by Alice Sharpe
“Oh.”
“You found Willet at three-thirty?”
“I looked at my watch when he died. It was 3:25.”
He turned for a quick look. “Are you saying I chased my own father through the field? Are you accusing him of killing Willet?”
“I don’t know, Adam. But he did return tonight with a worse limp than he had this morning. And you and he do sort of look alike, especially from a distance. It would be possible to confuse you. And Dennis said his father suspected you were onto him. Maybe it was your father Willet saw and just thought it was you.”
She couldn’t bring herself to repeat Willet’s dying words or mention the concho she’d plucked off the floor. But it was in the Garvey house and unless there was a duplicate, didn’t it suggest a Westin had been inside the house, too, probably Birch? Gently, she said, “Maybe your father just came to talk and found Willet already dying.”
“And ran off and left him without helping? That’s even worse. Anyway, Dad would have taken the artifacts with him.”
Their voices dropped to whispers as though the night had ears. “Maybe he planned to but then heard us at the door and panicked.”
They had reached the house. He got off first this time and reached up to help her down. She wished she could stay within the circle of his arms where she landed.
“The invoice,” he said.
“What invoice?”
“From the store. They stamp the time of transaction on those things. If we can find it, we can check it out.”
The house was dark but the door was unlocked. They crossed the hall to the den the ranch used as its business office. Adam flicked on the light as they entered and Echo closed the door softly behind them.
She hadn’t been in the office in over twenty years but it looked exactly as she had remembered it. Same leather furniture, big fireplace, gun cabinet. An oil painting of an old house that looked vaguely familiar hung behind the desk and a tray holding a couple liquor bottles and crystal glasses sat near a large window, the drapes drawn for the night. The only clue that time had advanced was the computer and printer on a corner table.
“Would you pour me a whiskey?” he asked. “Help yourself to whatever you’d like.”
She poured whiskey in two glasses and handed him one. He’d moved behind the desk and sat in the swivel chair. The papers before him appeared to be the university forms.
“Did he sign them?” she asked as she moved behind him. He smelled like the lake, fresh and summery, and she wanted to kiss his head. She didn’t.
“Yeah, he did. I half expected he wouldn’t.”
She had, too.
He plucked a yellow paper from atop a shallow stack and checked the letterhead. “This is the invoice.” He placed it on the desk directly under the lamp. Echo moved to look closer.
The printer that had created the invoice obviously needed a new ink cartridge. As a result, data was hard to decipher. Echo crossed mental fingers that if they ever spotted a time of transaction it would reveal Birch Westin had been in Big Fir buying a tractor part when Willet Garvey heaved his last breath.
“There’s the date,” she said, pointing at numbers in an upper right box.
He tilted the paper toward himself and studied it a second. “The time is underneath it. Five fifty-five p.m.”
“That leaves a couple hours unaccounted for,” she whispered.
“There has to be another explanation,” Adam said.
“Of course,” she said, ignoring her drink. The uncertainty she’d managed to instill in Adam’s voice made her queasy. She moved around where she could see his face and perching on her heels, took his hands in hers. “Talk to your father. He’ll tell you—”
“He’ll tell me nothing. When he gets wind I’m questioning his character, he’ll throw me off this ranch. And I won’t blame him.”
“Adam—”
“What about the drugs? How do you explain those?”
She released his hands and stood up. “I don’t. That’s where this falls apart.” Tell him about the concho…?.
He stared at her a second or two, downed the rest of his drink with a single swallow and set the glass carefully and deliberately on the desk. He took a deep breath. “No, that’s not where it falls apart. It fell apart when I began to buy into your crazy theory. Damn.”
He straightened the university forms and placed the invoice back on the right stack of papers, his movements exact. Her heart felt ponderous in her chest. “Adam? Please, talk to me.”
“I don’t know if I should right now.”
“You’re upset…?.”
“Damn right I’m upset. It obviously didn’t occur to you to take into consideration some pretty intangible factors.”
“Such as?”
“Honesty. Integrity.”
Sympathy and guilt flew straight out the window in light of his holier-than-thou stance. “Oh, that’s right,” she said, striding away from him. “Those are qualities every Westin male embraces with every waking breath. How could someone like me ever hope to understand such decency?”
“I guess you can’t.”
She rounded abruptly and glared at him. “You asked me to confide in you.”
“How was I supposed to know you were entertaining the notion that my father is capable of cold-blooded murder? It’s insane.”
“All I’m asking is you keep an open mind,” she said softly. Despite her frustration with him, the storm raging in his gray eyes made her cringe. How she wished she’d kept these suspicions to herself until she had proof. If she ever had proof. She would ask her uncle about the hat. She would not involve Adam again….
“Cody’s waiting for me to relieve him at the cave,” he said, avoiding her gaze.
“Adam, please. I’m not accusing your dad of a thing. It’s all speculation.”
He stared straight into her eyes. “You know, Echo? That somehow makes it worse.” He walked to the door and opened it. Holding it wide, he gestured with his good arm. “After you.”
Chapter Ten
The campfire Cody had built outside the cave acted as a beacon, but Adam thought it would also warn anyone intent on mischief that the cave was guarded.
As he drew close, he could see Cody stretched out on the ground leaning against a rock. A tin pot sat nearby on a different rock, this one with a distinct slant. Bonnie stood near the edge of the firelight, tail wagging. Adam knew she would have barked had she not recognized his scent.
He tied Solar Flare to a tree and patted the dog.
“You look like you’re settled in for the night,” he said as he approached.
Cody yawned. “Ground’s a little hard. You here to spell me?”
Adam found a spare mug in the supplies and poured himself a cup of cowboy coffee from the tin pan. The slant of the settling brew had gathered the grounds on one side of the pan, but it was still tricky getting something he could drink. After the whiskey, though, he needed a pick-me-up.
After the whiskey and Echo.
“Where’s your sidekick?” Cody asked as he felt around for his hat.
Adam cast his brother a glowering look. “What sidekick?”
A rare grin played around with the corners of Cody’s mouth. “The pretty one. Seems you two have been hanging out together a lot. You know, sharing adventures and things. Is there something going on you want to tell your big brother?”
Cody could have no idea how his joke cut through Adam’s heart. He’d had everything he wanted an hour ago. “Not a thing,” he growled.
“You sure? She’s got a way about her. Seems to me she might have her sights set on you.”
“Listen, if you’re so anxious to sit here and gossip, why don’t you admit why you really called Pierce home while I was in Hawaii? Why you really ran off into the dead of night? That detective you hired found Cassie, didn’t he? That’s why you left. Did you finally talk to her?”
All hint of amusement slid from Cody’s lips. “How do you know about the
detective?”
“I live here. I know.”
Cody shook his head. “Leave it alone.”
“Well, did you see her? Did you have it out? Is it over for good now? Can you get on with things?”
“It wasn’t her,” Cody said, his voice barely a whisper. “It isn’t over.”
Feeling lower than a rattlesnake, Adam mumbled, “Sorry I asked.”
They fell into an uneasy silence until Cody took a deep breath and started to rise. “Anyway, I forgot you dropped off Echo at the airport. She’s back in California by now.”
“Can we just not talk about Echo? There’s a whole lot that went on today you don’t know about. Sit a minute while I fill you in.”
He gave Cody the abbreviated version of the afternoon, hitting the major high spots and completely leaving out any mention of Echo’s absurd observations let alone the hour of passion they’d shared before she’d made them. After they mulled over the facts a little, Adam brought up the other thing that was worrying him.
“I can’t stop thinking about the way the gunman charged up the hill after us last night. Seems out of character for Willet.”
Cody tossed the cold dregs of his cup into the bushes. “I’ve been thinking about that since you mentioned it earlier so when I got here tonight, I took a tour of the cave. I got to thinking that maybe what could have caused him to get brave all of a sudden was if he was ready to haul everything away. But it doesn’t look like anything inside the cave has changed since you ran someone out of there yesterday. The lock hasn’t been tampered with, nothing.”
The brothers stared into the flames for a minute, then Cody got to his feet. “Come on, Bonnie, time for you and me to head home for some shut-eye.”
After he left, Adam stoked the fire and prayed something would happen at the cave to divert his attention. Nothing happened. Nothing.
His thoughts circled around Echo like vultures around a dead carcass. He knew he should never think about her again but he couldn’t stop. She’d been such a huge part of the events of the past two days. Front and center you could say. Hell, he almost expected her to materialize even now. She wouldn’t be welcome but when did that ever stop her?
He peered into the shadows.
He’d never made love to a woman like her before. She’d consumed him, brought out things in him he didn’t even know about himself. His brain told him to stay clear of her while every other part of his body urged him to sell his pride down the creek and go back to her.
Why did she have to come here, anyway? She was dangerous—he’d known it from the minute he had spied her long ivory legs, but he’d allowed her sexy, sassy beauty to trick his hormones into thinking she was worth a little trouble.
Life was a game to her. People were pieces to be shuffled around a board. Or a television show…
And yet, damn it, some of what she had said made sense. He’d had hazy questions about his father’s motives, too. None as outlandish as hers and none he’d ever give voice to. Allowing her to say those things about his dad while seated in what they all thought of as his office had made Adam feel like Benedict Arnold. And worse, way worse, he’d bought into them for a minute.
A ranch ran on trust and guts and believing the best of those you depended on for your livelihood and sometimes for your very life. But what had taken the old man so long? And why hadn’t he taken Pauline up on her offer to fetch a part—she was used to being the gofer. Birch had work to do, things at the ranch he was anxious about, so why squander all that time?
Mike relieved Adam at daybreak. A quick ride home, an even quicker shower, then out in the field, manning a tractor, making patterns in the tall grain fields, wishing the gulped breakfast Pauline had forced him into eating wasn’t sitting like a pile of rusty horseshoes in his gut.
Dr. Wilcox showed up late and from the wrong direction. She’d obviously been to the house first. He’d been making big passes across the field and had apparently missed her van the first time she went by.
He stopped the tractor and walked over to the road where she’d pulled to the side and rolled down the window. “I hate to bother you, but I need to see the forms,” she told him.
“That’s okay. I have them right here.” As he took them out of his vest pocket, he glanced inside the big van—it was empty except for Wilcox and one passenger, a man in his late forties with a high forehead and sparkling eyes. He wore jeans and a cotton jacket. A watch that appeared to tell the time at any given spot in the world looked heavy on his wrist.
“This is Professor Lavel, the visiting archaeologist I was telling you about,” Wilcox said as Adam handed her the signed papers.
“Call me Henri,” Lavel said with a French accent, leaning over Dr. Wilcox to offer his hand in greeting. “Monsieur, how I look forward to this cave of yours!”
“That’s good to know,” Adam said, shaking Lavel’s hand.
Wilcox opened the papers and scanned for the signatures. “The students are checking our equipment back at your place,” she said. “Your housekeeper said there’s a man out there already who can show us around.”
“Yeah, Mike’s there. But you’ll need a guide to find it in the first place. Give me a minute to alert the others and move the tractor—”
“No, no, I grew up on a farm, I know about harvesting schedules,” she said. “We won’t disrupt you.”
“But after all, there is no need,” Lavel gushed, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. “Your lovely cousin has volunteered to show us to the cave. I gather she is looking forward to the expédition.”
His cousin. Adam looked down at the ground. Echo showing them the way to the cave rankled every bone in his body and yet there was no denying she was competent to do it; she’d found her way there alone night before last, and after dark to boot. It was just that everywhere she went something awful seemed to happen and it made him uneasy.
He looked out over the waving acres of grass that needed to get mowed. He glanced back at the two expectant professors.
Wilcox smiled, her teeth as white as the high clouds floating overhead. “Don’t worry, Mr. Westin. We know our way around a cave. You do your thing and let us do ours and we’ll meet back at your house at four this afternoon to see what we have.”
“We will take excellent care of your cousin. You need have no fears,” Lavel added.
He wished people would stop calling Echo his cousin. Maybe the label had fit as good as any other at one time but it no longer sat comfortably. Way too much had passed between them. For a moment there, she’d been his lover…?.
Let it go.
Right now the question was, did he warn them not to take anything Echo said too literally? Like maybe Birch Westin had motive and means to kill a man.
No. Whatever Echo was, she wasn’t thoughtlessly cruel.
“Just do me a favor and remind her that she’s due back here by three for a chat with Sheriff Inkwell.”
ECHO DROVE A RANCH ATV IN the lead of the other five vehicles that carried the professors, three graduate students and a lot of supplies. They had to pass the big house by the lake to get to the trail leading to the caves and she avoided glancing at it.
As for the lake itself—it lay there in the sunshine, blue, inviting and heartbreaking.
Mike, whom she hadn’t yet met, turned out to be a large affable guy with short curly black hair and biceps the size of Easter hams. He cheerfully greeted everyone and unlocked the cave, then walked ahead down the rock-strewn descent with a flashlight as Echo lit the torches the way Adam had the time before. She barely paused at the spot where she’d first kissed him, hoping to rattle him a little.
The main cavern was exactly as it had been the only other time she’d been there, the stalagmites making for tricky walking, the sound of dripping water in the background, the growing chill as they descended farther into the earth. The pickax still lay on the ground where the thief had dropped it while dark shadows on the far side hid the shaft into which she’d fallen when
the thief had shot at her.
Had it been Willet Garvey?
Mike stepped forward and lowered his voice. “I’ve never been in here before. Do you know the way to the burial cavern?”
“I saw Adam go down this tunnel,” she said, lighting yet another torch.
Both professors and the student archaeologists alike had been taking numerous photos as they moved through the cave, each step accompanied by the metallic jingle of equipment. Lavel sometimes broke into rapid-fire French in his excitement. He came forward to walk with Echo, holding her elbow as he asked a million questions she couldn’t answer.
The narrow secondary tunnel eventually stopped by a pile of rocks. Evidence of a wood door lay shattered on the ground, thanks, no doubt, to the pickax left back in the main cavern. It crossed Echo’s mind to ask around and see if anyone had thought to check the handle of the ax for prints, although a man using such a tool generally wore gloves.
Wilcox held an arm out at her side to stop everyone from entering. “Allow Professor Lavel to go first,” she said. “Madame, that honor should go to you. This is your dig,” Lavel said gallantly.
“Please, be my guest.”
Niceties out of the way, Lavel stepped into the cavern. He carried a very powerful flashlight, which he used to illuminate the walls and floor and the ceiling overhead. Wilcox and the students crowded close behind him, filling the entrance, shining their lights, as well. As a result, the small chamber burst into light.
It was a space of high walls and many fissures of varying lengths and widths. A huge pile of rocks occupied much of the center space, one shaped more or less like a big stone chair or throne. What appeared to be a deep rift in the floor two-thirds of the way into the room looked menacing. A metal cart filled with several wrapped bundles that resembled those Echo had seen in the box on top of Willet Garvey’s kitchen table sat off to one side.
Should she tell Wilcox and Lavel about those items? No doubt they were in police custody by now; she’d leave that disclosure to Adam. But she did remember part of the conversation from two days before and repeated it now, Adam’s voice ringing in her ears just as it had the first days before. “I’m told the native tribe who summered in this high valley used this cavern to bury their dead. Adam said they wrapped the body, and sometimes personal items, in blankets.”
