by BJ Daniels
He had no idea how long he’d been out—or how far they had driven. All he remembered was Duane saying that Billie Rae was waiting for them up the road.
It was too dark to see if there was a latch, something that could get him out of the trunk when the time came. He felt around, trying not to move too much, but didn’t find anything. He didn’t want the cop to know he was awake. Not yet, anyway.
Tanner felt he had the best chance of survival by pretending to still be knocked out. The element of surprise might be his only chance, he thought, remembering the fury in the cop’s face when he’d jumped him.
What confused Tanner was how Duane had known he would be at the casino. Billie Rae wouldn’t have told him. Tanner swore as he realized how stupid he’d been. Duane was a cop. He probably put a tracking device on Tanner’s pickup.
He tried to think of when Duane might have had access to the truck. When Tanner had gone to the hospital to see his brother? The bastard had probably been just waiting for him to lead him to Billie Rae.
BILLIE RAE PUT ON the harness she’d purchased at the climbing store. She attached the rope the way the clerk had shown her, her fingers hardly shaking.
Don’t think about all the things that can go wrong.
Don’t think about Duane. Or the bridge. Or… Tanner.
Instead, she concentrated on what she had to do as she put the large jacket on over the climbing harness, coiled the rope she’d attached to the harness and put it in one large pocket of the jacket. The gun she put in the other pocket along with the extra cartridges. Hesitating, she took the gun from her pocket, lifted it to chest high and aimed it toward the bridge.
The weight of the weapon in her hands made her feel stronger than she really was, braver, almost invincible. She wondered if that was how Duane felt when he was armed. He spent hours cleaning his gun, handling it, holding it, aiming it. She shuddered at how often he had aimed it at her heart and threatened to blow a hole in her the size of a half dollar.
“You should learn to shoot,” Duane said one night after a few beers.
“I don’t like guns.”
He’d laughed at that. “Only fools don’t like guns. A gun can save your life.”
“Or take it,” she’d said.
He’d smiled at that. “I wouldn’t waste a bullet on you, sweetheart. I’d kill you with my bare hands if you ever gave me reason.”
The next afternoon, he’d come home early. “Come on,” he’d said.
“Where are we going?” It wasn’t like him to come home early. She feared something had happened at work and that they would be moving again. She’d only recently learned by overhearing Duane on the phone that something he did in Oklahoma was why he’d applied to the force in Williston, North Dakota. He’d told her it was because the job paid more but she’d found out that too had been a lie.
She’d later learned that he’d assaulted one of the suspects who’d said something to him that set him off. Two other policemen had been forced to pull him off the suspect. Unfortunately for Duane, some witness had gotten a little of it on his cell phone camera.
His fellow cops had covered for him so Duane had managed to get off with little more than a slap on the wrist, but the department was watching him—something Duane couldn’t handle.
“We’re going to the shooting range,” he had announced the day he’d come home early. “No wife of mine is going to be afraid of guns.”
“I’m not afraid, I just don’t—”
“You’re going to learn to shoot—and shoot well.” She’d heard the warning in his tone and knew there was no arguing with Duane once he’d made up his mind.
Now she quickly slipped the gun into her jacket pocket again. Learning to shoot had been the one thing Duane had taught her that was finally going to come in handy.
The wind blew her hair into her eyes. She tied it back but still some tendrils escaped. Then she doubled-checked to make sure she had everything, before she glanced at her watch again. Duane could be here any minute. Slamming the trunk, she turned to look again at the bridge.
It was made of wooden slats that were no more than four feet wide. They were bound together with what appeared to be rope. Two other ropes that stretched from bank to bank acted as handrails. Each of those was attached vertically to the bridge platform every four or five feet with more rope.
Two steel cables anchored in concrete on each side ran under the bridge to give it reinforced support. But the cables were slack enough to let the bridge move and, boy, was it moving.
From this angle, it swayed in the wind as hypnotically as a pendulum. Billie Rae couldn’t imagine trying to walk out on it—or how she would get to the middle where she needed to be when Duane arrived. She just knew she had to take that first step—just as she’d taken the first step to be free of Duane.
This time, she let herself think of Tanner as she slipped down the steep rocky slope to the bridge entrance. She was terrified of what she was about to do. Thinking of Tanner Chisholm gave her strength. At the base of the footbridge, she had to climb up to get on it.
A chain had been stretched across the opening with another sign that warned that the bridge was for authorized personnel only. Violators would be prosecuted. Like so many signs she’d seen out west, this sign had been used for target practice. It was peppered with rusted gunshot holes.
The holes made it hard—but not impossible—to read the smaller print at the bottom of the sign: Danger: Do Not Cross In High Wind.
She watched the wind kick up dust from the other side of the mountain, a gust wildly rocking the bridge before it settled back into just swinging.
Gathering all her courage, Billie Rae ducked under the sign and crawled up onto the bridge.
JUST THE THOUGHT OF Aggie Wells pulling their strings as if they were puppets made Emma angry. She had to calm down before she went back into the house after the sheriff left with Hoyt. She called the lawyer first, then each of her stepsons.
“Dad didn’t kill anyone,” said Dawson, the eldest of the brothers and the one they all agreed was the most responsible of the six. “Don’t worry. We can take care of the ranch until we get him out. Have you called his lawyer?”
“Yes, he’s headed down to the sheriff’s department to see about getting Hoyt out on bail,” Emma told him—just as she had the others.
That wasn’t the problem—getting Hoyt out on bail, she thought after she hung up. It was finding Aggie Wells and getting at the truth. No way did Emma believe it was a coincidence that Aggie’s car ended up abandoned near where Krystal’s body was found. Or that the bolo tie clasp had ended up at the site.
Unless Hoyt is guilty.
The thought flew at her out of the darkness of her thoughts.
“My husband is not a killer,” she said to the empty kitchen. Her voice echoed back at her and, with a chill, she realized how alone she was. The cook, Celeste, had called and made a lame excuse for why she couldn’t make it today. Housekeeper Mae had called shortly after with an equally weak excuse. They were bailing off Chisholm Cattle Company as if it were a sinking ship.
She couldn’t really blame them. Nor could she bear to think of Hoyt locked up—let alone him going to prison for a murder, or murders he didn’t commit. Aggie Wells had to be behind this.
And if that was the case…Emma let out a cry as a thought struck her. Aggie killed Krystal. How else would she know where the woman was buried so she could implicate Hoyt by putting the silver bolo tie clasp at the scene?
She started to reach for the phone to call the sheriff when she realized she had no proof. It was all conjecture. She couldn’t prove the bolo tie had been in Hoyt’s jewelry box and he didn’t seem to remember if it had been there or not since he’d said he hadn’t worn it in years.
“Hoyt didn’t do it.” She said it loud enough that if the house wanted to argue she was up for it. All she got was an echo and realized she was arguing with herself because she was scared.
She was convinced Agg
ie Wells was alive and behind this. But did she really believe the former insurance investigator had gone so far off the rails that she would murder Hoyt’s third wife just to frame him? That did seem extreme.
But Aggie had already been investigating the deaths of Hoyt’s first two wives. What if she’d become so frustrated for lack of proof that she’d decided to kill Krystal and make it look as if Hoyt had, just so she could frame him?
“And then wait almost thirty years before she made sure the woman’s remains were found?” Emma demanded of the empty room.
She was glad she hadn’t called the sheriff. Her theory sounded way too far-fetched.
Just the fact that she’d smelled the woman’s perfume in the house twice hardly proved that Aggie Wells was alive. Which begged the question, why hadn’t she turned up?
Emma poured herself a mug of coffee and cut a small piece of the oatmeal cake. After staring down at the small piece of a cake for a long moment, she cut herself a larger piece as a thought crossed her mind.
If she really believed in Hoyt’s innocence—which she did—then she needed to figure out what Aggie had been doing in her house. She took a bite of the cake. She really did make the best oatmeal cake, she thought, as she swallowed and had a sip of coffee. She could feel her strength coming back as well as her senses.
The reason for Aggie coming to the house at least the first time came to her like a shot out of the dark.
Aggie took Hoyt’s bolo tie to frame him.
Emma felt a chill as she realized that had to be it. All of their bureau drawers had been gone through including Emma’s jewelry box. She hadn’t thought to check Hoyt’s because he’d glanced in and said he didn’t think anything was missing.
The only clue had been that lingering scent the woman had left behind. Emma had recognized it when she’d met Aggie at the bar at Sleeping Buffalo. When she’d accused Aggie of snooping around their ranch house, Aggie hadn’t denied it. She’d given Emma the impression that she had merely been curious—and concerned—about Emma, Hoyt’s fourth wife, after what had apparently happened to the other three.
Sitting up straighter, Emma saw how foolish she had been not to see this before. Aggie was so determined to prove Hoyt had murdered his first wife that she had become obsessed with being right. It had apparently cost Aggie her job at the insurance company.
But if she had killed Krystal… Emma had a thought that felt so right it scared her. What if Aggie hadn’t killed Krystal to frame Hoyt—but to get rid of the competition?
Hoyt was an incredibly handsome man—not to mention wealthy and respected, a great catch. If Aggie had fallen for him while investigating him…
It fit. She wished she could ask Hoyt how Aggie had acted after his third wife had disappeared. Of course Aggie would have investigated the disappearance. That meant she’d been in Whitehorse, probably had been out to the ranch to talk to Hoyt.
But Hoyt hadn’t been interested. He’d sworn off women all those years until he’d met Emma—and Aggie Wells had come back into his life. How would a jealous woman react to Hoyt getting married again after all those years?
Badly, Emma thought. So badly, though, that she would make sure Krystal’s body turned up and that her own didn’t? So obsessed that she had faked her own disappearance and made it look as if she too had been murdered?
Emma hugged herself as she realized just how obsessed that was. If she was right, then Aggie Wells was a very dangerous person with a very jealous streak.
She glanced toward the window, uneasy at the direction her thoughts had taken. The day was bright and sunny, the sky a brilliant blue, not a cloud in sight. Still she felt a chill wrap itself around her neck like a noose. Where was Aggie right now? Was she hiding in the hills, watching the house with binoculars? That seemed unlikely.
If Aggie wasn’t hiding in the hills watching the house with a pair of binoculars then how had she known earlier that there was no one around so she could come back into the house again?
Emma took the last bite of cake and almost choked as the answer came to her.
Aggie Wells had bugged the house!
THE MOMENT BILLIE RAE stepped onto the bridge, she made her first mistake. Still on her hands and knees after slipping under the chain across the bridge entrance, she’d looked down. The rushing movement of the dark green water over the rocks far below threw her off balance.
She closed her eyes, held on to the wooden slats of the bridge beneath her and tried to regain not only her breath—but her courage.
After a few moments, she opened her eyes, this time focusing on the other side of the gorge as she got to her feet. This end of the bridge was attached to a concrete base set back into the side of the mountain so the bridge was fairly stable.
But the moment she took her first step, she felt the bridge move under her weight. She clutched the ropes that formed the handrail. They felt insubstantial. She didn’t look through the gaping hole on each side between the rope or through the wooden slats of the bridge beneath her feet, but she was well aware of how easily it would be to fall between the bridge floor and the handrail rope uprights and drop the fifty feet to the river and rocks below.
She couldn’t move for a moment. The wind blowing down the canyon buffeted her hair, sending tendrils into her eyes. She could hear the river and the wind and a semi shifting down on the highway off in the distance, but she couldn’t take a step—just as she hadn’t all those years ago.
She’d been eleven the first time she’d ever seen a bridge like this. A boy she’d liked had asked her to go on a picnic with his family. The bridge spanned across a creek only about fifteen feet above the water. Nor was the bridge very long.
The boy had scampered across it and turned to look back at her, daring her to cross. She hadn’t liked the feel of it, the way the footbridge swayed with each step she took, or the way the boy was watching her intently.
She’d gotten halfway across when the boy had started making it rock violently. Instinctively, she’d dropped to her hands and knees and gripped the rough edges of the worn boards in her hands and couldn’t move.
The boy had felt badly for scaring her, for making her cry. He’d stopped rocking the bridge and offered to help her up, but she’d wanted nothing to do with him or his help and ordered him to leave her alone.
His father had come and talked her off the bridge. She’d never forgotten being in the middle of that bridge on her hands and knees. She’d never felt so trapped and nakedly vulnerable—until she found herself married to an abusive cop who would rather see her dead than free her.
At the sound of a car engine, Billie Rae turned her head to look back toward the road down to the bridge. Duane’s large black car came to a stop on the rim of the gorge.
She turned back to the bridge and with an urgency born of survival, she took a step, then another, desperately needing to reach the swaying middle before Duane came after her.
BUGGED? EMMA ALMOST LAUGHED at how ridiculous she sounded and yet she went straight to the computer and typed in: How to tell if a house is bugged?
To her amazement a list came up with not only inexpensive listening devices that could be purchased by anyone, but video surveillance devices as well. She’d had no idea how small or how high-tech the devices had become.
Just the thought that Aggie Wells could have been not only listening to their every word—but also watching them all this time—gave her more than a chill. As she read what to do about the problem, she realized that if Aggie was watching, Emma didn’t want her to know that she was on to her.
Under the pretense of cleaning, she began to search the house for what the article called “conspicuous” places bugs or small video cameras could be hidden: lamps, picture frames, books, under tables and chairs, inside pots and vases. She hoped the sound of the vacuum would mask what she was up to—even if Aggie was watching her.
The devices were made to look like something else or hide in a plant or the edge of a frame on the wall, sh
e’d read. Aggie could be watching her clean right now on a remote device as ordinary as a computer screen or even a cell phone. So Emma knew she had to be very careful if she didn’t want to give herself away.
She discovered the first bug quite by accident. She was vacuuming the rug next to the bed when she noticed tiny pieces of plaster. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen them in the same spot. The last time she’d been too distracted to think much about it since the house was old and the plastered ceiling had small cracks where the house had shifted.
But now she froze and slowly looked up to the smoke alarm on the ceiling. Her heart began to pound. The smoke alarm was new. Why hadn’t she noticed it before? It was small and round and nothing like the other smoke alarms in the house.
Emma knew she’d been staring at it for weeks since some nights she couldn’t sleep and— With a shudder, she realized Aggie had been listening to everything Emma and Hoyt had said in this bedroom. In this bed.
Furious, she wanted to take the vacuum attachment and beat the device off the ceiling. She had to refrain from doing that, though, if she hoped to find Aggie. Somehow she had to use this in her favor.
Leaving the vacuum running, she dragged a chair over and climbed up on it to inspect the smoke alarm. It didn’t appear to have video. That was a relief.
Taking the advice she’d picked up on the internet, she put on headphones, then using her radio dial, listened near the smoke alarm for uniform distortion. The bleeps and recurring patterns indicated the presence of a covert listening device—just as the directions had said.
She finished vacuuming up the flakes of plaster that installing the alarm had caused. Not just installing it, Emma thought. Aggie had come back to the house a second time and messed with the alarm. Had it not been working properly? She could only hope.
Moving through the rest of the house, this time Emma knew what to look for and quickly found three more new smoke alarms. She could understand now why none of the family had noticed them. The devices were small and unobtrusive. The one in the kitchen was hidden on the other side of the overhead light, same with the ones in the dining room and living room.