One Hot Forty-Five

Lantry warned himself to treat this woman with kid gloves. Who knew what she’d do next? And yet, she was so annoying. This whole situation was damned infuriating.

“It isn’t love I don’t believe in, it’s marriage,” he said into the hurt silence that had filled the pickup cab. “Any reasonable person who’s seen the statistics would think twice before getting married, except that people in love always think they’re going to be the ones who make it.”

“But if you never gamble on love—”

“Marriage isn’t a gamble. It’s like playing Russian roulette with all but one of the chambers full of lead. Do you realize how many marriages end in divorce? Fifty percent of first marriages, sixty-seven percent of second marriages and seventy-four percent of third marriages.”

“Have you always been this pessimistic?”

“Statistics don’t lie,” he said. “Most first marriages end after seven years. So do second marriages. Only thirty-three percent reach their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. Half of all married people never reach their fifteenth anniversary. Only five percent make fifty years.”

“I believed I was in that five percent.”

“Even after what you’d been through?” He looked over at her as if she’d lost her mind, then remembered she had. “You thought Frank was the right person, which proves how blind love is. That’s the reason why I am never getting married. My life is much safer without a spouse, and so are my assets.”

She shot him a sympathetic look. “That’s pitiful.”

“I consider it intelligent.”

“I still believe in marriage,” she said stubbornly. “I’ve always loved those stories about married couples who die of old age within days of each other because the spouse can’t stand to let the other one go without him or her.”

He stared at her profile in the dash lights. “I’m astounded after your marriage to Frank that you can still wax romantic about marriage.”

“When he put that gold band on my finger, I planned to wear it to my deathbed, the ring wearing thinner and thinner with the years.” She shook her head. “I was wrong. But that doesn’t mean that the institution of marriage is doomed.”

He couldn’t believe her, given what Frank had put her through. She actually had tears in her eyes.

“Come on, tell the truth. You pawned your engagement and wedding ring as quick as you could after the divorce without a second thought.”

“I never even considered the monetary value.”

“So where’re the rings?” He saw her expression and burst out laughing. “You did pawn them.”

“I had to use the rings to get out of the mental hospital in Texas. It was all I had to offer at the time.” She glanced over at him, then back at the road. “Why can’t you believe that I loved Frank?”

That was the problem. He did believe it. What amazed him more than anything was that she still loved the man.

THROUGH THE FALLING AND BLOWING snow Violet could barely make out Old Town Whitehorse. The wind whipped the fallen snow into sculpted drifts, and the air outside the stolen SUV had an icy-cold weight to it that made it hard to breathe.

Violet cut the engine and stared down the hill at her mother’s house. The day had turned bright with the earlier dawn and the falling snow.

“I don’t understand what we’re doing here,” Roberta said. “Aren’t the roads going to blow in? Maybe we should find some place to stay for a while.”

“I’m going down to my house to get us some warmer clothes, food and money.”

“What if your mother is home?” Roberta asked. “Maybe it’s a trap.”

That was the problem with hanging out with a schizophrenic.

Violet watched a large SUV pull into the drive. She picked up the binoculars she’d stolen along with clothing from one of the houses they’d visited earlier.

She watched a large man climb out and go into the house. A few minutes later, he came out with a suitcase, went back in and came out with a long garment bag and carefully put that into the backseat. Her mother’s wedding gown?

A few moments later, her mother came out. She saw Arlene look around as if she knew Violet was close by. Maybe her mother knew her better than she’d thought.

Arlene seemed to hesitate as if she didn’t want to leave. Finally, she got into the SUV and the two drove away. Violet had seen the man driving. The fiancé, no doubt. He looked … nice. Bigger and better looking than she’d expected.

Violet started to get out.

“You sure no one’s home?” Roberta asked, looking down at the house through dim winter light. The temperature had dropped quickly inside the SUV while they’d been waiting.

Violet rolled her eyes. “Didn’t you just see them drive off?”

“Still …”

“All the lights are off. They’re gone, okay?” she snapped. She’d come to regret bringing Roberta along. “Stay here.”

“What should I do if you don’t come back?” Roberta asked.

“I will be back.” Violet pulled the key from the ignition and climbed out. She was going home.

LANTRY WATCHED THE ROAD ahead—what little he could see of it—and listened to Dede talk about her marriage, trying to distract himself from thinking about what this woman might have planned for him.

“Frank changed,” Dede was saying. “One day I just woke up, and I was lying next to a stranger.”

“If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard that,” he said.

“I’m sure you got more than a dollar every time you heard it.” The pickup broke through another large drift that had blown across the road. Fortunately, the roads out here were fairly straight since it was getting harder and harder to see where the roadbed lay between the fences.

“It made me wonder why Frank married me,” she said.

That sexy body, Lantry thought but was smart enough not to say anything as she drove deeper into the storm and farther from civilization.

The snow was piling up. At least a foot had fallen and was still falling. The weather conditions were worsening to the point that he was becoming even more anxious. Where the hell was she taking him?

“You’re going to love this,” she said, “but I think Frank married me because I was so normal.”

“Funny,” he said. “You know you really don’t seem like a woman who is running from killers.”

“Because I made one little joke?”

“Little is right.”

“Oh, I would have bet you had no sense of humor in your line of work.”

“I’m a lawyer, not an undertaker.”

“Right, you bury people alive.”

“Could we discuss the reason you’ve kidnapped me instead of my chosen profession, please.” He was having a hard time concentrating on the conversation. Snowflakes thick as cotton were blowing horizontally across the road, obliterating everything.

Dede had slowed the pickup to a crawl and now leaned over the steering wheel, straining to see.

“This is insane,” he muttered under his breath. “You don’t even know where you are.”

He’d been watching the compass and temperature gauge in the pickup. The temperature outside had been steadily dropping as she drove south toward the Missouri Breaks—into no-man’s-land—and the road was nearly drifted in.

If she planned to hook back up with Highway 191 south, she’d missed the turn.

“Dede—” He’d barely gotten the word out when a gust of wind hit the side of the pickup as the front of the truck broke through a large drift. The drift pulled the tires hard to the right.

Lantry felt the front tire sink into the soft snow at the edge of the road. Dede was fighting to keep the snow from pulling the pickup into the deeper snow of the barrow pit, but it was a losing battle.

Snow flew up over the hood and windshield as the truck plowed into the snow-filled ditch.

Lantry had seen it coming and braced himself. The pickup crashed through the deep snow, coming to an abrupt stop buried between the road and a line of fence posts and barbed wire.

He heard Dede smack her head on the side window since the pickup didn’t have side air bags.

The only other sound was that of the gun clattering to the floorboard at his feet.

Chapter Three

Violet wasn’t surprised to find the front door of the farm house unlocked. No one in these parts locked their doors—except when she was on the loose. Had her mother left the door open on purpose?

She gripped the knob as she pushed gently and the door swung in, the scents of her childhood rushing at her like ghosts from the darkness.

The brightness of the falling snow beyond the open curtains cast the interior of the house in an eerie pale light, making it seem even creepier, the memories all that more horrendous.

She stood for a moment, breathing hard in the dim light, then fumbled for the light switch. The overhead lamp came on, chasing away the shadows, forcing the ghosts to scurry back into their holes.

Violet moved quickly down the hall toward her old room and turned on the light. She hadn’t expected her mother would keep her room exactly as it had been. She’d anticipated that Arlene might have boxed up her stuff and pushed it into a corner.

The room had been turned into a playroom for a child. Violet stared. She could tell that her mother had decorated the room. As she caught the scent of baby powder, she felt tears flood her eyes.

The realization hit her hard. Her mother had gotten rid of her—and her things. Arlene had never planned for her oldest daughter to come home again.

Violet swallowed the large lump in her throat only to have it lodge in her chest. There was nothing here for her.

“DEDE?”

She was slumped over, hands still gripping the wheel.

“Dede?”

She lifted her head slowly, looking a little dazed as she shifted her gaze from the snow-packed windshield to him. “What happened?”

“We went in the ditch. Shut off the engine. The tailpipe’s probably under the snow. The cab will be filling with carbon monoxide.”

She took a hand off the wheel to rub her temple. It was red where she’d smacked it on the side window. Fumbling, she turned off the engine, pitching them into cold silence.

“Dede, you need to get these handcuffs off me.”

She didn’t move.

“We can’t stay here. I saw a mailbox back up the road There must be a farmhouse nearby. If we stay here, we’ll freeze to death. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Her gaze went to her lap. He saw recognition cross her expression as she realized the gun was gone. She raised her eyes to him and saw that he’d managed to free the plastic cuffs from his belt, unsnap his seatbelt and retrieve the gun from where it had fallen on the floorboard. He’d stuck the gun in the waist band of his jeans.

“I wouldn’t have shot you,” she said quietly.

“I guess we’re about to find out.” He held out his cuffed wrists to her. “There’s a hunting knife under the seat. I need you to cut these off. Unless you want to die right here in this barrow pit.”

She met his gaze, held it for a moment, then reached under the seat, pulled the knife from its leather sheath and cut the plastic cuffs. Lantry rubbed his wrists, watching her as she put the knife back. She looked defeated, but he’d seen that look before and knew better than to believe it.

He tried his door. Just as he suspected, it wouldn’t move. Snow was packed in around the truck. Dede’s side, he saw, would be worse since snow was packed clear up past her window.

“We’re going to have to climb out my side through the window. But first …” He turned to dig through the space behind the seats for what little spare clothing he carried. This was his first winter in Montana.

His stepmother, Kate, had lived here her first twenty-two years and knew about Montana winters. She’d told him numerous times to take extra clothing, water, a blanket and food each time he ventured off the ranch.

He wished now that he’d listened to her. All he had was a pair of snow pacs that he kept in the car in case he went off the road and a shovel in the bed of the truck in case he had to dig himself out.

There was no digging the pickup out of this ditch, es pecially in this blizzard. But at least his feet would be warmer in the pacs than in his cowboy boots.

He tugged off his boots and put on his pacs. All the time, he could feel Dede watching him, that desolate look in her eyes.

“You’re going to turn me in,” she finally said.

He looked up at her from tying the laces on the pacs. “We can figure things out once we get to the house back up the road.”

He dug around behind the seat again and found an old hat with earflaps and a pair of worn work gloves. “Here, wear these. I’m afraid that’s the best I can do.” He glanced at her Santa suit. The feet on it were plush black fake fur with plastic soles.

“Give me your feet,” he said. She eyed him with suspicion but did as she was told. Even with the thick fabric of the costume, he was able to slip his boots over it, making the cowboy boots fit well enough to get her to the house back up the road.

“Ready?” He pulled on his gloves, reached over and turned the key to put down his window. Snow cascaded in. He dug through the snow until he could see daylight and falling snow. “Come on.”

“IS EVERYTHING ALL RIGHT?” Roberta asked as Violet tossed an armload of clothing into the backseat, handed her a couple boxes of crackers and some salami and cheese, and slid behind the wheel.

“Perfect.”

“Are those your clothes?”

“They’re my mother’s, if you must know. I had to borrow a few of her things.” Violet gave her a look, daring her to ask what had happened to her own clothes.

Roberta eyed her but was smart enough not to cross that line. “So what now?”

“We hang out until it’s time to go to my mother’s wedding shower, what else?” Violet snapped.

“Cool,” Roberta said. “I love wedding showers.”

Violet cut her eyes to her fellow escapee and questioned her own sanity for bringing Roberta along. True, Roberta had helped get the Santa costumes, since they weren’t allowed real clothing on the criminally insane ward, and she had stood guard while Violet had stolen the SUV.

It had been Roberta’s idea that they steal the Santa costumes for the upcoming Christmas show. “They will be warmer than our regulation hospital scrubs, and who is going to pull over three women dressed as Santas?” But Violet was beginning to think it was about time to ditch Roberta. All that kept her from it as she drove away from her former home was the fact that she might need Roberta in the near future.

“They say you’re the company you keep,” her dead grandmother said from the backseat with a chuckle. “In this case, two crazy peas in a pod.”

“Shut up,” Violet snapped.

Roberta looked over at her. “Your dead grandmother again?”

“That Roberta’s a sharp one, all right,” Grandma said. “Sharper than you, since going to your mother’s shower is one of the dumbest things you’ve ever come up with. What’s the point?”

Violet glared into the rearview mirror at her grandmother for a moment, then concentrated on the road. The snow was coming down so hard now that if she hadn’t known the road, she would have ended up in the ditch.

She drove back to Whitehorse and turned onto the road to the Tin Cup. It surprised her how many cars were parked in the lot. She parked on the highway side on a small hill facing the large pond just off the road and cut the lights.

In the restaurant, she could see decorations hanging in front of the windows and people moving around behind the thin drapes.

“I thought we were going to a shower?” Roberta said.

Violet shot her a look. “We wait here for my mother.”

“Then we follow her and run her off the road, drag her out of her car and beat her senseless,” Roberta said with a smile. “How does that sound?”

Violet didn’t answer as she helped herself to some of the neatly cut cheese and salami. It had been wrapped in the refrigerator, the boxes of crackers on the table with the note propped up against one of the boxes.

I’m sorry. The cheese and salami was all I had on hand.

Her mother had left her food, knowing she would come by the house. Knowing she would be hungry.

“Don’t get all sentimental,” her grandmother said from the backseat. “You should be in there at that party, eating that good food, not out here eating cheese and crackers.”

The bite in her mouth turned to sawdust. Violet swallowed, hating that her grandmother was right. The unfairness of it all made her want to strike out at someone. That someone would have to be her mother.

DEDE DIDN’T TRUST LANTRY, BUT she didn’t want to freeze to death in his pickup in a snowbank, either. She had little choice but to follow him. Lantry had the gun and, for the time being, she would have to go along with whatever he said.

She slithered out the window, crawling across the top of the wind-crusted drift to the edge of the road where Lantry lifted her up onto the more solid ground of the roadbed.

It was snowing harder than ever. The wind whipped the stinging icy flakes around her, freezing air biting at any bare flesh it could find.

“Cover your face and stay close,” Lantry yelled over the wind as he motioned for her to follow him.

She squinted into the falling snow, then drew the costume up so only her eyes were uncovered. The cold and wind made her eyes tear. The boots on her feet made walking difficult.

Keeping to the tracks the pickup had made, she followed Lantry. But within a dozen yards, the wind had blown in the tracks and she found herself plowing through the drifts behind him, thankful for the moment that she wasn’t alone out here in this storm.

Ducking her head against the bite of the snow and wind, she was at least glad for the thickness of the plush Santa suit and her hospital-issued cotton scrubs underneath. Following him, she put one foot in front of the other, trying not to think about the cold or her fear of what would happen once they reached the house he’d said would be back up the road.

Just as she’d done as a young girl, she counted her blessings to keep her mind off the cold and exhaustion that made each step a trial. At least she wasn’t locked in a cage, and the men after her hadn’t caught her. Yet.

That was as far as she could get on blessings. She was cold, tired, hungry, thirsty and scared. As badly as she couldn’t wait to reach the house and get out of the bitter cold and snow, she dreaded getting anywhere that had a phone.

She didn’t know how far they’d walked. She’d lost track of time, concentrating only on putting one foot in front of the other. The cold had numbed her senses, and she was beginning to believe Lantry had lied about seeing a mailbox, when he touched her arm, startling her since she hadn’t realized he’d stopped.

He motioned for her to follow as he held two strands of barbed wire apart so she could climb through the fence. Then he broke a trail through the snow. Ahead, she caught a glimpse of a house through the driving snow and thought she might burst into tears with relief.

No lights glowed behind the windows of the two-story house. No Christmas decorations adorned the front yard or hung from the eaves. Was it possible the house was deserted? Just as she started to latch on to that hope, she heard a horse snort and saw three ghostlike shapes appear out of the storm next to a wooden corral fence.

The horses had a layer of snow on the quilted blankets covering their backs. As they trotted off, she saw that the road into the house was drifted in and didn’t look as if it had been used for a while. Maybe the home- owners had only gone away for the holidays, leaving enough water and hay for the horses until they returned.

She slogged through the snow, the drifts to her thighs, the cold seeping into her bones. Just a little farther. She stumbled, her legs no longer willing to take another step.

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