Liv met him at the door with a gracious and relieved smile. She looked magnificent in a purple flowing blouse, tight gray slacks, and shiny black pumps.
“I’m so glad you came,” she said. She was standing just inside the door. There was a clipboard in her hand; no doubt the guest list and the agenda for the evening.
“Didn’t think I had a choice,” Nate grumbled.
“You’re right!” she said with a laugh. “And you look very presentable.”
Nate wore jeans and boots, a white shirt with an open collar, and a buckskin-colored jacket. His hair was tied into a ponytail by a leather falcon’s jess.
“Didn’t think there would be so many people,” Nate said. “I hate these kinds of things.”
“Close your eyes and think of England,” she said.
He grunted.
“Look,” she said, stepping close to him and lowering her voice before he could enter the great room, “here’s how these things go. There’s an order to the evening’s events. Mr. T. wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Nate paused and tried to listen, but he couldn’t get past her eyes.
She said, “First, there’s the cocktail reception. The crowd is a mix of important locals, potential new clients, and ranch staff. Mr. T. likes to have the locals out once or twice a year to impress them. It tells them they’re on the inside and reminds them how much they depend on Mr. T.
“Your role is to mill around and casually meet the guests. I’m guessing you won’t be very good at that.”
“Correct.”
“Then dinner in the dining room. There’s a seating chart, so just look for your name on a card above the china. It’s important to Mr. T. who sits where, so please don’t break the protocol.”
Nate said, “I want to sit next to you.”
The corners of her mouth rose in a slight smile, but she continued on, businesslike. “You’ll need to sit where your card is located, and it’s not next to me. But I’ll be straight across the table.”
“Good. We can make eyes at each other.”
“We will not. Then, after dinner, a few of the guests will leave and there will be a short business meeting.”
“Can I leave with them?”
“No. I told you, you need to stay.”
Nate screwed up his face.
“Mr. T. said it was important. It’s about a new assignment. You’ll be involved.”
Nate nodded. It seemed strange to him that he’d spent weeks keeping her at bay, but now that he was at the lodge with two dozen strangers, he wanted to wrap her up and take her home. And he could tell by the way she stood so close to him and repeatedly touched him on the arm while talking to him that she was feeling it, too.
“So, go,” she said, stepping aside. “Mingle. Try not to kill anyone. And make sure you meet Herself. Her name is…”
“Missy,” Nate said. “Is she going by Longbrake, Alden, or Vankueren?”
Liv looked up, alarmed. “You know her? How is that possible?”
“Our paths crossed a few times, but I know all about her. Her showing up here fits the profile.”
“What profile?” Liv asked, equally alarmed and intrigued.
“She’s the mother-in-law of a friend I haven’t seen for a while. What I know about her is that she trades up.”
Liv’s eyebrows arched and she said, “Trades up?”
“Men. Husbands. Each one is wealthier than the last. I’ve lost count how many there are, but the last one was found swinging from a chain tied to the blade of a wind turbine.”
“My God,” Liv said, raising her fingertips to her mouth in alarm.
“Then she vanished. I don’t know the story, but I’ve always had my suspicions. She’s supposedly been on a world cruise ever since. But I see she’s landed.”
“Do you think Mr. T. knows any of this?”
Nate nodded. “I’m sure he knows some of it, but with her personal spin on everything I just told you. The fact that she’s here means he bought it.”
Liv moved back in and whispered, “What kinds of problems will this cause?”
Nate said, “Hard to say. But I’ll tell you one thing: whatever you think of her — she’s worse than that.”
She studied him closely. “You’re not kidding, are you?”
“Nope.”
He left Liv Brannan stammering in the doorway. She began to pursue him, but a newly arriving couple filled the doorway and she turned to them reluctantly, her well-practiced hostess smile lighting up again like embers in a fresh breeze.
Sheriff R. C. Mead met him in the hallway before Nate could enter the great room. Mead was in his khaki dress uniform with dark-brown breast pockets and epaulets. His service weapon was in its holster on his right hip.
“Hope you don’t mind,” he said, quickly but thoroughly running his hands down inside Nate’s jacket, on the inside of his thighs, and along the shafts of his boots. Nate gritted his teeth and never took his eyes off the sheriff.
“Okay,” Mead said, satisfied Nate was unarmed. “Mr. Templeton always asks me to check. Enjoy your evening.”
“I will,” Nate said. “But there’s one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Touch me again and I’ll tear both of your ears off and hang them from my rearview mirror.”
Mead grinned at first, then realized Nate was serious and his face went blank.
Without another word, Nate shouldered around the man and entered the great room.
People stood in loose knots throughout the massive great room under the dim light of three wagon-wheel chandeliers. Nate didn’t know most of them but assumed they were the locals Liv told him about — town councilmen, county commissioners, bankers. There were lots of clean cowboy hats and reptile-skin boots, and the women were wearing their most formal western wear and showy jewelry. He could smell hair products in the air. Several of the wives’ eyes lingered a bit too long on him and he broke eye contact.
He got a neat double Wyoming Whiskey from the bar and surveyed the crowd. Whip was entertaining a couple of men in sport coats in the corner, obviously telling fishing stories because he was false-casting in the air without a fly rod.
“Who are the men listening to Whip?” Nate asked the bartender. He’d seen him around the ranch before in his day job as a horse wrangler.
The wrangler said, “Well, the one on the left is Judge Bartholomew. The other one I don’t know, but I guess he flew in from San Francisco this morning.”
The man to Whip’s right was in his mid-sixties and reeked of money and arrogance: loose-fitting jeans, boat shoes without socks, blazer worn over a black silk shirt, and a $400 haircut. Nate thought, The potential client.
He heard the man as he introduced himself to Whip as Rocco Biolchini. The name was vaguely familiar, Nate thought. Biolchini was some kind of high-profile social-media mogul. A movie had been partially based on his life, but Nate hadn’t seen it and couldn’t recall the name of the film.
While Biolchini talked about himself, Whip’s attention wandered and he acknowledged Nate with a nod. Nate nodded back. There was no reason to do any more, he thought.
And there in the corner of the great room, framed by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, were Wolfgang Templeton and Missy Vankueren, surrounded by admiring guests with sloppy smiles on their faces. Templeton towered over everyone, looking, Nate thought, like an out-of-place aristocrat. Because Missy was tiny, she was hard to see through the well-wishers. But when the crowd parted, there she was: stunning in a tight white-and-gold dress that hugged her figure. If Nate hadn’t known better, he would have guessed her age at forty — over twenty years off the mark. She had a perfect porcelain face, high cheekbones, and blood-red lipstick.