stepped to the edge of the window and strained to see into
the woods to the east, holding her breath when she thought
she heard something. And there it was again: the distinct
sound of tires going slowly on gravel.
She ran out to the living room and opened the front door
a crack just in time to see the moonlight reflect off the
bumper of a vehicle—without any headlights—pul ing up the
narrow tote road along the east side of her property, and
worried that whoever it was wouldn’t realize the road had
washed away when the fiord had poured into the pit.
She waited, holding her breath again until she saw a set
of brake lights come on then go off just as she heard the
engine quit. She stepped out onto the porch, squinting to
see through the trees as she hugged her nightgown around
her. Dammit, she thought she’d made it clear that the
Thompson pit was no longer the local gathering place for
teenagers looking to party.
Doors opened and closed, and she frowned when she
heard voices whispering, because in her experience
teenagers never whispered. Unless it wasn’t kids, but—
Peg snapped her gaze to the hil side, just barely able to
see the excavator and harvester parked inside the back
tree line. Diesel fuel, at today’s prices, was liquid gold! She
didn’t know the size of a harvester’s tank, but an excavator
held over a hundred gal ons.
Yeah, wel , nobody was siphoning fuel from any
equipment on herproperty.
She quietly stepped back in the house and softly closed
the door before heading to her bedroom. Oh, she’d love to
cal the sheriff to come catch the idiots red-handed; only
problem was the closest deputy was over fifty miles away—
assuming he wasn’t answering a cal on the other side of
the county.
She pul ed her jeans on under her nightgown, then pul ed
off the gown and plucked her sweatshirt out of the laundry,
slipping it on over her head before hunting through the
basket for some socks. If those yahoos out there hadn’t
heard she didn’t tolerate trespassers, they were about to
hear it tonight, she thought as she shoved her socks in her
sweatshirt pocket. She walked over and pul ed her shotgun
out of the closet, then took the smal strongbox off the top
shelf and carried it to the window. Not wanting to turn on the
light, she held it up to the moonlight and worked the
combination, then set it on her bureau to take out the
shotgun shel s and shove them in her pocket.
She walked into the hal and leaned the gun against the
wal , then tiptoed into the girls’ room and gently shook
Charlotte awake. “Come on, Charlie,” she whispered next
to her ear before pul ing her upright. “I need you to come out
to the living room. Shh, it’s okay, honey, nothing’s wrong.”
She then guided the girl ahead of her, snatching up the gun
on her way by, smiling assurance when Charlotte finished
rubbing her eyes awake and blinked at the shotgun.
Her daughter sighed. “Trespassers again?” she
whispered with a sleepy smile.
“I’m afraid it’s not teenagers, but somebody who’s after
the diesel fuel in the equipment,” Peg said, sitting down to
slip on her socks and sneakers.
“Then cal the sheriff this time,” Charlotte said, rushing
over to catch the gun Peg had leaned on the arm of the
chair when it started to slide.
“They’l be long gone before he can get here.” Peg
finished tying her sneakers and stood up. “Don’t worry, I’m
not going to confront them; I’m just going to see what
they’re up to and get their license plate number.”
Charlotte handed her the shotgun. “You got birdshot?”
Peg took the gun from her with a nod. “Same signal as
always; you hear a shot, you cal 911 first, and then cal
Grundy Watts and tel him to hightail it over here.” She
walked to the pantry and pul ed the business card off the
bul etin board. “And then you cal Mr. MacKeage and tel
him what’s going on,” she instructed, handing her the card.
“He’s staying at Inglenook, so he’s actual y closer than
Grundy.” She lifted Charlotte’s chin and kissed her
forehead. “You’re growing up big and strong and smart,
Charlie, and I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“Does that mean I’m grown-up enough to get my ears
pierced?” Charlotte asked as she started pushing Peg
toward the door. “Say, for my birthday next month?”
Peg stopped and looked back at her beautiful little girl
bathed in moonlight, and her heart rose into her throat
again. “You know, I think that might be exactly what a nine-
year-old should get for her birthday.”
Charlotte gasped so hard, she had to use both hands to
clutch her nightgown. “Real y?” she squeaked in a whisper.
“You’re gonna real y let me get them pierced?”
“We’l go down to Bangor to have it done,” Peg said with
a nod. “Just you and me on a mother-daughter date.”
“Oh, Mom, thank you!” Charlotte cried, throwing her arms
around her. She leaned her head back to look up, the
moonlight revealing her beaming smile. “Can we get our
fingernails done?”
“And our toes,” Peg promised, kissing the top of her curly
brown hair then stepping away. “But first I have to go see
who’s out there trying to steal Duncan’s fuel.”
“You’re just going to get their license plate number,
right?” Charlotte warned more than asked. “You’re not
gonna confront anyone.”
“Not unless I recognize them and know they’re more
stupid than dangerous. Then I’m going to stop them from
committing a felony.”
“Oh, Mom,” Charlotte said with a snort, running to
the coffee table and picking up the phone. She climbed up
on the couch and knelt facing the window, as was her ritual.
“Just let al the air out of their tires so they got no way to lug
the diesel fuel off.”
Peg stil ed with her hand on the doorknob. “What?”
“That way they’l be more worried about getting their truck
out of here before sunrise instead of stealing anything, and
you can just come back inside and go to bed.”
“Ohmigod, Charlie, when did you get so sneaky?”
Charlotte rol ed her eyes, shooting Peg another
moonbeam smile. “I’ve been living with you for almost nine
years.” She waved her away. “Go on now; we both need our
beauty sleep.”
Peg opened the door with a snort, slipping outside
before her smile disappeared on a shiver of horror. Good
Lord, she thought as she headed down the stairs and
across her driveway at a dead run. That girl was going to
be flat-out scary at sixteen. But Peg smiled again as she
ducked behind a tree at the edge of the tote road, figuring
she had it coming since she’d turned her own mama’s hair
prematurely gray.
She quietly loaded the shotgun as she decided it was
better to raise two smart and independent young ladies
rather than two doormats for some dumb, chest-beating
jerks. And if she died making it happen, every last one of
her heathens were going to col ege so they could get the
hel out of Spel bound Fal s, because so help her God, not
one of them was going to earn a living driving a stupid
excavator.
Peg double-checked to make sure the gun’s safety was
on, smiling when she heard several of the thieving idiots
cussing in whispers, figuring they’d just discovered they
couldn’t reach the hil side because the road had been
washed away. And that meant they had to go clear across
her beach and al the way around the pit, giving them quite
a hike for lugging back the heavy fuel—which also meant
she’d be able to get a good look at them in the moonlight.