Grizzly Creek Standoff
Автор
Cindi Myers
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Chapter One
Courtney Baker had learned to live with fear. She had grown numb to terror, like an animal paralyzed by an illegal hunter’s spotlight. For so long, she had told herself there was nothing she could do. She was too helpless to win in any battle with Trey Allerton. All she could do was endure.
But it turned out, even a trapped animal will fight. Last night when she and Trey argued and he slapped her, the blow had shaken loose something inside her. As she lay beside him that night, after he had told her she was worthless and weak, that she would never survive without him, she had vowed to find a way to leave him.
The determination had stayed with her into the next morning. It was Tuesday, and Trey had errands in town. He must have sensed what Courtney was planning, because he’d insisted on taking her daughter, Ashlyn, with him. Courtney had forced herself to pretend she didn’t care, even though inside, her rage burned. This was how Trey controlled her: he used her own daughter as a weapon. “If you try to leave me, I’ll hurt Ashlyn,” he said. “She’ll suffer and it will be all your fault.”
Ashlyn loved Trey. Of course she did. She was only three, and Trey was the only father she had ever known. She looked forward to going places with him. He bought her ice cream and new toys and told her how wonderful she was. He had been the same with Courtney when they first met—wooing her with gifts and praise, until she felt treasured and spoiled in a way she never had before.
But once Trey had gotten Courtney to himself, once he had control of her money, he’d turned on her. He sold her SUV, telling her she didn’t need it—he could take her everywhere she needed to go. He thought he had trapped her. They lived too far out in the country for her to walk to town, or even to have cell phone service, and he had refused to install a landline at their trailer. And he had Ashlyn as insurance that Courtney wouldn’t try to leave.
But lying in bed last night, she had decided to risk leaving. She would walk a quarter mile down the road, to the yurt where a young couple, the Olsens, lived, and ask them for help. As long as she got to the sheriff’s office before Trey realized what she had done, deputies could rescue Ashlyn and return her to Courtney. Her sister-in-law, Lauren, and Lauren’s fiancé, Shane, a sheriff’s deputy, would take them in and protect them until Courtney could find a safe home for the two of them.
The thought of being on her own again frightened her, but now Trey frightened her more.
With trembling hands, she folded some of Ashlyn’s clothing, and stuffed them into the single suitcase she had decided to take with her. She tucked in a couple of her daughter’s favorite toys and books. She would have to leave everything else behind, at least for now.
She tried to work quickly, to think of everything she would need, but her mind buzzed with a kind of white noise, a static that repeated What if he finds you? What if he finds you?
She shut the suitcase and carried it into the living room. It was heavier than she thought it would be, but repacking it would take too much time. She didn’t have to carry it that far.
She slung her purse over her shoulder and moved to the back door. Trey would be in town now, far away, but going out the back felt safer. Less exposed.
She stood for a moment in the backyard, though you couldn’t call it a yard. It was just an expanse of sagebrush and rock that spread out from the turquoise blue mobile home that had come with the property. A trail through the brush led to a shed where Trey kept tools and other things he had warned her not to touch. She had told him, truthfully, that she had no interest in his belongings, but now she wondered if a smarter person would have been more curious.
She shook her head and picked up the suitcase again. It didn’t matter now. She was leaving.
She set off, walking on the shoulder of the road. She was afraid if she tried to cut across country she would get lost. Anyway, it was so quiet out here that she’d be able to hear a car on the gravel road miles before the driver could see her.
She hoped the Olsens were home. No, she wasn’t even going to consider the possibility that they wouldn’t be. The young couple were farmers. They had chickens and pigs and goats and a big garden to take care of. They would be at home, working.
The sun beat down, hot and glaring. Her steps dragged a little in the gravel on the side of the road, and her shoulder began to ache. She switched the suitcase to her other hand and kept walking. To take her mind off the pain, she rehearsed what she would say to the Olsens. “Please, I need a ride to the sheriff’s office. Trey has kidnapped my little girl. He’s threatened to harm her.”
It wouldn’t be hard to persuade the sheriff that Trey was a bad man. Deputies had already questioned Trey multiple times about crimes in the area. He always had an alibi for why he couldn’t have been involved.
Sometimes, she was that alibi. He had told her if she ever tried to retract her statements to the sheriff’s deputies, she would be arrested and charged as an accessory. An accessory to what, he never said.
For a long time, that thought had frightened her enough that she’d kept quiet. But that fear, of what might happen, had faded. Maybe she could be charged with a crime, but even jail would be better than staying with Trey, and Ashlyn would be safe with Lauren, who was her godmother as well as her aunt.
Lost in these thoughts, she didn’t hear the vehicle approaching until it was almost too late. As the sound of tires on gravel registered, she looked frantically for a place to hide. She spotted a clump of pinion trees, the dark green branches like spiky bottle brushes poking from the gray ground. She dove behind them and crouched, trying to make herself as small as possible. She couldn’t see the road from here, so she didn’t know if the vehicle was Trey’s truck or not. Probably not. It was too soon for him to be back, wasn’t it?
She waited a long time after the vehicle had passed, until her breathing had slowed to normal and the only sound was a chickadee calling from a branch above her head. Gravel dug into her knees and sweat trickled down her spine, but still she waited.
Finally, nerves stretched tight, she stood and picked up the suitcase and started walking again.
She could see the entrance to the Olsens’ place now—a split rail fence on either side of a gravel drive, with the tall spires of spent yucca blooms clustered in front of the fence.
She clutched the suitcase more tightly and walked faster, her heart pounding.
A hand grabbed her arm, jerking her almost off her feet. She stumbled back, and stared at Trey, who had appeared as if from thin air.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked. He wore dark sunglasses, hiding his eyes, but there was no mistaking the menace in his voice.
He was a big man—six feet four inches tall, with broad shoulders and powerful muscles. She had thought he was handsome and sexy when they first met. “Wh-what are you doing here?” she stammered. “Where’s Ashlyn?”
“Ashlyn is waiting in the truck.”
She looked around, but didn’t see the truck.
“I saw you when I drove past a while ago,” he said. “Hiding like a frightened rabbit. I parked and walked back.” He shook her, her head snapping back and her teeth knocking painfully together. “You’re so stupid.”
“Wh-what are you going to do?” She regretted the question as soon as she asked it.
He clamped down harder, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of her upper arm. “You’ll just have to wait and find out,” he said.
DEPUTY RONIN DOYLE slowed as he neared the black Ford pickup parked on the side of County Road 361. At first, he didn’t think anyone was in the vehicle, but as he passed, he spotted the car seat, and a hint of blond hair. He drove on, looking for a place to turn around, so he could check things out. Maybe someone had car trouble.
A hundred yards farther on, just around a curve in the road, he saw the couple on the side of the road. A blonde woman with a suitcase, and a big man with his hand on her arm. Ronin hit his brakes, hard enough that his Jeep skidded a little in the gravel. The man jerked his head up at the sound, and let go of the woman.
Ronin put the Jeep in Park, but left the engine running, and got out. “Can I help you with something?” he called.
“Everything’s fine,” the man answered.
Ronin recognized the man now—Trey Allerton was almost as new to the area as Ronin himself, but had been on the periphery of several recent cases. Ronin hadn’t been directly involved in any of those investigations, but he had played a part. One of the things he liked about working for a smaller department, like Rayford County, Colorado was that deputies had a chance to fill a variety of roles. He shifted his gaze to the woman. Her face was sheet-white, her blue eyes huge. She looked terrified. “Ma’am? Is everything okay?” he asked.
She smiled—an expression that transformed her into a real beauty. He blinked, a little stunned at the switch. “Everything’s fine,” she said. “I’m taking this suitcase to friends down the road and I’m stubborn enough to insist on carrying it myself. Trey was just trying to help.”
Trey took the suitcase from the woman. “She didn’t want to bother me, even though I told her it’s no trouble.”
Ronin looked from one to the other. Every instinct told him the story was a lie. There had been real menace in the way Trey held the woman, and real fear in her eyes. But with no one visibly injured and no laws being broken, he couldn’t interfere. “Is that your truck back there?” he asked.
“Yes. We need to get back.” Trey took the woman’s hand. “I don’t like to leave Ashlyn by herself for too long.”
The woman nodded and followed him back toward the truck. As she passed Ronin, she glanced up, and for half a second their eyes met, her gaze diamond sharp, but undecipherable.
Then she looked away, and walked hand in hand back toward the pickup truck, as if nothing unusual had happened.
Ronin climbed back into his Jeep, but waited a moment before driving on. He was in his personal vehicle, so he didn’t have his sheriff’s department computer or radio. He wasn’t in uniform and he wasn’t on duty. And even if, as he suspected, Trey Allerton and his girlfriend had been having an argument on the side of the road, there was no law against that.
He put the Jeep in gear and continued up the road. He had decided to use his day off to drive up to the old Sanford Mine, to photograph the ruins there. An approaching storm had painted the sky with some interesting clouds he thought would look especially dramatic behind the weathered remains of the mine.
A growing interest in nature photography had drawn Ronin to Eagle Mountain from Delta, where he had been an officer with the Delta County Sheriff’s Department for seven years. He wanted to be closer to the mountains. So far, the move was paying off. A gallery in Eagle Mountain had agreed to exhibit some of his work, and he’d even sold a few pieces.
He drove to the trailhead leading to the mine, and carried his backpack of camera equipment up the trail. Sun streaked through the clouds, offering the perfect mix of color and shadow for some dramatic images. For the next three hours, he lost himself in his work, taking photo after photo, until the clouds formed a solid gray mass, and rain began to spit.
He had to run the last hundred yards to his Jeep to avoid being completely soaked, but it had been a good day.
But as soon as he was back on the road, he thought of the blonde woman again. Was she really all right?
Trey Allerton had accused the sheriff’s department of targeting him. He was a veteran who had relocated to the area to open a camp for disadvantaged kids. He had leased land from a local rancher and spent time soliciting donations from local businesses. Yes, he had sometimes associated with people who had committed various crimes, even murder. But maybe he was just a bad judge of character. Maybe local law enforcement was being lazy, zeroing in on him as a suspect for every crime that came along.
Still, Ronin thought, part of good law enforcement was keeping an eye on questionable people and situations. And it wouldn’t hurt to make sure the blonde woman really was all right.
