“I’ll walk with you, if you don’t mind,” he said. “Keep the cougars at bay.”
They paced through the trees together, Bart discussing the reactions at their Calgary office and Lacey silent under the knowledge that Bart’s wife was indulging in a sexual workout with his twin brother. So much for the happy couple who supported each other amid the constant tensions of the Caine homestead.
After breakfast, clutching her phone to her ear with one hand, Lacey used the other to zoom in the camera covering the front gate. “I see three vehicles parked by the highway gate, one unmarked and two with media logos. Do you want me to send them away?”
“No,” said Earl. “One of my people will go.”
“Yes, sir.” She’d seen several men in suits conferring with him in the great room earlier. Presumably they were lawyers, executives, or media spokespeople from Orrin’s business empire. She disconnected and messaged Ike. Please alert everyone that three groups of reporters are being turned away at the main gate and may try other accesses.
A ping signalled an incoming text. She looked down, expecting Ike’s acknowledgement. Jan had sent I’m up. Please call me if you have a minute.
Lacey checked on the workout room and climbing centre. Andrea was still doing her morning round of the weight machines. Phoning it would be.
After the usual greetings, Jan said, “So you got my message last night that they released Rob? He won’t tell me who he was with last Saturday morning. Says it would cause problems for the guy to provide his alibi. I can’t believe in this century, gay men are still hiding behind marriage. I wonder if his wife knows, or if she’s beating herself up, thinking she’s not sexy enough to keep her husband interested.”
“You’re jumping to conclusions,” said Lacey. “Lots of people nowadays have open marriages. Lots of relationships are polyamorous, too. Maybe Rob’s lover is bi.”
Jan sniffed. “Possibilities, sure, but none of them are good for Rob‘s long-term happiness. Or his short-term happiness, either, if this guy won’t come out and tell the police that Rob was with him when Kitrin was killed.”
“Rob needs a lawyer the next time he talks to them.”
“I emailed him Dee’s top suggestion already. How are things going out there?”
“Not well.” Lacey chewed her lip. “The people I thought least likely to gain anything by Orrin going missing have shaken my faith in them.” She told Jan about seeing Andy and Ben. “And then I walked back with Bart to the cabin, and he was chatting away like normal, obviously not thinking anything of the fact that his brother and his wife were together.” She toggled through the camera images again and caught a ranch hand taking a leak against a fence post. If not for Andy’s early offer of a bed — which she might be regretting now — Lacey might have been sharing the bunkhouse bathrooms with all those men. Ugh. “Almost as weird was getting up this morning to find Ben waiting to go for a run with me. When we planned it yesterday, I thought he was a pretty straight-up guy, and now I know he’s a horndog with no morals. I didn’t have a decent excuse for refusing — or none I was prepared to spell out for him — so I went. It’s a good five-k route, along the bluff, down into the valley, and back up the other end. I backed off another climbing lesson, though. Claimed my fingers were sore from yesterday.”
“Did you think he was going to hit on you?”
“Nothing like that. I’m just mentally adapting to the idea that an environmentalist is untrustworthy. In my book, serious greenies should be more ethical than us normies. I didn’t expect Andy to go behind her husband’s back, and worse, in a place where anyone with a key fob might walk in at any moment. I must have interrupted their foreplay last night, too, when I took down the ladder.”
“What did you just say to me about not jumping to conclusions? Tell her you know and see what she says.”
“If we were actually friends, I’d do that. But technically she’s part of the family business that contracts Wayne, who subcontracts me. And if this in-house affair is in any way connected to Orrin going missing, letting her know I know could impair the investigation.” She thought. “Could it have been a woman on that video clip from the garage? Andy’s my height, only a bit shorter than Bart and Ben.”
“I didn’t get a clear enough image to estimate height,” said Jan. “I’d have to compare her height to whatever make of SUV was parked beside the Range Rover.”
Lacey groaned. “I’ll sort out which vehicle was parked where that day. Orrin’s was usually in the end spot because it rarely moved.”
“Let me know when you’ve got something for me to measure against, and I’ll tell you how tall your shadowy intruder is. I can guesstimate, once I have the vehicle data, how wide the shoulders are and whatever.”
“It’ll all help narrow down the suspects.” But would it? The women here were tallish, even Cheryl, and it was easy to disguise a shape beneath baggy clothing. Men could slouch, too, and round their shoulders. Every one of them knew where the cameras were, even in the dark.
She said goodbye and checked the gate cameras again. Someone in a cowboy hat was talking to the guys on the south gate. As she watched, he got into a dusty F-150 and drove off. Just a neighbour checking in? Probably several had done so without her eyes on them. Neither guard was picking up his radio, anyway. Out front, another news van was pulling up. She held the feed there while someone climbed out and joined the cluster of reporters chatting in the shade. Whatever Earl’s “people” had told them, it hadn’t discouraged them one iota. She checked the ranch’s phone directory and texted Andy.
Lacey here. Several reporters around front gate. You might want to stay out of sight.
A half minute later, Andy messaged back. Thx. Can you smuggle me out to Calgary this aft?
Lacey pondered the message. Should she leave the ranch? Wayne had sent her here to keep an eye on all of them. On the other hand, alone in a vehicle with Andy for two hours or more, she might learn quite a lot about the family that wasn’t available on the internet. Things Andy wouldn’t normally say but might tell a friendly female driver to fill in the time. Covering her bases, Lacey texted Wayne. Permission to drive Bart’s wife into Calgary this afternoon? She wants protection from reporters. His yes freed her to reply to Andy with Sure. What time, and how long do you expect to be gone?
When that was settled, she loaded up a video still to her phone, with the clearest view she could manage of the SUV that was parked beside the Range Rover last Monday night. The logo was in deep shadow, but she could faintly make out the shape of its windows and a few other features. Then she went down to the garage floor. The two mechanics were elsewhere and two slots were empty, but she compared the photo to vehicles until she was sure the SUV she wanted was the Porsche Macan Sloane drove. Today it occupied the second-to-last slot. She didn’t recall seeing it move. She lined herself up with the garage camera, estimating by the faded blotch on the floor approximately where the saboteur had stood to open the Rover’s hood. Hoping nobody would come in and catch her, she posed upright, bent over as if to reach into the engine compartment, and then moved slowly along the Macan’s side, holding each position for at least ten seconds to be sure of getting it onto the video feed. She took photos of the SUV from several angles, including the logo, for Jan’s reference points, and checked the mechanics’ clipboard for make, model, and year. Upstairs again, she looped back through the footage, captured the segment of her awkward acting job, and sent it with the vehicle photos to Jan.
With that taken care of, she watched the cameras flip through their cycle. In the hallway outside Orrin’s study, Bart was shoving a map at Earl, jabbing it with his index finger. No fists flying yet, so she scrolled on. Andy was leaving the climbing centre. At last! Lacey strapped on her tool belt, collected the camera system’s iPad, and headed down in the elevator to reclaim her abandoned ladder from the cloakroom. This job would be checked off ASAP.
She’d reckoned without the treadmill. It was too heavy and awkward to shift
by herself, so she angled the stepladder in as best she could beside it and climbed up to perch unsteadily, alternately nudging the camera’s lens another finger width and staring down at the iPad until the image updated. Note for Wayne: upgrade this iPad’s programming so she could fix its feed to one camera at a time. When she was satisfied that the camera was covering the exit correctly, she climbed down and went to open the outside door, just to be sure it would fully reveal anyone coming in or out.
When she touched the handle, though, the door swung inward. Not locked? Something fell past her face. Startled, she stepped back and bent to pick up a wooden wedge that showed the tell-tale striations of being pushed into a gap many times over. She looked along the doorjamb and then down the door’s edge. The lock’s tongue was sawed off level with the plate. This door hadn’t been secured except by this bit of wood since … when, exactly?
She looked over her shoulder at the newly realigned camera. The door, she already knew, wasn’t covered from the outside, either. Someone could have entered here, crossed the climbing gym, climbed the inside stairs, and reached the main control panel for the motion-sensor lights without being caught on a single camera or stopped by a single locked door. Right up to Orrin’s Range Rover.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
They were several miles away down Highway 40 when Lacey slowed and let the dust clouds settle behind the SUV. “Nobody followed. You can come out now.”
“Are you sure?” Andy peered from under a blanket in the back.
“Yes. Want me to pull over so you can get up front?”
“I’ll climb over.” Andy’s effortless scramble over the two intervening seats gave Lacey a pang of envy. If she tried that, she’d end up scrunched between the seat back and the roof, unable to move. That they were the same height was an added slap in the self-esteem. Andy buckled her seat belt. “Thanks for this. I’m a bit freaked out by media attention. I just needed to know I could escape.”
“Understandable,” said Lacey. As Andy peered at her with a frown, she added, “I searched you online to see your vlogs and get a sense of your followers. After reading about that stalker, I can see why you’d be nervous around reporters.”
Andy shuddered. “The guy was always outside my apartment, and even when I snuck out the back, some passerby hoping to make a buck from a celeb site would tweet where they’d seen me, making it easy for him to find me again. Reporters circled like vultures, waiting for me to crack or him to attack. It’s horrible having them camped outside the gate.”
Lacey nodded. “I can see why it would creep you out. One thing that wasn’t clear online, though, was how it all started. Seems like one week you appeared on talk shows to great applause, and the next week there were skanky stories about you everywhere.”
“Please tell me you didn’t believe those.”
“Absolutely not. They were way too outlandish. And now that I’ve met you, I believe them even less.”
“Thanks for that.” Andy rooted through the glove compartment. “I should’ve brought my backpack. It has a stash of sugar-free candies. It’s what I do when I don’t want to slip back into smoking or some other self-destructive behaviour.”
“There’s sugar-free gum in my pack if you want it.” Lacey pointed. “In the back seat. Side zipper pocket.”
Andy reached for it. As she popped out a piece, she said, “All I seem to be able to do today is say thank you. I feel totally lame.”
“I don’t mean to be pushy, but did you talk to anybody about that stalking when it was over? A counsellor or other professional?”
“Yeah.” Andy sighed. “That’s partly why I want to go into town. I have a therapist who takes phone appointments, but there’s no way in hell I’d spill such personal shit under Orrin’s roofs. Bart says I’m just being paranoid, but I wouldn’t put it past the old buzzard to have bugged our cabin. We’ll soon find out if — I mean when — he comes back and hears what was said about him in his absence.” She shoved the gum into her mouth and spoke past it. “Mind if I hit some music?”
“You’re the boss.”
Andy flashed a grin. “You’re Orrin’s employee, not mine.” She dropped her phone into the slot and leaned back in the seat as a pop beat filled the speakers. The chorus seemed to be about breathing in and breathing out. The next song suggested letting go and having a safety net. After a while, Andy opened her eyes and turned the music down. “That’s better.”
“Who’s that singer?”
“Kate Alexa, an Australian pop star from my university days. She’s most famous for songs on teen TV shows, but she helped me find some joy during my darkest times.”
Lacey slowed to wind her way through the Waiparous Village curves. “Don’t talk about that time if you don’t want to. But I might protect you better by knowing more.”
“Not sure I need protection anymore, except from reporters. It was lifetimes ago in internet years. Would you believe, the cops said because I’d gone for coffee with him first — just the one time, before he got weird — I’d encouraged him, and therefore it was up to me to discourage him? Like they couldn’t grasp the awful vibe he gave off from me simply telling him I didn’t want to hang with him a second time. Then following me for months, sending flowers and gifts because he’s convinced I’m his one true love.” She faked gagging. “Plus selling his stalker photos to celebrity websites and shit-posting about me on my own fan sites under dozens of aliases. When I was being interviewed in any public venue, he’d start blasting that Lady Gaga song on his phone about following me anywhere? I couldn’t listen to any LG after that.” She chewed her gum and drummed her fingers on her thighs until a White Stripes song came on. Then she smiled. “This song reminds me of how Bart dropped everything to come and stay with me in New York City after the cops blew me off. He was my best friend from Berkeley. It was him who came up with the plan to kill the guy’s delusions once and for all.”
“By getting married?”
“Exactly. Plus his dad had so much money, I could be sure of protection. That creep was never going to get within fifty metres of me again.” Andy examined her painted fingernails. “I think Orrin’s fixers had a word with the guy. They can be kind of intimidating when they want.”
“Those guys in the dark suits who are running around the ranch? They didn’t intimidate the reporters at the gate.”
“No, those are head office types. They’re used to a deferential Calgary Herald reporter or someone from Forbes writing a puff piece on Orrin. Did you ever see the TV show Angel? The law firm on that show was kind of like Orrin’s fixers. Nothing they wouldn’t do for their rich clients. They supply Orrin’s bodyguards when he goes to Niger and other places where the locals hate his corporate looting of their resources.” She picked at a flake of polish on her thumbnail. “Which makes it even more weird that he would go missing from the ranch. It’s always been his safe haven. You don’t suppose he has dementia, do you, and we never noticed? Ty doesn’t drive and wouldn’t be able to navigate back if Orrin got them lost because he suddenly can’t remember his way back.”
She closed her eyes again, leaving Lacey to drive on with her thoughts for company while Frank Turner and Ed Sheeran sang songs suitable for country roads on sunny afternoons. So Andy had married Bart for protection from her stalker. They were good friends back then, and clearly still, but maybe they had no chemistry, and it had never blossomed into a truly passionate relationship. That didn’t excuse her screwing his brother, but it helped explain it. Maybe Bart didn’t know, and maybe he did but didn’t mind.
The Husky station at Highway 1 was coming up, and Lacey had to interrupt her passenger’s reverie. “Do I go into Calgary on the Trans-Canada or Highway 8?”
“Glenmore Trail and 8, please. I’ll direct you from the Grey Eagle Casino exit. We can cruise the block first and make sure nobody from the Herald or Sun is lurking.”
Lacey drove on south. She’d be passing within ten minutes of home. If she’d known the route sooner, s
he’d have asked to swing by to pick up clean underwear and fresh T-shirts. But Andy presumably had a timeline for her therapist phone call. Maybe on the way back.
Half an hour later, they were creeping along a quiet street in Lakeview, on the north side of Glenmore Reservoir. Large suburban homes lay amid shaved green lawns or lurked behind wrought-iron gates. Children rode bikes on the sidewalks.
Andy said suddenly, “Shit, that grey sedan,” and ducked beneath the dashboard. “Keep going. Don’t even slow down for a second. Take the next right.”
Passing straight along the street, Lacey barely made the grey car with a camera pointing out the driver’s window. She watched it in the rear-view mirror to make sure the driver didn’t follow.
“Good catch,” she said. “I’d have missed him. I was looking for a marked media vehicle.”
Andy sat up and smoothed her hair back into place. “They play the stealth game, looking for embarrassing shots. When we get around the corner, you’ll see the sign for the Calgary Canoe Club. Pull in there. I’m a member, and we can park all day.”
Lacey signalled for the turn. “That guy in the car was a shock. I didn’t think Calgary had paparazzi.”
“They’re not as vicious or as professional as the ones in New York, but they’re there. Mostly it’s wannabe journalists, sometimes security guards or PIs who supplement their income by selling photos to the local news services. Orrin’s an oil baron, and we’ve all been hiding out at the ranch since he vanished, so the first one who gets a current photo of a family member gets a big payday and bragging rights.”
“I’m surprised you would risk coming out with just me to protect you.”
“You don’t look like personal security, which keeps attention off me, too.” Andy pointed out the canoe club’s parking lot. “Drive right down to the clubhouse.”
Lacey parked near the building. The area had a weekday deserted feel to it. Even in the shade, the grass was browned by the baking sun. Just below them, the reservoir lay deep and blue. Rowers in a dragon boat left a sparkling wake. Birds chirped. A bumblebee blundered by. It was all very peaceful. There was nobody at hand to notice their arrival.
Why the Rock Falls Page 16
