by Elle James
“That has to be her,” Emily said.
“Stay here, close to the building, but in the shadows. And keep an eye on her as long as you can,” Colin said. “I’ll be right back.”
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“To get the truck.” He ran back to the pawn shop, jumped into his truck and raced back to the corner where Emily waited.
She hopped up into the truck and leaned forward. “Hurry and we might catch up to her.”
“Which way?” Colin asked, his foot shifting from the brake to the accelerator.
Emily tilted her head to the side. “South.”
Colin hit the gas, sending the truck lurching forward on the main street through the center of Eagle Rock.
“There,” Emily said, leaning forward. “She turned left three blocks ahead.”
“She’s headed out of town.”
“How will you follow her without her knowing?”
“We’ll hang back enough that hopefully, she won’t notice.” Colin sped up to the intersection and turned left. The vehicle he’d seen in the alley was about a quarter of a mile ahead, picking up speed.
Colin pressed hard on the accelerator, pushing the truck faster, but not so much that they caught up with Missy.
Two miles out of Eagle Rock, Missy turned onto a dirt road that led to an old trailer park. Colin knew about it because one of the members of his high school football team had lived there.
The bus Colin and his brothers rode to school stopped there on the highway to pick up the kids from the trailer park. On good weather days, the boy either rode his bicycle to town and back or jogged in. That kid had been in the best shape of any of them.
Milo Morgan had gone on to play football on a full scholarship for the University of Montana Grizzlies. It took him five years, but he earned a degree in engineering before he went on to play in the NFL.
“You remember Milo?” Emily asked into the silence.
Colin nodded. “I was just thinking about him. He ended up doing well for himself, didn’t he?”
Emily nodded. “He’s working for an architectural firm in Bozeman. I think he landed the design work for rebuilding that old resort north of Eagle Rock.”
“Good to see him doing well. He had a tough beginning.”
“He was the most determined young man in town.”
“He didn’t want to end up in that trailer park all his life.” Colin drove past the turn-off.
“Aren’t we going to see which trailer she went into?” Emily twisted in her seat, looking back at the road they’d just passed.
“We will,” Colin assured her. He drove several yards further along the highway, found another dirt road that appeared to have been forgotten. He pulled off and drove into the underbrush, parking his truck beneath a tree.
“I need you to stay in the truck while I go check out where Missy went.” He leaned across Emily’s lap, opened the glove box and pulled out a pistol. “You know how to use this. Hold onto it in case someone discovers your location while I’m out nosing around.”
“No way,” Emily said. “I’m not sitting here while you’re walking into danger. For all you know, her boyfriend could be a crack addict or murderer.” She shook her head. “I’m going with you.”
“You’re the target in this situation. If he is a murderer, he could be the one who has already tried to kill you. I can’t let you walk into his cross hairs.”
“Colin, honey,” she said, giving him her best teacher-talking-to-the-dense-student look, “you don’t have to let me do anything. I have a mind of my own, and I can do anything I want.”
Colin’s brow descended. “I might not be able to keep you safe.”
“You’re wasting your time and breath.” She unbuckled her seatbelt and dropped down out of the truck. “I’m going to find Missy.”
Colin pressed his lips together. When Emily got an idea into her head, she could be just as stubborn as he was. He wouldn’t talk her out of going with him.
“Well, hold onto that pistol and only use it if your life is in danger.”
“Got it.” She started for the road.
“Nope.” Colin gripped her elbow and steered her through the woods. “The idea of hiding the truck in the woods was so that we could sneak up on the trailer park and recon the situation before moving in.”
“Right,” Emily said. “I knew that.” She turned back toward the woods.
Colin took the lead, forging a path through the brush to the trailer park that consisted of twenty single-wide mobile homes in varying stages of disrepair.
The park might have been nicer a couple of decades before, but no one seemed to care anymore if there was trash piled up around the units, or old vehicles sitting on blocks, rust taking over where paint and metal had been eaten away by rock salt from too many harsh winters.
From the safety of the tree line, Colin and Emily studied the trailers, moving past one after the other until they reached the last two trailers in the park.
Since it was still the middle of the day and during the work week, Colin didn’t expect there to be many people around. But there were more than he’d thought.
A grizzled old man sat on a ramshackle wooden porch, smoking a cigarette, a can of beer in his other hand.
At another trailer, he could hear the sound of a baby crying. A woman yelled inside that she was coming and soon the baby stopped crying.
At the last trailer in the far corner of the trailer park, Emily gasped, pointed and stepped backward, deeper into the shadows. “That’s the car.”
With nothing but woods behind the trailer, the location gave Colin and Emily the opportunity to get closer without being seen.
They eased through the forest and around to the back of the single-wide mobile home with siding that had seen better days. Dents, rust and mildew covered the faded tan panels. The unit had a front door with a small wooden deck that appeared to be dangerously ramshackle. Parts of the railing and the steps had rotted through.
The back of the trailer was even more nondescript than the front with a single door and a set of stairs that had probably come with the trailer made of metal angle iron and wooden planks that were gray and weather-worn.
A male’s voice sounded from inside the trailer. He sounded angry and he was shouting.
Something smashed against a wall accompanied by the sound of glass shattering.
“You think Missy is okay?” Emily gnawed on her bottom lip, her brow furrowing. “She was afraid her boyfriend wouldn’t be happy that she’d taken too long getting back to him.”
“I don’t know,” Colin said. “We’ll listen and see if it gets worse. Couples have arguments all the time.”
“Yeah, but they aren’t always accompanied by throwing and breaking things,” Emily said.
Colin nodded. “True.”
The next moment, something else hit the wall. It didn’t sound like a cup, a glass or a plate shattering. It was more like something heavy slamming into a wall. Like maybe a person.
“I don’t feel good about this,” Emily said.
“Let’s get closer,” Colin stepped out of the shadows and moved toward the back of the trailer, without putting himself in view of a window, in case one of the occupants of the trailer just happened to glance outside.
Emily went with him.
The nearer they moved, the more they could make out the voices of the people inside and the words they were shouting at each other.
“I told you not to go back to Buddy. He’s robbing you blind. I can’t believe you traded your grandmother’s wedding ring. That was stupid.”
“We had to have money to buy food to eat for the week.”
“What’s wrong with the venison in the freezer?”
“It’s been there for a year. I doubt it’s any good.”
“Why the hell didn’t you use it? That’s good meat. And you wasted it.”
“I don’t know how to cook venison. I don’t even like it.”
�
��You’ll like it if it’s the only thing we have to eat,” the man yelled.
“We’d eat better if we had more money coming in.”
“Can’t you get more hours at the tavern?”
“Why, you’ll just piss away all my tip money on beer,” Missy said. “When was the last time you had a job?”
“God damn it, woman. I told you I’m working on something. I don’t need some dumb bitch nagging me about getting a job.” A sharp clapping sound rang out and a loud thump followed.
“Get up, bitch.”
“Please, Roy. Don’t hit me. Last time you broke one of my ribs. I’m just getting over that.”
“You should have thought of that before you started nagging me.”
“Please…” Missy sobbed, her voice carrying through the thin walls of the trailer. “Don’t.”
Colin shook his head. “I can’t stand back and do nothing.”
Emily nodded. “Me either.”
He stared down into her eyes. “I need you to stay here.” Before she could protest, he held up his hand. “If Missy’s boyfriend is involved in my father’s disappearance or in the attempted arson or murder, I can’t be worried about you. Please. Just stay.”
Emily frowned, but nodded. “Okay. But don’t do anything that will get you shot.”
He grinned and held up two fingers. “I promise. Scout’s honor.”
Emily smirked. “You were never a scout.”
“No, but I read the manuals.” His lips twitched.
“Doesn’t count.” She turned him around and gave him a gentle push. “Don’t get yourself killed.”
Though her voice was flippant, he could sense the deeper meaning and truth in her tone. Emily really didn’t want him to die. She’d lost too many of the people she’d loved.
Colin rounded the trailer to the front and picked his way up rotted steps to the equally rickety porch and knocked on the door.
The shouting inside ceased. Heavy footsteps sounded on their way across the floor of the trailer.
The next moment, the door flung open and a man with dark hair, dark eyes and scraggly goatee stared out at him with a heavy frown. “What do you want?”
“Are you Roy?” he asked.
“Yeah. What’s it to you?”
“I’m Colin McKinnon,” he said. “I need to ask you some questions.”
The sudden flare of recognition in the other man’s face gave him away.
“Heard of me?” Colin asked, his jaw tightening.
“No,” Roy said and tried to slam the door in Colin’s face.
Colin stuck his boot in the crack and winced when the door smashed into it. Thankfully his boot kept his foot from being crushed.
“Get off my property,” Roy demanded.
“I might….” Colin said in his deepest, most threatening tone, “after you answer some questions for me.”
“I don’t know nothin’ about your father.”
“Who said I was going to ask about him? But since you brought him up…” Colin grabbed Roy by his collar and lifted him up several inches, pulling him out of the trailer onto the wobbling porch. “Where’s my father, John McKinnon?”
Roy clawed at the hands holding him up. “How should I know?”
“Apparently, you know something. You gave his ring to Missy. Where’d you get the ring, if not off my father’s finger?”
“I don’t want no trouble,” Missy cried. “Let him go.”
Colin glanced over Roy’s shoulder to Missy.
The woman had emerged from the trailer with a bruised cheek and tangled hair. She held a pistol in her shaking hands, aiming it at Colin and Roy.
“Put down the gun, Missy,” Colin said. “This bastard isn’t going to hit you again.”
“I’m not worried about him hitting me. I had it coming. But if you hurt my Roy, I’ll…I’ll…shoot you.” She gripped the weapon tighter.
“Missy, put down the gun,” Emily said from the bottom of the steps. “Put it down and nobody gets hurt.”
“He’s going to kill my Roy,” Missy said, her eyes wide.
“Colin isn’t going to kill Roy,” Emily said. “We just want to know where you two got John McKinnon’s ring.”
“He’ll kill him,” Missy said, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Let him go. Please.”
“I’m not going to kill this abusive sack of bull crap,” Colin said. “But I’m not letting go until he tells me where he got my father’s ring.”
“That’s just it,” Missy said. “If Roy tells you where he got it, the guy he got it from will kill him.”
“What guy?” Colin lifted Roy higher off his feet, his arm straining. “You better start talking.” Without turning, he said, “Emily, get Sheriff Barron on the phone.”
“No!” Missy cried, her hand jerked, and the gun went off.
Roy grunted and grew slack in Colin’s grip.
Emily raced up the stairs, grabbed Missy’s hand and shoved it upward, away from the two men standing so close.
Colin didn’t have much choice but to guide Roy’s body as he slumped to the ground. He couldn’t hold up the dead weight of the man.
“Roy!” Missy released her hold on the gun.
Emily secured it and hurried down the steps, away from Missy and Roy. As soon as she was on the ground, she pulled her cellphone out of her pocket and hit three keys, dialing 911.
Colin squatted beside the downed man.
Roy lay on the weathered wood porch, clutching his side where blood spread across his shirt. “God damn woman should have left well enough alone.”
“Oh, baby, I’m sorry.” Missy dropped to her knees beside him. I didn’t mean to shoot you.”
“At least you got me before he did.”
“Who?” Colin demanded. “Who would kill you?”
Roy lay back, closing his eyes. “I don’t know. He wore a mask.”
“Why did he wear a mask?” Emily asked.
“I guess because he didn’t want me to know who was paying me to burn down your house.”
“Bastard,” Colin said through gritted teeth.
Roy coughed. “Man’s gotta make a living, whatever way he can.”
“Did he pay you to kill the man in the hospital?”
“He paid me to leave no loose ends.”
“Roy, baby, why did you agree to it?” Missy asked.
“We needed the money. And I had a feeling that if I turned him down, he’d have killed me on the spot.” He shrugged and winced. “Seemed like I didn’t have a choice. Do it or die.”
Emily’s brow furrowed. “Did he say why he wanted you to burn down my house and kill me?”
Roy harrumphed and coughed for his effort. “I asked. He said, ‘Just do it.’”
“Did he give you the ring?” Colin asked.
Roy snorted and coughed. “Hell, no. I lifted it from his pocket. He never knew I took it.” Roy glared at Missy. “And he wouldn’t have known I got it, if Missy hadn’t taken it to the pawn shop.”
“How was I supposed to know you stole that ring?” she cried. “Oh, God, you’re bleeding everywhere.” Missy leaped to her feet and ran back into the trailer, returning with a hand towel. She folded the towel into a square, shoved Roy’s hand aside and pressed the square of material against the open wound.
Emily turned away and spoke into her cellphone, giving the 911 dispatcher the nature of her emergency and location. When she was finished, she faced Colin. “Ambulance and police are on their way.”
He didn’t have much time
“Was there anything about this man that you stuck out? Could you see his hair color, or the color of his eyes? Did he wear something that was unusual?”
Roy’s eyes blinked, and his face grew paler. “I don’t know. It was dark outside the tavern. He handed me a wad of cash…told me that he’d kill me if left any loose ends. Now that you know what I know…just leave me alone,” Roy said. “If this bullet didn’t do me in, I know another one will. I’m a loose end.”
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Colin didn’t say it, but he thought Roy deserved to die after killing his partner in crime. But mostly, he deserved a painful death for attempting to kill Emily by burning down her house with her in it, and then trying to shoot her.
The wail of sirens sounded from the direction of Eagle Rock. Before long, two sheriffs’ vehicles arrived, followed by a first responder fire truck and an ambulance.
Colin hooked Emily’s arm and led her away from the action.
Sheriff Barron joined them. “I take it from the way Missy was carrying on, you weren’t the one to shoot Roy,” the sheriff said.
“It wasn’t me, though I wish it had been. The man’s dangerous and will do anything for the money.”
The sheriff pulled out his pen and pad of paper from the front pocket of his uniform. “I don’t suppose you got a confession out of him.”
Colin nodded. “He was the one who killed his partner in the hospital.”
“I heard him, too,” Emily said. “And he and his partner were the ones who tried to burn down my house and shot at us.”
“Did he say why he did that?” the sheriff asked.
Colin’s lips pressed together, and he clenched his hands into fists. “Someone paid him to do it.”
“Did you get a name?”
“No,” Colin said. “He said the guy wore a mask and paid him in cash outside of the tavern.”
“I’ll question him at the hospital, if he survives until then.”
“You might want to have more than one guard watching him,” Colin suggested.
The sheriff’s mouth twisted. “Already thought of that. You two need to watch your backs. If someone was willing to pay Roy to kill Miss Emily, he might be willing to pay some other miscreant to finish the job.”
Colin grinned. “Already thought of that. She’ll be staying out at the Iron Horse Ranch until this gets resolved.”
Sheriff Barron nodded. “Good idea. But remember, you can’t always hole up at the ranch. If you do have to venture out, make sure she has a bodyguard.”
“Will do,” Colin said, gathering Emily into the curve of his arm. “If you don’t need us for anything else, we’re headed to the ranch.”
