The Spiritist: A Aerilyn Mathew Novel (Aerilyn Mathew Novels Book 1) Read online

  “Actually it would be better if we went now. Gives me time to set up things,” he said, not sure what was going on.

  “Oh, alright. Another day. Coffee?” Sarah offered.

  “Sure.” Cole allowed her to pour some for him. Aerilyn vanished with a look of profound relief on her face.

  Cole sat to wait. While he sipped coffee, he sent emails to his assistants. If he was going to stay here, he would need a few things. It was time to plan how to catch the bastards who had killed once, and were most likely to kill again if they were not stopped.

  This murder investigation was just beginning – and he wasn’t going to let it go until Aerilyn was in the clear.

  Chapter Eleven

  Cole surveyed the bullet hole in the door. Muttering to himself, he took measurements and notes. Using her ladder, he climbed up and did the same to the hole in the ceiling. With his phone, he took pictures and emailed it to his associates. In short, he did whatever men did to protect their home and hearth.

  With a great amount of patience, Aerilyn stood and watched his antics. “It was a Smith and Wesson revolver,” he commented.

  She watched as he put the ladder back in her store. His presence in her cabin was comforting. Perhaps she hadn’t admitted it to herself, but she had been dreading returning to her empty home. She’d thought she would never feel safe here again – but somehow, he made her fears disappear. “Since I don’t know anything about guns, I’ll take your word for it,” she told him, amused by his attention to detail.

  To her surprise, he walked over, gathered her in a hug, and buried his face in her hair. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

  “I know.” It was nice that he felt so strongly about her safety. Nice? Perhaps, that word was an understatement. She felt loved and cared for. He made her feel special, as if she was the only woman in the world – at least for him.

  It scared her that he seemed to have developed such a strong hold on her in such a short time. Was she setting herself up for a disappointment?

  He stepped away. Brushing away a lock of her hair from her forehead, he fingered a silky strand before letting it go. “I will need a place to set up my laptop.”

  “I’ve a home office. You can use that.” Holding his hand, she led him towards the inner rooms. Behind the sliding door was a narrow corridor which led to two rooms. “That’s my bedroom,” she pointed to the one on the right. She led him to the one on the left. A desk dominated the room. Behind it was a set of double sliding doors that opened into the backyard. Two of the walls held shelves that contained books. Knight was sitting under the desk, taking a mid-day nap.

  The purple, brilliant amethyst that sat on one corner of the desk attracted his attention. It was almost as big as the emerald in her shop. “Is that real?”

  “Oh, yes. Another family heirloom,” she said. “It’s a stone of peace. It drives away stress, depression and cleanses the auras. Would you like to try it?”

  “Maybe another time.” He ran his finger over the gleaming surface of her laptop. “If I use this office, where will you work?”

  “I don’t really use this space so much. Sometimes I curl up on that couch to read.” She pointed to the off-white couch that lined the opposite wall. Truth be told, she hardly worked here, preferring to work instead in the small room in her shop whenever the need arose. “But that’s about all.”

  “Ok. Thanks.” He shifted her laptop to the side of the desk. The doorbell rang.

  “That must be Steve.”

  “Do you mind if I just look around in the backyard and in your bedroom? I need to get an idea of the layout of this place,” he said.

  “Sure. No problem.” Aerilyn went to answer the door. “Hey, Steve.” She opened the door for the handyman. “Thank you for coming.”

  Steve was tall, well-built, and muscular. He went to the gym every day, and ran also. He was Aerilyn’s classmate from school, and they went back a long way. “I heard about the shooting and all.” He put his bag down on her kitchen counter.

  “Right. Two bullets holes that need to be fixed. There and there.” She pointed as she went into the kitchen. It was time to start lunch. “And if you have time, could you take a look at the tap in my bathroom. It’s leaking.”

  Steve leaned against the counter, seemingly not in a hurry. “So what was it like having someone shoot at you? Were you scared?”

  “Petrified. It was beyond scary,” she admitted. She’d told this story a dozen times already and would likely tell it a dozen times more. This was just the way things worked in a small town.

  Steve put both his hands on the counter, eager for the gory details. “How did you tackle the guy? I heard you slammed into him, and he fell and went into a coma.”

  That was the official story she’d given the police, and to anyone else who asked her. Since most of the town had dropped in to meet her either at her cabin or at Sarah’s house, the story had taken a life of its own. “That’s about right. Except he fell unconscious. But he is alright now.”

  “What do the police think? Did he get into your safe?”

  “I don’t have a safe,” she answered patiently, used to his nosy curiosity. “The police have not released any official statement yet.”

  “I heard that he was from New York.”

  “Where did you hear that?” Cole had come in. He stood at the door, frowning. “There has been no official information release from the police.”

  “Here and there.” Steve opened his bag, and took out his tools. “Who is he? Your boyfriend?”

  “Ah! Ahem.” She hadn’t though how to explain Cole’s presence. “Well…”

  “I get it.” He winked. “Your secret is safe with me.”

  She sighed. That meant he would go straight to the bar and announce to all and sundry that Aerilyn was shacking up with an outsider. It wouldn’t take long before people put two and two together, and figured out that Cole was the same guy she had taken to the diner. Busted! There was nothing to be done now. She would just have to take this invasion of privacy in stride.

  Cole frowned. “Here and there? What does that mean? Who told you exactly?”

  Steve took measurements of the bullet hole in the door. “Who told me?” He scratched his head, holding the tape in his hand. “I think Mac, or Stone…can’t remember now. Maybe, oh yeah, it was Dill. He cleans the police station and works part-time at the bar. He told us last night.”

  Cole raised his hands, looking flabbergasted. “How can he discuss something so important in the bar?”

  Aerilyn put a pan on the stove. “Welcome to the life of a small town. Everyone knows everything.”

  “Yeah, they sure do. No secrets around here.” Steve took out a packet from his bag. “So what I am gonna do is fix your door with plastic wood, but I am not going to polish it today. It needs time to dry properly so I will come by later, maybe tomorrow, for the polishing. And for the ceiling, I am going to have to check if it went through. Maybe the bullet is still inside?”

  “The police took it,” said Cole.

  “Right O, then. I will go get the ladder to take a look at the ceiling.” He ambled off towards her store where she kept the ladder. Knowing that he was familiar enough with her cabin to find whatever he needed, Aerilyn made no move to follow him.

  Cole came into the kitchen. “They are discussing this in the bar. Someone tries to kill you, and they gossip about it?” he hissed, looking incensed.

  She put a reassuring hand on his arm. “Shh! People don’t know that he came to kill me. Most believe that it’s a robbery gone bad.”

  “Still, to discuss it over a bar as casually as you would baseball scores…”

  “Small towns run on gossip. It’s not a big deal.” The doorbell rang again. She poured some water in the pan. “Who could that be?”

  “It must be my driver. I told him to pick up a few things from my plane, and bring them over here.” He strode towards the door and yanked it open. A man in a black suit s
tood outside with a large cardboard box in his hand.

  “I’ll go bring the other one, sir.”

  “Another one?” Aerilyn eyed the hefty box. How long was he planning to stay? “A few things?”

  “Office stuff. Printer, scanner, stuff like that. I’ve also ordered an alarm system for the cabin. Someone will come by tomorrow to install it.” He walked off towards the office, carrying the box as if it weighed nothing.

  Steve hauled the ladder out. “An alarm is a good idea.” Having clearly heard that part of their conversation, he offered his opinion. He eyed the box in Cole’s hand. “What’s that? You’re moving in?”

  Exasperated, Aerilyn put her hand on her hip. “No, he is not. Cole is staying over for a few days, just until the alarm system is set and all.”

  “You should come over to the Live Wire bar one night. It’s on the main street. Come hang out with us. The first beer is on me. I’m there most nights.” Steve set up the ladder, climbed it and inspected the ceiling as he issued the invitation. “Any boyfriend of Aerilyn is always welcome in Alby.”

  “Thank you. Maybe we will drop by one day.” Cole walked out of the office and opened the door as the bell rang again. The driver had another two boxes to deliver.

  “Lots of stuff for a few days,” Steve commented as he climbed down the ladder. Picking up one of the boxes, he carried it to the office. “There you go, buddy. Are you going to be working from home most of the time?”

  Cole attached the printer to his laptop. “Sometimes, yes.”

  Aerilyn brought in the last box. She put it down on the desk and eyed the equipment. “That’s a lot of stuff.”

  “I believe you have a wireless internet system set up?”

  “Yeah, sure. I will give you the password.”

  Steve rubbed his jaw as he eyed the stuff that Cole was taking out of the boxes. “Those are some fancy machines. What does this one do?” He put his hand on one square, silver, thin thing. It gave off a loud beep. “Oops! What did I do?”

  “It’s a sensor that measures temperature.”

  Steve gawked at Cole. “Why does she need a machine that measures temperature?”

  “It’s part of an advanced alarm system. It can be switched on at night, and if anyone opens the windows or doors at night, it senses the change in temperature and beeps an alarm.”

  “Cool!” Steve shook his head. “Ten years ago we could all leave our doors unlocked, and no one would think twice about it. Times have changed.”

  “They sure have.” Aerilyn guided him back to her living room, knowing that he was going to be blabbing about this in the bar to anyone who was within shouting distance. “How long is this going to take?”

  “An hour tops,” he promised. He began working on the door. Aerilyn moved to the kitchen. She took out two chicken breasts and marinated them for lunch. She’d enough raw ingredients for a quick salad. If Cole was staying over, she would need to do some grocery shopping soon. Adding stock to the water that was already boiling in the pan, she gathered other ingredients for the soup she had in mind. She’d to admit she was a little bit nonplussed to have Cole in her cabin. Their relationship was in the early stages yet. Was she prepared to take it to another level by sharing a living space with him?

  It was a temporary situation, no doubt. And it wasn’t as if she had a choice about it.

  “There you go, the door’s all done.” Steve climbed up the ladder and started working on the ceiling. “The hole has not gone through so it shouldn’t leak. I am going to close it with white putty, and it won’t show. But if it leaks, you call me again.”

  “Right, sure.” She took out the ingredients to make an apple cobbler. Sugar, flour, cinnamon, salt, vanilla extract. On her cutting board, she peeled and sliced apples while Steve fixed the ceiling. Cole was busy in the office, setting up stuff she couldn’t even begin to understand. It looked as if he was ready to stay for a long time. Or did he expect it would take them a long time to find the killer?

  Of course, a man like him couldn’t be expected to leave his business and babysit her for days on end. How long was he expecting to stay?

  Aerilyn had always prized her independence and solitude – but it didn’t shame her to admit that she quite liked the idea of a man puttering about while she worked in the kitchen.

  “Do you know what happened to Mary two days ago?” Steve broke into her thoughts.

  She switched on the oven and after taking out a rectangular pan, began to grease it. She hadn’t lived with a man, ever. With her ex-boyfriend, they had both prized their individuality – but with Cole it seemed easy enough to slide into a smooth rhythm. “Mary? No. what happened?”

  “So this tourist guy who has been staying in the inn, some writer type, he asked her out, and then didn’t show up. So she rushed over to his room, eager to give him a piece of her mind.”

  Aerilyn mixed half of the ingredients with the apples and placed them in the pan. Steve’s stories were always long as he liked to take his time. “He wasn’t in?”

  “That’s what she thought. So she went back down, but Joe at the counter assured her that the tourist hadn’t left the room. So she went back up.” Steve put the putty in, smoothed the edges and pressed on it with the backend of his hammer to make sure it was sealed. “So there she was banging on his door, cursing and yelling. Sty came down to investigate all that noise and asked Mary to leave. But she said she wasn’t leaving until she told that guy what she thought of him.”

  “Don’t tell me Sty threw her out of the hotel.” Mary owned a flower shop right next to the inn. Sty and she were old friends and sometimes even went hiking together. Surely, they didn’t have a fight over a tourist?

  “Oh no! She made so much fuss that Sty decided to talk to the guy, but he wouldn’t answer the phone or open the door so Sty opened his door, just to make sure that he wasn’t in. Sty thought the guy had sneaked out through the back door.”

  She began making the batter. “Why would he make a date and then run?”

  “That stuck Sty as odd, too. So, they opened the door, and it turned out the guy was in the shower. He had a stroke.”

  “No!” Aerilyn blended the batter. After she switched off the blender, she dropped the batter evenly over the apple mixture in the pan. “I hope he survived? Poor guy.”

  “Last I heard he was resting in the hospital.” Steve climbed down the ladder. He began putting his tools in the bag. “And Mary has been visiting him every day. Taking flowers to him, too.”

  “A budding romance, is it?” Aerilyn commented. Mary hadn’t been in a serious relationship for the past two years. About time she did something.

  “Looks like it.” Steve looked at Cole who was standing at the door, listening to their conversation. “So I am done here. I will drop by tomorrow evening to polish the door. Cole, do you fish?”

  “Ah…Not really.”

  “Too bad. A bunch of us are going fishing over the weekend. You are welcome to join us if you want.” Steve picked up his bag. “See you guys.”

  After he walked out, Cole walked across to the kitchen and watched as Aerilyn popped the apple cobbler into the oven. She set the timer and turned her attention to the stock that was simmering on the stove. “What was that? A gossip session?”

  She tossed her hair. “It was an exchange of information.”

  “It seems that I have a few things to learn about the ways of small towns.”

  She added chunks of chicken, a generous portion of cream, and spices to the soup. “Yeah, well, you will learn fast enough. I need to go to the shop after lunch. Selina has been handling it all day today but I can’t just abandon her.”

  “I’ll go with you. Don’t worry, I won’t be in your way. There is a lot of stuff I need to catch up on so I will take my laptop with me.”

  “Oh, alright.” How long would it take him to get bored with her routine? Surely a man like him wouldn’t be content to follow her around while she did her mundane tasks. She wondered wh
at it would feel like when he left.

  The pain of his departure would probably slice her heart. She put the thought aside. It wouldn’t do to dwell on such negative emotions. She was going to enjoy it while he stayed.

  “Do you need any help there?” He leaned forward, breathing in the appetizing smell that was beginning to waft from the soup.

  She burst out laughing. His offer had been so blatantly insincere. “Can you cook?”

  “Not really,” he admitted, a wry smile on his lips. “I can boil an egg. Make coffee. Maybe put together an omelet. That’s about it.”

  “You’re on breakfast duty then. And we are going out for dinner so that’s taken care of for today.”

  “Oh, we are about to have our second date?”

  The soup would take another fifteen minutes. She had time on her hand. Aerilyn picked up her cell phone. “Something like that. I am going to call my mom and grandmother and tell them about this…the intruder in the house. If I don’t tell them, someone else will…and then I will be in trouble for withholding information.”

  “Alright. I’ll be in your office.” He went back inside and Aerilyn called her grandmother. The conversation was short. Nan was terribly worried, but Aerilyn assured her that she was safe. Of course she had to also tell about Cole and his presence in the house. To her surprise, her grandmother didn’t ask as many questions as she had expected. Aerilyn suspected that she had already received a dose of information from another source, and was, for the moment, confident about her safety.

  The call to her mother took longer. There were tears on the other side, as well as long-winded promises that Aerilyn made. She had to give Cole’s background and a promise that she would let him install a new security system.

  Finally, she got off the phone. Rather than wonder about what he was doing back there, Aerilyn busied herself with preparing for lunch. She grilled the chicken and prepared the salad. Since she didn’t have a dining table, she set the lunch on the kitchen counter. The three bar stools set against the counter would have to suffice.