“Why didn’t you deny it and call her a liar?”
“I didn’t want it to come to a big public battle. So I sent it off to a lawyer and had him draw up a legal letter. It only took a couple of days—she’s backed down and it’s all over.”
“You don’t want to be married to her?”
He laughed. “Of course not. I want to be married to you.”
She caught her breath and managed to squeak. “You do?”
“Yes.” It sounded strong and definite. “Whenever you’re ready. As far as I’m concerned, we could head up to the courthouse as soon as you get back to Boulder.”
She blinked back a tear. “I thought you didn’t want me.”
He sounded exasperated. “Nora. How many signs do you need before you have some faith?”
Wham. Talk about a brick upside the head. Benny said the same thing to her. Both Lisa and Abigail told her to figure out who she was and what she wanted. In that magical confluence that almost never happens, Nora felt the truth of something she’d always believed but never completely understood: She got one life. Her life. No genetics, no expectations, no doubts or fears could define her. She could make it her own.
Great insight. It might take her the rest of her life to believe it, but she had a start. She grinned. “I’ll be home soon. Then we’ll take that trip to the courthouse.”
“I love you, Nora.”
“I love you, too.” Much as she hated to, she severed the connection. Almost immediately, her rosy glow disappeared. Lee wanted her dead. Warren had Abigail. If Nora wanted to keep that date at the courthouse, she needed to find proof to lock Lee away and get Abigail from Warren’s clutches.
No problem.
The pavement darkened, then shone in her headlights as the rain continued to smash against the windshield. Nora topped a hill and the smattering of lights from Moab glowed below.
“Where is your camera?” she spoke to Lisa.
Lisa probably suspected Rachel and Lee were plotting together. At the very least, Lisa was fighting with Rachel due to the film and maybe even her involvment with the underground railroad. So obviously Lisa wouldn’t hide the film at home.
Think! The camera had to be someplace that had specific ties to Nora.
Nora always stayed at the cabin when she visited Moab. They hiked trails all over the area. It would take her months to check out all those places. Lisa would pick a place special to the both of them.
Almost immediately, as if Lisa’s ghost had whispered the answer in her ear, Nora knew. She blinked and her mouth opened and closed. “How could I be so stupid?” She might be talking to Abbey. Probably she just talked to herself.
They popped into Moab from the south, racing along the highway. Nora gunned the Jeep and turned left in front of an oncoming Cruise America RV. It honked as she sped down the residential lane. Such an obvious hiding place and yet, Nora hadn’t thought about it.
She wound through town and out west, racing through the curves and bends. Her back tires slipped on some of the sharper curves. The Jeep wouldn’t go fast enough and Nora rocked in her seat with impatience.
Rain smacked the windshield between the swish of the wipers and the squeak of the dry glass. The sky hadn’t opened up and dumped here, yet, and Nora hoped it would wait until she had the camera. Finally, she spotted the turnout at the trailhead and whipped off the road. She slammed on the brakes and slid ten feet on the loose dirt at Moonflower campground.
In the gathering darkness, the canyon walls loomed, creating shadows amid the cottonwoods and shrubs. Beyond her headlights, the trail wound into a void. The rain pocked the sand and dotted the rock faces as Nora climbed from the Jeep. “Stay here,” she said to Abbey.
It did no good to try to avoid seeing the rock art panel and the crevice containing the ladder at the opening to the canyon. The ancient tree trunks notched to create a vertical path to safety. Nora struggled not to picture Lisa laying there, her sightless eyes staring at the sky, dark waves falling across her cheeks, her neck twisted at an impossible angle. They found her here, but that’s not where she died.
Nora concentrated on the path, dodging rocks and willing herself to move quickly without stumbling. She gulped air, her lungs protesting the long and difficult run. She passed the clearing by the creek where people had gathered for Lisa’s funeral.
Hiking this trail with Lisa could take a couple of hours as she’d bend to take in the tiniest rare flower or contemplate the clouds. In the looming darkness and gathering storm, Nora cut the time to twenty minutes.
The canyon narrowed so the trail climbed a steep ridge and traversed twenty feet above the creek. It wound along a ledge then opened onto a wide expanse of slick rock. She crossed the open stretch of wet rock and managed to arrive at the worn trail on the other side without slipping to the creek below.
She made it to where the trail ended at the swimming hole with its natural rock slide. If Nora and Lisa had a special place, this was it. Of course she would have hidden the camera here. But where, exactly? The swimming hole filled the bottom of a small valley roughly fifty feet in diameter.
The walls of the box canyon were made up of stone pillars and cliffs raising high in the air, hiding the area and making it feel secret. Bubbles rose in her gut and she clenched her teeth. Panic wouldn’t help. She slowed her panting, exhaling long and inhaling deeply.
What would Benny do? Benny would still be on the rez thinking about getting into his pickup. She needed to act. But not irrationally. Calm down.
She studied two rocks separated by a narrow crevice, letting her eyes travel up the mystic columns. A video camera case could be wedged in any of the crags and niches along the phallic structures. Suddenly, Nora knew exactly where Lisa would hide it. She remembered that afternoon right after Lisa had moved to Moab.
They’d climbed from the pool after one last slide down the slick rock. Lisa spread her towel in a shaft of sunlight. Nora wrapped herself in her towel and chose a shady spot to protect her fair skin from sunburn.
“This is a beautiful place,” Nora said.
Lisa leaned back and sighed in contentment. “I love it here.” She eyed the two columns close together. “Except I’m not fond of those rocks.”
Nora twisted around to inspect them. “Why?”
Lisa laughed. “Look at them! They look like two penises.”
“They do not. They look more like a woman the way they line up.” Nora blushed a little at the thought.
Lisa grinned at them. “You’re right. I’m claiming them in the name of all lesbians.”
That had to be the spot.
Nora scrambled to the rock. A swollen raindrop splashed on her nose and dripped down her chin. Thunder cracked overhead.
Nora wedged herself between the two rocks and started to climb. She managed inches at a time, her back to the cold face of one rock, her knees scraping the other and her feet pushing while she searched for each hand hold to pull her up.
Rain fell in a steady patter now, chilling the top of her head and dribbling down her neck. She cursed Lisa for her natural rock climbing ability. Nora always followed Lisa on the more difficult climbs. Nora would struggle to find hand holds and have to concentrate to distribute her weight just right. It often felt counterintuitive to lean away from the rock instead of into it or to understand the three-point of contact rule. With Lisa to lead her, Nora placed her hands in the same holds.
Tonight, Nora was on her own, trying to imagine Lisa shimmying in the crevice between the rocks, somehow managing a camera case, desperation driving her on.
Nora propped her foot against the rock in front of her and pressed her back into the other. With her legs more or less parallel to the ground and her knees bent, she wedged between the two stone pillars. She paused to snatch a breath before tilting her head back and surveying the rock above her. She was nearly to the t
op and she imagined the corner of a black vinyl case peeking over the ledge.
Only ten more feet. She pushed with her legs and slid her back up the rock. Her T-shirt caught on a sharp nipple of rock and ripped. Nora inched her feet up and repeated the motion several more times.
There. It wasn’t her imagination. The camera case barely showed over the lip of the summit. Nora stretched, pushing her feet into the rock and arching her back. Her fingers brushed the case and pushed it further away from her.
She shimmied up the crevice once again. Reached and tapped at the side of the case, shoving it at an angle away from her but closer to the edge of the rock. She lunged and knocked it with her fingers, finally sending it tumbling into her lap.
Rain tapped the vinyl lid. Balancing the case on her legs and steadying it with each movement as her grip allowed, Nora scraped and slid down the crevice until she finally stood at the base.
She gripped the case and scrambled into one of the narrow, cave-like arches next to the swimming hole to escape the increasing rain. Her legs trembled. With shaking hands, she snapped open the latches and pulled the camera out of the dense padding. It took a minute to make out the labels on the dials in the fading light.
She finally gave up and through trial and error and a fair amount of cursing, found the right command to play the video.
Lisa’s face came on the screen in a good imitation of a scene from The Blair Witch Project. “I knew you’d find this, Nora. I’m sorry it’s not the film project you expected. I’m afraid all copies of that are gone. Or will be by the time you see this. Unless Rachel doesn’t find the one in the bookcase. You’ve got to tell someone. I don’t know who. The cops around here are all in on it. It’s a Mormon thing. Only, not the official Mormon Church. This is a cult. And Warren Evans is their leader.”
The background of the video showed hazy light and the trailhead where Nora’s Jeep sat now. Lisa must have propped the camera on her old Toyota pickup. The sun was setting behind her. Lisa’s face looked drawn and pale and her eyes kept darting where the road would be.
Nora wanted to reach into the camera and throw her arms around her friend. Why hadn’t she taken Lisa’s call that afternoon?
“I know you. You’ll want to go all mother hen and take responsibility for everyone. This is not your fault. And it’s not Rachel’s fault, either. She was raised a certain way and it was pounded into her over and over. She tried to get away from it. But it’s too deep inside her. Don’t blame her.”
The hitch in Nora’s chest forced her breath into a tight wheeze. It sounded like Lisa knew Rachel had turned against her. Did she suspect Rachel and Lee were together? Had Rachel helped Lee murder Lisa?
“It’s the rock art, Nor. The signs and the lines on Tokpela’s barn are the same. They think the Sky People are coming for them. It’s happening soon. I think at summer solstice. The lines tell them where to go. Marlene knows some of this. If I can’t call her, tell Marlene … ” Her head jerked up and she gasped. “Damn. Nora, I’ve got to go. Protect Rachel. She needs your help.”
Nora watched as Lisa jumped up and grabbed the camera but didn’t turn it off as she swung it around. The view showed a sickening mishmash of sage, scrub, red dirt, gray sky, and the white of the evening primrose. Lisa grunted and the black of the camera case flitted in and out of the screen as she struggled to load the camera. A heartbeat before the screen went black and the sound died, Nora saw something, just a snatch of an image caught as Lisa swung the camera on its final arc to the case.
Nora’s stomach clenched and she held her breath.
She hit rewind, then play.
Oh my God.
Rewind. Play. Pause.
Her ears rang as she stared at the image. A white pickup straddled the center line of the road, heading up the last stretch to the trailhead.
She had her proof.
thirty-two
The rain fell just enough to make the trail slick and in her rush to reach the trailhead, Nora tripped and scraped her knee. Heart thundering, she sprinted past the clearing. Muddy and wet, Nora made it back to the Jeep. She wrenched open the door and jumped in. Abbey licked her face and sat in the passenger seat.
Warren had Abigail. The Evanses were all killers, and now that Nora had proof Lee had murdered Lisa, she might be able to use it to save Abigail.
Somehow.
Nora started the Jeep and backed onto the highway. She grabbed her phone and dialed Marlene.
“I found Lisa’s camera,” she said when Marlene answered. “She said to ask you what’s going on.”
Marlene hesitated. “The less you know, the better.”
Nora barely restrained herself from yelling into the phone. “Warren kidnapped Abigail. I need to know everything!”
“What’s he doing with Abigail?”
Nora clamped the phone to her ear using her shoulder and shifted gears. Still breathless from her run from the swimming hole, she said, “I don’t have time to explain. Lisa said Warren Evans is leader of a cult. Did he have Lee kill Lisa? It’s got nothing to do with Canyonlands, does it?”
“You think Lee killed Lisa?” She sounded disbelieving.
Nora concentrated on the black road in front of her. “Is it the Underground Railroad? Did she help one of his wives escape?”
Marlene whispered. “Slow down. Lee didn’t kill Lisa because of the railroad. He was helping those girls.”
“Maybe he’s just acting like he’s helping. He’s dangerous. I know it.”
“Okay, maybe there is something else going on,” Marlene stammered. “It’s not what you think. But we learned about it through the girls.”
“About what?” Nora wanted to scream.
“You know all those people you saw with Lee the day the cows almost got loose?”
“Yes.”
“They’re immigrants to Warren’s colony. They came from Ger-
many.”
“How do you know this?”
“A few months ago one of the girls we helped said her mother’s family had disappeared. Before that, her mother had talked about Sky People coming for them.”
Nora hit a flooded dip in the road and splashing water roared.
“They were supposed to immigrate to another planet on the summer solstice.”
That was in two days. “Immigrate from where?”
“The mother told her they were going to the Sky Ranch. But we didn’t know where that was.”
“Tokpela! Tokpela Ranch. Sky in Hopi.”
“Yeah. I figured that out today. How did you know?”
“Lisa.”
Something crashed as if Marlene had slammed a fist down. “She must have figured it out and they killed her to keep her quiet.”
Snakes knotted in Nora’s stomach. “Warren? He’s got a god syndrome and people think he’s leading them to outer space. Crackpots like that come along all the time. Why would he have Lisa killed to keep her from telling anyone?”
“How the hell would I know?” Marlene yelled. She paused and continued, calmer now. “He’s a crazy man. This family from Germany arrived at the ranch yesterday. Hans and his wife and kids. Hans’s half-brother had immigrated a couple of weeks ago but Hans didn’t tell Warren he was related in case there were family quotas. When they got to the Sky Ranch, Hans’s half-brother and family weren’t in the bunker.”
Nora swung the Jeep onto the highway and zoomed north. “A bunker?”
“Apparently there is a massive underground facility that can house a couple of thousand people and they’ve been gathering in the last week or so to wait for the solstice. Warren had it built at his family ranch. It must have been under constructions for years to complete it without anyone noticing.”
As isolated as Tokpela Ranch seemed, building something on the sly would be possible. “This guy’s brother from Germany went missin
g? Maybe he changed his mind and left.”
“Yeah, I thought so, too. But Hans picked up clues from the other immigrants. They all give up their assets when they join. He’s convinced his brother wanted to leave, but Warren’s people didn’t want him to spill the beans on their plans and they really didn’t want to give him his money back. So they killed him. That’s when Hans and his family snuck away.”
People hiding underground in the desert waiting for the aliens to take them home—this couldn’t be real. “Why did they come to you?”
“Hans tried to get another family to leave, too. They were too frightened, but they knew about the Underground Railroad so they gave him my name.”
It sounded too far-fetched. “You believe him about all of this?”
“I don’t know.” She paused. “Yes, I guess I do. Until he showed up here today, I didn’t know about the bunker or Topkela. Lisa did and now she’s dead.”
“Call the FBI. Tell them all of this and send them out to Lee’s ranch.”
Steel sounded in Marlene’s voice. “I already did it an hour ago.”
Nora hung up and swung through Moab, speeding along the highway past the café and outfitter’s office. She squealed her brakes to turn on the highway that ran alongside the river. Rain from afternoon monsoon storms upstream had swollen it and it raged muddy in the dusky shadow.
The only plan Nora could concoct was to go to Darrell. He had the resources to find Warren and stop him. She dialed him but it went straight to voicemail.
The rain smacked against the windshield and Nora felt time slipping by as she raced to Castle Valley. Full-on dark dropped before Nora whipped the Jeep from the highway onto the narrow road into the village.
A crack of lightning flared and she automatically counted until the boom of thunder followed. Four seconds. The storm would crash over them soon.
Her back tires skidded as she jerked the wheel to make the hard left into Lisa’s lane. She gunned it down the sloshy tracks and slowed before rounding the last curve. A dark shape loomed ahead and she slammed on the brakes.
Tattered Legacy (A Nora Abbott Mystery) Page 22