Double Action Deputy, page 3
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MAUREEN “MO” MORTENSEN wiped the steam off the cracked mirror and locked eyes with the woman in the glass, but only for an instant. She didn’t like what she saw in her blue eyes. It scared her. Sometimes she didn’t recognize herself and the woman she’d become.
Splashing cold water on her face, she thought of what had happened at the hospital. She’d come close to getting caught. But that wasn’t all she’d come close to. If that deputy marshal hadn’t walked in when he had...
She was still shaken, not just by Natalie’s condition. She felt sick to her stomach at the memory. She’d looked down at the woman’s bruised face. It had been true, what she’d heard. Natalie had been abducted and held prisoner. She’d thought she couldn’t feel sympathy for what the woman must have gone through, but she’d been wrong. She didn’t wish that sort of treatment on anyone, even a murderer.
For a long moment, she’d stood next to Natalie’s bed, staring down at her. Had she been trying to see the monster behind the skin and bone? When the woman had opened her eyes, it had startled her. She’d read on her chart that she was catatonic. But looking into the Natalie’s eyes, she’d seen fear, surprise and then something even more shocking—resignation.
Natalie had known why Mo had sneaked into the hospital dressed as a nurse. Would Mo have gone through with it? She might never know because the woman’s words had stopped her cold.
Mo still felt stunned. By the time the words had registered, the deputy had come into the hospital room. She’d wanted to scream because she’d known that her chance to question Natalie had passed. All she could do was clear out of there with the hope that she could get another chance to question Natalie alone.
It surprised her that now she wanted the truth more than she wanted vengeance.
Unfortunately, she also now had the law looking for her. Getting free of the deputy had been instinctive. How could she reach Natalie again, though, with even more people looking for her? That cocky deputy marshal would be after her.
She pushed the thought away. She had more problems than some deputy marshal. Her body ached. Even when she could find the haven of sleep, she often woke bone-weary, more tired than she’d ever been. In her dreams, she’d been chasing Natalie Berkshire for months. In real life, it had only been since the woman had been released from custody—two weeks ago.
Today was the closest she’d come to finishing this. That moment of hesitation had cost her. She remembered looking into those pale hazel eyes. Natalie had known exactly who she was. The words she’d spoken weren’t those of a mad woman. Nor of a liar. That was what had made them so shocking.
Natalie had known why Mo was there. She’d been ready to die. Because she knew she deserved it? Or because she knew she couldn’t keep running?
In all the time she’d been a cop, Mo had never hesitated when everything was on the line, and yet earlier... If Natalie really had been catatonic... If she hadn’t opened her eyes. If she hadn’t spoken... The thought chilled her. Would she have gone through with what she’d planned?
Shaking her head at her disappointment in not being able to question Natalie after the woman had dropped that bombshell, she threw what little she’d brought into her suitcase. She didn’t have time for introspection or recriminations. Or to try to analyze what the woman said or what it could mean.
She would get another chance to talk to Natalie—hopefully alone. She had to. Natalie had evaded almost everyone—except whoever had abducted her. Mo thought about the woman’s bruises. Whoever had found her didn’t want her dead. They wanted to punish her and had.
The thought pained her. It wasn’t as if the woman was a stranger. She’d known Natalie. Or at least she thought she’d known her. Mo had spent time at that house with her sister and brother-in-law and their live-in nanny. She’d watched the woman not just with little Joey, but with her sister. Tricia had bonded with Natalie. The three women had become friends. Mo had liked the quiet, pleasant Natalie Berkshire. What’s more, she’d seen that her sister had liked the woman as well and vice versa. Natalie, during those months, had become part of the family.
That thought hurt more than she wanted to admit. They’d all trusted the woman—even Mo. She had to talk to Natalie again. If there was even a chance that what she’d said might be true...
It surprised her how just a few words from the woman could change everything. When a friend at the police department had called her to say that something had come up on the scanner, she’d driven to Big Sky as fast as she could. The marshal in Big Sky said he’d called Billings PD to let them know that he had Natalie Berkshire after she’d apparently escaped after being abducted. Mo had arrived late last night. When she’d stopped on the edge of Big Sky to get something to eat at an all-night convenience store and deli, she’d overheard a table of nurses talking. One night shift nurse had described the woman who’d been brought in.
Mo had felt a chill ripple through her. From the description, she’d known it was true. The patient was Natalie, no matter how bizarre the circumstances that had landed her in the Big Sky hospital.
She’d listened to the night nurse talking in a low, confidential tone and caught enough to know that the woman brought in had been held captive for an unknown amount of time. She heard the words duct tape, bruises, a torn and filthy sheet.
She’d also heard that a deputy marshal by the name of Brick Savage had found her and gotten her to the hospital—the closest hospital in the area—where she had originally been listed as a Jane Doe. Until her prints had come back.
This morning, Mo had picked up scubs and Crocs at the discount store. She’d walked into the hospital as if she knew what she was doing. The older woman at the information desk only smiled as she went by.
Upstairs, she’d found Natalie’s room by looking for the deputy she’d heard had been parked outside it. All she’d had to do was give him a smile and walk right into the room.
One glance toward the bed and she’d known she was about to get her chance for justice. It was Natalie, and given the shape she was in, Mo knew that someone else had caught up to her first. She’d suspected for some time that she wasn’t the only one looking for the woman.
She’d thought she’d known exactly what she would do when she found her. She owed it to her sister and to Thomas, her sister’s still grieving husband, and to little Joey, their infant son. She’d kept what she was doing from Thomas. He’d been so devastated by the loss of his son and wife that he’d begged Mo to let it go.
“I can’t take anymore,” he’d cried when she’d argued that she had to find evidence to stop Natalie.
“But she’ll kill again,” she’d argued.
“For the love of God, Mo. I never want to hear that woman’s name again. For months Tricia and I thought we’d get justice. When Natalie was released...” Tricia had killed herself. “I need to make peace with this. I hope you can, too.”
She had known that she wouldn’t find peace until Natalie was either dead or behind bars. She had been determined that Natalie would not destroy another family.
But then Natalie had opened her eyes and said the only words that could have changed her mind—even temporarily.
Mo moved to the motel room door, suitcase in hand. She looked back to make sure she hadn’t left anything behind. She figured that it wouldn’t take long, between the deputy who’d gotten a good look at her and the surveillance cameras, before they knew her name. That would definitely make finding her easier since she’d used her real name when she’d checked into the motel.
She wouldn’t make that mistake again, she thought. Nor would it be a good idea to stay in any one place too long. Not that she was planning on this taking any longer than necessary. She would get back into the hospital. Security would be tighter. They would be watching for her.
Mo knew that the best thing she could do was wait until Natalie was released, but she had no idea when that would be. Also, she knew that Billings homicide were on their way—because some old cases were now being reopened and other departments were anxious to talk to Natalie. If they didn’t arrest her and Natalie was released from the hospital, she would run like a scared rabbit and be all that much harder to catch.
She picked up her purse on the table by the door, swung the strap over her shoulder and, shifting the suitcase in her hand, reached with the other one to open the door. She already had a plan simmering at the back of her mind, a way to get into the hospital again.
She’d go to the store, get some supplies to change her appearance. This time she’d go in not as a nurse, but as a male workman instead. She would bluff her way in and no matter what she had to do, she’d get into Natalie’s room. She would get the truth out of the woman and then...
Mo refused to think beyond that point. What she had in mind had never sat easy with her. But she felt she had no choice. She was convinced of what would happen if Natalie was as guilty as she believed and she didn’t stop her.
With purse and suitcase in hand, she opened the door and stepped out of the motel room—right into a pair of deputies...and handcuffs.
Chapter Four
Angry and frustrated, Brick was even more determined to find out the truth about Natalie Berkshire. He knew he was taking one hell of a chance, but he drove through town to Highway 191 to the convenience store where Natalie Berkshire had allegedly been abducted. Inside, he bought an ice cream cone and asked the clerk if she’d been on duty that day when the woman had been abducted. She hadn’t, but she told him everything the other clerk had told her.
Behind the wheel of his pickup again, he sat and ate his ice cream cone. The appointment with the psychiatrist had gone better than he’d hoped. He liked the man and thought his father was right. Talking about what had happened up on the mountain might get rid of the nightmares. He would gladly see the last of them. They were too vivid and bizarre, a jumble of confusing, frightening images that finally woke him in a cold sweat.
He knew he shouldn’t have been surprised, but after talking about it and everything else that had happened in the past twenty-four hours, he felt drained. He had gotten hardly any sleep last night after Natalie Berkshire stumbled into his headlights. He’d been coming from the late shift. Finding her had added even more dark images to his sleep.
Now he couldn’t help thinking about her or the blonde cop, Mo. Was Natalie a killer? Or was she innocent? Was Mo a vigilante cop with a need for vengeance? Or was she like a lot of people who feared Natalie had gotten away with murder and would kill again if not stopped?
Two women. One set on escape. The other on closure. But someone else, who was set on dispensing his own brand of justice, had already abducted Natalie Berkshire. Would they have eventually killed her if she hadn’t escaped?
And what would the rogue cop do now if she wasn’t found and stopped?
Brick knew the answers were out there and he desperately wanted to find them. He still swore that Natalie had spoken to the cop. Said something that had stopped her. Something in addition to continuing to swear she was innocent. The more he thought about it, he realized that the two had known each other before the murder. Natalie had been her sister’s nanny. Who knows how close they might have been.
What a complicated, intriguing case. It did make him wonder who was innocent. It also made him want to help solve it more than he’d ever wanted anything.
He sat in his truck for a few minutes after eating his ice cream, trying to decide what to do—if anything. He was exhausted from everything that had happened, not just in the past twenty-four hours. As he shifted in the seat, he felt his harmonica in his pocket and pulled it out. He’d carried the musical instrument from the day his grandfather Angus had given it to him. It had taken him a lot longer than he’d hoped to learn how to play it. But he’d stayed with it until he’d finally mastered a few of his favorite tunes. As was his character, he wasn’t one to give up.
That was why it hurt so much to realize that he hadn’t played the harmonica since the events up on the mountain in Wyoming. Nor did he want to. He put it back in his pocket and had to swallow the lump in his throat. Maybe he wasn’t as well as he thought he was. Not yet. But he would be.
He needed to solve this puzzle for his own sake. It seemed to him that at least two people were after Natalie Berkshire. One was a suspended cop. The other was the person who’d caught up to her, abducted her and abused her. The clerk at the convenience store had said that all the other clerk had seen was a large motor home driven by an elderly man.
Starting his pickup’s engine, he realized a place to begin would be finding where Natalie had been held. He’d discovered her on his street, but he knew she could have come from anywhere. All he knew for certain was the first spot she’d appeared.
He drove to his neighborhood. The businesses were all open now, the streets busy since it was June in Montana and the beginning of tourist season. He circled the block, extending his circles further out with each lap.
If he were going to abduct someone he would need a safe place to keep the person. Somewhere away from other people. In a way this could be the perfect neighborhood—at least at night. But during the day, there were too many construction workers around as well as tourists and shop owners and workers. Also, most of the new structures didn’t have basements, so where had Natalie been held?
Brick had just turned down another street when he saw that he was running out of town. The landscape around Big Sky was sagebrush before the terrain went up into towering pine-covered mountains. The Gallatin River cut through it, forming the deep, often dark canyon. A sign caught his eye. Campground.
He felt as if he’d been touched with a cattle prod. The clerk at the convenience store had seen a motor home pull in when she’d lost sight of Natalie. He’d at first assumed that the motor home had blocked her view of whoever had taken the woman. But what if whoever had taken the woman had been driving the motor home?
He pointed his truck down the road to the south, but he hadn’t gone far when he heard the bleep of a siren. Glancing in his rearview mirror, he saw the quick flash of the light bar on the patrol SUV that was now behind him.
With a curse, he pulled over and got out to walk back to talk to his father.
“I know what you’re doing,” Hud said with a sigh.
Brick wasn’t going to deny it. “I think I know where she was held. That motor home that pulled in. I think she was being held at the campground up the road.”
His father shook his head in exasperation before saying, “Get in. I was just headed there. How did I know you’d be going my way?”
Brick grinned at him as he slid in. “You’re psychic. I remember when Angus and I were boys. You were always one step ahead of us.”
“And you were always the ringleader and the one that never did what you were told, let alone listened to any advice I gave you.”
“Her feet were covered in dirt from walking through soil before she reached my neighborhood.”
His father didn’t respond, but he saw a small smile curve the man’s lips as he drove and Brick buckled up. The campground was just off Highway 191 in stands of pines that offered privacy for campers. It also allowed self-contained rigs to stay for several weeks for free because there were no outhouses or water. Just as there was no campground host. The isolated campsites were large enough to accommodate a motor home.
Even this time of day with the sun high in the sky, the canyon was cold and dark. Brick had been away from home for so long he’d forgotten just how tight the Gallatin Canyon was in places. Highway 191 was a narrow strip of pavement hemmed in on one side by the river and mountain cliffs on the other. It was often filled with deep shadows and stayed cool even in the summer because of a lack of sunshine. During the last widening of the highway, small pullouts had been added for slower vehicles to pull over to let others pass when there was room.
June weather was often unpredictable. It wasn’t uncommon for it to snow and end up closing some roads. That was why July and August were the big travel months in this part of Montana. Because of that, the campground would have been relatively empty the past few weeks.
Only two rigs were still parked among the trees. One was a pickup and camper. The other an SUV pulling a small travel trailer.
The marshal pulled in, turned off the engine and said, “Stay here and try to remember that you’re just along for the ride.”
Brick watched his father unsnap the weapon on his hip as he climbed out and walked toward to the small trailer. If Marshal Hud Savage was anything, he was cautious, and with reason. They had no idea who had taken Natalie Berkshire prisoner or how many people might be in on it.
Over the patrol SUV radio came a call. Brick picked it up. “Deputy Brick Savage.”
The dispatcher said, “Just wanted to let the marshal know that a couple of deputies just brought in Maureen Mortensen.”
They’d found the blonde cop already? “I’ll let him know.” As he got off the radio, he saw his father standing at the trailer door. Sometimes he forgot how large a man Hud Savage was. He had always been broad-shouldered and strong as an ox. Even at almost retirement age, he was still a big man, still impressive in not just his size. He’d always been good at what he did as well, Brick thought with a flood of emotion. He wanted so badly to follow in this man’s footsteps, but worried he could never fill his boots.
He watched as a rather rotund man answered the marshal’s knock.
Popping open his door so he could hear, Brick listened to his father questioning the man before moving on to the next rig.
Brick couldn’t hear as well this time, but he saw the man who answered the marshal’s knock point to a space at the back of the campground. His father nodded, then headed in that direction.
