“We should be able to get that information from the cookhouse.” Kane scanned the area and then headed in a different direction. “From the smell of cooking, it’s that way.”
Jenna’s phone chimed. She pulled it from her pocket and put it on speaker. “Hey, Rio, what have you got for me?”
“I have footage of a Lawson’s Ridge truck coming and going to the bus station.” Rio’s boots clattered on the tile as he walked. “I’m at the office now. I’ll upload it onto the server for you. The roadhouse manager was very helpful and he enlarged the image, but it was still difficult to see who was driving. I figure we need Kalo to take a look at it. He might be able to clean it up for us.”
Smiling, Jenna punched the air. “That’s brilliant. Why don’t you take the rest of the afternoon? We can handle it from here. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Thanks, Jenna.” Rio cleared his throat. “Before you go, I have information on the wreck that killed Rhett’s grandparents. I was able to find a report. They were T-boned at an intersection by a drunk driver. Everyone died at the scene. The driver of the other vehicle was a seventeen-year-old kid. It was a tragic accident.”
Jenna swallowed hard. “That’s so sad. But it’s good to know it wasn’t murder.”
“Yeah, I guess so. See you on Monday.” He disconnected.
She turned to Kane and raised one eyebrow. “What? I can see your mind working from here.”
“That doesn’t make sense.” Kane stopped walking and turned to look at her slowly. “If Rio has discovered footage of a Lawson’s Ridge truck driving to the bus station, we assume with Marie, how the heck did she get back here?”
Twelve
Trembling all over, Zoe Carpenter stared at the man’s back as he walked around her. He’d said nothing since arriving, as if he enjoyed making her wait for his next move. The heavy smell of his sweat filled the room and crept up Zoe’s nostrils, choking her. Trapped with a vicious lunatic, she couldn’t think straight. What would happen to her now? She couldn’t take much more of his sadistic torture. Would he kill her soon? Anything would be better than a slow death by him or the rats nibbling at her toes and crawling all over her when he left her alone. Swallowing a sob, she dropped her head, making her face throb harder. After spending the last two years working on ranches, Zoe figured she’d gained enough good sense to keep herself safe, and then she’d made a stupid mistake. Her teeth chattered as fear shook her at the memory. When a group of hands had announced they were going to drop a few people at the bus station, and would be hanging around town for a short while, she’d jumped at the chance to go with them and purchase a few things she needed. They’d scattered in town arranging to meet up later, but when she got to the meeting place, they were nowhere to be seen. She’d waited until it was almost dark before she had headed along the highway. Walking miles in the dark was her only option, but when the flashlight on her phone died, fear gripped her with the implications of what she’d done. In the middle of nowhere, with no street lights, knowing that at any second a bear could rush out of the forest and kill her, she was so scared she could hardly breathe. All sense of self-preservation had flown when she’d seen a Lawson’s Ridge truck pull up ahead of her, and she’d breathed a sigh of relief. The door had opened and she’d run toward it, thankful for a ride, but the moment she’d climbed into the front seat, he’d struck like a snake.
Pain shot through her head and the world had gone black. She’d come around in a world of pain, tied naked to a chair in an old shed. She’d screamed until her throat ached. He’d just watched her, saying nothing, and then wrapped gaffer tape around her mouth. She couldn’t breathe, her nose broken and clogged with blood. As she suffocated, the room faded away, but she’d screamed in agony as he’d dragged off the tape, ripping out her hair, and then he’d beaten her until she spat blood. Much later, when he’d opened the cabin door to leave, weak dawn sunlight poured through the door, but she didn’t see open fields. Outside, thick forest closed in around her for as far as the eye could see.
Beaten and head swimming, Zoe had waited for a long time and then, eyes swollen and nose dripping blood, she’d tried to escape. The chair he’d strapped her to had been bolted to the floor. Nothing she could do would move it. She tried rocking back and forth, but her efforts stripped the skin from her wrists and ankles as the heavy ropes tying her cut deep. Convinced she would die, she gave up and sat there waiting. He would come back, she knew it. He’d gotten enjoyment from hitting her, but what made him creepier was the camera aimed at her. Had he been watching her from afar all day, enjoying seeing her struggle?
Terrified as he came around the front of the chair, Zoe quickly averted her gaze and stared at his boots. Mud had splashed the well-worn brown leather as if he constantly walked in dirt. If she’d gotten away and run to the sheriff, but she couldn’t identify him, he could be any one of the hands working at Lawson’s Ridge. They all had the same sweaty smell from hours of working. Most were around the same size but this man kept his face covered with a balaclava, and his clothes with coveralls. The only way she could recognize him would be by his boots, but she’d seen at least ten pairs similar to his at the ranch. She bit back a sob. No one would find her here, no matter how loud she screamed.
Would anyone even report her missing? As a seasonal worker, she didn’t know the other people very well. She tried to swallow. Her head throbbed in agony. Exhausted, thirsty, and so tired, she gathered as much courage as she could, and lifted her head. “Water, please. Water.”
“Why should I waste it on you?” He stood in front of her, with his fists balled at his waist. “Give me a reason why I don’t kill you right now?”
Zoe leveled her gaze on the two dark eyes peering through the slits in his balaclava. Her voice croaked so bad she could hardly recognize it. Trying to reason with him was her only choice. “Why do you want to kill me? What have I ever done to you? I don’t know you and I don’t believe I’ve even met you before. Why don’t you just let me go and I’ll forget all about it.”
“Sure, you will.” He barked a laugh and shook his head. “I’ve been watching you. Don’t you know that women were put on this earth to serve men? And there you were, expecting men to drop everything to help you. Batting those long eyelashes and trying to emasculate us. So now you’re here to be punished. I’m not responsible for this decision. Don’t you know that right after Eve tempted Adam in the Garden of Eden, that God punished women by causing their pain in childbirth?” He leaned down closer. “I’m doing God’s work by punishing women.”
Staring at this deranged man, Zoe sucked in a trembling breath. “I believe in a merciful God.”
“Well then, scream for mercy.” He lifted her chin. “The louder the better.”
Thirteen
Lawson’s Ridge
The sun had dropped low in the sky as Jenna led the way back to the ranch house and turned to Kane and Carter. “We have three investigations going on at the moment and I need to consider how to proceed. Our priority is the homicide, but we can’t leave the others behind because there’s always a chance they could be connected. There’s a lot of ground to cover here, so many different ranch hands to consider in different areas. Our killer could be any one of them.”
“I’m ready to call it a day on the grunt work.” Carter pushed back his hat and stared into the sun. “It’s getting late, and you’ll need to spend some time with your boys.” He rubbed the stubble on his chin and stared into space. “I need to start calling in a few favors. I figure some of the answers we need are hidden in the old files and maybe the new ones.”
“Yeah, seems that way.” Kane stopped and turned slowly in a three-sixty spiral and then looked at Carter. “When you flew over the spread, how many cabins and other outbuildings did you notice across the land?”
“They’re all over.” Carter turned to look at him. “I figure they were built as sleepover cabins for men doing repairs to fencing and working in the outlying areas. Many of them, I’d imagine, contain various items that they might need and also supplies. It would be needed, for instance, if they’ve worked until sundown mending a fence and haven’t finished. If you dropped by any one of them, you would find a stove, food supplies, and a clean bed. From all accounts, Bowman runs the ranch very well and takes good care of the hands.”
Catching a stray strand of hair and tucking it behind one ear, Jenna nodded. “He does appear to be very responsible. From what Sam Cross told Rhett, all the accounts and everything else were in order, according to the accountant he appointed. As the accountant is a totally separate identity than anyone on the ranch, I would consider him to be competent enough to discover any discrepancies. Although I do agree that getting a forensic accountant in to oversee the ledgers from way back is a brilliant idea. If anything unusual was happening around the time of Rhett’s parents’ deaths, it might give us a motive to why they were murdered.”
“We need to open that safe.” Kane pushed his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “If there’s a letter in there that explains everything, it will make our life a whole lot easier. With such a wide expanse of time to cover, their murderer could have died years ago.” He hurried to the Beast. “I’ll grab my gear.”
Smiling, Jenna ran up the steps to the ranch house and rang the doorbell. Rhett had followed instructions and locked the doors. Footsteps echoed from inside and the door opened. She smiled at Rhett. “I figure we’re finished for the day apart from one more thing.” She indicated to Kane coming back. “Dave is going to tackle that safe. We might be lucky and find some answers inside.”
“That sounds like a plan.” Rhett stood to one side to let them in. “The boys were squawking for something to eat. They’re in the kitchen with Julie. My housekeeper is making piles of sandwiches and has a fresh pot of coffee brewing. Why don’t you all wash up and come along and take a break?”
