Montana Connection

by B. J Daniels

  “You’re wrong to trust Ford,” Drew said, following her gaze. “Roz, look what he did to your father. I wish my mother had never told him he could stay in the guest house. I’ll tell her to kick him out.”

  “No,” Roz said.

  He looked at her with obvious concern. “You don’t really think he’s in town to help your dad, do you? Men like him don’t change.”

  Her greatest fear. It was obvious from Drew’s expression that he could see that he’d struck a chord.

  “He wants something, Roz, and you have to ask yourself what,” Drew continued. “He acts as if he’s protecting Liam, but what if it’s just the opposite? What if he doesn’t want any of us in the hospital room when Liam wakes up because Ford Lancaster has something to hide?”

  Her cell phone rang, startling her.

  “Just think about it,” Drew said and headed for the door. “In the meantime, be careful.”

  She wondered if he meant because of Ford. Or his mother. Roz was still chilled by what Florie had seen in the cards. Now she wondered if Emily really might not be the person she was pretending to be.

  The phone rang again. Roz checked the number. Charity.

  “I didn’t want to say anything in front of my aunt but I did some quick checking on Emily,” Charity said without preamble.

  Roz had known she would. She held her breath.

  “There was a hotshot attorney named Andrew Lane who died about a year ago. According to his obit, he is survived by his wife, Emily, and two grown children, Andrew Junior and Suzanne of Portland, Oregon.”

  Roz let out the breath she’d been holding.

  “As for Lynette Hargrove, she died in a car wreck about a year after she left Timber Falls,” Charity said. “You see why I warned you not to listen to Aunt Florie? So just ignore that thing about bones, okay?”

  She wished she could. “Thank you so much.”

  “No problem. Better to set your mind at ease.”

  Roz couldn’t agree more as she snapped off her phone. She just wished Charity could ease her mind about Ford. Why wasn’t he back yet? She was starting to worry about him.

  It was quiet inside the guest house. Roz checked the bathroom, remembering the urine sample she’d left on the back of the bathroom sink. It was gone. He must have taken it to the lab.

  Was that the only errand he had to run this morning? She hoped she’d just been sleepwalking, and that there was no plot against her or her father.

  She turned and looked toward the desk where she’d caught Drew. Ford’s laptop sat on top of what appeared to be a stack of papers that had been hurriedly shoved under it. Drew’s doing? Or Ford’s?

  Stepping toward it, she saw the corner of a magazine article sticking out from the pile of papers. She recognized the photograph. It was one her father had taken of a large hairy creature he and John Wells had seen deep in the Cascades and believed was Bigfoot.

  She lifted the laptop and pulled the jumble of papers from beneath it. On the top was the piece Ford Lancaster had written about her father for a scientific journal along with various newspaper articles quoting Lancaster and his experts speculating on how Liam Sawyer had manufactured the fraudulent Bigfoot photographs.

  She stared down at the photograph of her father for a moment, then ruffled through the other papers. They were all articles about Bigfoot. One headline caught her attention: One Million Dollar Reward Offered For Bigfoot Evidence. The article said the man would pay for definitive proof that a Bigfoot existed. At the bottom, how to contact the man to collect had been circled.

  Heart in her throat, she sifted through the papers and found what appeared to be the beginning of a new article typed double-space on plain white paper. It was entitled Bigfoot Hysteria In Timber Falls: Home Of The Infamous Photographer by Ford Lancaster.

  “Oh God,” she breathed, tears burning her eyes as she saw her father’s name in the first paragraph of the story.

  She stumbled back, all the papers slipping from her fingers and fluttering to the floor except for the old article about her father. She balled it up in her hands. She should have listened to that nagging feeling she’d had about Ford. But she’d thought she didn’t trust him because he made her feel things she had never felt with any other man. Like hatred, she told herself angrily. Not desire. Dammit, not desire ever again.

  She couldn’t believe how naive she’d been, she thought as she threw the article about her father across the room. Ford had lied about everything. And she’d just wanted to believe he’d lied about a stupid kiss.

  He didn’t feel guilty about what he’d done to her father—or to his own. He was only in this for the money. Or the notoriety. Or both.

  Hadn’t she known deep down inside he wasn’t telling her the real reason he was here risking his life? Why he insisted her father be protected? Just to get closer to her. All he wanted was to find the bones—or whatever had put her father in danger.

  Oh Roz, you fool, you. She thought about how Ford had been in the shower with her last night, how he’d kissed her. Not once but twice. Tears sprang to her eyes. He was just trying to gain your trust, you silly goose. He planned to use you to help him. Don’t you remember that look you caught in his eyes at the café? He thinks he has you right where he wants you.

  He did, she thought. But not anymore.

  She was so angry her first instinct was to wait for him to return and confront him. While that might make her feel better, it wouldn’t help her father. No, she had to find the bones, bones her father had mistakenly told Ford about—and she had to do it before Ford did.

  Unlike Ford, her father wouldn’t have sold the bones to the highest bidder. Nor would she.

  As Roz left the guest house and got into her car, she still couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching her. Where was Ford? And what did he have planned next for her? She hated to think as she drove out to the highway and headed toward Maple Creek Bridge Road.

  She couldn’t help glancing in her rearview mirror. How much of what Ford had told her was a lie? Was her father really in danger? Was she? Or had everything that had happened been Ford’s doing?

  She thought about the person who’d climbed in her window and went through her suitcase, leaving the window open—and the suitcase a mess—so she’d know he’d been there?

  Her heart somersaulted in her chest. Ford hadn’t left the chocolates. Drew had. Ford couldn’t have known her favorites. And anyway, he’d acted as if he hadn’t known that Liam had a daughter. That could have been a lie though, too.

  But he could have drugged the chocolates when he climbed in through her window. And he could have pretended to rescue her from the widow’s walk. For all she knew, he took her up there.

  But why go to so much trouble? Because he needed her to trust him. By making her think she was in danger, she had turned to him. She had played right into his hands.

  Oh God, how far would he go to get what he wanted?

  As far as was needed, she thought, remembering the kisses. And the reward for the Bigfoot bones.

  At least now she knew. The only person she had to fear was Ford Lancaster.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  When Ford got to the guest house, he couldn’t believe Rozalyn hadn’t returned given how late he was. After what he’d found in the creek, he had raced back to town, anxious to see her and make sure she was safe.

  But how much trouble could she get into since all she had planned was a trip to the hospital and breakfast with her friend?

  He opened the guest house door. Had someone come in again? Hadn’t the intruder gotten what he’d broken in for the first time?

  “Rozalyn?” Ford called.

  No answer.

  But someone had been here. He’d locked the door when he’d left.

  The moment he opened the bedroom door he saw the papers on the floor and stopped dead. He’d forgotten all about them after he’d discovered the computer disk gone. Then after he’d brought Roz to the guest house he couldn’t
very well retrieve them without making her suspicious. He’d planned to take care of them this morning and, in his haste to find out what had happened last night at the falls, he’d forgotten.

  That mistake would cost him, he realized, as he picked up the papers and spotted a balled up magazine article he’d started about Liam Sawyer. He swore. Rozalyn had been here. She had come back and found the papers he’d stuffed under the laptop computer after the break-in.

  Wait a minute. He didn’t make a copy of this article, did he? But here was the article he’d started…

  He shoved it away. Nothing mattered now but finding Rozalyn.

  Ford swore again as he straightened. He had to find her and try to explain. Good luck. She knew the truth. Knew what he considered his father’s legacy to him. In the end, John Ford Wells had left him more than his name. He’d left him the chance to be not only wealthy—but also famous. That was one hell of an inheritance.

  But he only got it if he found the Bigfoot bones his father’s partner had discovered. Funny the way life was. The only fly in the ointment now was Rozalyn Sawyer.

  At least he knew where she’d go. Maple Creek Bridge Road. As crazy as she was she’d try to find out the truth on her own. And as crazy as he was, he’d try to save her again.

  He grabbed his backpack, threw what he thought he’d need into it and headed for his pickup. He had to find her and quickly. The fool woman was going to get herself killed.

  What about the bones?

  Screw the bones. For the time being, Rozalyn mattered more.

  That realization made him laugh out loud. The woman had put a spell on him. Like he said, life was funny. How else could he explain falling for Liam Sawyer’s daughter?

  Obviously his life was cursed.

  * * *

  STILL UPSET with her aunt, Charity stopped by the hospital to find Florie sitting by Liam’s bedside. She cringed at the thought of what might happen should Emily drop by to see how her husband was doing. That was a confrontation Charity hoped to avoid. After Charity had talked to Roz, she couldn’t get Emily and Lynette Hargrove off her mind so she’d put in a couple more calls and was waiting to hear. Florie had to be wrong. And yet, Charity didn’t want to take any chances.

  And what was that business about bones? What bothered Charity was her friend’s reaction. Roz had turned three shades of white over some old bones in a dirt grave. Odd.

  Charity watched her aunt through the hospital room window and decided not to interrupt Florie’s visit. She left the flowers she’d brought for Liam with the nurse on duty and headed for the newspaper office in the relentless drizzle, windshield wipers flapping. Emily—or whatever her name was—was on her own if she came by the hospital while Florie was there.

  A block away, a large figure in a dark raincoat stepped off the curb directly in front of her car. She hit her brakes as Wade Dennison slammed down his palms on the front of her VW Bug, his glaring eyes huge with malice.

  Charity scrambled to lock her door, but Wade—for his age—moved too damned fast. He jerked open her car door, his face flushed with anger.

  “You meddling bitch!” he bellowed.

  Behind her, Charity fumbled for the cell phone in her purse, keeping her hand hidden from Wade’s view as she hit the On button, then speed-dialed Mitch’s number.

  “Listen, Wade—”

  “No, you listen to me.” Suddenly all the heat went out of him. He seemed to slump against her car, head down, the rain pattering on his raincoat to the sound of…crying?

  The unexpected, heart-wrenching sound chased away her fear. She stared at the broken man, suddenly wondering if she could be wrong about him.

  “I would never have hurt Angela. Never. I loved her.” He looked up, his face wet from the rain, from his tears. “I don’t care if she was my daughter by blood. Don’t you get it? I love Daisy. She was Daisy’s daughter. That’s all that ever mattered.”

  Charity realized now probably wasn’t the time to remind him of his words the night Angela disappeared from her crib. But hey, she was a journalist. “You were overheard telling Daisy that you would put her back on the street and take Desiree from her.”

  His jaw tightened, eyes hard again, and she hoped she wouldn’t regret her words. “Those things were said in anger. Daisy knew I would never…” He seemed to lose focus, his head coming up as if he heard something. Or saw something.

  Charity followed his gaze and saw a bright red sports car zip by. His daughter, Desiree.

  Wade pushed off the car, stumbling back as he turned and walked away, his gait slow and awkward, the movement of a defeated man.

  Charity watched him go, stunned by what she’d just seen and heard. Could she be wrong about Wade? But then how did she explain Bud Farnsworth’s final moments? It was clear with his dying breath that Bud had been trying to tell Wade something.

  She checked her cell phone. She’d reached Mitch’s voice mail. She wondered what kind of message she’d left. Mitch wasn’t going to like this any better than the newspaper article. She hoped it wouldn’t change his mind about that possible marriage proposal he’d started to offer her this morning at Betty’s.

  * * *

  ROZ TURNED from the highway onto Maple Creek Bridge Road and followed the narrow, sheltered road until it ended in a small wide spot.

  She was glad to see there were no other vehicles parked at the end of the road. But as she looked around, she wondered where her dad’s truck and camper were. How odd that the pickup hadn’t turned up. Was it possible someone had stolen it? Or dropped him off? Then where were the pickup and camper? More to the point, where was that person and how come he or she hadn’t come forward yet?

  She realized it was possible her father had hidden his truck and camper—just as he might have hidden the bones he’d found. It didn’t sound like him. Liam wasn’t one to hide things, to deceive. And because of that, she doubted he would realize the danger of his discovery until it was too late.

  With a start, she wondered if someone had moved the truck, hidden it—after that person had pushed her father from the cliff so no one would be looking for him here?

  She got out of her SUV, loaded her backpack and tied on her tent and sleeping bag. She considered leaving her camera behind, but realized if she found any proof she’d need it to verify the find. Like her father, she never went anywhere without her camera. She wondered if he’d gotten his discovery on film and where his camera was now. His backpack wasn’t at the hospital. That was odd if he’d fallen or even been pushed off a cliff. He would have had it on.

  She put enough energy bars and drinking water into her pack to last her a couple of days. She would stay in the mountains tonight, a place where she felt safer than at the house with all its memories and the strange new family. She wasn’t taking any chances that she might end up on that widow’s walk again.

  And she would be a whole lot safer out in the woods than at the guest house with Ford Lancaster, she thought, remembering the kiss and the emotions it stirred in her. And to think she’d been afraid of lowering her defenses around him. What a joke! He hadn’t needed to scale the castle walls—she’d dropped the drawbridge.

  She shook her head at the memory, pretty sure she really had lost her mind. Because even knowing what a louse he was, she couldn’t help remembering the kisses and the feelings and aching for both. Fool woman.

  She clipped the can of pepper spray to her belt—not so much for a bear encounter as a human one. If anything Ford Lancaster had told her were true, she would be in danger until the bones were secure.

  And she now believed her father had found bones. She could just hear Ford if she told him she started believing it when a psychic saw her father—and bones. Ford would have a field day with that.

  But what were the chances that Florie would see bones in the tarot cards?

  Roz glanced behind her as she swung her backpack over her shoulder, feeling as if she was being followed. But there was no one in the small clearing and it
was impossible to see into the thick growth beyond it. Nor had she heard or seen another vehicle on the highway.

  She’d noticed that the vacancy sign was back up at the Ho Hum Motel. The Bigfoot hunters were leaving town, giving up since there hadn’t been a sighting for several weeks now. Bigfoot sightings this time of year weren’t unusual in this area. The theory was that the snow in the higher elevations pushed the elusive creatures down to the rainy areas like Timber Falls.

  The Bigfoot sightings had something else in common: they were all on mountain ranges in rugged isolated country. The country beyond this road was unmapped, unexplored and inaccessible except on foot, and there were hundreds of square miles of it.

  On this side of the Oregon Cascades a lot of the country wasn’t even accessible on foot because of the dense foliage, steep mountain cliffs and numerous waterfalls, streams, lakes and bogs. It was the perfect place for a creature to live and avoid man.

  Roz looked up at the rock rims about halfway up the mountain and shivered. That’s the area where her father must have been. Whatever he’d discovered had to be fairly close around there, she would think.

  She knew she would have to find the bones before Ford Lancaster—and whoever else knew about them. She had no doubt that either would try to stop her.

  The moment she stepped from the small clearing where she’d left her SUV, she disappeared into the dark coniferous forest.

  She wasn’t surprised so few people had ever seen what they believed to be a Bigfoot-like creature. Another life-form could live just yards off the road and remain unseen especially if, as suspected, the creature was nomadic, rare in numbers and knew to avoid man whenever possible.

  As she walked, she couldn’t shake the feeling though that she wasn’t alone. She looked behind her but saw nothing except a dense wall of trees and underbrush. As far as she could tell, there wasn’t another human being for miles.

  A short way up the trail, she crossed a moss-covered log spanning a gushing stream. The water roared in her ears, reminding her of Lost Creek Falls and what she’d witnessed last night. She wondered if Mitch had found anything. Or if there had been anything to find.