Cowboy Tough

by Joanne Kennedy

Mack had everything ready for today’s trip. He just needed to gather up the artists, which was about as much fun as herding cats.

  He was learning more than he wanted to know about the artistic temperament. Even Cat, who was organized and responsible, could be driven to slack-jawed distraction by a certain slant of light or raptured away by a gracefully gnarled tree. In some ways he enjoyed it. It made him see the land in a new way.

  He sauntered over to the fire pit, checking the landscape for stragglers. Like yearling calves, artists had a tendency to wander off, but feeding time generally brought them home. Right now they were clustered around the chuckwagon, with Cat at the center of the group.

  Cat. He couldn’t help picturing her the night before, sprawled in the hay, naked in his arms. But as he approached the group, he realized something was wrong. Her voice was high-pitched and shrill.

  “Has anyone seen her? Talked to her?” She swiveled to face his daughter. “Viv, she must have said something. Think!”

  He couldn’t help bristling at the way she was haranguing his daughter. But when he caught sight of Viv’s worried face, he realized something more than an art lecture was going on.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I mean, she’s been having a rough time. Her mom, you know?”

  A sympathetic murmur rose from the group.

  “But she never said a word about going anywhere, I swear.” Viv crossed her heart with a pointed index finger in a gesture she’d used since childhood.

  “Are you sure? You two have been so close.” Cat was glaring at Viv as if she could see straight to her soul. “You need to tell me the truth.”

  Viv blinked fast. “I don’t know anything. I really don’t.”

  His daughter looked so hurt Mack wanted to hug her—or hurt somebody. He pushed through the group to confront Cat. “She swore, okay? Viv doesn’t lie.”

  “I wasn’t—I just…” Now it was Cat who was blinking. Women were falling apart all around him, all because his supposed assistant had gone off on her own without telling anyone. “Dora’s missing. Just gone. I’m worried, Mack.”

  “She probably stormed off on her own, like she did that first day,” he said. “She doesn’t exactly toe the line, you know?”

  “No. She took her clothes.” Cat’s worried eyes looked enormous in her pale, drawn face. “We have to start a search.” She turned to Mack. “Where could she go from here?”

  “Nowhere,” he said. “You know how far it is to town. And it’s not like she could hitchhike. She’d have to get a ride.”

  He hadn’t thought Cat could get any paler, but she looked like she was going to faint.

  “Trevor,” she said. “She must have gone with him.”

  “She’d never do that,” Viv said. “She couldn’t stand him.”

  “Then he made her go somehow.” She grabbed Mack’s arm. “We’ll have to call the police.”

  For a moment everything receded as if he was looking through the wrong end of a telescope. He remembered the stench of whiskey that had emanated from Trevor the night before, and the way his skin had crawled at the man’s touch.

  He didn’t see how Trevor could have taken Dora. He’d heard the guy leave. But he’d thought Dora was in Viv’s room, so once the guy left the house he’d assumed both girls were safe.

  “I’ll call the police,” he said. “We’ll get the state cops to put out an APB.”

  He tried to slow the whirling in his mind and think. Where would Trevor go? East of the ranch was a long stretch of featureless highway that led to Casper. West was the Wind River Canyon, and a trackless wilderness that was a frequent destination for desperadoes, runaways, and folks with dark secrets.

  He headed for the house—and the phone—at a run.

  Chapter 36

  Cat sat at the kitchen table, pinned to her chair by the sympathetic gaze of Madeleine Boyd. She was forcing down a cup of tea and wondering how long she’d have to sit there before she could start pacing again.

  “The police will be here any minute,” Madeleine said. Hank, who was sitting beside her, nodded solemnly.

  “Any minute?” Cat tilted her wrist to look at her watch for the fifth time in a minute. “It’s been half an hour.” She’d given them a description of the Lexus and they’d promised to put out an APB, whatever that was. But she could tell the operator wasn’t taking her seriously. There’d been a series of questions obviously designed to see if Dora was a runaway, and the woman had seemed skeptical of Cat’s assurances that her niece would never set out on her own.

  Fortunately, she hadn’t had to mention that Dora’s mother had just died, that she’d been having trouble in school, or that she’d been sulky and rebellious since she’d arrived. All those things pointed to a possible runaway, but she was sure Trevor had something to do with this. Dora wouldn’t just run off.

  If only she’d listened to Mack. If only she’d stopped fussing about her precious career and kept her niece safe. If anything happened to Dora because of her negligence, she’d never forgive herself.

  “I can’t just sit here.” Cat shook off Maddie’s calming hand and shot to her feet. “I need to do something.”

  “There’s not much you can do. And the police will do everything they can.”

  Cat knew she was right. The police would do everything they could—but it was precious little, and they wouldn’t have to do it if Cat hadn’t failed as a guardian. She ran through the events of last night in her head and felt like kicking herself. She’d left Dora and Viv to themselves. She’d told herself she was giving the girls a chance to bond, but the truth was she was relieved to shed her responsibilities and get some time alone with Mack.

  She’d assumed the girls were having a pajama party, painting their nails, and playing truth or dare while she got busy with the ranch’s handsome wrangler. But Viv said they’d turned in early, tired from their long day. Viv had slept in her room, and Dora had headed for the Heifer House.

  That was the last anyone saw of her. Unlike the bed in Viv’s room, her bunk was mussed as if it had been slept in, but she’d been up and out of bed before anyone saw her. Abby and Emma hadn’t been lying when they said they slept like the dead, and Cat had slept the heavy, dreamless sleep of the sated.

  The front door slammed. Cat leaped to her feet but slumped back into the chair when Viv ran into the room carrying a laptop.

  “You have to see this.” She set the laptop on the table and pointed triumphantly to the screen.

  Facebook. A photo of Dora beamed from the top. It was the photo Cat had found in the fire. If Dora didn’t like the photo, why would she use it online?

  Cat didn’t use the service herself. She knew she should; it would be a good way to promote her work. But it cut into valuable painting time, so she’d never paid much attention to it. “This is Dora’s page?”

  “She has 534 friends,” Viv said, as if that proved something.

  “Good for her,” Maddie said. “Popular.”

  “There’s, like, no way she can know all these people. And look.” Viv hit a button and scrolled through a list of contacts, with thumbnail pictures beside each name.

  When she stopped scrolling, Cat’s gaze immediately zoomed in on one picture in particular—and blanched. It looked like a typical high school yearbook photo from the nineties. The subject, a blond teenager with an angular jaw, faced the camera with his chin tilted slightly upward, giving him a supercilious air. The boy looked no more than eighteen, but there was no mistaking who it was.

  She gasped. “That’s Trevor Maines.”

  “Yup. Or at least, it was.” Viv clicked on the picture to enlarge it.

  “That has to be over ten years old,” Cat said. “He’s practically a teenager.”

  “I know.” Viv clicked back to Dora’s page. “And look. Dora tells everything she’s doing. Everywhere she’s going. I
ncluding here.”

  Cat grabbed the laptop with both hands and stared at the entries. Sure enough, Dora detailed her every move. From home in LA to the airport to Denver to the ranch. There were even links to the Art Treks site.

  “He’s posing as somebody younger online,” Viv said. “He’s stalking Dora. And he followed her here.”

  “Mack has to see this.” Cat scrolled down the page, noting some flirty status updates from Dora. There were lots of commenters, but she didn’t see Trevor among them. Still, Viv was right. Trevor was “following” Dora. And not just in the virtual world.

  Suddenly everything made sense. “The picture,” she said. “The burned picture. It was Trevor. He must have printed it off his computer, and he burned it so we wouldn’t find it.”

  Panic scrambled her brain. She needed Mack. He’d know what to do. He always knew when it came to Dora.

  Shoving her chair back so hard it hit the wall, she ran past Viv and out the door.

  ***

  Mack was stabling the last of the packhorses when Cat and Viv ran into the barn. He’d left Rembrandt saddled and ready, just in case they needed to mount a wilderness search. Normally, he could track just about anything, but between the Art Trekkers and the party the ranch was one big mass of footprints and tire tracks. And Trevor’s head start made it unlikely Mack would be able to catch him on the highway. The state police were far better equipped to find the silver Lexus somewhere on the highways and back roads of Wyoming.

  Ed, Abby, and Emma were gathered over by the hay bales, their faces drawn with worry.

  “I just wish I could do something,” Ed kept muttering. Emma would pat his arm every time he said it. Mack suspected he said it a lot. With all Ed’s high spirits, the limitations that came with age had to be frustrating.

  “Mack, look.” Cat burst into the barn carrying the laptop he’d given Viv for Christmas. Her normally glowing skin was pasty, and her pretty eyes were red-rimmed with dark circles around them. Behind her, Viv looked equally stressed.

  “Viv found Dora’s Facebook page.”

  “She was on it last night, and she left it open,” Viv said. “Guess who she’s friends with.”

  He took one look at the screen and felt his stomach bottom out. Trevor Maines.

  “He’s friends with Dora?”

  Viv nodded.

  “Maybe she’s just done that since she got here,” he said.

  “Nope.” Vivian set the laptop down on top of the cooler by the barn door. “See, if I click ‘see friendship’ it says how long they’ve been friends. It’s been over a year.”

  “Can you find his page?”

  Viv typed in “Trevor Maines” and found a page for something called “The Maines Event.” She clicked that one and brought up a page about fashion.

  “He said he was a fashion photographer,” Cat said. “At least that much was true.”

  “Yeah, but look at the models.” Mack pointed at a photo that had been added just two weeks earlier. It was a teenaged girl, clad skimpily in shorts and a torn T-shirt. She was giving the camera a pouty, sultry look that didn’t suit her obvious youth.

  Vivian clicked a link and brought up a blog, also called “The Maines Event.” It boasted more photos of young girls, introduced to the viewer with names like “Bambi” and “Lola.” The accompanying text gushed over their “waifish” and “childlike” qualities.

  It made Mack’s blood run cold. The photos were oddly clinical, the girls posing stiffly in come-hither poses against crushed velvet backdrops reminiscent of seventies-era yearbook photos.

  He glanced up at Cat and swallowed the urge to say “I told you so.” It wasn’t necessary. She looked devastated.

  “Maybe he took her for revenge,” Viv said. “He was pretty pissed at you, Dad.”

  “Then why doesn’t he take his revenge on me?”

  “Are you kidding? You flattened him.”

  Mack stared at the screen, his stomach churning with anger and dread. Putting an arm around Cat’s shoulders, he pulled her close, but she stiffened and moved away.

  “We’ll find her,” he said. “I swear we’ll find her. And when we do—well, revenge works both ways.”

  Chapter 37

  Cat and Viv hunched over the computer, exploring Trevor’s website.

  “Dora’s not into this fashion crap.” Cat winced, realizing Viv probably was. “Why would she have become Trevor’s ‘friend’ in the first place?”

  Viv was scrolling rapidly through the blog. “He posts coupons sometimes, and advice on makeup and stuff. Every girl clicks on that stuff once in a while—even Dora. And he has buttons right there to ‘like’ his Facebook page, and once she does, it’s easy for him to get her to ‘friend’ him. And look how many friends she has. I mean, she must just friend everybody.”

  “Was he having any conversations with Dora on Facebook?” Cat asked.

  Viv shook her head. “I couldn’t find any comments from him or anything. Not for the past few months, anyway. He’s probably just lurking.”

  “Lurking?”

  “Reading posts, but lying low. Not commenting. Then people forget you’re there.”

  Mack strode in the barn door. “How do you know about this stuff?” he demanded.

  Viv rolled her eyes. “I’m smack-dab in the middle of the Facebook demographic, Dad. I have to know about this stuff. Would you rather I didn’t know about lurkers?”

  “Guess not.”

  Ed toddled into the barn, moving stiffly from his days in the saddle. “You seen Charles?” he asked. “Me and the ladies haven’t seen him all day.”

  Cat met Mack’s eyes and saw her own worries reflected there.

  “Do you think…”

  “I don’t know what to think anymore,” Mack said. “Did anyone see him at breakfast?”

  Cat opened and closed her mouth a few times before she managed to answer. “He was there. But he left as soon as I said Dora was missing. Do you think…”

  She didn’t have to finish. The idea that Charles could be in cahoots with Trevor struck them all speechless.

  “He wouldn’t,” Abby said. “He’s a good guy.” She ducked her head, and her plump face flushed scarlet. Maybe Cat wasn’t the only one who was enjoying something more than the scenery at the Boyd Dude Ranch.

  Emma looked up into Abby’s flushed face. “You’re not involved with him, are you?”

  “Not really,” Abby muttered. “Well, maybe a little. And, Mom, you liked him. You know how nice he was. You said he was a gentle giant.”

  “We don’t really know him, though,” Emma said. “And that tattoo…”

  “Exactly.” Ed had folded his arms across his chest and thrown his shoulders back. “Why would a good guy have a tattoo like that? I think he’s been in prison, or maybe a gang.”

  The light dimmed as a hulking shadow filled the barn’s doorway.

  “Nope. Not a gang.” The light returned to normal as Charles stepped inside. Fishing a wallet out of his back pocket, he flipped it open to reveal a brass shield.

  Cat and Viv were openly gaping at the man, and Mack wasn’t doing much better. “You’re a cop?”

  “FAM.” He snapped the wallet closed and took in their blank looks. “Federal Air Marshall.”

  All three of them goggled at him. He grinned, then let out a chuckle and turned to Ed. “Surprise.”

  “Oh.” Ed waved a hand vaguely in the air. “I thought it might be something like that. Didn’t want to give you away. You’re undercover, right?”

  “I prefer to call it camouflage.” Charles shoved the wallet back in his pocket with his lizard-bedecked hand. “It helps to blend in with the bad guys.”

  “So what can you do?” Cat quickly caught him up with what they’d found and showed him the website. “This is Trevor’s website. He came ba
ck last night, but he’s gone now—and so is Dora. We think he—he…” She couldn’t go on.

  “We think he took her,” Viv said.

  Charles studied the screen a moment.

  “You might be right,” he said. “That guy’s been putting my back up the whole trip.”

  “I don’t want to be right,” Cat murmured. Mack put an arm around her. She thought about shrugging it off, but this was one of those times when it felt good to be taken care of—even if he couldn’t solve the problem.

  “You got any info on him?” Charles asked.

  “I can check the forms,” Cat said. “But the company doesn’t do background checks.” She looked sheepish. “I didn’t even know peoples’ ages. He probably lied anyway.”

  “He flew here, right?”

  She nodded.

  “Whose computer is this?”

  Viv raised her hand like a school student. “Mine.”

  “Mind if I use it to check a few things?”

  Viv shook her head quickly. “Go for it.”

  “We’ll check NCIC, see if he has a record. See if there have been any similar episodes. We’ll…”

  “NCIC?” Mack asked.

  “National Criminal Information Center.”

  “See?” Abby punched the air. “Told you he was one of the good guys. We’ll have that jerk roped and hog-tied in no time.” She winked at Cat. “And then you two can ride off into the sunset like in one of those old movies.”

  She was talking to Mack and Cat, but she glanced over at Charles as she said it and the two of them exchanged knowing smiles. There was definitely something going on there. And they probably had a better chance at a happy ending than he and Cat did. Right now, it seemed like the two of them were riding off into a thunderstorm, not a sunset.

  ***

  Charles was clearly more at home on a computer than he was in the saddle. He played the keyboard like a piano, filing a form on one federal database, then killing time while he waited for a response by uncovering a LinkedIn profile that outlined Trevor’s career as an employee of the State of New York. In real life, Maines was nothing but a petty bureaucrat who distributed recycling containers and oversaw the sorting of paper from plastic.