by B. J Daniels
“So you didn’t know who took it at first,” Frankie said.
“No,” Darrel admitted. “I waited to see who started spending.”
Frankie thought of the house that Naomi had put a down payment on, hoping Hank would marry her. “How much money are we talking?” she asked.
Darrel shook his head.
“So you knew that Naomi had a larcenous streak and yet you left it lying around?”
Darrel gave her a warning look and then said, “I didn’t leave it lying around. I’d brought the money to the bar that afternoon to meet someone. The person was running late and some men came into the bar. I didn’t like their looks. I sensed trouble, so I hightailed it into the office. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to put the money into the safe. So I stuck it behind some liquor boxes. Two men jumped me as I walked out of the office. They didn’t get far in their plan, but in the confusion of throwing them out of the place with some help from a couple of friends...the money disappeared.”
“How did you know Naomi took it?”
He sighed. “It took a little while to figure it out. I had to go through a few possibilities first. In the end, Tamara and I both remembered Naomi being in the bar and disappearing when the trouble started. Tamara thought Naomi might have gone to the restroom before the fight broke out. My office is right across from the women’s bathroom. When I heard she’d put money down on a house in Bozeman... Now, no more questions. Who has my money?”
Frankie thought of Randall “Butch” Clark. It hadn’t taken much to get the truth out of him and that had worried her at the time. He’d seemed scared enough, but he had wanted her to believe that Naomi had the money on her that night. That she was thinking about stopping and giving the drug dealers what she had left.
But it seemed he’d lied about that. Still, she didn’t want to get him killed. “I’m going to take you at your word that you’re not into bloodshed,” Frankie said, getting to her feet. Les leaped up as well as he tried to keep the gun on her and get a better grip on her. She didn’t think he would shoot and knew she was taking a chance, but she’d bluffed her way this far. “Tell him to get that gun out of my face.”
Darrel looked from her to Les. “Sit down, Les. I have a gun under the table. I can kill them both if necessary. You can put your piece away.” He turned his gaze on her. “You have a lot of guts. He could have killed you just then before I could stop him.”
She had a feeling that Les wasn’t that quick-thinking, but kept it to herself. “Let me get this straight. Naomi didn’t have the money on her that night, right?”
“I believe we already covered that.”
“Tamara was following her that night, right? So what if she had the money and Tamara lied? She killed Naomi and kept the—”
“Tamara didn’t have the money,” Darrel said, talking over her. “Trust me, some of my more bloodthirsty associates talked to her about this at length before she...expired. She stuck to her story. Tamara took her up on the ledge to force her to tell what she did with it, but Naomi refused. Then the stupid woman slipped and fell.”
* * *
HANK FELT AS if he was in a nightmare, one of his own devising. If he hadn’t come back here, if he hadn’t brought Frankie, if he’d just let Naomi go. His head ached and his vision blurred.
Frankie was scaring him, but he didn’t know how to stop her—especially injured and bound to a chair.
“But if Naomi was being followed, how could she have dumped the money before she stopped or was pulled over?” Frankie asked.
Darrel shrugged. “You tell me.”
“She’d already hidden the money,” Frankie said, nodding as if to herself. “She called someone to tell the person where the money was in case something happened to her.”
Frankie was right. Naomi had hidden the money and called the person she trusted—her old boyfriend, Butch. It was the only thing that made any sense. Naomi thought the money was safe. She didn’t think the drug dealers would really kill her until they had it. If she hadn’t slipped—
He felt Darrel’s gaze on him. “That’s exactly how I saw it. She hid the money and made a call to tell her lover where he could find it. How about it, Hank? Isn’t that the way you see it?”
“Naomi didn’t call Hank,” Frankie said.
But Hank knew who Naomi had called—and so did Frankie. He looked at her and felt his heart drop. He could see what she was thinking, but wasn’t sure how to head her off.
“Why wouldn’t Naomi tell on that cliff?” Hank demanded, stalling for time, afraid that Frankie was only about to get herself in deeper. “That makes no sense.” And yet he knew. He didn’t even have to look at Frankie and see that she knew too. He felt his stomach drop.
“She wasn’t giving up the money,” Frankie said, sounding sad for the woman she’d been investigating and sad for him. “It meant that much to her.”
He shook his head, unable to accept that he’d never really known Naomi. He knew that she’d always felt deprived and wanted desperately to have the life she dreamed of having. Still, he didn’t want to believe that she would put money before her own life.
“That’s crazy. She’s standing on the edge of the ledge over the river and she’d rather die than give up the money?” he said.
No one said anything, but he saw that Darrel was staring at Frankie.
Hank felt as if he was on a runaway train with no way to stop it. No way to jump off either.
“I can get you your money,” Frankie said to Darrel. “But you’re going to have to let me leave.”
“Frankie, no,” Hank said, feeling dizzy. “You can’t trust him.” He let out a curse, feeling helpless and scared. “You can’t expect him to stick by any deal, Frankie. He used to cheat at every sport I ever played with him.”
Darrel shook his head at Hank but he was smiling. “I had to cheat. You were too good for me. But right now, I think I have the upper hand.”
“Frankie—”
“Put some tape over his mouth,” Darrel ordered, and Trent sprang to it.
Hank tried to put up a fight but it was useless. He felt weak even though he hadn’t lost that much blood. He wondered if he had a concussion. Right now his only concern, though, was Frankie. He’d foolishly gotten to his feet, knowing that Trent was behind him. He hadn’t expected the man to hit him. Neither had Darrel. Now he found himself duct-taped to a chair and gagged. And Frankie was about to make a deal that could get her killed.
* * *
SHE’D KNOWN HANK wasn’t going to like this and would have tried to stop her if he could have. “Let me go get your money,” she said again to Darrel.
“Do I look stupid? If I let you go, you’ll hightail it straight to the authorities, and the next thing I know, there’ll be a SWAT team outside my door.”
“You have another option?” Frankie asked. “We can’t tell you where the money is because we don’t know. We didn’t even know about it until recently. If you kill us, you’ll never get the money and Hank’s father will never stop looking for you. Stupid would be making your situation worse. Can’t you see we’re trying to help you figure this out?”
Darrel shook his head. “You make it sound like if you hand over the money, we all just walk away as if nothing ever happened. I just kidnapped the two of you.”
“You are merely detaining us,” Frankie said. “Until you get your money. Then you’ll let us go. No harm, so to speak,” she said, looking pointedly at Trent, “no foul. That’s the deal.”
“Trent goes with you.”
She shook her head. “Not a chance. I go alone. It’s the only way I have a chance of getting the person who took your money to admit the truth.”
“How do I know you’ll come back?”
“I’ll come back. You have Hank.”
“Good point,” Darrel said. “I just wasn’t sure you were that inves
ted in him. If you don’t come back, he dies. You call in the cops—”
“Save your breath. I’m not going to the authorities, but I need your word that he’ll be safe until I get back,” she said. “No more tough-guy stuff. The thing is, I don’t know how long it will take me.”
“You’d better not be playing me.”
Frankie met Darrel’s gaze. “You want your money. Hank and I want to get on with our lives.” Her gaze went to Hank. He gave a small shake of his head and looked pointedly at Trent leaning against the wall again. Frankie knew this was dangerous, but she could see only one way out. Hank was already injured. She could imagine all of this going south quickly if she didn’t do something. But what she was suggesting was a gamble, one she had no choice but to take.
“I’ll give you until sundown.”
Frankie shook her head. “I might need longer. Like I said, this could take a while.”
Darrel shook his head. “Sundown or he’s dead.”
She wanted to argue but she could see she’d pushed the man as much as he was going to take. “Sundown, but promise me that I won’t be followed. You need to trust me to handle this.”
Darrel wagged his head. “You’re asking a lot, sweetheart.”
“It’s Frankie. And I have a lot to lose,” she said and looked at Hank. “There’s one more thing that I need,” she said to Darrel. “A gun.”
Chapter Twenty
All of her bravado gone, Frankie’s hands were shaking as she climbed into the pickup. She laid the unloaded gun on the seat next to her. Darrel said he wasn’t about to hand her a loaded gun.
“I’m taking one hell of a chance on you as it is,” he’d said. “I give you a loaded gun...” He’d smiled as he’d shaken his head. “I’m betting a whole lot on you as it is, lady.”
It was mutual, she thought now. She’d just gambled Hank’s life on her suspicion of what had happened to the stolen drug money. What if she was wrong? Even if she was right, the money could be gone. Or Butch might refuse to give it to her. For all she knew, he could have gone on the lam after she’d talked to him at his father’s hardware store.
Hank was depending on her. She drove toward Bozeman, checking behind her for a tail, trying not to speed for fear of being pulled over. She considered calling the marshal, but couldn’t risk it. Not yet, anyway.
After parking behind the hardware store, she tucked the gun into her jeans and covered it with the shirt and jacket she’d put on earlier that morning. Taking a breath, she climbed out and entered the hardware store at the back through the delivery entrance. In the dim light of the empty area, she did her best to pull it together. Butch wouldn’t be excited to see her to begin with. If he sensed how desperate she was, she feared he would run.
He wasn’t in the office at the back. She started through the store, keeping an eye out for him. She was almost to the front when an employee asked if she needed help.
“I’m looking for Butch,” she said, surprised that her voice sounded almost normal.
“He’s on vacation and not expected back for a couple of weeks,” the young man said.
Vacation? “It’s urgent that I contact him. When did he leave?”
“I believe he planned to leave today.”
“Could you give me his address? Maybe I can catch him if he hasn’t left yet.”
The young employee hesitated.
“Please. It’s urgent.”
“Well, I suppose it will be all right.” He rattled off the address, and Frankie raced back the way she’d come.
Butch lived in a small house on the north side of town that, like most of Bozeman, had been completely remodeled. She wondered when and how much money it had cost. She prayed that he hadn’t left yet and that he had been too scared to dip into the money.
As she parked on the street and got out, she noticed that the house looked deserted. The garage door was closed and there was a newspaper lying on the front step, unread. Her heart dropped to her feet as she walked toward the house, wondering what to do next.
That was when she heard a noise inside the house. As she approached the garage, she glanced into one of the small windows high on the door. Butch Clark was hurriedly packing for what looked like more than a two-week vacation.
* * *
HANK WATCHED DARREL, seeing him become more anxious and irritated with each passing hour. It hadn’t been a surprise when the man had broken his word immediately, sending Trent after Frankie.
“Stay back. Don’t let her spot you tailing her,” Darrel had ordered. “She takes you to the money, you know what to do.”
He’d felt his heart drop, afraid he knew exactly what Trent would do. All he could hope was that Frankie was as good at her job as he knew her to be and would spot the tail or be able to deal with Trent if she had to.
Darrel began pacing again. His pacing the cabin floor had turned out to be a godsend. He’d paid little attention to Hank as if he’d forgotten about him. Les had lain down on the bed and quickly gone to sleep.
Meanwhile, Hank had been working on the duct tape Trent had used to bind his wrists behind him to the chair. He’d found a rough spot on the wood where a screw was sticking out. He could feel the tape weakening as he sawed through layer after layer. It was tedious, but he had time, he kept telling himself. He had to be free when Frankie returned.
His head ached, but if he had a concussion it wasn’t a bad one. The dizziness had passed and he was feeling stronger by the moment.
When Darrel’s cell phone rang, the man practically jumped out of his thin skin. Hank stopped what he was doing for a moment. He could hear the entire conversation at both ends since Trent was talking so loudly.
“What do you mean you lost her?” Darrel demanded.
“She was headed toward the north end of town but then suddenly veered off on a street. I stayed back like you said but then she was headed toward Main Street and she was gone.”
Darrel swore. “You say she was headed toward the north side of town?”
“Yeah. I don’t know why she suddenly—”
“She spotted a tail,” he snapped. “Go back to the north side of town, where she was originally headed. Drive the streets until you find her. Find her.”
“Okay, I’ll try, but—”
“Either you find her or you’d better keep going and hope I never find you. That clear enough for you?”
“I’ll find her. I won’t give up until I do.”
* * *
J.J. WAS GETTING sick of lying in the back of the moving pickup under the tarps. He wasn’t sure how much more of this he could take. But he had to know what Frankie was up to.
When she’d stopped the pickup the first time, she’d gotten out. He’d waited for a few moments and then taken a peek. He’d watched her go into the back of a hardware store before quickly covering up again. What was this about? None of it made any sense. She’d left the cowboy and gone shopping? Was it possible Hank Savage had known the man he’d picked up in the road? If so, then...
She’d come back sooner than he’d anticipated, the pickup door opening, closing, the engine starting and the truck moving again. Maybe she’d had to pick up something. An ax? A shovel? He’d shuddered at the thought.
The truck didn’t go far before he felt something change. Frankie had been driving at a normal pace when suddenly she took off, turning this way and that. He had to hang on now or be tossed around the back of the pickup like a rag doll. What was going on?
When she finally slowed down and quit turning, she seemed to be backtracking. He’d been listening to the sounds around him. They’d been in traffic but now it had grown quieter. She brought the pickup to a stop. He heard her exit the truck. He listened, afraid to take a peek yet. He definitely had the feeling that they were in a residential part of town. He could hear the sound of someone using a leaf blower some distance away
.
When he couldn’t take the suspense any longer, he carefully rose and pushed back the edge of the tarp aside to peer out. What he saw shocked him. Frankie had pulled a gun and was now about to open someone’s garage door. But before she could, the door suddenly began to rise with the sound of the mechanical engine pulling it up.
He heard an engine start up in the garage and saw Frankie step in front of the idling car, the gun raised to windshield level. “Stop, Butch!”
The car engine revved. Whoever was behind the wheel had backed the vehicle into the garage. For a fast getaway? The fool either had a death wish or was playing his luck. Either way, J.J. could see that Frankie was in trouble. The driver didn’t seem afraid of the gun she was holding.
He threw back the tarp and jumped down to run at her, shoving her out of the way as the car came screaming out of the garage. He had drawn his own gun, but when he saw that the fool behind the wheel wasn’t going to stop, he threw himself onto the hood and crashed into the windshield.
The driver hit his brakes hard. J.J. groped for something to hang on to but, failing, slid to the concrete, coming down hard. As he started to get up, he heard the engine rev again. He saw Frankie had the passenger-side door open and was screaming for the man behind the wheel to get out of the car.
He rolled to the side, but not quick enough. The door had caught him in the back of the head and the lights went out.
Chapter Twenty-One
Butch rattled the handcuffs holding him restrained to the passenger-side door of his car. “How do I know you aren’t going to kill me?” His voice squeaked—just as it had when she’d jumped into the car as he was trying to get away. She’d shoved the barrel of the gun into the side of his head and told him she was going to kill him if he didn’t stop. He’d stopped.
“You don’t.” She’d grabbed the keys and forced him at gunpoint into the passenger seat to handcuff him to the door.