to keep his head down. Dancing with a pretty young local woman with emerald-green eyes wasn’t just risky business. It could get him killed.
And yet, dancing with Laney Cavanaugh was all he could think about as he checked his messages at his office before getting ready to head to Old Town.
He told himself he was just doing his job by going to the party. That he wouldn’t have accepted the party invitation if it hadn’t been for Maddie Cavanaugh’s and Bo Evans’s engagement. He hadn’t been able to forget the fear he’d seen in Maddie’s eyes that day outside his office. Nor could he shake the instant dislike he’d felt for Bo Evans. The kid was trouble. Nick had seen enough young men like Bo to spot his kind a mile away.
And what would just one dance hurt?
Nick looked up at the sound of a man clearing his throat.
“I—I—I was attacked.”
The man standing in his doorway was average height, average build, average in most every way. He looked vaguely familiar.
“I’m the reporter for the Milk River Examiner. I tried to do a story on you when you came to town,” the man said as if seeing Nick attempting to place him.
“Right.”
“Glen Whitaker,” the man said. He’d looked sheepish when Nick had first looked up, but now he appeared a little aggravated at not being remembered. Or maybe it was because Nick had declined to be interviewed.
“You say you were attacked?” Nick asked. The man didn’t appear to be in pain. Nor did his clothing suggest an attack. He wore dark slacks, a white shirt, loafers. He obviously was a transplant from somewhere else. His hair was slicked back in an old-fashioned cut although he appeared to be in his thirties. Hard to tell age with a man like that.
“The attack happened a month ago, right before you were hired,” Glen Whitaker said, glancing around as if he wanted to make sure no one was listening. There wasn’t anyone in the office and the dispatcher’s desk was far enough away she couldn’t have heard. Nor did she seem even interested in what the reporter was doing here.
“Sit down,” Nick said as Glen drew up a chair, pulling it close to the deputy’s desk. “You say it happened before I was hired. Did you report it?”
“No.” Glen looked nervous. “I wasn’t sure.”
“You weren’t sure you were attacked?” Nick was beginning to wonder about this guy.
“You see, I was told that I’d been down at Old Town. It’s a near ghost town south of here by the Missouri Breaks.”
Nick nodded. “I’ve been there.”
“Anyway, about a month ago I woke up beside the road, my car smashed into a fence post, miles from everything. I couldn’t remember anything. I later found out that I was in Old Town Whitehorse. I had two large bumps on my head that I thought must have caused the memory loss.”
“Were you drinking?” Nick had to ask.
“I don’t drink. Several people saw me leave the Whitehorse Community Center and can attest to the fact that I hadn’t had a thing to drink. That was the night before. I woke up beside the road the next morning feeling like I’d been run over.” Glen leaned in closer. “When I got home I found bruises all over my body as if I’d been beaten.”
Nick had been thinking the man was a nutcase. But his story was a little too much like the others Nick had been hearing. Also, the attack had been on a Saturday night.
“Would you say the bruises indicated you might have been kicked? Or beaten with a weapon of some sort?” Nick asked.
Glen Whitaker sat back, relief drowning his features. “You believe me then?”
“There have been some other reports of this sort of thing.”
“I was afraid to come in.” Glen looked away as if too upset to go on. “I was afraid you’d think I was crazy.”
Nick pulled out a report. “When exactly did this happen?”
Glen stood abruptly. “I don’t want to file a complaint.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want this all over town. That’s why I came to you. You don’t know anyone. I just needed to tell someone.”
“But don’t you want your attack on record?”
The reporter wagged his head. “And have it end up in the newspaper? No way.” He started backing toward the door.
“Okay,” Nick said putting the form away. “I won’t make out a report. But tell me when it happened. There appears to be a series of these attacks. Yours might have been the first.”
“Saturday, four weeks ago, when that Bailey woman went missing. I can’t remember the exact date.”
Nick had heard about the Bailey woman, that she’d been discovered down in the Breaks and everything that had happened because of it.
“You have any idea who’s responsible for these attacks?” Glen asked.
“Not yet, but your information might prove critical to the investigation.” Nick checked his calendar. “From what I can tell, yours was the first attack.”
“No kidding.” Clearly, he was glad he wasn’t the only one. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t be much help. I still can’t remember anything about those lost twenty-four hours.” He paused. “There was one thing though.” He looked sheepish again. “It’s probably nothing.”
Nick smiled to himself. He’d been a cop long enough to know that whenever anyone said “it’s probably nothing,” it was usually something.
“I smelled something on my clothes afterwards,” he said, flushing a little. “I think it might have been perfume.”
Nick could see how uncomfortable this admission made the reporter. “Do you have a woman friend?”
Glen shook his head. “I like women, don’t get me wrong.”
“Of course. But you can’t recall being around a woman that day.”
“I can’t recall anything, that’s the problem.”
“Okay, this perfume. You recognize the scent?”
Another shake of his head.
“What was it like?”
“Some flower I think.”
That narrowed it down. “A flower you’d recall if you smelled it again?”
“It was an old flower, you know the kind—” he hesitated “—that older women wear.”
Nick nodded. “Okay, that could help.” He couldn’t imagine how, since Glen Whitaker had no idea who he’d come in contact with before he’d woken up beside a road in the middle of nowhere.
