Aloe and Goodbye

  Aloe and Goodbye

  Ruby Shaw Mysteries, Book One

  Janice Peacock

  Copyright © 2020 by Janice Peacock

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  www.janicepeacock.com

  Cover Design: Mariah Sinclair

  Also by Janice Peacock

  High Strung, Glass Bead Mystery Series, Book One

  A Bead in the Hand, Glass Bead Mystery Series, Book Two

  Off the Beadin’ Path, Glass Bead Mystery Series, Book Three

  To Bead or Not to Bead, Glass Bead Mystery Series, Book Four

  Contents

  1. ONE

  2. TWO

  3. THREE

  4. FOUR

  5. FIVE

  6. SIX

  7. SEVEN

  8. EIGHT

  9. NINE

  10. TEN

  11. ELEVEN

  12. TWELVE

  13. THIRTEEN

  14. FOURTEEN

  15. FIFTEEN

  16. SIXTEEN

  17. SEVENTEEN

  18. EIGHTEEN

  19. NINETEEN

  20. TWENTY

  21. TWENTY-ONE

  22. TWENTY-TWO

  23. TWENTY-THREE

  24. TWENTY-FOUR

  25. TWENTY-FIVE

  26. TWENTY-SIX

  Epilogue

  A Note from the Author

  About the Author

  For Mom,

  a gardener

  extraordinaire

  ONE

  My name is Ruby Shaw. At least it is today.

  It was something else two weeks ago, but I’m not allowed to use my real name anymore. That was what Victor Wilson, the US marshal who’d dumped us off in this godforsaken little town in Arizona, told me. And my daughter? Yes, she had to choose a new name too. She picked Allison—Allie for short—which wasn’t too different from her birth name.

  Standing shoulder to shoulder at the bottom of the stairs, we watched as Victor drove away in his plain black sedan, down the long, steep street and around one of the numerous switchbacks that riddled this hillside town. Above us, the hills were illuminated by a brilliant sunset—bursts of purples and oranges I wished I could capture on a painted canvas.

  With our witness protection officer out of sight, Allie and I turned wordlessly and climbed the concrete steps to our new home. It had been painted haphazardly in the steps’ color, a dismal gray, more or less matching my mood.

  Allie’s new black backpack and my blue duffel held our meager belongings, which we carried up the steps. Victor had allowed us to do some shopping at the Kmart some twenty miles away in Wendlewood. Everything we purchased was plain—nothing artful or unique. “Fly under the radar,” Victor had said. Our lives depended on it.

  The hinges squeaked in protest as I opened the front door. Holding my breath, I took Allie’s hand, and we stepped inside the house. What was supposed to be the living room held a bedraggled sofa and not much more. It hadn’t changed much since Victor had shown it to us a few days before. He had promised me we’d have a fully furnished house by now. Where the heck was everything? I put on a brave face for Allie, but inside I was cussing out Victor and his flunkies.

  But looking around gave me hope. The living room had large windows spanning the front wall and straight ahead was a cozy kitchen. Maybe this wasn’t going to be too horrible after we had some furniture and settled in.

  Allie didn’t share my optimism. She turned away and stealthily wiped a tear. At twelve, she didn’t like anyone, including her mother, seeing her cry.

  “Sweetheart, it’s not going to be so bad,” I said as I turned her toward me and hugged her tight. Over her shoulder, I watched as an enormous mouse scurried out the open front door. At least he was headed out and not in. I released my child and closed the door—no sense in having the mouse change its mind and come back inside.

  Allie didn’t look convinced. She sniffled and wiped her nose on her black sweatshirt. Today wasn’t a day to scold her for that. She looked so small in her oversize hoodie, but had recently started growing and would soon pass me at five foot five. Puberty was going to be another harrowing adventure for us, no doubt.

  “You’re going to be okay. We both are. You and I are made of strong stuff, remember that.” Allie nodded as she looked down at her pristine black Converse sneakers. “Let’s take a look around.” We made our way down a short hallway that ended in a bathroom and a bedroom on each side.

  “Which room do you want?” I asked. Allie pointed to the left. “Good choice, you’ll get the morning sun,” I said as cheerfully as possible as I followed her in, turning on the overhead light as we entered. The room smelled stale, like it had been closed up for too long, and it was utterly empty except for a twin bed with a pile of linens, still in their packages, on top of the mattress. “You’ve got a bed. Isn’t that wonderful?” Allie rolled her eyes. Okay, maybe I was piling the cheerfulness on a little thick.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure Victor gets you a desk and chair. I promise,” I said as I closed the shabby drapes on the window next to her bed. “And tomorrow we’ll get this place opened up to get some fresh air in here."

  I had to admit my positive attitude was starting to wane. Allie was taking this pretty hard, and I knew I needed to be enthusiastic for both of us, though I wondered how long I’d be able to keep it up.

  “Okay, baby, let’s get your bed set up.”

  I slid the sheets out of the packaging as I looked around the room, imagining how we could turn this into a terrific place for a tween. It was a challenge figuring out what Allie liked these days. Mostly, her clothes were all black, and so was her attitude. Gone was the delightful and curious child who used to run through Central Park, ready and willing to pet any dog that crossed her path or make friends with any child on the playground.

  “I don’t want to take the time to wash the sheets. I’m not even sure if we have a washing machine, but I will take care of everything tomorrow,” I said as I struggled to pull the fitted sheet onto the mattress. Allie glowered at me. She’d been doing that a lot lately. While I finished making the bed, Allie found her pj’s and put them on. She pulled out an iPod from her backpack and put the earbuds in her ears. This was a sure sign that she wanted some space.

  I found a similar setup to Allie’s in my bedroom: a bed and a dresser. Whoever had purchased these things for us had been thoughtful enough to choose a queen bed for me. After making up my bed and unpacking my bag, I surveyed the rest of the house. We had a cute little bathroom with mint-green tile. It needed an update, but as long as I thought of it as vintage instead of old, it suited us just fine. I was relieved to see we had TP and towels, but there was so much more we needed. I examined my face in the bathroom mirror. The dark circles beneath my eyes reminded me that the events of the last few weeks, and especially that terrible night in Las Vegas, had taken their toll on me.

  How could this have happened to us? It wasn’t a productive question tonight or any other night for that matter.

  Returning to Allie’s room, I found her dozing off. I brushed her light brown hair from her forehead. As I gently pulled the earbuds from her ears, I kissed her good night.

  “Night night, sweetheart,” I said as I shut off the light.

  “Mom? Can you leave the hall light on?” She’d left everything and everyone she knew behind, and she was hurting because of it. At least the light would bring her a little comfort.

  “Of course,” I said, doing just that.

  I wandered into the kitchen and idly opened the cupboards. We’d had dinner in Wendlewood, so I wasn’t hungry but did wonder if they—whoever they were—had thought to stock the kitchen with food. They hadn’t. It appeared they hadn’t done much of anything to prepare for our arrival. I found a single bottle of Budweiser in the back of a cupboard, but no opener. Catching the edge of the cap on the side of the counter, I whacked the top of the bottle. It worked like a charm, just as I remembered back in art school. Miraculously, there was ice in the freezer, along with a can of orange juice concentrate. If I had some vodka, I could have made a screwdriver instead of drinking a beer, but no such luck.

  I found an empty jelly jar in one of the cupboards, which I rinsed out and filled with ice. Then I poured the beer into my makeshift glass. Beer on ice might be unconventional, but it beat warm beer any day of the week. I pulled my new cell phone, courtesy of the US government, out of my jeans’ back pocket, and called Victor. He would be our lifeline while we were in the Witness Protection Program, WITSEC for short.

  Victor had done what he could to protect us and had repeated the rules of the program until we’d memorized them: We weren’t to get in touch with our family, friends, or anyone else from our past. We weren’t allowed to bring our old belongings, including photos, art, or anything else that might identify us. Victor had gone easy on us, allowing each of us a special item. For Allie, it was her iPod, and for me, it was my mother’s ruby ring. We had to assume new identities, including changing our names and, in my case, giving up a career I loved. All of our belongings were now in storage, and if we were ever safe enough to leave the WITSEC program, we’d get those things—and our lives—back.

  Since Victor didn’t answer his phone, I left him a message. He was likely still on the road af
ter dropping us off.

  “Hi, Victor. It’s, uh, Ruby,” I said. I wondered how long it would be before I felt comfortable referring to myself by my new name. “I need you to call me back. We need help. All we have are beds and a sofa. How about an armchair, a couple of lamps, a coffee table? Oh, and Allie needs a desk. Call me.” It was Sunday night, and I doubted I’d hear anything from him until tomorrow.

  I opened the back door and stood on the small landing, looking down at the side yard, which sloped precipitously to an overgrown gulch below. Our house clung to the hillside, like everything else in this town. I took the steep, rickety staircase to a terraced yard behind the house. Tucked up next to the house, there was a wooden porch with a narrow, shingled roof and a wide railing running along the front edge. At the end of the porch was a storage shed, its door hanging open with not much more than cobwebs inside.

  As I looked at the barren earth beneath my feet, something stirred inside me. Someone had taken the time to terrace the yard, but had they ever grown anything? What could I do with this land? It seemed to me that if a person planted something, and if they watched it grow, it meant they intended to stick around. And I intended to stay in this place. I recalled what my father had told me: Start with the earth. He had been a successful farmer, and I knew he was right. In all endeavors, start from the ground and work up.

  The sound of coyotes yipping in the distance echoed up from the canyon with a cool evening breeze. It had been a long time since I’d heard that high-pitched keening, and it added to my anxiety. In recent years, the only wildlife I’d encountered were well-fed rats in back alleys and clubbers after they’d left bars at two in the morning.

  I mounted the stairs back up to the landing by the kitchen door and looked toward the dimly lit street. As I stood quietly in the dark, a group of people gathered in front of the house next door, just a few yards from where Victor had dropped us off.

  A man was speaking to the gathering, but I was too far away to hear him. Those who had flashlights aimed their beams at the house and their guide. I could see that their leader was a tall, thin man wearing a bowler hat and long black coat through the shadowy light. The group ascended the front steps and entered my neighbor’s house. How very odd.

  After a few minutes, screams pierced the quiet darkness, and the group pushed its way out the front door, running as if fleeing for their lives—steps behind them, an ax-wielding hooded figure chased after the group.

  Holy crap! I dropped my beer off the side of the railing, stumbling backward in shock. What was I supposed to do? Call 911? Victor had told me to try and blend in—calling 911 on our first night in town was definitely not flying under the radar. My heart pounding, I yanked my phone from my back pocket to call Victor. I doubted he’d answer since he hadn’t picked up just moments ago.

  Frozen in place, I watched in horror from my vantage point as the scene next door unfolded. But no one was screaming in terror now. No one was covered in blood. The cloaked figure with the ax went back inside the house while the group members laughed and clutched each other as the leader of their group—presumably a tour guide—ushered everyone up the towering hill beyond my home, toward the center of town.

  There was no need to call Victor or 911. What the heck had just happened?

  It had to have been some sort of spooky tour. Victor had mentioned that Paradise was a former ghost town. This little show must have been someone’s way of capitalizing on that fact. I had a friend in New York—a struggling actor, of course—who was a tour guide for the city’s Vampire and Ghost Tour. He told me all the ghost stories and theatrics were entirely fabricated, but apparently the tours brought in good money, and the tourists loved every scary moment.

  Still rattled from what I’d seen, but glad that it was just a show, I went back inside, locked the kitchen door, and checked the lock on the front door as well.

  Too amped up with adrenaline to sleep, I sat on the sofa in the living room, taking deep breaths to calm myself. I didn’t even have my beer to drink, and tomorrow I’d have to go and find the broken jelly jar I’d dropped into the yard.

  I sat for a long time making a mental list of what we’d need to restart our lives. I was a long way from the life I’d known in New York City. What little I’d seen of the town of Paradise was from the passenger seat of Victor’s car. It all seemed sad and desolate. Or maybe I was just projecting.

  According to Victor, Paradise, Arizona, had been built in 1890, when two prospectors—Rufus Parr and Willard Dice—discovered copper. Before a mine could open, there needed to be housing for the miners, and the only available land for miles around was a steep, rocky hillside. It was certainly not the most hospitable location to build a community. And the name Paradise? It was a combination of the two men’s names, and then tweaked a little bit; Parr and Dice became Paradise. Calling the town Paradise seemed like wishful thinking. It wasn’t the first name that came to mind as Victor drove through switchback after switchback with nothing to see but sagebrush and cacti at the side of the road.

  Like it or not, Paradise was going to be home for Allie and me, for now, and maybe forever. Frankly, leading a simple life sounded good. It was a chance for us to try again. I’d made some choices that had been less than perfect, or more specifically, my sister had. The past was behind us now. There was no turning back.

  TWO

  The following morning, I woke up to the sound of a siren wailing nearby. This wasn’t a good sign. I was curled up on the sofa in the living room, evidently having fallen asleep there and never making it to my bed.

  I felt a twinge in my neck as I peered through the mini blinds. Sleeping on a lumpy couch wasn’t good for my forty-something-year-old body. I managed to pull my long hair, which overnight had become a curly mess, into a ponytail.

  A single SUV, the word Sheriff painted on its side panels, pulled into the driveway of my neighbor’s house. Was this Paradise’s entire law enforcement team? I wouldn’t doubt it. Whatever was happening, I wanted to stay far, far away from it. I dreaded being interrogated by a cop who would ask questions about why we were here—and who we were, for that matter. As I watched, another car pulled up to the curb, and a slender man trotted up the stairs. A woman in a tan uniform, likely a deputy, met him as he reached the porch. The man was agitated, and as I studied him, I realized he resembled the leader of last night’s tour—assuming that was what I’d witnessed. Of course, other men fit that description, and since it was dark, I couldn’t be sure what I’d seen last night.

  I called Victor, and he answered.

  “What can I do for you?” Victor’s voice twanged in a slow Texan drawl, which somehow comforted me.

  “I think something’s happened next door, and I don’t want you to think I had anything to do with it.”

  “Did you have anything to do with it?”

  “No!” Then I thought about it. “Okay, so, I think I might have seen something—but maybe not. There was some sort of scary tour on my street. A guy with an ax chased a few people out the front door of my neighbor’s house. I didn’t think it was real, though.”

  “And now you’re telling me that it was real? You just stay away from whatever is going on out there. Okay?”

  “Okay, I promise. It’s probably nothing. I mean, how high could the homicide rate be in a little town like this?”

  “You’d be surprised. Anything else?”

  “I need to talk with you about this house.”

  “What about it?”

  “It’s pretty dismal. We need some things to make this place a little cozier. We’ve got a couch, and that’s it, in the living room. We could use an upholstered chair, a few lamps. Oh, and Allie needs a desk.”