Black Canyon Conspiracy. Cindi Myers
at Ranger headquarters.
She slipped the phone back into her purse and walked over to the gazebo at the far end of the parking lot, which offered a view of the canyon that gave the park its name. The Black Canyon of the Gunnison plunged more than twenty-five hundred feet down to the Gunnison River. Sun penetrated the bottom for only a few hours each day, giving the canyon its name. The land around the gorge shimmered in the early August sun, wind rustling the silvery leaves of sage and rattling the dry cones of stunted piñons.
When Lauren had first arrived here over two months ago the harsh landscape had repelled, even frightened her. She saw nothing beautiful in dry grasses and empty land. The quiet and emptiness of this place made her feel too small and alone.
But her weeks of captivity had changed her opinion of this place. With nothing to do in the early days of her stay at Prentice’s mansion—before he moved her into the abandoned mine—she’d spent hours staring out at the prairie. She’d learned to appreciate the stillness of the land, which had called forth a similar stillness within her. She began to see beauty in the thousand shades of green and brown in the grasses and trees. Now the emptiness that had once repelled her calmed her.
The squeal of brakes announced the arrival of a car. Lauren turned to see Sophie’s blue sedan pulling into the lot. She hurried to her sister and slid into the passenger seat.
“I can’t believe it,” Sophie said before Lauren could speak. “Rand just called and told me Richard Prentice is getting off scot-free.”
“I guess so.” Lauren buckled her seat belt and leaned back against the headrest.
“What are we going to do?” Sophie asked.
Lauren closed her eyes. She was so tired. “Right now, I just want to go home,” she said.
Sophie put the car in gear and backed out of the lot. “Is something wrong?” she asked after a moment. “Are you not feeling well?”
“I’m okay. I took an extra pill and it’s making me a little sleepy.” She hoped that was all it was. Sometimes lethargy was a sign of depression.
“Why did you take an extra pill? Should you be doing that?” Sophie’s voice rose in alarm.
Lauren opened her eyes. “It’s okay. That’s what the doctor said to do.”
“You talked to your doctor? Why?”
She knew better than to ignore the question. Sophie wouldn’t let it go. She’d always been like that, never giving in on anything. Lauren should be grateful; Sophie’s refusal to give up on her had led to her coming to Montrose and prodding the Rangers into finding her.
“I had a minor manic episode this morning. Nothing big, and it’s under control now.”
“When was this? What happened?”
“After you and Emma left. After Abby left, too. I think it was just the stress of finding out about my job.” Though her life had been nothing but stress for months now.
“What happened?”
“Nothing. I just got a little...giddy. Feeling out of control. Marco was there, and he helped calm me down.”
“Marco was there?”
“I called him when I realized someone was watching the apartment.”
“That must be why he left the café in such a hurry,” Sophie said. “Who was the watcher?”
“I don’t know. Marco didn’t know him, either, and the man left. But there was something else—something I didn’t tell you before.”
“What’s that?” Sophie kept her eyes on the road, her expression calm.
“The guy who was watching delivered a package. Like a gift box, but all it had in it was a dried-up flower and a note.”
“What did the note say?”
“It was like one of those memorial cards you sometimes see at funerals, with the words in memory of written on it. It had my name on it.” She shuddered at the memory. “The Rangers are going to look into it, but I doubt they’ll find anything. Someone was trying to scare me.”
Sophie didn’t say anything for a long while, taking it in. Lauren closed her eyes again.
“I’m glad Marco was with you,” Sophie said. “The guy doesn’t say much, but he’s deep. And any bad guy would think twice before tangling with him.”
That was true enough. Beyond his physical strength, Marco had perfected an intimidating attitude. Which made his gentleness with her all the more touching.
“Hey, I thought you were going to stay with him,” Sophie said.
“I was, but we’ve had a change of plans. He needs to devote himself to the investigation. And now that Richard has gotten the charges against him dropped, I’m no longer a threat.”
“Aren’t you?” Sophie asked. “You aren’t going to give up because of one grand jury’s mistakes, are you?”
“I don’t know.” She was just so tired—of always fighting, of having to be strong when she felt so weak.
“You can’t give up,” Sophie said. “Giving up means he wins—that the lies he’s told about you are true.”
She opened her eyes again and forced herself to sit up straight and look at her sister. “Then, what do we do?”
“We do what we can to help with the investigation,” Sophie said. “We talk to people, find out what they know.”
“Who do we talk to?” Her one contact on the case, Alan Milbanks, was dead.
“Why don’t we start with Phil? We’ll find out if Prentice paid him to tell the press those lies about you.”
The last person Lauren wanted to see was her ex-husband, but Sophie’s reasoning made sense. Talking to Phil was a smart and relatively safe place to start. “All right,” she said. “We’ll talk to him.”
“Do you know where he’s staying?”
She took out her phone and scrolled through her list of contacts until she found the address of the rehab facility in Grand Junction where Phil was staying. She read it off to Sophie.
“Great. We can be there in an hour.” She punched the address into her GPS. “Why don’t you take a nap while I drive? I’ll wake you when we get there.”
Lauren closed her eyes again and tried to get more comfortable in her seat. If only she’d wake up from her nap to find the past few months had been nothing but a nightmare—not the awful reality she had to keep surviving.
* * *
LATER THAT AFTERNOON Marco trained the high-powered binoculars on Richard Prentice’s mansion. The gray stone castle, complete with crenellated towers and a fake drawbridge, was the billionaire’s way of giving the finger to the county officials who had thwarted his plans to sell the park in-holding to them at inflated prices. The castle blocked a park visitor’s best view of the Curecanti Needle, a famous rock formation. Now, instead of marveling at the beauty of nature, visitors standing at the Pioneer Point overlook in the park saw this monstrosity.
“See anything?” Rand asked, crouched next to Marco on a rocky outcropping of land just across the boundary line from Prentice’s ranch.
“Nope.” He swung the binoculars to the left and focused on two muscular men in desert camo, who lounged against a tricked-out black Jeep. One of the men had an AR-15 casually slung over one shoulder. “The troops are taking it easy,” Marco said.
Rand grunted. “Their boss is probably feeling pretty secure since the grand jury let him off the hook.”
“Something tells me insecurity isn’t one of Prentice’s problems, ever.” He shifted the binoculars farther to