CHAPTER TEN
SEVEN HUNDRED MILES? Flint drove back to the ranch, staring out at the falling snow and imagining Celeste behind the wheel of her big SUV. She couldn’t have gone that far without stopping for gas at least a couple of times. There would be a record, but that would take time to track down. Unless she used cash.
If she’d had that much cash, then it would mean all of this had been premeditated. He tried to get his head around it. Had she been following Maggie for weeks? Possibly. Maybe the run-in at the market had been planned. That thought shook him. He and Maggie had thought that his ex had backed off and all this time she’d been stalking Maggie?
Originally he had thought Maggie’s abduction had to have been spur-of-the-moment. Celeste had been upset about Maggie moving in with him. She’d driven by his house, seen Maggie’s car, pulled in. She hadn’t planned to hurt Maggie.
But she had taken the gun Wayne said he’d bought her. So she could have been armed when she went into the house. The two had argued—that much was obvious. But then what? Had she pulled the gun on Maggie? Was that why Maggie had gotten into her vehicle and left with her?
He still believed that Celeste had panicked and had no choice but to force Maggie to go with her. He could hear Maggie telling him that he underestimated just how vindictive Celeste could be. He’d tried to give her the benefit of the doubt. No wonder for a while Maggie had thought he still felt something for his ex. He just didn’t want to believe that he’d married such a woman.
Seven hundred miles. He kept coming back to that. How far would Celeste have been able to get? Gilt Edge was practically the center of the state. If he were to mark off three hundred and fifty miles radius... He grabbed an old atlas from downstairs and made a circle around Gilt Edge with a pen. If Celeste went three hundred and fifty miles one way from Gilt Edge, it would take her to Canada, North Dakota, clear to Wyoming and... He slowed as he was circling through Western Montana and quickly checked the mileage on the atlas chart.
He let out a curse. Flathead Lake was three hundred and thirty miles from Gilt Edge. Hadn’t he heard that Celeste and Wayne had a lake house on Flathead? A lake house with a basement?
* * *
DEPUTY HARPER COLE couldn’t believe what a fool he was. He was driving down the main drag headed for the shitty apartment he and Vicki shared, when it hit him. He couldn’t just ask Vicki to marry him. He needed a ring.
“It’s time you started taking responsibility for your future,” he said to himself, mimicking his father’s stern voice as he swung into the local pawnshop parking lot.
Just the thought of his father, the mayor, made him grind his teeth.
“What are you going to do about this woman you’ve...impregnated?” the mayor had demanded the last time they’d spoken.
“You make it sound so romantic,” he’d quipped.
His father had rolled his eyes in response.
“I don’t know yet. Maybe I’ll marry her.”
“You probably could do worse.”
Nice, he thought now. Well, he’d show his old man. He would step up. He’d show the whole town. Almost dying had made him a new man. That and everyone in the county thinking he was a hero.
The idea of being a family man appealed to him more than he ever thought it would. He now saw it as a fresh start. People would forget about the old Harper Cole—not that he saw anything wrong with him.
But if he hoped to be sheriff, he had to look good. He felt a shiver of excitement because he’d finally made up his mind. He could see his future, the wife and child at his side as he was sworn in as sheriff. This baby could be the best thing that had ever happened to him. Harp Cole, a family man.
He smiled to himself as he pushed through the pawnshop door. “I need an engagement ring,” he said to Larry Wagner, the owner.
Larry raised a brow before he let out a bark of a laugh. “What would you need that for?” He and Larry had gone to school together. That was back when Larry’s father had run the shop—and run Harp out a couple of times, accusing him of stealing.
“I’m getting married,” Harp said defensively. “It happens.”
“Not to you.”
He shrugged. Larry had gotten married right out of high school to Shirley Dale. Harp had never told Larry that he’d been with her only weeks before she and Larry had eloped. Everyone figured she had a bun in the oven and they were right. He’d always wondered if Larry Jr. didn’t look more like him than Larry Sr. But he’d been smart enough to keep his mouth shut.
“So what ya got?” he asked, stepping up to the counter. “I don’t have a lot of money.”
“Imagine that,” Larry said as he pulled out a tray of diamond rings.
Harp considered his options. Almost all of them had either small diamonds or bigger fake diamonds. Vicki would know it wasn’t real if he gave her a big one. Also, given how small her hands were, one of the smaller, cheaper rings would look bigger and better.
“She has really small hands,” he said as he studied the rings.
“So you’re marrying that waitress down at Sue’s Diner.”
“Vicki. Yep, she’s a sweetheart.”
“I’ll bet. How far along is she?” Larry asked with a chuckle.
“I resent that,” Harp snapped.
“Settle down. It happens to the best of us.” He pulled a ring from the tray. “This is a small size. Does that look like it will fit her?”
He had no idea. “That’s the smallest you have?” he asked, checking out the price taped to it.
“I can give you 10 percent off. For old times’ sake.” Larry met his gaze in such a way that he felt a little uncomfortable. “We’re almost like family.” Was it possible that Shirley had told him about them?
“Okay. You take a check?” he asked, reaching for his checkbook in his hip pocket. “Maybe you could throw in a little box for it?”
Larry made a rude sound. “You haven’t changed. One of the richest kids in town and one of the cheapest.”
The depiction of him came as a shock. Was that what everyone had thought?
“My grandfather has money. I never saw any of it and neither did my mother. The Mayor—” as he called his father “—has done okay, but it isn’t like he’s ever cut me any slack. He said he earned his money and I should do the same.”
“Really?” Larry looked surprised. “You lived in that big house—”
“My grandfather bought it for my parents as a wedding present. The Mayor says it costs an arm and a leg just to heat it, but my mother loves it.”
“Well, at least the mayor bought you nice clothes,” Larry continued as if he hadn’t spoken.
“That was my mother’s doing. She didn’t want me to suffer just because my father is a miserly old bastard.”
Larry said, “Huh. Guess that explains why I always had to buy the beer at the parties. And I thought you were just cheap.”
Harp watched him work the price off the ring and bit his tongue. He’d just shared a dark family secret his mother had worked hard to hide and this was the jerk’s reaction?
“How’s Shirley?” he asked, thinking maybe it was time to share Larry’s dark family secret with him.
Larry finally got the tape off the ring and now held it up to the light for a moment before his gaze shifted to Harp. “Fine.”
This time there was no doubt about the look. No reason to update the man. Larry already knew. Or at least suspected. The tension seemed to suck all the air out of the shop. He was reminded of the night Larry kicked the shit out of a football player from a neighboring town. He’d almost killed the guy before they’d pulled him off. Larry had a hair trigger and seemed to like to draw blood. Harp would be a damned fool to poke this rabid bear.
“Glad to hear everything’s fine,” Harp managed to say into the deathly silence. “So how much do I make the check out for?”
Larry gave him a number, and then dug under the counter and pulled out a red box covered in plastic. “This work for you?”
“Great,” he said as he filled out the check, his hands shaking a little. He just wanted this transaction over with. He handed Larry the check and Larry handed him the little red box. “Nice doing business with you.” Larry said nothing.
He popped the box open like he would when he asked Vicki to marry him. The diamond caught the light and sparkled. He could just imagine her face when he gave it to her. His earlier excitement returned. “It’s perfect.”
“Congrats,” Larry said, sounding as if he didn’t mean it.
“Thanks.” He checked the man’s expression. Larry had just made a nice sale but he didn’t look as happy as he should have been.
Harp put the box in his pocket and started out of the store. At the door, he almost turned and said something smart. But fortunately, good sense followed him out to his cruiser.
As he slid behind the wheel, he looked up to see Larry watching him from the front window. It wasn’t over, he thought. If Shirley had confessed...
He started the cruiser, reminding himself who he was. Deputy Harper Cole, soon to be sheriff. Not a man you wanted to mess with. Larry might be tougher than old buffalo meat, but Harp carried a gun.
He smiled and flipped Larry the bird as he drove away. He hadn’t forgotten that he’d almost died a few months ago, not because he was anyone’s hero, but because of his own arrogant stupidity.
But he told himself that he’d put the past behind him. He was a changed man with a bright future. Screw Larry Wagner.
* * *
MARK SAT DOWN at his desk and pushed the stack of mail to the side. Exhaustion pulled at him. He hadn’t gotten but a few hours’ sleep since Maggie had disappeared. He rubbed the back of his neck and told himself he was doing everything possible to find her, but it felt as if he was swimming through quicksand.
“Celeste Duma is here,” the dispatcher said over his intercom.
He sighed, not sure he was up to another bout with that woman. But if Celeste had taken Maggie... “Take her and her lawyer into the interrogation room. I’ll be right there.”
When he found her waiting, he was surprised to see that she’d come alone. No husband. No lawyer. “Are we waiting for your attorney?” he asked.
She shook her head. “He gets paid too much to sit and listen to your inane accusations. Anyway, I have nothing to hide.”
Mark didn’t believe that for a moment. He smiled, shocked by her arrogance. She thought she was above the law. Flint was now on paid leave. Was that what she’d wanted all along? To hurt him?
He turned on the video camera, gave the date and time, and introduced himself and Celeste Duma.
“Is that really necessary?” she asked, nodding toward the device.
He wanted to laugh since just moments before she’d taken out her compact to check her hair and makeup. It took all his patience not to say something smart about it. He just hoped this wasn’t a huge waste of time. There was still no word on Maggie.
Mark felt as if he could be doing more anywhere but in this room with this woman. He doubted Celeste could tell the truth if she had a gun to her head. If this woman had taken Maggie, then Maggie was as good as dead. He had a man tailing Celeste, so he knew that she hadn’t been anywhere but here since returning home. If she’d taken Maggie, then like she’d said, she wouldn’t be returning her. Nor would she be returning to wherever she’d taken her to give her food and water.
“I’m curious,” Mark said. “Why do you hate Maggie Thompson so much?”
Celeste gave him a wry smile. “My lawyer said I don’t have to tell you anything.” Her chin went up in naked defiance.
“Then what are you doing here and without your lawyer? You really must hate her. Rather than help us find her, you’re doing everything possible to hurt her.”
“How can you say that?” she demanded.
“If you really had nothing to do with Maggie’s disappearance, then why are you wasting our time and resources to find out where you’ve been since she disappeared? Is all this just because you can’t stand the thought of your ex-husband being happy?”
“Maggie wouldn’t have made him happy.”
“Interesting that you’re talking about her in the past tense.”
Celeste shrugged and looked at the camera. For the first time, she seemed nervous. “I just meant...if someone took her, then she’s probably dead.” Her gaze returned to him. “Isn’t that the rule? If you don’t find her in the first twenty-four hours, she’s probably dead?”
He shuddered inwardly at her lack of empathy. “I’m not sure that’s a rule, but yes, it’s important that we find Maggie as quickly as possible.” He was tired of playing games with this woman. It was time to take the gloves off. “Look, if this is about ruining Flint’s life, haven’t you already done a pretty good job of that?”
She looked aghast. “He loved me. What we had together was—”
“Was so special that you left him for another man. So that’s it. You just don’t want him to love anyone else.”
“He doesn’t love her the way he does me.”
He raised a brow. “You think he still loves you?”
“I meant the way he loved me.”
“How can you be so sure he doesn’t love Maggie more?”
She gave him a horrified look, then laughed. “That’s ridiculous. She’s...she’s a nobody, a beautician.”
“Then why are you so intimidated by her?”
Celeste shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “I’m not. I just know that she’s all wrong for him. I don’t want him to make the biggest mistake of his life.”
“I’m pretty sure he already did that.”
She looked like she might erupt.
He quickly cut off the explosion. “Why do you think you have the right to tell him what to do or not do?”
“Because I still care.”
“Maybe, but if you did, you’d give him your blessing and you’d help us find Maggie.”
“I already told you—”
“Tell me where you went after you drove by your ex-husband’s house and saw Maggie.”
“I didn’t see her. I saw her car. I saw that she was moving in.”
“And you stopped to confront her.”
She met his gaze. “No. I stepped on the gas and sped out of town.”
He swore and slammed a hand down on the table between them, making her jump. “Where did you go? The truth this time. You hated her. It was killing you to have the two of them move in together. You were mad and you had already warned her and she hadn’t listened. You decided to stop her.”
Celeste met his gaze. What he saw made him feel dirty. There was so much malice in those eyes. “I was angry and hurt and I hated her. But I knew that if I stopped...” She pulled her gaze away and bit down on her lower lip for a moment. “I was afraid it would get ugly, so I kept going. I drove toward Paradise Valley.”
“That’s the same lie you’ve been telling me. It’s three hundred and eighty miles round-trip to the spa, which you never reached. You drove over seven hundred miles in that SUV. Now stop lying to me.”
“I might have taken some back roads. I don’t know. I just drove.”
“I’ve had it with you and your lies. For whatever reason, you can’t let go of your ex-husband and you have proved what lengths you will go to in an attempt to keep him and Maggie apart. What you wrote on her mirror at her beauty shop pretty much says it all. ‘Die Bitch.’ We already know how you felt about her since you’re the one who left the message for her.”
“Yes, I wanted her gone, but you have no proof that I—”
“You couldn’t stand the thought of her moving in, so you killed her. Why else won’t you tell me where you went? You have something to hide and we all know it.” Mark got to his feet. He’d lost all patience with this woman and said as much. “Celeste Duma, you are under arrest for the abduction and assault of Margaret ‘Maggie’ Thompson, as well as obstruction of justice. Get on your feet.”
“No!” she cried. “You can’t do this.”
“Actually, I can,” he said and began to read her her rights.
* * *
RADVILLE, NORTH DAKOTA, sat hunkered down in the middle of windswept prairie miles from anywhere. A tumbleweed cartwheeled in front of the pickup as Frank and Nettie reached the city-limits sign.
As Frank slowed, Nettie read the rusted sign. Someone had scratched out the original number of residents, changing it from 211 to 209. But she figured it was less than that, given how faded the lettering was.
A neon light flashed Vacancy at what appeared to be the only motel in town. It was one of those single-level U-shaped motor courts that had seen better days.
Frank drove past to what appeared to be the center of town, passing a convenience store of sorts with two sad-looking gas pumps outside. Beyond it she saw a casino sign flashing at the Mint Bar. That had to be the most popular bar name since they’d passed four other ones on their way to Radville.
They drove by an old service garage, now deserted, then an old theater, long boarded up, before she spotted a café in the middle of a block of empty buildings. In the distance, she saw what looked like a school. As Frank approached it, she noticed the windows were decorated with artwork made by young children. The colorings were faded and there was a padlock and chain on the wide double doors.
“I think that city-limits sign was a lie,” Nettie said. “No way do 209 people live here.”
“Maybe we should get a room first, freshen up before we go see Dana Stevens,” he said.
“I doubt there’s going to be a run on motel rooms. I just have a feeling that we shouldn’t put this off. You know the town clerk called Dana the minute we hung up after getting her address.”
“I doubt she’s going to skip town, but I’d go with one of your feelings any day. I think I passed her street. Second, right?”
“Yes. It’s in the third block.”
He laughed as he turned down Second. “There’s nothing past the third block.” Ahead she could see a blue clapboard house sitting at the edge of town. “Wanna bet that’s it? There’re enough toys out front that it could be a day care.”
“The toys don’t look like they’ve been used for a while,” Nettie noted, seeing the rust, the flat tires on the bikes, the dirt that had blown into the cracked plastic sled. As Frank parked, she saw a curtain move, then fall motionless. “She knows we’re here. Let’s see if she answers the door,” Nettie said as she got out.
The woman who eventually came to the door was small and pale with lifeless brown hair and chipped blue-painted nails. Dana wore baggy jeans and a sweatshirt with faded lettering on it. “Yes?”
“We’re here about Jenna,” Nettie said.
Fear widened the woman’s brown eyes. She looked like a woman in her late forties who’d had anything but an easy life. “Is she all right?”
“We don’t know. That’s why we’re trying to find her before someone else does,” Frank said.
Nettie saw understanding dawn on her face. “Can we please come in?”
Dana hesitated, but for only a moment. She opened the door wider and ushered them into a house that had seen the wear and tear of the children who’d once played with those toys out in the yard. From the photos on the walls, it appeared that she’d had her children early in life and they were now all grown and gone. Nettie wondered where they’d ended up. Probably scattered to the wind since she couldn’t see much opportunity in Radville for them.
“I’m Nettie Curry, and this is my husband, Frank. We’re investigators,” she said as she took a seat.
“You mean like detectives?”
“Private detectives,” Frank said and showed his ID.
Dana barely glanced at it as she sat down on the edge of a chair across from them and fidgeted with the hem of her sweatshirt. “I don’t know where Jenna is.”
“When was the last time you talked to her?” Nettie asked.
“Last week.” She looked even more nervous.
“Did she tell you then what was going on?” Frank asked.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I think you do. Who is Clark?” he asked.
Dana started, eyes widening, but she said nothing.
Nettie tried a different approach. “Dana, we’re afraid Jenna is in trouble and we know you’re worried about her too. That’s why we need your help.”
The woman rose and moved to the window to peer out. She looked scared. Nettie remembered hearing a series of locks being released before the woman had opened the door to them. Whatever had Jenna afraid apparently had this woman just as fearful.
“You’re the one who called yesterday, aren’t you?” Dana asked, turning back to them. “How did you get her phone?”
“From a friend of hers.”
“The man she was living with,” Dana said.
“He’s worried about her too. You need to tell us about Clark. Who is he?”
The woman hugged herself, her expression darkening. “He’s my older brother.”
“Why is he after Jenna?” Nettie asked.
Dana set her jaw.
“Do you want to help her or not?” Frank asked. “Jenna took off the first time because she was afraid of him. Now she’s disappeared again.”
“Except this time we think she might have decided to end this,” Nettie said. “Did she tell you what she planned to do? That she was going to tell him where she was?”
Dana looked horrified at the thought. “No, she wouldn’t do that unless...”
“Unless?” Nettie asked.
The young woman glanced out the window. She seemed even more afraid now. “The only way she would have contacted him was if he...” She swallowed and shook her head.
Nettie leaned forward and lowered her voice conspiratorially. “We know you’ve been keeping her secret. Something you promised never to tell. But Jenna needs your help now more than ever. Why is your brother after her?”