Snowbound Suspicion

by Cindi Myers

  “Dwight followed him to a rental out of town, then he returned to help process the scene at the high school.”

  Carl could have hurt Bette. “I have to go after them now,” Cody said.

  “Get one of the ranch hands to go with you,” Travis said. “Or more than one.”

  “I don’t have time to go looking for people,” he said. “Besides, it’s Saturday night. They might not even be here. They’re probably in town, or visiting family or friends.”

  Snow was falling harder. “I have to go,” he said. “You can track me when you get here.” He ended the call and stowed his phone, then pulled his coat more tightly around him and set off across the snow, following the line of treads that led over the pasture.

  * * *

  BETTE LAY ON the floor of the old cabin where the sleighing party had gathered. Was that really only two days ago? Duct tape tightly bound her hands and feet, and a bone-deep chill had seeped in, so that her teeth kept chattering—or maybe that was just fear.

  Carl sat on an upturned section of log across from her. “I bet you never thought you’d see me again,” he said. He chuckled, a sound like an accordion with a hole in the bellows. “Get it, ‘Bette’?”

  “Why are you doing this, Carl?” she asked. “What did I ever do to you?”

  “Oh, it’s nothing personal, sweetheart. I’m just doing a favor for an old friend. He needs you out of the way before you open your big mouth.”

  “You mean Eddie.” She’d known it, hadn’t she? As much as she told herself she had nothing to worry about, that Eddie wouldn’t waste any more time on her, she’d been fooling herself.

  “Eddie?” Carl laughed again. “Not him. He’s dead.”

  “Dead?”

  “Yeah. Got knifed in an alley one night just a couple weeks after he got out.” Carl shrugged. “Guess he crossed the wrong guy.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “If you’re not doing this for Eddie...”

  “You don’t think I have more than one friend?”

  Stamping footsteps on the porch interrupted him. The door opened and Doug Whittington came in, brushing snow off the shoulders of his coat. “We could have picked a better night for this,” he said.

  “Doug, what are you doing?” Bette asked.

  He scowled at her. “What do you think we’re doing? We’re going to slit your throat, stick you in your car and drive you out to some deserted road. By the time the cops find you, Carl and I will be safely tucked in our beds—innocent lambs who don’t know anything about what happened to you.”

  “You’re the Ice Cold Killer?” She hated the way her voice shook on the words.

  “No!” Doug shook his head. “But that’s who the cops will think did you.” He felt around in his pockets and handed Carl a small white card. “This is why I was late. I had to wait until the coast was clear so I could sneak into the Walkers’ home office and print this.”

  Carl showed Bette the card, which read “Ice Cold.” “It’s genius, right?” he said.

  “It’s a stupid catering job!” she said. “That’s not worth killing me over.”

  He walked over to her and stood looking down. “You really don’t know who I am, do you?” he asked. He picked up one of the kerosene lanterns and held it closer to his face. “Sure I don’t look familiar?”

  She stared, recognition washing over her like a bucket of cold water. “You drove the getaway car,” she whispered.

  “Bingo.” He set the lantern down. “I couldn’t have you telling the police that, could I? They don’t just want me for my part in the bank robbery—they want to hang me for the murder of that pedestrian. It wasn’t my fault the dope walked out in front of me!”

  “But I didn’t remember it was you!” she said. “I couldn’t have told the police anything.”

  “You’d have figured it out soon enough,” Doug said. “I couldn’t keep avoiding you all the time. Not with my mom nagging me about helping her more in the kitchen, and you always popping in and out of there. It’s your own fault we’re having to take such drastic measures, you know.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “I tried to warn you off,” he said. “I left that message on your door—I even hit you in the head with that rock. I thought you’d believe you’d narrowly escaped being the Ice Cold Killer’s next victim and you’d want to get out of Dodge, wedding or no wedding.”

  “You stole the wedding rings and planted them in my room,” she said.

  He frowned. “I thought the sheriff would carry you off to jail and that would be the last we saw of you. It was really tempting to keep those rings for myself, but I figured that was working a little too close to home. But then that marshal had to stick his nose in things and I finally accepted that I wasn’t going to scare you off. I was going to have to do something more drastic.”

  “That’s where I come in,” Carl said. “A job like this works better with two people.”

  “So he called you to come out and help kill me,” she said.

  “Not exactly,” Carl said. “I actually looked him up. I wanted to see about doing another job together. He told me about his problem with you and I offered to help him out.”

  “Which one of you tampered with the snowmobile and shot at Cody and me?” she asked.

  “That was me,” Carl said. “I should have just picked you off while you were sitting out there on the ice, but I wanted to make it a little more fun. I almost had you, too. A few more minutes and the marshal was bound to run out of ammo, then I would have closed in for the kill.” He frowned. “Too bad I didn’t finish off the marshal when I had the chance. I would have liked to have taken out a fed.”

  Bette looked at Doug. “You’re being stupid,” she said. “You’ll never get away with this.”

  “Who are you calling stupid? I’m the only one involved in that bank job that didn’t get caught. I’ve been walking around free while you did eight years. Besides, Travis and his buddies think I’m just some jealous punk. They think poisoning your fancy cakes is as malicious as I get.” He reached down and took her arm. “Come on. We need to go.”

  He lifted her by the arms, while Carl hefted her legs. They carried her out to the utility vehicle and dumped her in the bed. She had to lie with her knees to her chin to fit. “This snow is perfect,” Carl said. “It will cover up our tracks. Did you get her car keys?”

  “I got them,” Doug said. “I had to break the back window to get in. The key I had for the door to her cabin doesn’t work anymore. They must have changed the locks after the business with the rings.”

  “I told you that was never going to work,” Carl said. “You should have just kept the rings for yourself. That gold is worth a lot these days. We could have melted it down and no one would ever know.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s too late now.” Doug climbed in beside him. “Let’s get this over with.”

  Carl started the vehicle and it jolted forward. Bette tried to sit up. If she could lean out over the back, maybe she could fall out.

  And then what? It wasn’t as if she could run away, or even crawl, trussed up as she was. She closed her eyes and tried to pray. Surely someone from the ranch house had missed her by now—Lacy, or even Rainey. What time would Cody and the others return from Travis’s party? Probably not until late. Too late for her.

  “What the—!” The vehicle skidded sharply to the right as gunshots sounded. Bette flattened herself to the bed of the cargo area, flinching as a bullet thudded into the side of the vehicle.

  “It’s that marshal!” Doug shouted. He—or maybe Carl, Bette couldn’t be sure—returned fire.

  “Come on!” Doug shouted. “He’s on foot. He can’t catch up with us.”

  “I’m going as fast as I can,” Carl said. “It’s not that easy in this snow.”

  Another bullet struck the veh
icle, this time hitting the tailgate, inches from Bette’s curled legs. She had to let Cody know she was in here, before he accidentally shot her.

  Grunting with the effort, she sat up, praying Cody would see her. She looked back and spotted him, pounding after the utility vehicle, his gun in his uninjured hand. But he was no longer firing. He had seen her; she was sure of it.

  The vehicle jounced over rough ground, throwing her back against the tailgate. One of the men fired at Cody, but the shot was wild. She wondered if they were even aiming—if it was possible to aim in the wildly careening vehicle.

  She jolted against the tailgate again, and one side of the latch popped. Sitting up again, she braced herself against the side of cargo bed and slammed both feet into the other end of the latch. It gave way and, afraid of losing her nerve if she waited, she rolled out of the vehicle.

  She hit the ground hard, but the thick snow provided some cushion. She forced herself to keep rolling, despite the pain of every movement, trying to put as much distance between herself and her two captors as possible.

  Cody stopped her, dropping to his knees beside her. “I’m here,” he gasped, trying to catch his breath.

  She lay still, tears freezing on her cheeks. “What are they doing?” she asked.

  “They’re coming back.”

  “They’ll kill us,” she said.

  “No.” He crouched in front of her and fired toward the approaching vehicle. They returned the fire, but as before, their shots went wild. Cody kept firing, a rapid burst of staccato reports. Bette closed her eyes and waited—for what, she wasn’t sure.

  And then she realized the sound of the utility vehicle’s motor was fading. And Cody had stopped shooting. “They’re running away,” he said.

  He holstered his weapon, then found a knife and began cutting away the layers of tape around her wrists and ankles. He helped her sit up, rubbing her hands between his own to restore her circulation. She cupped his face and kissed him. They held each other for a long moment, neither of them speaking.

  “Come on,” he said finally. “Let’s get out of here before we freeze to death.” He stood and helped her to her feet, then, leaning on each other, they started walking toward the ranch house.

  Travis and Gage met them when they were halfway home, pulling up on snowmobiles. “Carl Wayland and Doug Whittington are in one of the ranch utility vehicles,” Cody said. “I’m pretty sure I wounded both of them. They had kidnapped Bette and they tried to kill both of us.”

  “They were going to kill me and make it look like another murder by the Ice Cold Killer,” Bette said. “Doug even printed up a business card on your home office printer.”

  “We need to go after them,” Travis said. “Can you make it back to the ranch house?”

  “Go,” Cody said. “We’ll be fine.”

  By the time they reached the house, Bette was shaking with cold and Cody’s breath hissed through his teeth with each step. The man had just gotten out of the hospital this morning—how had he even found the strength to come after her?

  The women who had attended the party descended on them with blankets and steaming mugs of cocoa and hot water bottles, then Lacy shooed them all away. “Don’t bombard them with questions,” she said. “Let them catch their breaths.”

  Bette and Cody huddled together on the sofa. When Bette had finally stopped shaking, she asked, “Do you think Travis and Gage will find Carl and Doug?”

  “They’ll find them,” he said.

  “Doug admitted he wrote that message on my door,” she said. “And he stole the rings and planted them in my room. And he was the one who attacked me that day on the road. Carl was the one who tampered with the snowmobile and shot at us.”

  Cody sipped his cocoa. “Why did they go after you?” he asked.

  “Doug was the getaway driver in the robbery. The one who killed that pedestrian. I didn’t recognize him, but he had never let me get a really good look at him. Once I saw him in good light, I realized who he was. He was afraid I’d turn him in and he’d go to prison for robbery and for killing that man.”

  “Where does Carl come in?”

  “He came to town to ask Doug to do a job with him. I think he meant another robbery. Doug told him about me and they decided they needed to get rid of me. Permanently.”

  She laced her fingers in his. “Thanks to you, that didn’t happen.”

  He turned to look at her. “I think I’m going to have to take you into protective custody,” he said.

  Her heart skipped a beat. “What are you talking about?”

  He brought their linked hands to his lips, kissing her knuckles. “One of my jobs as a US marshal is witness protection,” he said. “I think I need to put you under my protection. Permanently.”

  She caught her breath. “You’re going to have to speak plainer than that, Marshal.”

  “I’m asking you to marry me,” he said. “I love you and tonight I learned that I don’t really want to live without you.”

  She thought of him, facing down that vehicle racing toward him, bullets flying. He had done that to protect her. To protect what they had found together. “Can a US marshal marry someone with a criminal record?” she asked.

  “I don’t care if they can or not,” he said. “I want to marry you. If you’ll have me.”

  “I’ll have you.” She kissed his cheek. “But your job—”

  “I’m on leave for at least three months, with my injured shoulder. And since I’ve come here, I’ve been thinking. Maybe it’s time for a change.”

  “What will you do if you’re not a marshal?”

  “I have a law degree. All I have to do is pass the bar and I can study for that while I recuperate. What would you think of being married to an attorney?”

  “Defense or prosecution?”

  “Prosecution. I can leave law enforcement, but I can’t leave putting away criminals.”

  “Fair enough.”

  He squeezed her hand. “So your answer is yes?”

  “Yes. I’ll marry you.” She kissed him, then couldn’t stop smiling. “You know, I have a fabulous recipe for wedding cake.”

  “I can’t wait to taste it.”

  * * *

  “BY THE TIME we caught up with Carl and Doug, they were ready to surrender,” Travis said over breakfast the next morning. “They had wrecked the ute and were both freezing, and bleeding pretty heavily.” He glanced at Cody, who sat across from Travis at the table, next to Bette. “You hit Doug once and Carl twice. None of the shots were serious, though Carl has a broken arm. I’ve got two deputies guarding them at the clinic. As soon as the doctor will release them, we’ll lock them up in our holding cell until we can transfer them to Junction.”

  “We found that business card on Doug,” Gage said. “Too bad we couldn’t get them for the Ice Cold murders, too.”

  “They couldn’t have done those murders,” Travis said. “Carl was talking to us at Moe’s when Anita was killed. He was in Denver when Kelly and Christi died, and Doug was here at the ranch.”

  “How is Rainey taking the news about Doug?” Lacy asked.

  “She’s stoic,” Travis said. “Blaming herself, I think.”

  “I imagine she’s heartbroken,” Bette said. “He’s really all she has. She told me she raised him pretty much on her own after his father deserted them.”

  “I’m glad he’s gone,” Lacy said. “Poisoning those cakes was downright creepy, and then when I learned all he did to you—well, it was horrible.”

  “We caught him on camera taking the spare key to the old lock on your cabin yesterday afternoon,” Travis said. “And we have the gun Carl used when he shot at you two. We shouldn’t have any trouble sending both of them to prison for a long time, on multiple counts.”

  “Any news on Anita’s murder?” Cody asked.

  �
��No.” Travis poked at his eggs with a fork, his expression glum. “All we can do is keep looking.”

  “You’ll find the killer,” Lacy said. “If anyone can, you will.”

  “Spoken like a loving bride,” Bette said.

  “Of course.” She looked at each of them in turn. “I’m not being callous, but in spite of this killer, we have a wedding to prepare for,” she said. “In the midst of so much tragedy, it’s especially important to hold on to the joyous occasions.”

  Bette lifted her glass of orange juice. “Here, here,” she said.

  Lacy’s smile grew sly. “I hear you have some joyous news of your own,” she said.

  Bette looked at Cody, who cleared his throat. “Bette and I are going to be married,” he said.

  “Congratulations,” Travis said. “Though it’s no surprise.”

  “No?” Cody asked.

  “I figured you were pretty much gone after that first day.” He glanced at Lacy. “I know the signs from personal experience.”

  “We haven’t set the date yet,” Bette said. “It will be after we’re settled again in Denver, but you’ll all be invited to the wedding, I promise.”

  “If I were you, I’d wait until that shoulder heals,” Gage said. “Be a shame to have to deal with that on your honeymoon.”

  “I don’t know about that.” Bette rubbed Cody’s uninjured shoulder. “This way, I have the upper hand. Not a position I’ve ever been in with a US marshal.”

  “Watch yourself,” Cody said. “Even with one hand tied behind my back—so to speak—I can get the best of you.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Lacy said. “It looks to me as if Bette has pulled off one last heist.”

  Cody’s eyes narrowed. “Oh?”

  Lacy laughed. “Yeah, you goof. Clearly, she’s stolen your heart.”

  Everyone around the table groaned, but Cody’s eyes met Bette’s, and she thought she could never get tired of looking into those depths, figuring out what made this man tick. “Guilty as charged,” she said. Lacy was right. In spite of all the tragedy around them, it was important to celebrate the things in life worth hanging on to. Like the kind of love that gave you infinite second chances.