Past Forward- A Serial Novel: Volume 3 Page 4

  As she dried her hands, Willow unlocked the door. “I’m sorry. Chad’s being a bit fanatical about this.”

  “He said someone took your baby Jesus? Why would anyone—um, Willow?”

  “Hmm?” She hung the towel back on the bar and headed toward the stairs.

  “He’s right there where he always was.”

  After several attempts to swallow, Willow passed her phone to Ryder. “I think I’m going to go paint now. Please tell Chad that Jesus came back.”

  Ryder watched in dismay as Willow’s face became a mask of indifference and she slowly and deliberately climbed the stairs to the second floor. Chad answered the phone on the first ring. “Hey you. I was just thinking about you.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “Ryder, what are you doing with Willow’s phone?”

  “She told me to call you. Her exact words were, ‘Jesus came back.’“

  “Daaa—lthazar.” Chad whispered under his breath.

  Ryan smirked at the near slip of the tongue. So, the perfect cop was fallible. That was a relief. “Do you guys have cameras hidden in here?”

  “No, but I’m putting one in tonight.” Ryder knew what was coming before Chad could add the predictable request. “I get off in two hours. Can you stay?”

  “She’ll put me to work doing something I’m sure, but um…”

  “Yeah?”

  Ryder faltered. “She seems weird. Detached or something. It kind of freaked me out.”

  “Just keep an eye on her. I’ll get there as quickly as I can.”

  He carried her phone to the spare room, asking where to put it. “Just set it on the table there.”

  Roll by roll, she layered the paint on the wall, crisscrossing over each section several times before moving onto the next. He dug through a box, looking for another roller. Without turning or pausing, she said, “Look in the closet.

  On the floor of the closet, a box of supplies held everything he needed. Ryder examined the wall and asked, “Can I take off the closet door?”

  “Hmm… I think Mother did that. I how did I forget? Of course, you can. Do whatever gets the job done.”

  Once they finished the walls, Willow stood back to admire the result. Once the new chair rail she wanted went up, the room would look great. “Ryder, how are you with a saw?”

  “I don’t know. Haven’t used one much. Why?”

  “I want a chair rail around the room to separate where those colors meet.”

  “I thought you were going to do a wallpaper border or something. Rail will look so much better.” His eyes roamed the room and at last, he said, “If you don’t want corners mitered, I think I can do it.”

  “Great. I’ll have Chad bring home something for that.” With that, she sent Ryder to the barn sink to clean the paint from rollers and brushes. While he was gone, she cleared the floor of everything extraneous and shed her extra clothes, racing to her room for her robe. Seconds later, hot water beat away the stress from her mind and body.

  “Lord, I don’t understand. The money made sense. Saige would have made sense if she hadn’t been strung up like that and if we lived closer to a neighbor. Barking dogs are a nuisance so I get that. But the chickens? Why let out the chickens into the cold? Why nail the door shut so they can’t get in? What is the purpose of torturing chickens? I want my old life back.” Her prayers grew more desperate. “I think I’d take it even if it meant without Chad,” she whispered miserably.

  With her mind still on the animals and how cold they must have been, Willow peeked her head out of the door. “Ryder, can you check on the animals? I had them all in stalls in the barn. If anything looks wrong, get back in the house.”

  Grumbling about being sick of being told what to do by paranoid adults, Ryder opened the door. “Got it.”

  They’d spent the evening in silence. Chad anticipated Willow’s mood and brought pizza on his way “home” from work. His duffel bag sat in Kari’s room again, and Judith had agreed to spend her nights out there when she wasn’t on duty.

  Willow tossed aside one of the dresses she was making for Aggie’s girls impatiently. “I’m sick of working on these. I never want to make another dress like this again.”

  “Work on fixing your dress then. Play a game with me.”

  “Nah, you’re reading. I’ll get the brown dress. Can you help me with it for a minute?”

  She climbed the stairs, turned her brown dress inside out, hooked a safety pin with a ribbon attached to the zipper, and pulled it up as she jogged back downstairs, sewing basket in hand. She threaded a needle with orange thread and stood in front of the hall tree mirror. She sewed long stitches, taking in what seemed like large amounts of fabric. After each adjustment, she moved her arms, bent at the waist, and stretched, apparently to ensure that the fit was good.

  Occasionally, Chad looked up as he turned a page and watched her strange contortions as she worked to create a perfect fit. Finally, she seemed satisfied with the front and sides. “Chad can you pin the back for me?”

  “I don’t know how to—”

  “I’ll tell you. Just pin where I point.”

  Half a dozen pokes later, Chad had the back bunched in approximately the right places. “There. How did you manage to put a dress on inside out?”

  Twisting and turning to see if it fit smoothly, Willow grinned. “Old trick Mother taught me. Ribbon on the zipper.”

  After changing back into her clothes, she carried the dress back downstairs and settled into the couch, sewing the dress darts with small, even stitches. He watched her compare darts on each side of the dress, pin one side or the other, and even remarked the bottoms for what he assumed would be a smoother drape. The part he’d pinned looked like a hopeless jumble of fabric, but she worked it, pin by pin, until it looked as smooth and sleek as the front.

  A few minutes later, he finished flipping through a stack of journal pages and said, “Willow?”

  “Hmm?”

  He loved seeing her so engrossed in something she enjoyed. “Have you started editing these already?”

  “Not yet. I haven’t had time with working on the room and everything.”

  He frowned and flipped through the papers. “Do you mind if I number the pages?”

  “Sure. Go ahead.”

  The clock ticked past as he arranged pages, trying to number them. He almost didn’t hear her when she spoke next. “Chad?”

  “Hmm?”

  “You said we’d announce our engagement after Luke’s wedding.”

  Chad numbered pages as he flipped through the journal copies. “Yep. If I can keep my mouth shut that long,” he murmured, only half-aware that he spoke.

  “What?”

  He realized he couldn’t concentrate on where he was in his counting and talk to her too, so Chad stuck a finger in his place and looked up expectantly. “Huh?”

  “You said something about keeping your mouth shut that long.”

  “Oh, well—I’m not big on secrets. I’d rather just announce it and move on with things.”

  “What things? What does it mean once we announce it?” She sighed. “Reading about things and living them just aren’t the same.”

  “I don’t know. Planning and stuff.” Stuff. That answered all her questions. He started to try again, but she asked another question.

  “So like in the movie we watched at your mom’s house. Jack said that Peter would have announced the engagement in the Tribune. A newspaper, I assume. Is that what you mean?”

  “Well,” Chad wondered if he’d ever quit assuming she understood a culture she’d never lived. “It’s more like I’ll tell my family and they’ll tell the church… it gets around that way. I’ll tell the guys at the station; you’ll tell Lee and Lily. And of course that means the whole town will know.”

  “I see. I can handle that.”

  “Anyone else we forget will find out when we send out the invitations.”

  In a small voice, she whispered, “Invitations?”


  “To the wedding.”

  “Wedding?”

  With an indulgent smile, Chad sat the papers down in his chair and moved closer to her. “Yeah. Wedding. You know, big white poofy dresses, cake so rich it makes your throat tingle, and relatives you forgot you had?” The moment he said it, Chad felt like a heel. “Aww, Willow I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t need to be sorry. I’ve probably got more of those than most people!” She rubbed her temple. “Wedding. I don’t know much about those.”

  “Well, Aggie’s should give you some ideas.”

  She smiled. “At least I have a white dress.”

  “No way. My mother has been counting the minutes until one of us gave her a chance to go dress shopping with a bride. I hear she even tried to find a way to get in on Aggie’s. You’re going to have to buy a dress that makes your ball dress look like a housecoat.”

  “Do you mean,” she began nervously. “The whole bridesmaids and reception and ‘you may kiss the bride’ with veil and everything wedding? Like in books?”

  “Of course. My family would kill me if—”

  “I just assumed only rich people—”

  She jumped as his laughter filled the room. “Well aside from the fact that you are ‘rich people,’ Willow Anne Finley, the other fact is that most people have a wedding. Attendants and guests and cake and food and a huge party after the ceremony.” He paused. “Do you know where you want to have a wedding?”

  “Here.”

  Chad nodded, grinning. “Now how did I guess that?”

  “The party first.”

  “What?”

  She glanced up at him. “It is going to be a difficult day for me.” She buried her head into his chest. “That sounded bad.” Her eyes pleaded with him to understand. “I just—without Mother—I’ll celebrate first, but I want everyone out of here after we do the vow thing.”

  Chad didn’t know what to think. He’d never heard of having a “reception” for a couple before they were married. “What about the whole, ‘you can’t see the bride before the wedding’ thing?”

  “I think a groom has the right to see his bride before everyone else. It is his bride after all.”

  It wasn’t the time to discuss this. “I think you should plan after Aggie’s wedding. That way you can see what you liked and what you didn’t like.”

  Willow went back to stitching and measuring. Chad leaned over, grabbed the stack of journal pages, and went back to counting them. At the same place he noticed before, a page was missing. “Got a piece of paper?”

  “What?”

  “Michelle missed one.”

  Willow stood and retrieved a pen and paper. “Here.”

  After half an hour of counting, Chad found too many missing pages for it to be accidental. He knew telling Willow would just make things worse, but hiding it from her was a bad idea. “I think I’ll ask Michelle what’s up with her machine. There’s an awful lot of pages missing. She needs to be more careful.”

  “Do you have a list of them?”

  “Yeah. I’ll take it in tomorrow.”

  With a sigh, Willow stood and folded up her dress. “I’m going to bed. I put flannel sheets on your bed. See you in the morning. What time do you work?”

  “Two. I’ll take care of the animals.”

  He watched her climb the stairs and listened to the familiar sounds of her nighttime rituals. Soon silence covered the house. Chad counted pages. As he finished the fourth journal, he decided he’d found all of the missing pages. He put out the light, climbed the stairs, and pretended to go to bed.

  As he waited, his hand smoothed over the globe of the floodlight camera. Behind the curtains, he gazed out the window, hidden from view below. The only thing he’d found at the station was the stupid floodlight camera. He’d ordered a denim jacket with camera in the pocket to hang by the back door, and Judith was researching other options for the non-electrical house. They’d all been tempted to turn on the electricity and just plan not to use it, but Joe was certain something would give it away. The intruder had to know that Willow didn’t use electricity.

  An hour passed. Two. He needed sleep. His watch read midnight. The house had been dark long enough. Chad crept downstairs, eased the back door open, and shut it carefully. He hurried into the summer kitchen and grabbed the stepladder, brought it outside, and switched out the bulb, hiding the old one in the cabinet over the fridge in the summer kitchen. Now if it only worked.

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  “David?” Carol Finley murmured as she read Willow’s letter, her brow furrowed with concern.

  “Hmm?”

  “It sounds like Willow may be in some danger.”

  “Why do you say that?” David tore his attention away from the newspaper.

  “She wrote saying she wants us to visit but not until it is ‘safe.’”

  His hand reached for the letter. “Let me see.”

  Dear Grandfather and Grandmother Finley,

  I was hoping to see you here at the farm sometime this month, but I have to withdraw my invitation. I hope that will only be temporary. Strange things are happening around my farm—animals killed and my possessions moved here and there. I can’t risk associating you with me. I think it is just focused on me, but since I can’t be sure and do not wish to make your life as complicated as mine has become, I think it would be best to postpone any plans.

  On a more pleasant note, I also want you to know that I am getting married this spring. The officer who spoke to you after Mother’s funeral has become my best friend, and we’ve decided to marry. We are not announcing it until after St. Patrick’s Day, in order to keep his family’s focus on another couple until after their wedding. We don’t want them to have to share their special time with anyone, so please don’t share my news until after that date.

  As soon as I know we have caught the person responsible for killing my animals, stealing my money, and meddling with my possessions, I will write and reissue my invitation. I hope you understand.

  Regretfully,

  Willow Anne Finley

  “Have you ever noticed her penmanship?”

  Carol nodded. “It looks like she spent hours perfecting each letter doesn’t it?”

  “There is no way she just scratched out a quick, ‘please don’t come.’ This took a lot of time.”

  With her arms around her husband’s neck, Carol curled on his lap and laid her head on his shoulder. “Can you imagine Bethel Ann writing that letter?”

  Chuckling, David shook his head emphatically. “Absolutely not. Hers would have read, ‘Some jerk is messing with my head. Let’s give him something to really think about.’ And then we’d spend hours putting sugar in the fridge, eggs in lingerie drawers and hanging her jewelry from light fixtures.”

  “What do you think of the whole ‘getting married’ thing?”

  He hadn’t planned to say anything. His wife tended to be a worrier, and he’d made an art of avoiding anything that would add more anxiety to her life. “She doesn’t say anything about love.”

  “I noticed that. Do you think it’s because of her personality or maybe because of how Kari raised her?”

  “Probably. They are definitely private people. I wondered about him. He took such good care of her that day, but then when he said he hadn’t met her until the week before, I thought it was just small town cop courtesy.”

  “I imagine it was,” Carol asserted. “But that can change and she is a dear girl. Reserved. She’s definitely reserved, but she is thoughtful, attractive, and she comes with a valuable piece of property.”

  “That boy wouldn’t marry her for money. Not him. I don’t know how I know it, but if he marries her, it’s because he cares about her.”

  Her hand on her husband’s cheek, Carol sighed. “You have always been such a sap. She did say he was her best friend. At least they’ll have that.”

  “I may be the sap m’dear, but you have to admit, I stick well.”

 
; Ben was tired of the drawn out plan to drive Willow into the arms of her grandparents. Solari refused see that she wasn’t as alone as he assumed and that his plan wasn’t going to work. However, Ben wasn’t stupid. Whatever Solari wanted, he got—even if it was exceptionally ineffective. “Girls are girls,” he groused to himself as he watched the house with his binoculars. “Flood her with presents and she’ll eat out of your hand, old man.”

  Between the cop that practically lived there and the chick that spent the nights there when the other cop was working, he had a hard time getting in at night especially now that he had to come up from the west and use the front door. They had to put those stupid cameras in. Did they think he was stupid? The job was beneath him, but working for Solari was a step up from schlepping for a crooked private investigator.

  As a new idea formed in his mind, he flipped open his phone. “Boss?”

  “My name is Solari. Use it.”

  “Yes, b—Mr. Solari. What about a row of bullet holes in the glass of her new greenhouse? She mentions it at the ball; you offer to have them replaced—”

  “Do it.”

  It was too easy. He could pick off each one in the center of the glass as target practice and be home in time for dinner at Scarcella’s. Perhaps he should skip town. He could get the word out through his cousin in Miami that he was available for contract kills. He had wanted the protection that a man like Solari can offer, but the tediousness of this job was driving him crazy.

  He assembled his rifle quickly. As he twisted the silencer onto the gun, he felt the wind and chose his position. The tripod held the gun steady as he sighted the front door, chicken coop, and finally the windows of the greenhouse.

  Chad’s truck zooming up the driveway made him pause. The cop might know how to find his location. The sight of Willow racing out the door carrying her purse and a heavy jacket relaxed him. They were leaving. This left him with more time than he anticipated. He’d wanted to scare her with the sound of breaking glass but perhaps another trip inside the old place would be better. Much less chance of getting caught. If they were leaving for the snowman-building contest, he’d have hours. What fool spent hours in the cold building snowmen if they were over ten and had an IQ above fifty?