Nothing will stop a Cahill cowboy from protecting what’s his

After a rocky marriage and even rockier divorce, Sheriff Flint Cahill finally has something good in his life again. Maggie Thompson’s down-to-earth charm and beautiful smile hooked him from the start. When she disappears on the day they plan to start their lives together, all signs point to abduction—and his ex-wife.

Functioning on adrenaline and instinct, Flint must call on his every resource to bring Maggie home before it’s too late. His past and future are blurred. Maggie’s only chance at surviving her abductor and a raging winter storm depends on an old vendetta that could destroy it all. But the Cahills don’t give up easily, and Flint’s love will have to be strong enough to conquer anything, including the unimaginable.

Praise for New York Times bestselling author B.J. Daniels

“Crossing multiple genres, Daniels successfully combines Western romance, suspense and political intrigue with ease.”

—RT Book Reviews on Hard Rain

“The heartwarming romance gets wrapped up here, but the book ends with a cliffhanger that is sure to have fans anxious for the next title in the series.”

—Library Journal on Lucky Shot

“Forget slow-simmering romance: the multiple story lines weaving in and out of Big Timber, Montana, mean the second Montana Hamiltons contemporary...is always at a rolling boil.”

—Publishers Weekly on Lone Rider

“[The Montana Hamiltons] should definitely be on the must read list... A great introduction for new readers to this amazing author.”

—Fresh Fiction on Wild Horses

“Truly amazing crime story for every amateur sleuth.”

—Fresh Fiction on Mercy

“Daniels is truly an expert at Western romantic suspense.”

—RT Book Reviews on Atonement

“Will keep readers on the edge of their chairs from beginning to end.”

—Booklist on Forsaken

“Action-packed and chock-full of suspense.”

—Under the Covers on Redemption

“Fans of Western romantic suspense will relish Daniels’ tale of clandestine love played out in a small town on the Great Plains.”

—Booklist on Unforgiven

Cowboy’s Legacy

B.J. Daniels

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This book is dedicated to Debbie Hammond and Margaret Hanson, sisters extraordinaire and amazing quilters. You two brighten even the gloomiest Montana winter days!

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Praise

Title Page

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

SHE WAS IN so fast that she didn’t have a chance to scream. The icy cold water stole her breath away. Her eyes flew open as she hit. Because of the way she fell, she had no sense of up or down for a few moments.

Panicked, she flailed in the water until a light flickered above her. She tried to swim toward it, but something was holding her down. The harder she fought, the more it seemed to push her deeper and deeper, the light fading.

Her lungs burned. She had to breathe. The dim light wavered above her through the rippling water. She clawed at it as her breath gave out. She could see the surface just inches above her. Air! She needed oxygen. Now!

The rippling water distorted the face that suddenly appeared above her. The mouth twisted in a grotesque smile. She screamed, only to have her throat fill with the putrid dark water. She choked, sucking in even more water. She was drowning, and the person who’d done this to her was watching her die and smiling.

Maggie Thompson shot upright in bed, gasping for air and swinging her arms frantically toward the faint light coming through the window. Panic had her perspiration-soaked nightgown sticking to her skin. Trembling, she clutched the bedcovers as she gasped for breath.

The nightmare had been so real this time that she thought she was going to drown before she could come out of it. Her chest ached, her throat feeling raw as tears burned her eyes. It had been too real. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d almost died this time. Next time...

She snapped on the bedside lamp to chase away the dark shadows hunkered in the corners of the room. If only Flint had been here instead of on an all-night stakeout. She needed Sheriff Flint Cahill’s strong arms around her. Not that he stayed most nights. They hadn’t been intimate that long.

Often, he had to work or was called out in the middle of the night. He’d asked her to move in with him months ago, but she’d declined. He’d asked her after one of his ex-wife’s nasty tricks. Maggie hadn’t wanted to make a decision like that based on Flint’s ex.

While his ex hadn’t done anything in months to keep them apart, Maggie couldn’t rest easy. Flint was hoping Celeste had grown tired of her tricks. Maggie wasn’t that naive. Celeste Duma was one of those women who played on every man’s weakness to get what she wanted—and she wanted not just the rich, powerful man she’d left Flint for. She wanted to keep her ex on the string, as well.

Maggie’s breathing slowed a little. She pulled the covers up to her chin, still shivering, but she didn’t turn off the light. Sleep was out of the question for a while. She told herself that she wasn’t going to let Celeste scare her. She wasn’t going to give the woman the satisfaction.

Unfortunately, it was just bravado. Flint’s ex was obsessed with him. Obsessed with keeping them apart. And since the woman had nothing else to do...

As the images of the nightmare faded, she reminded herself that the dream made no sense. It never had. She was a good swimmer. Loved water. Had never nearly drowned. Nor had anyone ever tried to drown her.

Shuddering, she thought of the face she’d seen through the rippling water. Not Celeste’s. More like a Halloween mask. A distorted smiling face, neither male or female. Just the memory sent her heart racing again.

What bothered her most was that dream kept reoccurring. After the first time, she’d mentioned it to her friend Belle Delaney.

“A drowning dream?” Belle had asked with the arch of her eyebrow. “Do you feel that in waking life you’re being ‘sucked into’ something you’d rather not be a part of?”

Maggie had groaned inwardly. Belle had never kept it a secret that she thought Maggie was making a mistake when it came to Flint. Too much baggage, she always said of the sheriff. His “baggage” came in the shape of his spoiled, probably psychopathic, petite, green-eyed blonde ex.

“I have my own skeletons,” Maggie had laughed, although she’d never shared her past—even with Belle—before moving to Gilt Edge, Montana, and opening her beauty shop, Just Hair. She feared it was her own baggage that scared her the most.

“If you’re holding anything back,” Belle had said, eyeing her closely, “you need to let it out. Men hate surprises after they tie the knot.”

“Guess I don’t have to worry about that because Flint hasn’t said anything about marriage.” But she knew Belle was right. She’d even come close to telling him several times about her past. Something had always stopped her. The truth was, she feared if he found out her reasons for coming to Gilt Edge he wouldn’t want her anymore.

“The dream isn’t about Flint,” she’d argued that day with Belle, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that it was a warning.

“Well, from what I know about dreams,” Belle had said, “if in the dream you survive the drowning, it means that a waking relationship will ultimately survive the turmoil. At least that is one interpretation. But I’d say the nightmare definitely indicates that you are going into unknown waters and something is making you leery of where you’re headed.” She’d cocked an eyebrow at her. “If you have the dream again, I’d suggest that you ask yourself what it is you’re so afraid of.”

“I’m sure it’s just about his ex, Celeste,” she’d lied. Or was she afraid that she wasn’t good enough for Flint—just as his ex had warned her. Just as she feared in her heart.

* * *

THE WIND LAY over the tall dried grass and kicked up dust as Sheriff Flint Cahill stood on the hillside. He shoved his Stetson down on his head of thick dark hair, squinting in the distance at the clouds to the west. Sure as the devil, it was going to snow before the day was out.

In the distance, he could see a large star made out of red and green lights on the side of a barn, a reminder that Christmas was coming. Flint thought he might even get a tree this year, go up in the mountains and cut it himself. He hadn’t had a tree at Christmas in years. Not since...

At the sound of a pickup horn, he turned, shielding his eyes from the low winter sun. He could smell snow in the air, feel it deep in his bones. This storm was going to dump a good foot on them, according to the latest news. They were going to have a white Christmas.

Most years he wasn’t ready for the holiday season any more than he was ready for a snow that wouldn’t melt until spring. But this year was different. He felt energized. This was the year his life would change. He thought of the small velvet box in his jacket pocket. He’d been carrying it around for months. Just the thought of it made him smile to himself. He was in love and he was finally going to do something about it.

The pickup rumbled to a stop a few yards from him. He took a deep breath of the mountain air, and telling himself he was ready for whatever Mother Nature wanted to throw at him, he headed for the truck.

“Are you all right?” his sister asked as he slid into the passenger seat. In the cab out of the wind, it was nice and warm. He rubbed his bare hands together, wishing he hadn’t forgotten his gloves earlier. But when he’d headed out, he’d had too much on his mind. He still did.

Lillie looked out at the dull brown of the landscape and the chain-link fence that surrounded the missile silo. “What were you doing out here?”

He chuckled. “Looking for aliens. What else?” This was the spot that their father swore aliens hadn’t just landed on one night back in 1967. Nope, according to Ely Cahill, the aliens had abducted him, taken him aboard their spaceship and done experiments on him. Not that anyone believed it in the county. Everyone just assumed that Ely had a screw loose. Or two.

It didn’t help that their father spent most of the year up in the mountains as a recluse trapping and panning for gold.

“Aliens. Funny,” Lillie said, making a face at him.

He smiled over at her. “Actually, I was on an all-night stakeout. The cattle rustlers didn’t show up.” He shrugged.

She glanced around. “Where’s your patrol SUV?”

“Axle deep in a muddy creek back toward Grass Range. I’ll have to get it pulled out. After I called you, I started walking and I ended up here. Wish I’d grabbed my gloves, though.”

“You’re scaring me,” she said, studying him openly. “You’re starting to act like Dad.”

He laughed at that, wondering how far from the truth it was. “At least I didn’t see any aliens near the missile silo.”

She groaned. Being the butt of jokes in the county because of their father got old for all of them.

Flint glanced at the fenced-in area. There was nothing visible behind the chain link but tumbleweeds. He turned back to her. “I didn’t pull you away from anything important, I hope? Since you were close by, I thought you wouldn’t mind giving me a ride. I’ve had enough walking for one day. Or thinking, for that matter.”

She shook her head. “What’s going on, Flint?”

He looked out at the country that ran to the mountains. Cahill Ranch. His grandfather had started it, his father had worked it and now two of his brothers ran the cattle part of it to keep the place going while he and his sister, Lillie, and brother Darby had taken other paths. Not to mention their oldest brother, Tucker, who’d struck out at seventeen and hadn’t been seen or heard from since.

Flint had been scared after his marriage and divorce. But Maggie was nothing like Celeste, who was small, blonde, green-eyed and crazy. Maggie was tall with big brown eyes and long auburn hair. His heart beat faster at the thought of her smile, at her laugh.

“I’m going to ask Maggie to marry me,” Flint said and nodded as if reassuring himself.

When Lillie didn’t reply, he glanced over at her. It wasn’t like her not to have something to say. “Well?”

“What has taken you so long?”

He sighed. “Well, you know after Celeste...”

“Say no more,” his sister said, raising a hand to stop him. “Anyone would be gun-shy after being married to her.”

“I’m hoping she won’t be a problem.”

Lillie laughed. “Short of killing your ex-wife, she is always going to be a problem. You just have to decide if you’re going to let her run your life. Or if you’re going to live it—in spite of her.”

So easy for her to say. He smiled, though. “You’re right. Anyway, Maggie and I have been dating for a while now and there haven’t been any...incidents in months.”

Lillie shook her head. “You know Celeste was the one who vandalized Maggie’s beauty shop—just as you know she started that fire at Maggie’s house.”

“Too bad there wasn’t any proof so I could have arrested her. But since there wasn’t and no one was hurt and it was months ago...”

“I’d love to see Celeste behind bars, though I think prison is too good for her. She belongs in the loony bin. I can understand why you would be worried about what she will do next. She’s psychopathic.”

He feared that that maybe was close to the case. “Do you want to see the ring?” He knew she did, so he fished it out of his pocket. He’d been carrying it around for quite a while now. Getting up his courage? He knew what was holding him back. Celeste. He couldn’t be sure how she would take it—or what she might do. His ex-wife seemed determined that he and Maggie shouldn’t be together, even though she was apparently happily married to local wealthy businessman Wayne Duma.

Handing his sister the small black velvet box, he waited as she slowly opened it.

A small gasp escaped her lips. “It’s beautiful. Really beautiful.” She shot him a look. “I thought sheriffs didn’t make much money?”

“I’ve been saving for a long while now. Unlike my sister, I live pretty simply.”

She laughed. “Simply? Prisoners have more in their cells than you do. You aren’t thinking of living in that small house of yours after you’re married, are you?”

“For a while. It’s not that bad. Not all of us have huge new houses like you and Trask.”

“We need the room for all the kids we’re going to have,” she said. “But it is wonderful, isn’t it? Trask is determined that I have everything I ever wanted.” Her gaze softened as the newlywed thought of her husband.

“I keep thinking of your wedding.” There’d been a double wedding with both Lillie and her twin, Darby, getting married to the loves of their lives only months ago. “It’s great to see you and Trask so happy. And Darby and Mariah... I don’t think Darby is ever going to come off that cloud he’s on.”

Lillie smiled. “I’m so happy for him. And I’m happy for you. You know I really like Maggie. So do it. Don’t worry about Celeste. Once you’re married, there’s nothing she can do.”

He told himself she was right, and yet in the back of his mind, he feared that his ex-wife would do something to ruin it—just as she had done to some of his dates with Maggie.

“I don’t understand Celeste,” Lillie was saying as she shifted into Drive and started toward the small western town of Gilt Edge. “She’s the one who dumped you for Wayne Duma. So what is her problem?”

“I’m worried that she is having second thoughts about her marriage to Duma. Or maybe she’s bored and has nothing better to do than concern herself with my life. Maybe she just doesn’t want me to be happy.”

“Or she is just plain malicious,” Lillie said. “If she isn’t happy, she doesn’t want you to be, either.”

A shaft of sunlight came through the cab window, warming him against the chill that came with even talking about Celeste. He leaned back, content as Lillie drove.

He was going to ask Maggie to marry him. He was going to do it this weekend. He’d already made a dinner reservation at the local steak house. He had the ring in his pocket. Now it was just a matter of popping the question and hoping she said yes. If she did... Well, then, this was going to be the best Christmas ever, he thought and smiled.

CHAPTER TWO

EVERY DAY THAT Maggie didn’t run into Flint’s ex in the small town where they both lived was a great day. In fact, it had been so long since she’d seen the woman that Maggie was beginning to think that either Celeste had left town or become a housebound recluse.

So it was no surprise when her luck gave out. She was starting down the produce aisle at the only grocery store in town when she smelled the woman’s perfume and made the mistake of looking up.

Celeste made a beeline for her. Dressed in a navy-and-white suit with matching spectator shoes and bag, the blonde looked like something out of an old movie. This was Gilt Edge, where no one dressed up except for weddings and funerals.

Maggie, of course, was dressed in jeans, a T-shirt and sneakers since it was her day off. Her long curly auburn hair was pulled up in a ponytail. Nor was she wearing any makeup. She hadn’t even put in her favorite earrings, a pair of silver hoops Flint had given her on her birthday.

“I was just picking up a few things on my way home from the park planning committee meeting,” Celeste said, as if Maggie had asked.

Her blond hair was cut in a perfect bob that was short enough it didn’t hide the large diamonds at her ears. She blinked her big green eyes, clearly waiting for Maggie to respond.

Taken by surprise and feeling as if she’d been ambushed, Maggie had no comment. She put the cantaloupe she’d been holding into her cart and simply smiled at Celeste. She’d been raised to not be rude, so it was hard for her, even with Flint’s ex.

“Well,” Celeste said in that bubbly way of hers—at least around Maggie. “I thought for sure I’d be hearing you and Flint were getting married.” She cocked her head a little as she stared at Maggie’s left hand resting on the edge of the grocery cart. “But I don’t see an engagement ring on your finger.” She lifted a brow as if to ask, “What’s up with that?”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” Maggie said and told herself to leave it at that. But, of course, she couldn’t. “We’re taking things slow, for obvious reasons.”

All the bubble left Celeste’s face. “His first marriage wasn’t that bad, no matter what he says.”

“I was actually referring to your inability to let him go so he can be happy.”

The woman looked taken aback. “Is that what he thinks?”

“It’s what we both think. Why else would you have vandalized my beauty shop or tried to burn down my house?”

Celeste shook her head. “If that were true, wouldn’t I be behind bars? Anyway, your house didn’t burn down.”

“No thanks to you. Lucky you didn’t leave any evidence or you’d be in jail right now.”

Celeste shook her head as if sad. “As I told Flint, I haven’t done anything to keep the two of you apart. Maybe one of you is using it as an excuse. If you wanted to be together, I couldn’t keep you apart no matter what I did. Flint sure didn’t have any trouble asking me to marry him.”

The woman always had to remind Maggie that she’d had Flint first. She bit her tongue, afraid of what might come out, and willed Celeste to walk away before it was too late. But, of course, she didn’t.

One of the woman’s finely honed brows lifted. “So if Flint is dragging his feet, it isn’t because of me. Maybe he’s realized what I’ve been telling him, that the two of you are wrong for each other, nothing personal. Then again, Flint has never listened to any advice I ever gave him. Why would he now?” With that, Celeste let out a light laugh and said, “Merry Christmas!” and turned and left, her high heels tapping briskly as she rounded the corner of the aisle.

Maggie stood, shaking violently with rage. Why did she let the woman get to her like that? Because Celeste was determined to keep her and Flint apart, no matter what she said. It wasn’t that long ago that Celeste had stopped by the beauty shop as she was closing and warned her to leave Flint alone. She might act innocent, but she was far from it.

Feeling sick to her stomach, Maggie leaned against her grocery cart and tapped in Flint’s number. For weeks, she’d been the one dragging her feet.

“I want to move in with you,” she said into the phone when he answered now.

He laughed. “Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

“Well, whatever made you change your mind, I couldn’t be happier. When?”

“I think I’ll bring a few things over today.” She knew if she put it off, she might change her mind again.

“Great. We’re still on for our date Friday night, though, right?”

“Absolutely,” she said, feeling herself calm down a little. Flint had that effect on her. She loved this man and had for some time. If it wasn’t for Celeste they would have been together long before this.

As she disconnected, she reminded herself that when Flint had suggested they move in together it was right after an incident at her beauty shop. Maggie had said she wasn’t going to let Celeste run her life and be the impetus that had them living together. Had she just let Celeste force her into this?

She sighed and looked into her nearly empty grocery cart. Her refrigerator was almost as empty. She really needed to shop, but her heart wasn’t in it. She was moving in with Flint. As much as she’d tried, she couldn’t work up any enthusiasm about it because...she’d let Celeste goad her into it. This was definitely not the way she wanted her relationship with Flint to go.

Maggie almost called him back, but stopped herself when she saw Celeste at the end of the aisle. Had the woman overheard her phone call to Flint? She groaned at the thought. Now if she called Flint back, Celeste would still think they were moving in together, so the damage was already done. And Flint would think she’d lost her mind for changing it again.

Maybe she had lost her mind, she thought, because she should be happy. She realized a part of her was happy. She wanted to be with Flint. She had let Celeste keep them apart too many times. Moving in was the right thing to do. She took her time shopping, hoping if she dragged it out long enough, Celeste would have left the store. She wasn’t up for another run-in.

It had been months since Celeste had done something to interfere in her relationship with Flint. If Celeste had overheard the call, then now she knew. Better to hear it from Maggie than from the local gossips. Maybe this would all turn out fine, Maggie told herself as she took her full cart and headed for the checkout. She’d bought something special for dinner tonight—at Flint’s.

* * *

“I’M A LITTLE worried about Flint,” Lillie said when she found her brother Darby behind the bar at the Stagecoach Saloon, the bar and café they owned together.

“This is something new? What did he do? Arrest Dad again?” her handsome brother asked, not sounding worried.

“No, but only because Dad has been up in the mountains since our joint wedding,” she said. “Which reminds me—where is Mariah?”

“She went into town. She thinks we need more than one set of sheets.”

Lillie laughed. “She is going to domesticate you yet.”

He grumbled under his breath. “So what is up with Flint?”

“He’s going to ask Maggie to marry him.” She climbed up on a stool and he poured her a cola. Having shared the womb together, she and Darby often communicated without a word. Lillie loved how close they were, so close that they’d had a double wedding.

“So he’s finally going to do it,” Darby said. “Good luck with that.”

She took a sip of her cola and frowned. “What?”

“Just that word will get around. Isn’t he worried about Celeste, given her former reactions to him and Maggie? The woman always did seem...unhinged.”

“I know. Flint’s worried, considering what Celeste has done to keep them apart. But he isn’t going to let her stop him. Why does she have to be like that? It makes me want to go over to her house and—”

“Punching her in the mouth probably wouldn’t be helpful, but please be my guest. I suspect she just can’t let go of him. She certainly took him on a wild ride when she was married to him. She always has to get her way. I often wondered if she wouldn’t go over the edge if Flint ever found someone else. Maggie is perfect for Flint. I’m just glad he realizes it.”

“They deserve a happy-ever-after.”

“You’re such a romantic,” Darby said with a shake of his head, but he was smiling. “Maybe we’re all worrying for nothing. As far as I know, Celeste hasn’t done anything crazy for a while.”

“No, but Maggie and Flint haven’t moved in together, either. Once he pops the question and puts that big diamond on her finger...” Lillie shrugged and finished her cola. “I have a doctor’s appointment.” She slid off her stool and patted her tummy, grinning. “How is Mariah feeling? When I talked to her she hadn’t had any morning sickness yet.” Lillie mugged a face. “I wish I could say that. Too bad it isn’t only in the mornings.”

“So far so good,” he said, tapping the top of the wooden bar. “I can’t believe you two might give birth just days apart.”

“Days, ha,” Lillie said. “I’m going into labor when she does. I want our kids to be close. We couldn’t have planned this better.”

He shook his head. “Knowing you, you probably will go into labor when Mariah does. Once you make up your mind on something...”

“I hope Maggie lets me help with the wedding,” Lillie was saying, having already shifted gears. “Where do you think she’d want to have it?”

Her brother threw up his hands. “I’m not talking wedding with you. Go find Mariah. Or better yet, go see what Hawk and Cyrus would suggest for the wedding.” He laughed. Their brothers were rancher bachelors who hardly dated. They’d had a hard enough time getting through the recent double wedding and reception since they spent more time with their cows than people.

“Maybe I will go visit Hawk and Cyrus. Did you see Hawk talking to that old girlfriend of his at our reception? I think there is still something there.”

The front door opened and two couples came in. Darby looked relieved to get out of that conversation as he headed down the bar to serve them.

* * *

MAGGIE DIDN’T SPEND any more time worrying about her decision. Moving in with Flint had been impulsive, but now that she’d said she would, darned if she wasn’t going to do it. She hurried home and began to pack.

She would haul over just a few things to begin with. She’d taken Flint by surprise on the phone. She hoped he was happy about this. The more she thought about it, the more she thought it really was a good idea. She’d never let herself think about the future with Flint. It seemed too good to be true.

Now, though, she let herself consider it. She had one desire that she’d never shared with anyone, maybe especially Flint. She wanted children before her biological clock ran out. She and Flint had never discussed it, but maybe they would now. He would make such a great father.

Once inside the house she rented, she loaded a few things into an overnight bag and took them out to her car. She slowed as she started to go back inside for more, feeling as if someone was watching her. Looking around, she didn’t see anyone. It was a quiet street, the houses on large lots with pine trees providing privacy. She’d always liked that about the neighborhoods in Gilt Edge.

But right now, the hairs on the back of her neck prickled. Someone was watching her. The thought made her feel foolish. She blamed it on running into Celeste at the grocery store earlier. The woman gave her chills. To the rest of the townspeople, Celeste might seem normal, but Maggie and the Cahills all suspected she could be more than vindictive. She could be dangerous.

Back inside the house, she threw a few more things into a bag, excited about the special meal she’d make for Flint tonight. It would be their first night together in his home. Their home. It would be a surprise—just like her moving in had been.

Getting excited about the idea of them being together all the time, she went to the freezer for the shrimp she’d picked up at the market. It didn’t take her long to put all the ingredients she would need into a small cooler. As she did, she was mentally making lists in her head.

She had to let her landlord know that she was moving. She’d have to see about getting some time off from work so she could move in properly. She didn’t want to have a bunch of boxes sitting around Flint’s house. It would be an adjustment for them both, but maybe especially for Flint.

Celeste seemed to think that Flint had talked to her about his first marriage. But it had been just the opposite. He’d made a point of avoiding the subject. Whatever problems they’d had, Maggie knew nothing about them. Which was good because she hadn’t wanted to talk about her past, either. She just hoped that she would be a better wife to him.

The fact that she was even thinking about the woman made her grit her teeth. But unfortunately, Celeste had been a factor since the beginning. Maybe now, though, all that was behind them. She had to believe that. She loved Flint. Didn’t love conquer all?

As she took the rest out to the car, she still found herself looking around. She tried to shake the feeling that someone was watching her, but it was too strong. Sliding behind the wheel, she started the car and pulled out. As she did, she glanced in her rearview mirror.

Maggie knew she was looking for Celeste’s huge dark SUV. There was one like it parked way down the block, but she couldn’t be sure that was hers. Closer, she spotted a brown van parked on the street a couple of houses back. It was hard to tell with the sun glinting off the windshield, but it appeared someone was sitting behind the wheel.

Probably just a repairman waiting for one of her neighbors, she told herself. She had to quit this. For so long, she’d been running scared. She liked to blame Celeste, but Maggie suspected her real fear was of losing Flint. She loved him so much. What if she moved in with him and he realized he didn’t feel as strongly about her? Maybe Celeste was right. Maybe there was a reason Flint hadn’t asked her to marry him. Maybe he never would.

With a curse, she shifted her car into gear, angry that she’d let Celeste back in her head. She had to stop always thinking something terrible was going to happen when she and Flint were together. She had to believe in the two of them. She also had to believe that she could overcome her past.

Sometimes their future seemed like a brass ring suspended in front of her. All she had to do was grab it—and not look back. But her life hadn’t been easy, far from it. A part of her wondered if she deserved to be happy.

As she drove down the street, she noticed all the Christmas decorations in the yards. Red, green and white lights twinkled in the afternoon light. From one yard, a huge snowman waved to her in the breeze. She smiled and tried to relax. It was almost Christmas. She needed to be thinking about what she was going to get Flint. It would be their first Christmas together. They should get a tree and decorate it together, she thought as she drove, her mood lifting.

At the stop sign, she couldn’t help herself. She glanced back in her rearview mirror. The brown van was two vehicles back.

The moment the light changed, she peeled out, burning rubber as she took off. She thought about calling Flint. And telling him what? I saw a van on my street and now it’s behind me?

In a town this size, that wasn’t unusual. But as she neared Flint’s street, she noticed the time. Maybe he’d get off work early knowing she was going to be there. Maybe he’d be at the house waiting for her. It would ruin her dinner surprise, but she didn’t care. Sometimes she just needed his arms around her and right now was one of them.

The van was still behind her. Only one car back now. She still couldn’t see the driver for the glare of the setting sun. She turned onto Flint’s street and glanced in the mirror, afraid she would see the van turning in behind her. Instead, it sped on past and disappeared around the next corner.

She pulled into Flint’s drive and slumped against the wheel. What was wrong with her? She couldn’t keep going like this, making trouble where there wasn’t any. She thought about her past relationships and the mistakes that she’d made. She wasn’t going to do that with Flint. She’d learned her lesson. Wasn’t that why she’d moved to Gilt Edge? She’d wanted to be someone else. Anyone but the Margaret Ann Thompson she’d been born.

She shut off the car engine and looked toward Flint’s house in the pines. The place fit him. It was secluded with the nearest neighbor back up the street and hidden in the trees. The house sat on a slight hill, the empty lot behind it falling to the next street in a thick grove of pine trees.

Maggie was sure that the seclusion had been part of the charm. The house itself was small and neat, nice inside, though basic. She thought of ways she could make it more homey. Make it more theirs, since he’d lived in this house with Celeste. But that had been a long time ago, so she wasn’t going to let that bother her.

Excitement filled her as she grabbed a couple of her bags and headed for Flint’s back door. As she did, she saw one of the neighbors down the street out at her mailbox. The neighbor waved. Maggie waved back, feeling as if she’d finally come home.

Flint had given her a key last time they talked about moving in together. She’d never used it. But she doubted she would have to now. He always left the back door unlocked. Just like a sheriff, she thought with a smile. He wasn’t worried about anyone breaking in.

She’d been worried when he’d told her. “What about Celeste?”

“She took everything she wanted when she left,” he’d said with a laugh. “Trust me, she has no reason to return.”

But Maggie thought once she was moved in, they would definitely get the locks changed and start locking the doors.

The afternoon sun was casting long shadows. It had been a mild fall. But the weatherman was forecasting a white Christmas. She glanced toward the dark pines and felt a shiver. That feeling that someone was watching her made her turn to look back up the road. She saw no one, but still couldn’t shake off the feeling that she wasn’t alone.

As the door swung open, she started to step in, but stopped to look down into the pines again. The breeze stirred the trees. The boughs moaned softly and cast dark shadows on the ground.

Hurrying now, she stepped inside. She started to lock and bolt the door behind her, but she had more things to get from the car. She knew she was being silly. If Flint could see her now, he’d have second thoughts about her moving in. Tossing her purse on the table by the back door, she pulled out her phone and smiled, anxious to hear Flint’s voice.

The call went straight to voice mail. Disappointed, she almost hung up, but at the last minute, she decided to leave a message. “Hi, it’s me. I’m at your house. I should warn you. I ran into Celeste earlier. I’m pretty sure she overheard me telling you that I’d changed my mind and I was going to move in with you. Oh, and I got something for our...” She realized that she’d run out of time on the message. Not that it mattered. She’d been babbling anyway.

She disconnected and realized she’d almost told him about the dinner she had planned as a surprise for him later. But then it wouldn’t have been a surprise, huh.

Maggie pocketed her phone. She was still smiling at the thought of their first night together there when she heard a sound behind her and spun around. Her smile vanished as her heart began to pound. She took a step back as she fumbled for her cell phone with trembling fingers. “What are you doing here?”

CHAPTER THREE

“MAGGIE?” FLINT CALLED as he opened the back door to his house. He’d been thrilled when he’d gotten her message. But just seeing her car parked in the drive made it seem all the more real. He couldn’t wait to see her. He had no idea why she’d changed her mind; he was just glad that she had, especially since he would be giving her the ring this weekend.

Her deciding to move in only made him all the more sure about asking her to marry him. It was time. They’d come through the worst of it, he told himself, remembering the message she’d left him about running into his ex.

Flint could imagine how unpleasant it was for Maggie. Every time he crossed paths with Celeste, it ruined his day.

He noticed that the passenger-side door of her car was open as if she was still in the process of moving a few things in. He thought about checking to see what else needed to come in, but he was too anxious to take her in his arms. After her call, he’d decided to come home early. He’d had to make one stop after hearing that his father had been seen coming out of the mountains. Not that he’d found him at his cabin. He told himself he’d deal with Ely later. He was too anxious to see Maggie.

He had big plans for tonight, he thought with a smile. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to wait until this weekend to ask her.

“Maggie?” He started to step deeper into his house when he saw the overturned bookcase. Books were strewn across the floor. The lamp that had been next to it lay on the floor, the globe shattered. “Maggie?” Goose bumps rippled over his skin as the hair on the back of his neck quilled. “Maggie!”

He rushed toward the kitchen even though the lawman in him told him not to. This looked like a crime scene and if it was... She wasn’t in the kitchen or the dining room. He headed for the stairs at a run, all the time telling himself he might be destroying important evidence.

Taking the stairs three at a time, he reached the landing. “Maggie!” No answer. The silence of the house had an ominous feel to it. “Maggie!”

She wasn’t in any of the bedrooms or the bathrooms. She wasn’t there, and yet all the way he’d been praying that, yes, there’d been an accident, but she was all right. They could buy another lamp. He could clean up the mess. Everything was fine.

But in his heart he’d known the moment he saw the overturned bookcase and the broken lamp. There’d been a struggle—and Maggie had lost.

Trying not to panic, he stopped on the landing and called her cell phone. As he waited for it to ring, he told himself there was an explanation, one completely different from the scenario playing in his head right then.

The sound of a phone ringing drew him back down the stairs and into the living room again. He stepped closer to the fallen bookcase, his pulse in overdrive. There, poking out from under one of the books, was her phone. He bent down and instinctively reached for it, but stopped himself. The screen was smeared with blood.

Half-blind with fear, he stepped back and keyed in 9-1-1. “I need Mark over at my house right away,” he said to the dispatcher. His undersheriff, Mark Ramirez, had a cool head in emergencies and right now he needed that. He hung up, desperately wanting to put out a BOLO on Maggie right away. Just as he wanted to call in the experts from the Division of Criminal Investigation out of Billings. All his instincts told him that he had to find Maggie and fast.

But even as a law-enforcement officer, he couldn’t call in the cavalry until he knew for certain that she was even missing. He also had to stop thinking like Maggie’s boyfriend. He needed to be the lawman he was.

From where he stood, he could see drops of blood on the wood floor. They were still wet. He looked at his watch. Whatever had happened here hadn’t happened very long ago.

Telling himself not to jump to conclusions, he called the hospital. It was possible there had been an altercation and the other person involved had taken Maggie to the emergency room. It took everything in him to remain calm and wait for the phone to be answered.

“Hello, yes, this is Sheriff Cahill. I need to know if Maggie Thompson was admitted to the emergency room. Yes, I’ll wait,” he said even though he wanted to beg her to hurry. He knew that if his instincts were right, every minute counted.

“I’m sorry, Sheriff. We have no record of her being in the ER. No one here has seen her.” The hospital was small. Gilt Edge had only a couple of doctors. “Her family doctor is here doing rounds. He said he hasn’t seen her, either.”

“Thank you.” He quickly dialed Just Hair, the salon that Maggie owned. Daisy, the only other stylist, hadn’t seen or heard from her. Neither had her best friend, Belle. He was just disconnecting when he heard a vehicle pull in.

All his fears rushed back. His first instinct was right—just as he’d known in his gut. He hurried to the front door rather than the back and stopped, the lawman in him kicking in again. The lock didn’t appear to have been jimmied. He hadn’t checked the back door, hadn’t taken the time to do anything but search the house for Maggie.

Using his shirtsleeve, he carefully opened the front door. The last thing he wanted to do was destroy any fingerprints that might have gotten left behind. The action felt foolish. Whoever had taken her had used the back door, the one he was sure he’d left unlocked.

Not that he didn’t already know who had done this. He knew who had Maggie. That was why he was so terrified.

“Come in this way,” he called to Mark as the undersheriff got out of his patrol SUV.

The moment Mark saw his face, his eyes widened in alarm. “What’s wrong?”

“There appears to have been a struggle. Maggie’s missing.” His voice broke. He waved Mark in and pointed toward the scene near the back door. “She was moving in today. Her car door is still open. Her purse is on the table by the door. She must have been surprised by someone.”

Mark pulled out his phone and began shooting photos of the room as he moved cautiously toward the fallen bookcase. “I saw Maggie’s car by the back door. You’re sure no one stopped by, maybe took her to the emergency room for stitches? Maybe she called to a neighbor?”

“She hasn’t been admitted to the hospital. I called while I was waiting for you. Nor has her doctor seen her.”

His undersheriff nodded as he knelt down to get a closer shot at something on the floor. Even from where Flint was standing, he could see that Mark was shooting the blood splattered on the floor and on the spilled books. Too much blood and yet not enough to indicate that she was mortally wounded. He tried to find hope in that.

“Maggie’s friends and associate?” Mark asked calmly.

“No one has seen her.” Flint was surprised how calm he sounded. His heart pounded so hard he could barely hear himself think. He felt as if he was shaking all over. He knew better than to jump to conclusions, but all his instincts told him Maggie had been taken. It made no sense and yet...

“I know who has her,” Flint said. “Maggie left me a message earlier. She ran into my ex. She thought that Celeste overheard her on the phone telling me she was moving in with me. I don’t have to tell you that Celeste has done everything possible to keep us apart. If she is as determined as I think she is...”

The undersheriff nodded. “I can see why you would suspect Celeste, but let’s wait until we have all the facts, okay?”

At least Mark hadn’t said, “Try not to panic.” The words would have been wasted on him. He was panicking and with good reason. The scene in his living room showed a struggle. Maggie had been injured. Her cell phone smeared with blood indicated that she had possibly tried to call for help.

“I’m going to run over to the neighbors and see if they saw anything,” Flint said. His closest neighbor, Alma Ellison, lived kitty-corner from him down the street. She was smiling as she came to the door. He quickly asked her if she’d seen Maggie.

“I saw her when she arrived at your house. Is something wrong?”

“Did Maggie seem all right?”

“Yes. She waved and I waved back.”

“Did you see anyone else?”

Alma thought for a moment. “You know how little traffic we get out here. I did notice a brown van go by. It was driving so slow, I knew the driver must be lost. And there was one of those large dark SUVs. I can’t say if either of them stopped at your house since I got busy after that. Is Maggie all right?”

“I don’t know. I can’t seem to find her,” he said. “If you think of anything else...” She promised she would call him.

Back at the house, he told Mark what Alma had said. “Celeste drives a large dark SUV.”

“I’m going to have a deputy go by Celeste Duma’s house,” the undersheriff said.

From the moment he’d walked in and seen the mess and couldn’t find Maggie, he’d wanted to race over to Celeste’s house and demand to know what she’d done with Maggie. “I’ll go.”

Mark stopped him. “I’m sorry, Sheriff, but I can’t let you do that. With you, it would be confrontational. Please, let me handle this. You called me because you know you are too emotionally involved. This is now considered a crime scene. We’re going to treat it as such and pray that we’re wrong.”

Flint knew Mark was right. It was why he’d called him. He’d been afraid of doing something that would put Maggie in even more jeopardy. He listened to Mark on the phone for a moment and then stepped outside, needing the air.

He could tell that Mark was as worried as he was. The question was, where was Maggie now? His hand went to the small velvet box in his pocket. Why had he waited so long to ask her to marry him? What if...? He couldn’t bear to let himself even think it. He had to believe that she was still alive and that they would find her, he told himself as he stepped back inside the door. Mark was still on the phone.

“The only deputy close to town is Harp,” Mark said, covering the phone with his hand and making an it-will-be-all-right face. The county was large and the sheriff’s department was small. It meant stretching law enforcement to its limits sometimes. It was one reason Flint would love to get rid of Harp and get a better deputy.

Flint groaned silently. Deputy Harper Cole was the last person he wanted to depend on right now. He knew why Mark couldn’t go himself. He was protecting the possible crime scene—and Flint. If the DCI became involved, the first suspect was always the boyfriend. He listened to him tell Harp what to do at the Duma house.

“Get inside. Be polite. Try to have a look around and see if anything appears amiss. If Celeste and her husband will let you search the place without a warrant, great. Nice if you could check her car. Just listen, please.” Mark sighed. “Maggie Thompson is missing. Yes, the sheriff’s girlfriend. Now listen. Look for blood. I can’t get into it right now. There could have been an accident involving Celeste and Maggie. Call me if there is any question.” He turned back to Flint as he disconnected. “Harp is actually the best choice right now. No one takes him seriously. If you’re right about Celeste, she won’t be concerned about Harp showing up and should let him in without a warrant. That will save us time.”

Flint tried to breathe a little easier. “Great. I’m forced to depend on the town hero.”

Mark sighed. “It is going to be all right.”

A few months ago, Harp had managed to save two people’s lives. One of those lives belonged to Flint’s brother Darby. The other was Darby’s now wife, Mariah Ayers Cahill. Flint had been ready to fire the deputy before that night and would have months ago if Harp hadn’t been the mayor’s son. He’d given him more chances because of it. But Flint had reached his limit. He’d told Harp that if he messed up again... Then Harp had come through that night and was now the town hero. At least until he messed up big-time again.

And that was why Flint wished it was anyone but Harp going over to Celeste’s house. He knew his ex-wife. If she was behind this, she would lie. Flint would know if she was lying. He doubted Harp would.

He raked a hand through his hair as he glanced toward the fallen bookshelf. As crazy as he thought his ex was, he never really thought she was capable of...of whatever had happened here.

“We don’t know for sure it was Celeste,” Mark said.

Just as they didn’t know that she’d vandalized Maggie’s salon and almost set her house on fire? “She’s certainly capable. But if she did something to Maggie...” Flint couldn’t continue.

Mark laid a hand on his shoulder. “We don’t even know that the blood is Maggie’s. One step at a time. We’ll find her.”

He nodded, but he knew the statistics. The first seventy-two hours were crucial. But that wasn’t if the missing person was injured. He had no idea how badly Maggie had been bleeding. Maggie hadn’t been missing long. If they could find her soon... Otherwise, he knew he might never see her alive again.

“Why haven’t we heard from Harp yet?” Flint demanded.

“He hasn’t even had time to get over there. You need to stay calm. We have to work this one step at a time. Is there anyone else who might want to harm Maggie?”

“No.” He’d answered the question too quickly. Mark was looking at him with concern. “I don’t know. The only person she’s had run-ins with that I know of was Celeste.” He realized he didn’t know if Maggie had had other problems with anyone. Maggie was so independent. He loved that about her, but now he wondered if she would have told him if she’d had trouble with anyone else.

Celeste was a different story since she was his ex. Maggie seemed to think that he could do something about her. Now he sure wished he had.

The undersheriff looked around the room for a moment. “You keep the doors locked when you aren’t home?”

He hadn’t wanted to admit it, but he shook his head. “Also, I’ve never changed the locks from when Celeste and I lived here together. She probably still has a key.”

Mark gave him a disapproving look before he asked, “I’m assuming you didn’t touch anything?”

Flint heard something in his voice. “No—you know I didn’t. You aren’t thinking about kicking me from this case—”

“No, I can’t. As you know, in the state of Montana, the sheriff is an elected office. Not even the county commissioners can pull you off a case.”

“Only the Division of Criminal Investigation,” Flint said, suddenly aware of where his undersheriff was going with this.

“I’m hoping to know what we’re dealing with before we call in a DCI team,” Mark said. “You agree?”

A part of him wanted the criminologists on this as quickly as possible. But once they called in the DCI, the team might decide because Maggie was his girlfriend that he be put on a leave of absence. He’d be off the case. He couldn’t bear the thought. Silently, he swore. They had to find Maggie before he was locked out of this investigation. As it was, his house was now a crime scene.

* * *

DEPUTY HARPER COLE cruised down the street toward the Duma house. He wondered what this really was about. Maggie Thompson was missing? There had to be more to it than that. He had tried to ask, but the undersheriff had cut him off. Clearly both Mark and Flint still didn’t have any faith in his abilities. It pissed him off. He was a hero.

Well, at least everyone thought he was. Everyone but his pregnant girlfriend, Vicki. Why had he confessed everything to her that morning in the hospital after he’d almost died? He’d been feeling guilty, amazed he was still alive, and apparently he’d felt the need to confess to someone. But Vicki?

Now he was stuck with her. She could hold it over his head for the rest of their lives because if the truth about that night ever came out...

Harp shuddered at the thought. He would be the laughingstock of town instead of a hero. Worse, he’d be fired. He’d have to leave town. He might never get another job in law enforcement and he’d gotten damned attached to carrying a gun and being “the man.”

Now he slowed in front of the Duma house. Here he was again, dealing with something connected to the sheriff. Maggie Thompson was allegedly missing? So what was he doing here?

He parked in front of the sheriff’s ex-wife’s house and warned himself not to screw this up. Reading between the lines of what the undersheriff had said, Mark thought Celeste Duma had done something to the sheriff’s girlfriend.

Smiling, he climbed out. He loved this sort of small-town drama, especially when it involved the sheriff. It surprised him Flint wasn’t the one coming over here himself. Flint must be going crazy with worry. Why else would he let Mark be calling the shots?

He covered the butt of his gun with his hand as he walked toward the front door. There was no car parked in the drive. As he passed a window in the garage, he peered in. Empty. This was going to be a waste of time. No one was home.

Ringing the bell, he glanced around the neighborhood. It was a much nicer one than where he and Vicki lived. She’d talked him into moving in with her. Another mistake he’d made. She spent most of her time puking her guts out since getting pregnant. She never felt like doing it anymore. He worried this was what marriage was going to be like.

He rang the bell again and then knocked. Total waste of time.

At the sound of a car engine, he turned to see a large dark SUV pull in. Wayne Duma. Now, here was someone who thought a whole lot of himself, Harp thought. Hell, he’d bought himself and his wife matching SUVs for one of their wedding anniversaries. How full of himself was that?

Duma was frowning as he exited his vehicle. Clearly he didn’t like seeing a deputy on his doorstep. “Can I help you?” the man asked in the same tone he probably used with solicitors at his door. It only pissed Harp off more.

“I’m looking for Mrs. Duma.”

“She’s not here.”

“So I gathered. Can you tell me where she is?”

Wayne looked as if he was losing patience. Harp felt the same way. “What is this about?”

Harp didn’t answer. “I need to talk to her. Sheriff’s department business.”

“She’s left town.”

“When did she leave?”

“Earlier. I insist you tell me what this is about.”

“Where did she go?”

Duma looked as if he wanted to dig his heels in.

“Maggie Thompson is missing. I need to speak with your wife.”

The man groaned and looked away. “Not this foolishness again.” He turned back to Harp. “My wife has gone to a spa. If Maggie is missing, it has nothing to do with Celeste.”

“What spa?”

“I have no idea.”

“Was she driving there or flying?”

Duma shook his head. “I didn’t ask.”

“I’m going to need to have a look around. I’m sure we can get a warrant—”

“That isn’t necessary,” Duma said, stepping past him to unlock the door. “Help yourself.”

Harp stepped in and looked around. “Nice place you have here.” He walked through the house. It appeared a housekeeping service had been there recently. It had that smell. It did nothing to improve his mood since he’d never had a place that smelled this good.

“I’m going to take a look upstairs,” he told Duma, who didn’t bother to answer. He was on his phone. Harp listened as the man left a message for his wife to call him.

Upstairs, he stuck his head in each room. The place was immaculate. He couldn’t see Celeste down on her knees scrubbing the bathroom floor to make it shine like that—let alone to wipe up blood. Rich people, he thought with a sharp bite of jealousy.

He figured, as clean as the place was, it wouldn’t be hard to find blood evidence—if there had been any. But so far, he saw nothing to indicate that there had been anything going on there.

At the end of the hall, he pushed open the door into the master bedroom and felt his pulse shoot up. The room looked as if it had exploded. There were clothes everywhere, on the floor, on the bed, thrown on the closet floor.

He heard Duma behind him. The man gasped and then swore.

“Can you explain this?” Harp asked.

“Apparently Celeste had trouble deciding what to take to the spa.”

“Right. Don’t touch anything in this room.” He pulled out his phone. “The sheriff is going to want to talk to you.”

CHAPTER FOUR

AT THE SAME TIME her boyfriend was calling the sheriff, Vicki was doubling over in pain. She clutched the sink next to the toilet bowl. Ever since she’d lost the baby, she’d had terrible cramps at that time of the month. Keeping Harp off of her for the days she was flowing was hard enough. But the lying...

She told herself that she couldn’t keep this secret any longer from Deputy Harper Cole, the man she’d fallen in love with. Every day, she promised herself that she would tell Harp that she’d lost the baby. But when he came home, she just couldn’t bring herself to confess.

He’ll leave you the minute you tell him.

After all, it had been the only reason he’d moved in with her. She hadn’t told, thinking she would get pregnant again. But here was another month and no baby. The doctor had said she shouldn’t have any trouble getting pregnant again. She’d thought that if it happened soon enough, Harp would never have to know she’d lost the first baby. He never paid any attention to how many months had gone by.

He’d asked her once when she was going to start showing. “Guess you’ll be looking like you stole a basketball soon enough. Does that mean we aren’t going to be able to do it?”

She’d assured him that they could have sex—the one thing that seemed to make him happy—almost to the end. “But only if you are more gentle.”

That had cheered him up. Nothing else about living together had. True, she wasn’t much of a cook. Often she was bored and just watched television all day. She missed working at the café, but she couldn’t very well go back there without admitting that she’d had a miscarriage early on in her pregnancy.

What was she going to do? she thought as she doubled over again with a cramp. And how was she going to keep this from Harp? She couldn’t pretend to have the flu every month for five days. Even Harp would figure that out after a while.

She had to get pregnant again. Otherwise...

Vicki felt the pills she’d taken begin to work on her cramps. Without the pain, her thoughts cleared some. She considered what Harp had told her had happened the night that man had come looking for Mariah Ayers, now Cahill, and had almost killed both Mariah and Darby. Harp had admitted to her that he wasn’t the hero everyone thought he was. He’d lied and she was the only one he’d ever told about it.

Now with the sheriff’s girlfriend missing and him being put on leave, maybe Harp really did have a shot at becoming the next sheriff. But only if no one ever knew the truth about that night.

She placed a hand over her stomach. Maybe she didn’t need a baby to keep Harp after all.

* * *

“I CAN ASSURE you that Celeste had nothing to do with Maggie Thompson being missing,” Duma said from a chair in the interrogation room at the sheriff’s department thirty minutes later. He was a big man, distinguished, gray at the temples.

“How can you be so confident of that?” the undersheriff asked.

Flint watched through the glass window that acted as a mirror on the other side. Harp had stayed at the house to make sure nothing was disturbed until the state crime team arrived out of Billings. Flint desperately wanted to be the one questioning Duma.

“I need you to let me handle this,” Mark had said. “You know you’re too emotionally involved.”

Swearing under his breath, he’d nodded. “You’re right. I’ll do whatever you suggest. I trust you, Mark.”

“You’d do the same thing in my shoes. The DCI will want to talk to you. After that, you’ll need to find somewhere to stay since your house is now a crime scene.”

Flint had felt as if his heart would burst when Mark had gotten the call from Harp. “What did Harp find over there? Please, Mark, you have to tell me.”

“Nothing to indicate that Celeste had anything to do with Maggie going missing. But she’s left town and she was apparently upset before she left. Flint, I told you—”

His heart had started pounding the moment Mark had answered his phone and said, “Bring Duma down to the sheriff’s department for questioning.”

Panic had made his knees go weak. “Celeste?”

“No—Wayne Duma. He says Celeste left town to go to a spa.”

“She’s lying. You have to—”

“Flint, he’s coming downtown. We’ll find out what he knows.”

“She picked today to leave town? Mark—”

“I know. We have to find Maggie. That’s what we’re doing.”

Flint had nodded, but his heart had been racing. Celeste had done something with Maggie. This had been building for some time.

“I know you’re right, Mark, but I need to know what’s going on or I’ll go crazy. Starting with what Duma has to say.”

Mark had suggested he watch the interrogation. Flint had agreed, although he could feel the clock ticking like a time bomb in his chest. Maggie had been missing for at least several hours now. Statistically, the sooner they found her, the better chance they would find her alive. He feared she’d been taken on impulse. He envisioned the scene back at his house. The two women arguing, maybe getting into a shoving match, and then Maggie getting hurt.

If she was badly hurt, things would have gone downhill from there. Celeste would be scared. She’d do something stupid, like abduct Maggie to keep what had happened from coming out. Things would only get worse from there. Celeste would be running scared. She would realize how hard it was to hide someone. How desperate would she get, all the time not realizing that she was getting in deeper and deeper?

He stared through the glass, wanting to shake the truth out of Wayne Duma.

“How do you explain the condition your bedroom was in?” Mark asked.

Duma rubbed the back of his neck, looking uncomfortable. “Celeste and I had a fight last night. She was still upset this morning.”

“What did you fight over?”

“I don’t even know. With Celeste...” The man looked away. “We haven’t been getting along for some time now. This morning, after another rough night, I suggested we might want to take a break.”

“Divorce?”

“I didn’t say that, but I think that’s the way she took it. I told her we would talk about it later when we were both calmer.”

Flint felt his stomach roil. Celeste would have been beside herself, he thought. She might not like the choice she’d made in hooking up with Duma, but she wouldn’t want to give up the luxury, the name or the perceived power that came with it. Given the kind of mood she must have been in, anything could have happened.

“I went to work,” Duma continued. “I knew she had some meeting she was going to. I almost didn’t take her call later that morning when my assistant said she was on the line. I didn’t want to continue the argument, especially at work and on the phone.”

“But you did take the call.”

He nodded. “She was still upset. She sounded hysterical. I honestly thought she might do something to herself if I didn’t stay on the line. So I let her talk. She went on about the two of us, the same stuff I’ve heard before. I don’t give her enough attention, that sort of thing.” He sighed.

“Did she mention Maggie Thompson?”

Duma looked away for a moment. “She told me that she’d run into Maggie at the grocery store and that her ex and Maggie were moving in together.” He cleared his voice. “She was calmer then, I thought. She said she was having trouble dealing with it, that she had some unresolved feelings for Flint and that part of our problem was that she blamed me for their divorce. If she hadn’t met me...

“But that she loved me and just needed some time away. She said she was sorry she’d put me through so much. She sounded as if she was accepting that her ex was going to find happiness with someone else. She promised that when she came back everything would be much better.”

Much better because Maggie would be out of the picture. Cursing, Flint couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He wanted to put his fist through the glass. He’d been married to Celeste. He knew what extremes she went to when she felt she was about to lose something she wanted. There was no telling what she would have done.

“Did she tell you where she was going?” Mark asked.

“No, just that she was packing to go to a spa. She sounded...calm.”

According to Harp, Celeste had been anything but calm given the shape of the bedroom where she was packing, Flint thought. Had she gone from there over to his house the two of them had shared and confronted Maggie?

Celeste probably still had her key, not that she would have needed it since she knew he usually left the door unlocked. So she could have been waiting for Maggie. Or worse, he thought with a curse, she could have just walked in and surprised Maggie.

He mentally kicked himself for not getting the locks changed, for not locking his door. But this was Gilt Edge, after all. Aside from a rash of break-ins a few months ago by some teens... The point was that Celeste could have gotten to Maggie—and had.

But then, so could anyone else, he thought and shook his head. It hadn’t been anyone else. He knew who had Maggie. He was staring at the person’s husband.

“I’m telling you Celeste wouldn’t have done anything to Maggie. Yes, maybe she tried to scare her off with some stupid vandalism, but kidnap her?” Duma shook his head. “She wouldn’t do anything so...”

“Crazy?” Mark asked.

Duma hung his head. “She was just angry. By now, she’s over it. We’ve had fights before.”

He didn’t sound convinced they would patch things up, Flint thought. This man had seen Celeste’s crazy. He was running scared this time and probably fed up. Flint knew that feeling, having been there with Celeste himself.

“I think my wife has too much time on her hands and...” Duma looked up at Mark as if pleading with him to agree that Celeste wouldn’t have hurt Maggie. “This whole thing is so...frustrating. Yes, my wife might need...help. I’ve tried to get her to see someone.” He put his head in his hands. “It’s put a terrible strain on our marriage. I should be more patient with her, but when she calls me at work with this foolishness...”

“Did she mention that she was going over to Flint’s house to see Maggie?”

Duma lifted his head. “No. I told you. She said she was going to a spa.”

“But she didn’t mention what spa or where and you didn’t ask?”

“No. I was just relieved that she was going away for a while.” He looked guilty, and for a moment, Flint almost felt sorry for him. Maybe if Duma hadn’t had an affair with Celeste while she was still married to him, Flint could have worked up more compassion for the man. Instead, he felt as if Duma had gotten what he deserved: one crazy-ass woman who was capable of doing just about anything.

But if Celeste had lost it and done something to Maggie... He clenched his fists tighter. They had to find Celeste. It was too much of a coincidence that she’d left town now—at the same time Maggie had gone missing. Especially now that he knew how upset Celeste had been.

Mark was questioning Duma about other spas Celeste had gone to. Mark had gotten a warrant, so they were checking into Duma’s bank and credit-card statements. In the meantime, the state crime team would be arriving and going over Flint’s house as well as the Dumas’. Flint had mixed feelings about that. Maybe they would find proof that would help find Maggie. Or maybe they wouldn’t find any physical evidence other than Flint’s own DNA at the scene and kick him off the case.

“Does Celeste own a gun?” the undersheriff asked.

Flint’s ears perked up. Duma raised his head. He looked guilty. Flint swore.

“I bought her a gun when...when she told me that her ex was harassing her,” Duma said. “I know now that it wasn’t true.” He sighed. “But I thought if it made Celeste feel safer...”

Mark asked about the make and model and if Celeste had taken it with her. Duma swore he had no idea if Celeste had taken the gun.

Who takes a gun to a spa? Flint thought.

“The DCI team out of Billings will want to take a look at your house after they finish with the crime scene,” Mark said. “I hope you’ll cooperate.”

Duma sighed. “I want to help in any way I can.”

Flint listened as Mark finished up with Duma, who promised to call him with the names of the spas that Celeste usually went to.

He hated the waiting. Worse, hated feeling so helpless. Hours had gone by. Where was Maggie? Unfortunately, he knew firsthand how investigations could take a wrong turn, how law enforcement could spend too much time suspecting the wrong person, how people died while the cops were barking up the wrong tree. He couldn’t let that happen. Once they found Celeste—

“Sheriff?” The dispatcher stuck her head into the small room adjacent to the interrogation room where he was standing. “We just got a call. I think you’ll want to take it.”

His heart took off like a wild horse in the wind. “About Maggie?”

The dispatcher looked embarrassed. “No. I’m sorry. The caller said it was about Jenna Holloway.”

* * *

JENNA HOLLOWAY HAD disappeared following an argument with her husband, Anvil, last March. Anvil admitted to striking her after she’d confessed to having an affair with another man, but swore she wasn’t hurt when she drove away.

What had sent up red flags were Anvil’s actions after she’d allegedly left. He’d destroyed a section of Sheetrock with his fist and then he’d cleaned up the kitchen, mopping the floor before washing the clothes he’d been wearing.

When Flint had arrived he’d noticed the freshly scrubbed kitchen, as well as Anvil’s bruised and bloodied knuckles. Anvil hadn’t been able to repair the section of Sheetrock before he’d called to report Jenna missing. But he’d certainly covered his tracks on everything else.

Over the weeks that followed with no word from Jenna, more facts had emerged. It seemed that Jenna had more secrets than just a lover. She’d become pen pals with some inmates at Montana State Prison, taken up shoplifting and stealing from the family grocery budget. She’d also begun wearing makeup and had bought herself some sexy undergarments—things apparently out of character.

When her car turned up in a gully, Flint had become more convinced that Anvil hadn’t just taken his temper out on a wall. The state crime investigators had been called in, but they’d found no evidence to prove that Anvil had killed her.

Since then Flint had been waiting for someone to stumble across her shallow grave. The DCI had gone over the Holloway farm with cadaver dogs and found nothing. Anvil had sworn that he didn’t kill her. Not that anyone in town believed him. But with four mountain ranges around the valley and miles and miles of wild country, Jenna could have been buried anywhere.

Flint suspected that someone had finally found her body when he took the call.

“I should have called you months ago,” a man said.

“You know something about Jenna Holloway’s disappearance? Who am I speaking to?”

Silence. A crank call?

“Kurt Reiner. Jenna’s been staying with me.”

Flint had to sit down. “Jenna Holloway is with you?”

“I know I should have called, but she was too afraid of him finding her if I told anyone where she was.”

“She was that afraid of her husband?”

“Her husband? No, man. It was some dude who was threatening her.”

He tried to get his head around this. Jenna was alive? Had been alive since the night she disappeared back in March? “Where has she been all this time?”

“Sheridan, Wyoming. We’ve been renting a place down here.”

Flint rubbed a hand over his face. “I’m confused. So why did you decide to call me now?”

“A little over a week ago, she saw the man who’d been harassing her back in Montana. He was in town. She’d been telling me that she’d felt as if someone had been watching her. I figured she was imagining things or getting tired of being with me, you know what I mean? Anyway, the next night she freaked. She saw him standing across the street, watching our second-floor apartment. I ran down, but by the time I reached the corner, he was gone, roaring away in his van. So the next day—”

“Wait. A van?” He thought of what Alma Ellison had told him. “What color van?”

It took Reiner a minute to answer after being interrupted in the middle of his story.

“A brown one. So, anyway, a couple days ago I came back to the apartment and...” His voice broke. “She was gone and the place was a mess as if there’d been a fight. And now she’s missing. Really missing this time.”

A brown van. What were the chances it was the same van his neighbor had seen earlier today driving by his house? Sheridan, Wyoming, was about six hours away, no big deal for those who lived in these large Western states. Still, it was a stretch to think it could have been the same van.

“You didn’t happen to get the plate number on that van, did you?”

“Naw. It was an older-model panel van.”

“Wyoming plates?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Montana plates?”

“I really didn’t notice since the back of the van was so dirty. But now that I think about it, they were some different colored plate, not Wyoming or Montana. That’s all I know.”

Flint raked a hand through his hair. Why did he think there might be a connection? He knew who had taken Maggie and she didn’t drive an old brown van. She drove the newest, largest black SUV they made.

Still, both women were from Gilt Edge. Jenna had her hair done at Maggie’s shop by the other stylist, Daisy Caulfield, but the two had known each other. He wouldn’t be a good lawman unless he checked this out.

“I need to talk to you more about this,” Flint said. “Can you come up to Gilt Edge?”

“Sorry, but I finally landed a pretty decent job. Even if I could afford to drive all the way up there—”

“Did you talk to the local police?”

“Couldn’t really do that under the circumstances, you know. I kept hoping she’d turn back up. That’s why I didn’t call until now. I didn’t want any trouble with the law.” Also, the local law probably wouldn’t have much interest since Jenna had pulled this disappearing act already up in Montana.

“I probably shouldn’t even have called you,” Reiner said.

Flint spoke quickly, afraid now that the man might hang up. “Did Jenna tell you anything more about this man?”

“No. Just said he scared her and wouldn’t leave her alone.”

Flint thought of the prison pen pals Jenna had been writing before she’d disappeared the first time. Something definitely had been going on with the woman.

“Listen, you did right by calling me.” He tried to think of what to do. No way could they send an officer down there. Nor did he think the local law in Sheridan would be much help on this one. And he couldn’t go himself. He had to stay here in case there was a break in Maggie’s disappearance.

“Tell me what hours you work and where you live. I’ll send someone to take your statement.”

“I don’t know, man.”

“I’m not sending a cop. It’s a private investigator I know. I’ll have him contact you. Don’t worry. It’s someone I trust with my life—and yours and Jenna’s.”

Reiner sighed. Flint could tell that he was regretting this call. “Okay.”

Flint jotted down the information. “Give me your phone number. I’ll get right back to you.” He disconnected and called Curry Investigations in Big Timber, Montana. Former Sweet Grass County sheriff Frank Curry answered on the second ring.

CHAPTER FIVE

FLINT CAUGHT FRANK and his business partner–wife, Nettie, just before they were leaving for the day. From his office at the sheriff’s department, he filled them in on the Jenna Holloway case. He’d met them both on a state investigation some years ago when Frank was sheriff. A big man, Frank looked like an old-timey lawman with a gunfighter mustache.

He’d heard that Frank had retired and opened his own investigation business with Nettie. He admired the two of them doing that since they were both in their sixties. Most people their age were headed for their recliners.

“I got a call from a man in Sheridan, Wyoming, who says he’s been living with Jenna Holloway since March—but that now she has disappeared again,” Flint told them. He held the phone tighter. “I’d go check this out myself, but Jenna is not the only one missing. The woman I’ve been seeing, Maggie Thompson, is also missing. My undersheriff is doing everything possible to find out what happened. The DCI has been called in.”

“What can we do to help?” Nettie asked from a phone extension at their office.

“Kurt Reiner believes Jenna was taken by a man in a brown van a couple days ago. A brown van was seen on the same street where Maggie disappeared earlier today.”

“You think the cases might be connected,” Frank said.

“I think it’s a long shot at best. But both women are from here. If this man knows anything about Jenna Holloway and her disappearance...” His voice broke. “I can’t leave here in case—”

“We can go first thing in the morning,” Nettie said. “Just send us the information.”

“I really appreciate this,” Flint said. “Truthfully, I don’t think Maggie was taken by some man in a brown van. I think my ex-wife did something to her and it scares the hell out of me. But my ex is allegedly away at some spa, and this information on Jenna, who disappeared last March, just came in. When the man mentioned a brown van...”

“I understand. We’ll get back to you as soon as we’ve talked to Kurt Reiner,” Frank said.

He swallowed the lump in his throat, unable to voice his gratitude. He trusted this longtime sheriff, having heard nothing but good news about him. Nor was Frank’s wife any slouch when it came to investigating, he’d heard.

“We’ll start with Jenna,” Frank said. “Then we’ll see where you are on Maggie’s disappearance. We understand time is of the essence. If you need anything...” He read off their cell phone numbers.

“Thanks, Frank. I knew I could count on you. I’ve emailed everything I have. As soon as I hear from you verifying that Jenna was the woman living with Kurt Reiner, I’ll go out to the Holloway farm to talk to the husband. Anvil might have heard from her and just not called me. Or he could be involved. At this point, it’s all up in the air.”

“We have the photo of Jenna and the information you just emailed. We’ll be in touch.”

* * *

TEN O’CLOCK THE next morning, Frank sat down across from Kurt Reiner. Reiner was dressed in jeans, sneakers that had seen better days and a ragged T-shirt with a logo of some band Frank had never heard of. Somewhere around forty-five with a neck tattoo of a snake and a variety of other tattoos on his pale skin below the sleeves of the T-shirt, Reiner appeared to be trying to look younger. His eyes were steel blue with thick lashes in a pockmarked face that wasn’t quite handsome.

But there was something about him that Frank thought might appeal to a woman either looking for trouble or running from it. A quiet mousy woman who’d married a farmer ten years her elder might have looked at Reiner and thought he had something she’d missed out on. Especially since she’d apparently been drawn toward the wilder side of life before her disappearance.

The first thing Frank had done when he’d met Reiner at a local café was show him the photo.

“Yep, that’s Jenna,” the man had said. “Except now she’s a blonde.”

“You wouldn’t happen to have a photo of the two of you, would you?”

Reiner nodded. “I figured you’d want proof.” He dug out his cell phone and swiped for a photo. It was a selfie of him and Jenna in a bar. While not great resolution, there was no doubt it was Jenna—even blonde.

What struck Frank was that she looked younger than she did in the photo Flint had gotten from her husband. He took a photo of the pair and texted it to Flint to let him know that they had a positive ID while Nettie made polite conversation to distract Reiner.

“So how did you and Jenna meet?” Frank asked after the three of them were seated at a back table out of the way. Reiner had suggested the place, wanting to meet in public. Frank got the feeling that he was worried a half-dozen cops would be waiting for him.

Now Reiner shifted uncomfortably in his chair and shot a look toward the door. “So you’re a private dick?”

“Nettie and I are licensed private investigators, yes,” Frank said. “No one is going to arrest you.” He’d told him this on the phone but clearly the man had trust issues. He could tell that Reiner wished he’d kept his mouth shut about Jenna.

“You care about her,” Nettie said. “That’s why you’re here. Are you in love with her?”

Reiner blinked, his expression softening as he looked at Nettie. “She was sweet, you know? The kind of woman who takes care of a man.”

Frank wondered how she’d taken care of him, but let his wife take the lead. Nettie had a sense for these things. He’d learned to trust her instincts long ago.

“You must miss her.”

Reiner’s blue eyes filled with tears as he nodded. He swallowed convulsively, his Adam’s apple going up and down for a minute. “That’s why I called. If some...bad dude has her...”

“Then let us help her,” Nettie said. “We’re going to need to know everything she might have told you about the man, but let’s start with how you two met.”

He nodded. “She was writing to my brother, Bobby. He’s in prison in Deer Lodge.”

Flint had said she’d been writing to prisoners at Montana State Prison, but when she’d disappeared none of those men had been released, so they were cleared as suspects.

“He told me about her and that she needed help, so...” Reiner shrugged. “So I wrote her and we met. I had to help her, you know?”

“But when you met her, there was something about her that stole your heart,” Nettie said.

Reiner smiled. It was a good smile. Frank could see how a woman looking for a radical life change could have fallen for this guy. He had a certain charm.

“She told you about her husband?”

“He seemed like an okay dude. I think she felt bad for hurting him, but she had to get out of there since this other dude had started freaking her out.”

“There was someone after her?” Nettie asked.

“He followed her home one day from town, she said. She saw him drive by the farm real slow and then come right back by. She said that if her husband hadn’t come back on his tractor when he did...”

“She saw the man again?” Frank asked.

“He drove by the next day and later that night. Then one morning, he drove his van up in the yard. He must have thought that her husband was gone. But he wasn’t. Anvil, right?” Frank nodded. “He went outside to see what the man wanted and the dude took off.”

“Did she know who he was?” Frank asked.

Reiner shook his head. “She said she never got a good look at him. Just had a bad feeling, you know?”

“Why her, do you think?” Frank asked.

“Who knows how dudes like that pick their targets, but she was terrified of him.”

Frank glanced at Nettie. He could tell that she was thinking the same thing he was. Why would the woman be that terrified of someone driving a van who’d possibly followed her home once and drove into the yard another time? He could understand concern. He could even understand fear. But terror? Not unless she had some other reason to fear the man behind the wheel of that van.

Which meant she knew him. And if he was the one who’d abducted her... Well, why else would he come looking for her in Wyoming unless there was more to the story? If that was even what had happened to Jenna. The woman seemed to have a habit of disappearing.

* * *

FLINT TOOK A shower at the sheriff’s office and put on the clean uniform shirt and jeans that Mark had gotten him from his house. He’d been up all night, dozing only a little in the break room at the office. He felt wired, terrified one moment, and confident the next that they would find Maggie alive, and soon.

In the meantime, he knew that if he didn’t work, he’d go crazy. While Mark canvassed the neighborhood, Flint was holding down the fort. He kept thinking that someone would call with news about Maggie. By now, word would have traveled around the county. Someone had to spot her.

Mark had called to say that Celeste hadn’t turned up. Wayne hadn’t heard from her, other than an email from a Paradise Valley spa confirming her reservation for last night. She hadn’t shown, though. No one knew where she was, but Mark had a BOLO out on her, as well as Maggie. Someone was going to spot her as well, Flint told himself. They would find Maggie. Then Celeste would spend the rest of her years behind bars for abducting her.

He just prayed that Celeste wouldn’t kill her. Mark had called earlier to tell him that it appeared Celeste had taken the gun her husband had purchased for her since it hadn’t been found in the house. As hard as he tried to think about anything else, he could feel the clock ticking.

When he’d received the texted photo of Jenna from Frank, he felt sick. All this time, Jenna had been hiding out in Wyoming with a man? He wondered how Anvil would take this news—if he didn’t already know.

On his way out to the Holloway farm, Flint couldn’t get the photo of Jenna and Kurt Reiner off his mind. Jenna was smiling in the snapshot. She looked so different from the photo her husband had given him back in March. For one thing, she’d bleached her hair blond and she was clearly wearing makeup. He hoped he wouldn’t have to show this photo to Anvil. It was going to be hard enough on the man when he learned that his wife had been shacking up with a lover in Wyoming all this time. He didn’t need to see how happy she looked.

He thought about the first time he’d driven out to the Holloway farm. Anvil had called him to say his wife was missing. He’d known little about the couple, since they stayed to themselves and seldom came into town.

He’d seen Jenna in passing in town when she’d made the trip in for groceries, but other than a nod to each other, they’d never even spoken. Jenna had seemed...painfully shy. Now, though, he wondered if he’d misread not only her, but also the entire situation.

It was clear now that Jenna had planned her escape from the farm. From her husband. From even the law. She’d done it systematically. Flint had changed his view of her since seeing the photo of her and Reiner. He realized he needed to know a whole lot more if there was any connection between Jenna’s and Maggie’s disappearances.

Thinking about Jenna kept his mind off the panic he felt when he thought of Maggie. He told himself that once Mark found Celeste... But he felt wired one minute and exhausted the next. He kept praying that Maggie was alive. That Mark would find her before it was too late.

While he tried to concentrate on doing his job, the thought of Maggie being missing hung at the back of his mind like a physical pain that never went away. When he thought of her, his heart would pound and he’d feel sick to his stomach. Not being part of the investigation was driving him crazy.

He knew he should be glad that there’d been a break in the Holloway case for the distraction. Otherwise he would be pacing the floor at the sheriff’s department, waiting for word. Mark had promised to call the moment there was any news.

But he also knew that he was too involved in this one, even if the DCI didn’t force him to take a leave of absence. As he pulled up in the yard, the front door of the house opened and Anvil appeared. Worry burrowed the farmer’s brows. Anvil held a dish towel in one hand, a cup in the other.

There was a time when Flint would have thought the man was worried that Jenna’s body had turned up and he was about to go to prison for murder. But Anvil didn’t look worried. He merely looked mildly curious. From the beginning, the farmer had sworn that his wife had run off with another man. As it turned out, he’d been right.

Still, Flint doubted Anvil was ready for this news, he thought as he climbed out of the patrol car and started toward the porch steps.

“Sheriff?”

“I’ve got some news about Jenna.” He pulled his coat around him to ward off the cold wind coming out of the snowcapped mountains. Low clouds hung over the peaks with the promise of a winter storm by noon. Christmas was only days away, and without a doubt, it was going to be white. Just the thought of Christmas without Maggie... He felt his stomach roil. “Mind if we step inside?”

Anvil shoved the door open and moved aside to let the sheriff enter. The first thing that struck him was how clean the house was. Anvil hadn’t just cleaned up after the incident with his wife. He’d continued to do so. The house looked spotless. Flint had to wonder if it had ever been this clean when Jenna was taking care of it.

Also, Anvil looked more kept up. He seemed to be dressed better. There’d definitely been a change in the man. Some local women had noticed it after Jenna disappeared. The women were convinced that Anvil had done away with his wife and was looking for another one just because he started wearing jeans instead of overalls. At least the last half of that still might be true, Flint thought.

“Coffee?” Anvil asked as he put down the cup he was holding and moved to the sink to carefully fold the dish towel and hang it over a rack.

“Sure,” Flint said, studying the man’s back. The news he had was a double-edged sword. He feared it would draw blood from a man who had already been put through the mill over Jenna’s first disappearance.

Not only had Anvil found out disturbing things about the woman he’d spent twenty-four years with, but also he’d lost her. The worse part was that most everyone in the county still believed that he’d killed her.

* * *

“WHEN JENNA DISAPPEARED, what did she take with her?” Nettie asked in the Sheridan, Wyoming, café.

Reiner looked up at her in surprise. “You mean did she take her clothes and stuff?”

“Did she?”

“No.” He looked insulted. “She was...abducted. I told you, the apartment was torn up as if she’d struggled. I was at work. I came home and she was gone.”

“None of her things were missing?” Frank asked.

The man seemed to consider that. “Her purse was gone, some of the money I kept in the apartment for groceries. I figured that’s where she was headed when whoever took her showed up at the apartment.”

“How much money was missing?” Frank asked.

Reiner looked as if he didn’t want to answer. “She took all that was in the drawer. Maybe a couple hundred. Maybe less.” He looked sick. “You’re thinking she bailed on me, but you’re wrong. She wouldn’t have done that. You don’t know her like I do.”

Frank wondered if her husband of more than twenty years had told Flint the same thing when she’d disappeared back in March. He doubted either man had really known this woman.

“She ever talk about her past?”

“You mean like her husband?”

“More like old boyfriends before or after her husband,” Nettie said.

Reiner seemed to think for a moment. “She mentioned growing up in some hellhole in North Dakota. Her parents were really strict. She said she never saw them touch each other. Seriously, not a hug, a kiss, even hold hands. She wondered how they’d conceived her.”

“Where was this in North Dakota?” Frank asked.

“Some wide spot in the road.” He frowned as if thinking. “Radville. That’s right, because she said it was anything but rad. I thought that was pretty funny. She had that kind of sense of humor.”

“Did she say why she left there?” Nettie asked.

He shrugged. “Who wouldn’t? She might have said that her parents were glad to see her go. They didn’t want her dating. I think they wanted her to become a nun. Not really, but you know what I mean.” He laughed. “Jenna a nun? Jenna was the horniest woman I’d ever—” He stopped, his gaze going to Nettie. “Sorry.”

“So she had a sexual appetite?” Nettie asked.

“Boy howdy. I got the feeling she hadn’t had any in years, if you know what I mean.”

Frank thought he did. “She like it kinky?”

Reiner colored and shot Nettie a look before turning back to him. “Seriously?”

“Nettie can handle it,” he assured the man. “Jenna like it rough?”

Looking embarrassed, Reiner looked away and said, “I think it was all that pent-up stuff from first her parents and then that straitlaced old man she was married to.”

Frank had to smile to himself. He’d called Anvil Holloway an old man and Holloway was nearly ten years Frank’s junior. He saw that Nettie was amused since even at their ages there was nothing wrong with either of their own sexual appetites.

“What about friends?” Nettie asked. “Surely she had a friend back home that she kept in contact with.”

“Dana,” he said with a nod. “Apparently she didn’t escape Radville. Jenna felt bad for her, talked about helping her out, you know?”

“Like sending her money?” Frank asked.

“She sent her some. I didn’t mind.” He looked defensive. “She didn’t send much. Like I said, I didn’t mind giving it to her.”

“She call her?” Nettie asked.

He shrugged. “A few times. But I don’t see what—”

“We’re going to need Jenna’s cell phone number.”

“She didn’t have one. She used mine.”

“Then we are going to need it and your passcode,” Frank said. “Sorry. We’ll get it back to you as soon as we’re done with it. I can give you money for a new phone.”

Reiner looked as if he might leap up and make a run for it. But after a moment, he reached into his pocket, brought out the phone and laid it on the table with a gesture that said, “I have nothing to hide.” Nettie wrote down the passcode, and turning on the cell, she keyed it in. Seeing that it worked, she pocketed the phone.

“Dana have a last name?” Frank asked.

Reiner shrugged. “I never heard it mentioned.”

“What about friends since the two of you have been living here in Wyoming?” Nettie asked. “Friends from work maybe?”

He shook his head. “She didn’t have a job. We thought it best, you know, under the circumstances.”

“What did she do all day?” Frank asked.

“Hang. Watch TV. She cooked,” he said, brightening. “She was a great cook.” He looked at his watch. “I really need to get to work.”

“We’ll keep in touch, but if you hear from her, call me,” Frank said, sliding his business card and a hundred-dollar bill across the table. “You did good calling the sheriff. We’ll find her.”

Reiner looked like a man badly beaten with regrets. “Right.”

“We’ll mail your phone to your apartment address,” Frank said to the man’s retreating back and got a dismissive wave.

“A waste of postage,” Nettie said. “You know he’s taking off. Won’t be hearing from him again.” She brought up the photo of the man and Jenna on the cell phone.

Frank sighed. “I think we got all we could from him,” he said, watching through the window as Reiner drove away in an old compact car, the back bumper covered with stickers.

The sky was a dull gray as they stepped out of the café and walked toward their SUV. The cold air smelled as if it might start snowing at any moment.

“We need to know more about Jenna,” Nettie said as she climbed into the passenger side of the SUV.

“My thought exactly.” Frank smiled over at her as he slid behind the wheel. They’d always had this wondrous connection. She smiled back. It still amazed him how much he loved this woman and had since he was a boy. He’d lost her to another man for a while, but getting her back was the smartest thing he’d ever done. She fulfilled him in every way. Having her as a partner in their investigative business was just the cherry on top.

So far their business was doing better than even he’d hoped. Which he thought proved it was never too late. Never too late for love, he thought, looking at Nettie. Never too late to take a chance on something you loved doing. And the two of them loved investigating. That was, he did. Nettie loved snooping into other people’s business, he thought with a smile.

“Jenna knew who was after her,” Nettie said after Frank called the Gilt Edge sheriff’s cell, only to have to leave a message. “This man is someone from her past.”

“Some bad history there. You think the man was blackmailing her?” Frank asked, looking over at her.

“Could explain the money she was taking from her grocery budget back in Montana. Might also explain the prison pen pals.” She nodded. “Actually, I’m betting she was looking for someone to take care of the problem for her.”

Frank chuckled. “Where would a woman go to get help with some man she said was terrorizing her? Prison. I like it.”

“Instead she got the brother of one of the men and either decided to leave with him or really was abducted by the man from her past.” Nettie chewed at her lower lip for a minute. “Doesn’t explain the sexy undergarments or the shoplifted makeup unless... She could have thought that she was going to have to give her possibly ex-con hired killer something, and she didn’t have much money, from what Flint has told us.”

“You think she was looking for someone to kill the man after her?”

Nettie shrugged. “At least threaten him.”

As he started the SUV, he chuckled. He loved the way Nettie thought. “That all makes a strange kind of female sense.”

“Women are pretty practical thinkers. If we need something, we try to figure out how to get it. Womanly wiles are usually a last resort.”

“Then I’d say Jenna was desperate, wouldn’t you?”

“Definitely. It would explain why she took off with Reiner. It wouldn’t have taken her long to figure out that he wasn’t tough enough to take care of the man after her.”

“So then what?” Frank said.

“Once she saw the old boyfriend, assuming that’s who the man in the brown van is, she realized Reiner wasn’t going to take care of the problem for her. So what would she do?”

“Run again.”

“Or call his bluff. What do you think the old boyfriend wants?” Nettie asked thoughtfully. “It’s got to be more than money.”

“Love? Revenge?”

Nettie had wrinkled her nose at the first one. “I’m wondering how he found her in Wyoming when law enforcement couldn’t find her even with a BOLO out on her.”

“You’re thinking she contacted him?”

“Or Kurt did. Jenna could have gotten the old boyfriend’s number from her friend Dana. She calls it on Kurt’s phone. He sees a number he doesn’t recognize and calls it, giving away her location. Reiner’s definitely feeling guilty about something. It’s why he called Flint. But it could be because he didn’t protect her. Or it could be because he got scared and didn’t want to be involved in whatever happened next. I would love to have seen his face when he realized she’d taken all his money. If either of them called the old boyfriend, it could be on the phone—or at least the bill.”

“That would be a stroke of luck, but let’s remember we’re just assuming this man is an old boyfriend,” Frank said.

Nettie chuckled. “If Reiner saw a number on his phone he didn’t recognize, called it and a man answered, I’d say that was what he would have assumed, as well.”

“Think Reiner would have been angry enough to hurt her?” Frank asked.

Nettie shook her head. “I think he really cared about her. He’s the kind of man who would take her back.”

“Like the husband. Flint said Anvil had said he just wanted his wife back.”

Nettie looked thoughtful as they drove out of town. “Makes you wonder who Jenna really is. Certainly not the woman her husband thought he married. Nor the one Reiner thought he was saving. I hope I get to meet this woman.”

CHAPTER SIX

ANVIL BROUGHT TWO cups over to the table and motioned for the sheriff to have a seat. As Flint pulled up a chair, he saw that the man’s hands were shaking as he put down the cups of coffee. He was reminded that Anvil had said he would take his wife back if she was ever found, no matter what she’d done. He wondered if that was still true. If Jenna was found again.

Or if Jenna would go back to Anvil after everything that had happened between them—including him slapping her.

The farmer pulled up a chair. “Is she...?”

“She’s been living in Wyoming.”

Anvil looked up. “Wyoming?” He didn’t seem that surprised to hear this news. But then, all along, he’d believed that she was alive after taking off to meet some man. Apparently, he’d been right. “Not very far away at all.”

“I don’t have all the facts yet, but my office was contacted by a man who said he’d been living with her since she disappeared from here in March.”

“I see.”

“The thing is, the reason the man contacted me was because Jenna has disappeared again,” Flint said.

Anvil let out a soft breath of air that could have been a laugh. “So you don’t know where she is?”

“No, but I sent a private investigator down there to find out what he can. I’ll know more when he reports in. But under the circumstances, I have a positive ID, so I wanted to let you know.”

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