Atonement. B.J. Daniels
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on the ranch.
The crows had been the one constant in his life, other than his job. He’d named the birds, could tell them apart by their calls and thought of them as family. He’d been more than heartbroken when last year one of his crows had been killed. The family had left, warning other crows of the danger. For months he hadn’t seen a crow on his property.
Until now.
He told himself it was sign that the worst was behind him.
* * *
AFTER A RESTLESS night, Dillon was surprised to get a call from Frank Curry. “Frank, it’s good to hear from you.” It was early, but he was up, dressed and ready to go to work.
“I wanted to see how you were doing,” the sheriff said.
Frank’s six-month administrative leave was coming to an end. Dillon hoped the sheriff was calling to say he was ready to come back to work. Frank had been the best sheriff he’d ever run across—that was, until Frank’s ex-wife had done everything possible to break him. Dillon had feared that the woman was going to succeed.
“How I’m doing?” Dillon said with a laugh. “Shouldn’t that be what I’m asking you?”
“I’m fine. I’ve been doing a lot of repairs around the ranch, riding my horse up in the Crazies some and, of course, visiting my daughter.”
“How is Tiffany?” Dillon asked.
“Okay.” In other words, the same hateful girl who’d tried to kill her father. Dillon knew that the sheriff had spent a lot of time at the state mental hospital, visiting her. Recently he’d heard that a court date might be set for Tiffany’s hearing. If found competent, she would stand trial as an adult even though she’d been only seventeen when, allegedly brainwashed by her bitter mother, she’d tried to kill Frank.
“Guess what? There’s a crow sitting on my phone line to the barn,” Frank said.
Dillon could hear how that cheered Frank. He knew Frank needed something positive in his life. The sheriff had always enjoyed watching the crows that had taken up residence in his yard.
“They are so much like humans,” Frank had once told him. They’d been on a stakeout, and Frank had pointed out the way the crows reacted to each other. Dillon had never paid much attention to the birds before that. He’d always thought a crow was a sign of death or some dark omen or another.
But Frank saw the birds as good luck. He’d watched his family of crows grow on his ranch and had become very attached to them. Then Frank’s daughter, Tiffany, had killed one out of spite. The rest of the birds had left and hadn’t returned. Until now. Maybe.
“One of the crows saved my life that day,” Frank had told him. “It flew at Tiffany, distracting her and allowing me to get the gun away from her, otherwise I wouldn’t be here today.”
Dillon wasn’t sure he believed the bird had purposely helped Frank, but as long as Frank did, that was all that mattered. He’d quit asking Frank if his crows had come back.
“Dillon, I was worried about you. I know what today is,” Frank was saying. “How are you holding up?”
It surprised him that Frank had remembered, with everything the man had been going through. “Ethan’s on my mind, of course, but I’m okay. Thanks for thinking of me, though. How are you doing?”
“I’m thinking I will come back to work today.”
“That’s the best news I’ve heard yet,” Dillon said, and couldn’t help smiling. Frank sounded better. No, more than that. He sounded good. Had he finally accepted things?
While the entire country had been looking for Pam Chandler for months, she hadn’t turned up. It was as if she’d dropped off the face of the earth. Dillon had feared that Frank’s obsession with finding his ex-wife would be the downfall of not only his career, but also his life.
Even though Dillon had finally talked him into taking six months, he’d had little hope that Frank would return to the job if Pam wasn’t found. It had been so hard to see Frank go down that long, dark road. He’d feared Frank would end up finding Pam, killing her and going to prison.
“How was New Mexico?” Dillon asked now.
Frank laughed softly. “I should have known you were keeping track of me. I chased down a lead, but no one down there has seen Pam since she cleared out a year ago. How is the drug investigation going?”
A shipment of cocaine with a street value of over five million dollars had disappeared from a plane that had crashed in the Beartooth Mountains, south of Big Timber, early last summer. The pilot had been killed in the crash, and four others ended up dead before it was over, two of them murdered by an unknown assailant.
“No more leads,” Dillon said. “The DEA has the case. I assume you didn’t find a connection to the drugs in New Mexico?” He’d seen the phone numbers on one of the drug runner’s cell and had discovered, as he was sure Frank had, that the man had called the ranch where Frank’s ex-wife had been staying. It was a thin connection and apparently it hadn’t panned out.
“I couldn’t find anything that would suggest they knew each other in New Mexico, even though they’d lived in the same town. Nor did I find any connection to Judge Bull Westfall where Pam had been staying.”
“I’m sorry, Frank. As you know, we have an APB out on Pam. But we haven’t gotten any hits.” Normally an easygoing, excellent sheriff, Frank had been pushed to his limit by his ex. Pam was dangerous. She’d done terrible things to Frank since their divorce. One of the worst was not telling him she was pregnant when they’d split eighteen years ago, and raising her daughter, Tiffany, to hate the father she’d never even met—until last year. Since then, Frank had been working to keep the girl out of prison—and getting her the mental help she needed at the state hospital.
“I should let you go. You probably need to get to work. Speaking of work, I’m headed that way myself. See you at the office.” Dillon had been acting sheriff in Frank’s absence and realized how little he liked being the boss. “Your star and gun are in my desk drawer. It’s great to have you back.”
Dillon had almost mentioned the woman who’d shown up at his ranch yesterday, but figured he could talk to him about it later back at the office. Frank was a good sounding board, and he’d need it. The woman had thrown him for a loop.
He left the house and drove the twenty-five miles into Big Timber from his ranch out in the valley. He’d just crossed the Yellowstone River, the water a clear cool green, when he spotted Tessa Winters’s car. It was parked in front of a motel on the edge of town.
He slowed, telling himself there was no reason to stop. He’d said his piece yesterday. But it bothered him that the woman was still in town. She’d made this already hard day even tougher with her accusations. Just seeing her car put him in a foul mood.
What was she still doing here? He couldn’t bear the thought that she might go around town telling people that a man she thought was Ethan Lawson had not only impregnated her, but also abandoned her and stolen her money.
Against his better judgment, he swung into the motel parking lot, pulled alongside the woman’s car and got out.
All the curtains were drawn across the motel room windows. This time of the morning any guests from last night were long gone—except for Tessa Winters. Leaning down, he peered into her car. His brother’s vehicles had often been filled with fast-food containers and beer cans, growing up. Ethan had never been neat.
Wouldn’t a person expect Ethan’s “girlfriend” to be just as bad? The immaculate interior of her newer-model car seemed to prove she was lying about ever living with his brother. He tried the passenger-side door. Locked. He knew he should just walk away. More than likely the woman was just getting a late start this morning. She would clear out of town and he could put her accusations behind him.
But being the law enforcement officer