by B. J Daniels
As she left, she found herself still trying to piece together what she’d learned about the woman known as Naomi Hill. The pieces didn’t fit. She tried to imagine what Naomi could have been involved in that would get her murdered—if that had been the case.
More and more, though, Frankie believed that the woman had come unhinged when she’d seen her planned life with Hank crumbling, and it had driven her to do the one thing that terrified her more than her so-called double life.
* * *
HANK KNEW HE couldn’t put it off any longer. He swung by his father’s office, knowing the man was a creature of habit. Marshal Hudson Savage went home every day for lunch. And every day, his wife would have a meal ready. Hank used to find it sweet. Then his father went back to his office. If nothing was happening, he would do paperwork for an hour or so before he would go out on patrol.
He found his father sitting behind his desk. The marshal looked up in surprise to see Hank standing in the doorway. “Come on in,” he said, as if he knew this wasn’t a personal visit. “Close the door.”
Hank did just that, but he didn’t take the chair his father offered him. “I want a copy of Naomi’s file.” Hud started to shake his head. “Don’t tell me I can’t have it. She’d dead. The case is closed. Pretend I’m a reporter and give me a copy.”
His father sighed as he leaned back in his chair, gazing at him with an intensity that used to scare him when he was a boy and in trouble. “Your mother and I had hoped—”
“I know what you’d hoped,” he interrupted. “Don’t read too much into my wanting a copy of the file.”
“What am I supposed not to read into it? That you still haven’t moved on?”
Hank said nothing.
“What’s the deal with you and Frankie?” the marshal asked, no longer sounding like his father. “Are you in love with her?”
“Seriously? Mother put you up to this?”
“We’re concerned.”
Hank laughed. “Just like you were concerned when I was in love with Naomi.”
“Are you in love with Frankie?”
“Who wouldn’t be? She’s a beautiful, smart, talented woman. Now, if we’re through with the interrogation, I still want that file. Let’s say I need it to get closure.”
“Is that what it is?”
He gave his father an impatient look.
The marshal leaned forward, picked up a manila envelope from his desk and held it out to him.
Hank stared at it without taking the envelope from him for a moment. “What is this?”
“A copy of Naomi’s file.”
“How—”
“How did I know that you would be asking for it?” His father asked the question for him as he cocked his head. Hank noticed his father’s hair more graying than he remembered. “Maybe I know you better than you think.”
Hank took the envelope from him. “Is everything in here?”
“Everything, including my notes. Will there be anything else?”
He shook his head, feeling as if there was something more he should say. “Thank you.”
His father gave him a nod. His desk phone rang.
Hank opened the door, looking back as his father picked up the phone and said, “Marshal Savage.” He let the door close behind him and left.
Chapter Ten
J.J. went by Frankie’s apartment and banged on the door until the neighbor opened a window and yelled out.
“I’m going to call the cops.”
“Call the cops. Where’s Frankie?”
“The woman who lives in that apartment? She packed up and left with some man a few days ago.”
“What?” He described Frankie to the man since it was clear the fool didn’t know what he was talking about.
“That’s her,” the man said. “I know my own neighbor. She left with a cowboy—that’s all I can tell you. She’s not home, so please let me get some sleep.”
He thought he might lose his mind. Where could she have gone? He’d been by her office. It was locked up tight. He told himself she was on a case. But why wouldn’t she answer her phone? Why wouldn’t she call him back? She knew what a mistake that would be once he got his hands on her.
He’d called her number, left more messages, and still she hadn’t gotten back to him. What if she’d left for good?
She wouldn’t do that. She was just trying to teach him a lesson, playing hard to get. Once he saw her again, he’d teach her a lesson she wouldn’t soon forget. No one pulled this kind of crap on him. Especially some woman.
He knew there was only one thing to do. Track her down and make her pay.
After all, he had the resources. He just hadn’t wanted to use them. He’d hoped that Frankie would have come to her senses and realized she couldn’t get away from him. But she had.
And now he was going after her.
* * *
FRANKIE FOUND HANK poring over papers on the small table in their cabin.
Hank looked up, surprised as she came in the door, as if he’d forgotten all about her. “Where have you been?”
“I’ve been working. You all right?”
He nodded. “I stopped by the marshal’s office and got a copy of Naomi’s file.”
“Your dad gave it to you?” She couldn’t help being surprised.
“He’d already made a copy for me.” He grunted. “He says he knows me better than I think he does. You’re probably right about them seeing through us. Mom said you took one of the pickups into town. I’m sorry I didn’t think to give you keys for a vehicle.”
“It was fine,” she said, pulling out a chair at the table and sitting down. “I had coffee and cookies with your mother before I left.”
He raised a brow. “How did that go?”
“She quizzed me about us, about me. She wanted to know how we met. We should have come up with something beforehand. I had to wing it.” She told him the story she’d given to his mother.
Hank nodded. “Sorry about that, but it sounds like you covered it.”
“We had a nice visit. I don’t like lying to her, though. She’s going to be hurt.”
“I know.” He got to his feet. “You hungry? I haven’t had lunch.”
“Me either.”
“I know a place up the canyon, the Corral. They used to make great burgers. Want to give it a try?”
She smiled as her stomach rumbled loudly.
It was one of those beautiful summer days. Frankie breathed it in as Hank drove them through the canyon. Sunlight glimmered off the pines and the clear green of the river as the road and river wound together through cliffs and meadows.
Frankie sat back and enjoyed the ride. She’d decided she would tell Hank later what she’d learned so as not to spoil his lunch. It could wait, and right now she was enjoying just the two of them on this amazing day. Even Hank seemed more relaxed than she’d seen him. He turned on the radio, and as a country song came on from a local station, they both burst into song. Frankie had grown up on the old country classics, so she knew all the words.
They laughed as the song ended and fell into a companionable silence as the news came on and Hank turned off the radio.
“You said you were working while I was gone—”
“We can talk about it later.”
He shot her a look before going back to his driving, as if he knew it wasn’t going to be good news. Not far up the road he turned into the Corral. The place had originally been built in 1947. It had changed from when Hank was a boy, but it still served great burgers and fries. Now you could also get buffalo as well as beef and sweet potato fries or regular. The booths had been replaced with log furniture and yet he still felt as at home here as he had as a boy when his grandfather used to play guitar in a band here.
After they ordered, Hank said, “I like your hair.”
He reached over and caught a long lock between his thumb and finger. “Do you ever wear it down?”
She eyed him suspiciously.
“What? I can’t compliment you? You said we needed to act like lovers.”
“Lovers?” She broke into a smile. “Something happen I don’t know about?”
He let go of her hair and glanced toward the bar. “Before I went down to my father’s office for a copy of Naomi’s file, I stopped by the river again where she died. There was someone else there. I heard them behind me and when I turned around they ran. I caught only a glimpse of fabric through the trees and then I heard a car engine start up and the vehicle leave.”
* * *
FRANKIE COULD SEE that the incident had spooked him. She wasn’t sure why, though. Nothing about it sounded sinister. “Who do you think it was?”
He shook his head. “I thought I caught a glimpse of Naomi up on the ledge, wearing this pale yellow dress she loved.”
“Was anyone up on the ledge?”
He shook his head. “But there was someone behind me. Someone wearing a light-colored garment running through the trees.”
“You thought it was Naomi?”
“Naomi is dead. She can’t step on a twig and break it directly behind me and startle me.” He picked up his napkin and rearranged his silverware. “I’m not losing it.”
“I know you’re not. You saw someone. But that doesn’t mean it had anything to do with Naomi. Unless you think you were followed.”
He shook his head. “Why would someone follow me?”
She shrugged. Clearly neither of them knew. He realized that she was right. It was just someone who was looking for a spot on the river. He’d probably startled them more than they had him.
“But then again,” Frankie said, “if you’re right and Naomi was murdered, then her murderer is still out there.”
“If you’re trying to scare me—”
“What you have to figure out is why anyone would want to kill Naomi in the first place. I have some thoughts that I’ll share on the way back to the ranch. But in the meantime—”
“Just a minute. You learned something?”
Fortunately, their burgers and fries came just then. They’d both gone for beef, regular fries and colas. Hank looked down at the food, then at her. She picked up a fry and dragged it through a squirt of ketchup she’d poured onto her plate before taking a bite.
“I can’t remember the last time I had a burger and fries,” she said with enthusiasm. Picking up the burger, she took a juicy hot bite and made a hmmm sound that had him smiling.
He could see that she didn’t want to talk about what she’d found out. Not now. He decided to let it go until after their lunch because it was a beautiful day and he was sitting here with a beautiful woman. “Did I just see you put mayo on your burger?”
“You have a problem with that?” she joked.
He reached for the side of mayo she’d ordered. “Not if you share. I guess it’s just one more thing we have in common.”
“We have something in common?”
Hank met her gaze. “Maybe more than you realize.” He took a bite of his burger and they ate as if it might be their last meal.
* * *
HANK COULDN’T REMEMBER the last time he’d enjoyed a meal more—or his dining companion. Frankie was funnier than he’d expected her to be. The more time he spent around her, the more he liked her. She’d definitely been the right choice when he’d gone looking for a private investigator.
He’d asked around and was told he couldn’t beat Frankie Brewster. At that point, he’d thought Frankie was male. It wasn’t until he saw her that he knew how to come back to the ranch without drawing attention to his reason for returning. So far, it seemed to be working, even if his parents were suspicious of their relationship. Let them worry about that instead of his real reason for bringing her home.
“Okay, let’s hear it,” he said as they left the Corral and headed the five miles back toward Big Sky and the ranch.
She started to say something when she glanced in her side mirror. “Do you know the driver of that truck behind us?”
He glanced in his rearview mirror and saw a large gold older-model truck behind them. As he watched, he saw that the truck was gaining speed on them. “No, why?”
“I saw it behind us earlier on the way to the Corral.”
“You think whoever is driving it is following us?” The idea sounded ludicrous until he reminded himself of the person he’d seen by the river earlier—and the reason he was home. She was right. If Naomi had been murdered, then her killer was still out there.
Looking in the rearview again, he saw that the truck was coming up way too fast. The canyon road was winding with tight curves and few straightaways, and yet the driver of the truck acted as if he planned to pass—and soon—given the speed he was traveling.
“Hank, I have a bad feeling,” Frankie said as the driver of the truck closed the distance.
He had the same bad feeling. Earlier there’d been more traffic, especially close to Big Sky, but other than a few semis passing by, they seemed to be the only two vehicles on this stretch of the highway right now.
Hank looked for a place to pull off and let the truck pass. Maybe it was a driver who didn’t know this canyon and how dangerous it could be. Or maybe—The front of the truck filled his rearview mirror.
“He’s going to ram us,” he cried. “Brace yourself.”
The driver of the truck slammed into the back of them. Hank fought to keep the pickup on the road. This section of highway was bordered on one side by cliffs and the river on the other. Fortunately, there was a guardrail along the river, but up ahead there was a spot where the guardrail was broken apart from a previous accident and hadn’t been replaced yet.
All thoughts of the driver of the truck behind them being new to the area dissolved. Whoever was at that wheel knew exactly what he was doing. Hank knew going faster wasn’t going to help. He couldn’t outrun the truck.
“He’s going to try to knock us into the river at this next curve,” he told Frankie as the bumper of the truck banged into them again and he had to fight the wheel to keep from wrecking. “There is nothing I can do, so I have a bad feeling we will be swimming soon.”
As he came around the curve, the trucker did exactly what he’d anticipated he would do. Hank tried to stay on the highway, but the truck was too large, the driver going too fast. The large truck smashed into the side of his pickup, forcing them off the road. Fortunately, Hank saw that the riverbank wasn’t steep. Rather than let the trucker roll the pickup off into the river, he turned the wheel sharply toward the water and yelled, “Hang on!” and hoped for the best as the pickup left the highway and plunged into the Gallatin River.
Chapter Eleven
“I was just at the grocery store,” Dana said without preamble when her husband answered his phone at the marshal’s office. “I overheard the manager talking to one of his employees about Naomi.”
“Dana, I’m right in the middle of—”
“Roy said that a woman named Francesca Brewster with some insurance company had come in and was asking questions about Naomi and her death. Why would Frankie be asking about Naomi’s death?”
“Maybe she’s curious,” her husband said after a moment. “After all, Naomi was Hank’s former girlfriend. Frankie probably wants to know what happened to her and I doubt Hank is very forthcoming. Hell, he still thinks she was murdered.”
“I’m worried. You know how I felt about Naomi and I’m afraid Hank did too. Now it’s like he doesn’t trust me. I have no idea how he feels about Frankie.”
“He brought her home with him. That should tell you something.”
“It would if they were getting along. Stacy said they aren’t sleeping in the same bed and earlier I saw them having another argument. If she�
��s asking people questions about Naomi—”
“I think you’re making too much out of this.”
“We don’t know anything about her.”
“Dana—”
“He’s our son, Hud. I don’t want to see him make a terrible—”
“There is nothing we can do about it. If either of us says anything...” He swore. “Honey, we have to let him make his own mistakes. We both tried to warn him about Naomi and look where that left us.”
“It’s just that I don’t think he can take another woman breaking his heart.” She hated how close to tears she sounded.
“He’s a grown man. He can take care of himself. Give him a little credit. Maybe Frankie is exactly what he needs.”
* * *
IT HAPPENED SO FAST, Frankie didn’t have time to react. One minute they were on the highway, the next in the river. The pickup plunged into the water, the front smashing into the rocks. Water rushed around them and began to come in through the cracks, building up quickly at her side window.
“We have to get out of here,” Hank yelled over the roar of the river and the sound of water as it began to fill the cab.
She saw him try to open his door and fail against the weight of water. Her door was facing upstream, so she knew there was no opening it. She unhooked her seat belt, only then aware of her deflated airbag in her lap. Water was rising quickly. Hank was right. They had to brave the river because if they stayed in the pickup much longer—
Next to her, Hank had unsnapped his seat belt and was trying to get his side window to slide down, but it didn’t appear to be working. He moved over and leaned back against her. “Get ready,” he said. “Once I kick out the window...” He didn’t need to tell her what would happen. She could see the water rushing over the cab of the pickup and forming an eddy on his side of the truck.
Hank reared back and kicked. The glass turned into a white spiderweb. He kicked again and the window disappeared out into the river. Cold water rushed in. Hank grabbed her hand. “Hang on,” he said as the cab filled faster.