“A .22?” He couldn’t help being surprised.

  “Probably something like a Ruger Mark IV, the classic Hitman .22 suppressed gun,” JP said.

  “That’s actually the name of the gun?”

  “Yep. Short barrel. Anything you put through it would be quieter than the tapping of a pen.” The coroner had a fascination with guns after only a few years on the job.

  “You’re saying the gun probably had a suppressor on it?”

  “That would be my guess.”

  “So the killer would have had to apply for a permit. That should narrow down the suspects,” Brandt said. “Also it takes months to get the permit and then the suppressor. He couldn’t just buy one at his local convenience store. Clay Wheaton hadn’t been in town that long. Unless the killer knew months in advance that the ventriloquist was coming to Montana...”

  “There are ways to get around the law. I shouldn’t have to tell you that,” JP said. “The killer could have already had a weapon with a suppressor on it.”

  “Okay, let’s say the killer got a suppressor for a gun like you mentioned. Clay Wheaton was a big man. The shot was fired at close range, right? So how did he pull that off?”

  “It appears the victim was already on his knees. There was no sign of a struggle, but his nose was broken. It appears he fell face forward into the floor and didn’t even have a chance to block his fall before he died.”

  “So there’s a good chance that when he opened his hotel room door, he knew his killer.”

  “Maybe,” JP said. “Open the door, someone is holding a gun on you. I suppose you’d do whatever the person said, even get down on your knees. Now what’s this about the dummy singing after the ventriloquist died?”

  “Pure fantasy.”

  * * *

  MOLLY HAD WATCHED the sheriff on the phone in her side mirror. His reaction to whatever news he was getting made her certain it was about her father’s murder. She watched him rub the back of his neck, kick at a small rock in the road and shake his head as if he was having trouble believing what he was being told.

  She glanced away as he pocketed his phone and headed back to the patrol SUV, a scowl on his handsome face.

  “Sorry that took so long,” he said as he climbed behind the wheel.

  “Something new on my father’s murder?” she asked.

  He glanced over at her. She saw him debating as to how much to tell her. “It was just the coroner filling me in. I believe we’re looking for someone who knew your father and vice versa. Your father didn’t put up a fight. Maybe because the killer had a gun on him. Or because he’d been expecting it.”

  She could tell he was leaving out a lot. “I’ll be able to read the coroner’s report at some point, right?”

  “Once the case is closed,” he said. “In the meantime, if it helps, he died instantly.” She nodded and looked away as he started the engine. “If you want to go back to the hotel—”

  “No,” she said quickly. “Let’s find out who killed him and took Rowdy.”

  “Yes, Rowdy. You haven’t heard anything from Georgia about the reward offer?”

  She shook her head, asking herself why she was going through this. Was it really to get her hands on Rowdy? Or find her father’s killer? She suspected it was more complicated than that. She wanted to know her father. But she feared she might regret what she learned after meeting his family. Her family, she reminded herself as they left the pine-covered mountains to drop down into the valley.

  Eureka in the daylight was like a metropolis compared to Fortune Creek, Molly realized. The other evening it was already dark as they’d entered town. She hadn’t gotten a feel for its size. Nor had she realized how close it was to Canada. She saw a sign that said it was only nine miles to the border. She’d never been this far north in the US before. It gave her an odd feeling of being untethered from the world she had known.

  With mountain peaks in the distance, she felt strangely more closed in here than in the sheriff’s small hometown of Fortune Creek deep in the mountains and trees.

  “Is this where you went to high school?” Molly asked as he turned off Highway 93, also known as Dewey Avenue apparently, and drove a block to the school.

  “Yep. Good old Lincoln High,” he said as he parked in the lot and turned to her. “Here’s how I think we should play this. We’re inquiring about your father, Seth Crandell. As far as we know, few people know Seth was Clay Wheaton since we just found out. People might be more anxious to talk about Seth under those circumstances.”

  She nodded. “Unless they’re the killer.”

  “Yep,” he said as they entered the high school. It smelled like every high school Molly had ever been in. As they walked down the hallways, she tried to see the sheriff here as a teenager. They passed a glass case with trophies. She slowed, noticing the names engraved on them.

  “You were a jock,” she said, surprised that she was surprised. It was no shock Ash at the hotel had been a football player. She studied the trophies. “Rodeo?”

  “It is Montana,” he said and pointed down another hallway. “Come on.”

  Still she lingered a little longer getting a sense of the teenager he’d been—not all that much different from the man now wearing the badge, she decided. Grinning, she let him lead her deeper into the school. “I’m betting girls just flocked to your rodeos.”

  “Don’t start,” he said looking embarrassed. “I was young.”

  “Young and obviously good at riding anything that bucked.”

  He shook his head at her as he stopped at a door marked Administration.

  “I see you didn’t have any trouble remembering where to find the principal’s office. You ever get called down here?”

  He grinned in answer as he pushed open the door. An older woman looked up from behind the counter. Her eyes widened as she cried, “Brandt? I thought you’d had enough of this school years ago.”

  He laughed as she came around the counter to give him a hug. “Good to see you, Elsie.”

  “So you weren’t all that bad,” she whispered as Elsie went to see if the principal was free.

  “It’s all relative, but I don’t miss this place. I have friends who want to do it all over again. Not me.” He glanced at her. “What about you?”

  “High school?” She cringed. “Once was plenty. When your father is a ventriloquist, well, a lot of people think it’s funny and kids can be cruel.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She waved it off. “I think I’ve heard every ventriloquist joke there is and some even I was impressed with.”

  “Still, that had to be hard.”

  “Clearly, I have some issues when it comes to my father and Rowdy,” she said with a laugh. “But I’m working through them.”

  He gave her hand a quick squeeze before Elsie returned and said they could go in. As they did, the sheriff put his hand on the middle of her back. Even through her jacket, she felt the heat of his touch and missed it as the principal rose from his desk to extend a hand to Brandt.

  Principal Hugh Griffith was a robust man with thinning hair and a florid round face. There was a large Stetson on one end of his desk and Molly would bet he was wearing boots. She’d seen rodeo awards in the case alongside Brandt’s with that name.

  “Brandt, it’s almost like yesterday.” His smile was genuine as he greeted them, shaking his friend’s hand.

  “Good to see you, Hugh,” the sheriff agreed. “This is Molly Lockhart. She’s staying up in Fortune Creek.”

  “Nice to meet you. Sit,” Hugh said and plopped back into his chair. “And she wanted a tour of your old high school?” He lifted a brow in question.

  “Not exactly. She just found out that her father’s family is from around here. She was hoping to find out more about Seth Crandell.”

  “Seth?” He frowned. “Before my time. Any idea when he graduated?”

  “He might not have. Joined the military at seventeen.”

  Hugh turned to his computer. “Give me some idea of when he should have graduated.”

  Brandt did the math. Seth died at sixty-two. “Forty-five years ago.”

  “Hmm. I show he was a student, but that’s about all I can tell you,” Hugh said. “Doesn’t look like he participated in any school activities outside of class. You know who might remember him is Walter Franks over at the newspaper. Might even be something in the archives.”

  * * *

  IRMA CRANDELL KEPT thinking about that snip of a woman who’d come looking for answers about her father. Molly, she’d called herself. Had some highfalutin job in New York City. Just the kind of young woman Cecil would find contemptuous—much like he had her father.

  That was why she’d sent her away, telling her not to come back. She couldn’t let Cecil get near that young woman. Look how he’d been with Seth. She wasn’t going to let her husband destroy Seth’s daughter as well.

  Seth. For years she’d done her best to put her son from her thoughts. It hurt too bad. She’d gone through the years simply putting one foot in front of the other, making meals, doing what had to be done. If she had let him consume her thoughts, she couldn’t have managed. It had been hard enough to crawl into bed each night next to Cecil, let alone let him touch her.

  But now that she knew Seth had come back, that Cecil had met with him and lied to her about it... She found herself filled with a different kind of fiery rage that she couldn’t extinguish. At the heart of it was the fear that Cecil had killed her son.

  If he had, there was only one thing she could do, something she regretted not doing all those years ago. Now she just needed to dig up those old bones, a truth that had been buried in a deep, dark hole because she’d been afraid of it coming to light.

  Irma was no longer afraid of facing the past. It was her present that terrified her to her aging heart. She thought of Seth’s daughter. Her granddaughter. She couldn’t let sentiment stop her as she planned what to do.

  Nothing—and no one—could stop her once she made up her mind.

  And her mind had been made up a long time ago.

  * * *

  BRANDT DIDN’T HOLD out much hope in discovering what had happened when Seth Crandell was seventeen. It was as if he was a ghost who’d left no footprint of his years in the area.

  The newspaper office was housed in a narrow brick building on the edge of town that looked as if it had been built at least a hundred years ago. Walter Franks, a man about her father’s age, explained that both employees were at lunch, but that he would be happy to help.

  They sat down after he cleared a stack of newspapers off the chairs in his small office. “Of course, I remember Seth,” he said. “Small class especially back then, you know.” He rubbed his chin with his fingers as he looked to the ceiling. “Quiet, stayed to himself. He had one friend though who he spent time with I believe—at least at Bud Harper.”

  “Is Bud still around?” Brandt asked.

  Walter shook his head. “Passed a couple of years ago. But Bud’s sister still lives here, Lucy Gunther. She might remember something about Seth. Sorry I can’t be more helpful. Whatever happened to Seth?”

  “He passed away,” Molly said. “I realized I knew very little about him.”

  Walter had to take care of a customer, but he led them back to a room where they could go through papers from that time on microfiche. They started with the year before Seth Crandell had left for the military.

  “It would help if we knew what we were looking for,” Molly said. “I haven’t found his name anywhere. Apparently, he wasn’t involved in any sports or events that might have gotten his name in the newspaper.”

  Brandt had noticed the same thing. “Some ranchers don’t let their sons play school sports because they’re needed back home for chores. Seth could have been one of them.”

  “Did you know Ruby Sherman?” Molly asked.

  Her question surprised him. “She’s kind of a cautionary tale around these parts,” he said distractedly as he looked through old papers.

  “There’s a big long article about her car wreck. I wonder if my father knew her. They were about the same age.”

  Brandt was ready to give up when Molly said, “Here’s something. ‘Ty Crandell, son of Cecil and Irma Crandell, died of a gunshot wound.’ That’s all it says other than his death was being investigated. But it’s dated...forty-five years ago. That would have been the year my father left for the service.”

  Brandt glanced over at the short article. “You’re right. My father was sheriff back then,” he said looking at the date of Ty’s death. “There might be something in the case file. I’ll check.” He sighed. “Are you up to trying to locate Lucy Gunther while we’re in town? Maybe we should have lunch first.”

  “I’m not very hungry.”

  His cell phone rang. He excused himself and took the call. “JP, you have something for me?” He listened. “Okay, on my way.” He disconnected. “I need to get back.”

  “It’s fine with me. I’m anxious to find out if there’s been any response to the reward Georgia posted and I haven’t been able to reach her by phone.”

  “Sure,” he said, seeing the fatigue on her face. The more they found out, the more it appeared that Seth Crandell wasn’t even a ghost. It was as if he’d never existed—at least not in any memorable way. “Let me know if you get a response on the reward.”

  * * *

  MOLLY NODDED, wondering how she and Georgia would handle the exchange if someone did come forward—especially knowing the person could be a killer.

  As the sheriff drove them out of Eureka and into the mountains toward Fortune Creek, she closed her eyes, suddenly feeling exhausted. Just that morning she’d met her grandmother and grandfather. It was hard not to be insulted by their lack of interest in her. Irma had acted as if she’d loved her son, that he might have been a favorite and yet she’d had no interest at all in his daughter.

  The apple hadn’t fallen far from the tree, she reminded herself. Her own father hadn’t had any trouble cutting her from his life, preferring to spend all his time with Rowdy. She wondered if she would ever find out who Seth Crandell had been, this man behind the puppet—or if she wanted to.

  The next thing she knew she was bolting awake lost in more of a nightmare than a dream, her seat belt keeping her from flying to her feet. She frantically looked around, unsure where she was. The sheriff, she saw, had pulled up in front of his office and shut off the engine. That must have been what had awakened her.

  She’d fallen asleep?

  “You all right?” he asked in concern.

  She nodded even though she was still partially trapped in the nightmare, trapped in the Crandell kitchen with Cecil saying something about killing a bad gene. She shivered as the nightmare began to disperse like fog burning off in sunshine.

  Her mouth dry, her pulse still thumping, she reached to open her door. She was anxious to get out, needing fresh air and both feet on the ground to assure her that she wasn’t still in that nightmare about to die.

  “Thank you for taking me along,” she said as he climbed out on the other side. She looked across the hood of the SUV at him. He had that worried frown on his face. “I appreciate everything you’re doing for me.”

  “I’m also looking for his killer,” he reminded her. “But I’m glad I can help you as well.”

  She felt foolish. Of course, he hadn’t done this all because of her. He was merely doing his job; their two agendas, if not exactly the same, were close enough that they could help each other. Flushing with embarrassment, she turned and hurried across the street to the hotel.

  In the lobby, she saw that Ash wasn’t behind the desk and was relieved. She wasn’t in the mood for chitchat. Strands of that strange dream rolled in on the mist fogging her brain. She took the elevator, glad she didn’t have to share it. She wondered if she and Georgia were the only guests in this place. The thought wasn’t a comforting one.

  At Georgia’s door, there was no response to her knock. She tried again, then turned to her own room. After she unlocked her door, it swung open and she saw that someone had left her a note. It was on hotel stationery, a single sheet folded in half. It had apparently been slipped under her door.

  Georgia, she thought as she picked it up. Had someone contacted them about Rowdy? Stepping in, she dropped her purse on the bed and unfolded the single sheet of hotel stationery.

  Her hand began to shake as she blinked down at the childishly large handwriting randomly placed across the page. It took her a moment to figure out what it even said, especially with the numerous ink blotches that had spilled on the page.

  Her heart leaped to her throat as the words suddenly made sense.

  It was a ransom note.

  Chapter Twelve

  The sheriff had just returned to his office when he got the call. He ran across the street, having told Molly not to handle the note more than she already had, and to stay where she was.

  He took the stairs to the fourth floor rather than ride up in the slow, antiquated elevator. He was breathless before he reached her room and knocked. She opened the door at once.

  “Are you all right?” she asked as he leaned on the doorframe for a moment trying to catch his breath.

  “I ran up the stairs, three at a time,” he said between breaths. “Where’s the note?”

  She pointed to the bed where she’d apparently dropped it. Pulling out the gloves and evidence bag from his pocket, he approached the bed. The note lay open on the quilt covering. Just as she’d said, it was on hotel stationery.

  What she hadn’t mentioned, though, were the ink spots. He would have to compare them to the note Clay Wheaton had left before he was killed, but Brandt was sure they were going to match. The killer had taken the stationery and the leaky pen. Already planning to write a ransom note?