Everything To Prove. Nadia Nichols

at some air base. The plane was a wicked-looking thing. Her father was grinning at the camera. Handsome, dashing. A boy, really, so young and sure of life.

      Libby thought it ironic that Connor Libby had survived Vietnam only to die on his wedding day, but she was determined to prove that Frey had something to do with it. Tomorrow she’d fly with her mother back to the village and fill her empty cupboards with food. Then she’d pay a little visit to the eccentric billionaire Daniel Frey, as a guest of the Lodge at Evening Lake, who’d read the wonderful article about him in Forbes magazine. She’d gush. She’d flatter. She’d use all of her feminine wiles to draw him out, to get him to talk about Ben Libby. About Connor. And about the plane crash that had killed her father.

      CHAPTER THREE

      EARLY SUNDAY MORNING, Libby packed her bag in preparation for the trip to Evening Lake. In the past few days she had done much to improve her mother’s living situation. She’d stocked up on food, had the propane tanks filled, dragged all the rugs out and hung them on the line to beat them clean and let them air. She’d arranged for a home health-care visitor daily who would make sure her mother had a good lunch and took her medications. This would happen on the days Libby was absent. The home health-care worker was a government employee trained as a nurse’s assistant, who lived in the village and looked after the needs of the elderly. Marie, of course, wanted no part of this.

      “I can fix my own meals and swallow my own pills. I don’t need any help.”

      “Mom, you’re still very weak. Soon, you’ll start to feel much better but I’m going to be gone for a few days. I don’t want to worry about you.”

      “You’ve been gone for years to those fancy schools back East and I was just fine. I’ll be fine for a few days more.”

      “Please, Mom. You told me you liked Susan. She won’t stay long. Just long enough to make sure you eat at least one good meal a day. You’re too thin. That dress will look a whole lot better on you when you fill out. Besides, if we’re going to fish camp, you have to be strong.”

      Marie remained unconvinced. “Where are you going, Libby? You tell me you’re going away for a few days but you don’t tell me where.”

      Libby had already resolved to keep as much as possible from her mother. Marie would only get upset, and now was not the time to open Pandora’s box. “I’m going to visit friends. I’ve been away so long and there are so many people I want to see.”

      “You’re going to Evening Lake, aren’t you? After all this time you still can’t let it go.” Marie may have been weak from her anemia and sick from the anticancer medication, but her eyes were as piercing as ever and she knew her daughter well.

      “Mom, please. Just promise me you’ll let Susan check in on you while I’m gone. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Promise me.”

      “I promise I will let Susan in the house if you stay away from Daniel Frey.”

      Libby gave her mother an impulsive hug. “Eat your food, take your medicines and don’t worry about me.”

      As she climbed aboard the float plane she knew her mother wouldn’t let Susan in the house. Out of sheer stubbornness Marie would make life hell for that poor woman, who had promised Libby to watch her mother closely. “Don’t worry, Marie will be fine,” she assured Libby. “Your mother is one of the toughest ladies I know. Besides, she should start feeling much better soon.” Libby hadn’t a doubt about that, but now she was worried about Susan, who took her job very seriously and hadn’t a clue how ornery Marie could be.

      THE FLIGHT TO EVENING LAKE took less than an hour. In all her years of living in the village, of knowing that her father had drowned there, Libby had never been to see it. Had never wanted to see it. Never wanted to put her hand in the water and know that her father’s bones were hidden in the dark cold depths. Even now a part of her dreaded seeing the lake, and as the plane headed north and west she stared out the window with a heart that beat a painful rhythm. Then suddenly the plane skimmed over a ridge and she was looking at a huge body of water shaped like a giant horseshoe, the deep curve on the southernmost end and two parallel arms, divided by perhaps a mile of timbered forest, stretching north. Several small rivers fed the lake along both of the upper arms, and a big river flowed out of it in the curve of the southern shore, the same river where they’d found the plane’s pontoons. She could see it snaking through the spruce and she could just make out the rapids where the pontoons had gotten hung up.

      She studied the surface of the lake, but it gave up no secrets. The water looked black and cold near the outlet, while the west arm that stretched toward the glaciers was streaked a thick milky blue in places with glacial silt. There was still some ice in the deeper coves, but most of the lake was open. The plane lost altitude quickly, and soon she could see the buildings. Both lodges were on the southernmost end of the lake, near the outlet but on opposite shores and about half a mile apart. Which was Frey’s? She didn’t know. One lodge appeared much larger than the other, and she supposed this would be the place she was staying.

      But she was wrong. The plane landed and taxied to the dock fronting the smaller property. She was greeted by the owner of the lodge, a stout friendly woman in her early forties. “I’m Karen Whitten.” She smiled and extended her hand. “Welcome to the lodge. My husband, Mike, is guiding, but you’ll meet him tonight. I’ll have your bags brought to your cabin. Come on up. You’re just in time for lunch, though most of the guests won’t show up until supper time. Fishing. I swear, you’d think the world turned around fly rods and lake trout.”

      Libby followed Karen up the ramp. The main lodge was cozy and small, with four guest rooms, a big kitchen, a vaulted living room with a handsome fieldstone fireplace and a friendly dining room. There were three small guest cabins to one side of the main lodge, and two employee cabins to the other. Karen showed her to her little cabin, complete with a tiny bath and a woodstove for heat. “This is just perfect,” Libby said.

      Karen herself served up the lunch, and the two women shared it in the kitchen. “So, are you here to fish?” Karen asked, ladling Portuguese kale soup into big earthenware bowls and setting a fresh loaf of crusty bread and a knife on the table.

      “Not exactly,” Libby replied, having carefully thought out her story. “I read an article in Forbes magazine about Daniel Frey, Ben Libby’s partner, and after reading it I thought, wouldn’t it be nice to write something about Ben Libby and all the good things he did with his money to help other people, especially since one of my college scholarships was funded by the Libby Foundation.” Libby paused. “My friends always teased me about that scholarship. They said I got it because of my name, which was a fortunate coincidence. Anyway, who better to talk to about Ben Libby than Daniel Frey? Since I was sick of Boston and it was time for a vacation, I put the three together and here I am.”

      “From what I understand, Ben Libby was quite a philanthropist,” Karen said. “I just hope Mr. Frey will talk to you. He’s pretty reclusive. We’ve been here for two years and have yet to meet him. Mike and I have gone over a couple of times, knocked on his door, left a pie once and a loaf of sourdough bread with the employee who answered it. But if he was home either time, he wasn’t entertaining visitors.”

      Libby would have inhaled the soup if she’d been alone. She buttered a piece of the crusty bread and took a big bite. The warm yeasty flavor nearly brought tears to her eyes. Marie should be here, eating this food and getting strong. “Well, I guess I’ll just have to hope that he’ll want to give Ben Libby the accolades he deserves. All I can do is go over there and ask. Do you have guides for hire here?”

      “Oh, yes. Three, not counting Mike. Joe Boone used to work for Frey and Ben Libby when they first built the lodge. You might want to talk to him, too. He’s out guiding a couple of fishermen now but he’ll be back around supper time.”

      After lunch Libby walked down to the dock again and stood looking out over the lake. The wind was blowing just the way Dodge said it would, through that high mountain pass and across the water. It was strong enough to put a pretty good chop on the lake’s surface.