“Of course.” Tory hung up the phone and a dark feeling of dread seemed to seep in through the windows and settle in her heart. Where was Trask? The question began to haunt her.
Dear God, please let him be all right!
CHAPTER TEN
THE ROAD FROM the Willamette Valley was narrow. It twisted upward through the Cascades like some great writhing serpent intent on following the natural chasm made by the Santiam River. With sheer rock on one side of the road and the deep ravine ending with rushing white water on the other, the two lane highway cut across the mountains from the Willamette Valley to central Oregon.
At two in the morning, with only the beams from the headlights of the jeep to guide him, Trask was at the wheel of his Blazer heading east. And he was dead-tired. He had spent all of the morning and most of the afternoon at the penitentiary asking questions and getting only vague answers from the low-lifes Henderson and Benton.
Trask’s hands tightened over the steering wheel as he thought about the ex-judge’s fleshy round face. Even stripped of his judicial robes and garbed in state-issued prison clothes, Linn Benton exuded a smug untouchable air that got under Trask’s skin.
Linn Benton had been openly sarcastic and when Trask had asked him about another person being involved in the horse swindle, the judge-turned-inmate had actually had the audacity to laugh outright. Trask’s slightly battered condition and obvious concern about what had happened five years past seemed to be a source of amusement to the ex-judge. Trask had gotten nowhere with the man, but was more convinced than ever that somehow Linn Benton was pulling the strings from inside the thick penitentiary walls. But who was the puppet on the outside?
George Henderson had been easier to question. The ex-vet had been shaking in his boots at the thought of being questioned by a man whose brother he had helped kill. But whether Henderson’s obvious anxiety had been because of Trask’s stature as a senator, or because of previous threats he may have received from his prison mate, Linn Benton, Trask couldn’t determine.
With an oath, Trask downshifted and the Blazer climbed upward toward Santiam Pass.
All in all, the trip hadn’t been a complete waste of time, Trask attempted to console himself. For the first time he was certain that Linn Benton was still hiding something. And it had to be something that he didn’t expect Trask to uncover, or the rotund prisoner wouldn’t have smirked so openly at his adversary. It was as if Benton were privy to some private irony; an irony Trask couldn’t begin to fathom.
“But I will.” Trask squinted into the darkness and made a silent vow to get even with the men who had killed his brother. If another person was involved in Jason’s death, Trask was determined to find out about it and see to it that the person responsible would pay.
For over six hours, Trask had been in the Multnomah County Library in Portland. He had searched out and microfilmed copies of all of the newspaper clippings about the horse swindle and Jason’s murder, hoping to find something, anything that would give him a hint of what was happening and who was behind the series of events starting with the anonymous letter. If only the person who had written the letter would show his face…tell his side of the story…let the truth be known once and for all…then justice could be served and Trask could put the past behind and concentrate on a future with Tory.
* * *
THE NIGHT SEEMED to have no end. Tory heard Keith come in sometime after midnight. She tossed and turned restlessly on the bed, alternately looking at the clock and staring out the window into the dark night sky. What could have happened to Trask? she wondered for what had to be the thousandth time. Where was he? Why hadn’t he called?
She finally slept although fitfully and when the first streaks of dawn began to lighten the room, Tory was relieved to have an excuse to get out of bed and start the morning chores. If she had had to spend another hour in bed staring at the clock, she would have gone out of her mind with worry about Trask.
She had changed, showered and started breakfast before she heard Keith moving around in his room upstairs.
Coffee was perking and the apple muffins were already out of the oven when Keith sauntered into the kitchen. She turned to face her brother and he lifted his hands into the air as if to ward off a blow. “Truce, Sis?” he asked, grinning somewhat sheepishly.
The corners of Tory’s lips curved upward and her round eyes sparkled with affection for her brother. “You know I don’t hold a grudge. Well, at least not against you.”
“Or Trask McFadden,” he pointed out, walking to the stove and pouring them each a cup of coffee.
“I think five years was enough,” Tory said.
“For sending Dad to prison where he died? Give me a break!” He offered her a mug of steaming coffee, which she accepted, but she felt her smile disintegrate.
Tory set the basket of muffins on the table and tried to ignore Keith’s open hostility toward Trask. “Did you say something about a truce?”
“A truce between you and me. Not with McFadden!” Keith frowned, sat down in his regular chair and reached for a muffin. “By the way, where is he this morning?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted, biting nervously at her lower lip and trying to hide the fact that she was worried sick about him. She glanced nervously at the clock. It was nearly seven.
“Did he visit Benton and Henderson yesterday?” Keith had his knife poised over the butter, but his eyes never left his sister’s anxious face. It was evident from the circles under her eyes and the lines near the corners of
her mouth that she hadn’t been able to sleep.
“I don’t know that either. No one’s seen or heard from him since he left here yesterday morning.”
Keith set the knife aside. “So you’re worried about him, right?”
“A little.”
“He can handle himself.”