Dangerous Refuge

by Elizabeth Lowell

  There was silence while Shaye watched shadows lengthen. “Now what, Detective?”

  “I’ll be back in an hour, maybe hour and a half, depending on traffic. Reno isn’t L.A., but lots of cars are hitting the freeway, heading for happy hour or home.”

  “We’re not getting any closer to who told Rua to murder Lorne, are we?”

  “Investigation is another word for patience,” Tanner said.

  “Is it true about the first forty-eight hours after a murder?”

  He didn’t have to ask what she meant. It was a brutal fact of life that every investigator faced—solve a murder in the first forty-eight hours after death or the chances were high that it would never be solved.

  “Do you want to let it go?” he asked.

  “No,” she said instantly. “Do you?”

  “No.”

  What he didn’t say was that she was the one holding him in the valley. She was right about the trail getting colder at an exponential rate. But part of him was coming alive even faster.

  “Shaye?”

  “Yes?”

  “You don’t have any deeply buried yen to live in L.A., do you?”

  “I . . . oh, Tanner, I wish I did,” she said in a husky voice. “But when I first saw Refuge it was like coming home. My ex taught me that burying what I want in order to give him what he wanted was a losing combination. And I was the one on the losing end. What about you? Do you have a deeply buried yen to live here?”

  “All I know is I don’t want to lose you. Don’t leave until I get there. It will be a while. Have to gas up. Be there, honey.”

  “I will.”

  “I’ll hurry.”

  She heard the sound of an open line. She stared at the phone, her heart beating too fast.

  I don’t want to lose you.

  And she didn’t want to lose him.

  For all the good it would do either of them. Sometimes being an adult sucked.

  Thirty-four

  Shaye tossed the phone onto the bed, got dressed, and went to the tiny balcony that had a slice of a view of the parking lot. The angle of the sunlight transformed the asphalt into a charcoal landscape, ripples of cracks and rivers of tar like veins throughout. The lot had been patched together a hundred times over the years, but never would be whole.

  I used to think I was like that, never able to be whole again.

  But I don’t anymore. When did that happen?

  Maybe loving Tanner would be a kind of freedom I’ve never known, never even dreamed of. Free of the past that ripped me apart. Free to take a chance on the future.

  Believing, finally, in a future, instead of simply gutting my way through every problem alone, every day, every week and month and year until I’m as old and dead as Lorne.

  She knew she could keep living alone and doing a good job of it. She had done it for years.

  Her phone rang.

  Shaye hurried back to the bed to pick up her phone and answer.

  “Tanner?” she asked quickly.

  “It’s Kimberli. Where’s tall, dark, and sexy?”

  Shaye frowned. Despite the teasing words, Kimberli’s voice was flat, thin, stretched by an anxiety she’d never heard from her boss. And she wasn’t using her own phone, or the ring would have been different.

  “What’s wrong?” Shaye asked.

  “What isn’t?” Kimberli said shakily. “Somehow the Conservancy is the bad guy because Lorne had a senior moment and pulled out before he signed the letter of intent.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “When do emotions make sense?” Kimberli retorted. Her voice was rough, like she had been screaming or crying. “I was told that growing old meant outliving your enemies and dancing on their graves. Now I feel like someone is dancing on mine. Lorne changing his mind screwed us. Ranchers are saying that the Conservancy tried to pull a fast one and get him to sign a contract that gave us everything and him nothing.”

  Shaye knew she should tell her boss, It’s not your fault, everyone makes mistakes, but she wasn’t feeling charitable right now. If she had made the kind of mistake Kimberli had, she’d have been fired, and rightly so.

  “Who are the ranchers?” Shaye asked. “Are they mine? I can talk to them and—”

  “The head of the National Ranch Conservancy called and reamed me over Lorne,” Kimberli said as if Shaye hadn’t spoken. “He said the Conservancy can’t take that kind of scandal. Something would have to be done. I’m afraid that ‘something’ is firing me.”

  Shaye waited while Kimberli fought to control her voice. After long, long moments she succeeded.

  “You know what the real hell of it is?” Kimberli asked, then rushed on without waiting for an answer. “My guess is that Lorne never was going to sign the ranch over, but thought he could have a little fun and keep a pretty woman at his beck and call for months and months.”

  For a moment Shaye was too shocked to speak. “I know you and Lorne didn’t like each other, but we all managed to be civil and keep our ultimate goal in mind—saving Lorne’s ranch for future generations.”

  “Yes, yes, that’s just good business,” Kimberli said in her raw voice. “But now the Lester family up north is one lawyer’s appointment away from withdrawing their offer and the Gunthers on the east side of the valley are talking to realtors about putting their land on the market. We’ve been blindsided. The Conservancy is reeling and looking around for people to blame and they’re dumping the load on me. But I’ve poured everything into the Conservancy. No one will hire me and my great-uncle’s inheritance can barely keep me, much less Peter. I’m too old to start over. I’m ruined!” she wailed. “I have nowhere . . .”

  Shaye gave up trying to interrupt Kimberli’s monologue. There was no point. Though the presentation was over-the-top, what she said was the simple truth. If the Conservancy fired her, Kimberli was finished. All the attention, all the galas, all the businesses and politicians courting her for the Conservancy’s approval . . . it was all gone.

  When Shaye realized that her job right now was to listen, she went to the bed and settled in for as long as it would take Kimberli to run down. With her boss, it could be quite a while.

  Shaye looked out the window. Somewhere in the Sierras above and north of Carson City the fire was still burning, smoke rising thick and black from the far side of the closest mountain ridge. The color of the smoke announced the arrival of a fire trying to get big enough to generate its own furious winds. She hoped it was burning in an unpopulated area, but those were getting harder and harder to find.

  Someone tried to beep through twice, but she didn’t feel right about putting her distraught boss on hold. Then the line went dead. She checked her own cell battery. Plenty of juice. Apparently Kimberli had talked her borrowed cell phone’s battery into the ground.

  She listened to Tanner’s call-me message and was just getting ready to hit the callback button when someone slid an electronic key into the lock on the only door into the motel room.

  Crap. Tanner must have forgotten to put out the Do Not Disturb sign.

  “Maid service,” said a muffled voice.

  “I don’t want—”

  She had an instant to realize that she hadn’t put the chain or dead bolt back on after Tanner left. Then the door opened and Ace stepped into the room, with Kimberli right behind him.

  Part of Shaye’s mind noted that Ace wore hiking boots, jeans, a warm shirt, a waterproof jacket, and a floppy fishing hat that all but concealed his face. He was friendly, smiling as warmly as he ever did, but there was something about him that was off.

  He’s wearing surgical gloves.

  Thirty-five

  Ace? What are you doing here?” Shaye asked.

  “Remember the acreage Kimberli told you about, the ranch beyond the far side of the valley where mustangs are? She insisted I show it to you today, before my fishing trip.”

  “I thought if we could get a new ranch in the bag, then the Conservancy would be ha
ppy with me again,” Kimberli said hurriedly.

  Shaye felt like she’d been dropped into an alternate universe. “Wait. Wait. How did you know where I was?”

  “If you have the right connections and enough time, cell phones can be traced just like landlines,” Ace said. “Tracking via IP address while triangulating off cell towers is quite easy. As for getting in the motel, I own it, along with five others. Did you enjoy your stay?”

  She stared at him. “What would you have done if I didn’t stay in one of your motels?”

  “Sent Kimberli knocking on doors. Your location coordinates were rather precise.” He smiled. “Sorry to rush you, but I really want to get this over with and go fishing.”

  The certainty that something was very wrong made cold sweat slick Shaye’s spine. Above her racing heartbeat she heard Tanner’s voice.

  Be there, honey.

  Her phone cut into her clenched hand.

  “I can’t go,” she said. “I have something else to—”

  “Give me the phone.”

  Ace’s voice was as pleasant as always, but now it made goose bumps rise on her arms. She got up, then stumbled, using the motion as cover for punching the callback button.

  Tanner picked up immediately.

  “A—” was all she got out before a measured punch knocked her back onto the bed, paralyzing her breathing and sending her cell phone flying.

  Ace picked up the phone, turned it off, and pulled out the SIM card. He flushed the card down the bathroom toilet, then bundled the phone in a mess of toilet paper and threw it into the bathroom wastebasket.

  All the while Shaye fought to draw wheezing, strangled breaths.

  Kimberli watched everything like it was a television show and she was thinking about changing the channel. But really, it was too much trouble to press the button.

  “Get up,” Ace said. “You’re not hurt.”

  Easy for you to say, you bastard, Shaye thought.

  “Sorry about that,” he said. “I should have spotted the phone sooner. I don’t like to be physical. I thought I’d left those days behind long ago.” He shrugged. “One adjusts as life requires.”

  By shooting Rua? Sounds plenty physical to me.

  But she kept the words to herself. She was in enough trouble with a calm Ace. Prodding him would be really stupid.

  That left Kimberli.

  “Kimberli,” Shaye said, breathing unevenly around the ache in her solar plexus, “what’s going on?”

  Her boss looked like she had dressed for a party and then decided not to go after all. Her makeup was overdone, her silk shirt glittered with rhinestone swirls, but her jeans were faded, her tennis shoes were a scuffed metallic silver, and her eyes were glassy with adrenaline or something less legal.

  “I told you,” Kimberli said. “I need that new ranch, so get it together and we’ll make a quick trip of it.”

  “The switched contract wasn’t a mistake,” Shaye said, breathing unevenly, still not getting of the bed. “You meant to trick Lorne.”

  Kimberli shrugged. “We needed the ranch more than he did. Besides, there weren’t any mustangs on it, so no big deal.”

  “We? You and Ace?”

  “Well, sure. You don’t think Peter is smart enough to help me, do you? Besides, he was just arm candy so people didn’t notice that Ace and I were getting busy as often as we could.”

  “We can talk over old times while Kimberli drives,” Ace said. “There’s a trout or five with my name on it waiting for me up in the mountains.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you,” Shaye said.

  “You have a choice,” he said. “Come with me or die here.”

  Kimberli rolled her eyes. “Do we really need the drama, Ace?”

  “You won’t kill me here,” Shaye said without looking away from him. “The people in the motel’s front office would remember you.”

  “They never saw me. I have a master electronic key to all my establishments. So much easier that way,” he said pleasantly. “Are you coming or staying?”

  From his tone of voice, he could have been asking if she liked sugar with her coffee. The alternate-universe feeling was making her doubt her own sanity. He was so calm, so polite, as he waited for her answer.

  It didn’t take but a heartbeat for her to decide that given a choice between dead now or dead later, she’d take later.

  “Looks like I have a ranch to see,” she said through her teeth.

  Kimberli let out her breath in a rush. “Oh, good. I told you, Ace. She is a very bright girl. She doesn’t want to be on the losing side. And there’s no need to talk so rough.”

  “You were right,” he said. “I think there will be a soft, lucrative place for her in our new business. She has a way with the old-timers.”

  I think that aliens have taken me to Area 51. Or is it 52?

  Shaye couldn’t remember because it was taking all her strength not to scream or do something equally stupid.

  “Grab her jacket,” he told Kimberli. “It will be chilly where we’re going.” He looked at Shaye. “If you scream or give me any trouble, you’ll break your neck in a fall down the stairs and we’ll be gone before you hit the bottom.”

  Kimberli made a sound of distaste.

  Shaye remembered the restrained force of Ace’s blow. He had known exactly what he was doing and how to do it.

  Unlike Kimberli, Shaye knew Ace wasn’t just talking rough. He was rough.

  “How long have you been into mixed martial arts?” she asked.

  “You go first,” he said, ignoring her question. “I’ll be right behind you. Shut the door on your way out, Kimberli, and don’t forget to put out the sign for maid service.”

  Shaye had already decided to scream if she saw anyone out in the parking area, but the only life out there was a weed pushing for survival through a narrow crack in the blacktop.

  Go for it, weed. Life is worth fighting for.

  “That’s my Bronco,” Shaye said, noticing the faded orange vehicle for the first time.

  “Kimberli’s Lexus wouldn’t be much good where we’re going.” He handed keys over to Kimberli. “You’re driving.”

  “How did you—oh, the keyboard,” Shaye said.

  “I made copies of everyone’s keys as soon as they started work,” Kimberli said cheerfully as she opened her clever little purse that could double as a very small backpack. “My next office will have a real parking lot where more than two cars won’t cause a jam.”

  “Sweet,” Shaye said, and wondered just how far the gas in her tank would get them.

  “Parking lot,” Ace said.

  Although she walked as slowly as she dared, and stumbled twice—only to feel Ace’s hand yank her back upright with surprising strength—no one else appeared in any of the empty doorways surrounding the parking lot.

  Kimberli’s car was parked on the opposite side of the lot from the Bronco.

  “Go to the front passenger side of your car,” Ace said to Shaye. “Get in and put your seat belt on. Be careful not to move afterward. Not one bit. Life is precious and very, very fragile, and I’m told I have wicked fast hands.”

  “Ace,” Kimberli said in exasperation.

  Shaye didn’t argue or ask him to repeat his instructions. She just kept looking for a way out of the mess she was in—a way that didn’t involve dying.

  Nothing offered itself.

  Reluctantly she got in, stumbling a bit over the search-and-rescue backpack she always kept in the passenger footwell in case she was called.

  The emergency locater, she thought with a surge of hope. I’ve got to turn it on.

  Somehow.

  “What’s the problem?” Ace asked sharply.

  “I’m a little shaky,” she said. “I just tripped over some junk in the footwell.”

  Before she fumbled the seat belt into place, Ace was in the back cargo space on his knees with his left hand under her chin. It was horribly easy for her to visualize how quickly
he could break her neck. Because the old Ford Bronco had been built for desert sun, the tinted glass in back made him virtually invisible from the outside.

  Kimberli got in behind the wheel and started the Ford. She stalled coming out of first gear, started, stalled again.

  “You said you can drive a shift car,” Ace growled.

  “I can,” Kimberli said. “I’m just rusty.”

  “Nervous, too,” Shaye said. “Kidnapping won’t look good on your résumé.”

  “Shut up,” he said. “Kimberli has enough problems without you sniping at her.”

  For an instant outrage struggled with fear for control of Shaye’s tongue. Fear won. She shut up.

  Kimberli started the Bronco again and lurched toward the exit.

  Shaye felt an instant of hope when a car pulled into the parking lot, but Ace’s fingers tightened on her chin in silent warning as he crouched down behind her. She would be dead before she could make any move to catch the other driver’s attention.

  “Ease off,” she said through her teeth. “The way Kimberli is driving, you could break my neck by accident.”

  “I assure you, it wouldn’t be an accident.” His fingers tightened.

  Shaye held herself like a store mannequin, as relieved as her boss was when Kimberli finally got the hang of the Bronco’s balky clutch. Obviously Ace had driven the vehicle from her condo in Tahoe to the Carson motel.

  She hoped his knees would go numb on the hard metal floor of the cargo area.

  “You’re too tall, Shaye, dear,” Ace said, as if they were at a dinner party or a movie theater, completely casual and loose. “Lean forward a touch so that I can get a clearer view of the road.”

  She bent down perhaps more than he might’ve expected, resting her forearms on her knees and glancing at the fuel gauge. It said three-quarters full.

  It lied.

  “See how pleasant things can be?” he asked. “You’re a lot more comfortable than I am. Kimberli, be sure to obey the speed limit.”

  Shaye glanced down at the SAR backpack and wondered how she could get to it before Ace killed her.

  Thirty-six