Chase's Promise

by Lois Faye Dyer

  “No, he’s a missing person. We’re just trying to locate him, that’s all.”

  “Oh.” Disappointment was evident on the man’s face.

  “Thanks again,” Chase said.

  Raine murmured a thank-you and they left the office.

  “I think he was disappointed you weren’t tracking down an escaped killer,” she commented in a low voice.

  “Probably wanted to be able to tell his friends he faced a dangerous criminal and lived,” Chase agreed with a slight grin.

  Raine caught his arm, drawing him to a halt on the sidewalk several yards from the office where inside, the clerk leaned over the counter, still staring after them with blatant interest.

  “So we know Trey got this far.” She was clearly elated, almost bouncing as she turned to look at the dark highway beyond the motel lights. “At last, someone remembers seeing him.”

  “It’s encouraging,” Chase agreed.

  “I’m too wound up to go back to my room and try to sleep.” She pointed to the pool area, enclosed by a chain-link fence and deserted at this late hour. Underwater pool lights made the water glow turquoise, gently illuminating the concrete decking and vacant chairs. “Let’s sit by the pool and you can tell me where we go from here.”

  Chase knew he should refuse. Sitting under the stars with her came perilously close to socializing and he had a hard-and-fast rule against associating with a client outside necessary business meetings. But the prospect of being with Raine, breathing in fresh, sage-scented air and surrounded by open space instead of trapped inside the four beige walls of the motel room was irresistible.

  “All right.”

  They chose two deck chairs near the deep end of the pool. Raine dragged a third chair closer and kicked off her sandals to prop her bare feet on its nylon-web seat. Killer stretched out on the concrete decking between them and she reached down to rub his ears.

  “Now that we’ve located someone who saw Trey that night and confirmed he was on his way to Billings, what’s the next step?” she asked.

  “We narrow the parameters of our field and keep searching.”

  “Meaning we concentrate on the road between here and Billings?”

  He nodded. “In the morning, we’ll talk to the day shift clerk. I’ll put in a call to the highway patrol—the officer on duty at the accident scene might not remember Trey since he wasn’t involved, but it’s worth checking out.”

  “And then what?”

  “Then we’ll backtrack and recheck all the stops between here and Billings. And hope to hell we find someone else who remembers seeing your brother.”

  She was quiet for a moment, digesting his blunt answer. “This is only a small clue, isn’t it? I mean, it’s not as if we know what happened.”

  “It’s not big but most investigations are solved by accumulating small bits of information. This isn’t television, where the mystery is solved in sixty minutes. Real life doesn’t work that way.”

  “But it is encouraging that we’ve found a trace of him, right?”

  “Absolutely.” His tone was firm and rang with conviction.

  She drew a deep breath. “Okay, then… I’m going to focus on the good news and not think about how long it might take to gather the many small pieces of information that may be necessary before we find him.”

  “Smart woman,” he said, lifting his Coke in a silent toast before drinking.

  Raine idly scratched Killer behind the ears, smoothing her hand over the soft fur, while she sipped her soda and watched the stars twinkling brighter as the night deepened.

  “How did you happen to choose a career as a bounty hunter?” she asked idly.

  “What makes you ask?”

  “I don’t know.” She looked over at him and found him slouched in his chair, watching her. He seemed relaxed and comfortable, legs stretched out in front of him, his head resting against the back of the deck chair. “Just wondering, I guess.”

  He studied her for a long moment, then looked away, his hands cupped around the soda can sitting on the hard muscles of his midriff. “I don’t think I’d call it a choice. It was more a case of my needing a job and an employer with an opening.”

  “You must have applied for the job. Otherwise, how did the employer get your name?”

  “One of the guards at the detention center recommended me.”

  “That was nice of him.”

  “Yeah, wasn’t it,” he said dryly. “Not a lot of employers stand in line to hire an ex-con.”

  “But you could have come home and worked for your dad?”

  “I could have. But I didn’t want to live in Wolf Creek. I wanted to see the world.”

  There was more to it than this, Raine could sense his underlying tension.

  “But you’re home now—does that mean you had enough of traveling?”

  “I was tired of waking up in a long line of nondescript hotels in strange cities, chasing one more dumb-as-dirt criminal.” He shrugged. “No matter what life is like at home, it’s still home.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He gestured, the movement indicating the rolling prairie and towering buttes, dark against the starlit horizon. “I missed the land,” he said simply. “Cities don’t smell like sage and clean air; they smell like exhaust fumes and frying hamburgers. In the end, I guess I just wanted to come home to the ranch.”

  “To the ranch—but not to Wolf Creek.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t see you around town. I was startled when I bumped into you at the Saloon that afternoon. I mean, I hadn’t seen you since Mike died.”

  “Yeah, well…” His voice trailed off. He gazed broodingly at the dark buttes on the far horizon. “I don’t spend much time in Wolf Creek.”

  “That’s the understatement of the year,” she chided. “I’ve never seen you in town, except for that one time. Where do you go shopping?”

  “Shopping?” His expression was blank, uncomprehending.

  “For groceries, Christmas gifts…” She waved a hand at his feet and long legs. “Clothes, boots…you know, shopping.”

  “Ah.” He nodded. “Shopping.” He eyed his long legs and crossed ankles with their well-worn jeans and polished black cowboy boots. “I had the boots made for me in San Antonio. In fact, I bought several pairs so I doubt I’ll need new ones for a while. And clothes…” He tucked his chin to look down at the white T-shirt with a black-and-gray Colter-McCloud Investigations logo on the left side. “Probably won’t need any of those too soon, either.”

  “Men.” Raine shook her head in disbelief. “What about Christmas shopping?”

  “I fly into Seattle several times a year. Our office is in a high-rise downtown. All I have to do is walk outside and within six blocks I can find nearly anything I want for Christmas gifts. What isn’t there, I can get on the Internet and have it shipped.”

  “Okay, that takes care of clothes and Christmas. But what about day-to-day stuff—like groceries or dog food for Killer or grain for cows or horses?”

  Muscles flexed and shifted beneath the white T-shirt as he shrugged dismissively. “My place is closer to two other towns than it is to Wolf Creek. I can buy all that stuff in either place.”

  “Hmm. It sounds as if you’re avoiding Wolf Creek on purpose.”

  She took a drink of cold soda and waited. He didn’t answer.

  “A person might assume you don’t like the people in Wolf Creek,” she said thoughtfully.

  “You think?” His voice was softly derisive.

  She leaned forward, to better see his expression in the dim light. “I can understand your not wanting to see the Kerrigans, nobody likes dealing with Harlan and Lonnie, and you certainly might feel you have cause to dislike them. I’ll even concede you probably didn’t want to deal with me or Trey—I admit I wasn’t too comfortable the one time I ran into you in the Saloon. I remember my mother going postal and screaming at your mother in the grocery store after Mike’s funeral. You probably t
hought all Harpers were slightly crazy. But that’s only five people out of the entire town. There are lots of other residents in Wolf Creek who are perfectly nice and don’t come with baggage.”

  “If you say so.”

  “You don’t agree?”

  “No.” He sat forward and was about to push upright when she reached out and impulsively caught his arm, stopping him.

  “Surely you don’t blame everyone in Wolf Creek for what happened to you when Mike died.”

  “You have no idea what happened to me after Mike died.” His voice was grim.

  “No,” she said slowly. “I suppose I only know what I later learned from gossip. I was only twelve years old at the time. I know what happened at my house—my mother took to her bed after the funeral. It took her three long years to die of grief but she was determined. For my dad, losing Mike was terrible but losing Mom was more than he could take—he passed away in his sleep when I was eighteen. The doctors said he had a massive heart attack but I know mourning caused his death.”

  Chase covered her hand with his. His calloused palm gently pressed hers against the warm, hair-roughened strength of his forearm. The gesture was both comforting and arousing.

  “I’m sorry,” he said gruffly. “You were just a kid. It must have been rough.”

  “It was.” She scanned his face, trying to read his expression. “But I’m beginning to think it was just as bad, if not worse, for you.”

  His features hardened. “Maybe not.”

  His hand left hers and he rose to look down at her. “I’d like to get an early start in the morning. Are you ready to turn in?”

  Raine wanted to ask him why he wouldn’t talk about those days after Mike died, but he clearly was finished with the conversation.

  He walked silently beside her and waited until she was inside her room with the dead bolt firmly in place, before he left her. She drew back the drape on the front window just far enough to see him enter his own room three doors down, Killer padding at his side.

  There was an aura of solitary containment about him that was striking. Raine wished he would tell her about the days and months after Mike died. While she’d been struggling to cope with her parents and their overwhelming grief, what had it been like for Chase at seventeen, locked in a prison cell? Was that where he’d gotten the scars she’d noticed on his chest and back when he’d been working at the forge on his ranch? Or had those come later, during fights with criminals while working as a bounty hunter?

  She’d thought she knew who Chase McCloud was—the teenager whose reckless driving had killed her beloved brother, the man who lived a violent life chasing criminals.

  Now she wasn’t sure whether any of what she’d believed about him for the last fifteen years was true.

  Chapter Six

  Raine slipped into a cool cotton tee and pajama shorts. Far from sleepy, she took her phone card from her purse. She stacked pillows against the headboard and stretched her legs out on the muted blue-toned bedspread before dialing the Saloon’s number in Wolf Creek.

  “Hi, Charlotte,” she said when her assistant manager answered. “How’s everything going—any emergencies?”

  “None so far,” Charlotte responded. “In fact, it’s been so quiet I’m starting to worry. Shouldn’t we have had a fight or a cranky customer or something by now? How can I flex my ‘boss’ muscles if nothing happens?”

  Raine laughed. “Don’t say that aloud or you’ll jinx yourself and tomorrow will be chaos.”

  “Hmm. Good point. Seriously, Raine, all’s quiet here. The only thing I’m concerned about is the Liquor Board inspection—the office called today and said the inspector will be here day after tomorrow. I’m guessing you’ll need to be here to deal with him yourself, right?”

  “Yes, I will. Damn. I expected the office to call six weeks ago—talk about bad timing.” Raine sighed. “Nothing I can do about it now, I’ll have to come home.”

  “Sorry, Raine. You know I’d be glad to deal with it if you want me to.”

  “Thanks, Charlotte, but I really need to talk to the inspector. You can join us, though, so if this comes up in the future, you’ll be prepared.”

  “Sounds good. How are things going with you? Any new information about Trey?”

  “Yes, thank God. Tonight we talked to a motel clerk here in Henderson who remembers seeing Trey the night he disappeared.”

  “That’s wonderful news! What about the bar in Billings—did anyone remember seeing him there?”

  “No, and my instinct tells me he wasn’t there.”

  “Oh.” Silence fell. “I’m sorry, Raine.”

  “Me, too. And there’s bad news—a store clerk remembers seeing Trey’s SUV but two men, neither of them Trey, were driving it.”

  “Oh, no.” Charlotte gasped softly. “What does that mean?”

  “Chase said I should hold on to my gut belief that Trey isn’t hurt. Just because someone else may have been driving his car doesn’t mean he’s not okay.”

  “So that’s not necessarily the worst of bad news. It could be those men stole Trey’s car when it was parked somewhere and he was nowhere near it, right?”

  “I hadn’t thought of that, but you’re right, of course.”

  “How are you coping with the bounty hunter?” Charlotte asked.

  “Fine. He seems very good at his job. For the first time since Trey disappeared, I feel confident that everything possible is being done to find him.”

  “That’s wonderful. I’m so glad.” Charlotte’s sincerity carried clearly over the line. “I know how worried you’ve been.”

  “I’m still worried, but at least, I know I’m doing something proactive and not just sitting at home, hoping and praying he’ll be found.”

  “And I’m sure you’ll get results. In fact, I’m going to tell the cook to start planning a welcome-home party for Trey. What’s it like spending all day and night with the mysterious, gorgeous Mr. McCloud?” Charlotte teased, lightening the mood.

  The question startled Raine and immediately, a series of vignettes flashed through her mind— Chase washed in moonlight by the motel pool; Chase solemnly shaking the storekeeper’s hand; Chase pulling her close as they crossed the room to the booth in the Bull ’n’ Bash, then nuzzling her neck when they sat.

  What’s it like to spend time with Chase? He’s difficult, charming, sexy and too intriguing, she thought. None of which she’d admit to Charlotte.

  “I’m learning a lot about investigative procedures,” she answered. “In fact, if Trey ever disappears again, I might not need to hire someone to find him. I can do it myself.”

  Charlotte laughed. “So what’s next—where do you go from here?”

  Raine spent the next ten minutes filling Charlotte in on her plans for the next day and listening to Charlotte’s droll recital of the latest battle in the ongoing war between the restaurant’s grouchy dishwasher and temperamental cook. She rang off after promising to return to Wolf Creek for the upcoming inspection.

  Relieved to learn all was well at both the restaurant and Saloon, she switched off the bedside lamp and went to sleep.

  At ten o’clock the following morning, they left Killer in the SUV with the windows lowered to let a breeze cool the interior and entered a truck stop just south of Henderson. The state trooper Chase had arranged to meet in the café was sitting at a booth near the back.

  “Trooper Smith?” Chase asked.

  “Yes—are you McCloud?” The uniformed officer started to stand but Chase waved him back.

  “Don’t get up. We’ll join you, if you don’t mind.”

  “Of course not.”

  Raine slid across the booth’s bench seat and Chase joined her.

  “Dispatch passed on your message—said you’re looking for a man who may have been at the scene of an accident a few weeks ago?”

  “That’s right.” Chase took Trey’s photo from his shirt pocket and slid it across the table. “We’ve confirmed his vehicle was stoppe
d near Henderson when a semi overturned a couple of weeks ago.”

  “I remember the truck—made a helluva mess on the road. Took us a couple of hours to clear the scene. But I don’t remember another vehicle being involved.”

  “His SUV was in the traffic halted by the truck accident. We don’t have any reason to believe he was actually involved in the wreck.”

  “Ah.” The trooper nodded and picked up the photo, tilting it to study it more closely. Then he slowly shook his head. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember seeing him.”

  Raine’s hope that their luck gaining information from the motel clerk would continue when they talked to the trooper evaporated.

  Chase asked several more questions about the highway accident before they left the trooper finishing his morning coffee and doughnut break in the café.

  “I was hoping he’d give us a lead,” Raine said as they fastened seat belts.

  “It was a long shot. Unlikely the trooper on the scene of an accident would remember a driver not involved, especially since Trey apparently didn’t approach him.”

  “I suppose so.” Raine was frustrated. “I have to go back to Wolf Creek,” she said suddenly.

  Chase’s hand stilled on the ignition key and he turned his head to look at her. “Burned out on man-hunting already?”

  She returned his cool gaze with a level stare. “No, definitely not. But I have a business appointment at the Saloon tomorrow and I’m the only person who can take care of it.”

  “Then we’ll go home.” He switched on the ignition and backed out of the parking slot.

  “Not until tonight,” she said stubbornly. “I don’t have to be at the Saloon until late tomorrow morning.”

  “Whatever you say. What’s the next stop on the map?”

  She retrieved the folded map and scanned the road ahead. “A gas station just off the highway, about twenty-five miles.”

  Chase didn’t reply. The SUV picked up speed as they headed south once again.

  “It’s not as if I want to go home,” she murmured, almost to herself.

  Chase glanced at her and shrugged. “Few people can put their full-time jobs on hold to spend time investigating a missing person.”