The House on Creek Road Read online

  Jack and Liz went past the calves and out of the barn. Liz looked up and saw Orion, the can’t-miss winter constellation, her brother’s words still playing in her mind.

  They must have been playing in Jack’s, too. “It’s not such a big investment, Liz.”

  IT WAS HARDER TO GET TIME by himself now. Even if he walked to the corner store to buy gum somebody tagged along. He hoped it was just a sign of tension. It must be, because if it was suspicion, they were only suspicious during office hours. As far as he knew they ignored him at night, right up until he reached the office each morning.

  Jack’s game message, when unscrambled, had been pretty obvious— Hedberg passes to Hull, Hull takes the shot. On Sunday afternoon Reid headed out to East Kildonan. Henderson Highway was nearly empty. Everybody must be holed up watching the Grey Cup.

  A few kids were on the ice at the Elmwood Community Center, jostling for a puck. One of them got it free and took off, his body all bunched with that excitement you got when you were almost sure the other guys couldn’t catch you. What were they thinking? Messier passes to Gretzky, Gretzky takes the shot?

  Over the years, he and Jack had played a lot of pickup games here. Hockey in the winter, basketball and 21 and Kick the Can the rest of the year. Jack didn’t have much free time, so he didn’t play as often as most of the kids. They’d never set foot on the ice without doing that commentary. Nilsson gets the puck, brings it up the outside, passes to Hedberg, Hedberg to Hull, Hull takes the shot…

  If Jack had hidden another puzzle here, he must have found a spot where it wouldn’t be disturbed between the time he planted it and the time Reid found it. He couldn’t embed it under the ice, not without help from the management. He couldn’t attach it to the boards without the snow and wind or some kid interfering with it.

  Reid walked all the way around the rink to the shed where kids put on their skates. He was only wearing shoes, and his feet were already getting damp and cold. Not as cold as they got those January nights when he and Jack stayed on the ice until their feet were so sore they could have cried. He remembered easing his skate off, hoping his ice block of a foot wouldn’t shatter, and sitting there on the bench with his hand wrapped around first one foot, then the other, until he could bear to put his boot on. Jack did the same.

  There was nobody in the shed. It wasn’t much—cement floor, plank walls and benches. Just shelter from the wind, really. No nooks and crannies here. He got on his knees and craned his head to see under the benches. Gum, lots of gum. Kids were as disgusting as ever. And an envelope. He pulled it away from the rough wood and stuffed it in his pocket. So far, this was too easy. Had Jack even tried? He went back to his car and turned the key in the ignition to get the heater going before he opened the envelope.

  No code this time. Just a problem.

  If Gretzky has the puck two meters behind the red line on a regulation hockey rink, and begins skating straight toward the goal at a constant acceleration of one point two meters per second squared, and Hull is along the boards, halfway between the red line and his opponent’s blue line, how fast must he be skating to bodycheck Gretzky at the blue line, assuming that his velocity is constant.

  Right. Like his velocity could be constant.

  Reid stared into midair, calculating, sometimes writing in the frost on his window with his fingernail. He couldn’t help smiling, couldn’t help enjoying this. He was almost embarrassed that Jack really believed he wanted to play just like the old days, that he’d drive an hour and a half from the city and break into somebody’s house, go to all that trouble, to play a ridiculous game, like some overgrown kid…but it was a good problem.

  There wasn’t enough frost for all the calculations he needed to do. Reid rummaged in the glove compartment for paper and a pen. He started with a sketch of a regulation rink and figured out each player’s trajectory. Using geometry and calculus, he found the answer. It nearly went on forever. He rounded it off to 3.31 meters per second.

  Okay. What are you trying to tell me, Jack?

  LIZ HELPED ELEANOR OUT OF THE TRUCK. “I’ll just be a minute, Grandma.”

  “Take your time.”

  She climbed back into the cab. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to say or do, she just knew she wasn’t ready to leave Jack. “It was a good day, wasn’t it? What was your favorite part?”

  He sat with his gloved hands on the steering wheel. “I don’t know if I can chose. I liked it all. The house-building, the stars, the football game, the company.”

  They hadn’t stayed outside long. “Those five or ten minutes, when the two of us were in the field and we saw the nebula in Orion…that was my favorite part.”

  “Oh? I liked it when you were looking up and the moonlight was on your throat.”

  Liz stared at him. He hadn’t said it suggestively or jokingly, just in his usual tone. It reminded her of the night they’d sat on the porch talking. His voice sounded warm in the dark, and being close to him felt comforting and stirring at the same time.

  Jack went on, “The night we met, I couldn’t sleep. I thought it was the cold. I burrowed under the blankets, waiting for my body heat to do something about the icy sheets, and finally I noticed I had something on my mind. I couldn’t figure out what.”

  “The car speeding out of your driveway,” Liz suggested.

  “That was part of it. Not all, though. So, instead of counting sheep, I counted possible problems, things that might need my attention. There was nothing—nothing that should keep me awake. No forgotten birthdays, no unpaid bills. I had arranged to get the last load of pumpkins into Winnipeg, the iron wasn’t plugged in—it hadn’t been for weeks, to tell the truth.”

  “Was it the trouble you were having finding an evergreen field?”

  “You know it wasn’t. It was you.”

  “Oh.” Should she apologize? It would be hypocritical, when she was so pleased.

  “It was the first time thinking about a woman ever kept me awake.”

  “I’ve thought about you a lot, too. In spite of everything else. You’ve been such a help to me, Jack.” She wished she’d phrased that differently. It was so much less than she’d meant to say.

  “I’m glad. This has been a tough few weeks for you.”

  “I think Grandma’s been pushing us together.”

  “She wouldn’t do that, would she? Not with all you’ve had on your mind.”

  “I think she thinks we’d be good together.”

  “I think she’s right. This isn’t the time for it—you need to go home and take care of your life, think about what comes next. I’ve wondered if you’d like to visit again at some point and see what we’ve got here. If you feel ready for that later, just let me know.”

  “I do want to see what we’ve got here. I’m ready now.”

  His voice softened. “You’re not just trying to be nice, are you? Because Christmas is coming?”

  “Christmas is a whole month away.”

  His gloved hand came up to her face, barely touching her skin. “We’ll take it slow. I’ll ask your grandmother’s permission to see you and we’ll sit in the parlor the proper distance apart—”

  “No, we won’t.”

  “I saw the shape you were in at the gravel pit, the worries you’ve had since then. You can’t jump from that to—” He stopped, leaving her with a very clear picture of where they’d left off the night he’d come to dinner. He was determined to be patient. A laudable instinct that she would bypass as soon as possible.

  “All right. My grandmother’s parlor. Tomorrow?”

  “If she agrees.”

  Liz began to think he wasn’t joking. He really intended to behave like an old-time suitor. Giving him no chance to take his role too far she helped herself to a good-night kiss, then scooted back to her side of the truck. As soon as she opened the door, the dogs had their front feet on the running board. Liz stepped down carefully, avoiding their paws. They twitched their noses in her direction, then Jack’s, uncer
tain on which human to lavish their attention.

  “Down, Bella. Dora, get down. Good girls.”

  Liz swung the door shut and headed for the house, her path lit by Jack’s headlights. After a longing look at the truck, the dogs followed her. She waited on the porch before going in, watching the lights back down the driveway and swivel, highlighting the road. The tires crunched on the hard-packed snow as the truck rolled away.

  Already, she knew him so well. The details might take years, but she knew him through and through. And she knew he fit her perfectly.

  Eleanor was waiting in the kitchen. “That was a nice long talk.”

  “It’s official, Grandma. He plans to come calling.”

  “Oh, good,” Eleanor said, with the satisfaction of someone who has been waiting for the pieces to fall together as they should. “That calls for a cup of tea.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “JACK? DICK GRAHAM HERE.”

  His bank manager. His bank manager never called.

  “I’m just letting people know someone tried to hack into our system last night. We’ve got all kinds of protection, of course. It was very professional, though—not some high school geek trying to prove his manhood. This guy nearly got through.” His unruffled tone faltered a little at that, but Graham went on, trying to spread a message of calm. “He didn’t seem to be trying to get into our accounts. He was interested in our records—who has accounts here, who keeps safety deposit boxes, that kind of thing. We think he got the list of customers, but I can assure you he didn’t get into your accounts, business or personal. We’re in the middle of shoring up our firewalls. It won’t happen again.”

  Jack expressed his confidence in the bank’s staff and hung up, frowning. He felt like he’d been punched in the stomach. There was a big difference between wondering if your friend had betrayed you and finding out that, yes, he probably had.

  It was years since he and Reid had played the game. They’d never included other people, they’d never broken into each other’s homes. What if, when they’d searched the house the first time, they’d found the disk at the bottom of the bin? They could have opened the Linux partition that night. The algorithm, the implementation program and the key, all in the same place. At least he had them separate now, and he’d taken steps to protect the key. They wouldn’t get anywhere without it.

  Jack stood at the kitchen window for a few minutes, his mind stuck on the videotaped image of Reid waiting calmly at the door to be let in. Then he retrieved the disk from the bin in the cellar and slipped it into a padded envelope along with a note. He scrawled a name and address on the front. Ned Hardy. Brandon University.

  DANIEL BALANCED NEAR THE TOP of a ladder stringing Christmas lights along the eaves of his house. When he saw Jack, he called, “Hang on. I’ll be right down.”

  “Need a hand?”

  “No, no. I’ve got it.” He left the remaining section of lights dangling, put his tools in his pocket and came down the ladder, feeling for each rung as he went. “Think I’ll leave ’em up this year,” he said, when he was safely on the ground. “Wasn’t going to do it at all, but once the season rolled around and I started seeing the lights everywhere, I couldn’t help myself. Never liked ladders, though. Like ’em less now. Catch your punks?”

  “I found out who they are.” Jack paused. His next question was bound to arouse Daniel’s curiosity. “Do you have anything that can check for listening devices and cameras?”

  Daniel leaned against the ladder. “How do you mean?”

  Jack thought his meaning was clear. “I mean I want to find out if there are any cameras or listening devices hidden in my house.”

  Daniel looked at him with what Jack had come to think of as his Special Branch gaze. Knowing, but not cynical. “These are high-tech kids you’ve got poking around.” He waited, but Jack didn’t answer. “You in some kind of trouble, Jack?”

  “Not really. I can handle the problem.”

  “Can you, now?” Daniel straightened up and strode to his back door, all business. “I won’t be a minute. I’ll get a few things together, come and do a sweep myself.”

  The more Jack thought about Reid and his friends listening to his conversations, or watching him, the itchier and angrier it made him. It wasn’t just his privacy. Liz had been in his house, talking about things no one else was meant to hear.

  If they’d planted a camera, that would explain how they’d known they had time to search his house the day he went to Brandon. They could have seen him get the boot disk ready to send to Ned this morning.

  On the other hand, if a camera had been in place all this time, they would have watched while he encoded the key and hid the algorithm, too. They wouldn’t have felt any need to search for a safe deposit box.

  He was relieved when Daniel told him the house was clean, upstairs and down. No bugs, no cameras. Of course, that wasn’t the end of it for Daniel. He made himself comfortable at the kitchen table. “Now suppose you tell me the whole story.”

  “Coffee?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “That’s all I’ve got to offer.”

  “You know folks around here think you’re into drugs.” Ignoring Jack’s startled expression, Daniel went on, “Doesn’t seem too likely to me. Far more likely it’s to do with your computer business. Not a lot of industrial espionage with Christmas trees, as far as I know, but computers—that’s another story. Programs, codes, takeovers, identify theft—well, the list goes on and on. You know, don’t you, the RCMP has a whole department that deals with that kind of thing, if a guy was in a jam and needed help.”

  Jack wondered how long it would be before Daniel decided to call whoever he still knew in the Mounties. “A friend of mine is behaving strangely. That’s all. He broke in here a while ago, just fooling around. He seems to know what I’m doing all the time, when I’m going to be away. It made me think he might have planted a bug of some kind.”

  Daniel stared at him. Finally he said, “You see, friends don’t usually behave that way. Spying. Breaking and entering. When they do, I’ve got to ask myself why.”

  Jack shrugged. “It’s easy to get hold of that kind of technology now. Some people are fascinated by it. Like playing soldier when you’re a kid.”

  The thought of boyhood games didn’t distract Daniel. “Out here, keeping somebody under surveillance isn’t easy. Unless you’ve got access to a satellite. Your friend got access to a satellite?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then you’d need a receiver nearby. In the city, you’d rent the neighboring apartment, or park on the street outside the house and nobody would notice. Van parks by your driveway, everybody’s going to ask about it.”

  Jack looked out the window to the garage, the tumbledown barn, the woods. He needed a dog.

  Daniel reached for his coat. “All right. Let’s leave it at that.” At the door, he gave Jack another Special Branch stare. “I’m not as past it as I look. You ever need a hand, you call me.”

  ELEANOR SAT BY THE WOODSTOVE, with a big bowl on her lap, combining butter and sugar by hand. Liz had forgotten she did that. Watching the gooey mixture squeeze through her grandmother’s fingers had always fascinated her, but she’d never wanted to touch it herself. Eleanor did it that way because that was the way her mother had done it. Good shortbread depended on body heat.

  When the flour was thoroughly mixed in and the dough was as light as she wanted it, Eleanor moved to the table to roll it out. She smiled at Liz. “Are you going to put on the colored sugar?”

  Green-tinged sugar for the trees, red for the sleighs and bells and Santas, yellow for stars and angels. She had always loved the job.

  Eleanor pushed a box of cookie cutters toward her. “Which shape shall we use first?”

  Liz handed her an angel. In practiced movements, Eleanor cut and lifted angel after angel, sliding them onto the cookie sheet without tearing a single one. When the first cookie sheet was full, Liz chose the sleigh cutte
r. This one had more curves and corners where the dough could stick, so Eleanor went more slowly. “I might as well tell you, I called Mrs. Anderson first thing this morning.”

  The news surprised Liz. It shouldn’t have. “You’re ready to list the property now?” Calling it “the property” felt better.

  “There’s no point putting it off. We have to do what’s needed. Satisfaction and self-respect come from that.” Eleanor pointed at the bowls of sugar. “Sprinkle the angels, won’t you? Everyone keeps repeating this will be the last Christmas. As if it really is the last, not just the last in this house.”

  “It feels a bit like the end of an era. That’s all they mean.”

  “Not everything will change. I’ll still make shortbread.”

  “And I’ll still come to help.”

  Eleanor looked up with a smile. “Will you?”

  “I’m planning to make a pest of myself. A visit per season.”

  “How extravagant! I don’t suppose you’d stay a few months each time?” Eleanor broke off. Abruptly, she sat in the nearest chair, the rolling pin clutched in one hand.

  “Grandma?” Eleanor’s face was unnaturally pale. “Are you all right?”

  “I need to get off my feet for a bit,” she said. “Just for a few minutes.”

  Liz touched the back of her hand to her grandmother’s cheek, then to her forehead. Her skin didn’t feel cold or hot. Not clammy, either. “For a few minutes? Grandma, if you’re supposed to do what’s needed, you’ll stay off your feet for the rest of the day. I’ll finish the shortbread.” She wasn’t sure if she was imagining what she wanted to see, or if Eleanor’s color was already improving. “Do you have a pain?”

  “My energy went out of me, that’s all. It happens sometimes. Goes with the territory, I’m afraid.” Eleanor sat up straighter and brushed her hands over the hair combed back from her forehead, as if sitting so suddenly might have messed it. “Why don’t you roll and cut, Elizabeth? I’ll choose the cutters.”