29

FIGHTING FEAR

Over the next few days, no one called Wendy’s new unlisted phone number. But someone did call the doctor’s office where her mother worked and left a threatening message on the answering machine. Of course it was reported to the police, but what could they do? There was absolutely no evidence to link anybody to the threats.

Wendy tried not to get more scared, but she did. She didn’t leave the farm again until the following Saturday, and then only because she had promised the McDermonts she would come for Namu, and Danny was expecting to ride with her for his first day as a volunteer.

• • •

“Come on, son,” Mr. McDermont said, as soon as they arrived at Red River Ranch. “Let’s get you started over here cleaning manure out of the shed where we keep the hoofstock shut up at night. You’re not allergic to manure, are you?”

“No sir!” Danny grinned.

“How about hard work? You allergic to hard work?”

“No sir!” Danny repeated.

“Then you’re just the volunteer we’ve been looking for,” Mrs. McDermont said. “Are you planning to work just today, Danny, or can you work tomorrow, too? We get real busy on Sundays.”

Danny hesitated, and glanced at Wendy. She understood the problem. “It’s a long bus ride, Mrs. McDermont, but if Danny could spend the night? Danny, would you help them out on Sundays, too, if you had a place to sleep here?”

“Oh yeah!” Danny said eagerly. “I can sleep here in the stable. I don’t mind.”

“Oh, that won’t be necessary,” Mrs. McDermont said. “We’ve got several volunteers who sleep over on the weekend. They usually roll up in their sleeping bags in the nursery. But since you don’t have a sleeping bag with you, you can stay at our house tonight. Then if it works out that you start volunteering regular with us, you can start bringing a sleeping bag and bed down in the nursery with the other volunteers.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Danny said again, with so much enthusiasm that you’d have thought they had just offered him an all-expense-paid weekend at Disney World.

After they had got Namu into the pet carrier and loaded him into the RAV, Wendy yelled across the field to where Danny was already hard at work pitching manure over the fence into the compost. “Call me when you get home tomorrow night, and let me know how it went!”

Danny came to the fence. “I don’t know your new phone number.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Wendy mentally thought of the new number then checked to see if she had remembered it right. She had, so she handed Danny the slip of paper. “You won’t give it to anybody else, will you?”

Danny shook his head. “No.”

Wendy knew that he understood why she only wanted trusted friends to have her phone number. After all, he was the person who had actually seen the robber hold a gun to her head. And, by pure coincidence, he was also the person who’d answered the phone when that same criminal, or someone, had phoned to threaten her again. Next to Kyle, Wendy trusted Danny more than anyone in the world.

• • •

The drive to Red River Ranch had been easy because Danny was with her and they had talked all the way about the animals she knew there which he would soon be helping to look after. However, driving home alone was nerve-wracking. Wendy was so busy watching the road behind her to make sure she wasn’t being followed that she could hardly pay attention to the road ahead. But nobody bothered her. It was just her own nerves getting the best of her.

She wished she knew what to do about the fear, but the only thing she could think of was to keep busy. That wasn’t hard once she was back at Wildtrax because there was plenty to do and no Danny there to help her. First she put food and water in the small enclosure where she planned to keep Namu. Then, since she couldn’t carry the big pet carrier with a forty-pound lynx in it, she put the carrier in a wheelbarrow and rolled it across the pasture to the waiting pen.

The wheelbarrow wouldn’t fit through the gate, so when she reached the pen she had to lift the carrier out and drag it inside. Although she managed it by herself, she again thought of how much easier it would have been with Danny there to help.

“He was my volunteer,” she muttered. “I don’t know why I gave him to them. They’ve already got plenty of volunteers!”

But she did know why she had arranged for Danny to volunteer at Red River Ranch. She had gotten a good education working there and knew he would, too — better than what he could get at her place, because Red River had so many more animals.

Once she got the carrier inside the pen, she opened it. Then she quickly slipped out the gate, closing it securely behind her. She sat down to watch, but nothing happened. Wendy waited nearly an hour, and still Namu didn’t come out.

He’s afraid, she thought. Just like me. If he could see what’s around, he wouldn’t be so scared, but knowing something’s around and not knowing what or who, that’s the scariest thing of all!

It started getting dark and cold, seeing as it was the end of November. Wendy fed and watered the rest of the animals, then went indoors. The house, and in fact, the whole farm, seemed empty without Danny. Fear and loneliness seemed to be seeping into her bones along with the winter cold, but Wendy was determined not to let it get the best of her. She went upstairs to her office and began working on the accounting jobs she did for various small businesses.

At ten in the evening the phone rang. She reached for the extension then remembered that she was supposed to check the display on the new phone first to see who was calling. She ran downstairs, and saw that it was Kyle. “Hello. Kyle?”

“Yeah. Listen, Wendy. I’m going to be a little late tonight. I’m going out to County Line.”

The roadside bar was not the sort of place where Kyle normally hung out, although he had been known to stop there occasionally for a beer with one of his buddies. Wendy felt a stab of annoyance. Kyle seemed concerned that she stay close to home, but didn’t seem worried enough to be at home as much as possible himself.

“Any particular reason?”

“I’ll explain later,” Kyle said hurriedly. “I just wanted you to know, it might be as late as two before I get in.”

“Have a good time!” she said sarcastically, and slammed down the phone.

Wendy tried to work more on the accounts, but found it impossible to concentrate. After a while she turned off the computer, pulled on a parka, and went outside. There was a big harvest moon, a romantic moon, she thought bitterly, although she had nobody to be romantic with.

She wandered from one enclosure to the next, lingering near the llamas because they gave off a warm smell that was comforting. Velvet was lying down, too, but when she saw Wendy, she leaped to her feet and trotted to the fence. Wendy reached through the wire to scratch her head. Velvet promptly began sucking Wendy’s fingers.

“Velvet,” Wendy murmured, “you’re getting too old for this nonsense.” But she let the fawn suck for a few minutes anyway because it made them both feel better.

Next Wendy walked past the cat enclosures. Zari the serval, Kenya the caracal, and the two bobcats, BB and Lucky, were in asleep in their dens. If they knew she was there and couldn’t be bothered to stir from their warm beds. But as Wendy neared the last enclosure, she saw that Namu was wide awake. He had come out of the carrier and now lay on the flat roof of his den. He turned his big shaggy head in her direction and sniffed the air.

Oh yes, Wendy thought. You know I’m here, don’t you?

Later, as she was walking back to the house, she realized that because he was a Canadian lynx, native to a cold climate, the cool night air probably felt good to him. And, being blind, it didn’t matter to him that it was dark. He was studying his new environment with his nose, not his eyes.

• • •

When Kyle got home at two in the morning, Wendy was still up, sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of hot chocolate.

“Got any more of that brew?” Kyle asked.

“On the stove,” Wendy said, not bothering to get up and get it for him. “Might not be a full cup. I didn’t think you’d want hot chocolate on top of however many beers you had with your pals out at County Line.”

“Half a beer,” Kyle said. “And I didn’t go with my pals. I went alone.”

“More fun than coming home, I guess.”

Kyle didn’t answer, just stood by the stove waiting for the leftover cocoa to heat. When it was steaming, he poured it into a cup and sat down across from her at the table.

“Wendy,” he said. “I didn’t go for fun. I’m still doing detective work.”

“Seriously?” Wendy’s blue eyes flashed up to meet his.

“Frank has a friend who said he heard somebody out there was asking if anybody knew the name of the blonde who worked at the bank three or four years back. I thought maybe if I hung around awhile, late in the evening, when customers were starting to get a buzz on and tongues were wagging, I might hear something.”

“Did you?”

Kyle shrugged. “Not much. The bartender did remembered two guys. He said one was asking about you.”

“By name?”

“No, it was your name they wanted.”

Wendy sighed. “And in a small town like this somebody would’ve said, ‘Oh you mean Wendy Marshall. Only her name’s not Marshall anymore. She married the cop, Kyle Collins.’”

“But do they know where we live?” Wendy could feel her panic rising again.

“We don’t know what they know,” Kyle said. “But I think I’ve got a line on who they are. I got pictures of both of them, mug shots sent from Florida. I’ll show them to you in the morning.” He reached across the table and took one of Wendy’s hands. “I also bought you a cellphone. I want you to carry it with you from now on, everywhere. Even out to feed the animals.”

“Okay,” Wendy said meekly. Her hand felt cold inside his big warm one. For the first time that evening, the knot of fear in her stomach relaxed.