Which reminded her—somebody had wanted to get Ben back here recently. “Hang on a second,” she said, getting up from the table. “I have some stationery I want you to look at.” She ran into her bedroom.
“Here it is,” she said as she returned to the kitchen, setting the stationery she had stolen from Wayne on the table.
“What is it?” Ben asked, picking up the paper.
“Was the letter you received written on this stationery.”
“It’s nothing like the stationery I received. This is more like typing paper. My letter was written on ivory linen card stock. Where did you get this?” he asked, setting it back on the table.
Emma picked up her tea. “I stole that from Wayne’s desk yesterday. I thought he might be bitter enough to write you, hoping to stir up trouble.”
“You broke into his house?”
“He boards at Greta’s, and she asked me to take his laundry up to his room. So while I was there, I … just …” She threw up her hands. “I thought Wayne might have sent the letter!”
Ben’s face was unreadable. “I don’t like this,” he finally said.
“I didn’t get caught. And it’s only a piece of paper.”
“No. I don’t like that we don’t know who sent me the note. Nor do I like the fact that someone out there has suddenly decided to meddle in our lives.”
Emma looked over at Mikey. “Any ideas?”
“No. Everyone’s known for years who my father is, so I don’t know why anyone would suddenly decide to contact him now.”
Emma shrugged. “It’s probably just some busybody in town.” She stood and gathered the teacups. “We’ll find out who sent it eventually. Where is the letter anyway? It might help if we saw it.”
“It’s in New York. I left it with a detective agency, but I’ll bring it back when I return. Emma, what are these numbers on Poulin’s stationery?”
She turned from the sink and found Ben studying the paper. “Oh. Those are some coordinates I found hidden under his desk blotter. I can’t say why I copied them, other than that they made me curious.”
Ben’s face darkened. “You snooped through his whole room?”
“I was looking for the letters he claimed Kelly had written him.”
“This is northwest of here, Nem,” Mikey said, studying the paper he had taken from Ben. “What did he have these written on? A map?”
“No,” she said, moving to look over his shoulder. “They were on a scrap of paper that was old and yellowed. Like I said, I just wondered why he had kept them.”
Ben grabbed her by the shoulders and kissed her full on the mouth. Then he hauled Mikey up from his chair and gave him a hug that would have felled a lesser man. “I’ll be back Tuesday morning. I expect to find you both here, with no broken bones or near misses. Be good and I’ll bring you back something from New York.” Those dictates given, he opened the door and left. Emma and Mikey looked at each other, then started laughing.
“Did you see that, Nem? There really was moss sticking to his jacket.” Mikey ambled out behind his father. “I doubt even a good scrubbing could get it off.”
Chapter Thirteen
“Okay. Here are the choices,” Emma said as she entered the shed. “We can stack firewood, winterize the boats, and wash the plane and my truck, or we can go check out Wayne’s coordinates.”
Mikey looked up from the generator he was servicing. “I vote for the last one.”
“Good. You go dig up the topographies for that area and find the handheld GPS. I’ll pack us a lunch.”
“We flying or driving?”
“Flying,” Emma answered over her shoulder as she left. “You need another lesson in tight water landing. You came in much too hot at Smokey Bog.”
Emma had two packs loaded and in the plane by the time Mikey arrived with his own day-trip gear. He had a roll of maps, the GPS, his shotgun, and Homer, their newest homing pigeon. Shaking her head, Emma took Homer’s cage and set it on top of the packs in the backseat of the plane so the bird could see out the window. She climbed into the passenger seat and handed Mikey his headphones as he settled in beside her.
“That’s cheating, Nem. He can watch the terrain and learn his way back.”
“But think of the thrill for him. He can tell his buddies he actually flew over a hundred miles an hour.”
“You spoil those birds.”
“No worse than I spoil you,” she shot back, pulling out the checklist and handing it to him. “Like doing the preflight inspection for you. All systems are go. Let’s take this bird into the sky.”
“If Dad finds out about this, there’ll be trouble,” he warned, checking the instruments and starting the plane.
“Then we’ll make sure he doesn’t find out. Give me the maps and get us airborne, Boy Wonder. We’ll be back before Ben calls.”
“You think he’ll call?”
Emma just snorted and opened the maps.
With the confidence of someone who knew he had a guardian angel sitting on his shoulder, Mikey taxied out to the middle of the bay. “Smile and wave to Crazy Larry, Nem,” he told her through the headsets.
“I don’t see him.”
“He’s in his picture window, looking at us through binoculars.”
Emma picked up her own field glasses and looked toward the shore. Sure enough, there was Larry, eagle-eyeing them like the nosy pain in the neck he was. She felt like shooting him an unladylike gesture, but decided not to aggravate the situation. She smiled and waved instead, and watched as his jaw went slack and he instinctively waved back.
The old coot had rained holy terror down on them when Mikey had splintered his docks. The FAA had arrived and threatened to take her license away. And they would have, if not for Michael blatantly lying that he’d taken the plane without her knowledge. Even Sheriff Ramsey had been called
