No one understood that those two hundred acres were thelynchpin in this business deal he’d been cultivating for two years. He wasn’t lying to his brother: without it, they’d lose everything.
With it, they would be kings.
“I need the middle camera,” he said. “The one that shows the barn and most of the house.”
Click, click, click.Now that was the only feed showing, taking up the bulk of the screen, the high-definition camera catching the corner of the old farmhouse and barn. Though the recording was in color, everything looked gray because of the rain and storm clouds above. Like seeing the world in black-and-white, the occasional burst of color almost unreal.
He’d paid extra for the zoom on that one. State-of-the-art optics that could pull in a license plate from a quarter mile. He had tested it.
Mitchell enjoyed watching the land, but what he truly relished was watchingpeople. The way they moved, the subtle patterns in their behavior. That was where the real power lay. Several months ago, he’d noticed the Perez boy, the son of the sheriff, sneaking onto the McKenna property late at night. So, he watched, curious. And his theory held: it didn’t take long before he witnessed the teenager, Avery, meeting him under the oak tree, for a midnight picnic and a kiss.
Did Ellen know what her daughter was doing in the middle of the night? Innocence was all Mitchell saw, but he could make it far more titillating… if he needed to cause a rift between the McKennas and the sheriff.
Which might be sooner rather than later.
Mitchell didn’t need to see everything. Just enough to know when to press, when to pull back. The land was just an important piece in a bigger game. What mattered most was control. Long ago, he’d learned that the best way to control something was to watch it without being seen, and act when necessary.
“Rewind in high speed,” he told Presley. “I need to see everyonewho visited the Coulters from now back to when they signed the contract last week.”
She rolled her eyes; he ignored it. Fortunately, she did exactly what he asked. Yes, she was spoiled, but she was also smart because Presley was his daughter, through and through.
It took him a few minutes to adjust to watching the world in reverse.
Backwards a man exits the house and gets into a dark truck, which then drives away in reverse. Brock. He was inside for nearly an hour. A job that should have taken minutes, but the Coulters had done something with the original contract.
And he hadn’t found it.
Another man walks around the house in the rain, then backs into his car, which drives away in reverse as well. Tom, making sure the Coulters were gone and no one was inside.
A truck drives up in reverse and comes to a stop. George and Millie appear outside; Millie moves from the chicken coop, un-securing it—watching this backwards was a bit unnerving, and Mitchell reflected how human minds were designed to only look forward. Because of course he knew she was shutting the chickens into the hutch before they left for the weekend. They were protected from the rain because of the awning, but tonight they wouldn’t be protected from predators who might dig under the fence, so they had locked them into this chicken house. This confirmed to Mitchell that they did intend to be gone overnight.
While Millie was at the chicken pen, George walks backwards from the barn, likely ensuring their two bulls were secure and fed. They both make two trips from the truck into the house, carrying items back inside.
Time passed, light barely changing because of the dark skies, but it was enough to remind Mitchell he was turning back the clock.
Sometimes, he wished he could turn back the clock and make different decisions, different choices.
But time didn’t work like that, and the video camera gave a tainted illusion of what might have been. What could have been.
A woman on horseback gallops back in reverse, arriving at the house. She dismounts and walks backwards into the house. Moments later, she walks backwards out of the house and gets back on her horse, which trots away in reverse.
“Presley,” Mitchell said. “Slow it down and show me that woman on horseback again going forward.”
“Whatever you say, Daddy,” Presley said.
Why did his daughter always sound so damn condescending?
But the video showed forward motion now and he saw the woman ride up to the Coulter house from the field. From the McKenna property.
Without being asked, Presley paused the video on the best view of the woman. She was blurry but Mitchell knew who that was.
Presley typed rapidly on the keyboard and the image became a bit clearer.
Ellen McKenna.
Couldshehave the original contract? Why would the Coulters have given it to her? Sure, they were friends, the McKennas and Coulters had been close since the dawn of time, Penny’s sister married a Coulter and moved out to Amarillo back before Mitchell’s dad had been born. The Robinsons knew everything about the McKennas and every family who had married into it.
Why would they have given Ellen the original contract? By accident? Because she asked? Why did she want it?
