Ranger's Baby, page 11
“I hope you’re right,” the sheriff said. He turned to Fiona. “Do you have your gun?”
She opened her jacket, displaying her weapon in its holster.
“Good. Normally, I wouldn’t give this advice, but if you even think you’re in danger, shoot first and ask questions later.” He faced Duncan. “I assume you’re going with her?”
Duncan nodded. “I am.”
“Same goes for you. The Faulkners don’t play by anyone’s rules but their own. They fancy themselves as survivalists and swear their property is a free nation and not subject to U.S. or Montana laws.” The sheriff shook his head. “Maybe I should let Guthrie take the prisoner, so I can go up to the Faulkner place.”
“I’m off duty, remember,” Fiona said. “You said so yourself. Besides, I’d go anyway.”
“I should fire you.” The sheriff pushed a hand through his gray hair. “But I can’t get any better help.”
Fiona grinned. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Wasn’t meant as one,” Sheriff Barron grumbled. “Look, just be careful. I need you in the department in one piece. Can’t afford to carry you on workers comp until you recover from whatever injuries they might inflict.”
“I’ll be with her,” Duncan reiterated.
“Yeah,” the sheriff’s eyes narrowed, “but there are a lot more of them than there are of the two of you.”
As Fiona and Duncan walked toward the exit, the door opened and Missy Drennan entered, carrying a big, covered basket. When she saw them, her eyes widened for a moment before she relaxed and smiled. “Duncan. It’s so nice to see you home.” She turned to Fiona, her eyes narrowing slightly. “Hi Fiona. I thought you weren’t working for the next couple of days?”
“Hey, Missy,” Fiona said. “I’m not working. I just stopped by to talk to the sheriff.”
Missy leaned to the right, looking past Fiona. “Where’s my sweet Caity? Did you bring her with you?”
Fiona shook her head. “Not today. I have some errands to run. She’s out at Iron Ranch with her…” she hesitated for a moment, before finishing, “grandmother and Aunt Molly.”
Missy shot a glance between Fiona and Duncan. “I heard about that,” she said in a whisper. “I bet you were surprised to know you had a baby girl.”
Duncan’s teeth clamped hard. It still hurt that Fiona hadn’t told him about the baby sooner. He forced a smile to his lips. “I’m thrilled. She’s a beautiful baby, and I’m enjoying getting to know her.”
Missy’s gaze saddened. “Fiona’s so lucky to have her. Cole and I have been trying for the past three years to have a baby, but so far, we’ve not been blessed. We’re hoping to do the fertility treatments once we get enough money to start. We’ve been saving.”
Fiona touched Missy’s arm. “I’ll keep you and Cole in my prayers.”
“Thank you. In the meantime, hug Caity for me and have a cookie.” She smiled widely, held open the basket and raised a dishtowel to display at least two dozen cookies. “They’re chocolate chip.”
Ellen stuck her head out the door of her office. “Did I hear cookies?” She came out of her office with her headset on. “Oatmeal raisin like you brought a couple of days ago?”
“No,” Missy said. “This time I brought chocolate chip.”
“Even better.” Ellen hurried forward. “I’m starving.”
“Do you want me to run over to the Blue Moose Tavern and get you some real food?” Missy offered.
Ellen shook her head, making her short blond curls bounce. “No, thank you. I brought a sandwich, but I needed something to tide me over until lunch.” She fished a couple of the cookies out of the basket and started to pop one into her mouth. She hit the mic on her headset and knocked the foam cover off. It bounced on the floor and rolled between a file cabinet and the wall.
“Shoot,” Ellen said and bent to retrieve the cover. “That’s the third time I’ve done that this week.” She reached her fingers between the cabinet and the wall but couldn’t quite reach it. “My fingers are too short and fat. Anything around here I can use to fish that out?”
“Wait,” Missy said. “I have a file in my purse.” She set the basket on a desk and dug into her voluminous purse, fishing for a few seconds before she unearthed a thin, metal file. “This should do it.” She squatted beside Ellen, slid the file into the gap and flicked it, sending the microphone cover out like a shot. “There.” She slid the file back into her purse and straightened.
“You’re a lifesaver,” Ellen blew the dust off the foam and slid it over the microphone on her headset.
“I’m pretty good with tight spaces,” Missy said. “I used to work in a microchip factory when I lived in Denver. I haven’t worked since I married Cole and moved to Eagle Rock. There aren’t that many jobs here, unless I want to be a waitress at the diner or the Blue Moose.” She shrugged and dropped the file into the basket. “We keep hoping we’ll have a family for me to raise. That’ll keep me busy.”
“I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you,” Ellen said. “And thank you for the cookies.”
“I’ll leave the basket with you this time and collect it later,” Missy said.
“Are you going to bring cookies every other day on a regular basis?” Ellen asked, raising her eyebrows. “I could get used to it. And I could get fat, too.”
Fiona snorted. “I think you could eat your weight in ice cream and not gain an ounce.”
Duncan studied Ellen. She was thin with short, curly blond hair and freckles across her nose. She looked like she could use a fully loaded cheeseburger or two.
Ellen shrugged. “I don’t have to worry too much. Yet. But I’m sure the older I get the more I’ll spread.” She waved a cookie. “In the meantime, cookies are great. Gotta go, got a call coming in.” She pressed the button on the side of her headset as she walked back to her office, talking to the person on the other end of the call.
“She’s always been a tiny woman,” Duncan noted. “In high school she was voted most likely to slip through a crack in the sidewalk.”
Fiona smiled. “Ellen’s great. Did you know her husband died of cancer a year ago?”
Duncan shook his head. “Bill Ledbetter died?” How’d he miss that bit of news from home? It must have happened while he was deployed. His mother had written and called when she could, but she hadn’t mentioned Bill’s passing. “He was a good guy. Always setting the curve in class. The man was smart. What kind of cancer did he die of?”
“Brain tumor,” Missy said. “It was so sad. They were planning on having a family. They saved some of his sperm. I think Ellen might try to have his baby when she’s ready.”
Duncan’s brow rose. He’d never heard of someone doing that. Ellen must have loved her husband deeply to want to go through pregnancy and raise their baby all by herself.
“Thank you for the cookies, Missy.” Fiona plucked two from the basket and headed for the door. “We’d better get out there before another murder weapon disappears.”
Missy followed them out the door. “Murder weapon?” she asked.
Fiona gave her a brief smile but ignored her question. “Good luck with the fertility treatments, Missy.”
“Oh, those won’t happen until we save a lot more money.” Missy sighed. “I hope that will be soon.”
Duncan dipped his head. “Missy, have a good day.” He followed Fiona out to the SUV and held the driver’s door for her.
She frowned up at him and hesitated getting into the vehicle. “I thought you were driving?”
“Changed my mind,” he said and waited for her to get in. Then he closed the door and walked around to get into the passenger seat. After he buckled his belt, he reached beneath his jacket and pulled out his hand gun. With a click, he released the magazine, checked that it was fully loaded and shoved it back into the handle. When he looked up, he realized they hadn’t moved from the parking space. His gaze met hers. “What?”
“Preparing for war?” she asked, a smile quirking the corners of her lips.
Her cocky look and the hint of mirth took him back to their high school days. “Have I ever told you that you have a beautiful smile?”
To his disappointment, her smile disappeared. “No.”
“Then I’m sorry I’ve been neglectful in that respect. I remember you smiling a lot more back in the day.”
She shifted into gear, her lips thinning into a straight line. “I had a lot more to smile about, back then.”
“And you don’t now…?” His gaze never wavered from her, but she wasn’t meeting his with her own.
“No. Except for Caity. My world revolves around her. It’s a lot of responsibility, raising a baby and keeping her safe from harm.” She held up a hand. “Not that I resent the responsibility. It’s just that it weighs heavily on me. Every decision I make has to take her welfare into account. She’s dependent on me for everything. If I die…”
“Caity has an entire family of McKinnons to look out for her. But you’re right. She needs her mother.” He stared at the road ahead, his gun in his lap. “Are you sure you want to confront the Faulkners?”
Fiona nodded. “I have to believe they won’t out and out shoot me.”
“If you find what you’re looking for, will you make the arrest?”
“I had hoped I could say yes. But if we find the vehicle that hit Wally, how will I know who was driving it? And without a warrant, I can’t confiscate.”
Duncan nodded. “They’re not going to give up the murderer.”
“All we know is that it wasn’t Mark. He wasn’t released until this morning.”
“Which means we have two murderers running loose in the county now.” Duncan sighed. “I used to think Eagle Pass and this county would be a great place to raise kids. We had fun and were fairly safe growing up.”
“Times have changed,” Fiona said.
“Or we’re old enough now to recognize bad eggs in a community.”
“I think you’ve got that right. Seems the Faulkners were pulling crap even back when we were kids.”
“Yeah. Beau was busted a couple times for possession with intent to sell drugs to the residents of the reservation.”
“I remember. He’s still up to his same old tricks.”
“What’s Tripp up to now?” Duncan asked.
“He’s running a whore house.” Fiona snorted. “Or rather a whore trailer outside a biker bar on the county line. I think he listens to the police radio, because every time we go out to bust them, they’ve cleared out.”
“I’m surprised their mama’s still alive,” Duncan commented.
“She rules with an iron fist.” Fiona drove out of Eagle Rock, headed for Cooter’s Bluff and the Faulkner compound.
“As much as those boys push others around, you’d think they’d want to be in charge.”
“Barb won’t let them, as long as she’s alive and breathing,” Fiona said.
“My point, exactly.”
Fiona gripped the steering wheel tightly as she entered a curve in the highway. “I guess they’re too afraid that if they shoot at her, they’ll miss. I wouldn’t put it past Barb to kill her own sons if they crossed her.”
“That kind of childrearing isn’t conducive to well-rounded, well-behaved adults.”
Fiona laughed. “No kidding.”
Thirty minutes later, Fiona turned off the highway onto a gravel road leading up into the hills.
The rutted path twisted through a forest of lodgepole pine trees and climbed upward.
When Duncan thought they couldn’t get any deeper into the sticks, the forest opened to a clearing filled with a conglomeration of buildings and shacks. Scattered between them were the rusting remains of old tractors and trucks, stacks of rotting wooden pallets, concrete blocks, more junk and trash.
At the center was a log cabin with a wide front porch. The logs were a weathered gray, showing no signs of having been treated since they’d been erected into a house.
As Fiona pulled to a stop in the middle of the compound, men emerged from neighboring shacks and the log cabin. Each carried guns of varying shapes and sizes—shot guns, rifles, semi-automatic rifles and pistols resting in holsters on jean-clad hips.
For a moment, Duncan felt as though they’d stepped onto the set of a spaghetti western movie in the shootout scene. A lump of unease settled in the pit of his belly. “Maybe we should turn around and head back down the mountain,” he said.
Fiona swallowed, the muscles in her throat working hard. After drawing in a deep breath, she squared her shoulders and pushed open the door. “I’m here for answers.”
Mark Faulkner stood at the top of the steps to the porch. “You’re trespassing.” He held a shotgun in his hands. “Leave, or I’ll shoot.”
“Mark, you’re in enough trouble already for murder, you might as well put that shotgun away before you hurt yourself,” Fiona said.
Mark glared and shifted his weapon to his other hand. “What’s the matter Guthrie? Too afraid of us to come out on your own?”
Fiona lifted her chin and stared into Mark’s eyes. “You don’t scare me, Mark. It won’t be long before we put you away for life for murdering Clay Bennett and Wally Bing.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mark said. “And you’re still trespassing.” He raised his weapon to his shoulder. “You gonna leave, or am I gonna have to claim that I felt I was in danger and had to shoot?”
Fiona raised her hands. “Guess you’ll have to shoot. I’m not leaving until I have answers.”
“What kind of answers are you looking for, girl?” The heavyset Barb Faulkner, pushed through the men crowded onto the front porch. “Fiona Guthrie, how the heck are you?”
Fiona gave a polite nod. “Good, Mrs. Faulkner. Only I’d be a lot better if your people hadn’t sent someone out to hurt me and defile my house. Know anything about that?”
Barb’s eyes narrowed. “Why do you think we had anything to do with it?”
Fiona’s gaze swept the menagerie of vehicles. She stopped at the largest, a monster truck with oversized tires and a jacked-up suspension. “I had word Wally Bing worked for you.”
Barb stared at Fiona. “He did.”
Fiona ambled toward the big truck, still talking. Duncan followed, his attention moving from one Faulkner to another. They circled around him and Fiona, closing them in.
He didn’t like that their escape route had been cut off. Duncan kept his jacket loose, his hands free and ready to dive for the weapon beneath his arm. He’d have to be quick and ready to drop and roll, or they’d cut him down first.
Drawing his weapon first would be a huge mistake at this point. If they shot him, that would leave Fiona unprotected.
He wished he’d convinced her to wait until they could bring the Montana Army National Guard as backup. The Faulkners weren’t going to turn over any of their own. Not without a fight.
“And Wally was working for you when he trashed my house and wrote your message on my wall.” She didn’t ask. She squared off with Barb and crossed her arms over her chest.
Barb planted her hands on her hips. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Wally didn’t have any reason to tell me to keep my mouth shut.” She tipped her head toward Mark who still held his shotgun to his shoulder, aimed at her. “Mark, however, has a shit-ton of reasons, namely fifty years to life for committing murder.”
Duncan tensed and moved to stand between Mark and Fiona.
“Why you—” The murderer shifted his hold on the shotgun.
His mother raised her hand and brought the shotgun down to point at the porch, not Fiona. “You got a lot of nerve comin’ out here without a search warrant, accusin’ me and mine of murderin’ Wally Bing when we were here all night playin’ poker. I got witnesses who can attest to that fact.” She glanced around at the men surrounding them. “Don’t I?”
By the time Barb finished speaking, Fiona had reached the front of the jacked-up pickup with a dent in the front bumper and a piece of fabric hanging off a ragged piece of metal.
Duncan could see what she’d been looking for, and he held his breath.
“Did I say I was here about Wally Bing’s murder?” Fiona raised an eyebrow.
“Why else are you out here harassing us?” Barb demanded.
“Any reason why I should think you had anything to do with Wally’s death?” Fiona asked, her voice dead even. “He had to mean something to you. He worked for you. Or had he misspelled your intended message on the wall of my bedroom or done something else to warrant being run over by a pickup with knobby tires, not once, but several times?”
“It’s time for you to leave.” Tripp Faulkner stepped up behind Fiona before Duncan could get between them.
“Move away from the deputy,” Duncan said.
“We ain’t got no gripe with the McKinnons,” Barb said. “Leave my boy alone.”
“I will when he moves away from the deputy,” Duncan said, his fists clenching.
“I can handle this,” Fiona said. She’d tensed and was ready to do battle, but Tripp had seventy to one hundred pounds on her, and she had her back to him.
He made a grab for her, hooking his arm around her neck.
In the blink of an eye, Fiona elbowed the man in the gut, slipped beneath his elbow and yanked his arm up behind his back, pushing it hard between his shoulder blades.
“Bitch!” he yelled.
“You attacked me. I defended myself. What did you expect?” When he tried to jerk himself free, Fiona pushed the arm up higher until Tripp stood on his toes to ease the pain.
“Duncan McKinnon, you best get your woman in order,” Barb called out.
Duncan held up his hands. “Seems to me you need to get your son in order. All I witnessed was a woman being attacked and defending herself. Like she said.” And he was damned proud of her.
One more reason to love Fiona and want her in his life forever.
With the Faulkners surrounding them at gunpoint, that forever wasn’t looking like it would last for long.
Chapter 12
