Authors: Christy Evans

Lead-Pipe Cinch (2 page)

BOOK: Lead-Pipe Cinch

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“Thanks, Mr.—Chad. I’ll do that.”

Footsteps rattled the boards over my head as McComb and a second person crossed the temporary bridge to the building site.

“Watch your step there, Blake,” McComb said.

My heart did a little flip at the mention of his name, and I shook my head, disgusted with myself. There must be thousands of Blakes in the world, and Blake Weston was ancient history. So why, after three years, did I still react to the mention of his name? Just because I was thinking of the boy’s club didn’t mean a member of it was going to magically appear, like some evil sorcerer conjured out of my thoughts.

But before I could lift another shovelful of mud, I heard a voice that took my breath away as though I had been punched in the solar plexus.

Blake Weston’s smooth voice, a rich baritone that used to give me goose bumps, answered McComb. “Certainly.”

My veins were suddenly full of ice water. How could I be so sure, with only a single word? Maybe I just
thought
it sounded like
my
Blake. It had been three years, after all—just a coincidence.

Blake and McComb were looking at the building site in front of them, not at the muddy moat below, when I stepped away from the supports to look up.

I just had to look.

And I wished I hadn’t.

The profile, the slick dark hair, the confident bearing, were all instantly familiar. It wasn’t the power of suggestion, or a sound-alike, or some evil magic. It was Blake Weston.

I ducked back under the temporary bridge, forcing my attention back to the job at hand. With luck, I could stay in the moat, hidden from sight, until Blake and McComb left.

I strained to listen to their conversation, but they had moved away from the bridge.

“Ready for the pump?” Sean called down.

I froze, waiting for him to call me “Neverall,” and reveal my presence to the last person on earth I wanted to see. But for once he didn’t.

“Yep,” I called back, pitching my voice low, and hoping it wouldn’t carry.

On the other hand, would Blake even recognize my voice? If he didn’t, I wasn’t sure whether I would be relieved or insulted. But the two men gave no indication they had heard our exchange.

A few minutes later, their footsteps muffled by the rhythmic thumping of the pump, Blake and McComb passed back across the temporary bridge and walked through the gravel.

Unable to resist, I clambered a few feet up the side of the moat, peeking over the rim of the trench. I had to confirm what I already knew.

One glance was all it took.

The first thing I saw from that vantage point was a pair of hand-stitched Italian loafers, now speckled with mud from their owner’s trek through the construction site.

How appropriate. Blake Weston would never wear sneakers or work boots, even on a muddy construction site.

I hoped it was the last I would see of those despised loafers.

No such luck.

chapter 2

I don’t remember much of the rest of that morning. I know that we somehow got the moat pumped mostly dry, and the inspector came and went, shaking his head and muttering about crazy people. I hoped he meant the McCombs and their project, but it could have been me.

I wasn’t at my best.

Of course, having a ghost rise up out of your past and walk by without seeing you can seriously mess up your day. But once I got over the initial shock, I wanted to know what Blake Weston, San Francisco man-about-town, was doing in Pine Ridge, Oregon?

And what was he doing dragging his expensive Italian loafers through the mud of a construction site? The man I knew, all too well, took a cab if the fog was thick and might leave condensation on his Burberry raincoat.

By the time I got off work, I was past curious and bordering on obsessive. I pulled my thirty-year-old Beetle into the driveway of my rental house without any sense of actually having driven anywhere. My mind was too full of Blake, and what he was doing here.

Daisy and Buddha, the Airedale parts of my family, met me at the door. They were anxious to visit the backyard, and I let them out before I stepped into the garage to strip out of my muddy coveralls.

I grabbed a clean T-shirt and jeans from the folded laundry and dashed for the bathroom, leaving the dirty coveralls in a heap. I’d take care of them later, but first I really wanted to be clean and dry and warm.

I stepped out of the shower and towel-dried my short hair. Low-maintenance wardrobe, low-maintenance hair, low-maintenance car. I was learning to love my whole low-maintenance life.

It was a far cry from the always-on-call, dry-clean only, high-maintenance lifestyle I’d had in San Francisco, and I liked it a lot.

I always thought better on my feet with a leash in my hand. As soon as Daisy and Buddha saw me take the leashes off the hook by the door, they were ready to go. Soon we were on our way into the dusky evening, the dogs sniffing at all kinds of interesting bushes and weeds and me deep in thought.

We made our nightly two-mile circuit, Daisy straining against the leash in her usual impatient fashion, and Buddha walking serenely. Although the dogs were littermates with the same obedience training and home, their personalities mirrored their names. I swore I would never again name a dog after a flighty fictional heroine. Who knew what might happen if I named a dog Scarlett?

But speculating about dog names wasn’t enough to distract me from the real problem. What was Blake Weston doing in Pine Ridge, and why was he at the McComb construction site today?

I didn’t trust Blake. Not after the role he played in the destruction of Samurai Security. No one in Pine Ridge knew why I’d come back from San Francisco, and I intended to keep it that way. But Blake’s presence could make it difficult to keep my secret.

I would have to steer clear of him as much as possible, and hope he would be gone soon. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was all I could come up with for now. If I knew what he was up to I might be able to build a better program, but for now this would have to do.

My cell phone rang, and I glanced at the lighted display, pleased to see the number of my best friend, Sue Gibbons.

“Dinner?” Sue said without preamble when I answered. “Tiny’s?”

“Give me fifteen minutes,” I panted. “I’m walking the dogs, and we’re still a few blocks from home. Meet you there?”

I hurried the dogs home, gave them each one of their favorite green treats, and grabbed my purse.

Tiny’s was about a five-minute drive. In a town the size of Pine Ridge, most everything was a five-minute drive from everything else. Another low-maintenance option.

It was an option I was learning to enjoy, after the years of Bay Area traffic followed by several months of Portland gridlock. It meant I didn’t have the luxury of hundreds of shopping, dining, and entertainment options, but Portland was less than an hour away when I needed a “big city” fix.

To my mind, it was the best of both worlds.

I pulled the Beetle into Tiny’s graveled parking lot and looked around to see which cars I recognized. Sue’s SUV was parked at the front of the lot, and there were a couple of rigs I recognized from the various construction sites I’d worked on over the summer.

I didn’t spot Wade’s hybrid sedan, and I felt a guilty rush of relief. I was far too preoccupied with Blake Weston, and what he was doing in Pine Ridge, to deal with my sometime-boyfriend, City Councilman Wade Montgomery.

I walked through the door, stopping to let my eyes adjust to the dim light of the tavern.

Tiny’s was a neighborhood watering hole that had been here as long as I could remember. When I was a kid, it was a mysterious place where only the grown-ups were allowed, and we all yearned to see what was inside.

Now I knew it was just a local tavern with stools covered in brittle red vinyl, mismatched chairs, and scarred wooden tables. It smelled of beer and hot grease, and served the best chicken fingers I’d ever tasted.

Sue waved to me from a table near the so-called dance floor—a few square feet of light-colored wood set into the dark floorboards, with an old-fashioned jukebox next to it. Friday and Saturday nights there might be a few couples dancing, but tonight the floor was deserted.

She hooked a thumb in the direction of the bar. “Figured you wanted chicken and microbrew,” she said, “so I already ordered for us.”

I nodded my agreement. Sue knew me well. “How much do I owe you?”

She shook her head. “I had a good day, you can catch it next time.”

I gave her a wide-eyed look. “It must have been good for you to pick up a check, Gibbons. What gives?”

She chuckled. “What, you don’t think I can pick up a check now and again? I am wounded, I tell you. Wounded.”

“I helped you set up your computer, remember? Got the bookkeeping program running? I’ve seen your bank accounts, woman. I know you’re not exactly rolling in dough.”

She nodded. She was one of the few people in Pine Ridge who’d seen what I could do with a computer. My boss, Barry Hickey, was another. Mostly, however, I’d left that part of my life in San Francisco and I didn’t talk about it.

“So, what does
a good day
mean at Doggy Day Spa?”

Sue grinned, relishing the delay. “I have a new regular,” she said, “and she tips well!”

“Really? Who?”

“Astrid McComb. Remember I told you she brought in an adorable Yorkie a couple weeks back?”

I nodded.

“Well, today she showed up with the Yorkie again—said he just loved coming to see me.” She preened a little, then continued, “But she also had a pair of Old English sheepdog puppies. Said she thought they were more appropriate for the castle.”

“That’s one way to choose a dog, I suppose,” I said, sarcasm dripping.

“It’s not like that,” Sue said. “She was looking for another dog, and she fell in love with these two. Couldn’t decide between them, so she got ’em both.

“Anyway,” she continued, “she brought them both in for grooming today and told me she wanted a standing appointment every week.”

“Nice.”

“Even better was the tip she left. More than paid for tonight’s dinner.” She paused and glanced back at the bar. “Which, by the way, looks like it’s ready.”

Katie, the barmaid, brought the steaming baskets to our table along with a couple frosty mugs of microbrew. I felt the heat radiating from the food, and quickly decided I could give it a few minutes to cool down.

Sue looked at me, wiping a drop of foam from her lip. “You installed that tracking program, but I still don’t understand what it really does. Can we go over that again?”

Sue’s conversations were often a roller-coaster ride of subject changes and non sequiturs. Her thoughts raced ahead of her words, and she dove headlong into a new subject without transition.

This time she’d done a U-turn, back to her computer system. A few months earlier I had cleaned up some software issues, and put tracking and security software in place. I’d given her the Samurai Security standard instruction lecture when I was finished, but she still had a lot to learn.

I launched into an explanation of what the various programs did, but I dialed it back within a couple minutes, as I saw her eyes glaze over. “Sorry,” I said. “Sometimes I forget I don’t do that anymore.”

Sue eyed me with a troubled look. “Yeah, but you sure sound like you still could. Why don’t you? It’s got to be a heckuva lot more lucrative than being a plumber.”

“Apprentice plumber,” I corrected, trying to steer the conversation away from my previous profession. “I still have more than a year before I can get my certification. And that is assuming I even pass the exams.”

Sue rolled her eyes. “You, worried about exams? Puhleeese, Miss Graduated-From-One-of-the-Toughest-Schools-on-the-Planet. You can pass any exam you want.”

I shrugged. “Maybe so.” To tell the truth, I was proud of the computer science degree from Caltech, and the math and science
did
help with some of my plumbing class work.

But I had learned the hard way that nothing guaranteed success—in academic affairs, or business affairs.

Which brought me back to Blake, and his presence in Pine Ridge.

Why was he here?

chapter 3