“So do I, but that’s the best I will offer you.”
Matthew stood up and stared into Judd’s brooding eyes. “I’m keeping the keys, and you stop. It all stops. Whatever you have going in the places you travel to, it stops.”
“That will affect the business here, Matthew.”
“I’ll take that chance.”
“It’s not your responsibility.”
“It is now, because you will announce a planned transition of leadership to be accomplished over the next two months.”
Judd scoffed. “You’re too young, and I’m in good health. The company is barely a dozen years old. No one will believe that.”
“You have a way of making anyone believe what you want them to believe. Give any reason you like or none at all. If you don’t announce the transition of leadership, I leave the business and I tell Jane why. You can say whatever you want to Mama, but Jane will know the truth. If anything happens to Jane, Jackson will get a sealed envelope. I know how to talk to lawyers too.”
“What kind of monster do you think I am? Nothing will happen to Jane. I have never hurt anyone. I told you. I’m helping people. Parents with loving hearts get children to dote on, and the children get better lives than the ones they were born into. The children are well looked after at every step. Besides, your mother adores Jane. I wouldn’t do that to Alyce.”
“I’m counting on that. But my offer doesn’t change.”
Matthew allowed himself only controlled, shallow breaths as he listened to Judd’s breathing grow labored. Panicked. Unbelieving.
“You can’t be serious,” Judd said.
“I’ve never been more serious.”
They glowered at each other. Matthew willed his eyes not to blink.
“Fine. I will stop.” Judd shifted. “You have my word. You can have full access to the books. I will make you a junior partner. There’s no need for you to take over the company.”
Matthew shook his head.
“If I do this, Matthew, there could be trouble. You don’t know these people.”
“Then figure it out and make it go away. You must have as much on them as they have on you. You keep impeccable records.”
“You’re being naive.”
“This is the deal, Judd. Take it or leave it. And don’t think that you can just change the locks or get a different room in another location or start a new set of doctored books. I’ll be watching things at home. If I even suspect you have a personal windfall in retirement, all promises are null.”
“You leave me little choice.”
“You made your choices long ago.”
“The truth shall make you free.” Matthew never felt more trapped. Could he really put this in a box and carry on with his life? Like Judd? He hated himself.
CHAPTER TWENTY–SIX
Okay,” Kris said. “You win.”
“Look. Here’s Lindy now.” Jillian put a hand on Kris’s arm. “The shop will be in good hands.”
Lindy entered and stamped snow off her feet. “Maybe we should catch the fresh stuff while it’s coming down next time and advertise snow cones.”
“Initiative,” Kris said. “I like it.” She got up and followed Lindy toward the counter.
“I need to steal Kris away for a while,” Jillian said. “You can handle things here, right?”
Lindy spread her arms wide. “You’re going to trust me with this mob on my own? Absolutely.”
“Initiative and reliability,” Jillian said. “The whole package. Come on, Kris.”
Lindy disappeared into the kitchen.
“You don’t need me,” Kris said. “If I’d been able to stop Tucker from skiing Hidden Run, I would have done it by now.”
“I disagree. You tried. My dad tried. I certainly said all the wrong things every time I opened my mouth around him.”
“That’s not true.”
“You know it is,” Jillian said, “but my point is we were all trying and didn’t get through to him. Maybe Laurie Beth can help.”
“Makes sense. So rotate me out and her in.”
“If you’re making me team captain, then I’m not cutting anybody from Team Tucker.”
“Nia sent you to make sure I didn’t show up with Tucker without warning, and you did your job.”
“I’m sorry he hurt you, Kris.”
“Don’t be. I’m the one who got so caught up that I almost let him make me someone I’m not.”
“I wonder if there’s something making Tucker someone he’s not too,” Jillian said. “Maybe that’s why Team Tucker isn’t finished yet.”
“That ridiculous backpack,” Kris muttered.
Jillian waited.
“Do you suppose he walked into a bank and withdrew all that cash at one time? It’s a lot to get from ATMs, even if you push your daily limits.”
The wheels were churning.
“It’s like he can’t get rid of his money fast enough.” Kris looked up. “And it doesn’t matter, because he doesn’t care if he hurts himself. Maybe it would have if I’d gone with him. I should have gone with him. Why did I suddenly get sensible? What if he’s gone to break something? I could have used the time driving up there to get sensible.”
“Stop it, Kris. But get your jacket,” Jillian said. “And boots.”
Back at the Inn a few minutes later, they climbed the steps to the veranda that wrapped the house and pushed through the heavy front door and into the roomy hall at the foot of the broad oak staircase. Jillian had no time to enjoy her favorite spot in the Inn and the temptation to slide into the library, her favorite room. Instead, she turned into the parlor, where Laurie Beth sprang from the sofa.
“Did you find him?”
“I’m sorry, no,” Jillian said. “Uncle Patrick, what are you doing here?”
“I sensed some urgency about the situation when you left the house. Maybe I can help.”
This can’t have been the day her father had in mind when he invited his estranged brother to spend the day in Canyon Mines.
“Kris, this is my uncle Patrick,” Jillian said, “and this is Laurie Beth.”
“Nice to meet you,” Laurie Beth muttered, glancing at her phone.
“Still no word from Tucker?” Jillian said.
“Nothing. Do you think he’s off skiing somewhere?”
“I’m afraid so.” Jillian caught Nolan’s eye.
“Then I guess I just have to wait for him to come back,” Laurie Beth said.
“Actually,” Nolan said, “we should go look for him. Isn’t that right, Jillian?”
“Yes, it’s absolutely right.”
“I don’t understand.” Laurie Beth used both hands to smooth back her straight, long, dark hair. “Wouldn’t it be hard to find him? Aren’t there a lot of ski resorts around here? Nolan was just telling me Tucker has been taking a lot of day trips to do the double blacks, sometimes with a friend he met here in town.”
“That’s all true,” Kris said, “but he came by my ice cream parlor this morning. I know for sure he was going to ski alone today. And where.”
Jillian pressed her lips together. This was not the time to tell Laurie Beth that the friend her fiancée has been skiing with, and generally gallivanting around Canyon Mines with, was the attractive owner of the local ice cream parlor.
“Well, where is he skiing then?” Laurie Beth asked.
“Nearby.” Kris flicked her eyes toward Nolan. “Hidden Run.”
“Aren’t we at Hidden Run?”
“We named the Inn for a lost ski resort,” Nia said. “Sort of a local legend.”
“But it’s a real place?”
“Possibly on private property,” Nia said. “We’re not entirely sure.”
“That doesn’t sound like Tucker,” Laurie Beth said. “He has never trespassed in his life.”
“That’s it.” Nolan reached for his jacket. “We have to go right now.”
“My rental is a Tahoe,” Patrick said. “Room for everyone.”
“The maps,” Nia said.
“Maps?” Laurie Beth echoed.
“He pores over them at breakfast and in the evenings in the library,” Nia said. “He’s been looking for the exact location.”
“I want to see them.”
“They’re in his room,” Nia said. “But that’s private space.”
“I’m going to marry him. I thought we didn’t keep secrets—until this.”
Nia pressed her lips together. “I’m probably crossing a line, because I’m really good at doing that, but I may or may not wander past the reception desk over there, and I may or may not happen to drop a key on it in about one minute.”
“Hurry up!” Laurie Beth said.
The whole operation took under four minutes, and Laurie Beth was back in the parlor and tossed the key to Nia. “There are no maps in that room.”
“He’s got them then,” Nolan said.
“You all go,” Nia said. “I’ll stay here in case he shows up.”
Around the room, jacket zippers scraped up.
Kris said, “The new snow overnight made him even more excited to ski fresh powder where no one else has been for so many decades.”
“Is this Hidden Run dangerous?” Laurie Beth asked. “Or is it just trespassing?”
Jillian and Nolan locked eyes.
“Dangerous,” Nolan said. “We’ve been trying to persuade him not to do it.”
“Then why would he insist?”
“Is it out of character?” Jillian asked.
“He likes a challenge, but he’s not stupid.” Laurie Beth charged for the door.
In Patrick’s Tahoe, Kris said, “We’d better swing by my place and pick up those backcountry skis he bought me. We might need them.”
Jillian’s heart lurched.
“He bought you skis?” Squeezed in between Kris and Jillian, Laurie Beth’s head rotated to stare at Kris.
“I didn’t ask for them,” Kris said. “He wanted me to ski Hidden Run with him. I never said I would.”
“You’re the friend he’s been skiing with.”
Jillian winced. It would have been nice to have time for a quick strategy session with her father and Kris before bits of information leaked out in hurtful ways.
“Then we should get my skis too,” Nolan said. “And my copy of the topography map. Just in case.”
In case of what? Jillian refused to picture her father going down Hidden Run on his dated equipment and middle-aged knees.
“Laurie Beth,” Jillian said, “can I ask a question?”
“If it will help Tucker, of course.”
“Does he normally carry around large amounts of cash?”
Laurie Beth scoffed. “I tease him all the time about using plastic to pay for something that costs two dollars. And besides, other than the fact that he likes to ski for a couple of days now and then, he’s sort of a miser. Wild spending is not his thing.”
Kris and Jillian exchanged a glance.
“What?” Laurie Beth said.
“We’ve seen a different side of Tucker,” Kris said.
“He’s been using a lot of cash while he’s here, that’s all,” Jillian said.
Laurie Beth eyed Kris. “Enough to buy expensive new skis?”
“Really,” Kris said, “I did not ask for them! But if he’s on that hill, it could be a good thing I have them.”
“All right.” Laurie Beth folded her arms in her lap. “For Tucker’s sake, I’ll believe you.”
“Directions, please,” Patrick said.
Kris told Patrick how to find her home. They loaded her skis through the back of the vehicle, the ends coming over the seat between Kris and Laurie Beth. A few minutes later, Nolan’s sliced between Laurie Beth and Jillian on the other side.
“Sorry,” Patrick said, “I didn’t know I was going to need a hitch or a ski rack.”
“No problem.” Jillian gripped her dad’s skis with one hand. “We don’t have far to go, right, Dad?”
“It’s snowing again,” Nolan said. “I grabbed a couple of flares, just in case.”
Just in case. Jillian was tired of that phrase.
Kris held her skis in place with one hand and now rubbed an eye with the other. “If he wasn’t already on Hidden Run, he will be now. He loves to ski when it’s snowing.”
Laurie Beth turned to her. “That’s right, he does. I never understood it. It makes it harder to see.”
“Adds to the thrill, he says.”
“That’s exactly what he says.”
Kris and Laurie Beth looked at each other, some understanding passing between them.
“Are we positive we shouldn’t look somewhere else first?” Nolan asked.
“Yes,” Kris said. “He was headed to Hidden Run, and that was a couple of hours ago.”
“He can’t drive all the way up,” Nolan said. “He’ll have to climb.”
“Then we might catch him,” Laurie Beth said.
“He’s got a huge head start,” Kris said. “Keep trying to call him, Laurie Beth. You’re the one he’s most likely to answer.”
“Not you?”
Kris shook her head. “You have nothing to worry about.”
Nolan unfolded his topography map and handed Jillian a road map. “We just have to match the current road to the best approach of our best guess for where the Hidden Run hill is.”
“Tell me you’ve been thinking about this,” Jillian said.
“I have. I’m pretty sure I’ve got it marked correctly on both maps. But I was thinking as a driver, not as a backcountry skier.”
“Well, we don’t have one of those.”
“No, but we have Kris.” Nolan looked over his shoulder. “What kind of terrain would he be looking for to climb up there? Surely not the steep side he’ll ski down.”
All eyes turned to Kris. Her face blanched.
“Think, Kris,” Laurie Beth said. “This is the part that you know.”
Kris licked her lips. “No, not the steep side. He’ll try to drive as far as possible, of course, but he’ll be looking for flat spaces for at least some of the time.”
“Like cross-country skiing,” Nolan said.
Kris nodded. “He wouldn’t want to get up there and be exhausted. Some climbing, some flat spaces. Maybe a back side where the slope is gentler.”
“Like switchbacking up a mountain,” Nolan said.
“Sort of. Yes. And he’s going to want to get high, to get all the lift he can out of the initial push-off. He’s not going to go to all the effort to get up there and not have that moment of exhilaration.”
“You really do know him,” Laurie Beth said.
“You’re the one who’s going to make him see sense,” Kris said.
“Trade maps, Jilly.” Nolan shoved the topographical map to the back seat and took the road map. “Start studying the topography, Kris. Get your bearings. Just in case.”
Jillian put one hand to her forehead. Enough with those three little words!
Nolan gave directions. Patrick drove. Kris and Jillian gripped the skis. Laurie Beth fingered the phone in her lap. They navigated out of town on the old highway heading west. The snowfall thickened, and Jillian was grateful for the heavy vehicle.
“Turn here, and you’ll have to slow down,” Nolan said after a few minutes. “If I’m right about how the topography matches the roads, we won’t be able to go very far up, but there’s a place where hikers leave cars in the summer. I never realized it was so close to Hidden Run.”
The Tahoe ground forward and maintained purchase on the incline.
Kris leaned forward a couple of minutes later. “There’s his truck.”
Jillian’s stomach sank. Her brain knew Kris would be right about where Tucker was headed, but her heart nevertheless had hoped she’d be wrong and they’d simply be ruling out Hidden Run.
Patrick eased in alongside the gray pickup, and Nolan leaped out of his side of the car.
“He’s not in the truck,” he said.
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The others exited the Tahoe.
“How much farther to the top?” Patrick asked.
Looking at the topography map, Nolan said, “Quite a ways. It’s steep in places. He could still be climbing.”
“He has skins on his skis,” Kris said, “for climbing. It won’t take him as long as you think.”
“Tucker, you idiot.” Laurie Beth trudged through the snow toward his truck and pulled at the driver door. “It’s unlocked. Don’t know why it matters, but it is.”
“Did he leave anything?” Jillian asked.
Laurie Beth groaned and leaned into the cab. “Just his helmet.”
“He didn’t take his helmet?” Kris said. “I’ve never seen him ski without it.”
“Me neither,” Laurie Beth said. “He’s very safety conscious even on easy hills.”
“This one is full of trees,” Nolan said.
Silence fanned across the group.
“You can say it,” Laurie Beth said. “The biggest benefit of a helmet is reducing head injuries when a skier hits a tree.”
Nolan nodded.
“Open the back, please, Patrick,” Kris said. “I’m going after him.”
“We all are,” Nolan said.
Patrick unlocked the rear of the Tahoe.
“It’s the ultimate high to climb as high as you can get.” Sitting under the open hatch, Kris tugged off her snow boots and began putting on her ski boots. “Tucker has been researching every detail about Hidden Run. He wanted to get even higher than two thousand feet vertical. Skiing down without his helmet—well, it would be quite a rush.”
“What is he trying to prove?” Laurie Beth put a hand against her forehead as she strayed from Tucker’s truck. “This is not Tucker. I don’t understand.”
Jillian stepped closer to the truck and looked inside. The backpack was there. She reached in and retrieved it.
“It’s empty.” She held it up for the others to see.
“What’s that doing here?” Laurie Beth asked.
“You recognize it?” Jillian said.
“He’s had it since he was a kid. His Grandpa Matt’s friend Jackson gave it to him. But he never uses it now. It’s very sentimental. It would be like a grown man carrying around a teddy bear.”
“He’s hardly let it out of his sight since he came to Canyon Mines,” Jillian said.
In the Cradle Lies Page 20