“Jan,” said the voice on the other end in a caressing tone she’d last heard him use on Sloane Caine. “I’m so sorry to disturb you. Yesterday was awful for you as well as us. I wouldn’t do it if this weren’t an emergency. For my son.”
“Michael? Is he hurt?”
“Physically, he’s fine. But as you can imagine, it’s been a pretty awful time since we got back yesterday.” Mylo heaved a sigh that stopped just short of theatrical. “He told me you invited him to play video games this weekend. Could you still manage that?”
“Today?” Jan struggled upright. “You want him and Georgie to spend the day here?”
“Just him.” Mylo paused. “Georgie is being questioned by the police about her movements yesterday.”
Jan sat stone still. “Do they think Kitrin’s death was suspicious?”
“If you could manage …” Mylo said, evading her question.
Part of her wanted to toss the phone and put her head under the pillow, but it wouldn’t help. The inside of her forehead was showing the same old video: Kitrin lying drenched on the chaise, water pooling around her head, faintly tinged with pink. If the police were still all over the house and pool, poor Michael would be even more traumatized.
“Of course he can come here for the day. Should I send someone up to get him?”
“I’ll bring him down myself. I have some things I need to tell you.”
Jan was in the kitchen, sorting out her pills for the morning, when one of Jake’s orange convertibles spun into the turnaround. “Terry, they’re here. Let them in, please.” In a moment he was back with Mylo and Michael. She crouched beside the boy and put out her arms. “Honey, I’m so sorry about your mother.”
Michael let him hug her, but he didn’t return the pressure, just leaned against her. After a moment she let him go. “Terry will show you our video games, and Rob from the museum will be here soon. You know he’s determined to beat you at that alligator game.” Michael nodded listlessly and went off with Terry. Jan got back on her chair. “Do you want coffee or anything, Mylo?”
He shook his head and wandered around the island, looking out each window in turn. “Nice little place you have here. Panoramic.”
“You should see the view from the sunroom. You had something to tell me?”
Mylo pulled out a chair across from hers. He leaned his elbows on the table and stared at his hands. After a bit he said, “I didn’t answer you on the phone because Michael came in then. But yes, the police think my wife was killed.” He lifted his fingers and let them drop helplessly. “She has bruises on her arms, and they think someone held her under the water. This should be a movie script. This doesn’t happen in real life.” He looked so broken that Jan almost believed he loved his wife. Almost. With the image of Georgie in mind, she resisted the urge to reach out a comforting hand.
“The police should talk to Lacey McCrae. She hauled Kitrin out of the swim machine the other day. That would leave bruises, too.”
“That wouldn’t crack her skull.” Mylo didn’t take his eyes off his hands. “They seem to think someone hit her with a rock from the waterfall. Who but us knew they were loose?”
Jan shivered. “I turned my foot on a rock when I was trying to pull her out. I thought the boys missed one the other night.”
“We all thought of the boys. Jake even asked me if Michael might have thrown one, playing, you know, and then was scared to tell us because of … what happened. But we were already gone, halfway to the Caine ranch. When I finally heard, I didn’t know how to tell Michael why we had to come back early.”
“He was playing with Tyrone?”
“Yes. I was way out in Orrin’s back forty or whatever they call it up here, out of cellphone range. They had to send someone out to find us. Then we had to drive back along this perfectly straight line cut through the forest.”
“A seismic line,” said Jan, “where the oil companies surveyed the ground underneath, looking for reservoirs.”
“We’d never want to film on those lines. Too man-made.” The first sign of animation lit Mylo’s face. “The scenery is as spectacular as Orrin promised. My film came to life before my eyes. I’ll have crews up here doing background by next week.”
“You’re going to keep working? What about Kitrin’s funeral or memorial service?”
“The police won’t release her body for several days yet. I don’t know what all they have to do, but it’s going to be really grim for Michael. You’re one of Kitrin’s oldest friends. Can you please get him away from that place as much as possible during the days? He’s used to behaving on film sets, so he won’t be a bother if you take him along while you’re hunting art for me.”
“You think Georgie will be arrested? Or you don’t trust her with Michael anymore?” Jan hardly bothered suppressing her irritation. If Georgie had killed Kitrin, she’d almost certainly done it because of this selfish man who thought of nothing but his movies and his own gratification.
Mylo only shrugged.
“Fine,” said Jan. “I can have him here today, and tomorrow, too, if need be. Surely Kitrin’s mother and father will be here soon?”
“Unlikely. If they do dare show up, you can’t let them be alone with Michael.” Mylo pushed back his chair and stood up. “Promise me.”
“If you say so. But why?”
“Kitrin probably didn’t tell you, but her mother tried to get custody of Michael last year. When Kitrin was hospitalized last time, I sent him up to Regina while I was on location in Spain. That bitch didn’t want to give him back afterward. I had to threaten her with arrest for cross-border kidnapping.”
“Wow. Kitrin didn’t tell me. We only had a few minutes together the other night. She was going to come down with Michael today.” Tears stung Jan’s sleep-weary eyes. She blinked. “Okay, I’ll keep Michael with me, and if Kitrin’s mother shows up, I’ll get hold of you right away. I don’t have the authority to keep her from seeing him, though. She’s a relative and I’m not.”
The sound of a car pulled her gaze to the kitchen window. Reinforcements, in the shape of Rob, had arrived. She got to her feet. “Is it all right if I tell Rob about Kitrin’s mom? He’ll want to look out for Michael, too. I’m sure he’ll take him down to the museum for an afternoon again.”
“If you must.” Mylo flicked a business card onto the island and stalked from the room. A moment later, Rob walked in. He glared out the window, where Mylo could be seen climbing back into the orange Beamer. “I take it Michael is here already. What’s with that ass, dumping off the boy the day after his mother died?”
Jan went to him. “Hug me, please. I’m so afraid for that child. The police think someone killed Kitrin. And Michael’s grandmother might be coming to kidnap him. It’s all so horrible.”
CHAPTER TEN
The call Wayne was waiting for came before noon. They’d finished camera repairs and made a full circuit, testing locks and keypads at every entrance to the grounds. He listened for a few minutes and said, “I’m sending a rep up to brief your staff about keeping the media out. Can you give her a bed while the search continues?”
Lacey was going to the ranch.
Twenty minutes later, she left Jake’s place in Wayne’s bulky truck, lifting a hand at Travis in passing. She wasn’t altogether sorry to be assigned elsewhere for a few days. Eventually, he’d invite her for lunch or coffee, and she’d have to make it plain she wasn’t interested. Who knew how he’d take that? Who knew how any man took rejection until it was done? That brought her back to Chad. Had he turned off the cameras to hide a pass at Kitrin? Hey, what if he’d snatched a green polo shirt from the garage? It might be him visible on the edge of the garage camera. Or not. She’d have noticed if he wasn’t wearing his Wayne-blue T-shirt when she caught him at Kitrin’s suite. And his shoulders were too wide. The one shoulder in that tagged image was sloping and nowhere near as muscular. Which left one of Jake’s staff lying to the RCMP, for reasons that might have everything or nothi
ng to do with Kitrin’s death. She’d suggest that Wayne recheck the summer staff’s references in case one of them had a reason for avoiding police interviews.
“Not your investigation, McCrae,” she muttered out loud as she crossed the bridge into Bragg Creek. Lunch would be a takeout burger from the bistro, eaten while she headed north. Hopefully Wayne’s air conditioner was fully charged. Late summer in the Ghost Wilderness would be baking hot and dry, a far cry from the bone-chilling cold and snow she’d experienced up there last Christmas.
An hour later, she was deep in the woods, well past the Black Rock Bowl turnoff, when she rounded a bend and saw a rusty brown half-ton truck angled across her lane. She braked hard. The dust from her tires swirled past as she opened her door to investigate. When it drifted away, she saw the truck’s right front wheel had dropped into a narrow drainage ditch. A scrawny individual in a shabby jean jacket and weathered cowboy hat was prodding at the front fender with a length of wooden fence post.
Lacey hurried over. “Can I help?”
The person turned a lined, tanned face to hers and demanded, in the voice of a cantankerous old woman, “Who’re you, missy? Another of them Search and Rescue bunch? Orrin’s a damned fool, causing all this fuss.”
So the word about the missing Caines had spread. Well, it wasn’t Lacey’s job to add to the rumour mill. “I’m just passing through. If you stand on your back bumper, at the highest point, that might shift the weight enough for me to get this log under the axle.”
The old woman muttered something that sounded like “bossy,” but she went. Once she was on the bumper, holding on to the tailgate, Lacey pushed the post as far under the frame as she could. Using the ditch’s rocky rim for leverage, she hung her weight off the other end of the pole. The truck rocked before settling its high rear wheel back onto the gravel. Another shove put the fence post securely under the wheel. She grabbed another post from the truck’s bed and added it beside the first, making a ramp.
“Step off,” she called. The truck settled slightly, but the posts held. “You should be able to back out now.”
The woman got behind the wheel. It took a good shove from Lacey at the front fender, but the truck got its dropped wheel back onto the road. She hauled up the muddy fence posts, returned them to the half-ton’s box, and walked around to the driver’s window.
“Thanks,” muttered the old woman. “I don’t like folks, but you’re kinda handy.”
Amused by the faint praise, Lacey replied, “I don’t like many people, either, but you seem pretty tough.”
As the old woman put her truck into gear, she said, “Searchers could use you. Ghost airstrip is their base camp, five miles up on your left.”
While she sat waiting for the old woman’s dust to die down, Lacey took a minute to check her phone. There was a message from Jan. Having a bad day. Any chance you could come visit? Need to talk to you about Kitrin. Terry is gone on an SAR call. Again.
Poor Jan. She’d seemed so healthy lately that it was easy to forget how trapped she still was by her malfunctioning body, unable to leave home or do much to distract herself just when she most needed distraction. She sent back: On business for Wayne today, not sure when I’ll be free. Dee is home & would come. What about Kitrin?
While waiting for a reply, she drove on. The short road leading into the airstrip was clogged with vehicles. Others were parked on both sides of the road. Amid the constant mosquito buzz of small planes, a helicopter rose above the trees. She found a parking spot behind the last roadside vehicle and walked the rest, passing Terry’s red truck along the way. She spotted Constable Markov first, on his phone and unavailable to give her a search update. Beyond him, Terry was bent over a box of radios. As she approached, he set down the last radio and yelled to a woman who was coiling a rope over her shoulder, “These are tested.”
He saw Lacey. “Hey, are you joining the search?”
“Not right now. I’m on my way to the ranch. How’s it going?”
“I’ll show you.” Terry led the way to the command unit, a big RV with a satellite dish on top. Outside it, under an awning, were tables with detailed maps of the area spread out and weighted down. “We have no information about where Orrin Caine was heading, which makes targeting the search difficult. Fortunately, his company promised fuel for any small plane that signed on for aerial survey. Some of the pilots are company men, too.”
Lacey scanned the maps. They covered all the rocky, wooded, gully-slashed, and clear-cut terrain between the prairies and the mountain front, starting in the south at the white gravel banks of the Ghost River and running many kilometres north to the murky dark line of the Red Deer River.
She flapped her hand at the nearest chart. “That’s gotta be fifty by a hundred square kilometres. Where do you even start?”
“At the ranch, of course. Security cameras showed his Range Rover turning north out the front gate at three twenty-five p.m. yesterday.” His finger tapped on the stretch of Highway 40 north of the airstrip. “That’s the last anyone knows. The family didn’t worry about it until he wasn’t home at his son’s usual bedtime. By then it was dark. They searched some first, and called the RCMP in the wee hours.”
Lacey looked closer at the map. Going north, Orrin would run into the Red River eventually. But he could’ve gone east or west at several points before then. “These clusters of lines on the map. Are they all roads?”
“Roads, four-wheel-drive tracks, off-road vehicle trails, seismic cutlines, hiking paths, everything down to animal tracks.” Terry shook his head. “Needles and haystacks. Making it worse, his Range Rover is dark green, deliberately chosen to blend in with the bush when he went hunting. Before you ask, he didn’t take any guns. At least we’re not looking for a firearm accident.”
No. Just a boy alone with an old man and plenty of wolves, cougars, and grizzlies. What a time to leave all the guns at home. Speaking of which …
“Did you leave Jan home alone? She’s taking Kitrin’s death hard.”
“Rob’s staying over. They have Michael, Kitrin’s son, for the day. The nanny is being questioned, apparently, and Mylo doesn’t want Michael to see that.”
“I guess that’s what Jan wanted to talk to me about. I hope she’s okay.”
“She takes shocks hard.” Terry chewed his lip. “Just needs rest and quiet. Look, my team’s heading out soon. I’ll be out of cell range so I can’t update you, but any news will be phoned through from here to the ranch right away. Earl’s appointed himself liaison.”
Lacey’s neck tightened reflexively. Of course Earl would assume command. He was a control freak, like Dan, and would probably take over the whole company if Orrin didn’t return. She pointed to the map. “I thought you said Orrin went north. Why are these teams marked in the southwest?”
“He turned north, sure, but there are lots of trails he could take that lead west and then back south. The family says he likes to circle his vast territory and gloat over it.” He gave her a sideways glance. “‘Gloat’ being my word for it. You’ve met him.”
“Yeah. Gloating he’d do.” Lacey drew a wide circle with her finger around the dot that marked the ranch. “So he could be anywhere in this whole area, from Water Valley or Sundre all the way to the mountains? I flew over that territory last week. If the truck’s not in a clear-cut, it’ll be invisible from the air.”
“Pretty much,” said Terry. “I’m not holding out much hope for a fast resolution unless the house-to-house survey turns up someone who saw him going in a particular direction. I just hope they have food and a water purifier kit.”
“They won’t freeze, that’s one good thing.” Lacey’d had enough of frozen bodies last winter.
Nodding goodbye, she headed back to Wayne’s truck. Given that vast, wild search area, she’d be using every item of clean clothing in her knapsack before Orrin and his son came home. If they came home.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
At the rear of an SUV parked outside the ranch’
s main gate, a pair of women in reflective vests eyed maps spread on a fold-out table. SAR, Lacey deduced, rather than reporters. With luck, the news about the search wouldn’t identify the two missing persons today, giving her time to organize Orrin’s outdoor staff. A herd of cowboys couldn’t be any worse to wrangle than the sometimes surly constables she’d supervised in Surrey. She turned in at the open gate, got out, and closed it behind her. Any others leading to public roads must be closed ASAP and guards posted to check visitor ID. She drove on.
The winding drive through the firs opened to a wide green lawn and looped in front of a huge house made of red logs. The roofline’s many redwood peaks echoed the not-too-distant mountains, now cool and shadowy against the late afternoon sun. She pulled up between a wide portico and a massive wood carving of rearing bears. The driveway meandered toward a long building set with half-a-dozen garage doors. As she pondered whether to knock at the house or seek a staff person at the garage, a man in faded jeans and T-shirt came from a side door in the log mansion. She got out of the truck.
“Hi,” she said. For an instant she thought he was Bart Caine, but he showed no sign of recognition. After lifting her sunglasses for a better look, she started over. “I’m Lacey McCrae, the security rep, here to train the outdoor staff to legally evict trespassing reporters.”
“Ah.” The man smiled, his resemblance to Bart growing. “I’m Ben, and by the way you’re gaping, I guess you’ve met my twin, Bart.”
“Oh.” Lacey grinned back. “Yes, I had the pleasure, down at Jake Wyman’s last week.”
“Right then, security person. Park by the garage and I’ll introduce you to Ike, our foreman.”
“I’d better see the rest of the family first,” said Lacey, “so they don’t freak out at a stranger wandering around.” And to evaluate whether any of them looked a little too relieved that their domineering patriarch hadn’t come home.
“Whatever you want. Park over here.” He loped toward the garage. She followed in the truck, wondering if he’d suggest somewhere she could go jogging out here in the wilderness. Along the dusty gravel roads? Or maybe there was a path through the forest. It wouldn’t do to get slack now that she was finally close to fighting fit again.
Why the Rock Falls Page 8
