Lantry was almost to the ranch when his cell phone vibrated in his jacket pocket. He realized as he reached for the phone that he was hoping it was Dede. He knew he’d been avoiding her. Giving her space, is what he’d told himself.
Sending her the guitar had been one of those spur-of-the-moment decisions. Now that he’d done it, though, he was excited to hear her play.
Just the thought of talking to her made his heart beat a little faster and—
It wasn’t Dede, but Shane.
“Hey,” he said into the phone, reining in his disappointment as he stopped at the top of a hill to take the call, fearing it was about Dede’s case and knowing he was going to want all his concentration on that—not driving.
“I have some news I thought you’d want to hear right away,” Shane said, tension in his voice that set Lantry on edge.
“That body found in the canal in Texas wasn’t Tamara Fallon’s.”
Lantry let that sink in. “I thought the police found ID—”
“Given what we know now, the Houston police think she might have tried to fake her death so she could get away with the diamond necklace.”
There was more. Lantry could feel it.
“A woman matching Tamara Fallon’s description flew into Billings last night,” Shane said. “Lantry, the Houston police told me that her husband, Dr. Eric Fallon, said his wife was obsessed with one of her brother’s wives, and since Frank was the only one who was married…”
That disquiet was now full-blown worry. “You’re saying Tamara Fallon flew to Montana because of Dede?”
“Dr. Fallon seems to think that Tamara blames Dede for Frank turning his back on her and his brothers.”
Lantry glanced toward the Little Rockies in the distance. “I’m almost back to the ranch. I’ve got to go.” He snapped off the phone and hit the gas. Everyone had planned to be away from the ranch house today except for Dede, Kate and Juanita.
As he topped the next rise in the road, he saw the smoke.
* * *
“HEY!” DEDE CALLED OUT. “MIND turning the lights back on?” No lights. No answer. “Hello?” She hated that her voice broke. The barn had taken on a weighty silence, and she realized she wasn’t alone anymore.
But why didn’t whoever had turned out the lights say something? The Corbett brothers joked and kidded around with each other, but they weren’t big practical jokers, and this wasn’t funny.
She looked around for something to use as a weapon, telling herself she was just being silly. She couldn’t trust her emotions after everything she’d been through. Especially after falling for Lantry Corbett.
That thought stopped her cold for a moment. She’d fallen in love with him. Why had it taken until this moment to admit that?
“Hello?” she called again, praying someone would answer as she spotted a pitchfork stuck in a hay bale in one of the stalls.
She took a step in the growing darkness of the barn toward the pitchfork, then another, trying not to make a sound as she listened. She could hear nothing over the howl of the wind outside.
The barn had filled with deep shadows. She caught the scent of perfume just an instant before the figure stepped out of an adjacent stall in front of her—blocking her way out.
A flashlight beam snapped on, blinding her. She flinched, heard a chuckle, then the beam dropped to the barn floor.
Tamara Fallon had changed her hair color. She was no longer a blonde. Her hair was short and dark. But the face was the same one Dede had seen in the photographs the private investigator had shown her.
“Frank told me you were pretty,” Tamara said. “In a sweet way.” She made sweet sound like a dirty word.
Dede could see the resemblance, though slight between the siblings. She was too startled to speak, and while Tamara wasn’t brandishing anything more deadly than a flashlight, she sensed that the woman was dangerous.
“What’s wrong? Thought I was dead?” The woman’s laugh was sharp as a blade.
“I’m just surprised to see you here,” Dede said truthfully. Surprised and fearful.
“Did you know that Frank and I were fraternal twins?” Tamara shook her head. “I didn’t think so. Your private investigator died before he could tell you that, huh? There’s no stronger bond than the bond between twins.”
“I’ve heard that,” Dede said, reasoning that antagonizing this woman would be a mistake. No one knew Dede had gone down to the barn, and she wasn’t sure when it would be discovered that she was missing, since she was able to go at least as far as the barn.
She wondered if Tamara knew about the house-arrest tracking device strapped to her ankle. Dede’s jeans covered it. The alarm would go off at the sheriff’s department if she went only a few yards farther than the back of the barn.
Tamara hadn’t threatened her. Not yet, anyway. But Dede had already decided that she would have to find a way to step out of her specified area—and soon. Something about the woman’s demeanor warned her that Tamara’s visit wasn’t a friendly one.
“So you probably wonder what I’m doing in Montana,” Tamara said, glancing around the barn. “Aren’t you the least bit curious?”
Dede could tell that the woman was watching her out of the corner of her eye. “Not really. I should get back to the house. Everyone will be looking for me.”
Tamara laughed. “Not likely, since there was a fire behind the house and both women are out there right now fighting it in that awful wind. Wouldn’t it be a shame if the blaze burned all the way down here to the barn?”
Dede’s heart fell at the thought of Kate and Juanita being in danger because of her. As she caught the smell of smoke, she glanced toward the end of the barn. The mare was still standing there, waiting. Behind the horse, the horizon was an odd color, almost pink in the darkening sky. The snowstorm. It was probably already snowing in the Little Rockies.
If she could make a break for it, run to the end of the barn and out into the corral—
Dede felt the full weight of the woman’s gaze. “My brothers are dead because of you.”
The mare had picked up the scent of the smoke and was moving nervously. Dede shifted on her feet, saw Tamara tense.
Dede knew she had to do something. Now. “You blame me for your brothers’ deaths?” she demanded, taking a step toward the woman.
Tamara reacted instinctively by taking a step back. The move gave Dede a little more room for when the time came to run.
“Your brothers tried to kill me,” Dede said.
Tamara was clearly taken aback by this confrontational manner of Dede’s. She had obviously expected Dede to cower in fear. Not that Dede wasn’t shaking in her boots. She just couldn’t let Tamara see that fear.
But there was also an underlying anger. Because of this woman who professed such a bond with her brother, Frank was dead. She said as much to the woman.
“He’d be alive if he hadn’t married you and betrayed his own family,” Tamara shot back. “You turned him against us. You poisoned his mind. Frank would never have—”
“Double-crossed you otherwise?” Dede demanded. “The police have the duplicate necklace. They know about the other burglaries. They’ll soon figure out who masterminded all of it—including killing Frank and sending your other brothers after a worthless necklace and to their deaths.”
Tamara looked livid. Spittle came out of her mouth when she finally was able to speak. “You bitch.”
Dede knew the woman would go for her throat. She’d been ready. As Tamara charged, she stepped to the side, managing to trip her up. Tamara stumbled. Dede didn’t look back as she ran toward the end of the barn.
She just hoped this monitoring device worked.
But even if it alerted the sheriff’s department, it would take someone a while to get out to the ranch, and Dede was all out of a plan to escape as she heard Tamara shout for her to stop.
Dede had almost reached the end of the barn when the wood of one of the stall supports splintered in front of her as a popping sound echoed through the large old barn. Another pop.
Dede felt a sharp pain in her side, felt her feet stumble. Something was wrong. Her hand went to her side and came away covered in blood.
* * *
THE PICKUP ROARED into the ranch yard. Lantry was out of it before the truck came to a stop. He ran toward where his stepmother and Juanita were dousing the last of the flames.
The dried grasses of fall had made perfect tinder for the flames that skittered across the back of the house chased by the wind.
But the two women had managed to narrow the blaze and now had it almost out.
“Lantry,” Kate cried over the wind when she saw him. She had one of the fire extinguishers kept at the back door. Juanita was manning the garden hose. “We can’t find Dede. I think she’s down at the barn.”
He could hear a horse whinnying. It had smelled the smoke.
“Go find her,” Kate ordered.
He took off at a run as an unsettling thought lodged itself in his gut. Dede had grown up on a ranch. The moment she smelled the smoke, she would have come running. Wildfires were always a fear.
As he neared the barn, he saw the horse in the corral. It ran in a tight nervous circle. There was no way Dede wouldn’t have heard the horse if she was in the barn.
He burst into the barn, surprised to find it dark inside. Reaching for the switch, he snapped on the lights and blinked.
“Dede!”
“Down here” came a female voice he didn’t recognize.
“Lantry, no, she has a gun!”
The chilling sound of Dede’s words rattled through him. He took a step, then another in the direction her voice had come from.
“Tamara?” he said as he neared the back end of the barn. “I heard you were in town.”
“Good news travels fast,” she shot back with a laugh that turned his blood to ice.
“Are you all right, Dede?” he asked, trying to keep the panic out of his voice.
“She’s bleeding like a stuck pig,” Tamara answered. “But she’s still alive. Why don’t you join us?”
That was exactly what he planned to do. He wasn’t about to let Dede spend another second alone with the woman.
As he drew closer, he saw a pair of jeans-clad legs protruding from the end stall.
“That’s close enough,” Tamara said and peered around the end of the stall nearer Dede’s feet.
It wasn’t near close enough, so he kept walking.
“Are you hard of hearing?” Tamara asked. “I said that was close enough.”
He kept coming. So far he hadn’t seen the weapon Tamara had used to shoot Dede. The stall walls were tall enough that she’d have a hell of a hard time shooting him over one of them. She’d have to step out and take aim. That meant he would have a few seconds before she fired.
“I said stop!” Tamara’s voice rose, shrill even in the echo.
He was almost to her, coming fast. He knew he couldn’t give her time to think. She had to fear him. If she had time to think, she would threaten Dede—the only thing that could hold him back. Instead, he had to make her fear for her own life if he reached her. He had to get her to turn the gun on him.
Tamara stepped out of the stall, leading with the barrel of the pistol just as he’d hoped she would. He was so close now that she didn’t have enough time to aim. The gun made a popping sound. Wood splintered on the stall door next to him.
She tried to fire again, but she’d forgotten momentarily about Dede. Dede kicked Tamara’s feet out from under her. A grunt escaped the woman’s lips as she hit the ground, going down hard.
The gun popped again. Dust sifted down from the barn ceiling. But by then, Lantry was on her, twisting the weapon from her fingers and pointing the barrel at Tamara as he dropped beside Dede.
“Are you all right?” he cried, seeing her lying in the straw bed of the stall holding her side, her angelic face pinched with pain.
She nodded and smiled. “I am now.”
He started to pull out his cell phone to call his brother, but before he could, he heard sirens. He looked up confusion at Dede.
She pointed to her ankle monitor. The light was flashing. She’d managed to set it off.
“Nice work,” Lantry said. As the barn filled with uniformed officers, he handed over Tamara Ingram Fallon’s weapon and lifted Dede into his arms. “I’m not waiting for an ambulance,” he said to his brother. “I’m taking her myself.”