“It wasn’t supposed to storm like this,” he muttered, but Donovan kept talking.
“Looking at the women—and thank goodness they all look like they’re of age there, Stanley—but, you know, and this might be a wild guess on my part, but I’m thinking they don’t look like English is their first language, or their second for that matter. I haven’t spent much time in Ralston on this return trip, but, you know, I don’t recall a sudden influx of Russian women in town. Hard to imagine they all just happened to show up to party with some of Ralston’s kinkiest for a few drinks and some fun with leather.”
Stan swallowed, and Kate noticed his knuckles whiten on the death grip he had on the envelope. “Like I said, you can’t prove any different.”
Donovan stared him down for a second, then finally backed away, the release so sudden, Stan sagged a little against the wall before recovering his balance.
“So that was what the graffiti was all about?” Kate blurted out. “Your sorry attempts to scare me off so you could continue having your perverted little sex parties?”
Stan’s gaze darted to her again. “You’re not wanted here, Ms. Sutherland. Why don’t you take the hint and set up your precious little camp elsewhere. Your mother wasn’t the most popular person in Ralston when she packed up and left here without so much as a warning or an ‘I’m sorry’ We relied on the economic boost we got from the camp.”
“So you’d think you’d be happy to see the return of that potential business revenue.”
“Not from you.”
“It was ten years ago,” Kate said, truly surprised at the level of animosity in his voice, but not bothering to apologize for her mother. In this case, she had no doubt Stan was telling the truth, or close enough to it. It sounded just like something Louisa would have done.
Stan pushed away from the wall, but heeded Donovan’s silent warning when he again stepped forward between the two. He moved closer to the door instead. “Ten very long, economically depressed years. We’d rather have Timberline come in here and change the whole town into some giant tourist trap than have the likes of any Sutherland connected with Ralston in any way again.”
“So, you must have really enjoyed setting up your little sex shop here for a number of reasons,” Donovan interjected. “A little source of revenue for the town, assuming you charged for the pleasure—and I use that term really loosely here—of an invitation to one of your little leather and chain parties. But, even better, a middle finger of sorts to the oh-so-fine Sutherland clan every time you cracked that whip. Just imagine Louisa Sutherland rolling in her grave if she knew what depraved acts were taking place on the grounds of her once high-and-mighty camp.”
Donovan stepped closer. “But, let me ask you, though, did the Russian women get that part? And how much were you paying them, anyway, because from the looks of those pictures—and Stan, digital would be a real improvement over Polaroids, get with the new millennium—but, to be honest, they don’t look like they’re having near as much fun as you guys. So, what was in it for them?”
Stan darted his gaze from Donovan to Kate and back. “You have no proof any money changed hands.”
“I don’t have to. I’m sure the full-scale investigation into the arson perpetrated on Ms. Sutherland’s cabin will lead to some interesting discoveries. Especially when I point Roger in the right direction.” Donovan nodded toward the envelope. “That is, unless Roger is the guy in the full mask and chains getup. Doesn’t look too comfortable to me, having your balls all knotted up like that, but who am I to say? Anyway,” he went on, quite conversationally, “we can take this to the state level then, no problem. I have a few connections.”
“It won’t matter. You have no standing in this matter. And neither does she. It’s not her cabin. None of this belongs to her at all.”
“Is that why you didn’t even bother trying to hide your tracks this morning?” Kate asked, both furious and repulsed by the revelations. “Once you found out my name wasn’t on the deed, you knew you could just tromp in here and—” She stopped, broke off, looked at Donovan. “Wait, the only person he could have heard that from would be—”
“Me.”
Sheriff Gilby stepped into the open doorway, decked out in a heavy parka and fur-lined, state-issued uniform hat. But all Kate saw was the very big service revolver in his hand.
“I’ll take that,” he said, sticking his free hand toward Stan, who immediately handed over the envelope, looking almost sick with relief.
“It won’t matter what you do here and now, Gilby,” Donovan said. “Copies of those pictures are already being processed, and state officials are being alerted as we speak.”
“I’ve been watching you all morning,” Gilby said. “You haven’t been back to the cabin since making your ill-advised little stroll down here. If it were me, I’d have still been up there in that nice warm bed of hers, bumping—” He broke off when Donovan took a menacing step forward, but he recovered quickly and leveled his gun at Donovan’s chest.
“Donovan,” Kate whispered in warning, as fear for his safety drove an icy spear of terror down her spine. All she could think of was that Gilby could shoot them both, bury them or toss them in the lake, and no one would ever be the wiser. Who would even care? She wondered how long it would take Shelby to notice if she disappeared. Of course, Donovan had Finn and Rafe. They knew where he was. At least one of them had family, so to speak.
She darted a glance to Donovan. Was he telling the truth about making contact with someone or was it a big bluff?
“You haven’t done squat with that alleged evidence you think you found,” Gilby continued, “so the empty threats are just that.”
Donovan nodded toward the gun. “How’re you going to explain something happening to me or Kate? Bizarre hunting accident with a service revolver? I’ll admit, I’m a bit surprised you didn’t clean up after yourselves a little better already, so I’m not exactly feeling a lot of faith in your preplanning abilities here.”
“Shut up, MacLeod.”
Don’t give him any ideas, Kate thought, wanting to muzzle Donovan as she saw the tic in Gilby’s jaw and the way his tightened grip on the gun was making it waver. Goading the sheriff wasn’t going to be as easy as goading Stan.
“I’m simply here to escort you trespassers off private property,” Gilby said. “Seeing as I found you assaulting Mr. Harris here, and don’t seem to be cooperating, I feel it necessary to use lethal force. As for the rest, I will officially state here and now that I have no idea what the rest of this nonsense is about and I don’t care to know.” He took a step back and waved his gun. “Now, if you’ll follow me, I have a plow truck waiting to escort you to the county line. What you do from there I could give a good goddamn about, as long as you never come back here.”
“Wait a minute,” Kate said, ignoring Donovan’s warning glare as she shouldered past him. Or tried to. He kept her corralled at his side with a firm grip to her upper arm. “I am here with the full permission of my brother, Shelby Sutherland. You have no call to escort me, or my guest, anywhere.”
Besides, the last thing she was going to do was march through deep snow at gunpoint, to a supposed plow truck. Likely story. Unless the plow was just there to dig their graves. She could only hope Donovan was of the same mind and was presently working on an alternative plan, because stalling for time with this lame trespassing argument was all she had at the moment. And she doubted it was going to get them very far.
“Well, now, I can’t manage to track down the owner of this property to alert him to the fire that has taken place, or find out what the truth is about his alleged guests, who, for all I know, set the fire themselves,” Gilby said. “So, until I do, you’ll have to vacate.”
“Giving you time to clean up the rest of your mess here, Sheriff? Convenient,” Donovan said, smiling briefly.
Kate, on the other hand, felt like throwing up. Perhaps Donovan was taking her cue too well. More provoking was probably not in their
best combined interests.
“It was a bad day for you when Kate waltzed in unannounced and set up shop here, wasn’t it?” he went on. “Did you really think you’d scare her off with a few cans of spray paint? Or were you just trying to distract her long enough to get into the cabins here and clean up whatever evidence you’d left lying around? I know why the fire was set, by the way. Your little hidey-hole wasn’t completely destroyed, despite setting the fire right on top of it.” He glanced at Stan. “Your work? Because, really, not all that great.”
Gilby just smiled, and the malevolence she saw there made Kate’s skin crawl.
“Good,” he said. “Now I can arrest you on trespassing on a crime scene, MacLeod, as well as assault. Either way, your little return home visit is officially over. So which will it be? County line? Or county jail? Maybe I’ll put you in your daddy’s cell for old-time’s sake. Always said trash doesn’t fall far from the trailer. Looks like I was right.”
Other than a slight flex in the grip he still had on her arm, Kate didn’t sense the slightest change in Donovan’s demeanor. She, on the other hand, wanted to rip Gilby’s head off with her bare hands and shove it up his leather-studded ass.
“Kate?” Donovan asked calmly. “Why don’t you go give Shelby a call and we’ll clear this property matter up. Then the sheriff and I can take care of this other misunderstanding.”
Gilby moved more squarely in front of the door. “Nice try, MacLeod. She doesn’t leave, unless it’s handcuffed in the back of my state cruiser, or in that plow truck.”
Kate wasn’t sure if she imagined the unholy gleam that lit Gilby’s eyes at the mention of the use of handcuffs and her in the same sentence, but her throat tightened as did her hold on Donovan’s arm.
Donovan merely handed Kate his satellite phone. “No need. She can use this.”
Even as Gilby jabbed his revolver at them at the sudden appearance of Donovan’s phone, Kate quickly fumbled with it, turning it on and quickly dialing, praying, for once, that her stepbrother was where he was supposed to be.
“I don’t give a rat’s ass who she says she’s calling, could be anyone,” Gilby informed Donovan. “That doesn’t resolve the crime scene issue.”
“It was a mere guess on my part,” Donovan said easily. “And given that I found that envelope you’re clutching in a similar space in the next cabin over, a pretty good one. You’d have to prove I trespassed. And with this storm…” He trailed off, shrugged. “Good luck with that.” Then he nodded at the packet in Gilby’s hands. “You have what you came for. You’ve got nothing on me, and now I’ve got nothing on you. I say we call it even. Unless you want to tell me about that leather hood you were sporting in that picture where the three girls are—” He broke off, cocked his head, and gave Gilby a visual once-over. “That was you, wasn’t it? I guess I could ask around town.”
Kate tried to mask her disappointment when Shelby’s answering machine came on. She debated trying to brazen it out and pretend he was on the line, but if Gilby demanded to speak to him—then suddenly Gilby was waving his gun at Stan, and she forgot all about the call to Shelby.
“Stan, take these and hike out of here.”
“But—”
“Don’t question me, dammit.”
Stan took the envelope back and scurried out of the cabin without looking back.
“Masterful control. Let me guess, he was the one bent over the chair with the plug up his—”
“You’ll wipe that smug-ass grin off your face if you know what’s good for you, MacLeod. You’re in no position to bargain anything with me at the moment.”
“And you being the one who would know about positions and all.”
Gilby brought his other hand up to steady his gun, and Kate tugged on Donovan’s arm, thinking the snow plow option might be the better bet. She was just wondering how fast she could run in knee-deep snow when Donovan slid the phone from Kate’s hands. “Just so you know, it was no bluff. About alerting the authorities, I mean. This phone has a digital camera and satellite linkup, so I’m connected to the Internet and e-mail all the time.” He smiled. “I tried to tell Stan about modern technology, but maybe you should consider upgrading, too.”
For the first time, Gilby didn’t look so fierce.
“I didn’t get them all, but enough to get the point across. Especially the ones showing the women’s faces clearly. I wasn’t kidding about the connections either. You’ll remember Finn Dalton from back in the good old camp days? Well, seems he inherited all of Daddy’s money. Trust me when I say it’s substantial. And with that comes a lot of power. With a lot of the right people.” Donovan pocketed the phone. “And a few really, really wrong ones.” He smiled. “So why don’t you follow Stan out to that plow truck. You might want to get back to Ralston and talk to a few folks before word hits the papers. Even for a small town like yours, I imagine this will make at least a few news cycles.”
Gilby stood there, throat working, for a few very long, nerve-shattering moments. “This isn’t over yet,” he said at length. “You don’t get to come back to my town, son of some drunk asshole, and make these kinds of accusations. I will see you tarred and feathered every step of the way.” He looked at Kate. “And I’ll do my best to take her down with you, even if I just have to make shit up. By the time the papers figure out what’s real and what’s not—”
Donovan took two steps forward, but Kate dragged him back.
“Have a nice afternoon, Sheriff,” Donovan bit off.
“Fuck you, MacLeod.” But Gilby turned and stalked out of the cabin.
Chapter 22
Mac walked to the edge of the open cabin door.
“Is he really leaving?” Kate asked.
“Appears to be.” He continued watching the two as they hiked through the snow, toward the main road, where, he assumed, there really was a plow truck waiting.
“What—what exactly was in the envelope?” Kate asked.
Donovan turned to find her standing in the middle of the cabin, her arms wrapped around her middle. He immediately went to her and pulled her into his arms. “Just the pictures, but a lot of them, and pretty damning to the folks in them. Come here.” She was shivering, and he wasn’t sure if it was due to the cold, or the aftermath of the adrenaline rush that came with having a gun pointed at you.
“Do you get used to that?” she asked. “Being a cop, I mean.”
“Used to what? The gun?”
“That, the verbal maneuvering, all of it. You—you never even seemed nervous. I was scared to death the entire time.” She shivered. “Still am, actually.”
Donovan tucked her closer against him, rubbing his hands up and down her back. “I don’t know if you get used to it, but you do learn to manage it. You learn to step outside of the immediate threat to you and work with your instincts on how to play a certain situation.” He kissed her hair and hugged her more closely. “Harder to do when someone you care about is in it with you, though. I’m sorry, Kate.”
“No, no, you were…” She couldn’t finish, just slid her arms around his waist and held on tightly. “Did you think he was really going to give up so easily?”
“I think he’s basically a small-town cop who is used to wielding the power he has without ever having to really back it up. I doubt he’s ever really had his authority challenged and would prefer not to go there and find out what he’s really made of if he doesn’t have to. I don’t think he has instincts because he hasn’t had to develop them. And it’s clear from the amateurish way they handled this whole mess that none of them is exactly a brain trust. I just had to find him a way out that suited his need to keep his chest puffed out and that stick up his ass.”
Kate’s teeth began chattering. “So is this all really over? Really?”
He tipped her chin up and kissed her until her body stopped tremoring, guessing the reaction had far more to do with the aftermath of the moment than the cold. “We have to decide what to do with the evidence, but—”
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“So, you did take copies of the pictures?”
Donovan kissed his way along her cheek, then pressed a last one against her temple. “I kept some of the originals. Sent some digital copies to Finn for backup. If nothing happens in a few days’ time, Gilby could think that I’m bluffing. But I could make sure he’s so substantially worried about it that he leaves you alone, or becomes your best friend in helping you set things up here.” He tipped her face up. “What do you want to do?”
“Well, I know I don’t want the town to help me because I’m blackmailing them into it.” She shuddered again, but this time it seemed to be in revulsion. “Hell, I feel like I won the battle but lost the war. How will I ever go into town again and look at…anyone? God, what a mess.” She looked up at him. “Do we need to take legal steps? Were they…hurting those women?”
“I don’t think so, no. I imagine they were in it for profit, but who knows if they’re here legally. I’m guessing they’re imports from north of the Canadian border. It wouldn’t take much, though, to get those responsible for starting this whole thing to step down from their respective jobs, without bringing the media or the law into it.”
Mac felt her slump a little in his arms, but her hold on him remained tight. He tried mightily to think only of her and her future in this particular moment, knowing the threat was over, but that the reality for her here was not pleasant.
“No matter what I do…it’s just not going to all go away, though, is it? I mean, we can get Gilby to retire and Stan to find somewhere else to play dress up.” She shuddered again, then looked at him. “But the town in general doesn’t want me here because of Louisa.”
“You could prove them wrong, win them over. It might take a while and some creative thinking, but—”
“I just cringe at the idea that they’re small-minded like Stan, that they’d ever take out their hostility on me, on the kids in my camp, or their families, who will probably use some of the facilities and shopping in town during their stay.” She groaned. “God, what a mess. And that’s if I can get the damn camp built. There’s no guarantee I’ll get anyone to work for me still and—”
The Black Sheep and the Princess Page 31