Page 16 of Haystacks and Hoaxes

Her eyes widened. “In case you’ve forgotten, I’m down a set of wheels. I wouldn’t get very far even if I wanted to.” She sure didn’t feel up to walking a few miles home in the dark.

“I haven’t forgotten.”

One hour earlier

“Are you gonna get that?”Rock’s older brother, Gage, jostled him with his shoulder as he walked around the kitchen island.

“Get what?” Rock continued to decorate the pair of pizzas he’d promised to make from scratch for dinner. He was currently living with his brother until he found a place of his own. Not wanting to outstay his welcome, he’d met a few times with a real estate agent. So far, though, he hadn’t found the perfect place to call home. And now his realtor was on Christmas vacation, so his house hunting was on hold.

“Your phone, doofus!” Gage stalked to the living room to retrieve it from the end table beside the recliner Rock had vacated only minutes earlier. He waved it at Rock to indicate he was about to toss it to him.

Rock caught it and frowned at the caller ID. It was Decker Kingston. He immediately laid down his bag of pepperonis and accepted the call. Reaching for the cane he’d propped against the island, he limped back to the living room as he held the phone to his ear.

“Hey, Deck! What’s going on?” The guy was supposed to be having dinner with his sister for the first time in ages.

“We’ve got a situation over here.” His boss, who was never rattled, sounded thoroughly rattled. “Someone left a bomb on Mila’s doorstep. She assumed the package contained something she ordered online and tossed it on the passenger seat of the Lexus. Long story short, it blew up.”

Rock gave a choking cough and dropped heavily into the leather recliner. “Is she…?” He couldn’t bring himself to complete the question.

“She’s fine. Sorry,” Decker said quickly. “I should’ve ledwith that statement.”

“Is she somewhere safe?” Rock growled.

“She’s at my place. It happened a few minutes after she exited the vehicle and came inside.” His voice grew hoarse as he described the events leading up to the explosion. “Man, Rock! If she’d stopped for gasoline or anything on her way here…” He stopped and cleared his throat.

“But she didn’t.” Rock was having a hard time breathing normally himself. The very idea of the woman he’d interviewed today being blown to smithereens was too much to wrap his brain around. “You’d have never turned that vehicle over to her or anyone else without a full tank.” It was company policy to top off every vehicle before returning them to the motor pool.

“Of course not,” Decker barked, “but she stopped to buy a gift for my kid right after her interview. If she’d waited to purchase it on her way here?—”

“Don’t do that to yourself.” Rock could only imagine what the guy was going through, but it wouldn’t help to dwell on the what-ifs. “This isn’t the time to play the blame game. We need to stay focused on figuring out who wants your sister dead.”

“About that…” Decker launched into an eerie description of a man wrapped to the gills in winter clothing, driving a utility truck that had hounded his sister on her way to her interview.

“That must have been right after she parked in front of Chester Farm to sketch a bunch of half-rotten haystacks.” Rock’s brain raced over the details Mila had told him about her sketch of Chester Farm and her relationship with the late Mr. Chester.

“I wouldn’t call four a bunch of haystacks, but okay.” Her brother’s voice was dry.

“Come again?” Even though Rock hadn’t zoned out, hesuddenly felt like he’d missed a key detail in their conversation.

“Four haystacks,” Decker clarified dryly. “And they’re not actually haystacks. They’re huts he built to look like haystacks for the folks who visited his?—”

“I know,” Rock cut in to save the guy’s breath. “Mila told me about his holiday festivals and fundraisers. Not to be disrespectful, but I’m ninety-nine percent sure there are more than four haystacks in the sketch she did earlier.” He reached for his duffel bag on the floor beside the recliner. Unzipping it, he pulled out the manilla folder containing Mila’s application and sketches. It was time to take another look at them.

“That’s impossible.” Decker sounded impatient. “Monty Chester isn’t building more huts from the grave, and the nephew who inherited his farm is filing to have the entire kit and caboodle declared a sanctuary for some nearly extinct lizard.”

What?Rock shook his head. “Now I’ve heard it all.” He quickly spread Mila’s sketches out on the coffee table in front of him. “I’m going to take another look at her sketches and see if anything pops.”

“I was thinking we should do the same thing.” Decker’s voice adopted a distracted tenor. “Gotta run. The police are here. Keep me posted.”

“Roger that.” After his boss disconnected the line, Rock continued scrutinizing Mila’s sketches, impressed all over again by the details she’d included. He couldn’t wait to watch her at work on her first crime scene.

Well, I’ll be!His shoulders tensed as he counted haystacks. Decker was right. There were only four haystacks in the sketch she’d done in charcoal. However, he counted five in the version she’ddrawn in ink. Out of curiosity, he flipped the papers over, wondering if she’d written the date on them. She had. Apparently, she’d sketched the scenes three days apart. Assuming she’d drawn exactly what she’d seen, it meant an additional haystack hut had been constructed during the span of those three days.Interesting.

He reached inside his duffle bag a second time and pulled out Mila’s sketchpad. Flipping to the one she’d made right before her interview, he compared the newest sketch to the two older ones.

In the scene she’d drawn today, there were six haystack huts.

A lizard sanctuary, my hide!Chester Farm had been turned into a construction zone. For what, Rock had no clue. Yet. He whipped his cell phone back out and did an online search for the name of Monty Chester’s heir. It was a bit of a long shot. However, a single line item popped up in his search results. It was a lengthy news article posted by the Heart Lake Times shortly after the aging farmer had passed away.

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