The Rivals (8 page)

“I'll be looking for you.” Niles tipped his hat to Libby and said, “You too, little lady, if your plans change.”

Sarah felt totally rattled by Drew's appearance at Bubba's this morning. She'd known he was a rich playboy. She should have expected the shock and displeasure she'd seen on his face when he realized she was the mother of three kids. But she couldn't help feeling a little sad and disappointed.

In light of his attitude, she'd been stunned and appalled by the heat that had nevertheless leaped between them. She was actually sweating beneath her bulletproof vest!

Sarah hadn't mistaken Drew's last words as anything less than what they were—a warning that he would be back to claim her, at a time and place where her children would not be there to act as a buffer.

She forced herself to take a bite of pancake and chew.

“That guy's a total jerk,” Nate said under his breath, his narrowed eyes focused on Drew across the room.

“I think he's cute,” Brooke said. “I don't think I've ever seen eyes that blue.”

Sarah wanted to correct her children, but they were both right. Drew had overstepped his bounds. And his blue eyes amazed her every time she saw them.

She turned to her stepson and said, “I want you to keep an eye on Ryan today while you're on the slopes.”

“Aw, Mom,” Nate said. “If I have to stay with Ryan, I can't snowboard the black diamond runs. Why can't Brooke—”

“You heard me, Nate. Brooke watched him last Saturday.” She turned to Brooke and said, “I don't want you driving the car.”

From the color that appeared on Brooke's face, her daughter had already been negotiating with Nate, who'd had his driver's license for nine months, to make use of her driver's permit. “Not with Ryan in the car,” she amended.

“Can we go now, Mom?” Brooke asked.

“If you're all done eating,” she said.

Nate and Brooke jumped up and pulled on their ski jackets, then each took one of Ryan's arms and shoved him into his jacket.

“Have fun!” Sarah said as the two older children hustled the younger one out the door. “And be careful,” she said under her breath.

She knew Brooke would spend most of the day with her girlfriends, sitting on the deck outside one of the ski lodges drinking Coke and talking about boys. Nate wouldn't come off the slopes until darkness—or Ryan's nagging that he wanted to go home—forced him off.

She was lucky the sheriff's office provided her a vehicle, so the kids could make use of her pickup. So far, Nate had proved to be a responsible driver, but she worried about Brooke driving, since she never seemed to focus her attention on anything for very long.

The children hadn't been gone more than a minute before Sarah caught sight of Drew heading back in her direction. She wasn't about to let him catch her in Bubba's, where any scene he created would become fodder for gossip. She grabbed her jacket from the back of the chair and headed for the door.

She made it outside before Drew caught up to her, but he caught her arm before she could make it to her Tahoe.

“Wait up, Sarah.”

Sarah stopped abruptly and turned and stared at Drew's grip on her arm, then focused her gaze on his. “Get your hands off me.”

Drew let her go, but he stood between her and her SUV, an immovable object. “You look different in uniform,” he said.

“It's the Glock,” Sarah replied.

Drew shook his head. “Nope. It's the sharp creases and the badge and all that gear on your belt. You look like a real cop.”

Sarah bristled. “I
am
a real cop.”

Drew grinned. “And just as feisty in uniform as out.”

Sarah glared at him. “If you're finished gawking, I've got work to do.”

“We need to talk,” he said.

“It'll have to wait. I'm on duty.”

“I've got news about Kate.”

“Why didn't you say so?” Sarah said, not hiding her irritation. “What is it?”

“Let's go somewhere we can talk in private.”

Sarah shook her head. “If you have information about Kate, let's hear it. Otherwise, we have nothing to discuss.”

“You're wrong about that.”

Sarah's fisted hands landed on her hips. “What is it you want from me, Drew?”

“I want to finish what we started last night.”

Sarah felt a flush rise on her throat. “Last night was a mistake. You caught me at a…vulnerable moment. I'm a married woman.”

“Whose husband hasn't been seen for more than a year.”

“That doesn't make me any less married,” Sarah said stubbornly. She wondered where he'd found out about Tom's disappearance. “Who have you been talking to?”

“If your husband was coming back, he would have returned by now,” Drew said, avoiding her question.

The truth was hard to hear. Sarah gritted her teeth and said, “What is it you have to tell me about Kate Grayhawk?”

Drew opened the door to the Tahoe for Sarah and said, “It's cold out here. Get inside and I'll tell you.”

Sarah hesitated, then stepped inside the SUV. She was tempted to drive away and leave Drew standing there, but she still hadn't learned what information he had about the missing girl. When Drew got inside, she said, “I'm listening.”

“I could use a ride home.”

“I'm not a taxi service. Say what you have to say and get out.”

Drew shrugged. “Fine. Kate's roommate at school found an e-mail instructing Kate to come here.”

Sarah frowned. “Who sent it?”

“We don't know. Libby's going to forward it to you as soon as she gets it.”

“That e-mail makes Kate's disappearance sound a lot more sinister. Could her father have sent it?” Sarah asked, thinking of all the custody battles that had been resolved by one parent stealing the children and running.

“It didn't come from her father,” Drew said.

“How do you know that?” Her eyes narrowed as she asked, “Do you know who Kate's father is?”

Drew looked wary. “No, I don't.”

“You're lying.”

“I can't tell you,” he amended.

“Whoever it is needs to be warned about what's going on here,” Sarah said.

“He knows.”

“It's Clay Blackthorne,” Sarah guessed.

“If you think so, why don't you ask him?”

Sarah wasn't ready to face the consequences of asking a prestigious political figure like Clay Blackthorne whether he had a secret child. With the instructions about leaving school and coming home to Jackson Hole that Kate Grayhawk had received, it might be important to know whether Clay Blackthorne was Kate's father. And whether he had any enemies who might be using his daughter to get to him.

“What are you going to do now?” Drew asked.

“I'm going back to the Mangy Moose to ask more questions,” Sarah replied. “And I want to make sure that someone who knows a lot more about computers than I do takes a look at that e-mail Kate received telling her to head home.”

Drew turned in his seat to face her and said, “I want to see you again.”

“No.”

“That sounds pretty unequivocal,” Drew said with a wry smile.

“I made a mistake last night,” Sarah said. “I used bad judgment and put us both in a situation that—”

Drew reached for her hand and Sarah felt a jolt of electricity all the way up her arm. She jerked free and stared at him, shocked by her response.

“You're not alone,” Drew said. “I felt it, too. I don't pretend to understand why we make the kind of sparks we do, but it's extraordinary enough in my experience for me to want to pursue this.”

“This?” Sarah said. “What is
this
but plain old ordinary
sex
?”

“I don't think sex between us would be the least bit ordinary,” Drew countered. “I think it would be spectacular.”

“It would still just be sex,” Sarah said. “You've made it plain it could never be more than that.”

“I have?”

“I saw your face this morning when you realized I have three children,” Sarah said. “And they aren't going anywhere.”

Drew rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah. The kids are a problem.”

Sarah was stung by his brutal honesty. “If they're a problem, what are you still doing here?”

He looked at her, his blue eyes fierce, and said, “I want you.”

“Well, you can't have me,” Sarah shot back. “Not without the baggage that comes along with me.”

“Those kids are—”

“Don't you dare say anything bad about my kids,” Sarah warned.

He smiled suddenly, a self-deprecating curve of his mouth that Sarah knew was intended to be charming. She fought against being charmed as he said, “I admit they're a complication.”

“I wouldn't want to complicate your life,” Sarah retorted. “Better to end
this
before it gets started.”

“I don't want to do that,” Drew persisted, his blue eyes intent on hers, making her stomach do little flips.

“You don't have any choice,” Sarah said, determined to fight the attraction she felt. “Now get out of my car. Stay away from me. Otherwise, I'll—”

“Don't make threats you can't enforce,” Drew said. The words were threatening, but his smile cajoled her to let him into her life.

Distressed by her urge to throw caution to the winds, Sarah glared at him. “You've forgotten whom you're talking to.”

“No, I haven't,” Drew said.

Before Sarah realized what he intended, Drew's hand caught her by the nape and his mouth covered hers, his tongue thrusting between her startled lips. The surge of passion she felt was powerful—and undeniable. Rational thought was impossible. All she could do was feel.

And she felt too terrifyingly much.

She put her gloved hands on Drew's shoulders to shove him away, but they ended up in his hair, where she grasped hold and hung on tight, as he took her deeper, to places she'd never been.

A moment later he was back on his side of the car, his eyes heavy-lidded.

She put a trembling hand to her lips and shook her head in denial.

“Don't try to say you didn't feel anything. I won't believe you,” Drew said in a voice harsh with unrequited desire. “Sooner or later we're going to finish what we started last night. I'm not going away, Sarah. Make up your mind to that.”

A moment later he was gone, and Sarah was left alone with her quivering, sexually unsated body and her tumbling, jumbled thoughts.

After making sure that the threatening e-mail that had sent Kate running home was forwarded to Morgan DeWitt in Washington and to the Teton County Sheriff's Office, Libby spent a long and frustrating day contacting everyone Kate had known since the first grade, asking questions.

What became painfully obvious after a few visits, was that Kate only had one or two close friends, the ones she'd brought home to meet Libby and had kept in touch with sporadically since she'd gone to boarding school in Virginia. Kate was a loner. Or, to be more honest, an outcast.

Everyone Libby had spoken to agreed that Kate was smart—she got straight As. And that she was a superb athlete—she'd been a cross-country runner in junior high and also competed in shorter, faster dashes with amazing success. And that she was pretty—a lot of boys said they'd wanted to ask her out.

But more than one person who might have befriended Kate said that they were intimidated by the signals she sent out that said,
Come closer at your peril.

Libby had believed her daughter when she'd said she wanted to go to high school back East so she'd be able to visit her father more often in Washington, D.C. But once Clay's wife got sick, which was almost as soon as Kate began attending boarding school, visits with him had been difficult to manage. Nevertheless, Kate had stayed in school far from Jackson.

Now Libby wondered whether Kate hadn't wanted to be away from Jackson Hole to escape the small-town gossip that she'd so obviously silenced with her unapproachable demeanor. What troubled Libby most was the thought that she hadn't detected her daughter's deception. The last overt signs of trouble she'd seen had been the bruises and bloody scrapes Kate had brought home when she was six years old.

Libby's heart bled for her daughter.

Clay had gone with Libby when she questioned Kate's junior high classmates, and Libby had watched his eyes become increasingly unfriendly as the day wore on and he realized the isolation in which Kate had spent her life.

“Why didn't you tell me how alone she was?” he demanded, when they pulled up at Libby's cabin after the last of the visits.

“I didn't realize the truth,” Libby said. “She was always busy with after-school activities. And she participated in school events on the weekends. Her life seemed a lot like mine when I was growing up. I never had many friends over, either, because I was busy taking care of my younger brothers and sisters. It never occurred to me that Kate was—”

“Ostracized,” Clay said angrily.

“She never complained,” Libby said. “She never said a word.”

“She wouldn't,” Clay said. “She never cried when she skinned her knee, not even when she was little. The one time I saw her get bucked off a horse, she got right back on. That girl doesn't know the meaning of quit. She's got guts.”

“And why not?” Libby said. “She comes from stubborn, mule-headed stock on both sides.”

Clay's lips curved in a rueful smile. “Too true.”

Libby cut the engine and turned to Clay, her throat suddenly choked with fear. “Are courage and persistence going to be enough to get Kate out of whatever predicament she's in?”

She caught the worried look in Clay's eyes before he focused his gaze on the snowcapped Tetons in the distance. “What I don't understand is why Kate was targeted. If she was kidnapped for ransom, why haven't you gotten a note asking for money? No one knows I'm her father, so she can't have been taken to get to me.”

Libby shivered. If Kate hadn't been kidnapped for ransom, she didn't want to think what her daughter's kidnapper might have wanted with her. “It's cold. I'm going inside. Do you want to come in and wait with me.”

“That's not a good idea,” he said.

“Why not?”

“Because we're liable to turn to one another for comfort. And end up doing something both of us will regret.”

“Contrary to what you might believe,” Libby said, “I haven't been living without sex.”

Clay snorted. “I have.”

Libby laughed in surprise, then sobered as she realized why Clay might have been celibate for the past couple of years. “I'm sorry about Giselle,” she said. “She seemed like a lovely woman.”

“She was.”

“Please come inside,” Libby said. “I promise to resist you,” she added with a smile. “And I could use the company.”

“All right,” he said. “For a little while.”

The first thing Libby did was check with the Teton County Sheriff's Office to see if anyone had reported any news about Kate or if they'd had any luck tracing Kate's e-mail. She met Clay's somber gaze and shook her head, then hung up the phone. She hurried into her office to check her e-mail, but there was nothing new.

She pulled up the e-mail that had sent Kate home, hoping she'd find something she hadn't seen before. When it appeared on the screen, Clay leaned over her shoulder to read it along with her.

“She must have been terrified when she read this,” Libby said. “No wonder she sounded so desperate to talk to me. And I wasn't even available when she called.”

“Neither was I,” Clay said. “Only Morgan and my personal secretary, Helen Witlock, know that Kate is my daughter. Helen took Friday off for a visit to the dentist. I told the temp who replaced her that I didn't want to be disturbed. I never thought to make an exception for Kate Grayhawk.”

Clay's comforting hand suddenly tightened on Libby's shoulder. “Who would know we'd both likely be inaccessible by phone on Friday?”

Libby looked up into his frowning face. “You think someone who knows us—both you and me—sent that e-mail?”

“I don't have a temp that often. Any other day, Kate's call would have been put through to me.”

“Kate called you? Even though she was told not to?”

“You know Kate. I'd bet money she tried to reach me. There was no message that she called, but she might have figured it wasn't safe to leave a written record that she'd contacted me—just in case.”

Libby knew very well how little Kate liked following directions. “But if she was willing to call you, why not go all the way and call the police.”

Clay met her gaze and said, “She couldn't be sure whoever sent that e-mail wouldn't have harmed us.”

“Us?”

Clay reached across her shoulder and pointed to the screen. “This e-mail specifically says
family.
Why use that term if they only meant you?”

“Who else knows you're Kate's father?”

“Only people I'd trust with my life,” Clay said.

“And with Kate's life?”

“Someone else must have found out,” Clay said grimly.

Libby felt a shiver run down her spine. The Grayhawks had many enemies. The Blackthornes had even more.

“I can't believe this is happening,” Libby said, blinking back tears. “It could be anyone. Where is she, Clay? What's happened to our baby?”

They were questions without an answer that either one wanted to voice aloud. When Clay slid a comforting hand under the hair at her nape, Libby turned and lurched into his embrace. He held her close and rocked her in his arms, his body a bulwark against all the terrifying thoughts that kept running through her mind. Libby clutched at him, pressing her face against his oxford cloth shirt, stifling the moan of despair that sought voice.

His voice rumbled against her ear as he admitted, “I keep thinking of all the times Kate phoned me over the past three years, wanting to see me, and I told her I couldn't get away. Giselle was sick and she needed me, but her sister could have stayed with her for a couple of hours.

“After Giselle died…I'm not sure why I didn't make more time for Kate.”

“You were grieving,” Libby said.

She felt Clay's hands on either side of her head, turning her face up to his. She looked at him through tear-glazed eyes, seeing her own anguish reflected back at her.

“I was—”

The ringing phone interrupted him.

Libby pulled free and grabbed for the phone. “Yes? What?” After a pause she said, “We'll be right there!”

Libby hung up the phone and ran into her bedroom, calling over her shoulder to Clay, “An out-of-bounds skier found Kate's backpack and called the authorities.”

Clay was right behind her as he asked, “What are you doing?”

“I'm getting dressed to go skiing.”

Clay caught her arm. “Hold on. You're going skiing?”

Libby kept her gaze riveted on the cross-country ski gear in her closet as she said, “The place where they found Kate's backpack isn't far from where they found that missing girl earlier this year.”

Libby didn't say “that
dead
missing girl.” She was sure Clay would remember how the girl had been found. And saying it was too frightening.

“Have you considered using a snowmobile to get where you want to go?” Clay asked.

Libby freed herself and reached for her ski pants. “Too risky. The avalanche control guys don't always get to all of the back-country ski areas to explode shells and start mini-avalanches and—”

“Where are we talking about, exactly?” Clay asked.

“Teton Park—25 Short.”

Clay swore under his breath. “You know I don't ski there anymore. And you know why.”

Libby grabbed her wool cap and scarf from the top of the closet and turned to face Clay. “I know,” she said. “I'm not asking you to come with me.”

“Dammit, Libby! You shouldn't be skiing there, either. That mountain is always an avalanche waiting to happen, and with all the snow we've had lately—”

“I said you don't have to come with me.”

Clay glowered at her. “Have you checked the avalanche report? Do you have the equipment you need to dig out—an avalanche shovel, probe poles, a transceiver?”

“I have everything in my backpack in the garage. I'll call for the avalanche report on the way, but it's obviously safe, if someone else has already been up there skiing today.”

“Don't assume anything,” Clay said. “That's how Drew ended up in a ravine on 25 Short, buried under five feet of snow. I was damned lucky to dig him out before he suffocated.”

“I'm going,” Libby said stubbornly. “I need to see for myself where Kate's backpack was found.”

“Sonofabitch,” Clay muttered. “Libby, you shouldn't be taking risks—”

“Nothing you say is going to stop me, Clay. You don't have to—”

“I'm not about to lose you, too!”

Clay seemed as surprised by what he'd said as Libby was. There was an awkward pause, while Libby waited for Clay to explain himself. Instead, he said, “Let's go. I'll drive.”

They made a stop at the ranch house in Forgotten Valley so Clay could change into ski clothes and pick up his cross-country ski gear, then headed north from Jackson, turning left twelve miles out of town at Moose onto the Teton Park Road.

“The wind's picking up,” Clay said. “You know what that means.”

Libby knew that strong winds after a heavy snow increased the chance of an avalanche. She could see Clay's jaw was clenched. She didn't remind him again that he didn't have to come along.

Libby had an annual pass on her windshield that got them into Grand Teton Park without stopping to pay a fee. She drove a few miles farther to the Bradley-Taggert Lakes parking area, which was as far as the road was plowed in winter. Three cars were parked in the lot, including the park ranger's and Teton County Sheriff's vehicles.

“Do you know which deputy is up there?” Clay asked.

“The dispatcher said she sent Sarah up there to meet the park ranger who answered the original call and retrieve Kate's backpack,” Libby said.

“You ready?” Clay asked, as he stepped into his skis.

“Yeah,” Libby said.

They skied west across the flats in the direction of the mountains until they reached a hillside, an old glacial moraine, then angled south into the Beaver Creek drainage. The sun was hot on Libby's shoulders, the air brisk enough to make her breath fog, as they followed the hillside above the creek until it gradually turned back toward the west. After a mile and a half they crossed Beaver Creek and headed into an open meadow.

As they crossed the meadow, which led up the mountain, Libby glanced at Clay, whose face looked grim. She wondered what he was thinking. She didn't ask, because she didn't want to hear her own fears confirmed. When they reached the beginning of the thick timber, he stopped abruptly.

“Why are we stopping?” Libby asked.

“You realize the detective is probably already on her way back down the mountain with Kate's backpack,” he said. “It's crazy for us to be skiing 25 Short in these conditions.”

Libby looked around her. The sky was clear, as blue as she'd ever seen it. A breeze played at her hair, but it was rare when the wind didn't blow in Wyoming. Clay was right, of course. Disaster could be a short step away. The snow beneath the bends on the mountain could fracture and take them down the mountain with it. But it could just as easily remain right where it was.

“You can go back if you want.” She squared her shoulders and focused her gaze on the mountain above them. “My baby might be up there somewhere. If she is, I intend to find her.”

 

Clay was having trouble catching his breath, he was so scared. The danger of avalanche on 25 Short—lwhich had gotten its name because the ridgeline above the slopes was 25 feet short of 10,000 feet—was real. But he knew his fear was way out of proportion to where they were on the mountain. The real danger occurred farther up, in the ravines south and north of a series of benches in the open slopes between the thick timber.