Vermilion Drift Read Free

account?”
    “Yes.”
    “Any way to check her e-mails?”
    “I already have. There’s been no activity since last Sunday, and nothing in the communication before that that seems relevant.”
    “Is it possible she has an account you don’t know about?”
    “It’s possible but not probable.”
    “How did you manage to get her e-mail password?”
    “We’re close,” he said, and left it at that.
    “Look, Max, there’s something I need to say.”
    “Say it.”
    “I have two grown daughters and a teenage son. It strikes me that I have less control, less access to their private lives than you have with your sister. Frankly, it seems odd.”
    Cavanaugh stared at him. His eyes were the hard green-brown of turtle shells. Cork waited.
    “My sister is flamboyant,” Cavanaugh finally said. “She inspires. She walks into a room and the place becomes electric, brighter and more exciting. People fall in love with her easily, and they’ll follow her anywhere. In this way, she’s charmed. But she has no concept of how to handle money. The truth is that financially she’s a walking disaster. Consequently, for most of her life, I’ve overseen her finances. It hasn’t been easy. There have been issues.”
    “Recently?”
    He hesitated. “This arts center of hers. She gifted it significantly from her own resources—our resources. The idea was that other avenues of financing would then be found. They haven’t materialized. I’ve been bleeding money into this project for some time now.”
    “Do you have the ability to bleed?”
    “There’s plenty of money. That’s not the point.”
    “The point is her unreliability?”
    He considered Cork’s question, as if searching for a better answer, then reluctantly nodded.
    “One more question. Has your sister received any threats related to the situation at Vermilion One?”
    “No. She’s not associated with this at all. The mine is my business.”
    “All right.” Cork quoted his usual daily rate, then added, “A five-thousand-dollar bonus if I find her.”
    “I don’t care what it takes. Will this interfere with your investigation of the mine threats?”
    “I’m sure I can handle them both. I’ll prepare the paperwork. Will you be around this afternoon?”
    “I have a meeting until four, but I’ll be at my home this evening.”
    Cork said, “I’ll drop by. Say around six?”
    “Thanks, Cork. But I’m hoping you’ll begin this investigation immediately.”
    “I’m already on the clock.”

TWO
    C orcoran Liam O’Connor had lived in Tamarack County, Minnesota, most of his life. He’d grown up there, had gone away for a while and been a cop in Chicago, then returned to the great Northwoods to raise his family. Several years earlier he’d been the county’s sheriff, but hard things had happened and he’d left official law enforcement and now ran what he called “a confidential investigation and security consulting business.” He was a PI. He operated his business alone, which was pretty much the way he did everything these days. He’d been a widower for a little over a year, recently enough still to feel the loss deeply; a father, but that summer his children were gone; what was left to him at the moment was the big, empty house on Gooseberry Lane and a family dog constantly in need of walking.
    He followed Cavanaugh’s black Escalade east ten miles to Aurora, then along the shoreline of Iron Lake. Rain had begun to fall, and the lake was pewter gray and empty. It was Monday, June 13. Spring had come late that year, and so far June had been cool enough that it had everyone in Tamarack County talking about summers they swore they remembered snow clear into July. Cavanaugh turned off Highway 1 and headed south into a low range of wooded hills capped with clouds and dripping with rainwater. Fifteen minutes later, they entered Gresham, a small town that had been built in the early days of mining on the Iron Range. The Vermilion One Mine had been the