Odd Man Out

Pete swore as he steered the pickup back onto the highway and headed toward West Yellowstone again.

“Did you recognize the truck?” she asked. It had happened so fast she hadn’t even thought to look at the license plate.

“I’m sure it was just some out-of-stater who’s never been in a snowstorm before.” But Pete kept staring at the highway as if he expected to see the truck again, too. And Denver knew she wouldn’t feel safe until they reached town. No, she thought, she wouldn’t feel safe until Max’s killer was caught.

Chapter Two

Pete slowed on the outskirts of town. At first glance, West, as the locals called it, appeared abandoned. They drove down the main drag, past the Dairy Queen, a row of T-shirt and curio shops and Denver’s camera shop. All were still boarded up behind huge piles of plowed snow. A melting cornice drooped low over Denver’s storefront. Out of a huge drift peeked a partially exposed homemade sign. See You In The Spring!

The only hint of spring was in the rivers of melting snow running along the sides of the empty streets. Dirty snowbanks, plowed up higher than most of the buildings, marked the street corners they drove by. Everywhere, a webbing of snowmobile tracks crisscrossed the rotting snow still lingering in the shadow of the pines. Down a muddy alley sat a deserted snowmobile, its engine cover thrown back, falling snowflakes rapidly covering it.

Only a couple of gas stations had their lights on. Near a mud puddle as large as a lake, two locals sat visiting, with their pickups running.

It was April. Off-season. Snowmobiling was over for another winter and the summer tourist trade wouldn’t officially begin until Memorial Day weekend. Denver usually cherished this time of year, a time for the locals to take a breather before the tourists returned. But today, the town seemed to echo her lonely, empty feeling of loss.

“I’m going to get you something hot to drink,” Pete said, touching her arm.

Since the near accident with the semi, she hadn’t been able to quit shaking. Pete pulled up to a convenience store and came back a few minutes later with two large hot chocolates. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” he said, motioning toward the falling snow. “I love this time of year.” His gaze turned from the storm to her. “And I love you.”

“Pete, don’t—”

“When are you going to stop fighting it, Denver? I love you.” He put his finger to her lips when she tried to protest. “I know you don’t love me. At least not enough to marry me. Not yet. But you will, very soon.”

As she looked at Pete’s handsome face, she wished he were right. Marrying Pete was safe, and Max had made no secret of the fact that he had liked Pete for that very reason.

They finished their hot chocolates and drove farther on into town, finally stopping in front of a house on Faithful Street. The place was typical of the older West Yellowstone residences: rustic log with a green metal roof, surrounded by lodgepole pines.

“Let’s get this over with,” Pete said as he parked in front of Maggie’s house.

* * *

J.D. STOOD AT THE WINDOW of his room in the Stage Coach Inn, watching snowflakes spin slowly down from the grayness above. He blamed his restlessness on being back in West Yellowstone after all these years, on the weather, on Max’s burial service.

Jeez, Garrison, you’ve been lying to yourself for so long, you’ve started believing it. He stepped away from the window and went to the makeshift bar he’d set up on the dresser. It’s seeing Denny again that’s thrown you. He frowned, still surprised at his reaction. Denver. He swore under his breath as he ripped the plastic off one of the water glasses and poured a half inch of Crown Royal into it.

All these years he’d remembered Denny as the little freckle-faced girl he’d had water fights with on the beach and beat at Monopoly. Not that there hadn’t always been something about her that made her special to him. A fire in her eyes and a spirit and determination that had touched him. But she’d been just a kid. Now he couldn’t help wondering about the woman he’d seen at the cemetery—the woman Denver McCallahan had become. How much was left of the girl he’d once shared his dreams with?

The window drew him back again. His dreams. He sipped the whiskey and looked out at his old hometown. It was here he’d picked up his first guitar, a beat-up used one. He’d fumbled through a few chords, a song already forming in his head. It had always been there. The music, the knowledge that he’d make it as a singer—and the ambition eating away inside him.

He stared at the town through the snow. It had been here that he’d performed for the first time, here that he’d dreamed of recording an album of his own music, here that he’d always known he’d end up one day. But not like this.

Nine years. Nine years on a circuit of smoky bars and honky-tonks, long empty highways, flat tires on old clunkers and cheap motel rooms. Somewhere along the way, he’d made it. Even now, he couldn’t remember exactly when that happened, when he realized it was no longer just a dream. J. D. Garrison was a genuine country and western star. Grammys and Country Music Association awards, his songs on the top of Billboard’s country charts. Since then, there’d been more awards, more songs, more albums, more tours. And better cars, better bars, better motel rooms.

But one thing remained the same. That distant feeling that he was drifting off the face of the earth, that he’d become untethered from life. A few weeks ago, he’d awakened in a strange motel room and forgotten where he was, and when he’d looked at himself in the mirror, he realized he’d forgotten who he was, as well. He was losing the music. The songs weren’t there anymore—and neither was the desire to make them.

J.D. spread his fingers across the cold windowpane. The white flakes danced beyond his touch; a tiny drift formed on the sill. “Oh, Denny,” he whispered. There was no doubt in his mind that she would try to find Max’s murderer. The question was how to keep her safe. And how to keep Pete away from her until he could sort it all out.

But he knew one thing. He’d do whatever he had to do. Like hell. You’re looking forward to coming between the two of them. But is it because you believe Pete might have changed so much in these nine years that he could kill someone? Or is it simply that you don’t want Pete to have Denny?

He frowned as he remembered the woman he’d glimpsed at the cemetery. Denver McCallahan was definitely a woman worth fighting for. And if he were Pete Williams, he’d fight like hell for her.

* * *

MAGGIE MET PETE and Denver on the screened-in porch in worn jeans, an old flannel shirt that could have been Max’s, and a pair of moccasins. She hadn’t attended the burial, saying she preferred to remember Max the way he was. A bag of groceries rested on the step, and from her breathlessness, Denver guessed she’d just come from the store.

The buzz of the going-away party spilled through the door behind her as she hugged Denver. “You okay?”

“I need to talk to you,” Denver whispered.

Maggie handed Pete the bag of groceries and asked him to take them inside where friends had already started Max’s party—their version of an Irish send-off.

“What’s the matter?” Maggie asked after Pete was out of earshot. “Pete isn’t pressuring you again, is he?”

Maggie was always quick to blame Pete. She disapproved of him, not because he was a musician with the band he and J.D. had started, the Montana Country Club, but because he’d never gone beyond that. “He’s as talented as J.D. but he lacks J.D.’s inner strength,” she’d said. “Behind all that charm is a very disappointed, angry young man.” It was one of the few things Max and Maggie had ever argued about.

Denver wished Pete and Maggie could get along, especially now that Max was gone.

“Pete’s fine. It’s about Max,” Denver said. More guests arrived. She’d known Max made friends easily, but Denver was astounded at the number of people who’d come hundreds of miles to pay their respects to him.

Maggie told Denver to go on through the house to the kitchen, where the noise level was lower and the temperature definitely warmer, and wait for her. “Cal Dalton was here earlier,” Maggie said. Since the party was an all-day kind of thing, people kept coming and going. “I just got back so I don’t know if he’s still here or not.”

“Thanks, I need to talk to him.”

Denver worked her way through the guests, stopping to accept words of sympathy and visit a moment with friends. She didn’t see Cal. In the kitchen, she stood watching the snow fall and thinking of Max. She didn’t even hear Maggie come in.

“Has Deputy Cline found some new evidence?” Maggie asked hopefully.

“No.” Denver pulled off her hat and coat, and hung them on a hook by the back door. She wandered around the familiar kitchen, too keyed up to sit. “Cline is still convinced Max was killed by a hitchhiker.”

Max’s body had been found at the old city dump; according to Sheriff’s Deputy Bill Cline, he’d been stabbed once in the heart. Cline was looking for a hitchhiker Max had bought lunch for at the Elkhorn Café earlier that day.

Maggie sat down at the kitchen table, her eyes dark with pain. “I can’t believe Max was killed by someone he helped.”

“I don’t think that’s what happened.” Denver bit her lip, watching for Maggie’s reaction. “What if it was connected to one of his cases? Maybe an...old case.”

“You aren’t suggesting it might be—”

“No.” Denver fought off a chill. “Even Max had given up on that one.” The one old case that had haunted Max for years was the unsolved murders of Denver’s parents. Denver stopped beside the table, settling her gaze on Maggie. “I’ve been having the nightmare again.”

“Oh, Denver.” Maggie took her hand. “Max’s death must have brought it back.”

It had been years since she’d had the nightmare, not since Max had brought her to live with him in West Yellowstone. She’d been five at the time and could remember very little of her life before then. Except for images from the nightmare of fear and death from that day at the bank. She’d been with her parents the day the bank robber had killed her father and mother. Her father had just gotten off duty; he was still in his police uniform. Max said that was what had gotten him killed—walking into the middle of a robbery in uniform.

“I thought maybe Max might have mentioned a case,” Denver said, changing the subject.

“You know the kind of work he did, small-time stuff, insurance fraud, divorce and child custody, theft—nothing worth getting murdered over.”

“What if he’d stumbled across that once-in-a-lifetime case he’d always dreamed of?”