B.J. Daniels the Cardwell Ranch Collection (23 page)

“Brittany,” he said under his breath. “Thanks for reminding me of that prank you and your friend Shelby pulled on her.” It was straight out of a Stephen King novel.

Tessa crossed her toned arms over her flat chest, her expression defiant. He’d expected her to stomp off, but she didn’t. Whatever the reason that she’d wanted to see him, she hadn’t got what she’d come for apparently.

That spring of their senior year was coming back to him after years of fighting to forget it. Hadn’t he had a bad feeling he couldn’t shake even before Alex had called him? “Did Shelby send you to find me?” He let out a laugh. “Just like in high school. What is it she wants to know, Tessa?”

“I have no idea what you mean.”

He laughed. “Still doing her dirty work even after all these years.”

Tessa snatched up her water bottle from the table with one hand, the untouched salad with the other. “I know what you think of me.”

“I think you’re too smart to keep letting Shelby run your life.”

She laughed at that. “Run my life? Don’t you mean
ruin
my life? She practically forced me to marry Danny Spring. It wasn’t until later that I found out her husband was trying to buy some land Danny owned and thought my marriage would get it for Wyatt.” She smiled. “It did.”

“Then what are you doing still being friends with her?” he demanded.

“
Seriously?
Because it’s much worse to be Shelby’s enemy, haven’t you realized that yet? My life isn’t the only one she’s destroyed. Clearly, you have forgotten what she’s like.”

“No, I don’t think so. I know what she did to Tanner.”

“Do you?” she challenged.

“She got pregnant to trap him into marrying her. If she hadn’t miscarried, he probably would have married her for the kid’s sake.” Something in Tessa’s expression stopped him. “She did have a miscarriage, didn’t she? Or did she lie about that, as well?”

Tessa looked away for a moment.

Jordan felt his heart drop.
My life isn’t the only one she’s destroyed.
The thought came at him with such force, he knew it had been in the back of his mind for a long time.

“She didn’t do something to that baby to get back at Tanner, did she?” he asked, voicing his fear.

“I have to go,” Tessa said, glancing toward the parking lot.

He followed her gaze, seeing her fear as a white SUV cruised slowly past. He recognized Shelby Durran-Iverson behind the wheel. She sped up when she saw Tessa hurry out of the sandwich shop, barely missing her as she drove away.

Jordan stared after both of them for a moment before he wrapped up his sandwich. He’d lost his appetite. Worse, he wasn’t sure what his best friend would have done if he’d found out Shelby hadn’t miscarried early in the pregnancy, but waited as long as she could, then aborted his baby to hurt him.

He realized it was possible Tanner really had killed himself.

Chapter Six

The ski shop Brittany Cooke Peterson and her husband Lee owned on the mountain was still closed for the season.

But Liza found her at the couple’s condo in Meadow Village. Brittany answered the door wearing a black-and-white polka-dot apron over a T-shirt and jeans. Her feet were bare and her dark hair in disarray. She brushed a long curly lock back from her face, leaving a dusting of flour on her cheekbone. In the background a 1960s hit played loudly. As Brittany’s brown eyes widened to see the deputy sheriff at her door, Liza caught the warm, wonderful scent of freshly-baked cookies.

“Don’t touch that pan, it’s hot,” Brittany said over her shoulder after opening the door.

“Did I catch you in the middle of something?” Liza asked facetiously.

Brittany laughed. “Not at all.”

“Mommy, Jake stuck his finger in the icing,” called a young female voice from the back of the large two-story condo.

Brittany wiped her hands on her apron. “Come on in. We’re baking iced pumpkin cookies.”

Liza followed the young woman through a toy-cluttered living room and into a kitchen smelling of cinnamon and pumpkin.

Three small children balanced on chairs around a kitchen island covered in flour and dirty baking bowls and utensils. One of the children, the only boy, had icing smudged on the side of his cheek. Brittany licked her thumb pad and wiped the icing from the boy’s face, took an icing-dripping spoon from one girl and snatched a half-eaten cookie from the other girl as if it was all in a day’s work.

The two girls who Liza realized were identical twins appeared to be about five and were wearing aprons that matched their mother’s. The boy had a dish towel wrapped around his neck like a bandana. He was a year or so younger than the girls.

“You’d better have a cookie,” Brittany said as she finished slipping warm ones from a cookie sheet onto a cooling rack.

Liza took one of the tall stools at the counter, but declined a cookie.

“Just a little icing on them, Courtney,” her mother said to the girl who had the spoon again and was dribbling thin white icing over each cookie as if making a masterpiece. The other girl watched, practically drooling as her sister slowly iced the warm cookies. “Okay, enough sugar for one day. Go get cleaned up.” They jumped down and raced toward the stairs. “And don’t argue!” she called after them.

With a sigh, Brittany glanced around the messy kitchen, then plopped down on a stool at the counter and took one of the cookies before turning her attention on Liza. “Sure you don’t want one?” she asked between bites. “They aren’t bad.”

“They smell delicious, but I’m fine.”

“You didn’t come by for cookies,” Brittany said. “This is about Alex, isn’t it?” She shook her head, her expression one of sadness. “I heard it was a hunter.”

“A hunter?”

“You know, someone poaching at night, a stray bullet. It had to be. No one would want to hurt Alex. He was a sweetheart. Everyone liked him.”

“Not everyone,” Liza said.

Brittany turned solemn. “So it
was
murder. That’s the other rumor circulating this morning.” She shook her head.

“Any idea who didn’t think he was a sweetheart?”

“No one I can think of.”

“What about Tanner Cole?”

Brittany blinked. “Even if he came back from the dead, he wouldn’t have hurt Alex. They were friends.”

Liza smiled. She liked the woman’s sense of humor. “Do you know why Tanner killed himself?”

“No. I suppose someone told you that Tanner and I were dating at the time.” Brittany chuckled as she realized whom. “Shelby. Of course.”

“She did mention that if anyone knew, it would be you. Did Tanner seem depressed?”

“Far from it. He was excited about graduating. He had all these plans for what he was going to do. I think he already had his bags packed.”

“He was planning to leave Big Sky?”

“Oh, yeah. He’d been saving his money for years. He wanted to backpack around Europe before college. He had a scholarship to some big college back east.”

“What about you?”

“I was headed for Montana State University.”

“Weren’t you upset that he was leaving?”

She shook her head as she helped herself to another cookie. Upstairs, Liza could hear the kids squabbling over the water and towels. “It wasn’t like that between me and Tanner. I liked him. A lot. But I knew from the get-go that it wasn’t serious.”

“Had it been serious between him and Shelby?”

Brittany stopped chewing for a moment. She sighed and let out a chuckle. “If you talk to Shelby it was. She was planning to marry him, apparently. She loved his parents’ ranch and used to talk about when she and Tanner lived on the place, what their lives were going to be like.”

“She must have been upset when he broke it off and started dating you.”

Brittany laughed. “Livid. But Tanner told me he’d just gone through a scare with her. She’d apparently gotten pregnant.”

“On purpose?”

“Tanner thought so. He said he’d dodged a bullet when she miscarried…” Brittany seemed to realize what she’d said. “So to speak. Anyway, he didn’t trust her after that, said he didn’t want anything to do with her. They broke up right before Christmas. She’d been so sure he would be putting an engagement ring under the tree for her.”

“How could Shelby have thought that was going to happen?” Liza asked. “Surely she knew what Tanner was planning to do once they graduated.”

“Sure, she knew, but Shelby was so used to getting what she wanted, I think she’d just convinced herself it was going to happen.”

“Maybe she thought a baby would be the tipping point,” Liza suggested.

“And it probably would have been. Tanner loved kids. He wanted a bunch when he settled down. If she had been pregnant, I still don’t think he would have married her, but he would have stuck around to help raise his child. He was that kind of guy. But he was over Shelby. Nothing could have made him go back to her.”

“Did she know that?” Liza asked.

Brittany broke a cookie in half and played in the icing for a moment. “I think she did. She really was heartbroken. She cried hysterically at the funeral. I’d never seen her like that. I actually felt sorry for her.”

“But you didn’t feel sorry enough not to go out with Tanner.”

Brittany shrugged. “It was high school. Tanner asked me out. He was a nice guy and a lot of fun. Shelby knew it wasn’t serious. She didn’t blame me.”

“But she did Tanner?”

Brittany smiled. “Let me put it this way. If Shelby was the kind to make voodoo dolls and stick pins in them, she would have had one with Tanner’s name on it. But she moved on quick enough. Tanner was barely in the ground before she was dating Wyatt Iverson. One thing about Shelby, she seems to bounce back pretty fast.”

“Wyatt Iverson of Iverson Construction?” Liza said. “Isn’t that the same construction company that Tanner was working for at the time of his death?”

Brittany nodded and got up to go to the bottom of the stairs to yell up at the kids to quit fighting. When she came back she began to clean up the kitchen. “Wyatt was four years ahead of us in school, so I didn’t really know him. But later that summer his father went bankrupt, shot Harris Lancaster and went to prison. Malcolm was never the same after that, I guess. He died in a boating accident. At least that’s what they called it. He drowned up on Canyon Ferry. Everyone suspected he killed himself. I’ve gotten to know Wyatt a little since then. He never got over what happened with his father. That’s one reason he’s worked so hard to get the construction company going again.” She looked up. “Sorry, that’s probably a whole lot more than you wanted to hear.”

“You like Wyatt.”

Brittany smiled at that. “
Like
might be a little strong. He and Shelby are cut from the same cloth. Both go after what they want and the rest be damned.” She frowned. “Why all the questions about Tanner?”

“Tanner was Alex’s friend.”

“And now they’re both dead,” Brittany said with a nod.

“With all Tanner’s plans, he doesn’t sound like someone who would commit suicide before graduation. Was anything else going on in his life that you knew of? Maybe with his parents, his friends?”

Brittany shook her head. “His parents are still happily married and still live on the ranch. His friends were fine—well, that is, they were until last night.” She sighed. “There was the vandalism, though.”

“Vandalism?”
Liza asked.

“Tanner was staying in the cabin at the construction site in payment for watching over Malcolm Iverson’s equipment. There was a party at the cabin one night. The next morning, Malcolm discovered his equipment had been vandalized. Tanner blamed himself.”

“Enough to kill himself?”

“I didn’t think so at the time. Wyatt didn’t even blame Tanner. The party hadn’t been his idea in the first place. Tanner was really responsible, but everyone showed up with beer and things must have gotten out of hand. But who knows. Maybe Tanner was taking it harder than any of us knew. Wyatt talked his father into letting Tanner stay at the cabin even after the vandalism. So I really don’t think that had anything to do with Tanner’s death.”

“Well, thank you for the information,” Liza said.

“It’s kind of strange though. I heard Jordan Cardwell was back in the canyon—and that he was at the falls when Alex was shot?”

“Why is that strange if they were friends?”

“Because he and Alex had a huge falling-out the night of the party.”

Liza felt her pulse quicken. “Over what?”

“I never knew. I just remember Tanner refused to take sides. He said they’d work it out.”

“Did they?”

“Not that I know of. Jordan left right after graduation and seldom came back. I’m not sure he and Alex ever spoke again.”

“Could it have been over a girl?”

Brittany laughed. “Isn’t it always?”

“So who would that girl have been?”

“If I had to guess, I’d say Tessa Ryerson. Shelby’s BFF.”

Liza laughed. “Best friend forever? Is that still true?”

Brittany nodded and crossed her fingers. “Shelby and Tessa, they’re like this and always have been. I was surprised when Jordan went out with Tessa since he never could stand Shelby.”

* * *

D
ANA
HAD
DOZED
OFF
FOR
A
WHILE
,
she realized. She woke to find Hud lying on the bed next to her. Listening, she could hear the sound of their children’s voices coming from the kitchen along with that of her sister’s. She placed a hand on her stomach, felt her two babies and tried to relax. Nothing seemed to be amiss and yet, when she’d awakened…

“What’s wrong?” she asked, turning her head to look at her husband.

Hud was staring at the ceiling. “You’re going to think I’m crazy.”

“I’ve never thought you were anything but completely sane in all instances,” she joked.

“I’m serious,” he said, rolling over on his side to look at her.

She saw the worry etched in his handsome face. “What?”

“You aren’t going to want to hear this.”

“Hud!”

“Something’s wrong,” he said. “I feel it.”

She sighed. “Your marshal intuition again?” She felt her eyes widen, her heartbeat kicking up a notch. “About the murder investigation?”

“It’s your sister.”

She groaned and, shaking her head, turned to look at the ceiling. “What are you saying?”

“Have you noticed the way she is with the baby?” he demanded, keeping his voice down even though the bedroom door was closed.

Dana hadn’t noticed. Usually when her sister brought the baby in, she would hand Ella to her to hold.

“It’s as if she has never changed a diaper,” Hud was saying.

“She’s probably nervous because you’re watching her. She’s new at this.”

He shook his head. “She stares at Ella, I swear, as if she’s never seen her before. Not just that,” he rushed on. “She arrived with hardly any clothes for the baby and when she came back from buying baby food, I asked her what Ella’s favorite was and she said carrots. You should have seen her trying to feed Ella carrots—”

“Stop. Do you realize how ridiculous you sound?” She’d turned to look at him again. “I repeat, what are you
saying?
”

Hud clamped his mouth shut for a moment, his eyes dark. “Okay, I’ll just say it. I don’t think that baby is hers. In fact, I don’t even think the baby’s name is Ella. That baby quilt has the name Katie stitched on it.”

“Okay, you are
crazy,
” Dana said. “The quilt is probably one she picked up at a secondhand store or a friend lent it to her.”

“A friend? Has she received even one phone call since she’s been here?” He shook his head. “No, that’s because your sister doesn’t have friends. She never has.”

“You don’t know that she hasn’t made friends the past six years.”

“How could she? She moves around all the time. At least that’s her story. And what does she do for money, huh?”

“She didn’t go to college or learn a trade so of course she has a hard time supporting herself.” Dana knew she was grasping at any explanation, but she couldn’t stop herself. “One look at Stacy and you can see she doesn’t have much. It’s probably the best she can do right now. And you know babies can change their food likes and dislikes in an afternoon. As for diapering…”

Hud shook his head stubbornly.

“Is she helping with the kids?”

“Sure, she seems right at home with a four- and five-year-old.” He sighed. “I still have a hard time trusting Stacy.”

“I know. She stole five years from us, breaking us up with one of her lies so I understand why you would question everything about her now.” Dana didn’t want to admit that she had felt the same way around her sister. But when she saw her sister with Ella—

“Okay,” Hud said. “After dinner I might check in with Liza and see how the investigation is going.” He placed a large hand on her belly and waited for their twins to move as if needing reassurance.

She could see that it was hell for him having a murder investigation going on while he was home playing Candy Land and Old Maid. But she saw something else in his expression, as well. “You’re going to your office to do more than check in, aren’t you? You’re going to investigate my sister.”