Cowboy Undercover (8 page)

“And he left a bloody footprint in Wallace’s room,” Carolyn added. “The police said he seemed a little slow-witted. He stopped talking when the questions got tricky. Didn’t say a word after that first confession, apparently not even to his court-appointed attorney. And why did he drive around all that time in Wallace’s truck?”

“Yeah,” Otto said. “And why was Wallace down in Boise to begin with?”

“The newspaper said he was there for a job interview, didn’t they?” Chance asked with a glance toward the hallway Lily had disappeared down several minutes ago. What was taking her so long?

“Bah,” Otto said. “He worked at the bakery with me. In a few years it would have been his. They couldn’t find a single employer down there who admitted setting up an interview with him. All they had to go on was his roommate’s word that that’s where Wallace said he was going.”

“And Tabitha called us and the roommate the next morning to ask about Wallace because he hadn’t shown up for a date the night before. If he was going on a job interview, wouldn’t he have told her?”

Lily appeared just then and sat down next to Chance right as Otto posed another question. “Why are you asking about Fallon? Do you think you know who he was?”

“No,” Chance said. “But do you think it’s possible he lived at White Cliff?”

Otto looked at Carolyn again. “I doubt it,” she finally said. “The boy had no papers on him, no fingerprints matched up anywhere. Nothing. The police talked to everyone here and everyone up there and no one knew a thing about a Darke Fallon. No one from there was missing, just like no one here was unaccounted for. This Fallon must have been a drifter, maybe from another country or something. I don’t know.”

“Why do you care where he came from?” Otto asked. “And why are you asking so many questions about Wallace’s murder?”

Lily answered this time. “I have a five-year-old boy,” she said. “His name is Charlie and we have reason to suspect that the Fallon family might have taken him. We want to talk to them. I need to get my son back—”

She stopped speaking as her voice choked. Chance put his arm around her shoulders. “If you guys think of anything that might help, please let us know,” he said. “We’re actually staying at White Cliff in a guest apartment.”

“I didn’t know they let outsiders in,” Otto said.

“That reminds me,” Chance added. “Do you know a woman named Maria Eastern? Your daughter said she used to come into your bakery.”

“Don’t recognize the name,” Otto said. “How about you, Carolyn?”

“No. Betsy is a lot better with names than I am, though. Is she important?”

“Who knows?” Chance said. He gave them his cell number and Lily’s, too. “Please call if you think of anything.”

“What about the police?” Carolyn asked. “What are they doing about this?”

“There are complicated reasons they haven’t been called yet,” Lily said.

“Can’t say as they got very far in our case, but they tried,” Otto commented.

Chance and Lily thanked them for their time. Their last glimpse of the couple was as Carolyn closed the door and switched on the porch light.

* * *

L
ILY
SHIVERED
INSIDE
her new coat as they walked back to the truck.

“What took you so long in the bathroom?” Chance asked her.

“I wasn’t in the bathroom, I was searching the house for some sign a small boy was being held there. That’s why we went, right? To see if they might be involved in Charlie’s abduction?”

“Right. But I’d bet money those people would rather cut off their arms than put another person through what they’ve endured.”

“I get the same feeling,” she said. “And besides that, I didn’t find anything to suggest Charlie has ever been in that house.”

He opened her door and she climbed in. The stress and disappointment of the past hour had caused a horrible headache and she closed her eyes. All she could see was Carolyn’s face, the sadness and loss in her eyes. The woman would never see her son again. Did a similar fate await Lily?

She was determined not to cry, not to make a scene, not to be weak, but her heart felt broken and she didn’t know if it would ever mend. As the rain pelted the truck’s windshield, she buried her face in her hands and wept.

Chance pulled the truck off to the side of the road and gathered her into his arms. She was crying so hard by then it was difficult to get a breath, impossible to talk and he held her for what seemed an hour, rocking her gently, smoothing her hair, his body big and warm and comforting. She could get used to being treated with such gentleness. She felt small and treasured in his embrace, a feeling she hadn’t experienced since her mother died when she was six. Her father had climbed too deep inside a gin bottle to worry much about parenting.

The sobs abated and she took a few deep breaths. Anxious to look anywhere but in his eyes, she glanced out the window. “Where are we?” she asked as she dug a packet of tissues from her purse.

“I was going to go to a place called the Burger Barn,” Chance said. “I’ll go tomorrow. Right now, it’s time to get you back to White Cliff.”

“Are you hungry?” she asked as she blew her nose.

“Now that you mention it, yes, but that wasn’t why I wanted to hit the place. Otto says that Tabitha Stevens works there. I hoped she might be pulling an evening shift.”

“Why bother with her?” Lily said. “What can she possibly tell us that would help find Charlie?”

“I don’t know,” he said, scooting back across the bench seat to his place behind the wheel. “But she may know something about Darke Fallon or Maria Eastern that she didn’t tell the police, or maybe she’s since remembered something. I thought it was worth ruling her out.”

“Because of what Betsy said about Tabitha having other boyfriends?”

“Partially. I guess I’m a turn-every-stone kind of guy. But I can do this on my own. It’s been a tough afternoon and—”

“Let’s go now,” Lily said. “I want to see if this kid is the trollop Betsy made her out to be. Besides, it’s dark and I can’t think of anything we can do at White Cliff to get closer to finding Charlie so we might as well check out Tabitha. Do you know where this place is?”

“Not really. I was going to have you check your phone, but you looked terrible after we left the Connors’.”

“I’m better now,” she said, wiping away the last of the tears. “The look in Carolyn’s eyes just got to me.”

He smiled at her. “You know, your face is beginning to heal. You’re almost pretty again.”

She laughed out loud and hit his arm. “I’ll look up the Burger Barn.”

A few minutes later, they pulled in front of a fast food place that appeared to have been built in the fifties. They went inside and found a seat where they could see the whole restaurant.

The wait staff all wore blue jeans and red checkered shirts and all seemed to be teenagers except for one woman in her forties who had to feel like a babysitter with these kids. The place was crammed, and music blared from a Wurlitzer jukebox. After the emptiness of the town, the bustling activity in the little diner was amazing.

The older waitress brought them ice water and asked if they wanted a menu. Chance asked what the specialty was and she looked at him like he was nuts. “Burgers.”

“What’s the best one?” he said.

“Folks seem to really enjoy the bacon cheese burger.”

“Then that’s what I’ll have. Add fries and a chocolate shake. How about you, Lily?”

“The same,” she said because it was easier than thinking about it.

The waitress hustled off and they took turns studying the other staff. There looked to be two beefy guys working the kitchen behind the window and four females and two males taking orders and delivering food. The girls all looked about Betsy’s age. One had very long red hair she wore in a high ponytail that she whipped around like a horse’s tail on a hot fly-infested afternoon. Another girl was a slender blonde who bit her fingernails when she thought no one was watching, and the last two had dark hair, one cut short, another shoulder length, both kind of nondescript. They all moved about the restaurant and back into the kitchen with quick, sure steps. The operation looked efficient, friendly and unremarkable.

Their food arrived a lot faster than Lily had thought it would. The waitress asked what else they wanted. Chance said nothing but Lily lowered her voice. “Is Tabitha Stevens working here tonight?”

“Why do you want to know? Did she sass you or something? If she did, don’t tell her grandfather, okay?”

“Her grandfather?”

“Pastor Stevens. At least he used to be a preacher. Anyway, he’s real strict. Tabitha is a handful but I hate to see her in trouble and it isn’t because I have a kind heart, she just acts out her hostility and the customers complain and then the manager calls her grandfather and things get worse. She’s been real moody lately anyway.”

“Don’t worry,” Lily said quickly. “She didn’t do anything. I just know her mother and since I was traveling through this way, thought I’d say hello to Tabitha. I heard she worked here.”

“Tabitha’s mother has been dead three years,” the woman said. “Her grandpa raises her now.”

“I know,” Lily said, scrambling to think of some excuse for wording her comment in the present tense, but she shouldn’t have worried. Another table demanded attention and the waitress left to comply.

“You’re a lousy liar,” Chance said.

“I know.”

He took a bite of his hamburger and made a contented sound in his throat. Lily looked down at the food and started to push it away, but took a French fry instead. Eating hadn’t exactly been a priority lately but that fry tasted like greasy ambrosia and she ate another. Then she tried the hamburger. By the time she slurped down the last of the milkshake, her headache had disappeared and she felt ready to track down her missing son. She would find Charlie tomorrow, come hell or high water. They were running out of time in White Cliff and for some reason she couldn’t pin down, she wasn’t anxious to meet Robert Brighton, the man behind the place.

“Nice to see you eat a meal,” Chance said.

“I was hungrier than I thought.”

He leaned toward her. “I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” he said as he lowered his voice. “Have you seen any sign of McCord in White Cliff?”

“McCord? You mean that guy who works for Jeremy? No, of course not. Why would he be up here?”

He started to answer when the waitress with the red hair showed up at their table. Gone was the ponytail. Her hair now hung loose on her shoulders, completely covering one eye in an old Veronica Lake look that appeared way too sophisticated for a teen in Greenville, Idaho. She’d also undone a couple of buttons, revealing an eyeful of cleavage, and knotted her blouse above the waistband of skintight jeans. The tennis shoes all the waiters wore had been exchanged for pointy red heels and she’d applied makeup with a heavy hand. The expression in her dark-rimmed eyes was calculating, her stance challenging. “I heard you were asking about me,” she said, directing her comment to Chance.

So this was Tabitha Stevens. “Yes, we were,” Lily said. “Would you like to sit down for a minute?”

“I wouldn’t mind,” the girl said. “My shift is just about over anyway.”

Before Lily could move her coat and purse to make room, the girl claimed the scant twelve inches on Chance’s side of the booth. He slid along to make more room for her but she seemed to ooze along with him.

Her behavior with Chance struck Lily as surprisingly brazen. There was no doubt he’d been endowed with his share of the Hastings male charm and good looks and often affected women with a certain rakish gleam in his eye; it just seemed odd this girl would feel so comfortable with a stranger twice her age.

Tabitha tore her gaze from Chance and stared at Lily. “Why were you asking about me? How did you know my mother?”

Lily saw Chance’s lips twitch, probably because he was anticipating how she would dig herself out of this hole. “I didn’t know your mother,” Lily said. “We just wanted to ask you a few questions.”

“So, ask.”

“We were hoping you could tell us something about Wallace Connor.”

Tears seemed to shoot into Tabitha’s eyes. “Poor Wally,” she lamented. “I don’t know if I can bear to talk about him. I was sick for weeks after that maniac stabbed him to death.”

“It must have been horrible for you.”

“How about Darke Fallon?” Chance ventured.

Tabitha groaned. “Not
him
again. I told the police I never met anyone named Darke Fallon. What kind of name is that, anyway? I’m sick of hearing about him. He murdered Wally. Let him burn in hell.”

“We weren’t actually planning a rescue party to the underworld,” Chance commented.

Tabitha turned to look up at him, the unshed tears making her eyes look huge and innocent. She smiled and said, “That’s funny.”

“We’d just like to talk to the Fallon family,” Lily said.

“You and everyone else. I can’t help you. As far as I know, he was just one of those homeless, nameless freaks that ruin other people’s lives.”

“How about a woman named Maria Eastern?”

Tabitha tilted her head to the side as though thinking. “No,” she said. “Who is she?”

“She owns a store right outside White Cliff.”

“Those freaks!” she said. “Why would I know someone like that? Hey, wait, are you one of them?”

“No,” Chance said. “We’ve only known Maria for a day or two. We’re staying up at White Cliff. I know she has a son about your age, so we just wondered if you’d met her.”

“A son? What’s his name?”

“Dennis,” Chance said.

“There’s another son named Jacob,” Lily added.

Tabitha shook her head. “Never heard of either of them. Those kids don’t go to our schools and we don’t go to theirs.” She drummed acid-green fingernails on the tabletop. “Is that all you want to know?” When Chance nodded, she slid out of the booth, started to walk away and turned. The tears were gone and the look she cast Lily was concentrated venom. “I think it was cruel of you to even ask me about Wally. You’re as bad as Betsy.”

“His sister?”

“Betsy the bitch,” she said. “She’s always coming in here. She sits in my section and glares at me. I’m the only one who loved Wally and she is stupid and ugly and mean.” With that she stalked off.