Luck of the Draw Page 17
“These memory losses are getting worse,” he continued as if Garrett hadn’t spoken. “Alistair said the first time she had a traumatic breakdown she wasn’t able to communicate for weeks. Her memory loss is apparently getting worse and that’s why he thinks it is urgent that she be taken to a place where she can get treatment.”
Garrett raked a hand roughly through his hair in obvious frustration. “She’s in trouble. I feel it.” He shook his head and then stopped suddenly, a strange look coming to his face. “She was in the witness protection program but bolted because she said someone left her a photo of the two of us. She knew then that her cover was blown and that they knew about me. She’d thought she’d kept the two of us a secret. It was why she originally left me without a word—to go into the program. Don’t you see? She doesn’t know who to trust and now, who knows where they are really taking her?”
He didn’t like seeing the rancher this worked up. He feared he’d do something stupid and end up behind bars.
Garrett was on his feet before Sid could stop him. “She’s convinced someone is trying to kill her,” the rancher called over his shoulder as he headed for the door. “How do we know it isn’t the person who got the court order to have her brought back to Seattle? And you just let them take her.”
“Damn it, Garrett,” he called after him. But the rancher was down the front steps and almost to his pickup before Sid could get out the door. He heard the pickup’s engine roar and had a bad feeling about where he was headed. “It was a court order. There was nothing I could do,” he said under his breath as Garrett took off in a cloud of dust.
* * *
GARRETT KNEW COWS and grazing and ranching. He didn’t know squat about any of the psychological complications of trauma or split personality disorder. What if he was wrong and she really did need medical help? That was the question that plagued him as he drove like a bat out of hell toward Whitefish.
Well, he’d been wrong before, he thought. Only this time, it could get him thrown in jail—if not killed. He thought about what Joslyn had told him about why she’d left the safety of the government’s witness protection program to come warn him that he was in danger. It had almost gotten her killed.
How could he stand by now and not help her? He thought of her mouthing the words, Help me, and was even more convinced he was right. He’d seen the look in her eye. She was terrified. She hadn’t wanted to go with the attendants. There was no one else to help her. He had to save her.
He thought about calling his brothers because he was smart enough to know he would need help. But he was also smart enough to know that the last thing he needed was them trying to talk him out of this. Or worse, stopping him.
Reaching town, he whipped down an alley, stopped and threw his pickup into Park as he jumped out. “Don’t shoot!” he called as he burst through the back door of Mitchell Investigations.
“Damn it, you crazy cowboy,” Billy said, laughing. “You come back to find someone on Facebook again?”
“You’re going to wish that was all I wanted,” he said. “I have a huge favor, but I should warn you up front it’s not just dangerous. It’s illegal.”
His friend laughed. “Don’t sugarcoat it on my account.”
“I can explain on the way, but at least this time I’m paying you for your services if you’re interested.”
“Great, that will make it so much better when I’m standing before a judge at my sentencing hearing.” He shook his head as he stood and grabbed his jacket. “Should I bring a weapon?”
“I’m hoping it won’t come to that,” Garrett said.
“Then I definitely better grab one.” Billy stepped to a closet. Behind the door was a gun safe. He spun the dial, opened the door and pulled out a shotgun and two handguns. He tossed one of the handguns to Garrett, before grabbing ammo, which he stuffed into his jacket pocket. “So what’s this one’s name?” he asked as they went out the back door to the waiting pickup.
“Pardon?” Garrett asked as he climbed behind the wheel and Billy slid the shotgun on the rack behind their heads before jumping in.
“Tell me it’s not that woman.”
“It’s Joslyn...” He glanced over at his friend as he started the engine and pulled out. “Or Monica Wilmington. Either way, she’s in trouble.”
His friend let out a low whistle. “Define trouble.”
Garrett tipped his hat back and took a breath. It felt like his first since the attendants had closed that ambulance door. “Her guardian got a judge to write a commitment order on her. This morning two big burly dudes tossed her into an ambulance. They said they were taking her back to Seattle to what sounds like a mental hospital fronting as a five-star rehab. But I have a bad feeling that she’ll never make it that far if I don’t go save her.”
Billy laughed. “So we’re talking crazy trouble.”
“She isn’t crazy.” He told his friend about what Alistair Vanderlin had told the sheriff. “She doesn’t have a split personality. Nor did she imagine that someone was trying to kill her.”
Billy was quiet for a long while before he said, “I’m sure you have a plan.”
He chewed at his cheek for a moment before he said, “I thought we’d break her out the first chance we get.”
Billy said, “I see... So no plan. You sure about this?”
“I’m sure about her.” One night after too many beers, he’d told Billy about the only woman he’d ever loved enough to want to spend the rest of his life with her.
Now his friend leaned back, settling in for the ride. “What do you know about this place they’re allegedly taking her?”
“Nothing. That’s another reason we have to catch the ambulance and rescue her before they reach wherever they are taking her.” He could feel Billy’s gaze on him but didn’t dare look at him. He didn’t want to see the incredulity in his friend’s gaze. “Fortunately, the fastest way to Seattle from Montana is the interstate so I suspect that’s where they’re headed.”
When he finally did glance over at Billy, his buddy was smiling and shaking his head. Garrett relaxed, knowing that the PI was in for long haul, whatever was ahead. Billy Mitchell had always been that kind of friend.
“Do they know your pickup?” Billy asked.
“No.”
“Well, that’s something. Try to keep your speed under eighty. I’ll watch for highway patrol. Too bad we have a speed limit in Montana again. I liked it back when we didn’t and if you got pulled over it would cost you five bucks. My old man used to carry a stack of fives when we crossed the state. Could cost us a lot more now if we get stopped, including valuable time.”
Garrett shot him a grateful look. “Thanks. I knew I could count on you.”
“Which is why you didn’t ask your brothers for help,” his friend said with a laugh. “I suspect they would have called the sheriff and there’d be a BOLO out on you.”
“Probably will. When I left the sheriff... Well, let’s just say he probably knows what I’m up to.”
“Yep. Sounds like we’re racing against the clock.”
Garrett roared down the highway, trying to keep the speedometer hovering around eighty. He knew this was an ill-conceived idea, but Billy was nice enough not to point it out. All he’d thought about was finding Joslyn and rescuing her.
He could just hear what Dorothea would have had to say about what he was doing. Worse, he was dragging Billy into it. “You could lose your PI license if this goes sideways. I can let you out up the road if you want to change your mind.”
Billy laughed. “And let you do something this stupid alone? Not a chance. I’m the voice of reason and I have a feeling you’re going to need me. You might want to slow down up here. There’s always a speed trap this time of year for the next few miles, then we should be home-free.”
r /> “Something is wrong with all of this, beginning with the guardian,” Garrett said.
Billy pulled out his phone. “I agree. If they are so loaded with this massive fortune, then why not put her on a plane?”
“Because they immediately gave her something that knocked her out,” he said.
“Okay, that would explain the ambulance. They can keep her sedated. You’re right, that does sound suspicious. But they could also be worried about her hurting herself or someone else.”
“So they want us to think.”
“Assuming they want to get her back to the hospital as quickly as possible...” Billy considered the map on his phone. “Highway 2 down to the interstate, then a straight shot to Seattle. Depending on whether they turn on the lights and siren, I’d say it will take them about nine hours—if they don’t stop for anything other than gas and coffee.” He turned to Garrett. “How much of a head start do they have?”
“Thirty minutes to an hour, I’d say.”
His friend laughed and put away his phone. “I’ve never seen a highway patrol on this next section of road. Step on it for a while.”
He got the truck up to eighty-five, cruising speed. Unfortunately this was summer, tourist season, so they hadn’t gone far when they were slowed down by a car pulling a small trailer.
He watched for a chance to pass, feeling Joslyn slipping away. When the road straightened with no cars oncoming, he passed and got up to ninety.
“It’s early enough that most of the tourists aren’t on the highway yet,” Billy said. “Also, most are headed the other way—toward Glacier Park, rather than leaving it this morning. We’ll catch her.”
Garrett knew his friend was trying to reassure him even though common sense told him this was a fool’s errand. The ambulance might have dropped south to the interstate. Or it might not even be going to Seattle. Vanderlin could have lied. At this point, he didn’t trust the man.
He drove, dodging in and out of the growing traffic on the two-lane highway until they reached the interstate and he could breathe a sigh of relief. Now, he would be able to make better time.
Billy leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. “Wake me if you need me. I’m going to get a little shut-eye. I figure when we catch her, things could get busy.”
* * *
THE SHERIFF PICKED up the newspaper and swore. The lead story was about the shooting, including that the gun had been used in another shooting two years ago in Missoula.
“Damn, Ward,” he said under his breath. He knew where the leak had come from. His undersheriff had been buddying up to the press for weeks, thinking it would help him in his run for sheriff in the fall election.
Sid’s first instinct was to fire him, but he couldn’t prove the man had been the leak. Ward had been with the sheriff’s department for enough years that he would need more than suspicions to fire him.
Instead he had to solve this case and then retire and in that order. Let Ward run for sheriff. Hopefully someone better would run against him and win. But that wasn’t his problem right now.
He crumpled up the newspaper and tossed it toward the trash. He missed, but his mind had already moved on. He was worried about Garrett Sterling. The damned fool had gone after that woman sure as hell. He’d thought about trying to track him down but had decided his time would be better spent solving this case and he couldn’t bring himself to put out a BOLO on him. He needed to talk to the clerk from the convenience-store robbery. The gun was the key. If he could track down where it had been the past two years...
Now that he knew Monica Wilmington’s past and her connection to Harvey Mattson, he had to assume that was who’d hired the stiff in his morgue. The only problem with that theory was the weapon used to kill the man. It was tied to the convenience-store robbery two years ago—and the woman Garrett knew as Joslyn Charles aka Monica Wilmington.
He needed to talk to the clerk to find out where he’d gotten the unregistered gun and where it had been. The only way he could sort this out was good old law-enforcement procedure, which was slow and often dull as dirt.
His phone rang. He groaned, afraid it would be more bad news.
“We got a match on that DNA sample you sent,” the lab tech said without preamble. “We put a rush on it and got lucky. Matches a former inmate by the name of Leon Sheffield.”
Sid had never heard the name before. After he hung up, he looked him up on the computer database and then called the warden at Montana State Prison. He told him what he had. “You familiar with him?”
“I’m sure you saw that he has a rap sheet longer than your arm. Most recently? A gun for hire.”
“Are we talking hit man?” the sheriff asked in surprise.
The warden laughed. “Not a good one. He wounded the last person he shot, got caught and went to prison. He’s only been out a few months.”
Sid thought about how Joslyn—he couldn’t help but think of her as Joslyn Charles—had managed to get the drop on Leon and put four bullets into his heart. “Well, his gun-for-hire days are over now. Send me what you have on him, especially any known associates there at prison. One in particular actually. Frankie Rutledge.”
He explained that the gun from the convenience store robbery was the tie-in. Frankie’s younger brother George had been killed with the same gun that killed Leon Sheffield. Joslyn had been at both crime scenes.
The warden made a surprised sound. “I can tell you right now. Rutledge and Sheffield didn’t travel in the same circles. But I’ll see what I can find out.”
Sid hung up, disappointed. He thought he’d found a link. Garrett said that Joslyn had told him that she’d gotten a photo of both herself and the rancher and had recognized the threat. He could see where Frankie might blame the rancher for what happened. Garrett had been the one to knock Frankie out during the robbery, which in turn led to his brother being shot down by the clerk.
It was a stretch. What made his theory fall through though was that Frankie couldn’t have known about Joslyn. Garrett had helped her get away while Frankie was out cold and his brother George was dead. Garrett didn’t even know Joslyn’s real name back then.
Well, he still had the clerk. It was a lead at least so he had to follow to see where it took him. It beat worrying about Garrett who was probably hot on the woman’s trail thinking he was going to save her. Sid groaned, remembering what Alistair Vanderlin had told him.
Was she as unstable as her guardian believed? What worried Sid was that she might be guilty of more than just breaking Garrett’s heart two years ago.
He agreed with the rancher at least on one thing. Something was very wrong with all of this. The lawman in him could feel it and that was what had him anxious.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
GARRETT LOOKED DOWN at the gas gauge and swore. “We’re going to have to stop for gas at this next town.”
“They’re going to have to stop as well,” Billy pointed out as he sat up from his nap, no doubt seeing how upset Garrett was.
Shouldn’t they have caught up to the ambulance by now? What if it was behind them, had pulled off for gas and they missed the van?
He glanced over at his friend. “This is one of my more stupid ideas, isn’t it?”
Billy laughed. “Would I be along if that was true?”
He laughed as well. “It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.”
Nodding, his friend said, “When you’re looking for a needle in a haystack, it all comes down to luck. Maybe you’ll get lucky.”
Garrett scoffed at that. He couldn’t help feeling as if his luck had run out. To see Joslyn again, to get so close and then to have her snatched away before... Before what?
Last night, she’d finally told him the truth. He’d been so angry with her for not telling him what was going on at the time that he hadn’t been able to forgive her. It had all come as suc
h a shock, finding out about what had happened to her as a child and the life she’d led and then the whole going into the witness protection program and not telling him.
It had been too much. His biggest fear was that he might never see her again. He could admit that now as he sped down the highway that he’d wanted more than an explanation for what had happened two years ago. He wanted her. He wanted to turn back the clock, start over.
But what if Vanderlin had been telling the truth? What if the woman was more than flawed? What if Joslyn Charles had only existed in his mind—and hers?
He shook his head, reminding himself of what he’d seen in those amber eyes. She’d had her reasons for lying about who she was back then. What they’d had was real. And after their recent kiss? It was still real.
It was ten miles to the next town and gas. He tried to relax his hands on the wheel. But his mind was racing. There was so much he hadn’t said to her last night. So much he wanted to say now. He’d been angry and hurt last night. Scared, too. He’d been afraid to trust her.
But seeing her taken away from him like that... He shook his head. He loved her. Had loved her for all this time. Whatever her problems, they’d work it out together.
He knew it was more complicated than that. Loving her was one thing. Really trusting her with his heart again...
First things first, he told himself. He’d find her. That’s if he could find her. Find her before... That was just it, he thought, his pulse jumping at the thought. “I can’t shake the feeling that Joslyn is in serious danger.”
“That’s reasonable since someone recently tried to kill her,” Billy said.
“If we don’t find her in time—”
“We’ll find her.”
“She said she didn’t know who was after her. After the two of us.” Billy said nothing. “Whoever hired the man will try again. But why? That’s what’s driving me crazy. Why does someone want her dead? She’s never remembered who killed her parents. After all these years, that doesn’t seem like a real threat. It’s got to be the money.”