In His Sights Page 3

  “If you can’t get around the roadblock, sometimes you just have to tear it down,” Kate said.

  Mel’s nose wrinkled. “Is that another one of your grandfather’s old sayings?”

  Kate grinned. “Yep. He prefers to think of them as axioms of wisdom.”

  “Is that a weapon of some kind, an axiom?”

  “It can be,” Kate said. “Look it up when you’re done with your paper,” Kate added.

  “Yeah,” the girl said, then sighed somewhat morosely. “So, where can I find those shipping figures?”

  “They’re in the distribution spreadsheet. It hasn’t been closed out for the quarter yet, so it’s in the open files.”

  “Okay. I’ll move out to the other computer.”

  “I’ve got some manifests to work on, so if you want to use mine, you can have it for about a half hour.”

  “Great! It’s hard to concentrate out there,” she said, gesturing toward the outer office where Kate’s assistant had his desk, and held vendors, salespeople and job seekers at bay until their appointment times.

  A few minutes later Mel’s maroon-streaked head was bent over the keyboard as she brought up the spreadsheet she needed. When the student started working here, she hadn’t been familiar with the software program Redwood used, but she knew computers and had quickly figured it out. The girl was bright enough, quite, in fact, but she was also chafing against the restraints of living in a small town that didn’t even have a movie theater. Kate had recognized the signs, which was why she’d offered herself as the girl’s mentor when she’d signed up for the program at her school.

  Why Mel had accepted, she wasn’t quite sure. There had been people in other parts of the county who had volunteered for the mentoring program, places where there was much more of what Mel called “civilization.” But she’d chosen Kate, right here in Summer Harbor, the very place she wanted so desperately to escape.

  And that, Kate thought, was the first thing that had made her suspicious. That and the occasional flash of anger she saw in the girl, anger at being stuck here in the place she derided with a very descriptive and obscene term. Kate had had to tell her she could curse up a storm anywhere else she could get away with it, but not inside Redstone. And then realized she was going to have to live up to her own rules and rein in the occasional “damn” that escaped her.

  But when the thefts had started, she’d wondered. Wondered if there was another reason Mel had chosen her as the person she wanted as her mentor. If perhaps it wasn’t her, or her work that had attracted the girl at all, but Redstone, and getting on the inside. Kate didn’t like thinking that way, but she couldn’t help the questions that popped into her mind when the girl complained about tiny Summer Harbor.

  Now that would be just peachy, she thought sourly, if she’d actually invited the thief into the nest, as it were.

  She turned to look at the girl again. “Mel?” The teenager looked up. “Why did you pick me?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You could have picked someone in L.A., Chicago or even Seattle. The kind of place you want to go. But you chose me, here.”

  Mel nodded.

  “Why?”

  “Because you got out. Those others were always there, so they didn’t have anywhere to get out of. But you did, and you got out, even if you came back. That’s what I wanted to learn.”

  It made a certain kind of sense, Kate thought. Teenage sense, but sense.

  Of course, that didn’t mean she wasn’t involved in the thefts. It could just mean that part came later.

  Kate began to sort the cargo manifests. As she organized them, part of her mind was still, as it had been since the start of this trouble, occupied with trying to solve the riddle of the thefts.

  “Kate? Oh, she’s a good one,” the grocer said with a smile. “Not many who’d leave a big career like she had and come home to take care of her grandparents when they started having health problems.”

  “Is that why she did it?” Rand had dropped by to thank the man for pointing him toward the Crawford’s room for rent, and had grabbed the chance to pump him a bit, since he seemed more than willing to talk.

  “Well, she’ll tell you she got homesick, didn’t like the big-city life.”

  “Some don’t,” Rand said neutrally, even as he was thinking that going from Denver to this small town would be more than a major adjustment.

  “I know I couldn’t take it,” the man behind the counter agreed, his tone a bit fervent. “Lived over in Seattle for a while, and even that about made me crazy.”

  “But you don’t think that’s Kate’s real reason?” Rand gently nudged the conversation back in the direction he needed.

  “Well, it may be true she didn’t like the city, but the real reason is she loves her grandparents and knows they need her now.”

  Well, that’s noble, I guess, Rand thought. Too noble to be believed?

  He didn’t know.

  “So, she wasn’t running away from any trouble or anything?”

  The grocer’s expression suddenly changed. His eyes narrowed, all trace of the warm, small-town welcome vanished now. “Kate’s not the kind to run from trouble, if she were the kind to get into trouble in the first place.”

  Rand knew immediately he’d made a mistake. Hastily, he backpedaled. “It just seemed she was a bit edgy, when I met her. I didn’t want to make it worse by saying something out of ignorance.”

  “Oh. Well. Then.”

  The man stopped short of an actual apology, but his demeanor quickly shifted back to the genial storekeeper.

  Hmm, Rand thought as he purchased a soda and departed.

  His next stop was the only other establishment of any size in town, a carries-everything hardware store. He got much the same reaction there; open friendliness, liking for Kate Crawford and an instant withdrawal behind a screen of seeming protectiveness at the slightest suggestion she was anything less than a beloved local girl who made good and then came home.

  It was the same everywhere, although admittedly the options were few; the small drugstore, the smaller post office, the yet smaller soup and sandwich café. He even braced himself and stepped into a shop labeled Curl and Cut, which smelled of some hair chemical that made his eyes water. He covered his presence by saying he would be staying in Summer Harbor for a while and wanted to know if they cut men’s hair.

  “For you, honey, you bet,” the matronly blond woman wearing a black plastic apron said with a wink so broad he couldn’t keep from grinning back at her. “I’d love to get my hands into that hair. I’m Esther.”

  “Hi, Esther. I’m Rand. I’m renting a room at the Crawford’s.”

  The woman’s smile became even broader. “Oh, that’s good. I know they were looking to do that. They’re good people, they’ll take care of you.”

  He hesitated, aware of several women in the place, in various stages of what looked like strange and exotic treatments, then plunged ahead. “I like them. I don’t think their granddaughter likes me, though.”

  “Kate? Now that’s odd, she likes most people. She’s the sweetest girl. Glad she’s back here where she belongs, especially after what she’s been through. Whatever made you think she didn’t like you?”

  He decided on the concerned approach this time. “She’s not in any trouble, is she? Is that why she’s a bit edgy?”

  “Kate, in trouble? Not likely,” the woman replied, complete certainty in her tone. “If she’s edgy, it’s because she’s worried. Her grandparents have had some money trouble, and they’re not getting any younger, so their health is on her mind.”

  “Well,” Rand amended, “maybe it wasn’t just me, but the whole idea of me renting a room from her grandparents.”

  “Well, that could be. She’s very protective of them. But I’d think she’d be glad to see a handsome, eligible young man around.” The woman waggled an eyebrow at him. “You are eligible, aren’t you?”

  “For several things,” Rand said.
>
  She laughed. “Oh, Kate’ll like you, all right. She’s got a weakness for wit.”

  He smiled and thanked the woman, then turned to escape from the chemical smell and the interested gazes of the other women. He wondered if he’d be a topic at several dinner tables in Summer Harbor tonight. This small-town stuff was going to take some getting used to. He’d dealt with it in villages around the world, but somehow he’d never come up against it here at home.

  Is anyone that perfect? he wondered as he got back in the small SUV he’d rented for the duration. Did everybody in this town think Kate Crawford walked on water?

  It wasn’t until he got to the single gas station to fill up that he got his answer to that.

  “Oh, you mean Miss-too-good-for-the-likes-of-us?” The man in the grease-stained overalls, with the patch reading Scott, wiped his hands across his chest, depositing even more grease.

  Rand’s radar flipped into search mode. The man had wandered out from the garage when he’d pulled up to the pumps, as if he’d been waiting for someone to come in. After listening to him gripe about the weather and the people who complained about the price of gas, Rand had steered the man to the topic he wanted. And had gotten the first negative comment in town about Kate Crawford.

  “Came back from the east a little snooty, did she?” he asked casually, keeping his eyes on the pump nozzle but also watching Scott out of the corner of his eye.

  The man snickered. “It’s those Redstone people, they think they own the world.”

  Whoa, Rand thought. Where’d that come from?

  Scott sniffed audibly. “What’s that? Smells like ammonia or something.”

  “It’s probably me,” Rand said, ruefully amazed it was still discernable over the gasoline fumes. “I stuck my nose in the Curl and Cut for directions.”

  Scott picked at a greasy fingernail as he laughed. “That’ll teach you. You can smell that Esther coming for miles. Good thing, since she insists on butting into everybody else’s business. Old hen.”

  A small Japanese sedan went by, stereo booming out bass so loud it shook the metal price sign out at the curb.

  “Damn kids,” Scott snarled. “Think everybody wants to listen to their crap.”

  “It was loud,” Rand agreed mildly.

  “Call that music, too. Stupid idiots. They’re as bad as those high-falutin’ classical snobs, with all that music by dead guys.”

  Ah, Rand thought. I get it now. It wasn’t Kate or Redstone in particular, this guy just hates the world. Guess there’s one in every town, even one this small.

  He paid for his gas and pulled out of the station. Tank now full, he decided to explore a little, get the lay of the land, particularly around Redstone. As he drove, he thought about something Esther of the Curl and Cut—or was it Cut and Curl?—had said.

  Glad she’s back here where she belongs…

  That seemed to be the consensus around here. Kate Crawford may have left Summer Harbor, but they’d clearly never forgotten her. And when she’d returned they had welcomed her with open arms.

  The rest of what Esther had said came back to him then.

  …especially after what she’s been through.

  He knew, from the file he’d read at Redstone headquarters before he’d come here, that Kate had been married once, and had lost a child to illness. Maybe that, he thought now, was the reason for that circle the wagons feeling he was getting. But that had been years ago. And she’d left Summer Harbor long before that, and only come back in the wake of that tragic loss.

  Or maybe it was simply the dynamic of a small town.

  Rand shook his head in wonder. He’d been around the world, been in cities, villages and places even smaller than Summer Harbor, where the nearest civilization was hundreds of miles away, but he’d never spent a lot of time in small-town America. And while he couldn’t deny the sheer beauty of this part of the world, this kind of tightly knit community already had him completely bemused.

  He thought about what he’d learned about Kate Crawford this morning. That for the most part, Summer Harbor loved her. And that she had been, at most, a bit edgy of late. Hardly enough to convict someone for theft.

  But added to the fact that she had motive—apparent financial problems—and opportunity, it was enough to keep her way up on the suspect list.

  And if he didn’t care for the idea, it was only because he already liked her grandparents. He didn’t like thinking about what it would do to them to find out their granddaughter was a thief.

  He checked once more on the gun lockbox under the seat. His two-inch .38 was inside to avoid discovery, and he hoped fervently he wouldn’t have to use it.

  Chapter 4

  “No, not that one, silly boy! Don’t you know a weed when you see it?”

  “Apparently not,” Rand said with a grin as he released the threatened plant.

  He’d been working in the backyard with Dorothy ever since he’d returned from his exploration. He’d figured it would be a good way to keep an eye on Kate since she spent so much time here, but he was soon enjoying himself.

  “My mom used to say a weed was just a plant growing where you didn’t want it to,” he said.

  Dorothy laughed. “Well, she’s right. Do you see her often, Rand?”

  “Not often enough,” he said. “But it’s not all my fault. She and my dad retired and they’re off globe-trotting more than they’re home these days.”

  “Oh, how nice,” Dorothy said. She left it at that, but Rand had the feeling “for them” had followed in her mind. She was just too polite to say it aloud.

  “This one goes?” He gestured at the next questionable plant he saw. At her nod he began to dig out the offender as he continued the conversation. “You don’t like to travel?”

  “Oh, we go to the coast now and then, and we used to go down to California in the winter, and up to Canada in the spring, but we love home the best so we stay here most of the time now.”

  He wondered if they had had to curtail their travels for health reasons or financial reasons. He’d brought in the mail for them—their mail box was out at the end of a very long driveway—when he’d returned from his first recon of the area. He had noticed several windowed envelopes that made Dorothy frown when she saw them. But she’d merely put them away with a sigh in a desk cubby that held several more of what appeared to be the same kind of envelopes.

  Definitely motive, he thought, yanking out a dandelion rather fiercely at the thought that Kate might have had to resort to stealing to help these sweet people.

  Well, Dorothy was sweet, anyway; Walter Crawford was a bit of a curmudgeon. Rand got the sense the silver-haired man with the bushy moustache used the gruffness to hide a too-soft heart, but he was honest enough to realize he might be projecting his memory of his own grandfather onto this man who somewhat resembled Robert Singleton.

  “You really don’t have to help me with this chore,” Dorothy said.

  Rand tossed the excavated weed into the trash bag they were dragging around with them. “I don’t mind. Unless you’d rather do it all yourself. I can understand that. My mom used to feel like that sometimes. She said the only thing that kept her sane was working in her garden.”

  “And what was threatening to drive her insane?” Dorothy asked, with a sly grin that told Rand she was already guessing the answer.

  “Yeah, yeah,” he said, but he grinned back at her.

  He had likely had the most normal family life of any of the Redstone security team, and his choice of careers had made his mother crazy. His father, at least, had understood, but then, he’d been a cop for nearly two decades before Rand’s mother had prevailed upon him to retire—something he hadn’t been that reluctant to do, saying all the good feelings had been driven out of the job anyway by the holes in the system and too many losing battles.

  But Rand couldn’t deny what Dorothy had said was true, most of the time it had been he himself who had driven his mother to the brink. If it hadn’t been
for Josh, who had, to Rand’s shock, invited his entire family in to tour Redstone headquarters and then have lunch with him while he convinced them that he would look out for their only son, his mother would have made his life unbearable with her worrying.

  But Josh had convinced them, and while Rand didn’t tell his mother everything, he’d never been seriously hurt on an assignment for Redstone. Of course, his mother’s opinion of what constituted seriously hurt might differ slightly from his, he admitted silently.

  “Are you an only child?” Dorothy asked as they moved on to a shady flower bed full of what she told him were hostas and fuchsias.

  “No, I’ve got a little sister. My mom said after my terrible twos she was sure there was never going to be another one. Took her nearly ten years to change her mind and have Lisa.”

  “Are you and your sister close?”

  “Pretty much,” he said. “I tried to always look out for her as a kid, although it was tough when I was sixteen having a six-year-old trailing after me.”

  “I can imagine,” Dorothy said with a laugh. “Your friends must have loved to tease you.”

  “That they did,” he agreed, thinking for the first time in years of the one friend who had gone way too far with his teasing.

  “Oh, that was an unpleasant thought,” Dorothy said, and Rand realized something must have shown in his face.

  “Yeah. I was thinking about one friend of mine, when we were in high school. He got tired of Lisa always tagging along, so one day he locked her in a closet so that she couldn’t follow us.”

  “Oh, dear.”

  “Yeah. Worst part was he forgot to tell anyone. We didn’t find her for hours.” Rand shook his head. “I’ll never forget the look in my parents’ eyes when they thought she was truly lost or had been taken.”

  “What did your friend do?”

  “He apologized. My dad somehow kept himself from trouncing the guy, and Lisa said she was okay, she wasn’t really scared at all, but we knew better.”