by B. J Daniels
Cordell shoved back his Stetson, looking shaken and uncertain, as he pulled out all the research material she’d gathered. “All this is related to the article you’re working on?” he asked in disbelief.
She nodded.
“This child, Emily Frank… Tell me you aren’t here looking for her remains.”
“No. I’m interviewing the people who knew her.”
He was watching her closely as if he knew she was leaving out some key piece of information—and wondering why. “So how many people have you interviewed?”
She knew where he was headed with this. He was trying to decide if her article research was connected to his brother’s accident.
“None. I only got to the town yesterday,” she said. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to anyone yet.”
He frowned. “Someone knows you’re in town.”
He was right about that, she thought and added truth fully, “I have no idea how they might have found out.”
Cordell sighed. “What newspaper or magazine do you work for?”
She tried not to glance away from his black bottomless gaze. “I’m freelancing this one.”
“How about a home address, a former newspaper or magazine, someone who can verify your story.”
She felt her eyes narrow as she met his gaze. “My mother took off when I was a baby. I never knew my father. I’ve been on my own since I was eighteen. I put all my things into storage before I left California. I wasn’t sure how long I’d be gone. So, no, I don’t have a home address or anyone who can verify what I’m working on.”
“Someone knows,” he snapped and pulled off his Stetson to rake his fingers through his hair. “Chucking it all for a story, that’s some dedication to your work. Why Montana? I’m sure there are missing children in California. There must be hundreds of stories you could have done there, if not thousands. Why this particular case?”
She was forced to look away. “I saw a picture of her. There was just something in her eyes…” She swallowed back the lump in her throat.
“I’m going to have to go through all of your notes, everything you have on this case.”
She balked, just as she was sure he’d known she would.
“I should mention,” he said, his words like thrown stones, “I went to the sheriff this morning. She just happens to be my cousin. I told her you stole my brother’s pickup and might have been involved in the attack on him. She’s already put an APB out on you because you left the scene. Unless you want to go to jail, I suggest you reconsider.”
“I’ve told you what I’m doing here,” she said, shaken to hear that his cousin was sheriff. “Why don’t you tell me what brings two private investigators to Whitehorse, Montana?”
His eyebrows shot up. He hadn’t expected her to find out who he was. Along with surprise though, there was grudging admiration in his gaze. “Not that it’s any of your business but my brother and I came here to see our grandmother, Pepper Winchester. She’s…dying.”
She flinched as a shaft of guilt pierced her conscience. She believed him. Just as she believed his shocked reaction to the photographs in her satchel. This man wasn’t working for a sexual child predator. At least she hoped not.
“Come on, we need to go somewhere so I can go through all of this,” he said. “Or are you going to lie to me and tell me that all of this doesn’t have something to do with you and the article you’re writing?” She wasn’t.
He nodded, seeming relieved for once she wasn’t going to argue the point. “Since my brother’s pickup isn’t going anywhere until a wrecker pulls it out, you’re riding with me.”
“I’d like to speak to the nurse at the hospital first,” she said.
He turned back to look at her.
“I just want to verify what you’ve told me about your brother.”
“I’ve heard that journalists don’t take anyone’s word on anything without at least a backup source, but do you really think I’d lie about my brother being in a coma?” Even under the shade of his cowboy hat, she could see the piercing black of his gaze. He was angry and she really couldn’t blame him.
He shook his head in obvious disgust. “Fine. When we get to a place where my phone works, you’re welcome to call the hospital.” He swore under his breath. “Are you always this paranoid?”
“Only when people really are after me.”
He sighed and pulled out his cell phone. “No coverage. Or do you want to check yourself?”
“I’ll take your word for it until cell phone service is available.”
He shook his head. “That’s real damned big of you. Let me make something clear, I’m not sure what happened last night but I have a pretty good idea. You and your article got my brother into this. If guilt or the threat of jail doesn’t work, then I’ll use whatever methods I have to, but you will help me find the people who did this to him, one way or another.”
CORDELL COULDN’T believe this mess. Cyrus in a coma and him saddled with this journalist and her paranoia.
Now what the hell was he going to do with her? he asked himself as he studied Raine Chandler. The cool breeze stirred the hair at the nape of his neck and he turned to see a dark bank of clouds on the horizon to the west. Great, just what he needed. A thunderstorm and him miles from a paved road.
He remembered as a kid how the roads would be impassable until after a storm when the wind and sun dried things out.
He considered making a run for town, but he could tell by the way the clouds were moving in that he would never make it before the storm hit. The rental car would be worthless and his brother’s pickup was buried in the mud and not going anywhere. He swore under his breath again.
There was only one place to go.
As much as he hated it, he knew it was the best plan given the storm and the fact that he needed to take Raine somewhere so he could go through all of her research materials. His brother might have stumbled onto trouble last night, but Raine Chandler was up to her neck in it.
All he had to do was find the people after her.
That meant going to a private spot where she didn’t try to get away from him until he found out what he needed. Cordell groaned at the thought though. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?”
“To my grandmother’s ranch. It’s closer than town.” He saw something flicker in her eyes. “Or would you rather go to jail?”
“Maybe I’d be safer there.”
He stopped to give her his full attention. “If you think your virtue might be at risk coming with me, then let me set you straight. You aren’t my type and I have much more important things on my mind than sex. That blunt enough for you?”
“Quite. Did I mention that I believe Emily Frank was taken by someone in one of Whitehorse’s more prominent seemingly upstanding families?”
Cordell let out a hoot of laughter. “Like the Winchesters? Think again. We’ve never been upstanding. Not even seemingly.”
“You might be surprised how money and power tip the scales toward upstanding.”
“No, actually I wouldn’t be surprised.” He eyed her, realizing she’d researched his family. Before or after Cyrus had crossed her path? “Winchester is just a name to me. I haven’t been back here in twenty-seven years and if there were any money or power, my father and brother and I have never been a part of it.”
She cocked a brow at him. “What about your grandmother?”
“Not that it is any of your business, but until recently my grandmother was a recluse who hadn’t left the ranch in all those years. None of the rest of us had seen her in all that time or lived anywhere near here. Even if she hadn’t been locked away for twenty-seven years, I can assure you she wouldn’t abduct a child.”
“If you haven’t seen her, then you have no way of knowing—”
“My grandmother,” he interrupted, “is so fond of children she doesn’t even know how many grandchildren she has. She had to pay her lawyer to try to track us all down. I won’t even
go into how she treated her own children, even her favorite son.”
“And this is where you’re taking me? To see this grandmother?” She sounded incredulous.
“It wouldn’t be my first choice, but you’ve left us no other option.” Thunder rumbled in the distance. “You know anything about storms up in this country? Unless we get moving and damned soon, that storm is going to catch us and we are going to be stuck, literally, out here until someone comes along and that could be a damned long time. Once it starts raining, this road will become gumbo. We’d never be able to get back to town before the storm hits so we’re going to wait out the storm at the Winchester Ranch. And believe me, I’m much unhappier about that prospect than you could ever be.”
What in her research was she trying so desperately to keep from him? he wondered. Well, he’d soon find out. Once they reached the ranch, he’d go through everything in that satchel. She was his only possible connection to the men who’d put his brother in a coma. She was going to help him even if he had to wring her pretty little neck.
It would make it easier if she trusted him though, but he didn’t take it personally. If he’d learned anything from his first marriage and subsequent divorce, it was that trust is a fragile thing that once broken badly is impossible to get back again.
He wondered, though, who had broken Raine Chandler’s trust. Whoever it was had done a bang-up job.
RAINE REALIZED SHE had little choice but to go with him to the Winchester Ranch. Fighting Cordell would be futile since right now he held all the cards.
Also she wanted the man who’d hurt his brother just as badly as he did. If it was true and Cyrus Winchester was now fighting for his life, she owed him for his chivalry in saving her last night.
Cordell Winchester was another story. He didn’t have a chivalrous bone in his body and she balked at being forced into anything, especially by him.
But she also realized it couldn’t hurt having an obviously high-priced private investigator now helping her find the person who’d been driving that van last night—the same person she’d come to Whitehorse to find.
As she started to gather up her things he’d dumped in the grass, Cordell stopped her. “I’ll take care of this.”
“I’d prefer to carry my own things.”
He smiled. “I’d prefer you not bloody my nose or kick me in the groin or pull a gun on me.”
“That’s right, you have my gun. I’d like that back.”
“I’m sure you would. But you don’t need to worry. From now until we’re finished with this, I will keep you safe.”
She lifted a brow questioning whether he thought he really could handle that job. Fortunately she’d learned to take care of herself. “I’m not sure you won’t need my help.”
He gave her a look that said she was pushing her luck. She heard him swear under his breath as he walked away. She watched him, trying to gauge what kind of man he really was. One thing was for sure—he had no idea who the woman he’d just taken captive really was.
As she watched him, for the first time, she took a good look at Cordell Winchester. She was suddenly aware of the man on some primitive level. He looked like an ad for Montana, a cowboy who was just as comfortable in the wild outdoors as in a large city or a boardroom.
She must have been blind not to have noticed before this how his jeans hugged his tight behind, the legs long, the hips slim. His shoulders seemed broad enough to block out the sun.
Raine felt desire warm her blood. It had been a long time since she’d been even remotely aware of a man.
She’d been too busy with her career. She’d apparently forgotten what it felt like to want a man so much it made her ache. Or maybe she’d just never known a man like Cordell Winchester, a man who could unleash that kind of primal need even when she couldn’t stand the sight of him.
This was a man who had to be used to getting what he wanted from women. She was glad she wasn’t that type of woman. But the thought also came with a little regret that she wouldn’t be finding out if Cordell was as sexy as he looked.
As he started to the car with her things, he saw her eyeing him. “Something wrong?”
She scoffed at that. Everything was wrong. She couldn’t wait to see the last of this Winchester and, judging by the expression on Cordell’s face, he felt the same way.
CORDELL HATED THE IDEA of dragging this woman out to the ranch with him as much as he hated going there in the first place. He knew he had no business taking her prisoner and the last person he wanted to see was his grandmother.
But the storm had given him no other option other than being trapped in the small rental car with her. That, he thought, could definitely be worse than the ranch. At least at his grandmother’s they should be able to get something to eat and drink and, if they were stuck there overnight, a place to sleep.
He didn’t trust Raine Chandler as far as he could toss her and needed this time to find out everything he could about her—and this article she was writing.
As it was, he’d have to watch her 24/7. At least at the ranch, she was far enough from Whitehorse that taking off would require she hoof it forty miles. Or take a horse. He couldn’t see that happening.
“This is just temporary,” he said as they climbed into the car. Once he found the person who hurt his brother, Raine Chandler was free to do whatever the hell she wanted.
“So,” he said and started the car, “why don’t you tell me about this article you’re working on.”
She sighed. “Her name, as I already told you, was Emily Frank. She was ten when she was taken as she walked home from school. She was never found. Neither were her abductors.”
He shot her a surprised look. “You said abductors? Are you saying there was more than one person who took her?”
“A man and a woman.”
“How do you know that?”
She seemed to hesitate. “I have something of the girl’s.”
He felt a chill trot the length of his spine. “It’s just hard to imagine a woman—”
“Sometimes a woman in these situations is more dangerous than the man. She often goes along with it to make him happy but resents it—and is hateful to the child because she is jealous. In a few cases, it is her idea.”
Cordell gripped the steering wheel tighter as he drove, sickened by the things she was telling him. “These people are monsters.”
“A common misconception is that they are recognizable psychos,” she said, as if warming to her subject. “Look at the famous cases. The neighbors always say, ‘They seemed like such a normal family.’ They hide behind the facade of being upstanding citizens. Often they are very involved in their community, do a lot of good deeds and are high profile. Money and power masquerading as the wholesome family next door. They’re people you could pass on the street and never suspect. These people appear so normal that the good people of Whitehorse have no idea that these child abductors live right among them.”
CORDELL LOOKED SHOCKED and sick to his stomach. She saw him grip the steering wheel tighter.
“You said Emily was taken sixteen years ago,” he said after a long moment.
She knew what he was asking. “Who knows how many more children they have taken since that time.”
“Come on, residents would become suspicious if a bunch of kids went missing from a small Montana town.”
Raine shook her head. “These people are serial child abductors. They don’t stop. They don’t have to. They’re bulletproof because they’re so deeply rooted in the community and the children they take are on the remote edge of society.”
He frowned over at her.
“Children from families with few resources or connections to the town. Foster children.”
“These children are still going to be reported missing.”
“Missing and presumed runaways. Because of that the foster parents often don’t alert the authorities right away. Even when they do and the child isn’t found, the victim is considered a runaway
until her body is found.”
Cordell didn’t say anything for a long time. “Isn’t that going to make the abductors nearly impossible to find?”
“That’s why they haven’t been caught. These people will do anything to keep their twisted secret.” She felt his gaze on her.
“Including making another run at you?”
Cordell Winchester was smart. She liked how quickly he’d understood the situation.
She started to argue that the hit-and-run last night had nothing to do with her—or her reason for being in Whitehorse. She saved her breath. “They’ll send some one after me again,” she said simply.
If they haven’t already, she thought, studying the cowboy sitting next to her. “That is, if they can find me at some isolated ranch in the middle of nowhere.”
He chuckled as the car sped down the narrow dirt road. “We’re just sitting out the storm at my grandmother’s. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you can use yourself as bait if that’s your plan.”
“What a relief.” Raine stared out at the rolling prairie. He’d also been right about the storm. It moved in quickly, the first drops of rain splattering against the windshield. Ahead the land seemed to break up into badlands and she knew they must be nearing the Missouri Breaks. On her way to Whitehorse, she’d dropped down into the Breaks to cross the winding river as it made its way through Montana.
She’d never seen such wild, isolated country. Now she realized just how far they were from civilization. Normally, she felt she could hold her own. But Cordell Winchester outweighed her and was obviously much stronger. He also had her gun. And now a storm had blown in, one that he swore could strand them out here.
So why wasn’t she terrified? She glanced over at him, studying his expression and seeing nothing but pain. She could see that he was worried sick about his brother. And he’d been visibly shaken by the photographs of the abducted children.