Mercy (Beartooth, Montana)

by B. J Daniels

  Rourke was somehow connected to the trouble. The thought made her heart ache, as well. This was why she tried not to get involved with the people around her, so she didn’t hurt so much when the bad things happened.

  But as she dropped off the dishes, washed her hands and headed back into the café, she prayed that nothing would happen to Rourke. Not that she could stop it, though.

  * * *

  ROURKE HAD SPENT the morning with a real-estate agent, looking at small ranches. He’d made some headway last night with Callie, but she was smart. Also, this was a small town. Word traveled fast. If he wasn’t really looking for a ranch, Callie would hear about it.

  Now, as he came in after the lunch rush and took his usual seat, he saw that she was busy clearing off a table. Nearby, he spotted Carson Grant and his friend Johnny Franks. They were also watching Callie.

  She looked tired, as if she hadn’t gotten much sleep. Welcome to the club, he thought. He’d spent a restless night—what was left of it after he’d returned to his cabin. All morning, as he’d gone from one beautiful ranch to another, he hadn’t been able to keep the woman off his mind.

  “Are you all right?” Rourke asked when she came over to his table.

  “Fine,” she said as she filled up a cup with coffee and handed him a menu.

  But she wasn’t fine. He felt as if she was on edge and worried that he was making her that way.

  “I’m sorry about last night,” he said.

  “What part of it?” She met his gaze with a challenging one.

  “The part where you pulled a gun on me.”

  She smiled, and he felt a wave of relief. Whatever was bothering her, he didn’t think he was completely responsible for it.

  Carson called to her. “I could use some of that coffee.”

  “I’ll be back to take your order,” she said to Rourke.

  He realized Carson could be part of the problem as he watched her return to the cowboy’s table. He could see the way she moved through the café that she wasn’t quite as efficient as she usually was. Kate had noticed it, too, apparently, because she was watching Callie, a frown on her face.

  Rourke thought about his talk with Laura early this morning when she’d called. She’d said she’d been working on the profiles for him, and the more she did, the more she feared she was right about Caligrace.

  “It’s been over a year since there was a murder that we know about,” she’d said. He’d heard street noises. He’d just assumed she was calling from outside again because she didn’t want to disturb her mother. “So, why hasn’t your killer struck again?”

  “Maybe he has,” he’d insisted.

  “Maybe she has. But I don’t think so. She left the Seattle area. Maybe to make a new start. But now you show up. Unless your instincts are completely wrong...”

  She’d hit on the core of the matter. Could he trust his instincts? They’d let him down before. What if he was making the same mistake now?

  “Rourke, I think you are closer to the killer than you know. The killings that we know about were all in October. You do know what today is, don’t you? October 1. So if it’s Callie and I’m right about her, then she’s going to get more agitated until she snaps. She’s going to kill again and soon.”

  It’s not her, he’d wanted to argue. But as he watched Callie now, he couldn’t help but worry. She wasn’t herself; anyone could see that.

  “Rourke, you have to believe me. Caligrace Westfield is your killer,” Laura had said. “There is no boyfriend, no brother or lover who is doing this. No co-killer. She is going to be feeling more stress. Don’t tell me you haven’t seen it.”

  He’d seen it. The woman carried a gun in her purse, for crying out loud. She was scared. Something was bothering her or scaring her. The question was: What? A murderous past? Or was there more to it?

  “Rourke, this woman has put some kind of spell on you,” Laura had said, even more adamant. “You have to be careful. You’re applying pressure, something that maybe she hasn’t had for this past year. If I’m right, she’s going to start unraveling, and when she does...”

  The sound of breaking dishes yanked him out of his thoughts. Callie stood over the broken plates full of food she’d just dropped on her way to one of the tables. She looked like a woman unraveling.

  Kate hurried to her as Callie knelt down to pick up the shards. “Let me do this. You’ll cut yourself.”

  “I don’t know what happened.” Callie looked close to tears. “I’ve never done that before.”

  “It’s all right,” Kate assured her. “Get me the broom and dustpan. We’ll get this cleaned up. It’s no big deal. Just make sure the cook starts the meals over.” She closed a hand over Callie’s arm and gave her a shake. “Did you hear me? Go get—”

  Callie finally moved. “I’ll get it.” She rose to her feet, clearly rattled. Her gaze shot to him. Something in her eyes—

  Before he could put a name to it, she turned and disappeared into the back of the café. It was like everything that Laura had been saying. So why was he refusing to believe it? Because he didn’t want to.

  Rourke heard the cowboy with Carson Grant say, “You’re right. You’re definitely getting to her.” The two men laughed. “You got her falling at your feet.”

  Clearly shaken, Callie let Kate lead her back to the empty counter. Rourke could see Kate trying to find out what was bothering the young woman.

  He hated to think that Laura was right, that he’d let this woman get to him, that he was this close to a serial killer and refused to believe it. He picked up his menu, even though he’d lost his appetite.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a man approaching the café. The man wore a large coat that appeared threadbare even from a distance. He had a backpack thrown over one shoulder, and he was limping as if his worn boots hurt his feet.

  A moment later, the bell over the café door tinkled, and a gust of fall air rushed in along with the man.

  Rourke heard a sound like a gasp and turned to see Callie’s eyes widened in alarm.

  From behind the counter, Kate was also looking in the direction of the man who’d entered the café. She said, “Everyone just stay calm, and let me handle this.”

  Turning toward the vagrant-looking man, Rourke saw he had pulled a gun and was pointing it at Kate. “Give me the money in the cash register now!”

  She moved cautiously to the register and opened it.

  Rourke swore under his breath. The man’s hand was shaking. With nerves? Or a need for drugs? Either way, he looked desperate, a man with nothing to lose—the most dangerous kind.

  Kate handed over the cash.

  “This is all you’ve got?” the man demanded.

  Rourke could see this situation going south at any moment. To make matters worse, Callie was edging toward the man. What did she plan to do, try to take the gun away from him?

  “I know you have more money,” the man said. “You must have a safe or a box you keep it in.”

  Cursing under his breath, Rourke pulled out his wallet and got to his feet. “I have money.”

  The man spun toward him, swinging the barrel of the gun so it was now pointed at Rourke’s heart as he approached. From his surprised expression, he hadn’t seen Rourke until that moment.

  He held out the wallet. “No one wants any trouble. Here, take this. It’s got a couple hundred in it.”

  “Stop right there!” The man looked even more jumpy. Not good. “Drop the wallet. You,” the man said, motioning to Callie. “You bring it to me.”

  “It’s no problem,” Rourke said, ignoring the man’s order and putting himself between the gun and Callie. He was almost to the man. He could see the man’s finger twitching on the trigger. Rourke knew he’d be damned lucky not to get shot before this was over.
/>   Just another step or two...

  “I said to drop the wallet.” The man tried to steady the gun as he readied himself to fire.

  Rourke moved with the speed of his training. He pretended to drop the wallet, to bend down, but when he came up, he launched himself at the man, shoving the gun to the side as he spun into the fellow with an elbow and wrenched the weapon away.

  As the man doubled over from the first strike, Rourke spun back, catching him in the side of the head with the gun. The man dropped like a bushel bag of potatoes.

  “Call the sheriff,” Rourke said to Kate, who stood openmouthed behind the counter.

  She blinked, then grabbed her cell phone and hit 911.

  “Nice moves,” Callie said, her dark eyes studying him with new intensity. “You’re quite the hero.”

  He scoffed at that. “It was stupid. If I had been thinking clearly...”

  She shook her head, not buying it. “Next you’re going to tell me that you picked up those moves watching late-night TV.”

  “You guessed it. Speaking of moves, you were certainly cool as a cucumber.” She still was. Kate was shaking and clearly upset. But not Callie.

  “I knew he wasn’t going to shoot anyone.”

  “Oh, you did, huh?”

  She looked uncomfortable. “I didn’t think the gun was loaded. I could have been wrong.” She shrugged.

  But she hadn’t been wrong. When he’d taken the gun away from the man, he’d seen that the clip was empty. Rourke realized as he felt Callie’s gaze on him that he’d possibly just blown his cover for nothing.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  LAURA WAS RELIEVED when her mother had taken to her bed. It had allowed her to work on Rourke’s case and to keep her from thinking about the crazy things her mother had said. The woman was certifiable. Why hadn’t Laura seen that before and had her mother put someplace where she couldn’t hurt anyone?

  When her cell phone rang, she was glad to see it was Rourke. She’d been afraid she wouldn’t hear from him after their discussion earlier this morning.

  “How are you and your mother doing?” he asked.

  “As well as can be expected,” she said, just glad to hear his voice. It always made her heart beat a little faster, she thought as she took the phone outside so her mother couldn’t hear. “What have you heard from your P.I.?”

  Rourke seemed just as glad for the change of topic. “He’s been up north in Flat Rock, tracked Callie to a girls’ home up there. They called the place Westfield Manor—which he thinks is how Callie came up with her last name. He talked to the woman who took her into foster care for a while and now he has a lead on the woman who ran the place. Maybe you or your mother might have heard of her since two years ago she was living in Harlowton? The woman’s name is Gladys McCormick. Maybe your mother hasn’t been living there that long, though.”

  “No, she hasn’t,” Laura said, feeling as if the ground under her feet had turned into quicksand. “I’m sorry. I need to go. My mother... Thanks for calling.”

  As she looked toward the house, she saw a face at the window, but it quickly disappeared. “Catherine?” Her blood turned to ice. Just her imagination playing tricks on her?

  Laura shuddered, hugging herself as she was drawn toward the house the same way she’d been drawn into that alley a year ago, even though she’d known something dark and horrible was waiting for her.

  She pushed open the back door and stepped in, stopping to listen. The refrigerator in the kitchen hummed noisily, the smell of burned toast and coffee still strong.

  Somewhere deeper in the house, a floorboard groaned. She listened for the creak of her mother’s wheelchair and heard nothing. In the living room, she caught a whiff of something nauseatingly sweet.

  Her sister’s perfume?

  Sometimes she would catch a hint of it in her apartment in Seattle and be forced to spend the next hour searching every inch of the place. Catherine had always been good at hiding when they were children. Laura would finally find her curled into a ball in some dark hole, her blue eyes wide with some terrible secret.

  As she started down the hall, she saw that the only closed door was to her mother’s room. Her pulse jumped, her footsteps quickening. If Catherine was in there with her... “Mother?”

  Laura shoved open the door. It hit the wall with a bang, the sound echoing through the room. The first thing she saw was her mother’s wheelchair lying on its side. Already moving, she lurched into the room and stopped dead next to the bed. A chill washed over her, dimpling her skin with goose bumps.

  Her mother lay on the bed on her back, her arms folded over her chest.

  “Mother?”

  Laura started to lean down closer, her heart in her throat. Her mother didn’t appear to be breathing. She—

  The old woman opened her eyes.

  Laura couldn’t hold back the scream as she stumbled back.

  * * *

  ON HIS WAY to Harlowton to try to track down the elusive Gladys McCormick, Edwin’s cell phone rang. He figured it would be Rourke, but to his surprise, the name that came up was Leta Arthur.

  “Mrs. Arthur?” he said into the phone.

  “Did my friend help you?” she asked without preamble.

  “Unfortunately, Marjorie was having one of her bad days.” He didn’t tell her what the nurse had relayed to him about Gladys McCormick. He didn’t feel like being that nice to Leta. Also, he thought looking for the elusive Gladys McCormick would turn out to be a wild-goose chase anyway.

  “Well, maybe this will help. I have another name for you. I’ve been making some calls to help the family with this,” Leta said. It always amazed him what greed could do to help the cause.

  “This woman worked there only a short time, but she might know something more that the family will appreciate,” she was saying. “The woman’s name is Harper, Lisa Harper. She lives in Judith Gap, which is south of Lewistown. She actually worked at the girls’ home for a while.”

  Judith Gap. He’d seen it on the map he’d picked up. It was just up the road from where he was driving. The rental car had a navigation system, but he was old school. He liked a real map.

  “I’ve already called her and told her you were coming by. Just mention my name.” Leta rattled off the address. “You can’t miss it. The house is right by the school.”

  “You’ve been most helpful,” he said.

  “It’s the least I can do.”

  The house was small and sat on a hill. The wind howled around it, kicking up dust and sending anything not nailed down flying. On the way into town, he’d seen the wind farm. The massive blades of dozens of huge white windmills turned hypnotically against the crystal clear blue of Montana’s big sky.

  He’d heard there was a snowstorm blowing in. Given the fierceness of the wind, he just hoped he didn’t get caught in it. He fought his rental-car door to get out, then stood, letting the wind buffet him as he took in the view. Mountains bordered two sides of town, the tops dusted white with snow. Behind the mountains to the west, he would see a line of dark, low-hanging clouds.

  He turned to the house. The curtains were drawn, the old house looking uninhabited. Slowly he climbed the rickety steps and crossed a leaf-strewn porch to reach the front door. Like the house, it was weathered.

  He knocked as the wind whirled the dried leaves across the porch and waited, then knocked again. Inside the house, he heard the scrape of something being dragged across the floor and suddenly felt uncomfortable.

  When he was little, his mother used to take him to the old folks’ home on the edge of town to see his grandmother. Those memories were like nightmares. The smell of old age, urine and impending death. The grasping gnarled hands reaching for him from cloaked shrunken figures in wheelchairs.

  He braced himself as he heard the
familiar sound of an elderly person shuffling toward the door. The door opened a crack, and a weathered, scowling face peered out.

  “Lisa Harper?” The too-familiar smell of decay swept out as if suddenly freed from being imprisoned in the house for months.

  “What do you want? I don’t have any money and I don’t want anything anyway,” she snapped and started to close the door.

  “I want to talk to you about Westfield. Leta Arthur said she’d called you about my stopping by?”

  The door stopped closing about an inch from the jamb. “I can’t imagine why anyone would care about that place after all these years.”

  “The U.S. Marshals’ office does, Mrs. Harper. Unless you want to talk to them...”

  The door slowly opened. “There is no Mrs. It’s just Lisa Harper. I never married.”

  He nodded, hearing the bitterness in her tone as he got his first real view of the woman leaning on the walker.

  At one time, she’d been a large woman. Now her wide shoulders were slumped, the meat on her gone, leaving little more than her bony skeleton.

  Her head, though, was still large, the face square, the scowl lines embedded into her pallid flesh. This had not been a happy woman, he suspected.

  She left the door open, the only invitation he was going to get, apparently. He would have been much happier talking to her on the porch, but he doubted the woman could withstand the wind gusts, even if there had been somewhere to sit.

  Wishing he was anywhere but here, he stepped into the dark gloom of the woman’s living room. The decor was as old and worn as the house and the woman.

  As she shuffled toward a worn quilt-covered recliner, he sought out a chair. Everything was covered with either blankets or pilled afghans.

  Sitting down on the edge of the sagging couch, he pulled out his notebook and pen as the woman worked her way back into her chair. She let out a groan, as if the effort had used the last of her energy. He suspected it had.