Why the Rock Falls

by J. E. Barnard

  The house phone chimed. Kitrin answered. “Your husband is ready to go. Do you have to leave with him?”

  “Unless I want to risk crashing this lovely chair on the road. I live partway down the hill. From Jake’s gate, you could walk it in five minutes or drive it in two. Please do come when you have free time.”

  “I’ll give you a call in the morning. Maybe we can do something this weekend.” Kitrin wrapped her scrawny arms around Jan’s shoulders. “I’m thrilled to see you again.” Her voice cracked. “So-o happy.”

  While Terry steered his old truck down the hill, Jan said, “Tyrone and Michael sure do look like brothers. Orrin thought so, too, but it was obvious he and Kitrin had never met. You don’t suppose Orrin was adopted, do you?”

  “No clue. If he was, that generation wouldn’t have talked about it.” Terry stopped beside the front door. “Especially if there was a chance his rich new daddy was infertile.”

  “He’d blame his wife for that. Orrin had to learn his chauvinism somewhere.” Jan swung her legs to the ground. “I’ll contact that art director guy and find out what he wants from me. It might be that he doesn’t need my help at all, and Mylo just said that because Jake put him on the spot.”

  With that thought firmly fixed in her mind, she sent off a brief email to the address on the card, introducing herself and mentioning Mylo’s suggestion, and then stretched out on the couch with the TV remote in hand. Even in the armchair with its high back for head support, sitting upright for five hours straight had exhausted her neck muscles.

  The next morning, an answering email awaited. Delighted to have you aboard. Please send a phone number where you can be reached early today.

  Phone call. Ugh. Still, she was awake and relatively well rested, considering the long evening out. She sent off the phone number, hoping this Davey wouldn’t call right away. Her tray loaded with breakfast, pills, juice, tea, and her phone, she headed for the sunroom chaise. This time last year, walking this far without holding on to the walls had been as good a day as she could expect. Now she could do the walk carrying a tray, spilling nothing, her hands hardly trembling. What a difference a few new management skills and some research advances made! Not a cure, but a real sense of her body slowly coming under her control. Pillows arranged for maximum head and neck support, she donned her dark glasses and settled in, just in time to watch Lacey stride out of Dee’s driveway. She went uphill. Jake’s place again? Fixing that pool camera, no doubt.

  As the sun warmed the glass room, easing the overnight stiffness from her muscles, Jan ate and drank, watching the daylight dance on the river below and an eagle float along the valley level with her windows. She’d barely finished breakfast when the phone rang. Job interview?

  Twenty minutes later, vibrating with excitement, she began to plan. First to the museum, to scour the collection for likely pieces. Then she’d go through its database for people who had loaned or donated paintings and might have others at home. She could send Davey a list and photos of the prospects, and then she could approach owners individually as needed. That would spread the workload out nicely. Next week she could go take photos of paintings for Davey’s final inspection. She set up her snacks and meds in her go-bag and then lay down for a good rest to prepare for the museum jaunt. But no way could she settle when the chance to do something useful again, to reclaim her own career in this small way, was right on her doorstep. She forced herself to do meditative breathing. Excitement wasted energy, and if she crashed from this, she’d have to fight Terry before she could ever accept another job.

  Cut off from the sunny morning in Jake’s dull-brown security office, Lacey unhooked her tool belt and hung it over the coat rack. She didn’t need the equipment jabbing her in the back the whole time she was sitting there testing cameras. She tilted her chair and scanned the monitors, identifying each set of four images: front gates, front of house, hilltop terrace both angles, check; second terrace, upper stair, lower stair, lower terrace — aha! The one that should show the swim machine, and the sauna/change room doors beyond it, was dark. She made a note and carried on. Upper pool, including the west gate out to the grounds: pool presently occupied by Kitrin Devine on a floating chaise. Most of her was concealed by dark glasses, giant hat, and long-sleeved shirt. Upper pool camera that should show bar and waterfall: black screen of death, as expected. Garage frontage both ways: nicely shaded at this hour and showing an upper edge of the half-open pool gate.

  On to the outbuildings: front and paddock side of the stables, then a panning camera inside for checking on the horses. That one was frozen, showing the ceiling and not much else. Another note. Staff quarters, exterior only. One for the helipad, one inside and one outside the back gate to the riding trail.

  All in all, it wasn’t as bad as she’d feared. Every access to the house or grounds was under surveillance, and only the cameras covering the pools or stables — recreational areas — were affected. Wayne had warned her those areas were popular hook-up sites at Jake’s house parties. She let herself briefly picture some hot cowboy action on the hay bales and then shook her head. No sexual partners for her until she was totally past the nausea of Dan’s last assault. And never on a paying client’s property.

  Movement on the second terrace caught her eye. She toggled that camera up to full screen and then wished she hadn’t. Mylo Matheson’s shoulder was turned to the stair camera, but his hand was quite clearly inside a woman’s T-shirt. Kitrin was still, according to the other monitor, floating in the upper pool. It was Georgie’s thick mop of dark curls that leaned on Mylo’s shoulder. This creep, who’d been making passes at Sloane Caine last night, was fooling around with his son’s nanny. Men. Gah.

  Lacey jotted her final note about replacement parts and forwarded the tally to Wayne. Her watch beeped. Time to go meet the temporary security staff. She shut the security office and headed outside through the upper pool area. Kitrin was floating near the waterfall with an earphone cord running from under her hat to the waterproof phone dock in the chair’s arm. If she noticed Lacey, she made no sign.

  Once past the garage, Lacey had a clear view across the wide lawn. Two men stood outside the main gate. One was tall and lean, the other shorter and stocky. Both wore the dark blue ball caps and T-shirts Wayne put on every casual employee. This was it: her first time in a supervisory role since leaving the RCMP eighteen months ago. She’d barely had time to get used to the idea since receiving Wayne’s message that morning. Jake decided he wants live-in guards for the duration of Mylo’s stay.

  At first she’d been furious that she wasn’t the first choice, that someone else would be paid to patrol the grounds she knew best. The follow-up email clarified things: Wayne wanted her to get them oriented, schedule their shifts, and take their reports. He was making her head of the team, with control over her own hours, and he’d raised her pay appropriately. She was in charge again. How much trouble could two trained guards be after she’d shift-bossed eight constables — mostly male, and half of them with more years on the Force than she had? She strode over.

  “Hi, I’m Lacey, Wayne’s on-site rep.”

  The taller man stepped forward. “Hi, I’m Travis, and this is my brother Chad.” Chad. Why did that name ring a bell? Lacey looked closer at the short man. “Shake hands, dude,” said his brother. Chad held out a hand. Lacey shook it, leaning forward to get another look at his face.

  “Chad.” The final, nightmarish straw of her RCMP career came flooding back. She shut her eyes briefly behind her dark glasses, took a slow breath, and refocused. “I haven’t seen you since Vancouver. After the Capilano Gorge incident, where you were guarding that little boy. I came to visit you in the hospital, but you might not remember. You were pretty out of it.”

  He raised his head at that. “Corporal McCrae?”

  “I’m a civilian now.” She looked over his face again with the sun on it, showing faint scarring where his cheekbone and eye socket had been repaired. “You took quite a beating
that day. How are you doing? Fully recovered?”

  Travis stepped forward. “He’s fit for duty, but it’s been a long road back. Will you show us around?”

  Lacey let the subject of Chad’s injuries drop. Why hadn’t she considered this possibility when choosing to work in private security? Not only did gangs from the Lower Mainland have tentacles in Calgary’s thriving vice economy, but so did the people who investigated them. Lots of PIs and bodyguards had policing backgrounds, too. She might trip over more people she’d worked with back in Surrey. Even some who’d worked with Dan, who maybe believed his lies about why she had left. None of which was getting today’s job done. She wiggled the tension out of her jaw.

  “I’ll give you a tour of the property, starting at the stables. This way.”

  The men stroked horses’ noses over the loose-box doors while Lacey looked at the stable camera atop a glass-fronted cabinet. The lens was pointed straight across the ceiling, well above a square of straw bales stacked with folded stable blankets. She could too easily imagine couples getting off there and gave her head a shake. Whatever the hockey players and puck bunnies got up to during Jake’s postseason parties wasn’t her business. Instead, she pointed up at the camera.

  “Can one of you climb up and adjust the camera angle downward by a quarter?” It wasn’t a perfect fix, since the panning servo was likely damaged beyond repair, but at least they’d have a view down the aisle. Chad hurried to obey. He moved well, with no obvious stiffness from all his injuries.

  Travis said, “Good horses here. We grew up on a ranch up in the Peace River country. Spent all our lives in the saddle. Do you ride?”

  “It’s been a long while.”

  “Happy to take you sometime, when work permits.”

  Was he hitting on her? She shook off the thought and led the brothers through to the paddock. Beyond was the wall that circled the estate.

  “All this is Jake Wyman’s,” she said. “The guests are a Hollywood movie director and his family, who may attract paparazzi. You’re both up to speed on Alberta laws about removing trespassers?”

  “Yes,” said Travis. “Chad’s taking his Alberta PI course right now, and they covered it.”

  Lacey smiled at Chad. “I’m doing the same course. Up to module four in the online version. How far along are you?” They chatted about that while they walked the perimeter wall. She took them out the back gate, teaching them the alarm code as she did so, and described the trails that wound out of sight. “When you have a chance, you should each take a walk out here to familiarize yourselves. Anyone could find a satellite image of these trails and skulk around this gate with their camera ready.”

  She pointed out the staff housing, tucked away in the trees beyond the helicopter pad, and took them along the west wall in a loop back toward the house. “The hill drops off steeply on the other side of the wall along here. The gate we’re coming up to accesses the outdoor pool, and you’ll see how high above the valley we are. The director’s wife might still be in the pool, but don’t acknowledge her unless she addresses you.”

  Kitrin, however, had left the pool. Her abandoned chaise floated near the steps. Lacey pointed out the other gate by the garage wall, then the double doors into the house. “That’s the closest outside access to the security office, which I’ll show you later. You’ll normally use the door through the garage if there are guests in the pool area. You’re to keep a distance from guests everywhere unless they’re in need of immediate protection.”

  They headed down the terrace stairs, with a glance at the open French doors to the guest suite, where Michael could be heard reciting Spanish verbs with his nanny’s coaching. On the lowest level, Lacey showed the brothers the drop-off from the house to the highway below. Travis leaned out and down, assessing the rocky slope below the terraces, but Chad kept a good arm’s length back from the railing. Had the Capilano Gorge incident given him a fear of heights? Was he really fit for this job? She backed up level with him.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” He licked his lips. “Just, well …”

  “Bad memories.” Lacey breathed out slowly as the shared memory squeezed her. Chad had been a bloody pulp on the platform at Capilano, but she’d been on the bridge with a front-row view when the old woman was thrown down the cliff. Both of them had been powerless to prevent a senseless death. Yet heights didn’t affect her.

  “How did you …” Chad shoved shaking hands into his jeans pockets. “I mean, that was a rough go for both of us. I haven’t worked steady since. You seem to be doing okay, though.”

  “It killed my RCMP career,” she said. “I was lucky to land among friends out here.”

  “My brother’s my luck,” said Chad. “I’m physically okay now, but the thought of someone else depending on me to save them …” He shrugged. “This gig is a warm-up, right? Nobody’s really out to get these principals?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  Travis pulled his head up. “Looks secure enough against anyone but Spider-Man. What’s next?”

  After a quick tour of the bottom-floor workout area and games room, then the second-floor guest rooms and lounge — avoiding the suite where Michael’s lessons were under way — Lacey brought them up through the kitchen and introduced them to the house steward.

  “This man will assign you beds in the staff quarters for the week. Meals are served there, too.”

  The steward nodded. “Put your uniform shirts in the staff hampers at night, and I’ll get them back to you the next morning. If you need a change sooner, you can take any green polo shirt in your size. They’re kept in the upper staff hallway, the stables, and the main garage.”

  Lacey walked Travis and Chad around the main rooms on the top floor — breakfast room, formal dining room, great room, and the various alcoves — and pointed out Jake’s study, the one door nobody opened without an invitation. She showed them the access to the attached fleet garage, where Jake’s SUV and his three guest convertibles lived. Finally, in the security office, they went through the cameras and monitoring schedule.

  By then it was nearly lunchtime. There was no excuse for her to stay longer, clocking higher-wage hours. It was up to Travis and Chad now to keep intruders at bay, and up to her to face the emotions bubbling under her businesslike surface. If only there’d been time and money enough for the trauma therapy she’d promised Dee’s mom she would find. Maybe after she got her PI certification, she could get on staff somewhere. Wages plus benefits … who knew she would miss them so much after bailing on both Dan and the RCMP?

  CHAPTER FOUR

  By lunchtime, Jan’s work in the museum library had yielded eleven possible paintings from the collection, all done between 1903 and 1914. When Rob texted to say Michael was hoping to see her before he left, she packed up her notes, filed the collection folders, and drove her loaner scooter to the museum kitchen. Michael and Rob were drinking juice while Georgie played on her phone over in the corner. Michael gave her a grin a hectare wide.

  “Mrs. Brenner, hi. Isn’t this place cool?” He set aside his glass and told her, accompanied by hand gestures, about the taxidermied animals, the replica settlers’ cabin, the old post office, and some historical differences between the Kainai, or Blood Tribe, who lived along the mountain front, and the Plains Cree who lived — he waved a hand to the south and east — out in the plains. “There are Siksika people, too,” he said with careful pronunciation, “on the other side of Bragg Creek. You can see their land from Mr. Wyman’s house, Rob says. He’ll come up to show me later. It used to be all their land around here. They’re part of the Blackfoot Confederacy with the Kainai and another tribe I can’t remember. ‘Confederacy’ means like a bigger group of allies, Rob says. And up north is another tribe called the Nakoda. They speak a different language from the Blackfoot or Cree. I can show you on the map in the gallery.” Rob says. Rob says. A tiny bit of hero worship going on there.

  “You’ve learned a lot in a short time. Well
done.”

  Michael grinned wider.

  Rob said, “When you visit Jan’s house, Michael, check out the game system. If you’re around this weekend, maybe you could play with Terry and me.”

  Jan raised her eyebrows. Rob had never shown interest in children before. She firmly seconded the invitation for a visit and said she had better get home for lunch.

  Georgie lifted her head at last. “If you’re going up the hill, can you give us a ride? It’s a freaking steep road.”

  Michael thanked Rob and followed Jan out to the lobby. As they passed a corral with three other scooters, he said, “Isn’t this where you park?”

  “I’ll drive outside to my van. Rob will come out and drive the scooter back in. Unless you think you can do it?”

  “I drove your armchair around last night after you left. It’s kind of wobbly on the corners.”

  Jan laughed. “I don’t think they’ll catch on for street use. When you park this scooter, give the key back at the information desk.” As she climbed into the van and opened the windows, Michael drove off with Georgie trotting alongside. They were soon back. She delivered them to Jake’s gate with a promise to call his mom about a visit. As she pulled away, she saw a stocky man in a navy T-shirt peering around the corner of the house. Navy tee like Lacey wore on the job. She made a mental note to ask Lacey about new security and drove home.

  When she phoned Kitrin, the cell didn’t answer. The house steward wouldn’t put her through on the landline. Mrs. Matheson, he said, was resting and not to be disturbed. He couldn’t say when she would be available, but Jan might try closer to the dinner hour.

  Leaving herself a voice memo to call again later, Jan went to her disused studio to dig up her drawing portfolios from university. Half an hour later, her arms and sundress streaked with decade-old charcoal, she stared at Kitrin’s haunted face in a sketch dated Halloween of their final year together. She texted Rob. In all my drawings of Kitrin from my portraits semester, she’s looking totally devastated. Do you remember what was going on with her then? The fall before she met Mylo?