by Meryl Sawyer
Her mind returned to the mysterious man at The Hideaway. Who was he? Claire wished she had an answer. Part of her was still thrilled by the experience, but another part of her was deeply troubled.
“Oh, Lucy,” she said to her dog in a low voice, “what was I thinking?
She stared at the rugged mountains, the crested butte of Taos Mountain dominating the other majestic peaks. The sky was a sharp blue, and close. Near enough to touch. Its beauty ignited a hum deep in her chest and she almost wanted to sing. Anything to blot out the trouble last night.
She loved early summer in the mountains when the fresh green leaves shimmered on the aspens and the cottonwoods’ stately branches were dressed with deeper green. Clusters of yellow daisies bordered the plaza, growing along the walkways. Stands of sweet-smelling lilacs were visible down the street. They had blossomed along that adobe wall when she had come here as a child, clutching her mother’s hand. The flowers were as fragrant now as they had been then, she thought, reminded of her mother.
She bent over and stroked Lucy’s lame leg, whispering, “I miss my mother so much at this time of year. As soon as warm weather came, we’d have lunch in the plaza and talk.”
Lucy licked her hand, sympathy in the retriever’s amber eyes. Claire sat up, thinking that here, and only here, she felt her mother’s presence. After her death, Amy Holt had been cremated. As if it were yesterday, Claire remembered going into the forest to scatter her mother’s ashes.
Her father had opened the tin box, and Claire had been surprised to see it was filled with a fine gray powder. Go ahead, her father had told her. Sprinkle the ashes. With a trembling hand she eased her fingertips into the soft flakes.
How could this talc-like substance possibly be all that was left of her laughing, vibrant mother? The ashes clung to her fingers, and her vision blurred as she remembered so many happy times with her mother. They’d never share another joke. They’d never inspect another piece of pottery to decide if it was good enough for the shop. They’d never spend all day in the kitchen making Christmas dinner. They’d never … they’d never … they’d never …
Those happy times were gone, reduced to nothing more than a tin box full of fine, gray ashes. “I love you, Mama,” she said to the handful of gray flakes. “I miss you already. I miss you so much.”
Hot, salty tears stung her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. “I should have told you how much I love you. I always thought there would be time to say it. Please, Mama, hear me now. I love you.”
She slowly lifted her hand to the bright blue sky doming overhead, and the breeze caught the gray powder. It drifted high in the air, floating out of sight in an aching heartbeat. “Good-bye, Mama, good-bye. You’re with God now. He loves you as much as I love you.”
The next handful of ashes were no bigger than dust motes, but the fickle breeze was riffling down another mountain ridge, leaving the air around them silent and still. The ashes settled on the leaves and dappled the brown toadstools poking their caps through the dark, loamy soil. “I’ll never forget you, Mama, never. I promise, I’ll make you proud of me.”
At last the box was empty, but a thin layer of gray coated her hand. Claire brought her fingertips to her lips and kissed the talc-like powder, knowing this was the last time she’d ever touch her mother. A little voice inside her head, whispered: “I’ll be here in the hills, in the trees, in the flowers, in all the things we love. I’ll always be with you, Claire. I’ll be watching over you, darling.”
Claire kept kissing her own hand, not even trying to hold back the tears. “Mama, I’m—”
Her father hugged her before she could finish. She collapsed in his arms, silently telling her mother how sorry she was. Mama, I’ll never forgive myself for what I did to you.
All that remained of her mother was high on the mountain slopes, the slopes Claire now saw from the plaza. She whispered to Lucy, “Mother’s up there, watching over me.”
Gazing at the majestic mountains, she felt her mother’s presence, her eternal love. The heartache came, as it always did, upon seeing the mountains in their glory and remembering her mother. With the bittersweet twist in her heart came an inner peace, the knowledge that she was home again, close to her mother.
“Home. Oh, Lucy, it is so good to be home.” She’d been determined to leave for college and start her life somewhere else. For more than a decade, she had wandered, searching for … something.
One lonely night she finally admitted the truth to herself. Running away did not change the past. Her mother was dead and nothing was going to bring her back. Claire had cried and grieved and cursed herself until she was as dry and brittle as the needles beneath the pines that her mother had so loved. Only then, when the last tear had dried, had Claire known what she must do.
Claire returned home, prepared to open her own gallery and was thrilled to discover the building where her mother’s gallery had been was for lease. Reopening the gallery and using the same name, The Rising Sun, had caused problems with Claire’s father. He liked to pretend the past never happened even though the town still gossiped about Amy Holt leaving her rich, handsome husband to run away with Jake Coulter.
But Claire had learned something important during her years away. This village—and its earth-colored buildings with their flat roofs and rounded corners—was steeped in history and tradition. The natural beauty and rich heritage of this special place was in her blood. If she wanted to live here, she had to deal with her domineering father, who had never remarried.
And with the demons of the past.
She could blame Zach Coulter for not telling her about their parents’ affair, but she had to admit that she’d handled the situation badly. To this day, she still experienced an overwhelming sense of guilt when she thought about her mother’s death. Seeing Zach brought back all those disturbing memories.
“Zach is a Coulter and just being near him upsets me,” she said under her breath.
Zach’s father had shattered her life, ruining their happy family. Forgetting was out of the question. Zach was a mirror image of his father. Every time she saw him, the pain of her mother’s death returned full force.
Worse, Zach’s presence in town made her father even more irritable. From the moment he’d learned of his wife’s betrayal, Alexander Holt had changed. The light had vanished from his voice, his smile. He’d withdrawn, and time, instead of healing, seemed to make him more and more depressed. The father—who had been so loving, so incredibly wonderful when she’d been a child—disappeared.
No, she couldn’t forget what the Coulters had done to her family. She had felt sorry for Zach when his mother had died, understanding the pain of losing both parents in such a short period of time. But she couldn’t forgive him.
Not only was Zach a clone of his father, he audaciously took up where his father had left off. If a fraction of the rumors were true, he’d slept with half the women in town. Just like his father.
Lucy sat up and nudged her hand, asking to be petted. Claire obliged, stroking the dog’s silky fur, saying, “There’s no denying it. The Coulter men have a potent appeal.”
Zach had inherited his virile attractiveness from his father, and like her mother, Claire responded. She refused to let a physical reaction get the best of her. She wasn’t a silly teenager with a crush on the town’s bad boy. She was a grown woman who knew better.
Years ago, her mother had been seduced by Jake Coulter’s charms, joining the legion of women who had fallen for a man with a wandering eye. A lifetime of hard work in building a gallery and a devoted, happy family had been the price Amy Holt had paid for a tumble in bed with Zach Coulter’s father. Incredible stupidity; a mistake Claire did not intend to repeat.
“Claire?”
She hadn’t realized she’d closed her eyes until she opened them to find Tohono standing before her. As usual the elderly man’s pewter-colored hair was swept back into a sleek bun knotted at the nape of his neck. His broad face was weathered by year
s on horseback, riding across his beloved reservation. Deep lines furrowed his brow, a mark of his many terms as governor of the Taos pueblo.
She patted the spot on the bench beside her. “I guess you heard the news. Someone stole Khadafi.”
Tohono slowly sank onto the bench and crossed one leg over the over. He buffed the pointed silver tip on the cowboy boots that he’d worn for as long as she could remember. The cuff of his shirt skimmed across the gleaming silver. He wore the shirt unbuttoned, revealing a bronzed chest and sterling pendant with a chunk of deep blue turquoise in the center.
“Khadafi’s story was on the radio this morning.” He withdrew a transistor radio from the pocket of his shirt.
“What did it say?” she asked, knowing Tohono listened only to the voice of the pueblo, KTTP. The Native Americans who lived in the Taos pueblo were a tight-knit community and didn’t care about the white man’s news. KTTP broadcast news in Tewa, the only-language that mattered.
“The radio says San Geronimo called the bear to his side.”
Claire knew San Geronimo was the patron saint of the Taos pueblo. His word was sacred to Native Americans.
“San Geronimo says hunters must always pray before killing for food. They need to ask the creature to give its life for the good of the tribe,” Tohono told her.
She listened to his solemn voice. Although he was the leader of the Taos pueblo, Tohono was part Navajo, a descendant of the most gifted storytellers, the Talking Water clan. She knew he would weave together their mythology and his political slant to formulate the official position of his people on the disappearance of the bear.
“Even plants have a right to live. That is why my people pray and perform dances of thanks at harvest,” he continued. “It is our way of saying we are all equal on this earth. We honor those who help us sustain life. We do not make them suffer needlessly. It is against everything San Geronimo teaches. Is it any surprise the great one called the bear to his side?”
“San Geronimo is very wise,” Claire said, realizing this was Tohono’s way of telling her Khadafi was safe without saying where he was or who had taken him.
Maybe Tohono himself didn’t know. He was a godfather with as much—if not more—power than any mafia don. He had relinquished his place as governor six months ago to let his eldest son have the title. Even so, he was still the leader of his people. All Tohono had to do was say San Geronimo was unhappy with the way the bear was being treated, and it would be taken care of.
“San Geronimo knew what to do,” Claire agreed with a smile, last night temporarily forgotten. The bear was out of his misery, and she was thankful.
Tohono put the radio to his ear for a moment as if he were listening, but she watched him survey the Native Americans selling their wares. His keen eyes were looking for mass-produced goods that weren’t handmade at the pueblo. If he caught someone selling a cheap import, trying to pass it off as authentic, the punishment would be sure and swift.
And beyond control of the white man’s sluggish legal system.
Apparently finding nothing, his gaze returned to Claire, and he studied her intently. “Be careful, Claire. Your heart is good, but your head is too strong. You should never have gone to The Hideaway last night. Now the coyote comes out of the darkness. Beware the coyote.”
Four
Claire heard the telephone ringing, but she kept her eyes on the flickering candles and let the warm water in the tub soothe her. She’d closed the gallery at nine, then had come directly home, expecting to drop into bed and fall asleep. Despite being bone-weary, she had been unable to sleep.
Last night. If only she could remember more about what had happened. It had been a thrilling, erotic experience. Everything was clear—up to a point. Then her memory degenerated into flashes of sensual impressions.
Why had she let the mysterious stranger kiss her even when she realized he hadn’t told her his name? It was completely out-of-character for her and the thought terrified her. She usually held herself with a certain reserve, an aloofness that came naturally. Once she thought the distance she automatically put between herself and men was the manifestation of the shyness she tried to conceal by being friendly and outgoing.
But there was an invisible line she wouldn’t allow a man to cross. She couldn’t say just where that line was exactly, yet she knew it, felt it. It took time and a level of trust had to be established before she made love to a man.
Last night that invisible barrier hadn’t been there to protect her.
Once her father had bluntly pointed out that the older she became, the more she acted like her mother. At the time she’d argued, but now she supposed it was true. Genes or something. She looked exactly like Amy Holt. She realized how much it must hurt her father to look at her and see the wife he’d loved and lost so tragically.
“Am I behaving just like Mother?” Claire wondered out loud.
The thought jarred her and she sank lower into the water until it sloshed against her chin. As if it had happened today, not years ago, she saw her mother in Jake Coulter’s arms and heard the horrible sound of the door she’d slammed on them echoing over and over in her heart. The painful memory cast its long, dark shadow over her, and she closed her eyes asking herself the same question she’d asked thousands of times.
Why had her mother succumbed to temptation, throwing away the love of a wonderful man for a fling with the town stud?
Was she any better? Claire wondered. She hadn’t stopped kissing the stranger. Was her similarity to her mother more than just a physical resemblance? Well … maybe. Claire loved finding talented artists and marketing their work just as her mother had. And Claire felt a special bond with animals—just as her mother had.
In the bedroom adjacent to the luxurious bathroom, the telephone stopped ringing and the answering machine kicked in. Her father’s voice boomed through the machine.
“Honey, call me when you get in. I just came back from Santa Fe and heard someone bumped off Duncan Morrell last night at The Hideaway. What do you suppose he was doing in that dive?”
The machine clicked off and Claire groaned, sinking lower in the water. She’d added dried flower petals and oils, being a firm believer in aromatherapy. That dive. She dreaded having to tell her father about last night.
Since suffering a stroke that had left him crippled, her father hadn’t been in good health. If she became the prime suspect in Morrell’s murder, her father would worry, and he might have another attack. She was all he had, and she knew how much he loved her.
She hoped the murder would be solved quickly, so she wouldn’t have to discuss spending last night at The Hideaway. The longer the killer remained at large, the less of a chance she had of keeping her secret. She would become the source of even more grief to her father.
Lucy trotted in, her claws clicking on the black onyx floor. The retriever’s dark blond fur gleamed in the candlelight. For aromatherapy, Claire had placed a half dozen magnolia-scented candles throughout the large bathroom. The light reflected off the vast sweep of mirrors, lining the walls.
“Don’t worry,” Claire told the dog. “I haven’t drowned.”
Lucy circled twice, then plopped down on the white rug beside the tub. She lay there, soulful eyes on Claire. She put one hand on the side of the custom-made tub that could have doubled for a swimming pool and started to get out. The telephone in the other room rang again, and she sank back, waiting to hear who was calling. Seconds later Seth Ramsey’s voice came through the message machine.
“Claire, where are you? I would have called sooner, but I’ve been out at Max Bassinger’s ranch.”
Well, that explained why Seth hadn’t called her today. Whenever Bassinger blew into town, Seth dropped everything to cater to the rich Texan with too much money and too much time on his hands.
“What happened last night?” Seth’s voice continued to come through the machine. “I waited outside the restrooms but you just disappeared.”
Claire sat bo
lt upright in the tub, sloshing the water over the rim. No. That wasn’t how it had happened. He was supposed to be waiting for her outside the nightclub’s restroom, but he hadn’t been there when she came out. She had seen him going next door into the warren of adobe bungalows known as The Hideaway.
“Why is he lying?” she asked out loud. Not so fast, she cautioned herself. He had probably wandered into The Hideaway to look for her. After all, it was just steps from the club.
“That jerk Zach Coulter tracked me down at Bassinger’s ranch,” Seth rambled on. “I can’t tell you how embarrassing it was. He wanted to know where I was last night when Duncan Morrell was murdered. Coulter asked if you and I were together. I told him that I went home without you.”
Claire groaned, hardly hearing Seth telling her to call him when she returned. She let out a little water, then added more hot water. Inhale … inhale deeply, take the refreshing aroma into the deepest part of your lungs. Usually, aromatherapy worked, soothing and cleansing her mind, refreshing her spirit. Not tonight.
Lucy whined, a low-pitched sound that signaled her uneasiness the way other dogs alerted their masters by barking, then she trotted out the door. Claire rose in the tub and let the water sluice down her body as she remembered Bam Stegner in the gallery that morning. Zach had warned Bam, but she wasn’t certain he’d really listened.
When she’d come home, she had turned on the burglar alarm, thankful for the state-of-the-art security system installed by the wealthy owner who had leased her the house. A second later the doorbell rang. Claire toweled herself off quickly, an eerie trickle of uneasiness sweeping over her.
The bell rang again, then again, impatient bursts of sound that echoed through the quiet house. Claire shrugged into a man-sized terry robe and cautiously walked up the long hall leading from the bathroom to the front door of the rambling hacienda.
