Lassoed

Several weeks? “Why have you waited this long to report her missing, Miss … ? I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

“Cindy Ross. My aunt is gone a lot with her job. But this time she didn’t call or come home.”

“Where is home?”

“Phoenix, Arizona. That’s where I live with my father.”

“And your aunt?”

“She stays with us when she’s in town. Like I said, she travels a lot but she calls me every few days from wherever she is and always calls on Sunday.”

“So you haven’t heard from her since …”

“The second week of May, that Sunday. She called to say she would be flying home that afternoon.”

“Called from … ?”

“Here. Whitehorse. She said she was driving to Billings, leaving her rental car and would be coming in on the last flight. I was to pick her up but she wasn’t on the plane.”

“And there has been no word?”

“No. My dad said something must have come up with her job.” The girl looked down in her lap. “But when I called her office, they said she’d been fired a long time ago.” She looked up, tears in her eyes. “I’m afraid something has happened to her.”

“What does your father think?” The girl met her gaze, but didn’t respond. “He doesn’t know you’re here, does he?”

“He says Aggie can take care of herself and that she’ll turn up. But I have a bad feeling …”

McCall didn’t like the sound of any of this. She picked up her pen. “Your aunt’s name is Aggie Wells?”

“Agatha, but she’s always gone by Aggie. She’s an insurance investigator. That is, she was.”

“What was she doing in Whitehorse?”

“She said she was trying to prove that some man murdered all three of his wives.”

McCall’s head shot up from taking notes.

The girl nodded knowingly. “I thought you might know about the cases. The man’s name is Hoyt Chisholm. Aggie told me that he killed his first three wives and now he has married again. Her last appointment was with him and his new wife. She said they’d invited her out to their house for supper.”

McCall was unable to hide her surprise. Everyone in town knew about the deaths of Hoyt’s first two wives, and the disappearance of the third one.

The recent scuttlebutt throughout the county was about his new wife. McCall had heard that some residents were taking odds over at Whitehorse Café, betting how long this wife would be alive.

“My aunt told me that if anything happened to her, I was to make sure that Hoyt Chisholm didn’t get away with another murder.” The girl burst into tears. “I know he killed her.”

BILLIE RAE FOUND HERSELF enjoying more than the ride to Havre. Tanner pointed out landmarks and told her stories. She knew he was trying to keep her entertained, to distract her from thinking about her life and Duane.

But the one thing she couldn’t stop thinking about, sitting this close to Tanner, was last night. He had been so tender, so heartbreakingly sweet. She had cried after they’d made love.

“What is it?” Tanner had asked, sounding stricken.

How could she tell him that she felt she’d ruined her life by marrying Duane? That she’d lost her chance to be with someone like Tanner. Duane was going to kill her. Or at the very least, have her living in fear and on the run the rest of her life.

She could never be with Tanner again. As it was, she feared she had already put him and his family in danger.

“I forgot what happiness feels like,” she had finally choked out. He’d held her and she’d spooned against him, relishing the warmth of his body and the way this man made her feel, dreading when the sun would come up and she would have to leave him.

“That’s the town of Wagner down there,” Tanner said now, pointing at the few buildings left. It appeared most of the towns along the Hi-Line were shrinking, some little more than a sign and a couple of old buildings.

“Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid held up a train not far from here,” he said. “It was allegedly their last robbery before they headed to South America.”

The day had dawned clear blue, sunny and warm. The land was a brilliant spring-green and, with the windows down, the air blowing in smelled of summer. It was the kind of day she remembered from when she was a girl and still had her illusions about life.

Billie Rae breathed in the sweet scents, catching a hint of Tanner’s masculine one. When she was with him, she felt her strength coming back. Duane had done his best to beat it out of her. She was almost surprised that she could feel like her old self. But Tanner reminded her of who she’d been. Who she could be again—except for Duane who was determined to kill every ounce of independence in her.

She tried not to think about where he was or what he was doing. She knew he would be furious wherever he was. Just as she knew he would be frantically looking for her and wouldn’t stop until he found her.

She shuddered at the thought.

“Warm enough?” Tanner asked, noticing.

“Someone just walked over my grave.” She regretted the quick retort immediately. “You know what I mean.”

“I do,” he said and quickly pointed out an old Spanish mission on the road ahead. She was glad he didn’t mention Duane, but neither of them had forgotten about him, she knew. She’d caught Tanner checking the rearview mirror occasionally—just as she had been doing in the side mirror.

Duane would not give up. She just had to make sure he never found her—or learned that Tanner Chisholm had been the one who’d saved her last night.

Hopefully Duane would also never learn about this trip to Havre. She hated involving Tanner Chisholm in the mess she’d made of her life any more than she already had. But she needed to sell the rings. Hopefully she could get enough to buy an old car and enough gas to put a whole lot more distance between herself and Duane before she found a job.

“You’re going to have to deal with him, you know,” Tanner said as if realizing she hadn’t been listening about the old mission they’d just passed.

Billie Rae nodded. “I’m sorry. I just can’t help thinking about him.”

“How long have you been married?”

“Six months. We met in Oklahoma, where I was teaching kindergarten. Right after we eloped, Duane sprung it on me that he’d gotten a job in Williston, North Dakota, and we had to move at once. I didn’t even get to finish the school year.”

“You had friends in Oklahoma?”

She nodded. “I lost track of them once we got to North Dakota. Duane made sure of that. It’s hard to accept that I’m the classic case. The abused wife. But Duane wasn’t like this when we were dating. He was …” She let her voice trail off. “That’s not true. The signs were there. He was controlling but I wanted to believe it was because he cared and just wanted what was best for me, like he said.” She laughed at that. “I was such a fool.”

“We’ve all been fools,” Tanner said. “Myself included. But you realized your mistake and got away from him.”

If only it were that simple.

“You don’t know my husb … Duane,” she said. She couldn’t bear to call him her husband anymore. She hadn’t only left him, hadn’t merely taken off her wedding rings. In her heart she was no longer Duane Rasmussen’s wife, and last night with Tanner she’d felt like a free woman, even though she’d only been kidding herself.

Under the law, she was still Duane Rasmussen’s wife. Only technically, she thought, because there was no love in her heart for him. When had she stopped loving him? She didn’t know. Just as she didn’t know when she’d begun to hate him.