Lonesome Lake

by Lesley Appleton-Jones

  Raines thought about it for a moment. “The Beaupré drug angle is interesting, but let’s not overlook Bell. A newspaper photographer is an excellent cover for an arsonist. We caught him in the woods watching the fire. Arsonists like to admire their handiwork. Or he could have done it to drum up business. Newspapers are struggling. A fire is big news here and exciting to film. His alibi needs checking.”

  “This isn’t the first time I’ve run an investigation, Raines. Of course, I’ll check his alibi, so don’t go getting your panties all in a bunch.”

  “Got it, but…”

  “But what?” she asked.

  “How do you know I’m not going commando?”

  Holly couldn’t help it. Her eyes dipped below his waistband before she forced herself to look back up at him.

  His grin smacked of satisfaction.

  Flustered, she couldn’t think of a smart retort and had to repeat Gabby’s words. “It’s Jamie’s job to take photos,” she muttered and stalked off toward her car.

  He followed her. “I have a feeling about Bell.”

  “Don’t you mean you have a history with him?”

  The air around them seemed to cool the moment she said it. She shouldn’t have brought it up, but Raines had a way of pushing her buttons as if he worked for mission control.

  He wasn’t grinning now. “That doesn’t have anything to do with it.”

  “Are you sure? The last day of your brother’s trial, you slammed Jamie so hard against the wall I thought you were going to nail him to it. Not that I blame you. The way he hounded your nieces was a disgrace. I would have handed you the hammer.”

  Her words seemed to defuse the tension. Raines leaned a hip against her car, folded his arms and looked at her in a way he’d never looked at her before. It unnerved her because she had no idea what he was thinking. Perhaps if she pushed him about Jamie, he’d leave. “Remember those photos Jamie took of you in high school? The ones when you went skinny dipping on that stupid dare? The ones he sold to the tabloids after your first number one hit?” She recalled laughing so hard when she’d seen the picture of Raines running butt naked into Echo Lake that she’d almost snorted coffee all over the newspaper. She had to bite her lip now to prevent another outburst of laughter. It never got old.

  His eyes bored into hers as a grin spread slowly across his face. She could tell he was about to deliver a counterpunch.

  “I have history with you, too.”

  The way he emphasized “history” made heat race to her cheeks. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He said nothing, but the smirk lurking at the corner of his lips confirmed what he was hinting at. He was goading her about prom night. She knew it.

  To block his smirking face and hide hers, which she imagined wasn’t too difficult to read right at that moment, Holly popped the trunk and pretended to search for something way in the back of it. She shoved a box around and made some noise.

  If it hadn’t been for the damn skiing accident, she thought, nothing would have happened.

  It was the afternoon of the prom, and she was recovering at home when her coach called to tell her that her Olympic skiing career was over. To cheer her up, her friends tried to convince her to go to the prom with them. She refused. She couldn’t dance. She could barely walk. A full-length cast encased her leg and made her lurch around like Frankenstein’s monster. After her friends plied her with alcohol smuggled from their parents’ liquor cabinets, though, the idea held more appeal.

  As soon as they arrived at the school, her friends abandoned her to dance with guys from the football team. On the way over, the alcohol had hit hard, and her head had begun to spin. Spying chairs at the back of the gym, she decided to sit there and wait. Hobbling over to them on her crutches, she stumbled into Cal Raines—literally.

  She hit him with such force she bounced off his chest and pitched backward like a felled tree going down.

  He caught her by slipping his arms around her and pulling her body against his to steady her, lifting her just enough to take the weight off her broken leg.

  It wasn’t the first time they’d touched. When they were kids, they used to play football in his backyard, and she’d tackled him to the ground on many satisfying occasions. But this time it was different. This time his touch sent a shockwave through her. Now seventeen, he was no longer the short and skinny kid she could wrestle to the ground. He was tall, lean and strong.

  In an uncharacteristic moment of insanity that she blamed on the lethal combination of Peach Schnapps and vodka, she slid her arms up around his neck and kissed him. She remembered that the kiss had an embarrassing slurpy puppy sound to it.

  It hadn’t stopped him from pressing his lips hard against hers as he slid his fingers through her hair and cradled the back of her head.

  A jolt of excitement had rushed through her. The intensity of it shocked her. It was more potent than the rush she got skiing full throttle down an icy mountain. Startled, she pulled away from him.

  His eyes glimmered like gunmetal in dim light—dangerous but magnetic. He smiled the languid half-smile she knew so well. Then his eyes narrowed, and his grin vanished. “You’re drunk,” he muttered.

  “Am not,” she replied, full of self-righteous indignation, which she sabotaged by burping. It smelled peachy and fumy, and she started giggling like a deranged cartoon character.

  He rolled his eyes as if she were nothing more than an annoying kid sister. Extricating himself from her sloppy embrace with way more expertise than a teenager had a right to know how to do, he said, “I’m taking you home.”

  She had resented his parental tone. “I’m not going anywhere until I hear you sing.”

  His grin was wicked. “Too bad. You just missed me. Now let’s go.”

  “You don’t get to boss me around. You’re not my coach,” she snapped as she jerked away from him, spinning around on her injured leg. The plaster cast slipped on the polished wood floor. She flapped her arms for balance, but it was futile. She was going down hard.

  Raines grabbed her before she hit the ground. Somehow, he managed to scoop her up in his arms and carry her out of the gym with her leg sticking up in the air at an embarrassing angle. Her heart hammered as though it wanted out of her body. “Let me go,” she’d snarled. “I can walk.”

  “You can barely walk with that cast on when you’re sober,” he’d breathed into her ear as he struggled to get her over to his battered pickup.

  It was the same ‘47 Ford that was parked on the street right now. The only difference was it had been restored to its original glory.

  To prevent herself from groaning aloud at what she’d done to him once they’d reached his pickup that night, she closed her eyes and tried to stop the memory from coming.

  Raines bent down to peer into her trunk. “What the hell are you doing in there?”

  She grabbed a roll of crime scene tape and waved it at him.

  “What are you going to do with that?” he asked.

  “First, I’m going to make sure Sully hasn’t found a dead body. Then I’m going to tape off the area where we found the bike tracks while you run along home. I have this covered, Raines. I don’t need the damn Sheriff’s department helping out with my case.” She slammed the trunk and stomped off down the driveway.

  He called after her, “Aren’t you going to talk to Beaupré?”

  “I’ll do it when I’ve finished here.”

  “What about Scotty Pepper?”

  She stopped walking. Scotty Pepper was a problem. No way would he talk to her. He’d probably shoot her for trespassing before she had a chance to utter a word. But if she didn’t interview him, Chief Finch would assign it to Gustafson, and that would be the end of her case. The Lieutenant would muscle in on the arson, and she’d be left to write his reports.

  “What is it?” Raines asked, closing the distance between them in a couple of strides.

  “Since Nate’s trial, Scotty Pepper isn’t exactly talking t
o me.”

  “You interrogated him?”

  She shrugged. “You say interrogated; he says drilled with a Black & Decker. I didn’t think he’d take it so personally. You’d think he’d understand that I had to question him. God knows how many people he interrogated while he was in the Special Forces.”

  Raines whistled. “I guess that’s the perks of policing in a small community. You get to trash your childhood friendships. Want me to talk to him while you go find Beaupré?”

  It was the last thing she wanted, but if Scotty agreed to talk to anyone, it would be with Raines. And then there was the risk of losing another case to Gustafson. She hesitated for a couple of seconds before deciding. “Fine, but you have to promise me that whatever he tells you, you report it to me—and only me.”

  Raines looked amused. “I can’t wait.”

  She scowled, and his grin broadened.

  Chapter Eight

  It was still early. The moon, a faint watermark against the blue-sky morning, dipped toward the mountain ridge as the sun took its time rising in the east. Steam rose in the nippy autumn air as a motorcyclist sponged warm soapy water over a dirt-encrusted Yamaha engine. He rinsed his work with the garden hose. After a few swipes with a chamois to absorb the moisture, the bike was ready to go. The rider buckled his helmet, turned the key in the ignition and stepped down hard on the kick-start, smiling as he always did at the bike’s buzz-saw sound of life. Squeezing the clutch, he toed the bike into first and slowly released the lever until he began rolling forward. With the skill of a stunt rider, he revved the engine to full throttle and popped a wheelie all the way down the long path that led to the woods.

  Two miles away, Abbey Raines pressed herself into the furthest corner of her bedroom and covered her ears with her hands. It didn’t help. She could still hear her sister’s muffled wet sobs coming from the room next to hers.

  Melody needed to get a grip, Abbey thought. Her grief had a way of sweeping through the house as if it were a contagion, infecting them all. She wanted to scream at her sister to put a sock in it.

  The turmoil of the fire and the noise of sirens rushing up and down the street had not only rekindled her sister’s dreadful memories but hers, too. Sirens did that to her, transported her back to that terrible night.

  To make matters worse, a briny smell of sizzling bacon wafted up the stairs from the kitchen.

  Po was busy cooking them breakfast, fully believing he was doing a good thing. He had no idea, she thought as desolation hollowed her out, how miserable his simple act of kindness made her.

  Her mother had reveled in whipping up mounds of pancakes and bacon for her family on Saturday mornings, insisting that they all sit down to eat together. Back then, Abbey found the weekend ritual inconvenient and annoying. Now she’d sacrifice anything to be able to walk downstairs and have her mother serve her pancake after pancake while she laughed at one of her dad’s stupid jokes.

  She banged her head against the wall as she tried to banish the image of her family. She had to get out of the house before she did something crazy. Before the black hole of grief consumed her. Before she had to eat Po’s breakfast. She needed her horses. She needed to touch something warm and alive—smell something that didn’t remind her of Saturday mornings.

  So she crept back downstairs, hoping to sneak out of the front door without Po noticing, but he heard her and called out. Resigned, she walked into the kitchen and mumbled, “I forgot to feed the horses.”

  He folded his muscled arms across his massive chest. “You just came in. They can survive another fifteen minutes while you eat something. Breakfast is almost ready.” He looked kind of ridiculous standing there with the flower-patterned dishtowel tucked into his waistband, but he meant business. She grabbed a couple of shiny red apples from the fruit bowl and waved them at him.

  “That’s squirrel food. You need a hot meal. Some bacon and pancakes will set you up for the day.”

  “I’m not hungry. I have to feed the horses.” She looked at him with big, pleading eyes, hoping he’d cave. She had to get out of there fast. She could feel the tears coming.

  He studied her face for a moment and must have sensed her desperation because he relented. “Take a banana, too. And don’t feed the apples to those damn horses.”

  She gave him a grateful smile and hurried out the back door. Reaching the sanctuary of the barn, she hugged Granite, pressing her face against his neck and inhaling deeply. He smelled of nervous sweat from the night before, but traces of the lush timothy grass and sweet clover hay she fed him still lingered on his coat, as did a hint of rosewater horse shampoo.

  As she stroked his mane, Granite gently lowered his head over her shoulder to hug her in that special way horses do. His affection brought a sudden rush of tears to her eyes. She leaned into the curve of his neck and squeezed her eyes shut, fighting to control her grief. He began to nuzzle her pocket. She gave him a watery smile and fed the apples to the horses. She shared her banana with Memphis, who’d followed her around to the stables and sat waiting patiently for his treat.

  After that, she groomed Granite. First, she loosened a patch of dirt on his hindquarters with a currycomb. Next, she worked a dandy brush with swift, flicking motions down the horse’s neck toward his tail. Dust particles floated up and away from his coat, visible in the beam of sunlight that streamed in through the window high above them. Concentrating on every stroke, she smoothed down his black hair with the body brush and worked a towel over his back until his coat shone. To finish, she combed the mane, brushed out the tail and carefully used a pick to remove the impacted dirt from the hollow areas around the frog of his hooves.

  Returning the grooming bucket to a shelf in the tack room, she lifted down a battered tin box. Inside was her dad’s favorite Celtics t-shirt. With reverence, she picked it up and held it to her face. She sniffed and sniffed again, but it no longer smelled of him. All that remained was the residual odor of gun oil from his Kahr K9 that sat at the bottom of the tin.

  The loss of him burned at the back of her throat. She stroked the gun, remembering the first time he’d taught her to shoot it in the woods at the back of their house. Smiling, she slipped her fingers around the handle and lifted it out. The small 9mm felt comforting to touch and solid.

  Placing the t-shirt back in the box to protect it, she returned the tin to the shelf. Nobody knew she had his gun, which was good because they’d definitely take it from her. The police had confiscated the rest of his gun collection, but Abbey had known where he kept this one hidden for emergencies. After his arrest, she retrieved it for safekeeping until he came home.

  On the top shelf, hidden behind old jars of hoof polish, she retrieved the holster. She pulled up her shirt, attached it to the waistband of her jeans, slid the gun in place and smoothed her shirt back down to conceal the weapon. Patting her side, she smiled. Her dad would be proud of her for taking such good care of it. As she moved around gathering Granite’s tack, she felt her dad’s presence.

  She slid the saddle pad down the horse’s back to rest just in front of his withers and covered it with an English-style saddle. Next, she buckled the girth, pulling it slowly and taking care not to tighten it so much that it would be uncomfortable for him. Last came the bridle.

  As she finished fastening it, Granite began to stomp a hoof. His muscles quivered under her hand. The grassy meadow called to him with a gravitational force. She felt the same need to escape. Sometimes, on a good day, riding her horse could magically transport her to a better place. A place free from the throbbing pain of her mother’s death and the gnawing anger at her father’s imprisonment. She hoped this would be one of those days. She needed to stop feeling, to stop thinking. Eager to get going, she jammed on her riding hat, hooked her foot in the stirrup and swung effortlessly up on his back.

  Full of himself, Granite pranced down the path toward the pasture at a fast trot as if he’d never been afraid of the fire. He tossed his magnificent head high in the
air as he fought for control of the bit. His excitement at the prospect of a morning gallop started to drag her back from the past.

  Exuberant, he bucked.

  Abbey knew what he wanted. She wanted it, too. Together, they would outrun their troubles. Bending low over his neck, she loosened the reins and gave him his head.

  Born to run, he didn’t hesitate. His stride lengthened, and a thrill seared through her as his powerful muscles stretched out for the gallop. The earth rushed beneath his thundering hooves, and the painful memories that had threatened to overwhelm her just moments ago spilled away from her like the wind down a sail. The faster Granite tore across the field, the lighter Abbey felt until she seemed to float free from the saddle. Not fighting the sensation, she let herself drift away from the pain, drift as if she were on a gentle river current heading toward her mother’s love and infinite peace.

  Nearing the end of the pasture, Granite slowed his pace. In an instant, she was back in the saddle with the stirrup irons hard under the ball of her foot. Abbey blinked back tears at the loss of connection with her mother. She wanted to stay there in that moment forever, free from the pain. To be done with it all. To let go and never feel the misery again. But she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t abandon her dad when he needed her the most.

  Whispering her thanks to her horse, she led him onto the trail southwest of their farm and into the forest. He cantered over the soft, leaf-covered soil, much calmer now that he’d blown off some of the tension from the night before but still in need of exercise.