Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Pulling around to the back of his house felt like second nature to Cain.
Parking under the carport felt secure. Garage would be better, but he worked with what he had.
At least he’d invested in some dusk-to-dawn spotlights for the back door area.
Out front, his house sat diagonal to a streetlight.
He turned off the truck and glanced around the oversized double lot his house sat on.
There’d been a time when this had been his home growing up. Then his mother had left, and his dad liked the cabin at the lake better. This property had turned into rental income.
Cain had bought it a few years back when his dad needed money to move to Alaska. Now that Cain needed money to take care of his dad, he planned to sell the property. Sometimes life made not-so-funny circles. So did money. So did a person’s health.
One of the first things Cain had done when he came back to town a few months ago, had been to clear out all the brush and junk and half-rotten trees that had taken over the property.
Very little was left in the way of places someone could hide if they were planning to break and enter.
Tonight, he was more than glad he’d done that. Tonight, that was a big plus.
Part way home, Betsy’d reclined the passenger seat a few inches and fallen asleep. These past twenty-four hours had been rough on her. Physically and emotionally. Probably felt like years since she’d flown out of California’s LAX yesterday morning.
Betsy slowly stirred out of her short nap. Like a small child waking from a drive home from their grandparents’ house, she fought to open her eyes. Softly grunted, then lightly sighed as she stretched. “Are we home?”
“Yeah. We’re at my house.” Cain grabbed his gun from the console and slid it into the holster strapped on his shoulder. “You wait here until I check inside.”
Raising the passenger seat back to the upright position, she pulled on her hat and gloves. “Will do.”
Feeling more than exposed as he walked to the back door, he looked for signs of fresh footprints in the snow.
The only ones he saw were a jumbled, crisscross trail of rabbit tracks.
Usually, the squirrels stayed further back on the lot, having made some big nests in a couple of the tall old trees.
In fact, once he’d noticed the squirrels’ nests, he hadn’t had the heart to disturb them by taking down any limbs.
There’d never been a security system in this house, and he hadn’t seen a reason to install one.
But just like every job he’d been on and every place he’d ever lived, even as a teenager at the lake cabin, he had used his own carefully devised security system.
Like placement of lint and paper, and clothes tossed in movement paths.
And one he especially liked—a smooth broom sweep of carpet to show new footprints if there were any.
Stepping inside his kitchen, he quickly did a perimeter check and recon from room to room. Satisfied everything was safe, he motioned Betsy to go inside as he walked to the truck and grabbed her tote bag.
He followed her back into the kitchen and locked up behind them, then swept his arm in a circle of the room. “There’s all kinds of food and drink, so you make yourself at home while you’re here. May not be exactly what you’re used to, but you won’t starve.”
“Don’t worry about me. I can make a meal out of anything.” She followed him as he started down the hall. “Once I unpack my tote, all I need is place to take a bath and sleep.”
“Here you go.” He tossed the tote onto the chair by his bed.
She glanced around, then tilted her head as she focused her look on his eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. “Uh…this is your bedroom. Where do I sleep?”
He raised his hands in self-defense. Evidently, he needed to explain reasons for his actions before they happened. “You will sleep here. I will sleep in the living room. And tomorrow we’ll figure this whole arrangement out.”
“Why can’t I just sleep in one of the other bedrooms?”
“Go on. Look.” Knowing the other two bedrooms were filled with everything from doors to lumber to almost anything else he needed to get this house back in shape to sell, he nodded toward the closed doors in the hall.
“Okay. I will.” She headed toward the closest door. “I’ve known how to make my bed since I was four years old. And I must say I’m— Oh. My. Gosh!"
Quickly, he stripped the sheets from his bed and grabbed a clean set of sheets from the chest of drawers. He was just shaking out the fitted one when she walked back in and stood on the other side of the bed.
He raised his eyebrows and grinned. “Which of those bedrooms should I put your pillow in?”
“You think you’re so funny.” She grabbed the other side of the sheet and together they made the bed. “It’s cold outside, so I understand why you keep the remodeling materials stored in there. But I do have a question. Why did you keep those doors up, but didn’t do the same for your own room?”
“Ump! Good question. I’ll let you know when I come up with that answer.” He tossed the pillow in her direction. “Now, if you’ll finish the pillow-in-pillowcase saga, I’ll get the doors put up in here.”
She’d barely finished the pillows while he had already hung the door between the hall and bedroom and was installing the handle and lock. “You don’t have to do that.”
“Won’t take but a second. Then I’ll do the bathroom door.
You go ahead and unpack your tote. See what all your sister and Joanie sent you.
In fact”—he opened one of the drawers in the chest and then pointed to the nightstand on the left side of the bed—“there’s some empty spaces there for you to put things. ”
“Thanks. Do you mind if I set a few things in the bath? Hang a few things in the closet?”
A slight twinge ricocheted from his brain to his chest. His gut clenched. He’d heard those questions from a few other women in his lifetime, and for a second his body had automatically reacted like it always had. Say no. Shut down the relationship. Move on.
But this was different. This was a job. Nothing more than a protective situation. Helping the police. Investigating a crime. Keeping someone safe. He’d done this before. Might last a week. Maybe two. Nothing more. Just a job. He was just helping an old friend. An old friend who—
Who was he kidding? This was Betsy. This was his future. His life. His home. His freedom. This was his choice. Would her choice be the same as his? Would she see the future and take a chance…just like him?
For now, though, he smiled as he walked to the closet and swiped his few clothes hanging there down to one end. “Sure. Whatever you want.”
Reaching into the closet she grabbed a few empty hangers from next to his clothes. “You travel light. But that looks like a nice suit.”
He fingered the material. “Yeah. The first suit I ever owned was the one my dad bought for me to wear to my mom’s funeral. Now that he’s not doing so well, I figured I should buy one for whenever his time comes.”
“That’s nice, Cain. Real nice.”
“When my mom’s cancer got worse, she had fewer and fewer good days.
One of the last times she and I had a coherent conversation, she told me she figured my dad and I would butt heads someday.
Made me promise to always stay in touch with him when I grew up.
Said I’d understand when I got older and had seen more of life.
” Cain tried to pull the rickety closet doors closed, but one wheel came off the track.
“Damn it, I need to fix the closet, too.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll get it done.” She touched his arm. “You’ve been a little busy watching out for a lot of people, too.”
“Now, most times I visit my dad, he doesn’t recognize me.” Cain sighed. “Funny thing though, even on those days, he always tells me to make sure his son Cain has food in the house and money for school lunch. Guess Mom was right, I’m still seeing life in new ways all the time.”
Swiping his palm down his face, he went across the hall and came back with the door for the ensuite bathroom. He hated getting caught in memory conversations. “I’ll get this door up, but they’ve given me the wrong knob and lock. I’ll stop by the hardware store tomorrow.”
While he worked on hanging the door, she started unpacking her tote. After putting a couple of things away, she suddenly stopped. Rezipped her bag. “I’ll finish this later.”
“Problem?”
She kicked off her boots and sat on the bed as she leaned back against the headboard. “Let’s just say Marcy and Joanie have some interesting ideas about what I might need while I’m at your house.”
“Interesting? Care to elaborate?”
“These for one thing.” She blushed as she held up a few condom packets.
He felt it best not to comment, but noticed she shoved them into the drawer on her bedside table. Good to know. Doubtful they’d be needed.
Turning back toward him, Betsy’s expression looked serious. “I would like to finish telling you what I started earlier today when we were down by the dock.”
“Sounds good. You talk. I’ll listen as I work.” He’d keep working on the door that he already had done, but that way she wouldn’t feel like she was in the spotlight with her story.
Tugging off her socks, she wiggled her toes then bent her knees and scrunched them tight, against her chest. Hugged them even closer.
“My parents, Marcy and I had had a wonderful last day of summer at the lake. A few weeks before, Dad had had us all put one item in our so-called memory box. Said we’d bury it right before we finished the parking area the next year. ”
Her dad sounded like a man who loved his family and life.
Cain had known others like him, others who’d lost their lives just doing their jobs.
Some day he might, too. He’d made sure to enjoy and love life whenever possible, but he suddenly realized that having a wife and children to enjoy life with him had seldom, if ever, crossed his mind.
Felt good to at least consider the idea.
Betsy cleared her throat. “By the time Mama, Marcy, Summer and me came down to the lake the next year, Papa C had had the parking pad completed with a poured concrete surface and surrounded by a sturdy metal railing on three sides. My parents had planned to do that, but there hadn’t been money or time the year before.
Papa C had simply said he’d wanted to do something in appreciation for all my dad had done for the community. ”
They sat there quietly for a while. Each in their own thoughts. Content to just be. To be together for a moment.
“Did you all ever bury the box any place?”
“No. Mama has it stored away in the safe room at her and Truman’s house.
I’ve often thought about opening that box and seeing how my treasured purple pen with a fuzzy road runner on the end has fared after all these years.
But I haven’t.” Betsy smiled. “There was even a photo of me sitting on the dock fishing.” She grinned larger.
“And a plastic purple worm lure with a grungy dried-up worm still on the hook.” She teasingly stop-signed him with her hand.
“And before you ask. Yes, I always added a live worm onto all my lures.”
Listening to her tell her story gave Cain the opportunity to connect with her on a whole different level.
One that invited him into the family’s world.
He might not appear to be paying close attention, but he felt everything she was saying.
Storing it away in his own memories. They’d always belong to him even if Betsy didn’t.
“What about the initials I saw earlier today?” he asked.
Suddenly she giggled and waved her index finger in the air as if writing. “My dad had brought a couple bags of quick-setting concrete, mixed it with water from the lake and poured it in the hole me and Marcy dug. Once my daddy smoothed it out, we each etched our initials in it, all in a row.”
Cain did a quick open-close-open on the door, then leaned back against the chest of drawers on the side wall. “Smart man. Sounds like he really cared about making things special for his family.”
She nodded. “Once we finished up the concrete writing, we washed off our hands in the water at the edge of the lake. The weather was already cooling into fall temperatures, so swimming was out of the question. Then we all took a walk in the woods. Marcy and I kept stumbling over the roots and acorns. Lots and lots of acorns. Skinned my knees. Scraped the palms of my hands. I was the biggest klutz around.”
He felt the rounding of his cheeks as he burst into laughter. “Well, I can outdo that. When I was seven, I broke my leg falling off my bike.”
“I can do better than that.” Squinting, she stared at the palm of her right hand then smiled as she pointed to a tiny scar on the pad of her palm beneath her thumb.
“There…right there is proof of the horrendous injury I suffered when I fell over a downed tree that day. Landed on one of the snapped-off branches on the ground.”
“While Mama and Marcy gathered up the food and drink from the picnic table,” Betsy continued, “Daddy and I loaded fishing stuff. Then, we all piled in the truck and headed home to Jefferson City.” Closing her eyes, she softly took in a deep breath and slowly blew it out.
“Sounds like it was a great day.”
“One of the best days of my life.”
She glanced into his eyes, and he saw that her own were glistening with tears.
A couple spilled over onto her cheeks. So much for shoving his emotions aside, because they seemed to be tangling in with her own.
Without thinking, he moved over beside the bed and wiped the wetness from beneath her eyes.
Even scrubbed the heel of his hand against his own left eye.
“Must have got some dust in my eyes as I hung the door.”
She let go of her knees and reached her hand out to him. Interlacing his fingers with hers, he sat down next to her on the bed, offering the support of his arm as she leaned against him.
“Little did I know that would be the last time we were all together there at the lake,” she said. “Three months later, he was killed walking down the steps of the FBI building in Jefferson City.”