Tattered Legacy (A Nora Abbott Mystery)

by Shannon Baker

  Copyright Information

  Tattered Legacy: A Nora Abbott Mystery © 2015 by Shannon Baker.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Midnight Ink, except in the form of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  First e-book edition © 2015

  E-book ISBN: 9780738742120

  Book format by Bob Gaul

  Cover design by Lisa Novak

  Cover illustration by Robert Rodriguez/Lindgren & Smith

  Cover image: iStockphoto.com/9963181/ebettini

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  Author’s Note

  Moab is a terrific place. I ask readers to remember that the Moab described in Tattered Legacy is seen through Nora’s eyes, and she’s got reasons to withhold her love. I’ve spent some time in Moab and Castle Valley and never once was I confronted by a dangerous group of locals, Mormon or otherwise. The people of Moab are warm and welcoming and, seriously, the landscapes are beyond amazing.

  Since this is a work of fiction, I’ve taken a few liberties to arrange the world to suit my story. There is no Read Rock Bookstore. I created the store and the building and set it somewhere on Main Street. Thankfully, the Tokpela Ranch doesn’t exist.

  There is a campaign underway to expand the boundaries of Canyonlands National Park. It was this movement that prompted the very real Laura Kamala to produce a film to show lawmakers the benefits of expansion. If you’re interested in more of the story—one not told through the point of view of made-up characters—I encourage you to go to greatercanyonlands.org.

  The Southwest is full of amazing pictograph and petroglyph panels. As far as I know, there isn’t a grand display in Fiery Furnace. Nor is there a design like the symbol Nora sees in her dreams. And though there is a Hopi Prophecy Rock and there are interpretations of its meaning, the rock where Benny takes Nora is fictitious.

  Let me caution anyone not to do what Nora does and traipse off into Fiery Furnace in Arches National Park without a guide. It is a dangerous maze and a person could easily get lost. In the blazing high-desert sun. All alone. So thirsty.

  The Castle Valley flood in this book is inspired by an actual flood in that area in 2009. By all accounts, and from the devastation left behind, it was a terrifying event.

  The characters and groups I created in this book are not real. I don’t hate Mormons or the LDS church any more than I hate Christians based on the Westboro Baptist Church or Muslims based on Al Qaida. This is fiction, so I had to come up with lots of gooey conflict.

  Finally, the Hopi tribe is one of the oldest cultures in the world. I don’t pretend to understand a fraction of their beliefs and customs. What I do know is that I’ve heard about some crazy stuff happening on the rez, and I have no reason to doubt its truth.

  To Janet Fogg,

  my hero.

  One

  Warren Evans felt the hand of God wrap around him, holding him straight and strong. Others might panic or lose their temper, but with God’s help, Warren waited for the chaos in his head to subside.

  He picked up his phone and resumed the conversation. “I see.”

  Barely controlled rage strangled his nephew’s voice. “She figured it out. I don’t know how. But she was going to expose us.”

  Warren leaned back, and the well-oiled springs of his chair whispered in his spacious office. He gazed out the window overlooking Central Park, the trees a mass of green. But his thoughts were in the canyon lands of his childhood.

  The Promised Land.

  The impossible red rock formations rising in majestic splendor under the vast sky, a blue never visible in New York City. He imagined the circling hawk and heard its cry echoing off God’s canvas. He longed to see the hoodoos—the tall rock spires that marched across the high deserts of southern Utah—defending the castles of stone carved by wind and water, to feel the searing sun on his skin and taste the pure air.

  Instead, he addressed his nephew in clipped tones. “Did you get the footage she’s completed?”

  “I’m working on it.” Anger ebbed from his nephew’s voice.

  Warren clenched his fist, resisting the urge to pound it on the distressed surface of his antique oak desk. He stared at his hand, commanding his fingers to relax, then spoke with his characteristic authority. “That means you aren’t sure she has it on tape.”

  His nephew swallowed. “She told Rachel she’d been to Fiery Furnace. We couldn’t take the chance.”

  Fiery Furnace. Mention of the name sent a wave of longing through Warren. He should be in Moab instead of his corner office high above Manhattan’s streets. With the end so near, they needed a steady hand, and he needed the strength and comfort of the land. The first lights announcing evening flicked on in countless other offices, but Warren sat in the growing gloom, straining to see the sky.

  “I’ve done what needed to be done,” his nephew said. “For you.”

  Bile burned Warren’s throat. “For us. For mankind.”

  Pause. That hesitation of a nonbeliever. “And you’ll lead us.”

  Those words hit like knives. Leading his flock had sustained him for years. But it would soon be over for him. Like Moses and even Martin Luther King, Jr.—though Warren hated to compare himself to a black man—Warren wouldn’t enter the land of milk and honey with his people. God had told him that much.

  But God hadn’t told him who would lead in Warren’s place.

  Time was running out, and Warren needed to decide which of his nephews would inherit the kingdom.

  Two

  Nora Abbott shut her eyes against the onslaught of icy water. She gasped in shock at the fury of the wave as it slapped at her face and knocked her against the back of the raft. Her feet slipped from the rubber strap that anchored her to the boat. Disoriented, she scrambled to her knees. The raft bucked and lurched, tossing her from side to side. She clutched the rigging threaded around the raft and braced herself to face downstream.

  The raft crested the top of a swell and the canyon narrowed. Nothing but foam, frigid waves, and rocks ahead. The raft tilted to the right, banged against a bou
lder, and pitched forward, careening through another wave. It smashed into the canyon wall.

  Nora popped from the waffling bottom. Her feet flew over her head. She clawed for the rope, but her fingers only scratched at slick rubber. A somersault catapulted her from the raft and she splashed into the freezing river, cracking her tailbone on rock.

  Fighting for her breath in the glacial water, she succeeded in flipping onto her back with her feet pointed upstream. The life vest offered neck support and her wetsuit and splash jacket kept her from instant hypothermia. She cooperated with the current until the canyon walls widened and the water calmed. She navigated to the bank, struggled for solid footing, and crawled out of the river moments before the raft crashed into the bank.

  Cole jumped from the raft, nearly flattening her. He yanked on the rigging and the raft slid out of the water, coming to rest on the grassy bank. He spun around, breathless, his eyes wild, and focused on Nora, surveying her from head to toe. Apparently satisfied that she had indeed survived, he relaxed as his face split into a grin. “Whoo-hoo!”

  Nora whooped in response, releasing tension. “I’ve never seen this river so full.”

  They’d pulled out in a small meadow—green grass lit by bright Colorado sunshine, edged in by pines and a few elms. The Rocky Mountains rose on either side of the Poudre River, where a heavy spring runoff raged. The rapids roared upstream, but peace reigned here.

  They shrugged out of their life vests. Cole settled to the ground, pulling off Neoprene socks and wiggling his water-wrinkled toes. His sandy-colored hair dripped, and he pushed it back on his forehead.

  Nora stripped off the splash jacket to let the sun warm her. She yanked the elastic from her ponytail and squeezed her shoulder-length hair, wringing out the river water. Stretching into the raft, she unbuckled the water bottle securely fastened to the rigging. She flopped down on the grass next to Cole and handed him the bottle. The sun kissed her and she tilted her head to catch its heat while the breeze teased a few strands of her drying, copper-colored hair into her face. “Whose great idea was it to play hooky today?”

  He leaned back with easy grace. “You needed to get out of the office.”

  He was right. Probably. “What if Lisa needs something?”

  “She’ll figure it out.” A mountain wren twittered, answered by more sweet birdsong.

  Nora ignored the knot trying to form in her belly. “She called yesterday while I was Skyping with the board about forest restoration. I figured she’d call back if there was an emergency.”

  Cole’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “That doesn’t sound like you.”

  “It’s killing me, but I’m trying to learn to delegate more.”

  He kissed her. “And you’re making fine progress.”

  They watched the river race past. She stole a glance at Cole and found him smiling, his blue eyes twinkling. “What?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “Nothing.”

  She landed a playful punch on his arm. “Talk to me.”

  He laughed. “I’m from Wyoming. Men aren’t big on sharing feelings there.”

  “Says the man who insists I tell him everything like he’s a therapist. Come on. It can’t be bad—you’re smiling.”

  He let his gaze rest on her and his smile faded. The blue of his eyes deepened. “I was thinking how damned lucky I am to have found someone who fits me so well.”

  His simple words took her breath with as much force as the icy river. “Me too,” she whispered and kissed him.

  They took a moment together, making out on the bank like teenagers. It was a perfect day—too perfect. At that thought, worry flooded in and Nora sat back.

  “The film deadline is tomorrow. Lisa says she’s almost done, but I haven’t seen it.” Reminding herself of the timeline sapped her of the exhilaration from the rapids and from her day with Cole. So much rested on the success of the film.

  This was Nora’s first big project as executive director of Living Earth Trust. She’d hired her college friend, Lisa Taylor, to create a feature film documenting Canyonlands National Park in Utah and the threats it faced. They were scheduled to screen the film for a committee of congressmen to advocate for expansion of the park’s boundaries.

  A flash of blue in the trees behind Cole made Nora gasp.

  Cole twisted to look. He turned back to her. “What?”

  She inspected the tree where she thought she’d seen the blue, then plastered on a smile. “Nothing.”

  “Is he there?” He studied her.

  So much for brushing it off. Cole knew about her kachina. “No. I haven’t seen him in months.”

  A blue jay squawked and fluttered onto a pine bough behind Cole, as if mocking her.

  “That’s good, right?” Cole asked.

  Nora didn’t miss him, exactly. “It’s great. Who needs a visit from an ancient Hopi spirit? It’s scary, and he always gets me into trouble anyway.”

  Cole didn’t look convinced. “Except you’d like to see him.”

  There was no hiding from Cole. He knew her better than anyone and, surprisingly, still wanted to be with her. She’d struck a gold mine in him. “He made me feel like … ” She struggled for the words. “Like maybe I really am Hopi and, well … ” Exposing herself like this, even to Cole, made her hesitate. “Like I might belong.”

  “Belong to what?”

  He actually seemed to take her doubts seriously. Once again, he proved she could trust that he really cared. “I don’t look Hopi. I’ve got no evidence. But as long as a kachina shows up every now and then, I don’t feel like a poseur.”

  Cole threw an arm around her shoulder. “You worry too much.”

  “I used to dream about him. And even though I’ve been dreaming about Hopi stuff, he’s not appearing. And then I wake up nervous.”

  “I think you’re dropping off to sleep nervous, fretting about Lisa’s film.”

  She rested her head on his shoulder. “Probably. But these dreams are vivid. I’m standing in front of a petroglyph panel in the desert. There’s this big design with concentric circles, like a bull’s-eye, and lines shoot out from it.”

  “Like a sunburst?” Cole lowered to rest on his back, moving slowly so Nora lowered down, too.

  She’d dreamed about it so often that she could see the petroglyph in detail. “Kind of, but not really. Instead of rays all around the circle, there are two parallel lines spaced evenly around it. Anyway, in my dream, I’m looking at it and feeling all this angst.”

  His voice vibrated in her head. “That’s it?”

  The sound of a telephone interrupted them. It was muffled, but Nora’s ears pricked. She jumped up and raced for the raft. It rang again while she fumbled to unbuckle the dry sack from the rigging. She unrolled the top of the sack, but by the time she dug through the towels and lunch to find her phone, it had stopped.

  Cole stayed on the ground with his hands behind his head. “You brought your phone along on your day off?”

  Nora glanced at the caller ID. “I thought it might be Lisa.”

  “And?”

  “It’s Abigail.”

  “You don’t want to talk to your mother?”

  Nora switched the alert to vibrate and set the phone on the raft. She gathered up the sandwiches and apples and settled next to Cole. “She only wants to tell me about a new skin product or alert me to an executive position opening up in some bank. Besides, I said I’d take the day off to spend with you, and that’s what I’m going to do. Sorry I weakened.”

  Her phone vibrated. Cole raised his eyebrows. Nora opened a plastic container and pulled out half a ham sandwich. “Abigail’s nothing if not determined.”

  “You don’t think it’s Lisa?”

  With determination, Nora said, “I’m taking the day off.”

  Cole sank his teeth into an apple. A muted M
exican tune played from the raft.

  Nora listened in surprise, then grinned. “You brought your phone, too?”

  Cole shrugged. He stood and hurried to the raft. “Guess it’s my turn now.”

  He found it easily in the near-empty bag, swiped it on, and held it to his ear.

  Nora took another bite of the sandwich, enjoying the salty ham after the exertion of their morning on the river. Slowly, Cole’s influence had pulled her from her driven, make-every-moment-productive lifestyle to one where she took the time to enjoy what she loved: Cole and being outside.

  She realized she hadn’t heard Cole speak. She twisted toward him.

  His face seemed to melt as it went from happy to serious to alarm.

  Her phone vibrated again, and she debated. No. She and Cole still had a day off together, and she’d cling to that.

  It only took seconds for Cole’s shocked expression to harden with control. He had formed a plan and was ready for action. He lowered the phone and stared at a spot above her head, obviously working out details in his mind.

  When she couldn’t wait any longer, she asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “That was Mom. Dad had a stroke a couple of days ago and … ” He gathered up the sandwich container and started stuffing things in the dry bag.

  Nora followed, once again ignoring her phone when it started buzzing. “A couple of days ago and she’s just calling you now?”

  He didn’t address that. “My brother is causing some trouble and I need to get up there and see what’s going on.” He picked up his life vest and shrugged into it.

  “Your younger brother?”

  “My only brother, Derek.”

  She retrieved her life vest. “What kind of trouble could he be causing?”

  For the first time since Nora had known him, he snapped at her. “I don’t want to talk about it. I’ve got to go home.”

  “Home? As in Wyoming?”

  He inspected the raft to make sure it hadn’t been damaged in the rapids. “Yes. I don’t know much, but I need to get up to the ranch and see what’s happening.”