Rhea woke with a start. Why was she sitting up in her chair and in the living room? Trish!
Rhea scrambled to right herself, plucking her reading glasses from their precarious perch at the end of her nose with one hand while fumbling for her romance novel that had slid between the chair’s generous cushions. The grandfather clock ticked with its usual disciplined beat. She reached to turn off the lamp on the side table. The first pale glimmer of dawn beckoned at the horizon across the valley. Pushing the footrest closed, she stood and moved carefully through the waning darkness to see the clock's face. Five o'clock. She had fallen asleep waiting for Trish to come home.
This wasn't like Trish. Yesterday had been her birthday but she hadn't seemed overly distraught about it. She'd left the house early to go riding.
Maybe she'd gone with Vance. No one at his home had answered the phone last evening and Rhea had left more than one message. Of course, if Vance and his mother were anything like herself, the light on the message recorder could go unnoticed for more than a day.
Where was Trish? Cell phones were wonderful gadgets and maybe after this, she would get one, but service was spotty at best in this valley and thus her decision to keep the landline. It was too early to call. Vinita, Vince's mother, worked the late shift and wouldn't be up until after eight. That left her one choice—to go over and try to catch Vance before he got too engaged in training or left to deliver a horse. Why did Trish have to agree to go into business with Vance? He was so young and full of dreams, not to mention being cock-sure of himself.
Rhea mentally shook herself. Trish and Vance and their huge dreams were not the issue this morning. Finding Trish was.
Rhea paused long enough in the kitchen to grab a couple pieces of toast. She'd need it to think straight and if the day demanded more? Well, she'd cross that bridge when she came to it. With her purse strap over her arm, butter slicking her fingers from the toast and keys in the other hand, Rhea hurried through the brisk morning air to her car. The old Pontiac Grand Prix turned over and burst into the gentle roar of power tweaked by local teens. Taking her foot off the brake, she let the power roll the heavy car down the drive before coaxing the engine to speed down the dirt road. Oh Trish, where are you? Have you truly succumbed to your grandmothers dark ways? She immediately threw the notion out.
Ten years ago, Rhea would have thumbed through Trish's notebook, looking for friends and boyfriends whose couches Trish would happily crash on in a case like this. But not today. Trish had come home after weeks of phone calls from Rhea, begging her to reconsider.
Trish had reconsidered, all right—right into Vance's dream of horses and training grandeur. What had become of Trish's dream to become a defense attorney? Rhea mulled the possibilities around in her head. Maybe something had happened at the law offices of Mikelson, Hoffman and Bauer. Trish had seemed happy enough until that last phone conversation. Rhea shook her head; she'd not held the power to sway Trish's decisions since high school. Something or someone else must have been the cause for Trish's willing return home.
Deep in thought, Rhea took the corner a bit too fast. The papers on the passenger seat slid. Rhea slapped her hand on them to keep them from falling to the floor. Letting off the accelerator, Rhea pulled safely into the yards of Vance's dream-come-true, a horse set-up. As Rhea lifted her hand to put the car into park, the papers slipped to their earlier destination, the floor. She bent to pick them up. It was only then that she took the moment to read. She didn't have to read much to discover the reason for Trish's rash decisions. The letter informed the reader that Trish had not passed her bar exam.
Rhea's heart dropped. No wonder Trish had returned home. Her life-long dream had been shattered. She had turned to plan B, whatever that was. Rhea gasped. Plan B, ride off into the sunset, never to be heard from again. Could that be Plan B? It didn't seem that farfetched when she considered Grammy Patricia and her outlandish stories bordering on the archaic divination.
Tap, tap, tap.
Rhea flinched and looked at her window to discover Vance standing there. Rhea put her hand in motion, rolling down the window.
"Morning, Mrs. Larsen." Rhea could still remember changing this boy's diapers twenty years ago but, he still used the formal address.
"Morning." Rhea righted her demeanor.
"What brings you by this morning?"
"I'm looking for Trish."
"What? Miss Play-by-the-Rules is sneaking around behind your back or something?"
"Or something. She didn't come home last night…"
It didn't take long to discover that Yedi wasn't in his stall or that Trish hadn't returned her saddle and tack.
Vance pulled out his cell phone, astonishing Rhea with not only the number of people he called, asking if they'd seen Trish but the clarity of the conversation via the wireless.
"Looks like nobody's seen her since yesterday morning."
"It didn't sound to me like anyone had seen her. Who said they'd seen her?"
"Me," Vance said as though the one syllable solved the puzzle.
"You," Rhea pounced on the clue. "Where? When?"
"Right here, yesterday morning. She seemed fine."
"What did she say? Where did she go?"
"Whoa, Mrs. Larsen. She said 'Morning, I'm going riding.' That was it. She didn't say where she was headed or when she planned to be back."
"Which way did she go?"
"Down the road, but that isn't going to help us any. She was on horseback and she knows the valley as well as I do. It wouldn't surprise me none if she turned up in a day or so, telling us she'd followed the Oregon Trail or the Old Stage Coach Trail."
"Did she take supplies?"
"I didn't notice any other than her canteen, but really, I pulled out of here before mid-morning to get to that sale in Idaho Falls on time. She coulda come back by and Mom wouldn't have seen her if Trish came to this north gate."
"Young man, you are not helping," Rhea accused.
"What's to help? If Trish wants to vanish up one of these canyons, she's likely to do it and see more deer and elk than hunters do. She's a survivor. You know that. Heck, she taught me about most of those canyons."
"And her father taught her."
"Don't worry about her."
"I can't help it. It's womankind's nature to worry and to top it off I have a bad feeling about this."
"Why?"
Rhea reached through the open car window, grasped the piece of bad news, and handed it to Vance. "This is why."
Chapter 7
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The Talisman - Crisscross Page 7
