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“Chickens 101,” she said with a grin. “Thanks for the education.”
“Not a problem. I’m not going to ask you to feed the chickens. I’m saving that chore for myself. I’ll have you feed the pigs.”
“Sounds like fun,” she said.
“It’s easy. We’ll do it tomorrow morning.”
As they walked back toward the house, Cody heard the crunch of tires over the gravel at the entrance to the farm. But there was no engine noise. Just tires on gravel.
He reached for the gun in his jacket pocket. “Go into the house,” he ordered Sierra quietly. “Lock the door. We have company, and they’re trying to be quiet. I’m going to check it out.”
Chapter 6
After Sierra slipped into the house and he heard the lock click into place, Cody melted into the woods along the side of the house. Whoever was in the car wouldn’t see him coming.
The last remnants of light glinted off the roof of a car that was parked on the driveway. It wasn’t moving toward the house. He hadn’t heard a door open or close, so he assumed whoever was in the car was still there.
He made his way through the stand of trees, watching where he walked so he didn’t make any noise. When he got close enough, he saw two people in the front seat. They were facing each other, so he couldn’t see either face. Hard to even tell if they were male or female.
His bet was on male.
When he reached the edge of the woods, he crouched down so that the car’s occupants wouldn’t see him. He crept close enough to the car to touch the metal, then grabbed the door handle in his left hand. He clutched the gun with his right hand.
In one move, he stood, yanked the door open and placed the barrel of the gun against the driver’s head. “Hands in the air,” he barked. “Both of you.”
Four hands shot into the air, and both people froze.
The one with the gun against his skull was a male. The passenger was a female. Both of them looked to be sixteen or seventeen years old.
“What the hell?” he said. He took his gun away from the driver’s head and ordered, “Keep your hands in the air. Turn so I can see your face.”
The guy swiveled around, visibly shaking. The girl stared at him, her hands in the air, her mouth wobbling, as if she’d start bawling any minute.
“What are you two doing out here?” Cody asked, lowering his gun. He didn’t put it away.
“We… we saw Jason and Laila at the grocery store,” the boy said. “They said they were heading out of town for a few days. We… we were looking for a place to park. To talk,” he added hastily. “We wanted to talk.”
Yeah, right. Cody had been a teen-aged boy once himself. He doubted talking was what the kid had in mind. Cody looked from the guy to the girl. Back to the guy. “This isn’t a park. It’s private property,” he finally said. “I’m staying here, keeping an eye on Jason and Laila’s farm while they’re away, and I don’t want to be disturbed. Leave now, and I’ll forget you were ever here. But don’t come back unless you’re visiting Laila and Jason and they know you’re coming. Got it?”
The boy nodded so hard that he looked like a bobblehead doll. “Sorry we disturbed you, sir. We didn’t think anyone was here.”
“You were wrong, so find somewhere else to park,” he said, but he softened his voice. “Don’t drive onto private property at night unless people know you’re coming,” he said in an easier voice. “It can be dangerous.”
“No sir, we won’t,” the boy babbled. “Sorry. We’re really sorry.”
“Apology accepted,” Cody said. “Next time, go to a park. I know there are several around here.”
The boy nodded faster. “We will,” he said, the words falling out of his mouth. “That’s exactly what we’ll do.”
“Great.” Cody slapped the hood of his car. “Drive carefully,” he said as he closed the door.
The kid put the car in reverse and gunned it out of the driveway. The tires squealed as he turned and raced toward town. In a few minutes, Cody couldn’t hear the engine any longer.
It had been a false alarm, but why hadn’t his phone alerted him that someone had driven onto the driveway? He yanked it out of his pocket and pressed the button to unlock it. Nothing happened.
Damn it. He’d plugged the charging cord into the second rental car, checking to make sure the connection was tight on both ends, but apparently the outlet didn’t work. That was the problem with rental cars. You knew nothing about their maintenance.
Thank God he’d found out now. And thank God the intruders were a couple of kids. Shoving the phone into his pocket, he hurried toward the house. He’d plug the phone into the charger he kept at the desk.
