A Dark Lure

by Loreth Anne White

There was no manual for this. No checklist he could follow that would help his daughter with her sudden weight gain, her spotty complexion. Her anger. Her guilt. He’d tried taking her to a therapist, but Tori called the guy an idiot and refused to go back.

  God, he needed a therapist himself—he missed Melody more than he had words for.

  He got out of the truck and walked slowly out onto the grass rise in front of the cabin. He looked out over the aquamarine lake toward the snow-dusted mountains in the distance. The air out here was so cool and clean you could drink it.

  Was he out there somewhere?

  Wind whispered suddenly through the lodgepole pines, yellow leaves skittering across the grass. A chill tickled over his skin. With it came a thread of fear. Could he control this? Could he keep them all safe?

  Or had he set something utterly reckless in motion? Fear deepened. A different kind of fear—a question about the soundness of his own mind, his own grasp on reality.

  No. You’re fine. You’re doing the right thing. For Tori.

  For Sarah.

  His mind turned again to Sarah—Olivia. Gage had been worried she might recognize him, but his fears appeared groundless. He hadn’t been directly involved with her case. The big honchos had come up from Surrey, formed a federal task force, and taken it over. But Watt Lake had been his detachment. He’d been the boss there, and he’d been privy to investigation details. He’d watched the Sebastian George interrogations, and he’d looked in on most of the interviews with Sarah.

  His appearance had also been very different back then. He’d been lean, bordering on thin, with a trademark handlebar moustache and a full head of neatly trimmed dark hair.

  Time wrought big changes on some people, very little on others.

  He took out his cell and found a hillock in front of the cabin where he managed to pick up a few bars of reception.

  He dialed Mac Yakima’s number. He wanted to know if they’d learned anything more about the Birkenhead homicide. His call flipped straight to voice mail. He pocketed his phone and went into the cabin. The interior was cozy. Clean. Rustic. Tori was behind a closed door in one of the bedrooms. He built a fire in the cast-iron stove, and once it was crackling, he knocked on her door.

  “Tori?”

  She made a muffled sound.

  “I’m going to take a walk, okay? Take a recon of the area.”

  No response.

  “Don’t go anywhere until I get back. If you need something to eat, it’s in the camper.”

  Silence.

  Cole found the two-way radio in a charger on the office counter. Beside it was a copy of today’s Province. The front-page headline was about the Birkenhead murder. Above it, in bold block letters, was written Olivia West’s name and the ranch address.

  Cole scanned the story. In the middle of the text was a teaser for a related op-ed piece on page six. Cole turned to page six. Nestled there, between the pages, was a plastic ziplock baggie containing a lurid, lime-green fishing lure with three red eyes.

  Frowning, he picked up the bag and studied the lure. It wasn’t a trout fly—too big. More likely for winter steelhead or big fighting salmon.

  He keyed the radio. “Olivia, this is Cole for Olivia.” He released the key, waited as he continued to examine the fly. It was an unusual design.

  Static crackled.

  He keyed the radio again. “Olivia? You out there?”

  “What is it?” Her voice came through, irritable.

  “My father has demanded to see you.”

  “What?”

  “Myron. He wants to see you.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes, now. Before he has a heart attack. Wants both of us in the library to announce something.” Summoned like bloody schoolkids.

  She muttered a curse then said, “Tell him I’ll be there in ten.”

  He stuck the packet with the fly back into page six and gathered up the newspaper addressed to her. He’d give it to her upstairs.

  Olivia tossed the radio onto the truck seat and stared at the hole in the fencing, a roll of wire in her gloved hand. She was reluctant to be here alone, but she was also determined to do it alone, to stand up to her fear. To draw a line with Cole. He ate up way too much of her space.

  And now he wanted her back at the lodge. Jump. Just like that. The McDonough men had summoned.

  Her face heated. In the few hours that Cole had been on Broken Bar Ranch he’d learned things about her no one else knew, or had seen. The memory of his touch at the small of her back washed through her, and she clenched her jaw, hating the fact she’d welcomed it. Needed it. Taken comfort in having someone at her back.

  She hated that she found him physically attractive. She told herself she could deal with that. It was the compassion, the pity, the kindness she couldn’t handle. It made her feel like Sarah Baker again. An outcast. A rape victim. A curiosity.

  She whirled around and dumped the wire back into the truck bed and marched round to the driver’s side. But she stopped short as she noticed fresh boot prints in the black mud atop the tire tracks. They hadn’t been here when she’d come through with Cole.

  A cool whisper threaded through her. They were the same size as the prints that had followed her own track yesterday. Her gaze shot to the hole in the fence. Both the prints and the tire tracks led into deep forest. Again she was touched by a sense of being watched. She swallowed.

  Then cursed. Opening her door, she scooted Ace over, climbed in, removed her gloves, and rubbed her hands hard over her face. Once she’d felt so safe here. She’d begun to believe she could actually be normal.

  How could her world have changed so fast?

  Olivia pushed open the library door, her tool belt still slung at her hips—she wasn’t planning on staying long. She’d hear Myron out, then return to fix that fence. She was determined to do it. The bruise on her temple throbbed under the butterfly bandage she’d applied.

  Myron hunkered in his chair by the fire. Cole looked uncomfortable in the wingback opposite him. Father and son. Past and present. The imagery was suddenly stark and caught her by surprise.

  “What’s so urgent?” she said to Myron.

  “You shouldn’t have done it. I told you not to call him.” Myron jerked his head toward his son.

  Cole’s jaw stiffened. Even seated, his posture was combative, yet controlled.

  “Look, it’s done, Myron,” she said coolly. “And I’m sorry—it was a mistake. But I know what it’s like not having closure, not being able to say good-bye. And I thought . . .” Emotion snared her out of left field. She cleared her throat. “I’m done meddling. You two sort yourselves out. The ranch still needs running.” She turned to leave.

  “Wait. I summoned you here because you both need to hear this. I’m leaving the ranch to Olivia in trust.”

  She froze, turned back slowly. “Excuse me?”

  Myron turned his attention to Cole. “And since you’ve taken the trouble to finally come home now that I’m kicking the bucket, you can be the one to phone Jane and make damn sure she knows this as well.”

  Myron wheeled yet closer to his son, his eyes boring into him, his hands clenched tight on his chair wheels. “I called Norton Pickett, my estate lawyer, about an hour ago. I’ve asked him to draw up a new will, and to bring me copies to sign as soon as he’s done. Broken Bar Ranch goes in trust to Olivia. For as long as she wants to live here—until she leaves the ranch, or she dies—it’s hers. Everything. She does what she wants to the place. You, or Jane, or Clayton Forbes and his vultures, can’t touch a thing. And I know Forbes is after this place. I know you and Jane both want to sell to him.”

  Olivia stared. Cole didn’t speak.

  The fire crackled, and the tick tock of the library clock grew loud. A shutter began to bang rhythmically in the increasing wind.

  �
�What do you mean by ‘in trust’?” Cole said finally.

  Myron repeated himself slowly. “For as long as Olivia wants to live here and manage the Broken Bar Ranch, it’s hers to run. Until she dies. Or until she leaves of her own volition. After that it can go to you and Jane. If you outlive her.”

  A soft noise sounded at the door behind Olivia. She swung around.

  Adele stood white-faced in the doorway with a heavy tray in her hands. “Ah, sorry, I . . . uh . . . I have the tea and sandwiches you wanted brought up, Mr. McDonough.”

  “Put it over there,” Myron snapped, pointing at the buffet.

  She bustled over, moved aside a newspaper that was on the buffet, and set the tray down. The noises of teacups rattling and sandwich plates being set out was unnaturally loud as all waited in tense silence for the housekeeper to leave.

  “Close the door when you go, Adele.”

  “Of course, Mr. McDonough.”

  She cast a quick glance over her shoulder, briefly meeting Cole’s eyes before she exited the library door.

  As soon as the door was shut, Olivia said, “You’re not thinking clearly, Myron. You’re under a lot of medication, and this is—”

  “Goddammit, girl, I don’t have brain damage. I’m thinking more clearly than I have in years. I debated this at length last night. It’s done. Nothing you can do to change it, either.”

  “It’s not done. You just said yourself that Pickett has yet to draw up the papers. You haven’t signed anything yet.”

  “It’s as good as signed,” he said. “Pickett should have the paperwork here by this evening. He understands the sensitive time factor.”

  She threw a desperate look at Cole. “Say something. This is your inheritance. Your land.”

  “It’s not his goddamn land,” Myron interjected. “He left this place years ago. He can’t just waltz back in now that I’m at death’s door.”

  “There is—”

  “Olivia,” Cole said quietly. “Let it go. This cuts much deeper than the will. This is about me and my father and what happened twenty-three years ago. He blames me for killing my mother and brother.”

  “I will not let it go, dammit!” she snapped, heat riding high into her cheeks. “I won’t accept this. I don’t want this ranch. I can’t take it from you.”

  Cole gave a derisive snort. “That’s certainly not what Jane thinks. She’s convinced you’ve been using your feminine wiles to exert undue influence over our ailing father in his vulnerable state.”

  Her jaw dropped. “And you believe that?”

  “Well, it clearly looks like Jane was on to something, given this recent development.”

  “You bastard. You’re just attacking me to rile your father. You’re better than this.”

  His mouth flattened, and he regarded her with silent equanimity.

  Anger pounded into her chest. “I don’t give a damn what you or your sister think about me, Cole McDonough.” She spun to face Myron. “And you—I won’t take the ranch from you or your children. You’re being a jerk.”

  “What is it that you think belongs to them, anyway? This land? This home? They left both. They just want some developer’s windfall. And you? You’ve got nowhere to go. I know you love this place. I know what you could do with it. You could make Grace’s dreams come true, turn this place into a year-round destination.”

  “Right,” Cole said quietly. “It’s all about Mother. Always has been.”

  “My resignation will be on your desk tomorrow,” Olivia said. “I’m not getting involved in some family legal squabble. You’re forcing me to leave.”

  Myron grunted. “And where exactly will you go? You have no friends, woman. Apart from a dying old man, an irascible sod who let his whole family slip away.”

  Cole’s gaze darted to his father, his brow rising as if this was the first time he’d ever heard his father admit any culpability in the dissolution of their family.

  “This is not about me, Myron. This is you trying to hurt your son, and him lashing back at you. It’s about stupid old battle lines between two macho assholes who can’t the hell see that those lines don’t mean a thing anymore.”

  Myron gasped, doubled over in his chair as if he’d been punched in the abdomen. His face contorted, turned puce. His breaths came out in wheezes. He hit the arm of his chair, as if trying to speak.

  “His pills!” Cole barked, lurching up and lunging for the pitcher of water at his father’s side. “On the buffet. Get them.”

  Cole sloshed water into a glass.

  Olivia rushed to the buffet, grabbed the pills, knocking a newspaper onto the floor. The headline blared up at her.

  “Birkenhead murder—echoes of the Watt Lake Killer?”

  A ringing began in her ears.

  “Pills, dammit! Now!”

  She hurried over, handed Cole the pills.

  “How many?” Cole said to her, popping the cap, anxiety, adrenaline burning in his eyes.

  But she couldn’t think. The ringing in her head grew loud. She felt herself going distant. His father held up two fingers. Cole shook two pills into his palm, put them in the old man’s mouth, brought the water glass to his lips.

  Myron spluttered. Swallowed. Coughed. He clenched his armrests, his head bent forward and his eyes scrunched tightly as he waited for the medication to take effect. Gradually his breathing eased, and his whole face seemed to change. Tension melted from Cole’s shoulders. Olivia watched, numb, unable to fully absorb the present. She swallowed, walked woodenly back to the buffet, picked up the newspaper from the floor.

  Her name was printed in block letters across the top of the headline. Her gaze dropped to the teaser for the op-ed piece. She opened the paper to page six.

  On some distant level she felt Cole watching her.

  Something fell out of the pages and landed at her feet. A small plastic bag. She bent down, retrieved it.

  Inside was a large fishing lure. Tied with lime-green surveyor’s tape. Three glossy red eyes. Shimmering holographic thread around a barbed hook on a leader.

  The ringing in her ears rose to a screeching cacophony. Sweat prickled across her lip.

  “Where . . . did this come from?” Her voice came out in a hoarse whisper.

  “It was inside the newspaper like that when it was delivered to the office this morning,” Cole said, standing behind his father, his hand resting protectively on the back of the wheelchair. “I brought it upstairs.”

  “We don’t get delivery.”

  “I just assumed it was delivered. It has your name and the ranch address on it.”

  She stared at the lure. “It was inside the office?”

  “On the counter.”

  Blood drained from her head. Nausea washed up into her throat.

  “It’s not possible,” she whispered.

  “What’s not possible? What’s the problem, Olivia?”

  “Did you see who left it in there?”

  “I have no idea who left it. Whoever it was must have come in between the time you left and the time I got down there to use the radio.”

  It’s not possible. It can’t be him. He’s dead . . .

  She turned, and, clutching the paper and the packet with the lure, she walked woodenly, a zombie, one foot carefully placed in front of the other, like a drunk focused on looking sober.

  She opened the door. Stepped out. Shut it quietly behind her.

  CHAPTER 10

  “What upset her like that?” Myron said.

  “Beyond your leaving her the ranch and me acting like a jerk? I think it was that story in the paper about a murder.” Cole frowned at the closed door that Olivia had just exited so oddly. “It was breaking on television news downstairs. When she saw it, it was like she’d taken a twelve-gauge slug to the chest. Collapsed to the floor.”

 
; “What murder?”

  “Two teens found the naked body of a woman hanging from a tree by her neck. She’d been gutted like a deer. Entrails hanging out, eyes removed.”

  Myron stared, worry etching into his features. “Do they know who did it?”

  “Cops aren’t saying much. But there was an op-ed piece in the paper suggesting the murder had echoes of the Watt Lake killings from over a decade ago.”

  Myron’s eyes narrowed sharply, an intensity boiling up around him. “And in the packet—what was in that packet she had in her hands?”

  “A fishing lure. Someone must have left it for her tucked inside the paper. The paper had her name on it.”

  “Go,” Myron said quietly, urgently. “Go after her.” He rolled his chair aggressively toward the door as if he would get up and run after the woman himself if his legs would bend to his will. “Don’t leave her alone like that.” His eyes flared to Cole. “You saw the scars on her wrists?” He pointed at the door. “That woman tried to kill herself once already, and it wasn’t long before she came here. When she arrived on Broken Bar those scars were livid and raw. This news has something to do with her past. It’s reminding her of something.”

  Cole hesitated, then moved quickly out the door and into the passage. He leaned over the stairwell banister. “Olivia?” he called down the stairs.

  The front door banged shut.

  Cole clattered down after her.

  His father yelled from the landing. “Just don’t press her too hard—you’ll spook her! She’s feral that way!”

  Fuckfuckfuck.

  Olivia stormed down the lawn, hand fisted around the newspaper and lure. Her single goal was to reach her cabin, fast, shut her door to the world—to the dark nightmares chasing her into the grove of alders. As she entered the trees, the paper-white bark with black streaks looked suddenly ominous. Leaves clattered and laughed at her in the mounting wind. They blew against her skin, edges dry and sharp.

  She’d fought within inches of her life to bury the person she once was, to lock naïve, stupid, victimized Sarah Baker into the basement of her soul, throw away the key. She’d struggled into this new identity. This new life.