Page 41 of Butterflies and Hazel Eyes
Gulliver rested his hand on my shoulder. “Sweetheart, any other day or week it wouldn’t matter if the doors were unlocked. Plentiful is the kind of town you don’t need to lock your doors at night. At least it used to be.”
Mathias had his hand on his hip and a frown on his lips. “I’m going to pull the security footage after I call Chief Flats. We have to contain this. We don’t want word getting out that someone is breaking into businesses and knocking people unconscious. That will hurt other people’s businesses during prime tourist season. We know these are isolated incidents aimed at us, and we know why. Agreed?”
Gulliver nodded, and so did I. “Someone wants to benefit off our hard work. I’m not going to let that happen,” Gulliver said through clenched teeth.
Mathias squeezed his shoulder once. “Neither am I. We both have deep stakes in this game, and we’re too close to the finish line to let this stop us.” He glanced at me. “Charity, Chief Flats will want your statement once we take care of the note situation.”
I waved my hand at him. “No problem, I’ll be at Myrtle. He can come around once this headache goes away.”
Gulliver looked up at Mathias. “She’ll be in my apartment. She can’t be alone after being unconscious. I’ll stay with her, and if you guys need to talk to me, come to my apartment.”
“Agreed,” Mathias said on a nod. He handed me the bag of ice. “I’ll be down to check on you once the chief leaves. If you get double vision or pass out again, you’re going to the ER. Right?”
I gave him a jaunty salute. “Yes, Dr. Mathias,” I promised, earning me a one-sided grin. “I know you just went through this after your accident, but I assure you, I’m fine other than a headache.”
He pointed to the door, and Gulliver punched in his code and helped me down the hallway, Mojo’s nails clicking on the tile from behind me. Gulliver was punching in the code for his apartment when a thought struck me.
I turned and ran back down the hallway, nearly falling twice before I burst through the door again. “Mathias!”
He spun around with the phone to his ear. “What’s the matter?” he asked, striding toward me instantly.
“Honey! The note says they know your people and no one is safe. You have to get to Honey!”
He put his hand on my shoulder to calm me. “I just sent a car to pick her up. She will be back here in a few hours.”
“She can’t stay at her apartment, though,” I said, shaking my head. I would have tipped over if Gulliver’s strong hands hadn’t caught me. “They could get to her there.”
This time Mathias rested his hand on the top of my head. “She’ll stay with me at the condo. I have a security system. Okay?” He nodded and I nodded along with him. “Good, now go lie down and put that ice on your head before it melts completely. I’ll keep you updated.”
This time when Gulliver ushered me down the hallway, he walked behind me, herding me along like a small, scared child who was ready for bed. Truth be told, I was small and I was scared and I wouldn’t mind closing my eyes for a few minutes. Whatever had happened out there told me that safety was nothing more than an illusion.
If I wasn’t safe in a Mayberry-type town like Plentiful, Wisconsin, I wasn’t safe anywhere.
♥
“Thanks for coming,Chief,” Gulliver said, shaking his hand again as the man, who was much younger than I’d expected, nodded.
“I wish we had better footage from the camera,” he said, planting his hands on his hips. “The person came prepared with that mask and bulky coat. We don’t know anything about them other than their height, and that’s not going to help us. With any luck, we’ll get prints off the note or the door.” He turned to point at me. “Make sure you take care of yourself, little lady. I’m sorry this happened to you in a place like Plentiful. We have the lowest crime rate in the state, for obvious reasons. This is out of character for our area.”
I held the ice pack to my head and smiled. “I understand, Chief. I know this is an isolated incident because of the things going on here at Butterfly Junction. There’s no reason to worry about me running through the streets crying fire. As far as anyone else needs to know, I fell and hit my head.”
He nodded once with a smile back on his face. “Very much appreciated. If you think of anything else, you call the station and we’ll get together to talk about it. In the meantime, I’ll be working on trying to get a line on who these idiots are.”
Gulliver walked with the chief to the back door where his squad car was parked. It had been hours since we came back inside, and while my clothes had dried, I was covered in sand and needed a shower. It was also way after eleven and my head was telling me it was time for sleep.
Gulliver came back into the apartment and closed the door, locking it with the code on the pad beside it. He crutched toward me and lowered himself to the couch, using great gentleness when he gathered me into his arms and held me to him. “I was so scared when we found you. I couldn’t get to you, and I was terrified. Mojo is a good boy, but he doesn’t seem to know when someone is there to help and not hurt.”
I buried my nose in his shirt and inhaled deeply. His cologne always comforted me and settled the churning in my brain. Then again, maybe it wasn’t the cologne as much as it was the man wearing it. “Honestly, it was strange that he didn’t let you help me. If he knows someone, he would never keep them from helping me. I think he sensed the danger that was still around us and wasn’t backing down until I told him to, or he knew the threat was gone.”
“You think they were still there watching?” he asked, carefully stroking my hair, sand falling to the floor from the strands.
“If I had to guess, my answer would be yes. I know Mojo and he wouldn’t back down as long as he thought the threat remained. It sounds like they didn’t find much on the video, though?”
“If by not much you mean Bill Clinton in a winter parka three times too big and not a smidgen of skin showing, then yeah, we didn’t find much.”
“They just walked into Butterfly Junction at nine at night wearing a Bill Clinton mask and they didn’t think someone might notice?”
“At that time of night, they had a pretty good chance that no one would,” he assured me. “Especially as far down the block as we are. Once the marina closes at night, there isn’t much traffic unless someone is going to the campground.”
