Honor Bound

He couldn’t argue that. “Thanks for keeping it quiet about my real reason for being here,” he said, even though she hadn’t promised. “I’m afraid whoever’s been stalking Ainsley is getting more...aggressive. Just between you and me, Ainsley had a near accident today while out scouting locations.”

“Let me guess,” she said with a laugh. “You saved her.”

Sawyer could see that there was nothing more to be said, so he did something he hated doing. He lied. “It’s good to see you again.”

“Sure it is,” she said.

“If you need my help—”

“I won’t.”

CHAPTER FOUR (#ue9eba98d-f31f-50e8-b60f-de4516fe0cc0)

AINSLEY SPENT A busy afternoon with the director and the cameraman discussing the logistics of the next few locations. Gunderson was upset about not being able to use Box Canyon. His cameraman, a long-haired thirtysomething named T.K. Clark, suggested some ideas, while “Gun” made more demands of Ainsley to find something perfect. Fortunately, she hadn’t had time to think about earlier and how close she’d come to dying.

She was studying a local map for more ideas, when the woman who ran the cafeteria stopped next to her.

“You’re certainly burning the midnight oil,” Kitzie said. “Did you even have dinner?”

Ainsley was surprised, first, that Kitzie would even notice that she’d been missing at mealtime and, secondly, that the woman was talking to her at all. Since the project had begun, the attractive redhead had been anything but friendly.

“There’s a group getting together around a bonfire,” Kitzie said. “Come on. I heard there would be something to drink. You look like you could use one.”

“Thanks, but I’m not much of a drinker.”

“Well, I am,” the woman said, taking her arm. “And I need the company, so come on.”

For days Ainsley had wished for some female company since all of the crew she worked with were male. Growing up with five sisters, she missed girl talk. Not that she expected that with Kitzie. But she went along because of the woman’s insistence and, also, because she didn’t want to be alone tonight after what had happened in the canyon.

“So, where are you from?” the cafeteria manager asked as they walked toward the glow of a blaze some distance away.

“Beartooth, Montana,” she said and told her about growing up on the ranch with her five sisters and her father. She didn’t mention that she was the daughter of Republican presidential candidate Buckmaster Hamilton. Either Kitzie already knew that or didn’t put it together.

“Huh” was all the woman said when Ainsley finished. By then they had reached the bonfire where the crew had gathered. Even Gunderson had joined them. He stood on the other side of the blaze talking to Ken Hale, the owner of the carnival that would be the last shot before the commercial wrapped.

Hale was a big man with a round red face and a hearty laugh. He and Gunderson seemed to be in deep conversation before Gun, as everyone called him, moved away from the fire.

“I’ll get us something to drink,” Kitzie said, heading for the cooler someone had brought. “Don’t worry. I’m sure there is something nonalcoholic in there.”

* * *

DEVON GUNDERSON TOOK his drink and walked toward the meadow until he reached the Ferris wheel. He turned to look back at the old hotel and the cabins tucked in the pines on the mountainside behind it.

He wished Hale would get some of the rides going. Tonight he’d love to be sitting on the top of the Ferris wheel when the lights came on in the small town in the distance. He did his best thinking far and away from other people.

A splattering of laughter rose beyond the pines where the crew had gathered beside the creek. He could smell the smoke of the campfire drifting on the breeze as he sat down on the Ferris wheel seat. It rocked, creaking under his weight.

From the first time his father had taken him to a carnival he had been enchanted. The lights, the noise, the brittle cheapness of it. He even liked the carnies calling to him, determined to steal his last dime on some game he couldn’t possibly win. And then there had been the rides.

Just thinking about it made him smile. That’s why he had to use a carnival in this commercial, his last. He had to return to that childhood place where he’d first began to dream that he could do whatever he wanted with his life. He’d known at a young age that he wasn’t going to fulfill any of his parents’ fantasies of success. He was cut out for better things. Like the carnival, he liked the sleight of hand, the lure of riches in a game of chance, the promise of something beyond imagination.

“I thought I’d find you here,” Hale said, coming out of the darkness.

He grimaced to himself, having not wanted company. But even if he’d told the old carnie this, it wouldn’t have kept him away. Not a man like Hale.

“Turn this thing on,” Gun said. “I want to go for a ride.”

The older man shook his head. “Even if I could see to crank it up, I’m not going to. Hell, I’d get you up on top and the thing would stop. I don’t think you want to spend the night up there while I’m down here working on it in the dark.”

“You might be surprised.”

Hale shoved him over where he could sit next to him. He was breathing hard after the walk all the way out here in the meadow. “You sure picked an out-of-the-way place for this little...get-together.”

“I like it out here.” When he’d first seen the hotel, he’d been tempted to buy it when this was all over. He had thoughts of restoring it, making the place earn its keep, but had quickly realized that he wouldn’t have liked it once it was full of noisy tourists.

“Aren’t you going to miss it?” Hale asked.

Gun knew he wasn’t referring to this place. “It’s time. As that old gambling song goes, you’ve got to know when to hold ’em and know when to fold ’em.”

“And know when to walk away or when to run?” Hale looked over at him. “Is that what you’re doing, Gun? Running? I heard about your divorce. Another man, I heard.”

He stood, this conversation over as far as he was concerned. Stepping off the ride, he started toward the hotel.

“I’m not sure I like where your head is at right now.”

At those words, Gun stopped and turned to look back at him. It was too dark to make out Hale’s features. The Ferris wheel seat rocked and creaked under the big man’s weight. The breeze whispered through the nearby pines and rustled the dry grass of the meadow. A chain on one of the rides clinked softly.

“You don’t want to go there,” Gun said.

“Come on, I know you. You and I go way back. I know how you felt about her.”

“Don’t mistake a business partnership for friendship,” Gun said carefully. “You’re overstepping, Hale. Don’t do it again. And I want that Ferris wheel running tomorrow.” With that he turned and took the back way to his cabin, so he could avoid those around the campfire by the creek. He wasn’t in a mood to talk to anyone.

* * *

AFTER MOVING HIS few belongings into his cabin, Sawyer had spent the remainder of the day learning everything he could about Spotlight Images, Inc., and its current employees. He’d had Sheriff Curry run all the license plates from the vehicles parked around the cabins and hotel, as well as the names of the crew. Kitzie had slipped a list of the names and jobs under his cabin door earlier.

It was definitely a bare-bones crew for a video production company. He’d been glad when Frank had called him with information on the main players.

Devon “Gun” Gunderson was the director as well as producer. Sawyer had seen him earlier in the canyon with Ainsley. Divorced three times, he was fifty-four, blond, blue-eyed and stocky. He had an air about him that told Sawyer he ran the show with an iron fist.

His camera and boom operator was a long-haired thirty-four-year-old named T.K. Clark. He’d been with Spotlight Images, Inc., since it began five years before. He wore his long, dishwater blond hair in a ponytail and sported a half dozen tattoos.

With the company since its inception, Nathan Grant was thirty-eight, divorced twice, and employed as a lighting technician and carpenter. He looked like the dark-haired moody type behind his horn-rimmed glasses.

Twenty-eight-year-old Bobby LeRoy was a handyman. He’d been with the company only a month.

None had any priors. The one man here with an arrest record was the founder of Goodtimes Entertainment, the fifty-year-old who owned the carnival now set up in the meadow. Ken Hale was a big brawler of a man who apparently liked to fight, according to his several arrest records.