Tell Me Your Secrets...

“Did you come here with her?” I asked.

Sloan glanced at me. “No. She never wanted anyone with her when she came here. But I flew James out here the day after she disappeared. He was sure that she came here the morning after I argued with her.”

He lifted a hand and pointed to a gap in the trees. “There’s an old logging road that leads up here. It’s rutted, but Cameron drove her car up here frequently.”

“So someone hid in the trees and just waited for us. Someone driving an SUV.”

“That doesn’t narrow it down much. The ranch owns two. Austin has his own, and Doc Carter drives one, too.”

Much as I tried to block it, another thought slipped into my mind. If Cameron had indeed come up here on the day she disappeared, someone could have been waiting for her, too. I knew that Sloan was thinking the same thing when his arm tightened around me.

“I’m calling the police,” he said. “The car you saw may have left tracks, and they may be able to find a bullet.”

16

THE EDGE OF THE CLIFF was long and rocky. Since we had half an hour to kill until the police would arrive, Sloan had suggested we walk along it to get away from the still-smoking plane. He’d also called Gus at the stables and asked him to come out and pick us up. At my curious glance, he’d explained that though James had given him a place to live after his father had left, it was Gus and Elena who’d raised him. And right now, Gus was the only person he trusted.

The breeze coming in off the water carried a fresh, salty scent, and below us I could see water hurl itself against the rocks and rise in a misty spray that now and then would split into the colors of a rainbow. My nerves were gradually settling and my mind was clearing. No wonder my sister loved this place. I would be hard-pressed to find such a solitary and peaceful spot in the madness that was L.A.

I might have been able to appreciate the spot and the view even more if most of my mind hadn’t been preoccupied with trying to figure out who had shot at us. I agreed with Sloan that anyone at the ranch who knew Cameron would have known Sloan would bring me here today. Somehow, we had to find a way to narrow the list of suspects—fast.

Ahead I saw a large flat rock. When we reached it, Sloan urged me to sit down and then sat next to me. “Cameron always said that she was going to build a house right here on this spot one day. The slope of the cliff isn’t as steep here, and she had plans for building stairs down to the ocean.”

My throat tightened at his use of the past tense. Somehow, now that I’d convinced him that something might have happened to Cameron, the possibility was becoming more real to me. I reached for his hand. Swallowing hard, I said, “I don’t want her to be…I don’t want something to have happened to her. We don’t know that something has.”

He gave my hand a squeeze. “You’re right.” Then in what I was sure was an effort to change the subject, he pulled the bottle of Chardonnay, cheese and grapes out of the backpack. As he quickly and efficiently removed the cork, he suggested, “Why don’t we eat while we discuss what we’re going to do when we get back to the ranch.”

In a matter of moments, I had a plastic glass in my hand, and a small picnic was spread out on the rock. I took a quick sip of the wine to brace myself for the upcoming battle. I was betting that Sloan would want me to stop pretending that I was Cameron, and I didn’t want to. Not yet. Drawing in a deep breath, I said, “You’re going to want to tell James who I really am, and I want to wait.”

“I think we should wait, too.”

As I stared at him in surprise, he continued, “Anything we tell him right now will only upset him. And as you just pointed out, we don’t really know anything definite about what might have happened to Cameron yet.”

It was one of the arguments I’d intended to use on him, and I found it both odd and comforting that our minds would be so in tune. “The first thing we should do is to narrow the list of suspects. Whoever took that shot at us had access to an SUV and would have been absent from the house for at least an hour.”

“Gus might be able to help with that. He keeps a pretty good eye on the comings and goings of the McKenzies and their houseguests.”

I took a bite of cheese and glanced around the area again.

“Whoever shot at us would have to be very good with a gun. Does that eliminate anyone?”

Sloan thought for a minute. “I’m not sure about the Lintons, but hunting has traditionally been a favorite McKenzie sport. James used to take Cameron, Austin and me with him when we were younger. Doc Carter hunts, too, and I’m pretty sure that Beatrice can handle a gun.”

“I’ll ask my friend Pepper to check out the Lintons and see if they have any expertise with guns. They do seem to have a motive for wanting Cameron out of the way. Austin might inherit and be more amenable to selling the land.”

“They’d still have to convince whomever James appointed to his board.”

“But they might have a better chance of doing that with Austin. He’d probably be on their side. At least that’s the way I’d see it if I were writing it.”

“If you were writing it?”

“That’s what I do for a living. I live in L.A. and I write plots for a soap opera, Secrets.”

“No kidding.” He poured more wine into my glass. “Tell me more about Brooke Ashby.”

For another quarter of an hour, I did just that. Soon Sloan knew as much about me as anyone did—except for perhaps Pepper and my parents. The man was so easy to talk to, he’d have made a great cop or P.I. Suspects would probably line up to spill their guts to him.

The man had gotten to me. Not good, I told myself. He wasn’t mine. He couldn’t be mine.

But when I finished my life story, he said, “You’re full of surprises, Brooke Ashby.” Then he leaned over and took my mouth with his.

He might not be mine, but I definitely wanted to be his. Not good at all.

The kiss might have turned into something else, if we hadn’t been interrupted by the sound of a truck rattling up the road. A second later, it broke through the woods and rolled toward us.

“Our ride.” Sloan rose from the rock and walked toward it while I started packing up the picnic. By the time I finished, Gus had climbed out of the truck and was deep in conversation with Sloan. They started walking along the cliff to take a closer look at the plane. A few moments later, a state trooper’s car appeared, and two officers joined Gus and Sloan at the plane.

I took a moment to move closer to the edge of the cliff. The breeze was steady and sweet. I’d always loved to be near the water. Going to the beach—even when it was one of the crowded ones on Lake Michigan or near L.A.—had always had a calming effect on me. I could see why my sister loved this place and why she’d planned to build a house here one day.

And this side of her, the part that would want to use this place as a retreat, seemed to contradict the spoiled and headstrong socialite that others had described to me. Oddly enough, I could relate to both sides of her. I might not be a socialite, but I’d left the Midwest and taken a job in Tinseltown. And we shared the need to get away from it all. When I was younger, it was riding that had helped me do that. Now I tried to hike on the weekends.

I felt as though I was gradually coming to know Cameron, and I was even starting to miss her. I wanted her to be alive. A little band tightened around my heart. Then I moved to the edge of the cliff, and my mind began to weave a story. If she’d come here on the day she disappeared, she might have been standing right where I was standing now. Sloan had said that she’d threatened to call the wedding off—a threat he hadn’t taken too seriously. But I couldn’t help wondering if Cameron had indeed had second thoughts about settling for a marriage that was primarily a business arrangement.

I could see why she might be torn. Her father had had a heart attack, and he was refusing to leave her everything outright. Looking around, I wondered what I might be willing to sacrifice to keep the land and to ensure that a place like this would remain as pristine as it was today.

I could picture the scene in my mind as if it were one I had written for Secrets. Cameron had come here alone to think it through. The sound of the surf was louder here, the wind stronger. If someone had come up behind her, would she have heard them?

Another thought occurred to me. If someone from the ranch had followed her, they wouldn’t have had to sneak up, would they? If she hadn’t been expecting it, it wouldn’t have taken much in the way of force to make her lose her balance….

I couldn’t help myself. I risked a quick look down. Just before my head began to spin and I had to raise my eyes, I thought I saw the glint of something. Directly in front of me, a seagull circled lazily on a current of air.

“Show-off,” I muttered. Closing my eyes, I drew in a deep breath. Then I dropped to my knees, took a firm grip on the rocks that formed the cliff’s edge and looked down again. There was definitely something on a ledge about twenty feet down, something that was reflecting sunlight.

I glanced back over my shoulder and I saw that Sloan and Gus were still in conference with the police at the plane. I dropped my gaze to the ledge, willing my eyes not to stray to the ocean below. There were all sorts of rocks and crevices to provide a handhold or foothold. And there was more of a slope to the cliff face than what I’d seen when Sloan had been flying alongside it. A talented engineer could probably find a way of attaching a set of stairs that would allow access to the beach below.