Lost Rodeo Memories Page 2

  If the thief tried to pawn the stolen jewelry, that would give them the start of a lead on who they were looking for.

  Maybe what happened to Melanie Graham tonight was a simple strong-arm robbery, but it seemed odd. There were several other vendors who would have pulled in a lot more money, particularly the food-and-drink sellers, who typically dealt in cash.

  There was that small window of opportunity when Peter went to get food and Melanie was left alone, but who would have known she’d have cash and be by herself at that exact moment?

  So, what might have happened? Somebody walked by at just the right time, saw their opportunity and tried to rob her? She grabbed the box and ran, and they chased her and then shot at her? For an unknown amount of money? With witnesses around?

  That was hard to believe. But anything was possible. And he really wanted to catch whoever had done this.

  Luke had spent a few years in the military. He’d been injured several times. Been knocked unconscious twice. He knew what it was like to open your eyes and be disoriented. It was a hollow, lonely feeling. He’d recognized that lost feeling in her eyes. He’d been relatively fortunate with his own injuries, and his disorientation hadn’t lasted for long. He hoped the same was true for her.

  He pulled out his phone and punched in the number for a deputy working the crime scene in the woods. “Any chance you’ve found a blue metal lockbox?” he asked when the deputy answered.

  “No. Are we looking for one?”

  “Apparently there was one in the cab of her truck, but it’s gone now.”

  “I’ll pass the word to keep an eye out for it.”

  “What have you found so far?” Luke asked.

  “Bullet casings. Partial footprints. A tree branch with blood on it and a few strands of hair. It was lying on the ground, near the spot where Ms. Graham was found. Of course we’re going to check to see if the blood and hair are a match for her or if they belong to someone else.”

  “She’s been admitted to the hospital, so I’m going by there later this evening to check on her. Maybe she will have recovered some of her memory by then.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “I’ll be back over there at the crime scene in a few minutes.”

  Luke disconnected and turned to Peter. “Is there anything else you can think of to tell me?”

  Peter cleared his throat. “No, sir.”

  The kid was still pretty pale and his hands were trembling. After ten years in the military, including several tours of combat, and his time as a deputy sheriff, it was hard for Luke to imagine how he would have reacted at the age of eighteen to having his employer attacked while he was just a short distance away.

  He’d played football in high school and grew up on a ranch, so when he was eighteen he’d thought he was tough. But he wasn’t. Witnessing how inhumanely people could treat each other was shocking. You had to learn how to keep your emotional distance so you could be useful at your job. So you stopped being shocked by brutality. Or told yourself that was the case, anyway.

  Luke’s brother, Jake, had warned him on one of Luke’s visits home on leave that he was getting too good at the emotional-distance thing. And after he’d moved back to Idaho to help Jake with his kids, Luke had tried to work on that. Leaving the Army after his enlistment period ended was a tough decision. But it was one he’d had to make, because he’d had no idea how long his brother would need his help.

  “How are you holding up?” he asked Peter. “You’ve been a lot of help, and I appreciate it. Do you need me to have a deputy drive you home?”

  “No, sir. I called a friend to come pick me up and he’s waiting in the parking lot.”

  After Peter left, Luke wrapped things up with Don and went back to the crime scene to see how the investigation was going. The perpetrator hadn’t been found, but he’d left a trail through the woods that looped back to the two-lane highway winding through this part of the county. The guy could be anywhere by now.

  If Melanie could eventually remember what the perpetrator looked like, there was the slim chance they could find an image of him on video. And from there, maybe link him to a vehicle license plate. A purchase made with a credit card at the fairgrounds. Something.

  Confident that everything was being properly taken care of at the crime scene, Luke headed for the hospital. He arrived just as visiting hours were ending. When he stepped into Melanie’s room, he was immediately greeted by a young red-haired woman who introduced herself as Melanie’s cousin, Anna.

  “How is she doing?” Luke asked Anna in a quiet voice. He could see Melanie lying in bed, a blanket pulled up nearly to her chin, looking tired and groggy.

  “She has a concussion,” Anna told him. “But no fractures. And no gunshot wounds.”

  “Thank You, Lord,” Luke said softly.

  “Amen,” Anna agreed. “They’ve given her some painkillers and a sedative so she’ll sleep.”

  “Has she regained any of her memory?”

  Anna shook her head. “She still doesn’t remember anything since she left Wyoming two weeks ago.”

  Melanie’s eyelids fluttered open and she called out to Luke. “Hey, deputy.”

  Luke walked over to her. “How are you feeling?”

  “Sleepy.” She had bandages on one side of her head, and dark circles under her eyes. “Thank you,” she mumbled, giving him a half smile. “And please thank the event security man who found me.” Her smile started to falter and tears formed in the corners of her eyes. “Something happened to me,” she said, with confusion evident in her eyes. She reached her hand up to touch the bandages on her head and gave him a pleading look. “What happened to me?”

  “I’m going to do my best to find out.”

  Over the intercom, a voice announced the end of visiting hours.

  “I’ll talk to you again later,” Luke said to Melanie as he headed for the door. And then to Anna, he said, “Can I speak with you for a minute?”

  She followed him out into the hallway, calling back to Melanie that she wasn’t actually leaving for the night just yet.

  “Do you have any theories on who might have attacked her?” Luke asked. “Does she have an angry business partner? Maybe a boyfriend she broke up with?”

  “She has an ex-husband, Ben,” Anna said. “But he was the one who insisted on the divorce—told her he wanted to start a new life without her—so I wouldn’t suspect him. I really can’t think of anyone.”

  Luke glanced up and down the hallway, frustrated that he had no idea what the perpetrator looked like. “Do you know how long she’ll be in the hospital?”

  “There’s a good chance she’ll be able to leave tomorrow morning.”

  “Do the doctors have any idea how long it will take for her to regain her memory?”

  “They said it could happen as early as tomorrow morning. Or it could take a few weeks.” Anna’s eyes teared up. She looked away and blinked rapidly. “Or the memories of the past two weeks might be gone forever. So she’d never be able to remember who attacked her, and that criminal would get away with it.”

  Luke sighed. He could not let that happen.

  * * *

  “When you get home try to relax as much as you can,” the doctor said to Melanie as she tapped the information for Melanie’s prescription into an electronic tablet. “You need to heal from the emotional trauma, as well as the physical injury. So don’t try to force yourself to remember things. Otherwise you could end up right back here in the hospital again.” The doctor’s smile was kind, but she also managed to make it clear that she wasn’t kidding.

  Melanie remembered waking up in the woods last night. But prior to that, she still only remembered going to bed at the hotel in Wyoming. Not trying to remember what happened during those missing two weeks was difficult. Like trying not to scratch an itch.

  The doctor l
eft and Melanie turned to Anna. “All right, cousin. Let’s roll.” Hospital protocol required Melanie to sit in a wheelchair and be pushed out to the parking lot, even though she felt like she could walk.

  “I need you to take me back to the fairgrounds, to get my truck and the trailer,” Melanie said as soon as they were in Anna’s sedan.

  Anna turned to her with a cheery smile. “No.” Despite the upbeat tone, Melanie could see the dark circles under her cousin’s eyes, and the paleness of her skin made the freckles scattered across her face stand out even more defiantly.

  Melanie wasn’t the only one suffering in the aftermath of this bizarre attack on her. Anna had already done so much for her. And she had a husband, Tyler, serving in the military, overseas. Anna had enough weight on her shoulders. She didn’t need anything added to that.

  “That deputy said your truck and trailer are securely stored at the fairgrounds,” Anna added as she turned the key and fired up the car’s engine. “The smart thing for you to do is to go back to the house and unwind. We’ll get your stuff later.”

  “Fine.” Actually, going back to Anna’s restored Victorian house, where Melanie rented a couple of rooms, one to use as a bedroom and the other for an office, sounded like a good idea. Closing the shades, lying in her bed and hiding from the world sounded like a great idea. Maybe she could numb her brain with mindless TV, as well. Because, although she was trying very hard to stay upbeat around Anna, her thoughts wanted to drift to some very dark places.

  Someone had tried to kill her. Apparently for money. She had come in contact with someone evil. How was it possible someone could be like that? And how safe was anyone, ever, when there were people like that in the world?

  Melanie began to tremble. A cold black wave of fear crashed over her, seemingly from out of nowhere. She couldn’t catch her breath, and she quickly rolled down her window for some fresh air.

  Anna glanced over at her. “You all right?”

  “Coffee,” Melanie said hoarsely. “Coffee would make me feel better.”

  “Sure.”

  Anna made the turn to take them to their favorite coffee shop. Melanie flipped down the sun visor and caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Pale. Bruised. Looking like someone who’d been attacked.

  The trembling got worse, and the midsize sedan suddenly seemed way too small. Melanie wanted to get out of the car. She wanted to jump up. She wanted to run. She needed to get away. It didn’t matter that she didn’t know why.

  The coffee shop didn’t have a drive-through. Anna pulled into a parking space behind it, near the back entrance, and Melanie threw open her door before the car was completely stopped.

  Anna gave her a questioning look.

  “I’ll take my usual,” Melanie said to her. She gestured toward the front of the store, where there was a strip of grass and a couple of picnic tables. “Let’s drink our coffee while we sit outside. In the sunshine. I’ll meet you over there.”

  Hiding in her bedroom seemed like a horrible idea now. She needed to be outside, where she could move. Where she could run. For a split second she had a flash of memory. Of being chased in the woods.

  The coffee shop was in an area with both businesses and residences. Moving down the alley, Melanie could see into people’s backyards. See the houses, where normal life was going on. Where people felt safe.

  Suddenly someone threw something over Melanie from behind her. A thick, heavy dark cloth that covered her head and shoulders and arms, down to her elbows. Before she could react, they wrenched it tight, pinning her arms to her sides, forcing the air out of her lungs. Then they started dragging her backward.

  She tried to scream, but the cloth was tight across her mouth and she couldn’t get enough air. Terror and panic set her heart racing. She fought again for a deep breath, but the cloth was pulled even tighter across her mouth.

  The world began to spin. The sounds around her were muffled, but she could hear a dog barking. She started to feel strangely detached from everything that was happening around her. After that, there was nothing.

  TWO

  “The guy who lives in the house next to the coffee shop, Jon Stoker, called the cops to report the attack on you,” Luke said to Melanie. “His dog wouldn’t stop barking. He came out to see what the problem was and saw someone with a blanket pulled over your head, dragging you across the parking lot.”

  Melanie touched her fingertips to her lower lip, grateful to be alive and appreciating more than ever the ability to take a deep breath.

  “When Mr. Stoker saw what was happening, he yelled and the person dragging you let go of the blanket and ran. Mr. Stoker hurried into his house for his phone and then came back outside while he called 9-1-1. He heard the roar of some kind of vehicle driving off, but he couldn’t actually see it.”

  Melanie had apparently regained consciousness right after the attacker had let go of her. Anna had heard the commotion and hurried outside. She had pulled the blanket off Melanie just as Melanie was opening her eyes.

  “The Bowen city police have been out, patrolling the neighborhood and going door-to-door, looking for anybody who witnessed anything. They also talked to customers and employees inside the coffee shop.”

  Melanie, Luke and Anna were sitting in the front parlor of Anna’s house. Both Melanie and Anna loved vintage clothes, jewelry and home furnishings. The heavy furniture, thick curtains tied back with knotted silk tassels, crocheted doilies on the table tops and richly colored rugs on the hardwood floor gave Melanie a familiar feeling of stability and comfort. Something she desperately needed right now.

  Luke had called ahead to ask if he could visit with Melanie for a few minutes. He’d arrived a short time ago, and Anna had invited him in and offered him tea, which he’d politely declined.

  Luke sat in an upholstered club chair, with his sheriff’s-department-issued cowboy hat in hand, leaning forward a little as though he were already anxious to leave. Melanie was across from him, seated at the end of a couch, clutching the couch’s arm so tightly, her right hand was nearly numb. But she didn’t care. It was something solid. And right now there wasn’t much in her life that felt solid. Instead everything seemed disturbingly dreamlike. Normal life felt like something that had vanished a thousand years ago.

  Anna sat close to her in a rocking chair.

  “Did you go back to the hospital and get checked out by the doctor after this second attack?” Luke asked.

  Melanie started to nod. Pain made her stop. Her neck was stiff after being grabbed and dragged in the alley, and she had a pounding headache again. Those pains didn’t mix well with the slight wave of dizziness that had come and gone, repeatedly, since she woke up this morning. For the moment it seemed best to stay as still as possible.

  “I did see a doctor,” she answered. “I have no new injuries, other than a sore neck.” And a sense of impending panic that had started as soon as she had left the hospital, and it was apparently going to hang around for a while.

  “This time I had nothing for anyone to steal,” she said to the large lawman sitting across from her. “I didn’t have my purse. I left it in the car. I wasn’t even wearing any of my jewelry. They made me take it off when I arrived at the hospital, and I put it in my purse.” Not that it was extremely valuable. She wore what she made. She’d splurged and made a few pieces using gold, but the vast majority of her jewelry was made of silver and semiprecious stones. She couldn’t afford anything more elaborate.

  “This wasn’t a robbery,” Melanie said, with her voice sounding scratchy and tears forming in the corners of her eyes. “So, why is this happening to me?”

  “I don’t know. But I intend to find out.” Luke cleared his throat. “Tell me what was in the lockbox,” he said. “Maybe that has something to do with all of this.”

  Melanie blinked several times, trying to figure out what he was talking about. “What l
ockbox?”

  “Peter told me you had a blue lockbox with you, all three days of the rodeo, and that it was with you in the truck when he saw you just before the attack at the fairgrounds. After that it was missing. It hasn’t turned up yet.”

  Melanie stared at him, trying hard to remember her time at the rodeo, here in Miles County. But her efforts brought her straight to a blank wall. And the harder she tried to remember, the closer she got to that feeling of panic. “I can’t remember,” she whispered, afraid that if she spoke normally, she’d burst into tears or scream.

  “You have that beige metal box you’ve used as a cashbox for a while,” Anna said. “Where is it?”

  Melanie glanced at her cousin. “You can’t seriously be asking me that,” she said. “I don’t know where I’ve been for the last two weeks. How could I possibly know where that box is?” She started to shake her head and stopped when the pain started. “I don’t even know where the items I had left over at the end of the rodeo are.”

  “Your trailer is still locked,” Luke said. “I haven’t seen inside it. But I have seen inside your truck. There are several clear storage boxes stacked in the back seat. Looks like your jewelry is in there.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Melanie said. At least that was one less thing to worry about.

  “I can drive your truck and trailer back here,” Luke said. “Or wherever you’d like me to take them. You live here, correct?”

  “Yes.” Melanie glanced at Anna, feeling bad for having just snapped at her. “I’ve lived here for the last year.”

  Luke turned to Anna. “So, you know for certain that Melanie has been in town for the last two weeks, even though she doesn’t remember it?”

  “Yes.” Anna nodded. “You came straight back here after your trip to Wyoming,” she said, directing the rest of her response to Melanie. “You arrived on time. You were happy. You’d sold some jewelry and that oak-dresser-and-nightstand set you’d restored. The one you bought from the Wilsons.”