Cardwell Ranch: The Next Generation ; Justice at Cardwell Ranch

by B. J Daniels

  Frankie didn’t remember dozing off until she awakened to daylight and the sound of rain pinging off the panes in her window. By the time she’d showered and dressed, determined to do what she had been hired to do, the rain had stopped and the sun had come out. Droplets hung from the pines, shimmering in the sunlight.

  When she came out of the bedroom, she found that Hank was also up and dressed.

  “I’m going to go talk to Tamara and then maybe go by the grocery store and talk to Roy,” he said, not sounding happy about either prospect.

  She nodded. He’d shaved and she missed the stubble from last night, but he was still drop-dead handsome. “I’d call you when I get back from seeing Butch Clark, but my phone...”

  “Mine too. Why don’t we meet back here and have lunch together and share whatever information we come up with? Be careful. I’m sure you haven’t forgotten yesterday.”

  Not hardly. “See you before lunch.” She could feel his gaze on her and knew their conversation wasn’t over yet.

  “About last night—”

  “Did you have a nice visit with your mother?”

  He grinned, acknowledging that he’d caught her attempt to steer the subject away from the two of them. “I did, but I wasn’t referring to yet another interruption just when things were getting interesting. I was going to say, I didn’t come to your bed last night not because I didn’t want to. Just in case you were wondering. You say you want to keep this strictly professional, but should you change your mind...all you have to do is give me a sign.”

  She tried to swallow the lump in her throat. He was throwing this into her court. If she wanted him, she’d have to make the next move. Her skin tingled at the thought. “That’s good to know,” she said and headed for the door.

  “No breakfast?” he said behind her. There was humor in his tone, as if he knew she needed to get away from him right now or she might cross that line.

  “I’ll get something down the road,” she said over her shoulder without looking at him because he was right. The thought of stepping into his arms, kissing those lips, letting him take her places she could only imagine, was just too powerful. She turned up the hood on her jacket against the rain and ignored the cold as she kept walking.

  * * *

  HANK SWORE AS he watched Frankie leave. He would have loved to have spent this day in bed—with her. He almost wished he had gone to her bed last night.

  As much as he wanted Frankie, he hadn’t forgotten why they’d come back to the ranch, back to Big Sky, back to where Naomi had died. He would always love Naomi, he told himself. But for the first time in years, he felt ready to move on. Maybe he could once they’d found out the truth.

  He saw his cell phone sitting in the bowl where he’d put it this morning and went to look for Frankie’s. He found it beside the sink. It was still wet. He tried to open it. Nothing. Well, at least now she couldn’t get those calls that she’d been ignoring.

  Who was so insistent? Someone she didn’t want to talk to. He’d seen her reaction each time she’d recognized the caller. She’d tensed up as if...as if afraid of the person on the other end of the line? Definitely a man, he thought, and wondered if anyone had ever tried to kill her before yesterday.

  He could almost hear her say it went with the job.

  But he’d felt her trembling in the water next to him after their escape from his pickup. She’d been as scared as he had been, so he doubted nearly dying went with the job. Although he had a bad feeling that someone had tried to kill her. Maybe the person who kept calling.

  “Well, now he can’t find you, just in case he’s been tracking your phone,” he said to the empty room.

  Hank couldn’t put it off any longer. He needed to get to the truth about Naomi. Confronting Tamara and Roy were at least places to start. He wasn’t looking forward to it. He doubted they would change their stories, which would mean that he hadn’t known Naomi.

  He sighed, wishing he was curled up in bed with Frankie, but since that wasn’t an option, he grabbed his jacket and headed out into the cool, damp summer morning.

  * * *

  RANDALL “BUTCH” CLARK was easy to find—in the back of his father’s hardware store, signing in the most recent order. As the delivery driver pulled away, Butch turned and stopped as if surprised to see that he had company. He was short, average-looking with curly sandy-blond hair and light brown eyes.

  “Frankie,” she said, holding out her hand as she closed the distance between them.

  Butch hesitated. “If this is about a job, my dad does the hiring. I’m just—” He waved a hand as if he wasn’t sure exactly what his title was.

  “I’m not looking for a job. I’m here about Naomi.”

  “Naomi?” he repeated, both startled and suddenly nervous as he fiddled with the clipboard in his hands. “Is there something new with her that I don’t know about?”

  Frankie decided to cut to the chase. “I’m a private investigator looking into her death.” If he asked for her credentials, she was screwed. Fortunately, he didn’t.

  His eyes widened in surprise. Or alarm? She couldn’t be sure. “Why? It’s been three years. I thought her death was ruled a suicide?” His voice broke.

  She closed the distance between them, watching the man’s eyes, seeing how badly he wanted to run. “You and I know it wasn’t suicide, don’t we, Butch?”

  “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”

  Frankie went on instinct based on Butch’s reaction thus far. He was scared and he was hiding something. “You and Naomi were close.” She saw him swallow as if he feared where she was headed. “So if anyone knew what was going on with her, it was you.”

  Butch didn’t deny it. “Why are you asking about this now?”

  “The marshal has reopened the case.”

  He took a step back, put down the clipboard on one of the boxes stacked along the delivery ramp and wiped his palms on the thighs of his dirty work pants. “Look, I don’t want to get involved.”

  “You’re already involved, Butch. But I might be able to help you. No one needs to know about your...part in all this if—” he started to object but she rushed on “—you tell me what you know. The marshal didn’t question you the first time, right?” She saw the answer. Hud hadn’t known about the old boyfriend. “So there is no reason for your name to come up now, right?”

  His eyes widened in alarm. “I didn’t do anything.”

  “But Naomi did.”

  He looked down at his scuffed sneakers.

  “Could we sit down?” she asked and didn’t wait for an answer. There were three chairs around a folding card table that appeared to be used as a break room. Probably for the smokers since there was a full ashtray in the middle of the table along with several empty soda cans.

  “Just tell me what you know and let me help you,” she said. “I’m your best bet.”

  He pulled out a chair, turned it around and straddled it, leaning his chin on his arms as he looked at her with moist brown eyes. “I don’t even know who you are or who you work for.”

  “Probably better that you don’t if you want me to keep your name out of it, but—” She reached for her shoulder bag.

  He quickly waved it off. “You’re right. I don’t want to know. But if you work for them, I had nothing to do with this. I told her not to keep the money. It was like she’d never seen a movie and known that they always come after the money.”

  Frankie did her best not to let her surprise show as she quickly asked, “Where did she find it?”

  “She told me on the highway.” His tone said he didn’t believe her.

  “Did she tell you how much money was in it?”

  He looked away. “I told her not to count it. Not to touch it. To put it back where she found it and keep her mouth shut. But she saw there was a small fortune in the bag
. She’d never seen that much money.”

  “What did she plan to do with it?”

  Butch let out a bark of a laugh. “Buy a big house, marry that rancher she was dating, move down here in the valley, raise kids, go to soccer practice. She had it all worked out except...” He shook his head.

  “Except?”

  He looked at her as if she hadn’t been listening. “The rancher didn’t want to marry her, she thought someone was following her and she ended up dead.”

  Frankie caught on two things he’d said. Butch knew that the night of Naomi’s death, Hank said he wasn’t ready to get married. Someone was following her that night. “Did she tell the rancher about the money?”

  “No way. She said he was too straitlaced. He’d want to turn it in to his father. He’d be too scared to keep it.”

  But timid little Naomi apparently wasn’t. “You said someone was following her?” He glanced down, obviously just realizing what he’d said. “The night she died. That’s when you talked to her.”

  He looked up but she shook her head in warning for him not to lie. “She called the bar where I was having a drink with friends and told me that she thought she was being followed.”

  “What did you tell her to do?”

  He rubbed a hand over his face. “I didn’t know what to tell her. She sounded hysterical. I said give it back. Stop your car, give it to them. She said she couldn’t, that she’d put some of the money down on a house and couldn’t get it back.”

  “So then what did you tell her to do?”

  “I thought that maybe if she explained the situation...”

  Frankie groaned inside. If the money Naomi had found was what she thought it was, negotiating was out of the question. “So she pulled over and tried to bargain?”

  He shrugged, his voice breaking when he spoke. “I don’t know. The line went dead. I tried to call her back but there was no answer.”

  “Did she know who she’d taken the money from?” Frankie asked.

  “If she did, she never said anything to me. I swear it.” He rose from the chair. “Please, I thought this was over. I thought your people... Whoever you’re working for. I thought they got most of their money back. At least, what was left.” He frowned. “I thought it was over,” he repeated.

  Frankie got up from her chair. “As far as I’m concerned, it is over.”

  Relief made him slump and have to steady himself on the back of the chair he’d abandoned. He let out a ragged breath and straightened. “So we’re good?”

  She nodded as a loud male voice called from inside the store.

  “That’s my father. I have to—” He was gone, running through the swinging doors and disappearing from sight.

  Frankie went out the back way and walked around to the pickup Dana Savage had lent her. Climbing behind the wheel, she wished she had a cell phone so she could call Hank. Up the block she spotted the time on one of the banks. It was about forty minutes back to Big Sky. She’d tell Hank when she saw him. But at least now she knew the truth.

  Naomi Hill had been murdered—just as he’d suspected. It didn’t put them any closer, though, to knowing who’d killed her, but at least now they knew why.

  * * *

  HANK DROVE INTO Meadow Village after he left the ranch. Frankie had told him that Tamara worked at the Silver Spur Bar. But when he parked and went inside, he was told that it was her day off. He asked for her address and wrangled for a moment with the bartender before the man gave it over. Hank dropped a twenty-dollar bill on the bar as he left.

  He knew the old cabins the bartender had told him about. But as he neared the row of four cabins, he spotted marshal office vehicles parked out front. Crime scene tape flapped in the wind.

  Swearing, he pulled in and, getting out, started past the deputy stationed outside.

  “Hold up,” the deputy said. “No one goes inside. Marshal’s orders.”

  “Tell him I need to see him,” Hank said. He held up his hands. “Tell him his son is out here, Hank. Hank Savage. I’ll stand right here until you get back and won’t let anyone else get past. I promise.”

  The deputy disappeared inside and almost at once returned with Hud.

  “What’s going on?” Hank asked in a hushed voice as the two of them stepped over to the ranch pickup he’d driven into town.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I came by to see Tamara Baker. Frankie had spoken to her about Naomi. I wanted to talk to her.” Immediately he realized his mistake as he saw his father’s eyes narrow. “Tamara said some things about Naomi that didn’t seem right.”

  “Like what?”

  He didn’t really want to discuss this out here, let alone voice them at all, especially to his father. Also, the marshal hadn’t answered his question. He pointed out both.

  “Tamara’s dead.”

  “Dead? Not—” He didn’t have to say “murdered.” He saw the answer in his father’s expression.

  “When I get through here, I think we’d better talk.” With that, his father turned and went back inside as the coroner’s van pulled up.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Back at the ranch, Frankie went straight to the cabin to wait for Hank. She felt anxious. What she’d learned was more than disturbing. Naomi had apparently found the answer to her prayers—or so she thought. Where had she picked up the bag of money? It seemed doubtful that it had been tossed out beside the road.

  At the sound of the door opening, she spun around and saw Hank’s face. “What’s happened?” she asked, feeling her pulse jump and her stomach drop.

  “I went over to talk to Tamara Baker. She wasn’t at the bar. I got directions to her cabin. My father was there along with a crime team and the coroner.” He met her gaze. “She’d been murdered.”

  The news floored her. Stumbling back, she sat down hard on the sofa. The ramifications rocketed through her. She’d talked to Tamara and now she was dead. Swallowing down the lump in her throat, she said, “There’s more. I’m pretty sure I know why Naomi was murdered.”

  Hank moved to a chair and sat down as if suddenly too weak to stand. “You talked to Butch.”

  “He said she found a bag of money.”

  “What?” he asked in disbelief.

  “Drug money, I would imagine. Enough money that she put some of it down on a house in Bozeman for when the two of you got married.”

  He dropped his head into his hands. “This can’t be true,” he mumbled through his fingers.

  “She called Butch that night at the bar where he was meeting his friends—”

  “So this bastard knew about this the whole time?” Hank demanded as his head came up, his blue eyes flaring.

  “She told him she was being followed. She was afraid it was them, whoever the money belonged to. She debated stopping and giving back what she had left with a promise to pay back the rest.”

  He groaned. “She was going to make a deal with a bunch of drug dealers?”

  “Her phone went dead. He tried to call her back but there was no answer.”

  Hank shook his head. “She told him all of this? So he knew she was in trouble and he didn’t do anything?”

  Frankie knew that the tough part for Hank was that Naomi hadn’t trusted him with her secret. It wasn’t just that she’d been living a lie, the bonus at work, not telling him about getting fired, the drinking with Tamara, the close connection with her old boyfriend when she felt she was in trouble, and River Dean, the backup if things didn’t work out with Hank.

  It was a lot for the cowboy to take. She wondered how Naomi had planned to explain all this money she’d come into, including the house she was in the process of buying. Maybe an inheritance? Maybe Hank would have bought the explanation, except that he hadn’t wanted to get married and move to Bozeman.

  Naomi had been so naive that she
’d thought the drug dealers wouldn’t find out who’d taken their money? Especially if it had been a lot. A small fortune to Naomi might not have been that much to some people in the wealthy part of Big Sky. But the drug dealers would have wanted it back.

  “I suspect, given what you just told me,” Frankie said, “that Naomi also confided in Tamara.”

  Hank pushed to his feet, a hand raking through his hair as he walked to the window, his back to her. “I didn’t know her at all.” He sounded shocked. “I loved her so much and I had no idea who she really was.”

  “You loved the idea of her. You fell in love with what she wanted you to see. Eventually, you would have seen behind the facade. Hopefully, before it was too late to walk away unscathed.”

  * * *

  HANK HEARD SOMETHING in her voice. Regret. He turned to study Frankie. “Is that what happened with this man who keeps calling you?” He didn’t expect an answer. He thought of Naomi. “I’m not sure it was love—at least on her part. With love comes trust. She didn’t trust me enough to tell me about the money.”

  “Your father is the marshal.”

  He let out a snort. “She really thought I’d go to my father with this?”

  “Wouldn’t you have?”

  Hank laughed and shook his head. “I would have made her turn the money over to my father.” He nodded. “It would have been the only smart thing to do and she would have hated me for it.”

  Frankie gave him a that’s-why-she-didn’t-tell-you shrug.

  “Well, he has to know about all of this now. He probably has people he suspects are dealing drugs in the area. What are the chances that they killed Naomi and now Tamara?” His gaze came up to meet hers and his quickly softened. “You can’t blame yourself.”

  “I talked to her and now she’s dead. Who should I blame?”

  “The man you said was sitting down the bar. He was the only witness when the two of you were talking, right?”

  She nodded. “But she could have told someone after that.”