by Carly Bishop
If, as Angelo stated, he had been the mortal Keller Trueblood, and there seemed little doubt of that as Keller’s memories kept surfacing, then why didn’t Kiel know he’d been murdered, why didn’t he have a sense of evil having been perpetrated against him, why couldn’t he come into the Hereafter like Agatha Orben demanding that her death be avenged—all remained unanswered questions.
So while Robyn was dealing with the lingering doubts and fearing herself paranoid, he knew she had reason, if only because this case had been brought to the Denver Branch of Avenging Angels. There must be something to avenge.
He just couldn’t tell her why, and that constraint was wearing very thin.
Chapter Eight
The only thing to do was plunge ahead. He turned to look at Robyn. “Are we going to find Lucinda Montbank at this cappuccino bar?”
She laughed, relieved, he supposed, for any excuse to stop the ruminating and get on with what lay before them. “Maybe. Since she owns the building, her cappuccino is free, which is exactly the way she likes everything.” Robyn pointed across the street to a renovated structure from the 1890s. “But Lucinda Montbank’s engineering firm has the entire second floor of that building. That’s why we’re parked here.”
As it turned out, Lucinda Montbank was in the cappuccino bar sipping a rare blend of beans and holding court in her inimitable manner on the state of the complex interactions between the precious metal and commodities market, real estate and skiing tourism.
A natural blonde, Lucy wore her hair in an elegant French roll. Her violet eyes, enhanced by colored contact lenses, widened with surprise bordering on consternation when she spotted Robyn waving from behind the back of one of Lucy’s faithful followers.
Caught off guard by her friend’s brief flash of dismay, Robyn laughed uneasily. “Lucy, you look like you’ve seen a ghost!”
Lucy gave a sigh. “Well, it’s just shame on me not to have kept in touch with you. I heard you were in town, but I didn’t believe it.” She stepped off the stool wearing expensive leather pumps and an exquisite dove gray pinstriped suit. At a negligent wave of her hand, the crowd dispersed, all of them, even the twenty-fiveish young man Robyn recognized as Lucy’s leading minion.
Lucy reached for her and touched both Robyn’s cheeks with hers, then held her at arm’s length. “Robyn, you look absolutely…well!”
“I only just ended my therapy, but I am much better these days. No limp, no cane.” Her eyes flicked to Kiel. None of that had been true before he came along. “Michael said to tell you hello. Says you’re still the best.”
“Ah, Michael. Of course he let me know how you were doing from time to time. I understand it’s been a terrible year for you. Come. Sit down and catch me up. I thought your memories of Aspen might be so vile as to keep you away forever—and I feel responsible, of course. I should’ve provided expert guidance for you in the Hallelujah. The accident might never have happened if I had just done that one thing.”
“Lucy, you did offer. Keller and I refused. Please don’t give it another thought.” Throughout their exchange, Lucy was eyeing Kiel. “I’d like you to meet a friend of mine. Lucinda Montbank, Kiel Alighieri. Kiel is working with me now, and you’re right. I should have called you the minute we got into town.”
Lucy offered her hand. Kiel’s made-up surname seemed to go right by her, as well. “You’re working with Robyn?” she asked. “In what capacity?”
“An investigator.” He took Lucy’s hand in both of his but saved the winning thousand-candle smile. Robyn wanted instinctively to leap into the silent standoff between them—they reminded her of wild cats circling and snarling, but she also knew it was Lucy’s style to get a man’s measure through sheer force of will and intimidation.
The first time Keller met Lucy, he backed off the handshake and blew on his fingers with a rueful smile, acknowledging her as a high-powered woman. Keller’s dry wit had won her over, losing the battle but ultimately winning the war.
Lucinda Montbank lived for such metaphorical spitting contests.
Kiel, however, was not backing off.
Tension crackled between Kiel and Lucinda like electricity firing down high-voltage transmission lines. He’d left the word investigator out there like a gauntlet Lucy could only take up at her peril. If she cared, if investigating anything intersected with anything she cared about.
Robyn held her breath.
The force of Kiel’s will, the dominance of his compelling eyes, the sheer magnetism of his strength and character, held her spellbound. She had rarely seen anyone, man or woman, hold their own when Lucinda Montbank chose to prevail. In Kiel, Lucy had met her match, and to see him go toe-to-toe with her made Robyn’s flesh tingle as it had not done in all the months since Keller had died. Or, until Kiel had made love to her and she pretended it was Keller.
The threat of feeling again made her throat close tight.
The reminder of what it was to be so deeply attracted to a man as she was to Kiel, to an angel, now, left her mind numb and her body utterly tuned to his every nuance.
She fought to focus on the confrontation. Choosing to sidestep his gauntlet, Lucy blinked first. Robyn sucked in her first breath in several long seconds. She’d never seen her friend, this formidable woman, come away so empty-handed.
“Well.” Lucy was the one to offer the dazzling smile first. “A real man. What a pleasure.”
Kiel answered with a sardonic grin. Robyn thought she understood its meaning. A real man he wasn’t, no more than Pinocchio was a real boy. Her thinking intruded into his mind, startling him, triggering amusement. He turned to Robyn, surprise and mock fire lighting his eyes.
Time stopped in a spell he cast, like the one he had created the night before. Robyn’s thinking of Pinocchio made him realize the connection between their souls was intact because, less than thirty-six hours before, he’d thought to himself how lucky it was that old Gepetto was not his creator.
Coincidence? No. Not between Keller and Robyn, not between Kiel and Robyn. The awareness that sizzled between them was sexual, and more. Far more. Lucy’s smile remained unchanged, comical in its persistence in the time warp Kiel had created.
“Pinocchio?” His expression bespoke sharp irritation, but his eyes smiled.
“Yes. Pinocchio.” They squared off over the nonsense issue, as lovers square off for the heat of the battle and the thrill of the dare. A wave of pure, intense pleasure moved through her. She lifted her chin. “You know, the little wooden puppet boy who wanted more than anything to be a…a real boy.”
He could have no reason to wish to be a real man, except that he did. He wished to kiss her like a man, to silence her smart mouth with his, to answer her, to cross her battle lines and take her.
His eyes fixed on her lips. His throat tightened, his mostly human angel heart sped. They got no closer than arms’s length, but he could feel the heat of her desire and she could smell the need in him to throw off his angel cloak and be a man.
The moment stretched. The sizzle in the air invoked a smell only lightning leaves behind. He broke off his gaze and instinctively reached to cradle her cheek in his hand. When he touched her, he satisfied her desire, and then he hid it from her, and then he left her smiling at Pinocchio images. In physical pain just like a real man, a frustrated man, Kiel ended his folly and closed the time warp.
Lucy’s smile faded naturally, and Robyn’s broadened. It was as if he and Robyn had only shared a private joke, but never throbbed at each other like a real and needy woman and a real and needy man.
He’d fooled this shark of a woman, this harridan and friend of Robyn’s, with a stand she was unused to facing. But that didn’t lessen his respect. Lucinda Montbank on their side was a far better thing than Lucinda Montbank opposing them.
But his body still throbbed. A real man, she’d said. A pleasure. “A pleasure,” he agreed.
Robyn let her belated smile fade. Disoriented a moment, and confused at all the times in Kiel’s
presence that she’d become so hazy, she shook her head to clear it. “Lucy, could I…could we impose on your time? If we could talk privately in your office…“
“Of course you can, Robyn.” Turning to the cappuccino bar owner, Lucy ordered up a carafe of coffee and a selection of pastries, then led the way out, one arm looped through Robyn’s, the other through Kiel’s. Robyn had no opportunity even to exchange glances with Kiel while they crossed the street and went up via an antique cage elevator to Lucy’s offices.
Done in silver and brown, the decor was as upscale as any New York firm. Lucy’s display of artifacts added to the ambience. Roaring Fork Valley historical mining heritage.
Rather than sitting behind her expansive glass desk, which rested on pillars of locally mined marble, Lucy chose to sit in a conversation grouping with her back to the window. Kiel took the deep burgundy leather chair to her left, and Robyn sat across.
She poured the hot beverage, offered the plate of pastries around, then sank back into her chair. “So. What can I do for you? Are you interested in getting back to your story for the Smithsonian?”
“The historical murders?” Robyn shook her head. “I’m not even sure they’re still interested, so I can’t rule it out, but this is something much closer to home, Lucy.” She frowned. Even though she had only talked to Trudi Candelaria and Stuart Willetts last night, Robyn would almost have expected Lucy to have caught wind of it. Her connections and ties in Aspen were just that sophisticated—and that simple. “I checked into The Chandler House yesterday—“
“As I said,” Lucy interrupted, “I heard that you were here, but…without a clue as to why.”
“Where did you hear?” Kiel asked, sitting back, crossing an ankle over the opposite knee. His voice was soft as warm butter, sharp-edged as a knife.
Lucy blinked at him. “I don’t remember, Mr. Alighieri. I hear a lot of things.”
Robyn’s friend still looked no older than thirty-five, but the concern creasing her features betrayed her pampered skin by at least ten years. Robyn sent Kiel a look. She could see these two were going to be at each other’s throats all the time.
Lucy turned away from Kiel. “Robyn, I am surprised you could come back to Aspen for any reason.”
“I’m not sure I would ever have returned, Lucy. You’re right about the memories. If I had never come back here again, it wouldn’t have been a great loss to me.”
“Believe me, everyone here understands that—at least those of us who knew you and Keller. So what was important enough to you to overcome all that?”
Robyn took a deep breath and plunged ahead. “Lucy, I have serious questions about the timing of Keller’s death. The truth is, I don’t think the cave-in at the Hallelujah was an accident.”
Lucy paled. “Dear God, Robyn, you can’t be serious! Are you?”
“I am. I think someone set out to cause that collapse. Massie and I were talking about it a few nights ago. I think someone had very good reason to want Keller out of the way. I think someone knew we were going to the Hallelujah that morning and took the opportunity to make certain Keller never made it out alive.”
Lucy’s eyes widened in horror and disbelief. “Who could be so twisted? So cruel? So…so evil?”
“Someone who had everything to lose,” Kiel suggested softly. “If your life was at stake, like, say, Trudi Candelaria must have believed hers was,” he went on, “wouldn’t you go to just about any lengths?”
“Including murdering the prosecutor?” Lucy asked. “I’m a hard woman, Mr. Alighieri. You’ll find those who swear I breakfast on nails. I might even have entertained—for a moment—some similar notion had I been in such circumstances.” She leaned back, daring to be judged. “I never discard avenues of attack or of escape out of hand. But even I would have been hard-pressed to come up with such an inelegant solution as to murder Keller Trueblood. Wouldn’t it have been a thousand times easier, and more certain, to…well, you know, just attack him in some dark alley?”
Robyn understood Lucy’s aversion to suggesting other ways Keller was more likely to be killed. “The thing is, I don’t think it would have been easier.”
“Why not?”
“Aspen isn’t exactly your usual site of drive-by shootings or dark alley stabbings.”
“Amen to that,” Lucy put in.
“But I don’t think Keller would have been easy or reliably easy, at least, to catch alone. He was always either working on the case with someone over dinner, at least in public, or he was at home with me.”
“Come on, Robyn,” Lucy answered skeptically. “He went home alone every night for eight or nine weeks.”
“That’s just it, Lucy,” Robyn argued. “He didn’t. I could count on one hand the times he came home without an entourage—including Stuart Willetts and a minimum of two or three law clerks, not to mention—“
“All right.” Lucy held up a hand. “Still, the Hallelujah would seem to me to be even more unreliable. As a way of making sure Keller was put out of the picture, I mean.”
“It’s possible,” Kiel said, “that if someone did cause the mine shaft to collapse, it didn’t really matter what the outcome was. Keller was not going to escape unscathed. Maybe the reasoning went, even if Trueblood survived, there was no way he was going to wind up his prosecution, either. Effectively, he was stopped.”
Lucy grimaced. “It makes me sick to admit it, but it’s possible. It’s all entirely possible. How can I help you? What do you need?”
“Three things, just off the top of my head,” Robyn said, going on with the train of thought she and Kiel had followed. “One, we would like you to come up with a list of people with the expertise to pull this off, and two, a list of experts in the detection and identification of explosives residue.”
“The second coming first, most logically,” Kiel said. “We have to know if the Hallelujah was sabotaged in the first place.”
“And the third thing, Lucy, is your opinion. Kiel and I talked to Ken Crandall this morning. He believes that Stuart Willetts had the most to lose.” Briefly, Robyn related Crandall’s theory about Willetts’s career and blind passion. “I keep second-guessing myself. I can’t see Trudi doing this stuff. You have such a keen insight into people—“
“No more than you, Robyn.”
“Maybe, but I’m not exactly a disinterested, objective party. If Keller had never come here, or if I hadn’t wanted to go see the Hallelujah for myself…You see what flaming hoops I put myself through.” She sat forward, her hands clasped around her knees. “Please. You hear things. You know as much or more about what goes on in this town as anyone. I value your judgment. Do you believe Trudi Candelaria killed Spyder? And if you do, is it a logical extension to think she or Willetts would have the stomach for taking Keller out like that?”
“Logic is pretty useless in a situation like this. I tend to think of murder as a crime of passion.” Lucy’s eyes slid to Kiel.
He nodded. “Motivated by passions, of course. At least one like Spyder’s murder. But it would have to take a lot more reasoned thinking to have murdered Keller by the collapse of a hundred-year-old mine shaft.”
“True enough.” Tapping her lips with her forefinger, Lucy sighed. “But honestly, I don’t know if Trudi killed Spyder or not. She had reason, she had all the opportunity in the world, and she had that bronze statue at her fingertips.”
Robyn nodded. “Even Stuart Willetts admits all the evidence pointed to Trudi. He swears she didn’t do it, of course, but his vouching for her doesn’t count for much.”
“No, it doesn’t. If you want my opinion, I’ll give it to you. Yes. I personally believe she did knock old Spyder off, and again, personally, I wouldn’t blame her. He was a world-class jerk. I never heard anything less than completely self-serving coming out of his mouth. So…if she whacked him over the head with his own bronze, then again…yes. She’d have the moxie to hire out the socalled accident that ended Keller’s life. Since she and Willetts are so cozy
—I assume you know that?”
Robyn nodded.
“Then you have a case of one hand washing the other. Is Trudi smart enough to hoodwink the prosecution second chair? Or just sexy enough to short-circuit his real brain?” Lucy smiled coldly. “You bet she is. Crazy like a fox. Even I would think twice before tangling with her.”
“So if she said to me that she didn’t kill Spyder, and I believed her, I would be a fool?”
“Not at all, Robyn,” Lucy argued. “No one knows who killed Spyder. You’re right. I do hear a great deal, though nothing ever to exonerate her. It’s highly unlikely we’ll ever know for sure. But if she didn’t kill Spyder, she had an even stronger motive to get rid of Keller. Don’t you see? If she was going to be sent up the river for something she didn’t do, she might have been just desperate enough to get the trial derailed—whatever it took.”
“We’ve thought of that, too.” Kiel got up and began pacing around, idly examining mining memorabilia, antiques set in glass cases that were discreetly and expertly spotlighted along one wall of Lucy’s office. “Is it possible for you to come up with a list of people in the area with the expertise to have caused the mine to collapse?”
“Almost impossible, I’m afraid. Aspen isn’t a very eclectic place. Filthy rich or dirt poor about covers the territory, because in between, you just can’t afford to live here. But in those two, you have two very distinct populations. The rich and very rich, who live here in summer, jet in and out, and take only the most cursory interest in the heritage and history—and their polar opposites. The descendants of the ones who came here a hundred years ago, hacked their way through granite to precious metals or marble, and made it big only to lose it, or didn’t ever quite make it to begin with. Robyn, Kiel, you have to understand. It wouldn’t take a scientist or engineer to blast the Hallelujah to kingdom come.”
Her bubble pricked, Robyn nodded. “Basically, what you’re saying is that all it would take is one person with the nerve to light a stick of dynamite and run.”