“Yes. It seemed … over the top.”
“It was a stressful time,” Patrick pointed out. “A dead guest, her sick stepson, then another guest fainting.”
“You’re probably right.”
“But Luce-trust your instincts. Please. Don’t trust anyone. My gun is in my truck. I didn’t think I’d need it, but I want you to get it. If it’s safe to go for it.”
“Where? Under the seat?”
“Yes. I have a holster strapped to the underside. It’s loaded. Extra bullets are in the glove compartment. It’s a forty-five, are you comfortable with that?”
She smiled. “Jack taught me everything I know about guns.”
Patrick rolled his eyes. “I thought I gave you some good lessons.”
“You did. But you know Jack. Repetition.”
“Yeah, don’t I?”
Lucy wanted to check out Grace and Steve’s rooms as well. They were in the cottage, and that was on the way to Patrick’s truck.
“What?” Patrick snapped. “You’re thinking about doing something you know I won’t like.”
“You’re right.”
He paused. “Well?”
“You won’t like it.” She stood. “Stay here and be sick. If anyone comes, moan. If anyone offers you food, don’t eat it. I’ll be back as soon as possible.”
“Lucy, wait-” He sat up, but became immediately queasy and laid back down.
“Trust me,” she said and left.
Beth had just put out a small breakfast buffet. She looked like she hadn’t gotten any sleep. “How are you doing?” Lucy asked.
“I’m worried about Grace. This has been so hard on her. And Steve-the poor kid. I don’t know how to make it better, and it’s killing me.”
“My brother woke up sick this morning.”
“Sick? Like a cold?”
“Like puking his guts out sick. I cleaned up after him, but I was hoping to get some ice and a little juice or something.”
“Of course.”
Lucy followed Beth into the kitchen. Angie was there, as Lucy had prearranged. “Oh, good,” she said to Beth. “I was hoping you could help me with Trevor. He went up to the extra room, but he’s hungover and distraught and I don’t know what to do. Kyle is no help, he doesn’t know what to say, and you were so good with Trevor last night.”
Beth said, “I have the perfect hangover remedy.” She started gathering supplies, then turned to Lucy. “Oh, let’s take care of Patrick first.”
“I can do it. You talk to Trevor. I’ll bring juice for my brother. Maybe some chicken broth?”
“In the pantry. I can prepare something for you.”
“No, really, it’s okay. I need something to do anyway, I’m going stir-crazy.”
Less than two minutes later, Angie and Beth left with a tray for Trevor. As soon as Lucy heard them on the stairs, she slipped into Beth’s bedroom.
It was a suite, with two rooms and its own bath. Beth was tidy-her bed was made, her dirty clothes in a hamper, her furniture arranged just so. Careful to leave everything exactly as she’d found it, Lucy quickly searched Beth’s room for anything that would connect her to embezzlement or drugging Steve. Beth didn’t have a computer in her bedroom, which meant that the books were either kept on the office computer or in the cottage.
She did find a box of letters to Beth from a man named Andrew Simon, Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army. They were all sent from an APO address in Afghanistan. Ten letters, written in the months she’d been living here. She had a P.O. box in Kit Carson, which Lucy recognized was the same address that the lodge used. Would she use the same address if she was hiding something? Or would she have opened her own post office box?
Lucy opened the most recent letter, dated three weeks ago.
Lucy looked at the picture, and first found Buddy in the Jeep. Her dad was working on base by the time she was born, and her oldest brother Jack had enlisted when she was still a toddler. She knew what these men went through.
Was the fact that Beth was dating a soldier clouding her judgment? Lucy hoped not, but she hadn’t found anything in Beth’s room to indicate that she was embezzling money.
Lucy carefully put the letter back exactly as she’d found it and the box on its shelf, next to a framed photo of a man in uniform that must be Andy. Lucy went thought the bottom drawer of her desk and found bank statements. Up until last April, she’d had deposits of a little over five thousand dollars a month. Since April, she’d made small deposits monthly of fifteen hundred dollars. Unemployment? Rent checks? Did her sister pay her a salary?
Beth hadn’t withdrawn much money, either-she had a balance of just over nine thousand in her checking account, about the same in her savings, and two CDs of ten thousand dollars each, maturing at different times, both purchased before she’d moved here.
Suddenly, Lucy felt guilty for poring over Beth’s finances. There was nothing here to show that Beth had been stealing. She put everything back and would have left, but someone was in the kitchen.
Steve and Grace.
Heart thudding, she eavesdropped.
“Please, Steve, don’t do this. Your health is more important to me than anything.”
“I need to. On Monday I’m going to Jackson and getting a mortgage. I need you to sign with me.”
“You’ll be in debt for the rest of your life. You’ll put yourself in an early grave. I can’t go through that again. Not what I went through with your father. Him dying in my arms because we couldn’t get him to the hospital fast enough.”
“Please, don’t-”
“We can sell. That will solve all our financial problems.”
“I’m not selling!”
“Beth, tell Steve that a mortgage isn’t the solution.”
Beth must have stepped into the kitchen, or had been silent at first. “Actually, I’ve been thinking it might be a good option. Not a large mortgage, but ten percent would be more than enough to replenish the emergency funds. I’ll stay here, at least another year, and work out a budget and growth plan. It’s my forte.”
“But it’s not about the lodge, it’s about Steve!” Grace said. “His health.”
