Karen Harper - The Hiding Place

“What time shall we meet?” she asked Tara. “It’s already after ten, but we could meet near the restaurant in the Visitor Center at one.”

“Would you be willing to make it one-thirty? I’ve got a doctor’s appointment. Can you meet me out by the first set of rocks to the left of the west entry, the one with the great view of Creation Rock? You remember, where we took that walk and had that heart-to-heart talk?”

“The one with the natural table and bench?”

“Yes. I’ll bring a picnic for us, then we can get caught up in private without all the people you know coming up to our table to chat in the restaurant. It’s been a while since we’ve really talked, though I treasured your visits after I came out of the coma.”

“Is there something wrong, Tara? You can tell me, and it will go no further.”

“I hope not. I’ll save it all for our lunch.”

“I’ll be there, my dear, and if something goes awry, I’ll call you.”

“Tara, I don’t want to sound like an alarmist, but I think someone’s been watching the house,” Nick told her. She was madly stuffing chicken salad into pita bread; a wicker picnic basket sat on the kitchen counter. Her hands stopped; she looked up at him, eyes wide.

“Did you see someone?”

“No, but Beamer found a trail to that old hunter’s cabin, which has been swept out and used. I know it’s hunting season, but there’s a distinct spot above the house in the tree line where someone’s been lying down with a clear view in through these back windows.”

“Animals sometimes lie down. Maybe Beamer—”

“No. I scented him on this. Does it mean anything to you?” he asked, extending the Cacao candy bar wrapper to her.

She took it from him and read both sides. “It’s not the kind of Hershey’s for s’mores around the old campfire, not that campfires are permitted around here. I see it’s made in Germany.”

“And?” he prompted.

“Nothing, but success in investigation work is often in the details.”

“Tell me about that detail,” he said, pointing at the words she was frowning over.

“One of my disgruntled skips was born in Germany,” she explained, going back to her sandwich-making. “But I recently checked, and he’d gone back to California. He’s not pleased I tracked him down and made him pay for snatching his son. Still, that’s a far stretch over a candy bar wrapper in some old hunter’s cabin.”

“Is he a hunter, like Clay was?”

“No, he’s a biker—a mountain biker.”

“I know it might mean nothing, but I always had to watch my back the last two years, and that’s a hard habit to shake.” He glanced out the window over the sink again. “I’m going to keep an eye out for someone up there—and Beamer will keep a nose out.”

She turned to him and smiled, evidently at the way he’d worded that. It lit up her face and made her look younger. They still stood close together over the sink, and she didn’t move away this time.

“I’ll be careful for Claire’s sake as well as mine,” she promised. “And I’ll recheck to be sure Dietmar Getz is still in San Jose, at least for his home base. He’s not only a mountain biker but a so-called extreme biker who goes all over the West for races and rallies. Would you believe he thought he’d provide a better home for his child than a devoted relative who stays in one place?”

Nick wondered if that was a hint he should leave Claire with her, but Tara was already off on another topic as she went back to fixing food again.

“I have an appointment in town, then I’m going to have lunch at Red Rocks with my former mother-in-law, but I’ve made extra for you, in case you’re hungry later. Or if this doesn’t suit you or fill you up, please just take anything you want around here.” She shoved her hair back from her face and their eyes snagged again. “You know what I mean,” she added, blushing.

“Like food from the fridge or laundry soap,” he told her, as he bit back a grin. “But about someone watching the house, a word to the wise.” As she closed the picnic basket, he put his hand around her wrist like a big, warm bracelet. “If it’s just some neighborhood voyeur or your garden-variety teenager, Beamer and I will be enough to scare him off—but you need to be very careful,” he added, stressing each word. “Besides being a good-looking woman, you’re in a business where you’ve made enemies. Just for the heck of it, as soon as I get my truck, I’m going to drop in to see Clay’s brother and find out what he’s been up to. If he was as upset as you said—well, you just never know.”

“Thanks. Since you were his brother-in-law for years, he won’t be suspicious and maybe you can calm him down. And we agree that I’ll be careful, for Claire and myself.”

“Oh! Jordan!” Veronica said, when her husband suddenly walked into her suite from his adjoining one. “You gave me a start! I thought you had gone by now.”

Despite the fact she had a terrible headache, she was dressed and ready to head out to meet Tara at Red Rocks. The coffee and breakfast seemed to have steadied her a bit. She could tell Tara had needed her and she was not canceling their appointment. She hoped Jordan hadn’t planned on her eating with him here.

To her surprise, her primary-care doctor from the clinic, Henry Middleton, followed Jordan into the room. They were both distinguished-looking men, even when not attired in suits, shirts and ties as they were now. Jordan had always been handsome and had kept his good looks—full head of hair, square jaw and six-foot frame—over the years. He hardly had a gray hair amid the dark brown he kept perfectly trimmed.

Dr. Middleton, prematurely silver-haired and blue-eyed, was a good bit shorter but also had an athlete’s build. A real health fanatic who often jogged the rustic paths on the clinic acreage, he had been very instrumental in her successful treatment for alcohol and drug dependence. Because Mountain Manor was heavily endowed by the Lohans, Jordan, in effect, was the doctor’s—all employees’ there—superior.

“Whatever is it?” she asked, putting one hand to her throat. “Thane or Laird haven’t been hurt? The grandchildren? What—”

“I’m doing family intervention early this time, Veronica,” Jordan said, “before this snowballs again and Thane and Laird need to be called in.”

“Whatever are you talking about?”

Instead of answering, Jordan went over to her bedside table and rummaged around in the top drawer. Dr. Middleton looked so very sad, upset even.

“Here—I thought so, I feared so,” Jordan said, and thrust a pill bottle at the doctor. “I won’t say she’s mixing booze with these again, but, for her sake, we have to stop it now. I—the entire family—can’t go through all that again. ‘The Betty Ford of Denver’ newspaper headlines be damned.”

“That’s ridiculous. You’re wrong,” she told Jordan, facing him down as steadily as she could. In truth, she was still feeling a bit strange, but it must have been something she ate either last night or this morning. “If those are Vicodin—”

“They appear to be,” Dr. Middleton interjected, frowning at the bottle.

“Then they are old ones, because I’m clean,” she insisted. “Oh, yes, I want a drink now and then, but I stick to Perrier, and I have not touched a Vicodin tablet since I was admitted to Mountain Manor! Jordan, we had a long dinner last night together. You saw I was normal then—”

“On the contrary, my dear. Your erratic actions and wandering talk were what forced me to face the fact that you’re having a relapse.”

She gasped. He was lying. He had to be lying. She had to get away from him, get away from her own husband. Trying desperately to hold herself together, she said, enunciating each syllable so they would realize she was not slurring her words, “Excuse me, both of you. I’m leaving. I have an appointment and—”