The Cowboy Wins a Bride (The Cowboys of Chance Creek) (21 page)

"I'm not going to stop you." Autumn patted Christine's head and smiled. "Somehow I thought running a guest ranch would be more fun."

"Me, too."

"Ready to quit?"

"Not quite." He ran a hand over his face. "How about you – you doing okay?"

"Yeah. I'm hanging in there. Go on, find Claire. I hope everything's all right."

"So do I."

* * * * *

"It's got to be Daniel," Claire said when the police finally left. She stood with Morgan in the stark square living room of her Billings condo. The police had questioned her for what seemed like hours when all she wanted to do was throw herself on the ground and cry. Carrie had been all tears and apologies. She'd been at her boyfriend's house when the thieves struck. Claire didn't blame her. She hadn't stipulated Carrie needed to remain on site at all times. When she couldn't take the girl's tears anymore, she sent her home.

Finally she'd had the place to herself, but moments later another knock sounded on the door. She'd thought it was the police returning to ask even more pointless questions, and she'd been ready to give them a piece of her mind. But when she opened the door, there stood Morgan, and to her surprise she found she was glad for the company. Morgan was practical, and she had a temper to match her own. She wouldn't stand around asking stupid questions. She'd be ready to act.

"Did the police say they'd talk to him?"

"Yeah, but when I asked if they'd search all his properties they said no. They thought it was just a regular robbery. They kept telling me to watch eBay or Craigslist to see if my stuff turned up there. How the hell would I tell if it was mine? It isn't antiques that got stolen – it's building materials, brand new in their boxes."

"How much do you think you lost?"

Claire bit her lip. She didn't want to tell anyone, let alone Morgan, but all her secrecy had gotten her nowhere so far. A favorite saying of her father's flashed through her mind: when all else fails, you've got your family. Funny, she'd never thought to follow that advice.

"Thirty thousand dollars' worth. Maybe more. I'm not sure." She hesitated. "Maybe fifty thousand."

Morgan cocked her head. "Are you always this vague about money?"

"No. This isn't like me at all." She waited for Morgan to react with shock or disgust, but she didn't. She surveyed the room again, her expression focused.

"Fill me in – on all of it. Start at the beginning. Seriously," she added when Claire began to protest. "Don't frill it out with a million details – just give me the bare bones. It'll go faster than you think. Once I know the history of you and Daniel, I can help make a plan."

Hesitantly, Claire began, but as she told Morgan about her fights with her mother, her desperate bids for attention, catching her with Mack and then leaving home to move to Billings, going to work at Ledstroms and falling for Daniel, she warmed to the story. Morgan listened avidly, asking one or two questions, but otherwise keeping silent. Claire went on to describe working with Daniel, becoming his lover, how his betrayal hurt her, but she saved the company and continued to run it under the same name. How he came back and took it away from her. His threats.

"And you saw how he was in the parking lot," she added.

"Yeah, high as a kite."

"Really? You think he was high?"

Morgan shook her head at her. "You know, on the one hand you're tough and practical. On the other hand, you're kind of sheltered, aren't you?"

Claire bristled. "Victoria isn't exactly Compton Heights from what I've heard. I bet you're pretty sheltered, too."

"I've seen a thing or two," Morgan said. "I know when someone's on something, and he was definitely on something. Cocaine, maybe."

Claire thought back to her time with Daniel, thoroughly taken aback. She'd never seen him do drugs. Sure, he'd been erratic, but most creative people were. He'd kept her separate from his other friends, but she'd taken that as a compliment at the time – that he hadn't wanted to share her with them. Had he actually not wanted her to know what they were doing?

He was secretive. Sometimes he'd gotten phone calls and left the room to take them. Other times he went out and wouldn't tell her where. She hadn't liked it, but he was her boss as well as her boyfriend and had one hell of a temper. He'd definitely had all the power in their relationship. Afterward, she'd assumed those phone calls and meetings involved Edie.

Maybe not all of them.

"I'm still not sure I believe that," she said finally.

"Suit yourself. I'll bet a bundle I'm right. I bet he's into other trouble, as well."

"So what do we do?"

"You tell me. If Daniel was going to hide a whole bunch of boxes, where would he store them?"

"Not at the office – he knows I'd tell the police to look there." She tapped her foot. "At his Mom's house. It's out on Old Hardin Road – outside Billings. Her health is failing, and she moved into a care facility last year, but he hadn't sold it when he ran off."

"Let's go check it out."

CHAPTER TWENTY

Jamie was just about to pull out of the driveway when Jake Matheson jogged up beside him and called through the open window, "Want some company?"

"I thought you were entertaining the ladies."

"Autumn told me what you were up to. I thought I'd come along, just in case."

"In case of what?"

"In case of trouble," Ethan said, coming up beside Jake. "Morgan told me Daniel was hassling Autumn yesterday. I don't like the sound of it. Now her house has been broken into. Too much of a coincidence to me. I'm coming, too. So's Rob."

"Rob?"

"Don't worry, I've got Ned covering for me with your mystery midnight caller," Rob said, catching up to them.

"I'm surprised Luke isn't along for the ride, too," Jamie drawled, tapping his fingers impatiently as they climbed into his truck.

"He's helping Autumn," Jake said.

While Jamie had always been closest to Rob, the rest of the Mathesons hung around a lot when he was growing up, so he knew Jake well. They rode to Billings in a comfortable silence, although as the minutes ticked away, he worried more and more about what they'd find when they got there.

"Have you talked to her?" Jake asked when they were more than an hour into the drive.

"No. She's not picking up her cell."

"I've got Morgan's number. She programmed it into my phone today," Ethan said, perking up. He pulled out his phone and punched a button. Jamie kept his eyes on the road. He knew Ethan never used the thing, hated gadgets and technology. But couldn't he have thought of it just this once? Would have been helpful to have that bit of information long before this. "Hey. It's Ethan. Are you at Claire's?" He listened a moment. "You're what? Bad idea, Morgan. We're on our way – we'll be there in half an hour. Just sit tight, okay?" He was silent again. "I don't care how close you are, I don't want you going any farther until we get there." A short pause. "I say so. I'm your brother, that's who. Sit tight. Fuck – she hung up on me."

"Sounds like she takes after Claire," Jake said.

"Both of them are insane. They're going after this Daniel guy – just the two of them. Claire thinks she knows where Daniel put her stuff."

"Where?"

"His mom's house. She said something about Old Hardin Road. Near Noblewood."

"That's not much to go on; there's got to be a hundred houses near there," Jamie said.

"Give me that," Jake said and took the phone from Ethan. "I'm surprised you know how to work this thing."

"I don't," Ethan grumbled. "Morgan showed me which button to push to reach her."

"That's a top of the line model," Rob said, leaning in to look at what Jake was doing.

"Claire bought it. She wanted another way to boss me around."

They all laughed, but the atmosphere in the truck remained tense in spite of it. They didn't know anything was wrong, Jamie thought. Not in any concrete sense. Daniel might not have had a thing to do with the break in. But that didn't matter, because every man present had the gut feeling trouble was brewing, and if all four of them felt it, they were probably right.

"Here. I've got it. Ethel Ledstrom, 6500 Old Hardin Rd. I'll give you directions when we get closer."

Jamie pushed the accelerator down. "Call Cab. Tell him what's going down."

* * * * *

"I wish you had two of those," Claire said, nodding at the baseball bat Morgan gripped in her right hand. "Did you find it in your rental car or did you bring it with you on the plane?"

"It was in the closet of my motel. From now on I'm packing one in my carry-on bag, though. I had no idea how handy they are. Are you ready?"

"I guess."

"I could call Ethan back."

"Forget it, we don't need brawn, we need stealth."

They'd stopped in a home and garden store on their way out of Billings and purchased a crowbar and pair of long-handled snips. "We should just grab a couple of ski masks while we're at it," Morgan had said, but the cashier didn't look at them twice when they checked out. As they exited the car, Claire hefted them and realized she was now the better armed of the two.

She hoped it didn't come to violence.

Although she'd like to punch Daniel right between the eyes.

"Do you think anyone's home?" Morgan said as she came around the car and joined Claire where she stood surveying the small house. There was a low light burning inside but nothing was visible through the thick curtains. No vehicles were parked in the driveway, but several cars and trucks were parked on the road nearby.

"Maybe. We'd better be quiet. We'll check around and see what we can see. If we spot my stuff we'll call the police and sit tight until they get here."

"I don't know. Maybe we should wait for Rob and Ethan to arrive."

"They'd want to call the police first, and then the police would say they needed a search warrant. If we can tell them we've seen the boxes, maybe they'll actually come and look."

"It might be dangerous."

"Fine. Stay here. I'm going."

Claire crossed the road and after a moment, Morgan followed her. They kept close to the side of the property, hugging the bushy hedge that ran between the house and its neighbor. The shadows were thick here, and nothing moved in the yard except for them. Claire held her breath as they passed the small, old-fashioned house. Moving into the back yard, she let it out in relief. Back here no one could see them except from the house itself and while the windows in the rear of the building were uncovered, the rooms beyond them were dim and most likely empty.

"Should we peek in?" Morgan asked.

Claire shook her head. "He'll put it in the garage." She pointed to a large structure at the end of the driveway near the back of the property. "He could drive right up to it and unload everything without anyone noticing."

Once more Claire led the way. The garage was shabbier than the house, a shingled wide building with two sliding doors whose rows of square window panes were blacked out with paint. Claire looked it over and her stomach sank. Could they break a window without waking up the entire neighborhood? She didn't see how they could get in this way.

"Let's go around – there might be another door in back. A regular door," Morgan said.

"Okay."

They crept along the edge of the building, fumbling their way along as the shadows grew deeper.

"Here it is," Morgan whispered.

Claire peered in the glass in the upper half of an old-fashioned door. The interior of the garage was very dark but it was filled with something that looked like boxes.

"Let's check it out," Claire said.

Morgan nodded.

Claire turned the handle of the knob. It didn't open. She tried again with the same result. Anger surged through her. Anger at Daniel, at her own stupidity – at how nothing ever seemed to go her way. She lifted the crowbar and jabbed one end sharply through the glass.

"Claire!"

She dropped the crowbar, stuck a hand through and turned the knob from the inside. "No one's around. I have to see if it's my stuff." She tip-toed through the open door and peered inside, not willing to turn on the light despite her bold words. She took several steps forward before bumping into something. She ran her fingers over it. A box – definitely a box. Reaching out, she felt another one. And another. They were piled high. She used the snips to cut through the packing tape on the first one, set them down and felt inside. Tiles. She was sure of it.

"We were right – these are mine," she hissed as Morgan came up beside her.

"They were yours," a deep voice corrected. The lights snapped on and Claire whirled to see Daniel in the doorway, backed by two other men she didn't know. Two other large men – one in a blue windbreaker, the other sporting a leather jacket. They nudged each other and giggled, an incongruous sound that made her insides tighten with dread. There was something off about all three of them. Something that told her they were drunk…or high.