Wrangled Read online

  He could just make out the phone in the shadowy darkness under the bed—and what was left of the lamp that had been on the nightstand on the other side of the bed. The lamp lay shattered between the bed and the closet.

  Refusing to think about that right now, he reached for Courtney’s phone.

  It wasn’t until he pulled it out and heard Dakota gasp that he noticed the cell phone was smeared with something dark red. Blood.

  He dropped the phone on the bed, realizing belatedly that he should never have touched it. He had a bad feeling it would be evidence—against him.

  As he turned, Dakota took a step back from him. The frightened look in her eyes hit him like a blow. There were tears in her eyes; the look on her face was breaking his heart.

  “I didn’t harm your sister. Dakota, you know me.”

  “I knew you, Zane, but that was a long time ago.”

  “Not so long. I haven’t changed. Drunk or sober, I would never hurt a woman. You have to believe me.” But how could he keep telling himself that nothing bad had happened last night when the evidence just kept stacking up?

  They both turned toward the front of the house as they heard a vehicle pull up. Zane moved quickly to look out, hoping it would be Courtney and he could get this cleared up and relieve his mind.

  But it wasn’t Courtney’s lime-green compact with the MSU plates.

  It was a Whitehorse County Sheriff’s Department patrol SUV.

  * * *

  “MRS. CROWLEY,” EMMA cried when she saw the woman’s bandaged hand.

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Oh, here, let me see it.” She reached for the woman’s hand.

  “I said it was nothing,” Mrs. Crowley said, taking a step back and drawing her hand behind her. Her face had closed up, her one good eye glinting as hard as the tone of her voice.

  Emma fell silent. She’d held out hope that she would like the woman Hoyt had hired as her housekeeper-babysitter. Being close in age, she’d thought they might have things in common.

  But every time she had reached out to Mrs. Crowley, offering her friendship, it had been quickly rebuffed.

  “Just let me do my work,” the woman said now. Her wrecked face caught the light; the burn scars looked angrier today than usual.

  Unlike Hoyt, Emma made a point of looking Mrs. Crowley in the eye. She refused to be put off by her injuries—or her manner.

  Hoyt just steered clear of the woman and often apologized for hiring her.

  “She’s fine,” Emma always said in Mrs. Crowley’s defense. She suspected that the woman had trouble getting other positions and couldn’t afford to lose this job. Hoyt paid her well and the living accommodations were probably nicer than any she’d had before. Not that Emma’s kindness or the house or the pay had softened Mrs. Crowley in the least.

  “Whatever happened to her has made her push people away,” Emma told her husband. “We just need to keep trying to make her feel at home here.”

  Hoyt had been skeptical. “You probably pick up stray dogs, too, don’t you? Honey, this time I don’t think even you can make that woman civil—let alone happy.”

  Emma couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to Mrs. Crowley that made her like this. She suspected it was more than whatever accident she’d had that had left her disfigured. But Emma doubted she would ever know. It wasn’t like Mrs. Crowley was going to tell her anytime soon.

  * * *

  “DID YOU CALL THE SHERIFF?” Zane asked without looking at her as Dakota joined him at the window.

  “No.” With a sinking feeling, Dakota watched Sheriff McCall Crawford climb awkwardly out of the patrol vehicle. Dakota saw that the sheriff was pregnant, a good seven or eight months along.

  “Maybe Courtney called her, or—”

  Or Courtney had been found. Dakota didn’t let him finish that thought. “Courtney wouldn’t have called the sheriff.” If her sister had had any intention of calling the sheriff, wouldn’t Courtney have done so last night instead of calling her?

  Whatever Courtney was up to, Dakota suspected the sheriff was the last person she wanted involved.

  “Well, if you didn’t call her, and Courtney didn’t…” Zane let the thought hang between them.

  Dakota glanced over at him, saw his freshly scratched face in the glow of the afternoon sun coming through the window and could guess what was about to happen.

  Once the sheriff saw the scratches, she wouldn’t need to hear about the phone conversation Dakota’d had with Courtney in the wee hours this morning. Nor would the sheriff need to see the bloody phone from under Zane’s bed before hauling him off to jail.

  Common sense told Dakota, given the evidence, jail was probably the best place for him. But not if she had any hope of him helping her find her sister.

  “Here’s what I want you to do,” she said as the sheriff’s footfalls echoed on the old wooden porch. “Go in the bathroom and stay there. Let me handle this.”

  Zane shook his head as the sheriff knocked at the front door. “If you think I’m going to hide behind your skirts—”

  “What you’re going to do is help me find Courtney, and you can’t very well do that behind bars,” Dakota said through gritted teeth as the sheriff knocked again. “Turn on the shower. There’s something I haven’t told you about Courtney. Now trust me.”

  She shot him an impatient look and waited until he disappeared into the bathroom and shut the door before she went to answer the sheriff’s third knock.

  * * *

  AS THE DOOR SWUNG OPEN, Sheriff McCall Crawford couldn’t help her surprise.

  “Dakota Lansing?” McCall said. “Haven’t seen you in a while.” She’d been several years ahead of Dakota and they’d gone to different schools—McCall in Whitehorse, while Dakota had gone to Chinook—but they’d crossed paths because of sports.

  “I’ve been living in New Mexico. I only recently returned. For my father’s funeral,” she added.

  “Yes, I heard. I’m sorry.” The sheriff looked past her. “Is Zane around, by any chance?”

  “He’s in the shower, but you’re welcome to come in.” She stepped back and McCall entered the house. “He’s getting ready so we can go out for dinner.”

  McCall glanced around the small house. There wasn’t much to see. Zane Chisholm obviously wasn’t into decorating. She doubted he spent much time here.

  “I came out to talk to Zane, but since you’re here…” McCall said. “Is there a problem I should know about?”

  Dakota looked confused by the question. “A problem?”

  “I got a call that there was a domestic disturbance out here.”

  “When was that?”

  “Twenty minutes ago,” McCall said.

  Dakota let out a laugh. “You didn’t really take that call seriously, did you? The closest neighbor is a half mile away. Hard to really see or hear a domestic disturbance, unless of course they said there was gunfire involved.”

  “True,” McCall said. “Unless, of course, you made the call.”

  “I can assure you, I didn’t call. But I suspect caller ID would have confirmed that,” Dakota said.

  The sheriff smiled. She remembered Dakota Lansing as being smart and capable. “Just had to check. Actually the call came from a woman who said she was your sister.”

  “Courtney?”

  McCall saw that she now had Dakota’s attention. “Is Courtney Baxter your sister?”

  “My half sister. Long story. Why would she make a call like that? I haven’t seen her for several days.”

  “Good question.” McCall glanced toward the bathroom door. She could hear the shower still running. Zane Chisholm took an awfully long shower.

  As she felt the baby kick, McCall rested her hand on her swollen belly. For a moment she was lost in that amazing feeling. The whole pregnancy had been like this, stolen moments from her job when she felt as if she wanted to pinch herself. She just couldn’t believe she and Luke were having a baby.

 
; “Is it possible your sister is jealous?” McCall asked as she turned to leave. “I heard Zane was out with a pretty blonde last night. Apparently they were celebrating rather hard.”

  Compliments of the Whitehorse grapevine first thing this morning. McCall even knew that Courtney Baxter had been wearing a very sexy red dress. Who needed Twitter? No one in this county, she thought.

  That Courtney was Dakota Lansing’s half sister had come as a surprise. The scuttlebutt now around town was that the girl was the product of an affair Clay Lansing had years ago.

  “I actually set up the date,” Dakota said. “I knew the two of them would hit it off. Zane and I are just friends. But I can understand why Courtney might be jealous after a date with Zane. He is a catch.”

  McCall nodded as she glanced into the kitchen and bedroom, saw the unmade bed and figured this was merely a case of sibling rivalry. “Well, you two have a nice supper. Have Zane give me a call when he gets a chance.”

  As she started for the front door, she heard a cell phone ring from somewhere in the bedroom. “If that’s your sister calling, please tell her I’d like to talk to her, too,” McCall said, and let herself out.

  * * *

  DAKOTA LET OUT THE BREATH she’d been holding since the moment she’d realized it was Courtney’s cell phone ringing. Zane had left it lying on the crumpled covers of the bed. Fortunately it had been out of the sheriff’s sight.

  She hurried into the bedroom and gingerly picked up the phone. Private caller. “Hello?”

  No answer, but she could hear breathing on the line. “Who is this? Courtney? If that’s you—”

  Whoever it was hung up.

  Dakota stood holding the phone for a moment, then quickly dropped it back on the bed. She felt a rush of anger. Courtney was fine. She’d called the sheriff twenty minutes ago. She must have seen Dakota’s pickup parked in front of Zane’s house from the county road.

  Or she’d called so the sheriff would see Zane’s scratched face.

  “What are you up to, Courtney?” Dakota said to the empty bedroom. No good, that much she was sure of. “And what really happened here last night?”

  The room provided few answers. Unless you read something into the crumpled sheets on the bed. She felt a surge of anger mixed with something she didn’t want to admit. Jealousy. Zane had gone out with her sister. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. She swore under her breath.

  Too bad he hadn’t felt that way when they were kids, Dakota thought, remembering how he’d pushed her away.

  “You’re just a kid,” he’d said when she tried to hang around him at the rodeo grounds. “Go on. Find someone your own age to bug.”

  She ground her teeth at the memory. She’d had the worst crush on him. And, stupidly, she’d written it all down in her diary, every horrible tearful account, including her conviction: Zane doesn’t know it, but some day I’m going to marry him.

  Two days ago, when she’d realized that someone had been in her things, she’d discovered that her diary and some old photographs were missing. Courtney. She was the only one who could have taken the diary.

  Now Dakota wondered when Courtney had taken it. Two weeks ago—about the same time that someone had mysteriously signed Zane Chisholm up for a dating service?

  It was no coincidence that Courtney had tricked Zane into a date. Dakota was sure of that. Courtney had the diary. She knew how her sister had felt about Zane. So Courtney had done this out of meanness?

  What had she hoped to accomplish by this? More than sibling rivalry, Dakota thought, remembering the scratches on Zane’s face and the frantic phone call in the wee hours this morning.

  Whatever Courtney was up to, Dakota was going to find her and put a stop to it. And Zane was going to help her.

  Unlike him, Dakota had a bad feeling she knew exactly why Courtney had targeted him. She couldn’t wait to get her hands on her diary—and her sister.

  * * *

  MRS. CROWLEY STEPPED into her room and closed the door firmly behind her. She had always been so good at playing her roles—she now thought of herself as Mrs. Crowley. Smiling at the thought, she locked the door to listen. She had to make sure she wouldn’t be disturbed.

  It hadn’t taken long to learn the sounds of the house. The older section had more to say than the newer one, but she knew all of its many voices—which floorboards creaked, which doors opened silently, which spot in the house carried the most sound for eavesdropping.

  She’d explored every square inch of the house until she knew she could move through it blind if she had to. That was a possibility if the house were ever to catch fire.

  Satisfied that everyone was down for the night, she stretched, relieving her back from the strain of walking hunched over. She had taught herself to move silently and now chuckled to herself at how many times she’d been able to come up behind Emma without her knowing it and startle her.

  Moving just as silently now, she stepped into the bathroom and studied herself in the mirror over the sink a moment before she reached up and took out the white contact lens. She blinked, waiting for the eye to focus. Then she removed the dark brown contact lens.

  She slowly began to remove the burn scar, peeling it off as she peeled away Mrs. Crowley. At last she stood at the mirror, her face scrubbed clean, her eyes blue again.

  As she stared at herself, though, she felt she was looking at a stranger. It had been so long since she’d been herself, her image came as a shock.

  But it was nothing compared to the shock it would give others in the house when the time came to end this charade, she thought with a wry smile.

  Chapter Four

  The moment Zane had gone into the bathroom and turned on the shower, he’d changed his mind about staying hidden while Dakota handled the sheriff.

  He’d never run from trouble in his life, and he wasn’t going to now. But as he’d reached for the bathroom door handle, he’d glimpsed his face again in the mirror over the sink. The scratches were an angry red and, maybe worse, he had no explanation for them.

  Dakota was right. He needed to find Courtney and he couldn’t do that behind bars. He feared anything he said to the sheriff would come out sounding like a lie. If Sheriff McCall Crawford saw Courtney’s cell phone…

  He’d stayed put even though it was hard. He couldn’t hear what was being said. For all he knew, Courtney had been found and that was why the sheriff was here.

  Zane jumped at the tap on the bathroom door. He quickly turned off the shower and opened the door.

  “The coast is clear,” Dakota said as he came out.

  “What did McCall want?” He hated the fear he heard in his voice. From Dakota’s reaction, she’d heard it too. She had to be wondering if she was wrong about him.

  “Apparently Courtney called about a disturbance out here between you and me.”

  “Courtney called? Then she’s all right?”

  “Apparently.”

  He shook his head. “But why would she…” The thought struck him like a brick. “She wanted the sheriff to see the scratches on my face and arm. What the hell is going on with her?”

  “She seems to have it in for the two of us,” Dakota said. “That’s why we have to find her and find out what she’s up to.”

  “The two of us?”

  Dakota looked away for a moment as if she hadn’t meant to say that. “The last time I saw her was a few days ago. Right after that I realized she’d been in my house and taken something of mine.” She waved a hand through the air. “The point is, I want it back. She had no business in my house, let alone taking anything of mine.”

  He nodded, seeing that whatever Courtney had taken, Dakota didn’t want to talk about it. He changed the subject. “What did McCall make of all this?”

  “She seemed to think it was my sister being jealous.”

  “We know better.” The date last night, what he could remember of it, hadn’t been anything special. In fact, he recalled before he’d lost his memory that
he hadn’t planned to see Courtney again. She was beautiful, but not that interesting.

  His head still hurt, but a thought wormed its way through. “You said Courtney showed up two weeks ago. That’s the same time someone broke into my house and used my computer to set up the rural dating account. Could she have been planning this that long ago, trying to set me up for more than a date?”

  “Why go to the trouble?” Dakota asked, frowning as if she was trying to work it out herself.

  “Why me at all?” It didn’t make any sense to him either. “The requirements I put down for the perfect date apparently made Courtney the perfect match.”

  Dakota raised an eyebrow.

  “I didn’t put down any requirements, but whoever signed me up must have rigged it so that my requirements matched Courtney’s. It had to be Courtney.”

  “A lot of trouble and to what end?”

  “I guess that depends on what happened last night,” he said as he glanced around the living room. Nothing seemed to be missing, but then he’d made that mistake before.

  “You really don’t remember what happened after your date?” she asked.

  “I’ve never had a hangover like this before.”

  Dakota was looking at the scratches on his face again. “Maybe you should get a drug test at the hospital.”

  Dakota was willing to consider that he’d been drugged? Zane was surprised and relieved. But why hadn’t he thought of it? Because he’d been running scared from the moment he’d opened his eyes this morning.

  He had to know what he was dealing with. Courtney Baxter seemed to be setting him up. But why? He was just grateful that Dakota seemed to be on his side. If he’d just gotten drunk and didn’t remember, that was one thing. But if Dakota was right and Courtney had drugged him…

  “I think a drug test is a good idea,” he said, but Dakota didn’t seem to hear him.

  She was looking at Courtney’s cell phone. She had picked it up by two fingers. He could see the smeared blood from here.