Page 11 of Engaging the Deputy (Silver Stars of Montana #3)

Jaden couldn’t help being frustrated by this case, by everything. As he climbed into his patrol SUV, he admitted that seeing Olivia again had him so far off-kilter, he didn’t know which way was up.

Worse, if she and Cody had argued the night of the tornado, which he suspected they had, she could have picked up a rock and flung it at him without thinking.

While she’d never been impulsive, her decision to return home seemed that way.

She didn’t seem to have an answer for why she’d come home or how long she planned to stay. That wasn’t like her.

After interviewing her, he’d checked. She’d quit her job, one that she’d worked so hard, apparently, to get since it was what she said she’d dreamed of since she was a girl.

Why would she do that? He’d assumed she was happy with the decision she’d made after wanting to postpone their wedding indefinitely so she could fulfill that dream.

His cell phone rang. Pushing aside his suspicions and concerns about Olivia for the time being, he saw it was the crime lab.

“Thought you’d want to know about those bones uncovered up there,” the technician said. “I’m not sure if you were informed, but there were two sets in that pile. The one set is from a teenage girl. The second set is male, somewhere from twenty-five to thirty.”

“Will you be able to get DNA from them?” Jaden asked.

“Doubtful, but with the girl, quite a bit of her clothing had also been buried with her.” Even before he described it, Jaden knew the bones were going to be Evangeline Rusk’s.

“Were there any other remains, like a baby’s?

” No. That meant she hadn’t been pregnant, the baby had been too small and its bones had deteriorated, or Evangeline had already given birth.

Jaden thanked him and disconnected, thinking that he needed to find Elden Rusk, if he was still alive, and give him the news.

Meanwhile, he needed to talk to Emery Jordan. Starting his SUV, he headed for Emery’s bike shop.

He found him working on what looked like a vintage Harley, all the parts spread out on the floor around him. Seeing the man at work, he was reminded of the expression “happier than a pig in mud.”

Emery looked up, but it had taken Jaden yelling his name several times over the rock music playing in the garage area before he acknowledged him.

The deputy motioned toward the bike shop office and headed in that direction. Emery came in a few minutes later, wiping his greasy hands on a rag before he turned down the music. It was more tolerable in here than in the garage, but still loud.

“More questions?” Emery asked and took a seat behind a cluttered desk. “Have a seat.”

Jaden pulled up a padded army-green chair from another era and sat. Emery had bought the old gas station furnished when he’d started his bike shop, the deputy recalled. “How’s business?”

With a shrug, he said, “So-so. It will pick up. It’s always slow this time of year. Is that what you wanted to talk about, my business?”

“Actually, I wanted to talk about your relationship with Rob Perkins,” Jaden said. “I understand Rob was an investor when you started the shop.”

Emery’s eyes narrowed. “You think I killed him so I wouldn’t have to pay him back? He was the first person I paid back when I got the shop running.”

“Okay, if not financial, did you two have any other kind of disagreement?”

“I know what you’re looking for. An argument over a girl or a bet or jealousy because Rob was following his dream.

Sorry, there was none of that. No girl, no bet, and I was happy for Rob.

This,” Emery said, indicating the bike shop, “has always been my dream. You’re barking up the wrong tree.

I would never have killed him or anyone else. ”

“What about Dean Marsh?”

“I don’t have a gripe with him either. Did I approve of what he and Jenny were doing?” He shook his head. “None of my business.”

“What about their spouses?” the deputy asked. “You involved with either of them?”

Emery laughed. “Involved? Me and Tom? Or me and Angie?”

“Either.”

“Now you are just being silly.”

“What about Rob and Dean or Rob and Cody? How’d they get along?”

The bike shop owner hesitated a little too long. “Fine, as far as I know.”

Jaden studied him, picking up on something. Putting his notebook and pen away, he asked, “Why Starling? I heard it was your idea to go out there Halloween night.”

“Really? I might have brought it up, but Rob’s the one who suggested it to me. We’d gone out there before on Halloween growing up, so why not for old times’ sake?”

Yes, why not? “Did anyone from your old group who was at the bar decide not to go?”

Emery thought for a moment before shaking his head.

“What about other people at the bar the night you all decided to do this?” the deputy asked. “Anyone in the crowd have a reason to be listening to your conversation? Anyone with a grudge against you or Rob or Cody or Dean?”

This time there was no mistaking it. Jaden knew he’d hit upon something. Emery looked away for a moment. “Krystal Lee. She and Rob used to date. They broke up when he started talking about a job on the West Coast. I remember seeing her at the bar that night. It was strange.”

“Strange how?”

“She was with Jenny Lee. Neither of them drink alcohol. Jenny’s in AA and Krystal’s pregnant. I got the feeling that they were trolling, you know.”

“So, they could have overheard your plans for Halloween?” Jaden asked.

Emery nodded. “They both left right after that, so maybe they heard what we were talking about.”

“You said Krystal’s pregnant? Is Rob the father of her baby?”

“He swears he’s not.” He seemed to realize what he’d said. “I guess it doesn’t matter now.”

Straightening his Stetson, Jaden rose. “Thanks. If you think of anything else…” He knew there was more; he could feel it.

He still had so many questions. Anyone with a grudge could have been at the bar that night, could have overheard the group’s plans for Halloween—including Jenny and Krystal.

He wondered how Jenny and Dean had ended up together at Starling that night, sans their spouses.

His guess was that Jenny’s husband’s sister, Krystal, wouldn’t have been all right with it.

But there was one way to find out. He’d ask Krystal.

* * *

As Olivia left the hospital, she couldn’t get the blonde off her mind.

How could she not have realized Cody was in a relationship?

A memory surfaced from that night at the bar.

When she’d come up to the table, she recalled Dean elbowing Cody.

She hadn’t caught what he’d said. At the time, she’d thought Dean was kidding Cody because of his surprised look when he’d seen her.

Had anyone mentioned a girlfriend? The guys had all been there without dates or wives.

But now that she thought about it, she knew Cody would have had a girlfriend.

Back in their high school days, before they’d become serious, he’d never been without a date.

He’d been like a magnet, always drawing the opposite sex to him.

He might even have been serious about one or two of them.

Like the blonde she’d seen at the hospital?

As she drove, something in the rearview mirror caught her eye. A dark-colored SUV behind her. She recalled it had pulled out behind her as she’d left the hospital parking lot. She hadn’t thought anything of it, only noticing when she turned out of town—and it did as well.

She couldn’t see the driver’s face with the sun shining off the windshield, but she felt a prickle of concern as she sped up and the driver behind her did the same.

Squinting in the mirror, she tried to read the dirty license plate on the SUV but couldn’t make out the numbers and letters.

Maybe it was someone she knew following her home.

Or not. Her instincts told her not. She started to reach for her phone, only to stop herself. Was she really considering calling Jaden and telling him…what?

Slowing down, Olivia hoped the driver would pass her before they got very far out of town. Her mother’s house was still a couple of miles up the road. It sat on five acres, with no other houses nearby, with no one around since Sharon had said she had a hair appointment in Eureka today.

The driver behind her slowed as well, even though there were no cars coming in the other lane, no reasons not to pass. Except for one.

Her heart began to pound. She gripped the steering wheel, trying to decide what to do. She wasn’t about to try to outrun the driver. Why would anyone be following her?

Rob Perkins had been murdered and Cody attacked the other night at Starling. She’d been there. Was it possible the killer thought she’d seen something incriminating?

She flinched as she noticed in the mirror that the driver of the SUV came racing up behind her. Automatically, she hit the gas to keep him from crashing into the back of her. But when she looked up, she saw a deer standing next to the road.

Startled, the deer jumped forward onto the pavement.

Olivia swerved away from it, but the driver behind her must not have seen it until it was too late.

In her rearview mirror, she saw him also swerve and lose control as the deer bounded away and the SUV careened into the ditch. It came to a stop in the soft earth.

Olivia tried to catch her breath as she reached for her phone to call the deputy.

* * *

Jaden had hoped to find Krystal Lee at home. He left a note for her on her door to call him when she returned and was heading for his patrol SUV when he got the call from Olivia.

The moment he heard her voice, he knew something had happened. “Slow down,” he said, trying to assure her. “What happened?”

“Someone followed me after I left the hospital. I don’t know if they were just trying to scare me or planned to run me off the road.”

He listened as she described the dark-colored SUV and told him about the deer and the driver losing control and ending up in the ditch. “Where are you?”

“I’m at home. Mom’s in town getting her hair done.”

She was alone. He could hear the fear in her voice. “Stay there. I’m on my way.”

The drive out of town didn’t take long. He didn’t bother with his lights and siren since there was so little traffic.

Had it been summer with all the seasonal tourists, it would have been a different story.

Still, he drove fast, worried about Olivia.

The woman he knew didn’t scare easily. But she’d been through a lot lately.

He reminded himself that he still didn’t know what had happened out at Starling to Rob Perkins.

Or to Cody Ryan, for that matter, let alone Dean Marsh.

What he did know was that his former fiancée seemed to be dead center in the middle of it. If she was right about someone trying to run her off the road, her being back in town was becoming more dangerous for her.

He hadn’t gone far when he saw the skid marks on the two-lane blacktop. Slowing, he saw the deep tracks in the earth at the edge of the road and even deeper tire tracks in the barrow pit. But the SUV had managed to drive out and was now gone.

Speeding up, he headed for the house Olivia had grown up in with her single mother. She’d told him stories about her life there before he’d met her at college. She’d said she was afraid of becoming her mother—if she didn’t get away from the small town and make something of herself.

He could relate. He’d also wanted to distance himself from his parents’ life when he was younger. His parents had chased every alternative lifestyle before ending up living off the grid in Alaska. Fortunately, by then, he’d been on his own.

So, as determined as Olivia had been about getting away from here, what was she doing back? he asked himself as he pulled into the drive and she came running out.