If you leave that stray cat in your house, Martha, you'll be smelling her dead owner till spring, the deputy told me on the porch.
The air bit harder than usual, even for February in Maine. I was halfway through replacing the cracked pane in my kitchen window when a low drone rattled the glass. It grew louder, a buzzing that clawed at the quiet.
A county survey truck, its orange lights blinking, crunched to a halt just beyond my boundary fence.
A man unfolded himself from the driver’s seat. He was slight, with thinning hair and a clipboard clutched tight to his chest. Wayne Albright. I knew him from town, always working odd jobs for the county or some developer.
He didn’t look up, just started fiddling with a GPS unit.
My blood ran cold. This wasn’t public land. This was Clara’s property, directly adjacent to mine. Julian Kross hadn’t wasted any time.
I dropped the new window pane on the porch and headed towards the fence, pulling my wool coat tighter against the wind. Barnaby, Clara’s orange tomcat, rubbed against my ankles once, then dashed back inside to his spot by the woodstove, as if sensing trouble.
“Mr. Albright!” I called out, my voice raspy with disuse.
He flinched, jumping a full foot off the ground. He spun around, his eyes wide.
“Martha! Mrs. Gable,” he stammered, pulling the clipboard closer. He cleared his throat. “Just doing some routine mapping. Public access roads.”
He gestured vaguely towards the snow-covered trees.
“There are no public access roads here, Wayne,” I said, stopping a few yards from the fence line. “You’re on private property. Clara Sallow’s property. And she’s deceased.”
His face went a strange shade of purple. He swallowed hard, his gaze darting around like a trapped bird.
“Right. Yes. Just a… a preliminary review,” he mumbled, wiping a gloved hand across his brow. “Julian Kross hired me. Just checking… uh… lot lines.”
“Julian Kross hired you,” I repeated, letting the words hang in the frozen air. “To survey Clara Sallow’s property.”
He nodded quickly, then seemed to realize what he’d confirmed. His eyes widened again.
“Well, not *her* property, exactly,” he rushed out. “Just, you know, the… the original Gable boundary. For a new access point.”
He clapped a hand over his mouth.
“The original *Gable* boundary?” I asked, a tremor starting in my chest. “You mean the land that belonged to my family, decades ago?”
Wayne Albright’s face was chalk white now. He shook his head violently, but the damage was done. Julian Kross knew. He had known Clara was Clara Gable, my sister, months before her death. He had targeted her because of me. The land, the inheritance, the forced foreclosure—it was all a calculated strike.
Albright dropped his head. “Look, I just mark the lines, Mrs. Gable. I don’t ask questions.”
He started to back away slowly, clutching his clipboard like a shield.
“Get off this property, Wayne,” I said, my voice low. “And tell Julian Kross he just showed his hand.”
He scrambled back into his truck, fumbling with the keys. The engine roared to life, and he sped away, leaving me standing alone in the biting wind, the knowledge of Julian’s calculated treachery a cold, hard knot in my stomach.
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