Forgotten Boxes (10 page)

He came down the stairs, onto the floor.

Charity dared not even breathe as she watched his leather-bound
feet pass directly in front of her. She could tell nothing more about the man, other
than he wore dark clothing. As he moved toward the rear of the warehouse’s deep
cavity, she knew her location would soon be discovered.

While she calculated her chances of running for it, she balanced
herself beneath the table, poised for flight. She reached for the floor to steady
herself, her fingers brushing against a small object. Looking down, she saw three
long screws, all with bolts and washers attached.

She drew in a deep breath of courage and tossed the first screw
as far into the distance as she could manage from her cramped location. It made
a pathetic little ‘ding’ as it hit the concrete floor, no more than twenty feet
away. It did, however, roll away from her. The man whirled around, his flashlight
searching well to the left of her location.

Charity picked up the second screw, this one heavier. She risked
waddling out from under the table to lodge her next missile. It sailed past the
man’s turned back, drawing his attention deeper into the recesses of the building.

With his back still to her and his attention occupied, Charity
bent low and ran for the stairs. From there she lodged her third and final projectile.
She aimed for one of the metal shelves, never believing she would actually hit her
target. Sheer luck carried the heavy screw through the air like a loaded dart, giving
it wings as it arched and sailed over the man’s head with perfect symmetry. It landed
with a loud clatter upon a particularly rickety set of shelves, echoing much like
a gunshot in the large, empty space.

A deafening racket followed. As the screw bounced and rolled
onto another metal shelf, it tapped off a series of pops that sounded like rapid-fire
bullets. In response, the bald man whipped out his own gun and fired into the midst.
Charity squealed in surprise, but the sound was swallowed up by the rancorous echo
of gunfire. Still teetering on uncertain legs, the rickety shelf succumbed to the
vibrations. When it fell, it crashed into the shelves next to it, knocking that
set into the next. Within seconds, the entire section of metal shelves fell like
a stack of dominoes, one after the other, crashing to the cold cement floor with
a noise that could awaken the dead.

Charity, however, was out the door before the second shelf tumbled.
She did not bother hiding her efforts. The swinging door waved behind her as she
dashed down the hall, still clinging to Aunt Nell’s framed photo and the
remnants of her own sanity. She barely paused as she dashed through the front office,
cleared the door, and sailed into the glorious freedom of fresh air and daylight.

The only thing that stopped her was the man standing outside,
holding a gun trained directly upon her.

“Hold it right there!” the man barked.

Momentum made it difficult to stop on a dime: stopping on the
cold end of a gun barrel, however, was quite a different matter.

Charity screeched to a standstill, her energy suddenly spent.
Woefully out of shape, she bent over at the waist and gasped for air, even as the
man demanded in a high-pitched voice, “Stop right there! Put your hands over your
head so that I can see them!”

She meant no disrespect. The man wore a uniform, after all, and
he had a gun. But her lungs were on fire and her sides were aching. Her legs screamed
in pain, threatening to give way at any moment. The last time she had done any serious
running she was eight or so years younger and twenty pounds lighter. Those numbers
made a huge difference, she discovered.

The young officer was clearly excited. He spoke into the radio
clipped to his collar, requesting back up. When Charity managed to look up at him
from her bent-over position, she could have sworn she saw his hand tremble, but
the gun remained more-or-less trained in her direction.

“Just-Just give me a second to-to catch my-my breath.” She panted
the words best she could with Barney Fife hovering over her.

“I said to get your hands up.”

Clutching one hand to her heaving chest, the picture frame still
cradled in the crook of her arm, Charity gave a half-hearted attempt to comply.
“W-Wouldn’t you rather go after- after the man with the gun?”

“Gun? What gun? And get that hand up where I can see it!” Dipping
his chin to his shoulder, he yelled into the radio again, begging for back up.

With oxygen returning to her lungs and some managing to circulate
to her brain, Charity could think more clearly. She had to be careful what she said,
or else he might arrest her for trespassing.

Although she was not accustomed to lying, particularly not to
an officer of the law, the words fell easily from her lips. “I-I was supposed to
meet the real estate agent here to view the property. Suddenly this man came in
and he had a gun! He demanded I leave. There’s an odd odor inside. I-I think this
might be one of those crack houses I hear about on the news.”

The officer’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. His eyes rounded
into perfect circles within his pale face. “I-uh-I-uh… who did you say the man was?”

“I have no idea!” That much was true.

Clearly torn between his palpable fear and his sworn duty, the
officer faltered on the sidewalk. After a moment’s hesitation, his gun slowly swung
from Charity to the building behind her. “Get into your car, miss, and lock your
doors. Stay there until someone takes your statement.”

Charity’s legs masqueraded as rubber stubs as they carried her
the short distance to her car. She didn’t remember having locked the doors before
getting out, but the handle refused to budge when she rattled it. She fumbled in
her pocket for the keys, managed to get the door opened, and started the motor.
Blatantly ignoring the officer’s words and the panicked look he shot over his shoulder,
she shoved the gear into reverse and hit the gas. She felt a bit guilty about leaving
the policeman there all alone, but the sooner she got out of there, the better.
She had no idea who the bald man inside was or what he wanted with her.

She met the requested back up on her way down the lane.

In a larger town more experienced with gunmen and armed stand-offs,
the second officer would never have allowed her to leave the scene of a potential
crime. But in this little town, where the most dangerous criminals were usually
drunk teenagers or petty thieves, the police force was less suspicious, less skeptical.
When she made a frantic motion for the officer to hurry in the direction from which
she came, he nodded his appreciation and floored the gas pedal.

Relieved to know that Barney would have back up, Charity’s conscience
was clear as she watched the Kingdom Parcel warehouse grow smaller in her rear view
mirror.

“Okay, that’s it!” she announced to her car in general. “I’m
done. I have no idea what is going on, but I want no part of it! I’m going home!”

She made the turn where she had originally deviated from her
route.

“I should have never gone down there in the first place. I should
have just stuck to my plan. The GPS said go straight, but what did I do? I just
had to turn.” Charity ridiculed herself as she got back on her intended course.
She glanced down at the photograph in the seat, the one she had swiped from her
uncle’s desk. She refused to think of it as stealing. Technically, as heir to the
Tillman estate, the photograph was hers, even if she acquired it through questionable
means.

“I’m sorry, Aunt Nell,” she told the woman in the picture. “The
more I think about it, the more certain I am that your husband did not take his
own life. I think there’s more to the story, much more, but it’s really none of
my business. That was thirty-one years ago, before I was even born. I never knew
the man. I hardly even knew you, for crying out loud.” She glanced back at the photograph.
It was a professional head shot, one that offered her aunt in a poignantly solemn
pose. “Stop looking at me like that!” Charity huffed. “What am I supposed to do?
And what does it matter anymore? Both of you are gone now; you had no children,
no living relatives other than me. What does it matter whether or not I clear his
name after all these years?”

For the rest of the trip, Charity refused to look at the silent
woman traveling beside her on the seat. Her mind was occupied with more pressing
issues. Had the man from the warehouse been looking specifically for her, or had
he mistaken her for someone else? Surely, that was the case; very few people even
knew she was in Vermont, and certainly, no one she knew would want to cause her
harm.

By the time Charity found a room for the night, she felt confident
that the entire fiasco at the warehouse was nothing but a fluke, a classic case
of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Confused for someone else entirely,
she had absolutely nothing to worry about, especially with Barney on the case. He
and his partner no doubt had the man with the gun securely locked up in the nearest
jail.

Killing the car’s engine, Charity spoke again to the photo.

With a weary sigh of resignation, she admitted defeat. “You can
stop looking at me like that now. I know I have to see this thing through. I got
a little off track back there, both geographically and emotionally, but I’m back
now. And yes, I know doing the right thing always matters.”

Two days had passed. Tarn could still
imagine her taste upon his lips, her warmth against his palm as he cradled her face
in his hand.

It was the most wonderfully ridiculous thing he had ever done
in his life. He still could hardly believe he had kissed her. A total stranger,
and he had kissed her in a parking lot, with half the town looking on! What had
he been thinking?

Nothing. His brain had ceased to function the moment she bumped
into him and literally fell into his arms. One look into her blue eyes, and he was
lost.

He would be the laughing stock of the territory. This would be
worse than the rumors that still lingered of his family being involved in something
dishonorable. Thirty years later and still the rumors existed, even when there was
no proof. But this… he had been seen holding hands with the woman, walking her out
to her car. He tried to shield her with his body, but he knew some of the nosier
townspeople had been watching. They had seen him lean in close and take her pretty
little face into his hand. Private moment or not, there had been witnesses to their
kiss. And worse yet, there were witnesses that knew he had wandered out to his truck
— head floating in the clouds, totally lost to the clear blue wonder of her eyes
— and driven away. Witnesses who knew he drove ten miles out of town before he remembered
to turn around, come back to collect his wares, and pay for the snacks he had gifted
her. Witnesses who knew what a fool he had made of himself over a woman.

Ah, but not just any woman
, Tarn reminded himself as he
swung the ax. The heavy blade sliced through the log, splintering it in half. He
bent to pick up one of the halves, balanced it upright on the stump he used as a
work surface, and sent his ax flying into the wood again, severing the piece right
down the middle. He repeated the action with the other half of the log, then reached
for another.

This woman was almost perfect. Not too skinny, not too fat. Just
right for hugging. She fit perfectly into his arms, coming up to a respectable height
on his six–foot–three frame. Those dainty little women, those ones that lived on
carrot sticks and celery, made him feel like a big, clumsy ox; he was afraid he
might snap them right in two if he held them too close. But this woman made him
feel powerful and strong. Protective. She was a beauty, too, with porcelain skin
healthy enough to boast a rosy hue and eyes the color of a summer sky. Her hair
was long and thick, the prettiest shade of burnished gold he had ever seen. Her
hair reminded him of a shimmering maple leaf, that delicate shade somewhere between
gold and red, where the two colors blended together to make the most beautiful shade
nature had ever created.

Charity
. Even her name was sweet and kind, just like she
was.

Tarn swung the ax over his head again, sinking the sharp edge
of the bit deep into the flesh of the tree limb. He handled the instrument with
ease. Close to three hundred pounds, his large frame carried little fat. Most of
his considerable bulk was rock-hard muscle, chiseled from daily workouts such as
this. Even after chopping a half a cord of wood this morning, he had hardly broken
a sweat.

Tarn tossed the sticks into a pile, using no more effort than
if he tossed toothpicks. Autumn was in the air, meaning winter was soon to follow.
The spring thaw would bring sugaring season, when they could easily burn a cord
and a half of wood on a good boiling day. Most folks didn’t understand that Danbury
Sugarworks still used wood to fuel the evaporator tanks when boiling their syrup.
Not only was wood more cost-effective than gas, but it was the traditional way of
his father and grandfather before him, and his grandfather before that. For over
a hundred and fifty years, a Danbury had been boiling sap on this mountain. And
if it ain’t broke, there was no need to fix it.

With winter coming on, he could hole up on his mountain and not
go down into the towns, pretending snow kept him homebound. He would especially
avoid Cabot. Maybe he would send his father down to take the syrup in, or Jake.
Maybe by the time he braved his way back into Dan’s Vermont, the people would have
forgotten how he had kissed the fair-haired beauty in the middle of the parking
lot.

Maybe
, he thought with a grunt.
But doubtful
.

As for Tarn, he knew he would never forget.