B.J. Daniels the Cardwell Ranch Collection

by B. J Daniels

  It wasn’t until she shut off her engine and got out that she heard the sound of a front-end loader running in the distance. Drawing her weapon, she moved through the darkness toward the sound.

  She’d just cleared the fence and most of the equipment when she saw an old red pickup parked back between some other old trucks. She could see where the right side of it was all banged up. Some of the paint of the patrol SUV was still on the side. It was definitely the pickup that had run her off the road.

  Ahead she heard a car start up. She could make out movement in the faint starlight. She hurried toward it, keeping to the shadows so she wasn’t spotted.

  But the car didn’t come in her direction as she’d thought it would. Instead, it went the other way. In its headlights she saw the gravel pit and finally the trench and the front-end loader idling nearby.

  To her amazement the vehicle engine suddenly roared. The driver headed for the trench.

  Liza ran through the darkness, her heart hammering, as the vehicle careened down the slope and into the narrow ditch. She reached the fence, rushed through the gate and across the flat area next to the gravel pit in time to see the lights of the vehicle disappear into the trench.

  Her mind was racing. What in the—

  The sound of metal meeting metal filled the night air. She came to a skidding stop at the edge of the trough and looked down to see two vehicles. Smoke rose from between their crumpled metal, the headlights of the second one dimmed by the dirt and gravel that had fallen down around it.

  She waited a moment for the driver to get out, then realizing he must be trapped in there, the trench too narrow for him to open his door, she scrambled down into the deep gully, weapon ready.

  As she neared the vehicle, she recognized it. The rental SUV Jordan had been driving. Her pulse began to pound. Jordan did crazy things sometimes, she thought, remembering how he’d swum out into the river to be with her while she waited for the ambulance to arrive.

  But he wouldn’t purposely drive into this trench, would he? Which begged the question, where was Wyatt Iverson?

  * * *

  “COME ON, BABIES,” DANA SAID under her breath and pushed.

  “That’s it,” her doctor said. “Almost there. Just one more push.”

  Dana closed her eyes. She could feel Hud gripping her hand. Her first twin was about to make his or her way into the world. She felt the contraction, hard and fast, and pushed.

  “It’s a boy!” A cheer came up at the end of the bed. She opened her eyes and looked into the mirror positioned over the bed as the doctor held up her baby.

  A moment later she heard the small, high-pitched cry of her son and tried to relax as Hud whispered that they had a perfect baby boy.

  Dr. Burr placed the baby in Dana’s arms for a moment. She smiled down at the crinkled adorable face before the doctor handed the baby off to the nurses standing by. “One more now. Let’s see how that one’s doing.”

  Dana could hear the baby’s strong heartbeat through the monitor. She watched the doctor’s face as Dr. Burr felt her abdomen first, then reached inside. Dana knew even before the doctor said the second baby was breech.

  “Not to worry. I’ll try to turn the little darling,” the doctor assured her. “Otherwise, sometimes we can pull him out by his feet. Let’s just give it a few minutes. The second baby is generally born about fifteen minutes after the first.”

  Dana looked over at her son now in the bassinet where a nurse was cleaning him up. “He looks like you,” she said to her husband and turned to smile up at him as another contraction hit.

  * * *

  LIZA REACHED THE BACK of the car. She could hear movement inside. “Jordan!” she called. A moment later the back hatch clicked open and began to rise. She stepped to the side, weapon leveled at the darkness inside the SUV, cursing herself for not having her flashlight. “Jordan?”

  A moan came from inside, then more movement.

  “Liza, he has a gun!” Jordan cried.

  The shot buzzed past her ear like a mad hornet. She ducked back, feeling helpless as she heard the struggle in the car and could do little to help. Another shot. A louder moan.

  “I’m coming out,” Wyatt Iverson called from inside the SUV. “I’m not armed.”

  “I have him covered,” Jordan yelled out. “But you can shoot him if you want to.”

  Liza leveled her weapon at the gaping dark hole at the back of the SUV. Wyatt Iverson appeared headfirst. He fell out onto the ground. She saw that he was bleeding from a head wound and also from what appeared to be a gunshot to his thigh. She quickly read him his rights as she rolled him over and snapped a pair of handcuffs on him.

  “Jordan, are you all right?” she called into the vehicle. She heard movement and felt a well of relief swamp her as he stumbled out through the back. “What is going on?”

  “He planned to bury me in this trench,” Jordan said. “I think Shelby is in the other car. I suspect he killed her before he put her down here.”

  Wyatt was heaving, his face buried in his shoulder as he cried.

  “Can you watch him for a moment?” Liza asked, seeing that Jordan was holding a handgun—Wyatt’s, she assumed.

  She holstered her own weapon and climbed up over the top of the SUV to the next one. Dirt covered most of the vehicle except the very back. She wiped some of the dirt from the window and was startled to see a face pressed against the glass.

  There was duct tape over Shelby’s mouth. Her eyes were huge, her face white as a ghost’s. Blood stained the front of her velour sweatshirt where she’d been shot in the chest at what appeared to be close range since the fabric was burned around the entry hole.

  Liza pulled out her cell and hit 911. “We’ll need an ambulance and the coroner.” She gave the dispatcher directions, then climbed back over the top of Jordan’s rental SUV to join him again.

  Wyatt was still crying. Jordan, she noticed, was more banged up than she’d first realized. He was sitting on the SUV’s bumper. He looked pale and was bleeding from a shoulder wound.

  “Come on, let’s get out of this trench before the sides cave in and kill us all,” she said. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  He grinned up at her. “Just fine, Deputy,” he said, getting to his feet. “I sure was glad to see you.”

  As she pulled Wyatt to his feet and the three of them staggered up out of the hole, she smelled the pine trees, black against the night sky. The air felt colder as if winter wasn’t far behind. She looked toward Lone Peak. The snow on the top gleamed in the darkness. Everything seemed so normal.

  The rifle shot took them all by surprise. Wyatt suddenly slumped forward and fell face-first into the dirt. Jordan grabbed her and knocked her to the ground behind one of the huge tires of a dump truck as a second shot thudded into Wyatt’s broad back.

  Liza rolled and came up with her weapon. She scrambled over to Wyatt, checked for a pulse and finding none, swore as she scrambled back over to Jordan out of the line of fire. She could hear the sound of sirens in the distance. It was too dark to tell where the shot had come from.

  But over the high-pitched whine of the sirens, she heard a vehicle start up close by. “Stay here,” she ordered Jordan and took off running toward her SUV.

  * * *

  A SECOND SON WAS BORN seventeen minutes after the first. Dana began to cry when she saw him.

  “Identical twin boys,” Dr. Burr told her. “Congratulations.”

  Hud hugged her. “We really have to quit doing this,” he whispered. “I can’t take it.”

  She laughed through her tears. No one was more fearless than her husband, but she knew what he meant. Her heart had been in her throat, afraid something would go wrong. She couldn’t bear the thought of losing her babies.

  “You did good,” the doctor said,
squeezing her hand. “Do you have names picked out yet?”

  Dana shook her head and looked to Hud. “I have a couple of ideas though.”

  He laughed. “I’m sure you do. I’d better call everyone.”

  “You mean Liza,” she said. “You haven’t heard from her?”

  He checked his phone. “No.”

  She could tell he was worried.

  “Jordan left without telling anyone where he was going, but everyone else is out in the hall waiting for the news.”

  “Go do whatever it is you have to do, Marshal,” she said, smiling. “But let me know when you hear from Liza—and my brother.”

  He grinned at her. “It’s going to be so nice to have you back on your feet.”

  * * *

  LIZA REACHED HER PATROL SUV just moments after seeing a set of headlights coming out of the pines in the distance. Jordan was hot on its heels. He leaped into the passenger seat as she started the engine. She hurriedly turned around and went after the killer.

  The other vehicle was moving fast. She saw the headlights come around as the vehicle hit the narrow strip of pavement, the driver almost losing control.

  Liza followed the other vehicle headed down the mountain. The road was treacherous with lots of switchbacks. She had to assume whoever had killed Wyatt knew the road. But the driver was also running scared.

  She glanced over at Jordan. He needed medical attention. “You should have stayed back there to wait for the ambulance,” she said as she managed to keep the vehicle in front of her in sight. “Call and tell the ambulance to wait in Meadow Village. The coroner might as well wait, too.”

  “See, you would have missed my company if I hadn’t come along,” he said. “And Wyatt wasn’t great company when he was alive, let alone dead.”

  She shot him another look, worried that he might be hurt worse than she thought. “Did he say anything about why he killed Shelby?”

  “We didn’t get to talk much. He knew she vandalized his father’s equipment. I don’t think he took it well. He swore he didn’t kill Alex. But he killed Tanner and Alex has been blackmailing Wyatt for years, writing it off as a business expense.”

  Liza suspected that whoever had killed Alex Winslow had just killed Wyatt Iverson as well, but why? Shelby was dead. So who had just shot Wyatt?

  “All of this started because Shelby was going to force Tanner into marriage, one way or the other,” Jordan said. “When he broke up with her, she vandalized the construction equipment he was responsible for to get even with him. She hadn’t given a damn whose equipment it was. Ironic it turned out to be her future father-in-law’s. And look where the repercussions of that one malicious act have landed us all.”

  The vehicle ahead swung through a tight curve, fishtailed and for a moment Liza thought the driver would lose control and crash. She could make out a figure behind the wheel, but still couldn’t tell who it was. All the SUVs looked similar.

  Liza knew who wasn’t behind the wheel of the car in front of her. Shelby was dead. So was Malcolm Iverson and his son Wyatt. Alex had found the photographs and gotten himself killed when he’d blackmailed Shelby—her husband. She’d been so sure that Wyatt had killed Alex because of it. Alex had somehow figured out that Wyatt had killed Tanner.

  Now she suspected that the last piece of the puzzle was in that SUV ahead of her. Whoever had shot Wyatt Iverson must have shot Alex. But why? Was it possible Alex had been blackmailing someone else?

  Ahead she caught a glimpse of the lights of Meadow Village. She was right behind the vehicle in front of her. The driver didn’t stand a chance of getting away.

  She thought about the photos and tried to remember if there was anything else in them. “That one photograph,” she said more to herself than to Jordan. “Wasn’t it of Tanner and Tessa coming out of the woods?”

  “Like I said, Shelby thought of everything.”

  “Including making her best friend go into the woods with Tanner?”

  Jordan let out a curse. “I never could understand why Tessa did what Shelby told her to. She said Shelby even talked her into marrying Danny Spring, when apparently she has always been in love with Alex.”

  Liza felt a chill race up her spine. “But Alex had these photographs. He would have seen Tessa coming out of the woods with Tanner.”

  “What are you saying?” Jordan asked.

  “Alex would have known just how far Tessa would go to protect Shelby. So why give her the photographs for safekeeping?”

  “That’s what I said. Unless he wanted her to look at the photos. But once she did, why wouldn’t she destroy them to protect Shelby?”

  “Because she was through protecting Shelby,” Liza said. “Shelby had finally done something that she couldn’t forgive. Alex’s estranged wife believed Alex was having an affair with Shelby. I suspect Tessa thought the same thing.”

  “That would have been the last straw for Tessa. She would have felt betrayed by all of them.”

  “You’re saying if Tessa found out, it would have been the last straw.”

  Ahead the SUV fishtailed on one of the turns and Liza had to back off to keep from hitting it.

  “Tessa. She’s in that car, isn’t she?” Jordan said. “She used to go out shooting for target practice before hunting season with Shelby and the rest of us. She always pretended to be a worse shot than Shelby, but I always suspected she was better and just didn’t dare show it. She’s been hiding her light under a bushel for years, as my mother used to say.”

  “Not anymore,” Liza said as the vehicle ahead of them went off the road on the last tight turn. It crashed down into the trees. Liza stood on the brakes. “Stay here or I’ll arrest you!” she shouted to Jordan and jumped out.

  With her weapon drawn she hurried to where the SUV had gone off. She hadn’t gone far when she heard the shot.

  Liza scrambled down into the trees, keeping out of the driver’s sights until she finally reached the back of the vehicle. She saw that just as she’d suspected, Tessa was behind the wheel. There was a rifle next to her, the barrel pointed at her. She was bleeding heavily from the crash and the gunshot wound to her side, but she was still breathing.

  Liza quickly called for the ambulance. “Just stay still,” she told Tessa. “Help is on the way.”

  Tessa managed a smile. “There is no help for me. Is Wyatt dead?”

  “Yes.”

  “And Shelby?”

  “She’s dead, too.”

  Tessa nodded. “Good. They all ruined my life.”

  “Why kill Alex, though?” Liza asked. “I thought you loved him?”

  Tessa got a faraway look in her eyes. “Alex was the only man I ever really loved. I thought he loved me but he was only using me. He said he forgave me for the past, but he lied. He used me just like Shelby and Wyatt used me.” She smiled sadly. “They all used me. But I showed them. I wasn’t as good at playing their games, but I was always a better shot than any of them.”

  Epilogue

  The hospital room was packed with well-wishers, flowers, balloons and stuffed animals. Dana looked around her and couldn’t help the swell of emotion that bubbled up inside of her.

  “It’s the hormones,” she said as she wiped her eyes.

  Clay and Stacy had brought Hank and Mary to the hospital to see their new little brothers.

  “Hank wants to name them after his horses,” Stacy told her. “Mary wanted to name them after her dolls.” Stacy looked stronger. Hud had promised her that Virgil would never bother her again. Apparently, there were numerous warrants out on him, including the fact that he’d broken his probation. So added to the latest charges, Virgil would be going back to prison for a very long time.

  Dana watched her elderly ranch manager make his way through the crowd to her. Warren Fitzpatric
k was as dried out as a stick of jerky and just as tough, but he knew more about cattle than any man she’d ever known. He’d also been there for her from the beginning. As far as she was concerned he was a permanent fixture on the Cardwell Ranch. She’d already promised him a spot in the family cemetery up on the hill.

  He gave her a wink. “That’s some cute little ones. I just had a peek at them down the hall. Goin’ to make some fine ranchhands,” he said with a chuckle. “I’ve got a couple of fine saddles picked out for them. Never too early for a man to have his own saddle.”

  She smiled up at him. It was the first time she’d ever seen a tear in his eye.

  Her father arrived then with a giant teddy bear. “How’s my baby girl?” he asked. She’d always been his baby girl—even now that she was the mother of four and only a few years from forty.

  “I’m good,” she said as she leaned up to hug him. He put the bear down and hugged her tighter than usual.

  “I was worried about you,” he whispered.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Yes, you are,” he said, smiling at her.

  Then Uncle Harlan came in with the second giant teddy bear and her father grinned, knowing that she’d thought he’d forgotten she was having twins.

  Her father-in-law called. Brick Savage had been sick for some time, but he promised to make the trip down from his cabin outside West Yellowstone to see his new grandsons soon.

  “I think we should all leave and let her get some rest,” Hilde said to the crowd of friends and family.

  “I agree,” Hud said. He looked exhausted and so did Liza, who’d stopped in earlier. It had been a shock to hear about the deaths up on the mountain and Tessa Ryerson Spring’s involvement. Tessa had died before the ambulance got to her.

  Jordan had stopped by earlier, his shoulder bandaged. Dana had hugged him for a long time after hearing what he’d been through. Both he and Liza were lucky to be alive.

  Dana noticed that they had left together. She smiled to herself. There was nothing like seeing two people falling in love.