Broken Bonds. Karen Harper
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for the place your truck went over, I know that spot. That pull-off is near a formation called Coyote Rock, though I don’t think it looks much like a coyote. Must have been one spotted up there. Jace, when we get another deputy in, it’ll be a lot easier to patrol around here. Could use at least two more deputies, but at least we’re getting one soon. Keeping an eye on moonshining, pot patches and meth labs in the hills near town’s bad enough, but these mountains are a whole other world, not to mention the fracking.”
Matt nodded. “Char and I saw some rig workers heading up Pinecrest in a black pickup, looking pretty happy, tossing beer cans out. New outsiders like that have taken some of the pressure off us Lake Azure people being the intruders.”
“It’s getting better,” Gabe said. “Live and let live—but not kill someone by shoving them off a cliff so it looks like an accident, even suicide.”
“Suicide?”
“Sorry to bring that up. When my father was county sheriff, he had a bad case where a guy drove off near Coyote Rock—meant to kill himself, but took his wife’s life in the crash, too. Murder-suicide.”
A chill shot up Matt’s spine as the sheriff started to pace off the circumference of the burned circle. Matt stood his ground, just staring at the charred wreck. In a way he’d been charred today, too, by meeting Char Lockwood. Crazy thought but she’d heated him up. He’d been burned a couple of years ago, and that made him gun-shy about getting serious with a woman, especially when he kept himself so busy. The women he met in Cold Creek were either married clients, or were locals he just didn’t have much in common with—and then there was Ginger Green, who was after him as well as every other man in sight, so she was hardly his type. He wasn’t looking for a quick hit, quick goodbye woman.
“Too bad you lost the stuff you’d bought for the McKitricks,” Jace was saying. “Bet they could have used it. Gabe, didn’t you say that they were on Char’s list of families to visit over a truant student?”
“Yeah, that’s right,” Gabe said, distracted as he wrote in a little notebook.
So, Matt thought, maybe he and Char could go together to visit the McKitricks when he replaced the food and clothes he was going to give them. Not that he wanted to go back up the mountain, but he wasn’t going to let this impact his freedom or his duty.
“Hey,” Gabe shouted, from across the wreck. “Someone’s been here gawking already. Footprints in the ash. I didn’t see any on the side where you’re standing.”
Matt and Jace watched as he approached the truck and glanced inside. “And there’s an unburned piece of paper in here with something written on it.”
Jace went over to the wreck. Though the burned, acrid smell was seeping into the pit of Matt’s stomach, making him feel sick, curiosity got him. Walking in Jace’s footprints, he went over to the wreck and peered in the front passenger-side window, too.
A piece of white paper was lying on the blackened front seat. He could see a drawing of a skull and crossbones, like on an old pirate flag. Under that were big, black printed letters.
YOUR FIRED!
“Well, I admit it is kind of quaint looking—in a pioneer way,” Tess said as she drove into the narrow, short driveway of the hunting cabin.
For some reason, Char’s mind flashed back to driving up to a big, modern hogan on a washboard road for the meeting where the elders and her boss had asked her to leave. But that had been set among yucca, sagebrush and pinyon pines instead of maples, oaks and tall white pines. Even the bedrock here was different; the rocks were gray, beige or black, not the yellow, brown and red rocks she’d grown used to out West.
“And, Ms. Worrywart, the logs have good chinking—insulation,” Char assured her as they got out of the day care van. “And, see—there’s a carport so I won’t have to scrape frost off car windows in the morning.”
The sun was setting, gilding the clouds with colors from lavender to pink to fiery orange, which made the view even more beautiful. They peered in all the windows, walking around the small log building.
“I like the stone fireplace and all the wood inside,” Tess said. “And there’s a leather couch and two upholstered chairs. The front room’s a pretty good size, but that bedroom and bath are small.”
“Which suits me just fine. It’s got a stand-up shower, so I’ll miss soaking in the tub, but that’s a small price to pay.”
“Did they say you could use that pile of firewood?”
“Yes, and they’re not charging me for water. The water heater takes up part of the closet space, but does a guy hunting or drinking with his buddies need room for clothes?”
“Did you get the idea his wife ever comes up here?”
“It’s a man’s world—until now. I did get the idea, though, that his marriage isn’t that happy. I feel sorry for her.”
“Oh, Char, you can’t solve all the world’s problems, you know.”
“I can try. I’ll bet it’s great to sit out here on this covered porch on pretty days to see the sun rise or set. Let me show you the view of the valley and lake below. If we could just erase those luxury condos and homes and that big party house down in the valley, it would look really pristine.”
“They call it a lodge. It makes the one at the state park where Gabe and I got married seem like a doll’s house. It does blend in with the area,” she said, pointing, “like the Lake Azure houses do. Wonder which one is Matt Rowan’s. What a great view here!”
Char remembered Elinor Hanson saying the same earlier today. It seemed so long ago she’d been up on the mountain, but only moments ago she’d seen Matt sitting scared to move in his truck and then it going over....
“You okay?” Tess asked. “You kind of flinched. Did you see something below?”
“No. Just the breeze is cold. Winter’s coming.”
“So then spring can’t be far behind, right?” Tess said, throwing her arm over Char’s shoulders. They stood leaning together for a moment, looking below at the long lake that gave the area its name. As the clouds passed overhead, the water seemed to change color, one minute azure, the next almost like jade or amethyst. Smoke trailed from chimneys on a few of the shingle or slate roofs of the houses below, though some were hidden under pines. The large Y-shaped lodge with its green velvet grass golf course carved out of the hills looked lonely this late.
Funny, but Char had one of those rare moments when she wished she had a man she loved to share something with and not only a friend or a sister.
“I just thought of something sad,” Tess whispered, pulling away and hugging herself.
“About that woman who lives down there? The one who’s still trying to get her daughter back from her estranged husband in South America?”
“No. Just that it must have been near here, down that next ridge maybe, where that groundskeeper fell to his death, because they found his body on the golf course a couple of weeks ago—remember?”
Char gasped. “That’s the man whose family Matt was going to visit up on Pinecrest. At least, if he ended up on the golf course, he didn’t fall from right here. He must have been over there a little ways to fall straight down, though that doesn’t look like a place someone would trip.” Again she fought to banish the memory of Matt’s truck pitching over the side into nothing but air.
“Gabe said the death was accidental but weird because he was a mountain man, sure-footed, knew the area, all of that. But up on these paths and ridges, anything can happen, so you’ve got to be really careful. And if this is a hunting cabin, there may be shooters in