Chapter Twelve
It was late by the time Cat drove home.
Dylan had tried to get her to stay.
He had no idea how badly she wanted to, but not in one of his many guest bedrooms.
She felt as if she’d already stepped over a boundary she shouldn’t have as acting sheriff.
Worse was where she’d let her thoughts—let alone her desires—go during dinner.
She felt like a schoolgirl with her first crush and was embarrassed by it.
She had to remind herself that she was seven months pregnant, a recent widow and acting sheriff.
She had no business feeling these emotions, let alone these desires.
Yet, she did feel them.
Worse, she fantasized about fulfilling them—if she wasn’t seven months pregnant, a recent widow and acting sheriff.
Dylan had proven to be a wonderful host—and a very good cook.
Her steak was perfect.
She’d had him write down his salad dressing recipe for her since she’d wanted to lick her bowl it was so good.
Once in her small apartment, she checked her messages, then showered and was about to get in bed when Taylor’s sister called.
She and Lilly had always been like sisters.
Cat told her about tonight.
“I feel so guilty.”
“No,”
her friend said.
“Taylor wouldn’t want you to.
Anyway, I know he wasn’t the love of your life.
You’re young.
You haven’t found him yet, and when you do, you go for it, Cat.
You deserve to find that kind of love, passionate, crazy, no-holds-barred love.”
“Wait a minute,”
she said laughing.
“Lilly? Are we still talking about me? Or about you now? Have you found yours?”
“Well, if I did, what would you say?”
“I’d say go for it.”
They both laughed.
“Okay, now tell me all about it.”
An hour later, Cat finally crawled into bed smiling to herself because her sister-in-law had fallen head over heels in love and she couldn’t be happier for her.
She must have fallen right to sleep because the next thing she knew she was jolted from a very erotic, wonderful dream to the ringing of the phone.
Picking up, she barely got out, “Acting Sheriff Cat Jameson,”
before JP interrupted her.
“We got another one.”
She tried to clear her head.
“Another one what?”
“Dead body.”
Her heart in her throat, Cat said, “Not the—”
“Baby? No, sorry,”
JP said quickly.
“An adult male, no identification on him or the female, murdered with him.
What is it about you?”
he asked.
“Three murders in a matter of days? It’s a regular crime spree.”
Cat disconnected, fully awake, her mind racing.
She felt goose bumps ripple over her skin.
What was going on?
She got out of bed and moved to the front window to look out across the street at the hotel.
The alley where she’d seen Rowena arguing with one of the agents was empty.
The SUV the two feds had been driving was gone.
Would they be back when they heard about two more murders?
She feared that she was on her own as she dressed and headed for the murder scene—this one along the Yaak River, not far from the Canadian border.
Her daughter was kicking up a storm by the time she pulled over alongside the other law enforcement vehicles and got out.
The bodies had been dumped much like Athena Grant’s and not far from the road.
With all these places to bury remains, she could only assume whoever killed them had either wanted them to be found or didn’t care that they would be.
“Any ID on them?”
she asked when she saw JP.
He shook his head.
“Want to take a look?”
He glanced at her baby bump as if worried she wasn’t up to this.
“Yes,”
she said emphatically.
Both bodies had been retrieved from the ditch and now lay in body bags on two stretchers.
JP unzipped first the female’s.
Cat braced herself, afraid she was going to recognize the woman.
If was a relief when she didn’t.
“Shot the same way?”
she asked, and JP grunted as he re-zipped the bag and reached for the male’s bag.
As the zipper came down, she felt a shock.
“I know this one.
He’s FBI.”
She could feel JP staring at her in surprise.
“I saw him across the street from the sheriff’s department arguing with a woman—not this one, someone else.”
“You’re sure he’s FBI?” JP asked.
“I saw them when they checked into the hotel in Fortune Creek.
They paid me a visit the other morning, and I saw their credentials.”
“Well, it should make identifying him easier,”
the coroner said.
“Let’s get them both back to the morgue.
I’ll send prints right away and let you know.”
On the way back to Fortune Creek, she finally admitted to herself that she was in over her head.
She put in the call to the DCI and got crime team leader Hank Ferguson on the phone.
She quickly updated him on the situation.
He promised to send a couple of investigators, but also to keep her in the loop.
Cat thanked him and barely got disconnected when Dylan called.
“I’ve had my people looking for Patty Cooper Harper.
I have a lead down in Kalispell.
Thought you might want to go with me to check it out.
If she has my nephew— Well, I might need an officer of the law with me,” he said.
She chuckled.
“I suspect you can handle yourself in most situations.”
“I hear hesitation in your voice.”
“It’s not that.
I just turned the case and the new one over to DCI.
They are sending investigators.”
“Great, so you’re free to follow a lead,”
he said.
“I promise I won’t step on your toes, Sheriff.
Except maybe when we’re slow dancing.
Thought we should take my pickup—your patrol SUV kind of stands out in a crowd.
Pick you up at your office?”
She thought of Helen and her eagle eyes and sharp tongue.
“Better if I come to you out at the ranch since it’s on the way.
See you soon.”
She didn’t mention that she was already on the road.
Or that there had been two more murders.
That they were killed in the same way Athena was told her the cases were connected.
But what that had to do with Dylan’s nephew, she had no idea.
She suspected the baby hadn’t been part of the plan and was now a problem.
She just hoped he wasn’t disposable.
Dylan was surprised how much he had been looking forward to the trip to Kalispell with Cat.
He had a good feeling they were getting closer to finding his nephew.
Yesterday had been the best day he’d spent at the ranch.
While he loved his horseback rides, he realized now that he’d been lonely, which surprised him.
He’d thought he wanted and needed to be alone so he could deal with everything.
He’d spent months dwelling in the past, blaming himself for everything that had happened and trying to understand why he hadn’t seen it coming.
How could he not blame himself for marrying Ginny so quickly? He had to take some responsibility for the tragedies that had followed.
Learning what he had about Ginny and the others, gave him hope that he could find out the truth and finally put the past behind him.
But nothing had made him feel more hopeful than Cat.
Look what she’d been through, was still going through, and how she was dealing with it.
He admired her courage and conviction.
Hell, he thought with a laugh as he waited for her to buzz in at the gate, he was half in love with her, as ridiculous as it sounded even to him.
But he hadn’t been able to even think about the future before she’d come into his miserable existence.
Minutes later, he buzzed her in and went out on the deck to wait for her.
He had a good feeling about today.
With luck they would be at least one step closer to finding his nephew and making sure he was safe.
He couldn’t imagine going through this without Cat.
Cat settled into the seat of Dylan’s pickup as he drove off the ranch.
It was one of those breathtaking Montana days in the spring when the sky was so blue it almost hurt to look at it.
Not a cloud scudded across that big sky.
The air smelled so good, Cat wanted to bottle it.
She smiled, aware that this was the first day in a long time that she’d felt this good.
“What are you smiling about?”
Dylan asked, a laugh in his voice.
“This day, being here…with you and following this lead to Patty Cooper,”
she said, glancing at him.
“I just have a good feeling that she has the baby, that he’s safe and that we’re getting closer to finding him.
I also feel like we’re running away.
It’s a nice feeling.
Playing hooky.
I should feel guilty, but I turned the investigation over to the state crime investigators. I know when I’m out of my league.”
“You do seem freer,”
he said, “but I can’t imagine you walking away completely.
You’re good at your job.
Don’t sell yourself short.”
She chuckled at that.
“And you just met me a matter of days ago.
But you’re right.
I’m still working the case, but it’s good to admit when you’re in over your head and let the seasoned professionals take over.
There were two more murders last night.
One of those murdered was an FBI agent. I’m sure they’ll get involved now, as well as DCI.”
“Two more murders?”
He raised a brow.
“Are the cases connected?”
“They were killed the same way Athena was, so I’d say yes.”
“I just hope we can find Patty and my nephew.
After that, let the FBI at it,”
he said, and she agreed.
“Tell me about this lead you have,”
she said as they passed Whitefish.
“I called around to motels, giving them a description of Patty and saying she might have had an infant with her.
I also had a few friends involved doing the same thing.”
“And you got a hit,”
Cat said, surprised.
She and the deputies from other departments hadn’t had any luck.
But then again, they hadn’t had a good description of Patty, while Dylan had met her at his wedding.
“Actually, the woman I spoke to said she was glad I called.
She was wondering who to contact about the car.
It seems Patty left the car with the license plate number she’d put down on her motel registration form in their parking lot.”
Cat shook her head in awe.
“Nice work.”
He would have made a good cop.
While she didn’t know exactly what work he’d done outside his career, he’d made it sound as if it had been for the government So, she shouldn’t have been surprised, but he kept exceeding her expectations.
Once at the hotel, Cat introduced herself to the manager who led them out to the car parked at the far side of the parking lot.
It was a nondescript sedan with Montana plates, probably a rental that hadn’t been picked up yet.
Patty had either been picked up by someone else or had the rental agency bring her another car.
Maybe they had planned to come back for this one.
Dylan pulled a device from behind the seats of his pickup that looked like a metal ruler only thinner.
It took him only a few seconds to unlock the car.
By then Cat had pulled on a pair of latex gloves.
She’d learned to always carry several pairs in her business.
The first thing she saw was the blood on the passenger side seat.
For a moment, she was taken aback, especially when she saw what looked like a wadded-up bloody baby blanket on the floor.
The interior had a smell that threatened to turn her stomach.
She made the call to DCI team leader Hank Ferguson so they could get a forensics team to go over the car.
Then she finished searching the inside.
When she got ready to check the trunk, she hesitated.
Dylan met her gaze.
“You want me to do it?” he asked.
She shook her head and braced herself, afraid of what she would find.
As the trunk lid yawned open, she saw with relief that it was empty.
“Athena wasn’t killed in the car,”
Cat said as she slammed the trunk lid.
“But I suspect she was transported in it before she was killed and dumped along the road.
It would explain the blood on the passenger seat and floorboard.
Have to wait until forensics finishes with it to know for sure.”
She looked toward the hotel, thinking of Patty and the baby.
Where were they now? Patty could have taken him out of Montana, maybe even out of the country.
Unless there was a reason she had to stay around here.
“Why didn’t she leave the area right away?”
Cat asked herself out loud.
“She had to know that everyone would be looking for the baby once Athena’s body was found.
Why stay?”
Dylan shook his head.
“Is she waiting for Rowena to go with them?”
“Maybe,”
she said as she walked to his pickup and climbed in.
“I’ll make sure the FBI gets photos of Patty and Rowena in case they decide to skip the country with the baby.”
Her cell rang.
Checking, she saw it was JP.
She picked up.
“He wasn’t FBI,”
the coroner said without preamble.
She knew at once he was talking about the man who’d been murdered the night before.
“Then who is he?”
“A Russian geologist over here on a student visa,”
JP said.
“At least that’s how he got the visa.
The real FBI have been notified.”
“And the woman?”
“Nothing yet.
I heard you turned the cases over to the DCI.”
“It was time,”
Cat said.
“I’m still working the case, though.
I needed help.”
“Smart decision,”
he said.
She thought she heard pride in his voice.
“You’ve done good.”
With that he was gone.
She disconnected, feeling a little better.
She admired and respected JP, so a compliment from him was worth gold.
“You’re not giving up,”
Dylan said, then looked over at her having obviously heard enough of the conversation to read between the lines.
“Calling in reinforcements is just good business.”
Cat had to smile even as she fought tears.
She wasn’t as upset about messing up with the counterfeit FBI agents as she was in what it meant.
The men who’d posed as FBI agents said they had no interest in Dylan, and she’d taken their word for him no longer being a suspect in the case.
“But no one should count you out.”
She nodded, but she wasn’t all that sure that her judgment wasn’t flawed—especially when it came to Dylan Walker.
She’d taken the word of a man posing as an FBI agent that Dylan Walker could be trusted.
Had she jumped at it because she’d wanted to believe it? Because she liked him.
More than liked him.
“I should probably get back,”
she said, hand going to her stomach to feel her daughter moving around.
To remind her what was at stake.
She couldn’t make this about herself.
She’d never been able to.
She took a couple of deep breaths.
“Anything you want to talk about?”
Dylan asked as they climbed into his pickup.
She thought about just brushing it off as “work stuff”
but stopped herself as he began to drive through town toward the road that would take them back to his ranch.
“Those two FBI agents I told you about? They weren’t agents.
The one who’s dead was a Russian here on a student visa.”
Dylan said nothing for a moment.
“Now you’re thinking of me again as a suspect.”
He met her gaze.
“What do you want to know?”
“Did you leave the ranch last night?”
“No.
Can anyone substantiate that? No.
I didn’t see Rowena’s car when I went to bed.
I have no idea what time she came in, but she was back this morning when I left.
I haven’t talked to her.”
“What about your gate intercom system? Does it keep track of visitors?”
He chuckled at that.
“Before you and Rowena showed up, I hadn’t had any visitors for three months so no reason to install a video camera that recorded every wild animal that walked past.”
“I don’t mean to sound—”
“Suspicious? But you are and that’s okay.
I don’t mind.”
She didn’t believe that.
He looked hurt.
She thought about how happy he’d looked when he’d picked her up.
She hated that she’d taken that away from him.
While she wanted to tell him that she trusted him, she wasn’t sure she could right now.
Cat looked out her side window, thinking what a long ride it would be on the way back to Fortune Creek.
She was wishing there was something she could say when she spotted Rowena on a side street.
“Stop!”
she ordered Dylan.
He hit his brakes and pulled over, no doubt hearing the alarm in her voice.
She was already getting out as she said, “It’s Rowena coming out of what appears to be a baby shop.”
Dylan swore.
Cat was out of the pickup almost before he got it fully stopped, but he wasn’t far behind her.
Ahead he could see Rowena carrying a shopping bag with a children’s shop logo on it.
She slowed, then stopped to take a phone call as they approached her from behind.
All Dylan heard her say into the phone was, “I’m doing the best I can.
You yelling at me isn’t helping.”
Rowena looked alarmed and instantly disconnected when she saw the two of them.
“What are you doing here?”
“I want to ask you the same thing,”
the sheriff said.
“Been doing some baby shopping?”
Rowena pulled the bag closer to herself.
“My niece just had a baby.
I was getting her a present.”
“Girl or boy?”
Cat said, grabbing the top of the bag and pulling it open enough to see what the woman had bought.
“A boy, huh? Where is Athena Grant’s baby?”
“Who?”
“Don’t play dumb,”
Dylan snapped.
“Where is my nephew?”
Rowena looked around nervously as if afraid someone was watching them.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Murder is what we’re talking about and kidnapping,”
Cat said.
“I’m worried about that baby’s safety.
I think it’s time you told me what’s going on.”
Rowena shook her head and tried to walk around them, but Dylan grabbed her arm.
“Enough games.
I want my nephew.”
“You have no idea what you’ve gotten involved in,”
the woman said through gritted teeth as she again looked around, even more nervous now as she pulled free.
“Where were you taking these baby clothes?”
Cat demanded.
“You need to take us to the baby.”
“I told you, they’re for my niece’s new baby.”
“You’re lying,”
Dylan said.
“If anything happens to my nephew—”
“The FBI is now involved,”
Cat said.
“The real FBI.
I saw you talking to a man a couple of nights ago who was pretending to be an agent, but he’s now dead, along with an older woman who was with him.”
She saw surprise on Rowena’s face followed quickly by fear.
“Don’t threaten me,”
Rowena snapped looking cornered.
“Either of you.
You have no idea.”
She took a step backward, then another.
“Rowena—”
“Arrest me or leave me alone.”
With that she turned and hurried down the street.
“She knows I don’t have enough evidence to arrest her,”
Cat said.
“But let’s try to follow her.”
Unfortunately, by the time they got back to his pickup, Rowena was gone.
“At least she’s buying clothes for the baby,”
Cat said, her voice breaking.
Dylan pulled over in a residential area under a large weeping willow tree.
He cut the engine and turned to look at her.
“I hate that you don’t trust me now.”
The large tree formed a canopy over them, cocooning them in dark shade away from the rest of the world.
“I didn’t say—”
“You don’t have to.
I can see it in your eyes. Cat…”
He seemed at a loss for words for a few moments.
“Right or wrong, I started caring about you.
If this case is as dangerous as it appears—and Rowena claims, maybe you should distance yourself from it—and from me.
Otherwise…”
He reached over, his fingers trailing down her bare arm from the elbow to the wrist before pulling back.
“I can’t do that, not from the case…not from you,”
she said as she met his gaze and held it.
“I’ve never felt…”
“Like this?”
He nodded.
“I’ve never wanted anyone the way I do you.”
Was this real? Cat couldn’t believe it.
She let out a laugh that was close to a sob.
She’d wanted to feel like this her whole life, this kind of all-consuming passion, this desire that made her feel more alive than she’d ever felt.
Now that she did meet someone who stoked those fires of desire, she was pregnant.
“A woman seven months pregnant?”
she cried.
“You couldn’t be more desirable than you are right now.”
He leaned toward her, gently cupping the back of her head with his hand as he kissed her at first gently, then with growing passion.
Her mouth opened to his in a wordless surrender as she dug her fingers into his strong shoulders.
She felt her nipples pebble, pressing hard against her bra.
Her pulse thundered in her ears, an ache of longing in her chest that shot all the way to her center.
She told herself this wasn’t her, yet she knew this had been the missing part of her for years, the passionate unfulfilled part of her she’d unconsciously dreamed of.
“We can’t go back to my place or yours,”
he said as he pulled back, sounding breathless.
His gaze held hers.
“I know somewhere we can go.”
Was she really doing this? She nodded.
Dylan kept his hand on her leg as he drove.
Cat spent the short drive trying to talk some sense into herself.
She didn’t have to go through with this.
He would understand.
Stopping this before it got started was the sensible thing to do.
She’d spent her life being sensible.
Isn’t that why she’d married Taylor? Because it was the sensible, safe thing to do.
She’d known that he loved her, she’d known him practically her whole life.
There would be no surprises.
Even the first time they made love had been comfortable—expected.
They’d been inseparable as friends for years. Of course, there hadn’t been fireworks or passion. There had been companionship, safety, a predictable life.
Except a drunk driver had taken that away and now here she was, pregnant with Taylor’s baby about to do what?
She looked over at Dylan.
The way her heart was pounding she felt as if she was about to leap off a cliff.
She was definitely about to leave her comfort zone and careen into the unknown.
Her pulse pounded at the thought as Dylan pulled up in front of a beautiful house overlooking Flathead Lake.
“It’s my brother Beau’s,”
he said and cut the engine.
“He’s the reason I bought the ranch out here.”