shake. In spite of everything else some mysterious person had done to make the house look untouched, they’d been unable to fix the glass in the French door, or glue that lamp back together. For those small favors, she was grateful. It proved she wasn’t going crazy.
Still, knowing someone had been here covering their tracks gave her a bone-deep chill. It proved how vulnerable she really was. She should leave, move out of this house. But where would she go? She couldn’t just disappear. She still had to keep her investigators and lawyers pushing for answers regarding both her grandfather and her parents. Tomorrow. Or later today, really, she’d make some kind of decision about her future. But right now she needed sleep more than anything else. A shower sounded wonderful, but she was suddenly too tired to even think.
After swallowing some pain pills, she was about to strip down to her underwear and put on a nightshirt, but the thought of going to bed that way again made her feel far too vulnerable. Instead, she wadded up the shirt and jeans that weren’t hers and tossed them in the bedroom trash. She grabbed one of her own shirts from the closet and her own jeans, put them on, and then slid between the sheets fully dressed.
The last thing she saw before she closed her eyes was the five-by-seven framed picture on her dresser, the one of her with her parents wearing the green
T-shirts the tour company had given them. It had been taken just moments before her parents had plunged to their deaths over a gorge because of a faulty zip line.
Unbidden, hot tears coursed down her cheeks. That day had started out as one of the happiest of her life, one of the few times that her parents had actually wanted to include her on one of their adventures. But after the horrible accident, she was left bitterly regretting that she’d surprised her parents by purchasing them an anniversary trip package. She cursed the day she’d ever heard of EXtreme International Tours, Incorporated.
Chapter Seven
Day Two—5:30 p.m.
C yprian Cardenas looked over the podium at the crowded lobby of EXIT Incorporated’s newest location just outside of Asheville, North Carolina, carefully maintaining his smile for the reporters. His daughter, Melissa, had basically bribed every newspaper features editor or vacation magazine contributor within a three-hundred-mile radius to cover the grand opening. It was costing a fortune in free tours, but Melissa was a savvy businesswoman and Cyprian didn’t doubt that the resulting press coverage would more than make up for the freebies.
The only true downside was that his work was piling up while he had to stand here answering the same lame questions the press asked at nearly every event Melissa put together. One of the more egregious of the reporters today, Kaysen Landry from the Citizen-Times newspaper, was waving her hand with yet another question, probably as juvenile as the last one. When all of the other reporters’ questions were answered and the young woman was still waving her hand, he braced himself and called on her.
“Yes, Miss Landry?”
“Mr. Cardenas, can you tell me again what EXIT stands for?”
The pen in his hand snapped in two. Luckily his hand was hidden from view. What exactly had this woman been doing for the past half hour if she still didn’t know what his company’s acronym stood for?
“EXtreme International Tours.”
The puzzled look on her face had him dreading her next question.
“But you’re opening this facility here in Asheville, offering the same kinds of local tours other companies do—horseback riding, whitewater rafting, zip lining. How is that extreme or international when your only other office location is in Boulder, Colorado?”
“As I explained earlier,” he reminded her, “our tours provide clients with a more intense experience than other companies. We cater to thrill seekers. We have unique tour experiences that will stretch each
Still, knowing someone had been here covering their tracks gave her a bone-deep chill. It proved how vulnerable she really was. She should leave, move out of this house. But where would she go? She couldn’t just disappear. She still had to keep her investigators and lawyers pushing for answers regarding both her grandfather and her parents. Tomorrow. Or later today, really, she’d make some kind of decision about her future. But right now she needed sleep more than anything else. A shower sounded wonderful, but she was suddenly too tired to even think.
After swallowing some pain pills, she was about to strip down to her underwear and put on a nightshirt, but the thought of going to bed that way again made her feel far too vulnerable. Instead, she wadded up the shirt and jeans that weren’t hers and tossed them in the bedroom trash. She grabbed one of her own shirts from the closet and her own jeans, put them on, and then slid between the sheets fully dressed.
The last thing she saw before she closed her eyes was the five-by-seven framed picture on her dresser, the one of her with her parents wearing the green
T-shirts the tour company had given them. It had been taken just moments before her parents had plunged to their deaths over a gorge because of a faulty zip line.
Unbidden, hot tears coursed down her cheeks. That day had started out as one of the happiest of her life, one of the few times that her parents had actually wanted to include her on one of their adventures. But after the horrible accident, she was left bitterly regretting that she’d surprised her parents by purchasing them an anniversary trip package. She cursed the day she’d ever heard of EXtreme International Tours, Incorporated.
Chapter Seven
Day Two—5:30 p.m.
C yprian Cardenas looked over the podium at the crowded lobby of EXIT Incorporated’s newest location just outside of Asheville, North Carolina, carefully maintaining his smile for the reporters. His daughter, Melissa, had basically bribed every newspaper features editor or vacation magazine contributor within a three-hundred-mile radius to cover the grand opening. It was costing a fortune in free tours, but Melissa was a savvy businesswoman and Cyprian didn’t doubt that the resulting press coverage would more than make up for the freebies.
The only true downside was that his work was piling up while he had to stand here answering the same lame questions the press asked at nearly every event Melissa put together. One of the more egregious of the reporters today, Kaysen Landry from the Citizen-Times newspaper, was waving her hand with yet another question, probably as juvenile as the last one. When all of the other reporters’ questions were answered and the young woman was still waving her hand, he braced himself and called on her.
“Yes, Miss Landry?”
“Mr. Cardenas, can you tell me again what EXIT stands for?”
The pen in his hand snapped in two. Luckily his hand was hidden from view. What exactly had this woman been doing for the past half hour if she still didn’t know what his company’s acronym stood for?
“EXtreme International Tours.”
The puzzled look on her face had him dreading her next question.
“But you’re opening this facility here in Asheville, offering the same kinds of local tours other companies do—horseback riding, whitewater rafting, zip lining. How is that extreme or international when your only other office location is in Boulder, Colorado?”
“As I explained earlier,” he reminded her, “our tours provide clients with a more intense experience than other companies. We cater to thrill seekers. We have unique tour experiences that will stretch each
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