At Wolf Ranch (3 page)

Chapter 3

E
lla spent the cab ride to the airport trying to hold herself together and devise a halfway decent plan. She dug through her sister’s purse for any other clues and came up with nothing but a drawing of the heart-shaped locket they both wore. Lela had drawn tiny roses, one after another, to form the heart around their initials, L.W. and E.W. She’d drawn an arch over the heart with a rosebush on both sides. Lovely. Her sister always had a talent for doodling.

Ella held the paper to her heart, closed her eyes, and let the overwhelming sense of loss engulf her. She’d never see Lela again.

Aside from the slip of paper, her sister’s wallet, keys, her favorite scarlet lipstick, a half-eaten bag of airline peanuts, and mints, nothing told her what her sister had done over the last three days, except rent a car. She carefully tucked her sister’s things back into the purse.

Why Montana, Lela?

She squeezed the bag to release her pent-up anger. Something odd pushed against her fingers. She set the bag back on her lap and checked inside again. Nothing accounted for what she felt, so she ran her fingers over the lining and felt the outline of a rectangular card. Her sister had carefully slit the seam by the zipper and used double-sided tape to hold it closed. She pulled the lining free, revealing the fake ID tucked inside. Her sister had pilfered Ella’s fake driver’s license, which she’d bought off an artist friend who turned out to be an excellent forger of paintings and documents when the money was right. Eighteen and looking to get into some of the more exclusive clubs in the city, she’d bought the ID under an assumed name. It came in handy when she didn’t want to be Ella Wolf.

If her guess was right, her sister used Ella’s license to buy a plane ticket under the false name and rent a car. Why the secrecy? Why the need to be someone else and not leave a trail?

Whatever her sister was up to, Ella vowed to finish what she started. She too would see her uncle behind bars—or in a grave—for killing her sister, and whatever other heinous crimes he’d committed. The man deserved a hell of a lot worse for what he’d done.

She thought of all those things she and Lela had talked about doing now that the next chapter of their lives was about to begin. Run the company. Travel to distant lands and explore the world. Fall in love with the right man. Get married. They’d serve as each other’s bridesmaids. Have babies. Live full lives until they were old biddies drinking tea and sharing photos and stories of their grandchildren.

She swiped the tears away as easily as her uncle had taken away that future.

In six weeks, she turned twenty-five, and if she didn’t put her uncle behind bars, and he succeeded in framing her for Lela’s murder, he’d take over the company and holdings her parents left to Ella and Lela. He’d get everything and have the power and money to get away with murder.

Never going to happen. Not as long as she still had a breath in her body.

“We’re here. What airline?”

Ella checked her sister’s ticket stub, the one breadcrumb she’d left. “United.”

The cab pulled up in front of the departures terminal. Ella didn’t hesitate. The sorrow filled her, but with her grief she felt a profound sense of purpose. She marched up to the ticket counter, handed over her fake ID, and booked a flight to Bozeman, using the cash she gathered between her bag and her sister’s, which left her with little more than five hundred dollars.

The flight didn’t leave for two more hours, but she’d get to Bozeman by three in the afternoon. She hoped to get to the ranch to begin her search for whatever her sister discovered before it got dark.

The monotony of the security line only gave her more time to think. She didn’t want to let her mind take her back to the penthouse library and her sister’s lifeless eyes, but the scene played out again and again in her head. She couldn’t stop it.

So many what-ifs came to mind. She second-guessed everything she did and didn’t do. What if she stepped in to help her sister? Why didn’t she call the police? What if she found the evidence her sister said she had and it still wasn’t enough to arrest him? What if he got away with killing her sister?

She passed through the security line in the automatic fashion everyone else did, following the person in front of her. She ignored the stares and whispers. If the grief felt this heavy to carry, surely it showed on her face, because she couldn’t even muster a fake smile to make others believe she was okay. She’d never be okay. Not ever again.

Shoes back on, cell phone and her laptop packed back in her bags, and free to roam the terminal and walk to her gate, she made one last stop at the ATM. Between her debit and credit cards, she managed to withdraw twenty-five hundred dollars. If her uncle tracked her to the airport with the withdrawals, he still wouldn’t know which flight she took, thanks to the fake license.

After ignoring the other passengers on the plane and crying herself to sleep, she awoke just as the plane touched down in Bozeman. She exited, ignoring the stewardess’s sympathetic look, and followed the other passengers to baggage claim, where she picked up her sister’s bag. Without the ability to use her credit card to rent a car, she hopped into a cab.

“Where you headed, miss?” The older man gave her a concerned glance in the rearview mirror. She caught her haunted reflection. She should have stopped at the restroom to clean the smeared makeup under her eyes from crying.

“Home.” The ranch had been her favorite place as a kid. Large, looming mountains stood as the backdrop to the stone and timber house with the huge windows. She’d loved the rustic, comfortable feel of the house compared to the elegant penthouse her parents kept in New York.

“What’s the address?”

“Uh, sorry. Forty-two Wolf Road.” Since her father bought the property and paid for all the utilities and the road they built out to the house, he used his favorite number for the address and named the road after the family.

“I’m not familiar with it,” the driver said, punching the address into his GPS. “That’s quite a drive. There’s a storm up past the town of Crystal Creek. I can get you there, but you’ll need to stay overnight in town, or find someone with four-wheel drive who can get you through the back roads.”

Resigned and at the mercy of the gathering storm clouds in the distance, she nodded her agreement.

She used the long drive out of Bozeman’s wide valley to clean herself up with the makeup wipes she found in her sister’s toiletries that she dug out of the small suitcase. Eyes puffy and red, she’d never win a beauty contest, but she looked and felt better.

The drive relaxed her, unlike the turbulent flight. She hadn’t eaten since last night, lost her appetite completely this morning seeing her sister murdered, but now her hollow stomach ached. Maybe if she took a minute, had some coffee and a snack, she could think straight, take the edge off her raging headache, and figure out what to do next.

How far would her uncle go to find her?

Easy, he’d hunt her down.

“Where can I drop you, miss? This rain’ll turn to snow up where you’re headed.”

Lost in her own dark thoughts, she hadn’t seen the rain pouring down in sheets, or heard the fierce wind whipping against the car. She checked out the small town around them and spotted a coffee shop next to a motel. If she couldn’t find someone to take her to the ranch tonight, she could at least get a cup of coffee, a meal, and a warm room.

“Please drop me at the coffee shop. I’ll find my way from there.”

“You got it.”

She paid him the sixty-two dollars for the ride, plus a tip, and collected all her belongings.

“I’ll help you out, miss.”

“No, don’t get wet on my account. I’ll manage.”

Grateful, he smiled at her in the rearview mirror. “Suit yourself.”

Lucky for her, he pulled up close to the front door, but even in that short distance, her hair and shoulders got drenched. Thanks to the deep puddle she stumbled in, her suede ankle boots were not only ruined, but soaked through. A gust of wind pushed her through the front door. She shoved it shut and turned to face the room; many of the patrons’ gazes found her. She felt like a bedraggled wet cat with her hair dripping down her face and neck. She wiggled her freezing toes inside her wet socks and took a deep breath and let it out. Nothing she could do about it now.

She took a seat at the nearly empty counter and dumped her tote and purse on the seat beside her. A waitress bustled over from the two older gentleman at the other end and asked, “What’ll it be, honey?”

“Coffee, please.”

“Special’s the meat loaf and mashed potatoes. We got a pot of broccoli cheddar soup and some nice warm bread if you’d like.”

“I’ll take the soup and bread. Thanks.”

“You okay, honey?”

“No. No, I’m not. But I will be,” she vowed, thinking of taking down her uncle. Better to think about that than her sister’s cold, dead body lying on the library floor.

The waitress, Bev according to her name tag, poured her a mug of coffee and set a bowl filled with creamer cups in front of her. “I’ll have your order in just a minute. You just sit there and get warm.”

Ella slumped in the chair and wrapped her frozen hands around the mug, hoping that one day soon her insides would warm again and she’d feel something other than frozen fear and cold hate for her uncle.

Bev set a steaming bowl of soup in front of her and a plate of warm bread rolls with a plastic cup of butter. Ella slit the side of the roll and slathered butter inside to melt. She did the same with the second roll. By the time she scooped up a spoonful of the soup, the smell had started to work on her. One bite of the sinfully thick and rich, creamy concoction and she nearly felt human again. Her insides warmed. She took a big bite of the roll. Melted butter dripped down her chin. She wiped it away with her paper napkin and quietly worked her way through her meal, the loss of her sister keeping her head in a mind-numbing daze.

Finished, she looked around for the first time. Besides the seats at the counter facing the cooking area, a row of tables draped in red-and-white-checked tablecloths with four chairs around each ran behind her down both sides of the diner. Past those and along the outside wall were booths with worn red vinyl seats. Overhead pot lights cast a soft glow over the room. Above her and along the rest of the counter were drop pendant lights with red glass shades. Nice. Country cute.

While she ate, customers trickled in, filling nearly every table and booth. Only a handful of seats remained available at the counter. She needed to decide what to do for the night.

Bev dropped by and held up the coffeepot. “Refill, honey?”

“No thanks. I need to get home, but in this weather I’m not sure there’s a taxi or other means to get me there.”

“Where you headed, honey?”

“Wolf Road out off 191.”

“You’re going way out there?”

“Yes, but I don’t have a car. Do you know how I can get there?”

Bev looked over her head at a gentleman paying his bill at the small counter by the door. “Hey, Travis. You headed home?”

“It’ll be slow going in the snow, but yeah. Why?”

“This nice lady needs a ride out to Wolf Road. Can you take her on your way?”

“Well, now, it’s past my way, but I can certainly take the pretty lady where she needs to go.”

Ella eyed Bev with apprehension about leaving with a stranger. Especially one with unwashed hair, four days’ worth of beard stubble, and a rip down the front leg of his grease-stained Carhartts.

Bev patted her hand on the counter. “Don’t you worry none. He’s mostly harmless.”

“Come on now, Bev, you know I’ve been sweet-talking you for years.”

“It’s never worked with me, or any woman I know,” she shot back, laughing.

A few of the other customers barked out a laugh and a crude comment about Travis’s nonexistent love life. He smiled and took the good-natured ribbing in stride.

“Trust me, honey, he won’t bite. If you don’t go now, who knows how long it will take you to get there, what with the way the weather changes around here.”

Bev had a point. The rain had given way to a soft but steady snowfall. Pretty; Ella wished her sister was here to see it. They’d so loved the snow and coming to this part of the country. They’d sit in the huge living room window at the ranch and stare at it for hours, playing with their dolls or a game of chess. She’d loved to beat her sister at Chinese checkers. The memory made her eyes glass over. She blinked the tears away. Plenty of time to grieve later. Right now, she needed to get to the ranch and find out what her sister had been doing here.

“If you don’t mind, I’m happy to pay you for your trouble.”

“No trouble at all to drive a pretty lady wherever she wants to go.”

“Thank you. I really appreciate this.”

She gathered her belongings, paid her bill, leaving Bev a generous tip, and followed Travis out of the diner into the frosty weather. The sun had set and the snow fell against the backdrop of the dark night, highlighted by the diner and city lights. The snow quickly covered her hair and clothes. She shook as much off as she could before climbing into Travis’s truck cab. The smell of sweat, dirt, and manure, along with the stench of tobacco from the beer bottle in the cup holder filled with chewing tobacco spit, assaulted her nose. Her stomach lurched. She wrinkled her nose and cracked the window to let in some fresh air.

Travis slid behind the wheel and gave her a leering smile. She sat up straight and folded her hands in her lap, her bag and tote stuffed at her feet. She sighed out her relief when he pulled out of the parking lot onto the main road and headed out of town. Though the heater in the old truck worked, it barely took the edge off the crisp air coming in through the cracked-open window. She gave up the fresh air in favor of warmth, especially with her wet hair and feet.

She finger-combed the wet strands away from her face, trying to get the last of the ice out. Travis took his gaze from the road to roam it over her from head to foot.

“So, what brings you to these parts? You don’t look like you’re from around here. Where are you from?”