Cowboy Alibi

Chapter Fourteen

Jane peered over the back of the seat, doing her best to stay out of sight while she watched Clint Holbrook and a man who was clearly a motel employee climb the stairs to the second floor of the Admiral Arms Motel. Of course they were heading directly for the motel room that she and Joe had occupied until just a few hours ago.

They disappeared inside, and Jane turned around, releasing a quick sigh of relief as she reached for her cell phone. She punched a button and the display panel came up, complete with a “low battery” message. Holding her breath, she tried to call Joe’s number.

The cell phone did nothing but beep a warning.

Punching the off button, she jammed the cell phone in her pocket and looked back at the motel. A light shone in the window of unit 214, so they were still inside.

Time to find a better place to hide while she could.

She scanned the parking lot for a hiding place that would still give her a decent view of Clint’s car. There. The two metal trash bins at the far end of the lot would work. There was just enough space to squeeze between them, and the shadows would hide her from view without anything blocking her view of Clint’s car.

She scrambled over the stick-shift console and slid out the passenger door as quickly as she could, pausing only to push the keys under the front passenger seat as Ashlee had asked her to do, and raced toward the trash bins. Within a few feet of them, the sickly sweet odor of rotting food assaulted her nose and made her eyes water, but she pushed on, sliding between the bins and ducking into the shadows. She could still see the back end of the sedan Clint had been driving.

She forced her frantic breathing to calm, pushing back a rising tide of anxiety, but it was no use. Panic had begun to set in, making her whole body shake. Any minute now, Joe would drive up in the rental car, unaware he was heading straight into a potential ambush.

And she had no way to warn him.

AS JOE PULLED UP at the stoplight at the end of the block, he glanced up at the Admiral Arms Motel in time to see Clint Holbrook step up to the railing.

Adrenaline shot through him, taking his breath for a moment. He scanned the scene for any sign of Jane. He spotted the Honda parked in the employee lot by the office, but it was too dark to see if anyone was inside.

Did Jane even realize Clint Holbrook was there?

The light changed, and Joe drove past the motel, his heart racing. He kept his speed normal, careful not to slow down as he took a closer look at the Honda. If Jane was inside, she was down on the floorboard hiding, which suggested she might have spotted Clint.

If she was even still in the car.

He turned into the parking lot of a coffee shop about a block up the street from the motel and parked between a couple of SUVs. The lights inside the shop doubtless made mirrors of the plate-glass windows, making it easy to escape the notice of the scattering of patrons inside as he made his way toward the back of the parking lot, where a narrow alley stretched for a couple of blocks to allow access for waste-disposal trucks to empty the large trash bins behind the establishments.

He stuck to the shadows, moving stealthily up the alley toward the Admiral Arms Motel. He paused for a moment at the edge of the motel grounds, peering around the corner of the redwood fence separating the motel’s parking lot from the narrow empty lot next door.

He spotted Clint Holbrook and a shorter man walking across the front parking lot toward the detached building housing the front office. They disappeared from sight around the front of that building.

Joe made a dash for the two tall trash bins sitting at the edge of the alley and started to squeeze between them when he realized he was not alone. Someone was already crouched low in the space. He skidded to a stop, cursing silently as his boots made a loud crunching sound on the loose gravel of the alley.

The crouched figure moved, launching herself forward. Joe caught a flash of red hair in a narrow beam of light shining between the bins.

“Jane!” he whispered.

The figure froze. “Joe?” she whispered.

“I’m right here.”

She scooted backward toward him, unable to turn in the narrow space between the bins. He pulled her to him when she was in reach, wrapping his arms around her from behind and pressing his face into her hair. Despite the foul odors coming from the trash bins, she still smelled good, soap-and-water fresh with an underlying essence he would recognize anywhere.

“Clint’s here,” she whispered, rubbing her cheek against his.

“I know. I saw him.”

She trembled wildly, her teeth making a faint rattling sound. He tightened his hold on her and peered through the narrow space between the bins. “Which car is his?”

“The black sedan parked closest to the edge of the building. That’s its rear end there by the corner.”

He pressed his lips to the back of her head and watched the black sedan for any sign of movement. A few long minutes later, the taillights lit up and the car began to back out of the parking lot. As the headlights swung toward the trash bins, Joe pulled Jane around, pressing his back against the tall metal trash container.

He waited a few seconds and peeked through the space again. He spotted the sedan turning left into light traffic. He waited until it disappeared from sight before he released Jane, turning her to face him.

“You all right?”

“I am now,” she responded breathlessly before throwing herself into his arms.

He held her tightly for a moment before gently setting her away from him. “Let’s go. I want to get to Twin Falls by daylight.”

She frowned. “Twin Falls, Idaho? I thought we were heading to Wyoming.”

“I don’t want to take the most direct route, in case anybody’s figured out where we’re headed.” He threaded his fingers through hers and led her down the alley toward the coffee shop where he’d left the Chevrolet.

“SO, TELL ME about Rita,” Jane said as they crossed into Wyoming just after sundown the next day.

Joe glanced at her briefly before returning his gaze to the highway. She’d been napping in the passenger seat since Pocatello, but he should have known he wouldn’t make it back to Canyon Creek without the subject of Rita coming up again. She’d been too hyped about the close call with Clint Holbrook on the long overnight drive to Twin Falls, and by the time they found a dingy motel where they could rest a bit before continuing on to Wyoming, her adrenaline rush was long gone. She’d been asleep before she hit the covers of the sagging queen-size bed in their motel room.

“That bad?” she murmured, shifting in the passenger seat to look at him.

“Rita was-briefly-my wife.”

“Oh.”

He slanted another look at her, taking in her furrowed brow and narrowed eyes. “It didn’t last a year. I really should have known it wouldn’t, but a man in love-”

“So you were in love with her?”

“I wouldn’t have married her if I weren’t.”

“Are you still in love with her?”

He hadn’t expected that question. “I suppose once you love somebody, there’s a part of you that always will. But Rita taught me a good lesson about love.”

“What’s that?”

He looked at her again. “Sometimes it’s not enough.”

She turned her gaze back toward the windshield, falling silent. The darkness hid the craggy hills they were traveling through, as well as the towering grandeur of the Grand Teton Mountains to the north. It was a shame; Jane had loved the mountains, thrived on the harsh demands of the wilderness. She’d have enjoyed seeing them again.

Unlike Rita, who’d scampered back East after the first big snowfall, Jane had helped his brother, Tommy, keep the ranch running through a rough Wyoming winter without complaint. It had been her grit that had convinced Joe that what he was coming to feel for her might last longer than a few short months.

“Rita was a photographer,” he said aloud. “She freelanced. Fashion shoots, mostly. Some magazine pieces. She came to Canyon Creek on location for a big men’s clothing designer who wanted a Wild West theme for his next line. She came to city hall with the production manager to check on permits for the shoot.”

“And you were there?”

“I was there.” His voice softened in memory. “She was beautiful. Like something out of a magazine herself. Long blond hair, eyes the color of the Wyoming sky, trying to dress like a native and not quite pulling it off…”

“Love at first sight?”

“Yeah.” He sighed. “For her, too, or so she said.”

“Did you follow her back East or did she stick around Wyoming?”

“She said she loved it here, and I’d already done my time away from Wyoming. She decided to stay, see if she could get some work in the Jackson Hole area. She had a good portfolio. Folks in Jackson Hole were happy to give her work. We got married a month after we met.”

“That fast?”

He smiled at her surprise. “That fast. And you know, the first few months were wonderful. The first flush of love always is.”

“What happened?”

“It snowed.”

Jane looked at him. “What?”

“It snowed. Wyoming-style.” He could laugh about it now, with some time and distance. “She was from New Jersey, spent several years living in New York City. I tried to warn her about the snow, but she laughed at me. She knew about snow, she said.”

“But not Wyoming snow.”

“She didn’t understand how much there’d be. How it could limit life in a lot of ways for weeks at a time.”

“So she left because of the snow?”

“Well, that and the rich guy she met up at one of the Jackson Hole resorts. He offered to take her back East and make her forget her rash decision to marry a cowboy cop, and she took him up on it.”

“Bitch,” Jane muttered.

Joe laughed again. She’d said the same thing the first time he’d told her the sad story of Joe and Rita, almost a year ago. “She’s not. She just made a mistake. So did I. We were lucky to get out of it as easily as we did. We could have had kids to deal with.”

Jane fell silent after that, her gaze turned back to the winding highway unfolding in the beams of the Chevrolet’s headlights. A light wind had kicked up as night fell, and to the east, the lights of Jackson cast a faint gray glow on the low-slung rain clouds gathered over the horizon. By the time they crossed the Snake River, rain had begun to fall in fat, sporadic drops. If they were lucky, it wouldn’t begin turning to snow before they reached their destination.

Jane broke the silence a couple of minutes later. “Were you in love with me?”

Joe tightened his grip on the steering wheel. He had figured this question would come sooner or later, once it became clear she was beginning to remember things about her life before Idaho. He’d just thought he’d have more time to think about it.

“I thought I was,” he admitted.

Just before his brother’s murder, he’d been thinking about asking her to marry him. It had been a big step, emotionally, to let himself think in terms of forever again. His first thirty-odd years hadn’t exactly taught him to believe anything could last a lifetime.

But the woman he’d known as Sandra Dorsey had seemed to understand him. She’d appreciated his love of the land, had been patient with his emotional reserve. Time and again, she’d shown pluck and grit, two traits he admired. She’d been a good friend to Tommy and a tender, passionate lover to Joe. He’d wanted to believe that the secrets he saw in her eyes couldn’t hurt them.

But they had.

“Did I love you?” she asked.

“You seemed to.”

“But I’d told so many lies.” Regret tinted her voice.

“Yeah. You had.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know.” Despite the dangerous circumstances-or perhaps because of them-being with her again had reminded him of everything that had attracted him to her the first time around. Her tough-mindedness. Her quick wit. Her kind heart.

“How far to Canyon Creek?” Jane asked.

“Another hour.” The ranching town nestled in a grassy valley southeast of Grand Teton National Park. Almost everyone in the area raised some sort of livestock-horses, cattle, some sheep. Many of the working ranches surrounding the town had added guest-ranch facilities for tourists looking for the authentic cowboy experience.

“We’re not going to your place, are we?”

“Not unless we want to get caught.” He eyed the thickening clouds overhead. “We’re going to see Canyon Creek’s deputy chief of police.”

“ARE YOU sure we can trust him?” Jane asked as she huddled close to Joe for warmth. The wind had picked up, swirling under Jane’s collar and dotting her flesh with goose bumps, but luckily, the rain had held off so far, leaving them cold but dry on the walk to Riley Patterson’s sprawling ranch house from where they’d hidden the rental car in the woods a half mile down the road.

“With our lives.” Joe slid the key into the backdoor lock and let them into the kitchen. A lone light over the stove shed a soft gold glow over the neat, old-fashioned kitchen. A gas heater hissed softly in the corner, drawing Jane to it like a moth to flame. She warmed her hands in front of it, emitting a soft moan of relief.

Joe rested his hand on the back of her head for a moment, the touch gentle and affectionate. A rush of pleasure moved through her, warming her as surely as the heater. “Get out of that jacket. I’ll see what Riley has in the way of food.”

Over a dinner of microwaved soup, she asked him more about his friend. “You said you grew up together?”

“Our fathers were both members of the same cattlemen’s association. We both worked on our family ranches and took part in cattle drives to the summer grazing lands together. When I decided to be a cop, Riley thought it sounded like a good idea, too.” He chuckled. “His daddy never has forgiven me for that.”

Jane finished her soup and took the bowl to the sink. Joe joined her there, drying while she washed. He put the two bowls on the dish rack by the sink, where they joined a couple of plates and three coffee mugs. His hand rested for a moment on one of the mugs, his brow furrowed.

Jane glanced at the clock on the microwave. Almost 8:00 p.m. “Isn’t Riley working kind of late?”

“He likes working late. Keeps his mind off-”

“What?” she asked when he didn’t continue.

“His wife Emily was a nurse-worked two twelve-hour shifts every weekend at a big hospital over in Casper. She didn’t come back one weekend. The Natrona County Sheriff’s Department found her car still parked in the hospital parking lot. A few weeks later, they found her body in a nearby lake.”

“My God.” Jane’s forehead creased in sympathy.

“They never solved the case. Drove Riley crazy for a while, but he’s back to himself now. Mostly.” Joe folded the drying cloth and laid it on the counter by the sink.

He led her down a narrow hallway to a small room on the right. Joe turned on the light to reveal an iron-spindle bed covered with a colorful wedding-ring quilt.

“I feel like Goldilocks,” Jane murmured.

He looked at her, his lips curving in a half smile. “You remember Goldilocks?”

“I think so. Little blond girl? Three bears? Porridge?” She chuckled when he nodded. “Amazing that I can remember fairy tales but I can’t remember what brought me to Wyoming in the first place.”

He motioned her toward the bed. She sat on the edge and looked up as he turned off the light, plunging the room into darkness relieved only by the faint glow of the kitchen light. He sat next to her on the bed, his weight shifting the mattress, making her slide up against him. He put his arm around her shoulders, keeping her close.

“I think we both know what brought you here.”

She sighed, resting her head against his. “Clint.”

“Clint,” he agreed.

“Do you think he was telling the truth about being my husband?” she asked.

“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. Marriages can be ended. I should know.”

She reached up to thread her fingers through his where they lay on her shoulder. “At first I thought he was here to take me back with him, but now I’m not so sure.”

“Why?”

“I was thinking about something he said that first day, when he was waiting for me in my apartment.” She shivered, remembering the sight of Angie’s bloody body sprawled across the kitchen floor.

Joe turned his face, brushing his lips against her temple. “What did he say?”

“He said, ‘You have something I need.’”

“You didn’t tell that to Hank Trent when he was questioning you. Why not?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I don’t know that it really registered with me until now.”

“What could you have? I saw the police reports from when you first showed up in Idaho. They found you with nothing but the clothes on your back. No identification, only a few bucks in your pocket.”

“What if-” She stopped short as Joe put his hand over her mouth. Then she heard it.

A door opening in another part of the house.

Joe pulled her quietly to her feet and led her into the hallway. They had gotten about halfway to the kitchen when they heard a male voice, answered by another.

Jane didn’t recognize the first voice, but the second voice was as familiar as a recurring nightmare.

It was Clint Holbrook.