Chapter 13
13
Not for the first time, it occurred to me that Lettie must really have a close relationship with Gretchen if I was only paying three times the rate as the LeeHy motel and getting this phenomenal suite at the Whispering Pines Inn. For God’s sake, it had a desk and comfortable rolling chair, and there was a couch and coffee table along with a nice-sized walk-in shower and a soaking tub that I could actually fit in. I’d questioned Gretchen twice, and she said that it was part of the owner’s guidelines. Whenever possible, put members of the armed services in the nicest accommodations possible.
The second time I clarified, she told me the same thing, so I just shrugged and asked her to relay my thanks. Then I went back to my room to do some online searching to see what I could find out about the owners. Turned out the hotel was partially owned by a development company out of Nashville, but the main owner was a company named O’Malley Enterprises that operated out of San Diego. I dug a little deeper and found that the officers of the company were a husband and wife, Aiden O’Malley and Evalyn O’Malley. Aiden was a Lieutenant of a Navy SEAL team out of Coronado and Evalyn’s maiden name was Drake and she was born and raised here in Jasper Creek.
It wasn’t the first time that I ran into someone in the service who had family money, but this was some serious coin if the man could afford to be the major investor in this hotel. Not that I was complaining. This was a sweet deal, especially since I didn’t know how long I was going to be in town.
I got up from my chair and did some stretches. Yep, I’d been sitting too long. Probably time for a walk or a ride. I also needed to see if I could get in touch with the elusive Bernie Faulks. Voicemails and e-mails didn’t seem to work. According to Lettie and Pearl, who were my primary sources of information, Bernie was basically a hermit, even if he had gotten hitched. Their word, not mine.
I’d asked who he’d married, but they’d clammed up. Said if they’d given him her information and I’d tried to reach Bernie through his wife, there’d be hell to pay.
Interesting guy .
They did give me the coordinates to his cabin. I had to chuckle at that. Seemed that the man really was off the grid if I was getting latitude and longitude instead of an address. But I had to say I preferred it that way. More precise.
I got into my hiking clothes and made sure that I was kitted out to find someone. The idea of hunting someone down felt good.
Real good.
When I went downstairs, Roberta was at the desk. She straight-up reminded me of Peg Bundy—lots of make-up, red hair teased high—but without the cigarettes the Married with Children character smoked constantly.
“Hey, Doll, how you doing?”
“I’m doing fine, Roberta. How are the kids?”
“My little darlins are driving me up a wall. Was so glad that Gretchen called me in for a shift today. Before she handed over the keys, she handed me a pan of fresh-baked peanut-butter cookies with chocolate chunks. I don’t suppose you’d want any?”
“I don’t know, would you kill me if I took any from you?” I teased.
“I might. Let’s see how it goes.”
She held out the pan. I snatched three before she could pull the pan back.
“Dammit, Kai. That was not a nice thing to do.”
“What, were you planning on giving them to your kids?”
“Hell no. I was going to eat them for breakfast, mid-morning snack, and then lunch.”
“Not dinner?”
“There weren’t going to be any left for dinner. The only reason I offered them to you is I like how you fill out a t-shirt.”
“Ro, if only you weren’t married to a man who could take me out with one punch, I’d take you away from all of this and make you mine.”
“As if. Rumor has it that you're spending time with our new math teacher. Heard you took her to Gatlinburg for the all-important third date. How’d that go?” Roberta waggled her eyebrows.
“A gentleman never tells.” Even if Marlowe and I booked a hotel for a night in Gatlinburg so that nobody would notice my truck outside her house for the night, or her truck outside this place for the night, somebody from here would still report I hadn’t come back here for the night. I was going to have to talk to Marlowe about this on Thursday when she was making me dinner.
“How ’bout I offer you two more cookies?”
“Huh?” I’d lost the plot.
“If you tell me if you and Marlowe slept together, I’ll give you two more cookies.”
“Nope, not going to do it. Anyway, I’ve got to get going. I’m heading up the mountain.”
“Okay, Doll. You be safe.”
“Always.”
I chuckled to myself at her words. ‘Be careful.’ Hell yes. ‘Be safe.’ Well, that was always a crap shoot. But my team was good. Damn good. I really needed to check in with some of the other guys besides Clay. Now that my mood was looking up, I felt up to talking to them.
I threw my gear into the back of the truck and climbed into the driver’s seat. I took the road that Lettie had told me to take and ended up at a small cabin. Looking at the dirt around the front steps, nobody had been there for a while. But I had to smile at the painted rocks that decorated each of the steps that led up to the porch. I wouldn’t have thought the place would have been big enough for a family to have lived here.
I shrugged. Not my business. I grabbed my pack out of the back of my truck and shrugged it onto my shoulders. It felt great that now that I was allowed to carry forty pounds. I really didn’t need forty pounds of gear, but I wanted the exercise. I looked around and saw a definite path into the woods so I took it. Soon I was in a different time and space, and I was loving it.
I’d grown up around the ocean. Then after joining the Army, there were times I could sit and be surrounded by the quiet of a massive desert. I had trudged through jungles for months on end, and still there were times I could look past the heat and bugs and see the lush beauty. But this? This forest with the sun sparkling down through the trees, was glorious. Every sight, smell, and sound immersed me in bliss.
When I was thirty meters away from my target, I stopped before I would’ve lost my forest camouflage. There was about twenty meters of clear-cut around the front and both sides of the two-story A-frame with a deck out front. Smart. I wondered whether it was to help with forest fires, or to let him see who was coming toward him. I needed to check if the clear-cut extended to the back of the house as well.
Ten years of training was a hard thing to let go of, so I took out the binoculars that really weren’t that expensive but had all the bells and whistles I wanted. I took my time doing my reconnaissance. I went all around the property, and by the time I made it around to the south side, I smelled beef grilling.
I returned to where I started and watched Bernie Faulkes turn three steaks over and put three foil-wrapped potatoes onto the grill. I also clocked a rifle leaning up against the side of the house that hadn’t been there before. I took note of the Bowie knife strapped to his belt.
“Are we eating out here, or inside?” A woman called out from inside.
“We’ll ask our guest, but my guess is he’d feel more comfortable eating outside.”
Might as well show myself now, before their guest showed up. I stepped out of the forest and into the clearing.
“Hello,” I hollered.
“Hey,” Bernie hollered back as I continued to walk toward his house. “Are you Kai Davies? Beau’s brother?”
“That’d be me,” I answered as I stood at the bottom of his stairs to his deck.
“Well, come on up. Been waiting for you. Hope you like steak.”
“I do like steak.”
“How do you like it cooked?”
“Medium rare.”
Bernie chuckled. “Then you made it in time.” He turned back to the grill and took off two of the steaks and put them on a plate.
An attractive middle-aged woman with a silver bob stepped out on the deck, carrying a salad bowl. “What kind of dressing do you like on your salad?”
“Oh wait, Mora, I didn’t ask him if he wanted to eat inside or outside. So, which is it, Kai?” Bernie asked.
“Outside. It’s going to be a beautiful evening.”
Mora settled the bowl in the middle of the table, then she went back inside.
“I suppose you want to talk about Beau. Am I right?” Bernie asked as he poked the baked potatoes with a fork.
“You’re right. Not only do I want any information you might feel comfortable sharing, what I’d like most is for you to set up a FaceTime call between us.”
Bernie nodded at his grill. “Not surprised. Last time I talked to him, he and his team were in Eastern Europe. He shouldn’t have told me that much, but I think he wanted me to know that this mission was ugly. But he was fighting the good fight.”
I frowned. No American troops should be fighting in Eastern Europe. As a member of Delta Force I knew that it was our job to be invisible and do things that nobody else should or could do. But Beau was a Marine, he wouldn’t be doing that…
“What does he do in the Marine Corps?”
Bernie looked over his shoulder at me, taking his time to answer. “Raider.”
Well, that explained that. My brother might not be Delta, but being a Marine Raider was definitely in the ballpark.
“Now sit down for dinner, then we can talk about Beau.”
I liked how Bernie and Mora were together. Nothing overt, but she would touch his shoulder, and he would reach out and squeeze her hand. Then there was the way that they could finish one another’s sentences. I’d gotten the feeling from Lettie that they’d only been together for a couple of years, but they acted like a couple who had been together for decades.
“If you don’t like any of the dressings,” Mora pointed to the three bottles she’d brought out, “I can whip up a something tangy with the balsamic vinegar I have inside.”
“I’m a blue cheese man, so this definitely works.” I snagged the bottle from the middle of the table and poured some onto my salad.
“How are you liking things over at the Whispering Pines?” Bernie asked.
“Great. Actually, wonderful.”
Bernie and Mora both laughed. “You started out at the LeeHy, didn’t you?” Mora asked. “I heard that Derek checked you in.” She gave a delicate shudder.
“Yep,” I sighed. “I heard his parents tried with him, but it didn’t stick.”
“Lovely people. I had him in a couple of my middle school classes. He struggled.”
Bernie snorted. “I imagine he did.”
“Bernard, we don’t need you starting in on that poor boy,” Mora admonished.
I looked at Bernie and raised my eyebrow. His glance back at me made it clear that only Mora was allowed to call him Bernard. I gave him a chin tilt, and went back to my loaded baked potato.
“I hear from Beau every so often. We don’t have a set time or anything,” Bernie said after he finished his salad.
“More lemonade?” Mora asked.
“How about a beer? Would you like one?” Bernie asked me.
I nodded.
“I can?—”
“Sit down.” Bernie smiled as he put his hand on Mora’s shoulder. “Do you want more lemonade, Darlin’?”
“Yes please.”
“Coming right up.”
Mora looked at me closely. “You are the spitting image of your brother.”
“Are you on the FaceTime calls?”
“I’ve been on two. I taught him when he was younger. He was always such a quiet and somber boy. He only had two friends. I would specifically create group projects so that Beau would have to interact with more than his two friends, but he never really opened up. He always ended up the team leader, and made sure the others did their part, but he was never social.”
“Was that because of his moth— I mean, our mother?”
“I think it was partly because of his mother, but he was also missing you.”
She noticed my frown.
“What is it, Kai?”
“I’m just wondering why he remembered me and I didn’t remember him. That doesn’t make any sense.”
“You’ve got to remember, it was a big deal when Arthur kidnapped you. The police were at your house, there were neighbors bringing meals and coming in to babysit Grady and support Rose, because she broke down. It made quite an impact on little Grady. What’s more, he was still injured from the beating he’d received from Arthur, so he needed extra care. All of that had to have made an impression.”
“Are you telling Kai about when he was kidnapped?” Bernie asked as he set down the lemonade pitcher in front of her and handed a longneck to me and set another one at his place setting. “Here’s the bottle opener, but you being Special Operations, I’m assuming you could open this with your teeth.” Bernie laughed.
“Special Operations?” I frowned. “Why do you say that?”
“You have that look about you. Same as Beau.”
“If I had been Spec Ops, those days are long gone,” I said as I used the bottle opener on the beer. I handed it back to Bernie. He gave me a chin tilt then opened his beer and took a swallow. The man still had a shit-eating grin on his face. I wasn’t fooling him one damn bit.
“I had a feeling you’d be stopping by soon. I sent him a message on WhatsApp that I needed to get in touch with him. Beau has an iPhone and he uses FaceTime because of the security. Do you have an iPhone?”
I nodded.
“Give me your number so that I can have him call you. His number is going to come to you as blocked. You’ll know it’s him by the time he’s calling.”
I set down my knife and fork and looked at Bernie. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this.”
“I’ve also talked to Nash Rivers, our sheriff. He doesn’t think that there is a kidnapping case to be made against your dad. There’s the time factor, and the fact that Arthur and your mom weren’t split up.”
“I really didn’t want to have to deal with Arthur or Ronald ever again. Good-bye to bad rubbish as one of my teammates used to say. Last I saw him, life was looking pretty miserable for him. Made me happy.”
“Not as happy as Mora’s strawberry rhubarb cobbler is going to make you. You got any of that special vanilla ice cream? The bean kind?” Bernie was looking like a hopeful puppy.
“I do. Kai, are you ready for cobbler?”
“I am.”
I watched Bernie watching Mora as she went into the cabin. He turned back to me. He started to say something when my phone rang. I saw it was Marlowe, so I answered.
“Hi, Sweetheart. What’s going on?”
“Chaos is in surgery. When a car tried to run me off the road, Chaos was knocked around in the backseat,” she paused. I heard her take in a deep breath, but it was full of tears. “She broke at least one rib and it punctured her lung. Kizzie told me to stay strong.”
“Kizzie?”
“The vet here in town. She’s the one operating on her. If you’re not busy, could you…?” Her voice trailed off.
“Marlowe, I’ll be there as quick as I can. I’m at Bernie Faulke’s house. He lives up the mountain. I hiked in. It’ll take me a little bit to get to you. But I’ll get there as fast as I can. I’m calling Lettie right now, so she can come and sit with you.”
“No, that’s all right, I’m fine.”
I could hear the wobble in her voice. Of course she would say she was fine. She always said she was fine.
“Hang tight for me, Sweetheart, okay?”
“I will,” she whispered.
When I hung up my phone, Bernie was standing close, holding out a set of keys.
“What are those?”
“The keys to your ATV. You’re going to be following me off the mountain. There are roads, you just need to know where to find them, is all.”
I nodded.
“Let me make one phone call, then let’s get going.”
I called Lettie.