by Kathi Daley
“No,” Tony shook his head. “I think he’s pretty stumped. It seems like Theo did a good job of cleaning up after himself. We know he had at least one other man with him, but probably more since at least one man was on the boat, and at least one was in the water. He used your mother’s boat to search for something beneath the surface of the lake on two separate nights, yet there was no evidence left behind. No prints, no trash, nothing.”
“If Theo killed Anton, I just can’t imagine why.”
“We’ve discussed that your dad must have known Anton. I really think that your father has to be the link.”
“Maybe. Dad did live in White Eagle as Grant Thomas for a lot of years. Although he was away from home more often than he was in town, he still knew a lot of people. I can’t see how simply knowing Anton would get him killed. There has to be more to it.”
Tony sprinkled grated parmesan on his pasta. “I suppose that might be a question to ask your father. I know he told Mike that he didn’t think Anton’s death was linked to Theo, but I also know you said that you felt he was lying, and most of the time, you have a good feel for that sort of thing.”
“We really do need to pin Dad down when we speak to him.” I took a bite of my pasta. “Did you add something to the sauce? It seems different. Good, but different.”
“I added some saffron, and I changed up a few of the other spices a bit. I guess I was in the mood to experiment. I do like the way it turned out, although I like the old spice palate as well.”
“I remember how lucky I felt when we first started dating, and I realized that you were a god in the kitchen. I still feel that way. This really is delicious. If you ever get tired of doing the computer thing, you can open your own restaurant.”
“Too much work and too many hours. I like what I do. Cooking is relaxing and a creative outlet, but I don’t have any desire to turn it into a career.”
“I was just thinking today how nice it’s been that we’ve both had such flexible schedules. I’ve enjoyed subbing at the post office, but I wouldn’t want to go back to it full-time. I like being able to go places with you or stay home and read by the fire whenever the mood hits.”
“And once we have children, it will be nice that we can both be home so much of the time.”
I’d been wondering when he’d get back around to that again. Not wanting to ruin this perfect evening talking about things where we had conflicted feelings, I suggested a walk around the lake with the dogs. Tony and I cleared the table, grabbed sweatshirts, and then we set off hand in hand.
“Are you at all worried about what having a baby might do to us?” I asked, surprised that I’d brought up the exact subject I’d been determined not to discuss earlier in the evening.
“Do to us?”
“To this.” I briefly paused and then continued. “To long walks after dinner and brunch in bed when it’s snowing.”
“As for walks after dinner, I still have that front pack Bree brought over, so a baby shouldn’t interfere with that, and as for brunch in bed, we have a big bed. Plenty of room for three. But I do understand what you’re saying. What we have is so perfect. It’s scary to think of doing anything that might change that.”
I was glad he seemed to really understand. I half expected him to jump in with arguments to discount what I was feeling, but he didn’t do that at all.
“I’ve always wanted children,” Tony continued. “I’ve made no secret of that. But when we do have children, I want it to be because we’re both ready. If you’re not ready, I can wait.”
I smiled. “I appreciate that. I have to admit that having Secret with us for this past week helped me to understand that I’m a lot closer to that point than I thought I was, but I guess I’m not sure I’m all the way there yet.”
“I understand, and we both agreed to wait a year after the wedding before we really considered it.”
I decided to let the conversation die there. Having a baby would be a huge decision, and while I felt like these little conversations were helpful, I wasn’t ready to really get into it at this point. “By the way, Hap told me he saw Dad down by the lake last night.”
“He saw your dad?” Tony almost spat.
I nodded. “I guess Hattie had book club at one of those houses down on the lake, and Hap gave her a ride. He went to the Rusty Anchor to have a beer while he waited, but at some point, he decided to walk down to the water. When he arrived at the waterline, he saw a man looking out toward the horizon. He didn’t think anything of it until the man turned around, and Hap swore he looked exactly like Dad.”
“What did you say when Hap told you this?”
“Hap joked that he’d seen a ghost, and I went along with that. I guess Dad must have come back to White Eagle for some reason after dropping Secret and her mother off at the airplane.”
“I wonder why.” Tony bent down to accept a stick from Titan, and then he tossed it.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Who knows why Dad does anything he does.”
“Do you think Hap will say anything to anyone else?” Tony asked.
“I doubt it, and even if he did say something, who’d believe him? Dad has been dead a long time. No one is going to think that Hap actually saw him.”
“I guess that’s true.” Tony tossed the stick again, which sent all three dogs flying.
By the time we got back to the house, the sun was down, so we made a fire in the pit and curled up together on the double lounger. We laid side by side, looking at the stars and talking about plans we might want to make for the upcoming week, month, and even year.
“I’ve been thinking about buying a motor home and seeing all the National Parks,” Tony said at some point as we allowed ourselves to dream. “Well, all the parks you can drive to at least. I guess there are several in Alaska that can only be reached by private airplanes or chartered boats, and then, of course, it would take a trip across the ocean to visit the parks in Hawaii.”
I agreed that a nice long road trip would be fun, although I did wonder what we’d do about our five animals. I guessed since we were just dreaming and not planning, the details didn’t matter at this point. Joining in on the theme of travel, I mentioned that I really wanted to visit New England in the fall when the leaves were changing. Not that the leaves here in Montana weren’t spectacular in the fall, but we agreed that a little variety would be nice.
Tony talked about building a gazebo down by the private lake we owned, and I shared an idea I’d had to convert one of the spare bedrooms into a game room. Not that we really needed a game room. It was just the two of us out here in this huge house, along with the animals, of course, but they didn’t seem to mind if we took over the living room on game night.
As we lay together, dreaming and talking about things we may or may not ever tackle, I couldn’t help but wonder once again how a baby might affect things. I thought of all the things I loved to do and wondered how I’d do them once we had a tiny person to consider. And then I thought about Secret with her little pink toes, melodic giggles, and heartwarming smile and realized that perhaps having a mini-me or a mini-Tony would be worth the interruption to our lives.
Chapter 17
Thursday, May 27
I think all of us were nervous wrecks by Thursday at eight o’clock. I knew Mike had been rehearsing exactly what he wanted to say to Dad in his mind. We knew he’d only have two minutes to speak his mind, and he wanted to be sure he made the points he wanted to make before those two minutes expired. I supposed the real trick would be to get Dad to listen rather than dominating the conversation, as he was prone to do.
Since there wasn’t a baby to keep an eye on, Bree came downstairs with us this time. Mike settled her into a comfortable chair out of the way where she could observe what was said. Tony was at the helm since he was the one who knew how to access the portal Dad sent, but he planned to take a step back and allow Mike to be in charge once the connection was made. As for me, I stood next to Mike to show my support
, but at this point, I planned to let him do the talking.
Once Tony and Dad were both logged in, Mike jumped right in. “The four of us have talked about it and have decided that we need to do things differently from this point forward,” Mike said before Dad could even speak.
“Different how?” Dad asked.
“We need more than two minutes,” Mike said. “We get the fact that it’s important for you to keep moving and never landing anywhere in either the physical or cyber universe for long, so you aren’t tracked, but it seems that your life has been colliding with ours lately and putting us all in danger and we feel that we deserve the chance to ask some questions.”
Dad frowned. There was less than a minute left on the clock at this point, and I could feel the tension building.
“Okay,” he finally said. “I’ll arrange something. A face-to-face meeting. Tell Tony to expect a coded email that will outline a time and place to meet this Saturday.”
I had to admit I didn’t expect Dad to agree to Mike’s request quite so easily.
“Hap saw you at the lake,” I blurted out. “On Tuesday night.”
Dad’s lips tightened. “Yeah. I didn’t mean for that to happen. I guess I got careless. What did he say to you?”
“He joked about seeing a ghost. I don’t think he actually believes he saw a ghost, but I’m not sure what he really thinks. He asked if you had a brother. I told him you were an only child.”
“Five seconds,” Tony said.
“We’ll talk Saturday,” Dad said before the screen went blank.
“Do you think Dad could have stopped the chat room from logging off and chose not to or do you think the clock is set and can’t be altered once we start talking?” I asked Tony.
“I think the room is set up in advance to avoid detection by even the best hackers.”
“Yeah, I guess that makes sense.”
“I wonder where he’ll want to meet us,” Mike said.
Tony shrugged. “I guess once he sends me the email, I’ll decrypt it, and we’ll find out. In the meantime, it might be a good idea to make a list of statements you want to make and questions you want to have answered. We really don’t know what sort of timeline he might set up for this meeting, and after this meeting, it’s unlikely that you’ll get another for quite some time.”
“I’m conflicted,” I said. “There’s a part of me that wants to know more about the specifics of whatever went down with Theo, and another part of me just wants to know if Mom and Mike and I are in danger. I know he said we weren’t, but if Theo found Mom, then it stands to reason that other villains from Dad’s past can find us as well.”
“I think that our safety is the number one thing on my mind,” Mike said. He looked at Bree. “Especially with a baby due to arrive in less than a month.”
“Let’s both make our lists and then refuse to leave until Dad addresses all our questions and concerns,” I said. “He came to you and asked you to care for the baby. In my book, that means he owes you.”
Tony took my hand in his and gave it a squeeze. I wasn’t sure if he was offering comfort or encouragement, but I was happy that he was beside me in this. I supposed his association with me put him in danger too, and it had definitely gotten him involved in Dad’s life since it was Tony who Dad most often directly dealt with.
“I guess we should go,” Mike said. “I still have a murder to solve, and it would be nice to get it wrapped up sooner rather than later.”
“It’s too bad you and Tony didn’t figure out why Theo was diving in the lake in the middle of the night,” I said. “Given the fact that Anton drowned late at night, it does make it seem like that might be linked to Anton’s death. I don’t know how the two men are linked; I just feel like they must be.”
“I agree,” Mike said. “In fact, the truth about what Dad knows about Anton’s death and isn’t sharing with me is going to be one of the first questions I ask when we have our face-to-face meeting Saturday.”
“What does Frank think happened to Anton?” I asked about Mike’s partner as we headed back upstairs. “Frank doesn’t know about Dad, nor does he have any reason to suspect a link between Theo and Anton, which gives him a different perspective than we have given what we know.”
“He isn’t sure. He’s spent some time talking to folks who work at the marina, as well as fishermen he suspects might have been out in the evening hours in the hope that someone saw Anton leave on a boat with someone. Since he doesn’t have reason to suspect Theo, he’s looking at boaters in general which has kept him busy but isn’t really helpful. I feel bad that I can’t let Frank know that his efforts this past week have been all for naught, but short of telling him that Theo is most likely the man we’re looking for, I’m not sure how I can get him to focus on Theo.”
“I guess you can come up with a fake clue that might lead to a real result.”
Mike frowned. “Perhaps. But at this point, I’m not inclined to lie to my partner. I think I’d rather watch him flounder if those are the only choices available to me.”
Mike was in a tough spot with this one. On the one hand, he was pretty sure he actually did know who to blame for Anton’s death, but on the other hand, he could never make an arrest or provide any evidence that would prove it.
Chapter 18
Saturday, May 28
Dad’s instructions to Tony were for those of us who wanted to meet with him to be at Tony’s house at noon. A car would pick us up and deliver us to a helicopter, which would take us to our destination. We all decided that Bree should stay behind rather than accompanying us on our trip. We weren’t exactly sure what all would be involved in the journey, and she really wasn’t in any shape to travel or engage in strenuous activities.
Of course, the fact that Bree would be missing out on what promised to be an intriguing adventure had me wondering once again if I was ready to put myself in the position of being left behind. I really wasn’t sure why I’d been going over the pros and cons of having a baby at this point in time. Tony hadn’t really brought it up, and we had agreed to wait to discuss it, yet I found that I had this running dialogue in my head which seemed to fluctuate between convincing myself that having a baby sooner rather than later was the best idea, and convincing myself that having a baby at any point would only lead to a life greatly diminished from the life I now had.
I supposed I did tend to overthink things and decided it would be a good idea for me to focus on the task at hand.
“Is Bree okay?” I asked Mike after he showed up at the house alone around eleven o’clock.
“She’s not happy to be left behind, but she does understand it’s for the best. There’s no way she’s up for a helicopter ride, and we really have no way of knowing if hiking might be involved.”
“I know this is going to sound like a sort of crazy thing to say, but do you really think all this drama is necessary?” I asked. “Don’t get me wrong. I know that Dad is some sort of black ops super-spy and that there are people who apparently want to see him dead, but it seems to me that the lengths he goes to so he can stay off the radar do seem like something out of a movie. Would it really have been all that dangerous for him to just come to the house and talk to us?”
Mike chuckled. “You know I’ve had that very thought many times in the past. I mean, two-minute chat rooms and sending a car to take us to a helicopter, which will deliver us to some other destination, seems a bit much, but I guess Dad has been running for a long time. People around him, people he’s cared for, have died. I suppose he just wants to be sure that if we are going to do this, we are going to do this in a way that won’t put us in danger.”
“Yeah, I guess I get that,” I said.
“I imagine that your Dad might be afraid that letting his guard down even for a minute might lead to one of those random occurrences he’ll live to regret,” Tony added.
“I get that too,” I said.
As Dad had indicated he would, he’d sent a car for us at exac
tly noon. Once we’d loaded into the black sedan, which had pulled up parallel to our front door, we settled in for a ride to a helicopter, which was waiting in a field fairly far off the beaten path. The helicopter then took us north. I thought we might be headed to Canada, but I think we actually ended up in the forest near Glacier National Park.
The helicopter landed in a field, and after we debarked, we were instructed to walk due west for about half a mile. As the pilot told us we would, once we’d crossed the seasonal creek, a rustic cabin came into sight.
“So far, so good,” I mumbled under my breath.
I could tell by the tightness around Mike’s mouth that he was as tense as I was.
I actually blew out an audible sigh of relief when we entered the cabin and found Dad waiting for us. I guess I half expected to find that one of his men had been sent to speak to us on his behalf. If he had gone that route, it certainly wouldn’t be the first time Mike and I had been disappointed to find a stand-in. I was even more surprised when he first hugged me, then Mike, and shook Tony’s hand. Most times, Dad wasn’t the sort to show affection.
“I know you have questions,” Dad said after indicating that we should have a seat on one of the old sofas. “And I plan to answer those I can. But first, I want to fill you in on the past couple of weeks. I think that what I have to say will answer a lot of your questions, and when I’m done, you can ask anything you feel you need to ask.”
I glanced at Mike. He nodded. “Okay,” Mike said. “I’m listening.”
I could see that Mike had his back up. He was prepared to be lied to or given the runaround, but this time he had no intention of settling for that. This time, he’d come for answers and was determined to get them. I had to admire him for that.