Chapter Seven

CHAPTER SEVEN

T HERE WERE TWO kinds of families in the Powder River Basin. Ranch families and town families. Stuart knew from growing up here that the two were often miles apart economically—just as they were often at odds because of it.

Trying to survive in this town wasn't easy for those who lived and worked here. Jobs were scarce. Options were limited to service jobs in town. The men could find seasonal work on ranches while their wives worked as housekeepers at the hotel or waitstaff at the café or clerks at the feed store. Others drove more than an hour over the mountain to work in Miles City.

Amanda Westlake worked as a housekeeper at the Belle Creek Hotel in town. Divorced, she'd stayed, even though she'd originally come to Powder Crossing because of her husband's job as a deputy sheriff. Thad Westlake had long ago moved on, leaving town and Amanda. Now she and her daughter, Tana, lived in a trailer she rented on the other side of town. An older-model midsize sedan was parked out front.

Stuart parked beside it and got out. He figured Amanda wouldn't be expecting him, and he was right. On the way into town, he'd called the hotel to find out if she was working today. She wasn't.

He knocked on the trailer door and waited. He could hear movement inside, one set of frantic footfalls accompanied by a "Mother!" and then the slamming of a door before the trailer's front door opened.

Amanda Westlake was a good-looking woman. He knew that local men, both single and married, had shown an interest in her. Just as he knew that she'd turned them all down, determined to get her daughter raised before getting involved with another man.

Her bottle-blond hair swung to one side as she cocked her head at him, waiting for an explanation as to why he was there. It was the response he often got in the Powder River Basin.

"I need to speak with your daughter, Tana."

Surprise registered in her expression before she said, "What for?"

"Sheriff's department business. May I come in, or would you rather we do this at my office?"

She seemed to consider that for a moment before she stepped back and he climbed the two steps into the trailer. It was nice inside. There were bright-colored pillows on the couch and flowers in a vase on the end table. From the doorway, he could see the kitchen. Clean, even though the air still held the scent of a recently cooked meal.

"Have a seat," Amanda said, openly studying him. "I'll get my daughter."

The girl who came into the room where Stuart had perched on the couch was small and slim. Her hair was long, threaded with blond highlights. She wore short shorts and a formfitting tank top. The look on her face was defiant. He wondered if that was her normal expression. He suspected it was.

"Please have a seat," he said to Tana and her mother. Neither sat.

"What's this about?" Amanda demanded.

He ignored her, keeping his gaze on the girl. "I want to ask you about Holly Jo Robinson."

She frowned but instantly looked guarded. "Who?"

"The classmate you and your friends have been bullying."

Tana laughed. "Seriously? She called the cops on us?"

Stuart hadn't expected the girl would admit it, let alone that quickly. "What do you have against her?"

She shrugged. "There's no law that says we have to like her."

"But there is a law against bullying."

Tana seemed surprised to hear that. "Seriously? You're going to arrest me?" She sounded excited about it, as if she couldn't wait to tell her friends.

"Have you seen her today?" he asked.

She shrugged, then shook her head. "I heard she skipped school."

He knew that if Tana had abducted Holly Jo, she couldn't have hidden her here in this trailer. "You have a car?" Tana mugged a face and shook her head again. "Your friends have cars?"

"What is going on?" Amanda said more forcefully.

"Their parents bought them cars and let them get their learner's permits early," Tana said and shot her mother a pointed look before turning to him again. "You going to arrest them, too?"

"Did Holly Jo do something to you?" he asked and immediately saw that she had.

Color rose to the girl's cheeks. "She's the one you should be arresting."

"What did she do to you?"

Tana's lips tightened like a vise.

It was her mother who answered. "Was that the girl who played the trick on you at school yesterday?" Amanda demanded. "It was Holly Jo, the girl from the McKenna Ranch? Why didn't you tell me?" She swung around to glare at Stuart. "Tana came home crying after that girl tricked her into sitting in some ketchup. She was wearing white pants. All the boys were laughing and making fun of her for..." She shook her head. "Everyone thought she'd started her period."

"Mother!" Tana looked near tears. "I can't believe you told him that!"

"So, what did you do to get back at her?" Stuart asked before the two began arguing.

"Nothing." Except the girl wouldn't look at him when she said it.

"I need to know what you did." He watched her, afraid and yet hopeful that this whole thing could be cleared up with one small confession. He could imagine the girls picking Holly Jo up before the bus got there. She would have been outnumbered. They could have tied her up and taken her somewhere. Maybe an old barn. There were plenty of those around. They would have just wanted to scare her, teach her a lesson. Maybe they planned to go rescue her later today.

Amanda was watching her daughter as well, worry in her expression as if she'd picked up the tension in his voice and knew that this was about more than bullying. "Answer him, Tana," she ordered, her voice breaking.

The girl glanced at her mother, then lifted her chin and settled her pale blue eyes on Stuart in a challenging glare. There was that defiance again. "I beat up her boyfriend."

"You what?" Amanda demanded.

He signaled her to be quiet. "What boyfriend?"

Tana gave him a look that said she thought he was pathetic if he didn't know. "Gus the wuss."

"What did you do to him?"

"I told you, I beat him up." He waited, his gaze locked with hers until she lost patience. "I pushed him down, jumped on him and ground his face into the dirt. I told him to tell his girlfriend not to mess with me again and to quit telling lies about me."

Stuart stared at the girl—just as her mother was doing. "You assaulted him. Are you aware you can be arrested for that? That his family can press charges and sue your mother?"

She tossed her head. "He wouldn't do that. His dad would find out, and—"

"Shut up, Tana," Amanda snapped, dropping her hand on her daughter's shoulder. The girl grimaced as her mother's grip tightened. "I've heard enough." She looked up at him. "Are you going to arrest her?"

"Do you have any magazines around the house?"

She looked at him in confusion. "Magazines?"

"How about your daughter? Does she have some magazines in her room?"

"No," Amanda said, shaking her head. "If you don't believe me, you're welcome to look."

He'd been watching Tana. Her friends could have magazines, because apparently their parents had more money. They could have made the ransom demand at one of their houses. He realized that the whole county would know soon about Holly Jo's disappearance, given the speed of the local grapevine. "Holly Jo is missing. If your daughter kidnapped her—"

Amanda let out a cry. "Kidnapped?" After hearing what her daughter had done to Gus Gardner, both of them knew the girl was capable of that or worse.

"If your daughter and her friends are holding her somewhere, Tana needs to tell me right now."

"We didn't do anything to her!" the girl cried, trying to turn to look at her mother. "Mother, I swear. I haven't seen her."

"What about your friends?" he asked.

"They don't do anything unless I tell them to," Tana told him, and then seemed to realize what she'd said. "Mother?" It came out a plea.

Amanda looked over her daughter's head at him. "I'll talk to her after you leave. If she was involved in something involving the missing girl, I'll call you."

He met her gaze. "Holly Jo's life is at stake." He didn't have to add what something like this could do to her own daughter's future if anything else happened to the missing girl.

"I promise I'll take care of this," Amanda said, her grip still firmly on her daughter's shoulder as he nodded and left.

As he closed the door, he heard Tana cry, "Mother! I didn't do it. Mother! You have to believe me."

As the sheriff climbed into his patrol SUV, a call came through from Deputy Terrance Dodson to tell him that he'd spotted Brand Stafford's pickup parked in front of the hotel.

"Bring him in for questioning, but, Deputy, make it clear that he isn't under arrest. We just need to ask him a few questions. I'm outside of town. I'll meet you at the office. Just don't go cowboy on him, Dodson. You hear me?"

"Ten-four, boss."

B RAND HAD DRIVEN into town, found a spot to park in front of the hotel and headed over to the Cattleman Café. He was still feeling rough and figured food might help the hangover. Back at the ranch, it was the housekeeper's day off, and he didn't feel well enough to rustle up some food for himself.

As he stepped into the café, though, he saw Birdie Malone was sitting at a table in the back. He started to turn around and leave, even as the smell of pulled pork made his stomach rumble. He hesitated. While he couldn't keep avoiding the woman if she was determined to stay in Powder Crossing, was he up to seeing her right now?

"Brand Stafford. You're late for our date," Birdie called out to him. What was she up to now? He turned back to see her smiling broadly. She motioned to the chair adjacent to her. "I ordered without you."

Everyone in the café was watching them with interest. This would have tongues wagging. The last thing he'd wanted to do was cause a scene in the café. He was the Stafford who didn't do those things.

He walked over to Birdie's table and pulled out the chair across from her. "Thanks a lot," he whispered.

She laughed. "Couldn't let you leave just because I'm here. You're not carrying a grudge about earlier, are you?"

"Nope. I'm used to women getting the best of me."

"I bet you are," she said, grinning as she leaned across the table toward him. "And I thought I was the first. How disappointing."

Is she flirting with me? No doubt for the benefit of the diners still watching them with curiosity. He wondered how many of them knew who she was. They would soon enough, and when they did, they'd wonder what he was doing with Dixon Malone's daughter, given the latest discovery in the neighboring well. It was bound to get back to his mother, who he was already avoiding.

"Did you follow me here?" she asked and pretended to be touched by that.

"I was hungry, and today is the pulled pork sandwich special, my favorite."

"Really? Today's special is my favorite, too. It amazes me how much you and I have in common."

Brand shook his head, even though he thought he should try to mend some fences since they'd probably be running into each other again, as small as Powder Crossing was. "I feel as if we got off on the wrong foot," he said and flashed her a lopsided grin one girl had told him was killer. "Let me buy you lunch." He motioned to the waitress that he'd take the special.

"I can buy my own lunch," she said, openly studying him. "Seriously, what are you really doing here?"

"I told you. I was hungry, and I love their pulled pork."

"Uh-huh." She cocked her head at him. "You're not sure what to make of me, are you?" Her laugh was light and breezy like the summer day. She sat back and crossed her arms. "Why don't you just come out and ask. I'll tell you anything you want to know."

He thought about that for a moment. He realized he wanted to know a whole lot more about Birdie Malone, but at the same time, all his instincts told him to keep his distance for obvious reasons. "I'm sorry about your father."

That seemed to surprise her. She uncrossed her arms and looked serious. "Do you remember him?"

He shook his head. "Not really. I was five when my mother married him. She had five kids in seven years and was busy running a ranch. We were raised by housekeeper-nanny types who came and went. Mostly went, because my mother didn't have much patience with the staff. I hardly saw my mother, let alone her husband." He stopped, realizing how much he'd told her. Birdie already had good reason to believe that Charlotte Stafford was a murderer. Now he'd also insinuated that she was a bad mother. "I shouldn't have said that. Mother..."

"It's all right," she said. "My mother didn't win any awards either, and she only had me to contend with. Fortunately, I had my father and his mother, my grandmother, my nana."

Their pulled pork sandwiches arrived, and seeing what she'd ordered made him smile. Not that he wanted to believe they had anything in common—other than their parents. "So, have you been in town for a while?"

"For a while," she said between bites. He watched her eat a fry before she said, "I'm sorry you didn't get to know my father. He was a good, kind, loving man. Go ahead and say it. Everyone does. Yes, he left my mother, but he always came back to see me. He loved me," she said simply. "He promised he would come for me soon the last time I saw him. He never broke a promise. That's how I knew that something awful had happened to him."

"You still saw him when he was married to my mother?"

"Every week. He told me about you and your brothers and sisters, about your house, your ranch..."

"And my mother." He could tell from her expression that Dixon Malone had told her a lot about his family, especially Charlotte.

She nodded. "You must have known that they argued a lot."

He really had little memory of his mother and Dixon. "I was probably busy protecting myself from my older brother and had more things to worry about than my mother and your father."

"CJ terrorized you?" she asked.

"He terrorized everyone," Brand said with a laugh. "We all learned to disappear when he was around or suffer the consequences. What made it worse was that our mother always believed him because he was the oldest. Her favorite."

"I can't imagine having siblings. I always thought it would be fun."

He scoffed at that. "Ryder's great, and my sisters are, too. CJ...?" He shook his head. "There was always a lot of drama in our house, which is why I spent as little time as possible there." He took a bite, thinking how much he was enjoying lunch—and Birdie.

They ate in a companionable silence for a few minutes. As different as they were, he was surprised they did have a lot in common. They were about the same age, had grown up with a distant mother and had lost their fathers at a young age. Except, he reminded himself with a jolt, his father was alive. For a while, he'd forgotten about the DNA test, the secret it exposed, and what he'd done with a copy of it.

When the café door opened, neither of them noticed the deputy walk in until he approached their table, another officer behind him.

"Brand Stafford? I'm going to need you to come with me," Deputy Dodson said.

"What's this about?" he asked in surprise.

"It's about you and what you were doing this morning when a student went missing."

"Who went missing? I don't know anything about—" He never got to finish what he was saying.

The deputy grabbed his arm and hauled him up from the table even as the other deputy said, "Dodson, the sheriff said not to—"

"Watch it!" Brand said as his chair tipped over backward and hit the floor with a bang. He lost his balance, shoving the deputy as he struggled to get his feet under him, only to have the law officer throw him face down on the table. Dishes went everywhere, his plate sliding off and breaking on the floor, as the deputy pulled back his arms and slapped cuffs on him.

"You're under arrest for assaulting a law enforcement officer and resisting arrest, as well as kidnapping," the deputy said.

"Kidnapping?" Brand cried.

The second deputy let out a groan as Deputy Dodson said, "Let's go," and dragged Brand toward the front door.

The last thing Brand saw as he was being perp-walked out of the café was Birdie Malone's face. Her expression said it all. What kind of family had her father married into? One that had gotten him killed.

B IRDIE SAT IN the café for a long time, staring after the patrol SUV that had taken Brand Stafford away. The café staff had cleaned up the mess.

"We'll bill Stafford Ranch for your meals and the broken dishes," the waitress told her. "You have any idea what that was about?"

"No." For a while, she and Brand had been bonding. She had let herself get seduced into thinking they were on the same side. That had things been different, they could have been friends. "I'll pay for my own meal."

She was nothing like Brand Stafford, she told herself. Were the whole bunch of the Staffords criminals? She warned herself not to trust any of them. Earlier, she'd let her defenses down. She should have known better.

How could she have thought that Charlotte had killed Dixon Malone and dumped his body into that nearby abandoned well and forget that Brand was her son? Not that he'd been the one who'd helped his mother get rid of the body. He'd been too young. But someone in this county knew what she'd done, because they'd helped her cover it up.

She reminded herself that her father had liked Brand when he was a boy. Had she let that color the way she saw the cowboy rancher? Clearly, she couldn't trust her own instincts since she'd found herself enjoying his company—before the law had come to arrest him. What had the deputy said they wanted him for? Kidnapping? Seriously?

With a start, Birdie recalled the deputy saying that whatever Brand was wanted for had happened this morning. Maybe her instincts about him weren't wrong; maybe he wasn't like his family after all, because there was no way he did anything this morning since she'd been with him.

She paid her bill and left the café. They wanted to question him in regard to a missing person? A student, no less! It had to be more than just questioning. The deputy had taken him out of the café in cuffs, arresting him for assault of an officer and resisting arrest.

She didn't think either charge would stick, especially after she told them where Brand Stafford had been all morning. She could save him. Then maybe he'd help her find out the truth about her father's killer—and accomplice.

T HE SHERIFF COULDN ' T believe the mess he had back at the department.

"You need to cool down," Stuart told Brand as he ordered Dodson to take off the cuffs. "You're just being held for questioning," he said as he steered him into the cell, then closed and locked the door.

"You can't hold me without charging and booking me," Brand said.

"You really want me to charge you with assaulting Deputy Dodson and resisting arrest?"

"You know both those charges are bogus. I want to call a lawyer."

"Not necessary. I've already spoken to your mother. She's waiting in my office right now with her lawyer."

"You called my mother?" Brand demanded. "Why would you do that? I'm thirty-two, almost thirty-three years old!"

"I called her because I was looking for you and because I also need to speak with her. Once you calm down, I'll have you brought up so we can talk."

"How about telling me what's going on?" he called after him as Stuart walked away.

"Chill. I'll be back once I talk to your mother."

When he reached his office, Charlotte Stafford was pacing back and forth in the small space in front of his desk. Her attorney, Ian Drake, was sitting in one of the plastic chairs off to one side of Stuart's desk.

The moment Charlotte saw him, she stopped pacing and demanded, "You arrested Brand?"

"Yes and no. He was supposed to be brought in only for questioning. Please sit down," he said as he closed the door and calmly stepped past her to take his chair behind his desk.

"I demand to know—"

"Please sit down," he repeated. He was in no mood for her demands. "Brand is fine. He's cooling his heels in a cell right now while you and I talk." When she finally sat, it was on the edge of a chair as if she wasn't staying long. "As I told you on the phone, Holly Jo is missing. It appears she's been kidnapped. We need to find her as quickly as possible."

Charlotte looked shocked and even more upset.

"And you think Brand had something to do with it?" the attorney asked.

"The kidnapper isn't demanding money. He or she is asking for the truth."

Charlotte frowned, still clearly impatient with all of this. "What truth?"

"Possibly this." He leaned across his desk to hand her a copy of the DNA report. "It was left for Holden."

Charlotte barely looked at it. "What is this?"

"It shows that Brand shares some of the same genes as Holden's son Cooper. In other words, the DNA indicates that they are half brothers."

She blinked, then shook her head. He watched her swallow and look away as she sat back in the chair, gripping her purse, knuckles white against the leather.

"Were you aware that Brand is your son with Holden McKenna?" Her lips moved but no words came out. "If Brand kidnapped Holly Jo to force his father to acknowledge him—"

"That's ridiculous," she snapped as Drake advised her not to speak. "Kidnap a child?"

"It would appear that Brand wants to be acknowledged or he wouldn't have left the DNA results in Holden's mailbox, the same mailbox that also held the kidnapper's first demand," the sheriff said.

Her cheeks had reddened with anger, shock or embarrassment. He couldn't tell which, but the news had shaken her.

"I was with Holden when he read the results," Stuart said. "He hadn't known Brand was his son. But I assume you did. Or at least suspected."

"Holden knows?" Panic flickered across her face as she paled. She quickly looked away. "What do you plan to do with this information?" she asked, her voice cracking.

"Find out if Brand took Holly Jo to force his father to admit his parentage. If so, then hopefully find out where he's keeping her, get her home safely and arrest him for kidnapping."

"He didn't do it," Charlotte said firmly. Drake tried again to get her to remain silent and failed. "Not Brand. You have the wrong man. He definitely wouldn't take that little girl. He's not like..." She didn't finish, but Stuart knew she was going to say CJ, her son who was in a jail cell in Billings awaiting a criminal trial.

He looked at Drake and figured he too remembered when Charlotte had professed CJ's innocence, and look how that had turned out.

"I'm surprised Brand even left Holden the DNA results," she said. "Or that he went to the trouble to find out in the first place. He's never said anything."

Stuart watched her struggle with the DNA news before he asked, "How about you? Is there a reason you might have wanted Holden to admit the affair and acknowledge Brand?"

She stared at him before her words came as if shot from a cannon. " Me? You think I kidnapped the girl to force Holden to admit that Brand was his?"

Again, Drake tried to intervene, but again, Charlotte overrode his concerns.

"I never wanted him to know," she spit out. " Never! I never wanted anyone to know, especially my children." She shook her head. "I should have known once Oakley got her DNA results, the others would, too."

"You don't think Brand suspected?"

She snapped her lips shut for a moment. "I don't want you talking to Brand without my lawyer present."

Stuart nodded. "If you want to see your son—"

She shook her head and shoved the copy of the DNA results at Drake as she stood. "My attorney will handle it."

"I really think we should talk, Charlotte," Drake said as he rose as well.

"I don't need a lawyer. My son Brand does."

As they both watched her leave, the lawyer said, "I need to talk to my client alone first."

The sheriff's phone rang. "You can talk to Brand down at his cell. I'm short-staffed today with all my deputies looking for Holly Jo." As the attorney left to meet with his client, Stuart glanced at the clock on the wall. It had been hours since Holly Jo had headed for the bus stop—the last time anyone but her kidnapper had seen her. Stuart didn't want to think what could have happened to her in all that time—if she was still alive.

His phone rang again. He quickly picked up, hoping this time it would be good news.

"There is a young woman insisting that she has to talk to you," the dispatcher told him. "She says it's about Brand Stafford. Her name is Birdie Malone."