Roses Have Thorns, page 12
“June? Juniper! Are you still there?”
I realized that Sawyer had been trying to get my attention for a while now and I hadn’t heard him. “Yes, I’m still here. Sorry. I’m a little distracted.” Once that window was secured, I went into my bedroom to check the windows there, too.
He sighed, the noise full of worry. “I know. But I promise you, I’ll keep you safe.” He paused again, and I heard someone’s voice in the background. “Maybe you should go over to Leo and Clem’s. Bring the dogs. Stay the night.”
“No. If I’m in danger, I’m not going to stay with my parents and bring whatever threat this is to them. That’s ridiculous. Why don’t you just come here? Or I can go home with you?” I went downstairs to the kitchen, Dundee and Cornbread tagging along in my wake. The flowers were still sitting on the counter, but I ignored them in favor of checking the back door’s locks.
“Look, I’m Augusta tonight, so I can’t be with you. And I have to be in Portland tomorrow. I’m not leaving you alone. So your choices are to go to your parents’, or Mike and Hazel’s—and might I remind you that your sister is pregnant—or to Brad and Joss’s, where Noah is.” Augusta was a good two hours away from Dawn Cove and Portland almost three. There was no way Sawyer could respond to an emergency in a timely way if he was that far away. And there was no way I’d put Hazel or Noah in danger, and Sawyer knew it. I didn’t really have a choice.
“Fine,” I said, allowing him to hear the annoyance that had somewhat replaced the fear in my voice. “I’ll go to my parents’. Dad has his birding guns at least. And Dundee is a very good guard dog.”
“There you go. You’ll be safe. Have Leo come get you, okay? Don’t drive there on your own. I have to go. I’ll come see you as soon as I can.” He hung up before I could reply.
I stood staring at the bouquet and its horrible threats then called my parents. They were more than happy to host the dogs and I for the night. I packed my overnight bag and another bag for the dogs and then waited just inside my front door until my mother’s Wagoneer arrived at the curb and my father climbed out. He carried my bags and took Cornbread’s lead as we loaded into the big SUV and headed to the house I’d grown up in.
Once there, my mother helped me settle into my old bedroom and even agreed to allow the dogs to sleep on the bed with me. For dinner that night, she made my favorite comfort meal—grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato soup. These sandwiches were nothing like the ones she’d made when I was a child; they were works of art. She started with thick slices of fresh brioche from Tout Sweet and added salty bacon, crunchy sweet slices of honeycrisp apples, and sharp cheddar. And the soup definitely wasn’t from a can. She’d used roasted tomatoes and red peppers as the base and added a dollop of basil-infused crème fraîche to the top of each bowl. It was quite possibly the best meal I’d ever had.
As we ate, I explained what had driven me to stay the night in my childhood home. My mother thought the idea of sending hidden, secret messages in floral arrangements was quite cunning and crafty, something she said was in keeping with Doug Abbot’s personality. When we finished our meal, my father got up and went to the gun safe located in his study, taking out a 12-gauge Benelli M1 Super 90 shotgun, and loading the pockets of his pants and cardigan sweater with extra shells.
“Oh, now, Leo,” my mother said, consternation clear in her voice. “Do you really think that’s necessary?”
“I’ll no be having some glaikit wee bawbag with a face like bulldog licking a jobbie off a nettle threatenin’ me wee lass, Clementine. And I’ll defend me hoose against him should he come!”
I bit my lower lip so as not to laugh at my father’s Scottish insults, noticing a similar expression on my mother’s face. The Scots had a well-earned reputation for hilarious but devastating insults, and my father calling Doug Abbot an ugly, useless idiot was almost more than I could handle at that moment. I’d have to remember the insult so I could relay it to Sawyer and Hazel when I saw them again.
“Mum, it’s fine,” I said, hoping to diffuse the situation before it intensified. Both of my parents were scared and that made them fractious, as my father might say. “I doubt Doug—or whoever it is—would be stupid enough to attack me here, but if it makes Dad feel better to have the gun, let him. Between him and Dundee and your alarm system, I’m sure we’ll be safe.”
Dad nodded at Mum as if he’d won something, and she subsided, going to the fridge and bringing out a box of doughnuts from Holy Donut in Portland. I gasped when I saw them and immediately reached in for a chai glazed. “When did you go to Portland?” I asked as I took a bite of the spicy-sweet potato doughnut.
“We didn’t,” Mum said. “They’re from Martha Beckham. She had some church thing up there and brought some by on her way home.” Martha Beckham was the minister at the Unitarian Universalist church and one of my mother’s closest friends.
“I’ll have to thank her,” I said, settling down at the table with a cup of tea and the rest of my doughnut. We munched in companionable silence and when we were finished, I helped Mum with the dishes and then went upstairs to my bed. My dad went around the entire house, checking doors and windows to make sure they were all locked tight and set the alarm before he, too, went upstairs, the shotgun in hand.
I got ready for bed, keeping an eye out the window for suspicious figures in the trees or crossing the yard, but thankfully didn’t see any. When I laid down, Cornbread settled next to me while I flipped through a gossip magazine, but Dundee laid in front of the closed door, almost as if he knew there was some danger waiting in the night.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Baying like the hound of the Baskervilles woke me in the dead of night, and combined with the shrill siren of the security system’s alarm, created a din that wouldn’t have been out of place in Bedlam. Dundee was scratching viciously at my closed bedroom door, and when I finally gathered my wits enough to climb out of bed and open it, he took off down the hallway, growling savagely with spittle flying from lips drawn back to reveal sharp, deadly teeth. Little Cornbread followed along at his heels, her growls and barking no less feral and frightening than her much larger, fiercer brother’s. A booming blast shook the house, followed by the tinkling of broken glass, and the dogs’ barking ratcheted up even more.
My mother met me in the hallway and we hovered at the head of the stairs, peering down into the gloom of the entrance way as the dogs disappeared towards the kitchen. “Where’s Dad?” I yelled over the cacophony as Mum reached for my hand. Her palms were just as sweaty as mine.
“Downstairs somewhere. As soon as Dundee started barking and the alarm went off, he sprang out of bed, grabbed the shotgun, and—”
Another deafening explosion rocked the house, cutting off whatever she was about to say. The dogs’ barking became somehow even louder and more violent, and my mother and I shrieked in fear. I saw that she was holding her phone in her free hand, and had dialed 911.
“Stay here,” I said, letting go of her hand and starting down the stairs.
She yanked me back. “No, Juniper! Stay up here!” She held the phone up to her ear and spoke into it, saying, “I believe my husband might have just shot an intruder. This is Clementine MacKenzie, and I’m at 25 School Street. Yes, I’ll stay on the line.”
I disengaged myself from her clutching, grasping hand and went down the stairs towards the kitchen, where the dogs and my father were both yelling. “And don’t ye come back here, ye boggin’ wee feartie!” my father’s voice carried into the downstairs hallway. “I’ve more of that waitin’ for ye!”
Dad was standing at the open back door, shotgun held tightly across his body, Dundee and Cornbread at his feet. All three were wearing the same fierce expression and staring out into the blackness of the backyard, looking towards the elm woods that separated my parents’ home from Battle Avenue and the Maritime College. One of the panes of glass in the back door had been shattered and an expended shotgun shell lay on the floor at my father’s feet, another a few feet behind him. Bird shot peppered the wall and door frame next to the broken window. Mum would not be happy to see that.
“Dundee! Cornbread! Leave it!” I cried out and the dogs immediately calmed, leaving Dad’s side and coming to sit on my feet. Dad turned and quieted the alarm. Silence crashed down over the house, almost as painful as the racket before. “Daddy? Who was it?” The metallic taste of fear coated my tongue, and I had to work to get enough moisture in my mouth to speak.
“I dinnae ken, pet,” he said, not turning to look at me. I smiled as adrenaline broadened his accent, bringing out his Scots even more than usual. “Big fella, though. Might be Abbot. I dinnae think I got a piece o’ him, though.”
“Come away from there, Leonard! Now, please.” My mother had joined us in the kitchen, still clutching her phone. “The sheriffs are on their way.”
Dad stepped away from the back door, closing it and locking it before setting the shotgun down on the kitchen counter and looking up at both of us. “Are you girls okay?” he asked, coming to take our hands.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said, squeezing his hand. “Just a little rattled. What happened?”
“That braw laddie of yours woke me and then that blasted alarm cryin’ oot, and when I got down here, there was a big man at the back door. I heard him scraping at the knob, and as I was standing here, he opened the door. I fired at him, and then again when he ran away. I dinnae think I hit him though,” he said again, probably unaware that he’d said that already.
There was a thunderous banging at the front door and a woman’s voice called out, “Wabanaki County Sheriff’s Department. Mrs. MacKenzie? Are you alright?”
The dogs started their frenzied barking again, and Dad and I tried to hush them. Mum turned and went to open the front door, allowing Deputy Wilkes to come inside. “They’re in the kitchen,” she said, leading the tall, slender deputy down the hall.
She looked around the kitchen, her flinty grey eyes assessing the situation, taking in my father and I standing near the fridge with bits of cheese held in our hands, the dogs displaying a perfect down-wait as they stared up at the treats, the shotgun on the counter, and the damage to the back door and wall. She nodded to us and took a notebook out of her jacket pocket and said, “Why don’t we all have a seat at the table and you can tell me what happened?”
Dad and I gave the last bits of cheese to the dogs, who went over to sniff Deputy Wilkes’s boots before sitting down with their sides pressed against my legs. My father and mother sat between the deputy and I, holding hands.
Deputy Wilkes took all three of our statements then went out into the backyard, poking around the snow with a large, bright flashlight she’d taken from her duty belt. She walked all the way out the treeline and looked around there for a few moments before coming back. “There’s no blood,” she said, shutting off the flashlight and putting it back on her belt. “So you didn’t hit him, Mr. MacKenzie.”
“More’s the pity,” Dad muttered. The deputy’s mouth quirked up in a lightning-fast smirk before the calm, professional veneer settled onto her face once more.
“You’re certain it was Doug Abbot?” she asked, looking at the three of us but speaking to my dad.
“No, I cannae be. I dinnae see his puss—”
“Face,” I translated for the deputy. She nodded and flashed me a little smile.
“Aye, his face,” Dad continued, scowling at me. “I dinnae see it. But who else could it be? He killed me friend and threatened the same for me daughter.”
“What happens now? Will you arrest him?” Mum asked.
“We’ll send someone over to his house to speak to him and probably take him down to the station for further questioning. Detective Livingston will want to speak to him, too, when he returns in the morning.”
“What if they come back?” I asked.
“We’ll post a deputy out front here and at your house, Mrs. Blair. Your shop, too. We’ll catch him if he tries again.” I nodded, feeling somewhat better knowing that a deputy would be keeping an eye on me.
As we were talking, another deputy arrived, one I didn’t recognize. He secured the shotgun, taking it out to his patrol car and locking it inside. Then he and Deputy Wilkes began collecting evidence—they took the two shells and pried some shot out of the wall, slipping them into plastic bags before sealing the bags and putting them in the pockets of their jackets. They took photos of where the shells laid on the floor, photos of the damage to the wall and door, and photos of the back door’s knob, which showed some signs it had been jimmied open.
“I noticed you’ve got an alarm system,” Deputy Wilkes said. “Do you also happen to have security cameras?”
“Oh, aye,” Dad said, climbing to his feet. “Cameras above the front and back doors, sides of the hoose and out at the tree line in back. I’ll get ye the footage.” He went into his study and returned a moment or two later, holding a flash drive out to the deputy. She took it and stuck it into her pocket.
Both deputies left a few minutes later, in possession of cranberry-orange doughnuts, and my parents and I wandered back to bed. I was absolutely certain that I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep after all the excitement and the adrenaline that had suffused my entire body, but I was out less than five minutes after I laid down.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I slept through breakfast and almost through lunch as well. When the dogs and I finally headed downstairs, I found Sawyer sitting at the kitchen table, sipping a mug of coffee and working his way through a plate of my mother’s fabulous cheese and chive omelets with a side of roasted potatoes. Dundee and Cornbread went nuts when they saw him, jumping around, trying to lick his face, and whining with excitement. I was no less enthusiastic when I stooped to kiss his cheek and ruffle his hair. He was dressed in his uniform—khaki button-up, well-fitting jeans, and black tactical boots, with his gun belt settled on his trim hips and his Smokey the Bear hat resting crown down on the table at his elbow.
Once I was sitting next to him at the table with my own coffee and eggs, he said, “Heard there was some excitement here last night. How dare you throw a party and not invite me.”
My father snorted and laid down the business section of the Portland Press Herald to fix Sawyer with a look. “If that’s yer idea of a party, lad, I hesitate to let me daughter continue her acquaintance with ye.”
I laughed and took a bite of omelet. “Did you arrest Doug? Was it him last night?”
Sawyer shook his head. “He wasn’t at home when Wilkes and Merrill went there to talk to him. And as far as I know, he hasn’t been home all night. Russell Scott—his boarder—said he hasn’t seen him since yesterday morning. No one is answering the phone at his office and he’s not picking up his cell phone, either. I think he’s in the wind.”
“But was it him? Last night, I mean,” Mum said as she sat down at the table.
“The footage from your security cameras was perfect. We confirmed that it was indeed Doug Abbot who broke in last night. We saw him come through the woods at the back of your property, so he probably parked somewhere up on Battle Avenue and hiked in. We also saw him forcing the back door and hightail it across the backyard when Leo came out shooting.” He smirked and took a bite of potatoes. Dad chuckled and nodded with satisfaction before going back to the paper.
“So what now?” I asked. “Can I go home? Will you find him?”
“There’s an APB out for him with all the sheriffs and police in the state, as well as at the border crossing points, and in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Airports, bus depots, and train stations, too. We cast a wide net. When he surfaces, we’ll get him. Don't worry, Junie.” He finished his food and added, “We’re also watching Russell Scott.”
“Do you suspect him of something?” I asked.
“Not exactly, but he does have a record and he is living at Beechwood and driving Doug’s truck for free. Maybe he’s willing to break a few laws in order to keep his meal ticket out of trouble.”
I finished my lunch and Sawyer said he’d stay long enough for me to get dressed so he could take me home and then to the shop. Mum told me to leave the dogs; my parents had enjoyed their company, and they’d return them once I closed the shop tonight. I went upstairs, took a quick shower and got dressed, then packed my overnight bag before joining Sawyer in the living room.
He carried my bag out to his truck and helped me in. After climbing in and starting the engine, he turned and gathered me into his arms, pulling me tight against him and pressing his face into the side of my head. “Thank God you’re okay,” he whispered. “When Wilkes called me about an intruder at your parents’ address last night, my heart stopped. I was so close to just jumping in the truck and leaving Augusta right then.”
He let go of me and cupped my face before kissing me thoroughly. I clung to him, burying my face in the crook of his neck and closing my eyes. “I was terrified,” I admitted in a whisper. “My dad, though.” I laughed and sat up straight, looking up into Sawyer’s face. “He was so fierce. You should have seen him standing in the doorway with that shotgun. It was like he was channeling his Viking ancestors.”
“Doug’s lucky it was dark last night,” he said, carefully disengaging from my embrace and putting the truck in gear. “I think Leo would have personally shown him some of that Viking fierceness.”
We went back to my house, where Sawyer took my keys and made me wait in his truck while he made sure Doug wasn’t hiding somewhere inside, waiting for me. Once he gave the all clear, I went inside and had a look around. Everything looked the same as it had when I’d left the previous afternoon. I pointed to the flowers still sitting on my kitchen counter.
