Under Threat by B.J. Daniels (reading the story of the .TXT) 📕

“No,” Mary said quickly. “I did forget, but it will only take me a moment to change.” She was thinking about what work she’d promised to do today, but she could get it done this afternoon or even work late if she had to. She didn’t want to disappoint Lucy. The woman had looked so excited when she’d first mentioned it.

The more Chase had said Lucy reminded him of the woman he’d known in Arizona, the more Mary had defended her. If she never heard the name Fiona again, she’d be ecstatic.

And yet she found herself pulling away from Lucy, questioning the small things, like how close they’d become so quickly. Also she’d always tried to keep tenants as just that and not friends. More than anything, it was Chase’s concern that had her trying to put distance between her and Lucy. Mary didn’t want the woman always reminding him of Fiona.

So the last thing she wanted to do today was go horseback riding with the woman. But it had been her idea, and she had invited her. If anything, she prided herself on keeping her word. After this though, she would put more distance between them.

“I’ll run across the street and get us some coffee,” Lucy said, all smiles. “I’m so excited. It’s been so long since I’ve been on a horse.”

Mary hurried back upstairs to change. She missed Chase. He called every night and they talked for hours. He never mentioned his father, and she didn’t bring it up. But she’d felt a change in him since discovering that Jim Harris was his biological father. He seemed stronger, more confident, more sure of what he wanted. He said he didn’t want to be like the man. She wasn’t sure exactly what he’d meant. Jim Harris was an unhappy man who’d made bad decisions before finding himself between a rock and hard place. She wondered if Chase could ever forgive him. Or if he already had.

When she came back downstairs, dressed for horseback riding, she found Lucy sitting at her desk. Two coffees sat on the edge away from the paperwork. Mary stopped in the doorway and watched for a moment as Lucy glanced through the papers on her desk before taking the card with the daisies that Chase had sent her, reading it and putting it back. As she did, she caught one of the daisies in her fingers.

Mary watched her crush it in her hand before dropping it into the trash can. She felt a fissure of irritation that the woman had been so nosy as to read the card let alone destroy one of the daisies. It was clear that Lucy resented Chase. Was she jealous? Did she not want Mary to have any other relationships in her life?

She cleared her voice, and Lucy got up from her desk quickly.

“Sorry, I was just resting for a moment.” Lucy flashed her a gap-toothed smile. “I’m on my feet all day. It will be nice to sit on the back of a horse for a while.”

Hud had three unsolved murders within weeks of each other and no clues. He got up to get himself some coffee when he remembered the cup Chase had brought in to be fingerprinted.

With a curse, he recalled that he’d given the cup to Dillon. Back in his office, he called down to the lab. “Last week a cup was brought down to be fingerprinted. I haven’t seen the results yet.”

The lab tech asked him to hold for a moment. “I have the order right here. I did the test myself, but I don’t see my report on file. You didn’t get a copy?”

“No, who did you give it to?”

“Dillon Ramsey, the deputy who brought it down. He asked that I give it to him personally. I did.”

Hud swore. “You don’t happen to remember—”

“The prints were on file,” the tech said. Just as Chase had thought they would be. “Give me a minute. It was an unusual name. Fiona. Fiona Barkley.”

Hud wrote it down and quickly went online. Fiona Barkley had been fingerprinted several times when questioned by police, starting with a house fire when she was eleven. Her entire family died in the fire.

The marshal shook his head as he saw that she’d been questioned and fingerprinted in a half dozen other incidents involving males that she’d dated.

Where had Chase gotten this cup? He put in a call to the cowboy’s number. It went straight to voice mail. He didn’t leave a message. Mary had said that Chase would be home Friday night. Hud would ask him then.

As Chase took a break, he noticed that Rick had left several messages for him to call. Tired from a long day, he almost didn’t call him back. He wasn’t sure he could stay awake long enough to talk to both Mary and Rick, and he much preferred to talk to Mary before he fell asleep. But the last message Rick had left said it was important.

Chase figured that Fiona’s body had been found, and Rick wanted him to know. So why hadn’t he just left that message? The phone rang three times before Rick answered. Chase could hear a party going on in the background and almost hung up.

“Chase, I’m so glad you called back. Hold on.” He waited and a few moments later, Rick came back on, the background noise much lower. “Hey, I hate to call you with bad news.”

“They found her body?”

“Ah, no. Just the opposite. Some dentist down on the border recognized Fiona’s photograph from a story in the newspaper about her disappearance. He contacted authorities. Chase, it looks like Fiona is alive. Not just that. She had the dentist change her appearance. Apparently, the Mexican dentist thought it was strange since she’d obviously been in some kind of accident. But he gave her a gap between her two front teeth.”

Chase felt his heart stop dead. Lucy. The woman living on the floor below