Asking For It (40 page)

"Sorry." But Griffith sounded more disgusted than apologetic. "She didn't tell you, then."

"She didn't tell me what?"

"No, she wouldn't have," Griffith mused. "She will
never
believe me."

Wondering at Griffith's exasperated tone, Ricky asked, "Exactly what is it Kate should have told me?"

"That I'm not taking the water."

Griffith had managed to flabbergast Ricky, once again. "Excuse me?" Ricky asked, hoarse.

"I'm not diverting the stream. I
told
her that. More than once. But Kate is convinced I'm the big, bad wolf and I'm gonna blow her house in, no matter what I say or do."

Ricky put a hand to his forehead. "You aren't diverting the stream."

"Of course not." Impatience came across over the phone wires. "Not only do I love Kate, but I wouldn't do that to the kids. Come on."

For a long moment Ricky could only stand there, dumbfounded. Griffith loved Kate, enough to cede back to her the water. Ricky shouldn't have been so surprised, really. Arnie had said as much. He, himself, had guessed Griffith's vulnerability.

But, for some reason, he wanted to hear Griffith say it again. "You love Kate?"

Testily, Griffith asked, "Is that so hard to believe?"

"Uh..." Actually, it was very hard to believe. Griffith was a hard-ass businessman. He had a reputation for ruthlessness and a cold eye on the bottom line. In many ways, despite the evil he'd planned against Camp Wild Hills, Ricky admired him. Griffith had focus and determination.

And, until he'd met Kate, he'd had strength.

"Never mind," Griffith said. "You don't have to believe in my true love." He tossed the 'L' word off as if it didn't rub any skin off his nose. No, more than that. He said it as if being in love made him stronger, not weaker. Better, not worse.

"The thing is," Griffith went on, oblivious to Ricky's disorientation. "The thing is I need some feedback here. It's a given Kate won't give me any, but you know the camp. You know what they need the most, in the way of construction and such. So the reason I called is to ask if you'd come and look at some plans I've had drawn up. I could ask Orlando — He actually got in touch with me, after all — but though he's willing, he's only fourteen years old, and I could use a...more adult perspective."

"Plans," Ricky echoed, still thinking about Griffith cheerfully admitting his love, his debilitating love.

"Yeah, for more new cabins. And maybe a — Well, you gotta see them to understand."

Ricky paced to the end of his telephone cord. "Where are you now?"

"I'm in our trailer on Mineral Road in Sagebrush Valley. Don't ask. It didn't work. Kate still wouldn't come inside. But I'll be back in L.A. tomorrow afternoon."

"I'd rather meet you in Sagebrush Valley." Indeed. If Ricky intended to break about fifty ethical rules he'd rather do it far from the eye of his opposing counsel, the one whose client he was planning to meet on the sly.

Jesus. Was he? Was he really going to do this?

But Griffith sounded sincere. And in love. If he really didn't want to divert Wild Tail Creek, then by meeting him Ricky would be doing everybody a favor.

And, in the process it might lead to Ricky seeing Deirdre again...

"O-kay," Griffith said, slow.

"I can be there by about seven," Ricky said.

He paced off to tauten his telephone cord again. His heart went into a heavy, excited rhythm. Why did he even want to see Deirdre again? But of course, Ricky knew the answer. He was in the same boat as Griffith. He absolutely adored the woman. He'd walk over coals for her.

Ricky stifled a sudden laugh as he reached the end of his telephone cord. Yeah, he'd walk over coals. He could do anything. Even ask Griffith... "Do you think..." Ricky stopped at the very end of his telephone cord. "Do you think Deirdre would want to be there?"

"Ah." Ricky could hear Griffith's regret. "That's the thing. See, I was specifically requested, with regards to all this, that she not have to see or speak to you. God, I'm sorry, bud."

Ricky shut his eyes. "Yeah."

"For what it's worth," Griffith said, "I've been standing up for you."

A short laugh escaped Ricky. "Odd bedfellows."

"Or not. We do have similar...challenges."

Another laugh managed to jump out of Ricky.

"Will you still come look at the plans?" Griffith asked.

Ricky sighed and opened his eyes again. Notes for the memo he was supposed to write littered his desk. "Sure, I'll come look. It's for the camp, right? And Kate?"

"Right."

Ricky sighed again. The camp and Kate: saving those had been his original goals, the goals that had sent him into Deirdre's arms in the first place. "Where, exactly, is this trailer?"

He took careful notes as Griffith told him how to find the place.

~~~

Griffith discovered the power was out when he tried to switch on the light over the plans table. He thought it was a burned out bulb in the table-mounted fixture but then learned, as he walked through the trailer and tried each one, that not a single light in the trailer was working.

He swore with some creativity, already knowing what he was going to see when he went out into the growing dusk and looked up at the temporary power pole. Someone had shimmied up the thing and snipped the cable, just near the top.

"Shit," he said, noting that the other cable, the one for the telephone, the one he'd had brought in at great expense, by the bye, was also cut.

He had no power, and no telephone.

Uttering an impressive set of further curses, Griffith went back into the trailer, in the vain hope he was wrong, and that his land line — the only telephone that would work way out here — hadn't actually been severed.

It had been.

Outside, the sun was plunging toward the La Panza mountain range. It would be too dark to see inside the trailer soon. About an hour from that, it would be too dark to see outside.

There was no point in waiting for Ricky. Griffith would call him on his cell as soon as he got within range of a signal. Thinking about it, Griffith strode toward the company pickup truck.

Ten yards from the truck, Griffith saw that its tires had been slashed.

Creative didn't begin to describe the series of oaths Griffith let loose. He had no power, no communication, and now no transportation. The vandal who'd been spray-painting the trailer and dumping dead rats had just demonstrated he was willing to up the ante.

Griffith was considering his options, which weren't many, when he saw the note stuck under the windshield wiper of the pickup.

With a very bad feeling, he reached out to slide the sheet of paper from under the wiper. It was smudged in one corner, as if it had been held in dirty hands, and was covered with a childish, black marker scrawl.

Kate is next.

For a moment Griffith could only stand there, feeling like he'd been turned inside out. Kate? The vandal was now going after Kate? The why of it didn't even matter to Griffith. Instead an image of the dead rat, its little mouth hanging open, flashed sickly behind his eyes. The vandal so far had only attacked Griffith behind his back. A coward avoiding a direct confrontation.

But toward a woman he might not be as timid.

Griffith nearly lost it then, just buckled. But losing it wouldn't help Kate. He drew in a deep breath, straightened, and narrowed his eyes across the valley toward the setting sun.

What could he do? Sit tight and wait for Ricky to arrive? But that would be hours from now, hours during which the vandal could do anything to Kate. Another option was hiking across the valley ten miles to Sagebrush Valley City for help — but that would also take hours. And once he got there, he'd be that much further from Kate.

Griffith turned toward the hill looming to his left. It was only five miles up to Camp Wild Hills, actually less than that from this side of the hill. Under normal circumstances he'd laugh at the idea of being able to find his way up the hill. He couldn't find his way between his condo and his office on well-marked streets.

But these were not normal circumstances. Griffith's fingers crushed the note he held. The woman he loved was up there, with some creep going after her. The creep didn't have such a head start. He must have been down here, cutting the wires, within the last hour.

Griffith jumped back into the trailer to get a flashlight. Then, turning toward the mountain, he started to run. It was a quarter mile to the start of the upward trail. He knew from the maps it was half a mile from there to the closest fork in the road when he'd have to make a decision.

Until then, he could race.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

His words stung. Kate didn't want them to, but they did anyway.

She drove to Taft and existed through her dental appointment, staring at the acoustic tile ceiling and doing her damnedest not to see Griffith up there. Griffith, with his sober, sincere expression. Griffith telling her he wasn't taking her water.

Griffith gently suggesting that she wanted to feel guilty. That it was a security blanket.

After her dentist appointment, Kate picked up groceries and headed back across the Valley, chasing the shadows of the mountains as the sun began to dip behind them. As she drove, she did everything possible to push her conversation with Griffith out of her mind.

It wouldn't go.

Up at the camp, Kate pulled her car into the lot behind the dining hall and carried her bags to her cabin. For ten years she'd lived in this cabin. It was a wonderful dwelling, just the right size for a woman living alone. Cozy, protected, hers.

Safe? Insulated? Escapist?

With a brisk movement, Kate set her bags down. Her lips pressed tightly together as she unpacked her groceries.

Down at the trailer, Griffith had just been doing what Griffith was great at doing: feeding a line of bull. Thanks to her own impulsive confession, Griffith had figured out a point of weakness in Kate, a place to dig his way in.

Once everything was out of the paper bags, Kate folded and stored them for recycling. That done, she found the latest report from the accountant. At the kitchen table she looked down at the numbers for the camp's finances and attempted to concentrate.

A joke.

Because a niggling idea had crept into her brain sometime between peeling out of Griffith's parking lot and her present moment sitting at her kitchen table.

Maybe Griffith was right.

She remembered how jumpy she'd felt on the last day of camp, just before Deirdre Marshal had called. She remembered the fear of being too happy, the fear that something horrible was about to happen. And then Deirdre had called and it had seemed as though Kate's fear had been well-justified.

Maybe too well-justified.

Kate stood up from the table. Leaving the accountant's report there, she walked out of the house.

Was she afraid to be happy? Afraid lightning would strike her for living and thriving when her brother was cold and buried in the ground?

Kate kept walking. She paused on her front stoop, wondering where to take her restless feet, then jogged down the steps, turned right and strode toward the barn.

A ride, yes. That always helped clear her brain.

Kate greeted Sugar with less of the affection and focus she normally gave the mare. Sugar seemed to understand her mistress meant business and stood patiently while Kate saddled and bridled her. Only half concentrating on her actions, Kate swung into the saddle and guided the buckskin mare toward the upstream trail.

Was she afraid to be happy? Was Griffith right about that?

On her horse, Kate grimaced. He'd been right about at least one thing. She should have gone inside the construction trailer when he'd invited her. She should have taken a look at the plans he'd laid out there. If she was so certain Griffith was going to build a big housing project, using water diverted from the top of the mountain, then why had she been afraid to look?

Kate didn't like the answers that occurred to her. Had she been afraid the plans showed no housing project at all, or at least one that didn't involve a new stream of water from the top of the hill? Maybe she'd been afraid of finding out Griffith truly loved her, and that he was every bit the hero and good guy she'd been waiting all her life to meet.

Sugar stopped and bobbed her head up and down. Kate realized she'd pulled up on the reins, stopping the horse. Meanwhile, a rock the size of a basketball settled in her stomach.

She should have gone inside that trailer. She should have looked at Griffith's blueprints.

Instead of hiding, she should have faced the truth. Did she, in fact, have terrible taste in men? Or could she manage to live a happily fulfilled life with a good one?

Seeing what was inside the trailer could have answered the question.

And still could, Kate thought, turning her horse around. It was time to go find out the truth.