Carla Neggers - The Widow

The spruce branches rustled in a strong breeze off the water. The robin fluttered off.

Abigail unlocked her front door, immediately feeling the fresh breeze off the water blowing through the house. She’d left the windows open all night. It’d gotten chilly, but she didn’t care. She wanted to get rid of the last of the paint fumes, any mustiness, anything that would slow her down and clog her mind.

In the entry, she remembered that she’d left the porch door open, too.

Not much point locking the front door and leaving the back door unlocked, but she hadn’t given it a second’s thought before heading up to Cadillac.

With no pockets in her lightweight hiking pants, she dropped her keys on the stepladder, still set up in the entry, and headed to the back room. She could see specks of plaster dust suspended in the sunlit air.

The smell of the room was off. Different.

Sweat.

She heard a sound behind her, in the short hall leading from the back room to the cellar door and kitchen. But even as she reacted, the blow came to the outside of her right thigh. She went with it, didn’t fight it, putting out her arms as she dropped forward, allowing them to absorb the force of her fall. She hit hard, the rough floorboards scraping her left forearm, then rolled instantly to her feet.

But no one was there.

She heard her front door bang open and shut.

Damn it.

Her thigh ached, stinging, slowing her pace as she grabbed a crowbar and charged through the front room. She realized whatever she’d been struck with had managed to rip through her pants and bloody her. It wasn’t her sledgehammer. A knife? Hell, had she been stabbed?

She reached the front door, tore it open.

No one. Nothing.

She turned to get her car keys off the stepladder, but they were gone. She shot outside, hobbling as fast as possible down the steps and out to her car.

No one was there, either.

She shuddered at the pain in her thigh and felt warm blood oozing down her leg. She’d never catch up with her intruder, even if he was on foot.

Mattie.

That was his sweat she’d smelled.

“Damn.” Abigail gulped in a breath and cupped a hand over her injured leg. “Damn, damn, damn.”

What killed her wasn’t that she’d been caught off guard or that she’d been cut. She’d had no reason to suspect anyone was in the house until it was too late. And if her assailant had sliced at her again, she’d have tackled him.

No, she thought. What killed her was having to explain her stolen car keys to Owen Garrison, Doyle Alden, Lou Beeler, the FBI agents in town, Bob, Scoop, her father and whoever the hell else would find out about them.

Owen had worked with enough victims of accidents, violence and disaster to recognize those who found their sudden vulnerability more difficult to deal with than the pain of their injuries.

Abigail was one who hated her vulnerability. Hated having to ask for help.

She leaned over his stainless-steel sink with her sweater on the floor in a heap as she stuck her scraped arm under cold running water. Despite her bloodied leg, she’d staggered across the rocks from her house, burst in from his deck and gone for his phone, not explaining, just calling Lou Beeler, then Doyle Alden. She hadn’t bothered with 911.

She told Beeler she was at Owen’s house because the phone line at hers had been cut, presumably before she’d arrived back from her trip up Cadillac Mountain.

Owen sat on a tall stool at the counter. He’d gotten out his first-aid kit. He tapped its plastic box. “You’re welcome to help yourself to whatever you need.”

“I don’t need anything. Thanks.” She glanced back at him, her color slightly improved since she’d called in the law and got the cold water running on her arm. “I didn’t even know anyone was in the house until I had a drywall saw slicing through my pants leg.”

“How do you know it was a drywall saw?”

“Because he dropped it in the entry on his mad dash out. I’m never going to live that one down.”

“You’re positive it was Mattie?”

“I am. Enough to question him, if not convict him. Assuming we can find him. He must have taken off on his bike. If my damn leg…” She scowled and turned back to the sink. “And my car keys. I could have followed him in my car.”

“I can take a look at your leg-”

“My leg’s fine.” Using her elbow, she shut off the faucet. “It’s a superficial wound. I don’t think he wanted to hurt me. I surprised him, and he wasn’t planning to stick around and explain himself.”

“Any idea what he was doing there?”

“It wasn’t to help me hang wallboard.” She raised up the dripping forearm and inspected her scratches. “Looks clean enough, don’t you think? Just a couple good scrapes. Kind of like a road rash. Stings a little.”

“I can wrap it for you. It’s hard to wrap your own arm.”

“It doesn’t need wrapping.”

“There are ice packs in the freezer,” Owen said.

“I don’t need ice.”

He flipped open the first-aid kit and lifted out a nonstick bandage, a roll of gauze, tape, scissors and antibiotic ointment, laying them on the counter. “You’re bleeding on my floor.”

“Oh. Yeah, I guess I am. Not much, though.”

“We’re wrapping your arm.”

She grinned at him. “I’m being difficult?”

“Not unless you try to shoot me. Otherwise you’re just someone who’s injured and doesn’t want to be.” He walked over to her and took her hand, turning her arm and taking a look at the injury. “You’ve got a couple of fairly deep scratches here.”

“They’re about a quarter-inch long. Big deal. I think I hit a nail from my gutting project.”

“Tetanus shots up to date?”

She nodded. “Doyle and Lou are going to land here any second. I don’t want them to see you patching me up.”

“Of course not.” He used a dish towel and dabbed at her arm, drying it as best he could. “Why are you so convinced it was Mattie?”

“He left an odor.”

“Do you think he’d been drinking?”

“I have no idea. If he was, it didn’t slow him down any. He had to move like a jackrabbit to get out of the house and out of sight.”

“Well, if I had you coming after me with a gun-”

“I had to get my gun. That created a small delay.” She winced as Owen applied the antibiotic ointment, then placed the bandage over it. “I didn’t take it up Cadillac with me.”

He wrapped gauze around her arm, covering the bandage, and secured it with tape, then glanced down at her right thigh. The bleeding there looked to have stopped. “You should go to the E.R. about your leg, at least.”

“I get worse cuts picking blackberries. If it starts looking infected, I’ll see a doctor.”

“You might need stitches.”

“I don’t need stitches.” She had a perceptible limp as she walked toward the deck door, then leaned against it and sighed at him. “This isn’t going to be my finest hour. You ever do anything stupid?”

“Me? Never.”

She laughed. “Oh, sure. Let’s see all your scars.” But color returned to her pale cheeks, and she made a face. “Umm. Forget I said that.”

“Sorry, Detective. I’m not letting that one go.” Owen walked over to her and slipped an arm around her waist. “I’ll drive you back to your place. Don’t argue.”

“I won’t-I don’t know how I made it across those rocks to get here as it is. Must be the pancakes I had for breakfast.”

“And for the record,” he said, half lifting her out to the deck, “you can see my scars anytime.”

He’d gone and done it now, Mattie thought, feeling terrible as he slipped through the iron gate on the border between Ellis’s gardens and the woods. Ellis was at the family estate on Somes Sound. Mattie had seized upon his absence to sneak down to Abigail’s house, hoping she wouldn’t be there-hoping he’d have the window of time he needed.