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She shook her head, the horror of his murder almost more than she could bear. She closed her eyes. She had just let things happen and now she’d have to pay the price. But she wouldn’t make that mistake again. She had to protect her family, no matter what it took.
From somewhere out in the snowy darkness came a low growl. Charlie moved down the porch toward the sound, trying to see the dog through the falling snow. Spark Plug, the name her father had given the puppy just before his death, growled again, this time the growl lower, more serious.
Something was out there. Someone. Charlie felt the soft hair on her neck stand up. Moving silently, she retraced her footsteps and opened the back door. The shotgun was high up on the top shelf, out of her mother’s reach—even with a chair. Charlie pulled it down and dug out two buckshot shells from the kitchen drawer. She loaded the gun and stepped back out onto the porch.
By now, snow blanketed the yard and fell in a wall of white. She stood in the dark under the porch roof, staring out into the snowfall. Who was it she had to fear? Augustus T. Riley. What was he anyway? A cop? A private investigator hired by Josh’s family? Did it matter?
Spark Plug growled again, only this time farther away, then began to bark. Past the barking, Charlie heard an engine turn deep in the pines somewhere on the county road. It sounded like a pickup with a bad muffler, one of a half dozen around town.
Spark Plug quit barking and after a few minutes wandered out of the snowstorm. He was a true mutt, shortlegged, with a spotted white, brown and black short-haired coat and big floppy ears. When he saw her, he wagged his stubby tail and climbed up the steps to the porch.
Charlie put the shotgun aside to brush snow from the dog’s back. She waited until the sound of the truck died away, then she took him inside where Aunt Selma pretended to scold him softly for not coming home sooner for dinner.
“Spark Plug barking at another coyote?” Selma asked as Charlie returned the shotgun to the top shelf and the shells to the kitchen drawer.
“Sure seems that way.” Charlie took her time cutting three pieces of apple pie, thinking about the truck she’d heard leaving and Spark Plug’s worried growl.
Then she took the plates of pie into the living room where her mother was surprised all over again to see her.
Chapter Five
Augustus heard the tap at his door just after ten. He’d give Trudi one thing, she hadn’t wasted any time.
He took one quick glance around the cabin to make sure he hadn’t left anything important lying around—like his notebook. The cabin was straight out of an old Western. Knotty-pine walls, horse-motif bedspread, antler lamp and lonesome-cowboy painting on the wall. Hee-haw!
No one back in L.A. would believe a town like this still existed. He hardly believed it himself.
She knocked again, this time more insistent. Anxious, wasn’t she? He doubted it was his charm. Some people took a malicious delight in dishing dirt about other people. As ugly as that trait was, it sure made his job a lot easier.
He swung the door open.
She stood on the tiny porch in an unbuttoned long camel-colored wool coat over a short, low-cut dress and black boots. She bit nervously at her lower lip as she shot periodic glances behind her.
“Hey,” he said, a little surprised by the way she was dressed. Even more so by the suspicious way she was acting. Did she think she’d been followed? Or was she just afraid someone would see her coming here? Why was that? “Jealous boyfriend?”
She swung around, obviously startled, and quickly smiled. “I don’t have a boyfriend. I mean not a steady one. I like my freedom,” she said all coy.
He wished there was another way to get what he needed from her. Obviously she had something different in mind than he did. He leaned against the doorjamb, not wanting to ask her in but knowing that if he didn’t he might never know what she was dying to tell him. But at what price?
The snow had stopped falling, the ground glittering cold and white behind her. And just when he thought Utopia couldn’t be any more alien to him.
Reluctantly, he stepped aside. “Come on in.” As he started to close the door, he looked out in the snowy darkness to see a pickup slow as it passed on the highway. The truck was a dark color, loud—and while he couldn’t see more than a silhouette behind the wheel, it was obvious the driver had been looking this way. Looking for Trudi? Or him? The pickup sped up and on past, kicking up snow.
He closed the door and turned to find Trudi sitting on the end of his bed, her coat off, legs crossed, exposing a lot of skin. The little flowered dress was even skimpier than he’d thought.
Sometimes he hated the things he had to do to get what he wanted. But all that mattered was the end result, right? Right. “Can I offer you something to drink?” he asked. “I’m afraid all I have are plastic glasses and tap water.”
She smiled and reached into the pocket of her coat, pulling out a bottle of beer. She handed it to him and dug out another from the other pocket. “I hope you like Moose Drool.”
He glanced at the beer. “Who could pass up a beer with such an appealing name.”
She laughed at that. In fact, she laughed at everything he said. It made this a whole lot harder.
He pulled out the straight-back chair from the small oak desk. “Are you old enough to drink alcohol?” he asked, straddling the chair to rest his arms on the back.
She gave him an “oh-you-tease” look and took a sip of her beer. “I’m twenty-six.”
Charlie’s age? “So you must have gone to school with Charlie Larkin.”
She nodded and glanced around the cabin. It wasn’t that interesting. Then her gaze settled on him. She wet her lips and gave him a come-hither smile. “Is that the only reason you asked me here? To talk about Charlie?”
He must be getting old, because he just wasn’t up to this game tonight. He cut to the chase, unable to bear dragging it out any longer. “I got the impression at the café that there was something you wanted to tell me about her.”
She seemed startled and suddenly ill at ease. “I can’t imagine what it could have been.”
He watched her dig at the beer label with her thumbnail. “Give it a little thought, I’ll bet it will come to you.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Are you a cop or something?”
“Something.” Giving her his backup story would be a waste of a good lie. And there seemed little reason to tell her the truth since it would be out soon enough.
She took a drink of her beer, eyeing him over the bottle. “What’s in it for me?”
Finally, solid ground. “Depends on if I find the information of value.” When she didn’t bother to nail him down on a price, it became apparent she wasn’t in it for the money—just as he’d originally suspected.
She sat up straighter on the bed. “You were asking about the guy they found in the lake.”
He said nothing.
“He wasn’t the first, you know.”
His heart kicked up a beat. “First to what?”
“End up dead at the lake. Quinn Simonson was killed leaving Freeze Out Lake right after high-school graduation. His car went off the road.”
Augustus shook his head. “What does that have to do with—”
“Quinn was Charlie Larkin’s high-school boyfriend. She was there that night. They had a big fight and—”
“What about?”
“Earlene Kurtz. Charlie found out that Earlene was four months pregnant with Quinn’s baby.” Augustus wondered if Trudi hadn’t helped Charlie find out about the pregnancy. He let out a low whistle. “Charlie was mad?”
Trudi snorted. “She was furious. She refused to get back in the car with Quinn even though he promised to take her straight home. He was pretty upset about everyone knowing about Earlene and the pregnancy. He left and crashed his car on a curve coming off the mountain.”
“Right, so I don’t see—”
“Charlie did something to the car.”
He took a breath. “Like what?”
She shrugged. “Something to make it crash. She’d just worked on his car the day before the accident—and that night at the lake, she was over by it just before he left.”
He shook his head. “If she’d done something to the car, the cops would have found it and she’d have been arrested.”
“No one suspected her at the time, everyone just thought it was an accident because Quinn had been drinking. By the time Phil Simonson—”
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