The Hidden

He released his hold on her and walked to the door.

Scarlet was suddenly struck by the way the dying sun lit the stables. She walked to the window and stared out at the ranch that was her home. She was in the midst of such beauty, here on the mountaintop. She could see the rise that led up the mountain to the cemetery. Along the way, she knew, were streams and a few old shafts where miners had searched, mostly futilely, for gold.

Diego was frowning, waiting for her at the door.

“We think it’s possible that Rollo Conway killed Nathan Kendall,” she said. “We just don’t know why.”

“What?”

“Process of elimination, with help from the diaries. It wasn’t one of his fellow outlaws, because they all died before he did, so it looks like the mask is a coincidence, not a lead. And it wasn’t Jillian’s father. We found the eulogy he wrote to his daughter, and I just don’t think he could have done it. That leaves Rollo. What if...?” She paused as an idea formed in her head, then went on. “Okay, Rollo sold this place so he could afford to search for gold on his property to the south. What if he wanted this place back because he still thought there was gold here, so he killed Nathan and Jillian? We kept getting stuck on the fact that even if they were dead, their son would inherit. But Rollo hadn’t been living around here for years. What if he didn’t know about the baby, so he figured the property would be forfeit and he could homestead it? Or maybe he thought it would go up for sale and he had just enough money to buy it.”

“But by law Marshal Vickers would have inherited.”

She stopped for a moment, stymied, then said, “Rollo wouldn’t have cared. Vickers didn’t live here, and he was off doing his marshal thing all the time anyway. That would have left Rollo Conway free to explore and find the gold he thought was here. Maybe he even believed Nathan had already found the gold, and he tortured him to get him to say where it was. There’s nothing in the journals to indicate Nathan even looked for gold, much less found it, but Rollo didn’t know that.”

She walked over to him to be sure she had his full attention. “I think we’ve had it all wrong, Diego. We thought we might be looking for someone related to Nathan, but I think we need to be looking for a descendant of Rollo Conway.”





15

Night came quickly, with a rich deep color that seemed to wrap the house and grounds like a mysterious blanket.

Darkness reigned, except for a glimmer of moonlight playing over the mountaintop. The forest seemed filled with shadows, and the wind moaned as it found its way through the trees.

They reached the main house to find the candles had been lit and the lights were low, and with the mountain now in darkness, the city of Estes Park shone like a beacon from below. An aura of something magical pervaded the old ranch house.

A clock struck the appointed time, and the séance began.

Jane had gathered them around the dining room table, the moose head looking down on them with an expression Scarlet found unreadable in the flickering shadows.

There were eleven of them: Jane at the head of the table, and then, moving around the table clockwise, Ben and Trisha, Adam, Gigi and Clark, Diego and Scarlet, Gwen and Charles, and finally, completing the circle, Terry. As she’d said she would, Linda stood in the doorway, quietly watching.

Scarlet had seen the dead before, but this situation felt very different.

It was dark, for one thing. The brightness of the candle flames rendered everything beyond their reach so dark as to be stygian.

There was an edginess, a tension, that was palpable about the table. On the one hand, most of them were amused and even felt a bit silly. But on the other hand, they were also nervous, even those who didn’t believe were somehow touched by the power of the moment.