by B. J Daniels
McCall pulled out her handcuffs and handed them to Lara.
“Snap one on the sheriff’s wrist. That a girl. Now let me.” Adele grabbed the handcuffs, letting go of Lara just long enough to snap the other end of the cuffs to a pipe protruding from the wall.
“Now we’re going to walk out to the car and Mommy is going to take you someplace nice for dinner. Are you hungry?”
Lara nodded enthusiastically.
“That’s my girl.”
The exchange turned McCall’s stomach. She couldn’t stand the thought of Adele leaving with that child. “Adele, don’t do this.”
Lara looked concerned again. The prospect of food was too much for her and McCall wondered how long it had been since she’d eaten.
“Do what? Sheriff, I’m a hero. I found Lara and now I’m taking her back to town for a hero’s welcome. I tried to tell you that’s what I was doing, but you wouldn’t listen.”
McCall felt sick to her stomach. But as long as Lara was safe.
Adele’s smile could have ripped flesh. “In fact, I think I might tell everyone that I caught you here with the little girl. You were about to do something horrible to her. If I hadn’t stopped you…”
“No one will believe that.”
“Of course they will. I’m Adele Beaumont. Do I look like a woman who would hurt a defenseless child?” She backed toward the front door, still holding the gun to Lara’s head. “And by the time I get this child back to town, I know Lara will back up my story. Won’t you, Lara. Didn’t Mommy come to save you?” The girl nodded obediently. “The poor child has been through so much. She seems to think I’m her mommy. Isn’t that sweet?”
“TURN HERE.”
Raine slowed and turned down the narrow dirt lane. Ahead she could make out a house sitting in a stand of old cottonwoods. The house looked even more run-down than the one that she’d been held in but a light glowed inside.
There was a large newer model SUV parked on the back side, Raine saw as she pulled in front of the house and stopped. Bill shut off the engine and took the keys. He glanced back over his shoulder. Still no sign of anyone behind them.
He turned back around just in time to see what Raine saw: a woman coming out of the house with a little girl. Raine barely recognized the child as Lara English. Her hair was matted, her face smudged with dirt and she was wearing a jean jacket that swam on her and apparently little else.
In the light that spilled from the open door of the house, Raine looked from Lara to the woman holding the girl’s hand and felt her heart drop. You can call me Mommy. Her earlier fear seized her at the sight of the horrible woman who’d been part of her abduction sixteen years ago.
Beside her, Bill swore. “Damn that woman. She’s going to mess everything up.” He threw open his door, then seemed to remember Raine. “Get out,” he ordered, brandishing the gun.
Raine climbed out and when she did she saw something that made her heart soar. A glint of light from the moon reflecting off what had to have been a vehicle. It disappeared over a rise in the road Raine had just driven up. She listened for a moment but didn’t hear the sound of a car engine. Could she have just imagined—
Bill grabbed her arm and shoved her toward the house. “Get back inside, Adele. Now!”
Adele had stopped beside her car. The door was open and she’d apparently just dragged out a jacket from the back. As she slipped into it, she watched her husband thoughtfully. Raine could tell the woman was thinking about trying to make a run for it with the girl. Would her husband of thirty-six years shoot her?
“Adele.” The warning in his tone seemed to force Adele’s decision. She grabbed Lara more roughly and pushed her toward the house.
Lara entered with Adele behind her. Raine followed, Bill with his gun on her.
He seemed to notice the sheriff handcuffed to a pipe about the same time as Raine. “What the hell, Adele?” he demanded. “What is the sheriff doing here?”
Raine watched Adele seem to shrink under Bill’s anger. “She must have followed me from town,” she said in a small, childlike voice.
“You think?” He turned on her and Adele shrank away from him. “You just never learn, do you, Adele? Now I’m going to have to clean up the mess you made. Just like I always have to do.”
CORDELL HAD BANDAGED his side as best he could but it was bleeding again as he got out of the car. He’d searched Orville Cline’s body for the keys the moment he’d heard Beaumont’s truck engine turn over.
Now he followed a small gully toward the house where he’d seen Beaumont’s truck stop. He had to stop once to adjust the makeshift bandage he’d constructed out of an old sweatshirt he’d found in the car. The sweatshirt said Montana State University across the front. Now it was wet with blood.
He moved through the trees that once sheltered the house in time to see a woman and child go inside, followed by Raine with Beaumont close behind holding a gun on her.
As he neared the edge of the house, he saw something by the door glint in the moonlight. Stepping closer, he saw that it was a shotgun.
Inside the house, he heard Beaumont’s raised voice. He seemed to be hollering at his wife.
Cordell plucked up the shotgun and moved quickly back from the open doorway to check to make sure it was loaded. It was.
Then he moved toward the door again. The last thing he’d heard Bill Beaumont say was something about cleaning up his wife’s messes. Life, Cordell thought, was all about timing.
He knew he would have the advantage of surprise, but he would also have only an instant to assess the situation and act. He would be jeopardizing Raine’s and Lara’s lives. Unfortunately there was no one else here to rectify things and he was losing blood and wasn’t sure how much longer he’d be standing.
He prayed for perfect timing as he rounded the doorway, leading with the shotgun.
RAINE WAS NEVER SO HAPPY to see anyone come through that doorway. She felt such a well of emotion to see that Cordell was alive. If she’d ever doubted it, she knew now. She loved this man.
Bill had taken his eyes off her just moments before to go over and berate his wife. Raine had taken advantage of his inattention and pulled Lara over to her. The girl came willing enough. She seemed dazed, lost, and Raine recognized that look and felt sick inside that this child had had to go through what she’d experienced.
And suddenly Cordell appeared in the doorway with the shotgun. Adele saw him and let out a cry to warn Bill.
Raine acted on instinct, shoving Lara in the direction of the sheriff as Bill spun around. McCall grabbed the girl and covered her head as the sound of the shotgun blast boomed.
The boom reverberated through the old house. Bill made a gurgling sound, stumbling backward. Cordell suddenly seemed to be having trouble standing and Raine realized he’d been shot earlier just as she’d feared.
He took a step toward her, then dropped to one knee. A wadded-up piece of clothing fell from inside his jacket. Raine’s heart dropped at the sight of the blood-soaked material.
As she started to rush to Cordell, she saw Adele trying to get the gun from her jacket pocket.
“Cordell, watch out!” she cried as she dove for Adele, slamming her back against the wall.
Adele had managed to get the gun from her pocket. Raine grabbed the gun, trying to wrench it from the woman’s hands, but Adele was much stronger than she looked.
MCCALL HELD THE GIRL to her as she worked with her foot to get the pistol that Bill Beaumont had dropped when he was shot. She finally got a boot toe around it and dragged it back toward her.
She could see Raine trying to wrest the gun from Adele, but she knew only too well how strong Adele was. That strength came from that inhuman part of her, McCall thought, as she dragged the gun to her.
Letting go of Lara, she grabbed up the gun with her free hand and fired two quick shots. Neither seemed to have any effect on Adele for a few moments.
McCall prepared to fire again when she saw Adele’s fing
ers slip from the gun she was fighting to keep from Raine. The woman glanced over at her, a horrible hateful look in her eyes, before she looked down at where the bullets had torn through her jacket. The cloth blossomed red as Adele Beaumont slowly slid to the floor.
Leaning back, McCall laid the gun next to her and pulled Lara close again. Past Lara, Raine rushed to Cordell to press the wet cloth to his side.
Lara sat up as if sensing it was over. “I’m hungry,” she said.
McCall started to tell Raine to go down the road to her patrol SUV to call for backup but before she could two deputies burst in followed by one very good-looking game warden.
“Adele has the key to the cuffs in her pocket,” McCall said as Luke Crawford started to rush to her.
He went to the fallen woman and came back with the key. As he unlocked the cuffs, he sat down next to McCall on the floor and pulled her to him.
“How did you—?”
“Shane told me where you were when you called in the last time,” Luke said. “I remembered this old farmhouse. I know we were supposed to wait for your call, but when we didn’t hear from you…”
She smiled up at him, then pulled him down for a kiss. What would she ever do without this man?
Across the room, one of the deputies was seeing to Cordell as they waited for the ambulance to arrive. Another deputy had given Lara a stick of gum, promising her a candy bar once they reached his patrol car.
McCall leaned into Luke, absorbing his warmth. “I should have followed my first instinct and shot her right away. I sure wanted to.”
Luke pulled her closer. “But you didn’t.”
No, she thought as she looked across the room to where Adele Beaumont lay, all the crazy wild gone from her blank eyes. “But I’m not sorry she’s dead. I’m not sorry they’re both dead. How is Cordell though?”
Luke shook his head. “He’s apparently lost a lot of blood, but the ambulance is on the way.”
Chapter Sixteen
Raine stepped into Cordell’s hospital room. It was right down the hall from his brother Cyrus’s. Her relief and joy at hearing that Cordell was going to pull through was tempered with the news that Cyrus’s condition hadn’t changed.
As she neared his bed, Cordell opened those wonderful dark eyes of his and smiled. His face, though pale, seemed to light up and she felt weightless and silly and ecstatic. Tears welled in her eyes as he reached for her hand and pulled her closer.
She leaned her face against his and tried not to cry.
“Hey,” he said. “I’m okay.”
She nodded through her tears.
“You were amazing.”
Raine didn’t feel amazing. She’d endangered all of their lives.
“How’s Lara?” he asked.
“Good.” Drying her eyes and pulling herself together, she told him about the deputies taking her out for breakfast at the Great Northern. “She put down pancakes, eggs and bacon without blinking an eye. It turns out that the girl’s grandmother saw the story on the news. Apparently, she’d lost contact with her daughter and granddaughter. McCall is helping her get custody. Lara is very excited since she has happy memories of staying with her grandmother when she was younger.”
“That is good news,” Cordell said.
She heard the change in his voice. “Cyrus is still stable.”
He nodded. “I know. I’d hoped that by the time this was over, he would be back with us.”
“I’m so sorry,” Raine said, her voice breaking. “This is all my fault.”
“Baby, this is the Beaumonts’ fault and Orville Cline’s. But they are all gone now, may they never rest in hell.” He stroked her hair. “If it hadn’t been for you, Lara would have been another casualty of those monsters.”
Raine laid her head on his chest and listened to the steady beat of his heart.
“I need to tell you how I feel about you, Raine.”
She lifted her head, afraid of what he was going to say, afraid he didn’t feel the way she did.
“No, I won’t let you stop me this time,” he said before she could speak. “I love you. I know this is sudden and you probably don’t feel the same way but—”
Raine smiled through fresh tears as she touched a finger to his lips. “I feel the same way.”
He laughed, then grimaced at the pain. “You do?”
“I do.”
He grinned. “Those are words I’d like to hear you say one of these days real soon.”
Epilogue
McCall was amazed how quickly life had gone back to normal. Her first calls had been the usual Whitehorse crimes: complaints about barking dogs and loud teenagers, requests to make checks on the elderly and giving rides home from the bars to those who weren’t able to drive.
She’d come down from the shock of the events of the past few weeks. Cousin Cyrus was still in a coma, but he was stable and they were all holding out hope he would regain consciousness at any time.
Fortunately her cousin Cordell had recovered nicely, Lara had been placed with her grandmother until a permanent custody could be arranged and even the gossip had died down somewhat about the Beaumonts.
Other than that, life seemed to be getting back to normal, well, as normal as it could in Whitehorse, Montana.
Then her cell phone rang and she saw that it was her grandmother.
“Good morning, Grandmother,” McCall said. It still seemed strange to call Pepper Winchester Grandmother. She’d gone all twenty-seven years of her life with Pepper denying her existence.
But all that was behind them and even McCall’s mother, Ruby, was starting to come around. Ruby was actually looking forward to her daughter’s Christmas wedding at Winchester Ranch.
“I just talked to the local florist,” her grandmother was saying. “She said you hadn’t been over to look at flowers for the wedding. Tell me you’ve at least ordered your dress. You do realize the wedding isn’t that far away?”
“It’s June and the wedding isn’t until Christmas.”
“Exactly. You can’t keep putting this off. Tomorrow I could have Enid drive me in—”
“That’s not necessary,” McCall said.
“I know, but I’d like to help you. That is, if it’s all right with your mother.”
She heard the plea in her grandmother’s voice. “I would love it if you’d come with me to pick out the flowers.”
There was a lightness to her grandmother’s voice that McCall hadn’t heard before. “When’s a good time?”
“We could meet at Jan’s Floral at noon,” McCall suggested. “Would that work for you?”
“That would be perfect. Maybe we could have lunch afterward. That is if you don’t have to get back to work right away.”
McCall smiled, listening to how formal they sounded. “That would be nice.”
“Thank you. Would Luke like to join us?”
“To pick out flowers?” Her game warden fiancé would have no interest in picking out flowers for the wedding. Luke had been great, though, about having the wedding at the ranch.
“You deserve to have your wedding there,” he’d said. “You’re a Winchester and it’s high time everyone accepted it. Also I suspect it’s your grandmother’s way to trying to make amends.”
McCall hoped that was the case and that her grandmother wasn’t using the wedding as part of one of her hidden agendas.
“Luke’s working down in the Missouri Breaks,” she told her grandmother now. “It’s fishing season, you know. Lots of licenses to check.”
“All right then. I will see you tomorrow.” Pepper sounded as if she wanted to say more but McCall got another call and had to let her go. Whatever it was, McCall figured she’d find out soon enough. Hopefully before the wedding.
CORDELL SAT DOWN NEXT to his brother’s bed and took Cyrus’s hand in his. That twin connection that had always been there was still gone and he felt such a weight on his chest that sometimes he couldn’t breathe.
“We got the bad guys
,” he said quietly. “Just as I promised. I sure could have used your help though. Now it’s time for you to come back.”
The only sound in the room was the beep of the monitor.
Cyrus was still alive. That meant there was hope. Cordell latched on to that slim thread and held on for dear life.
“I can’t wait to tell you about Raine. You’re going to love her. The two of you met already.” He swallowed, feeling the burn of tears and fought them back. “She’s a lot like you. Brave to a fault and she’s a private investigator. Can you beat that?”
Cordell realized how foolish he’d been to think that once he caught the people responsible that Cyrus would wake up.
It had been crazy. Cyrus’s condition hadn’t changed since the accident. It might never change.
He shoved that thought away and stood as the doctor came into the room. Cordell knew he had to make a decision. He followed the doctor out into the hall.
“You have to face the possibility that your brother might never recover from his injury,” the doctor said again.
Cordell nodded, though he doubted he could ever accept that.
“I would suggest moving him to a long-term care facility that specializes in these kinds of cases.”
“I want to take him back to Colorado. Is there a problem with transporting him in his condition?”
“He is breathing on his own, his vitals are strong, I see no problem with that and there are some fine facilities in Denver.”
Cordell nodded. “I’ll make arrangements right away then.”
“ARE YOU LEAVING?” Pepper Winchester asked in surprise.
Her daughter Virginia turned from packing clothing into her suitcase, her expression sour. “There is no reason to stay here under the circumstances.”
“The circumstances being that your mother isn’t dying quickly enough?”
“Mother, don’t start,” Virginia said. “You don’t want or need me here. You have Enid. She is more like a daughter to you than I am.”