Chapter 28

When I left the industrial park area, I drove Sylvia's car out of town. At the first rest stop on the interstate highway that went toward Roaring Gap I left her car and picked up my truck. I had no idea who was waiting to drive the car back to Sylvia. Obviously someone was watching because my bag with all the money and other shit was in the truck. I drove off feeling pretty sure I would hear from someone once again, even though I had committed my third murder. I was also sure that both Sylvia and Morris knew I had killed Ari, yet neither could ever prove it.

As I got closer to the turn off for Roaring Gap there began to be signs of a past snow storm. The road and parking lots were clear but the grass areas still showed signs snow. There were large piles of snow in the parking lots of the buildings bordering the highway.

The road to the Country Store had been cleared long before so driving was fine. I was surprised to find my drive and parking areas clear. Even my walk was clear.

When I arrived home no one welcomed me, and no one called to tell me job well done. I was just home without any fanfare. I looked at the Country Store with the lawn covered in snow and was at peace. I didn't give a crap about any of it. I was glad to be home and alive. Ari could have done a lot worse to me than the black eye and split lip.

I pulled my car to the back of the stucco covered concrete block building and parked it at the edge of the new gravel parking area. It was pretty close to the woods, so I wondered how the pickup could handle the tree sap in the spring and fall. I didn't have to worry about it for awhile appearing from the amount of snow surrounding the parking area.

I had been planning what I would do when I got home. It was a few days till Christmas and I had not done a thing shopping wise. Nor had I decorated. I opened the door on the Country Store only to find it cold as a bitch inside. There was a note on the roll top desk.

The note read, 'boxes came and they are under the stairs. Water is turned off. You will need to turn it on when you get the stove going. Call me so I can stop by to check on things.' The signature was a giant C.

The one large and two small boxes were stacked in the corner under the stairs. I didn't bother to check them because I was cold. I knew it would take the heater a while to raise the temperature above the current twenty three degrees. I knew that it was twenty three because in my kitchen hung a large thermometer attached to an Orange Crush advertising sign. I had found it in a yard sale before I left for the Industrial park area.

I pulled a hassock up to the stove and began to lay a fire. First I found a paper plate in the can of paper refuge. I found a six inch long 2x4 which I could chop into smaller kindling. I kept an ornamental piece of a large tree trunk to use for that purpose. I used the small hatchet/hand axe to split the 2x4. I rolled the pieces of the 2x4 in the paper plate the lit the plate using a long butane charcoal lighter.

I had to carefully add wood to the stove for fifteen minutes before I had a good solid fire going. When it was burning, I still had to sit another twenty minutes till I was comfortable enough to remove the green army type coat I had bought on my drive home. I stopped shortly after the rest area to dump the fake fur thing. My hooker stroll coat was no longer a fashion item to me. I bought the contradiction of a coat at the Walmart store in the sporting goods department. It was a youth size coat. Thank god I hadn't gained enough weight to be in a men's size.

When I thought about a possible weight gain, I went to check on my bike. It was still on the rear deck under a real canvas tarp. After I shook the snow off it didn't look as though the almost two month absence had cause it any damage. I knew that first thing in the morning I would be back on my normal schedule. I didn't know where I would ride it in all the snow but I knew I would be riding.

With that settled, I turned to unpacking the backpack which had been held for me by Sylvia. Long before the house was warm, I went into the grease pit. I replaced the cash filled grease tubes into the case of other tubes filled with grease. I also replaced the lock box that contained the unused false identities.

I went back to the living room where I left the electronic gear I had used in the days before the industrial park adventure. It hadn't been quite two months, but I had been gone long enough to accumulate junk mail on the computer and a long list of voice mail messages on my cell phone.

I turned on the water before I began thinking about the messages. I had the coffee cooking while I checked my open Email which mostly held spam about camera's, and of course penis enlargement, cheap Viagra, and meeting Asian girls. What a waste, I thought. Spam was always aimed at men. Well maybe not the Asian women, I did chuckle at that thought. There was absolutely no mail in either of the confidential emails. The laptop was slow, because the memory was on a flash drive. I needed a computer I could watch old TV shows on, since I hadn't seen anything on TV for two months. Plus I was ready to dump cable TV from the Phone Company.

Finally I listened to the voice mail messages on my cell phone. The phone that I used in Country Store had a capacity of one hundred voice messages. It was full. I thumbed down to the last message and found that it had been filled by the end of the first month I was out of town. Well over half the messages were from Joan. Even though my outgoing message explained that I was out of town for work and stated I would return the call when I returned. Joan called at least daily some days she called more. The only thing that ended the string of messages from her was the fact that the in box filled up.

Since Joan was home at 7 PM and I didn't have her number, I couldn't return her calls. I wouldn't have called her at home even if I had the number. I couldn't imagine what I would say if her husband answered the phone.

There was only one message from Jeremy. "When you get back call me. Alice misses you."

"I'll bet it isn't me that she misses," I said with a laugh. She probably needs someone to lead her into trouble, I thought.

I did call Carlos at home. His wife answered the phone with a simple, "Hello."

"Nita this is Rose, would you give Carlos a message tell him he can stop checking on the place. Also to come by and collect his money for cleaning my driveway and checking the place while I was out of town," I said.

"Carlos is here, do you want to speak with him?" she asked.

"Not really, everything is fine. But thanks Nita, I hope we can all get together over the holidays," I said before I broke the connection.

There was only one other person of any interest to me. I played the message from the missing Rachel Rankin. It had been left only five days after I left for my assignment. "Rose thanks for being concerned. Robbie and I are in a bit of a jam, could you send me a thousand dollars?"

"Not just no, but hello no," I said to the empty house.

I dialed Jeremy and Alice's Number. "Hello," Alice said into her phone.

"Well hello there sweetie. Long time no see and I mean that literally," I said.

"I could say the same about you. Have you been away on those mysterious business trips," she asked.

"Oil well five miles out to sea, nothing mysterious about that. The only thing that works is the Satellite phone and Direct TV." As I always said I was a world class liar.

"Oh how fun, did you at least have hunky oil men to play with?" she asked.

"I had a few," I lied again. "So I'm home now, if you want to get together again."

"Jeremy will be happy to hear that. He was afraid you had lost interest," she said.

"I'm always interested, but I'm never consumed," I said with a laugh. "I have to take a shower now that the house is finally warm."

"Okay, I'll call and we can get together sometime soon," Alice promised.

I had made all the catching up calls I needed to make, so I went into the bathroom. It still had a chill in the room since it had a huge amount of uninsulated wall exposed to the cold air outside. I flipped on the light switch, which would bring a small ceiling mounted ceramic heater online. In the summer there was a switch to disconnect the heater from the lights, but since it wasn't summer the heater blew hot air down on the bath room area.

I decided to unpack my purchases from almost two months previously. They were going to be a mystery to me for a while. I also had two months worth of drawing classes on line to catch up. I had things to do that should keep me busy for a while.

I sat on the far side of the room from the wood stove, since it was putting out a high volume of heat. I opened each box, then searched if for the manual and instruction sheets. Hell, there were even assembly directions on a couple of pieces.

As soon as I had the two cameras unpacked I read the directions and the manuals. The best I could figure I would need Carlos to install the mounts on the sleeping loft wall. I just had to aim the cameras into the living room area. Then it would be a simple job for me to bolt the camera platforms to the mounts so that I could work the remote pan and elevation controls from the computer. Everything worked on batteries so I needed to have plenty of rechargeable ones handy.

I planned to use the new computer as my home computer and the SBI laptop for their business. The small tablet was set up just to check the Church Camp email.

I decided after an hour that the bathroom was warm enough to take my shower. Even though it was evening rather than morning, I carried my clean clothes into the shower. I would be changing again after my morning ride the next day but I would need the clean panties for sure, if nothing else.

My panties weren't nearly as dirty, since Ari wasn't screwing me anally so I could go a full day without changing them. Still I had gotten into the habit of showering twice a day, and I planned to continue. When I finished my shower, it was too late to do much of anything except visit a chat room and go to sleep. I slept on one of the living room sofas wrapped in a quilted comforter. The comforter was feather filled and extremely warm.

By 5 AM the stove had gone cool, but the fire was not completely out. Before I dressed for the ride I put two split logs in the stove and turned on the gas ring under the quirky water heater. By the time I had all the insulated clothing on, I looked like a snow woman. I almost waddled, but fortunately it didn't matter so much on the bike.

I rode it down to Helen's. Once I was inside the small cafe, I ordered the special. Helen saw me through the window to the kitchen. She made a gesture, so I went to the kitchen door, while she fixed my food. "Did you hear from Rachel?" she asked.

"Yes I did. She left a message on my voice mail. I have been out of town a few weeks. She sounded as thought she were in trouble," was my answer.