Her Montana Man (27 page)

concerned about the boy’s welfare. He didn’t care or he wouldn’t have terrified the child like that, but

he’d also planned his return.

“What do you want with us?” Nadine asked.

“I didn’t plan on
you,
” Luther said, turning to look at her. “I grabbed the Sutherland woman here,

knowing Black would pay to get her back. But you were there, and I couldn’t pass up the chance to

double my profit. You’re one of his little doves, aren’t you?”

“Jonas Black is a decent man,” Nadine said, bristling.

“I have a respectable job.”

He leaned forward to lift a length of Nadine’s hair and twist it around his index finger. “Tomorrow

morning, we’ll find out if he thinks you’re worth a thousand dollars. If he pays, then I’ll tack another note

to you. Asking double for
her.
Pretty smart, huh?”

“He’ll pay,” Nadine said. “He’ll pay for both of us.”

He sat back on his heels. “That’s what we’re all hopin’, isn’t it?”

He straightened and moved to the bag he’d left by the door. Reaching into it, he withdrew a crusty loaf

of bread and a few apples. “This’ll get you by.” He placed the food on the floor near Eliza’s knees. “Go

ahead and eat.”

Apparently he didn’t care that her hands were untied. She reached to pick up the loaf and tore two

pieces off, handing one to Nadine.

He moved away, took a seat on the floor near the opposite wall, and observed them as they slowly ate.

“Are you going to give us water?” Eliza asked sometime later. Her throat was dry and the taste of the

chloroform lingered in her mouth.

He grimaced. “If I bring you water then I have to let you do your business.”

“We drank a pot of tea this morning. We’re going to have to do our business regardless,” Nadine told

him.

He took his time, going out and returning with a wooden bucket and ladle. Each of them drank their fill.

He left the pail sitting where it was.

After rummaging through a dilapidated cupboard in a shadowy corner, he removed a dented kettle and

set it beside Nadine with a clang. “You’re not going out, so make do.”

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She and Eliza looked at each other.

“You’d best hope your lover shows up with the cash in the morning. If he does, your stay will be short.”

“But we’ve seen you,” Nadine said.

Eliza’s heart sank. If he hadn’t already thought of it, Nadine shouldn’t have pointed out that they could

identify him.

Chuckling, he knelt in front of her, took an apple and rubbed it on his pant leg. “Won’t be the first time

I’ve changed my name and started over. I’m sick of Royce, and I’m sick of your town. You won’t see

me again.” He twisted off the stem and tossed it on the floor. “Don’t worry your pretty head. You’re

worth more to me alive than dead. Besides, I only dispose of people when I’m paid to.”

Eliza didn’t know if the fact that he did kill for hire made her feel any better. But, he was right about

them being worth more alive.

“Like your first lover,” he said, taking a bite out of the fruit, squinting at Eliza and chewing loudly.

She looked at Nadine, then back at him. He’d been talking to her. “What?”

“Your first lover. Woods.”

He’d confused her. “I don’t know anyone named Woods.”

“Not anymore, you don’t. He’s been under a pile of rocks out there on the ridge for years. I got a nice

stash for that job. Enough to spend a year in Denver. That was part of the deal.”

She remembered a time when she’d thought Luther was gone. That had been…years and events shifted

in her memory. Woods?

Eliza felt as though she’d been pushed off a cliff. She couldn’t catch her breath, and the ground was

coming up to meet her fast. “Forest?” she croaked, past fear and revulsion.

Getting up, he laughed and threw the apple core toward the kettle. It hit it with a clang and bounced

away into the dust. “Forest. Woods. That’s the one.”

“You killed Forest?” She could barely absorb the fact.

“Ah, hell, you’re not gonna cry now, are ya? That musta been close to ten years ago.”

The information swam in Eliza’s head.

Leaning over, he touched Nadine’s hair. She pulled away as far as she could.

He turned and left. A sliding sound followed the closing of the door. The horse nickered, then hoofbeats

indicated his departure.

Forest hadn’t run out on her. All the things he’d said and the promises he’d made had been true. Burning

tears welled up and spilled over, and a sob broke from her throat.

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He had loved her. He had truly wanted to marry her and be Tyler’s father. He would have loved them

and taken care of them. He would have been a loving father to her child. A child she could have kept and

claimed to the entire world. She struck the floor with her fist, tears and emotions turning swiftly to anger.

She’d known he was mercenary, but Royce had
killed
him. Paid that man to take Forest from her so he

could have the coveted position beside her father.

“Are you all right?” Nadine asked, concerned but hesitating to get too close.

Eliza released a sound of supreme frustration and anger fired by grief. Grief for her. Grief for her son.

Royce had robbed them. Robbed them and deliberately had a life taken for his own gain.

Poor Forest. She thought of him murdered and buried without family to mourn or a marker to save the

place.

She dropped to lay in a huddle on the floor, and Nadine curved herself behind her, the best comfort she

could manage.

Eventually, Eliza sat and took a shaky breath. “Let’s eat apples.”

After they each had one, she went straight to work on Nadine’s wrist bindings. She picked and pulled

until her fingertips were sore, but still she toiled at loosening the piece of leather.

Eventually, she got a spot free, then Nadine worked on it with her teeth while Eliza started on her ankles.

“I got it!” Nadine announced.

It was nearly dark. Eliza could barely see the other woman now. Nadine groped, brushed aside Eliza’s

hands and went back to the task.

Eliza awoke in pitch darkness to find her feet free. Her hips and shoulders ached from lying on the wood

floor. She remembered Forest, and her chest ached with the loss. “Nadine?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Are you loose?”

“Uh-huh. I tried the door. It doesn’t budge. The wood covering the window, neither. What do you think

this place is, anyway?”

“I don’t know. Maybe a miner’s old cabin.”

“He might’ve left us a bed.”

“Maybe it’s best he didn’t,” Eliza pointed out. “It would likely have been home to mice or squirrels or

some such.”

“I do suppose we should count our blessings. What do we do now?”

“Wait for a little light, I guess. Maybe we can find some way out. Or something to use for a weapon.”

“Do you think he’s still looking for us?” Nadine asked, her voice sounding childlike in the darkness.

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“I expect he’s lying awake, waiting for first light so he can find us,” Eliza replied.

“Yes,” the other girl assured herself. “That’s it exactly.”

onas saddled the black in the semidarkness, tied on his full canteen and pulled himself onto the animal’s

back with a groan. He’d become soft from sleeping in his feather bed for the past few years. It seemed a

lifetime ago that he’d slept on the ground for weeks, even months at a time.

The others were rising around the camp. He hadn’t missed the sound of men’s early-morning hacking

and grumping. “I’m headin’ out,” he called.

“We’ll meet here at nine,” Warren called. “If no one’s had any luck finding them, we’ll wait here while

Jonas delivers the money.”

“Pool, you take that note I gave you to Ward and tell him to put a thousand dollars in a bag and send it

with you. Don’t be late. That money is what this man wants. Lives will depend on it.”

“Yessir, Jonas. I’ll do it just like you said.”

Jonas prodded the horse into motion.

By the time it was light enough to see he’d made his way back to where he’d left off searching the night

before. Dew glistened on grass and weeds, and the sound of birds made it seem like a normal day. The

horse startled a chicken hawk, and it flapped its way up into the air and across the bright blue sky.

He was letting them down. Gritting his teeth, he studied the surrounding trees and woodlands. Eliza Jane

and Nadine needed him, and he was blindly combing the mountainside.

Hope had run out by the time he checked his pocket watch. He headed back to the campsite.

Whiskered faces were glum as Pool held out the saddlebag. Jonas looked at the money, then strapped

the bag to the horse Pool had brought and headed for the designated spot.

The kidnapper had chosen the perfect spot. This place was easily visible for half a mile in three

directions. Even if he was fool enough to go against the demands in the ransom note, there was no place

to hide and watch.

The women’s captor was probably up in the hills to the southeast, watching him leave the horse and

money.

After tying the bay to the tree, he patted its neck, mounted and rode away.

Jonas was mad now. Mad enough to pound the tar out of somebody. Mad enough to ride back to town.

The brickyard sat at the southeast corner of Silver Bend, and Sutherland land took up a couple of acres.

Approaching from the rear, he crossed railroad tracks and passed wood-constructed drying sheds. To

the east were tiny hutlike buildings where employees and their families ate and slept. He reached the

ramps that led up to another wooden building, where workers were shoveling clay onto conveyor belts.

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As Jonas neared Third Street, the brick buildings and tree-lined drive looked like a different place. An

ornamental brass plaque on the lush front lawn proclaimed Sutherland Brick Company.

Jonas tethered his horse to a hitching post and strode inside.

A man with neatly parted and combed hair sat at the desk in a large carpeted foyer. “How may I help

you, sir?” he asked.

“I wanna see Dunlap.”

“Do you have an appointment?”

“Where is he?”

“What’s your name?”

“Black.”

Giving Jonas a wary look, the bespectacled man got up and walked through a doorway.

Jonas cut around the desk and followed. The man rapped on a door with a panel of frosted glass.

Dunlap’s name had been lettered in fancy script. Jonas pushed past him and entered the office.

“Here, now, you can’t—”

“Nice place, Dunlap,” Jonas said, looking around.

Royce, who’d been seated at a large mahogany desk, got to his feet. “What are you doing here?”

“You’ve got some talkin’ to do.”

Royce waved the other man away, and he backed out of the room, closing the door. “You must be

referring to my fiancée. I just heard the news.”

Jonas strode to the corner of Royce’s desk. “Don’t play dumb. Your little plot won’t work this time.”

“What do you mean?”

“I know you had somethin’ to do with Tyler’s disappearance.”

Royce moved to the opposite corner, putting the entire desk between them. “You can’t prove that.”

Jonas lunged across, missing Royce when he dodged, but catching him as he tried to make a run for the

door. He hauled him back by his fancy coat and pressed him backward on the glossy wood surface.

Papers fluttered and a stack of folders slid into a jumble on the floor.

With Royce’s collar in his fist, he held the man captive and leaned over him. “Maybe I can’t prove it yet,

but I will. If you’ve done something to Eliza Jane, I’m gonna smear you from here to your fancy front

lawn.”

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Royce’s face turned red from exertion and lack of air. “It wasn’t me,” he gasped. “And who’ll go to jail

for that? You’re the hothead and everybody knows it.”

“I want to know where she is,” Jonas said through gritted teeth.

“I don’t know. You can kill me, and I still can’t tell you. Why would I kidnap my own fiancée?”

Jonas wanted to choke him senseless. “For the same reason you do everything. Money.”

“What money?”

“The thousand dollars I left out at the fork to Camas Creek half an hour ago for starters?”

“You paid ransom?”

“Of course I paid it.”

Royce’s eyes widened. “That son of a—”

“Who? Who has her?”

Royce struggled, but Jonas was stronger.

Jonas tightened his grip on the other man’s throat. “This is your last chance to tell me.” He drew a knife

from his pocket and flipped it open.

Royce’s eyes bulged white in his red face.

Jonas brought the blade up under Royce’s chin and pricked his skin.

Dunlap cursed without much force since he had no air. “Pro-bably Lu-ther,” he managed.

Jonas relaxed his grip just enough to let him speak. “Your pal, Vernon? Where is he?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where is he?”

Royce coughed.

“Where did he hold Tyler?” Jonas demanded and poked the blade of the knife against Dunlap’s flesh.

Royce knew Jonas wasn’t letting up. “Release me and I’ll tell you.”

Disgusted, Jonas let go.

Gasping, Royce turned to one side and loosened his collar.