Betrayal in the Badlands Read online

  The wind lifted her hair, whirling it around her face. A sudden gust of cool air hit her and she took another step forward. She felt a presence behind her.

  Out of the darkness someone rose up, pushing her forward with a violent shove. Arms flailing, she fought to keep her balance, but tumbled forward.

  A loud crack of rock sounded above the wind, and the ground began to move under Isabel’s feet. She slid on an avalanche of rock down into a ravine, concealed by darkness and foliage.

  Rocks and dirt rained down as she tried to shield her head with her arms. Desperately she dug her feet into the sliding debris, but the effort did nothing to stop her momentum as she was carried along.

  With a sudden jolt that shook her to the core, Isabel slammed into a boulder at the bottom. A shower of rock fragments continued to move past her until the rush slowed into a trickle and then stopped.

  Her head spun and sparks danced before her eyes. For a strange moment, she thought she heard snatches of a man singing.

  The old flag, lovely old flag.

  She tried to clear the muddle in her head.

  Eyes closed, she took stock. Gingerly she moved her legs and arms, fearful of setting loose another rock slide. Wiping the grime from her face, she discovered she was wedged against the large boulder, her legs buried under a foot of soil and rock. Inch by inch she wiggled her feet, testing to see if anything was broken. A shooting pain up her ankle made her gasp, and she realized with a start of terror that her foot was pinned between two enormous hunks of rock. Try as she might she could not pull it free.

  Struggling to catch her breath and control the fear, Isabel looked up toward the mouth of the ravine. It was steep, the top bathed in darkness.

  She’d been pushed; there was no mistaking that, probably by the person who had let Blue Boy loose. She could still feel the blow that toppled her over the edge. Someone wanted to kill her, someone who could very well be waiting at the top for her to crawl out. Or maybe on their way down to make sure she hadn’t survived.

  Her entire body was shaking and she could feel her ankle beginning to swell.

  Screaming for help would alert her attacker that their mission wasn’t complete, and the chances of a passerby hearing her cries were negligible.

  Isabel’s teeth chattered and panic flowed through her veins like a strong poison. Hugging herself to try to stop the shudders, she felt the hard surface of the satellite cell phone in her pocket, under a blanket of rubble.

  The phone with Logan’s number programmed in.

  Her heart thudded wildly. Call Logan.

  She didn’t trust him, didn’t even remember his last name.

  He could have something to do with her sister’s accident or be covering for the people who knew what had happened to Cassie. He could have been the one who pushed her.

  But he’d offered to help her before, his smile gentle and seemingly genuine and strangely familiar.

  Trust your instincts, Is.

  Instincts? Instincts hadn’t helped her steer clear of Rawley Pike. Instinct hadn’t helped her at all. Except for one important thing, she reminded herself. That strong urge inside had brought her back to the faith her mother had tried so desperately to instill in her girls. Should she follow her heart now?

  Trust a stranger?

  She clenched her hands together and mumbled a prayer.

  Help me trust the right person this time.

  Biting her lip until she tasted blood, Isabel dialed.

  TWO

  Logan jerked awake at the ringing of the phone. He was instantly alert, ready to ship out on the next mission, until the present rushed back in again. Four in the morning and he didn’t recognize the number on the caller ID. He made a move to roll over and ignore it, but turned and snatched up the receiver in spite of himself.

  “Logan.”

  He couldn’t hear an answer, only the crackle of a bad connection and the word that had always given him purpose. “Help.”

  He recognized the voice, fear running deep through her words. “Isabel? Where are you? What’s wrong?” She whispered her predicament. He got the gist of it; just enough to know her location and that she didn’t want a rescue crew. “You need an ambulance.”

  Her words came through forcefully this time. “No. Just you.” There was a pause. “Please.”

  He heard her difficulty in uttering the last word and understood. He’d never been good at asking for help either. “Stay put, don’t try to move. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  Then he was throwing on clothes, grabbing some essential supplies and racing to the truck, with Tank thundering behind. On the way up the mountain, he pushed the vehicle as fast as it would go and thought about Isabel’s half-crazy chatter. Something about Blue Boy and a stranger in the woods. She said she’d been pushed into a ravine.

  Logan pressed the accelerator harder. Pushed? She’d probably gotten confused, alone on a strange property before sunup. Still, the twinge of unease he’d felt before began again. He shook it off as he crested the last ridge before Mountain Cloud Ranch.

  It was still dark but the rain had eased off, turning into a soft mist that enveloped him as he headed for the rocky end of the ranch, Tank at his heels. There was no sign of Blue Boy or anybody else as he pushed through the greenery and found the edge of the ravine where there was clear evidence of a recent rock slide. He lay belly down on the edge and called into the darkness.

  “Isabel?”

  “I’m here.” The relief in her tone was palpable.

  “Are you hurt?”

  “I banged up my ankle. It’s caught between some rocks and I can’t get free.”

  “I’m coming down. Hold tight.” He told the dog to stay as he fastened a rope around a sturdy spruce and looped it through the carabiner on his belt. Shouldering the backpack, he began the backward descent into the ravine. Each step was precarious, causing the rock to move and shift. He paused often, fearing his progress would shower more debris on her.

  Sweat poured down his face in spite of the cool. He shouted to her frequently, keeping her talking, warding off shock, or so he hoped, and giving him a direction.

  Finally his feet touched bottom and he unfastened himself from the ropes. He switched on a flashlight and made his way quickly to her.

  Her face was pale in the dim light, coated with grime. From what he could see, her pupils were even and reactive when he flicked the light across her field of vision. He knelt next to her and felt her wrist. “Hey there. This is a crazy way to explore the property.”

  She didn’t smile. “I was after Big Blue, and someone pushed me.”

  He could feel the pulse in her wrist begin to race. It was not the time to get into that. “Let’s focus on getting you out of here. I’m going to give you a quick check, with your permission.”

  She nodded, lying still as he ran his hands along her arms and legs. He gently slid his fingers along the back of her neck. “Any pain? Numbness? Tingling?”

  “No. Are you a doctor?”

  “I’m a little of everything.” He pulled out a pry bar from his backpack and circled around behind the rock. “When you feel the rock move, pull your ankle free. Can you do that?”

  “To get out of here I could do anything.”

  He chuckled and leaned his weight on the pry bar. It shifted, but not enough. He added more force behind it until his muscles screamed at the effort. Finally the rock slid just enough that Isabel pulled clear.

  He scrambled around the rock and found her crouched over her ankle, fighting against the pain.

  “One obstacle down. How about we see to that ankle now?” It was swollen and bruised, but not misshapen. A good sign. “Could be you got out of this with a bad sprain.” He wrapped the joint as gently as he could with a bandage and activated a chemical cold pack to sandwich between the layers of bandages.

  She was sitting up now, eyeing him with an expression he couldn’t decipher. “Logan, did you…hear singing up there?”

&
nbsp; He shot her a look, checking to see if she was slipping into shock. “No, ma’am. Must have been the wind.”

  “I guess so. I got really mixed up when I fell. I don’t even know how long I’ve been down here.” She watched him finish the bandaging. “You seem like you do this kind of thing every day.”

  He felt the dull twinge of pain. “I used to. You ready to get out of here?”

  She nodded and he helped her to stand on her good ankle. Then he refastened himself to the rope. “Can you carry the backpack?”

  When she nodded, Logan slid the straps onto her shoulders and began to fasten a webbed belt around her waist before he pulled her tight to his back. He felt her stiffen when her chest touched his shoulders.

  “What are you doing?”

  Her breath was warm on his neck. “I’m getting us out of here. I’ll do the climbing, and you hold on. Deal?” Without waiting for an answer he began hauling them up out of the ravine, Isabel holding him around the waist, her head pressed to his shoulder.

  She didn’t make a whimper of complaint as they climbed, even when he could not avoid banging into the jagged rocks. Her repaired ankle throbbed, and her dead weight on his back made the going rough.

  It didn’t matter.

  It could have been two hundred feet or two hundred miles.

  He would finish the mission.

  Gritting his teeth he pulled them along, hand over hand, until they reached the top of the ravine. With a whine of joy, Tank grabbed hold of Logan’s sleeve and yanked for all he was worth.

  Logan hauled them both over the top, unstrapped Isabel from his back and helped her to sit. Tank darted from Logan to Isabel, licking them both.

  “This is Tank.”

  She smiled and rubbed him under the chin. “Good name.”

  “Good dog.”

  The sky had lightened from black to gray to pearl as the sun pushed its way toward the horizon. They sat in silence for a while, Logan trying to catch his breath and Isabel staring at him.

  He gave himself a few more moments to recover and then got to his feet. “We need to get you inside. How about another piggyback ride?”

  She shook her head. “I can walk.”

  “You’ll damage your ankle further.”

  Her eyes shifted and she chewed her lower lip. “I can’t let you carry me anymore. You’ve got to be exhausted after that climb. I’ll hop on one foot, if you can steady me.”

  He put on the backpack and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. She clung to him to keep from falling. As they struggled for balance, Logan glanced down at the wet earth near the edge of the crevice they had just emerged from.

  Isabel followed his gaze. “What is it?”

  He shrugged and moved them in the direction of the cabin. “Later.”

  With Tank at their heels, they set off.

  It was only a half mile back, but it took them almost a half hour to hobble along. Finally they pushed through the door, and Logan deposited Isabel on the small couch in the front room, where Tank promptly curled up in an untidy pile at her feet.

  Logan fetched some ice from the freezer, wrapped it in a dish towel and laid it on her ankle.

  “I’ll drive you to town for an X-ray.”

  “No. It’s just a sprain. I don’t need an X-ray.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  She pressed her lips together. “No.”

  He sighed. “Are you always this stubborn?”

  There was a glimmer of a smile on her face. “I’m afraid so.” She fiddled with the edge of the blanket he’d draped over her shoulders. “I—I want to thank you. You don’t even know me, but you came over here in the middle of the night and hauled me out of that hole. I still can’t believe it happened.”

  He looked directly into her ink-dark eyes. “I can.”

  She blinked. “You believe me? That I was pushed? Why?”

  He chose his words carefully. “Because there was a set of footprints in the mud at the edge of the ravine, someone wearing cowboy boots.”

  “Could they be your prints?”

  He shook his head and pointed to his feet. “I’m in mountain climbers. Whoever made those prints stood right at the edge, and watched you fall.”

  Isabel stroked the dog as she drank the instant coffee Logan prepared for them both, trying to calm herself. It was almost 7:00 a.m. by now. She wasn’t sure what to say to the man who had gone to such trouble and physical torture on her account. She could tell by the far-off look in his eyes that he was trying to make sense of the past few hours, too. She felt a familiar trembling and tried to get up.

  Logan laid a restraining hand on her shoulder. “Stay put. Whatever you need, I’ll get it.”

  “I—I need something with sugar.”

  He eyed her closely. “Diabetes?”

  “Hypoglycemia. I haven’t eaten regularly since I came.”

  He went to the kitchen and returned with a handful of Oreos for her and one for himself. “So what made you come to the ranch?”

  “Cassie loved her horses. I wanted to make sure things were taken care of, until the property can be sold.”

  His eyes bored into hers. “You don’t want to live here?”

  She shrugged. “It isn’t my property. I figure Cassie probably left it to my uncle, and I don’t really have fond memories of South Dakota anyway.”

  “Been here before?”

  “Yes,” she said grimly.

  Logan didn’t question further. “Okay. Change of subject. Let’s talk about who would want to shove you over the edge of a ravine. Did you upset anyone recently?”

  Upset anyone? One person sprang to her mind immediately, a certain ex-husband who was still languishing in jail, thanks to her. She looked at her hands.

  Logan folded his arms, his voice low and serious. “You don’t have to talk to me about it, but the cops are going to ask you the same thing, so you might want to have an answer ready for them.”

  She started. “The cops?”

  He leaned forward. “If someone just tried to kill you. You need to file a police report.”

  The thought of facing the barrage of personal questions that was sure to follow made her stomach turn. “Maybe it was some crazy person and he’s moved on.”

  “You and I both know that’s improbable.” He hesitated before he finished. “Whatever happened might be related to your sister’s accident.”

  Isabel’s mouth fell open. “You think there’s something strange about my sister’s death, too?”

  He held up his hands. “I didn’t say that. It just occurred to me that Blue Boy could have been spooked by a stranger on the property the night he threw Cassie.”

  “My sister grew up around horses. She wouldn’t have been thrown easily.”

  “I agree with you, and I’ve thought about that quite a bit. She managed Blue Boy, and he’s a handful. It never made sense to me why your sister took off riding at night.”

  Though she was relieved to have someone else voice her suspicions, the idea of bringing it all up to law enforcement fanned the anxiety in her gut. There was no other choice. If she wanted the police to look more closely at Cassie’s death, she needed to tell them what had happened. “I guess I’ll talk to the cops.”

  He put down his coffee mug. “I’ll drive you to town right now.”

  “You don’t need to drive me. I can…”

  He pointed to her ankle. “I’ll drive.”

  Before she could fire off a retort, Tank got to his feet and barked, pressing his wide face to the window. Logan pulled back the curtain. “Well, there’s one bit of good news, anyway.”

  Isabel hopped over as Logan opened the front door.

  A stocky man in jeans and a flannel shirt was dismounting Blue Boy. Two other people on horseback hopped down from their saddles, too.

  Isabel couldn’t suppress a cry of joy at the sight of the horse. “Blue Boy. I didn’t think I’d see you again.”

  The stocky man shrugged. Isabel guessed him to
be somewhere in his midthirties.

  “Found him running loose on our property. I know he’s Miss Cassie’s horse.” He extended a hand. “I’m John Trigg.”

  “Isabel Ling. My sister mentioned that you worked for her.”

  He tipped his cowboy hat. “Yes, ma’am.” His eyes narrowed. “I’ve been taking care of things. I figured if Cassie had any family they would more than likely sell the property.”

  Isabel didn’t miss the hint of petulance in his words. Instead of answering, she smiled at the other two people. A heavy-set man with a florid face stroked his mustache and stepped up onto the porch. “Hello, Ms. Ling. I’m Carl Trigg, John’s father.”

  “And the mayor.” Isabel shook his hand. She smelled a trace of whiskey on his breath. “My sister told me you helped her a number of times. You own the adjoining property.”

  He chuckled. “Sure do. It’s been our oasis from the political storm for years. Nothing like being out in nowhere to make you remember what’s important. This is my wife, Sheila.”

  A blonde lady with shoulder-length hair extended a hand and clasped Isabel’s palm in hers. “Pleased to meet you. We were so fond of your sister.” Her eyes shifted to Isabel’s foot. “What happened? Have you had an accident?” She turned to Logan. “And this handsome soldier came to your rescue, I suppose?”

  Soldier? That might explain Logan’s arsenal of rescue skills. Isabel invited them in, and the mayor and his wife settled next to her on the couch. Logan leaned against the door. John excused himself to return Blue Boy to the barn.

  Mayor Trigg cleared his throat. “So tell us what happened, young lady.”

  Isabel gave them a quick overview.

  Mr. and Mrs. Trigg’s eyes grew increasingly wider until the mayor leaned forward.

  “Somebody pushed you? Who would do that?”

  Sheila frowned. “And why?”

  Logan raised an eyebrow. “That’s the question of the day. I’m going to drive to town so Isabel can talk it all out with the police.”