Since Chace’s unexpected meeting with Clinton Bonar, Tate had been out of town after a skip. Chace had phoned him and told him they needed a meet as soon as he was home. Frank Dolinski knew about Bonar. To cover his bases, Chace needed Tate to know as well as a select few other men in town.
Tate got home yesterday.
They were meeting that afternoon.
On this thought, and another sip of coffee, something caught the corner of Chace’s eye and he turned his head to gaze at the lone road that wound through the ranchland around his house. Seeing as the area between Carnal and the base of the mountain where Chace lived only had one road, Chace knew every car or truck that came down that road. Living there eight years, he even knew the vehicles of friends and family members.
This was not one of those vehicles.
It was a black Jeep Wrangler.
Chace reckoned he knew who was in that Wrangler.
The Goodknight family was a Jeep family. Faye, Sondra and Silas all drove Jeeps of varying ages.
Silas drove a black Wrangler.
Watching Faye’s father’s approach, sipping coffee, preparing for what was to come next, vaguely it occurred to Chace that Faye and Sondra, when it came to cars, were like mother like daughter. Their cars were not new. Faye had never upgraded hers that he knew of. Sondra took over Silas’s vehicles when he was done. By the look of her and the way she acted the times he saw her, no nonsense, busy and active, she probably didn’t care what she drove just as long as it got her where she wanted to go.
Chace watched Silas drive through the doublewide opening in the white picket fence at the end of Chace’s lane which led to a fenced off enormous backyard. The rest of his land was unfenced. He liked the land, the space, the quiet, the peace. He didn’t give a f**k if the livestock of his neighbors wandered onto his land. If they chewed the grass it meant Chace didn’t have to mow the shit.
But that white picket fence was what sold him on this property and he sanded it and painted it once every two years. Any time there was a repair needed, he saw to it as soon as he could and he walked the fence occasionally just to check. The house was big, you could build a family there, you could add to it if you needed more room. But that long, white, rectangular line of fence surrounding it, delineating it, creating a yard, circling and highlighting the house made it seem like a home.
Chace waited until Silas made it to the end of the lane and stopped close to the house before he took his feet off the railing. He rose as Silas threw open his door. He walked to the top of the steps and leaned a shoulder against the white painted porch post as Silas made his way up the cleared of snow flagstone walk Chace laid six years ago.
“Mr. Goodknight,” he called when Silas was halfway up the walk and Silas, eyes to his boots, lifted a hand and kept up the path.
Only when he stopped at the bottom of the steps did his crystal blue eyes rise to Chace.
“Call me Silas, Detective Keaton,” he invited.
Chace jerked up his chin and returned, “Chace.”
Silas jerked up his own chin then tipped his head to Chace’s coffee mug. “Got more ‘a that?”
As answer, Chace turned and walked to the house, opening the storm door, the front door and moving through, turning to hold the storm door open for Silas to follow.
He did and in they went, Chace leading the way over the oak floors that led to the back of the house that he’d laid four years ago when Misty was on a two week vacation to visit a friend in Maryland.
Left side, a big dining room with rectangular table. The room had hints of western, hints of country, all of it with an underlying class that was all his mother.
Right side was what his mother liked to call the formal living room. Chace wasn’t formal so the room had two comfortable burgundy couches facing each other with more hints of western, none at all of country which his mother referred to as “the formal part”.
Chace moved through a deep, wide archway as he led Silas into the vast space that made up a big kitchen and family room.
The kitchen had an island in the middle with a five burner stove and so much counter space it served as a kitchen table that could comfortably seat a family of eight. The island was a showstopper but so was the massive picture window over the sink at the back of the house.
The family room had an enormous sectional, three sides which were essentially three full couches. Big flat screen TV. Shelves filled with books, CDs, DVDs. And a stone hearth fireplace in the corner.
Off the kitchen leading toward the front of the house was the pantry, a hidden entry to the dining room and doors to a utility room and the garage.
Straight ahead from the wide hall that flowed from the front of the house to the back, there were doublewide French windows that led to the back deck.
Chace went directly to the coffeepot, asking, “How do you take it?”
“Seein’ as Sondra ain’t here, three sugars and a healthy dose of half and half.”
Chace put down his mug, opened the cupboard and reached for another one as Silas continued to speak to his back.