Page 6 of River Justice

She reminded herself why she was in the Powder River Basin. Still, her thoughts shifted like the breeze, drifting back to Brand. His kind of handsome—even hungover—mixed with his Stafford confidence, had made her catch her breath. Not that she hadn’t noticed the way his jeans fit him, or that broad, rock-hard chest of his.

But his blue eyes... With a start, she recalled that Charlotte had emerald green eyes, according to Jason Murdock, the PI she’d originally hired to find her father. Brand’s siblings, she’d been told, had variations of green. Brand was the one outlier?

She had hoped that Murdock would find evidence she could use, but he hadn’t. When her father’s body had finally been found in an abandoned well on property near the Stafford Ranch, it had been quite by accident—and not by the PI.

If Dixon Malone’s remains hadn’t been found, everyone would have gone on believing that he’d simply disappeared, left in the middle of the night, deserting his new family the way he had left Birdie and her mother. Everyone would have gone on believing a lie about her father, something she was determined to set straight. She didn’t just want justice. She wanted everyone to know the kind of man he’d really been, a man who’d loved his daughter to the moon and back, as he used to say.

She swore that she would put him to rest—once she saw his killer in prison. Until then, she couldn’t move on with her life.

HOLLYJOTRIEDto open her eyes. Her lids felt too heavy. She could barely move, her numb cold limbs lying on the hard concrete floor on nothing but an old blanket. Prying her eyes open, she tried to make sense of where she was. Somewhere small and dark. Only slits of light slipped through the single boarded-up window—just enough that she could see it was still daylight.

She felt confused, her head groggy. What had happened? Why was she here? Struggling to remember, she pushed herself up into a sitting position. Her skull pounded, and she had an awful taste in her painfully dry mouth.

Glancing around, she found herself in a small room. There was a bucket nearby on the concrete floor and a plastic bottle of juice. There was only the one door. She got up on wobbly legs to try it. Locked. As she dropped back onto the blanket, memory forced its way into the dense fog in her brain. Her heart began to pound wildly as she remembered.

Stumbling to her feet again, she moved to the door and tried the knob again. Her pulse punched up another notch as she realized she was locked in and no one knew where she was.

“Hello?” she called, her voice raspy and low. “Someone?” Silence. Her legs felt too weak to hold her up. Her head began to swim. She felt sick to her stomach as she began to cry.

Her hands pummeled the door. She screamed for help until she could no longer stand, no longer shout or cry. Sliding down, she crawled over to the plastic bottle of juice and drank all of it before crawling back into the corner to her blanket. She closed her eyes and pressed her body against the wall to make herself as small as possible. She feared the man would be back. She was defenseless against him. But she also feared he wouldn’t come back.

Her throat was so sore that she didn’t want to cry again. “I want my mom,” she whispered and felt hot tears stream down her cheeks. “Mama,” she cried, even though she knew her mother couldn’t hear her because she was dead. No one could hear her. Holly Jo was lost and alone and scared.

Close your eyes. Go back to sleep.She could feel exhaustion and something more dragging her down, feel herself falling into that deep dark well she’d awakened from. Blackness began to move in behind her eyelids, the emptiness filling her head.

She welcomed it. Anything so she didn’t have to think the one thought that paralyzed her with fear.

What if no one ever found her?

CHAPTER FOUR

PULLINGONLATEXGLOVES, Stuart inspected what appeared to be a ransom note with growing concern. The message was short and to the point. The person who claimed to have taken Holly Jo said they would be contacting Holden with his or her demands. “How did you get this?”

Holden pointed at the open envelope on the desk. “Elaine found it in the mailbox this morning with the rest of the mail.”

It hadn’t come by US mail. No stamp, no postmark, no return address. Holden’s name and that of the ranch had been printed on the envelope with exaggerated precision as if to hide the person’s true handwriting.

“Do you have any idea why someone would take Holly Jo?” the sheriff asked.

Holden shook his head, but Stuart could see that he was worried it might be a personal grudge. Holden was a powerful and wealthy man with a huge ranch. He had made enemies over the years—not to mention the open war between him and Charlotte Stafford. Their offspring had gotten involved in the rivalry as well as their ranch staff.

He figured Chisum Jase “CJ” Stafford had often taken advantage of that rivalry for his own interests. But while he wouldn’t have put kidnapping past CJ, Stuart didn’t think this was his doing from behind bars.

But Holden also had a hotheaded older son who made no secret of his resentment of Holly Jo, according to what the sheriff had heard from his friend Cooper. Treyton McKenna and his father had been at odds for some time, but even more so after Holden had brought Holly Jo home to live with them. Treyton had also been vocal on how he felt about his brother Cooper marrying Tilly Stafford. But kidnapping the girl? What would he hope to gain?

“What are you going to do?” Holden demanded. “Holly Jo’s been missing for hours. We have to find her.”

“The first thing you need to do is make some calls,” Stuart said as Elaine came rushing in, looking as upset as Holden. “Call anyone and everyone who might have seen Holly Jo since she left the house this morning. Neighbors, friends, family. Then I’m going to need a recent photo of her as well as her birth date, height, weight and a description of her and what she was wearing this morning when she left for school.”

“I can write down that information as well as provide a photo,” Elaine said, no doubt seeing that Holden apparently couldn’t recall how his ward was dressed this morning, let alone other particulars.

“It appears from the note that she was kidnapped,” Stuart said. “Once we get the alleged kidnapper’s demands, we’ll have a better idea of what we’re up against. In the meantime, I need to search her room.”

Elaine pointed him in the right direction, up the stairs and down the hallway. There was aKeep Out!sign taped to the door, the letters in black marker. Holly Jo had added a corral, mountains and a horse in the background.

The sheriff stared at the sign for a moment before he opened the door, thinking about the girl who’d lost her mother and had been uprooted and brought here to live with strangers,herebeing in the middle of nowhere.

The room had been styled in pinks, which stood in direct contrast to the posters of horses, trick riders and rodeo cowgirls on the walls. A typical girl’s room in rural Montana. The muddy cowboy boots accompanied by a pair of dirty jeans and a shirt near the door told the same story. This pink bedroom was at odds with the cowgirl who lived in it. Which explained the trip to Billings that Elaine said Holly Jo had been looking forward to.

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