Paige MacKenzie Mysteries Box Set

by Deborah Garner

  Together they breathed in the cool mountain air, crisp and clean as it filled their lungs. Muted conversation and laughter flowed across from the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar. A breeze rustled through the trees overhead, sending a few autumn leaves floating to the ground.

  Paige turned briefly to glance around the square. For a split second she thought she saw a faint light coming from the antler arch, but when she blinked and looked again, it was dark. Just like the surrounding trees, the arch was simply a shadow in the night. Closing her eyes, she rested her head on Jake’s shoulder, felt the warmth of his arms wrap around her and said a silent thank you for the magic of Jackson Hole.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I owe sincere thanks to so many people who helped bring this book into existence. I'm extremely grateful for the help of Carol Anderson, Jay Garner, Karen Putnam and Nancy Roessner, all gracious readers who provided insightful feedback on final drafts. Special appreciation is owed to Elizabeth Christy for her outstanding editorial assistance, as well as to Keri Knutson of Alchemy Book Covers and Tim Renfrow of Book Design and More. And big hugs go to my Wyoming "big sister," Mary Udy, who tolerated my never-ending obsession with getting this story written.

  In addition, numerous research sources deserve thanks for the outstanding services they provide:

  The Jackson Hole Historical Society and Museum is a gold mine of knowledge on area history. Shannon Sullivan, Curator of Collections, was especially helpful in providing valuable fact-checking expertise and access to photographic archives.

  The Teton County Library's research section on local history provides a wealth of information on the history of Jackson Hole. Of particular help was the book, "A Place Called Jackson Hole: A Historic Resource Study of Grand Teton National Park," by John Daugherty, with contributions by Stephanie Crockett, William H. Goetzmann, and Reynold G. Jackson

  The National Museum of Wildlife Art offers top-notch educational resources about wildlife, ecology, art and western heritage, as well as an outstanding view of the National Elk Refuge.

  The Craig Thomas Discovery and Visitor Center boasts a magnificent relief map of Jackson Hole, detailing near infinite possibilities for hiding - or discovering - hidden treasure.

  Additional thanks go to many other family members and friends - you know who you are.

  Above all, I am grateful to Paul Sterrett and to my father, Bruce Garner, for believing in me. Without their patience, support and encouragement, this book would never have been written.

  THE

  MOONGLOW

  CAFE

  A Paige MacKenzie Mystery

  Deborah Garner

  Cranberry Cove Press

  The Moonglow Café

  by Deborah Garner

  Copyright © 2014 Deborah Garner

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  First Printing – April 2014

  ISBN: 978-0-9960449-1-2

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  EXCEPT FOR BRIEF TEXT QUOTED AND APPROPRIATELY CITED IN OTHER WORKS, NO PART OF THIS BOOK MAY BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM, BY PHOTOCOPYING OR BY ELECTRONIC OR MECHANICAL MEANS, INCLUDING INFORMATION STORAGE OR RETRIEVAL SYSTEMS, WITHOUT PERMISSION IN WRITING FROM THE COPYRIGHT OWNER/AUTHOR.

  Printed in the U.S.A.

  To Bear

  PROLOGUE

  Jonas slid his hands along the cold, clammy surface. In the darkness, he could only feel the uneven lumps of clay, could only use his fingers to search, not his eyes. Day after day, week after week, year after year it had been like this. Every spring he began, hopeful, and every summer he remained determined. But now the sinking feeling that always accompanied late autumn had settled in. As the temperatures fell outside, so did his spirits. Another year gone, fruitless.

  Stay focused. What was it you were looking for?

  He had known once, long ago, back when everything made sense, before the clouds began to form, and the strokes of blue faded. Now he searched aimlessly. Momentum pulled him without direction. He was its slave.

  Some days he thought he saw blurred images beyond the sky – tiny wisps of color or the strands of a horse's mane, sienna splashes, a feathered headdress. Or was it a cottonwood tree? His eyes deceived him. His mind deceived him.

  It is pitch black, but should be gold as rolling hills, blue as sapphires. Where were the colors, where was the light?

  He lifted his hands from the surface and cradled his face. The smell of dirt filled his nostrils, and cool grit scratched his skin. Wrinkles against wrinkles; time had lost its meaning. Where had the years gone?

  He let his arms drop, took a step back, and the chill enfolded him. It was always this way, airy, yet impenetrable. The chill always won. Every match struck was soon extinguished. Sometimes he wondered why he kept trying at all.

  Keep going. It is waiting for you. Don't give up.

  He slapped at the cold surface, felt the ridges and specks of embedded twigs and stones. Frustrated, he balled one hand into a fist and punched the wall, hitting the sharp edge of a rock. Pain soared up his forearm.

  You’re a fool. You'll be searching forever. There's nothing here but your own mind's confusion.

  This voice was wrong. He would not accept it, even if it would not leave him be. How could a voice, disembodied, know more than he did? So many years of waiting and wondering – wasn't effort to be rewarded?

  You don't even know what you're looking for.

  How he hated those words that taunted him from out of nowhere. If only his mind would be quiet, he could hear himself think. It was right in front of him or not there at all.

  Raise your arm, reach on through....

  Walls were his enemy, unyielding, stubborn, blinding. In darkness, they separated his soul from life. How could this shadow of himself focus? He was old. Or was he? Time felt immeasurable and meaningless. The search had been constant.

  Wait! There, below your fingers....

  He gasped as his hand felt an uneven lump in the dirt, but the lump smoothed back into the flat surface. It was always the same. Walls gave into no one. Defeated again, he fell to the ground and pounded it with rage.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Brakes squealed, and a taxi’s bleating horn startled Paige back onto the curb. A burly, unshaven man leaned out the driver's window of the cab, spewed obscenities at the car in front of him and sneered at Paige as if it were her fault another driver had the decency to stop for an elderly woman crossing the busy avenue.

  “Hey,” Paige shouted at the taxi driver, indicating the stooped figure in front of the first car, still moving forward, one shaky tap of a cane on the asphalt at a time.

  “Screw you!” the cabbie snapped back. With a sudden twist of the steering wheel, he sped around the stopped car, missing the woman by inches.

  Kindness, a lost art. Patience, even more elusive. City life in all its undesirable glory.

  Paige flipped up her coat's collar to fight a sudden gust of cold November wind. Holding the warm faux fur snugly around her neck, she gauged the oncoming traffic and darted between vehicles until she reached the opposite curb. The old woman had managed to make it across the street safely and was already lost in the southbound, flowing crowd. Paige checked her watch, turned north and picked up her pace. Susan was waiting.

  The Manhattan Post resided on the twenty-third floor of a stately, stone and brick building that had been a New York fixture since the early 1930s when European immigrants built it. In Art Deco fashion typical of that era, intricate stonework detailed the tall, linear structure. Floral motifs and spiraling scrolls framed the rectangular windows and front entrance. Solid brass handles gripped the heavy doors.

  Inside, Paige’s low-heeled pumps clicked against black and white marble tiles. An elevator chime echoed across the lobby, and a flood of people surged toward the opening door
s. It was full to capacity before Paige reached it, so she waited for the next one. It wouldn’t matter which one she took. She always felt like one of a dozen sardines on the upward journey to the office. She tapped her foot impatiently. Eventually, she stepped into the next available elevator and endured the ride.

  The return to New York after her last assignment had been stressful. The noise, congested traffic and harried pace had seemed foreign, even though she'd lived in the middle of it for years. Odd how a short time away from the city could change a person so profoundly.

  As Paige passed by her editor’s glass walled office, Susan waved but didn’t stop pacing the floor or talking into the cell phone glued to her ear. Paige nodded a greeting in return. They'd talk over coffee later in the morning, as was their habit. Or lunch, if time allowed.

  Paige's desk faced a window that looked out over the city, an advantage to having a cubicle along the side of the main room. She threw her coat over the back of her chair, sat down and rolled forward, kicking her shoes off under her desk.

  Yesterday's notes, neatly clipped together, lay in one of the stacked, metal trays to her left. She'd never liked clutter and would admit readily that she was obsessively neat. A stapler, tape dispenser, pencil holder and memo pad stood directly before her. The computer screen to her right was tilted slightly at a pleasing angle. She turned on the monitor, opened her browser and brought up the morning's email.

  “Anything juicy?” Even if Brandi hadn’t spoken, Paige would have known it was her nosing around from the next cubicle by the waft of perfume that preceded her. The jangling of Brandi’s many bracelets left no doubt. As expected, the sharp click of heels and rustling of taffeta followed the question. How Brandi picked her work outfits was something Paige found a mystery. She eyed her co-worker’s magenta dress. At least the turquoise earrings and chunky, oversized rings matched each other. A purple streak in her bottle-blonde hair picked up the tone of the colorful fabric, as well.

  “Not really,” Paige said, scrolling down the screen and deleting spam. “How's life in Obit Land?” Brandi's answers were always entertaining.

  “Some old rich lady croaked in Queens. Boring.” Brandi sighed. “And a drunken teenager wrapped his new Camaro around a tree. Stupid.” She flattened her hands, palms down, and spread her fingers apart. “Time for a fill.” She flipped one hand upward to show Paige the space around her cuticles.

  The crack of a door latch opening gave Paige an excuse to lift her eyes from feigned interest in Brandi's nails. Susan was beckoning her to her office. She closed her email and crossed the newsroom.

  “Thanks for saving me,” Paige said. She found Brandi adorable but distracting. Paige’s regular morning meetings with Susan allowed her to get focused on work.

  “Anytime,” Susan replied. “Besides, I have a project that I think will interest you. In fact, it's perfect for you.”

  Indicating a seat for Paige to take, Susan sat down behind her desk and reached for a brochure that rested at an angle on top of a haphazard stack of papers. Susan was as messy as Paige was neat. Yet Paige knew, in a file-finding competition, Susan would be the clear winner. The system of seemingly disorganized piles of paper worked for her.

  “Look at this,” Susan said, handing the brochure across the desk to Paige.

  When Paige glanced at the cover, her heart sank. “Symposia Gemmarum,” she read quietly, noting a printed list of dates. “This is next month, here in New York City. Some kind of conference?” The brochure listed Javits Center as the location, and the 11th Avenue convention venue was well known for its massive event capacity.

  “Exactly,” Susan said. “A conference and exhibition for gemologists, basically. People who work with precious stones, or sell them, or process them, will come in from all over the world. This gemology organization often holds these trade shows overseas, but this year’s conference is here in New York.”

  “Sounds interesting,” Paige said, leaning back in her chair less than enthusiastically. She'd already completed two New York based articles since returning from her last out-of-state travel writing assignment. She was ready to leave town again. For the West, to be precise.

  Paige thumbed through the brochure, noting dates and times. Out of habit, she started running possible angles through her mind: the international melting pot of attendees, the advanced development of gemology techniques or perhaps an evaluation of the industry within different socio-economic areas of the globe. None of these appealed to her, but she knew she could pull off whatever Susan wanted. Mustering up her professionalism, she sat up straight and waited for her editor's instructions.

  “You'll need a place to stay....”

  “A place to stay?” Paige asked. “I have an apartment right here in Manhattan. Well, a tiny, closet-sized space I share with three other people, but a place. It's even close to Javits Center.”

  “Which is exactly why it won't work for this assignment,” Susan said. “I've made a list of possible accommodations for you. A few are a little off-the-beaten-path, as you like to call it. You can choose.” She handed a sheet of paper to Paige, whose eyes grew wide as she scanned the assorted names.

  “These are all in Montana!” Was it possible Susan was sending her back west? “What does this have to do with Symposia Gemmarum?”

  Susan shuffled through some loose papers and pulled out a calendar. “It's been almost a month since we ran the Jackson Hole article. The reader response was great. Some of our subscribers wrote to tell us it was refreshing to read about another part of the country. I don’t think we should wait much longer to publish the second in this series on the Old West.

  “I want to run something that ties in with the gemology conference, some aspect of U.S. involvement in that industry. I think the answer lies in sapphires.”

  “Sapphires?” Paige repeated the word but didn’t really hear what she was saying. She was still absorbing the good news that she got to go west again.

  Susan laughed. “OK, Paige, snap out of it. I know you’re dreaming about that favorite, sexy cowboy of yours in Wyoming, but we need to discuss business.”

  Paige blushed. And for good reason. The thought of seeing Jake Norris again was more than a little appealing. They'd talked regularly since she returned to New York from Jackson Hole, but seeing him in the flesh would be much more satisfying.

  “You're absolutely right,” Paige said apologetically. “Business it is. So, what's the tie in with Montana?” She truly was curious. Potential romance aside, the hunt for a good story always interested her. She focused her attention on what Susan was saying.

  “I contacted Sid of Sid's Jewelers, and he said a good amount of sapphire mining was done in Montana. One particular mining area there produces what he described as an exceptionally fine gemstone known as the Yogo sapphire.” Susan paused. “Have I hooked the research addict in you yet?”

  Paige nodded.

  “I don't know more than that,” Susan said, “but, between the need to move on the Old West series and the timing of Symposia Gemmarum, it's a good start.”

  Paige was already on her feet, itching to get going. Before Susan even shooed her out the door, she was mentally tossing belongings into a suitcase, kissing New York City goodbye. And maybe kissing a certain cowboy hello.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Paige set her luggage down and stared at the weathered building before her. The Timberton Hotel was not at all what she had expected. Granted, it was two stories tall and had a covered porch. But where the photo on the hotel's website showed window boxes filled with daffodils, in reality only the empty boxes remained. A torn screen covered the faded gray front door, and the staggered steps that led up to it looked shaky. Paige's initial impulse was to turn around, hop into her rental car and drive the two hundred miles back to Bozeman, where her plane had landed four hours earlier.

  In the end, her sense of responsibility won out, along with a smidgen of curiosity. She climbed the front steps and, after brief hesitation, pulled
open the screen and knocked on the front door. It took several attempts before she got a response. When the door finally opened, a woman who was the spitting image of Aunt Bee greeted her. Reruns of The Andy Griffith Show instantly stood reeled and cued up in her mind.

  “You must be the girl from New York,” Aunt Bee said. She patted her flowery dress down against her plump waistline. “I own the hotel. My real name is Eleanor, but everyone calls me Betty.” Close enough, Paige thought. Starts with a B.

  As she followed the matronly hotelkeeper inside, Paige realized that the hotel’s interior did not match the gloomy condition of the exterior. The neat lobby was clean and furnished with antiques. A large throw rug covered two thirds of a wooden floor, most likely original to the building. A guest registration counter stood directly across from the front entry. The square cubbyholes designed for mail that lined the back wall held keys. Carved designs decorated the woodwork below the countertop, as well as the banister of a nearby staircase that led to the second floor. The high ceiling boasted a complex pattern of tin squares. All in all, it looked welcoming. Paige's anxiety eased.

  “What a lovely hotel!”

  “Well, I thank you for those kind words, dear,” Betty said. “It's quite a challenge to keep up with it. I've pretty much given up on the outside, but I try to keep the inside warm and cozy.”