it last time?” Chance asked, half joking.
“When Dixie was three, it was a hundred dollars. Then a hundred thousand in high school. Five hundred grand in college. I figured Dixie was too smart to ever ask for a million, but damned if she didn’t.”
Chance couldn’t believe this. “Have you contacted the police? The FBI? Shouldn’t someone be looking for her?”
“There’s something you have to understand about Dixie. The last time she had herself kidnapped in college, I had cut off her money over a little dispute between us. The FBI got involved. It was ugly. She was dating some loser…” He drained his drink and signaled the bartender for another.
Chance motioned that he was fine. “Loser?” he repeated, remembering when Bonner had called him the same thing. It was about the time he’d started dating Dixie’s older sister Rebecca. Chance supposed Bonner would still consider him just that, a loser. So why come all this way to hire him?
Rubbing a hand over his face, Chance asked, “So you’re saying that Dixie hasn’t really been kidnapped. You’re sure about that?”
“I can’t be sure of anything with Dixie.” Bonner tipped up his glass and swallowed. “That’s why I want you to find her. I trust you more than I do the police or the FBI, and you can do it with more discretion.”
Chance shook his head. “For starters, I don’t have the resources of either of those agencies and I’m not working right now. I’m taking the holidays off.”
Bonner nodded. “Heard about you getting shot.” He smiled at Chance’s reaction. “I’ve kept my eye on you over the years.”
Nothing could have surprised Chance more, but he did his best to hide it. “Then you know that I’m not taking any cases right now.”
“I know you almost got killed, but that the guy who shot you is dead and won’t be hurting anyone else thanks to you,” Bonner said.
“Don’t try to make killing a man a virtue, all right?”
“You had no other choice,” Bonner said. “I saw the police report. Also, I know that your shoulder is as good as new.” He smiled again, a twinkle in his eye. “Money talks…”
Chance swore under his breath. Bonner hadn’t changed a bit. He believed he could buy anything—and most of the time he could. Bonner’s was a famous Texas story. Raised on a chicken-scratch farm, poor as a church mouse, Beauregard Bonner had become filthy rich overnight when oil had been discovered on the place his old man had left him.
Ever since, Bonner had used his money to control as many people as possible. And vice versa if what he was saying about his youngest daughter was true.
“Go to the authorities,” Chance said irritably. “You’ve come to the wrong man for this one.”
“I can’t,” Bonner said, looking down into his drink again. “They wouldn’t take it seriously. Why should they, given that she’s pulled this stunt before and there is no evidence that she’s been abducted?”
“What about the ransom demand and the fact that she’s missing? There was a ransom demand, right?”
“Just a male voice over the phone demanding a million dollars before I even knew she was missing,” Bonner said. “I thought it was a joke. The call came from a pay phone in Billings, Montana.”
Chance studied the older man for a long moment. “What is it you aren’t telling me?”
Bonner sighed. “Just that I need her found as quietly as possible. I’m involved in some deals right now that are sensitive, which I’m sure is why she’s doing this now.”
Chance stared at the man. “You’re telling me your business deal is more important than your daughter?”
“Don’t be an ass, of course not,” Bonner snapped. “Don’t you think I pulled a few strings to find out what I could? All the recent charges on Dixie’s credit cards have what they say is her signature. From the pattern of use it would appear that she’s up to her old tricks.”
Chance groaned. “She’s kidnapped herself?” Again. Why did she have to pick Montana this time, though? “Why don’t you just give her the million? Hell, she’s going to inherit a lot more than that someday anyway, right?”
Bonner looked over at him and shook his head. “She’d just give it all away. To save some small country somewhere. Or a bunch of damned whales. Or maybe free some political prisoners. She’s like my brother Carl. I swear it’s almost as if they feel guilty that we have money and want to give it all away.”
“Generosity, yeah, that’s a real bad trait. No wonder you’re so worried.”
Bonner ignored the jab. “You don’t know Dixie.”
No, he didn’t. Or at least he hadn’t since she was twelve. Nor was he planning to get to know the grown-up version.
He pushed away his beer and stood, Beauregard the dog getting quickly to his feet—no doubt remembering the promise of a treat once they got to the cabin. “Sorry, but you’ll have to get someone else. When you came in, I was just closing up my office for the rest of the holidays and going to my cabin.”
“The one on the lake,” Bonner said without looking at him.
Chance tried to tamp down his annoyance. Clearly Bonner had been doing more than just keeping track of him all these years. Just how much had he dug up on him? Chance hated to think.
“I know about the cabin you built there,” Bonner said, his gaze on his drink, his voice calm, but a muscle flexed in his jaw belying his composure. “I also know you need money.” He turned then to look at Chance. “For your medical bills. And your daughter’s.”
Chance felt all the air rush out of him. He picked up the beer he’d pushed away and took a drink to give himself time to get his temper under control.
It didn’t work. “You wouldn’t really consider using my daughter to get me to do what you want, would you?” he asked through gritted teeth.
Bonner met his gaze, but something softened in his expression. “Dixie is a hellion and probably payback for what a bastard I’ve been all of my life, but she’s my daughter, Chance. My flesh and blood, and I’m scared that this time she really is in trouble.”
Chapter Two
Chance drove to his cabin, Beauregard sitting next to him on the pickup’s bench seat, panting and drooling as he stared expectantly out at the blizzard.
On the seat between him and the dog was the manila envelope Beauregard Bonner had forced on him. Chance hadn’t opened it, had barely touched it—still didn’t want to.
Snow whirled through the air, blinding and hypnotic, the flakes growing larger and thicker as the storm settled in. He drove the road along the edge of the lake, getting only glimpses of the row of summer cabins boarded up for the season until he came to the narrow private road that led to his cabin.
His cabin was at the end of the road. He shifted into four-wheel drive, bucking the snow that had already filled the
