High-Caliber Cowboy

by B. J Daniels

  The signature was Mason VanHorn’s.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Anna stared at the signature. He’d come to visit her mother? She quickly thumbed through the book and found more entries. Why would he visit her? Just to taunt her?

  A noise overhead startled her. She had to get out of here. She turned and, clutching the ledger to her, made her way to the door to the huge room.

  The smell was much stronger in this room. She glanced toward the mattress against the wall and thought she heard the scurry of small feet. Mice. She cringed at the thought of what might be living there—worse, what had died there. That corner was definitely where the smell was coming from.

  She shone the light in that direction. There was something back in the corner under one of the mattresses. She stepped closer, suddenly afraid. There was more room behind the mattress than she’d first thought. Enough room for a body. A body would decay quickly down here.

  Her mind recoiled at the thought. The smell was overpowering now. She moved a little closer, bracing herself as she reached out to draw back the mattress.

  * * *

  THE WING for the criminally insane was worse than anything Brandon had seen. The rooms were padded, dark, small, windowless. They instantly gave him claustrophobia and made him sick to his stomach at just the thought of being locked in there.

  He tried not to show the panic he was feeling just being in this wing. Sweat broke out on his forehead despite how cool it was. He wiped at it. “It’s hot in here,” he said, seeing that Yarrow had noticed.

  “Have you seen enough?” the Realtor asked.

  “What’s in there?” Brandon asked at the closed door of Room 9B.

  “Just another room,” the Realtor said, trying the door. It was locked. The small window in the door had been covered over, making it impossible to see inside.

  Anna was somewhere in the building looking for the lost files. Was it possible they were in this room? Why else lock up the wing with a chain and padlock and this room? And cover the window? “You have a key for this room?”

  “I’m sure it’s just another room like the others,” Yarrow said, sounding more than ready to get out of here.

  Brandon couldn’t have agreed more. But he wanted to see what was in this room. He had to, for Anna’s sake. Then he just wanted out of here.

  He needed fresh air so badly it was all he could do not to take off at a run for the front door.

  Yarrow smiled to cover his irritation and began to go through his keys. He tried one after another. “That’s funny. I don’t seem to have a key to this room. But I’m sure there is nothing in there.”

  * * *

  AS ANNA PULLED BACK the corner of the mattress, she saw what at first appeared to be a pile of rags. Her heart jumped to her throat, choking off her startled cry as she saw the head.

  It was dark, the hair matted, the eyes lifeless. She let go of the corner of the mattress and stumbled back, covering her mouth and nose with her hand.

  A coyote. It must have been sick or hurt, came through one of the broken windows at the back and curled up and died here.

  A door slammed overhead, making her jump. She could hear footfalls above her. She’d been down here too long. If she didn’t get out now, she would be caught leaving the building.

  She turned and ran to the stairs, slowing to hide the sound of her footsteps as she ascended the steps to the first floor.

  As she carefully pushed open the door, she heard Brandon’s voice. Her spirits buoyed at just the sound. He and the Realtor were at the other end of the building.

  She practically ran down the hallway toward the front door. She tried not to look in any of the rooms, tried not to let herself imagine what it would have been like for her mother spending the rest of her life locked up here.

  As she turned the corner in the hallway, she saw Brandon and the Realtor in the far wing, their backs to her.

  She sprinted down the hall, past the vacant office to the front door. She slipped out and gasped for air, suddenly crying. The sobs rose from deep inside her, racking her body.

  Her mother had definitely been in Brookside. She had no idea how many years she’d been imprisoned there. Or what had happened to her once inside. But her father couldn’t lie to her any longer. She had the ledger. She knew!

  She climbed into the pickup, curling onto the seat and closing the door softly behind her, unable to stanch the flood of tears. She cried for the mother she’d never really known, for the pain her mother must have suffered, for justice and finally for her father’s soul.

  Her cell phone rang.

  She fished it out of her pocket in surprise. There was cell-phone service in Sheridan, but not around the lake or Antelope Flats. But apparently there was out here on this mountaintop.

  She glanced at the number on the tiny screen, foolishly hoping it was Lenore Johnson, her private investigator.

  It wasn’t, of course.

  It was her father, Mason VanHorn.

  * * *

  MASON VANHORN had gotten her cell-phone number from Anna’s former boss. He held his breath, praying he could get her to meet him, praying he could convince her to stop this horrible vendetta against him. He had to convince her. The alternative was too horrible to even consider.

  He was surprised when her cell phone rang instead of telling him she was out of the calling area or had her phone turned off.

  He was even more surprised to hear her voice on the other end of the line.

  “Christianna,” he said on a surprised breath.

  “I go by Anna now,” she said, her voice cold and clipped.

  “Anna.” Why had she changed her name? Didn’t she know how much that hurt him?

  She wanted to hurt him. If she had her way, she would destroy him. The realization came with less shock than pain. His Chrissy. He’d done so many things wrong with her. Just as he had his son. He should never have had children. He realized that now. But he never dreamed he would have to raise them alone, never dreamed how his actions over the years would harm them.

  He took a breath. Now that he had her on the line, he didn’t know what to say. “Where are you?” He prayed she’d say Virginia.

  “I’m at Brookside.”

  His heart lunged in his chest, knocking the breath from him.

  “What? Nothing to say? I know you put my mother in here and I can prove it.”

  “We need to talk.” He said, finally able to speak.

  She laughed. The sound cut him like a blade. “So you can lie to me again?”

  He closed his eyes, wiping his free hand over his face. “I lied to protect you.”

  “The way you protected my mother?”

  “Chris—Anna, if you come out to the ranch, I will tell you the truth. I should have a long time ago, but I couldn’t bring myself—”

  “I’m going to expose your lies. You and Dr. French. If you think you can stop me the way you did the private investigator I hired, you’re wrong. What did you do with her? Did you really think you could get away with it? Or are you planning to get rid of me, too?” Her voice broke.

  He felt sick. “You have to know I would never hurt you.”

  “You have already hurt me. I’m going to destroy you the way you did my mother and the child she gave birth to. You killed them both. The baby quickly, my mother more slowly to punish her for her affair. Or are you going to try to deny that she had an affair and that the baby was another man’s, the way you’ve denied everything else?”

  He heard the pain and anger in her voice. It broke his heart. “No, I’m not going to deny it. Your mother did have an affair and became pregnant with another man’s child.”

  He heard what could have been a sob on the other end of the line. “But I didn’t murder anyone.” As he said the words he’d said to himself so many times over the last almost-thirty years, he heard the lie in his voice.

  “Anna, please, if you don’t want to come out to the ranch, then meet me somewhere. We have to tal
k.”

  “Meet you so you can dispose of me the way you did my mother? Or the private investigator I hired?”

  He didn’t think his heart could break any further, but he was wrong.

  She was crying now, her words almost lost in her tears. “Turn yourself in. Don’t make this any worse.” The line went dead.

  When he tried to call her back, she’d turned off her phone.

  * * *

  REALTOR FRANK YARROW nervously wiped his full upper lip. “Sorry, I guess I don’t have a key for this room. The wind probably caught the door and when it shut, automatically locked it.”

  Right. A gust of wind in a wing where there were no windows?

  “Wait a minute,” he said. “Here it is.” He slipped the key into the lock and turned it. The door to Room 9B swung open.

  Brandon held his breath, half-afraid of what he would see.

  “There, I told you. Just like all the other rooms,” Yarrow said.

  He stared at the small padded cell. Empty. Just like all the others. But the room had an odd smell. Almost like…perfume. He recoiled at the scent, not wanting to know about the woman who must have lived in 9B. How odd that the smell would still be here after all these years.

  “When was the last time this room was occupied?” he asked Yarrow.

  “Twenty years at least,” the Realtor said. “Shall we check out the other wing?” He sounded anxious to get this over with.

  “Did you notice the smell of perfume?” Brandon asked, unable to let it go.

  Yarrow gave him a pitying look. “No.”

  Brandon followed him back through the double doors. He could see through the entry windows that it was dark outside. Behind him, he heard Yarrow start to padlock the chains together again.

  “Is that necessary?” Brandon asked. “I mean, why keep that wing locked up?”

  Yarrow looked down the long empty hallway. Clearly, he liked keeping it locked, probably for reasons he didn’t even understand himself. He snapped the padlock into place. “The night security guards like it locked.”

  He just bet they did.

  The other wing was nothing but empty rooms, a men’s restroom and a ladies’, each with a few stalls or urinals.

  “This was the nurses’ office,” Frank said. The door to the office was open. It was the only room Brandon had seen that had furniture in it—and heat. There was a small television perched on a filing cabinet.

  Brandon opened the filing cabinet. Empty. “Emma Ingles worked here?” he asked, trying the other drawers. All empty.

  Yarrow cleared his throat. “Yes. Of course, her death had nothing to do with Brookside.”

  Of course.

  “So there is a security guard every night,” Brandon said, hoping he and Anna didn’t have to come back, that she’d found what she was looking for. Or at least realized it wasn’t in this drafty old horrible place.

  Yarrow coughed. “Well, with Emma’s unfortunate demise and Karl quitting without notice… Of course, I will get more security hired just as quickly as possible. Don’t worry about that. No one can get in. The place is locked up tight. Have to be careful not to get locked in.”

  “I really don’t need to see any more,” Brandon said. Yarrow looked more than relieved.

  They walked to the front door. It was dark outside, shadows moving in the breeze. Brandon held the door open. Yarrow rushed through almost at a trot. Brandon closed the door, the small piece of wood keeping it from locking just in case they had to come back. Or Anna was still inside.

  “Well, thank you for showing it to me. I’d like to give it some thought. I’ll get back to you.” He shook Yarrow’s hand.

  “I think it could be a good investment for you and your family,” Frank said as he started to get into his car.

  “Definite possibilities.”

  Brandon nodded, still unable to imagine what anyone would do with Brookside, given its history. But didn’t all buildings come with a history, usually one the owner had no way of knowing?

  Wisps of clouds brushed across the dark sky. A rim of gold shone over the mountains to the east where the moon would be rising. The air felt cold for this time of the year, but then they were at least a thousand feet higher up here than down by the lake.

  Brandon pretended to study the hulking dark shape of the building as Yarrow drove off. The moment the Realtor was over the first hill, Brandon headed for the pickup. He opened the driver’s-side door, the light coming on in the cab.

  Anna was hunkered down on the seat in the darkness. She sat up and he saw her face.

  Oh, God. “What happened?”

  * * *

  ANNA HALTINGLY TOLD HIM about the dead coyote she’d found and her father’s phone call.

  He pulled her into his arms, holding her tightly. “All I found was a locked room in the padded cell wing. At first Frank didn’t have the key and I thought… But then he found it and the room was empty like all the others.”

  She pulled back. “What was the room number?”

  “9B.”

  Anna thought her heart might stop. “That was my mother’s room.” She fumbled the ledger out from under the seat where she’d hidden it, opening it to the page where she’d found her mother’s initials, pointing to the room number next to them. And her father’s signature.

  Brandon stared down at the ledger in obvious shock. “You found this in the building?”

  “Dropped between two file cabinets in the basement. The files were all gone, but this proves that my mother was here.”

  “And that your father came to visit her.” He sounded astonished, much as she had. He looked out through the windshield at Brookside. “Do you mind if we get out of here?”

  She shook her head, closing the ledger as he turned off the dome light and started the truck.

  As Brandon pulled away, she glanced back only once at the massive brick building and felt a chill quake through her. They’d left the door partially ajar. In case they had to come back.

  * * *

  MASON SAT IN THE DARK knowing what he had to do. Chrissy was with Brandon McCall. Who knew what lies McCall had told her? His daughter. He was going to lose her, too.

  He closed his eyes and felt the burning tears behind his lids. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried. Then he realized that, too, was a lie.

  It was the night his beautiful wife gave birth to another man’s baby.

  He opened his eyes, wiped angrily at his tears as he picked up the phone and dialed Red Hudson’s extension.

  “Get up here!” he snapped, and hung up.

  He had to stop Christianna before it was too late. But first he would have to separate her from Brandon McCall. No matter what it took. The McCalls would love to see him destroyed. Especially Asa.

  He heard Red come in the front door without knocking, heard the rapid thud of his footfalls and knew he’d made Red angry again. He wondered if he’d hired the wrong man for the job. He was about to find out.

  Red’s large frame filled his office doorway. “You drunk? Or just forgot how to turn on a light?”

  Mason reached over and snapped on his desk lamp.

  Red’s expression changed from one of irritation to worry. “What’s wrong?”

  “You still haven’t found McCall?”

  Red shook his head. “Stick and Bubba found the camp where the two of them stayed last night. But they got away. I have men out looking for them.”

  Mason studied the man. The problem with Red was that he had scruples. But there’d been a time when he hadn’t. And that was the leverage Mason had on the man. Unfortunately, Red was determined to change his life.

  “Find out if they’ve gone to the McCall ranch. If not, then they have to be staying around here somewhere. Check motels and rentals. I need McCall out of the way.”

  Red raised a brow.

  “All I want you to do is detain him. Put him in that old storage bin on the south end of the ranch. Make him comfortable. But make sure he doesn’
t leave until I give you the word.”

  Red said nothing.

  “My daughter and I need to talk—without McCall. So I need you to find him. Turn over every rock in the county if that’s what it takes.”

  “You’re that sure she’s still around?”

  Mason nodded. He could see Red was wondering what she’d been doing in the house, in the safe. “I wasn’t a very good father. She wants to hurt me.”

  Red shifted on his feet, obviously uncomfortable with Mason’s confession.

  “Maybe McCall tried to stop her and she hit him with that iron doorstop,” Mason continued, knowing he had to get Red on his side. “Now he seems to be sympathizing with her. Or at the very least, trying to protect her from me.”

  Red shot up a brow. “Is that necessary?”

  “She’s my daughter. I love her more than my own life,” Mason said without hesitation.

  Red nodded. “I’ll try to find them myself. You do realize, though, that such an action might be considered kidnapping?”

  Sarcasm. “Yes, I’m aware of that, but I don’t think McCall will press charges. He was trespassing on my land just last night and helped a known vandal. Also, I think you might be right about him.”

  Red smiled but still looked skeptical.

  “Just get McCall away from her. I’ll take care of the rest.”

  Red stood for a moment, as if considering everything he’d been told, then slowly nodded. “I’ll find them. But if anything happens to either of them, you’re on your own.”

  Mason nodded. “Let me know as soon as you have him. Make sure my daughter is protected.”

  He watched Red leave. If anything happened to Brandon McCall, Red would go to the sheriff. Now Mason knew how much he could trust Red Hudson. Not very damned far.

  But Mason wasn’t worried about Red. No, his concern was with Niles French. The doctor was running scared and that made him dangerous. Very dangerous.

  Dr. French would be looking for Christianna. Mason had to find her before he did.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The lights from the pickup cut through the darkness as Brandon started down the narrow winding dirt road.