The Deputy's Lost and Found

by Stella Bagwell

  “I just made a new pot and you looked like you needed it.”

  “Thanks. I do need it. It’s been a hell of a day and it’s not over yet.”

  “You’re telling me. Ever since I came back from lunch, the darn phone has been ringing off the hook.” Hank motioned toward the monitor. “Find anything on there that fits Lass?”

  “This is the first chance I’ve had to look today. And so far I’m not finding any missing persons alerts that even come close to Lass’s description.” He reached for the foam cup and took a cautious sip while Hank pulled up a folding metal chair and flopped into it.

  This afternoon, while Brady had driven Johnny to the mountains, the department had been flooded with an array of calls. For the past several hours, Hank had been out doing his part to deal with the problems. Brady glanced at his watch. It was getting late, but before he left for the ranch, he needed to talk over Johnny’s findings with Ethan. But for the past hour Ethan had been tied up with meetings and phone calls. Today had been a busy day for all of them and Brady was feeling more than tired. He was frustrated and troubled and more than a little anxious to see Lass again.

  “I’m glad you showed up before I head home,” he told Hank. “I need your reports from this morning. Have you had a chance to type them up?”

  Hank looked at him with a bemused expression. “Reports? I didn’t go out on any calls this morning.”

  Brady slowly lifted his gray hat from his hand and stabbed his fingers through his flattened hair. “Hank, I sent you out to question the businesses on Sudderth and Mechem Drives. You were supposed to ask if anyone working in those businesses recalled seeing Lass in the days before we found her. Remember?”

  “Well, sure I remember what I was doing this morning. I just wasn’t considering that the same as going on a call. You sent me on that job. It wasn’t the same as somebody calling in and wanting help. Don’t you see?”

  Brady sighed. “Yeah. I see. So where are your notes? I understand that you’ve been tied up most of the day, so if you’ve not had a chance to type them up, we’ll worry about that later. Just give me what you have and I’ll try to decipher your handwriting.”

  Hank’s expression turned sheepish. “I ain’t got no notes. Nobody knew nothin’. So there wasn’t any use in taking down notes.”

  Screwing his hat back onto his head, Brady narrowed his eyes on the hapless deputy. Hank was usually a dedicated deputy. And ever since he’d been hired on at the department, he’d been a good friend to Brady. But at this moment he wanted to wring the man’s neck.

  “No use, huh? I don’t know what makes me angrier at you, Hank. Not following orders or using double negatives!”

  His face red, Hank cringed back in his seat. “Brady, that’s not fair! I talked to a bunch of people. Waitresses and clerks and cleaning people. You name it and I talked to ’em. They all looked at Lass’s photo and none of them remembered her.”

  Frustration boiled over and Brady’s hand slapped down so hard on his desk that the coffee came dangerously close to slopping over the rim and spilling onto the ink blotter.

  “Since when did Sheriff Hamilton decide to change department policy around here?” Brady boomed at him. “Maybe we should call him out here and ask him? He might need to know that you’ve taken it upon yourself to decide what information is worthy of being noted or ignored.”

  “No! Oh, hell, Brady, please don’t tell him about this!” Hank pleaded, then suddenly his expression turned hopeful and he dug into the front pocket of his jeans until he pulled out a small scrap of paper. Tossing it onto Brady’s desk he added, “I almost forgot. That’s for you.”

  With a cursory glance at the paper, Brady asked, “What is it?”

  “A telephone number. From that little redhead at the desk at the Aspen Hotel. She asked me to give it to you.”

  His back teeth grinding together, Brady wadded the paper into a tight ball and threw it at the junior deputy. “I’m not interested in some little redhead!” He regained control, stabbing a finger toward the outer office. “Go type up your work, and if nobody knew anything, then put it down that way! And I expect you to list each business you walked into and each person you said one word to. Got it?”

  Hank jumped up from the chair so fast that it tipped over and clattered loudly to the hard tiled floor. Before Brady could say more, he scrambled to right the chair, then scurried from the room as though a bolt of lightning was nipping at his rear.

  On the opposite side of the room, the door to the sheriff’s office opened and Ethan’s face appeared around the edge of the wooden panel. “What in heck is going on out here?”

  Brady wearily wiped a hand over his face. “Sorry for the interruption, Ethan. Hank knocked a chair over.”

  Sensing that Brady was dealing with more than a tumbled chair, Ethan stepped into the room.

  “I heard yelling. That’s not like you, Brady.”

  Brady grimaced. It was rare that he raised his voice to anyone. But this whole thing about Lass, about what Johnny had discovered about the night she was injured, was tearing at him. “No. Hank set me off and I…lost my cool with him.”

  Ethan took a seat in the chair that Hank had vacated only seconds ago. “Well, Hank can be a handful to deal with. But he means well. What has he done now?”

  Sighing ruefully, Brady rubbed the tight muscles at the back of his neck. In spite of his frustration, there was no way he wanted to get his partner in trouble. “Nothing that bad. He…just needed a reminder to follow orders. That’s all.”

  Accepting his explanation without further question, Ethan glanced thoughtfully at the computer screen, then back to Brady. “Any leads about Lass?”

  “Only what Johnny found.”

  Ethan arched a quizzical brow at him. “You got Johnny Chino to venture off the res for Lass’s case?”

  There had been a time when the department had relied on Johnny’s tracking skills to help them solve cases or find lost children. But that had ended long ago when Johnny had abruptly called it quits. No doubt the sheriff was surprised to hear the man had emerged from the reservation to offer his help.

  “We were in the mountains all afternoon.”

  “And?”

  Brady fought the urge to bend his head and close his eyes. This was business, not personal, and he needed to treat it as such. Yet the whole idea that Lass had possibly been running for her life haunted him in ways he’d never expected it to.

  “Plenty. He found the spot on the side of the highway where the vehicle she’d been riding in had stopped. A scuffle ensued there and then Lass ran into a nearby ravine. Her attacker—companion, or whatever the person was—followed. But he must have lost Lass in the dark because his tracks climbed back out of the steep crevice and returned to the car. Lass’s tracks continued on up the mountain. Johnny found where she’d tripped over a fallen branch and hit her head on a slab of rock. After that, she wandered due west until she reached the road and collapsed in the ditch.”

  Ethan’s thumb and forefinger stroked his chin as he silently digested this new information. “Did Johnny think the car drove up the mountain to look for Lass? After four days the elements have probably erased most of the readable evidence. But that Apache can see things no one else can see.”

  “Actually, I asked him that same question,” Brady told him. “And Johnny believes the car pulled back onto the highway, headed east and never returned. After Lass fell and wandered to the road, no one else’s tracks appeared.”

  “Hmm. So in other words, whoever was driving the car left Lass alone in the mountains. And so far, he hasn’t shown his face to us. That tells us plenty.”

  “Yeah,” Brady said grimly, “he was up to no good. And he has no intention of showing up to claim her.”

  Ethan nodded. “Even if the wound to her head occurred because of the fall, that doesn’t clear the jerk from wrong-doing. Clearly he was trying to harm her. But who and why? Has she remembered anything else?”

  �
��Only confusing fragments. I talked to Bridget about it and she seems to think that remembering things, no matter how small, is a hopeful sign. She believes Lass’s memory will return sooner than later.”

  Ethan rose to his feet. “This is not just a case of amnesia, Brady. It’s a criminal case, but we pretty much assumed that from the very start. So I don’t expect you to sit around and simply wait for Lass to remember who tried to hurt her. Keep doing what you’re doing. Searching—for anything and everything.”

  Brady nodded soberly. “I will.”

  His expression full of concern, Ethan laid a hand on Brady’s shoulder. “So what are you going to tell Lass about this? About Johnny’s findings?”

  Brady glanced up at him. “I have to tell her everything, don’t I? What other choice do I have?”

  Ethan released a heavy breath. “None, I suppose. It’s her life, she deserves to know what happened.” Giving Brady’s shoulder another pat, the sheriff gazed pensively off in space. “I’m thinking back to a time before Penny and I were married, when she was still the county judge. A crazy escaped convict was sending in threats to the sheriff’s department that he intended to kill her. I had to be the one to tell her that some other human being hated her that much. Then I had to try to capture him and keep her safe. It wasn’t an easy task.”

  “Was that before you two started a relationship?” Brady asked curiously.

  One corner of Ethan’s mouth lifted wryly. “That’s when I fell in love with her.”

  Something inside Brady tumbled, then hit with a hard jolt. What was Ethan trying to tell him? That if he didn’t watch his step he’d be falling in love with Lass?

  His mind was spinning, searching for some sort of sensible reply to the sheriff’s remark when Ethan spoke again, thankfully on a different subject.

  “So what are you going to do about Hank?” Ethan asked. “We don’t want him moping around here like a whipped pup for the rest of the week.”

  “I’ll make it up to him,” Brady assured him.

  Ethan chuckled. “How do you plan to do that? He’s not yet ready for a promotion.”

  A tired grin crossed Brady’s face. “I’ll set him up with a blind date. He thinks having a woman in his life will fix everything.”

  Grunting with amusement, Ethan headed back to his office. “Don’t we all?”

  Thoughtful now, Brady watched the sheriff close the door behind him. Having Lass in his life for these few days had been nice. No, he corrected, it had been more than nice. The time with her had been special. Really special. But that didn’t mean his life before Lass had needed fixing. Did it? That didn’t mean he’d become a broken man if she suddenly went back to her old life.

  Turning back to the computer screen, Brady muttered a curse under his breath. He was damned stupid for letting Ethan’s simple question get to him. After all, he’d always been a strong guy. He’d always been in control of his emotions, his happiness. One pretty little gray-eyed lass wasn’t going to change that. Was she?

  Chapter Eight

  In spite of the heavy workload, Brady managed to make the drive home to the Diamond D and shower before dinnertime. Once he dressed and combed his hair into a semblance of order, he left his room, then stopped at Lass’s door on the chance that she’d not yet joined the rest of the family downstairs.

  Rapping his knuckles on the wooden panel, he called to her in a low voice, “Lass? Are you in there?”

  After a couple of moments he heard her light footsteps and then the door swung wide. Brady’s pulse stumbled, then leaped into a fast race as he drank in the sight of her petite figure sheathed in a pale blue dress that fit at her waist and flared at her knees. The neckline was daringly low. At least, in his mind, it dared him to take a second and third look at the tempting hint of cleavage exposed above the fabric.

  “Brady,” she greeted with faint surprise. “Am I…late for supper or something?”

  He smiled gently while he tried not to stare. There was a faint bit of makeup on her face and her black hair was coiled into intricate loops atop her head and fastened with rhinestone pins. She looked so lovely it made him ache in a way he’d never ached before.

  “Don’t worry. I doubt the family has gathered yet. I…wanted to talk to you before we went downstairs,” he told her.

  Her gray eyes earnestly searched his face. “Oh. Is anything wrong?”

  He said, “Not exactly. May I come in?”

  “Of course.”

  With slightly flustered movements, she pushed the door wider and Brady entered the bedroom. The faint scent of her flowery perfume lingered in the air and from the corner of his eye he could see a few silky undergarments scattered across the end of the queen-size bed. For one reckless moment, Brady easily imagined himself pulling scraps of satin and lace from her slender body, of laying her on the bed and…

  Before he could let his mind finish the erotic vision, he grabbed her by the elbow and maneuvered her over to a sliding glass door that opened onto a balcony.

  “Let’s go out here,” he suggested. Where he could get some fresh air and hopefully forget how much he wanted to make love to this woman.

  The balcony floor was made of planked timber and spanned the whole width of the house. Furniture made of redwood and covered with cushions of bright floral fabric was grouped along the wide expanse, so that each bedroom was provided with a variety of comfortable seating. Potted bougainvillea, agave and aloe plants were scattered here and there, but it was the huge loblolly pines towering over the front edge of the deck that made the spot feel truly outdoors.

  As Brady helped her into one of the chairs, she spoke in an attempt to lighten the moment. “Should I be whispering? We’d have to go down to the barn to get much farther from your family.”

  Brady eased onto the edge of the chair facing hers and leaned toward her. He’d never brought his work home with him before. And he’d always made a point of never getting personally involved with victims of a crime. A lawman had to work with his head, not his heart. But with Lass he’d broken his own rules.

  Now he understood why Ethan had initially discouraged him from bringing Lass into his home. Danger could possibly be following her right here to the Diamond D. Yet he’d known that from the very start. And from the very start, he’d not been able to resist her.

  “They’ll hear it later. Right now—I wanted to discuss this with you first.”

  Her gray eyes suddenly filled with uncertain shadows. “You’ve discovered something. About me. About what happened.”

  He nodded, then awkwardly broke his gaze from hers to stare over her shoulder at the gathering clouds. Ethan was right again, he thought bleakly. It wasn’t easy to tell a person that someone had intentions to harm them. Especially a soft, gentle woman like the one sitting in front of him.

  “Yes. This afternoon, my friend—Johnny Chino, an Apache that I grew up with—scouted the area where we found you in the mountains.”

  She looked completely puzzled. “I don’t understand, Brady. It’s been four, nearly five days since the accident. What could this man possibly find after that length of time?”

  A corner of his mouth lifted in a wan grin. “You’d be surprised. He can pick up a trail that most normal people would fail to see. And, we’ve had a bit of luck with very little wind and no rain occurring these past days.”

  She drew in a bracing breath and Brady couldn’t stop himself from reaching for her hand and wrapping his fingers around hers.

  “So what did he find? My handbag? Pieces of clothing? More wagering tickets from the track?”

  “No. He didn’t find items, Lass. He found a story.”

  Her pink lips parted as she stared at him and Brady fought the urge to pull her out of the chair onto his lap, to kiss her until the lipstick was gone, along with the burning need inside him.

  “A story?” she repeated blankly.

  Brady nodded. “It has a few holes, but enough of the plot is there to tell us part of what happened
that night you lost your memory.”

  Her free hand crept up to her throat, as though she feared his next words, as though the unconscious part of her mind already knew it was an ugly story. Brady desperately wanted to ease her fears, to assure her that he would always keep her safe. God, what was it about this woman that made him feel so protective? he wondered. Until Lass came along, he’d never wanted to be any woman’s knight in shining armor.

  “Tell me,” she whispered.

  As concisely as possible, Brady related the evidence that Johnny had found, including the exact way she’d fallen and struck her head, to the direction she’d been walking when she’d collapsed in the ditch.

  When Brady’s words finally died away, Lass closed her eyes and tried to digest it all, tried to attach it to the strange images that had continued to flash through her mind at odd moments, but it was all so horrifying, so confusing, she could pull none of it together.

  “Oh, God, Brady, someone really did try to harm me!” Her eyes flew open and looked straight into his. “I mean, logically, I knew that I hadn’t just wandered off in the mountains on my own. Without any car it was obvious that someone had driven me there. But this—why? Why would I have been struggling with someone?”

  Before Brady could answer, she jumped to her feet and walked blindly over to the wooden balustrade surrounding the edge of the balcony. Tears burned her eyes as she stared past the pine boughs, to the distant mountain ridge. At the moment, dark clouds were churning over the tall peaks, while intermittent flashes of lightning warned of oncoming rain. She could only think how the turbulent weather matched the turmoil inside her.

  “Lass, I’m sorry,” Brady said softly as he walked behind her and wrapped his hands over her shoulders. “I wish…that none of this had happened to you.”

  A hysterical sob bubbled up in her throat. She not only had amnesia, she thought sickly, but she’d gone crazy along with it. Because a part of her wasn’t sorry that someone had nearly killed her. Otherwise, she would have never met Brady. Otherwise, she would have never known his touch, his kiss, the pure joy of being near him.