by BJ Daniels
“I’ll need a description of your wife.”
He pulled her picture from his shirt pocket.
McCall looked at the studio shot of the woman standing next to the man sitting across from her. The woman was small and pretty with a wild mane of dark curly hair and warm brown eyes. The sheriff asked for a more detailed description, jotted it down and handed the photo back.
“You have a number I can reach you?” McCall asked.
He gave her his cell phone number. “My wife is in a very…fragile state. I hate the thought of her out there somewhere…”
McCall nodded, wondering about the pretty dark-haired young woman in the photograph he’d shown her. There’d been something in the woman’s eyes….
He rose to his feet. She could tell he hadn’t got whatever he’d come here for and doubted it was in formation about his wife. “Thanks for your time, Sheriff.” He said the last word with just enough emphasis to let her know what he thought of a woman sheriff.
She watched him leave, worried about his wife.
McCall had come across his type before. But in this one, she sensed fury below the surface. This was a dangerous man, and she suspected the wife knew it and that’s why she’d run.
After Officer Duane Rasmussen left her office, McCall told her deputies to be on the lookout for Billie Rae Johnson Rasmussen.
Now she had two missing women—one of them the wife of a cop, the other an obsessed insurance investigator after a man she believed had committed three murders.
McCall was thinking about that when her phone rang. “Sheriff Crawford,” she said distractedly.
“I just found that vehicle you put the alert out on, the white SUV rental the missing woman was driving,” a local highway patrolman told her. “It’s down in the trees beside the Milk River, about ten miles north of town on River Road.”
The same road as the one that went to the Chisholm Cattle Company ranch.
“The driver’s side door is standing open, the keys are still in the ignition and there’s a purse, the contents spilled on the ground nearby,” the officer was saying. “No sign of the occupant.”
“I’ll be right there,” McCall said and headed for her patrol car.
BILLIE RAE FILLED UP the car with gas, bought a map of Montana and tried to anticipate what Duane would do once he realized she wasn’t coming back to his dad’s old pickup.
From Havre, she had few options. She couldn’t head north to Canada. Even if Duane didn’t have the border patrol looking for her, he could find out if she’d crossed. She could head southwest to Great Falls. Or she could keep going west across the Montana Hi-Line toward Glacier Park. Either way she chose would be two-lane blacktop for miles.
Nor could she catch a commercial flight even if she had the money until she reached a much larger city, which would be several hours away minimum.
She still wasn’t sure what she was going to do until she reached the junction on the outskirts of Havre and found herself turning south toward Great Falls.
Billie Rae had to fight the feeling that no matter which way she went, Duane would find her and it would all end the same way. So why run at all? Why not just turn around and go back?
Just the thought of Tanner kept her going down the highway. For so long she’d devalued herself, thinking she deserved everything Duane was dishing out. But Tanner Chisholm had made her feel whole again.
She prayed that Duane would never learn that Tanner and his family had helped her. She’d actually considered leaving some kind of trail so Duane would follow her and leave them alone.
This made her laugh. Duane didn’t need a trail of breadcrumbs to find her. He could get the help of any law enforcement department. That’s if he couldn’t find her himself.
When she glanced in the rearview mirror, her heart lodged in her throat. No need to leave a trail. Duane had already found her.
A large black car came racing up behind her. She couldn’t see the driver’s face behind the glare on the dark windshield, and the car was too close for her to see the license plate. But her thundering pulse told her it was Duane.
She turned back to her driving. With growing panic, she saw that she was partway off the highway and headed for the ditch. She swerved back into her lane and glanced back again.
The driver of the black car swerved around her, sitting on the horn as the car zoomed past. She caught only a glimpse of the irate woman behind the wheel.
Billie Rae tried to catch her breath. Her heart was pounding and she felt sick to her stomach. That could have been Duane.
But it hadn’t been. She was still free. Still safe. But for how long?
As she drove through the wide-open country, finally picking up the Missouri River as it cut a deep path through the state, she knew she had to come up with a plan.
She’d go as far as she could on what little money she had, then she would find a job, get an apartment and work until she had enough money to move on.
The hardest part would be establishing a new identity. She needed a social security number to go with that new identity. Or a job where she was paid cash and no questions were asked.
But she was determined. Tanner Chisholm had shown her what her life could be like with a loving, caring man. She desperately wanted that. The thought made her ache because she knew there was only one Tanner Chisholm and she’d just left him.
As the miles whizzed past and no sign of Duane’s large black car coming up fast behind her, she was almost starting to relax a little when the right back tire blew.
Chapter Six
Stopping by the local sheriff’s office had been a mistake. Duane had expected some country sheriff who would sympathize with his dilemma. If he’d known Whitehorse had a female sheriff he wouldn’t have bothered.
Bitches always stuck together.
He’d driven into Whitehorse, which was the closest town to the fairgrounds, so he assumed that was where Billie Rae had gone. One of the locals had to have given her a ride. It stuck in his craw that someone had helped her. Maybe a woman. He swore under his breath. More than likely, though, it had been a man—possibly that cowboy he’d seen with his wife at the rodeo.
Whitehorse had turned out to be one of those small Western towns that dotted the Hi-Line of Montana. The towns had sprung up when the railroad came through. Many of them, like Whitehorse, had a main drag of brick buildings facing the tracks. Apparently in Whitehorse, though, they’d recently had a fire, because there was a gaping hole between two of the buildings.
After talking to the sheriff, Duane knew he now had to find Billie Rae before the local law did. Billie Rae couldn’t have gotten far—not without any money or wheels.
But someone had helped her. Where would she have spent the night? In a local church? Do-gooders often put up the poor, helpless sorts who arrived in town without a car or food or money.
He was counting on her still being in Whitehorse. Sure, someone would be nice enough to give her a ride that far, but no farther since the closest towns were Glasgow, an hour away to the east back toward Williston and North Dakota, and Havre, an hour-and a-half away to the west. The only other option was Canada, about fifty miles to the north.
He couldn’t see her heading back the way she’d come, toward North Dakota. If she’d left town, she would either go north toward Canada or west toward Glacier Park.
But he still thought she hadn’t gotten that far yet. Even if she’d talked someone into giving her a ride, this was a small town. Somebody would have seen her. All he had to do was ask the right people.
TANNER HAD GOTTEN BACK from Havre too late. By the time he’d reached the fairgrounds, there was no sign of the old pickup Billie Rae said she’d escaped from her husband in—nor of the black Lincoln she’d said her husband had been driving.
“I should have gone out there first thing this morning,” Tanner had told his brother Marshall when he’d called him after leaving the fairgrounds.
“That would have been a boneheaded thing t
o do,”
Marshall said. “Didn’t you say this guy is a cop?”
Now back at the ranch, he found his family sitting around the dining room table eating an early supper. It was clear that Marshall had told them what Tanner had been up to.
“The man’s abusing his wife,” he said, angry at the reproach he saw not only in his father’s gaze but in Emma’s as well. “I saw her black eye and the bruise on her cheek, but more than that, I saw her fear. Last night she was running for her life.”
“Then she should have gone to the sheriff,” his father said.
Tanner shook his head. “It would be her cop husband’s word against hers. Even if he was arrested, he would get out on bail and be even more dangerous than he is now.” Billie Rae was afraid of law enforcement and he could understand why, given she was married to a cop. “I tried to get her to stay. I told her I would help her,” he said voicing his frustration.
“This woman really got to you, didn’t she?” Emma said.
“I can’t explain it. I saw her last night and…” He realized what he was saying and shut up. Emma, he suspected, would understand, but not his brothers. Unless anyone had felt something like that….
“She wasn’t ready for your help,” Emma said. “There really is nothing you can do until she’s ready.”
“But Billie Rae wants out. Otherwise, why would she have run when he told her he would kill her if she did?”
Hoyt shook his head. “Most of the time, the woman goes back. Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t. A smart man never gets in the middle of a domestic dispute, especially for a woman he doesn’t really know.”
“Tanner is no smart man,” Marshall joked. “He’s determined to save this woman—even from herself.”
“You aren’t going looking for this husband again, are you?” his father asked.
“I drove out to the fairgrounds when I got back from Havre, but he wasn’t there,” Tanner said.
“I told him it was a stupid thing to do,” Marshall said and shrugged when Tanner sent him a withering look.
“She’s afraid he’s going to kill her,” Tanner said. “He threatened to if she left him and she did. She needs help. Why can’t you see that?”
“We do see it,” Emma said. “But she didn’t want yours or she would have stayed.”
“She’s afraid she put us all in jeopardy by letting me bring her here last night,” Tanner said.
“Son, by now she could be headed back to her husband, for all you know,” Hoyt said. “You can’t save a woman who doesn’t want to be saved. I ought to know.”
Tanner knew his father was talking about his third wife, Krystal. He’d saved her from an abusive situation, only to have her disappear shortly after they were wed.
“Did Krystal go back to her abusive boyfriend?” Tanner asked, ignoring his brother’s warning look not to.
“Yeah, she did and he was only her boyfriend. This woman you think you rescued is married. Let it go, son,” his father said, laying a protective hand on his shoulder as he got up from the table. “We’ve got fence posts to set before it gets dark. Come on, work is the best medicine for what’s ailing you. That, too, I know from experience.”
“Your father only wants to help. He’s worried about you,” Emma said after the others had gone outside. “But Tanner, trust what you feel and pray. She’s going to need it.”
SHERIFF MCCALL CRAWFORD found the patrolman waiting for her at the spot along the Milk River where he’d discovered Aggie Wells’s rental vehicle.
As she walked toward the stand of cottonwoods where the white SUV had been abandoned, there was no doubt in her mind that whoever had left it there had been trying to hide it. Law enforcement had been looking for Aggie’s vehicle since the niece had reported her aunt missing.
She felt her heart beat a little faster as she neared the officer and saw his expression. “You found a body?”
He quickly shook his head. “But it appears we might be dealing with foul play. There is blood on the driver’s seat.” He handed her a flashlight so she could look into the tree-shaded vehicle.
She shone the beam into the rental, quickly taking in what appeared to be blood on the driver’s seat; two open suitcases in the back, with clothes strewn around; a purse on the ground, the contents dumped as if someone had gone through her belongings. Or had hoped to make this look like a robbery.
“Have you checked the area yet?” she asked the patrolman.
“Just the immediate area.”
McCall looked into the deep shadows under the cottonwoods. She could see the gleam of the river’s dark surface through the low branches. The water looked murky. She felt a sudden chill as she remembered watching her father’s pickup being pulled from an old stock pond where it had been buried in the mud for twenty-seven years.
At least whoever had hidden this car hadn’t opted to sink it in the river where it might not have been found for years—or ever.
That thought gave her pause. Why hadn’t the last person to drive this car done exactly that? Because they’d wanted the car to be found?
She glanced around. Maybe the person had been in a hurry. Possibly someone had been waiting for them up on the road, so they hadn’t taken the time to do more than try to hide the car.
Too many possibilities, McCall thought. “Let’s call in some help and broaden our search, and if we don’t find her we’re going to have to drag the river for her body.”
As she reached for her phone, the question was still the same one she’d been asking herself since the niece had walked into her office. Where was Aggie Wells?
DUANE DECIDED THAT HIS best approach when he questioned the good people of Whitehorse, Montana, wasn’t to admit that Billie Rae was his uncontrollable wife on the lam. That might garner unwanted sympathy for Billie Rae from the kind of people who took in strays and just felt the need to do good all the time—like whoever had given her a ride last night after the rodeo, the someone who just didn’t know any better.
So it made sense that his best approach was to make her a dangerous felon and to flash his badge and put enough pressure on this town that someone came up with some answers. He figured if he moved fast, the local female sheriff wouldn’t get wind of it.
He began to hit the churches, which were notorious for taking in stranded motorists and people passing through town. There were a half dozen in the small town, more churches than bars. When he struck out there he tried the motels, thinking the good Samaritan had put her up in one for the night.
Striking out again, Duane was tired and hungry and losing his patience. He considered repeating the story he’d told the local sheriff to some of his friends in law enforcement. If he put an all-points bulletin out on Billie Rae, everyone in the northwest would be looking for her. With luck, some good ol’ boy would find her and—
With a start he realized that Sheriff McCall Crawford could have already done that. Someone could have already found his wife. But then, wouldn’t the sheriff have called him? Probably not, he thought with a curse. Not until she talked to Billie Rae herself.
Duane realized it was time to put in a call to a couple of buddies he’d met who worked for the Montana state highway patrol department. They were good ol’ boys. He gave them the same story he’d told the sheriff. It didn’t matter if they believed it or not. They’d see that he got his wife back.
Then he found a small café on the edge of town and ordered a cheeseburger, fries and a chocolate milkshake for a late lunch, telling himself it would be his word against his wife’s. After all, he was a cop. And Billie Rae was…just his wife.
As he ate, he listened to the locals talking. He’d found you could learn a lot about a community by listening to the old guys talk in the local café. There was always a table or two of them and Whitehorse was no different. The talk was about range, cattle, water, weather and finally the rodeo.
Duane finished his meal, pushed the plate away and rose to go over to the table. “Gentl
emen, sorry to bother you, but I heard you mention the rodeo.” He took out his badge, flashed it and quickly put it away. He didn’t need any smart rancher telling him he had no jurisdiction here. “I’m looking for a dangerous felon whose pickup was found at the rodeo last night. I was hoping you might have seen her.”
“Her?” one of the old-timers said with a snort. Another one of them laughed as Duane handed him the photo he’d removed from his pocket of Billie Rae.
“You say this woman is a dangerous felon?” the man asked, disbelieving.
“The sweeter they look, often the more dangerous they are,” Duane said, thinking how true that was. This woman was going to be the death of him, he thought.
“What’s she wanted for?” another man at the table asked as the photo was passed to him.
“She killed her three children, ages eleven months, two and four years,” Duane said without batting an eye. “Drowned them in the bathtub. The four-year-old fought for his life.”
The men at the table wagged their heads in shock and horror, and quickly passed the photo back to him, wanting nothing to do with such a woman.
“I was hoping you might have seen her,” Duane said solemnly. “As far as I can figure, she caught a ride with someone from the fairgrounds into town.”
The waitress had come up beside him. She’d obviously been listening. He let her steal a look at Billie Rae’s photo before he put it back in his shirt pocket.
“Rachel might have seen her,” the waitress said and hollered at the cook to come out. “She was telling me about some woman she saw right as the fireworks were over.”
Duane felt a surge of hope as a heavyset cook came out of the back. He showed her the snapshot of Billie Rae.
“I can’t say for positive,” Rachel said, handing the photo back. “But I think it might be her.”
Duane had been a cop long enough to know that often people liked to be a part of the drama by saying they saw something they didn’t.