Confessing to the Cowboy - By Carla Cassidy Page 0,53

an eye the figure was gone, making her wonder if she’d seen somebody or not. Tall trees surrounded the small structures and a light breeze stirred among the nearly bare branches. Had she only seen a dancing shadow of a tree branch in the moonlight?

Should she call Cameron or was she merely jumping at shadows? She took a step backward, aware that she was silhouetted by the light in the room. With a trembling hand she placed her cup on the coffee table and turned off the light, plunging her room into darkness and then moved back to the window. An icy shiver slid up her back, one that had nothing to do with the coolness of the room.

Once again she peered outside, this time her vision better without the light on in the room. Nothing. Nothing but a faint night breeze shifting the tree branches in a ghostly landscape.

She didn’t know how long she stood at the window, a frightened sentry guarding her home and her son before she finally convinced herself she was being silly. She was jumping at tree movement, seeing shadows of killers who weren’t there.

With a tremulous sigh she finally moved away from the window and headed into her bedroom. She still felt spooked, but was certain she was overreaching due to a heightened sense of imagination.

All the talk of Jason had brought back hurtful and horrific memories that had haunted her throughout the day. Still, she found some comfort as she burrowed beneath the covers on her bed, within the sheets that still smelled vaguely of Cameron.

She could love him, if she let go and allowed herself, but at the moment she was afraid that in loving him she’d put him at risk. She was afraid that she’d put him in the sights of a killer who wanted to destroy everything she cared about and, finally, she was scared that somehow, someway, if it were Jason behind all this, she wouldn’t survive him again.

Chapter 10

It was only ten o’clock and Cameron had already thought about calling Mary twice just to assure himself she was okay. But he knew she would be busy with the morning rush and that business would probably slow down midday because the forecast was for a band of snow to move in later in the afternoon.

He turned around in his chair and gazed out the window, where he was met with a sky the color of dark steel, the clouds low and appearing laden with something they were determined to cast down.

Just what he didn’t need, a couple of inches of snow to complicate things. Snow always brought with it a slew of traffic accidents, slips and falls and dozens of other issues he didn’t have the time to deal with, not with a killer plotting his next move.

What he needed to do was find Jason McKnight. Posters of the man had been hung all over Grady Gulch and Evanston. Hopefully, if he was in the area, somebody would see him and call the TIP line they’d set up.

Deputy Larry Brooks was in charge of managing that dedicated phone line, which so far had yielded the typical opportunity for every nut in the county to call in. Sam Canfield had been the first call, telling Larry that he’d seen a cigar-shaped mother ship drop Jason off in his field and from there Jason had disappeared into the woods on the property.

Clarissa Defoe had called in to let them know that Jason had been her lover for the past five years. Clarissa was ninety-two years old, on an oxygen tank full-time and lived with her only son and his wife.

At the moment, Cameron was waiting for Denver Walton to arrive for an unofficial chat. Denver had, indeed, come into a big windfall. According to his bank records, a month ago fifty thousand dollars had been deposited into his account from an unknown source.

It had been about that time that Denver and Maddy had broken up and Denver had bought a new pickup truck. Cameron intended to confront the man about his new financial situation and see if he had any ties at all to Mary’s ex-husband.

He looked up as Ben Temple entered his office and flopped down on the chair next to Cameron’s desk. “I spent all day yesterday talking to people who knew Thomas Manning and his wife. According to everyone I spoke to, Thomas is a timid, book type who didn’t appear overly upset at the time that his