Tahoe Night

  PRAISE FOR TAHOE HEAT

  “WILL KEEP READERS TURNING THE PAGES AS OWEN RACES TO CATCH A VICIOUS KILLER...”

  - Booklist

  “A RIVETING THRILLER... HARD TO PUT DOWN”

  - Midwest Book Review

  PRAISE FOR TAHOE NIGHT

  “BORG HAS WRITTEN ANOTHER WHITE-KNUCKLE THRILLER...A sure bet for mystery buffs waiting for the next Robert B. Parker and Lee Child novels”

  - Library Journal

  “AN ACTION-PACKED THRILLER WITH A NICE-GUY HERO, AN EVEN NICER DOG...”

  - Kirkus Reviews

  PRAISE FOR TAHOE AVALANCHE

  “BORG IS A SUPERB STORYTELLER...A MASTER OF THE GENRE”

  - Midwest Book Review

  PRAISE FOR TAHOE SILENCE

  WINNER BEN FRANKLIN AWARD

  BEST MYSTERY OF THE YEAR!

  ONE OF THE FIVE BEST MYSTERIES OF THE YEAR!

  - Library Journal

  PRAISE FOR TAHOE KILLSHOT

  “A WONDERFUL BOOK...FASCINATING CHARACTERS, HARD-HITTING ACTION”

  Mystery News

  PRAISE FOR TAHOE ICE GRAVE

  “BAFFLING CLUES... CONSISTENTLY ENTERTAINS”

  - Kirkus Reviews

  “A CLEVER PLOT... RECOMMEND THIS MYSTERY”

  Booklist

  PRAISE FOR TAHOE BLOWUP

  “RIVETING... A MUST READ FOR MYSTERY FANS!”

  Addison, Illinois Public Library

  PRAISE FOR TAHOE DEATHFALL

  “THRILLING, EXTENDED RESCUE/CHASE”

  - Kirkus Reviews

  “HIGHLY LIKABLE CHARACTERS”

  - San Jose Mercury News

  TAHOE NIGHT

  By

  Todd Borg

  Published by Thriller Press at Smashwords

  Copyright 2009 Todd Borg

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Thriller Press, a division of WRST, Inc. www.thrillerpress.com

  This novel is a work of fiction. Any references to real locales, establishments, organizations or events are intended only to give the fiction a sense of verisimilitude. All other names, places, characters and incidents portrayed in this book are the product of the author’s imagination.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from Thriller Press, P.O. Box 551110, South Lake Tahoe, CA 96155.

  Library of Congress Card Number: 2009900722

  ISBN: 978-1-931296-17-5

  Cover design by Keith Carlson.

  Smashwords Edition License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

  TAHOE NIGHT

  PROLOGUE

  Reggie Deckman pricked her finger and squeezed her fingertip, milking another drop of blood out into the depression in the little white plastic watercolor palette.

  The aspirin she’d taken would keep her blood from coagulating. But not from freezing. The bitter wind sang in the tall Jeffrey pines. The March weather was out of sync with the early June calendar. Three weeks before, when Reggie stepped off the bus from Sacramento, Tahoe locals had been celebrating a long stretch of glorious spring, sunshine so intense on the mountain snowfields that when Reggie stood in town and turned toward the sun-glazed slopes, she could feel the reflected heat on her face.

  Now winter had returned for a final assault. Reggie shivered. The drop of blood fell, but it missed the depression she was aiming for and hit the tiny pool of orange paint next door. Deep red swirled into the orange, ruining the mixture.

  Reggie squinted at the palette as the darkness came back, crowding in from the edges of her vision. It happened every time something went wrong. Her vision narrowed to a tunnel. The sounds around her became distant. Her heart thumped. It was difficult to get air into her lungs. Confusion overwhelmed her. She couldn’t think straight. She didn’t know what to do next.

  Reggie tightened her hands into fists. Focus. Concentrate on a color. Not the paint or the palette. Not the worry, not the fear, not the confusion. Just a color. Take a deep breath and visualize.

  It had helped her for fifty years. Maybe sixty. She couldn’t remember. Ever since she was a young girl. When the darkness came, she had learned to focus. The doctors had different names for it over the decades. They put her on drugs, enrolled her in talk therapy groups, prescribed special diets and exercise.

  But thinking of color worked better than all of the drugs, better than the psychotherapy. In color was comfort. It pushed back the confusion, the fear.

  This time, Reggie thought of permanent green light. The color of young grass. The color of summer. The only cool color that felt warm to her, permanent green light felt like it was mixed with sunshine. She took a deep breath and held it.

  Focus.

  Gradually, her tunnel vision widened. Her heart slowed. The darkness went away.

  But the cause of her new confusion was still there.

  It had been decades. But they’d met and talked. He was worried. He told her what he’d like her to do if anything happened to him.

  Reggie realized that he still cared for her. Maybe he still loved her. So she said yes, she would do it.

  Reggie knew that she still loved him. She’d always loved him. Of course, he’d been the one who was willing to try to work it out. She was the one who had insisted on the divorce. It was a favor to him. She would never get better. She knew that even if he didn’t.

  The worst was her daughter. What kind of a woman leaves her young daughter?

  Reggie worked another drop of blood out of her fingertip. This time she got it into the right place on the palette.

  For painting watercolors, cadmium yellow and ultramarine blue provided two of the primary pigments. Many painters used cadmium red for the third primary, while some preferred alizarin crimson for its cool deep tone that mixed into better purples. Mix a little alizarin with the yellow and it produced a fine sienna. But Reggie knew that no commercial pigment worked like blood. Dried, it produced a burnt sienna with the smallest hint of umber undertones. Most important, it produced verisimilitude, the quality of making her images more like reality.

  Reggie Deckman hunched over her tiny watercolor block as the cold spring wind pulled on the sign that was duct-taped to her knees. The letters on the sign were printed with black marker, surprisingly uneven and jerky for a talented artist.

  Will Paint For Food

  God Bless

  Reggie reached into her bag and took out her brush holder, her most precious possession. It had always held her brushes. Now it held something even more important. Something from him and something from her. In a way, they were together again.

  The brush holder was woven of tiny wooden reeds, thin parallel pieces held together with red thread. When the little mat was unrolled flat like a place mat, it showed a painting of a spectacular lotus flower. On the inside of the mat were loops of thread aligned in rows so that paintbrushes could be inserted. At the top and bottom edges of the mat were stitched green beads. When the mat was rolled up, it held the brushes inside, protecting them. The green beads all came together at the ends of the roll, still sparkling all these years after he’d sent the brushes and brush holder to her when she was stationed overseas. A birthday present. The best gift she’d ever received. A magic wand with emerald ends.

  Reggie felt that her brushes were like her. Fighters.
Witnesses. Survivors. If they were safe, she’d be safe. She protected them above all else.

  Reggie slipped her brush back into the two vacant loops of thread and pulled out a smaller brush, the double-aught sable, its tiny hairs delicate and fragile. She stuck the end of it into her mouth for moisture, then flexed the brush across her lower lip to gauge the snap of the hairs. With delicate precision, she dipped the brush into the blood.

  Quickly, before the blood could dry, she brought it to the watercolor block and made several tiny marks. Sand blew across the paper as she worked. She was close to finishing the painting. It was an important milestone, for she’d decided that she was going to the cops when she finished.

  Reggie had always done that when she faced a dilemma requiring guts. She’d make a deal with herself. When her current painting was done, she’d do the task. She could not avoid painting. Painting was as inexorable for her as breathing. Linking an onerous chore to finishing her painting was a way to ensure that it got done.

  He’d told her not to, of course. He’d stressed that no one could know unless he had an accident. But it wasn’t right. Sometimes, you have to go against a person’s desires to do what’s right. The cops needed to know. She’d talked to the minister at her new church. He agreed with her. She’d talked to the ladies who ran the bake sales. They agreed, too. She should tell the police.

  A gust of wind pulled at her sign, threatening to rip the duct tape off and hurl the sign into the traffic. Reggie grabbed at the cardboard and turned her chin up toward the white snow plume blowing off the summit of Mt. Tallac. Behind the plume was an angry, roiling mass of gray clouds. The weather report predicted that this last winter storm of the season would pound Lake Tahoe with freezing rain and dump another foot of snow on the mountains that surrounded the basin. Reggie turned back to her painting.

  The watercolor block was new, a gift from the woman who drove a polished black Audi and came by every weekday at 8:40 a.m. She would pull up at the intersection and nod at Reggie from the plush interior, then roll down the window and hand Reggie a large cup of organic yogurt with fresh fruit. Or carrot juice blended with minced wheat grass. Or an apple and a banana. And just once, a Starbucks coffee and raspberry scone. Each time, Reggie gave her a tiny painting. Emerald Bay. Mt. Tallac. A meadow with wildflowers.

  Reggie loved the scone and coffee. But she always gave the other food away.

  One day the window whirred down and the woman handed her the watercolor block and the new white palette she was using today.

  Since taking the bus up to Tahoe, Reggie had scraped out a meager living selling miniature watercolors. She’d wondered if her ex-husband would ever drive by. She’d told him about selling paintings at the intersection when they met at the motel she rented by the week. He’d hinted about helping her. But she would have none of that.

  Reggie didn’t want to even think about their daughter. It was too painful. The guilt made it hard to breathe. Made the confusion come.

  She worked on her painting.

  But the thoughts kept intruding.

  He’d said that their daughter was the reason he’d come to the mountains. Reggie didn’t tell him that it was both of them that drew her up to Tahoe as well. She didn’t say that they were all she had. But he probably knew that. He was smart. And he wasn’t confused. Where the world was a murky fog to her, it was clear to him.

  Reggie focused on her work.

  A car came toward her and veered off onto the shoulder. It stopped, and a girl of 15 or 16, young enough to be her granddaughter, got out. The girl carried a backpack. The driver left, and the girl walked over toward the spot where Reggie sat. She stopped just twenty feet away and raised her arm toward the traffic, her thumb out.

  Reggie frowned at the girl. Despite the bitter wind, the girl was wearing a bright green beach top that snugged up tight around her breasts. More permanent green light. Reggie’s color. Eight inches of bare midriff showed above low-rider jeans that were so tight that Reggie didn’t see how the girl could sit down.

  Reggie was astonished at the audacity of the girl. Not because of her exposed skin, but because she upstaged Reggie’s place at the intersection.

  I should tell her to get her own place, Reggie thought. I should explain to her just what kind of risk she’s taking, hitchhiking in such a skimpy outfit. Then Reggie remembered her own youth. She’d been a rebel, too. A provocative rebel. In fact, it was how Reggie had met her ex-husband, three months before the army shipped her halfway around the world. He was walking across the Berkeley campus and Reggie was sunning herself on a blanket on the commons. Wearing very little. Nothing like the old tried-and-true for getting a young man’s attention. If an adult had attempted to tell the young Reggie that she shouldn’t be so provocative, it would only have made her more determined.

  Reggie decided not to say anything. Displaying her young body might get the girl into trouble, but it would also get her a ride. And Reggie would soon have her roadside spot to herself again.

  Another gust of wind grabbed at Reggie’s sign. Snowflakes hit her watercolor paper, melting into tiny drops that turned the color of the paint they struck. Reggie worked faster, trying to finish her image. This one was a special painting, a present for her ex-husband.

  A huge pickup, the kind with four doors, approached and slowed. It had dark windows. Reggie watched as it came to a stop halfway between Reggie and the girl. Both front doors opened. Two big men got out. One man walked to the girl. He spoke to her. Reggie couldn’t make out the words. She leaned toward them to hear better. She knew she might be witnessing a terrible event.

  Reggie saw the man grin at the girl, more of a leer than a smile. She heard the girl force a nervous laugh.

  Reggie looked to see where the other man had gone. He was nowhere to be seen. The confusion was back. Darkness coming in from the sides of her vision.

  Reggie tried to breathe, tried to focus on her color. What was the color? She couldn’t remember.

  Reggie wanted to call out. The girl was in grave danger, Reggie was positive. But Reggie couldn’t make her voice work. She thought of waving at a passing driver, but there was a lull in traffic, no vehicles anywhere near.

  Hands suddenly reached around Reggie from behind. Under her armpits, lifting her up, picking her clean into the air. Reggie was astonished. Her feet bicycled in the air. She tried to cry out, but no words came. The man carried her toward the truck. Her paints spilled onto the asphalt. The watercolor block fell face down into a slushy puddle of melting snow. Reggie was shocked into submission. She wanted to yell, tried to yell, but she couldn’t make her voice work.

  The other man opened the pickup’s rear door, and they shoved Reggie inside. Reggie’s head hit a hard cupholder as they pushed her down onto the floor. Her chin scraped on the floor mat. She felt the skin rip open, blood pour down. She was bent nearly in half. One man put his heavy boots on Reggie’s head and shoulder as the other man got into the driver’s seat and raced off.

  The darkness overwhelmed Reggie’s vision. She couldn’t breathe.

  Reggie still gripped her brush holder. In her confusion, just as she was about to pass out from lack of air, she pushed the little rolled mat with the green beads under the front seat, tucked it into a fold in the carpet.

  If her brushes were safe, she would be safe.

  ONE

  “Ms. Casey told me you were discreet, Mr. McKenna.”

  The woman sitting in my office chair was probably 80, but she looked more fit than most 50-year-olds.

  “You know Street?” I asked.

  “I just met her last week. She came to our yoga class. She said she had never tried yoga before. But she’ll be great. She’s got that focus. And posture. But she didn’t come to class today, so maybe she didn’t like it and dropped out of class.”

  “She had business out of town,” I said.

  “Oh, that’s right. She said she had to go to an entomology conference. At any rate, you came up. I had heard
of you, so I asked her.”

  “If I was discreet,” I said.

  The woman nodded. “Ms. Casey’s answer was affirmative.”

  “Affirmative,” I said.

  “Yes.” The woman was apparently unaware of how patrician she sounded. But it went with the tailored black wool skirt and jacket, the Roman nose, the small, elegant, leather purse with the faint embossed logo of an expensive brand, the sensible, plain black pumps, the short silver hair brushed to a high sheen, the fingernails cut modestly short and coated with clear gloss, the subtle hint of lipstick. She sat straight as a two-by-twelve and crossed her slender ankles, as she was no doubt taught at finishing school the better part of a century ago. She glanced down at Spot, my 170-pound Harlequin Great Dane, who was lying near the window in a shaft of morning sunlight, the ear stud he’d gotten during the avalanche case sparkling like the diamond it pretended to be. Something made the woman frown. The ear stud, maybe.

  “About what or to whom would you like me to direct this discretion?” I asked.

  The woman cleared her throat and swallowed. “My neighbor and his daughter. I’m worried. I’d like to pay you to look after them. I would prefer that they didn’t know that I’m making this request of you.”

  “If I agree to work for you, I won’t advertise it, but I won’t hide it, either. Transparency is often best when dealing with neighbors.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning that they will be less likely to resist my efforts to look after them, as you put it, if they understand that it is the result of your caring and appreciation for them. We should try to convince them that you are in fact really concerned for their well-being and not just worried about how their situation will affect you.”