“Yes, so am I, and you’re not done here. What are you looking for?”
“Last night while you two were discussing old times, I was listening to a loon on the lake and acquiring a map of the lakeshore.”
“You want to check out the other cabins and houses,” Ellen said. “Find out who our mystery man is.”
“I’m a tourist. I have no jurisdiction in the state of New York. Neither do you.”
As if she needed to be told. She looked out at the sparkling lake. “You really heard a loon last night?”
“Had to be a loon.”
“Is that a smart remark?”
“Cute, Ellen,” he said. “I don’t know that much about loons, but what I heard wasn’t an owl.”
“Loons have a distinctive call,” she said.
“When you and Maggie were here—”
“It was winter. We didn’t hear any loons.” Ellen pushed back her chair and stood up. “What are you going to do now?”
“Make fresh toast while you see Maggie off.”
Meaning he wasn’t telling her what he was doing with his map of the lakeshore. Ellen didn’t care. She wasn’t going anywhere. She’d get it out of him, but even if she didn’t, she could guess. He wanted to see if he could find Maggie’s man from yesterday.
Chapter 8
After Maggie left, Luke filled a water bottle at the kitchen sink. “I figure we can share,” he said, nodding to the back door. “Let’s go.”
They went in the opposite direction from yesterday, taking an offshoot of the narrow rock-pitted dirt road onto an even narrower rock-pitted dirt road. It wasn’t readily visible but it was on Luke’s map. One by one, Ellen knew, he would check the lakeside cabins and full-time residences. He’d told her he didn’t need her with him, but he wasn’t leaving her alone at Maggie’s borrowed cabin—and she wasn’t going back to Saratoga or on to Albany until she was satisfied he was on his way, too.
It wasn’t just anyone stalking Maggie. It was Hugh Parker, and it was Ellen’s fault.
She knew it in her gut.
She stumbled twice on rocks in the road, but Luke caught her each time. He didn’t stumble. But Luke Jackson never stumbled, did he? That was why he was a Texas Ranger and a rising star in that elite law enforcement agency.
“Do you ever trip on your own shoelaces?” she asked him as they came to a cabin half the size of Maggie’s cabin.
“My boots don’t have shoelaces.”
“It’s a metaphor.”
“I’m not much on metaphors. Just say what you mean.”
“I mean—” Ellen stopped herself. What did she mean? “Never mind. I’m still upset about Maggie, and I know it’s my fault her retreat got ruined.”
“She left because she wanted to leave not because she had to. She could have found a way to stay.”
“Like what, get a big dog?”
“Where there’s a will there’s a way.” He glanced at her, his eyes lost in the shadows under the rim of his hat. “That’s a saying not a metaphor, isn’t it?”
Ellen didn’t rise to his bait. Where there’s a will there’s a way, he’d told her last week, after she’d insisted their relationship would never work no matter how much they enjoyed each other’s company. Kicking back together after a long day at work, having a couple of beers and a few laughs, watching a movie. Making love. All fun, but not enough for a lasting relationship.
The cabin was shut up tight, shades pulled, no sign anyone had been there since it had been locked up for the winter. Luke stayed close to her when they resumed course down the narrow road.
She touched his elbow. “Luke…”
“I see it.”
A tiny run-down cabin was perched on a hillside, surrounded by dense woods. It was more of a shack, really. It wasn’t typical of the other places on the lake. Ragged towels hung on a rough-hewn rail. They were wet, dripping onto the worn floorboards of a partially rotted landing. Proof someone was there, or had been recently.
A dusty white cowboy hat sat on a small bench on the landing.
Ellen took in a breath. “Luke…what are the odds? It feels like a taunt to me.”
“Does to me, too.”
“It’s him,” she said, her voice just above a whisper. “It’s Hugh Parker. Sneaking around and spying on my sister—deliberately terrifying her—is how he operates. It’s how he thinks. He’s manipulative and clever, and he hates my guts.”
“Revenge never makes sense to me. If you’re in the position to exact revenge, you’re usually in a position to walk away and get on with your life.”
“It wasn’t enough for Hugh to skate past a prison sentence of his own. He wants to make those who suspected him and put his brother in prison suffer.”
“You,” Luke said.
She nodded, not arguing. “He doesn’t see his role or his brother’s role in the outcomes they experienced.”