Cowboy with a Cause Read online

  Chapter 15

  The shooting range was an indoor arena just outside the city limits of Grady Gulch. It was owned and operated by Linden Walsh, who had served as sheriff of Grady Gulch for almost twenty years before his retirement six years ago.

  In the front of the huge building was a retail gun shop run by Linden’s wife, Edna, and in the back was as professional a setup for firearm practice as in any big city.

  Adam stood in the booth next to Deputy Ben Temple and fired seven times with his 9mm into the paper human target fifteen yards away.

  He’d hoped that by coming here, he would work off some of the tumultuous emotions that he’d carried with him when he left Melanie’s place.

  She didn’t love him. How had he misread everything so badly? He’d fallen into the softness he thought he saw in her eyes when she gazed at him. He’d believed the passion in her touch.

  He pulled off his headphones and hit the button to move the target toward him so he could check his shots. He had to stop thinking about Melanie and his own foolishness in actually believing she’d be happy to discover that he was in love with her.

  The target stopped and Adam gazed at it, noting with satisfaction that all his bullet holes were in a tight circle over the heart of the dark silhouette.

  “Nice shooting,” Ben said as he stepped up next to Adam. “I’ll be sure and tell Cameron that if he decides to take you on as a deputy, at least you know how to hit where you aim.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate it,” Adam replied.

  “I’m done for the day. What about you?”

  Adam nodded. He’d decided that no matter how many bullets left his gun, they couldn’t take away the vast emptiness that had been in his heart since Melanie told him she didn’t love him.

  “There’s a little coffee area in the back. How about we grab a cup?” Ben suggested.

  “Sure.” It took only minutes for the two to clean up their equipment and then Adam followed Ben to a back room he’d never been in before.

  “I didn’t even know this was here,” he said as he looked around the small area. There were two round tables, several vending machines and a coffeemaker. The aroma indicated that the brew in the carafe was fresh.

  “Linden keeps it kind of quiet. He doesn’t want a lot of the riffraff that sometimes shows up to know this room is here.”

  Adam smiled. “So I guess this means I officially pass the riffraff test.”

  Ben laughed and nodded, then moved over to the coffee and the stack of foam cups. He poured himself a cup and then one for Adam and gestured to a table. Together the two men sat.

  “Cameron told me you approached him about becoming a deputy,” Ben said.

  “I did,” Adam confirmed. “It’s always been in the back of my mind that it was the job I wanted, but there was the family ranch and then Sam went away, and it hasn’t been until the last few weeks that I feel like I’m starting to walk on the path I want for myself.”

  “The whole thing with Sam...it must have been rough on you and Nick.”

  “It was,” Adam replied. “It still is. His trial is coming up soon.”

  “Are you hoping for a good outcome?” Ben asked.

  Adam took a sip of his coffee and leaned back in his chair. “What he did was wrong and he needs to pay for that. The best outcome for everyone would be for Sam to get time in prison but also to get some mental help. Even after all this time he’s still not right.” He shrugged. “But it’s all going to be up to the court.”

  “Nick seems to be perfectly happy working your family ranch, especially with Courtney and their little one beside him.”

  Adam grinned, grateful for the change in topic. “He’s definitely whipped, and he’s a very lucky man.” The smile fell and he took another sip of the coffee. “How come you haven’t married, Ben?”

  “Haven’t found the right woman yet. Cameron, Jim and I always joke that instead of being the Three Musketeers, we must be more like the Three Stooges, because none of us have managed to find the woman we want to marry.” He sipped the hot brew and raised an eyebrow. “What about you?”

  “I found the right woman, but apparently I’m the wrong man.” Adam forced a lightness to his tone as he fought the utter heaviness in his heart.

  “That’s tough, man.” Ben leaned back in his chair and released a sigh. “Although it’s probably good I don’t have a girlfriend or a wife right now. We’ve been working killer hours lately. This is the first real time off I’ve had since Candy Bailey was murdered. We thought we had our man with Kevin Naperson. The kid seemed good for the crime, but then Shirley Cook wound up dead in the same way.”

  He shook his head and released a puff of a sigh. “It’s been tough on all of us. And now with the attack on Melanie we’re all spinning our wheels. Cameron told me to take off for two days and then be prepared to hit it hard again.”

  “From what he’s told me, there’s nothing much to investigate.”

  Ben frowned. “We’re all frustrated as hell.”

  For the next thirty minutes the two sat and talked about the murders of the two waitresses and the attack on Melanie.

  “I say that Melanie’s attack was done by our man,” Ben said. “Everything about the attack was like the others...middle of the night and in through the window. What I don’t understand is why he didn’t just kill Melanie before she woke up. Why he moved her wheelchair and toyed with her before going after her. That definitely rings of a sadistic nature.”

  “Was there any evidence at the other two scenes that the killer teased or taunted the women before he killed them?” Adam asked.

  “Without an eyewitness to those crimes, it’s impossible to know what happened in those rooms before those women were killed but the evidence points to them both being killed in their sleep. We assumed Candy had let her killer into her room, but when we found her dead, she looked as if she’d been killed in her sleep. Maybe he decided to toy with Melanie because he assumed with her wheelchair gone from the side of the bed, she’d be a helpless victim who wouldn’t fight back. Maybe he didn’t anticipate that she’d wake up before he could kill her.”

  Ben shrugged. “Or it’s possible he’s losing control, and murdering sleeping women isn’t doing it for him anymore. He has to escalate things now by waking them to get his thrill.”

  “Some kind of creep,” Adam said with a shake of his head. “And the worst part is that he obviously lives here in Grady Gulch. He’s one of our own.”

  “Yeah, sickening, isn’t it?”

  Twenty minutes later Adam got back in his truck. He didn’t immediately start the engine, but rather sat there, unsure whether to go back to the house or find somewhere else to go for the remainder of the day.

  She didn’t love him.

  But he’d thought he’d felt her love so many times, in so many ways, in the past couple of weeks. Had he mistaken her gratitude for love? Apparently so, but it had sure felt like love to him.

  He thought about driving to Nick and Courtney’s, but he felt too vulnerable to see them right now. The conversation with Ben had been good, and for those minutes when they’d talked about the crimes, he hadn’t thought about his heartache.

  Being around Nick and Courtney and little Garrett would only remind him of what he couldn’t have with the woman he loved. It would only make his heartache resonate deeper, more painfully inside him.

  One thing was certain. He wasn’t going anywhere. He’d told Melanie that he wouldn’t move out, that somehow everything would be fine between them, and no matter how painful that would be for him, he’d make sure it happened for her.

  He had to figure out a way to look at her as his landlady, not as the woman he loved. He’d signed up for a couple of classes over the internet and he’d focus on that. Then in January his classes would begin at the community college and that would keep him busy and out of the house. Surely that would make things easier.

  He also planned to follow up on his offer to financially back her ne
w venture of costume making. He knew she’d be a big success and he had no qualms about becoming a business partner with her. What he didn’t want to think about too deeply was if he still intended to do it owing to the fact that it would keep her somehow bound to him.

  All he had to do was get through the next couple of days, the next few months, and then he’d be able to focus full-time on pursuing the work he wanted to do for the rest of his life. In the meantime he’d do what he could to help out at the family ranch, which still provided much of his financial stability.

  He decided to head back to the house. Staying away would only make things more awkward when he finally returned there. Under normal circumstances he’d be ready to head back there for some lunch.

  He started the truck and headed back to town and Melanie’s house. Maybe he’d professed his love for her too soon. Maybe if he’d waited another week, another month, her reply might have been different.

  A tiny ray of hope lit his heart at this thought. Just because she didn’t love him now didn’t mean he couldn’t try everything possible to make her fall in love with him.

  Time. Maybe it wasn’t a matter of right woman, wrong man. Maybe he’d simply rushed things, not given their relationship enough time to grow and flourish.

  That tiny ray of hope burned a little brighter. Maybe there was still a chance to wind up with the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. Maybe it would just take more effort and patience.

  As he pulled into the driveway, he cautioned himself and tried to tamp down some of the hope, knowing he might possibly be setting himself up for a new heartbreak.

  Adam didn’t know a lot about love, but he was smart enough to know that there was an element about it that was inexplicable, that sometimes there was no way to explain why people loved each other and why they didn’t.

  Chemistry. He’d felt it the very first time he’d laid eyes on Melanie. But had she felt any of that same heart-pumping attraction?

  He turned off the truck and got out, for a moment standing next to it as his left hand snaked into his jacket pocket and toyed with the plastic chips.

  He stuffed back the pain that radiated from his heart and pasted a pleasant smile on his face as he approached the front door.

  Opening the door using his key set off the tinny beep, beep of the alarm and he quickly moved to the control panel and punched in the numbers to prevent the alarm from going off.

  “Melanie?” he called as he went into the living room. “Just wanted to let you know that I’m back.”

  There was no answering reply. He went into the kitchen but she wasn’t there, either. Her bedroom door was closed, and he stared at it for a long moment, wondering if perhaps she was napping.

  Still, hadn’t she heard him come in? He didn’t like the fact that she hadn’t responded in any way to his call. Maybe he was being overly paranoid, because this was the first time she’d been left alone since the attack.

  He stood just outside her bedroom door and called her name once again. “Melanie?” He knocked softly, and when there was still no reply, he opened the door, surprised to find the room empty.

  The bathroom door was open, indicating that she wasn’t in there, either. So where was she? He tamped down an edge of panic that had begun to thrum inside him.

  There were no signs anywhere in the rooms that would indicate she was in trouble. He walked to the front door and stared outside. He’d built a ramp for her so she could leave the house whenever she wanted. Obviously she’d finally decided to use it on her own.

  He wondered what time she’d left and where she was going. He hoped she hadn’t attempted to go too far on this first trip alone. The times they’d gone to the café, he’d had to push her home partway because her arms had tired.

  Maybe he should just take a little walk. She’d mentioned having to get some candy for Halloween, so it was possible she’d decided to go to the grocery store.

  He could head that way, and if he saw her and she was doing fine, then he could pretend he was going to the store for something. If she looked weary, then he could help her get back home.

  Decision made, he left the house once again and headed down the sidewalk in the direction of the Shop and Go grocery store. As he gazed down toward the store, he didn’t see her on the sidewalk, but that didn’t concern him. It was possible she was already in the store and it was possible she hadn’t gone to get candy but had decided to have a cup of coffee at the café or whatever.

  He told himself the little edge of worry that was trying to work through him was due simply to the fact that he hadn’t forgotten the sound of her screams, the horrifying sight of her as he pulled her out of her closet on the night of the attack. But it was the middle of the day and there was no reason to be concerned.

  There was no reason to be concerned until he reached the alley and glanced down it. He froze, the thunder of his heart making the sound of anything else inaudible.

  Her wheelchair. He knew it was hers by the tiny pink dancer that hung from one of the handles.

  It was halfway into the alley, half hidden by a Dumpster. Why would she have gone into the alley? What was she doing there?

  Melanie. Her name resounded in his head as he broke his inertia and raced toward the chair, the chair that he already knew was empty.

  Maybe she’d somehow fallen out of it. Maybe she’d been lying in the dirty alley, crying for help, waiting for somebody to find her.

  “Melanie!” he shouted as he ran, but it took only one look at the chair and its immediate surroundings for him to recognize that she wasn’t there. What was there was her purse. It lay on the ground next to the chair.

  He didn’t touch it. He didn’t touch anything as he backed up, fumbling in his coat pocket for his cell phone. It was a crime scene, his brain screamed. Melanie was in trouble.

  As he punched in the number that would alert the authorities, he tried to make sense of it all. Maybe she had grown tired and had called somebody to come and get her. He immediately dismissed the idea. Melanie wouldn’t have gone with somebody and left her purse behind.

  When his call was answered, he quickly gave his location and said that he needed the sheriff and every deputy in the area to respond.

  With the call made, he stood at the mouth of the alley, fear nearly casting him to his knees. Where could she be? Who had taken her? And most importantly of all, were they already too late to save her?

  * * *

  Melanie came to with the smell of pasture under her nose and a pounding in her head that made her nauseous. For several long minutes she remained unmoving, waiting for the headache to abate, for the fogginess in her brain to dissipate enough so that she could think.

  What was happening? Where was she and how had she gotten here? She fought to work through the cotton that felt wrapped around her brain, cutting her off from reality.

  She opened one eye in a narrow slit, unsurprised to find earth beneath her. She sensed somebody nearby but was afraid to turn over on her back, afraid to see who was with her before she figured out what had happened.

  Closing her eye again, she tried to think.

  Halloween. She’d been on her way to the store to pick up candy. Adam had told her he loved her. Her thoughts froze on that single thought. Adam had told her he loved her and she’d rejected him and now she was on the ground someplace and didn’t know how she got here or what was happening to her.

  She’d been on her way to the store. She had sensed somebody walking behind her and had moved over to allow them to pass. A sting in the neck and then nothing.

  She fought against a deep sob that threatened to burst forth from her. Obviously she’d been drugged by that little bee sting in the neck. How long had she been unconscious?

  Cold. She was so cold. She no longer wore the coat she’d had on when she left the house. An uncontrollable shudder propelled through her as she recognized she was in trouble. She thought she might be in big trouble.

  “I know you’re
conscious,” a deep voice said from nearby.

  It was a familiar voice, and with a sharp intake of breath she opened her eyes and rolled over on her back. She sat up and looked at the man who had orchestrated this new terror.

  Deputy Jim Collins looked neat and professional in his khaki uniform. The midday sun glinted off his deputy badge. She shot a glance around, still trying to absorb everything.

  She was in the center of a vast overgrown pasture. There were no outbuildings in sight. In the far distance she saw an old tractor that looked as if it hadn’t been ridden in years, his patrol car and the decaying carcass of a dead cow. She looked back at him in horror.

  “That’s old Nelly,” he said as he pointed to the dead cow. “She had a bad limp in her left front leg, couldn’t walk very well, and so I brought her here and shot her.”

  The reference to a bad leg certainly wasn’t lost on her and a new terror threatened to take hold of her. Did he intend to shoot her like he had his cow and leave her body out here to decompose?

  “Jim, what’s going on? Why am I here?” And where was here? she wondered as she stared at Jim.

  His brown eyes seemed to darken to black coals. “You’re here because this is where you belong.” He shoved his hands in his pants pockets, a tension seeming to swell his body beneath the official jacket that he wore. “My parents gave me this land when I was sixteen. It was for me to build my dream family home.”

  She frowned, trying to focus on his words and not on the panic that made it hard for her to breathe, the panic that made it impossible not to focus on how rough the dirt was beneath her palms as she braced herself up. “I don’t understand. What does this have to do with me?”

  “Everything!” The word exploded from him as if it was a bullet shot from a gun. “I was going to build my dream house here and you were supposed to be here with me. We were going to get married and have children and be a happy family together.”

  “What are you talking about?” Melanie felt as if the world had suddenly become an alien place, that he was part of the landscape, a dangerous subspecies of human spouting a language she didn’t understand.