CHRISTMAS AT THE CARDWELL RANCH (10 page)

Chapter Ten

Hud got the call on his way from the hospital. He’d
gone by to see Harlan Cardwell only to find that the man had left without anyone
having seen him leave.

The marshal listened to the news on the other end of the line
with the same sinking feeling he’d had earlier. Another young woman’s body had
been found.

“I’ll be right there,” he said, hung up and turned on his
flashing lights and siren. If he could have gotten his hands on Harlan Cardwell
right now...

Last night at the hospital he’d demanded to know more than the
information he’d been given yesterday at the ranch.

“We think it’s possible Mia passed information to someone when
she knew she was in trouble,” Harlan told him. “She and Teresa Evans were
apparently friends. Teresa would be the most likely person to give the data to
if she was in trouble, which could explain Teresa’s disappearance.”

Hud had shaken his head in frustration.

“I wish I had an answer for you. They tried to kill me earlier.
If Tag hadn’t come along when he did...”

“Aren’t you getting too old for this?”

Harlan had chuckled even though it must have hurt him. “I only
got involved again because of Mia.” His voice broke. He cleared his throat. “I
just talked to the coroner a few minutes before you came in. Mia had been
drugged. We can only assume one of the patrons at the bar stuck her. She must
have realized it too late to get the item to me. I’m sure she did everything she
could to finish her mission.”

“If Mia gave whatever this information is to Teresa Evans, then
they have it.”

Harlan shook his head. “Apparently Teresa didn’t have it.
They’re still looking for it. At least that’s what I’m hearing.”

“How many more are they going to kill to get it?” Hud had
demanded, and seen the answer in Harlan’s eyes.

So the call that a young woman had been found on the ice at the
edge of the Gallatin River hadn’t come as a surprise—just another blow. Hud felt
helpless for the second time in his life. The other time, just months ago, was
when he realized a psychopath had his wife and children.

* * *

T
AG
GLANCED
AT
his watch and then tried
Lily’s cell phone again. It went straight to voice mail just as it had done the
three times he’d tried before. He didn’t leave a message.

He’d been trying since he’d gotten her cryptic message.

“Tag, the list is decoded. There’s a name
on here...you need to see. Call me. It’s urgent.”

When Lily had mentioned that she thought the thumb drive had
two lists of names on it, he’d thought of his father. Was his father’s name on
it?

Tag thought of the ransacked cabin. His hand went to his
pocket. He closed his fingers over the small computer flash drive. He’d thought
taking it would protect Lily. But now she’d decoded it and had found a name. A
name that had put her in danger?

Earlier he’d driven down to the Corral Bar, but the bartender
said he hadn’t seen Angus or Harlan since yesterday. He didn’t seem that
surprised, which Tag took to mean both men disappeared occasionally.

It baffled him as he drove back toward Big Sky.

Like a lot of Montana winter days, this one was blinding with
brilliance. The sun hung in a cloudless robin’s-egg-blue sky and now shone on
the fresh-fallen snow, turning it into a carpet of prisms.

As he pulled up in front of the Canyon Bar and climbed out, he
sucked in a lungful of the freezing air. Nearby pines scented the frosty breeze.
He didn’t see Lily’s car, but he figured her brother would have heard from her
by now. The fresh snow creaked beneath his boot soles as he crossed to the
bar.

The front door was open even though the bar wasn’t scheduled to
open for another hour. As the door closed on the bright winter day behind him,
Tag stopped just inside to let his eyes adjust to the semidarkness.

“We don’t open for another...” Ace’s words died off as he
looked up from behind the bar. “Tag, come on in. I forgot to relock the door
after Lily left.”

“So you’ve seen her today?” Tag asked as he walked over to the
bar.

Ace’s expression changed into one of mild amusement. “She
looked better than I’d seen her looking in a long time.”

“Then she told you about Gerald.”

“Gerald didn’t put those roses in her cheeks,” he said with a
laugh. “What can I get you to drink?”

“Nothing, but thanks. I was looking for Lily.”

“Like I said, she was by earlier. Gerald called her. She went
to see him.” Ace stopped in midmotion, a bar glass half-washed in his hand. “You
met Gerald, right?”

“Last night.”

“Then you know he’s all wrong for her.”

Tag didn’t feel he could weigh in on that.

“I hate it, but she went to hear him out,” Ace said with a
disgusted shake of his head. “I was hoping we’d seen the last of him. I’m afraid
she’ll go back to him. Maybe already has.”

That would explain why Lily wasn’t answering her phone. “Maybe
I will have that drink, after all,” Tag said, and took a stool. “Just a draft
beer.”

Ace laughed and reached for a clean glass as the bar door
opened again and a large silhouette filled it.

* * *

H
UD
PARKED
AT
the edge of the fishing
access road a few hundred yards from the river and walked. His head ached, his
stomach felt oily. It took all his mental strength not to stop and throw up in
the fresh snow at the edge of the road.

He could see the flashing lights ahead. The coroner had been
called. Second time in two days. Another dead young woman.

The body lay on the edge of the thick aquamarine-blue ice in a
bed of snow. At first glance it appeared the woman had lain down in the snow to
make a snow angel. Her arms were spread wide, facedown, legs also splayed. He’d
guess she’d been thrown there and that was how she’d landed. Which meant she’d
been dead before she hit because she hadn’t made a snow angel. She hadn’t
moved.

“What do we have?” Hud asked the coroner after giving a nod to
his new deputy, a man by the name of Jake Thorton. He’d come highly recommended
but hadn’t been tested yet. Nor had Hud made a point of getting to know the man.
Jake seemed to keep to himself, which was just fine with his boss.

“Looks like strangulation,” the coroner said. “Maybe that
combined with hypothermia. Won’t know until the autopsy. But she didn’t die
here.”

Hud nodded. “Do we have an ID?”

“Found her purse in the snow over there,” Deputy Thorton said.
“Her name, according to her Montana driver’s license and photo, is Teresa Marie
Evans, the missing woman last seen at the Canyon Bar.”

Teresa had a winter scarf tied too tightly around her neck—just
like Mia. “Tire tracks?” Hud asked Jake.

“The road hadn’t been plowed. Didn’t look as if any vehicles
had been down it. But there were tracks. I saw that she was dropped by
snowmobile,” he said. “I took photos.”

Hud nodded at the young handsome deputy, thankful he was on the
case since his own mind was whirling. All his self-doubts seemed to surface in
light of another death. Dropped by snowmobile just like the last one.

“I’ll let you handle this, notify the family, do what has to be
done,” he told Jake, and looked at his watch. Police officer Paul Brown’s
funeral was in two hours. Hud wasn’t sure how much more death he could take.

* * *

A
S
THE
MAN
stepped into the Canyon
Bar, the door closing behind him, Tag saw that it was Gerald, Lily’s former
fiancé. Or should he say now current fiancé? Had Lily gone back to him?

He waited almost expectantly for Gerald to approach the bar.
The beer he’d downed turned sour in his stomach as he braced himself for the
news. Like her brother, Ace, Tag thought this man was all wrong for the woman
he’d made love to last night. He reminded himself that Lily had regretted their
lovemaking. Had that alone driven her back into this man’s arms?

“Lily left this,” Gerald said, and dropped a torn sheet of
paper on the bar.

Tag’s first thought was that she’d left a note for her
brother.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” Ace asked after giving it
a cursory glance and tossing it back on the bar.

“I wonder why I wasted my time,” Gerald said with a shake of
his head, and turned to leave.

Tag shifted on the stool to see what was on the sheet of paper.
He recognized Lily’s neat script. His pulse took off like a rocket when he saw
the familiar array of letters from the thumb drive.

He quickly picked up the partial sheet of paper. It had been
torn. Only a few of the original letters from the thumb drive were on the sheet.
Next to them were other letters that made...
names.

He didn’t recognize any of them and frowned. Lily had been
upset on the phone.
“Tag, the list is decoded. There’s a
name on here...you need to see. Call me. It’s urgent.”

She’d wanted him to see a name, but it wasn’t on this portion
of the original sheet of paper.

“Wait a minute,” he called to Gerald’s retreating back.
“Where’s Lily?”

Gerald stopped, impatience in his stance, and then turned with
a sigh. “You’re asking
me?
”

“
You’re
the one she went to see,”
Ace interjected.

Lily had solved the code. Whatever name had upset her wasn’t on
this sheet. Tag slid off his stool and moved quickly to Gerald. “
Where’s
Lily?”

Gerald gave him a smug, satisfied smile. “The last time I saw
her she was leaving my motel room.”

“Did you see where she went from there?”

He looked angry. “If you must know, I wasn’t paying any
attention.”

Tag turned back to the bar and Ace. “Lily’s message earlier
said it was urgent I see these names, but I don’t recognize any of them. Where
are the rest of them?”

“What does it matter?” Gerald asked sarcastically but he
stepped back toward the bar.

“Trust me, it might be a matter of life or death.”

“Don’t tell me she’s in trouble because of what is written on
that paper,” Ace said as he leaned across the bar to take the scrap of paper in
Tag’s hand.

“Lily was convinced these letters had something to do with Mia
Duncan’s murder.”

Ace let out a curse.

“That list of names?” Gerald asked. “
Murder?
This was exactly what I feared when Lily insisted on working
in a...bar.”

“Gerald,” Ace said in clear warning. “Don’t make me come over
this counter and punch you.” He turned to Tag. “What do we do?”

“If Lily’s right, then I know who I need to talk to,” Tag said.
“If things go badly, though, can I depend on you to bail me out of jail?”

“I’m going with you,” Ace said only seconds before a bunch of
skiers came through the door and headed for an empty table. “I’ll close the bar
and—”

“No. Lily might come back here. Or you might be contacted.
Anyway, you can’t get me out of jail if you’re in there with me.” Tag scribbled
his cell phone number on a bar napkin. “Call me if you hear anything.”

Ace nodded as another group of patrons came through the bar
door. Reggie showed up then in jeans and the Canyon Bar T-shirt, like the one
Lily had been wearing the first night Tag met her. The night he’d also met Mia
Duncan.

“I suppose you’re both going to just assume I would be of no
help?” Gerald asked.

“Call the bar if you hear from Lily,” Tag told him, thinking
Lily might contact Gerald before either him or her brother. “Ace will pass along
the message.” He started for the door.

“That scrap of paper in your hand. That has only some of the
names on the lists Lily showed me,” Gerald said. “I can’t imagine how it could
matter, but I’m the one who helped her decode them. If you have the thumb
drive...”

Tag stopped at the door and turned. His hand went to the thumb
drive in his pocket. “How do you know about that?”

Gerald rolled his eyes. “How do you think? Lily asked me to
help her finish decoding the names.”

So it was like that, Tag thought. Lily wouldn’t have told him
about the thumb drive or asked him unless she trusted him, unless she had gone
back to him.

“Ace, can we borrow your computer?” Tag asked, and led the way
to Ace’s office.

Gerald sat down behind the desk, then held out his hand. Tag
dropped the thumb drive into it and sat as Gerald went to work. It didn’t take
him long. When he finished, he printed out a sheet with the names on them and
handed both it and the thumb drive back to him.

Two lists of names, just as Lily had suspected. The names began
to jump off the page at him. This was why Lily had wanted him to see them.

Mia Duncan’s name was high on the list.

Not far under it was the name Harlan Cardwell. Directly under
that was Marshal Hud Savage.

KYLE FOSTER

GEORGE MOORE

FRANK MOONEY

LOU WAYNE

CLETE RAND

RAY EMERY

PAUL BROWN

MIA DUNCAN

CAL FRANKLIN

LARS LANDERS

HARLAN CARDWELL

HUD SAVAGE

What the hell is this?
He had no
idea, but he was all the more worried about Lily. “You’re sure you don’t know
where Lily went after she left your motel room?” he asked Gerald.

“I thought she must have left with you.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Because she left her SUV in the parking lot.”

“What parking lot?” Tag demanded, feeling his heart slamming
against his rib cage. The names on the list. While he had no idea what they
meant, he had a terrible feeling that they had gotten Mia Duncan killed, his
father beaten to within an inch of his life and both Mia’s and his father’s
homes ransacked. And now Lily appeared to be missing.