by Cindi Myers
“Is she really reformed?”
“She seems serious about her catering duties, and I haven’t found any evidence of wrongdoing.” He didn’t see any need to mention his suspicions about the painted message on her door. As evidence of a crime, it was pretty weak, especially since she’d refused to say anything about it to the Walkers.
“There’s a but at the end of that sentence,” Travis said. “But what?”
“But she has a record. And bank robbery is a pretty serious crime.” He couldn’t forget that, no matter what else he thought about her.
Travis nodded.
“Why are you asking me about her?” Cody asked. “Do you know something about her I don’t?”
Travis sat back, hands clasped over his stomach. “Have you considered the possibility that no one attacked her?”
“What do you mean? Someone threw that rock and hit her in the head.”
“She could have driven the car into the ditch, then gotten out, picked up the rock and thrown it through the window herself. We didn’t find any blood in the car.”
Cody frowned. What Travis described was certainly possible. “Why go to all that trouble?” he asked. “And it doesn’t explain the head injury.”
“We only have her word for it that it was a bad enough injury to cause memory loss,” Travis said. “The EMTs weren’t able to x-ray her, or perform any other tests. The cut didn’t require stitches. Maybe she bashed her own head.”
Would Bette do something like that? Then again, was it any more far-fetched than his suspicions that she had painted those words on her door? Some sick people worked to call attention to themselves, even if it meant hurting themselves. “Again—why?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” Travis frowned. “I’m not saying that’s what happened. I’m just trying to look at all the possibilities.”
“Then why not focus on the most likely scenario—that she was attacked by the Ice Cold Killer and something scared him off?”
“What scared him off?” Travis asked.
“Maybe my arrival.”
“You didn’t see a car. We never found a car or any sign of one.”
“Did you talk to Doug Whittington?” Cody asked. “He could have driven his mother’s car.”
“I talked to him,” Travis said. “He said he was sleeping in his room all afternoon. His mother vouches for him.”
“I think Rainey would lie to protect her son,” Cody said.
“Maybe. But I can’t find anyone who remembers the car not being parked near the kitchen yesterday, or anyone who saw Doug in Rainey’s car. Rainey’s story about having him brush the snow off her vehicle so it wouldn’t pile up is plausible.”
“Then maybe it was someone else,” Cody said. “There was a big time gap between when I found Bette and when we started looking for a vehicle. Time enough for someone to hide a vehicle where we couldn’t find it. And we were hampered by the snow. This Ice Cold Killer has done a good job of eluding detection so far.”
“This doesn’t fit the pattern of his other victims,” Travis said. “They were subdued and bound fairly quickly, especially in the case of Fiona Winslow. Yet he didn’t even have time to get any tape off the roll we found. And the whole deal with the broken window and the rock—it’s sloppy. It doesn’t feel like the same man.”
“Maybe he felt rushed. Maybe he’s getting desperate.”
“There are too many maybes with this case.”
“What do you think we should do?” Cody asked.
“Nothing right now. But keep your eyes open. Let me know if you notice anything suspicious.”
“I will.” He didn’t need an excuse to watch Bette closer, but Travis had just given him a reason to take the job even more seriously.
Chapter Ten
“Oh, it’s lovely weather,” Lacy sang as she stepped out onto the front porch, arm in arm with Travis.
“For a sleigh ride together with you!” Bette joined in. The sleighs stood ready in the drive—old-fashioned wagon boxes with curved sides, painted bright red and hung with silver bells that glinted in the light from the lanterns hung at the four corners of the sleighs. The horses—two teams comprising four big draft horses hitched to each sleigh, their manes and tails combed and braided—stood between the shafts of the sleighs, their harness also hung with bells, which rang out with every shake of their heads or stamp of their hooves.
“Right this way.” Gage, a red scarf wound around his neck above the collar of his shearling jacket, ushered the group toward the sleighs. “Find a seat on one of the benches in the sleighs,” he instructed. “There are plenty of blankets for keeping warm, and a few buffalo robes, too.”
Bette hopped up onto the wooden crate that served as a step into the sleigh. Someone reached up to steady her and she glanced back to see Cody, his hand at her back. “Where did you come from?” she asked. She had looked for him when she had first stepped onto the porch and hadn’t seen him anywhere.
“I’m sticking close.” He joined her in the sleigh and took her arm to pull her to the bench at the very back.
She opened her mouth to protest that she didn’t necessarily want to ride next to him, but who was she kidding? The thought of snuggling under a buffalo robe with this man made the prospect of this evening even more pleasant. He slid in next to her and pulled the heavy covering over them. Bette sank her gloved fingers into the thick, black fur of the robe, smiling at the sensation of softness and warmth.
“You’re in a good mood tonight,” Cody said.
“Baking always puts me in a good mood,” she said.
“All kinds of lines come to mind about cooking something up with you,” he said. “But for now, I’ll resist.”
“You’d better.” But she took his hand underneath the robe.
“More coming aboard!” Gage declared, and assisted a petite young woman, the tips of her dark hair dyed a bright blue, into the sleigh, followed by a little girl dressed all in pink, from the pom-pom of the knit hat pulled over her blond braids to the toes of her snow boots.
“That must be Gage’s wife, Maya, and her niece, Casey,” Bette whispered to Cody.
“I think you’re right,” he said.
The little girl’s fingers flew, and Bette realized she was using sign language. Gage responded in kind, and said, “I’ve got a seat saved for us right up front so you can see the horses.” He settled her on the front bench between himself and Maya, and tucked a blanket securely around her.
In addition to Gage and his family, Bette’s sleigh contained Mr. and Mrs. Walker. Lacy and Travis rode with Dwight and Brenda Prentice and Emily in the sleigh ahead of them. Though only a few days ago the presence of so many law enforcement officers would have made Bette uncomfortable, she was more at ease with them now. She could even admit their presence tonight made her feel a little more secure.
A ranch hand, swathed in a long leather duster, climbed aboard to take the reins of their sleigh. “Giddy up!” he called, and with a jolt, they surged forward, then glided smoothly over the snow. Casey laughed and clapped her hands and Bette felt like joining in. There was something magical about floating over the snow on a cold night, the stars overhead like diamond dust, so bright and sharp that if she reached up she feared she might cut herself.
“There you go, smiling again.” Cody leaned close and spoke in a low voice. “Makes me suspect you’re up to something.”
“I’m always up to something.” She watched him out of the corner of her eye. “I thought you knew that.”
He let go of her hand, but only to slide along her hip, his fingers coming to rest between her thighs. “So am I,” he said.
She looked away, lifting her face to the rush of icy air across her cheeks, aware of the strong beat of her pulse in time to the jingle of the sleigh bells, of the skitter of sensation across her skin as Cody languidly rub
bed his thumb up and down the seam of her jeans. For so many years in prison she had kept herself numb, pretending feelings like these didn’t exist. If you didn’t let yourself feel, then you couldn’t hurt. Pretending that avoiding emotion made her stronger was a habit she had carried into life after she was freed. How quickly Cody had proved that belief to be a lie!
“Oh, it’s lovely weather!” Emily sang out, and the others joined in to sing “Sleigh Ride”—slightly off key, but with great gusto. Cody’s voice, a tuneful baritone, mingled with Bette’s clear alto, and she thought how well they sounded together.
Almost too soon, the sleighs stopped before a flat-roofed log cabin, the windows outlined with white lights. A cowboy came out to meet them, and everyone piled out of the sleighs and trooped into the cabin, which glowed with the warmth of a wood fire and half a dozen lit oil lamps.
Two cowboys passed out tin cups, then came around the room with kettles of hot chocolate and ladled the hot drink into the cups. Another man served platters of the tea cakes and cream puffs Bette had made that afternoon.
The young woman with the blue hair approached with the little girl. “I’m Maya,” she said, offering a hand. “And this is Casey.”
Casey held out one of the cream puffs and signed with her free hand. “She says she really likes the cream puff,” Maya said. “I told her you made them.”
“I did.” Bette smiled at the little girl. “Tell her I’m glad she likes them.”
“And you must be Cody.” Maya turned to the man beside Bette. “Gage has told me about you and I know you’ve been staying at the ranch, I just haven’t made it up there since you arrived.”
“I’m pleased to meet the woman who could put up with Gage,” Cody said.
“Don’t say that.” Gage joined them. “I’m the underdog in my own house now. These two team up on me all the time.”
“Excuse me if I don’t feel sorry for you,” Cody said, grinning at Maya.
“That’s a beautiful ring,” Bette said, nodding to the silver band on the third finger of Maya’s left hand. “May I see?”
Maya held out her hand. The filigree band sparkled with brilliant pink and blue stones. “I wanted sometime simple, so Gage had it made. All the materials are from Colorado. The stones are Colorado rhodochrosite and aquamarine.”
“It’s gorgeous,” Bette said.
“You should see the rings Travis and Lacy picked out,” Maya said. “Gage and I went with them to pick them up.”
“Sometimes my brother has good taste,” Gage said. “Or maybe I should say Lacy has good taste.”
“If you’re saying something about me, it had better be good,” Lacy said, as she pushed in between Gage and Cody, Travis right behind her.
“I was just telling them about your wedding rings,” Maya said. “How beautiful they are.”
“I’m really happy with them.” Lacy looked at Travis. “You should show them to them when we get back to the ranch house.”
Travis’s brow furrowed. “Isn’t that bad luck?” he asked. “To see the rings before the wedding?”
“That’s the wedding gown,” Lacy said. “And I want them to see them.”
“All right,” Travis said.
Emily joined them. “Everyone having a good time?” she asked.
“We are,” Bette said. “This was a great idea.”
“It was mine,” Gage said.
Emily punched him. “It was not. It was mine.”
“It was your idea to have a party,” he said. “I suggested the sleighs.”
“All right, I guess I’ll give you that.”
His expression sobered. “It’s good to have a night off...from everything else.”
A shiver ran up Bette’s spine. For a little while, she had forgotten about the killer who was preying on women in the area. She imagined the thought of him seldom left Gage’s and Travis’s minds.
Maya slipped her arm into Gage’s. “No work talk,” she said. “We agreed.”
“That’s right.” He raised his arms over his head and began clapping. Everyone turned to look at him. “Finish up the snacks, people,” he said. “Part two of the evening’s festivities are about to begin.”
“What are we going to do now?” Bette asked, handing her cup to the man who came to collect it.
“Party games,” Emily said. “You have your choice of cornhole or bowling.” She held up a small beanbag and a plastic bowling pin.
Groans rose from around the room. “Don’t be sticks in the mud,” Emily said. “This will be fun.” She began dividing them into teams. Bette found herself assigned as one of the cornhole players. The object was to pitch a small beanbag into a hole on a slanted board set up at the other end of the room. Cody was nowhere to be seen. Coward, she thought, as she hurled her first beanbag toward the game board, only to have it land in the floor only halfway to the target.
“I’m horrible at this!” she complained a few minutes later, after her third miss in a row. She gladly relinquished her beanbag to the next person in line and looked around for some avenue of escape.
Cody had emerged from hiding. He grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the door, where he helped her into her coat and slipped on his own. “Where are we going?” she asked.
“Just to get some fresh air.” He glanced back toward the game players. “Unless you’re dying for another turn at cornhole.”
“No!” She zipped up the coat and slipped her hands into her gloves.
Outside, the first blast of icy air made her catch her breath and made her wonder at the wisdom of being out here. But when Cody set off around the side of the cabin, she hurried to catch up with his long strides. “Where are we going?” she asked. “It’s freezing.”
“I brought you out here to get warmed up.”
“Cody, that sentence doesn’t even make sense.”
“Oh, no?” He pulled her to him and lowered his lips to hers.
She returned the kiss, slipping her arms inside his open coat and around his back. She loved that he was taller than her, but not too tall—exactly the right height for kissing. “Are you warm yet?” he asked, smiling down at her.
“I don’t know.” She wiggled against him. “Maybe you should try again.”
He kissed her again, and she willingly lost herself in the bliss of that moment, floating on a mix of desire and contentment and anticipation.
A burst of noise several minutes later made them jump apart. Cody glanced over her shoulder toward the front of the cabin, where light spilled onto the snow from the open front door. “I think everyone’s getting ready to leave,” he said.
“I guess we’d better go with them,” she said.
“Or we could let them leave behind us and spend the night here by ourselves,” he said.
“Right. But I didn’t see a bed in that cabin, did you?” she said. “And the few chairs I spotted didn’t look that comfortable.”
“Home it is, then.”
They loaded into the sleigh and Cody put his arm around Bette as they settled onto the back bench. She leaned her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes, half drowsing in his warmth and the magic of the moment. She wanted to sear times like this in her memory, stamping them over recollections of darker times in her life, when such bliss had seemed utterly unreachable—happiness so far from her grasp she couldn’t even fantasize about it. Her life was so different now, and she never wanted to take even one moment for granted.
Back at the ranch house, everyone gathered in the great room, saying their goodbyes. “Don’t go yet,” Lacy said. “I promised to show you the rings. Travis, would you get them right quick?”
The sheriff headed out of the room and Lacy turned back to her guests. “We found this jeweler in Cheyenne who does these incredible Western designs—mostly belt buckles and things like that, but he does wedding rings, too
. We had them made from the gold from melting down my grandmother’s wedding ring and rings from both Travis’s grandparents.”
Travis rejoined them, but empty-handed. His face wore a pinched expression. “What’s wrong?” Lacy clutched his arm. “Where are the rings?”
“I had them in the top drawer of my dresser,” he said. “They’re gone.”
* * *
TRAVIS’S ANNOUNCEMENT SHIFTED the mood in the room. Everyone fell silent, looking at each other. Cody looked, too, examining the faces of those around him. Did anyone seem unsurprised by this news? Did anyone look guilty?
Lacy, white-faced but trying to maintain her composure, clutched Travis’s arm. “Maybe they fell behind the dresser,” she said. “Or you accidentally put them in another drawer.”
Travis shook his head. “They were there this morning when I got dressed. Now they’re gone.”
“You mean someone came in and stole them?” Travis’s mother stared at her son.
“I don’t know, Mom,” he said. “I don’t know what else could have happened.”
“It couldn’t have been any of us,” Maya said. “We were all together at the sleigh ride.”
“It might have happened earlier today,” Travis said. “The last time I saw the rings was this morning.”
“This house is full of cops,” Emily said. “You ought to be able to figure out who did it.” She turned to the others. “In the meantime, the rest of you should go on home. Thank you for coming.”
She and Lacy helped usher people out the door. Maya took Casey and Brenda with her, and Gage promised to catch a ride home later with Dwight. Then the law enforcement contingent—Travis, Gage, Dwight and Cody—gathered in a corner of the room. “I think you can rule out family,” Dwight said. “Your mother and father and Emily, and, of course, Lacy wouldn’t have any reason to take the rings.”
“Maya and Brenda only came to the sleigh ride,” Gage said. “They’re out.”
