Missing: Baby Doe (Silver Stars of Montana #2)
Chapter One
The front door of the Fortune Creek, Montana, Sheriff’s Department swung open with a swoosh.
A gust of cold mountain air blew in along with a frantic and very pregnant brunette.
Acting Sheriff Catherine “Cat”
Jameson looked up in surprise.
Since she’d taken over the job here while the sheriff was on his honeymoon, she’d come to believe that nothing happened in this tiny town in the northwest corner of the state.
Certainly nothing that required a sheriff—or even an acting one.
“You have to help me!”
the woman cried.
Cat’s first thought was that the woman was in labor and about to have her baby right here in this office.
Her own hand went to her much smaller baby bump.
By the time she gave birth a couple of months from now, her job here as acting sheriff would be over.
That was as far into the future as she let herself plan.
As the pregnant woman rushed toward the acting sheriff’s minuscule office, Cat wished she’d done more reading on the delivery part of pregnancy.
Dispatcher Helen Graves, a gray-haired sixty-something tank of a woman, could and would stop a freight train from getting past her and into Sheriff Brandt Parker’s office.
But as the brunette lumbered past, Helen simply shrugged.
So that’s how it’s going to be, Cat thought, getting to her feet.
Apparently, the dispatcher-receptionist was only protective of Sheriff Parker, who had recently extended his honeymoon.
“Please,”
the brunette cried, cupping her protruding baby bump protectively.
Cat’s mind whirled.
The nearest hospital was miles away.
Calling an ambulance would only waste time.
Helen, she doubted, would be of any help.
Cat would have to take the woman to Eureka in her patrol SUV and hope they got there in time.
It was the next words out of the pregnant woman’s mouth that sidelined those thoughts.
“He’s going to kill me and my baby.”
“Wait.”
Cat thought she’d heard wrong.
“You aren’t in labor?”
Head shake.
“You believe someone is trying to kill you and your baby?”
Hurried nod.
Delivering a baby was out of Cat’s wheelhouse, but attempted murder? She told herself that the woman had come to the right place.
This is what she’d been trained for.
Also, she definitely needed a case she could sink her teeth into before she died of boredom at this isolated outpost only a stone’s throw from the Canadian border.
Then again, wasn’t that why she’d gotten the job? Because she was pregnant, no one would hire her except for a desk position.
Fortune Creek was the definition of a sleepy wilderness.
“No one is going to kill you or the baby in here,”
Cat assured her.
“Please have a seat,”
she said as she reached for her box of tissues.
As the brunette awkwardly lowered herself into a chair, Cat slid the box across the desk to her.
“Why don’t we start with your name?”
“Lindsey,”
the woman said and blew her nose into a tissue.
“Lindsey Martin.”
As she watched Lindsey pull herself together, Cat took the measure of the woman.
Late twenties, early thirties, about her own age.
Manicured and polished from her nails to her hair.
No apparent shortage of funds, given the SUV parked out front and her clothing and footwear—not to mention her watch and other jewelry.
Lindsey Martin still looked terrified, glancing over her shoulder toward the empty street every few moments, but she’d quit crying.
“Lindsey, can you tell me why you think you and your baby are at risk?”
“It’s the father of my baby.”
A domestic situation.
So far Cat had only had to break up a bar fight while in charge in Fortune Creek.
“He’s denying that it’s even his baby.”
“I see.
How long have the two of you been together?”
The woman looked confused.
“We aren’t together.”
“Okay, maybe you need to start at the beginning.”
Lindsey took a few breaths.
She was pretty, her long hair tucked up in a twist on the left side of her head with an obvious expertise that Cat had never mastered.
The woman’s eyes were a rich chocolate brown, her olive skin well-tended.
She either didn’t wear makeup or her tears had washed it away.
“I met him nine months ago in Washington, DC.”
“Love at first sight?”
“Hardly.
It was supposed to be a one-night stand.
We’d both been drinking.
He said he had protection.
I think he put something in my drink because I don’t remember anything after that until I woke up…pregnant.”
She glanced down at her extended belly.
This was definitely not the romantic story gone wrong that Cat had been expecting.
“Are you saying you were assaulted?”
She hesitated.
“It was consensual—but…”
She glanced down at her extended abdomen.
“This wasn’t part of the deal.”
Cat sat back.
“I’m confused.
If you thought you’d been drugged, did you go to the police and report it?”
She already knew the answer even before the woman shook her head.
Otherwise, Lindsey Martin wouldn’t be here now.
“What brought you to Fortune Creek?”
“My baby’s father bought a ranch and moved out here.
When I couldn’t reach him by phone, I drove out here to confront him.”
“From Washington, DC?”
Cat asked in surprise.
“No, I’ve been living in Denver.
He wouldn’t even talk to me, let alone allow me on his property.”
“You said he threatened to harm you and the baby?”
“I left him a note in his mailbox with my phone number and where I was staying in Eureka.
This morning, I got this.”
She reached into her shoulder bag, dug around and came up with a sheet of folded paper.
Slapping it down on Cat’s desk, she said, “It was pushed under my motel room door at the address I’d left him.”
Cat drew out latex gloves before picking up the sheet of paper and unfolding it.
Stop causing trouble or I’ll get rid of both you and your baby permanently.
It wasn’t signed.
She looked from the words to Lindsey and back.
“You’re sure this is from the father of the baby?”
“Who else?”
Exactly.
“And you say this is the first time you’ve contacted him?”
A nod.
“Is there anyone else who might wish you harm?”
“In Montana?”
She let out a laugh that was close to a sob.
“Even if there was, he’s the only person who even knows I’m in Montana.”
“Okay.
Do you mind if I keep this?”
Lindsey shook her head.
Cat bagged the note and asked, “You’re sure you’ve never tried contacting him before this? Because the note makes it sound like you have.”
Adamant head shake.
“Okay, then I have to ask.
Why now? You’re about to have this baby.
What is it you want from him?”
The question seemed to surprise her.
“I never asked for any of this.
I thought I could do it, have this baby.”
She shook her head.
“He did this to me.
He owes me.
At the very least he shouldn’t threaten me.
He needs to admit what he did and take responsibility for it.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“I don’t think I can do this alone.”
“Do you know the sex of the baby?”
Cat asked, thinking of the baby girl she would be giving birth to soon and raising alone.
Another head shake.
“I don’t want to know.”
“Are you thinking about giving the baby up?”
More tears and no answer.
Cat could see how conflicted the woman was—and with good reason if what she’d told her was true.
The father of the baby had threatened her.
If he was the man who’d drugged her and impregnated her, then he could be dangerous and there might be real malice behind the threat.
She pulled out her notebook and picked up her pen.
“What’s the man’s name?”