LITMIR.BIZ

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He saw places on the trees where animals had rubbed off the bark to mark their territories. This was probably a wild-goose—that is, wild deer and elk—chase, but Beamer was tracking something.

      As far as Nick was concerned, the alert, self-confident track-and-trail breeds of dogs were one of God’s great gifts to mankind. Most bloodhounds, beagles, German shepherds and Labrador retrievers could smell hundreds of different scents, sometimes from something as tiny as shed skin cells. Whereas people might enter a kitchen and smell vegetable soup cooking, tracker dogs could break that down into meat stock, celery, potatoes, even pepper or herbs. Beamer could sprint up to forty miles an hour. He had a wide range of vision, nearly one hundred eighty degrees, and could see something as small as a mouse from a football field away. He could swivel his ears in two separate directions to pick up diverse, muted sounds at a great distance. All that, and he was eager to give hours of exhausting nose time to search for anyone from lost kids to escaped criminals, just for a bit of praise and a scratch behind his ears.

      Nick had no idea what trail Beamer was working so hard now, but he felt increasingly wary and on edge. The exertion at this altitude soon got him out of breath again. The Lab took him higher, slightly around the south side of the mountain toward a deserted hunting cabin he remembered. In the old days, people who lived in Denver would come up and stay in cabins on the weekends, but with better roads and vehicles, the small buildings were seldom slept in anymore. Derelict cabins were scattered throughout these mountains. He and Alex had played up here years ago in this one, pretending that the native Arapaho, Ute and Cheyenne tribes were still in the area and that the old place was their fort. He saw the cabin was still there, in more ramshackle shape than ever.

      In his heart he envisioned Alex, as she used to look, with her face all smudged and a stick rifle in her hands. He bit his lower lip hard as he followed Beamer to the door. It stood ajar and askew.

      Nick stopped so suddenly that he jerked Beamer’s lead. For one moment, he had pictured how careful the Delta boys were when they entered a cave. Buried bombs abounded, and the Taliban could be hunkered down in the shadows, guns ready to blaze destruction and death. Or the troops sometimes cornered someone hiding, like Sadam Hussein himself. But they’d never found the big quarry, Bin Laden, and that haunted him yet. And then there was that hellish moment when they’d lost lives…

      Nick shook his head to clear it. Stop it! he told himself. No post-traumatic stress syndrome for him. He wouldn’t allow it. Duty had called, and he’d done his duty. It wasn’t reasonable to dwell on failure, so he would not. He had hold of his weak emotions, and he would do what he must to keep it that way.

      His breath still coming hard and his heart pounding, he peered inside, even looking behind the door. He was surprised to see the floor was fairly clear, as if someone had swept out debris and leaves, even spiderwebs, at least with feet and hands if not with a limb-and-leaf broom. And a bed of fresh-looking moss had been brought inside and bore the slight imprint of a human form. The moss wouldn’t last long in here without sunlight or water, he thought. Yes, this had to be fairly new, but then it was a hunter’s cabin and it was hunting season.

      His gaze snagged on a clean-looking purple, light green and white paper wrapper in the corner of the cabin. He picked it up and turned it toward the filthy window to read in the wan light: Cacao Reserve by Hershey’s. Dark Chocolate. Bright fruity notes and delicate spices. He flipped it over. Made in Germany, no less. This wasn’t your everyday hunter’s candy bar.

      But finally, he had an object to scent Beamer on. “Find. Find!” he ordered, and thrust the wrapping at the dog’s nose.

      With one big sniff, the Lab jerked his head and, nose to the ground, took off immediately, out the door, retracing the path they’d taken to come up here. The dog locked on the trail and worked it hard the whole way. Nick kept a pretty short lead on the leash so Beamer wouldn’t wrap it around a tree.

      Unfortunately, the dog led him to a spot just above the house. Beamer raised his hackles, then went in a circle as if he’d found a scent pool where their quarry had sat for a while or even lain.

      Then Beamer growled and stood perfectly still. Picturing the enemy snipers he’d seen too often up on a rock or cliff, Nick gritted his teeth and shook his head. Stooping next to Beamer and looking through the blowing scrim of pine needles, he could see directly into the kitchen through the window over the sink, and into Tara’s office and bedroom.

      5

      Veronica Lohan could not find her cell phone. It was ringing, wasn’t it? That is, playing her favorite pop culture organ piece, the theme from The Phantom of the Opera. But why did it sound so muted?

      The cell should be on the bedside table. She felt for it there and found nothing. Maybe she hadn’t heard the music at all. Often melodies danced through her head, pieces she knew by heart or, at least, ones she once knew. She used to misplace her tiny cell phones all the time, especially when she was in detox and recovery treatment at the clinic, but she’d been good lately, so normal. No more secret stashes of Vicodin washed down with double martinis.

      It was still dark, so it must be early. She and her husband, Jordan, had shared a lovely, late dinner at home last night, a meal he’d ordered from their cook for her—her favorite pasta primavera, although he liked heavier fare. “If I had one last meal to eat on this earth,” she’d told him, “this would be it.”

      Whatever was wrong with her? It must be dark and quiet because she had her earplugs and silk sleeping mask on.

      Still trying to drag herself from sodden sleep, she yanked the plugs out and pulled off the mask. Oh, for heaven’s sake—broad daylight and the sun up already. Ten in the morning? How could she have slept so late? She was an early riser, always had been.

      Feeling strangely light-headed, she got out of bed and went to the bathroom. Catching her reflection in the mirror, she leaned, stiff-armed, on the fluted basin and did not like what she saw.

      At age fifty-six, Veronica Britten Lohan, Juilliard class of ’73, knew she was still a good-looking woman, even without her usually upswept coiffure and makeup. She had great bone structure under smooth skin, a gift from God or at least genetics. She was trim, maybe too trim, but still statuesque. Her hair was raven black, as the poets used to say—with a bit of help from her hairdresser. She had rather liked the silver at her temples and the big streak of it flowing back from the center of her forehead. It was a sign of someone who had lived, someone worthy of stating an opinion or two or giving advice. But Jordan had urged her to color it.

      She’d had two facelifts her family had talked her into, done right on the grounds of the Lohan Mountain Manor Clinic by a doctor Jordan had imported, just the way he and Laird had brought in a specialist for poor Tara’s coma treatment. She just didn’t look like herself anymore. Her eyes were tilted up a bit too exotically, and her forehead, cheeks and mouth felt tight each time she smiled. Indeed, the feel of her face was an ever-present reminder that almost everything she’d done the last thirty-four years of her life had been to please her husband or two sons, not herself.

      Still, she was the same inside, still a Britten at heart more than a Lohan, she tried to tell herself as she washed up, humming a Bach prelude. She was grateful for her musical talent, enamored of her grandchildren and, of course, proud of her sons, though she was disappointed in Laird lately.

      She should have breakfast in bed this morning. She could call down to the kitchen and get something brought up, especially her hazelnut coffee. She felt a bit rocky from it being so late and not eating this morning, that was all. Why, she’d slept as if she were drugged.

      As she headed back toward the big bed she seldom shared with Jordan anymore, though he had an adjoining suite she could visit whenever she wished, she heard her cell phone again. Surely she wasn’t hearing things this time. The organ music filled her as The Phantom of the Opera played those dissonant chords, Da, da, da, da, da!

      She frowned when she saw the phone on her bedside table where she was sure she’d put it last night. How had she missed seeing it earlier? Oh, and a breakfast tray was on the table by the window, as if someone had known exactly when she got up. She could

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