The Mountain Between Us (15 page)

“Katya said to tell you she's sorry she couldn't be here,” Doug said. “She's giving a massage over in Telluride today.”

Lucille pushed aside the stack of photocopies. “What are you all doing here?” she asked.

They all looked to Reggie. “My private detective friend found Gerald Pershing,” he said.

Lucille's chest tightened. She didn't want to hear Gerald's name. Didn't want to talk about him. But, of course, she had to. “Where was he?”

“He's been in Dallas the whole time,” Doug said. “He's not even trying to hide.”

“What did he say? Did you talk to him?” She pressed her lips together, wishing she could take back the words. Anything Gerald said would likely be a lie, and words would never justify what he'd done—to her and to the town.

“We haven't talked to him yet,” Paul said. “We figure if we confront him, he'll deny he did anything wrong. We gave him our money to invest and as far as we know he invested it.”

“He said it would be six months before we could expect a return,” Junior said.

“But I think we all know we'll never get it back,” Doug said. The others nodded.

“Can we press charges?” Lucille asked.

Reggie shook his head. “The state police and the FBI say not. There's no compelling evidence that he did anything wrong. He's probably smart enough to have manufactured some records showing he had the authority to take the money, and that he invested it somewhere.”

“Then finding him didn't really do us any good.”

“Except we have a plan,” Bob said.

She looked at him, dismayed. “Now, Bob—”

“Hear him out, Lucille,” Doug said. “He's got some good ideas.”

That would be a first. She folded her arms across her chest. “All right. What is this plan?”

“We contact him, but only to inquire, friendly-like, how things are going,” Bob said. “Then we mention that the town owns some old gold claims that have turned up some promising color. With the price of gold going through the roof, some companies are starting to reopen some of the old mines in the area, so our story won't sound so far-fetched. We'll tell him we're thinking about selling shares of stock to the public and can he help us make that happen?”

“Do you really think he'll fall for that?” she asked.

“Greedy people can't resist the allure of gold,” Bob said. “If we have to, we'll salt the mine site with real gold and convince him there's plenty more where that came from. I'm friends with one of the engineers at a mine they're re-working over in Lake City and I can get copies of the assay reports from him to show Pershing. We'll sell him a bunch of worthless stock—enough to get back all the money we lost.”

“And maybe a little more in interest,” Junior added.

A fake gold mine? “It's crazy,” she said. “He'll never fall for it.”

“We think he will,” Bob said. “Especially if you agree to help us.”

A sinking feeling settled in her stomach. “Help you how?”

“You need to call him and get him to come to town so we can show him the gold mine and get the money in person,” Doug said.

Lucille turned to Reggie. “Is this even legal?”

“We have to be careful,” Reggie said. “We can't out-and-out lie . . . but we can lead him to make certain assumptions. Basically, we're trying to beat him at his own game. It's a little on the shady side, but he's not likely to file charges. If he did, his own illegal activities would be questioned in court.”

“We want him to hand over the cash; then we want to tell him to his face he's been had,” Paul said. “And that if he ever shows his face around here again, he'll lose more than his money.”

“We want to scare him straight,” Bob said. “Or straight to hell.”

“You want me to call and talk to him?” Lucille couldn't believe what they were asking. “He walked out on me. He must know I'm furious with him.”

“We're all furious, too,” Bob said. “But if we can hide that, so can you. Play up to him. Tell him you miss him and want to see him again.”

She stared. They couldn't possibly expect her to swallow her pride that much.

“We know it's asking a lot,” Reggie said. “But it's all we've got. And we think he'll listen to you, either because he's got enough decency in him to feel guilty about the way he treated you or because he'll think you're still under his spell. Some men can't resist that kind of power.”

“You want me to be desperate,” she said.

“Well, Lucille, we are kind of desperate here.” Bob leaned across the counter. “Without that money, we can't run the town.”

“But a gold mine?” She shook her head.

“Everybody knows there's lots of mines around here,” Junior said. “It's one thing we're known for. With the price of gold up so high, people are more interested than ever.”

That much, at least, was true. At least once a month someone stopped by Lacy's and asked about mining. Some people still had the impression they could wander around anywhere in the mountains and prospect, then stake a claim to anything they found. Lucille had to explain that all the land in the area was either privately owned or held by the government, and someone had the mineral rights to all of it. The days of striking it rich by chance had disappeared long ago. But that didn't stop people from hoping and dreaming.

“I'll think about it,” she said. “But I don't know if I can do it.”

“There's no rush,” Doug said. “We need time to plan this thing out. We've got to find a good location and come up with some fake documentation. And waiting a little while will lull him into thinking he got away with something.”

How much time would she need to muster the nerve to talk to Gerald again? To face him and pretend he hadn't hurt her? “You're asking a lot,” she said.

“We know,” Bob said. “But you can do it. You're a mountain woman and no flatlander is a match for you.”

How many times had she heard similar sayings? People up here prided themselves on being stronger, hardier, tougher, and yes, better than people who lived at lower elevations. They lived up here in spite of the hardships because they were special. A breed apart. Lucille used to believe all of that, but now she wasn't so sure. That cockiness might be one of the reasons Gerald was able to take them in so easily.

So maybe they weren't any smarter or tougher than flatlanders, but they could be more stubborn. It took hardheadedness to get through a winter up here. “You take care of the mine and I'll see what I can do about seducing Gerald.”

“You can be there when we tell him he's been had,” Bob said. “You can even give him the good news, if you like.”

“As mayor, you should definitely be the one to tell him,” Doug said.

“With pleasure.” Seeing Gerald's face when he realized the tables were turned just might make this all worthwhile.

 

If Olivia had had her way, she would have done nothing but work on the mural at the Last Dollar every day. But her job, motherhood, and the demands of real life prevented that. As it was, she squeezed in painting between other tasks and worked at odd hours. Which is how she found herself perched on her stool in front of the painting after closing one night. She'd left Lucas doing homework with her mom. Janelle and Danielle bustled about in the café's kitchen, but she scarcely noticed them. They'd given her a key and told her to feel free to let herself in and out as she pleased.

She liked these late hours best, when she didn't have an audience to watch her work, and the quiet of the sleepy town settled around her. As the nights grew darker and colder, even the regulars at the Dirty Sally thinned out. The town was like a bear settling in to hibernate for the winter. Frost rimed the trees and the windshields of cars every morning, even if the anticipated first snowfall had yet to appear.

“Olivia, can you take a break for a minute?”

At Danielle's words, she looked up from working on the curve of the bighorn's horns. She was having trouble getting the texture just right. She'd consulted books for her sketches of the animals; she wished now she'd taken a photo of Jake Murphy's pet bighorn the last time she visited his cabin. Real-life models were always better to work from.

“Now would probably be a good time to take a break,” Olivia said. “I'm getting a little frustrated.”

“Come on back in the kitchen.” Danielle motioned her over.

The café's kitchen was a clean, though crowded space dominated by a six-burner commercial cooktop and two commercial ovens. A marble-topped work island filled the middle of the room, over which hung an assortment of pots and pans. A pressed copper ceiling and hanging lights with copper shades gave the kitchen a homey, warm glow, and the space smelled of sugar and spice. “Hello, Olivia,” Janelle said from her place at the work island. Today she had her blond cap of hair sheathed in a pink scarf, and she'd tied a green paisley apron over her T-shirt and jeans. “We need your help.”

Danielle wore a similar apron and a chef's toque, tilted to one side atop her tied-back dark curls. “Taste this and tell me what you think?” She scooped something dark and fruity from a large pot on the stove and offered the spoon to Olivia.

Olivia blew on the steaming spoonful and touched her lips to the rim. The tartness of fruit mingled with the sweetness of sugar and a hint of unknown spice—cinnamon, maybe? She slid the spoon farther into her mouth. “It's delicious. What is it?” she asked when the spoon was clean.

“Do you really think it's good?” Danielle asked. “It's a cherry-cranberry pie filling I'm working on.”

“We're making the pies for the Thanksgiving dinner,” Janelle said. She nodded to a baker's rack across the room, lined with pie tins in various stages of completion. “Pumpkin, of course, but we like to offer something different, too.”

“Something people will want to visit the café for more of later,” Danielle said.

“I think you've got a winner,” Olivia said.

“We thought so, too,” Janelle said. “But it's good to hear it from a third person . . . and we know you have good taste.”

The compliment surprised her. “How do you know that?”

“Your beautiful art,” Danielle said. “And you always dress nice, too.”

Olivia glanced at her skinny jeans and high-heeled boots. “Thanks.” Not that it took much to be fashionable in Eureka. She was positive her mother had clothes in her closet dating back twenty years—and she still wore them.

“The mural is looking great,” Janelle said. She sprinkled the marble top of the work table with flour from a tin canister.

“Thanks.” Olivia dropped the now-empty spoon into a pan of dishwater in the sink to her right. “I guess I should get back to work and let you two get back to your pies.”

“You don't have to go.” Danielle looked up from stirring her pie filling. Steam had curled the tendrils that had escaped her scarf into right corkscrews. “Stay and talk.”

Janelle took a ball of dough from a metal bowl at her elbow and began patting it into a disk on the floured table. “I stopped by the school this morning to see how much space they had in their refrigerators and I saw that cute boy of yours,” she said. “He was running an errand for his science teacher and he seemed pretty happy to be out of class when no one else was. He told me you're making mashed potatoes for the dinner.”

“It's a recipe from a place I waitressed at for a while in Hartford,” she said. “You make them ahead and keep them warm in a Crock-Pot. They're full of cheese and cream and all kinds of fattening stuff.”

“Sounds delicious,” Danielle said. She stirred the cherry filling one more time, then moved to the side of the stove and began cracking eggs into a bowl. “Of course, you can tell I love fattening food.”

“Nothing wrong with a healthy appetite,” Janelle said. She patted Danielle's backside fondly as she passed on her way to the walk-in cooler.

The two had such an easy relationship. They seemed so comfortable with each other and with themselves, though she'd never think of them as typical small-town types. “How did you two ever end up in Eureka?” she asked.

“We were living in New Mexico, in Santa Fe, and we came here on vacation,” Danielle said.

“We hadn't been together very long.” Janelle returned to the work table, a chilled marble rolling pin in hand. “So the trip was sort of a romantic getaway.” She cast another fond look in Danielle's direction. “We met while we were waitressing at a restaurant in Santa Fe.”

“From the first we talked about opening a place of our own, but Santa Fe didn't feel quite right to us.” Danielle took up the story. “We came here for the hot springs—the Living Waters?”

“The nudist place?” Olivia had passed by there plenty of times, but she'd never gone in.

“Clothing optional,” Janelle corrected her. “It's not what people think. It's just a bunch of folks who want to enjoy the warm water the way the native people did. You should try it. It's very relaxing.”

Olivia wasn't sure she was ready to be that relaxed. “So you came here and liked it.”

“We loved it,” Danielle said. “There was just something about the mountains and the old buildings. We saw this place—the owner wanted to sell and move to Texas to be near his grandkids—the price was right, so we decided to take the risk.”

“It didn't look anything like this, of course.” Janelle made a face. “It was really just a greasy spoon.”