Hidden (Jacobs Family Series Book 1) Page 15

  “Can’t.” Johnson said. “We’re old, but we’re busy.”

  “Don’t have to be rude.” Harold drew himself up to his full height. “This man fought in the military while you and I were sitting here sipping coffee. Least we could do is give him ten minutes of our time.”

  “Well, they looked like they were pretty happy alone, Harold. I think Ben was being polite.”

  “We’d be happy for you to join us. We were about to ask LuAnn for some more coffee.”

  Harold nearly knocked Johnson over, pushing him into the booth. “As long as you keep eating, we’ll sit. Where’d you serve, son? How long you been back?”

  “I was in the desert,” Ben replied vaguely as he dug into his food. Dana noticed he looked directly at the two older gents as he spoke. “I guess you two know what I mean, but I can’t really name the exact places I was deployed.”

  “Army?” Johnson asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Thought so.” Johnson turned to Harold. “Told you he looks like army.”

  Dana was relieved when Ben jumped in before Harold could pick up the argument.

  “They’re a good group of men. I was proud to serve with them. I expect you two served during your time.”

  LuAnn appeared at their table with her coffeepot. Dana noticed she placed Harold’s cup into his hands where he could easily find it. Apparently, the old guy was nearly blind.

  “Don’t get them started telling war stories unless you want to eat lunch here too.” With a wink at Dana, she cleared the empty fruit bowl and biscuit basket, then hurried off to take orders from two new groups of middle-aged men.

  “We both served in the Air Force,” Harold said.

  “WWII,” Johnson added.

  They stared into their coffee cups, memories passing between them like water flowing from the river to the sea.

  “Lu’s right though.” Harold cast a glance at his friend. “Get Johnson started remembering, and by the time you’re free to go, you’ll be too old to marry. Besides, you all didn’t come here for old war stories. What brings you out to Lake Abiquiu?”

  Ben’s hand moved up and down Dana’s arm, gently rubbing the skin with the tips of his fingers. She ignored the goose bumps that danced down her arm and hoped he wouldn’t notice. After all, this was their cover story. She was simply playing her part well.

  “Wanted to take my girl out on the water,” Ben said, pushing his plate away. “Give her a day to relax.”

  Johnson grunted. “Wouldn’t mind a day out fishing myself.”

  “And how would you get in the boat?” Harold demanded.

  “At least I could see the water.”

  “You might be able to see it, but if you fell in you’d fall to the bottom like a snail all curved up like you are.”

  “Oh, yeah? How ’bout we go out there and see who falls to the bottom.”

  Dana looked to Ben who had moved his attention to playing with her hair. She scowled at him, and he cleared his throat, interrupting Harold and Johnson’s apparently oft-repeated barbs.

  “Big lake, right?”

  “You bet it is.” Harold tapped his cup with fingertips yellowed by time. He stared off at the far wall of the diner. “Over five-thousand surface acres of water.”

  “And fifty-one miles of shoreline,” Johnson added. “Plenty of places to fish.”

  “Some of the best fishing in northern New Mexico.”

  The two men looked at each other and nodded, for once at a loss for how to argue with each other.

  “What else is there to do?” Dana asked. “Other than fish.”

  “There’s swimming,” Harold said. “Or you can water ski if you brought a boat.”

  “No boat today.” Ben ducked his head, as if the admission shamed him. “Maybe someday.”

  The three men sat in silence, sipping their coffee, as thoughts of boats clouded their brains. It occurred to Dana that Ben fit in pretty well here. She didn’t know if the knowledge pleased or frightened her.

  “Guess the lake was a big boon to the local economy.” Dana twirled her coffee cup.

  “Yeah. It’s helped bring in lots of visitors,” Harold allowed.

  “People come and buy trinkets in the shops in downtown Abiquiu.” Johnson looked around the diner. “That’s why we stay out here.”

  “Don’t need any trinkets and don’t need any espresso either.” Harold said the words with obvious contempt.

  Ben sipped his now cold coffee and nodded, as if he’d never touch a trinket, let alone a cup of espresso. Dana felt his knee jerk under the table as he angled in for the kill. “So everybody’s happy. Folks downtown have their trinkets. Everyone else has… this.”

  Harold shrugged, waved his hand over his head for LuAnn to bring one more refill. “Most folks are happy now. Wasn’t always that way though.”

  “No, sir,” Johnson agreed.

  “Time was a few people didn’t even want the lake built.”

  “Or the dam.”

  Dana felt all the hairs on her arms stand up. Ben’s hand froze where he’d been massaging the back of her neck.

  “Why would anyone be against a lake?” she asked.

  Johnson held his cup out as LuAnn bustled over to the table. “Well, if you live around the shoreline, then it’s a pretty good idea. But if you live where the water’s going—”

  “Not such a good idea,” Harold finished.

  “You two telling that story?” LuAnn frowned. “It’s too pretty a day for such sadness, and these two lovebirds don’t need to hear about tragedy and heartbreak.”

  She glanced around the diner. Things had settled down in the last few minutes, so she pulled a chair over to the end of the booth and set her coffeepot on the table. “Course the story of the Drogans is one that’s hard to forget. And maybe there’s a lesson there for anyone willing to listen.”

  Thirty-nine

  Ben didn’t realize he was gripping Dana’s neck until she let out a yelp.

  “Problem, Miss?” Johnson looked up sharply.

  “No. I bit my tongue is all.” She eased away from Ben ever so slightly as she reached for her glass of water.

  Ben grasped his coffee mug with both hands as LuAnn refilled it.

  “I should bite my tongue. We all should, talking about those poor people’s misfortune.”

  “They brought it on their self, and you know it, Lu.” Harold squinted toward the end of the table. “Folks couldn’t stop that dam or that lake. Drogan was a fool for trying.”

  “Maybe so,” LuAnn agreed. “Mind you I wasn’t old enough to know the old man. The boy, Chance, he was a few years older than me in school. In fact, he was in the same grade as my cousin, Angela. She’s the one who told us most of what happened.”

  “Most of what happened was in the paper,” Johnson pointed out.

  “The lawsuit and the appeal, but not everything that went on afterwards.” LuAnn leaned forward, ready to share her secret. Then two groups of men came through the front door. “I better go and help those folks. I’ll be back.”

  Ben stared after her. He only remembered Johnson and Harold were still sitting at the table when Dana began speaking to them.

  “So this Drogan, he didn’t want the lake to be built?”

  “That’s an understatement. He did everything he could to stop it,” Harold said. “Both legal and illegal.”

  “Now you don’t know that.” Johnson banged his coffee cup against the table. “You can’t know that for sure.”

  “Guess I can’t prove it, but folks know.”

  “Why was he set against it? If the lake helped the area so much?” Ben tried to sound casual, but his heart rate was kicked up a notch—either from the coffee, from Dana’s closeness, or from the answers hovering so close.

  “The Drogans owned land in the middle of the lake bed, that’s why.”

  “Land wasn’t that good,” Harold interrupted.

  “Land doesn’t have to be good. If it’s yours, if i
t’s been yours and your family’s, then land matters. Drogan didn’t want to let go. Government came in offering fair market value.” Johnson leaned forward, caught up in the story, in a different time. “How do you put a fair value on an acre of land worked by your father and your father’s father? Can’t dig up memories and move them somewhere else.”

  The four at the table fell silent, the only sounds were those from nearby tables.

  LuAnn sat back down with a groan, resting the coffeepot on the table. “My dogs are tired, and I haven’t had a break since coming on at five. Folks needs to get their own coffee refills.” She looked around the table. “Someone die while I was gone?”

  “Not while you was gone, but someone died all right.” Harold reached out and patted her hand. “You tell that part.”

  “Oh, yeah, the Drogans.” LuAnn leaned forward, her cherry-red lips forming a pout. “My, but those were dark times round here. Chance’s pa lost his appeal. Course I guess these fellas told you they paid him for the land. Near ’bout made him crazy though. He took to drinking, and he was mean to begin with.”

  LuAnn turned the pot of coffee and stared into its murky depths. “My cousin, Angela, was supposed to meet Chance the night it happened.”

  LuAnn stopped and stared curiously at Dana for a moment. “She looked a little like you, come to think of it. Course that was a long time ago. Could be she was just young and pretty.” Sighing she went on with her story. “They were supposed to go to the movies, but her pa wouldn’t let her go. Everyone was upset about all that had gone on. Can’t blame my uncle for not wanting her in the middle of it. She was just a girl. Chance Drogan took it hard though.”

  LuAnn looked out the window, as if she were seeing into yesterday. “I think Angela blamed herself for what happened next. She wanted to explain to Chance why she didn’t show, but he never called again. He… they…”

  She tried a third time to finish the story. Someone behind her called out for coffee. LuAnn called out, “Hold your horses,” and accepted the napkin Dana handed her.

  Ben found Dana’s hand under the table, entwined his fingers in hers.

  “No one really knows what happened,” Johnson said quietly. “Found both his parents dead up on top of the dam. Could have been an accident. Could have been a double homicide.”

  “I better go make some fresh coffee.” LuAnn moved her chair back to the adjacent table, checking her makeup in the mirror over the counter before moving to warm-up coffee cups.

  “What happened to the boy?” Ben asked.

  “He was supposed to go into foster care, being as he was in high school at the time. Town would have took him in, but he ran off before anyone could offer.” Johnson pushed his mug away, attempted to sit up straight.

  “Went on to serve in Nam,” Harold said. “Terrible war. Seemed to mess the boy up more.”

  “So he came back?” Dana asked. Ben noticed her fingers were ice cold against his.

  “He’d stop in every few years.” Johnson said.

  “He even bought a place at the end of Old Crown Road,” Harold added. “But I haven’t seen him in years.”

  “You haven’t seen anything in years.”

  “I can see you, and some days that’s more than a person ought to have to look at.”

  Johnson grinned, happy they were back on comfortable ground.

  Ben glanced at his watch, then reached for his wallet. “Nearly eight. I better take this pretty lady out to the lake before the day gets away from us.”

  Dana slid to the end of the bench and stood.

  As they walked to the register, Harold and Johnson made their way back to their table.

  “You two enjoy the sunshine,” Harold called as they turned to go.

  “And enjoy your youth. It slips away while you’re doing other things.” Johnson maneuvered awkwardly to scoot back into his chair.

  Dana turned to Ben. “I’ll be right back. Wait for me?”

  “Course I will.”

  With a teasing smile, she turned and walked to Harold and Johnson’s table. Ben couldn’t hear what she said, but he saw Harold put his head back and laugh, and Johnson blushed when she kissed him lightly on the cheek.

  As they walked into the sunshine, he couldn’t help asking. “You going to tell me what you said to them?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then I guess we’re off to Old Crown Road.”

  “Yeah. I guess we are.”

  It seemed appropriate that in an otherwise clear, morning sky, a single cloud chose that moment to pass over the sun, obscuring the light.

  Forty

  They drove to the dam and bought a map that included county roads. Walking back to the truck, Dana lowered her glasses and gave Ben her best supervisor’s glare.

  “It’s none of your business what I told Harold and Johnson.”

  “But we’re dating. As sweethearts, we shouldn’t keep secrets from each other.”

  “That was our cover story, Marshall. Was.” She pushed her glasses back up, grateful for their reflective tint, and waited beside the truck.

  Ben spread the map out on the hood.

  “I’ll trade,” he said.

  “Trade what?”

  “A ride back to Taos. Now tell me what you said to those two old geezers.”

  Dana laughed and took a drink of the bottled water he’d pulled from the cooler. “You can’t stand it.”

  “Can’t stand what?”

  “Not knowing everything.”

  “Guilty. Whatever you said though, it took the sadness out of their expressions for a few minutes. It was a kind thing to do.”

  His look flustered her more than his words. “Oh, all right. I was a little worried we’d been too interested in their story. So I asked the tall guy—”

  “Harold.”

  “Yes, Harold. I asked Harold what type of boat I should buy you for a, err, wedding present.” She felt the color mounting up her neck into her cheeks.

  “A wedding present? Wow. I’ll get on my knees now if I’m going to score a boat out of the deal.”

  She made a swipe for his arm, but he ducked out of the way in the nick of time.

  “He named off a few kinds, engine sizes, etc. I don’t remember the details.”

  “That’s it?” Ben had stopped studying the map.

  Dana tried to ignore the way the sun bounced off his skin, the way he looked as natural standing on the dam of Abiquiu Lake as he did working in her office.

  “I said if you were going to spend more time with the boat than with me, maybe I should think of something else.”

  “Must be when he started laughing.”

  “I guess.” Dana fiddled with the label on her water bottle. “I wanted to, you know…”

  “Distract them.”

  “Right.”

  Ben turned and leaned back against the truck, still holding the map. “All right, Miss Jacobs. What about Johnson? I distinctly remember you kissing him on the cheek. Was that a distraction as well?”

  Dana looked out over the lake, a place that for at least one family had caused so much pain. “I felt bad for him. It must be terribly difficult for him to get through each day. To not be able to walk straight, or sit down easily. And you can tell he feels like he’s lost his dignity.”

  Ben nodded, but didn’t interrupt her.

  “I thanked him. That’s all. Told them we’d stop by again if we were ever out this way.”

  She stared out at the lake a little longer, took another swig of water, then cleared her throat. “So do you think we can find this road?”

  “Sure. Only so many roads around a lake. I’ll study the east side of the map. You take the west.”

  They stood there in the sunshine, studying the map on the hood of Ben’s Chevy truck. Neither felt a need to talk more. Dana did her best to ignore the nearness of him, the way his arm brushed against hers as he followed a line on the map, the delicious shiver when his hand would casually touch hers.

  Sh
e was acting like a teenager and she knew it, except her adolescent years had never approached normal. She had nothing to compare this to, no way to know if it was a schoolgirl crush or something more.

  Twenty minutes later, they were driving around the west side of the lake. Old Crown Road did, in fact, dead end back in the woods overlooking the lake. When they first turned on the road, there had been an occasional fisherman’s lodge. Ten miles down the road, the places spread out until they disappeared.

  The forest grew denser, blocking out the summer sky completely. And then the road simply ended.

  There was no gate. No sign saying Stay Off or Private Property. Nothing to indicate anyone had ever been or was currently living there.

  Which, of course, is exactly what Dana would expect from someone like Chance Drogan. Not the child who’d been left an orphan. Not the boy who didn’t keep a date with LuAnn’s cousin. She could feel pity for either of those boys that Chance had been. This is what she would expect from the man Chance Drogan had become.

  She couldn’t feel anything for the person who had pulled Reggie Mifflin into a man’s game, a criminal’s war. And she despised someone who would put a family at risk, an entire community in danger.

  While Ben secured their vehicle and unloaded Kevlar vests and extra ammo, she called into the office. She apprised Cheryl of their location and made sure they could receive the GPS tracking signal from her cell phone.

  “Ready?” Ben asked.

  “As I’ll ever be.”

  With weapons drawn, they walked into the darkness of the forest. A overgrown trail led to the northeast—whether it had been made by wildlife or Drogan was hard to tell.

  Thirty minutes later, they came in sight of the cabin.

  Forty-one

  One of the things Ben respected most about his boss was her ability to let the most experienced man lead. In this situation, he was the most experienced, and they both knew it.

  Odds were, the cabin was rigged to blow.

  They walked through the woods, each carrying a pack. Ben held his rifle in his left hand. Both were armed with pistols and wearing Kevlar vests. Ben motioned for Dana to stay six feet back. He was looking for trip wires. He didn’t see any, but that meant nothing. Anyone who had served in Nam could hide a trip wire no one would find until it was too late.