Scarlet Nights (11 page)

Mike swallowed, trying hard not to show his excitement. This was a real breakthrough in the case! “But Rams wouldn’t sell it to him?”

“No.”

“But you’re part of Ramsey’s family and you’re to marry Greg, so isn’t that the same thing as with Tess and me?”

Sara tightened her lips. “That’s the way I saw it, but Rams said no. It was the biggest fight Ramsey and I ever had. The
biggest fight I’ve ever had with any human being—at least until I met you. He went on and on about how that place had been in his family since the eighteenth century, handed down from oldest son to the next. His father’s two older brothers died young, so that’s why it went to his father, Benjamin. Oh! When I think of the sob story he gave me! He even whined about how the Langs, father and son, had been caretakers of the place for …” She threw up her hands. “Since it was built for all I know. And to think that the real reason was that he’d promised to lease it to Tess—and probably because Rams doesn’t
like
the man I love. I could just
hit
Ramsey!”

Mike frowned in his best imitation of sympathy. “But you have
no
idea why Greg wants an old farm?”

Sara’s pretty face turned blush pink as she looked down at her hands. “Greg’s never said so, but he may want it for me. When I told him that I’d always liked the farm, he said he’d buy it for me.”

“Did he mention the place first or did you?” Mike knew he sounded like an interrogator, but he couldn’t help it.

Sara didn’t seem to notice. “I don’t remember. No. Wait. One time he told me he’d heard of it from somewhere else, before he even came to Edilean.”

“Tess didn’t say anything to me about your asking Rams for the farm.”

“If I know my cousin, he didn’t tell her. Do you have any idea how many people have asked the McDowell family to sell that farm to them?”

“Why, no.” Mike was surprised. “I don’t know anything about it except that it’s falling down. Why would anybody want it?”

“The farmhouse was remodeled around the original cabin, so it’s still there. And the McDowell family has made sure every outbuilding has been kept up just enough to keep it standing.”

Mike knew his face was blank because he had no idea what she was talking about. Not a word of it made sense.

Sara’s voice slowed as she further explained. “The house was built in 1674, and when it was added on to, the old house was left inside, intact. The outbuildings are the same as they were when they were built.”

Mike was staring at her. “Are you saying that that farm has been left alone since 1674?”

“Pretty much.”

“Through the Revolutionary War and the Civil War?”

“And two world wars. My mother says it even survived the hippies in the ’70s, and that they were more invasive than Sherman.”

Mike was hardly listening to her. He didn’t know what the Vandlos were after, but his gut told him it had something to do with Merlin’s Farm. There was no other reason Stefan would want a farm. He wasn’t about to open a house to the public, that’s for sure—unless he and his family could pick the pockets of the visitors.

“So when do we go see it?” Sara asked.

“What?” Mike came out of his reverie.

“When do you and I go see your new home?”

“I don’t think it’s safe for you to go. Tess said old Brewster Lang carried a shotgun.” Mike didn’t want Sara near a piece of property the Vandlos wanted.

“He makes his living selling vegetables—especially heirloom tomatoes—to my mother. I’ll get her to make him leave on the day we want to visit.”

“And what excuse will you give her?”

“All I have to do is tell her I want to go with
you
and she’ll drive us there.” She gave Mike a hard look. “So you
didn’t
come here to break Greg and me up?”

This is where Mike was good: bald-faced lies. More than once
he’d fooled lie detectors. “My sister nagged me into coming here to Edilean to sign papers—and she made me swear I’d use her apartment. My plan was to sneak in here, sign the papers the next day, then leave. Your being in this apartment was a surprise. You don’t think Tess set it up between you and me, do you?” He hated selling out his sister, but right now it was necessary to make Sara trust him.

“Yes,” she said firmly, “I do. I think Tess called Luke, and the two of them arranged it all.”

“Now that I think about it, Tess was the one who told me to use the old tunnel instead of the front door.” He vowed to send his sister flowers—or maybe a few sapphires.

“Now I’m sure I’m going with you,” Sara said brightly. “Mr. Lang comes into town on Thursdays, day after tomorrow, for the Farmers’ Market, so that’s when we’ll go.”

“No, you can’t possibly go with me. I need to—”

Sara got off the couch. “Do you think those scallops were burned? I could eat a dozen of them. What can I do to help make dinner?” Turning, she left the living room to go back to the kitchen.

As Mike watched her leave, there was one thing he was sure of: Sara was
not
going with him. Until he found out a great deal more about this Merlin’s Farm, she wasn’t getting near the place. Of that, he was absolutely, totally
certain
.

6

O
N THE DRIVE
to Merlin’s Farm, Mike couldn’t help being pleased with himself. All through dinner last night, Sara had given him multiple reasons why she should join him on Thursday while Mr. Lang—as she called him—was at the Farmers’ Market. Mike had been polite, had even pretended to consider what she was saying, but the truth was, he’d never come close to wavering in his decision to not allow her to go.

However, to ensure that nothing went wrong, he decided to go a day early. That night, after the kitchen was cleaned up, he went outside to call Tess. He asked her to do whatever she needed to in order to secretly get Lang off the property the next day so Mike could make a thorough inspection without Sara knowing.

“I’ll call Luke,” she said. “He’s the only one who can manage the old man.”

“Luke seems to run this town.”

“I think it comes with owning the Big House. But then,
knowing Edilean, it’s probably some leftover from medieval times. So you’ve been thinking of the farm?”

“Yeah,” Mike said, but he didn’t tell her about Sara’s fiancé’s interest in it. Maybe it was a coincidence, but it could be the break they needed.

Tess said she’d arrange it, and ten minutes later she called back to say that Luke would take great delight in causing Brewster Lang enough problems that he’d have to stay away all day. Over the last few years, whenever Luke tried to repair anything at Merlin’s Farm, the old man had followed him around, complaining so much that Luke had wanted to strangle him.

After Mike hung up, he went back inside the apartment. Sara’s light was off, and he was glad. He didn’t want to hear any more reasons of why she should go with him. On Thursday he planned to tell her he’d already seen the farm and that would be the end of the discussion.

This morning when Mike left early to go to the gym, Luke was outside, filling the bed of a red Kawasaki Mule with tools. “I’m preparing for my day with ol’ Brewster,” he said as he threw in a posthole digger. “Are you sure you want to take on something like that old place?”

“The last thing on earth I want is to own a farm. This is purely my sister’s idea.”

Luke grinned. “Wants to tie you down, does she? So how many blind dates have they tried to set you up on?”

“So far, two. There’s—”

“Let me guess. Ariel Frazier and Kimberly Aldredge.”

“Those are the names. Tell me, does anyone in this town have any secrets?”

“You seem to have more than a few,” Luke said quickly.

Mike didn’t reply, just got in his car and put down the window. “Why don’t you go to the gym with me tomorrow?”

“I was there yesterday, remember? And I caught the last of your routine. Forty-six minutes of hell. I don’t think I could stand working out with you.”

Mike continued to look at him. Luke was a big guy with quite a bit of muscle on him.

“I’ll be ready at six tomorrow,” Luke said.

As Mike drove away, he wished he didn’t have to go all the way into Williamsburg to a gym. He wondered what kind of zoning Merlin’s Farm had. Could he put in a mixed martial arts studio there? Maybe he could have a few paying clients. After he retired, he’d have his pension from the police force, and he had savings, but it would be good to have a supplemental income.

He ran his hand over his unshaved jaw. His sister and the whole town of Edilean were poisoning his mind. He had nearly three years before he left the force and moved to … probably to Edilean, since Tess and her—he smiled—kid would be living there. But he still couldn’t see that he’d ever
like
living on a farm.

As Mike pulled into the gym’s parking lot, he thought about what to do with old man Lang. He’d lived at Merlin’s Farm his entire eighty-five years, so it wasn’t going to be easy to get rid of him. Maybe they should put him into the same nursing home in Ohio where Mike and Tess’s grandmother had spent the last years of her life. The people there had dealt with cantankerous clients like her before and knew just how to keep smiling and not let her hurt their feelings. Without people to terrorize, Mike’s grandmother had deteriorated quickly, until one morning they’d found her in bed, dead, her eyes open and angry.

An hour later, Mike left the gym and drove to Merlin’s Farm. It was northwest of Edilean, through the same deep wilderness that surrounded the little town and made it seem more isolated from the world than it actually was. He drove past McTern Road, which led into the town, and kept on. Twice, he passed trucks hauling
motorboats as they went into the surrounding nature preserve for recreation.

As he checked the directions Tess had texted him, he remembered what she’d told him. The farm had once been on a thousand acres, with a huge race track just half a mile from the house. But now all that was left was twenty-five acres, with pretty little K Creek running through the center of it.

His first sight of the farm was a big
NO TRESPASSING
sign. Mike pulled his car well off the road to park it under a huge oak tree. Even though he’d been assured Lang was gone for the day, he didn’t want to drive in and leave his car to the mercy of an angry man. Mike noted that there was an old, falling-down fence hidden in the tall weeds, and beyond it he could see the top of a chimney.

He had on a pair of Levi’s, a tan T-shirt, and a cotton jacket. He checked in his jacket pocket to make sure the plastic bag was there. He’d laced some ground beef with a common tranquilizer—one of several drugs he kept in his car—and was ready to confront Lang’s dogs. Tess had warned him about them, saying Lang trained them to alert him to anyone who stepped on the property. The dogs were yet another reason he’d not wanted Sara with him.

Mike decided not to walk down the driveway, but to go through the weeds to the side of the house. Quietly, he made his way through a field of chest-high Queen Anne’s lace, seedy grasses, and wild daisies while doing his best not to leave a path. “I guess this is where I’m supposed to grow a crop,” he said under his breath and couldn’t help chuckling at the absurdity of the idea.

As he walked, he listened, but he heard nothing but the birds. When the tall grasses abruptly ended, he saw that in the distance was one end of the house. For all the fanfare he’d heard about it, it looked quite ordinary, just an old two-story house that needed paint and repair. There was a brick chimney that went from the ground to
above the roofline, and as he’d had some experience with carpentry, he guessed that the fireplace drew well.

There were four windows in the end, two on each floor, and he could see a long porch jutting out from what he guessed was the back of the house. From this angle, he couldn’t see the front.

If he hadn’t been told about the house, he would never have guessed it was extraordinary, as there looked to be nothing to distinguish it from thousands of other Virginia farmhouses. Except for one thing. Between him and the house were four buildings that looked like something out of a movie that took place in George Washington’s time. There was one to his right that was perfectly square, with a pitched roof, but no windows or even a door that he could see. To the left was a larger building, shorter but wider, with an addition on the side, and several windows. In between them was an odd wooden structure that looked to be just a roof set on the ground. He couldn’t imagine what it had ever been used for. And set back from the other three was what was unmistakably an outhouse.

Mike stood still, staring at all of it. There were some huge trees around the house, shading the whole area. As he looked from one building to another, he began to understand what Sara was talking about. This was an untouched plantation, still the same as it had been hundreds of years ago, and he had a sense of how unusual this place was.

Turning, Mike saw a small fence—the only wood that looked as though it had been painted in the last fifty years—around a garden that was set out in big squares, with paths laid with white gravel. For all that the garden looked like something out of a history book, it was also very much in this century. An old table standing at the side of a path was covered with balls of strings, hand tools, and plastic markers. In one corner was an old metal cabinet with a door hanging open, and he could see wooden-handled tools inside.

As for the garden itself, it held the most magnificent vegetables he’d ever seen; they looked like an advertisement for fertility. Whatever else was said about old man Lang, he was certainly good at making plants grow.

Cautiously, while looking around for the dogs, Mike left cover and went into the vegetable patch. Everything was in perfectly straight lines, with not a weed in sight.

The whole place was so unusual to Mike—and so beautiful—that he couldn’t help walking along the rows. In the center was what he guessed was an herb bed, a square crisscrossed with paths, a small tree at each corner.

It was while he was looking at the herbs that he got his first idea that something was wrong. He was startled to see that smack in the middle of each triangle was what looked to be a tall, thriving marijuana plant.