The Missing Colton Page 2

  A few more cowboys gathered around a table at the back of the diner where the lights were dimmer and music played from a jukebox—the ubiquitous Wyoming sound of country and western. Overhead, a fan slowly paddled the warm, greasy air.

  Grace returned with his beer and plunked it on the table along with a glass.

  “So, where are you looking for work, then?” she asked as she placed a caddy containing ketchup, salt and pepper in front of him.

  Jagger reached for the beer and took a fast, hard draft straight from the bottle. He swallowed, relishing the sensation of calm spreading through his chest. “I heard Jethro Colton at the Dead River Ranch is hiring.” He dug into his jacket pocket and produced the job ad that he’d cut from the newspaper.

  He slid the piece of paper across the table so Grace could see it, and he tapped it with his fingers. “Says here Dead River Ranch is seeking general ranch and maintenance hands—fencing, haying, minor mechanics, working cattle, four-wheeler operation.” He took another swig of beer and grinned. “Right up my street. Pay includes beef.”

  The three men at the counter suddenly stopped talking.

  One turned and eyed him. Jagger gave him a nod. With a subtle tip of his head, the cowboy returned Jagger’s acknowledgment before returning his attention to his meal on the counter. But Jagger could feel the men listening now. The black-haired diner boss had stopped writing in her book and was now studying him intently from her post at the counter. Slowly she reached for the phone at her side, dialed.

  A soft prickle of unease ran up Jagger’s neck.

  “That would be Gray Stark, the ranch foreman, who’s looking for hands,” Grace said with a nod to the piece of paper. “Jethro Colton’s dying—he’s not doing any hiring anymore, that’s for sure.”

  “Dying?”

  The chef placed a plate of food in the hatch and yelled out a number.

  “That’ll be your order—I’ll be right back.” Grace hustled to fetch it and placed the plate in front of him.

  “So you know about folk out on Dead River Ranch, then?” Jagger said.

  “Some,” Grace said. Her gaze flicked to the diner owner talking on the phone, and she lowered her voice. “Dead is a small town. Talk gets around.”

  “What’s wrong with Mr. Colton?” Jagger asked as he bit into his burger.

  “Leukemia. He’s been given maybe six more months to live, max. He’s refused all treatment and is basically waiting to die. His family is real choked about it, trying to rally his spirits and get him to see a specialist. And they’ve been trying to find his long-lost son, Cole Colton, who could possibly be a bone marrow donor.”

  Bone marrow—so that’s why the renewed search and big reward.

  “Long-lost son?” he asked, chewing his burger, feigning ignorance.

  “Yeah—baby Cole was kidnapped thirty years ago, right out of his nursery, just like the recent kidnapping on the ranch.”

  Jagger swallowed his mouthful then said, “Must be rough on the old guy, being sick at the same time his niece was kidnapped. It must’ve brought back old memories.” He reached for his beer. “I heard about the recent abduction on the news up in Casper.”

  Behind him the diner door opened, a gust of wind blowing in and bells chinking. A cop, burly, balding, swaggered up to the counter as the door swung slowly shut behind him.

  “Evening, Maggie,” the cop said to the woman up front, his voice loud, resonant. “What’s the pie today?”

  Jagger watched in his peripheral vision as Maggie poured a cup of coffee for the officer and dished up a slice of warm pie from under a dome. She squirted a good helping of cream atop the pie and slid the plate in front of the cop. She leaned over the counter to talk quietly to him. The officer forked a mouthful of pie into his mouth, chewed slowly as he listened then slid his gaze toward Jagger.

  For an instant the officer’s eyes met Jagger’s and Jagger wondered if Maggie had called the cop on the phone. That sense of foreboding burrowed deeper.

  “Yeah,” Grace was saying. “That recent kidnapping stuff has opened old wounds like it was yesterday. It’s all the talk of town. Pie in the sky if you ask me—the sisters looking for Cole Colton now. That baby boy is long dead, I figure.”

  Something in Jagger tightened.

  Grace shot another glance over her shoulder before saying, “So it was really on the news in Casper, our little town of Dead River?”

  “On CNN,” Jagger said, taking another bite of his burger.

  “Serious!”

  “A wealthy Wyoming ranching family like that? A kidnapping case echoing a cold case three decades old.” He swallowed. “Yeah, it’s got the makings of national news. People love that stuff.” He stabbed some fries with his fork, delivered them to his mouth.

  The waitress bent forward and lowered her voice further, her eyes bright. “And there’s been a murder on the ranch,” she said conspiratorially “Did you know about that?”

  “No,” he lied. “What happened?”

  “First baby Cheyenne’s nanny, Faye Frick, was shot dead during the kidnapping. And then, last month, when wildfires were cutting the ranch off from town, one of the maids, Jenny Burke, was murdered in the pantry. The head cook, Agnes Barlow, was also attacked in the barn and someone tried to abduct Kate McCord, the pastry chef.”

  Jagger whistled softly—he’d known about Faye Frick, but not about the maid or the other attacks. “And no arrests have been made?”

  “No,” Grace whispered earnestly, her eyes darting back to the counter where her boss was still talking softly to the cop. Jagger wondered who was making her more nervous—the police presence or her watchful employer.

  “The only arrest was Duke Johnson, the ranch hand who admitted to kidnapping Cheyenne, but the police still don’t know who asked him to do it—he said he got an anonymous note.” Grace huffed. “Sounds weird, if you ask me.”

  Jagger dabbed a fry in ketchup. “You think the kidnappings are linked, Grace?” he asked softly, still watching the cop and Maggie from the corner of his eye. “Is that what people in town are saying?”

  “They figure it’s an inside job,” she whispered. “And I—”

  “Grace!” Maggie barked suddenly from the counter

  Grace jerked up, spun around.

  “Folks at the far end are waiting to order! Ain’t got all night, babe. And I got a dozen more applicants who’d line up for your job tomorrow. Younger applicants.”

  “Bitch,” Grace whispered under her breath. “I gotta go.” But she hesitated as she swiped back the wayward tendrils escaping her braid. “If you want to talk more later, hon, I’ll be at Joe Bear’s bar down the road after my shift. It’s next to the Roundup Motel.”

  “Maybe later, then,” Jagger said with a nod and another forced smile.

  She smiled, a little shyly now, and bustled off.

  As Jagger sucked back the last of his beer he saw the cop pushing back off the counter. The man headed toward Jagger’s booth, fingers hooked into his weapons belt.

  The officer stopped at the table, his gray eyes unblinking. Jagger’s gaze lowered to the name tag on the man’s uniform—Chief Hank Drucker, Dead River P.D. Jagger knew men like him. Big ego. Small town. Crime his game. Jagger became conscious of the pistol in the concealed holster under his shirt—a gun he’d never felt he needed stateside, until Afghanistan changed everything.

  “Chief Drucker,” Jagger said quietly with a nod toward his name tag.
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  “I heard you asking about the Coltons.”

  “I’m looking for work,” Jagger said simply, scooping up the last of his fries and delivering them to his mouth.

  “Colton’s isn’t the only ranch in town.”

  “Biggest game in town, though,” Jagger said around his mouthful. “And they’re advertising for help.” He jerked his chin toward the advert still on the table.

  The chief’s gaze lowered to the clipping, then shifted to the tattoo partially exposed on Jagger’s forearm—the talons of an eagle poking out beneath his rolled-up sleeve.

  The cop’s eyes lifted to meet Jagger’s. “Where you from, stranger?”

  Slowly, he swallowed his mouthful. “Is there a problem, Chief?”

  The diner seemed to go dead quiet. The jukebox segued to a new tune. One of the ranch hands got off his stool and leaned his elbow back against the counter, facing Jagger. Warning bells began to clang softly at the back of Jagger’s mind. He thought of possible exits. Escape. His blood pressure was rising fast—not good. He didn’t want to have a flashback now, in the middle of it all.

  “How about you put some ID on the table, son. There’s been trouble on Dead River Ranch, and it’s my business to make sure there’s no more where it came from.”

  The cowboy pushed off the counter, came closer. “Everything okay, Chief?”

  “Just fine, Tanner. As soon as our stranger here gives me some identification.”

  The cowboy remained to the side of the chief, his eyes fixed on Jagger. The others at the counter watched, bodies tense. The diner walls seemed to come closer, air going thicker, hotter. A buzz began in Jagger’s head.

  Raising his palms in mock surrender, Jagger reached with his right hand for his pocket. He removed his wallet, but as he opened it to show his false Montana driver’s license, a creased photo of a woman cradling an infant fluttered down to table. It landed faceup.

  The chief went stock-still.

  The mouth of the cowboy next to the chief opened. Grace, who was passing by the table with empty plates in hand, stopped, her face paling as she stared at the photo, then she flicked her gaze back to Jagger. Behind the counter, Maggie was watching intently.

  Time seemed to stretch, warp. The ceiling fan whined softly in the silence.

  Jagger scooped up the photo and shoved it back into his pocket.

  “Where’d you get that?” asked the chief. Something had changed in his voice.

  Jagger slid his fake license over to the chief. “Here’s my ID.”

  “I said, where’d you get that photograph?”

  “It’s mine. Had it for years.”

  Slowly the chief picked up Jagger’s ID, examined it, then lifted his gaze to study Jagger’s face. “You from Montana, then, Ray Cartwright?”

  “Been working ranches there for years,” Jagger lied. “I was laid off during the summer drought.”

  “You ever been in trouble with the law, Cartwright, ever done time?”

  Jagger surged suddenly to his feet and slapped a wad of cash onto the table. “Will there be anything else, Chief Drucker?”

  Silence.

  Jagger shrugged into his jacket and reached for his hat. He tilted it low over his brow. Gathering up his kit bag, he said, “Then, if you’ll excuse me...”

  The chief stepped back, but barely.

  Jagger exited the diner, his pulse thrumming. The door behind him swung shut, silencing the country music and cutting off warmth. Outside, the wind whistled through buildings as the sun disappeared in a red-orange haze behind the mountains. Shadows were already crawling out from crevices, fingering across the valley, dragging cold in behind them.

  As Jagger narrowed his eyes against the blowing grit and traversed the cracked parking lot, he was watched from the diner windows. Before turning down the main road, he cast one last look back. The neon light above the building had flickered on, a lurid pink. The word Dead...blinked against the sky. The other words, River and Diner, were not displaying. A dark thrill sank through Jagger as he aimed for the highway out of town—he was onto something. Felt it in his gut. And it was enough to keep his mind out of the past. For now.

  His plan was to hitch a ride and hopefully reach Dead River Ranch before full dark. Jagger had little doubt that in the interim, Chief Drucker would be running “Ray Cartwright’s” Montana license through the system. If Jagger’s ex-CIA pal, Miles Smith, had done a decent enough job, the fraudulent ID might hold. But the clock on his cover had started ticking. A little sooner than Jagger had hoped.

  * * *

  “We have a problem,” the voice said into the phone. “A stranger in town asking too many pointed questions about Jethro and what happened thirty years ago.”

  A beat of silence. “You sure he’s trouble?”

  “He’s got a photo of Brittany Beal Colton before she died, holding her newborn son, Cole, wrapped in the same blue blanket he went missing in.”

  “What? Where did he get it?”

  “Don’t know. The man has the same coloring as Cole Colton...dark-brown hair, blue eyes. Spitting image of Jethro in his younger days.”

  Silence shimmered. Tense. Then the person on the other end of the line spoke you the words, “What are you saying, that you think he could be Cole?”

  “I don’t know what to think. But he’s on his way to the ranch tonight and my gut tells me if he gets there, there’s going to be trouble. Big trouble. Too many questions.” A pause. “You need to make sure he never reaches the farm or we could both be exposed.”

  “Make sure?”

  “Eliminate him.”

  The call was ended.

  Dust swirled yellow as the last rays of sun winked out and a frigid cold began to descend from the mountains.

  * * *

  About fifteen miles into his walk not one vehicle had passed Jagger. The night was cold and the darkness was almost complete, save for a faint glimmer of stars above. Exhaustion, mental and physical, was beginning to creep up on him, the shadows playing tricks with his mind, making him edgy. Then, as he crested a ridge in the road, he finally saw the lights of the ranch twinkling in the distance. Relief washed softly through him.

  He took a small flashlight from his duffel bag and left the road, cutting across the burned back fields of the ranch—going along the road would take an hour longer, he figured.

  His flashlight cast a small halo of yellow into the blackness as his boots crunched over stalks of burned grass, releasing the scent of ash. Everything around him was dry, cold, whispery. He aimed for what appeared to be a narrow dirt track bisecting the fields.

  But as he neared the track, something scuttled into the dead stalks beside him.

  Jagger stilled, heart hammering. With his free hand he reached for the 9 mm pistol in the holster at the back of his jeans.

  Aiming his weapon alongside the flashlight beam, he panned the darkness, his finger ready near the trigger. Perspiration beaded on his forehead under his hat as the old and too-familiar tongues of panic began to lick again at his gut. In the back of his mind he could hear gunfire, screams. He could smell blood and death.

  A sharp flash of light sliced suddenly through his vision. Jagger dropped fast and flat to the ground. Mouth dry. Heart racing.

  Was it real? Another flashback? Jagger inhaled slow and deep, trying to grasp hold of his sanity and stay present. His past was playing tricks with his head again. Probably just a big rat out there
in the field. He got to his feet and shakily slid the pistol back into his holster. Thank God there’d been no one around to see him.

  He resumed walking, but froze again when he thought he heard hooves galloping on hard-packed ground. Another trick? He spun around, peering into the blackness beyond the range of his small beam.

  Then suddenly, out of the darkness, over a ridge, came a bright, bobbing light—moving in time with the sound of thundering hooves. It looked like a one-eyed mounted cyclops coming straight at him. As the apparition drew closer Jagger realized the rider was wearing some kind of headlamp. The horse was black as pitch. The rider’s clothes were also all black as night.

  Jagger raised his weak flashlight and waved it so that the rider would be sure to see—and avoid—him.

  But the rider veered straight for the beam of light, kicking his horse into a higher-speed gallop. He was barreling straight at Jagger.

  Jesus.

  Confusion whirled through his head. “Hey!” he screamed. “Watch out!”

  But the rider thundered forward—purposefully trying to hit him!

  Jagger dropped his duffel bag and went for his gun again. He aimed at the one-eyed apparition.

  “Stop or I’ll shoot!” he yelled, squinting into the glare of oncoming light, white and bright as a hunting spot.

  But the thundering silhouette didn’t stop. The horse snorted, a pitch-black dragon breathing fire, white clouds of steam caught in the beam of Jagger’s flashlight. As the horse reared Jagger glimpsed a lighting bolt of white across the animal’s chest. He yelled again, “Stay back! I’m armed!” Then he squeezed the trigger, aiming to the left of the one-eyed horseman, trying to spook the thing. He fired.

  It didn’t work. The horse dropped back onto all fours and came at him.