“Okay! Talk to you soon!” Franny scoots off and Kathy watches as she goes behind the bar at the back and starts pouring drinks.
She takes her little box of leftovers and the bill to the cashier, pays, and leaves. By now most businesses are closed and although Dot’s parking lot is still full, there are only a few cars on the streets. She decides to give up the search for tonight and go back to her room. She’ll call Rick, then have a glass or two or maybe a whole bottle of wine and watch a movie.
She buys a bottle of Gewürztraminer from the Red Barn Cold Beer and Wine Store near the motel. As she pays, she asks the sole employee if he knows anyone named Hank. The young man says he thinks there’s a guy at the Mister Lube by that name. Yes, he’s older, pretty old to be still working as a grease monkey, in his opinion.
“My mom says that’ll be me if I don’t go back to school,” he tells her.
“Well, the world needs mechanics too,” Kathy says; she completes the Apple Pay transaction and leaves, the sickening thought she might be related to serial killers tempered with cautious optimism. A grease monkey father beats a serial killer father in anyone’s book.
Once back in her room, she sees the bed has been turned down and there’s the little chocolate she’s come to expect on the pillow. There’s an apple on the desk. I ought to get the deluxe room more often, she thinks, not that I ever go anywhere. She shucks her shoes, picks up the remote and turns the TV on before twisting the cap off the wine and filling one of the coffee mugs.
With the wine on the night table and her laptop on the bed, she fluffs up pillows and climbs up, leaning back against the headboard. She calls Rick, but it goes to voicemail again. She tells herself he’s more than likely at Big Al’s and it’s too noisy to hear the text alert. He’s probably been spending a lot of time there since she left. She says, “Hi dear! Back at the motel now. Got a couple more places to go tomorrow. I’m going to watch a movie now but you can call me. Miss you! Love you!”
She notices that Franny has sent her contact information for an Astrid Ingebritson. It’s not nine o’clock yet. Not too late to call.
“Hello?” a woman answers.
“Hello. Is that Astrid?”
“Yes. Are you Kathy?”
“I am.”
“Franny said you’d be calling.”
“Oh, good, umm…So you know why…”
“Yeah, unfortunately. I … well, let’s put it this way. I really hope you’re not related to the guy. Are you sure you want to know? If he’s your father, you’d be better off not knowing. And as for me…I’d rather not stir up bad memories.”
“I know a thing or two about bad memories myself,” Kathy says, and takes a few breaths before continuing quietly. “I guess I’m hoping you can tell me something that proves it’s not him.”
“I see. Just a sec,” Astrid says, and Kathy hears muffled voices as if Astrid has the mic covered. “Okay,” she says when she returns to the call, “My husband thinks we should meet. He’ll come with me.”
“Oh…?”
“Would tomorrow morning about ten work for you? We can meet you at Dot’s for coffee.”
“Sure, that would be good. I’ll see you there then. I’m short and have dark hair…”
“Franny’s working tomorrow morning and she’ll put us together, no worries.”
“Thank you, Astrid. This means a lot to me.”
“You may not thank me after we talk. See you tomorrow.”
“See you tomorrow.”
Kathy settles back against the pillows and tries to make sense of what Astrid said. The Hank she worked for was a murderer. Did he do something to her? Are those the memories she doesn’t want to stir up? But then why would he leave her that property? How can memories about an inheritance be bad? She chews her thumbnail.
Her thoughts turn back to Rick. With a two-hour time difference, it seems rather late for a guy who always goes to bed early not to be at home, or not answering his phone. She feels a surge of angst. He’s fine. He just didn’t hear the phone. Maybe it’s on the charger. Maybe he’s in the shower. You can trust him.
She chews her already ragged and sore thumbnail some more as she boots up her laptop, clicks on the Netflix icon, and scrolls through the movie menu. She selects A Star is Born, wondering if Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga will have the same steamy magnetism Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson did in the Seventies version. Chick flick, Rick said, but he enjoyed it, maybe just not as much as she did.
But she can’t focus on the movie. She keeps thinking of Rick, wondering why he hasn’t called. After half an hour, she gives up on the movie and decides to take her wine outside to sit on the patio and enjoy the sound of the river along with the last of the sunset, if the mosquitoes aren’t too bad. She closes the laptop and sets it aside as she gets off the bed. With her phone in her pocket, she takes the mug and the bottle to the door.
It’s not locked.
I locked it when I came in from the patio this afternoon. Didn’t I? Yes, I’m sure I did.
She’s puzzled, thinks about it for a few moments, then goes to the room phone and calls the front desk.
“Front Desk, this is Madeline. How may I help you?”
“Umm, hi, Madeline. I’m in room one ten. When housekeeping came in to do the turn down, would they have left the patio door unlocked?” she asks.
“I don’t think so. They have no reason to use the patio door. I think it was Lorraine who did the turndown tonight. I can ask her. Is there a problem?”
“Yes! Well, maybe. I locked the patio door before I went out, and it was unlocked when I came back just now.”
“Are you sure?”
“Well, pretty sure. Is there a surveillance camera?”
“Just in the front. Is anything missing? Do you want me to send someone to come and check, you know, to make sure the lock is working properly?”
“Umm, no. I guess I only thought I locked it. But could you ask Lorraine if she had to open the patio door for some reason? I don’t want her to be in trouble, and I wouldn’t bother you but …”
“Not a bother, ma’am, I’ll ask her and let you know.”
“Okay, thanks.”
She hangs up, and blows out a breath. Did she forget to lock it? It doesn’t seem likely. But she just gave it a flick and maybe it didn’t actually lock. What else could it be, if housekeeping doesn’t use that door?
Her laptop is still here, of course. She checks her clothes in the drawers and closet. Everything seems as it was. Her suitcase, empty anyway, is where she left it. The papers on the desk are in the pile just as she left them. But her password notebook is closed. When has she ever closed it? It’s usually open, folded back to the page listing the last password she needed to look up. But the laptop, the only item of value, still there in plain sight. Why not take that? No one would come in just to fool around with a little notebook full of scribbles! Unless…
She checks her online bank account. No new entries. No new entries for PayPal, either. Anyway, the passwords for those aren’t in the notebook. As a precaution, probably completely unnecessary except to make her feel better, she changes the login password for the laptop. She makes it Rick’s name and the year they married, so easy to remember she doesn’t need to write it down.
The desk phone rings; she answers it, and hears Madeline’s voice again. “I checked with Lorraine, ma’am. She confirmed she didn’t open the patio door. She said she was in a bit of a hurry as she was running late, but she didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary.”
“Oh. Good.”
“Is there anything else we can do for you?”
“No. Sorry I bothered you.”
“Not a bother, ma’am. Let me know if you need anything.”
“I will. Thanks.” She hangs up the phone and thinks, I’m letting my imagination run away with me. No one would come in just to look around and leave without the laptop, sitting right there in plain sight on the desk and easy to pack off!
She decides against going outside. After making double sure both doors are locked, she pulls the heavy draperies over the window and the patio door and gets into her nightgown. In bed, she pulls the covers up over her head as if burrowing into a hole and squeezes her eyes shut. But it’s a long time before she’s able to sleep, and it’s not just because she drank coffee so late.
♦ ♦ ♦
RICK PUSHES THROUGH the door into Big Al’s, walks up to the bar and slides onto a stool. Marge is working the bar, spots him, and calls out, “your usual?”
“You bet,” he answers. “I’ll have a Big Al burger with fries, too.”
While he waits for his pint, he swivels around to survey the room. Lots of strange faces in the place tonight. Big Al’s has been busy since the murders made national headlines. It’s gotten so he’s almost a stranger in the old pub he’s spent so much time in for the past nearly three decades.
He spots his old buddy Marty at a table with a couple of the new guys and thinks they might work for the paving company that just opened up north of town. He’d like some paving done around the shop, and is considering joining them when Dolores catches his eye. He smiles. Marge sets his pint in front of him and he’s just taking his first good, long quaff as Dolores comes to sit next to him.
“Hey, handsome,” she says, “sorry I had to leave in such a hurry last night. The ol’ man came home unexpectedly, like I told you.”
“Yeah. Shit happens.”
“Well, he’s back on the road today. Won’t be home for a week this time.” She leans one elbow on the bar and tips forward toward him. She’s so close Rick can smell the perfume wafting up from her cleavage. As usual, it provokes a response. He takes in the scoop neckline of her T-shirt, his gaze settling on the tattoo that’s mostly hidden in her bra.
“You dying to see the rest of it?” Dolores asks in a whisper.
♦ ♦ ♦
THE VET’S TRUCK pulls out of the yard and onto the road. Rick watches from the tarmac at the barn door until the taillights disappear. He sighs, heads up to the house and the bedroom, where he puts his phone on the highboy. He goes into the ensuite, and starts the water in the shower while he strips.
He should have eaten his burger, and come straight home. Hell, he should have gotten the burger to go. Instead, he missed the texts and calls, those from both Kathy and Ryan. When he saw Ryan’s message that Dodi was in trouble, it was too late to call Kathy. She couldn’t do anything anyway. Still. Maybe he should have sent off a quick text. He could have done that from Al’s. Definitely too late now.
Ryan had already called out the vet and treatment was well underway by the time he got home. At that point, all anyone could do was watch and wait, hoping for a good outcome. Their hopes weren’t realized.
He’ll shower, then go to bed for an hour and get up again at first light. He has a grave to dig.
♦ ♦ ♦
BEARON IS AT HIS DESK, studying the documents he’s scrolling through on the center and largest monitor. Clint is certain he wasn’t seen around the motel and left no evidence of ever being in her room. He opened the sliding patio door just by lifting and jiggling it until the lock let go. He went in, got the computer copying stuff onto the thumb drive, and photographed the papers on her desk.
That he was able to do anything with the computer is unexpected. He wouldn’t have had time to try and guess passwords, but the silly girl had a little notebook with all her passwords written in it, even noting what each one was for, even the log-in for the computer itself.
There might be some interesting stuff on the memory stick, but he hasn’t gotten to that yet. What piqued his interest are the photos of the documents on her desk. That fucking Klein woman kept letters the old man wrote to her forty-odd years ago and somehow, they were found.
The house burned down, didn’t it? Why weren’t they burned up? She must have given them to someone for safekeeping, her daughter maybe. But if so, why did the daughter wait so long to surface? Why didn’t she just get in touch with the lawyers and claim her inheritance when that whole mess happened? It was national news, after all. Hell, it was international news. All those graves! And the trophies! Nineteen murders, and those are just the ones they found out about.
The only possible reason is that she didn’t know about the inheritance then, and from the sounds of it, she doesn’t know now. So what is she doing here? What does she hope to gain? If he never acknowledged her—if all she has to prove she’s related is these letters—is that enough?
“Shit! Goddamn fuckin’ shit!” He pounds the desk with his good fist. He flips to the series of photographs of the woman that Clint took while he was watching her. They’re from a distance, but zoomed in, it’s obvious she’s aged well. How long has it been since he last saw her? Not ten years, but more than five. They were supposed to get rid of her. He left before that all came down but he thought they would have succeeded. Who was supposed to take her out? The bikers? It wasn’t like them to screw up.
The will stipulates the lawyers were not to advertise. Anyone wanting a piece of the pie had to come looking for his or her biological father within five years of his death in order to get the money. Why? No reason other than the old man’s narcissism and the fact he never passed up a chance to jerk anyone around. If no one stepped up, the five million plus interest would go back into the estate, and since Bearon is the only one still around to claim it, it’s his. Or so he thought.
If this woman asks the right person, she’ll find out about the Hazens. Someone has probably already told her about them. Maybe she’ll just accept the fact they’re dead and go back to Pillerton. Maybe she won’t even think she could have a claim on the estate.
But it’s only a question of time before she connects with Danielsons, thanks to fucking Hayward. Danielsons will surely tell her about the will. That they got the sawmill and the ranch from Hazen in his will. They wouldn’t know if she is entitled to anything but they might suggest she contact the lawyers just in case. They know who the probate lawyers are and can put her in contact with them.
But still. She showed up asking for Hank without even knowing his last name. It just doesn’t jive. There has to be more to the story. Is that lawyer friend of hers already digging into the will? No, she wouldn’t have a place to start without the last name.
But he’s not going to wait around until she finds out. He picks up the phone and punches in a number.
Twelve
They Missed
KATHY’S PHONE CHIMES. She pulls it out of her purse and sees Rick’s picture. At last! She touches accept and is more than just glad to hear his voice.
“Good morning Runty.”
“Rick! Why didn’t you return my calls yesterday? I was worried something happened!”
“Well, uhh, something did happen.”
Kathy feels a jolt like a punch to the stomach. “What? What’s wrong?”
“Ahhh, ummm, Dodi colicked yesterday.”
“Oh no! Is… Is she okay?”
“No. We, uhh, oh god, Kathy! We had to put her down.”
Kathy sinks to one of the leather armchairs in the lobby and tears up. She glances around to see if anyone’s watching. Not that she can stop the sobs if there is. She puts her free hand over her eyes.
“You okay, Runty? I’m so sorry, I didn’t call you yesterday because I was hoping we could get her through it, and then we couldn’t, and she was in so much pain … when she didn’t get any better … I didn’t want to tell you last night. There was nothing you could do.”
Kathy straightens, shakes her head, and swallows hard, still unable to speak. Rick continues, “She went quietly, Runty. She was old. She’s had a good long life.”
“I know,” Kathy says at last. “Something had to happen sooner or later. I’m
glad you were with her. I should have been there.”
“You couldn’t have done anything.”
“No, I know. But you’ve had her since she was born. It must have been awful for you.”
“Yeah. Such a sweet mare. I’m sure gonna miss her. Part of life, though.” There’s a catch in his voice and when he doesn’t say anything for a minute, Kathy realizes he’s struggling to hold back sobs. “But I won’t say I don’t wish you were here,” he says at last. “How much longer do you think you’ll need?”
“Well, I’m still planning to get on the flight I’m booked on, on Saturday. I have a few leads to check out today. This morning I’m going back to Dot’s. They have world famous pies, don’t you know.”
“Better than Mutti’s Pflaumenkuchen.”
“Well, that’s the one cake she makes that I really like. In fact, I wish Italian prune plums were available all year round. But the Streuselkuchen—I’ll never understand why you like that so much.”
“And I don’t know why you don’t like it.”
“It’s okay the first day, I admit. After that it’s a lot like eating your mattress.”
“And yet, you eat tofu.”
“Try it. You might like it.”
“I doubt that.”
After a brief lull in the conversation, Kathy asks, “how about Fancy? How’s she coping, losing her friend?”
“I let her see, um, the body, of course. She’s buried now and Fancy seems to be grieving, just hanging around where she saw her lying, then going back up to the barn to look in Dodi’s stall.”
“Poor Fancy. Poor you.” Another lengthy silence. Then Kathy says, “You know, I think of you about a hundred times a day, wishing you were here. The motel is nice. They come in every day and make the bed, clean up the bathroom, then at night they come back and do the turn down, which means they fold the sheets and blankets back, in case you wouldn’t know how to get into bed otherwise!” She chuckles, but even to her own ear it sounds forced. “They leave a nice little chocolate on the pillow. And I wish I’d brought my swim suit! I told you about the pool that’s not a hundred meters from my own private patio. It’s been so hot, a swim before bed would be nice.”
The Bear Mountain Secret Page 9
