Redemption (33 page)

She couldn’t bear the thought of losing Jack from her life. But she feared she’d already lost him. He was planning to sell his ranch and move on, wasn’t he?

And Claude had only made her promise to stay a year at the café.

Nothing was keeping either of them here.

They didn’t talk about it the rest of the drive to Beartooth. Two whitetail deer came out of the tall grass and bounded across the road a few hundred yards in front of the pickup, their coats a beautiful buckskin reddish-brown. In a tall cottonwood, a bald eagle watched them, and several hawks circled in a pasture. Kate watched them rise on a thermal as Jack slowed on the outskirts of town.

“You’re not planning to go to work yet, are you?” he asked as he parked beside the café in front of the old stone garage.

“Not today.”

“The doctor said you should take it easy.”

She nodded. “I will.” She reached for her door handle.

“Kate?”

“Yes?” she asked, looking back over at him, hoping he would say the words she would have been thrilled to hear.

“I’m glad there are no more Ackermanns who can hurt you.”

She smiled. “Me, too.” With that, she got out and walked to the back door of the café to see how her crew was making out in her absence. Behind her, she heard Jack drive away.

* * *

F
RANK DIDN’T GET HOME
until late afternoon. He had two murdered Ackermanns and another behind bars. Cecil Ackermann had demanded a lawyer. Frank had been only mildly surprised when he’d asked for Arnie Thorndike’s number.

Exhausted, he drove into his yard and was startled to see Tiffany’s car parked in front of his house. Then he remembered that they were supposed to ride this afternoon, and he swore. He’d completely forgotten it was supposed to have been his day off.

As he got out of his patrol pickup, he saw Tiffany waiting for him on the porch. Even from a distance, he could see that she was furious with him.

“Tiffany, I’m so sorry.”

She leaped to her feet. “You’re always sorry,” she said as she started past him.

He grabbed her arm to stop her from leaving. “At least let me—”

She jerked free. “I know. You were working. I called your office. Did you catch a speeder? Or was it a jaywalker?” she asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

“There was a murder. A woman was almost killed. I caught the bad guy and put him behind bars. You can make fun of what I do if you want to, but sometimes I have to do my job even on my day off. I’m the sheriff and I’m responsible for the people in this county.”

She’d stopped a few feet from him and stood, arms crossed over her skinny chest. She looked so young, so fragile.

“I love you.” His voice broke. “I’d rather cut off my right arm than hurt you.”

Tears welled in her eyes. “You called my mother.”

He nodded.

“She said you yelled at her, said you hated her, hated me—”

“That’s not true.” He said it softly, all the fight gone out of him. It shouldn’t have surprised him that Pam had lied or that she wasn’t through hurting either of them.

“She says she doesn’t care if I come back or not.”

“You can stay here as long as you want. I’ll pay your rent, or you can move in here at the ranch.”

“What about my mother?”

He stared at her. “What about her?”

“She’s all alone.”

“Your mother is capable of taking care of herself,” he said carefully, realizing how Pam had leaned on this girl all her life, using her as a weapon as well as pretending to be helpless so Tiffany could never emotionally leave her.

“It’s time for you to start your own life, Tiffany. Maybe the best thing is putting distance between you and your mother.”

“She said you would try to turn me against her.”

“That isn’t what I’m trying to do.” He took a step toward her and stopped dead in the dust. Lying on its side next to her car was one of his crows. There was blood on its dark wings and on the rock next to it. Someone had smashed its head with the rock.

Frank looked up at his daughter. “Tiffany, what have you done?”

An expression of satisfaction flickered across her face. He felt his heart break. He stared down again at the small black bird lying in the dirt, then up at his daughter. “Why?”

Her face had taken on hard lines that belied her youth. Her long blond hair floated around her face as the breeze teased at it. She looked at the dead crow, then at him. “It’s just a bird.”

He realized then that he hadn’t heard the crows. They were usually on the phone line waiting for him when he came home. Several of them would caw at him, one usually sounding as if welcoming him home, another one almost nagging at him for coming home so late.

He hadn’t heard them because they weren’t there. The line was empty.

“You hate me so much that you would kill something I loved.” It wasn’t a question. The answer was in the set of her jaw, the fury in her eyes. He’d seen it before, but he’d never dreamed how deep the poison in her ran.

“It’s just a dumb bird,” she said, raising her voice.

He took a step toward her. “I want to help you. Help us both. We’ll go to counseling. I’ll pay for it—”

“You think I’m crazy?” she demanded, taking another step back as she dug in her large shoulder bag as if searching for her car keys.

“No, I don’t think either of us is crazy.” He was too tired for this, too drained, too heartbroken. “I think we need to get a perspective on everything that has hap—” He stared in disbelief as his daughter pulled a Saturday night special from the bag, and gripping it in both hands, pointed it at him. “Tiffany, don’t—”

* * *

F
RANK FROZE.
I
T
wasn’t the first time he’d stared down the barrel of a gun. He told himself to forget this was his daughter. Forget everything except defusing this situation.

“You don’t want to do this. I know you miss your mother.”

A sound came out of her.

“But killing me will only bring you more pain.”

She looked at him with contempt, as if he was wrong about that.

“Not because I’m your father, but because they will put you in prison. I don’t want to see that happen to you. You have your whole life ahead of you.”

“I won’t go to prison. I’m only seventeen.”

It shocked him to realize that this wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment action. She’d planned it.

“They’ll try you as an adult.”

“Because you’re a
cop?
”

“Because it would be premeditated murder.”

She cocked her head quizzically, but the gun barrel never wavered. “How will they know that?”

“Your drawings.”

Her eyes widened. She had her mother’s big blue eyes. The girl had a fragile beauty, but she was broken. Broken by her mother’s hatred and need for vengeance.

“Nettie,”
Tiffany said, her lips twisting in a grimace. “I should have known she would snoop.”

Lynette had been worried about the girl’s motives. Why hadn’t he listened to her? She’d been afraid of what Tiffany would do.

Frank saw now that Tiffany hadn’t come here to get to know him. She’d come to Beartooth to find him and kill him. She’d killed something she knew he loved. He didn’t doubt she would kill him with even less concern than she’d had for the bird.

His heart dropped as a thought struck him. There was one other person Pam had hated as much as him. “Lynette, you didn’t...” He couldn’t bear to form the words.

She looked confused for a moment. “Lynette.” Realization suddenly bloomed in her wide-eyed gaze. “Nettie is short for Lynette.”

For a moment, the gun faltered and he thought about rushing her. But she quickly caught herself. Fury burned even hotter in her eyes.

“She’s the woman you were in love with instead of your wife? Instead of my mother? Are still in love with her?” she demanded.

He expected her to pull the trigger right then. He would rush her. If he could. But he was too far away to reach her before she’d get off at least two shots.

He knew there was no appealing to her, father to daughter. They were strangers. The time they’d spent together had meant nothing to her, except to find even more ways to hurt him.

She hadn’t known who Nettie was, so Lynette was safe. But he knew that Tiffany would go after her next. He couldn’t let that happen.

“Tiffany, I love you. You’re my daughter.” He took a step toward her, needing to close the distance as much as he could.

“No!”

He saw her hand tighten around the gun, around the trigger, and braced himself for the impact of the shot as he prepared to launch himself at her.

But just as he started to make his move, Frank saw something dark out of the corner of his eye. A crow flew at Tiffany, struck the side of her head, catching some of her long, silken-blond hair in its talons.

Her mouth opened in a scream, but it was drowned out by the boom of gunshot. Her face contorted into an expression of horror as the crow flew off, trailing several strands of her fine blond hair.

He felt fire tear through his shoulder as he tried to reach Tiffany before she could pull off another shot.

The crow swooped down again, making Tiffany’s second shot go wild as she tried to cover her head.

And then Frank was on her, grabbing the gun, twisting it from her hands. She was still screaming. He felt hot, sticky blood run down his chest, soak into his shirt, as he pulled Tiffany into his arms to protect her from the crow.

The bird landed on the ground only a few feet from them. Frank stared into the dark beady eyes. He thought he recognized it. One of the uncles. He’d heard stories about crows attacking anyone who had hurt them or one of their own.

This one had saved his life. He felt the bird’s pain. It had lost one of its own family today. So had Frank. They stayed like that for a long moment, Frank and the bird just looking at each other. Tiffany was crying and still screaming, both arms over her head. After a moment, the crow cawed twice at him, then flew away, disappearing behind the barn.

“It’s going to be all right,” he kept whispering as he held his daughter. A lie. He wasn’t sure it would ever be all right. Tiffany needed help. He would see that she got it. He would be there for her.

When she quit crying, he looked into his daughter’s face and saw only regret. Regret that she’d only wounded him. He dialed 911.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

K
ATE HADN’T SEEN
J
ACK
for almost a week now. He hadn’t come into the café. Although she hadn’t been working, she had been spending time there. The Beartooth Quilting Society had come in with the quilts Cilla had promised and put them up.

It had been good to see Loralee. “Thank you for trying to save my mother’s life,” Kate said to the older woman when she could get her alone.

“I failed.”

“Only because my mother went back after she’d handed me through the fence. Apparently she’d made me a toy that I loved. I’d dropped it as we were fleeing....”

Loralee’s eyes filled with tears. “But she got you out.”

Kate nodded. “It wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t gone to the sheriff.”

“I always felt I should have done more. For eighteen months I—”

“We both have to let go of the past,” Kate interrupted.

“Yes,” the elderly woman agreed. “Those awful boys are either gone or in jail. I hope that oldest one never sees the light of day again.”

“I’m sure he won’t.”

Loralee shook her head. “I heard he denies killing his brothers.” She met Kate’s gaze. “The awful man says you did it.”

“It will be up to a jury to decide.”

“Well, I’d love to be on that jury,” Loralee said.

Kate had gone upstairs after the quilts were hung and the women had left. She felt sick to her stomach, not surprised that Cecil would lie the way he had but that the sheriff still had his doubts.

He’d come by, his shoulder bandaged, most mornings for breakfast. Kate had felt him watching her, wondering. His own problems were obviously weighing heavy on him as well. Everyone in the county had heard about his daughter. She’d been sent up to the state mental hospital for evaluation, but Judge Hyett was saying around town that she should be tried as an adult for trying to kill her father.

Kate hadn’t been in her apartment long when there was a knock at the door. She thought it would be the sheriff. It felt as if it was only a matter of time before he would arrest her. He’d gotten a warrant and had searched her apartment and truck the day after she was released from the hospital.

Her heart had lodged in her throat. She’d forgotten to get rid of Darrell Ackermann’s cowboy hat, but when Frank had searched the place, the hat hadn’t turned up.

Jack, she’d thought. What a risk he’d taken getting rid of it. Her heart had swelled at the thought. She loved him. No denying that. A part of her was glad she’d told him, even if it had been too late. He felt she had chosen the gold over him and maybe he’d been right. The Ackermanns had scared her less than falling in love with Jack.

Now as she went to the door, she braced herself, wondering if that other shoe was about to drop.

“Jack?”

He looked her over before he said, “Nice to see you feeling better.”

She smiled and stepped back. “Do you want to come in?”

He shook his head. “I thought you might like to go for a ride.”

“A ride?”

“That is, if you aren’t busy,” he added quickly.

“No, I’d love to. I’ll just grab—”

“You might want to change your clothes.”

That stopped her. “You want me to dress up?” Jack was dressed in his old boots, the ones he swore were too lucky to throw out, worn jeans and a faded blue Western shirt.

“I want you to dress down. Wear digging clothes.”

She stared at him, swallowing around the lump in her throat. “I beg your pardon?”

“You know, that map never made any sense to me and yet the Ackermann boys were willing to kill for it,” Jack said. “It got me thinking that we were missing something. Then I happened to run into the sheriff the other day and he told me about a photograph that had been found of the Ackermanns. I asked to see it, and when I got the map out of the side zipper of your backpack, I compared the two.”