The Spring At Moss Hill

Not that a hundred percent had ever been an option.

She’d rallied, if only because of the expectations of the people around her. Russ tried to tell himself what he’d seen that day at the hospital was the fight-or-flight reflex at work. His mother had wanted to flee from her suffering son, and who was Russ to blame her? He’d taken as much emergency leave from his naval duties as he was allowed to bury his father and see to his mother and brother.

In the end, he’d abandoned his brother, too.

An insane roundabout brought Russ back to the present. He was on the road to Knights Bridge, Massachusetts. Marty was hanging out in Hollywood. Their mother had three miniature poodles at her home in Scottsdale and liked to joke she had full charge of the television remote now that she lived alone. Russ called her once a week. She never called him. He didn’t know when he’d visit again now that Marty had moved away from Phoenix.

Traffic thinned as he drove west into the countryside, and he rolled down the windows, letting in the cool morning air as the sun climbed into a blue sky and chased away the memories. He could be in Knights Bridge in time for breakfast, but he’d grabbed coffee and a protein bar at the airport. They’d suffice. He planned to keep things simple in this little town. In, out, head down, do his job, then he’d be back on his way west.

* * *

Kylie poked a stick at the wet, browned leaves that clogged a spring, tucked amid moss-covered rocks in the woods above the mill, about a third of the way up Moss Hill. She liked to think of the spring as her secret discovery, but a nearby stone wall indicated the land had once been cleared. Others had been here long before she had ventured off a trail last summer and come upon the spring, a precious spot where fresh groundwater had broken through to the surface.

She didn’t want to take the time to push the leaves aside and wait for the water to clear in the small pool created by the spring’s trickle. Normally she would. She loved this spot. She would come up here on breaks from her work. She would sit on a rock by the spring and allow the landscape to envelop her, cradle her, as all her distractions and intrusive thoughts fell away.

Not this morning.

She breathed in the smells of a gnarled hemlock, the early spring greenery, the mud and the cold water of the spring. She shut her eyes, listening to the narrow stream below the spring flow downhill over rocks. She could hear birds twittering in the trees. She breathed deeply, feeling her heart rate calming after her trip to town yesterday and her bad night last night. She’d awakened at dawn and gone out to her balcony to watch the sunrise.

After a hearty breakfast of Scottish pinhead oatmeal, yogurt and coffee, she’d tried to work, but her head hadn’t been into Little Red Riding Hood.

She gave up after ten minutes, got dressed, put on trail shoes and headed up Moss Hill.

She’d brought her phone and a bottle of water, but she hadn’t left a note on her kitchen counter, as she usually did, describing her route and the time and date of her departure.

Sometimes the spring wasn’t easy to find. Everything looked so similar up here. She’d go too far and end up in a field or atop Moss Hill, or just miss it when it was right under her nose. This morning she’d had no trouble, following a narrow, seldom-used trail partway up the hill, then veering off through a gap in a stone wall to the stream and up to the spring.

She set her stick in the sodden leaves and mud next to the spring and stood straight. She could feel the air warming, the pinks and lavenders of the sunrise long melted into a blue sky. Rain was in the forecast for tomorrow, but it was pleasant now.

Russ Colton would be arriving sometime today. Once she got that out of the way—knew he was on the premises, doing his thing—she could concentrate.

At least she could picture him, had a good idea of what he looked like. Last night, tossing and turning, she’d remembered that an investigator had come to town ahead of Daphne Stewart’s visit in September—in his fifties, supposedly a decent guy. Kylie hadn’t met him, but she’d seen him in town. Gray-haired, casual, not the least bit intimidating. There’d been some confusion between him and Phoebe O’Dunn over Daphne Stewart and Noah Kendrick, now Phoebe’s fiancé, but everything had worked out, apparently a case of multiple misunderstandings.

That California investigator had to be the one on his way now. This Russ Colton.

Kylie started back through the woods to the stone wall and the trail. Her left side was wet and muddy, but she didn’t care. She might be restless, but the spring was one of her favorite spots. She wished she’d thought to ask what time this California PI was getting here, but she wasn’t sure that would have helped with her distractibility. But she felt better, and if she couldn’t get a lot done today, she could at least draw a few trees for Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother’s house.

When she got back to her apartment, she lasted ten minutes at her worktable.

She sighed at Sherlock Badger. “I know. It’s crazy.”

He stared back at her. He looked unsympathetic. Just start, he would say.

Most days it would be good advice. Not right now.

Kylie grabbed her phone and keys and headed back out. She’d seen ducks on the river from her balcony.

Yes.

She’d check on the ducks.

* * *

Kylie took the stairs to the lower-level garage. Each apartment had its own parking spaces and storage compartment. She’d left her Mini in the parking lot, so her two spaces were empty. She didn’t have anything to store yet. She’d put her bike in the compartment once winter returned. In the meantime, she wanted to buy a kayak or a canoe and the requisite gear. They could go in storage. Maybe a tent? No. She hated camping.

She could easily lose an hour wondering about what could go in her storage compartment.

Refocusing on her mission to see the ducks, she went out through the back and crossed the driveway that wound into the garage from the parking lot. She stepped onto a strip of soft, newly planted grass level with the river. The landscapers had added a few shade trees, now just saplings supported with ropes and stakes. The river was down from its early-spring runoff peaks, but still running high. Two ducks swam peacefully in the quiet millpond, with no apparent concern for the nearby dam and rushing waterfall. Above the dam and pond, the river widened and turned shallow, flowing over rocks and boulders toward the mill its waters had once powered.

The sounds of the water didn’t soothe Kylie’s agitated mind.

She had the keys to the heavy back door to the main building and unlocked it, heading inside. The ground level held a kitchen, storage rooms, the mechanical room and a large health club she was welcome to use in addition to the exercise room in her building.

She switched on a light and went upstairs to the main entry. She didn’t have keys to any of the interior rooms except the health club. No one would be around on a Sunday morning, but she wanted to have a look at where Ava and Ruby O’Dunn were hosting the master class with Daphne Stewart. Moss Hill’s sole meeting room was located on the other side of glass doors and a glass partition. More glass doors opened onto a balcony that jutted out over the river, a perfect spot for a romantic photo. The space was ideal for weddings and parties of all kinds. It was empty now, its gleaming wood floor obviously original to the building given the unevenness and glossed-over nicks and discolorations.

Kylie peered into a glass case in the entry. It had been empty on her last visit here but was now filled with a display of antique straw hats that had been made at the mill in the nineteenth century, a nod to the building’s origins. Moss Hill had character, one of its chief draws for her. She noticed the display also held museum-mounted, blown-up photos that depicted the mill’s history, from when it had been a thriving business employing scores of workers to a century later, when it had been abandoned, left to decay and a wrecking ball, and, finally, to the present, with its comfortable blend of old and new setting it up for another century of use.

She heard footsteps echoing behind her and turned just as a man she didn’t recognize appeared behind the glass doors in the meeting room. He was tall, broad-shouldered and frowning right at her.

She decided not to take any chances.

Pretending she hadn’t seen him, she retraced her steps, running down the stairs to the lower level and out the back door. She didn’t breathe until she was outside. She shivered in the cool morning air. She’d encountered all sorts as construction on Moss Hill had wound down—engineers, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, landscapers—as well as Mark Flanagan’s employees and clients now that he had moved his offices here. She hadn’t gotten a good look at the man who’d interrupted her snooping, but he wasn’t anyone she’d met before. She’d remember. He hadn’t been wearing a coat and tie. A denim jacket, khakis. That didn’t tell her much.

If he decided to come after her, she needed to get moving, because he’d be fast.

She pulled off her running jacket and crossed the grassy strip to the driveway that led to the garage under her building. When she reached the pedestrian entrance, she stopped, keys in hand, and groaned.

She had the wrong man. Russ Colton wasn’t the investigator she’d seen last summer. He was the man up in the meeting room.

Had to be.

“How to draw attention to yourself when you don’t want attention,” Kylie muttered to herself. “Run like a lunatic.”

What now? Go up to her apartment, lock herself in and hope for the best? Buck up and introduce herself to her new neighbor, act as if she hadn’t seen him and bolted?

Take a long bike ride?

Fly to Paris?

The bike ride won.

She went inside and took the stairs up to the main level and headed out to the breezeway and the bike rack. She wore a thigh-length dark purple sweater, black leggings and sneakers with highly visible bright orange laces.

The man from the meeting room was standing by a blue sedan in the parking lot.

No avoiding him now.

“You must be Russ Colton,” Kylie said, leaning against her bike. “Ruby O’Dunn mentioned you’d be arriving today from California. Kylie Shaw. I live here.”