Mercy (Beartooth, Montana)

by B. J Daniels

  Then she’d taken the trunk and the few belongings she’d brought and left her mother’s house. She hadn’t known where she was going. She’d driven south toward Big Timber—and ultimately Beartooth and Rourke.

  But at Big Timber, she’d looked over at the still-locked trunk on the passenger-side floorboard and decided to get a motel. She wasn’t up to seeing Rourke. Not yet.

  Once in the motel, she worked on the profiles. But the trunk with its stupid padlock kept pulling at her. She told herself that she needed to keep her mind on Rourke’s murder cases and the mysterious woman he had become consumed with. Rourke didn’t need to know about her past. No one did. It was too painful. Too humiliating.

  Finally, she’d shoved the trunk under the bed, wishing that she’d left it in her mother’s basement. She wouldn’t open it. As she’d driven in, she’d seen a burn barrel behind the motel. It wouldn’t take much of a flame to ignite the old paper she suspected would be inside the trunk. There would probably be records of the awful places she’d lived, including Westfield Manor. Whatever horrors her mother had left for her would be best destroyed. She liked the idea of them going up in smoke as if none of it had ever happened.

  Taking out her laptop, she went to work on finding out everything she could about the two names Rourke had given her: Carson Grant and Johnny Franks.

  Rourke had told her that Carson Grant had been hitting on Callie. A local boy from a well-known family. She’d known the type her whole life and wasn’t surprised that he’d gotten into all kinds of trouble, including being a suspect in a murder case. Gambler, drinker, rowdy cowboy.

  He currently lived in a cabin in a remote corner of his sister’s ranch. He’d been clean and sober for a while. Laura figured that couldn’t last too much longer. He was too young, no real responsibilities, no roots. It was only a matter of time before he went off the wagon.

  She stared at his photo, wondering how long it would be before Callie decided to kill him.

  * * *

  ROURKE BREATHED IN the sweet, mysterious scent of Callie Westfield as his mouth took possession of hers again.

  She moaned, sending his already pounding heart drumming harder. He wanted this woman, wanted to get under her skin, wanted to know her intimately. He knew how dangerous it was. He didn’t care. She’d been a mystery to him for too long. Now she was in his arms, her mouth opening invitingly to his, her breath mingling with his, her tongue—

  Callie suddenly pulled back, her gaze locking with his again. He was breathing hard. He didn’t want to let go of her.

  She took a breath, her cheeks flushed. Her arms moved from around his neck. She pressed her palms against the front of his shirt—but she didn’t push him away, and he didn’t loosen his hold on her, afraid if he did she would slip away.

  He watched her catch her breath, her dark eyes searching his face before her gaze locked again with his.

  “Tell me I’m not wrong about you,” she whispered.

  “Tell me I’m wrong about you,” he wanted to plead, but instead he said, “I guess that depends on what you’re thinking about me right now.”

  Her smile was slow, her eyes bright with moonlight and desire. “That you’re going to break my heart.”

  “I hope not. I sure don’t want to.”

  She cocked her head, studying him. “You don’t know how much I wish I could read your thoughts right now.”

  “You would be disappointed. I don’t think much with you in my arms, and when you’re kissing me, my only thought is your mouth.” The truth of that made him smile. He certainly wasn’t thinking like a U.S. marshal. He could hear Laura’s warning. Don’t get too close. He realized he could have just kissed his first serial killer.

  “Have you had your heart broken before?” he asked, curious as both a man and a marshal.

  Callie pushed back gently, still studying him. He loosened his hold, and she slipped from his arms, turning her back to him. He took a deep breath, mentally kicking himself for spoiling the moment. He let the breath out slowly as she picked up her empty beer bottle and glass.

  “That was probably a mistake,” she said, her back to him.

  “If you’re talking about that kiss, nope, that was definitely not a mistake.”

  She turned to look at him, eyes narrowing. “And if I was talking about something else?”

  He wanted to say that only time would tell. Instead, he joked, “The mistake was stopping kissing. But then, maybe it wasn’t.”

  She smiled. “I’ll bite. Why not?”

  “Because if we hadn’t stopped, you would have wanted to make love in the moonlight by the lake.”

  Callie laughed. “Is that right?”

  “I’m certain of it.”

  “What about you?” she asked, cocking her head to the side.

  “Oh, I think you could have persuaded me, but I prefer to wait until the third date—not the first.”

  She chuckled. “You’re considering this a first date?”

  He grinned and rubbed his thumb slowly along his lower lip. “First kiss. First date, don’t you think?”

  Shaking her head, she smiled at him. She had a great smile. Sometimes it even reached her eyes.

  “Think you can sleep now?” he asked.

  She nodded slowly. Was that disappointment or relief he saw in her eyes?

  “Good, then you don’t mind if I follow you as far as town,” he said, taking her glass and bottle from her and picking up his own. “I would hate to see you run into Carson Grant again tonight.”

  * * *

  LAURA COULDN’T SLEEP. Like a scene out of a Poe tale, she could hear the trunk under her bed calling to her. Giving up fighting it any longer, she climbed out of bed and dragged out the trunk.

  She realized she had no choice but to open it. She had to see what was inside. Her fingers trembled as she pulled out the key to the padlock, and then in a fit of terror, she shot to her feet to pace back and forth. Her mind listed all the reasons she should have destroyed the contents.

  Reaching for her phone, she started to call her psychiatrist, but stopped herself. She knew what he’d say. The same thing he had been saying all along. She had to face her past, shine light on those dark holes of blank memory from her childhood and face her fears.

  She stopped pacing to stare at the trunk. Why hadn’t she burned everything like she’d planned? Because she had to know all of it. Her mother had saved it for her. Saved it for this moment when she came face-to-face with her past.

  Wasn’t it possible there would be something in the trunk that would prove Callie was the killer?

  If she had any hope of saving Rourke...

  But she feared it was too late. “No, it won’t be too late until he finds himself tied to a bed and a knife to his throat,” she said to the empty room.

  Her mother had hidden this trunk in the basement. Locked it so no one else could see what was inside. Maybe especially her sister, Catherine?

  That thought made her head hurt. She saw the clock by the bed. She didn’t have any more time. If there was something in that trunk...

  Moving to it, she fished the key to the padlock back out of her pocket and bent down to insert it into the lock. It snapped open, feeling icy cold beneath her fingers. Removing the lock, she told herself it wasn’t too late. She could still burn the contents.

  She thought of Rourke and felt a weight on her chest that made it hard to breathe.

  With a curse, she reached down and grabbed the edge of the trunk lid and lifted it. The old metal creaked, reminding her of her mother’s wheelchair. For just a moment, she saw the pillow in her hand, the spot of blood on it, the blood on her mother’s lip....

  Laura threw off the disturbing image as she looked down into the trunk at the jumble of papers. Off to one side of the loose paper
s, she spotted what at first looked like a book.

  With trembling fingers, she picked it up. A diary. Her mother had kept a diary? She opened it to the first page, her fingers trembling.

  In her mother’s handwriting was Westfield 1987–88.

  * * *

  WHEN ROURKE REACHED town after following Callie back, he parked on the main drag in front of the café. Originally he’d planned to just make sure she got inside her apartment without any trouble.

  But after parking, he decided to walk the perimeter to be certain Carson wasn’t hiding in the dark like he had been earlier lying in wait for her.

  As Rourke made his loop around the café, he was surprised to find that Callie had gone up to her apartment, turned on the lights and then come back down. She was waiting for him at the bottom of her outside stairs.

  Moonlight played on her face, making her dark eyes bright. Her hair, which she’d had pulled back earlier, now framed her face, the raven locks against her pale skin. She couldn’t have looked more beautiful. Or more desirable. He felt a tremor inside him like nothing he’d ever felt before. Red flag warnings were going off like fireworks in his head.

  She smiled, and the moment he stepped to her, all he could think about was kissing her again. His mouth took hers hungrily, the kiss all passion and need as he pulled her into his arms. Lifting her off her feet, he pressed her against the side of the building. He could feel the soft curves of her body, the heat she radiated warming the October night.

  Neither of them must have heard the vehicle approaching. Before they knew it, they were caught in blinding-bright headlights. Ducking back into the shadow of the building, they burst into nervous laughter, desire sparking like fireflies between them.

  “Third date, huh?” Callie said, sounding as breathless as he felt.

  The light glowing in her apartment just yards away drew him like a moth to a flame. He knew how dangerous this could be, and yet...

  “I suppose we could consider this our second date,” he said, his voice husky with desire. “Maybe if I left and came back...”

  She laughed and gave him a playful push. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, cowboy.”

  “Go out with me tomorrow night. Dinner in Big Timber. Say yes.”

  Callie took only a moment to consider. “Yes,” she said, then raced up the stairs, stopping at the top to look back at him before disappearing inside.

  He watched her go, asking himself if he hadn’t just made a date with a serial killer.

  * * *

  LAURA’S PSYCHIATRIST SOUNDED half-asleep when he came to the phone.

  “You say it’s an emergency? What’s happened?”

  How could she explain it? She couldn’t. “I feel as if I’m going to fly to pieces, just explode, and at the same time, I’m terrified. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. Something terrible is going to happen.”

  “What caused this setback?” Her psychiatrist was an older man with white hair and bushy eyebrows over pale blue eyes. She often thought of him as the grandfather she’d never had.

  She swallowed and tried to find the words. “I’ve told you about my former partner.”

  “The one you’re in love with. Did you finally tell him how you feel?”

  “No.” The mere thought made her shudder. “I saw him tonight with a suspect. I saw them together. Kissing.”

  “How did you feel?”

  “How do you think I felt?” she cried, then dropped her voice. She knew she shouldn’t have gone to Rourke’s cabin looking for him. When she’d found his SUV gone at such a late hour, she’d driven down by the café. That was when she’d seen them.

  “I was heartbroken, but also furious with him. This woman could be a serial killer. I’m afraid...I’m afraid he’s falling for her, falling into a trap.”

  “You want to save him from himself?”

  She wanted to kill him. “I don’t want to see anything happen to him.”

  “We’ve discussed this before. The best way to overcome a fear is to face it. Tell this man how you feel about him.”

  Laura shook her head but said nothing.

  “You’ve held on to this for far too long. Trapped emotions fester. Worse, they tend to overpower, become much larger and more overwhelming than they actually are.”

  “I think he’s falling for this woman. I think he fell for her the moment he saw her photo.” She knew how crazy that sounded.

  “Maybe he is just doing his job. Didn’t you tell me the last time we talked that he went to Montana to get close to this woman so he could find the true killer?”

  “You don’t understand. This woman—”

  “It isn’t about another woman, Laura. You said he has no idea how you feel. You have to tell him. No matter what happens, it will be out. You won’t be holding it inside you and letting it eat away at you.”

  “She’s going to kill him,” she said in a whisper as she fought back tears.

  “This secret is setting back your recovery, Laura. You are strong. No matter what happens when you tell him, you will get past it. Have you had any more panic attacks?”

  Other than the one she’d had when she’d seen Rourke kissing Caligrace Westfield by the café? “No.”

  “Why are you so afraid of this man?”

  “I’m not afraid of Rourke.” That was definitely not her fear. “I’m afraid what I’ll... I don’t know what I’m afraid of.”

  “This is your first real contact with him since your accident.” He referred to her being shot in the alley as if it was an accident, like wrecking her car or falling off a ladder.

  She wanted to correct him, a part of her aware that being shot was no accident. In her heart, she knew that she had been heading for that dark alley her whole life, destined to almost die in it. Wasn’t that why she’d become a cop?

  “You have always had a death wish,” her mother had said when she’d foolishly called to tell her she’d been shot. “When you became a policewoman, I thought, ‘Now she has found a way to fulfill that wish.’”

  “I feel like I’m the only one who can save Rourke,” Laura said now to her psychiatrist. “I’m just afraid it might be too late.”

  “Why this feeling of urgency?”

  “I know that sounds crazy, but I’ve been plagued with this premonition of doom from as far back as I can remember. Since Rourke brought me this case, I feel as if it’s a time bomb. I can hear it ticking.” Her voice broke. “I’m so scared.” How could she tell him that Caligrace Westfield was at the heart of her secret fear?

  “I don’t believe the problem is the case, Laura,” he said, not unkindly. “Or this other woman. Tell Rourke how you feel. This isn’t your case. You can’t save him.”

  “What if this woman kills him?”

  “Kills him? Or steals him from you?”

  “Either way I will lose him. I can’t live with that.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  THE FORMER DEPUTY didn’t seem all that surprised to find P.I. Edwin Sharp standing on his doorstep in Flat Rock, Montana.

  “I thought you might be back.” Burt Denton sighed. “My wife is away,” he said as he stepped aside to let Edwin in.

  As Edwin entered the house, he heard the drone of the television. A weatherman was forecasting the upcoming winter storm he’d been hearing about on the way up. He hoped to be someplace warm and dry before it hit.

  Burt Denton’s home was a two-story farmhouse, the walls filled with pictures of Burt’s children, the furniture worn and old. Edwin looked around and got the feeling that the “wife” had been gone for some time.

  “Might as well come in the kitchen,” Burt said.

  “I hope you don’t mind talking about the girls’ home and the people who lived there,” Edwin said after declining coffee. His stomach had bee
n upset now for several days. He told himself it was the flying, but he suspected it was the case.

  When he’d driven into town, he couldn’t miss the hulking structure of the girls’ home. A cold wind had blown a tumbleweed down the main street ahead of his car. The whole town had an end-of-the-world feeling as he’d parked in front of Burt Denton’s house.

  Now he took a seat at the Formica-topped table in the large kitchen. He could see where there had been knickknacks on the shelves along one wall, but all that was left was a faded outline of them.

  Burt looked resigned to talking about Westfield and ultimately Caligrace as he took a seat. “What do you want to know?”

  “You knew the woman who ran the place, Gladys McCormick?”

  His face registered dislike. “A horrible woman.”

  “I noticed that the place burned at some point.”

  “That was her doing. She burned all the paperwork, no doubt covering her own behind. When they needed clothing or more food or even the bare necessities like a little more heat, she told them there just wasn’t money for it and that they’d gotten themselves into this mess, so they could only blame themselves if they went hungry or didn’t have a warm coat come winter.”

  Edwin didn’t have to ask where Burt had gotten this information. “You helped Caligrace and her daughter with what you could.” It wasn’t a question. Nor was Edwin surprised when Burt gave a slight nod.

  “It cost me my marriage eventually.” The admission came hard, Edwin could see. That he’d been in love with the woman was obvious. “I wish I could have done more. I wrote to the state, I threatened to put Gladys in jail, but my hands were tied, and the state didn’t do anything until after the murder. I tried to rally the community to help, but people here had their own problems. They would point out that Gladys didn’t treat her own kids much better, and maybe a little hardship might turn all those girls around.”

  Edwin felt a start. “Gladys had children of her own?”

  “Two daughters,” Burt said. “Twins—two identical dark-haired girls with blue eyes.”

  “How old were they?”