Broken Bonds

by Karen Harper

  She headed to Gabe and Tess’s big, old, recently renovated house with its newly built preschool child care center addition in front. Char had stayed first with her older sister, Kate, at her fiancé Grant Mason’s large home, but the Adena dig team—college students from Ohio State University—were in and out so much it was like an open house.

  But now, she’d found an inexpensive three-room rental log house, built as a hunting cabin, ironically located not too far from where Matt must live since it overlooked the Lake Azure area. The place had a great view, not to mention a fireplace, two space heaters, electricity and indoor plumbing. The man who owned it had suffered a heart attack and wouldn’t be hunting—or just retreating to his man cave, as his wife had put it—until next year. Char didn’t know much about him except that he owned the large racetrack outside of Columbus but had a big holiday home near Lake Azure.

  “Tess, I’m home! It’s just me. Gabe will be home late again!” she called as she went in the back kitchen door. The fourteen kids at the growing day care would have all left by now.

  “Are you all right?” Tess cried, rushing into the kitchen. “Gabe called and said you’d rescued Matt Rowan from a burning truck up on Pinecrest!”

  “It wasn’t burning until after he got out of it and it went over the cliff.”

  “Oh, that’s terrible! Thank God you were there. You look like you’ve been through the mill. Take a rest and wash up.”

  Tess gave Char a hug and helped her take her jacket off as if she were one of the preschoolers. The two of them had their zeal for protecting kids in common, despite their different personalities and looks. They were the same height at five foot six and both had blue eyes, but Tess had blond, chin-length hair while Char’s was brown with natural gold highlights. Tess looked a lot more frail and had been through real-life traumas that made Char’s being threatened and forced to leave her dream job out West seem minor. As for character traits, Char figured some people thought she was too outgoing, maybe pushy. She had to admit she was a lot more stubborn than Tess, and mouthier, too, but what was right was right and she intended to say so.

  While Char went to the bathroom, Tess fixed them both tea. Char had seen she had the slow cooker going with some sort of dinner in it—hopefully not a third helping of squirrel stew, but she knew better. Since Tess and Gabe’s honeymoon in France, her younger sister had been serving French cuisine, which seemed pretty odd around here, though maybe not over at Lake Azure on the other side of town. After a quick change of clothes, Char joined her sister in the large kitchen.

  “Char, are you listening? I said, please don’t feel you have to move out. Gabe and I don’t think that cabin in the woods is such a good idea, especially with the roustabout types pouring in here to work the fracking rigs and drive the water and oil trucks.”

  “You’ve both been great, but this is the first year of your marriage and Gabe doesn’t need a sister-in-law guest on cozy nights this winter. Besides, the cabin’s not really in the woods. I’ll drive you up to see it. My cell phone works there, and it’s furnished, though I’ll take my own bedding and linens. I’m not far off the road and can be down to town in ten minutes—and the view is of Lake Azure, no less.”

  “All right, all right,” Tess said, gripping her mug. “I know not to argue when your mind’s made up, but I think you should at least learn to shoot a gun for protection. Gabe could teach you.”

  “If I lived out West in peace without one, I can do the same here. There are enough people around with guns. I’m having the locks changed on the doors, and the windows have latches. It’s almost a luxury cabin, so don’t worry.”

  “You know I do—still. But with Gabe, I’m doing better, really. I knew his job was part of the marriage. It’s just I worry about some of my students, especially if they come from broken homes. I’m hardly attracting the Lake Azure kids who have nannies or stay-at-home moms who carpool their kids to school or even send the older ones to private schools.”

  “And you worry about your older sisters,” Char added as she reached out to squeeze Tess’s shoulder. Tess still bore the psychological scars of having been abducted as a child. Char’s thoughts flew to little Penny up on the mountain with her box of crayons clutched in her hand and her plea to be “fetched” for school.

  “You know,” Tess said, “we’ve still got an hour of daylight left, and, like you said, Gabe will be late. How about I pour our tea into insulated cups and we drive up to look at your rental?”

  “I don’t have a key yet.”

  “We’ll just peek in the windows. Before Gabe called about what happened to you, I was going to drive to the Hear Ye cult gate and ask to see Gracie. She didn’t look good when I saw her at the Saturday Harvest Market, and I barely got a word in with her since they guard each other so tight. But maybe we can both try to see her tomorrow and you can show me the cabin now—unless you’re too shook up from rescuing a man in distress. Matt’s handsome, isn’t he?”

  “That was the least of my thoughts. He was more dinged up than I looked. And scared, though he hid it well. By the way, the second stop I had today was not Handsome Hollow like I told you at breakfast but Hanson Hollow, named for the several generations of the Hanson family living there. It’s amazing the Appalachian project even has a record of them and their kids since they live way up there.”

  “Don’t try to change the subject. I’ve seen Matthew Rowan. He gave a sort of PR talk at church after his association paid for the town’s Labor Day picnic this year. What did you think of him?”

  “I thought a lot of him—but I don’t want to think more of him, okay? Stop looking at me that way and never mind matchmaking. If you want to see the cabin, how about you drive? My hands ache from gripping the steering wheel today.”

  “Which won’t stop you one bit from visiting mountain cabins or living in one,” Tess said with a sigh as she jumped up to pour their tea into travel cups. “Oh, no, not loves-a-challenge, champion-of-the-poor Charlene Lockwood.”

  “Sister of the terrific but terrible Tess Lockwood McCabe and Dr. Kathryn, dig-up-those-old-bodies, Lockwood. Well, wish I hadn’t put it quite like that. Someone did try to kill Matt Rowan today—if they weren’t trying to murder his senior partner who sometimes uses that truck. Matt said he has a driver. Can you imagine? A chauffeur in a truck in Cold Creek? You know, Royce Flemming is not only the money man behind Lake Azure but, the Environmental Expansion Company, alias fracking for dollars.”

  “Speaking of which, I guess you and Matt Rowan would be like oil and water in your lifestyles and goals, at least. But they say opposites attract.”

  Char heaved a huge sigh. “I didn’t think of any of that, just that he needed help. I liked him, and he kind of ended up helping me, too, because he was so grateful, that’s all. I’ve met enough controlling, overly aggressive men in my day, and if people think that makes a man masculine, they’re crazy.”

  “That’s all with him, then? The end? Okay, okay, I’ll keep my mouth shut. If I know you, you’ll overlook what a hunk—a wealthy one—he is and just try to hit him up for a donation to the Appalachian Children Poverty fund. I’ll lock up and let’s go.”

  * * *

  The sheriff, Deputy Jace Miller and Matt stared at the shattered, burned-out hulk of the Lake Azure pickup. Matt shuddered to think of his incinerated, broken bones inside. The whole area reeked of gasoline and burned leaves and grass. At least the fire had not spread farther than the thirty-foot-wide blackened circle.

  “I’ll have Jace run you home, and I’ll go have a look at the spot you got hit,” Gabe said, craning his neck to look up at the rocky ridge of Pinecrest Mountain glaring down at them. “Never know but there might be some trace of the other truck up there. I’ll ask around about who the guys with the mule in their truck could have been, too, in case they passed your attacker heading up toward you.”

 
“The pull-off’s easy to find,” Matt said. “It’s marked for a bus stop, but I’m thinking anywhere along the road that...that killer would have found me, he’d have tried to send me over the edge. I must have been followed.”

  “Or, you told someone where you were going, so you didn’t have to be followed close,” Jace Miller put in. “I guess you and Gabe covered that.”

  “Yeah, we did,” Matt said. “The people in my office knew where I was going, and I’d sent word to Woody McKitrick’s family that I’d stop by during the day, but not when.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe this. I still can’t believe it happened.”

  “Brad Mason never drove this truck, did he?” Gabe asked. “As your partner Flemming’s front man in the area, a lot of people have it in for him, too. He’s been worried about his safety. He’ll be part of my family when Char’s sister Kate marries Brad’s brother, Grant Mason, next month.”

  “I’m pretty sure he drives a red pickup—easy to spot, kind of flashy for around here, even for Lake Azure, where he’s bought a small condo. You know, Royce wanted me to take that job, but I turned him down. Maybe some people against the fracking don’t know that.”

  “As for the place your truck went over, I know that spot. That pull-off is near a formation called Coyote Rock, though I don’t think it looks much like a coyote. Must have been one spotted up there. Jace, when we get another deputy in, it’ll be a lot easier to patrol around here. Could use at least two more deputies, but at least we’re getting one soon. Keeping an eye on moonshining, pot patches and meth labs in the hills near town’s bad enough, but these mountains are a whole other world, not to mention the fracking.”

  Matt nodded. “Char and I saw some rig workers heading up Pinecrest in a black pickup, looking pretty happy, tossing beer cans out. New outsiders like that have taken some of the pressure off us Lake Azure people being the intruders.”

  “It’s getting better,” Gabe said. “Live and let live—but not kill someone by shoving them off a cliff so it looks like an accident, even suicide.”

  “Suicide?”

  “Sorry to bring that up. When my father was county sheriff, he had a bad case where a guy drove off near Coyote Rock—meant to kill himself, but took his wife’s life in the crash, too. Murder-suicide.”

  A chill shot up Matt’s spine as the sheriff started to pace off the circumference of the burned circle. Matt stood his ground, just staring at the charred wreck. In a way he’d been charred today, too, by meeting Char Lockwood. Crazy thought but she’d heated him up. He’d been burned a couple of years ago, and that made him gun-shy about getting serious with a woman, especially when he kept himself so busy. The women he met in Cold Creek were either married clients, or were locals he just didn’t have much in common with—and then there was Ginger Green, who was after him as well as every other man in sight, so she was hardly his type. He wasn’t looking for a quick hit, quick goodbye woman.

  “Too bad you lost the stuff you’d bought for the McKitricks,” Jace was saying. “Bet they could have used it. Gabe, didn’t you say that they were on Char’s list of families to visit over a truant student?”

  “Yeah, that’s right,” Gabe said, distracted as he wrote in a little notebook.

  So, Matt thought, maybe he and Char could go together to visit the McKitricks when he replaced the food and clothes he was going to give them. Not that he wanted to go back up the mountain, but he wasn’t going to let this impact his freedom or his duty.

  “Hey,” Gabe shouted, from across the wreck. “Someone’s been here gawking already. Footprints in the ash. I didn’t see any on the side where you’re standing.”

  Matt and Jace watched as he approached the truck and glanced inside. “And there’s an unburned piece of paper in here with something written on it.”

  Jace went over to the wreck. Though the burned, acrid smell was seeping into the pit of Matt’s stomach, making him feel sick, curiosity got him. Walking in Jace’s footprints, he went over to the wreck and peered in the front passenger-side window, too.

  A piece of white paper was lying on the blackened front seat. He could see a drawing of a skull and crossbones, like on an old pirate flag. Under that were big, black printed letters.

  YOUR FIRED!

  4

  “Well, I admit it is kind of quaint looking—in a pioneer way,” Tess said as she drove into the narrow, short driveway of the hunting cabin.

  For some reason, Char’s mind flashed back to driving up to a big, modern hogan on a washboard road for the meeting where the elders and her boss had asked her to leave. But that had been set among yucca, sagebrush and pinyon pines instead of maples, oaks and tall white pines. Even the bedrock here was different; the rocks were gray, beige or black, not the yellow, brown and red rocks she’d grown used to out West.

  “And, Ms. Worrywart, the logs have good chinking—insulation,” Char assured her as they got out of the day care van. “And, see—there’s a carport so I won’t have to scrape frost off car windows in the morning.”

  The sun was setting, gilding the clouds with colors from lavender to pink to fiery orange, which made the view even more beautiful. They peered in all the windows, walking around the small log building.

  “I like the stone fireplace and all the wood inside,” Tess said. “And there’s a leather couch and two upholstered chairs. The front room’s a pretty good size, but that bedroom and bath are small.”

  “Which suits me just fine. It’s got a stand-up shower, so I’ll miss soaking in the tub, but that’s a small price to pay.”

  “Did they say you could use that pile of firewood?”

  “Yes, and they’re not charging me for water. The water heater takes up part of the closet space, but does a guy hunting or drinking with his buddies need room for clothes?”

  “Did you get the idea his wife ever comes up here?”

  “It’s a man’s world—until now. I did get the idea, though, that his marriage isn’t that happy. I feel sorry for her.”

  “Oh, Char, you can’t solve all the world’s problems, you know.”

  “I can try. I’ll bet it’s great to sit out here on this covered porch on pretty days to see the sun rise or set. Let me show you the view of the valley and lake below. If we could just erase those luxury condos and homes and that big party house down in the valley, it would look really pristine.”

  “They call it a lodge. It makes the one at the state park where Gabe and I got married seem like a doll’s house. It does blend in with the area,” she said, pointing, “like the Lake Azure houses do. Wonder which one is Matt Rowan’s. What a great view here!”

  Char remembered Elinor Hanson saying the same earlier today. It seemed so long ago she’d been up on the mountain, but only moments ago she’d seen Matt sitting scared to move in his truck and then it going over....

  “You okay?” Tess asked. “You kind of flinched. Did you see something below?”

  “No. Just the breeze is cold. Winter’s coming.”

  “So then spring can’t be far behind, right?” Tess said, throwing her arm over Char’s shoulders. They stood leaning together for a moment, looking below at the long lake that gave the area its name. As the clouds passed overhead, the water seemed to change color, one minute azure, the next almost like jade or amethyst. Smoke trailed from chimneys on a few of the shingle or slate roofs of the houses below, though some were hidden under pines. The large Y-shaped lodge with its green velvet grass golf course carved out of the hills looked lonely this late.

  Funny, but Char had one of those rare moments when she wished she had a man she loved to share something with and not only a friend or a sister.

  “I just thought of something sad,” Tess whispered, pulling away and hugging herself.

  “About that woman who lives down there? The one who’s still trying to get her daughter back
from her estranged husband in South America?”

  “No. Just that it must have been near here, down that next ridge maybe, where that groundskeeper fell to his death, because they found his body on the golf course a couple of weeks ago—remember?”

  Char gasped. “That’s the man whose family Matt was going to visit up on Pinecrest. At least, if he ended up on the golf course, he didn’t fall from right here. He must have been over there a little ways to fall straight down, though that doesn’t look like a place someone would trip.” Again she fought to banish the memory of Matt’s truck pitching over the side into nothing but air.

  “Gabe said the death was accidental but weird because he was a mountain man, sure-footed, knew the area, all of that. But up on these paths and ridges, anything can happen, so you’ve got to be really careful. And if this is a hunting cabin, there may be shooters in these woods and—”

  “And I’ll be careful,” Char said, cutting off any more dire warnings. She had to always be on guard to stay the optimist to Tess’s worries and levelheaded to their sister Kate’s brilliant but scary what-if theorizing. “I’ll be away during the day anyway, and people would be crazy to try to hunt anywhere around here at night.”

  But, Char had to admit, some folks were crazy around here. Starting with someone who would kidnap kids like Tess or push someone’s truck over the side with them in it. And maybe, live out alone in a cabin, almost on the edge of a cliff.

  * * *

  “You didn’t need to fly in early,” Matt told Royce Flemming when he arrived at Matt’s door just after dark. He’d just taken a shower and was considering going over to the lodge to get some hot food and try to relax in the spa and sauna.

  “I was coming late tomorrow, anyway,” Royce said as he stepped in.

  Royce and his assistant, Orlando—his jack-of-all-trades including chauffeur and bodyguard—flew in a company plane to Columbus from wherever he was working. Royce kept a car there. Orlando drove while Royce did paperwork in the backseat—always busy. Now he turned to wave to Orlando, who backed the black sedan out of the driveway.