Redemption

What the hell? Jack thought. How long was this going to drag out? He reached for the paper, unrolled it and stiffened as he glanced at the sketch of the man he’d seen the other night in the alley.

He could feel the sheriff’s gaze on him. “Recognize him?”

Frank Curry wouldn’t be sitting on his porch unless he knew that Jack did.

“This is the man who was bothering Kate LaFond a few nights ago in the alley by the café,” Jack said, and he saw the sheriff sit up a little in the old rocker.

“I understand you hit him.”

“Only after I heard him hit the woman. I didn’t know who she was. It was my first night back and I really didn’t want to get involved, but...” He shrugged.

“She said she wasn’t very gracious about you coming to her rescue.”

Jack smiled at that.

“You didn’t know the man from prison?”

He thought of the hitched rope the sheriff had shown him with the blood on it. “Never seen him before in my life. This the man I heard was found down by the river?”

“Murdered,” Frank said.

That didn’t come as a surprise, given the blood on the rope.

“So you never crossed paths until a few nights ago,” the sheriff said.

“Nope.”

Frank got to his feet. “Remember that horsehair hitched rope I showed you? You said Montana State Prison’s cons hadn’t hitched it.”

Jack waited.

“You were right. I checked. Seems only four prisons in the West are known for hitching horsehair. Deer Lodge, Montana; Yuma, Arizona; Walla Walla, Washington; and Rawlins, Wyoming. Each one has its own designs and colors. I’m thinking it might be from the Yuma prison. But I suspect you probably already knew that.” He was eyeing Jack, waiting.

Jack shook his head. “Like I said, I never hitched in prison. Too busy working the ranch. It just didn’t look like any pattern I’d seen up there.”

The sheriff rubbed a hand over his square jaw. “You know I never figured you for rustling that bull. I always had the feeling there was more to it.” His gaze locked with Jack’s. “But if you’re innocent as you said you were that night I arrested you, then I can’t help but wonder who would do something like that to you and why.”

Jack didn’t move, didn’t breathe. He’d realized as he was being dragged out of his house that morning two years ago that he’d been set up, but he’d saved his breath after his initial cry of innocence. When there is a world-class bull in your corral that doesn’t belong to you and you’ve been pissing in the wind for much too long, well, you just have to figure that you’ve practically been asking for it.

“It cost you two years of your life, any way you look at it,” the sheriff said. “That would make an innocent man pretty angry. Might even make him want to get retribution. ’Course there’s no way to get back those years, no matter what a man was to do.”

Jack held his tongue.

“I’ve always liked you, Jack,” the sheriff said as he tipped his hat. “I’d like to see you stay out of trouble.”

Jack let out the breath he’d been holding along with a chuckle. “Me, too, Sheriff. Me, too.” Right now retribution was the furthest thing from his mind.

His thoughts were with Kate LaFond and her conversation with the man in the alley, the now dead man.

“I’ve been looking for you. I just didn’t expect to find you here.”

What had the dead man meant by that?

“Let go of me. I already told you. You have the wrong woman. But if you don’t leave me alone—”

You’ll end up dead?

Maybe it had been a case of mistaken identify, just as Kate had said. Or maybe not. His gut told him there was a whole lot more to it. Just as there was more to the woman herself.

He didn’t dig the note out of his pocket until the sheriff had driven away. Earlier, he’d stopped by the post office to pick up his mail. Something had made him circle to the back of the café. Lou, the cook, had been out by the garage, smoking a cigarette.

Jack had stepped into the café kitchen without anyone seeing him. Kate was busy out front with Cilla, talking quilts. Jack had seen the worn aprons in the bin and on a hunch had looked in the pockets.

At the time, he’d just been curious after seeing Kate’s first reaction to the note. Now with a growing feeling of dread he stared down at the block letters printed with a dull pencil on a half sheet of plain white paper.

One down. Two more to go, though. Better hurry, Kate. Ticktock.

Next to the words was a kidlike drawing that at first glance resembled a game of hangman. But if the rope the sheriff had shown him was what Jack thought it was—the murder weapon—then whatever Kate was running from... It had found her.

CHAPTER SIX

AFTER TALKING TO BOTH KATE LaFond and Jack French, the sheriff returned to his office. The Yuma prison warden had returned his call, asking for photos of the dead man and the rope used to kill him.

That done, Frank found himself at loose ends. All his deputies were at the fair, keeping the peace. With nothing to do but wait, he was reminded again of his promise to Lynette to find out more about Kate LaFond. He’d always trusted her instincts—except when she’d married that fool, Bob Benton.

Frank shook his head. All these years later he was still mentally kicking himself for not storming that wedding and taking her hostage until she came to her senses.

But then Lynette wouldn’t have the general store. She loved working in that store. He wouldn’t have taken that away from her even if he could turn back the clock.

Things had a way of working out as they were supposed to, he thought with a smile. Bob was long gone and wouldn’t be coming back.

He turned his attention to the new café owner. Kate LaFond was a mystery, Frank had to admit. On the surface, she seemed like a perfectly fine young woman, hardworking, likable. So what if she kept to herself? So what if she didn’t want to share her past?

But Frank had a niggling feeling there was definitely more going on under the surface with the new owner of the Branding Iron.

He called a friend who was a local Realtor.

“I’m curious about the Branding Iron Café up in Beartooth,” he said when his friend answered. “It sold so quickly after Claude died, I guess he must have had it listed long before then.”

“It was never a multiple listing and I can’t remember ever seeing it listed anywhere. You’re sure it wasn’t willed to the new owner?”

Frank had thought of that, but quickly kicked aside the idea. Seemed unlikely since the old bachelor had never had a family. At least not one Frank had ever heard about. And yet according to public records, Kate LaFond owned the Branding Iron.

Picking up his keys, he headed for his patrol truck. Ten minutes later, he was knocking at the door of Claude Durham’s friend and local attorney Arnie Thorndike.

No one would ever take Thorndike for an attorney. Half the time he looked homeless. Like this morning, when he opened his door to find the sheriff standing on his stoop.

Barefoot, dressed in a pair of worn jeans and a flannel shirt that had seen better days, Thorndike raked a hand through his unruly head of blond hair and grinned.