by Cassie Miles
It seemed like a rational plan, but Liam wasn’t ready to give up. Not quite yet. “I’ll call you before we return to Denver. It’ll be today.”
He disconnected the call and handed the phone to Kate. “Give Stanhope Jeweler a try.”
She leaned against the chopper while she made her call. The wind rustled through her short hair, and the August sunlight played on her face. She looked great even though she was wearing one of his T-shirts, which was extra voluminous on her slender frame.
He ought to take her back to town and allow the bodyguards from CCC to protect her. After they turned over their evidence to Clauson, his investigation would go on high speed. He could take Peter into custody and…
“Damn!” Kate shouted as she ended her phone call and stalked toward him.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Wouldn’t Stanhope Jeweler give you information?”
“Oh, they told me it was my mother’s necklace,” she said. “I described it and the jeweler verified making a copy. We were right. It was a gift from Peter.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
She removed her sunglasses and peered up at him. “It wasn’t Peter who requested the copy. It was Tom.”
Chapter Eighteen
Frustrated by another surprising shift in their investigation, Kate collapsed against Liam and burrowed her face into his chest. The solution they’d so carefully hammered out last night had twisted back into a question. Why Tom? Why had he wanted a copy of her mother’s diamond necklace?
“We’re never going to figure out the crime,” she said, “much less who did it.”
“It’s still embezzlement,” he said. “Tom must have had access to RMS checks. Therefore, he’s our embezzler.”
“I never thought he had that much ambition.” It was also hard for her to believe that Tom would betray his father. She groaned. “I want this to be over.”
He stroked her back and shoulders—an unthinking gesture that was strangely comforting because of its casual nature. Their relationship was about more than passion. They were friends, companions, equals.
He said, “When you think about it, Tom actually has a better motive.”
“How do you figure?”
“As you’ve said before, your stepfather doesn’t need the money. Even if he divorced your mother, he’d be well-paid. But Tom? His connection to the Carradine fortune is more tenuous.”
That was true. Though Tom was involved in RMS board meetings as a representative of her stepfather, he’d never really been part of the family business. Her stepbrother had no real power.
“One thing bothers me,” Liam said. “Why did Mickey lie to us?”
She’d been so focused on Tom’s potential guilt that she hadn’t even considered Mickey’s part. “Maybe Mickey was protecting Tom.”
“More likely, he was protecting himself.”
“How so?”
“We already connected the three of them—Tom, Mickey and Wayne. Suppose they were working together. Embezzling or blackmailing. I’m not sure what the hell they were doing, but their game got rough. Somebody got greedy. And they turned on each other. Wayne was killed.”
“And Mickey was beaten.”
“Last man standing,” Liam said, “is Tom.”
“I hate this new scenario.” The idea that her stepfather had hired people to kill her was less disturbing than if the threat came from Tom, who had often gone out of his way to support her. “I always thought he was on my side.”
“Don’t take it too hard.” He leaned away from her and tilted her chin up. Gently, he brushed wisps of hair off her forehead. “We’re probably wrong about this, too.”
She gazed up into his warm, hazel eyes. If he hadn’t been with her, she’d have had no one to trust—no one who truly supported her. “The truth still comes down to one thing, doesn’t it?”
“Your memory.”
Locked inside her head was the real answer. She’d witnessed a murder. She knew who’d killed Wayne. The truth was there, just beyond her grasp.
If she concentrated really hard, she could recreate the images she’d seen before. The blood. The chase. The fire. But nothing more.
She couldn’t see the murderer. Tom Rowe? Or Peter? Or even Jonathan? With a shudder, she realized that even Mickey might be a killer. It would explain why he knew so much about her.
“Liam, what if I never remember?”
“You will.” He gave her a quick kiss that was utterly unsatisfying. “Let’s take another look at the maps. We don’t have much fuel left so we need to narrow our search area.”
She followed him back to the chopper, where he took the huge map from the forest service and refolded it to show a smaller area. “We haven’t flown over this quadrant yet.”
Thus far, their aerial search had been unenlightening. She couldn’t visualize what things looked like on the ground. “Maybe it would help if you explain the map to me.”
The basic pattern of the map was a grid. It included lots of wavy lines, tiny markings and notations that referenced altitude and miles. She didn’t get it. The scribbles looked like abstract art—nothing she could mentally translate into real terrain. “Which way is north?”
“Top of the page.”
“And right now, in the real world.” She stuck out her arm and pointed. “North is that way?”
He took her shoulders and turned her thirty degrees, correcting her aim. “That way.”
“My internal compass isn’t great,” she said.
“Not a problem,” he said. “As long as you get where you’re going.”
Though he didn’t come right out and tell her that she was a directionally-challenged moron, she heard a hint of irritation in his voice.
He reached into his shirt pocket for his sunglasses. His eyes were masked, but the tension around his mouth showed his annoyance. Returning to the map, he pointed out squiggly lines that were service roads and notations for cabins.
“In your memory,” he said, “when you saw Wayne coming toward you, was there a cabin?”
“I don’t know.”
“Take your time, Kate. Think about it. Was there a cabin?”
She closed her eyes and concentrated, trying to summon up the vision. How did her memory start? She imagined herself sitting in the passenger side of Wayne’s Ford Explorer, looking out the window.
A man came toward her. It was Wayne. He was bleeding from a terrible chest wound.
What else did she see?
Forests. Trees…
Was there a cabin? She couldn’t tell, but she heard something, a familiar sound. Her eyes snapped open. “A stream. I think I heard the rushing of a stream.”
Liam returned to the map. “We’ll assume you and Wayne went to a cabin. It doesn’t make sense for you to stop in the forest in the middle of nothing.”
“Could have been a campsite,” she said. “Or a mobile home.”
She wasn’t deliberately trying to be difficult, but he reacted as if she were throwing darts into his stupid map. Didn’t he realize that this was at least as frustrating for her as it was for him?
“Right here.” He pointed to the map. “This is a cabin. There was a forest fire over here. And this is a stream.”
“So what?”
“Focus, Kate. I’m trying to locate a site that fits your memory.”
“Then you should stop being so condescending,” she said. “Last night, you thought I was brilliant.”
“And you are when it comes to planning charity events and gala affairs.”
“But I’m not smart enough to read a map?”
He snapped the page taut. “Concentrate. Here’s the cabin. There’s the fire.”
She pointed to a winding line. “What’s that?”
“It’s the stream.” He squinted at the page, reading the tiny print. “Cougar Creek.”
She gasped. This couldn’t be a coincidence. “Cougar Creek Development. That’s Jonathan’s pet development project. That cabin must
be the hunting lodge, the only existing structure on the property.”
It made sense that Wayne had taken her there on their supposed camping trip. He could have told her that there was a bit of business to transact before the weekend. She wouldn’t have suspected that anything was amiss. “That has to be where we met the murderer.”
Quietly, Liam said, “Jonathan.”
“Not necessarily. A lot of people have access to that hunting lodge. Anybody in my family.”
“And now? Who’s there now?”
“A lot of people. From what I understand, construc tion on the roads is under way at the site. Jonathan’s there, supervising.”
“We’ll fly over,” he said.
“Forget it,” she said. Now, she was annoyed. How could she have missed something so simple? “I can’t tell anything from the air. We need to go there.”
She jabbed her forefinger at the map, harder than she’d intended. It fell from Liam’s hands.
“What are you saying, Kate? That we should charge over to Cougar Creek and confront a murderer head-on?”
“Of course not.” But she knew they were on the right track. She could feel it in her bones. “We need to follow those service roads leading toward the area where there was a forest fire.”
“I’d rather not get any closer than twenty thousand vertical feet.” He bent down and picked up the map. “Did you say there’s a crew working over there? Putting in roads?”
“I think so. Why?”
“A mountain road crew sounds a lot like the guys who came to my cabin and shot up my plane.”
“People who worked for Jonathan,” she said. It would be very like her ex-husband to send over his crew to harass her. But to kill her? And how could Jonathan be involved in embezzling from the charity side of RMS’s business?
Liam swung open the door on the chopper. “We’ll go back to my cabin and get the Jeep.”
“What if the police are waiting for us at your cabin?”
“Only one way to find out.”
AS THEY BOARDED THE SMALL helicopter and lifted off, Liam considered the irony. His cabin was less than twenty aerial miles away from the Cougar Creek development. So close.
Yet, he’d had no idea the development was there. Why would he? It wasn’t his business.
But Kate should have known. Apparently, she was like most people who came to the mountains—unable to visualize what lay beyond the next hill and valley. A bird’s-eye view was impossible for her to comprehend.
He knew she wasn’t trying to be a pain in the butt, but her attitude was beginning to grate on his nerves. She didn’t have the patience for investigating. She didn’t understand that all their supposed solutions were only theories until the police verified them and turned their guesses into evidence.
Clauson needed to be involved as soon as possible. Briggs had been correct, and Liam was painfully aware that running off to the mountains wasn’t the smartest route he could have taken. He’d acted on instinct instead of calm, rational intellect.
Kate had that effect on him.
He glanced over at her. Beside him in the cockpit, she sat with her arms folded below her breasts. Her body language told him not to talk to her. She was sulking because he hadn’t immediately jumped to do her bidding.
“Lighten up,” he said into the headset. “If you’re right about Cougar Creek, driving on the service roads ought to trigger your memory.”
“Maybe,” she said. “And maybe not.”
“Hey, princess, you got your way. We’re doing this your way.”
She looked down her nose. “If you’re going to be nasty, at least be accurate. I’m not a princess. I’m an heiress.”
In spite of his irritation, he had to laugh. No matter which side of her personality was onstage, she was spunky as hell.
He turned away from her and hovered high above his property. There were no cars, no sign of people waiting. In a downward spiral, he descended.
Leaving the chopper parked beside his Super Cub, Liam led her to the battered Jeep parked near the house. He slipped into the driver’s seat and cranked the key in the engine. It took three tries before it caught.
The Jeep was an ancient vehicle, only used to plow out the snowdrifts in winter. “Hang on, Kate. This is going to be a bumpy ride.”
On the plus side, he thought, bouncing around in the Jeep ought to shake the snotty attitude right out of her.
As they drove past his Cub, she said, “I’m really sorry about your plane. It’s my fault that it was shot up.”
“You didn’t pull the trigger.”
He thought back to those moments when they’d been crouched on the hillside, watching the mindless vandalism. In spite of his outrage, his strongest emotion had been to protect her. That instinct had been running his life ever since.
Technically, he hadn’t saved her life when he’d found her in the forest. She might have survived for another twenty-eight days. But he had found her. Her safety was his responsibility, and he had welcomed that burden. He had wanted to take care of her.
But now? She didn’t need so much protecting. She wasn’t Rain. Not anymore. She was Her Imperial Majesty. The Heiress.
They jostled along for a few moments in silence. He took a back road, which was the most direct route toward Cougar Creek.
“I have a thought,” she said.
His grip on the steering wheel tightened. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to hear her latest idea.
“Suppose,” she said, “I buy you a brand new airplane. You could choose whatever you wanted.”
Her offer struck him as wrong. “Are you trying to pay me off?”
“Well, I owe you so very much.” She sounded brittle. Like her mother. “After everything you’ve done for me, buying an airplane is the least I can do.”
“After everything I’ve done?” His rear molars ground together. His irritation turned to outright hostility. She was treating him like a bellboy, someone who carried her luggage. “Does that payoff include the sex?”
“There’s no need to be angry, Liam. I’ll buy you a plane. After all, I can afford it.”
“I’ll manage.” He expected the insurance company would pay for the damage. Or he could get financing. It was his plane, his problem.
“Please,” she said. “Let me do this for you.”
He hated her attitude. “I don’t need for you to step in and start running my life the way you run your charity events.”
“Is that what you think?”
“That’s right.” He wasn’t Peter Rowe, her mother’s tame lapdog. And he wasn’t Jonathan Proctor, marrying his way into top management of RMS.
“You don’t want to take my help,” she said.
“Don’t need it.”
“Why not? Because your life is so perfect?”
He didn’t have to justify himself to her. Or to anybody else. “Just who the hell do you think you are?”
“I’m Kate Carradine.”
“Yeah. That’s the problem.”
Much as he adored the free spirit of Rain, he couldn’t stand the heiress.
THEY RODE IN SILENCE. Behind her sunglasses, Kate fought tears. She couldn’t change who she was. Maybe her offer to buy Liam a plane had been insensitive, but she hadn’t meant it that way. She was being helpful, giving him something he needed and wanted.
It was probably better that this blowup had happened before their relationship went any further. She should have expected Liam to turn on her. That was the way her life had always been. Mickey had it pegged when he’d said she had poor judgment in men.
Once again, she’d fallen for an overly critical guy who wanted her to be something she clearly was not. He wanted Rain—the wild mountain woman. Never mind that Rain was an aberration, an identity she’d assumed under terrible stress.
It’s better this way. She and Liam had no real possibility of a future together. Her responsibilities were in Denver, and he wouldn’t fit in. He probably didn’t even own a tux.
She dashed away an errant tear. She didn’t care about tuxedos, didn’t care if he was rough around the edges. She liked his granite jaw. She loved his hard, muscular body. Why couldn’t she be Rain for him?
“Look around you,” he said. “We’re coming onto the forest-service road.”
She forced herself to concentrate. More than anything, she wanted this to be over. “How far is it from the development?”
“Judging from the maps, about four miles.”
Taking a left turn, he jolted onto a rutted dirt road, little more than a pathway through the surrounding trees. Though he was driving fairly slowly, the tree branches whipped against the sides of the Jeep. “This is it,” she said. “This is the road I drove with the Explorer.”
“Tell me about it. Talk your way through the memories.”
“I was in Wayne’s car. Driving.” A remembered pain shot through her arm. She reached up and touched the scar where a bullet had torn through her flesh. “I was shot. Wayne was bleeding.”
Intense sensory memories raced through her brain. She smelled the forest fire. Sheer terror clenched in her gut. The hunters were after them.
Her head whipped around. She peered through the rear window. She couldn’t see them, but she knew they were there.
The Jeep stopped. They had reached the end of the rutted road. She felt Liam’s hand on her arm.
“Is this the place?” he asked.
She was breathing hard. Smoke clogged her lungs. But she couldn’t stop now. They had to get away. “If they catch up to us, we’re dead.”
“What did you do next?” Liam said.
Fighting her fear, she opened the door to the Jeep. Her hand shook, and her insides trembled. She didn’t want to go any farther, but she had to. There was no choice. She had to remember.
She swallowed hard and said, “I had to help Wayne. There was so much blood. I came around to his side of the car and opened it. But he wouldn’t get out.”
Take the backpack. “He wouldn’t go anywhere until I promised to take the backpack.”
“With the cash and jewels,” Liam said.
“I didn’t know. At the time, I didn’t know why the backpack was so important. But I couldn’t argue with Wayne. He was…”
