Hiding Place Read online

She forced a smile, and Sam remained silent at her side, his gaze on the colt struggling to his feet. “It’s late. We’ll be leaving now. Thank you for looking out for him.”

  I could see the curiosity in Larson’s eyes, but before he could respond, a grizzled man carrying a medical bag approached. The vet had arrived. I nodded to Larson when he caught my eye.

  “Don’t be a stranger,” he said, before turning to the vet.

  “Slowly,” I reminded Faye under my breath when it looked like she would bolt.

  She nodded and set an unhurried pace through the barn, but I could see the tension in the set of her shoulders. Once we were outside, I thought she would reprimand the boy, who kept glancing at me curiously. But all she said to him in a low voice was, “Did they hurt you in any way?”

  He drew his gaze from me and looked up at her. He shook his head, and some of the stiffness eased from her shoulders.

  I moved ahead of them and opened the back door of the truck for the boy. The floodlights on the exterior of the barn highlighted the excitement that lit his face when he saw the poodle in the backseat. “This is Frank,” I told him.

  He clambered into the backseat, greeted by tail wagging and inquisitive sniffing, and I shut the door behind him.

  I turned to Faye and found her staring at the entrance of the barn, brow furrowed. “Too easy?” I asked.

  She met my gaze. “Let’s leave now.”

  If she thought anyone would try to halt our departure, she was wrong. No one attempted to delay us, and the guard at the gate merely lifted a hand as we passed. Mother and child were equally silent as the dark miles rolled passed until Faye said, “Thank you for coming with me. I’m sorry for…earlier.”

  “I could have arrested you tonight.” I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the boy’s head come up, even though I had kept my voice low. Frank was sprawled across the backseat with his head on Sam’s knee.

  “You could have,” she agreed, tone unaffected. “But you didn’t. I was willing to take that risk.”

  I did not respond. Miles later, I turned off of the state road and drove along the rough stretch of lane leading home. The moonlight was a pearled gleam on the curved roof of my Airstream.

  I glanced at Faye as I parked, but she stared straight ahead. When I opened the back door, Sam’s gaze flew to mine, his fingers clenching around something in his palm.

  He hurriedly secreted away whatever he held deep into his pocket before he clambered down from the truck. His gaze darted to mine again before he ducked his head as his mother rounded the truck and placed a hand on his shoulder.

  Frank wanted to follow the boy as Faye and Sam moved to their own vehicle, but I called him back to my side. My gaze trailed the boy and noted the way he slipped his hand into his pocket and angled a quick glance over his shoulder toward me as he climbed into the backseat of Faye’s battered SUV.

  “Thank you again,” she said.

  Her desperation, I realized, had not been over the fact that her boy was missing. Not solely. Her fear came from the encounter with Larson. I studied her face carefully as I said, “Now that he’s safe, you don’t have to worry any longer.”

  The twist to her lips was too pained and bitter to be considered a smile. “I wish that were true.”

  I did not consider myself a curious man, but could not refrain from asking, “Why did you come to me tonight?”

  Faye remained silent for a long moment. She studied me in the moonlight, but I could not interpret her expression. “Because I don’t think law and order are high on your list of priorities. But justice is.”

  two

  FAYE

  “He isn’t here,” Laurel Kennedy said when I arrived to pick Sam up from school.

  My mind could not process her words. “What do you mean he isn’t here?”

  She twisted her hands together, anxiety written into every line of her body. “He slipped away today at the senator’s ranch.”

  My stomach twisted itself into a tight, hard knot. “What senator?”

  She explained and reminded me that I signed the approval slip for Sam to go. The teacher had done everything I asked when I pulled her aside shortly after I put Sam in the school. If something happened with him, do not draw attention; do not call the police. She had been skeptical, but I knew a battered woman when I saw her. When I explained how dangerous his father was and how far reaching his connections were, Laurel readily agreed.

  We had been here too long. I had grown too comfortable and did not even think to look up who owned the Broken Arrow Ranch before signing the release form. And I had been complacent for so long that I had forgotten how it felt when fear grabbed me by the throat, how it gripped my heart and clenched tighter every time I tried to inhale.

  It had not loosened its grasp even now as I drove home from Hector’s with Sam buckled into the seat behind me. I had seen the curiosity on the senator’s face, the befuddled look of a sense of familiarity he was trying to place. I wanted to rail at Sam, to reprimand him both for frightening me and for drawing attention to us. Guilt pierced me immediately, and I loosened my death grip on the steering wheel and adjusted the rearview mirror so I could see the shadow of his face.

  He was just a little boy, I reminded myself. A little boy whose world was upended and who retreated into silence five years ago but who still smiled at me every day and gave the tightest hugs.

  “I’m glad you’re okay,” I said. Being a mother had never come easily to me. It was not a role I ever felt suited for. I struggled with what to say and do, when to be firm and when to be soft. I lay awake at night eaten by doubt. “I was frightened when Miss Kennedy told me you left the group you were supposed to be in and didn’t get on the bus.” I glanced at the mirror, and the dusk to dawn light at the corner lit his face as we passed under it. He was watching me in the mirror. I pulled into the inn’s drive and parked the car before flipping on the overhead light and turning in my seat to face him. “Please don’t do something like that again. You could have gotten lost or hurt, and I couldn’t bear either of those. Okay?”

  He had ancient eyes in a child’s face, eyes that had seen far too much. His gaze searched my face for a long moment before he nodded.

  He did not speak. He had not spoken in five years. Silence, I learned, was akin to a cancer left undiagnosed until it was too late to be anything but terminal. In the beginning, I threw my entire existence into treating it. I talked until my voice ran hoarse. I filled the quiet with song and laughter, even if both rang false. But there came a point when I knew all efforts were futile, and I gave up and drowned in the silence.

  It did not come all at once. Resignation was a gradual process. At first, it was simply not telling a story over breakfast. Then I did not bother to ask how his day was because I knew he would not respond. Finally, I went to bed at night and realized I had not uttered a word throughout the entire course of the day.

  Silence spread malignantly until it fully permeated my life. I learned to bear it, and the pain of it became ingrained in my every breath, and the loneliness of it was so constant I was not certain I recalled what it felt like to not exist in its presence. It was a fatality that I gave into eventually, and after years of it, even hope was cast aside. I simply carried on in its wake and forgot that a time existed when the silence did not reign.

  And then someone came into our lives and reminded me that the silence had not always been so pressing.

  The light on the front porch was on. Evelyn Hutto stood illuminated at the wide windows watching for us. She had shown up on the inn’s doorstep several months ago asking to rent a room. She became a friend, reminding me that communication was more than words, and I realized that my silence perhaps only encouraged Sam’s.

  “Let’s get inside,” I said. “I’ll make us some dinner.”

  Evelyn met us at the door. The relief on her face when she saw Sam was evident. “He was able to help you.”

  Approaching
Hector Lewis was her idea. I knew the man only by his reputation around town. The rumors I had heard over the last years stated his wife and child had not been found after they went missing fifteen years ago because he murdered them.

  I knew about men who would kill to make someone disappear from their lives. While his face was cold and hard, I didn’t see cruelty in it or the kind of rage that lashed out with words and fists until a woman was curled bleeding in a corner. I didn’t believe the rumors, but I still avoided him. Cops were the same the world over: loyal to one another and to whoever wrote the largest checks.

  But Evelyn was certain Hector would help me find Sam, and I was desperate enough to be unswayed by his indifference.

  “He was,” I said, and left it at that. “Did anyone need anything while I was gone?”

  “The older couple in room three asked for an extra pillow, but aside from that, it’s been quiet.”

  When I bought the inn, the place was a dump, but the location on an oxbow of the Yellowstone River was stunning. It took me the first three years we lived here before I finished renovating the six rooms, den, dining area, sun room, kitchen, and the rooms Sam and I lived in. The exterior still needed work, and a lot of it. But the cash I took when we fled New York had dwindled dangerously low after those three years of sinking money into the inn.

  Now, I was finally starting to turn a profit, and I was researching contractors for the work. YouTube tutorials went a long way when I was laying plank flooring and installing sinks and showers, but the carpentry work needed to restore the inn to its former glory on the exterior was something I would leave to the professionals.

  I was beginning to think of Evelyn as a roommate more than a boarder, and three of the six available rooms were currently occupied. The season already promised to be a busy one with reservations made through the end of October.

  Raven’s Gap was our sanctuary, and I loved being able to add to each visitor’s experience of Yellowstone with a quiet, comfortable, rustic place to lay their heads. Now my stomach twisted with the knowledge that it could come to an end.

  “Thanks for keeping an eye on things for me.”

  “Of course,” Evelyn said, and limped after us into the kitchens.

  “Do you need a pain killer?” I asked when I caught her grimace as she eased into a chair.

  In January, she killed a man, a serial killer who had lived among us as a neighbor. It still made my skin crawl to think about it. She survived Jeff Roosevelt only to nearly lose her life in a blizzard. Hector and his poodle, Frank, found her before the cold could take her, but not before it had stolen pieces of her.

  She confessed to me that she could bear losing fingers and toes and part of her ear when faced with the knowledge that she could have lost much more. She seemed to be coping well, emotionally and physically, but I knew the two missing toes on her right foot were still something she was learning to deal with. The missing toes caused her more physical discomfort than the two and a half fingers on her left hand, she told me.

  “Yes, please,” she said. I knew she was hurting when she stayed seated and let me grab a bottle of pain reliever and a glass of water for her. “I made spaghetti for us. It’s in the fridge and just needs to be heated up.” She turned to Sam, who took the chair next to her. “Are you okay? What happened?”

  She addressed her question to Sam. She never talked through him or did not acknowledge him because he did not offer anything verbal in response. I answered her and told her what I knew as I heated three plates of spaghetti in the microwave. So much could have happened to him, and I would never know, because he could not tell me. The thought staggered me.

  “Were you frightened?” Evelyn asked softly, and shame washed through me. Not because he nodded. Of course an eight-year-old little boy would be frightened in such a situation. Because I had not thought to ask him that myself. Evelyn smiled at him. “You didn’t need to be. You know your mom would move heaven and earth for you.”

  His eyes sliced to me, and I forced a smile as I slid a plate before him.

  Evelyn and Sam cleaned their plates. I found myself pushing the noodles and sauce around my plate until they were finished.

  Later, when I crawled into bed, I pressed my hand to my chest and stared up at the shadowed ceiling. The hard thrum of my heart knocked at my palm. I loved it here. The chaos of New York City was like a cocaine high. I loved it once, even needed it. Now that I was sober, though, I needed the quiet, the peace that enveloped this small town in its wilderness embrace. I never realized I could not breathe until I moved here, where the air was so crisp and clean it sometimes hurt to inhale.

  This inn was the first thing that had not been given to me. I loved the bakery, but I had not known hard work until the inn. Mary would have loved the inn. She would have thrown herself into the renovations right alongside me, chattering to me endlessly about plans and dreams for the place. Perhaps that was why the silence sometimes felt so oppressive. Life felt so cavernous without the echo of Mary’s laughter to fill it.

  The inn was the first thing I actually worked for and invested blood, sweat, tears, and money in. I had calluses on my palms now, and pride that filled me every time I glanced around and took in what I created with my own two hands.

  Now, our days were numbered. It would only be a matter of time, and I wondered if we should leave this very night, slipping away in the dark before we were discovered, or if I should wait. Maybe the senator would forget about us. Maybe he would never make the connection.

  But I learned five years ago that if I relied on maybes, I would end up dead and Sam would pay the price for my hesitation.

  I closed my eyes and pondered how swiftly fear shattered the joys I chipped out for us and how often motherhood felt synonymous with failure.

  three

  GRANT

  “You’re certain the boy didn’t see anything?” I asked the man who slipped from the shadows and joined me. I stared after the tail lights as the vet’s truck disappeared into the darkness and considered my earlier guests.

  “Not one hundred percent, no. We didn’t even know the kid was here until Rogers caught sight of him on the cameras outside the north barn.”

  “Shit.” I raked a hand through my hair.

  “Do you need me to contain the situation?”

  The man beside me had come highly recommended, with good reason. John Smith had worked for me for years now. The anonymity of his name was appropriate. He was damn good at what he did. So good that sometimes it chilled me, and the thought crossed my mind that one day I would end up being the situation he needed to contain.

  “Not until we know if it is going to turn into a situation. But find out everything you can about the woman and boy. I want to be prepared.” A sense of familiarity nagged at me with both of them.

  “And the man?”

  The irony was not lost on me. “You don’t need to do a background check on Hector Lewis. He told the guard at the gate the woman was his friend, though. Keep an eye on him, but discreetly.”

  John smiled, teeth gleaming in the darkness. It was not a pleasant expression. “Discreet is my middle name.”

  I retreated into the barn to check on Boadicea and her foal. The Friesian watched me as her gangly son nursed. “How about Caligula?” I asked. She blinked those wide, warrior eyes at me.

  I offered to name the foal after the boy, trying to draw him out and get him to talk to me. When he was first brought into my office, I thought he was deaf, but it was clear the boy could hear. He wrote out his mother’s phone number when I asked for it, but my curiosity piqued when he refused to write his name. He remained silent, not speaking even when his mother arrived. Again, the sense that I knew the boy or had seen him before tugged at my subconscious.

  Hector Lewis could be a problem. His wife had been, in the end. Winona was, after all, the reason I hired John Smith fifteen years ago.

  four

  HECTOR

&nb
sp; Nothing came back in the system on Faye Anders aside from her driver’s license and her vehicle registration. It was not unusual. For most law-abiding citizens, that was the extent of the records kept in the state and national crime database.

  I pulled up Coplink, a crime analytics software that shared data between agencies, and performed a hunt and peck across the keys with my index fingers. A query brought back no results, so I attempted searches with various spellings of her name and her birthday as it was listed on her driver’s license. Nothing came back on the searches.

  I snagged the phone on my desk.

  “It’s Hector,” I said when he answered on the third ring.

  “Is my ma okay?” the gruff voice at the other end of the line asked. William Silva was retired Special Forces. He had done a short stint in the FBI and decided he preferred shades of gray to black and white. The man had a sixth sense for finding people. In addition to that uncanny ability, he had a wealth of resources and connections. It was why the sign on the door on his office in Denver read FUGITIVE RECOVERY AGENT.

  “Maggie’s fine.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “I need to ask a favor of you.”

  “Name it,” he said immediately.

  He had been a solid kid, raised by strong, hard-working parents until his father dropped dead of a heart attack at the age of forty-three. Then he became a strong, hard-working son who helped his mother at the diner every day before and after school. He only joined the military after he asked me to promise to look after his mother. He had been a good kid, but he was an even better man.

  “I need you to see what you can dig up on someone. A woman here in town.”

  He chuckled. “Another one?” I called him months ago asking him to look into Evelyn Hutto.

  I gave him Faye’s name and birthday and the rundown on everything I had gleaned about her, which was little to nothing. “And find out what her connection is to Grant Larson.”