“He’s not my boyfriend,” she said defiantly.
“Okay, your friend. Your boss. The one who’s called you a couple of times up in Templeton. The one you’re not supposed to be canoodling with.”
“Okay.” Dani finally gave in. “Yes. Him.”
“Call him then. But you can’t just stay with him. Wade might know.”
“No one knows … Besides, he lives in Glenwood Springs. That’s fifteen miles away.”
“Find some other place. Somewhere they can’t trace. Otherwise you can go visit your father in Chile.”
“Uncle Ty, don’t you think you’re taking this a bit too far …?”
“Just find a place, Dani. For once, just trust me, please.”
“Okay, okay … If I had a phone maybe I could. Mine’s still back in that asshole Robertson’s car. Shit, along with my wallet and my license and all my credit cards. And my river guide ID …”
Hauck sat across from her. “If I told you back in that tank that you could get out, but you’d have to leave your phone and credit cards behind, what would have been your answer?”
“I would have said, can’t I just take my river ID with me, please …? All right, I hear you. I’ll find a place.”
“Now.” Hauck tossed his phone over to her on the couch.
She glared at him. “I mean, just what is it you want me to say, Uncle Ty? ‘Someone tried to kill me and I’m too scared to stay at my own place right now’?”
“I don’t care what you say. Say you’ve missed him. Say you’ve been away three days and you need it bad. Tonight. Whatever you want to say. Just make the call.”
She rolled her eyes, pouting, but picked up his phone. She started punching in the number. Then she stopped. She looked up at Hauck, like a wave of new concern had come over her, her eyes reflecting something more serious. “What are we going to do about Wade?”
“I’ll handle Wade.”
“I don’t mean about that. I’m not scared of him. For God’s sake, the man was my stepfather. He practically raised me. I mean, I can’t just go on here as if nothing has happened.”
She was right. Wade complicated things. “You just call.”
She dialed the rafting company and Geoff did come on, and he seemed to be as happy to hear from her as Hauck had hoped he’d be, not to mention just as worried not to have heard anything from her these past few days. Apparently he’d left some messages that had gone unreturned.
All she told him was that something was going on and she really needed a place to be that night. It didn’t seem to take much convincing. He said he’d come by and pick her up when he closed things up around half past six.
“He said he has a friend’s house up in Snowmass. The guy’s out of town, okay. Happy?”
“You know, the same people who put you in that tank know the way up here,” Hauck said, putting it back in his pocket.
“Well, now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to jump in the shower. I don’t think I’ve ever felt slimier in my life.”
“That’s a good idea.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
Hauck stepped out on the back deck, which was bordered by two other ground-floor units. He sat in one of those mesh infinity chairs, reclining all the way back, and took a sip of a beer he found in the fridge.
There were two ways Alpha could go on this. They could figure he and Dani had gotten the message and wanted to get as far away from this mess as they could. Like any sane person likely would.
Or they could make sure they covered all their tracks. He and Dani still knew about Trey and how that tied in to Rooster’s balloon mishap. They could finger Robertson and McKay in what had happened today at the river. If he were them, Hauck decided, he’d want to make sure that there was no trace left to follow and no one to turn them in.
But they wouldn’t just follow them back up here. It was too soon. Too obvious. Fingers pointed at them.
Besides, they already had someone up here to do the work.
But he knew they’d come. No doubt about it. Eventually.
These sorts of things, these kinds of people, they always did.
His cell phone chimed. He took it out and checked who it was. The readout said Washington, D.C.
“Hey,” Hauck answered, shifting back in his chair.
“Hey back,” Naomi said. “So how did your day go?”
“Typical,” Hauck said back with a snort.
“Typical as in, just another day at the office? Or typical of someone who’s pushing back against a very powerful company and is probably getting in way over his head.”
“You decide. Right now I’m staring at a beautiful snowcapped peak.”
“Where are you?” Naomi asked.
“Back in the mountains. We left.”
“Well, that’s the best new I’ve heard all day. You finally came to your senses?”
“If that’s what you call having a bullet go right by your head and your goddaughter being drowned to within an inch of her life, yes, I did.”
“Oh my God! You’re both okay?”
“Yes. She’s all right, too. Just a bit shaken.”
“What are you trying to do, Ty, get her killed? Over fucking water rights …?”
“Yeah.” He rubbed his head. “She got sort of a crash course in that subject today. At least now you know what I meant by ‘typical.’”
“Ty, are you trying to just scare me or does this just come out naturally? I got in touch with an assistant AG at the Colorado attorney general’s office today. I’ve had some dealings with him in the past on some banking litigation the states are signing on to. I ran the whole water rights thing by him, how local supplies are being bought up or diverted for outside commercial means and he immediately went: ‘You mean energy companies?’”
“I get it. It’s not exactly secret out here.”
“He said that was mostly governed under local ordinances, so I asked, what if people were colluding to divert them unfairly. Like companies paying off politicians or town managers. Or diverting water that the community needed. As in a drought.”