by B. J Daniels
Turning, he looked into her face. Her eyes were red, as if she’d been crying. “You’re freezing. Where have you been?”
When she spoke, her voice broke. “I went for a drive. I...I...” Tears welled in her eyes. One spilled over and coursed down her cheek. He caught it with his thumb without thinking and wiped it away.
“You can be honest with me, Callie,” he said, his voice hoarse with emotion and a lingering terror of what she was hiding. “Talk to me.”
She searched his face. How had he thought this woman had second sight? She didn’t know what he was thinking or feeling. She couldn’t have.
“I’ve never met anyone like you,” she said in a whisper, her voice hoarse. “I don’t know how to... Last night...all of it. I’m scared, Rourke. I’ve never cared this much, never wanted...” She threw her arms around him. He drew her close, holding her tightly as he fought his doubts about the naked woman in his arms.
He closed his eyes.
Callie was lying. Wherever she’d gone, wherever she’d been, it hadn’t just been a drive. And yet, all his instincts told him she wasn’t a killer. Not even a co-killer.
Laura was right. He’d gotten too close. Worse, this was where he wanted to be. He felt the passion between them spark and ignite. When she kissed him, he shoved away his misgivings, telling himself that whatever she was hiding from him, it wasn’t murder.
When he woke again, the sun was out, and Callie was standing over him with something in her hand that caught the light.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
SHERIFF FRANK CURRY and his new bride, Lynette Johnson Benton Curry, were standing in line at the airport for an early flight, when they saw his second in command headed for them. The winter storm had blown through, leaving the sky a cold, cloudless robin-egg blue as the blinding sun made the seven inches of fresh snow glitter like diamonds.
“Don’t worry. Whatever it is, it won’t interfere with our honeymoon,” Frank told Lynette as he watched Undersheriff Dillon Lawson approach. Even though he feared just the opposite, he said, “We’re going to Hawaii to sit on the beach and sip umbrella drinks and watch the sun set over the water.”
“But not today,” she said. “Dillon isn’t here to wish us bon voyage, Sheriff.”
Frank looked into his wife’s eyes and smiled. This woman knew him, loved him—was finally his. He’d wanted this for most of his life. Finally, they were one. Nothing could keep them apart. He kissed his bride and turned to face whatever had brought the law after them.
Dillon dragged off his Stetson and, apologizing to Lynette, lowered his voice and said, “I’m afraid I need a word with you, Sheriff.”
Not Frank, but Sheriff. “Lynette, if you’ll excuse us for just a moment.” He stepped to a quiet corner with Dillon, dread weighing down his footsteps. Like Lynette, he knew his undersheriff wouldn’t be here unless it was urgent. His first thought was Tiffany.
He tried to swallow the bile that rose in his throat. Surely Tiffany couldn’t have heard already. Surely she wouldn’t follow through with her threat—
“I just got a call from a hysterical Destry West. When her brother, Carson, didn’t show for work today...” Dillon met his gaze. “She found him at his cabin. It’s bad, Frank.”
He’d heard Carson had been seen drinking and was rumored to be gambling again. For years, Frank had suspected Carson would meet a bad end. “How bad?”
“Murdered.” Dillon lowered his voice, even though there was no one close by. “His mutilated body was found naked, tied to his bed. There’s no keeping a lid on this. We’re already getting calls at the sheriff’s department. The whole county is in a panic. I figured, under the circumstances...”
“You figured right,” Frank said, tamping down his disappointment. By this evening, he’d so hoped to be barefoot on the beach with his new bride. “You’ve secured the crime scene?”
Dillon nodded. “The coroner is on his way there now.”
“Don’t let anyone touch the scene until I get there.”
* * *
“YOU WANT ME to be honest with you?” Callie demanded.
Rourke saw the object in her hand flash in the light an instant before she threw his badge at him.
“You’re a U.S. marshal?”
“Not at the moment. I’m on leave.” He sat up in the bed. “I told you I did a lot of things.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What else did you lie about?”
“I’ve been as honest with you as you’ve been with me,” he said. “Why were you going through the pockets of my coat?”
She crossed her arms over her chest and looked as if she was fighting tears. He saw that she was dressed for work already. “Because I just had this bad feeling...”
“The same kind of feeling you got last night at the restaurant before that little girl almost spilled her milk?”
She recoiled at his words. “I don’t know what—”
“What I’m talking about?” he said, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “You knew she was going to spill her milk before she reached for her glass, so don’t lie. I saw it.” He snatched up his jeans from the floor and pulled them on, then took a step toward her. “I’ve seen it before at the café, but it didn’t really register until last night. You knew that robber wasn’t going to shoot you because you knew there weren’t bullets in the gun before I did.”
She hugged herself, looking scared. “You don’t understand.”
“I think I do. There was a neighborhood woman when I was growing up. She...saw things before they happened. She knew things that she had no way of knowing other than second sight. I saw it last night at the restaurant.”
* * *
CALLIE MET HIS gaze with a defiant look. “If I had this ‘sight,’ as you call it, then why didn’t I know you were a U.S. marshal until I found your badge?”
“You apparently knew enough to look through my pockets.”
“I had to know if I could trust you.”
“You can trust me,” he said quickly and stepped to her to take her shoulders in his big hands.
She winced at his touch, remembering how gentle he’d been last night during their lovemaking. She had trusted him, even though she’d known better, and yet her desire for him had outweighed her caution. What a fool she was.
“What are you really doing in Beartooth?”
“First, you tell me if I’m right about your...gift.”
Callie studied him for a moment, realizing she didn’t want to lie to him. And what would be the point anyway? He’d seen it last night at The Grand. He already knew.
“I pick up what I call flashes of information from people. Like what they’re thinking. Sometimes I can see a person’s future. And before you ask, I don’t get anything from you. I never have.” She saw his incredulity. “See why I try to keep it a secret? Now you’re wondering if I’m lying and I really can read you.” She shook her head. “Not that you believe me, but you’re the exception. I’ve never been able to pick up anything from you.”
“You want me to believe that I’m the only person you can’t read?”
“There have been a few others, but it’s rare.” She met his gaze. “This is why I don’t tell anyone. They never believe me, and then they start acting strange around me. They make me feel like I’m a freak.”
She started to turn away, but he wouldn’t release her.
“I don’t think you’re a freak.”
“Really? Then, Marshal, why do I feel like you came to Beartooth looking for me?”
A loud knock at the door made them both jump. “Callie?” a male voice called.
She recognized the sheriff’s voice and felt her heart drop. Rourke must have recognized the voice as well, because he suddenly looked worried.
“Is there something you need to tell me?” he whispere
d as he let her go to grab his shirt.
She almost laughed in his face as she watched him quickly dress. There was so much and yet nothing she could tell him. Stepping away from him, she closed the bedroom door behind her and, taking a deep breath, went to open the door to the sheriff.
“Good morning, Sheriff. What can I do for you?”
“I’m looking for Rourke Kincaid. I was hoping—”
Kincaid. The name she’d found on his driver’s license in his wallet. So the sheriff had known the truth.
“As a matter of fact, he just stopped by,” she said and stepped out of the way as Rourke, now fully dressed, joined her.
“I need to talk to you,” the sheriff said to him.
“If you two will excuse me,” Callie said, “I was just on my way to work.” She slipped past them, down the stairs and into the back of the café.
“Are you all right?” Kate asked the moment she saw her. “You’re white as a sheet. Oh, honey, I guess you heard about Carson Grant. It’s so horrible what happened. It’s all anyone is talking about this morning.”
* * *
LAURA SAT IN the middle of the floor with the diary from the trunk and all her mother’s papers scattered around her. She didn’t know how long she’d been crying. In fact, it had surprised her to feel tears running down her face onto the paper in her hand.
There were stories in the sparse notes her mother had kept on each of the girls under her care. Each story broke her heart. Young girls, some of them scared and pregnant, all girls who everyone had given up on.
She felt their loneliness, their isolation, their fear. She’d been one of those girls—just as abandoned as any one of them. And her sister... Just the thought of Catherine made the tears come harder.
“So you do remember now,” she heard her mother say as if in the room.
Laura picked up the diary. Yes, she remembered Westfield. She remembered the cold, the isolation, the alienation. The other girls hadn’t trusted her and Catherine. Laura had tried to befriend some of them. Catherine hadn’t bothered. It was as if she knew no one was ever going to like them in the places they lived because of their mother’s job.
They were both Gladys’s daughters. Most of the girls feared them, just as they feared Gladys. What they didn’t seem to realize was that Catherine was one of them. She coped by being as mean as any one of them. She loved that they were afraid of her.
It was all in the diary from that year.
Her mother had never talked about her childhood, about her life. All Laura had known was the hard woman who’d raised two daughters alone. A bitter, resentful woman who’d forced her daughters to grow up too quickly.
Laura wiped at her tears and looked around the room as her cell phone rang. Rourke?
Her muscles were stiff. How long had she been on this floor? She couldn’t remember her last meal or when she’d last slept as she tried to get up to find the phone. She had the surreal feeling that she hadn’t been out of this motel room in days. But that couldn’t be true, she thought. It had been only yesterday that she’d told Rourke how she felt—and lied to him about an interview back in Seattle.
Finding her phone, she saw that it wasn’t Rourke. Her heart dropped, since she’d expected him to call. But he was probably busy. With Callie after their big date last night.
She cleared her voice then answered, “Hello?”
“Laura?” It was her psychiatrist. “I wanted to check on you. The last time we talked... Are you all right?”
“Fine.”
He made a concerned sound. “You missed your appointment.”
She’d forgotten all about it. “My mother died.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Does this mean that you and your mother reconciled before her death?”
“I arrived too late. She’d already passed.”
“Oh, that’s too bad. You’ve always said that she was the only one who could provide you with the lost memories of your childhood.”
“Maybe it’s a blessing,” she said, looking at the diary in her hand. “What if I couldn’t handle what she told me?”
He was silent for a few moments. “Perhaps.”
“I told him. Rourke.” As she sat on the end of the motel bed, she said, “I told him how I feel.” She clenched her teeth for a moment in anger. “It wasn’t exactly freeing.”
“I’m sure that must have been difficult for you, but now he knows. It isn’t something you have to carry around with you.”
“No, I guess not,” she said as she set the diary on the bed and pushed it away.
“Now you can move on.”
“Yes. Move on.” Her stomach growled. “Actually, I was just getting ready to go out for something to eat.”
“I won’t keep you, then. Shall I assume you will be available for your appointment next month?”
“Why not?”
“Laura, are you sure you’re all right?”
She smiled to herself at his concern. “Do you realize you’re the only one who really cares about me? That’s not a bad thing, really, is it? I mean, it’s nice.” She thanked him and disconnected.
* * *
“WHAT IS THIS ABOUT?” Rourke demanded after Frank ushered him into his office and closed the door.
“I need to know more about the crime that brought you to Beartooth—in particular, why it led you to Callie Westfield,” the sheriff said as he motioned him into a chair across from his desk. Frank had insisted he follow him to his office after talking for only a few minutes at Callie’s apartment.
“That’s why you came looking for me this morning?” Rourke demanded. “What’s going on? You dragged me all the way down here—”
“There’s been a murder.”
Rourke felt as if he’d been sucker punched. “A murder?” He thought immediately of Cassie and the missing hours from last night. “Who was murdered?”
The sheriff studied him as if he thought Rourke might have been expecting this. “Carson Grant. He was found tied to his bed and tortured with a knife.”
Rourke let out a curse.
“That’s what I thought. It’s the same M.O. as the murders that brought you here, isn’t it?”
He took off his hat and raked a hand through his hair as he tried to pull himself together. “When did this happen?”
“According to the coroner, probably some time between midnight and four this morning. I didn’t press you for information when you arrived here, but now I need some answers. Why did you come looking for Callie Westfield?”
“She was only a lead.” He quickly told the sheriff about the three cases he’d found and the photos from the crime scenes.
“So how is she connected?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“You don’t know or you don’t want to believe it?” Frank eyed him. “I know your SUV was parked outside her apartment all night. But one of you left in her pickup. Four sets of vehicle tracks were found in the snow at the murder scene. One set belonged to Carson, another to his sister, Destry, when she found him this morning. We are trying to ID the other two sets, but my deputy is pretty sure one of them is from Callie Westfield’s pickup. We are securing a warrant to take impressions of her truck’s tread as we speak.”
“Why would you think Callie was there?” Rourke asked, and then he realized he’d practically handed her to the sheriff as the killer. He swore under his breath. “She’s not your killer.”
Frank raised a brow. “What makes you so sure of that? Were you with her last night?”
“Not all night.” Rourke hated admitting it. “But there’s more to this than meets the eye. I don’t know where to begin.”
The sheriff leaned back in his chair. “I’m all ears.”
When Rourke finished, Frank let out a low whi
stle. “Have you heard from your P.I. yet?”
“No, as a matter of fact, I’ve been waiting for his call. I’m hoping he’s found Gladys McCormick’s daughters.”
The sheriff nodded. “But that still doesn’t explain why Callie was at the murder scenes. It would appear, just as you suspected, that she is somehow involved.”
“I haven’t had a chance to question her yet.” He met Frank’s gaze. “She trusts me. I know I’m close to solving this. Just give me twenty-four hours, and I will have the killer.”
The sheriff shook his head. “I think it is more likely that you will get yourself killed. Let’s not forget, you also have no jurisdiction here, especially under the circumstances. No, I’m sorry, Rourke, but given your...relationship with your suspect, I am more apt to consider you just another one of my suspects.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
NETTIE WOKE WITH a start and looked at the clock. She was going to be late opening the store. She swung her legs over the side of the bed, but before her feet touched the floor, she remembered.
There was no Beartooth General Store to open. It had burned down, and when some fool corporation had offered to buy the lot the store had sat on for more than a hundred years and her house up on the mountain behind it, she’d taken the money and not looked back.
Now she sat on the edge of the bed, feeling lost. The store had been her identity. But it was more than that. She missed having something to do. She wasn’t old enough to retire even though she was close to retirement age. What in the devil was she going to do with the rest of her life?
Marry Frank had been her answer. Now married to him, she had to ask, what next?
Nettie knew she should be happy. No, deliriously ecstatic after her near-death experience last spring. She could have easily died in the store fire. Wasn’t a near-death experience supposed to bring you some sort of clarity?
Worse, she was no more near figuring out who was behind the Beartooth restoration. Someone with money. Someone with a stake in the community. Someone crazy.
Suddenly it was like a lightbulb coming on. As she quickly showered and dressed, she was more excited than she had been in weeks—other than when becoming Frank’s wife.