Christmas at Cardwell Ranch

“Right. You don’t know her.” He opened the door and followed his father back to the bar. Angus was talking to the bartender. Their beers hadn’t been touched.

The last thing Tag wanted right now was alcohol. His stomach felt queasy, but he knew he couldn’t leave without drinking at least some of it. He didn’t look at his father as he took a gulp of his beer. He couldn’t look at him. His father’s reaction had rocked him to his core. A young woman was murdered last night, her body dumped from a snowmobile on an old logging road on the Cardwell Ranch. He kept seeing his father’s first reaction—that instant when he couldn’t hide his shock and pretend disinterest.

“You two doing all right?” Angus asked, glancing first at Tag, then at Harlan. Neither of them had spoken since they’d returned to the bar. Tag saw a look pass between the brothers. Angus reached for his beer and took a long drink.

Tag picked up his, taking a couple more gulps as he watched his father and uncle out of the corner of his eye. Some kind of message had passed between them. Neither looked happy.

“I’m sorry but I need to get going,” he said, checking his watch. “I’m meeting someone.” He’d never been good at lying, but when he looked up he saw that neither his father nor his uncle was paying any attention. Nor did they try to detain him. If anything, they seemed relieved that he was leaving.

Biting down on his fear that his father had just lied to him, he reached for his wallet.

“Put that away,” his uncle said. “Your money is no good here.”

“Thanks.” He looked past Angus at his father. “I guess I’ll see you later?”

“I’m sure you will,” Harlan said.

“Dana’s having us all out Christmas Eve,” Tag said. “You’re planning to be there, aren’t you?”

“I wouldn’t miss it for anything,” his father said. He hadn’t looked toward the door even once since they’d returned from the back room.

Tag felt his chest tighten as he left the bar. Once out in his rented SUV, he debated what to do. All his instincts told him to go to the marshal. But what if he was wrong? What if his father was telling the truth? He couldn’t chance alienating his father further if he was wrong.

On a hunch, he pulled around the building out of sight and waited. Just as he suspected, his father and uncle came out of the bar not five minutes later. They said something to each other as they parted, both looking unhappy, then headed for their respective rigs before heading down the canyon toward Big Sky.

Tag let them both get ahead of him before he pulled out and followed. He doubted his father would recognize the rented SUV he was driving. It looked like a lot of other SUVs, so nondescript it didn’t stand out in the least. He stayed back anyway, just far enough he could keep them in sight.

His uncle turned off on the road to his cabin on the river, but Harlan kept going. Tag planned to follow his father all the way to Big Sky but was surprised when Harlan turned into the Cardwell Ranch instead. Tag hung back until his father’s SUV dropped over a rise; then he, too, turned into the ranch. Within sight of the old two-story farmhouse, Tag pulled over in a stand of pines.

Through the snow-laden pine boughs, he could see his father and the marshal standing outside by Hud’s patrol car. They appeared to be arguing. At one point, he saw Hud point back up into the mountains—in the direction where Tag had found the dead woman’s body. Then he saw his father pull out an envelope and hand it to the marshal. Hud looked angry and resisted taking it for a moment, but then quickly stuffed it under his jacket, looking around as if worried they had been seen.

Tag couldn’t breathe. He told himself he couldn’t have seen what he thought he had. His imagination was running wild. Had that been some kind of payoff?

A few minutes later, his father climbed back into his SUV and headed out of the ranch.

Tag hurriedly turned around and left, his mind racing. What had that been about? There was no doubt in his mind it had something to do with the dead woman his father had denied knowing.

* * *

DANA STARED AT the Christmas tree, fighting tears.

“It’s not that ugly,” her sister, Stacy, said from the couch.

Last night, Dana, her husband and her two oldest children had decorated it. It hadn’t taken long, since the poor tree had very few limbs. Hud had just stared at it and sighed. Mary, five, and Hank, six, had declared it beautiful.

Never a crier except when she was pregnant and her hormones were raging, Dana burst into tears. Her sister got up, put an arm around her and walked her over to the couch to sit down next to her.

“Is it postpartum depression?” Stacy asked.

She shook her head. “It’s Hud. I’m afraid for him.”

“You knew he was a marshal when you married him,” her sister pointed out, looking confused.

“He’s talking about quitting.”

Stacy blinked in surprise. “He loves being a marshal.”

“Loved. After what happened here on the ranch last spring, he doesn’t think he has what it takes anymore.”

“That’s ridiculous.” A woman pretending to be their cousin had turned out to be a psychopathic con artist. “Camilla fooled us all.”

Dana sniffed. “Not Hilde.” Her sister handed her a tissue. Hilde had tried to warn her, but she’d thought her best friend was just being jealous and hadn’t taken her worries seriously. Not taking Hilde’s warnings seriously had almost gotten them killed.

“Hilde’s forgiven you, right?” Stacy asked as Dana wiped her eyes and blew her nose.

“Kind of. I mean, she says she has. But, Stacy, I took some stranger’s word over my best friend’s, who is also my business partner and godmother to one of my children!”

“You and Hud both need to let this go. Camilla is locked up in the women’s state prison in Billings, right? With six counts of attempted murder, she won’t get out until she’s ninety.”

“What if she pretends to be reformed and gets out on good behavior? Or worse, escapes? We’re only a few hours away.”

“You can’t really think she’s going to escape.”

“If anyone can, it’s her. Within a week, I’ll bet she was eating her meals with the warden. You know how she is.”

“Dana, you’re making her into the bogeyman. She’s just a sick woman with a lot of scars.”

Dana looked at Stacy. Her older sister had her own scars from bad marriages, worse relationships and some really horrible choices she’d made. But since she’d had her daughter, Ella, Stacy had truly changed.

“I’m so glad you’re in my life again,” Dana said to her sister, and hugged Stacy hard.

“Me, too.” Stacy frowned. “You have to let what happened go.”

Dana nodded, but she knew that was easier said than done. “I have nightmares about her. I think Hud does, too. I can’t shake the feeling that Camilla isn’t out of our lives.”

* * *

CAMILLA NORTHLAND WAS surprised how easy it was for her to adapt to prison. She spent her days working out in the prison weight room, and after a month of hitting it hard, figured she was in the best shape of her life.

She’d tuned in to how things went in prison right away. It reminded her of high school. That was why she picked the biggest, meanest woman she could find, went up to her and punched her in the face. She’d lost the fight since the woman was too big and strong for her.

But ultimately she’d won the war. Other prisoners gave her a wide berth. Stories began to circulate about her, some of them actually true. She’d heard whispers that everyone thought she was half-crazy.

Only half?

Like the other inmates, she already had a nickname, Spark. Camilla could only assume it was because of the arson conviction that had been tacked on to her attempted murder convictions.

She’d skipped a long trial, confessed and pleaded guilty, speeding up the process that would ultimately land her in prison anyway. It wasn’t as though any judge in his right mind was going to allow her bail. Nor did she want the publicity of a trial that she feared, once it went nationwide, would bring her other misdeeds to light.