Page 34 of More Than Anything

“Isn’t that where you met Danette?”

Now Avery was just getting pissed. “Who I associate with is none of your business.”

“Fucking manwhore. You’re just a pig like all the rest, fucking anybody you can get to take it. Admit it.”

“What I’ll admit is that Danette’s right?you’ve got an exceedingly dirty mouth on you for somebody your size. And, for your information, if it’s any of your business, which it’s not, Danette and I are friends.”

“Danette isn’tfriendswith any guy,” Lydia spat.

Avery turned his gaze to the deputy and called out, “Okay. I’m done. You can take her away now.”

“No! What the hell? Are you crazy? You can’t have him take me to jail!” Lydia yelled.

“Would you like to press charges, Mr.Holcomb?” the deputy asked.

“Yes, sir, I would. Criminal trespassing, terroristic threatening, stalking, and harassment,” Avery said. “Oh,” he added, “and generally being a difficult, disagreeable person.”

“If that were a true charge, my ex would be getting three hots and a cot,” the deputy snickered.

“Damn. Okay then. Do I need to come down and sign anything?” Avery asked.

“Nope. I’ll take it from here. Come on, miss,” he said, taking Lydia by the arm, and she screamed out in pain.

“Other one, please,” Avery barked.

“You’re a lot nicer than I would be,” the deputy told him, then took Lydia’s other arm and led her down the steps.

“You can’t do this to me! This is MY farm! AveryHolcomb, you’re going to regret this!” she shouted back over her shoulder to him.

“Just adding to that terroristic threatening charge, Lydia! You should probably shut up now!” he shouted back. He watched as the deputy loaded her into the back seat, then walked around the cruiser and got in.

But in that moment before they pulled away, Avery saw something that made him wish he hadn’t just done what he’d done. He watched as Lydia’s eyes glanced around at the trees, the grass, the house, and past the house toward the barn, and a look of deep, pure misery swept over her features. It was a look that reminded him of the look he’d seen on his mother’s face when his youngest brother, Caleb, died.

Caleb had been six, Ben seven, and Avery nine when it happened. They’d been spending the week at their grandparents’ farm, a good-sized piece of land bordered by the CumberlandRiver on the north. All three boys had walked down to its banks with some kids from a nearby farm where they spent the afternoon, playing and throwing rocks in. The water had been high?it was flood season?and the current swift. One of the neighborhood boys had snatched Caleb’s hat off and thrown it in the river, and he’d gone right in after it. Avery had screamed, trying to stop him, but before he could move, Caleb had dropped into the water and was gone, swept away in an instant by the fierce, wild current. They’d searched for eight days before his body had been recovered, trapped under a tree limb twelve miles downstream. When the deputies had come to tell his mother that his brother had been confirmed dead, the look on her face had been one of total devastation.

That was the look on Lydia’s face?as though her whole world had fallen out from under her. He realized then that he knew nothing about her, not what she did for a living, or where she actually lived, not about siblings, or her education, or anything. She’d just been a gnat buzzing in his face, and all he’d done was swat at her. A sadness took root in his heart at the thought of the possibility that he’d crushed her.

Stepping to her car, he looked inside and found her bag, so he sat down in the white leather of the BMW’s interior and looked through it. Her wallet was there, and there were a couple of credit cards, along with her driver’s license, inside it. She had about fifteen dollars in cash too. There was a small case, and he opened it to find some business cards:LydiaSimone Kinsey, Broker.Seemed she worked for a small real estate company there in town. Was that why she wanted the farm after all, to subdivide? The look on her face as the deputy was driving her away told him no. This was something personal, something that had nothing to do with business. The rest of her purse was the usual girlie stuff, lipstick, some pressed powder, a small bottle of perfume, and a hairbrush. She also had a few receipts?a lingerie store and a kitchen place, both in the mall?and a little packet of tissues. Her address was an apartment building in downtown TuckerCity, one of the nicer places in town, so she obviously did okay in the real estate market. Wadded up down in the bottom of the bag was a note.

Lydia,

I don’t know what’s going on with you, but you haven’t made a sale in a month. We need to talk. I mean it.

Bill

Her boss maybe?Avery didn’t know, but he could find out. There was nothing else of any importance in her bag, so he put it all back and placed it on the front seat of the car. The keys were in the ignition, so he figured he’d call somebody, maybe someone from the church, and get them to bring him home if he drove the car down to the sheriff’s department and left it for her. He was climbing out to shut the car door when he noticed something in the back seat.

A messenger bag. Avery opened the back door and pulled it out, then marched up to the porch and sat down. Flipping the buckles, he opened it and started going through the contents.

There were blank contracts that prospective buyers could fill out, and a date book. He didn’t bother with that. Everything looked like stuff any realtor would carry.

Except for a folder near the back. Avery pulled it out and looked at the name on the tab:Crops. He opened the folder and took a look at the papers there, trying to figure out what he was seeing.

They were crop rotation charts. Looking at the dates on the bottoms of the printouts, he saw that they were recent, as recent as a year prior. What the hell? One had Cletus’ name on it, and he had to ask himself why the extension agent hadn’t told him what Lydia was doing. Sure enough, as he thumbed through the information, he came upon a sketch done from an aerial view of the farm, and it was his farm. The computer printout had colored-in areas showing which crops went where, and he knew then what was going on with LydiaKinsey.

She wanted to farm that land. She wanted to show everyone that she could do it, that it belonged to her, and that her great-grandfather had made a terrible mistake in keeping his family from that farming legacy. Lydia had a score to settle, one for at least two generations, and she was failing miserably because, once again, her great-grandfather had cut the throats of his kin. She was suffering.

Avery thought about Dr.Tompkins’ story of the rabbits. Inside that little blond spitfire was a suffering teenage girl, the one whose heart had been broken by a crotchety, cranky old man. LydiaKinsey was hurting, and he’d only added to it, although he couldn’t have known. He had an errand to run, and he had to hurry.

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