“Horst!” Kate called.
The fellow stopped elbowing through the crowd just long enough to be swept back toward the exit. With a fierce shake, he pushed himself free and stood his ground until the hall cleared. Kate began to introduce herself, but he interrupted, recognizing her.
“Are you looking for Loretta, too?”
“What do you mean, too?” Mitch demanded.
The young man regarded him dubiously. “Who are you?”
“Horst, this is Loretta’s cousin Mitch.” Kate strode forward. She was only an inch or two shorter than the young man.
“The one who threw away the High C?” Horst asked.
Mitch sighed. He was gladder than ever that he’d brought Kate along to explain things. And to keep him from strangling this young fool.
“It was stolen, and I’m trying to get it back,” he said. “Who else was looking for my cousin? She could be in danger.”
“Danger?” Although the crowd had gone, Horst remained planted in the center of the hallway. “From those men? They said she left something valuable at the ranch and their boss had sent them to return it. You mean they might have been lying?” He sounded shocked.
“When did they come by?” Kate asked.
“Early this morning.” Horst shifted his backpack, which hung heavily from his slim shoulders. “Maybe nine o’clock. They woke me up.”
“At nine?” Mitch couldn’t resist a touch of irony. A cowboy’s day began before sunup. Lazing about until seven was reserved for the occasional Sunday, and then only if there were no calves being bom and no bad weather on the horizon.
The student drew himself up as best he could, given his weighty backpack. “I have to conserve my voice. Early mornings are murder.”
The last word hung in the air. Horst didn’t seem to notice, which meant Loretta at least hadn’t described Mitch as a killer.
Other students began filtering in, heading for the practice rooms. Horst glanced reluctantly at one of the lists, then said, “Well, I guess this is going to take a while. I’ll come back later and hope somebody else misses their turn.”
“Have you eaten?” Kate asked. When he shook his head, she said, “I’ll treat.”
The young man perked up immediately. In fact, as they clattered down the steps together, his jaw loosened noticeably.
“We’re talking about three guys, cowboy types?” he said. “Kind of an odd trio, like something from a comic opera? They must have found my address among Loretta’s stuff. I guess she left the ranch in a hurry.”
“You guess?” said Kate. “You haven’t seen her?”
“Uh, yeah, she showed up last week.” Horst scurried toward the student union so fast Mitch had to take longer strides, and Kate was nearly trotting. “She seemed really rattled. She told me she drove straight through from Texas, but she wouldn’t say why.”
Mitch was relieved to realize he’d been correct about Loretta going to California. “How long ago did she leave?”
“Let’s see.” Horst’s cheeks twitched. “Okay, she got here on Thursday and made a few phone calls, like she was real agitated, and then—”
“Hi, Howie!” called a striking African-American woman. “Loved your aria at the concert Friday!”
“ ‘Di Quella Pira?’ ” he asked hopefully.
“Oh, I didn’t mean that one,” she admitted. “I’m not sure you’re quite ready for Verdi. ‘Una Furtiva Lagrima,’ that was terrific. I love Donizetti and besides, light opera is more your thing, don’t you think?”
He smiled, but not very enthusiastically. The woman turned to greet some other people, and Mitch felt a spurt of sympathy for Horst, whose ambitions apparently exceeded his capabilities.
“Why did she call you Howie?” Kate asked. “I thought your name was Horst.”
They took a side entrance into the student union. “Well, yeah,” said their guide. “I mean, it’s Howard Wells, but who wants to go hear a singer with a name like that? Look at the big stars—Placido Domingo, Kiri Te Kanawa, Bryn Terfel. Isn’t that a great name, Bryn Terfel? I wish I were Welsh.”
“Horst Wittgenstein sounds German,” Kate noted. They entered a huge dining hall, a sea of noise and motion, and Mitch surveyed it uneasily for anyone or anything out of place. Especially cops, or bandits with shotguns.
There weren’t any. At least, not that he could see.
Horst led them into the cafeteria line. “I figured I could pass for at least part-German.”
He piled his tray high with a salad, side dishes, two entrées, dessert and juice. “Somebody else must be paying,” remarked a heavyset young man as he walked by.
“Don’t mind him,” said Horst. “Baritones are always jealous of tenors.”
To Mitch, the pasta looked overcooked. He selected a corned beef sandwich on rye instead. Kate picked a chef’s salad.
They found an empty table in a corner. “When did Loretta leave?” Kate asked.
“Yesterday.” Horst dug into his food and came up chewing. “A friend of hers arranged for an audition in Santa Fe. There’s a new low-budget opera company starting up to take advantage of the crowds they get in the summer. They’re doing Così Fan Tutte.”
Mitch couldn’t believe it. “You mean the only thing on Loretta’s mind was getting a part in a show?”
Horst stiffened. “Mozart did not write shows.”
“We need to find her,” Kate said. “We don’t believe those men want to return something to Loretta. We think they want to make sure she doesn’t testify against them in a murder case.”
Horst’s jaw dropped open. Thank goodness, it was momentarily empty of food. “Really? Gosh, she never mentioned that. But there was something she was trying to find at the ranch, so I figured that was what they wanted to return.”
Loretta had been searching for something? The discovery was, for Mitch, like getting an unexpected peek through a curtain.
His cousin’s decision to work for Billy Parkinson made at least a little sense if her intent had been to retrieve something from the High C. He leaned forward. “What exactly was it?”
“I don’t know.” Horst resumed eating. “All I told those three guys was, ‘Well, gee, she’ll be glad you found it.’ The young one got kind of threatening and demanded to know how much I knew about ‘it’ and I admitted I didn’t have any precise information, so to speak.”
Mitch groaned inwardly. Now that Horst had opened his big mouth, Billy would have even more reason to track down his cousin.
But then, the man had probably gone on the alert the minute Loretta turned up at the ranch to apply for a job. Mitch had wondered at the time why Billy would hire her, when Loretta might presumably be an enemy.
The girl was so naive, it wouldn’t have occurred to her that Billy would assume she had some ulterior motive. He’d probably been watching her the whole time.
The ranch’s basement storage rooms were filled with furniture and memorabilia. He supposed valuables could have been hidden somewhere, perhaps in a secret compartment or drawer. Billy must have hoped Loretta would sniff them out.
Kate was speaking again. “We need to warn her that this gang is coming. Is there some way to contact her?”
“Well, she left her friend’s P.O. box for forwarding mail.”
“Did you give it to the three men?” Mitch asked.
Horst nodded guiltily. “I figured, if they only wanted to return something, maybe they could mail it.” His voice trailed off.
“If they were willing to mail it, they wouldn’t have driven to California.”
The young man flinched. “Yeah, I guess not.”
Kate didn’t waste time on reproaches. “Do you know anything that could help us find her before they do?”
“They didn’t ask who she was auditioning for,” Horst offered. “It’s called the Pocket Opera Company. They might be listed with information.”
“What about her friend, the one who set it up?” Mitch demanded. “Maybe we can contact her.”<
br />
Horst shrugged. “Her first name is Sally. That’s all I know.”
“If you hear from Loretta, tell her to get out of Santa Fe,” Kate said. “Those guys are armed.”
His thin face paled, which made the mop of dark hair stand out even more. “Maybe we ought to call the police.”
Just what they needed, Mitch thought. The way his luck was running, he’d get to Santa Fe to find the cops waiting for him.
Kate frowned. “You can call them if you like, but I doubt they’ll stake out a post office box based on such sketchy information.”
“But if these guys are wanted for murder...”
“They aren’t,” she said. “I’m the sheriff in Grazer’s Comers, and I’m seeking them for shooting up the town. Mitch has reason to believe they’re connected to an even more serious crime in Texas, but no charges have been filed.”
“Gosh, this is weird.” Horst moved on to dessert, a large slab of chocolate cake. “I never thought I’d get involved in anything like this. And I sure wouldn’t want anyone to hurt Loretta. She has a great voice. I mean, she could really be somebody.”
“She’s somebody now,” Mitch growled. “She would be, whether she could sing or not.”
The youthful bluster vanished as Horst set down his fork and met Mitch’s gaze. “I know that, but she doesn’t. She’s never really believed in herself. She wouldn’t have dared to go to the ranch if it weren’t for something you said, Ms. Bingham.”
“Me?” Kate’s voice had a hoarse edge.
“At the scholarship lunch,” Horst said. “You talked about never giving up, about taking risks for what you really believe in. About sorting out your priorities and then living by them.”
“I guess I did say that,” she conceded.
“It rang a bell with Loretta,” Horst continued. “After that, she kind of changed. She said she owed it to her grandmother to set things right. After a while, it became like an obsession.”
“Whatever she was seeking, you don’t have a clue what it is?” Mitch pressed.
“She never said.” Horst’s attention returned to the chocolate cake.
It seemed they had exhausted the sum total of the young man’s knowledge, at least as far as Loretta was concerned. They obtained the post office box number, along with Horst’s promise to mail an overnight letter to Loretta that afternoon, warning her about the bandits.
But Mitch couldn’t rely on her receiving it in time. This Sally might not pick up her mail every day, and she might not deliver the letter immediately even if she did.
As they said goodbye to Horst, he tried to reassure himself that, given Kate’s way with receptionists and officials, they could locate his cousin in Santa Fe before Tiny Wheeler did. Then he remembered that Kate was planning to take a bus directly back to Grazer’s Comers, and Moose.
He couldn’t fault the lady for being loyal to her fiancé. Besides, the rescue of his cousin was Mitch’s job, and no one else’s.
They wended their way through swirls of students and out to the walkway. Mitch matched his pace to Kate’s moderate one, torn between an instinct to hurry and a reluctance to say farewell to her.
“This thing that Loretta’s looking for,” Kate said. “Could it be money?”
“No. She wouldn’t risk her life for that. It must have some kind of sentimental value. Maybe financial as well, though.”
“Like jewelry?”
Mitch pictured the stored clutter of furniture, boxes and chests. He wasn’t sure exactly what they contained, although he recalled seeing some photographs and gowns. Personal papers, sheet music and a few books, too. Nothing with any obvious value.
“Grandma Luisa might have owned some jewelry, but I’d be surprised if she didn’t give it all to her daughter. The antiques could be worth something, and perhaps the collection of costumes, but I don’t see how Loretta could have planned to sneak them out.”
“Whatever she’s looking for, it must be small.” They reached the parking lot. “A rare musical instrument? A violin, maybe?”
“If so, I never saw it,” Mitch said. “We had an excellent piano, but she could hardly have slipped that off the premises without being seen.”
Kate fidgeted while he unlocked the pickup. “Surely Billy would have searched through everything by now. How could he miss it?”
Mitch held the door for her. “There’s a lot of stuff. And he wouldn’t know what he was looking for. Grandma had some programs signed by famous singers and conductors. They might be worth something to a collector.”
He came around to the driver’s side. As soon as he got in, Kate said, “I can’t help thinking it must be something even more personal. Maybe a diary...”
Mitch switched on the motor. “Any idea where the bus station is?”
“The bus station?”
“That’s where you wanted to go, isn’t it?”
Startled blue eyes blinked at him. “I can’t quit now. Loretta took these crazy risks because of me.”
“My cousin is twenty-five years old and she’s responsible for her own life,” Mitch said. “Of course, I intend to do everything in my power to help her. But it’s not your fault if she seized on some remark you made.”
“Yes, it is.” Kate’s jaw tightened. “As a person who spends her life working with young people, it’s my duty to consider how my comments may affect them.”
“You couldn’t have known that she’d go tearing off to Texas and sign on with a crooked rancher!”
“Intentionally or not, I set this mess into motion,” she said. “I couldn’t live with myself if I abandoned Loretta now.”
It took Mitch about thirty seconds to realize that he didn’t want to argue any further. “Okay by me.”
“We can take turns sleeping outside,” she offered.
The heck they would. “We’ll discuss it later.”
“Got a map? We’ll need to figure out the shortest route to Santa Fe.”
“I already know. I just drove here, remember? I didn’t go through Santa Fe, but I went near it.” Another thought occurred to Mitch, one he’d considered on the way west but hadn’t had time to indulge. “We have to cut through Flagstaff. The doctor who loaned the money to my Dad used to own a cabin south of there, in Oak Creek Canyon. It’s possible his daughter might have returned by now. There’s no phone on the premises, but we could swing by.”
“As long as we don’t get sidetracked for long.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I want to protect Loretta as much as you do.”
Kate settled back. They were approaching the 210 Freeway, which would take them east on the first leg of their journey, when she sat bolt upright.
“Oh, my gosh!” she said. “This means I’ll be gone a lot longer than I expected. A whole lot longer! I have to call Moose...but what am I going to tell him?”
Chapter Six
For a moment, Kate wished that Mitch had a car phone. Then she realized that, if he did, she would have to give Moose the number, and she found herself reluctant to be at his beck and call.
Still, she drummed her fingers impatiently on the armrest as they traveled, keeping watch for a freeway exit where they might find a telephone. She didn’t know what she was going to say, but she wanted to get this over with.
He might not understand. Moose shared some of her values, but not all of them.
And, she had to admit, she was putting him in an awkward position. Not only had his wedding been disrupted, but his bride had gone on the lam with a criminal. Suspected criminal, she amended hastily.
Until now, choices had been simple in Kate’s life. There was right, and there was wrong. The difference had always been obvious.
But now the issues were getting muddied. She owed a duty to Moose, and also to Loretta. Since the young woman was more vulnerable, and in a sense had been endangered because of Kate, she seemed to have the more immediate claim.
Am I being completely honest with myself? Tearing her gaze from the roadside tr
acts of houses, Kate turned to study Mitch.
Despite his attention to the traffic, there was a faraway look in his eyes. Perhaps he was seeing the ranch that he still called home. Or maybe he was working through scenarios of what might lie ahead.
What was it about him that fascinated her? Why did she get goose bumps just looking at him?
It must be an intellectual challenge, she told herself. Never in her well-ordered life had she met anyone like Mitch.
She came from a place where everybody knew everybody else’s business; he lived, at least for the present, outside society. In her world, the only challenges were personal or financial. In his world, the stakes were life and death.
But why did she want so strongly to help clear his name? The fact that he’d saved her life might partly explain it. So might anger at the gang that had invaded her life and her town. But that couldn’t be the whole story.
The shocking realization hit Kate that she wasn’t ready to get married. She’d never been aware of a yearning for adventure, for pushing limits and striking out into the unknown, yet here it was, and here was the man who had inspired it.
She wondered what her parents would have said. She supposed they might have told her that it couldn’t hurt to spend a little time away from Moose and Grazer’s Corners, until she felt more at peace.
Absence made the heart grow fonder, didn’t it? By the time she got home, surely all her hesitations would vanish. Once she stretched her legs a bit, she would be ready to settle down with Moose, and that silly image of his house barred like a prison would never recur.
It seemed like fate that, at the precise moment that she resolved her uncertainties, she spotted a gas station. It was a shiny new building, and would almost certainly have a working phone.
MOOSE STOOD IN FRONT of Harmon’s Department Store, inhaling the balmy air. He could smell hamburger grease from Good Eats, and a hint of manure from the farmlands outside town. Come to think of it, it was hard to tell which scent was which.
Behind him, he felt Betty Muller’s woebegone stare through the glass doors. She’d been moping around the cosmetics counter all morning.
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