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  “Right before.”

  “You never visited him. Why was that?”

  A crease marred Stella’s forehead as she realized NSA would have access to the hospital’s visitors logs. A tingle of paranoia zipped down her spine. Were they tracking her?

  “I was afraid it was me who was causing him to act crazy. Otto never does anything halfway. When he fell in love with me it was more Othello than Love’s Labors Lost. I wanted him to get over me. I still do. I have no idea what would happen if I suddenly showed up out of nowhere. And believe me, it is nowhere. It might throw him into an emotional tailspin.”

  Yee trained her lasers on Stella. “It’s the President who’s asking. Will you go get him? Ask him to come in?”

  Stella inhaled deeply and let it out. It had been over two years. “Of course.”

  Yee blinked revealing nothing. She smiled. “I knew we could count on you. When’s the memorial service?”

  “It’s not a service, it’s a wake, and don’t come if you don’t like drunk Irishmen. It’s Saturday at two at Chiklis, upstairs in the private dining room.”

  Yee signaled the waiter, caught his eye, and made a little writing motion with her hand in her palm. She turned back to Stella. “I’ll bring a bottle of Irish Mist.”

  ***

  CHAPTER NINE

  “Vision Quest”

  Monday.

  Wiry juniper covered the ledge like steel wool, gin aroma stirring dark memories of Otto’s youth. He smelled sage and water from the creek below. Otto hunkered just below the rim, right arm over Steve’s neck snugging the big dog close. Steve was part Alsatian, maybe some border collie and otter. Otto held a pair of Zeiss binoculars. He set them carefully on the rock shelf and looked sixty meters across the canyon to a ledge, ten meters above the gushing stream coming off the mountain. It was there, three weeks ago, he’d spotted Max.

  He called the cougar Max out of respect. After maximum effort and Manfred Freiherr von Richthofen.

  At least he thought it was a cougar. A flash of tawny fur and gone. Splintered bones and tufts of fur lay at the base of the ledge against the shadowed rock.

  Steve growled deep in his throat, a soft electric vibration. Otto ruffled the dog’s fur and whispered, “Whassup, homie? We gonna get lucky? Is Max coming back?”

  Just give me some kind of sign, girl, oh my baby, show me that you care. Show me that you’re mine girl, well all right…played over and over in his head. In his gut he knew what he was really looking for: proof of the divine. Otto refused to believe that man was nothing more than a collection of molecules spewed forth from a random universe, as his father had said.

  They’d been six hours on the mountain, including the hike from the trailhead. Three hours in the hot sun. An occasional breeze off the mountain brought the cool promise of fall. Otto had brought plenty of water and they could always dip into the stream but that would spook the cat.

  Otto had embarked on this vision quest after meditating for sixteen hours. The quest had led him and Steve to Mt. Smithback in the Never Summer Range. As befits a vision seeker, he hadn’t eaten in forty-eight hours and had brought no food save for several Ralston Purina dog burgers for Steve. He felt light-headed but clear. He could see for a hundred miles over the snow-capped peaks to the ever-rising mountains to the southwest. At 11,000 feet they were just below the tree line.

  “Here, kitty kitty,” Otto crooned into Steve’s ear. Steve jerked his muzzle skyward and growled, the hair on his back forming a dorsal ridge. Otto looked up. An aerial battle was in progress: four ravens dive-bombing a bald eagle.

  The eagle banked and came in for a landing on Max’s plateau jutting out over the canyon above the gushing stream. The ravens followed and took up position at the four points of the compass. The eagle extended its wings in a show of force. It was big--possibly seven feet. It advanced on one of the ravens like George St. Pierre throwing a feint and the raven darted back. The eagle turned facing each of the ravens in turn, giving each a little scare when suddenly, the raven behind the eagle exploded as the eagle’s mate hurled into it at 150 mph, feathers flying in all directions.

  Every ace needed a wingman.

  As the mate hit, the first eagle rose in a widening gyre, the remaining ravens scrambling airborne and trying to flee. They never stood a chance. The male eagle executed a perfect Immelmann and struck the second raven like a dum-dum bullet. The raven fell in pieces to the earth, feathers trailing. The eagle’s mate effortlessly grabbed big air, went into a barrel roll and hit the third raven like a bunker buster. The lone remaining raven was hell bent for leather to the east but the male eagle zeroed in like a sidewinder missile and took it out in a little black explosion.

  The female settled to the plateau and began to eat the first raven she’d killed.

  Otto was thunderstruck. He instinctively touched the tiny cross tattooed above his sternum. Clearly God or the Great Spirit or Buddha or Gaia or maybe even John Denver had something important in mind, to bring him this far and show him this sign. Steve too seemed mesmerized by the aerial display and looked longingly after the departed birds, tongue lolling.

  Otto trained his binocs on the eagle and watched her feed. Her mate soon joined her.

  That’s how you do it, he thought. You eat your fucking enemies.

  Steve whined quizzically, rose and headed back the way they’d come barking furiously. Otto turned and looked. There was nothing that shouldn’t have been there. The land lay the same, untouched by any human presence. There were no other people within a three-klick radius, possibly larger. There were no trails here in the Roosevelt National Forest and the casual hiker could soon find himself in trouble.

  Steve stopped barking, looked back over his shoulder grinning and trotted down the mountain.

  Otto was hungry enough to eat a raven. Maybe that’s what the message was. Go home and eat. He rose to his feet.

  “All right, Steve. All right!”

  ***

  CHAPTER TEN

  “Crystal”

  Monday afternoon.

  Stella flew United to Denver, arriving at one-fifteen in the afternoon. Upon deplaning, she paused in the reception lounge to phone her stepmother, Crystal. Sam and Martha, Stella’s mother, had divorced twenty-four years ago. Martha had remarried an automobile salesman. Martha and her husband died in a fiery car wreck while driving through Tennessee fifteen years ago. The bitter irony preyed upon Stella’s mood.

  “Hello, dear,” Crystal said. “I am so looking forward to your visit. I’m only sorry it took a tragedy for us to get together.”

  Yeah. Right.

  “I should be there in two hours, Crystal.”

  “Wonderful. We’ll have dinner.”

  Stella blanched at the prospect. Crystal could barely follow the directions on a package of frozen food. She was probably already hitting the Chard. Hitting it hard.

  Stella called her boyfriend Gabe Winner. She got his voice mail.

  “Hey Detonator. I just hit Denver and I’m about to beard the beast in her den. Give me a call when you get a chance.”

  After retrieving her luggage from the carousel Stella took the shuttle to Avis, passing the dreadful blue demon horse whose upraised hooves and blazing red eyes greeted visitors to the airport. Did no one consider the message it sent? It was like an upside-down cross or something. It was called “Mustang.”

  Stella rented a Mustang.. She took the E-470 tollway to Interstate 25 and headed north past familiar landmarks: Furniture Row, RV World, the motocross field, Johnson’s Corners. She turned west on Harmony, amazed at how the once barren landscape between the Interstate and College had filled with strip malls. They all subscribed to the same architectural school, semi-industrial support members, gently curving roofs, earth tones.

  Harmony turned into 38E climbing the Front Range. Stella passed numerous cyclists, most clad in bespoke cycling clothes with streamlined helmets and camel backs, churning up the heart-breaking slope. As the road rose
Stella could see all of Fort Collins stretching to the eastern plains.

  She turned west at the top and then north on 23, a spectacular drive along the eastern edge of the seven mile long Horsetooth Reservoir. The res was filled to bursting for the first time in twelve years at this late date. The winter had deposited an epic snow pack and snow still clung to the mountains and canyons. It was eighty degrees outside and Stella kept the AC on. She turned left onto an impossibly steep concrete drive with a closed metal gate. A sign said, “PRIVATE DRIVE.”

  Stella lowered the window and punched a code into the keypad. The metal gate rolled smoothly out of the way. Holding the Mustang in first gear Stella drove up the steep drive, took a hairpin right at the top and pulled into the sloping concrete driveway of her ancestral home, a freaky-deaky new age design that looked like a lumberyard trying to take flight with spectacular views of the reservoir and the city below. As a child, Stella would huddle in her bed in winter fearing that the wind would tear their house off the ridge and fling it at Kansas.

  The garage lay in shadow as the sun lowered in the west. Stella retrieved her Gladstone and the rolling suitcase from the trunk and dragged them up the winding flagstone stair to the front door that lay beneath an arched cutout. The house was sheathed in weather-resistant recycled barn siding and was on four levels, stepping up to the ridge, then down again toward the lake. It had a metal roof.

  Stella tried the door. It was unlocked. She pulled her suitcase into the large foyer with its Spanish tile floor and softly burbling fountain, a water nymph in a lily pad. Cooking smells permeated the house.

  “Crystal! I’m here!” she sang out.

  A moment later the staccato sound of high heels approached from the hallway. Crystal appeared looking slightly flushed and glassy-eyed. She came up to Stella, hugged her and kissed her on both cheeks. Stella smelled Chard.

  “I’m so glad you’re here, dear. The radio and TV people have been hounding me non-stop.”

  Stella doubted that was the case.

  “How are you, Crystal?”

  Crystal waved a hand. “Oh you know me. I’ll get through. Come down to the living room. Would you like a glass of wine?”

  “Have you got anything stronger?”

  “You know where the bar is, dear. Just leave your suitcase there. Your old room is waiting.”

  Stella planned to do her duty by her stepmother before heading to Otto’s place in the morning. He had taken her there once, before he started building. Told her his plans, where he planned to get the raw materials, how he would put them together. A home craftsman’s dream. She hoped she could find it again.

  There was no way to contact Otto. He had no telephone, no internet. Certainly no television or even a radio. Although he was conversant with all those tools he chose to live like a nineteenth century mountain man.

  Stella hit the half bath off the kitchen, washed her hands and went through the kitchen to the dining area. There were three place settings on the oak dining table. She went down two steps to the sunken living room looking west at the sun, a blazing orange ball sinking toward the jagged rocks of Horsetooth Mountain laying down a flickering stripe on the surface of the deep lake.

  Stella went to the wet bar hidden behind an Oriental screen. She poured herself several fingers of Macallan, dropped in three ice cubes from the stainless steel Maytag and joined Crystal on the Italian leather sofa facing the sunset.

  Crystal held up her glass of wine. “Well here’s to the senator, kiddo, he was quite a guy.”

  They clinked and drank. They suffered an awkward silence. Both spoke at once.

  “Crystal,”

  “Dear--”

  Crystal giggled with nervousness. “You go ahead.”

  “Did you speak to Sam recently? Did he seem troubled about anything? Did he give any hint that something was about to happen?”

  “No. As you know, we spoke once a week. If anything, he seemed more exuberant, more, you should excuse the expression, full of himself than ever. I feel sorry for that doxie he was banging.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  Crystal sighed dramatically. “Oh dear. You’re his daughter. Of course you believe him.”

  Stella sought a sharp retort then realized, what’s the use? Crystal could no more help being Crystal than she could stop being Stella.

  “Are you really going with that movie star?” Crystal said.

  “Gabe is a very dear friend.”

  “When I go to King’s Super, the women bring me the tabloids. There was even a photo of you two in Us! I’d love to meet him, wouldn’t that be fun?”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “I’ve been seeing somebody too and I took the liberty of asking him to join us for dinner.”

  “You’re kidding,” Stella said.

  “Why no, dear.”

  The doorbell rang.

  ***

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “The Blaster”

  Monday evening.

  Crystal sprang to her feet and began rearranging her hair as she headed for the front door. Stella remained where she was and finished off her Scotch. She’d been hoping for a little quiet time with her stepmother whom she hadn’t seen in over a year. Not that she craved Crystal’s company. It just seemed like the right thing to do, and if there was one thing Sam taught her, it was to do the right thing.

  Stella heard the front door open, exuberant greetings, a hushed exchange, an awkward silence and then Crystal returned with man in tow. He was short, barely taller than Crystal, and thick, with the wide shoulders and rolling gait of a linebacker. He had a square head, small twinkly eyes, and a very short crew cut. He wore jeans, a black silk T-shirt that bulged over his belt like a feed sack and a gray sports jacket. She hoped he was not another used car salesman.

  Stella rose.

  “This is Tom Blaine, dear, a very dear friend of mine.”

  Blaine was careful not to crush her grip. “Crystal has told me so much about you. I’m only sorry we had to meet under these circumstances.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Tom.”

  Crystal went straight to the bar and mixed Tom a gin and tonic with a curl of lemon. Blaine took the Barcalounger at one end of the sofa, seated at a ninety-degree angle. He wore a diamond pinky ring and a gold chain.

  “Crystal told me about your current client. I know you can’t discuss it, but what a case, huh? Right up there with O.J.”

  Stella shrugged. “I didn’t ask for it. A judge in Virginia requested me. One of Sam’s cronies.”

  Crystal handed Blaine his drink, sat next to Stella and took her hand, which Stella found presumptuous. A little show of family solidarity for the boyfriend.

  Stella could restrain herself no longer. “What do you do, Tom?”

  “I install audio systems,” he said.

  “Tom’s an inventor,” Crystal declared proudly. “Do you know anyone who wants to invest in a surefire hit?”

  Blaine blushed, took a slug of the gin. “Crystal, let’s not bore Stella with my big ideas.”

  “Such as?” Stella said.

  Blaine almost rubbed his hands in delight. “I’ve developed a tiny sound system that can literally replicate the feel, volume, and clarity of a stadium show, include making the earth move. It works on any concave or vibratable object. Would you like a demonstration?”

  “Please,” Stella said.

  Blaine practically leaped to his feet. “I’ve installed a prototype here.”

  “Careful, boy,” Crystal said. “Last time you demonstrated we got complaints from across the lake.”

  Blaine crossed to the credenza beneath an oil painting of buffalo and picked up a small gray device the size of a stick of gum. “This is the memory and amp--you can plug in your iPod of whatever.” He pointed to two tiny metal blossoms in one corner, ground level and at two meters, the same in another corner. “These are your speakers. They use the ninety degree angle between walls to amplify sound.”
r />   He pushed a button on the unit and “Bohemian Rhapsody” poured forth like an avalanche.

  “SCARAMOUCHE SCARAMOUCHE…”

  It was so loud Stella clapped her hands to her ears and watched the glass in the windows vibrate.

  “TURN IT DOWN!” Crystal shrieked in a fight announcer’s voice.

  Grinning, Blaine turned it down to a throbbing pulse that Stella felt in her calves.

  “Wow,” she said. “I’m impressed.”

  “That’s not all. What about the dog toys, Tom? He invested in that local company that makes dog toys out of recycled water bottles, oh what’s their name?”

  “Rubber Biscuit. I sold my shares last year, but yes, that’s one example.”

  “Tom discovered that every health club and karate shop has literally hundreds of abandoned plastic water bottles. Tom recycles them into unbreakable dog toys. He’s really quite ingenious.”

  Why the hard sell, Stella wondered. She must be planning to marry him.

  “Tom was a star college quarterback, dear.”

  “I was a linebacker.”

  Crystal rose. “Excuse me, I’ve got to check on something in the kitchen. We’ll eat soon.”

  “Do you need any help, Crystal?” Stella automatically asked.

  “No. You two just sit and chat.”

  The sun dipped below the mountains.

  “How much money do you need?” Stella said.

  “A mil to get started.”

  “I was very impressed. I doubt you’ll have any trouble finding the funds.” He probably already found the funds, right in the house.

  “Well we’ll see. Crystal tells me you’re a shooter.”

  “Sam wanted a boy.”

  “I’m sorry I never met him,” Blaine said.

  Crystal bustled around the dining room in the background. They heard the clink of silverware and china.

  “Come on, dears!” Crystal sang. “Dinner is served.”

  Stella and Blaine stepped up to the dining level. The table was covered with a white linen cloth. Three places had been set, each with a side salad and a steaming squab dead center on the big china plates. A bouquet of sunflowers occupied the center of the table between two sterling silver candlesticks with burning tapers.