Manhunting Read online

  He was too young to retire, but there he was, not doing much of anything, a tax attorney who mowed lawns. And he was lazy and unmotivated, but he showed up on the golf course knowing CPR. And he was Will’s unemployed brother, but Will listened to him, as if he were a partner. And he was definitely not her type, yet she was more comfortable with him than with any other man she’d ever met. Strange man.

  Donald claimed her attention again.

  “There’s a store in the village that sells hats like Jake’s,” he told her and Penny.

  “Super,” Penny said, looking at him.

  “Super,” Kate echoed, looking at Jake.

  Chapter Five

  At nine the next morning—ignoring her own nagging doubts that she was wasting time she could better use furthering her plan—Kate met Jake at the lake.

  “Valerie just called my cabin to arrange a nature hike,” she said. “Please don’t let her get me. I brought a book. I won’t annoy you.”

  “You don’t annoy me,” Jake said. “Get in.”

  He rowed them across the lake and back under the willows, stripped off his shirt and lay back to sleep, just as he had the morning before.

  “Is this all you do?” Kate asked, settling herself with her book.

  “What?”

  “Sleep in boats?”

  Jake tipped his hat back and scowled at her from his end of the boat. “I get up at five-thirty and work my butt off making sure the grounds look nice for people like you, and this is the thanks I get?”

  “Sorry,” Kate said.

  Jake nodded once and put his hat back over his face.

  “So what is it you do, exactly?”

  Jake tipped his hat back again. “If you’re going to be chatty, I’m rowing you back to shore.”

  Kate shrugged. “I’m just curious. Penny said you used to be a tax attorney.”

  “Used to be are the operative words,” Jake said. “Now I’m in outdoor management.” He put his hat back.

  “Does that mean you mow lawns?”

  “No, that means I tell other people to mow lawns. Now shut up and let me sleep.”

  Kate opened her book, but ended up daydreaming instead. It was so peaceful on the lake, no pressures, no stress. Just the lake and the fish and Jake. She recalled the things she’d planned with Jessie back in the city and smiled. Jake would think she was insane if she told him.

  She looked over at him. He wasn’t breathing deeply enough to be asleep yet.

  “Have you ever noticed how reality changes, depending on where you are?” she asked him.

  “No.”

  “When I was in the city, I had an idea of the way things should be that seemed perfectly logical. But then I came to Toby’s Corners and my idea didn’t seem... well...quite right. And then I row out here with you, and in the middle of the lake, that same idea seems so stupid, it’s funny. Do you know what I mean?”

  Jake was quiet for so long that she assumed he’d fallen asleep. Abruptly, he said, “Yes.”

  “What?” Kate asked, startled.

  “Yes, I know what you mean.” Jake pushed his hat off his face again. “That’s why I don’t go into cities and why I spend a lot of time out here.”

  “Oh,” Kate said. “What was your stupid city idea?”

  “That money was good, and it would be fun to make some,” Jake said.

  “Oh,” Kate said again. After a moment, she added, “That was a stupid idea?”

  “Well, not in Boston,” Jake said. “In Boston, they thought I was a wonder.”

  “But not here?”

  “Well...” Jake stretched a little. “Toby’s Corners has a very practical idea of money. It’s the stuff you use to pay the rent and buy food. In the city, it was more a way of keeping score.”

  “Isn’t that just because there’s more of it in the city?” Kate said.

  “No,” Jake said. “For instance, take my Aunt Clara. Now she was rich by Toby’s Corners standards, and when she died she split her money between Will and me.”

  “That was nice of her,” Kate said.

  “Well, it came to about twenty thousand dollars apiece, which was a fortune here but not much to brag about where I was living.” Jake reached over and opened the cooler. “I am having a beer,” he said. “You are having juice.” He handed her a can of orange juice and leaned back.

  “Thank you,” Kate said, repressing her retort so she could hear the rest of the story. “So what happened next?”

  “Well, I was divorced and was making more than I could ever spend, and I was living in the city instead of Toby’s Corners, so it was like Monopoly money for me. For a couple of years, I played the market I lost a little, won a lot, lost a little, won a lot. It was fun. Like playing a game.”

  Jake had fallen silent so Kate nudged him with her foot again.

  “Go on,” she prompted.

  “Well,” he said slowly, “meanwhile back here, Will was taking correspondence courses in hotel management, planning to open up this old eight-cabin motel that had been deserted for as long as anybody could remember. Since he was in Toby’s Corners instead of the city, he used his money to buy up some land and repair the cabins, which of course was a really dumb investment by city standards. The family dug up some old furniture to fill them up, and he advertised and some vacationers showed up. He built some more cabins, and then he borrowed from the bank and put in the little golf course behind them. Things went pretty well for him, but he wasn’t making what the city would call real money. He was just giving some people around here some jobs and supporting himself. Barely.”

  “So you were in the fast lane, and he was in the slow,” Kate said.

  “Well, Will and I always were different,” Jake said. “Although actually, it’s usually been the other way around. I’ve always been a loper, and he’s always been a sprinter. But I couldn’t wait to get out of here, and he couldn’t stand to leave.”

  “So how did you end up back here mowing lawns?”

  “I’m getting to that,” Jake said. “You sure you’re interested in this?”

  “Fascinated,” Kate said.

  Jake drank another slug of beer. “Where was I? Oh yeah, Will was hiring some people from the town to work up here, and as the place got bigger, so did the size of the staff. Pretty soon, he was the local tycoon. So when everything went to hell, they came to him.”

  “Went to hell?”

  “Well, most of our people worked at the plant over at Tuttle,” Jake said. “Little town, about fifteen miles north of here?”

  Kate remembered it vaguely from her drive down—a lost, gray place full of empty stores and houses. “What happened?”

  “Plant closed. Owners moved the whole operation to Mexico.”

  “Ouch,” Kate said. “How many jobs?”

  “About three hundred, give or take a few,” Jake said. He looked grim for a minute. “They just moved out; no warning at all.”

  “So what happened?” Kate said.

  “Well, people started showing up, asking Will for work, but of course, there was no way he could hire that many people. But they were all looking at him, and you know Will.” Jake looked over at her. “Well, actually, you don’t know Will. He thinks he’s everybody’s daddy, Will does.”

  Kate thought about Will and Valerie taking over Nancy’s bar. “But...”

  “But what?”

  “Never mind.” Kate shook her head, confused. “What happened next?”

  “Oh, he did what he always did when we were kids and he got into trouble—he called me.”

  “And you saved the day.”

  Jake snorted. “Hell, no. I was clueless and told him so. And he said he didn’t want a clue, he wanted money. A lot of it. And he asked me to fix him up with some investment types so he could build a resort that would keep people in jobs.”

  “Oh,” Kate said. “This changes the way I look at the resort.”

  “Yeah,” Jake said. “Every time I look at that damn plywood Taj