The Trophy Hunter (2 page)

“You’ve got it wrong. He’s got you locked
out.”

“You know he’s married.”

“He’s gonna divorce her.”

“He’s way too old for you.”

“You should talk.”

Brandi ground her anger down to a fine
powder. Held back the slap that was itching her palm. But the
sights and smells were dulling her edge. He could return at any
minute. If he came through the woods from behind the cabin, he’d
see the broken window. She had no choice but to leave and come back
with the sheriff.

Scratch that. With her luck, he’d be another
hunting buddy. Paranoia crippled her reasoning powers. Maybe they
were all in on it.

Okay, she’d drive to where her cell got
reception, and then call the feds. Now that she had proof, they’d
have to listen to her. Brandi struggled to move the table by
herself, climbed up and looked back at her daughter. “I won’t be
long.”

Lori’s voice drifted toward her as Brandi
lowered herself to the ground outside. “We won’t be here.”

Where would he move her? Not to his
house.

Brandi looked up as she felt moisture on her
face and saw that the puny sun had drowned in a mass of angry
clouds. Panic seized her chest like a too-tight bra. She tripped on
a dislodged hunk of granite as she hurried toward her truck. She
regained her balance and lengthened her stride, breathing hard, the
cold air searing her lungs. Without help she might lose her
daughter forever. A stony ridge cut up the skyline to her left.
Maybe if she climbed it she could get cell reception.

* * * * *

He watched her struggle through the cabin
window, glassed her as she climbed the talus ridge and tried to use
her cell phone. He could have dropped her then, as she stood
outlined against a sky now turned iron-gray, but he let her get
almost to the truck before deliberately cracking a branch. When she
jumped and turned in his direction, the rush was exquisite. But it
was her eyes meeting his, knowing what was coming just before he
squeezed off one shot─ah, that was ecstasy.

Chapter 2

Denver, December, Present Day

Diana Martin lay in a hospital bed at
Presbyterian/St. Luke’s, mortally wounded in spirit. Dr. Hovac, her
ob/gyn, sat in a chair beside her bed, his voice droning on,
unwelcome, half-heard.

“Diana, are you listening to me?”

The slight increase in volume and urgency
pulled her back to him. She nodded.

“I can release you tomorrow. Will there be
someone at home?”

She was aware that Dr. Hovac knew that she
and Greg had separated. What could be more obvious than his absence
at this time? Diana nodded again to appease the doctor. It was a
lie. There would be nobody at home.

“Is there anything you want to ask me?
Anything you’d like to talk about?”

Diana shook her head. What was left to
discuss? She’d come out from under the anesthesia with an uneasy
feeling that something was wrong. Then through the haze of
disconnected thought, the memory of labor pains not due for another
three months, he’d said it all. No baby now─or ever. Of course the
doctor had not been that blunt. He’d explained about the emergency
hysterectomy to save her life.

“I think you would benefit from counseling,
involvement in a support group,” the doctor continued. “I’ll be
glad to give you some names.”

Three days ago she’d have recognized intended
comfort. Now, his words just made the bad dream real.

“Diana, I am so sorry.”

His eyes looked unusually shiny. Or was she
seeing him through her own tears? A shudder passed through her body
as she realized her anger at Greg had spilled over. “I’ll do better
tomorrow.” She squeezed out what she thought was a weak smile. The
best she could do for now.

* * * * *

Tomorrow came, but the empty feeling was
worse than the pain. Diana, dressed in loose designer sweats,
stared at cream-colored walls as she sat on the edge of the
hospital bed. Beside her lay a down jacket that her new secretary,
Tamara, had delivered the night before. When her paperwork arrived,
she signed without reading it, something that she always warned
clients never to do.

A nurse wheeled her to the hospital entrance
where a cab waited for her. Raising her five-nine body out of the
wheelchair, and then bending again to get into the cab, hurt like
hell. But that was pain she had a prescription for. She reminded
herself to call the pharmacy as soon as she got home.

As the cab eased out into Denver traffic,
Diana opened the window slightly, glad it wasn’t snowing. The cool
December air hit her face and tangled her shoulder length auburn
hair. Christmas decorations made downtown Denver just too cheery
for words. She closed her eyes and rolled the window back up,
welcoming the increased speed that told her they’d gotten onto the
interstate. As the cab accelerated, Diana felt memories of her life
sweeping by, a kaleidoscope in which patterns of the past had been
irretrievably lost.

* * * * *

The house Diana had shared with Greg was in
the affluent Denver suburb of Cherry Hills, within walking distance
of a small, man-made lake. They’d bought the two-story brick
contemporary as newlyweds, just after it had been built. Seven
years ago. It now felt like seven hundred. Who was that stranger
she’d been sleeping with? Why hadn’t she seen the warning
signs?

Diana had caught Greg with his pants down.
Literally. Being serviced by her secretary in the office suite she
and Greg shared. She had fired Cathy, who was about ten years her
junior, on the spot. “Your work sucks,” she’d told the bug-eyed
little bitch. Then she’d grabbed a putter out of Greg’s golf bag
and whacked him in the ass with it. Later, as she was scratching
his name off the door with a razor blade, she wished she’d chosen
one of the bigger clubs.

He hadn’t come home that night. Or the next.
Diana had not been surprised. Avoidance was Greg’s usual means of
coping. He’d been a promising litigator when they’d met, but his
inability to face a client when he lost a case soon drove him to
the less demanding areas of real estate law and estate
planning.

When Greg finally surfaced, he made no effort
at conversation until he’d carried the last suitcase through the
door. “You won’t last a year without me.”

Diana had actually laughed. He referred to
their law practice to which he had contributed little for the past
year. A couple of wills. A few real estate contracts. Maybe she
exaggerated. There were probably several of each. But it had been
Diana’s family practice that had sustained them. She handled
custody matters and divorce settlements, helped place battered
women in safe houses and nipped at the heels of district attorneys
to urge prosecution of abusers. She might be considered a bitch by
some, but she was good at what she did, able to take on cases that
Greg wouldn’t touch because they were too emotional. She had then
taken time to remind herself of her successes, since she was about
to become single and was hugely pregnant.

After Greg had left, Diana ran through a
number of sarcastic jabs she could have thrown at him. Like, “Who’s
handling your divorce?” He hadn’t the stomach to handle anyone
else’s, so how could he handle his own? Unexpectedly, Diana had
begun to cry. Hormones. Couldn’t be she still cared for him after
what he did.

During the night, pain grabbed her in the
abdomen, and then subsided. False labor, she told herself. When it
became repetitive, at shorter intervals, she thought, My God, this
could be the real thing. As she struggled to get out of bed and saw
the blood on the sheets, Diana panicked and dialed
nine-one-one.

* * * * *

Funny how one week can change your whole
life, thought Diana as the cab pulled up to her house. She felt a
jolt of the nearest thing to joy as she recognized the car parked
in her driveway. She wasn’t going to walk into an empty house after
all. Jess was there.

Jessica Edwards, Diana’s former college
roommate and friend of fifteen years, didn’t deal with emotion much
better than Greg did, but here she was. The door of her red Camaro
opened and Jessie exited, stretching her long limbs with feline
panache. Sleek, black and elegant, she walked with an athletic
grace to the cab and jerked the door open while the driver was
still ambling around to the passenger side.

“Sorry I didn’t do the hospital scene. You
know me and hospitals.”

“No sweat. You didn’t miss anything.” At
least she was here. For that Diana was grateful, but she never
would have asked. Jess, among other peculiarities, had a thing
about sick people. She waited until they got well─or didn’t─then
rejoiced with the ones who did over their good health. But this
wasn’t exactly sickness. More like disaster.

Diana paid the cabbie, then handed Jess her
overnight case. “Here, make yourself useful.”

“I have been.” Jess grabbed the case and took
Diana’s elbow as the two walked slowly toward the front door. “Who
do you think has been feeding Tigger? Good thing you gave me a key
last year when you and asshole went on vacation.”

“Right. Thanks. What about his litter box? It
must be really ripe.”

Jess took her key out and opened the door.
“Greg can clean his own damn box.”

“I meant the other alley cat,” Diana said as
they proceeded from the entry hall into the living room. The small
amount of physical exertion left her feeling as if she’d climbed a
mountain.

“Tigger’s box?” Jess asked, raising an
eyebrow.

Diana nodded as she collapsed onto the
tapestry-upholstered sofa. She sighed as the balm of familiar
surroundings eased the harshness of her new reality.

“I threw it out and got him a new one,” Jess
continued, “just like I did when you went on vacation. You said
‘change the box.’ I changed the box. You never even noticed.”

“You just scoop it. Change the liner if it’s
too bad. You don’t have to throw the whole box away.” Diana came
closer to a laugh than at anytime during the past week.

“You mean
you
just scoop it. No way am
I going to pick through cat shit.” Jess waved a manicured hand in
disgust. “Here he comes now.”

Tigger, a yellow tabby, ambled into the room
and plopped his considerable bulk onto Diana’s lap. She winced in
pain as she moved him to a less sensitive area.

Jess went outside to her car and returned
with takeout. Chinese. A poor choice, thought Diana as the aroma
hit her nostrils. Greg had proposed in their favorite Chinese
restaurant. She hadn’t thought about it in years. Until the scent
triggered the unwelcome memory.

“I’m not super-hungry right now. Maybe I’ll
just have some herbal tea.” Diana got up and walked slowly toward
the kitchen.

Jess followed her. “But you love
Chinese.”

The kitchen, done in delft blue and white,
was light and airy, raising Diana’s spirits. Plants hung from the
vaulted ceiling.

“Oh, I watered the plants,” Jess added,
following Diana’s gaze.

“I see,” replied Diana, as she pressed a
finger into soggy soil in one of the pots and removed a yellowed
leaf.

Jess boiled water, one of her few domestic
accomplishments. She steeped a tea bag for Diana before making
herself a mug of strong, black instant coffee.

“You look spacey.” Jess frowned at Diana.
“Better go lie down.”

“I’ve done enough of that this past week.”
Diana settled carefully into an oak arm chair and wrapped her hands
around the teacup.

“Four days,” Jess corrected. “Cut yourself
some slack.”

Jess paced restlessly, stopping to gulp some
of her coffee, appearing to burn her lips in the process.

“You don’t have to stay. I’ll be fine.”

“You don’t look fine, but that’s okay. You
will soon.” Jess shot Diana a morale-booster smile. “When you’re up
to it, I’ve got a new client for you.” Jess was already inching
toward the door, draining the coffee mug and placing it on the
countertop as she passed. “No rush. Anytime within the next
twenty-four hours.” She paused and gave Diana another grin. “Just
kidding.”

Diana followed her slowly. “No, I need the
work. Not just the money. The distraction. I’ll call Tamara and
have her start booking appointments in the morning.”

“Tomorrow’s Saturday. You’re not that
desperate.”

“Right. I lost track. I’ll have the weekend
to get up-to-speed.”

Jess pinned her with a glance. “Girl, you
just had one hell of an incision. What do you want to do, mess it
up? You’re supposed to be resting. Where are your post-op
instructions?”

Diana shooed her toward the door. “Monday.
Have your client call me Monday.”

“He’s an abrasive old fart. You may not want
him.” Jess fidgeted in the doorway. “Hey, I feel bad about leaving
now, but I’ve got to meet with a guy in Lodo. Shouldn’t take more
than an hour or so.”

“Just go. You’re making me nervous.” Diana
laughed; then was sorry as the effort pulled on her stitches. “Oh,
would you mind picking up my prescription?”

“Not a problem.”

Diana got the paper from her purse and handed
it to Jess. The women embraced briefly. Then Jess bounced down the
steps toward her flame-red vintage sports car. Diana called after
her, “How do you manage surveillance in that thing?”

“That’s the beauty of it,” Jess replied.
“It’s so conspicuous that nobody’s ever guess. Who’d have the balls
to tail somebody in
this
?”

“When’re you going to get a grown-up car?”
Diana tossed at her.

“Neverrr! See you by dinner time, if not
before.” Jess peeled out like a teenager in heat.

Diana shook her head, bemoaning the fact that
Jess had dropped out of law school to become a private
investigator─a job with absolutely no security. “Thirty-five years
old, going on twelve,” she mumbled as she closed the front
door.