by Karen Harper
“Or it was helping them track your moves so well they decided to chance leaving it. After all, they tried to cover the real reason for the break-in with the money and drug motives. But won’t your keystrokes show them you’ve found it now?”
“I don’t think so—only that I might have checked my hard drive. It’s worth a chance. Besides, spyware and a seemingly random, anonymous B and E is hardly enough to confront the Lohans with. If we could only find Marcie and make her talk!”
She got her main computer back to its screen saver and turned to her other. Its hard drive looked untampered.
“Nick,” she whispered, and motioned him to follow her down the hall to Claire’s empty, dark bedroom. She pulled him into it, then into the closet among the short, hanging clothes where the two of them sat on a shelf among stuffed animals. Desperate just to hide out, Tara slid the closet door closed.
“What in hell are you doing?” he asked.
“I don’t care what we found and figured out tonight, I’m still paranoid. Who knows where Marcie put bugs that night we were being so nice to her, but going by what Claire recalls, I don’t think she was in here.”
“Definitely not in the closet,” he muttered, sounding suddenly amused. “And here I was hoping you just wanted to be sure Claire didn’t watch us make out and have some sort of dream about it later.”
She felt herself blush. How ridiculous at her age and in the dark. No man had ever affected her like this one, not even Laird. Yes, Nick impacted her roller-coaster emotions and hormones, but her ties to him went deeper. Nothing was the ultimate escape but being in his arms.
Thank heavens, it was pitch-black in here, because the heat started at her throat and climbed clear up to her ear tips while her skin tingled. She had meant to ask him in private what it would mean to his job offer to delay going east, but he reached for her and nuzzled her throat, then trailed wet kisses down it.
Trying to sound normal when her heart was beating as if there were a set of drums in there, she whispered in his ear, “Nick MacMahon, I’ve fallen hard for you, but I’ve got to go after Jordan, Laird and Jen, using any ammo I can. And I’ll understand if you’re not along for that part of the battle. You know what I mean, I think…don’t you?”
Whenever this man touched her, she lost her train of thought. What had she just said?
“I’m in it all the way, in all the way,” he murmured as the tip of his tongue plundered the hollow of her throat while his hand slid up the inside of her thigh.
Right now, that vow was better than a diamond ring, she thought, better than the standard promise of I do. She relaxed under his kiss, slanting her mouth sideways to get closer to him. Stuffed animals gently thudded off the shelf as they sprawled out together. They heard the padding footfalls of their real animal, pawing at the closet door.
“It’s Beamer,” she murmured, though that was obvious.
“Hell of a tracker dog, even when someone doesn’t want to be found.”
Nick slid the closet door open. Beamer stepped in and flopped among the displaced array of stuffed animals, putting his head down on a big yellow tiger. A wan silver glow from an outside floodlight gilded his golden coat.
“He won’t tell what he sees,” Nick murmured, running his hand along her bottom to lift her hips into his lap. “You can trust Beamer and you can trust me for the utmost discretion.”
Amidst the chaos of all the losses in her life, she smiled deep within as his mouth covered hers again.
19
The next morning, using her spyware-free PC, Tara tried to trace Marcie Goulder. Dead ends all the way. Was that even her real name? she wondered.
The house was quiet. That had pleased her once, but now she longed for the sound of Claire’s voice, Nick’s heavy tread and Beamer’s barking at elk and deer. Nick had refused to let Claire take the bus this Friday, but had left to drive her to school himself, with Beamer riding shotgun. After he’d dropped Claire off, he’d gone to check Marcie’s apartment again, but had called to say she hadn’t shown up. He’d said he’d be back soon, but he was going to get a piece of glass to replace the broken window.
Tara sighed, remembering how wonderful it had been to be with Nick last night. With him she felt so safe and yet so tense, as if she could explode. Once she’d settled everything with the Lohans, she couldn’t wait to have days with Nick where they weren’t afraid of or angry at what could happen next. Only one week with Nick, and she was ready to give him her body and her life—but she couldn’t completely, not yet.
She shook her head at her wandering thoughts and tried an online search site to locate anyone named Goulder in this immediate area. Could Marcie be a nickname for Marcia?
Outside, something bright caught her eye. She looked out and up toward the tree line. Nothing amiss, but what had caused that flash?
It darted by again, piercing her eyes so she blinked. A reflection from the trees. She gasped. A square piece of glass? Was Nick back and had carried the new window glass up there?
Under an aspen, something moved. A booted foot, not Nick’s.
“Damn!” Tara yelled, and stood so fast she hit her chair with the backs of her legs and it rolled away, bumping a filing cabinet. “She’s out there again with her laptop!”
She grabbed her cell phone, dialing Nick’s number as she ran through the house. The gall of that woman to come back here like this!
“Pick up, Nick, now!” she muttered as she jammed shoes on her feet and ran to the side door. Her gut instinct was to chase the woman, grab her and that laptop, but what if she bolted into the trees? Without Beamer, she’d never find her in the thick forest if she took off running. But maybe she was heading toward the hunter’s cabin and Big Rock.
Nick’s voice on the phone. “Tara?”
“Marcie’s outside again!” she cried without preamble, as she dipped her head to look out the great room window. She wished the kitchen window wasn’t boarded up, because that was probably the best angle. “She was near the scent pool with her laptop, but I don’t see her now.”
“Call the cops, and I’ll be there as quick as I can. Stay put.”
“She’s moving away. She’ll get away. I’m going after her.”
“No! It may be a trap. Stay put and call—”
She hung up. Turning off its ring, she jammed the cell phone in her pocket, though she knew there were dead spots where it didn’t work in the mountains. She grabbed her jacket and went out the front door. No use charging out the back and spooking her. Mommy’s ghost, indeed! She had a lot to settle with that woman, and she wasn’t getting away. Man, she could use Beamer, but trekking mountain paths right now might open up the poor Lab’s cut foot pads. And Nick had said the dog was getting too old for long, hard tracking.
Tara took time to lock the door. She had the Evergreen police on her speed dial, so she knew she could summon them if that really was Marcie. She’d only seen her jeans, boots and laptop, but it had to be her. Tara figured she’d head for the old hunter’s cabin and she was sure where she must have left her car. She’d stop her somehow and get the answers they needed to link Marcie to Jordan or Laird.
Tara’s heart thudded as she quickly climbed to the tree line, passing the scent pool. All around her, the aspens shook their golden leaves; it looked as if they were trembling.
Tara looked for tracks. Yes, Nick would be proud. Clean boot sole prints. And what, he might ask, can you tell about this person?
“That she’s a lying Lohan lackey,” Tara muttered as she stretched her strides, trying to keep an eye on the footprints and the path ahead. Dead tracking, Nick had called this. She should have brought some sort of weapon, a knife from the kitchen or one of Nick’s father’s hammers, but it was too late now.
She caught a glimpse of the woman up ahead. Yes! Marcie for certain, with that spiky blond hair. Carrying her laptop and something else. What if she was armed?
Once Tara never would have taken such a risk. Laird wouldn’t have allowe
d it, and it wasn’t in her nature. Until now. Now almost any danger was worth it if she could just get some answers. Follow the evidence trail, follow the money trail—follow…
Tara pressed her hand to a stitch in her left side, right under her rib cage. She was used to the altitude, but felt as if she couldn’t get a deep breath. The hunter’s cabin lay just ahead. As if the trees had devoured the woman, Marcie had disappeared. Inside? Could it be a trap, or could Tara herself lay one?
She stepped off the path and circled around behind the cabin through the trees. It had rained hard two days ago, and the ground up here was soft.
She halted when she saw a grimy window on the mountain side of the cabin. Perhaps no one could see out, but she couldn’t see in, either. Still, she could throw a shadow; she’d have to duck and get under it fast. If Marcie had not gone inside, she could not afford to let her slip away in a car parked below Big Rock.
Hunched under the window, Tara froze to listen. Thank God, no engine started on the road nearby. She heard the wind soughing through the spikes of pine needles, and her own thudding heart. How long could she stand there, waiting for Marcie or Nick? Nick might have called the cops, though she wished she’d told him to hold off on that until she had some time with Marcie. And would he tell them to come up here or would they just wait at the house?
Again, she had a flashback: she’d called the cops, but not soon enough. Outside his house, Clay came up behind her, stomped on her wrist and sent her cell phone flying. Then he hit her head so hard he knocked a year of life out of her, ruined her chance to know her baby…
Trying to keep so much as a twig from snapping, Tara tiptoed around to the front of the old hunter’s cabin. Just as before, the door was ajar and askew. She was the hunter now, and she had to look in. Lifting a solid branch from the ground for a club, she peeked in the door.
Dirty but deserted. She’d wasted too much time, just the way she’d wasted time trusting Laird, wasted time not knowing she was a mother.
Still holding the branch, she started down toward the road where she and Nick had surmised their stalker had parked, though they’d still thought they were looking for Dietmar Getz then. So misled, but, she was certain, that’s exactly what the Lohans wanted.
Yes, a car was parked there, but not the dark-colored one Marcie had driven to their house the night Rick died. No matter. Money could buy a thousand new cars, a thousand new spies, a thousand new wives for a Lohan.
Could Marcie be up on Big Rock? It made sense, in a way. From that high, open vantage point, she could surely send or receive cell phone messages that crags or outcrops interfered with below.
How long before Nick could get up here? she wondered. Surely he’d know this was where she’d come. She wasn’t sure if he’d use Beamer to track her. It would take him at least twenty-five minutes to get home from Evergreen, and she’d probably been out of the house for at least fifteen now.
Tara quietly climbed the bulbous outcrop that was Big Rock. Careful where she put her feet and the branch she carried, she inched up, trying to avoid so much as a gasped breath. She slipped once, scraping her knuckles and knees, but went on. More sky came into view, then the valley.
And the spiky top of Marcie’s head! She was sitting, facing away, looking out over the vast expanse. She seemed to be on her cell phone. But the wind was wayward, and Tara could not tell what she was saying. She’d have to wait until she was finished, for if she was reporting to someone dangerous, Tara didn’t want her to call for help. Besides, this would give Nick more time to get here.
But it was hard standing half down, half up the steep, smooth slope. Her calves began to cramp. She thought of calling the police from here, but Nick might have done that. Besides, she needed to question Marcie before they read her her Miranda rights and let her call a lawyer, probably funded by a Lohan. She’d never get information out of her then.
Tara ducked when Marcie turned her way, still sitting, talking on her phone. For the first time, her words came clear: “I’m outta here, outta this deal. And don’t think you can risk any more faked suicides. I’ve got enough goods on you, too!”
Marcie evidently ended the call with that. When she stood, almost her whole body popped into view. It was now or never, before Marcie saw her and took off. Tara knew she’d have to block her against the steep drop-off side of the rock to make her stay and answer questions.
“So,” Tara yelled, and scrambled up onto the slightly slanted surface, “how does it feel to be stalked and to have your conversations overheard?”
The shock on the woman’s face showed she had not known she was being followed. Marcie’s wide eyes darted past her, around, down the rock.
“You’re—you’re alone?” she asked, taking a step back. Her shiny black laptop lay on the rock a few feet from her, next to a small gray case. A camera case? No, probably some sort of listening device.
“Hardly,” Tara brazened. “Your old friend Nick’s down at your car to be sure you don’t get away, and the cops have been called—the same ones who want you for B and E. Soon, I’ll bet, they’ll want you for collusion in a faked suicide.”
“You’re crazy. That’s pure hearsay.”
“Oh, I’m sure you’ll have an excellent lawyer to object, when I testify against you in court. The best that Lohan money can buy.”
“Whose money? I just—I fell for Nick MacMahon the first minute I saw him and want to get him away from you, that’s all. That kind of stalking, nothing else.”
“Oh, so bugging my office and my PC helps you to keep track of him? Marcie, you’re wanted for stalking, harassment, criminal trespass and burglary, but I won’t testify against you for any of that if you just tell me who hired you, who you were just talking to.”
The woman’s face went whiter than the clumps of clouds behind her. “Get out of my way, Tara. I admit I’ve been distraught since Rick died. I’m not responsible for my actions. I—I couldn’t even bear to go to the funeral home, and I’m sorry for that.”
“But no better time to drug our dog and rip out all evidence of your spying. So, was Jordan Lohan’s initial offer to Rick or to you? However did he find you in the first place?”
“Get out of my w—”
“You’ve been in mine too long! The Lohans are dangerous if you cross them, don’t you realize that? If Rick’s suicide was really murder, they obviously needed him out of the way. You can testify against the Lohans, make a plea deal. Otherwise, don’t you think when they’re done with you, they’ll eliminate you, like they did him? You’re expendable, Marcie! I was a Lohan wife, one who bucked them. I know them. Now answer my questions and then clear out of here fast, because they’ll be after you next.”
When Marcie stooped to grab her laptop and the case—whether to throw them off the rock or at her—Tara rushed her with her wooden weapon raised. She hit her arm. Marcie yelped and drew it back, then tried to race around Tara to get off the rock. Tara swung the branch at her feet and tripped her.
“Answer me!” she shouted, straddling the prone woman as she pressed the end of the branch into her chest.
Tara couldn’t believe the violent surge that rose in her. This woman had answers she wanted and needed. If Marcie or Rick’s illegal actions could be linked to the Lohans, she had some leverage. She would go to Seattle, get Carla Manning’s legal advice, tell the police what had happened and fight to avenge Sarah’s death.
The strange sound was distant, a whining at first, like a buzzing fly, but it quickly got louder, came closer. Whap-whap-whap. A helicopter lifted from the valley far below. Oh, thank God, Nick had called the police, and they’d sent a chopper to land up here and arrest Marcie. But she needed answers first. She needed…
The chopper was shiny ebony with a black bulbous window over the cockpit. No police insignia, like she’d seen before. No number on the chopper’s tail, nothing…
As the deafening aircraft hovered lower, the wash from the rotors kicked up dust and skittered tiny rocks i
nto her. Blinded, Tara tried to motion the chopper to back off. Marcie kicked her branch away. The blast of air took Tara to her knees, then flattened her to the ground near where Marcie lay.
But she was gone.
Tara crawled in the direction she was certain the laptop had been, but she must be disoriented. Stop! she told herself. Stop before you roll off the edge of the slanted rock, or before Marcie jumps you or you get blown off.
She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. But then, through the flying scrim of debris, she saw Marcie scramble for the chopper as it hovered lower like some flying beast coming in for the kill. Its treads were only a few feet from the rock. Marcie was going to climb in! Not the police but a rescue for her? Yes, she passed the black square of her laptop into the plane, then heaved the gray case inside; black-jacketed arms with black gloves reached out for her.
“No-oooo-o!” Tara screamed, but she choked on grit and dust.
She tried to belly crawl backward, in case the chopper tried to knock her off. The rock began to slant down behind her. She scraped her stomach and chin; opening her arms wide, she tried to find something to grab in the hurricane from the chopper. If she wasn’t crawling toward the road, she could slide off the edge to her death below. She was disoriented, so dizzy. Could she have hit her head? No coma, no living death, never again! It terrified her that Claire’s face, Nick’s, her own as a child—Sarah’s—flashed through her brain in that awful second.
And then the chopper lifted and tilted away, taking Marcie with it. Beamer’s distant bark! Nick’s voice called from behind her somewhere…Nick coughing, now kneeling over her, shouting, “Marcie’s car’s on the road below! Where is she?”
Her voice came out in a rasp. She coughed and hacked as the chopper climbed the face of Black Mountain. She pointed toward it, choking out, “That—rescued her when I—had her cornered. It came fast, just after she threatened—whoever sent it—and I—know who—did.”
