by B. J Daniels
Jud swore as he tore into the ranch yard and jumped out, taking the porch stairs two at a time. To hell with worrying about looking like a fool. The bad feeling he’d felt at dinner was full-blown now.
The front door was unlocked. “Faith!” He charged up the stairs. “Faith!” He heard nothing over the pounding of his heart and his boots on the stairs. “Faith!”
Her bedroom light was on. So was the bathroom light, the door open. The scent of fresh soap and humidity hung in the air. He could see her robe lying in a heap on the bathroom floor as if she’d just dropped it there.
Faith was gone.
It wasn’t until that moment that Jud saw the doll. It was propped up against a pillow—just like all the others that had been discovered on the set.
“Son of a—”
The set. If Zander hadn’t killed Hasting, then—
He ran down the stairs, the doll clutched in his hand. He tossed it on his pickup seat and took off down the road toward Lost Creek.
“THE LEAST YOU CAN DO is tell me what all this is about,” Faith said as they drove through the darkness.
Nancy shot her a disbelieving look. “Come on, girl detective, you spent all that time digging into our lives. Surely you’ve figured it out by now.”
Had she? “I know about Brooke’s mother and Zander. But where does Keyes Hasting fit in?”
Nancy smiled, pleased that Faith wasn’t as smart as she thought she was. “His goddaughter was Camille Rush.”
“The young woman who drowned in Zander’s hot tub?”
“He financed the film as a way to get Erik Zander not just to Montana, but to Lost Creek for us. That was his part. I’d read about the legend of Lost Creek in one of my stepfather’s real-life mystery magazines. The setting was perfect. A vengeful father against an entire town.”
Or in this case against Hollywood and the establishment in the form of Erik Zander. “Hasting got Zander to do the movie by blackmailing him and picked the cast and crew.”
Nancy smiled over at her. “You really are a girl detective, aren’t you?”
“So the accidents on the set were for, let me guess, simply setting the stage, building tension so Zander’s heart attack wouldn’t be questioned?”
“Damn, girl, you are good.”
Faith realized where they were headed. Lost Creek. She should have known. Death at Lost Creek, and this plot against Zander was all about symbolism.
“Seems like a lot of trouble for a simple case of revenge.”
“It was a whole lot more than that,” Nancy snapped. “Zander needed to suffer. He thought Death at Lost Creek was going to save him. But before he died he came to realize it was his own death he’d been cast in.”
“But why kill Hasting?”
“He’d served his purpose and we needed to frame Zander for his murder. Justice had to be done.”
She’d said “we.” Just as Faith had suspected, Nancy hadn’t acted alone.
“You think killing me is just?” Faith demanded.
“You’re collateral damage.”
“I can understand how Brooke might want revenge against Erik Zander for her mother’s death, but what does any of this have to do with you?” Faith asked as Nancy slowed at the top of the hill overlooking what had been the set. Everything was gone but three trailers. Past them a light burned in the dark night. A fire?
As the pickup bumped down the hill to park next to one of the trailers, Faith spotted a vehicle parked beside one of the trailers. Sheriff Jackson’s patrol SUV. Nancy hadn’t been lying.
Faith knew this was her chance.
She grabbed the gun, slapping away Nancy’s hand as she made a grab for it, and bolted out of the pickup at a run.
“Carter!” she cried as she ran toward the light.
Behind her she heard Nancy get out of the truck. She’d expected Nancy to leave, to make a break for it. Why was she following Faith, who had the gun now?
As she ran past the trailers, Faith saw two dark figures standing around a bonfire. Neither was the right size to be Carter. So where was he?
“Faith?” Chantal said, looking surprised to see her. Or maybe she was surprised to see her holding a gun on them.
“Where is the sheriff?”
Faith heard Nancy approaching the fire and turned the pistol on her. “What have you done with Carter?”
“I see you’ve met my sisters,” Nancy said.
“Sisters?” Faith echoed, distracted for a moment too long.
“Stepsisters,” Chantal said, shoving something cold and hard into Faith’s back. “Isn’t that a bitch?”
THE PICKUP BUMPED over the rough terrain, jarring Faith painfully as she lay on the hard metal truck bed. Her wrists and ankles were tied with rope that was cutting off her circulation. Next to her, Carter groaned as he slowly came awake. His hair was caked with blood and when she’d first seen him, she’d thought he was dead and had almost lost it.
“Faith?” He swallowed, licked his lips and looked around.
“They’re taking us to the ghost town,” she whispered, not sure the three in the front of the pickup couldn’t hear them. It could work to their advantage that they didn’t know Carter had regained consciousness.
He closed his eyes for a moment as they were both jostled when the pickup hit a bump. “Turn your back to me. Maybe I can get you untied.”
She did as he instructed and felt his fingers working at the knots.
“It’s all three of them, isn’t it?” he said.
“They’re stepsisters. They were just fighting over who got to drive the pickup and who got to ride next to the window.”
“No wonder it appeared they didn’t like each other.”
“At least that part wasn’t an act. They don’t know you’re awake yet.” She felt the rope binding her wrists loosen and she was able to free one hand, then the other.
Faith swung around and worked frantically to untie Carter’s hands.
“Get your ankles free,” he said as the pickup began to slow. “There isn’t time to untie me. Jump down and run.”
She worked faster. “I’m not leaving you.”
“You have to. It’s our only chance. Go!”
The pickup engine groaned as it came to a stop.
Faith scrambled to her feet and leaped off the back of the pickup, hitting the ground running. The dark night swallowed her as she sprinted down the track, the light of the bonfire flickering in the distance.
If she could get to Carter’s patrol SUV, she could call for help. There would also be a shotgun in the patrol car. The shotgun would be loaded.
JUD STOPPED on the other side of the hill from where the movie camp had been and turned off the engine. Getting out, he took the .22 rifle he carried from behind his pickup seat. Every rancher’s kid had one for gopher hunting. Gophers dug holes that horses stepped in. Like most places in these parts, Whitehorse had a yearly gopher hunt to get rid as many of the varmints as possible in one day.
As Jud started out, he wished he had a more powerful weapon with him. The varmints he was hunting tonight would be much larger, much harder to kill.
He topped the hill, staying low, glad for the darkness. He could see three trailers, all dark inside, below in the prairie and three vehicles. Nearby, a fire burned, but there was no sign of anyone around it.
So where was everyone? He just hoped to hell his instincts were right as he dropped on down the hillside and sneaked along one of the trailers. When he got close enough to the SUV, he was startled to see that it was a sheriff’s department vehicle.
His apprehension intensified. Something was very wrong here.
He moved to the next trailer, staying to the dark shadows, listening for any sign of life.
The sound of a gunshot ripped through the air. He heard a cry in the distance, then voices. From the direction of the ghost town, pickup brake lights flashed on as an engine cranked over. As the truck swung around in this direction, he ducked down instinctively.
It took him an instant to realize what was happening as the sound of another shot filled the night air. The bullet kicked up earth next to Faith in the pickup’s headlights as the truck barreled after her, engine roaring.
Jud raised his .22 rifle and aimed for the pickup’s front tire. Like shooting fish in a barrel. The tire blew. The pickup rocked crazily in the rutted dirt track, then veered off, headed for the river.
Jud saw a shape rise from the back of the truck and jump free just an instant before the pickup plunged into the Missouri. And then Jud was on his feet, running toward Faith.
She had stumbled and fallen near the bonfire. He ran to her, dropping to his knees. The firelight caught her beautiful face and he saw at once how pale she was.
“Faith,” he cried as he saw that she was still clutching her side, her shirt and hand soaked in blood. “Oh, my God.” He swept her up into his arms as Sheriff Jackson came running toward him. “She’s been shot.”
Faith smiled up at him, then at Carter. “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. Get the stepsisters. You can’t let them get away,” she said, then passed out in Jud’s arms.
Chapter Fifteen
“You have a very tough girl there,” the doctor said when he came out to tell everyone how Faith was doing. “Fortunately, the bullet didn’t hit any organs. She’s awake, if you want to see her now.”
“I need to see her first,” Jud said as the two families started to get to their feet. “Alone.” He’d been so afraid he would lose her. The thought that she wouldn’t know how he felt about her was unbearable—no matter how she felt about him.
He turned to his family and Eve’s. They’d filled the waiting room to overflowing. “I’m in love with Faith and I’m going to marry her,” he blurted out.
“As if that wasn’t obvious,” Eve said, to his surprise.
“Don’t you think you’d better ask her first?” his brother Shane said.
“Yeah, she might not want you,” Dalton agreed.
“Maybe you should give this a little more thought,” Russell suggested. The oldest of the brothers was always the most sensible. The women in the room, Maddie, Kate, Eve, McKenna and Juanita, booed him.
Everyone else laughed, Jud along with them. “Nothing is going to change my mind. There is no one like Faith. Just give me a minute alone with her. Please? This really can’t wait.”
Kate and his father were smiling knowingly.
“Make it quick,” Eve said, only half joking. “We want to see for ourselves that she’s all right.”
Jud smiled at his sister-in-law-to-be. “Wish me luck?”
“You don’t need luck,” Eve said. “You have love.”
Faith was lying in the bed. The color had come back into her face. Her eyes were that incredible blue that would always remind him of Montana summer days.
“Hi,” he said, feeling strangely awkward. This woman had always thrown him off-kilter, leaving his spinning, from the first. She would give him a run for his money the rest of his days—just as she had on the dance floor, he realized and grinned at the thought. He was ready for the challenge.
FAITH SMILED as Jud tugged off his Western hat and sidled into the room, looking shy and sweet. The man took her breath away and had from the first day she’d laid eyes on him.
“You’ve been making a habit of saving my life,” she said, then she turned serious. “Thank you.”
Jud moved to her bed to take her hand. She watched him swallow and could feel how nervous he was. “There’s something I have to tell you. I love you.”
Faith felt her heart swell at his words, knowing these were not words Jud Corbett had ever said to another woman. “I love you, too.”
He broke out in a big grin. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to hear you say that, because I can’t stand the thought of spending another day without you. Marry me, Faith. Make me the happiest damned cowboy in Montana.”
She laughed through her tears. “There is nothing more that I’d rather do, but, Jud, I know how much you love being a stuntman, and I’ve realized that life really isn’t for me.”
He nodded. “I gave that a lot of thought while I was waiting out there in the hallway to find out whether you were going to live or die, and I think I have a plan you’re going to like.”
CARTER STUCK his head in the hospital-room door. “Well?” he asked.
Jud gave him a thumbs-up.
Carter stepped in. “I need to talk to Faith for a few minutes, and her sisters are about to start a riot out there.”
Jud squeezed Faith’s hand. “I need to go buy an engagement ring.”
“Make it two simple gold bands,” Faith said. “I’ve never been a diamond kind of girl.”
Carter shook Jud’s hand as he was leaving. “You saved our lives last night. Thank you.”
“What happened to them?” Faith asked her brother-in-law when they were alone. He knew she was talking about Nancy, Chantal and Brooke.
“We found three bodies in the cab of the pickup. They drowned together.” He shook his head. “It’s crazy. I swear they despised each other, and yet they came up with this scheme to bring down a killer,” he said.
“So they really were sisters?”
“Stepsisters. I heard them arguing as they were chasing you. I’m surprised they didn’t kill each other. Brooke knew she was allergic to metabelazene snake antidote and yet she still let that snake bite her so she could get the medicine needed to kill Erik Zander.”
“They cooked it up among themselves?” she asked.
“Nancy was the leader, from what I could tell. She planned it, but the others went along with it. It isn’t even a case of blood being thicker than water.”
Faith was stunned.
“The woman Zander let drown in the car accident twenty-three years ago was Brooke’s mother and Chantal’s and Nancy’s stepmother,” Carter said. “When that other young woman drowned in a hot tub at Zander’s party earlier this year, they hatched this plot with Camille Rush’s godfather. It’s crazy, but then revenge is, isn’t it? Still, I’m amazed those three women were able to almost pull it off. If you hadn’t seen one of them dragging away Hasting’s body…”
Faith thought of her own sisters and the bond between them. “What about the dolls?”
“Scraps of material were found in Nancy Davis’s place in California, but I suspect the three made the dolls together,” Carter said. “They couldn’t depend on being able to use the doll props once they got to the location shoot, I guess.”
The door opened. “Time’s up,” Eve said. “You can get her statement later. She isn’t going anywhere.”
The sisters gathered around Faith’s bed as Carter left the room, all three of them crying as they hugged and held hands.
“I’m so glad that you’re my sisters,” Faith said through her tears.
Eve nodded agreement. “There’s something I need to tell the two of you.”
Faith thought at once of the woman dressed in green that she’d seen on the movie set. The woman who resembled Eve.
“You know I’ve been searching for my birth mother,” Eve said. “Well, I’ve found my birth family.”
“Oh, sis, I’m so happy for you!” McKenna cried.
Faith echoed her sentiments and listened as Eve told her about her aunt Mary Ellen coming to Whitehorse after a call Eve had made during her search.
“My mother and father are gone, but I have a grandmother and an aunt,” Eve said, and they were all three crying again.
“So when do we get to meet them?” McKenna wanted to know.
“Soon,” Eve said. “They’re coming the first part of August. I can’t wait to meet my grandmother and for you to meet them, since we’re all family, aren’t we?”
“The more the merrier,” McKenna said with a laugh. “And
on that note, I’d like you two to be the first ones to know…I’m pregnant!”
A cheer rose up in the hospital room.
“I guess while we’re all making announcements,” Faith said. “Jud and I are getting married and we’re going to start our own stunt school here in Whitehorse, and we were wondering—”
Eve laughed. “I thought you would never ask. Of course you can have it on the ranch. One-third of the Bailey Ranch is yours, and I know how you feel about the house. We’ve always known that you would come back here someday and live in it.”
Faith laughed. “Actually, I was going to ask you if you’d be my matrons of honor, but you’re right, I want to live in the house. There’s so many memories there.” Those memories were in every creaking board of that old house. Good memories stayed in a place just like bad ones, she thought, thinking of Lost Creek.
“This calls for a toast,” McKenna said, and poured them each a plastic cup of water. She lifted her cup. “To the Bailey girls.”
“To the wild Bailey girls,” Faith said, and they all three clinked plastic cups.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-3282-6
HUNTING DOWN THE HORSEMAN
Copyright © 2009 by Barbara Heinlein
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