Montana Connection

by B. J Daniels

  He ran to the pool house in time to hear the report of a gunshot echoing across the water. He didn’t feel the pain until he was already pitching forward.

  * * *

  DREW PRESSED the hard, cold barrel of the gun against Roz’s temple. “Stop here,” he ordered.

  She brought the sports car to a stop and leaned over the wheel, still fighting the heart-wrenching sobs that had made driving nearly impossible when he’d told her that her father was dead.

  Drew reached over, turned off the engine and pocketed the key. A smothering darkness moved in quickly around them. The only sound was Roz sobbing softly.

  “Come on.”

  She lifted her head, wiping her tears, anger stilling her sobs temporarily. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust. He’d forced her to drive to a spot along the far side of the house, hidden from both the guest house and the front driveway.

  He grabbed a handful of her hair. “Get out. Go slow. I’m coming with you.”

  She opened her door. She’d already looked into his eyes, seen the bottomless coldness she’d glimpsed in Emily’s eyes. It was what had convinced her to go quietly with him in the hospital.

  Drew had come up behind her as she had stopped in her father’s hospital room doorway. He’d motioned for her to be quiet or he would kill her, then he dragged her back away from the door making it clear he wouldn’t just kill her but Ford also if she screamed or struggled.

  She’d gone with him thinking Ford would be safe. Once in the car, Drew had told her that her father was dead. That Ford hadn’t gotten there in time to save Liam from Dr. Harris, a friend of Drew’s mother.

  “Mother wants to see you,” Drew said now as he slid out of the car behind her, still gripping a handful of her hair and pressing the gun barrel against her temple.

  Roz hadn’t said a word since Drew had forced her from the hospital and into his car. She’d cried but done as he ordered, all the time feeling the grief turn to rage.

  As her eyes adjusted to the light, she could make out the crest of the house over the top of the trees. Drew let go of her hair to pull a flashlight from his jacket pocket. He gave it three short flashes, all pointed toward the house.

  An instant later, a light came on in the attic near the widow’s walk and Roz saw Emily waiting for them.

  * * *

  AS MITCH fell to the pool house floor, the thick scent of chlorine filling his lungs, he saw Daisy and Wade on the other side of the lap pool struggling for the gun.

  He saw the intensity of the struggle in Daisy’s face just before he hit the tile floor hard. Pain shot up his side and he thought he would black out. “Put down the gun, Wade,” he ordered weakly.

  It was an idle threat as he watched his own weapon dislodge from his fingers and skitter across the tiles to come to rest under one of the lounge chairs.

  Mitch tried to rise, realized it wasn’t going to happen and rolled over onto his back. He clutched his side, his uniform shirt soaked with what he knew was his own blood.

  Daisy was screeching now.

  Another shot reverberated through the pool house. More pain. In his left leg this time. The screeching sound ended in a loud splash.

  “Daisy?” His voice came out a hoarse whisper. He turned his head. He could see her in the water now, Wade standing over her on the edge of the pool on the other side, the gun in his hand.

  “Wade, don’t kill him!” Daisy cried as she surfaced and began to swim toward Mitch. “Kill me. That’s why you came up here. Kill me!”

  “Don’t do it, Wade,” Mitch said gritting his teeth against the pain. Tiny dark spots danced before his eyes and he willed himself not to pass out. “You okay, Daisy?” He could hear the lap of water next to him. “Daisy?”

  “She’s just fine,” Wade said, his voice sounding strange even to Mitch’s ears. Closer than he’d expected, too. He was standing over Mitch, looking down at him. Wade’s jacket bloomed with blood from a bullet hole, shoulder-high.

  “Oh God, Wade, what have you done?” Daisy said weakly from the edge of the pool.

  “Shut up,” Wade bellowed, his voice echoing across the water as he swung the gun on her. “I should kill you. You shot me. You’re trying to destroy me.”

  Daisy pushed a lock of wet hair back from her face and looked up at her husband with hatred in her eyes. “Destroy you?!” she screamed. “Destroy you after what you did to me?!”

  “Shut up!” Wade bellowed and closed his eyes, grimacing as if in pain. “I loved you. I loved you.”

  Mitch caught movement behind Wade. His heart stopped as he saw Charity creep into the pool house unnoticed. She carefully picked up one of the oars that decorated the wall over the pool door.

  “Take it easy, Wade,” Mitch said, his voice raspy with pain. Neither Wade nor Daisy had seen Charity edging toward Wade with the oar. “You don’t want to kill anyone.”

  Wade wagged his big head. “You think I shot you? That’s what she wants you to think. She set me up. Told me to come to the house to talk about things and then pulled a gun on me and shot me.”

  “Wade, no one’s going to believe that story,” Daisy said, sounding tired and depressed. “Everyone in town knows your temper. I shot you to defend myself. You were trying to kill me.”

  He was shaking his head. “I loved you.” His voice broke. He sounded close to tears. “I would have done anything for you. Anything. Even raised another man’s child.”

  Mitch thought of his own mother and felt a chill as he looked at the venomous way Daisy glared at Wade. This is what he feared in a relationship. That love could turn to hate just like that.

  Wade opened his eyes and pointed the gun at her head. She didn’t even blink.

  “Go ahead, Wade. Put me out of my misery. Do it. Kill me!” Daisy cried up at him. “You weak bastard. You can’t even do that.”

  Charity swung the oar. Wade didn’t know what hit him. The force of the blow dislodged the gun from his hand. It fell into the water as he went sailing out over the pool past Daisy, belly-flopping on the water and sending up a huge splash.

  Mitch closed his eyes and lay back.

  “Oh, Mitch.” Charity was crying as she jerked off her shirt and wadded it up against the wound in his side. He could hear the sound of an ambulance and knew she had to have called when she heard the first shot. “You’d do anything to get out of marrying me.”

  He opened his eyes and tried to smile.

  “Damn you, don’t you even think about dying on me,” she said tearfully. “I swear I’ll track you down in heaven.”

  He managed to smile up at her. At least he thought he did. She looked beautiful. Especially without her shirt. Along with the sound of the ambulance, he could hear the sound of a motorcycle coming up the road, hell-bent. Jesse to the rescue. She’d called Jesse as well. What would he do without Charity? he wondered. He hoped he never had to find out.

  He heard Wade come up sputtering from the deep end of the pool, all the fight gone out of him as he treaded water, his clothes billowing around him in the water.

  Mitch glanced over at Daisy. She had disappeared under the water. He tried to sit up. Couldn’t. Got out only the one word. “Gun.”

  Charity turned just as Daisy came up with the weapon Wade had dropped. She had it in both hands and was pointing the barrel end at Wade.

  “I’m never going to have to fear you again,” she said and pulled the trigger.

  Wade didn’t even try to duck the bullet. He just stared at her with a hurt look on his face as the bullet tore through the sleeve of his shirt and the flesh of his arm.

  Charity dove into the water, coming up behind Daisy and grabbed her around the neck with one arm. As they struggled for the gun, Mitch called on every ounce of strength he had to drag himself over to the lounge chair, reach under it and come up with his gun.

  He fired the shot in the air. “Drop the gun, Daisy. Now!” His voice boomed across the pool.

  Daisy stilled. The weapon slipped from her fin
gers, made a faint splash, then floated slowly to the bottom of the pool. Charity released her hold on Daisy’s neck as Jesse came racing in, took one look at the situation, pulled Mitch’s weapon from his fingers and began giving orders.

  Mitch lay back and closed his eyes again. He could smell Charity’s perfume, feel her warm breath on his cheek, her wet hand brushing his hair back from his forehead. He was overwhelmed with his love for her. “Marry me.”

  Silence. “What?”

  He opened his eyes and looked into hers. Any doubts he had about him and Charity were gone like a puff of smoke. In some cases, maybe love could conquer all. All he knew was that he couldn’t go on living without this woman. “Marry me.” Unfortunately, he blacked out before he heard her reply.

  * * *

  ROZ LOOKED toward the house, her legs turning to water beneath her as she saw what Drew and Emily had planned for her. She’d been afraid at the hospital. Even more frightened in the car, thinking Drew was just going to take her out and shoot her. But now she knew that her death was to be exactly like her mother’s. History was to repeat itself.

  A tremor rattled through her. She fought back the terror that threatened to incapacitate her. She would die trying to avenge Liam Sawyer’s death—and if she could, she would take Drew and his mother with her.

  As Drew pushed her toward an opening in the dense garden behind the house, shining the flashlight beam a few feet in front of her, she wondered where Suzanne was. Hiding in a bottle or had that, too, just been an act? Was Suzanne waiting for her as well?

  Three against one. The odds weren’t good and Drew had a gun. Roz knew she would have to be very lucky to come out of this alive. She didn’t feel lucky right now.

  “Was it only for my father’s money?” she asked as he pushed her down the garden path that wound toward the house while he held the gun to her back.

  Drew laughed. “You think Mother cared anything about your father? The man wears flannel shirts and work boots. A man with that kind of money and he dresses like a mountain man not even to mention the difference in their ages.”

  “So your mother planned to kill—” her voice broke. She couldn’t say “my dad” without crying “—Liam from the very first?”

  “Isn’t that what you’ve always suspected?” he sneered as he prodded her forward with the gun.

  It surprised her that her feelings had been so transparent. The hate she heard in Drew’s voice threatened her resolve to fight until the very end. She thought about making a run for it. She knew Drew would shoot her in the back. That seemed far better than what Emily had planned for her in the attic.

  But it also seemed the coward’s way out. Given a little time, maybe she could turn the tables on her new family.

  Her greatest fear though was that Ford would realize she was gone and try to help her as usual. She couldn’t stand the thought of Drew hurting him, let alone killing him. That’s what worried her. That and a worse thought. That someone had been waiting in her father’s room, waiting to take care of Ford. That meant something had happened to Jesse, as well.

  She had never felt so alone. She stumbled, fighting the horrible fear that, like her father, Ford was no longer alive. She couldn’t bear the thought.

  Drew shoved her again and she felt a cold, clear shot of anger race through her veins. He and his mother and sister weren’t going to get away with this. She would bide her time. She would wait for an opening. She would try to keep a cool head and pray for a break.

  And all this because her father had money and Emily and her family wanted it.

  Roz must have said those words out loud because Drew snapped, “What would you know about being poor? Having nothing? You’re a little rich girl.”

  She wanted to argue. Her parents hadn’t lived extravagantly. Her father had never flaunted the money that had been handed down to him from past generations. If anything, he lived just the opposite and had taught Roz to live just as frugally. She’d never given much thought to the money she would someday inherit. She made her own money and lived just fine.

  The thought made her angry. “Do you even have a job?”

  “What? You think taking care of my mother isn’t a full-time job?” Drew let out a laugh that held no humor. “You know nothing about me or my life.”

  How true. “Is your name even Drew Lane?” The silence chilled her. Could Florie be right? “My God, her name isn’t Emily. She really is Lynette Hargrove.” She heard his intake of air behind her and turned to see the answer in his startled expression.

  He stepped past her to open the back door and shoved her inside. “What else do you know?”

  Not near enough. “I know she faked her death in a car wreck.” She stumbled into the house. It was dark except for a light over the back stairs. He pushed her toward the stairs. “And she had an affair with Dr. Morrow,” Roz said, clutching at straws.

  “One out of two isn’t bad.” He prodded her up the stairs. “You don’t want to know. Trust me. It would be better to die not knowing.”

  She began to climb as slowly as possible, afraid he might be right. “Tell me.”

  “Okay, you asked for it.”

  She had almost reached the attic. Time was almost up.

  “She killed the good doctor, Morrow, after he caught her stealing drugs.”

  Roz held her breath, knowing instinctively there was more.

  “And the kicker? I helped her bury him in your garden,” Drew said. “I was nine at the time.”

  “Oh, Drew,” Roz said, unable to imagine the childhood he must have had.

  “That wasn’t the worst of it,” he said. “Your mother saw us.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  As Roz neared the attic, she heard the music coming from the phonograph and felt her blood run cold. It was her mother’s favorite record. The one Roz had broken into bits just the night before.

  But it was playing again now on the old phonograph.

  It took all of her strength to take those last few steps up the stairs to the attic. No one had believed her about the voices she’d heard or that loud thud over her head.

  If only she had gone upstairs to see what the noise had been. If only she hadn’t convinced herself it was the wind. If only her mother had cried out for help.

  No, she thought. Her mother wouldn’t have because she knew there was only one other person in the house that day. Roz. But her mother must have argued with Emily, Lynette, whatever her name really was. That had been the voices she’d heard. And the loud thump?

  She stumbled on the last stair as she remembered turning down her stereo but she hadn’t been able to hear anything overhead because… Her heart lodged in her throat. Because her mother’s phonograph had been playing so loudly.

  Just as it was now. The same song.

  Drew jabbed her in the ribs with the gun.

  Roz did it without thinking, without even considering the consequences. She spun around, bringing her elbow back hard. It caught Drew in the face, blood instantly spurting from his nose as he cried out and grabbed for the stair railing. Except there wasn’t any on the back stairs.

  His eyes widened as he grabbed for her with the hand without the weapon. She slapped his hand away at the same moment the deafening boom of the gunshot echoed through the stairwell.

  She waited for the pain in that instant as she watched Drew flail, then fall backward to tumble down the stairs as the sound of the gunshot died away. He crashed into the door at the bottom with a groan.

  It took Roz a moment to realize she hadn’t been shot.

  Now! Get out of here! Run!

  She looked down the steps. Drew was struggling to his feet, cursing and reaching for his dropped weapon. She couldn’t get down there before he retrieved the gun. Nor could she get past him if she did.

  The record stopped playing. There was a soft click. And then the needle dropped on the vinyl again.

  Roz turned, knowing there was only one way out of here and that was the attic. A dark shad
ow filled the doorway.

  “Rozalyn,” Lynette Hargrove said, the gun in her hand gleaming in the dim light. “So nice that you could make it but as always you’ve made a mess of things.”

  * * *

  FORD DROVE as fast as his pickup would allow him, around the corners and up the lane to the front of the Sawyer house. Drew had Rozalyn. This was the logical place to bring her given what Ford had seen of Drew’s relationship with his mother, whoever the hell she was.

  The sky was black, rain drumming down in a thick dark veil. Ford figured the front door would be locked—not standing open. It was almost as if they’d been expecting him. Waiting for him.

  He hoped to hell that meant Rozalyn was all right. He’d left word for the sheriff. Whatever Drew had planned for Rozalyn, it wasn’t going to work. Liam was alive. The game was over. Ford just hoped once Drew knew that—

  “Rozalyn!” he hollered as he raced up the porch steps and into the house. “Rozalyn!”

  He heard music. Faint, but definitely coming from upstairs somewhere. It was an old song, one he couldn’t quite place but he suspected it was the same song Rozalyn had told him about, her mother’s favorite record.

  The living room and dining room French doors were open, the rooms empty at a glance. He rushed up the stairs, taking them three at a time, as he followed the sound of the music.

  He’d been so obsessed with Bigfoot bones, he hadn’t thought the bones Liam had mentioned could be anything else. He’d done everything wrong, made so many mistakes. That’s all he could think about as he cried out Rozalyn’s name, not bothering to stop at the first or second-floor landings. His gut instinct told him where he’d find Rozalyn. In the attic.

  The music played overhead as he clambered up the steps, no longer calling her name, afraid of what he would find. Or wouldn’t find.

  The panel at the end of the third floor was open—just as he knew it would be. He ran to it and bounded up the stairs.