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CHAPTER11
The driveto West Yellowstone was over three hours and took them through beautiful country with spectacular views. Having grown up in Texas, Drake drank in the vistas, glad he’d decided to come to Montana.
He enjoyed talking with Cassie along the way, learning more about her, her brother and their lives growing up on a Montana cattle ranch.
He felt more comfortable with her than any other woman he’d ever met. She was like a best friend with the added benefit of being an amazing lover.
When they arrived in the resort town of West Yellowstone, he slowed. The campground was easy to find. Soon, he pulled up to the campground office and parked.
A woman with steely gray hair peered through the window. Moments later, she stepped out onto the porch with a man with dark blond hair laced with streaks of gray. Both wore deeply-etched frowns on their faces.
Drake dropped down from the truck to the ground and met Cassie at the front. Together, they approached the scowling couple.
“Mr. and Mrs. Anderson?” Cassie called out.
They nodded.
The woman said, “I’m Amy.” She turned to the man beside her.
“William Anderson,” he said, his voice terse, almost hostile.
“I’m Deputy Douglas, and this is Deputy Morgan. Could we sit?”
“Pardon us if we’re a little belligerent,” Amy said. “We’ve been through so much, and we still haven’t found our Beth.”
Cassie nodded. “I completely understand. I lost a friend recently. I won’t give up hope, either.”
For a long moment, the Andersons stood still, unmoving except for their eyes, taking in every detail of the strangers who’d come to stir them up over the daughter they hadn’t seen in twenty years. Their wounds had never healed.
Mr. Anderson stepped back and waved toward the door. “You can come inside.” He opened it and held it while his wife led the way inside to a table.
“Please, be seated,” Mrs. Anderson said.
Drake held a chair for Cassie and waited for her to settle before claiming a seat for himself.
Mr. Anderson sat at the head of the table. Mrs. Anderson went behind the counter and returned with a heavy photo album, placing it on the table between Drake and Cassie.
“This is all we have left of our daughter, Beth,” she said. “Pictures and memories. By now, we figure we’d be insane to believe she’s still alive, but until we know for sure, that little bit of hope won’t die.”
Her husband patted the table beside him.
Amy sat, took a deep, steadying breath and folded her hands in her lap. Her pale blue gaze met Cassie’s and held. “It’s been twenty years. Why are you looking into my daughter’s disappearance?”
Cassie looked from Amy to William and back. “Look, I could dance around the issue and come up with a plausible story short of the truth just to get you to open up, but I won’t do that.” She shot a glance toward Drake. “The truth is that we found a woman’s body in an old lodge, and we’re trying to identify her.”
Amy covered her mouth with her hand, her eyes welling with tears. “And you think this…body might be our Beth?” Several fat teardrops rolled down Amy’s cheeks.
William Anderson’s eyes narrowed to slits. “You better have a good reason to believe it might be Beth and aren’t just taking a shot in the dark. Every time someone comes to us saying they think they’ve found our daughter, it’s like having another piece of your heart ripped from your chest. So, tell me what you know.”
Drake gave a watered-down version of construction workers discovering the body in a secret room in the lodge. He didn’t go into detail about the room being sealed with the woman inside.
“The Montana State Crime Lab determined the woman had blond hair, was somewhere between twenty-six and thirty years old and was found wearing a maternity dress.”
Amy buried her face in her hands and sobbed.
William put an arm around his wife and looked across at Cassie. “Beth was pregnant. She was due to deliver within two weeks of her disappearance. My wife and I weren’t happy about the fact she would be a single mother, raising her child alone, but we were excited to get to know our grandchild.”
“I searched the missing persons database and came up with several blond-haired, pregnant women within a two-hundred and fifty-mile radius of Eagle Rock. None of them were as far along as Beth.”
