Cowboy Justice 12-Pack

by Susan Stoker

  The wooden boards lay around her, mocking her decision to step on them. She shifted and piled them up. When they were stacked, they made somewhat of a seat, which was high enough to be out of the water. It wasn’t comfortable, but at least she wouldn’t have to have her butt in the water all the time. The diameter of the well was probably around three feet, not huge, but she could turn around. When she sat, her knees had a bit of room, but not a lot. There was certainly no way to lie down. Sleeping wouldn’t be something that she’d be doing much of, that was obvious.

  Laine shivered. The sunlight wasn’t able to reach the bottom of the hole she was in because of the position of the sun, and she was wet from the water she’d landed in when she fell. As her situation sank in, Laine’s heart sank with it, and she swallowed the bile that crept up her throat.

  She was in deep shit. Her phone was sitting in her car . . . off. When she didn’t show up at Wes’s, he’d look for her. He was a Texas Ranger, he would use his connections to try to find her. The first thing he’d do was try to track her phone . . . but she’d turned it off to save the stupid battery.

  She hadn’t told anyone where she was going either. She’d never had reason to in the past. Rose, one of her friends at work, knew she had plans to tour a property, but not which one. Same with Wes. She’d texted him that she’d be at his place later, but she hadn’t told one person the address of the ranch. She was a smart, independent woman—who made a dumb mistake not to share the details with anyone as to where she was headed alone. When she made it out, she’d not make that mistake again.

  The first tear escaped her eye and Laine tried not to give in to the despair she was feeling. She wiped it away, knowing she was smearing dirt on her face, but not particularly caring at the moment.

  Wes would find her. She had to believe that. He always bragged about his success rate with his cases so he wouldn’t give up on her. The only question was—would he find her before she died of dehydration or infection or who the hell knew what else?

  Laine looked at the water at her feet, trying to determine if it was drinkable. She shivered; it was gross. There were both dead and live bugs floating on top and it looked absolutely disgusting, but Laine knew she’d be drinking it later if she had to. She’d do whatever it took to give Wes, and even Dax, the time they needed to find her. She had no doubt they’d be looking.

  Laine wanted to live. She was too young to die.

  Hearing a noise, Laine’s head whipped up to the opening of the hole, high above her . . . and she saw the stray dog. She bit back a hysterical laugh. Of course. Now the dog was curious. Now she came over to see what she was all about.

  Resting her head on the dirt wall behind her, not caring in the least about how filthy she was going to be when she was finally hauled out of this tomb in the ground, she refused to think that this would be her final resting place. Laine did what any sane person would do . . . she talked to the dog as if she could understand her.

  “Hey there. I’m pretty safe down here now, aren’t I? I can’t hit you, or kick you . . . or any other number of things, can I? Here’s the deal . . . how about you go and get some help. Run to the road, flag down a motorist, preferably a trustworthy one and not a big, scary, hairy guy who would rescue me only to rape and torture me to death. And while I’m asking, make it a cop, would you? You’ve got all sorts to choose from. Let’s see . . . SAPD, maybe a game warden, a sheriff’s deputy, FBI or CIA agent, and I’d even take a medical examiner like Calder. Any of them will do. Oh, I know, you can pick a firefighter. If you can get one from Station 7, that’d be great. I’ve met most of them. Then lead him or her or them back here to this hole in the ground. There’s a big juicy steak in it for you if you do.”

  The dog lay next to the hole and rested her head on her paws as she continued to look down into the deep hole. She didn’t make a sound, only watched her with what seemed like curiosity.

  The tears began again, and Laine felt her lip quiver as well. She wrapped her arms around her waist and continued to talk out loud. It made her feel better to hear her own voice. Made her feel not so alone. “Where’s Lassie when you need him? I’m scared, dog. I fucked up and I’m scared I’m gonna die down here and no one will ever find my body. I need Wes. I’m usually pretty self-reliant, but I’d give anything to have his strong arms around me, telling me it’ll all be okay.”

  The dog didn’t answer; only lay at the mouth of the abandoned well as if trying to understand what the strange human was doing.

  Chapter Nine

  ‡

  Wes paced the floor in agitation. Laine was late. Very late. Like three hours late. It was nine o’clock already and she was supposed to have been at his place at six. He’d texted and called her cell and gotten no answer. The call had gone straight to voice mail, as if her phone was turned off or dead.

  They’d had a conversation about keeping her cell charged, so it could be she’d forgotten to charge it again. But he didn’t think so. She’d been very apologetic when he’d explained why he was so upset with her, and seeing him distressed troubled her in return, and she’d sworn she wouldn’t let it go dead again. That had only been a week and a half ago, and Wes didn’t think she’d break that promise so soon after they’d had the discussion.

  Wes had called Dax to see if Mackenzie had heard from her best friend. She hadn’t. Dax and Mack had even driven over to Laine’s house to see if she was there, and Mack had used her key to go inside to make sure she wasn’t injured and not able to get to the door . . . but neither she nor her car were there and it didn’t look like she’d been home that night after work.

  The last thing Laine had told him via text was that she was going to check out a property.

  All sorts of horrible scenarios ran through Wes’s head. He couldn’t turn off his Ranger brain, thinking about all of the scary things that could’ve happened to her. Someone could’ve followed her and accosted her while she was isolated. She could’ve gotten in a car accident. She could be lost, although that was unlikely since she had a map app on her phone.

  She could simply be doing some errands and running late. But in the past, when she’d been running late, she’d called or texted him. He didn’t want to embarrass her if nothing was wrong, but he was worried.

  Deciding he’d waited long enough, Wes decided it was time to call in the cavalry.

  Wes didn’t have a close contact with anyone in the SAPD, so he called their general line. His position as a Texas Ranger went a long way toward getting him immediate attention and accelerating the investigation. Typically, people had to be missing for at least twenty-four hours before a report could be taken and the wheels of an investigation started, but thankfully in this case, things were moving quickly.

  When Dax had heard about Wes’s concerns, he’d called his friend, Cruz, in the FBI, as well as another friend, Lieutenant Quint Axton, who Wes didn’t know, in the SAPD. It was all very confusing and Wes wasn’t even sure how Dax was connected to everyone, but when Hayden Yates, from the Sheriff’s Department, had called and said that Fire Station 7 had their paramedics on standby, just in case, and to let her know if she could do anything, he gave up trying to figure it out, relieved that at least things were happening quickly.

  He’d seen his brothers and sisters in blue . . . and red . . . in action in the past, rallying around their own when they were in trouble, but he’d never had to rely on them for his own personal use before. But Wes knew he needed every single eye, every single brain, to figure out where Laine was. He was well aware that the first twenty-four hours of any missing persons case was critical. If Laine had been kidnapped, it was likely the person would either kill her outright, or would keep her to . . . do whatever . . . to her for at least a few hours. It was that “whatever” that Wes didn’t want to think about.

  He and Laine had been dating, and even though he saw the bad things that could happen to people, and even the awful things that humans could do to each other, through the course of his job, h
e still hadn’t really thought anything would happen to either of them. They’d been enjoying getting to know each other, in and out of the bedroom. She was quickly becoming one of his best friends, which felt right. Wes never thought he’d lose her, not so soon after he’d found her, or that there might be a chance she’d disappear from his life in such a mysterious way.

  He had a new respect and empathy for the families of missing persons he’d spoken to in the past. He’d felt bad for them, but hadn’t really understood what they were going through . . . until now.

  As Wes stood in his house, clutching his phone, willing Laine to call him and tell him with that nervous laugh she had that it was all a misunderstanding, it hit him.

  He loved her.

  He was devastated just thinking about never seeing her again. If she really was gone, he suddenly realized he would’ve lost one of the best things that had ever happened to him. He might’ve been telling himself they were just dating, but it was suddenly very obvious that wasn’t the case.

  He hadn’t told her, they hadn’t spoken of love to each other, but it was there nonetheless. Wes figured he’d loved her from the first time he saw her standing in his barn. From her nipple hard-ons, as she called them, to the blush on her face when she realized she’d been staring at him, he loved everything about her. She was his soul mate—and he didn’t even want to think about how he might not get the chance to tell her.

  As the night wore on, and his adrenaline spiked each time the phone rang, then plummeted when he realized it wasn’t Laine on the other end, Wes’s determination hardened. She was out there . . . somewhere. He’d spent his entire life investigating crimes and murders and missing persons. He was going to have to use every ounce of what he’d learned over the years in law enforcement to track her down. Somehow he knew Laine was waiting for him, counting on him to do his job and find her.

  It was almost as if he could hear her words in his ear . . . whispering over and over, “Find me, Wes. I’m waiting for you to figure out what happened and come get me.”

  *

  Laine shivered in the narrow space, but kept her chin tilted up so she could see the sky. Seeing proof she wasn’t buried alive kept the claustrophobia she was feeling at bay . . . for now. The night was clear and the stars out here in the middle of nowhere were shining just as bright as they were on her first date with Wes. Looking up at the same stars she’d gazed at with Wes made her feel closer to him. Was he out there right this second, looking up at the sky and thinking about her? If so, they were seeing the same stars . . . somehow that felt significant to her.

  “I wonder if there are aliens out there, dog,” she croaked out in a hoarse voice. She’d been talking to the dog for hours; it made her feel not quite so alone. “Maybe ET is out there now, lying on his back looking up at his purple sky and three moons and wondering what happened to his little friend he left behind on Earth.”

  The dog had been gone a while, but Laine kept speaking to her, nevertheless. She knew the mutt was probably gone for good . . . off to take care of her puppies, or to find something to eat. She certainly had no reason to continue to hang out at the top of a hole and stare down at her. She really wasn’t that exciting.

  Laine shuddered again and wrapped her arms around her waist even tighter. She’d tried to prop her heels up on the boards by her butt and pull her skirt over her bare legs to keep warm, but it didn’t work. The boards were too short and her ankles throbbed when she kept them in that position too long. She was covered in bug bites, the mosquitos having a field day with her fresh blood. Laine had resorted to using the water to wet the dirt on the walls to smear all over her arms and legs. It was drying now, and she felt like an experiment at the spa gone wrong.

  Thinking back to the missing dog, Laine knew that even though it was Texas, it was chilly in the fall at night, and the dog was probably curled around her babies, snug and warm, the strange human a long-forgotten memory.

  “Maybe if I send up a quick prayer, a cyborg or alien will hear it in passing and send down a search team. They’ll find me in this hole and beam me up, like on Star Trek. They’ll fix up my ankles, and put me in that beautiful blue dress that Cinderella wore in the latest version of the movie. I’ll twirl around and around and when I stop, Wes will be there in his Ranger uniform. He’ll tip his Stetson to me and we’ll dance off into the sunset.”

  When she stopped talking, Laine couldn’t hear a thing other than the crickets and their incessant chirping. “Oh my God,” she exclaimed to the night. “I really have turned into Mackenzie. Seriously, this is too much. I’ve made fun of her my entire life for babbling on and on, but look at me. I’m doing the same damn thing.”

  Laine closed her eyes and her chin fell to her chest in despair. Her words came out as a whisper this time, “I need you, Wes. Please, don’t stop looking for me. I’m here. I’m right here.”

  *

  At seven o’clock the next morning, Wes met Rose, a realtor who worked with Laine, at their office. She showed him Laine’s cubicle, and he got to work going through her files. He wasn’t a computer geek, so he was out of luck on searching her computer, not able to even log in because he didn’t know her password, but lucky for him, Laine was old school. She had a calendar sitting on her desk with doodles and appointments all over it. He found a drawer full of papers about various listings and notes on houses in the area.

  It took him three hours to go through it all, but just when he was about to give up, he thought he just might have found a clue. On yesterday’s date, she’d written, “Johnson.” It was, unfortunately, a common name, but she’d also scribbled “Morningside.”

  Doing a quick Google search on his phone, Wes found that there was a Morningside Long-Term Care Facility in the city. The two weren’t necessarily connected, but it was more than he had before he’d been to her office. He quickly dialed the number on their website.

  “Good morning, Morningside Long-Term Care, where we care for your loved one as much as you do. How can I help you?”

  “My name is Westin King. I’m a Texas Ranger investigating a missing persons case.”

  “Oh, how can I help you?” the lady on the other end of the line repeated, sounding more concerned rather than falsely chipper, as she had when she’d answered.

  “Do you have any patients with the last name of Johnson?” As soon as he asked the question, he knew he was being too vague.

  “Yes. But none of them are missing.”

  “Let me be more specific. The woman who has disappeared is a relator. The last time anyone heard from her, she was going to look at a property. We don’t know where the property is, or even whose it was. The only clue we have is the last name of Johnson written on her calendar yesterday, with Morningside written on the same date. I was hoping you might know of anyone who might be in your facility who’s putting their house up for sale? Or maybe their relatives are?” Wes knew he sounded desperate, but he couldn’t help it.

  “I’m really sorry, I’m just the front desk person. I have a list of our patients, but I’m not close enough to them to know about their personal lives.”

  Wes gritted his teeth, knowing every second that went by was a second that Laine needed him, and he wasn’t there for her. “Can you please ask around and call me back as soon as you can? The woman who’s missing is my girlfriend. This is personal for me. Please. Anything you might be able to find out could mean the difference between life and death for her.”

  The sympathy Wes heard in the woman’s voice, even over the phone, was palpable. “Of course. We can’t tell you any medical information or anything, but I’ll check the patient list and see if I can talk to the nurses who work with anyone with the last name of Johnson. Maybe they’ll know more.”

  “Thank you.” Wes gave the woman his number and clicked off the phone and tried to think. He’d asked Dax’s friend in the FBI, Cruz, to use his connections to trace Laine’s cell phone, but that hadn’t exactly been the homerun they’d needed. The phone
was now either turned off, dead, or destroyed. They had no way to tell, but the bottom line was that it wasn’t transmitting a signal, so it couldn’t be traced.

  Cruz’s FBI tech contact had been able to tell him that it had last pinged at a tower south of the city, but the area was very rural, and there was no guarantee she was anywhere near there now. Wes wanted more information before he organized a huge search party of the area, which might end up being a waste of time. He needed to narrow it down, or at least have more concrete evidence on where she might be first.

  His phone rang and Wes put it up to his ear after clicking the green talk button. “King here.”

  “Have you found her?” Mack’s frantic voice echoed though his brain.

  “No.”

  “Where could she be? Daxton and I drove around a bit last night looking for her, with no luck. Cruz and Mickie got together with Calder and Hayden and searched around her house. No one they talked to had seen her. Even the guys who weren’t on duty at the fire station were out looking. Where’s her car? If we find her car, I bet we’ll find her. She has to be somewhere, Wes! Dammit! Where is she?”

  Wes didn’t get upset at Mackenzie. He’d been around her enough in the last month or so to know how she was. She wasn’t accusing him and was obviously just as worried as he was about Laine. “I don’t know. But I’m following up on a lead. I’m going to find her. There’s no way I’ve gone forty-two years before finding my soul mate to lose her now.”

  When Mack didn’t say anything, Wes said, “Mackenzie?”

  Then he heard her sob. Shit. Dax’s voice came over the line.

  “What? Did you find her? Is she hurt?”

  “I haven’t found her, Dax.”

  “Then why is Mack crying?”

  “Because I basically told her how much I love her friend. Because she’s emotional. Because she wants to find her friend as much as I do.” His voice dropped in anguish. “Because I have no fucking idea where Laine is and it’s tearing me apart.”