Chapter Thirty-six
Blake came into the house in time to see Charli brewing coffee in his fancy machine, and he nodded when she pointed at the cup. “Yeah, thanks.” He rubbed his face and ended up threading his hands through his hair to link behind his neck. Then he twisted from one shoulder to the other, exercising his muscles. Finally, he moved toward her, full of intentions.
Charli retreated and her withdrawal left him under no illusions. Any personal headway they’d made earlier was completely gone. Her unmistakable warning threatened. Plus, the intimidating glare she’d thrown his way spoke volumes.
Back off and don’t touch!
For now, he’d respect her boundaries, but sooner or later, they needed to talk. His patience had limits. He wanted her – something fierce.
“Is your Grandpa settled?”
“I think so. I gave him the pajama bottoms you lent him. He held them up to see their length and muttered, “He’s a big boy, ain’t he?”
Blake laughed and brought his coffee to the island where she now perched on a stool. Aware of her fragility, not wanting to push her buttons anymore tonight, he took a stool across the counter so he could see her eyes. Sitting there, he wasn’t crowding her.
“Thanks for letting Gramps stay in that room. I respected that you’d left it locked. Kayla and I hadn’t bothered with it because we had no need for the extra space.”
“Yeah, well, the only reason I’d locked it was because with it being my office, and the cleaning lady not allowed in there, it became pretty messy – as you no doubt noticed. Once we’d decided this house would be the perfect safe-place for you and Kayla, I didn’t have the time to tidy it, or remove my target gun cabinet, and so I thought it best to just lock the door. Now that I’m here, and your gramps needs a place to sleep, I have no problem opening it up.”
“Are there a lot of guns?” A worried look had appeared as she zeroed in on the question of safety.
“Not now. I took most of them out to put in my trunk. I left two smaller handguns in the bottom drawer. The safety code is 1147 in case you need to get in there. While I was storing them, I got the latest report from Bill Newton, my lieutenant.”
“I’ll remember that because we used to have a post office box numbered 1147. By the way, Newton knows about our witness protection, doesn’t he?”
“Yes. Besides me, he’s the only one. But how did you figure that out?”
“He knew enough to bring Gramps here. A man off the street saying he witnessed a murder would get their attention, but no way would they have brought just anyone here to you. I figured his surname might have rung a bell.”
“You’re right. Good thing Bill was the first person our sergeant called in the department to approach John, and not Dudley.”
“Dudley, the cop Gramps was so disparaging about. I’m sorry about him being so frank. He can be brutally honest in his opinions sometimes, and he took a disliking to your detective.”
“Hell, he’s not the only one. But, the man stays just inside the boundaries of my patience, and as long as I don’t back up too often and bump into his lips, I’ll leave things as they were before I took on the role of Major.”
Laughing, Charli finally decided she couldn’t stall any longer. “What else did he say?”
“We finally got the report that they found Mark Crawly. It took them a while. I guess the girls who usually check on your grandfather at bedtime saw the lights were out and a man sitting in his chair, covered and sleeping. It wasn’t until later the next morning that they came to offer him a breakfast tray because he’d missed the meal when they realized what had happened.”
“That it was Mark, not Gramps.”
“Yeah. John must have covered him with a blanket and everything looked fine until they shook the body to wake him up. That’s when they called the police.”
“Poor old folks must have been shocked when they saw officers streaming into the place.”
“I have no doubt.” He thought about the uproar a murder would have caused at a senior’s home like the lodge … their worst nightmare. “The authorities assumed he’d been assassinated by Silverado even before the crime scene investigation. Same silver bullet, same forehead shot.”
“Was this before or after he’d ransacked my place?”
“What makes you think he was at your place?”
“Stands to reason… he found out about the lodge, didn’t he?”
Blake didn’t want to answer her. He knew what would happen. If he tried protecting her, she’d be pissed, the same as any other law professional. He had no choice. “It was after.”
“Shit!” Suddenly pale, she bit her lip. “I thought I’d cleaned out everything at home that could possibly lead him to the lodge. I’d passed on my boxes to Mark, who’d promised to get me a storage unit until this nightmare ended.” Charli turned away but not before he saw her eyes fill with self-loathing.
He couldn’t stand her beating up on herself. “Honey, they had guards posted to make sure he didn’t get inside your apartment, but they screwed up. Supposedly, they were called away on a bogus break-in complaint, someone with a broken window mysteriously having been opened. That’s when they missed him. Otherwise, they’d have stopped him from getting anywhere near your stuff.” First, he hesitated and then decided to get it over with so they could move on.