Bishop,_Carly_-_The_Soul_Mate.txt Page 20

  if they could ever prove someone had intentionally caused the

  cave-in.

  "Are you thinking about picking up the threads of your story?" Margaret

  asked.

  "I don't know, Margaret. It's hard to get passionate about the story

  idea again when you've been buried alive and excavated out."

  The old newswoman laughed because Robyn had made a joke of it. "But of

  course, it must be really hard to marshal any enthusiasm."

  Her last word came out loud as a shot when the band abruptly ended a

  set. Everyone standing around the three of them laughed, teasing

  Margaret.

  Kiel went back to the subject of the article. "I dn't think you've

  given up the idea of returning to your article altogether, though, have

  you, Robyn?"

  She didn't know where he was going with his question, but his pointed

  tone cued her to go along. "Not entirely."

  He turned to Margaret. "Robyn was just telling me the other day about

  her research before the accident. Weren't you thinking, Robyn, that

  Jerome Clarke couldn't have been killed in that avalanche?"

  Where was he getting this stuff?. "I had some questions, yes."

  "That day was one to go down in history," Margaret admitted, raising

  the level of her voice when the band started another set. "My father

  was a small boy at the time. Grew up, as you know, to write several

  history texts and to teach at the university."

  "What was his opinion?"

  "Oh, there was never any doubt about Mr. Clarke's demise. The whole

  town was in an uproar, all the rescue teams and such. I believe

  there's even a photo of the volunteer fire department. They had a

  wagon on which they could interchange wheels and sled runners."

  "And Jerome Clarke? Was he in any of the photos?" Margaret frowned.

  "None that I can remember. I believe it was said Mr. Clarke went up

  the mountain to see how he could facilitate the res me and was then

  killed in the second wave of the avalanche."

  "where was this all going, Robyn?" Scott asked, trading his empty

  goblet of champagne for another as a waiter passed by.

  "I barely remember anymore. I think... yes. I saw something in the

  Denver newspapers about Clarke falling ill at the conclusion of the

  apexer's lawsuit."

  A small clutch of more rowdy guests crowded their way through to the

  dance floor. "I do believe Mr. Clarke was stricken with some

  pneumonia or other," Margaret said.

  "Then would he have been out and about in the middle of an avalanche?"

  Robyn put her ann through Kiel's.

  "I remember- also thinking it was pretty odd that his body was never

  found."

  "That wouldn't have been uncommon, unfortunately," Lucy said, sailing

  into the group, her spirits high. She laughed. "Shame on me for

  eavesdropping--but really! This is a party!" She threaded her arm

  through Robyn's other arm. "I know the concept is not entirely lost on

  you. Come. I want you to meet a few friends I don't think you

  know."

  Kiel gave Robyn's hand a squeeze to indicate she should go on without

  him. It was ten-thirty by then, forty-five minutes until he and Robyn

  would find their way to the liquor storeroom to meet Chloe Nielsen and

  the mystery man. Kiel wanted to become invisible and move among Lucy's

  guests just to see if Robyn's presence in town had set someone on

  edge.

  He moved around in his physical form for a while, finding it

  unnecessary to use his powers to become invisible because so few people

  knew him. By a few minutes before eleven o'clock he'd taken up a

  position and cloaked himself in invisibility near the door, just in

  time to see the arrival of Trudi Candelaria and Stuart Willetts.

  Fascinated to see what would happen, he followed them from the time

  they arrived to the time they left. Despite their formal clothes and

  the fact that the party would go on for at least another two or three

  hours, the couple stayed less than ten minutes, having been snubbed at

  nearly every encounter.

  Kiel had never seen anything quite like the silent drubbing doled out

  to Candelaria and Willetts. He hoped he never would again. He hadn't

  understood what social pariahs this glitzy fickle town had made them

  into, but it was clear the high rollers and VIPs in this town believed

  she had murdered their most famous and infamous celebrity, and gotten

  away with it.

  If Candelaria and Willetts had come thinking, or even hoping, that the

  fickle winds would have started blowing their way by now, they were

  terribly mistaken. All it took to seal their painfully short

  appearance was the bitchy behavior of Spyder's spoiled and

  self-righteous daughter.

  The whole incident left an indelible impression in Kiel's mind. If

  they were in fact innocent of the murder, of covering it up and of

  killing Keller Trueblood, and Kiel was not convinced they were

  innocent, then they had been pretty badly persecuted. The impression

  in his mind as he sought out Robyn to go meet with Chloe Nielsen was

  that this was a piece, perhaps a major part, of the injustice he had

  been sent to set right.

  CHLOE NIELSEN'S mystery man had turned up in Aspen four years before,

  bored with life in the small Nebraska town where he grew up and

  disappointed in the pedestrian New Age fare he found in Boulder. He

  drifted to Aspen looking for something more real. What he found was

  Crystal Star Rhapsody and her former chiropractor husband, Divine Light

  Rhapsody.

  "You create your own reality" was their message, but after Curt Wilson

  coughed up every cent he had buying into their message and still got

  plowed into on his bike at the corner of Main and Third, he tossed out

  the notion he'd created that reality. Busted and broke, he had to take

  a job driving for Mellow Yellow. He'd taken what he thought was at

  least one step up since then to tend bar.

  The liquor storeroom where they met was one floor below the grand

  ballroom of the hotel. The ceiling above them reverberated with the

  music. Shelves ten feet high lined every wall, and a dim, bare light

  bulb hung from the floor joists.

  Chloe stood with her elbow resting lightly on a tube of paper towels

  she had found, trying not to touch anything. Disliking her

  condescending attitude as much as he had her behavior, Kiel sat on a

  crate of unpackaged wine, and Robyn stood beside the closed door. Curt

  sat straddling a shipment of pricey liqueurs.

  He was an attractive-enough guy, but he was never going to amount to

  anything. If Chloe Nielsen hadn't known that before she took up. with

  him, she clearly knew it now. Her disdain for Curt was almost

  palpable; his re-sent merit toward her just as thick. When her father

  was murdered and Chloe had no one left to rebel against, Robyn thought,

  she must have dropped Curt like a hot and essentially rancid potato.

  He didn't want to talk to Robyn, and even less to Kiel, but when Chloe

  made it clear he had no choice, he began to tell his story.

  "After I got run down by that clown, I was in the hospital for three

&nbs
p; weeks. I hooked up with this physical therapist chick."

  "You were cheating on me," Chloe put in, goading him. "Go on."

  He gave her a look that said die. "Yeah, I was cheating and, yeah, you

  were paying the bills. None of which has a damn thing to do with

  anything, Chloe, so shut the hell up or get the hell out of my face."

  Chloe closed her mouth and folded her arms over her exquisite cream

  jersey gown.

  "Curt, what does this have to do with anything?" Robyn asked.

  "Well, I wasn't the only one cheating, see. This chick was having a

  fling with Chloe's old man. So you see, we had this twisted little

  montage, a foursome, whatever. Me and Chloe, me and this chick, this

  chick and Chloe's old man." Curt looked from Robyn to Kiel and back.

  "I know what you're thinking. If this chick had a thing going with the

  high and mighty Spyder Nielsen, why'd she shack up with me? Likewise,

  why'd I screw around on someone like Chloe?"

  "People do things for a lot of different reasons, Curt," Kiel said

  quietly. "Nobody's judging you here."

  "Well, the truth is, this chick and I, we knew the score. There was no

  way we were ever going to be invited into the bosom of the family.

  "But then, this chick turns up pregnant. She tries this number on old

  Spyder, but Chloe here blows the whole thing wide open, saying it's

  probably my kid, anyway. Spyder and Chloe have this knockdown drag-out

  father-daughter fight, and meanwhile Trudi Candelaria coughs up five

  grand on the spot to buy off this chick."

  Robyn's heart clinched. "Did she use it to get rid of the baby?"

  "No. She would have never done that .... Her old man woulda gone nuts.

  But she got so drunk that night she fell and lost the baby, anyway."

  Robyn and Kiel exchanged glances. Someone's father had a powerful

  motive to have murdered Spyder Nielsen and frame Trudi Candelaria.

  "Did this girl have a name, Curt?" Kiel asked in the same quiet

  tone.

  "Yeah." He cleared his throat and shuddered. "Betsy Crandall."

  Chapter Twelve

  "Oh, my God," Robyn whispered. "Detective Ken Crandall's daughter?"

  "That's the one." He stood and slung a case of beer up to his hip.

  "See yourselves out. i-gotta get back to work."

  "Curt, please," Robyn said, jumping to her feet. "Didn't you go to the

  police with this?"

  He snorted. "Once. I showed my face in that county courthouse once.

  Guess what? Crandall walked me outside and offered to make me buzzard

  bait if I didn't keep my mouth shut."

  "So why are you telling us now?"

  He jerked his head toward Chloe. "Ask her. I'm out of here."

  After he'd gone, Chloe closed the door again in case anyone else should

  happen down to the cellar.

  Robyn drew a deep breath, waiting for Chloe to talk. For a few moments

  she only paced, holding the skirt of her gown up off the floor.

  "What's up, Chloe? Did you know this stuff?"

  She shook her head. "I never knew this Betsy's last name." Chloe even

  spoke the first name as if it made her physically ill. "You know, I

  despised my father. He threw me out and took me in and gave me things

  and took them away. I finally just wanted to deserve some of that

  treatment for once, so I took up with Curt and threw it in Spyder's

  face every chance I got."

  "But you didn't kill him," Robyn said.

  "No. I might have. I wished he'd die often enough, but

  I didn't kill him. You know where I was."

  "In jail," Kiel answered.

  "Yeah. Driving under the influence. And you were right. Crandall was

  the one who nailed me. Spyder refused to bail me out. I never saw my

  father alive again."

  "Did Crandall already have reason to be picking on your family?"

  "Other than being a prick, you mean?"

  "Chloe, did Crandall know t the time he arrested you that your father

  had been hitting on his daughter?"

  Still pacing, Chloe shook her head. "I don't know. I didn't put any

  of this together until I ran into Curt a year later. He spilled the

  whole thing, but of course, he wouldn't come forward--and I really

  couldn't make him do it. For all I knew, Crandall would kill him,"

  "And now?"

  She gave a bitter smile. "Now? Curt is ready to go home to Nebraska,

  anyway. This town finally does that to people who really can't afford

  to live here. I still wish Tmdi aad done it and been convicted. But

  Crandall did this, and Spyder was my father. He can't get away with

  it."

  KIEL SAT WATCHING while Robyn danced with Massie and Kline and then

  Massie again. She had looked forward to dancing again, to the sheer

  joy of moving with a modicum of grace, but her heart wasn't in it. Curt

  Wilson's tale had all but mined the party for her.

  Kiel cut into Massi 's third dance with her. "You should try to enjoy

  yourself a little, Robyn. Cut loose, you know?"

  "I do. And I know it's too late to really do anything about Crandall

  tonight, but I can't stop thinking about it. Do you think it's

  possible he killed Spyder Nielsen?"

  Kiel led Robyn more toward the center of the dance floor where people

  standing around were less likely to hear them. "If what Curt told us

  was true, Crandall had a powerful motive. But the missing piece is

  that we don't know if Betsy Crandall told her father anything, or even

  if she told him who was the father of her baby."

  "We have to talk to Crandall tomorrow, Kiel'." "Or take what we know

  to the chief of police."

  She didn't argue, for once. He didn't trust her silence but he let it

  go. The band segued into a set of oldies. Something in the way she

  moves... Kiel pulled her closer. His hand settled in the small of her

  back. The music, the scent of her hair, the feel of her, the warmth

  between them seeped into him.

  It had occurred to him when he heard Curt Wilson's story that they had

  come very near now to resolving the murder of Spyder Nielsen, so near

  that his time with Robyn might be very short.

  It was clear to both of them that Detective Ken Crandall was dirty, one

  way or another. That he had either murdered Spyder Nielsen himself,

  and as his retribution against Trudi, 'made her the chief suspect in

  the largely circumstantial case--or else he had hired the dirty work to

  be done, and again, let Trudi take the fall.

  What wasn't clear to Kiel, and had never been, was whether or not his

  mission was in fact one to avenge his own death. Keller Trueblood's

  death. Neither he nor Robyn believed Trudi Candelaria or Stuart

  Willetts capable of instigating Keller's death. Perhaps that crime was

  Crandall's, as well. But Kiel had never been able to discern an aura

  of evil intent surrounding his own death.

  He would have given anything to be able to sham these doubts with

  Robyn. It wasn't so much that he thought her mortal insight might

  prove more telling than his own, given his angelic prowess, but talking

  things over with her made him ask different questions.

  These were not thoughts he could reveal to Robyn, but he knew that

  uncovering Crandall's involvement came very el se to cracking t
he case,

  and if that were true, Kiel's time with her was nearly spent.

  He would never dance with her again. He wanted to give her something

  to remember him by, and so he cloaked her in an enchanted space. For a

  time, no one existed in that ballroom but the two of them.

  "Something in the Way She Moves" segued into. "Country Road" into

  "You've Got a Friend," then into "Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight."

  Every song was theirs, every sentiment, but the set came to an end.

  The glittering ball overhead cast sparkles around the ballroom, but

  none so bright as the sparkle in Robyn's eyes. When the music began

  again, a vibrant, pounding Latin beat, Kiel danced the tango with her

  like no one had since Pacino in Scent of a Woman.

  The floor cleared and the crowd watched, dazzled by them. His spell

  had created a sliver-in time in which Robyn Delaney Trueblood, the

  soulmate of a man now an angel, was more fully alive, more herself,

  more heightened and vital and uninhibited than she had ever been in her

  entire buttoned-down life.

  When the Latin music ended, and she clapped for herself, her friends

  gathered round and added their congratulations. Kiel stood back a

  moment and let them crowd around her, let them welcome her with their

  hugs back to the land of the fully living.

  He ached with deep pleasure for her. He wanted to hold her, but they