CHRISTMAS AT THE CARDWELL RANCH

by B. J Daniels

  “You sure you don’t mind me keeping this for now?”

  He grinned. “No problem. If it is a letter from my nephew, well, I think I got the gist of it,” he said with a laugh.

  And if it wasn’t? She pocketed the thumb drive before walking him to the door. Ace had made a sign he’d posted, saying because of a death, the bar would be closed for the day. It was taped to the door as she let Tag out.

  He seemed to hesitate before heading to his SUV. “I’m sorry about Mia.”

  “Thank you. Let me know what your brother says about the thumb drive.”

  Tag nodded and looked as if he had more he wanted to say, but after a moment, he touched his cowboy hat and left.

  * * *

  TAG HAD ALMOST asked Lily McCabe out. Mentally he kicked himself as he climbed behind the wheel of the SUV. Lily had lost a woman she’d worked with. She probably wasn’t interested in going out with the man who’d found the victim’s body. Not tonight anyway.

  There’d be another chance before he left, he mused. He just hoped she didn’t think the reason he hadn’t pursued it was that she taught math. Wouldn’t she have to have a PhD to teach math at a university? He let out a low whistle that came out frosty white in the winter air. Beautiful and smart. Everything about Lily McCabe intrigued him.

  The temperature was dropping fast, but he hadn’t noticed until he sat down on the pickup seat. It was as cold as a block of ice, hard as one, too.

  He got the engine going. The heater was blowing freezing-cold air. He turned it off until the engine warmed up, rubbing his hands together. Even with gloves on, his fingers ached. He really should have gone with the more expensive rental—the one with the heated seats. But he was a Texas boy who’d forgotten how cold it got up here in Montana.

  When he reached his father’s cabin, he saw that Harlan hadn’t returned. He couldn’t imagine where he might have gone, so he went inside to wait. Lily McCabe had taken his thoughts off his father and his growing suspicions. But now, standing in his father’s empty cabin, they were back with a vengeance.

  He desperately wanted to believe that Hud would find the killer and clear all this up. Unfortunately, he kept picturing his father handing the marshal the thick envelope. What the hell was going on?

  At the window, he caught a glimpse of Lone Mountain looming against the cold blue sky and thought about going skiing. But he felt too antsy. Maybe his father had gone over to Uncle Angus’s.

  As he started to leave the cabin, he remembered his promise to call his brother. He dialed Jackson’s number and was relieved when he answered on the third ring.

  “How’s Montana?” his brother asked.

  Tag thought it telling that Jackson hadn’t asked how their father was first. “It’s beautiful. Cold and snowy. I’m thinking about heading up to the ski hill.” Not quite true, but it sounded good.

  Jackson laughed. “Glad I’m in sunny, warm Texas, then.”

  “As the youngest, you probably don’t have the great memories I do of the canyon. But this place grows on you. Summers here are better than any place on earth.”

  “How’s Harlan?” Jackson and their brothers had quit calling him Dad a long time ago.

  Tag wasn’t sure how to answer that. “I went down to this local bar last night and listened to him and Uncle Angus play in their band. He really is a damned good guitar player. Mom might have been right about him having a chance at the big time.”

  “Yeah, right,” Jackson said, clearly losing interest in this part of the conversation. His brother had thought he was a fool to want to spend Christmas with their father—let alone surprise him.

  “You know how he is,” Jackson had said. “I just hate to see you get hurt.”

  “I’m not expecting anything,” Tag had said, but he could tell his brother didn’t believe him. As the eldest, he had the most memories. He’d missed his father.

  He realized that he’d had more expectations than he had wanted to admit. He’d wanted Harlan to be glad to see him. He’d also wanted Harlan to act like a caring father. So far he was batting zero.

  “I need to ask you a question,” Tag said. “When you and Ford saw me off at the airport, did Ford put a thumb drive in my pocket?”

  “You mean one of those computer flash drives?”

  Tag felt his heart drop. “I thought maybe he’d written me a goodbye letter on the computer and you saved it to one since I found one in my pocket.”

  “You do know that Ford is five and doesn’t know how to write goodbye letters, right?”

  “Yeah, but what’s on the thumb drive looks like a kid typed it, pretending he was writing a goodbye letter.”

  “Sorry, I had nothing to do with it, but I’ll ask Ford if he knows anything about it.” He left the phone, returning a few moments later. “Nope. Ford’s innocent. At least this time,” he added with a laugh. “So, when are you coming back?”

  “I’m not sure.” Earlier he’d told his uncle he was leaving right after Christmas. That was before he’d officially met Lily McCabe. “Probably after New Year’s.”

  “Hope you solve the mystery of the thumb drive,” Jackson said with a laugh.

  “I’m sure it’s nothing.” He thought of Mia and his father. He hoped to hell it was nothing.

  * * *

  LILY PUT THE thumb drive into her laptop the moment she got to her house. The house was small by Big Sky standards—only three bedrooms, three baths, a restaurant-quality kitchen, a large formal dining room and an open living room with a high-beamed ceiling.

  The structure sat back into the trees against the mountainside and had a large deck at the front with a nice porch area next to the driveway and garage. She’d chosen simple furnishings, a leather couch in butterscotch, her mother’s old wooden rocker, a couple of club chairs with antique quilts thrown over them.

  The dining room table was large, the chairs comfortable. It was right off the kitchen and living room. That was where she kept her computer because she liked the view. She was high enough on the mountain that she could look out through the large windows at the front of the house and see one of the many ski hills and the mountains beyond. It felt as if she could see forever.

  The moment she inserted the flash drive, the letters came up again on the screen. It looked like a foreign language, one with a lot of hard vowels.

  She knew she didn’t want the letters to be random and that she was going to be disappointed if Tag was right and they were just gibberish typed in by a child.

  But as she pulled up a chair, she thought about Mia. What if she was the one who’d put this thumb drive in Tag’s jacket pocket—just as her imaginative mind had suggested? He’d said that Mia could barely stand up she was so drunk. Or drugged. What if she’d needed to get rid of the thumb drive?

  Her heart began to beat a little faster as she thought of Mia’s condo. Was the thumb drive what the person had been looking for? She knew she was letting her imagination run wild and it wasn’t like her.

  Her earlier thoughts of Tag Cardwell as a cowboy spy was to blame, she told herself. And yet this could be the stuff of secret-agent novels. A spy who’s been compromised and has to ditch the goods, an encrypted message and a mathematician who gets involved in solving the mystery.

  And gets herself killed, she thought with wry humor.

  But she couldn’t help studying the letters. She knew a little about codes because they involved math and because she’d played around with them as a girl, sending “secret” coded messages to her friends about the boys she liked. Her friends struggled with the deciphering and tired of them quickly.

  It had been years, but she remembered some of the basics. She began to play with the letters, noticing there were eighteen Ws and sixteen As.

  The most common letters in the English language were E, T and A. So if t
hese were English words, then W and A were probably one of those more frequently used letters. Though by the position of the A letters, they represented something other than A, she thought.

  Her cell phone rang, making her jump. She was surprised to hear Tag’s voice.

  “I talked to my brother. He says the thumb drive didn’t come from Ford.”

  “Really?” She was already pretty sure of that anyway, but she did like the sound of his voice. He had a wonderful Texas accent.

  “I’m sure there’s another explanation,” he said.

  She was, too.

  “I’d better go. Just wanted to let you know.” He seemed to hesitate.

  She felt her heart beat kick up even against her will.

  “Okay,” he said.

  “Thanks for letting me know. Maybe I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Yeah.”

  She hung up, a little disappointed he hadn’t asked her out—if that was what he’d been about to do earlier—but now all the more determined as she studied the letters again. Codes often involved simple addition or subtraction. She should be able to break this one by trial and error, but it would take time.

  If it really was a code. She was glad she hadn’t mentioned her suspicions to Tag, though. He thought she was geeky enough as it was.

  * * *

  TAG SWUNG BY his uncle’s cabin. Who better to get the truth from than Harlan’s brother? Tag had seen the look pass between them. He had a feeling there were few secrets between the two of them. If his father had a girlfriend, Angus would know.

  But when he knocked at the door, there was no answer. He glanced in the curtainless window. The cabin was small, just three rooms, so he could see the bed. Clothes were thrown across it, the closet door open as if he’d packed in a hurry.

  At the bar earlier, Angus hadn’t mentioned going anywhere, especially this close to Christmas. Tag thought about the way the two of them had acted as they were leaving the bar. All his suspicions began to mushroom.

  He checked the makeshift garage and found Angus’s rig gone. Maybe he’d gone over to his daughter’s. Tag drove on down the canyon to the Cardwell Ranch. This time Marshal Hud Savage was nowhere to be seen.

  “I went by your dad’s cabin,” he said after Dana answered the door and ushered him into the kitchen, where she was baking cookies. The babies were napping, she said, and the two older kids, Mary and Hank, were with their aunt Stacy.

  “It looks as if Angus is going out of town. I thought you might—”

  “He’s been called away on business,” Dana said. “He wasn’t sure when he’d get back, but he promised he would try his best to be here Christmas Eve.”

  “He got called away on business?” Tag couldn’t help his skepticism or the suspicion in his tone. He couldn’t imagine what business his uncle might have other than buying new guitar strings. “Just days before Christmas? What kind of business?”

  She shot him a questioning look. “He’s never said. Why?”

  Tag let out a surprised sound. “So this isn’t unusual?” Dana shook her head. “And you’ve never asked him?” He hadn’t meant for his tone to sound so accusatory, but he couldn’t help it. How could she not know what her father did for this so-called business?

  “In case you haven’t noticed, our fathers do their own thing. I’m not sure exactly what they do, but occasionally it takes them out of the canyon for a few days, usually on the spur of the moment.”

  This news came as a complete surprise. “Harlan does this, too? I didn’t think either of them ever left. So they’re both involved in this business?”

  She gave him an impatient look, then shrugged.

  “Aren’t you suspicious?”

  She chuckled. “Suspicious? Dad could have a whole other family somewhere. Maybe more than one. But if that’s the case, he seems happy, so more power to him.”

  Tag couldn’t believe her attitude. “Has either of them ever had girlfriends locally?”

  She thought for a moment. “Not really. Maybe a long time ago. Like I said, they seem happy just doing their thing, whatever that is.” She pulled a pan of cookies from the oven and deftly began sliding them onto a rack to cool.

  As she did, she said, “Angus and I aren’t that close. I’m busy with the kids and the ranch and Hud, and Dad’s a loner, except for his brother....”

  “I always thought that if I lived here, Harlan and I would be closer,” Tag said as he took a seat at the table and watched her. He couldn’t help feeling disappointed. He’d really thought this trip would bring him closer to his father. If anything, it seemed to be pushing them even further apart. “What is it about those two that they aren’t good with their own kids?”

  Dana sighed. “Or with their wives. They just aren’t family men and never have been. But don’t let that spoil your Christmas here,” she said, and handed him a warm cookie. “We’re going to have a wonderful time whether they make it Christmas Eve or not.”

  “Yes, we are,” Tag said, sounding more upbeat than he felt. Right now, he felt as if the Grinch had already stolen Christmas.

  After he left the ranch, he drove around aimlessly, hoping he might see his father or uncle coming out of one of the local businesses. Finally, he stopped for something to eat, but barely tasted the food in front of him.

  When he came back out, he was surprised it was already getting dark. The sun had disappeared behind Lone Mountain several hours ago, and the deep, narrow canyon was shrouded in shadows. He’d forgotten how quickly it got dark this far north in the winter.

  As he drove up to his father’s cabin, he was relieved to see Harlan’s SUV parked out front. He’d half expected that, like Angus, Harlan had taken off for parts unknown on some “business” trip.

  Wading through the snow and growing darkness toward the cabin, he was determined to get the truth out of his father. No more lies. Either that or he would have to go to the marshal with what he knew. Nix that. He’d have to take his suspicions to the cops in Bozeman, since he wasn’t sure he could trust Hud. Admittedly, he didn’t know much about Mia’s death—or about his father’s possible involvement. Just a gut feeling—and a leather jacket.

  Deep shadows hunkered around the edge of the cabin as Tag started up the steps. He’d shoveled the steps and walk early this morning before he’d left to go Christmas tree hunting. That now seemed like a lifetime ago.

  There had been some snow flurries during the day close to the mountains. The snow had covered the shoveled walk. Tag slowed as he noticed the footprints in the scant snowfall.

  His father had had company. Several different boot prints had left tracks up the walk. One had to be his father’s, but there were at least two others. His brother? But who else? He’d gotten the feeling his father had few visitors. Then again, he hadn’t thought his father had female visitors and he’d been wrong about that.

  Only one light shone inside the house. It poured out to splash across the crystal-white snow at the edge of the porch.

  He slowed, listening for the sound of voices, hearing nothing. From the tracks in the snow, it appeared whoever had stopped by had left.

  He thought of Dana now. Unlike her, he had to know what was going on with his father. He wasn’t buying that they had “business” out of town occasionally. Monkey business, maybe.

  As he opened the door and looked in, all the air rushed from his lungs. The cabin had been ransacked. He stared, too shocked to move for a moment. Who would have done something like this, and why?

  He thought of the thick envelope that his father had given the marshal. Was that payoff money to keep a lid on what his father and uncle were involved in? The envelope had been thick. Where would his father get that kind of money? Not from playing his guitar at a bar on weekends.

  Drugs? It was the first thing that came to mind. Were h
is father and uncle in the drug business?

  At the sound of a groan, he rushed in through the debris to find his father lying on the floor behind the couch. Tag was shocked to see how badly Harlan had been beaten.

  He hurriedly pulled out his cell phone and dialed 911.

  Chapter Six

  Hate is a strange but powerful emotion. Camilla went to bed with it each night; it warmed her like wrapping her fingers around a hot mug of coffee. It was her only comfort, locked away in this world of all-women criminals. The place didn’t feel much like a prison, though, since it was right in the middle of the city of Billings.

  Only when she heard the clang of steel doors did it hit home. She was never leaving here. At least not for a very long time.

  Of course the nightmares had gotten worse—just as the doctor had said they would. She’d known they would since they’d been coming more often—even before she’d been caught and locked up. She’d wake up screaming. Not that screaming in the middle of the night was unusual here.

  The nightmare was the same one that had haunted her since she was a girl. She was in a coffin. It was pitch-black. There was no air. She was trapped and, even though she’d screamed herself hoarse, no one had come to save her.

  The doctor she’d seen a few years ago hadn’t been encouraging, far from it. “Do night terrors run in your family?” he’d asked, studying her over the top of his glasses.

  “I don’t know. I never asked.”

  “How old did you say you were?”

  She’d been in her late twenties at the time.

  He’d frowned. “What about sleepwalking?”

  “Sometimes I wake up in a strange place and I don’t know how I’ve gotten there.” But that could have described her whole life.

  He’d nodded, his frown deepening as he’d tossed her file on his desk. “I’m going to give you a referral to a neurologist.”

  “You’re saying there’s something wrong with me?”