The early afternoon had grown unseasonably warm. Ethan had peeled off his sweatshirt. The white T-shirt beneath it fitted him so snugly that Lauren was able to see the play of the muscles in his broad shoulders and strongly corded arms as he pulled at the oars. It was a tantalizing sight, summoning an unwanted image of the winter night when those powerful arms had been wrapped around her, melding them in a union that had resulted in Sara.
Considering the issues between them that hadn’t been resolved, and perhaps never would be resolved, the memory wasn’t a wise one. Lauren put it away and urged Ethan to tell her what he’d had no chance until now to relate either to her or Agent Landry.
“This thing that occurred to you on your way back from Elkton,” she prompted him. “You said it was something obvious that shouldn’t have been overlooked by any of us, and yet all of us did overlook it.”
Lauren had supposed he’d been waiting until they were well under way before he rested on the oars long enough to explain himself. But he kept on rowing with a rhythm that seemed effortless.
“We all agreed, didn’t we,” he began, “the abduction was no random thing? That it wasn’t just some impulsive act because Sara’s kidnappers recognized an opportunity and seized it?”
“Yes, it was deliberate. Sheriff Howell said as much, that it had to be a setup.”
“Which means it was planned in advance. How?”
“I don’t see what you’re—”
“Think about it. The woman on the bicycle shot out in front of you just as you were turning into the parking lot. An acci dent that was no accident, but it forced you out of the car long enough to let whoever else was in on it to snatch Sara. How, Lauren? How did they know you were going to be arriving in that place at that time?”
“They were waiting for me,” she said slowly, understanding now what he was saying, “and that has to mean—”
“They knew in advance, yeah.”
He’s right. This is something Ethan and I should have thought of immediately. And, as he said before, we would have thought of it if we hadn’t been so upset over Sara’s disappearance.
But, as Ethan had also pointed out earlier, the sheriff himself ought to have considered it. That he apparently hadn’t certainly brought his competence into question again. Perhaps Agent Landry’s, as well.
“Wait a minute,” Lauren said, a flaw in this whole assumption suddenly occurring to her. “There is no way they could have known I would be there when I was. I didn’t know it myself until—”
“Until you made that appointment with the lawyer. Who did you speak to in his office, Lauren? The lawyer himself?”
She shook her head. “His receptionist.”
“Someone you know, someone whose voice you were able to recognize?”
“I didn’t think about it. I just asked for an appointment with him, and she gave me one for two o’clock. But you can’t suppose—”
“That your lawyer’s receptionist played a role in Sara’s kidnapping? Maybe, maybe not. Is there anyone else who could have known about the appointment?”
“No, I didn’t tell—” Lauren broke off as she remembered something. “Hold on. There was someone else who knew. The furniture store in town phoned just as I was fixing myself lunch. I’d been looking for a high chair for Sara, one of the old-fashioned wooden kind. And even though I knew it would be months before she was ready for a high chair, the store was able to order me just what I wanted. They called to say the chair was in and could they deliver it.”
“And you told them what?”
“That I had a two o’clock with my lawyer, and since they were only two doors down from his office, I’d pick up the chair myself after my appointment.”
“Man or woman?”
“It was another woman. And, no, I couldn’t say who that was, either.”
“So, both the lawyer’s office and the furniture store knew where you would be at two o’clock.”
“But not that Sara would be with me.”
“Not for sure, but they could have assumed it if you were in the habit of bringing Sara with you whenever you came to town.”
Ethan was silent for a moment. Throughout their conversation, he had continued to propel the rowboat across the lake, never once stopping to catch his breath. They were nearing their destination now, and he seemed in no way winded.
“One of those two women,” he said thoughtfully.
“Or someone they could have mentioned it to.”
“Yeah, people have a way of gossiping about the most trivial things.”
That either of the two women could have been responsible in any way for Sara’s abduction was an unpleasant idea. Far more chilling was the possibility that one of them was directly connected with the kidnapping. And if she was someone Lauren knew, even in a casual way, that was worse.
But why? she asked herself. If it had all been planned beforehand, what reason could these people have for taking Sara? It always came back to that maddening why.
“It will need checking into,” Ethan said, as if he’d read her thoughts.
Lauren nodded and looked away from his steely gaze, finding it unsettling. The pair of trumpeter swans who had made the lake their home all summer, delighting her with their presence, were gliding serenely through the shallows off to her left. They would soon be on their way to a milder climate. That, too, was a sad realization.
“IS HE ANYONE you know?” Ethan asked her softly, joining her on the pier after he’d secured the rowboat.
“I don’t recognize him,” Lauren murmured, eyeing the lean figure who stood in the clearing below the wood-shingled cottage nestled among the pines behind him.
Whoever the man was, he had to be aware of their arrival. And yet he never paused in the work that occupied him.
There were storm windows stacked on the grass beside a bucket of soapy water. Sponge and squeegee in one hand, he managed with his other hand to hold each window upright as he methodically washed it. Whenever he turned a window from front to back, sunlight glittered off the panes of glass.
“So much for the mysterious flashes of light,” Ethan said as they headed up the path from the lake.
“That accounts for today, but it doesn’t explain the other times I noticed them.”
“Maybe we can get him to tell us.”
Lauren didn’t know about that. The man looked none too friendly to her. “What are we supposed to say? That we’re just paying a neighborly social call?”
“Leave it to me.”
She had the urge to tell Ethan he could use a lesson in self-restraint regarding his habit of taking charge of every situation. Not that he would have listened to her. He was just that kind of man.
In any case, it was too late for her to say anything. They were within earshot now of their objective. Although the spare figure had seemed to show no interest in their approach, he straightened from his work when they reached him. A pair of piercing black eyes gazed pointedly at Ethan.
“Training for the Olympics?” he said.
Ethan was clearly as perplexed by the question as Lauren was. “I’m sorry?”
“Thought you might be, way you were going at that rowing out there.”
He must have been watching them the whole time. And although he offered them no welcoming smile, it seemed the melancholy look on his face belied a dry wit. Maybe he was not so unfriendly, after all.
Ethan chuckled. “I’m afraid I’ve got a long way to go before I qualify.”
“You could have fooled me. Hell, I can’t even paddle a canoe, which would have appalled my ancestors.”
A Native American, Lauren thought. She could see that now in his proud features and long, coarse black hair tied in a ponytail. She wondered if he was a descendant of the Flathead people who had once ruled this part of Montana.
“Name’s Ethan Brand,” Ethan introduced himself. “And this is Lauren McCrea, who has the cabin on the other end of the lake.”
“Wondered who had that place.” Dropping the
sponge into the bucket and with one hand hanging on to the window he’d been washing, he tucked the squeegee under his arm to free his other hand long enough to shake their hands. “Rudy Lightfeather,” he said.
His name confirmed his heritage.
“This is real work, getting all those windows ready for winter,” Lauren remarked casually, indicating the enclosed porch stretched across the entire face of the cottage where the screens would be replaced by the storms. “Have you been working on them all week?”
If her question hadn’t sounded quite as innocent as she intended it to be, and it probably hadn’t, he didn’t challenge it.
“Nope. First day on the job.”
Not the explanation then for all those other bursts of light.
“Nice place,” Ethan said, pretending to admire the cottage.
Rudy permitted himself a faint grin. “No need to be polite. I don’t own it. I’m just hired to take care of it.”
“Oh? Would you mind telling me who does own it? I heard it was a rental cottage. That’s why we rowed across to take a look at it. I have some friends who’d love to spend a few weeks on the lake.”
“You’d have to talk to Sloan Real Estate Agency about that. They manage this property, and another one somewhere in the hills on the other side of Elkton, for a woman named Hilary Johnson. I guess she inherited them from her parents along with her house in town.”
Lauren was careful not to exchange glances with Ethan. She was afraid her surprise would be altogether evident to Rudy Lightfeather if she did.
Hilary Johnson. The ex-housekeeper who testified against Ethan. Is it just a coincidence she owns this place?
Ethan had to be equally surprised, and yet he didn’t register it. “I’ll do that,” he said. “But it would be nice to see what the cottage looks like inside before I talk to them. I’d like to be able to tell my friends about it. I don’t suppose…”
“You asking for a tour?”
“Could we?”
Rudy considered his request. “Guess nobody’s going to object to that.”
The caretaker lowered the storm window to the grass and, with the squeegee back in his hand, turned and led the way to the steps that mounted to the porch. Once inside the enclosure, he took a key out of his pocket and fitted it into the lock of the front door.
“I don’t know what state the place is in,” he said to them.
“I haven’t been inside since the last renters left. I’m responsible only for the outside. A cleaning service comes in to do the rooms, and I don’t think they’ve been here yet. Gotta warn you, though. If you’re looking for fancy accommodations, you won’t find them here.”
His caution was no exaggeration. The living room, kitchen, two bedrooms and a bath which Rudy escorted them through were cramped, their walls drab and their furnishings shabby. That might have been excused, Lauren decided, if the place had been clean and neat. It wasn’t. Cupboard doors gaped, dirty dishes were piled in the sink and there was trash everywhere. As if the cottage had been vacated in a hurry.
“What a mess,” Rudy muttered as he led them back into the living room, waving the squeegee like a conductor’s baton at the clutter on all sides. “Glad I don’t have to put it back to rights.”
There was one item of interest in the disorder. Ethan spotted it first on the coffee table where it was half concealed by old magazines—a pair of binoculars. He picked up the glasses and trained them on the front window that overlooked the lake, as if nonchalantly testing them for their worth.
Lauren understood the message he was conveying to her. The polished lens on binoculars, if used out in the open, were capable of reflecting the sun’s dazzling light. Like small mirrors.
Ethan put the binoculars back on the table. “So, Rudy, when did you say these last renters left the cottage?”
“I didn’t say. But they had to have pulled out sometime yesterday. That’s when Vi Appleton over at Sloan called to tell me the place was empty and I could start on the windows.”
“You happen to know their names, Rudy? If I could contact them, maybe they’d be willing to recommend the cottage. I think my friends would appreciate that.”
Rudy Lightfeather was no fool. He had to realize that any recommendation from people who would leave the cottage in this condition, no matter what their haste, would be of little value. But if the caretaker was suspicious of their motives, he didn’t pursue it.
“Never heard their names,” he said.
“Then I guess you didn’t meet them.”
“I wasn’t introduced, no, but I had a glimpse of them when I was called out here a couple of days ago to repair the water pump. A young couple, but they weren’t interested in socializing. He just complained about the pump and then disappeared inside with her.”
Ethan turned to Lauren with an offhanded “I wonder if they could have been that couple we ran into in town. Didn’t they say they were staying out at Moon Lake?”
Not waiting for her response, which Lauren knew was unnecessary, Ethan gave his attention again to the caretaker.
“What did they look like? You remember?”
Rudy hesitated, as if wondering whether to mind Ethan’s probing, which by now had to be pretty obvious. He must have decided he didn’t.
“She was a skinny blonde, no meat on her.”
Lauren went rigid.
“And him?” Ethan asked, maintaining the careless tone in his voice.
Rudy looked amused. “Now that’s kind of interesting.”
“Why?”
“Because the only thing I really remember about him was his eyes. You don’t see that color every day. A pure blue-green. Just like yours. Odd, huh?”
Chapter Seven
“Not now,” Ethan said as they made their way back to the pier.
Lauren glanced at him, waiting for him to explain why he wasn’t ready to talk about what they had learned from Rudy Lightfeather. It wasn’t because the caretaker might overhear them. They had parted from him just outside the cottage. He had already disappeared around the corner of the building to fill another bucket with water for his windows.
But Ethan was silent after his brief request. Although she burned with a need to discuss that startling conversation in the cottage, Lauren didn’t press him. She clambered down into the rowboat, seated herself in the stern, and managed to restrain herself while he seized the handles of the oars as if they were weapons in the hands of a warrior.
There was an urgency in his powerful strokes that drove them out over the waters of the lake. And a tautness in his square jaw that told her he was seething inside.
Lauren’s own emotions were churning. When he continued to maintain his tense silence, she abandoned her patience.
“Enough!” she challenged him. “We have to talk.”
Even if he was prepared now to examine Rudy Lightfeather’s revelations with her, she expected him to go on rowing, just as he had when they’d crossed the lake before. But this time he lowered the oars in their locks, allowing the boat to drift. She watched his hard body slowly thaw.
“Sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “I was just trying to sort it out.”
“Whatever sense it makes, or doesn’t make,” she said, leaning toward him earnestly, “your instinct was on target. There was a reason for us to visit the cottage. A good reason.”
“Lauren, we can’t be sure the blonde he described was the same one who—”
“It has to be true! The couple who occupied that cottage took Sara! Whoever they are, and wherever they are now, they have Sara with them!”
“There’s a strong argument for it, yeah.”
Why was he being so cautious? “The binoculars! Don’t forget the binoculars! That’s the explanation for all the flashes of light I noticed! They must have been using them out in the clearing to spy on me! They planned to kidnap Sara, but they needed an opportunity and by watching me—”
“Lauren, take it easy. The binoculars could indicate that’s what
they were doing, that they were interested even before I turned up here, but it’s not a certainty. None of it is a certainty.”
“This is Sara we’re talking about!” she cried. “How can you be so calm about it when just a minute ago—”
“Because I realized that being all worked up over it just stands in the way of getting her back. Either we help ourselves by examining all of this rationally or…well, we could lose her forever.”
It was a harsh warning, one that Lauren didn’t want to hear, but in the end she knew he was right. In her excitement, she had lost her self-control.
Turning her head, she gazed out across the waters toward the shallows where the trumpeter swans had been busy among the reeds. There was no sign of them now.
When she looked back at Ethan, she had regained her composure. Or as much of it as she was able to recover, considering her daughter was still missing.
“All right,” she said, steadying her voice, “what did we learn that’s true and not just wild speculation? Hilary Johnson owns the cottage. That much is the truth, isn’t it?”
“There was no reason for Rudy Lightfeather to lie about it,” Ethan agreed. “It might be just a coincidence that this couple happened to be renting her place, or—”
“She’s involved with them somehow. And since you have a connection with her yourself…”
“Yeah, that’s one too many coincidences.”
“Then what does it all mean?” Lauren pleaded with him.
“Suppose Hilary Johnson did put that couple in her cottage and that they were watching me, what were they waiting for? The chance to abduct Sara?”
Ethan looked unhappy. “I have a feeling it just might have been something else they were waiting for.”
“What?”
“Me.”
She stared at him. “I don’t understand.”
“Think about it, Lauren. Nothing happened until I arrived at your cabin yesterday morning. With those binoculars, they could have seen that from their end of the lake. And then in the afternoon Sara was taken.”
“Because you turned up?” She shook her head, bewildered. “What sense does that make?”
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