I looked at Susan with approval. “Those are generous bequests for the previous heirs.”
Susan’s expression was rueful. “I hope they agree. They thought they would share in a much greater inheritance.” Susan glanced toward the door.
I wondered if she was remembering Jake’s awkward appearance in the doorway that morning.
Susan addressed an envelope to Wade Farrell.
As she added a stamp, I held out my hand. “I’ll mail it for you.” Late at night, I should have no difficulty carrying a truly airborne letter. Or I might remain visible and enjoy a crisp winter night walk. “Is the post office still at Cherokee and Chouteau?”
“Yes. But I haven’t signed the will yet. I want my signature witnessed.” Her glance at me was cool and intelligent. “A holographic will doesn’t need a witness, but I want one.” She carefully folded the sheet, slipped it into the envelope.
I looked at her in surprise.
Her smile was quick. “Tom was a lawyer. Wills and trusts and probate.” She gestured toward the bed. “I’ll be found in the morning. I want someone to be able to say they saw the will—and me—tonight and watched me sign it. I need someone I trust, someone who knows me well.” She ran an impatient hand through her hair. “Jane Ramsey is spending Christmas in London with her daughter’s family. Let me think…Missy Burnett has been sick and she would be too shocked to see me. I haven’t left the house much this past year. There has to be someone.” She stood and paced back and forth, murmuring names, each followed by a shake of her head.
“Someone who works for you?”
Susan’s eyes widened. She swung toward me. “Of course. Leon! He doesn’t work for us any longer, but he was foreman of the ranch for many years. He was one of the few people Mitch tried to please.” Her smile was a mixture of pride and regret. “Mitch was a handful, but he loved the ranch. Leon never had children and he treated Mitch like his son. After Mitch left, Leon kept everything going but I felt the joy had gone out of Burnt Creek for him. When Tucker finished school and took over at the ranch, Leon quit. But he’s been good to come every year to get the Christmas tree in place and put up the scaffolding. I talked to him this afternoon. I told him I hoped Keith would love Burnt Creek the way Mitch did. Leon will help me.” She started toward the hall door.
Under no circumstances did we want anyone in the household to awaken until we returned. I held out a restraining hand. “Let’s disappear.” I did.
Susan looked a trifle panicked. “Where’d you go?”
I gave her a reassuring pat on her shoulder. “I’m here.”
She jumped. “How do you do that?”
I tried to remember exactly what I did to disappear. “Think: Gone.”
“Gone,” she muttered. She faded away. “Oh, what fun.”
“Think: Here.”
“Here.” She swirled into being. “Gone.” She went.
I pushed away all thought of Precept Two. “Very good. Now, think where we want to go and we’ll be there. I need to know more than Leon’s house. What’s his last name?” I could immediately go from here to anywhere but I needed a specific location. Main and Cherokee. Perkins Drugstore downtown.
“Butler.”
“Good. Think Leon Butler’s house and there we’ll be. Since you are carrying the letter, we’ll zoom rather than pop from here to there.” Material objects had to travel through space in real time.
She shook her head. “Leon lives out in the country. He never misses anything. He’d know he hadn’t heard a car, and how would we explain showing up on his front porch? We have to drive.” She frowned. “I haven’t driven in a long time. Can you drive?”
If Susan had thought, she would have realized that driving a car was much farther distant in my past. However, I always enjoyed driving. How much fun to be behind the wheel again. “Of course.” I supposed it was like a bicycle. I might wobble a bit at first, but how different could it be?
“I’ll get the keys.” Susan’s voice was eager with no trace of worry or concern. “We’ll take Jake’s car. Her purse will be on the hall table downstairs.”
“All right.” I opened the bedroom door, whispered, “You are carrying the letter so float downstairs.”
I followed the envelope over the stair rail. I heard a soft gurgle of laughter. Susan was enjoying weightlessness. When the letter was a few inches from the hall table, the brown alligator handbag on the table apparently opened of its own accord. A handkerchief was briefly lifted and replaced. A change purse jingled. “Here they are.” A black plastic oblong with several keys attached dangled in the air.
“Excellent.”
She tossed the keys in the direction of my voice and I caught them.
With objects to carry, Susan with the letter and I with the keys, it was necessary to open the back door. I waited until I saw the letter on the porch and shut the door.
“Oh, it’s so cold.” Susan sounded shivery.
“Wear that gorgeous mink.”
“It’s in the house.”
“Think: Mink.”
“Mmmm. Thank you.”
I decided to think mink as well. Much warmer than suede. I followed the letter through the shadows to the garage.
Susan opened the side door into the garage and turned on a light. She punched a plastic oblong on the wall and the garage door lifted with a whir. “The blue Ford,” Susan instructed.
I slipped behind the wheel and Susan settled in the passenger seat. I turned the key, pumped the accelerator. I put the car in reverse. Metal scraped against brick. In my defense, I hadn’t realized the wheel wasn’t quite straight when I started. I jammed on the brakes, inched forward, straightened, backed up again.
I put the car in park and reached for the handle. “I’ll see about the door.”
“No need. Push the remote.”
“Remote from what?”
Susan cleared her throat. “It’s not remote from anything. It’s up there on the windshield to your left.”
I glanced at another plastic oblong attached to the interior of the windshield. How complex earthly life had become. However, I appreciated not having to leap from the car to lower the garage door. “Certainly. The remote.” I didn’t want Susan to lose confidence in me. I pushed the button. The door slid down. At the end of the drive, I waited for directions.
“Leon lives on Shanty Road about eight miles east of Oil City.”
In the early oil days, a makeshift camp had grown up on the outskirts of Adelaide when oil was discovered. Shanty Road ran between Oil City and the smaller town of Briarwood.
As I drove, Susan was curious. “Do you like coming back to earth?”
“This is only my second time to return. I love being in Adelaide. I was happy here.” We passed an elementary school. “Rob and Dil went to Sequoyah.” I reminisced about the harried years when Rob and Dil were little and there never seemed to be enough hours in the day and Bobby Mac was getting started as a wildcatter and twice we had to mortgage the house, the exciting years when oil gushed and we traveled to Europe and Rob was an Eagle Scout and Dil the prettiest girl in her class, and the too-short years, when I was the mayor’s secretary and knew everything going on in town and Bobby Mac was at his peak. That ended with our last trip on the Serendipity.
Near the edge of town, I roared up a hill.
“The speed limit is sixty.” Susan’s tone was mild and only slightly nervous.
I glanced at the lighted display. Oh my. I slowed.
A siren sounded behind us.