Page 60 of My Cowboy Temptation

Chapter 19

“Sorry, Brody,”McCall says to me before he hangs up the phone. “The cell towers show the last time the phone was used was a few blocks away from her place two hours ago. They’ve pinged it, but the phone isn’t communicating anything right now, either because it’s off or it’s been destroyed.”

I pace the floor of his office, ready to punch something I’m wound so tight. We’re just fortunate that Cal’s cell service is still on her dad’s plan, or we wouldn’t have this information since without the plan owner’s permission, we’d need a warrant for the information.

“And this Roger guy? You don’t have anything on him?”

McCall studies me. “We had no reason to. Probably because you failed to mention to me that he attacked Callie the other night. Maybe if you had, we would have picked him up and had more of a lead.”

“I told you. Zeke Palmer is pulling his strings. The raid was supposed to have put an end to that. Fuck,” I say, slamming my hand against the door, probably because I know what he’s saying is true. “It still doesn’t make any sense that this Roger guy or Palmer could be behind Callie going missing. There’s no way she would have gone off with either of them, not without a struggle. She would only have gone with someone she trusted.”

“Well, I still need some information about this Roger guy. You said Callie mentioned him to you before the attack?”

I explained what Callie told me, how he came into the gallery and spoke with her, creeping her out, and how she felt he might have followed her home, something I could confirm when I spotted him lurking outside.

“So she’s placed him in her vicinity in the past week. And yet you said Callie arrived back in Montana two or three weeks before that. No one bothered her before then?”

He makes an interesting point. “Not that I’m aware. She only came out to the ranch last Sunday. Up until then, we were all under the impression she was still in London.”

No one on the ranch knew she was in town until last Sunday. Coincidentally, Zeke’s man stops by to chat with her only a few days later.

It’s almost as if someone on the ranch leaked the news to Palmer. “Palmer has an insider working on the ranch.”

I meet McCall’s eyes, who from the slight nod he gives me, already reached that conclusion.

Grabbing my phone again, I call Lucas—who has been waiting at the ranch to hear what McCall had to say—and relay to him our recent conclusion. He’s quiet as he ponders this. “That’s a lot to swallow. You and I have worked with most of these men for more than a decade, if not longer. I can’t imagine one of them working with Palmer.”

He said most of the men. I can think of a handful of exceptions. “Burke and Childs have only been with us for two years.”

It was why we put them on the security team watching the girls, seeing that they were newbies; they needed to earn their place. But it also gave them full access to Callie’s and Everly’s day-to-day activities and would have earned their trust.

“Where are Childs and Burke right now?” Lucas asks.

“I left Burke at Callie’s to keep an eye out in case she came back. Childs should be back at the ranch. He was on shift with Cal until last night, which is when Burke relieved him.”

“I’ll go talk to him,” he says, and the line goes dead.

I might take the twenty-minute ride back to Cal’s to talk to Burke myself.

* * *

I’ve been grillingBurke for about fifteen minutes now, and I’m as close to convinced he’s not involved in Cal’s disappearance as I ever will be. But Lucas’s last text telling me that no one can find Childs opens up some new questions for me.

“How long have you known Childs?” I ask him.

“Maybe a few months on the rodeo circuit before you hired us.”

“Do you think he’s capable of this? Of kidnapping Callie Castle?” McCall asks. Up to now, he’s been giving me free rein in this discussion, maybe because he knows that most of the men on the ranch hold me in some respect.

“Honestly? Maybe. He’s always kept to himself, more than most,” Burke adds quickly. “I know he has a sister in Cheyenne who he sends money to. She’s been dealing with some health issues, I think. Like I said. He doesn’t share much.”

“Do you have a name or number for her?” McCall asks.

Burke shakes his head. “Just that her first name is Meg.”

“Is that enough?” I ask McCall.

We already talked about this when I demanded he track down Childs’s cell phone records and history so we could see where he is and where he’s been over the past few weeks. But to get that, we need a warrant—and the probable cause to get a warrant.

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