Leaving Carolina (4 page)

I lower my gaze. Despite the dim light, even I can see it’s not a pistol I’m clutching. No trigger—how did I miss that? No barrel—how did I mistake a two-inch heel for a piece of deadly steel?

My cheeks warm, and suddenly I’m grateful for the dark. But does this Axel not realize how close he came to being on the receiving end of a bullet-firing weapon? I’m pretty sure he does, but it’s hard to believe he would then walk away. Of course, he did establish who I am. The problem is, I have only his word as to who he is.

The flashlight’s beam crisscrossing me as he returns, I dig out my other shoe. That’s when I notice my scraped fingers and palms, courtesy of my slide down the gate. Which reminds me… A whimper escapes me as I take in the snags and rust marks on my jacket. Then there’s the torn belt loop. Lovely.

“You messed up your clothes,” Axel says, reminding me there are worse things than a ruined outfit, like letting one’s guard down in front of a dangerous stranger.

I shove my shoes beneath an arm, plunge a hand into my purse, and grip—

Oh no, not making that mistake again. I release the spine of the
go-anywhere Bible I tossed in this morning, then finally lay a hand to the cold steel that snuggles alongside God’s Word. (There’s something not right about that.) But I don’t pull out the pistol. After all, it’s not as if I couldn’t shoot through my purse as they do in movies.

I release the safety (didn’t think to do that with the shoe). “How do I know you are who you say you are?”

His stride falters… falters again… Did he twist an ankle when he snatched me from my fall?

He halts three feet from me. “Obviously Artemis neglected to mention me.”

He knows Uncle Obe’s attorney. I peer closely at him. The angle with which he holds the flashlight reveals more of his features, and I’m relieved he isn’t as frightening as he first appeared. Still big, buff, and hairy, but his resemblance to a Neanderthal was overimagined. In fact, he might be all-right looking.

He tilts his goateed, long-haired head. “Neither did he inform me of your arrival.”

I frown. “He didn’t tell you I was coming?”

“He did. He didn’t say when.”

“But he’s known for two days.”

Axel shrugs. “Artemis is getting up there in years.”

And this man is just the gardener.

Just
the gardener? Somehow that doesn’t fit him, particularly in light of Uncle Obe’s past hires, who were more often old and doddering. I would be surprised if this man is much past thirty-five. “How long have you worked here?”

“A couple of years.”

I wait for him to elaborate, but he seems content to let the silence
play out. I’m not. He may not be the missing link, but he’s still a stranger. “What about the lights? Uncle Obe always kept the house and driveway lit.”

“Which I’ve continued to do since his hospitalization. However, when I returned from town a while ago, the power was out. I was attempting to determine if it was intentional when I saw your headlights.”

A chill skitters through me. “Intentional?”

He hesitates. “Once I’ve determined the cause of the outage, we’ll continue this conversation up at the house.”

He thinks I’m going to invite him in? Just the two of us? “Let’s continue it here.”

“All right, but is the safety on?”

I knew he knew. I thumb the lever and consider returning it to its “safe” position. After all, he hasn’t made an untoward move.

“A spooked woman with her finger on a trigger makes me uneasy, especially when the barrel is aimed at me.”

I stand taller. “What makes you think I’m spooked?”

“That would be the shoe I was staring down the heel of a short while ago.”

He has a point. Keeping my finger on the trigger, I put the safety on.

“Thank you.”

He heard that?
I
barely heard it. “Explain ‘intentional.’”

“Since your uncle was hospitalized, we’ve had some uninvited visitors.”

Another chill. “Burglars?”

“If so”—there’s a derisive edge to his voice—“not your garden variety.”

The chill dissolves. “Which Pickwick?”

“The first time it was your cousin Bart. He broke the lock on a side door and had just entered when I showed up.”

Good ol’ Bart, who never met a stimulant he didn’t like.

“After I ran him off, Artemis asked me to keep a closer eye on the estate.”

“Then you aren’t
just
a gardener.”

“I suppose not. I also ran off your cousin Luc.”

The only surprise is that Luc was caught. He was always too clever for his victims’ good. “So that’s why the gate is locked.”

“One of the reasons. Of course, it won’t keep people out, as you know firsthand, but it will slow them down.”

In other words, whatever they’re hoping to take out of Uncle Obe’s home won’t be removed by the truckload.

“And the intercom system allows your uncle to verify his visitors’ identities and admit them without leaving the house—when the power is on.”

“Intercom system?” There wasn’t anything like that in use twelve years ago. And there wouldn’t have been since the gate was never locked.

“You didn’t see it when you drove up?”

“No.”

“Hard to miss.” Axel turns toward the gate. “Let’s get your car inside, Miss Pickwick—”

“The name is Wick.”

He looks around. “I did hear that about you.”

I bristle. “Heard what?”

“Your embarrassment over the family name and that you dropped the first part of it after you and your mother left Pickwick.”

Artemis must have told him. With a toss of my jaw-skimming hair, I lift my chin. “You wouldn’t understand.”

He stares at me, and despite the darkness, it makes me uncomfortable.

“How are we going to get my car inside with the power out?”

“I have a key for rare occasions like this.” His flashlight illuminates posts on either side of the gate—the intercom system—and he walks away with that hitch.

He seems harmless, at least as harmless as a broad, five-foot-tenish, undergroomed man can be. I lower the pistol to the bottom of my purse and step into my heels. “When did Uncle Obe have the system installed?”

“Several years ago, to keep out Pickwick’s growing populace—a curious bunch intent on invading his privacy.”

My own curiosity perks up. Because of the extensive arrangements required to leave L.A. on short notice, I had little time to research Pickwick’s revitalization that has transformed it from the dying town I left into one of the fastest-growing communities in North Carolina. I wish I hadn’t missed the downtown Pickwick exit, where I could have gauged the growth for myself.

“Why are they so interested in my uncle?”

Axel halts at the gate, and I hear the clink of keys. “They’re drawn by the historical value of the Pickwick estate. Some believe it
has the potential to become another Biltmore Estate—on a smaller scale—and attract tourist dollars.”

“Not much chance of my uncle allowing that, wouldn’t you—?” I shake my head. “Of course, how would you know?”

He doesn’t comment. When he pushes the gate inward, his slightly uneven gait is more pronounced.

“Did I cause that?” I step forward.

“What?”

“Your limp.”

“You?” He sounds incredulous.

“When I fell from the gate and you caught me.”

Leaving the gate gaping, he follows me to my car. “It’s an old injury, or will be given a few more years.”

I pull the keys from my purse. Uncomfortably aware of my scraped palms and fingers, I unlock the door.

“Drive up to the house, but stay in the car until I get there. I still need to find out what’s responsible for the power outage.”

I resent the fear crawling up my back. Uncle Obe may be odd and not the best of hosts, but I never knew fear when I was here before. “Do you think someone’s up there?”

“If the outage was intentional, whoever is responsible would be foolish to still be hanging around. Of course…”

… foolishness is not alien to the Pickwicks. But if a Pickwick
is
lurking up there, I have nothing to fear, other than embarrassment at having once shared a last name with the perpetrator.

“All right, I’ll see you up there.” As I slide into the car, he moves toward the gate, and I’m flushed with guilt at the thought of him
walking up the hill, especially with that limp. He does know Artemis, has had run-ins with two of my male cousins (not a bad thing), and his behavior thus far has been aboveboard.

I close the door, start the engine, and switch on the headlights, causing the shadows around Axel to flee. I’m surprised by what I see. His long, sandy-colored hair isn’t gnarled or knotted but falls back from his face, as if recently released from a ponytail. As for his facial hair, it isn’t all that hairy—a connecting mustache and goatee. Though I can’t tell what color his eyes are, they don’t look crazed. In short, the guy is good looking, in a G.I.-Joe-action-figure way.

I lower the window as I pass through the gate. “Do you want a ride?”

He peers in. “That was easy.”

“What?”

“To gain your trust. And you, a gun-toting woman from the big, bad city of Los Angeles.”

He knows where I live—more evidence he’s legit. If he hadn’t just called me gullible, I’d feel even better about him. “I’ll see you up there.”

He steps back, and as the aggregate rumbles beneath my tires, my headlights pass over the estate’s landscape—acres of lawn mown at light and dark angles, bushes and trees trimmed and mulched, and colorful flower beds set on either side of the driveway. Uncle Obe’s gardener is no slacker.

At the crest of the hill, the grade is so steep that my headlights spotlight a stretch of roof before moving down the stone face of the house, its wide-eyed windows staring back at me from high above and on either side of massive carved doors. I brake on the incline to
take in the magnificence of the place where my father and his three brothers were born. Uncle Obe may refer to it as a house, but it’s nothing short of a mansion.

Gazing up at the enormous white columns, I’m swept with a sensation not unlike falling—but falling
up
. As I lower my eyes, I’m flooded with the expectation that my uncle will stick his head out the door and impatiently beckon me inside.

My throat tightens. I hardly know Uncle Obe—the only Pickwick worthy to carry on the family name, according to my grandfather—and yet memories fly at me. I shake my head, but the day of the Easter egg hunt when I was six seeps through me like water on parched earth.

I
am happy. And Mama is tryin’ to be happy too. I don’t know why she isn’t, ‘cause last night when I couldn’t sleep for waitin’ for Daddy to come home, I found her prayin’ a-side her bed. She said she was askin’ God to hold back the rain so it wouldn’t spoil the day, and today the sky is Blue blue. Yessir, I’m happy, ’cause when Mama prays, God listens. Even better, I got me a basket of Jesus eggs. And a mess of pink mallow bunnies in my pockets
.

“Happy,” I sing and poke another chocolate-eyed bunny in my mouth
.

“Did you see that?” Aunt Adele starts up again with her chatter that always gives Mama an ache right a-tween her eyes. I think that’s why she’s helpin’ in the kitchen, mixing up punch for us kids
.

“I saw it,” Aunt A-linda says, soundin’ bored
.

Suckin’ sugar from my fingers, I look a ways up the hill from where I had to stop to catch my breath. Aunt A-linda and Aunt Adele are behind a table keepin’ them plates of goodies filled up. My Aunt A-linda has pretty hair, all long and blond, and sometimes she smiles at me. I like her better than Aunt Adele. Mama says I ought not to say it, but she didn’t say I couldn’t think it
.

“Her mother should set a better example,” Aunt Adele says
.

Who’re they talkin’ about? Trinity? I frown at the girl sittin’ by
herself on the bench across the way from my aunts. Stripey legs swingin’, she bites into a peeled egg. Nah, can’t be her, ’cause a girl in our class says she don’t have a mama—or a daddy. Poor Trinity
.

Not far off, my big cousin Luc is leanin’ against an ol’ tree near the top of the hill. Glad he’s not messin’ with me, I look at the other kids all over the lawn of Uncle Obe’s big house. It sure was nice of him to invite the whole town for an egg hunt. I’ll bet there are a hunderd of us. Maybe two hun-derd
.

“Humph!” goes Aunt Adele. “Barely six and she’s straining her seams.”

What does that mean? Rememberin’ Mama sayin’ not to worry that my Easter outfit don’t fit good—that she’d let out a seam—I look at my apron dress. The zigzaggy pockets are bulgin’ with bunnies. I think I’ll have another
.

As I lick off the eyes, I catch sight of Aunt Adele again. Is she starin’ at me? Hopin’ I didn’t do nothin’ wrong, I wave at her, but she don’t wave back. Must not be me she’s lookin’ at. I bite off the bunny’s ears, then its bitty feet
.

“See there!” Aunt Adele sounds upset, like when she saw the grass stains on my cousin’s brand-new dress. Poor Maggie. Though she said I couldn’t play with her and her friends at school and was kinda mean, Mama says we need to pray for her—that it’s not right a little girl don’t have time to be little, what with all them beauty shows her mama puts her in
.