Gone South (A Butterscotch Jones Mystery Book 3) Read Free

to me that he might have thought that this was a booty call.
    “I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to say much on the phone.”
    Chuck nodded. We weren’t certain if his phone was being tapped. The official surveillance seemed to have dropped off after the explosion of the black box, but we couldn’t be certain that we were completely in the clear.
    “It’s my father. He’s in the hospital in Duluth. He was hit by a car. Probably deliberately,” I added, though neither my father nor the nurse had said this. “He may die from his injuries.”
    Whatever Chuck had been expecting me to say, it wasn’t this.
    “I’m so sorry,” Chuck answered at once and squeezed my knee briefly. He was too good a driver to leave his hands off the wheel for too long though.
    “I hope I haven’t ruined any plans you have for tonight.”
    “No, not at all.”
    But I thought maybe he was lying and began to feel bad.
    We pulled into the small underground parking lot below the condo where he lived and then took an elevator up to the second floor. The walls were off- white, the carpet tan. There was no art in the hallway , no architectural oddities. It had no personality at all , not even inside . The Mountie lived here most of the time , I just couldn’t understand how. Chuck had a lot of personality. He had adapted so well to the weirdness of t he Gulch that I had started thinking of him as a resident.
    But Chuck had obviously made an effort to spruce things up for me. There were daisies in a jar and candles on the small dining table. I could smell what I guessed was lasagna in the oven.
    “This is great,” I said and meant it.
    Chuck poured me a little wine and then began to dress a salad. I don’t usually drink but he probably figured — rightly — that this might be one of those occasions when a little liquor was appropriate.
    “Let’s have some dinner,” Chuck said. “Then you can tell me what I can do to help. You want to try and see him , I take it ? ”
    I let out a long breath that was pure relief. It seemed like I had been holding the fear in since the Flowers had come to fetch me to the phone at the Lonesome Moose.
    Chuck served dinner and I even ate a bit of it, remembering to compliment him on the food and thank him for the flowers.
    I had seen Chuck whisk away a little box by my plate and put it in his pocket. Part of me was curious about its contents, but a larger part of me was just as happy not to be distracted by a gift that might have large emotional strings attached to it. All my strings were otherwise occupied.
    “Tell me everything,” he said as I poured myself a little more wine. And I did.
    To his credit, Chuck didn’t gasp, call on the Almighty, or tell me I was nuts. Maybe he knew me too well to be surprised at my request for aid . Maybe he was just too shocked to speak. I thought it a kindness to let him digest this news without pressing him for an immediate answer. It was asking a lot to involve himself in my plans. It was asking everything. If I were caught and they traced me back to him , at the very least it would cost him his job. He might even go to jail for conspiring with me .
    I wasn’t contemplating an illegal border crossing because I loved my father. It wasn’t out of filial piety, obligation, curiosity , or bravery either. The act was motivated by well-honed survival instinct and fueled with barely suppressed hysteria.
    The odd part was that I was doing it because I needed an answer. How the hell had my father found me? It had been a decade since I’d talked to him. Longer. I had changed my name, left behind every friend and contact, left the country even. But t here was obviously some trail to me and if he could find it, others could too. I had to know what ends I’d left loose. I just had to.
    “It’s natural you would want to see your father before it’s too late,” Chuck said at last. He was brimming with sympathy that I didn’t deserve .
    I began to think that maybe I had