Chapter Three

CHAPTER THREE

T HE SHERIFF HAD just gotten a call from the coroner when Bailey walked into his office. He hadn’t changed his mind about quitting. The first thing he’d done when he reached his office was type up his resignation, but he hadn’t had a chance since then to turn it in—or let anyone else know.

“Sheriff?”

He’d missed what assistant coroner Ronald Danbury had said on the phone because he’d been surprised to see Bailey charge into his office, her face pale, her blue eyes wide. “I’m sorry—”

“I was saying the small horseshoe on her left breast appears to have been made with something hot that seared the skin and left a definite scar, as if the killer had wanted to brand his victim,” the coroner continued. “The position and placement of the U-shaped brand on her breast must mean something to him. Also, I have the cause of death. She drowned, which means she was alive when she went into the water, but probably not conscious.”

Stuart closed his eyes for a moment. Why the brand, he wondered in horror. It wasn’t uncommon for cowboys to have the brand of the ranch they worked for emblazoned on their clothing and tack. Brands, especially in Montana, had meaning and stayed registered to the family often even if the ranch was sold. Along with showing livestock ownership, brands had historically represented the cowboy, his work, his ideals and his hopes.

In the case of the woman this man had tortured and branded, it could also be a sign of ownership or at least possession. He became physically ill as he thought of what this monster had done.

“Ronald, I’m going to have to call you back,” he said as Bailey closed and locked his office door behind her. She seemed to vibrate with tension, practically wringing her hands as she paced his small office. He had no idea why she was here, but she was clearly agitated. He tried to remember if she’d ever been to his office before. He didn’t think so. He quickly disconnected.

“Bailey—”

“I need to ask you something,” she said, stopping in front of his desk. “About Willow.” So, she’d already heard about the young woman’s body being found in the river. No surprise given how quickly information was disseminated through the Powder River Basin grapevine.

Her gaze met his, holding it. He could see the tautness in her face, but it was the bright fear in her eyes that scared him, a more brilliant shade of fear than even last night. He’d never seen her like this. “How was she killed?”

“Why do you want to—”

“ Just tell me. Please.”

He heard the desperation in her voice. He went with the partial truth, the less painful truth, since she seemed so upset about Willow’s death. He was surprised since he hadn’t known that they were friends. Bailey and Willow resembled each other, but they were about a decade apart in age and were nothing alike. Willow was all rainbows and sunshine, while Bailey was... Bailey. To see her this upset...

“She drowned.”

Bailey stepped back, breaking eye contact. He saw her immediate relief as her body seemed to slump with the weight of it. “So, she wasn’t...” Her voice broke. Turning abruptly, she started for the door.

“Wait,” he said as he rose from his chair, but she had already unlocked the door and was halfway out when she said over her shoulder, “That’s all I needed to know.”

He started to go after her when his phone rang. He’d been expecting a call from the crime team. He needed to let the leader know about his resignation as sheriff. He had to take this. Swearing, he picked up. A tech was calling with information about the boot print that had been found at the edge of the river.

“Size ten and a half.” The lab tech went on to explain that cowboy boots usually come in three common heel heights. “A walking heel is about one inch, and a riding heel is up to two inches. A walking or roper heel is usually flat and blocklike, while a riding heel is underslung or tapered.”

“Right,” he said, hoping to move him along as he looked after Bailey, trying to make sense of what had just happened in his office. Until he turned in his resignation, he was still assisting the state crime team on a local level.

“The leather soles of cowboy boots are smooth for safety while riding. If you fall from the saddle, the smooth soles will slip from the stirrup irons easier, keeping you from getting stuck. What makes this boot print unusual is that it is worn to the point that the soles are no longer smooth, and it has a buckaroo heel.”

“What’s a buckaroo heel?” the sheriff asked. He’d worn cowboy boots since he was a boy, but this was a new one on him.

“It’s high and tapered in the back and leaves a distinct print.” The tech sounded excited about this. “Also, buckaroo-type cowboy boots are higher up the calf. The leather is thicker to protect the horseback rider.”

“So all we have to do is find the man wearing these boots,” Stuart said.

“He might only wear them when he kills.”

That caught him off guard. “You think this isn’t his first?” He felt that glimmer of excitement he used to feel about solving a case, but it quickly waned. He could no longer do this in good conscience. He no longer trusted his judgment.

“Hard to say if he’s done this before. I’ll run the boot prints and the mark left on the body from the photo the coroner sent through our system. If he’s done this before, I’m betting the disfigurement is his signature. Maybe we’ll get a hit.”

Stuart disconnected and swore as he looked out his window to see Bailey driving away from the sheriff’s department. Her words kept coming back to him. So she wasn’t...

Gooseflesh rippled over the bare skin of his arms. So she wasn’t what? Raped, bound, disfigured and then left in the river to drown? Why had Bailey asked that? He knew why he’d lied to her about what had been done to the victim. He was still the law. He couldn’t share details about an ongoing investigation.

Yet he couldn’t shake the feeling that Bailey knew something. He’d been afraid for her before this, but now he was terrified. He tried her number. It went straight to voicemail.

“We need to talk. It’s urgent. About Willow...there’s more that I couldn’t tell you.”

He disconnected, his mind racing. Bailey had been afraid that more was done to Willow. Because she knew someone it had happened to? Or... He wouldn’t let himself go there. If Bailey had crossed paths with this killer at some point, why wouldn’t she have come forward? He knew women often didn’t go to the law for a lot of reasons. Fear, embarrassment, a need to forget.

But not Bailey. She wouldn’t have kept silent. Yet...

Stuart tried her number again. Voicemail. “Call me, Bailey.”

He recalled how nervous she’d been in his office. How afraid she’d been. Grabbing his Stetson, he headed for his patrol SUV to look for her. He couldn’t depend on her to come to him.

But when he hadn’t found her hours later, he was forced to return to his office to do what he had to, knowing that even if he could have found her, he couldn’t make her talk to him if she didn’t want to. His resignation letter was still on his desk, but it was too late to do anything with it today.

He told himself that there was nothing more he could do tonight. Tomorrow he would officially resign. The state crime team would find Willow Branson’s killer since Stuart knew he wasn’t up to it. The young woman deserved better than him, he told himself.

He tried Bailey’s number again. It went directly to voicemail. He didn’t bother to leave another message.

B AILEY DIDN ’ T KNOW where she was going—just that she needed to drive after listening to Stuart’s message. We need to talk. It’s urgent. Willow...there’s more that I couldn’t tell you.

She gripped the wheel, her fingers going numb. She should have left years ago. At least, she shouldn’t have come back after college—not after knowing what she was coming home to. There was still time. It wasn’t too late. She could leave and never look back. It didn’t matter that she had no idea where she would go—just away. Somewhere safe.

But even as she thought it, she knew that there was only one way she would feel safe. That’s why she’d come back to the ranch. That’s why she couldn’t leave, especially now.

More that I couldn’t tell you. She almost called Stuart, but the pit in her stomach already told her what he would say. She’d known the moment her father had told her Willow had been murdered that she’d changed her hair color, that she looked so much like Bailey that Ralph Jones had thought at first it was her. Bailey had known.

Yet she’d wanted so desperately to believe she was wrong that she’d accepted Stuart’s simple cause of death. Drowning.

There’s more that I couldn’t tell you.

At the quick, sharp burp of a siren, her gaze shot to her rearview mirror. A patrol SUV? Stuart? She started to slam her foot down on the gas pedal, needing to run, but stopped herself. She couldn’t outrun him. Even if she got away tonight, he’d come looking for her tomorrow.

She slowed and pulled over, realizing where she was. On an empty road miles from town. Frowning, she glanced in her rearview mirror, but could see little because of the flashing lights.

Stuart? How had the sheriff found her? Had he followed her out of town? She hadn’t been paying attention, a mistake on her part that could have been much worse if the person in that car had been someone else.

The sheriff was the one person in this town she felt she could trust, and yet she knew Stuart wanted much more than her trust, which complicated things.

As he pulled behind her rig, she cut her engine and lay over the steering wheel, suddenly exhausted and afraid that once she looked into Stuart’s face, she would tell him everything. She’d been running from this for years, but she’d never been running more scared than she was now.

Bailey looked up as she heard the patrol SUV driver’s side door open. In her side mirror, she saw with a start that it wasn’t the sheriff but a middle-aged female patrol officer who stepped out and approached.

There were no women on the county force, which meant this officer was out of her jurisdiction. That thought zipped past as she noticed something disturbing. The female officer had dropped one hand to the weapon at her hip.

As Bailey reached toward her glove box for her registration, she told herself this was just a standard stop. Maybe she’d been going over the speed limit. Maybe she had a taillight out. Maybe... The hard tap at her side window made her jump.

She looked over to see the name on the officer’s uniform. R. Durham. She felt a chill. Everything about this, including the dark night, had her nerves on edge. Her instincts screamed that something was wrong.

Bailey swallowed the lump that had risen in her throat, fighting the instinct to make a run for it as common sense told her running could get her thrown in jail—if not killed. She put down her window. “I have my license and car registration right—”

“Get out of the car. Now! ”

Bailey turned to see that R. Durham had stepped back, the gun now in her hand.

“Get out of the car!”

She was still trying to convince herself this was some kind of mistake as she stepped out of the car. She barely got her door closed before she was struck. The woman slammed into her, shoving her face-first into the side of the SUV and pressing the gun to the side of her head.

“What is this about?” Bailey cried, fearing this was no mistake after all.

R. Durham leaned closer, holding her face crushed against the side of the car, the barrel of the gun pressed even harder against her temple. “You’ve messed with the wrong family. I know what you’ve been doing, going around digging into things that are none of your business.”

“I don’t know who you are.”

“Oh, you’ll remember me, though,” the woman said, and slammed a fist into the small of Bailey’s back.

The blow knocked the air from her lungs and seemed to paralyze her legs. She slumped to the ground as the woman stepped back to tower over her.

“You leave my family alone,” the officer said, grabbing a handful of Bailey’s long hair and dragging her to her feet, all the while keeping the weapon trained on her. “I always heard you were tough. Don’t seem so tough right now.”

“You have a gun to my head. Put down the gun and badge and we’ll see who’s tougher. But you’re not looking for a fair fight, are you?” Bailey said through gritted teeth as her hands fisted at her sides.

The woman dragged her to the rear of the SUV, then shoved her hard. Bailey tumbled down into the deep, weed-filled barrow pit. As she rolled, dried weed stalks tore at her face, at her bare arms, ripping her shirt until she finally came to a stop at the bottom.

Officer R. Durham stood on the edge of the road, silhouetted in the lights from the patrol car, her weapon dangling from her hand. She raised the gun slowly. Bailey didn’t move. Couldn’t. If this was where it ended, fine. She almost welcomed it. In her nightmares, her death had been much worse.

“Leave the Durhams alone. Next time, you won’t be getting out of that ditch.” She holstered the gun and walked back to her patrol SUV. A few moments later, her engine revved. She sped off in a hail of dirt and gravel.

Bailey lay in the dried earth and weeds at the bottom of the barrow pit, listening to the patrol car drive away. She didn’t have to ask how she’d gotten here or why. Slowly rising, her body aching, her skin bleeding where it had been scraped raw, she crawled her way back up onto the road.

The dark night closed in around her, the silence deafening, as she stood in the middle of the road. R. Durham had believed that she’d scared her. The thought made her laugh as she reminded herself what was out there in the darkness coming for her.

But her laugh ended abruptly as she let out a howl of frustration that turned into a scream. The sound filled the night, chasing back the darkness and the fear before she pulled herself together. She wasn’t going down without a fight.

S TUART HADN ’ T REALIZED how late it was. He’d been tying up loose ends, preparing to step away from the office for good. But when he saw the time, he knew he needed to go home and try to get some rest.

He wondered if he’d see Bailey, doubting it. She knew he was going to demand answers, so she’d probably stay away. Maybe it was better that way.

As he got up to leave, he was notified that someone wanted to talk to him about Willow.

“Did you get a name?” he asked.

“Aaron Branson.” Before he could ask, “He’s Willow’s brother.”

“Send him back,” Stuart said, even though it was way after hours. Until it was official, he was still the only law in this part of the Powder River Basin.

A few moments later, a tall, nice-looking dark-haired man with a cleft chin was at his door. He motioned him in as he stood to shake the man’s hand. “I’m Sheriff Stuart Layton. I’m sorry about your sister.”

“Have you caught the person who did this?” he demanded.

Stuart sat down behind his desk again, motioning to a chair for his visitor, but Aaron Branson didn’t sit. “Maybe you can help me do that.”

“I don’t see how. My uncle called. I had to hear it from him. I don’t understand why no one called me. My number is in her phone as a contact.”

“Her phone hasn’t been found.”

Branson seemed to take that information like a blow. He stumbled to a chair and sat, dropping his elbows to his knees, then dropping his face into his hands as he cried silently, his body heaving.

“Your uncle was listed as next of kin at the hotel where your sister was employed.”

“He raised us.” Lifting his head and wiping away tears, he said, “How could this have happened to Willow?”

“Were you in contact with her since she moved to Powder Crossing and took the job at the hotel?” Stuart asked.

“We talked all the time.”

“Then you might know why she changed her hair color recently.”

Branson stared at him. “Seriously? That’s what you want to know?”

“We think the man who killed her was looking for a certain...type.”

“If you’re insinuating—”

“That’s not what I’m saying. He might not have even noticed her before she changed her hair color.”

Branson seemed to give that some thought for a moment. “A few weeks ago, she said some guy at the bar made a crack about her hair.”

The sheriff felt his pulse quicken. “What exactly did he say?”

“That he didn’t like her blonde. He said it wasn’t her natural color and he would love to see it natural.”

“Did she mention who this man was?” Stuart asked, his heart in his throat.

Branson shook his head. “I said the guy was a jerk, and she should have told him where to get off.”

“Did she?”

He sighed. “Doubtful since a few days later, she said he was right. She looked better with it closer to her natural color.”

“What else did she tell you about the man?

“Nothing, except... I know she changed it for him. The only reason she would do that was because she liked him. Are you telling me he’s the one who...” He broke down, his face in his hands again.

The sheriff gave him some time before he asked, “She said she met him in the hotel bar? I know she worked behind the hotel registration desk.”

“Sometimes she filled in for one of the bartenders, usually a young guy she called Luke.”

Willow wasn’t legally old enough to bartender, but this wasn’t the time to get into that. “Luke Graves?” Stuart said. He remembered the name from the list of employees that had been sent over from the hotel. “Was Willow dating anyone?”

Branson shook his head. “There was one guy, but they’d broken up.”

“Who—”

“It wasn’t serious—at least for him. A rancher. He broke it off. Said she was too young.”

“How long—”

“A couple of months off and on. Willow was falling for him. She didn’t care that he was a decade older than her.”

An older rancher. It wasn’t much to go on. “Can you think of anything else?”

Branson shook his head, tears in his eyes. “Willow was careful. She’d already had her heart broken. She had her whole life ahead of her.”

“Why did she come to Powder Crossing?” Stuart asked.

“To put the past behind her. Her fiancé from college had just gotten engaged. She needed to go to a place where no one knew her. I think she said she found the job posted on a bulletin board at a gas station in Miles City.”

“Are you going to be in town for a while?” the sheriff asked. “I know the state crime team will want to talk to you.”