High-Caliber Cowboy. B.J. Daniels
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front door—and her car. The doctor had seen it parked out front. He knew she was here. She had no choice. But if she could reach her car and get away…
She hadn’t gotten but a few yards when she heard the squeak of the wheelchair; a slightly different sound echoed. They were already coming back!
Panic immobilized her. Down the dim hallway, she saw the burly man back out of the room with the empty wheelchair. She had to move fast. They would be looking for her, wondering where she was, what she’d witnessed. After all, she wasn’t supposed to be working tonight.
But where could she go? Not the patient rooms. If they caught her hiding in the dark in one of them, they’d know she’d heard their conversation.
Where?
She caught sight of the ladies’ room just a few doors up the hall in the same direction as the men. Run! Except she couldn’t run. She couldn’t even walk fast because of her feet and years of inactivity. But she managed a lunging shuffle, her heart thundering in her chest—a clumsy, terrifying run for her life.
As the doctor came out of the room and closed 9B’s door, Emma shoved open the ladies’ room door and stumbled into the windowless blackness. Frantically, she felt her way to one of the four stalls.
Stumbling into the cold metal stall, she closed the door, locked it and, quaking with fear, sat down on the toilet.
All she could hear was the pounding of her pulse in her ears and the echo of panting. She had to quit gasping for breath. They would hear her. The place was old and empty. Every sound echoed through it. If she could hear them, they could hear her. She had to get control, had to think.
She held her breath for a moment and listened. The snick of a lock followed the rattle of the chain on the doors to the closed wing. She let out the breath she’d been holding. It came out as a sob. She clutched her hand over her mouth, breathing fast through her nose.
From where she sat, she could see through the crack along the edge of the stall to the lighter gap under the bathroom door.
The empty wheelchair squeaked down the hall along with the sound of the men’s footfalls. She held her breath as a shadow darkened the gap under the ladies’ room door. They were directly outside. Had they seen her? Did they know she was in here?
“Looks like Karl’s here somewhere,” said the burly one. “We interrupted his dinner.”
Her sandwich! She’d left it half-eaten on her desk when she’d fallen asleep. She’d also left the light on in her office, the TV on, the volume turned low.
“Karl carries a purse?” Dr. French asked in a tone heavy with sarcasm.
Her heart stopped. She’d left her purse on the desk. Her purse!
“Dammit, Davidson, I thought you said Karl was definitely working tonight,” Dr. French snapped.
“He said he was.”
The older man made a disgusted sound.
Emma couldn’t hold her breath much longer. Tears burned her eyes. They knew she was in the building. They would look for her. She had to think of something. Some way out of here.
Closing her eyes tightly, she waited. Over the pounding of her pulse, she heard the squeak of the wheelchair growing fainter and fainter as it moved down the corridor away from her.
She waited until she heard the back door close before she moved. Opening her eyes, she forced herself to leave the stall. A dim light filled the gap under the door. No shadows. She pushed open the door.
They were gone.
She leaned back against the wall, weak with relief.
The hallway was empty.
She heard the sound of the back door opening and closing. A car engine revved, the sound growing dimmer.
Her legs were like water and she feared she might be sick as she shuffled back to her office, trying not to hurry in case anyone was watching her. She didn’t look behind her down the hall. Nor did she glance toward the locked wing where the men had taken the woman.
At her partially closed office door, she braced herself and pushed. The door swung noiselessly open. Her heart lodged in her throat as she looked to her chair.
Dr. French wasn’t sitting in it, as she’d expected he would be.
The office was empty.
The movie was over on the small TV. Her half-eaten sandwich was still on the edge of the desk along with her Big Gulp-size diet cola and her purse.
She began to cry from relief as she hurriedly closed and locked the door behind her. Stumbling to her chair, she dropped into it, her muscles no longer able to hold her up.
She was safe.
They were gone.
She could pretend she’d never seen them.
But could she pretend she didn’t know there was a woman locked in one of the padded, soundproof rooms down the hall? And wouldn’t the men return for her?
Emma reached for the remote and shut off the TV. She should call someone. The sheriff. But then she would have to stay here alone until he arrived.
Not if she called from home. She didn’t live far from here. Just a few miles down the river toward Wyoming.
She picked up her purse and reached for her kitten key chain with the keys to the doors out of here.
The keys were gone.
Panic sent her blood pressure into orbit. She couldn’t get out until she found the keys. She bent, thinking she must have knocked them to the floor.
But as she bent over, the hairs rose on the back of her neck.
In slow motion she lifted her head, then turned by degrees to look behind her through the office window to the hallway.
Dr. French smiled and held up her keys.
Chapter Two
Monday night
Two nights later
Brandon McCall couldn’t keep his eyes open. He’d driven every road on this section of the ranch and, like all the other nights, he hadn’t seen a thing. Not a track in the soft earth. Not a light flickering down in the sagebrush. Not a soul.
Tonight a storm was blowing in. Lightning splintered the horizon and thunder rumbled in the distance as dark clouds washed across the wild landscape, from the Bighorn Mountains over the rolling foothills to the tall cottonwoods of the river bottom.
The first raindrops startled him, hitting the roof of his pickup like hail. He stopped on a hill, turned off the engine and killed the lights.
Taking off his Stetson, he laid it over the steering wheel and stretched his long legs across the bench seat, careful not to get his muddy western boots on the upholstery.
He had a good view of the ranch below him and knew there were a half-dozen other men on watch tonight in other areas, waiting for vandals.
Unfortunately there was too much country, and even Mason VanHorn, as rich as he was, couldn’t afford to hire enough men to patrol his entire ranch.
Something moved in the darkness, making him sit up a little. A stand of pine trees swayed in the stormy darkness. He watched for a moment, then leaned back again. False alarm. But he didn’t take his eyes off the spot.
It looked like another long, boring night since he doubted the vandal was dedicated enough to come out in this weather. This was southeastern Montana, coal country, and coalbed methane gas had turned out to be the accidental by-product of the huge, open-pit coal mining to the south. The thick coal seams were saturated with water, which, when pumped out, produced gas that bubbled up like an opened bottle of cola.
With big money in natural gas, thousands of wells had sprung up almost overnight,