BIG SKY SECRETS 03: End Game

by Roxanne Rustand

  “A friend runs the new shelter in Battle Creek. I was looking for a younger dog, but she figured this old guy was abandoned. He…well, he just looked like he needed a home.”

  “Do you have any health documents from the shelter?”

  Megan pulled a set of folded papers from her purse. “He had a veterinary exam two weeks ago. He was previously neutered. They gave him tests for intestinal parasites and heartworm, plus his vaccinations for rabies, DHPP, Lyme and Bordetella.”

  Neva nodded her approval. “What about flea and tick prevention?”

  “Done. Heartworm, too. He was anemic and seriously underweight, but he’s been eating like a horse since I brought him home.”

  Neva cradled the dog’s head in her hands and looked into his eyes. “That’s what you needed, isn’t it? Your own home. Does he have a name?”

  “I guess I’ve mostly been calling him Buddy, for lack of anything else. Not very unique.”

  “It’s a good name. We’ll put that down for now.” The vet looked up at Megan. “So tell me about his symptoms.”

  “I’ve only had him for a few days, but he seems stiff in the mornings and he limps during the day—especially after he first stands up. I just don’t want him to be in pain.”

  Neva began her examination. “Does he do better after he’s warmed up a little?”

  “Some.”

  “When he runs, does he have an odd sort of bunny hop gait?”

  “No. Not really.”

  She continued her exam by gently flexing Buddy’s back legs. “This doesn’t appear to hurt him, and his joints feel good and tight. I’d like to take a couple of radiographs, just to be sure, if that’s okay?”

  Megan nodded and stepped out of the room. She paced the waiting area for a half hour until Neva came out with Buddy at her side. “Is he all right?”

  “Without sending the X-rays to a specialist, I can still safely say that he has some arthritis, but not dysplasia—which is good news. The sad news is that he shows evidence of an old hairline fracture of his femur, and has four healing rib fractures that are newer. He might have been kicked, or beaten or maybe hit by a car. It’s too far out to tell, since the soft tissue damage has healed. He probably had deep bruising and was in a world of hurt while he was on his own.”

  Megan knelt at his side and gave his neck a gentle hug. “You poor baby.”

  “For more comfort with the arthritis, I’d make sure he has a soft, well-padded bed and has a warm place to sleep at night. Excess weight obviously isn’t an issue now, but I wouldn’t let him get heavy. Regular, mild exercise every day. I’ve got a good glucosamine-chondroitin supplement that should help, too.”

  Megan grinned. “He’s already got the warm place. He sleeps on the foot of my bed.”

  The vet didn’t smile in return. “I do have some other concerns.” She hesitated, as if searching for the right words. “I think it’s wonderful that you’re willing to give this old guy a home, and I know you’re an experienced dog handler. But I also think he was badly abused, and that could make him aggressive if he feels threatened.”

  “A golden retriever?” Megan stroked Buddy’s soft golden fur. “I can’t imagine that.”

  “They’re the sweetest dogs on the planet, but people can be unbelievably cruel, and that can change even the kindest of breeds. Maybe this is the wrong dog for you. He could go back to the shelter and you could find a different—”

  “No way. Buddy is the right one—I knew it the minute I saw him.”

  “If you keep him, you’ll need to work with him and be very careful…at least until you know him better and can build up his confidence.”

  Appalled at the vet’s subtle insistence, Megan firmly shook her head. “If I keep him? Of course I will.”

  “We’ve never had a golden growl at us. Cower, balk or tremble, yes. But he growled when we took him back for X-rays.”

  “Maybe he thought he was being hauled back to dog jail.”

  “I…think it’s more than that. Has he shown any signs of fear or aggression with other strangers? Men, in particular?”

  Megan looked up at her. “Good question. Yesterday a friend and I went to an auction, and he had to ride in the backseat of a crew cab pickup. He seemed really wary of Scott at first, and refused to get in.”

  “Worry over self-preservation and a lack of trust are probably big issues for him right now, so he could be unpredictable and act totally out of character for the breed until he acclimates to home life. You just need to know what you’re getting into here. Insurance issues…lawsuits…”

  “He was fearful of Scott, not belligerent. I can’t believe Buddy would harm anyone.”

  The vet gave her a weary smile. “Well, for your sake, I hope you’re right.”

  Megan pulled to a stop in front of the A-frame cabin, gathered her notebook and a pen, and stepped out to greet the tanned, silver-haired man waiting for her in his bronze BMW M6, the top down.

  A soaring wall of glass covering the entire front of the cabin offered a perfect reflection of the Rockies and dark blue sky. Even without going inside, she knew the property was worth close to a million, maybe even more. The remote location made it a perfect target for the thieves who’d broken in. If the man’s car was any clue, they’d probably hauled away a lot of high-end loot.

  “Mr. Fairland?”

  “Dennis Fairland. Obviously, I own this place.” He climbed out of the convertible and glanced impatiently at his watch. “I can only be here a few more minutes. I need to get down to the airstrip in town, so I can make it back to L.A. in time for a dinner meeting at six.”

  “Have you been inside?”

  He shook his head. “I was sailing on Bear Island Lake this morning. Everything was fine when I left. When I got back, the front door was ajar and through the windows I could see that the place had been ransacked.”

  “Wait here.”

  The scratched and splintered front door showed obvious signs of forcible entry—probably with a crowbar. She walked around the exterior, looking for any possible clues and checking each window. All of the windows were intact, and she could find nothing on the ground that might have been taken from the house and dropped during a speedy escape.

  At the back of the house, a stone path wound through a good acre or more of extensive landscaping—boulders, shrubbery, a graceful trio of aspens and a rainbow of wildflowers. She heard a branch snap somewhere far behind her and turned around, expecting to see that Fairland had followed her after all.

  But he was nowhere in sight.

  An uneasy feeling prickled at the back of her neck as she scanned the area, sure that she wasn’t alone. Could the intruder still be near? Watching?

  The underbrush rustled at the far end of the small clearing. Stilled. Just a deer maybe…or a bear spooked by the presence of humans. Then again, maybe not. But why would a thief be foolish enough to linger in the area and risk being seen, with the owner parked out in front and a patrol car here, as well?

  She watched. Waited. Nothing else moved.

  “Are you done back there?” Fairland shouted. “I really need to get done with this and be on my way.”

  Joe Public at his best, she muttered to herself as she continued on her way around the house to the front, where she found him leaning against his car, his arms folded.

  “I know you’re in a hurry, but I need you to come inside so I can take note of what has been stolen, if you don’t mind. Have you called your insurance agent yet?”

  Nodding curtly, he pushed away from the car with a grunt of impatience and followed her into the cavernous, cool darkness of the house. “I’ll send him the police report, as soon as you have it ready. How soon can it be done?”

  “Late this afternoon or tomorrow morning at the latest.” She surveyed the beautiful woodwork and slanted pine plank ceilings that soared heavenward.

  A fieldstone fireplace nearly filled one wall and rose to the peak high above. Pillowy Italian leather sofas and m
atching overstuffed chairs were arranged in front of the fireplace, while at the other end of the great room, a heavy crystal vase of flowers topped a dark mahogany dining room table for twelve.

  “Remington above the fireplace, gone,” he growled.

  “Model?”

  He made a sound of disgust as he strode through the room. “Original painting, not a rifle. Plus a new fifty-four-inch plasma TV.”

  She followed him, writing rapidly as he assessed his loss. Silver service for twelve. Several other paintings by lesser artists. Video equipment. In the bedroom, he paused in front of a long, low dresser, then lifted the lid of a jewelry box and sighed. “My wife’s jewelry—also gone.”

  “She left jewelry at a vacation home?”

  He made an impatient wave of his hand. “We fly up here often during the summer. So, yes, she brings jewelry when we come and tends to leave it until the end of the season. We aren’t skiers, so we close the place up in September.”

  “Can you give me a list of the pieces and their value?”

  His lips curled. “Do you think I’d know that? We have most of it included on an insurance rider, though. She’ll have to check on that herself.”

  “What else was stolen?”

  “He missed the professional-level photography equipment I keep in the guest room closet, but he sure found everything else of value,” Fairland snarled. He led the way into the next bedroom and opened the closet door, where the camera equipment was clearly visible, then led Megan through the rest of the house. When they were finished, Megan went outside with him on her heels and surveyed the damaged door. “Can you fix this so you’ll be able to securely lock up?”

  “I called my carpenter while waiting for you to show up. He should be here any minute now.”

  She smiled at that. “Fast service.”

  “You get what you pay for—and for the kind of bonus I offered, he should have been here ten minutes ago.” Fairland took another look at his watch, then walked a few yards away to punch in a number on his cell phone and barked some orders. He then spun back on his heel and strode to his car. “The guy is just a couple miles away, so I’m leaving.”

  “Do you trust him?”

  The man snorted. “He built the place, and I’m having him add a guest lodge here this summer. He’d hardly jeopardize that contract with petty theft—and everything else of real value is already gone.”

  “I’ll stay until he gets here. I can use the time to lift some fingerprints from the things that were thrown around.”

  “I can’t imagine the sheriff’s department up here being well-staffed enough for it to do any good, but be my guest.” He climbed behind the wheel and took off in a cloud of dust.

  Megan watched him disappear, then settled behind the wheel of the patrol car and started writing more notes for her report. And once again, she felt an uneasy sensation crawl up her neck.

  Frowning, she studied the front of the empty house.

  In the bright midday sunshine this hardly seemed like a sinister setting, yet it was also two miles up a long, narrow private road that wound through the pines and past massive boulders, offering ample places to hide.

  A thief could easily ditch a car along the way and leave it well hidden while scoping out the place. Wait for the owner to leave…perhaps monitor the man’s activities for a few days before making his move.

  Even if Fairland had just gone straight to town and back, that would leave ample time to clean the place out, unless the intruder heard something that had scared him off before he could finish. He could still be close by, waiting for a chance to complete his haul. That camera equipment alone was worth thousands.

  Megan went inside to lift some fingerprints, and waited until the carpenter arrived. After explaining the situation to him, she headed for her next call at a pizza place on the lake, where the manager suspected an employee was embezzling funds. She had to leave, but she’d be back later—in the evening, after the carpenter was finished.

  If someone was still lurking on the property, maybe he’d be back after dark.

  And with luck, she might have a chance to catch her suspect at work.

  The fingerprints on the beer bottle from Megan’s night at the Halfway House Tavern hadn’t matched anything in the AFIS computer system.

  After she’d checked for Lane’s prints and found nothing, she’d searched Montana entries in the NICS—the National Instant Criminal Background Check System using Lane as a first and last name, then looked at the Montana sex offenders registry. No one matched the name Lane, combined with the man’s approximate age.

  And rare was the person who started a string of serial murders without at least some evidence of abnormal behavior or criminal activity beforehand.

  Even if he’d given a false name—a definite possibility—the fact that his prints matched nothing in the system indicated that his adult record was clean. Most juvenile records were expunged or sealed…but she would need his correct legal name for a search at any rate.

  The business card from Milt Powers, the insurance sales rep, was another matter.

  The company had never heard of him.

  The address and phone number were false.

  And if he’d ever had that e-mail address at the bottom, he sure didn’t have it now.

  Megan mulled over the possibilities as she sat in her cruiser overlooking the Fairland house from within a stand of pines at one side of the driveway. Creating a false identity and then brazenly sharing it with a young woman in a seedy tavern was hardly the action of someone who had good intentions. He’d wanted to impress her. He’d had the arrogance to expect she’d fall for it. And then he’d likely seen her gravitate toward Lane, which might’ve made him angry.

  Had he been the one who’d followed her home?

  On the other hand, Lane had been none too pleasant, in the way he’d forced her into the booth, and it was possible that he’d managed to fly under the radar all these years, without ever coming to the attention of the law….

  But those two couldn’t possibly be the only suspects she was going to find, though, if she started trolling at the other nightspots the killer’s victims had frequented in the months before they died. Please, God, guide me to the right places, at the right times. Help me find this guy before it’s too late.

  Shifting against the back of the seat, she carefully scanned the darkness, listening for any unexpected sounds.

  She’d come at dusk, in time to make sure that no one had compromised the new steel door or the windows and to set up a good position.

  Now she’d been here over two hours without a hint of activity, and it was time to get back on the road. She’d been so sure…but as shorthanded as the county was, she couldn’t stay any longer. Tomorrow, she’d come back out and check the place.

  With a sigh, she turned on the ignition and eased out of the trees, then swung wide around a large boulder marking the edge of the man’s yard and started for the highway.

  It was dark as a tomb out here, the heavy forest blocking any moonlight. Her headlights caught the ever-present wall of trees shouldering close to the tight curves of the lane. Now she had to be getting close to the highway—she could hear a semi gearing down for the sharp grade.

  She blinked. Then stared out her windshield.

  Had she just seen a glimmer of headlights? Could they be from the highway…or had someone just turned up the lane? This was a private road and the owner was back in California. No one should be coming up here this time of night.

  In the daylight, she’d seen a lot of places a thief could hide his vehicle along the lane, but along this stretch there was no place to completely pull off the road. There was barely enough space for two vehicles to pass. She dropped her lights to low beam and eased forward, straining to see through the trees.

  And suddenly—there it was. A bright swath of light swinging around, and up. Disappearing. And coming around the sharp bend in front of her. Bingo.

  The oncoming headlights w
ere on bright, blinding her. She slammed to a halt, veering to the narrow shoulder.

  The other driver slammed on his brakes. Hesitated.

  Then his tires squealed and gravel flew as he launched backward, swerving and slamming against a tree, then pulling forward and into reverse again, in a three-point turn. Her headlights caught the back of his head as he negotiated the sharp bend in the lane. He swung wide and took off, careening down the remaining stretch of road.

  It was a black truck.

  A black crew cab, the same make and model as Scott’s.

  A truck that had just expertly executed the fast, efficient kind of turn police officers were trained for from day one and perfected with almost daily use.

  She’d never believed in coincidences, yet it just couldn’t be him. Surely not.

  Praying she was right, she flipped on her lights and sirens, negotiated the tight turn ahead, then floored the accelerator and took off after the vehicle ahead. She caught up just as it reached the highway.

  The driver burst out onto the highway without stopping. Cranked the wheel and sent the vehicle into a wild sideways slide, fishtailing then nearly spinning off the road.

  An earth-shattering semi horn blared. Brakes squealed. The smell of hot rubber spewed into the air as two sets of headlights swung crazily, then faced head-on, just yards apart.

  Please, God—please, God, she breathed, her heart jammed in her throat. Please…

  With barely a yard to spare, the semi swerved. Rocked on its far tires for an eternity. Then slammed back to earth, the cab sliding sideways down the asphalt a good fifty yards before the rig jackknifed and disappeared into the deep ditch on the far side with a terrifying scream of twisting metal.

  When she tore her eyes away from the empty highway and looked back, the pickup was gone.

  NINE

  The truck driver was shaken but apparently unhurt, praise the Lord.

  He’d climbed out of his tractor cab by the time Megan made it down the steep embankment and reached the semi with a flashlight. At least fifty and overweight, his hand trembled as he reached for a pack of cigarettes in the breast pocket of his shirt.