Premeditated Marriage

The snow had stopped falling, the ground glittering cold and white behind her. And just when he thought Utopia couldn’t be any more alien to him.

Reluctantly, he stepped aside. “Come on in.” As he started to close the door, he looked out in the snowy darkness to see a pickup slow as it passed on the highway. The truck was a dark color, loud—and while he couldn’t see more than a silhouette behind the wheel, it was obvious the driver had been looking this way. Looking for Trudi? Or him? The pickup sped up and on past, kicking up snow.

He closed the door and turned to find Trudi sitting on the end of his bed, her coat off, legs crossed, exposing a lot of skin. The little flowered dress was even skimpier than he’d thought.

Sometimes he hated the things he had to do to get what he wanted. But all that mattered was the end result, right? Right. “Can I offer you something to drink?” he asked. “I’m afraid all I have are plastic glasses and tap water.”

She smiled and reached into the pocket of her coat, pulling out a bottle of beer. She handed it to him and dug out another from the other pocket. “I hope you like Moose Drool.”

He glanced at the beer. “Who could pass up a beer with such an appealing name.”

She laughed at that. In fact, she laughed at everything he said. It made this a whole lot harder.

He pulled out the straight-back chair from the small oak desk. “Are you old enough to drink alcohol?” he asked, straddling the chair to rest his arms on the back.

She gave him an “oh-you-tease” look and took a sip of her beer. “I’m twenty-six.”

Charlie’s age? “So you must have gone to school with Charlie Larkin.”

She nodded and glanced around the cabin. It wasn’t that interesting. Then her gaze settled on him. She wet her lips and gave him a come-hither smile. “Is that the only reason you asked me here? To talk about Charlie?”

He must be getting old, because he just wasn’t up to this game tonight. He cut to the chase, unable to bear dragging it out any longer. “I got the impression at the café that there was something you wanted to tell me about her.”

She seemed startled and suddenly ill at ease. “I can’t imagine what it could have been.”

He watched her dig at the beer label with her thumbnail. “Give it a little thought, I’ll bet it will come to you.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Are you a cop or something?”

“Something.” Giving her his backup story would be a waste of a good lie. And there seemed little reason to tell her the truth since it would be out soon enough.

She took a drink of her beer, eyeing him over the bottle. “What’s in it for me?”

Finally, solid ground. “Depends on if I find the information of value.” When she didn’t bother to nail him down on a price, it became apparent she wasn’t in it for the money—just as he’d originally suspected.

She sat up straighter on the bed. “You were asking about the guy they found in the lake.”

He said nothing.

“He wasn’t the first, you know.”

His heart kicked up a beat. “First to what?”

“End up dead at the lake. Quinn Simonson was killed leaving Freeze Out Lake right after high-school graduation. His car went off the road.”

Augustus shook his head. “What does that have to do with—”

“Quinn was Charlie Larkin’s high-school boyfriend. She was there that night. They had a big fight and—”

“What about?”

“Earlene Kurtz. Charlie found out that Earlene was four months pregnant with Quinn’s baby.” Augustus wondered if Trudi hadn’t helped Charlie find out about the pregnancy. He let out a low whistle. “Charlie was mad?”

Trudi snorted. “She was furious. She refused to get back in the car with Quinn even though he promised to take her straight home. He was pretty upset about everyone knowing about Earlene and the pregnancy. He left and crashed his car on a curve coming off the mountain.”

“Right, so I don’t see—”

“Charlie did something to the car.”

He took a breath. “Like what?”

She shrugged. “Something to make it crash. She’d just worked on his car the day before the accident—and that night at the lake, she was over by it just before he left.”

He shook his head. “If she’d done something to the car, the cops would have found it and she’d have been arrested.”

“No one suspected her at the time, everyone just thought it was an accident because Quinn had been drinking. By the time Phil Simonson—”