BIG SKY SECRETS 03: End Game (13 page)

Frowning, she pulled over to the side of the road, punched a button on the phone and lifted it to her ear. All her work-related calls came through the county dispatcher. She never gave out her private number…so who could it be?

“Just as I thought,” a man growled. The note of satisfaction in his voice made her shiver. “You had to go see your ‘friend’ because you had to check on him, just in case. Sad isn’t it, finding you can’t fully trust even the people you know?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

He ignored her. “You had to see if the truck was his, didn’t you? I knew you would, because I know you very well.”

“Who is this?”

She blinked, then pulled the phone away from her ear and took another look at the number on the screen. He sounded eerily familiar, yet not—as if he were trying to mask his voice through a heavy layer of cotton. Had she overheard him in the crowded tavern? At the auction, or on the streets of Copper Cliff…or sometime in the past?

Perhaps she’d even arrested him—which could account for the edge in his voice.

“Maybe…we could meet somewhere. You could tell me what this is all about.”

He swore under his breath. “Don’t play games with me. You won’t like my rules.”

“Who is this?”

“Ahh. Perhaps I’ll let you find out. Perhaps not. Let’s just see how good you
really
are at your job. So long, sweetheart.”

“Wait. Talk to me—”

“Later,” he whispered. “You’ll like it, I promise.”

And then the connection went dead.

Megan stared out the window of the cruiser, sorting through her thoughts. Even now she felt a chill that had nothing to do with the weather.

The caller had figured that she’d drive up to Scott’s to look for damage on his truck. He
knew
she had done so. Of even more interest, he’d called her within minutes after she left Scott’s place. Had he tailed her on the highway and watched her head in this direction? Or had he been hiding somewhere close by?

Maybe he’d seen her with Scott sometime on Sunday, then had driven his own black truck last night, hoping that anyone who spotted him near the Fairland place would assume Scott was behind the wheel.

But if so, it made no sense for him to call and taunt her about it. An intelligent suspect—though granted, the label was an oxymoron more often than not—would simply drop out of sight.

She called Elaine, the dayshift dispatcher, and asked her to run the caller’s phone number, plus any Montana registrations for a black 2003 Ford F-350 crew cab pickup, then headed for the Fairland property to make sure there hadn’t been a breakin after she left.

Elaine called back within minutes. “I checked with the DMV. There’s just one of those vehicles registered in Marshall County, to a Scott Anders here in town. Statewide, there’s over two hundred in that year, model and color, but none in the neighboring counties.”

“Put out a county-wide bulletin on that model, especially one with any sort of rear damage. But see if you can get the plates on the Anders vehicle and exclude that one. I’ve already checked it out.”

“Got it.” She paused for a long moment. “I have bad news on that phone number. It’s for one of those cheap, prepaid cell phones that you can buy with cash at a discount store. There’s no way to track it. Buyers can activate them online by just punching in a zip code.”

Which of course could be false.

“Thanks. I figured as much.”

So the anonymous caller wasn’t entirely stupid—she could give him that much. Yet why would he taunt her about the truck?

Unless he had another agenda.

One far more dangerous, and he was getting his jollies by inviting her to play. Her heart picked up a faster beat as she drove.

She’d play, all right, but he’d soon discover his mistake in taking that chance.

Because his days of freedom were numbered.

A
couple of traffic stops slowed her down, but Megan finally reached the Fairland place at three o’clock.

She half expected to see windows broken and the new door wide-open, but as she stepped out of her car, the door appeared to be shut tight and the pristine expanse of westward-facing glass gleamed in the midday sun.

A folded yellow sheet of paper was fluttering on the door. Not a good thing to leave there if it was a dated invoice from the carpenter, given how long Fairland would be gone.

“Nothing like letting the bad guys know he’s not home,” she muttered under her breath as she strode up to the door.

The door threshold would be too tight to slide the paper inside, but she could at least put it in an envelope and mail it to him here, because surely he had his mail held while he was gone.

She reached for it, then froze. It wasn’t an invoice from the carpenter. Her name was written on it in an elegant computer font. But no one should have expected that she’d have any reason to be here today.

She turned slowly, surveying the property for any suspicious movement. Anything that might have been disturbed since she was here last. Then she slid a fingernail through the cellophane tape seal and opened it wide.

Again, the fancy, swooping font.

So you are here. I thought as much. You really are so predictable.

The amusing thing is, I am not…and you will have to jump at my bidding. I’m so glad there will now be an element of fun.

Happy hunting, my dear.

My own hunt will be successful if yours is not.

She fought the urge to rip the paper in a thousand shreds, and instead held it by the narrowest possible edge to avoid contaminating it with her own fingerprints as she strode to the patrol car.

Once inside, she gently stored the letter in a manila folder. But even with it stowed safely at her side, the words played through her thoughts a hundred times over as she headed straight back to town.

It was a threat.

A taunt.

A promise.

And it was directed at her.

Hal instructed Betty to hold all calls, then firmly shut the door of his office and sat down behind his desk. With all four deputies there, the walls seemed to press in from all sides. “So what do you have for me?”

Ewan ran a hand over his thinning hair. “Not much. I ran the prints from the Fairland house and came up with nothing. They all matched the owner or one other person, consistently. Neither one had any history.”

“Fairland’s wife is usually there with him, and the second set was hers,” Megan said. “The intruder likely wore gloves, because he
had
to have handled the furniture and other items that he tossed around. But that’s no surprise. Anyone with a TV can watch the
CSI
reruns and learn the benefit of wearing gloves.”

Ewan nodded. “Our serial killer learned
that
lesson all too well.”

“Well, I drove up to the K Bar L and took a look around,” Wes said. “Lane was gone. The owner wasn’t there, but the ranch hands said Lane left early this morning to haul a load of cattle up to Billings, but he’d be back tonight.” He hitched a shoulder. “I didn’t get much, really. The guy has worked there for about two years. Stays to himself most of the time, doesn’t have much to say. One of the hands said he takes off now and then and is gone for a few days. Lane has told them that he goes to visit his sister in Rawlins and maybe that’s true, but no one has ever seen her.”

Hal looked up from the tablet on his desk, where he’d been jotting notes. “Did you get her name?”

“Yep, Barbara Lane. But I haven’t had a chance yet to do a search for her address and phone number.”

Hal flipped his pen between his fingers. “Megan.”

She quickly summarized last night’s encounter with the black pickup and the accident, then took a deep breath. “Carl Wilson—the truck driver—swore he could I.D. the man behind the wheel of the pickup. Only now, he’s in bad shape at the hospital and might not pull through.”

“But we’re just talking about a break and enter here, really,” Ewan interjected in a bored tone. “Proving who the driver of the pickup was, without physical evidence, would be a hard sell in court—even if this ends up as vehicular homicide. Anyway, I thought we were concerned with bigger issues right now.”

“That’s a big one in my book.” Megan glanced around the room. “The truck I saw last night slammed backward into a tree, and it hit
hard
. I went to check out a similar black pickup in town, but it had no damage on the rear fender or bumper. The interesting thing is that just minutes after checking the truck, I got a call on my personal cell phone. Anonymous. Untraceable. The caller gloated about how he
knew
I’d be going up to check out Scott Anders’s truck. Then he taunted me about whether or not I’d ever figure out who he was.”

All four pairs of eyes in the room were riveted on her now.

“He also delivered a subtle threat. Something about talking to me later, and that I’d really like it.” She made a face of disgust. “He sounded smarmy and overconfident. But it gets even
more
interesting.”

She lifted a manila folder from her lap and handed it to Hal. “I got this. I went out to double-check the Fairland property, guessing that the intruder may have returned during the night. This note was taped to the door. I already tried to lift prints from it, but there wasn’t anything legible.”

Hal studied it, his face grim. Then he passed the folder around the room. “It could be a copycat. Someone who wants to play into all the gossip about the Full Moon murders, just for kicks.”

“I don’t think so.” She stood and paced to the window, then turned back to face everyone. “I think our suspect
was
at that tavern. Maybe not anyone I talked to, but I think he took the bait. Someone followed me home—too far back for me to be sure, but I heard a vehicle come into my driveway right after I got there. I think he saw my patrol car parked by the house that night, or figured it out later, and now he wants to play games. Maybe he even broke into the Fairland place knowing it’s in the area I cover.”

“To draw you away from town and put you in a more vulnerable position? Or prove that he can manipulate you?” Jim frowned. “I don’t like this at all.”

“Well, I can’t stop doing my job. I think he’s going to up the stakes and try to prove we can’t catch him. But if we don’t, a lot more people are going to die.”

“But why did he target you?” Wes asked slowly.

“Maybe he figures I’ll be frightened and weak because I’m a woman. Maybe he figures it will be more exciting if he dares me to catch him. A male superiority thing.”

Hal’s shoulders sagged. “We won’t have long to wait. He’s already working on his next move. The highway patrol found a woman staggering along the highway between here and Battle Creek, early this morning. Half-dressed, her hands bound with duct tape. Beat up pretty bad, but at least she was alive. She said it was dark and he wore a mask, so she never got a good look at his face.”

Megan closed her eyes for a moment. “Raped?”

“No. But she was carrying a message.” Hal blew out a long breath as he leaned over his desk and motioned for Megan to take it. “I received this copy by fax. Look familiar?”

She stared at it, then looked up at him, feeling the blood drain from her face as she read it.
This one goes free—but the next won’t be so lucky.
“This font is an exact match of the note left on Fairland’s door. So I was right.”

He nodded. “And now, we need to get to work.”

“The suspect has to know that the truck driver saw his face. That means Wilson is in danger.”

“Jim, get over to the hospital and alert them to the situation. See if you can get any information on the man’s condition, even if you have to track down his relatives to do it. Wes, work on tracking down Lane’s sister. And, Megan, you stay here. You can start calling every roadhouse in the county. I want you to describe the guy who called himself Milt, and see if anyone else has seen him around.”

“So you want me to ride a desk. Stay here, when I could be out doing a lot more.”

Hal glared at her. “Someone has to do it. Might as well be you.”

“You know our suspect could be someone we haven’t even thought of yet.”

“True.”

“There’s almost two dozen little towns in this county with a couple hundred people or less. Any one of those wide spots in the road could be harboring the killer.”

“True.”

“So without every possible officer out in the field, we don’t stand a chance.”

“Oh, yes we do. Because there’s a good chance he’ll surface again and try to lure you out, wanting you to play his game. And if that time comes, we’ll be ready. I promise you that.”

A
fter hours of sitting at a desk in the Marshall County Sheriff’s office, looking up the phone numbers of bars and taverns in the Internet yellow pages, then calling every last one of them with a description of Milt Powers, Megan knew two things.