by Karen Harper
6
Tara’s scream shredded the air. She threw herself back against the cliff, banging her shoulder and hitting the back of her head. She cringed inwardly at the blow to her head—fear of another injury, a coma…
The boulder, the size of a wheelbarrow, crashed into the natural sandstone table five feet from her, just missing her purse but smashing the picnic basket and the edge of the table. Fragments flew, but the boulder’s momentum kept it rolling. It disappeared in a cloud of pebbles and grit off the other side of the flat, waist-high structure, where its massive weight ground it to a stop.
She was stunned but still conscious. Sucking in dust, pressed against the solid rock behind her, Tara was drenched in sweat, yet she shivered as if she were freezing. At last, but for her thudding heart and panicked panting, there was silence.
The red sandstone dust shower burned her eyes, making her blink back tears and cough. A sharp shadow of a man thrust itself onto the surface of the remains of the sandstone tabletop. Someone must be peering over the edge of the cliff above. She was grateful he must have come running to see what had happened, but he shouldn’t be climbing the rocks.
“Did you see that?” she shouted, then fell into a coughing fit again. She craned her neck but couldn’t see anyone peering over. She took a few tenuous steps out from the cliff and shaded her eyes to look up into the sun. “Hello! A rock fell and just missed me!”
No answer. No one there and no shadow now. Suddenly, she knew.
She gasped and leaped back against the cliff. Someone had shoved that rock over the edge to hit her, crush her!
Run or stay here? She should not have picked this deserted spot. She was always careful not to take risks, but she hadn’t considered a picnic at Red Rocks to be one. She realized too late that this side of the cliff couldn’t be seen from the road where she’d left her truck.
Tara grabbed her purse and ran. She heard footsteps spitting sand or grit above. An echo? The sounds became more muted, distant. Could her attacker—her would-be killer—be running away? The back side of this behemoth rock was an easier climb than from where she stood.
Tara tore around the side of the cliff toward the road. She spun in a circle but saw no one. If she wanted to get a glimpse of who it was, she’d have to run farther, faster. Had someone followed her here? Followed her from the doctor’s office? She’d seen no one in her rearview mirror. Had someone kept Veronica from coming—or harmed her?
Tara ran farther around the rock structure, then stopped again. Out of breath, a stitch in her side, exposed…What if the person had a gun? No one else had evidently heard or seen what could surely be considered a natural event, an accident. She’d better get to her car, get home. She needed to check on Veronica, and she needed Nick’s help now.
If she asked him for that, he would ask her who wanted to harm her and why. But however much she prided herself in finding answers, right now she had only guesses.
As she neared her truck, grateful to see it looked untouched, she saw a man jogging away toward the amphitheater from the vicinity of the fallen rock. That meant nothing, of course. Someone could have heard the noise and be going to tell a park ranger. People ran here all the time, both in the slanted aisles of the huge acoustic bowl and on the paths in the area. But what if he was the one? He was too far away to recognize.
Tara got in her truck and clicked the door locks closed. Trembling so hard that she couldn’t even get the key in the ignition on the first try, she finally jammed it in. She knew she should report what had happened to the Red Rocks rangers, but she was getting out of here. She had no proof it was an attack, and most certainly not that it was attempted murder. After so much of her life had been made public, she didn’t want her name in the papers again. But she had to admit that locals didn’t even deface these rocks with graffiti, let alone try to harm the natural structure of the place. Nor had she heard of falling rocks here.
As she started away, in her side mirror, Tara saw a mountain biker burst from the rocks near where she had been. But he didn’t follow the road or look in this direction. He was going the other way, fast. There were many biking trails in this area, not to mention thousands of avid bikers on them all the time.
She gripped the wheel and turned onto the highway. Don’t speed, she told herself. You’re all right now. No one is following. Maybe that was just an accident, she rationalized. And someone nearby, who was climbing the cliff and shouldn’t have been, just took off, too. Maybe he’d seen the sign about the fine or jail time. He certainly wouldn’t want to be blamed for a loose boulder almost falling on someone.
Swiping tears from her cheeks as she drove, she headed toward home. But when she caught a glimpse of herself in the rearview mirror, she yanked her sunglasses off, pulled over, parked and burst into sobs. Her hair and face—even her eyes, which she’d instinctively closed in terror when the rock fell—were coated with pale reddish dust. She looked like a ghost tinged with blood, like a nightmare of death itself.
After Nick picked up his truck from his friend and got it serviced in Evergreen, he decided to stop by to check on Clay’s younger brother Rick Whetstone. Luckily the last phone number he had for him connected, and he was still in Evergreen, the next town northwest of Conifer.
Marcie, a woman who described herself as “hanging out here with Ricky,” said he’d be back soon from running errands. She rattled on that he had a really good job catering parties, but they were still in their small apartment above a store near Lake Evergreen. Nick knew the area. It now boasted a new library, soccer fields and an event center, but he’d always referred to the broad part of the valley between Buffalo Park Road and Meadow Drive as “old town.”
Years ago, if Nick had been asked to place a bet on which brother in the Whetstone family would end up in prison, he would have picked Rick, not Clay. A real hell-raiser as a kid, Rick was about twenty-five now. Maybe he’d settled down with Marcie and a decent-paying job. Still, Tara had told him that Rick had blamed her, as well as Alex, for what had happened to his adored brother Clay, so Rick couldn’t have matured too much.
“Tell him I’m going to stop by to say hi,” Nick had told Marcie. “Just wanted to see how he’s doing.”
Evergreen was really spread out these days. Part of the old town was kept up as a historic Western town in fine fashion to attract visitors, and had gift shops and restaurants stretching several blocks on one side of the highway. Most Evergreen residents, however, lived in the northern, newer parts of town in the same valley, or in cliff-clinging homes in various well-to-do, gated gulch communities. As everyone in these parts knew, the Lohans, Tara’s former in-laws, had one of the most spectacular homes in Kerr Gulch, about ten miles from the more isolated Mountain Manor Clinic they funded and pretty much ran, so he heard.
Nick found a parking place near the store where Marcie said they lived. He had always liked this area; it calmed him, despite the traffic and tourists, because across Highway 74, from the row of buildings, ran noisy, rushing Bear Creek, bouncing over rocks. He stopped and got out, taking Beamer with him for a short walk. Man and man’s best friend, they stared at the bursts of foam. The sweet sound of it—damn, what wouldn’t his dust-eating Delta Force buddies he’d left behind give to hear and see this? The water was so strong in places that rocks had been wired back so they wouldn’t tumble in as others had.
He thought about Rick and Clay again. Surely Rick would not get caught up in crazed revenge the way Clay had. Nick hoped what had happened to his brother had put a damper on Rick’s grandiose schemes and volatile temper. And he hoped he wasn’t the one spying on Tara and Claire. What if he tried to snatch Claire the way his brother had or took his anger out on Tara?
Trying to avoid thinking the worst, Nick put Beamer back in the truck to wait for him. Even if that was Rick’s trail the dog had been on yesterday, Beamer would not alert on him without Nick’s command and an item to smell. In some instances, a kindly faced dog could diffuse a potentially bad
scene. But if Rick was the one who’d been watching the house, it might take some verbal pushing to get him to give himself away. No way was Nick taking his dog into what might become a volatile situation.
“Be right back, boy,” he told the Lab, and locked him in since the weather was cool enough today. Nick crossed the road, went up the back steps and knocked on the door Marcie had described.
“Hi, you must be Nick,” a twentysomething bleached blonde with short, spiky hair greeted him. She had added reddish highlights, as if to match the rose tattoo she had at the top of her left breast, which her low-cut blouse flaunted. She had a big, toothpaste-ad-perfect smile. Bright red lipstick was not only on her full lips but smeared on her front teeth. “Ricky just got back from some errands, and he’s taking a quick shower ’fore he goes to work for the evening. Come on in,” she said, ogling him from the crown of his head to the crotch of his jeans. “Then I’ll leave you two alone for the Nick ’n’ Rick show.”
She laughed, and Nick smiled. Leave it to Rick to attract a dim bulb, but she seemed nice enough.
“He’s working for a caterer, huh?” Nick asked as he sat on the new-looking leather sofa she indicated. His knees were almost in his mouth. She checked out her appearance in a full-length mirror on the wall, scrubbing the lipstick smear from her teeth with an index finger. Then she checked herself in the mirror front and back, maybe posing for him and not herself. He saw a mop leaning against the door and a vacuum cleaner in the corner. He wondered if she’d hurriedly been cleaning the place for his visit; it looked pretty immaculate, especially for a small place, where clutter could quickly build up.
“Yeah, he’s working for a real deluxe company,” she said. “They do a lot of fancy parties for houses of the you-would-not-believe type. He gets big tips, too, and we’re going to get a house real soon, more new furniture.”
She bent toward a chair to grab her purse and a denim jacket sewn with sequined stars. Her stonewashed jeans were so tight they looked painted on. He noticed her new-looking, tooled Western boots.
“But he still says I need to keep my hostessing job at the L Branch down the street, ’cause what would I do all day but get in trouble, if ya know what I mean. Hey, you just come on into the L Branch sometime. You’d love the taste of the food, I will personally guarantee it,” she said with a hooted laugh, but she lowered her voice instantly when a door banged open from the other room. “Well,” she added, throwing out an arm as Rick came in from what appeared to be the only other room in the apartment, “heee-re’s Rick. By, hon!” She opened and darted out the door with a wink and wave at Nick from behind Rick’s back.
Rick had obviously just showered, because his hair stuck tight to his head. He wore jeans but was bare chested. Nick had forgotten how much he looked like his brother Clay, whom Rick had always admired so much: olive skin, solidly built, curly, dark brown hair with a beard shadow even after he’d shaved. Nick stood to shake hands; he was almost a foot taller than Rick.
“Surprised you looked me up,” Rick said, walking away to lean a slumped shoulder on the frame of the window overlooking the street. Jamming his hands in his pockets, he looked both ways as if he was expecting someone else. “What’s the occasion, man?”
“I just got back from overseas, working with the army in Afghanistan, and thought I’d drop by.”
“Yeah, you missed all the family action.”
“Action!” Nick spit out, then checked himself again. “You mean the tragedy. I regret I wasn’t here. I’m back in Conifer, staying with Claire and her guardian, Tara Kinsale, for a while.” Nick saw the Rick’s jaw tighten at Tara’s name, but that was all. “I can speak for Tara, too, when I say we have no hard feelings—toward you, that is—about what happened.”
“Claire’s my niece, too, much as she’s yours,” Rick blurted, frowning. “You’re just lucky I didn’t put in for her custody, ’cause I was around.”
Nick stopped himself from stating the obvious: it was highly unlikely a murderer’s brother was going to be given custody of a young girl. But if Rick was angry that Tara was caring for Claire, wouldn’t he have harassed her sooner than this? It seemed unlikely he’d been spying on her all this time without making some kind of move—unless Clay had put him up to it lately.
“Have you been to visit Clay recently?”
“Off and on. If you’re here to run him down, don’t start,” Rick said, his tone hardening. “Too many people mixing in, it just got out of hand.”
“Oh, yeah, I’d say it did,” Nick said, clenching his fists at his side. He fought to keep from launching into a harangue against Clay for snatching Claire in the first place, let alone killing Alex. Clay’s claims of self-defense and accidental death had been pure bull.
Rick kept bouncing his right leg like he had the shakes. For the first time, Nick realized he’d miscalculated in coming here. He had told himself he wanted to psyche Rick out and now all he wanted to do was punch him out. Rick repeatedly wiped his palms on the hip bones of his jeans as he frowned out the window again. Maybe he did have someone else coming. Nick had that prickly-back-of-the-neck feeling he used to get—just like the dogs he was training in the desert—when he scented the enemy nearby. Still, he had come to make a point, and he meant to say his piece.
“I’m glad you’ve got a lot going right now,” he told Rick. “Take care of yourself, because it wouldn’t look good if you harassed others who had suffered from Claire’s abduction and Alex’s death.”
Finally, Rick’s dark eyes narrowed and met Nick’s. “I’d never hurt the kid,” Rick muttered. “But maybe you didn’t mean Claire. After all, you moved in with Tara Kinsale fast enough.”
“So you’re implying what?”
“I’ll tell you what I’m implying if I need to spell it out, but you know what I mean. Didn’t catch enough bad guys playing G.I. Joe, so you’ve got to pick on me?” Rick goaded as he thrust himself away from the window and stalked across the room to yank the door open. Nick could see they’d passed the point of no return. “You’re back trying to make up for it,” Rick plunged on, “talking about me doing something wrong?”
Hell, at least he got that part of the message, Nick thought, wanting to pretend Rick was Clay and beat the bastard to a pulp. But then he would have sunk just as low, striking out at someone who—maybe—wasn’t to blame at all.
“Just keep clear of Claire and Tara,” Nick said, and started toward the door before he bounced this guy off every wall in the room. He’d always prided himself on maintaining control at all times, prided himself on doing his duty and being reasonable. He’d expected it of himself, as had the amazingly strong Delta Force units and the Rangers he’d worked with. Even when they’d lost two dog handlers in an ambush and he blamed himself, he’d stayed stoic because he had to. But now it really scared him how powerfully the passion to protect his girls pounded in his ears and roared through his veins.
The moment Tara got back to the house, despite the fact she was still deeply shaken and dust coated, she looked out the back window toward the hiding place Nick had pointed out to her. When she saw nothing unusual, she washed her hands and face at the kitchen sink. Before she leaned out the front door to knock more Red Rocks dust off her purse, she looked both ways out all the front and side windows.
Damn, this was no way to live! She’d never been one to take risks, except for marrying Laird, which she’d thought at the time was a sure thing. For the first time in her life, she felt that even stepping outside was hazardous. She felt almost under siege.
Stepping back into the house, Tara dug in her purse for her cell phone. It was coated with a layer of grit, but it still worked. Feeling in control enough to call Veronica now, she scrolled to her number. It rang five times, then a recorded voice came on asking if she’d like to leave a voice-mail message.
She ended that call and tried the house phone number at the Lohans. Unfortunately, her former father-in-law answered. The old saying “like father like son” was sadly
true in the Lohan clan. Both Thane and Laird not only resembled their father physically but had inherited or imitated his worst traits.
“Jordan, it’s Tara.” No way was she calling him Dad anymore, as he and Laird had wanted. “Veronica and I were to have lunch today, but she didn’t come. She said she’d phone me if anything came up. Is everything all right?”
“Tara, great to hear from you.”
She just rolled her eyes.
“She doesn’t feel well, that’s all,” he went on. “It was rather sudden, and she’s being taken care of. I’ll tell her you called, and I’m sure she’ll want to reschedule later when she can. How’s little Claire?”
She couldn’t help being touched he’d asked and surprised he’d remembered the child’s name. “She’s doing well, really likes school. Her uncle, Alex’s brother, is back from working with the troops in the Middle East, and he’s not certain what their long-term plans will be.”
“Have you started your social work P.I. firm again, after everything?”
“I certainly have. It gives me a tremendous sense of purpose and helps a lot of women, when the men in their lives insist that everything revolves around them, instead of being willing to form a partnership.”
There, she thought, she’d said it. Nicely, calmly.
“I believe you’re old enough to know, Tara,” he replied, his voice still silky smooth, almost patronizing, “that it takes two to tango in a marriage. A failure is never one person’s fault. Maybe you could better spend your time counseling women to be good wives, so it doesn’t come to some sort of sad situation where a man would actually feel driven to divorce.”
She should have known not to butt heads with Jordan Lohan. He was the ultimate master of the brilliant put-down.
“Please tell Veronica I wish her well,” Tara said simply. She would not degrade herself by shouting every insult and accusation she could think of. After all, it was Lohan money and power that had taken such good care of her when catastrophe came calling.
