Double Play: Ambushed! / High-Caliber Cowboy

As he pulled the lever, the trunk popped open with a groan. He drew the small flashlight from his coat pocket and walked toward the rear of the car, the longest walk of his life.

The bodies were always in the trunk.

Taking deep breaths, he lifted the lid and pointed the flashlight beam inside. In that instant, he died a thousand deaths before he saw that what was curled inside wasn’t a body. Just a quilt rolled up between a suitcase and the spare.

Cash staggered back from the car, the temporary relief making him weak. Was it possible Jasmine had been on her way to Antelope Flats? All these years he hoped she’d run off to some foreign country to live.

Instead she’d been on her way to Antelope Flats seven years ago. But why? His heart began to pound. To see him?

Or at least that’s what someone wanted him to believe. Wanted the state police to believe.

He thought of the blood on the floor mat, the car hidden just miles from his office, from the old house he’d bought that Jasmine called her engagement present.

He rubbed a hand over his face, his throat raw. Jasmine wasn’t living the good life in Europe, hadn’t just changed her mind about everything and run off to start a new life.

He turned and walked back out into the rain, stopping next to Humphrey’s pickup. The older man was sitting in the cab. He rolled down the driver’s side window as Cash approached.

“I’m going to call the state investigators,” Cash said, rain echoing off the hood of his jacket. “They’re going to want to talk to you.”

Humphrey nodded and looked past him to the barn. “Did you find her?”

Cash shook his head and started toward his patrol car, turning to look back at the barn and the dark shadow of Jasmine’s car inside. All those years of trying to forget, trying to put that part of his life behind him.

He realized now that all he’d been doing was waiting. Waiting for the other shoe to drop.

That shoe had finally dropped.

Las Vegas, Nevada

MOLLY KILPATRICK CHUCKED her clothing into her only suitcase. No time to fold anything.

Since the phone call, she’d been flying around the hotel room, grabbing up her belongings as quickly as possible. She had to skip town. It wouldn’t be the first time. Or the last.

She fought back tears, trying hard not to think about Lanny. Her father’s old friend was probably dead by now. He shouldn’t have taken the time to warn her. He should have saved his own skin. She tried not to think about the horrible sounds she’d heard in the background before the phone went dead.

Even if the police had responded to her anonymous call immediately, they would have gotten there too late. She knew she couldn’t have saved Lanny. All she could do was try to save herself.

Zipping the suitcase closed, she slid it off the bed and took one last glance around the room. She’d never owned more than she could fit into one suitcase, never stayed long in one place and made a point of never making friends. This, she knew, was why.

She’d been raised on the run, she thought, as she picked up the baseball cap from the bed and snugged it down on her short, curly blond hair.

As she passed the mirror, she checked herself, adjusting the peach-colored T-shirt over her small round breasts, tucking a pocket back into her worn jeans, glancing down at the old leather sandals before slipping on the sunglasses and picking up her purse.

She could become a chameleon when she needed to, blending into any environment. It was a talent, the one talent she’d learned from her father that she actually appreciated. Especially right now.

She didn’t bother to check out since she wasn’t registered anyway. For someone like her, getting past a hotel-room lock was a walk in the park.

From experience she knew that entire floors of suites were set aside for high rollers and those rooms got little use even when rented for the night. She was always gone shortly after sunrise and even the couple of times she’d been caught, she’d been able to bluff her way out of it.

She thought about picking up her last check at the café where she’d been working. It wouldn’t be enough money to make it worth the risk.

Vince and Angel would find out soon enough that she’d taken off. No reason to alert them yet. It was too much to hope that the police had gotten to Lanny’s quick enough to catch the two convicted felons in the act.

No, she could only assume that Vince and Angel had not only gotten away but were looking for her at this very moment. If anything, fifteen years in prison would have made them even more dangerous.

On the way through the hotel, she stopped at one of the slot machines. It was foolish. She should be getting out of there as fast as possible. But superstition was something else she’d gotten from her father. And right now she needed to test her luck to make sure it was still with her.

She dropped a quarter into the slot machine and pulled the handle. The cylinder spun, stopping on first one bar, then another and for a moment she thought she might hit the big jackpot, but the third bar blurred past.

A handful of quarters jangled into the metal tray anyway. She scooped them up. Not as lucky as she had hoped but still better than nothing, she thought as she shoved the quarters into her jeans pocket, picked up her suitcase and headed for the exit.

As she moved through the noisy casino, she looked straight ahead but noticed everything, the hectic movement of gamblers pulling one-armed bandits, change girls stopping to hand out rolls of coins, cocktail waitresses weaving through the crowds with trays of drinks.

Goodbye Vegas, she thought as she cleared the door-less opening and stepped from the air-conditioned casino into the hot desert night. She breathed in the scents, knowing she wouldn’t be back here, not even sure she would be alive tomorrow. She had no idea where she would go or what she would do but it wasn’t as if she hadn’t done this for as long as she could remember.

As she headed toward her car parked in the huge lot, a white-haired couple came out of their RV, a homeless man cut through the cars toward the busy street and a handful of teenagers rolled through the glittering Vegas night on skateboards.

There was no one else around. But still she studied her car under the parking lot lights as she neared it. She doubted she had to worry about a car bomb. Vince and Angel preferred the personal touch. Also, they would want her alive. At least temporarily.

She unlocked the trunk of the nondescript tan sedan, put the suitcase in and slammed the lid. As she opened the driver’s side door, she surreptitiously took one quick glance around and climbed in.

Not one car followed her as she wound her way through the lot and exited on a backstreet. She headed down the strip toward Interstate 15, took the first entrance ramp, and saw that she was headed north. It didn’t matter where she was headed, she had no idea where she was going to go anyway.

Keeping an eye on her rearview mirror, she left the desert behind. But she knew she wasn’t safe, not by any means. Vince and Angel would move heaven and earth to find her.

And they’d kill her when they did.

CHAPTER TWO

Wednesday

Outside Antelope Flats, Montana

SHERIFF CASH MCCALL stood next to his patrol car and watched as the last of the officers came out of the old barn. They’d been searching for hours and he knew without asking that they still hadn’t found her body.

He felt himself sag. He’d hoped that Jasmine’s body was in the barn, that this would finally be over. He hadn’t slept, couldn’t get the sight of her car with the old tarp, the dented fender, the blood stain on the driver’s side floor mat out of his mind.

He rubbed a hand over his face as the lead state’s investigator came toward him.

John Mathews shook his head. He was a large man with a bulldog face. “We’ll continue searching the farm in the morning.”

Cash knew it would take days, possibly weeks, and even using the latest equipment, there was a good chance her body would never be found, that her disappearance would never be solved, that he would have to live the rest of his life without ever knowing when or if she would turn up.

“I’m sorry,” Mathews said. “We didn’t find anything.”

Cash nodded.

Mathews had been furious when he’d realized that Cash hadn’t called him immediately upon finding the car. “That was a fool thing to do. What the hell were you thinking looking in the car before we arrived?” His tone had softened. “I know how hard this must be on you. But you were her fiancé for cryin’ out loud. That makes you a suspect. Especially now that her car has been found within sight of your office.”