The Christmas Thief (8 page)

“For one thing, the tires were much narrower than I’d first thought. Of course, when I first caught sight of the damage, I couldn’t see it very well since I was wearing my Sunday best ...”

“Don’t remind me.”

“Sorry. Anyway, initially, I didn’t take that close of a look, but we also noticed that it was more than tires that made the grooves in the soil.”

“Oh?”

“Blades. Or possibly some kind of knives. Thick ones. Even a few nicks in the pine.”

Tasha swung a look at the gentle giant of a tree that had captured her heart the first day she’d seen her own cabin. The thought of even minor damage to its trunk brought an unexpected ache to her heart—and a foreboding about the very near future. She hated to admit it, but she’d grown cautiously fond of Marc Shepherd and his rag-tag crew, accustomed to their irregular presence on the lot next to hers.

But how would she feel about them—about Marc—when that big ol’ lug of a tree were toppled like expendable firewood?

A thick knot formed in her throat. She couldn’t meet Marc’s eyes and instead looked at the toes of her boots. She spun her car keys on her finger.

Marc took a step backward, giving her space. “Well,” he said, “there’s one more thing I need to bring up, Tasha.”

The curious way in which he said her name, almost stating it like a question, caused her to force her eyes to find his.

Her neighbor turned and whistled into the air. Bill jogged over with a wad of fabric under one arm. He gave Tasha a look that was both wary and apologetic, handing the cloth to Marc, and did a one eighty, heading back to his work.

Tasha squinted and she reached out her arm. “Is that my apron?”

Marc nodded, his mouth a grim line. He handed it to her and she let it unfold naturally. It was beyond salvaging, with mud caked into its fibers and crevices.

She quirked a look up at him.

“Tasha, if there’s something you need to say, well, I wish you would just get on with it.”

She set her jaw. “Where’d you find it?”

He let out a sigh. “Andy found it stuffed into one of the grooves.”

She shot him a look. “Andy did, huh. That’s curious.”

“Oh, come on—he may not be a friendly kid, but he’s not the kind of person who would—”

“And you think I am?” she shot back, interrupting him.

He clamped his mouth shut. She watched the wheels of his mind turn in the changing expressions on his face. His Adam’s apple bobbed, but it was within herself that she sensed pressure rising. Did he honestly think that she was capable ... that she would do something ... like this?

Tasha wadded the filthy apron into a ball and shoved it under her arm. “Forget it, Marc. Good luck on your ... on your building project.” She didn’t owe him one more word, and at this moment, she didn’t care if they ever spoke to each other again. Hadn’t she moved to get away from drama? And now he and his young upstart were bringing her more? Worse—she had somehow become a suspect in their troubles. Her!

Tasha spun away from him, but took only two steps before a welling emotion overtook her. She pivoted back to find Marc still standing there, as if his roots ran as deep as that big tree on his property. “First you come here and start tearing up this lot just feet from my house, spreading your dust and grime everywhere. You tell me you’re going to tear down the biggest asset this piece of property has—during the holidays even—and now you stand here with an accusation lingering in your words.”

“What would you do if you were me?”

“Why not start by investigating your own crew?” She pulled out her phone. “Here. Let me do it for you. I’ll just give the local police a call ...”

He shook his head and reached out to stop her from dialing, but she yanked her hand away. “You were the one who said somebody was watching me. That kid”—she pointed at Andy who she swore had a scowl tattooed on his face—“has never liked me for some reason. So if we’re placing bets, I’m putting all my money on him.”

“All of it, huh?”

She shrank back. “I bought this house on my own. Maybe you’re not impressed, but I’m not here to impress you—or anyone. I came here for peace and quiet, and since you showed up, I’ve had none of either.” She regretted that her voice broke—and that the words she’d spewed weren’t exactly one-hundred-percent true.

Marc stared at her for a beat before shutting his eyes. He ran a rough-skinned hand across the side and back of his neck and blew out a frustrated sigh.

“Boss?” It was Bill, standing behind him with kind eyes carrying a question.

Marc nodded. “Right. Let’s get this place cleaned up for the night and give”—he swung a look back at her—“Ms. McHenry some peace and quiet. All right?”

Bill nodded. “Will do.”

Slowly, Tasha walked toward her cabin where Wolfy whined from the back deck. She didn’t need to turn around again to know that Marc too had spun away. She knew it by the sound of his driver’s side truck door slamming shut.

CHAPTER TEN

Sounds of the night kept her awake—the mournful howl of coyotes from down deep in the canyon ... the staccato crash of waves at the base of the cliff. It didn’t help that, on this particular night, the moon’s glow poured through her bedroom window allowing the branches of nearby trees to make shadow puppets across her ceiling.

She’d thought about it all night long, but couldn’t come up with one suspect in the crimes against her neighbor. Not that each incident was particularly heinous, but add them together—the missing tool box, the carpet tacks, and the property damage—and Marc certainly had more than mere nuisances on his hands.

Not to mention the rising implication that she had something to do with the crimes. She nibbled her pinkie nail. Despite the shock of his presence around here, she’d believed that Marc had become a friend of sorts. At least, she thought he saw it that way. But then tonight he’d quietly pressed her for answers.

As if.

Tasha ticked off her own mental list of suspects. Of course, Andy was at the top of that list. She didn’t know too many residents yet, but those she was acquainted with didn’t seem the type. More than likely, she didn’t know the culprit at all.

She sighed and turned over onto her side, that moon continuing to illuminate her thoughts. Tomorrow she would get up and go to work. After that, she would do whatever it took to extricate herself from this entire mess—and be exonerated.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

With two schools squeezed into the camp’s already cramped schedule just ahead of the upcoming Christmas break, and with three counselors down with the flu, Lorena had estimated that the day would be busy. The understatement of the year. Tasha schlepped another full box into the kitchen, sweat dripping from her temples—despite the drop in temperature. The kitchen windows were foggier than Morro Bay in summertime.

“Ack! There’s no more room for all those boxes!” Lorena said, wiping her good hand on her apron. She frowned. “Oh, but we need ‘em. Okay, let’s see. Maybe you can just kick that one into the break room.”

Tasha dropped the box on the floor and shoved it with her foot. It hardly moved. She gave it another hard shove. “Had no idea frozen bread could weigh so much,” she said. “I’ll be back in a minute with another one.”

“Whoa, darlin’!” Jeremy caught Tasha around the middle as she headed for the giant walk-in freezer at the end of the hall. “What’s your hurry?”

Tasha stepped back, disengaging herself from Jeremy’s charms. “Oops, sorry about that. Just on my way to grab another box of bread.”

Jeremy flashed her a wide smile beneath his blond mustache. “We can’t have you scarring up those beautiful hands. I’ll do it ... if you’ll come with me, you know, to show me where to find it.”

“Jeremy, don’t you have some wood to chop outside?” Lorena’s face was flushed, whether from the heat of the kitchen or her ongoing annoyance of Jeremy, she wasn’t sure.

Tasha flexed her arms in front of herself a few times to shake out the cramping, and she gestured with a nod of her head for Jeremy to follow her. “Honestly, Lorena,” she called back, ignoring her boss’s glare, “I could use this man’s muscles at the moment.”

“Hear that, cook?” Jeremy hollered. “She needs me.”

When they reached the freezer, Tasha gave the metal handle a solid tug to break the door’s suction, and opened it wide. “It’s that one up there,” she said, pointing to a box identical to the last five she’d lugged down the hall. She would have liked to use a dolly, but the only one in the building was in service upstairs.

Ignoring the step stool, Jeremy climbed the metal shelving and pulled at the box with one hand. He hopped down with the box of bread on his shoulder as if it were as light as a sack of rags.

Together they walked back down the hall. When they reached the kitchen, Lorena nodded back toward the break room again. Tasha caught his eye. “You can just set it in there on top of the other one.”

After he set the box squarely on top of the other, he leaned toward her, touching the small of her back lightly. “Anything else you need, darlin’?”

“Not a thing, Superman,” she said, laughing.

She was still laughing when the door to the outside slammed shut. Marc filled the door frame, his rough hands resting on the hip pockets of his worn denim, his expression undecipherable.

“Howdy, Marc,” Jeremy said with a chuckle. “Wasn’t aware of a wood delivery. Or are you looking for work?”

“Might be. You leaving soon?”

Jeremy’s mustache twitched. “You never know.”

“You never do.”

Tasha cut in, uninterested in finding out Marc’s real purpose for showing up unannounced at camp. “I’ll let you boys sort it all out.” She cast Jeremy a smile. “Thanks a bunch for the help. Appreciate it.”

“Sure thing,” he said with a wink.

“Tasha,” Lorena called out from her post at the stove top, “put that man to work. We need the help!”

Marc hung his hat and trailed into the hot kitchen, his brows lifted.

“Don’t just stand there gaping at me,” Lorena said, “start drying those wet pots and pans.”

“My, this is a pretty hostile work environment you’ve got here,” Marc said, obliging Lorena by tossing a towel over his shoulder, picking up a pot, and shaking out the excess water. “Wanna help me here, Tasha?”

“Not a chance.” She had begun laying out narrow loaves of bread, face up. She would butter them before sending them into the oven for browning. Why was Marc Shepherd here anyway—to spy on her? To keep close tabs on her in case she suddenly “broke”? She hadn’t forgotten the way he had looked at her when he’d found her apron—like he was expecting some kind of confession. She slathered butter onto bread with excessive force. If anyone was going to find out what was going on—and without Marc or his crew’s help—it would be her.

Lorena’s voice broke through Tasha’s barrage of mental talk. “I supposed you’ve hauled a bunch of wood up here again, Marcus.”

“You guessed correctly. The truck’s full of clean wood for burning. Enough to get the camp through the holidays.” He dried off another pot and hung it on the rack above his head. “If only the tyrannical boss around here would give me my release papers, I’d go find myself a helper and unload it all.”

“Okay then. Don’t let me stop you a minute more. All I ask is that you find someone other than that wily Jeremy to help you. He’s after my help,” she said, flicking a nod in Tasha’s direction, “and I don’t want to give him one more reason to bring his sorry bum back in here again.”

Tasha scoffed.

For his part, Marc didn’t comment on Lorena’s remark at all. Instead, he grabbed his hat from the hook by the door, and with barely a glance in Tasha’s direction, he simply said, “Ladies,” before stepping outside.

~~~

She didn’t go home after work, because if Tasha had allowed herself to sit on her couch for even a moment, she would not have been able to get up. Instead, she kept on driving, rolling past her property on the canyon side, rounding the corner, and taking the winding, narrow road that led into the mountain that she could see from deck. She had hiked this way before, but her car took her much farther than she had ever gone on foot, especially after dark. The mountain zigzagged a bit, and she quickly found herself darting from one end to the other—only higher up in elevation.

A surprising lack of people filled the neighborhoods along the ridge. Then again, weekenders had likely gone back to their normal lives, and those who lived up there were probably still on their way home—many in Cottage Grove commuted inland to work. Some properties did look abandoned, though. Not terribly unkept or dilapidated, just quiet, forlorn, like they hadn’t enjoyed inhabitants for a long while.

Tasha pulled her Subaru up to a darkened house, pulling as close to the edge of the property as possible. She stepped out of the car, her boots scuffing over the needle-strewn roadway. The thick smell of damp pine met her senses, and cool fog dripped from the redwoods. She slipped on a pair of wool gloves to keep her hands warm as the night grew cold and began to walk, not quite sure what she expected to find.