Christmas at Cardwell Ranch

MARSHAL HUD SAVAGE was on duty when the call came in. He’d just been up on the mountain on a disturbance call. All day he’d felt as if he were moving in a fog. A cop friend of his from the academy had been killed two nights ago. He was still in shock.

Paul Brown’s death, on top of what had happened to Hud’s family last spring, had left him shaken. In April, he’d let a dangerous woman come into his home. Hud’s wife and children had almost been killed.

He was a marshal. He should have seen what was right in front of his eyes. He would never forgive himself. Worse, the incident really had him questioning if he had the instincts anymore for this job.

When he’d heard that his friend Paul had been murdered just forty miles away in Bozeman, he’d been ready to throw in the towel.

“I’m running scared,” he’d told his wife, Dana.

She’d hugged him and tried to persuade him that none of what had happened to their family was his fault. “I was the one who was so excited to have a cousin I’d never met come stay with us. You saw that I was happy and ignored things you wouldn’t have under any other circumstances.”

“I’m a marshal, Dana. There is no excuse for what happened last April. None.”

Now as he turned into the condo subdivision in the pines, he tried to push everything but this latest call out of his mind. More and more, though, he wasn’t sure he deserved to be wearing this star.

As he pulled up, a young brunette got out of her SUV and stood hugging herself against the cold snowy night. A break-in this time of year was unusual. Normally this sort of thing happened during off-season when there were fewer people around.

“Are you the one who made the call?” he asked as he got out of his patrol pickup.

She introduced herself as Lily McCabe.

“Ace’s sister,” he said with a nod.

“Sometimes I forget how small a community Big Sky is,” she said, not looking in the least bit happy about the prospect that everyone knew her business.

Gossip traveled fast in the canyon. Hud had heard something about Ace’s sister being left at the altar. He couldn’t imagine any sane man leaving this woman.

“Wait in your vehicle while I take a look inside,” he told her. But as he headed for the open front door, he saw that she was still standing outside as if too nervous to sit and wait.

At the door, he pulled his weapon and stepped in, even though he doubted the burglar was still inside. The condo had been ransacked in a way that surprised him. This was no normal break-in. Nor was it a simple case of vandalism. Whoever had done this was looking for something and was determined to destroy everything in his path if he didn’t find it.

He moved carefully through the upper floor, then the lower one, before he returned to the woman waiting outside.

“Is she...”

He shook his head. “No sign of anyone. I’ve called for backup. Until they get here, can we talk in your vehicle?”

She nodded and climbed behind the wheel. She’d left the SUV running, so it was warm inside. He couldn’t help noticing how neat and clean the interior was as he pulled out his notebook. “Whose condo is it?”

“I don’t know their name. Mia told me that her parents own it. She is the one who’s been staying here.”

“Mia?”

“Mia Duncan. She went to work for my brother at the Canyon three weeks ago. I’m here helping out over the holidays, as you apparently know.”

He nodded. He’d heard Ace’s sister had bought a house about four years ago up the mountain—about the same time her brother had opened the Canyon Bar.

“Were you meeting Mia here after work?”

Lily shook her head. “She left before her shift was over. I was worried about her, so I decided to drive up and check on her.”

“Did she say why she left?”

“No. That’s just it. She didn’t say anything. One of our patrons saw her leave with a man. The patron said he thought she’d been drinking.”

He sensed that she didn’t see how any of this helped and hated talking about Mia behind her back. “Could the man she left with have been a boyfriend?”

“She’d said she wasn’t seeing anyone, but I can’t swear to it.”

“Did this patron describe the man he saw her leave with?”

“Just that he was wearing a cowboy hat and driving a pickup.”

“That doesn’t narrow it down much. What is this patron’s name?”

She shook her head. “I’ve never seen him before. I’m sorry that I can’t offer much in the way of details. He had a Southern accent, if that helps.”

“You’re doing fine. Did you see anyone leaving as you drove into the condo complex tonight?”

“No. But as soon as I pulled up here, I saw that her door was partially open. I only went a few steps inside before I called you.”

He’d seen her footprints in the snow. Unfortunately, the footprints of the intruder had been covered by fresh snow. Someone who knew Mia’s hours at the bar and knew she wouldn’t be coming home until the bar closed? But she left early. So where was she?

Hud wrote down Lily’s cell phone number and closed his notebook as another patrol rig drove up. “I’ll call if I have any more questions.”

“I don’t know Mia well, but I’m worried about her. This is the second night she’s left in the middle of her shift without telling anyone. Before that she was our most reliable employee.”

He nodded. If it wasn’t for the ransacked condo, he would have just figured the woman had met some man and fallen hard. People in love often became less reliable employees.

Hud assured Lily he’d let her know when he heard something. But he could tell nothing he might say would relieve her worry. After seeing the inside of the condo, he shared her concern.

* * *

WITH HER SHIFT finally over, Teresa Evans opened the back door of the bar and looked out at the falling snow. She had mixed feelings about seeing her boyfriend after the fight they’d had earlier before she’d left for work.

But she didn’t have to worry about it. The main parking lot was empty. No Ethan sitting out here in his old pickup, the engine running, the wipers trying to keep up with the falling snow. No Ethan at all.

The only vehicles were Reggie’s SUV and Ace’s old Jeep. Both were covered in snow.

“Do you need a ride?” Reggie asked behind her, making her jump. The other server stopped to frown at her. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” she said a little too sharply.

Reggie raised an eyebrow.

“Didn’t Lily say Mia left with someone else earlier?” Teresa asked. “Her car’s gone.”

Reggie glanced to the spot where Mia had parked earlier. Teresa followed her gaze. There was a rectangular spot in the snow where the car had been.