The snow caught in the headlights, a swirling dervish as the wind cut through the trees and swept the powder from the full branches. Benjamin loved pine and evergreen and fir. His favorite was the blue noble, which was often harvested in this area of the world. For the past five years he’d ordered one from Winter Haven Farms, in Columbia Falls, Montana, which was fifty-seven miles west on Route 2 from Blue Mesa. The tree had arrived on December 15th, and he and Charlene had hosted a tree-trimming party that next Saturday. Mulled cider and popcorn strings, ornaments of blown glass, and an angel for the top. He was a man who thrived on traditions but had to make them himself.
While he was disappointed in Nicole’s home—it was small and ordinary, something lost in the blink of an eye—he was impressed with its location. He understood the need for solitude, that it was a place where problems were solved and new ideas birthed, but he wasn’t able to sustain it long for himself. He needed to move, talk, have fun, and there wasn’t any life in a held breath.
“We should move on.”
The words came from the driver, and Benjamin knew them to be true. He paid well for the advice, but he didn’t always like it. His eyes cut back to the house, perched on a small, rolling hill, and he wondered if wildflowers grew in the fields around it in the short summers. Did Nicole keep a garden? Did Jordan? Benjamin had always wanted that. A small vegetable garden. But once he had it, he’d found that he was not suited for the work. The most he did now was watch from the second-story window as Rico weeded and harvested, loading tomatoes and broccoli and romaine into the cook’s woven basket.
“Yes,” Benjamin agreed.
Nicole wasn’t home. The driver had a portable police scanner, and there was chatter about a murder out on one of the lakes. A kid. It was amazing, how slow the police were in picking up the clues.
He knew nothing about the missing sisters.
He gazed at the windows of the common ranch house—three bedrooms, two baths, probably—and wondered if Jordan was inside, in one of the lit rooms. If so, what was he doing?
Benjamin had a son. He didn’t want one. He’d never really gotten to be a kid himself, and he lived his life now spoiling himself as much as he could. He had a lot of toys and a housekeeper who baked cookies and purchased his favorite treats from the store. But he found it convenient for business to announce that he had a family. A wife and son. In his circles, no one expected to actually meet them. Charlene was always a pleasant surprise.
“Yes,” he said again, stronger. “Go.” There would be time later for this.
The tires spun on the icy surface of the road for a moment, and the sky was so close with cloud cover that Benjamin felt like he was being condensed, pressed down to the level of the earth.
“To the resort?” the driver asked.
“I’m hungry, Benjamin,” Charlene said.
Benjamin kept a package of pistachios in a coat pocket. He never shared these. He never allowed his stomach to be empty. People close to him thought he had ulcers. Benjamin never denied it, but he would never tell, either, that he kept the pistachios so that he never again felt the burning pangs of hunger. That more than anything else could pull him back into his childhood and into memories that weren’t sweet.
“That bar and grill we tried the first night,” Benjamin decided. It was barely four o’clock in the afternoon. Too early for dinner, but he had an errand to run first anyway. A solo venture this time. A king-of-the-mountain experience awaiting him. “I’ll drop you back at the hotel, and you can dress for dinner,” he said.
He sat back against the leather and turned his head for a parting glance at the small house perched on the small knoll and the small life Nicole lived inside it. And he knew he would come back for a closer look. Soon.
“I bet that trout is good,” Charlene said. She leaned her soft body against his, and he tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow. Encouraged, she ventured further. “That was a tiny house, Benjamin.”
“Small and tidy.” And he hated that word. Tidy meant everything in its place, and he wasn’t very good at that. Which was why he planned ahead. Why he had dump sites and escape routes mapped out. It was why he’d hooked up with Charlene to begin with—she was a natural with details. He saw the big picture and she made the pieces fit together, like a puzzle.
“We have such a big house,” she went on. “And a backyard that goes on forever too. Jordan would love the pool and your car collection.”
All the things he’d wanted growing up, but bigger.
“And maybe you’ll meet your match at the foosball table. You think you can convince Jordan’s mother to let him come visit? Wouldn’t that be nice?”
Taking care of a kid wasn’t nice. It was give me this and get me that. It was I’m hungry. I’m wet. I want Mama. It had been a huge hassle eight years ago. But the boy was grown now. Maybe it would be different. And it would be nice to torment Nicole. That was what he’d come for. Location for the auction had been his choice, so long as he could highlight the tangible benefits. And he was a big believer that all work and no play made Ben a bad boy.
“You want to play house, Charlene?”
“I wouldn’t mind having a little boy, a mini Benjamin, to take care of for a while.”
Charlene worked her hand down his arm until her fingers twined with his, but she said no more about it. She wasn’t exactly a butterfly in terms of her attention, but she wasn’t a badger either.
“I think I’ll order the seared trout,” she said, and sank back into silence.