Redemption (32 page)

* * *

“
W
HERE’S
M
S.
L
A
F
OND?”
the sheriff asked Bethany as she headed to a busy table with a large breakfast order the next morning.

“I don’t know.” Bethany glanced over her shoulder toward the kitchen. “I think Lou might know.” She went on by with her multiple plates of food, and he walked back to the kitchen, where Lou was busy cooking.

“I’m looking for Ms. LaFond,” he said.

Lou looked up from the grill, where he had hash browns, eggs, pancakes, sausage and bacon all going. “She’s taking a day off.” He flipped the pancakes with a large turner and then poured more grease on the grill to add another order of hash browns.

Frank glanced through the screen door and saw her pickup parked out back. As he started out the back, something caught his eye that brought him to a halt.

“Did someone cut themselves?” he asked Lou, pointing at a bloody white towel next to the washing machine.

“Not me,” Lou said without looking at him. “Might ask Bethany.”

Frank wanted to ask Kate. He stepped outside and saw that her pickup driver’s door was ajar.

As he stepped to it, he pulled on a pair of latex gloves. He peered in, saw a stain on the seat and caught the strong smell of blood as he eased open the door.

Backtracking to the kitchen, he took a clean garbage bag and bagged the bloody towel. Lou was too busy to notice.

After dropping the evidence at his patrol pickup, he climbed the stairs to Kate’s apartment over the café. He knocked. No answer. He was ready to break down the door, his concern having grown with each step he’d taken since seeing the bloody towel and the blood all over the seat of her pickup.

His cell phone rang. Seeing it was the dispatcher, he answered the call.

“A man matching Cecil Ackermann’s description was just seen on the corner of Hooper Street and Ninth Avenue in Big Timber. A deputy is headed that way, but you said you wanted to know if there were any sightings.”

Before he could answer, Bethany appeared at the bottom of the stairs.

“She’s not up there. Jack just called. She’s in the hospital.” With that, Bethany hurried back to work.

“Are you still there, Sheriff?”

“Yes.” Frank doubted Cecil Ackermann was just strolling down a street in Big Timber. “Keep me informed.”

“Also, Loralee Clark is here to identify the body?”

He swore under his breath, having forgotten that she’d offered. For all he knew, Cecil Ackermann was lying in a cooler with a toe tag.

“Tell her I am on my way,” he said into the phone, and headed for his truck. Thinking about Kate and all the blood he’d seen in her pickup, he quickly called one of his deputies and asked him to go by the hospital and make sure Kate LaFond was all right and didn’t go anywhere until he got to talk to her.

* * *

L
ORALEE WAS WAITING
anxiously at the morgue when he got there. If he’d feared she might be squeamish, he had nothing to worry about. She took one look at the dead man and said, “That’s not him.”

“Don’t you need a closer look?”

“No.” She said it quickly and snapped her lips shut with a definite shake of her head. “There is nothing wrong with my eyesight. That’s not the man. Believe me, I got a good look at him. I’d say it’s his brother, Gallen.” She gave him an impatient look. “The one I nailed was Cecil. You haven’t found him yet?”

“Not yet.” The dispatcher hadn’t gotten back to him on that sighting in town, though.

Loralee pursed her lips. “Well, I suggest you get busy. None of us are safe as long as he’s out there. Especially Kate LaFond.”

He might have argued that none of the Ackermanns were safe with Kate LaFond on the loose, but suddenly he remembered the address where the dispatcher said there had been a Cecil Ackermann sighting.

It was just two blocks from the hospital.

* * *

J
ACK WALKED DOWN
to the cafeteria, desperately needing coffee. He’d gotten little sleep last night. Kate could have died. She’d been delirious on the way to the hospital and yet he couldn’t forget the things she’d told him about her life, about Claude, about how she felt about him.

He tried to tell himself not to believe any of it, especially the part about her having killed someone.

“It was one of the Ackermanns,” she’d said. “I didn’t see him at first and then...” She’d begun to cry, but he’d caught enough of the story through her tears to get the gist of it. “He was lying there. I didn’t dare check to see. But I know he was dead.”

While Jack had loved hearing how she really felt about him, if it was true, he didn’t want to believe she’d killed anyone—even in self-defense. He had told himself the woman was talking out of her head.

The doctor had confirmed once they’d reached the hospital that Kate had a concussion and had lost way too much blood. The gash on her temple had taken fifteen stitches. By then, neither of them could make any sense of what she was saying.

It still made his heart drop when he recalled the way she’d looked standing in the café last night. What if he hadn’t come looking for her?

He shook his head at the thought as he entered the cafeteria and went straight to the coffee machine.

“Jack?”

He turned to see Carson coming toward him. Jack had never been so glad to see his friend. They both got coffee, then took a small table in a corner, even though the place was nearly empty.

Carson looked around, then keeping his voice down, said, “I heard the sheriff and coroner were in Ackermann Hollow last night. Apparently they brought someone out in a body bag.”

Jack felt sick. Was what Kate had told him true?

“Do you want me to call Arnie Thorndike?” Carson asked. Arnie didn’t look like much of a lawyer, but apparently he was quite good. Or at least he had been when he was a trial attorney.

“Let me talk to Kate first.”

* * *

W
HEN THE HOSPITAL ROOM
door opened, Kate looked up, expecting to see Jack. The smile that had instantly turned up her lips died on them the moment the man stepped into the room. He looked enough like the man who’d attacked her at the hollow that she thought for an instant it was him back from the dead.

Kate reached for the call button, but he beat her to it, tossing it out of her reach. He grabbed a chair and quickly stuck it under the doorknob, moving so fast she didn’t have time to scream before he was at the bed, covering her mouth as he pressed her into the pillows.

Kate tried to fight him off, but she was too weak and he was much too strong. He was taller than the man who’d attacked her up in the hollow, she realized. Thin but strong with sinewy arms. He had the same narrow, pocked face, the same close-set eyes, the same hunger and hatred she’d seen in the other man’s face. There was a goose-egg bump on his forehead and in his hand was her gun, the one he’d stolen from her apartment after he’d ransacked it looking for the map.

“Hey, little sis,” he said, meeting her gaze. “You probably don’t remember me. Cecil Ackermann? I used to pinch you to make you cry just to get a rise out of Teeny.” He chuckled under his breath. “We don’t have long, so we probably shouldn’t take a trip down memory lane, huh. Where is the map?”

She tried to shake her head.

“I’m going to uncover your mouth, but if you scream I will snap your neck like a twig. You believe me?”

She did. He had to know that the map was pretty useless, since she hadn’t found the gold. But in his arrogance, he would assume if he had the map he could do a better job of reading it than she had.

“Now,” he said. “Just whisper it to me. Where is the map?” He uncovered her mouth.

She’d thought about screaming but only for an instant. Jack would be back soon. She needed to get rid of this man before then. If she could talk her way out of this... “I lost it up in the hollow.”

Disbelief and anger twisted his features into an ugly grimace.

“I was up there looking for it when I ran into your brother.” Remembering the nurse filling a large glass pitcher with water next to her bed, she snaked her hand under the covers toward it.

“You expect me to believe that?” Cecil demanded in a hushed tone as someone tried the door.

“It’s the truth.” She glanced toward the window and saw the sheriff had pulled up and was getting out of his truck. When she looked at Cecil Ackermann again she saw that there would be no talking her way out of this. He was going to kill her—probably had wanted to for years. All that had held him back was the thought that she’d find the gold for him.

Her hand was just inches from the pitcher handle when someone began to bang on the door. It was enough to distract Cecil for just an instant.

Kate grabbed the handle of the pitcher. It was heavy and she was still weak, but she managed to lift it and swing. She didn’t even realize she’d screamed for help, but her voice filled the room as the pitcher caught the side of Cecil’s head.

He let out a howl and grabbed for her throat. He would have strangled her or snapped her neck as he’d threatened to if the door hadn’t burst open just then.

Out of the corner of her eye, Kate saw Jack and Carson come running into the room. Cecil spun away from her and dove through the window screen. She saw him hit the ground and run. The next thing she knew she was in Jack’s arms and he was holding her, asking her if she was all right.

“I am now,” she said into his broad chest. “I am now.”

* * *

“
W
E CAUGHT
C
ECIL,”
the sheriff said a few hours later, after pulling up a chair next to Kate’s bed. “How are you?”

“I’m going to live.”

“I need to ask you a few questions.” Frank saw how pale she was, but then again she’d almost been killed twice in the past twenty-four hours, according to Jack French. He’d heard Jack’s story already. Now he was waiting to hear Kate’s.

“Tell me what happened. Why don’t you start with what happened in this room today.” He turned on the digital recorder and listened as she related Cecil coming into the room, blocking the door and threatening to snap her neck if she screamed.

When she’d finished, he said, “Now tell me what happened in the hollow last evening.”

She told him about running into Gallen Ackermann and the fight that had ensued.

“You don’t know if he was alive when you left?”

She shook her head. “I couldn’t tell if he was breathing and I was afraid to check.”

“You hit him with a shovel.” She nodded. “Where was the digging tool with the red handle at this point?”

Kate frowned. “He pulled it out of his arm and tossed it aside. I didn’t really see where it went.”

“And you say you stabbed him in the upper arm—not in the chest?”

“Yes, the upper arm.” She was still frowning. “Are you telling me he was killed with my tool?”

He looked at her for a moment, then shut off the recorder. “I might have more questions for you.” He rose to his feet.

“It’s not about the gold,” she said.

He met her gaze. “Really? So does that mean you are going to stop looking for it?”

“My mother wanted me to have it.”

Frank nodded. “So you will keep looking for it.” He felt sad for her. “How will you know when to stop if you don’t find it?”

She seemed to have no answer for that.

“And Jack?”

She didn’t have an answer for that either, apparently.

“Well, I wish you luck. At least now you don’t have to worry about the Ackermann boys. Cecil will be going back to prison, and the rest are dead.”

“Did Cecil confess to killing his brothers?” she asked.

“He swears he didn’t kill them.” Frank again met her gaze. “He says you killed them.”

* * *

“
W
HAT NOW?”
J
ACK
asked later that evening after the doctor told him that Kate could go home. He wheeled her out to his pickup, helped her in, and then drove them toward Beartooth.

Kate didn’t pretend not to know what he was talking about. She couldn’t remember much of the ride to the hospital the night before, but she had a feeling that she’d bared her soul to him.

“Did I tell you last night that I’m in love with you?” she asked.

He glanced over at her in surprise. “You might have mentioned something like that.”

She smiled and leaned back against the seat to close her eyes.

“Are you?”

Kate laughed softly, amazed how easy it was to distract a man with either the word
love
or
sex.
She opened her eyes and looked over at him. “I am.”

He stared at her and almost ran off the road.

“You told me to be honest,” she said, seeing his surprise. “I’m trying.”

They drove for a while in silence. Kate knew she’d hurt him the other day after they’d made love. She should have told him the truth before that. Maybe long before that.

“While you’re being truthful, how about answering my question,” he said. “You haven’t given up looking for the gold, have you?”

“No.”

He sighed. “What if you don’t find it?”

The sheriff had asked her the same thing. She hadn’t had an answer for him. She didn’t have one now.

“Don’t worry, I’m not holding you to our partnership. I don’t expect you to help me.”

He glanced over at her again. “What is this really about? I just can’t help feeling it isn’t about the money. Am I wrong?”

“No.” She stared out the windshield, watching the spring-green country blur past. Ahead, the Crazies loomed up, brilliant white-capped peaks piercing the big blue sky. It was a breathtaking sight that never ceased to capture her.

“I can’t explain it,” she said after a few moments. “At first it was just a case of not wanting my awful so-called stepbrothers to get their greedy hands on it.”

“But they’re out of the picture.”

She nodded. “Now I just want to find it because my mother wanted me to have it.” She knew what he wanted her to say. That if it meant losing him, she would give up looking for the gold.

But she’d made a promise a long time ago, long before she’d met Jack French. And she was hell bound to keep it. If she hadn’t let the Ackermann boys stop her, then she couldn’t let her feelings for Jack keep her from that promise.