Deadly Secret

by B. J Daniels

  “Do you really think I’m stupid enough to believe anything you say? At this point, you don’t have a lot of credibility with me.”

  Neither did he with her. “How is it you just happened to show up when we were about to rustle your cattle, Chisholm?”

  “Just luck, I guess,” he said without turning to look at her.

  She saw that they had reached the other side of the meadow and he was now leading her horse through the trees and up the mountainside to an outcropping of rocks. Did he think he could hold off seven men from there?

  “These men I’m riding with are dangerous. When they come back for me—”

  “What makes you so sure they’ll be back for you?” he asked. “I’m surprised they even let a woman ride with them to begin with. A woman would be a liability. Especially one named Jinx.”

  Her temper flared from the insult. “I can ride with the best of men.”

  He chuckled. “I noticed. But I would imagine it took more than that to get into a group of men like this one.”

  She knew what he was insinuating and wished she could kick him where it would hurt the most. It hadn’t been easy getting in with the rustling ring. She’d had to lie, cheat and steal. Fortunately that was as far as she’d had to go once she caught Rafe’s attention at a bar down in Big Timber.

  Rafe wasn’t the ringleader. He got his orders from someone else. But he was the one the others listened to. He’d put up a fight for her. The other rustlers riding with him hadn’t wanted a woman along, so she’d had to prove herself in their eyes. It wasn’t enough that she could ride a horse and shoot. She had to have something they needed—information. She’d given them Chisholm Cattle Company.

  Jinx grimaced at the realization that she was the one who was responsible if Dawson Chisholm got killed—and the way things were going there was nothing she could do to stop it.

  Unless there was a chance Dawson was working with Rafe. That would explain why he was here. She wouldn’t let herself worry about that right now. She had to keep her eye on her goal. Nothing could stop her. Not Rafe and all his men or this good-looking cattleman. When she got what she’d wanted, it would have all been worth it.

  But as she stared at the determined set of Chisholm’s broad shoulders, she wondered how high the price was going to get before this was over.

  Chapter 3

  Emma finished the sandwich. Her mind had been racing since Aggie left her alone in the small room of the abandoned old farmhouse. She’d listened, wondering if the woman was also staying here in this house. Where else could she be staying with every law enforcement officer in the state looking for her?

  Glancing toward the window, Emma considered using the tray the next time Aggie left it to try to pry off the boards. It would be no easy task, since someone—probably Aggie—had nailed them on with large nails that would be hard to remove even with a claw hammer.

  Not to mention what Emma would do after that. It was a two-story house. Was she going to throw out the mattress, then throw herself after it?

  Thinking of ways to escape was better than considering why Aggie had left her alive. What was she waiting for?

  Emma’s first guess would have been Hoyt making bail. Once he was out, if Emma ended up dead, that would pretty much seal his fate. Somehow Aggie would plant evidence, as she had with Hoyt’s third wife’s body, to make him look guilty of her death, as well.

  But Hoyt hadn’t been able to make bail. Did Aggie have something planned to get him out?

  And what was her motive for any of this? If Aggie had fallen in love with Hoyt, as Emma speculated, then why send him to prison for murder? It didn’t make any sense unless... With a start, she realized why. What if they weren’t dealing with a sane woman? Stalking Hoyt to the point where she’d lost her job certainly made Aggie look more than a little crazy.

  From what Emma had been able to find out, Aggie had become obsessed with the insurance investigation into the death of Laura Chisholm, Hoyt’s first wife. It had been ruled an accidental drowning, but since the body was never found...

  When Hoyt’s second wife had died, that must have been enough to make Aggie reopen the first wife’s case.

  So was that the problem? She was dealing with an insane woman bent on proving Hoyt was a killer—no matter the cost?

  Her head still ached from the drugs and she was glad Aggie hadn’t seen fit to drug her again. Which meant there were no other houses nearby, no chance of anyone just happening by, no one to hear her calling for help. So she would save her breath. Not that she was a screamer anyway.

  Emma had learned early in life to accept things the way they were, good or bad. Wasn’t that why she hadn’t wanted to know Hoyt’s past—because she hadn’t wanted to tell him about her own?

  * * *

  The cave was on the side of the mountain, but few if any people knew about it. Dawson had found it on one of his trips up to the summer range when he was a boy. He’d been following a buck deer that had disappeared near the entrance. He’d almost missed seeing the opening for the overgrown brush. He’d put some of the brush back after he’d explored the cave, wanting to keep it a secret even from his brothers.

  As he led the horses up into a stand of pines below the hidden cave entrance, he kept his eyes and ears alert for any sign of the rustlers. The sun had dipped behind the trees, forming deep shadows beneath them. The air had turned colder, as it did up here in the mountains.

  “This is a mistake,” Jinx said as he hauled her off the horse.

  “You’re the one who made the mistake when you decided to rustle my cattle.”

  She sighed deeply. “If you let me go, I will lead them away from you. I can tell them my horse stepped into a hole and I got thrown.” She cocked her head at him. “I look like I got thrown to the ground, don’t I?”

  He glanced at her dusty clothing. There was a smudge of dirt on her cheek, her hat was crooked from where she’d hastily put it back on her head and her short curly blond hair had a twig in it. He removed the twig and tossed it over his shoulder.

  “They’ll come for me tonight. You can’t hold off seven of them.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  “Isn’t your life worth more than cattle?” she demanded.

  “This isn’t about money. Or even cattle. It’s about defending what is yours.”

  She raised an eyebrow and glanced at his left hand. “Who was she?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “The woman you lost to someone else.”

  Dawson turned his back to her as he ground tied the horses.

  “It must have been serious. High school sweetheart? Fiancée? Wife?” She let out a low laugh. “You didn’t fight for her and you’ve regretted it ever since. So now you’re damned sure going to fight for your cattle because of it. Is that it?”

  He turned to face her. “You make a better rustler than a psychotherapist. Come on,” he said, picking up his saddlebags. “I’m hungry and want to get something to eat before your friends come back. If they come back for you. Either way, I’m going after my cattle in the morning at first light.”

  * * *

  Jinx stared at his backside as he started up the hill. Damn this cocky rancher. He acted as if he’d completely forgotten about her, but she wasn’t fooled. This long, tall cowboy was aware of her every move, she thought as she started after him. She had no choice right now.

  He could deny it all he wanted, but she was sure he’d lost some woman, a woman who’d hurt him badly. Because of it, he’d be happy to tackle her to the ground again. In fact, he’d take some pleasure in it.

  She knew better than to try to make a run for it with her hands tied behind her and it getting dark. She’d be lucky if she didn’t run into a tree and kill herself.

  No, she had to wait, bide her time. Chisholm would make a mistake and she would get away. She had t
o. She’d come too far to let anyone stop her now. There had to be a way to get around this cocky cowboy—after all, he was a man.

  And, oh, what a man, she thought as she studied him. Broad shoulders, slim hips, long denim-clad legs. Not to mention his face. Chiseled strong features, those dark, bottomless eyes and the way his lips quirked up on one side when he looked at her.

  She wondered about the woman who’d broken his heart and made him the way he was. She must have been a beauty, probably some city girl who would have eventually left him anyway.

  Jinx hated her stab of resentment at the thought of the kind of woman a man like Dawson Chisholm would have fallen for. She swore under her breath. How different she and that woman would have been.

  She turned her thoughts to how to get away from him. She’d do whatever she had to because she couldn’t let this man stop her. One way or another, she was going to get what she’d promised her father on the day she buried him.

  Telling Chisholm the truth was out of the question. She couldn’t chance it. It bothered her that he didn’t seem worried about fighting off seven rustlers, and made her suspicious that he knew he wouldn’t have to because he was in on this and was now waiting, like her, for Rafe to return.

  The only thing that Jinx did believe about Chisholm was that he was angry about a woman riding with the rustlers. If he was in cahoots with Rafe, she had a feeling he planned to have it out with the rustler.

  Either way, she was in trouble. Rafe liked to think of himself as the leader of the rustlers, but she knew better. And Chisholm must, too. If he demanded Rafe get rid of her, then Rafe would buckle like a bad saddle under the weight.

  A sudden shiver of fear quaked through her as she had another thought. What if somehow they’d found out who she really was? She’d seen how surprised Dawson Chisholm had been when he’d tackled her. He hadn’t expected her to be riding with the others. Or had he?

  If he already knew, then that would explain why Chisholm had shown up when he had. He’d come up here to make sure she was stopped.

  Unless she could stop Chisholm first.

  * * *

  Emma curled up on the mattress on the floor and pulled the blankets Aggie had thoughtfully provided over her. She could hear Aggie moving around somewhere in the house. She still felt woozy from the drug she’d been given.

  At the sound of footfalls on the stairs, Emma sat up, holding the blankets to her chin as if they would protect her, and waited. The door opened. Aggie stood silhouetted in the doorway.

  “You awake?”

  “Yes,” Emma said. “Not that the accommodations aren’t delightful.”

  Aggie stepped into the room, closed the door and stood against it. Emma could barely see her in the dim light that came through the hole between the boards over the window.

  “I like you,” Aggie said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “That’s good.” She figured she knew what was coming next.

  “But I can’t let you go back to the house and Hoyt.”

  “Why is that?” Emma asked.

  Aggie let out an exasperated sigh. “I’ve told you. It’s too dangerous.”

  “We both know that Hoyt is not a killer.”

  To her surprise Aggie said, “You could be right.”

  Was the woman merely trying to pacify her?

  “Aggie, if you turn yourself in—”

  She let out a laugh. “I haven’t done anything.”

  Emma would beg to differ. “You abducted me, drugged me and are holding me prisoner.”

  “For your own good.”

  Now it was her turn to laugh. “And who are you protecting me from, Aggie?” When she didn’t answer, Emma said, “Hoyt didn’t kill anyone.”

  She heard Aggie slide down to sit on the floor and thought about trying to overpower her. But she knew that by the time she threw off the blankets and got up and launched herself at the woman, Aggie would be ready for her. Aggie was armed, probably with the same gun she’d been carrying earlier, and Emma wasn’t in the mood for a suicide mission.

  Also a part of her hoped that Aggie was finally going to tell her the truth.

  “Do you know why I was such a good insurance investigator?” Aggie asked, seemingly out of the blue. She didn’t wait for Emma to answer. “I studied everything about the people involved, and not just the surviving spouse. I wanted to know the deceased as intimately as if that person was alive.”

  “You’re saying you got to know Hoyt’s other wives?” Emma said. She had wondered what they had really been like. Nothing like herself, she would bet. They were probably tall, willowy and beautiful, not to mention young.

  “I’m not sure Hoyt knew Laura as well as I have come to know her,” Aggie said. “I could say the same for his two other wives, as well. But Laura...” She sighed. “She was like you, apparently totally enamored by Hoyt. At first. But I’m sure you’ve heard about how close the emotions are between love and hate.”

  “If you’re telling me she grew to hate him, I don’t believe you. I can’t imagine anything Hoyt could have done that would have—”

  “She believed he’d fathered his first three sons.”

  “I don’t believe it. A simple DNA test would prove—”

  “There wasn’t DNA testing yet when Laura died.”

  “But there is now. And anyway, if he was the biological father to those boys, Hoyt would have admitted it.”

  “Why do you keep defending him?”

  “Because I love him.” She waited for Aggie to admit her own feelings for Hoyt. She heard the woman get to her feet again and quickly said, “I think you fell for him, as well.” She didn’t add that she thought Aggie had killed his other wives because she was jealous.

  “I’ll admit your husband is...charming. But historically, he is also dangerous to be around.”

  Not half as dangerous as you are, Emma thought. “So you’re just trying to protect me,” she said as she heard Aggie open the door to leave.

  Aggie chuckled but didn’t respond.

  Emma lay back down on the mattress and pulled the blankets over her, but she couldn’t fight off the chill Aggie had left in the room.

  * * *

  Dawson heard Jinx behind him. She was as sure-footed as an expensive filly as she climbed up to the cave. He told himself that he could almost hear the wheels in her head turning. She would try to get away when the rustlers came back for her. Or at the very least, give away their location—if he let her. He was already outnumbered. He’d have to find a way to even the odds.

  As he moved a piece of dried brush away from the entrance to the cave, he heard her come up beside him. He turned on his flashlight and shone it into the cavern. To his relief it wasn’t occupied by any animals.

  “Ladies first,” he said with more gallantry than he felt.

  She smirked at that as she bent to step through the small opening. Once inside, she stood to her full height of about five-seven.

  Dawson stepped past her, going around a corner in the cave to the hidden cavern room. As he lit the kerosene lantern he’d left there on one of his trips to the high country, she followed him.

  In the golden light he studied her, wondering what she’d try next. The one thing he knew for sure, there was plenty of fight left in this woman. He’d have to watch her closely or suffer the consequences.

  “What now, Chisholm?” she asked as she glanced around. He could see that she’d been surprised by the size of the cave, surprised that he’d furnished it over the years with not only a lantern but with a cot, a collapsible table and stool, a few pots and pans and a Coleman stove.

  “Sit down over here and take a load off,” he said, opening the folding stool he used when he came up here.

  “Take a load off, Chisholm?” she asked with amusement. She was slim, curved in all the right places, and she k
new it.

  “So to speak,” he amended.

  He didn’t go far from the cave, not trusting her, but he had to take care of their horses. When he returned with some firewood, he found her sitting where he’d left her, which surprised him. But he didn’t doubt she’d taken a look around for something to cut the rope binding her wrists behind her. Before he’d left he’d been smart enough to make sure there was nothing sharp she could use.

  The way the cave was structured, the opening turned just inside, which meant that light from the stove or a fire couldn’t be seen from the meadow. The cave was ventilated through a crack at the back that opened to fresh air on the cliff above them, so the smoke from a fire would draft upward high on the cliffs, on the same principle as a fireplace in a home.

  If and when the rustlers returned for Jinx they might catch a whiff of smoke, but they would never be able to find the cave. He doubted they would even smell the smoke if they stayed down in the meadow.

  He made a small fire at the back of the cave near the vent and close to Jinx. It would be getting cold once the sun went down. Then he started the Coleman stove and dug some food out of his saddlebag.

  This cave had been a retreat for years, his own private sanctuary in the high country. A part of him resented that he’d had to bring her here, resented it even more when she asked, “So you come up here and play house by yourself a lot?”

  He shot her a warning look before concentrating again on his cooking. He figured she was right about the other rustlers coming back to look for her—but not for a while, he thought. They’d have to secure the cattle. It would take a while for them to even realize they’d lost her after all that confusion earlier.

  Dawson suspected that the main reason they would come back for her was that they wouldn’t trust her. At least one of them, the boyfriend, would have another motive.

  But given all that, he felt they were relatively safe in the cave, at least for the time being. He’d hidden the horses around the side of the mountain and covered the opening to the cave again with the dried brush. Even if they were found, the cave was high enough on the mountainside that he could hold them off for a long time. He hadn’t brought an arsenal, but he always had extra ammunition.