Operation Mountain Recovery

by Justine Davis

  “Just how big is it?”

  “I...haven’t looked at it in a long time, but a couple hundred thousand or so, I think.”

  So a lot, but as she’d said, not a multimillion-dollar prize. “Who’s in charge of that trust until you turn thirty?” he asked.

  “My mother, of course. She makes the investment decisions, and she’s good at it. Why?”

  Brady took a deep breath, then said what had to be said. “And who gets the money in that trust if something happens to you?”

  “I... She’s my beneficiary, so...” He saw by her expression that she had at least gotten the implication, but he could also see that she was a long way from accepting it as fact. “No. No, Brady. She wouldn’t.”

  “I get it, Ash. She’s your mother. But—”

  “She may not be the warm, comfortable, homebody sort of mother, but she loves me. Ask anyone. She’s always made that clear.”

  “I’m sure she has,” he muttered.

  It was Hayley, still in that gentle voice that told Brady she knew exactly what they were doing to Ash and how much it was going to hurt, who said, “That’s very often part of the gaslighting process, Ashley. The front of being loving, caring, so that no one will believe what they’re really doing.”

  “But...she’s always looked out for me, worried about me.”

  “And told others how worried she is about you?” Brady suggested. “Afraid that perhaps you’ll go the way your father did?”

  He saw by her expression he’d hit home. So he pushed harder. “Those texts. There was something...off about them.”

  Hayley nodded. “I showed them to Dr. Sebastian. She said they were nearly classic gaslighting, telling you she’s the only one who really cares about you, that you have no friends, nowhere else to turn, belittling you.”

  “Does this trust have a name?” It was the first time Quinn had spoken since he’d taken the laptop back, and he did it in that businesslike tone that seemed to pull Ash out of the murk. She gave the man a smile that looked half sad, half almost embarrassed.

  “The Murphy Trust. He named it after our dog at the time.”

  “Ah,” Quinn said. “That explains why it didn’t come up in our initial searching.”

  Quinn typed in something else, as if he were telling someone—probably the redoubtable Ty, or maybe the genius sister—what she’d said. Silence descended around the table as they waited. Brady belatedly realized he was still holding Ashley’s hand. And again had to corral his mind, which wanted more than anything to shout that the barrier between them was gone. But this wasn’t the time any more than it had been before.

  But he didn’t let go of her hand.

  After a few silent minutes, Quinn looked up from the screen. There was more, Brady could sense it. Could see it in the way the man was looking at Ash, as if deciding how to say it.

  “Just do it,” Brady muttered.

  Quinn grimaced, but apparently agreed. “My sister, Charlie, happens to be in our headquarters office today, so she’s made some calls. When, exactly, was the last time you looked at that trust?”

  Ash seemed embarrassed. “A very long time ago. I tried to ignore it, partly because it hurt to think about my dad, and partly because I didn’t want to be...one of those trust-fund kids who knew they didn’t really have to earn a living.”

  Brady smiled. “Good for you.”

  She smiled back, then said, “Besides, I knew it was in good hands, so I didn’t bother about it, since it would be years before it would be mine. Foolish, huh?”

  “That trust has grown,” Quinn said. “By a factor of about twenty-five.”

  Ash blinked, clearly shocked. “It’s worth millions?”

  “Five, at the moment.”

  Brady drew back slightly. When he’d said follow the money, he hadn’t expected it to be quite that much. But he had no time to dwell on it, because Quinn was continuing, and his voice was ominously grim.

  “And those investments you mentioned? One of them is more than an investment, it’s wholly owned.”

  “Meaning?”

  “The trust—and the administrator of it—controls it completely.”

  “You mean the trust owns a business? What kind of business?”

  “Ty hasn’t got down into it enough yet to determine the details. But Charlie has a name.” Quinn’s voice turned nearly as gentle as his wife’s had been. “It’s the Amalfi Group.”

  Chapter 30

  Ashley felt a chill envelop her, oddly from the inside out. Was aware of the cold sweat and the touch of queasiness, but as if from a distance, as if she were observing, not feeling.

  And then Brady spoke, and his voice was so full of barely suppressed fury it broke through her shock.

  “The perfect solution,” he bit out, “if you draw your twisted line at murdering your own daughter. Just have her declared incompetent and committed to a psychiatric facility.”

  She registered his tone. Once more he was angry on her behalf. And she clung to that, as if it were a physical thing she could touch. As if it were an anchor keeping her from flying apart.

  “This is...guesswork, right?” she asked Quinn, desperately.

  Brady grabbed both her hands. She shifted her gaze to his face, saw the wrath in his vivid blue eyes, in the set of his jaw. “Ash, it’s a trail lit with freaking neon lights, and it leads straight to her.”

  “But...my mother?”

  She saw and heard him suck in a breath. His voice was gentler then, as if he’d reined in the anger. “I know it’s hell to process, that your own mother would do this to you, and for money.”

  “For any reason,” she said, still shaking her head in disbelief.

  “But Ash, don’t forget the good news.” His voice was almost urgent. “You’re not mentally ill. Not crazy. Not going crazy. Not losing it. None of that was real.”

  A tiny spark of joy kindled within her. But it was not enough to lighten the burden they had just dropped upon her. At least, not yet. She stood up suddenly. Brady rose the minute she did. He looked ready to fight. Someone, or something, although there was nothing he could do. Still, he was ready to, and that meant so much, and in a strange way added to the pressure she was feeling.

  “I...need a minute alone,” she said. “No, several minutes. I have to think and I can’t. I need...”

  What she needed was for all of this to go away. But it wouldn’t. And if she didn’t get some room to breathe in the next instant, she just might burst.

  “There are lots of decisions to make,” Quinn said. “But none that have to be made this instant.”

  “Go outside,” Brady said. “But put your jacket on, it’s snowing again.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes, that’s what I need.”

  “Take Cutter. Or rather,” Hayley amended, “don’t fight him going with you, since he’s already made up his mind.”

  She glanced down to see the dog at her feet, looking up at her determinedly. She wasn’t certain that, even with his uncanny ability to comfort, the animal could help her with this, but he certainly couldn’t hurt. Nor would he expect her to talk, to make sensible thoughts out of the bedlam in her mind. And she marveled for a detached moment at how sanity could possibly seem more chaotic than her mind had been for the last few months.

  But it wasn’t. Not really. Because one key element was missing. She was shocked, possibly in shock. She was reeling from possibility of the worst imaginable betrayal. She was feeling crushed by the weight of it all. And the thought of those decisions Quinn had mentioned was far beyond daunting.

  But she wasn’t afraid. Not anymore.

  * * *

  “None of this will stand up in court, will it.” It wasn’t really a question, because Brady already knew the answer.

  He was pacing again, pausing at one end of his established track to
glance outside and make sure Ash was all right.

  “Cutter will see to her,” Hayley had assured him. “And make her come back inside if she gets too cold.” At Brady’s look, she had laughed. “He knows what shivering means.”

  “Some will,” Quinn said in answer Brady’s observation. “Methods won’t.”

  Brady rubbed the back of his neck. “I never liked the mayor much, but this...”

  “Is beyond the pale? Unnatural?” Hayley suggested, her tone overflowing with revulsion.

  “I was heading for perverted,” Brady said with a grimace. He turned on his heel to head back across the room and found Quinn in front of him.

  “I need your opinion. Of all of us, except maybe Cutter, you’ve got the best read on Ashley.”

  He blinked. “I do?”

  One corner of the other man’s mouth quirked. “You do. For reasons you will eventually understand. But I need to know how much you think she can take.”

  Brady drew back slightly. “Hasn’t she taken enough already?”

  “More than anyone should have to, yes. But what I need to know is if the relief of learning she’s not descending into a mental hell is enough to counterbalance what we suspect about her mother.”

  Brady’s brow furrowed as he studied the man who apparently had more expert resources at his fingertips than Brady had known existed. “To what end?” he finally asked. “Those decisions you mentioned?”

  Quinn nodded. “If she wants to take legal action, we need to go one way. If she doesn’t, then some things become not a concern, and the goals change.”

  Brady considered that for a moment. “You’re saying it’s her decision.”

  Quinn nodded. “Which is why I gave you the chance to opt out. Because that’s not the way you would do things. Not by the book.”

  “Right now,” Brady said grimly, “I’m ready to throw that book into a snowdrift, because I know damned well what would have happened if you people hadn’t come along when you did.”

  “I think,” Hayley said, giving him a warm smile, “she would have had help the moment you knew something was off about her situation.”

  “Thanks for the compliment,” Brady said, “but there’s no way I could have marshaled the forces you guys have.”

  Quinn only smiled. Then said, “Speaking of forces, it might be helpful to know what the official status of the search is. Anybody you could get that from without giving yourself away?”

  Brady thought for a moment. “Yeah. Hang on.”

  He pulled out his phone and called up the number for Rich Larios, one of their half dozen detectives and a good friend. Rich answered on the second ring.

  “Hey, Crenshaw, how’s the life of leisure?”

  I wish I knew. “Great. I should try it more often.”

  “As I keep telling you. So what’s up?”

  “Just wanted the name of that ski run in Snowridge you were talking about.”

  “The Ridge Route Run. If you can’t say it, you’re too drunk to ski it.”

  Brady managed a laugh. “Thanks, man. What’s up there?”

  “Quiet. Except for pretending there’s a chance we’ll find the mayor’s daughter alive.”

  “No trace yet?”

  “Got a vid of her walking past Benny’s at 7:55 p.m. on Sunday, but then poof. So after a week, you know the chances when you’re dealing with someone with her mental history. But the mayor being the boss’s good buddy, you know the drill.”

  “Yeah. Sucks. Don’t put too much energy into it.”

  “Copy that,” Rich said, clearly heartfelt. “Enjoy the skiing.”

  He ended the call and looked once more at Quinn. “They’re expecting to find a body, if anything,” he said grimly, trying not to think of how close that had come to being reality.

  “And would have,” Hayley said, “if not for you.” She looked at her husband. “Can we give her time to process and make up her mind? Until Sunday, maybe?”

  Quinn was silent for a long moment, clearly considering. “I don’t like making your colleagues spin their wheels,” he said to Brady.

  “This is a pretty quiet gig,” Brady said. “They might be pissed, but it won’t hurt them any. The budget, on the other hand...”

  “Foxworth will see to that.” He looked back at his wife. “All right. We’ll hold off, make decisions on Sunday and start—” he glanced at Brady “—marshaling those forces you mentioned on Monday morning.”

  “Go tell her,” Hayley said. “Tell her not to think or worry about it for tonight. It will take some pressure off her, something she surely needs right now.”

  Brady wasn’t sure how you stopped thinking about something like this, but maybe she could at least stop worrying about it for a while.

  * * *

  Brady’s words, as they so often did, rang in Ashley’s head as she lay in bed staring into the darkness.

  Try not to think about your mom. Just think about being well.

  Could you?

  He’d paused then, and answered honestly. As she’d known he would.

  No.

  Somehow that honesty made it possible for her to at least try what he’d suggested. Although it had put her in another complicated position, because the only thing strong enough to jolt her mind out of that rabbit warren of thoughts was...him.

  The memory of how he’d held her, so gently, helped, but it was the memory of his kisses, and of the feel of that long, strong body pressed against her, that was the only thing powerful enough to shove everything else out of her mind, at least for a while. And his restraint, his refusal to pursue what had flared to life between them when he felt it was unfair to her, perversely only added fuel to the fire. The fire in her, anyway. He seemed too busy tamping it down or trying to ignore it. For very noble reasons, yes, but—

  Reasons that didn’t exist anymore. He’d held back because of something that she now knew wasn’t true. She wasn’t delicate, fragile, on the edge of crumbling.

  Suddenly something new, strange and wonderful was coursing through her. As if someone had put her fate back into her own hands. As, in fact, they had. The Foxworths, true, but it was Brady who had saved her for them to do it. Brady who had seen something wrong, or something in her, enough to inspire him to go against everything he believed. For her.

  Her restlessness had transformed from an exhausted merry-go-round of fruitless, careening thoughts to a sort of energy she hadn’t felt in...maybe ever. And abruptly she simply could not stay here, curled up in the dark, another second. She rolled out of the bed and pulled on the socks she had been using as slippers against the chill and the sweatshirt on the foot of the bed since she had no robe.

  She would go back out to the great room and sit by what was left of the fire again. She wanted to be there, where he’d come to her. Not because she hoped he would do so again—no, Brady had made up his mind, and he would not risk that again—but so she could savor the memory, there, where he’d kissed her so fiercely and things had nearly spiraled out of control. She wished they had. Because just the thought of Brady Crenshaw out of control, over her, gave her a thrill she’d never experienced before.

  The reality would be...overwhelming. In the best possible way. She—

  She stopped dead in the hallway when she saw a shadow move. Smiled when she realized it was Cutter, standing outside the media room door.

  Brady’s door.

  “Hello, furry one,” she whispered as she bent to pet him. “Making your rounds?”

  Hayley had told her the dog often did that when he was on a case. It had sounded so funny to her she’d almost laughed, but she was beginning to realize it had not at all been a joke.

  Cutter swiped his tongue lightly over her fingers. “Want to come out and sit with me?” she asked him, still whispering and very aware that they were right outside where Brady wa
s sleeping. Another memory arrowed through her, searing her as if it were aflame. Brady, bare-chested, jeans low on his narrow hips, stepping into that shaft of moonlight. When she caught herself wondering if he slept naked, she knew she had to move or she was liable to do something stupid.

  But when she tried to move, the dog got in her way. She smiled at him and stepped around him. Or tried to, but he was there again. A third time, and this time she was watching him, saw that he moved the instant after she did, and she couldn’t see how it was anything but purposeful.

  “You don’t want me to go out there?” she asked, feeling silly. She had the thought that perhaps Hayley and Quinn were out there, and the dog was protecting their privacy. They certainly hadn’t had much chance to enjoy their anniversary trip alone, although they had had some time before all this had descended on them.

  Cutter moved again, this time gently nudging at her. Not, as she had half expected, back down the hall toward her room but...toward Brady’s door.

  “Oh, don’t tempt me, dog,” she muttered. “There’s nothing I’d like better.”

  “Than what?”

  Brady’s sleep-roughened voice came from barely two feet away, where he’d just opened that tempting door. He wasn’t naked, as she’d imagined, but the snug-fitting knit boxers were damned close. For a moment that seemed to spin out forever, she stared at him, and the broad, strong expanse of his chest, the ridges of his abdomen, the trail of dark hair that arrowed downward like an invitation.

  And feeling reckless for the first time in her generally staid life until now, she answered him honestly.

  “Than you.”

  Chapter 31

  The hunger in her eyes, visible even in the shadows of the hallway, nearly did him in. But then she whispered, “Wanting you is the first thing I’ve been utterly, absolutely sure of in a long time,” and he was lost.

  But still, feeling he had to, he only stood aside, leaving the decision to step through to her. She made it without hesitation. He caught a glimpse of Cutter, who oddly had plopped down in front of the doorway as if it were his place. Or like a guardian.