His Golden Heart (30 page)

“The truth about what happened to me on the day that I lost the downhill.”

Peter went pasty white. “You were ahead, Beau; then you fell. That’s all I know.”

“Yes, I am painfully aware of that. I’m the one who broke my back, remember? I’m now being told that there was a cover-up, a conspiracy of silence and that everyone knew that you and Josh attempted to sabotage me. Did you, Peter?”

“I did not. I’m your friend. “

“Then where are my skis? My boots? I’m told you and Josh volunteered to pack up my things, but you conveniently had a memory lapse. You told me you didn’t know who sent my personal items.”

Although the room was not warm, Peter was visibly sweating. “I swear,” he said, holding up one hand, “I did not volunteer to pack your personal stuff.”

“Then who did?”

“Look, I told you I didn’t know.”

“I’ll find out,” Beau said, rising, “and if I discover that you’re lying there will be hell to pay.” He jabbed a finger at Peter and headed out

“I’m telling you the truth,” Peter called after him. “Miles Williams was the person I saw hanging around our equipment. I wanted to tell you but I didn’t want to name Miles ’cause I didn’t want to cause trouble. I figured if I told the guys I saw a suspicious person by the equipment they would let you know. Miles and Josh are friends. They’ve been for quite some time.”

Beau didn’t turn back to acknowledge the comment.

Seated again in the Saab, Beau punched in the Hill Of Dreams number. He got Malcolm on the phone and demanded he check old records to see if Lenox Frasier had left a number behind. After an eternity on hold, Malcolm returned to tell him he’d had no success. Time to figure out what to do next. Lenox was a drummer for The Springs. The group still played at some of the popular LoDo nightspots. It was worth making a second call.

“Meet Market,” a loud woman answered.

Knowing that his name would produce a guaranteed reaction, Beau said, “How ya doing? This is Beau Hill. I’m planning a party and I’m friends with The Springs drummer. Would you happen to have his number?”

“
The
Beau Hill!” the woman repeated, sounding like she’d died and found Nirvana. Hot diggity dog! I’m talking to the champion skier.”

Beau could hear her loud wheezing. He just wanted a phone number not her fawning all over him. “Yeah, that’s me,” he said.

“Hold on a moment, I can’t breathe.” Wheeze! Wheeze! Wheeze!

Beau gritted his teeth, wondering what was taking her that long. He reminded himself that without his fans he was nothing.

Eventually a man’s voice barked in his ear, “Hey, champ, you claiming to be Beau Hill? If you’re really him, how did he place in the World Cup and Chevy finals?”

Beau answered him without hesitation.

“There’s no way to really be sure you’re not jerking me around, but I’m going to have to believe you. Besides, you sound like him. I’ve heard that voice trillions of time on TV and that new commercial you were in just aired.”

The number. Just give me the number.
Beau’s patience was wearing thin.

After more jabbering, the man finally gave Beau two numbers, a day and a night one. Beau’s next phone call was to Towanda. He waited for the housekeeper to check her files. She returned breathing heavily. “I found the UPS slip,” she announced.

“Good, give me the tracking number hen text it to me.”

Beau scribbled the number down.

Next Beau punched in Lenox’s day number. When a woman answered he quickly asked for Lenox Frasier and was then transferred to voice-mail hell. Frustrated, he identified himself, and left a message and phone number.

Careening down the road at, at least sixty miles an hour, he had no particular destination in mind. It was too early to head for Shayna’s where he’d been invited for dinner. When his cell phone rang, he reached to retrieve it and narrowly missed sideswiping a Corvette. He pulled off to the side of the road and left the engine running.

“Yes?”

“Lenox Frasier returning your call. What’s up, man?”

Beau stated his purpose for calling earlier.

“I can probably help you if you have a tracking number,” Lenox said.

“I do.” Beau repeated the number.

Keys click-clacked on a keyboard and several muttered comments followed. “Found it.”

“Is the sender’s name listed?”

“Yup. Sure is.”

Beau held his breath in anticipation. “Read it to me.”

“Looks like the person sent several packages that day. The driver picked up maybe seven from the address in Olympic village. Six were sent to 87 Scenic Drive. The other to an address in the Whispering Pines Country Club.”

“Eighty-seven Scenic Drive is my address,” Beau confirmed. He didn’t know who lived in Whispering Pines but planned on finding out soon.

“The tracking numbers are linked. The one box went out insured. The contents say skis.”

“Who sent the damn packages?” Beau demanded, his eagerness coming over as rude.

“Don’t stress,” Lenox said, “I’ll tell you in a moment. The name’s Miles Williams.”

That rotten bastard. That lying piece of trash. Wait until I get my hands on him. He could have killed me.

But Miles didn’t live in a country club, so what was that about?

Beau remained seated, took deep breaths, and carefully parked the car. He sat for a long time with his eyes closed, and his head on the steering wheel, until he pulled himself together enough to make the next call. When he reached David on his cell phone, he quickly explained what had transpired.

“Call your father,” his agent ordered. “If we can get hold of your skis and prove that they were tampered with, it becomes a criminal matter. We will probably need a search warrant to get into that place in Whispering Pines. It’s entirely your decision. Call me back after you talk to your dad.”

His father was in town and it took Beau a full ten minutes to explain what he’d discovered.

“Williams would be pretty dumb to have your skis if he did indeed tamper with them,” Ed commented. “Try to reach him. Make him aware that you know the skis were mailed to this place in Whispering Pines. Don’t the Vanderhorns have a place there?”

Beau’s thoughts raced. The Vanderhorns were definitely the country club set. It was likely.

“What do I do if that’s confirmed?”

“That you’ll have to decide. It’s a pretty serious matter when someone sets out to deliberately do damage. You could have been killed. I would not allow them to get away with attempted murder.”

Beau hung up deciding better to deal with this head on. He’d go to Miles’s house and confront him. He called David back and his agent agreed to join him.

“You’ll need support. Swing by my house and pick me up,” David said, his tone barely containing his outrage.

Fifteen minutes later they were in Beau’s car and on their way. A Harley Davidson was parked in Miles’s driveway when they pulled up. Beau and David hopped out and tromped toward the house. Rap music blasted from the inside and over the music the sounds of a man huffing and puffing could be heard. Miles was apparently working out.

Beau banged the brass knocker and was forced to bang it again when several minutes later they still faced a closed door.

“I’ll be right there,” an annoyed voice eventually called.

The door was thrown open, and a huffing, puffing Miles faced them. He wore a tank top and on the floor behind him were weights and dumbbells.

“I wasn’t expecting you,” he said, eyeing David suspiciously. “Did you forget something?” The last sentence was directed at Beau.

“We’re coming in,” Beau said, pushing past Miles, David on his heels.

Miles trailed them in. “Is something wrong?”

“Plenty,” Beau said, facing him. “You told me a story when I was here a few days back. It didn’t check out.”

“What do you mean?”

Miles looked flustered and uncomfortable. Beau moved in for the kill.

“I spoke with a UPS representative. I know where my skis and boots were mailed.”

“What does this have to do with me?”

“Everything. You told me that Peter and Josh were the ones who mailed my stuff. I found out that’s not true.”

“I never said that,” Miles said, backing up. “You misunderstood me.”

“I don’t think so.”

David circled Miles, hemming him in from the back.

“Your name was listed on that UPS slip as the sender,” Beau accused.

“Maybe Peter or Josh listed it,” Miles sputtered. “Maybe they figured they needed to do that to take the heat off them if it ever came out.”

“Then why not send the skis to your address? Why send it to the Whispering Pines Country Club? The Vanderhorn place.”

“Maybe they didn’t know my address.”

“You know what I think,” David said, entering the conversation for the first time. “You’re lying. I think you and Joshua Vanderhorn were in this together. I’m fairly certain that when we check this out we’ll find out you and Vanderhorn were in cahoots and several skiers on the team knew it.”

Miles visibly paled. Beau decided to press his advantage. “Weren’t you the one looking for a screwdriver?” He bluffed. “That’s what I heard.”

“I…”

Beau went for the jugular. “You what? Didn’t expect me to get seriously hurt.”

“Something like that.”

Beau wanted to do serious damage to the man facing him.

“You evil son of a…” He lurched, going for Miles’s throat. David stepped between them.

“He’s not worth it, Beau.”

Miles continued to blubber. “We volunteered to pack your stuff. Josh said we should send anything that might be incriminating to his parents’ address, and he would get rid of it. So we did. We packed up the stuff together and I called UPS.”

“That was dumb of you to list your name as the sender,” Beau said, through clenched teeth.

“We didn’t expect you to ever find out. I mean your skis disappeared. We thought it was over and done with. That you would never find out. Please…” Miles was openly crying. “Please don’t involve the police. You’ll ruin my career.”

“You ruined mine,” Beau said slowly and evenly. “You cost me a medal and you damn near cost me my life. Why should I care if you and Vanderhorn are locked up and put behind bars?”

Miles had gotten on his knees and was pleading. “I appeal to your decency. Your sense of sportsmanship. We were once a team.”

Beau turned on his heel and gestured to David. He shot over his shoulder, “You have a lot to learn about sportsmanship. Did anyone ever tell you that there’s no I in team?”

“What are you going to do?” Miles asked, crawling to them on his knees.

“What any sane person would do,” David interjected. “Report your asses to the cops and let a judge handle it.”

“You can’t. Please, you can’t. That will be the end of my career.”

“You should have thought of that when you ended his,” David said, a glint in his eye. He exited, slamming the front door in Miles’s face.

Chapter Twenty-five

The phone rang just as Shayna was done for the day. She’d been working with Earl, the quadriplegic. While there was little that she could do to improve his quality of life, his positive spirit and overall determination to work with his disability reaffirmed why she’d chosen to be a rehabilitation therapist.

“All right, Earl,” Shayna said, “you did well today. I’ll see you on Tuesday.”

She gave him the thumbs-up sign and Earl blinked his eyes in acknowledgment. Shayna nodded to Mary Jane, who hovered at the entrance. She’d come to fetch her patient.

Earl determinedly maneuvered his motorized wheelchair with the aid of the pencil in his mouth.

All of her patients should be like him, Shayna thought, positive and determined to beat the odds. Most weren’t though. Most had to go through the usual stages before the breakthrough came. First there was denial, then anger, and later, acceptance. At some point, a decision had to be made to move on with their lives and work with or around their handicap.

So far it had been one harrowing day. She could use a good run, get that adrenaline flowing. Dealing with stressed parents who were still awaiting the outcome of Reggie’s situation was not easy. Dealing with her intense feelings for Beau and putting them in perspective only added to her stress. How did you get used to being in love with a the last person you expected to be in love with? How did you juggle the daily challenges? There were difficult patients, temperamental colleagues, and of course the politics that went with any organization. A busy weekend now stretched ahead. Memorial Day. Then right after the trial.

The phone rang as Shayna picked up her purse and prepared to head out.

“Yes,” she said, skipping the preliminaries.

“Hi, it’s Colin. Good news, Shayna.”

She needed good news. Shayna’s heart palpitated as she waited for him to go on.

“Are you there?” Colin asked.

“Yes, I’m here.”

His voice sounded smooth as velvet on the other end. Seductive. Too bad he did nothing for her.