Cardwell Ranch Trespasser

chapter Fifteen

“I’m about ten minutes outside of Big Sky,” Colt said when he’d called Hilde’s phone and gotten voice mail. “I don’t know where you are or why you aren’t picking up.” He didn’t know what else to say so he disconnected and tried to call her at the shop.

His anxiety grew when the recording came on giving the shop’s hours. He glanced at his watch. Hilde was a stickler for punctuality. If she’d gone to the shop, there was no way she would be thirty minutes late for work unless something was wrong.

When his phone rang, he thought it was Hilde. Prayed it was. He didn’t even look to see who was calling and was surprised when he heard Hud’s voice.

“I can’t get into all of it right now,” he told Hud, “but I have proof the woman at the ranch isn’t Dee Anna Justice, and I can’t reach Hilde at the shop or on her cell. I can’t reach the ranch, either.”

“I’m on my way home from West Yellowstone,” Hud said. “I haven’t been able to reach Dana, either. I was hoping you had heard something.”

“I’m five minutes out,” Colt said. “I’m going straight to the ranch.”

“I’m twenty minutes out. Call me as soon as you know something.”

He hung up and called the office, asked if there was any backup, but Deputy Liza Turner Cardwell was in Bozeman testifying in a court case and Deputy Jake Thorton was up in the mountains fishing on his day off.

“Liza should be back soon,” Annie had told him.

Not soon enough, he feared. He tried Dana’s brother Jordan. No answer. No surprise. Jordan was busy building his house and probably out peeling logs.

He disconnected as he came up behind a semi, laid on his horn and swore. The driver slowed, but couldn’t find a place to pull over and the road had too many blind curves to pass.

Colt felt a growing sense of urgency. He needed to get to Cardwell Ranch. Now. All his instincts told him that Hilde was there and in trouble. Which meant so were Dana and the kids.

Mentally, he kicked himself as the vehicles in both lanes finally pulled over enough to let him through. He shouldn’t have told Hilde what he found out in Oklahoma. She must have gone out to the ranch to warn Dana. He wouldn’t let himself imagine what the woman calling herself Dee Anna Justice would do if cornered.

* * *

ALONG WITH THE smell of smoke, Hilde caught the sharp scent of fuel oil. She could hear the crackling of flames. The barn was old, the wood dry. Past the sound of fire they heard an engine start up.

For just an instant Hilde thought Dee might be planning to save them—the way she had her at the falls and possibly the way she had tried on the river.

But they heard the pickup leave, the sound dying off as the flames grew louder.

They rushed back to the children. Hilde dug in her pocket for her cell phone, belatedly realizing she’d left it in the SUV when she’d jumped out. She looked up at Dana. “You said you haven’t been able to find your cell phone?”

Dana shook her head. The smoke was getting thicker inside the barn. Hilde could see flames blackening the kindling dry wood on all sides. It wouldn’t be long before the whole barn was ablaze.

“Let’s try to break through the side of the barn,” Hilde said, grabbing up a shovel. She began to pound at the old wood. It splintered but the boards held.

Dana joined her with another shovel.

Hilde couldn’t believe Dee thought she could get away with this. But at the back of her mind, she feared Dee would. Somehow, she would slip out of this, the same way she had as a kid. The same way she had killed her brother and gone free. And it would be too late for Hilde and Dana and the kids.

“I can’t believe she would hurt innocent children,” Dana said, tears in her eyes.

“What’s wrong, Mommy?” Mary asked.

“Is the barn on fire?” Hank asked.

Hilde and Dana kept pounding at the wood at the back of the stall. If she could just make a hole large enough for the kids to climb out.

The wood finally gave way. She and Dana grabbed hold of the board and were able to break it off to form a small hole. Not large enough for them, but definitely large enough to get the children out.

What would happen to them if Dee saw them, though? They’d heard the sound of the pickup engine, but what if she hadn’t really left? The question passed silently between the two friends.

“We’re going to play another game,” Dana said, crouching down next to Mary and Hank. “You and your sister are going to crawl out. I am going to hand you Angus and Brick. Then you’re going to go hide in that outbuilding where we keep the old tractor. You can’t let Dee see you, okay?”

Hank nodded. “We’ll sneak along the haystack. No one will see us.”

“Good boy,” Dana said, her voice breaking with emotion. “Take care of the babies until either me or Daddy calls you. Don’t make a sound if Dee calls you, okay? Now hurry.”

Hilde looked out through the hole. No sign of Dee. She helped Hank out and Dana handed him Angus. Mary crawled out next and took Brick. They quickly disappeared from sight.

The smoke was thick now, the flames licking closer and closer as the whole barn went up in flames.

“Oh, Hilde, I’m so sorry for not trusting you,” Dana cried, and hugged her.

“Right now, we have to find a way out of here.”

The two of them tried to find another spot along the wall where they could get out. The barn was old but sturdily built, and the smoke was so thick now that staying low wasn’t helping. They could hear the flames growing closer and closer.

With a whoosh the back of the barn began to cave in.

The rest of the structure groaned and creaked. But over the roar of the flames and the falling boards, Hilde heard another sound. A vehicle headed in their direction.

* * *

DEE HAD LEFT Dana a note. “I couldn’t find you and the kids when I got ready to leave for the airport, so I borrowed your pickup. Thank you for everything. I’ll leave the truck in long-term parking. Dee.”

Then she’d taken the keys from where she’d seen Dana hang them on a hook by the door and left.

After they’d finished their horseback ride yesterday, Hud had unsaddled the horses and put everything away. Then she’d heard him go upstairs, his boots heavy on the steps, as if he dreaded telling his wife about her cousin.

She’d listened hard but hadn’t heard a sound once he entered his and Dana’s bedroom, confirming what she’d suspected. That he hadn’t awakened Dana last night to tell her.

Earlier this morning when Dee had come downstairs, she’d seen Hud and Dana with their heads together. He had definitely told her something. She’d seen how reluctant he was to leave his wife. They’d done their best to act normal. But she could tell they were counting down the hours until she left.

She’d helped herself to a cup of coffee. Dana had made French toast and sausage for breakfast and offered her a plate. Dee ate heartily as Dana took care of the kids and nibbled at the food on her plate. “You should eat more breakfast,” Dee told her.

“I’m fine. Anyway, I still need to lose a few pounds after the twins.”

But this is your last breakfast, Dee had wanted to say. She hoped on her last day on earth she ate a good breakfast, since she would never be eating again.

As she drove away from the ranch, she glanced at the barn. Flames were licking up the sides. She looked away, thinking how sad it was that things hadn’t worked out differently.

She looked back only once more as she drove past Big Sky. Smoke billowed up into the air across the river, an orange glow behind the pines. She gave the pickup more gas. She had a plane to catch, and there was no going back and changing things now.

She turned on the radio and began to sing along. She had no idea where she was going or what she would do when she got there, but she had Dee Anna Justice’s trust fund check and options. She would find another identity and disappear.

What amazed her as she left the canyon was that she’d ever thought she could be happy living on Cardwell Ranch with Hud.

* * *

COLT SAW THE smoke and flames in the distance the moment he came out of the narrow part of the canyon. He felt his heart drop. He raced up the highway, calling the fire department as he went, and turned onto the ranch road.

At first he thought it was the house on fire, but as he came up over a rise, he saw that it was the barn. For a moment he felt a wave of relief. Then he saw Hilde’s SUV parked in front of the house. Dana’s ranch pickup was gone. Maybe they’d all left to take Dee to the airport. Maybe they were all fine.

But his gut told him differently.

When he saw the stroller lying on its side in front of the barn and the door barred, he knew. Holding his hand down on the horn, he hit the gas and raced toward the burning front door of the barn.

The bumper smashed through the burning wood as the expensive rental SUV burst into the barn. Pieces of burning wood hit the windshield, sparks flew all around him and then there was nothing but dark thick smoke.

The moment the SUV broke through the door, he hit his brakes. It’s too late, he thought when he saw the entire shell of the barn in flames, the smoke so thick he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. He leaped from the rig, screaming Hilde’s name. The heat was so intense he felt as if his face were burning. He feared the vehicle’s gas tank would explode any moment.

Then he heard her answer.

She and Dana came out of the smoky darkness silhouetted against the walls of flames.

“Where are the babies?” he yelled over the roar of the flames.

“They got out!” Hilde yelled back.

He shoved them both into the SUV and threw it in Reverse. The heat was unbearable. He knew if he didn’t get the rig out now...

The hood of the SUV, the paint peeling and blackened, had just cleared the edge of the barn when he heard the loud crash, and the barn began to collapse.

If he’d been just a few minutes later...

He wouldn’t let himself even imagine that as he slammed on the brakes back from the inferno. Hilde and Dana were coughing and choking, but he could hear fire trucks and the ambulance on its way.

“My babies,” Dana choked out.

“They’re in that outbuilding,” Hilde said, pointing a good ways from the burning remains of the barn.

“Where’s Dee?” he asked them.

“She left after she started the fire,” Hilde said.

“I heard her take my truck,” Dana added. She was already getting out of the SUV to go after her children, Hilde at her heels. Colt ran ahead and found the children all safe, huddled together in a back corner of the outbuilding.

Later, as the fire department and EMTs took care of Hilde and Dana and the kids, he told Hilde, “I have to go after Dee. I can’t let her get on that plane.”

“I’m fine,” she told him. “Go!”