Angry and frustrated, Brick was even more determined to find out the truth about Natalie Berkshire. He knew he was taking one hell of a chance, but he drove through town to Highway 191 to the convenience store where Natalie Berkshire had allegedly been abducted. Inside, he bought an ice cream cone and asked the clerk if she’d been on duty that day when the woman had been abducted. She hadn’t, but she told him everything the other clerk had told her.
Behind the wheel of his pickup again, he sat and ate his ice cream cone. The appointment with the psychiatrist had gone better than he’d hoped. He liked the man and thought his father was right. Talking about what had happened up on the mountain might get rid of the nightmares. He would gladly see the last of them. They were too vivid and bizarre, a jumble of confusing, frightening images that finally woke him in a cold sweat.
He knew he shouldn’t have been surprised, but after talking about it and everything else that had happened in the past twenty-four hours, he felt drained. He had gotten hardly any sleep last night after Natalie Berkshire stumbled into his headlights. He’d been coming from the late shift. Finding her had added even more dark images to his sleep.
Now he couldn’t help thinking about her or the blonde cop, Mo. Was Natalie a killer? Or was she innocent? Was Mo a vigilante cop with a need for vengeance? Or was she like a lot of people who feared Natalie had gotten away with murder and would kill again if not stopped?
Two women. One set on escape. The other on closure. But someone else, who was set on dispensing his own brand of justice, had already abducted Natalie Berkshire. Would they have eventually killed her if she hadn’t escaped?
And what would the rogue cop do now if she wasn’t found and stopped?
Brick knew the answers were out there and he desperately wanted to find them. He still swore that Natalie had spoken to the cop. Said something that had stopped her. Something in addition to continuing to swear she was innocent. The more he thought about it, he realized that the two had known each other before the murder. Natalie had been her sister’s nanny. Who knows how close they might have been.
What a complicated, intriguing case. It did make him wonder who was innocent. It also made him want to help solve it more than he’d ever wanted anything.
He sat in his truck for a few minutes after eating his ice cream, trying to decide what to do—if anything. He was exhausted from everything that had happened, not just in the past twenty-four hours. As he shifted in the seat, he felt his harmonica in his pocket and pulled it out. He’d carried the musical instrument from the day his grandfather Angus had given it to him. It had taken him a lot longer than he’d hoped to learn how to play it. But he’d stayed with it until he’d finally mastered a few of his favorite tunes. As was his character, he wasn’t one to give up.
That was why it hurt so much to realize that he hadn’t played the harmonica since the events up on the mountain in Wyoming. Nor did he want to. He put it back in his pocket and had to swallow the lump in his throat. Maybe he wasn’t as well as he thought he was. Not yet. But he would be.
He needed to solve this puzzle for his own sake. It seemed to him that at least two people were after Natalie Berkshire. One was a suspended cop. The other was the person who’d caught up to her, abducted her and abused her. The clerk at the convenience store had said that all the other clerk had seen was a large motor home driven by an elderly man.
Starting his pickup’s engine, he realized a place to begin would be finding where Natalie had been held. He’d discovered her on his street, but he knew she could have come from anywhere. All he knew for certain was the first spot she’d appeared.
He drove to his neighborhood. The businesses were all open now, the streets busy since it was June in Montana and the beginning of tourist season. He circled the block, extending his circles further out with each lap.
If he were going to abduct someone he would need a safe place to keep the person. Somewhere away from other people. In a way this could be the perfect neighborhood—at least at night. But during the day, there were too many construction workers around as well as tourists and shop owners and workers. Also, most of the new structures didn’t have basements, so where had Natalie been held?
Brick had just turned down another street when he saw that he was running out of town. The landscape around Big Sky was sagebrush before the terrain went up into towering pine-covered mountains. The Gallatin River cut through it, forming the deep, often dark canyon. A sign caught his eye. Campground.
He felt as if he’d been touched with a cattle prod. The clerk at the convenience store had seen a motor home pull in when she’d lost sight of Natalie. He’d at first assumed that the motor home had blocked her view of whoever had taken the woman. But what if whoever had taken the woman had been driving the motor home?
He pointed his truck down the road to the south, but he hadn’t gone far when he heard the bleep of a siren. Glancing in his rearview mirror, he saw the quick flash of the light bar on the patrol SUV that was now behind him.
With a curse, he pulled over and got out to walk back to talk to his father.
“I know what you’re doing,” Hud said with a sigh.
Brick wasn’t going to deny it. “I think I know where she was held. That motor home that pulled in. I think she was being held at the campground up the road.”
His father shook his head in exasperation before saying, “Get in. I was just headed there. How did I know you’d be going my way?”
Brick grinned at him as he slid in. “You’re psychic. I remember when Angus and I were boys. You were always one step ahead of us.”
“And you were always the ringleader and the one that never did what you were told, let alone listened to any advice I gave you.”
“Her feet were covered in dirt from walking through soil before she reached my neighborhood.”
His father didn’t respond, but he saw a small smile curve the man’s lips as he drove and Brick buckled up. The campground was just off Highway 191 in stands of pines that offered privacy for campers. It also allowed self-contained rigs to stay for several weeks for free because there were no outhouses or water. Just as there was no campground host. The isolated campsites were large enough to accommodate a motor home.
Even this time of day with the sun high in the sky, the canyon was cold and dark. Brick had been away from home for so long he’d forgotten just how tight the Gallatin Canyon was in places. Highway 191 was a narrow strip of pavement hemmed in on one side by the river and mountain cliffs on the other. It was often filled with deep shadows and stayed cool even in the summer because of a lack of sunshine. During the last widening of the highway, small pullouts had been added for slower vehicles to pull over to let others pass when there was room.
June weather was often unpredictable. It wasn’t uncommon for it to snow and end up closing some roads. That was why July and August were the big travel months in this part of Montana. Because of that, the campground would have been relatively empty the past few weeks.
Only two rigs were still parked among the trees. One was a pickup and camper. The other an SUV pulling a small travel trailer.
The marshal pulled in, turned off the engine and said, “Stay here and try to remember that you’re just along for the ride.”
Brick watched his father unsnap the weapon on his hip as he climbed out and walked toward to the small trailer. If Marshal Hud Savage was anything, he was cautious, and with reason. They had no idea who had taken Natalie Berkshire prisoner or how many people might be in on it.
Over the patrol SUV radio came a call. Brick picked it up. “Deputy Brick Savage.”
The dispatcher said, “Just wanted to let the marshal know that a couple of deputies just brought in Maureen Mortensen.”
They’d found the blonde cop already? “I’ll let him know.” As he got off the radio, he saw his father standing at the trailer door. Sometimes he forgot how large a man Hud Savage was. He had always been broad-shouldered and strong as an ox. Even at almost retirement age, he was still a big man, still impressive in not just his size. He’d always been good at what he did as well, Brick thought with a flood of emotion. He wanted so badly to follow in this man’s footsteps, but worried he could never fill his boots.
He watched as a rather rotund man answered the marshal’s knock.
Popping open his door so he could hear, Brick listened to his father questioning the man before moving on to the next rig.
Brick couldn’t hear as well this time, but he saw the man who answered the marshal’s knock point to a space at the back of the campground. His father nodded, then headed in that direction.
Brick got out of the patrol SUV and followed him into a stand of dense pines. If the motor home had been parked here, it wouldn’t have been visible from the highway. Nor was it near any other campsite. Even if Natalie had screamed bloody murder, she might not have been heard. But he doubted that whomever had taken her had allowed her to scream at all.
He stopped short when he saw what his father was doing—snapping photographs with his phone of the tire tracks left in the soft earth. This was where the motor home had been. But had Natalie been inside it?
“A call just came in on the radio,” he told the marshal. “A couple of deputies picked up Maureen Mortensen.” He wasn’t sure what response he was expecting, but his father only nodded.
Without a word, they walked back to the patrol SUV and climbed inside before his father said, “You need to learn how to take orders.” Hud started the engine. “You always were the stubborn one.”
Brick chuckled at that. “Just like my father and grandfather, I’m told.”
“Well, at least your namesake grandfather.” Brick had heard stories about his grandfather Brick Savage, the former marshal. If half of the stories were true, then his father and the former marshal had butted heads regularly.
“Any update on Natalie?” he asked him now.
“Still catatonic.” His father sighed, picked up his radio and called in a description of the motor home that the man in the camper had given him. It sounded like one of those rental motor homes. Older driver. Only description was elderly and gray.
If Natalie had been held in the motor home, the driver could be miles from here by now—or parked at the hospital. His father obviously thought the same thing as he asked that a deputy watch for a motor home at the hospital parking lot and ordered that another deputy go to work calling motor home rentals in the area.
They drove in silence back to where Brick had left his pickup. As he started to climb out, his father said, “Deputy, you want this job? Take a week. I don’t want to see you again unless it’s at your mother’s dining room table. And stay clear of Billings PD’s case. Got that?”
“Got it.”
As he closed the door, Brick heard a call come in over the radio that all law enforcement available were needed for a three-vehicle pileup in the canyon twenty miles south of Big Sky. His father sped off, leaving him standing next to his pickup.
Brick knew he should go camping. Go back into the mountains and not come out until his next doctor’s appointment. But as he watched his father’s patrol SUV disappear over the rise, he realized this was his chance to go to the hospital and see Natalie. Maybe she was catatonic. Maybe she wasn’t. He knew that he’d heard her say something. There was only one way to prove it.
His father was closing in on the theory that she was abducted by a person driving a motor home. It wouldn’t be long before the marshal made an arrest. Meanwhile, the Billings homicide detectives should be arriving at any time—if they hadn’t already been to the hospital.
And down at the jail there was a blonde cop with a nasty kick locked up behind bars. He wondered what she’d have to say for herself. His groin still hurt, not to mention his bruised ego. He realized that there was nothing he would enjoy more than seeing her behind bars.