Candy Apple Dead (22 page)

She shook her head. “He took a group out the other day and won’t be back until tomorrow. Is there something special you’re after? Maybe I can help.”

I wasn’t sure how much to tell her. Not that I don’t trust Nora, especially after what she’d just said, but letting family secrets out every time you open your mouth isn’t always smart. Besides, I wasn’t sure which side of the fence she’d come down on when it came to the war between Wyatt and Elizabeth.

But there was only one way to find out. “I’m looking for Wyatt, actually. Have you seen him?”

Her expression didn’t change, and that surprised me. I knew she’d heard about the murder. Everyone had. It seemed odd that she wouldn’t show some emotion. “I haven’t seen him since last week. Why?”

“I just need to talk to him. I was hoping Charlie would know where he is.”

“He probably would if he was around. Why don’t you just wait and call Wyatt at home?”

I guess that answered my question about how close she was to Elizabeth, but I still wanted to be careful. Maybe Nora didn’t know anything. And maybe she was just a damn good liar.

“I would,” I said, “but he’s not
at
home these days.”

Her expression underwent an abrupt change as understanding raced across her face and escaped her lips on a sigh. “Elizabeth kicked him out?”

“That’s what they tell me.”

She raked the fingers of one hand through her hair. “I was afraid of that. How long ago?”

“Nearly a week. He told me that he’d be staying at the High Country Inn, but I haven’t been able to find him there. I think he must be somewhere else.”

“Maybe you’ve just missed him.”

“I don’t think so. His truck is never there, and I’ve left at least a dozen messages, but he hasn’t called me back. If he was getting the messages, he’d call—if only to yell at me to back off.”

Nora laughed softly. “You might be right, but he could just be ignoring you. You know Wyatt.”

“Yeah, I do. I also know Charlie. I think Wyatt’s up on the mountain.”

Nora stiffened almost imperceptibly. “That’s not possible. Charlie hasn’t been around to let him in.”

“He wouldn’t need Charlie to let him in, would he?”

She nodded and dragged a stack of mail across the counter. “We started locking the gate across that road about ten years ago. Too many trespassers. Wyatt doesn’t have a key.”

That wouldn’t stop my brother if the stakes were high enough.

“Besides,” Nora went on, tossing an advertising circular into the trash, “I was up there just yesterday. I had to get the cabins ready for a group coming in on Friday. If he was up there, I’d have seen him.”

“Not if he’s at Grandpa Stackhouse’s cabin.”

Tilting her head so she could study me, Nora slid an envelope into a box on the counter. “You think he’s up
there
?”

“Can you think of a better place? He knows that area like the back of his hand. At least let me drive up there and look.”

“I could do that, but it would be a waste of your time. That old cabin burned down two years ago.”

That took the wind out of my sails. “It burned down?”

“Lightning strike. It was gone before we even knew there was a fire up there.”

I couldn’t hide my disappointment. I’d been so
sure
. The coincidence of two fires felt a little spooky to me, but the West had been in a serious drought for the past six years, and a lot of forest land has been lost to dry thunderstorms in that time.

Nora stopped sorting and watched me chewing my lip. “You’re worried, aren’t you?”

“Wouldn’t you be?”

“About Wyatt?” She laughed and turned a catalog over so she could check something on the back. “He’s a big boy, Abby. He can take care of himself.”

“Under normal circumstances I’d agree with you—”

“He’s fine.” She met my gaze and held it. “I’m sure of it.”

I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up. “If you know where he is—”

Her gaze dropped. “I don’t.”

“I just want to talk to him,” I pressed. “He was in town the night of the fire, and I want to know why.”

Nora laughed and crumpled the last envelope in her fist. “Really, Abby. What do you
think
Wyatt was doing in town that night?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do he and Charlie ever do when they get together?”

Unless the world had changed dramatically in the past few years, I knew the answer to that. “They were drinking?
Together?
”

“You know how they are.”

“But that means that Wyatt has an alibi. Why didn’t he just tell me that?”

“You’re his little sister. He doesn’t think he should have to answer to you.”

“Has he told the police? Have
you
told the police?”

“We will if it’s necessary. If he’s innocent, he won’t need one.”

“In a perfect world, maybe. But that’s not the world we’re living in.”

“You’re going to have to trust, Abby. Wyatt knows what he’s doing. So does Charlie. Things will work out fine, just you wait and see. Now, I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you anything more. Wherever he is, I’m sure he’ll be in touch when he’s ready.”

I wanted to scream. Maybe tear my hair out in frustration. “Wyatt has an alibi, but nobody wants to share that tidbit with the police? Why in the hell not?”

I could almost see the walls snapping up around her, and I knew I’d pushed far enough. “I’m sure Wyatt can explain it all . . . if he wants to.”

“Yeah, and what are the chances of that?” Doing my best to swallow my disappointment, I pulled my keys from my pocket and turned toward the door. “If you hear from him—”

“I’ll let you know.”

Yep. I believed that. Just like she’d been so quick to tell me Wyatt had the damn alibi in the first place. I’d just have to keep trying to find answers, and hope that Wyatt would eventually come to his senses.

The trouble is, we’re talking about my brother. Common sense isn’t something Wyatt Shaw has in abundance. I just hoped it wouldn’t be his downfall.

I was halfway across the valley when it hit me.
Wyatt didn’t have an alibi at all. Charlie was just prepared to stand up in court and perjure himself to keep him from going to prison. Take what I said about Wyatt and common sense. Multiply it by ten. That’s Charlie Stackhouse for you.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad my brother has such a loyal friend. I don’t think anybody would do something like that for me. But since Charlie could lose everything and
still
not save Wyatt’s sorry hide, it didn’t seem like the smartest move he could make.

Knowing that only made me more determined to find out what really happened at Man About Town.

Midway between Paradise and Aspen, in a broad valley gouged into the mountains by some long-ago glacier, lies the tiny community of Thomasville. For more than a hundred years, a group of hardy folks scraped a living from the soil.

Farmhouses still dot the landscape today, but few of the people who live there work the land. Some work at regular jobs. Some have been bitten by the tourist-trade bug. And developers are hungry for any piece of land in that area they can get their hands on. One by one, those old houses are being purchased and replaced.

The Dumonts just happen to be one of the area’s oldest families and owners of just about all of the prime land in the center of the valley. According to local legend, the land where Devil’s Playground sends skiers careening down the mountainside once belonged to the Dumonts.

Lucas’s great grandpa, old Horace Dumont, lost it to a developer during a high-stakes poker game back in the 1940s. They say he was flying high on tequila at the time or he never would have let that land go.

Horace was pretty upset when he sobered up, but he was as good as his word, and signed over the deed as promised. Lucas’s daddy, Nathan Dumont, frequently holds up old Horace as a shining example of good sportsmanship. What Nate neglects to mention is that Horace never recovered from the emotional shock and ended it all by driving his truck off the side of that same mountain a few years later.

Maybe he wasn’t such a good sport after all.

Lucas is in his early twenties. He’s worked for Brandon since shortly after high school, but he still lives with his parents. And why not? They have money, and he likes the stuff that comes with it.

To tell the truth, I’m not sure why he even bothered to work at Man About Town. His wages might have been competitive within the market, but I’m sure they were nothing to brag about—especially when the checks didn’t clear the bank.

I like driving fast, and I was in the right mood to indulge myself. Within minutes, the town fell away behind me and the road curved through a mountain valley of lush, green grass and river willows. Sage-dappled hills rolled into granite cliffs on either side of me, and afternoon shadows stretched across the meadow. Even Max roused himself enough to take an experimental sniff or two of fresh air.

The turnoff to the Dumont property was impossible to miss. The ornate wrought-iron fence that spans the turnoff clearly marks it as leading to Something Significant.

Within a few feet, the lane turns to gravel, and I bounced along slowly, stirring up dust in my wake. Aspen trees surround the drive, and this evening their leaves shimmered golden in the fading sunlight. A dozen outbuildings had been sprinkled among the trees over the years, but I didn’t see anyone stirring until I drove into the broad clearing at the end of the road.

There, a large modern cabin made of honey-colored logs and glass holds center stage. The setting sun reflected off its high, wide windows, turning everything around me—house, trees, and glass—into gold.

Fitting, I thought. Nate Dumont would love the illusion that he had the Midas Touch. If it were possible, he’d pay off Mother Nature to create a moment just like this.

Lucas was a bit too much like his daddy for my taste. Almost from the beginning, Brandon had run into trouble with his attitude. Lucas liked arriving for work late and leaving early, and his favorite part of the job was break time, which he exercised frequently and often extended beyond the usual fifteen minutes. I would have fired him a long time ago, but Brandon was either more patient or more of a pushover than I am.

A BMW, a Hummer, and a Denali were parked on the driveway when I pulled up. If these were the cars they left outside, I wondered what treasures they had locked away. I parked at the edge of the drive so I didn’t block anyone’s exit, and took a few seconds to get my bearings.

From somewhere nearby, music blasted into the silence, and I had a gut feeling that Lucas was responsible. Urging Max to come along, I followed the noise and found a set of long skinny legs that could only have been Lucas’s poking out from beneath a restored Chevy pickup that looked older than I am.

A hand snaked out from under the truck and pulled something from an open tool box. When it disappeared again, a clang echoed across the clearing, and a few choice words I’d bet his mother didn’t like followed.

Max trotted obediently at my heels as we approached the truck. He didn’t seem unduly concerned or interested, so I reasoned that he hadn’t been chasing Lucas through the streets of Paradise.

Lucas must have seen us standing there since he couldn’t possibly have heard us over the stereo and the cursing. He rolled out from under the truck and stared up at us, shielding his eyes from the sun with one grease-stained hand.

He’s rail thin, probably about six-two, with short-cropped dark hair and a chin covered with facial hair. Today, he wore a pair of coveralls that looked as if he’d picked them up at the Goodwill.

“Hey, Abby. What are you doing here?” I think that’s what he said. I couldn’t actually hear him.

“I’m looking for you,” I shouted back. “Do you have a minute?”

He pushed a button on the stereo and a deafening silence fell over the old homestead. “Sure. What’s up?”

“I’m trying to piece together what happened the day Brandon died, but there are a few things that just don’t make sense to me. I wonder if you can help me.”

He turned away to close the lid on his tool box. “I doubt it. Seems pretty simple to me. The store caught on fire, and Brandon died. What doesn’t make sense about that?”

“Someone started the fire,” I reminded him. “It wasn’t caused by spontaneous combustion.”

He leveled a glance at me. “I know that.”

“Any ideas about who did it?”

With a smirk, Lucas reached for a rag and rubbed at the grease on his hands. “Is that a serious question? Everybody knows who did it.”

“My brother is innocent.”

Lucas shrugged and tossed the rag over his shoulder. “If you say so. But he was mad enough to kill
somebody
last time I saw him.”

That wasn’t exactly welcome news. “You saw him? When was that?”