Stone Cold

25

Nate arrived at the Sand Creek Ranch lodge for dinner and walked through the parking lot with a bad attitude and Joe Pickett’s 12-gauge shotgun shell in his pocket.

The snowfall had lost its intensity at dusk but continued to sift down through the sky and trees like flour. There were small openings in the cloud cover where the stars shone through, but the moon was still obscured and there was little ambient starlight, which made the lodge look as if it were blazing from every pore.

There were rows of vehicles in the lot and Nate could see the silhouettes of people milling about through the ground-floor windows. He remembered what Liv had told him about weapons, so he skirted the lot and stashed his .500 and shoulder holster at the base of a thick caragana bush on the side of an outbuilding.

Liv met him at the door with a gracious and relieved smile. She looked magnificent in a purple flowing blouse, tight gray slacks, and shiny black pumps.

“I’m so glad you came,” she said. She was standing just inside the door. There was a clipboard in her hand; no doubt the guest list and the agenda for the evening.

“Didn’t think I had a choice,” Nate grumbled.

“You’re right!” she said with a laugh. “And you look very presentable.”

Nate wore jeans and boots, a white shirt with an open collar, and a buckskin-colored jacket. His hair was tied into a ponytail by a leather falcon’s jess.

“Didn’t think there would be so many people,” Nate said. “I hate these kinds of things.”

“Close your eyes and think of England,” she said.

He grunted.

“Look,” she said, stepping close to him and lowering her voice before he could enter the great room, “here’s how these things go. There’s an order to the evening’s events. Mr. T. wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Nate paused and tried to listen, but he couldn’t get past her eyes.

She said, “First, there’s the cocktail reception. The crowd is a mix of important locals, potential new clients, and ranch staff. Mr. T. likes to have the locals out once or twice a year to impress them. It tells them they’re on the inside and reminds them how much they depend on Mr. T.

“Your role is to mill around and casually meet the guests. I’m guessing you won’t be very good at that.”

“Correct.”

“Then dinner in the dining room. There’s a seating chart, so just look for your name on a card above the china. It’s important to Mr. T. who sits where, so please don’t break the protocol.”

Nate said, “I want to sit next to you.”

The corners of her mouth rose in a slight smile, but she continued on, businesslike. “You’ll need to sit where your card is located, and it’s not next to me. But I’ll be straight across the table.”

“Good. We can make eyes at each other.”

“We will not. Then, after dinner, a few of the guests will leave and there will be a short business meeting.”

“Can I leave with them?”

“No. I told you, you need to stay.”

Nate screwed up his face.

“Mr. T. said it was important. It’s about a new assignment. You’ll be involved.”

Nate nodded. It seemed strange to him that he’d spent weeks keeping her at bay, but now that he was at the lodge with two dozen strangers, he wanted to wrap her up and take her home. And he could tell by the way she stood so close to him and repeatedly touched him on the arm while talking to him that she was feeling it, too.

“So, go,” she said, stepping aside. “Mingle. Try not to kill anyone. And make sure you meet Herself. Her name is…”

“Missy,” Nate said. “Is she going by Longbrake, Alden, or Vankueren?”

Liv looked up, alarmed. “You know her? How is that possible?”

“Our paths crossed a few times, but I know all about her. Her showing up here fits the profile.”

“What profile?” Liv asked, equally alarmed and intrigued.

“She’s the mother-in-law of a friend I haven’t seen for a while. What I know about her is that she trades up.”

Liv’s eyebrows arched and she said, “Trades up?”

“Men. Husbands. Each one is wealthier than the last. I’ve lost count how many there are, but the last one was found swinging from a chain tied to the blade of a wind turbine.”

“My God,” Liv said, raising her fingertips to her mouth in alarm.

“Then she vanished. I don’t know the story, but I’ve always had my suspicions. She’s supposedly been on a world cruise ever since. But I see she’s landed.”

“Do you think Mr. T. knows any of this?”

Nate nodded. “I’m sure he knows some of it, but with her personal spin on everything I just told you. The fact that she’s here means he bought it.”

Liv moved back in and whispered, “What kinds of problems will this cause?”

Nate said, “Hard to say. But I’ll tell you one thing: whatever you think of her — she’s worse than that.”

She studied him closely. “You’re not kidding, are you?”

“Nope.”

He left Liv Brannan stammering in the doorway. She began to pursue him, but a newly arriving couple filled the doorway and she turned to them reluctantly, her well-practiced hostess smile lighting up again like embers in a fresh breeze.

Sheriff R. C. Mead met him in the hallway before Nate could enter the great room. Mead was in his khaki dress uniform with dark-brown breast pockets and epaulets. His service weapon was in its holster on his right hip.

“Hope you don’t mind,” he said, quickly but thoroughly running his hands down inside Nate’s jacket, on the inside of his thighs, and along the shafts of his boots. Nate gritted his teeth and never took his eyes off the sheriff.

“Okay,” Mead said, satisfied Nate was unarmed. “Mr. Templeton always asks me to check. Enjoy your evening.”

“I will,” Nate said. “But there’s one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Touch me again and I’ll tear both of your ears off and hang them from my rearview mirror.”

Mead grinned at first, then realized Nate was serious and his face went blank.

Without another word, Nate shouldered around the man and entered the great room.

People stood in loose knots throughout the massive great room under the dim light of three wagon-wheel chandeliers. Nate didn’t know most of them but assumed they were the locals Liv told him about — town councilmen, county commissioners, bankers. There were lots of clean cowboy hats and reptile-skin boots, and the women were wearing their most formal western wear and showy jewelry. He could smell hair products in the air. Several of the wives’ eyes lingered a bit too long on him and he broke eye contact.

He got a neat double Wyoming Whiskey from the bar and surveyed the crowd. Whip was entertaining a couple of men in sport coats in the corner, obviously telling fishing stories because he was false-casting in the air without a fly rod.

“Who are the men listening to Whip?” Nate asked the bartender. He’d seen him around the ranch before in his day job as a horse wrangler.

The wrangler said, “Well, the one on the left is Judge Bartholomew. The other one I don’t know, but I guess he flew in from San Francisco this morning.”

The man to Whip’s right was in his mid-sixties and reeked of money and arrogance: loose-fitting jeans, boat shoes without socks, blazer worn over a black silk shirt, and a $400 haircut. Nate thought, The potential client.

He heard the man as he introduced himself to Whip as Rocco Biolchini. The name was vaguely familiar, Nate thought. Biolchini was some kind of high-profile social-media mogul. A movie had been partially based on his life, but Nate hadn’t seen it and couldn’t recall the name of the film.

While Biolchini talked about himself, Whip’s attention wandered and he acknowledged Nate with a nod. Nate nodded back. There was no reason to do any more, he thought.

And there in the corner of the great room, framed by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, were Wolfgang Templeton and Missy Vankueren, surrounded by admiring guests with sloppy smiles on their faces. Templeton towered over everyone, looking, Nate thought, like an out-of-place aristocrat. Because Missy was tiny, she was hard to see through the well-wishers. But when the crowd parted, there she was: stunning in a tight white-and-gold dress that hugged her figure. If Nate hadn’t known better, he would have guessed her age at forty — over twenty years off the mark. She had a perfect porcelain face, high cheekbones, and blood-red lipstick.

She hadn’t seen him.

Nate finished his drink and handed it back to the bartender for another. When he turned around, Templeton was waving for him to come over. Missy was still engaged with a couple as Nate approached.

“Missy,” Templeton said, “there’s someone who works for me I’d like you to meet. Nate Romanowski, this is Missy Vankueren.”

It was subtle, very subtle, but Nate noted the bolt of terror that went through her upon hearing his name. She didn’t wheel around or drop her wineglass, and her knees didn’t collapse. It was more of a full-body twitch. She didn’t even turn immediately. But he’d seen her reaction, even if no one else noticed it. Then it was over.

Damn, he thought. She’s good.

“Nate!” She beamed with all her mouth, but her eyes remained cold and meant solely for him. She held her free hand out and he grasped it.

“It’s been so long! How have you been?”

“A lot has happened.”

“No doubt,” she said, shifting her smile from Nate to Templeton before Templeton could react. “Nate and I were acquaintances in a different world… long ago and far away, as they say in the movies.”

Templeton was obviously confused but not alarmed, given the warm reception she’d shown to Nate.

“Nate was close to my daughter when I lived in Wyoming,” she told Templeton. “She thought the world of him. We haven’t seen each other in what — two years?”

Nate said, “Something like that.”

“Does Marybeth know you’re here?”

“No.”

He saw a glimmer of relief in her eyes. She said, “You’re the last person I thought I’d see here.”

Nate grinned in a way he’d been told was cruel. He said, “You too.”

“He’s one of my best men,” Templeton said to Missy with enthusiasm.

She grinned up at him. “No doubt, Wolfie. I don’t doubt that at all.”

Wolfie? Nate thought.

“We met in Davos,” Templeton said to Nate as he drew Missy in close to him. “She was spending some time in Europe between cruises and we found out we had some mutual friends. It’s almost like a small town at that level — everyone knows everyone. We hit it off immediately—especially once we realized we both shared a love for this country out here and the lifestyle.”

Nate said, “Sure.”

“It’s the first time it ever happened to me,” Templeton said, shaking his head. “Love at first sight.”

“What do you know,” Nate said.

“And here she is, right back where she belongs. Isn’t that right, Missy?”

She blushed in a well-practiced way and said, “I don’t want to come across as, you know, too easy.”

It was said as a joke, and Templeton roared in laughter. Nate looked from him back to her. Before he could say another word, Missy shrugged away from Templeton and told him, “Let me catch up with Nate for a few minutes and I’ll be back.”

Templeton agreed reluctantly. “There are still people to meet,” he said. “I want to show you off.”

“You are so sweet,” she said while batting her eyes at him, then grasped Nate by his arm and led him down the expanse of the bookcase to an unoccupied corner.

Her face retained its pleasant glow and her smile was fixed even as she asked, “Who have you told about me?”

“No one yet.”

“Do you swear you haven’t let Marybeth know I’m back?”

“Haven’t had the chance.” Meaning: She didn’t pick up.

“No one knows but you?”

“Nope.”

She softened a little. Ever the seductress, he thought. “Can you keep your mouth shut?”

He didn’t respond because he didn’t like threats.

“Let’s put it this way,” she said softly. “Wolfgang and I are very close. Very close. He listens to me and I’m much better at this kind of palace intrigue than anyone you’ve ever known. Do we understand each other?”

Nate took a sip of his drink.

“See that woman over there?” she said, chinning almost imperceptibly over Nate’s shoulder. He turned his head and saw Liv across the room, checking her clipboard. “The dishy one? She’s worked for Wolfie for years. But one word from me? Gone. And when it comes to you: same thing.”

He took another sip. How could she know his feelings toward Liv, other than Missy’s innate intuition and lizard-like genius for self-preservation?

“I think we understand each other, right?” she smiled chillingly.

“I think I understand you,” he said.

“So as far as you and I are concerned, we’re acquaintances from another time. I’m not aware of your questionable background, and you know very little about my… history.”

It was said as a statement, not a question.

She said, “I better get back to our guests. It was nice seeing you, Nate.”

With that, she turned to rejoin Templeton.

Nate said, “By the way, Joe’s here, too.”

It froze her for a second before she turned back around. He knew he’d hit the target. She took a breath, gathered herself, and said, “Joe is on the ranch?”

“He’s working in this county.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Keep him away from me.”

“He probably feels the same way about you.”

“And keep him away from Wolfgang.”

With that, she turned away to sidle up to Templeton again. Her smile hadn’t lost any wattage.

Nate returned to the bar and found himself eyeing Liv closely, imagining her… gone. He thought that very soon this new world he had entered would blow up. His sudden goal was not to blow up with it.

Or Liv.

Or Joe. Damn him for showing up.