Bucking Bronc Lodge 04 - Cowboy Cop (12 page)

Miles’s heart raced. “I’ll meet you there.”

“What about Timmy?”

Miles stewed for a minute, guilt eating at him like a festering sore. But he felt out of control doing nothing here. He couldn’t help Timmy. Dugan was out there hunting for another victim. And either he or his accomplice—which he was almost sure now was an accomplice, not a copycat—had broken in and threatened Jordan.

The sooner he found how the accomplice and Dugan were connected, the sooner he could end this nightmare. If Dugan and his partner were in jail, maybe Timmy would feel safe enough to talk again.

“I’ll ask one of the security guards to watch him while I’m gone. This might be the lead we need.” And if the man refused to talk, he’d find a way to pound the truth out of him.

* * *

J
ORDAN INHALED
M
ILES’S
manly scent the moment her head hit the pillow. She didn’t bother to undress; she crawled beneath the covers, exhausted from the night’s ordeal.

But images of Miles sliding beneath the covers teased her mind. Did he wear boxers or briefs?

She toyed with the question, imagining him in both for a few minutes before she ordered her mind to regroup. She had taught other people how to control their emotions, how to compartmentalize, and she had to do the same.

Miles was off-limits. When he found this killer and Timmy had healed, she’d never see them again. She was way too smart to try to play substitute mother and wife or lover to a man whose heart lay with another woman.

Finally fatigue claimed her, and she fell into a deep sleep, so deep she barely heard the door squeak open. She managed to get one eye open, then felt the covers being pulled back. Then she spotted Timmy and patted the bed. “Want to climb in and sleep with me for a while, sweetie?”

He nodded, then climbed up beside her. She opened her arms and he curled up beside her. Her heart ached as she felt his small body shudder. She wondered if he’d had another nightmare, but she knew he probably needed sleep and so did she, so she simply held him close and let him snuggle up to her instead of pushing him to talk.

God, she was starting to love this child.

She fell asleep again, a more restful sleep this time, and dreamed that she lived on a ranch and had a family of her own. A sweet little boy and a man who cared about them both.

When she woke up later, she felt as if somebody was watching her, and fear snapped through her veins. She jerked her eyes open, then her heart jolted when she saw Miles standing above the bed.

Loneliness etched his face, sadness and longing echoing in his labored breathing.

“He won’t let me comfort him,” he said gruffly.

Jordan’s chest squeezed. More than anything she wanted to wrap her arms around this big strong man.

Forgetting all the reasons she shouldn’t touch him, she eased Timmy away from her, tucked him back under the covers, then rose and moved toward him. “Miles, it’s not you,” she whispered, not wanting to wake Timmy. “He probably just misses his mother.”

Miles dropped his head forward, his shoulders slumped. His whole body looked weary. “But I’m his father. I should be able to do something for him.”

“You are.” She reached up and raked a strand of hair from his forehead. “You love him and you brought him here. Sometimes helping someone means asking others for help.”

His dark eyes bored into hers. “He must hate me. I wasn’t there... I let him down.”

“You aren’t letting him down now.” Jordan drew him into her arms and held him. At first he resisted, but then he collapsed against her. For a long time she simply hugged him and stroked his back, but the heat between them began to simmer, the air hot, steeped in hunger.

Well aware his son was in the room and that it was wrong, she finally moved away. Sunlight was fighting its way through the curtains, the hues of gray mingling with golden rays that shouted that it was morning.

And time for her to return to her place.

“I’m going to my cabin to shower.” Jordan headed toward the door.

“Wait. I’ll get one of the security guards to accompany you and stand guard.”

“It’s daylight now,” Jordan said. “I’ll be fine. If I need you, I’ll call.”

Miles walked her to the door. “Jordan...thanks for tonight.”

Jordan licked her dry lips. “I didn’t do anything, Miles.”

“Yes, you did. You made Timmy feel better...and me. You made me feel better.”

Jordan squeezed his hand. “We will get through this, and Timmy will be okay. I promise.”

“I hope you’re right.” His jaw flexed. “My friend Mason Blackpaw. I’m meeting him around noon at the prison to question Dugan’s old cell mate. It appears he had a visitor that we didn’t know about.”

“You think it was someone who helped him?”

“It’s possible. We’re going to see if we can track him down.”

“Okay. I’ll take care of Timmy.”

Miles reached out and rubbed her arms. “Thanks. I’m also going to ask one of Brody’s security guards to stay with you and the group on your hike.”

Jordan wanted to protest. But she’d be foolish to when someone had broken in her place tonight.

She cared too much about Timmy to allow her pride to get in the way. Richie’s death had taught her about evil.

It could find you and touch you even when you thought it couldn’t.

* * *

F
OUR HOURS LATER
, Miles stared at the man who had shared a cell with Dugan. His hands knotted into fists to keep from choking him.

Billy Roeder was a fighter with mean scars, grisly tattoos and a gut that he probably used to help him fend off attackers like a sumo wrestler.

He was also dumb as a rock.

“I told you, me and that pantywaist didn’t talk. Night one, I let him know who was boss of the cell.”

So Dugan had been afraid of the man? Or had it been the other way around? Sometimes looks were deceiving.

“He didn’t mention any old friends that might help him out?” Blackpaw asked calmly.

Roeder shook his balding head. “All he did was brag about his money, his fancy lawyers and the women chasing him.”

“What about a girlfriend or lover that he seemed to care about?”

One of the man’s eyes twitched. “Had one that came. Heard she was dead.”

Renee Balwinger.

Miles leaned forward, arms braced on the table, his anger barely in check. “What about family? Did he mention any siblings, a half brother or cousin maybe?”

Roeder tipped his chair back, his expression condescending. “What about me and the creep not being friends do you not understand?”

“You shared a cell with him, Roeder. You must know something.”

“I already talked to the cops a dozen times. Ask them.”

“But you didn’t tell them anything.”

The guard at the door cleared his throat, and Roeder cut his eyes over his shoulder, his eye twitching again. Miles frowned, suddenly suspicious.

Roeder was trying to tell him something. Only he didn’t want the guard to hear it.

Then it hit him.

The person who had erased the name from the visitor’s log—the one who had covered for Dugan—it had to be someone on the inside. Someone Roeder and the other prisoners would be too intimidated to rat out.

Like the guard with the beady eyes standing watch now.

* * *

J
ORDAN AND TWO OF THE
teenage counselors led the small group along the path toward the river. Justin, a seventeen-year-old nature freak who had been bullied because of his thin frame and interest in science, eagerly pointed out the types of plants and trees as they hiked. The boys collected sticks, stones and leaves for art projects and then gathered more sticks for the campfire.

Timmy was quiet and helped pick up sticks although he stayed close to Jordan, remnants of his nightmare still evident in the frightened look in his eyes. He also kept glancing around the trees and woods as if he expected to see a monster rush out to grab him any minute.

No child should have to live with that kind of terror.

Jordan took his hand and knelt to point out the animal tracks along the riverbank. “See those footprints? That means that a deer has been here.”

Timmy narrowed his eyes to study them, then pointed to a spot a few feet away. Jordan frowned and noticed that the prints were larger and belonged to a boot. In fact, they were so large they had to be a man’s footprint.

She gathered Timmy close then joined the group again. Crane Haddock, Brody’s security guard, had been walking along the riverbank as the group sat and skimmed rocks across the surface, so she assumed it belonged to him. If not, there were other ranch hands who could have been out here.

An hour later, they set up camp and roasted hot dogs over the fire. Eight-year-old Rory showed Timmy how to poke the stick into the hot dog while Malcolm and Wayling grilled their own. Carlos, the sixteen-year-old counselor, told a story about the Indians who used to live on this stretch of land, then showed the boys arrowheads he had collected, and told them that they would hunt for some in the morning.

Finally they roasted marshmallows and Carlos played the guitar and taught the boys a couple of songs about cowboys. Malcolm yawned and Timmy looked sleepy, so she suggested they all get into their sleeping bags.

“We’ll probably wake up as soon as the sun rises,” she said. “That’s the way men on the ranch live. They rise with the sun and go to bed at dark because they’re so tired from working the ranch all day.”

“Come on, Timmy,” Rory said as he tugged him toward his sleeping bag. “We’re real ranch hands now.”

Timmy looked over at Jordan and she gave him a reassuring smile. “Go on, buddy. I’ll be right here to watch over everyone.”

Carlos and Justin checked on the campfire then settled down themselves. Crane Haddock, the security guard Miles had insisted come along, lit a cigarette and took a drag.

Jordan frowned, remembering the way her father had chain-smoked himself into emphysema. The man’s habits weren’t any of her business, but still, she wanted everyone at the ranch to serve as good role models, so she walked over to him. “Do you mind not smoking in front of the kids?”

Haddock’s craggy face sharpened with irritation. “The kids are going to sleep.”

“Maybe so, but I’d rather you didn’t.”

He grunted, then shook his head as if he was disgusted. He obviously hadn’t expected babysitting to be part of his job when Brody had hired him.

“Fine, I gotta take a whiz anyway.” Then he stalked off into the wooded area.

Jordan walked back to the fire, then spread out her sleeping bag and sat down to watch the flames. The boys, exhausted from the hike, had already fallen asleep.

Suddenly a noise behind her startled her. Trees rustling? A twig snapping?

Then another noise, louder. Like a man or animal crashing into the leaves.

She swirled around, searching the darkness, hoping to see the pinprick of light from Haddock’s cigarette, but it wasn’t there. Nerves on edge, she stood and scanned the woods.

“Crane?”

Only the whisper of the leaves rustling in the wind sounded. Then another crack. A gunshot. Muffled.

Fear choked her, and she inched deeper into the woods, weaving between the trees toward the area where Crane had disappeared. On instinct, she slid her derringer from her coat pocket, praying she didn’t have to use it. A faint sliver of moonlight lit her path as she took another step, her hand shaking at every tiny sound echoing around her.

Scrub brush and weeds clawed at the leg of her jeans, then she spotted the glow of the cigarette on the ground behind a clump of rocks.

Her heart jumped as she stepped around the rocks and found Crane Haddock lying facedown in the dirt. Had he fallen?

She knelt slowly to check his pulse, her eyes tracking the property and trailing back to the boys who were still nestled around the campfire.

But she didn’t feel a pulse.

“Haddock,” she whispered as she slowly rolled him over. “Come on, don’t do this to me....”

But the blood gushing from his chest told her it was too late.

Haddock was dead.

Chapter Ten

Miles relayed his suspicions to Blackpaw as soon as they left Roeder, and they went straight to the warden.

Warden Everett Case was a tall husky man who, judging from the photos on the wall of his office, had served in the military. But the years since he’d left had changed him from a fit man to one who needed to lose about fifty pounds. Muscle had turned to fat, the steely focus in his eyes in the picture filled now with cynicism.

What if the warden was in on the cover-up as well? He’d met enough dirty cops, judges and prison employees to know that money talked.

“Did you learn anything from Roeder?” Case asked.

Miles shrugged. “Not really. Except we think he wouldn’t talk because of one of your guards.”

Blackpaw produced the copy of the visitor’s log he had accessed. No doubt he’d sweet-talked one of the female officers into giving it to him. “Look at this. Dugan had a visitor on more than one occasion but the name has been whited out.”

Case took the copy and narrowed his eyes as he studied it. “So?”

“We think this visitor may be working with Dugan,” Miles explained. “And that Dugan paid off your guard to cover up his name.”

Case rolled his shoulders. “That’s a strong accusation. Do you have proof?”

“No, but look at the date of the last visit. A week before the fifth victim was killed, the murder that helped free Dugan.”

A long silence passed as Case chewed over the suggestion. “So whoever killed this woman did so intentionally to help Dugan.”

Miles shifted. “We believe they were working together. If your guard knows this person’s identity, he’s aiding a killer.”

Case released a frustrated breath, then pressed the intercom to his secretary. “Tillie, page Lonnie Banning and tell him I need to see him in my office ASAP.”

Miles paced to the window and looked out at the yard where several prisoners lingered. Roeder was hunched by the fence smoking a cigarette, his eyes scanning the space as if expecting trouble.

A minute later, Banning knocked then strode in. The guard was wiry with pocked skin and a decided limp. Miles wondered if he’d gotten it from one of the inmates.