by M K Dymock
“They speculated it might be you because you’d come to some family thing.” Ryan caught her eye. “But they figured you were too smart to fall for him.” His eyes widened as he waited for confirmation of her intelligence.
“I didn’t break Patrick’s heart.” She pulled into the driveway of the cabin.
“Did he break yours?”
She laughed. “Oh, Ryan, getting hurt requires taking a risk. I don’t take risks.”
“Really?” His tone of voice called out her obvious lie.
“At least not on guys…at least on most guys.” Why had she added that last part? Her face flushed, and she was very grateful the Jeep’s dome light hadn’t come on when she parked.
“What if he was in love with you?”
“What if he was? What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Maybe he was jealous.”
“Of Phil? That makes no sense.”
“No, of me.” She could feel the flush fill his cheeks, and she wondered how invisible she had been. “It’s just, from the moment I met him, he didn’t like me. Seemed really irked when I mentioned having lunch with you.”
She turned off the engine, and the heat disappeared. “And what? He killed Phil thinking he was you?”
“You’re right; it’s a dumb thought.”
“Yeah, nobody is going to kill someone over me.” She’d once had two guys fight over her. But they were literally fighting across the table she sat at in the bar. The fight had been about another girl.
“I meant no guy is ever going to be jealous about me,” Ryan said. “The other guy knows he can beat me.”
Had there been any light, Mina would’ve never done what she did. She never, ever made the first move. But somehow she found Ryan’s hand and linked her fingers with his. “Patrick doesn’t beat you,” she whispered, feeling incredibly stupid. Had she really just said that?
Ryan’s hand closed over hers. He leaned over the console separating them. In the darkness, he missed his first try. She helped him with the second.
As his hand moved up her arm, stupid common sense reminded her of who she was and who he was. “We can’t,” she said, after letting his hand linger a little longer. “Not with things being what they are.”
He leaned back in his seat and took a deep breath. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
Part of her wanted him to press things, but a bigger part of her liked that she didn’t have to argue the point.
He opened the door, heralding in a much-needed rush of cold air. “Good night. Careful driving home.”
She gripped the steering wheel and only nodded back as he walked inside. Mina was about 90 percent sure Patrick wasn’t in love with her. However, she was 100 percent sure she didn’t have feelings for him.
As she pulled out onto the dark road, a thought came to her so fast she slammed on the brakes. “No,” she said out loud. “Patrick wouldn’t.”
47
Mina sat beside Patrick on a small cot in the windowless room they called a cell, his usual cocky grin wiped away. “How long were you and Cate dating?”
His eyes slowly met Mina’s. “This just between us?”
“I don’t know if I can promise that.”
“I just don’t want to mess up her life.”
“Holy cow, you are in love.” She almost laughed, but the circumstances stopped that outburst. “So how long?”
“We started at the end of summer. I lost my housing around Thanksgiving and stayed with her for a few weeks.” He gripped the edge of the cot. “But I never was around her kids. She’s a good mom.”
“How’d you manage that?”
“I wouldn’t come in until they were asleep and left pretty early.”
Sol sat just outside the door, listening in. They both figured Patrick would be more apt to talk to her. “It ended when her husband came back,” Mina said. That was less a question and more a statement.
“It didn’t exactly end.”
“Oh, Patrick. You know better than that.”
“It’s not what you think.” He stood up and paced. “They’re separated and getting a divorce. Then he shows up beginning of December and wants to work things out. They hadn’t told the kids yet, and she didn’t want to toss him out before Christmas.” He turned to Mina with a pleading expression. “After Christmas, they’ll announce it, and we’ll be able to be together.”
Mina had heard similar desperate words from heartbroken friends over the years, but Patrick? She wouldn’t have believed him capable of that emotion. “Does James know?”
“I don’t think so, but he can’t find out. Mina, Cate says he’s got a temper and can be controlling. Part of the reason she moved here was to get away from him. She figured with his work, this was the last place he’d want to live.”
“Patrick, did you kill Phil?”
“Why would I?” he said. “What’s that got to do with any of this?”
“Phil and Cate met for dinner. Maybe you thought he was competition.”
“That’s insane,” Patrick exploded, making Mina inch away from him. “Cate just went out with him to organize some sort of gathering for those morons. No way she was interested in that dude.”
Mina stood, not surer of his innocence than she had been ten minutes ago. The man proved capable of a lot deeper feelings than she’d given him credit for.
Sol followed her back into the office after she closed and locked the cell behind her. “How did you know about the relationship?” Sol asked.
“His old winter boots were in Cate’s hall closet.” She explained about his need to buy new boots every season.
“Hold up.” Sol went to the wall where they’d pinned several photos from the crime scene. After scanning all of them, and apparently not finding what he looked for, he went back to his office. Before she could ask what was going on, he returned with a stack of printed photos.
She looked over his shoulder as he spread them out on their conference table. “I didn’t much look at the footprints around the campsite; I only focused on the crime scene.”
“There,” he said, pointing at a shot of tracks going in and out of the tent. “I did spend a lot of time here, though, trying to understand how Phil made it back to the tent.”
“Okay.” She didn’t see what had struck him.
“Those are Patrick’s tracks. Everyone said he went in to apply first aid.” He grabbed a photo with the footprints in blood. “These are the same tread. It’s hard to tell from a photo, but I swear the tracks by the tent and the tracks where Phil was attacked are from two different people.”
Mina stared at the photo. “How do you know?” She didn’t ask out of doubt—nobody doubted Sol’s tracking skills—but she wanted to learn.
“The weights in the snow were different. The original tracks pressed more deeply into the snow and on the heel. And it’s hard to be sure, but the tread might be different. We need those boots,” Sol said.
“I know where they are.”
48
Sol put in a call to the county attorney to get a warrant for the boots. She promised to call back in a hurry, which, going by bureaucracy and their remoteness to anything resembling a judge, could be an hour or a few days.
“So who wore the boots?” Mina asked. “You’ve got the O’Briens, Michael, and Ryan.” She flinched a little when she said Ryan’s name. Hoping Sol didn’t notice her stumble, she continued. “You think one of them brought the boots up to deliberately frame Patrick? Why not steal his boots from the tent?”
Sol went through his office door before sitting at his desk and turning on his computer. Mina followed Sol, who closed the door behind her. “We also need to consider Cate and James Ellis.”
“Sean doesn’t think anyone is capable of finding their way up that trail outside family.”
“Thinking isn’t knowing.” Sol, who thought better with a map, pulled out the forest service map and spread it out. “We’ve got two options. First, someone snuck up the trail at n
ight, committed the murder, and got out without being seen or heard. Or, the murderer was someone in camp with access to the Ellises’ home.”
Mina didn’t want to say it, didn’t want to believe it. “Ryan…” She swallowed and started again. “Cate invited Ryan over for dinner. I don’t know for sure if he went.” Not wanting a response, she plunged forward. “But she could’ve reached out to Michael about hosting some sort of gathering. We can ask her.”
Sol leaned back in his chair. “I don’t want to tip them off until we have the warrant for the boots. Everyone with access is still a suspect. Keep digging into Phil. We need to know who had motive and if they had access.”
Mina returned to her desk and forced herself to think about anything but Ryan, which meant she spent way too much time thinking about Ryan. Two men she’d dated were both suspected of murder; it was time to take a break from the little dating she did.
Maybe it was exhaustion at reading the same story of Phil’s rise to success again and again, but when she opened up the last link, she ignored the story and looked at the headline. Below that she saw the byline, and everything changed. They finally had a connection.
The reporter’s name was Grayson Moore.
49
Ryan, who traded on awkwardness, tried desperately to find something to say to the girl who sat in the passenger seat of Phil’s Range Rover. What words are there for someone who has had both parents die?
Natalie had no way to get to her father’s house, and Ryan had no way to pick her up. He apologized three times for driving Phil’s car, promising it would be hers. She didn’t really care, she said, one way or the other. Now they rode in silence.
He had nothing to offer her about the death other than what he’d first told her. Her brother had cancelled his flight, not ready yet to deal.
“Are you staying here?” she asked as they pulled into the driveway of a cozy cabin that belonged in a postcard.
“No, I’m at the hotel.” He’d already packed his stuff, not wanting to be in her way.
He helped her carry her bags into the house, and they both stood there uncertainly. “He’s really gone, isn’t he?” she said in a voice far younger than her twenty years.
Ryan so desperately wanted there to be another answer to that question. “He talked about you and your brother all the time.”
She turned away from Ryan to stare at the window facing the jagged peaks of the Lost Gorge mountains. “He wanted us to come for Christmas, but we both have retail jobs and couldn’t leave.”
“He said he was proud of you two for making your own way.”
She turned around. “Did he tell you it was his idea? He’d pay for our tuition, he said, but everything else was up to us.” She spoke without anger. “It was okay, though. For a long time, he was just a paper millionaire. It wasn’t until he sold the company the real money came in, and by that time we were grown.”
Ryan longed for a word, any word that could make this bearable for her. “He told me once he regretted all the work he did when you were young. Said at that time he thought his payday was just around the corner. Then he went around the corner and you were grown and your mom was gone.”
Natalie flinched when he mentioned her mother. “Then he up and decided to chase fake monsters in the woods with you.” Now the bitterness came in.
Ryan decided he’d better go before he said anything else to cause pain. He’d set his stuff in the back of the Range Rover in case Natalie could drop him off at the hotel, but he didn’t want to bother her.
As he pulled his bags out of the back, he noticed a small box marked “Sasquatch Research.” Figuring that would upset Natalie more, he grabbed it along with his stuff.
Ryan needed a ride and wouldn’t ask Natalie, didn’t dare ask Mina, and figured Uber didn’t operate here. He only knew one other person to call: James.
It wasn’t James who pulled up; it was his wife, Cate.
Ryan sat in the passenger seat, having offered his thanks without knowing what else to say. In situations like this, he defaulted to saying nothing. His bag went in the back seat, but the box perched on his lap. He was curious to know what Phil had gathered about Bigfoot that he hadn’t shared with Ryan.
Cate pulled out onto the highway. “James has been wanting you and Mina to come over for dinner one of these nights. How long are you planning to stay in town?”
“I don’t know. I was only due to come for a week, but with everything that’s gone on, I want to stay longer.” He popped open the top of the box, and it wasn’t the Bigfoot stuff he’d been expecting. Instead, a bunch of financial papers and folders filled the box. Ryan pulled out a stack to see if anything was underneath.
“What’s that?” Cate asked with forced brightness.
He took the hint she didn’t want to talk about a death. “Some of my friend’s financial files I grabbed by mistake. I’ll have to run it back to his daughter tomorrow.”
Cate signaled as she slowed for a gas station. “Sorry, I want to fill up while I have the chance. My house is in the boonies.” She pushed open her door. “Let me throw your stuff in the back.” Before he could protest, she’d come around and grabbed the box and threw it in the cargo hold.
Blessed silence filled the rest of the way to the hotel. “I’m sorry about your friend,” Cate offered as they pulled into the parking lot.
Ryan mumbled something along the lines of “Thanks, I mean, I guess.” He jumped out of the car and grabbed his gear from the back. He was pulling open the doors of the hotel before he remembered the box in the back seat.
He’d never acquired Cate’s cell but sent a quick text to James. Hopefully, they could run it back before Cate got too far. He wanted to return the files as quickly as possible. If Phil had set it out, it might be important.
With his phone still out and out of curiosity, he punched in the name of the company he’d seen on the financial papers, HealthE Solutions. Without realizing it, he’d searched in image mode, and the first images that popped up were mostly of James and one of Cate. He clicked on the image of Cate, and it brought an article about “Catherine O’Brien Hardaway, the woman behind the man.”
Ryan stopped in the lobby, staring at his phone, oblivious to the clerk asking him for a reservation. He didn’t know Cate was an O’Brien, but considering how many O’Briens he’d met in the last week, it shouldn’t be that much of a surprise.
Why did Phil have a box filled with papers about a company James and Cate owned? Phil had been a brilliant financier. Had James requested help with something? Ryan didn’t know what was in that box or who it belonged to, but he didn’t want to lose something of Phil’s.
He would pick it up that day.
Mina’s number went to voicemail. He punched the number of Sean O’Brien.
50
With a message to Grayson’s sister to call her back immediately, Mina and Sol turned their attention to Patrick.
Mina sat across from her former friend, taking note of his black eye and wondering which fist had met a target. “I noticed your old boots in Cate’s coat closet. It’s how we knew about the affair.”
“I’m not talking about Cate.”
“We’re not here about Cate,” Sol said. “We’re here about the boots.”
“Why?” Before either could respond, understanding creased his face. “You think someone else wore them to kill Phil. I knew you didn’t think I could do it.” He jumped to his feet and punched the air in front of him before enveloping Mina in hug.
Mina gasped, and he returned her to her feet. “We’re still investigating.”
He ignored that. “If you think they were used in the murder, why would Cate have them?” The jubilance of the moment left him. “James?”
“Why would James kill Phil?”
“Because he’s violent; maybe he thought she was with Phil. Is she safe, the kids?” He slammed his hand against the desk. “Of course she’s not. She’s been trying to get away from him for a year.”
“No, not in so many words, but I could tell she was nervous about him. Said she wanted to be a thousand miles away when he got the divorce papers. Maybe that’s what brought him back.”
“Can you call her about getting your boots back?” If Patrick picked them up, it would save a warrant. “But be chill about it,” Mina said, “like it’s not a big deal. We don’t want her to inadvertently tip James off.”
Cate’s voice came through the phone with a softness Mina had never heard in the woman’s tone as she answered Patrick’s call. “Are you okay? I heard you were arrested.”
“I’m okay. I freaked out on the guy who I thought killed Phil.”
“They have someone? Who is it?”
“He’s nobody, just someone who was up at the camp with us.” He explained about his boots getting taken by the police. “I can’t find my old pair, and I think I left them there.”
“I don’t think I’ve seen them,” she said with some hesitation. “But I’ll look.”
Grayson’s sister returned Mina’s call and wasted no time with a greeting. “Have you heard anything about Gray?”
“No, sorry. I take it he still hasn’t been in touch.”
“No.” Her pain stretched all the way from New York. “He hasn’t called the kids to wish them a Merry Christmas, not even a gift. He hasn’t forgotten once since they were born.”
“I’m curious about his career. You said he used to work financial articles a few years ago. Why did he stop?”
“He’s been floundering a bit after his divorce, trying to find his next path. Got tired of doing a bunch of stories about rich people or people willing to do anything to get rich. That’s why he started doing the outdoors stuff, but that was just a Band-Aid.”
That truth cut a little too close to Mina. “Are you familiar with some of the articles he wrote?”