by B. J Daniels
“Mason, please,” Beau said, too tired to argue.
Mason downed his drink, sighed and took his glass to the sink at the bar. As he started to leave, he stopped to place a hand on Beau’s shoulder. “I’m your oldest friend. If I step over the line sometimes, I’m sorry, but you know I have your best interests at heart and always have. I told you not to hire Carl or that no-good cousin of yours.”
“What has Ace done now?” Beau asked, although he didn’t really want to know.
“Didn’t show for work all week, but apparently got an advance on his wages,” Mason said. “Beau, you can’t throw money at people to placate them. It only makes them more bitter. Ask my ex-wife if you don’t believe me.” He paused. “I’ll call you when I get back in a few days.”
Beau looked at him in surprise.
“You do remember that I’ll be out of town on business?” Mason was frowning. “You told me to take the small jet? Beau, don’t tell me—”
“Sure, sure,” Beau said. “It just slipped my mind.” He didn’t remember but he’d had a lot on his mind lately. He wondered what business, but didn’t ask, not wanting Mason to know just how forgetful he’d been lately.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Mason asked. “Maybe I should put this off—”
“No, you go ahead. I’m fine. Please. Dixie will be flying home tomorrow. I can handle things here.”
Mason hesitated, but had the good sense to leave without another word.
The moment he was gone, Beau put down his drink and rubbed his forehead. He was getting another headache. He’d had a lot of them lately. That was probably another reason he was having trouble remembering things. He’d also been misplacing things. It was the strain of running a company this size.
But in truth he knew what was bothering him. He closed his eyes, thinking about what Mason had said.
He thought about his brother Carl. Mason didn’t understand their relationship. Carl didn’t care about his birthright as the oldest son. He’d hated the farm. And hated their father.
Beau felt a chill as he recalled the day their father died. Both of their mothers had been gone for years. Beau had come back to the farm to help. Carl had, too, after years of kicking around the country.
That day, Beau had come into the house to see Carl coming out of the old man’s room. Carl had a funny expression on his face. “He’s gone,” Carl had said to Beau. “The devil has him now.” And Beau had thought Carl had been fighting tears as he’d come out of the room. But the truth was, Carl had been smiling.
CHANCE NOTICED THAT Dixie hadn’t come right back into the café after her phone call with her father. He’d watched her through the window, reading her body language, knowing how upset she was. He was just getting ready to go out to see if she was all right when she opened the door and came toward him.
Now as he saw her face, he knew it had gone better than maybe she’d hoped. She seemed stronger. Or, at least, she was giving it her best show. With Dixie, he never knew.
“He says he doesn’t know who the man was,” she said, sliding into the booth and picking up her fork. “He swears my mother told him she was an orphan with no siblings.”
Chance nodded. “Maybe he didn’t know the people in the photographs, then. Your mother probably didn’t tell him about her sister because it was all tied to that other man and the past.”
She shrugged and took a bite of the lunch special. He suspected she wouldn’t even be able to taste it in the mood she was in.
Chance checked his cell phone, not surprised to find a message from Bonner. He listened to it, a command to call. He looked at Dixie, then put the cell phone away.
“You aren’t going to call him?” she asked.
“I’ll call him when I know what’s going on,” he said. He knew Bonner would want details, as well as a promise that Dixie would be at the plane tomorrow. Chance couldn’t make that promise right now and he figured telling Bonner wasn’t going to help matters.
“He says he’s not hiding anything and denies he would ever hurt me.”
“And if he’s telling the truth?”
She looked at him, her eyes misting over. “I was thinking about that. Who else has something to lose besides my father? Who else wouldn’t want the truth coming out?”
He saw where she was headed. “The man in the photograph.”
She nodded. “He could have his own reasons for not wanting me to find out who he is. Look at the way he has his face turned away from the camera, as if he didn’t want his picture taken.”
Chance nodded. “You’re saying he somehow found out that you were trying to find your mother’s relatives and he’s the one who’s been trying to stop you?”
She nodded as she cupped her hands around her coffee mug, clearly needing the warmth.
“You do know what that would mean,” he said.
“Since one of the men who tried to kill me works for my father—or at least, used to—that would mean that the man is connected to Bonner Unlimited. Maybe even close to my father.”
“Given the fact that the man used your father’s name more than thirty years ago, I’d say he not only knows your father but has known him for a long time,” Chance said.
“You think he might have been blackmailing my father so the truth didn’t come out about Rebecca?”
Chance shook his head. “Your father would never have bowed to blackmail.”
“Even if he knew that the news would kill my sister? You know how Rebecca is. She cares more about what those snob friends of hers think about her than anything in this world. Even her money and possessions. All that is just to impress them, to get them to accept her. Imagine if it came out that she’s not even a Bonner?”
He could imagine that. He could imagine even worse. “This man sounds pretty unsavory.”
Dixie nodded, tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry I ever opened this Pandora’s box. Rebecca will be devastated when she finds out.”
“That would have given the man motive for blackmail,” Chance agreed. “Maybe that’s why your father is so desperate to get you back to Montana where he can protect you from this person because he does know how dangerous the man is.”
Dixie looked thoughtful. “That’s why we need to find out who—” A freight train roared past within feet of where they sat. The café windows rattled loudly, making being heard impossible. It wasn’t until the train was long past that she could finish “—who the man is in the photograph.”
Dixie picked up the snapshot again, studying it in the light. “It’s too bad it’s not a better photograph. With his face in shadow…” She handed it over to him and watched as he inspected it.
“Add to that the fact that this was taken at least thirty years ago,” Chance said, thinking out loud. The man was tall and lanky, young, maybe late teens or early twenties. It was hard to tell. “Who knows what he looks like now.”
“It still doesn’t explain why someone wants me dead,” Dixie said as they ate, and made an attempt to lighten the conversation. “Unless Rebecca took out a contract on me so I wouldn’t tell her friends in Houston society.”
“There’s nothing quite like sibling rivalry.”
Dixie laughed.
He was glad to see her smile. She really did have a great smile.
“If Rebecca is behind it, though, I don’t know why she wasted her money on hit men,” Dixie continued. “She should have tried to bribe me first.”
“Like she has anything you want,” he said, joining in.
When she didn’t say anything, he looked up from his plate to see her staring at him, her face deadly serious.
“She had you,” Dixie said.
Joking or not, he wasn’t going there. He was having trouble thinking of her as Rebecca’s little sister. Dixie was a beautiful woman and he would have been a fool to pretend he hadn’t noticed. And he wasn’t that big of a fool.
Or maybe he was, he thought, remembering kissing her. Not that he regretted the kiss. What he
couldn’t do was get distracted. Too much was at stake. Someone had shot at Dixie this morning. He couldn’t keep kidding himself that her life wasn’t in danger. He’d been hired to find her and to keep her safe, and he always did what he was hired to do.
That is, he always had. Unfortunately, he was starting to realize that he might break that rule tomorrow when Bonner sent a private jet to pick up his daughter in Helena.
Unless Chance could be sure Dixie would be safe returning to Texas, then there was no way he was letting her near that plane.
DIXIE WATCHED CHANCE out of the corner of her eye as he ordered them pie for dessert. Banana cream, her favorite.
“You realize this is the first thing we had in common,” she said.
He glanced up, his fork loaded with pie partway to his mouth. “What?”
“You and me,” she said. “We both loved to eat. Remember those nights when you would bring Rebecca home from a date and the cook would have just baked cookies or a pie or one of those chocolate-covered cherry cakes with the really thick fudge icing?”
He laughed and nodded as he took a bite of his pie.
“You and I would sit in the kitchen and talk and eat while Rebecca searched the fridge for celery or tofu or carrot sticks.” She made a face remembering how Rebecca was always on a diet even though she’d never been even close to fat.
“I think my favorite was your cook’s buttermilk pie. Remember it?” he asked.
She rolled her eyes as if in ecstasy. “Oh, I’d forgotten all about that pie.”
They talked of food and laughed about some of the late-night conversations they’d had discussing everything from religion to space aliens and crop circles.
When they’d finished their desserts, they walked out to the pickup in a companionable silence. Chance tensed, though, his hand staying close to the weapon strapped under his coat and his gaze taking in everything around them as they left the café.
It wasn’t until they were safe in the pickup that he said, “I used to really enjoy those talks with you. You were pretty smart for twelve.”
“Thanks. I think.” Dixie spotted a bell ringer in front of one of the shops. He was dressed as Santa. On impulse, she reached into her purse, dug around and pulled out the diamond ring Roy Bob Jackson had left in her Christmas stocking. She ran across the street to drop the ring in the man’s pot, then ran back to the pickup.
She climbed in, giving Beauregard the treat she’d brought him, most of her Salisbury steak from her lunch special. He gobbled it down and curled up against her leg. She put her hand on his big soft furry head and waited for Chance to start the engine. She could feel his gaze on her.
“Ol’Roy Bob won’t be happy about that,” Chance said.
“No, he won’t,” she said, and grinned. “That ring was worth about fifty grand. So we’re going to Ashton?”
“Was there ever any doubt?”
“Thank you, but could I ask one favor? Could we stop back by Glendora’s? I want to ask her more about the man in the photograph. I was so shocked before, I didn’t know what to say.”
Chance agreed it was a good idea. Maybe Glendora might remember something about the man that would help.
Where did her father fit into all this? Or did he? Maybe he was telling the truth and he hadn’t known anything about her mother’s past. But then, why was he so afraid for Dixie? What was it he still feared she would find out? The name of her mother’s lover?
Dixie took in the small western town, her own fears gripping her as Chance drove down the main drag. Livingston sat in a hole, hemmed in by the Yellowstone River and the mountains. Wind whipped an American flag, the edge frayed, and sent snow skittering across the pavement.
She could feel the cold just outside the pickup window. She snuggled against Chance’s warm, big dog, telling herself it was too late to quit. Even if she decided to stop looking for answers now, she doubted it would stop whoever was after her.
A chill rippled through her as they neared Glendora’s apartment house that had nothing to do with the cold winter day. She heard sirens.
Chapter Thirteen
Chance heard the sirens just an instant before he saw the flashing lights. A cop car stopped next to an ambulance in front of Glendora’s apartment house.
Dixie’s face mirrored his own thoughts as he parked at the curb up the block from the house. A crowd had gathered on the sidewalk. Another police officer was directing traffic around the ambulance parked at the curb.
“It might not be Glendora,” he said as they approached the scene, hoping to hell that was the case.
“Right,” Dixie said, her voice breaking as she quickened her pace.
At the edge of the small crowd, Chance took her arm to hold her back. “Let me find out.”
“What happened?” he asked an elderly woman in the crowd.
“One of the tenants. They say she fell down the stairs,” the woman said.
“Who was it?” he asked.
The woman looked to a younger woman standing next to her. “An elderly woman who lived on the fourth floor. They said the elevator wasn’t working and she must have tried to take the stairs.”
Chance still had his hand on Dixie’s arm and could feel her trembling. The wind whipped at their clothing and sent snow showering down on them as the ambulance attendants came out of the front door of the apartment house with the stretcher, the body in a black bag.
Chance let go of Dixie, stepped over to one of the policemen and flashed his credentials before asking the name of the deceased.
“Name’s Glendora Ferris. A neighbor heard her fall down the stairs and called 9-1-1,” the cop told him.
BEAU STOOD at his office window, waiting. He really did have one hell of a view.
“You wanted to see me?”
He turned to look at his brother standing in the office doorway. Carl was wearing a Western shirt, jeans, boots. His gray hair needed to be cut and his white Stetson cleaned. Carl Bonner looked nothing like the multi-millionaire he was.
Beau instantly regretted calling his brother into the office. Mason was wrong. Carl had more money than he would ever use. Nor was he apt to dream up some lame kidnapping plot that had failed to get a million and a half out of Beau anymore than he would give Dixie the jewelry box hoping she would find the photographs inside.
Because that would mean that Carl knew about the photos. Knew about Sarah’s past. And how was that possible?
“Thought you might like to join me in a drink,” Beau said, and motioned his brother in.
“Little early for me,” Carl said, but closed the door and entered the office. “What’s up?”
Beau poured himself a Scotch, figuring he was going to need it. “I wanted to ask you about Dixie.”
“Dixie?” Carl said, frowning.
“Have you seen her?”
“Not for a while. Is something wrong?”
Beau took his drink back to his desk and sat, motioning for Carl to do the same. “She’s in Montana.”
Carl’s brows lifted as he took a seat. “What’s she doing up there?”
“Trying to find out more about her mother’s family,” Beau said, sorry to hear his words edged with criticism.
Carl nodded. “Bound to happen.”
Beau opened his mouth to argue the point and closed it. He didn’t want to fight about this. “She found some photographs in that jewelry box you gave her.”
Carl frowned. “Photographs?”
“Apparently from Sarah’s life before me,” Beau said.
“You didn’t know she kept them?”
“No. Did you?”
“What are you asking?” Carl said quietly.
What was he asking? What possible reason would Carl have for purposely giving Dixie her mother’s jewelry box if he knew there were old photos hidden inside? None. Carl wouldn’t want to hurt the girls. Not only that, Dixie’d had the jewelry box for years and had only just now found the photographs.
Beau rubbed his
temples feeling a headache coming on. “Never mind me. I’m just in a foul mood.” He’d made the mistake of not telling Dixie the truth straightaway. Instead all he’d done was whet her curiosity and when Dixie got on the scent of what she thought was a secret, she was like a hound dog after a buried bone.
“Sarah had a sister,” Beau said. “She never mentioned it to me, but Dixie found out somehow.”
Carl shook his head and said nothing.
“What?” Beau demanded.
“Nothing, it’s just that you knew Sarah had a life before you.”
“I didn’t care about her past,” Beau snapped, not wanting to admit that Sarah had lied to him. Maybe that’s what hurt the most.
“I remember the night the two of you met,” Carl said.
Beau felt all the air rush from him. He swallowed hard, picked up his drink and downed it. He’d forgotten about the first time he’d seen her.
CHANCE STARED UP at Glendora’s apartment building windows as the body was loaded into the ambulance. Christmas lights strung across the front entry slapped the side of the house in the wind. A piece of newspaper blew by. Somewhere in the distance a horn honked, brakes squealed.
“Come on, let’s get out of here,” Chance said, steering Dixie toward the pickup, all the time watching the street and residences around them. For all he knew, the killer might be watching them at this very moment.
“You know she didn’t fall down the stairs.”
He could hear the anguish in her voice. The woman had been her aunt. Dixie had promised to send pictures of Rebecca’s children to her. He put his arm around her as they neared the pickup.
“I’m so sorry, but it could have been an accident. You heard them say the elevator wasn’t working,” he said.
Dixie shook off his arm and climbed into the pickup. As he slid behind the wheel, she snapped, “Do me a favor. Stop trying to protect me from the truth.”
