders and squeezed. “Of course she wants to know the history.”

Katie told April, “I have no idea. It’s been around as long as I can remember.”

“Started in the 1800s,” Brad said. “Both tracking the Ice-Out date and the festival. They still don’t take fancy scientific measurements or anything. They go strictly on observation, so it’s a more accurate comparison of now and then. In the 1800s, the day they could row a boat from a tavern across the lake to the Ashton campus was officially Ice-Out. That’s how the tavern owner delivered booze to campus, while avoiding officials. The first day in spring his employees could get across with the against-the-rules booze was a big celebration.”

April had stopped drying the glass bowl the fruit salad had been in to listen to him. “That’s fascinating. How do you know all that, Brad?”

“I took a class.”

“On climatology?”

“On local festivals.”

Katie’s laugh came first. He turned toward the sound — toward her. Suppressing a smile, he pretended pique. “It was a real class. On how festivals reflect a community – ethnic groups, industry, geography, weather. All that.”

April said, “Well, I’m glad we’re going to honor the great tradition of the Ice-Out Festival.”

“Uh-huh. The tradition of celebrating sneaking in illicit alcohol to probably underage kids,” Hunter said.

April stretched up and kissed him on the cheek, then said fondly, “My Mr. Law and Order.”

H
unter was eventually satisfied with April’s disguise – “only because it’s dark” – and they walked to the Meadow, where celebratory bonfires in safety fire pits along the shore blazed high enough to hastened the ice’s melting.

Dancing and singing certainly were melting the students’ winter restraints.

No one showed the least interest in their foursome. So they all tried Slapshot (getting the puck in the goal), which Brad won, and Bowling (using snowballs to try to knock down small pins), which Hunter won, and they agreed they were too old and too smart to attempt Bobbing for Ice Cubes.

Fireworks over the lake capped the official festivities, though ad hoc parties could be heard all over campus.

Walking back to the house, Brad was aware of April and Hunter holding hands, while he and Katie walked beside each other in silence.

He was also aware, lying on the couch, looking at the night sky through the window no longer obscured by giant trees, of Katie down the hall in her bed. Warm and tousled and –

No. That wasn’t why he was here. That wasn’t why he was in her life.

Brad was up and out before the others stirred. He left a note on Katie’s kitchen table saying when he’d be back.

He swung by his place for a shower and change, tossed necessities in a duffel and headed back.

He could see Katie and April at the table finishing breakfast as he walked to the front door. On impulse, he tried the door without knocking. It opened and he walked right in.

“I locked that door when I left. Why isn’t it locked now?”

“Oh.” Katie put a hand to her heart. “You startled me. I guess I didn’t lock it when I got the newspaper.”

“Somebody else might have done a heck of a lot more than startle you.”

“If there was any cause for concern, Hunter wouldn’t have sent me back here to the house by myself yesterday.”

“Coach followed you home.”

Her triumph deflated. “C.J. did?”

“Yes, and reported back to us that you and April were okay, which he could tell through the wide open windows.”

He was aware of April watching them like an absorbed fan at a tennis match.

“If you’re criticizing me for having wide open windows, you shouldn’t have cut down the trees.”

“Curtains work, and you can open – or close – them.”

She made a face, but before she could say anything, Hunter entered from the back.

“News?” April asked.