Cardwell Ranch Trespasser(27)
“I sure would appreciate it if you could find one for me. I’m worried about a family in Montana that this woman has moved in with.”
She grunted and pushed herself to her feet, using the shotgun like a crutch. “Better step inside. This could take a while.”
* * *
WHEN DANA CAME back from town, she was clearly upset.
“You didn’t go see Hilde,” Dee said, wanting to wring her neck. She’d begged her to stay away from her former friend. “Dana, what were you thinking?”
Hud, who’d come home to watch the kids while she ran to the store, seconded Dee’s concern.
“I had to see her,” Dana cried, then shook her head.
Dee had been so excited when Dana had told her that Hud was coming home to help her watch the children. She knew that neither of them wanted to leave the little darlings with her. She’d made it clear she knew nothing about kids, especially babies.
But all the time Hud had been home, he’d been so involved with the children that he wasn’t even aware Dee was in the room.
“I hope you didn’t listen to Hilde’s crazy talk,” Dee said, worried that that was exactly what Dana had done. She’d felt Dana pulling away from her. Worse, Hud was doing the same thing, she feared.
If only Hilde had just drowned that day under the raft.
Dee touched her sore black eye. “You’re just lucky you didn’t end up like me.”
Dana glanced at her, wincing at the sight. Dee had to admit she looked like she’d been run over by a truck. But she’d wanted to make a statement and she had. Dana had been so thankful when she’d dropped the charges against Hilde. Even Hud had seemed relieved when he’d come home that night.
“It’s worse than I thought,” Dana said and looked at Hud. “I sat down and had a cup of coffee with her at the shop...”
Dee gritted her teeth in anger. How could Dana do that after seeing what Hilde had done to her cousin?
“She seemed calm, even rational...” Dana glanced at Dee then back at Hud.
Dee felt her heart begin to race. Hilde had gotten to Dana. She’d started believing her.
“Then I got ready to leave, made it as far as the door, thought of something and went back.” She stopped and took a breath. “Hud, she was bagging my coffee cup.”
Dee let out a silent curse that was like a roar in her ears.
“I demanded to know what she was doing,” Dana continued now in tears. “She told me she was going to check my DNA against Dee’s. I’m sorry, Dee,” Dana said, turning to her again. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. Clearly Hilde has had some sort of psychotic episode. How can she think I’m not your cousin? We look so much alike.”
Dana nodded, still obviously upset.
“I’d ask who she thought she was going to get to run the tests, but I’m sure Colt is helping her,” Hud said. “I can’t imagine what he’s thinking.”
“I thought you said he went to Denver to see his brother?” Dee asked.
“That’s what I heard, but I have my doubts. I can’t see him leaving Hilde alone now. He must be as worried about her as we are.”
* * *
THELMA PETERS’S HOUSE was small and cramped. She left him in a threadbare chair in the living room and disappeared into a room at the back. Periodically he would hear a bump or bang.
He looked around, noticing a picture of Jesus on one wall and a cross on another. A Bible lay open on the table next to his chair. He picked it up, curious what part she’d been reading. She had a passage underlined—Acts 3:19. Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out.
“Here is the only one I could find.” Thelma came back into the room with a snapshot clutched in her fingers. “I haven’t seen Camilla in years, so I don’t know what she looks like now. But this is what she looked like at sixteen.”
Chapter Thirteen
Colt looked down at the photo. His heart sank. The photo was of two people, a young man and a girl with long dark hair. The young man was the same man still at the morgue in Montana—Rick Cameron, aka Richard Northland.
The girl—was definitely not Dee.
He told himself it had been a long shot, but now realized how much he’d been counting on Dee being Camilla Northland. Maybe Rick really was her boyfriend. Maybe she didn’t even kill him.
“This isn’t the woman in Montana,” he told Thelma.
“Like I said, she was only sixteen. I have no idea what she looks like now.” She took the photograph back. “You look disappointed. You should be thankful the woman in Montana isn’t Camilla. You should be very thankful.”
“Were she and her brother really that bad?” he had to ask.
The old woman scoffed. “They killed their parents. Burned them to a crisp. That bad enough for you? They tried to poison me. Camilla pushed me down the stairs once no doubt hoping I would break my neck. I hate to think what they would have done if I’d broken a leg and needed the two of them to take care of me. I finally ran them off.” Still clutching the photo, she sat down in a chair across from him and patted her shotgun. “I’ve always felt guilty about that.” Her gaze came up to meet his. “But I couldn’t have killed them even knowing what I was releasing on the world.”
He felt a chill at her words as she looked from him to the photograph and seemed startled by what she saw.
“I grabbed the wrong photograph. This isn’t Camilla. This is that awful girlfriend of Richard’s.” She pushed to her feet, padded out of the room and returned a moment later.
This time she handed him a photo of Richard and a girl standing on the porch outside. The girl’s face was in shadow, but there was no doubt it was the woman who called herself Dee Anna Justice.
At sixteen, she already had those dark, soulless eyes.
* * *
DEE HAD BEEN WAITING, so she wasn’t surprised when Dana finally asked.
“I know nothing about your father,” Dana said, as she was making dinner. “Do you have any idea why our families separated all those years ago?”
Mary and Hank were making a huge mess building a fort in the living room. The twins were in dual high chairs spreading some awful-looking food all over themselves and anything else within reach.
Dee moved so she wasn’t in their line of fire. Dana had put her to work chopping vegetables for the salad. Now she stopped to look at the small paring knife in her hand. She tried to remember exactly what she’d told Stacy.
“I really have no idea,” she said, thinking that if she had to cut up one more cucumber she might start screaming. Hud hadn’t been around all day. Spending “free” time with Dana and the kids was mind-numbing.
“Can you tell me what your father was like?” Dana asked as she fried chicken in a huge cast-iron skillet on the stove. The hot kitchen smelled of grease. It turned Dee’s stomach.
“He was secretive,” Dee said, thinking of his daughter. The real Dee Anna had never talked about her family, her father in particular, which had been fine with her because she wasn’t really interested. She liked her roommates to keep to themselves, just share an apartment, not their life stories.
“Secretive?” Dana said with interest. “And your mother?”
Dee gave her the same story she’d given Stacy. She had actually met Marietta Justice, so that made it easy.
“That surprises me. I can’t imagine why my family wouldn’t have been delighted to have Walter marry so well,” Dana said.
“Maybe they didn’t want him leaving here and they knew that was exactly what was going to happen,” Dee said, as she chopped the last cucumber and dumped it into the salad. The entire topic of Dee Anna’s family bored her. If Dana wanted to hear about an interesting family, Dee could tell her about hers.
“Tell me more about your side of the family,” Dee said, knowing Dana would jump at the chance. She tuned her out as she ripped up the lettuce the way Dana had showed her and thought about her plan. She felt rushed, but she had no choice. In order to make this happen, she had to move fast.
Hilde had done a lot of damage, but Dee was sure that after Dana and the kids were gone, Hud would lean on her. Eventually.
She thought of the man she’d met on the airplane. He was still over on the Yellowstone River for a few more days. All she had to do was pick up the phone and call him. She could walk away from here and never look back. All her instincts told her that was the thing to do.
Dee heard the kids start screaming in the other room, then the front door slam. A moment later Hud Savage came into the kitchen with Mary and Hank hanging off him like monkeys. All three were laughing.
“What smells so good?” he asked. Even the two babies got excited to see him and joined in the melee.
Dee watched him give Dana a kiss. She felt her heart swell. She’d never wanted anything more in her life than what Dana had. No matter how long it took, she would have this with Hud Savage. Only he would love her more than he’d ever loved Dana.