In the Cradle Lies Page 4

  “Work is not waiting for you?”

  Tucker waved a hand. “It’s a family business that practically runs itself. Do you want to go today?”

  “How about tomorrow?” Nolan countered. “I’ll be all yours as soon as church is out. You can come if you want—to church.”

  Tucker shook his head. “Let’s just stick to the skiing.”

  “Then I’ll pick you up at the B©B, we’ll grab lunch, and try not to break anything.”

  Nolan hustled home and clomped down the stairs to the basement. His equipment was there somewhere. Another set of steps on the stairs made him look up from the pile of bins.

  “Hello, Jilly.”

  “What are you looking for, Dad? You never come down here.” Jillian sat on the third step from the bottom.

  “My skis. Boots. Poles. You know. Everything.”

  “What?”

  “I’m going skiing tomorrow.”

  “Dad, you haven’t skied since I was—I don’t know, eighteen or nineteen.”

  “So, nine years. That’s not so long.”

  “Long enough.”

  “I’m not an old man, Jillian.”

  “I didn’t mean that.”

  “I’m in good shape.”

  “I know you are.”

  “It’s not as if I’ve never skied before. Just because you chose to grow up in the mountains and not ski doesn’t mean I’m not capable of refreshing my skills.”

  “Dad, what is this about?”

  “Tucker Kintzler is going to give me lessons.”

  He watched her face. Her eyes bulged. “See? You wanted to delegate this dilemma to Kris and me. This is what it takes.”

  “First of all, I didn’t delegate anything. You two nominated each other. Second, the idea was for someone to talk to him.”

  “And what better way to earn that right than to enter his world? I just had coffee with him, and we’re going skiing tomorrow afternoon.”

  She blew out her breath. “I can sort of see that point.”

  Nolan opened a long low tub. “Here we are. Poles and helmet. The boots can’t be far.”

  “I think the skis are under the stairs. With a lot of stuff in front of them.”

  “And by the way, I smell something in Tucker’s family story.” Nolan patted Jillian’s knee and circled around to look under the stairs. “Don’t think you’re off the hook.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Genealogy, of course. He adored his grandfather but doesn’t want to tell me much of anything.”

  “Kind of like you and Uncle Patrick, Dad?” Jillian stood up and followed Nolan.

  Nolan pulled his ski boots from a box. “That’s for another day.”

  “When, Dad?”

  “Just not today.” He grinned at her. “Do you want to come skiing with us? We could rent your equipment.”

  “No thanks! Someone will have to take care of you when you break your leg.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  “I have work to do.”

  “I’m going to take this equipment down to Leif to check out, just to be sure.”

  “Dad?”

  “Yes?”

  “Uncle Patrick. I do want to know.”

  “One thing at a time.”

  “Sure, Dad.” Jillian climbed a couple of steps. “Remember the lightbulbs.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Midfifties was not old, but Jillian had assumed that after nine years of letting his ski equipment gather dust, her father had given up skiing. He hadn’t skied that often to begin with. It was her mother who could hardly stay off the slopes and came home from every outing with a pink in her cheeks that seemed to linger for days and infect her demeanor with contentment. She could ski circles around her husband and let everyone know it. Nolan went skiing primarily to witness Bella’s joy—and he let everyone know that. In the five years between her mother’s death and the last time Jillian could remember her father taking his skis out, he’d gone perhaps three times at the invitation of friends.

  He’d better stay on the bunny hill. That’s all she had to say about it. Except she couldn’t actually say that to him. At least he had the good sense to make sure his old equipment was safe, and maybe he’d find a way to get right to the point with Tucker Kintzler and short-circuit this dangerous nonsense about skiing Hidden Run.

  Being away from her desk most of Friday meant Jillian had some catching up to do. She had four active projects right now. One client whose parents were both immigrants from different continents had an especially challenging family tree to sort out. An insurance company who gave her steady work always seemed to be trying to track down somebody named in a policy, or verify that the person they’d found was actually related to the deceased policy holder. This time Jillian thought they’d gotten it wrong, and she was trying to find the right person with an incredibly common name. And the morgue in Denver had an unidentified homeless man who carried no outright ID but assorted other interesting papers they hoped she could make sense of to help them find someone to notify.

  Somehow the mess on Jillian’s desk had gotten out of hand. If she accomplished nothing else on a Saturday morning, she’d get a grip on her workspace and be ready for a clean, organized start on Monday. Paper would go into folders, and folders into racks or drawers. On her computer, the files she tended to stash on her desktop would get sorted and properly tucked away in client folders. Her calendar and to-do list would be updated, with stars beside the priority tasks for the coming week. Jillian Parisi-Duffy, genealogist, researcher, speaker, and writer would be ready for a fresh burst of productivity.

  Jillian glanced up at the antique clock on the bookcase. She’d always loved it as a child, and when she was twelve, her mother gave it to her and allowed her to keep it in her bedroom. It had come from the Parisis, the Italian side of her own genealogy. It didn’t keep exact time very well and required consistent TLC to remain in working condition at all, but true time wasn’t why Jillian kept it around. For that she had plenty of twenty-first-century gadgets. This clock, dating to a hundred thirty years ago, reminded her of why the work she did mattered.

  The rap outside her office didn’t startle her. It only made her smile. Only Kris Bryant ever came to the exterior door on that side of the house. Long ago the Victorian home had been two cottages with a shared wall, and now the heavy door on the other side of the house served as the main entrance. This one, far simpler in design, led to a porch where Jillian could take a few steps and work outside in nice weather and feast on mountain views. She got up and welcomed Kris into the house, pointing to a rug where she could stamp snow off her feet.

  Kris paused to pull off her boots and drop them on the rug. “You must have some coffee in this joint.”

  “Your wish is my command.” Jillian led the way to the kitchen.

  “I’m in the mood for a hazelnut latte.” Kris padded behind her in thick socks.

  “I can do that.” Jillian didn’t require many accoutrements, but she had invested in coffee machines that would never leave her grumbling about the quality of what she consumed. A gleaming café barista-quality espresso and cappuccino system and a single-serve machine with a built-in brother kept wide options at her fingertips day and night despite her father’s penchant for straight black coffee. “What brings you here?”

  “You have to come skiing with me.”

  Jillian took a wide green mug from a cabinet for Kris and rinsed out her own favorite taupe mug with the maroon swirl around the bottom edge. “Didn’t we just do that yesterday—as close as I ever come to skiing?”

  “This is different.” Kris sat on a stool at the granite breakfast bar and spun it toward the coffee machines. “I talked to Tucker.”

  “You too?”

  Kris’s eyes widened. “You mean you saw him?”

  “Not me. My dad. They’re going skiing tomorrow.”

  Kris whooped.

  “Be polite, Kris.” Jillian jabbed a
couple of buttons on a machine and put the mug in place.

  “Sorry. But I’ve seen Tucker ski. And Nolan? The two of them together?”

  “Forget that image. You said you talked to Tucker. Did you warn him off Hidden Run?”

  “Not exactly. How would he even know that I knew he was planning to ski Hidden Run? That I heard from a friend of a friend? This isn’t junior high.”

  The machine whizzed and whirred. Jillian moved to the fridge for milk. “Explain.”

  “He came by Ore the Mountain and ordered a massive amount of ice cream.”

  “He what?”

  Kris nodded. “He wanted me to sit with him and eat it. No one else was there. It was awkward, but what could I do?”

  Jillian spoke over the steamer now. “So you ate banana splits with him?”

  “Jillian, it was… I mean… I had a nice time.”

  Swallowing, Jillian poured warm milk over the espresso. “Well, that’s good, isn’t it? If he finds you friendly, he’ll listen to you about Hidden Run.”

  “Maybe.”

  Jillian set the finished beverage on the breakfast bar and herself on a stool beside Kris. “What does this have to do with the two of us going skiing?”

  “Actually, it would be the three of us.”

  Jillian narrowed her eyes. “You, me—and Tucker Kintzler?”

  Kris nodded. “A night ski! He wants to take me tonight, and I want you to come along.”

  “Why?”

  “I just do.”

  “Kris, is this a date?”

  Kris hesitated a beat. “It’s hard to say. It’s been so long since I had one.”

  Jillian knew her friend well enough to just wait.

  Kris wrapped both hands around the latte cup. “No, it’s not. Of course it’s not. It’s the first step in getting to know him well enough to say Hidden Run is a bad idea. But I don’t really know him, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Tucker said he found a great hill to ski informally. We hardly even have to leave town.” Kris tucked loose strands of her red hair behind her left ear. “It’s clear of trees, and steep enough to be exciting but not so steep that it’s dangerous in the dark. The sky is supposed to be clear tonight, and there’s a decent moon. It’ll be beautiful, Jills. Who else will I ever get a chance to do this with?”

  “I don’t know, Kris. It sounds like the influence factor is going in the wrong direction.”

  “Don’t be like that. Please.”

  “Sorry. Really I am. What do you want me to do, Kris? There won’t be a lodge for me to hang out in with a book.”

  “Drive me up there. It’ll be a chance for you to get to know Tucker too. You can bring lights if that will make you feel better about things. If you get a bad vibe—about Tucker, I mean—you don’t have to leave me alone with him.”

  “And if there is no bad vibe?”

  Kris shrugged. “You can always say you have things to do.”

  “So like a date with an out if you need it.”

  “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “What exactly did you talk about?” Jillian hadn’t even had lunch yet, and Tucker and Kris had filled up on ice cream by the middle of the day.

  “Stuff. He ate a lot of ice cream. I couldn’t keep up. But I can keep up on skis. If I’m ever going to talk him out of Hidden Run, I’ll have to ski with him at some point.”

  “Funny, that’s the same thing my dad said.”

  “As quirky as your dad is, he has good instincts.”

  “Do you have to do it at night? Isn’t it unsafe?”

  “Please, Jills.”

  Jillian thumped both hands on the breakfast bar three times. Kris would go with or without her. “Where do I meet you?”

  In January they didn’t have to wait for the evening to grow late before it was plenty dark. Jillian and Kris rode in Jillian’s small SUV to the designated meeting place, where Tucker was already waiting for them. She knew the hill. She’d hiked it with her father on several occasions for the sake of the vista it provided in broad daylight. Tucker’s assessment was accurate. Once they left the roadside, there was little chance either of them would collide with a tree on the way down, the path was wide enough for them to push off side by side, and the untouched snow would give them a good ride down.

  “Glad you came, Jillian.” Tucker lifted Kris’s gear from the vehicle. “Maybe once I get your dad up and going on his skis again, we’ll persuade you to try.”

  “I don’t think so,” Jillian said, “but I can see how this would be exciting for the two of you.”

  Kris was sitting under the open hatch of Jillian’s car, getting into her boots—the brand-new ones Tucker had bought. In a familiar way, Tucker was fiddling with the buckles.

  “Are you feeling good about the way we worked on getting everything to fit this afternoon?” he asked. “I want to be sure these are on good and safe.”

  Jillian tried to catch Kris’s eye, but Kris was focused on Tucker. And it wasn’t just about the boots.

  “Where’s your car, Tucker?” Jillian asked.

  “Glad you asked,” he said. “I left it down at the bottom of the hill and hiked up by the road. We’ll need it when we get down there. No point in stranding it up here in the dark.”

  That made sense.

  “Kris tells me you have some reservations about whether this is safe,” Tucker said.

  So they’d been talking. Had there been more ice cream involved in the afternoon?

  “I have a high-beam battery lamp.” Tucker moved away from the car and hefted a light Jillian hadn’t noticed sitting beside a tree along with his shabby backpack. “You can take this with you and drive down. My rental is a gray pickup with Wyoming plates. When you see it, you’ll know you’re in the right place. You can park there, find the base of this path down, and shine the light up. That will give us something to aim for, and everyone can feel more at ease.”

  Scenario one, he’d listened to her concerns and was being incredibly transparent and kind. Scenario two, this was a big setup and there was no gray pickup rental with Wyoming plates and Jillian would be abandoning her friend to a sociopath.

  “Where exactly are you parked?” Jillian asked.

  “There’s a restaurant,” Tucker said. “A big sign about buffalo burgers in blue letters. The back side of their lot was the closest I could get to where I think this hill comes out.”

  For someone who had arrived in Canyon Mines only a few days ago, his description was incredibly accurate. Jillian waffled about finding that creepy or smart.

  “You know the place,” Kris said. “We ate there a couple of months ago.”

  Jillian nodded.

  “You’ll have to hike up a little from the parking lot to see us, I would imagine,” Kris said.

  Tucker laughed. “We’re not going to ski right onto the asphalt.”

  Kris and Tucker looked at each other, eyes meeting and catching moonlight. Jillian might as well have been in the next county.

  “Well then,” Jillian said, “good thing I have a great light.”

  “Right.” Tucker gripped his backpack. “I promise we won’t push off until we see the beam.”

  Jillian looked at her friend’s face, which clearly said, You can go now, and imagined herself describing to a police officer the last place she had seen Kristina Bryant alive. And why in the world she would have left her there.

  But she had to admit, even to herself, that she didn’t have a bad vibe about Tucker. Nevertheless, she would hurry.

  “Okay then.” Jillian tugged on her blue knit cap. “It shouldn’t take me more than fifteen minutes to get down there.”

  Down the highway, around the curve, into the parking lot, park alongside the gray pickup, lock the car. She made her way toward the base of the wide trail by the light of her phone, with the stars and moon, waiting to turn on Tucker’s high-beam lamp until she was in place. Twelve minutes total.

  Jillian could see them at the top of the
hill, which wasn’t such a high elevation when she put things in perspective. The night was clear, and Kris obviously was elated for a night ski with someone whose skills matched her own and away from the crowds of a commercial resort. Why shouldn’t Tucker turn out to be a perfectly nice man who could be well suited to Kristina? It wouldn’t hurt for Jillian to ratchet down her suspicions a notch or two. Just because she’d hadn’t found the right man in the right place at the right time didn’t mean Kris wouldn’t. Jillian had thought she’d been there once. They’d even looked at rings together before it all fell apart. But, as her friends tried to convince her, it was not meant to be.

  Kris and Tucker pushed off in perfect tandem, but from there it was a race to the bottom, with every lean and turn swishing up snow. Kris got there first and wedged her skis in an impeccable stop smack in front of Jillian. By the time Tucker got there, Kris had her helmet and goggles off and was laughing.

  “That was a blast!” Kris’s breath was short and fast. “I don’t know anyone else who would do something like that with me.”

  “You’re a speed demon.” Tucker yanked off his helmet. “I can see I’m going to have to work to keep you challenged.”

  “Bring it on.”

  “Count on it,” Tucker said. “I’ve got my eye set on Hidden Run. You know it?”

  Jillian caught Kris’s eye.

  “Yes, I know of it,” Kris said. “I’ve never skied it. Never even been there.”

  “I ordered special backcountry skis with climbing skins,” Tucker said. “I’m just waiting for Leif to tell me they’re in.”

  “You can’t ski Hidden Run alone,” Kris said.

  “I’ll get you some skis then. Another few days waiting won’t matter.”

  Jillian cleared her throat.

  “That’s not what I meant,” Kris said. “It’s too dangerous for anyone to ski.”

  “I disagree. You just have to plan. Why does it matter, anyway? You only live once.”

  “What about your work? Aren’t you on a schedule?” Jillian asked. Surely Kris was not seriously considering skiing Hidden Run with Tucker. Who even owned the land? Would it be legal? Would that matter to Tucker?