Well, from then on you knew that he could be waiting for you in any dark corner—or dark alley.
For a while, she’d thought her badge and gun were like a powerful shield that would protect her. She’d let herself believe that she’d conquered her fears, that nothing could ever hurt her again as long as Rourke was by her side. He’d made her feel powerful and immortal, when in truth, she was that little girl cowering in the corner of her bed as the boogeyman loomed over her.
Laura let out a sob as she searched the dark recesses of the garage, then hurriedly opened her door and fled to the elevator. She punched the up button, hammering at it, before she dared look behind her. There were street traffic sounds beyond the garage, but no closer, more ominous sounds of footfalls coming from the dark shadowed corners of the garage—at least none she could hear over the pounding of her heart.
She turned back to the elevator, leaning on the button again. She heard the elevator car groan from somewhere inside the building. Her every instinct told her to take the stairs. Now! But with her leg...
The elevator opened noisily, the yawning doors revealing no one inside. She practically threw herself in, hit the ninth-floor button and punched Close a half dozen times before the doors slowly closed.
The breath she’d been holding rushed from her. Tears burned her cheeks. She leaned against the elevator wall for support. She wasn’t better.
WITH NO TIME to spare, Rourke had flown into the Gallatin Valley near Bozeman, Montana, the next morning, rented an SUV and driven to Big Timber, following a map he’d printed out on the internet. Beartooth proved to be another twenty miles on two-lane blacktop toward snowcapped peaks, which, according to a sign beside the road, were the Crazy Mountains.
The town, if you could call it that, came as a shock even though he’d done a little research on it while waiting for his flight. Beartooth was what was left of a once-thriving mining town back in the late 1890s. All that had survived, other than some old stone buildings, was a café, post office and bar. Apparently, there had been a general store across from the café, but it had burned down last spring.
Thanks to the internet, he’d found a cabin to rent on the mountainside across the road from the café. He could see the cabin through the trees as he pulled into a spot in front of the café. He’d thought about stopping by the cabin first, but he was too anxious to see Caligrace Westfield.
The Branding Iron Café was easy to find, given how few businesses were left in Beartooth. As he climbed out of the SUV, he tried not to get his hopes up. The P.I. had told him that Caligrace Westfield had changed jobs and residences often over the past ten years. For all Rourke knew, she might have already moved on.
A bell tinkled over the door as he stepped into the café and was hit with the combined smells of cinnamon, bacon and coffee. He breathed in, his stomach growling, reminding him that he hadn’t had much to eat. He’d been too anxious. Just as he was now. Anxious and nervous at the thought of finally seeing the woman face-to-face.
He took in his surroundings quickly. A variety of brightly colored quilts hung on the café’s walls. He’d expected a more Western interior, given where the town was located—in the heart of ranching and farming communities.
There were only a half dozen tables arranged at the front of the café, with four booths along one side and a counter back by the kitchen with a half dozen stools. One large table at the front was full of ranchers he took for regulars.
“Sit wherever you like,” a young woman called over her shoulder without looking in his direction.
He chose a table at the front of the café that gave him a view of the whole place. He could even see into the kitchen via the pass-through on the other side of the counter. A thin, pale man—in his fifties, he guessed—was busy cooking to the distant drone of a song on the radio.
The waitress who’d told him to seat himself stood at the pass-through, her back to him. Her long, curly dark hair was pulled into a knot of sorts at the nape of her neck. Loose strands hung at her temples.
Rourke waited impatiently for the woman to turn around, thinking about the latest information from the P.I. he’d hired. Edwin Sharp, a seasoned private investigator who used to be a cop, was in his sixties. Rourke had liked him the first time he’d met him. He needed someone he trusted, and since he couldn’t do his own digging without making his situation with the marshals’ office worse, he’d hired the man.
“I found something,” Edwin had said cryptically when he’d called on Rourke’s journey to Beartooth. “Your...mystery woman didn’t exist until her seventeenth birthday, when she used a fake birth certificate to get her driver’s license and a social-security card.”
“How do you know the birth certificate is fake?”
“She wasn’t born at the hospital on the certificate because it doesn’t exist—never has.”
“Is anything on the birth certificate real?”
“Doubtful.”
“What about the address?”
“Well, that’s where it gets interesting. The address is Westfield Manor.”
Rourke frowned. “An old folks’ home?”
The P.I. laughed. “I have no idea. But apparently, it is in Flat Rock, Montana, about four hours north of Beartooth, where she is now living.”
“How soon can you get to Flat Rock?”
“I would have to fly.” Edwin had told him he didn’t like flying and charged extra if he had to.
“Fly. Call me when you know something.”
Now Rourke waited, willing the woman in the café to turn so he could see her face. She looked about the right height. Maybe slimmer than he’d guessed Caligrace Westfield would be and in better shape. But then again, he was going by a police shot at a crime scene and that one face in the crowd.
She finally turned.
He caught his breath as he got his first good look at the woman who had haunted him for weeks.
* * *
FOR CALIGRACE—“CALLIE”—Westfield, it was just another day slinging hash at the Branding Iron Café in Beartooth. She moved through the restaurant with plates of food and pots of coffee. After a year here, she knew most everyone’s story.
This morning the information came as it always did: in short psychic bursts. The young ranch hand at the first table was hungover and worried he might lose his job. The young mother who’d asked for a high chair was concerned because her husband didn’t spend much time with her and the baby anymore. The old rancher was anxiously awaiting the results of his wife’s biopsy.
Callie had experienced this phenomenon on some level from as far back as she could remember. Since she didn’t want to know any of it, she thought of the constant influx of information as white noise. She’d learned the hard way that she couldn’t take on everyone’s troubles, so she tried to tune it out as best she could. That should have made it easier to live with, but it often didn’t.
The café wasn’t particularly
