One Hot Forty-Five

by B. J Daniels

  What the hell was he going to do come morning?

  DEPUTY SHERIFF SHANE CORBETT found everyone in the family waiting for him the next morning at the main house on Trails West Ranch. Everyone except his brother Lantry.

  “Any word?” his father asked the moment he walked in.

  Shane shook his head. “I came as soon as the road opened. All I know is what I told you on the phone earlier. Lantry was last seen with the wife of one of his clients from Texas.”

  “We heard on the radio that she is one of the three women who escaped from the state mental hospital—the criminally insane ward,” his father’s wife, Kate, said.

  Shane cursed the media and its need to know and report everything. “She was only being held in that ward because she’d escaped from a mental hospital in Texas. She apparently had a breakdown during her divorce from one of Lantry’s clients.”

  “If Lantry was her husband’s lawyer…” Kate’s voice broke.

  “We have no reason to believe she will harm him,” Shane said, wishing that were true.

  Juanita pressed a mug of hot coffee into his hands. He took it, smiling his thanks at the family cook. He cradled the mug in his two large hands, trying to soak up the warmth—and hide how worried he was about his brother.

  “I can’t stay. We have all our deputies out looking for the escapees and Lantry,” he said. “They couldn’t have gotten far, not in that blizzard last night. More than likely they holed up somewhere to wait out the storm and will pay hell getting out with the roads blown in the way they are. We’ll find them.”

  “Wouldn’t Lantry have called if he’d got in out of the storm?” Russell asked. He was the oldest of the Corbett brothers and known as the most levelheaded.

  “The phone lines were down for most of the county,” Shane said. He didn’t say that Dede Chamberlain was armed and might not have let Lantry make a call. If he was still alive.

  He shook off that thought and took a sip of the hot coffee, burning his tongue.

  “Lantry can take care of himself,” the youngest of the brothers said. Jud, like his twin, Dalton, had been quiet since Shane’s arrival. He’d seen the worry in all of his brothers’ faces. The details of Lantry’s abduction from the jail hadn’t been released, but Shane had learned that nothing stayed a secret long in this small town.

  “Jud’s right. Lantry can take care of himself,” Shane agreed. While no one had mentioned it, Shane suspected they all knew that Dede had taken the new deputy’s weapon and abducted Lantry at gunpoint last night. That suspicion was verified a moment later.

  “The man’s a divorce lawyer. I’m sure this isn’t the first time someone’s held a gun on him,” Jud joked, clearly trying to lighten the mood in the room. “He can certainly handle a woman.”

  “I should get going,” Shane said and drank a little more of the coffee.

  As he started to leave, the lights of the Christmas tree caught his eye. It was a huge ponderosa pine. The entire family had taken the hay wagon into the Breaks to cut it down, then come back to the ranch to decorate it.

  Shane thought of the laughter and that safe feeling he’d felt being a part of this family. Especially with his fiancée, Maddie, at his side.

  They’d been through so much this year. Three weddings, some close calls, the revelation of a long-held secret.

  This Christmas was to be a celebration as well as a time to give thanks for all their blessings and being together.

  But now Lantry was somewhere with a mentally deranged woman with a gun and a grudge. He feared for Lantry’s life and the devastation of his family if something tragic should happen to his brother.

  His father walked him to the door. Grayson looked older and grayer, worry etched in his face. “Be careful, son. I heard this morning about that one escapee running her mother and her mother’s fiancé off the road last night.”

  “Violet Evans,” Shane said like a curse. Violet had gotten away, but fortunately neither Arlene Evans or Hank Monroe had been hurt. Now, though, everyone knew Violet was in town—and dangerous.

  “It sounds like you’ve got too many nuts out there just looking for trouble,” Grayson said.

  Shane smiled at his father’s concern. “I’ll watch out for them, don’t worry.” He put a hand on his father’s still-broad shoulder. “I’ll call as soon as I find Lantry.”

  LANTRY DOZED OFF JUST BEFORE dawn and woke with a start. For a moment he didn’t know where he was. He listened, the quiet so intense it was oppressive. Sitting up, he looked toward the window. Through a crack in the curtains, he could see that the storm had stopped. Snow was piled high against the window.

  It came back in a rush. His gaze shot to the spot on the couch where the gun had been next to him.

  Gone.

  Lantry shot to his feet and rushed up the stairs, afraid he knew what had awakened him. At the second-floor landing, he slowed, trying to still his racing fear as well.

  She wouldn’t take off on her own.

  She wasn’t that stupid. Or that crazy.

  Also, she’d begged for his help.

  If she was telling the truth, she’d stick around and see if he could save her.

  Even as he thought it, he knew. Once it got light and the storm ended, she had known what was going to happen. He’d told her he wouldn’t turn her in, but she’d known that wouldn’t matter. Once his pickup was spotted, it was only a matter of time before they’d be found and her butt was in the back of a van headed for the mental-hospital lockdown and…

  He’d reached the closed door to her room and stopped. Even as he grabbed the knob, cautiously turned it and pushed open the door, he knew she was gone before he saw the empty bed.

  Still he called “Dede?” as he stepped in. The bathroom door was open. No Dede.

  Swearing, he turned and raced back down the stairs, thinking she might be in the kitchen. Yeah, right—armed and cooking breakfast for him.

  The kitchen was empty. No big surprise. Dede Chamberlain was long gone.

  Chapter Six

  Lantry hurried to the front door and looked out, figuring she would head for the road but wouldn’t be able to get far.

  There would be tracks in the fresh snow. She would be easy to follow, and he had no doubt he could catch up to her.

  He was sure he had only dozed off for a short while early this morning before the storm had stopped. Dede wouldn’t have left until the storm was over, because she wasn’t a fool. In fact, she seemed a hell of a lot smarter than him right now.

  He opened the front door and looked out, surprised to see there were no tracks in the perfect, marblelike sculpted snow. The morning light glistened off the wind-crusted surface. Dede hadn’t gone out this way.

  At the back door, he found her footprints and followed them. They led right to the barn. Beyond it, he saw the horses and remembered Dede’s reaction last night at dinner when he’d asked “Do you ride?” after seeing her watching the horses through the window.

  “No.” She’d shuddered. “I don’t ride.” He’d glimpsed what he’d thought was her fear of horses.

  She’d lied.

  He thought about catching one of the horses and going after her, but he knew she would have too much of a lead on him on horseback. As he listened, he could hear the sound of a snowplow in the distance.

  As he trudged back through the snow, he couldn’t help but wonder how much more of Dede’s story had been a lie. He was furious with her. But mostly with himself.

  After all these years of being a lawyer, a divorce lawyer who knew from the jump that there was always another side to any story in a marriage, he’d bought into her sad tale.

  He cursed himself as he entered the house, questioning why she would make up such a story. On impulse, he tried the phone and, to his amazement, got a dial tone. He punched in his brother Shane’s cell-phone number. It was answered on the second ring.

  “Lantry?” There was both relief and fear in Shane’s voice.

  “I’m ok
ay.”

  “Is she holding a gun on you?”

  “No, she’s gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “We went off the road yesterday and ended up spending the night in a ranch house. When I woke up this morning, she’d taken off on one of the horses.” He hesitated. “She has the gun.”

  Shane swore again. “But you’re all right?”

  “Just fine,” Lantry groused.

  “She can’t have gone far. Not as deep as the snow is,” Shane said. “Where are you?”

  He’d noticed the address on some old mail in the kitchen. “Apparently, I’m in Joe and Mabel Thompson’s place south of town.” Lantry didn’t have a clue where that was. Or where Dede Chamberlain was right at this moment.

  But he sure would have liked to get his hands on her.

  DEDE RODE THROUGH THE snowdrifts, the horse sending the light snow into the cold air around them. She could see her breath, steam blowing from the horse’s nostrils as the animal busted through the snow, the mountains rising from out of the horizon in the distance.

  The blizzard had left the landscape looking like glistening white sensuous waves, the snow almost blinding once the sun came up. The land looked glazed smooth. There was nothing but white as far as the eye could see. It lay under a crystalline blue sky that was so intense it hurt to look at.

  Dede had gulped at the sight of the huge horses and had been forced to tamp down her fear this morning before daylight.

  “You can do this,” she’d whispered to herself as she approached one of the horses.

  She hadn’t lied to Lantry last night when he’d asked her if she rode. She didn’t. Not anymore.

  As she slipped a halter onto the friendliest of the horses, the one who hadn’t shied at her approach, she told herself that riding a horse again was nothing compared to what she’d already been through. This was the real lie.

  She’d been deathly afraid of horses since an accident in her early twenties. Her horse had lost its footing on the side of a mountain and fallen. They’d both tumbled down the mountainside. While her injuries hadn’t been life threatening, her horse hadn’t been as lucky.

  Just the barn scents had her shaking. “It’s from the cold,” she’d told herself as she’d swung up on the horse. The horse shuddered under her, and, for one terrified moment, Dede had thought he might buck her off.

  She had thought she’d never get on another horse after her accident. This day, sitting astride this horse, reminded her of that other place, that other life and the pain. She was still terrified, and the horse sensed it, making it even more dangerous.

  But danger was relative. The horse might throw her. Or take off and end up trampling her. The alternative, staying behind to go back to the hospital, was certain death. But try as she might, she couldn’t relax and feared she had lost her original love of horses forever.

  She slowed and glanced over her shoulder, half expecting to see Lantry coming after her on one of the other horses. Common sense told her that he was just glad to be rid of her. He hadn’t believed her. That would be his worst and last mistake, she thought with no small regret.

  If Frank had given his lawyer something for safekeeping, then maybe she could have helped save Frank, Lantry and herself. But if she was wrong about that, then she was wrong in thinking she could save any of them.

  She told herself she had no choice. Lantry would be safer without her. In fact, leaving him was probably the best thing she could have done. Now she would be the focus of Ed and Claude’s deadly hunt.

  Dede stared at the mountains ahead of her. She had no real plan. Just reach the highway and take her chances getting a ride. Maybe not everyone had heard about the escapees. At least she wasn’t still wearing a Santa costume. Thanks to the clothing Lantry had found for her, she was dressed like everyone else in the county now.

  As she rode, the cold stinging her cheeks, she tried to convince herself that it was time she looked after Dede and quit worrying about everyone else.

  But Lantry Corbett wasn’t a man easily forgotten. Not the ruthless divorce lawyer—the cowboy who’d kissed her last night in front of the fire.

  At a fence, she slid from the horse, relieved to get off the beast at least for a few moments. She opened the barbed-wire gate and, after walking her horse through, closed it again. That’s when she saw the single set of pickup tracks and realized she’d reached a road.

  As she debated which direction to head, she heard a sound. An instant later, a vehicle appeared from over a rise. As the rig bore down on her, Dede realized she had nowhere to run. She couldn’t outrun the vehicle on horseback nor was there time to reopen the gate and take off across the pasture.

  Better not to run anyway. Better to hope the driver just thought she was out for a ride and kept on going.

  Sunlight glared off the windshield, obscuring driver and passenger as the SUV roared toward her.

  She shielded her eyes from the glare as the driver hit the brakes, noticing the smashed front end as the SUV came to a stop just feet from her and the horse. Dede already had her story ready about her early morning ride when both doors of the SUV swung open.

  She had only an instant before she was tackled to the ground, her head pushed deep into the snow as her wrists were bound behind her and she was dragged to the back of the SUV and tossed inside.

  LANTRY STORMED AROUND THE ranch house, wearing a path between the fire and the front window. He’d made himself some breakfast, just to keep busy.

  Too bad he couldn’t corral his thoughts. They ran wild, rehashing every conversation he’d had with Dede Chamberlain, looking for other lies. He knew it was futile. The woman was sick. Deranged. How could he expect anything she said to make sense?

  But it nagged at him anyway, driving him up the wall. He couldn’t get Dede off his mind. Or how she’d fooled him. Or how he’d kissed her. He was still mentally kicking himself.

  Shouldn’t he have been able to spot deceit?

  Except that he hadn’t cared if his clients lied to him or not. It was all the same to him since with divorce it really didn’t matter. It went without saying that there were two sides to every story. The only side he needed to know was his client’s.

  With that thought, he went to the phone, put in a call to the newspaper in Houston and asked a reporter to look for a story on a jewelry burglary. He recalled something about the case, but not enough to verify if Dede had been telling him the truth.

  Lantry figured that if he could prove Dede had lied about that, then he could just assume all the rest of it was hogwash, as well.

  “It would have been in late March or early April,” he told the reporter. Right before Lantry left for Montana. “One of the necklaces was supposedly worth a million dollars.”

  “More like one point six million dollars,” the reporter said. “Sure, I remember that story.”

  “Do you recall the name of the woman who was burglarized?”

  “Give me just a minute.” The reporter returned a few moments later. “Fallon. Dr. Eric and Tamara Fallon.”

  “Has the necklace been recovered?” Lantry asked, his heart in his throat.

  “Nope. No arrests have been made, either, but a body was found in a canal last week that the police are saying might be Tamara Fallon. Some identification was found nearby. She and her husband were reportedly going through an ugly divorce. I understand he’s been taken in for questioning several times, but no arrest has been made.”

  Lantry thanked the reporter and hung up as he heard the sound of vehicles coming up the road not long after the plow had gone through. Tammy Fallon dead. A woman from Frank’s mysterious past. Add to that Ed and Claude, and what did you have?

  Lantry shook his aching head. This all just kept getting crazier—and scarier, since at least some of Dede’s story was true.

  The first vehicle to arrive at the house was a wrecker, no doubt his brother’s doing. The second vehicle was a sheriff’s department SUV with his brother behind the wheel. The
wrecker drove up the road and Shane and Lantry followed in the patrol SUV.

  Lantry filled Shane in on everything Dede had told him while the wrecker operator worked to get the pickup out of the snowbank.

  When he finished his story, he could see that his brother was as skeptical as he’d been. “I verified her story about the stolen necklace and the woman named Tamara Fallon. Apparently, Tamara Fallon’s body was found floating in a canal last week. Her husband is a suspect, since they were in the middle of a divorce.”

  “This is all tenuous at best,” Shane said. “Dede doesn’t even know for sure that her ex-husband was involved in this burglary. She was also wrong about Frank giving you a gift. That should tell you something.”

  It told Lantry that they needed proof. “I should have asked her for the name of the private investigator she hired. Can’t you at least see if you can find Frank Chamberlain? Do some digging into his past?”

  Shane sighed. “I kind of have my hands full right now with three escaped mental patients on the loose and you to worry about. Looks like the wrecker’s got your pickup out. Let’s go see if it runs.”

  “Just a minute,” Lantry said, grabbing his brother’s coat sleeve to stop him. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “Frank Chamberlain. He was found murdered.”

  Lantry couldn’t hide his shock. “Then this proves—”

  “Dede Chamberlain is wanted for questioning in his death. Frank was killed after she escaped the Texas mental hospital. The police have an eyewitness who places her in the neighborhood at the time the coroner estimates Frank’s death.”

  “No way,” Lantry said, shaking his head. He thought of Dede’s face when she was talking about Frank, about her marriage. Those tears had been real, that pain and heartache genuine.

  “She loved him. Still loves him after everything he did to her. There’s no way she killed him.”

  “Frank was beaten with a lamp base. It has the earmarks of a crime of passion, and Dede’s fingerprints were found on the lamp.”