Tahoe Blues (31 page)

The world was always changing. It was the one thin
g you couldn’t stop, so Leah decided she’d just go with the flow.

~~~**~~~

Brett Boden drove his truck off the ferry and onto Victoria Island in Canada. The eight day voyage from Seattle through the Puget Sound and in an around the San Juan Islands had been one of the most wondrous adventures of his life. The days were clear and the cruise had met nothing but blue skies and calm seas. The small islands the ferry passed were more lush and green than anything Brett had seen in the Tahoe area in the past thirty-five years of his residency, and the wildlife far more spectacular. Whales and sea lions had been a common sight off the port bow, while the majestic hawk soared above.

He hated leaving Ca
ra and what she was facing alone, but he had tried to warn her. When she didn’t run as he advised, the only thing left he could do to help her was to hide the conversation he had inadvertently recorded between Inga Alexander and one of the kids in Cara’s class, and hope for the best. For days he had worried that Leah would fail to give Cara his message and had penned a letter with the same cryptic message. He’d been relieved when he learned through the media that Leah had promptly come through and the duo had quickly figured out his cypher.

Brett
didn’t view himself as a coward, but he knew his life would be in danger if he turned the information over to the police. Not knowing who he could trust or where to turn, he deposited his phone within the Laffin’ Coaster sculpture Cara hated so much.

For the next two years he would be working with a fellow artist on a sculpture commissioned by the Royal BC
Museum. A friend and sometime romantic interest, Selma Ditter, had won a competition to sculpt a huge statue to place at the museum’s entrance, and she had asked Brett to come on as her assistant. Working as a sidekick was not something he was interested in, but it was more desirable than hanging around Tahoe and testifying against the Alexanders.

Tahoe had become much too hot to handle for the artist who had spent his life building his reputation a
s an internationally known artist. Brett’s greatest fear was that he would wind up in the Witness Protection Program and never be able to sculpt again. Spending a couple of years outside the United States and working for a drop dead gorgeous and talented woman seemed a far better option.

~~~**~~~

Duncan Alexander gazed out of the massive window in his office at the Cascade Bay Resort and Casino. The grand luster of his kingdom had been tarnished. The woman who had given him life, with a heritage rooted in back room deals and underhanded schemes, had stayed true to form and risked it all, simply because his wife had left him.

Ironically
, Cara had called and offered him the services of her lawyer. Even more ironically, Duncan had accepted. Martin Langley now served as council for the defense for Inga Hanson Alexander. Martin and his crew uncovered the clues which had led to his mother’s undoing and no one else on earth was better prepared to defend her.

The artist who had been instrumental in the family’s downfall had not surfaced
, but the information he left behind on his cell phone had pointed federal investigators in the right direction. Duncan knew his mother had taken after her mobster grandfather, but he hadn’t realized how far she reached into the local government’s pockets on both the California and Nevada side of the boarder. The list of indictments against her was growing daily.

Duncan closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. There were so many decisions
he would eventually have to make, and he had no idea how to deal with his brother-in-law’s indiscretion. Mark Porter’s lack of loyalty could not go unpunished, but Duncan no longer had the heart. The old rules which had been ingrained in him since birth no longer seemed to apply.

His sister had not been pleased with her husband’s involvement
with Cara and her merry band of misfits. Although he hadn’t spoken to her directly, different sources had advised him that Mark was in the process of moving out of the family home.

That spoke volumes, the dissolution
of his sister’s marriage was most likely imminent.

Duncan
heaved a great sigh and sat down behind his desk. All the family’s accounts had been frozen, pending a forensic accounting, and his schedule had been cleared for the foreseeable future. He drummed his fingers impatiently upon the rich grain of his teak desk.

The once great Duncan Alexander had absolutely nothing to do.

The intercom buzzed and Duncan pushed a button. “Yes, Sarah. What news agency wants to speak with me now?” he barked harshly.

“I’m sorry to disturb you
, sir, but there is an Erin Reed here to see you.”

A slow smile
curved on his lips as he remembered the dance he shared with the beautiful blonde at the gala.

As long as he was able to stay clear of her brother’s mean right hook
, then perhaps he had something to do after all.

The End

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Also by Aubree Lane

Early One Morning

The paint in Mrs. Barrington’s living room had dried to a putrid shade of chartreuse, the electrician hadn’t shown up, and the floor guy was running way behind schedule. Annie looked at the ghastly color and moaned. Mrs. Barrington was not going to be pleased. This was the second time the room had been painted and this color was much worse than the first.

Numbers ran through her head as she calculated the cost of having it painted one more time, and wished Mrs. Barrington would stop being so helpful. The woman simply didn’t possess the vision to see how a small paint sample would look in large amounts. Wasn’t that the reason she hired Annie in the first place?

Annie closed her eyes against the onslaught. She felt as if she were inside a tube of minty-fresh toothpaste. If she’d been allowed to do her job, she and her crew would have been out of here ages ago. Instead, they were months past the projected end date, and hardly any progress had been made in this massive remodeling project.

Annie was worn out. Most clients were problematic in their own way, but Mrs. Barrington was one of a kind and the pressure of consistently living up to her reputation as the elite designer in San Diego, who came in under budget and on time, was draining the life out of her.

Budget problems were never an issue, because of her reputation people expected to pay more and Annie was happy to oblige. The challenge was finishing in a timely fashion. No matter how much leeway she gave herself, it was never enough. Most of the problems occurred from the sub-contractors she had to hire. Over the years, Annie had come to the conclusion that somewhere in the contractor’s manual there was a stipulation that they had to be unreliable and flaky.

Of course, that was a drastic over-simplification of the problem. There were plenty of reputable contractors out there but they were in demand and their time was stretched just as thin as Annie’s. Even if you had every aspect of your project planned out to the exact millisecond, the first time a tool broke or a delivery didn’t show up, all that planning and preparation would become worthless. Contractors would move on to their next job and start bouncing back and forth between assignments trying to keep everyone satisfied, which was impossible. It was a horribly frustrating way to do business, but Annie certainly couldn’t afford to have workers standing around with nothing to do until it was time for them to complete their specific task. So she was stuck dealing with the status quo. Contractors tended to give her first priority though, simply because she paid them the moment she was satisfied with their work.

Annie knew how to keep her people happy. Money talked, and the little extra she handed out in the form of a bonus didn’t hurt either. She wasn’t even above hiring someone under the table as long as their work was exceptional, met code, and got the job done faster. Business was business and sometimes it got a little cutthroat, even in the designing field.

On days like today she wished she’d reined in her ambition, and hadn’t been in such a hurry to venture out on her own. At least then clients like Mrs. Barrington wouldn’t be her sole responsibility, and she’d be able to take a break now and then without feeling guilty.

Feeling the need for a calm place to think, Annie stepped through the rough framework of a doorway meant for a gorgeous pair of etched-glass doors, which had yet to arrive, and out into the courtyard. She parked herself on a decorative concrete bench which had been placed under the lacy leaves of a White Alder, hoping to enjoy the venti-sized, bold pick of the day, which she had picked up on the way over.

After a few moments, Annie realized she might have to rethink the placement of this particular bench. Shaded by the tree, the concrete could not absorb any of the day’s warmth, and a pronounced chill began to inch up her body. She was uncomfortable, but since she didn’t have the energy or inclination to move, she settled in to watch Mrs. Barrington’s gardener tend to the most outstanding collection of black roses Annie had ever seen, as her butt slowly turned to ice.

Annie had used the deep hue of the delicate buds as inspiration for Mrs. Barrington’s living room, but she had never been given the chance to capture its beauty. She bit her lower lip and focused on the unusual color of the flower and hoped a light bulb would go off in her head.

Originally, the walls were going to be the dark black-red of the petals with leaf green accents scattered about, but Mrs. Barrington nixed that idea, feeling the dark walls would make the oversized living room feel small. Then the woman made an executive decision and changed the color arrangement without first discussing it with her. Annie had been somewhat placated by the fact that the deep green Mrs. Barrington decided on was at least something she could work with, but after the room was painted Mrs. Barrington decided she hated it, and ordered it covered up with white primer almost before the walls had dried. The color that now resided in its place was a unique blend only Mrs. Barrington could have come up with.

It made Annie gag just thinking about it.

A minute or two passed as she watched the tall, aging gardener expertly remove the spent blooms of some of the healthiest rosebushes in San Diego, and still came up blank. Annie still believed that dark red walls would be amazingly dramatic, but since it was obvious Mrs. Barrington didn’t want that much drama in her living room, it was probably time to chuck the whole color palette and come up with something a little more conventional. She only wished that she had come to that conclusion earlier, and that Mrs. Barrington had been honest with her from the start.

Annie’s cheerful Happy Cricket ringtone chirped deep within the recesses of her jacket pocket. She fumbled around in the soft microfiber lining, touching and discarding her sunglasses, a tissue, lip gloss, and a small electronic game before landing on the desired item. On the fourth and final ring, Annie successfully raised the device to her ear and announced, “Annie Harper.”

“You are not going to believe who our dive master was!” Marissa gushed into the phone.

Annie sighed, she hadn’t recognized the number and was hoping the floor guy was calling so she could tell him to move on to his next job, but hearing a friendly voice took a close second. She was surprised that the usually overprotective mom hadn’t first inquired about the welfare of her children. Marissa had never left Jack and Sandy for an extended period of time, and never with Annie. Even though she was on a romantic island vacation celebrating her tenth wedding anniversary with her husband, nothing had stopped Marissa from making daily phone calls just to hear her precious little cuddle bugs’ voices.

Annie laughed. “Don’t you want to hear about the kids?”

“If anything were wrong, you would be the one calling me, not the other way around,” Marissa barked impatiently, surprising Annie even more. “Now pay attention. Our dive master was Terence Javier! Can you believe it?”

She couldn’t. Terence Javier had been their big high school crush.

One day, midway through their junior year, a new student joined Annie and Marissa’s favorite class and became the newest member of the high school choir. Their teacher, Ms. Caftan, a hippy kick-back with stringy waist-length salt and pepper hair, had traveled the world and loved exploring cultural differences. Ms. Caftan felt the new girl, having come from the Pacific Rim, presented an incredible opportunity to enrich their lives and had insisted that she bring something from her former life to share with the class.