cab light came on. Could this be Aunt Peck’s angel?
The driver went around back and got something out of the bed of his truck, then carried it toward the house. The breath caught in my throat as heavy footsteps sounded on the steps, then the porch.
I hobbled around to the front door and flipped all the switches on the wall. The porch and the hallway flooded with light. Through the little window set in the front door, I saw Joe Carver’s startled face, then heard a metallic crash as he dropped something heavy.
“Bessie?” he called. He tried the door handle, but it was locked. He jiggled it.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded.
“Who are you?” he called. Rather than run away, as I’d half expected, he began to pound on the door. “Bessie? Are you okay in there? Open up!”
“Stop that!” I said.
“Open up!” he shouted. “Bessie? Bessie?”
Those weren’t the actions of a prowler. I fumbled with the lock and opened the door.
“Who the hell are you?” Joe demanded, staring at me. The loud crashing noise had been his toolkit—he had dropped it when I turned on the lights.
“I’m Peter Geller,” I said, leaning heavily on my walking stick. “I’m visiting Aunt Peck for the week. Now who the hell are you?”
Joe looked me up and down. I guess I didn’t strike him as dangerous or threatening—me, thin as a rail, eyes limned with dark circles, looking closer to sixty than my true age of thirty—because he didn’t try to tear me to pieces. Which he probably could have done with very little effort.
“You one of her nephews?” he demanded. He took a step forward, face cycling through anger and puzzlement. “She didn’t say nothing about you comin’.”
“It must have slipped her mind,” I said. “She didn’t say anything about expecting burglars, either!”
“I’m not a burglar!”
“You could have fooled me, sneaking around like that!”
His fists balled up; he seemed about to take my head off. I shifted uneasily. Maybe I had chosen the wrong approach. He wasn’t responding well to confrontation.
“Say,” I said, pretending to study his features. Time to change tactics—and fast. “Don’t I know you? You’re Joe Carver, right?”
“Huh.” He squinted hard at my face, but seemed to draw a blank. “How do you know me?”
“We met years ago,” I lied. “I was just a kid, and I didn’t have this.” I raised my walking stick.
“Huh,” he said again.
I peered around him at his truck. “I heard you come up the drive, but your headlights were off. That’s why I thought you were a burglar.”
“I was trying not to wake Bessie,” he said. He frowned. “Termites been eatin’ into the dinin’ room floor. I need to replace it or she’s gonna fall through and break a leg. Maybe worse. She wouldn’t let me do it, so I thought I’d come by tonight and get started. Once the floor’s up, she’ll have to let me finish.”
He had the lines down so well, he must have practiced them. Smiling, I swung the front door fully open.
“Come in, Mr. Carver. I’m sorry if I was rude—but you scared the bejesus out of me. I wasn’t expecting anyone. And you have to admit a cripple like me can’t exactly defend the house. You understand.”
“Uh-huh.”
I glanced over my shoulder at the stairs, brow furrowing. “And I’m surprised Aunt Peck’s not up, considering all the racket we’ve made.”
“Bessie sleeps like a log.” He said it a little too fast. “Don’t fret yourself about her. Early to bed, early to rise.”
Mental alarms went off. Hard work and country air might make someone tired. But nobody could have slept through the crash of his dropped toolbox or the shouting we’d done at each other. No, Aunt Peck should have been down here in a flash to investigate.
Then I remembered the white sludge in the bottom of her coffee mug. I had taken it for sugar. But it could have been something else—some drug to make her sleep, so Joe could get in here and do…what? Haunt the place?
“Well, at least someone’s tired,” I said with a chuckle. I had to put him at ease and get away long enough to check on Aunt Peck. “I’m going to have to take my pain pills to get to sleep tonight.”
“Yeah,” he said. “You should do that.”
I nodded and smiled. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to turn in. Good night, Mr. Carver.”
“Good night.” He picked up his toolbox, then pushed past me into the dining room.
I limped with deliberate noisiness down the hallway—a shuffling step, then a tap of my walking stick, then another shuffling step, the another tap, floorboards creaking underfoot all the time. Halfway to my room, I heard a slight noise behind me, and I could feel his eyes following my every move. Hopefully he found my performance convincing.
Without a backward glance, I entered my room and shut the door. Then, so slowly it hurt, I counted to a hundred. When I peeked out, he had gone back to doing whatever mischief he had come to do.
I pulled out my cell phone and flipped it open. Number 002 on the speed dial list still said, “Fast help.” But what did that mean—police? FBI? Mob hit-men? I needed muscle, and I needed it fast. Despite his affection for Aunt Peck, I didn’t exactly feel safe with Joe in the house.
Taking a deep breath, I pushed button 2. On the first ring, a man picked up and said in a gravely voice, “Smith’s office.”
“This is Peter Geller. I need someone here. Fast.”
“Five minutes,” he said and hung up.
Five minutes. I could last that long.
Slowly I eased myself out into the hallway, closed the door silently behind me, and crept up hallway toward the narrow stairs. I placed my feet as close to the wall as I could, hoping the floorboards wouldn’t squeak. Tiptoeing along that way, without using my walking stick really hurt; I put too much weight on the balls of my feet, and the shooting pains it caused brought tears to my eyes.
But it worked. The floorboards remained silent.
When I passed the door to the dining room, Joe had his back to me. He had rolled up half the rug and was examining the floorboards. Looking for termite damage? Somehow, I doubted it.
I reached the staircase. Cautiously, I placed my foot on the first step. The stairs had barely squeaked when Aunt Peck went up them at bedtime. I estimated my own weight at seventy to eighty pounds less than hers, so I anticipated little trouble. Grasping the railing, I hauled myself up an inch at a time. Three steps, and not a sound; six steps, halfway there; eight steps, and I knew I’d make it.
I
