Exhausted, he wished he could shut his brain off, but he couldn’t. Amanda Amber was a contradiction. She fudged facts and pushed her way into this expedition in the first place. From what she’d said at their first encounter, she had someone on the inside who kept her up to date on Doc McConnel’s will. And gave her the wrong information.
Initially, he thought she was trying to make a name for herself, get a big story. But now, he wasn’t so sure what she wanted. Beth Lauder’s sister had an agenda, that was clear. Did she want to clear Beth? Or get revenge on Doc McConnel’s daughter? Her tone when she discussed the mysterious Deputy Jeremy, showed a depth of feeling he hadn’t thought her capable of.
Amanda’s gaze met his. “What?”
“I don’t get you,” he said abruptly.
“I don’t either.” Kiera spoke up. Dark circles smudged beneath her eyes and her skin stretched over her skin. Yet, her green eyes were still bright and sharp. Even exhausted, Kiera’s brain, like his, still tried to figure things out.
Amanda faced them both. “I’m not complicated.”
Kiera’s eyebrows rose. “I disagree. The woman I believed you were wouldn’t have done all this.” She waved her hand around the campsite.
The other woman shrugged. “You were wrong.”
With a frown, Kiera nodded her head. “I’m too tired to argue. I was wrong.”
Both Ben and Amanda stared at her. Her confused expression was classic. “What? What did I say?”
Amanda said it first. “I’ve never heard you say you were wrong.”
Kiera opened her mouth and shut it with a snap. Ben couldn’t help it. He muffled a laugh and she glared at him. “Laugh it up, ghost boy.”
“Well, it’s true. You come across as supremely confident.” He dropped his gaze away from her, well aware her confidence was an act.
She sighed. “I don’t get that at all.”
“You’re always so strong and forceful,” Amanda put in. “I mean, really, what other woman would haul me up that damn mountain? There are men that wouldn’t do it.”
Kiera stared at Amanda, her expression difficult for Ben to read. “I’m beginning to think you would.”
“Me?” Amanda laughed. “I couldn’t do it. I’m a wimp.”
With a slow shake of her head, Kiera disagreed. “I think that’s an act.” Her gaze met Ben’s. “I ought to know. I do it all the time.”
The other woman snorted. “No. I’m really a big wuss.”
Kiera shrugged. “If you say so.” Her tone declared she didn’t buy it.
Ben was amused. Two women who both played a part. Amanda played the girly-girl Barbie doll reporter with no heart, and Kiera pointed shotguns at people as she quaked with fear and pain behind it. Now, he was stuck in the wilderness with both of them.
It figured.
The air was split by a mournful cry. The same cry they’d heard the first night. This time, the cry sounded closer, louder.
Kiera closed her eyes as if she wanted to shut the cry out of her consciousness. Amanda stood absolutely still, her eyes on the peak above them. Ben fumbled with his pack. Some of his equipment had to be left behind but he had the small, compact digital recorder.
He clicked it on and the cry went on. In the dim light of the lantern, he noticed Kiera’s hands shook, and she covered her face. He crossed the distance between them and put his arm around her shoulders. Without thought, he pressed her head into his shoulder and covered her exposed ear with his hand. She’d been through enough. When he’d first met Kiera she had been a puzzle, a mystery to unravel. Now he just wanted to protect her. She’d become important to him in a very short time. Too short? Bah, it didn’t’ matter, she was.
He shoved those thoughts away, not wanting to delve into them, and focused on Kiera. Her body trembled and he smelled the fear that wafted from her skin. Whatever was out there frightened her.
From the moment he’d heard the cry two nights before and seen the color drop from her face, he believed Kiera had seen something up in these mountains. He wished she’d trust him, but she hadn’t yet.
“What is that?” Amanda demanded as she limped closer to Ben and Kiera. “She knows what it is. What is it, Kiera?” Her voice grew a little shrill.
Kiera raised her head and stared at Amanda. “It’s…loneliness.”
The other woman threw up her hands. “What does that mean?” The cry pierced the night air with a loud, mournful moan. “There is something out there.”
In his arms, Kiera trembled. It was so unlike her, so feminine, the protective male instinct swamped his reason. He wanted to lash out at Amanda, strangle that thing out there to get it to shut up and stand between Kiera and the rest of the world.
Interesting.
Kiera straightened and clasped her hands in front of her. “I don’t know what it is. That sound—” She stopped and her gaze drifted to the peak that dominated the night skyline. “I’ve heard it. I was thirteen and lost. I never saw what made the sound.”
“But you saw something.” Ben broke in. So much for the protective male. Apparently, the paranormal researcher was much more dominant. As if on cue, the mournful cry stopped and silence dropped over the mountains.
“I don’t know.” Her gaze pleaded with him and then the expression disappeared as if she’d never shown any sign of weakness. “I was scared. There’s nothing up here.”
Her face had that look he knew so well now. Granite hard and emotionless, her features tensed and shut him out. He wanted to rail at that wall she built, but what good would that do?
“There is something up there.” Amanda glared at Kiera, all the hostility between them leapt up again. “Your father spent his whole life saying there was.”
For one heartbeat, Ben thought Kiera would finally tell the truth, whatever that was. Dodo said Kiera protected her father even now. Would she reveal what she knew? Then, the heartbeat was over and the door slammed shut. “I’m going to sleep.” Kiera stood up and started for her sleeping bag. She turned to say, “Thank you for doing all of this.”
Amanda started at her words, and her mouth dropped open. Kiera whirled around and climbed into the tent. Ben’s lips lifted in a smile. That façade wasn’t going to last much longer. And they still had a long way to go to get home.
*
Even as tired as she was, Kiera couldn’t drop off to sleep. Her mind clicked and whirred. There was too much she didn’t understand or couldn’t make fit. Ben, who had protected her from the beginning, clearly wanted something from her, but what? She didn’t know what to do and was too tired to try and figure it out. Her muscles screamed and it wouldn’t take much to start the waterworks. She felt exposed, raw, like she was wearing new skin and every scrape could cause intense pain.
There were no tracks of any kind in the soft mud as she and Ben had searched the area for Bigfoot evidence. But something killed Bobby. Something ran from them and showed on Ben’s infrared camera.
Kiera drifted off and began to dream.
She ran over the trail and stumbled as she reached the top of the peak. Her knees crashed into the rocks below her, and she scraped her hands. Footsteps pounded behind her and she knew she had to hide, get away. Fear clutched her stomach as she realized where she was.
The stones. Everywhere square, hand crafted stones poked up beneath the ground. Soft soil covered this plateau. A canopy of trees covered the area, shrouded it. Trees, grass, flowers, and those rocks. The jagged stones were laid out in lines, and Kiera crawled to one of them to try and hide behind it. She crouched as low as she could and trembled. A roar echoed against the mountains around her and loose shale crumbled over her. The crunch of rocks beneath feet reached her ears and her heart stopped.
Every muscle in her body screamed for her to run. And she couldn’t. She was frozen, terrified. A hand reached out and blocked the sun. It gripped her hair and…
Kiera screamed and woke up. Ben was instantly beside her. She shook so hard her bones rattled. She could
n’t breathe.
“Breathe, Kiera. You have to breathe. Slowly.” His hands caressed her upper arms.
“I have to get out of here. I didn’t want to come back here.” She gripped his shoulders. “I can’t do this. Don’t you see?”
“I see that you’re afraid.” Ben kept the slow, gentle touch on her arms. “Tell me what happened. Stop hiding things from me.”
Tears clogged her throat but stayed there. “I can’t.”
“Because it will betray your father?”
She bit her lip. “And…other things.” She gazed at him. “I haven’t told anyone, Ben. No one knows what I know. Even Dodo doesn’t know all of it.”
“Then, isn’t it time you let someone share the burden?”
In her heart, she ached to share it, let it go, be free of it. But it was her responsibility. She’d carried the secrets for so many years, protected the walls around her mind and kept her agony to herself. Now, she didn’t know what would happen if she released the words, shared the load, opened Pandora’s Box.
Part of her believed Ben would help her, protect her.
But he was a Legend Hunter. A man who sought answers to life’s riddles. Did he really understand what would happen if she revealed this? She shook her head. He couldn’t know. No one did. Not even her. All she knew was what happened in the past. Insanity.
People traipsing over the mountains to seek fame and fortune. Lives destroyed by deception and fraud. Murder.
Like Bobby.
She closed her eyes to shut out the vision of the dead, bloody body she’d seen. “No. It’s my burden to carry, Ben.” Her gaze met his. The disappointment, the hurt she saw there was like a razor. “It’s not that I don’t trust you—”
He interrupted her. “You don’t.” He took a deep breath. “I’m going back to sleep. We have a long way to go.”
“Ben—” She reached out but he had backed away. It stung but she couldn’t blame him.
“Good night.” His tone was quiet and distant. She longed for the warmth that had been there only minutes before, but she let him leave.
Alone, she wondered if she’d ever feel normal. She wished Dodo was there. Please Dodo, be safe.
“Why do you do that?” Amanda’s voice came out of the dark. Apparently, she was in the tent the whole time.
“Do what?” She tried to pretend she didn’t know.
“Push him away. He cares about you. I can see that. Why can’t you?”
“I can’t give him what he wants.” Kiera curled up in her sleeping bag to try and deter the woman from continuing.
“Yes, you can. But you won’t.” Amanda’s tone was bitter and angry. “Your father’s legacy is more important than the truth.”
Kiera sat up. “What do you know about my father’s legacy?” She bit the words out. “The ‘truth’ he left me isn’t something you want to publish in your paper.”
“According to you, I don’t print the truth anyway.” Amanda quipped.
“According to you, Bigfoot is an alien.” Kiera snapped back.
“I never said that. I said he could be an alien.”
“You’re impossible.” Kiera rolled up and closed her eyes. She’d force herself back to sleep if she had to.
“I want to know what it is about your father that inspired so much loyalty.” Something in Amanda’s tone got Kiera’s attention.
She rolled over and peered into the dark. “It isn’t a question of loyalty.”
“Love, then?” Amanda’s two word question sounded mild, but Kiera had the impression something volcanic lurked below it.
“Not even that.” Kiera laid back and stared at stars through the net at the apex of the tent. “People want me to maintain my father’s legacy. I won’t.”
Silence met her comment. Finally, Amanda spoke. “But you do. By everything you’ve done in the last two years, his legacy continues.”
“I don’t see how. I’m not seeking tracks and hair for more Bigfoot fodder. I leave that to reporters like you and Legend Hunters like him.” She jerked her head toward the door of the tent.
“No, but you respond when I print speculation. Why do you do that?”
Kiera shrugged. “Because they’re lies. I don’t like lies. Or fraud.” A cold knot settled in her stomach. She hated fraud.
“Enough to expose what your father really was?”
Of course Amanda wanted her to expose her father. Beth had been her sister. Any normal woman would want revenge. The question was would anyone believe her?
“I hate fraud enough that I’ll tell you what I know about my father. You can print it or not.” She took a deep breath.
Amanda didn’t answer.
“When I was thirteen, I caught my father in the act of fabricating Bigfoot evidence.” She said, the words tumbled out in a rush. “He manipulated several photographs and spliced in one I’d never seen before.”
“Then how do you know the photograph isn’t real?”
“Because those photographs were taken by Beth Lauder.”
Amanda’s silence was painful. “I don’t understand.”
Kiera pinched the bridge of her nose. “Beth took a picture of a guy in a suit. I knew what he’d done. I saw it immediately. Don’t you see that I couldn’t expose my father without dragging Beth into it, too? I knew it was her picture. I was thirteen and I saw it all.” Her voice dragged. “He destroyed her so that she could never reveal his fraud. Once she was discredited, no one would believe her.”
“Why didn’t you say something?” Amanda was angry and lashed out at Kiera.
“I was thirteen. And look what happened to anyone I trusted. Dodo was accused of being a child molester. Beth was smeared in the press. I didn’t dare say anything.”
“Did he know? Did your father know you knew the photograph was a lie?”
“He knew.” Kiera’s voice was quiet. “It’s why he went to the bar to drink. He told me once he couldn’t stand the way I looked at him. He blamed me for his drinking, though he’d done it long before that.” The memories spiraled through her. “He told everyone that I was a troublemaker, a hell raiser. There was no one I could trust. He made sure of that.” She couldn’t keep the bitterness from her voice just as she couldn’t expel it from her heart. He was dead, yet he reached out and poisoned her life every day. She needed to let it all go. Maybe this was the first step toward doing that.
“I didn’t know,” Amanda breathed out.
“No one knows. Except Dodo. And he only knows about the drinking. I never told him about the picture.”
“All these years I thought—” Amanda stopped.
“You thought I helped him. You thought I went along with his destructive little plans for everyone he touched.” Bitter bile touched the back of her tongue. “No. Everything I loved, he destroyed. Even my mother.”
“I’m sorry, Kiera.”
“I don’t want you to ever be sorry,” she snapped. “Beth died because of what my father did. You lost your sister and I lost a friend.” Unshed tears bled into her voice. “I liked Beth. She was good to me. Like an older sister.”
“What do you want me to do?” Amanda asked her.
“I want you to do whatever brings you peace. Whatever brings Beth to rest. If revealing my father as the lying asshole he truly was will heal it, do it. I’ll back you.”
She didn’t wait for Amanda to answer. She was too tired. As she slid into oblivion, her heart was a little lighter. To share that burden had felt so good, so right.
Maybe Ben had a point.
* * * *
The morning sun streamed into the tent, and Kiera blinked, wanting just another few minutes of sleep. Amanda was up and gone. She heard the hiss of the propane and the bubble of water.
That meant coffee.
The inevitable fight between fatigue and the need for coffee began and coffee won after a few minutes. Kiera dragged her sore carcass out of bed and stretched.
The revelations from the night before seemed s
mall and unimportant as Kiera gazed into the morning sky. Against the backdrop of scenic beauty, the petty scrambling of an alcoholic seemed so ridiculous.
“How are you feeling this morning?” Amanda asked her and handed her a cup.“A little cleaner. How about you?” She studied Amanda’s face. Had sharing her sister’s part in all of that mess made things better or worse?
“A little clearer.” Amanda smiled. “Things make more sense now.”
Kiera nodded. Ben sighed. “Someone want to fill me in? Or was this girl talk?”
Amanda met Kiera’s gaze and raised her eyebrows in a silent question. Kiera shrugged and the other woman nodded. “Kiera was just telling me that the photograph her father made famous is a big fraud.”
Ben didn’t disappoint her. He spit his coffee out in a sputtering cough. “What?”
Kiera grinned as Amanda went on as if she was talking about designer shoes. “And my sister took the picture of the figure that’s in the photograph, which is why Kiera kept it a secret for so long. That’s why Doc discredited my sister as a fraud. Make sense?” She smiled and Kiera snorted with laughter. She had a sneaking suspicion she and Amanda were going to get along just fine from now on.
“I haven’t had enough coffee for this,” Ben muttered.
Amanda calmly poured him another cup. “Oh, and I’m not going to publish it.”
Kiera stared at Amanda in shock, and Ben asked, “Why not?”
“Because it doesn’t matter,” Amanda said, her gaze leveled at Kiera. “It won’t clear my sister and Doc McConnel is dead.”
A flash of understanding broke through Kiera’s brain. “The police files.”
Amanda nodded. “Jeremy thought I just wanted Bigfoot information. I wanted to clear my sister of the fraud charges Doc filed against her.”
“Jeremy will be glad to hear that.”
Amanda’s head cocked to the side. “Do you think so? I don’t know.” She bit her lip and stared into her coffee cup. “I wasn’t very honest with him. He doesn’t even know my real name.”
“He’s a lot smarter than you think. It’s just—” Kiera struggled for the right words. She said carefully, “I think he was afraid his personal feelings were too involved.”
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