Dangerous Refuge Read Free

ones learned to mimic what they didn’t understand. They hid their inhumanity behind manners and pretend emotions, actors on a lifetime stage.
    “I had to go out of town on a Conservancy retreat. The kind with no phones. I didn’t know what happened until I got back and Kimberli’s message was waiting for me. And your message. We need to talk. Please, please, give me a chance to explain. I’ll bring out the right contract and show you. It was just a stupid mistake.”
    Urgency and a hurt the caller didn’t bother to hide.
    Probably real, he decided.
    Probably.
    It would be something to check on. He scribbled her name and a shorthand description of his own reactions to the message on the yellow tablet Lorne always kept by the phone. The phone itself was too old to have a call log, much less caller ID.
    Tanner tapped the pencil on the countertop several times. The local officials obviously were going with a natural death, because any investigator worth the name would have checked the phone to see who had called Lorne lately, and when. But the messages hadn’t been touched until Tanner came. Neither had the house.
    His glance fell on a stack of mail on the worn linoleum countertop. Postmarks were all within the last week or so. Lots of local advertising aimed at the small rancher—feed sales, pump and irrigation sales and repairs, grocery deals, veterinarians. Only one piece of mail had attracted Lorne’s attention. He had ripped it in half and tossed the pieces aside.
    Just like the old days. Piss him off and he let you know it.
    Tanner stirred the torn, creamy paper with the eraser of the pencil. Whatever it had been, his uncle hadn’t even bothered to open it before he tore it apart. Curious, Tanner started to tease out the halves of the letter with the eraser, careful not to contaminate the paper with his fingerprints. Then he realized what he was doing and made a disgusted sound.
    This isn’t a crime scene and you aren’t a homicide detective right now. Get. Over. It.
    But he wanted to be. Babysitting stiffs in the morgue and matching them to active cases had almost been enough to drive him away from the job.
    Almost.
    Yet a deep-down stubborn part of him still believed in leaving the world a better place than he’d found it. Being a cop was the most direct way he knew to do that.
    Cursing softly, he assembled the heavy paper. To his eye, the heavy gold embossing on both envelope and letterhead were overkill.
    The words invited Lorne and a guest of his choice to be honored by the Conservancy at the Crystal Room of the Tahoe Sky Casino in South Lake Tahoe.
    Funny place to throw a local party. But then, the Refuge Grange Hall is as worn out as Lorne’s everyday boots.
    Maybe that’s why he tore up the letter. He hated fancy things.
    The invitation looked like it had cost fifty bucks to print. The embossing had the look and feel of real gold. Showy. Not Lorne at all.
    Just like he wouldn’t have left his hat behind, even if all he was going to do was walk around the yard.
    The metallic printing on the invitation glowed and shimmered, bright as nuggets in a streambed.
    The gold.
    Tanner tossed the pencil back into the cup and walked quickly toward the fireplace in the front room. The chimney and hearth had been built with local cobblestones smoothed by the stream that raced down from the mountains and across the Davis land. Like his father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and all the rest of his ancestors, Lorne hadn’t trusted banks. If the family had any extra cash, it went into a homemade safe in the form of gold coins.
    Silently he counted stones upward from the left-hand side, starting where hearth met chimney. As he reached for the fifth cobble, he hesitated.
    Not. A. Crime. Scene.
    He began working the rock free, knowing there was a small hidey-hole behind. When he had turned fourteen, he had been told about it—and the gold coins inside. It was a Davis family coming-of-age rite.
    Abruptly the stone came