Wanted Woman

“That’s the last thing I want—”

“Too bad, because that’s the way it is,” Maggie said and stepped to him, standing on tiptoes. Her lips brushed across his cheek like a sweet whisper, sending sparks shooting along his nerve endings.

He flinched and stepped back.

“Sorry,” she said, looking both surprised and confused.

“You shocked me, that’s all. Static electricity, you know.” He could see the lie reflected in her gaze.

No woman had ever affected Jesse like this. He told himself it was because he couldn’t have her. Might never be able to have her. But he knew it was a hell of a lot more than that or his heart wouldn’t ache the way it did at the thought.

Wanted Woman

B.J. Daniels

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A former award-winning journalist, B.J. Daniels had thirty-six short stories published before her first romantic suspense, Odd Man Out, came out in 1995. Her book Premeditated Marriage won the Romantic Times Best Intrigue award for 2002 and she received a Career Achievement Award for Romantic Suspense. B.J. lives in Montana with her husband, Parker, three springer spaniels, Zoey, Scout and Spot, and a temperamental tomcat named Jeff. She is a member of Kiss of Death, the Bozeman Writers’ Group and Romance Writers of America. When she isn’t writing, she snowboards in the winters and camps, water-skis and plays tennis in the summers. All year she plays her favorite sport, tennis. To contact her, write P.O. Box 183, Bozeman, MT 59771 or look for her online at www.bjdaniels.com.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Maggie Randolph—She’d suspected her adoption hadn’t been through normal channels.

Deputy Jesse Tanner—He knows the moment he lays eyes on Maggie Randolph that she is in trouble—and so is he.

Detective Rupert Blackmore—All he wants is to retire, buy an RV and spend winters in Arizona playing shuffleboard. But first he has to tie up a few loose ends.

Norman Drake—The legal assistant gets caught napping on the job—and witnesses a murder.

Clark Iverson—The lawyer wants to make things right, and it costs him his life.

Wade and Daisy Dennison—Both lied about the night their daughter Angela was kidnapped twenty-seven years ago.

Mitch Tanner—The Timber Falls sheriff is recuperating from two gunshot wounds so his older brother Jesse is in charge.

Charity Jenkins—Her snooping could get her killed.

Lydia Abernathy—The antique-shop owner says the new man in town has been casing her joint. Or does she have ulterior motives for putting Charity on the story?

Angus Smythe—The Englishman has been taking care of Lydia for years—ever since the car accident that left her in a wheelchair. But is his interest romantic or financial?

Jerome Bruno Lovelace—The small-time crook is romancing the owner of Betty’s Café.

Ruth Anne Tanner—She left her two sons and husband years ago and didn’t look back.

This book is gratefully dedicated to the Bozeman Writers’ Group for all their wonderful support and encouragement. Thank you, Randle, Wenda, Kitty, Bob, LuAnn and Mark. You’re the best!

Contents

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

Epilogue

Chapter One

Puget Sound, Seattle

The smell of fish and sea rolled up off the dark water on the late-night air. Restless waves from the earlier storm crashed into pilings under the pier and in the distance a horn groaned through the thick fog.

Maggie shut off the motorcycle and coasted through the shadows and damp fog. She couldn’t see a thing. But she figured that was good since he wouldn’t be able to see her. Nor hear her coming.

She’d dressed in her black leathers and boots. Even the bulging bike saddlebag was black as the night. She told herself she was being paranoid as she hid the bike and walked several blocks through the dark old warehouses and fish plants before she started down the long pier.

He would be waiting for her somewhere on the pier. With the dense fog and the crashing surf, she wouldn’t know where until she was practically on top of him. She assured herself that she had taken every precaution—short of bringing a weapon.

But she was no fool. He had the advantage. He’d picked the meeting place. He was expecting her. And because of the fog, she wouldn’t know what was waiting for her at the end of the deserted pier until she reached it.

Fortunately, she was a woman used to taking chances. Except tonight, the stakes were higher than they’d ever been.

The sound of the sea breaking against the pilings grew louder and louder, the wet fog thicker and blinding white. She knew she had to be nearing the end of the pier.

And suddenly Norman Drake materialized out of the fog.

He looked like hell. Like a man who’d been on the run from the police for three days. He looked scared and dangerous—right down to the gun he had clutched in his right hand.

He waved it at her, his pale blue eyes wide with alarm. And she wondered where he’d gotten the gun and if he knew how to use it. He was young and smart and completely out of his league—a tall, thin, bookworm turned law student turned law assistant. She could smell the nervous sweat coming off him, the fear.

“You alone?” he whispered hoarsely.

She nodded.

“You sure you weren’t followed?”

“Positive.”

He exhaled loudly and wiped his free hand over his mouth. “You bring the money?”

She nodded. The ten thousand dollars he’d demanded weighted down the saddlebag. She reached in slowly and held up one bundle. Unmarked, all old, small denomination bills, dozens of bundles making the bag bulge.

It took him a minute to lower the weapon. His hands shook as he shoved it into the front waistband of his wrinkled, soiled slacks. Not a good idea under any circumstances. As nervous as he was, he’d shoot his nuts off.

“I didn’t know who else to call but you,” he said, his gaze jumping back and forth between her and the fogged-in pier behind her. “They killed Iverson and they’ll kill me, too, if I don’t get out of town.”

Clark Iverson, her father’s long-time attorney, had been murdered three days ago. The police had determined that his temporary student legal assistant was in the building at the time. There was no sign of forced entry. No sign of a struggle. Visitors had to be buzzed in. That’s why the cops were actively looking for Norman.

“You told me on the phone you had important information for me about my father’s plane crash,” she said, keeping her hand clamped on the saddlebag, keeping her tone neutral.

He nodded, a jittery nod that set her teeth on edge. “It wasn’t an accident. The same person who murdered Iverson killed your father.”

She felt shock ricochet through her. Then disbelief. “It was determined an accident. Pilot failure.”

Norman shook his head. “A week before the crash, your father came into the office. He seemed upset. Later, after he left, I overheard Iverson on the phone telling someone he couldn’t talk your dad out of it.”

“That’s not enough evidence—”

“I was there three nights ago, I heard them talking about the plane crash. Iverson had figured out that the plane had gone down to keep your father from talking. He threatened to go to the Feds. I heard them kill him—” Emotion choked off the last of his words.

“You actually heard someone admit to murdering my father?”

He nodded, his Adam’s apple going up and down, up and down. She watched him, shock and pain and anger mixing with the grief of the past two months since the single passenger plane had gone down on a routine business flight. She fought to keep her voice calm. “You said they?”

He seemed surprised by the question. “Did I? I only heard one man talk but—” He frowned and looked away. “I remember thinking I heard two people coming down the hall after the elevator opened.” He was lying and doing a poor job of it. Why lie about how many killers there were? “You believe me, don’t you?”

She didn’t know what to believe now. But her father had liked Norman, thought he was going to make a good lawyer someday. Good lawyer, an oxymoron if there ever was one, her father would have joked. “Norman, how did they get in? The building was locked, right?”

He nodded, looking confused. “I guess Iverson buzzed them up. All I know is that I heard the elevator and—” He looked behind her again as if he’d heard something. “I somehow knew not to let them know I was there.”

A foghorn let out a mournful moan from out beyond the city.

“You’re telling me Clark didn’t know you were still in the office?”

Norman fidgeted. “I’d fallen asleep in the library doing some research for him. The door to his office was closed. Earlier, he’d told me to leave, to do the rest in the morning. I guess he thought I’d left by the door to the hallway. The elevator woke me, then I heard voices arguing.”

Just seconds before he’d said he’d heard two sets of footsteps coming down the hall after the elevator opened. No wonder Norman hadn’t gone to the police. His story had so many holes it wouldn’t even make good Swiss cheese.

“You heard them arguing?” she asked.

He nodded. “Then I heard this like…grunt and glass breaking—” He closed his eyes as if imagining Clark Iverson’s body, the lamp he’d grabbed as he went down shattered on the floor next to him, his eyes open staring blindly upward, a knife sticking out of his chest at heart level, just as he’d looked when his secretary and Maggie had found him the next morning. Just as he must have looked when Norman saw him.

“You didn’t see the killer.”

“No, I told you, I just ran.”

“Why didn’t you call the police?” It was the same question the cops wanted to ask him.

Norman closed his eyes tightly as if in pain. “After they killed him, they rummaged around in his desk drawers, in his file cabinets. I could hear them. I was afraid that at any minute they’d come into the library and find me.” Another look away, another lie. “I just ran. I took the stairs, let myself out the back way and I’ve been running ever since. If they find me, they’ll kill me.”

“Did you recognize the one voice you heard?”

He shook his head.

“But you heard what were they arguing about.”

“Iverson said the secret wasn’t worth killing people over.”

“What secret?”

Norman squirmed, his gaze flicking past her. “An illegal adoption.”

She felt a chill come off the ocean as if she already knew what his next words would be.

“You were the baby,” Norman said, the words tumbling over themselves in their struggle to get out. “Iverson wanted to tell you the truth. That’s why they killed him. He said your father had found out and was going to tell you.”

“Found out what?” So her parents hadn’t gone through the proper channels. So what? “I’m twenty-seven years old. Why would anyone kill over my adoption no matter how it went down?”

“It was the way you were…acquired,” Norman said. “Your father had found out that you were kidnapped.”

Kidnapped? She’d always known she was adopted and that was the reason she looked nothing like her parents. Nor was anything like them.

Mildred and Paul Randolph had always seemed a little surprised by their only child, a little leery. Maggie had come into their life after they’d tried numerous adoption agencies, they’d told her. She’d been a miracle, they’d said. A gift from God.

Maybe not quite.

Although well-off financially, her parents weren’t the ideal adoptive candidates. Her mother had been confined to a wheelchair since childhood polio and her father was considered too old. He’d been fifty when Maggie had come along. But, according to both Mildred and Paul, they’d finally found an agency that understood how desperately they wanted a child and had given Maggie to them to love.

No child could have asked for more loving parents. But they’d been horribly overprotective, so afraid something would happen to her, that Maggie had become fearless in self-defense. By the age of twenty-seven, she’d tried everything from skydiving and bungie jumping to motorcross, heli-skiing and speedboat racing.

Her parents had been terrified. Now she realized they’d been afraid long before their only child had become a thrill-seeker. Now she knew why she’d seen fear in her father’s eyes all of her life. He’d been waiting all these years for the other shoe to drop.

It had finally dropped. He’d found out she was kidnapped and couldn’t live with the knowledge.

She heard a board creak behind her, heavy with a tentative step. “Norman, you have to tell the police what you told me. They’ll protect you.”

“Are you nuts? You can’t trust anyone. These people have already killed twice to keep their secret. Who knows how influential they are or what connections they might have.”

He’d seen the killer and knew something he wasn’t telling her. That’s why he was so afraid. Well, maybe the cops could get the truth out of him. “Norman, I called the detective on the case after I talked to you. Detective Blackmore.”

“What?” He looked around wildly. “Don’t you realize what you’ve done?” He grabbed for the saddlebag. “Give me the money. I have to get out of here. Quick. He’ll kill us both if—” Norman broke off, his gaze riveted on something just over her left shoulder, eyes widening in horror.

She heard the soft pop, didn’t recognize the sound until she saw blood bloom across the shoulder of Norman’s jacket. The second shot—right on the heels of the first—caught him in the chest, dead-on.

His grip on the saddlebag pulled her down with him as he fell to the weathered boards, dropping her to her knees beside him.

“Oh, Norman. Oh, God.” Her mind reeled. The police wouldn’t have shot him. Not without a warning first. But who else had known about their meeting?

The third shot sent a shaft of pain tearing through her left arm as she tried to free herself of the saddlebag strap and Norman’s death grip.

“Timber Falls,” he whispered, blood running from the corner of his mouth as his fingers released the bag of money and her. “That’s where they got you.” Adding on his last breath, “Run.”

But there was no place to run. She was trapped. Behind her, she heard the groan of a board, caught the scent of the killer on the breeze, a nauseating mix of perspiration, cheap cologne and stale cigar smoke.

She had only one choice. She fell over Norman, rolling him with her, using his body as a shield as a fourth shot thudded into his dead body.

As she fell, she looked up, saw the man with the gun come out of the fog. Shock paralyzed her as her eyes met his and she realized she knew him.

She let out a cry as he raised the gun and pulled the trigger. Two more shots thudded into Norman’s riddled body as she rolled off the end of the pier taking Norman and the saddlebag with her, dropping for what seemed an eternity before plunging into the cold, dark roiling water below.

Chapter Two

Outside Timber Falls, Oregon

Jesse Tanner had been restless for days. He stood on his deck, looking down the steep timbered mountain into the darkness, wishing for sleep. It had been raining earlier. Wisps of clouds scooted by on a light breeze.

He sniffed the cedar-scented air as if he could smell trouble, sense danger, find something to explain the restlessness that haunted his nights and gave him no peace.

But whatever was bothering him it remained as illusive as slumber.

A sound drew him from his thoughts. A recognizable throaty rumble. He looked toward the break in the trees below him on the steep mountain to the strip of pavement that was only visible in daylight. Or for those few moments when headlights could be seen at night on the isolated stretch of highway below him.

The single light came out of the trees headed in the direction of Timber Falls. A biker, moving fast, the throb of the big cycle echoing up to him.

Jesse watched the motorcycle glide like warm butter over the wet, dark pavement and wished that he was on it, headed wherever, destination unknown.

But that was the old Jesse Tanner. This Jesse was through wandering. Through with the open road. This Jesse had settled down.

Not that he still couldn’t envy the biker below him on the highway. Or remember that heady feeling of speed and darkness and freedom. There was nothing like it late at night when he had the road to himself. Just an endless ribbon of black pavement stretched in front of him and infinite possibilities just over the next rise.

He started to turn away but a set of headlights flickered in the trees as a car came roaring out of a side road across the highway below him. He watched, frozen in horror as the car tore out of Maple Creek Road and onto to the highway—directly into the path of the motorcycle.

He caught a flash of bright red in the headlamp of the bike and saw the car, a convertible, the top down and the dark hair of the woman behind the wheel blowing back in that instant before the bike collided with the side of the car, clipping it. The bike and rider went down.

Jesse gripped the railing as the bike slid on its side down the pavement, sparks flying as the car sped away into the darkness and trees, headed toward Timber Falls, five miles away.

He was already running for his old pickup he kept for getting firewood. Other than that, all he had was his Harley. Taking off down his jeep trail of a road in the truck, he dropped down the face of the mountain, fearing what he’d find when he reached the pavement.

At the highway, he turned north. It was darker down here with the forest towering on each side of the two-lane. In the slit of sky overhead, clouds scudded past, giving only brief glimpses of stars and a silver sliver of moon.

He hadn’t gone far when he spotted the fallen bike in his headlights. It lay on its side in the ditch, the single headlamp casting a stationary beam of gold across the wet highway. Where was the biker?

Driving slowly up the road, he scanned the path with his headlights looking for the downed rider, bracing himself for what he’d find.

A dozen yards back up the highway from the bike, something gleamed in his headlights. The shiny top of a bike helmet. The biker lay on his side at the edge of the road, unmoving.

Jesse swore and stopped, turning on his emergency flashers to block any traffic that might come along. He didn’t expect any given the time of the night—or the season. Early spring—the rainy season in this part of the country. People with any sense stayed clear of the Pacific side of the Cascades where, at this time of year, two hundred inches of rain fell pretty much steadily for seven months. The ones who lived here just tried not to go crazy during the rainy season. Some didn’t succeed.

Following the beams of his headlights, he jumped out of the pickup and ran across the wet pavement toward the biker, unconsciously calculating the odds that the guy was still alive, already debating whether to get him into the back of the truck and run him to the hospital or not move him and go for help.

As he neared, he heard a soft moan and saw movement as the biker came around. Jesse figured he was witnessing a miracle given how fast the motorcycle had been traveling.

“Take it easy,” he said as the figure in all black leathers coughed as if gasping for breath and tried to sit up. The biker was small, slim and a damned lucky dude.

As Jesse knelt down beside him in the glow of the pickup’s headlights, he saw with shock that he’d been wrong and let out an oath as a hand with recently manicured nails pulled off the helmet. A full head of long dark curly hair tumbled out and a distinctly female voice said, “I’m okay.”

“Holy…” he said rocking back on his heels. This was one damned lucky…chick.

She had her head down as if a little groggy.

He watched her test each leg, then each arm. “Are you sure you’re not hurt?” He couldn’t believe everything was working right. “Nothing’s broken?”

She shook her head, still bent over as if trying to catch her breath.

He waited, amazed as he took in the leather-clad body. Amazed by the bod and the bike. She was wheeling a forty-thousand-dollar ride that most men couldn’t handle. A hell of a bike for a girl. It was too heavy for anyone but an expert rider. No wonder she’d been able to dump the bike and not get hurt.

She tried to get up again.

“Give it another minute. No hurry,” he said, looking from her, back up the highway to her bike. This gal had nine lives, a whole lot of luck and she knew how to ride that fancy bike. He wasn’t sure what impressed him more.

“I’m all right.” Her voice surprised him. It was all female, cultured and educated-sounding and in stark contrast to her getup and her chosen mode of transportation.

But the real shocker was when she lifted her head, flipping back her hair, and he saw her face.

All the air went out of him as if she’d sucker punched him. “Sweet Mother—” he muttered, rearing back again. She was breathtaking. Her skin was the color of warm honey sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar freckles across high cheekbones. And her eyes…They were wide and the color of cedar, warm and rich. She was exquisite. A natural beauty.

And there was something almost familiar about her…

She tried to get to her feet, bringing him out of his dumbfounded inertia.

“Here, let me help you,” he said and reached under her armpits to lift her to her feet. She was amazingly light and small next to him.

She accepted his help with grace and gratitude even though it was clear she liked doing things for herself.

She took a step. “Ouch,” she said under her breath and swayed a little on her feet.

“What is it?”

“My left ankle. It’s just sprained.”

Maybe. Maybe not. “I’ll take you to the hospital emergency room to see a doctor.”

She shook her head. “Just get me to my bike.”

“It’s not rideable.” He’d seen enough twisted metal on it even in passing to know that. “I’ll load it into my pickup. There’s not a bike shop for a hundred miles but I’ve worked on a few of my own. I might be able to fix it.”

She looked up at him then as if seeing him for the first time. Her eyes narrowed as she took in the boots, jeans, bike rally T-shirt and his long dark ponytail. Her gaze settled on the single gold ring in his earlobe. “You live around here?”

“Right up that mountain,” he said, pointing to the light he’d left on. It glowed faintly high up the mountainside.

She studied it. Then him.

It was three in the morning but he had to ask. “Is anyone expecting you up the road, anyone who’ll be worried about you? Because I don’t have a phone yet.”

She didn’t seem to hear him. “You have ice for my ankle at your place?”

He nodded.

“Good. That’s all I need.”

“I have a clean bed you’re welcome to for what’s left of the night,” he offered.