The Awakening (21 page)

The foreman looked a bit sheepish. “It’s not the smartest thing to do, leaving my truck right there, but I’ve gotten too weak to tromp through the swamp that far every day.”

“That’s not good,” Tanner said, and told Vernon about the workers’ narrow escape with the cut tree and the tracks that had led them to where Vernon’s vehicle was parked.

The foreman’s eyes widened. “Are the men all right?”

“The truck got the worst of it,” Tanner said, “but they won’t return to work until we can assure them the ‘creature’ is gone. The ‘creature’ used a chain saw and left boot prints.”

Vernon shook his head and frowned. “You think it was him you picked up from the bayou?”

“Maybe. Same boot type and size, but there’s no way to know for sure. But if someone cut across like we did, they probably saw your truck. It won’t be long before they go poking into whatever you’re doing back here.”

“Damn it,” Vernon said. “I’m sorry, Josie. I never wanted to make any trouble for you. Lord knows, you got enough already.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Josie asked quietly.

“To what end? So you’d feel even worse about not having money? By the way you’ve been scrimping and saving, I’d already gotten the idea that your father lost your money as well as his own even though you wouldn’t admit it when I pressed you. I don’t have insurance and I didn’t want you selling your home with that idiot Realtor to help me.”

“I—” Josie started to talk.

“That’s just what you would have done,” Vernon interrupted. “I know you, Josie. You’re just like your mother, who was a damn sight nicer than your father.”

He gave her a small smile. “She would have been proud of the woman you turned out to be.”

Josie stepped over to him and threw her arms around him. “Oh, Emmett. You’ve been part of my life for so long that I don’t know what I’d do without you. We’ll figure this out. I promise.”

Tanner felt his heart ache just a bit at the sight of Josie holding the crotchety old foreman. He’d completely misjudged the man, and he’d never been so happy to be wrong. Vernon had cared so much about Josie, he’d attempted to hide a deadly illness from her, still doing what work he could, despite the fact that he must feel horrible.

She kissed Emmett on his check and Tanner saw his jaw twitch as he hid a smile. Josie was an incredible woman with an enormous heart. The people who really knew her were willing to go to great lengths for her, and that said everything to Tanner. She didn’t deserve the problems she currently had.

If it was the last thing he ever did, he was going to see that she got the life she deserved.

* * *

J
OSIE STEPPED INTO THE
kitchen and smiled when she saw Tanner making grilled cheese sandwiches. It had been a long, heartrending day, and they were no closer to finding the source of the vandalism than they had been that morning. Her hopes of a New Year’s opening were fading so far in the distance that she couldn’t even hope they’d be regained.

“How did you know that’s my favorite?” she asked as he put the sandwiches on plates.

“Isn’t it everyone’s favorite?”

She laughed, wondering how it was that he could make her smile, even in the midst of the worst crisis of her life. “You got me there. I’ll get the drinks. Soda, wine or beer?”

“Beer is tempting, but I don’t want my reaction time dulled. Just water for me.”

She pulled two bottled waters from the refrigerator and placed them on the table with the sandwiches before sliding into the chair across from Tanner. “You think he’ll be back?”

“Until he gets what he wants.”

She sighed. “And we don’t even know what that is.”

“It all seems to have started when you began construction, so we can only assume they don’t want you to succeed in opening the bed-and-breakfast.”

“So someone who knows I’m broke.”

“And thinks your only option outside of the B-and-B is to sell.”

She blew out a breath. “You’re back to the selling again. I know it seems the logical path, but if that’s the case, then why hasn’t a buyer pursued me more aggressively? Sam contacts me occasionally to ask about it, but I haven’t felt pressured in the least. If his client was really serious, wouldn’t they be upping the ante?”

“Maybe they want to get the property at a steal or maybe they don’t want to draw attention to themselves by offering a higher price. The fewer options you have, the less money you have to take for the property.”

“Seems they’d get the best price if the bank forecloses and sells it at auction.”

“Perhaps, but it could take a year before the bank put the property on the auction block. There’s a lot of foreclosures right now for banks to get processed.”

“Okay,” Josie conceded. “That makes sense, but we still don’t know why anyone would want this property badly enough to harass me over it.”

Tanner frowned. “Do you know who the potential buyer is?”

“I’ve never asked. It didn’t seem relevant.”

“Maybe you should.”

She took a bite of the sandwich and thought while she chewed. The more Tanner talked, the more it made sense, and the more she wanted an answer to that question. Unable to relax until she knew, she jumped up from the table and grabbed the phone off the kitchen counter.

“Sam,” she said when he answered. “This is Josie. Listen, I was just wondering about that offer on my property. I’m not ready to make up my mind or anything, but I wanted to know about the buyer—you know, what they intend to use the property for. I wouldn’t want to make a decision that’s bad for Miel.”

“No, no, of course not,” Sam said. “I’m not supposed to give out this information, but as a resident, I share your concerns. The man’s name is Frederick Shore. He’s a businessman from New Orleans and is looking for a big old house in a small town as a sort of retreat. He’d seen yours in some old article on historic homes and found it ‘charming.’”

“Frederick Shore?”

“Yeah. Are you reconsidering? Because if so, I can definitely counter with a better price. I think he’d pay it.”

“No, I’m still not ready to sell, but I thought it was smart business to make sure I had a clear understanding of all my options.”

“Of course. You know, if you’re not busy some night, I could go over the offer with you, maybe over dinner?”

She rolled her eyes at Tanner, who shook his head as she turned Sam down once again.

“I have to give him points for persistence,” Tanner said after she’d hung up the phone.

“Yeah, well, he’s really racking them up. The buyer’s name is Frederick Shore. Sam said he wants some weekend-retreat sort of thing to get away from his business in New Orleans. He saw the house in a magazine and decided he had to have it. It was featured in
Southern Historical Homes
magazine a couple of years ago, so that seems a reasonable story.”

Tanner scrunched his brow. “I’ve heard that name before. Let me call Max and see what he can come up with.”

Josie nodded as Tanner called his brother. He gave Max the name and what he wanted and disconnected. The entire exchange took less than a minute.

“That’s it?” Josie asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You call your brother and give him a name, and he just gets information for you, no questions asked?”

Tanner gave her a blank stare. “He’s a detective. That’s what they do.”

Josie laughed. “Men are so different. A woman would have wanted to know why you needed the information, had the guy been harassing you and then she’d want to help you kick his butt.”

“Women are complicated.” He frowned. “Would she really want to kick his butt?”

“If he was harassing me, yeah. That’s what girlfriends are for.”

“Maybe I need to get some girlfriends, then. They sound handy.”

She grinned. “I don’t know...multiple girlfriends often present problems for men.”

“That’s okay. I’ve always been the one-woman sort.”

He looked directly at her and she felt a flush run over her.

His cell phone rang and he glanced down at the display. “Guess I’ll stick with brothers for the butt-kicking, then,” he said as he answered.

He listened for a couple of minutes and Josie tried to wait patiently until he wrapped up the call.

“So?” she asked, the second he hung up.

“Shore owns a manufacturing plant in New Orleans, so the money part checks out. He’s loaded. No police record but plenty of lawsuits from ex-employees, competitors—the usual sort of thing for a big business owner.”

“Oh.” She couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed.

Tanner smiled. “Did you expect a bio that said ‘psycho killer who likes to wear costumes and stalk young women’?”

“No, but I was hoping... I don’t know.”

“I’m new to this investigating business, but my guess is that most criminals don’t stand out on paper or in a crowd. Not if they’re any good at it.”

“They’re careful. Yeah, I get that. Although some of the things that’ve happened here don’t seem all that careful. I mean, why let my horses loose? It got me outside, but there was no follow-up. Someone could have taken a shot at me and ended it all right there.”

“Some of it seems less calculated, but maybe it’s all just aggravation intended to pile up and make you break. A murder would bring down a horde of cops and likely lock the place down until the investigation was over.” He sighed. “But I don’t know, really. I can’t think like a disturbed person.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, a chill running over her, even though the kitchen was warm. “Is that what you think—that the person is disturbed?”

“Love and greed can make you do crazy things, but it takes a certain kind of mind to hack up an animal to bait a bigger animal to your barn.”

“Yeah.”

She stared out the window and into the backyard. The sun had set hours ago and only the back porch lights and the light at the barn entrance pierced the black night. The storm that had been threatening to drop all day was still holding off, but Josie knew that before the night was over, the downpour would come.

Would he strike again that night? She’d locked the barn up tight with a padlock. No one was getting in there without bolt cutters or a blowtorch, but she still worried. As she lifted her sandwich off the plate, she saw something move out of the corner of her eye. Immediately, she dropped the sandwich and jumped up from her chair.

“What is it?” Tanner asked as he joined her standing at the back window.

“I saw something moving in the shadows around the barn.”

He grabbed his pistol from the kitchen counter and tossed her the phone. “Call Emmett and stay put.”

Before she could protest, he ran down the hallway into the laundry room and slipped outside. Josie punched in Emmett’s number and was thrilled when he answered on the first ring.

“There’s something moving outside around the barn,” she said. “Tanner’s gone to check it out.”

“I’ll be right there. Get your gun and don’t leave the house.”

The sound of the phone slamming down echoed through her ears. She looked out the back window and realized how vulnerable she was standing in front of all that glass. Her pulse racing, she grabbed her gun and turned off the kitchen light. The laundry room door had a window that offered a decent view of the barn. She’d go there to watch.

And pray.

* * *

T
ANNER SLIPPED DOWN THE
hedges toward the barn, listening for the periodic sounds of movement he’d caught as soon as he’d stepped out of the laundry room. Something was definitely out there, and he didn’t think it was an animal. The sounds were too vague, as if an attempt was being made to minimize or mask them.

At the end of the hedges, he stood partially hidden in the bush and peered through. At first, he saw nothing. Then the clouds moved and a dim glow of moonlight filled the pasture. At the edge of the barn, he saw someone wearing a ball cap and swinging something large and square in his hand.

A second later, the smell of gas wafted by.

A flash of anger went through him and he launched out of the hedges and set off toward the vandal at a dead run. The vandal froze when he heard the footsteps and glanced wildly around, trying to locate the source. That was all the time Tanner needed to close the gap and tackle him to the ground just as he was turning to flee.

They slammed onto the hard dirt ground surrounding the barn and rolled around in a frenzy of thrashing arms and hands. Tanner managed to flip the guy over and scramble on top of his back, holding his arm up high on his back to prevent him from attempting to move any more.

A spotlight hit him and a second later, Emmett ran up. He pulled off his belt and handed it to Tanner to secure the guy’s arm. While he was tightening the belt, he heard the door to the laundry room slam shut and Josie joined them a couple of seconds later.

“You caught him!” Josie said.

“Yeah,” Tanner said. “Now let’s see who’s been causing all this trouble.”

He stood and flipped the man over and yanked away the ball cap that had slid down and was covering his face.

Then they all stared in shock.

Chapter Seventeen

“Marquette?” Josie looked down at the angry young woman, unable to formulate an educated question.

“Why are you harassing Josie?” Tanner asked.

Marquette struggled to sit up, then glared at all of them. “Josie, Josie—everything’s always about Josie. Prom queen Josie. All the men want Josie. My brother went into the military because you left. Sam hasn’t asked me for a date again since you’ve been back, and now you have him shacking up with you.” She pointed at Tanner.

Josie stared at Marquette, completely floored and starting to get angry. “I never dated your brother, I have turned Sam down every time he’s asked me out and I am
not
shacking up with Tanner. He is a professional working here.”

“Yeah, just like before, but you never paid attention to him then,” Marquette spat out. “You never paid attention to anyone but your little crew of rich, spoiled, popular friends.”

Josie looked over at Tanner, assuming that Marquette had confused him with someone from their high school days, but one look at his stricken face and she knew Marquette was right. All of a sudden, it hit her—the young boy who worked the fields for her father, the shy kid who sat in the back of the class, the boy with the drunken mother who everyone in town whispered about.