The Rivals (14 page)

She bit her lip and stared at the ground. “No one.”

“What's wrong?” he said. “I want to help.”

“Nothing is wrong,” she said hurriedly. “I will do whatever you want.”

“I want us to go somewhere a little less noisy where we can talk.”

Clay glanced around the crowded room and was surprised to see North Grayhawk with his arm around a very beautiful woman. North met his gaze for a moment, his eyes narrowing, but Clay was distracted from confronting the other man by a female touch on his hand.

“There is a bedroom upstairs,” Natalie said in a voice that was barely a whisper.

Clay swore viciously under his breath. He knew girls were hired to be consorts at parties like this. He'd turned a blind eye in the past, but this was coming a little too close to home. What if his daughter were forced into a situation like this?

He took the young woman by the arm and headed for the front door.

“No, señor,” she protested. “Please. I cannot leave. I will be—” She looked up at him, clearly terrified.

“Nothing is going to happen to you. I promise you'll be fine.”

“Upstairs, señor,” she pleaded. “Let us go upstairs.”

Clay grimaced. She obviously thought he wanted sexual favors. And was prepared to provide them. She would find out the truth soon enough. “All right,” he said. “Upstairs, then.”

She looked relieved and smiled at him.
“Si, señor,”
she said. “Follow me.”

She grasped his hand and led him up a spiral stair-case and then along a maze of hallways. He thought of how large the house had looked from the outside and tried to imagine where she might be taking him. Finally, she opened a door at the end of a hall and he found himself in a Western-decorated guest bedroom.

A cowhide lay on the hickory floor, and the bed frame consisted of stripped-pine logs. The lamp base had been created with deer antlers, and the shade was oiled skin that cut the light and gave the room a yellow glow.

An elaborate display of the different types of barbed wire that had been used to fence the range hung above the bed. Clay ran his fingertips along the painted board, searching for the double-twist wire that ran along the borders of Forgotten Valley, and finally found a sample. He was more than a little surprised also to find the single-strand barbed wire that had been used in the early nineteenth century in Texas to fence his family's ranch, Bitter Creek.

The collection of barbed wire was a lot more rare than he would have expected. Another look revealed that nothing in the room was a reproduction, and everything was in mint condition. He felt resentful that someone had collected all these relics of past frontier lives, all this heritage, and put it in a place that was only visited by a few wealthy politicians and businessmen, most of whom probably had no idea what they were seeing.

He turned abruptly to face the girl and experienced a spell of dizziness that nearly toppled him. “What the hell?” he said, grabbing the post at the foot of the bed to steady himself. He looked at the drink in his hand. The glass hadn't been full in the first place, and most of the liquor was still in it. Then he thought of all the other glasses that had passed through his hand during the evening and realized he must have drunk more than he'd thought.

“I am here to serve you,” the girl said.

“I don't want…” Clay realized his voice was slurred, and that he couldn't keep his eyes in focus. “I want to help you,” he said. “Talk to me. Tell me what's wrong.”

He took a step toward the girl, and the glass dropped from his hand. He stared at his empty hand in confusion. He couldn't be that drunk. He never got drunk. So why did he feel so dizzy and uncoordinated. What the hell was going on?

He took another step toward the girl and stumbled into her waiting arms.

“Come sit on the bed, señor,” she said, helping him take the few steps backward.

“I know a girl your age,” he muttered. “Kate Grayhawk. I keep imagining her in your situation, you see. That's why I want to help you.”

The girl's eyes went wide. “You know Kate? Kate Grayhawk?” the girl said excitedly.

Clay realized his tongue was too thick for speech and he nodded instead.

“I know her, señor. She is in trouble. We are both in trouble. Bad men held us captive in the mountains.”

Clay grasped her wrist tight enough to make her wince and said, “Where?”

“I do not know,” the girl said. “I am sorry, señor. I had to put the drug in your drink. I had no choice. He promised me it will all be over soon.”

Too late, Clay realized he'd been set up. Kate's disappearance had been about him after all. Whoever had taken Kate had somehow found out she was his daughter. Otherwise, why had she been held with this girl? What was it they hoped to accomplish by drugging him? Maybe they planned to take compromising pictures of him to use as blackmail. He couldn't allow that to happen. He had to get out of here.

But he couldn't move. His legs wouldn't work.

He tried to think, to figure out what he should do next. He grasped at the phone at his belt, but his hands were too clumsy to retrieve it. His eyelids were heavy. His mouth would no longer work. He tried to push himself off the bed but fell back onto it instead.

The last thing he heard was a man's voice, and the girl's tearful voice in reply.

Drew was sound asleep when the phone woke him. He grabbed for it and missed, sending it clattering to the floor. He swore with great eloquence as he hunted for the cordless phone in the pile of junk on the floor beside the bed. He glanced at the digital clock, which told him it was 10:38
P.M.,
and realized he must have dozed off while reading in bed.

“Who is it?” he said in a surly voice, as he clicked the phone on and shoved it against his ear.

At almost the same moment he remembered that Kate was missing and said, “Kate? Is that you?”

“It's me.”

Drew tried to place the male voice and said, “Clay? You don't sound like yourself. What's going on?”

Drew's heart was racing. The only reason he could imagine Clay calling was some news about Kate, and he felt sure that if it had been good news, Clay would have given it to him right off the bat. “Have you found Kate? Is she okay?”

“I need a lawyer,” Clay said. “And a friend. How quick can you get here?”

“Where are you? What's happened?”

Clay gave him the address of the house on Bear Island where he'd gone for the party earlier in the evening. “As far as I can tell, the party's still going full roar. I need you to come find me. I'm in a bedroom upstairs, at the west end of the house, last room on the right. I'll be waiting for you.”

“What's going on, Clay?” Drew asked.

Drew heard silence on the other end of the line, then a sigh, before Clay said, “You wouldn't believe me if I told you. I don't believe it myself.”

“Believe what?” Drew said. “What's happened, Clay?”

“There's been a murder. A young girl.”

Drew hissed in a breath. “Not Kate.”

“No, not Kate,” Clay said. “Get here fast, Drew.”

“Have you called the police?”

“No! Don't call anyone. Don't talk to anyone. Just come find me. I'll explain everything when you get here.”

“Are you all right?” Drew asked.

Clay hung up the phone in reply.

Drew dragged on a pair of jeans, cursing his cousin for being so secretive on the phone. Had Clay witnessed the murder? Had he found the body? Drew wished he knew more details. He'd done some criminal defense work with DeWitt & Blackthorne in Houston, but it had all been white-collar crime. If Clay was involved somehow in a murder, he would need the best criminal defense attorney he could get.

Drew followed the directions Clay had given him and found the house on Bear Island without difficulty. He tried the front door and it opened, so he let himself in. No one noticed him as he moved through the smoky house. Everyone was busy talking and drinking and making out with nubile women. It reminded him of the few frat parties he'd attended in college, only these revelers were grown men, politicians and businessmen, the leaders of a nation.

Drew tried not to sneer in disgust as he made his way up the spiral staircase and down the west hall to the door on the right at its end. He knocked and said, “Clay, it's me.”

The door opened and he saw a haggard figure who looked like he'd aged twenty years in the few hours since Drew had last seen him.

“Come in,” Clay said, pulling Drew inside and closing the door behind him.

Drew's impetus carried him toward the bed, where he found a naked woman, her slender throat pierced by a piece of barbed wire that was wrapped tightly around it. He couldn't imagine where someone would have gotten barbed wire, until he saw the display over the bed and noticed that the wood had splintered where a strand had been torn free.

He turned angrily to Clay and said, “What the hell happened here?”

“I was drugged. I woke up in bed with her…like that.”

“Why didn't you call the police?” Drew asked.

Clay met his eyes and said, “I was naked, too.”

“Why didn't you call the police after you got dressed?” Drew persisted. “Or at least get the hell out of here?”

“Too many people saw me go upstairs with the girl. I've been set up, Drew. Someone wanted me found with her. He glanced at the girl on the bed, then turned back to Drew and said in a steely voice, “Niles Taylor invited me here and introduced me to her. He's the man I want to talk to first.”

“I thought Niles supported you politically.”

“He does. He did,” Clay corrected. “My office is investigating an oil consortium he's organized.”

Drew met Clay's eyes and said, “This is going to ruin any political aspirations you might have had. You do realize that.”

Clay nodded soberly, his eyes stark.

Drew's mouth twisted. “Of course you do. That's why you called me. You've been trying ever since you woke up naked in bed with a dead woman to figure out a way not to admit you were ever here.”

“What I'd really like to avoid is spending the rest of my life in prison for a murder I didn't commit,” Clay said dryly.

“If you haven't peed recently you might have enough of whatever drug was used in your system to—”

“Too late for that,” Clay said. “Peed and vomited both.”

Drew shrugged. “It was a long shot anyway. Some drugs don't leave traces. I hope you didn't call me here thinking I'd help you hide the evidence. I won't. Who do you want me to call?”

“The county sheriff has jurisdiction,” Clay said. He hesitated and said, “There's something else, Drew. Something pretty important, I think.”

Drew gave Clay his full attention. “I'm listening.”

“This girl knew Kate. She said they'd been held captive together somewhere in the mountains.”

“Why didn't you say so in the first place? Did she tell you where? Did she give you any idea who might have taken them?”

“I was pretty much out of it by the time she admitted anything. She didn't give me any details. Someone came into the room, someone who frightened her. I saw her eyeing a man earlier in the evening, but I couldn't tell you what he looked like. Whoever put her up to this—she admitted putting the drug in my drink—was here in this room tonight. When I woke up, I looked out the window—”

“To see if there was a way out,” Drew interjected.

“To see what time of day it was,” Clay said doggedly. “The point is, I saw someone with a flashlight out on the island. There's no reason to be out there in the dark except—”

“Maybe to dig a hole to bury a body,” Drew finished for him.

Clay nodded.

“Only they didn't get it dug quick enough,” Drew said. “Any chance he's still out there?”

“The light's not there anymore,” Clay said. “And no one's been back here to get the body.” Clay looked directly at Drew and said, “What if someone plans to use Kate the way they used this girl, as a murder victim?” He glanced at the girl on the bed and added, “What if they already have?”

Drew looked at the brutal way the young girl's life had been ended. And imagined Kate in her place. “The sooner we get the police involved, the sooner they can question everyone partying downstairs. Someone knows who did this—and why.”

Drew used his cell phone to call the Teton County Sheriff's Office. He had the number programmed in because he'd contacted Sarah there. When someone answered he said, “I'd like to report a murder.”

Violent crime was practically nonexistent in a remote community like Jackson Hole. There were more suicides from depression and loneliness than assaults against persons. It wasn't the sort of place where you could commit murder and then melt away and hide.

Commercial airlines only flew in and out of the small Jackson Hole Airport a couple of times a day. The Idaho state line was twelve miles north of downtown Jackson, but you had to make it up the narrow, two-lane road that led over the Teton Pass, an icy path through the Grand Tetons with few guardrails to protect you from a precipitous fall. Once you'd made the climb, the closest place to hide was Idaho Falls, ninety miles away.

Pinedale was an hour south, but there was five hours of nothing on a two-lane state road before you hit the next spot of civilization. Yellowstone was an hour east. There was nothing west for the better part of a day, until you hit Salt Lake City.

There was no major crime in Jackson because there was no easy escape from the law.

“When the police get here, keep your mouth shut,” Drew said.

“I need to tell them what she said about Kate.”

“You've told me. I'll take it from here. You don't say a word. Too bad it's Sunday tomorrow. You're probably going to have to spend the day in jail waiting for a bail hearing on Monday.”

Clay's gray eyes turned cold. “I know a few people here in town. Call Morgan in Washington and tell him to get out here. I'll be out on bail in time for breakfast.”

“No judge is going to hold court on Sunday morning,” Drew said. “Besides, you were naked in bed with a murdered woman, which makes you the likeliest person to have killed her. Who says you're going to get bail?”

“Call Morgan,” Clay said curtly. “I can't find out who set me up for murder while I'm sitting in a jail cell. I can manage bail, however much it is.”

“Didn't you hear what I said? You're a murder suspect. You may not be allowed to post bail. Judges tend to keep suspected murderers in jail until trial.”

“I'm also attorney general of the United States, with close ties to the local community. I'm not likely to flee. The judge will see the wisdom of letting me out on bail.”

Drew wondered if Clay could pull it off. They would soon find out. He called the number Clay gave him, then handed the phone to Clay.

“Hello, Morgan,” Clay said. “I'm in trouble. I need you to make some calls for me, then get yourself here as fast as you can.”

When he hung up, Drew asked, “What about your father? Do you want to call him?”

“No. I can handle this myself.”

Drew crossed to the bed to take another look at the dead girl. Which was when he realized he knew who she was. “I recognize this girl. Her picture was on a poster in Sarah's office. She was reported missing three months ago.” He met Clay's gaze and said, “Where do you suppose she's been all this time?”

“Wherever she was, that's where Kate is now,” Clay said. “She said something about being held in the mountains.”

“That's no help,” Drew said. “This place is surrounded by mountains.”

Drew had been anticipating a commotion, assuming the sheriff's office would arrive with lights flashing and sirens blaring. He was astonished, twenty minutes after his call, to hear a polite knock on the door and Sarah Barndollar's quiet voice saying, “Police. Open up.”

 

Sarah had been skeptical when she got a call from the dispatcher to check out the report of a
murder
at a house on Bear Island. The very exclusive, very private enclave was set along a tributary of the Snake River outside the town limits of Jackson, which meant the county sheriff had jurisdiction.

Sarah's breath caught in her throat when the dispatcher said a young woman had been murdered, so a moment passed before she said, as calmly as she could, “Is this for real?”

“Maybe,” said the dispatcher, whose name was Daisy.

“There's no
maybe
about murder,” Sarah said.

“What I mean is, I think this might be a hoax.”

“Why is that?” Sarah asked.

“The caller's voice was too calm and matter-of-fact,” Daisy said. “He said there was a party going on downstairs but he was in an upstairs bedroom with the dead girl. I'm not about to send a bunch of police out to interrupt a party of politicians—who might very well end up being found in compromising situations—on some unidentified caller's say-so.”

Daisy gave Sarah directions to the house and then to the upstairs bedroom where the murder had supposedly taken place.

Sarah had gone to the back door, acting like a deputy assigned to dignitary protection, although for some reason, none had been requested for this party. She could see, as she made her way upstairs, why the dispatcher had been so concerned about reputations. She saw famous faces with glazed eyes and arms around young women who were unlikely to be wives.

She released the strap that held her Glock .40 secure in the holster at her waist and knocked quietly on the bedroom door at the end of the hall, announcing, “Police. Open up.”

“What are you doing here?” she blurted when Drew DeWitt answered the door. “If this was a ruse to get me here—”

“Come in,” he said, opening the door wide. “The victim's over there.”

Sarah stepped inside and made a quick visual sweep of the room, noting the naked woman lying still on the bed and Clay Blackthorne sitting in a chair across the room. “So there is a victim,” she murmured.

This wasn't the first dead body she'd seen, but her heart was suddenly galloping as she crossed the room to check the girl's pulse. Her flesh was cold.

The apparent cause of death was strangulation. Dried blood made it clear the young woman had been alive when the strand of barbed wire that was still cinched around her throat had punctured her skin. “Poor girl,” Sarah whispered.

Sarah noted the splintered wood on the display above the bed. Apparently it had been a crime of passion. She wondered what the murdered girl had done, if anything, to provoke such a vicious attack.

Sarah took out her cell phone and called the dispatcher. “That murder call was no hoax,” she said. “Call the sheriff, the captain, the sergeant, and the coroner, along with enough deputies to make sure that no one leaves this place without being questioned first. It's going to be a mess, Daisy.”

“Will do,” Daisy said.

“You might as well call DCI in Cheyenne, too,” Sarah added. There was so little violent crime in Jackson, the town didn't have a CSI of its own. Detectives worked the scene themselves and sent the evidence they collected to the state lab in Cheyenne for processing, or, in high profile crimes—this one certainly qualified—called in the Division of Criminal Investigation from the get-go.