Jane Toombs - Her Mysterious Houseguest

She tried to smile at him and her brave effort made his chest tight. This gal was having more of an effect on him than he liked. Cardinal rule—never get involved with anyone, especially a woman, who was connected with a case. He might not be working for the agency in this instance, but that didn’t mean the rule didn’t apply. The one time he’d violated it had not only nearly cost him his job, but his life as well.

If only Rachel’s hair wasn’t so black and glossy, her brown eyes so soft and warm. She was more than pretty—gorgeous from head to toe was closer. Strange some guy hadn’t snapped her up by now. Come to think of it, maybe one had. “Is there anyone you’d like me to call?” he asked.

Rachel shook her head. “No, with Eva away, there’s just Aino and me.”

Mikel took that to mean no husband, but he didn’t like to admit knowing the fact made him feel better. He was not going to get involved.

“Cerebral accident means a stroke, doesn’t it?” she said.

“Yes.”

Rachel sighed. “He’s a good man, he doesn’t deserve this.”

“No one deserves to be sick.”

“You’re right. But Aino’s special to me. He took me in when I was orphaned. Except for Eva, he’s my only relative.”

Thinking his questions might distract her from her worry over Aino, Mikel commented, “You said you’d known his son, Leo. Did he live in Ojibway?”

“No, not really. He was a teacher who taught in various Upper Peninsula towns.”

“Since he had a daughter I assume he was married.”

“His wife died right after he came back to the Upper Peninsula.”

“Oh? Then he lived elsewhere before that?”

“He must have. I didn’t really know him before he returned here.”

Her answers, though brief, came naturally. Mikel was good at detecting lies from truth. He was pretty sure Rachel wasn’t lying.

“How about you?” she asked.

“Me?”

“I’ve told you who my relatives are. It’s your turn.”

“Grandmother.” He hadn’t stopped to see Grandma Sonia on his way through New York and felt guilty because he didn’t visit as often as he should. She was hale and hearty and perfectly able to care for herself, but he knew she was lonesome since his grandfather died.

“Just one grandmother?”

“That’s it.”

The nurse they’d talked to appeared in the doorway. “Rachel,” she said, “Aino’s been transferred to ICU. You can visit him there now, but please keep the visit brief.”

“I’ll wait here,” Mikel said.

Rachel left him there, surprised at her wish that he could come with her. After following the directions she’d been given, she found Aino in the three-bed intensive care unit hooked up to various bags and monitors. He opened his eyes when she stood by his bed.

“Guess this old goat’s gonna make it,” he told her.

Rachel bent and kissed his cheek. “You scared me.”

“That young man who helped get me here—who was he?”

“His name is Mikel Starzov, that’s all I know.” Aino didn’t need to have her tell him that Mikel was kind and comforting and that she liked him, even though his questions about Leo had made her uneasy.

“The doc says if I hadn’t gotten here so quick I might’ve been in a lot worse shape. He thinks I might come out of this pretty good and we got this Mikel Starzov to thank for that.”

She nodded.

“So I want you to invite Mikel to stay at the farm for as long as he has business in the area,” Aino continued. “That’s the least we can do for a Good Samaritan.”

Rachel’s instinct was to tell Aino she didn’t think that was a good idea, since Mikel’s business seemed to involve them, but this was no time to argue with the old man. “Okay,” she said.

“Tell Mikel I’ll be home in a few days to thank him personally. You take him back to the farm now, no use you hanging around here when the cow will need to be milked. And I don’t want you scaring Eva into rushing back from Finland. I’m too ornery to die, Doc said so right out.”

As she returned to where Mikel waited, Rachel tried to tell herself he wasn’t a threat to them all with his questions. Something about him fascinated her against her will. He was attractive, no doubt about that, with his dark hair and chiseled features, but it was those slightly tilted green eyes that got to her. Hunter’s eyes. She took a deep breath. Rachel Hill was no man’s prey.

She waited until they were driving away from the hospital to invite him to stay at the farm, saying, “Aino insists. We have a guest cottage so you’ll have privacy.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Mikel told her, thinking it was just as well he wouldn’t be in the same house with her, the two of them alone, tempting fate.

“Do you mind if I stop to make a phone call on the way?”

“You can use our phone if you like.”

“Thanks, but I don’t want to trouble you.”

He’d spotted an outside phone at the gas station where he’d stopped before and so he pulled in there. Even on vacation he was expected to stay in touch, but private phones could be traced and tapped, so he never made agency calls from anywhere but a pay phone.

He was connected immediately and told his only message was from his grandmother who’d called the Riggs and Robinson screening phone number that led to the agency. She wanted him to get in contact with her immediately.

Before he hung up, he asked his researcher friend, Ed, to check out Rachel Hill, probably born in Michigan twenty odd years ago. Mikel had no reason to mistrust her, but a special agent always made sure.

He’d have to call his grandmother. He really should have taken a detour to see her on the way here—she knew he was on vacation. Taking a deep breath he started to punch in her number, then changed his mind and called his colleague Steve first instead.

“You’re where?” Steve asked.

“Ojibway, Michigan, following a lead,” Mikel told him. “No real news yet.”

“If you’re going to be there a few days, I’ve got some photos of Heidi I want to send you. General delivery?”

“I figure it might take a week or so up here to check things out. Send ’em along.”

Mikel smiled as he hung up, Steve thought his adopted baby daughter was the cutest thing on two feet. Which she was, more or less. He called Grandma Sonia then, who, as he’d expected, began to scold him the minute she heard his voice.

“What kind of grandson are you who doesn’t come to see his aged grandmother when he’s on vacation? For all you know I might be on my last legs.”

“As I recall you were wearing shorts when I last saw you,” he reminded her, “and your legs looked pretty healthy then.”

“A lot can happen in two months, my Mikel. Where have you got yourself to now?”

“I’m in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula in a town named Ojibway. Sort of a wilderness area. After all, I’m on vacation.”

“Don’t try to fool me, young man. You never were one for hunting and fishing or gawking at wildlife. You’ve got some other reason for being in such a strange place. You’re not working, so it can’t be that. What is it?”

Mikel sighed inwardly. Try as he might, he’d never managed to stop Grandma Sonia from asking questions. When he was on agency business, he simply told her he couldn’t discuss what he was doing, but it was hard to discourage her natural inquisitiveness otherwise. This might not be agency business, but it was his business and he had no intention of revealing the truth. What could he say to keep her quiet?

A thought struck him, making him smile. She was always trying to marry him off to some girl or other, maybe this would stop her. “I’m seeing a woman,” he told her.

“You’re interested in some girl up there in the wilderness?”

“Yes.”

His smile broadened at the few seconds of silence that followed. Gotcha, he told himself.

“May I ask her name?” Grandma Sonia finally said.

“Rachel Hill.” The name was out before he thought to invent a fictitious one. Still, it didn’t matter, Ojibway was a long way from White Plains, New York, where his grandmother lived.

“Well, dear, I don’t want to keep you,” she told him, and hung up before he could promise to come and see her on his way back to his Maryland apartment.

Which wasn’t like Sonia, not at all. He’d been preparing himself to field a hundred questions about “his girl” but she hadn’t asked a one. Odd. He was still puzzling over it when he got back to the car and found the gas station attendant talking to Rachel through the open window.

“I sure am glad he’s gonna be okay,” the man said. “Got worried when I heard he was took bad. Wouldn’t be the same around here without old Aino.” He waved at Mikel and walked back to the building.

“News travels fast in these parts,” Mikel commented as he started the car.

“You can’t keep a secret in a small town,” Rachel agreed.

If that was true, then sooner or later someone in the vicinity was bound to know the answers to Mikel’s questions.

“I have some pasties ready to bake,” she added. “I was about to turn the oven on when I looked out and saw you there in the driveway holding on to Aino. You’re welcome to have supper with me.”

“Pasties?”

“Cornish meat pies. Except not quite, because we Finns put carrots in them, something a true Cornishman would never, ever do.”

“Since I’m not Cornish, I won’t quibble. Thanks for the invitation.”

“I’ll be putting the food on the table in about an hour and a half,” she told him.

Once they arrived at the farm, she gave him the key to the small cottage and he settled himself in, finding the place a bit chilly even though the rain had stopped completely. He decided to light a fire in the fireplace so it’d be warm when he came back to the cottage after supper, as Rachel had called the meal.

Once he got a blaze going he sank into an old armchair, propped his feet on the matching stool and relaxed, thinking it’d been a long time since he’d sat in front of a real fire. Rarely did any agency investigation lead him to such a snug and cozy spot. But this time he was on his own. Was Renee to be found here in Ojibway?

He’d come to the Upper Peninsula, following the only lead he’d been able to uncover. Victoria hadn’t been able to tell him much. She’d been eleven when her sister disappeared and vaguely remembered that Renee once had a crush on a teacher of hers—a man named Leo Saari. Then she’d given Mikel her mother’s address in Florida.

He’d flown down to see Mrs. Reynaud, who was living in a retirement village and had unearthed a few more facts. She’d told him Renee had sometimes baby-sat Leo Saari’s daughter, even though Mr. Reynaud had forbidden his daughters to go anywhere other than school without their mother. Baby-sitting was therefore out of the question unless Renee’s mother had covered up for her daughter, which she admitted having done.

Rusty Reynaud had been a mean alcoholic, an abusive type, according to both Victoria and her mother. They were all terrified of him, especially when he got out his old Colt .45 with the elk embossed on the grip and aimed it at them, threatening to shoot. If Renee had run off, it was no wonder. But it was strange the Colt had disappeared at the same time she did.

Mikel stared into the dancing flames as if they held the answer to what had happened to that thirteen-year-old girl. Her old man hadn’t killed her, because a month after Renee vanished, the mother got a phone call from her, though she’d never told this to Victoria. Before Renee could say much of anything, the father had grabbed the phone, cursed her and demanded she return his gun, threatening he’d find her no matter where she hid. Understandably, the girl had hung up and the family never heard from her again.