Cowboy Undercover

Her voice was too highly pitched and the papers seemed to slip through her fingers. Chance wanted to tell her to calm down but he knew better than to even suggest such a thing.

“There was no demand for ransom, right?” Chance asked.

“No.”

“Is it possible Jeremy staged the kidnapping to throw you off?”

“Why bother? I’m just a pesky gnat to him.”

“Don’t underestimate yourself,” Chance said. “You can be a hell of a lot more than pesky when you put your mind to it.”

“Thanks,” she said with a sudden smile.

“What’s to keep us from calling the cops?”

“Jeremy said—”

“The man lies as easily as a duck quacks.”

“But this time he may be telling the truth. I can’t risk it until I know more.”

Chance stopped arguing. All it took was one glance at her bruised and bloodied face to make the veins pop in his forehead. No one knew better than he how focused and relentless she could be, but the fact that Jeremy felt he had the right to strike her made his blood boil.

Boiling blood aside, the bigger issue was Charlie. Little Charlie, stolen from his bed, held...well, why? As a hostage? As retribution? What did a five-year-old kid have to make retribution for? Who in the world would take out their hatred for a man on his very young child?

No one sane. Ergo, a lunatic had Charlie. And a lunatic might harm the boy if threatened.

“Here’s something,” she said, holding up a piece of newspaper. “A man Jeremy prosecuted died of cancer while serving a life sentence. It says, ‘Levi Bolt, 68, expired Wednesday—’”

Chance cut her off. “His parents would have to be in their eighties. Keep looking.”

They fell silent as they searched. “Look at this,” she said a few minutes later. He glanced at her face to find that the blood had congealed and her eye had swollen almost closed. He stood up.

“Lily, let me help you clean those wounds.”

“Not yet,” she said. “Read this to me. It’s not long.”

He took the paper from her hand and read the article aloud.

“‘Police today reported an inmate apparently committed suicide early Saturday morning by hanging himself in his cell. Darke Fallon, estimated age eighteen, was found at 3:25 a.m., January 14. He was being held pending proceedings that were to have started on Monday to determine competency. Prison medical staff attempted life-saving measures before transporting him to Charity Hill Medical Center where he was pronounced dead. Results of toxicology tests were unavailable for review.

“Fallon is accused of the January 10 murder of Mr. Wallace Connor, 21, of Greenville, Idaho, who was found knifed to death in a Boise motel where he had reportedly traveled for a job interview. Twenty-four hours later, police spotted Connor’s truck. The driver, Darke Fallon, confessed to the murder but shortly after arrest, ceased cooperating with police. He claimed Connor picked him up while Fallon was hitchhiking from his home in Bend, Oregon, but that could not be confirmed. State appointed attorneys swore to fight demands for hypnosis to establish identity. It is unknown if Mr. Fallon leaves any survivors. The prosecutor’s office, headed by Jeremy Block, refused comment.’”

“How could the police not find a trace of him?” Chance mused aloud. “Apparently no fingerprints, no family stepping forward, no Social Security number, no one has ever seen or heard about him before? That seems so unlikely in this day and age.”

“I know, I know,” Lily said, “But his parents would be young enough to steal Charlie.”

“If he had any. Did Jeremy talk about this suicide to you?”

“I’m not sure. What’s the date again?”

“January 15.”

“That’s right around the time Jeremy finally knocked me out and I decided to leave. I told you there’d been a suicide at the jail in a cell before he came unglued. This must have been the one.”

“Was there a follow-up investigation after his death?”

“Probably.”

“There must have been fallout over the suicide,” Chance said. “Did you ever hear why the kid killed himself before his trial?”

“No.”

Chance skirted through other clippings. “There’s nothing else here.”

“I’ll search the internet,” she said, and picking up her phone, went to work. After a half hour they knew a little more but not much.

“Wallace Connor came from Greenville, right? That’s pretty close to an area called White Cliff,” she finally said. She sat for a moment, then looked up at him. “White. Maybe the word white in the note wasn’t a name of a person but a place.” She scanned the screen. “White Cliff appears to be a survivalist community.” She groaned and closed her eyes. “Talking kind of hurts,” she admitted. “I must have bitten down on the inside of my mouth when Jeremy hit me.”

“Wait here,” Chance said, and taking the ice bucket, walked to the machine near the outside stairs. Back in the room he gave her a cube to suck on and made a compress by wrapping the rest in a hand towel she held against her face. “I’ll take over the search,” he added.

“There’s a lot in here about that survivalist community you mentioned,” he said after he’d continued reading. “One reporter tried to find out if Fallon had ever lived in White Cliff but got nowhere. Apparently the police had the same lack of success.”

“How about Wallace Connor?” Lily garbled around the ice cube.

“They say he left behind his parents and a younger sister. Robbery was the supposed reason for the murder because his wallet was empty and a lapis lazuli ring the desk clerk noticed when he checked in was missing from his hand. The police caught Fallon the next day. He was driving Connor’s truck. He told the cops his name, admitted he killed Connor and then shut his mouth and never said another word to anyone about anything. His lawyers were court-appointed. His competency hearing was scheduled for the Monday after he died. His suicide seems to have been the end of it.”

“It’s a dead end,” Lily said bitterly.

He set aside the phone. “No, not a dead end, just a twisty road. We’ll figure something out. Come on, let me wash your face and get some antiseptic and a bandage on that open cut. No, don’t argue with me.” He pulled her up by clasping her arm, grabbed his toiletries kit from his duffel and gently pushed her ahead of him into the bathroom.

She sat on the edge of the tub as he bathed her face in warm water, dabbed on the ointment and covered the open wound with a bandage. The occasional whimpers that escaped her lips made him furious. How dare that jerk touch her.

“Am I pretty again?” she asked as she stood, a little playfulness creeping back into her voice.

He put his hands on her shoulders and studied her face. “Not yet, but you will be.”

“Hold me,” she said softly.

He drew her closer and put his arms around her. She fit perfectly, as he knew from experience, and though he swore to himself he would not react to her closeness or the way she clung to him, he could feel his body stirring.

“I’m so scared,” she whispered against his neck.

He drew back to look at her face, but his gaze landed on her mouth, and mindful of her injuries, he leaned forward and gently touched her lips with his.

They’d kissed a few times several months earlier. To him, her lips had been everything delicious and tasty in the world. Honey and scotch, summer nights, a good dinner. He’d wanted to bed her with a vengeance and had worked on seducing her for weeks, but one torrid fifteen minutes had led to her bolting away from him for good.

So what? There were more women in the world than men and he’d known his share. Frankly, he seemed to have a knack for finding women who wanted what he wanted—a satisfying romp in the hay, no heartstrings engaged. His father had been married seven times. Seven times! Women came and went, the trick was not to block the door.