Liam was enjoying their dinner together. What wasn’t there to enjoy? A hot woman and plenty of sex, then steak and potatoes.
Even the conversation wasn’t all that bad. They’d gotten off the topic he’d originally planned for the night. He’d wanted her to know that he had every intention of following through on the integrity of the farm under his ownership and was hoping he could convince her of that.
In the end, they talked more about themselves growing up and the relationship with their parents. Or her lack of one with her father. In some ways that was better. It really needed to be about them now. He had to work at separating the two.
But the moment that call came in, he knew their cozy little interlude was over.
Now the two of them were racing to the farm. “Did she go into the house?”
“She said she didn’t. That she was scared and went back to the bakery.”
“That was smart. Maybe she should call the police.”
“Why didn’t I tell her to do that?” she said, looking over at him, distressed. “She’s out there alone by now.”
“She’ll be fine. Call her now and talk to her. Let her know we’re only about five minutes away. Tell her to call the police if she wants.”
Ali looked a little pale, but she called her mother. “Where are you, Mom? Who are you talking to?” Liam looked over quickly. “Oh, good. Okay. You’re fine then. No, don’t laugh at me. We’ll be there in a few minutes.”
“What’s going on?” Liam asked once she disconnected the call.
“She’s talking with Jim. When she saw the glass was broken she called me right away and she was terrified. I heard it in her voice. On her way running back to the bakery, she saw Jim in the barn and he’s there with her. He went in the house and said it’s clear. They were laughing about it all.”
“Laughing?” Liam asked.
“Yes. I asked if she was fine and she laughed and told me it’s just broken glass. No reason to be worried.”
“I think that’s a reason to be worried.”
“Me too,” Ali said indignantly. “All the years we’d lived there, there’d never been any problems. I don’t know why there is now.”
“Because I think the word is getting out of the sale. When people hear that, they think there is something more going on. That maybe there is a value there that they didn’t see before.”
“The house is old. There isn’t anything there,” Ali argued.
Land has value, but there was no reason to go into that right now. “Stranger things have happened. I’ll fix the door for her tonight.”
“I’ll see if she wants to stay with me.”
“You only have one bedroom in your apartment.”
“I can sleep on the couch.”
“I’d say that you could both stay with me, but then we’d have some questions to answer,” he said.
This time she laughed with him. “Liam. We’re arriving together with no time for me to contact and get you after her call. It’s too late to worry about questions.”
She was smiling, so he took that as a good sign. “And you’ve got a nice ‘I’ve been used well’ look on your face right now.”
“What?” she screeched and pulled down the visor to look in the mirror. “Not funny.”
“Sure it was.”
There was no more time to talk since they pulled into the farm and saw Belinda and Jim sitting in the rocking chairs on the back porch like an old couple getting ready to retire for the night.
***
Ali was stunned to see her mother so relaxed over this, sitting there talking with Jim as if nothing even happened. Of course, her mother always seemed happy and relaxed around Jim. Hmm...was something going on there? Maybe she should have looked more closely at her mother’s life before now.
She pushed it aside and sprinted forward with Liam. “What happened, Mom?”
“There was no reason to rush,” her mother said and Ali barely held back the snort. That wasn’t the message her mother conveyed when she interrupted her and Liam’s dinner.
“Someone tried to break into the house. That is a reason to rush,” she said.
“You didn’t need to stop and get Liam,” her mother said, frowning. “Wait. How did you two get here so fast and together?”
Nothing got by her mother. Thankfully Liam cut her off since he was already looking at the door. “It doesn’t look like there is any damage to the security locks I installed. Ali said the door was ajar?”
“No. I thought it was. I didn’t get that close. When I came back with Jim, he said the door was shut and still locked.”
Ali frowned. “But you said it looked like it was open, now you’re saying it wasn’t?” she turned and looked at Jim.
“I caught your mother running to the bakery. I’ve never seen her run like that and thought the place was on fire and yelled her name out. When she told me what was going on, we came back and the door was locked. She had to use her code to get in,” Jim said.
“Was there anyone else on the property other than you two?” Ali asked.
“The parking lot was empty,” her mother said.
“You know as well as I do, anyone could park on the roads and walk through the orchard to get here,” Liam said.
“Are you trying to scare Belinda?” Jim asked, narrowing his eyes at Liam.
“No, he’s not,” Ali said. “He’s trying to get everyone to see the potential danger.”
Liam knelt down and looked at the doorknob closer and saw scratch marks. “Looks like someone tried to pick the lock.”
“How do you know?” she asked.
“Because this was new and it’s all scratched.”
“I thought the code unlocked the door, that you didn’t need a key?” Ali asked.
“You can use a key or the code,” Liam said. “How easy was that code you gave me?”
“What do you mean?” her mother asked.
“You gave me a six-digit code. Is it something anyone could guess?”
“It’s Ali’s birthday,” her mother said.
“Mom,” Ali said. “Don’t you know better than to do that?”
“I wanted something I could remember,” her mother said.
Ali rolled her eyes and then turned to Liam. “So you think they tried to pick the lock and when they couldn’t, they guessed at the code? And when that didn’t happen, broke the window to reach in and unlock it?”
“That’s my thought,” he said. “Let’s go in and look around and find out if anything is missing.”
“There’s no damage,” Ali said, moving into the kitchen. “Other than the broken window.”
“There is no one that knows me that would break into my house,” Belinda said. “Besides, there isn’t anything here for them to steal.”
“Look around and see if anything is out of place, Mom.” She walked all over with her mother but didn’t see anything that was disturbed downstairs.
“There’s nothing missing that I can tell. I’ll go look upstairs, but I’m sure it’s nothing more than me just misplacing things.”
“What do you mean by that?” she asked.
“Every once in a while I’ll try to find something and I can’t. It’s never anything important. I’ll swear it’s here and then I can’t find it.”
“Like what?” Liam asked.
“Papers at times. I’ll look for a bill that I thought I had and it’d be gone. Then I figured I’d paid it, but I’ll get a late notice and realize I didn’t. I tend to get a little scattered like that.”
“How often has that happened? When was the last time? Go check your office and see if anything is missing there?” Ali said.
“Last week there was a missing bill. Or I thought. The papers are always out of sorts, but they seemed more so. I’ve just had a lot on my mind lately,” her mother said.
They all followed her mother to the office, but after looking around it didn’t seem like anything was out of place, not that Ali could tell. She supposed her mother might not even be able to tell since it wasn’t very organized.
“I’m sorry that you guys were called here.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Ali said to her mother. “You should come stay with me tonight.”
“No. Don’t be silly. Liam, if it’s not too much to ask, can you fix the window on the door and I’ll lock it up tight like I always do at night?”
“I’ll board up the glass and go buy a new door tomorrow, with no glass, to install.”
“If you don’t want to stay with me tonight,” Ali said, “then I’ll stay here.”
Ali could see Liam start to open his mouth, but Jim jumped in and said, “I can stay in the guest room if that’s okay with you, Belinda. I’m sure it’s nothing to be worried about, but I’d feel better knowing you aren’t alone.”
Her mother blushed. Definitely something going on there. “That works fine for me,” her mother said. “Is everyone happy now?”
Ali was far from happy, but since her mother couldn’t seem to remember what she originally saw and nothing looked out of place, they had to follow her lead.