Thistle Down

Twenty-two

“I DID IT, JOE. I READ THE ENTIRE statement you wrote, and I only stumbled once,” Dusty announced as she skidded into her boss’ office.

He looked up from the stacks of paperwork on his desk with bleak eyes, rimmed in red and shadowed with black smudges beneath. “Did it do any good?”

He didn’t sound hopeful.

“I don’t know. Everyone listened, but the mayor explained how the money from the sale of the timber would save the clinic and replace some of the teachers.”

“Crap.” Joe buried his hands in his face. “I just wish I knew who is behind this and why they are in such a damned hurry.”

“I don’t know. I wish I did. I almost think it’s a vendetta against the museum, trying to get us to cancel the Ball.”

“We need that fund-raiser. Grants are drying up, school field trips are getting fewer, so admission fees are down. We just don’t have enough income to keep this place running without the money from the Masque Ball.”

“The grant committee…?”

“Haven’t heard back from their inspection yet. Oh, Dusty, I don’t know what to do.”

“You’ll figure it out, Joe. You always do.” She reached across the desk to clasp his hand. He returned her grip with a light squeeze as he rose and came around the desk without releasing her.

“Thanks. It would help if you’d marry me…” He stood too close, pressing his body against hers, lowering his head, ready to claim a kiss.

“No, Joe.” She stepped away from him. Alarm built pressure in her chest. He meant it this time. She was sure. All she felt was a sense of being trapped in this room with him. “You are just tired and alone, and lonely. Me marrying you won’t help this financial crisis.” She retreated toward the door, nearly tripping over a stack of books on the floor.

“But you’d help the lonely part. I’d cope better. The girls love you. The courts…” He followed her.

Her breathing became panicky. The room was too small. He left no space between them. “Joe, you and Monica are going to have to work out custody on your own. Outside of court. Talk to the social workers at child welfare. Monica deserted them when they were tiny and needed a mom most. She might be better able to cope now, but you are the only real parent they know. Talk to Monica and work out a fair visitation. When you’ve done that, you can talk to me again about marriage. Not before.”

Dusty held her head high and turned to go, masking the quivering fear in her belly. She had to face the real possibility that he might be serious and she had to examine her own feelings, her own need to hide from the emotional and physical intimacies of marriage.

For once she resisted the urge to run down to the basement and hide. Instead she took up residence behind her computer screen and started searching the Internet. She had to find an alternate venue for the Masque Ball. Now. The likelihood of stopping or delaying the logging of The Ten Acre Wood looked highly unlikely.

Half an hour later she slapped the desk beside the keyboard. “Dammit, we moved the Ball from all of these rental locations because they are too small and expensive!”

“Ms. Carrick?” Meggie asked from the doorway. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, of course, Meggie. I’m just upset.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you curse before. Not even the time the four year old went potty on the upstairs carpet.”

“Oh.”

“I had an idea when I started filling out an application for the community college,” Meggie said hesitantly, almost as if embarrassed to let Dusty know she applied or that she might have an idea beyond makeup and fashion. “Maybe if we offered them a percentage of the take, they’d let us hold the Ball on campus. They’ve got a really nice arboretum and rose garden for the botany and forestry students to practice on. And I think there’s a cement circle there for the dancers.”

Dusty felt like smacking her head against the desk. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Because you’re stressed.” Meggie shrugged. “There’s another tour group gathering. I’ll take it while you make some phone calls.” She dashed off to the front of the museum.

Just as Dusty reached for the phone, it rang. She stared at it a moment as if an alien being interrupted her train of thought. Should she answer it or get Joe to call the college on the other line?

The insistent jangle stopped abruptly.

“Ms. Carrick, Mr. Wheatland wants to talk to you,” M’velle called from somewhere in the maze of rooms.

Dusty bit her lip in hesitation. So much easier to let social contacts slide around her than deal with life. Then she reached for the receiver, determined to break a lifetime of habits that led to greater and greater isolation.

“Good afternoon, Hay.” She smiled while she spoke, a trick a college professor encouraged her to try. It worked. She really was pleased to hear from him.

“I hate to do this, but I’m afraid I’ll be a little late picking you up this evening. I’m stuck at the office until seven. I’ll understand if you want to cancel our date.” He sounded anxious and sad.

Relief warred with disappointment. She really had enjoyed her date with Hay. They had a lot of common interests. Especially the history of the town.

“Seven is fine. Why not pick me up at home instead of the museum.”

“You trust me enough to give me your address?” His voice brightened with surprise and delight.

“Of course.” She rattled off the address and phone number. “What did you have in mind?”

“Hot dogs from a street vendor and a walk along the river promenade. I want to see some of the pioneer landmarks we talked about last time. Wear comfortable shoes.”

Hot Dogs? Nonorganic, processed meat from dubious sources? She remembered the smell of the grilling staple of the American diet and her mouth watered. She didn’t have to make a regular habit of eating them, but she should try them at least once. In the name of research, of course.

“If we start at seven, we only have about an hour of daylight.”

“Oh. Well, then, we’ll just have to finish off the tour another night. I really want to see you again. As often as you’ll put up with me.”

“I’d like that.”

“Idiot,” Chase admonished himself. “I could have walked Dusty back to the museum, maybe held her hand the whole way. Maybe asked her out.” A couple of weeks ago that might have felt like a strange thing to want to do: date his best friend’s sister. Not today.

What had changed?

When had he begun to love her as more than his best friend’s sister?

He knew the instant. After nearly a year of treatment and isolation, the doctors declared Dusty cured. But her parents, and Dick, had the ingrained habit of obsessive hygiene and natural diet. Chase was allowed into the house, but only after removing shoes and washing his hands thoroughly. His sisters had given up trying to meet Mrs. Carrick’s exacting specifications. Chase still tried. He and Dick were in the living room… excuse me, parlor… horsing around, practicing wrestling moves.

Dusty sat in the bowed window seat beneath the turret. She stared emptily out the rain-streaked panes of glass holding a pink jewelry box with a ballerina that twirled to a tinny and repetitive bit of music. She wound it up again and again until the noise grated on Chase’s nerves and made him angry.

He grabbed the box from her. She lunged to regain it, lost her balance, and fell.

Chase dropped the box to catch her. His stockinged feet slid on the hardwood floor, and he missed. A bruise appeared on her knees almost immediately. Guilt flashed through him. Tenderly he picked her up and carried her to the kitchen so that Dick could apply ice and treat her like a precious jewel.

That’s what she was, a precious jewel who needed protection.

But, dammit, she also needed to learn to stand up for herself. If she’d yelled at him or cried that he’d destroyed her treasured music box, he’d have gotten over it. But no, she forgave him and tucked the box away beneath the window seat, never to be taken out again.

Chase paced the police department offices, avoiding the ubiquitous paperwork and the ache in his chest for depriving Dusty of something special.

Through the high window of his own cubicle, he caught a glimpse of Haywood Wheatland. The blond stranger walked rapidly away from the City Hall portion of the antique courthouse building along Main Street toward First Avenue, all the while talking into a cell phone. Phelma Jo, his boss, had her offices on the river side of First near the Amtrak station. A big glass-andsteel, ostentatiously modern building shaped like the prow of a ship thrusting its nose, or snubbing it, into downtown. The first four floors of the monstrosity held offices for a dozen or more high-end businesses. Phelma Jo had the entire fifth floor. Then four floors of pricey condos with Phelma Jo’s penthouse on the tenth.

Her errand boy undoubtedly ran back and forth between the office and the courthouse a dozen times a day, keenly observing everything for Phelma Jo. Gathering gossip like Mabel’s Pixies?

Jealousy raged in Chase’s chest, as if a vacuum sucked all the air out of him and left the heavy machine pressing against his rib cage.

“You’re why I’m suddenly obsessed with Dusty. I always thought she’d be there waiting for me when she was ready to notice me. Now I’m not so sure.”

Chase dropped so heavily into his swivel chair it spun around to face the whiteboard covered in notes and profiles of recent unsolved crimes. The only thing that caught his attention was a checklist of places he’d looked at to determine ownership of Pixel Industries, Ltd.

In the hasty scrawl he liked to call handwriting, the word Pixel looked like a misspelling of Pixie.

A vivid image of Haywood Wheatland calling a pink bug “sweetheart” and “beloved” flashed before his mind’s eye.

Haywood Wheatland worked for Phelma Jo.

Phelma Jo had a reputation for underhanded, borderline illegal real estate transactions. Chase had never dug up evidence of blackmail when people sold prime properties to her at about half market value and hightailed it out of town. Lack of evidence didn’t mean she was innocent. Lack of evidence didn’t remove suspicion.

He logged on to the Internet and started searching some databases. He had three days to get a court order to stop the logging. He hoped it was enough time.

Phelma Jo tapped her foot, waiting for Haywood Wheatland to return from the courthouse. He’d dashed back there seconds after Ms. Boland left with her donation check. Something about following up with the mayor…?

Damn, the man couldn’t sit still. He flitted about with an intense urgency that left Phelma Jo unsettled and irritated.

Why couldn’t she control him? She’d already divorced two men who slipped through her net of seduction, lies, and manipulation designed to keep them firmly under her thumb. If Hay continued on this course of independence, she’d have to fire him.

Never again would she allow any man to hurt her like her mother’s boyfriend had. He was bigger and stronger than Phelma Jo. She was just a child. Automatic obedience was expected of her. Disobedience was met with punishment: either the back of her mother’s hand across her face, or the boyfriend touching her in ways no adult man should touch a child.

The day the school counselor had called the police and children’s services, she’d vowed that never again would any man of her acquaintance do anything she did not dictate.

“Well?” she asked when Haywood finally returned during the lunch hour. He happily whistled a tune she almost remembered.

Damn. Now she’d have an earworm of that tune until she figured out where she’d heard it before.

Dum dee dee do dum dum.

“Well what?” he returned, acting surprised she had questions about the morning’s proceedings.

“What happened at the City Council meeting?” She hadn’t dared show up.

“The mayor dismissed the challenge to his authority to sign work orders.”

“Sit down and stop pacing. I’m getting whiplash trying to follow you.”

He perched on the edge of a chair, ready to bounce up again as soon as he could. “Dick and Dusty had prepared statements. Thistle said something meaningless. That policeman was hanging around. I need to spend more time with Dusty to counter his influence.” He looked entirely too happy.

“You are supposed to break Dusty’s heart, not fall in love with her.” Phelma Jo narrowed her focus, watching for any telltale signs that her new employee defied her.

“The only way for me to get to Thistle is through Dusty,” he said nonchalantly while surreptitiously checking his watch. His glance barely lingered on the timepiece long enough to register the numbers on the display. He bounced up and began circling the room like a demented collie trying to herd her into the center.

“As long as we get what I want.”

“You want to run for mayor in November. Don’t worry. I’ll put you in a favorable position.”

“I hired you because you guaranteed me I’d win the election.”

“I guaranteed I’d remove your primary opposition, Dick and Dusty Carrick. If they campaign against you, you don’t have a chance. Don’t worry, they won’t be able to say a word against you come November.”

“And what do you get out of it?”

“The demise of my enemies. Same as you.”