All the Lost Little Horses (A Desperation Creek Novel Book 2)

by Janice Kay Johnson

  The call went straight to voice mail. Perfect. He had entered Sheriff Grant Holcomb’s phone number early on, so he tried that next. Same thing. Had Grant joined Jed to arrest Gene Baxter? Last year’s serial killer aside, murder wasn’t a common crime in Hayes County, so the sheriff might want to be involved.

  He still hadn’t caught sight of a single vehicle in his rearview mirror, but his unease hadn’t lessened.

  911? He should have asked questions about local dispatch. Who took the calls? How were they routed? He didn’t want to risk this call catching the attention of anybody in his own department.

  Crap. At Jed’s insistence, Niall had one other number – for the absolute last person he wanted as backup.

  *****

  Erin was just about to get out on the road when her phone rang. Pulling it out, she was surprised to see the caller’s name. Then she felt a jolt of alarm. There was only one reason he’d be calling her.

  “Officer Callaghan?”

  “Deputy Brown,” he returned with a hint of sarcasm. “I can’t reach either Jed or Grant. Do you know where they are?”

  “No. Hold on, I’m at the station—” She rushed down the hall. “Neither are here. Is there anything I can do?”

  “You’re involved in the cattle rustling investigation?”

  “Yes.”

  Silence. Finally, he said, “I’m following two FHPD officers out to Chief Seward’s ranch.”

  “Out to where?”

  Pause. “Jed always was close-mouthed.”

  She grappled with what he was implying. “He suspects the police chief…?”

  “That’s why I took the job here.” He sounded impatient. “Thing is, I overheard one of them saying the chief wanted them ‘out there’ right away, that daytime’s safer. I’m following them, hanging well back. I can watch what happens from a distance, but it would be helpful to have some backup if I need it. Can you track Jed down?”

  “I’ll try,” she said doubtfully, “but I think he’s making an arrest. If he silenced his phone…”

  Niall swore.

  “Who is with Linette?” she asked suddenly.

  “Some young hand from the Arrowhead Creek Ranch.” He paused. “What are you thinking?”

  What she was thinking was that she hadn’t heard back on the fingerprints she’d submitted from the padlock. The thought had vaguely crossed her mind a couple of times, but it hadn’t been that long. She’d assumed they either hadn’t popped, or there’d been a partial match that was being pursued. But what if—

  “I need to follow up on something,” she said. “I’ll send someone out. Ben Fischer…no, he’s probably with Jed. Uh…Eddie Aguilar is working today. Do you know him?”

  “No. Damn it.”

  Despite the sense of urgency grabbing her, she asked, “Would you rather I come?”

  “No!”

  “I kind of guessed that,” she said dryly, ignoring the burn. Not like he was the first sexist cop she’d met. “Then I’ll give Aguilar your number, and keep trying to get in touch with Jed or the sheriff.”

  “Thanks.” He was gone.

  She first called Eddie and explained the situation. Currently out on patrol, he thought he wasn’t more than fifteen minutes away from Niall’s destination. “I’ll talk to Officer Callaghan,” he agreed.

  Duty done, Erin hustled to her desk, where she’d left her laptop open. Calling up her email didn’t take long. Still nothing. Thinking about how often her computer was unattended while she ate lunch or was talking to someone, she took a look at deleted emails. Nothing there, either. Erin wanted to be relieved, but wasn’t quite.

  Then she sent a quick inquiry, and sat staring at the monitor, fingers tapping an impatient rhythm on her desk.

  Jed and Niall were closing in on the cattle rustlers, so she couldn’t figure out why she had such a very bad feeling about Linette. It would be awfully coincidental if she were attacked right now…unless her assailant had a way of knowing what else was going on.

  Reluctantly, she faced her fear. Chris Jarman wouldn’t have any way of knowing what Niall was doing right now – she was almost sure – but he was working today. In fact, he’d probably been part of the surveillance on Gene Baxter. Which meant he’d know Jed and maybe Sheriff Holcomb would be tied up this morning. If he really had somehow connected with Linette’s stalker, who had asked him to grab the padlock…

  A new email sprang into her inbox.

  The results of her submission had been returned to her Thursday – four days ago – but here they were again. One partial fingerprint from the padlock appeared not to be in the system, but the second one had come back with a match to a man named Theodore Darcy Willis.

  Erin stared at in shock. This was the first conclusive evidence that he was in Hayes County – and there was only one reason he’d be here.

  Linette Broussard.

  And Erin already knew who had left the second print on the padlock picked up from the ground the morning Linette’s horses had been driven out of the pasture and onto the road.

  Dashing out to her car, Erin left urgent messages for Jed and Grant. Maybe she should inform Niall, too…but he was fully occupied.

  As she accelerated out of the parking lot, she almost wished she hadn’t left those messages. If she found Linette feeding grain to her horses, and some young cowboy keeping an eye on her, Erin was going to feel like a drama queen.

  She was pretty sure guilt was at the root of this sense of foreboding. If something happened because she hadn’t followed up sooner on the fingerprints, nobody would ever trust her again.

  *****

  Theo pulled her tighter against his body. At the feel of his arousal, Linette shuddered with repugnance almost worse than the fear.

  Should she ask about Ken? But what if Theo had disregarded the pickup in front of the barn and wasn’t aware that anyone else was here? No. If he’d been watching the ranch, and she felt sure he had, he wouldn’t make that mistake. Jed or Niall might be able to shield her from Theo, but Curt Deeter? Ken Fields? All she’d done was endanger them by accepting their help.

  Theo bent his head to brush his mouth against her ear.

  Her flinch was completely involuntary.

  When he snapped, “Time to go,” he sounded angrier.

  Had he really thought she’d welcome his touch? Dear God, was he going to rape her?

  Linette closed her eyes. Of course he was. Suddenly, she was weirdly calm. Jed would come roaring to the rescue too late. She thought of him with pain, then dismissed the image of his agonized expression. Of his face at all. She was on her own, as she’d been for most of her life. One big difference: this time she’d do anything at all to keep Theo from winning. From humiliating, degrading and hurting her. She’d let him once. Never again.

  He abruptly lowered the arm that had enclosed her and instead gripped her braid right at her nape. He must have lowered the knife, too, because she couldn’t see it even out of the corner of her eye. He shoved her hard, only his hold on her hair keeping her from falling.

  “Get your ass moving,” he growled.

  She complied, knowing him. Eventually, he’d get complacent. Think he had her back under his thumb, that she’d cower. She’d finally worked up the courage to leave him, but she hadn’t ever fought back, a source of shame that burned like acid in her esophagus.

  That could work to her advantage. If she was outwardly docile, he’d believe she wasn’t capable of fighting back.

  Lure him into making a mistake.

  He suddenly wrenched her head to one side so that she looked into the tack room. Ken lay sprawled on his face, blood caking the back of his head. In that one, shattering glimpse, Linette couldn’t tell if he was breathing.

  “You’re a monster,” she whispered.

  Theo laughed. “Kill one, might as well kill ’em all. And believe me—” his voice lowered to a snarl “—I will kill Jedediah Dawson. And you,” he added carelessly.

  He pushed her
forward again, sent her stumbling toward Ken’s older but shiny pickup truck. Theo yanked open the passenger side door, and forcing her in, twisting her so that she ended up on her knees in the foot well, bent over the seat. In a move so fast she didn’t see it coming, he wrenched her arms behind her and snapped on handcuffs.

  She turned her face from him.

  He said, “Try to escape, and you’ll die a little sooner,” and slammed the door.

  Theo got in the driver’s side before Linette had a chance to straighten up. He put a key in the ignition, started the engine and said, “You’re a lucky bitch that you don’t have to walk back to my truck.”

  *****

  Erin drove faster than was safe considering she wasn’t using either lights or siren. Fortunately, once she flew over the Depression era bridge spanning Desperation Creek, the road opened up and half a mile out of town, no other vehicles were in sight.

  Eventually an extended cab pickup with a pearlescent paint job and the Arrowhead Creek Ranch logo on the driver door did pass on its way into town. She saw an older, black pickup coming down a long, two-run driveway from a cluster of buildings. No trailer.

  In the weird way the brain worked at moments like this, she thought how tiresome it was that practically all men and plenty of women in these parts drove pickup trucks, whether they had any real use for them or not. That included every other member of the sheriff’s department, from the sheriff down. Oh, and FHPD officer Niall Callaghan. That was a given, with his macho attitude.

  Personally, she owned a bright yellow, restored, vintage Volkswagen Beetle.

  She took the turn into the LB Kiger Ranch drive way too fast, sliding initially and kicking up gravel and dirt. Seconds later, Erin braked in front of the barn. She saw Linette’s pickup immediately, but no second vehicle. Instantly wary, she told herself Linette’s usual ranch hand might have been dropped off by his mother. Or ditto for a fill-in.

  Unconvinced, she stepped out of her car, staying behind its bulk when she called, “Linette? Anyone here?”

  The silence was deafening.

  She thought about going up to the house, but this wasn’t even mid-morning. Her sense of urgency redoubled. Hesitating only a minute, Erin pulled her Glock, lifted it into firing position braced with both hands, and circled the car and ran to the barn. She pressed her back to the ride-side door, open and hooked to the wall. There she held her breath and listened. A whuffling sound and thud she thought might be a hoof against a stall door or wall were all she heard.

  She’d never searched what she feared could be a crime scene on her own before, but even assuming she could reach someone, she wasn’t about to wait.

  Realizing that she still wasn’t breathing, she sucked in some air. Slow and deep. Twice. Then she stepped cautiously into the dim interior of the barn. A horse whinnied. No voice answered.

  The stalls to her left appeared to be empty, but somebody could be crouched behind the door of one. She eased up to the first, looking over the top. Definitely empty. So were the next three.

  To her right, she could see at an angle into the tack room. Hyper alert, putting down each foot as quietly as she could, Erin began to cross the broad aisle to reach that open doorway. She tried to stay vigilant for any movement in the shadows deeper inside the barn, of the faintest sound outside.

  Two steps more, and she saw a pair of worn boots lying pointed-toes down on the floor with jean-clad legs attached. Weapon still extended, Erin reached the doorway – and took in the sight of a man lying, unmoving, on the wood plank floor. Too much blood soaked his hair. Certain the room was otherwise deserted, she rushed to his side and laid her fingertips to his throat.

  Her own heart hammered so hard, it took her a minute to feel the pulse, strong and steady. She pulled out her phone and called for an ambulance before, with risky speed, searching the rest of the barn.

  Then she ran for the house, banged on the front door, raced around to the kitchen door, where she did the same but saw no one inside.

  Linette had been abducted.

  At the moment, the only deputy free and even conceivably nearby was Chris Jarman, the last person she could call.

  Suddenly, as if a snapshot had appeared before her, Erin remembered that older black pickup, coming down an overgrown driveway bordered by scruffy fields that hadn’t been grazed in eons.

  She ran for her car, even knowing too much time had passed.

  *****

  Jed took out his phone before he’d gotten out the door of the interrogation room. It had buzzed half a dozen times or more while he was in there wearing down a frightened Gene Baxter.

  The first message was from Grant. His mother had had what appeared to be a stroke and had been transported to the hospital in Madras. In his rush, Grant had left his phone behind. He could be reached via the switchboard at the hospital.

  Number two had to do with another investigation of Jed’s.

  Then Niall came on, explaining tersely what he’d overheard in the locker room at the police station, that he was following the two officers in question, and with it now apparent they were on their way to Chief Seward’s ranch, he could use some backup. “I’ll find someone,” he concluded.

  Niall’s message had been left an hour and a half ago. Damn it.

  Erin Brown’s voice came next. She was talking really fast. “You’ve probably gotten a message from Officer Callaghan by now, so I won’t repeat that. He was going to call Eddie Aguilar. The thing is—” she drew a noticeable breath “—I forgot to tell you last week that right after all the horses were let loose at Linette’s place, I saw Chris – Chris Jarman, you know – get out of his patrol car at the station and toss something in the bed of his pickup truck. It sort of clunked. I waited until he’d gone inside and checked to see what it was.”

  Jed froze between one stride and the next.

  “It was a padlock that had been cut,” she said in a hurry. “I got a couple of fingerprints off it and then put it back. I thought results had just been delayed, and, well, other stuff has been happening. But this morning, I thought ‘what if’, so I asked for results again. Either I didn’t get them, or somebody wiped them off my computer. Anyway, there is an unidentified print, and one that came back as belonging to Theodore Willis. So I’m heading out to Linette’s ranch, in case Chris and this Willis have somehow hooked up, because Chris would know you’re tied up this morning and it might be a good window of time to…well. I’ll let you know.”

  As scared as he’d ever been, Jed ran for his truck even as he heard a beep in his ear followed by Niall’s voice again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  At the outskirts of town, Jed saw the approaching patrol car. He signaled and turned into the park where the remnants of the original fort could be seen on the banks of Desperation Creek. Erin pulled up next to him, and both jumped out, meeting in front of the vehicles.

  She vibrated with anger and the sense of urgency he shared. “You got my second message?”

  “I did.” That poor kid had taken a tire iron to the back of his head. He was already being transported to the hospital when the second responding deputy – Chris Jarman – had found the tire iron in a stall where Willis must have tossed it. The blood on it had been starting to dry. It was just possible to distinguish it from the rusted metal.

  Savagely angry, Jed wondered why Jarman hadn’t hidden the damn thing. Maybe he thought the metal was too rough to hold a fingerprint.

  Had Willis brought the tire iron with him? Or taken one from Linette’s truck, or even Ken’s? Jed shook off questions that weren’t important right now.

  “If I’d slowed to get a better look at the pickup…” Erin said miserably.

  Would she have recognized Willis? If she pursued the truck instead of continuing on to the ranch, Ken Fields might have died because medical intervention had been delayed. Jed couldn’t see how directing his rage and terror at this inexperienced young deputy would help. Particularly since she’d done something smart i
n the first place – wondered what a fellow deputy, coming directly from Linette’s ranch, had had in his patrol car that he had to transfer to his own pickup truck.

  Jed asked questions calmly despite the agony of emotions that spun viciously like a tornado inside him. She described the route she’d taken in pursuit, and they agreed that Willis must have turned off at some point. He asked her to lead him to where she’d seen the pickup.

  He already had the county-owned search and rescue helicopter in the air, but knew it would be a miracle if it happened to be in the right place at the right time. No, he had to narrow down the possibilities.

  As he drove behind Erin’s patrol car, Jed checked messages. Grant’s mother was stable and he was on his way back to Fort Halleck.

  Jed’s boss finished, “If there’s anything at all I can do, let me know.”

  Jed might have been moved by the support, by the fact that he knew Grant really meant what he said, if only he’d had space inside his ribcage for anything but terror.

  The second message was from Niall. “Thanks for the call to the Oregon State Police. They’ve sent reinforcements. I’ve been watching as a crew loaded a huge stock trailer. We’ll close in on it the minute it leaves Seward’s property.” Pause. “Wish you’d call. Erin and Grant aren’t returning calls, either. Makes me think something went south.”

  Because it did.

  No word on the kid found unconscious in Linette’s tack room. Jed hoped Alex Burke would let him know about any change in the young man’s condition.

  Two innocents severely injured at her ranch, and the possibility seemed real that this one might die. Jed knew how hard Linette would take that.

  If she lived that long.

  He felt as if he had razors beneath his skin. With every twitch, they sliced deeper. He couldn’t let himself think about what Theo Willis was doing to Linette right this minute. No—he had to focus on finding her. Fast.