Remembering Dresden (Jack Turner Suspense Series Book 2) (10 page)

“It is. But it isn’t mine anymore. Sold it to some fishermen. I couldn’t relax out there after everything that happened. Too many bad memories.”

“So, you bought another one?”

“Thinking about it. Renting one for a month. The owner wants to sell it. Pretty obvious he doesn’t use it anymore. You might know who he is. Senator Wagner?”

“Wagner? Yeah, I know him.”

The look on Boyd’s face was almost sour. “Don’t like him?” Jack said.

“Aah, nothing personal. Let’s just say he’s the kind of guy born to be in politics. Guys like that generally rub me the wrong way.”

“I’ve never actually met him,” Jack said. “So far I’m liking his cabin. Might just buy it. Say, when do you need yours?”

“In two weeks,” Boyd said.

“Rats,” Jack said. “I’ll still be renting this one then. But I tell you what, if I do wind up buying this one or another one, you and your family can use it anytime you want, rent-free.”

“Well, that’s very nice of you, Jack. So, how are you making out now? You all healed up?”

“Pretty much. Even after I healed up from the gunshot wound, kept having nightmares and some mild PTSD symptoms for about another six months. But I’m doing much better now.”

“Good to hear. You and that girl Rachel still together?”

“Definitely. In fact, that’s why I’m here. She’s coming up for dinner at the cabin in a little while.”

Boyd got a confused look on his face. He turned around and looked at the convenience store. “And you think they’ve got something you might want to serve her for dinner…in there? Jack, I stopped in there a few times. We’re not talking Wa Wa or even 7-Eleven. We’re talking shipped-in food made last week, or maybe last month.”

Jack laughed. “I’ve already got most of what I need for the dinner. Just missing a few things. Thought I’d stop in here, take a chance, see if they had ‘em. The nearest supermarket’s another fifteen minutes away.”

Boyd nodded. “Gotcha. Glad you guys are still together. She’s a nice lady.”

“She truly is. I’m actually pretty close to popping the question.”

“That’s great to hear. Congratulations.”

“Haven’t done it yet.”

“Well, when you do, I’m sure she’ll say yes.”

Jack felt pretty sure too. “How are things around Culpepper from your perspective? Seems pretty quiet. At least, I never hear about anything major on the news.”

“Definitely nothing major. Sometimes it’s too quiet for me. But I keep reminding myself, that’s why we moved down here. Seriously, that thing you went through last year. That was the big leagues. That would’ve been handled by major crimes in Pittsburgh. Here, it was almost like the apocalypse was going down.”

Jack laughed. “Glad to hear it. Truth is, I like quiet. That was way more excitement than I prefer.”

“Well,” Boyd said. “I better get back in there and finish things up. You stay out of trouble now. Don’t need you getting involved in anything that might mess up my vacation? It’s just two weeks away.”

“I’m a history professor, Joe. What kind of trouble could I be getting into?”

Jack had dinner all set.

The chicken piccata was ready, in the oven on warm. The angel hair pasta was draining in the strainer. Table set. Chilled bottle of wine in the fridge. He’d asked Rachel to call him once she had started the drive up here, so the dish wouldn’t get all dried out. He looked at his watch. She should be here any minute.

That was another nice thing about living in a small, southern college town. No such thing as rush-hour. He didn’t know how people who lived in places like Atlanta ever managed to coordinate a dinner time.

He stepped outside onto the porch intending to be there when she got out of the car. Really, just to show off the place a little. Then he saw the two oval throw rugs hanging over the wood rail. He’d forgotten all about bringing them in. He grabbed the one that went upstairs first and headed inside. As he carried it up the stairs, he could already tell it didn’t smell near as musty as before. And when he plopped it down on the floor, no dust clouds.

He hurried down the stairs but heard the obvious sounds of a car coming onto the property. Looking through the front window confirmed it was Rachel. He paused a moment and glanced around the room, especially at the dinette table. Everything looked fine. He was sure she’d love it in here. He walked onto the porch, glanced down at the second throw rug and decided to let it wait. Rachel’s car pulled in next to his. Walking around the back of her car, he was there to greet her as she opened the door.

“Hey Jack,” she said, as she turned and set her feet on the ground. “I like the drive out here from town. Very pleasant. All except for that shack back there. That kind of threw me for a loop.”

“Shack?”

“Yeah, you know, the shack?” she said, still sitting in the car. She reached for her purse. “Once you turn in off the main road? Your directions said to stay on the dirt road until it opens up to clearing on the left. I see what you mean now that I’m standing here. But I guess you forgot that dirt driveway on the left, halfway between the main road and here. It kind of looks like a clearing, so I drove down it. It doesn’t go very far then it opens up to a clearing of sorts, and there’s this old shack facing the water. I thought it was the cabin, and I wondered why you thought it was so nice. Then I realized I didn’t see your car, so I thought maybe this wasn’t the cabin after all. At least, I was hoping it wasn’t. So I backtracked, drove further on the dirt road and came here.”

“I forgot all about that shack. I haven’t actually seen it. Mr. Bass mentioned it. So did the realtor, so I knew to keep driving past that opening in the road. Sorry, I forgot to tell you.”

“Who’s Mr. Bass?”

“A neighbor. Apparently, he gets paid to keep an eye on the place.” Jack held out his hand and helped her to her feet. As she stood, he leaned toward her for an extended kiss. They hugged, and he kissed her once more.

“Okay, that makes up for it,” she said.

“Well, seeing the real thing might make up for it some more. They held hands and walked around the car, now in full view of the cabin and the lake.

“Wow. That is beautiful.” She was looking mostly at the lake. “A way better view than the cabin you inherited last year.”

“And it doesn’t make me feel creepy,” he said.

“You wouldn’t say that if you’d seen that old shack,” she said, looking at the cabin now. “But
this
is really nice. I like this.”

“It’s about one-and-a-half times bigger than the one I sold. It’s got a loft too, which the other one didn’t have. And the best part? No dead guys lying on the bed.”

“Another nice feature.”

“Speaking of nice features,” Jack said, “step over here away from my car and feast your eyes on this.” He led her toward the fire pit.

“That is nice. It’s just the way you described it.”

He put his arm around her shoulder. “Can’t you just see us sitting out there some evening a month from now, drinking hot chocolate as the sun’s going down? The only sound is the crackling logs in the fire, maybe a few crickets and katydids?”

“I can. But does this glorious scene include mosquitoes? They’ve been really bad this summer.”

“No mosquitoes. They don’t come out anymore once it starts getting cold.”

Rachel slapped her forearm. “Well, they’re out now. Can we go inside?”

“Of course. Dinner’s all ready.”

“What are we having?”

“Chicken piccata over angel hair pasta. I have a nice bottle of white zinfandel chilling in the fridge.”

“I could use a glass of that right now.”

“Then you shall have one.” He took her by the hand and led her toward the porch.

“Is the shack part of the property?” she said.

“I’m not sure. I’ll have to ask the realtor. If it’s that creepy, I kinda hope not.”

She stopped walking when she saw the braided oval rug on the railing. “That’s interesting.”

“I’ve had it airing out all day. It smelled so musty. The whole cabin did. I’ve had the windows open all day, too. I just closed them a few minutes ago.”

“Don’t you think you should bring that in? It’ll get damp if you leave it out all night.”

“I’ll bring it in after dinner.” He opened the front door and stood to the side to let her in.

As soon as she walked in, she sniffed the air. “Smells wonderful. I love your chicken piccata.”

“That’s why I made it,” he said and closed the door.

They spent the next thirty-five minutes enjoying a romantic dinner for two, getting caught up on what each other had done the last few days. Rachel was really glad to come out here and take a break from her schoolwork. She was taking two classes over this summer semester, but it felt like they were being assigned three times the homework. When the semester ended, she’d be at the halfway point in her Master’s program. Like her bachelors, it was in political science.

Jack shared with her some of the progress he had made with the Dresden material, doing his best not to get lost in the weeds and bore her to tears. Although, Rachel could typically hold her own on almost any military history discussion, especially from the World War II era forward. Mainly because, she had taken several courses on it at Culpepper in an effort to get closer to her father, a retired Air Force general. That’s where Jack and Rachel had met last year—well, met again—when she had attended his Pearl Harbor lectures in Professor Thornton’s class.

During dinner, the whole time Jack shared his part of the conversation, he kept thinking about that old photo album he’d been looking at before he’d left for the store, wondering if Rachel would be interested in seeing it. For the most part, she seemed to enjoy his interest in historical things and even chatting about it, but he also knew she had a boundary line. The problem was, he didn’t. He could go on for hours. The only thing that held that in check was his people skills.

Thankfully, he had some.

Boring others—especially boring others without knowing it—could be an occupational hazard for any professor, especially those who taught history. Lord knows, he’d been bored by a fair share of academics in his occupation over the years. People who lacked the ability to recognize the warning signs when people had completely lost interest in what they were saying.

Jack never wanted to be
that guy
, especially with Rachel.

“Okay, Jack. Where did you go?”

“What? What do you mean?”

“I can tell I lost you, maybe two paragraphs ago. What are you thinking about?”

“It’s nothing. Nothing important anyway.”

“Most of what we’ve been talking about throughout dinner is not important,” she said. “Since when has that been our standard?”

He smiled and reached for her hand. “See, that’s why I love you.”

“I love you, too. So what’s keeping you from being totally enchanted by what I’m saying?”

He stood, picked up his wineglass and started walking toward the bookshelf on the left side of the fireplace. “Come, and I’ll show you.”

She stood and followed. “A book? You want to show me a book?”

“Not quite a book,” he said. “Here, I’ll show you.” When he got closer to the bookshelf, he bent down. “How good is your German?”

“My German? Pretty good I guess. I don’t get to speak it very much, so I’m sure I’m rusty. But I can probably read it okay.”

Jack slid the old photo album out from its place and stood with it. “I think this belongs to the cabin’s owner.”

“Senator Wagner?”

“No, his father. But I’m not sure. I haven’t seen any names yet. I’ve only just started to look through it, then I had to stop and get ready for dinner. It’s full of photographs, original ones. A bunch of kids, German orphans I think, just after World War II. I’ll sit on the couch, so we can both look at it.” He sat near the middle and, after setting her wine glass down on the coffee table, she cuddled up beside him.

He turned through the first few pages slowly, the ones he had already looked through, letting her eyes take everything in. Then he pointed out the little boy he now believed to be the focus of the album and showed her how often he appeared in the pictures.

“You’re right,” she said. “He’s in most of them. You said he is an orphan, how’d you know that?”

Jack turned to the third page and pulled the loose photo from the center crease. “Read the back.”

She looked at the front for a moment then turned it over. “He tells us himself,” she said. “I guess he doesn’t have any siblings, either. You don’t see any other children in all of the pictures. Or even most of them. I’m thinking if a number of kids from the same family were orphaned together, it would be hard to keep them apart.”

“I think you’re right. He doesn’t mention any other siblings in that picture. But it’s only one picture. I’m thinking he probably wrote on the backs of most of these. That’s what my family did.”

She started flipping through the other pages.

“What are you doing?”

“Seeing if there are any other loose pictures.” She stopped after three or four pages. “Wow, you can see he’s getting older on the pics on this page.”

Jack leaned a little closer. “You sure that’s the same kid?”

“Yeah, you can see it in his eyes and cheek bones. But he’s more like twelve or thirteen in these.” She turned a few more pages. “I can’t believe there aren’t any more loose ones.”

“Maybe that doesn’t matter.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I think we can still see what’s on back. The pictures are just glued onto the black paper. Probably using something like Elmer’s. I know in my old photo albums, the pictures pull away with just a little bit of effort.”

“But what if they rip? I’m guessing we’re doing this without permission?”

“He can’t care too much about it, considering he left these albums right there on the shelf for anyone to find. If I was renting a place out, I’d bank on people being totally nosy…”

“Like we’re being,” she added.

“Yes, like we’re being. The point is, I wouldn’t leave something out unless I expected people to look through it.”

“But you’re not talking about just looking through it. Like I said, what if we start pulling these pictures off and the paper rips? Or some of the pics do?”