“None of your business,” she snapped. “Tell me what’s going on, Stuart.”
“Holly Jo, Holden McKenna’s ward, is missing.”
She couldn’t imagine what one had to do with the other. “Why would you have any reason to question Brand—let alone me?”
“Charlotte, if you know anything about Holly Jo—”
“Obviously, I don’t. I’m on my way home now. I’ll come by your office with my lawyer.”
“Good—that will save me a trip out to your ranch,” the sheriff said.
The laugh rose up from deep inside her and burst forth of its own volition. “If you think I would take Holden’s ward—”
“I’ll see you when you get here. I appreciate you coming to my office instead of making me find you.”
She stared at her phone as she realized that he’d disconnected. “What in the world?” Her heart began to pound, the summer day forgotten as she headed for her vehicle.
CHAPTER SIX
AFTER HE DISCONNECTED, the sheriff studied the list of names Holden had given him. He and the rancher had stepped outside, away from the man’s family. Elaine had not found Holly Jo’s computer password or a handwritten diary. The computer would have to be turned over to the FBI. Duffy had written down everything he could remember about his argument with Joe Gardner.
Stuart was anxious to talk to Brand Stafford, but in the meantime, he would follow up with Gus Gardner. Even though he suspected the kidnapper was on the list Holden had given him, he couldn’t discount the one person who probably knew more about Holly Jo’s life than anyone—her nemesis, Gus Gardner, the boy Duffy suspected had been bullying her.
As he started to fold and pocket Holden’s list, he had a bad feeling the names already on it were only the tip of the iceberg. With a jolt, he realized that one name in particular was missing. “Why isn’t Holly Jo’s father on here? I’d think he would be a prime suspect.” It was a question he hadn’t wanted to ask in front of the others because his friend Cooper had told him he didn’t even know what his father’s relationship to Holly Jo was or wasn’t.
“He’s dead. So is her mother,” the rancher said.
“Dead?” Stuart had warned Holden that this was going to dig up dirt from every dark hole in his life. It especially would expose everything concerning his ward. “How was it that Holly Jo’s mother asked you to take her?” He saw the rancher instantly begin to clam up. “Didn’t she or Holly Jo’s father have relatives that would have taken the girl?”
“No.”
Stuart swore. “I know you’re holding out on me, thinking it’s none of my business, but you’re wrong. If you want to get her back, then you must tell me everything. What is your relationship to Holly Jo?”
“I’m not her father, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Holden—”
The rancher cursed and stepped away a few yards to look toward the river. The Powder River, the lifeblood of those who lived here, passed right through the heart of the McKenna Ranch.
Many still claimed that the river was a mile wide and an inch deep and ran uphill. The joke was that it was too thick to drink and too thin to plow. Captain Clark of the Lewis and Clark expedition had named it Redstone River. But the Native Americans called it Powder River because the black shores reminded them of gunpowder, and that was the name that had stuck.
While Montana had prettier, deeper, wider and flashier rivers, the Powder seemed stubborn and steady as it began in Wyoming and traveled more than one hundred fifty miles to empty into the Yellowstone. In that way, the river had always reminded him of Holden McKenna.
“I rodeoed with her mother’s husband,” the rancher said finally. “I felt responsible for his death. Holly Jo’s mother was pregnant with Holly Jo at the time. I owed her more than the money I sent each month to help them get by. It isn’t something I’m proud of.”
“How well did you know him?”
“Not well. Like I said, we both rodeoed. Can we just leave it at that?”
“No, I’m going to need his name.”
The rancher cursed. “Robert ‘Bobby’ Robinson. He was from Roundup.”
“Where did he die?”
“Billings. We were up on the band of rock cliffs above the city called The Rims. He and I...we’d been drinking and...arguing. He lunged at me, I stepped aside, and he went over. I was young. I panicked when I saw that he was dead on the rocks below. I ran, okay? I didn’t report the accident.”
“Was anyone else there?” He shook his head. “And you’re positive that he died?” He nodded. “What were you arguing about?”
“I don’t even remember. Like I said, we’d been drinking after a rodeo. Bobby was a bull rider. His wife was nagging him to quit. He was in a foul mood. After he died, Holly Jo’s mother moved to Missoula and raised her daughter there.”
Stuart nodded. “I’ll see what I can find out about his family.” Right now, he was anxious to talk to Holly Jo’s classmate from school, Gus Gardner. Friend or foe, Gus might know if someone had been hanging around the school, watching Holly Jo. Or if someone had contacted her from her father’s family.
“Stay here,” the sheriff ordered after a deputy arrived to be with the family. Another deputy was keeping an eye on the mailbox down the road in case the kidnapper tried to contact Holden again. “Let me know if you hear anything, and I’ll do the same.”
Stuart felt the clock ticking. What made it all the more difficult was his small sheriff’s department. Shorthanded, he and his deputies had to cover the entire Powder River Basin. Two deputies from Yellowstone County had been brought in to help look for Brand Stafford after they’d checked the Stafford Ranch without finding him. Charlotte had gone to Billings for a doctor’s appointment and was allegedly on her way back.
He knew from his law enforcement training that the first seventy-two hours of a kidnapping case were most crucial. But the first forty-eight hours were critical because that was when he had the best chance of following up leads while details were fresh in everyone’s minds. The process had been compared to following a trail of breadcrumbs.
Right now those crumbs led to a boy named Gus Gardner, son of Joe Gardner and classmate of Holly Jo’s. Duffy seemed to think that Gus had been bullying Holly Jo. He’d said that there had definitely been something going on between the two of them.
The moment Stuart drove up to the ranch hand’s house, Joe Gardner came out. He was a string bean of a man, weathered and slightly bent for his age, having grown up as a ranch hand’s son and becoming one himself after high school. In his forties, he looked tired as well as angry as the sheriff climbed out of his patrol SUV.
“Duffy McKenna has no business coming out here and accusing my son of anything,” Joe began before Stuart reached the porch.
“He’s upset because Holly Jo is missing,” he said calmly. “I’m sure we can clear this up quickly. I just need to talk to your son.”
The man hesitated for a moment before he turned toward the screen door and called, “Gus!”
