Angels in the Mist
Chapter 6

    Trevor didn’t pull into the driveway.  He parked along the curb at the very corner of the property and then sat and looked.  “Hasn’t changed much.”

Natasha looked at the house and the two cars in the same place as this morning and then over at Trevor.  “When was the last time you were here?”

“Before the divorce was final.  I was long moved out then.  I remember being worried about her not being able to make the mortgage payment.”  He laughed and shook his head.  “When did she get the convertible?”

“Few months ago.  Sales have been good.”  What Natasha saw in his face, she didn’t like.  She also didn’t like the fact that she didn’t like it.  She opened the door.  Shake it off, Natasha.  Good God, he’s her ex-husband.  No reason to be jealous.  Shouldn’t be jealous.  Not like I’m having a relationship with him or even dating him.  He has a right to still love her.  She got out, then bent down and looked through the passenger’s window.  “Hey!  You coming or what?”

He didn’t respond for several seconds, then glanced at her, said, “sure,” and got out.

Natasha was waiting at the bottom of the steps when Trevor caught up with her.  They stepped onto the porch together.  She rang the doorbell and he walked to the end of the porch and looked into the side yard.  She tapped on the glass with her ring.  She listened for sounds inside and looked at Trevor’s back.  He kept himself in good shape.  Nice broad shoulders, slim waist, maybe a little too much hip for a man.  She didn’t remember him being the ponytail type.

“There’s no answer,” she said.  “Just like this morning.”

He turned and walked back.  “Guess we go in.”  He tried the knob but it was locked.  He looked at Natasha.

“She keeps a spare key,” she said.  She went to the end of the porch, knelt down to reach the hiding place, then stood and looked at Trevor.  “It’s not there.”

He tried peering through the crack in the drapes.  “Did you have to use it this morning?”

“Well, actually no, because the door was unlocked.  But I didn’t know that until I had the key in my hand.”

“Did you put it back?”

She considered that for a moment.  “I remember distinctly bending down and placing it on the hook.  But I went back to get it when I went back in.”  She thought for a few more seconds.  “I ran out so fast I probably dropped it in my pocket.  Those shorts are lying on my bed.”

“Well, I can’t see anything.”  He pushed away from the window.  “Let’s check the patio doors.”

“I don’t like it,” she said.  She followed him around the side of the house to the six-foot privacy fence.  “It’s latched from the inside and I’m not going to climb over.”

Without pausing, Trevor pulled himself to the top of the fence and before Natasha could blink, disappeared over the other side.  She stared at where she last saw him and then said, “Did you hear me, Trev?  I’m not going to . . . “  The gate opened and Trevor stepped out.  He made a bow and a sweep of his hand.

“After you, M’Lady.”

She gave him a weak smile, thanked him and entered the back yard.  She walked to the corner of the garage and then stopped when she heard the gate close.

“Beautiful!”  Trevor said.

Natasha smiled and turned around.  Trevor was bending over, admiring a flower.  “What are you doing?”

“It’s a campanula carpatica.”

“That’s nice, Trev, but we’re not here to look at purple flowers.”

“It’s not purple, Natasha.  It’s wedgewood blue – violet to the layman.”

“Blue, violet, purple, whatever.  Come on!”

He straightened.  “You would probably know it as a Bellflower.”

She walked back and looked at it.  “Bellflower . . . right.”  She grabbed his arm.  “Maybe you could get her to give you a private tour some day.  First let’s see if we can figure out what’s going on.”  He let her guide him around the house.

Although the deck off the sliding glass doors was open, strategically-placed lattices screened the hot tub from neighbors’ eyes.  In any case someone would have to be very tall or trying very hard to see anything over the privacy fence.  Natasha tapped on the glass door.

“We’ve already established that no one is here,” Trevor said.  He slid the door open easily.  Natasha stepped back.

“You go first,” she said.

“Certainly, M’Lady.”

Natasha followed Trevor in and then froze.

“Thought you said everything was neat as a pin, Natasha.”

Natasha felt broken glass under her feet.  She held her breath against the eye watering smell of vinegar and stepped cautiously over an upside-down drawer of kitchen towels.  “Let’s get out of here and call the police.”

“May not be a good idea.  It’s nothing more than a messy house to the police.  The only crime they would likely make note of is you and I breaking into someone else’s house.”

“We didn’t break in.”

“A technicality.  We’ll have to check the entire house.”

Natasha backed up to the still-open door and put her hand on the frame.  “There is no we.  I’ll wait right here.”

“Suit yourself,” Trevor said and disappeared into the office.

Natasha looked around the kitchen.  All the cupboards were open and much of their contents had been pulled out and dumped on the counters and floor.  Spice bottles laid among chards of glass and ceramic.  The label of the vinegar bottle was plastered against an unbroken clear glass sugar canister.  The sugar and vinegar made a muddy mess.  At the other end of the kitchen, against the wall stood Maureen’s hutch.  The top portion had doors of clear glass through which could be seen fine crystal and china, none of which had been disturbed.  Everything, however, had been pulled out of the bottom section and sent pell-mell across the floor and under the table.  Natasha glanced outside, then gingerly tiptoed to the office door.  She would rather explore the unknown with Trevor than stay downstairs alone.

The floor-to-ceiling book case that occupied one wall in the office was bare.  Empty drawers of the file cabinet hung open.  Books and files were scattered everywhere.  In place of where the briefcase had been, sat one of the desk drawers, its contents spread about.  Her note still laid where she last saw it.  She tripped over a book and stumbled into the living room where Trevor was standing, looking around.  She stepped up close to him.  “I’m scared.  Let’s get out of here,” she whispered.

“Should have trusted your instincts and brought my .38.  I really don’t feel comfortable going through here unarmed.”

“Then let’s leave.”

“No, we have to check to see if Maureen is here.”  He stepped onto the sofa to pull down a decorative military sword.  “Always liked this thing.  It belonged to Maureen’s father.  Maybe it’ll come in handy.”  He put it to his shoulder and headed for the stairs. 

Natasha paused at the third step and looked across the living room.  Was Maureen here when she called or was she somewhere else?  Remember our lunch.  Did she mean remember the envelope?  Is this vandals or someone looking for something . . . like that envelope?  It didn’t look like destruction for destruction’s sake.  It looked like a search with indifference about the mess left behind.  She pulled her bag-purse in closer to her and rushed to catch up to Trevor at the top of the stairs.

Trevor moved past the guest bedroom and bathroom, stepping over piles of towels and linens.  Natasha knew from police movies that you never pass a room without checking it first.  Don’t put the bad guy to your back.  She stopped and listened at the open door of the guest bedroom, saw the mattress turned over, papers and clothing spread about.  The bathroom was not nearly as bad.  Drawers were pulled open, some things littered the floor.  She stepped up close to Trevor at the entrance to Maureen’s bedroom. 

He placed his hand on her arm.  “Are you OK?  You’re shaking.”

She glanced back to the head of the stairs and the open doors.  “We didn’t go in those.”  Her mouth was dry and as she whispered, her words came out as though being filtered through cotton.

“Just watch my back,” he said, adjusting his grip on the sword.  He winked at Natasha, then rushed into Maureen’s underwear-littered bedroom.  Natasha waited, watched.  When she was sure no one was going to jump out at him she rushed in to join him.

Every drawer had been pulled, dumped and tossed aside.  Pictures hung askew, some lay on the floor.  Trevor stepped past the mattress leaning against a wall, glanced behind it and moved to the bathroom.  Natasha stepped across the empty bed rails to get to the closet.  She reached for the knob then pulled back and jumped away like she had been shocked.  Did she hear something or was it the fact the door was closed which caused a sudden surge of fear?  She wasn’t sure.  She crossed her arms and felt the chill on her skin.  She looked over to the bedroom entrance and back to the closet door, then to the bathroom where Trevor had vanished, and to the closet again.  It seemed like an eternity before Trevor reappeared.

“Nothing,” he said.  “Just more of the same.”  Then he saw the fear in Natasha’s face.  He stepped up next to her.  “What?”

“The closet.  Everything was torn apart and left open.  Why is the closet closed?”

“Probably nothing,” he said.  He reached for the knob then froze as well.  Something moved inside.  He backed up next to Natasha and whispered.  “Wish I had my .38.”

Natasha grabbed his arm.  “Who’s in there?” she said at the door.

Trevor set himself at an angle to the closed closet, raised the sword and said, “In the closet.  Come out with your hands where I can see them.”

Another noise but the door didn’t open.  Natasha envisioned Maureen, beat-up and semiconscious.

“I’ll give you to the count of five and then I’m coming in with my .38 blazing.”  He whispered into Natasha’s ear, “Yank the door open on three.”

Natasha hesitated.  Trevor nudged her and brought the sword up again.

“One.”

She placed her hand on the knob.

“Two.”

Natasha took a breath and held it.  She worried that her shaking would rattle the door knob.

“Three.”

Natasha closed her eyes and pulled the door open.  There was a scuttling and a grunt.  When she opened her eyes, Trevor was standing in the closet.  She looked in and gave him a questioning look.

Trevor looked at her.  “You didn’t see it, did you?”

She looked all around.  “See what?”

He stepped out of the closet.  “The cat.”

“Cat?”

“Yes, cat.  White.  Long hair.”

“Oh.”  Natasha turned away, embarrassed.  “I had my eyes closed.”

“You closed your eyes!  Someone could have jumped out and knifed me to death and you wouldn’t have even made a good witness.”

Natasha crossed her arms over her breasts and looked at the goose flesh.  A shiver ran through her body.

“When did Maureen get a cat?” he asked.

“Belongs to a neighbor.  Comes over to visit a lot.”

“Let’s go.”  Trevor grabbed her hand and led her across the bed rails and out the door.  He stopped and looked in the guest bathroom and walked in and out of the guest bedroom, never letting go of Natasha’s hand. 

She felt like a child and she knew if he wasn’t holding onto her she would run like a child, down the stairs and out the door.  They found nothing.  But the idea that someone was recently here, violently tearing everything apart, sent fear through her.

At the bottom of the stairs, Trevor stepped over several coats to look in the nearly empty coat closet then chose the path down the hall into the kitchen.  He checked out the downstairs half bath and laundry room along the way.  He stopped at the glass doors and looked past the open cupboards and piles of cereal boxes, instant mashed potatoes and spilled instant oatmeal soaking up the vinegar, to the door leading into the garage.  He let go of her hand and brought the sword to his shoulder again.

“Wait here,” he said.  Natasha’s eyes were watering against the vinegar.  She stepped part way out the door, sucked in fresh air and then nodded to him.  The goose flesh was gone.  Just being at a door softened her fears.  She watched as he carefully worked his way from one bare spot to another, surprised by the fact that even in such a scary, tense situation she found herself turned on by him.  His movements were very smooth and graceful, controlled.  She felt the warmth growing in the center of her and she imagined them naked, her legs wrapped around him, he buried deep in her . . . hot . . . hot . . .

Suddenly she felt his eyes catch her, her thoughts, her feelings.  She turned away and looked out into the yard, her face crimson, she was sure.  When she turned back he had vanished into the garage.

She waited.

For an eternity she waited, or until she no longer could hold her breath.  She resumed breathing, then heard a crash from the garage and nearly bolted.

“Trev?” she said, hardly above a whisper.  She looked around and spotted, on the island, the knife rack.  She methodically made her way to it and selected the butcher knife.  She wasn’t sure what she would do with it if someone came at her, but she felt much more comfortable feeling its lethal weight in her hands.  She heard some other sounds from the garage.

“Trev?” she said again a little louder.  No response and no more sounds.  She began backing toward the sliding glass door, one cautious step at a time.  She had thought about going to the garage entrance where she last saw him, then lost her courage.  She heard a new noise behind her.  Crunching of glass under her own feet maybe.  The knife was in both hands, pointed straight out away from her.  Her nerve endings felt super sensitive like she could feel every molecule in the vinegar-laden air.  She stepped back once more, paused, then heard it again, directly behind her, not a crunch of anything caused by her own movements.  With the reflexes of a cat she snapped around, the knife slicing the air, slicing . . .slicing . . . She saw him and then felt the hard contact of the knife.  He had tried to dodge but not quick enough.  It caught him low and hard, pushing him back against the door.

Natasha looked at his shocked expression, her own mouth frozen open, her eyes wide.  His arms were suspended like the open wings of a large bird, the sword tip inches from a bulb in the chandelier.  Her eyes dropped to the point the knife had made contact. 

Trevor followed her eyes and dropped one hand to feel about his abdomen.  He looked at Natasha who still had her mouth agape.  He grinned.  “Wow!  You should have warned me not to walk up behind you unannounced.”

Natasha’s eyes dodged from his face to his waist and back.  “Huh?”

“You missed me, Sweet Red.  No blood.  See.”  She looked where he was twisting at his two-inch-wide leather belt.  There was a four-inch slice down the center and a severed belt loop.  The cut ended at the belt buckle where a nick had been taken off the edge.  “Saved by the belt.”

“Oh God, Trev!”  She dropped the knife and threw herself around him.  “I’m so sorry!”

“No big deal.  It’s an old belt.  No big loss.”

“It could have been you, though.”

“It wasn’t.  Glad you’re not about four inches shorter, though.”

She stepped away and looked closer at his belt.  She ran her finger down the back side.  “Didn’t go through.”

Trevor put on his best John Wayne voice.  “Why shucks, pretty lady, it’d take more than a butcher knife and a dainty little lady like you to cut through this much leather in one swipe.”  He looked down at it.  “You didn’t do a bad job though.  Maybe next time we do a search I’ll give you the sword and stay out of the way.”  He laid the sword on the table.  “Let’s go.”

“What was that crash in the garage?” Natasha asked.

Trevor pulled the door closed.  They headed around the house.  “I knocked over a stack of real estate signs.  The garage was just like the house though.  Nothing had been left untouched.  They were looking for something.”  He pulled the gate shut and made sure it latched.

He started the Huckster then said, “Wonder what it was?”  He turned around in the street, turned at the corner and headed north down the hill.  Natasha sat silent for a time, watching people stare as they passed.  She couldn’t get as much head turning in a miniskirt as Trevor was getting with an old truck.  She looked over at him and realized how comfortable he made her feel, especially considering the stressful adventure they had just passed through.  She had nearly cut him open and it rolled off him like it was just a walk in the park.  She shivered at the thought of how close the knife had come.  What if she were holding a gun?

She looked away, across the valley to the mountains to the north and the Sleeping Giant, a mountain shaped like a man sleeping on his back, and drifted back to Maureen’s telephone call.  ‘Remember our lunch and the guy.’  What did we talk about?  I showed her my poetry, she didn’t like it.  She mentioned things were pretty stressful right now.  Was she talking about work or something else?  She gave me an envelope to keep and pointed out the old guy I could shower with.  Our lunch and the guy.  Our lunch would probably refer to the envelope.  We didn’t talk about anything out of the ordinary.  The guy.  Why would she mention the guy?  He must be related somehow.

Natasha saw the high school pass by on the right and became aware that Trevor wasn’t taking her home.  “Where are we going?”

“Don’t know about you but I’m hungry.  My dinner should have been coming out of the oven about now.”

“Your dinner!  What?  Frozen salisbury steak in a environmentally friendly cardboard tray?”

“Oh, shit no, Natasha.  I’ve changed.  I go for those gourmet TV dinners now.  A bit more expensive, but hell, I’m worth it.”

“So we’re going to your house for a candle-lit TV dinner.  You’re assuming a lot here, Trev.”

“I’m not like that, Natasha.  At least not on a first date.”

“This isn’t a date.”

“Whatever.  I figure, knowing you, you’re as hungry as I am and you’re the only person I know who could down more pizza than me.”

Natasha’s stomach growled at the word pizza.  She watched Pizza Hut pass by on the left.  “What do you mean, ‘knowing me’?”

“You’re the only woman I know who can eat anything she wants and still keep a near-perfect figure.”

“Oh!”  Natasha smiled.  “Near-perfect, huh!  So what is wrong with it that it is not perfect?”  Trevor grinned and said nothing.  Natasha sat for a time and thought about how hungry she was.  There were two more pizza places in the direction they were going.  “If we’re going to MacKenzie River, I’ll let you call this a first date.”

He grinned over at her.

“And don’t get the idea that just because this is a first date that that implies there will be a second and third and so on.”

He kept grinning.

“And I don’t like being called blond.”

He made a face of surprise and continued grinning.  Someone honked.  He honked back and waved out the window.

“Who was that?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

“How do you know they honked at you?”

“I don’t.  Does it matter?”

“No, I guess not.”  He slowed considerably to cross over the railroad tracks.  “You drive like an old man.”

“I’ve learned a few things while rebuilding this Huckster, Natasha.  If you want something to last, you have to take care of it and part of taking care of it is not abusing it.  A lot of people lose track of that.  They lose that connection between the labor and the fruit.”

“Uh huh,” she said.  They rode in silence.