BIG SKY SECRETS 01: Final Exposure

by Roxanne Rustand

  “Are you sulking?”

  He didn’t stir.

  “I suppose you would’ve liked sledding today.”

  His tail thumped once against the side of the kennel.

  “And…I suppose you think I forgot you outside. Which I did.”

  Again, a single, halfhearted thump.

  “Maybe you could come with me tonight. Max would like that, and you’ve been alone a lot today. I just need to get my camera and laptop, and we can pick up a few groceries in the store. Okay?”

  She went into the bedroom and crouched to reach under the bed, then rocked back on her heels. Where was it? Swiveling, she glanced around the room. It was always under the bed, out of sight, unless she was using it here or at the shop. Always.

  After a thorough search of every possible place, she picked up her camera, whistled to Charlie and went to the store. There she hunted through the store with him close at her heels, while grabbing the ingredients for supper along the way.

  The laptop wasn’t in the store, either.

  She stared at her reflection in the front windows of the store, suddenly uneasy. She couldn’t see out, but anyone could see in, as clearly as if she was on TV. What if someone was out there watching her every move?

  She’d had that odd feeling when pulling her jacket from the closet. A sense that things weren’t exactly right. The same sensation in the bedroom. Yet nothing had appeared to be missing until now. If someone had broken in to rob the place, why hadn’t he snagged her jewelry box?

  Her grandmother’s pearls were inside. A considerable collection of Black Hills Gold she’d bought one piece at a time. The box, less than a foot long, would have been easy to carry, or its contents dumped into a pillowcase. And yet nothing inside was missing.

  Which left the laptop as a specific target. But it was several years old and hardly a gem in today’s rapidly changing technology market.

  So who would want it…and why?

  “I hope you don’t mind Charlie coming along,” Erin said as Jack ushered her into his kitchen. “He’s been alone all day, and he seems depressed.”

  Jack reached down to ruffle the fur behind the dog’s ears. “No problem. Max loves him.”

  “Lie down, Charlie.” She watched the pup obediently go to the corner by the kitchen table and plop down, then look around. “It’s so quiet here. Where’s Max?”

  “Still sleeping, but last time I looked he was starting to stir.” He unpacked the grocery sack while she slipped out of her jacket.

  “Sorry I’m late.” She blew at her bangs. “I fell asleep in the bathtub, had to take Charlie outside, needed to pick these groceries and—unfortunately—spent a lot of time searching for my laptop.”

  “Where’d you find it?”

  “I didn’t. I usually stow it in a computer bag under the bed when I leave, so it isn’t too tempting to someone breaking in.” She sighed in frustration. “I searched the cottage, top to bottom. Then I looked around the store, just in case.”

  “Did someone take it?”

  “I think so, but that’s what’s strange. I had jewelry in plain sight on the bureau, along with some cash, and those things weren’t touched. Why would someone want an old laptop and not nab the twenty dollars?”

  “I lost my laptop in my house once. It was lying on the carpet and got nudged under a sofa. Another time, I found it on an end table under a pile of newspapers.”

  “Well, I looked everywhere twice, and mine is gone. But when I call this in, the sheriff is going to think I’m just imagining things again. What proof do I have that it was ever here?” She bit her lower lip. “Even Isabelle thinks I’m worrying over nothing, yet more and more things keep happening. If only I’d had a recording of the phone call, it would be something to go on.”

  Jack turned sharply to look at her. “You got a phone call?”

  “A heavy breather at first…then he mocked my inability to prove I’d had any trouble whatsoever.” She opened the cupboard and pulled out a frying pan, turned on the stove and the oven, then dumped a package of ground beef into the pan. “I know he was trying to scare me, but he was right. No proof. And of course, the caller ID said the number was unavailable.”

  “You need a security system.”

  “And a security light or two behind the store. I’ve already called the power company, but they can’t get at the light for another week or two.” She opened several drawers until she found a plastic spatula, then started breaking up the browning ground beef. “Want to stir up that box of brownies?”

  He nodded, checked the box and retrieved three eggs from the fridge, then washed his hands at the sink. “What about the security system?”

  “A guy is coming up from Red Lodge on Wednesday.” She watched him neatly crack each egg one-handed and grinned. “Hey, you’re pretty good.”

  “College job at an all-night diner. Just the basics.” He tossed the shells in the trash. “Frankly I’m worried about you staying alone at that cottage, if Ollie really saw someone lurking by your windows at night. You’ve had a threatening phone call and now your laptop is missing. Whoever this guy is, he’s escalating.”

  “But if he’s actually broken into the cottage, surely he saw that I have nothing of great value to steal. Don’t those people usually go after fancy electronics and such?”

  Jack pulled a bottle of canola oil from the cupboard and measured some into the bowl. “Maybe it’s something else. Maybe…your grandfather was known for something. Coin collections. Or his aversion to banks, so he hid his cash in odd places.”

  She laughed at that. “Not Gramps. He’s a firm believer in CDs and T-bills.”

  Max shuffled into the kitchen sleepy-eyed, but his face brightened when he saw Erin and the puppy. “You came!” he exclaimed, running over to the corner. He dropped to his knees and hugged Charlie’s neck.

  But instead of joyously licking the child’s face and bounding into dizzying circles, the pup cringed and drew back.

  “Look at that.” She studied the cowering puppy, and a sudden realization made her feel sick to her stomach. “He was in the cottage when we went to the church potluck dinner, and I left him loose when I got back because he’s been doing well with his housetraining. Ever since, he’s been different—terrified, reclusive. I’ll bet my intruder came while we were gone.”

  She called softly to Charlie. He whined, but when she called again, he belly-crawled across the floor to her. When she ran a hand over his body, he yelped when she touched his side.

  Max’s eyes widened. “Is he hurt?”

  She gently examined his ribs. “There’s no heat or swelling, but I’ll bet he’s bruised, right here.” She looked up at Max. “Maybe a little, like when you fall down. I’ll take him to the vet if he’s still sore tomorrow.”

  “We’ve got Band-Aids.”

  “He’s not bleeding, so I think we’re okay.” She smiled to reassure him. “Just don’t pet his side, okay? Maybe it would be better if you just let him rest awhile.” She stood, turned to Jack and lowered her voice. “I think he got kicked or hit, and I can’t tell you how angry I feel. An old computer is one thing, but to hurt a sweet, trusting puppy is beyond comprehension.”

  “And now we know the guy is probably capable of violence.” Jack nodded and briefly rested a hand at her cheek. “I’m worried about you, Erin.”

  “I’m a big girl. I won’t do anything foolish.”

  “You need to call that sheriff. And now, I definitelydon’t think you should be staying alone in that cottage until this guy is caught, or you have that security system in place. There’s certainly room here—or maybe you could stay at the motel in town.”

  The options sounded appealing. But drawing danger to the rental house could risk the safety of a small child, and the old strip motel, set off in the pines and away from the lights of town, sounded even less secure.

  “I’ve got a gun, actually. My grandfather’s.” She hoped her voice sounded more confident than she really fe
lt. “So don’t worry—I’ll be just fine.”

  ELEVEN

  After the supper dishes were done, Erin pulled her digital camera from the pocket of her coat. “If you have a computer handy, we can look at the sledding photos. Maybe I’ll see a few that I can delete, and then I can get a shot of those two right now.”

  Max had finally lured Charlie from beneath the table, and the two of them were stretched out on the living-room floor. Max had one arm draped over the dog’s shoulders and with the other hand he was turning the pages of Go, Dog. Go!

  He was laboriously sounding out the words on each page, and if Erin didn’t know better, she’d think the dog was actually looking at the storybook, too.

  Jack brought out his laptop and opened it on the kitchen table, then turned it on. Once the startup process brought up the desktop, she slipped the card in and launched the photo program. A flood of photos rapidly populated the screen.

  “Oh, my,” she breathed. “I’d forgotten what a beautiful day it was for the wedding. It seems like a lifetime ago. I hadn’t even looked at these until now.”

  Jack braced a hand on the table and leaned over her shoulder to peer at the tiny thumbnail views. “You should be a professional photographer.”

  “Thanks. I’d be nervous about taking that kind of responsibility, but I love taking candids for friends and relatives, then giving them an album for their first anniversary.

  “This one was held in a state park close to Denver. It was just gorgeous, with the start of the fall colors and all those trees.”

  She clicked on the first photo and laughed when it filled the screen. “The bride, Linda, is one of my best friends, and the disgruntled flower girl is her niece. The ring bearer had just walloped her with his little satin pillow, so by the time I snapped the photo, both kids were in tears.”

  Jack chuckled. “Since your laptop is missing, go ahead and look through all of them while you have a chance. Max is busy, and I can check through the last package of mail my secretary forwarded up here.”

  She eagerly clicked on the next photo, then smiled up at him. “This is like opening birthday presents, getting to see how these all turned out.”

  Jack disappeared into one of the main-floor bedrooms, where he’d apparently set up an office, and she turned back to the photos.

  A wave of nostalgia hit her as the wedding day unfolded before her eyes. Family. Friends. Joy and confidence shining in the couple’s eyes. I once thought I’d have that, too, Lord…but I guess that isn’t what You have in store for me.

  She scrolled through several hundred shots, deleting the ones with obvious flaws, until she got to the departure of the bride and groom. Jack wasn’t back yet and Max was still reading to the dog, so she continued into the several dozen or so that she’d taken of the surrounding park after Linda and her husband had left for their honeymoon.

  “Breathtaking,” she murmured, studying a glittery waterfall tumbling over rugged boulders. Aspens formed brilliant yellow sentinels framing the photo, their skeletal white trunks in stark contrast to the charcoal-gray rock.

  Jack came out into the kitchen. “Did you say something?”

  “If you have a minute, look at these with me. I used a 300mm telephoto to shoot these from across a river running through the park. Until now, I didn’t know if they’d be sharp enough with that lens, but maybe they’re okay.”

  She studied the photo a moment longer, then pressed Slide Show for the rest of the photos to move automatically from one to the next. “Maybe I could frame some prints and sell them in the store.”

  He nodded. “Or you could do a coffee-table book, though I have no idea of how one goes about getting those published. These are excellent shots.”

  “Well, oops. Guess I goofed on these.”

  She studied a series of photos with brilliantly backlit gold and ruby leaves that seemed to glow and leap from the screen. There was a stray male figure in each one, off to the side.

  As the photos automatically marched past in slideshow mode, he appeared to be coming out of the undergrowth, then into full view, as if in a jerky, old-time movie.

  “I was using motor drive to shoot these and didn’t even notice him. I could try cropping him, but then the balance would be lost.”

  “You could try to use Photoshop to get him out.”

  “Or I could just add these to the wedding album—though come to think of it, he probably wasn’t with us. I don’t think there was a bridge anywhere in the area, so he couldn’t have gotten over the river.” She stopped the slide show and leaned forward, trying to make out his features, then hit Zoom to enlarge the view. “Yet we were in an awfully remote part of the park.”

  The sudden appearance of the man’s surly features startled her. “What an unpleasant guy.”

  She increased the zoom until the photo turned grainy. Behind him was a long, dark shadow of something on the ground. A boulder? A log? If she let her imagination run wild, it could even be a pile of dirt from digging a good-size hole.

  Jack frowned. “What is he holding—a rifle? I think it’s a long handle of some kind. It’s…it’s…”

  “Go back a frame or two.”

  They went through all the photos of the stranger, one by one, enlarging each. Watching the evolution of his dawning awareness that he was being photographed from afar. The morphing of his expression from smug to fierce.

  Erin felt her heart beat faster. “I could be wrong, but it looks like a shovel to me. What was he doing in the middle of nowhere with something like that?”

  “It could be a long walking stick. Lots of hikers carry them in the mountains. And I still think it could be the barrel of a rifle.”

  “Or a shovel,” she repeated.

  “If so, maybe he was illegally burying his dog out there to save the cost of cremation at a vet’s. That could account for his expression at being caught on film.”

  “Or he could’ve been stealing protected vegetation of some kind,” she suggested dryly.

  “I know you’re afraid that this might be something far worse. Do you remember hearing anything on the news that night?”

  She shook her head. “As soon as I finished taking these pictures, I hurried back to my car so I could head for Lost Falls. I had a long drive ahead of me, and I hate traveling late at night when I’m tired. I listened to CDs all the way.”

  “Maybe you should talk to your friends in Colorado and see if they remember anything.”

  “I will.” She glanced at her watch. “It’s still early enough. I think I’ll run to the drugstore in Lost Falls and get prints made of these. You can send away for double prints or use their automatic machine. The store doesn’t close until ten.”

  Max wandered over to the table. “Can I see the snow pictures now?”

  “Of course you can, sweetheart.” Erin gave him a quick hug and pulled him onto her lap. “Let’s look at them right now, and then I’ll get prints made for you, too.”

  Jack disappeared, then came back with an armload of their jackets. “We should go. I’ll give you a ride, Erin.”

  “That’s not necessary,” she protested. “Really.”

  He tipped his head toward the windows and the black night beyond. He smiled, but there was a definite thread of steel in his voice. “Then let us come along just to make me feel better. Please.”

  Grace Millard had worked at the drugstore when Erin was a child, and she’d looked old and gray even then.

  Now she appeared to be pushing 110, but she still had a spritely bounce to her step and a twinkle in her eye as she toddled over to the photo machine and gave it a swift, hard kick with a lace-up roper boot. “Silly thing. I swear it decides to balk like an old mule just to spite me. Try again.”

  Erin dutifully touched the proper buttons, but once again, all the lights flashed on and off, and then the screen read Service Needed.

  “Humph.” Grace folded her bony arms across her chest. “It was working earlier today for the Sampson. They were in he
re for a good half hour printing their Hawaii pictures.”

  “How soon will a repairman be here to fix it?”

  “He comes from Billings and has to put me on the schedule for when he’s in the area. Could be a day, could be a week or two.”

  Jack glanced up at the clock. “Is there another place in town?”

  “A couple of tourist shops have them, but those stores are closed till spring. Closest is Battle Creek. But that’s thirty-six miles and the roads are pretty icy up that way. You’d never make it in time for tonight.”

  Erin sighed. “Not a good option.”

  “If it isn’t a rush, you could just use the mailers. Cheaper, plus you get doubles and a CD copy, to boot. There’s a pickup tomorrow and then they’d be back here in a week. Of course you get your memory cards back, empty and ready to go.”

  She could come back another day, but there’d still be no guarantee that the processing machine would be repaired. And keeping the memory card any longer sent an uneasy feeling twisting through her stomach.

  She reached for one of the mailer envelopes, filled it out and sealed the memory card inside, then dropped it through the photo mailer slot in the counter.

  She smiled at the older woman. “You sold me, Grace. Sounds like a good idea.”

  Grace tilted her head and gave her an odd look. “Is everything all right?”

  “Fine—just busy.”

  Grace frowned. “Well, you just look mighty stressed. I think of you girls often, you know. I remember when you and your cousins would come to stay with Millie and Pete. You three were such scamps, and you all grew up to be such lovely young ladies.” Grace shook her head sadly. “But poor little Laura…Oh, my. I’ll never forget that night. Nosiree.”

  You and me both. Uncomfortable with the grisly memories that started creeping back into her thoughts, Erin hiked the strap of her purse higher on her shoulder and gave Jack a pointed look. “I guess we’d better get going, don’t you think?”