Cry Baby Hollow (15 page)

Joe shrugged. He went to the kitchen and grabbed a pair of potholders from the drawer and then went out and dragged the grill under the wide overhang of the roof and out of the rain.

“I was gonna say Margarita,” he told her, mopping himself off with a dishrag. “But this weather seems to call for somethin’ warmin’.”

“White Russian?” She offered.

He brightened.

“That sounds cozy,” he agreed.

“You know you can just have a beer, Joe?”

“Beer is for breakfast,” he grinned.

She made the drinks and sat one down in front of him.

“I just have one question for you,” she told him.

“Shoot,” he told her, taking a long drink and smiling in satisfaction.

“If I drink this are you going to refuse to sleep with me again?”

“That depends on how bad you beat me at Carcassonne,” he said seriously. “There’s only so much a male ego can take. But for the record, I believe you’ve used up your quota of masculine self-control.”

They played until dinner was ready and she didn’t have to work very hard to let him win half their games. The chicken was excellent, moist on the inside, crisp on the outside, and tasted absolutely nothing like Pap’s Blue Ribbon. There was potato salad with bacon and steamed green beans and a black bottom pie for desert that was so good it almost brought tears to her eyes. Aubrey couldn’t remember when she had ever eaten so well and made sure she told Joe that repeatedly.

After dinner, by unspoken agreement, they abandoned their game and adjourned to the sofa to watch a movie. Aubrey didn’t have an actual TV, but she had a projector. The guy at the store had tried to tell her she needed a fancy screen designed just for that purpose, but she found it worked just fine shining against one of the shoji screens, as long as it was dark. She slid one of them into place and jumped as lightening crashed so close that the thunder rumbled at the same instant and it the flash left trails on her vision.

She walked back, sat next to Joe, and tugged him away from his perusal of the videos until he turned and leaned into her.

“Don’t make any sudden moves and don’t turn around and look,” she told him softly as soon as she was sure his head was blocking hers. “There’s someone standing on your dock.”

She was relieved when his only reaction was to stiffen and open his eyes a fraction wider.

“What do you think we ought a do?” He asked quietly.

She couldn’t help herself. She leaned forward and kissed him.

“You know you don’t need an excuse to do that, right?” He asked breathlessly when she finally released him.

“There really is someone on your dock,” she assured him. “I saw them plain as day when the lightning flashed. It’s just that most men would have jumped up and gone running outside with a baseball bat when I told them that, not ask my opinion.”

“You’re the veteran,” Joe told her. “If we ever get into a sticky situation involving fishing, I’ll be expectin’ you to defer to me.”

“I’ll remember that,” she promised.

“You never know when a bass is gonna run amok,” he said with a wink. “Besides, your answer suited me just fine.” He dipped forward and kissed her again.

“So what do we do?” He asked seriously.

“We put in a movie and grab another drink. After a little while I’ll go into the bathroom.”

“And slip outside with your zapper?”

She shook her head.

“The surveillance equipment is in there,” she explained.

“You said that was only a bluff,” he said reproachfully.

“It was,” she told him about Larry’s visit and the days she’d spent afterward wiring the neighborhood.

“I assumed that there wouldn’t be a repeat of whatever it was Celestine Wynn didn’t want us to see, but I wanted to know if anyone came snooping around for the memory chip.”

They chose
Aliens
because it was loud and dark. After twenty minutes, Aubrey excused herself and went to the bathroom. She staggered a little in spite of the fact that their last round of White Russians had only been chocolate milk. She didn’t want a prolonged absence to seem out of place, and drunks seemed to spend half the night in the bathroom.

As soon as the door closed, she popped into the closet and checked the monitor on the camera on the front of the cabin. She didn’t expect to find anything, but it was the only one with a live feed active. All of the others were silent. She examined the grainy black and white image and froze. A wolf was slinking through her front yard, hackles raised, teeth bared, oblivious to the rain thrumming on its back.

Aubrey had to force herself to check the other cameras before taking any action. None of them were feeding the main unit anything at the moment. Motion triggered the video to record activated the live download, but the cameras took a picture every minute regardless. They just only dumped the pictures from their memory to the main box every twelve hours. Video took a lot of energy to shoot and even more to transmit back, so she had put the motion threshold high to save the cameras battery life. Each unit had a solar cell, but that could only last so long. For all intents and purposes, she was blind until she waited twelve hours or figured out how to force a data dump off schedule. She switched back to the camera out front but by now the wolf was gone.

She went back and gave Joe the bad news.

“When I set them up, I was expecting a pickup full of rowdy rednecks,” she told him apologetically, “not a lone stalker.”

“Should I get my baseball bat?” He asked with a grin.

She shook her head and told him about the wolf.

“Whoa. Hold on a second,” his expression became very grave. “I know I’m not the smartest tool in the shed, but you’re gonna need to explain your use of the words ‘my wolf’ and ‘again’.”

“I saw it before. In the woods.”

“You think that’s what you saw take out the deer?”

“No,” she said, still adamant. “This was just a little while ago, while I was hiking.”

“I thought you said you saw a man.”

“Before that. A few days ago.”

“And you still went up there today?”

Aubrey shrugged.

“It wasn’t menacing. It just acted like a dog. It ran off as soon as I tried to get a picture of it. Besides,” she said defensively, “you said they were harmless.”

Joe sighed.

“Maybe it was just a coyote,” he said hopefully. “You know they look a lot alike. There’s no speciation between the two, or timber wolves either. No more difference than between me and a Chinaman. Or a husky and a pug. They interbreed and everything.”

Aubrey stared at him.

“What?” He asked.

“Speciation?” She said skeptically.

“It’s a real word. I didn’t just make it up,” he told her defensively.

“Yeah, I know.”

“So?” He asked.

“Just admiring your vocabulary,” she grinned.

“Hell, I get the Discovery Channel at my place in the city,” he told her. “I really do think you ought a join a gym.”

“Treadmills make me feel like a hamster, and I don’t like people watching me run.”

“From the sound of it you’re drawing a fair crowd even up in those woods,” he pointed out. “So what now?”

“We wait until morning and check the pictures.”

“We just sit here?”

“Unless you want to call the sheriff,” she suggested sarcastically.

He shook his head.

“The car pullin’ up might run em off, but they could just come back. Nothin’ but a waste of time.”

“And then they’d know we’re on to them,” Aubrey pointed out.

They settled back on the couch and watched the rest of the movie in silence. After it was over Joe followed Aubrey up into the loft and collapsed onto the bed.

“Whoever that guy is, he sure knows how to spoil a mood,” he said, his voice dripping with regret.

“There will be other nights, Joe.”

He grinned.

“You think it’s safe to sleep?” He asked.

“Sure. People don’t break into houses when they know someone’s home. They’re probably watching to see when we leave.”

She turned out the light and crawled into the bed beside him, fully clothed.

“I’d like to apologize ahead a time for anything untoward you might a caught with your cameras,” he told her once she was settled.

“Untoward?”

“Well, you see… I’m in the habit of takin’ a morning swim.”

Aubrey smiled. It wasn’t hard to guess what was coming next.

“And I don’t often bother with a suit.”

“I’ll avert my eyes modestly,” she promised.

“I’d appreciate that. The water’s awfully cold and I wouldn’t want you suffering from any misconceptions.”

Something occurred to her suddenly and she fought to suppress a laugh. “You know, Vina has a telescope pointed out at the lake.”

“Aw hell,” Joe groaned.

“She said she can see my lights reflecting on the water, but not the cabin itself. Given the angle, I’d bet she has a good view of your dock. How much you want to bet on whether she averts
her
eyes modestly?”

Joe shook his head and blushed so furiously he thought his face would melt off.

“Modesty ain’t her strong suit,” he agreed glumly.

Aubrey reached over and put her hand on his chest comfortingly and, in spite of thoughts of stalkers and wolves, she slept soundly all night.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Aubrey opened her
eyes and saw that the sky had lightened fractionally, though the rain was still falling steadily. She felt Joe’s hand resting on her hip and squirmed backward so she could feel his solid warmth spooned against her back.

“You
think our friend is gone now?” Joe breathed into her neck.

She nodded and held her breath.

His hand tightened its grip on her hip and he pulled her against him until she could feel every minute detail of him pressing into her. His hand left her hip and ran down her leg and then back up past her waist to her shoulder. He brushed her hair aside and kissed the back of her neck.

She shuddered and let out a tiny moan.

When Aubrey woke
the second time she saw that the rain had slacked off and Joe was no longer in the bed beside her. She peeked over the railing and saw him sitting at the table, drinking a glass of orange juice and playing himself at Carcassonne.

“Morning,” she called down.

“I helped myself to a shower,” he told her. “I hope you don’t mind, but I didn’t have a key to throw the deadbolt and even if you say the guy is gone, I didn’t like to leave you sleepin’ alone in an unlocked house.”

“I wouldn’t have minded anyway, Joe,” she assured him, feeling ridiculously awkward. She tried to think of how she would have behaved yesterday, realized that yesterday had been just as awkward for the exact opposite reason, and gave up. Taking a shower seemed infinitely easier than figuring out how the morning’s happenings were going to alter her relationship with Joe.

“You want some breakfast?” He asked as she disappeared into the bathroom.

“Sure,” she called through the door and then drowned out any further need for conversation by turning on the hot water.

When she got out there was an egg sandwich and a glass of orange juice waiting for her across the table from Joe and he was already half through with his.

“I figured you couldn’t be sick of ‘em since you didn’t eat the one yesterday,” he told her with a grin.

She sat down and examined it. The toasted bread contained an egg over easy, tomato and mozzarella left over from last night’s appetizer, and a thick slab of bacon. When she took a bite the yolk broke and dribbled down her chin.

“This is fabulous,” she told him honestly, wiping her face with a napkin he held out to her.

“Why thank you, darlin’,” he grinned, obviously pleased.

She hopped up and went into the kitchen to hide her flush of pleasure and the dopey grin she couldn’t seem to suppress. He’d never called her ‘darling’ before, and though he’d said it with the casual ease that he might have used to thank the check-out girl at Food Lion, it still sent a rush of pleasure through her. She  grabbed a longneck from the fridge and opened it for him. When he saw her coming back with it, his grin widened into a bright, angelic smile.

“Bein’ my bartender is a full time job you know,” he said, snagging her hand as she set down the beer. He pulled her down onto his lap and kissed her.

When she finally got back to her sandwich it was cold, but she decided that the digression was well worth it.

“Any pictures yet?” He asked around a mouthful of egg.

She looked at the clock on the bookshelf and shook her head.

“The download starts in an hour, but it only does one camera at a time and I don’t have any idea what order it goes in. We’ve got a while yet.”

“You mind if I stick around?”

She thought about it for a minute and shook her head.

“You sure?”

She nodded.

“I don’t wanna overstay my welcome, but I don’t wanna leave you to the tender mercies of the psycho in the bushes either.”

“Its fine, Joe,” and as soon as she said it she realized her mistake and reached out and took his hand. “We both know I wouldn’t ask you to, but I’m really relieved that you volunteered to stay. I don’t like the idea of being alone in a glass house until I know what’s out there, either.”

Joe nodded and went back to his sandwich, satisfied.

“Just do whatever you’d do if I wasn’t around,” he told her, chasing down a bite with a swig of beer.

“If you weren’t here, I’d be getting ready for a walk.”

“In the woods with the crazies and the wolves? Golly, can I come too?”

“Sure,” she told him, then looked up and realized from his expression that he’d been joking.

“Seriously?” He asked, realizing that she wasn’t.

“Don’t you want to look around for foot prints or tire marks?”

“Sure Grissom, lemme just go get my kit.”

She looked at him blankly.

“I guess you don’t watch much CSI.”

She shook her head.

“You been livin’ in a box for the last decade?” Joe asked in wonder.

“No,” Aubrey told him haughtily, “on a battleship.”

“Maybe we should stick to Batman. Grissom doesn’t really have a sidekick,” he took both their plates into the kitchen, rinsed them off, and put them in the dishwasher.

“Are you going to wear tights?” She asked.

“Maybe later,” he told her. “If we’re goin’ walkin’, boots might be a better bet.”

Aubrey got dressed and grabbed her stun-gun, cell phone, keys and a print out of the map. The sky was clearing by the time they got to Joe’s. Aubrey looked around the yard and driveway while he put on his boots, but everything was one big mud puddle. She didn’t see any signs of cars, feet, or paws.

Joe came out and she led him wordlessly to the path she had carved across from his driveway and from there up into the hills. When they got to the footpath that she suspected led to Wayne Mosley’s, she stopped and examined the ground. There was no sign that anyone had been that way recently.

“You know, if it was Wayne, he’d a just walked down the road to my place. He’s not known to be terribly bright.”

“What if it was someone from his family? They could have crossed into the hollow here and gone down to his place, then taken the road.”

“Why not just pull into his driveway, like they were comin’ for a visit? That time of night, in a storm, nobody was likely to see a car.”