Night of Shadows

by Marilyn Haddrill

  Night of Shadows

  By

  Marilyn Haddrill and Doris Holmes

  Text Copyright © 2012 Marilyn A. Haddrill and James W. Holmes

  Cover Art by Steve Bagi (Bagi Design), Chester Springs, Pennsylvania

  All Rights Reserved

  All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Kindle eBooks by Marilyn Haddrill

  Romantic Suspense (with co-author Doris Holmes)

  Night of Shadows

  Sting of the Scorpion

  Romantic Fantasy (Dec. 1, 2012 Release Date)

  Ten Crescent Moons (Moonquest Series, Book 1)

  This book originally was dedicated in loving memory of my father, Jess Willard Holmes, who believed in our dream. The dedication now extends to my co-author and mother, Doris Holmes, who passed away in 2011. May the warmth of her humor and her love of family continue to live on in this book we so enjoyed creating together. - Marilyn Haddrill

  Preface

  Originally published as a hardback in 1992 by Avalon Books (Thomas Bouregy and Company Inc., New York), Night of Shadows is a timeless tale of romance and intrigue set on a fictional ranch in remote southern New Mexico. This story was revised and updated in late 2012 for release as a Kindle eBook.

  1

  The insistent ringing of the telephone at Melinda's elbow was just one more interruption in a day complicated by decisions, cranky co-workers, and a headache that now pounded through her temples. Work was piled up. She had been absent from her Atlanta office all last week to make a series of presentations on proposed magazine advertising layouts and TV ads for a Florida orange juice company.

  At least her efforts to land the corporation as a client had been successful. In fact, the public relations firm she represented had given her a substantial bonus. But Melinda wondered if the time spent away from demands here had been worth it.

  Melinda glared at the telephone, and then yanked off her glasses. She scowled over at Millie, the newly hired receptionist. Melinda distinctly had asked the girl to hold all calls. Millie shrugged her shoulders in an apologetic gesture.

  "Sorry, Ms. Bailey," she said in her raspy voice. "They told me it was an emergency."

  Sighing, Melinda picked up the phone. Some emergency. It was Mrs. Johnson, owner of the Great South Travel Agency. She informed Melinda that she hated the clothes selected for the models in the Bahamas excursion packet. Melinda soothed her client's ruffled feelings with a promise that they would meet at lunch the next day and discuss exactly what Mrs. Johnson had in mind.

  The results of about a week's worth of photo sessions would have to be scrapped. But it taught Melinda a valuable lesson. Never again would she trust a client who said to use her own judgement.

  When at last the conversation ended, Melinda grabbed for a pencil behind her ear and reached for her appointment pad. The phone buzzed again.

  "I'm not taking this one, Millie," Melinda said emphatically. "I told you — no more calls. And don't tell me this is another one of your emergencies."

  Millie shrugged in her usual lackadaisical style and punched the hold button to inform the waiting party.

  "Sorry, Mr. McClure. Like I told you before, Ms. Bailey isn't available."

  Melinda looked up. "McClure? Preston McClure?"

  "Yeah," Millie answered. "Sez he's your brother-in-law. Sez he's been trying to reach you for days."

  Melinda punched the button with the flashing red light to make the connection. Preston? Calling her at work? That was odd. Particularly since she had exchanged hardly more than two or three sentences of pleasantries with the man since her sister married him less than a year ago.

  "Man, you're hard to track down!" Preston's voice crackled through the distortion of a poor long distance connection. "Listen, Melinda. I hate to alarm you this way, but there's something you need to know. Joannie's been missing since last Monday."

  Melinda clinched the telephone receiver closer to her ear to make his voice more audible. The office noises subsided into a muted background of clatter.

  "That's a week ago. Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

  "I've been trying to get in touch with you since the day after she disappeared. Your office never could get any messages through."

  "That's ridiculous. They knew exactly where I was."

  Struck by a thought, Melinda swiveled her chair to stare right at Millie. The receptionist's head with its frizzed red hair was bent over a novel kept hidden in her desk drawer. It was quite likely Millie had either forgotten Preston's messages or never bothered with them in the first place.

  "I take it you haven't heard from her then," Preston said.

  "No. Not a word."

  Millie's foggy world insulated her from Melinda's irate scrutiny that continued for several seconds. Then Melinda whirled her chair around, turning her back to the bustling office scene. She had to collect her wits. Think. Her sister could be unpredictable at times. Joan might have decided, on impulse, to take a trip. But surely not without telling Preston.

  His voice crackled over the phone again. "We've had the county rescue squad out for days combing the area, searching for her. So far not a clue — nothing. They're treating it now strictly as a missing person. They seem to think she left on her own. I was praying she might have shown up there. Have you heard from her at all within the last few weeks? Did she give you any indication that she might be going somewhere?"

  "Hold on. I might have something here."

  Yes, Melinda had heard from Joan. She attacked a pile of papers on her desk and dug through them until she found the letter, which she had skimmed just that morning. The postmark was June 9, the day before Joan disappeared. Melinda snatched it from the envelope and reviewed the contents.

  Joan had asked her to come out to New Mexico for a visit. But for some bizarre reason, she had wanted Melinda to pretend she had just dropped in without any prior invitation. Because there was no Internet service at the remote ranch, Joan had chosen to send the handwritten invitation by conventional mail.

  Melinda had been amused with her sister's melodrama, considering it one of Joan's attention-getting ploys designed to lure her for a long-promised visit. Now, the letter took on deeper significance. Guilt numbed Melinda as she realized that — even as that letter was being written — Joan must have been in some kind of trouble. And as in the past, she had tried turning to her capable older sister for help.

  Until Melinda knew more, she decided it was best not to mention the correspondence to Preston. The strangeness of it caused her to shove it quickly into a dark corner of the drawer, as though to hide it from her brother-in-law.

  "No, I haven't heard from her lately," Melinda lied.

  "Well, I thought if she'd be in touch with anyone, it would be you…" Preston began. "Just a sec. Mac is asking me something."

  Preston's voice became muffled as he held his hand over the mouthpiece to talk to his brother in the background. As Melinda waited, she recalled Joan's correspondence of the past year filled with details about Preston McClure and his brother, Mac. Joan's references to Mac had revealed clear dislike for his heavy-handed ways.

  Melinda tried to remember something specific, regretting now that she had thrown the previous letters away. She recalled only that they contained little barbs that related to Mac's tight control over the family business, even though Preston was supposed to be an equal partner. The brothers bred quarter horses at a ranch near Broken Rock located about 75 miles southwest of the resort and horse racing town of Ruidoso, New Mexico. That's where Joan had met Preston the previous summer.

  They had married following a whirlwind courtship
that troubled Melinda. From the beginning, she had grave doubts that a marriage between two people who knew so little about each other could survive. Maybe that was the trouble to which Joan was referring. Maybe her little sister had quit her husband, and would be showing up at any time to admit she had made a mistake. At that moment, Preston’s voice interrupted Melinda's thoughts.

  "Okay, Melinda, I'm back."

  As yet, Melinda never had met Preston. Their brief conversations in the past had been limited to the telephone. So it was hard to know what approach to take with him to get to the truth.

  "Preston, you know you can be honest with me. Did you and Joan by chance have an argument?"

  "Absolutely not!" he protested. "I mean, we've had the usual spats, like any married couple, but — nothing serious. We love each other." His voice broke. "If she had left me, you know she would have taken a few things with her. Even her purse is still here. She's just gone — that's all."

  "Do you think Joan is all right? Do you think she was hurt, or maybe — " Melinda's voice quivered.

  Even though she was unable to finished the question, she knew Preston understood the meaning. Preston's silence echoed her own concern.

  "I'm catching the first plane out there," Melinda announced.

  "No!" Preston practically shouted his protest. "I can't have that! I can't risk another — " He cut off what he was about to say. "I'll keep you informed. There's nothing you can do here."

  The phone clicked and the line went dead, as though the matter had been settled. What he meant by that final remark was — stay away!

  Melinda slowly hung up the receiver and sank back into the thick, padded chair behind her desk. She gazed out over the hectic office scene now as though it were an alien world. The stack of advertising accounts before her, which minutes ago had been the most important thing in her life, now seemed meaningless. The dozen or so other executives around her continued with business as usual, too preoccupied even to notice her despair.

  She looked at the nameplate before her — MELINDA BAILEY, Account Manager. Soon she was to be promoted to a vice president's position with her own separate office and private secretary.

  She had so relished the thought of the substantial salary increase accompanying the step up that she had excluded almost everything from her life lately except her obsession with this job. Maybe she had been so caught up in her dreams that she had chosen to ignore the undertones in Joan's letter.

  She pulled open the drawer, retrieved the letter, and this time read it carefully. The first part of the writing sounded like the old Joan. She happily babbled about horses and racetracks and life at the ranch. But now did the words seem contrived? Melinda read the last part over and over, as she tried to find some hidden clue.

  Melinda, I know you're busy, but please come here as soon as possible. Next month, if you can. Please? It's terribly important to me. When you get here, would you do me a favor? Just tell everyone you decided to drop in as a surprise. Don't say I invited you. I'm sending you some detailed directions so you'll be able to find your way out here without anyone meeting you at the airport.

  Melinda should have paid more attention to that weird request when she first read it. Why the secrecy? It was normal that Joan would want to invite her only sister — her only close family, really — to visit her. Melinda had in fact planned to go there — on her very next vacation, whenever she could manage one. Now, it was time.

  The first obstacle was her workaholic boss, Mr. Grissom. It was difficult to read his expression as she stood before him in his large, oval office surrounded by plate glass that gave him a view of his employees at their work stations. Melinda tried not to stare at his shiny bald head, the subject of many jokes made behind his back. He had his fingers steepled together in a pose of thought, as he stared out over glasses perched on the tip of his nose.

  "I understand your problem, Melinda — believe me, I do. But I depend on you. That's why you're getting this promotion. Surely you understand that, in a growing firm like ours, we can't spare anyone for very long. Emerson is off on maternity leave. Bernhart and Walls both are on vacation right now, too. We can let you go a week or two — but what happens after that?"

  Melinda wet her lips and tried to sound firm. "I might have to ask for a leave of absence, sir."

  "And I'll have to deny it. We're in the middle of that new promotion for the mall. Jordon will have to handle your clients, and he's already working overtime with his own load as it is."

  "I'll get with him right away. I'll do everything I can to make it easier for him."

  "Two weeks. Sorry, that's all I can give you." Grissom opened his desk drawer and pulled out a form that he quickly signed and handed to her. "Take this over to accounting and they'll cut you a check for your vacation pay. We expect you back after that."

  ***

  That night, Melinda packed some of the travel items she had laid out and critically surveyed the few practical clothes she had available to wear at a ranch. One pair of stone-washed jeans, some shorts, and a few casual tops. That was it. Her wardrobe was devoted almost exclusively to business and evening attire. Melinda's association with the outdoors in recent years had been confined to gazing down at city lights from exclusive cafes atop some towering office building handy for business meetings with clients.

  When the doorbell rang, Melinda straightened in alarm.

  "Oh, no!" She looked at her watch. "I forgot all about him."

  She stood, nibbling on a fingertip, while she decided what to do.

  "Perry?" she called out. "Hold on. I'll be there in a second."

  She ran to the telephone, punched in a quick series of numbers and ordered a pizza to be delivered. Then she grabbed a brush and ran three or four strokes through her hair before she went to the door and opened it to his startled expression.

  "Melinda, you look — interesting."

  Melinda tugged self-consciously at some straying hair, then stepped back to let him enter. His disappointment was not surprising. She knew he expected her to be dressed in the flowered, silky yellow lounging outfit that she sometimes wore during evenings at home. Instead, she had uncharacteristically donned faded shorts and an oversized man's work shirt. He was supposed to be treated to a home-cooked dinner, but he would have to be satisfied with the pizza she ordered. She didn't have the time to humor Perry Rhine right now.

  "Don't be snide," she retorted. "I'm in the middle of packing. I have to leave in the morning."

  "But you just got back. What is it? Another business trip?"

  He followed her into the bedroom, where she began stuffing a few clothes into a suitcase. She quickly explained what was going on.

  "I can see your concern," he responded kindly. "But I don't see why you don't just leave this to the authorities. They'll find her."

  "Even if they do, she'll still need me. Besides, I'd feel better if I met her husband face-to-face. There's something funny about the way he was talking to me today…"

  Perry perched gingerly on the side of her bed. "You wouldn't expect the man to sound normal, what with his wife missing. Besides — from what you've told me about your sister — she's bound to be off somewhere on a lark."

  Melinda diverted Perry by asking him to perform some errands for her while she was gone — checking her post office box, taking home any perishables from the refrigerator, letting some of their mutual friends know where she had gone.

  Her detailed instructions were interrupted by the doorbell announcing the arrival of cold pizza. As Melinda beckoned him to the table, Perry examined the fare with distaste as he reluctantly sat down. Melinda picked up the cardboard package and stuffed it into the microwave to re-heat. Then she poured two glasses of red wine.

  "Sorry about the dinner." She handed him his glass, then joined him at the table. "I was planning to make that special Greek recipe you like so well."

  Perry was a food critic for the Atlanta morning newspaper, and she often accompanied him to different res
taurants targeted for his acrid criticism. She enjoyed the experiences for the most part, but Perry's refined tastes and status made him a bit of a pain at times.

  He never hesitated to express haughty displeasure if the food or service offended him. Unfortunately, his fastidious habits spread to other aspects of his character. For instance, he was obsessed with his appearance. He haunted health spas and visited salons for regular hair styling. He insisted on dressing almost exclusively in tailored, three-piece suits. He was dashingly handsome as a result.

  Melinda was flattered that he found her attractive enough to meet his meticulous standards. But sometimes his expectations were a strain. He seemed to love her long, shiny dark hair piled elaborately atop her head.

  She spent considerable time in the lady's room of places they visited to make sure that the mascara accenting her large dark eyes remained unsmudged and that no hair had strayed out of place. Whatever his faults were, however, Perry was a good friend, and she valued his company. She was grateful that tonight he ate the pizza without complaint.

  "Really, Melinda, I don't understand why you think you have to do this," Perry repeated, as they finished their meal. "That area of New Mexico is practically a wilderness. You're a city girl. You'll never find your way around out there. And you won't be helping anyone."

  "You're forgetting. I'm very resourceful." Melinda swooped the dirty utensils off the table, and piled them into the dishwasher. "So stop trying to turn this discussion into a debate. The decision is made. What I need most from you right now is your support."

  Perry stood and walked over to her. He reached out, as if to touch her. But his hand paused in mid-air at her no-nonsense look. Their friendship had its limits. And so far Melinda never had allowed their relationship to cross over a certain boundary.

  Perry held up his hands in surrender. "Okay, okay — I can see your mind is made up. But you can at least keep me posted. If you need me, I'll be here. You can count on me, you know. You don't have to be so independent all the time."