Rogue Gunslinger & Hunting Down the Horseman

by B. J Daniels

  She hoped he was mentally kicking himself all the way back to his trailer.

  * * *

  EVE STARED THROUGH her tears at the woman standing in the motel-room doorway.

  Mary Ellen Small stared back, tears welling in her dark eyes as she said, “You look even more like Constance up close. Please, come in.” She stepped back to let Eve enter, her tone businesslike, but Eve saw a tremor in the woman’s hands as she closed the door.

  The room was like any other motel room, except this one was almost too clean and tidy, making Eve question how long the woman had been staying here.

  “How long—”

  “I got to town yesterday,” Mary Ellen said. “I told myself I only came here to see you from a distance. I had no intention of actually meeting you, let alone talking to you about Constance.”

  Eve frowned. “What changed your mind?”

  “I’m not sure. Won’t you have a seat?” She indicated one of the chairs at a small table.

  “I think I’m too nervous to sit,” Eve admitted.

  The woman smiled at that. “I made coffee. I thought we both might need a cup. Please sit down. We have time, don’t we?”

  “After waiting thirty-four years, what’s a few more minutes?” She pulled out a chair and sat down as Mary Ellen Small poured two cups of coffee and using the lid of the plastic ice bucket carried them over to the table. She returned to bring back sugar and creamery packets, napkins and spoons, before she took the other chair.

  “You said I look like my mother?” Eve said cradling the cup of hot coffee in both her hands for the warmth. She was shaking and needed something to anchor her.

  Mary Ellen nodded, studying her. “It’s quite shocking how much you resemble her. I see nothing of your father—” She broke off and looked away before concentrating on her coffee.

  “You knew my father, then.”

  The woman took a sip of her coffee, then carefully put down the cup. “How much do you really want to know?” she asked, her gaze locking with Eve’s for a long moment.

  “Everything.” It might be her only chance. Eve wasn’t about to pass it up, no matter the outcome. “Not knowing is worse than anything.”

  “Maybe.”

  Suddenly Eve wanted Bridger here. “My twin brother. He’ll want to hear this.” She drew out her cell phone.

  Mary Ellen covered her hand. “Why don’t you decide if you want to tell him after you hear what I’m going to say.”

  Something in her tone made Eve hesitate. Bridger was so happy right now with his wife and infant son. He’d found peace. Until she knew what this woman had to tell her...

  “All right,” Eve said and tried to settle back into her chair, afraid Mary Ellen Small might be right. This might be something Bridger wouldn’t want to hear. “Please, tell me about my mother and why she isn’t the one telling me this.”

  * * *

  AS FAITH TURNED away from the window and the image of Jud disappearing into the darkness near his trailer, she saw the doll.

  It sat on the small kitchen counter, its black-stitched eyes staring blankly at the door—and her.

  Faith started at the sight of it, stumbling back, her hand going to her mouth to hold back a scream. Only then did she realize her trailer door hadn’t been locked moments ago.

  But she’d made sure it was locked when she’d left to go into town. Someone must have the key. Someone who wanted to scare her by leaving one of those horrible rag dolls for her to find.

  Her initial shock morphed into anger in an instant. Whoever had done this was wasting her time if she thought she could intimidate her. Nancy Davis. That’s who it had to be. She must have spare keys for all the trailers since she seemed to be the director’s go-to girl.

  Faith was so furious she thought about confronting Nancy tonight, just storming over there with the doll in hand and beating on the assistant director’s door.

  She took a breath. Probably not the best approach, given that she still had to work with Nancy. No, the best thing to do would be to ignore it. Faith certainly wasn’t buying into the dolls being harbingers of disaster.

  Stepping to the kitchen counter, she picked up the doll and was surprised by her reaction to the touch. She was buying into all this heebie-jeebie stuff. Angry with herself as much as the person who’d left it, she tossed the doll into the trash.

  For a few moments, she stood in the kitchen breathing hard, angry and scared. Cursing, she stepped to the door, locked it, then dragged a chair over and levered it under the handle. It wouldn’t keep anyone with a key out, but if someone tried to come in, the chair would at least fall and warn her.

  She tried to calm down, but her blood still ran hot and her skin clammy and chilled with apprehension.

  Knowing she would pay hell getting to sleep after this, Faith decided to take a hot shower. She’d brought along a long white flannel nightgown, a birthday present from her mother that she’d never worn. Usually she slept in a soft, worn T-shirt and nothing else.

  Tonight seemed like the perfect night for the old-lady nightgown and the new mystery novel she’d picked up in town. She’d be ready if she had another visitor.

  * * *

  FAITH WOKE WITH a start. She couldn’t remember falling asleep, but the mystery novel lay open beside her on the bed. She listened. The rain had stopped. Is that what had awakened her?

  Whatever it had been, she knew she wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep until she checked the trailer. She hated that the doll had spooked her. It was just a stupid, ugly doll. But it meant that someone on this set was trying to scare her.

  Normally, she didn’t scare easily, she thought, as she padded through the small trailer. The chair she’d put against the door was right where she’d left it. No one had broken in.

  She glanced at her watch. A little after 1:00 a.m. For a moment, she stood in the middle of the living room. The curtains were all closed and she hadn’t turned on a light. She moved through the dim darkness to the window that looked out on the other trailers and carefully drew back the curtain.

  Low clouds hung over the camp, the moon illuminating them and casting the night in a silver glow. No lights shone in any of the trailers. She stared out into the night and yawned. Nothing moved in the eerie light.

  As she started to let the curtain fall back into place, something caught her eye. A dark figure was standing behind one of the equipment trailers.

  Faith’s breath caught in her throat as she noticed there was what looked like a large bundle at the person’s feet. She watched frozen in place as the figure bent down and began to pull on the large object.

  A chill streaked up her spine as the two forms melted into the shadows behind the trailer.

  The person appeared to be dragging a body.

  Chapter Nine

  Faith couldn’t move, could barely breathe. She wanted to scream, to wake up the entire camp. But reminded herself that she couldn’t trust her eyes. The stupid doll had left her jumping at shadows.

  But if that wasn’t someone dragging a body away from the camp, then what had she seen?

  She stared out the window. The figure had dropped over a rise. If she just kept standing here... Faith moved quickly to the door, removing the chair, and opening her door to look out.

  Seldom in her life had she been unable to make a decision. Better to make a wrong one than do nothing, had always been her motto. She looked down at what she was wearing. No time to change. She looked around for her boots and, giving up, stepped out of the trailer and started across the encampment in her bare feet.

  Her instincts told her to go wake up Jud. But she feared that in the amount of time it would take to get him, the person would be gone. Not to mention how she would feel if it turned out she’d only imagined a person pulling a body away from camp.

  There was that and the fact
that Faith didn’t trust herself tonight. Or was it her imagination she mistrusted? Of course it couldn’t have been a body. It must have been a bag of equipment.

  But why would anyone drag a bag of equipment out toward the prairie in the middle of the night? Maybe someone robbing the set.

  Faith needed to be sure she wasn’t on a wild-goose chase. If she could just get a good look...

  She sprinted barefoot across the open area to the edge of the trailer where she’d last seen the person and worked her way to the back. Squinting through darkness, she saw nothing. No movement. No person. No body.

  She was on a fool’s errand, she told herself as she slipped around the edge of the trailer into the blackness of the night. The clouds were so low she found herself walking through a foggy mist. This was crazy. Her feet were cold and wet, as was the hem of her nightgown. What was she doing?

  Movement. She blinked, took a step and felt something squish between her toes. Mud. That’s when she saw the tracks. Drag marks in the mud.

  She shuddered. Turn back. Go get help. In the distance, she heard a noise. The distinct clank of a tailgate being dropped. To load whatever the person had been dragging. That meant the person had a vehicle parked out there.

  Avoiding walking in the tracks, telling herself they could be evidence, she followed the drag marks through the mist.

  As she topped a rise, she saw a light blink on ahead. A dome light in a vehicle parked down in a gully. Faith looked back and saw nothing but mist. She could make out only the tops of the trailers in the distance. If she yelled for help, she doubted anyone would hear her. All it would do is alert the person below her.

  Crouching down, she edged her way into the gully. It was an old, dry creek bed, which made her sorry she hadn’t at least taken the time to find her boots.

  The pickup had been backed into a small bluff. No doubt to make dragging a body into the truck’s bed easier. Faith couldn’t see anyone around the pickup. The tailgate was still down but from where she was, she couldn’t tell if anything had been loaded in the back.

  So where had the person gone?

  Holding her breath, she moved up the dry creek bed, each step painful barefoot.

  The vehicle was one of the trucks rented for the movie crew. The driver’s-side door was open, the dome light a dim glow inside the cab. No sign of anyone.

  If it hadn’t been for the tracks and the pickup, she might have been able to convince herself she’d imagined the whole thing.

  But her instincts told her that there was a body in the back of that pickup. Maybe the person who’d dragged it out here had circled back to the camp for something. She had to move fast. Just get a look in the bed of the truck and hightail it back to the camp for help.

  Faith edged closer, stepped on a sharp rock and almost cried out. She was within feet of the pickup. Just a little closer. The hair on the back of her neck stood up as she touched the wet, cold metal and leaned over the side to look into the bed of the truck.

  The scream rose in her throat, but it didn’t get a chance to escape as something hard and solid struck her temple. The night went black and empty.

  * * *

  THE MOTEL ROOM was deathly quiet in the late hour. Eve listened to the hum of the coffeemaker and her own pounding heart. If the woman sitting across from her hadn’t looked so much like her, Eve would fear this was all a dream.

  Or worse, a hoax.

  “You must let me tell you in my own way,” Mary Ellen said in her reserved tone. “This is very difficult for me.” Her voice broke.

  “I’m sorry,” Eve said and tried to be patient.

  A moment later, Mary Ellen put down her coffee cup and began. “Constance was the sweetest little baby. I was there the night she was born. She was one of those babies that hardly ever cried, smiled all the time. We all loved her and spoiled her. Maybe too much.”

  Eve waited, saying nothing as Mary Ellen seemed to need time to gain control again.

  “Constance began to rebel in high school. I was two years older. I had always been such an obedient child, a straight-A student, the child who never caused any problems. Because of that my parents were at a loss as to what to do about Constance. She became more willful. Looking back, I’m sure she was rebelling because of me. She had always been in my shadow and because of that too much was expected of her. Her grades were never as good nor could she seem to stay out of trouble.”

  Mary Ellen seemed to brace herself. “I fell in love my senior year. I’d never even dated before that. Paul was—” Her voice broke. “Paul was everything I’d ever dreamed of. Handsome and sweet. We planned to marry after college. My parents adored him. Constance idolized him.”

  Eve felt dread growing inside her.

  “Paul gave me an engagement ring on my eighteenth birthday.” Mary Ellen smiled in memory. “The diamond was small, but I thought it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.”

  Eve watched her take a sip of her coffee, aware there were no rings on the woman’s slim fingers. Nor apparently had she ever changed her last name.

  “For my high school graduation a few months later, my parents threw a party for me at our home. Paul had seemed upset that day. It wasn’t until my sister came to me in tears...” Mary Ellen swallowed, her throat constricting for a moment. “She told me she was pregnant. That Paul was the father of her baby.”

  It felt as if all the air had been sucked out of the room. “You must have been horribly hurt,” Eve said, feeling the weight of this woman’s pain.

  Mary Ellen lifted her gaze to Eve. “I was devastated.” She took a breath and let it out. “I vowed to destroy Paul and my sister and the baby she carried.”

  * * *

  JUD CORBETT COULDN’T fall asleep. He lay in the dark, thinking about Faith. About dinner. About almost kissing her. It was no wonder he couldn’t sleep, given the emotions churning inside him.

  What was it about the damned woman? He’d dated his share of beauties, women with talent and intelligence. But he’d never met one like Faith. She was beautiful, talented, intelligent, probably too intelligent, funny, compassionate, passionate and incredibly courageous to the point of concern.

  He got up, wearing only his jeans, and padded to the front window to look out at her trailer. It wasn’t the first time he’d done this tonight. But he promised himself it was the last. Maybe she couldn’t sleep, either. If her light just happened to be on...

  It wasn’t. He started to let the curtain drop back into place when he saw her. Or at least her ghost.

  He hurried to the door and out into the cold night. As he ran to her he saw that her feet were as bare as his own. She wore a long, white nightgown, the hem and back muddy and wet like her feet.

  “Faith?”

  “Jud?”

  “Faith, what are you doing out here in the rain?”

  “I...” She looked around, rain running down her face. She shivered. “I was going... I don’t know...”

  “Were you sleepwalking?”

  “I...guess so.”

  “Faith, you’re bleeding.”

  He swung her up into his arms and carried her toward his trailer. She leaned into him. He listened to her steady breathing, reassured. What if he hadn’t gotten up when he did and happened to see her?

  Opening his door, he carried her inside to the bathroom. The shower stall was small and he knew from experience that there wouldn’t be a lot of hot water in the tank. Setting her down, he saw that her eyes were shut.

  “We have to get your wet nightgown off and get you into a hot shower, okay?”

  She nodded, still looking confused.

  Hurriedly, he turned on the shower and pulled her wet nightgown over her head. Pulling her to her feet, he stepped into the hot water with her still wearing his jeans.

  It took the entire tank of hot water to warm her up. Whe
n the shower began to run cold, he carried her out to his bed and wrapped her in warm, dry towels, rubbing her skin gently and then covering her with the comforter.

  “Feeling better?”

  She nodded. “I just don’t understand what I was doing out there.”

  “You must have been sleepwalking.” He’d checked to make sure the cut and bump on her head weren’t serious enough to have a concussion.

  “Don’t worry about it. Just rest.” She looked exhausted.

  She nodded and closed her eyes.

  He watched her sleep for a few minutes before he padded back to the bathroom and stripped out of his wet jeans.

  Returning to the bedroom, he pulled on a pair of pajama bottoms from a pair he’d gotten for Christmas from one of his brothers. They had scantily clad girl trick riders on them. Appropriate, he thought as he looked down at Faith.

  He lay down beside her, pulling her close to keep her warm. She snuggled against him, sighing in her sleep. He listened to her steady breathing, her body warm against his, and fell into a deep sleep.

  * * *

  EVE GASPED, UNABLE to believe what Mary Ellen had just said about wanting to destroy her fiancé and her sister. “You were upset. The two people closest to you had betrayed you. But surely you wouldn’t have...” The rest of the words caught in her throat at the look in Mary Ellen Small’s dark eyes.

  “I wanted to kill them,” she said in a voice that chilled Eve to her soul. “Constance was crying, pleading with me to forgive her. I knew what she’d done. She’d wanted Paul only because he was mine, just as she coveted everything I’d ever had from my grades to my clothes to my car, all things I’d worked for while she only whined.”

  The bitterness Eve heard in the woman’s voice made her pull away. She picked up her coffee cup, her hands trembling so hard that the now lukewarm coffee splashed onto her jeans.

  Mary Ellen handed her a napkin. “You said you wanted to hear this. I can only tell you the truth.”

  Eve nodded, unable to find her voice, and Mary Ellen continued in that same eerie tone.

  “I told Constance I would forgive her if she and Paul did something for me. They owed me. They were to meet me in the trees on the hill behind the house later that night. We agreed on a time and I went back down to my party.”