Chapter 5 Rendezvous
Two days later
Bear was tempted to dial April’s phone number, just to hear her voice.
She was as brilliant as he remembered, and every bit as sweet.
She was still beautiful, too. The years had been kind to her.
She was trim and fit. An outdoorsman like himself noticed stuff like that.
The orange skirt she’d worn had perfectly encased her slender, athletic legs.
Nah, orange wasn’t the right word. Her skirt had been a lighter color than that.
Peach, maybe? The blue-and-white striped blazer she’d worn with it had been eye-catching.
Professional yet feminine. An outfit that reeked of ambition and independence.
The glossy brunette hair, waving in the wind and tumbling around her shoulders, made her look younger than she was, and the only lines around her eyes were the ones that showed when she smiled.
He got the impression she didn’t do it often.
Despite her impeccable poise and confidence, there was something vulnerable lurking just beneath the surface.
He wouldn’t mind exploring what it was. If she signed up for another one of his wilderness retreats, it would be the perfect opportunity.
However, the current mission he was on took priority.
He’d covered a lot of ground in the first twenty-four hours he’d bivouacked along the old highway that skirted Heart Lake.
The spring season had the landscape in full bloom, making it easier for him to fade into the environment.
He varied the routes he patrolled, never taking the same way twice.
Sometimes, he hiked through the dense foliage lining the sides of the highway.
Other times, he climbed a tall tree or ridge to keep vigil over the road from a bird’s-eye view.
Just as he’d done the first night, he chose a spot to lay down his bedroll that would allow him to continue scoping out the barn where Kaya and Tiffany had dug up the bones.
It was taped off while the police processed the scene.
For the past two days, he’d watched them work through a pair of high-powered binoculars.
They’d dug a series of holes around the exterior of the barn, presumably in search of more graves.
The only bones he’d watched them cart off, though, had been from the interior of the barn.
He was betting they were the rest of Willow Chaska’s remains.
April would soon verify it, just like she’d verified that the bones in the morgue were Willow Chaska’s.
The hairbrush her family had shared with April to make the match had come at his own request.
According to Police Chief Adriel Montana, they were dealing with a grave robber.
The cemetery where Willow had been laid to rest had been desecrated about a month ago.
If Bear were still serving on the tribal council, he would’ve heard about the incident before now.
Despite his retirement from the council, he intended to negotiate long and hard to get her remains released ASAP for a proper reburial.
Before laying down on his bedroll, he searched the area again for any sign of Tiffany Masterson.
Since a search-and-rescue team had already scoured the area, he doubted he would find much, but he’d promised Kaya he would do everything he could from the shadows to help locate her missing roommate.
He would keep retracing his steps and looking for clues to her whereabouts that he might have previously missed.
From the way the K-9 dogs had acted earlier, he deduced they’d also found nothing new, which was unfortunate.
Tiffany had been in the area at least twice — once while she was digging for bones with Kaya and a second time when she’d shown up there on Kaya’s tracking app.
Reason and mode of transportation unknown.
The only trail the dogs had picked up had led them in circles inside the barn.
Was it because she’d been abducted by someone in a passing vehicle?
The only other answer he could come up with was that someone besides Tiffany had been carrying her phone the day Kaya’s app had pinpointed her in this very location.
He returned to the spot where he’d laid out his bedroll and stretched out on it.
When he slept outdoors, he rarely fell into a deep sleep.
He stayed horizontal, closed his eyes, and rested while his other senses remained alert.
He focused on the light breeze blowing off the surrounding foothills and smelled the mingling scents of overgrown grass, dirt clods, and the decaying corpse of a small critter — probably a bird or squirrel.
He heard the droning chirp of field crickets and the occasional piercing calls of great-tailed grackles.
Everything was bigger in Texas, including the blackbirds.
In the distance, his ears picked up another sound. Voices. Human ones. Female. Two of them. One contained the bouncing lilt of youth; the other had the breathier, raspier qualities of an older woman.
He didn’t so much as flinch as the voices grew nearer.
His hiding place was secure in the hollowed-out spot he’d created inside a thicket of brambles.
If anyone walked his way, they would surely step around the scrappy tangle of shrubbery, none the wiser about the heavily camouflaged outdoorsman sleeping inside it.
He’d masked his scent with carbon clothing and hunting spray.
It wouldn’t fool a trained tracking dog, but it would prevent most other animals from bothering him. Humans, too.
The younger voice had a complaining ring to it. Her words drifted his way, enabling him to hear snippets of what she was saying. “…although we didn’t break any laws, this is making my future bar application sweat.”
The older woman responded in a soothing voice, but her words were too faint to make out.
The younger woman retorted with even more agitation, “Courts don’t love it when you invent emergencies, especially expensive ones.”
The older woman’s voice rose to a higher pitch. “This is about justice, my dear. A chance to right old wrongs…”
Their voices abruptly faded as the two women moved out of earshot again. Wait. No, they were still within earshot, though their words were too muffled to understand.
A vehicle drove by on the highway, making a whooshing sound as it passed the area where Bear was hunkered down. The sound of it quickly faded.
Another vehicle approached, close on the wake of the other one, though it didn’t make as big a whooshing sound. He soon determined why. Two vehicle doors slammed shut in quick succession. Then the rev of a motor filled his ears, along with the faint skidding of gravel as the vehicle drove away.
Bear lay there, stunned, as he processed what he’d overheard. There was only one plausible conclusion to draw from the odd exchange: Tiffany Masterson was alive and well.
For reasons he couldn’t yet explain, she’d befriended his niece, helped her track down Willow’s bones (that someone had dug up and reburied for them to find), then faked her own abduction in roughly the same spot.
Someone else, claiming to be an eyewitness, had subsequently kicked dirt on Bear’s reputation. Who in the world was working so hard to blame him for Willow Chaska’s tragic accident? And why?
It was time to look deeper into Tiffany Masterson’s background, to determine if there was a connection between her and the Haywood family. Lonestar Security had the resources to do it the quickest. He made a mental note to reach out to Gil Remington about it — through April Chandrakanta, of course.
Having a legitimate reason to call her was the only positive takeaway from tonight’s ordeal. He could’ve waited until the morning, but he’d never been one to let grass grow under his feet. Plus, the safety of his nieces might be at stake. Only an idiot would sit on information like that.
Only an idiot would act with haste, though. He sat up and stored his bedroll in his backpack with slow methodicalness, while listening intently to his surroundings. All he could hear were the faint calls of birds, crickets, and other insects. He doubted that the women were coming back tonight.
What were they doing walking along the old highway in the first place?
He turned around to face the direction they’d come from, closed his eyes, and mentally recreated their voices.
His best guess was that they’d come from the direction of the barn.
What he couldn’t explain was why he’d heard nothing leading up to the conversation between the two women.
When had they arrived at the barn? How long had they been inside? And how had Bear spent the afternoon canvassing the area without hearing or seeing their initial approach?
He mulled over his growing list of questions as he hiked into the foothills and climbed one of the tallest ridges. To mask his voice, he hunkered beneath a rocky overhang and threw a poncho over his head.
He opened his prepaid flip phone. The numbers lit up in the darkness beneath the poncho, making it easier for him to tap April’s number.
It rang several times before she picked up.
“Bear?” Her sleepy voice surrounded him like a gentle caress. “Bear?” Her voice sharpened and grew stronger. “Is that you?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry to bother you,” he lied. He’d never been less sorry about anything in his life.
“Don’t be,” she said quickly. “We exchanged numbers for a reason. Is everything okay? Are you okay?” She spoke in a hushed voice, probably to avoid waking Kaya, who was sleeping in an adjoining room.
Her concern for a guy she barely knew underscored what a kind heart she possessed. “I’m fine.” He could’ve shared everything he’d discovered this evening right then and there, but something held him back. “We need to talk. Some place safe for you to bring Kaya along.”
“You miss her, don’t you?” Sympathy infused April’s voice.