BIG SKY SECRETS 01: Final Exposure (13 page)

His brow furrowed. “I got rolls.”

“Well, those are kind of an extra. A bonus. But I need to pay you and I should do it properly even if it is for just an hour or less a day. But I don’t have your Social Security number. Do you have an account at the bank where you could deposit a check?”

He stared at her blankly. “Barry pays me sometimes.”

“So he would know all this?” She flicked a glance at the clock. The weather had warmed up and now it was raining, a steady, dreary drizzle that had turned the snow to slush and chilled the bones, apparently keeping her usual morning customers at home. “If you could either wait or come back in an hour or so, I could close for a bit and we could run up to the greenhouse to talk to him. Is that okay with you?”

Ollie nodded, already blissfully in the thrall of his favorite confection.

“And then maybe we could check on a different
coat for you. There’s a nice consignment shop in town and—”

Her cell phone rang. She pulled it from her pocket, glanced at the incoming area code and flipped it open as she headed for the privacy of the kitchen. “Grandpa Pete! It’s great to hear from you.”

He chuckled. “I was off on a weekend cruise and just got back. Whoo-ee, I got more sun than I bargained for. I’m red as those Indian paintbrush flowers you always liked. So how’s everything at the store?”

He sounded so relaxed, so happy, that she hesitated. “Fine, all fine. Though I was wondering…how well you know Barry Hubble?”

Gramps was one of the strongest Christians she knew. He took his faith seriously, walked the walk every day and had always been careful not to judge others.

Judge not, lest ye be judged
had been his familiar refrain to her, delivered with a sad shake of his head whenever a customer walked out of the store after uttering a tidbit of spiteful gossip.

Now, his silence told her that he was trying to come up with the right answer within the bounds of his personal code of honor, and that with Barry, it wasn’t easy.

“Be careful,” he said finally.

“Why?”

“Just trust me.”

“Can you be just a
little
more specific?”

“He’s a man,” Gramps said at last, “who doesn’t hesitate to go after what he wants.”

“You mean he’s dishonest?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But he might not stop at ordinary means to get what he’s after?”

“Maybe. He isn’t one to take no for an answer.”

“And what about Ollie?”

“Not a mean bone in that man’s body. And despite all his struggles, he’s as happy one day as the next. We should all be that lucky. I only wish he’d let the county help him out more.”

“With food? Medical care?”

“All of that. I’m also afraid that some winter he’s going to freeze to death in that drafty old house of his, but he’s just too stubborn to move.”

“There,” Ollie said, pointing a stubby finger at the road ahead. “Go there.”

“Thanks. I don’t think I’ve been here before.” She slowed, turned and made her way past a discreet, elegant sign for Mountain View Florist.

The lane wound through a stand of pines, then opened up into a meadow with a long, single-story log building in the middle, and three greenhouses to one side. Several cars were parked in front.

The rest of the area was neatly divided into split-
rail fenced sections for separating types of nursery stock, though only a few forlorn trees remained.

Surprised, she surveyed the well-kept facilities. “I didn’t expect this,” she muttered under her breath.

Ollie nodded. “Barry’s.”

When she’d first seen Barry at Millie’s, he’d looked like an ex-con. Like someone who spelled trouble, and after his gruff announcement that he’d been trying to buy her grandfather’s property, she’d let her imagination run a little wild about what he might do to get it.

Now all of those preconceptions were beginning to fade.

A woman stepped out of the log building with a large flower arrangement swathed in plastic, and then Barry himself came out in a yellow slicker with the hood pulled up to help her maneuver the flowers into her car.

Mission accomplished, he strolled over to Erin’s car. “Can I help you?”

She rolled down her window and blinked at a gust of rain that blew in. “I just have some questions, if you have a minute.”

He braced a hand on the roof and leaned down to peer inside her car at Ollie. “What’s happenin’?”

“Got a job. With money.”

“Is that so.” Barry pursed his lips and nodded. “Come on in. I just have one other customer, and then I’ll be right with you.”

Inside, the building was fragrant with the scent of flowers, pine and fresh black earth. A wall of glass-fronted coolers were filled with a variety of cut flowers and arrangements, while houseplants, garden supplies and lawn furniture took up the remaining space.

Barry gestured toward a door behind the register, which opened to an office, then motioned them to the two chairs facing his cluttered desk.

Erin told him about Ollie’s part-time job at the store, adding that she wanted to give him a proper paycheck.

“Good luck.” Barry leaned way back in his chair and crossed one booted foot over the opposite knee. “I just give him cash. He doesn’t have a bank account and couldn’t keep it straight, anyway. I’m not even sure if he has a Social Security number. If you can track somebody down who the works for the county-welfare system, you can ask them, though.”

“I’ll do that. It might be good for Ollie to learn these things.”

Barry rocked forward and folded his arms on his desk. “So now you’re going to be Ms. Social Worker.”

For all his nice surroundings, he was still the same creepy Barry she’d first met at her store. “I thought you’ve been his friend for a long time.”

“I help him in my own way. He comes here when he wants to. I let him earn some money. But I can’t help every hard-luck case that walks in the door. Can you?”

She had a feeling that when Ollie came here to earn money, the one who benefited the most was Barry. She stood. “I guess I’d like to make a difference, even if it’s just one person at a time. Ollie? Shall we go?”

He looked back and forth between the two of them, chewing his full lower lip, then shook his head.

“You don’t want a ride somewhere? I could take you home.”

“And I’ll bet you don’t even know where that is,” Barry said. “Have you been there? Have you seen how he lives?” The man stared at her through narrowed eyes. “Take him home and take a good look. Security is everything when you have almost nothing—and the county does nothing for you. I oughta know—been there, done that, when I was a kid.”

He picked up the pack of cigarettes on his desk and shook one out. “So take a good look, then ask yourself what’s better in his view—the devil you know or the devil you don’t? He’s been able to come here for years, if he needed. Do-gooders like you just come and go.”

“My grandfather said he was worried about Ollie’s house during the winter—that it’s too cold.”

Barrie shrugged. “He’s got a wood-burning furnace. He knows how to run it.” He gestured toward the door with a flick of his wrist. “Go with her, Ollie. Let her take you home.”

Unsettled, Erin led the way to her car and opened
the door for Ollie. “You can stay here if you want to, it’s your choice.”

He gave her a hunted look. “Barry said.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to
do
what he says. Does he make you do a lot of things? Does he ever tell you to do things that you don’t want to do?”

Ollie climbed in her car and averted his face.

“If that ever happens, you can trust me. I’ll help you in whatever way I can. Understand?”

He didn’t answer.

Could it be possible, despite his apparently upstanding place in the community, that Barry might still be the one behind her problems at the store? Did he covet Gramps’s property enough that he’d try to drive her away using a simple, trusting man to do his dirty work in order to keep his own name clear?

She glanced over at the gentle giant of a man sitting next to her, taking in the lines of worry etching his face.

And hoped it wasn’t true.

The farther she drove south of town, the greater her disbelief—and her uneasiness. “Ollie, are you
sure
this is the right way? You really live out this far? And yet you walk clear to the store?”

He nodded, not meeting her eyes.

Thoughts of too-stupid-to-live characters in movies started flashing through her mind. The ones who
would go down into creepy basements in the middle of the night, a fading flashlight in hand. Or climb rickety stairs to the attic of an abandoned house—and then meet their doom.

Going this far out in the country with Ollie suddenly seemed like a remarkably bad idea, despite Barry’s challenge.

She’d slowed, ready to pull onto the shoulder and turn around, when Ollie pointed a stubby finger at a crumbling house in the distance. “There.”

Even from here, she could see that the front porch hung at a tipsy angle and most of the paint had peeled away. Junker cars were parked haphazardly in the yard. Worse, some of the windows on the second floor were broken, and she could see that Ollie had stuffed the holes with rags, then covered them with cardboard from the inside. Even if he closed off the upper floor, what must that house be like in the middle of a good Montana winter?

Yet, as she drove on, she could see that an old-fashioned, hand-powered push mower was leaning against the house and that most of the weeds had been held at bay. And though the yard was like an automotive graveyard, there was no litter there, no trash heaped just outside the door.

Despite everything, Ollie was trying to make the house a decent place to live.

She pulled over onto the shoulder of the high
way and stopped by the mailbox out front. “This is your home?”

He nodded, flags of bright color staining his pale cheeks.

“Do you live all alone?”

A single nod.

“Who cooks for you?”

He didn’t answer.

“Who brings you food?”

“A lady, sometimes. Boxes and boxes.”

“It looks like you must do a very, very good job with the grass in the summer. And you keep everything picked up, too. Could I see the inside sometime?”

He vehemently shook his head as he opened the car door and climbed out.

She watched him trudge up the rutted driveway. Four fat, gleaming cats appeared from behind a rickety shed and bounded over to him, winding through his ankles until they all disappeared into the house together.

She sank back in the seat, her heart heavy, and thought about his childlike wonder at simple caramel rolls and coffee. The determination it took to make such a long trip to work for just an hour.

Where was the county in all this? The social workers? Where was the safe and clean and decent housing that a county ought to provide for unfortunates like him?

Ollie deserved better, and she was going to follow through and see that he got it. No matter what Barry Hubble thought.

J
ack drummed his fingers on the steering wheel of his car and stared at the nearly deserted main drag of Lost Falls.

On the positive side, the salesman from the security company in Red Lodge had arrived this morning and was meeting with Erin.

On the negative, a phone call from Jack’s secretary in Texas had revealed disturbing news.

The investigation into Ted’s missing funds wasn’t going well. Though Ted had stolen funds mostly from his elderly clients—probably assuming they’d be less likely to realize what was going on—some of them had relatives who were influential businessmen and were riled, demanding justice.

And now the investigators were back to delving into Jack’s side of the business.

Jack had been scrupulously honest. His own stable of investors had been safe. But how long
would it take for a frustrated investigator to find—or even fabricate—some link that could tie Jack to Ted’s schemes? And given Ted’s propensity for lies, it might not be too difficult. The man had probably laid a very careful trail that led straight to Jack’s door.

After dropping Max off at Isabelle’s place to play with the other children, Jack drove to a coffee shop where the Internet connection, though far slower than his cable back home, was still better than what he had at the rental house.

He would continue his own investigation until he figured out what Ted had done with the stolen money, if it was the last thing he ever did. And he would make sure Ted’s clients got back every penny.

After months of worry and frustration, however, he was growing less optimistic the longer he tried. None of his hunches had panned out so far. He was no closer to recovering the money now than when he’d first learned about Ted’s betrayal. Would it ever be over?

The first day Ted hadn’t shown up at the office, Jack had just assumed the man had taken the day to work from home. But as one day followed the next, Jack grew worried. He went to Ted’s condo and pounded on the door, then called the police, fearing Ted was ill…or worse.

The pile of mail beneath the mail slot, the emptied
drawers hanging half-open in the bedroom and the soured milk in a glass on the counter had made it clear that he was gone.

The increasingly agitated phone calls from Ted’s clients had made something else clear—that he’d managed to empty many of those accounts before fleeing.

Before contacting the authorities, Jack had photocopied account numbers. Banking information. Every possible lead, or contact name, and even a list of passwords Ted had kept hidden under the blotter on his desk.

Sure enough, the investigators had boxed up Ted’s files and taken them all away, but at least Jack had something to go on.

But nothing had panned out. Yet.

Settling in an isolated corner of the quaint shop with his laptop and a latte, he pulled a dog-eared paper from his billfold, carefully smoothed it out on the table and surveyed the list of possible leads that he’d typed out before leaving Texas.

Erin’s lovely face slipped into his thoughts. With those startling, light blue eyes and all that silky blond hair, she looked fragile as spun glass, yet he’d never met another woman with more independence and determination.