Cold Ridge

by Carla Neggers

  He covered her hand with his, noticed that even without the blanket, his was warmer. "You do realize your brother-in-law is a senator?"

  "It's sinking in. I'm not registered to vote in Massachusetts—isn't that awful? I didn't even vote for him." She lifted Ty's hand and examined his blister. "I've still got my first-aid kit. I can treat it."

  "It hardly even counts as a blister. Share a corner of your blanket with me?"

  She tossed a section of it over his shoulder, and he scooted in closer to her. But the thing didn't make him feel nostalgic at all. It stunk, and it scratched. He put a finger through one of the holes. She smiled. "Waste not, want not. Saskia got that part of living up here. I tried to explain to Louis that we Yankees are frugal, not cheap. There's a difference." She took a breath, her voice cracking almost imperceptibly. "Except he wasn't southern after all."

  "We don't know that for a fact. We just have Manny's notes."

  She shook her head. "Ty, I never would have guessed he wasn't on the level. Never. He was funny, irreverent, nice. Jodie—she lied, too. I never would have guessed they were having an affair. I must not be a very good judge of character."

  "Louis could have been funny, irreverent and nice and still not be on the level."

  "Not nice. That's what Manny said to me on Wednesday before the police got there. Louis Sanborn wasn't a nice man. I guess he was trying to warn me."

  Ty said nothing, just leaned back against the step, taking Carine with him in the blanket. She laid her head against his shoulder, the smell and the roughness of the old blanket apparently not fazing her. He kissed her hair, which was soft and smelled of some citrusy shampoo, not mothballs, and if he smelled like sweat and sawdust, she didn't seem to mind.

  Nineteen

  Carine tried to go for her run on her own, but Ty put on running shorts and a ragged shirt and joined her, saying he could provide motivation for her to get her speed up.

  Just what she needed.

  At some point, he'd mapped out the same mile-anda-half route she had. He also had the same three-mile, five-mile and ten-mile routes. Ten miles was as far as she'd ever run. Any farther, she was in hiking boots and packing food and a tent.

  But her morning hike and the tension of the past few days affected the muscles in her legs, her stamina, her breathing. She couldn't get a rhythm going in her stride. She had on close-fitting leggings, a moisture-repelling running shirt, special running socks and her expensive running shoes, but they weren't doing her any good.

  "I'm dying here," she said after they'd made the turn and were on their way back. "I feel like I'm sprinting."

  Ty trotted alongside her with little apparent effort. "Push harder. You can make it."

  "You should see me do five miles. It's this damn speed—"

  "Carine, you're not running that fast."

  "Easy for you to say." They turned into her driveway, and she glowered at him when she saw that he wasn't even breathing hard. "North—I hate you. I've always hated you."

  "The refrain." He grinned at her, the run obviously not fazing him. "No, you have not always hated me. That's what kills you."

  Her knees were wobbling, and she was sweating and gasping for air, her chest aching, when just a week ago she'd have been fine—not breaking any records, but not ready to drop, either. Ty looked as if he'd just done a warm-up. Plus, he'd chopped wood. And he'd gone on the hike with her.

  "Couldn't you at least cough and spit?" she asked him. "Get a stitch in your side?"

  "Can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen."

  She scowled at him. "My body must have been possessed by aliens when we were engaged."

  "Well, maybe your mind was. I know your body wasn't." He swatted her on the rear end. "Now, come on. Hoof it the last few yards. Sprint. Go all out."

  She tried to kick him, but he was ready for her and bobbed out of her reach. The hell with it. She dove for his midsection. Headfirst, the way she always had. But he grabbed her by the hips, flipped her over, and before she knew what was happening, she was upside down, looking at the ground. "Hey!" she yelled. "You're going to step on my hair."

  Her running shirt dropped down to her chin, and she felt the cool air on her overheated skin—and his hands. "Christ, you have been doing your ab work."

  She did her level best to kick him in the jaw.

  He laughed and swooped her back over and onto her feet. The blood that had rushed to her face while she was upside down rushed back out again, and she felt herself get dizzy and almost tripped. He caught her by both shoulders, steadying her. "You okay?"

  She blinked at him. "I should have thrown up on your shoes."

  "Yeah, probably."

  "The idea was for me to think twice before I attack you again?"

  "No, the idea was for me to feel your abs."

  "You felt my abs the other day."

  "I wasn't paying attention. I was more interested in other parts of your body."

  "Ty." She put her hands on her hips, breathing hard. "Damn, you're not cutting me any slack, are you?"

  He shrugged. "Who just plowed into who?"

  "I'm standing here having this wonderful fantasy of hanging you upside down by your toes. But it'll probably never happen, will it?"

  "Not literally. Figuratively—" Something changed in his eyes. "One way or another, babe, you've got me hanging by my toes every damn day."

  His comment, his delivery, unsettled her enough to give her the spurt of energy she needed to sprint the rest of the way to her back deck.

  "I'll have to remember that," he said, walking to the deck."Nice way to get you moving. You showering here?"

  "Damn straight," she muttered, scooting inside before he could get to her even more.

  She skipped her post-run stretches and climbed up the ladder to her loft, and when she opened a dresser drawer, she heard a distinctive squeaking inside the slanted ceiling. Damn. More bats. And mice droppings in her underwear drawer.

  She had visions of scurrying rodents and bats swooping up in the rafters while she slept. Her loft—her bedroom—was in the rafters.

  Not a good development.

  Ty wandered into the great room below her, and she leaned over the rail. "I'm going to have to sleep up here with a baseball bat."

  "Hey—"

  "Not because of you. I've got bats and mice. Your house has been empty even longer than mine. Why don't you have rodents?"

  "I pay people to take care of the place. You've got Gus." He smiled up at her. "I also have ultrasonic pest-chasers. I think I have a few extra if you'd like me to fetch them."

  "Sure. Run there and back so you can work up a sweat. By the way," she said, rising up off the rail, "your abs aren't so bad, either. I could feel them when you had me upside down."

  "Watch it, toots. If you think I can run fast, you should see how fast I can climb a ladder."

  It felt good to laugh, but after she got out fresh clothes and slipped back down the ladder to shower and change, she found herself making a detour into her studio. She wiped her palm over her dusty filing cabinet and opened the bottom drawer, squatting down to flip through the files, until she came to one labeled simply Hunting Shack, because she needed no further prompting to remember what was inside.

  She laid the photos one by one on the floor, on the rug Saskia North had designed and hooked for her one winter.

  The police had the memory disk. She'd printed out copies of the photos before it had occurred to anyone to ask her for it. She hadn't touched them in a year. In hindsight now, as she looked at the pictures, she realized the photo of the shack never would have worked as a Christmas card or anything else. The lighting was off, the building itself more an eyesore than a quaint relic of rural New England. There were no vehicles, no people, no snow or footprints—yet minutes after taking the pictures, someone shot at her. Then blew up the shack and let it burn to the ground before the police could get there.

  One of the best shots was of the front porch. She'd ha
d to get down low for it. A pair of antique cross-country skis was tacked above the door, and she'd captured about a dozen old-fashioned signs mounted on the outside wall. She took the photograph to her worktable and turned her lamp on it, then got out her magnifying glass for a closer look.

  Was someone in the window?

  No. And surely the police would have noticed if there were.

  She smiled at the moose-crossing sign. There were also cow-crossing signs, but most of the signs were of stores and dairies long out of business—including the Sanborn Dairy. It had gone out of business in the early 1960s. Its old glass bottles were a collectors' item. Carine thought she had a couple in the cellar. They had black lettering, with a line drawing of the heads of two happy-looking cows. The last of the Sanborns had sold off their acreage to the local paper mill that owned the land on which the shack was located. But they owned hundreds of acres, and Sanborn wasn't an uncommon name.

  When Ty returned with the pest-chasers, Carine brought him back to her studio and showed him what she'd been up to. "Kind of an odd coincidence, huh?" She handed him her magnifying glass, noticing he'd showered and changed into jeans and a sweater, the ends of his hair still damp. "You've heard of the San-born Dairy."

  "They delivered pint bottles of milk to school when Gus was a kid."

  "Suppose that's where Louis got his alias? He could have grown up in the valley and picked Sanborn because it was convenient, or maybe he's a distant Sanborn cousin or something."

  "That doesn't make him one of the smugglers."

  She shrugged. "It doesn't not make him one of the smugglers."

  Ty peered through the magnifying glass. "Did you ever steal a deer-crossing sign?"

  "That's not a deer, that's a cow and a moose—"

  He glanced at her. "I know it's a cow and a moose. Jesus."

  "You stole a deer-crossing sign? Ty, that's low."

  "Nate helped."

  "How come I never knew?"

  "You and Antonia would've ratted us out."

  "We were not tattletales!"

  He rolled his eyes and handed her back her magnifying glass. "I think I used a Sanborn Dairy bottle for target practice once. How's that for a coincidence?"

  "All right, so it's a weak theory, but it's something, anyway. A nibble. Maybe Louis was one of the smugglers and saw the sign, and when it came to pick an alias, he chose Sanborn, not realizing where he got it. Manny was looking for a connection between the smugglers and Louis."

  "Good. You can tell him it's a defunct dairy."

  "If Louis and Jodie met up here—" She sighed, knowing she wasn't going to get anywhere with him. "Oh, never mind. We're just chasing our tails. The police are probably way ahead of us."

  "We? Us?"

  She smiled. "Go install your pest-chasers. How many did you scare up?"

  "Three. They should help."

  Carine quickly put the pictures away and headed for the shower, not wasting any time rinsing off, toweling herself dry and jumping into fresh clothes. Ty had her on edge, no question about it. Val Carrera's call and Manny's computer log didn't help, but they weren't the main cause. The teasing, the sexy comments and looks, the easy manner he had with her all reminded her of their first days together last fall, before they'd tried to commit to something deeper. Marriage. A life together.

  Don't think.

  Yes. Much better that way. She'd learned her lesson. She wasn't going to get ahead of herself with him again.

  She combed her damp hair, not bothering to pull it back, and returned to the kitchen. Gus had called before her run to say he was bringing dinner. She slipped out onto the back deck, shivering, the air chilly against her shower-warmed skin. She noticed Gary Turner's midnight blue car in her driveway. He waved to her over its roof and joined her on the deck, his all-black attire and the fading light emphasizing the whiteness of his hair, the blandness of his eyes and skin.

  "Sorry to bother you," he said.

  "You're not bothering me. I'm just getting a breath of air."

  "Your hair's wet—don't catch cold." He cocked his head, smiling at her. "Have I ever seen you with your hair down?" But he didn't wait for an answer, straightening, his manner becoming more formal. "I assume you've heard the latest."

  "That Louis Sanborn is an alias?" Carine nodded. "I heard yesterday. After my last visit with the Rancourts, I didn't think it appropriate to go up there and chat with them about it."

  "Understandable. They're furious with me now, too."

  "Because you didn't know?"

  He shrugged, not really answering.

  She was aware she hadn't invited him inside and wondered where Ty was with his pest-chasers. "Did you hire him?" she asked.

  Turner narrowed his colorless eyes on her. "He came well recommended—"

  "By Jodie Rancourt?"

  He sighed. "Then you know."

  "I don't know anything, but they were having an affair."

  "She told her husband it was just that one time in the library. It's none of my business. I've tried not to interfere in their relationship. Of course, if anyone believed her affair with Louis had anything to do with his murder, I'd speak up."

  "Have you told the police—no, never mind. That's not fair of me to ask. You must be in an incredibly difficult situation."

  He paused a moment, his expression unreadable. "Regardless of the circumstances of how Louis came to me, I should have gone deeper into his background. I liked him, and I figured I'd keep an eye on him, see how he worked out."

  She decided not to tell him about Manny's log, how sure he was that it was Louis he'd run into with Jodie Rancourt in Cold Ridge in September—under a different name. Maybe Turner knew, maybe he didn't. It wasn't for her to discuss the contents of a computer file that the police, after all, also had.

  "I think we were all taken in," she said. "Gary—do you know who took the pictures in the library? It couldn't have been Jodie or Louis, but I suppose one or the other could have persuaded someone—"

  "The pictures are irrelevant. I'm history with the Rancourts. I guess I don't blame them. "He seemed genuinely unconcerned. "After this week, they're skittish about the whole idea of hiring their own security experts. They'll probably contract out with an established firm."

  "What will you do?"

  "I have options." He tilted his head back, the fading light darkening his eyes just a notch. "What about you? Does the big city still beckon?"

  "I like my apartment. No one else seems to."

  He smiled gently. "That's because they've seen this place."

  "I have great neighbors in the city. I don't have any neighbors here—"

  "Tyler North."

  She swallowed. "He's active-duty military. He's not aroundmuch.Itjustsohappensthathe'sherethisweek." Up in her loft, as a matter of fact, she thought, installing pest-chasers. "I had a lot of projects in the works before the Rancourts lured me with easy money and a kind of sexy job, taking pictures of a historic mansion."

  "But you don't have that anymore."

  "There's a shop on Newbury Street that's after me to do a brochure for them. I did some work for another shop a couple of months ago—haven't done much commercial work, but it could be fun."

  He seemed amused, but not in a patronizing way. "Keeping your overhead low preserves your options, so you can pick and choose what jobs you take."

  "It hasn't been easy keeping this place here and renting an apartment in the city, but I've managed. Louis— whoever he was—teased me about being a tight-fisted Yankee."

  Turner laughed, but his heart obviously wasn't in it, the stress of the past few days taking their toll on him, too. "I wonder if the southern act was real. I wonder if anything we knew about him was real."

  "He's dead. There's no question of that."

  "No, there isn't, and murdering him—that was a terrible thing, no matter who he was. I imagine the police will sort out whatever history exists between Louis and Manny Carrera. I've been ordered not to get involve
d.

  'Let the police handle it' is the mantra."

  "I suppose it makes sense."

  "Carine—" Turner shifted, intense but quiet, even self-conscious, making no excess movements. "Please be careful until this situation gets resolved. I told you— something's happening under the radar."

  She wondered what he might know that Manny didn't—that she and Ty didn't. "Gary, if there's anything I should know—"

  "I'm operating more on instinct and experience than on fact. I'm sorry you found Louis on Wednesday." He paused, taking a breath, and she thought she noticed his hands shaking. "I've enjoyed getting to know you, although I don't claim to know you well. If I can swing it and you plan to stay on there yourself, I'd like to get another job in Boston. I'd appreciate seeing you from time to time. Maybe—" He took another breath, swallowing visibly. "Maybe we could have dinner."

  She crossed her arms on her chest, not wanting to hurt his feelings or to encourage him. "Gus is bringing over a lasagna out of the freezer." Her hair felt like ice in the cold breeze, and she smiled, the friend, the woman who liked him but wasn't attracted to him. "We can have dinner right now."

  "I meant in Boston, with you." He glanced around, the bare trees clicking in a strong gust of wind, then sighed, calmer, his hands no longer shaking. "I doubt you'll be going back to Boston, at least not for any length of time. You belong here, Carine. But you do know that, don't you?"

  "I love it here. I don't know about belonging—I like to think I belong with the people I care about. But I don't know anymore." She dropped her arms, the wind penetrating her lightweight sweater. "It hasn't been an easy year."

  "No, I suppose not. Well, I'll see you around. The Rancourts won't give me the boot until they're assured they don't need me to keep them safe. Don't let Mrs. Rancourt's affair with Louis fool you, Carine. She and her husband are two of a kind. Whatever works, I suppose."

  "Not me. I value fidelity."

  He smiled, a rare warmth coming into his eyes. "And that's a surprise? You're good, Carine, and you expect other people to be good."