High-Caliber Cowboy
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She looked surprised. “Did Dusty tell you that?”
He laughed and shook his head. His sister Dusty never told him anything, but he knew that the two friends had been hitting every rodeo within driving distance and he doubted they were going there for the fried bread.
He described the woman he’d seen last night as Leticia ate her pancakes and then got up to cook a few more.
“She didn’t stay here, but there are tons of motels down in Sheridan you could try. What happened to your head?”
“I thought I was smarter than I was.”
She laughed. “I could have told you that and saved you a lot of pain.” She put the last batch of corncakes onto a plate. “So this woman made a lasting impression on you and yet you don’t know where to find her?” She laughed. “A bad-boy McCall chasing a woman? She must really be something.”
If you considered a scar on the back of his head a lasting impression. “Let’s just say I’m looking forward to seeing her again.”
“Then you’re going to need your strength,” she said, sliding the plate of pancakes over to him. “Dusty told me that you had a woman in your life.”
“Did she now,” he said, seeing that Leticia was just dying to call his sister and tell her he’d been by asking about a woman. No way around that. Let Dusty think she was right and that he’d fallen in love. Better than the truth.
SHERIFF CASH MCCALL made a few calls to Sheridan about the private investigator. He’d just hung up when he got a call from the Wyoming Highway Patrol.
“We’ve got a body just over the state line a few feet,” the patrolman said. “Looks like she’s yours since she’s in Montana. Her car’s parked along the road. Appears to have fallen down the embankment. Ended up at the edge of the river in the rocks.”
“Have you called the coroner yet?” Cash asked.
“Raymond’s on his way. He said he would stay at the scene and wait for you. We’ve got a semi overturned in the southbound lane between here and Gillette.”
“Go ahead and respond. I’m on my way. You ID the body?” Cash asked. He hoped it wasn’t a local. This was the part of his job he hated. Before the day was out, he could be banging on a door somewhere in the county to inform a relative that their loved one was dead. He also hoped it wasn’t the missing Lenore Johnson.
“A woman. I’d say about sixty. The car is locked, keys in the ignition. Her purse is inside along with what looks like a half-empty fifth of vodka. I didn’t attempt to open the car—did run the plates, though. The car is registered to an Emma Ingles.”
Chapter Four
His head throbbing with pain, Brandon spent the better part of the day checking motels in and around the town of Sheridan, Wyoming, south of Antelope Flats, Montana.
Few of the clerks could recall a woman matching the description he gave. As luck would have it, he found where she’d been staying at the last motel he checked. Clearly, the woman he was chasing hadn’t wanted to be found.
The Shady Rest Motor Inn wasn’t an inn. It was barely a motel anymore. The place was on the old highway, too far off the Interstate to get much business other than overflow.
As Brandon walked into the office, though, he was delighted to see that he knew the clerk behind the desk. He’d met her at a party one of those times he’d come to Sheridan to get away and have some fun.
“Hannah, right?”
She grinned, obviously pleased he’d remembered.
They talked for a few minutes about everything but what he’d come for. When she mentioned that the motel owner had gone into town and wouldn’t be back for a while, Brandon told her about the woman he’d been looking for.
“Yep, she was here. But she left before I came on this morning.”
“I need to find her.”
“You know I’m not supposed to do this,” Hannah said.
“I wouldn’t ask you, but it really is important,” he told her. “She’s in trouble and I’m trying to help her.”
Hannah looked a little skeptical but called up the information on the computer. “She didn’t check out, it looks like. She was registered as Anna Austin.” Address? A post-office box in Richmond, Virginia. Virginia. That could account for the slight accent he’d picked up. No phone number. Nothing under a business.
“What’s with you McCalls? Your brother called here this morning, too, looking for a woman,” Hannah said.
“Cash?”
She nodded. “He was looking for another guest from Virginia. Lenore Johnson?”
The name didn’t ring any bells. “They weren’t in the same room, were they?”
Hannah shook her head. “They weren’t even here at the same time.” She shrugged. “Probably just a coincidence.”
He rubbed his throbbing temples. Right now, there was only one woman he cared about. “Do you remember what Anna Austin was driving?”
“A black Ford pickup with Montana plates,” Hannah said.
Why would the woman from last night have rented a pickup truck? She’d looked like a fancy-sedan kind of woman.
He thanked Hannah and left before her boss got back. The more he thought about the black pickup, the more sense it made. If you wanted to blend in in this part of the country, a pickup would be the way to do it. Especially if your mission was vandalizing coalbed methane wells on the VanHorn Ranch. A pickup wouldn’t have raised suspicion like a car, if seen on the ranch.
The fact that she’d probably left the motel in the wee hours without checking out convinced him that she knew he would be looking for her. In fact, she probably figured all of the VanHorn ranch hands and the sheriff’s department were searching for her, as well. She wouldn’t know that he couldn’t go to Mason VanHorn.
So she would try to find some place to hide. In this part of the country, that could be anywhere. Or she’d give up and leave.
His instincts told him she wouldn’t give up. Not her.
He had the feeling that she hadn’t gotten what she’d broken into the ranch house for last night. The safe had been empty by the time he’d come around. Completely empty. What thief took everything in the safe? A thief in a hurry. Or one who found nothing but bundles of money.
Except she hadn’t had any kind of a bag with her. He would have seen it as skintight as that Lycra outfit had been. She hadn’t planned on taking much with her.
He wondered what exactly she’d been looking for, then. Or if she was even a reporter. He didn’t know any reporters who committed vandalism and breaking and entering for a story.
What he tried not to think about was how she’d hoodwinked him. She’d seemed so scared, so vulnerable, so caught. And all the time she’d just been playing him until she could get her hands on that lamp to throw at him.
She’d played him for a fool.
He drove back to Antelope Flats, tired, head aching, thinking only of a hot bath. He knew her name and what she was driving. He’d see her again. He was sure of it. Tonight.
One of the VanHorn Ranch pickups was just pulling out of the Longhorn Café. The ranch hand flagged him down.
“Red asked me to find you. He wants you to stop by the ranch to talk about surveillance tonight.”
“Sure. Did something happen?” he asked, worried that the break-in had been discovered.
“Not that I know of. I think Red just wants to catch that damned vandal before the boss gets back.”
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