The High Country Rancher. Jan Hambright
and appointed with cushy furniture. Her scent tinged the air, a mix of sweet and spicy. His gaze held on a piece of landscape artwork on the wall behind her beige sofa. Moving closer, he focused on the artist’s signature in the bottom right corner. Mariah Ellis.
“This is your work,” he said as she came into the living room with a glass of iced tea in each hand.
“Recognize the setting?” She smiled and he realized how relaxed she looked for the first time since he’d met her.
“The Seven Devils Mountain Range…from the Pappoose Creek side.”
“Very good.” She handed him the cold glass. “Do you want to see more?”
There was a note of excitement in her voice. Her eyes took on a sparkle he hadn’t noticed before. This was Mariah Ellis’s passion. This was what made her tick. Her art.
Moving down the hall, she showed him paintings of Mirror Lake, the Salmon River Canyon and a moose standing knee-deep in a pond at dawn feeding on moss.
“You should open a gallery. Your work is very good.”
She warmed under his praise and his breath caught in his lungs. There was something innocent about her, something as unspoiled as her art, and he wanted to kiss her in the worst way, but he reined in the urge. He’d probably get the other side of his jaw popped. Didn’t she already think he’d stepped over the line when he rewarmed her? How would she explain a kiss to her boyfriend? Frozen lips?
He took a deep gulp from his glass and turned toward the living room and escape. He’d fulfilled his obligation. She was home safe.
“Thanks for the drink.” He handed the glass to her at the door and glanced down at an open book lying on a small table.
His heart jumped in his chest. He reached out and picked up the high-school yearbook.
Staring up at him from the page was a picture of Mariah and Amy. Arms locked, leaning against a set of lockers. The caption read, “Friends Forever.”
His gut squeezed. He looked at Mariah. “You knew my wife, Amy?”
“We were best friends our sophomore year of high school.”
A wave of caution raced through him, leaving him cold inside where he’d been warm only moments ago.
This was personal. Her suspicions about his involvement in Endicott’s disappearance were fueled by her certainty about his guilt in Amy’s death. There would never be an end to it. He’d done everything he could to save her life that night, short of drowning himself.
He closed the book and put it down. “I’ve got a long drive back to the ranch.” He turned the doorknob and pulled the door open.
“Baylor.”
He paused without turning around.
“For what it’s worth, thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He didn’t look back, just stepped out and pulled the door shut behind him.
He’d see her again. He knew it. Come Monday morning she’d have her cop face on, and he’d have to prove himself all over again.
“You’ve got some explaining to do.”
Young lady. Mariah mentally finished the sentence she’d outgrown a long time ago and closed her father’s office door to keep the gossip to a minimum. Everyone in the department seemed to already know she’d spent Friday night trapped on a mountain with a suspect. She had no idea how things got spread, but they did, like butter on a waffle.
“I told you my car went into the ditch in the storm. The electricity and phone lines were down. I had no cell service up there, and no way out. If Baylor McCullough hadn’t found me, you’d be hanging at the morgue right now identifying my frozen remains, so give it a rest.”
Chief Ellis’s mouth opened, then closed as he rocked back in his chair, and studied his daughter. “Do you still think he had something to do with Endicott’s disappearance?”
Mariah swallowed, digging for her feelings on a matter she’d been so sure of only days ago. Baylor’s guilt.
“I don’t know. But he’s hiding something. You should have seen his reaction when I spoke about Endicott. There’s definitely some animosity there.”
“Hell, yeah. Endicott pressed him to the wall. I never understood exactly why he went after him so hard. The evidence seemed to support Amy McCullough’s death as a tragic accident. But enough rage to snatch the man and make him go away? You got anyone else on the list?”
“I accounted for everyone Endicott prosecuted. They’re either walking a straight line, out-of-state, dead or back in custody. McCullough is the only one who still lives around here.”
“You’re lucky he doesn’t file a harassment suit against you. Make sure you play him straight. If he is involved, we need a clean case, no loopholes he could slip through.”
“Okay.” She stood up to leave, her nerves as tense as a race car driver’s waiting at the start line.
There was only one way to capitalize on her suspicion. She’d have to stake out the Bellwether Ranch. If she could find probable cause, she could get a search warrant. Maybe she could find what he was hiding. She just hoped it wasn’t Endicott.
BAYLOR MOVED PAST THE kitchen window for the third time in ten minutes, making sure he saw what he saw. He raised the binoculars to his eyes and adjusted the focus, dialing in the nose of the vehicle parked west of the ranch in a patch of trees a quarter of a mile away.
Detective Ellis’s white car. She’d been there since dawn. Watching, waiting for him to make a move. Amusement rippled through him. He put the field glasses down.
If determination was all it took to be a cop, she would take the prize. Too bad she was so far off target. Granted, he hated what Endicott had done to him and the effect it had on his life, but he had nothing to do with his disappearance.
Baylor headed outside to the barn. Somehow convincing Detective Ellis of that fact seemed important. If she wanted evidence, he’d show her there wasn’t any, not on the Bellwether Ranch anyway.
MARIAH CLOSED HER EYES for an instant, trying to stop them from burning. She’d been on the stakeout since five this morning, and her coffee thermos was empty.
This had to be one of the worst ideas she’d ever managed to employ, at least on a twenty-five-hundred-acre ranch. Baylor could have hidden Endicott anywhere. Maybe she should give it up and go back to square one. Good, old-fashioned, pound-the-pavement, last-person-to-see-him-alive kind of stuff. Someone had to have seen something. She just had to pose the right question to the right person.
She opened her eyes and was startled. The object of her crack-of-dawn investigation stood next to her car holding the reins to a couple of horses.
“Good morning,” he said. “You’ll never get any nosing around done sitting in your car.”
Damn, she’d been caught. “You have a better plan?”
“How about I give you a tour of the ranch on horseback. You can search for Endicott anywhere you’d like.”
“And if I find him?” The air inside the vehicle went hot.
“You can cuff me and take me to jail.”
“Deal.” She rolled up the driver’s-side window, climbed out of the car and locked it. “I haven’t ridden in a while. Is he gentle?”
“Jericho? Yeah. The last person he dumped lived to tell about it.”
She