Night Thunder (8 page)

They both eyed her for a moment as they passed by, but neither spoke and then they disappeared inside the Tumbleweed.

As Josy entered her Blazer and slammed the door, Ty Barclay’s cruiser suddenly roared to life and he took off, the car squealing out of the parking lot and onto the road with a blaring screech of tires.

At this rate he’ll definitely beat me back to the Pine
Hills,
she thought, wondering vaguely why he’d been watching the two men. And why he’d taken off like that, like a bat out of hell. Not that it mattered. Nothing about Sheriff Ty Barclay mattered.

Making contact with Ricky did matter. And so did meeting Ada Scott. With any luck, she thought, driving home through the inky night, and doing her best to put Ty Barclay out of her mind, tomorrow she would do both.

Chapter 6

“LET HER GO, VERNON! OPEN THE DOOR!” From inside the ranch house twenty miles from the nearest highway, Ty Barclay heard Sue Ann Watkins screaming. And he heard her husband bellowing, his voice a drunken roar.

“Go to hell, Sheriff!”

“Open the door, Vernon,” Ty yelled back. “Now!”

There was the slamming thump of something hitting a wall, and Ty hoped to hell it wasn’t Sue Ann. The siren of the state police cruiser shrieked down the highway in response to his call for backup, but Ty wasn’t about to wait for them as he heard another high-pitched scream from Sue Ann.

He backed up a few feet, then placed a well-aimed kick that sent the door crashing in. He went in fast, his revolver trained and ready.

“Shoot me, go ahead, get it over with!” Vernon shouted, holding a kitchen chair frozen over his head, caught in the act of hurling it. He was a huge man, big as a linebacker, for all that he was past fifty. Ty’s swift gaze took in Sue Ann cowering, white-faced and distraught, in the corner under the staircase, watching her husband through red-rimmed terrified eyes. But she didn’t appear to be hurt, Ty noted as he centered all of his attention on the giant drunken rancher facing him.

“Put down the chair, Vernon. I’m not aiming to shoot anyone.”

“I want you to put me out of my misery, damn it!” Vernon threw the chair against a wall and wheeled toward Ty, his face contorted with fury. His voice rose to an even more belligerent, thundering roar. “Shoot me, damn it, Barclay. I’ve lost everything anyway—damn rustlers. Even my wife, I know she’s been sneaking around behind my back, I know it!”

“No, I never did!” Sue Ann shrieked. Her pretty, middle-aged face was wracked with grief and sobs shook her voice. Ty knew they’d been married for thirty years— he’d been invited last summer to their anniversary party.

“Vernon, you’re drunk, you’re crazy,” Sue Ann cried. “Stop now before things get worse,” she pleaded. “Sheriff, he just started throwing things, I’ve never seen him like this—”

“Freeze, Vernon. Don’t move. No one wants to hurt you. We’ll get this all straightened out—”

“The hell we will. I’m losing my ranch and my wife— you can’t straighten that out, no one can!” Suddenly Vernon Watkins charged toward Ty like a maddened bull, howling with an anguished rage that shook the rafters of the house.

Ty waited until he was almost upon him before sidestepping deftly, and then, with a move as swift as lightning, he slammed the barrel of his gun down on the back of Vernon’s neck and the man hit the floor like a sack of cement. Ten seconds later, it was all over.

Ty had him pinned and cuffed on the floor before Vernon could even catch his breath, and then two state police officers burst into the room.

They pulled up short, staring at the huge rancher sobbing brokenly on the ground, at the woman weeping in the corner, her hands covering her face.

“Everything’s under control,” Ty told a grim-faced Hank Webber as the trooper came over and helped him pull Vernon to his feet. Ty read him his rights, then glanced over at Sue Ann.

“Take him outside and search him. I’ll get her statement.”

The troopers, Webber and Murdock, escorted the prisoner out of the house as Ty knelt beside the woman.

“You hurt, Sue Ann?”

“No . . . he never t-touched me, Sheriff.” Her voice quavered as Ty helped her up, steadying her as she swayed a little.

“Vernon wouldn’t ever hurt me. But he broke a bunch of stuff . . . a bowl that was my mama’s . . . and he busted up some dishes and threw a lamp through the bedroom window. He ripped out the phone cord.” Her swollen eyes were filled with tears, and she wiped at them with thin, work-reddened hands.

“Sheriff, you know Vernon—you know he’s not a bad man, but things have been terrible lately. Those rustlers have really hurt us. We’ve got a small spread here and they’ve hit us hard.”

“I know.”

“We’ve been barely hanging on as it is . . . and we lost more than a dozen cows last year. Now we’ve sent what’s left out to range again, and if the rustlers come back for more before November . . .” She shook her head in anguish. “Vernon’s worried out of his mind. We just can’t keep going much longer, not at this rate.”

Ty’s neck muscles tightened with frustration. The Watkins ranch wasn’t the only one to be hard hit by the spate of rustling. With a single yearling cow being worth nearly a thousand dollars, losing a dozen such cows over a year to rustlers added up to a substantial loss, one that would hurt any rancher. But it especially hurt those with smaller spreads and tighter budgets. For people like Sue Ann and Vernon Watkins, a dozen rustled cows could mean the difference between making a profit and staying in business, or going under and losing everything—their home, cattle, and land.

“I know it’s been tough,” he told her grimly, knowing the words were woefully inadequate. Rustlers generally cost the state of Wyoming anywhere from six hundred thousand to eight hundred thousand dollars a year. But the human cost to the men and women ranchers who raised, branded, fed, shipped, and sold the cattle went beyond what any number could describe.

And last spring and summer, a particularly bad spurt of rustling had hit Thunder Creek. If small-scale ranchers like the Watkinses suffered the same kind of losses over the next few months, before the cattle were rounded up and brought in and counted again in the fall, a lot of them just wouldn’t survive.

“We’re working on it, believe me, Sue Ann. And Big John Templeton and Harlan Weeks have both volunteered their own planes and helicopters to fly over the back country on regular inspections. Deputy patrols are being stepped up too. I feel for you and Vernon, you know I do. But Vernon’s not making things any better for himself here.”

He didn’t add that money troubles were no excuse to go ballistic, terrorizing your own wife—but he thought it. When the call from Sue Ann had come through, she’d sounded scared out of her wits, and Vernon had grabbed the phone away from her before Ty could even tell her he was on his way.

“You’re not going to arrest him, are you?” She was watching him anxiously.

“That depends. Do you want to press charges?”

“No. Course not. This wasn’t like Vernon. He was upset, he was drinking . . . but he doesn’t belong in jail.”

“If that’s how you feel, we’ll take him over to the hospital for a psychological evaluation. And that’ll give him a chance to sober up. It seems to me he’d benefit a lot more from some counseling right now than he would from staring at the walls of a jail cell. Let’s see how it goes.”

She nodded and wandered off in search of her purse, her steps slow and listless. She looked spent and all but broken, he thought, his eyes narrowing.

Not for the first time, Ty cursed the rustlers. State brand inspectors were a big part of stopping this particular crime, but they were spread thin and there was only so much they could do. With cattle left to graze for months within hundreds of thousands of acres of range, in canyons and sheltered valleys with nothing around for miles but sagebrush, grass, and scrub, it was relatively easy for thieves with a ramp and a rig to pick out a handful or a truckload at a time and simply drive the cattle off in the middle of the night. All they had to do was get them out of state, to Texas or Oklahoma, or one of the other states without brand inspections, and they could make themselves a tidy bundle of money.

And there weren’t a whole lot of ways to stop it—especially if the rustlers stole unbranded cattle, or changed the brands, or took quarter horses instead, because those weren’t branded at all.

While the enterprise was hugely profitable for the rustlers, it ran the gamut from pesky to devastating for the ranchers that were hit.

Ty hadn’t been able to make much of an inroad against the spree—until lately. Some of the background checks he’d done recently on the license plate numbers of unknown vehicles that had been spotted in the back country had begun paying off.

Now he had himself a couple of suspects. But he wasn’t ready to rope them in yet.

He’d begun putting some pieces together and he had a theory—one he needed to prove if he wanted to get rid of the rustlers at their source.

Ty suspected that this outfit was part of a large-scale ring operating in several states at once, not just a few locals rustling once in a while to pick up extra cash, like kids knocking off a liquor or appliance store. If his guess was right, this was a widespread, coordinated outfit, probably generating hundreds of thousands of dollars in the space of a year. After conferring with law enforcement and brand inspectors in Oregon, Colorado, and California, he was more convinced than ever that this was an organized crew of rustlers all working different areas, and all for the same employer.

And right now, Denny Owens and Fred Barnes, who’d both signed on last year as ranch hands at Ralph McIntyre’s Double M ranch, were only two small pieces of the puzzle. But they could be his key to solving the bigger picture—and to nailing the big boss.

He’d already checked both of them out and what he’d found was fascinating. Both men had started work at the Double M within a week of each other. And they’d both done time.

Owens had been arrested two years ago for fighting and destruction of property in Montana, and Barnes had an assault record for beating up a woman in a bar.

On the surface, they looked to be small-time felons, but Ty had dug deeper—and hit pay dirt.

And he’d also hit upon a plan.

It was two hours later when he finally got back to the Pine Hills after seeing Vernon Watkins sedated for the night, getting a written statement from Sue Ann, conferring with the doctor at the hospital, and completing dozens of pages of paperwork.

He spotted Josy Warner’s blue Blazer in the parking lot and found himself scanning the darkened building, wondering which unit on the second floor was hers.

Who cares,
he told himself as he left the cool windswept night and went inside to the dusky hallway, lit only by a forty-watt bulb.

Yet for some reason, as he climbed the stairs he thought back to the dance he’d shared with her. It was odd that he remembered every detail about it—especially the way she’d felt in his arms. Soft, sexy, and cool as summer frost—except for the tension that had radiated from her. She was hiding something.

He hadn’t been a cop all these years and not learned to trust his instincts. And his instincts told him that Josy Warner was not totally on the level. He wasn’t sure what about her seemed off, but there was something.

He filed it away in the back of his mind. He wasn’t about to start investigating her based on a gut feeling, but . . . he sensed there was something there. Otherwise he wouldn’t be remembering so much about their dance and their conversation . . . she wouldn’t be on his mind.

And it wasn’t because she was a slim, beautiful blonde, or because he’d felt a flash of heat when he’d first drawn her into his arms. It was because she had a secret, she was afraid, or she was here on some agenda. That was the only explanation.

He didn’t think she was a criminal. Just a mystery.

So it wasn’t as if it really mattered.

The rustlers picking on his town and who-knew-how-many others did matter.

At least—until he caught them.

Chapter 7

THUNDER CREEK’S LIBRARY WAS A SMALL STONE building at the end of town, set in a small flower-bordered square with two hardwood benches, a drinking fountain, and a handsome six-foot-tall gleaming bronze statue of a wild mustang in flight.

Inside, the air-conditioning wasn’t working but a wood ceiling fan kept the small lobby cool, and a spry woman of about fifty, wearing a pink blouse and a denim skirt, set aside a pile of papers, pushed her black-rimmed glasses higher on her nose, and called to Josy from behind the wooden checkout counter.

“Let me know if I can help you find anything. My name’s Maggie Cartright. I’m the full-time librarian. We don’t have too many customers this time of the morning, so don’t be shy if you need something.”

“As a matter of fact, I do need some help. I’d like to open a new e-mail account. Can I do that here?”

“Sure can, if you want to use one of those free servers like Yahoo or Hotmail. I’ll show you what to do.”

Maggie Cartright bustled around the counter, apparently deliriously happy to be of service to someone. “Course, I’ll need to see some ID.”

“Oh. No problem.” Josy opened her purse, thankful she hadn’t attempted to use another name while in Thunder Creek. She showed Maggie her driver’s license and followed her to the single computer set up at a metal desk near the nonfiction bookshelves.

“It isn’t hard, not a’tall. I took some computer classes at the university—they held a seminar for the librarians in five counties and we learned everything we need to know to operate these things. All you have to do is figure out a screen name and sit yourself down and . . .”

It was surprisingly easy. Only a few moments later, Maggie had retreated to her desk and Josy sat alone at the computer, staring at the screen, her fingers poised to type in her new screen name.

“Tootiebird.” She typed it in with a small grimace. Ricky ought to instantly recognize that name. May Hammond had owned a parakeet named Tootiebird, a shrill, filthy little thing that had nipped at any finger that ventured inside her cage.

But when it came time to actually write the message she found herself hesitating, drawing a deep breath.

Middle name, Josy,
Ricky had said.
You know the one.
Middle name. Add my age.

Oh, yes, she knew exactly what middle name Ricky meant. Karl Hammond’s middle name had been Theobald—a fact that had inspired a great deal of derisive laughter among the foster kids in the Hammond house, perhaps in part because Karl himself was bald, or perhaps because Ricky led everyone in calling him Theobaldo behind his back. It had been the only defense she and Ricky and the other kids that had come and gone in the Hammond home had had against the man who’d thought nothing of locking any of them in a closet if they didn’t make their beds neatly enough or if they spilled their milk on the kitchen floor.

So . . . Theobald it must be. And Ricky, two years older than she, was twenty-nine. She could only hope that Ricky was continuing to use his Hotmail server—but with a new account registered under Theobald29. But now that she was ready, she hesitated, her fingers resting on the keyboard as she inwardly debated how much to say.

She must be getting paranoid, because she was too scared to say much that might get into the wrong hands. The chances of anyone tracing one e-mail under a new account seemed slim, but she wasn’t about to be too forthcoming until she knew her post was going straight to Ricky, no mistakes.

“Hope this gets to you,” she typed. The silence of the library was deep and complete, save for the whir of the ceiling fan and the rustle of the librarian’s paperwork at the check-in counter.

And the tiny click of the keys beneath her fingers.

“I’m safe . . . I think. And I hope you are too. Write back.”

She hit
send
and watched her message disappear.

For a moment she just sat at the computer, resisting the urge to write to Reese or Jane, to let them know she was okay, to find out what was happening at the design studio.

It was frustrating to think that with a few keystrokes and the
send
button she could be in touch with them, but she dared not. For their sake as well as hers.

It was hard to believe she was in danger while she was here in Thunder Creek. The town was peaceful, quiet, set amid the lush, breathtaking openness of vast prairie, flower-dotted foothills, and distant looming mountains. The people were friendly, the pace soothingly low key. She might as well be a million miles from New York, from the studio and the pressure-cooker of Francesca Dellagio Designs.

And from a dead body in Brooklyn.

Besides, no one there could possibly have followed her here.

So . . . she was safe. She must be safe, she told herself.

But she’d had a nightmare about Archie last night. Seen him again, the way he’d looked on that bloody floor, lying so still, his eyes closed. Closed forever.

When she’d jerked awake in the indigo darkness of her unfamiliar rented apartment, she’d been gasping for breath.

But now, as she emerged from the library into brilliant Wyoming sunshine and a sky bluer than an orchid, nightmares and danger and dead men seemed far away. It was daylight and the air was perfumed with the scent of pine and larkspur, wafting down on breezes fresh off the Laramie Mountains, and everywhere she looked was open land, endless and beautiful—full of nature’s peace.

She backed the Blazer up, turned around, and headed toward Bessie’s Diner.

As she drew nearer to town, though, it became more difficult to hang on to that precious sense of calm.

Knowing she might meet Ada Scott any moment set her heart tripping faster in her chest.

Ada was supposed to be back today, but that didn’t mean she’d come right into work. Or that her flight hadn’t been delayed. Or that she hadn’t decided to stay in Las Vegas another few days.

She knew she was preparing herself for disappointment, bracing herself for it. But she was also trying to keep herself calm.

She was twenty-seven years old and she’d managed to live without a grandmother this long, she told herself. She might never even tell Ada Scott about their relationship at all. When the time came, she might not even choose to speak more than a casual hello to the woman. Still, as she parked the Blazer down the street and headed toward the diner, her stomach twitched—and it wasn’t from hunger.

The diner was packed. Every booth taken. And three people were in front of her in line, all of them cowboys.

Then she saw Chance Roper, sitting in one of the front booths, only a few feet away, drinking coffee. Roberta was bopping from table to table. And . . .

Josy frowned as she caught sight of Ty Barclay at a table. There was a plate of eggs and sausage in front of him, but he was ignoring the food, engrossed in a conversation with Roy Hewett.

“Hey, Josy!” Chance grinned at her. “I hate to see a pretty lady waiting in line. Come have a seat.”

The cowboys in front of her all turned and stared at her, grinning.

“Forget about him, ma’am, you can sit with us if you like,” one offered, his brown eyes dancing.

“You don’t want to sit with them. You don’t even know them and believe me you don’t want to,” Chance shot back, laughing.

“And what makes you think she wants to know you?” a feisty female voice interjected.

Out of nowhere a small, gray-haired dynamo of a woman appeared at Chance’s table, refilling his coffee cup with practiced ease and sweeping away his plate, fork, and knife.

“Hell, Bessie, why aren’t you on my side? Aren’t I your best customer?”

“One of my best,” the woman acknowledged. Her eyes danced. “And certainly the biggest flirt. If you want to sit with him, go right ahead,” she told Josy with a nod. “Course it’s at your own risk. Otherwise, it’ll be about ten more minutes until these tables clear and these cowboys get taken care of.”

“I guess I can handle him all right. Especially if I get coffee right away.” She sent Bessie a hopeful smile.

“Coming right up,” Bessie promised, and bustled toward the kitchen as Josy scooted ahead of the line, slipping into a seat across from Chance who beamed with triumph, while the cowboys in line behind her playfully booed.

“I see you have a reputation in this town.”

He held up both hands in a gesture of professed innocence. “Can I help it if women like me?”

“Help it? You gobble it up. You heard Bessie, you’re the biggest flirt in town.”

“I’ll give up every single other woman if you’ll have breakfast, lunch, and dinner with me today,” he countered instantly.

Josy laughed. “Don’t you have to work?”

“It’s my day off. Once every two weeks I get a whole twenty-four hours to myself. Want to go hiking with me? Or for a drive? We could be in Casper in a couple of hours, take in a movie, and have a real nice dinner at the—”

He was interrupted by Bessie arriving with coffee. She handed Josy a menu before sweeping away again.

“Let’s get through breakfast first,” Josy suggested. “Any recommendations?”

“Yeah—everything. But the pancakes are about the best I’ve ever tasted.”

“Pancakes,” she murmured. She had a weakness for them, especially pecan pancakes. And there they were on the menu. “You’ve talked me into it.”

Her gaze slid toward the cash register. A small-boned bird of a woman in her seventies was making change amd chatting with a middle-aged couple. She was no more than five feet tall, her face thin and soft-looking, beneath short tufts of white hair.

“Is that Ada Scott?” she asked Chance softly, without glancing away from the woman.

“Yep. She and Bessie just got back early today from Vegas. Ada won seventy-five dollars playing roulette. She’s really tickled. Bessie’s bummed because she lost thirty bucks at blackjack.”

Roberta flew by the table, headed for the kitchen, a few men in cowboy hats moved toward the door, and Bessie brought a place setting and napkins. But Josy couldn’t tear her gaze from the tiny, sweet-faced woman at the cash register.

She felt her throat tighten and reached for her coffee to wash down a rush of emotions unexpectedly making it difficult to swallow.

“Hey, are you all right? Why’re you staring at Ada?”

She dragged her gaze back to Chance’s face. “No reason. She . . . reminds me of someone. I’m sorry.” Josy forced herself to focus on Chance and tried to smile.

But all she wanted to do was gaze at Ada Scott and try to imagine how and why she’d given her baby daughter away. She wanted to think about what would happen if she went over and spoke to the woman. But she couldn’t think about any of that. Not now. Not yet.

She made small talk with Chance, batted away his compliments and lines, and in the end, turned down his invitation to spend the day with him. But when he invited her to go to a movie Saturday night in the nearby town of Winston Falls, she finally accepted. Why not? It was only one date, a movie date.

And she was pretty sure she’d made it clear that friendship was all she had in mind—and all she would allow.

He left the diner first, as she claimed she wanted another cup of coffee. Alone, she lingered over a fresh cup, casually studying Ada Scott at the cash register without being too obvious.

The crowd dwindled and soon only a few diners remained, among them Ty Barclay and Roy Hewett.

They were finishing up, though, Josy noted, watching as Ty moved to the cash register and spoke for several moments with Ada.

They seemed to be on familiar terms.

He left the diner with only the briefest nod to her, while Roy waved, came over, and made a point of telling her how glad he and Corinne were that she’d come to Corinne’s farewell party.

Then she was virtually alone in the diner with Bessie, who had disappeared into the kitchen, Roberta, clearing empty tables, and Ada, counting money at the cash register.

Suddenly, Ada closed the drawer, locked it, and glanced her way. The next thing she knew the white-haired woman had picked up a coffeepot and was coming toward her.

“More coffee?”

Josy shook her head.

Ada was starting to move away before Josy found her voice.

“I hear you won some nice money at the roulette table,” she blurted out, and Ada Scott paused and turned back to her with a surprised smile. “Who told you that?”

“Chance Roper. We had breakfast together.”

“If that doesn’t beat all.” Ada returned to the table and cocked her head to one side.

“I’d think that man of all others would have more to talk to a pretty young thing like you about than my trip to Las Vegas,” she mused.

“Oh, he only mentioned it because I . . . I thought you looked familiar.”

“You don’t say?” Ada peered at her with interest. Her brown eyes were faded, yet she managed to study Josy with a disconcerting keenness. “I can’t say I recognize you.”

“Have you . . . ever been to . . .” She was about to say “New York” but switched it at the last minute to “Chicago.”

“Chicago? No, never.” Ada shook her head as if the notion were absurd. “I’ve been to Cheyenne, to Casper, of course, to Las Vegas a dozen times . . . and lately to visit my grandson at the university in Laramie,” she added, and Josy heard the note of fondness and pride in her voice. “Aside from that I’ve only been to . . .”