by Joanna Wayne
Matt eased closer. “Is that why you killed her, too, Logan, because she wanted to dump you for another man?”
“She didn’t want to dump me for another man. She was scared of me. That’s why she wanted a divorce. But there was no way I was going to stand by while she cut me out of her will. She left me no choice but to kill her.”
Matt stepped closer. “But you made it look like an accident.”
“That part was easy. I delivered the killing blow to her head and then threw her under the feet of a horse that I drove to kick and buck.”
“And Jake protected you.”
“Jake McQuaid would have arrested his own mother for jaywalking. Only one person ever spit crosswise of the law and escaped his punishment.”
“Susan Hathaway.” Heather didn’t realize she’d spoken the name out loud until she heard her own voice.
“Yeah. Jake worshiped her, though she never told him the truth. If she had, it would have saved Heather a lot of trouble. She wouldn’t have gone looking for a woman you and your brothers had already found.”
Heather swallowed past the lump in her throat. “What are you saying, Logan?”
“Do I have to spell it out for you?”
Matt eased closer. “Tell Heather all of it, Logan. Susan and Kathy Warren were the same woman. You stole Susan’s ID after you and your buddies had beaten her and left her for dead.”
“Double jeopardy. I wonder how well you’d do in the lightning round. Too bad we don’t have time to find out.” He pulled back the hammer, cocking the pistol. “But you’re right so far, on all counts. Kathy Warren—or should I say Susan—wandered from the bus stop crying. She stumbled behind the building and right into a little beating that turned real ugly.”
“And the good sheriff never bothered to find out that you were the one responsible?”
“Jake’s priorities had changed by then. It wasn’t me or Billy Roy or even my wife your dad was worried about.”
“Who was he worried about?”
“Susan Hathaway. He’d have killed to keep her safe, if it had come to that. Instead he took her and her secrets and left town. I don’t think she remembered what she’d seen or even who she was at first. All Jake knew was that she was running away from something.”
“But why did you kill Ariana?” Matt asked, inching still closer. “You didn’t mistake her for Heather.”
Logan sidestepped, moving so he could see out the window. Heather held her breath. The gun was cocked and ready to fire. One slip of his finger, and she’d be dead.
“Ariana’s killing was none of my doing. She didn’t know anything. No one does, except me and Rube and Paul. That’s how you get people to keep secrets, Matt. You involve them in the crime.”
“Evidently Paul changed his mind about keeping quiet.”
“No more talking, Ranger. It’s over. You first, then your pretty woman.”
Something rumbled above them and a rotten piece of lumber crashed through the ceiling and onto the floor. Heather ducked just as the pistol in Logan’s hand fired, the bullet skimming the top of her head.
Matt lunged for Logan, grabbing his hand. Heather spun around, looking for something, anything, to slam into Logan’s head. The gun. Matt’s gun. Her gaze swept the room and then back to Matt and Logan.
One second they were scuffling. The next the gun had gone off. A horrible cracking noise thundered in her head as she stared at the dark crimson stain darkening Matt’s shirt.
Heather swayed dizzily, her stomach churning wildly. She fell to the floor and placed her hand over the wound. “Matt, I’m here. Don’t die on me. Please, don’t die.” Tears rolled down her cheek mingling with the blood as he stared at her through glazed eyes.
“No need to worry, Heather. You’re going with him.”
“No, Logan, please. Call an ambulance. You’ll never get away with this, but if you get help for Matt...”
“No one will blame me for this tragedy. The stranger in town, the one whose car you found the other day, will make a perfect scapegoat. Folks around here will blame a stranger long before they’ll blame me. I’m one of the good-ole-boys.”
This time when the gun fired, Heather clung all the tighter to Matt’s hand. At least they’d die together. She waited for the pain. It didn’t come. She felt nothing but emptiness and the sting of the foul curses from Logan’s mouth.
She turned and watched him sink to the floor beside her, his hands clutching his chest. And then she looked up and into the eyes of the man who’d just dropped from the attic and saved her life.
“So, we finally meet,” he said, moving to stand beside her. “I’ll say this for you. You’re just as much trouble as your mother.” The man kicked Logan’s body, rolling it over.
Relief surged through her. “I don’t know who you are, but I’m glad you’re here. Get the cellular phone from the truck in front and call 911. And hurry. Please hurry.” She bent back over Matt, feeling desperately for a pulse, whispering assurances in his ear.
“We’ll call on the way out. I’d like to keep the Ranger alive myself. It would make life easier on me. Now get up. We’re getting out of here.”
“I can’t leave Matt. He’s been shot.”
“You’ll do as I say.” He kicked her in the thigh to prove his point. “Get up and start walking.” He yanked her to a standing position.
Confusion dulled her senses. She wiped away tears and stood, holding on to Matt’s limp hand until the man forced her toward the door.
Middle-aged, thin blond hair. Edna’s description of the man she’d seen in Heather’s motel room rattled through her mind.
“Who are you?” The words stuck in her throat, scratchy and hoarse when they finally worked their way clear.
“David Eisman. Your dear mother’s ex-husband. Now keep walking. I want you breathing, but I don’t care what shape you’re in, so make it easy or hard on yourself. It doesn’t matter a bit to me.”
“What do you want from me?”
“The ransom your grandparents should have paid years ago for your mother. But don’t worry, I’ll get the money this time. Pamela will see to that. She’ll make the Jessups pay to keep her precious daughter alive. The baby she carried inside her bulging belly was the only thing I ever saw her care about.”
Heather stumbled to the truck, David Eisman beside her, leaving a shot and bleeding Matt behind her. She’d finally come face to face with her past and discovered a horrifying nightmare. She no longer cared what happened to her, but, please, God, she begged silently, don’t let Matt die.
GABBY STOOD OVER Matt’s hospital bed. “Too bad we didn’t ID the fingerprints on that deserted car a little sooner. Then we’d have known they matched the ones we found in Heather’s motel room.”
“Too bad we didn’t know a little sooner that the ones in the motel room belonged to David Eisman.” Matt’s hands knotted into fists, his nerves ragged and raw. “David Eisman, out of prison early on good behavior. And now the filthy scum has Heather.” Anger and frustration tore at his voice.
“I’m doing what I can to find her, Matt. Me and half the men in town have combed the area around your old home place looking for her, and the Rangers are sending help.”
“All this and I’m lying up here useless. Did you find the truck I’d borrowed from Billinger?”
“No, I guess Eisman still has it. There’s no telling where he’s gone with Heather.”
Matt wrung the sheet into a tight knot. “I just hope I get my hands on him. I’d like to tear him apart, limb by sorry limb.”
“You better get a sight healthier than you are now before you tangle with anybody. You’re lucky to be alive.”
“I’m healthy enough. What I need’s a vehicle. Get Heather’s car for me.”
“You’re not going anywhere.”
“I’ll decide that. I want the car brought to the hospital. Do you understand?”
“You’re not the only one who can find Eisman, Matt.”
“No one else has done it yet. Just get me the car.”
“I’ll have it brought over first thing in the morning.”
“I want it tonight. Now find my clothes. I’m tired of wearing this gown.”
The sheriff backed toward the door. “The nurse said not to let you con me into anything.”
“In that case, I’ll get up and find them myself.” Matt slid his legs over the side of the bed, and the room spun dizzily around him, round and round until the world went black.
Gabby lifted Matt’s feet and laid them back across the bed. Then he pushed the emergency button and waited for the nurse.
HEATHER PICKED AT the sandwich of dry bread and smelly luncheon meat David Eisman had given her for lunch. For two days, they’d been holed up in a rattrap of a cabin. She had no idea where it was, except that they hadn’t driven more than a few miles. At least Eisman had told her Matt was alive and recovering. To be stuck here without knowing whether he was dead or alive would have been unbearable.
She forced a bite of the sandwich down her parched throat. Eisman gave her little enough food or water, and she had to try to keep her strength up. Given half a chance, she’d run.
“Just a few more days, Heather,” Eisman commented, sitting on a bale of hay and whittling on a stick of wood. “As soon as your Ranger friend gets out of the hospital, I have a message for him. He’s the perfect emissary to deliver the ransom note. Matt McQuaid, the kid Pamela raised like her own son.”
A low, sinister laugh rolled from Eisman’s lips, and he dropped the piece of wood to the floor and walked over to stand in front of her. “The irony of all of this appeals to my twisted sense of justice.”
“It would.”
“You sound awful high-and-mighty. But you’re nothing but the offspring of rich garbage. Your mom was no good, and your dad was worse.”
“Who was my dad?”
His eyebrows shot up. “Don’t you know?”
“I wouldn’t have asked if I’d known. I only hope it’s not you.”
“You’d be a sight luckier if I was your father, but I’m not.”
“I doubt you know who my father was.”
“Oh, I know all right. Haven’t you heard of the famous rape? No, I guess not. You wouldn’t have been looking for your mom if you’d known how black your past really was.”
His gaze walked across Heather and her skin crawled under his slimy assessment.
“Or maybe you would,” he continued, picking strands of hair from her shoulder and releasing them to fall back about her face. “Maybe you’re in it for the money, too.”
Heather swallowed past a choking lump in her throat. Pamela Jessup and Phillip Gould. Her birth parents. No, Pamela Jessup no longer existed. Her mother was Susan Hathaway, the woman who’d loved and cared for Matt. A good woman, Matt had said so over and over. She wouldn’t let herself think about Phillip Gould.
“Are you the one who went to the orphanage and told them Kathy Warren had died?”
“No, that was your loving father, protecting his own hide, as usual. Not that he didn’t get it in the end. He’s in jail now on other charges. Once rotten, always rotten.”
Heather rubbed her hand along the cuts on her wrist. Her hands were free now, but they’d be in ropes again soon. Her legs as well. That was the way Eisman made sure she’d always be there when he got back. Wherever it was he went, he left her behind, with only the spiders and the wail of the coyotes for company. Still, they were better company than he’d ever be.
MATT WAITED UNTIL the nurse left the room and then spit the sleeping pill into a paper napkin. He raised himself to a sitting position, swallowing his moans and curses as pain shot through his body. He had to get out of this place, had to find Heather. He’d tried to leave yesterday when Gabby was here, but his body had refused to function.
Stretching, he grabbed his shirt from the hanger and shoved his arms through the sleeves. He didn’t bother tucking it into his pants or buttoning it over the bandage that covered his chest. A second later he shuffled out the door and down the hall before anyone could notice and stop him.
MATT STUDIED the ransom note. It had been waiting for him when he’d gotten home from the hospital. Tucked under the front mat, one white edge stuck out so that he couldn’t miss it.
I have Heather. I’ll exchange her for a million dollars of Jessup money or I’ll leave her dead. No tricks, Ranger McQuaid. I’m through playing games. Have the money ready before I call.
Eisman had to be the one who’d delivered the note. That meant he was somewhere in Dry Creek, waiting for the money. But where? Matt went to the sink and let the water trickle from the tap until it ran cool before filling a glass and drinking it down.
David Eisman had been in town for a while. Thinking back, Matt realized he’d probably been on the Lone M the night the horses acted up. He was probably the one who’d fooled with the ax. Perhaps it had been in his hand, a planned weapon for the middle of the night. The thought released a new surge of adrenaline, and Matt paced the floor of his small house.
Eisman had also been at the motel. And Matt and Heather had found his car deserted on the road between here and town. Matt scribbled a series of meaningless doodles on the pad at his fingertips, then began drawing a rough map. Here, the motel, the highway...
And Logan Trenton’s ranch. Heather thought she had seen someone watching her when she visited Lassiter’s grave the day before the party.
Matt’s mind swung into overdrive. There was an old shack out there, between the cemetery and the stables. He and his brothers had played in it one time when they’d been out at the ranch with Jake. The shack, a former bunkhouse, hadn’t been used in decades except by rats, snakes, and scorpions.
Matt grabbed a couple of guns and headed for his truck. He’d call Gabby on the way.
A COYOTE HOWLED outside the cabin, too close for comfort. Eisman pointed his shotgun in the direction. “I don’t know why anybody in their right mind would choose to live in this godforsaken dust pit,” he muttered.
“Some people like it.”
“They can have it—soon. I’ll give McQuaid twenty-four hours after he gets out of the hospital to get the money.”
“Does he know that?”
“Not yet. He’ll find out when the time comes.”
“Will you be delivering the instructions for the exchange in person?”
“No. I’ll call from a pay phone. He can meet me at the edge of town with a small plane and the money. Then he can come back here and find your body.”
Her body. She’d known all along he planned to kill her, but hearing it said gave it a finality that left her nauseous. “Did you plant that bomb in my car, Eisman?”
“Yes, my only mistake, but it worked out in my favor. It was supposed to explode while you were in it.”
“You couldn’t have gotten a ransom if you’d killed me then.”
“I know. The ransom idea didn’t hit me till later, but it was choice, don’t you think? At first I only planned to kill you to get back at Pamela. The bitch walked away scot-free while I rotted in jail. A sorrier wife never lived, but I liked imagining her face when she opened a box with little pieces of her long-lost daughter inside.”
The image turned Heather’s blood icy cold. Still, she needed to keep Eisman talking, find out what she could, just in case she did get out of this alive. “You killed Ariana, didn’t you? You just stood there and put a bullet through her chest at close range.”
“The woman in your motel room? Yeah. I killed her. She was strutting around in your clothes. I guess the temptation of dressing up in nice things was too great for her to pass up. I came in and saw her preening in front of the mirror. I thought I was killing you. Imagine my disappointment when I realized my mistake.”
“You poor guy.”
“You’re Pamela’s daughter all right. Sassy like her. Pretty like her, too.”
He ran his rough fingers down Heather’s arm. She jerked away.
“
You think you’re too good for me, don’t you?”
“I think everyone’s too good for you.”
He raised his hand and slapped her across the face. She reeled from the pain, but held her ground. If she was going to die anyway, she’d do it without his filthy hands on her body.
“I should have ruined you that night in your car, sliced you up so badly the Ranger would have gotten sick just looking at you.”
“That was you!” She should have known. “But why, if you’d already planted a bomb in my car?”
“I ran into Logan Trenton at a bar outside of town right after the bomb didn’t blow. My reputation was already spreading, thanks to the two-bit cowboy I’d roughed up the night before. Logan paid me and one of his cowardly hired hands to beat you up. Imagine getting paid for something that brought me so much pleasure.”
He chuckled, and the sinister sound of it sent shivers up Heather’s spine. “If Matt hadn’t come along when he did, you would have killed me?”
“Lucky for me he did. Now I’ll get my million and have my fun, too.” Eisman jerked to face the door. “What was that?”
“A coyote. Why don’t you go out and keep him company?”
“Not the coyote. The other noise.”
“I didn’t hear anything.” She hadn’t, but still, hope swelled in her chest. People would be looking for her by now. Matt would see to that. “Are you scared, Eisman?”
“Keep quiet.”
“No, let’s make noise.” She grabbed a loose board and hurled it against the wall.
Eisman was on her in a second, wrestling her to the floor and pinning her under him while he tied her hands. “One more peep out of you and I’ll feed you to the coyotes.”
He pulled a pistol from his belt just as the door burst open and a bright light flooded the room. Heather squinted, barely making out Matt’s form behind the light. She rolled away from Eisman as a shot rang out.