An angry growl escaped his mouth, and he released her hand long enough to grab both of her arms. “I have the right because I’m the man you’re supposed to have in your life.”
The words shocked Cheyenne so much that her body went rigid. “Wh-what are you talking about?” she whispered.
He gritted his teeth and increased his hold on her. “I remember the first day I saw you. I’d just joined your father’s college rodeo team, and you came by the arena where we were practicing. You were sixteen years old and still in high school, but I knew that day we were meant for each other. I knew you were too young to have a relationship with me, so I decided to wait until you were older before I would say anything.”
Cheyenne swallowed the fear that rose in her throat. “Trace, I’m sorry. I never did anything to encourage you. I thought you were my friend.”
“I was your friend, Cheyenne. The best one you ever had. I listened to all your problems about the boys you dated, and it tore me up inside. But I knew my time with you was coming. Just when I thought I’d tell you how I felt, you told me you were off to college and the rodeo team there. But it didn’t end there. You made me wait again by going on the rodeo circuit with your parents after you graduated, and you never gave me or what I wanted a thought. I stepped aside and let you have everything you wanted because I loved you so much.”
Cheyenne shook her head in protest at Trace’s words. “Please, Trace. Don’t say any more.”
His features hardened, and he gave her a shake. “I’ve been in torment for years because of you, so you can listen to what I have to say.” He looked down at his fingers grasping her arms and relaxed his hold a bit. “Then one night at the Calgary Stampede you told me how lonely you were and how you wished you could meet someone to love. You described the kind of man you wanted, and I knew that was the way I could win you, could make you see that the man you’d wanted had been there all the time.”
She remembered that night at the rodeo and the conversation they’d had in a diner near the arena after the evening’s competition. She had performed her trick riding, and Trace had competed in bronc riding. They’d eaten a late dinner together, and she’d enjoyed being with him.
“Trace, please don’t say anything else. I’m sorry I didn’t recognize how you felt. I wouldn’t hurt you for anything.”
“But you did,” he muttered. “For years you’ve hurt me, but I knew that night how I could win you.”
She didn’t like the sinister tone his voice had suddenly taken. “How could you do that?”
“I could make you fall in love with me by being that man you wanted.”
She frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“I could be someone else, a man you were just getting to know. Then after you’d fallen in love with me, I’d tell you who I really was.”
She frowned. “But how? How could you...”
He leaned forward and smiled. “I could be Jesse Tolliver, and Jesse would be all you’d ever wanted.”
“What?” she shrieked. She twisted to try and escape his grip, but he held her tighter.
“I was the one who told that girl in Calgary about the chat room and how she ought to join and get you to check it out, too. Once you were there, it didn’t take a genius to figure out your username. Patches, really? Couldn’t you have been more imaginative?”
A sudden thought struck her. “After my parents were killed, you kept trying to get me to come here and work for your father. I thought you were being nice to me, and all the time you wanted me closer so you could terrify me.”
His eyes narrowed. “I was so angry with you, but I couldn’t quit thinking about you. One day I loved you and the next I loathed you. You controlled all my thoughts until I was afraid I’d go mad.”
“So that’s why you sabotaged my drag strap. You wanted to kill me that night.”
A contrite expression crossed his face. “I did, but after it was over I was sorry.” He reached out and cupped her chin in his hand. “I didn’t really want to hurt you, not deep down. All I wanted was for you to notice me. But after you came here, you ignored me as if I didn’t exist. All you could think about was training for your performance, and you ignored me. I couldn’t stop loving you, so I decided I’d give you one more chance to love me. Do you remember what I did when you showed up for your first performance?”
Cheyenne remembered that night very well. She’d been distracted because of the messages she’d gotten from her stalker, and it had barely registered with her when Trace asked her to go with him to get something to eat after the show. “You asked me out.”
He nodded. “Yes, and what did you do after I’d decided to give you another chance? You rejected me. I cut your drag strap to teach you a lesson.”
The stone-cold look on his face and the fire in his eyes terrified Cheyenne. She jerked free of his hold and jumped to her feet. Before she could escape, he grabbed her with one of his arms around her waist and the other over her chest. “Let me go,” she yelled.
“No!” he shouted. “You aren’t going anywhere until I’m through.” His arms squeezed her tighter until she could hardly breathe. “But you didn’t give me one more chance even after all I’d done for you,” he continued. “You turned to Luke Conrad, and I knew it was going to be like it was before.”
Cheyenne tried to ignore the fear and think rationally about how she could escape. “All right,” she said in a calm, but shaky, voice. “I’ll listen to whatever you have to say. Why don’t you calm down. We can sit back down and discuss this rationally. I have some questions I need to ask you. Maybe you can help me see what I’ve done wrong.”
Her statement seemed to pacify him for a moment, and his body relaxed some. “Okay,” he said as he led her back to the couch and eased her down. “What do you want to know?”
She took a deep breath. “You say you loved me and wanted me to fall in love with you when you were Jesse. You wanted me to see that you had all the qualities I’d always told you I wanted in a man. If that’s right, then why did you turn against me and start terrorizing me?”
“Because you began to talk about a new guy you’d met, and I knew you were doing it again. You were going to make me wait. When you wouldn’t listen to me, I decided if I couldn’t have you, no one else could.”
“So you started sending me scary messages and stalking me everywhere I went.” A horrible thought struck her, and her eyebrows shot up as she recoiled from him. “You killed my parents.” The words escaped in a gush of air.
He nodded. “I went to see them and told them how I felt. They said they couldn’t do anything, that who you fell in love with was your own decision. Then your father figured out I was the one you were afraid of and threatened to call the police. I couldn’t do anything else. I had to kill them.”
Tears ran down her face. “My parents were good to you. How could you do that?”
He shrugged. “It had to be done.”
Another thought struck her, and she sat up straight. “Clint Shelton? Did you kill him, too, and try to make it look like he was the one who’d murdered my parents?”
“Yes, I wanted you to feel safe so you would turn to me. But you didn’t,” he growled.
Cheyenne’s mind was working in double time. She had to find a way to get out of here. At the moment all she could think of was that if she kept Trace talking long enough Dean might come in from the barn and rescue her.
“So what about Virgil Adkins? How did you work that out?”
Trace chuckled. “Virgil is guilty of a lot of things, but being a threat to you isn’t one of them. After I fired him, I told him I’d give him his last wages out of the petty cash in my father’s office. That was too much of a temptation to him. I waited and watched, and sure enough he took the bait by stealing the money. I knew the combination to his locker, so it wasn’t difficult to p
lant your music box there with the stolen money. But even after Virgil was arrested, you didn’t turn to me, and I realized you never were going to. So I came to a decision.”
“What kind of decision?”
“I’d give you one more chance. That’s why I came today, but you rejected me again. This time it was for Luke Conrad.”
“Trace, please...” she whispered as he reached up and trailed his index finger down the side of her face.
“I’ve loved you so much, but now I have to end this thing between us. If we can’t be together in life, then we can be in death.”
Her body started quivering, and she tried to pull back from him. “What do you mean?” she whispered in a shaky voice.
“Do you remember me telling you that my grandmother was Cherokee?”
“Yes.”
“She lived on the Cherokee reservation over in North Carolina. I used to visit her in the summers, and we would always hike up to Mingo Falls. It was my favorite thing to do. I think she chose that trail for me because it wasn’t too difficult, and the trip to the falls was worth it. We’d sit up on the rocks and look down at the water a hundred and twenty feet below while we ate sandwiches. I’ve been back there many times. I’ve always wanted to take you there, to share the beauty of the place with you. The time has come for me to do that.”
This was getting crazier by the minute. “Why do you want me to see the falls?”
He looked at her as if he didn’t understand the question. “Because I’m not going to leave you here for Luke Conrad. You’re coming with me to Mingo Falls so we can fulfill our destiny.”
She struggled to keep from letting him know how terrified she was. “I’m sorry, Trace. I’m not going anywhere with you and you need to go.” She spoke as gently as she could. Maybe she could convince him to leave, and then she would call the police.
He sighed and nodded. “I suppose I do,” he said. He didn’t say anything else as he turned away and walked to the chair where he’d left his coat. He picked it up as if to put it on, but then turned around and pulled a gun from the pocket.
Her eyes grew large at the pistol pointed at her. “Trace, what are you doing? Put that gun down before it goes off.”
He shook his head. “I’m through letting you jerk me around and mess up my life. I’ve done too much for you, but you don’t appreciate it. It’s time I quit trying to make you love me. Get your coat. We’re leaving.”
She took a step toward him, her hand extended. “Trace, please. Think about what you’re doing.”
“I know what I’m doing.” He closed his eyes for a moment and bit down on his lip. “We’re going to Mingo Falls, and when we get there, we’re going to die together. Our bodies will rest together forever in a place of beauty and peace.”
She recoiled at his words, her heart pounding. “Trace,” she whispered.
He took a step forward and glared at her. “I’m not going to let Luke Conrad have you, and I can’t live without you. So this thing between us will end at a place that is special to me.” He motioned toward the hall tree, where her coat hung. “Get your coat, and let’s go.”
Cheyenne wanted to run, but she knew he would shoot if she did. Going with him wasn’t what she wanted, but it might be the only way she could get away from him. Swallowing her fear, she nodded, stepped to the hall tree and slipped into her coat.
He stuck the gun in her back as he opened the front door, and she walked onto the porch. He nudged her with the gun, and she moved down the steps to his truck. He opened the door, and she felt the pressure of the gun barrel pressing into her back. “Get in, and don’t try to run. I’m a good shot, and I’ll kill you before you’ve taken two steps.”
She nodded and climbed in the truck. When he ran around to get in on the driver’s side, she reached for the door handle. This might be the only chance she had. Before she could act on the impulse, he was standing at the open door opposite her. “Try it and you won’t live to tell about it.”
She released her hold and folded her hands in her lap. Then he was in the truck, and they were roaring toward the road that ran in front of the ranch. She looked over her shoulder before they pulled onto the pavement and stared at the house she’d come to love. She hoped this wasn’t the last time she would see it. She closed her eyes and breathed a prayer that somehow she could find a way to escape.
* * *
Luke glanced at the elf suit that lay on the truck seat beside him and wondered how Ben had talked him into putting that thing on and going to the hospital. With a sigh he shook his head. It was all for the benefit of the children who wouldn’t be home for Christmas, and a little self-consciousness on his part wasn’t too much to bear if it brought some cheer to them.
He smiled when he thought of the way Cheyenne had laughed when he told her what he was going to do. When she’d told him what a wonderful thing he was doing, though, he felt as if he could do anything in the world if it would make her proud of him. He’d waited a long time to find someone he thought he could love, and now he’d found her. Tomorrow they would spend Christmas together, and he only hoped it would be the first of many to come.
He hadn’t shown her his home yet, and he looked forward to that. His father had loved horses, and Luke had kept the barn and corral in tip-top shape ever since his father died. It was a small tribute to him, and he hoped his dad would have approved. If things went well for Cheyenne and him, they might be sharing that home together in the future. The thought filled him with a warm feeling, and he smiled.
His ringing cell phone jerked him from his thoughts, and he glanced at the screen on his truck’s dash. He’d been glad to see that this vehicle had Bluetooth capacity, and he could sync his phone to it.
The number displayed was from the sheriff’s office, and he punched the screen to connect the call. “Conrad here,” he said.
“Luke, this is Andy at the station.”
“Hey, Andy. I didn’t know you were working on Christmas Eve.”
Andy chuckled. “Yeah, my work never ends.”
“I’m on my way to the hospital to give out gifts to the children. What can I do for you?”
“You remember you had me tracing some emails off a computer a few weeks ago?”
Luke sat up straighter at Andy’s question and looked around to find a place to pull over. If this was about Cheyenne, he needed to stop the truck and concentrate. He spotted a discount clothing store to his right, and he pulled into the parking lot and came to a stop.
“Yeah. I remember. What about it?”
“Well, I’ve continued to monitor those ISPs we found, especially the ones around here, to see if that computer shows up again, and today it worked out.”
Luke’s breath froze in his throat. “How?”
“I figured he’d finally slip up, and he did. Do you remember I told you that there’s no way to tell who owns a computer when they log in on a public ISP. On the other hand the computer has a unique identity that registers, and I could see every time that same computer logged in at the same public internet provider.”
“Yeah, I remember. You also told me that the only way you could identify the owner was if that computer logged in to a personal account like an online bank account or a credit card from that same location.”
“Well, he finally did it. He logged in today at a fast-food restaurant next to where the Wild West show is. He’d used that one before when he was sending emails to Cheyenne, but this time he went to his bank account.”
“His bank account? That means you know his name.”
“Yep, I sure do. It’s Trace Johnson.”
For a moment Luke could only sit in stunned silence. “Trace Johnson? Are you sure about that, Andy?”
“I’m positive. The same computer that sent those emails went to Trace Johnson’s online bank account about an h
our ago.”
Luke groaned and pounded the steering wheel. “Oh, no!”
“What’s the matter, Luke?”
“That means he’s the one who’s been stalking her and I just left them together. I’ve got to call her.”
Before Andy could reply, he’d disconnected the call and had looked up Cheyenne’s number. It rang several times before it went to voice mail. “Cheyenne, where are you?” he muttered under his breath.
Maybe she was at the barn and had left her cell phone in the house. His heart pounded in his chest as he tried Dean’s number. He answered on the first ring. “Hello.”
“Dean, it’s Luke. Is Cheyenne there with you?”
“No, I think she’s up at the house. Try her there.”
“She’s not answering her phone, and I need to talk to her. I just found out...”
Before he could finish, he heard Maggie’s voice screaming in the background. “Daddy! Daddy! A bad man took Cheyenne!”
His blood felt as if it had turned to ice, and his body jerked. “Dean! What is Maggie saying?”
“I don’t know. Hold on.”
“Daddy!” the child cried again and then the sound was muffled.
He could hear Dean trying to calm her as he spoke softly. “Baby, tell me what’s wrong. What about Cheyenne?”
“Her friend, that man from the Wild West show, came to see her. He took her away.” Maggie wailed, and Luke thought for a moment his heart had stopped beating.
“Maggie,” Dean said, “tell me what happened, sweetheart. How do you know this?”
“I thought he had her a Christmas present, and I wanted to see. So I tiptoed in the dining room to listen to them, but I got scared because he was yelling at Cheyenne.”
“What did he say?”
“He said she was going with him. She didn’t want to go, but he made her. I peeked out at them when they got to the front door, and he had a gun.” Maggie’s last word ended with a wail.
Luke’s chest suddenly squeezed, and he thought he was going to pass out. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Luke!” Dean’s voice came over the phone. “Did you hear that?”
Stalking Season Page 15