Too Close To The Fire/Too Hot To Handle (Montana Men 3) (13 page)

Chapter Two

There is no
happiness without tears; no life without death. Beware, I will give you cause
to weep.

~Lucian Staniak

Serial Killer

Rimrock, Montana

Blackstone Ranch

February 6, Friday

7:00 p.m.

Sheriff
Danger Blackstone pulled the Jeep into the drive at his ranch and killed the
engine. “What the fuck?”

An
ambulance and two Rimrock County deputy cars were lined up in front of the
house, lights flashing. He turned a shocked eye on his new bride. “What the
hell kind of trouble has that woman gotten herself into now?” Danger climbed
out of the Jeep. “Stay here.”

“No
way.” Karen jumped out of the vehicle and fell in step beside him. “I think
Lacey and I need a little heart to heart chat. What a show! She is
not
ruining our wedding night!”

Blake
Hardesty, Danger’s brother-in-law and deputy, stepped off the long front porch.
The man looked pale as death, and that was saying a lot, since Blake was
full-blood Native American and very dark skinned. Danger thought Blake moved a
bit like a zombie toward him, or as if he was shell-shocked.

Something
was bad wrong here. Danger’s stomach dropped. The only other time he’d seen
Blake look like this was when his brother, Hank, was murdered three years
earlier.

He
moved around Blake and stepped upon the porch. The urgency he felt to get
inside the house and check on Lacey and his son was like being sucked up by a
giant vacuum. The thought,
too little,
too late,
slammed into his mind with the force of a stampede. He should
never have allowed Karen to distract him from doing his job.

Blake
grabbed his arm and halted him. “Don’t go in there. It isn’t pretty.”

In
the flashing lights, Danger saw splotches of red on Blake’s uniform shirt.
“What’s going on? What’s the ambulance doing here?”

Blake
swung a dark glare on Karen then back at Danger. “Jesus, Danger, where the hell
have you been? Why didn’t you answer my calls? Gertie called you over two hours
ago. She didn’t want to give the details over the air. It’s bad. Smitt Davis
attacked Lacey, shot her twice. Joseph is in the ambulance.”

“What?
What’s wrong with him? Where’s
Lacey? How is she?”

“Lacey’s
gone.”

Danger
reeled under that announcement. “What do you mean, gone?
Dead?”
He felt the color drain from his face. His heart felt as if
a knife had slashed it in half and left him bleeding to death. He staggered
back a step incapable of gaining control of his body at the moment. “Jesus.”

“We
don’t know if she’s dead or alive. Smitt took her when he left, but there’s a
lot of her blood in the kitchen, and other…evidence.”

“You’re
sure it’s Lacey’s?”

“Christ,
yes! I’m fucking certain it’s Lacey’s blood. You know what an animal Davis is.”

Danger
rubbed an unsteady hand across his mouth, whirled and headed to the ambulance.
“That’s not all, Danger.”

He
turned back and waited for Blake to give him the rest of the grizzly details.

“Your
sister, Anna Leigh, was here, too.” Blake’s voice cracked. “Smitt shot her.
She’s been air lifted to Havre, but it doesn’t look good. I have to go. She
needs me. My wife needs me.”

Danger
nodded and opened the ambulance door. An EMT stuck his head out. “I’m sorry,
sir. You can’t come in here.”

“He’s
my son.”

“I’m
sorry, but we’re working on him.”

“I
want to see him. What did that bastard do to him?”

The
EMT took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “His skull has been fractured. I’m
sorry. We’re taking him to Havre. You can follow us and meet us there.”

The
EMT slammed the door. The driver took off down the long driveway, siren
blaring.

Blake
jerked Danger around to face him. “I asked you where you were. And what is
she
doing here? Have you lost your mind?
She has no business here.”

Danger
stiffened. “Karen has every right to be here. She’s my wife. We’d just got
married when Gertie called. I wasn’t in a hurry to get here. I thought Lacey
was trying to delay my marriage to Karen.”

“You
told Lacey you were getting married today?”

“Yes.
She had to know sooner or later. Why wait? I wasn’t about to keep it a secret.”

“You
should have been here, where you belong! Then maybe my wife wouldn’t have
gotten shot.” Blake turned away, then slowly turned back. “Oh, yeah,
congratulations on your new marriage, I hope the two of you are very happy. In
case you’re interested, we have no idea if Lacey’s dead or alive, but she’s
gone. That’s what you both wanted. Right?” Blake nodded at Karen. “My advice,
don’t take her inside. If you thought Jace’s stable was bad when Jillian’s body
was discovered there, well, that’s nothing compared to your kitchen.”

Danger
stared at Blake’s stiff back. “I’ll meet you in Havre as soon as I take a look
inside.”

Blake
threw up a hand and turned around. “A little late with your concern, but yeah,
go ahead. I think you deserve to see what’s inside, both of you.”

Danger
clasped Karen’s hand. “Wait for me in the Jeep.”

“I
don’t think Blake likes me,” she said, not bothering to lower her voice. “He’s
lying. I want to see for myself.”

“Blake
doesn’t tell lies.”

“Everyone
tells lies, darling.” She patted his face. “Let’s take a quick look and get out
of here.”

Danger
frowned. “The crime scene investigators are still in there. They won’t let us
in.”

“Oh.”
She sounded disappointed as if she really wanted to see the grizzly scene.

Danger
gave her a curious look.
Huh.
This
was a side of Karen he hadn’t seen before. Only a few hours earlier, he and
Lacey had stood on this front porch. She’d given him his copy of the divorce
papers. He’d never forget the look on her face when he told her he was meeting
Karen, and they were getting married that afternoon. She hadn’t said a word,
but she’d looked at him as if he’d broken a knife off in her heart.

He’d
spent the last two hours making love to his new wife when his son and ex-wife
had needed him. His stomach clenched. He knew his life with Lacey was over, but
hell, what a way to begin a new marriage.

Karen
had a way of sweeping him into passion until all he thought about was getting
her into bed. She’d done that to him from the moment he laid eyes on her in the
Blue Goose Diner over a year ago.

Lacey
had been away on a shoot in some country he’d never heard of, and cell phone
service was non-existent. Maybe it would have made a difference if he could
have heard his wife’s voice in that four months she was away.

He
only knew he was fed up with her being gone all the time, angry over the fact
that she left him and Joseph and took off with men to spend weeks alone in
their company.

His
jealousy and doubts of Lacey’s fidelity began to eat at him. Then one of the
men confirmed he’d slept with Lacey while they were in Alaska. Danger hadn’t
doubted Jared’s word. The man had known intimate details about Lacey’s body
only a lover could know.

He’d
gone a little crazy then. When Karen invited him to her house for a drink, he
accepted, realizing full well she’d invited him for a lot more than a drink.
The hours he spent making love to her that first night left him shaken. He’d
never imagined he could be unfaithful to Lacey.

But
Karen stirred a dark hunger in him—the means for revenge against Lacey. He
returned to Karen’s house the next night, and the next, and every night after
that, until Lacey returned home.

By
then, he was deeply involved with Karen, but meeting her while Lacey was at
home was difficult. He found ways, made excuses to his wife for working late.
The hardest part had been not touching his wife. He resented the fact he still
wanted her and spent more and more time away from home and more hours in
Karen’s bed. It hadn’t helped.

He’d
decided the best way to cure any leftover feelings for Lacey was to get her
involved with another man, get her out of his life, permanently.

His
plan had worked a little too well.

Chapter Three

Don’t say
it’s a fine morning or I’ll shoot ya.

~John Wayne

McClintock

Rimrock, Montana

Blackstone Ranch

February 6, Friday

7:30 p.m.

When
ex-Special Agent Rafe McCord entered the ranch house, he hesitated at the
kitchen doorway and swallowed hard. “Jesus.” He’d been warned at the front door
by a deputy, but Rafe didn’t think he’d ever seen a more macabre sight, and
he’d seen plenty of murder scenes. He glanced at Danger, a little wary. He
hadn’t seen him since Christmas, not since he’d—

“Rafe,”
Danger said in an unsteady voice. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Are
you? I hear you got married today. Congratulations.”

Danger
nodded. “Yes. This is Karen. Karen, this is Sheriff Rafe McCord from Triangle,
Texas…my…friend.”

Karen
gave him a cool smile, one to match his own. Danger might have fallen out of
love with Lacey and fallen into this woman’s clutches, but it was plain to see the
sheriff of Rimrock was a broken man.

“They
won’t let me in there…not yet.”

Rafe
nodded his understanding. The CSI team couldn’t have strange fibers showing up.
It’d blow the entire stack of evidence they were collecting. He watched the
team a few minutes, three women and a man. Dressed in white, wearing gloves,
shoe covers and nets over their hair, they snapped pictures, collected fibers,
hairs, semen samples, blood samples, and gathered anything and everything to
seal the case once it went to court. They were professionals and damn good, but
Rafe understood Danger’s desire to do his own investigation.

Danger
waited at the entrance to the kitchen, a solitary figure. From where he stood,
Rafe was certain the man saw way too much, more than anyone should see who’d
been emotionally involved with the victim. Karen clung to him. She didn’t look
like a happy bride.

All
Danger’s attention was focused on the blood on the floor.

Rafe
worked his way closer to him. “I’m sorry to hear about Joseph and Anna Leigh.”

Danger
looked up. Bleak shadows filled the sheriff’s gray eyes. “I wish you’d gotten
here sooner.”

Rafe
nodded. There was no life, no spark in the silver depths of Danger’s eyes.
“Yeah. Me, too.”

“He
took her,” Danger whispered. “He took my wife. I don’t know how to find her,
where to start looking. I told her I never wanted to see her again. I think I
might never get to.”

“We’ll
find her.”

Rafe
glanced at Karen, saw her lips tighten, and wondered if Danger realized he’d
called Lacey his wife. From the tight look on the woman’s face beside him, she
did, and she damn sure wasn’t pleased about it.

Lord,
what a mess. He closed his eyes for a brief second. This wasn’t a good place
for Danger to be right now. The man had to know what he was looking at, the
evidence on the floor. Blood. Semen. And the writing and symbols on the walls,
all written with Lacey’s blood.

“She’s
pregnant, Rafe. Two months.”

Rafe
swallowed hard. “I’m sorry.”

Danger
shook his head. “No, you don’t understand. I haven’t touched Lacey in months.
It’s not my baby.”

Rafe
froze. “Christ.” He rubbed the side of his forehead. “Oh, Jesus.”

“I
told her at Christmas I wanted a divorce. I told her I wanted her out of my
life, permanently. She gave me my freedom today, but I don’t feel free.”

Rafe
drew a shaky breath, slowly exhaled. Pain slashed his heart as if he’d been cut
by a knife. “Maybe we should go outside, get some fresh air while the scene is
being worked.”

“No.
I’m afraid they’ll miss something. A clue. A sign of where he might have taken
her. I owe her that much. I know she’s probably dead. Smitt Davis is a careful
bastard. He’d not leave her alive. Jesus, there’s so much blood. Even if she’s
alive, she might not be for long if she lost the baby.”

“Don’t
say that! She’s alive. The baby is alive! We’ll find her.”

Danger
nodded. “I want my wife back. I know I can’t have her back, but if she’s dead,
I want her body brought home. I want to bury her where she belongs, on
Blackstone land. I don’t want her left somewhere he chose. She’s my wife.”

Rafe
noted the way Karen glared at Danger, but the man paid little heed to her
obvious rage. He shrugged it off. She was none of his concern, but there was
something about the woman that looked downright dangerous, and he couldn’t help
wondering if Danger had a clue.

“I’m
your wife, Danger,” she said, sounding bitter. “Lacey’s in the past, exactly
where she belongs.”

Rafe
squelched his anger. They were all tense and upset. He was probably imagining
things. Now was not the time to shout accusations at anyone. He ignored her offensive
words the same way Danger did. “I understand.” Rafe hesitated, wary of asking
questions, but he had to know what had happened if he was going to help. “How’s
your sister? I heard she’s the one who made the nine-one-one call?”

For
a moment, Danger appeared utterly lost. His mouth worked, as if he searched for
the right words, but couldn’t quite find them. He cleared his throat, his gray
eyes bleak when he met Rafe’s gaze head-on. “Yes, she barely had the strength
to make the call.” He shook his head. “I...she...uh...she died in flight to
Havre.” Tears swam in his eyes. “Blake’s on his way there now. I have to go,
too. My son…Joseph’s barely hanging on. I need to be there with him, and I need
to be here.”

Rafe
swore beneath his breath. “I’m here. Go to the hospital. You know for sure your
son is still alive. He’s the one who needs you the most right now.”

Danger
nodded, glanced around at the scene and swallowed hard. “I lost my wife six
months ago. I pushed her away, pushed her into doing what she did.”

“No.
You didn’t push her away. You
gave
her away. I watched you give her away.”

“I
want my wife back in my arms.”

Karen
gasped.

“Jesus,
Danger!” Rafe shook his head. “You know it’s too late for that.”

“No
matter what Smitt did to her, if she’s alive, I want her back where she
belongs. You know what I’m saying?”

Rafe
glanced at Karen and back at Danger. He wondered if the man even realized what
he was saying. He nodded. “I understand all of it, but what did Lacey want?”

Danger
gave a choked laugh. “The father of her baby.”