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“Soon,” she promised but knew she was lying. She wasn’t interested in men right now. There was a chance she never would be. So what about J.D.? that horrid voice in her head nagged, and Tiffany did what she did best: she ignored it.
* * *
“You’ve come to the right place,” the Realtor, an egg-shaped man with freckles sprinkled over every square inch of his exposed skin insisted as he drove J.D. along the winding, hilly roads outside Bittersweet. The grass was bleached dry, and wildflowers bloomed in profusion along the fencerows while Max Crenshaw blabbered on and on about the merits of one farm over another.
“I don’t know much about growing grapes down here, and I’ll admit it right up front. But there’re several wineries around Ashland and Medford, up the road a bit. They seem to do a bumper business, and the soil here grows about anything.”
J.D. was barely listening. He gazed through the dusty windshield at the small herds of cattle and the occasional thicket of oak trees that dotted the fields flashing by. Nondescript music wafted from the speakers of the older Cadillac and was barely audible over the rush of cool air from the air conditioner and the drone of Crenshaw’s voice.
“Been here all my life, let me tell you, and I’ve seen cattle farms turned into llama and ostrich ranches.... You know times change, so I’m sure we’ll find the right place...”
J.D. tried to pay attention, but his mind strayed. To Tiffany and her kids. There was more trouble in that house than she was willing to admit. Stephen was well on the path t
o becoming a juvenile delinquent. J.D. could read the signs—the same signs that he’d displayed as a youth. As for Christina, the imp had woken up in the middle of the night wailing and sobbing. Through the floorboards J.D. had heard Tiffany’s hurried footsteps and soft voice as she’d run to her daughter’s room and whispered words of comfort.
Yep, she had her problems at the old apartment house. There were four tenants besides himself. Mrs. Ellingsworth, whom he’d already met, occupied one basement unit, an art student lived in the other, and a recently married couple resided on the main floor of the carriage house. The upper story was empty, recently vacated by a man named Lafferty.
He’d learned all this from Max Crenshaw as they’d driven from one place to the next. The Realtor seemed to know everything that happened in Bittersweet.
“Now, I’m gonna show you something that I don’t have listed yet—well, no one does, but it’s part of our latest local mystery, and since we’re driving by anyway...” Crenshaw braked at a run-down old ranch with a small cabin near the front of the property, a couple of sheds and an imposing barn at the back. Vast, untended acres stretched behind the house.
“Weird deal, this,” Max said as he nosed the Cadillac into the drive, shoved the gearshift into Park and let the car idle. “You mind?” he asked as he rummaged in his breast pocket and came up with a crumpled pack of cigarettes.
“No.”
“Good. I’m tryin’ to cut back, but, hell, you know how it is.” He shook out a cigarette, offered one to J.D. and punched in the lighter.
“No, thanks.”
“Ever smoke?”
“Years ago.”
“Wish I could quit. Anyway, this place belongs—or belonged, depending upon what you want to believe—to a guy by the name of Isaac Wells.”
“Did it?” J.D. was suddenly more interested in the dilapidated cabin and desolate acres.
“Yep. Old Isaac lived here all by himself. Never married. Had a sister who died a long while ago and some brothers who have scattered to the winds, but, oh, a month or two ago, Isaac just up and disappeared.” The lighter popped, and Max, after rolling down his window, lit up. “Weird as hell, if ya ask me. No one’s heard anything from him. You’d think if he died or was killed, someone would’ve found his body by now. If he was kidnapped, he would have been ransomed, though what for I can’t imagine. Some of the people in town think he had money locked in a deposit box in one of the banks or buried in tin cans around the ranch, but that’s all just hearsay as much as I can tell.” He smoked in silence for a few minutes. “You know, if he just took off on his own, someone he knew would have heard from him, wouldn’t they?” He shook his head and jabbed his cigarette out in the ashtray. “Anyway, this place could be on the market—I’m sure as hell looking into it. Then again, it might stay just as it is forever.”
J.D. studied the abandoned acres through the windshield. The house was small, in need of paint, with a couple of windows that were cracked. The barn, built of cedar planks that had weathered gray, was huge and sprawling; the other outbuildings looked worn and neglected. The entire spread seemed lonely. Desolate.
“He was an odd one, old Isaac, but didn’t have any enemies that I knew of. Like I say, it’s a mystery.”
“Without any clues?”
“If they’ve got ’em, the cops aren’t saying.” He shifted the car into Reverse. “Let’s mosey on down the road a piece. I’ve got a couple more ideas. The first place—the Stowell spread—is listed with a Realtor in Medford. It’s about a hundred acres, well-kept and the owners are anxious to sell, would even agree to terms—not that your company would need them—but let’s take a look-see just in case.”
He backed the Cadillac out of the drive, and J.D. watched Isaac Wells’s place disappear from sight in the side-view mirror.
Max prattled on. The boring music continued to play. The miles rolled beneath the wheels of the old car, and J.D. itched to be anywhere else on earth. With each passing minute, he felt that he’d made the biggest mistake of his life by showing up in Bittersweet.
* * *
Juggling two sacks of groceries, Tiffany managed to unlock the front door. “I’m home,” she called out, but knew before no one answered that she was alone. On a chair in the parlor, Charcoal lifted his head, then arched his back and stretched lazily. “Anybody here?” she said to the house in general, then sighed. “I guess it’s just you and me, eh?” The cat yawned and padded after her to the kitchen.
A note in Mrs. Ellingsworth’s chicken scratch told her that she had taken Christina to the park. Stephen was still at his grandmother’s house doing yard work. She set the sacks on the kitchen counter and started unpacking the groceries only to notice that the wedding invitation she’d tucked away was on the counter, lying open, seeming to mock her.
“Great,” she muttered, fingering the smooth paper.
