The Second Family

by Janice Carter

  Nick shook his head. “No. Why?”

  Nothing to do but get on with it. “Just that she’s not here yet.”

  “Maybe she had car trouble or something. Or maybe she just forgot.” Nick looked back to the field.

  Alec tapped him on the head again. “No, buddy, she wouldn’t do that. Would she?”

  “I don’t know. Like, I’ve only known her a couple of weeks.”

  “But you know enough about her already, don’t you? To know that she would be here if she could?”

  “Yeah. Look, I’m gonna be up soon….”

  “Okay, just thought I’d check with you first.” Alec considered pretending to go back into the stands, but knew he couldn’t. “Nick, the thing is, I’m getting a bit worried. I mean—” he held up a hand at the alarm in Nick’s face “—I’m sure it’s something simple like car trouble, as you said. But would you mind if I missed the rest of the game and went looking for her?”

  “I guess not. You don’t need to worry about Molly. She’s at a friend’s place for dinner.”

  “Okay, that’s one problem out of the way. Look, just in case neither of us is here when the game finishes, can you get a lift home with someone?”

  “No problem,” he mumbled.

  But Alec saw the disappointment in his face. “We’ll have our celebration later tonight or tomorrow. But it’ll happen. Okay?”

  “Sure.”

  He didn’t appear any happier. “What is it?” Alec asked.

  “Just that…you know…I don’t want anything to be bad. You know. With Tess.”

  Alec blew out a mouthful of air. “Me, neither. And you know what, I don’t think there will be anything awful. Tess is a pretty determined woman. And she can handle tough things.”

  Nick nodded. “Yeah. I think she can, too.”

  Alec tousled the boy’s hair, wished him good luck and strode out of the stands in search of a pay phone. Wishing, for the first time in his life, that he had a cell phone. His first call was to the house in case, for some reason, she’d gone back home after all. No answer. He hung up, stumped. The only people he could call on for advice were Karen and Ken. They were a long way from Boulder, but might have a suggestion he could follow up on before he started driving around looking for Tess and her car.

  “Yeah,” Ken said at Alec’s opening question about having heard or seen Tess.

  Alec’s heart rate soared. “Yeah, what? She’s there?”

  “No, but she called me this morning. Why? What’s up? I thought you guys were at Nick’s game.”

  “I am but Tess hasn’t shown up yet.”

  There was a short silence. “She said she was going,” Ken said.

  “I need to know why she called you. It may have something to do with where she is.”

  “She said she planned to go to the land office downtown to find out if her father did own that piece of land off the road to Estes. You know, where you went camping. I thought you were going to check it out for her.”

  “I didn’t get around to it,” Alec said, somewhat lamely.

  “Well, I gave her the ordinates and lot numbers and so on. My guess is that she went there sometime after. It’ll be closed now, so…”

  Yeah, Alec thought. So that’s a dead end. “Maybe she contacted Walker about it, after getting the information from the land registry.”

  “Could be.” There was another silence, then Ken broke it. “Good luck then. If I were you, I’d maybe think of calling the police if she doesn’t turn up soon.”

  Alec hung up and dashed to the Bronco. He was outside Walker’s office building in less than ten minutes. The night security officer bluntly told him everyone had gone home and no, he couldn’t give him Walker’s home phone number.

  “Can you at least tell me when Walker left for the day? It’s just that my…my wife had an appointment with him and she hasn’t come home. I don’t want to go to the police just yet, but…”

  The security guard’s eyes widened, but he didn’t offer much more except to say Walker had left the building shortly before five and hadn’t returned. At Alec’s expression, the guard relented somewhat, adding, “He was talking to another man in the lobby here just before he took the elevator down to the underground parking. If that means anything.”

  “Do you know who the other man was?”

  “A client, maybe. Not someone who works in the building. I know all of them,” he boasted.

  “You’re sure of the time? Before five?”

  “Yup. I’d just come on duty and was talking to the day guy while he packed up.”

  “Then I guess you didn’t hear any of their conversation?”

  “Wasn’t paying attention. I think the client said something about ‘meet you there’ as he went out the door.”

  Meet you there. Could be anywhere. A bar. A restaurant. God. Alec wiped his face with his hand. Had to think. Where?

  He turned away from the reception desk and started for the door. The guard stopped him partway.

  “Hey, I don’t know if this is any help.”

  Alec spun around.

  “Just that, it was kinda unusual. Mr. Walker wasn’t wearing his normal work clothes. You know—suit, tie. He wore jeans and a jacket, something like yours. And one of them baseball caps. For a sec, I didn’t even recognize him ’cause he’s always dressed for business. Know what I mean?”

  Alec nodded, trying to make some sense of the information.

  “And he was carrying this big roll of paper under his arm.” The guard screwed up his face. “The other weird thing was, he had a pair of binoculars over his shoulder.” He thought for another minute, then shrugged. “That’s all I can tell you.”

  Pieces of the puzzle started to slot together. Alec thanked him and ran for the door. He was out of Boulder and on Highway 36 in record time. Outside the city limits, beyond the mushroomed spread of malls and strip plazas, the highway veered into the inky black void of country and mountains. Alec flicked on his high beams and put his foot to the floor. He passed the Wheaton ranch and cast a quick glance. No vehicle in the drive and, other than the exterior light, the house was in darkness.

  He had to slow down on his approach to Estes. Now wasn’t the time to be stopped for speeding. And he doubted he’d convince a state trooper of any emergency. He could almost picture the hooded disbelief in the trooper’s eyes at Alec’s raving about lawyers and land developers. Maybe fraud. Maybe even murder. The sudden image of Tomas Kozinski almost made Alec swerve off the road.

  As the Malone ranch appeared ahead, outside Estes, Alec shifted gears and made the turn. Someone needed to know where he was going. Besides, he wanted Karen’s cell phone.

  TESS SAW the boot first, shoved at right angles to her own foot. Her head shot up to Larry Stone’s friendly face.

  “Larry!” she cried, relieved. “You startled me.” Then she continued, “What are you doing here?”

  He crossed his arms. His smile became indulgent. “I was about to ask you the same thing. Imagine that.”

  Something in his tone wasn’t right. Tess glanced back to the lake where the two other men were still talking.

  “Shall we join them?” he suggested, grasping hold of her elbow and gently turning her around. “Were you planning on meeting someone here, Tess?” he asked as they picked their way down the rest of the stony path to the lake.

  “No,” she blurted. “At least,” she scrambled to correct her mistake, “not just yet. But soon.”

  “Great. But I’m curious about why you decided to drive all the way out here.”

  Tess forced herself to think before speaking. She didn’t know yet what was going on and what—if any—Larry Stone’s role was in it. “Remember how I asked you the other day, about this piece of property? You claimed not to know who owned it.”

  “Claimed? That sounds like lawyer talk to me.” He chuckled. “Good thing Jed is here to sort things out for you.” The wind picked up his voice and caught the attention of the other two men
, who began to slowly walk their way.

  As they drew nearer, Tess could see the furled brow and narrowing in Jed’s eyes that signaled serious displeasure. He said something to Mark Kaiser and proceeded ahead of him to where Tess was standing tight against Larry, his hand clamped on her elbow.

  “Tess? Some problem at home?”

  His nonchalance almost made her quip, No, why? Should I have made an appointment? “I was visiting the Malones,” she said, catching a sharp glance between Walker and Stone. “Then I thought I’d just come up here—to see the sunset.”

  “I think you missed it,” Walker said, nodding his head behind her, to the west.

  Tess looked from him to Mark Kaiser, who had now joined them. “Are you Mark Kaiser?”

  He nodded. “Have we met?”

  “Outside Jed’s office.”

  “Ahh. Another client?”

  “Not exactly. I—”

  “Must be going, didn’t you say?” Walker interrupted.

  “Yes, of course,” Tess agreed, eager to get out of there. “I was just about to head back to town. Nick’s big game tonight,” she babbled as she took a step backward, easing out of Larry’s grasp.

  “And I’ll be going, too,” put in Kaiser. He turned to Jed and said, “What time do you want to meet in the morning?”

  Without taking his eyes off Tess, Walker replied, “Nine sharp.”

  Kaiser stepped around them and began to climb the path up to the top of the cliff. Tess started to follow when Walker’s voice cut the silence. “One minute, Tess.”

  She didn’t turn around, but kept her eyes fixed on the path, taking another step away from Jed and Larry Stone. Until an arm grabbed the sleeve of her sweatshirt, yanking her to a halt.

  “I think there’s a bit more to say before you leave.” Stone pulled Tess back with one meaty hand while the other dug into his jacket, retrieving a light-brown envelope that was disturbingly familiar. “Found this in her car. Think you should take a look at it.”

  Jed took his time extracting the thin piece of paper from the envelope. Time that crawled for Tess. Time that she used to once more question her impulse to follow Kaiser out here. But it didn’t take Jed long to identify the document. He shoved it back into the envelope, which he tucked into his own jacket pocket.

  “So, what do you think about this?” he asked, patting the pocket.

  “You lied to me.”

  He gave a dismissive shrug. “How did you know I’d be out here?”

  “I didn’t. I went to your building and…” she stopped, sensing she’d said too much already.

  “Saw Kaiser leave? Then followed him?” He made a clucking sound. “Now who’s a liar? I have to hand it to you, Tess, you’ve a lot more gumption than I figured.”

  He shifted his attention to Stone. “What do you think?”

  “She knows about Kaiser and now she knows about this. That’s maybe a bit too much knowledge.”

  “Yes, I think you’re right.” Walker craned his head back toward the mountain peaks. “It’ll be completely dark soon. I think we’d better continue this discussion from up top.” He started up the path.

  Larry wrapped his arm around Tess. “Come, Tess,” he said indulgently, as if she were a child.

  And without any choice, she stumbled meekly alongside him. When they reached the top, she saw at once that the white Explorer—Mark Kaiser’s—was gone. Her stomach churned. She looked from left to right, then back to the other SUV and her own Volvo, a few yards away.

  When her gaze fell on Larry Stone, he answered her unspoken question. “My truck’s parked at the turnoff. I was leaving Estes when I saw the Volvo drive by and, just as you followed Kaiser, I trailed you.” He snorted a laugh.

  “We’ll talk inside mine,” Jed decided, opening the rear door of the maroon SUV. “Get in, Tess.”

  Tess yanked her arm from Stone’s grasp and clambered inside. To her relief, Stone and Jed got into the front. Jed clicked on the overhead light and studied Tess for a long time. “Too much knowledge,” he was murmuring.

  “I actually don’t know anything,” she said. “Except that you bought the land from my father and lied to me. That’s what I don’t understand. Why didn’t you just tell me the truth?”

  As soon as she saw the look pass between Walker and Stone, Tess had a hunch she knew what his answer would be.

  It was Stone who spoke. “Because he forged Richard’s signature and he can’t have anyone examining that piece of paper too closely. Can you, Walker?”

  Jed’s expression fell just a bit short of accusing Stone of being a moron.

  “I knew my father would never have sold that land!”

  “Just like you were so certain he’d never separate those two paintings,” Jed sneered.

  Tess waited for the hammering in her chest to ease up. She moistened her lips and said, “He didn’t.”

  “No,” Jed agreed. There was a glint in his eye, as if he were enjoying the talk. “But Kozinski was all too willing to split them and sell the still life, wasn’t he, Larry?”

  “Apparently,” Larry cracked. He paused a beat and then murmured, “Another accident?”

  There was a rush of sound in Tess’s ears. She stiffened, trying to hear over the pounding that had suddenly resumed deep inside.

  Walker nodded. “Not the same, though. It’s convenient for us that her car is already here. Maybe driving along the path in the dark, she misjudged the distance to the edge of the cliff.”

  Stupidly, Tess wondered for a split second who they were talking about until she put it altogether with horrifying clarity. “You had something to do with the car accident. My father…” She couldn’t go on.

  “Your father had no vision when it came to business,” Larry snarled. “We had it all sewn up. Walker was going to foreclose on the Malone land, I had the piece in the middle and we thought we’d convinced Richard to join in, with this part. He could have made at least a million on the deal. Maybe more.”

  “What’s the point in going over it?” Jed asked. “Anyway, now we split it two ways, instead of three.”

  He sounded tired, Tess thought. As if he simply wanted to get things over with and go back to town. But without her. “You were forming some kind of group,” she said. “To sell off—”

  “A hell of a big chunk of land. Yeah. Kaiser is a scout for an international conglomerate. They build resorts, casinos—you name it—all over the world. Most of the choice land around here belongs to the National Park Services. There’s little room for expansion around Estes or to the west. But Kaiser says this section is perfect for what his company has in mind.” Larry stopped to catch his breath. His face was red and he was sweating, in spite of the cool night air.

  “My father would never have gone through with a deal like that.”

  Walker smirked at her outburst. “You sound like you actually knew the man, Tess. I mean, come on. He walked out on you years ago. You don’t know him any better than you know Larry…or me.”

  His gibe stung.

  “Richard had a serious cash flow problem after the fire,” Larry went on. “That’s what motivated him to consider the deal in the beginning. But I guess after he got talking it over with Gabriela, they decided not to join us. Which made things damn difficult for us. I mean, we’d already got the ball rolling.”

  “Did you set the fire at the studio?”

  Stone shook his head. “No way. That was Kozinski, the crazy bastard. Months before any of this came up. He had some wild idea that the fire would drive up sales and business had been poor at the gallery. He knew where your father kept a key to the studio and when they all went away for a weekend, he tinkered with the wiring in Gabriela’s kiln. Then the jerk hung around to see if it would catch. That’s how I knew he’d done it. I was coming home late that night, saw the flames and also saw Kozinski leaving. It gave me something to hold over him. That’s how I persuaded him to cut that blasted painting in half.”

  “What about those o
ther canvases in the studio?” She looked at Jed. “You were going to sell them behind Kozinski’s back, weren’t you?”

  He grinned. “I have buyers for them.”

  “Is that what you were arguing about with Kozinski? In front of the gallery, the other day? I was coming to see him.”

  “See, ever since you’ve arrived in Boulder, you’ve seen just a bit too much.”

  “And were you the one who broke into our house?”

  Walker smirked, as if the act were beneath him. “Kozinski again. He was determined to take back the painting you inherited. He knew for sure you’d discover the truth and go to the police. But he never found it. Then after your visit to him, after you did learn the truth, he completely lost it. Threatened to go to the police himself and confess.”

  “So why not let him? You didn’t have anything to do with separating it, did you?”

  “Of course not. I didn’t give a damn about the painting. But we couldn’t afford to have police start making a lot of inquiries. Not when the land deal was so near to closing.”

  “And the estate?” she went on, her anger taking control, giving her confidence. “Were you going to cheat Nick and Molly, too?”

  Jed scowled. “No, I wouldn’t do that.”

  As if he had to draw a line somewhere, Tess thought.

  “The trust is all kosher, believe me.”

  “But you would stoop to murder,” she said.

  Silence fell heavily inside the SUV. “I think I’ll leave you to it, then,” Walker said, looking across the seat at Stone.

  “Why me?”

  “Why not? You’ve already got some experience in the craft, so to speak. Call me later tonight.”

  Stone didn’t argue, just opened his side of the SUV and climbed out. Tess flinched when her own door was wrenched open. She clung to the back of the front seat.

  “You won’t get away with this. People are expecting me. They’ll go looking for me.”

  Stone chuckled. “Maybe, but they won’t know where to look, will they? And by the time someone notices your car down there by the lake…”

  He didn’t need to spell out the word futility for her. He used both hands to pull her loose and lift her out of the rear seat. He was a big man, and her kicking and flailing fists had little effect on him. Stone kicked the door shut and dragged her off to the side while Walker turned over the engine. When he had turned the SUV around, he rolled down the window to quip, “Nice meeting you, Miss Wheaton. Too bad we couldn’t have struck up a different kind of relationship.” Then he laughed and drove the car into the darkness ahead.