A Dark Lure (19 page)

Cold tendrils of the past feathered into his mind like fingers of hoarfrost. He could almost smell that day. The air had been crystal, sharp, the snowbanks thick. He’d driven along the frozen river, showing off his work on the 1950s truck he’d restored so lovingly. Suddenly he heard Jimmie’s laughter in the barn rafters, and he saw his mother’s smile in the lodge kitchen. He swallowed. There were ghosts in here. He’d disturbed them.

And they reminded him that his life as he’d known it had ended that day. There was before the accident. Then there was everything that came after.

Almost against his will, he reached out and placed his palm against the rusted old body. The metal was rough and blistered, the paintwork peeling. He was thrust even further back into time. To his little brother sitting on a hay bale in this barn. Swinging his skinny legs with skinned knees as he watched his big brother play wrench monkey. There’d been the sound of crickets outside, the day hot, muggy.

Cole’s heart clutched so hard that for a moment he couldn’t breathe.

A glimmer in the straw caught his attention. He reached down and picked up a button.

His mind wheeled to another day past—that afternoon he’d brought Amelia to the barn. Nothing had tasted so sweet as her mouth, or felt so deliriously good as the firm swell of her breast under his palms. The bliss of sexual discovery had consumed him. He’d not heard Clayton Forbes, backed up by Tucker Carrick, coming into the barn to fight him over “stealing” Amelia.

That day had marked the beginning of a deep rift between himself, Forbes, and Tucker, an animosity none of them had given a chance to heal. Clearly Jane still got on with Forbes. Cole pocketed the button and shoved the memories aside. He preferred not to dwell. He had no place for the past, or his roots in this place. He reminded himself that he had no intention of staying long.

But as he rolled up his sleeves and got to work moving bales out of the way and clearing out a small place for his plane, he wasn’t so certain. Something subtle inside him was shifting.

As he worked, even though the wind was increasing outside, it got hotter in the barn. He shucked off his shirt, tossed it onto a bale, and bent down to muscle a tin drum out of the way.

Olivia let Spirit have full throttle as they bolted across the meadow, Ace falling way behind. Exhilaration raced through her chest. The riddle of the newspaper and fishing lure had been sorted, and it filled her with indescribable relief. The thrill of suddenly feeling free again pumped through her veins as she allowed the wind to tear through her hair and draw tears from her eyes.

Sure it was an odd coincidence for Gage Burton to be in possession of a fly she’d designed and given to her abductor, and for that fly to be tucked in between the pages of a news story that referenced Sebastian. But coincidences happened.

It was only in her paranoiac world that her subconscious continuously sought negative patterns, saw shadows where there were none. It was just survival mode, she told herself. When you’d been hunted before, you were bound to be a little more cautious than most.

As she passed the field where Cole had landed his bush plane, she reined Spirit in and slowed. The plane was gone. Myron’s Dodge was parked there by the trees instead. Wind buffeted her hair across her face, and she noticed a dark band of cloud building on the south horizon. She nudged Spirit forward and rounded the grove of cottonwoods that had served as protection for the tiny yellow plane. The old barn doors had been opened.

She dismounted, tethered Spirit, and waited for Ace to catch up. Leaving her dog to sniff about in the cottonwood grove with her horse, she walked up the overgrown track toward the barn. Dry grasses rustled in the wind around her.

Freshly flattened vegetation—wheel tracks—led up to the barn. She came round the side of the door.

Cole was inside, tinkering with his plane. Shirt off. It was warm; the scent of old straw was strong. His skin gleamed with perspiration.

Olivia stilled, snared by something atavistic. She watched as his muscles rolled smoothly under deeply sun-browned skin. His dark hair was damp and sticking up in odd places where it looked like he’d run his fingers through it. His jeans were slung low at the base of his spine.

Heat pooled in her stomach. It shocked her. She’d not had this kind of reaction to a man in twelve years. And it rooted her to the spot, made her mouth dry. She seemed unable to command her brain to make her body move, to say something, let him know she was here.

He’d unpacked his tools and other gear from the plane. At his side lay a spanner and some other things she didn’t immediately recognize, along with a set of small snow skis that could be attached to the wheels of his Cub. Wind gusted through the eaves, and dry branches scratched against the barn roof. The shafts of light spilling down from the cracks painted his skin gold.

She couldn’t help but stare. Time stretched, became elastic. She felt dizzy.

Cole closed the hatch and got to his feet. He stood a moment, then turned and stared toward the back of the barn as if contemplating something.

He walked slowly to the old wreck at the rear. Tension snapped across her chest. She edged forward. He reached into his back pocket and removed his wallet. From it he took what appeared to be a creased photograph.

His shoulders rolled forward as he studied the image, as if he’d taken a punch in the gut. He brought the photo close to his face, softly kissed the image.

Olivia’s pulse quickened. Panic licked. She’d intruded on an intensely private moment, but she was fixated by the emotion in his body, the shape of the pain in this big, bold man who conquered mountains and flew skies. He was physically bent by it. She needed to leave, now. Carefully, she tried to back slowly away. But she stumbled, crashing against the old door. Swallows swooped out around her.

He spun around. Stared.

His eyes met hers, simmering. Raw.

CHAPTER 12

“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice,” Sergeant Mac Yakima said as he seated himself across from Dr. Julia Bellman. He’d assumed, when Melody had mentioned the name of Burton’s neuro doc, that Dr. Bellman would be male. She was clearly not, but a rather disconcertingly attractive older woman.

“You of all people should know that I cannot discuss a patient, Sergeant.” Dr. Bellman glanced at her watch. It was Saturday, but she had a patient waiting in her home office.

“I’m not here solely in a professional capacity,” he said. “I’m also a good friend of Gage Burton. Both my wife and I knew him and Melody as a couple. Melody’s death—it’s had a devastating impact on him. I’m worried it could have precipitated some sort of
. . .
psychosis, or even dissociative identity disorder.”

Her perfectly arched brows hooked up. But she said nothing.

Mac leaned forward. “All I’m asking is whether this is possible in a patient with a brain tumor like his. Hypothetically speaking.”

She met his gaze, her features inscrutable. “People grieve in varying ways. Sometimes they do things that don’t make sense to others at the time. Now if you’ll excuse me, I really do have a patient waiting.” She got up, made for her door.

“I fear for his daughter’s well-being.” Mac remained seated. “He’s packed up his camper, taken her somewhere, and no one knows where they’ve gone.”

She regarded him, her hand on the doorknob.

“Please,” he said. “Time could be critical. All I want to know is,
hypothetically
, can someone with a tumor like Burton’s develop a severe psychosis? Lose touch with reality? Could extreme stress caused by grief, perhaps, make a cancer grow suddenly faster and manifest in this way?”

Something shifted momentarily through her eyes, and Mac thought he’d gotten through to her. But she said, “I’m sorry. You’ll need to find another medical professional to help you.”

He came to his feet. “Dr. Bellman, I have reason to believe that in addition to endangering his daughter, Gage Burton might be responsible for a serious crime.”

“Such as?”

“Murder.”

She paled, removed her hand from the door and brushed it over her blonde hair, which was secured in a smooth bun at the nape of her neck.

“I believe he
thinks
he’s hunting a serial killer. A killer he believes got away twelve years ago. I also have reason to think that Burton might act out the killings himself, using the same signature as the perpetrator from twelve years ago, and that he might have started with a first victim already.”

She moved back behind her desk, took a seat, her eyes narrowing. “Continue.”

“He has knowledge about a very recent homicide that no one but the killer could have.”

She inhaled deeply, but her jaw tightened. “I really am sorry, but I can’t give out information about a patient. You need to ask this question of another medical professional.” She hesitated, then opened her drawer and removed a card. She slid it across her desk toward him.

“Dr. Greenspan. He’s a colleague of mine. He’ll give you what you need.”

“What did that woman want?” Tori demanded as her father reentered the cabin.

“That woman has a name, Tori. It’s Olivia.”

“What did
Olivia
want, then?” She glowered at him, arms folded tightly across her stomach.

“I booked us a guided outing with her. For later this afternoon.”

“I don’t want to go.”

He looked tired as he dumped a newspaper and a small plastic bag on the table, and shrugged out of his jacket. She thought of what Aunt Louise said on the phone, and fear surged back.

She latched onto anger instead. “Why did she faint in the lodge?”

“She was shocked by the terrible news on TV. You shouldn’t have seen it, either.” He filled the kettle in the kitchenette as he spoke.

“Why do you think that killer hung his victim up by the neck and gutted her like that?”

He stilled, his back to her, and he took a breath, as if straining for patience. She knew she was poking him, and she couldn’t help it. “Sometimes a bad guy wants to send some kind of message, or fulfill a fantasy. He’s not a well person.”

He plugged the kettle in and took two mugs from the cupboard above the sink.

She got up and went to see what was in the bag lying atop the newspaper. Through the window she’d seen Olivia giving these things to her father.

The story about the murder was on the front page of the crumpled newspaper. A smaller headline questioned whether the Birkenhead murder held echoes of the Watt Lake killings.

That dark thing prowling along at the periphery of her mind circled a little closer. She frowned and touched the small plastic bag. Inside was a fishing lure.

A lurid lime-green fly with three shining red eyes.

Her heart started to stammer. She glanced up at her father. “Dad, weren’t you a staff sergeant in Watt Lake?”

His head jerked around. “Why?”

She felt a punch in her stomach at the sudden, hot intensity in his face.

“Were you?” she said a little more cautiously.

“Yes, of course. You know that I was. Watt Lake is where I met your mother. Why is this coming up now?”

“No reason.” Her gaze went back to the lure.

. . . The sergeant didn’t know until the following spring that it was Sarah Baker who’d tied his three-eyed fly. And that she’d given it to a monster . . .

Something sinister started to unfurl inside her.

“Where did you get this fly?” she said.

“It was a retirement gift. I left it in the lodge office. Olivia returned it to me.”

She looked up. His eyes bored into hers.

And inside Tori felt scared. A real dark, confusing kind of scared.

“What the
fuck
?” Fury crackled into Cole’s features as he reached for his shirt. “How long have you been standing there?”

Olivia recoiled at his explosive reaction, aware of the open door at her back. Of escape. Then the light caught the wetness on his cheeks, the dark gleam in his eyes. Her heart crunched at the visible emotion on his face, his obvious humiliation at being caught in a private moment of memory.

“Why in the hell’d you go sneaking up on me like that?” He stuffed the photo back into his wallet, pocketed it, and punched his arms into his sleeves. His pecs were defined, his abs taut. His chest hair was dark and ran in a tight whorl into the waistband of his jeans. Cole McDonough might have been drowning his sorrows in Cuban and Florida bars, but that clearly hadn’t yet gotten the better of his physique.

“I didn’t. I was riding by and saw that someone was in the barn.” Her gaze went to the old wreck at the back. “No one comes in here,” she said softly.

“Weather is picking up,” he said curtly, buttoning his shirt. “I needed to batten down my plane before the storm blows. Sorry I didn’t get your
permission
first.”

“That’s not—”

“That’s exactly what’s going down here,” he snapped. “You bloody run this place. This, all of this—” He cast out his arm. “All yours when he goes.” His voice was thick, rough, full of frustration at having been caught half naked in more ways than one.

“I don’t want it, damn you,” she hissed under her breath. “I
told
you already. His decision was as much of a shock to me as it was to you.”

“Is that so?”

“Oh, for Chrissakes. As soon as Myron passes I’m outta this place. So you and your sister can do or take whatever you want. Sell the land. Carve it up into tiny pieces for a development.”

She turned and marched out of the barn, a strange emotion pounding through her chest.

“Olivia!”

She kept going. She didn’t trust herself. Didn’t trust him.

“Stop. Just wait. Please.”

She stalled, something in his voice snaring her. She turned.

He came out into the sunlight. “I’m sorry.”

Her gaze flickered reflexively to his jeans. Faded and worn in all the right places. She flushed at the sudden hot sensation in her belly, the way her pulse raced.

“That barn is
. . .
full of mixed-up memories. Unhappy ghosts. They bring out the worst in me.” He tried to smile, but in the bright sunlight his face was bloodless under his tan, the lines around his eyes drawn deep. He was tired—the kind of deep soul-tired that was born of grief. Compassion mushroomed inside her chest.

He raked his fingers through his thick mop of hair, dust and perspiration making it stand up further. He looked suddenly defeated. He came closer.

Olivia tensed, an urge rising in her chest, warning her to step back, pull away, leave now, before it was too late. But it was coupled with something trickier, darker, a whispering physical awareness, an excitement that made her mouth dry. And she was besieged by an impulse to reach up and cup her hand around his strong jaw, to comfort, ease his pain.

She stuck her fingers into the front pockets of her jeans.

“I know about the accident,” she said quietly.

“Who told you? My father?” he said, looking at his hands.

“Adele, mostly. Everyone in town knows the story. You were driving with Jimmie and Grace in the truck, lost control on an icy bend, and went over into the river ice. They say the brakes failed.”

He snorted softly, looked away for several beats. When he turned to face her the rawness in his eyes made her breath catch. “The brakes did fail. But they didn’t tell you I’d also been drinking, did they?” He heaved out a breath. “Only my father and I knew that.”

Shock rippled through her. “So that’s why he blames you?”

He seated himself on a rock in the lee of the barn, where it was warm. It was as if everything had suddenly been walloped out of him.

“I used to stash booze here in the barn. I was drinking, listening to music while I tinkered with the brakes. I’d put in new pads, drums, rotors. Brake fluid was fine. It appears I screwed up. Maybe if I hadn’t been drinking
. . .
maybe if I hadn’t been so pleased with my work and offered to show off to Mom and Jimmie by taking them for a spin along the river. Maybe if I’d been sober I’d have seen the ice was too bad
. . .
” He fell silent for several beats.

“Did you tell your father you’d been drinking?”

“He suspected. He came up here, found the bottles.” He moistened his lips. “He never told the cops. By the time emergency services got up here in the snow, by the time they pulled the truck out, by the time they realized there was nothing they could do for Jimmie and my mother
. . .
They eventually checked out the truck, and did find the brakes faulty. So that and road conditions went down as the cause.”

“Was that a photo of your brother and mother you were looking at?”

He took it out. Showed her. “I carry it everywhere.”

Olivia took it from him. In the photo Jimmie was a little echo of the McDonough men. Grace as beautiful as in all the other photos she’d seen. But the image was marred with white creases, worn with use. As if it was looked at often. She glanced up at him. This man was consumed by remorse. Guilt.

“That was a long time ago,” he said quietly, holding her eyes. “So long. But coming back to Broken Bar, going into this old barn, it’s like stepping right back in time. As if it were yesterday and I’m still the stupid-ass kid who makes poor decisions.” He rubbed his brow. “It makes you wonder, what does it all mean? What does it mean that you had a partner, and a stepchild—your own family? That you traveled as far away from this place as you possibly could, only to find yourself back, and it’s all concertinaed down to nothing? Just that wreck in an old barn, and yourself, and the guilt.”

Olivia lowered herself onto the sun-warmed rock beside him. “I heard about your family. I’m sorry.”

“Adele told you about that, too?”

“Your father did.”

He held her gaze for several beats. “What did he say?”

“Only that your relationship with your partner and her son faltered because of an incident in the Sudan, and that you were on some sort of guilt trip, drowning your sorrows in Cuba because of it.”