Cleo set her bowl aside on her glass coffee table. “We struck out with the laptop. Now what?”
“That depends on what Nick and I find in the wilderness.”
“What about Seamus O’Brien? Did you come up with anything useful based on that CDC report?”
“Maybe. It looks like he’s suffering from two tick-borne diseases. Lyme is bad enough untreated, but he got a double-whammy. He also has babesiosis. And his spleen was removed sometime in the past, he’s a very sick man with a poor prognosis.”
“I’ve heard of Lyme, of course, but I’ve never heard of bab-whatsis.”
“It’s less common and more lethal, especially in combination with Lyme.”
“I thought an early course of antibiotics took care of those things.”
“According to what I read, healthy people with the two diseases can recover, but it can be fatal for a patient without a spleen.”
Cleo hugged herself and shuddered. “Ticks are disgusting, but I didn’t realize they could kill.”
“The deer tick is the nasty piece of work. The problem is that they’re so small they can attach and burrow under the skin without being noticed. I contracted Lyme disease when I was in library school in Connecticut. Had a big red bull’s-eye rash on my right hip and so much joint pain I felt like I was a hundred years old.”
“Are you cured?”
“Definitely. I got lucky, in a way. New Haven isn’t far from the town of Lyme, where the disease originated. Connecticut doctors are quick to diagnose it. Thirty bucks worth of antibiotics killed off those nasty little spirochetes before they did any permanent damage.”
“No lingering aftereffects?”
“Only a soft spot for deer hunters.”
I followed her into the kitchen, where she rinsed our bowls and put them in her dishwasher.
“Any chance Seamus will get well?” she said.
“There’s a chance, but the odds aren’t good. The question is how long he’ll linger before his health gives out altogether.” I told her about his will and the three potential heirs: Echo, Keely, and James.
“Sounds like the vultures are circling.”
“I’m afraid so,” I said, “and it’s too bad. Seamus deserves better.”
I drove home assessing what we’d learned that evening. Laurie’s missing laptop was significant, but it didn’t help narrow the suspects. Her moonlighting at a medical laboratory seemed like an incidental bit of information, but I filed it for future consideration.
When I saw Nick’s car parked at the main house, I recalled that he had insisted on spending the night there. The lights were still burning in the living room, so I knocked on the door. Amah opened it and pulled me into a big hug.
“Oh, my sweet girl, I’m going to miss you while we’re gone. Are you sure you don’t mind looking after things again?” This was their second trip since I’d taken up residence in their barn.
“Of course not.”
I caught a glimpse of Jack and Nick over Amah’s shoulder. They sat at the kitchen table poring over the safari brochures.
“I hear you’re taking time off to go hiking with Nick.” Amah’s hazel eyes had that romantic, starlit glow that only Nick’s presence could evoke. Hope never died in her heart for our eventual wedded bliss. She took my arm and steered me into the kitchen.
“Hi,” Nick said. “Jack thinks we should take Captain and Smoke.”
I wondered what excuse he’d come up with for needing two llamas on a two-day hike that could have been done with simple backpacks.
“Sounds good,” I said, raising an inquisitive eyebrow at Nick.
“Don’t forget to save us a slab of liver,” Jack said. “And get me some good photos.”
Liver? Photos? The light dawned. They thought Nick and I were going deer hunting and might need llamas to carry our kill down off the mountain. I nodded at Nick. Okay, I’m up to speed.
I gave my grandparents extra hugs and good wishes for their trip, and left Jack and Nick to continue their man talk about trailers, spare tires, electrical hook-ups, and what-not. As I drove down the lane to the bunkhouse, I was already missing my adventuresome grandmother and her crusty, endearing husband. In the morning they would be flying with Nick toward the San Francisco airport to catch their commercial flight to Africa.
I telephoned Quinn’s office as soon as I got to work Tuesday morning. My scratchy, nearly incomprehensible speech over the phone seemed to convince him that I should be at home instead of spreading additional microorganisms around an already germ-infested hospital. I told Lola about my sick leave and explained that she should close the library when she left at noon. Any questions should be referred to Cleo.
“That throat thing of yours seems to come and go,” Lola said. “One minute you’re talking fine and the next you’re all raspy.”
Oops. “I know,” I whispered, “but I think it’s getting worse. I should probably stop talking.”
“Too bad. I was going to ask you if you’ve seen the Irish hottie lately.”
I shook my head and pointed at my throat with a shrug. Lola nodded and headed off to patrol the shelves for misplaced books and journals.
Irish hottie. She meant James O’Brien, which reminded me I hadn’t heard from him since he showed up at the ranch on Saturday morning. I was conflicted about telling him what I’d learned about Seamus’s illness and poor prognosis. James had a right to know, but was it my place to tell? I was conflicted, and I’d be on shaky legal ground revealing the content of a confidential hospital report.
I had an even more compelling reason to wait. I had to keep an open mind about James. On the plus side, I saw no evidence he took part in the squabbling the rest of the O’Briens indulged in, but I was concerned about his financial situation. How badly did he need his father’s fortune?
James’s little sister Keely and his young stepmother Echo both lived extravagant lifestyles that depended on Seamus footing the bills. Seamus wanted to make changes in his will. Maybe James knew more about those potential changes than he’d admitted to me. Any further communication with James would have to wait until Nick and I returned from the wilderness. If we found Laurie Popejoy, or identified the mysterious Pat, that might change everything.
Chapter 12
Nick had the trailer hooked up and both llamas haltered before I reached home at noon. I met him at the barn where he was pulling pack saddles and panniers out of the tack room. I asked about the flight to San Francisco.
“It was great.” Nick pulled out the last pannier and locked the tack room door. “They were so excited they could have flown to San Francisco without a plane.”
“Do they suspect anything?”
“I doubt it. Jack talked about hunting the whole time, and your Amah was absorbed in her Kalahari Desert travel brochures.”
“Good. Amah will take a million pictures. Did you happen to check the weather forecast for the Thousand Lakes Wilderness?”
“Clear for three days. Highs in the fifties, lows in the thirties.”
I helped Nick load the saddles and panniers in the back of Jack’s truck. “Did you bring your dog? Her nose might come in handy.”
“No. I’d have to keep her on a leash, and I don’t want both hands full.”
“We could rig the llamas in tandem and I could lead them both.”
“Not necessary. Ginger needs more training before she’ll be any good at search and rescue. She’s staying with Harry while we’re gone.”
When the tack was loaded, I ran upstairs to fill my backpack with extra socks and a pair of thermal long johns. I filled my water bladder and stuffed it into the backpack along with a few protein bars and some trail mix. After I locked my apartment, I joined Nick in the llama pen. He was brushing Captain, so I worked on Smoke. We didn’t want any burrs under their saddle blankets.
Nick finished first and offered Captain a handful of cob. “Harry said he’s taking care of the place while you’re gone. Is he sleeping here, too?”
“That’s what he said. He’ll spend nights in the main house until I get back. He noticed a few things that needed fixing. Said something about a plumbing problem.”
“Sounds like him,” Nick said. “He’d probably rewire the house and put on a second story if we were gone for more than two days.”
We loaded up and headed east toward the Cascade Range, reaching the Tamarack trailhead at three o’clock. That gave us plenty of daylight to reach Barrett, the closest lake and a hike of less than two hours. Ours was the only vehicle in the trailhead parking area, but there were two other trailheads that accessed the same lakes. Laurie could have chosen one of those.
We each saddled a llama, and then teamed up to attach the panniers to the saddles.
“Do we need to weigh them?” A balanced load was important to make the llamas comfortable on the trail.
“No, Jack and I packed and weighed them last night. They’re each carrying about forty pounds. They’re light, but that’s because—”
“I know.” Laurie’s body draped over a llama made for a gruesome mental picture.
“Sorry,” Nick said. “Which one do you want to lead?”
“Doesn’t matter. They’re pros. They’ll walk for anyone.”
He took Captain’s lead rope. “You want to go first?”
“No, you’re a better tracker. I might miss something.”
“Don’t count on seeing any sign that your friend used this trail,” Nick said. “We don’t know what kind of boots she was wearing—if she’s even wearing boots. Hell, we don’t even know if she’s out here.”
“But you heard Uncle Fudd’s cuckoo clock. That’s the best lead we have now that ….”
I caught myself just in time. I’d been about to say now that we knew her laptop was missing. I couldn’t share that bit of information with Nick unless I told him Cleo and I had gone back to Laurie’s house.
“Now that what?” Nick said.
“Huh?” I played dumb, but he didn’t buy it.
“You didn’t finish your sentence. Now that what?”
“Oh, I just meant now that she’s stopped calling me.”
“Hmm.” Nick gave me a skeptical look, but he let it drop.
We followed the trail as it wound up the mountain, watching the ground for boot prints—any prints—and the trees overhead for mountain lions. Soon I was inhaling dust stirred up on the dry trail by Captain’s hooves. I stopped to dampen a bandana and tie it across my mouth and nose. My breath warmed the cloth, and the scent of fabric softener tickled my nose. Warm afternoon sunshine slanted through the canopy of Jeffrey and lodgepole pines, and a fickle breeze rustled the leaves of whiteleaf manzanita. The only sign of wildlife was the scattered remains of pine cones efficiently stripped of their nut meats by squirrels preparing for the coming winter.
Forty-five minutes in, both llamas stopped in their tracks and faced right, ears erect and nostrils quivering. I followed their gaze. Thirty feet off the trail a fat, cinnamon-colored bear was digging grubs from a fallen tree trunk. The bruin gouged the soft wood with a massive paw sporting curved yellow claws at least three inches long.
The trunk of a large conifer blocked Nick’s view of the bear. Guessing the usual reason for a llama to stop on the trail, he called over his shoulder, “Why’d we stop? Is someone peeing?”
“Bear,” I whispered.
“What? Speak up, I can’t hear you.”
I pulled the bandana away from my mouth. “Bear at three o’clock,” I said, trying for a louder whisper. The llamas were still focused on the shaggy beast. I half expected them to bolt.
“What?” This time he spoke loud enough to alert the bear. It glanced our way for a moment, went back to digging at the trunk, and then did a double take.
This time I didn’t whisper. “Bear at three o’clock,” I yelled.
Nick stepped around the obstructing tree. “Ah, hell. Here, hold this.” He handed me Captain’s lead rope and started waving his arms and yelling, “Hey there! Hey, scat!”
The bear stared at Nick for a fraction of a second then turned tail and lumbered off into the woods, its fur catching the sunlight and rippling in shades of copper and gold as it ran.
“Wow,” I said. “The color in its coat is spectacular. What kind of bear is it?”
“Black bear, but with a cinnamon coat.”
“Amazing, I’ve always wanted to see a bear in the wild.”
“Be careful what you wish for. That was probably a young female without cubs. They’re not always that people-shy.”
My thoughts turned immediately to Laurie. Even if she was an experienced hiker, she’d fled her home at a moment’s notice. Was she equipped to survive alone in the wilderness for almost a week?
We reached Barrett Lake without spotting any fresh footprints on the trail and found all three campsites empty. I tethered the llamas where they could graze on shoots of green grass near the shore. Nick started picking through ashes in one of the fire rings.
“See anything?”
“Just a beer can and some tangled fishing line.”
The other fire rings were scattered and held no remnants of recent use. We circled the perimeter of the lake, taking our time along a shore left muddy by the receding water level. We identified bear scat, deer and mountain lion tracks, and traces of boot prints in a variety of sizes and patterns. If any were Laurie’s, we had no way of knowing.
“We might as well head up to Durbin,” Nick said. “It’s only a thirty minute hike.” It was the closest and smallest of the other lakes we planned to search.
“Are you sure? There’s enough light left to get up there and look around, but it’ll be too dark to move on to the others.”
“No problem. Unless we find her there, we’ll come back here and camp for the night. We’ll wind back down to Eiler in the morning.”
“What about Hufford and McGee? Aren’t we going up there?”
“Not unless we have to. If she’s out here, I hope she didn’t go that high.”
“The cold nights?”
“Right. If she isn’t prepared for it….” He didn’t finish his thought, but I knew what he meant. Hypothermia.
We patrolled the shore at Durbin but spotted nothing to indicate Laurie had been at the lake, so we dropped back down to Barrett to spend the night. We worked as a team to unload the llamas, setting the panniers and pack saddles aside. I staked the boys out to graze while Nick put our fishing rods together. After we pitched Nick’s two-man tent, I arranged the air mattresses and sleeping bags while he collected firewood. The routine had been established during our hikes the past summer, and we fell into it without comment. We fished until we caught four pan-sized rainbows.
The sun dropped behind McGee peak to our west, bringing early twilight as we finished our trout and trail mix dinner. We brought the llamas in close, let them have a good roll in the duff, and tied them to trees near our tent. Good watchdogs in case four-legged critters decided to raid our supplies during the night.
After KP we sat on a fallen log to drink hot cocoa and watch the embers of our fire.
After a few minutes, Nick said, “Well?”
“Well, what?”
“What’ll we do until it’s time to go to sleep.”
“Let’s enjoy the peace and quiet.”
He rubbed his knuckle across the back of my hand. “Remember what we used to do?” His touch sparked vivid memories, causing tendrils of sensation to flood through my body. I stayed quiet, not trusting myself to reply. A screech owl suddenly trilled out in the darkness, breaking the mood. I got up and dropped another piece of wood on the fire. “Things were different between us then.”
“Then let’s use the time to try and make some sense of your O’Brien puzzle.”
“Good idea, but every time I try to sort through the pieces, it seems more complicated.”
Nick drained the last of his cocoa. “Then let’s try to simplify it. Start at the beginning. Just the facts.”
“Yet your friend Laurie said it wasn’t the horse. She couldn’t know that unless she witnessed what really happened or someone told her about it.”
“You’re right. I’ve been thinking she witnessed Cody’s murder, but maybe she found out about it some other way. In any case, she seems sure it wasn’t Game Boy.”
“Which leaves foul play.”
“And that’s why we’re here, on what is probably a wild goose chase, because you heard a cuckoo clock on my answering machine tape.”
Nick pulled a small notebook and pencil from his backpack and turned on his headlamp. “You said Seamus wants to change his will now that Cody’s gone, right?”
“That’s what I assumed, but it was James who wondered if Seamus was planning to change the will while Cody was still alive. That would put a different spin on it.”
“Hmm, how many O’Briens are there in that clan?”
“Counting the dead ones?”
“Might as well start with those.”
“There’s Cody, the most recently deceased, and his wife, DeeDee Dakota, who died about two and a half years ago after a trick riding accident. She was kicked in the head by her horse.”
“Are you serious?”
“I’m afraid so. I’ll fill you in on that later. Let’s get back to the list.”
Nick nodded. “Go on. Are there more deceased O’Briens?”
“There’s Cody’s mother.”
“What happened to her? Not a horse, I hope.”
“No. An overdose, a year after Seamus divorced her and married Keely’s mother.”
“Any others?”
“Those are all that I know about.”
Nick stirred the embers and added another piece of wood. “Now let’s make a list of surviving family members. Start with the oldest and we’ll work our way down.”
“The first wife is still alive. She lives back east.”
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