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  “I haven’t found Erin McGinnis, but by now you must know I’m not giving up. I inherited your annoying need to come out on top. You could spare me a lot of trouble by just telling me about her.”

  He squeezed a lemon slice into his teacup, then fumbled to remove the red cap from the plastic bear filled with honey.

  “I’m staying on, indefinitely. Did I tell you I’m writing a book? Two books, actually.” I’d told him ten times.

  We both took sips from our cups. The antique china bore a dainty floral pattern. I fingered the painted porcelain rim and wondered where it came from. I didn’t recognize the pattern as being my mother’s. My dad certainly didn’t buy it. Was it Erin’s? Was I ready to confront my dad about a damn teacup?

  When it came down to it, I was no longer staying on in Trinidad to help my dad. I was only there for answers. Too young, too naïve, and suffering from the unexpected shock of my mother’s death, I had somehow swept any mystery away. I didn’t acknowledge, even to myself, that I didn’t believe the police version of what happened. She wasn’t killed during a random burglary. It didn’t happen that way and I knew it. I was young, but too smart to have let it go.

  “You know, I could have gone back home a long time ago, back with Adam, if I didn’t feel the need to stay here and find this woman. And I’ll also stay until I find out why the hell you had an antique Russian revolver hidden in your damn staircase.”

  His eyes swirled around toward the stairs.

  “It’s not there anymore. I took it. It’s in a bank safe deposit box, for now. I knew you were coming home and I couldn’t take that chance. I was afraid you might try to tamper with evidence.” I paused, hoping to get something out of him. “Is it evidence, Dad?”

  He stared past me in indifference.

  I mimicked his behavior, pretending to be more interested in an article in the magazine lying beside me.

  “I have something to tell you. Maybe you’ve already heard. Adam and I are not getting married.”

  “No!” My dad’s voice was clear and on full throttle.

  I pulled my gaze from the magazine in time to see his regret that he’d verbalized a reaction.

  “Yes, Dad. I guess it could be my fault with this long distance thing. Adam voiced his disapproval of me being here all this time. Anyway, I caught him in the act with a skinny redhead. He never even liked redheads. Not that I knew.”

  My father reached across the table. I followed the line of his teacup crashing to the floor. He grabbed my arm with a solid grip of contempt.

  The words came at great effort, but they were coherent. “You must marry him. You forgive him.”

  “Fine first words to speak to your daughter.” I removed my arm from his clutches. “I don’t know what Mom did when she learned about your lover, Daddy, but it doesn’t work that way anymore.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Kate’s Secret

  Kate posed another challenge. She called and invited me to dinner at The Raging Bovine. I hadn’t seen her since finding her passed out in her parlor the night Ari and I joined in battle to save the life of one of her guests.

  I asked if we couldn’t meet at Claire’s Bakery for morning coffee and muffins, but she reminded me she was the only non-breakfast eating owner of a B&B. We settled on a Mexican restaurant for lunch. She was sitting at the table when I arrived, already sporting a pitcher of margaritas.

  “I know, I know. Don’t lecture me,” she said, recognizing my scowl of disapproval. “Come on. I heard about you and Adam. We both deserve a long lunch.”

  “Last time I saw you...”

  “...I guess I owe you an apology.”

  “No. But you do owe Ari one gigantic thank you.”

  “I know. I know. I screwed up. She probably would have bled to death if it weren’t for you and Ari. But I’m not their damn caregiver, Breeze. I only promise a clean bed and a decent breakfast.”

  The waiter delivered a chipotle salsa and a basket of red chips to our table, disappearing after taking our order. Kate scooted a margarita glass toward me.

  “What happened to you that night?” I asked.

  “Same as always. I’m one of those people that drink to numb the pain, almost every night. Fuck that. Every night.” She squirmed in the vinyl booth and stretched her boots out toward the aisle. “The man I met at the ranch that night. His name is George Baird. We really hit it off. He’s rich, he’s sexy, and he leads a fascinating life. He travels all over the world—Mexico, South America, Russia. And he’s into all sorts of business investments. The chinchillas out at Ari’s place belong to him. He’s been raising the little rodents since he was ten.”

  Listening to Kate’s enthusiasm, I remembered how desperate she was to meet Jonathan Marasco hours earlier that same day.

  “We drove into town, and he hooked us up with some coke,” Kate said. “Somewhere between my regular consumption of Jack Daniels, and then the coke, all I remember is being out at some cabin somewhere in the middle of nowhere, doing more lines. I don’t even remember how I got back to The Lost Cat. The next thing I know it’s morning and one of my guests is in the hospital.”

  I flicked salt off the rim of my margarita glass, watching as Kate’s eyes canvassed the diamond engagement ring I still wore on my left hand.

  “Look, I know you must really be hurting right now, with the shit you just went through,” Kate said. “You’ve been a good friend to me, and I haven’t been exactly honest with you. I want to set the record straight so maybe we can be real friends.”

  Mariachi music filled the air. Secondhand smoke drifted in from somewhere outside, even as the door was quick to close after patrons came and left.

  “I told you my parents and I don’t get along,” Kate said. “They think I’m white trash.”

  “They’re wrong,” I said.

  “They may be right.” Kate chomped on a tortilla chip, kneading her knuckles and furrowing her brows behind cropped golden bangs. “I have a daughter.”

  I watched as tears swelled behind her eyelids. She squirmed, fighting to gain control over her emotions. The free spirited woman I thought I knew now seemed shackled in chains of her own device.

  “The last time I saw her she was four years old. She’s turning seventeen next month,” Kate said. “Her name is Macayla Chase.”

  “Pretty name. Where is she?”

  “With her perfect grandparents. Last any one would tell me anything, she calls them Mama and Papa. I don’t guess she even knows I exist.”

  Kate wiped away tears and arched her back in defiance with the arrival of our platters. “They live in Redstone. It’s a small town near Aspen. I remember Mom telling me Macayla was a perfect child, ‘Beautiful inside and out’. She meant it as a slam against me.

  “I drink because I’m lonely and I don’t want to be alone, Breecie. I’ve always been alone.”

  Kate was a widow. I wondered how old her daughter was when the father died, but I knew better than to ask. I wondered under what circumstances she’d given up her daughter for her parents to raise, but I didn’t ask.

  We both picked at our tacos and rice and assorted unidentifiable mushy things.

  “What about you and your fiancé? What happens now?”

  “I’m alone, Kate. I’m totally alone.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Warnings Become Death Threats

  I found the notecard slipped under my door. The formal raised-ink seal highlighted perfect pale-pink calligraphy. I couldn’t imagine how it found its way to my apartment at the remote ranch. But then again, I’d received a dead rose at the same door. There was no postal stamp, no evidence of overnight delivery, and although I didn’t know for sure, I doubted messenger services were readily available in Trinidad, Colorado.

  The writing inside was in the same exquisite pink calligraphy that addressed the envelope:

  You aren’t getting married,

  So I can’t make him a widower.

  But I can still make y
ou dead.

  Christ! This was a death threat! My first reaction was to call the police. That’s what I should do. But I hesitated. What could they do? Did I want them involved? Tell them about the heinous love letters and a gun that may or may not have been used in an old and supposedly solved crime? Ridiculous.

  I wanted to grab my phone and dial Adam, but he couldn’t comfort me anymore. Dad wasn’t ‘just a phone call away’, Mom was long gone, sis was overseas and busy being a perfect mom.

  I had no one to call. I’d long abandoned my friends in Washington, aware those relationships ran about as deep as grooves in an old vinyl L.P. Aside from the standard plastic work associations, I had one workout buddy, and a neighbor that watered my plants on occasion. Another girlfriend was bipolar, homely, and very, very cheap for the taking for any man’s desire. That she was always available to meet me for dinner or drinks broke my heart. Maybe I was the pathetic one, because I turned to her for company often.

  I had a fiancé that slept around, a career I loathed, a murdered mother, a father hiding secrets, and a string of shallow friendships. My life was a trampoline framed by miles of razor wire.

  I had been busy grooming myself for the life as the wife of a politician, while being Daddy’s blossoming little star lawyer and preparing the defenses of child molesters on the verge of a fresh mark.

  “Benny?” I looked around at my kitten’s favorite resting spots. Curled up on my mother’s old afghan on my sofa. Reclining across the sun-soaked bay window cushion. Nowhere. “Benny Boy?”

  His rhinestone collar was purely for show since I never allowed Benny outside my apartment, but when I first put it around his furry neck you would have thought I had knighted him. His hind legs preened up as high and as straight as his head cocked back. Now, my eyes swept across the coveted item for a second time. The rolled up collar was nestled inside Benny’s food dish.

  “Benny,” I screamed. “Benny!”

  I searched my tiny apartment for every preferred nook he may have sought out for a nap and for any sign of something not quite right. Nothing else was out of place. Nothing but the curled up collar and no Benny.

  I tore down one flight of stairs to Ari’s apartment and pounded on the door. When he didn’t answer, I tried the doorknob. Locked tight.

  Racing down the second flight, I searched each room, screaming out Benny’s name, looking under sofas and chairs. If he had been frightened, he could be hiding anywhere. Then, from the kitchen window, gnawing apprehension burst into a torrid mixture of fright and relief as I spied Jonathan walking across the courtyard with Benny in his arms.

  “What the hell are you doing with him?” I raced toward them, “Give him to me.”

  “I the hell was bringing him inside. This thing would last about an hour outside, if that,” he said. “It’s yours?”

  “He’s mine.”

  Jonathan handed me the cat, keeping a firm grip on his scruff until I took hold. “You shouldn’t be letting it out. Ever. He’d make a quick appetizer for the coyotes.”

  My heart quaked. “I didn’t let him out.” I was frantic, holding the cat close to my chest.

  “Whatever,” he said.

  “You don’t understand. He was wearing...” I started to tell him about the collar then thought better of it. “Never mind,” I said, cuddling my arms tighter around Benny, and beginning to realize someone was serious about getting me out of the not-so-sleepy town, dead or alive.

  The setting sun was casting one last glint of light, catching the gold mariner’s cross on Jonathan’s chest.

  Benny had been locked safely behind my apartment doors.

  Even some Christians do bad things. Very bad things.

  Rudy saddled up two mares. He’d offered them several times, promising they were gentle caballos that could almost follow the trails and return home themselves.

  Kate was an excellent rider, but I kept up as we rode the horses hard for about twenty minutes, bringing them down to a slow trot when the terrain became rugged. I paced myself behind Kate as the trail narrowed.

  “You don’t seem yourself, Breecie. What’s bothering you?” Kate called back.

  I was still trying to decipher the circumstances that left a collar in a pet dish and Jonathan with my cat in his hands. I kept my fears tucked away somewhere between a dwelling concern, outrage, and a pall of paranoia. “Nothing the fresh air and time with a friend can’t mend.”

  Kate turned around and flashed an infectious smile, and for a moment I believed my own words.

  “Whoa,” Kate yelled, pulling back on the reins. Her horse reared, then settled down while Kate rubbed its neck and gently cooed, “Calm down, good girl”.

  “What is it, Kate?”

  She backed her horse several feet nearer me, then nodded toward the side of the rocky trail ahead. “A horse’s worst enemy, and not so fun for the rider, either.” The mare’s body was rigid, but she was throwing her head back, casting its mane from side to side and whinnying.

  With my feet in the stirrups, I rose from my saddle to look ahead of her, spying the snake coiled and ready to strike. The coil was large enough I could have mistaken it for a discarded Mexican sombrero.

  “Stay still,” Kate said.

  Still? Any veil of calm on my face was shredded. I panicked as Kate chanted some words. A mantra I didn’t understand, but her horse seemed to know exactly what she was saying. I struggled to soothe my horse, but the mare’s restless motions made it obvious she sensed trouble.

  The snake struck at the air, causing Kate’s horse to buck. She held on while, no thanks to me, my horse backed up a couple of feet. “Kate. How can I help?”

  “Just keep quiet,” she said. Her horse bucked when the snake tired to strike at its vulnerable cannon area, just below the knee. She chanted the mantra again and then said, “Try to back your horse further out of here.”

  I squeezed my thighs tight across the mare’s thick girth, pulling in the reins. The horse secured one hoof at a time, backing down the steep trail. But calm, she wasn’t. She bucked and nickered through clenched upper incisors. I tumbled to the stony surface of the trail, landing only a few feet from the snake.

  The gunfire surprised us. Kate reeled around first. She saw it was Jonathan that fired the close range shot, putting the snake down. By the time I stood up and turned, I only saw the back of him riding away.

  My heart and hands still jangled with fear, Kate jumped off her mare and together we guided the horses back through the main gates to the ranch.

  “What does that maniac think he’s doing out here with a loaded gun?” I fumed.

  “Well for one, he might have saved your life. For sure he saved this horse,” Kate said.

  “There’s something about him I don’t like.”

  “What are you not telling me? I know I don’t like the man, but I’m sensing you hate him.”

  We led the horses to the stable and began removing their heavy saddles.

  I hadn’t told anyone but Adam about the withered black rose. The second notecard. I told no one about Benny. And especially, I had told no one about the gun in my father’s staircase. Now, what had felt like vulnerability detonated into fear and I succumbed to the realization I needed a real friend. I rattled off the facts to Kate, as best I could recount. It was as if I was presenting a case to a jury, except I wasn’t sure if I was the prosecutor or the defense, and worse, I sure as hell wasn’t sure I might be the victim.

  “I think you should go to the police,” Kate said. “Believe it or not we have some good detectives in this town. I know a couple of them.”

  “I bet you do,” I tried to smile. “Someone may want me to leave town, but my experience tells me if it were serious this warning would have been in rhyme”

  “Rhyme?”

  “You know. ‘You’re not getting married so I’m going to make you harried. Leave town or go down. Roses are red and you are dead.’ That kind of thing.”

  “Now you’re just full of sh
it.”

  “Seriously, Kate. The police aren’t going to take any of this seriously.”

  Rudy ran up, taking over care of the horses. Kate scowled at the ground as we walked away from the stables. We crossed in front of the huge storage barns and I noticed newly installed digital locks on the doors. “Looks like everyone around here has an issue with security,” I said.

  “George told me he was going to lease them from Ari. Needed some storage space and Ari had these buildings sitting empty.” Her voice was distracted.