“Mr. Corbett? It’s a boat.”
“What?” Lantry felt weak with relief.
“The box held a small wooden boat.”
“The package was screened downstairs, right?”
“Of course,” Shirley said. “The boat looks like a collector’s item. Unless I miss my guess, it’s homemade and quite old. Even…valuable, if you don’t mind me saying it.”
He smiled, his heart rate dropping a little. “Shirley, I need the boat and Chamberlain’s file overnighted to me. It’s important that you do it immediately. Would that be possible?”
“I will see to it myself. You know you can depend on me.”
He had for years. “I know. Thank you. Also, let’s keep this between the two of us.”
“Confidentially as always.”
Lantry realized that he’d offended her. “Shirley, have I ever thanked you for being such a loyal and competent assistant?”
“With a nice bonus every year, Mr. Corbett.”
“But have I ever said it before?”
She sounded flustered. “Well, no, not exactly, but—”
“I’m sorry I haven’t done that before now. I apologize. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”
“That is very kind of you. Is everything all right, Mr. Corbett?”
“Fine.” He made a mental note to make sure Shirley was taken care of financially when she retired, which he guessed wasn’t far off. He’d always dreaded that day. Now he realized she would retire only if he ever quit.
“I’ll get that package off as soon as I hang up,” Shirley said. “You want it sent to Trails West Ranch?”
“Yes. Thank you.” The moment he disconnected the call, he punched in his brother Shane’s number.
“Shane, I need you to call off the cavalry. Just give me some time to find Dede and—”
“Lantry—”
“I think she might be telling the truth. I just need you to—”
“Lantry! I’ve got news.”
He braced himself for the worst—that the men after Dede had found her.
“The three escapees have been spotted,” Shane said. “We just got a call from a rancher who saw them drive by.”
“Three?” Dede was with the other two? How was that possible? “That can’t be right. The rancher has to be wrong.”
“I have to go,” Shane said.
“You’ll let me know when you find her.”
“You aren’t thinking about representing her, are you? You’re a divorce lawyer. She’s going to need the best criminal lawyer money can buy.”
Lantry didn’t need to be told that. Frank Chamberlain had been a well-respected businessman who wielded a lot of power in Houston. Unless Lantry could prove that Dede’s allegations about him were true and that she hadn’t killed him…“Just let me know when you find her.”
* * *
“I THINK YOU’RE JUST mad about the last time we saw you,” Violet said as she drove along the narrow, plowed road through the wintry landscape. “I see you finally got out of your costume. You must have done all right by yourself.”
Dede said nothing, turning to look out at the drifted snow that swept to the horizon. She knew now that everything about her escape and getting dumped on the main street of Whitehorse had been choreographed, and not by Violet Evans.
Violet had stolen clothing for herself and Roberta, forcing Dede to remain in her Santa suit. No wonder she’d been picked up so quickly by the sheriff’s department.
All part of the plan? She’d been manipulated, maybe from the beginning. From the moment Frank called her, begging for her help. Her heart ached at the thought that Frank had been in on this. She realized with a jolt that Frank was the one who told her about Lantry’s car.
They already tried to kill my lawyer by rigging something on his sports car.
Tears of anger and hurt burned her eyes. Frank could have protected her and Lantry. All he had to do was give Ed and Claude what they wanted.
“I hope that necklace is worth it,” she said under her breath. That’s all it could be. Frank had helped with the burglary and somehow had gotten away with the million-dollar-plus necklace.
He’d doubled-crossed his cohorts, and now he must be hiding out while Ed and Claude came after her and Lantry. Had they hoped to use her and Lantry as leverage against Frank to make him come out of hiding?
Well, it wasn’t working. And Lantry swore that Frank hadn’t given him anything to keep for him.
“So did you find him and kill him?” Roberta asked.
“Who?” Dede had to ask since her mind had been on Frank.
“Corbett,” Violet said. “Lantry Corbett. Your ex-husband’s lawyer.”
“No,” Dede said, meeting the woman’s gaze in the rearview mirror. “I only made things worse.”
“I know what you mean,” Roberta said. “Everyone’s looking for us after what happened last night.”
Dede felt herself start. She recalled how Violet said she was going to Whitehorse to make sure her mother never walked down the aisle. “What happened?”
“Shut up,” Violet snapped. Her gaze in the rearview mirror wasn’t aimed at Dede though—but to a spot on the seat next to her. “My mother got away last night, but she won’t again. So stop nagging me. You hear me?”
Roberta made a circle with her finger next to her head when Violet wasn’t looking. “Violet ran her mother off the road last night,” she said. “Guess she’s shaken up pretty good. Now her mother at least knows she’s back in town.”
“She’ll know a lot more than that when I’m through with her,” Violet said, glaring in the rearview mirror at the spot next to Dede. Roberta was watching her, looking a little worried.
“Where are we going?” Roberta asked.
“To hell,” Violet said. “In the meantime, we’re going to pay my mother another visit. But first we need to make a stop, and you, Texas, are going along for the ride in case we need your help. I’d say ‘buckle up,’ but I guess you can’t, can you?”
Dede looked down from the hill they’d just topped to what appeared to be a ghost town. There were a few houses separated by empty, snow-filled lots. At least one of the houses was clearly abandoned.
Only one building had steam rising from it—a large barnlike place next to what could only be the one-room schoolhouse. Most of the playground equipment was buried in snow and looked as if it hadn’t been used for a while.
Dede reminded herself that it was only days from Christmas. Of course the school would be closed.
“Welcome to Old Town Whitehorse,” Violet said with the flurry of her hand as she pulled down a narrow road that had only recently been plowed, and stopped. “That is where I grew up.”
“I thought you lived out of town,” Roberta said.
“Just up the road.”
Dede heard the irritation in Violet’s voice and saw her frown at the other woman. She’d felt the tension between them the moment they’d abducted her from the mental hospital.
“See that building,” Violet said, pointing at a large structure next to the schoolhouse. “That’s the Whitehorse Community Center.”
“I thought Whitehorse was to the north,” Roberta piped in.
“This was the original Whitehorse. Then the railroad came through and everyone moved north to be next to it,” Violet said, scowling at Roberta. “My family settled this land.”
“Fascinating,” Roberta said and yawned.
Violet seemed to clamp down on her temper, but Dede could tell it took a lot of effort. “We’re going to wait until those people decorating for the wedding are finished, and then we are going down there to redecorate.”
“That seems a little childish,” Roberta pointed out. “I thought we were going to stop the wedding. That doesn’t sound like it will do—”
“Shut up!” Violet screamed, making Dede jump. “Do you believe this bitch?” she asked, turning to look back at Dede. “This is my show. You’re just along for the ride. So shut the hell up.”
Roberta pouted, and the inside of the SUV fell silent. Dede didn’t dare move for fear Violet would turn on her.
The vehicles that had been parked in front of the community center began to leave.
But Violet didn’t move. She sat staring down at the town her ancestors had helped found. When she finally did start the SUV, she didn’t head for Old Town Whitehorse, and Dede had a bad feeling that this might be the end of the ride for both herself and Roberta.
* * *
“LANTRY!” JUANITA WAS the first to see him when he walked into the main house at Trails West Ranch. As usual, there was something cooking in Juanita’s big kitchen.
She clasped both of his hands. “I am so glad you’re all right. We have been so worried.”
“Thank you.” He followed her down the hall to the large living room with huge windows that looked out over the ranch. He hadn’t even stopped at his cabin, some distance from the main house, to clean up. He knew Shane had called the family and they were waiting for him.
They were. Everyone turned as he came in. His brothers Russell, Dalton and Jud and their wives, as well as his father and his father’s wife, Kate. The relief he saw in their faces made him feel guilty for making them worry. He felt responsible for at least some of this, given his chosen profession—and how callous he’d been about his clients and their exes.
“I’m fine,” he said to the crowd, his gaze settling on his father. Grayson smiled and nodded.
“We heard you’d been taken at gunpoint by a crazy woman,” Kate said and rushed to hug him. “We were so worried.”
“I’m fine, and Dede Chamberlain wouldn’t have harmed me.” His words surprised him in that he believed them to be true. Even as angry as she’d been at him.
“You’ll join us for dinner, won’t you?” Grayson asked. His father loved having his entire family at the ranch’s large dining-room table. That’s when he seemed the happiest.
But eating with his rambunctious family was the last thing Lantry could do right now. “Thank you, but I need to get a shower, a change of clothes and take care of some things.”
“Of course,” Grayson said amicably as he looped an arm around his son’s shoulders. “You probably need some time alone to take all this in. Juanita will save you some dinner. It’s just good to have you home.”
Home. Lantry didn’t think of Trails West Ranch or Montana as home. And yet he didn’t think of his condo in Houston as home, either. The only place he’d ever really felt at home had been the family ranch in Texas. But Grayson had sold that after marrying Kate and moved lock, stock and barrel to Montana.
“I just wanted you all to see that I’m fine,” he said, excusing himself. As he left, he heard his brothers horsing around and their wives trying to intercede. Everything was back to normal with the Corbetts.
All of them except me, he thought as he drove down to his cabin by the creek. His father had ordered a half-dozen cabins built for his sons for when they visited Montana.
Now, with three of them married, houses were in various stages of construction on the ranch, with everyone still living in the cabins spread out in a half-moon shape some distance from the main house.
Lantry knew that even when his brothers’ houses were completed, they would spend most of their time at the main house. Just as Grayson had hoped. Just as the brothers’ deceased mother had wanted and specified in a letter she’d written before dying.
That letter, and the five letters she’d left for each of her sons to be read on their wedding days, had come as such a shock that Lantry and the others had drawn straws to see which of them honored their mother’s memory by marrying first.
Lantry had gone along with it just to keep peace in the family. His brothers knew he was never getting married, so it would come as no surprise when he reneged on the pact. He figured by that time the others would be married and too busy to care.
At his cabin, he stripped, showered and changed. Shane still hadn’t called. Did that mean they hadn’t found Dede and the others? If there had been a shooting, it would take his brother longer to call him.
Shane had told him to stay at the ranch, but he couldn’t do that. Lantry grabbed his pickup keys. As he stepped out on the small cabin porch, he realized he’d left his cell phone inside and started to turn back when he heard the thwack of something striking the log next to his head. Bark and bits of wood flew into the air, several splinters embedding in his cheek.
He dove back into the house, but not before two more shots were fired—one hitting the door, another taking out the lamp on the table behind him. He slammed the door and belly-crawled over to his cell phone.
“Someone just tried to kill me,” he said the moment his brother Shane answered.
* * *
VIOLET DROVE ONLY a short way before she stopped again. The area looked desolate, but this whole country did. For miles there was nothing but snow, broken occasionally by a house or tree.
“You aren’t going down there,” Roberta said from the front passenger seat.
Dede looked to see what Roberta was referring to. An old farmhouse sat among some outbuildings in a gully nearby.
“I need to see my mother,” Violet said in a strange, little-girl voice that made both Dede and Roberta look over at her in alarm. “I know she’s down there.”
“Your mother will call the cops, and we’ll all be caught,” Roberta said, getting angry. “I thought we were going to—”
Violet pulled the keys out of the ignition and opened her door. “You don’t like it, take a hike,” she said as she got out.
“That woman is crazy,” Roberta said as Violet slammed the door and headed off down the hill toward the house where apparently she’d grown up.
Roberta slid down in her seat and closed her eyes as if planning to take a nap.
Dede saw her opportunity and began to work at freeing her hands. Violet had tied her with cotton rope that was now cutting off her circulation. With both her wrists bound, she had no chance of getting away from these two, and she hated to think what would happen if she stayed with them much longer.
She had to agree with Roberta. It was crazy, Violet going down there. No matter how it went, Dede worried it would go badly for Violet’s mother. Or Violet.
And if Violet’s mother called the cops, Dede and Roberta would be caught, as well.
“You know she talks to her grandmother who’s been dead for years,” Roberta said sleepily.
Dede knew Violet talked to someone who wasn’t there. “She must have loved her grandmother.”
Roberta laughed so hard the SUV shook as she sat up a little. “Her grandmother is the one she really wants to kill, but it’s tough to kill someone who’s already dead, you know? That old hag must have been a real piece of work. Violet’s still scared of her.”
Through the frost-rimmed window, Dede watched Violet approach the house. “What do you think her mother will do?”
Roberta shrugged. “What would you do if the daughter who’d tried to kill you came calling?”
Run like the devil, Dede thought.
Roberta seemed to realize that Dede was up to something. She glanced back at her.
“Could you untie me? This is really uncomfortable.”
Roberta frowned. “I don’t think so.”
“We’re all in this together.”
“Not even close. I’m not sure how you ended up in the loony bin, but you’re not one of us.”
“Please. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Uh-oh,” Roberta said, turning her attention back to the farmhouse below them. “Did Violet just walk in the house?”
Violet was nowhere in sight, and Dede could make out movement behind the curtains. She listened for the sound of a gunshot, closing her eyes, wishing she was anywhere but here.
Lantry popped into her thoughts, bringing with him the memory of the kiss. She’d made a mistake not staying with him and taking her chances.
Sure. By now she’d be locked up at the local jail or on her way back to the hospital.
No, as crazy as it seemed, she had a better chance with Violet and Roberta than she did with Lantry Corbett. But that didn’t stop her from working at the rope binding her wrists.
* * *
“I THOUGHT I told you to stay back at the cabin,” Shane snapped at his brother as Lantry joined him on the small hill overlooking the cabin.
Lantry stared at the spot where the shooter had hunkered down. There were indentations in the snow where the marksman had used a tripod to steady his rifle.
“He settled in to wait for me to come out of the cabin,” Lantry said more to himself than his brother. “So he knew I’d returned to the ranch.”
“It’s this damned local grapevine,” Shane said angrily.
Lantry looked over at his brother. “This proves that Dede was telling the truth.”
“Unless Dede is the one who took the potshots at you.”
“Right. She just picked up a rifle somewhere.”
“Are you sure there wasn’t one at the farmhouse you broke into?” Shane asked and nodded as he saw Lantry’s expression. “That’s what I thought.”
“It wasn’t Dede. You said yourself she was seen with the other two escapees,” Lantry pointed out, ignoring the fact that he hadn’t believed that sighting.
“They were seen in this area. Her friends could have dropped her off and picked her up down the road.”
Lantry shook his head.
“You’ve put your trust in a woman who seems pretty capable of taking care of herself.”
“If she wasn’t capable of taking care of herself, she’d be dead right now,” Lantry snapped. “She had plenty of opportunities to kill me back at the farmhouse. She didn’t.”
“Yeah, well, consider this. How many killers use a tripod to steady the gun and then miss three times? If someone wanted to convince you that your life was in danger, they did one hell of a good job of it, didn’t they?”
Lantry hated that Shane had a point. Even a hunter could have made that shot without any trouble given the short distance he’d set up from the cabin.
“Did you check on the things I told you about the Fallon robbery or Frank’s old associates?” Lantry demanded.
Shane sighed. “Dr. Eric Fallon reported his wife missing four days ago—the same time Frank was murdered. Her body was found floating in a canal not far from where Frank and Dede lived. Texas is waiting on a positive ID from the crime lab. She was beaten beyond recognition—much like Frank. So not only is Dede’s ex dead, but her ex’s girlfriend. It looks really bad for Dede, Lantry. I think it’s time for you to face the fact that this woman can’t be saved. Not even by you.”
He didn’t give Lantry a chance to answer.
“I’ve got to go talk to the folks,” Shane said. “I think the shooter made his point and won’t be coming back, but just to be safe, keep your head down. Maybe you should move up to the main house.”
“Sure, and put the family in the line of fire?” Lantry shook his head. “I think the best thing I can do is get as far away from the ranch as possible.”
“Don’t be a damned fool. Just because you didn’t get yourself killed this time doesn’t mean that your life isn’t in danger. This woman wants something from you. You’d best consider what will happen if she doesn’t get it. Or, maybe worse, what happens if she does and no longer needs you.”