In Safe Hands (Search and Rescue #4)(41)
Rory explained, “When the Liverton Riders—the local motorcycle club—started falling apart, Anderson was right there trying to fill the criminal void. He came to talk to me at my shop one day about buying—” She stopped abruptly, swallowing the rest of what she’d been about to say and looking so discomfited that Daisy’s curiosity shot through the roof. “Uh, buying guns. He killed the guy who headed up search and rescue, and now Anderson is after Ellie and her dad.”
“I was just getting to that part,” Lou jumped in. “Willard’s one friend, Baxter Price—”
“My dad,” Ellie interrupted.
“The one who’s missing?” Daisy instantly regretted asking when the woman’s face dropped.
“Yes. He checked himself out of a mental-health facility north of Denver almost a month ago. I haven’t heard from him since then, though we’ve been looking everywhere. He’s schizophrenic.”
It was Daisy’s turn to reach for Ellie’s hand. “I’m sorry.”
Ellie gave her a watery smile before turning back to Lou.
“He’s okay, El,” Lou said firmly, as if she could will her words into being. “He’s tough and wily.”
“I know.” Ellie gave a quick nod and then gestured for Lou to continue.
“When Baxter doesn’t hear from his friend, Willard, for a while, he comes to Simpson to investigate.” Lou frowned. “Ellie, this part gets a little confusing. Would you mind taking over?”
Ellie’s laugh was a little shaky. “Sure, although I don’t know if I can make it any less confusing. My dad called me out of the blue one night and told me that someone was after him, so he was headed to my grandpa’s old cabin to hide. I didn’t take him seriously about the someone’s-after-him part, but I didn’t want him wandering around the mountains alone, so I went searching. It ended up that two men were trying to kill him—Anderson King and his…uh, his brother.” She ducked her head for a moment, her expression tight with what looked like sadness and guilt. Before Daisy could ask Ellie what was wrong, she continued. “They are—were—local meth dealers who were informed by someone else that Dad had witnessed a sale. I overheard Dad saying the informant had lied to the dealers, sending them after him because Dad knew this person had killed Willard.”
“Chris really has been holding out on me,” Daisy breathed, trying to take in the story. All this had been happening while she was shut up in the house, unaware of the drama. Frustration surged through her, surprising her with its strength. She wished so badly to be normal, to be able to grocery shop and visit someone else’s house and follow the local gossip and date…
Shutting the mental door on the unexpected flood of self-pity, she refocused on Ellie. “What happened?”
“Anderson’s brother was killed”—Ellie swallowed, her gaze dropping to her lap again—“and Anderson…got away. He tracked me down in the woods outside of George’s cabin. That’s how I got this.” She tugged at the top of her thermal shirt, revealing a bruise in various shades of green, yellow, and purple. Daisy winced in sympathy. “They’re still hunting for him, but the sheriff’s pretty sure he headed to Mexico and won’t be seen again.”
Just that quick mention of the sheriff made Daisy shiver, and she quickly refocused her attention on Ellie.
“With my dad, it’s hard to know what’s real and what’s not. Plus, I think he was trying to protect me by not telling me who Willard’s murderer was. We thought Joseph—the search and rescue guy who was killed—might be involved.” She shot Daisy an apologetic look. “Or maybe even Chris.”
“What?!” Daisy straightened abruptly. “Chris? Why? He’s the most ethical, kindhearted, nonmurderous—”
“I know! I know!” Ellie waved her hands as if trying to calm Daisy. “Now, at least. Once I spent time with Chris, I knew he couldn’t have been involved. It was just, after he left me alone at the cabin right before Anderson arrived…”
The conversation with Chris replayed in her head. “Oh, when you were shot! Chris told me about it. He feels so awful that you were hurt on his watch.”
“That’s what he said,” Ellie agreed. “He explained about the lack of radio and cell reception, and he apologized to me and George.”
Although Daisy still felt prickly at any suggestion Chris could be a bad guy, she turned her attention to a different question niggling at her brain. “So did your dad say anything, or give any hints as to who it might be?”
Ellie bit the side of her thumbnail. “Not really. The last time I talked to him, before he left Armstrong, all he said was something about ‘the fires.’ We were interrupted before he could explain what he meant, and he checked himself out that afternoon.”
“The fires?” Lou and Rory chorused.
“You didn’t mention that before,” Lou said, scribbling “Fires” on the paper and underlining it several times. “What’d he say about them?”
“Sorry,” Ellie said, looking back and forth between Lou and Rory. “I figured it was just in his mind, especially after the explosion at the cabin. He didn’t say much, just mentioned ‘the fires.’”
“The cabin exploded?” Daisy repeated, her eyes widening, but the others weren’t listening to her.