by B. J Daniels
He nodded and started to say it was nice seeing her again. But that would have been a lie. All the pain he’d felt before that phone call seemed like nothing compared to this.
Behind him, he heard Rachel’s cell phone ring. Once, twice... She picked up. “Shyla, hi. I’m glad you called.” She rose, the chair scraping as she headed back inside the house.
As he passed the front window, out of the corner of his eye, he saw movement. Rachel had lied. She wasn’t alone. He wasn’t even sure that had been Shyla on the phone.
Chapter Fifteen
“Tell me you found something,” Hitch repeated into the phone. If there was a drug in Humphrey Collinwood’s system, one that would have made him a walking zombie—
“We ran the entire spectrum of possible drugs,” the lab tech said. “I’m sorry. We found nothing.”
Nothing? Her mind whirled as she got up to pace her hotel room. She’d been so sure that in order to shoot her husband in the face the way she had, Rachel would have had to subdue him somehow. Otherwise, the reaction of a man who was beating his wife wouldn’t have been to just stand there while she pulled a gun. Had he charged her and Rachel got lucky, getting a shot off before he reached her? The marks on his back showed that he’d fallen backward, landing on the broken pottery and glass on the floor.
“Thanks for trying,” Hitch said into the phone, hating that she’d wasted the lab’s time and her own.
“Wait a minute. Lori’s here. She wants to talk to you.” She handed over the phone.
“Hitch, I heard about the lab tests you asked to be done. Bradley and I both looked on her computer for anything that might need to be red flagged.”
“I’m guessing she was too smart to look up How to Kill Your Husband and Make It Look Like Domestic Abuse.”
“No, but something came up that you might find interesting. Mrs. Collinwood did research a common drug used on horses called ketamine.”
Hitch sat up, feeling her pulse take off. Bingo. Hitch almost let out a whoop, before she caught herself. “But you didn’t find it in the drug tests you ran.”
“That’s because it leaves the system quickly. It works as an anesthesia and is often used on horses. The drug would have been readily available on the ranch. Mrs. Collinwood would have had access to it.” Hitch thanked her and quickly got off the phone.
She knew a little about the drug, but quickly looked up the symptoms, especially for large doses. The words leaped out at her.
Blocks sensory perception.
Distortion of environment.
Diminished reflexes.
Muscle rigidity.
Available in a clear liquid or powder form.
“I think I know how she did it,” Hitch said to the empty room, unable to hold back her excitement. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to convict Rachel Collinwood of murder. It was just another piece of a larger puzzle.
Her excitement waned. She had enough to confirm her suspicions—including that odd bruise on Rachel’s face. But she didn’t have enough for a conviction. Had there been a drug in Humphrey’s bloodstream, she could have wrapped up this case. There had to be a way to prove deliberate homicide because all her instincts told her that Rachel Collinwood was lying. She couldn’t bear the thought that she hadn’t done a good enough job and the woman might get away with murder.
At a sudden pounding at her hotel room door, Hitch quickly opened it. Her mind was already wondering, what now?
“Are you going to let Rachel get away with murdering my son?” Bart Collinwood demanded as he pushed his way into her room.
“I’m still gathering evidence,” she said and hurried to gather up the papers and photographs she had strewn across her bed. She finished and turned to look at him. His face was flushed with anger and grief. Her heart went out to him because she felt his frustration only too well.
“I know my son.” He shook his head angrily, looking close to tears. “He would never have laid a hand on her unless...”
She felt her pulse jump. “Unless?”
Bart looked away. “He just wouldn’t have.”
She knew even before she asked the question. “He’d hit her before?”
“No, no,” he said at once. “Not my son.”
She saw him swallow and knew.
“My wife and I....” He couldn’t meet her gaze.
“Your son saw abuse at home is what you’re saying.”
His head rocked up. “Not like you’re thinking. I lost my temper and slapped my wife in front of him once. Humphrey was horrified. He never forgave me or believed it had never happened before or since.”
She wasn’t sure she believed him. “You’re worried he might have done this,” she said.
Bart looked ready to deny it with a vengeance. “You don’t know what Rachel is like,” he said instead, biting off each word. “She antagonized him, belittled him, did everything in her power to provoke him.”
“You’re saying she asked for it?” She couldn’t keep the edge out of her voice.
“No, that’s not what I’m saying,” he snapped, looking like a man who wished he’d kept his mouth shut.
“Mr. Collinwood, domestic abuse is often generational.”
He let out a curse. “I only lost my temper that one time. I’ve regretted it ever since.”
“It’s that attitude—”
“Oh, please. You’re just looking for an excuse to let her off. She murdered my son. Humphrey never raised his hand to her. He didn’t do this. I’m telling you. I don’t know how she pulled it off, but that woman set this whole thing up.”
“What if you’re wrong and he lost his temper? What if he did do this?”
Bart Collinwood met her gaze and she saw the doubt that she knew had been lurking in there, the fear and guilt. What if he was more like his father than even Bart had realized?
* * *
FORD DIDN’T FEEL better as he left the ranch after seeing Rachel. He thought about driving home to Big Sky, but it was dark and late enough that he knew he should wait until morning. Even as he thought it, a part of him wanted to see this all the way through. But rationally, how long was that going to take?
Hitch had her suspicions, but that was about all, from what he could tell. This could go on for weeks or even months before finally going to trial. He got the impression, though, that Hitch wouldn’t be on the case that long if she didn’t find something fairly soon.
Ford couldn’t believe how naive he’d been. He’d thought that by seeing Rachel one last time, he could find some kind of closure. If anything, his visit had made him even more suspicious and upset about the part he’d inadvertently played in all this. Worse, he kept asking himself, “What if Humphrey wasn’t an abuser? What if Rachel had lied about everything? Or what if Rachel is telling the truth but goes to prison for thirty years or more for only trying to save herself?”
He honestly didn’t know what to believe, except that Rachel had lied to him. His faith in her had been more than tarnished. He’d come here to save her—and had, since his statement about the phone call was on record now. His work here was over. He could get up in the morning and go back to Big Sky. Back to... That was just it. He didn’t know what he was going back to.
When he thought about what he’d almost done before her phone call, he felt foolish and embarrassed that he’d let himself fall that low. Maybe it was Humphrey’s senseless death and its repercussions, but he knew he’d never try anything that stupid again.
Tonight, though, just the thought of going back to the hotel and packing what little he’d bought since being here was too depressing. He kept thinking about Rachel and the shadow he’d seen at the window. He’d tried to tell himself it had been his imagination. But he knew better. Rachel hadn’t been alone. Who was in there with her that she hadn’t wanted him to see? The accomplice Hitch suspected had helped Rache
l stage the killing?
A set of bright headlights suddenly filled his rearview mirror. He flinched as his gaze went to his side mirror. Only minutes before, there hadn’t been another vehicle on this stretch of black two-lane. Not only did the driver have his high beams on, but he was coming up behind him way too fast. The damned fool acted as if he didn’t see him. Was the driver drunk?
Ford touched his brakes, but the act seemed to have little effect. He felt his initial alarm grow into fear. The driver wasn’t slowing down. He looked to the road ahead. There was no place to turn off the shoulder-less highway. Worse, the highway took a tight turn ahead as it dropped down through the hills and creek bottom.
He didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath until the vehicle behind him went flying around him and kept going. His breath came out in a whoosh. He realized that his hands were shaking. He’d been so sure that the driver was going to hit him. Slowing down, he tried to make sense out of the panic he’d felt only moments before. Was this another flashback? No, the driver had wanted him to think he was going to hit him and force him off the road—if not kill them both.
Ford stared after the red taillights. It had been a pickup, but that was all he could be sure of. He hadn’t even tried to get the license plate number. Pickups in this part of Montana outnumbered cars and even SUVs. It was probably some ranch hand anxious to get into town to see his girl.
But he knew that wasn’t what was bothering him. Had he, for that split second, thought Rachel’s accomplice was driving that truck? He had. Because of Hitch’s suspicions or his own? He thought about the threatening note she said someone had slipped under her door.
Well, it hadn’t been Rachel’s accomplice—if there was such a person, he thought with relief.
Until he came around a corner and saw the headlights coming right at him.
Instinctively, he turned the wheel hard to the right and hit his brakes as he went off the road an instant before the other vehicle swept past, only inches from hitting him. He left the pavement, flying off the road and down into the shallow borrow pit.
Something slammed hard against the undercarriage and then he was back up onto the highway before he got his pickup stopped in the darkness. His thundering heart lodged in his throat. He had a death grip on the wheel and was shaking inside.
His gaze quickly went to his rearview mirror, expecting to see the other driver and vehicle crashed in the ditch. But all he saw were taillights before they disappeared over the next rise.
Ford sat for a moment, fighting to catch his breath. The near miss had a tight grip on him, but to his surprise, it didn’t call up a flashback. He stared at the empty highway for a moment. His first instinct was to chase down the vehicle. Fortunately, he was thinking clear enough that he didn’t. It was long gone. Or maybe it had only gone back to the Collinwood Ranch.
Whoever had come flying around him had been the same pickup that had run him off the road. But did that mean that the person was involved with Rachel? There was only one way to find out.
He did a highway patrol turn in the middle of the empty two-lane and headed back toward the ranch.
Chapter Sixteen
It was getting late. Hitch had been parked in the pines on the mountainside overlooking Rachel Collinwood’s house long enough that she’d seen Ford arrive and leave. Soon after that, she’d spotted a pickup kicking up dust on one of the back roads on the other side of the house. Had it come from the ranch house and she’d just missed it? Or had whoever had been driving it parked at a distance and walked up through one of the ravines to the house?
The pickup was so far away and moving at a speed that she doubted she could catch up to it. Had whoever was driving the rig been at Rachel’s? If so, the driver had gone to a lot of trouble not to be seen. The accomplice? If so, there probably wouldn’t be any more visitors tonight.
She was thinking about leaving her hiding place and going back into town for something to eat when she heard a vehicle approaching. She glanced toward the road into the ranch. No headlights. She watched the dark shape as it headed slowly in her direction. She reached for her weapon.
Setting the loaded Glock next to her right thigh, she waited, curious who was joining her on the side of the mountain. One of the hired hands? Was this secluded spot with the great view a make-out spot? She recognized the pickup even before she recognized the broad shoulders behind the wheel. Ford made several attempts to get his driver’s-side door open and had to put one of those broad shoulders into it. What was wrong with his door? she wondered. It was the lawman in her that she noticed such things.
The bigger question was what he was doing here.
As he reached for her passenger-side door, she unlocked it and watched him climb in. “Couldn’t sleep?” she asked.
“Probably for the same reason you couldn’t,” he said. She saw that he’d brought his own binoculars. Had he also brought his own gun? He glanced at hers lying against her thigh, then turned to look through the binoculars, glassing the house below them.
“Seems we both had the same idea,” she said.
Without looking at her, he said, “Been here long?”
“Long enough,” she said and studied him. “How was your visit with Rachel?” He looked pale even in the dim starlight and she realized there had to be a reason he’d come back after leaving. “Are you all right?”
“I had a close call on the way into town.”
“How close?” she asked, feeling her heart do a little bump.
“Close enough to make me question what’s going on.” He sounded as if that was hard to admit.
“What happened?” She thought she might have to drag it out of him, but he continued after a moment.
“Rachel was acting...oddly. She said she was alone, but I don’t think that was true. After I left, a pickup came roaring up behind me and then passed me and kept going over a hundred. I thought it was just some reckless kid until I realized that the driver had gone up the road and turned around and was coming right at me. If I hadn’t taken the gully...”
Hitch couldn’t speak for a moment. Hadn’t she feared something like this might happen? “That’s when you sprung your driver’s-side door.”
“Apparently, since it was fine before that,” he said.
“Was it something you said to Rachel?” she asked. “Or something she said?”
He still had the binoculars up, watching the ranch house. “I might have asked too much about Humphrey and the past. Then I saw someone in the house even though she swore she was alone. As I was leaving, she got a phone call. Supposedly it was Shyla, but I’m not sure she was truthful about that either, especially since not too many miles down the road, someone driving a pickup ran me off the road. I know you don’t believe in coincidence—”
“That’s a lot of coincidences,” she said. They were quiet for a long moment. “If Rachel thinks you suspect her and might do anything to recant what you’d heard on the phone...”
“I won’t change my story, because it was the truth.”
She nodded. “Still, if she thinks you aren’t on her side anymore, it could get dangerous.” Picking up her binoculars, she studied the house for a moment. Wasn’t this what she’d feared might happen? “You need to go back to Big Sky.”
He seemed to ignore that. “Is there another way into the ranch besides the main road?”
She lowered the binoculars for a moment to study his face. His binoculars were trained on the house. “Isn’t there always, if you know the ranch well?” she said. “You think he came back here?”
“I didn’t pass him on the highway.”
“About the truck—I’m assuming you didn’t get the license plate number.”
He shook his head. “Just a set of bright headlights. But as it went flying by, I caught a glimpse of it. Dark colored. Large pickup. Probably a king cab. That’s about it. Except it
had a large guard grille on the front of it.”
It sounded like the pickup that had been parked outside the morgue. “You didn’t see the driver?” He shook his head. She could tell the entire episode—from his visit to Rachel, to him coming up here—had shaken him. He had wanted so desperately to believe in the woman he’d loved. Maybe still loved.
“We’re probably wasting our time tonight,” Ford said. “If you’re right, Rachel planned all this too well. She’ll know she’s being watched. She’s too smart to mess up now.”
“Maybe,” Hitch said. “But if we’re right, her accomplice has already gone off script. Him and his recklessness is her Achilles’ heel. I suspect it was his stupid idea to scare you earlier. She won’t like it. All he’s done is make you more suspicious. She can’t have any mistakes at this point. She doesn’t need a hothead trying to protect her—but then, that’s how he would have gotten involved in the first place. He had to think he was saving her by helping her get rid of her husband. Why not get rid of you, as well?”
He lowered his binoculars to glance at her. “Which means the accomplice isn’t as smart or as patient and composed as Rachel,” he said.
“He’s already made one mistake by running you off the road. I doubt it will be his last. Let’s just hope that you’re smart enough to get out of town before the next mistake the man makes kills you.”
He chuckled at that. “I’m assuming that’s the way you dispense advice? Did anyone ever tell you that you’re a scary woman?”
She laughed. It felt good to laugh. She’d been worried about Ford because he was so dang trusting and because of how he felt about Rachel. After tonight, maybe his eyes were finally open. Hopefully now he would take her advice and go back to Big Sky, where he should be safe. He was a nice guy. She didn’t want to see him hurt any more than he had been.
The dark night, the closeness inside her SUV, the slight summer breeze coming in her cracked open window all made her feel strangely vulnerable, as if she had more in common with this man than she could have ever thought. “You’re not the first person to think I’m scary. My ex mentioned it on his way out the door,” she said and laughed again. It didn’t come off as light as she’d meant it. She could feel his gaze on her.