The Killing Game(57)

“I’m fine.” Her voice shook.

“I know.” He reached forward and folded her into the strength of his arms. She could smell the earthy, masculine scent of him and she wanted to cuddle into him and weep. Instead she stood like a stiff rod and squeezed her eyes closed, trying to stem the flow. “I don’t want to cry.”

“I know.”

“Doesn’t do any good and it makes you look like hell.” She choked out a miserable little laugh.

“I don’t think you could ever look like hell.”

“Don’t be nice to me.”

He tightened his grip. “Okay, I’ll treat you bad.”

That made her laugh for real and she pulled back, but his arms wouldn’t completely release her. “I’m so sorry,” she said shakily. “I’m fine. Really I am. It just came over me.”

“It’s okay.”

“I want to hear more about what Peg said. I really do.”

He hesitated a moment, then admitted, “She said she wants to see Blake Carrera dead.”

“Dead?” Andi swiped at her tears, turned away from his scrutiny, and he finally, somewhat reluctantly, released her.

“They had an affair. It ended badly, and Ted died.”

“I thought it was Brian on the boat with him.”

“It was, but where there’s one Carrera brother, there’s another. You sure you’re okay?”

“No, but I’m trying. Okay?”

He nodded and she managed a thin smile before opening an upper cupboard and pulling out two crystal stemmed wineglasses.

“That’s a little fancy for me,” Luke said. “I could break that. How about a small tumbler?”

“No. Sorry. If you break it, you break it. But I need a little bit of... ceremony and beauty.”

“Like that, huh?”

“Yes, like that,” she said, pouring them each a glass. The red liquid shone like blood under the lights. “You want to walk out to the lake?” she asked.

“Sure.”

They carried their wineglasses as Andi led the way out the back door. The rain had ceased and the afternoon was easing into a soft evening, with the smell of damp earth rising upward. A capricious breeze teased the willow branches. Luke picked up a denuded branch and curved it into a circle. “Art Kessler still doing your yard?” he asked.

“Yeah, I like Art.”

“Good.”

“What else did Peg say?”

“She said after the Carreras cultivated a friendship with them, they began to pressure them to sell, slowly at first but then with more push. The brothers had a vision for the south end of the lake, and the Bellows’s cabin was the linchpin of their plan. If the Bellowses sold, then other property owners would fall like dominoes, and the Carreras would control the south end of the lake.”

“Greg worried about that,” she murmured.

“With good reason. The Carreras have bought and sold tons of property all over the Northwest, but it sounds like they were really on this one. Meanwhile, your family was doing the same thing on the north end.”

“We weren’t pressuring homeowners. Mr. Allencore sold us his ten cabins before he died, and the junior camp was something Greg worked on for a long time.”

“The lodge was approved. Peg said the Carreras were undone about that. That’s the word she used. Undone.”

“You think that’s why they gave me the bird message? To scare me off?”

“Yeah, but why just you? Why didn’t Emma get one, or even Carter? I’m still trying to figure that one out.”

“Did Peg say anything else?”

“Just that the Carreras thought they could beat you to the punch and control more properties because they had connections within the county. They’re planning on stopping the lodge any way they can.”

“It’s too late. Carter has connections, too. And Greg had connections.”

“Yeah, I think the brothers made a mistake there. They thought they could gum up the lodge works through the county, but whoever’s in their pocket wasn’t able to stop your construction.”

“I don’t get why it’s such a fight. The lake’s big.”

“I keep telling you: the Carreras don’t like to share.”

“What is that?” Andi asked, gesturing to the ring Luke had made out of the willow branch.

“Art. Can’t you tell?” He grinned.

Andi gazed at him in amusement. It was way too easy being with him. “I’m embarrassed about falling apart.”

“Forget about it.”

“I’ll try.” She took a couple of steps closer to the broken-down dock that had once afforded access to the water. “Carter keeps meeting with different people in the county.”

“Then maybe he’s the one who foiled the Carreras’ plans. After Ted Bellows’s death, the tide turned away from them politically. The county balked on issuing them building permits. The homeowners stopped trusting them. A few of the Bellows’s neighbors did sell, but most held firm, although one of them told me the Carreras had upped their offer to a price that was hard to resist.”

“Recently? So, there is some action with them?” Andi had hoped they’d closed up shop and moved away from Schultz Lake, even though she knew that was unlikely.