In the Cradle Lies Page 6

  “So Joelle is new?”

  “Very—at the Inn. She’s lived in Canyon Mines a few years. She’s enamored of old Victorian houses, so she loves it here.”

  “The old pipes remind me of my grandfather saying he used to be able to hear his parents talk in the kitchen from his bedroom on the second story.”

  “That sounds like a sneaky little secret. Did they ever know?”

  “He never said. It just came up one time when I was thinking of buying an old house to rehab. He thought it was a bad investment for several reasons, and I didn’t do it. We never talked about it again. He mentioned just one time that he used to get out of bed and put his ear to the hole where the radiator pipe came up. It wasn’t sealed very well.”

  “Seems like the kind of thing a boy might keep to himself as a child but confess later for everyone’s amusement.” Nolan accelerated onto the highway.

  Tucker shook his head. “Grandpa Matt never talked about his father much. I knew Great-grandma Alyce though. She lived to a ripe old age. He was very tender toward her. I had the feeling he thought I might break her or something.”

  “Probably just protecting her from a rambunctious little boy.”

  “Probably.”

  “Are you an only child?”

  “I am,” Tucker said. “You said you have a brother north of Denver? Is that your only sibling?”

  “There’s another brother between us.” Patrick. Whom he hadn’t called back. Yet. “We were a noisy Irish household, on both sides, with seventeen cousins total. We all lived near enough to see each other a lot. Somehow we had more than our fifty-fifty share of boys, and we got into a peck of trouble, but we had a lot of fun.”

  Until that last bit with Patrick.

  “I have cousins,” Tucker said. “But I was the first grandchild, and I always knew I was Grandpa Matt’s favorite.”

  Nolan laughed softly. “There’s always one, I suppose.”

  “Did your grandfather have a favorite?”

  Paddy. Nolan would have to dissolve the thickening in his throat before he could answer. He tried a soft cough and clearing.

  “Patrick. My other brother. He was named for Pop Paddy. My mother always said Paddy took a shine to Patrick from the day he was born. Pop Paddy claimed Patrick was his spitting image, even though no one else saw the resemblance.”

  “Sometimes we see what we want to see,” Tucker said.

  Nolan nodded. The thickening was back.

  His phone buzzed in his jacket pocket.

  “Do you want me to help you get that out?” Tucker said.

  “No thanks. It’ll keep.” Nolan knew who it was. Not today.

  They drove the rest of the way to the ski resort speaking only intermittently. It was a lost opportunity. With a captive audience, Nolan was usually more efficient at drawing out the information he was after, but this grandfather business was hitting too close to home.

  As they changed into their boots and unloaded the rest of their gear, Nolan checked his phone.

  WHY ARE YOU AVOIDING ME? the text said. IT’S TIME.

  “Everything all right?” Tucker asked.

  “Absolutely.” Nolan zipped his phone into a secure pocket. “Let’s have some fun.”

  “Almost ready.”

  Tucker removed his jacket, hung his mostly limp backpack over his shoulders, and donned his jacket again. Nolan tried not to watch too closely, even though it was peculiar.

  “We could lock that in the truck if you like,” he said. With the topper on the bed of the truck, anything they left in it would be out of sight.

  “No thanks. I’m good.” Tucker picked up his skis and poles and began striding toward the slopes.

  At the top of the bunny hill, Nolan stabbed his poles into the snow, dropped his skis, and got ready to snap his boots into the bindings.

  “Since this is a remedial course,” Tucker said, “I’m going to assume there may be lapses in your muscle memory and watch you closely in the beginning.”

  “Fair enough.” Nine years was a long time to remember just how the bindings should sound or feel as they grabbed the boots, and Nolan would never hear the end of it if he did something foolish. Meanwhile, a child who could not have been more than seven pushed off and skied with impressive competency to the bottom of the hill.

  “Maybe we can set you up with a race partner before the day is over,” Tucker said.

  “Very funny.”

  “If you’re a very good boy, I’ll let you watch me ski the grown-up hill.”

  “Ha ha.”

  Tucker looked around and raised his voice. “Who would like to show my friend here the proper way to come to a stop on his skis?”

  Sly smiles broke out on faces of several skiers in the under-twelve bracket as they started demonstrating the proper angle for the tips of their skis and where to place their poles. Behind them, assorted parents chuckled.

  “Very good, class!” Tucker grinned. “And now, who can tell us what happens to your boot if you fall and start spinning around?”

  Tucker’s impromptu giggling students explained the function that allowed bindings to release boots and save legs from fractures.

  “Finally, who wants to tell me about the first time you ever skied all the way down the hill without falling? What advice do you have for our friend?”

  By this time, Nolan was practically in stitches. Parents and other adults who were beginning skiers were certainly eavesdropping, and the amusement factor was running high.

  “My friend Nolan hasn’t skied since before some of you were even born,” Tucker said. “Shall we watch him ski down the hill and give him a big cheering applause if he gets all the way down without his skis coming off?”

  “Yes!” The shout of a dozen kids was unanimous.

  “I think I need a new teacher,” Nolan muttered.

  “Too late. You’re prepaid for the entire course.” Tucker turned to the kids. “Let’s count down for Nolan. Three! Two! One! Go!”

  Nolan pushed off. Within a few yards he was confident his hips and knees and ankles were remembering what to do, how to adapt to the slight variations in the landscape without toppling. It was a short, wide bunny hill. When he reached the bottom, he made a perfect wedge stop before turning to pump a victorious fist in the air and watch the children clap and whoop in joy on his behalf.

  Tucker swiftly skied down. “Congratulations.”

  “My, you had a good time.”

  “I did, actually.”

  Most of Nolan’s pleasure had come from watching Tucker with the children. First Trillia on Main Street yesterday, and now a dozen kids on the bunny hill. Tucker Kintzler went out of his way to make children happy. “A lot of people could learn a thing or two from you about interacting with kids.”

  “I used to go out with my grandfather. He always had pet projects around the area to help children.”

  “He taught you well.”

  “I think you’re ready to move on,” Tucker said. “Your skills are still there. But you have to listen.”

  “Of course.”

  “Let’s find the next hill.”

  As they traipsed toward a lift, Nolan took his phone from his pocket. Three more texts from Patrick.

  “Watch out,” Tucker said. “There are some kids in line for this hill who aren’t much older than the bunny hill bunch.”

  “I was skiing blue hills before you were born.” Nolan jammed his phone back in his pocket. “You don’t scare me.”

  “Don’t overrepresent yourself,” Tucker said. “I’m a businessman. I see through that.”

  “I’m a lawyer. I smell fraud.”

  Tucker laughed. “So this is how it’s going to be?”

  They rode the lift, and at the top of the blue hill, Tucker sobered with advice. It wasn’t a complicated hill, but it wasn’t a bunny hill. Nolan needed to pay attention to every detail of his body and his skis and the snow. They skied it three times, including practicing turn techniques, and each
run was smoother than the one before. By then, the resort, which had no lights for night skiing, was about to close. They headed back to the car.

  “How did I do?” Nolan asked.

  “Pretty well—for a remedial student! We definitely have some mechanics we can work on if you’re serious about getting back on the slopes. You sit a little too far back, for instance, and we can practice turning some more.”

  “I’d like to go out with you again.” Whether Nolan would ever ski again after they successfully discouraged Tucker from Hidden Run remained to be seen, but in the meantime, further lessons seemed prudent.

  In the truck he checked his phone again, just to be sure Jillian wasn’t trying to reach him. When he saw the voice mail from Patrick, he almost ignored it, but Tucker was still outside the truck, and Patrick’s points of contact were becoming more intense, not less.

  He clicked play and listened to a voice he hadn’t heard in years.

  “You owe me, Nolan. Just call. You can do that much, can’t you?”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  David Miller. A name didn’t get plainer than that. Even with a likely place of birth and an approximate age, unless David Miller lived in a very small town, he wouldn’t be the only David Miller to show up in phone records, birth announcements, or obituaries in area newspaper archives, marriage and divorce records, private property transactions, or a half dozen other forms of public records Jillian could easily get her hands on. That his father’s name was John wasn’t especially helpful, considering how common that name was as well. The insurance company that retained her believed the mother of the David Miller they were looking for, deceased, had been Lucille. Jillian’s investigation suggested that was a middle name the bearer preferred, and the real David Miller the company needed to find had a mother whose legal first name was entirely different. The policy payout in question was not large, but it ought to go to the proper next of kin, whoever it was.

  Jillian had a couple of Monday morning queries out to confirm her suspicions and typed an email to Raúl, her contact at the insurance company, summarizing her working theory. By lunchtime it seemed reasonable to take a break.

  Normally she didn’t take breaks.

  Her father might push her out the door for some fresh air occasionally.

  Nia might turn up and drag her—without much resistance—down to the Cage for coffee and a gab session with Kris and Veronica.

  She might face the necessity of grocery shopping or some other errand.

  Kristina had already spirited her away for an entire day on Friday. And Saturday evening.

  But Kris was the reason she needed another break now. Jillian had heard crickets from Kris since leaving her at the bottom of the hill after the night ski on Saturday evening. No call. Not one text message. The silence was distracting. If Jillian was going to get anything done that afternoon, she had to see Kris’s face for herself. Garbed in warm boots to slog through the snow that seemed to melt slightly and refreeze with each cycle of the sun without completely disappearing, and her perfectly warm jacket of two years, she set off for the walk down Main Street and a visit to Ore the Mountain. Tucker Kintzler wasn’t the only one who could eat ice cream in the middle of the day. Chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, double-dipped in a hard shell and served in a waffle cone could also be called lunch as long as the room was warm.

  She pulled open the door to the ice cream parlor. Perfect. Not a customer in the place.

  “Hey you,” Jillian said. At least she didn’t have to report Kris missing, a thought that had flitted through her mind.

  “Hey yourself.” Behind the counter, Kris had a laptop open on the counter and looked up. “Just trying to decide if it’s worth ordering any supplies or whether to hold off another week for the sake of cash flow.”

  “That’s what you’re leading with?”

  “It’s a bona fide business decision.”

  Jillian extended one finger and pushed the laptop cover closed. “The last time I saw you, approximately forty hours ago, you were slightly indecisive about talking Tucker out of skiing Hidden Run while completely decisive about wanting me to scram.”

  Kris blushed.

  “Spill,” Jillian said.

  “Would you like some ice cream?”

  “Yes. But you still have to talk.”

  Kris picked up a cone and sidestepped to the chocolate chip cookie dough. “I thought your father was on Team Tucker too.”

  “He is, but somehow I think he’s not quite as close to the target as you are.”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “No?”

  Kris dipped the cone, twisted it, and dipped it again before lifting it upright. By the time it was in Jillian’s hand, the chocolate shell had hardened. Jillian grabbed two paper napkins against the inevitability of drips once her teeth broke the shell.

  “As a matter of fact,” Kris said, coming around the counter, “I have successfully used Saturday night’s excursion as a launching point to talk about Hidden Run.”

  “So he sees sense?”

  “I’m afraid not. I saw him last evening—after he got back from giving your dad a lesson, which he thought was hilarious—for pie and coffee. And he was just here a few minutes ago.”

  “Did you ply him with midday ice cream again as well?”

  “Not today. We ran over to the Cage for a late breakfast. I didn’t have anyone in here anyway.”

  Jillian bit into her cone and sat at a table expectantly.

  “He remains committed to the goal,” Kris said. “He’s not easily scared off. On the contrary. He understands the history of Hidden Run and finds it fascinating. So do I, actually. His careful preparation is very impressive.”

  “It’s still dangerous.”

  “I agree. But that’s not a reason Tucker won’t do it.”

  “Then what would be a reason?”

  Kris turned up both palms. “That’s what we don’t know. But I’m not giving up. Tucker is opening up to me.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “We talk.”

  “What does that mean?” Jillian said again before taking another bite.

  “It means we talk. Normal conversation. He’s easy to talk to, and I think he finds me easy to talk to as well.”

  Normal conversation. Easy to talk to. Kristina’s shoulders relaxed when she said these things. She was forming an attachment.

  “That sounds nice.” Jillian licked a drip on her cone.

  “It is nice. His middle name is for his grandfather, Grandpa Matt. He used to run the family business, Ryder Manufacturing.”

  So he didn’t bear the family name. His mother must have been a Ryder.

  “We discovered our birthdays are only three days apart,” Kris said. “Can you believe that? He’s older than I am, of course, but what are the odds?”

  “Don’t let Mr. Green from our high school statistics class know that we don’t know how to calculate that question,” Jillian said.

  Kris laughed. “Sworn to secrecy. Especially since it was AP stats. Those skis are brand-new. His mother gave them to him for Christmas. He has four other pairs. Can you imagine?”

  “And he ordered backcountry skis for Hidden Run,” Jillian said.

  “Yeah. I’m going to keep working on that. I’m closing early this afternoon, and we’re driving down to Genesee for dinner.”

  Jillian busied her mouth with the cone and tried not to raise her eyebrows. Middle names. Birthdays. Christmas presents. They’d been lingering over coffee and talking. And Kris, who rarely left the shop, had already hung the CLOSED sign once during business hours and now was going to close early to drive to another town with a man she didn’t know three days ago.

  “Genesee?” Jillian said.

  “He wants a good steak, and I’d like to relax without setting tongues wagging. Having coffee with a tourist is one thing. Dinner is another.”

  “Um… yes. I see your point.”

  “I thought my sapphi
re dress,” Kris said. “I haven’t worn it that much. It’s not too dowdy, is it?”

  “Dowdy? Not at all.” That dress wrapped Kris liked a second skin. Definitely an emotional attachment. Jillian crunched the last of the waffle cone in her mouth and wiped her lips with a napkin. “Keep me posted.”

  “Dinner out of town will give us a longer chance to talk,” Kristina said. “The technicalities of skiing and all.”

  Jillian waved a hand over her head. “Whoosh. Things I know not of.”

  “Hopefully between your dad and me, we’ll get this handled.”

  “The sooner the better—before Leif gets those backcountry skis in.”

  “Right.”

  Jillian trudged home at a slower pace. She was happy for Kris. She hadn’t seen her care so much about which dress she wore since—ever. Lingering conversations over coffee, dessert, and steak certainly had appeal, and someone who was her match on skis would add a missing factor to Kris’s life. But Jillian also didn’t want Tucker to hurt her.

  The thought was irrational. Why would Kris get hurt? Other than throwing money around like candy at a Fourth of July parade, Tucker seemed perfectly wonderful. Even Jillian’s dad found him charming.

  Nevertheless, back in her office Jillian pushed aside her paid projects for a few minutes to do what she was sure Kris hadn’t.

  Google Tucker Kintzler and Ryder Manufacturing.

  The information was ordinary. The company had always been family held, and though it had been prosperous, leadership had made no move to take it public or expand to other locations. Matthew Ryder had led the company for decades. His obituary, from not so long ago, listed Tucker as one of many survivors. His mother’s name was there, along with those of her siblings, and Tucker’s grandmother’s nee name. Out of habit, Jillian began plopping the tidbits of information into a program that would build a family tree. The obituary led to a trail of archived articles about the philanthropic spirit of the company, under the leadership of Matthew Ryder. Jillian copied links into a file and scanned a series of articles. She couldn’t read everything right then. She’d have to come back to more of them later. Ryder Manufacturing seemed to get regular press for accomplishments such as Best Place to Work in the county, creative employee incentives, community engagement, philanthropic matches, environmental protection upgrades, and profiles of leaders in business publications. Matthew Ryder’s name came up again and again.