Chapter Three
Paige’s tires skidded to a stop against the gravel driveway. She bounded from the car with keys in hand while trying to figure out which wholesale customers would be least bothered by a delay in delivery. With only two batches curing on the kitchen table, she resigned herself to pulling another all-nighter. Her house key was poised to meet the lock when the heavy oak door groaned open on its own.
Could she have forgotten to lock up? She poked her head in and shouted, “Hello?”
She listened. Not a sound. Chills raced up her spine.
Taking half a step forward, she scanned the room and relaxed. It looked the same as she’d left it. A mess. Every surface was either crammed with bottles of crushed herbs and essential oils, stacked with curing soap tins and blankets for wrapping them, or littered with printouts of orders and new recipes. In the kitchen the sink overflowed with crusty muffin tins that she used for soap forms. No way someone would even think about breaking in. They wouldn’t be able to find anything even if they did. She must not have pulled the door all the way shut behind her.
Feeling foolish, she rushed to the end of the hall where a stack of boxes sat ready to be mailed. The sound of packing tape tearing off the first box was a bit painful. All that work would have to be redone, and her invoices would be wrong, but what other choice did she have?
Ripping open another box, she groaned at the thought of tracking their replacement. The format for a simple spreadsheet appeared in her mind. It would save hours of work and should only take a few minutes to create. She rushed to the computer sitting on the arm of her sofa. Before her fingers could touch the keyboard, her heart leapt in her chest. The laptop was open.
She clearly remembered slamming it shut once she heard Blanche out at the barn, right before her shower. In fact, she’d been so excited about the first day of the market and had so little sleep that she’d shut it too hard and worried she might have damaged the case. No doubt about it. Someone had been here.
A second later, a board creaked on the other side of the house. Her head shot up, and she held her breath. Every nerve in her body jolted on alert. All was silent for a full minute. Then a rustling sound came from her bedroom. That was it. Her legs seemed to have a mind of their own as they propelled her out the door.
Pulling out her cellphone, she dialed.
“911. What is your emergency?”
“I think there is someone in my house. I live alone in a rural area. When I got home, my door was open.” She was panting out of fear.
“We’ll send someone out immediately. Stay on the line until they arrive.”
“I will. Should I wait outside?” she asked.
No reply.
She reworded her concern. “Would it be better if I got in my car and locked the doors?”
Still no reply.
She held her cell out and looked at the screen. It was black. The little red light on the side was blinking. Her battery was dead.
Pocketing the phone, she tapped her foot on the front step and peered through the open doorway. Between school loans and the costs of starting her fledging business, she didn’t have anything left worth taking. The only thing of value she could think of was behind her. The goats!
She sprinted across the gravel driveway to the old barn. Her milking goats were kept in the side paddock which butted against the yard. They rushed forward as soon as they saw her, braying and leaping up against the fence to present their heads for a good scratching, but she knew she couldn’t stop.
Hurrying to the big barn, she slid the wide door to the side and was immediately accosted by the strong smell of disinfectant. It hardly looked like her barn. All the galvanized buckets were neatly stacked in the corner, every surface had been wiped down, and the floor had been scrubbed. Blanche had never been that tidy. It looked as though someone was trying to erase any trace that they had been there. She remembered leaving Petunia bawling in the empty stall, but now the loudest sound she could make out was the whirring of the chest freezer against the back wall.
Dread expanded in her stomach, the closer she drew to the old stalls. The top boards were chewed unevenly from horses long since gone. She could see half of the empty stall floor over the raw wooden gate, and her heart sank. Could her prize nanny really be gone? Throwing open the latch, Paige lunged forward and almost tripped over the sleeping animal. She dropped to her knees and clutched the goat’s long white neck. “You’re safe.”
Petunia lifted her head and bawled in response.
Paige got to her feet so grateful she didn’t even care that her knees were covered in muck. With no time to lose, she left the now noisy goat whining in its pen and marched to the window to check on the rest of the expectant nannies in the back field. When they were all accounted for, she headed to the freezer to double check the milk supply. Large Ziploc bags, looking like sheets of fawn-colored clay, filled almost half of the large chest space.
Somewhere in the barn her fear morphed to indignation. How dare someone try to take what she'd worked so hard for? How dare they come on her property, violate her childhood home and scare her goats? She wouldn’t stand for it.
A sharp pitchfork hung to the left of the barn door, and she grabbed it with both hands. The police would be here soon enough, but until they arrived, she would not cower another minute. Shoulders back and chin up, she crossed the driveway again. Using her weapon, she pushed the front door wide open and scoped the area for any evidence of an intruder. Nothing stood out.
Trying to sound menacing, she shouted, “Whoever is in there, watch out. I’m armed and am not afraid to use it.” She held the pitchfork higher and stepped into the front hall, jabbing at the air as she whipped her head back and forth. By the time she reached the boxes she’d opened, her entire focus was on the hall going to the bedrooms. If anyone was holed up in her house, it would be in there.
“The police will be here any minute, so don’t try anything! I will hurt you,” she warned, feeling less and less confident the longer she was in the house. Her gaze lowered to the boxes and then returned to the back hall. Maybe she should go outside until the police arrived, after all. She took a step back but paused. Wait. If the cops do catch this guy, everything in the house could be considered part of a crime scene. She needed the extra soap for her booth. If she put it in the car now, she’d have it. Then whatever the police did wouldn’t matter.
She leaned the pitchfork against the wall and reached for the boxes. “Don’t move back there,” she added since now she was defenseless.
In response, she heard something crash in her bedroom. The box fell from her hands, replaced by the pitchfork. Screaming like a banshee, she charged down the hall. At the threshold she scanned her bedroom, but the door was only half open, blocking her view. Panting, she leapt forward, twisted to the right and kicked the door back to expose who might be hidden behind it. Nothing. She heard a soft rustling to her back and shivered. Slowly, she adjusted her grip on the pitchfork’s handle and gritted her teeth.
“I warned you,” she shouted as she pivoted on her left foot and launched her weapon like a javelin.
It stuck deep in the middle of her empty mattress.
Air deflated from her lungs as she watched lace curtains from the window above her bed flap in an early spring breeze. Through the open window, she could see dark clouds moving in. She peered across the room at her shelf where a book had fallen over. Just the wind.
Slapping the window shut and locking it, she marched into the kitchen. From the heat in her cheeks, she could guess how much she was blushing. So she’d forgotten to lock the front door and left her bedroom window open, that was possible. She’d only gotten three hours of sleep the night before. And what if she’d been mistaken about the laptop, too. Maybe it was yesterday she slammed it closed. The worst part was she couldn’t even call the police back to tell them it was a false alarm because her phone was dead.
She pressed the palms of her hands against her temples in an effort to stave off the he
adache she could feel growing behind her eyes. Instead of worrying about an imagined stranger invading her home, she should be worried about the actual stranger watching her booth. She lifted the two boxes of soap and carried them to her car on shaky legs. How could anyone have been here? She laughed to herself. Where would they park? Her road was windy and narrow with no shoulder, and the only other house close to hers belonged to Blanche. Logically, she had nothing to worry about.
She made three more trips to the car before all the boxes were loaded. Her plan was to wait for the police officer, try to explain and then head back to the market. After letting Sterling go, she’d simply pour out the water from the pump and leave the booth unattended for the rest of the afternoon, so she could get her orders mailed. It felt like a failure of sorts but better than the alternative.
On her front steps, she pulled the door shut purposefully and tried to shove the key in the lock but found it difficult. Her hand was shaking, not from the recent fright but from the cold. Glancing up, she could see a thick sheet of clouds pushing out the sun. The afternoon seemed to be taking a chilly turn. Luckily, her favorite red sweater hung in the front hall closet.
She entered the house one last time. The closet was a deep space set under the attic stairs. Her sweater was at the very back. In the dim she could barely make it out among some of Uncle Bill’s old coats, which she couldn’t bear to get rid of. She yanked the red sweater off its hanger.
Dismissing her unease as an echo of previous fear, she pivoted to return to the car. Then she froze. Something had glistened in the dark. In the back corner. Right at eyelevel. Was it the handle of her umbrella on a hook? Her mind would not let her accept what she was seeing. It disappeared and reappeared again. Like a blink. No. It was the reflection of a human eye. Her mouth opened on its own to scream, but a gloved hand clamped across it, stopping any sound from escaping.
Shoving her from behind, the person cleared the closet then let her go. Paige still hadn’t seen the intruder’s face and wanted to run. The open door was right in front of her, but the distant sound of sirens bolstered her courage. She had to turn around.
“Blanche?” Paige was amazed that for her age, the woman was incredibly strong. Paige had assumed the bulk of her was fat, but it was all muscle.
Her neighbor’s gloved hands went up as though Paige was pointing a gun at her. “I’m so sorry. I came in to put milk in your freezer because the barn freezer is full and—”
“That’s a lie.” Paige flared. “I just checked it.”
Blanche lowered her hands as her heavy brow lifted. “Where’s your gun?”
“What? I don’t even own a gun.” Paige couldn’t understand what she was talking about.
“Didn’t you say you were armed?” she said evenly.
“Oh, that.” Paige let out a shuddering breath at the thought of how silly the whole pitchfork thing would have looked. Luckily, it was only Blanche, but she shouldn’t be in the house. This was wrong. “So what are you really doing here?”
Blanche moved toward the kitchen and sank onto one of the stools near the counter. “I suppose it’s time to come clean.” She seemed somewhat contrite. “I heard how popular your soap was and wanted to get the recipe for my emu oil. If I could turn it to soap . . .”
“It’s a whole different process.” How could her neighbor not have known that? The clean barn came to mind. Paige shook her head, not knowing what to believe. “Nothing I’ve done would help you.”
Blanche gave her a flat grin and said, “This is all a simple misunderstanding.”
Something in the inflection didn’t sound sincere. Then Paige noticed her gloves. They weren’t work gloves for milking or doing yardwork or latex gloves for rinsing. They were leather, sleek and black. Like a professional thief would wear.
The siren grew louder. Neither of them had moved, however the atmosphere in the room had shifted somehow. Paige’s heart started to race.
“You mean you weren’t bluffing?” Blanche’s eyes became hooded. “You really called 911? You idiot.”
The air ruptured from Paige’s lungs as Blanche’s elbow met her midsection. The room seemed to tilt in slow motion until the sudden crack of her head against the floor flooded the room in white.
***