The Long Road Home. Mary Monroe Alice

the farm, and Seth liked to economize. They both preferred it that way.

      After laying down the phone, he covered the woman with another blanket and tucked it under her softly rounded chin. His hand moved to her cheek and patted it, then brushed a few hairs from the purple lump on her forehead.

      Staring at her face he was once again struck by her waiflike beauty. Hers was not a voluptuous appeal. Her face and golden hair were delicate, like an angel’s, making the ugly bruise swelling on her forehead menacing. There lay the truth of it, he thought with a frown. Her business here made her more a devil than an angel. A skinny runt of a devil.

      The woman’s clothes, though of fine quality, were baggy and hung loose on her bony frame. Her cheeks were gaunt and her skin color was more pale than fair. She looked as if she needed a good meal.

      He sighed. He had expected a Philip Marlowe type to track him down. Leave it to Agatha to send a woman.

      “Lady, lady, lady,” he whispered. “Just look how your snooping has hurt us both.”

      He ran his hand through his hair. The evidence was clear: New York plates, expensive clothes, patrician features. He recognized the style, he could almost give the address. And her money and status made it a sure bet she knew who he was.

      “Karma,” he said with resignation. He could only accept it and pack. As soon as she was in good hands, he’d slip away.

      From outside, the sound of whining engines and crunching gravel alerted him to Seth’s arrival. He reluctantly left the woman’s side to throw on a sweater and greet his boss.

      Seth squeezed his great girth out from behind the wheel of his pickup truck. He looked as weathered by time and mileage as the Ford and about as rusty. In the cab sat two children, grandchildren from a marriage gone bad. Following as usual, his sons drive up in the old green Impala. He expected the whole family. This was exciting business up here in the mountains.

      Seth stretched out a well-callused hand. “You be havin’ friends up at the big house now, Charley?” he asked with a grin that revealed many missing teeth.

      C.W. knew it was more than a friendly inquiry. Seth shared the flock and used MacKenzie’s land in exchange for keeping an eye on it and the house.

      “No, sir, I am not,” he answered firmly. “I’ve never laid eyes on her before. I was in the shower when I heard the car pull up. When I tried to talk to her she sped down the mountain like a demon. Her plates are from New York.”

      Seth’s eyes narrowed. “New York, you say?” He turned to his son. “That right, Frank?”

      “Yeh-up. The city all right. Saw the plates when we moved the car. Never saw that one before, though. You thinkin’ it might be one of MacKenzie’s?”

      “Could be. Come on, Charley, show us where she is. You two young’uns stay out here and out o’ trouble. Frank, Junior, Esther, come on.”

      The two tall and lanky men strode with a gait so loose and close their shoulders bumped in a brotherly camaraderie. Even in their mid-twenties, they resembled lion cubs, swiping and jabbing with a youthful exuberance. They approached the house as they did everything—together.

      C.W. smiled a brief greeting, then turned to Seth’s eldest daughter. Esther, one of Vermont’s persistent flower children, covered her long, lean body with patched jeans and a flowered shirt. At her side she carried a large straw bag. Knowing Esther, he imagined it carried a practical, well-thought-out first-aid kit.

      As she passed, Esther smiled from under her floppy straw hat. As always, C.W. had to search for signs of her twenty-six years. The soft lines at the corners of her eyes accentuated her sharp mind; the thin frown lines at her mouth revealed the degree of her discontent.

      He led them to the master bedroom, then stepped aside while Seth and his family filled the room. In a moment he heard them utter as one, “It’s Nora!”

      C.W. stood straighter and walked closer. “You know her?”

      Seth turned to face him, his eyes serious. “You did right by putting her in here. This be her room…her house.”

      C.W.’s eyes widened. She wasn’t an investigator? He looked at the woman again. Mrs. MacKenzie? She seemed too young and innocent to be the flamboyant Michael MacKenzie’s wife. Realization set in.

      “I thought you said they never came up here.”

      “They don’t. Her not once in three years,” Seth responded.

      C.W. held his arms akimbo and his chin low to conceal his shocked expression. The Big Mac’s widow. Here. He felt like he’d been punched. He studied the thin, pitiful-looking woman in the bed and hardened his heart. What the bloody hell?

      He searched Nora’s pale white profile. No doubt she was as cold-hearted and fast-fisted as her husband. What other kind of woman would marry Mike MacKenzie?

      4

      “SHE’S COMING AROUND, PA,” called Esther from Nora’s bedside.

      Nora blinked once, lazily, then again as her eyes grew accustomed to the dim light. Through the lifting fog, she saw a woman’s face peer into her own.

      “Esther?” Nora asked in a feeble voice.

      “That’s me, Mrs. MacKenzie,” Esther replied in the clipped, practical voice that Nora remembered. “You got yourself a nasty bump. Here, let’s put some ice on it.”

      Nora winced as a bag of ice was plopped on her head and a thermometer was stuck in her mouth. “Seth? Seth Johnston, is that you?” she asked, removing the thermometer and holding out a hand.

      “Yeh-up,” he drawled as he ambled to her bedside with a rocking gait.

      Nora was disturbed to see him so fat now that he panted with the effort. The only things thin about Seth were his hair and his clothes, and the latter were faded as well.

      “Nice to have you back again, missus,” he said, taking her hand. “Long time.”

      “Too long,” she responded with a weak smile.

      “Yeh-up.” He nodded, releasing her hand. “Long time.” He nodded again and shifted his eyes.

      Stepping forward, Esther returned the thermometer to Nora’s mouth with authority. “What the blazes sent you tearing down the mountain that way?”

      “I believe I did,” came a reply from the corner.

      Startled, Nora followed the bass voice to the far corner of the room. A tall broad silhouette was outlined in the shadows. She slowly raised herself to her elbows, squinting in the poor light.

      “And who are you?” she mumbled with as much authority as she could muster with a thermometer in her mouth.

      He slowly straightened, and after a palpable pause, strode into the light. Her hand rose to her throat. It was the stranger from the deck.

      “You!” she whispered.

      He didn’t respond, but his mouth set in a grim line. He stood before the bed, watching her every reaction in tense silence, before quietly asking, “You don’t know me, Mrs. MacKenzie?”

      The question was more of a challenge. She narrowed her eyes and searched the tall man in tight jeans and a plaid shirt. With his dark blond hair and hard, chiseled features, he had the kind of masculine good looks that a woman would remember. Yet standing next to Junior and Frank, he did not emit the conceit or pride that she found so offensive in attractive men. In fact, he appeared distinctly uncomfortable with her study.

      “No,” she replied, firmly removing the dread thermometer and returning it to Esther. “I’m quite sure we’ve never met. Should we have?”

      He stepped back a pace, shaking his head no. But not before she detected a distinct smile of relief. A shiver of suspicion ran down her spine. Nora quickly straightened, but the