Mattie looked out toward the gravesite. “There’s no reason I can’t talk about my childhood. I typically don’t, so I’m not used to it.”
“Then let’s talk about something else. How about those Broncos?”
Mattie couldn’t help but smile. He did have a way of easing her discomfort. “No, I want to talk about it now.”
He placed another log on the fire and settled back into his seat. Robo lay at her feet, and his eyebrows twitched as he fought sleep.
“There were four of us in my family, like yours, but my sibling is a brother. My dad was an alcoholic. A violent drunk. He hit all of us at one time or another, but most of the time, he beat on my mom.”
“What was your mom like?”
“Do you mean, did she drink, too? No, she didn’t.”
“No, I meant what I said—what was she like?”
“Well, I was only six when our family broke up. But I remember her as being quiet, gentle, loving toward us kids.” Mattie forced herself to examine her memories from an adult perspective. “I think she was probably afraid most of the time. I remember her as being very pretty with black hair and dark eyes, Hispanic ancestry. She was small, much smaller than my dad.”
She shivered and her chest tightened. Even thinking about it brought back the scary feelings of living in a house where violence reigned.
Cole got up and went to the pannier again, this time bringing back a blanket. He bent over and wrapped it around her, placing a warm hand on her shoulder for a moment before sitting back down.
“One night he beat her worse than he ever had before.” Mattie could still remember putting her fingers in her ears to block the sound of the punches, closing her eyes to shut out the sight of blood and the dazed look on her mother’s face as she fought to remain conscious. “He reached for a kitchen knife, and I knew he meant to use it on her. So I sneaked to my parent’s room and dialed nine-one-one. The cops came, my dad went to prison, and my mom was taken to the hospital.”
Cole had crossed his arms over his chest. “What a thing to have to go through. Did your mother die?”
“No. She got out of the hospital, but she didn’t want to take care of me and my brother anymore. She turned us over to the county. I haven’t seen or heard from her since the night the ambulance came to take her away.”
“Is your dad still living?”
“He got killed at the prison by another inmate. Never made it out.”
He appeared to be mulling it over. “I hate to say it, but it sounds like he got what he deserved.”
Mattie shrugged. “Who’s to say? Inmates should be safe in prison. It’s hard to justify violence no matter where it is.”
“I suppose you’re right about that.”
“My brother and I were messed-up little kids. He was hard to place—he burned down a haystack at one of our foster homes, so he got taken out of that one. Finally got sent to Colorado Springs to live in a foster home there. I turned into a hellion until the track coach found out I could run, and he funneled all that anger and excess energy into cross-country training. Then I was placed in my last foster home with Teresa Lovato—do you know her?”
“No, can’t say as I do. Does she have pets?”
Mattie let out a puff of amusement. “No, no pets per se. Maybe the kids feed a stray now and then, but Mama T has no extra money for pet food. She takes in stray kids mostly.”
“Did you have a good experience in her home?”
“The best. Thank goodness for that. She straightened me out.” She gave him a pointed look. “But I’m thinking of your kids and how they must feel. Abandonment issues can really mess with your head. You’d be smart to get the girls professional help early before real problems start.”
“Case made, Counselor.” He gave her a pointed look. “Are you sure you don’t have a law degree? You remind me of my sister. She can jump on a subject, shake it around, and shape it any way she wants to make her point.”
Mattie laughed, the tightness in her chest loosening. The mountain lion screamed, the sound echoing from a distance. Robo alerted, standing to sniff the air.
“Sounds like it’s moved off a ways,” she said.
“Just wants us to know we’re in its territory.”
“I suppose so.”
They sat in silence for a few moments.
“Do you think Adrienne was killed up here?” Cole asked.
“No.” Mattie knew very little, but of that she was sure. “It wasn’t right here.”
“I can’t imagine her hiking up here on her own.”
“Me either.”
He sighed. “My kids will be traumatized by this, too. They’d grown fond of her. She was teaching Angie massage techniques for horses.”
“Um-hmm.”
Cole looked at her, chagrinned. “You don’t have to say it. I know what you’re thinking.”
A gust of wind battered them, and with it came the snow in earnest.
“Let’s set up that tent I brought,” Cole said.
“All right. No reason you can’t stretch out and get some sleep.”
“We’ll take turns,” he said. “You first. Robo needs to get in out of the snow and warm up.”
Chapter 13
Sunday
Evidently deciding that two humans and a dog were too much to contend with, the mountain lion stayed away, and the rest of the night passed quickly. The intimacy of the campsite made it easier to tell secrets, and Cole shared his feelings about his wife leaving and about his hopes to pick up the pieces and establish a stable home for his kids. Mattie felt reassured that they knew each other better than ever before, and he didn’t judge her for her difficult past.
The snow stopped falling sometime during the wee hours of the night, leaving about four inches. By midmorning, the sun shone bright and the retrieval party arrived. Mattie scanned the riders, looking for Stella LoSasso, a detective she liked and respected after they’d teamed up during their last homicide investigation.
Stella sat atop a brown and white paint toward the middle of the string, holding onto the saddle horn with gloved hands. Wearing white down pants and a parka, she looked more like the Pillsbury Doughboy than the sharply dressed woman Mattie knew her to be. Stella appeared to be looking for her, too, and when their eyes met, her face lit up in greeting.
Brody rode the first horse in the string of six, and he stopped well away from Mattie and Cole’s campsite. Mattie recognized the two crime scene technicians she’d worked with last summer and Garrett Hartman as the other riders. Hartman led the sixth horse, which wore a packsaddle to carry out Adrienne’s body when they were done with the scene.
Cole and Mattie joined the group. Mattie exchanged nods with Brody, taking a moment to determine how he was holding up. Clean-shaven and not quite so strung out, it looked as if he may have gotten some sleep. Perhaps there’d been some closure in finding Adrienne and knowing that she was not stranded someplace, suffering from injury and nature’s elements.
“Hello, Mattie . . . Dr. Walker,” Stella said when they approached. “Could one of you help me down from this beast?”
“Sure,” Cole said, reaching up to her while Mattie took hold of the reins.
Stella slid off the horse, staggering as she straightened her legs. “My God, I’m not used to that. And the worst thing is, I have to ride back down.”
“You can walk out with me,” Mattie told her. “It’s good to see you again, Stella.”