by B. J Daniels
It didn’t take him long at the library to find the section of the paper Blythe had burned. He scanned the articles. One caught his eye—the one about the woman who’d been killed in a car wreck at the edge of Flathead Lake. Was it possible Blythe had known the woman? He read the name. Jennifer James. Apparently she was best known as JJ, a rock star who shot to meteoric fame.
According to the story, she’d missed a curve and crashed down a rocky embankment, rolling multiple times before the car burst into flames and finally came to rest at the edge of the lake. The infamous JJ was believed to have been driving at a high rate of speed. It was not determined yet if she was under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
All it said about this JJ person was that she had led a glittering life in the glare of the media after her sky-rocketing career. She had died at the age of thirty.
It wasn’t until he focused on the sports car convertible that he knew he’d been right about something in the newspaper upsetting her.
The sight of the car stopped him cold. That and a sentence in the cutline under the photograph. JJ had been discovered by legendary music producer Martin Sanderson. Sanderson was a resident of the Grizzly Club, an exclusive conclave south of Bigfork.
That’s when Logan saw the second headline: Famous Music Producer Found Dead.
He quickly scanned the story until he found what he was looking for. Martin Sanderson had been found dead in his home Saturday.
Saturday? The day Logan had gone to the club looking for the mysterious woman from the bar. The day Blythe had come tearing out of the gate to race down the highway like a crazy woman, then climb on the back of his motorcycle and ask him to take her away with him.
He hurriedly read the article. Investigators from the Missoula Crime Lab had been called in on the case. They thought it was a homicide? He checked to see the estimated time of death. Saturday morning.
Logan groaned. No wonder she’d wanted to get as far away from the Flathead as possible. She’d known the sheriff would be looking for her.
The article mentioned that Sanderson had discovered the recently deceased JJ who, according to sources, had been visiting Sanderson at the Grizzly Club.
His heart began to pound as he reread the first newspaper article. Who had died in the car? Someone named Jennifer James better known as JJ, according to the story. He double-checked the car photo. It was the same make and color as the one Blythe had left beside the highway two days ago. No way was that a coincidence. Add to that the connection to the Grizzly Club…
Logan shook his head. Blythe had to have known this woman. But then why not say something? Because she felt guilty for leaving the car for her friend? They both must have been staying at the Grizzly Club with Sanderson.
So who was this JJ? From the grainy black-and-white photo accompanying the short article, it was impossible to tell much about her, since she was duded out in heavy, wild makeup and holding a garish electric guitar.
Logan glanced at his watch. He’d told Blythe he would pick her up back on the main drag after running a few errands of his own. He still had thirty minutes, enough time to see what else he could learn about the woman who had been killed.
He typed in Pop Singer JJ. Pages of items began to come up on the computer screen. He clicked on one and a color photograph appeared.
His breath rushed out of him as he stared at the photograph in shock. Blythe. No wonder he hadn’t recognized her. He wouldn’t have ever connected the woman who’d climbed on the back of his motorcycle with this one even without the wild makeup and masks she wore when she performed.
He thought about her that first night at the Western bar in her new cowboy boots. There had been a look of contentment on her face as she’d danced to the music. No, she’d looked nothing like this woman in the publicity photo.
It didn’t help that he wasn’t into her kind of music. He’d never heard of JJ or a lot of other singers and bands she’d performed with, since he was a country-western man himself.
But who was this woman staying with him really? The infamous JJ? Or the woman he’d come to know as Blythe? He had a feeling that whoever she was, she was still wearing a mask.
At least now he knew why she’d run. It had to have something to do with music producer Martin Sanderson’s death. Had she killed him?
He didn’t want to believe he’d been harboring a murderer. But with a curse, he reminded himself that everyone thought she was dead and she had let them. She’d seen the article. She knew someone else had died in her car. If she was innocent, then why hadn’t she said something? Why hadn’t she come forward and told the world she was still alive?
AGGIE WELLS WOKE COUGHING. Sun slanted in the crack between the curtains. She’d fallen asleep in her chair again and lost another day. But what had brought her out of her deathlike sleep was that same horrible nightmare she’d been having for weeks now.
She sat up, fighting to catch her breath.
The doctor had said that the pneumonia had weakened her lungs. The gunshot wound had weakened her body. Add to that failure and she felt like an old woman, one foot in the grave.
“You have to call Emma,” she said when she finally caught her breath.
Call and tell her what? That you had a horrible dream—most of it unintelligible, but that you’ve seen how it all ends?
Aggie realized how crazy that sounded. She had nothing new to tell Emma or the sheriff. No one believed that Laura Chisholm was alive, let alone what she was capable of doing.
The nightmare seemed to lurk in the dark shadows of the room. Aggie pulled her blanket around her, but couldn’t shake the chill the dream had left in her bones.
She remembered glimpses of the nightmare, something moving soundlessly in a dark room, the glint of a knife. Aggie shuddered. She hadn’t seen Laura in the shadows, but she’d sensed something almost inhuman.
Aggie reached for the phone, but stopped herself. She was sure the sheriff would be tracing any calls coming into the ranch. Hoyt might answer. She might not even get a chance to talk to Emma at all.
And what would be the point? She didn’t know where Laura Chisholm had gone or who she had become. She just knew the killer was headed for Chisholm ranch soon and Emma would never see her coming.
All calling would accomplish was to give the sheriff Aggie’s own location. She couldn’t bear the thought of spending what was left of her life in the state mental hospital or behind bars in prison.
In her weakened state, she didn’t have the energy to escape again. Nor could she go out and find Laura Chisholm again for them. Just the thought of Laura Chisholm made the hair stand up on the back of her neck. She shifted in her chair. She realized sitting there that somehow she’d gone from being the hunter to the hunted.
It wasn’t what Laura was capable of that terrified her. It was that the woman could somehow be invisible—until it was too late for her prey. It took a special talent to go unnoticed. To seem so safe that she didn’t even stir the air, didn’t appear to take up space, didn’t seem to exist in any form other than a ghost.
Maybe the worst part was that Aggie knew Laura. She’d become Laura when she’d believed Hoyt Chisholm had killed his first wife. Aggie had worn the woman’s same brand of perfume and clothing, had her hair cut in the same style, had learned everything she could about Laura. She’d tried on the woman’s skin.
She knew Laura and, she thought with a shudder, Laura knew her.
A lot of people thought Aggie Wells was dead.
Laura Chisholm wasn’t one of them.
In Aggie’s nightmare, Laura found her.
Chapter Eight
Logan’s cell phone rang, echoing through the small, quiet library. He quickly dug it out, saw that it was his stepmother calling and hurried outside to take it. “Hello.”
“Where are you?” Emma said sounding excited about having company tonight.
“In town. Blythe—” She might be the pop rocker JJ, but he thought of her as Blythe and knew he alway
s would. “Had to get something to wear for tonight.”
“You didn’t tell her she had to dress up, did you?” Emma scolded.
“Just the opposite. But she’s a woman. You know how they are.”
His stepmother laughed. “We’re looking forward to meeting her.”
Logan wanted to warn Emma not to get too attached to her—just as he’d been warning himself since she’d climbed on his motorcycle. Since finding out who she really was, he was even more aware that she would be leaving soon, possibly prison. If innocent, back to her old life. No woman gave up that life to stay in his old farmhouse—no matter what she said.
“So you’re still in town,” Emma said.
“I have to pick up Blythe at the clothing store in about fifteen minutes and then we were headed back to my place.”
“Don’t do that. Come on over to the main house so we can visit before supper,” she said. “Anything you want to tell me about this woman before you get here?”
He chuckled. “Nothing that comes to mind.”
“Oh, you,” Emma said. “Zane says she’s lovely.”
“She is that.” And mysterious and complex and let’s not forget a star—and quite possibly a murderer. Right now a star who is being immortalized because she died so young.
“Is this serious? Your brother seems to think—”
“Zane really should stop thinking,” he snapped, realizing that Blythe wouldn’t just be lying to him tonight at supper at the main ranch. She would be lying to his family. Involving them in this mess.
“I didn’t mean to pry,” Emma said, sounding a little hurt.
“You did, but that’s what I love about you,” he said softening his words. Emma was the best thing that had happened to their family. She only wanted good things for all of them.
“I just remembered an errand I have to run,” Logan said, and got off the phone.
He checked his watch and then hurried back in the library. He wanted to check today’s paper and see if there was anything more about Martin Sanderson’s and JJ’s deaths.
Logan found the most recent edition of the Great Falls Tribune. Both JJ and Martin Sanderson had made the front page.
Mayor Confirms Music Producer’s Death a Suicide
A tidal wave of relief washed over him as he quickly read the short update. Blythe might be JJ, but at least JJ wasn’t a murderer. He knew that should make him happier than it did. There was a long article about JJ, about her humble beginnings, her rise to stardom, her latest attempts to get out of her contract and how she had died too young.
Her fans had been gathering across the country, making memorials for her. Logan remembered the waitress at the Cut Bank café and swore. The woman had recognized her. That’s why Blythe had made them hightail it out of there.
But if she hadn’t killed Martin Sanderson, then what was she running from? Was her life that bad that she’d rather let even her fans believe she was dead rather than come forward? Better to let them think she had died in a fiery car crash?
He realized that the whole world believed that the infamous JJ was dead. Everyone but him, Logan thought with a groan.
The only thing to do was call the sheriff over in the Flathead and let him know that JJ was alive. He started to reach for his cell phone and stopped himself. He couldn’t do anything until he confronted her.
As he left the library, he recalled what she’d said to him when they’d reached Whitehorse that first night.
“Have you ever just needed to step out of your life for a while and take a chance?”
Is that what she was doing? Just taking a break from that life? Good thing he hadn’t gotten serious about her, he told himself as he drove down the main drag and saw her waiting for him on the sidewalk ahead.
As he pulled in, she turned in a circle so he could see her new clothes. She was wearing a new pair of jeans, a Western blouse and a huge smile.
It was easy to see why he would never have recognized her even if he had followed pop rock. She looked nothing like the JJ of music stardom. Her dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail, her face, free of makeup, slightly flushed, her faded-denim blue eyes sparkling with excitement.
He felt a heartstring give way at just the sight of her.
“What do you think?” she asked as she slid into the cab next to him. “I don’t want to embarrass you at supper. Is it too much?”
“You look beautiful.”
She beamed as if that was the first time anyone had ever told her that.
“Emma called.” Logan was going to tell her that supper was canceled but she instantly looked so disappointed, he couldn’t do it. He had let her pretend to be someone she wasn’t this long, what were a few more hours? “She wants us to come on by.”
“If it’s okay with you, sure,” she said brightening. “Can you believe it? I’m nervous about meeting your family.”
She wasn’t the only one who was apprehensive, Logan thought as he drove out of town. At least he wasn’t taking an alleged murderer to meet his family. But he didn’t have the faintest idea who this woman really was or what she was doing in Whitehorse. Once supper was over and they were back at the house—
“I have great news,” she announced as he started the motor. “I have a job. I saw a Help Wanted sign in the window just down the street, I walked in and I got the job.”
He stared at her. The sign down the street was in the window of a local café. “You took a waitress job?” He’d expected that she would tire of being the dead star soon enough and come out of hiding. He’d never expected this.
“I’ve slung hash before,” she said sounding defensive. “It’s been a while, but I suspect it’s a little like riding a bike.”
He didn’t know what to say. Did she really hate her old life that much? Or was she still hiding for another reason?
“Tomorrow, if you’ll give me a ride to town, I’ll find myself an apartment so I can walk to work. As much as I’ve loved staying with you…”
Logan had driven out of Whitehorse, the pickup now rolling along through open prairie and sunshine. He hit the brakes and pulled down a small dirt road that ended at the Milk River. Tall cottonwoods loomed over them, the sunlight fingering its way through the still bare branches.
As he brought the truck to a dust-boiling stop, he said, “You can drop the front. I know who you are, JJ. So what the hell is really going on?”
SHERIFF BUFORD OLSON couldn’t believe he was still sitting in his office waiting for phone calls. His stomach grumbled. He’d missed lunch and he didn’t dare go down the hall to the vending machine for fear of missing one of those calls he’d been waiting for.
When his phone finally rang, he was hoping it would be Logan Chisholm. It wasn’t.
“We picked up Charlie Baker,” the arresting officer told him. The man who’d tried to use JJ’s credit card at the gas station in Moses Lake, Washington. “He has several warrants out on him from Arizona and he’s driving a stolen pickup.”
“I just need to know where he got the credit card he tried to use for gas in Moses Lake,” Buford said.
“He says his girlfriend took it from a purse she found in a convertible parked next to Flathead Lake. He swears the car keys were on the floorboard and that his girlfriend took the car, wrecked it and died.”
“Did he say what his girlfriend’s name was?”
“Susie Adams.”
Now at least Buford knew who was lying in the morgue. What he didn’t know was where JJ was, why she left her car beside the lake or why she hadn’t turned up yet.