Chapter 3
Chapter
Three
Cal Morris ran a small excavation and land-clearing business from a fenced equipment yard outside Fate Mountain. The Sunday morning after Ryder had helped Nell move to Portland, Steel Protection had gotten a call from him.
Cal had found fresh tire ruts beside his diesel tank. The tank’s cap was also hanging loose. The front gate was still locked, and the security camera hadn’t picked up an intruder. Ryder went out to the property to find out how someone could have gotten into his yard.
The shop stood between the road and the rear yard, where the fuel tank and equipment sat below a wooded bank. Cal stood beside Ryder near the front corner of the shop. Ryder set a drone on the gravel, powered it up, and started it into the air.
From above the roof, he could see that the tire tracks came from the rear of the property rather than the front gate. They crossed the grass at the bottom of the bank and continued uphill.
“Looks like a truck,” Ryder told Cal.
Ryder followed the tracks over the bank. On the other side, an old logging road ran through the trees behind Cal’s property. The road led toward the rear fence, where blackberry bushes had been crushed and part of the wire fencing had been pulled loose.
“There,” Ryder said.
Cal leaned toward the controller. “That’s my back fence.”
Ryder followed the route back from the opening. The tire tracks crossed the bank, passed behind the shop, and ended at the diesel tank.
“So, they came in from the logging road,” Cal said.
“Looks like it.”
Ryder took several pictures of the damaged fence and the route to the tank.
“You’ll want the fence repaired,” he said. “I’d also add a camera on the back of the shop, so it covers the tank and this approach. And I’d contact the timber company about blocking access to the logging road.”
“Can Steel Protection handle the camera?”
“Yep. I can get that done today.”
After installing the new cameras at Cal’s property, Ryder went to dinner at Fate Mountain Diner. As he entered, he looked toward the register where Nell would usually be working this time of day. She wasn’t there.
He knew she was in Portland; he had left her there the night before and driven home with the empty trailer. Still, he had come through the door ready to find her across the room and tell her about the drone flight today.
Ryder sat in a booth, ordered a burger and fries, then reached for his phone. He opened his messages with Nell, then stopped. He could text her now, but what he really wanted was to tell her about his day the way he always did. Ryder put down the phone.
When his food arrived, he ate while conversations carried on around him and orders passed through the service window.
More than once, he looked across the diner, expecting Nell to walk out of the staff room.
But she was gone. She was never going to walk through the diner with her school bag and plop into the bench across from him again.
He finished his dinner, paid, and left. When he got home, he sat on the couch and called Nell.
“Hey,” she answered. Cardboard scraped near her phone, followed by a hollow thump.
“You still unpacking?”
“Almost. I got a ton done today. How about you?”
Ryder settled back against the couch. “I did a drone job for a guy who owns an excavation business outside town. Somebody took diesel from his tank, but the gate was locked and the camera never caught a vehicle.”
“Oh, I love a good mystery. What did you find?”
“I followed the flattened grass uphill. Once the drone cleared the bank, there was an old logging track on the other side. Somebody had pulled open the fence behind the blackberry growth.”
“So, you solved it already?”
The pleasure of the discovery returned in full. “Sure did.”
“Good job.”
Ryder had spent the afternoon waiting to hear her say that, but he didn’t want the call to be over yet. Nell’s phone shifted. A cabinet opened, and cardboard dragged across the floor. Ryder pictured Nell crouching in the galley kitchen surrounded by empty boxes and packing paper.
“How is Portland?”
“I found Voodoo Doughnut today,” she said.
“I’ve never been. But I’ve heard of it. What did you get?”
“This doughnut shaped like a little person with a pretzel stabbed through its heart.”
“That’s pretty gruesome for a songbird.” He laughed.
“It had raspberry filling and chocolate frosting. I got jelly on my shirt before I made it back to the car. But it was totally worth it. You would have loved it.”
Ryder smiled. “I wish I’d been there.”
“Me too.”