stepped to the bed, picked up the rag doll. Honey. That’s what Chrissy had called it from the day he’d given it to her. He brought the doll to his face, smelled it as if he thought Chrissy’s baby-girl scent would still be in the worn fabric. But of course, it wasn’t.
He put Honey back where she belonged—between the teddy bears—and tried to picture his precious daughter in this room, but it was too heartbreaking.
“Mr. VanHorn?”
He turned from the room, practically fleeing down the hall to where Red stood, giving orders on the phone to whoever was doing the cleanup.
“I found some blood,” Mason said the moment Red got off the phone.
The ranch manager nodded. “There’s some on the bathroom floor and the windowsill, too. One of them must have gotten injured breaking in.”
What had happened here last night? “Who did you have watching the wells behind the ranch house?” Mason asked.
“One of my best men. Brandon McCall.”
Mason couldn’t speak. He started shaking so hard he thought he was having a seizure. Brandon McCall was working security on his ranch? A McCall on VanHorn soil? “Fire him immediately!”
“He’s one of my best men,” Red said, staring at him in stunned surprise.
“He’s a McCall.” It had never dawned on Mason to tell Red never to hire a McCall. But more to the point, what the hell would a McCall be doing working on this ranch? Only one explanation presented itself. “No. Don’t fire him. Bring him to me. Now!”
He stormed back down the hall to the bathroom, stooping to pick up the iron cowgirl doorstop on the floor. As he lifted it, he saw the dried blood. “Get me McCall,” he yelled back at Red, feeling as if he still might have that seizure.
HEAD ACHING, Brandon set out to find the woman vandal. He started in Antelope Flats, cruising down Main Street, keeping his eye out for her. Antelope Flats was a tiny western town in the corner of southeastern Montana. Tiny and isolated, just the way he liked it.
He’d been born here and lived his whole life on the family ranch north of town. This was his stomping grounds and he knew this part of the country better than anyone. If the woman was still around, he’d find her.
Not that he expected to see her walking down the street. She was much too smart for that. But he thought he might see her car. He’d picked up an accent last night that he couldn’t place, but one thing was clear: she wasn’t from around here. That meant she was driving either a car with out-of-state plates or a rental car.
There were a few vehicles in front of his sister-in-law’s Longhorn Café, the only café in town. But he recognized all of them. Most were pickups, since Antelope Flats was born a ranching town. A few of the trucks were from the coal mine down the road, tall antennae with red flags on top so they could be seen in the open-pit mines.
Antelope Flats had only one motel on the edge of town, the Lariat. He drove out there, but wasn’t surprised to see that the parking lot was empty. Anyone who had stayed here last night was already gone.
He found Leticia Arnold in the apartment at the back of the office making what smelled like corncakes.
She saw him and motioned for him to come into the kitchen. “Want some pancakes?”
“No, thanks.” Leticia was his sister Dusty’s best friend. After high school graduation, while Dusty had opted to stay and work the ranch, Leticia had taken over running the motel so her elderly parents could move to Arizona. Leticia had been a late-in-life baby, the Arnolds’ only child.
“I’m looking for a woman,” he said, pulling up a chair as she sat down in front of a tall stack of corn-cakes. Leticia was thin as a stick with a wide toothy smile and all cowgirl.
She grinned up at him. “Do you know how long I’ve waited for you to say that?”
He laughed. He liked Leticia’s sense of humor. “I’m too old for you.”
“Shouldn’t I be the judge of that?”
He reached over and took a bite of her pancakes.
“Wow, you’re a pretty good cook. Maybe I’ll reconsider,” he joked.
“You wish. You’re right, you’re too old for me,” she said, trying to sound disappointed.
“You probably have some rodeo cowboy you’ve got your sights on anyway,” he said.
She looked surprised. “Did Dusty tell you that?”
He laughed and shook his head. His sister Dusty never told him anything, but he knew that the two friends had been hitting every rodeo within driving distance and he doubted they were going there for the fried bread.
He described the woman he’d seen last night as Leticia ate her pancakes and then got up to cook a few more.
“She didn’t stay here, but there are tons of motels down in Sheridan you could try. What happened to your head?”
“I thought I was smarter than I was.”
She laughed. “I could have told you that and saved you a lot of pain.” She put the last batch of corncakes onto a plate. “So this woman made a lasting impression on you and yet you don’t know where to find her?” She laughed. “A bad-boy McCall chasing a woman? She must really be something.”
If you considered a scar on the back of his head a lasting impression. “Let’s just say I’m looking forward to seeing her again.”
“Then you’re going to need your strength,” she said, sliding the plate of pancakes over to him. “Dusty told me that you had a woman in your life.”
“Did she now,” he said, seeing that Leticia was just dying to call his sister and tell her he’d been by asking about a woman. No way around that. Let Dusty think she was right and that he’d fallen in love. Better than the truth.
SHERIFF CASH MCCALL made a few calls to Sheridan about the private investigator. He’d just hung up when he got a call from the Wyoming Highway Patrol.
“We’ve got a body just over the state line a few feet,” the patrolman said. “Looks like she’s yours since she’s in Montana. Her car’s parked along the road. Appears to have fallen down the embankment. Ended up at the edge of the river in the rocks.”
“Have you called the coroner yet?” Cash asked.
“Raymond’s on his way. He said he would stay at the scene and wait for you. We’ve got a semi overturned in the southbound lane between here and Gillette.”
“Go ahead and respond. I’m on my way. You ID the body?” Cash asked. He hoped it wasn’t a local. This was the part of his job he hated. Before the day was out, he could be banging on a door somewhere in the county to inform a relative that their loved one was dead. He also hoped it wasn’t the missing Lenore Johnson.
“A woman. I’d say about sixty. The car is locked, keys in the ignition. Her purse is inside along with
