29. The implausible evidence
It is almost midnight when Isaac accompanies Chloe to her home. The crickets’ noise is almost deafening in the dark woods tonight. She is cuddled under Isaac’s arm as if he could protect her from the cruel world outside with her left arm around his back. From the moment their lips melted together, their lives have changed and the toast became a true prophecy. Tonight has been the first night of the rest of their lives because they realized they were not Chloe and Isaac separately anymore. They suddenly became inseparable.
Chloe smiles happily and looks up at him. “Leonard Cohen’s ‘Famous blue raincoat’ sounded extra special over your sound system. It was as if he sat with us when he wrote that striking letter.”
“In many ways the evening has been very special and it is all due to you. Especially because most of the time you literally wanted to devour me.”
She puts out her tongue to him. “You were also quite active. Don’t plead ‘not guilty’, Doctor. I knew you would blame me for all your sins.”
He smiles. “So true! I could also not keep my hands off you.”
“Luckily our clothes did their thing, or else I can’t imagine where it would end up. I wasn’t prepared for such a wild wrestling match.”
“To tell the truth, I didn’t plan to go overboard, but thanks for your very good self-control.”
“Did you really prepare that steak all by yourself? It was absolutely perfect and so tasty. How do you get that burning, smoky taste at the outside but the inside tender and juicy but well done without being bloody? And those baked potatoes tasted just like Susan’s. Crispy, roasted skins but the insides mushy and soft like butter? And in your white sauce, I detected a little onion and garlic. And you also had the perfect onion rings; not at all oily but super juicy. You can easily start a restaurant.”
Isaac laughs happily. “Enough! You don’t have to tell me, I know I’m the best.”
“I haven’t even mentioned the dessert. I overindulged and I am afraid now to cook dinners for this super chef. What will he think of me?”
“No, Chloe, this was a special event. You cannot eat like this every day. Too much of a good thing isn’t a good thing anymore. I don’t want anything special for dinner. You see, usually, I just managed with junk food and I was satisfied. Maybe, if it is a good day and I find I can finish early, I’ll warn you and we can prepare supper together. What do you think?”
“It will be lovely, Isaac.”
The bright police light switch on and they help each other up the steps of her veranda. Chloe stops suddenly and looks at something in front of her front door. “What is this?”
“It looks like someone has scratched out his pipe here. I did not know Robert is smoking a pipe. Why would he empty his pipe here at your front door?”
Clea always scolded Tony when he did the same on the veranda. He then always underplayed it and said that it really didn’t matter because no one ever came to that remote part of the veranda. It was only him that sat there and smoked under the starry sky on clear evenings. Chloe now remembers the fumes of Rum and Maple that hung in her kitchen.
Suddenly they hug each other tightly. The forest looks even darker and more mysterious from where they stand in the bright light like targets. The eucalyptus trees look like silent eyewitnesses. Do they maybe know of a sneaky intruder that left the pipe remains here and is now watching them from somewhere amongst the trees? Maybe it is the same intruder that is responsible for the smoke fumes in her kitchen.
Isaac breaks the silence: “I am glad your LED light indicates your alarm is on. At least we know there is no one inside waiting for you. Chloe, let us go inside. It feels as if we are targets in this bright light.”
Chloe has another thought. “No, wait! I first want to see something.” She bends over and scratches through the ashes feeling for pieces that haven’t burnt out completely. When she finds some coarser pieces of tobacco, she rubs them between her forefinger and thumb before she pinches it firmly, stands up and carefully smells it.
Isaac is curious. “What are you doing, Chloe?”
Chloe frowns when she recognizes the smell of sweet Rum and Maple.
“What’s the problem, Chloe?”
She brings her pinched fingers to his nose. “What does this smell like, Isaac?”
He confirms her suspicion. “It smells like Rum and Maple. Have you ever smelled it on Robert?”
“No, it is just interesting. My father used to smoke it.”
It can only be Robert. Maybe that is the explanation for what happened in her kitchen. Maybe Robert has this strange habit of smoking on her veranda and maybe there is a strange draught that carries the fumes into her kitchen. That must be the explanation! Well, coincidentally Robert then also smokes Rum and Maple tobacco! This is only a classic example of ‘Murphy’s law’. No alternative explanation is possible, she decides.
Quickly she disables the alarm and they enter the house. She turns and hugs Isaac and looks into his eyes. “This really was a wonderful evening that I never will forget and you must be exhausted. Tomorrow you will be starting early. I feel guilty. You must hit the bed now, Doctor.”
Isaac frowns. “Something is wrong here, Chloe, and I will not be able to sleep at my place with you alone here. I think I should rather sleep in your guest room tonight. What do you think?”
“Isaac, I am sure it was Robert that smoked his pipe on the veranda, you really needn’t.”
“Please, Chloe, I’m only starting work at nine tomorrow. It is Sunday and we have shortened hours.”
Chloe smiles and gives him a little kiss. “All right, then. Do you want to go quickly and grab your toiletries and pajamas? I shall bring you breakfast in bed tomorrow morning. How late do you rise?”
“Eight o’ clock. Then I grab a quick bite, shower, jump into my clothes and I’m off.”
“But what about breakfast in bed, my bodyguard?”
“Sounds marvelous. I’ll go now and get my things. See you soon.”
“Okay, take the keys. I’ll shower in the meantime. You can also shower here.”
“Will do …”
“Remember to lock the security gate and put the latch on the front door when you come back, okay?”
“How else, mamma?”
Chloe is in bed with her light on when Isaac showers. He peeps in with only a towel around his waist.
“Good night, Chloe Eastwood, sweet dreams.”
She wants to see his body. “Come in and give me a proper goodnight kiss before you go to bed, Doctor Isaac Horn.”
Isaac enters her room and she is fascinated by his well-defined upper body. There is no sign of fat. He has wide shoulders and a flat stomach except for the bulging stomach muscles and he has well-formed arm muscles. “What is your secret, Doctor? How do you keep your body in such a pristine condition, especially when you work each day the whole day?”
“Oh, that is your plan! You want to steal a peek. Must I take away the towel for you to make sure everything else is in order?”
Ashamed she smiles. “No reason to go that far. I only want a nice goodnight kiss.”
He bends forward and their lips melt away in a deep kiss before she breathlessly pushes him away. When they break, she is breathing a little faster. “You are making me lightheaded again and horny. Go and sleep before I pluck the towel off you, bundle you into my bed and devour you completely. Grrrr ...!”
He smiles and she looks at his firm behind when he walks to the light chain. “Hungry kitten, may I put out your light? Don’t forget to activate the alarm.”
She grabs the remote on the night table and pushes its button. “Move your sexy ass. You have thirty seconds to get to your room before the eye that looks down the corridor picks you up. Listen, I am putting the remote on this table. If you need to go to the toilet, you have twenty seconds to get to the remote and deactivate the alarm. I suppose you will use your smartphone for light, okay?”
“Just fine, I usually sleep right through until my alarm wakes me.”
Isaac pulls the chain and vanishes. After a while, his light goes out too. Chloe lies in the darkness and reminisces. In her wildest dreams, she hasn’t expected the evening to be like this! Overnight Doctor Isaac Horn took over her life, and his timing couldn’t be better, for she needs him dearly. He feels like the anchor in the puzzling circumstances in which she finds herself at this moment.
~*~*~
Chloe awakens rudely in the pitch dark with the alarm screaming in her ears. She jumps out of bed half awake and confused. Dismayed she searches for the chain and she sees it when Isaac’s light comes on in the guest room and she pulls her light on before she runs back, gets the remote and pushes the button.
“Chloe, are you okay?”
Before she answers they collide in the corridor when they simultaneously come out of their rooms in front of the kitchen’s dark opening and she becomes ice cold when she recognizes that smell. She clings to Isaac from behind with her arms around him and her hands on his heart to protect it. Isaac whispers when they slowly move through the kitchen’s curtain. “Stay behind me, Chloe ...”
Isaac pulls the chain and they stand there amazed and stare at the scene in front of them in the empty kitchen. Once again misty Rum and Maple tobacco smoke hangs in the air. But that’s not all! The fridge is wide open and there is something on the table. Astounded they go nearer and Chloe becomes numb when she sees what it is.
“Chloe, were you perhaps hungry earlier on and forgot this on the table?”
“No, Isaac, I was fast asleep and how could I be hungry! I overindulged at your place with you.”
Isaac mumbles overwhelmed: “It makes absolutely no sense …”
Like zombies, they stand stock-still and stare at the small plate with salami slices rolled around pieces of cheese. There are three left but it looks as if the rest was eaten. The rest of the sliced salami roll and cheese lay with the knife next to the plate.
Isaac goes to the backdoor, inspects it but the door is locked and the latch in place. “Chloe, stay here! I am going to check the whole place and all the windows and doors and even the attic.”
Chloe doesn’t answer, but just pull out a chair and lamely and glumly sits at the table. She smells the sweet tobacco and remembers how Tony sat and smoked it on the veranda. Isaac comes back and finds her sitting transfixed and only staring at the impossible proof right in front of her. It simply can’t be, but it is!
“Everything is locked and secure and there is not even a loose window or something, Chloe. I don’t understand! Except for us, no one was here.”
Chloe has tears in her eyes. “I was thinking I was becoming mad, Isaac, but now you are also experiencing it.”
“Why, Chloe, has something like this happened before?”
“I thought it was only Robert who smoked the same tobacco as Tony and the smoke comes in here in one way or the other.”
“Have you seen smoke previously in the kitchen?”
“Do you remember the night the alarm went off?”
“Why haven’t you told me, Chloe!”
“I would if I don’t get a logical answer and it happens again, but I began to distrust my senses. I thought I was becoming insane but now it happens again. It just doesn’t make sense.” She points at the plate with the snacks and the open fridge.
Isaac positions himself behind her and starts to massage her neck muscles. She feels how the tension releases and drains out of her while he softly speaks pacifyingly: “I first wondered whether you have walked in your sleep because it happens to some people, do you know? They call it lunatism. There are people who walk in their sleep during a full moon and do the strangest things.”
He bends and when she looks up to him he gives her a wet and passionate kiss. “See, you haven’t smoked the pipe and hid it somewhere, thus the sleep-walk theory doesn’t work. You are not going mad, Chloe. I am with you and experience the same. That is a good thing that I sleep over here tonight. I had the feeling there was something amiss, and I have been proved right.”
“Isaac, my father usually sat under the starry sky and smoked his Rum and Maple. And guess what, sometimes in the middle of the night he quietly went to the kitchen and got food out and ate it at the dining room table.”
Isaac’s eyes widen in amazement. “Salami slices rolled around cheese?”
Chloe nods and points at the plate. “Exactly like this!”
Someone knocks on the front door. Frightened Chloe looks up to Isaac.
“Oh, my goodness! I’ve completely forgotten about Robert! He must have hastened over here through the dark woods extremely worried about me. How inconsiderate of me! Dammit! I should have contacted him over the radio.”
Isaac is behind her when she looks through the peephole and sees Robert with a rifle in his hands. She quickly opens the door and apologizes.
“Oh, I am so sorry, Robert! Something strange triggered the alarm. We were so flabbergasted that I forgot to let you know it was a false alarm. I really feel embarrassed that you had to come here unnecessarily. How can I ever make up for the injustice I have done to you?”
Chloe feels ashamed in her nighties with Isaac’s bare arms around her. It must look strange to Robert and she hopes he doesn’t conclude that they were sleeping together and so lose his respect for her. Robert again bows in front of her as if he wants to say: at your service, my princess. “Now you are making me feeling even more awkward, Robert, it was really inconsiderate of me.”
Isaac speaks from behind her. “Sorry, Robert, this is really the truth: something very strange happened here. The place was locked up but we found fumes of smoke in the kitchen and someone took food from the fridge. However, it was clear that no one could have entered the house.”
Robert pulls up his shoulders and looks with his emotionless face at them. Chloe is glad he she knows he cannot show emotion or else this moment would be far more peculiar.
Just to make sure she asks: “Robert, do you maybe smoke Rum and Maple tobacco? I thought perhaps you smoked it sometimes and in a strange way the smoke drifted into the kitchen?”
Robert mimics the act of smoking by holding a imaginary pipe and inhales smoke deeply and blows it out slowly. Then he points with his forefinger to himself and shakes his head violently from left to right and gestures his disapproval with his hand as if to say: sis!
It is as clear as daylight that he doesn’t smoke and that he disproves of smoking totally!