The Last Goodnight

by Kat Martin

There were lots of pictures of Jane and Phillip at charity events, as well as photos of Rick. Jane and Phillip were the perfect couple, Jane beautiful and Phillip handsome.

  A memory surfaced of their meeting, of Smithson’s gaze running over her in an intimate way that hinted he might be a player. He had said he didn’t know Keller, but there was no way to know if it was true.

  Like Phillip, Rick was beyond good-looking, with his black hair and intense blue eyes, which Ellie couldn’t help but notice when she’d walked into his office. Though neither of the two handsome men appealed to her the way Kade’s fierce masculinity did, she wasn’t dead, either.

  In an Italian designer tuxedo, Phillip looked as if he belonged on a terrace overlooking the Mediterranean, while Rick, with a glamorous woman on his arm, was a tabloid photographer’s dream.

  Ellie sighed and closed down her laptop. So far she’d come up with no reason for any of the executives to hire Frank Keller, or any connection to Kade Logan or the Diamond Bar Ranch.

  Feeling the heavy weight of failure, she rose from the chair and started for the door. Her feet slowed. It wasn’t like her to give up, at least not so soon. Pulling out her cell phone, she hit the contact button for Zoe.

  “Hey, girlfriend,” Zoe said.

  “I hate to bother you, but—”

  “But you need info.” Zoe’s smile came through the phone. “I work for you these days, remember? What do you need?”

  Ellie smiled. “I guess I’m still getting used to it. So you like working for Nighthawk?”

  “I do. Never a dull moment around here.”

  Ellie laughed. “Isn’t that that the truth. So what I need is something that connects Kade Logan or the Diamond Bar Ranch to Clive Murphy, Anthony Russo, or Rick Egan. They all earn the kind of money it would take to pay Keller enough to cause Kade trouble.” Her mind returned to Smithson. “And if you get a little spare time, take a look at Phillip Smithson.”

  “Why don’t I just take a look into Keller’s finances and see if I can find any large deposits?” Zoe said. “Follow the money, you know? If I find something, I might be able to track the money back to where it came from.”

  “That sounds even better. I won’t ask how you’re going to do it. I don’t think I want to know.”

  “Trust me, you don’t. Anything else?”

  “Just a personal question. What happened with you and Chad?”

  A long pause. “I saw him the other day.”

  “Great. So the two of you are dating again?”

  “I said I saw him. Chad was with another woman.” Zoe sniffed. “I didn’t know I loved him until it was too late.”

  “Oh, Zoe, you’ve got to tell him. You can’t just give up.”

  “It’s too late, Ellie. Chad warned me if I wouldn’t commit, he’d find someone who would.” Zoe’s voice held a hint of sadness. “Listen, I’ve got to go. I’ll let you know if I come up with anything.”

  The line went dead, and Ellie felt a rush of sympathy for her friend. For the first time in years, Zoe had found someone she cared about. But she’d been afraid to commit, afraid of getting hurt. By the time she’d accepted her feelings, it was too late.

  Ellie thought of Kade. Beyond enjoying each other in bed, she had no idea how he felt about her. And Kade knew nothing of her feelings for him.

  Maybe it was time they talked about it.

  Or maybe it was better that she didn’t know.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  UNTIL SOMETHING SOLID ON KELLER CAME IN, THEY DECIDED TO focus on Heather. It was the reason Kade had brought Ellie to the ranch in the first place. A little after three-thirty that afternoon, they left for Vail in the pickup, giving Kade plenty of time to locate the Springers’ address once he reached the county line. Kade hated to be late.

  He barely noticed the trip through the mountains, but Ellie seemed to absorb every dip and curve in the road. The scenery was beautiful, mountains and forests, bridges across rushing streams. Vail was one of the foremost ski resorts in the nation, a favorite of the rich and famous.

  Kade had been there with Heather a few times, but he wasn’t much of a skier, and most of the time he’d been edgy and worried, his mind back at the ranch. In the end, Heather had persuaded him that she should go by herself and stay with her friends, who loved skiing as much as she did. At the time, he’d been relieved.

  The hard truth was he’d been too busy to give his wife the attention she needed—and too naïve to realize that other men wouldn’t hesitate.

  If he’d been there, maybe she wouldn’t have cheated. Maybe he wouldn’t have decided to file for divorce.

  Maybe she wouldn’t be dead.

  “Where are you, Kade?” Ellie snapped her fingers as the pickup rolled down the road, her voice finally penetrating his thoughts. “You look like you’re miles away.”

  He cast her a sideways glance. “More like years away.” He crested a hill and pulled out to pass the car in front of him. “Heather went to Vail every year. After the first couple of seasons, I stayed at the ranch while she drove down and stayed with Anna or Gretchen. It was winter. I told myself anything could happen on the ranch—I couldn’t afford to be gone.”

  “You said half the town, including you, thought she’d run away with someone she met in Vail.”

  “At the time, I did. She’d threatened to do it before, just take off, disappear and never come back. I figured she’d finally done it.”

  “But eventually you called the police and reported her missing.”

  He nodded. “Even when they came up with nothing, I stayed in touch with Gretchen and Anna. I thought she might call them, let them know she was okay. At first, they were evasive. They figured she’d left me for someone else, and they didn’t want to betray her. In the end, nothing turned up until two years later when they found her body.”

  “And you still feel guilty.”

  He kept his gaze firmly on the road. “Yeah, in some ways, I do.”

  “You didn’t kill her, Kade. Heather made a series of bad decisions. That’s what got her killed.”

  He was beginning to actually believe it. Some of the tension he was feeling started to ease. “I don’t come here often, but this is where I met Grace. My friend Sam convinced me I needed to get out more. Vail’s about the closest place you can go where anything’s happening.”

  “Sam was right,” Ellie said. “Getting away was probably good for you.”

  “Plus nobody knew me in Vail. Everything I did in Coffee Springs was fodder for the gossip mill.”

  “I know how much you hate gossip.”

  He flicked her a glance and smiled. “After I met Grace, we got together whenever she was in town and I could get away for a day or two. She owns a condo, so she comes up from Denver fairly often.”

  “I didn’t realize your relationship with Grace was serious.”

  “It wasn’t. Not for me. But after we’d been seeing each other a while, Grace got the idea we should make things permanent. That’s when I broke it off.”

  He didn’t mention the times he’d come up in the months that followed, times he’d been looking for female companionship of the one-night variety. It wasn’t his style even then. Now that he’d been with Ellie, a night with a nameless female held not the slightest appeal.

  It was a sobering thought.

  “That’s the turn.” Ellie pointed to a street sign that read Sprad-dle Creek Road. It led into the pricey, gated community where the Springers owned a home.

  Kade made the turn and stopped to speak to the gate guard, a thin, ruddy-faced man with sparse gray hair. The guard found their name on his list and opened the gate, allowing them to wind on up the road to a house on Riva Glen. The property, a beautiful home surrounded by leafless aspens this time of year, was a castle-like structure with a couple of turrets and a rock façade.

  Kade walked next to Ellie up the flagstone path and climbed the stone steps onto a covered front porch. The heavy wooden door opened as they arrived
, and a pretty brunette in her thirties stood in the entry.

  She smiled. She had very curly hair that didn’t quite reach her shoulders but seemed to fit her friendly face. “You must be Ellie and Kade.”

  “That’s right,” Kade said.

  “I’m Judith Springer. Please come in.” She stepped back to invite them inside, and they crossed a slate-floored entry beneath a frosted glass chandelier into a high-ceilinged living room. Tall, French-paned windows looked out toward the ski slopes on the mountain across the valley.

  “Beautiful view,” Ellie said.

  “We enjoy it.” Her eyes darkened with sadness. “Barbara loved to come here. We’re really going to miss her.”

  Kade’s gaze traveled around the house. It was beautifully furnished in warm shades of beige, with traditional sofas and heavy damask silk draperies, a real showplace.

  “Will your husband be joining us?” Ellie asked.

  “Thomas wasn’t able to make it up for the weekend. My husband is president of Integrity Insurance National Health Care. Once the mountain is open, he tries to come up more often.” She smiled. “I’m fortunate to be able to spend most of the fall and winter up here, as well as several months in the summer.”

  Kade wondered if that much time apart could actually work in a marriage. He’d been with Heather almost every day, and it still wasn’t enough.

  Or maybe Ellie was right, and his wife’s unhappiness wasn’t entirely his fault.

  One thing was certain—he didn’t want a marriage where he and his wife lived apart. And why the hell had the word marriage even popped into his head?

  “Why don’t we get comfortable in the library?” Judith suggested. “There’s coffee in there, or something stronger, if you prefer.”

  “Coffee sounds good,” Kade said, and Ellie nodded. They made their way into a study paneled in heavy, dark wood. Built-in bookshelves held hundreds of leather-bound volumes. As Judith poured coffee into three mugs and passed them around, Kade sat down beside Ellie on a comfortable, chocolate-brown leather sofa and rested his hat on his knee. Judith joined them in a matching armchair.

  “First, we’d like to express our sympathy for the loss of your friend,” Ellie said. “We didn’t know Barbara, but she certainly didn’t deserve what happened to her.”

  “No, she didn’t.” Judith was attractive in a girl-next-door sort of way, with thick-lashed green eyes and a trim figure. She wore loose-fitting blue jeans and a cable knit sweater. “That’s why I agreed to see you. I want the man who murdered my friend brought to justice.”

  Ellie leaned over and set her mug on a coaster on the coffee table. “If you really want to help us, you’ll have to be completely honest. I can promise that anything you say will not be repeated unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

  Kade watched Judith’s expression, caught a look of understanding pass between the two women.

  “I’ll tell you as much as I can,” Judith said. “Is there something specific you wanted to know?”

  Ellie’s gaze didn’t waver. “Eight years ago, Kade’s wife, Heather, was also murdered. The circumstances of her death were very similar to what happened to Barbara. Enough so that the police suspect the crime may have been committed by the same man. Kade and I believe that man may have met Barbara, as well as Heather, somewhere in Vail.”

  Judith’s eyes widened. “Are you sure?”

  “We can’t be certain,” Ellie said. “At least not yet. But it’s a possibility we’re looking into.”

  Judith took a sip of her coffee, cradled the mug in her hands. She took a shaky breath. “I tried to warn her. I worried every time she went out by herself. Barbara wouldn’t listen.”

  “What happened?” Ellie asked.

  “Bryan was always busy, and Barbara was lonely. She called, asked if she could come up. It wasn’t unusual. She was bored, she said. She just wanted to have some fun. Of course I told her yes. We’d known each other for years.”

  “When was this?” Kade asked.

  “The last time she came up was the weekend before she disappeared. Barbara arrived late Friday afternoon. I wasn’t feeling very well, so she went out for a drink by herself.” Judith looked at Kade and fell silent.

  Ellie leaned over and touched her hand. “Barbara went looking for company, right? She went out to meet a man.”

  Judith’s eyes filled with tears she dashed away. “It wasn’t the first time. She and Bryan came up a few times during the ski season when Thomas was here. The four of us always had a good time. But on the weekends when my husband had to work, sometimes Barb would come up by herself. She’d go out alone, and she wouldn’t come home till morning. I didn’t approve. It wasn’t something I would ever do. But I knew she was lonely, and she was my friend.”

  Kade’s adrenaline was pumping, the story all too familiar. “So she met a man that Friday night and went home with him,” Kade said.

  “She went to the bar hoping to meet someone, and apparently she did,” Judith said. “She called me a couple of times over the weekend to tell me she was okay and having a great time. It wasn’t until late Sunday afternoon that I saw her again. She asked if she could come back the following weekend. I knew Bryan wasn’t coming up, so I said yes. It’s a big house, plenty of room.”

  “Do you think she planned to meet the same man?” Ellie asked.

  “I don’t know. It was usually a one-night thing with her.”

  “But that weekend she spent both nights with the same guy,” Kade pressed, just to be clear.

  She nodded. “She said he was really into her, easy to talk to, and good in bed. She said that was how it used to be with Bryan. Barb thanked me, hugged me, and drove back to Denver. That was the last time I ever saw her.”

  “Did you tell the police?” Ellie asked.

  Judith shook her head, moving the springy curls around her face. “The police have never talked to me. Barb was with Bryan in Denver when she disappeared. I didn’t see any reason to mention a hookup that had happened in Vail. The two didn’t seem connected, and I didn’t want to hurt her husband.”

  Kade got up and paced over to the window, turned his hat in his hands as he stared out across the mountains to the empty ski slopes trailing down the side of the hill. Whatever trace of snow they’d had was gone. It would be weeks before the season officially opened. He turned back to the women, who were speaking quietly, their heads close together.

  Ellie rose from the sofa. She took a business card out of her purse and handed it to Judith. “If you think of anything else, I hope you’ll call.”

  “I will. I promise.”

  “One more thing,” Kade said. “Was there any place Barbara particularly liked to go when she went out? Someplace she might have met this man?”

  “There were a couple of places. She said she always had a good time at The ShakeUp. It’s a late-night spot. Live music, lots going on. We went there together a couple of times, but I’m not into that kind of scene anymore. She also liked Bullwinkle’s. It’s great for after-ski. People can sit outside on the deck if they want. That’s where the two of us usually went for a drink if we were by ourselves. If Thomas and Bryan were with us, we went to The Remedy. It’s one of the nicest places in town.”

  Kade walked back to where Judith stood next to the leather ottoman in front of her chair. “We really appreciate your help, Judith. I know how tough it is to lose someone you care about.”

  She must have read the darkness in his eyes. Heather’s death had haunted him for years. Judith took his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze, turned, and led them out of the library, back to the front door.

  She stopped and looked up at him. “Whoever he is, I hope you catch him.”

  If he did, the bastard was a dead man. Kade’s jaw hardened. “So do I.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  “SO I GUESS YOU’RE BUYING ME A DRINK,” ELLIE SAID AS THE pickup reached the interchange and drove under I-70 to the frontage road that ran along the base of the ski
hill. It was already dark, the cold setting in, especially in the mountains.

  “We’re trying to find a guy who could have killed both women,” Kade said. “So far, Vail is the only common denominator. Maybe they met him in the same place. The ShakeUp wasn’t around when Heather was alive, but Bullwinkle’s has been here as long as I can remember.”

  “We might as well follow the trail as far as it leads.”

  Kade nodded. “Bullwinkle’s is basically a local’s joint. Gets lots of tourists in winter, but people who own condos, anybody who spends time in the area winds up there sooner or later.”

  There was something in his voice. “Is that where you met Grace?”

  He scoffed. “Not her style. I met Grace at The Remedy. It’s in the Four Seasons Resort. That’s where I stay when I’m in town.”

  She flicked him a glance. “You’re just full of surprises, Kade Logan. First a fancy white Mercedes. Now I find out you have five-star tastes in hotels.”

  His hard mouth faintly curved. “You should have figured that out at the Brown Palace.”

  A memory arose of the hours they had spent in the luxurious four-poster bed. She squirmed in her seat, thinking of sex, wanting more of him and trying not to let him know. “Good point.”

  His golden eyes met hers and heated as he read her thoughts. “We’ll come back, spend a few days here once things settle down.”

  Her heart gave an unexpected lurch. She wanted that, she realized, wanted something that lasted beyond the end-of-the-job farewell she had planned.

  The pickup pulled into the lot. Bullwinkle’s was a big wooden structure with plenty of parking. No snow on the mountain yet, but the place was definitely ready to handle the crowds.

  “There’s a deck in back that looks out at the slope. During the season, dozens of skiers collect out there after the lifts close. But it’s busy pretty much all year.” He got out of the pickup, walked around to help her out, and they headed inside.

  Bullwinkle’s was the kind of place that made people feel welcome. The walls were covered in bric-a-brac: old wooden skis, bent license plates, antique snowshoes, neon beer signs, Coca Cola posters from the forties—junk to some, treasures to others. Lumped together, it gave the bar a friendly, exciting vibe that drew locals, tourists, and skiers alike.