by Nika Dixon
Understanding hit her hard. She hadn’t considered that Pistachio might be different from Castor or Daisy. A naive and foolish mistake.
“Oh.”
Despite her attempts at enjoying her freedom, she really was just a lost city girl playing at being in the country. Everything here was wide-open—the land, the sky, even people’s attitudes. The difference between where she’d run from and where she’d ended up was so wonderfully drastic, she’d forgotten the reality of who she was and why she was here.
“All right, well, don’t be worrying none about Devil,” Hank said. “Last I saw he was headed back up the hill, kicking up like a damn colt.”
Relieved to know the horse was okay, she swallowed down the lump in her throat that was blocking her from asking about the other party in the equation. Now that she understood about Devil, everything that transpired had a whole new meaning.
She couldn’t fathom the depth of what Marshall had been prepared to do—not because of her, but for her. He’d promised she would be safe. She’d taken it as just words, but he’d meant every bit of it. Enough so that he was willing to kill because he thought she was in danger.
She bit her lip and dived in. “And Marshall?”
“He had to run into Absolution. Said to tell you he’ll be back in a bit. And I’m supposed to make you promise you aren’t going to try and walk your way to Pikes Falls,” Hank added with a wink. He started to turn away but stopped. “You might want to change out of the fancy dress, though. It’s certainly pretty, but not much for ranching.”
He saluted her with his mug and headed downstairs.
As his footsteps faded, she could no longer hold back her tears of relief.
They were letting her stay.
Chapter Thirty-One
“Morning, Alice.”
Marshall walked into the police station and pulled off his hat, nodding to the dispatcher. Alice Margaret Mason was a five-foot-tall, ninety-pound woman with a stare that could chop a grown man to his knees. She ruled the small sheriff’s office with an iron hand. Everything had a place and a purpose, and if it didn’t, it wasn’t allowed inside her domain. She also had five children who were all in the military, which meant most of the townsfolk were more afraid of Alice coming after them then they were of Danny, and rightly so. You messed with Alice, and you messed with all the Masons.
Alice tipped her head toward the voices coming from Danny’s office. “Sheriff said you might be by. I’m to tell you to go right on in. Coffee?”
“No, but thank you.” His heart had already had enough adrenaline this morning to last him far into next week. He didn’t need to add caffeine to the mix.
He eyed the phone on a nearby desk, contemplating calling the ranch and checking up on Emma. He’d wanted to talk to her before he left, but his father had strongly suggested he should be the one to check in on her instead.
Marshall might have pushed back on the idea if he hadn’t already been so fired up by the way she’d bolted from him. Thinking of her suffering at the hands of anyone coiled like a snake in his belly. His father could handle keeping her at the ranch. Marshall needed to put his energy into tracking down the bastard who’d sent her on the run, and that meant hooking up with his brother to see what new information there might be.
Marshall rapped his knuckles against the etched title—Sheriff Boyer—on the frosted glass window, then stuck his head in. Danny was sitting behind his desk, phone to his ear. He beckoned Marshall forward.
In the corner of the room, Sam was talking with Davey Wilston.
“Well, hell.” Marshall grinned, sticking his hand out to give their former Little League pitcher a hearty shake. “If it isn’t the Sidewinder.”
Davey smiled and rolled his shoulder. “Yeah, if only I could still throw them that way.”
Danny’s voice rose in agitation with whoever he was on the phone with.
“He’s talking to the arson investigator over in Kitteridge,” Sam explained. “They lost half a dozen horses the other night. Good stock, too. I tell ya, Marsh, this guy’s really starting to piss us off. Equipment wasn’t so much of a bother…more a pain in the ass for the insurance paperwork. But horses?”
“Mom’s been telling me about it,” Davey said. “You guys any closer to catching him?”
Sam shook his head. “Some kid out fishing saw a black pickup leaving the farm by one of the field gates, but that’s about the only new piece of evidence we have. Guy’s a ghost, whoever he is. And since he’s using gasoline, there’s not much more we can go on.”
Davey shook his head. “A black pickup and gasoline. Well, that narrows it down.”
Sam scowled. “Exactly.”
Danny stood up. “I’ll swing by later this morning,” he said into the phone. “Will do. See you in a bit.” He set the receiver back in the cradle. “Sorry about that.” He grinned at Davey. “City life suits you.”
Davey arched his back, pretending to stick his stomach out so he could rub it. “You know Gracie owns a bake shop, right?”
“And you didn’t bring any?” Danny scoffed and pointed to the door. “Get out.”
Davey laughed. “It’s in the car.”
“Wise man.”
Davey slipped his knapsack off his shoulder. He reached into the main pocket and pulled out a thin computer tablet. “I brought you more than just cookies.”
“You found something?” Marshall asked.
“That I did.”
“You didn’t have to come all the way down here,” Danny told him. “We have email, you know.”
Davey shrugged. “Mom’s been after me to visit for weeks. Besides, I figured this was kind of important.” He turned the tablet around to show them the screen. “Is this your girl?”
A video began to play. The view was a high-angle look at a section of benches lining a wide Pikes Falls sidewalk. Two women sat on a bench at the back, chatting. There was no mistaking Georgie and her parrot-colored clothing or the woman in the yellow dress beside her.
“That’s her,” Danny confirmed.
Georgie was talking animatedly, smiling and gesturing. Emma’s responses started out stiff and monosyllabic, but as the video played, she seemed to relax and join Georgie in actual conversation. When she changed positions, her legs were no longer hidden beneath the bench seat.
Marshall ground his teeth at the sight of her bare feet.
She hadn’t lost her shoes in the river when Georgie had crashed—she hadn’t had any on to begin with.
Davey skipped farther into the video. “They talk for a while, then Georgie leaves and comes back about ten minutes later.” He switched back to regular speed when Georgie returned. After a brief conversation, both ladies walked out of view.
“Ten minutes, huh,” Sam said with a half laugh. “Guess we know how long it takes Georgie to steal a car.”
“Do you know what bus she came in on?” Marshall asked Davey. “Or what city?”
“There was no name or payment information, which meant she paid cash. I tracked all the passengers back to their starting location. This is St. Louis.” Davey turned the screen to show a picture of a long row of buses. Emma was helping an elderly man down the steps of a Greyhound. The older man was smiling and patting her hand.
Marshall took a deep breath, a flash of pride quirking the corner of his mouth. Even with everything happening to her, she was helping someone else.
Davey opened another video file. “Bloomington, Indiana.”
The empty inside of a bus station popped up. Somewhere in the ceiling, a fluorescent light flickered, flashing on the scene like an out-of-sync disco ball. Emma was buying a ticket from a bored attendant. As soon as she had the ticket in her hand, she damn near ran out the doors.
“Last one,” Davey said, switching to a dark, grainy photo. “Transfer hub outside Chicago. The bus had mechanical issues and had to detour here to wait for a replacement. The station is under construction, so this is all I could get.”
T
he image showed a dark, wet parking area. Emma was frozen in time, her feet barely touching the ground as she ran barefoot through the rain past a long row of waiting buses. Her dress was soaked, her hair plastered to her head.
Marshall ground his teeth together with such force his jaw hurt. “So, Chicago?”
“Looks like.” Davey handed the tablet to Danny. “Keep it. Give it to Bailey when you’re done. Tell him I installed those new apps he wanted to play with.”
Danny rolled his eyes. “Just what Bailey needs. More tech.”
“You can never have too much tech,” Davey responded enthusiastically.
Danny gave the tablet to Sam. “Keep digging. Quiet inquiries only. We don’t want to alert anyone that we’re looking.”
“I had Mom’s place wired with high-speed internet,” Davey volunteered, looking at Sam. “If you want to come with, I could make it happen a hell of a lot faster than the archaic hamster wheel you guys are using here. You can make your antique phone calls, and I’ll try and find a digital trail.”
“Digital trail?” Sam raised an eyebrow. “Am I going to have to arrest you afterward?”
Davey grabbed his knapsack and preceded Sam through the door. “Depends on whether or not I can bribe you with blueberry pie.”
“Hmm. I do love your mom’s blueberry pie…”
Marshall almost invited himself along so he could learn everything he could about Emma and her situation. At the same time, he wanted to hightail it back to the ranch to make sure she was okay. Sam and Davey would work faster without him lurking over their shoulders…but most likely he wasn’t someone she wanted around right now. Which meant his options were zero.
Dejected, he flopped down in a chair.
“You all right?” Danny asked.
“Not so much.” He summarized his morning’s adrenaline rush with Devil.
“Apples?” Danny asked, incredulous.
“Damnedest thing I ever saw.”
“Did she say why she decided to feed him apples?”
“Don’t know. She ran off before I could ask.”
“Ran off?”
“To the house. Dad said he’d talk to her. Figured she might not be in the mood to talk to me after thinking I was going to put her down for feeding the damn horse an apple.”
“So…Dad’s pretty much the only one who hasn’t scared the hell out of her.”
“Near about.”
Danny leaned back against the corner of his desk with a sigh. “Okay, seriously, when did we get so bad at figuring out women? I swear I was once a hell of a lot smarter than this.”
Marshall snorted. “You and me both.”
“What are you going to do? Avoid the ranch for a couple hours?”
“Probably wise.”
“Why don’t you come with me over to Kitteridge? I want to check out the barn fire scene for myself. Could use a fresh set of eyes.”
“Sure. Better than sitting around here.”
And better to be distracted with something other than a pretty gal with gold-green eyes who seemed to be taking over his thoughts all too much lately.
As he rose from his chair, Alice hurried into the room. She closed the door with exaggerated care. The second the door clicked shut, she spun around, her eyes wide. “Holy hellfire in a handbasket!”
“What’s wrong?” Danny asked, instantly on the alert.
She jabbed her finger over her shoulder and bobbled her head in a half shake, half nod. “In all my years, I never thought I would actually see this day coming. And I’ve seen plenty of years. But this? This is most definitely the one thing I never, ever thought I would get to say. To actually get to the day where I can finally say it? Well, that’s just—”
Danny cut her off. “Alice!”
She blinked. “Hmm?”
“Say what?”
She cleared her throat and straightened away from the door. She tugged her sweater neatly down over her hips and said with a hint of awe, “The FBI is here.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
“Special Agent Joel Romero,” the man in the dark suit announced, shaking Danny’s hand first, then Marshall’s. “Sorry to pull you away from your duties, Sheriff. Deputy.”
Marshall didn’t bother to correct the assumption that he was on the payroll. If the FBI was in town for the first time ever in the history of Absolution, then whatever was going on had to be bad, and he wasn’t about to leave his little brother to deal with it solo.
Marshall vaulted through a dozen possibilities as to why the feds would come calling, but the only two that made any sense were either the serial arsonist or their houseguest. If the twisting tension in his gut was any indication, he would lay money that it was not going to be about barn burning.
“What brings the FBI all the way to Absolution?” Danny asked casually.
“Hoping you might be able to help me track down a missing woman who may be in the area. I tracked her as far as Pikes Falls, but the trail ran cold.” Romero opened his briefcase and withdrew a single sheet of paper, the words “Missing Person” stamped across the top in large, bold letters.
Expecting to be looking at a photo of Emma, Marshall’s tension eased when the black-and-white picture was of a teenager—not a grown woman.
Then he read the details and description.
Emmaline Katz. Age fourteen.
Sweet Jesus.
His heart nearly stopped. The longer he stared at the picture of the smiling kid with crazy curls, the more he was able to recognize her as she was now.
Emma wasn’t just on the run, she was frigging missing—and had been for over fifteen years.
His stomach threatened to come up on him.
Danny set the poster aside, playing it cool. “Why is the FBI so interested in an old missing-persons case?”
Romero pulled a collection of photos out of his briefcase. He spread them out on the desk. There were a dozen images of the same four individuals—three different men and Emma. Her hair was much shorter and darker now than the long auburn curls she had in the pictures, but the age was about right. They hadn’t been taken all that long ago.
Despite the photographer’s distance, the camera had easily captured the sadness and fear that surrounded her. The images followed a progression—from the doorway of a building to a waiting car by the curb. In every image, her shoulders were hunched and her arms curled against her torso, as though she was trying to remain as small as possible. An easy feat, considering the giants who walked on either side of her had her by twice her body weight and a good foot in height.
“This was taken two months ago,” Romero explained. “It’s her. Emmaline Katz. Alive and well.”
Danny pointed to the man at the center of each image, a sixty-something businessman with a sharp scowl. “Who’s he?”
“Alan Alexander. Career criminal and self-made millionaire. Real piece of work, this one. Has his hands in just every kind of dirty deal you can think of. The bureau’s been after him for years, but every time we get close enough for an indictment, he leaves us holding our balls.”
Marshall tapped the faces of the two men sandwiching Emma. “And the tree trunks?”
“Victor Styles and Vincent DiNoble. DiNoble is purely muscle. Old-school style. Kneecaps and broken skulls. He’s a two-year-old with a baseball bat. Dumb as a stump, but a loyal guard dog. Styles is the cleanup man. He’s a person of interest in at least half a dozen murders, but nothing sticks. Hard to get witnesses to testify when they keep turning up dead.”
Holy shit. No wonder Emma was always so terrified.
“Anyway. What makes you think the woman’s in the area?” Danny asked.
Thank God Danny still had his wits about him to ask the right questions. Marshall was quietly losing his shit.
“We tracked her on a bus to St. Louis,” Romero said. “So we figure she’s heading west. Just checking in with all the local PDs along her possible route.”
“That’s a hell of a lot of work for one missin
g girl.” Danny picked up the missing-person poster. “What’s her story? She been with this Alexander guy the whole time?”
Romero made a face. “That’s what we’re trying to find out. We had no idea she was even in the building. Hell, we had a man on the inside for months, and he never saw or heard talk of her. She just appeared out of nowhere, then disappeared just as fast. It was a complete fluke we were able to overhear Alexander say her first name, which gave us a starting point. But other than the missing-persons report, she doesn’t come up in any system. No driver’s license, no Social Security number, no bank accounts, no ID. Nothing.”
Danny frowned. “And you’re sure it’s the same girl?”
Marshall almost told Danny to quit screwing around, it sure as hell was her, but he knew Danny was just being thorough, while Marshall was ready to explode.
“It’s her,” Romero said firmly.
Marshall sorted through the photos. Seeing her caged and scared between the two men who were obviously her keepers was making his blood boil. “So, she just disappeared? What happened? You got her out?”
“Wasn’t us. No way to get anywhere near her without tipping our hand. We’ve been trying to get someone close enough to talk to her since we saw her. Our guy was able to track her to one of the penthouses Alexander owns. He was looking to get her alone. Only now he’s in the ICU on life support.”
“Jesus. Sorry,” Danny said with sincerity, his gaze sharpening. “Was Styles responsible?”
“That’s the way it’s looking. On Alexander’s orders, though. Styles isn’t much of a thinker. It was a car bomb. Luckily our guy used his remote starter. Even so, the explosion blew him clear across the street. Doctors aren’t sure he’s going to pull through. It’s the same with every lead we get on Alexander. The bastard is always one step ahead of us.” Romero picked up one of the photos of Emma and studied it for a moment before setting it back down. “We think Ms. Katz used the distraction of the car bomb to make a run for it.”