Page 47 of I'll Be There
“If I can figure out who the shooter was, maybe I can finally track down some answers, put this to bed. Leave it behind.” He looked at Micah in the back seat. “If I don’t find anything—I’ll let it go. For good.”
Micah arched an eyebrow.
Seth wasn’t kidding when he said his cabin was off the grid. He’d driven Conner, Romeo, and Micah up the Gunflint Trail, the back dirt road, until they came to a clearing in the woods. Set back from the road and overlooking a glistening, sun-soaked lake, a two story A-frame faced the beauty of the North Shore. Cedar-sided and with a deck that ran around the exterior of the home, the house looked like it had grown in place, the scent of sawdust mingling with pine, and the forest loam collecting under the towering oak and maple. A curly haired black Lab mix got up from his perch on the deck in the sun and ran toward them, tail circling.
“That’s Walter,” Seth said. He ran a hand through the dog’s hair. “Better than a wife—he never complains when I get home late.” He opened the front door, led the way inside. “I’ll grab my computer.”
Light gleamed all the way through the house, open from the front door to the two-story paned windows that looked out onto the lake.
“Told you it was rustic,” Seth said.
The interior of the house was mostly studs, plywood floors, and shop lights. At least it had a working kitchen—a stainless steel fridge shoved into one corner, a granite counter, farmhouse sink, and an oven built into the center island. He’d thrown rugs down over the plywood; a worn leather sofa and a picnic table the only pieces of furniture in the cavernous room.
Stairs ascended to a lofted area that overlooked the main floor, and Conner guessed Seth slept with a second-story view of the lake.
“Nice place,” Conner said as Seth dug a laptop out of a backpack near the sofa.
“Thanks. I bought the land with the intent of building a house for the woman I wanted to marry. But...she didn’t want me. So, I didn’t know what else to do but build it anyway.”
“You built this yourself?” Micah said as he walked to the windows. A loon landed on the lake, blooming rose-gold in the setting sun.
“Yeah. I’m really a carpenter, not a security guard,” Seth said.
“Huh,” Micah said. Glanced at Conner, who hid a smile.
“I ran out of money. And frankly, energy. Who builds a house for a girl who doesn’t want you?”
Conner had no words for that because suddenly Liza’s words rose inside him.I just love Deep Haven. I...I don’t want to leave here.
Hopefully she wasn’t saying something else.
But no—she would have told him if she didn’t want to move to Montana.
He opened the laptop. “No password?”
“Who’s going to find me out here? I’m just lucky the broadband guys were laying line up the highway—I got them to put in an extension up here. Otherwise, I’d really be cut off.”
“He’s right. No cell service.” Micah was lifting his phone, trying to find a signal.
“You can use the internet and call over that if you have the right phone,” Seth said.
Conner set Donny Whistler/Danny Washburn’s phone on the counter. “Do you have a charger cable?”
Seth rummaged around in a drawer, produced the right cable, and Conner connected it to the computer.
“I store all my programs on my cloud,” Conner said. He glanced at Micah. “Learned that one after Missouri, when we helped Lacey find little Emily. Backup, always.” He logged into his cloud and pulled down a program. “It’ll take a few minutes to install.”
Seth had opened the fridge, now pulled out some root beers and handed them out.
Conner’s stomach let out a roar. “Sorry. We should have picked up something to eat.”
“I’ll throw some steaks on the grill,” Seth said. “I hope you like venison.”
So maybe thiswasa bachelor party—his kind of party, where they tracked down evil, set the world right again.
Conner opened his program. “I wrote this a few years ago, when I was working with Micah. I did some ethical hacking on the side, breaking through firewalls, that sort of thing.”
Micah slid onto a stool beside him. “Dani and Andee would love to see you.” He opened up his soda. “They wanted to be here.”
