The Nosy Neighbor (19 page)

“I’m working on my thesis. You aren’t the only one who is fed up with the legal profession. I want to teach, not practice law. By this time next year, if all goes well, I’ll be teaching political science somewhere.”

“That’s wonderful, Wylie. You never said a word, why?”

“You never asked. I’m not one of those guys who runs around yelling, hey, look at me, I’m going for my doctorate. Actually, I’m kind of shy.”

Lucy laughed again. “Yeah, right. You weren’t shy last night.”

Wylie could feel his ears turn pink. “Correct me if I’m wrong here, but who was it who was gasping, hoo hoo hoo! You weren’t exactly a shrinking violet. Hell, you were the whole damn bouquet.”

Lucy grinned. She was loving this. The mornings after with Jonathan had always been so…stiff and cold. “That’s a compliment, right?”

Wylie leered at her. “Damn straight it was a compliment. The best I can give. It was a great night, Lucy. I’d like to do it again. I could just kick myself that I never allowed Nellie to introduce us. Look at all the time we wasted.”

“Everything happens for a reason, Wylie. Back then, it probably wouldn’t have worked. Think of all the fun we can have
making up
for lost time.”

Wylie groaned as he replaced the weights and rolled over onto his stomach. He propped his chin in his hands to stare up at Lucy. “This isn’t fun and games with me, Lucy. I care about you. I really do. There’s some baggage we have to clear away first before we can have a serious relationship. Just so you know, I get a little
schizy
about rebound relationships. I don’t want to be the interim boyfriend. My parents are gonna love you.”

Tears pricked at Lucy’s eyes. She didn’t trust herself to say anything. She reached out to him. Wylie took her in his arms and held her close. There was nothing sexual in the embrace, just warm comfort and a new bonding. “I think we belong together,” Wylie whispered in her ear. Lucy nodded.

“When should I get the ring?” Wylie laughed, breaking the moment.

“The minute this snow stops and the stores reopen. Just a little one, Wylie, a carat,” she teased.

“You got it,” he teased back. “Okay, let’s fortify ourselves with some coffee before we head down to Nellie’s house. God, would you look at that snow!”

“You look at it. I’d rather look at your handsome puss,” Lucy said as she pushed him down the hallway to the kitchen.

Once the coffee was ready and they sat down at the kitchen table, Wylie turned serious. “We really didn’t talk much about yesterday. How are you feeling about all that?”

Lucy knew Wylie wasn’t referring to their night in front of the fire. “I don’t know what to think. I think Mitch and his friend were as befuddled as I am. Why in the world does Jonathan need so much security? What
is
this all about? Do you think Jonathan was bringing people illegally into the country or bringing in drugs, and that’s why he needed a safe house? I am never going to understand this, Wylie.”

“If you want my opinion, and it’s just my opinion, I think it’s all about money. The amounts of money the feds told you about are not chicken feed. Always follow the money. I think this is about
very large sums of money.
Money laundering. I’d stake my bank account on it. Think about it, Lucy. He moves money, different amounts each time, say from England to France, to maybe Latvia, three places total. Normal transactions. No one is going to pay attention to three transactions. It’s done twenty-four/seven. Then maybe on to the Channel Islands or maybe the Marshall Islands. Multiply that by say fifty transactions, different locations, different amounts, and you come up with
kazillions
of dollars. All he needs is one man in the wire transfer room on his payroll, and your guy is golden. God alone knows what his cut is. I bet he has safe houses all over the globe. That house in Watchung is just one of many. If he smells trouble, he’s gone. I bet you ‘Jonathan’ has dozens of identities. You following me?”

“Yes. Yes, I am. You could be right, Wylie. It makes sense. He wouldn’t want to give up his citizenship, but if he did, and he married me, he would always be able to come back here if he wanted to. Assuming no one was on his trail. Yes, I think you’re right. The last thing he ever expected was for me to catch on. I wouldn’t have, either, if those agents hadn’t come up to me that day when I was running. In a million years I never would have believed any of this. Never. I feel so stupid,” Lucy said vehemently.

Wylie’s voice was soothing when he said, “There’s no need for you to feel stupid, Lucy. The guy’s a slick con. He worked overtime to cover everything up. It doesn’t matter how you were alerted, you were, and now the playing field has shifted.”

Lucy ran her hands through her still-damp hair. “For God’s sake, Wylie, I’m a lawyer. I should have picked up on something. Now that I think back, there were all kinds of clues. I was blind. The worst thing is, I don’t think I was ever in love with him, and yet I was going to marry him. I
think
I was going to marry him. Maybe I wasn’t,” she dithered. “I sure put off addressing those wedding invitations long enough. I am almost one hundred percent convinced I would not have gone through with it.” There, she’d said the words aloud, and she meant them.

Wylie’s chest puffed out. He smiled. “I don’t think you would have gone through with it either. You know why. You told me the guy doesn’t like dogs. You’d never get rid of Sadie, would you?”

“No more than you would get rid of Coop. You know what, Wylie, you’re really a nice guy. I like you a lot. Bushels in fact. And, you make decent coffee, too. Your meat loaf ain’t half-bad either.”

Wylie’s chest puffed out even farther. He couldn’t wait to take this young woman home to meet his family. This was
the one.
He could feel it from the top of his head right down to his toes. At last he’d found the sock to mate to his shoe. His mother always said for every old shoe there’s an old sock. It wasn’t a very romantic saying, but he finally knew what she meant. He didn’t know how he knew, but he knew that Lucy Baker would love him, warts and all, just as he would love her.

Wylie and Lucy both beamed when Jake entered the kitchen. “Are we doing lunch?” His voice was hopeful as his gaze roamed the neat, tidy kitchen.

“No, we’re doing coffee. Wylie and I are going over to Rachel’s and Nellie’s houses to see what we can scrounge up. If you pick all the meat off that ham bone, I can make some split pea or bean soup for supper, or I can make us some pot pies. You decide while we go on the hunt for Thanksgiving dinner. I feel like a Pilgrim, don’t you, Wylie?”

Wylie threw back his head and laughed until tears rolled down his cheeks. Lucy and Wylie dressed as warmly as they could, layering sweatshirts and parkas. The boots were the last to go on. Lucy fingered the keys to her house in the pocket of her jacket before she pulled on fuzzy, pink mittens. Adjusting the scarf around her neck and over the lower part of her face, she said, “Okay, I’m ready. I want to go to my house to get some clean clothes first. Rachel’s house is closest to mine, so let’s hit it after my house. If we find enough food, we might not have to go to Nellie’s.”

Wylie nodded as he opened the door. Snow and cold air
swooshed
into the foyer. It took both of them to pull the heavy oak door shut behind them.

It was ten-thirty when the couple exited the house.

“I’ll go first,” Wylie said. Step into the footprints I leave. It will be easier. Jeez, this snow is up to my thighs.”

It took them thirty minutes to fight their way through the snow and wind across the wide expanse of yard to Lucy’s house. Both of them were exhausted when Lucy fitted the key into the lock with numb hands. The moment they were inside, Wylie stomped his feet before kicking off his boots to dump the snow out of them. His wool socks were cold and wet. So were Lucy’s.

“I have socks,” Lucy said. “Dry out our boots while I get my clothes and the socks. Check my thermostat, Wylie, and set the faucet in the laundry room sink to drip. I don’t want my pipes to freeze up.”

“My feet are like ice,” Lucy said when she returned with the socks. Let’s put them in the dryer so they’re warm when we put them on.” The clothes in her hand went into a plastic bag she tied around her waist.

“We’re crazy, you know that, right?” Wylie said five minutes later as he pulled on a pair of Lucy’s socks. “I hope you have spares because the same thing is going to happen when we get to Rachel’s house and then, if necessary, Nellie’s.”

“You’re right. Wait here.” Lucy ran back upstairs and returned with a bundle of rolled-up socks. She added them to the plastic bag.

“Okay, heat’s fine, water’s dripping. Let’s go.”

Lucy opened the door, the arctic chill, driving snow, and the fierce wind drove her backward. Wylie stiff-armed her as they fought together to close the door and lock it.

“Same drill, Lucy, walk in my footprints. I’m going in a straight line, catercorner to Rachel’s house. Stay close,” Wylie shouted, to be heard over the ferocious wind.

Easier said than done,
Lucy thought as she struggled to step into the indentations Wylie made in the snow. The problem was, he had long-legged strides, and by the time she was ready to plop her left foot down, she fell down instead. Wylie picked her up seven times before they made it across the street to Rachel Muller’s house. Both of them were breathing like racehorses when Wylie finally made it to the overhang of the walk-through door leading into the garage. Inside, they both fell to their knees, struggling to breathe normally.

“This is crazy, Wylie. Why can’t we just eat hot dogs tomorrow? Thanksgiving is about giving thanks, not about food. God, I wish I was sunning my butt in Florida or some tropical paradise.”

Wylie groaned. “C’mon, we have to get in the house. I’ll turn the heat up to warm us. We’ll change socks and dry out our boots before we head out again.”

Lucy started to laugh then and couldn’t stop as Wylie led her into the kitchen.

“What’s so funny?” Wylie demanded as he cranked up the thermostat.

“Remember when I told you I thought we could come here or Nellie’s house and make out away from Jake? Boy, was that ever wishful thinking.”

Wylie flopped down on one of the kitchen chairs. He was still breathing hard as he struggled to get out of his ski jacket. “If you told me right now you wanted to hit the sheets, I’d have to tell you no can do.”

“Don’t give it another thought. I don’t have the strength to take off my clothes. This is so damn crazy. Tell me again why we’re here.”

“Because nobody eats hot dogs on Thanksgiving. I’m trying to be a good host here, Lucy, even if we’re stealing food from our beloved neighbors. Ask yourself if you want to see Jake waste away to nothing. Then there’s Coop. He’ll go ballistic if he doesn’t get his meat loaf. I live for that dog.”

“Ahhh.” Lucy sighed. “It’s getting warmer. Tell you what, Wylie. Find a towel, and I’ll rub your feet if you rub mine. Then we’ll put on warm socks.”

“Okay, but I can’t get up. It took us twenty minutes to cross the street, but I’ve had four-hour workouts that didn’t leave me this drained. You must be exhausted. I’d come over there and sit with you, but I can’t move.”

“Stay where you are. I am beyond exhausted. Let’s just sit here. Don’t talk. Dream. Do anything but move or talk. Whatever you do, don’t go to sleep.”

“Okay.”

Then Lucy broke her own order. “We don’t even know if Rachel has a turkey or a chicken in her freezer. What if this was for nothing, Wylie?”

“I’ll kill myself. If there is one, let’s not go to Nellie’s house, okay? God, I hate snow, this snow in particular. Hey, I’m starting to sweat.”

“Shut up, Wylie. I told you not to talk. If you keep talking, you won’t have to kill yourself, I’ll kill you.”

“Oooh, I love it when you talk like that.” Wylie slid off the chair and rolled over to where Lucy was sitting. “If we get married, do you think we’ll fight? Will we ever go to bed angry with each other? How many kids do you want? We should get a cat, too, and maybe a bird. A real menagerie.”

“Yeah, okay. You sure do talk a lot.”

“That’s why I am going to make an outstanding teacher. Come on, Lucy, we can’t stay here. Let’s get this show on the road. I want to go home and take a nap.”

“Wuss,”
Lucy said, staggering to her feet. She peeled off her jacket, tossed it on the floor, and ripped off her cold, wet socks. She tossed dry socks from her sack at Wylie and told him to empty out their boots.

Together, they checked Rachel Muller’s deep freezer in the garage. “Oooh, tell me this isn’t the mother lode,” Wylie said, moving freezer packages. “And she labels everything, too, with the date.”

Lucy watched as Wylie withdrew two ten-pound capons and set them on the floor. Five packages of ground sirloin came out next. “What else do you want? She has a ton of frozen vegetables, even sugared sweet potatoes with marshmallows. Told you this was the mother lode,” he said as he piled up packages of frozen vegetables.

Lucy looked at the pile of food. “We can eat off the chickens for a day or so with leftovers. The ground sirloin is for Coop. Let’s take a pork loin. We can always come back if we run out. Take some bread and those Sara Lee cakes. It might take a while for delivery trucks to make it to the supermarkets. We’ll be okay because we still haven’t explored Nellie’s freezer. God, I am so glad we don’t have to trudge all the way down there. I don’t think I could make it.”