Chapter Four
From the sheriff’s department, Carly went home. She’d been at work earlier, planned to go back a little later, but she could use some lunch before she returned. And there was plenty to do at the house.
Little by little, she was cleaning out Joe’s stuff, a difficult job even without all the memories and sorrow that went along with a lot of hard work.
She drove Joe’s F-150 into the garage and went into the kitchen of the little beige two-bedroom, two-bath ranch-style house. She’d already cleaned everything out in here, arranged the dishes and pans the way she liked. After so many years, the walls had turned a dull robin’s egg blue, but she’d painted them a nice pale yellow.
The whole house needed painting, but once she’d started working at the yard, she hadn’t had time. She planned to fix the place up: new carpet and drapes, new furniture. She’d get around to it, but the company had to come first. Once Drake was making money again, she’d be able to afford it.
Carly sighed. If she didn’t get things back on track at Drake, she wouldn’t have enough to pay the property taxes. Hell, the way she was going through her savings, she wouldn’t have enough to buy groceries.
She fixed herself a bologna sandwich with real mayonnaise, a treat, and carried it and a glass of milk toward the living room.
The moment she stepped through the opening from the kitchen, a prickle of unease slipped down her spine. Something was out of place; she could feel it. She glanced at the worn beige sofa and chairs, at the brass lamps on the maple end tables that had been in the house since Grandpa Joe had brought her to live with him when she was ten years old.
Nothing seemed out of order, no sign that anything had been moved. Still, the feeling persisted.
Setting the sandwich and milk down on an end table, she walked quietly down the hallway and turned into the bedroom. When a noise sounded, her pulse leaped and she whirled toward the sound, sure someone was going to jump out at her. She relaxed when she realized the air conditioner had just kicked in.
Nothing to worry about. She just hadn’t been living in the house long enough to get used to the everyday creaks and moans.
There was no one in the bedroom, nothing out of place. She returned to the living room, glanced down at the maple coffee table in front of the sofa. The latest copy ofOverdrive,a trucker’s magazine Joe had subscribed to, sat next to theIron Springs Gazette.
Her unease returned, stronger now, making her palms go damp. She could have sworn she’d left the magazine on the other end of the table.
Her breath caught when she spotted the note, hand-written on half a sheet of yellow lined paper torn out of a legal pad. Her pulse accelerated. Her hand shook as she reached for it, started to read the message.
Sell Drake Trucking to Cain and you’ll be as dead as Hernandez.
Carly started trembling. She needed to call the sheriff, but her cell was in her purse, which was in the kitchen, and after her encounter with Howler that morning, she didn’t want another confrontation.
Telling herself not to panic, that she was fairly certain whoever had been in the house was gone, she hurried back to the bedroom, went over to the nightstand, and punched in the digital code that unlocked the metal gun safe sitting on top of it.
Lifting the lid, she took out Joe’s semiautomatic pistol, a Glock ninemillimeter he’d carried on long-haul runs. She’d fired the gun when she’d been in high school, gotten to be a pretty good shot. Joe had insisted she learn how to handle a pistol so that she could defend herself, but that had been years ago.
She studied the weapon, found the release button and dropped the clip, saw the magazine was full, and shoved it back in. The heavy metal click felt comforting as it vibrated up her arm.
She racked the slide, sending a cartridge into the chamber and cocking the weapon, then, just to be safe, carried it in to check the bathroom off the master bedroom. Finding it empty, she checked the closets and under the bed.
In the spare bedroom, she found the point of entry. One of the windows overlooking the backyard had been broken. She checked the room, then the bathroom at the end of the hall, reminding herself to call the glass company and have the broken window replaced.
In a small community like Iron Springs, there wasn’t much crime. Joe had never considered installing a security system, hadn’t really needed one, and though that had clearly changed, at the moment she couldn’t afford to have it done.
She thought again of the note, ridiculously thought of calling Lincoln Cain.
Sell Drake Trucking to Cain and you’ll be as dead as Hernandez.
Since she wasn’t selling to Cain or anyone else, she shouldn’t need to worry.
But what did the note mean? Why had someone gone to so much trouble to deliver it? What did Miguel Hernandez’s murder have to do with Cain? What did it have to do with Drake Trucking?
She went back to the master bedroom, found the clip holster for the pistol in one of the drawers in the nightstand, and shoved in the Glock. From now on, she was taking the pistol to work with her.
In the end, she called the sheriff ’s office, stayed till a deputy named Rollins arrived. The deputy bagged the note, dusted for fingerprints around the bedroom window, and took her statement.
“It’s probably just some kid’s idea of a joke,” he said. “Everyone knows about the murder.”
“A joke,” Carly said darkly.
