Rogue Gunslinger & Hunting Down the Horseman

by B. J Daniels

  “Are you coming home for dinner?”

  He groaned, suddenly aware of how late it was getting. “I have to wait for two reports on this Hasting murder. I’m sorry.”

  “McKenna and Nate have invited me over,” Eve said. “Maybe I’ll go if it’s all right with you. If you get your reports early, you can join us.”

  “That sounds great. Have you told your sisters yet?”

  “Not yet. But I will when the time is right.”

  He loved the serenity in her voice. Finding out about her mother had been painful but had released her. She now had a family that shared her blood. He knew how much that meant to her.

  “I’ve been thinking,” she said. “I know you’re busy, but I think I’m ready to start a family.”

  He wanted to let out a whoop of joy. “Oh, Eve, I wish I could come home right now.”

  She chuckled. “Maybe after you get your reports...”

  He hung up, happier than he could remember being.

  * * *

  FAITH CAME BACK from her ride and saw that Jud had called. She considered erasing the message without listening to it. After saying goodbye to Jud, she’d come straight to the ranch, saddled her horse and ridden deep into the Missouri Breaks.

  But nothing would take away the ache inside her. Jud Corbett had broken down all her barriers. She’d opened herself up to him, knowing full well how it would end. At the time, she promised herself there would be no regrets.

  But there were plenty of regrets.

  Hadn’t Brooke tried to warn her? Don’t take anything about movies seriously, especially Jud Corbett.

  Faith hesitated for a moment, then played Jud’s message. He sounded odd, she thought. She played the message again, actually listening to his words and not trying to read something into his tone.

  “Sisters?” Bet she didn’t have sisters like yours. As Faith snapped the phone shut, she stood for a moment trying to understand why something was still nagging at her about Hasting’s murder.

  From where she stood, she could see the dark outline of the Little Rockies against the deepening darkness. Suddenly, she didn’t want to be alone tonight. She picked up the phone and tapped in Eve’s number. No answer.

  “You’re just being silly,” she told herself as she walked out onto the porch. A breeze stirred the loose ends of her hair that had come free from her ponytail. She breathed in the night air, the familiar scents making her feel a little better.

  Carter is convinced he got Hasting’s killer. It’s over. By now the film crew has packed up and probably left town.

  A hawk flew over, the rustle of wings and motion startling her. What was wrong with her? She wasn’t usually this jumpy. Faith chuckled at the thought. Why wouldn’t she feel vulnerable? She’d seen a murderer, gotten so close he’d not only seen her, he’d struck her. She shivered at the thought.

  Zander was dead. She was safe. So why did she feel so anxious? Because you let yourself fall in love with Jud Corbett.

  That’s what she’d done all right. Fallen for the arrogant, handsome, funny, charming stuntman.

  Shaking her head, she went back into the house and did something she’d never done before. She locked the door behind her. Whatever had her keyed up tonight, whether it was murder or love, she wasn’t taking any chances.

  * * *

  “YOU’RE AWFULLY QUIET TONIGHT,” Dalton Corbett said as he joined his brother Jud in the family room at Trails West.

  Jud stared out at the growing darkness. The outline of the Little Rockies was etched black against the coming night. He wondered if Faith was looking out at the mountains, as well.

  “Jud?” Dalton gave him a nudge.

  “Sorry. What?”

  Dalton laughed. “I was hoping you were bringing that adorable cowgirl you brought to dinner the other night. You look as if she dumped you.”

  Jud smiled at that. “She did.”

  “Sure she did.”

  Juanita called them in to dinner. Jud wasn’t hungry, but he rose with the others and wandered into the huge dining room. He could smell the chile verde, warm homemade tortillas, pinto beans and bits of ham simmering in a pot on the table and his stomach growled. Traitor.

  The conversation around the table was lively, his family in good spirits. Jud knew it was because Maddie was here with Shane. The wedding was on. Maddie and Kate seemed to be working out their differences. His father couldn’t have looked happier.

  “Finally a wedding,” Lantry said and grinned over at Jud. “Let me see, who’s next? Oh that’s right, wasn’t it Jud who drew the shortest straw?”

  Everyone laughed but Jud. He looked around the table at all the smiling faces and felt worse than he had earlier. As food was passed to him, he filled his plate, but every bite tasted like cardboard—not that he would tell Juanita that. She’d hit him with the plate of tortillas.

  “So where’s your next movie?” Kate asked, studying him.

  “Wyoming. But I have a few weeks before it begins.” He filled a tortilla with chile verde and took a bite.

  “Good,” his father said. “You can stay with us for a while.” Grayson beamed.

  “You can help plan Shane and Maddie’s wedding,” Russell joked.

  “I haven’t decided what I’m going to do just yet,” Jud said and saw his stepmother studying him again with a look of compassion as if she recognized heartbreak and felt for him.

  “Tell us about the murder investigation,” Lantry said.

  Normally Kate would have objected to such a discussion at the dinner table. Jud was glad she didn’t, grateful for a change of subject. He told them what he could.

  “Faith saw the killer?” Kate said, her hand going to her throat.

  Jud nodded. “He struck her with something. If she hadn’t gotten away...and if I hadn’t seen her wandering through the camp...” He didn’t want to think about that.

  “Well, she must be glad the killer isn’t still out there,” Kate said.

  Jud nodded, remembering how Faith had questioned the sheriff. She hadn’t believed the killer was Zander. He felt a tightening in his stomach. He found himself on his feet.

  “Jud?” His father’s voice.

  “Is everything all right?” Kate asked.

  “No—that is, I’m not sure. I just have this feeling.” He glanced around the table to find them all staring at him. “I have to go. I’m sorry. I don’t have time to explain.” He threw down his napkin and headed for his pickup.

  * * *

  CORONER RALPH BROWN called just as Carter was about to give up and go join his wife at dinner with her sister and brother-in-law.

  “Sorry it took so long, Sheriff,” Ralph said. “We’ve been waiting for the results of the lab tests.”

  “And?”

  “Erik Zander had a drug in his system called metabelazene, which constricts the blood vessels. In large doses it causes labored breathing, dizziness, confusion and death.”

  “Doc said Zander had been in the emergency room earlier this week with what had appeared to be a panic attack. But he ran lab tests. Wouldn’t he have found this metabelazene if that’s what it was?”

  “Not necessarily. I doubt they tested for it. It’s a new drug. It’s often given for snakebite victims.”

  Carter felt his pulse jump. The moment he hung up, he called Doc over at the hospital. “I need to ask you a quick question. Did you give Brooke Keith metabelazene for her rattlesnake bite?”

  Doc sighed. “You know I can’t—”

  “Do you usually prescribe metabelazene for snakebites, just tell me that.”

  “Yes, it’s the most effective new drug we’ve found, but you have to be careful because of the side effects and too much of it, of course, can kill a person.”

  Carter hung up and, grabbing his hat, headed for the door.

/>   * * *

  SHERIFF JACKSON TOPPED the hill overlooking where the film crew had camped. The set was gone and so were all of the equipment trailers and trucks, most of the residential trailers. Only three remained.

  His cell phone rang. He stopped his patrol SUV, killing the headlights as he took the call. It was one of the techs at the crime lab, working late.

  “The DNA from the doll brought up a name,” the tech said. “I thought you’d want to know right away.”

  “Someone with a record?”

  “You guessed it. A small-time crook named John Crane. He’s serving time in California for robbery.”

  “He’s in prison. Then how—”

  “The DNA wasn’t a perfect match, but close enough that it has to be one of his siblings. A sister.”

  “Sister?” Carter echoed.

  “Half sister would be my guess. You know, with all these mixed families anymore...”

  A half sister. “So you’re saying that the blood on that doll belongs to a half sister of this John Crane. So she probably doesn’t share the same last name.”

  “With the blending of families you end up with lots of different last names unless the stepfather adopts the children. Add to that all the couples who are blending families without the benefit of marriage and there is no record of these relationships.”

  Which meant Carter was back to square one. Not quite, he reminded himself. He knew Zander had been murdered. He also knew the blood from the doll was a woman’s and Brooke Keith had been given the same drug for her snakebite that had been used to murder Zander. He also knew she had a motive for killing the director—her mother’s death all those years ago.

  “Sorry I couldn’t be of more help.”

  “No, I appreciate you staying on this for me. Thanks.” Hanging up, Carter turned on his headlights again and drove down into what was left of the camp.

  He wondered why three trailers were still here and noted that there were only two vehicles. He parked and walked toward the first trailer. Voices rose up out of the darkness. As he neared the trailer, he saw a campfire blazing in the distance. Two people were standing by it, laughing and drinking.

  He unsnapped his holster and moved toward them.

  As he drew closer, he saw that the figures standing by the fire were two women. He recognized them from when he’d come out here questioning everyone about Keyes Hasting’s possible disappearance.

  Chantal Lee must have heard him approach. She turned from the fire to squint into the darkness, then seemed to start as she saw him. Immediately she checked her expression.

  “Why, Sheriff, it’s so good of you to join us,” she said, and laughed as she held up the half-empty bottle of wine in her hand. “I hope you’re not here to arrest us for being drunk and disorderly. We’re just celebrating the end of the film. It’s a tradition.”

  “You’re sure you’re not celebrating Erik Zander’s death?” Carter asked, directing his question to the other woman standing by the fire.

  Brooke Keith raised her gaze slowly. He saw contempt in the stuntwoman’s gaze. She said nothing, just seemed to be waiting.

  Hadn’t Faith mentioned something to Eve about the two women hating each other? And yet here they were.

  “I suppose you could say this is a wake for poor Erik, as well,” Chantal said. “You know, I was afraid he’d had a heart attack that other time, when the doctor said it was nothing more than a panic attack. The man was under a great deal of stress.”

  “He didn’t die of a heart attack,” Carter said.

  “Really?” Chantal sounded genuinely surprised.

  “He was murdered.”

  She gasped, covering her mouth as her gaze shifted to Brooke standing across the blaze from her. A look passed between them.

  “Do you still have the drugs you were given for your snakebite, Ms. Keith?” he asked.

  “I don’t. I didn’t need them anymore, so I threw the remainder away. Are you telling me someone dug them out of the trash?”

  Carter could see how this was going down. Unless he had hard evidence, there would never be a conviction. The problem was, he thought, as he looked back and forth between the two of them, he wasn’t sure who had actually killed Hasting—or Zander.

  He glanced behind him toward the trailers. Three still left, and only two vehicles. “Who is staying in the third trailer?” he asked, suddenly apprehensive.

  “Nancy Davis, the assistant director,” Chantal said. “It wouldn’t be a celebration without her.” They both laughed, clearly an inside joke.

  He started to turn back to them, sensing that he’d made a terrible mistake. The blow took his feet out from under him. He heard the crack of the piece of firewood as it connected with his head, felt the repercussions rattle through him and the surprise when he found himself staring up at the stars.

  “What the hell did you do that for? Now we’re going to have to get rid of him, too,” he heard one of them say just before everything went black.

  * * *

  FAITH MADE HERSELF a peanut butter and chokecherry jelly sandwich, eating it standing in the well-lit kitchen. She wasn’t hungry, but she knew she had to eat.

  She kept thinking about Jud’s phone call. She thought about calling him back on the pretense of wanting to discuss what he’d learned from Brooke.

  Erik Zander had been responsible for Brooke’s mother’s death and now Zander, labeled a murderer for Hasting’s death, was dead himself. How just things had turned out after all these years.

  Was that what bothered her? She couldn’t seem to get out of her head the images from the night she’d seen the killer dragging away Hasting’s body. Something was wrong.

  And not just with that night. Nancy’s reaction when Faith had asked about Ashton, Idaho, and Brooke. Chantal and Brooke’s rivalry. The accidents on the set. Nevada and Chantal.

  There were always undercurrents on any film, but nothing like on Death at Lost Creek. And amazingly as if by magic, they’d all gone away the moment Zander was dead and Nancy took over to finish the film. The only person with a possible grudge against Zander had been Brooke and yet she, of all of them, seemed the least affected by his death.

  So what did it all mean, if anything? Faith shook her head, suspecting all her nagging doubts were just her way of diverting her attention away from thinking about Jud. As if that were possible. Every heartbeat reminded her that he was gone.

  Faith took a hot bath, hoping to relieve some of her tension. She’d never been afraid in this house, but tonight she’d locked all the doors and had been tempted to check every closet. She couldn’t understand her unease.

  Filling the tub, she stripped down and slipped into the warm, sudsy water. The water lapped over her naked body. Images of making love with Jud rushed at her. She ducked her head under the water, holding her breath until she couldn’t anymore.

  Bursting out of the water, she heard something. A creak. Old houses always creaked. But this creak was more like a slow, furtive footstep on a lower stair. After all these years in the house, Faith knew which stairs creaked the loudest.

  She brushed her wet hair back from her face and listened. Another creak. Rising out of the bath as quietly as possible, she toweled off and pulled on her robe. She’d left the bathroom door open and now edged toward it. Stopping, she listened.

  Another creak below. Someone was sneaking up the stairs.

  Frantically, Faith looked around the bathroom for something she could use as a weapon. She’d never used hairspray, didn’t keep anything more lethal than an emery board in the medicine cabinet and knew digging out the blow dryer from the bottom cabinet would take too much time—and make too much noise. Also, it didn’t make much of a weapon.

  Her mind was racing. All her earlier anxiety came back to her. She’d been jumpy because she’d known this wasn’t over. It hadn’
t been Erik Zander who’d dragged Hasting away from the camp. But how did she know that?

  It didn’t matter now, she told herself. Her cell phone was downstairs in her purse. There was no landline in her bedroom. She had to find a weapon she could use.

  Something in the bedroom. Maybe the lamp next to her bed. Or a bookend from the shelf next to it.

  She stepped around the door and into her bedroom. And froze.

  The only light came from the lamp beside her bed. It cast a golden glow over the bed with its white chenille bedspread and brightly colored pillows.

  Faith let out an involuntary gasp at the sight.

  The doll sat against one of the pillows, its grotesque face staring out at her. But it wasn’t the doll that made her take a step back, stumbling into the wall.

  It was the person standing next to her bed.

  “Nancy?” Faith said, trying to catch her breath. Her thumping heart threatened to bust out of her chest. All she could think was, I should have checked the closets. “What are you...” The rest of her words died on her lips as she saw the gun the woman held.

  “You have to come with me,” Nancy said calmly, as if there was a stunt that needed to be shot. “Please don’t make this more difficult than it has to be.”

  “Where?”

  “To a party,” she said.

  Faith stared at the woman. Was she insane? “A party?” Obviously a party requiring Nancy hold a gun on her to get her to go.

  “Your brother-in-law the sheriff is there waiting. Wouldn’t it be awful if something happened to him? I know how close you are.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “Am I? You really want to take that chance? If you want your sister ever to see him again do as I tell you. Get dressed.”

  Her head was whirling. This was just a bad dream, that’s why it didn’t make any sense.

  “Hurry.”

  Outside, Faith saw one of the pickups Nancy had rented for the movie. Just like the one she’d seen that night at the dry creek bed.

  “I don’t understand why you’re doing this,” Faith said as she slid into the passenger seat.