him? Had he lost his true identity? Because right now, he didn’t know where he belonged.
Again, he wondered, Where is home?
Astor slipped from his perch and appeared to head toward the restroom.
“Excuse me.” Liam exited the booth and pulled out his cell as he walked. He entered the room after Astor, who was on his cell phone too.
“You’d better be there,” Astor growled. “The black diamond. I don’t know the name. It’s the one near Bear Claw Café.”
He turned as if suddenly realizing he wasn’t alone in the restroom. Liam ignored him and tucked away his cell to wash his hands. His cell buzzed at that moment. He dried his hands and pulled it out to see who had called. He hoped Astor paid him no attention. Another guy walked in as Liam exited.
Good.
On the way back to the table, Liam listened to the voicemail Sheriff Taggart had left him. It was likely Sheriff Taggart had been the man to deliver the news to Astor about his brother’s remains. The sheriff would be interested to know that the timeline of what had happened involving Zoey’s disappearance five years ago coincided with her stalker’s disappearance, and that his remains had recently been discovered.
But the timeline meant nothing without evidence. The sheriff must have hung up because he didn’t say anything in the message. Liam slid into the booth across from Rae and thought about the words he’d overheard. He and Rae had already villainized the guy in their minds as someone who would want to take Zoey. So even the most innocent sounding words carried a menacing tone. Still, Liam didn’t think he had misunderstood Astor’s antagonism on the call.
“Liam, did you hear me?” Rae asked.
“What?”
“They’re leaving.”
“Okay, sure. We’ll wait a few seconds. We don’t want to be seen following them out immediately.” Even though Astor’s face was familiar to Liam, the man hadn’t seemed to recognize him.
He considered what to do next. Bear Claw Café would require a ride up the gondola. Astor had said the black diamond near the café, so Liam could only assume he planned to ski the trail. It made some kind of weird sense to arrange a clandestine meeting on a black diamond—the steepest and most difficult ski trails on the mountain except for the double black diamonds. Acid boiled in his stomach.
“Are you okay? You seem a million miles away.”
“Sure. I was running through all the possible scenarios.” He didn’t want to leave Rae behind for this, but he didn’t want to take her with him either.
He left enough cash on the table to cover their drinks and a tip and slid from the booth.
She eyed the money. “I’ll get it next time.”
They exited the café in time to see Astor and his sidekick take the elevators.
“What now?” she asked.
“How would a journalist handle this?”
“I would approach him and introduce myself. Identify myself as a journalist. Give my condolences. I would try to get him to talk. See what he thinks about his brother’s death. I’d go from there.” She angled her head in thought. “I could get a sense of him. I can read people.”
Liam wasn’t sure Rae approaching the man was a good idea. Then again, that might be their only choice.
“You might get your chance, but right now we’re getting ready to play in the snow.”
She swung her head to face him. “What?”
“Looks like at least one of us gets to slay the pow.” Liam grinned.
Her beautiful eyes widened. “Why?”
“I overheard him.” Liam shared what he’d learned about the meeting at black diamond near the Bear Claw Café. “Unless you don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“Smart thinking having us dress for the occasion. Such a furtive meeting deserves good shadowing. But I’m going too.”
“I’m not sure it’s safe. I don’t know if it’s even worth it. Can you ski a black diamond?”
She looked at him long and hard. “I bet you’re the kind of guy who can ski that and crush it.”
Liam shrugged. He was out of practice, but she didn’t have to know that.
“Hold on.” Rae pulled up the ski map on her tablet and together they perused it. “I admit that I’m more of a cross-country skier. Looks like I could take this blue slope here and meet you at the trail where it intersects with that black diamond. The trails run sort of parallel until they intersect. That’s where the black diamond ends. There’s a restaurant there too—Crosspoint Restaurant—and a gondola.”