BIG SKY SECRETS 03: End Game

by Roxanne Rustand

  “Very funny.” She watched Sue Ann move to the other patrons, coffeepot in hand. “It would be effective, though. Ninety percent of the people around here wear denim jackets and jeans, so I’d blend right in.”

  “Had any more unexpected visitors out at your place?”

  “None—assuming that my new guard buddy has good ears.”

  “Do you keep him outside?”

  “Goodness, no. It’s chilly out there this time of year.”

  “He’s probably used to it, if he was a stray.”

  “But he’s older. He deserves to be inside, and he can bark just as well with a roof over his head. If someone tested the doors or windows, he’d sure let me know.”

  “True.” Scott studied the toes of his boots for a moment, then looked up with a hopeful smile. “Are you working today?”

  “Nope. This is a rare day off.”

  The dimples bracketing his mouth deepened. “Are you free?”

  “Well…I do have plans. Sort of.”

  “Important?”

  “Well…” She thought longingly of the bookstore.

  On the other hand, a rugged version of Pierce Brosnan was now grinning at her with a hopeful expression in his eyes, and that opened up a set of entirely different possibilities. “Why do you ask?”

  “I had to come into town to pick up some fencing materials, and now I’m heading to an estate sale south of Lost Falls.” His low, self-deprecating laugh danced across her skin. “When I noticed your truck parked on the street, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask. Maybe you can keep me from doing something stupid.”

  She glanced out the window at her pickup. Through the rain-streaked windshield, she could make out the vague, furry shape of her new best friend, who was sitting behind the wheel and who hadn’t taken his eyes off her since she sat down at the counter.

  “We…may not actually agree on what constitutes a mistake,” she murmured.

  Buddy was seeing the vet tomorrow because she was beginning to suspect hip dysplasia in the way he limped, poor guy. He could end up being a very expensive new best friend. But he definitely hadn’t been a mistake.

  “Well, last time, I ended up with Attila the Donkey. There was just something about that floppy, broken ear…”

  “If I say ‘no,’ you’d actually listen?”

  He glanced down at the edge of her boot cut jeans draped loosely at the top of her running shoes. “You’re carrying, right? You could always threaten to arrest me.”

  She thought about her bare bones cabin. She’d moved in six months ago, and had furnished it with just the basic necessities—except for the two paintings that had wiped out her budget for any other nonessentials for the foreseeable future.

  “Are they selling household items, too?”

  “Everything.”

  “Hmm.” She’d been suspicious of him at first, and back then she might have welcomed an extended opportunity for subtle, leading questions. Now, the thought of simply getting to know him a little better—as a friend—just sounded like fun.

  Most guys she met were intimidated by her, though they never admitted it aloud; their masculinity apparently threatened by a woman who packed a gun and could deal with bad guys twice as big and tough as they were. During her two longest relationships, that intimidation and her twelve-hour shifts through the night had eventually made Brad and Jon grow resentful.

  But here was a man from her own world, for whom that wouldn’t be a problem, and he was clearly looking for companionship and nothing more. Maybe a day like this would be fun—as two equals. Just casual camaraderie, without any illusions about any sort of romantic interest going on.

  She slid off her stool and grabbed her purse. “Then I guess you have a deal…as long as my dog can come along.”

  The rain slowed to a light drizzle by the time they reached Lost Falls, then started up again with a vengeance as they wound through the foothills on a narrow, two-lane county road to the auction site.

  A bedraggled group of bidders was crowded around an auctioneer and his assistants, who stood on a hay wagon stacked with smaller items, while farther up the steep hill, an old tractor, wagons and various implements were lined up for viewing.

  Beyond that, a split rail corral held a small assortment of livestock that stood in the lee of a crumbling old barn weathered to pale silver.

  Scott waited while Megan let Buddy out of the truck to do his business, then helped him up into the backseat again, where he’d be out of the rain. “It’s unbelievable that someone could have abandoned a dog like him.”

  “If I knew who they were, I’d try to arrest them for animal cruelty. The sad thing is that the charges don’t carry strong enough penalties, and the owners could convince a judge that the dog simply ran off.” Shivering, she zipped the front of her rain jacket and pulled up the hood. “The thing is, I don’t think a sweet old dog like this would’ve gone miles and miles into uninhabited forest, away from all the campgrounds and resorts. I still think he was ditched.”

  Scott nodded. “Maybe the vet can check to see if he was microchipped.”

  “Good idea.” She fell in step with him on the overgrown lane leading up to the barn and house. “So, what are you after here, besides a tractor?”

  “Implements. Hand tools. Shovels, rakes…pretty much anything I can find. And you?”

  She made a face. “It’s probably time that I found more kitchen stuff and started doing a little more cooking at home. With the hours I keep, I haven’t bothered much.”

  They both stopped at a card table on the front porch of the house to fill out forms and receive bidding numbers.

  Scott put his in his shirt pocket, then buttoned up his long drover’s coat. “I’m heading up the hill to check out the equipment. Want to come along?”

  “In a bit. I’m going to grab a cup of hot chocolate at the food stand inside, then check out the household things.”

  “Sounds good.” Bemused, she watched him step out in the rain and stride through the mud.

  The miles had flown past on the way here. He’d been easy to talk to, though the silences had been just as comfortable as the conversation—as if they’d known each other for years.

  Yet now she realized that he’d deftly kept the conversation in her court, and she didn’t know much more about him now than she had before. By accident or design?

  She turned to go inside and bumped into a woman with long blond hair who was easing out the door with a cup of steaming coffee in her hand. “Erin?”

  The blonde looked up and her mouth dropped open. “Megan—oh, my word!” She looked down at her coffee, laughing. “I want to give you a big hug. But I can’t! How is everything?”

  Megan stepped back outside, holding the door for her cousin. “Busy. And you?”

  Erin gestured toward the hill with her coffee cup as they moved to the corner of the porch to allow others to pass by. “I came looking for garden tools. I’d like to grow fresh produce and herbs for the café next year. Jack—” She glanced over her shoulder “—is somewhere out there with his nephew. There’s a sign on the barn offering free kittens.”

  Something on her left hand sparkled, catching the light from the bare lightbulb. Megan blinked then stared. “Erin!”

  Blushing, Erin extended her hand. “It’s new, just this weekend. Isn’t it lovely? I meant to call you and Kris this week.”

  “Wow.” Mindful of the hot coffee in Erin’s hand, Megan gave her a hug, then stepped back. “It’s amazing, isn’t it? How life has changed?”

  “I never thought I’d come back to Montana. Once I graduated from high school, I couldn’t wait to get away. The memories were still so hard. And yet here I am again, running Grandma Millie’s little general store. And I’m so happy now—it’s like I had to come back home to finally heal.”

  Megan nodded. “I stopped in to see Kris yesterday. She’s doing really well, too, since she moved back.”

  “We were quite something as kids, weren’t we?
She was always like a third cousin.” Erin shook her head fondly. “I have a lot of great memories of those times…at least until the summer Laura died.”

  “Same here.” Megan bit her lower lip. “Losing her like that changed us all.”

  Erin fell silent for a long moment. “You were the only one of us who didn’t leave Montana.”

  “Hey,” Megan protested. “I did move to the next county.”

  Erin’s delicate eyebrows drew together. “Do you ever regret not getting away from here?”

  “I’m doing exactly what I was meant to do. No regrets.” A shadow crossed her thoughts…one born of an evil stranger’s cunning that made her heartbeat stumble. “It’s not all fun, believe me. But I’m doing the right thing. I’d rather try to make a difference than run.”

  Erin glanced over her shoulder, then lowered her voice. “I’ve been reading the news about those murders in the newspaper. Our tourist business is starting to trickle in, and even the vacationers have heard about them. Some stop by the store for supplies, but say they’ve decided to head south to the Tetons instead.”

  “I can promise you that we’re doing everything we can, and the DCI has been involved, too. We’re following up on every lead we get.”

  “Believe me, I’m not questioning what’s being done. I’m just glad you’re on board, and that the county has a sheriff who will do a good job. Do you remember the alcoholic we had back when we were kids?”

  “Sheriff Nelson.”

  “I’ll never forget how he bungled the investigation of Laura’s murder. If he’d acted faster, maybe she would’ve been found in time—before that monster killed her. I only hope she didn’t suffer too much.”

  Megan had seen the original reports, and Laura hadn’t ever had a chance. But those terrible details were something she would never repeat to her cousin.

  “The sheriff didn’t even start looking for her for three days, insisting she was just a runaway. Yet just the month before, he’d been given information about a known pedophile who’d moved into the area and he didn’t follow up. Apparently—” Megan tried to quell the bitterness rising in her voice. “He misplaced the report. He was probably busy hitting the booze or focusing on one of his wild kids. They were always getting kicked out of school.”

  “I remember. Kenny, Bobby and…” Erin frowned. “Randy…Rick…”

  “Rex. Apparently Nelson wasn’t too effective as a dad, either, because those kids were in constant trouble.”

  “Rex nearly died in that big meth lab explosion up at Copper Creek, didn’t he?”

  “Yep. But I’ve researched everything that happened around the time of Laura’s death, and there’s absolutely nothing about it in the files. Nelson apparently destroyed the records and the evidence to protect his son. It would’ve been easier back then because the records weren’t computerized.”

  “It was a good day for the county when Nelson lost the next election for sheriff and they all moved away.” Erin smiled sadly. “And maybe it gave the family a good fresh start somewhere else. I hope so.”

  “I hope so, too. I never heard another word about them after that, so they must have been fine. But Nelson was still my biggest motivation for going into law enforcement. I wanted to make sure that kind of incompetence never happened again. Not on my watch, at least.”

  A brief memory flashed through Megan’s thoughts, of a warm, sunny day when she’d been in town all those years ago. The Nelsons had been driving out of town in a minivan, their faces grim. Rex, his face still ruddy with healing burns, had looked out the window. Though he was an older boy and she’d barely known him, she waved goodbye. He’d just scowled in return and mouthed some words she couldn’t hear.

  Probably just as well.

  “My biggest fear is that you’ll take too many chances and get hurt somehow. There are just too many crazy people out there.” She rested a hand on Megan’s forearm and squeezed tight. “Promise me you’ll be careful.”

  Megan grimaced. “I keep hearing that from people these days.”

  From somewhere outside, a young boy started calling Erin’s name in a high, excited voice.

  “I think you’re being paged.”

  Erin rolled her eyes, though the affection in her gaze was obvious. “Three guesses on what Max found.”

  Now Megan could see a young boy zigzagging through the crowd at a run, with Erin’s fiancé in hot pursuit. “Erin! I found my kitty. Come quick! Erin!”

  “You’d better go, future stepmom. I’ll catch up with you later.”

  The sparkle in Erin’s eyes matched the one on her left hand. “Don’t forget—it’ll be a small ceremony out at the lake, end of July. And I definitely want you in the wedding, if you’re free.”

  “Absolutely.” Megan watched her cousin step out into the rain to catch up with the eager child and Jack.

  Erin bent down to give Max a hug, and then they all walked hand in hand toward the barn on the hill, Jack’s arm draped around Erin’s shoulders.

  A family in the making.

  Exactly what Erin had wanted, and Kris, too, back when they were all kids, playing house in the little cottage behind Grandma Millie’s General Store out at the lake. It even looked like Kris was on the way to her own happy ending, too, which made Megan’s heart expand with quiet joy for both of them.

  Please, Lord, watch over them…bring them the happiness that escaped them for so long—be with them, and bless them. And please, keep them safe. Her bright spirits faded as quickly as they’d come.

  The “keeping them safe” part was her department. But so far, she hadn’t worked hard enough, hadn’t been smart enough, hadn’t been able to see the pattern and the clues clearly enough to stop that killer in his tracks.

  Seventeen days until the next full moon.

  And if she hadn’t done her job well enough by then, someone else might die.

  EIGHT

  “I really didn’t mean to buy a goat,” Scott muttered, standing with one foot hitched on the bottom rail of the corral by the barn. “It just…happened.”

  In the background, the crowd had followed the auctioneer to a rusty, ancient vehicle, where he began his rapid-fire patter extolling all of its amazing qualities.

  “Did you say you bought a goat?” He looked so grim that Megan tried to smother her laugh. “By accident?”

  “A big one.”

  She followed his gaze to a white goat with impressive horns and a long beard. It appeared to be eating the fence. “Look—he’s trying to spring all his buddies.”

  “I know. I’m sure he and Attila will get along just great.”

  “Not that it’s my business, but how did this happen?”

  “Some teenagers standing next to me were really upset. They were talking about how they’d miss their grandpa’s hobby farm and all the animals he kept for them. One of the girls started crying, saying she’d caught some kids mercilessly teasing the goat and the other animals. When she tried to intervene, the kids said their parents were planning on buying every one of those animals, so she should mind her own business.”

  “So you bought the goat.”

  He cleared his throat. “And a pony.”

  “I really needed to get up here sooner, didn’t I,” she said solemnly. “Was there anything else?”

  “The tractor…and a goose. Not much.”

  “A goose. How sweet. I think we need to get you home.”

  A corner of his mouth tilted up in a boyish grin. “The tractor is old, but it’s perfect for what I need, and the price was right. This was a great sale.”

  She finally gave up and laughed. He’d seemed distant and even a little cold when she’d first met him, and until recently she’d even considered him a suspect in the Full Moon murders. Finding that his tough shell hid a soft heart made her like him all the more. “Maybe God was rewarding you for saving some of his creatures.”

  “I’m not sure He cares much about what I do. But if that’s the case, I guess I’ll accept
it and be thankful.”

  Startled, she looked up at him.

  He caught her expression. “Oh, I’ve been a believer since I was a child. My parents never miss a Sunday at church, and that’s how I was raised. I’m just not so sure that God is listening to me anymore.”

  “But…”

  “I worked the streets of Chicago, Megan. Tell me that violence and greed and injustice doesn’t change you, if you see it every day. And if you’ve been in situations where a little intercession could’ve saved a life and God doesn’t answer—then you start to figure that maybe you’re in this alone.”

  Megan took a deep breath and led her old dog to the door of the vet clinic. She could feel his body trembling against her leg. “Whatever we have to face, we’re a team now,” she whispered. “And no matter what anyone says, I made the right decision when I brought you home.”

  He balked, then gave up and followed her inside, tagging along at the end of his leash, his head low and tail tucked between his legs. “It’s okay, Buddy. Neva Baker is the nicest vet around. You’ll see.”

  The old retriever’s eyebrows wobbled up and down as he looked up at her, then he sighed heavily, his head resting on her thigh when she took a chair in the waiting room. He clearly trusted her, but he’d been trembling from head to tail since they first arrived in the clinic parking lot.

  Now, if only the news here would be good.

  “We’re all set for you.” Cara, the tall, slender vet tech, motioned them to come in. “Dr. Baker wants to do an exam, and then we might need some X-rays.”

  Megan led the dog into an exam room and helped the tech lift him onto a stainless steel table. A moment later, Neva bustled in wearing pale green scrubs. At almost forty, she was trim and petite, a pixie of a woman with the firm handshake of a lumberjack and the most infectious laugh Megan had ever heard.

  She fixed Megan with a keen look. “I figured it wouldn’t be long till we saw you again with another dog. What do we have here?”