* * *
It had been one of the longest nights of Trisha’s life. She’d tossed and turned for hours as she’d wondered what she should do. Just after three in the morning, she finally made the decision to do nothing for now.
Once she’d decided to stay in Bitterroot and not immediately gather her things and leave, she’d fallen into a sleep tormented by nightmares of dead wildflowers and a big, ominous shadow man chasing her through the night.
Cooper had awakened at his usual early time, and as he ate breakfast Trisha drank a cup of coffee and thought about the afternoon to come.
Despite her concern about the “gifts” that had been left for her, she was looking forward to spending more time with Dusty, which had ultimately made her decide to hang around.
Hopefully he’d been right when he’d immediately declared that she apparently had a secret admirer, and hopefully it was somebody from town and not a certain someone from her past.
Before she’d finally gone to sleep, a dozen names of men who could potentially be the mystery man had jumped into her brain. They were men who always chose to sit in her section when she was working at the café, or who had asked her out in the past. She supposed that any one of them could have left her the flowers and the note.
After breakfast as she and Cooper headed outside to the small motel playground, she shoved all thoughts of the troubling situation out of her head. She simply didn’t want to think about it today.
“I’ve got a surprise for you,” she said to her son as he took a seat on one of the faded red swings.
“A surprise?” His eyes lit up in anticipation.
“How would you like it if a cowboy picked us up this afternoon and took us fishing on the ranch where he works?”
Cooper’s eyes widened. “A real cowboy and fishing?” He kicked his little legs with excitement. “What’s the cowboy’s name? Is it the Duke?”
Trisha laughed. “No, honey, it isn’t the Duke. His name is Dusty and he’s really nice.”
“And he’s gonna tell me how to catch a fish?” Once again Cooper wiggled in the swing seat with barely contained happiness. “I can’t wait. I want to go now. When will he be here?”
“After your nap this afternoon,” she replied. “Now, hang on tight so that I can give you a push.”
Later that day when Cooper was napping, Trisha took a long shower and considered the fact that she was introducing her son to a man. She didn’t know if it was a good idea or a bad one to introduce the two so quickly. She had no rule book to study to find the correct answer in this situation.
All she did know was that Cooper would love the plans for the day and it would be good for him to have a little male interaction.
Over the past couple of months he’d occasionally asked why he didn’t have a daddy. She’d told her son the same lie that she had told Dusty—that his father had died in a tragic accident. She had no other choice, for the truth was so much worse than the lie. How did you tell a little boy that his daddy was a monster?
Besides, maybe it was a good thing to see how Dusty interacted with Cooper right from the get-go. If Cooper didn’t like Dusty, or she sensed that Dusty didn’t like her son, then that would definitely be the end of things between them.
She dressed in a pair of jean shorts and a sleeveless denim blouse that had pearly white snaps up the front. She couldn’t help the surge of excitement that winged through her as she anticipated spending more time with Dusty.
She wanted to let herself go, to be happy and carefree. Was that really too much to ask of life after all she’d endured in the past?
While Cooper continued his nap, she sat at the table and looked at the house rentals listed in the Bitterroot newspaper.
Today there were a total of five listed. The first two were too big and expensive. One was too far out of town, but the last two had promise. She circled the two ads with a red pen, determined to check them out within the next couple of days.
Although she’d told herself that she would make a move in the next month or two, as she gazed at her son sleeping in the center of the motel room bed they shared, she knew it was way past time that she found them a more permanent home. Cooper deserved so much better than the living conditions they had now.
She awakened Cooper at two. Normally if she woke him up before he got his complete nap, he was a little cranky bug. But today he got up with a huge smile on his face and cowboys and fishing on his mind.
She dressed him in a clean pair of jean shorts and a red T-shirt and then slathered a liberal dose of sunscreen over any exposed skin. She topped his head with a red ball cap that would keep the sun off his tender scalp.
By two forty-five they were ready for Dusty’s arrival. The only last-minute thing they would have to do was move Cooper’s child seat from her car to Dusty’s truck. Thankfully, he had a king cab and the seat could be easily fastened into his backseat.
“I see a red truck,” Cooper exclaimed from his perch at the window. “Is that him, Mommy? Is that Dusty?”
“He has a red pickup truck, so that must be him,” she replied as butterflies took wing in her stomach.
Cooper scrambled out of his chair at the window and raced to the motel room door. “Come on, it’s time to go,” he said exuberantly.
Trisha laughed with an exuberance of her own. She was determined not to think about any negative things for the rest of the day. She was just going to embrace spending time with a handsome cowboy and her beloved son.
* * *
Chief of Police Dillon Bowie had never been so frustrated in his thirty-five years of life as he’d been since the skeletal remains had been unearthed on the Holiday ranch.
August would soon become September and then October, and he couldn’t imagine not having the heinous murders solved before the first snow began to fly.
The problem was that as good as Dr. Patience Forbes had been when she’d removed and studied the bones, as efficient as the Oklahoma City crime lab had been in conducting all kinds of tests, nobody had come up with any real clues that could help in solving the crime that had taken place over a decade ago.
Even Francine Rogers, the social worker who had been responsible for bringing street kids to Cass Holiday for a second chance at life, hadn’t been much help. Her old records were spotty, and at seventy-two years old her memory wasn’t as good as it might have once been.
The one concrete piece of evidence that had come to light was a masculine gold ring with an onyx stone that had been found at the bottom of the burial pit. Dillon didn’t know if it belonged to the killer or to one of the victims. He hadn’t told anyone about the find. He preferred keeping it close to his chest for now.
What he did know was that the skeletons had belonged to boys between approximately fourteen and eighteen years old. One of the skeletons had been missing finger bones and another had been absent the skull.
All of the victims had been killed by a single blow to the back of the head with a sharp instrument. They hadn’t been murdered all at the same time but rather over the course of several months.
Dillon got up from his desk and buckled on his gun belt. One thing was for sure, he wouldn’t find the answers sitting in his office and stewing.
Although he had no real evidence to prove that the person responsible for the murders was still in the town he served, his gut told him otherwise.
Something bad had happened on the Holiday ranch years ago around the time when the cowboys who now worked and lived