Chapter 4 #3
She lowered her eyes, but raised them again, seemed to square her shoulders, and said, “I’m not ready for it to lead anywhere, Jeremiah.”
She was serious. He felt a crushing sense of disappointment.
And yet he heard himself saying, “I hear you. Listen, I know you don’t want the family gossip to get hold of us having another midnight meal together. You want to come to my place?”
“Your place is the bunkhouse.”
“I can meet you somewhere so you don’t have to bring your car. Nobody would come knocking at midnight, short of an emergency. And it can just be food, nothing else.”
She looked at him in a way that made him feel transparent. She said, “I’ll see how I feel after my shift. I might be too tired. I’ll text you, all right?”
“All right, yeah. Sure.”
She opened her pickup door.
He put his hand on the roof, and looked around just in case, and then leaned in for a kiss, and she kissed him back, but very softly. It was almost a sad little kiss. What the hell?
He said, “Thanks for the help today.”
“Any time,” she said with a smile that didn’t reach her liquid brown eyes.
He’d screwed up, somewhere along the line, he’d screwed up, and knowing that was like drinking battery acid. He wanted to fix it, but he wasn’t sure where he’d gone off track.
He headed for his Jeep, digging the keys out of his pocket as Willow drove away. She didn’t even look back.
Jeremiah Thorne was looking for something and lying about it. Moreover, Willow thought he might be using her to help him find it. That burned.
She changed into her uniform in the gas station restroom while Willie gassed up her Department SUV.
Willie was a long-faced young man who slouched when he walked, and kept his head and his gaze lowered.
He was shy and would back away if you got too close to him. He’d been that way since high school.
She’d have used the nicer restroom, the private one upstairs at Two Lilies, but she’d wanted—no needed—to get away from the Gringo.
When he was close, all she could think about was getting closer.
Even when they were just sitting in the truck together, she kept wishing he’d slide over or put his hand over hers on the shift-knob.
She couldn’t go to the bunkhouse tonight, she thought, heading back across the gas station pavement toward her truck at Pump Three.
Other vehicles were pulling in, pulling out, and sitting still in all directions and heat rose in invisible ribbons from the blacktop.
She couldn’t be all alone with Jeremiah Thorne in the bunkhouse, a place where nobody was going to walk in and interrupt them.
She’d been alone with him in her own cottage, and even now, she was unsure how far that would’ve gone if her mom hadn’t come along.
Jeez, what would Ethan say if she had sex with his brother?
Honk! Honk!
She all but jumped clean out of her skin, then saw the big red pickup and recognized the very cousin she’d been thinking of. He pulled up beside her, “Hey cuz. You seen Jeremiah today?”
“What? Why?”
Her reaction had been abrupt and strange, she realized, so she quickly said, “You scared the daylights out of me. Gimme a second.”
“Sorry. You seemed deep in thought. Everything all right?”
At that moment, the radio in her car crackled. The windows were up, so she couldn’t make out the words. “Last I saw the Gringo was when I dropped him off at Two Lilies. Don’t know where he was goin’ from there.”
She started for her car.
Ethan and his big truck rolled along with her. “Why’d you drop him off at Two Lilies?”
Shoot, she’d said too much. “‘Cause that’s where he left his Jeep.”
“So you two were together this morning?”
“I’m helpin’ him trace his father’s…your father’s…de Lorean’s time in Quinn. You know, that time he came looking for you, crossed the elder Brands, and wound up in prison.”
“Why the hell would he want to do that?”
She shook her head, shrugged. “Closure?” She didn’t tell him she thought his brother was looking for something.
Ethan was a little sensitive about anyone judging Jeremiah based on his criminal parentage, for obvious reasons.
Ethan didn’t like folks judging his brother due to his time in prison, either.
Was she doing that? Was she being all suspicious of Jeremiah’s motives because of what she knew? That he was an ex-con, raised in a criminal organization and groomed to work within it.
The radio crackled again.
“I gotta go, Ethan. We should do something soon. I miss you.”
“Bunkhouse bonfire?” he asked.
“We have a guest in the bunkhouse,” she reminded him.
“Leave that to me. You’re working nights though. When do you have off?”
“Day after tomorrow.”
“Day after tomorrow. It’s on. You can bring uh…never mind, you’re off the hook. You can pitch in a twenty and call it good.”
“Look at you, all organizin’ a bonfire,” she said.
“Yeah, Drew taught me. Sort of.”
Another crackle. She said, “See you Saturday night,” and walked to her car, pulled open the door, keyed the mike. “Car three to dispatch. Repeat the last call.”
“It’s a break-in, Will. Out on the Bend Road. 2105. You’re the closest at hand.”
She started her engine, flipped on lights and siren, and peeled out of the gas station. “Any injuries?”
“None reported. Nobody home at the time.”
Willow tried to put Jeremiah out of her mind and shift into cop mode as she drove.
She was still unsuccessful as she turned onto Big Bend Lane, where large, beautiful homes with landscaped lawns that used too much water sat like the crowned jewels of the county.
2105’s paved driveway curved upward toward an asymmetrical house that seemed entirely wood and glass.
But one of the wall-sized window panes in front was smashed.
It lay in a large pile of shards on the floor inside and in the raised flower bed outside.
The raised bed was bordered by red landscaping bricks.
She stopped a few yards shy of the glass out of caution, then got out of her car and took a look around from the outside. While she stood there looking, she realized someone was looking back from the other side of the dark hole that used to be a window.
“Oh, thank goodness,” said a short, lean young woman, maybe a few years younger than Willow.
Her dark hair was twisted up behind her head, and she wore round tortoiseshell glasses over big brown eyes.
Her capri jeans had flowers embroidered at the bottoms of each short leg.
“Do you see this mess? Who would do something like this?”
Willow shrugged, taking it in as she did. “No idea. You?”
“None,” she said. “Come on in, the door’s…” she nodded left.
The main entrance was a green door with stained sidelights at the top of four half-circle concrete steps. There were rearing horses on either side of its stoop.
The door opened and she was greeted by the small, pretty woman. Behind her, a man, 6’1”, fit, blond hair, blue eyes, beach boy vibe that seemed out of place so near the desert.
“I’m Deputy Brand,” Willow said.
“Richard Montrose,” he said, leaning past the woman. “My wife, Elena.”
“Deputy,” she said.
“Sorry we’re meeting under these circumstances.
” Willow followed them inside, where they took her to the broken window right there in the foyer, which had three of them lining it floor-to-ceiling.
A brick lay on the floor’s plush carpet, right in front of a fireplace.
It matched the bricks in the flower bed in front.
She pulled a large zipper bag from a pocket and picked up the brick with it.
“Can you tell me what happened?”
“Well, I was out,” Elena said. “Lunch with the girls at Two Lilies. Can I get you a drink? Ice water?”
“No, thank you. Mr. Montrose, same question?”
“I was at work when it happened,” Richard said.
“And where’s that?” Willow asked.
“El Paso, I’m an attorney,” he said. “Michner and Reed.”
The way he said it made Willow think she should’ve heard of them.
He said, “I got home first and found it like this. Elena got here a few minutes later.”
Willow nodded, looking around the room. Nothing was out of place, other than the glass, but the pieces were as they had fallen, she thought. There were no crushed places where someone might’ve walked over them to enter the home. “Was anything missing?”
“Nothing that I could see,” Elena said. “And Richard didn’t notice anything either.”
She nodded, noticing an Apple laptop on a coffee table, and an iPad lying on a stand in the foyer. “Huh. And the front door was still locked?”
“Yeah,” Richard said. “Just like we left it.”
“And you didn’t notice anyone in the area, anyone unusual?”
“Not a thing,” Elena said.
“Well…” said her husband.
Willow and Elena both looked his way.
“I can’t be sure it meant anything, but I did see a vehicle coming down the road just as I was coming up. Doesn’t mean it was coming from here, of course, but there’s not a lot of traffic up here during the day.”
“Can you describe it?” Willow pulled out her phone to key it in.
He nodded. “Jeep, one of sporty ones. Copper-colored.”
Willow stopped tapping keys and tried to keep the frown off her face as Richard Montrose described Jeremiah’s Jeep. “I don’t suppose you got a plate number?”
“‘Fraid not.”
“Exactly what time was that?” she asked.
He looked at his watch, and it was a helluva watch. Big, gold, and expensive. “About ninety minutes ago,” he said.
“Are you sure on that?”
“I get home at the same time every ladies’ lunch day,” Elena said. “Three-fifteen.”
“And I got out of the office early, so I was here at three,” Richard said.
“Okay. All right.” Jeremiah was with her at that time. Not that she thought he’d be apt to throw a brick through the window of a stranger’s home to begin with. But something was tickling the back of her neck like a spider’s leg.
“All right, I guess call your homeowner’s insurance. I’m fixin’ to talk with your neighbors, see whether anyone saw anything. I’ll keep you posted. You give us a call if there’s any more trouble.”
“That’s it?” Elena asked. “There’s nothing more you can do? I don’t feel safe. Especially not knowing why someone did this.”
Willow felt for her. “Maybe get yourselves one of those doorbell cams, like most of your neighbors have. Get some plastic to staple up to protect your house until you can get the window replaced.”
Elena closed her dark eyes, nodded, opened them again. Richard’s phone rang, and he looked at it and said, “I have to take this. Excuse me.”
Elena rolled her eyes, but then walked Willow to the door.
“Be thinking about anyone who might be angry with you,” Willow told her.
“This seems like busting the window was the entire goal. Could’ve been a random vandal like neighborhood kids on a dare, or someone who’s good and teed off at one or both of you.
I think if you give that some thought, the answer might come to you. ”
“Okay,” she said. But her eyes clung, and Willow thought she needed something more.
“I don’t think this is anyone who wants to hurt you,” she said. “They’d do more than break a window, you know? But if you don’t feel safe, maybe stay at a hotel or a friend’s place for a few nights. If we’re lucky, I’ll catch this person in the meantime.”
She nodded rapidly, sighing in relief. Maybe she’d just needed validation that it wasn’t overreacting to stay elsewhere overnight.
“That’s what I’ll do. Yeah, I’ll pack a bag right now and go to Mom’s.
” She turned to go back into the house, but then stopped, and slowly faced Willow again.
Willow noticed her fists clenched at her sides.
“Do you…could you stay until I get out of here? It’ll only take me a few minutes to pack a bag. ”
“Okay. Sure. I’ll just sit here in the car, okay? Unless you want me to come back in?”
“The car’s fine.” She spun on her heel and went back inside.
So Willow got into her SUV, cranked up the AC, and made some notes for her report.
Someone rapped her window out of nowhere, startling her.
She looked around fast, but no one was there, just a walking stick with a brass handle.
It drew back to rap again, but she said, “Stop!” and put the window down, noticing the silver-haired head at the very bottom.
The head moved backward a step, so Willow could see the small woman to whom it belonged. She was about 4’10” and her back curved over her walking stick.
“I seen him,” she said. “I seen him good.” She tapped the binoculars that hung around her neck.
“Did you recognize him?”
“Nope. Don’t reco’nize much of anybody. I’m not from here. Abby Sinclair.”
“Deputy Brand,” Willow said. “So you’re not a local?”
“Stayin’ with my daughter for a week.” She nodded toward another large house visible from the driveway, further up, across the street. “But I seen him, I’ll tell you what.”
Willow tipped her head sideways and considered her options. She needed a win, as she was far from impressing anyone at the QSD, other than her uncles, who were impressed by her just for existing.
What the hay? She had nothing to lose. “Could you describe him to a sketch artist for me?”
“To. A. Tee,” she said, and she snapped her thumb to her forefinger on each word like Baby Shark.
“Can I get your number?”
“Oh, honey, I don’t swing that way,” she said, and then she laughed and slapped her thigh. Then she started reciting her digits so suddenly that Willow barely had time to key them in.