by Dana Mentink
Logan began to pace. “What can you tell us about him then?”
“Only a few things. He is an accomplished survivalist. He’s also brilliant. His mother homeschooled him, from what I gather, and he has a photographic memory.”
“He grew up around here?”
“In and around the Dakotas. He knows the area, Logan. We finally caught up to his father, holed up in a cave in the Black Hills. Wouldn’t have found him, except my partner Johnny was Lakota and used to camp in those hills. Oscar prepared an ambush and Johnny was killed by an explosive.”
Isabel heard the tremor of emotion in Bill’s voice again. What had it been like for Bill to track Autie’s father to the place where his partner would be murdered?
Logan appeared deep in thought.
Bill cut in again. “I am going to forward my files to your head of police. It might not hurt to have Cassie’s death report looked at again. I have a feeling what’s happening now is somehow connected. Who’s in charge there?”
“Guy named Bentley.”
“He worth his badge?”
Isabel thought Logan hesitated before he answered. “Far as I know.”
“I’m going to try to get clear of some things here and I’ll come.”
Logan smiled. “I was hoping you’d say that. Tank will be happy to see you.”
“He’s glad to see anyone who isn’t a squirrel.” Bill laughed and then his tone sobered. “Be careful, both of you. The Birch men are crazy, but smart, too. They don’t make mistakes often.”
Isabel marshaled her fear into words. “Bill, before you go, can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Why were you looking for Oscar Senior? What crime did he commit?” She locked eyes with Logan as Bill’s answer filled the room.
“He murdered his wife, Autie’s mother.”
NINE
Logan watched the reaction on Isabel’s face. He knew Cloudman’s story only from the scant details he and some other acquaintances in law enforcement had provided. Bill and his partner, with appropriate backup, had arrived at the spot where they’d expected to apprehend Oscar Senior. Oscar was gone, but he’d rigged an explosive charge that had detonated the moment Cloudman’s partner stepped on the trigger wire.
Bill had refused to talk more about it, quit his position as a Tribal Ranger and left his life behind. Logan knew it was not just the loss of his friend, but Bill’s own sense of failure and defeat that drove him. If he’d only been there first. If he’d just seen the tripwire. If only, if only.
Logan knew that feeling. He’d lost people, soldiers and civilians, when he hadn’t been quick enough, or smart enough, to second-guess the enemy. He never forgot those faces, the eyes that looked into his with desperation, or resignation, as the life leaked out of them, and all he could do was hold onto the victim’s hand and silently apologize for not saving them.
Tell my wife I love her.
Did my guys make it out?
Make sure my kid knows I did my job.
Their last messages played in his mind, clear as the day he’d heard them.
He jerked himself away from the pain. Isabel was standing next to him, her hand on his arm. “Are you okay?”
“I should be asking you that. What do you think about Bill’s information?”
“At least I know who Autie is. I feel more strongly than ever he had something to do with Cassie’s accident.” She looked thoughtful. “Do you know why Oscar killed his wife?”
“I’m not sure anyone knows that besides maybe Autie. I’ll ask Bill when he calls back. Still want to stay at the ranch? It’s not too late to change your mind. There’s a hotel in town or the Triggs’ place.”
She smiled. “I’m stubborn, you see, and I’ve always done things the hard way.”
“Me, too.” He led her to the truck. The long rays of late afternoon sun were giving way to a spectacular sunset behind the black cliffs. As they drove back, his curiosity got the better of him. “I was surprised when I first heard Cassie had a sister. She spoke about her mother often, but I don’t remember hearing about you.”
Isabel looked out the window. “I ran away when I was sixteen. It hurt my sister and we didn’t talk at all until I got up the courage to send her a letter a few months ago.”
“Why did you run away?” For a moment, he thought she wasn’t going to answer until she let out a sigh.
“My father was an alcoholic. When his machine shop failed, he fell apart. He directed his anger at my mother, never physically, but belittled her and criticized everything she did. I think he loved her deep down and when her lupus became life threatening he couldn’t take it. He was scared, I think, but I didn’t realize it at the time.”
Logan nodded, afraid to talk in case he made her close up.
“Basically, he lived at the bar, and my sister and I cared for Mom.” A dreamy smile came over her face. “I used to draw pictures and tape them all over her bedroom walls. There wasn’t a square inch of that room that wasn’t wallpapered in my sketches. Anyway, when she died, I started to skip school, sneak out to go sit at her grave or ride her horse. When the principal called my dad one day, he took all my sketchbooks and drawings and burned them in the yard. I freaked out, yelled at him. I wanted to hurt him for hurting me. He slapped my face so hard I think sometimes I can still feel it. I turned and walked away and never came back until now.”
Logan was shocked at the intensity of what she’d experienced and shocked that it awakened such a surge of emotion inside him. He hated the thought of her artwork being put to the match and of the shame that kept her from her sister all those years. “That’s a lot to deal with.”
“I tried to call Cassie a few times, years later, but they’d moved out of the home I grew up in and I…” She laced her fingers together. “I made some bad choices and fell into a life that turned me into someone else. Someone Cassie wouldn’t recognize.”
He thought about his ex-wife, Nancy. She’d turned into someone else, the kind of person who would sleep with another man while he was deployed. He felt the anger start to kindle until a strange notion startled him. Had he ever shared enough with Nancy to really know her in the first place? He’d been gone so much and, when he was there, he wanted the easy, conflict-free dynamic. Maybe he hadn’t really wanted to see what was going wrong. He saw the quiver in Isabel’s lip. He put a hand over hers and squeezed the delicate fingers. “Those are the kind of choices that can follow you forever, if you let them.”
She looked at him, her hand tightening in his. “Have you made choices like that?”
There was a deep yearning in her voice.
His uncle’s voice rumbled through his memory. “Keep God in your head, Logan. Remember, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours.” He’d done plenty of praying, but since Nancy’s betrayal and his injury, his prayers focused around only one thing: getting back into pararescue. He recalled the rest of Mark 11:24.
“And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you of your sins.”
He knew for a fact God had pulled him out of the line of fire on multiple occasions, and God would hear his prayers now and return him to pararescue. But was that the only thing he was supposed to be praying for? What about forgiveness for his part in a failed marriage? And what about the courage to forgive the woman who had cheated on him? He’d never so much as spent a moment praying for those things.
He wanted to tell Isabel, to unburden himself about the mess he’d made of it all, but it was too much. Mistakes couldn’t be unmade and the only thing that mattered was the next mission.
Finish Cassie’s job. Find homes for the horses. Rejoin the military.
His future in pararescue was the only possible scenario.
Isabel was still looking at him. Had he made choices that turned him away from who he was meant to be? He let go of her hand. “Too many to count.”
<
br /> Isabel kept Tank out of the way as Logan put up the tent trailer under the shelter of some trees near the house. She still felt guilty that he would go to the trouble, but relief won out. As much as she wanted to care for Cassie’s horses, the thought of being at Mountain Cloud alone, with Autie waiting in the shadows, was intolerable.
How would she ever be able to thank Logan?
By getting those horses adopted out as quickly as possible and freeing him from his responsibility. The horses were an obligation, and somehow she had become one, too. The least she could do was fix the man some dinner.
She put a hand on the front door to open it when Logan’s shout stopped her.
“Don’t, Isabel.”
Heart pounding, hand still touching the knob, she froze.
He gestured for her and she walked to him, nerves prick-ling.
“Autie’s struck again.” He pointed to a cable on the backhoe where it still sat on top of the trailer. It had been neatly sliced. “Hydraulic fluid is still leaking out, so it was done recently. He could still be here.”
Isabel had the urge to scream but she forced herself to remain calm. “Wouldn’t Tank know if Autie was hiding on the ranch?”
Logan looked grim. “Tank is a great dog, but he’s a little lacking in some areas. I want you to stay here. I’m going to check the house and barn. Do you have your phone?”
She nodded.
“Call the police and tell them what’s up.”
Thinking she should put the police on speed dial, she watched Logan gingerly enter the house, Tank at his heels. She held her breath as he crept across the threshold, head low, body tense. She relayed the information to the dispatcher at the police station who could track Bentley down.
Logan returned and pointed to the barn. While he was inside, there was a rush of noise from the pasture. Isabel prepared to take off running into the barn to warn Logan of Autie’s return, when John Trigg appeared, Cassie’s horses following him into the corral. He ducked his head at her as he rode past on his own mount.
“Thought you’d need help getting the horses bedded down for the night.”
She let out a sigh of relief. “Logan is checking the barn. There’s been more trouble.”
He fastened the gate behind the horses and tied his own outside. “Trouble seems to follow you.”
She ignored his barb. “I didn’t expect to see you here tonight.”
He shrugged. “Cassie would want me to take care of the horses.”
Isabel heard something in the way he said her sister’s name, a tiny shade of longing. Had he been in love with Cassie like Sheila suggested? She didn’t have time to consider, as Logan emerged from the barn and headed for the smaller wood-sided structure nearby.
“What’s in there?” she asked John.
“Tools, saddles and such. Mostly everything that didn’t fit in the barn or garage.” John passed a hand over his furrowed brow, baked brown from the South Dakota sun.
A question popped into Isabel’s mind. “John, were you surprised at how my sister died?”
He almost jumped. “Surprised?”
“You knew her well. She was an expert rider. Did it seem strange to you that she took Blue Boy out at night and got thrown?”
He stared at her. “Plenty of things seem strange to me in this place, Isabel, especially the women who live here. I don’t pretend to understand the choices they make.”
She wondered at the bitterness in his tone. Was he talking about Cassie? Or someone else? Sheila’s words came back to her.
John was never much with people, and he’s been gun-shy since his last girlfriend moved away without leaving a forwarding address. She wanted to press further. “Do you think…?”
“I got no idea why your sister would have gone out riding at night. Maybe to prepare Blue Boy for the Moonlight Ride.”
“Maybe, but Blue Boy doesn’t startle easily. I just can’t see him throwing her.”
“As I said, plenty of strange things around here, Isabel. You’re just going to make yourself crazy worrying about it. Better to let it go.”
He was probably right, but she knew she could not, especially with Autie tracking her like a wounded animal. She had the unshakable feeling that Autie knew something about Cassie’s death, and she was beginning to wonder if John did, too. A truck engine sounded in the gloom, starting its climb up the mountain. “That’s probably Officer Bentley.”
Trigg’s eyes narrowed. “The horses are taken care of for now. I’ll be back tomorrow sometime.”
She felt the strong urge to pry more information from him. “Why don’t you stay, John? Sooner or later I’m going to try to make some dinner. It’s the least I can do for all your help with this place.”
He looked at the ground. “I’d have done anything for your sister. Time for me to go.” He unhitched the horse and swung easily into the saddle, urging the mare into a trot as he disappeared over the hill.
The darkness was almost complete. It closed around her, and Isabel wished Logan would return. She couldn’t imagine what was taking him so long.
Her phone rang. She figured it was Bentley telling her he was on his way up the mountain.
The voice was sweet and slow. “Hello, ma’am.”
Her fingers clenched around the phone, her stomach constricting painfully. “Autie. Are you calling to try to scare me some more?”
He laughed. “Am I scaring you, ma’am?”
She took a deep breath. “No. Should I be scared? Are you a murderer like your father?”
The tone changed abruptly. Autie’s words were thick with rage. “Aren’t you the clever girl? Trying to beat me at my own game? You know nothing about my father.”
“I know he killed a Tribal Ranger.” She hesitated a moment before she added, “And your mother.”
Autie’s voice hissed through the line. “That is the price for abandonment. It’s time for you to go home, Isabel. Go back to your husband and your sad life in Southern California. While I have enjoyed our little skirmish, it’s time for it to draw to a conclusion. Do you understand me?”
She had to steady the phone in her trembling hand. A cool breeze toyed with her hair, and the trees seemed to creep toward her through the darkness. She squeezed her bare arms to her body. “Leave me alone.”
He laughed, the jovial tone back in place. “Why, Isabel. You sound a bit snappish. Perhaps you should go inside and put on a sweater. You look cold.”
The line went dead as she dropped the phone and ran, blundering blindly through the darkness until someone caught her arm.
She screamed.
Logan stared into her face. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
She panted. “A phone call… Autie. He can see me from wherever he called.”
Logan looked around and marshaled her toward the house just as Officer Bentley’s car appeared at the foot of the driveway. He eased out of the car, his nose swollen and purple. Logan filled him in. In a matter of minutes, he’d freed his gun from the holster and begun a search of the area behind the cabin. Logan went with Isabel into the house, sticking close as she wrapped herself in Cassie’s tattered sweater with the button missing.
He was watching. Still watching. The thought nearly drove her mad. She looked at Logan, desperate to move her mind away from Autie. “What did you find in the shed?”
He shook his head. “Not sure.”
She stared at him. “What are you not telling me?”
He looked out the window. “We can talk about it later, after I run it by Bentley.”
Isabel felt her jaw tighten. “Why won’t you tell me now?”
Logan looked startled at her question. “No need to upset you until I check it out thoroughly.”
“I’m not a child.”
“I know.”
“If I can handle a stalker without going to pieces, you can tell me about the shed.”
He looked dubious. “It’s not…”
“Don’t patronize me.”
His green eyes flashed. “I’m trying to do what’s right for you.”
“You don’t get to decide that.”
He fisted his hands on his narrow hips. “Maybe you should trust me here.”
“Tell me.” The firmness in her own words surprised her. She felt anything but certain inside. All she knew was she had to take control of something or she’d be lost again.
Logan was saved from having to answer when Bentley returned, panting slightly. “No sign of him. I’m sure he’s holing up somewhere nearby, but he’s good at covering his tracks. I’m going to call in a reserve deputy and have him stick around here tonight. We’ll do a more thorough search in the morning.”
Logan nodded to Bentley. “I need to show you something in the shed.” As he started toward the door, Isabel followed. He gave her a frustrated glance but did not try to stop her. Just outside, he told Tank to sit and they entered the small space, filled with the scent of old leather and musty earth. The metal shelves were overflowing with clippers, bales of wire and boxes of various size nails. Against one wall was a row of pegs with bridles and an old saddle that looked as though it hadn’t seen the light of day in a long time.
Logan knelt in the corner and took a penlight from his back pocket. “Here.” He trained the beam into the darkness.
Bentley blocked her view as he knelt. After a moment, he rose and exchanged a look with Logan.
Isabel could wait no more. She shouldered past Bentley and peered into the shadows. At first she thought there was nothing at all but a lonely spider scrabbling to escape the light. When her vision adjusted she understood why Logan hadn’t wanted her to come into the shed.
A dark spot on the floor, a bloodstain that spoke of long-ago violence.
And there, trapped behind a splinter of wood, were several long strands of dark hair.
She knew who they belonged to.
It was her sister’s hair.