Bitter Truth

by C. J. Carmichael

  Only when she pushed past him did she notice the mobile phone in his hand. A pretty woman’s animated face on the screen.

  “What’s going on, Kenny?” the woman on the phone asked. “Is someone else in the room?”

  Tiff took a step backward. “Sorry!” she mouthed to Kenny. She turned to leave, but Kenny shut the door.

  “Hey, Kate, I’ll catch you later.”

  “Sure. No problem.”

  “Thanks.” He disconnected the call, then slipped his phone into his jeans’ pocket. He was looking at Tiff like she was the most annoying person on the planet, and Tiff wondered if she’d made way too many assumptions where Kenny was concerned.

  Like believing his relationship with Kate was long over. He’d told her they’d broken up a few months after the accident where he’d trashed his knee. Kate was going to pursue her Olympic aspirations for the Canadian ski team, while Kenny was looking to settle down.

  All this time she’d figured the reason he hadn’t kissed her was because he was waiting for a sign from her.

  But maybe he hadn’t kissed her because he was still into Kate.

  “That was your fiancée on the phone.” She sounded stupid, stating the obvious.

  “Ex-fiancée.”

  Maybe. But how many guys stayed in touch with their ex-fiancées unless there was a possibility of patching up the relationship?

  “Bad timing on my part. I’ll go.”

  “You will not. I’ve already ended the call. The least you can do is have a drink with me.”

  He went to the kitchenette, grabbed the glasses he used for mixing drinks.

  She veered toward the sofa, crouching to give Spade a belly rub. She knew little of Kenny’s past life as a back-country ski guide. He’d told her he didn’t miss it, but she wasn’t sure she believed him. Once he had the operation to repair his damaged knee, maybe he’d find a way to go back.

  A paperback thriller was open, face down on the arm of the sofa. On the floor was a pair of discarded work socks. She imagined Kenny sprawled on the sofa reading. It made an appealing picture.

  “Drink’s ready.”

  She headed toward Kenny, meeting him in the middle of the room. He passed her a glass and suddenly Tiff’s senses were in overdrive.

  The heat from the fire, the soft lighting from the corner reading lamp, the scent of ginger and rum and most of all the strong male in front of her. He radiated an essence that was part mountain man, part protector, and she wanted to throw herself at him, feel the bliss of being wanted and cared for.

  Afraid all of this was shining in her eyes, she lowered them to her glass, held her breath and took a drink.

  It would be stupid to fling herself into his arms as a balm to that hurtful conversation with her aunt. But she still wanted to.

  “Sorry I interrupted your call with Kate.”

  “No biggie. She calls me now and then to vent about her training.”

  “I see.”

  “What sent you running here tonight?”

  “I had a talk with Aunt Marsha tonight. Actually, more like a dress-down.”

  “She lectured you?”

  Tiff blinked back tears. Her aunt had said they would talk later, but clearly there was only one solution. “I need to move back to Seattle.”

  It was difficult to decide how Kenny reacted to that statement. Maybe his nostrils flared. Maybe his jaw tightened. Or maybe he did neither and she was desperately hoping someone would be sad to see her leave.

  She took another drink. Went to perch on the hearth. “I came home hoping to help. Instead I’ve made my aunt’s and mother’s lives more difficult.”

  “You came here because you had nowhere else to turn,” Kenny reminded her harshly. “You had no job, you’d betrayed your boyfriend and spent all your money. Or, that’s the story you told me.”

  “That’s true. And now I’ve licked my wounds and it’s time to go back.”

  “Is it?”

  She looked at him helplessly. “Why do you question everything I say? It’s a very annoying habit.”

  “The message in your eyes doesn’t match your words. That’s why. You think you have everything figured out, but you don’t. Starting with your aunt’s motives. She doesn’t have your best interests at heart.”

  “That’s not fair. You don’t really know her.”

  “Possibly,” Kenny said. “Or maybe it’s you who doesn’t really know her.”

  Thursday, December 7

  Zak got a text message from Luke early on Thursday morning. He and his uncle Clayton were driving to Great Falls to look for Nikki. Their plan was to check all the local motels since she had to be sleeping somewhere. It was too damn cold to sleep in her truck.

  As a shot in the dark it wasn’t a bad one, even though Nikki could have left Great Falls by now. So Zak didn’t try to talk them out of the trip. If Nikki was his cousin, he’d be doing the same thing. Yes, law enforcement was on the alert. But they didn’t have the same vested interest as the family.

  It was a dull day in the office. No new tips came in about Nikki. Nadine spent most of the day on patrol while Butterfield continued to head the search and rescue efforts at the Lazy S. After lunch the sheriff was called out to handle some drunk and rowdy teenagers on the ski hill.

  Zak chafed at being the one left behind. There were things he could be doing. Interviewing the Stillman brothers, trying to get them to disclose that loan. Following up with Gwen on whether she recalled any details of the conversation between Lacy and Marsha. Questioning Cora Christensen on her whereabouts the day Lacy died.

  If he was the sheriff, or even a deputy, there were so many lines of investigation he’d be following. As the lowly dispatcher though, his hands were tied. He could only pursue his lines of inquiry as a private citizen, on his own time.

  Half an hour before closing time, Nadine showed up with a broad grin and a stack of papers in hand. “I’ve put in an offer on the acreage.”

  “Seriously? Congrats!” They’d gone to see it on the weekend. He’d made a list of pros and cons about the property, even though it wasn’t necessary. He could tell by the gleam in Nadine’s eyes that she’d fallen in love with the place.

  He didn’t blame her. The house, built to take advantage of the view of the Bitterroots, was small but in good repair. Likewise the barn and corral were in working order. The place was move-in ready.

  “I hope the sellers accept,” Nadine said. “Because I’ve also purchased Making Magic.”

  Saturday, December 9

  Zak ran by himself on Saturday. Nadine was finalizing the deal for her acreage and Luke was still in Great Falls. It took fifteen miles but he finally outran the stresses of the job. With a clear head, he went home to shower, then settled in his favorite armchair with a cup of coffee and a spiral-ring notebook.

  He always thought better when he wrote things down. The technique had worked for the Concurran case and he hoped it would do the same for Lacy’s possible homicide and Nikki’s disappearance.

  He had a strong hunch the two were connected. But first he wanted to focus on Nikki.

  Was that Nikki’s vehicle in Great Falls?

  He circled the question, then drew two lines. One to the word yes and one to the word no.

  If it hadn’t been Nikki’s Jeep it was a dead end.

  If it had been her car, more questions needed to be asked. Most importantly, why was she in Great Falls? Was she still there? And why had she gone in secret?

  According to her parents, Nikki had no relatives in the city. They weren’t aware of any friends Nikki might have in the vicinity, either.

  As far as they knew, Nikki did not use dating websites, though without access to her phone no one could be sure of this. So one possibility had to be she went to meet a guy.

  Zak tried to think of other options.

  From all accounts Nikki wasn’t a complicated person. She loved the ranch and animals. She’d been very close to her grandmother. She wasn’t nearly
as close to her own parents, a fact that disappointed her mother. She didn’t have many friends, and didn’t spend a lot of time with the few she had.

  She got along well with her cousins, especially Luke.

  Zak wrote down another question: Did she know about the loan and that the bank was calling it in?

  Again he circled the question and drew two lines. If the answer was no, then he had another question...was someone trying to keep her from finding out about the loan?

  If the answer was yes...what then?

  Zak thought a long time. He was about to close his notebook in frustration when an idea occurred to him. It was far-fetched, but possible.

  If Luke was around, he would have given him a call and asked for his help. As it was, he’d have to take the next step himself.

  Zak drove out to the Stillmans’ ranch. The only vehicle in sight was Lacy’s vintage pickup. That was a good thing. He drove along the lane to Lacy’s old farmhouse and parked. A raven perched on one of the pine trees to his right gave him a disdainful look, let out a rusty “caw, caw,” then swooped past his head to a tree further down the line.

  The sky was dull gray, the air almost too cold to breathe. There was beauty to a blue-sky winter day and a peaceful grace when it snowed, but days like this gave winter a bad name.

  Zak went to the porch, tried the front door. Locked.

  He looked around. There were two old creamery cans on either side of the door. In the summer they probably held flowers. Now they just contained dirt. He lifted one. Nothing. He lifted the other. A key.

  After that it was easy to let himself in and take a quick look around.

  Within seconds he had his answer.

  He’d guessed correctly. He now had a working theory why Nikki was in Great Falls. He went to the barns next and ran his hand over the dark red siding. Yes. It all made sense.

  Monday, December 11

  As he drove north on Highway 93 toward Missoula, Justin had no idea that for the rest of his life he was going to remember this day as the one that divided his before from his after. His life to date had not been without heartache. But his core values, his self-concept, his world order...these had been firmly in place since the day he was born.

  All that was about to change.

  His oncologist’s office had called him at ten o’clock that morning to request an urgent visit. Justin immediately canceled his appointments, then rushed to the day care to speak to Debbie-Ann. He tried to conceal his worry, but she knew him too well now.

  “I wish I could go with you. You shouldn’t be facing this alone.”

  “I’ll be fine. I’m just not sure what time I’ll get back. If I’m late picking up Geneva—”

  “Don’t give that a second thought. She’ll be fine with us, and I’m happy to have her. Today and any other day.” She gave him a hug. “I mean it.”

  The memory of that hug was with him as he approached the hospital and parked at the cancer treatment center. He walked the now familiar corridors with worry percolating from his stomach, up his throat. He was aware of his body, of the strength he felt in his limbs, of his clear eyesight and good hearing.

  Aside from that swelling, aside from the tiredness, he still felt healthy.

  When would he lose this? And how quickly?

  He headed toward the answers, toward a receptionist who offered him water, which he declined, then a seat, which he perched on the edge of. He avoided looking at the others in the room. He didn’t want to speculate on their stories, their illnesses, their prognoses.

  He had his hands full with his own right now.

  The fifteen minutes before his appointment felt like an epoch. Too anxious to do something useful, like deal with email, he clasped his hands together, leaned forward, and examined the patterns in the tiled flooring.

  When his name was called, he thought he might barf.

  But he stood. He said something inane about the weather.

  He was directed to an examining room where a nurse took his blood pressure, asked how he was feeling, and made some notes for the doctor. After she left he desperately searched the walls for a distraction. A poster on the health benefits of meditation was perfect. He had it memorized when Dr. Zimmermann finally came in.

  The doctor was smiling as he shook Justin’s hand. It was not a tight smile. It wasn’t a smile with secrets. Justin felt the burden of his worry begin to unravel. Maybe this wouldn’t be as bad as he’d thought.

  He took a deep, belly breath. Rested his damp palms on his thighs and felt the sweat absorb into the cotton of his chinos.

  “We rushed the testing of the samples from your father’s donor drive,” Dr. Zimmermann said. “And I’m glad we did because I have encouraging news.”

  Justin stared through Zimmermann’s prescription lenses, into the dark pupils of the doctor’s eyes. Encouraging news, he noted. Not necessarily good. He couldn’t find his voice and wouldn’t have known what to say if he had. He just waited for the rest to come.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you had a sibling?” Dr. Zimmermann finally said. “The test results show a perfect match.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Justin jammed his foot on the accelerator, speeding down the highway as dozens of jumbled thoughts and questions banged around in his head. What the hell?

  He’d just been given the best possible news for his health.

  But he couldn’t celebrate, or even feel relieved. Not when the solution to his nightmare came from a source that he could not understand or even truly believe existed.

  The science was irrefutable, Dr. Zimmermann said.

  Justin was an educated man, yet this was damned hard to accept.

  Once he reached town limits, his plan to drive straight to the medi-clinic and demand to talk to his father suddenly seemed premature.

  He drove to his father’s house instead, let himself in with the key, then pulled down the ladder to the attic. His father was a neat and tidy man. Anything that wasn’t part of his regular routine was either donated to charity or relegated to a labeled box in the attic.

  Vaguely Justin remembered the existence of a baby book and photo albums of his youth. He found them, in a box labeled Justin’s Childhood.

  The lighting was dim in the attic, so Justin lugged the box down the stairs and set it on the kitchen table. He hesitated a moment, fixated on the label, and the fine, looping scroll. He’d seen this handwriting before, on the recipe cards his father kept in a box on the kitchen counter.

  This was his mother’s handwriting. As soon as he had the thought, Justin felt a gut-deep, stabbing pain. He couldn’t assume anything anymore. The handwriting belonged to Franny Pittman, his father’s wife. That was all he knew for certain.

  He pulled off the lid.

  A plush brown bear stared up at him with small button eyes. “Hello, Mr. Ted.” Justin set him gently on the table. Next was a pair of tiny, scuffed leather shoes, no doubt the pair he’d learned to walk in. There was a hand-knitted, baby-blue sweater, a fireman’s hat he remembered insisting on wearing to his first day in kindergarten.

  Further down were two albums. One, a baby book. The other a photograph album containing pictures up to his sixth birthday, shortly before Franny’s death.

  She’d been a careful historian of her baby’s life, recording his weight and height at various intervals, listing his first spoken words—mama, up, pop—and recording all his milestones with captioned photographs.

  Justin rolls over.

  Justin’s first smile.

  Justin completes his first puzzle.

  He’d seen all these before, many times. Sometimes on Franny’s birthday his father would pull down the box and take a trip down memory lane. Partly he did it so Justin would have a sense of his mother and how much she’d loved him.

  But mostly he’d done it for himself. Justin had never seen his father smile at any living person the way he smiled at the photos of his dead wife.

  Today Justin’s main interest wa
s the photo taken of himself at birth. He was in his mother’s arms, and she was in bed, clearly exhausted, but smiling. The caption read, Welcome to the world Justin Pittman!

  Carefully Justin pulled the photo out of the plastic enclosure. On the counter he laid out pictures from birth to his sixth birthday party, examining them for continuity. There was no doubt this was the same child, growing older, reaching a stage where even a stranger would agree the child was him: Justin Pittman.

  It seemed irrefutable that Franny had been his mother.

  Which raised the next question—what had happened to Franny’s second child, the one whose stem cells were the perfect match for his? Zimmerman had assured him that such an ideal match was only possible for people who shared the same mother and father.

  Justin went back into the attic. He searched the box labeled Franny containing photos from his parents’ courtship, his mother’s high school certificate, wedding photos, and so forth. He found a box labeled old papers and went through it page by page. But all he found was prior-year tax returns and yellowing bank statements.

  After two hours he was confident that if there was evidence of a second child born to Franny and Clark Pittman, it wasn’t in this house.

  Unless it was in his father’s room...?

  Justin went as far as the door. He put his hand on the brass handle, but couldn’t bring himself to turn it. Searching the attic was fair game. He’d grown up here, and considered he had the right. But going through his father’s private space. That was entirely different.

  But he lied to you. All bets are off.

  Justin stood there for several minutes, battling his conscience. And then he heard the front door open.

  “Justin, are you here? I saw your car out front.”

  His father was home. Now he would get his answers.

  If she was going to move back to Seattle, she ought to get in touch with Craig, Tiff decided. She typed several versions of a response to his message, but nothing sounded right. What she had to say was too complicated. She needed to hear his voice.

  So she called, but when she was directed straight to Craig’s voicemail, she was unprepared to leave a message. “Um, this is Tiff. I saw your messages on Facebook. Sorry it’s taken a while to get in touch. I, um... It’s been busy here. You know, Christmas trees and all. Can you call me back? I’d like to—I mean it would be good to talk. Thanks.”