Send Down the Rain(44)

“Hey.”

I turned and she wrapped her blanket around us, and we stood in the cold morning air. Two kids. I squinted one eye. “I think you’re hugging me.”

She strained on her tiptoes, kissed my cheek, and then brushed my face with her palm. Then she kissed the corner of my mouth. Then again, this time closer to the center.

She walked into the kitchen and poured herself a cup of coffee. I leaned against the counter. “You sure you want to do this? We don’t have to go. I could go and do some poking ar—”

She sipped and didn’t take her eyes off me. Her tone told me nobody was changing her mind. “We’re going.”

We drove down the mountain, taking 221 into Spruce Pine and then 19E through Burnsville. Three miles east of I-26 I pulled to the side of the road, read the map, and turned right on a dirt road. We drove a mile to a dead end and parked. I grabbed my binoculars out of the console, and we headed west through the trees and up a small ridge. On the ridgeline we turned south, then west again. Below us spread a meadow with a nice one-story ranch on the other side. Several horses walked in and out of the barn. Forty or fifty head of cattle dotted the hillside behind the house. A detached four-car garage lay perpendicular to the house. A late-model sports car of some sort, a Cadillac Escalade, a Ford F-250 diesel with aftermarket tires and bumpers, and a Mercedes SUV. Parallel to the garage sat a taller building with metal roof and open sides. Parked inside sat a mobile home—the expensive kind driven by rock stars or parked on the infields at NASCAR races. And parked along that sat a shiny new red and chrome Peterbilt. The trailer it was pulling had been painted with custom race car designs.

I passed Allie the binoculars. “That look familiar?”

She adjusted the eye relief and shook her head. “Never seen it.” She handed me the binoculars. “But I’d like to know who’s been paying the insurance.”

While we sat hidden in our perch in the trees, a silver Jeep pulled into the drive. A girl, maybe sixteen, hopped out with a school backpack and walked inside, talking on a cell phone. At the rear of the house a woman, maybe early fifties, walked out wearing stretch pants and a workout shirt showing sweat down the back. She was sipping coffee and reading something on her phone. The only car that didn’t fit was an older Honda SUV that must have belonged to the house help—a woman who exited the house about this time and refilled the first woman’s coffee cup. A few minutes later the young girl, the driver of the Jeep, walked out and sat down with the woman. The two talked while looking out across the pasture at the horses and cows. The sun had come up over the ridgeline in front of them and shone yellow and clean on the grass below.

For an hour things around the house were relatively quiet. Then a Toyota Tacoma with large mud tires and a lift kit pulled into the drive and parked behind the Jeep. A good-looking kid jumped out and let himself inside. He wore athletic shorts and shoes, and he too was sweaty, as if he’d just come from a practice or workout of some sort. A minute later he joined the woman and girl on the back porch. At lunchtime all three left the house, each driving out in a different car. Over the next several hours, Allie napped while I studied the details below me.

The cars began returning at four. The woman first. She was nicely dressed, wore jewelry of some sort, and appeared to have a well-manicured body. Around five the boy and girl returned. The house helper lit the charcoal grill at five thirty and turned on the outdoor porch lights. At six a black Mercedes SUV with blacked-out windows pulled down the long drive and slowly approached the house. It wound around the used car lot in front of the house and paused long enough to remotely open a fifth garage door connected to the house. The door opened, the SUV entered, and the door closed.

At six thirty the house help came out and departed in the Honda. Soon a man appeared on the back porch, carrying a large plate of steaks. He laid the tray of steaks on the table next to the charcoal grill and stood sipping a glass of wine and staring out across the pasture, horses, cows, and meadow.

I handed the binoculars to Allie, who focused. Two seconds later the color drained out of her face and tears broke loose, cascading down her cheeks. She wiped her face on her shirtsleeve, bit her lip, and watched Jake stoke the fire and spread the steaks on the grill.

Five minutes later she handed the binoculars back to me. She spoke with clarity and control. “Jake has no cane . . . and no limp.”

We sat there watching as he cooked steaks amid the world his lies had created. I spoke softly. “It’s your call.”

She stood. “Let’s go.”

We returned to the truck. I cranked the engine and we drove back down the dirt road to 19E, turned west a half mile, and then right. We ambled down a recently asphalted and nicely serpentined blacktop and finally came to Jake’s mailbox, which ironically was a miniature Peterbilt. Allie calmly dialed 911. She was staring at her fingernails like a woman who’d just decided she needed a manicure when the dispatcher answered, “911. What’s your emergency?”

“Yes, hi . . . you need to send several officers to . . .” Allie craned her neck and read the number off the box.

The dispatcher responded, “Is there a problem, ma’am?”

Allie tapped her front tooth with a nail. “No, but there’s about to be.”

The dispatcher was well trained and attempted to keep her on the phone. “What kind of trouble are you experiencing, ma’am?”