Hard Rustler

As he drove by her house, he saw that the light was on. There were more boxes stacked up under the porch roof. He turned out his headlights as he stopped across the street again. Several large pines blocked most of the house, but he would get glimpses of her inside working.

There was still no sign of anyone helping her. “What’s going on, Annie?” he asked in the dark cab of his truck. If she didn’t get out of town before the next snowstorm, she probably wouldn’t be able to in that impractical car of hers. He doubted she had snow tires on it since she’d been living in California. Not that they would help much. A car like that would get high-centered on the first snowdrift across the highway. Hell, she’d be lucky if she could get out of her driveway.

Dawson reminded himself that it wasn’t his problem. And yet he couldn’t help thinking about what his brother had said back at the bar. Unfortunately, he’d already been a fool when it came to her. He liked to think he was too smart to do it again as he watched her pass in front of the large picture window. She looked exhausted. How many hours had she been packing up her grandmother’s things by herself?

But even from this distance, he could see the determination in her expression, in the way she moved. There had never been a more stubborn woman, he thought, as he turned on his headlights again and headed for the ranch.

* * *

ANNABELLE HURT ALL OVER. She closed another box on more of her grandmother’s chipped and cracked knickknacks, but realized she was too tired to take it out to the porch. For hours, she’d been boxing up her grandmother’s junk. Now she looked around the room with growing discouragement. She’d thought she was making progress, but she hadn’t even made a dent in all this...stuff.

Earlier she’d removed what she could from the front bedroom. Her grandmother had been using the one in the back of the house opposite the shared bathroom. Apparently, she’d turned the bedroom Annabelle had chosen into an extra wardrobe. An array of ugly, gaudy sweatshirts was hanging in the closet. Each was bedazzled with anything shiny you could tack onto it. Where did the woman find these horrific things? A lot of them were seasonal, with Santas, elves, Christmas lights, overdecorated wreaths, even an Easter egg one that was so bright it could put an eye out.

Not wanting to ruin the last of the good clothes that she hadn’t sold to pay for the trip north, she’d changed into one of the less garish ones, a sweatshirt with a bejeweled clown face, along with a pair of her grandmother’s pull-on jeans that she had to tie around her waist so they’d stay up, a pair of sneakers and socks with lacy tops. They’d do to work in.

After she’d decluttered the bedroom, she cleaned. She’d discovered some laundered sheets and made the bed so it would be ready for tonight. Then she’d gone down to the recycling building in town and loaded as many boxes as she could into her car by putting smaller ones into larger ones and holding some out the window as she drove.

Back at the house, she’d started dumping the worst of the junk into boxes and carrying them out to the porch.

Now she just wanted to sit down. You were so right, Mary Sue. I really could have used some help. But not at thirty dollars an hour. And no one was going to work for her with only the promise of getting paid after the house sold.

She wandered into the kitchen, one of the only rooms that had chairs that weren’t covered with junk. As full as the place was, she couldn’t help but be thankful to her grandmother. Frannie had never had a lot of money, but in the will she’d made sure that the taxes and utilities were paid six months in advance.

Clearly, she’d known what a job it was going to be to clean out this house and sell it.

Brushing an errant lock of hair back from her dirty face, Annabelle wondered if her grandmother had also somehow figured that she was going to need financial help. Six months was generous. Frannie had to have known that Annabelle wouldn’t be staying that long. But it definitely allowed her time to get the house sold.

She glanced around the kitchen, tempted to fill another box with the ceramic knickknacks that crowded the windowsill. Her grandmother had saved everything. Was it an old lady thing? Or had her grandmother lost her mind before the end? She couldn’t understand how the woman had been able to live here with junk piled waist high throughout the house. It seemed at odds with the woman who’d raised Annabelle most of her life.

But it was also odd that her grandmother had willed the house to her and not her sisters. It still bothered her. “Why, Grandma Frannie? Why leave the house to just me?” she asked the knickknacks. Several frogs looked back at her with big, dusty eyes. Maybe TJ was right. Frannie had left the house to the granddaughter she thought would need the most help.

At the time, Annabelle had been furious at such an insinuation. Now she wondered if her grandmother hadn’t been the only one who’d expected her to fail. Maybe everyone had seen it coming but Annabelle herself.

For whatever the reason, this house was now hers and unless she got it sold and soon... She shook her head, stood and reached for the ceramic bric-a-brac.

Her stomach rumbled. She hadn’t even thought about food—until this moment. For years she’d had to watch her weight. She still wasn’t used to being able to eat anything she wanted. Now she could give in to her hunger. It was a new feeling. One that signaled more than anything that she would never be modeling again. Too bad she couldn’t afford to eat.

She pushed that thought away. Looking down at the hideous clothes she was wearing, she told herself that she couldn’t go to the grocery store, even in Whitehorse, in this outfit—even if she had any cash. She stood for a moment, feeling lost and close to tears. As she put one of the ceramic creatures into the box she was loading, she spied a container that her grandmother had used for her grocery money.

She was reminded of the time Grandma Frannie had caught her red-handed with her fingers in it and felt a stab of remorse for even having thought about taking the money, let alone getting caught. But mostly what she felt was regret that she hadn’t come back to see the grandmother who’d loved her so much.

That day, her hand literally in the cookie jar, Annabelle had fished around for an excuse. Her grandmother had stopped her and said, “If you’re going to steal, then own it. Same with getting caught,” her grandmother had said. “Lying and sniveling makes you look weak.”

With a sigh, she now lifted the lid of the container, telling herself it would be empty. Reaching inside, her fingers brushed something. She pulled out a handful of crinkled-up twenties and began to cry.

“Grandma,” she said, her voice breaking. She swallowed the lump in her throat and wiped at her tears. Frannie had known she was going to need money. She was the one her grandmother had known would fail. As much as that hurt, her heart filled to bursting with love for her grandmother, who was still looking out for her after all these years. Because someone needed to, that was for sure.

There were enough bills to keep her from going hungry for a while. She said a whispered thank-you to her grandmother and glanced at her watch. Did she really have the energy to shower and change to go to the grocery store to get something to eat?

The answer was a resounding no. If she sneaked in and out of the only grocery store in town quickly, hopefully she wouldn’t see anyone she knew.

* * *

ROBERT “ROB” MCDOUGAL saw that it was his uncle calling and ignored the call. The old mobster probably just wanted to bitch about the way-too-expensive assisted-living facility where he’d been the past four years.

Since Rob was paying almost twenty grand a month to keep him in the resort-like place, he didn’t have much sympathy. It was a deal his old man had made with the “family.”

Rob wasn’t stupid enough to renege on the agreement, since that would get him killed. But he didn’t have to listen to the old man’s constant complaining. Nor was he in the mood to indulge his uncle.

But when his phone rang once again and he saw that it was Bernie calling yet another time, he finally listened to the original message his uncle had left.

“I have a job for you. A real one. Get your butt out here. This is urgent family business.”

Urgent family business? Rob groaned. What now? He didn’t bother to call his uncle back. He simply texted that he was on his way to Golden Years Retirement Living and Spa.

The moment he walked into his uncle’s room, the old codger patted the arm of his wheelchair and said, “Let’s take a walk.”

In his uncle’s generation that might have meant he was about to die. But he didn’t think Bernie had a gun on him or a garrote or even a butter knife from the kitchen. But you never knew.

“What’s this about?” Rob asked impatiently as he pushed the old man’s wheelchair out to the canal after getting a special pass at the main desk to do so. It was hot as hell, even though it was late at night, but it often was this far south. Florida. He hated it. He missed the change of seasons up north. But as long as Bernie was alive... And the old codger didn’t seem to be aging in the least.

“Isn’t this far enough?” Rob asked, swatting at a mosquito as he kept an eye out for alligators. Each year down here alligators attacked ten people on average. They snatched pets from the sides of pools, grabbed little kids and even ate a few adults, twenty-three since 1948, he’d read. Walking along the canal always made him nervous.

His uncle finally signaled they could stop. Looking around he checked to make sure they were alone. They were. Rob was losing patience. His shirt was soaked with sweat and sticking to his back. He swatted at another bug flying around his head and swore under his breath.

“The Marco Polo Heist,” Bernie said.

Rob felt his stomach twist. He’d grown up without a father because of that heist. Everything had gone perfectly until an off-duty guard had shown up. His father and one of the other thieves had been killed. Only one of the thieves had gotten away clean—Bernie. The cops had known Bernie was involved but they’d never been able to prove it.

Bernie had walked away with the loot—which was never recovered since, according to his uncle, it had been stolen right out from under his nose. It had been the only black stain on the mobster’s otherwise glowing criminal career—and something that remained stuck in the old man’s craw.

“I have a lead on the goods,” his uncle said.

After more than fifty years and a lot of blind alleys and wild-goose chases? Rob stared at him. “It just came to you?”

Bernie cuffed him in the back. “Don’t be a damned fool. I know you think I’m getting senile, but I’m as sharp as a shank.”

Right, Rob thought as he watched the old man dig a newspaper clipping out of his pocket.

“That’s her,” his uncle said, handing him the black-and-white photo. “Francesca Clementine.” When Rob had no reaction, he added impatiently, “Baby Doll.”

The notorious Baby Doll. Rob wanted to laugh. He’d had to hear about her all of his adult life. The moll who’d broken Bernie’s heart and stolen a king’s fortune from him.

“That’s her?” He couldn’t help being skeptical. They’d been here before.

His uncle nodded and handed him the obit. He read it, trying not to roll his eyes. “Whitehorse, Montana?” He couldn’t be serious.

Bernie smiled. “Her house is coming up for sale.”