Lake Roosevelt Read online

  “What can I get for you, stranger?”

  So the handsome man was passing through as she was. Interesting.

  “I’ll have what she’s having,” he said, his voice deep and sexy. “That looks amazing?”

  “I’ll let you know in just one bite,” Kelli said.

  Then as the woman and the handsome man watched, she cut a piece of the chicken fried streak that seemed far more tender than it should be, then making sure it had some white gravy on it, she put it in her mouth.

  Warm temperature, pepper taste to the gravy, and an explosion of tastes as she bit into the meat. How was this possible? The best clam chowder and now the best chicken fried steak. She had found heaven.

  It might take her a couple days on the treadmill at home to work this meal off, but she didn’t care. It was worth it.

  She gave a two-thumbs-up sign and both the handsome man and the woman behind the counter laughed.

  Damn, Kelli liked his laugh as well.

  “Drink?” the woman asked.

  “Coffee,” the man said. “Black, and a cup of the chowder.”

  Kelli ate while the handsome man checked his phone for messages, then put it away as the clam chowder was brought to him.

  “The spoon is sticking up in the chowder,” the handsome man said, sounding stunned, “and the chowder is cover in melted butter.”

  “It gets even better when you taste it,” Kelli said, glancing at him.

  And it was right at that moment, right as she was about to take another bite of the chicken fried steak, she knew she was looking at a ghost.

  Holy crap, how was that possible?

  She never forgot a face and a name, especially a handsome one. It was one of her many talents that helped her in her research.

  She glanced at the duster and hat hanging on the coat tree as the handsome ghost worked at the chowder.

  “Excuse me,” she said, trying her best to smile at him. “Can I ask you your name?”

  He nodded, wiped the chowder off his lips, and extended his hand. “My name is Jesse Parks.”

  She shook his hand, could feel the attraction, everything, except she knew somehow she was either looking at a ghost, or a man who had lived a very, very long time.

  Or she had just uncovered an amazing fraud.

  “Kelli Rae,” she said.

  “The writer?” he asked.

  She nodded and let go of his hand, even though she didn’t want to. She wouldn’t have minded holding that hand and other parts of him for some time.

  Then she slid off her stool and pointed to the steak. “Don’t let her take that. I’m far from done. I just need to get my laptop.”

  Jesse Parks looked puzzled, his green eyes suddenly filled with worry.

  She laughed. “Don’t worry. I just have to show you something. You remind me of someone is all.”

  With that she went out the door and to her car and quickly fished out her laptop.

  There had to be a logical explanation for what was happening. He wasn’t really a ghost or a very long-lived man. She knew that wasn’t possible. Maybe he had a family member or something along those lines.

  But this was really the strangest thing she could have ever imagined. She just hoped this didn’t get in the way of jumping that handsome man’s body in a hotel room somewhere around here.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  July 14th, 2016

  Oregon Coast

  JESSE INSTANTLY WORRIED he had done something wrong as Kelli, in her short jean cut-offs and light shirt, went out the door. The state cop sitting in the booth working on a sandwich watched her out the window, just in case she was some sort of nut case who was running on her meal tab.

  Jesse knew that wasn’t the case, since he knew how rich Kelli really was. And taking anything was not in her make-up at all. She investigated historical crimes, not committed any.

  The woman came out of the kitchen and glanced at the back toward the restrooms.

  “She went to get her laptop,” Jesse said. “Warned me to not let you touch that, but it looks so good I’m tempted to sneak a bite.”

  The woman laughed. “Ya got your own coming.”

  At that moment Kelli came back through the door carrying a laptop computer without a case or anything. Jesse knew she had a black case for that, but more than likely had just left it in her car.

  She put the black computer down on the counter between them, opened it up and while it powered up, she took another bite of chicken fried steak.

  After a moment she expertly opened up a file and looked at it, shaking her head.

  Then she looked up at him. “You said you name was Jesse Parks?”

  Jesse nodded. What had she discovered about him.

  “You have family that were here in the Pacific Northwest back around 1908? A great-grandfather or something?”

  He shook his head. “All my family are from the east and Canada. I’m the first one out here. I live in central Idaho.”

  “How central?” she asked, looking up. Her dark eyes were intense and focused.

  “Valley County,” he said. “Near McCall.”

  “I got this picture from the Idaho Historical Society,” she said, indicating a picture on her computer. “I confirmed it to be authentic and from the archives of the photographer who was working in central Idaho mining towns around the turn of the last century.”

  “Okay,” he said, feeling very puzzled.

  “I have a perfect memory for faces and names,” she said. “That’s why you startled me when you introduced yourself.”

  She swung the laptop around so he could see it and slid it toward him, then went back to her steak.

  The picture was captioned “1908 Roosevelt, Idaho.” It showed three men in conversation and a woman with her back turned slightly to the camera looking at something behind the group.

  The photo was black and white and actually fairly clear. The three men were standing on a plank sidewalk and the main street of Roosevelt stretched beyond them.

  Roosevelt looked like most mining towns of that time, with some single-story buildings next to two-story buildings. There were signs on the buildings, but he couldn’t read any of them because of the angle of the photo.

  Clearly the men did not know they were being photographed since the woman was slightly blurry as were the hands of two of the men.

  Jesse was standing on the left of the picture, wearing his duster and cowboy hat.

  Along the bottom of the photo his name was printed there.

  And even more shocking was that beside him were Duster Kendal and Madison Rogers, with their names printed on the bottom of the picture as well. Duster was wearing his long coat and dark cowboy hat. Madison was wearing period clothing.

  Jesse knew Madison because Jesse had done the same kind of research he was doing on Kelli on Madison a few years before.

  Then Jesse looked down the counter at Kelli, at her short black hair, her size, and so on, and then back at the woman in the picture. In the weeks he had been studying Kelli Rae, he had seen photos of her from a hundred different angles.

  The woman with her back slightly to the camera was Kelli, dressed in riding clothes of the period. Of that he had no doubt.

  What the hell was going on?

  The picture had to be a fake, but how or why?

  And who would do something like this?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  July 14th, 2016

  Oregon Coast

  KELLI WORKED AT the fantastic chicken fried steak, but her attention wasn’t on the steak as much as she would have liked. It was on Jesse Parks’ reaction to the photo.

  At first he looked puzzled, then his handsome face turned white.

  Completely white as he stared at the photo. Shocked white was not a good color on his rugged, handsome face.

  Then, as she was taking another bite, he had glanced at her, then back at the photo.

  “This has to be a fake,” Jesse said, pushing the laptop back to her as his p
late full of chicken fried steak arrived.

  “Besides the fact that you couldn’t be in 1908, why do you think that?” Kelli asked, smiling and glancing at the picture.

  “Take a close look at the woman in the picture,” he said. “That’s you.”

  Kelli started to open her mouth, then actually looked at the woman half turned in the photo and knew instantly he was right. It was her in period clothes.

  “I know your books,” Jesse said. “Enjoyed them, actually. Someone must be pulling a publicity gag on you. Or trying to discredit your research in some way.”

  “Wow,” Kelli said, staring at the photo. “That is some fine work because I have fifty other pictures of the man beside you in this photo from other times and places throughout the west. That’s part of what made me think this was legit. And the style of the photographer who took it as well.”

  She started to close her laptop, shaking her head that she had made such a boneheaded research mistake when Jesse said, “Hold on, what do you mean you have other images of the other man?”

  “A lot,” she said. “He pops up from about 1880 to 1930 as a marshal in many western towns. He was a real person and his identity is authenticated in numbers of ways. He never got any publicity and has never been investigated. But he was an interesting man, of that there was no doubt.”

  Again the handsome Jesse Parks’ face had gone almost as white as the gravy on the chicken fried steak and he sat there, shaking his head. “Marshal Duster Kendal?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “How many pictures would you say you have of him?” Jesse asked after a moment.

  “Over fifty at least,” she said, frowning. “Maybe more. From a couple dozen different photographers and sources from all over the west. Duster Kendal was a major figure in the Old West. Why?”

  Jesse just sat there, staring at his food.

  “Give me a minute to try to explain,” he said. “Although I have no explanation for that picture. None.”

  Then he dug into his chicken fried steak and the color came back to his face.

  She went back to eating and they sat there in silence, not at all the way she had hoped this would end up.

  CHAPTER SIX

  July 14th, 2016

  Oregon Coast

  JESSE HAD NO idea what to do. None of this could be real, of course, but who could be playing that kind of scam on Kelli? And such an extensive scam.

  And including him and Duster and Madison in the picture? He had heard Bonnie call Duster “Marshal” numbers of times when they were together.

  But Duster had never met Kelli. Jesse knew that. And Jesse had only met Madison once since he had done all the investigating on him.

  So this just flat made no sense in any way.

  No one could tie the four people in that picture together in any way.

  He took another bite of the wonderful steak, then got off the stool.

  “Don’t let her take that,” he said to Kelli, pointing to his half-finished plate.

  “I think I heard that somewhere before,” she said, smiling.

  He laughed. “I’m going to make a phone call that might get us both an explanation of that picture.”

  Kelli looked stunned. “How could you do that? Who are you?”

  Damn, he was going to have to explain himself, tell her what he had really been doing. He had never had this happen in all his years of being an investigator.

  “I’ll explain when I get back in a second,” Jesse said and strode out the door without his hat and coat, the phone in his hand already dialing Duster’s number.

  He stood by his Jeep, looking out over the rough ocean, trying to calm himself. The cool ocean breeze helped a lot to clear his mind.

  After a moment, Duster answered.

  “Jesse,” Duster said. “How’s it going with Kelli Rae?”

  “Up until a few moments ago,” Jesse said, “just perfectly. She’s as clean as they come and as dedicated a historical researcher as I have ever seen.”

  “Great,” Duster said. “Thought so. So what happened?”

  “We’re on the Oregon Coast,” Jesse said. “I have no idea what’s she’s researching, but she’s been on the coast for a few days. I went into the same restaurant she was having dinner in a few minutes ago and she instantly recognized me.”

  “Slipping up there, old friend?” Duster asked, laughing.

  “No,” Jesse said. “She recognized me from a photo she had. The photo is of you and me and Madison standing on a sidewalk in Roosevelt, Idaho, in 1908. She was also in the photo, but she didn’t recognize herself until I pointed it out.”

  Silence.

  Duster Kendal said nothing.

  “You still there?” Jesse asked.

  “I am,” Duster said.

  “So who could pull this kind of scam on her,” Jesse asked, “with all of us included and why? Anyone but you and Bonnie know I’ve been investigating her?”

  “No,” Duster said.

  “Got any idea what is going on?” Jesse asked. “How Madison got into a picture like that?”

  “I do,” Duster said. “But I need to talk with Bonnie first. I’ll call you back in ten minutes.”

  “It’s going to be hard to hold her off that long,” Jesse said.

  “Take your laptop in with you,” Duster said, “and set it up for a video conference call. We will want to talk with her. You have my permission to tell her what you have been doing.”

  “So we are going to blow my cover,” Jesse said.

  “Yes,” Duster said. “But your job is clearly far from done.”

  With that Duster hung up.

  Jesse now was more confused than he had been when he came out of the diner. He grabbed his laptop from the back seat of his Jeep and went back into the wonderful-smelling diner.

  Kelli Rae glanced back at him and smiled. “Mystery solved?”

  “I think I just made it worse,” Jesse said, getting back on his stool and putting his laptop beside hers on the counter.

  “Worse?” she asked, looking puzzled.

  He nodded. “Yeah, a lot, lot worse. And honestly, this entire thing is making me angry. Take a look at the third man in that picture.”

  Kelli frowned and opened up her laptop, going easily back to the picture.

  “Do you know the name under the third man?”

  “Not from the past,” she said. “He shows up in numbers of pictures, but usually not credited.”

  “Think of that name today and put the word doctor in front of it,” Jesse said, taking another bite of the wonderful steak, then pulling off a piece of the soft roll. He needed the wonderful food to keep him calm here.

  “Sure,” Kelli said, shrugging. “There’s a famous historian by the name of Madison Rogers. He writes mostly about the mine wars in Montana.”

  “And he’s married to…?” Jesse asked.

  “Historian Dawn Edwards,” Kelli said, glancing at the picture again. “Her most famous book is about this town in the picture.”

  “I know both of them,” Jesse said.

  “You do?” she asked, looking up into his eyes.

  “You are not going to like this part,” he said.

  “Fire away,” she said.

  “I’m a private investigator who has a firm in McCall, Idaho, and I sometimes have done background checks on mathematicians and historians for a certain client. I did one on Dawn Edwards and on Madison, the same Madison in that fake picture.”

  “Oh,” was all Kelli said.

  That was more than Jesse could think to say at the moment.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  July 14th, 2016

  Oregon Coast

  “THIS IS JUST flat weird,” Kelli said. Then what he had said suddenly dawned on her. “You are investigating me?”

  Jesse pushed his plate forward and turned to face her. He was more handsome than she had realized before. And he didn’t look happy. She didn’t blame him and she was a long way from happy. A long
damn ways. She never expected to run into a nut case tracking her out here. Especially such a good-looking one.

  He nodded. “I am.”

  He then opened his laptop and got it going. “The couple who hired me to look into you would like to talk with you.”

  He pointed to the screen.

  “And why would I want to talk with them?” she asked, feeling just about as angry as she had felt in a damn long time. She didn’t often get really angry, but when she did, and lost control, it was never a pretty sight.

  “Because that picture, when I told my client about it, rocked him. And honestly, I want to find out what the hell is exactly going on as well. That picture is not possible.”

  “It’s a fake,” she said, disgusted. “What’s the big damn deal?”

  “No doubt it’s a fake,” he said. “But how?”

  “Some discrediting stunt as you said. Did you set it up?”

  “You were the one that showed it to me, remember?” Jesse said. “I had no intention of doing anything but having lunch here, saying hello, and then heading back to Idaho with my job done.”

  “So did I come clean?” she asked, her words biting.

  “I don’t make judgments, I just investigate,” he said. “But here is the key with that picture. Only the couple who hired me know I was doing a background check on you. For what reason, I have no idea. They did not tell me, but I would trust both of them with my life.”

  “So,” she said, wishing the woman from the kitchen would come out of the back so she could pay and just get the hell out of here. At least the state cop was still sitting in the booth behind her if there was a problem.

  “When did you get that picture?” he asked.

  “About a year ago,” she said, suddenly realizing how impossible that was as well.

  Jesse went on. “I had never heard of your name a year ago. They did not create that picture and you didn’t and I didn’t create it, yet you found it a year ago and recognized me in it and showed it to me. Something is going on we both need to know about, don’t you think?”