by Cindi Myers
“It still hurts, doesn’t it?” Lacy asked, as Brenda sucked in her breath and winced.
“The doctor taped the ribs, but all I can do is wait for them to heal,” Brenda said. “I still get dizzy from the head injury, and I can’t read for long without getting a headache. The neurologist said those symptoms could take months to disappear, though she reassured me there’s no permanent damage.”
“That’s going to make it tough at work, isn’t it?” Lacy asked.
“Jan already called and told me not to worry. I know not everyone gets along with her, but ever since Andy died, she’s been an absolute peach.” She leaned forward to study Lacy’s face. “You look pretty beat up yourself,” she said. “How are you feeling?”
“Much better, actually,” Lacy said. “The headaches are almost gone. I’m still a little stiff and sore, but that will go away eventually.” She made a face. “I was hoping makeup would cover the worst of the bruising, but no such luck.”
“You’re still beautiful and it makes you look...I don’t know—tough.”
“That would have come in handy when I was in prison.” At Brenda’s stricken look, Lacy laughed. “It’s okay, really,” she said. “I don’t mind talking about it. I figure better to get it out in the open and own it than to worry everyone’s talking about it behind my back—which you know they are.”
“I guess people are curious,” Brenda said weakly.
“Of course they are. I would be, too. So don’t be afraid to ask me questions. I’ll answer if I can.”
Brenda shook her head. “I don’t want to know anything. All I care about is that you’re here now. Though if I could ask a question of someone, I would want to know who tried to kill us the other day. And why?”
“Travis is following every lead, but he hasn’t come up with much yet,” Lacy said. “He and I started going through some of Andy’s files, hoping we could find some clue—in case the guy who hit us was trying to stop us from looking through the files.”
“Did you find anything?” Brenda asked.
“Only a note on the back of a ‘While You Were Out’ slip. It was in Andy’s handwriting, and it said, ‘Ask Hake about the notes.’ Do you have any idea what that might mean?”
Brenda frowned. “I have no idea what it means. You know Andy—he was always making notes to himself about things he wanted to do or find out. For weeks after he died I would find little scraps of paper around the house.”
“I’m sorry,” Lacy said. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“No, it’s okay.” She straightened her shoulders. “It’s actually been a lot better since you came home. I think I had that burden of guilt hanging over me, keeping me from moving on.”
“I’d think it would be easier to move on if you knew who actually killed Andy,” Lacy said.
“It would. But I’m getting used to the idea that that might never happen. I still have to live my life, so that’s what I’m trying to do.”
“You’re still young. Maybe one day you’ll meet another man you can love.”
“Maybe. Though dating in a small town can be problematic.”
“You mean, you can’t really keep a relationship secret,” Lacy said. “But at least we’re luckier than some places. Single men still outnumber single women in these mountain towns, so we have a better selection to choose from.”
“I don’t care about a selection,” Brenda said. “I just want to find the one right guy. But enough about me. How many guys have asked you out since you came home?”
Lacy blinked. “None. Why would they?”
“Hello? Didn’t we just say there are more single men than women around here? And here you are, a beautiful young woman who hasn’t had a date in at least three years. I’m surprised they aren’t lined up at your door.”
Once again, Lacy cursed her tendency to blush so easily. “I was single before I went to prison, too,” she said. “And I never dated that much.” In fact, she had never had a serious relationship. She had always put it down to men seeing her more as a best friend than as a lover.
“There’s a new guy in town who looks pretty interesting,” Brenda said. “I saw him with Brock Ryan at the climbing wall in Ute Park when I cut through there to deliver an ad to the Examiner office. He was about halfway up the wall and, well, I’m not ashamed to admit I stopped and stared. And I wasn’t the only one. The two of them had drawn quite an audience of female admirers. Adelaide Kinkaid was there, too.”
“Adelaide is old enough to be Brock’s grandmother,” Lacy said.
“You’d have to be dead not to notice those two,” Brenda said. “I mean, Brock is good-looking, but this new guy...” She fanned herself. “He was like a statue of some Greek god. Amazing.”
“Then I hope I get a chance to check him out,” Lacy said. “What’s his name?”
“Tammy Patterson at the paper told me his name is Ian Barnes. He’s a veteran and she thinks he’s in town visiting Brock and staying at his place. She tried to get him to do an interview with her for the paper, but he wasn’t interested.”
“I don’t guess I know Tammy,” Lacy said.
“She moved here last year from Minnesota. Sweet kid, fresh out of college. She works weekends at Moe’s Pub.”
“That sounds like a good place to run into good-looking men,” Lacy said.
“Except Tammy is apparently engaged to her high school sweetheart back in Duluth and staying true to him,” Brenda said. “Which doesn’t keep the men in town from pursuing her. I guess playing hard to get really is an effective strategy.”
“You really do know all the gossip,” Lacy said. “Is that because you’ve been studying, preparing to dive back into the dating game?”
“It’s really because Jan keeps tabs on everything and everyone in town, and passes the information on to me,” Brenda said. “She may not be mayor of Eagle Mountain anymore, but she still wants to know what’s going on.”
“I was surprised to find out she didn’t run for reelection when her term ended,” Lacy said. “She seemed to enjoy the job so much, and she was good at it.”
“She said it was time to move on to something else. And Larry had already declared his intention to run, and he seemed really serious about wanting the job, so I guess she figured it was a good time to bow out.”
“Maybe we should talk to her about Andy,” Lacy said. “Maybe she knows something about the mysterious woman Brock saw near his office the day he died, or someone with a black truck who might have had it in for us.”
“She holds court at a back table at Kate’s Kitchen every Thursday morning,” Brenda said. “We could go there tomorrow if you like.”
“I would like, if you’re up to it.”
“It’s a date, then.” Brenda picked up the box of chocolates. “Now, let’s try out your gift. I get dibs on the caramels.”
Chapter Eight
Henry Hake lived in a stone-and-cedar mansion near the base of Mount Rayford. A black iron gate blocked the winding paved drive, so Travis parked and called Hake’s private number on his cell phone. “Hello?” The voice that answered was hesitant and higher-pitched than Travis had expected.
“This is Rayford County Sheriff Travis Walker. I need you to open the gate so I can come up and see you.”
“What is this about?”
“We’ll discuss that when I get there. Open the gate, please.”
“I really don’t have time for this. I’m on my way out.”
“Then you shouldn’t waste any more time discussing this. Open the gate and I’ll be out of your way as quickly as possible.” Silence stretched between them, but Travis could hear the other man breathing and knew he hadn’t disconnected. He resisted the temptation to speak, letting the tension build. Finally, the gate groaned and began to swing open.
“I’ll be up in a minute,” Travis said, and ended the call.
He returned to his car and drove the quarter mile up to the house. Hake met him at the door. “Hurry. I don’t have time to waste,” he said, ushering Travis inside. A portly man in a light gray suit with worn cuffs, Henry Hake looked more like a schoolteacher than a millionaire businessman. Travis followed him down a mahogany-paneled hallway to a small, dark office, where Hake took a seat behind a cluttered desk. Dust coated the side tables and floated in the shaft of sunlight from the single window, where a leggy geranium sprawled across the sill. “What do you want?” Hake asked.
“I want to talk to you about Andy Stenson,” he said.
Hake blinked. He clearly hadn’t been expecting this topic of conversation. “What about him? He’s dead.”
“I’m trying to find out who killed him.”
“Got that wrong the first time, didn’t you?” Hake pawed through the papers on the desk until he unearthed a cell phone. He stared at the screen, then back up at Travis. “You’ve got five minutes.”
“Why did you hire Andy Stenson to represent you and Eagle Mountain Resort?” Travis asked. “Why not a more experienced lawyer?”
“I wanted to give the kid a chance.”
“Did you know him previously? How did you decide on him?”
“Never heard of the kid. A business associate suggested it.”
“Who is this business associate?”
“That doesn’t really matter. You’re wasting your time.”
The five-minute deadline was a bluff, Travis decided. As far as he could tell, Hake was alone in the house. It wasn’t likely he could throw Travis out by himself. “What’s the status of Eagle Mountain Resort?” he asked.
“We’re restructuring.”
“Who is we?”
“I have business partners—some of whom prefer to remain silent.”
“You went to a lot of trouble to buy up the mining claims and develop plans for the resort. Why didn’t you go through with them?”
“I really can’t talk about that.”
“Why not?”
Hake snatched the phone from his desk and shoved it into the inside pocket of his jacket. “It ought to be obvious to you, if you’ve done any investigating, that someone doesn’t want that project to go forward.”
“Who?” Travis asked. “The environmentalists?”
“Maybe. There was some sabotage that might have been their doing. What do they call it—monkey-wrenching? We had equipment destroyed, some property stolen.”
Travis hadn’t heard any of this. “Did you report this to the police?”
“We didn’t want the bad publicity. We handled it ourselves by posting private security. After that we didn’t have any more troubles.”
“Who is we?”
Hake waved a hand as if shooing a fly. “The organization. Who doesn’t really matter.”
Travis took Andy’s note from his pocket and passed it to Hake. “What can you tell me about this?”
Hake studied it. “What is this? It doesn’t make sense.”
“I found it in Andy Stenson’s files.”
Hake tossed the paper back toward Travis. “I have no idea what it’s about.”
Travis had given a lot of thought to what the note might mean. He risked a guess. “Was someone writing you threatening letters? Is that what Andy wanted to know more about?”
Hake’s face registered an internal struggle. “There were a couple of nasty notes,” he said finally. “I never should have mentioned them to Andy, but I thought it would be a good idea if someone knew—for insurance.”
“Do you think Andy decided to look into the threats on his own?” Travis said. “Is that what led to his death?”
Hake pushed out his lower lip. He had a cut on his chin, maybe from shaving. “I wondered at first, if maybe he had gotten too close to someone who didn’t want to be found out.”
“Why didn’t you say something?” Travis tried to rein in his anger. “Your suspicions might have led us to look at other suspects in the murder.”
“I thought if I opened my mouth whoever had killed Andy would come after me next.”
“Who do you think killed him?” Travis leaned toward him. “If you have any ideas, tell me.”
“I don’t know who. And if I did, I’m smart enough to keep my mouth shut. I was so terrified at the time, I hired a bodyguard.”
“Who did you hire?” Maybe the bodyguard knew more about these threats.
“A professional. He came highly recommended, but I don’t remember his name. He didn’t work for me for long.”
“Why not?”
“After Andy died, the threats went away. The injunction stopped the development, so I guess our opponents got what they wanted.”
“I’ll need the names of your business partners so that I can talk to them, too. Maybe they know more about the source of the threats.”
“They don’t know anything, I promise. Some of them aren’t even alive anymore, and the others won’t talk to you.”
“Tell me their names, anyway.”
“I’m sorry, I really can’t help you. And I have another appointment.” He rose.
Travis stood, also. “Did you keep any of the threatening notes you received?” he asked.
“No. I destroyed them a long time ago.”
“And you have no idea who sent them?”
“None. As I said, it happened a long time ago.” His eyes met Travis’s. “I’ve put it behind me, and you should, too.”
He walked Travis to the front door. As Travis drove away from the mansion, Hake’s final words replayed in his head. Was the developer merely offering advice, or was he making a threat?
* * *
LACY AND BRENDA walked into Kate’s Kitchen a few minutes after nine o’clock the next morning and found Jan Selkirk having coffee with Adelaide Kinkaid and two other women at a table near the back. The former mayor—a striking, fortysomething woman with big brown eyes and ash-blond hair in a tumble of curls around her shoulders—looked up and smiled at their approach. “Good morning, Brenda. I didn’t expect to see you out and about so soon.”
“I was going crazy, sitting around the house,” Brenda said. She pulled out a chair and carefully lowered herself into it. “You know Lacy Milligan, don’t you?”
Lacy leaned forward and offered her hand.
“I do. It’s been a while,” Jan said, with a firm handshake. “I hope you won’t be offended, dear, but you look like you took a real beating. I’m so sorry. And the police have no idea who attacked you two?”
“If there’s a clue to be found, Travis will find it,” Adelaide said. “The poor man is working himself into the ground.” She studied Lacy over her coffee cup. “I thought things would settle down once he got Lacy home, but I guess we’re not going to be so lucky.”
Lacy tried not to resent the implication that she was personally responsible for a new local crime wave. She took the chair next to Brenda and accepted the carafe of coffee one of the women passed her.
“We have a few questions since, as former mayor, you know pretty much everyone in town,” Brenda said.
“What you mean is that she has the dirt on everyone,” Adelaide said. She pushed out her chair and stood. “Come on, ladies. Let’s leave these young women to it. I need to get to the station, anyway. If I don’t, Gage will make the coffee and it will be so strong you could strip paint with it.”
When Lacy and Brenda were alone with Jan, the older woman leaned back in her chair and studied them. “What do you want to know?” she asked.
“At my trial, Wade Tomlinson testified that he saw a woman outside Andy’s office about the time Andy was killed—a woman who looked like me,” Lacy said. “Obviously, that wasn’t me, so do you know who it might have been?”
“I have no idea,” Jan said. “I was too busy being mayor
at the time to pay attention to anything that didn’t pertain to the job.”
“Yes, but can you think of anyone who was living in the area at the time—or visiting—who looked like Lacy?” Brenda asked. “A slim young woman with dark hair?”
Jan put a hand to her own blond locks. “No one comes to mind,” she said. “It could have been anyone.”
“Maybe she was a client of Andy’s,” Lacy said. “I’ve tried to think if any of his clients had dark hair, but it was too long ago. I’m hoping when Travis and I look at the rest of Andy’s files, it will jog my memory.”
“You and Travis are going through Andy’s files?” Jan looked amused. “I’ll bet that’s interesting. As I remember, there was no love lost between you and our young sheriff.”
“We’ve decided to keep the past in the past,” Lacy said, eyes downcast. No sense letting the town gossips think anything differently. Lacy’s feelings about Travis were so all over the map she didn’t need other people weighing in with their opinions.
“What about a newish black truck with a welded brush guard?” Brenda asked. “Do you know anyone with a truck like that?”
“Only half the ranchers in the county,” Jan said. “I heard they found the one they think hit you burned out over on the edge of the public land out toward Dakota Ridge.”
“Yes, but they don’t know who was driving it,” Lacy said.
“Whoever it is, let’s hope he doesn’t try again,” Jan said. “Frankly, if I were you two I wouldn’t want to be seen out in public together.”
“Why do you say that?” Brenda asked.
“Well, since there’s no way of putting it delicately, I’ll just say it—you don’t know who this maniac was really after, do you—you or Lacy. If you’re not the one he wants, why take chances hanging out with the one he does?”
Lacy was still trying to digest this take on the situation when the door to the restaurant opened and a man entered. He wore a black watch cap, along with a black T-shirt that fit like a second skin, showing off every chiseled muscle of his shoulders and torso. Every female head in the room—including the two waitresses and the woman at the cash register—swiveled to track his progress to a table by the window. Jan leaned forward. “That’s Ian Barnes,” she said softly. “Now that is one beautiful man.”
