by Cindi Myers
“Didn’t you just buy some?” Lacy asked. Before Bette could reply, she laughed. “I probably shouldn’t have eaten so many of those cream puffs last night—cream puffs, indeed. They’ll probably go straight to my hips. Let me get my purse and we’ll go right now. I’ll meet you by the car.”
Bette trudged through the snow to her cabin, torn over what to do next. She had thought to spare her friend pain by resigning from the catering job and quietly fading away. She could find some place in town to stay until the pass opened again. She would have to let Travis know her new address, of course. Otherwise, he might think she was trying to leave town to escape charges.
Was he going to press charges? Should she try to find a lawyer to represent her? The idea dragged at her like a lead coat. She had thought she was past ever having to deal with lawyers and courts and prison again. Yet here she was, being sucked right back into that life. Maybe the real reason so many people returned to prison wasn’t that they went back to a life of crime, but because everyone around them assumed they were guilty whenever anything bad happened.
She tried to push these worries aside and focus on having a good time with Lacy. As her friend drove, she chattered happily about the upcoming bridesmaids’ tea, the wedding, honeymoon plans and all the things that should capture a bride’s attention. Bette listened and nodded and faked enthusiasm. Whatever happened, she was determined it wouldn’t spoil Lacy’s happiness. She believed Travis wanted that, too, which meant he would do what he could to avoid making a big scene. For now, she would try to be thankful for that small consideration.
Eagle Mountain, with its beautiful setting and access to hiking, skiing, Jeeping and other outdoor activities, catered to tourists. The town’s main street was lined with shops selling everything from antiques to climbing equipment to T-shirts. Bette and Lacy spent the morning admiring the clothing in the boutiques and the decorative items in gift shops. Bette even purchased a ceramic chicken designed to hold a recipe card or ingredients list in its beak. She hoped after she left here the item would remind her of her friend—and not the sad way they had parted.
As they headed into the Cake Walk Café for lunch, Lacy hugged Bette. “I’m so glad you could be here for my wedding,” she said. “You are one of the dearest people in the world to me. I don’t know if I would have survived those years in prison without you.”
Bette returned the hug, struggling for composure. “You would have survived,” she said. “You’re a lot tougher than you look.”
Inside, they took a table by the window, looking out onto the town’s main street. Tall berms of snow formed a wall on each side of the pavement, and long icicles hung from the eaves, the sun highlighting intricate ice crystals. Under happier circumstances, the effect would have been magical.
After they had ordered, Bette said, “I always knew you were innocent of the charges against you.”
“How did you know?” Lacy asked.
“The man who died—your boss?”
“Andy Stenson.”
“He was stabbed, right?”
Lacy nodded.
“I couldn’t see you doing that—ever,” Bette said. “You’re just not that type. You don’t have a hair-trigger temper. You don’t get frustrated easily. If you didn’t like your boss, you would quit and find another job. You wouldn’t kill him.”
“No, I wouldn’t.”
Bette picked up the paper cover from the straw in her glass and began tying it in knots. “I don’t mean to bring up a painful subject,” she said. “But what Travis did to you—accusing you of murder and sending you to prison—it was so awful.”
“Yes.”
“You used to talk about how much you hated him. And now it’s easy to see how much you love him. What happened to change that?”
Lacy traced a line of condensation down the side of her water glass with one finger. “I guess I learned to see past my anger to Travis himself,” she said. “To the kind of man he really is. He arrested me not because he disliked me personally, but because he believed at the time that it was the right thing to do. A man had been killed and he believed the man’s family—his widow, Brenda—deserved justice. That’s not just an abstract term to Travis. He really believes in it. Which is why, when he found evidence that proved I was innocent, he did everything in his power to see that I was released, and the real killer apprehended.”
The tender expression on Lacy’s face when she spoke of her fiancé made Bette feel teary again. Or maybe that was just her general state of mind today. She touched her friend’s hand. “You’re a very lucky woman.”
Lacy nodded. “I am.”
Bette frowned. “Did you say the murdered man’s widow was Brenda? Is that Dwight’s wife?”
Lacy nodded. “Brenda Prentice was Brenda Stenson. It’s kind of crazy, all the connections. But that’s part of life in a small town.”
“And she never held her husband’s death against you?” Bette asked.
“I don’t think so.” Lacy squeezed her hand. “Forgiveness is a really powerful thing.”
After lunch, they headed to the grocery store to buy the cream Bette needed. As they headed up an aisle from the dairy section toward the cash registers, they had to squeeze past a tall gray-haired man, his shoulders hunched. He turned to look at them and Bette gasped and stepped back.
The man grinned. “Hello, Bette,” he said. “Somebody told me you were here in town. Small world, isn’t it?”
Bette grabbed Lacy’s hand and pulled her toward the cash register. She all but threw her money at the startled clerk and hurried out of the store.
Lacy caught up with her in the parking lot. “What was all that about?” she asked, a little breathless.
“Let’s just go.” Bette tugged at the handle of the locked passenger door on Lacy’s car.
“All right.” Lacy unlocked the car and slid into the driver’s seat.
Bette leaned back against the seat, trying to control her breathing. She watched the exit of the store to see if the man followed them out, but he did not.
“Who was that back there in the store?” Lacy asked as she turned onto Main Street. “Why did he frighten you?”
“I knew him as Carl. Just Carl. No last name.” She shook her head. “He was a friend of Eddie’s. He was one of the bank robbers.”
“Oh,” Lacy said, the one syllable full of understanding. “What is he doing in Eagle Mountain?”
“I don’t know.”
Lacy pulled the car to the curb and stopped. “I guess I understand why seeing him would have been a surprise, but why are you so terrified? I mean, you’re trembling.”
Bette clenched her hands in her lap. “I guess I—he was a really good friend of Eddie’s. I thought, maybe Eddie sent him after me.”
“Why would Eddie do that?” Lacy asked.
“Eddie threatened to kill me if I told the police anything about the robbery and any of the people in it,” Bette said. “Of course, I testified at my trial about what I knew. Everyone but the getaway driver had already been arrested and the police had more than enough evidence to convict them. Nothing I said added to that. But Eddie might not have seen it that way.”
Lacy turned off the car and unbuckled her seat belt. “We need to tell Travis this right away,” she said. “That man may be the one who attacked you the other day.”
Bette looked over and realized they were parked in front of the sheriff’s department. The last person she wanted to see right now was Travis Walker. But Lacy was right. Carl might be the key to the whole crazy mess she was in.
Chapter Twelve
“Tell me about these guys we’re going to talk to,” Cody said as he rode with Travis toward town. All the coffee he’d drunk at breakfast in an attempt to be more alert after a sleepless night had left him wired and jittery. He welcomed this expedition to interview two suspects as a distraction from thoughts of Be
tte.
“Alex Woodruff and Tim Dawson,” Travis said. “They’re undergraduates at Colorado State University, where Emily is doing her graduate studies. She knows them casually. Their story is that they came up here to ice climb and got stranded when the road closed earlier this month. They’re staying at a vacation cabin that belongs to Tim’s aunt.”
“Does their story check out?” Cody asked.
“I didn’t have any luck getting in touch with the aunt, but the cabin is registered to her. They are students and they do climb.”
“Why are they suspects in the murders?” Cody asked.
“They can’t account for their whereabouts when the first two women—Kelly Farrow and Christy O’Brien—were killed. They were at the ranch the day Fiona Winslow died. I want to ask them what they were up to the night Lauren Grenado was murdered.”
“There are two of them and you think two men are responsible for the murders,” Cody said.
“I don’t have enough evidence to get a warrant to search their property, or to request hair and DNA samples to look for a match to what we’ve got,” Travis said. “All I can do is keep a close eye on them.”
The cabin where the students were staying was outside town, on a snow-packed Forest Service road. When Travis pulled up to the square log building with a rusting metal roof, it was clear the driveway hadn’t been plowed since the last storm. The windows of the house were dark and no vehicle sat under the attached carport. “Looks like no one’s been home in a while,” Cody said.
“Let’s take a look.”
Crossing to the house meant post-holing through thigh-deep snow. Cody followed Travis, instinctively taking up position behind and to the right of him, one hand on his Glock. The house might look deserted, but someone inside could be watching their approach, ready to ambush them when they got closer.
But no gunfire or other noise greeted them as they stepped onto the porch. The shades were drawn over the windows and the door locked. Cody looked around. Snow had settled and crusted over the firewood pile and an old bucket that sat overturned near the carport. “I don’t think anything here has been disturbed in a while,” he said.
“They must have gone back to Fort Collins when the road opened up.” Travis turned away and headed back toward his SUV. “I’ll contact the university and the police in Fort Collins and double-check with them.”
Back in the SUV, Travis put the vehicle in gear and turned back toward town. “Depending on when they left town, they couldn’t have killed Lauren Grenado,” he said.
“That place looks like it’s been empty more than a couple of days,” Cody said.
Travis nodded. “On one hand, it’s good to rule out innocent men.”
“On the other, it bites not having a good suspect for the murders,” Cody said.
“I need to stop by the office, if you don’t mind hanging out there awhile,” Travis said.
“No problem.” Cody stretched. “I’m desperate enough for work I’ll even fill out reports for you.”
As they approached the sheriff’s department, Travis said, “That looks like Lacy’s car parked out front.”
“What did she say when you told her about the rings?” Cody asked.
“I didn’t.” Travis sighed. “I knew it would upset her terribly if I told her about Bette, so I pretended I had found the rings in another drawer. I don’t like to lie to her, but I couldn’t think what else to do.”
“You don’t know that Bette took the rings.”
“I don’t. And maybe because of what happened with Lacy—that wrongful conviction—I’m more inclined than most to give a person the benefit of the doubt. There are a lot of things about what happened last night that don’t quite fit.”
He drove around behind the station and parked, then he and Cody entered through a back door. Adelaide met them in the hallway. “Sheriff, Lacy and—”
“Thanks, Addy. I saw Lacy’s car out front. I assume she’s in my office.” He moved past the older woman. Cody nodded to Adelaide, and followed Travis into his office.
He stopped short when he saw not only Lacy, but Bette, seated in front of Travis’s desk. Both women looked upset about something.
Travis moved behind his desk. “Close the door,” he said to Cody, then turned to Lacy. “What’s wrong? Has something happened?”
Lacy looked to Bette. She pressed her lips together, as if debating whether to speak, then said, “I saw a man in the grocery store just now—one of the other bank robbers. It...it frightened me. I don’t know why he’s here.”
“What this man’s name?” Travis asked.
“Carl. I just know him as Carl.”
Travis turned to his laptop. As he typed, Cody watched Bette, willing her to look at him. But she kept her head down, staring at her clasped hands in her lap.
“Carl Wayland,” Travis said after a moment. “He was released from the Englewood Federal Correctional Facility six months ago. This was his second conviction for armed robbery, and he has a record of a few other lesser crimes—auto theft, one count of menacing. He took a plea bargain in the bank robbery case, thus the lighter sentence.”
“What is he doing in Eagle Mountain?” Lacy asked.
“What do you think, Bette?” Travis asked.
Bette shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“Did he recognize you also?” Travis asked. “How did he behave?”
“Oh, he recognized me. He smiled and said someone had told him I was here.” She looked ill. “I don’t know, it just struck me as if...as if he had been looking for me.”
“Do you think he’s the person who attacked you on the road?” Cody asked.
“I don’t know. I still can’t remember anything about that attack.”
“Did he say anything else?” Travis asked. “How long he’s been in town, where he was staying—anything?”
“No. I didn’t give him a chance to say anything else. I just left.”
“Have you been in touch with him, or with anyone else who was part of that robbery, at any time since your release?” Travis asked.
“No! I don’t want anything to do with any of them.”
“Have any of them tried to contact you? Any phone calls? Letters? Other encounters?”
“No. Never.”
Travis angled the computer toward the women to show a mug shot of a man in his fifties with thinning gray hair and a wispy gray goatee. “Does he still look like this?” he asked.
“Yes,” they chorused.
“He was wearing a black leather jacket,” Lacy said. “And jeans.”
Travis swiveled the computer back around. “I’ll find him and try to learn what he’s doing here.”
Lacy took Bette’s hand. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go back to the ranch. Travis will take care of this now.”
Bette rose and the two women left the office. When they were gone, Travis looked up from the laptop again. “What do you think?” he asked Cody.
“I think Bette is terrified of this man. And I think she’s telling the truth.”
“I think so, too.” He stood. “Come on. Let’s go see if we can find Carl.”
“He’s not going to admit it if he is after Bette.”
“No. But we might be able to warn him off. A con with a record like his might think twice about going after a woman who’s under the protection of a couple of cops.”
“I like the way you think.” He followed Travis back outside, the image of Bette’s terrified white face haunting him. In all the time they had been in the office together, she had never once looked at him. It was as if he no longer existed for her. That hurt worse than if she had stabbed him in the heart.
* * *
WHEN BETTE AND Lacy returned from town, Lacy insisted on going over the seating list for the wedding reception, as well as reviewing the menu for bo
th the reception and the bridesmaids’ tea. Bette knew her friend was trying to distract her from her worries, and she was grateful for the attempt, but nothing could make her forget for long the shock of seeing Carl standing in the aisle in the grocery store in Eagle Mountain.
What was he doing here, unless he had somehow followed her? A man like Carl wouldn’t have any business in a small town like Eagle Mountain. She kept going over and over the events of the day she had been attacked. Had Carl been in the grocery store that day, too? Had he followed her back to the ranch?
But if Carl was targeting her, why would he do so? The bank robbery had occurred almost nine years ago. Bette had been out of prison eight months. If Eddie had been serious about exacting revenge for her testimony at his trial, surely he would have acted long before now.
Still, it seemed too much of a coincidence that Carl should be in Eagle Mountain, just when so many bad things had happened to her. Had Carl stolen Lacy’s and Travis’s wedding rings and hidden them in her cabin? She shook her head. That didn’t make sense, either. Carl would have kept the rings for himself. From what she remembered, he had a taste for theft. He had even bragged about things he had stolen, the way other men might boast about their times in a marathon or deals they had closed at work. Then again, theft was Carl’s work. As far as Bette knew, he had never held a legitimate job—something he had in common with Eddie, though she hadn’t realized it at the time.
She was still pondering all this when Travis and Cody returned to the ranch. Everyone else had finished supper, so the two men ate the food Rainey had saved for them and recounted their afternoon’s work. “We tracked Carl to the motel in town,” Travis said. “But by the time we got there, he had checked out.”
“He registered under the name of Charlie Fergusen and paid cash,” Cody said. “But the clerk recognized him when we showed her his photograph.”
“She says he checked in two days ago,” Travis said. “Shortly after the road closed. He said he was passing through and got stranded.”
Bette’s heart sank. “If he’s not at the motel, where is he?” she asked.