He glanced up to see Chuck in the doorway. His brother looked kind of sick himself. “What are you doing?”
“She’s sick. I was helping.”
Bo shouldered Chuck out of the way. He stopped at the foot of the bed. Paul tightened his hold on the girl. She sagged in his arms and whimpered deep in her throat. He petted her soft blond hair.
“Chuck, you better get it through that dimwit’s head.” Bo’s eyes blazed animal fury. “If that mask comes off I’ll cut her throat and his.”
Chapter Four
“Yep, deader than a party at my in-laws’ house.” Sheriff Eldon Pitts used a thumb to cock back his cowboy hat. Staring down at Julius’s body he clucked his tongue. He twisted his lips and blew a long, confused-sounding breath.
Hunched against a wall, Frankie knew that with the sheriffs arrival she’d lost what little control she had over the situation. She chewed her lower lip. Both McKennon and her uncle had warned her to keep her mouth shut and to stay out of the way. Not that she had the faintest idea about what to do, anyway. She couldn’t see past being furious at Julius for getting Penny into this mess and terrified about what the kidnappers might do to the girl.
She studied the sheriff. About her height, he had a big face made bigger by a huge mustache that concealed his mouth. He appeared confused, and she wondered if he’d ever dealt with a kidnapping before. Or a murder for that matter. The county population was almost evenly divided between long-established ranchers and those who catered to tourists. Drunk drivers probably made up the bulk of local criminals.
“May I?” McKennon asked. At a nod from the sheriff, McKennon used one finger to lift the comforter high enough to see Julius’s body. “No sign of violence.” He then directed the sheriff’s attention to the wastebasket. “I think analysis will show those syringes contained a barbiturate. Miss Forrest claims her sister doesn’t drink alcohol, so Mr. Bannerman drank the scotch.”
“Booze and downers, a lethal combo.”
“But accidental. They expect him to pay the ransom.”
“Is he rich enough to pay three million?”
“His mother is.”
“Hmm, we have ourselves quite a situation.” The sheriff clucked his tongue again. “Might be a bad thing if those crooks find out they murdered this man.”
Brilliant deduction, Frankie thought sourly. She turned her gaze out the window. Her hope of mustering these men into organizing a search party was dying fast.
“What is your connection to all this, Mr. McKennon?”
“I’m employed by Maxwell Caulfield, Mr. Bannerman’s stepfather. I was assigned as Mr. Bannerman’s bodyguard.”
A twinge of sympathy tightened Frankie’s throat. McKennon couldn’t very well sleep in the cabin with the newlyweds, but Max and Belinda were going to blame him, anyway.
“You didn’t see anything? Hear anything?”
“I slept in the lodge last night.” He’d assumed his mob-enforcer impassivity, but Frankie suspected it cost him dearly to admit this failure.
“I better call the coroner then. State police, too.”
“No!” Frankie pushed away from the wall. “We can’t have cops crawling all over. The press will find out Julius is dead.”
The Colonel touched her arm. “The sheriff has assured me that he will do everything in his power to keep the press from learning of Mr. Bannerman’s demise. We will cooperate with the kidnappers and ensure Penny’s safe return.”
“Not good enough. We have to find Penny right now. We can’t take any chances.”
McKennon cleared his throat, loudly. Frankie pointedly ignored him, but like a gorilla in a house, he was impossible to ignore. Before she could react, he had her by the arm and hustled out of the cabin.
“You squeeze my arm again and I’ll punch you in the nose.”
Shoulders hunched, he tucked his hands beneath his armpits. The wind ripped past them. A tree limb cracked, making Frankie jump. She fumbled with the zipper on her parka.
“You have got to calm down,” McKennon said. “I know you’re scared, but spouting off doesn’t improve the situation.”
“If it was your sister, I’d like to see how calm you’d be.” She narrowed her eyes against the wind slicing her face. Be warm, Penny, she prayed. Be safe.
“We will get Penny back, safe and sound. I promise.”
She didn’t want to trust him; he worked for the man who had ruined her life. He touched her chin with a finger. His warmth startled her.
“I promise.”
His jungle-cat eyes snared her, entrapped her and stilled the breath in her lungs. She tried hard to remember that he worked for Max, he was loyal to Max, and he’d do whatever Max told him to do. Instead, she thought of the way he’d kissed her. He’d meant it as a joke, and so had she, but it hadn’t turned out that way. Like that kiss, his promise seemed real.
Footsteps crunched gravel. Deputy Mike Downes approached the Honeymoon Hideaway. Pressing a fist to her aching chest, Frankie studied the other cabins. She wondered if the occupants noticed the commotion.
Frankie and McKennon followed the deputy into the cabin. The deputy’s parka was mud splattered, and his shoes and lower trouser legs were damp and muddy. Clots of snow fell to the floor and melted into dirty little puddles. He stopped on a rug near the door. Frankie had met the deputy before. As a friend of the family he’d attended weddings of the Duke siblings. She liked his combination of shy boyishness and sharp intelligence.
“They came through the woods, sir,” Downes told the sheriff. “Three of them. Looks to be two men and either a boy or a woman. Three tracks lead away. One looked to be carrying Mrs. Bannerman.”
There had been no moon last night, which meant the kidnappers had trekked blindly through the forest. Imagining such determination gave her chills. “You can tell all that from their tracks?”
He flashed a shy smile Frankie’s way. “I do a lot of hunting, ma’am. They parked about a hundred yards from here on the trail above the lodge. The tracks lead straight to and from. They knew where they were going.”
“Tire tracks?” the sheriff asked.
“Yes, sir. I radioed in for another deputy to guard the scene until the crime techs can get here. If we can set up lights out there we can get photographs. But we best move fast. It’s fixing to snow. I can smell it coming.”
The sheriff looked at the mud oozing off the deputy’s shoes. “All right, everybody out. This scene is past contaminated. Mike, you wait here until the state boys arrive. Nobody else comes in.”
“Wait a minute!” Frankie cried. “He knows how to track. We’ll track the kidnappers. We can find Penny.”
She may as well have been shouting at the wind. The Colonel grasped one arm and McKennon took the other. They bullied her out of the cabin.
“LET ME GUESS,” McKennon said. “The first words out of your mouth were, ‘I hate Julius Bannerman.’” Arms folded, he rested a shoulder against the doorjamb leading to Elise Duke’s office.
Frankie turned an unhappy glare on McKennon’s knowing expression. Of course she’d told the police how much she hated Julius, but McKennon needn’t be so smug about the inevitable results. The state police investigator who’d questioned her about the kidnapping had been solicitous, to a point. He even apologized for requesting she submit fingerprints, shoe print samples and a handwriting