BIG SKY SECRETS 01: Final Exposure (16 page)

What she needed was time.

She needed to figure a way out of this.

God willing, she’d have an opportunity to enjoy her new life here, and to grow old and gray and content, with dozens of grandchildren at her feet.
Please, God, send someone to help me.

“You know what I’m after,” Patrick said with an eerie smile. “You must have known from the very first moment that you were wrong to take those
photos. Is that why you disappeared so fast? You knew you’d better run?”

He watched her for a moment, his head tilted, as if honestly amused by and curious about her lack of compliance. Then he glanced around and grabbed a baseball bat from several displayed in an old cream can.

“You sell everything in this store, don’t you,” he marveled. In one fluid motion he rose, hefted the bat, then spun around and swung the bat against the corner of the bench she was sitting on, just inches away, shattering the bat. “A little misjudgment and that could’ve been your knee, sweet Erin. My guess is that you’d never walk on it again. Not that it’ll be an issue, anyway, should you choose to be stubborn.”

He leaned over and casually pulled another bat from the display. He studied it with admiration, stroking its smoothly polished surface. “So beautiful. Just. Like. You.”

Again he coiled into a powerful batter’s stance, but this time he swung full force at the wall of glass-fronted coolers. The glass exploded, sending shards of lethal missiles across the room.

She flinched as the glass splinters sliced into her upper arm and cheek, sending blood flowing hot and thick down her arm and neck.

“The lights were all off at the house next door when I arrived, so there’s no one around to hear you if you scream, sweetheart. No one is going to save you.”

Patrick pulled up a chair, spun it and sat on it backward, his arms folded across the top. “I’m impatient, Erin. I hate to desecrate a lovely face like yours. But I’ll do whatever it takes, because I need your camera, the memory card and every hard copy you have of those photos you took at the park. Understand?”

She surreptitiously twisted her hands, trying to gain slack in the tight cord binding them.
Keep him talking. Keep him distracted—anything to gain more time.

“W-was it you who broke into the store?” The cord slipped a few millimeters.

He sighed. “And your cottage, of course. Once I got your laptop, I discovered the photos hadn’t been uploaded, so it was useless. And I couldn’t find your camera—until I saw you take it out of the trunk of your car the day you went sledding. You’ve made this very difficult.”

“I would’ve given them to you if you’d asked.” She struggled to keep herself still and her expression neutral while fighting the cord. Again, it loosened, just a hair. Blood rushed back into her fingers.

Looming over her, he uttered a harsh curse. “Then do it.”

“I will—when I get the prints and memory card back.” She tried to quell the shaking of her voice. “Y-you can have it all. I’ll hand the sealed envelope to you without even opening it.”

He stalked to the front of the store and then came back and towered over her, his fists clenched. “What do you mean, when you get it back?”

“I dropped the card in a mailer and sent it off at the drugstore. It went out to someplace in California on Monday and will take at least seven days to come back. But it’s cheaper that way and—”

“Monday?” he roared. The veins bulged at his temples and he swore again. His eyes narrowed. “But I hardly need you to go get them now that I know where they’ll be, and when.”

“The drugstore owners are old friends of my family. They’ll be suspicious if anyone else tries to pick up a packet with my name.”

His laugh was pure evil. “Oh, please. In this Podunk town? I’ll have no trouble with a little after-hours pickup—
without
their help.”

“But if anything happens to me, they’ll remember the photos. They’ll be eager to tell the police, hoping there’ll be clues among the photos I took. So the police will intercept the package for sure.”

He pulled back a fist and slammed it into the side of her face. Pain exploded through her head in a dizzying explosion of stars. “Someone smart as you oughta know when to keep her pretty mouth shut. You know what? Maybe you and me will go for a little drive. Far as everyone knows, you’ll be off visiting a sick uncle. I’ll even put a note in the store
window to tell them—and once I collect my photos it won’t matter
what
anyone finds.”

He grabbed her elbow and jerked her to her feet. “Let’s go.”

If she went through that door, she knew it would be over. There’d be no more chances. She glanced wildly back and forth, searching for an escape route. A weapon. If only she could free her hands.

“Ohh,” she moaned, letting her knees buckle and her body fall like dead weight to the floor. Caught off balance, Patrick stumbled into a stacked display of soda 24-packs and fell sideways when the display gave way.

He cursed and awkwardly lurched to his feet—close enough that she could coil and slam her hard-soled shoes into the back of his knees with every ounce of strength she possessed.

He fell against the broken glass of the cooler and screamed. “You’re
dead,
sister! You hear me?”

Again she wrenched her wrists against her bonds until the cord cut deep into her flesh—but this time, she gained enough slack to free her hands.

Praying he couldn’t see her well enough in the shadows on the floor, she grabbed a five-pound bag of ice-cream salt from a bottom shelf near her head and ripped a wide hole in the plastic.

From the corner of her eye she saw a flash of movement outside the window. Someone heading
for the back door.
Jack?
Or did Patrick have an accomplice?
Let it be Jack, Lord. Please, let it be Jack.

Patrick staggered back to her, and even in the dim light she could see the blood dripping from his hands and the gash on his cheek.
“Get up!”

“I…I can’t—my shoulder!” She scrambled sideways, moaning. “Please, loosen the rope. It hurts so much!”

“I said, get up!” Patrick screamed, brandishing a small revolver that he’d pulled from his waistband. “Now!”

She saw the faintest crack of light appear through the back door.
Now or never.

She jumped to her feet and spun around, throwing the salt into Patrick’s face. He reeled back, choking and coughing and crying out, clawing at the wound on his face—

And then a massive white form hurtled through the store and launched itself at his back, snarling and snapping, slamming him to the ground.
Charlie?

The gun exploded as it flew out of Patrick’s hand, filling the air with the hot, pungent scent of cordite.

In an instant Jack was there, sweeping up the gun in one hand and training it on Patrick’s chest as he reached for the dog’s collar with his other hand.

Charlie fought the grip on his collar, then reluctantly backed away, his body rigid and eyes pinned on Patrick as if begging for a chance to attack again.

Blood pooled beneath Patrick’s leg. His eyes shifted wildly between the dog and the gun as he clutched at his thigh, writhing in pain.

“Can you hear that? Help is on the way,” she said softly, listening to the sound of approaching sirens. She moved over to take hold of Charlie’s collar. “You’re lucky, Patrick, because this dog would really like to tear you apart, and I just hate to deprive him of such pleasure.”

Patrick scrabbled away from Charlie until his back hit the wall. “You wouldn’t…you wouldn’t let him.”

“Of course not. I think the courts will have a heyday deciding on the future you deserve.”

“You got nothing on me.”

“Sounds like murder and attempted murder to me,” Jack said mildly. “Just for starters.” He glanced briefly at Erin, then focused on Patrick. “Are you all right?”

She looked up at him, and her heart swelled with emotion until it felt too big for her chest. “I was so afraid you were one of his friends…”

“And I have never prayed so hard in my life.”

Swirling lights flooded through the front windows of the store as patrol cars pulled up outside. “Well, it sure must’ve worked, because I think the cavalry has just arrived.”

By the time the sheriff and his deputies completed their paperwork and an ambulance had taken Patrick
away, it was nearly two in the morning. Erin still felt as if she was buzzing on an overload of adrenaline.

“I just can’t believe it’s over,” she whispered, leaning against Jack’s chest as they sat on the porch swing. Charlie had crawled into her lap and was now draped across both of them, snoring softly. “This sort of thing happens in the movies, not in real life.”

“I still think you should’ve let the EMTs take you to the hospital so you could be checked out.”

“I’m fine—just a few cuts and bruises.”

“Your shoulder might not be so fine.”

“Right now, I’m just sort of numb all over. I knew he planned to kill me, and when I thought I saw you coming, I was terrified that you might walk through the door and he’d shoot you, as well.”

“And he would have if you hadn’t distracted him.” Jack tucked her closer into his embrace and kissed her cheek. Charlie whined in his sleep, his paws pedaling briefly as if he, too, was reliving the terrifying evening. “It’s sort of ironic that Patrick is the only one who was shot and that he did it to himself.”

She ruffled Charlie’s fur. “I guess the three of us make a good team.”

“But God was right with us, too.”

Surprised, she looked up at him. “I thought you two weren’t on speaking terms.”

Jack’s mouth tipped into a wry grin. “I’m sure God was still trying to speak to me. It was me who
was holding the grudge. After Janie’s death—” he swallowed “—I had a hard time. But I’ve never felt God’s presence more than I did tonight. It was as if He was with me every step of the way. I was just so afraid I was going to lose you.”

“I was praying at the same time, believe me.” She threaded her fingers through his. “For your safety and for Patrick to make some kind of error that would stop him before it was too late.”

Jack stroked the dog’s fluffy white fur. “Charlie helped with that.”

“So I had two heroes tonight,” she teased.

“I’m just glad Max fell asleep before Isabelle even arrived. He’ll never even have to know what happened.”

“Is he still sleeping?”

“When I last checked, he was, and Isabelle was snoozing on the couch under an afghan or two. I think I’ll just let her stay there till morning so she can get a good night’s rest.”

Erin looked up at the brilliant stars strewn across the black velvet sky. “How is your investigation coming along?”

“I’ve found some possible links to offshore accounts that Ted might have set up, but also found out that he was seen in Copper Cliff a few weeks before he died. I’d guess he came up here to go into hiding and filter some of the money into the local
banks under false identities, then he panicked. Who knows what he was thinking, but I guess we’ll never know. I contacted the sheriff up here and the investigators back in Texas, and they’ll be taking over the investigation from here on.”

“Shouldn’t they have handled it from the beginning?”

“They have—to a degree. But this isn’t their only case, and I just couldn’t sit back and do nothing, not when Ted managed to nearly destroy everything I’d ever worked for. I knew there’d always be higher-profile cases taking manpower away from this one.” Jack shook his head slowly. “None of the authorities even knew he was here in Montana. At least now I can go back and start to clear the name of my company.”

Tonight she’d felt terror, and shock, and utter relief. And now a sense of sadness and loss crept around her heart. She tried for a casual smile and hoped he believed it. “So you’ll be able to go back to Texas, then. That’s wonderful.”

He studied her face for a long moment. “I guess so.”

She felt a corner of her heart start to fracture at hearing those words spoken aloud.

He had to leave, and she couldn’t go—but then, he hadn’t asked her to, either. Whatever she might have imagined about the possibilities God could have in store for her with this wonderful, incredibly desirable man, had only been a dream.

Why had God brought something so beautiful into her life, only to take it away?

Erin awoke at six and went to the store to begin cleaning up the mess. Broken glass littered the floor. Merchandise displays had been overturned.

But it was the blood that brought back the horror of the night in vivid relief.

Suddenly feeling faint, she moved to the front door and opened it wide to the crisp, early morning mountain air.

And there was Jack’s SUV parked in front of the rental house, like always. Only, all of its doors and the hatchback were open; suitcases and boxes were stacked nearby.

Oh, no.
Her heart contracted painfully, leaving a huge, empty place in her chest.

Was he just going to leave the keys on the table and drive away without even a farewell? How had she been so terribly wrong about him, about them both?

Maybe he’d seen the emotion in her face last night and was trying to avoid a messy, emotional confrontation—the embarrassment of a crying, clinging woman trying to hold on to a man who only wanted to leave.

Well, that would never be her.

She leaned a shoulder against the door frame, taking in the progress he’d already made, then turned,
carefully relocked the front door and made sure the sign in the window said Closed.

With all of the damage in the store, it might be wise to make a trip to her main supplier up in Billings, because the regular delivery truck wouldn’t be coming through this area for almost a week.

And staying around to exchange stilted goodbyes didn’t sound like a good idea at all.

J
ack eased his SUV onto the two-lane highway leading to Cody. There were no straight routes from Lost Falls to Dallas.

There were more than twelve hundred miles to go.