Afternoon sun glinted spectacularly off the waters of Payette Lake, forcing Kaylie Carter to pull her wayfarer sunglasses down off her wavy brown hair. The scent of sun-warmed sand wafted on a cool breeze that also carried the raucous sounds of kids playing and bluejays squawking as they looked for picnics left unguarded.
Kaylie had to watch her step as she made her way down the twisting path to the lakeshore, past gnarled pine roots. She was carrying a big bowl of her raspberry-peach fluff salad, and definitely didn’t want to dump it all over her jeans and Teva sandals.
Her mom saw her and waved. “You made it, Kaylie! Come on, Joe’s kids just got in the water. It’s perfect out here.”
Kaylie smiled and hurried across the sand to join the small crowd at the water’s edge. It was one of those early autumn days after a crisp week when it almost felt like summer again, for a few hours in the afternoon. The night would be chilly, but for now a hundred other residents of McCall, Idaho, all seemed to agree that it was the last good opportunity to enjoy the beach before cooler weather set in.
Her parents were both there, and her brother’s family were already enjoying the water. Aunt Hilde was there as well, hiking up her hippie dress so she could stand in the lake up to her ankles.
The little lake resort town was down to just a few thousand full-time inhabitants now, the summer tourist crowds having dried up a few weeks earlier and the winter sports enthusiasts waiting on winter snows to blanket the area’s mountains. That left plenty of room for local families, sunbathers, picnickers and paddle-boarders along the state park’s long beachfront.
Kaylie walked along the water’s edge, side-stepping to avoid a little wave lapping at her sandal. She waved at one of her brother’s three-year-old twins, and then felt her toe snag on something buried in the sand.
She lurched, tried to catch herself, and nearly fumbled the bowl of whipped salad. Her reflexes kicked in just in time to regain her footing without laying herself out on the beach, but the raspberry-peach concoction slopped wildly in the bowl. The lid came open and Kaylie felt a wet, sticky splash hit her shirt. When she looked down, there was a broad channel of creamy fruit salad running from her stomach to her thigh and dripping onto her feet.
“Ohhhh. Ugh.”
Staggering onward, she made it to the picnic table where her family was stationed and added the rescued whipped salad to the pile of chips, drinks, and pulled pork sandwiches. Then she put down her phone and keys.
“Hey there, sis,” her younger brother Joe said through a bite of a large cookie. “Glad to see you’re still quick on your feet, even in your thirties.” Joe was lounging back on a folding camp chair, shirtless, with bright blue board shorts and a ball cap covering his close-cropped brown hair. “What kept ya?”
Kaylie shrugged and took a handful of napkins to swab at her shirt and pants. “Had to finish up some things at the archery shop. A vendor dropped off some targets I ordered, and I wanted them ready to go for tomorrow morning.”
“Why? Bowhunt doesn’t start for another week.”
The napkins were just smearing the mess around on her clothes. Kaylie sighed and grabbed a can of pineapple soda pop. She regarded her brother with a wrinkled brow as she popped and sipped the sweet drink.
“Better stick to police work, Joe. In retail you have to plan ahead. People have been getting their hunting equipment ready for the last month or two. I sold out of all my most popular arrows and arrowheads already.”
“Ah.” Joe grinned. “Well, you see, we cops just wait around chewing donuts all day until somebody commits a crime. Then we go into action. Like the fire department: no need for planning or thinking ahead!”
Joe had graduated and joined the McCall PD a year earlier. He wasn’t the most experienced in the department, but Kaylie had heard he was well-liked and a good cop so far. She rolled her eyes at his sarcasm and gestured at his cookie. “Where did you get that thing? I think I need one.”
Joe pointed at the package on the table, but right then Kaylie’s sixty-year-old mother, Piper, came over.
“Sorry about your shirt, sweetie.” Piper was sporting an elegant dark purple swimsuit cover, with her graying hair tied up in a bun. She pushed the cookies farther away on the table. “Dinner first, Kaylie. Those are for after.”
“Joe’s already eating one!”
Her brother quickly shoved the remaining half of his jumbo-sized cookie into his mouth and held up empty hands to show that he was innocent.
As Piper turned and fixed her police officer son with an accusing glare, Kaylie saw her own opening and sneaked a big macadamia-nut cookie from the package. Then she hurried over to the water before her mother could say anything more.
She watched her brother’s three kids for a moment, splashing in the shallows with their mom, Rachel, who waved at Kaylie. The twin toddlers were dumping sand on each other, and the baby was sitting right where the cool lake water ran up around her chubby legs whenever a passing boat’s wake ran into the shore.
It looked like fun, and Kaylie regretted leaving her swimsuit at her cabin home across town. She had half a mind to plop down next to him since her clothes were a mess anyway.
Then her dad came up next to her. “Fine day out here!”
“Sure is!” Kaylie grinned at her graying father, Paul, in his collared shirt and trousers. It would take more than a fine day to get him in the water with the kids. He wasn’t as young as he used to be, and he was stooping slightly as if his back wouldn’t allow him to straighten out all the way.
“Did you try my pulled pork?” he asked.
“Not yet. But I will, if you’ll eat some of my fruit salad.” Kaylie tried to put an arm around her father, but he kept away.
“Looks delicious, but I’ll have mine in a dish,” Paul said, eyeing her stained shirt.
“Oh, all right.”
“Hey, speaking of dishes, Kaylie, do you need a good teapot? You drink herbal tea in the morning, don’t you?”
“I do, yes,” Kaylie said, wrinkling her face. “You’re getting rid of a teapot?”
“You could say that. It’s fine china from the 1890’s. I got a killer deal on it online. It’d be a real steal!”
Now Kaylie understood. Paul had discovered eBay a few years previously, and claimed to make back more than he spent on all his finds. Kaylie wasn’t so sure
“I’m sure you’ll find a good buyer online, dad. But tell me, how are you feeling these days? Are you going to be up to tracking a deer all over the mountains with me next week when we go hunting?”
Paul nodded slowly. “If you’ll place your shot well, I won’t have to. Just drop that buck where it stands.”
“I’ve been practicing every day in my little indoor archery range at the shop. But I need to get outside and do some distance shooting more often.”
“I love to see you finally getting into the outdoorsy stuff,” her dad said. “When you went off to school I thought maybe you were done with mountain life for good.”
“Well, I discovered archery when I was working at summer camp, and now that I’ve finally got my store running smoothly, I have more time and money to invest in side hobbies like trying my hand at hunting.”
“Good. First step, one of us needs to get up there on the mountain this weekend and do some glassing. See where all the bucks are at.”
“Let’s make Joe do it,” Kaylie cracked, but inwardly she thought an outing in the mountains this time of year sounded nice, deer or no deer. “Oh, and Dad, I’m going to use my traditional bow on the hunt. And one of my own wooden arrows.”
“Those ones you make yourself?” Paul glanced over at her, a serious look on his lined face. “Bowhunting’s tricky enough with modern equipment, Kay. You sure you want to tempt fate your first time going after a deer?”
She nodded. “I really do. There’s just something I love about the feel of a wooden bow in my hands, and a hand-crafted arrow. It just isn’t the same with steel and carbon and plastic.”
“Hmmm. And you’ve been practicing with traditional equipment?”
“Sure have. You should stop by the shop and see some time: I can nail my foam deer target in the kill-zone every time now.”
“Well, okay then. I’d be a very proud dad if my daughter took her first buck with a wooden arrow she made herself. Can’t wait to tell the other fellows about it at bingo night, down at the senior citizen center!”
Kaylie looked her dad in the eye, trying to gauge whether he was joking. “Bingo night?”
Paul’s mouth split into a wide grin under his gray moustache. “Maybe I’m not quite that old yet. But getting close, the way my back’s been acting up. Hey, is that lady waving at us?”
Paul pointed at a woman standing on the end of a dock about a hundred yards away, south along the beach. She was taller than Kaylie, with black hair, olive skin, and a bright green swimsuit on. She was slowly waving a long white paddle at them.
“Oh, that’s Risa!” Kaylie waved back enthusiastically. “She owns the cafe next to my archery shop. Have you met her?”
“Don’t think so. She lives right on the lake here?”
“Yeah, I’ve been to her place a few times. She’s super nice.” Kaylie changed her “hello there” wave into a full-arm “come on over here” wave, exaggerated so Risa could see what she was doing.
Risa waved back and stepped off her dock onto a long paddleboard, starting off in their direction.
“I wish we had a paddleboard,” Rachel said, wading up to Paul and Kaylie through the shallows to their right. “Do you sell any of those at your shop, Kaylie?”
Kaylie shook her head at her sister-in-law. “Just archery stuff. There’s a rafting business down the street that might.”
The vivacious younger woman, dressed in a flamboyant sunhat and shorts over a lavender swimsuit with wide pink glasses, grimaced. “I feel like there are more rafting shops and river guides in McCall than there are restaurants.” Rachel had moved up from Boise when Joe married her, and was still acclimatizing to mountain life. “This town could use something besides pizza and burgers.”
“That’s definitely true,” Aunt Hilde said, coming over with Rachel’s youngest in her arms. She also had a sunhat on, this one woven out of straw she probably grew herself, with flower-shaped glasses. “Has anyone been to the new pita place? Kaylie, you and I should try it out for lunch some time.”
Before Kaylie could reply, Joe joined the group and put his arm around his sister. “You know, that water sure looks nice. Doesn’t it look nice and wet, Kaylie?”
She planted her feet in the sand. “Oh, no. Joe, don’t even–”
“I just thought your shirt could use a rinse.”
“Get away from me!”
Too late. Her brother heaved her toward the lake with enough force that she splashed a couple of yards out into the water, staggered once, windmilling her arms, and then went over onto all fours. Turning around and spitting out a mouthful of lakewater, she shrieked.
“C-c-cold!”
Her brother was laughing out loud. Piper slapped her son reproachfully on the shoulder, but Aunt Hilde and Rachel couldn’t help giggling.
“Looks much cleaner now,” Joe called.
“Thanks, I guess,” Kaylie replied. She rubbed at her shirt in the water until it was free of whipped cream, and then sat back. Now that she was getting used to it, the water did feel just as good as the kids had made it look.
A second later Risa’s paddleboard approached over the slightly choppy water. A few more graceful strokes brought the woman close, standing upright with her paddle in her hands.
“Hi, Risa,” Kaylie said. “Don’t mind me. I enjoy jumping into lakes with all my clothes on sometimes. Hey, we’ve got a picnic going. Come join us!”
“You’re so kind,” the tall woman replied, grinning. “I was just going to see if I could paddle all the way up to Porcupine Point. But I’d love to meet your family first!”
Kaylie splashed up the beach onto the sand again, and Risa followed.
After a round of introductions (it turned out that most of the extended Carter family had been into Risa’s cafe at one time or another and loved the place) Kaylie and Risa and Piper all sat at the picnic table while Kaylie dried out.
“I wanted to tell you something,” Kaylie mentioned to Risa after the two older women had exchanged a few pleasantries. “Away from your employees.”
“My employee,” Risa corrected. The taller woman had a kind smile and a soft lilt to her words. “Amy’s my only staff now that Kenny left for the season. I have to pick up all the shifts Amy can’t do.”
“Away from Amy, then, and from my customers,” Kaylie continued. “I wanted to tell you first, since you helped me get into that space next to yours. And, Mom, you might as well hear it now too.”
“You’re not going out of business, are you?” Risa asked with a small gasp.
“Not exactly. Someone’s making me an offer.”
“To buy you out?” Piper responded, sitting up straight. “But you worked so hard to get that store going last year.”
“It’s been almost two years, actually.”
“Who wants to buy it?” Risa asked.
“Carl Pugmeier reached out and said he wants to broker a deal. Says he knows a guy who’d be interested. Hopefully someone who’d make a good neighbor for you, Risa.”
“Not as good as you’ve been. Are you going to accept it?”
Kaylie shrugged. “I feel like I just got settled in. But I suppose if the price is right, I’d consider it. What do you think?”
“Are your financials in good shape?” Risa asked.
Kaylie let out a sigh and looked down at her hands on the tabletop. “I’m profitable now, but only just. I have a way to go before I’ll have that small business loan paid off. Getting those numbers to add up every month is excruciating!”
Risa nodded sympathetically, but Piper leaned in with concern on her face. “Has somebody been embezzling from you?”
Kaylie glared at her mom. “Embezzling? You go straight to that, when you know I’m a sole proprietor?”
“Well, you hired an accountant, didn’t you?”
“Freelance. He doesn’t do much.” She looked out at the lake. “It’s a good business. I like my clientele, I like the hobby and all the equipment. I love seeing the joy it brings to people. But I’ll admit, this offer out of the blue has me wondering what else I could do with my life. I knew running a small business wouldn’t be easy, but it takes a lot of work to get established long-term.”
“I’ve put eight years into my cafe,” Risa admitted, “and it barely breaks even on any given month after payroll and expenses. But the tourist season always brings in just enough to keep going, to keep on living next to this gorgeous mountain lake.” She gestured at the expanse of blue water in front of them, dotted with small boats and a few water-skiers.
Kaylie grinned. “During the nice weather, anyway.”
“Well, yes. You don’t expect me to stay here with three-foot snow drifts on either side of the road, do you?” Risa smiled back. “Monterey needs me, honey.”
Kaylie told her mother, “Risa’s sister lives there.” She looked out across the water at a wakeboarder catching air, and sighed. “I wish I had a sister in Monterey. Or Cabo, or Florence, or Sydney. Somewhere interesting.”
“There’s the daydreamer in you, coming out again,” her mother said. “You have all this, a wonderful place to live and a business and friends and family nearby, and you want to go looking for something different.”
Risa looked over at Kaylie. “It isn’t really about the business so much, then. Is it?”
“I’ve lived here pretty much my whole life. It’s a wonderful place, but I just haven’t found everything I hoped for. And I don’t know if I’m ever going to find it if I just stay here, doing the same thing month after month.”
“Find what, exactly?”
Kaylie didn’t have an answer to that. She formulated a few different replies, but they all seemed incomplete at best, and she didn’t want to feed half-truths to such a respected friend.
Piper said, “Is it your ADHD, Kaylie?”
“Mom! That’s not it. I love being able to choose how I spend my day. This is about the opportunities I might be losing if I stay here in town for the rest of my life.”
Risa spoke up again. “Just do this, Kaylie, I beg you. Before you finalize anything with Mister Pugmeier, do some serious thinking about what it is you are looking for. Some real soul-searching. Then, wherever you go–whether down the street or up Mount Everest–you will stand a much better chance of actually finding it.”
Kaylie silently nodded, and her mother patted her knee approvingly.
Then Kaylie’s phone rang. As she reached over to grab it from the picnic table, Risa stood up.
“I’m going to head out,” she whispered as Kaylie answered her phone. “Stop by the cafe tomorrow, I want to hear more about this possible deal.”
Kaylie waved as the tall woman left, and her mother stood up to get some sandwiches ready for the kids.
She turned her attention to the phone call.
“Carl Pugmeier here,” a terse voice growled in her ear. “It’s about the sale of your business, your little bow-and-arrow shop.”
“My archery and bowhunting business. Yes.” Kaylie hoped the man had good news for her, but his tone wasn’t encouraging. “Any word from your prospective buyer?”
“Not until you clear up a little problem, Miss Carter.”
Kaylie’s heart dropped. “What little problem?”
“Not such a little problem, actually. You led me to believe your finances were in order, when they clearly are not. I do not appreciate being made a fool.”
“What?” Kaylie couldn’t imagine what the man was talking about. Her sales had been stable for the past several months. She stood up and started to pace under the pine boughs that shaded the sand. “Mister Pugmeier, I assure you, I’ve represented everything accurately.”
“And yet there seems to be a line of credit through Cascadia Bank, in your name and signed for with your business. An account which shows nearly forty thousand dollars of unpaid, past due expenses, along with a string of communications and warnings that have gone completely ignored, they tell me.”
“Forty thousand… what?!”
“Yes, Miss Carter, that’s what I said when I learned of this. It’s ruining your credit and your relationship with your business banking partners.
“But all of that is your problem, not mine. My problem is that I went to one of this town’s most respected buyers with your little proposal, trusting that you were on the up and up. And when he looked into it to see what precisely he would be purchasing, he found this mess. So now he thinks I’m trying to push a bad deal on him, and I don’t mind telling you, Miss Carter, that if you think for one minute–”
“Mister Pugmeier, please listen to me. I have no accounts of any kind through Cascadia Bank. This is a mistake.”
“Indeed. A very ugly mistake, and not the kind I have any interest in touching, not with a ten-foot pole. So it appears, Miss Carter, that either you have some debts you need to pay back before there will be any kind of business deal for you, or you have a fraud mess that will take you some time to clear up. Either way, I think I can safely say that our business relationship is at an end. As is this phone call! Good day to you.”
“Good day? Listen, Mister Pugmeier, are you saying that because there’s been some mistake with bank records somewhere, that you and I can’t–”
“Call it identity theft if you like. Call it a lot of money spent that shouldn’t have been. Call it whatever you want to, Miss Carter. I cannot broker a deal that is based on upside-down financing. You figure out your financial life, but do me a favor and leave me out of it from now on. Goodbye!”
The line went dead.
Identity theft. The phrase rang in Kaylie’s head like a reverberating gong, over and over. Identity theft.
How on earth was this happening?
“Sis? You okay?” Joe had wandered back over and was grabbing a root beer from the cooler stashed under the picnic table in the shade.
“Um, no, I don’t think so.”
Joe looked at her more carefully as he opened his can. “What’s up? Anything I can help with?”
“No. Well, maybe. Do you know anything about identity theft?”
Joe winced. “Uh-oh. That stuff takes months to get past. Sometimes years.”
Kaylie let out a very long breath, staring down at the sand in front of her. “Not what I want to hear, little brother.”
“Oh, man. Kaylie. Is it bad?”
“It just derailed a business deal for me.”
“Oh, no.”
Piper walked over. “What is it? Kaylie, are you okay?”
Kaylie looked at her brother. “Joe, hand me one of those. Actually, give me a whole six-pack.”
“You can’t get drunk from root beer, sis.”
“I’ll be the judge of that. My life just fell apart. Give me all the root beer in that cooler!”
“This is the last one.” Joe closed the cooler and moved away, protectively covering his soda can.
Kaylie sighed as her mother came over and put her arm around her.
It was going to be a very long week.
