Noah found himself back on his feet. “What are you talking about?”
Sally grabbed her purse and riffled around in it. “I have a copy of the note. They want money from you.”
“Money? What are you talking about? Haven’t you gone to the police?”
“Bart’s waiting for us to call. I got here as quick as I could.”
Noah didn’t know what to do. He was shaking. Ever since he’d skyrocketed to fame after his third film, he’d lived with the chance of somebody trying to take advantage of that. He’d had his share of stalkers, a petty thief or two.
But this.
Dulcy.
“What happened?”
Sally was still elbow-deep in her purse, her attention on what she’d brought. “She left a message for Ethan that somebody had taken Hannah—”
Noah’s heart stopped.
“Hannah?”
“She’s okay. She’s fine. Turns out she was out at a mall with Mom and Dad, and a couple of clowns got her to make the phone call.”
“What clowns?” Noah demanded.
Sally looked up, smiled a tight little smile. “Clowns,” she admitted. “With white face, big floppy shoes and all. At the food court at the mall. Bart thinks they’d been waiting for a public place. They didn’t want Hannah, they just needed her to scare her mother. She did. Dulcy told Ethan she was heading up to meet the kidnappers on the north ridge. Colorado showed up later in the afternoon at the Lazy V with a note attached to his saddle.”
The note Sally finally handed over.
“You have to help us,” she begged. “We knew you’d know what to do.”
Noah blinked at her, still struggling to come to grips with the news. “Me? Why should I know what to do?”
“Because you always do,” she said simply.
That brought Noah to a dead stop. “Cameron Ross always does,” he retorted. “I’m not Cameron Ross.”
Sally didn’t look in the least impressed. “That’s the name on the trailer.”
“I’ve also played three cops and an ambassador, Sally. It doesn’t mean I can negotiate treaties.”
She waved at the paper he held in his hand. “Read it. It’s a copy I made.”
Noah didn’t know what else to do. He read the note. It simply stated that Dulcy was being held for a three-quarters-of-amillion-dollar ransom, payable in the usual small, unmarked, nonsequential bills. It also said that since Dulcy was so important to Noah, the note writer knew Noah wouldn’t do anything stupid like contact the police or FBI, since the whole valley would know about it within ten minutes.
Which the whole valley would.
Noah. The note said Noah.
He looked up at Sally. “Does the grapevine know what happened between Dulcy and me?”
Sally snorted. “Why do you think she left?”
Noah found himself staring all over again. “Left? What the hell are you talking about?”
It was Sally’s turn to sit. “Oh, hell. I should have guessed.”
“Left? When did she leave? Why didn’t I know?”
“One thing at a time here, Noah. The note. What should we do?”
“Call the FBI.” He stopped. Thought. Fought his way through the sudden, searing terror at the idea of something happening to Dulcy to work out the logic problem. “No. The kidnappers would know. We can’t do that. You said the women in town figured out who I was.”
“Within about fifteen seconds.”
“What about the men?”
Sally shrugged. “It’s kind of been our little secret. After all, the men are all so worried about outsiders, you know. They might not understand.”
Noah waved the letter at her. “In that case, it’s one of the men behind this.”
“We don’t have much time, Noah. You’re supposed to be at the ranch this afternoon to take their phone call.”
He tried so hard to think. To know what to do to help Dulcy. It was so ridiculous. He was a movie actor, not a cop. A pretender. A fake. And yet Sally was watching him as if she didn’t doubt for a second that he was going to be able to somehow save Dulcy.
“They want me to make the payment,” he said, checking the note. That quickly he picked up the phone and dialed his cousin.
“Where the hell have you been?” Ethan demanded without preamble.
“Sally just got to me. Fill me in.”
Ethan sighed, a tight, impatient sound that betrayed how attached he’d also grown to Dulcy. “Nothing else on the kidnapping. Bart Bixby’s holding off on everything until he hears from you. He has one finger on the FBI’s number and the other on the county helicopter’s. Nobody else knows but us and the new manager, Hank something.”
“That’s something else you and I are going to have to get into,” Noah retorted, not caring in the least how upset he sounded.
“It was Dulcy’s idea, Noah. She didn’t want to worry you. She figured she’d have better luck finding out what was going on away from the ranch, and take the heat off you at the same time.”
“She did, did she?”
“It worked, too.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s a little complicated.”
“All right. First of all, do we have the money?”
“Your bank in L.A. has it ready for you to pick up.”
A little of the tension seeped away. Noah wasn’t in the least worried about the money. He was terrified that no matter what he did, Dulcy wouldn’t get out alive.
“All right, who is it?”
“She’s a genius, Noah,” his cousin said. “Don’t lose her.”
All Noah could do was close his eyes against the sudden pain.
“You know a Cletus Wilson?” Ethan asked.
“Yeah. He’s on my west side. He might have taken some of my cattle.”
“He also bid on your ranch. Not only that, but there’s a rumor going around town that he’s got a filly on the side. Somebody who’s costing him some money.”
“Like money from my account?”
“Hear this out. Dulcy went to see the wife. There is no girlfriend. No unexplained absences, no funny behavior. Cletus spends twenty-four hours a day trying to keep his ranch running. He’s having problems, too. Now, on a different subject, there was a company called International Investment Trust that tried to buy the Lazy V. Do you know Barry Feldman and Jack Logan?”
“Yeah. Jack has a place there. I saw Barry in town visiting him.”
“They’re partners. They tried to buy Cletus’s place when they tried to buy yours, and Cletus’s is right next to Logan’s.”
“And?”
“And surveyors were up there yesterday deciding where would be a good place to put ski runs.”
“On property they don’t own.”
“Uh-huh. Guess what bank they’re.going through?”
“Oh, God. Not First Montana.”
“On the nose.”
“So Bob Grumman, Feldman and Logan are trying to buy up property to build a ski resort?”
“Looks like. Only you and Cletus wouldn’t sell.”
Noah’s mind was working a hundred miles a minute. “Sally,” he said, turning on her where she was trying to make sense of the one-sided phone call. “Does Cletus Wilson keep anybody in his line shack in the summer?”
“No. We’re only doing it at your place because of the rustling. He hasn’t had any problem.”
Noah’s heart was beating faster. “Then that’s where they have Dulcy.”
“You want me to tell Bixby?” Ethan asked.
“No. No.” Noah calculated, considered. Thought about how devious the plan was, how intricate. He decided in that moment exactly what he had to do. “You need to do a few things for me, Ethan. First, run the bank’s records one more time for me. There are a couple of accounts I need checked, see if Bart can get the subpoena to do it. Double-check those against the list of IIT investors. After that, get your butt on a plane,” he demanded. “Sally and I will meet you in Bozeman in five hours, no later.”
“Me? Why me?”
“To play me, of course.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“We’re going to catch us some kidnappers, cousin.”
Please let this work. Please, God, let this work.
Noah had been chanting the plea like a litany all the way from Los Angeles to Bozeman on the Beechcraft. From Bozeman to the ranch by the back roads where nobody would see him. From there across more backroads, farther down the valley.
It had to work. He couldn’t consider anything else. He especially couldn’t consider how ridiculous this all was, with him running in like the action hero he wasn’t. He’d left Marshall gasping in outrage and his agent screaming at earshattering pitch. And then he’d climbed on his plane and headed north to save the damsel in distress.
He couldn’t do it.
He had to.
It was a gorgeous day, sunny and windy with the clouds dancing along the peaks and the grass shimmering like silk in the wind. It was everything he had worked for all these years. It tasted like ashes in his mouth.
“Noah, hello. Thought you’d gone back to Philadelphia.”
Noah looked at the bland, surprised face that greeted him at the front door of the old ranch house and thought what this would do to Dulcy.
“I imagine you didn’t expect to see me,” he said.
Especially since Ethan had accepted the call not five minutes earlier at the phone booth by the laundromat to tell him where to place the money, and was even now very visibly on his way to do it.
“What…um, what can I do for you?”
Noah didn’t answer. He just pulled his gun.
His host looked as if he’d been electrocuted. “What the hell…?”
“I know” was all Noah said, trying so very hard to keep his voice even. To keep his manner calm, so that no one else in earshot would know what was going on. “I know all about IIT and the resort. I know that you’ve been trying to get Dulcy pushed out, and I know why. I also know that you’re trying to frame Cletus Wilson for what’s going on at the Lazy V. I can just imagine what people would think if I paid out all this money to get Dulcy back, and she was found later dead on Cletus’s ranch, especially since the money won’t ever be recovered. She is alive, isn’t she? I think you’d better tell me she’s alive.”
The other man looked from the Glock automatic to Noah’s eyes, where he would find no mercy. “What are you…what do you mean? Of course Dulcy’s alive. She’s staying in the Red Lion Inn in town.”
Noah took a step closer. Vented some of his rage. He’d played a variety of this scene once, and the reviews had talked about how frightening he’d been. How convincing. Noah realized now how little he’d known about real rage. Real terrorborn fury that spills out of you with a heat that could melt iron.
He knew now. “No,” he said. “She’s not. She’s up in Cletus Wilson’s summer pasture with two of your men.”
“That’s ridiculous! I’m calling the—”
He never got the chance to finish the sentence. Not with the barrel of a gun wedged between his teeth.
“You won’t call anybody. Because if you do, if you do anything that could hurt Dulcy, I’ll kill you.” Noah leaned in a little, so that he could feel teeth grate against the metal. So he could smell fear erupt on skin. “Do you understand?”
The nod was minimal.
Noah nodded back. Pulled the gun back. “Good. Let’s go.”
“Why did I know you’d be involved?” Dulcy asked, trying so hard to be calm.
Josh glared at her from four feet away where he was pointing his gun at her nose. “I couldn’t pass up the opportunity,” he admitted. “Just wish I’d been in it from the beginning.”
“And what’s your mother going to think?”
“Screw my mother. The minute we hear that that money’s picked up, I get the pleasure of shooting you right in the face if I want.” He thought about it a moment, his gun bobbing a little as he mused. “Or maybe I’ll strangle you. Or bury you alive. Yeah, I like that. What do you think, Bill?”
The other man in the little cabin didn’t bother to look away from the window. “Yeah, sure. Works for me.”
Dulcy fought down the revulsion and took her own look outside to where the sun was beginning to set again. “The day you have the guts to shoot somebody in the face is the day pigs fly.”
One look at Josh proved that she should have kept her mouth shut. Dulcy should have known better. She had to keep quiet. Be passive, cooperative. She had to get away from here alive.
Hannah was waiting for her. Noah.
Oh, Noah. This sure wasn’t what you had in mind when you decided to settle in Montana.
“I don’t suppose I could go outside and use the facilities,” Dulcy asked.
She was sore. She was hot. She was stiff from sitting on this chair with her arms tied behind her back. Mostly, she was scared.
No, not scared. Blind, sweating, terrified. Even knowing it was Josh who carried the gun. Even figuring him for a coward. Dulcy had a feeling the other guy wasn’t a coward at all. He just looked hard.
“Forget it,” Josh said, still considering her. “Although if you’re really nice, I might entertain you before I kill you.”
Dulcy couldn’t help it. “You’ve been watching too much Rambo, Josh.”
“What the hell’s he doin’ here?” Bill demanded from the window.
Dulcy tried to look, too. She saw an old truck bumping over the high meadow, the kind of ranch truck that was endemic in Montana. A truck that looked like a hundred other trucks, a truck that was dented and battered and had the logo for the owner’s ranch on the side.
The Triple M.
Dulcy’s first instinct was to pull at the ropes. To try somehow and get out the door to warn Uncle Mike away.
Her second was to wonder why the two men were simply watching him approach.
Like they weren’t surprised.
“Isn’t he supposed to call?” Josh asked.
Dulcy’s heart hit the floor. No, no, no. This didn’t make sense at all. Not Uncle Mike. That weasel Bob Grumman, maybe. The outsiders with their impression of Montana as nothing more than a cash cow. Not Uncle Mike, who’d been born there and lived there.
The truck stopped outside, and the door opened.
“Guess he got impatient. Or something’s wrong.”
Josh snorted. “Great.”
Dulcy struggled to see better. She wanted to see that it really was her Uncle Mike stepping out of the truck. Looking up at the cabin as if he were walking toward a scaffold.
Please—no Uncle Mike.
Bill walked to the front door and opened it. “What’s going on?”
“You need to, uh, bring the girl here.”
Dulcy felt something crawl along her arms. Prescience, like the feel of electricity right before the lightning was going to strike.
Bill didn’t move. In fact, he looked around, to the old, grimy window at the side of the house, through the matching square that revealed Uncle Mike, standing all alone out there with nothing but the high meadow behind him.
“What’s wrong?” Bill demanded.
Uncle Mike didn’t answer. He looked toward the side of the house. Dulcy came straight to her feet, chair and all.
“Somethin’s wrong,” Bill muttered.
Dulcy pulled herself free of the chair just about the same moment he turned back to her.
“Bring her here!” Uncle Mike yelled again, his voice higher, thinner. Afraid.
Dulcy wanted to run. To barrel through the door. She could see the realization hit Bill that they were cornered. She knew he was going to need a hostage to get out, and she knew who that hostage was going to be.
She decided to barrel through Bill instead. Lowering her head, she dived right for his chest.
He bellowed. Josh charged in to help. Dulcy yelled, exhilarated by the feeling of that soft whoosh against her head. She felt Bill go over and lost her balance. Josh came right behind, his gun up. Yelling obscenities at her.
Dulcy hit the floor, and all hell broke loose. The side window exploded, and Dulcy saw somebody somersaulting in through it. She heard gunfire, close, so close to her head that she tried to curl up in a protective ball. She felt the cold nudge of a gun barrel against her temple and went still.
“Let her go!” came the harsh, terrible cry, closer than the gunshots. “Let her go let her go let her go!”
A huge, frightening sound that she finally recognized as Noah’s voice.
Noah.
Dulcy tried to lift her head, to see him. She saw hair and denim that belonged to her captor. She thought she saw Noah alongside, his gun grinding against the head of her captor. She thought there were more people, but she couldn’t tell. She was deaf and caught and fighting for breath.
“I’ll kill her!” Bill holding her screamed back, right in her ear.
“And then I’ll kill you, you bastard. I’ll blow your eyes out and then your knees and then your freakin’ nuts! Let her go!”
“Let her go, man!” Josh screamed from a little bit away. “It ain’t worth it!”
But Bill yanked Dulcy to her feet instead. “I’m gettin’ out.”
Dulcy saw Noah then. She saw those gentle eyes go flat and dark and deadly. She saw him lift a gun in a steady two-hand grip that followed Bill to his feet. She saw Noah rise along with him, a terrifying figure of fury.
She was afraid. Of him. For him. She wanted to reach out and soothe him. She wanted to plead with him not to do something foolish. She wanted to fold into his arms and let his gentleness loose again.
“I’ll give you five seconds,” he told Bill through clenched teeth. “Five.”
Behind him, Bart had Josh in an arm lock. Uncle Mike stood like a puppet in the doorway, and some other men circled outside. But Bill wouldn’t notice. He would only see Noah. He would only see the madness that glittered in those stone-hard gray eyes. He would only know that Noah was giving him no choice at all.
“Noah, settle down,” Bart pleaded.
Dulcy couldn’t take her eyes off the man she’d thought she’d known so well. She couldn’t seem to stand on her own or stop shaking.
“Four.”
His voice was getting softer, deadlier.
Dulcy didn’t want him to shoot this man. She didn’t want to see the madness take root there where only bright smiles should live.
“You don’t have the guts,” Bill challenged, his own voice shrill and trembling.
“Three.”
Dulcy did the only thing she could think of. She dropped.
Bill stumbled with her sudden weight. The gun slipped, and she spun away. Six people sprang into action at the same time, and Dulcy thought it was over.
She thought that until the first gun went off. Until the second one followed within seconds and exploded in her face.