He found his front door open, and saw the silhouette of her sitting in one of the chairs on his veranda with Spock stretched at her feet. He smelled coffee as he pushed open the screen.
She glanced over. “Morning.”
“As long as it’s still dark, it’s not morning.” He sat beside her. “Give me a hit of that.”
“You should go back to bed.”
“Are you going to give me a hit of that coffee or make me go get my own?”
She passed him the cup. “I have to decide what to do.”
“At…” He took her wrist, turned it up and squinted at her watch. “Five-oh-six in the morning?”
“I didn’t deal with it yesterday, didn’t think about it. Or not much. I even left my phone over there so the police couldn’t contact me. So no one could. I ducked and covered.”
“You took a break. There’s no reason you can’t take a couple more days before you try to figure it all out.”
“Actually, there are real and practical reasons I can’t take more time. I have subs coming in about two hours, unless I call them off. If I take them off for a couple of days, it’s more than screwing up my schedule, which is, of course, already screwed. It messes up theirs, and their employees’. And subs are always juggling jobs, so I could lose key people for more than a couple of days if I hold them off. If that decision is to walk away, I have to tell them that.”
“The circumstances aren’t of your making, and no one’s going to blame you.”
“No, I don’t think anyone would. But it still creates a domino effect. I also have to consider my budget, which is also screwed. I have insurance, but insurance has a deductible that has to be factored into the whole. I’m already over the high end of my projections, but that was my choice, with the changes and additions I made.”
“If you need-”
“Don’t,” she said, anticipating him. “I’m okay financially, and if I can’t make it on my own, I can’t make it. If I really needed extra, I could make a few calls, grab a couple voice-over jobs. Bottom line is I can’t leave the place the way it is, half done. I’ve got custom cabinets I ordered back in March, and the balance due when I take delivery. The kitchen appliances will be back in another couple months. Other details, small and large. It has to be finished, that’s not really a question. The questions are do I want to finish it, and do I want to stay? Can I? Should I?”
He took another hit of her coffee. Serious conversations, he thought, required serious attention. “Tell me what you’d do if you decided to turn it over to someone else to finish. If you left.”
“There are a lot of places I could slip into without the baggage I have here. Stick a pin in a map, I guess, and pick one. Take some of those voice-overs to thicken the bankroll, if I need to. Find a place with potential to flip. I can get a mortgage. Regular and very nice residuals from Our Family look good on an application. Or if I don’t want the stress of that, I could get a job with a crew. Hell, I could work for Steve’s new New York branch.”
“You’d be giving up your lofty personal goals.”
“Maybe I’d just postpone reaching them. The problem is…” She paused, sipped the coffee he’d handed back to her. “The problem is,” she repeated, “I love that house. I love what it was, what I know I can make it. I love this place, and how I feel here. I love what I see when I look out my windows or step out my door. And I’m pissed off that someone’s meanness makes me consider giving that up.”
Something that had tightened inside him relaxed. “I like it better when you’re pissed off.”
“I do, too, but it’s hard to hold up the level. The part of me that isn’t pissed off or discouraged is scared.”
“That’s because you’re not stupid. Someone’s set out to deliberately hurt you. You’re going to be scared, Cilla, until you know who and why, and make it stop.”
“I don’t know where to start.”
“Do you still think it’s old man Hennessy?”
“He’s the only one I’ve met or had contact with around here who’s made it clear he hates me. Which, if this were a screenplay, means he couldn’t be behind all this because he’s the only one who hates me. But-”
“We’ll go talk to him, face-to-face.”
“And say what?”
“It’ll come to us, but basically you’re sticking, you’re making your home here, and neither you nor a house is responsible for something that happened over thirty years ago. And words to that effect. I’m also going to make copies of those letters you found. I’m going to read them more carefully and so are you. You need to think about passing them to the cops. Because if it’s not Hennessy, the next best possibility is it’s someone connected to those letters who got wind they still exist and you have them. Janet Hardy’s married secret lover revealed? That’d be news. Big, juicy, scandalous news.”
She’d thought of that. Of course she’d thought of that. But… "They aren’t signed.”
“Might be clues in there about the identity. Might not be, but we’re talking thirty-five years ago. Do you remember everything you wrote thirty-five years ago?”
“I’m twenty-eight, but I get what you’re saying.” In the still, softening dark, she stared at him. “You’ve given this a lot of thought.”
“Yeah. The first, the prowler in your barn. That could’ve been somebody hoping to pick up a few Janet Hardy souvenirs. I’ve got to weigh in the place has been empty for years now, and sure I’ve seen some people poking around now and then. Against that, I’ve got to factor most people didn’t know there was anything left inside, and any who did probably thought it was worthless junk left by tenants, not the woman herself. But then you come along.”
“I clear it out, store it in the barn, and it’s clear and obvious that I’m sorting through it, culling out anything that belonged to my grandmother. ”
“Somebody gets curious, a little greedy. Possibility. The second, the attack on Steve, could come from the same root. Poking around, somebody’s coming. Panic. But that takes it way over harmless if annoying trespass. Also above, if the letters are the goal, trespass to preserve reputation. It’s up to assault, arguably attempted murder.”
She shivered. “Of discouraged, pissed and scared, scared just leaped way into the lead.”
“Good, because then you’ll be more careful. Next, your truck door.
That one’s personal and direct to you. So was the message on the stone wall. Maybe there are two separate people involved.”
“Oh, that really helps. Two people who hate me.”
“It’s another possible. Last, the destruction inside the house. It’s more personal, more direct, and it’s ballsier. So today, you’re going shopping for a security system.”
“Is that what I’m going to do?”
The cold bite in her tone didn’t break his skin. “One of us is. Since it’s your place, I assume you’d rather do it yourself. But if you don’t, today, I will. I’m now authorized as I’ve had you naked on my kitchen counter. No point in whining to me if you didn’t bother to read the fine print.”
She said nothing for a moment, struggling against the urge to stew. “I intended to arrange that anyway-stay or go.”
“Good. And you don’t care for ultimatums. Neither do I, but in this particular case, I’m making an exception. I can sleep over there with you. Happy to. But sleep is a foregone conclusion at some point, just as the house being empty at some time or other for some period of time is inevitable. You need to be safe, and to feel safe. You need to protect your property.
“And Cilla, there’s no ‘go.’ You’ve already decided to stay.”
She really did want to stew, she thought, and he was making it damn hard to indulge. “How come you’re all macho and pushy with your ultimatum, but you’re not all macho and pushy telling me to flee to safety while you slay the dragon?”
“My shining armor’s in the shop. And maybe I just like the sex, which would be hard to come by with all the fleeing. Or it could be I don’t want to see you give up something you love.”