Cold River (5 page)

She tried to keep him from seeing her turmoil of emotions. “I don’t mind hiking the way I came,” she said, adjusting the strap on her second boot.

“It’ll be dusk by the time you get back.” Sean spoke calmly, without pleading. “One wrong turn, and you’ll be spending the night on the mountain. Elijah would have your head for hiking up here by yourself.”

“I’m prepared for the conditions.”

“Of course you are. You’re always prepared for anything.”

She gave him a sharp glance, but she didn’t see the slightest hint of impatience in him.

Just pure, uncompromising Cameron determination.

“You choose the route,” he said. “I’m going with you.”

Hannah reached for the ski poles leaning against the cabin. Now that she’d been still for a while, the cold was
seeping into her. Even so, she felt the blood rush hot to her face. “I’m not going to get rid of you, am I?”

There was just the glimmer of a smile. “No.”

“Why, because I’m alone—or because you don’t trust me?”

“Something’s on your mind, Hannah. You ran out of the café this morning right after Bowie left and headed straight up here.”

“I didn’t run.”

“Does he blame you for his arrest?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t asked him. This morning was the first time I’ve talked to him since his arrest. You were there. You all heard what we said to each other. We talked about the leak in the cellar.”

“You went looking for him. The leak’s not a crisis. You wanted an excuse to talk to him.”

“I’ve known Bowie since I was a tot. I don’t need an excuse to talk to him, and the only way to get hold of him is to go looking for him.”

Sean sighed. “All right. I give up. I’d rather argue with you someplace warm.”

“Sounds like a plan.” She’d meant it as a light comment but saw his mouth twitch with sudden humor and immediately realized what she’d said. She decided she’d only make matters worse by trying to explain. “Supposedly the Cameron who first built up here was a bit of a hermit. Makes sense, considering how isolated it is.”

“It wasn’t as isolated then. The land was cleared for farming, and there were houses scattered along the river and up onto the mountain slopes.”

“It was never crowded, that’s for sure. You Camerons always have liked things a little rugged. You might live in Beverly Hills and not be used to Vermont winters anymore, but you fight wildfires.” Hannah started across the clearing.
“I’ve never been west of the Mississippi.” Thinking of Toby’s imminent departure, she glanced back at Sean. “Would I like Southern California?”

“To visit, at least. Everyone likes Southern California to visit.”

“I hope Toby likes it,” she said in a half whisper, but knew she couldn’t let that line of thinking take hold.

She paused, looking out at the snow and the mix of evergreens and hardwood trees, really feeling the cold now. She knew Sean wasn’t going to leave her to head back alone. Never mind his questions about her motives for coming up here, his father had died on this part of the mountain.

She turned to him, her ski pole striking a rock or ice under the snow. “Since I’m on Cameron land, I suppose I should do as you suggest and go back with you.”

Sean tilted back his head but said nothing, and she followed her tracks back through the cluster of spruce trees. A rabbit scampered in front of her, then disappeared under drooping, snow-covered branches as Sean came up next to her.

Hannah glanced up at him. “Being here can’t be easy for you,” she said quietly.

“It isn’t.”

“You and your brothers and sister have enough on your minds without beating yourselves up because your father didn’t come to you for help.”

“He wanted the cabin to be a surprise,” Sean said. “We get that.”

Hannah angled a look up at him. “I don’t mean just with the cabin. He went to Washington two weeks before his death to talk to Alex Bruni. I hear investigators speculate at the café, and I’ve talked to enough of them myself. They believe whatever your father discussed with Ambassador Bruni ultimately got them targeted by these killers. What
ever it was, neither of them realized it was incendiary at the time, or they’d have gone to the police.”

“It was enough for my father to drive to D.C.”

“But it wasn’t enough for Bruni not to blow him off. Nora doesn’t know what they talked about, but she says her stepfather wasn’t very nice to your father. It wasn’t until she started asking questions about Melanie Kendall that he took another look at what Drew had told him that day back in April.” Hannah stared down at the twisting trail the rabbit had left behind before scurrying out of sight. “Then he was killed.”

Sean was very still next to her. “You’ll make a good prosecutor.”

“Your father wasn’t protecting you,” she said. “He would have protected you, but he wasn’t. You know what kind of man he was. He went to Alex Bruni because he thought that’s where he could get the answers he was looking for. He saw Jo in D.C., too, and didn’t say a word to her about what was on his mind.”

A sudden wind blew down from the summit and cut through her thin jacket and layers. Sean didn’t seem to notice. “Bowie was in jail in April,” he said.

She pretended she hadn’t heard him and pushed off through the snow, following his tracks when they diverged from hers. She came to the steep trail down to the old logging road. Fine snow blew off a six-foot rock outcropping next to her. The wind was steady now, harsh, numbing her face. She lifted her jacket collar to better cover her chin and mouth.

Sean pulled off his gray wool scarf and handed it to her. “Take it,” he said. “I don’t need it. We can finish this discussion later.”

Hannah didn’t argue. The scarf was soft and still warm from him. She draped it around her neck, pulled it up over her mouth and nose, wishing suddenly that she hadn’t come up here at all. She thought of Bowie standing out at the old
cellar hole on the river when she and Drew had traipsed through the snow and mud to find him. Had Bowie already been up to see the old cellar hole Drew had found? Had the two men already talked about the work involved in rebuilding an old foundation?

Hannah plunged down the steep trail, knowing Sean would be right behind her if she tripped—or if she decided to tell him her real reasons for finally hiking up to see his father’s cabin.

S
ean had his hood off and his jacket unzipped even before the heat in Elijah’s truck kicked in. Hannah had already unwound his scarf from her neck, letting it dangle down her front. She sat stiffly next to him, her eyes pinned straight ahead as if she were trying to pretend she really wasn’t driving the ten miles back to the lodge with him. She’d moved fast on the mountain trail, sleeker, more lithe and agile, than he was comfortable noticing.

Just keep driving
, he told himself as he navigated the rutted, icy, one-lane logging road at the bottom of the trail. Ordinarily it would be closed to vehicles by December, but after the violence five weeks ago, law enforcement saw that it was kept plowed. It led to a back road, almost as narrow, that wound through the hills and the isolated hollow where Hannah Shay and Bowie O’Rourke had grown up.

Sean remembered his father talking about the Shays. “They’ve always lived hand-to-mouth,” he’d said on one of his rare visits to Southern California. “It’s what they know. Hannah and her brothers could be different, but they won’t be if they don’t want to be. I guess it’s easy for me to say. I’ve never had to leave behind what I’ve always known.”

As he drove down close to the river, Sean glanced at Hannah, her cheeks rosy, her eyes a pale gray-blue against the winter landscape. He’d always recognized that she was attractive. There’d never been any doubt about that. She was just impossible. She had a wall up around her as impenetrable as a force field, and never let anyone in.

“I can imagine your father’s excitement when he found that old Cameron cellar hole,” she said.

Sean could, too. “I always thought searching for it gave him an excuse to be up on the mountain, but he was serious about finding it. He took A.J., Rose and me up a few times, but most of the time, it was Elijah. They butted heads all their lives, but they understood each other.”

“I think in his own way, your father understood all four of you, even if he didn’t always approve of your choices.”

“Maybe so.”

Sean felt the familiar rush of grief mixed with guilt, anger and regret when he thought about his father and how he’d died, but he allowed it to wash over him and didn’t, this time, drown in it. He wanted to get his hands on whoever had hired the two killers to leave an old man to die alone in the cold. He wanted it as much as he’d wanted anything in his life, and he wasn’t a man easily deterred once he’d put his mind to getting something.

Hannah stared out her window without speaking for a couple miles.

“How’s law school?” Sean asked when her silence finally got to him.

She shrugged. “I’ve finished.”

“Studying for the bar?”

“Yes.”

“Any job prospects?”

She continued to sit rigid in her seat without glancing at him. “Not yet. I’m looking into a clerkship. With Toby in
California for a few months…” She paused. “I’ll have time on my hands.”

What would she do when she found out Devin was heading to California, too? Sean tried not to think about how alone she’d be. She had her friends, the café, her budding law career, and she’d just be irritated if she thought he was feeling a little sorry for her.

“You can manage the café and a clerkship?” he asked.

“I managed law school and the café.”

The late December sun was very low in the sky. An arc of bright, harsh afternoon light hit the windshield. Then it was gone, disappearing behind the hills as he took a tight turn down close to the river, just a few small pools of clear, fast-moving water not yet frozen in the winter cold.

Sean assumed Hannah’s short answers were a clue she didn’t want to talk, but he didn’t care. He wanted to know more about her reasons for going up the mountain so suddenly on her own. “The café seems to be doing well,” he said.

She smoothed a finger over the soft fabric of his scarf. “It is, thanks.”

“Holiday season was busy?”

“Yes.”

“A.J. says reporters and investigators made up for the drop-off in tourists at the lodge after the violence. I imagine it was the same at the café.”

She nodded again. “It was.”

“Hannah…” Sean turned onto Cameron Mountain Road, which would take them up from the river to the long, picturesque ridge where Black Falls Lodge was located and where he and his brothers and sister and the Harpers had all grown up. “You know, I wouldn’t have to ask so many questions if you’d work with me here.”

“Maybe I’m tired after my long hike and don’t want to talk.”

“You could just say so.”

She turned to him finally and smiled. “I’m tired after my long hike and don’t want to talk.”

He grinned at her. “Could have told me eight miles ago.”

She seemed to relax slightly. “I guess I could have.”

Not that she hadn’t made it obvious. He’d just ignored her signals.

He passed his sister’s little house and continued down to Harper Four Corners, the oldest settled section of Black Falls, where Cameron Mountain Road and Ridge Road intersected. On the corner to his right was a former early-nineteenth-century tavern, rumored to be haunted. To his left was an abandoned post-and-beam barn. On the corners directly across the road were a cemetery and a small, white-steepled church.

Sean turned right, onto Ridge Road, heading past snow-covered fields and stately, bare sugar maples that grew along stone walls constructed by long-ago farmers who’d cleared the rocky, inhospitable land.

He resisted the temptation to push the private, guarded woman next to him about her reasons for hiking up to the cabin—what they had to do with Bowie O’Rourke, why she wouldn’t just say what was on her mind. She’d never been one to knuckle under to pressure. It just had a way of getting her back up.

They came to Black Falls Lodge, a string of rustic buildings at the top of a sloping, snow-covered meadow dotted with evergreens. The views of the endless mountains, blue and white in the December afternoon, were the subject of countless postcards and tourist photographs.

On his most tortured nights since April, Sean would lie awake in his bed in Beverly Hills and picture standing with his father on the lodge’s stone terrace. Drew Cameron had lived in Black Falls his entire life, marrying there, pulling
together parcels of land on the mountain named for his ancestors, opening the original lodge with his wife as a young couple. He’d never expected her to die first. He’d had enemies—people he’d irritated over the years—but Sean couldn’t think of anyone who’d hated his father enough to have him killed.

“Sean?”

He glanced at Hannah and realized she’d seen his pain. He quickly masked it and turned into the lodge parking lot, the truck’s tires crunching on the packed ice and snow as he pulled in next to her car.

A.J. and Elijah walked out the side door to the main lodge. They weren’t wearing coats, just heavy sweaters. Jo would be on the premises, and Lauren, A.J.’s wife. Lauren worked at the lodge, but it wouldn’t have mattered. A.J. had kept his family close since two hired assassins had turned up and been killed, one of them within sight of the lodge.

Hannah unfastened her seat belt. “Not going to complain about the cold in front of your brothers, are you?”

Sean looked over at her and laughed. “Not a chance.”

She touched the door handle. “Thanks for the ride. Stay warm. You’ll be back in Beverly Hills soon.”

Her tone was cool, reserved, and he knew he wouldn’t get anywhere with her, not with his brothers watching, not with her on high alert. He smiled instead. “I can’t persuade you to stay for hot chocolate?”

“Hot chocolate and the third-degree. No, thanks. You all know where to find me if you have any specific questions. I have to check on Toby and his packing. He’ll remember all his mountain-biking gear and forget his driver’s license.”

“Toby’s old enough to see to his own packing.”

“So he is.” She pushed open the door, letting in the frigid air. Her gaze settled on a spot out on the plowed, sanded parking lot. “I wasn’t here when Melanie Kendall’s car
blew up. It was after the search-and-rescue team brought Nora and Devin down off the mountain. I was with Devin at the hospital.”

“She had a bad end coming, but no one wanted to see her murdered.”

“Jo and Elijah witnessed the explosion. He got Nora out of Melanie’s car before it blew up. I hear from her every now and then—she’s in Washington with her mother. Her father, too. It’s tough, but she’s talking about going back to school.”

The blast that killed Melanie Kendall, Sean knew, could have killed his brother, or Jo Harper, or anyone else who’d been at the lodge that day. “I should have been here,” he said. “I was drinking damn
mojitos
by the pool—”

“No one knew we had two killers in our midst. Guilt will eat you alive, Sean,” Hannah said, her voice deathly quiet. “Believe me, I know. Don’t let it.”

Sean suddenly was aware of the afternoon shadows and the lavender shade of the sky as dusk slowly settled over the mountains. His life in California almost seemed to belong to another man, not to him.

“I’m glad I didn’t witness Melanie or Kyle’s deaths, or see their bodies.” Hannah seemed to draw herself in against the cold as the heat seeped out of the truck. “If I’m going to be a prosecutor, I have to learn to steel myself to what I’ll have to see.”

“This was different. You met them. They tried to frame Devin for stalking Nora Asher and stealing from her, the café, the lodge.”

“Melanie was attractive and personable. I never would have pegged her as a killer.”

“That’s what she and Rigby counted on.”

“Her own people killed her. Right here.” Hannah shook her head as if she were telling herself she had to stop now, before she could spin out of control. “Rigby was already
dead. Jo figured out that Melanie was Rigby’s partner, but whoever triggered the bomb in her car didn’t necessarily know that. It wasn’t why she was killed. Nora and Devin were still alive. Melanie had screwed up, and she had to die.”

Sean stayed where he was behind the wheel. He saw the tremor in Hannah’s lower jaw. Next, her teeth started to chatter. Her eyes were wide, focused, he knew, not on the present but on the images of what had happened five weeks ago.

He reached over to her and touched her elbow. “Hannah. Breathe.”

His words, his touch, seemed to penetrate whatever was coming at her, and she exhaled and turned to him. “Sorry. Every day’s better, but I still…”

“I know,” he said softly.

“The police have cleared everyone who was at the lodge when Melanie’s car exploded. The killer could have had a spotter, but why make two calls when one would do? This is a practical, calculating killer.”

“It’s also one who will take tremendous chances if necessary.”

“A man? A woman? A team?”

Sean shook his head. “I couldn’t tell you. I couldn’t even guess.”

Hannah looked out toward the mountains in the distance. “Even up here, it’s easy to go unnoticed. Who’d remember a car parked on the side of the road, or a cross-country skier out enjoying the first snow of the season? Make a discreet call and…mission accomplished. Melanie Kendall is dead.”

Sean saw his opening and took it. “What if whoever’s behind this network had an accomplice here in Black Falls? An unwitting accomplice, perhaps. Someone who was used or manipulated into helping to set off the bomb.”

Hannah shifted her gaze from the view, her pale blue eyes
reflecting a hint of the lavender in the sky. “Do you have anyone in mind?” she asked, her self-control back in place.

“I don’t.” His eyes narrowed on her. “What about you?”

“It’s your theory,” she said, “not mine.”

“You’re letting the police run the investigation, aren’t you, Hannah? You’re not a prosecutor yet.”

Her look was unreadable now. “I’m familiar with who does what in a criminal investigation.”

She pushed open the door and climbed down out of the truck. Sean nodded back toward his brothers. “A.J. and Elijah will want to know you’re all right after going up to Pop’s cabin. They know being up there can be emotional. Why don’t you come into the lodge with me and we all have a drink?”

“I really can’t,” she said, grabbing her pack, snowshoes and ski poles.

Sean leaned across the seat, ready to charge after her. “Hannah, what did you figure out up there?”

“That I should have done a better job of protecting my brother.”

“You have a law degree. You’re smart. You see everything. It’d be natural to have questions—”

“Yes. Devin almost getting killed definitely sparked questions.”

Her arms loaded, she shut the door with her knee and made it to her car without dropping a snowshoe or poking an eye with a ski pole. She managed to get the passenger door open and dump in her pack and snowshoes, then went around to the driver’s side and climbed in.

Sean could have gone after her, but he got out of the truck and headed across the parking lot, trying to ignore just how tense and aggravated he was. He’d sit across a negotiating table with the worst of the sharks he’d encountered in Beverly Hills before taking on Hannah Shay.

No one, he thought, had ever gotten to him the way she did.

He could feel the approach of dusk in the cold, still air. Nightfall would come early. He had never noticed the relentless winter dark as a kid, only later, when he’d come home for the holidays. He’d had no intention of returning to Vermont to live, but he’d always thought he could.

Now he wasn’t sure. His father’s death…Hannah…her brothers…

His
brothers.

Sean waited until Hannah’s old car was rattling down the road before he joined A.J. and Elijah on the walk.

“Let’s go inside,” he said to his brothers. “We need to talk.”