Chapter Twenty-Six #2
“So you didn’t hook me for my money.”
“It was the carpentry and the sex.”
“Accepted. So, food, utilities, the general maintenance, that’s on me. Improvements, additions, that kind of thing, fifty-fifty should work.”
“What if I want to do something and you hate it?”
“I haven’t so far.” Idly, he tapped his glass to hers. “I like your style, Legs.”
“Won’t you need a workshop?”
“I’ve got Pop’s, and using it gives me another reason to spend time over there, with him. If I ever need one here, I’ll build one.”
“And I pay half.” She saw the hesitation, gave him a look.
He shrugged.
“Looks like we have a deal.” She held out a hand.
She walked into the hardware store the next day with a long list.
“This is a bright start to my day.” Joe came around the counter, drew her into a bear hug. “Is my boy behaving himself?”
“So far, so good.”
“You keep your eye on him. Hey there, Zorro. Elvis wants to share a treat with you.”
He went back behind the counter, produced two. The dogs stopped wagging and sniffing long enough to take them.
“Part of me feels like I took Gideon away from you, Joe.”
“You put that part away. He stops by regularly, here, at the house. And we have our monthly steak dinner—you’re not invited.”
That made her smile. “So I’ve been told. Firmly. I love him like crazy, Joe.”
He hugged her again. “That makes me a very happy man. I’ve seen the weight he pretended not to carry lift over these past months. You’re the biggest part of that.
“Now, are you just here to visit, or are we going to do some business? I hear you’re looking to finish that basement.”
She pulled out her phone. “I have a list a mile long. Maybe two miles.”
“Let’s get to it.”
She spent nearly two hours as customers came in, went out again. Joe brought her a Coke as she studied tile samples, catalogs, debated over paint colors.
“I’m seeing it,” she murmured. “Yeah, I’m seeing it. Energizing for the gym. Get pumped! Relaxing but fun for the rest. Gideon decides on his office space.”
“You call the names I gave you for estimates,” Joe told her. “None of them’ll hose you, or they’ll answer to me. When you’re ready, you let me know the materials you want.”
It tumbled right into place, she thought as she ran the rest of her errands. She’d planned to find her vision for that space in six months to a year. And she had.
It didn’t occur to Dustin until he’d reached Salt Lake City.
He’d made a mistake.
He’d booked that goddamn cabin in Colorado under his new ID. The ID that had cost him a lot of fucking money.
He should’ve hidden the body. No, he should’ve dumped the body in the car, driven it miles away, ditched it and her. Then hiked back to the cabin.
He could’ve done it.
Coulda, shoulda, woulda.
Now, when they found her, they’d track the credit cards and everything else.
The ID was compromised.
The stupid bitch had come to his cabin, flirted with him, had practically begged him to put it to her. But she’d recognized Arden, hadn’t she? he asked himself as he pulled over to think.
Just think.
That’s why he’d had to kill her. Not because he’d wanted to but because she’d given him no choice.
He couldn’t use the ID, so he had to cancel the hotel in Salt Lake. Pay cash for another place.
No problem, no problem, he had the cash.
But now he had to pay for new ID, shift all the money around again. That cost more than money. It cost him time.
Screaming in frustration, he pounded his hand on the steering wheel.
The bitch with the sparkly red streaks screwed it all up for him. He wished he’d used the gun on her.
He had some time before they found her—probably. He’d contact the guy who did the ID, get that going. He’d cancel the room, get another room, the sort where they didn’t ask for ID when you paid cash.
And yeah, get the car painted. Better to take the time to do that anyway.
He’d pay extra to have the ID expedited. Worth it. Plus, before long, he’d have Arden’s money to add to the pile.
Women had no sense about money, and as the head of the household, he’d take control there.
Calmer, he breathed out, and got the ball rolling.
Arden had just started making a tortellini soup with Italian sausage when Gideon came in.
“Hey, you’re early. I’m making soup—you’ll like it. Not raining, but it’s so chilly and damp out. And you just missed Woody the contractor. He had a job nearby so he came over to take a look. He’s going to work up an estimate. He thinks he can start in a week or so.”
Gideon reached over, turned off the heat under the sausage she was sautéing.
“What—” She only had to see his face to know. “It’s bad.”
“It’s bad.”
“He hurt someone. He’s still coming this way, and he hurt someone. Tell me fast. Straight-out and fast.”
Gideon put his hands on her shoulders. “He beat, raped, and murdered a woman, Hailey Parkinson, age twenty.”
She sagged under his hands.
“You’re sure it’s him?”
“He rented a cabin, northern Colorado. The man who rented it to him ID’d his photo, the car. It’s him. Keep breathing, Arden, and slow it down.”
She hadn’t realized she’d started to hyperventilate, and now worked to calm her breathing. She kept her eyes on his—it helped.
“When?”
“The victim was due several miles away, another rental with friends for winter break. She never showed, didn’t answer the phone. Three days ago. He left her body in the cabin, her car outside. They didn’t go to clean it, turn it until today when his booking ended.”
“Twenty years old. Her parents, her family. Why was she there?”
“We don’t know yet. They’re figuring she got lost, and stopped at that cabin. I don’t have all the details yet. It takes time.”
Everything in her felt dark and tight.
“She doesn’t have any more. He’s done just harassing, assaulting. I knew that when he attacked me. Someone else will be in the wrong place, and he’ll kill them. Her.”
“Listen. As bad as it is, we’ve got something out of it.
He booked the cabin and paid for it with a credit card under the name Jesse Flint.
We can track that ID and card back all the way to Columbus, and forward to Colorado.
We can track it, Arden. He used it again in Wyoming. A hotel, gas, food, a goddamn Stetson.
“He made a big mistake, and we can track him.”
“You’ll track him. He’ll use the card again, and you’ll know. I just need a minute.”
She got water, drank slowly.
“There’s something else you don’t want to tell me, or wish you didn’t have to.”
“He used that ID to buy a gun, a Glock nine millimeter in Columbus. He picked it up the morning after he killed his mother. The ID’s good enough to pass through the background check.”
“He has a gun. Is that how he killed the woman in Colorado?”
“No.”
Her eyes filled. “Did she have red hair?”
“No, but she’d put red streaks in it, for the holidays. Arden, he’d have killed her regardless. The minute she got to him, she was dead. The search for him? It’s going to intensify now. You need to know that, too.”
She drank the rest of the water, set the glass aside.
“I’m not going to fall apart. It doesn’t do any good, and neither does crying. You came home early to tell me, and to be here if I fell apart. But I’m not going to.
“I’m going to make soup.”
“Don’t worry about that. I’ll toss something together later.”
“I’m going to make soup,” she repeated. “Because I need to keep doing. He’s using new ID and you have it. You’re going to track him, and stop him, and lock him away where he can’t hurt anyone else.”
“That’s right.”
“I believe you’ll do that.” She swiped at her eyes. “You and Brill and Venmar and all the rest. So I’m going to make soup, and if I knew how, I’d bake bread with the yeast I bought thinking I’d look it up and try it.”
“I can bake bread.”
Shock blinked through the tears. “You can bake bread?”
“My grandmother. It’s been a while, but yeah, I can do it.”
“Okay. Okay. I’ll make soup, you make bread. But first, you need to hold on to me a few minutes. I’m not going to fall apart, but you could just hold on to me.”
When he did, she let out a long, shaky breath.
When she closed her eyes, she saw Dustin’s face. So she opened them again and looked out the window, where the rain that had threatened all day began to fall.
She kept doing, and it got easier as one day passed into the next. Her work on the book kept her busy and out of her own worries for hours a day. At night, if those worries plagued her, she had Gideon to turn to.
She nudged away Zoey’s push for her to come there, spend New Year’s Eve, and did the same with Jamie’s for her to join him and Nick at a friend’s party.
Not brooding, she assured herself. Just content to spend the last night of what had been a good year, a year of change and progress, and best of all love, in her quiet house with her very good dog.
After working through the afternoon, she took a walk with Zorro. She didn’t mind the light drizzle, not when she could see across the valley or gaze out to mist-soaked mountains.
“This would probably be snow back in Ohio,” she told Zorro. “I guess I didn’t mind that either, really. Life’s different when your commute to work is up a set of stairs in your own house.”
It helped to remind herself how lucky she was. Yes, the book had stalled on her a little, but she’d figure it out. And stalling or rolling, she’d sit in her wonderful office every day and write.
Soon, her lower level would fill with workers and the sounds of progress. She’d watch her vision become reality. By the time it did …
“It’ll practically be spring.”
As they headed back, she told herself it wasn’t foolish to block out the hard part. Yes, she’d taken a walk on a quiet road, had wandered down a path in the woods a bit, but she’d had her phone in her pocket and her dog by her side.
She believed the odds stayed low that Dubecki clung to his obsession with her, that he’d found where she’d moved and crossed the country for, what, retribution?
But those odds weren’t zero so she’d stay alert, she’d stay cautious.