Maybe, With Conditions

by Mariella Starr

  "You didn't take him with you?" the sheriff asked Nicole.

  "How many times do I have to say the same thing over and over?" Nicole demanded. "I have to go find Matty!"

  "It would be best if you stayed here," the sheriff said. "Is there any reason we should suspect someone took him rather than him wandering off? Is there an ex-husband or a boyfriend who might have taken him?"

  "No, I don't have either," exclaimed Nicole in frustration.

  "Sheriff, the boy is my son," Dalton interjected. "I told you."

  "I heard what you said, but families are complicated these days, with divorces and step parents and all. I know kids with four step-daddies and a whole slew of step-grandparents, and the oldest kid ain't but ten years old.'

  Nicole made an exasperated sound. "Sheriff, I need you to find my son, not talk about finding him!"

  "I know, ma'am, but I need as many facts as we can pull together to get a clear picture of the situation. Was your son upset with you this morning?"

  "Yes, he wanted to go with me, but I told him he had to stay behind. I was taking a final exam at the high school."

  "Could he have run off and be hiding," he asked. "Has he done this before?"

  "No, he hasn't done this before. He's only five years old and needs to be found! Do something!"

  "Dalton, you had some trouble out here a couple of weeks ago. Any chance it might be the same person," the sheriff asked.

  "How could I know?" Dalton asked. "We have no idea who broke into my office. The only person I ever have problems with is Barbara Ruiz, my ex-wife. You've dealt with her before delivering restraining orders. She says she is suing me in the courts, again. Maybe she took Matty."

  "It wasn't her," Nicole said. "I ran into her in town."

  "Why didn't you tell me?" Dalton demanded.

  "Because I have other things on my mind!" Nicole yelled. "My baby is missing!" She dodged past both the sheriff and Dalton and ran out the door. They heard her shouting Matty's name.

  "She's right," Dalton said following her.

  "Matty!" Nicole screamed as she crisscrossed the backyard. She climbed the ladder to the tree house. It was empty. She scanned the branches above the tree house. He wasn't there. She checked the shed and the springhouse, everywhere she could think of while continuously yelling his name.

  "Matty!" Dalton shouted heading for the barns. "Matty, if you're hiding, come out. This isn't funny, son. No one will be angry, but we need you to come out!"

  They ran through every building calling their son's name while they heard the Double C men shouting in the distance.

  The longer Nicole shouted for her son, the more panicked she became. Dalton found her sobbing in one of the outbuildings and pulled her into his arms.

  "Nic, you need to calm down. We will find him," he soothed her.

  "Where is he?" Nicole cried. "Where's my baby?"

  "I don't know, but we'll find him." He guided her to the front porch. "Calm down or you'll make yourself sick, and that won't help." He pushed her gently toward the porch swing.

  "Where is he," she demanded, unwilling to be consoled.

  "Sit, I'll get Gran," Dalton ordered feeling helpless himself.

  Nicole bent over and sobbed into her hands. Where was her baby?

  "Mommy? Don't cry, Mommy!"

  Nicole jerked around. "Matty! Matty where are you?" She turned around searching the area until she heard boards creaking and ran down the steps to where her son was crawling out from under the porch.

  "Matty!" Nicole screamed dropping to her knees and gathering him in her arms.

  Dalton heard Nicole scream. He also heard something different in her voice, joy, possibly relief. He slammed through the screen door and knelt on the ground beside them. He gathered the boy in his arms and helped Nicole to her feet. He took both of them inside where Helen and Roy Mac hugged them.

  Dalton left them for a moment to go outside and ring the old bell by the kitchen door. In the past, it had been used for a dinner bell, and later as a signal for people to gather in an emergency. He rang it now for the opposite purpose. Everyone within hearing range would know the boy had been found.

  When Dalton reentered the kitchen, Nicole was smothering the boy as she held him, simultaneously kissing and scolding him. He squatted and gave the boy a stern look.

  "Matty, have you been hiding all this time?"

  The boy hid his face against his mother.

  "Let him be, Dalton," Nicole sniffed. "He's safe. He is safe and it's the only thing that is important."

  "I agree his safety is important, but I want answers. Were you hiding all this time? Answer me, why were you hiding?"

  "I was mad at Mommy. I wanted to go with her," Matty cried as large tears ran down his face.

  "Why didn't you come out when you heard people calling for you?"

  "I didn't hear them at first. I felled to sleep. When I woked up, everyone was yelling. I got scared you would be mad at me," the boy whined.

  "No one is mad at you, honey," Nicole exclaimed.

  Dalton gave Nicole a stern look before turning the same look on his son. "I am upset with you, Matty. So are a lot of other people who have been helping us look for you. You should have come out when you heard people calling for you. What you did was wrong. I want you to go upstairs with Mommy. She will give you a bath and afterward you will stay in your room for the rest of the day. We will talk about your punishment later."

  "Dalton!"

  He took Nicole the arm and led her out to the porch. He spoke quietly, so only she could hear him. "He has to learn, Nic, don't fight me on this. He scared everyone and he can't get away with it."

  "He was afraid,"

  "He doesn't fear either one of us. He fears being punished, and he's going to be punished. What he did was wrong. He has to learn. Go on and take him upstairs. I have to get my men back to work and talk to the sheriff and his men. He's not going to be happy about losing a lot of man-hours over a five-year-old pulling a stunt like this."

  They returned to the kitchen where Nicole looked down at her child. His eyes darted from her to Dalton. At that precise moment, Nicole realized Matty had learned to play one parent against the other. Her initial panic was over, and now she felt a growing anger with her child.

  "Upstairs, Matty," she ordered. Her little boy gave an exaggerated sigh and began to whine. She ignored him, and when he was moving very slowly on the stairs, she gave him a light pat on the bottom to remind him he was in trouble.

  Dalton dealt with the sheriff and the Hawthorne Police. Neither agency was happy about the inconvenience the boy had caused, but both were glad he was safe and sound. Dalton gave work orders for the day to his foreman and left him to dispatch the men. He apologized to his grandparents on his way through the house to deal with his son.

  As he reached his son's open bedroom door, he stopped. Matty was crying while Nicole talked to him sternly.

  "There's no excuse for what you did, Matty," she said calmly. "You terrified the very people who love you the most."

  "I was scared."

  "There was no reason for you to be scared. No one has ever hurt you. A lot of people were worried and frightened. Something very bad could have happened to you. This isn't acceptable behavior and I am very disappointed you would be so thoughtless." She interrupted the boy's whining. "No, I don't want excuses. I want a promise that you will never, ever, do anything like this again."

  "I won't," the child promised.

  "I'm glad we agree," Nicole said. "Your punishment is to stay in bed the rest of the day. You will have no television or game privileges for a week. Also, every day after your nap, you will stand in the corner for ten minutes."

  "Mommy, I said I was sorry."

  "No, actually you haven't, but you will. You will apologize to Gran and Roy Mac, and your father, and the men who work for him. You will not complain or whine about these punishments because you have earned them. Are we clear on this?"

  The boy no
dded his head before turning over on his side and crying into his pillow.

  Nicole steeled herself, but she let him cry. She left his room and found Dalton standing outside the door. She walked into his arms wanting to shed tears, too.

  "You did well, Momma," he whispered in her ear.

  "It's so hard."

  "I know, but sometimes it's necessary."

  * * *

  The sheriff came back to the ranch later in the evening asking to speak to Dalton alone. A few minutes later, he left while Dalton came out of his office looking angry.

  "What is it?" Roy Mac demanded.

  Dalton glanced around to make sure only adult ears would hear what he had to say. "Someone was taken to Renown Regional Medical Center with what they thought was a drug overdose. The young man died. The toxicology reports revealed it was cocaine laced with Thiopental."

  "Damn fools! Now, son, don't be blaming yourself," Roy Mac growled. "You had those drugs under lock and key. The people who stole those drugs and sold them to dealers are to blame. It doesn't have anything to do with you!"

  "I know, but it doesn't change the facts. The Thiopental probably came from my supplies, and there's still a lot more of it out there."

  Three more cases of overdoses appeared in the Reno and Carson City hospitals in the following week. Only one lived and the doctors did not know when that fourth victim would come out of a coma. There was no way to know how much tainted cocaine was produced or how far it had traveled. Reno and Carson City were transient tourist towns both in the summer and the winter months. Drug users knew how to find a supply regardless of where they traveled. The authorities notified all Nevada hospitals as well as hospitals in the surrounding states. Within the next several weeks, there would be more local overdoses and one reported from a Las Vegas hospital. The fatality rate dropped, as medical teams were trained to respond appropriately to the specific drugs.

  More trouble plagued the Double C. Sixty-two head of cattle disappeared overnight. There hadn't been rustling in the area for years. Two more ranchers had reported losses before the Double C was raided a second time for another forty-seven head.

  Dalton split his crews into day and night shifts, but the Double C was a large operation. When the property was calculated in miles rather than acres, it took a lot of men to keep watch over the expansive land holdings. Meanwhile, a truck could pull alongside a herd, cut the fencing, load the stock, and be gone within an hour. The best strategy Dalton and his fellow ranchers could follow was to keep the herds scattered.

  Ranchers sighted low-flying drones in the area and the sheriff's department attempted to track them. This was high-tech rustling. Equipped with cameras, the drones could spot herds and be gone with the cattle before ranchers were even aware they were being targeted. Local pilots assisted law enforcement by doing fly-overs in small planes using binoculars to search for large transport trucks in areas where there shouldn't be any.

  An outlying barn used for storing hay on the Double C was burned to the ground. Fire inspectors found evidence of an accelerant. The guard Dalton hired to replace Sam and watch over the practice was delayed one evening with car trouble. In his absence, Dalton's office was ransacked, again. Nothing was stolen, as he had not kept any drugs stored in his veterinarian buildings overnight since the first break in. Wanton destruction seemed to be the sole reason this time. The intruders destroyed furniture, slashed leather chairs, and spray-painted the walls.

  The sheriff's department could not afford to assign a permanent deputy to the Double C property. They advised Dalton on electronic surveillance equipment and recommended a security company for after-hour reconnaissance.

  Following each incident, Dalton became angrier. Although other nearby ranches were also being targeted, those incidents were minor compared what was happening on the Double C. He suspected the acts of sabotage on the other properties were a ruse to throw off the law. He believed the Double C, or he personally, was the primary objective for the harassment.

  He also believed his ex-wife was behind the acts of revenge, only he could not prove it. Contrary to her claim, Barbara Ruiz had not come forward with another legal suit against him. Why she was waiting, he did not know. Her pattern before had been to harass and threaten before trying to drag him through the court system. He was hoping, this time, her lawyer was smart enough not to take her case.

  "If Barbara is responsible, why has she suddenly started this campaign of destruction?" Roy Mac asked as they discussed the problems around the dinner table one evening. "She has always been after money before. Destroying the Double C doesn't make sense. If the source of the money dries up, she won't get anything even if a judge does side with her."

  "When have any of her actions or lawsuits made sense?' Dalton countered wearily.

  "Attacks on the Double C are personal attacks on you," Helen said. "What hurts the ranch hurts you. What I don't understand is, why now? Judge Crawford warned Barbara and her lawyer about filing nuisance claims and threatened to fine both of them if they appeared in his court without a valid claim, again."

  "The most likely reasons are Matty and me," Nicole said. "Before, she believed she could either threaten or coerce Dalton into giving her what she wanted. Now, we are here. Even though she's causing you problems, she's not the focus of your attention. She was an annoyance before and enjoyed having power over you. Now, you're not letting her get to you because you have refocused your attention on us. You've been ignoring her and she can't stand it. She needs to be the center of attention. She's a narcissist. She sounds a lot like my stepmother."

  "As weird as your theory sounds, you have nailed Barbara's personality to a T," Dalton agreed. "I would like to think she's behind everything happening, except I don't think she's smart enough to pull it off. She might be responsible for the vandalism, but not the rustling or the arson. I don't think she is clever enough to pull off those without getting caught."

  "She could have friends or boyfriends, maybe even relatives, who are willing to help her," Kay offered.

  "Barbara doesn't have any relatives," Dalton said. "At least, none she ever mentioned to me. She came from a broken home and wouldn't talk about her family. Her parents were married several times each and she has been estranged from them since high school. She went to college on a beauty pageant scholarship. Boyfriends would be a better bet."

  "You should have her investigated or put under surveillance," Nicole suggested.

  "What is happening on the Double C isn't a television show, Nic," Dalton said. "The sheriff's department doesn't have those kinds of resources. Especially when we don't have any proof to connect her with what's going on."

  "You can't find out who is behind these crimes without investigating. You have to do something proactive to stop the harassment," Nicole countered.

  "I agree. I have a security company installing high-tech surveillance cameras in my veterinarian buildings and in the barns."

  "The problem with using cameras is someone has to watch in real-time or view them later. By the time you get the information from the tapes, it would be too late. The damage will already be done," Nicole warned.

  "I know," replied Dalton sounding exasperated. "I have also hired security guards to augment the ranch hands, but we have a hell of a lot of property to monitor."

  "Oh, bad word," Matty said his eyes big.

  Dalton winced and dug into his pocket for two one-dollar bills. The rest of the family members smiled while Nicole laughed out loud. She was usually the one paying the fine for swearing.

  After dinner, everyone returned to day-to-day activities. Nicole went to her studio to get an extra hour of work done while Matty's great grandparents entertained him. Nicole was having a hard time concentrating on her art. So far, except for the stolen cattle, no major harm had been done to the Calloway family. She knew very little about Barbara Ruiz except for peripheral encounters in college, and her two recent face-to-face encounters. She had known Barbara had her eye on Dalton in coll
ege, but Nicole had been so head over heels in love with him herself, she hadn't paid much attention. The stories told by Dalton's family revealed his ex-wife's deceitfulness and greed, but was she capable of the type of crimes being committed on the Double C? Nicole thought it unlikely unless Barbara had help.

  Where Dalton was reluctant to spend money or step on the sheriff's toes, Nicole wasn't. You couldn't stop an enemy until you knew their identity. She had a large pot of unexpected income and she wanted someone to pay for nearly killing her. After she had made a phone call, Nicole knew it wouldn't be long before she had answers.

  * * *

  "My Jeep won't start," Kay interrupted what remained of the breakfast meal.

  "Take my…"

  "Your truck won't start either and neither will the other three I tried," Kay exclaimed. "The engines start, but then they sputter and won't restart."

  Dalton pushed his chair back as there was a loud knock on the kitchen door. He opened it to his foreman, Wayne Cummings.

  "Boss, we've got a problem. It looks like someone tampered with the vehicles. None of the trucks, tractors or equipment, will start."

  Dalton grabbed his hat and followed his foreman outside, followed closely by Kay and Nicole. They stopped at the equipment shed, a large open-ended lean-to building where most of the ranch vehicles were stored when not in use. Several men, knowledgeable mechanics, were under the hoods or tinkering with the engines.

  Jimmy Morse rolled out from under a truck, stuck a hose in the gas tank, and began to siphon gas into a bucket.

  "Have you figured out what it is, yet?' the foreman demanded.

  "I'm guessing and hoping it's only water in the gas tanks," Jimmy answered. "I'll know in a few minutes."

  "I called Harley," another ranch hand said as he came to stand with the group of men. "He'll be here in about an hour."