The Waterfall (6 page)

He laughed. “Who wouldn't?”

“Good. Then it's settled. I'll trust my gut instincts. I'll go home and hope nothing else happens—”

“No, Lucy, you're going to see Sebastian and tell him everything.”

“Isn't he going to Frankfurt?”

“No way. He's…” Plato frowned, walking her toward the door. He seemed to be searching for the right words. “He's on sabbatical.”

“Sabbatical? Come on, Plato. It's not like he's some kind of professor. How can he—”

“You'll have to drive out to his cabin,” Plato said. “It's not that far. I'll give you directions.”

Lucy slipped from his embrace and stood rock-still in the middle of the hall. He kept walking, his back to her. She was blinking rapidly, as if that might somehow clear her head.

“I don't want to see Sebastian,” she said.

Plato turned back to her. “He can help you, Lucy. I can't.”

“I told you, I didn't come here for help.”

“I know why you came here.” His dark, dark eyes seemed to burn into her. “You promised Colin you would.”

Her throat caught. “Plato…”

“Colin was right to send you to Sebastian. Lucy, I did rescues, and now I keep this company out of hot water. Sebastian's a son of a bitch in a lot of ways, but he's the best.”

Lucy stood her ground. “What if I drive on out of here without seeing him?”

“Then I'll have to tell him what you told me.”

She eyed him. “I have a feeling that would be worse.”

He gave her a devilish smile. “Much worse.”

 

Plato's directions were simple. He put Lucy on a dirt road and said to keep going until she couldn't go anymore. She'd know when she reached Sebastian.

Lucy wasn't encouraged. However, not finishing what she'd stupidly started seemed to carry more risks than finishing. If he told Sebastian her story, Plato might exaggerate. Then Sebastian might end up in Vermont, and she'd really be in a mess. Sebastian might be worse than the feds. He might be worse than the occasional stray bullet through her dining room window.

So
why
had she dragged herself and her two children out to Wyoming?

The road was winding, dry, hot and dusty. The scenery was spectacular. Wide-open country, mountains rising up from the valley floor, a snaking river, horses and cattle and wildflowers. Despite its other uses, this was still a working ranch.

J.T. loved it. Madison endured. “I'm pretending I'm Meryl Streep in
Out of Africa,
” she said. “That might keep me awake.”

“The high altitude is probably making you sleepy,” Lucy said.

“I'm not sleepy, I'm bored.”

“Madison.”

She checked herself. “Sorry.”

The road narrowed even more, their car kicking up so much dust Lucy made a mental note to run it through a car wash before taking it back to the rental agency. Finally, they came to a tiny, ramshackle log cabin and small outbuilding tucked into the shade of a cluster of aspens and firs. The road ended.

Lucy pulled in behind a dusty red truck. “Well,” she said. “I guess this is it.”

“Oh, yuck.” Madison surveyed the pathetic buildings. “This is like Clint Eastwood in
Unforgiven.
”

From
Out of Africa
to
Unforgiven.
Lucy smiled. Madison kept the local video store in an uproar trying to track down movies for her. It was an interest one of her teachers, in the school she so loathed, encouraged.

Three scroungy, big mutts bounded out from the shade and surrounded their car, barking and growling as if they'd never seen a stranger. J.T., his seat belt off, nervously stuck his head up front. “Do you think they bite?”

“I bet they have fleas,” Madison said.

Lucy judiciously decided to roll down her window and see how the dogs reacted. They didn't jump. Possibly a good sign. “Hello,” she called out the window. “Anyone around?”

She checked for any venomous, antisocial bumper stickers on the truck, like Vermonters Go Home. Nothing. Just rust.

The dogs suddenly went silent. The yellow Lab mix yawned and stretched. The German shepherd mix plopped down and scratched himself. The smallest of the three—an unidentifiable mix that had resulted in a white coat with black and brown splotches—paced and panted.

“You kids hear anyone call them off?” Lucy asked. J.T. shook his head, his eyes wide. This was more adventure than he'd bargained for, out in the wilds of Wyoming with three grouchy dogs and no friendly humans in sight. “No, did you?”

Madison huffed. “Plato should have sent us with an armed guard.”

Lucy sighed. “Madison, that doesn't help.”

“You're scaring me,” J.T. said.

“You two stay here while I go see if we have the right place.” Lucy unfastened her seat belt and climbed out of the car. The air seemed hotter, even drier. The dogs paid no attention to her. She smiled at her nervous son. “See, J.T.? It's okay.”

He nodded dubiously.

“Relax, Lucy.” The male voice seemed to come from nowhere. “You've got the right place.”

J.T. swooped across the back seat and pointed at the cabin. “There! Someone's on the porch!”

Lucy shot her children a warning look. “Stay here.”

She mounted two flat, creaky, dusty steps onto the unprepossessing porch. An ancient, ratty rope hammock hung from rusted hooks. In it lay a dust-covered man with a once-white cowboy hat pulled down over his face. He wore jeans, a chambray shirt with its sleeves rolled up to the elbows, cowboy boots. All of it was scuffed, worn.

Lucy noted the long legs, the flat stomach, the muscled, tanned forearms and the callused, tanned hands. Sebastian Redwing, she remembered, had always been a very physical man.

The yellow Lab lumbered onto the porch and collapsed under the hammock in a
kalumph
that seemed to shake the entire cabin.

“Sebastian?”

The man pushed the hat off his face. It, too, was dusty and tanned, and more lined and angular than she remembered. His eyes settled on her. Like everything else, they seemed the color of dust. She remembered they were gray, an unusual, surprisingly soft gray. “Hello, Lucy.”

Her mouth and lips were dry from the long drive, the low western humidity. “Plato sent me.”

“I figured.”

“I'm in Wyoming on business. I have the kids with me. Madison and J.T.”

He said nothing. He didn't look as if he planned to move from the hammock.

“Mom! J.T.'s bleeding!”

Madison, panicked, leaped out of the car and dragged her brother from the back seat. He cupped his hands under his nose, blood dripping through his fingers.

“Oh, gross,” his sister said, standing back as she thrust a paper napkin at him.

Lucy ran toward them. “Tilt your head back.”

The German shepherd barked at J.T. Sebastian gave a low, barely audible command from his hammock, and the dog backed off.

J.T., struggling not to cry, stumbled up onto the porch. “I bled all over the car.”

Madison was right behind him. “He did, Mom.”

Sebastian materialized at Lucy's side. She'd forgotten how tall and lean he was, how uneasy she'd always felt around him. Not afraid. Just uneasy. He glanced at J.T. “Kid's fine. It's the dry air and the dust.”

Madison gaped at him. Lucy concentrated on her bleeding son. “May we use your sink?”

“Don't have one. You can get water from the pump out back.” He eyed Madison. “You know how to use an outdoor pump?”

She shook her head.

“Time you learned.” He was calm, his voice quiet if not soothing. “Lucy, you can bring J.T. inside. Madison and I will meet you.”

She shrank back, her eyes widening.

Lucy said, “It's okay, Madison.”

Sebastian frowned, as if he couldn't fathom what about him would be a cause for concern—a dusty man in an isolated cabin with three dogs and no running water. He started down the steps. Madison took a breath and followed, glancing back at Lucy and mouthing, “Unabomber.”

Lucy got J.T. inside. The prosaic exterior did not deceive. In addition to no running water, there was no electricity. It was like being catapulted back a century to the frontier.

“It's just a nosebleed,” J.T. said, stuffing the paper napkin up his nose. “I'm fine.”

Lucy grabbed a ragged dish towel from a hook above a wooden counter. The kitchen. There was oatmeal, cornmeal, coffee, cans of beans, jars of salsa and, incongruously, a jug of pure Vermont maple syrup.

In a few minutes, Madison came through the back door with a pitted aluminum pitcher of water. Lucy dipped in the towel. “I think you've stopped bleeding, J.T. Let's just get you cleaned up, okay?” She glanced at her daughter. “Where's Sebastian?”

“Out taming wild horses or hunting buffalo, I don't know.
Mom.
He doesn't even have a bathroom.”

“This place is pretty rustic.”

Madison groaned. “Clint Eastwood,
Unforgiven.
I told you.”

Sebastian walked in from the front porch. “What's she doing watching R-rated movies? She's not seventeen.”

“That's without a parent or parental permission.” Lucy stifled an urge to tell him to mind his own damn business, but since he hadn't invited her to come out here, she kept her mouth shut. “Madison's a student of film history. I watched
Unforgiven
with her because it's so violent.”

He frowned at her. “I'm not violent.”

Lucy had always considered him a man of controlled violence in a violent profession, but before she could say anything, Madison jumped in. “But you live like Eastwood in that opening scene with his two children—”

“No, I don't. I don't have hogs.”

That obviously settled it as far as he was concerned. Lucy shook her head at Madison to keep her from arguing her point. For once, her daughter took the hint.

“How's J.T.?” Sebastian asked.

“He's better,” Lucy said. “Thanks for your help.” J.T. kept the wet towel pressed to his nose. “It doesn't hurt.”

“Good.” Sebastian didn't seem particularly worried. “You two kids can go down to the barn and look at the horses while I talk to your mother. Dogs'll go with you.”

“Come on, J.T.,” Madison said, playing the protective big sister for a change. “The barn can't be any worse than this place.”

She and her brother retreated, both getting dirtier with every passing minute. If the dry air, dust and altitude bothered Madison, she'd never admit it.

Sebastian grunted. “Kid has a mouth on her.”

“They're both great kids,” Lucy said.

He turned to her. She was intensely aware of the silence. No hum of fans or air-conditioning, no cars, not even a bird twittering. “I'm sure they are.”

“Plato said you were on some kind of sabbatical.”

“Sabbatical? So that's what he's saying now. Hell. I have to remember his mother's a professor.”

“You're not—”

Something in his eyes stopped her. Lucy could count on one hand the times she'd actually seen Sebastian Redwing, but she remembered his unnerving capacity to make her think he could see into her soul. She expected it was a skill that helped him in his work. She wondered if it was part of why he was living out here. Perhaps he'd seen too much. Most likely, he just didn't want to be around people.

“Tell me why you're here,” he said.

“I promised Colin.” It sounded so archaic when she said it. She pushed back her hair, too aware of herself for her own comfort. “I told him if I ever needed help, I'd come to you. So, here I am. Except I really don't need your help, after all.”

“You don't?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Good. I'd hate for you to have wasted a trip.” He started back across the worn floorboards toward the porch. “I'm not in the helping business.”

She was stunned. “What?”

“Plato'll feed you, get you back on the road before dark.”

Lucy stared at his back as he went out onto the porch. In the cabin's dim light, she saw an iron bed in one corner of the room, cast-off running shoes, a book of Robert Penn Warren poetry, a stack of James Bond novels and one of Joe Citro's books of Vermont ghost stories. There was also a kerosene lamp.

This was not what she'd expected. Redwing Associates was high-tech and very serious, one of the best investigative and security consulting firms in the business. Sebastian's brainchild. He knew his way around the world. If nothing else, Lucy had expected she might have to hold him back, keep him from moving too fast and too hard on her behalf.