The House on Creek Road

The violin-playing neurosurgeon could bake? “It looks delicious.” Liz lifted a small forkful of pie to her mouth. Two pairs of eyes watched her chew. She realized some kind of review was expected. “It’s wonderful. So spicy and creamy.”

“And he’s going into blueberries. Soon there’ll be blueberry pie, too. Next year, Jack, or will it take longer?”

“There might be a small crop the first year.”

Liz wondered at her grandmother’s proprietary tone. She sounded as if she had some stake in this stranger’s plans, as if a member of her own family were trying something new and needed encouragement. “Blueberries can be difficult to grow, can’t they?”

“I guess I’ll find out.” He didn’t seem worried about dealing with complications. “I’ve planted a hundred of a lowbush variety that’s supposed to be hardy. If they do well, I’ll put in more.”

“You found a good location,” Eleanor said. She leaned toward Liz with a pleased expression. “He’s going to plant Christmas trees, as well.”

Liz looked curiously at the man next to her. Although he gave no sign of it, he must be a bit of a romantic to choose those crops. “Sort of a holiday express.”

“That’s right.” He emptied his teacup with two big gulps and pushed back his chair. “Your granddaughter looks exhausted, Eleanor, and she’s still shivering off and on. I’ll be on my way, so she can get settled in.” He took his coat from one of the hooks by the door. After all that arranging of tables and dishes, it was a sudden departure.

Eleanor pushed herself out of her chair. “You’ll have to come to dinner soon, Jack. Maybe Elizabeth will prepare something for us both.”

“I’m not much of a cook, Grandma.”

“A little practice will fix that.”

“Mr. McKinnon won’t want to be my guinea pig.”

“Just let me know what evening is good for you, Jack.”

“I’ll do that. Thanks for the tea, Eleanor. Good to meet you at last, Ms. Robb.” He strode through the door, the dogs on his heels.

Liz watched them go, three silhouettes and a small, bobbing light. He’d stayed as long as courtesy demanded and left as soon as he could. Had he emphasized the words at last? He wouldn’t suggest, half an hour after meeting her, that she ought to visit her grandmother more often…if he had, though, she couldn’t disagree. Letters and phone calls, and even invitations to Vancouver, weren’t adequate replacements for time at home. She wasn’t going to make dinner for him, that was certain. She had a way with scrambled eggs and toast, but her grandmother would expect something more impressive. A lot of pots would be involved, and some of them were bound to burn.

Eleanor turned from the window. “I don’t like it when Bella and Dora go out at night, but they always want to follow him. He sends them back when he’s nearly home.”

Liz began clearing dishes to the sink. “He visits often?”

“Oh, yes, he always has, right from the start. I invite him for dinner, or he brings something he’s baked. He’s lonely, I think, working and living on his own in a strange place. I enjoy hearing about his plans. Of course, he hasn’t yet convinced people around here he knows what he’s doing.”

The grain farmers and ranchers around Three Creeks couldn’t be blamed for a little skepticism. The growing season was hardly long enough for pumpkins to ripen, and no one in the area had ever tried to grow blueberries or evergreens commercially, not that Liz had heard, anyway. She remembered city people showing up in the area occasionally, pipe dreams in tow. They settled down or sold as impulsively as they’d bought and disappeared. “What do you know about Mr. McKinnon, Grandma?”

“You sound suspicious. It’s not like living in Vancouver, we don’t have to be careful of our neighbors here.”

“I’m just curious.”

“I can’t say I know very much about him. He told me he had his own business in Winnipeg. Something with computers, but he decided he didn’t want to do it anymore.”

“You mean he sold computers? Or was he one of those people you call to solve all your problems, like when you pour coffee on your laptop?”

“I have no idea. He doesn’t seem interested in talking about it. He’s looking ahead.” Eleanor picked up a tea towel and began to dry the dishes Liz put in the drainer. “Two weeks will go so quickly. Can you stay longer? Everyone wants to see you.”

Liz’s stomach gave a flip. “Everyone?”

“Well, all the Robbs and all their off-shoots, of course. Jean Bowen and Marge Sinclair both told me they want to have you over for coffee, and Daniel, you know, Daniel Rutherford—”

Liz’s 4-H leader, her grade nine English teacher and the ex-Mountie who had helped them solve all their horse problems. “I doubt there’ll be time.”

“If you can’t visit everyone individually, they’ll understand. You’ll be able to see most of them tomorrow, in one fell swoop.”

Liz stared at her grandmother. She had been sure she could slip into town, lend a hand for a while and go. “What’s happening tomorrow?”

“Your Aunt Edith has arranged a barbecue. You and I are to take a salad. Any salad we choose, she said. I always wonder what’s to stop everyone from bringing the same kind. It never happens, though. Now up you go, Elizabeth. Jack’s right, you need to take care of yourself, or you’ll catch something. You’ve got the back bedroom—there’s a hot water bottle tucked at the bottom of the bed. I hope you’ll be warm enough.” The upstairs rooms were heated by small, square metal grills that let air rise from the first floor.

“I’ll be fine.” Liz kissed her grandmother’s flannel-soft cheek. “Good night. Sleep tight.”

The back bedroom was her favorite, the room where she and her cousins had played house and dress-up when the weather kept them indoors. Flower-sprigged wallpaper covered the sloping ceiling and short walls, the same wallpaper she had watched her grandfather apply twenty years before. The bed was soft with a thick feather quilt. The Robb women used to make them, visiting around a table and ignoring sore fingers while they pulled the quills from bags and bags of goose feathers.

Liz unpacked her pencil case and sketchbook. Sitting on the side of the bed, she flipped to a new page and began to draw. She needed to get the deer out of her mind and safely onto paper before she slept.

Quick lines caught the animal’s terrified immobility. Panicked eyes bright in the headlights, body tensed to spring away, muscles bunched and twitching. Long thin legs bent as if it wanted to run in three or four directions at once. Hooves polished, tiny, sharp. Coat heavy for winter, velvet under coarse surface hairs. Eyes huge and liquid brown, ears surprisingly large and held to the side.

After she had filled several pages with full and partial sketches of the deer, her hand began to draw a face. Jack McKinnon’s face, but longer and thinner than it really was, with silver eyes full of secrets. Leaning away from her sketchbook, she studied the drawing and felt a familiar stirring of anticipation. This would be her next hero. He didn’t belong in the real world. The story would have to be a fantasy. Whether he belonged to the hills of Tara or the rings of Saturn, she didn’t yet know.

THE DOGS FOLLOWED JACK through the woods, moving silently along the path narrowly lit by his flashlight. They were alert, aware of sounds and smells that passed him by entirely. At the edge of the clearing, he stopped. He’d like to keep Bella and Dora with him—they were large enough to give intruders second thoughts—but he’d made a promise to Eleanor.

“Go home, girls.” They stood at his feet and waited expectantly, eyes glowing, tails wagging slowly. He would have to say it as if he meant it. He pointed to the northwest. “Home.” Their heads sagged, then they turned and disappeared into the night.

Unable to shake the feeling that caution was needed, Jack kept to the edge of the woods, studying the house and its surroundings as thoroughly as the yard light allowed. The car that had nearly hit Elizabeth Robb was long gone. There was no sign anyone had stayed behind, no sign of trouble.

Except the light. When he’d left for Eleanor’s, he’d switched on the light over the back door. Now, it was off. He crossed the yard to the back stoop and reached up to check the uncovered bulb. Not burned out. Twisted loose.

He tried the door. It was still locked. People tended to be casual about security around here—the Ramseys’ locks would have sprung open if you’d frowned at them, so he’d installed deadbolts as soon as he moved in. Edging his way around the house, he checked each ground-floor window. All shut and intact. The front door was locked.

Someone had come into his yard, loosened the light over the back door, then left in a hurry, headlights off to avoid being seen. Someone expecting easy access to a TV and VCR in the trusting countryside? It didn’t look as if they’d found a way in, so why was the back of his neck still so tight it burned?

He let himself into the house and stood quietly, listening. The lights he’d left on still glowed. He moved from room to room, upstairs and down. The few things of value—his espresso and cappuccino maker, his laptop, the CD player, his guitar—all sat where he’d left them.

Could have been kids, just as Eleanor said. Halloween was only a couple of weeks away. He’d likely be spending Saturday washing spattered egg off the outside walls.

What was bugging him? Jack began another circuit of the house. Was something out of place, something that had only registered at the back of his mind? Faint scratches beside the lock on the door? Dirt tracked in on someone else’s shoes?

Finally he found what had been nagging at him. A small thing…smudges in the dust on the coffee table. The books, magazines and sheet music he’d piled there had been moved, then returned to their places.

So, someone had come into his yard, loosened the light over the back door, searched for something, then left in a hurry, headlights off to avoid being seen. It didn’t make sense. Nothing was stolen, nothing was vandalized.

The tension in his neck eased. Reid. They hadn’t talked for a couple of years. It would be his style to get back in touch in some convoluted way. Leaving a few hardly noticeable clues was how they used to signal the start of a new round of their favorite game, a sort of puzzle-solving treasure hunt they’d played all through high school and university. The guy must be bored out of his mind to have gone to all this trouble, driving an hour and a half from Winnipeg…

Moving quickly, Jack lifted the trapdoor near the kitchen table. He bent his head to avoid bumping into rafters and creaked down the stairs into the dirt cellar. Deep shelves where the Ramseys had kept canned goods over the winter lined one wall. Along another were bins for root vegetables. He’d filled most of them with pumpkins waiting for their Halloween trip to the city. Stepping over more pumpkins lined up on the ground, he dug one hand to the bottom of the potato bin and brought out a resealable sandwich bag. Inside the bag was a plain black diskette.

He returned to the kitchen and switched on his laptop. When the menu appeared, he checked the security logs. Sure enough, an attempt had been made to get into his files, today at 2018 hours. Not unexpected under the circumstances, but it still made his heart beat a little faster. He slipped the diskette into its slot, then rebooted the computer and waited for the prompt. As soon as it flashed onto the screen, he relaxed. Reid hadn’t tried to open the hidden Linux partition. He had no reason to suspect it was there, no reason to look for it.

Jack popped the small black square out of the machine and into his hand, curling his fingers around it. He could throw it into the Franklin stove right now. Probably should. He could delete the partition and its contents. Absolutely should.