Ghosts of Elkhorn by Kerry Newcomb

Author:Kerry Newcomb
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781504002226
Publisher: Open Road Media

“What?” Roman asked, more interested in the money on the table in front of him than in what Lainie had said.

“He was right, heaven help me,” Lainie called from the kitchen.

Roman arranged the ten piles in a neat row. Each held a thousand dollars. Once again, he counted them, tapping each with his forefinger, then glancing toward the foyer. Having the ten thousand out in the open made him nervous as a virgin in a whorehouse. It didn’t do to tempt temptation, and he’d feel a lot better when it was hidden. All he could do was hope the bank vault was so obvious that no one would think of looking there. “Who?” he asked, making conversation.

“Wind River.” Lainie entered with the coffeepot and a handful of clean cups. “I’m beginning to like the coffee.”

“Yeah. Pretty soon we won’t need to drink it,” Roman said, stirring sugar into the black brew. “Just call it. The damned stuff will crawl out of the cup and into our mouths on command.” He smiled to show her it was a joke.

“Silly.” She stared at the money. It was the first time Roman had taken it out since their arrival in Elkhorn and the sight triggered mixed emotions. Ten thousand dollars was either a miraculous opportunity for a new life or a deadly bait that would draw Harry Lieght to them. “I still wish you’d stay,” she said, trying to sound gay and failing miserably. “Or that we could go together.”

“You’ll be safer here,” Roman said, and lowered his voice to add, “Especially if the old man thinks you don’t know where I’ve hidden the money. Just don’t let him know and everything will be fine.”

“It’s so quiet, though.” Lainie shuddered. A city girl, she was as unnerved by the silence of a ghost town high in the mountains as she was by the thought of Harry Lieght. “I mean, what if a bear or a mountain lion or something—”

“He’s lived here over thirty years,” Roman pointed out. “Crazy, maybe, but he’s healthy as a coot and tough as nails. That wreck would have killed most men.”

“Well, maybe …” Lainie’s fears, however, were legion, and not easily dismissed. “What happens if Lieght’s in Mountain City?”

“I’ll just have to take my chances,” Roman said flatly.

“I’m scared, Roman.”

Roman got up and walked around the table to massage Lainie’s shoulders. “It’s going to be all right, baby. I’ll be gone five days, six at the most, and get back here before the next storm hits. We’ll sit that one out and then leave before everything closes in totally for the rest of the winter. Depending on how Mountain City feels to me and how much snow there is, we’ll either go south, skirt the town, and catch a bus in Idaho Springs, or head north and across the pass, then east to Boulder, where we catch a bus or train to Cheyenne and then Laramie, where we spend the rest of the winter. Boulder’s kind of dangerous because it’s so close to Denver, but I think we can pull it off.

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