Читать книгу Classified Christmas - B.J. Daniels - Страница 9

Andi Blake stared at the photograph, telling herself she had to be mistaken. But she knew she wasn’t.

It was Starr, she’d stake her life on it. Starr Calhoun wasn’t someone she could have forgotten even if the first time Andi laid eyes on her wasn’t indelibly branded on her memory. They’d both been only young girls. Andi remembered only too well the look they’d shared before all hell broke loose.

And it wasn’t as if Andi hadn’t seen Starr Calhoun since, she thought with a chill.

It made sense, Starr masquerading as this Grace Browning woman and marrying a local yokel. Starr Calhoun had been hiding out here, using marriage as a cover, waiting. Waiting for what, though?

Her brother Lubbock! He’d been arrested only an hour away from Whitehorse six years ago. She felt a chill as she realized she was meant to come here. As if it had always been her destiny. As if Starr Calhoun had called her from the grave.

She shivered and glanced toward the front window of the newspaper office along the main street, suddenly feeling more than a little paranoid.

A few shoppers straggled past. The Christmas lights still glowed in the park across the street by the train tracks. Next to the old depot, a half dozen passengers waited by their suitcases. Whitehorse’s depot had closed years ago, but a passenger train still came through. Passengers had to call for tickets and wait outside until the train arrived.

Andi got up and closed the front blinds, doublechecking the front door to make sure she’d locked it.

It didn’t take her long to find a more recent photograph of Starr Calhoun on the FBI’s most wanted list. She printed the photo, standing over the printer as it came out. The copy wasn’t great. But then the original had been taken from a bank surveillance camera.

That had been six years ago August. Wearing masks and carrying sawed-off shotguns, a man and woman had robbed a series of banks across Texas amassing an estimated three million dollars over a two-week period.

During what turned out to be their last robbery, there had been an altercation and the mask Starr Calhoun had been wearing was pulled off by a teller exposing her face to the surveillance camera.

A warrant had been issued for Starr Calhoun, but she and her accomplice had gotten away and had never been heard from again. Nor had the money been recovered.

The accomplice was believed to be her brother Houston Calhoun, a known criminal who’d done time for bank robbery.

The Calhoun family shared more than their distinctive pale blue eyes and curly auburn hair. Nor was the robbery six years ago the first time Starr Calhoun had been caught on a bank surveillance video camera.

She was first filmed at the age of three when her infamous parents Hodge and Eden Calhoun hit a bank in Orange, Texas, with all six children in tow ranging in age from fifteen to three.

Hodge and Eden had eventually been caught, their children put into foster care and scattered to the wind.

Andi made a note to find out the latest on the rest of the Calhouns. At least she had a good idea where Starr had disappeared to, she thought, studying the wedding photograph.

She couldn’t help the small thrill she felt. Her instincts had been right. As a reporter, she’d made a point of keeping track of the infamous Calhoun family. Whenever a news story from any part of the country mentioned one of the Calhouns, her computer flagged the story for her.

That’s how she’d seen the article about Starr Calhoun being ID’d in the bank surveillance tape six years ago. Also the lesser story about her older brother Lubbock Calhoun being arrested not long after that.

She’d forgotten about where Lubbock had been arrested, though. It wasn’t until she’d been looking for a job away from Fort Worth that her job search had popped up a newspaper reporter position in Whitehorse, Montana, on her computer and triggered the memory of Lubbock’s arrest.

Too excited to wait until she saw him the next day, she had called her friend Bradley. Bradley Harris worked in fact-checking at the news station. The two had become good friends almost at once. He loved Tex-Mex food and old movies and was safe because he was gay and Andi didn’t date men she worked with. Actually she didn’t date at all—too busy with her career, she told herself.

“Why Montana? It sounds like a one-horse town,” Bradley had joked when she’d told him about the job, leaving out the part about Lubbock being arrested near there. “Surely there is somewhere closer you could disappear to. Wait a minute.” He knew her too well. “How close is this town to where Lubbock Calhoun was arrested?”

Bradley was one of the few people who knew about her interest—or obsession as he called it—in the Calhoun crime family. She’d thought he wouldn’t make the connection.

Reluctantly she’d showed Bradley on a Montana map on her computer. Lubbock Calhoun had been arrested for an outstanding warrant in a convenience store in Glasgow, Montana, six years ago—an hour away from Whitehorse.

“I think it’s a sign I should check into this job,” she said and waited for Bradley to talk her out of it.

And Bradley had tried, pointing out that it had been six years, Lubbock was probably just passing through Montana, and “What could you possibly learn after all this time? Not to mention, you’ll be stuck in One Horse.”

“Whitehorse,” she’d corrected, the job having taken on more appeal with the possible Lubbock Calhoun connection.

“I’m worried about you and this thing with the Calhouns,” he’d said. She suspected he knew why they held such interest for her because he was the best researcher she’d ever known. But he never let on.

He’d finally given up trying to stop her, knowing how desperately she needed to get out of Fort Worth. And how she couldn’t turn down even a remote chance to learn more about the Calhouns.

Coincidence? Starr coming to Montana, marrying a cowboy from Whitehorse and Lubbock being arrested just miles away? No way. Andi felt her excitement building. There was a story here, the kind of story that had propelled Andi’s rise in broadcast news. That and her instincts when it came to investigative reporting.

And while she might have had to give up television news for a while, a story like this would definitely assist in her return when the time came.

Eagerly she planned how to proceed. She had to get the whole story and that meant hearing Cade Jackson’s side of it, she thought as she looked up his address in the phone book.

As she took it down, she couldn’t help but wonder. Did Cade Jackson know who he’d married? Or was he in for the surprise of his life?

CADE JACKSON walked home from the parade through the underpass beneath the tracks as the passenger train pulled in.

The night was cold and dark, the streets snowpacked and icy. He breathed in the air. It felt moist, the clouds low, another snowstorm expected to come in by tomorrow morning.

A white Christmas. He could hear carols coming from one of the cars’ radios as it passed. He quickened his step, anxious to get back to his apartment behind the bait shop. Going to the parade had been a mistake. Now he felt antsy. He thought about driving out to his cabin on Nelson Reservoir, but it was late and he was tired.

The parade had brought back memories of Grace and the night they’d come to the parade together, cuddled close as music played on a float with a Western band. She’d looked over at him, her eyes bright with excitement, her cheeks flushed from the cold. And he’d kissed her.

He could still remember the way she’d tasted. Sweet and just a little pepperminty from the candy cane she’d eaten. He recalled the way she felt in his arms and how happy he’d been. Newlyweds. They’d been newlyweds and he’d thought they had years together ahead of them.

That was the night they talked about having children, he realized as he finally reached the bait shop. He started around back to his apartment in the rear when he saw that someone had left a note on the shop’s front door.

He stepped over to pluck it free before going around to the back. While he locked the bait shop door, like most everyone in Whitehorse, he left his apartment door open.

Stepping inside, he flipped on a light glad to be distracted from his thoughts as he opened the note. Something fluttered to the floor, but he was busy looking at the note, surprised he didn’t recognize the handwriting. He knew everyone in Whitehorse, having grown up in the area. He and his brother, Carter, had been raised down by Old Town Whitehorse to the south, but they’d both gone to high school here.

The town of Whitehorse had sprung up to the south closer to the Missouri River breaks, but when the railroad had come through in the 1800s, the town had moved north, taking the name with it.

The note read: “Mr. Jackson, I need to talk to you, M. W. Blake.” There was a local phone number at the bottom. And four little words that ruined his night. “It’s about your wife.”

The word “wife” jumped out at him. He glanced down at the floor and saw the business card at his feet. Bending, he stooped to pick it up. This he recognized. The logo was from the Milk River Examiner, the local weekly newspaper.

Under it was the name: M. W. Blake

Under that was the word: Reporter

He crumpled both the note and the business card in his fist. He didn’t have any idea who M. W. Blake was and he didn’t care to know. The last thing he planned to do was talk to a reporter about Grace.

ON THE WAY HOME after leaving a note for Cade Jackson at his bait shop, Andi realized she couldn’t wait until morning to find out what was on this cassette tape. She called the publisher and asked if anyone had a tape player that took regular-size cassette tapes.

His daughter just happened to have an old one she no longer used, he said. If she stopped by, she was welcome to borrow it. He also had a couple of tapes she could use if she needed to tape something.

Mark Sanders had bent over backward since she’d applied for the job. She’d told him she needed a change of pace. He, in turn, had needed a reporter after Glen Whitaker had been murdered. Not a lot of reporters wanted to come to Whitehorse, especially after they found out what it paid.

Sanders had been worried that Andi had too much experience and wouldn’t be staying long.

“Whitehorse is nothing like Fort Worth,” he’d said with a laugh. “Maybe you’d better come up here and have a look-see before you take my offer.” He had already apologized for how little he could pay her.

She’d had to convince him that Whitehorse was exactly what she was looking for. She didn’t tell him her real reason. Only her friend Bradley knew that.

Back at her apartment, Andi took the cassette tape from her pocket and popped it into one side of the player. Hitting Play, she turned up the volume and went into the kitchen to pour herself a glass of wine.

At first all she heard was static. She was beginning to think that the tape was blank as she took the wine bottle from the fridge.

But as she reached for a glass, she heard a woman’s voice on the tape and froze.

Like a sleepwalker, she moved into the living room, the wine bottle in her hand as the tape continued.

She didn’t recognize the voice—she’d never heard Starr Calhoun speak. Nor did the woman have much of a Texas accent. No, it was what the woman was saying that captured all of Andi’s attention and convinced her that the voice was that of Starr Calhoun.

On the tape, the woman talked about robbing a series of banks. After a moment, a male voice could be heard on the tape. Her accomplice.

The tape went to static but Andi didn’t move. Couldn’t. She stood too shocked to do anything but stare at the tape player.

Who had sent this to her?

And why?

And where had it been the last six years?

She told herself not to look a gift horse in the mouth. Why not just revel in her good luck at having a story like this dropped into her lap?

But she knew that hadn’t been the case. It was no coincidence someone had sent her this. Just as it was no coincidence she was here. Was it possible that someone had sent her the job notice, counting on her need to escape Fort Worth and her interest in the Calhouns? With Lubbock’s arrest just miles from here the person who’d sent her the job notice knew she wouldn’t be able to resist.

Just as she wouldn’t be able to resist breaking this story once she had all the facts.

She stepped to the player, her fingers trembling as she rewound the tape and listened to it again before she went to the kitchen and poured herself a healthy glass of wine. She was shaking now, the realization of what she had in her possession starting to sink in along with the apprehension.

She needed to talk to her friend Bradley. He’d been her sounding board through the whole secret-admirer-turned-stalker trauma in Texas. She dialed his number, needing him to be home.

“So how’s the weekly newspaper business,” Bradley said after they’d exchanged pleasantries about the weather in Montana versus Texas and he’d told her the TV-station gossip.

She hesitated but only for a moment before she told him about the story she’d stumbled across. Bradley, being Bradley and a journalist at heart, was ecstatic.

“What an incredible story,” he cried. “So you were right about there being something to Lubbock Calhoun’s arrest up there. Well, that’s why you’re the hotshot news celebrity and I’m the lowly researcher,” he joked. “And to have this story dropped in your lap…” He suddenly turned serious. “Oh, sweetie, I almost forgot. I saw on the news that Lubbock Calhoun was released from prison three weeks ago and has already broken his parole.”

Her heart leaped to her throat. Lubbock was on the loose?

“You don’t think he’s the one who sent you the information, do you?” Bradley asked.

“Why would he?” she asked, although she already knew.

“Isn’t it obvious? He figures a hotshot reporter like you will find the money,” Bradley said.

She bristled at the hotshot reporter comment. “I work for a weekly newspaper.”

“Now you do. Stop being so modest. You are a great reporter. Lubbock must have seen you on TV during one of your stories that made national news,” Bradley said. “Sweetie, I don’t like this. I think you should hightail it back to Texas. If Lubbock Calhoun’s feeding you this information, then it’s too dangerous. The man is a hardened criminal.”

“You know I can’t come back to Texas.”

“But can you stay there? What if I’m right and he’s hoping you find the money for him?”

“It would make quite the story,” she said, only half joking.

“Sweetie, but what if you don’t find the money?”

“For all I know Starr faked her death and has already spent all the money,” Andi said and took a drink of her wine, unnerved by the news about Lubbock. “Don’t forget Houston. He could have already blown the money. No one has seen him since he and Starr pulled off that last robbery six years ago.”

“If Houston was her accomplice,” Bradley pointed out. “We know it wasn’t Lubbock. He didn’t resemble the man in the bank surveillance photos. Plus he was arrested on an old warrant so he wasn’t even a suspect in the robberies apparently.”

Andi had been thinking about the millions of stolen dollars. “You can bet one of the Calhouns has already spent that robbery money.”

“If that were the case, wouldn’t Lubbock Calhoun know that—if he’s the one who sent you the information?” Bradley asked.

He made a good point.

“Maybe he doesn’t know what happened to the money—or Starr or Houston. Maybe he’s winging it just like me,” she said.

“Maybe. Or maybe Starr hid the money, planning to take off with her new identity, but hadn’t planned on losing control of her car and dying.”

“That’s another possibility,” she admitted. “That’s the problem. There are too many possibilities.”

“Oh, wait,” Bradley said, “but if Starr had hidden the money, surely her husband would have found it by now. Unless he did find it!”

“Is there some way to find out if any of the stolen money ever turned up?” she asked.

“The robberies were during the day, right? Banks have what they call ‘bait’ money. It’s traceable. So if any of it has surfaced…I’ll see what I can find out and get back to you,” he said, sounding as excited as she felt about the story.

She gave him her new cell phone number and they both promised to keep in touch.

After she hung up, she shot a glance at her front window as a car drove slowly by. Lubbock wasn’t just out of prison, he’d already broken parole.

Quickly she stepped to the window and closed the curtains, telling herself that the smartest thing she could do was to take everything she knew to the local sheriff, Carter Jackson, Cade Jackson’s brother.

But then the story would break prematurely. A story that belonged to her. And not the whole story. Not to mention that she might never find out who was sending her the information or what they wanted.

She checked to make sure her door was locked before she rewound the tape and listened to it again, her mind racing. She took one of the blank tapes Mark Sanders had given her and put it in the second cassette deck and made a copy of the original.

Wouldn’t anyone who wanted the story to come out have gone to the sheriff? Or the FBI? Or if not that, a major television station?

Whoever had given her the newspaper clipping and the tape wasn’t after a story—or justice. No, they wanted something else. Bradley had to be right. They wanted the money.

She took the tape out of the player and stared down at it. The big question was what was she going to do with this?