by BJ Daniels
Maybe she hadn’t spent the night here, but Marshall Chisholm still had to know where Billy Rae had gone last night after he’d given her a ride to Whitehorse.
Duane settled in to wait for Marshall Chisholm to come home.
“ANY NEWS?” MCCALL ASKED when she reached her husband. As a local game warden, Luke Crawford was often involved with any law enforcement in the county. Since he’d been in the area checking fishing licenses and had a boat, he was now involved in the search for Agatha Wells’s body.
“Nothing so far. We’re dragging the river.”
“I just spoke with Emma Chisholm again. After she and her husband, Hoyt, had Aggie out to supper the night she disappeared, Emma says neither of them left the house after that.”
“You believe her?”
The sheriff thought about the new Mrs. Chisholm. She liked her and wanted to believe her. “Not sure. She’s scared, which makes me think her husband wasn’t in the house all of that time.”
“From what you told me,” Luke said, “Hoyt Chisholm has the most to gain by this woman’s death.”
“I spoke with the insurance company that Agatha Wells worked for. She was fired. Her boss said she became obsessed with the Chisholm case, convinced that Hoyt killed all three of his wives, including the third one who disappeared. I found out that he only recently had her declared dead.”
“And now he’s remarried. Wouldn’t that explain the fear you saw in Emma Chisholm? I know that would scare me if your last three husbands met with accidents or just plain disappeared.”
McCall chuckled. “I scare you already.”
“True.” She heard the soft, seductive tone in his voice and felt a small shiver. Could she love this man anymore? Not likely.
“I just needed to hear your voice,” she said truthfully.
“Always glad to oblige. See you later?”
“Absolutely.” She disconnected, and following a feeling she hadn’t been able to shake all day, she put out an all-points bulletin on Billie Rae Johnson Rasmussen.
BY THE TIME BILLIE RAE got something to eat from a fast-food place, filled the car up with gas and looked at a map to decide which way to go next, it was getting dark.
The emotional roller coaster of the past forty-eight hours had taken its toll on her. She felt wrung out and knew she wasn’t up to driving much farther. The next large town was hours down the road and she didn’t trust staying in the smaller Montana towns, feeling it would be too easy for Duane to find her.
She could almost feel him breathing down her neck. He wouldn’t give up. It wasn’t in his nature—not when he would feel justified for whatever he did to her. He would be driven and nothing and no one could stop him.
At least Great Falls was large enough that she should be able to find a motel, pay cash and get some sleep with some assurance she would be safe. At least for tonight.
She thought about changing her appearance, bleaching her dark hair, cutting it, getting a pair of glasses at the dime store. Instead, she picked up a baseball cap at a convenience store and stuffed her long hair up under it.
When she found a motel downtown, though, she ran into the same thing she had when she purchased the car. No identification.
“I’m sorry, we need a credit card or some kind of identification,” the older male clerk behind the desk told her.
“My purse was stolen,” Billie Rae said. “I’m just trying to get home.”
“Where’s home?”
“Spokane.” She picked the name out of thin air.
The clerk studied her. She was still wearing the blouse and slacks she’d been wearing when she’d made the run for it. She must look a mess. Tomorrow she had to buy some more clothing. Thanks to Tanner, she could afford a few items.
Billie Rae also realized that her “disguise” had been a mistake and quickly took off her baseball cap. Her long curly dark hair spilled around her shoulders.
Duane had told her she looked too young, that she should try to look older; people thought he’d robbed the cradle worse than he had. As it was, he was seven years her senior—him nearly forty.
She knew it bothered him, turning forty, and that was part of the problem. While he had begun to gray around the temples, Billie Rae could still pass for her early twenties, although she tried to dress and act older to please Duane.
“Well, I suppose it will be all right this time,” the clerk said now.
She started to fill out the registration card as he watched her. She was so nervous she wrote down her first name without thinking, then unable to quickly think of a second name, wrote down Chisholm. After all, the car was registered to Tanner Chisholm.
“Billie Rae Chisholm,” the man said reading the card. She’d done better on making up an address in Spokane, Washington, but didn’t dare make up the zip code.
“You don’t know your zip code?”
“I keep forgetting it. We just moved there.”
He nodded and put the registration card away as if he didn’t believe anything she said but no longer cared. He gave her the key and told her how to get to her room.
By the time she reached the motel room, she was trembling all over and furious with herself. If Duane started calling motels in Great Falls, he would have no trouble finding her since she’d already made the clerk suspicious.
She thought about just leaving, hitting the road, trying to drive to another town or even another motel in Great Falls. But it would be the same thing all over again. Exhaustion overtook her. She plopped down on the bed, telling herself she would only rest for a few minutes before leaving, and fell into the sleep of the dead.
DUANE SAW THE LIGHTS coming up the road. One vehicle. Good, Marshall Chisholm was alone. Unless he’d brought a girlfriend, but Duane was pretty sure that wasn’t the case or he wouldn’t have picked up Billy Rae last night.
He smiled when he saw the cowboy climb out of his truck alone. Duane loved being right.
Marshall Chisholm was good sized. Duane wasn’t all that sure he could beat him in a fair fight, but then there was no chance of that.
He waited until Chisholm opened the door and stepped in before hitting him from behind, knocking him to his knees.
The idea was to disarm him—not to knock him out. While he’d love to beat the hell out of the man who’d interfered in his marriage, he needed to know where Billie Rae was first.
“What the hell?” the dazed cowboy said when Duane stepped in front of him.
“Where is Billie Rae?”
The cowboy was on his feet before Duane could get a good swing with the tire iron. The blow didn’t even stun him. Marshall Chisholm grabbed the tire iron before Duane could hit him again.
Seeing how this was going down, Duane pulled the gun just so the cowboy knew who was boss here. “Where is my wife?”
Marshall Chisholm took a step back at the sight of the gun. He rubbed a hand over his jaw, and his eyes widened just enough that Duane knew they were finally on the same page. “Now you remember?” he said with a laugh. “Where is she?”
“You’re the cop,” Marshall said as if trying to get up to speed. Or maybe he was just reminding himself that he’d just slugged an officer of the law.
“That’s right,” Duane said, brandishing the gun. “And you’re the son of a bitch who picked up my wife last night at the rodeo.” He took a threatening step toward Marshall. “Now put down the tire iron and tell me what you did with her and where she is now.” He fired a shot next to the cowboy’s head. Wood splintered, the boom echoing through the house. “I suggest you start talking.”
Chapter Eight
Tanner woke to an unfamiliar sound. It took him a moment to realize it was his landline ringing. After he’d put his cell phone in Billie Rae’s car, he’d picked up another cell phone and had his number changed, but no one but Billie Rae had the number.
He’d slept badly last night and now felt groggy as he glanced at the clock. It wasn’t even daylight yet.
As he reached f
or the phone, he realized it might be Billie Rae calling. He knew he shouldn’t have called her yesterday evening, but he’d needed to hear her voice, needed to know she was all right, needed to be sure she hadn’t changed her mind and gone back to her abusive husband. He’d also wanted to make sure she found the phone—and the money—he’d left her.
“Hello?” He heard the hope in his voice that it was Billie Rae and that she’d changed her mind and was coming back. He should have known that no call this time of the morning was going to be good news.
“Son, it’s Dad.”
“What’s wrong?” Tanner sat up, now fully awake. Had Hoyt heard something about Billie Rae? Was that why he was calling?
“It’s your brother Marshall. He’s in the hospital.”
“What happened?” All Tanner could think was a car accident.
“He’s been beaten up pretty badly, but the doctor says he’s going to be all right. He’s asking to see you.”
Beaten up? How could he have gotten into a fight? Last night Marshall said he was heading home after they finished work late, that he was tired and going home to his house.
“He asked to see all of the family?” Tanner asked in alarm. Maybe his father was wrong and Marshall was worse off than they thought.
“Just you.”
Thirty minutes later, Tanner found his brother sitting on a gurney in the emergency room of the hospital, Hoyt and Emma standing nearby. Marshall’s head was bandaged and he had a dark row of stitches along his jaw.
When he saw Tanner, he asked their father and stepmother to give them a moment alone.
“Come on, Emma,” Hoyt said, shooting Tanner a look that spoke volumes. He was responsible for this?
With a curse he realized who had done this to his brother. “I’ll kill the son of a bitch,” Tanner swore again, seeing red. He’d gotten in the middle of Billie Rae’s marriage to a cop, of all things, and now he had gotten his brother almost killed. How could this situation be any worse?
Marshall shook his head. “I’m fine. But we have to find Billie Rae before he does.”
The anger fled in an instant at the sound of her name, leaving him clearheaded. “You told him where she’d gone,” Tanner said, no judgment in his tone. His brother had taken a beating because of him.
“Not on your life. I sent him north to the Canadian border to buy us time,” Marshall said, sliding off the gurney.
“Sir, the doctor hasn’t released you,” the nurse said, rushing toward them. “He wants to keep you overnight. You have a concussion.”
“She’s right,” Tanner said, putting a hand on his brother’s arm. “I can handle this.”
Marshall met his gaze as though assessing if he thought his brother was too emotionally involved, then he slumped back against the gurney.
“I’m so sorry,” Tanner said as he and the nurse helped Marshall back up onto the gurney.
“This isn’t your fault. I know what would have happened to Billie Rae if we hadn’t helped her last night and so do you, but he’s a cop, little brother. You can’t kill a cop, even a bad one, and if you tangle with him you’ll get yourself killed.”
“I can handle this.”
His brother shook his head. “Even when he pulled the gun on me, I wanted to go for the bastard’s throat. I’m afraid that’s exactly what you would have done and he would have killed you. I’m telling you, Tanner, this dude is dangerous. Just make sure he doesn’t find Billie Rae until you can get her some kind of protection from this psychopath.”
SHERIFF MCCALL CRAWFORD got the call before breakfast. Luke had left early since he was overseeing the dragging of the river. She had wanted to go with him but got held up with a phone call.
She had just hung up when the phone rang again.
It was her deputy.
“We just found a grave not far from where Aggie Wells’s car was abandoned by the Milk River,” he said. “It’s not our missing vic, though,” he added. “These remains have been here for a lot longer than a few weeks.”
By the time McCall reached the scene, Coroner George Murphy was crouched beside an open hole in the side of the riverbank.
“Looks like whoever killed her dug into the side of the bank, shoved the tarp-wrapped body in, then let the soft dirt slide down and cover her.” He motioned to the bones lying on what was left of an old canvas tarp.
“Her?” McCall asked.
“Definitely a woman. I’d say in her late twenties.”
McCall glanced at the gaping hole in the side of the bank. “How was it again that you found the grave?” She remembered finding her father’s. It had been like opening Pandora’s box and she suspected this grave would be no different.
“Apparently another dirt slide unearthed it—or maybe one of the searchers inadvertently did,” the coroner said. “This morning I happened to spot a bone and a piece of the tarp sticking out.”
“That was handy, wasn’t it?” she said, never comfortable with coincidence. “Or maybe someone wanted us to find it. Any chance of matching dental records?”
“She’s had some dental done,” George said slowly, then met her gaze. “I think you might get luckier with her medical records. She had an abnormal amount of broken bones for a woman her age.”
“Are you suggesting some medical reason for that?” McCall asked.
“Maybe. More than likely this woman was seriously abused in her twenties, I would say.”
“You can tell all that from her skeleton?”
“It’s the type of breaks. Facial, wrists, arms, ribs…” George looked a little green around the gills. He always did when things got ugly. For a man who didn’t like knowing about the evil things humans did to one another, it was amazing the EMT was still willing to act as the county coroner.
“How long would you estimate that the remains have been there?”
George sighed. “Hard to say, but given the amount of decomposition…I’d guess, and remember this is just a guess, twenty-five years. Maybe less, maybe more.” He launched into a speech about all the factors that made a body deteriorate, a speech she’d heard many times before.
“Let’s get her ID’d as quickly as possible,” McCall said and glanced through the trees where she could see Aggie Wells’s vehicle. The wrecker was coming today to take it to the sheriff department’s storage unit as evidence.
They’d been searching for Aggie Wells’s body and now another woman’s had turned up? And still no sign of Aggie.
McCall didn’t like what she was thinking and was surprised when the very person she was thinking about called.
“Sheriff Crawford here,” she said into the phone. She listened as Hoyt Chisholm told her why she needed to come down to the hospital, then said, “I’ll be right there.”
DUANE SAT IN HIS CAR down the street from the small town hospital. He knew Marshall would warn who ever had been in the pickup that night with Billie Rae after the rodeo. All he had to do was wait and see who showed up.
Duane wasn’t surprised at all when a cowboy drove up shortly after the father and stepmother had arrived. He recognized him from the high school yearbooks he’d found at the library.
Tanner was a big cowboy like his brother, but as Duane had always said, “The bigger they are, the harder they fall.” And this one was going down.
He smiled to himself as he waited for a few minutes to see if anyone else would show up. When no one did, he climbed out of his car and walked down the deserted street to the pickup the brother had arrived in. It had Chisholm Cattle Company printed on the side, Duane noted as he slipped under it and secured the tracking device.
Another benefit of being a cop, he was able to get all the toys that went with the job, along with anything else he wanted from the sleazebags he came in contact with on the streets.
Slipping out from under the pickup, he moseyed back to his car and checked it on his cell phone. “Modern technology,” he said in admiration, pleased with himself, as he looked at the small screen. Now wher
ever Tanner Chisholm went Duane was sure to follow, and he had no doubt that this cowboy was going to lead him straight to Billie Rae.
“It’s just a matter of time now, Billie Rae,” he said to himself, then swore as he spotted a sheriff’s department vehicle coming up the street. He slid down in his seat, swearing profusely as the patrol car pulled into the hospital parking lot.
He’d told Marshall Chisholm not to call the law or he would come back and finish him. Apparently the hick hadn’t taken his threat seriously. Duane rubbed his jaw where the cowboy had got in a good punch. First Marshall had lied to him about where Billie Rae had gone. Duane had believed that under the threat of death the cowboy had told him the truth. But one call to the border after he’d left Marshall and he’d verified that Billie Rae hadn’t been anywhere near the crossing.
Duane told himself he should have known better than to believe that she’d head for Canada. Billie Rae was proving she wasn’t as stupid as he’d once thought. Obviously she’d known how easily he could find out if she’d crossed into Canada, so she’d probably gone in another direction. What he needed to know, though, was which direction—and how she was getting wherever the hell she thought she was going.
These Chisholm cowboys had been playing him. They really had no idea what a mistake that was yet. But they would soon.
As he watched the woman sheriff being met at the door by the parents of Marshall Chisholm, Duane knew it was time to get out of town. Apparently that was what Billie Rae had already done.
Wherever she was, he was counting on Tanner Chisholm leading him right to her.
TANNER CALLED BILLIE RAE the moment he left his brother’s hospital room. The cell phone rang four times. A shaft of icy fear made his stomach roil at the thought that she’d dumped the cell phone, afraid her husband would somehow be able to follow her because of it.
Billie Rae answered on the fifth ring.
“It’s Tanner. Are you all right?”