by Alice Sharpe
“Dad has an announcement to make,” Frankie said, but Harry Hastings shook his head.
“This is your show, boy. You’re the driving force behind it all.”
Frankie made eye contact with everyone gathered around him. “I wanted to reveal all this after calving season and before summer work piles up on us, but the producers are anxious to do a little preliminary work. Besides, there’s never a time where everything gets quiet and boring around here, especially not lately, right?”
He paused to grin and glance at each of them in turn. Pike had to agree it had been a hectic few months.
“What producers? What are you talking about?” Chance asked from his seat beside Lily. Charlie, her five-year-old son, was still at kindergarten, but Chance gripped Lily’s hand in his and it appeared he wasn’t letting go. Good for him. When your soul mate comes along, what else can you do but grab on to her and hold tight?
Frankie took a deep breath. “As you guys all know, November is the one hundredth anniversary of the incident at the hanging tree.”
He was referring to the bank robbery of the ghost town, or what was left of it now, and the subsequent capture and execution of three of the four thieves. They had paid for their crimes with their lives by dangling from the end of ropes strung up to the big oak tree out on the plateau. The fourth robber had disappeared along with the spoils and had never been identified or caught.
“About a year ago, I met this guy in Pocatello,” Frankie continued. “I mentioned the ghost town on our land and the robbery. He’d actually read a diary written by someone who used to live in Falls Ridge, as the town was called back then. He confessed he’d had a life-long fascination with the events that had the killed the town almost overnight.
“Anyway, it turns out he makes documentaries and he wants to do one about Falls Ridge and the bank robbery and the tree and all that. He says there’s been some discussion about the mystery guy who got away, so they’d cover that aspect, as well. Originally, they were going to come on out and start filming in late April, but their backers want winter shots and interviews with all of us so the release can be timed to coincide with the anniversary of the events.”
His announcement was met with studied silence. “Dad?” Gerard said at last. “This sounds like a good idea to you?”
Pike watched as his father stood up and walked over to Frankie. It crossed Pike’s mind that his father probably couldn’t have cared less about hosting a bunch of television people and raking up the past. It probably didn’t seem like a good idea at all to him, but on the other hand, when was the last time anyone saw Frankie get interested in anything but making trouble? Consorting with legitimate filmmakers was a far cry from his usual scenarios. Assuming they were legit, of course.
“I don’t think it will have much impact on most of us,” his dad now said. “I researched the company—it’s won a couple of awards and is respected within the industry. They showed us a tape of a show they did on a nesting pair of bald eagles—looked like high-quality work and they’re bonded and have the right licenses. They’ve got network backing... Anyway, unless someone can point out some reason to walk away from this that I haven’t seen, I say we get Frankie to give them a call.”
“I agree,” Pike said, throwing in his hat. Not for a minute did he think having movie types around wouldn’t get in the way of ranch life and schedules, but so what? “Let’s shake things up a little,” he added when he glanced at Chance and Lily. After what they’d gone through back in October, he knew the last thing in the world they would want is any kind of stress, but Chance rallied and threw in his agreement.
Lily, however, had a question. “Did you tell them part of the ghost town burned down last year?”
“Yeah,” Frankie said. “It’s not a problem. Before the real filming takes place, I’ll take some machinery up there and move stuff around. Frankly, what happened there adds to the drama of the place.”
At this Gerard stood up. “What do you mean ‘what happened there’?”
“Not about your wife and daughter, Gerard. That will get mentioned because it’s part of the history of the place now, but no one wants to dwell on a personal tragedy like that.”
“And what about what happened to Lily up there, and Kinsey?” Chance asked.
Lily shifted in her seat. “Jeremy died there, Frankie, and Jeremy was Charlie’s father. Do we have to muck up all that again?”
“Listen,” Frankie said as things began to slide south. The ambience of a moment ago had begun to sour. “What happened here in the last year is part of this family’s story, but it’s not part of the bank robbery. Our experiences have to be acknowledged but they don’t have to be the focus. No one wants that.”
Harry Hastings clapped Frankie on the shoulder as he looked at each person in turn. “The production people will be here in a couple of days. They want to scope things out. How about we go that far and if issues arise, we reassess things. I personally think Frankie is right. This show will not be about our recent tragedies.”
They all agreed that sounded reasonable. Everyone obviously liked the idea of an escape hatch, a back door, so to speak.
“Gary Dodge, he’s the documentary guy I told you about, is interested in Kinsey doing some artist renditions of how the town looked and how an angry posse might have appeared.”
“I’ve done a little commercial work,” Kinsey said. “This sounds exciting to me.”
“And Dad has agreed the crew can stay in this house with him and Grace.”
“We have room at our house, too,” Kinsey said as Gerard put an arm around her. They looked at each other and exchanged silly grins, then Kinsey spoke again. “Since everyone is here, it might be a good time to tell you that we’re getting married a lot sooner than we originally planned.”
“But I thought you wanted a late spring wedding,” Frankie said.
“We did. But since our baby is due in June—”
She didn’t get any further than that. It seemed to Pike that everyone in the room started speaking at once. Half of them were on their feet, slapping Gerard on the back or hugging Kinsey.
Pike took a vacant chair. The house vibrated with the winds of change, from the two women upstairs to all the news and excitement downstairs. He didn’t usually dislike change, but he had to admit that today there was a chill inside him that he couldn’t explain. He thought of the way Sierra had turned at the airport to look behind them as they drove away and the chill deepened. As if paralleling her unease, he turned now to face the door and found Sierra standing in the opening. She gestured at him and he immediately went to join her.
“Finished emailing?” he asked.
“Finished before I started. My phone doesn’t work, just as you predicted, and I don’t know the password for your Wi-Fi.”
“The password is ridgeranch, all lower case, one word,” he said. “I know, it’s not terribly original. How long have you been standing there?”
“Most of the time,” she said. “I didn’t want to bother you.”
“So, you heard Frankie’s plan?”
“I did. It sounds pretty exciting.”
He narrowed his eyes as he gazed down at her face. She was only half a head shorter than he; a tall, shapely woman who he suddenly realized had not come down here out of curiosity or boredom. “What’s wrong?” he said quickly.
“Tess’s breathing is really loud. I’m worried about her.”
“Head colds aren’t any fun,” he said.
“I tried to wake her and she was limp and didn’t even open her eyes. Kinsey said she hadn’t given her any medications, right?”
“Beyond acetaminophen, no.”
“She spent the night at their house,” Sierra said, a new element of fear in her voice.
“Yes, but—”
Kinsey walked into the
foyer followed, closely by Grace. Though a generation apart, both women were small of stature, dainty and pretty in their own way, which made sense because they were related. In a twist of fate, mother and daughter had been reunited. Sierra towered over them. “Is Tess all right?” Kinsey asked.
“I don’t know,” Sierra said. “She seems so out of it. Did you talk to her this morning?”
“Of course. Like I said, she had a restless night. I drove her over here late this morning because Pike had left early to get to the airport. She didn’t have a lot to say, but she was awake and coherent.”
“What are you thinking?” Grace asked.
“I don’t know for sure,” Sierra said. “She was alone while you were on the phone, right?”
“Yes. By the time I found the humidifier and got upstairs, it had been about thirty minutes,” Kinsey said. “She was sound asleep and then you guys arrived.”
“If she took something it must have been within that thirty-minute window. But where would she find something to take?”
“I’m pretty sure she didn’t bring anything with her from LA,” Pike volunteered. “She was traveling light and didn’t have any money. She didn’t even have the car Doug gave her. God knows how she got here. She wasn’t saying.”
“Who would know if she found something at this house?”
“I would,” Grace said.
“We’d appreciate it if you could look,” Pike said.
“Of course I’ll look. We’ll all look. Come on.”
They hurried up the stairs. “We’ll start with the bathrooms,” Grace said. As the three women started their search of drawers and cabinets, Pike went into his old bedroom and opened the drapes. He sat down beside Tess and picked up her limp hand.
He’d had a college roommate years before who partied himself into a stupor every single weekend, and that was the last time Pike had seen someone so oblivious. He shook Tess’s fragile shoulders and called her name. Her eyes opened briefly, she sort of smiled and faded back away. He searched the garbage can and the night table for some indication of what she might have taken.
And then he picked up the phone and called the doctor. By the time Sierra, Kinsey and Grace arrived with ashen faces and a brown prescription bottle, he had already lifted Tess into his arms and was exiting the room.
“An ambulance is on its way,” he told them. “I’m going to meet it on the road to cut down travel time. What did you find?”
“Some of your father’s sedatives are missing,” Grace said with a concerned face. “I don’t think very many, but I don’t know for sure.”
“We’re not taking any chances,” Pike said. “She’s going to get her stomach pumped.”
“I’m coming with you,” Tess said. He nodded once and they all descended the stairs in a hurry, Tess stopping to accept the blanket and pillow Kinsey pushed into her arms. A moment later, in Kinsey’s car now since Pike’s still had a saddle in the back, they tore up the hill and down the long, long roadway, Tess prone in the backseat, her head on Sierra’s lap, the blanket tucked around her still body.
* * *
THEY MET THE ambulance in a pull-off. The EMTs were at the door with a gurney within seconds, hooking up Tess to bags and drips, calling her name. Sierra stood off to the side with Pike, both of them trying to stay out of the way. Pike handed over the prescription bottle and soon after the ambulance took off with sirens wailing while Pike and Sierra climbed back in Kinsey’s car and followed behind.
“Where are they taking her?” Sierra asked.
“The urgent care center in Falls Bluff. The doctor will meet us there.”
“Why would she do this?” Sierra asked as tears burned her eyes. She didn’t know if they were tears of anger or hurt. “She asked me to come, so why would she choose now to drug herself? Is it to punish me?”
“Don’t borrow trouble,” Pike said, sparing a hand to cover her arm. In the rush to leave the house, she’d forgotten to put her jacket back on and now, with the warmth of his touch, she realized how cold she’d become. “Tess did know you were coming, true, but she also knew it would take most of three hours to get to the ranch from the airport. Kinsey said she heard Tess pacing all night. Maybe she just wanted to get some sleep. If her motives were any more than that, wouldn’t she have emptied the bottle?”
Sierra stared at him for a few heartbeats. “I guess so,” she admitted. She rubbed her forehead with her fingers. It was difficult to believe that it had been less than twenty-four hours before when she followed Natalia Bonaparte out of New York to that bar and waited for her companion to show up.
A sudden thought popped into Sierra’s head, a flash of intuition, perhaps. Was it possible the man last night had been Spiro Papadakis, after all? What if he’d recognized Sierra that first time she walked past their table? Hadn’t she detected a glimmer of recognition on his face when their gazes met? Perhaps he’d been spying on his wife spying on him! He could have seen Sierra and his wife meet somewhere. Could it be that he’d learned to hide his accent and sound like he was fresh from the Atlantic City boardwalk at least for a second or two? Had he, in fact, fooled her?
As a non sequitur went, this one was a doozy, but it often happened that way: get your mind flooded with one problem and an insight into another problem floats in to announce itself.
Her laptop was in her carry-on. As soon as they got back to the ranch, she could download the photos onto the computer and then email the images to Savannah. All she’d told Savannah last night was that she wasn’t sure if it was Spiro or not and to be prepared for photographs. She’d also asked about accents but hadn’t gotten a response yet.
“You’ve gotten kind of quiet over there,” Pike said as they finally left the riverside road and drew close to a small town proclaiming itself Falls Bluff. Icy rain slithered down the windshield as Pike drove to the urgent care center. The town hardly looked big enough to support such a thing, but that’s probably the exact kind of community that needed an emergency facility the most.
“I was thinking,” she said. “Not just about Tess, but about a case.”
“Does that case have anything to do with why you looked over your shoulder this morning at the airport?” he asked.
She turned to face him as he pulled into a parking spot. “I’m not sure if it does or not,” she said, then opened her door. She couldn’t believe how her knees wobbled when she stood or the way her heart suddenly raced.
What if she lost her little sister before ever really finding her, or ever really helping her? The thought was intolerable.
Pike shrugged off his jacket and slipped it over her shoulders as she stepped onto the sidewalk. His arm around her suggested he saw or sensed this sudden bolt of numbing fear, and she welcomed his support as they hurried inside.
Chapter Three
Pike leaned against a wall, hands clasping his hat against his chest, legs crossed at the ankles, waiting for Sierra to arrange medical coverage for her sister. No one knew if Tess had insurance, so Sierra had said she would pay the bill with a credit card. Of course, they could call Tess’s father and ask him, but Sierra was reluctant to do that until after they spoke to Tess, and right now that was impossible.
Eventually, Sierra joined him in the waiting room and they sat down beside each other. Pike leafed through a magazine. Sierra just stared toward the door leading to the treatment rooms.
After what seemed like an eternity, Dr. Stewart showed up and greeted Pike like the longtime family friend he was, then sat down. Pike introduced Sierra and explained the relationships. There were so many confusing this-person-married-that-person and divorced-a-year-later explanations that some men might have been baffled, but Mason Stewart was one of Henry Hastings’s oldest friends and he knew all about Harry’s seven wives.
“She’s doing well,” he said. “After we got e
verything out of her stomach, we administered activated charcoal and a cathartic to cleanse the rest of her system.”
“Is she conscious?” Sierra asked with a tremble in her voice.
“Yes. Talking is tricky for a while because we numbed her throat, but I expect her to recover as expected. Give her a few minutes and you can speak to her. I have to warn you, she seems very agitated.”
“She’s been that way for the past day or two, ever since she got here,” Pike said.
“Do you know why?”
“Not yet. That’s why Sierra came to Idaho. We need to talk to her. Something has her spooked.”
“Doctor, I have to ask this,” Sierra said softly. “Is there any indication that Tess purposely overdosed?”
“She knew you were coming, right?” he asked.
“Yes. My arrival was imminent.”
“Let me just say this. Blood tests and stomach contents show she didn’t take a whole lot of the sedative, but she hasn’t eaten much of anything, it seems, for quite a while, and she is a slightly built girl. Two of those pills will knock Harry out for twelve hours, let alone a kid weighing less than half his weight. If you’re worried about suicide, you should get someone to talk to her, but she insists it’s just a case of being desperate to get some sleep, and I’m tending to believe her. I’d like to keep her for a few hours but we’re not equipped or staffed to have her all night. I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but Grace actually worked here as a nurse a few years back.”
“Pike’s stepmother?” Sierra asked.
“Yes. I feel good sending her home knowing Grace can help look after her. I’m going to call her and bring her up to speed. Give the kid a couple of days to recover from all this, okay? Keep things as mellow as you can.”
