He dragged her over to Ty and pulled her down next to him as he quickly went through Ty’s pockets.

  Questions ran through her mind: why would Boone stay around here after killing Lamar to get the syringe? Was he crazy?

  But Dusty quickly forgot Boone as she touched Ty’s face. He felt ice-cold. “You bastard, you killed him!”

  Boone let out an oath as he found the syringe in Ty’s pocket. Clutching it in one hand, he dragged her up with the other. As he tried to stuff the syringe into his own pocket, Dusty launched herself at him. The last thing she remembered was seeing his fist, feeling it connect with her temple just before the earth came up to meet her.

  BOONE KNEW he shouldn’t have been surprised that things were going so badly. Hell, hadn’t he blown every chance he’d ever gotten? Why should this time be any different?

  He stared down at Ty Coltrane. Dusty lay beside him, out like a light.

  What the hell should he do now? He looked to the road past the rodeo grounds and blinked as he saw his pickup go racing by. Two cop cars were in hot pursuit. What the hell? Someone had stolen his pickup?

  He felt in his pocket. How was that possible? He had his keys. Who in his right mind would go to the trouble to hot-wire and steal an old pickup?

  The sound of the sirens grew fainter and fainter, the flashing lights disappearing in the distance.

  How was he supposed to get out of here now?

  The arena lights were still on. From this corner of darkness, he couldn’t see anyone left around the rodeo grounds. Monte had left earlier. Apparently none of the cops had stayed behind—both police cars were chasing a car thief instead. Lucky for him, except now he had no vehicle to get the hell out of here.

  What had the cops been doing here in the first place? All he could assume was that Coltrane had called them, planning to hand over the syringe—and Boone. That would explain why they were hot after his pickup.

  Coltrane moaned. He wasn’t dead. Boone was surprised at his relief. He couldn’t stand the sight of Coltrane. What did he care if he was dead? But his body would be a complication Boone didn’t need right now. He had enough complications.

  He touched the syringe in his pocket. He had taken Devil’s Tornado out to a field a quarter mile from the rodeo grounds. The bull wouldn’t be found for a while and by then, there would be nothing to find. Hell, what did the cops have on him, anyway?

  Nothing. He had the syringe. There was no evidence he’d been drugging the bull. Coltrane might have him jailed for assault, but other than that the cops couldn’t prove anything.

  Dusty was starting to come around. He knew she would start screaming her head off the moment she did. He didn’t want to be around when that happened, he thought, glancing back at the semitruck and trailer.

  He wished there was another way as he moved to the hulking shadow of the semi and swung open the driver’s side door.

  At first, his mind refused to accept what he was seeing. Blood. Lamar. So much blood. His stomach did a slow sickening roll. He stumbled back, fighting to keep from throwing up. His head was reeling. Someone had killed Lamar? Who—

  He never saw the tire iron. Or the hand that wielded it. A blinding pain ripped through this skull an instant before the darkness as Boone pitched forward.

  DUSTY OPENED HER EYES and was instantly assaulted by the smell, the noise and the jarring movement. She blinked, her head aching. Her hands and ankles were bound with duct tape. Another strip had been put across her mouth, forcing her to breathe through her nose.

  The darkness stank of manure and hay, and she couldn’t be sure which she was lying in.

  Only a little light bled in through the slits along the side of the semitrailer as it rattled down the highway through the dark. At the front of the trailer where she lay was blackness. No headlights from other vehicles on the highway illuminated the interior.

  She tried to sit up, but fell over as the semi took a curve. Pushing with her feet, she managed to work her way into the corner and get her back against the walls of the trailer, her eyes finally adjusting to the dizzying darkness.

  At the far end of the trailer by the door, she saw a shape. She stared until her eyes burned. The dark shape moved and Dusty let out a muffled cry as she realized it was a bull. Devil’s Tornado?

  Fear paralyzed her. She could feel the bull looking at her. She’d seen what Devil’s Tornado had tried to do to the cowboys in the arena after the bucking rigging had been removed. The bull was a killer. He’d stomp her to death or gore her or—

  Devil’s Tornado seemed to sway before her eyes, then dropped to his knees, going all the way to the floor of the trailer as he lay down as docile as an old cow.

  Closer, Dusty heard another sound. Movement and a low moan. She looked to her left, to the adjacent dark corner of the trailer. Ty?

  Her eyes widened in horror!

  Letty—her hands bound, her mouth taped, her eyes wide and terrified stared back at her from the darkness!

  What was Letty doing here? And where was Ty? She searched the darkness, but quickly realized that she and Letty were alone with a bull in the back of the semitrailer headed for God only knew where with a killer at the wheel. Where was Boone taking them?

  Frantically, Dusty began to work at the tape on her mouth, pushing it with her tongue as she rubbed at the corner with her shoulder along the rough edge of her jacket. She could feel the edge start to peel back. Her skin chafed from the effort, but she had to be able to talk to Letty. To reassure her. To reassure herself that somehow they were going to get out of this.

  BLINDED BY the bright light, Ty Coltrane closed his eyes and tried to sit up. “Where’s Dusty?”

  “Easy,” one of the policemen standing over him warned. “You’ve got quite the knot on your head. We’ve called for an ambulance. Can you tell us who hit you?”

  “Boone Rasmussen. I have to find Dusty,” Ty said, pushing to his feet. His gaze went to the spot where the semitrucks and trailers had been. One was missing. “He’s got her. He’s taken the truck.” Ty turned to head for his pickup, but one of the cops grabbed his arm.

  “Hold on,” the officer said. “You’re not going anywhere. We need to ask you some questions.”

  Ty jerked free and probably would have ended up in jail if he hadn’t stopped to watch a helicopter set down in the middle of the arena—and see Sheriff Cash McCall climb out of it.

  “Cash!” he called as the sheriff ran toward him. “Rasmussen has Dusty. I think he took her in one of the Edgewood semitrucks. Lamar is dead.”

  Cash began barking orders, starting with getting an APB out on the semitruck, then turned to the police officers in confusion. “Did you just get here? I called you hours ago.”

  One of the officers, Sgt. Mike Johnson, stepped forward. “After your call, we came to the rodeo grounds, spotted Boone Rasmussen’s pickup, based on the description and plate number you gave us, and pursued the pickup as the driver gave chase.”

  Ty stared at the cop. “But Rasmussen was here with me and Dusty.”

  The cop nodded. “We finally forced the driver of the pickup off the road about twelve miles out of town and took her into custody. It wasn’t Boone Rasmussen, but a woman by the name of Sierra Edgewood.”

  “Sierra was driving Rasmussen’s pickup?” Ty asked in surprise.

  “She’d been drinking,” the cop said. “Told us that she thought her husband, Monte Edgewood, had set us on her and that she had kept going out of fear of what her husband would do to her if she was caught and turned over to him.” The cop looked to Cash. “Is there any basis for her concerns about her husband?”

  “Not that I know of,” Cash said. “She had a key to Rasmussen’s pickup?”

  The cop nodded. “A single key. She said she’d had it made one day when she’d borrowed the pickup. Planned to use it to get away from her abusive husband.”

  “No way,” Ty spoke up. “She was a diversion so Boone could get away.” His head ached. He rubbed a hand over his face. “But why would Sierra Edgewood help Boone Rasmussen?”

  “Good question,” Cash said.

  From over by the other two semis, one of the police officers yelled, “I’ve got a body over here.”

  “His name is Lamar Nichols,” Cash said after taking a look. “If you have any more questions for Mr. Coltrane, they will have to wait. It appears the killer might have my sister. Don’t try to apprehend him if you find him. Wait for me.” He looked to Ty. “Let’s find Dusty.”

  The two ran to the highway patrol helicopter and buckled up as the chopper took off.

  “Boone could be headed in any direction,” Cash said. “He’s originally from Texas. I’d think he would head south on 191 along the Gallatin River.”

  Ty tried to calm the panic rising in him as Cash told the pilot to head south toward West Yellowstone and the Idaho border. Had Boone taken Dusty? What would he do to her? Was she even still alive?

  Ty stared down at the dark ribbon of highway and river below them. Who knew where Rasmussen would go. Or what he would do. Ty tried to concentrate and not panic.

  Would he go back to Texas? Or hide somewhere? “He’ll have to get rid of the semi for something less conspicuous,” Ty said out loud. But why take Dusty? “She has to be a hostage in case he’s cornered and has to bargain his way out.”

  “We can only hope that’s the case,” Cash said. “That means he will want to keep her alive.”

  Cash checked in with the highway patrol and sheriff’s departments on the ground. Ty could tell from this side of the conversation that there was still no sign of the semi.

  Ty thought about what Cash had told the Bozeman police. It was believed that Rasmussen had killed three people to keep his secret—Clayton T. Brooks, Waylon Dobbs and Lamar Nichols. He was desperate. He could do anything.

  Cash took another call on the radio. Ty saw him frown and held his breath, terrified it was news of Dusty. Bad news.

  “Is it…?” he asked.

  Cash shook his head. “No word on Rasmussen or Dusty.”

  Cash got another call and took it as Ty watched the highway below them for the semi.

  Cash clicked off and Ty could tell from his expression that this call hadn’t been good news. “It was one of the roughstock producers in Texas I’d contacted about Rasmussen.” Cash frowned. “Did you know that Lamar was Rasmussen’s half brother?”

  Ty shook his head.

  “If Rasmussen had one allegiance, it would be to his own blood, wouldn’t you think? And given that he’d brought Lamar up here with him from Texas, given him a job…”

  “Unless he killed him to keep him from talking,” Ty said.

  Cash shook his head as if struggling with the same thing Ty was. If Rasmussen hadn’t killed Lamar, then who did that leave?

  Cash let out an oath. “You aren’t thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “That Sierra was a diversion, but not for Boone Rasmussen?” Ty said.

  Cash swore again and leaned toward the pilot. “Take us to Antelope Flats as fast as you can get this thing to go.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Dusty managed to peel back the edge of the tape on her mouth. She used her tongue to free all but one corner.

  “Letty!” she cried as she scooted toward the opposite corner to her friend. Tears shone in Letty’s eyes. “Turn around and I’ll try to free your hands.”

  Dusty squirmed around until she had her back to Letty’s. She began to work at the tape around Letty’s wrists. It was slow going. As she worked, she told Letty everything, about Ty and the kiss, about Boone, about the syringe she’d picked up in the corral that night in Sheridan and had forgotten about. She left out the part about Lamar, not wanting to scare Letty even worse.

  She almost had Letty’s hands free when the truck slowed, throwing them both off balance. The semi turned onto a bumpy dirt road. Dusty worked her way close to Letty again and tugged faster at the duct tape holding Letty’s wrists together.

  Dusty could feel time slipping away. The semi moved slowly along the dirt road, giving her the feeling that it wasn’t going far. She had to get Letty free and quickly.

  As the truck began to slow down even more, the last of the tape pulled free.

  Letty reached up and jerked the tape from her mouth with a cry of pain then hurriedly began tugging at the tape on Dusty’s wrists. She talked ninety miles an hour, telling Dusty about having been stolen from her birth mother, about meeting Hal Branson, finding her birth mother and coming to the rodeo to tell her best friend.

  As Letty freed Dusty’s wrists, the two hugged fiercely, both crying in relief and fear, before quickly working to free their ankles.

  As the truck rolled to a stop, Devil’s Tornado stirred at the rear of the trailer.

  A yard light came on. Light cut through the slits in the side of the trailer.

  Dusty blinked, seeing something she hadn’t been able to earlier. There was something lying on the other side of Devil’s Tornado. Ty?

  She scrambled to her feet and rushed toward the bull, forgetting about her safety in her fear that she would find Ty lying dead at the back of the semitrailer.

  But Devil’s Tornado didn’t move. Just watched her with a disinterested, almost too calm look. He’s drugged, Dusty thought, an instant before she saw the cowboy stretched out on the floor next to the bull.

  It wasn’t Ty, she saw at once. Behind Dusty, Letty let out a small cry. “Boone? If Boone’s in here with us, then who—”

  Letty didn’t get to finish as the door of the trailer clanged open and the two stood staring down at Monte Edgewood—and the gun he held in his hand, the barrel pointed in their direction.

  “WELL, AREN’T YOU two clever getting loose,” Monte said congenially. “Come on down from there.”

  “I don’t understand what’s going on,” Dusty said as she looked from Monte’s big open face to the gun in his hand. Everyone in the county liked Monte Edgewood. Some had wondered if he’d lost his mind when he married a woman half his age. No one had ever really liked Sierra. But if anything, they were kinder to Monte because of their dislike for his young wife.

  “Come on down, girls,” Monte said and motioned with the gun for Dusty to step down first. Letty followed, hanging on to the back of Dusty’s jacket.

  He herded them toward a small old barn. Dusty could see the moon peeking in and out of the clouds overhead and tried to estimate how long they’d been in the back of the semitrailer. She didn’t recognize the barn. It was old and crumbling and could have been located anywhere in Montana, or for that matter, in Idaho or Wyoming.

  But she got the feeling that it was on Monte’s property as he swung open the door and ushered them both inside. Straw bales were stacked along one wall. An old lantern sat on a bench nearby, the flickering flame lighting the small interior.

  Dusty stumbled in with Letty at her side as Monte forced them back against the straw bales. There was little else in the barn. She tried to see past the lantern light to dark corners, looking for something she could use as a weapon. There was no doubt in her mind that Monte Edgewood intended to kill them.

  “Where is Ty?” she asked, afraid of the answer. But she had to know.

  “At the rodeo, where we left him.” Monte patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry. He’s fine. By now, the police have found him. He’ll live.”

  Dusty felt Letty shudder next to her, the words, he’ll live hanging in the air as if to say Ty would live, unlike her and Letty.

  “Mr. Edgewood—” Letty began.

  “Call me Monte,” he said. “You’re the Arnolds’ girl, right?”

  Letty didn’t answer. “What are you going to do with us?”

  “Not me. Boone.” He made a disappointed face. “He was like a son to me. I trusted him. I took him into my home. I taught him about the roughstock business. I would have given him anything.” Monte let out a laugh that chilled Dusty to the bone. “Hell, I did give him everything.” His eyes narrowed, darkened; the hand holding the gun seemed to quiver. “Including my wife.”

  Dusty took Letty’s hand and squeezed it, trying to reassure her when Dusty herself was scared speechless.

  Monte looked up at them as if he’d been gone for a moment. He blinked, seemed to refocus. “Boone was such a fool. If he’d just come to me with his plan. Hell, I would have helped him. But he didn’t trust me.” He shook his head. “Trust. It all comes down to trust, doesn’t it?”

  Dusty thought about making a run for it with Letty, but she knew Monte would chase them down even if they split up, which Dusty wasn’t about to do.

  She listened, thought she heard something, a faint hum in the distance. A vehicle? Ty had called her brother. Cash would be looking for her. Only both Ty and Cash would think that Boone had her—not Monte Edgewood.

  “It’s funny,” Monte said more to himself than Dusty and Letty. “You never know what you will do. You think you know yourself. You have this image of the kind of person you are. Then something happens. You have everything you’ve ever wanted and more, and someone comes along and offers you a chance to be famous. And even though you know it’s a false kind of rise to fame, you latch on to the dream because you want so desperately to be a part of it.”

  Dusty let her gaze scan the barn for a weapon. She had no idea what Monte was talking about. He sounded half-crazy. That scared her as much as the gun. The hum in the air she’d heard earlier seemed to be getting louder. Not a vehicle. More like a plane. Or a helicopter!

  She spotted a pitchfork by the door and an old ax handle on the floor in the corner, nothing else. Neither was close enough to get to them before Monte fired the gun.

  But the lantern was only a few yards away on the other side of Letty.

  Dusty realized that Monte had stopped talking. “What was the dream?” she asked hurriedly, latching on to the only word she could recall.

  He frowned. “A bull that would make everyone in the country remember the name Edgewood Roughstock Company. Devil’s Tornado.”