Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 131387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
He trailed off, clearly at a loss for words.
“Community,” Rus supplied.
“Right,” Harry muttered. “Community. A community called The Lion and The Lamb.”
Dang it!
Really?
Really?!?!
“What you’re saying is, I’ve got some Christian extremist cult living next to me.”
Harry held my gaze unwavering. “I did not describe them as that.”
That meant I had some Christian extremist cult living next to me.
Just my luck.
Precisely my damned luck!
“Fantastic,” I spat.
Rus took up the story. “They’ve been there some time. They don’t cause any problems. There’ve been no complaints. In fact, we’re surprised, if it was them, that they even entered your property, much less left that note.”
Harry added, “We don’t know much about them, and they take pains to keep it that way, except it seems they’re based quite a bit on self-sufficiency. They have electricity, they own trucks, but for the most part, they farm their land, they have livestock, chickens. They come into town for necessities or things that fill in the gaps of what they can’t grow and raise on their own. They have a booth at the Farmer’s Market and sell eggs, jam, bread and pies there. As far as we know, that’s their only income.”
“The men sell jam, bread and pies,” Rus added.
I skimmed him but went back to Harry when he spoke again. “That’s an important distinction, Mabel. The men sell at the booth. The men are seen at the feedstore and market. The women are never seen.”
“Never,” Rus stressed.
“Ah, hell,” I muttered.
“You won’t be able to miss them, if you haven’t already noticed them,” Rus said. “They have long beards, workpants, button-down work shirts. They look Amish, except their clothes are store-bought, they wear western hats if they wear hats, they have long hair, and they wear full beards, including the mustache.”
I could do nothing but nod.
I was never telling Kacey and Mona this.
Never.
“At this juncture, we have two issues on our hands,” Harry stated. “One, although it’s jumping to conclusions, it’s a reasonable conclusion considering the facts, this note”—he reached out to tap the note with one long finger—“was left by one of them. That said, as much as it guts me to point this out, you’re a good twenty-minute drive, fifteen if we’ve got our sirens on, away from any law enforcement protection. Therefore, if we go to their compound and ask questions about this note, it might tweak them into doing something bolder.”
My stomach was sinking.
“We will do that, absolutely,” Harry declared. “While explaining that there are some rather steep fines, plus jail time, for trespassing in Fret County. And reminding them of just general friendly neighbor relations, including the fact that folks who live up there want privacy. Just the same as The Lion and The Lamb plainly enjoy, they should offer privacy to others. In other words, we’ll also be reminding them no one bothers them, so they should return that favor.”
I nodded again.
“But that would be your call,” he said. “In the meantime, the other issue at hand is, I’d like to understand your capacity for protection.”
His comment flummoxed me.
“Sorry?”
“Has Mrs. Matthews put an alarm system in the house?”
I almost laughed at that.
I’d had a problem with the downstairs toilet flush mechanism, and one of her grandsons was out fixing it within two hours.
But nothing in that place had been updated in, my esteemed guess, over a decade. Not the fridge, range, bathrooms, nothing.
I shook my head.
“Motion sensor lights?” he asked.
Another shake of my head.
It was with what I would assume was all law enforcement’s trepidation that some moron had a firearm, say, a city girl born in LA and out from Orlando, like me, when he asked, “Do you have a gun?”
“I hate guns,” I replied.
“A dog?” he asked.
“Nope,” I said.
He blew out a breath.
“Living that remote, you need to at least get a dog,” he said softly. “The three biggest deterrents to criminals looking to commit crimes are light, security and dogs.”
He sat forward, grabbed a piece of paper, a pen and started writing.
He did this while talking.
“Even if you just get a sign you can buy online, or I think they have them at the Box and Save, one you can plant outside your house that says you have a security system installed, even if you don’t, it’ll make someone who’s there doing something they shouldn’t at least hesitate, if not scare them off.”
It was wild to see a man multitask so splendiferously, because after he said that, he offered the paper to me.
I took it and looked at it.
“That’s the number for Hutch Hutchison,” he said. “He lives out your way. In fact, he’s your neighbor to the north. He breeds and trains police and guard dogs, and he’s very good at it.”
I stared at the paper with this Hutch Hutchison’s name (what parent would do that to a child?) and number.