Double Action Deputy, page 1
A relentless marshal. A rogue detective.
A bargain they may not live long enough to regret.
When Montana deputy marshal Brick Savage asks homicide detective Maureen Mortensen to help him find the person who destroyed her family, she quickly accepts his offer. But as the stakes rise and they get closer to the truth more horrible than they ever expected, can they find the murderer before they become targets?
New York Times Bestselling Author
“Mo? You’d better come over here.”
She turned to find Brick next to a large pine tree on the mountainside’s edge. As she approached, she saw the crude heart carved into the pine’s bark.
There were two sets of initials at the center: her sister Tricia’s, a plus sign and JP. Tricia’s secret lover had used her maiden name initial. Wishful thinking on his part? Or is that the last name she’d given him?
“Know anyone with those initials?” Brick asked.
Mo shook her head. “I have no idea who JP is.”
A gunshot echoed through the trees, splintering the bark on the tree next to her. Several nearby birds took flight, wings flapping wildly as Brick lunged for Mo, taking them both to the ground.
The second shot ricocheted off the tree where they had been standing, sending bark flying. And then there was nothing but the sound of the breeze in the pines and the seemingly hushed roar of the creek. Not even the birds sang...
DOUBLE ACTION DEPUTY
New York Times Bestselling Author
B.J. Daniels
B.J. Daniels is a New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author. She wrote her first book after a career as an award-winning newspaper journalist and author of thirty-seven published short stories. She lives in Montana with her husband, Parker, and three springer spaniels. When not writing, she quilts, boats and plays tennis. Contact her at bjdaniels.com, on Facebook or on Twitter, @bjdanielsauthor.
Books by B.J. Daniels
Harlequin Intrigue
Cardwell Ranch: Montana Legacy
Steel Resolve
Iron Will
Ambush Before Sunrise
Double Action Deputy
Whitehorse, Montana: The Clementine Sisters
Hard Rustler
Rogue Gunslinger
Rugged Defender
The Montana Cahills
Cowboy’s Redemption
Whitehorse, Montana: The McGraw Kidnapping
Dark Horse
Dead Ringer
Rough Rider
HQN Books
Montana Justice
Restless Hearts
Heartbreaker
Sterling’s Montana
Stroke of Luck
Luck of the Draw
Just His Luck
The Montana Cahills
Renegade’s Pride
Outlaw’s Honor
Hero’s Return
Rancher’s Dream
Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Brick Savage—The deputy marshal feared he wasn’t up to the job—until he busted the suspended homicide cop out of jail.
Maureen “Mo” Mortensen—The suspended homicide cop was determined to get justice. Even if it meant taking a green deputy marshal with her.
Natalie Berkshire—The nanny-nurse was a woman with a lot of secrets. But even the guilty aren’t guilty of everything they’re accused of sometimes.
Marshal Hud Savage—He was worried his son had no idea what he was getting himself into and it could get him killed.
Dana Cardwell Savage—The last thing she wanted was for her son to follow in his father’s footsteps. But she was a woman who had faith and knew when to let go.
Thomas Colton—He’d lost more than the woman he loved and his newborn son.
Tricia Colton—Mo’s sister had the biggest secret of them all and she’d taken it to the grave with her.
This book is for Kay Hould for all her loving support and encouragement. She is definitely not the gray-haired historical society woman in my Whitehorse, Montana series. But that is how we first met because of it.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Excerpt from Running Out of Time by Cindi Myers
Chapter One
Ghostlike, the woman stumbled out of the dark night and into the glare of his headlights. The tattered bedsheet wrapped around her fluttered in the breeze along with the duct tape that dangled from her wrists and one ankle.
He saw her look up as if she hadn’t heard his pickup bearing down on her until the last moment. The night breeze lifted wisps of her dark hair from an ashen face as she turned her vacant gaze on him an instant before he slammed on his brakes.
The air filled with the smell and squeal of tires burning on the dark pavement as the pickup came to a shuddering halt. He sat for a moment, gripping the wheel and staring in horror into the glow of his headlights and seeing...nothing. Nothing but the empty street ahead just blocks from his apartment.
He threw the truck into Park and jumped out, convinced, even though he hadn’t felt or heard a thud, that he’d hit her and that he’d find her lying bleeding on the pavement. How could he have missed her?
If there’d been a woman at all.
In those few seconds, leaving the driver’s side door gaping open, the engine running, he was terrified of what he would find—and even more terrified of what he wouldn’t.
Could he have just imagined the woman in his headlights? It wouldn’t be the first time he’d had a waking nightmare since he’d come home to recuperate. He felt the cold breeze in his face even though it was June in Montana. The temperature at night dropped this time of year, the mountains still snowcapped. He shivered as he rounded the front of the truck and stopped dead.
His heart dropped to his boots.
The pavement was empty.
His pulse thundered in his ears.
I am losing my mind. I hallucinated the woman.
For months, he’d assured himself he was fine. Except for the nightmares that plagued him, something he’d done his best to keep from his family since returning to Cardwell Ranch.
Doubt sent a stab of alarm through him that made him weak with worry. He leaned against the front of the pickup. Why would he imagine such an image? What was wrong with him? He’d seen her. He’d seen every detail.
He really was losing his mind.
As he glanced around the empty street, he suddenly felt frighteningly all alone as if he was the last person left alive on the earth. This late at night, the new businesses were dark in this neighborhood, some still under construction. The ones that were opened closed early, making the area a ghost town at night. It was one reason he’d taken the apartment over one of the new shops. He’d told his folks that he moved off the ranch for the peace and quiet. He didn’t want them knowing that his nightmares hadn’t stopped. They were getting worse.
A groan from the darkness made him jump. His heart pounded in his throat as he turned to stare into the blackness beyond the edge of the street. The sound definitely hadn’t been his imagination. The night was so dark he couldn’t see anything after the pavement ended. The sidewalks hadn’t been poured yet, some of the streets not yet paved. He heard another sound that appeared to be coming from down the narrow alley between two buildings under construction.
He quickly stepped back to the driver’s side of his pickup and grabbed his flashlight. Walking through the glow of his headlights, he headed into the darkness beyond the street. The narrow beam of light skittered to the edge of the pavement and froze on a spot of blood.
Deeper into the dirt alley, the beam came to rest on the woman as she tried to crawl away. She clawed at the ground, clearly exhausted, clearly terrified, before collapsing halfway down the alley.
She wasn’t an apparition. And she was alive! He rushed to her. Her forehead was bleeding from a small cut, and her hands and knees were scraped from crawling across the rough pavement and then the dirt to escape. In the flashlight’s glow, he saw that her face was bruised from injuries she’d suffered before tonight. From what he could tell, his pickup hadn’t hit her.
But there was no doubt that she was terrified. Her eyes widened in horror at the sight of him. A high-pitched keening sound filled the air and she kicked at him and stumbled to her feet. He could see that she was exhausted because she hadn’t taken more than few steps when she dropped to her knees and tried to crawl away again.
She was shivering uncontrollably in the tattered sheet wrapped around her. He caught up to her, took off his jacket and put it over her, fearing she was suffering from hypothermia. He could see that her wrists and ankles were chafed wh
“It’s all right,” he said as he pulled out his cell phone to call for help. “You’re all right now. I’m going to get help.” She lay breathing hard, collapsed in the dirt. “Can you tell me who did this to you? Miss, can you hear me?” he asked, leaning closer to make sure she was still breathing. Her pale eyes flew open, startling him as much as the high-pitched scream that erupted from her.
As the 911 operator came on the line, he had to yell to be heard over the woman’s shrieks. “This is Deputy Marshal Brick Savage,” he said as he gave the address, asking for assistance and an ambulance ASAP.
Chapter Two
After very little sleep and an early call from his father the next morning, Brick dressed in his uniform and drove down to the law enforcement building. He was hoping that this would be the day that his father, Marshal Hud Savage, told him he would finally be on active duty. He couldn’t wait to get his teeth into something, a real investigation. After finding that woman last night, he wanted more than anything to be the one to get her justice.
“Come in and close the door,” his father said before motioning him into a chair across from his desk.
“Is this about the woman I encountered last night?” he asked as he removed his Stetson and dropped into a chair across from him. He’d stayed at the hospital until the doctor had sent him home. When he called this morning, he’d been told that the woman appeared to be in a catatonic state and was unresponsive.
“We have a name on your Jane Doe,” his father said now. “Natalie Berkshire.”
Brick frowned. The name sounded vaguely familiar. But that wasn’t what surprised him. “Already? Her fingerprints?”
Hud nodded and slid a copy of the Billings Gazette toward him. He picked it up and saw the headline sprawled across the front page, Alleged Infant Killer Released for Lack of Evidence. The newspaper was two weeks old.
Brick felt a jolt rock him back in his chair. “She’s that woman?” He couldn’t help his shock. He thought of the terrified woman who’d crossed in front of his truck last night. Nothing like the woman he remembered seeing on television coming out of the law enforcement building in Billings after being released.
“I don’t know what to say.” Nor did he know what to think. The woman he’d found had definitely been victimized. He thought he’d saved her. He’d been hell-bent on getting her justice. With his Stetson balanced on his knee, he raked his fingers through his hair.
“I’m trying to make sense of this, as well,” his father said. “Since her release, more evidence had come out in former cases. She’s now wanted for questioning in more deaths of patients who’d been under her care from not just Montana. Apparently, the moment she was released, she disappeared. Billings PD checked her apartment. It appeared that she’d left in a hurry and hasn’t been seen since.”
“Until last night when she stumbled in front of my pickup,” Brick said. “You think she’s been held captive all this time?”
“Looks that way,” Hud said. “We found her older model sedan parked behind the convenience store down on Highway 191. We’re assuming she’d stopped for gas. The attendant who was on duty recognized her from a photo. She remembered seeing Natalie at the gas pumps and thinking she looked familiar but couldn’t place her at the time. The attendant said a large motor home pulled in and she lost sight of her and didn’t see her again.”
“When was this?” Brick asked.
“Two weeks ago. Both the back seat and the trunk of her car were full of her belongings.”
“So she was running away when she was abducted.” Brick couldn’t really blame her. “After all the bad publicity, I can see why she couldn’t stay in Billings. But taking off like that makes her either look guilty—or scared.”
“Or both. This case got a lot of national coverage for months. Unfortunately, her case was tried in the press and she was found guilty. When there wasn’t sufficient evidence in the Billings case to prosecute, they had no choice but to let her go. My guess is that someone who didn’t like the outcome took the law into his own hands.”
Brick nodded. “It would be some coincidence if she was abducted and held by someone who had no idea who she was.” He shook his head, remembering the terror he’d seen in her eyes. “What if she’s innocent of these crimes?”
“It seems that all of her nursing care positions involved patients with severe health issues,” Hud said. “It’s no surprise that a lot of the old cases are being reopened now. All of her patients died before she moved on to her next nursing job.”
“So foul play was never considered in most of the other deaths?” Brick said. “But it is now even though she was released. No wonder she ran.”
His father nodded. “Several of the Billings homicide detectives are on their way. I get the impression they might have discovered more evidence against her. It’s possible they plan to arrest her—or at the least, take her into custody for questioning.”
Brick rubbed the back of his neck as he tried to imagine the woman he’d found last night as a cold-blooded killer. “And if they don’t?”
“Unless one of the other investigations across the country wants her detained, then, when she’s well, she’ll be released from the hospital and free to go.”
“To be on her own knowing there is someone out there who means her harm?” Brick couldn’t help being shocked by that. “Someone abducted her, held her captive for apparently weeks and if not tortured her, definitely did a number on her.” He couldn’t help his warring emotions. The woman might be guilty as sin. Or not. Clearly, she wasn’t safe. He’d seen how terrified she’d been last night. Someone had found her. He didn’t doubt they would again.
“Once the press finds out who the woman is in our hospital, it will be a media circus,” his father was saying. “I know you found her, but I’d prefer you stay out of this. However, I’m sure Billings homicide will want to talk to you. This will have to be handled delicately, to say the least.”
“You don’t think I can do delicate?”
The marshal smiled as he leaned back in his chair. “I think you’re going to make a damned good deputy marshal, maybe even marshal, in time.” In time. Time had suddenly become Brick’s enemy. “You’ve gotten the training,” his father continued, “and once you get the last medical release...”
Brick didn’t need the reminder of what had happened to him. The fact that he’d almost died wasn’t something he’d forgotten. He had the scars to remind him. Those and the nightmares. But he hadn’t just been wounded in the mountains of Wyoming and almost died. He’d killed the man who shot him. He wasn’t sure which haunted him the most.
He also didn’t need another pep talk on being patient until he got a mental health physician to release him for active duty. Until then, he was sentenced to doing menial desk job work.
“I should get going.” No matter what his father said, he had to see the woman again. He wasn’t scheduled to work until later. He had plenty of time to stop by the hospital before his appointment with the shrink and his desk job shift. But as he started to get to his feet, his father waved him back down.
“Brick, if you’re thinking of going by the hospital, you should know that she can’t tell you what happened to her or who is responsible. She’s in what the doctor called a catatonic or unresponsive state, something often associated with trauma.”
“I know, I already called, but I have to see her.” He couldn’t forget that moment when she’d appeared in front of his headlights. It haunted him—just as the woman did. “I found her. I almost hit her with my pickup. I feel...connected to her.”
Brick knew it was a lot more than that. He was going crazy sitting behind a desk, cooling his heels until the shrink said he was ready to get to work. It left him too much time to think.
Not that he would tell his father or the psychiatrist he was required to see later today, but finding that woman last night had brought back his ordeal in Wyoming. That was another reason he wanted—needed—to see this through.
* * *
