today. Nibbling on her sandwich, she let the facts settle and she gradually formulated a plan.
She started humming “Jingle Bells” under her breath as she pushed the napkins into the carryout box, then put the car in gear and tipped the vents so the warm air touched her face. She had the ten o’clock return flight, but she wasn’t going to make it. She had to see a few more things, then she could head back to Las Vegas. She got on the cell phone, had enough signal to get her call through and pushed her flight reservation back to midnight. Then she drove away from the curb and headed north.
She spotted the hotel on the left as she drove. It was a three-story brick building, with a steeply pitched roof. Tall, narrow windows lined the walls downstairs, and broader windows overlooked the street from the second floor. There was a parking area to the right, and white twinkling lights framed the entry with its half-wood and half-glass door. A sign was hung above the door: The Silver Creek Hotel, Est. 1858. Another sign in a front window seemed jarringly modern and announced Vacancies.
She kept driving, out of the older part of town, into a newer, more developed area. She passed a cluster of restaurants, then the public ski lifts. There was snow on the slopes, but nowhere else. The talk at the coffee shop had been complaints about no snow, how late the season was and how unsatisfactory it was skiing on machine-made snow. The shops at the foot of the lifts were closed, as well.
She kept driving up the street lined with small cabins and homes, and headed into a more upscale area. Here, the shops were high end, the restaurants fancy, and estates were hidden behind massive security gates and high fences. She could see some homes built up the mountains, their lights cutting through the growing darkness.
She turned to follow a bend in the road and the lights from the ski slopes were glowing into the night sky. She saw what she thought was a street to her left, with soft pillar lights framing it, and a wide, sweeping turnoff. But as she got closer, she could see it was an elaborate security entrance.
The pavement was made of cobbled stones, leading up to a lit gatehouse with a security guard standing by, watching the road. Behind him were six-foot-high carved wooden gates hung on massive stone pillars. Carriage lights lit the way and showed just a portion of the stone wall that ran off to the right and left. A rock arch swept over the top of the gates and, illuminated by hidden lights, brass letters spelled out The Inn at Silver Creek.
The place was completely blocked by gates, fences and the guard who looked in her direction when he heard her car approaching. When he saw she was in a cheap import, he lost interest and went back to looking at a pad of paper he had in his hand. Lauren drove a bit farther, never finding the end of the high stone fence, and never finding any life outside of it, either. She finally turned and retraced her route. When she got to the resort’s entry it was dark, and she watched as a low black sports car cut in front of her to get to the gates.
She slowed, watching the guard walk up to the driver’s window, glance inside, then wave the car through. The gates opened slowly, and for a moment Lauren could see beyond the barriers. She caught a glimpse of a lit road heading into the compound, going toward a series of sprawling buildings. Beyond, ski slopes glowed in the darkness.
She didn’t have any idea why Duncan Bishop was holed up at the Silver Creek Hotel, and not here. But she’d find out. She drove on until she was at the hotel and saw the phone number under the vacancy sign. She memorized it, then pulled into a parking spot a few buildings down and took out her cell phone. It only had one bar of signal, but she punched in the number and the call went through.
A woman answered and Lauren reserved a room for Thursday night, with an open end for departure. The woman asked if she knew there was no snow in Silver Creek, and when she assured her she did, the reservation was made. She put away her phone, then pulled back onto the street.
She went past Rusty’s Diner and the SUV was gone. But that was fine because she’d found a chink in Duncan Bishop’s facade of power and control, a very unexpected chink. It didn’t fit the image in the newspaper clips and stories that she’d read about him. Or from what his father said, or anyone else she’d asked about him. It didn’t fit at all, but she’d seen it with her own eyes.
Duncan Bishop was a rescuer. He’d rescued that girl from the gang of obnoxious punks. He hadn’t hesitated. Maybe he was more a controller than a rescuer, but whatever it was, it could work for her. If he liked being in control and rescuing maidens in distress, she’d be a maiden, she’d be in distress and she’d let him have control.
Thursday:
“SO, YOU WENT TO LAS VEGAS, not to gamble, not to have a good time, but to…”
“Business,” Duncan said to his passenger in the SUV as he drove into the mountains.
“Business,” Annie Logan repeated. “Business?”
Annie owned and ran the Silver Creek Hotel, where he stayed, and he liked her and her husband, Rick. They were nice, uncomplicated people who were generous and kind to a complete stranger. But they never stopped asking questions. That and his overwhelming need for solitude had been why he’d hesitated to let her ride along on his trip to Las Vegas.
But he’d finally agreed to take her so that she could visit with her sister while he took care of business. He hadn’t elaborated on what he was doing there, and wasn’t going to go into what he’d accomplished in Las Vegas. He’d go over that with Rusty when he got back. The meeting with a restaurant supplier he’d known for years, Colin Webb of Webb Food Services, had gone very well.
Colin was one of the few business acquaintances he’d had over the years who neither feared nor kowtowed to D. R. Bishop. That fact alone had earned him Duncan’s respect. On top of that, Colin was a fair man. When Duncan had contacted him last week about helping Rusty get a better deal on his supplies, the only thing Colin had said about him leaving Bishop International was “What took you so long?”
After meeting in Las Vegas to talk, they’d struck a deal for Rusty’s Diner. Colin’s company supplied the inn, and it wouldn’t take much more to make a stop at Rusty’s to take him supplies. The deal was struck, and Duncan was going back to Silver Creek with the good news that deliveries would start the week of Thanksgiving.
“You are not a talker, are you?” Annie asked as she reached for the newspaper on the seat between them.
He shrugged. “It depends.” He glanced at the woman in the next seat. Annie was in her early thirties, with dark hair she wore short and curly, little to no makeup, and a woman who wore sensible clothes and shoes. She had a terrific smile and a natural maternal instinct that, without having children, was directed at the people who stayed at the hotel.
“Well, you’re an enigma,” she said. “I told Rick that there’s more to you than meets the eye.”
“No, there isn’t,” he murmured.
He heard the newspaper Annie brought with her rustle, and she read, “Crisis in the national forests. Seems that people are killing the forests. I can’t imagine what Silver Creek would be without the forest.”
Neither could Duncan. The few days he’d thought he’d spend in Silver Creek had stretched out into three months, and he found he was starting to feel more and more comfortable in the town. He liked the pace, the people, especially the old-timers who were a far cry from the people who had surrounded him in Los Angeles. And he liked the land around him.
He flipped on the headlights of the SUV as he climbed higher into the mountains. It was barely four-thirty, but dusk was lying heavily all around. “Do you think there’s
