by B. J Daniels
Mark swore. “You’re determined to get thrown in jail.”
Flint shook his head, remembering the baby’s room. “She wasn’t there. I would have told you, but it was something I needed to do myself.”
Mark sighed. “I talked to Celeste again. She was headed for the lake house but apparently ended up getting drunk and going home with a man at the bar outside of Bigfork, and yes, her alibi checks out. The bartender remembers her and knows the man she went home with. She was with him until she returned to town.”
He shook his head. “It sounds like a planned alibi to me. It still doesn’t mean that she didn’t have Maggie with her and stashed her somewhere.”
“We’ve had a tail on her ever since she returned,” Mark said. “She hasn’t left the house except to come down here to the sheriff’s department for questioning.”
Flint felt his heart drop at the thought of Celeste hiding Maggie somewhere and just leaving her there to die. “She must have someone working with her.”
“I considered that,” Mark said noncommittally.
“You know how Celeste is. She could easily have met some man and gotten him to do her bidding.” Mark looked even more skeptical. “She would have told him it was a practical joke or whatever. Maybe she offered him money. You have to understand, there isn’t much this woman wouldn’t do to get what she wants, and she wants Maggie out of my life.”
Mark nodded. “Then you are going to love hearing this. Three weeks ago, Celeste says she saw Maggie with a man at a bar in Billings. The two, according to her, seemed to have a history and were arguing, the man trying to get her to come back to him. Celeste thought he might have driven a brown van.”
Flint shook his head. “You aren’t buying into this, are you? She’s just trying to save her own neck.”
“Maybe, but we’re looking into it.”
“Wait. Are you thinking the same thing I am? If Celeste tracked down this man, she might have gotten him to help her.”
“It crossed my mind after what you just said,” Mark agreed.
Celeste was a known liar. He couldn’t believe anything she said and neither should his undersheriff. “Wait. When was this alleged meeting in the bar?” he asked after Mark finished telling him everything Celeste had said about this old boyfriend of Maggie’s. “This could all be a lie.”
“Three weeks ago.”
He looked out the window, thinking how much he hated this time of year. It was still snowing, and after several days of it, he felt as if it might never stop. Days like this made him want to move to Arizona. He craved the sun, needed that warmth right now because he felt chilled to the bone.
Three weeks ago. The words played in his head. At first he thought he could prove that Celeste was lying, that Maggie couldn’t have gone to Billings. This had to be just another Celeste story.
But then he remembered. Three weeks ago Maggie had gone to a product show in Billings. But Celeste could have found that out. Celeste could have... He swallowed. Celeste could have come up with this whole story. But the lawman in him was reminded of the neighbor who’d seen the brown van go past. Another little detail Celeste could have added for good measure.
Flint thought back to three weeks ago when Maggie had returned from Billings for what she said was a salon product meeting.
So three weeks ago they’d been dating, but he wouldn’t say they’d been all that close. Weeks before that, Maggie’s salon had been broken into and someone had started a fire on the back porch of her house. Celeste, but unfortunately, he had no proof of that.
He’d seen Maggie before she’d left for Billings and after she’d come home. She hadn’t kept the trip from him. Something about salon products. Or at least she’d made it sound like that. And maybe that was what it had been. Maybe she hadn’t lied. Maybe she’d run into the man while down there. Or maybe she’d been planning to meet him the whole time.
He hadn’t questioned her about the trip. Because he’d trusted her. Before this moment, he would have said Maggie was the last person on this earth who would lie to him.
Now he shook his head at how naive he’d been. He’d seen a change in her before she went and when she’d come back. There’d been a distance. But he’d blamed it on the things they’d been through with his ex, when maybe the whole time, it had been the old boyfriend.
Maggie wouldn’t have liked keeping it from him. Other than that, she wouldn’t have anything else to hide, he assured himself. It wasn’t like she had been considering going back to the man.
Or had she? Was it possible that after Celeste saw him at the house, Maggie had left with the man?
He shook his head. From what Celeste had reported that she’d overheard of the conversation, the man had been trying to get her back and Maggie wasn’t having it.
“If he was trying to get her back...” Flint said and stopped. Maggie had definitely argued with someone and gotten hurt. “You think he abducted her?”
“Possibly.”
“She wouldn’t have left with him.” He saw Mark’s expression and he knew that, like him, he was thinking of Jenna Holloway. A woman could sometimes leave with the worse man for her.
“If Celeste and this man joined forces...” He could see that happening, Celeste offering to help the man, telling him that Maggie wasn’t serious about some sheriff in some Podunk Montana town. “Where would he have taken her? Billings? Is that where he was living? Or somewhere closer to Gilt Edge?”
“That’s what we are looking into,” Mark said. “Once we know who he...”
Flint nodded. “Celeste swears she doesn’t know? What did the man look like?” He listened to the description. As far as he knew, he’d never seen the man. If the man even existed. Silently he cursed his ex-wife. She lied about so much. This could be a lie, as well. Another dead-end lead that would keep them from finding Maggie.
“Have you been able to verify this incident at the bar?”
Mark nodded. “I talked to the bartender, a man named Brian Bateman. It’s the kind of bar where this happens more often than not, but he remembered because of Celeste and her friends. He didn’t want any bloodshed with them in the bar. He could tell that they weren’t the usual clientele.”
“Had he seen the man before?”
“Yes, said he comes in after work sometimes but was never a problem before that. The bartender’s description matched Celeste’s. Also, his description of Maggie matched.”
Flint put his head in his hands for a moment. “If this man has Maggie, and Celeste orchestrated this whole thing...”
“You have to remember that he was reportedly trying to get her back. So there is a good chance he won’t hurt her—if he has her.”
Flint wondered about that.
“She never mentioned this man?” Mark asked.
“No,” he mumbled into his hands, then lifted his head. “That’s not true. I think he was the reason she came to Gilt Edge. In order to get away from him.”
Mark nodded. “It could be the same man, but we don’t know that.” The undersheriff sighed. “Then there is this.” He handed him the bagged ransom note.
The sheriff read it twice and looked at his watch, having lost track of time.
“How soon do I have to come up with the money?” There was no way he could raise that much money on his own.
“I’m waiting for the kidnapper to contact me again.”
“It could be to throw us off who really has Maggie,” Flint said.
“Maybe. Or this person might have her. I suspect, like you said, it could be someone who doesn’t know where Maggie is, trying to cash in.”
“Even so, I can’t raise fifty thousand dollars, not unless I got the family to put up the ranch. I can’t ask them to do that.”
“We need to ask for proof of life first.”
; Proof of life. He bit the inside of his cheek to fight the pain. He wanted to argue that a kidnapper didn’t have Maggie. That Celeste and this old boyfriend of Maggie’s had thrown in together to do this. But he couldn’t.
It was all supposition with no proof. He was still a lawman. The truth was he had no idea where Maggie was or who had taken her or even if she was still alive.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
BUD’S BAR WAS pretty much what Harp had expected. He’d been smart enough to buy himself a change of clothes when he got to Billings. That seemed easier than going back to the apartment and Vicki. He didn’t know what he was coming home to anymore.
Now he wore jeans, boots and a checked shirt. He’d driven his truck down since his patrol car was now at the sheriff’s office until he could go back to work. This wasn’t the kind of bar he wanted to walk into in uniform anyway.
It was dark and smelled of stale beer. He let the door close behind him and waited a moment to let his eyes adjust to the dim light. The place was small—just big enough for the large U-shaped bar at its center and a half-dozen poker machines against one wall and some tables and chairs against the other wall.
Bud’s looked like a rough place that had seen better days. The floor tiles were of an indiscriminate color and worn thin. As he stepped in and found an empty bar stool, he noted the vinyl seats were cracked and torn, and had long since lost their cushioning ability.
He ordered a draft and looked around. There were people in front of all but one of the poker machines. He could only see the backs of their heads and the glow of their faces in the screens. None of them fit the boyfriend’s description he’d gotten from his friend Gail at the office.
The bartender was a big thirtysomething guy with dark hair who looked like he lifted weights. After Harp ordered a draft, the man shoved a draft in front of him and took his money without a word. For this time of the afternoon, Harp was a little surprised to see how many people were bellied up to the bar.
Several of the men on the other side of the bar were arguing. The bartender made a beeline for them. Harp couldn’t hear what he said to them, but they quieted right down.
Gail had told him that the bartender who’d been on duty the night Maggie had been there was named Brian Bateman. He heard one of the patrons say, “Bri, we could use a couple more down here.”
Bri as in Brian? Harp had just taken a sip of his beer when the door to the bar opened, throwing in a shaft of bright sunlight from outside. Like everyone else, he turned and was momentarily blinded.
The man who entered was big and blond.
Harp shot a look at the bartender, who had also turned toward the door. One look at Bri’s expression and he knew that the man who’d just entered was Maggie Thompson’s old boyfriend. As the man walked past to take a freshly vacated seat two stools down, Harp noticed he had tar on his boots and jeans. Brian went over to get the man’s order with the same diffidence he’d shown Harp.
But after he’d placed a beer and a shot in front of the man, he headed to the back. Harp saw the bartender on the phone and had a pretty good idea who he was calling.
Unfortunately, the big, blond man also noticed.
“If you just called the cops on me again...” the man said as he shoved to his feet. He picked up his half-empty beer and hurled it at the bartender’s head.
Harp wished now that he’d brought his stun gun. He slipped off his bar stool, thinking he was going to have to improvise. The boyfriend was much bigger than he’d expected. As the blond man headed for the door, Harp picked up his bar stool and swung it, catching the man in the back.
The man was big and tough. He spun around, looking for a fight. Things would have gotten ugly if the bartender hadn’t leaped over the bar to give the man a tap with the baseball bat he kept behind the bar.
The blond went down like a ton of rocks and was out cold.
“I’m with the sheriff’s department up in Gilt Edge,” Harp said. “I’m assuming that’s who you just called?”
Bri nodded.
“Mind calling them back and telling them it’s covered?”
While the bartender made the call, Harp checked the man’s wallet. His name, according to his Montana driver’s license, was Gary Long, forty-two. The address was one there in Billings. Other than a couple of credit cards, the wallet held a twenty and some ones, along with a pay stub from a roofing company.
“Could I get a couple of you fellas to help me take him out to my rig?” Harp asked.
* * *
FLINT DROVE TO the Stagecoach Saloon as if in a fog. From the moment he’d walked into his house and seen the overturned bookcase, he’d been out of his mind with worry. It was almost at the crucial seventy-two-hours point. After that, a case was considered cold and chances of getting the victim back alive had dropped considerably.
The worry had worn on him night and day until now he felt like a zombie. He wasn’t even sure he was thinking clearly.
Earlier, he’d felt some strange hope that Maggie was okay, but that hope was quickly fading. Had he lost his mind? He’d actually been relieved that Celeste and some old abusive boyfriend of Maggie’s could have taken her? He’d been afraid when he’d heard that Celeste hadn’t been anywhere since returning. All he’d thought about was who was taking care of Maggie, who was feeding her, who was making sure she was warm and dry and not out in the winter storm?
But if this former abusive boyfriend had Maggie, if he was the one she’d come to Gilt Edge to escape from and now the man had her...
He felt sick to his stomach. Worse, he couldn’t be sure that some unknown person hadn’t kidnapped Maggie for fifty thousand dollars. All he knew was that he had to do whatever it took to get her back—even if it meant asking his family for help.
As he entered the bar and café, he felt his heart breaking. He’d prided himself on being able to handle his problems himself, probably because he hated asking for help.
“Any news?” Lillie asked as she ran to him and threw her arms around him.
“Nothing yet.”
As she pulled back, Darby joined them to put an arm around his shoulders. “Would a drink help?”
He was already choked up. Their sympathy was killing him. “It can’t hurt at this point.” They all moved to the bar. Lillie pulled up a stool next to him while Darby went behind the bar to get them something to drink.
“We got a ransom demand,” he said after a moment, his voice breaking.
Darby froze behind the bar. “How much?”
“Fifty thousand dollars.”
Flint saw his siblings exchange a look.
“We’ll raise it. How much time do we have?” Lillie asked.
He shook his head, finding himself close to tears. His family. He couldn’t have loved them more than he did at that moment. “The kidnapper will get back to us. I guess. Mark just got the one letter making the demand.”
Darby swore under his breath. “We need to call Hawk and Cyrus. We’ll have to put up the ranch but it belongs to all of us.”
“I can’t ask you to do that,” Flint said, but neither Lillie nor Darby seemed to be listening.
Lillie was on the phone to their brothers. “They’re both on their way,” she said as she disconnected. “It’s going to be all right,” she said, putting a hand on Flint’s.
He nodded, but in his heart he feared it was already too late for Maggie.
* * *
“WHERE AM I?” Gary Long said twenty minutes later when he regained consciousness inside his house after Harp had gotten the address off the man’s driver’s license. “What the hell’s going on?” he demanded as he found himself duct-taped to a dolly that Harp had found in Long’s garage and wheeled into the kitchen. It hadn’t been easy binding the man with only his one good hand. Getting him out of the pickup, th
ough, had only been a matter of pulling up next to the garage, opening the door and shoving him out in the snow. He’d then rolled him unceremoniously onto the dolly, taped him and stood him up.
“Where is Maggie Thompson?”
“Is that what this is about?” The man snorted and tried to get loose only to find that his ankles were also bound to the dolly. “Why? Have you lost her?”
Harp caught him before he tipped the contraption over and fell face-first to the floor. “You were seen at her house. Tell me about you and Maggie.”
Gary shook his head. “Kiss my rosy red—”
“Look, I can turn you over to the sheriff in Gilt Edge or you can tell me what your connection is to Maggie. Or we can talk about the meth I found in your bedroom.”
The man swore. “If Maggie says I did anything to her, she’s a liar.”
“So you two dated?” he asked.
Gary laughed. “Dated? Is that what she told you?” He shook his head. “We shacked up for a while. That’s all it was.”
“Then why were you trying to get her back?”
A muscle jumped in the man’s jaw. He struggled to get loose before finally giving up. “What’s it to you, anyway?”
“I’m a sheriff’s deputy. You were seen with her at Bud’s and then later going into her house in Gilt Edge.”
“Oh yeah? So what? Anyway, it wasn’t her house. It was some cowboy she was moving in with.”
“She told you that?”
“Maybe I figured out a few things on my own.”
“So you’ve been following her.”
Gary said nothing. “What happened when she saw you at her boyfriend’s house?” Harp asked.
“What do you think happened?”
“I think you hurt her.”
Gary shook his head as he looked away. “Is that what she told you?”
That was the second time he’d said something to that effect. Harp was beginning to wonder if they had the wrong man. When he’d gotten Gary out to his pickup, he’d taken the man’s key, expecting it to go with a brown van.
