Читать книгу Danger on Her Doorstep - Rachelle McCalla - Страница 12

Maggie tried to remain calm as she led Gideon back outside to show him what she’d found. If whoever had killed her father really was watching them, she didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of seeing how much their actions had disturbed her.

“What is it?” Gideon asked again as they stepped outside.

“I’ve been tossing the trash into this end of the Dumpster,” Maggie explained in the calmest voice she could muster. “I’m too short to see inside it from the ground, but I was thinking after all the bags we’ve thrown in there, surely they ought to reach the top by now.”

She didn’t have to say any more. Gideon leaped up the metal-bar ladder that was welded to the side of the roll-away. His groan told her he’d seen the same thing she had.

He looked down at his hands and groaned again. “I suppose I just wiped out any fingerprints they might have left.”

“I’m sure they were all gone after I touched it.” She tried not to think about what she’d seen inside the Dumpster—the bags carefully untied, the contents sorted out, as though someone had been going through everything they’d thrown out. They may have even been inside the roll-away as she’d thrown in more bags, but she hadn’t seen them because of the high metal sides.

But what made her want to scream in fear were the words scrawled along the back inside wall of the Dumpster.

GIVE IT BACK

The jagged block letters made Maggie feel threatened.

“What do they want?” she asked.

“Something from the basement?” Gideon suggested. “It looks like they were searching through the things we threw out.”

“But don’t you think—” Maggie tried to suppress a shudder, but failed “—don’t you think it looks like some things are missing?”

To her relief, Gideon took her question seriously and looked back into the roll-away. “You’re right. That bag was full of all those broken vacuum attachments and that old wrapping paper that was falling apart, but I don’t see half the vacuum attachments anymore. And I think some bottles are missing from that bag over there.”

Maggie could picture the bag he was talking about. It had been dragged to the far end of the Dumpster and all its contents had been emptied out. She knew some of it was either missing or hidden among the other bags. Her gut instinct told her it had been taken. But why?

With a wordless prayer, she looked up to the clear-blue Iowa sky as though God might send her answers straight out of heaven. Instead she saw a broken gutter hanging down from the eaves, and felt that much more disheartened by the project she’d undertaken—which she’d never asked for in the first place. Pushing away her discouragement, she asked Gideon the question that was foremost in her mind.

“Do you think we missed it—the suspicious thing my dad told you about? Do you think his murderer took it with them?” Her voice dropped off as she returned her gaze to the roll-away Dumpster and then back to Gideon.

For a moment she thought the suspended lawman was about to agree with her. But then his features hardened and he shook his head.

“No. It has to still be inside. This only makes me all the more certain.”

“Why?”

“Because if your father’s killer had what they were looking for, they wouldn’t be asking for it back, would they?”

It took three days to empty out the room in the basement. Most of what they hauled out went straight into the roll-away Dumpster, and remained undisturbed after their discovery. Checking inside the Dumpster with every load had guaranteed that, though Gideon had hoped whoever had scrawled the message would come back so they could catch him. Not that there was much chance of that.

They both agreed that, given Bernie’s accusations about his missing Taser, they wouldn’t bother the sheriff’s office about the message, but instead took pictures as evidence.

A few things they found fell into the category of curiosities, and those Maggie took to the local antiques shop for appraisal. But nothing they found fit into the suspicious, you’re-not-going-to-believe-this-until-you-see-it category. Certainly none of it seemed like anything worth killing someone for.

After checking the Dumpster one last time and finding it clear of invaders, Gideon tossed the last contractor-strength garbage bag into the container with a mighty shove, then turned to face Maggie. “Basement—check,” he announced, feeling satisfied that they’d cleared out the debris. Only a few large furniture pieces remained, and those they’d agreed to keep with the possibility of using them to partially furnish the house.

When he met Maggie’s eyes, Gideon felt his feeling of satisfaction take a hit. That worried look was back, and she’d crossed her arms over her chest as she looked around the overgrown backyard.

He hurried to her side. “I’m sorry we didn’t find what we were looking for.”

Though Gideon knew she was disappointed, Maggie put on a brave face. “It’s okay. We tried. We still have the rest of the house to go through.”

“True.” Gideon wished he could make his voice sound optimistic. The gutted second floor was wide-open space, with only Glen Arnold’s tools and stacks of wood lying around. The attic was a smallish space, and didn’t have room for much under its shallow rafters. The first floor was a little more promising, as Glen had hardly disturbed it yet. But Gideon seemed to recall Glen had made his suspicious discovery in the basement. And their pokey perpetrator’s search through the Dumpster appeared to reinforce that theory.

Maggie tossed her dark hair from her eyes just in time for the wind to blow it stubbornly back across her face. She let out an impatient huff and tugged loose the fluffy elastic that held a haphazard ponytail at the back of her head. She then finger-combed her hair back and stuffed it into a fresh ponytail. “This pony holder is about shot,” she explained, looking apologetic.

Gideon watched with interest. The woman had gone through the same ritual a dozen times or more each day that he’d been working with her. When she’d secured her hair to her satisfaction, she leaned a little closer to him.

“I just keep wondering,” she started slowly, her eyes scanning the yard. “Do you think he’s still watching us?”

Though he felt a tiny prickle of fear at her reminder that her father’s killer was still at large, Gideon wasn’t about to let Maggie see him looking scared. It would only frighten her more. Still, he had wondered from time to time if someone was still watching them, especially when he considered the likelihood that their perp had been in the Dumpster even as they’d tossed bags inside it. “Let him watch,” he announced, putting on a brave face. “Now that we’re done with the basement, we’re going to move on to the rest of the house. So, let’s get to it.”

They’d discussed the next steps of the renovation process while they’d been working together cleaning out the basement. Gideon had noticed that most of the first-floor storm windows had been installed on the outside of the house, though there were still a dozen more new units stacked against a wall in the kitchen that needed to be installed on the remaining windows. Maggie had agreed with his plan to pick up where her father had left off installing the storm windows. Gideon hoped to get the extra-insulating layer added while the weather was still mild, since the forecast called for blustery fall weather to hit the area soon.

“You’re ready to install the storm windows?” Maggie asked, tromping back into the house toward where the units were stacked.

“I brought all the tools we’ll need,” Gideon assured her. “The wind won’t whistle through the windows so much once we get these installed. It should help with the heating bills considerably, too.”

“And it will make the house more secure,” Maggie agreed softly.

Gideon watched the quiet woman as she reached the spot where the storm windows leaned against the kitchen wall. They’d spoken little during the three days they’d spent methodically searching through the junk in the back room of the basement. Never having been a big fan of small talk, he appreciated being allowed to keep his thoughts to himself. Other than a few remarks about the objects they’d found or a couple of conversations about Maggie’s evolving plans for the house, they’d worked in silence. Gideon realized he still knew very little about the woman beside him.

Now she touched the aluminum-framed windows almost reverently. Her fingers paused where the tip of a piece of paper stuck up from between two windows. Maggie pulled it out and looked at it.

“What did you find?” Gideon asked.

“It’s the invoice for the windows,” Maggie noted, her eyes scanning the page. “Wow. My father spent a lot of money to buy all these windows.” Her eyebrows shot up above the upper rim of her dark-framed glasses. “He bought them the same week he died.” Emotion showed on her face as she pinched her eyes shut.

Gideon hated for Maggie to be reminded of her loss once again. A thought occurred to him. He wasn’t sure if she’d appreciate the sentiment; normally he would have just kept his mouth shut. But Maggie’s obvious grief moved him to speak. “It’s almost as though he provided what you needed for the house, even though he’s no longer with us.”

Maggie’s eyes remained pinched shut behind her glasses, and she dipped her head. When she finally raised her head again, she opened tear-free eyes. “Thank you,” she said quietly.

Unsure whether she was speaking to him or simply thanking her father, Gideon stood beside her silently for a few moments before clearing his throat and reaching past her for the first of the storm windows. “Ready to get started?”

“Let’s do it,” she said agreeably.

Gideon carried the first storm window outside. Most of the windows on the old house were the same dimensions except for the large front picture windows. That made installing the storm windows even simpler since he wouldn’t have to sort out sizes. He paused in the backyard and looked up at the house. “I’m going to need to fetch my ladder from my truck. Do you think you can hold this?”

“Got it.” Maggie took the window, which, in spite of its size, was fairly light. Still, the breeze that had whipped her hair around earlier was still blowing, and tugged at the widespread panes.

“I’ll be right back,” Gideon promised, and trotted off to where he’d left his ladder strapped to the rack on his truck.

Maggie watched Gideon disappear around the corner of the house. The former sheriff was a mystery to her, made that much more mysterious by his dark looks and quiet ways. His statement about her father providing the windows for them had seemed to come out of nowhere, its sensitivity so much the opposite of what she’d have expected a tough guy like him to say. The man surprised her, and she found herself wondering what other secrets were hidden underneath his granite exterior.