Dead Ringer & Classified Christmas

by B. J Daniels

  I’m going to find her out here dead. That thought immobilized him until he heard his father’s heavy footfalls behind him.

  “There’s her shoe,” Wade said, pointing at it.

  “Pick it up. She must be close around here.” Huck started to step past him.

  “I don’t think so,” Wade said, holding him back with his free arm. He shone his flashlight on the tracks past the shoe. “They look fresh,” he said of the tracks.

  Huck bent down. “Someone picked her up and carried her.” He glanced past the creek and the cottonwoods to the dirt road on the other side. “She have her phone with her?”

  Wade swore under his breath. “You can damn well bet who she called. Ledger McGraw.”

  Huck rose right in front of his son. “You screwed this up royally. I could...” He reared back, but Wade blocked the punch.

  “I’m not that boy you used to knock around,” he said through clenched teeth. “You can call me a fool, you can say whatever you like, but if you lay another hand on me, I’m coming after you.”

  Huck scowled at him. “You think you can take me? You punk.”

  “Don’t know but I’m going to try.”

  Huck laughed. “Tonight isn’t the time to find out. If she goes to the sheriff—”

  “She won’t. She’s gone to Ledger McGraw. If anyone comes looking for me, it will be him and I’ll be ready.”

  Chapter Nine

  LEDGER COULD THINK of only one thing. Take Abby to the hospital and then find Wade. He’d never been violent, but seeing what Wade had done to Abby had him to the point where he thought he could take the man’s life. Wade had to be stopped and if it meant ending him...

  “Where are you taking me?” Abby asked from the passenger seat of the pickup. He could tell that each word hurt her to speak. He would have brought the Suburban so she could lie down in the back but he hadn’t known how badly she was hurt.

  “To the hospital,” he said.

  “No!” She tried to sit up straight but cried out in pain and held her rib cage. “That’s the first place he’ll look for me.”

  “Abby, you need medical attention.”

  “Please.”

  He quickly relented. He couldn’t let Wade near this woman, which meant no hospital. At least for now.

  “I’ll take you to the ranch and call our family doctor. But, Abby, if he says you have to go to the hospital—”

  “Then I’ll go.” She lay back and closed her eyes. “I didn’t want you involved.”

  “I’ve always been involved because I’ve always loved you.”

  She said nothing. He could tell that she was in a lot of pain. It had him boiling inside. If he could have found Wade right now...

  He slowed to turn into the ranch and called Dr. Johns. His service answered. Ledger quickly told the woman what had happened. “We need him to come out to the McGraw ranch.” She put the call through. Doc asked a few questions about her condition.

  Ledger answered best he could.

  “I think you should take her to the hospital. I can meet you there.”

  “She doesn’t want to go to the hospital because her husband can find her there. I’m taking her to the ranch.”

  “Then I’ll meet you there.”

  Ledger pulled up in front of the house. He saw that she was looking at it, tears in her eyes.

  “This is not the way I ever wanted to come back here,” she said.

  “I know. But right now the only thing that matters is that you’re here and safe.”

  “Promise me you won’t go after Wade.” When he didn’t answer right away, she cried, “Ledger, please. I can’t bear the thought of losing you.”

  “I promise,” he said, although they were the hardest words he’d ever had to say.

  * * *

  ABBY REMEMBERED LITTLE of the ride to the ranch or Ledger and his brothers helping her to a bed upstairs. The doctor had apparently told Ledger not to let her sleep because he stayed with her, asking her about everything but what had happened until the doctor got there.

  It wasn’t until the next morning, when the doctor told her she could sleep now, that Ledger asked, “Do you want me to call your mother?”

  “No!” She’d looked so stricken that he hadn’t pushed it as the doctor left.

  “Is there anyone else I can call?”

  She shook her head, tears filling her eyes. “He’s already told me what he’ll do to my friends if I involve them.”

  Ledger gritted his teeth, his anger a rolling boil inside him. What the man had done to Abby... But when he spoke, he sounded calm. “Okay, you just rest. Everything is going to be all right.” As he started to turn from the bed, she grabbed his hand.

  “You can’t do anything to Wade. You can’t let him know where I am. If you do anything... You promised.”

  He nodded as if he’d already figured that out for himself, but she could tell he wasn’t happy about it. “Don’t worry. He won’t know where you are.”

  “Oh, he’ll know,” she said. “But he wouldn’t dare come out here.” Wade didn’t operate that way. He would wait until she left here. He would wait until he could catch her alone.

  And when that happened, she had no doubt that he would kill her. She’d done the unforgivable in his eyes. She’d gone to Ledger McGraw.

  * * *

  MCCALL TOOK ONE look at Abby and wanted to take a two-by-four to Wade Pierce. Locking him behind bars wasn’t enough.

  “How are you feeling?” the sheriff asked as she took the chair next to the woman’s bed.

  The changes going on at the house had surprised her. She’d heard that there had been quite a lot of renovation since Patricia was arrested and never coming back.

  But McCall knew that wasn’t all there was to it. With one kidnapper identified and now dead, the money recovered and news that the twins had been adopted out to eager families through a member of the Whitehorse Sewing Circle, Travers seemed to have a new lease on life.

  For twenty-five years, he’d kept the children’s rooms and the entire wing of the house just as they were the night of the kidnapping. As if freed of some of the past pain, he was opening up the rooms and redecorating them.

  The room where Abby was staying looked as if everything in it was brand-new. The walls had a fresh coat of a pale yellow. The curtains billowing in the faint breeze were light and airy. It was as if the room had been decorated just for her.

  “I’m feeling better.”

  McCall could tell that it was going to be hard for her to open up and talk about what had been going on. Abby had tried to keep the secret, no doubt out of shame. McCall had run into this before. Often an abused woman never wanted anyone to know, blaming herself as her husband also did.

  “Do you remember what happened?”

  Abby shook her head and seemed to realize that McCall would think she was covering for Wade. “The doctor said having another concussion so close after the first one has caused even more memory loss.”

  “The first one? The fall from the ladder?”

  Abby looked away. “That’s what Wade told me.”

  “I spoke with your doctor. You need to know that he reported the incident as physical abuse. This time I think you realize that something has to change, right?”

  Tears filled the young woman’s eyes as she nodded. “I had left Wade, moved into an apartment in town and filed for a separation, the first step in the divorce proceedings. I remember going out to the house to get something.” She frowned. “Wade must have come home early.” She shook her head. “I’d told him earlier in the day that he would be getting divorce papers and to please sign them.”

  McCall nodded. “Abby, do you remember calling 9-1-1 and telling the operator it was urgent that you speak to me?
”

  She felt her eyes widen. Had she called 9-1-1 as a threat to Wade if he came near her? “I don’t remember calling.”

  “The operator said you told her that you’d discovered something horrible that your husband and his father were doing.”

  She shook her head as she thought of her mother’s marijuana operation. Surely she wouldn’t have called the sheriff on her own mother. It was something Wade and his father were up to? She had a glimmer of a memory but it only made her head hurt worse. “I’m sorry. I don’t remember calling and I can’t imagine what I was calling about.”

  McCall nodded. “I think it’s time you filed a complaint against Wade. Will you do that?” When Abby hesitated, the sheriff added, “And I wish you’d also take out a restraining order against him. True, it isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on if Wade ignores it and comes after you, but the order will tell him you mean business—especially if you call 9-1-1 the moment he breaks it.” Both of them knew he would break it.

  Abby closed her eyes for a moment. “I’ll do it. The complaint and the restraining order.” She opened her eyes and met McCall’s worried gaze. “He’ll lose his job, won’t he?”

  “Not right away, but once he breaks the restraining order, yes. When Wade first got on at the department he seemed to have so much potential. He was really excited about the job. I’d had hopes for him. This is his wake-up call. I hope he takes it. In the meantime, I just want to keep you alive.”

  Abby chewed at her lip. “Wade’s just so angry right now about me leaving him.”

  “It’s even more dangerous now. The operator heard Wade in the background before you disconnected. She heard him say something like, ‘You’d get me sent to prison? Your own husband?’ Whatever you tried to tell me about Wade and his father, it sounds serious. If they thought you might remember...”

  * * *

  THE SHERIFF DIDN’T need to tell Abby how much trouble she was in. Wade had almost killed her. She vaguely remembered hearing him and his father in the kitchen, their heads together. They’d been talking about what to do with her body.

  She shivered at the thought, suddenly restless. The room where Ledger had brought her was beautiful, but she couldn’t stay here forever. Then what?

  Even with the restraining order McCall had her sign, she knew Wade would come after her. He’d told her that if she ever left him, he’d kill her and then himself. She’d never doubted that. But he’d also told her that if she ever went to Ledger, he’d kill him, as well.

  Her heart pounded at the thought of what she’d done by calling him. But last night there’d been no one else. She knew Ledger would come and get her. She knew he would take care of her. If she had hoped to survive, she had to get away from Wade and his father last night. Otherwise...

  Climbing out of the bed, she felt a little dizzy for a moment but needed to move. She felt anxious and afraid. Ledger had promised he wouldn’t go after Wade. She had seen how hard it was for him to do that. She trusted that he would keep his promise.

  But Wade coming after Ledger... Not that Wade would come out to the ranch. He wasn’t that stupid. No, he’d wait until he could get Ledger alone.

  She felt a memory pull at her. Something about the garage. It slipped past, refusing to let her grasp it long enough to make any sense of it. Wade and his father had been up to something that would send them both to prison if caught?

  Abby felt sick to her stomach. What had the two gotten involved in? Something that apparently they would kill to keep quiet, she thought, remembering them whispering in the kitchen. The hair stood up on the back of her neck. If she hadn’t gotten out of the house last night when she did, she’d be dead and buried out in the middle of the prairie.

  * * *

  MCCALL TOOK NO pleasure in calling Wade Pierce into her office. When she’d hired him, she’d hoped he would make a better deputy than his father. He had seemed to have that potential. But maybe his upbringing was harder to overcome than she’d hoped.

  He tapped at the door and stuck his head in when she said, “Come in, Wade. Please have a seat.” Not surprisingly, he looked nervous. He had to know what this was about.

  “I wanted to give you a heads-up,” she said once he was seated. “Your wife has filed a domestic abuse complaint against you—” She held up her hand, seeing that he was about to argue the point. “As well as a restraining order.”

  The man looked dumbstruck. He really hadn’t expected she would do that. Then he looked furious.

  “I want to make something perfectly clear. Right now I’m suspending you for two weeks without pay so you can think about your life and any changes you might want to make. However,” she said quickly as again he was half out of his seat, mouth open and ready to argue. “However, if you break the restraining order or if there is another call from your wife, you will be dismissed.”

  “But it’s a lie.” He wasn’t very convincing and she could see that he knew it.

  “I don’t take these kinds of charges at face value. I spoke with her doctor at the hospital. After that, I advised your wife to take these steps not just for her sake but for yours.”

  Wade shifted his gaze to look down at his boots. “So two weeks.”

  “This is serious, Wade. You can end up behind bars. If there is no trouble between now and then, I’m willing to give you another chance here. Anyone else I would have let go. Tell me that my faith in you isn’t misplaced.”

  He looked up and swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down for a moment. “There won’t be any trouble.”

  “Good. I’m glad to hear that. Wade, get some help.” She slid a pamphlet across the desk to him.

  “Anger management?” He let out a nervous laugh.

  She saw his father in him then and knew she was probably wasting her breath. “Often this problem is generational. But it can be stopped.”

  “Generational,” he repeated and frowned. He looked again at his boots. “Right.”

  “That’s all.”

  He got up slowly, his hat in his hand. She could see that he was fighting all of this, going from embarrassment to anger and back. She feared anger would win.

  “You know this will get all over town,” he said quietly.

  “Wade, everyone already knows what’s been going on. Now’s your chance to show them what kind of man you are.”

  He nodded slowly. “Two weeks.” And he walked out, closing the door a little too hard behind him.

  Chapter Ten

  “I THOUGHT YOU said she’d never go to the sheriff,” Huck Pierce demanded when Wade found him at his house and told him the news.

  “She didn’t. Apparently the sheriff went to her. It’s that doctor at the hospital. The sheriff said he suspected physical abuse and reported it.”

  “So much for patient privacy,” his father snapped.

  “Isn’t he required by law to report it? Maybe that’s what happened.”

  “Or maybe your wife’s boyfriend is behind all of this.”

  Wade ground his teeth. “As far as I know, she’s still out there.”

  “Well, she can’t stay there forever. I asked around. I found out where the apartment is that she rented.”

  “The sheriff was real clear. I can’t go near her or I’ll be fired.”

  “Well, there’s no restraining order against me, but you’re right. Now isn’t the time to be worrying about this. We have bigger fish to fry.” He winked at Wade. “Our plan went off without a hitch. Now it’s just a matter of waiting for the money to roll in. Once you don’t need this job anymore, you can get your wife back—if that’s what you want.”

  “I’d rather die than see her with McGraw.”

  His father smiled. “That’s what I thought. Believe me, she won’t be for long.”

  * * *


  LEDGER COULDN’T BELIEVE how different the house felt with Patricia and Kitten gone. But it was even better now, he thought, that Abby was free of Wade.

  The biggest change in the mood at the McGraw ranch, though, was one of the twins being found. Vance had settled in upstairs in the wing where he’d once lived as a baby.

  It had surprised Ledger when his father had announced that the wing would be remodeled. No longer would it be a shrine to the kidnapped children. Instead, it would be made into quarters for Vance—and eventually Jesse Rose, once she was found.

  “You do realize that Jesse Rose might have a life she doesn’t want to leave,” Boone had pointed out. “She’ll be twenty-five years old. She might not want to move back into the house where she was kidnapped.”

  It seemed odd to the three older brothers that Vance would move in. But he apparently had little going on in his own life and this had been his home.

  “I’m aware of that,” his father had said with a laugh. “But I want them to feel at home here on the ranch. I want them to have a place. Oakley might not end up staying, but he will at least know that he has a room here.”

  “Oakley?” Cull had asked. “Is he going to change his name?”

  “We’re discussing it. Of course, it would be an adjustment for him,” Travers had said.

  Ledger thought Vance would be up for whatever his father wanted. He seemed to have adjusted quite well to living on the ranch. Earlier, he’d seen him at breakfast putting away any and everything set before him. Later he was down at the pool swimming and napping in the sun.

  “He said he had a way with horses,” Boone pointed out. “When is he going to start working?”

  Their father sent his son a disapproving look. “He’s just getting used to being Oakley McGraw.”

  “Oh, I think he’s gotten used to it quite well,” Boone said, getting to his feet. “If you want me, I’ll be in the horse barn. Working.”

  Cull rose, as well. “He has a point, Dad. Maybe you should discuss with Vance...Oakley what is expected of him.” With that, he left.