“What’s this?” He held it up. He looked from Greta to Emma, then back at Greta, and softly whistled. “Wow. Aunt Greta, you going to kick up some dust tonight?”
He winked at her as he held the dress by the straps, examining it again. “Ah, Grets, don’t you think it’s a little cold for this outfit?”
Emma grabbed the dress out of his hands and pushed it back in the bag. “Good point, Mikey. It’s definitely too cold for this.”
“That’s your aunt’s dress, Michael. And I’m lending her a pretty gold shawl to wear with it.”
For one fleeting moment, Emma saw shock wash over Mikey’s face. And then he just stared at her. Finally he nodded. “Take the shawl, Nem. And make sure those straps are good and secure.”
Emma stood up. “Here. You can have my cake. I’m going home.”
“Not yet, Emma Jean. I need you to take some laundry up to Wayne’s room for me,” Greta said, standing up as if to block her exit. She smiled up at Emma. “You don’t mind, do you?”
“Mikey can do it.”
“No. He’s got to get out the Henry J. He’s driving me into Greenville for a doctor’s appointment.”
Emma arched one brow at Mikey, but he was too busy stuffing his face to look back. His mouth full, all he could do was nod and shovel.
“Wayne Poulin is thirty-five years old. He should be doing his own laundry.”
“Here’s the key to his room. Just put the clothes in his drawers for me. Please?”
“Should I rotate his socks while I’m at it?” Emma drawled.
Greta shoved the basket at her. “That would be nice. And maybe you could dust a bit while you’re up there.”
Emma scowled at her.
“Oh, and make sure you don’t knock down the key he’s got hidden behind the picture on the dresser. It’s to his desk, and I don’t dust in there. It’s where he keeps his private papers,” Greta said, tossing a small ring of keys onto the laundry. “And while you’re upstairs, that gold shawl is folded over a hanger in my closet. Take it. And wear it and the dress tonight. That’s an order, Emma Jean.”
Emma went upstairs to Wayne’s room and set the basket down in the hall. She tried three keys before she found the right one. Silently scolding herself for what she was about to do, but determined nonetheless, she opened the door and stepped into Wayne’s private domain.
Emma sat the basket on the bed and looked around, wondering if she would have gone to Wayne’s rescue as quickly as she had Ben’s. She snorted. Not likely. She had never had a teenage crush on Wayne Poulin. She’d taken his measure the first night he had come to the house to pick up Kelly. She hadn’t liked what she had seen then, and she still didn’t.
There was something calculated about Wayne. His beady little brown eyes ruined his otherwise handsome face. He was short, with straight brown hair, and he had a wiry body. He was a forester for one of the larger mills just north of here, and he spent a great deal of his time in the woods. He reminded Emma of a pit bull.
Wayne’s room showed all the signs of a man who had spent fifteen years living in a boardinghouse. It was cluttered with books and trade magazines and outdoor equipment. There was a gun rack on one wall sporting a shotgun, two high-powered rifles, and a compound bow.
The ring of keys bit into her hand, and Emma realized she had a death grip on them. Well, she was here, Wayne was not, and she knew where the key to his desk was. She was going to look for Kelly’s letters.
She heard a garage door open and looked out the window. Mikey was carefully backing out Greta’s classic 1956 Henry J. Emma shook her head. That car was the pride of both Greta and Mikey, and he was the only one she would let drive it. For two years now, Mikey had been driving Greta to appointments, the grocery store, and the library in Greenville.
They had been stopped by a deputy once, and there had been quite a ruckus over there being a thirteen-year-old at the wheel. But Amos Ramsey, the county sheriff, also boarded at Greta’s, and after a week of burnt meals and gritty bedsheets, all the deputies suddenly went blind when Mikey was driving the Henry J on the back roads of the county.
Greta and Mikey pulled out of the driveway and the house took on an eerie silence. Emma quickly found the key sitting behind the picture on the dresser, right where Greta had said it would be. She turned back to Wayne’s desk. It was on old rolltop without a speck of dust on it—which meant Greta had all but told Emma to snoop.
Which she fully intended to do. And even if she didn’t find Kelly’s letters, she would see what Wayne used for stationery. Then she would ask Ben what his letter had looked like. Maybe Wayne was the one who had lured Ben here. Emma wouldn’t put it past the man; he was bitter enough to want to stir up any trouble he could. Maybe he even thought that if Kelly found out Ben had come back, she would return also.
Yeah, that made sense. Wayne had never moved on from Kelly’s abandonment. He had received pitying looks from people at first, but now he was the recipient of laughter. After ten years, he was starting to look more like a fool than a pining boyfriend.
Wayne blamed Ben for the whole mess. And it had been Wayne who had first suggested Ben and his group of environmentalists had blown up the dam and killed her dad.
The old desk creaked as she raised the top, and the inside was much more stark and far more organized than the room. In this one place, Wayne was a professional, it seemed. His paycheck stubs were all filed by date in one of the cubbyholes.
She found some writing paper and envelopes, and stole one of each. Then she searched all the drawers and every nook and cranny, finding no letters from Kelly. But under the blotter, written in bold, harsh lines, were some numbers. Studying them, Emma realized they were map coordinates in longitude and latitude. It wasn’t a range of parallels or minutes, like a tract of land that Wayne’s company might be planning to harvest, but one particular spot.
They could mean anything. With a Global Positioning System, Wayne could have marked any spot for future reference when he had been in the field. The coordinates could be a start-off point for cruising timber. It could be a logging camp. Or a freshwater spring he had found. She tucked the paper back under the blotter and sighed, looking around the room for anyplace else Wayne might hide a letter.
Emma was just closing the rolltop when she spotted the corner of the paper sticking out from under the blotter. She pushed it fully under the blotter to hide her snooping, but was drawn back to it for some reason. The coordinates made her curious. She had a GPS in the Cessna, as well as a handheld device, and she knew the exact coordinates of Medicine Creek Camps. These numbers were northwest of her camps, less than one day’s walk.
She also knew there was nothing in that general area. The mills hadn’t cut that land in nearly forty years.
She pulled out the stationery she’d stolen and quickly copied down the coordinates. Then she shoved the scrap of paper back under the blotter and closed the desk and locked it. She took the laundry out of the basket, and instead of putting it in his bureau, she set the clothes on Wayne’s bed. The jerk could rotate his own socks.
She was going home, taking a long, relaxing bath, and then dressing up for an evening of certain disaster.
“What are you doing? We’re going to be late.”
Emma looked up at Ben and frowned. “I’m creating ammunition for the coming battle with Mikey. This is a game timer. Here. Take this string and tie it to that porch post over there.”
“What in hell is a game timer?”
Emma straightened and made sure her coat was buttoned up to her chin. “It’s a clock with a string attached. You stretch the string across a game trail and set it. When a deer comes walking along, it trips the string, stopping the clock. That way you know what time the deer are walking that particular area. Most animals are creatures of habit.”
“And we are setting this up on your porch … why?”