She dialed Taylor’s number. He answered on the first ring, and she quickly recounted what had happened.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked.
She assured him she was fine.
“Where is this Lester person now?”
“I don’t know. Deputy Cline sounded like he might know, though.”
“You called Cline?”
She couldn’t miss the worry in his voice. “You don’t think—”
“I’m sure you did the right thing.” Taylor didn’t sound sure at all. “I’ll keep an eye on Cline. Just stay there.”
She hung up, relieved she’d called Taylor. Max had once told her the reason he didn’t get along with the deputy was because Cline bent the law when it suited him. But not even Cline would bend the law to protect a murderer, would he? Unless he was the murderer.
Just as she finished locking the doors, Davey came out of the kitchen with a large bag of chips, a jar of salsa, a couple of turkey and cheese sandwiches and two Cokes.
“Hungry?” he asked with a grin.
DENVER EXPECTED MAX’S files to be ransacked again. But as she stepped in, she realized it looked just as it had the last time she and J.D. had been here.
“Sheila?” Denver called out.
A sheet of silence as thick as ice lay over the house. Not even a breeze stirred the pines outside. Denver followed J.D.’s gaze to the stairs and felt him squeeze her hand. As she trailed after him, her pulse thundered in her ears. The stairs creaked under their weight as they climbed slowly into the light above.
On the landing at the top, Denver slipped and would have fallen if J.D. hadn’t caught her. “What is it?” he whispered.
“Something’s on the floor.” She moved her foot to find a dark stain. She bent down to touch it gingerly with a finger, knowing what it was before she felt the sticky substance. “I think it’s blood.”
J.D. let out a groan; his hand tightened on hers. “Stay here.”
She watched him cautiously push open the door to Max’s apartment. He swore angrily.
“Tell me it’s not Maggie!” she cried, hurrying up behind him.
“It’s not Maggie,” J.D. assured her, trying to hold her back. She pushed past him and stared down at the figure on the floor.
Sheila Walker lay on her side in a pool of blood. She was very dead.
J.D. DIALED THE SHERIFF’S office. Denver stood at Max’s office window staring out into the night. When the dispatcher came on the line, she informed him that Deputy Cline wasn’t in and couldn’t be reached by radio right now. Was there a message?
“Tell him there’s been a murder at Max McCallahan’s. Upstairs. Her name’s Sheila Walker.”
Denver headed for the front door as J.D. hung up. “Where are you going?” he demanded, following her out to the porch.
“I don’t want to be here when Cline gets here. He’ll try to stop us. We have to fix the band’s rigs and find Maggie.”
J.D. checked his watch. He couldn’t believe he was going along with her blueberry-syrup plan. “We still have time.” He pulled her into his arms, cradling the back of her head in his hand. Just the touch of her hair brought back the memory of them together. His heart ached with worry that he might lose her.
“I can’t quit now,” she whispered against his shirt. In the distance, J.D. could hear the wail of a siren.
“I know.” He released her; she stepped back and looked up at him. Her expression tore at his heart. They would never find happiness until Max’s killer was caught.
J.D. took her hand and they ran across the street to the van. His ankle still hurt but felt stronger, he realized. With the headlights off, he quickly turned down the alley into the dark pines. Moments later, a patrol car came to a screeching halt in front of Max’s office. The blue light on top spun, flickering against the night sky. J.D. pulled the van to the end of the alley and, heading toward the old depot, turned on the headlights.
DENVER COULD HEAR the music from the dance as J.D. pulled the van under a large pine on a logging road behind the depot and killed the engine. The festive sounds of the party drifted on the cool night air, belying the danger.
Denver glanced at the dashboard clock. It was 1:48 a.m. “Wanna flip for the bus or the pickup?”
J.D. shook his head. “You can have the bus. You’d probably cheat on the coin toss anyway.”
She started to open her door, but he pulled her into his arms. His kiss promised her things she could not bear to think about. The feel of his lips, the taste of him, made her crave more. When he released her, she looked into his eyes, seeing the love she’d always dreamed of. How badly she wanted to forget this mess and just take off with him. But she knew Max’s murder would always haunt her. And she had to find Maggie.
“I’ll see you in a few minutes,” she whispered and kissed him quickly. “For luck.”
Then, pulling two gallons of the blueberry syrup, wire and a pair of pliers from the back, she headed for the band’s old school bus before she could talk herself out of it.
It felt like a lark, something she and Pete and J.D. would have done when they were kids. But she neared the bus cautiously, only too well aware of what was at stake. The bus was parked behind the depot-turned-community center, secluded by virtue of the darkness and the large pines that loomed over it. Denver stopped for a moment to look back at J.D. He carried the same equipment she did, only he was working his way toward Pete’s pickup parked around front, and she realized why he’d given her the bus. It was safer.
Laughter rippled on the breeze, mixing with voices. But no music. The band must be on a break. A few partygoers stood on the back steps of the old railroad depot, smoking and talking. It was too dark to see their faces—only the glow of their cigarettes was visible. She hung back in the shadows until they returned inside when the music started up again. Taking one last look around, she climbed under the bus.
J.D. CRAWLED BENEATH Pete’s pickup, pulling the supplies with him. The sounds of the dance drifted around him. He listened for closer sounds as he checked his watch. Almost 2:00 a.m. The dance would be over soon. He reached for the first plastic gallon of blueberry syrup and the wire. Cutting a piece of wire, he tied the container to the undercarriage of the pickup, then carefully made a small hole in the plastic. The syrup began to drip. He reached for another gallon and attached it with more wire to the first in piggyback fashion, making a hole between the two gallon jugs. He watched the slow, steady drip of syrup for a moment, and smiled. He’d laughed at Denny’s idea in the beginning.
“Well, it might not be as good as Hansel and Gretel leaving bread crumbs,” Denny had said. “But at least the syrup should leave a trail we can follow on a snow-packed highway in the dark.”
J.D. listened to the night sounds for a few seconds, thinking he’d heard a noise nearby. Nothing. He slipped out, brushed snow from his jeans and turned to find himself staring down the barrel of a shotgun.
DENVER FINISHED “syruping” the bus and looked around for J.D. Not seeing him, she headed back to the van according to plan. Her heart jackhammered at the thought that their plan might actually work. Now it was up to the FBI to stop the poachers; she’d called them from Billings and told them about the blueberry-syrup trail she planned to leave for them. But she couldn’t be sure they’d taken her seriously. She’d warned them not to contact Marsh or Cline, and that could have been a mistake.
Now she couldn’t wait to get back to the van—and J.D. More than ever, she wanted this whole thing to be over so they could be together. Once Maggie was safe—
Something moved ahead of her. Denver slowed, searching the pools of blackness beneath the pines and the shadows that sprawled across the aging snowbanks.
“J.D.?” she whispered.
A large dark shadow stepped from the trees. Just in time she caught the scream that rose in her throat. “Deputy Cline!” Her heart thundered against her ribs. “What are you doing here?”
“I believe that??
?s my line. You’re the one sneaking around in the dark.” He nodded to the wire and pliers. “Like to tell me exactly what you’ve been up to?”
She took a step back in the snow, but he restrained her with a hand on her arm. “A hitchhiker didn’t kill my uncle.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” he demanded. He motioned toward his patrol car parked in the pines down the road behind the depot. “You’re coming with me.” His fingers bit into her flesh.
“You’re behind all of it?” Denver burst out, jerking her arm free of Cline’s grasp as she tried to get her wobbly legs to move.
“You fool woman!” he snarled, reaching for her again.
She stumbled back. He grabbed her shoulder and spun her into him. She heard the metal clink of handcuffs and his mumbled curses as she fought to escape, but she didn’t stand a chance against his strength.
Denver didn’t hear the other person approach. It wasn’t until Cline’s grip loosened and he crumpled to the ground, that she realized she’d been saved. Again. She looked up to see Taylor looming over her. She fell into his arms, tears overflowing at the mere sight of him. “We have to quit meeting like this,” she said on a sob.
He laughed softly. “I guess you’re all right if you see any humor in this,” he said, holding her at arm’s length.
“This is twice that you’ve come to my rescue.” Then she heard it. The rumble of the bus engine. Through the pines, she could make out two distinct figures. Cal was forcing someone into the back of the bus. “Oh, my God, they’ve got J.D.”
Chapter Twenty
“I have to help J.D.,” Denver cried, turning back toward the depot as the bus started to pull away.
Taylor caught her arm. “That won’t help him, Denver. That could get him killed.”
She spun around to face him. “You don’t understand.”
“Yes, I do. I talked to Maggie and she told me all about the poaching ring.”
Relief rushed through her. “Maggie’s all right?”
“Davey Matthews is with her at your cabin.”
“Davey?” She felt like she’d fallen down a well.
Taylor looked at the unconscious Cline. “Davey told her about the poaching ring and some guy called Midnight, who he thinks killed your Uncle Max.”
“Midnight?”
“Unfortunately, Maggie also called Deputy Cline and gave him the same information. That’s why I’ve been following him. I’ve never trusted him.”
She nodded, feeling a weight come off her shoulders. Taylor hadn’t believed Cline’s killer hitchhiker theories, either. No wonder he’d been hanging around Maggie’s. She stared at the deputy, trying to imagine his face covered with a ski mask. It would explain a lot of things. Max would have trusted Cline. And the deputy had done everything to make it look like a hitchhiker was the murderer in order to keep her from looking for the real culprit.
“What can we do?” she pleaded as the band’s bus pulled away from the old stone depot.
“One thing we can’t do is let the deputy tip off the poachers. Help me move him.”
They dragged Cline over to a tree, where Taylor gagged and handcuffed him.
“Come on.” Putting his arm around her shoulders, Taylor led her to his Suburban. “We’ve got to call someone for help. How about the district ranger?”
“Roland Marsh?”
J.D. SAT HELPLESS in the back of the bus while Lester taped his wrists and ankles. Cal leaned against the opposite wall, holding a shotgun on him.
“Is that necessary?” Pete yelled back.
Cal swore. “Just drive.”
J.D. tried to talk through the tape already covering his mouth.
“Worried about Denver?” Cal asked, guessing his concern. “We’re taking good care of her.” He laughed, then leaned over to check the job Lester was doing on J.D.’s ankles. “Use more tape. We don’t want any trouble out of him.”
J.D. noticed Pete looking at the road behind them in the rearview mirror as if he expected company. Cal must have noticed it, too.
“You got a problem, Williams?”
“I just want this night to be over.”
Cal glanced back down the main drag. “Don’t we all.”
Just before they’d left the parking lot, Cal had checked the bus with an electronic device for detecting bugs. All the time he was doing it, he was watching Pete as if he thought Pete might have bugged the bus. J.D. could feel the tension between the two of them. Nothing like a falling-out among thieves, he thought. And here he was right in the middle of it. But where was Denver?
He caught a glimpse of the community church off to his left and realized they were headed north out of town. He prayed that Cal was wrong, that Denny was all right and that she’d gotten away.
“You’re sure the boss is going to show?” Pete hollered as he got the old bus rattling down the highway.
“You worry too much,” Cal yelled back. “By now, Midnight’s got Denver and he’s taking her to the semi.” He smiled at J.D.’s reaction. “You don’t like the idea of him having your girlfriend?”
J.D. felt his heart collapse from the sudden weight of worry on his chest. Denny with a man called Midnight. The leader of a poaching ring at best. At worst, a murderer.
“Stop that or I’ll stop you,” Cal said when he caught J.D. fighting the tape on his wrists.
Lester finished taping J.D.’s ankles. Cal inspected the job, then the two of them moved up to the front of the bus.
J.D. strained to hear their conversation. They seemed to be arguing but he couldn’t be sure about what. He looked around for something to use to cut the tape.
“WE CAN’T GO TO MARSH,” Denver said, climbing into the passenger side of the Suburban. The band’s bus turned at the corner and headed north. “He’s working with the poachers.”
Taylor swung around to face her. “Are you sure?” She nodded and he swore, then apologized for it. “This whole thing is totally out of control.”
“We have to follow the bus,” Denver said. “I’m sure they plan to move the horn tonight. There’s a tracking device on the bus. It’s not as high-tech as the one Pete used on me, but hopefully it will work.”
Taylor looked puzzled.
“I’ll tell you all about it on the way,” Denver assured him.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked, checking the two rifles on the rack behind their heads.
“Yes, they have J.D. And who is there we can trust?”
“No one, I guess.” He reached under the seat and pulled out a .38. He laid it on the console between them without a word, then turned onto the street, heading in the same direction as they’d last seen the bus going. “I think you’d better start at the beginning,” Taylor said.
She filled him in. Starting with Lila Wade hiring Max to see if Lester Wade was cheating to the cryptic words at the bottom of Lester’s case file, and all the way to the Billings Register’s morgue and Sheila Walker’s murder. “Anyone who’s gotten too close is dead,” she finished.
Taylor didn’t say anything. Instead, he studied her face, a frown creasing his brow. “It’s all so hard to believe. You say Pete and this district ranger are in on it?”
She stared at the empty highway ahead, trying to pick up the blueberry-syrup trail, trying desperately not to think about her disappointment in Pete. “Pete used some sort of tracking device to follow me to Marsh’s.”
Taylor looked at her and swore, this time not apologizing for it. “Does J.D. know all this?” She nodded. “Then his life is in as much danger as yours is.”
She thought of J.D. in the hands of murderers, and dread made her heart pound so that each breath was a labor. She picked up the syrup trail in the Suburban’s headlights on the outskirts of town. A thin, dark blue line of drops along the snowpack shone in the lights; somewhere ahead, the band’s bus lumbered down Highway 191 headed north.
“No wonder Pete and Cline tried so hard to dissuade me from looking for Max’s killer,” De
nver said, seeing everything more clearly.
“So Davey’s the one who tipped you off about the poaching ring,” Taylor said, shaking his head. “Awfully brave kid, huh, especially after he was almost killed on Horse Butte that night. Then tonight he rescued Maggie from this Lester Wade character.”
“I don’t know what we would have done without him. I wouldn’t have found out about the poaching and Cal and put it all together.” They dropped over the hill past Baker’s Hole Campground. There was no sign of the bus’s taillights, just the steady line of blueberry syrup down the center of the lane.
“And you think it’s all tied in with a 1969 bank robbery?” Taylor asked, sounding incredulous.
“Cal’s the connection, although his real name is William Collins.” She explained what she’d seen under hypnosis and what she later learned from Chief Vernon. “I think Sheila Walker figured it out and that’s what got her killed.”
He shook his head. “It’s hard to believe Deputy Cline is this Midnight person.”
“I know,” Denver agreed, thinking about the small cabin he lived in at the edge of town. “I wonder what he did with the money from the robbery.”
“Maybe he has it hidden somewhere for the time when he retires,” Taylor suggested. They crossed Grayling Pass and dropped down the other side, the syrup drops growing smaller and farther apart. “Your blueberry-syrup trail just ended, kid.”
Denver stared at the road for a moment, then behind her. “Didn’t we pass a side road back there?” she asked, looking into the darkness. “They must have turned off.”
“Or your syrup ran out.”
She didn’t even want to consider that possibility.
Taylor turned the Suburban around and pulled off on what looked like an old fishing-access road, nothing more than a snowy, narrow dirt road leading into the trees. But more than one set of dual tire tracks had already broken through the snowdrifts.
Taylor turned off his headlights and followed the tracks in the snow along the river. On a rise above a wide clearing, he stopped and killed the engine. Denver stared at the snowy meadow in front of them and the semitrailer sitting in the middle of it. The rear doors of the trailer were open, and in the faint glow of a lantern’s light, she could see that the refrigerated trailer was only half-full. Huge piles of antlers waited to be loaded.