Jan picked up on the second ring. “Lacey? I’m so glad you called. What an afternoon. I can’t get my head around all of it.”
Lacey leaned back, propping one foot on a nearby planter. “I’m guessing Rob’s not with you just now?”
“Nope. He’s gone for a bike ride to think about all this.”
“You sure called it last week, about him being involved with a married man.” Lacey stretched out her other leg, wondering if she dared remove her boots. The sweaty stench would probably kill the nearby flowers. She decided to leave them on.
“I’m wishing I was wrong. I was wrong about other things without trying.”
“Such as?”
“I looked up Kitrin’s life in Hollywood,” said Jan. “In every single photo — which are always on Mylo’s arm at some black-tie event, like she didn’t exist without him — she looks so sad and fragile. I don’t think I ever realized how awful her life was.”
“Are you wishing you’d kept in touch?”
“Yeah, a bit. Or at least made more effort to see her once I knew she was here. We had maybe ten minutes after supper, and not two days later she was gone.” Jan sighed. “But you’ll be wanting to know about my video analysis. I could be out by a couple of centimetres on height, more if the person was wearing thick-soled shoes. There’s only so much detail I could lift from that camera angle and that much shadow.”
“I can send you more video if you think that will help, like of the mechanics when they’re near that vehicle in daylight. I have that whole external hard drive filled with the archived images from the past month.” Lacey flexed her feet again. Ten minutes with her toes in a cool tub would be heaven. “I’ve got a list now of people who left on Sunday or Monday, but many of them could have sneaked back in through one of the gates without cameras. The only people I can completely eliminate would be the ones who flew away before the video was made. Even those, I’ll have to get Wayne to verify that they ended up where they said they were going.”
“There was that much bad feeling around?”
“You met Orrin. He was awfully tough on Earl and Bart in front of strangers. Multiply that by ten for how nasty he was when it was just family.”
“Ugh,” said Jan. “If it weren’t for Tyrone, I wouldn’t give Orrin’s fate a second thought.”
“That seems to be the general sentiment,” said Lacey. “I hear someone coming. I’d better quit shooting off my mouth. Are you going to be okay there tonight? Dee would sleep over if you asked her.”
“Nah. She’s rented rooms to two women security guards Wayne hired and won’t want to leave strangers in full possession.”
“Oh, is that whose stuff was stacked in the mud room?” Lacey said. “I meant to text her, but there was so much drama this afternoon.”
“No shit. Anyway, Rob will stay over again. He needs the company, and we’re used to each other.”
“Okay. Any messages for Terry if I take a run down to the SAR base?” Now that the words were out, Lacey was struck by the brilliant simplicity of the idea: get out of this fraught atmosphere for half an hour and still feel like she was on the job.
“Tell him I miss him and to be careful out there.” Lacey hung up just as Ben’s head appeared on the bluff staircase. He trotted over to her. As usual, he wasn’t even out of breath.
“Hey, Lacey. Did I hear you say you’re heading down to the SAR base? Mind if I come along?” No excuse came readily to Lacey’s lips, and soon they climbed into Wayne’s truck. “South gate’s best. You remember the way there?”
Lacey reversed out of her parking spot and headed for the nearest road down into the valley. As they passed slowly along the row of buildings, she checked the angles of the various cameras. They all seemed to be pointing in the right directions at last. Did Ben realize he’d be recorded in at least two places the next time he sneaked into the workout room to meet Andy?
As if reading her thoughts, Ben brought up Andy. “I heard what happened in town today. Andy’s pretty upset.”
“Yeah, I guess she is.” There wasn’t much else Lacey could say. Was she about to be told to move her stuff out to the bunkhouse?
“I hope you’ll talk to her before you go to bed,” Ben went on. “She’ll stay up all night worrying if you don’t.” He rubbed his forehead, just like Bart did when stressed. “You didn’t see her at her best today, and she’s kind of ashamed of all the screaming.”
“She told you that?” Had she told him about Bart having a male lover? Or did he know that already, and that was why he didn’t seem bothered about sex with Andy?
“Of course. We three, we don’t keep secrets from each other. It’s our chief survival technique.”
“No secrets at all?” Lacey was a teeny bit ashamed of her suggestive tone. She pulled over to let a half-ton go past in the other direction. “Do you know what she was screaming about?”
“You mean about Bart meeting his lover, or there being paparazzi outside? Because of the two, she was much more upset about that guy with the camera than the guy with his pants off.” After a pause he said, “She told me you know Rob?”
“He’s my neighbour’s best friend.”
“Is he a good guy? Keeps his word and all that?”
“He’s a good person. Hasn’t been involved with any other man since I’ve known him.”
Ben relaxed. “So you already knew he was gay, just not who he was seeing?”
“Uh-huh. Did they tell you why he needed to see Bart today?”
Ben nodded. “Last Saturday morning. If we knew for sure that Orrin’s not coming back, I’d tell Bart to go to the police with the whole truth. As it is, we can’t quite risk that. You used to be a cop. Would you buy it if they said they were just out mountain biking on Saturday morning?”
“I likely would have, if that was the first thing offered. But not after Rob stonewalled for three days about where he was and who he was with. At this point, he’s better off to come completely clean than tell them a partial truth and leave them suspicious enough to keep digging.”
“Well, fuck.” They were coming up to the south gate, and Lacey slowed. Ben leaned out the window and said to the ranch hand, “All good here?”
“Yes, sir.”
Ben said, “What’s your beer? I’ll send some out for you when I get back.”
The ranch hand grinned as he opened the gate.
Lacey smirked. “So that’s the secret to your popularity? You get them beer?”
“I’m not that popular.”
“That’s not what I heard. They don’t rat you out to Orrin when you’re sneaking in to fill your truck from his gas tank.”
Ben laughed. “Yeah, there’s that. They still let me go riding and stuff, too, as long as Orrin’s not around. Now, the best road to the SAR base is straight back to Highway 40 and south, but we can take this back trail to cut off the corner.”
Lacey followed his directions. Sooner than she thought possible, she saw searchers’ vehicles near the airstrip. She parked beyond the last one.
Ben said, “Mind if I take one of these security caps? It won’t keep me completely anonymous, but at least I can ask a few questions before I get mobbed by any reporters.”
Lacey locked the truck and strolled along the gravel road, her feet protesting every step. Ben matched her pace. They moved through clusters of tired searchers grabbing food or sorting gear, crawling into tents for sleep or vehicles for the trek back home. Someone was loading horses into a trailer. They came face to face with the old woman whose truck Lacey had pushed out of the ditch. Was that only two days ago?
The woman nodded curtly to her. “You searchin’ now?”
Lacey shook her head. “I’m stationed up at the ranch, keeping reporters out.”
“Send ’em to my place,” growled the old woman. “I’ll tell ’em all about Orrin Caine. Things you won’t see on his company website.” She glared at Ben. “And about his liar sons.” She stomped away.
“Whoa. What was
that about?” Lacy asked.
Ben watched the old woman. “Remember I told you about the land Orrin bought across Highway 40? That he promised never to drill and then did?” She nodded. “Well, he bought it from Susan Norris, mainly because I convinced her he’d keep his word and put it straight into a nature conservancy like she was doing with the rest. If she never forgives me for that, I can’t blame her.”
Another person with a grudge against Orrin. Could the old woman possibly be tech-savvy enough to evade all the security cameras, find the one unsecured door, and get all the way up to the garage without being seen? Not to mention she’d have to know where the control panel was for the motion-sensor lights inside the garage. It didn’t seem plausible.
Lacey scanned the searchers plodding around. When she spotted Terry, she hurried over, waving.
He waved back. “Lacey! How’s it going up there?”
Mindful of Ben at her back, she said neutrally, “About what you’d expect. Can I introduce you to Ben Caine? He’s twins with Bart, who we met last week at Jake’s. What can you tell us about today’s search?”
He led them to the map shelter and pointed out the quadrants that search teams had covered thoroughly.
Ben asked why they’d started with those and listened carefully to the answers. Then he said, “What about the drone that can pick up phone signals?”
Terry said, “The operator’s followed all the roads away from the ranch, looking for Orrin’s signal. If it was in range, the phone was either turned off or smashed. It could be running out of power by now, too.”
Ben frowned. “Did they search for Ty’s phone at the same time, or is each number a separate search?”
It was Terry’s turn to frown. “There’s a second phone with the vehicle?”
“Yeah, if they’re still together. And Ty’s is newer. It should hold a charge longer, right?”
Terry beckoned them as he hurried to the search manager’s command RV. “Garry,” he called, “did anybody give us the boy’s phone number?”
A man hunched over a laptop shook his head. “Only one for the old man.”
“Well, there should be a second one.” Ben pulled out his phone to call up his little brother’s contact information. On his lock screen was a photo of two nearly identical boys. Him and Bart as youngsters, or Tyrone and Michael last week? After he’d given Ty’s number to the search coordinator, Lacey asked about the photo. Ben scrolled back to it. “This one? Yeah, Andy sent it to me on Friday when Michael was at the ranch. They look so much alike, it’s almost impossible to believe they’re not related.”
“That’s what she said the first time we saw them together.” Lacey thought back to Jake’s and the dessert buffet on the terrace. Not even a week ago, but it seemed like a different lifetime. “Maybe a trick of genetics or a distant connection. It was obvious from Orrin’s probing questions that he’d never met Michael’s mother before. She was really uncomfortable with him.”
“Orrin has that effect. Anything else you have to do here?”
A nearby searcher called Ben’s name. She came running over, short, fit, tanned, and filthy from a long, sweaty day out in the bush. She threw herself at him, wrapping her arms and legs around him in a full-body hug. He hugged her back and then set her on her feet, laughing. “Lacey, meet Julie. We worked together on the Ghost Wilderness Land-Use Survey. Julie, meet Lacey.”
The woman eyed Lacey from her dirty-blond hair to her dusty workboots. The message was clear: Are you competition? Lacey shook her head and turned away to talk to Terry.
The sun was well down behind the mountains when Lacey parked once more in the ranch’s staff lot. She logged the kilometres in the book and climbed out into the green twilight, wincing as her booted feet landed on the gravel.
Ben, coming around the vehicle, winced in sympathy. “Sore feet?”
“Yeah, I’ve been in these boots since breakfast.”
“Sure it’s not from climbing yesterday? You use a lot of tiny muscles keeping your edge on those footholds.”
“Huh. I forgot all about that.”
Ben grinned. “Forgot the pain, time to climb again. Coming back to the cabin now?”
She shook her head. “I’ve got to do my nightly camera check and write my day’s report for my boss. Please tell Andy I’ll be happy to chat with her if she’s still up in an hour.” Truthfully, she wasn’t that happy. She wanted no more emotional drama, just a shower and a soak for her aching feet, and then bed. But she was a guest in Andy’s cabin, and if a chat tonight would smooth their relationship for the rest of her stay, she’d do it.
Ben said, “Six-thirty in the gym tomorrow? I’ll make you my famous eggs again afterward.”
“How can I resist?” After the day’s revelation about Bart, she need not shun Ben on the grounds that he was an unethical jerk. She didn’t know how or when his affair with Andy had started, but Ben as much as Bart was Andy’s physical type, and it seemed she wasn’t getting sex from her husband. Five years without would incline any hot-blooded woman to stray.
While she’d been thinking this through, she’d been strolling with Ben toward the nearest garage entrance. As she raised her fob he said, “Have fun. I’m going to grab a nap before I go back on the gate. See you in the morning.”
She nodded good night as he headed off along the driveway, and she paused with her hand on the door. The air was cooling at last. The fir trees were releasing their spicy scents to the dew. It was a terrible time to shut herself in the office again. After the report was sent, she’d stretch out on the main terrace for a bit before she went home, or even suggest to Andy that they have their chat outside. As if to encourage her, an owl hooted somewhere nearby. The breeze sounded like the flutter of wings. Reluctantly, she pulled the door shut behind her and climbed the stairs to the second floor.
Ike’s apartment was quiet, but the sound of TV came from the kitchen staff’s dorm. Someone’s phone rang as she passed. She paused with one foot raised. Why hadn’t SAR been given Tyrone’s phone number from the first? Was it oversight, or obstruction? Did they have the correct number for Orrin for sure? Yanking her phone out, she texted Terry Brenner. Double-check that SAR has Orrin’s correct current cell #. Then she trudged along the upper hall, her boots scuffing the brown all-purpose carpeting.
The building’s metal joists pinged as they cooled. The storerooms rustled and creaked, overheated plastics and fabrics driving out the earlier aroma of dew-kissed pines. Would it hurt to open her office window and maybe prop the door open to get a breeze moving through? It wasn’t environmentally friendly, but fresh air might keep her more alert.
The security office door didn’t want to accept its alarm code. Maybe the heat had got to it, too, or there’d been a power surge while she was down at the airstrip. The error code was showing, as if the sequence had been entered incorrectly. She cleared it and tried again, but got the flashing -ERR- that signalled too many wrong entries. Muttering, she keyed in the master override and reset the alarm code, texting the change to Wayne for his records.
The office dust coated her nostrils immediately. She pulled up the blind, admiring the moon that was creeping over the roof while she opened the window wide, and wedged the door open with a coat hanger in the hinge. Then she settled down at the desk, ignoring the canned laughter from the cooks’ TV. Dropping her phone into the desk dock, she plugged in names of artists Andy had listened to on the drive into Calgary. Those lazy guitars would ease the summer night, even if the lyrics focused a bit too much on lost loves, about which she had no sentimental feelings at all.
After she’d been typing awhile, the wind freshened. The sudden chill raised goosebumps on her arms. The door behind her shifted. She looked, but it was only swinging against the hanger that held it open. The hallway beyond was silent. The cooks must have gone to bed. She turned her music down a bit lest it disturb them and added another section to her report, a list of last week’s visitors whose plane times or whereabouts for Monda
y night needed to be checked.
The door whined as another gust came in. A cloud raced over the moon’s face, casting the rooftop and skylights into shadow. A new, harder-driving song came on, and she tapped her feet to the beat as she plugged in the last few names on her report. She hit Send, exited out of the program, and heard a thump that didn’t match the music. The door again?
As she turned to reach for it, a black shape stepped through.
She started to her feet, but not fast enough. The figure leaped behind her chair, pinning her at the desk. An arm went around her throat. She grabbed the black sleeve with both hands. A gloved hand yanked her left wrist away. She pushed off with her feet, slamming the chair across the small office, crushing her assailant against the wall. A grunt came above her, but the arm tightened around her throat.
Nightmare images of Dan’s assaults flooded her mind. Would she die here, now, when he was a whole province away? Panic choked her, as completely as the arm dragging her upward by her neck. Black spots spread in her eyes. She shoved her right hand into the elbow gap and made a fist, forcing the arm to loosen a fraction. Meanwhile, she untangled herself from the chair and kicked the base backward with all the power in her legs. It crashed and bounced back to buckle her knees. The arm at her neck yanked her up again. When she kicked the next time, the chair tipped. She shoved it backward hard and heard a muffled gasp before it was pushed aside.
Fully upright at last, pulled tight to a muscular body, she yanked her left wrist free and elbowed her attacker. The grip at her throat eased fractionally. As she caught a breath, the other gloved fist recaptured her left wrist. They jerked across the floor in a crazy polonaise.
Without warning, the attacker dropped her wrist and punched her in the ribs. Her old scar tissue screamed. She braced her free hand on the desk to keep from falling and kicked backward with all her might. Her boot connected with a shin. Hot breath gasped in her ear. She’d hurt them. Good.
As she kicked again, the assailant loosed her throat, but only to grab her neck from behind. Her head slammed onto the desk. Stars danced behind her eyelids. Blood stung her mouth. Heavy shoulders fell across her back, pinning her down. She snatched where hair should be and got only a handful of black wool. A gloved hand grabbed her index finger and bent it back until she had to let go. Something scraped across the desk. She wrapped her loose arm over her head and braced for another blow.
Why the Rock Falls Page 19