The Missing Colton

by Loreth Anne White

  Jagger’s brow knitted into a V as he dragged the chair over a few feet. Taking a seat, he held out his arm. The technician applied the tourniquet and swabbed the inside of Jagger’s elbow with an alcohol swab.

  He then inserted a needle into a vacutainer holder and screwed it tight. Tension in the room felt strangely thick. Drucker seemed edgy.

  Then, just as the technician was about to insert the needle, an explosive crack shattered the tension as a thwock sounded in the cabinet behind Jagger. Glass fell from the window.

  “Get down!” Jagger yelled, lurching up off his chair and lunging for Mia. He hit her with the full brunt of his body weight and slammed her onto the carpet as another bullet pierced the medical cabinet behind where Jagger had been sitting seconds ago.

  “Someone’s shooting at us!” he yelled at Drucker.

  The chief drew his gun and froze. Then he spun around and flung the door open, giving chase. Mia heard the cop’s boots hammering down the corridor.

  Jagger scrambled off Mia and lurched to his feet as he reached for his own gun tucked into the concealed holster at the back of his jeans.

  “Stay in the house!” he ordered Mia. “Alert the rest of the household.”

  And he was gone, on the heels of the police chief.

  Mia turned to look out the now glassless window and she saw a flash of color through the trees. The shooter was heading across a ploughed field toward a densely vegetated ravine out of sight from the house.

  Within seconds Mia saw Jagger and Chief Drucker racing over the gently rising slope in hot pursuit of the shooter.

  Galvanized, Mia fled out the infirmary and dashed down the passage, bursting out the front door as she sprinted for the stables.

  * * *

  “He went that way!” Chief Drucker yelled at Jagger as they sprinted toward a fence. “Across the ploughed field toward that gulley. You go to the west, head him off that way. I’ll come around from the east!”

  Jagger hesitated a split second, part of his brain registering that a cop would not ordinarily ask a civilian to help in a chase and takedown. But this was make-or-break. And Jagger wanted that shooter as badly as Drucker did. He veered west, scaling the fence and racing over the ploughed field in the direction of the gulley. It was steep and choked with gold-leafed alders and poplars that shimmered in the autumn breeze.

  He caught sight of a movement through the trees—a man in a blue shirt ducking down the bank and heading into the brambles. Jagger veered farther to his left, planning to come down around the man’s flank. But when he reached the lip of the ravine, there was no sight of the shooter, just dense trees and bush.

  Chest burning from the run, Jagger breathed hard, catching his breath as he braced his hands on his knees, waiting for Drucker to catch up to him. As far as Jagger saw it, the attacker had three options. Either he could make his way west along the ravine bed, or east. But it was virtually impassable due to the dense and dying scrub and narrow alder trunks. The shooter would more likely try to make it up out the back side and head toward the foothills.

  Jagger saw Drucker puffing along the field toward him from his right. They were out of sight of the house and outbuildings now, tucked below a slight rise.

  “He went down that way!” Jagger yelled to the chief. “You’re going to need backup if we want to get him on the other side.”

  “I’ve already radioed for help,” Drucker said, panting as he approached. Sweat sheened over the chief’s face, and his shirt was wet with perspiration under his arms.

  Jagger pointed. “If I go in down—” He froze, ice sliding into his veins as he realized the chief was aiming his sidearm at him.

  “Drop your weapon, McKnight,” Drucker said, his voice strange, deep, as he came closer, his weapon trained on Jagger. “Now!”

  Jagger’s mind raced wildly as he slowly moved his hands out to his sides, away from his body, but he held on to his Glock. The chief knew he was Jagger McKnight.

  “What do you want, Drucker?”

  “I want ‘Cole Colton’ dead. There’s going to be no story. No more questions. It’s all going to die right here. Drop your weapon and step backward into that gulley, McKnight.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “You should have died in the field that night.”

  Jagger swallowed. There was no one in sight. For all he knew, the shooter was still down in the gulley and had his weapon trained on him, too, working in concert with Drucker. He had to buy time, think. “So it was you—on the horse that night? You tried to run me down.”

  He snorted. “I’m no cowboy. But I’m not alone in this, either, McKnight. One of my accomplices is down in that gulley. He’s got his weapon trained on you as we speak. Step back, head down.”

  One of his accomplices. That meant there was at least one other....

  “Was it Maggie who called to tell you that I’d walked into the diner that night? Did you get someone to follow me? Whose idea was it to frame me as Cole? Who had the baby blanket?”

  Drucker laughed harshly.

  Out the corner of his eye, Jagger saw dust rising from the direction of the house. Someone was coming. He had to buy more time. Taking a slow step backward, he asked again. “Who had that baby blanket, Drucker? Was it Maggie? Was she a friend of Faye’s—did she get it from her?”

  “I said drop that weapon, McKnight, or I shoot you right here!” Ducker’s finger curled around the trigger.

  Jagger released his gun. It fell with a soft thud to the dry grass.

  “Killing me isn’t going to solve anything. You can’t possibly believe that people will think I was Cole who died. A post mortem will reveal that I wasn’t.”

  “You forget that I am the police, McKnight. This is small town with a tiny force. We’re isolated from the rest of the world out here. Your body will disappear before it ever gets to the morgue. And Wyoming is a vast state, plenty of places to dispose of a body. In the Laramie Mountains the wolves and coyotes and bears and crows will recycle your remains before anyone will ever find you.”

  Jagger could hear the dull thudding of horses’ hooves on packed, dry ground. Riders. Coming closer. Several of them.

  Drucker heard them, too. His eyes flickered toward the sound and Jagger saw his finger twitch around the trigger. His pate gleamed in the morning sunlight, hot breath clouding at his mouth.

  “It wasn’t you who abducted baby Cole Colton, Drucker—I’m certain of that. You were just a rookie on the force at the time. So who got to you? Who are you doing this for? Who are you trying to protect?”

  “The things people do for love, McKnight.”

  Jagger took another step back and faltered, stumbling a little as the ground behind him gave under his heels, crumbling away into the steep ravine. He heard loosened rocks clattering down the slope.

  Love— So Drucker was doing this for a woman, someone who was masterminding all this?

  The sound of horses drew closer, dust billowing over the ridge now. Suddenly a bay mare crested the rise.

  Mia! Riding like the wind, hair flying behind her.

  “This way!” she yelled to the riders behind her, kicking her horse to pick up speed.

  Behind her an army of horses and cowboys appeared, and they thundered toward the gulley.

  Drucker’s head spun and he turned his weapon on Mia.

  Jagger’s heart dropped like a stone. “Mia, stay back!” Jagger yelled just as Drucker fired.

  Jagger watched horrified as the scene seemed to play out in slow motion—Mia’s horse rearing up, pawing the air, her gold hair flying out, catching the sun’s light as her body was flung like a ragdoll from her mount. In the corner of his eye he saw Drucker turning the gun back on him, squeezing the trigger.

  Jagger felt the impact of the .45 slug before he even hea
rd the shot. It slammed into his shoulder, wheeling him backward and sideways with the impact. Unable to breathe, Jagger staggered, his hand going to his chest. His foot caught in a tangled root and he tripped, catapulting backward, and thumping and tumbling down the steep slope, crashing through brambles and dried berry bushes, autumn leaves spiraling above him, and behind them, blue sky. He hit the bottom with a slamming thud, his skull cracking against something sharp, pain sparking through his head.

  And as Jagger lay there, he knew Mia had been shot, had gone down. The image of her tumbling from the horse played through his mind, over and over, then faded slowly away. Jagger’s world went stone cold and black.

  Chapter 13

  Jagger woke to the sound of a soft, rhythmic beeping. He lay very still, unsure of where he was, or what had happened, or even whether he could move.

  He tried to open his eyes. His lids felt thick, stuck, and when he managed to get them open the slice of white light into his brain was blinding. He shut them again and tried more slowly. It took a while to see anything at all.

  He was in a hospital room. A memory cut like a knife through him. Drucker with the gun. Shooting him. Falling down into the gulley. Jagger tried to move his legs but couldn’t. Pain—he could feel pain. Dull and heavy in his shoulder. That was a good thing right—feeling pain? Did it mean he wasn’t fully paralyzed?

  Another memory cut like glass through him—Mia, riding like the wind, coming over the ridge on a beautiful bay mare, her hair flying free. Cowboys—a whole damn ranch army of them, thundering behind her as she showed them where to go.

  Then the shot from Drucker’s gun. Her horse rearing up and pawing at the air. Mia—she’d been shot.

  Dead?

  Where was she?

  Panic began to suffocate him. Jagger tried again to move. This time he managed to turn his head.

  He saw her.

  In a chair next to his bed. Sleeping. A soft blanket covering her. Jagger tried to make his mouth work and his voice come. He couldn’t. He struggled to lift his hand, hold it out to her, but it was as if lead weighted down his bones.

  “Mia?” the word came out in soft croak, startling him.

  But she heard. Her eyes snapped open, then went wide. She lurched up from her chair.

  “Oh, Jagger, thank God. Nurse!” she yelled. “He’s awake.” Her voice cracked and tears began to sheen copiously down her face. She cupped his cheek, kissed him, shaking like a leaf. He noticed her left arm was in a sling.

  “Jagger, I thought you weren’t going to come back to me. Thank God. Nurse!”

  Two nurses came scurrying in, followed by a doctor. One of the nurses took Mia’s arm, gently asking her to leave.

  “I know you’re a nurse,” Jagger could hear the woman saying to Mia, “but you need to give the doctor some room to run some tests. You can watch through the window from there.”

  As Mia was led out, she stared back over her shoulder, and the raw look on her face tore at Jagger’s soul. His eyes followed her as she went out of the room, and he waited until he could see her pale face behind the window. She placed her palm flat against the glass.

  She mouthed, I love you.

  For a moment Jagger couldn’t breathe. He felt as if the heavens had opened and he’d heard the sound of angels.

  He tried to lift his left hand to her, but it wouldn’t move. Pain washed through his body, radiating out from his shoulder. How long had he been out? What had happened?

  The doctor checked him out, doing a battery of tests, checking reflexes. When he finally stood back, he said, “You’re one lucky bastard, McKnight. We almost lost you a few times, there.”

  Jagger’s right hand went to his shoulder.

  “Bullet went straight through the deltoid,” said the doc. “Again, you were lucky. It did some nerve damage along the way and you might not regain full range of motion. But we can go through it all in detail later.” He smiled. “I think there’s someone who needs to see you first.”

  The doctor waved Mia in, and she came rushing to his bedside. Taking his hand in hers, she gave him a smile. He could feel she was still shaking. She seemed so much younger, smaller, more fragile, thinner.

  “I’ll leave you two alone for a few minutes.”

  “Thank you, Doctor,” Mia said.

  Turning to Jagger she said. “You have got to stop banging yourself on the head like that, McKnight, because next time you’re not going to be so damn lucky.” Emotion caught at her voice.

  Jagger cleared his throat carefully. “Thick skull,” he said, then tried to smile as he squeezed her hand. “I’ve got a thick skull.”

  Tears gleamed afresh in her eyes, and she gave a shaky laugh.

  “You look thin, Mia,” he cleared his throat gently again. “You’ve lost weight. What happened? How long have I been out?”

  “Fifteen long days,” she said as she used her good hand to raise the back of his hospital bed so that he was in more of a sitting position. She brought a glass of water to his lips and helped him drink.

  “Your arm?”

  “Broke it when Sunny reared and threw me. The gunshot spooked her.”

  “He didn’t hit you— I thought he hit you. I thought he’d killed you.”

  She shook her head.

  Jagger tried to take the glass in his hand, and almost spilled the water. She took it from him and returned it to the stand beside his bed.

  “I feel so weak, clumsy. Confused,” he said.

  She nodded. “It’ll take a while, and some physio on that left arm, but you’re going to be fine.”

  “Drucker?”

  “I do wish you’d been around to see that.”

  “What happened?”

  “After you took off behind Drucker, I ran back to the stables, yelling for help. I didn’t know at the time the chief had turned on you. I just didn’t want that shooter to get away. Everyone available came running, got horses, a Jeep. I led the way on Sunny. When Drucker fired at me and Sunny reared, I lost it—I was riding bareback and wasn’t used to it. I went down. And when Drucker shot you, the ranch hands just barreled at him en masse. He tried to flee but they surrounded him. One of the guys lassoed him and they took him down like a calf at a rodeo. They trussed him up, tossed him over the back of a horse like a sack of potatoes and took him back to the stables. We didn’t know if Pierce Deluca and Karen Locke were involved so Trevor called in the state police, and they took it from there.”

  Jagger felt a smile curve over his mouth. “Oh, that’s rich—bet that drove Drucker wild. State police. His turf.”

  She nodded, a smile in her eyes.

  “Where are they keeping him?

  “He’s out on bail.”

  “Bail? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “The judge didn’t seem to think he was a flight risk. He set bail at almost one million, and someone posted it for him. We don’t know who. A trial date has been set, and the town of Dead River has already brought in a new police chief. He comes from the Jackson P.D.—”

  “Novak?”

  “No, Novak’s still Jackson P.D. chief. The new guy is Harry Peters. It’s a promotion for him. He’s sweeping clean—already fired Deluca and Locke and hired two new officers, Mike Harriman and Patrick Carter.”

  “He’s wasting no time.”

  “No, he wants to solve this. He says because Drucker was corrupt, all his files are suspect and no one can be trusted. Which is why he moved so quickly to clear out Deluca and Locke.”
>
  “What about the shooter?”

  Mia inhaled deeply. “He got away. They’ve got some leads, like his bootprints, which match the prints that were found under the fire escape ladder. And the bullets he fired into the infirmary are a ballistics match to the shell casings that were found in the field after your attack. Peters is thinking that the shooter is the same person who attacked you on horseback and who tried to kidnap Cheyenne.”

  “Drucker didn’t give up his name?”

  “No. He claims this is all just a big misunderstanding, but they’re going to try to strike a plea bargain with him before his case goes to trial. If not, we might learn something when the case gets heard.”

  “Drucker said something, Mia, before he shot me. He said that he’d done it all for love. I think there’s a woman involved.”

  “A woman? Who?”

  “Someone he’s trying to protect, or help. Perhaps someone from his past.”

  “We can talk to Peters. I know he wanted to see you if...” Tears welled again and slid easily down her cheeks. She swiped them away. “At that point we didn’t know if you would come around.”

  Jagger reached for her hand. “What about the truck—did Peters look into that?”

  “It was found to be stolen from a ranch near Laramie. No fingerprints or DNA could be taken from it, because of the fire. Anyone could have been driving it. And Dylan still doesn’t know who took Midnight that night.”

  Jagger fell silent. “Whoever he is, he’s still out there.”

  She nodded.

  “What does the Colton family say, Mia, about me?”

  Mia gave a wry smile. “Mixed emotions would be the diplomatic way to put it. They’re under the assumption that your memory returned after the kidnap attempt on Cheyenne. They realize now that you’d come to town for the Cole Colton story, and while they’re irritated with that, the sisters are still thankful that, because of you, their father went into a coma believing his son was still alive. Whatever happens to Jethro now, they like to think that this belief has given their father a small measure of peace.”