Deliverance at Cardwell Ranch. B.J. Daniels
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As he picked them up, he realized several interesting things about what was—and wasn’t—in her purse.
There was a whole lot of makeup for someone who didn’t have any on. There was also no cell phone. But there was a baby’s pacifier.
He looked up at her and realized he’d made a rooky mistake. He hadn’t searched her. He’d just assumed she didn’t have a weapon like a gun or knife because she’d used a tire iron back on the highway.
Getting up, he went over to her and checked her pockets. No cell phone. But he did find a set of car keys. He frowned. That was odd since he remembered that the keys had still been in the wrecked car. The engine had died, but the lights were still on.
So what were these keys for? They appeared to have at least one key for a vehicle and another like the kind used for house doors.
“Are these your keys?” he asked, but after staring at them for a moment, she frowned and looked away.
Maybe she had been telling the truth about the car not being hers.
Sitting back down, he opened her wallet. Three singles, a five—and less than a dollar in change. Not much money for a woman on the road. Not much money dressed like she was either. Also, there were no credit cards.
But there was a driver’s license. He pulled it out and looked at the photo. The woman’s dark hair in the snapshot was shorter and curlier, but she had the same intense brown eyes. There was enough of a resemblance that he would assume this woman was Rebecca Stewart. According to the ID, she was married, lived in Helena, Montana, and was an organ donor.
“It says here that your name is Rebecca Stewart.”
“That’s not my purse.” She frowned at the bag as if she’d never seen it before.
“Then what was it doing in the car you were driving?”
She shook her head, looking more confused and scared.
“If you’re not Rebecca Stewart, then who are you?”
He saw her lower lip quiver. One large tear rolled down her cheek. “I don’t know.” When she went to wipe her tears with her free hand, he saw the diamond watch.
Reaching over, he caught her wrist. She tried to pull away, but he was much stronger than she was, and more determined. Even at a glance, he could see that the watch was expensive.
“Where did you get this?” he asked, hating that he sounded so suspicious. But the woman had a car and a purse she swore weren’t hers. It wasn’t that much of a leap to think that the watch probably wasn’t hers either.
She stared at the watch on her wrist as if she’d never seen it before. The gold band was encrusted with diamonds. Pulling it off her wrist, he turned the watch over. Just as he’d suspected, it was engraved:
To Gillian with all my love.
“Is your name Gillian?”
She remembered something, he saw it in her eyes.
“So your name is Gillian?”
She didn’t answer, but now she looked more afraid than she had before.
Austin sighed. He wasn’t going to get anything out of this woman. For all he knew, she could be lying about everything. But then again, the fear was real. It was almost palpable.
He had a sudden thought. “Why did you attack me on the highway?”
“I...I don’t know.”
A chill ran the length of his spine. He thought of how she’d kept looking back at the car as they walked to the cabin. She had thought someone was after her. “Was there someone else in the car when it rolled over?”
Her eyes widened in alarm. “In the trunk.”
He gawked at her. “There was someone in the trunk?”
She looked confused again, and even more frightened. “No.” Tears filled her eyes. “I don’t know.”
“Too bad you didn’t mention that when we were down there,” he grumbled under his breath. He couldn’t take the chance that she was telling the truth. Why someone would be in the trunk was another concern, especially if she was telling the truth about the car, the purse and apparently the baby not being hers.
He had to go back down anyway and try to put up some kind of flags to warn possible other motorists. He just hated the idea of going back out into the storm. But if there was even a chance someone was in the trunk...
Austin stared at her and reminded himself that this was probably a figment of her imagination. A delusion from the knock on her head. But given the way things weren’t adding up, he had to check.
“Don’t leave me here,” she cried as he headed for the door, her voice filled with terror.
“What are you so afraid of?” he asked, stepping back to her.
She swallowed, her gaze locked with his, and then she slowly shook her head and closed her eyes. “I don’t know.”
Austin swore under his breath. He didn’t like leaving her alone, but he had no choice. He checked to make sure the handcuff attached to the chair would hold in case she tried to go somewhere. He thought it might be just like her, in her state of mind, to get loose and take off back out into the blizzard.
“Don’t try to leave, okay? I’ll be back shortly. I promise.”
She didn’t answer, didn’t even open her eyes. Grabbing his coat, he hurried out the back door and down the steep slope to the highway. The snow lightened the dark enough that he didn’t have to use his flashlight. It was still falling in huge lacy flakes that stuck to his clothing as he hurried down the highway. He wished he’d at least taken his heavier coat from her before he’d left.
His SUV was covered with snow and barely visible. He walked past it to the overturned car, trying to make sense of all this. Someone in the trunk? He mentally kicked himself for worrying about some crazy thing a delusional woman had said.
The car was exactly as he’d left it, although the lights were starting to dim, the battery no doubt running down. He thought about turning them off, but if a car came along, the driver would have a better chance of seeing it with the lights on.
He went around to the driver’s side. The door was still open, just as he’d left it. He turned on the flashlight from his pocket and searched around for the latch on the trunk, hoping he wouldn’t have to use the key, which was still in the ignition.
Maybe it was the deputy sheriff in him, but he had a bad feeling this car might be the scene of a crime and whoever’s fingerprints were on the key might be important.
He found the latch. The trunk made a soft thunk and fell open.
Austin didn’t know what he expected to find when he walked around to the back of the car and bent down to look in. A body? Or a woman and her baby?
What had fallen out, though, was only a suitcase.
He stared at it for a moment, then knelt down and unzipped it enough to see what was inside. Clothes. Women’s clothing. No dead bodies. Nothing to be terrified of that he could see.
The bag, though, had been packed quickly, the clothes apparently just thrown in. That in itself was interesting. Nor did the clothing look expensive—unlike the diamond wristwatch the woman was wearing.
Checking the luggage tag on the bag, he saw that it was in the same name as the driver’s license he’d found in her purse. Rebecca Stewart. So if Rebecca Stewart wasn’t the woman in the cabin, then where was she? And where was the baby who went with the car seat?
He rezipped the bag and hoisted it up from the snow. Was the woman going to deny that this was her suitcase? He reminded himself that she’d thought there was someone in the trunk. The woman obviously wasn’t in her right mind.
He shone the