“No, surely not,” Kitty whispered to him. “Not if you work real hard.” But Kitty still had her doubts, both about her son and the man they were dedicating the next weeks to. But they were committed now. “We’ll need our personal things from the truck,” she said to Oakes.
“I’ll have my deputy run them out to you later. But I’ll take you to Campbell’s place now so you can settle in.”
Kitty walked to the door with Adam reluctantly beside her. When she looked over her shoulder to say goodbye to Mrs. Oakes, the woman appeared quite satisfied with the arrangements. Blissfully so.
* * *
AFTER A TWENTY-MINUTE ride in the patrol car down a narrow, two-lane road, Kitty was beginning to wonder if they were ever going to get to the home of Sheriff Oakes’s nephew. But the scenery was beautiful—summertime green and lush—and she found herself relaxing despite her misgivings and listening to Sheriff Oakes’s description of Sorrel Gap history.
The town had begun to thrive as a tourist destination once the four-lane road called the Spooner County Expressway opened in 1980. Before that, this narrow highway, which Oakes told her was called Old Sorrel Gap Road, was truly nestled in the elbow of two ridges of foothills rising from each side.
Kitty expected to see lavish homes bordering the country road, so she was surprised when they drove past an abandoned gas station and a couple of vacant clapboard buildings. “How much farther?” she asked the sheriff.
He pointed to a vague spot in the distance. “The Saddle Top Motel’s just over that rise.”
A motel? Good news. She and Adam wouldn’t be alone with Oakes’s nephew after all. There would be guests and employees around. When the car crested the hill, she spied a tall metal pole with a rusted oval sign on top. Then she saw the motel—a one-story brick building baking in the noon sun like a sedentary caterpillar. The sign on top of the pole proclaimed its identity.
Kitty made out the faded image of what might have been an engaging old cowpoke in chaps and stocking cap—years ago. His arm jerked crazily up and down in the wind, pointing first at the sky and then at the faded words, Saddle Top Mountain Motel. All of the letters except for the first ones in each word had paled to near obscurity. Three lightbulbs, out of an entire ring of empty sockets, clung stubbornly around the perimeter of the sign.
“Where the heck are we?” Adam asked. He’d sat up and had flattened both hands to the passenger window. His expression had transformed from disinterest to something resembling terror.
Sheriff Oakes veered left into a gravel parking lot riddled with potholes and ground to a stop. “We’re at the Saddle Top Motel, son,” he said. “This is where you and your mother will be staying.”
Kitty shot a warning look over the front seat when Adam started to speak. Then she swallowed past a lump in her throat that accompanied the realization that vacationers hadn’t stayed here in years. “Your nephew lives here?”
“Sure does. The place has been in Campbell’s family for a long time. Camp’s grandpa used to run it, but the business failed when the expressway diverted traffic. It’s been closed now for nearly thirty years.” Oakes stared out the windshield. “Doesn’t look too bad, all things considered.”
Right. If your current home was a park bench or the asphalt under a bridge. Kitty didn’t see the point in expressing her own opinion, so she just said, “Why does your nephew live here instead of in town?”
The sheriff paused a moment before saying, “Free-and-clear housing, I would expect. Once Campbell’s grandfather passed, he inherited the place.”
So this man is an incompetent pilot with a busted-up leg, and no visible means of support. Great.
Oakes continued. “Campbell didn’t need the motel until recently. Before coming home, he lived on the Matheson estate in Raleigh.” Oakes’s voice held a hint of pride. “Now, that’s a name you’ve heard of, I’ll wager.”
“Matheson? No, sorry.”
“Matheson Fine Furniture?”
Kitty shook her head.
“Well, I’ll be. I thought everybody had heard of Leland Matheson. He’s worth a few cool millions. Campbell lived on his estate and worked as his business adviser and personal pilot for the past three years since he got out of the Air Force.”
Kitty felt as if she were on a roller coaster of good news–bad news. This last bit of information was encouraging. Apparently the nephew had recently held a decent job. But since she was here to take care of this pilot who had just crashed his plane, Kitty couldn’t help wondering if his former employer, doubting his pilot’s skills, had fired him. Figuring the best way to know was to ask, she said, “So, why did your nephew leave his job?”
Oakes frowned. “He said it had something to do with a personal matter. Plus, he wanted to start a business back here where he grew up. Bought his own two-seater aircraft for taking aerial photographs. Unfortunately the fuel line ruptured, so that plan’s on hold.”
A shiver ran down Kitty’s spine. Her father often chartered personal aircraft in his capacity as owner of Galloway Groves. She always found an excuse not to accompany him on trips. The thought of being in a small plane was high on her list of least favorable ways to travel. And she figured that anybody who made a living flying one of those death traps ought to know he was only a loose screw away from disaster.
The sheriff opened his car door and stepped out. “Come on, folks. Campbell should be here in the hospital van any minute. Wanda says the motel key’s under the potted plant by the office door.”
Potted plant? Was he referring to that mildewed pickle crock with three spindly twigs sticking out the top? Kitty guessed he was because that’s precisely where he headed.
She got out and opened Adam’s door. When he remained in the car, she reminded him why they were here.
“Okay, already.”
They stood side by side staring at ten worn-out, run-down, dismal units broken by a peaked-roof office in the center. If a building could droop, this one did. In fact, the entire structure looked as if it was just waiting for the mercy of a wrecking ball.
* * *
“HOW YOU DOING back there, Captain Oakes?”
Campbell turned away from the familiar landscape flashing by the side window of the Spooner County medi-van. “I’m okay, Joe,” he said to the young man in the front passenger seat. “And you don’t have to call me captain. It’s been plain old Campbell for quite a while now.”
“Yeah, I know, but you’re still a hero around here. Everybody knows what you did over in Iraq.”
Campbell glanced down at the fiberglass splint that went from his ankle to his thigh and suppressed a grimace of disgust. Everybody knows what I did four days ago, too, he thought. A few years before, during Operation Iraqi Freedom, he had flown forty successful sorties over Baghdad in a Fighting Falcon. And then on Wednesday he crashed a single-engine Cessna Cardinal into a cow pasture. “My status as a hero, if I ever had one, is over,” he said.
Joe shrugged. “I still remember the stories about you. I think the town council should have had a parade or something when you came back home.”
Campbell focused out the window again, mostly to hide the smirk he couldn’t suppress. Joe didn’t understand. Nobody in Sorrel Gap would have a celebration for a prodigal son who’d been living on Matheson property in Raleigh. A renovated six-room carriage house on the lavish twenty-acre estate was a cultural world away from this small North Carolina town.
And the truth was, Campbell wouldn’t be here now except Diana Matheson had screwed him over one time too many. His future had come down to a choice between his pride and his cushy income, and Campbell had opted for pride. He’d left