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“The financial kind, anyway,” he said with a knowing smile.
“Why, Duke, I do believe you are flirting with me.” Hattie mocked, but it didn’t mask the pleased look in her eyes, a look that hinted at her interest in him.
A dog barked outside, sounding an alarm as a vehicle approached. Rising from her chair, Hattie glanced out the window. The barking turned to excited yelps.
“Laredo is back,” she announced.
A new tension gripped him, heightening his senses. Each sound from outside came sharply to him—the crunch of tires on gravel, the sputter of a dying engine, the slam of the cab door, and the approach of footsteps to the rear door. Unwilling to betray his eagerness to hear the results of Laredo’s investigation, he didn’t look up when the cowboy walked into the kitchen.
“You’re up. That’s means I won’t have to wake you.” Laredo crossed to the table, tossed a newspaper on top of it, pulled out a chair, swung it around, and straddled it.
“Did you have any luck?” He pushed his plate away and leaned back in his chair, reaching for his coffee cup.
“You could say that.” Steady blue eyes held his gaze. “I located a bellman who remembered you, said your name was Chase Calder. Unfortunately, according to the morning paper”—Laredo gave it a push toward him—“you’re dead, killed in a car crash the night before last.”
He picked up the paper, but the type was blurred. He extended his arm, trying to bring it into focus.
“Need some reading glasses, do you,” Hattie guessed, rising from her chair. “I’ll get you a pair of mine. They might be the right strength.”
Questions buzzed in his head, but he held his silence until he read the article. Hattie’s glasses worked well enough to allow him to see the print. The write-up was a small one, between two and three inches long. Its length was mostly due to the identity of the victim in this particular traffic accident. Even then there were few facts to glean from it, merely that the deceased was Chase Calder, owner of the Triple C Ranch in eastern Montana.
“Chase Calder.” He spoke the name, but it had no more meaning to him than if he had said John Doe. He set the paper aside and laid the glasses on top of it. Hattie picked up both.
“Do you remember anything at all about the man who robbed you?” Laredo studied him thoughtfully.
“No. I only rememb
er you telling me that you saw a man holding me up. My memory starts with the slam of a car door, gunshots, and a vehicle peeling out.”
“That was your holdup man, making his getaway as fast as he could,” Laredo stated, “taking with him your wallet with its identification and driving the car you rented. He even managed to wind up with the key to your hotel room.”
“It’s also possible the victim was Chase Calder.”
“It’s possible,” Laredo conceded. “But I don’t believe it. That article in the paper omits one important detail—following the crash, the car burst into flames. The body was burned beyond recognition. Granted, I didn’t get a good look at your robber, but to the best of my recollection, he was about your height and build. He could have even been about your age. We may never know, unless the family requests an autopsy. At this point, the authorities definitely haven’t ordered one. Why should they when they are convinced they know both the man’s identity and the cause of his death?”
“But there’s someone who knows the dead man isn’t Chase Calder,” he murmured, thinking out loud.
“That’s right,” Laredo said with a decisive nod. “The man who tried to kill you. It’s possible that he might not know that the thief took off in your rental car, but not likely.”
“He won’t know for sure unless I come forward—assuming I really am Chase Calder.”
“The newspaper archives might have a photo of Chase Calder,” Laredo told him. “That’s one way you could find out. Of course, there is another way.”
“What’s that?”
“Someone from your family is flying in this morning to arrange to have the body shipped home for burial. I have the name of the mortuary they’ll be using on the Fort Worth end. All you would have to do is show up there and wait to see if you are recognized.”
“I could.” But doing so would only answer whether or not he was Chase Calder. It wouldn’t solve anything else. If anything, his situation might be worse. His killer would know he was alive, but he wouldn’t know who that man was.
“You could, but you won’t,” Laredo guessed.
“No, I don’t think so.”
Hattie looked up from the article, the reading glasses perched on the end of her nose. “Why not? Think what your family is going through right now,” she protested.
He experienced a twinge of guilt, but it didn’t change his decision. “I regret that, but—”
“You regret it! That is the most heartless thing I have ever heard.” She glared her disapproval.
