Blood Trails (5 page)

“Hi, Bud. I was just about to call you. My flight was good. I’ve only been in the room a few minutes.”

“Are you okay?”

She shoved a shaky hand through her hair. “Yes, yes, I’m fine, just tired. You know what traveling is like.”

“So what time is it there?”

She glanced at her watch, which she’d turned ahead when they’d landed. “It’s just after six.”

“Okay, you’re just an hour ahead there. You girls are giving me hell, trying to keep up with so many different time zones. You’re going to make me gray before my time.”

Holly ignored the fact that she was nauseous and made herself laugh.

“That’s what Daddy always said.”

There was a moment of silence, then Bud answered, but in an odd tone of voice.

“Only I’m not your daddy.”

Holly’s stomach knotted. “No, of course you’re not, but don’t blame us if we compare you. You were my father’s shadow. It stands to reason some of him would rub off onto you.”

She heard what sounded like a sigh, then a chuckle.

“I can’t deny that,” Bud said. “So what are your plans?”

“Sleep. I think I need to sleep. Then I want to look around for a day or so. I keep thinking I should remember something, and I figure the more I can remember, the better I’ll feel about going to the police.”

“Don’t forget to eat,” Bud said. “And be careful. Most of all, be careful.”

“I will. Love you,” she said.

Another awkward pause, and then she heard, “I love you, too,” before the line went dead.

Her unrequited feelings for Bud were old news. She didn’t have time to feel sorry for herself with so much left to do. Even though her heart told her a different story, Bud was just Bud—an almost brother, the ranch foreman and now part owner of the Triple S, and she was on a quest for her truth.

She went down to dinner, choosing a place in the restaurant called Annie’s Kitchen. With her love of cooking and all things homey, it seemed the perfect choice. Maybe the crazy thoughts would disappear. Lord knows she needed to get on the path of rational thinking.

After she ordered her food, she took her journal out of her purse. Like her sisters, she’d read it from front to back a dozen times already, and the more she read, the more memories she resurrected. She flipped past the journal entries regarding her first years with Andrew to an entry regarding her first date.

The day you came in and told me Joe Don Rooney had asked you out was a real shock for me. I’d always thought of the three of you as my little girls. That really made me adjust my thinking. You were excited and, at the same time, oddly apprehensive. You kept asking me what you should do if something happened and you weren’t comfortable with Joe Don. You said over and over that it wasn’t ever safe for a girl to be alone on the street, that bad things—really bad things—could happen. It made me wonder if you’d known about your mother’s suspicions regarding your father, or if it had to do with just knowing about the murdered women who’d been the Hunter’s victims. When I pressed you for a reason as to why you were so sure something bad would happen, all you could say was that you “just knew.”

Of course, the date with Joe Don turned out fine, and when I asked you later if you were nervous when you were with him, you rolled your eyes and gave me one of those looks for which women are famous. It made me laugh, but at the same time, it set a fear in my heart that you were suppressing memories far darker than I’d realized you might have. I don’t know how to explain it, but, my darling Holly, I fear for you most of all. Be careful. Be aware. I fear you have seen terrible things—so terrible that it was worth forgetting the first five years of your life.

Holly shuddered as she leaned back and looked up. The dining area was buzzing with hungry customers. She wondered how many of them were living with secrets—secrets that could be as deadly as the most fatal of diseases.

Three

W
hen she got back to her room, the message light on her phone was blinking. It was from the front desk telling her she had a delivery. Surprised, she told them to bring it up, then spent the wait time wondering what it was and whom it was from.

Although she’d been listening for it, when the knock finally sounded at the door, Holly jumped. After a quick look through the security view, she opened the door to find a bellman with a vase of red roses.

“Oh, my!” she said, as the bellman set the flowers on the table. She handed him a tip, closed and locked the door behind him, then dashed back to see who the roses were from.

She pulled out the card, quickly scanning the few words of text.

Remember, you’re not alone. I’m only a phone call away. Bud.

Bud—ever faithful Bud. She burst into tears.

She crawled onto the bed with the card still clutched in her hand and curled into the fetal position. Sobs bubbled up her throat as the past two weeks of shock and fear overwhelmed her. If Bud had been standing in the room beside her bed, she would have begged him to take her home and abandoned this search. Something bad had happened to her here. She couldn’t remember what, but she could feel it. Bud was the one sure thing still left in her life, but he was halfway across the country, and she was here alone.

She cried herself to sleep.

Sunlight spilled through a pair of kitchen windows into the room. An half-eaten bowl of cereal was still on the table beside a box of Cheerios that had tipped over, spilling part of the contents. Water was running from the tap at the kitchen sink, only no one was there.

A shadow suddenly cut across the path of sun light. Something dripped onto the floor. The shadow moved, then disappeared, leaving behind a trail of bright red droplets.

“Clean it up!” he yelled. “And don’t tell your mother or I’ll make you sorry.”

Holly woke abruptly, then sat up in bed, her heart pounding wildly against her rib cage as she swept the room with a frantic gaze, making sure she was still alone. A glance at the clock told her it was still hours before dawn. Even worse, she’d fallen asleep in her traveling clothes. With a groan, she rolled out of bed, then headed for the bathroom. A few minutes later she came out, stripped off her clothes, then crawled between the sheets and once again closed her eyes.

“Please, God, take away all the bad thoughts and just let me rest.”

It was a simple prayer. She wasn’t asking too much and hoped it was heard. Within minutes she was asleep, and when she woke again, sunlight was coming through a gap in the curtains. She rolled over onto her back, saw the bouquet of red roses and smiled.

“Only a phone call away,” she said, then threw back the covers and headed for the shower.

Within the hour she had dressed, gathered up her journal and maps, and headed for the elevator. As soon as she got herself some breakfast, she would be ready to face the day.

A return trip to Annie’s Kitchen, and an order of coffee and waffles later, Holly read as she ate, scanning her journal for clues as to where to go first.

She had the old home address and phone number that her mother had given Andrew. Out of curiosity, she’d tried the phone number almost immediately from back at the ranch and gotten a “not in service” message, which hadn’t been a surprise. She’d checked the St. Louis phone book for a listing for Harold Mackey and come up short. She’d also researched the city of St. Louis and learned that the address of her childhood home was in a part of St. Louis known as The Hill, mostly populated by a large contingent of people who were of Italian descent.

She couldn’t help but wonder if that meant she was also of Italian descent, or if it were simply coincidence that they’d lived in the area. She was anxious to find the address, and even more anxious to know if she would recognize it. It was on her list as the first place to visit today.

After talking to the concierge, she had a general idea of how to get where she wanted to go. It wasn’t until she went outside to retrieve her car that she realized it looked like it was going to rain. That wasn’t good news, but it didn’t deter her. She’d been wet before.

She retrieved her car, and then, armed with her map, drove away from the hotel. She had a brief moment of panic as she pulled out into traffic, as if by leaving the hotel she had willingly crossed over into the danger zone, but the notion soon passed.

When the first drops of rain began to hit the windshield she turned on the wipers, then tapped the brakes, slowing down enough to compensate for slippery streets. She was headed for the high ground south of Forest Park. According to Wikipedia, the official boundaries of The Hill were Manchester Avenue on the north, Columbia and Southwest Avenues on the south, South Kingshighway Boulevard on the east, and Hampton Avenue on the west. It wasn’t until she crossed the boulevard that she felt as if she were finally making progress. When she stopped for a red light, she checked her map again just to make sure she was going in the right direction.

A loud clap of thunder sounded just as the light turned green. Hoping it wasn’t a portent of things to come, she took a deep breath and accelerated through the intersection. The car behind her wasn’t as fortunate. Halfway through the light it was suddenly T-boned by a pickup truck. Even though she was out of danger, she screamed. The shock of seeing the car spinning out of control, then being hit again by a second car, sent her into a panic. She pulled into a parking lot and stopped. Shaking too hard to drive, she said a quick prayer of thanksgiving that she was still in one piece as the sirens of the approaching rescue vehicles grew louder.

She turned off the engine. The rain was loud inside the car as it peppered the roof. And since she wasn’t moving until the downpour subsided, she dug the journal out of her bag and flipped through the pages, seeking solace in the sight of Andrew’s handwriting. It was as close as she would ever get to talking to him again, and she desperately needed to get a grip on her emotions. She found a passage dated less than four years ago and marveled at the secrets Andrew Slade had been able to hide.

Your real mother, Twila, wasn’t very tall. Not nearly as tall as you are, but you have the same color hair—that dark auburn—and the same green eyes. When you were younger, you insisted on sprinkling cinnamon in your hot chocolate. I always assumed it was the way your mother had served it to you, because it wasn’t something we did. Of course, once Maria and Savannah saw you having cinnamon, they had to have it, too. After that, it became the norm. That was something you brought with you that you hadn’t forgotten, which leads me to believe there’s more—much more. I want you to know that I have faith in your ability to get through this. You were a quiet but strong-willed child. As you got older, you have become less strong-willed and more willing to abdicate leadership to others. Go back to your roots, my daughter. Resurrect that strong-willed child in you, because I fear you’re going to need her.

The warning made Holly shudder. “Oh, Dad…what I need is you.”

When a burst of police sirens sounded from the street behind her, she glanced up in her rearview mirror to see the arrival of an ambulance. Police cars had cordoned off the scene, while a policeman in regulation rain gear was directing traffic away from the area to a temporary detour. He stood firmly in the midst of the rainstorm as if it were of no consequence, waving cars right and left.

Holly reached for her phone. It was a little after ten in the morning here, but just after nine back home. Bud would have been up for at least an hour, maybe more.

Bud was cursing his injured hand and his pickup in one steady breath while trying to drive out of a snowdrift. Montana’s weather patterns were oblivious to the seasons, and the unexpected snowstorm that had blown in late last night was no exception.

He’d sent two separate crews in different directions to feed cattle that would be in dire need of food, while he took care of the animals penned up in the corrals at the ranch. He was almost finished before he realized Andrew’s old gelding, Jim Beam, was missing. The horse hadn’t been ridden since Andrew’s death and wasn’t accustomed to so much downtime. It didn’t take long to see the unlatched gate and the tracks leading out through the snow to the back pasture, where the herd mares were kept. Andrew had been amused that the horse he’d named after his favorite brand of whiskey could undo pretty much any latch on the place, but right now Bud wasn’t laughing.

He’d already called his crew and had no choice now but to sit and wait for them to get back. One man was bringing a tractor to pull him out while the others went after Jim Beam. Those herd mares didn’t take kindly to abrupt appearances of males in their midst, even if they were no longer stallions. The last thing he needed was for them to get in a fight and someone to get hurt. He’d just settled back in his seat when his cell phone began to ring. When he saw it was Holly, the bad day suddenly took a positive turn.

“Hey, sugar! How’s it going?”

Holly shivered. Even the sound of his voice made her ache.

“Oh, pretty good…considering,” she said. “It’s pouring rain, and I just missed being in the middle of a bad wreck. I got through an intersection just fine, but the car behind me was T-boned by one car and rear-ended by another. I pulled over into a shopping area to wait for the rain to subside. What about you?”

Bud blinked. He was still trying to get past the “I just missed being in the middle of a bad wreck” comment.

“Oh…my morning’s not a lot better than yours, I guess. We had a freak snowstorm blow in last night. Got about eighteen inches, with some pretty good drifts, one of which I happen to be stuck in right now.”

“Oh, no! Poor Bud!” Immediately she thought of him trying to dig out. “How’s your hand? You’re not trying to dig out by yourself, are you?”

“Sore, but fine otherwise, and no, I’m not doing any digging. The crew is on the way with a tractor. Where were you headed when the wreck occurred?”

“I was on my way to the part of the city where I used to live. I’m curious to see if I recognize the house, or if it’s even still there. Twenty years is a long time. Plenty of time for things to change.”