Ominous

by Lisa Jackson

  Before her father could ask more about her conversation with Shiloh, she threw a glance at the clock and said, “Gotta run.”

  “So soon? We’ve barely had a chance to catch up.”

  “Next time,” Kat promised.

  “Maybe you should take a couple of these for the road.” He motioned to the two lone cupcakes, but he looked longingly at them.

  “They’re all yours. Just don’t eat ’em all at once.”

  “I’m perfectly healthy.”

  “Uh huh.”

  Hurrying outside, she placed her sunglasses over her nose and climbed into her Jeep.

  She parked in the lot at the back of the building. On her way inside, she waved at a couple of officers, dropped her purse into her locker, and grabbed a cup of coffee from the carafe in the lunchroom.

  She nodded to Ricki Dillinger, then punched in Ruth’s number on her cell as she threaded her way to her desk. The door to the sheriff’s office was ajar, and as she passed, she caught a glimpse of Sheriff Sam Featherstone, ear pressed to his phone, his eyes steady on a computer monitor on the corner of his desk.

  Ruth’s voice mail answered.

  With an inward sigh, Kat left her name and number, clicking on her cell phone as she pulled out her desk chair. Ruth hadn’t replied to her text from the night before, sent after the meeting with Shiloh. Was Ruth actively avoiding her? Her old friend hadn’t made any attempt to connect with her since she’d returned, but then Kat hadn’t exactly been the Welcome Wagon, either. The fact was, all three of them were reminders to each other of that terrible night, and Ruth was the one who’d been attacked and hurt the most.

  And now she was a single woman with a private practice and bound to be extremely busy.

  Since seeing Shiloh last evening, Kat wanted action. She was over wrestling with her conscience. Maybe she should have confided in her father about the rape. Maybe waiting for Ruth meant waiting forever. Maybe she should run back over to his office and just lay it all out.

  Kat picked up her cell phone in a rush of momentum, then set it back down again. No. She needed to talk to Ruth. She couldn’t blindside her. There was a way to bring this all forward, and it wasn’t helter-skelter.

  Her desk phone rang. Naomi, from the front office. “Paul Byrd called again and asked for you,” she reported.

  Kat grimaced. She knew for a fact that Byrd hadn’t called because he wanted her help with his grandson’s case. Nope, her last name was Starr, like her father’s, and though Paul Byrd was upset about Noel’s problems with Crutchens, it was his anger toward Patrick Starr that drove him to ask for Kat. Since Byrd believed the Prairie Creek Sheriff’s Department had failed on all accounts to find Rachel, who was better fit to listen to his vituperative complaints than retired-cop Patrick Starr’s cop daughter? “Okay, I’ll call him back,” she said, trying hard to keep the dread from her voice.

  *

  Beau finished fixing a broken pipe that led to the watering trough near the barn. With a final turn of the wrench, he straightened, then twisted on the handle and watched water pour into the trough without leaking all over the side of the barn. Satisfied, he filled the trough, walked into the barn, and slipped the wrench back into its spot on the workbench.

  He ran his hand over the stained wooden top and wondered how many hours his old man had spent here. Probably not that many. And it didn’t matter now. He headed out of the barn again and, stepping into the bright sunlight, spied Shiloh with Morgan and one of the mares.

  Morgan was astride the roan, Shiloh patting the horse’s neck. The sun was high in the afternoon sky, a slight breeze moving the branches.

  Beau was surprised that the sisters seemed to be getting along, though he’d sensed a bit of a shift in Morgan’s attitude when he’d picked her up from Ayla’s and brought her back here.

  “You like her, don’t you?” Morgan had accused as he’d nosed his truck up the lane and the tires had spun a little on the gravel as Faye’s house had come into view.

  “Like who?”

  “Shiloh.” Morgan gave him the look that said she wasn’t going to let him wriggle out of this conversation. Rambo sat on her lap, his head out the window and his tongue lolling out, and Morgan had been absently petting him. But her eyes were laser-focused on Beau’s face.

  “She’s all right.” He’d tried to shove off any further conversation on the subject. Ever since waking up this morning, he’d replayed the events over and over in his mind. How they’d made love in the stream and back in the attic and how, this morning, after she’d left, all he’d wanted to do was call her back.

  “Just all right?”

  “Okay, yeah, I like her.” He’d shrugged, eased off the gas as they hit the pothole he had yet to fill in the drive. “And you should too. She’s your sister.”

  “I think it’s weird if you like her.”

  “And I think it’s weird if you don’t.”

  He’d pulled up to the house, and she and Rambo had tumbled out, leaving the dust the old truck’s tires had churned up to settle and Morgan’s pointed questions to hover in his brain.

  Beau prided himself on knowing his own mind. He usually figured out what he wanted, went after it, and either ended up with the prize or didn’t beat himself up for losing out. He just moved on.

  But he’d never met Shiloh Silva before, and now it felt like there’d been a tectonic shift; she’d somehow changed everything, put a damned wrench in his whole outlook on life.

  He’d woken up after a night of lovemaking and found himself considering new options in life, options that included not only Morgan, but now Shiloh as well.

  It was crazy, really.

  Yeah, he’d been attracted to her from the get-go.

  Yeah, he’d known she was trouble.

  And yeah, he’d told himself not to get involved.

  That hadn’t happened, and now he was stuck with the knowledge that rather than want her out of his life, as he’d once thought, he couldn’t imagine life without her.

  *

  Kat had been at the station for nearly two hours and had managed to stay calm during Paul Byrd’s latest tirade—one hell of a phone call, to say the least—when she heard footsteps approaching her desk. As she turned away from her computer screen, a tall woman with spiky red hair appeared. In slacks, a print shirt, and a vest despite the heat of summer, she forced a smile over lips that trembled and showed a hint of lipstick that had worn off. She was pale beneath a tan, her eyes haunted. She looked as if she hadn’t slept in days. “Are you Detective Starr?” she asked before her gaze landed on the name plate on Kat’s desk. “Oh. I see. The woman at the front, Naomi, sent me this way.”

  “Yes, I’m Katrina Starr.” Kat stood. “How can I help you?”

  The woman lifted one hand in a helpless gesture. “I know it’s only been a little while. Well, I mean it seems like forever since last night, and I don’t know if there’s some rule about waiting twenty-four hours, but I’m just so worried.” She ran anxious fingers in her hair, making the spikes stand even straighter.

  “What happened?”

  “My daughter … she didn’t come home last night, and oh, it’s not like you think!” she interjected. “I mean she wasn’t on a date or anything. She was just out riding.”

  “Why don’t you have a seat,” Kat invited, motioning to one of the two side chairs on the other side of her desk. “And start from the beginning. Maybe you’d like some water or coffee or—”

  “I just want my daughter back!” the woman declared, then dropped into the offered chair and held her forehead in her fingers. “Sorry. It’s just that this is so unlike Addie. She’s very responsible and never gives Jeremy and me any trouble, not like Gil, our son.”

  “Let’s start with your name,” Kat said as the woman seemed well on her way to falling completely apart.

  She took in a long breath. “I’m Deb, Debra Donovan, and my husband is Jeremy. We own the feed store, you know, the Seed and Feed, just outside of t
own.” She went on to tell Kat that her daughter, Addison, had gone riding alone last evening, but before sunset. She didn’t show up, but her horse did. One of Addie’s boots was there, caught in a stirrup. The family, thinking an accident had befallen Addie, had searched the property, to no avail. They’d talked to the closest neighbors, then checked with Addie’s friends and boyfriend, Dean Croft, none of whom had spoken to her.

  “You’re sure about her boyfriend?” In Kat’s experience, teenage boyfriends and girlfriends tended to protect each other and always tried to sneak away from their parents’ prying eyes.

  “Dean’s a good kid. The Crofts, a fine family.” She licked her dry lips and tried to dispel the doubt in her eyes. She seemed to be trying to convince herself. “He’s out of town. I checked with his parents and talked to him. I thought … well, maybe she staged the whole horse returning and had actually taken off with him, but he’d left too early, and now he’s so upset that he’s coming back. I really don’t think Dean’s involved … oh dear, I said ‘involved’ as if something nefarious and horrible has happened.” She appeared about to collapse and struggled to find some kind of inner strength. “I know there can’t be any connection. I mean, it’s been so long, but I just can’t keep thinking about those families who lost their daughters years ago. I mean, Addie was only three at the time, and Gil wasn’t even born yet.” She swallowed hard. “The Byrds, Ann and Paul? They’re members of our church. Ann was Addie’s Sunday school teacher, and even though they have the other girls, Rinda and Ramona, who are grown with children of their own now, and the younger one, Rhianna, it’s not like Rachel can ever be replaced, y’know? You never stop loving a child.” Deb was worrying her hands now. “Even with the grandchildren, there’s the void, the not knowing.”

  Paul Byrd again. The man’s stinging words were still in her ears. If he’d only known how much Patrick had worried about those missing girls, how much he still did.

  “… what happened all those years ago can’t have anything to do with Addie, but I keep thinking about it,” Deb was finishing.

  “What about Addie’s cell phone?” Kat asked.

  “She left it in a charger at the house. I brought it with me. Along with her iPad. Other than that she uses our desktop. But there’s nothing there, and the fact that she didn’t take her phone with her … it makes me think she thought she would be coming right back. She’s never without it.” She dug through her bag and dropped the phone and tablet onto Kat’s desk. Sighing, Deb added, “The code’s 4567. She just plugged it in and never changed it. She trusts us.” Deb’s eyes filled with tears, and she brushed them away, almost angrily. “She didn’t plan to be gone long or she would have taken the phone with her. Though reception is spotty out there near the mountains. You know how that is. But Addy’s never far from her phone; it’s almost attached to her. But last night … last night …” Her voice cracked, and she took a moment to gather herself. “We … Jeremy and I, we even went to the hospital in town. We … we’ve called everywhere, searched high and low.” She bit her lip and brought her gaze up to meet Kat’s squarely. “We need the police to help us find our daughter.”

  Chapter 11

  “Soooo, what’s going on?” Morgan asked as she walked out of the house and found Shiloh and Beau in deep discussion. It was afternoon, the sky blindingly blue, the smell of freshly cut hay from the neighboring property heavy in the air. And Shiloh had been telling Beau that it was crazy, just plain nuts, to think they could ever repeat their lovemaking of the night before.

  “What do you mean?” asked Shiloh.

  “I meant, what’s going on between you two.” She looked at Beau, who was leaning against the railing. “You sound like you’re fighting.”

  “Discussing,” he clarified.

  “Discussing what?” The girl swept her gaze to Shiloh. “Like if you’re staying or leaving?”

  “I’m not leaving,” Shiloh said, and she meant it. She planned on calling Carlos in the morning, then the ranch owner, to tell them she was pulling up stakes. Permanently. Well, at least for the next decade. She had already decided that she was going to stick like glue to Morgan. Shiloh might not be the most exemplary mother figure, but she’d give it her best shot, and, it seemed, Beau had already stepped into the father role.

  Crossing her arms over her chest, Morgan couldn’t hide the defiance in her voice. Shiloh considered herself at Morgan’s age and then during the following years, how her rebellion had grown until she’d finally left town. Yeah, the next few years, dealing with a teenager who had already stated she didn’t like her older sister, were not going to be a damned picnic, but too bad. Shiloh wasn’t known for backing down from a challenge.

  Bring it on.

  “I’m sure.”

  Morgan rolled her eyes, and Beau stepped in. “Look, Morgs, we’ve got to stick together.”

  “So now you’re on her side?” Morgan did her best to appear crestfallen and disappointed.

  “I’m on our side.”

  “Like we’re all together?” the girl asked, staring at her half brother as if he’d changed his name to Benedict Arnold. “Oh come on.”

  He reached out to rumple her hair, but she jerked her head away.

  “Don’t!”

  He pulled back. “I’m just asking you to do the same.”

  “You’re not my father!”

  “Nor is Shiloh your mom, but hey, we’ve got to find a way to make this work.”

  “And how are ‘we’ going to do that?” she asked, making air quotes.

  “By taking one day at a time and eventually maybe adding onto the house, so I don’t have to camp out over the garage.”

  “You have a place.”

  “Yeah, I know, but I think I’ll move here. To be closer.” He threw a look Shiloh’s way, a glance that Morgan didn’t miss.

  “What is it with you and her?”

  His smile stretched wide. “We found out we have a lot in common,” he said and pulled Shiloh closer. She let him tug her to his side but wasn’t comfortable with it.

  Morgan’s mouth dropped open.

  “You know Shiloh and I are your guardians. Both of us. Together. So we’ve decided to work together rather than separately.”

  “You’re getting married?” she practically shrieked.

  “What? No!” Shiloh took a step away from Beau. This was getting way out of hand. “No,” she repeated. Marriage? God, they weren’t even a couple. Or were they? “What he means is that instead of fighting about how to help raise you, we’re going to be on the same page. We will take care of you. We will put you first.”

  “And we won’t let you get away with anything,” Beau said, his eyes glinting. “Anything you can think of doing, well, we’ve already done it, so don’t think you can buffalo us or work one of us against the other.”

  Morgan glared at him. “This is weird. All I asked was if something was going on. Geez!” She stalked back into the house and let the screen door slam behind her.

  “That went well,” Shiloh said.

  “She just needs to know where we stand.”

  Shiloh almost laughed. “I don’t even know where we stand.”

  Beau’s eyebrows raised a little. “That makes three of us.”

  *

  A few clouds had gathered in the afternoon sky as Kat drove out of town. Bugs were splattered across her windshield, and the heat in her vehicle was intense. She rolled down the window, letting in a stream of summer air and trying to set aside the sense of unease that had been with her ever since Debra Donovan strode into her office and fell apart in the visitor’s chair.

  After a last, and surprisingly fruitful, meeting with Hal Crutchens—the families of the teens had upped the remuneration, and Crutchens had finally taken the offer and dropped all charges, a fact Kat herself had reported to Paul Byrd, who’d merely grunted a response—Kat had spent most of the day making inquiries about Addie Donovan. What she had wanted to dismiss as an overly protective mother’s
concerns now struck her as serious. Something had happened to the girl. The horse returning without Addie hinted that there had been an accident, but when Addie couldn’t be found on the fenced property and the surrounding acres, Kat had called in the troops, and the search had widened. An Amber alert had been posted, and the sheriff was currently calling in local law-enforcement agencies to assist in an organized search that would include manpower and helicopters with infrared scanners.

  She rounded a corner on the country road and found herself behind an old John Deere tractor chugging along at about twelve miles an hour. At the straight stretch, she passed the farmer, who sat huddled at the wheel, the bill of a faded trucker’s cap shading his face.

  She had checked on everything the girl’s mother had said, and Deb was right. None of Addie’s friends knew what had happened to her. None copped to her having secret plans, and the idea of the horse being sent back to the barn as a camouflage for some other plan was tossed out.

  Dean Croft had returned and seemed genuinely upset.

  Stunned, he’d answered Kat’s questions without any apparent guile.

  Yes, he’d been with friends.

  Yes, he’d had a few beers the night before.

  No, he hadn’t seen or heard from Addie since leaving.

  And yes, oh God, yes, Dean would do whatever he could to help find her!

  Kat had believed him. The innocence and concern on his eighteen-year-old face had been convincing.

  From all accounts, Addie was obsessed with her boyfriend, and when they’d looked at her cell phone and computer, that information was confirmed by the sheer number of texts and social media posts/ tweets/pictures and so on. Kat couldn’t help but wonder if the girl had decided to ride toward his house since the Croft property wasn’t far from the Donovan place. The only properties between the two family ranches were an arm of government land and the place that had been owned by Faye Tate, where Shiloh was now staying with her kid sister.

  Kat headed toward the Tate place, figuring to warn Shiloh about the missing teen and ask if Morgan had any association with the older girl. It would be a huge help to have an expert rider like Shiloh to search for signs of Addie in the parkland behind their ranch, which was mostly inaccessible by road. Passing the Tate mailbox, with its missing letter, Kat wished she had something to report about Ruth, but Ruth hadn’t returned any of her calls or texts. Ruth was avoiding her, plain and simple, and Kat got it that she didn’t want to dredge up those terrible memories. But it was time, past time, for something to be done, and since in Wyoming there was no statute of limitation on sexual assault, they needed to get the facts of the rape out there.