a quick scan for Natalie. She didn’t see her. Behind her, Brick came into the bar, closing the door and the afternoon out. “There’s a motorcycle beside the bar. It looks like the one she stole from the hospital parking lot.”
Mo nodded. “I’ll check the restroom. If you see her—”
“Don’t worry, I won’t let her get away.”
Mo headed for the ladies’ room, the smell of beer and nachos seeming to follow her. Her stomach growled and she realized she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had something to eat. Brick had broken her out of jail before she’d been fed.
Pushing open the bathroom door, she saw two women at the sinks. One was putting on lipstick, the other drying her hands and talking a mile a minute about some guy she’d met at the bar. Three of the stalls’ doors stood open. Two were closed.
As Mo started toward the closed doors, one came open and a dark-haired woman stepped out in a red shirt. For a split second, Mo thought it was Natalie, but then the woman turned. She moved past and took the stall next to the one with the closed door.
Bending down, she glanced under the neighboring stall. No nurse’s Crocs, but that didn’t mean that Natalie hadn’t changed into the fairly new-looking sneakers in the stall next door. She’d had plenty of time to find a change of footwear.
Mo sat down on the toilet fully clothed and waited. The talkative woman at the sink left with her friend. She could hear water running, then the grind of the paper towel machine. The bathroom door made a whooshing sound and the room fell silent.
Next to her, the woman in the stall hadn’t moved. Hadn’t reached for toilet paper, hadn’t flushed. Mo knew she could be wasting valuable time. Natalie could have already stolen a car from the bar lot and was now miles from here.
She cleared her voice. “I’m sorry, but could you hand me some paper?” she asked the woman in the next stall. “I’m all out over here.”
Without a word, the woman pulled off some paper and handed it under the side of the stall. Mo saw the freshly painted fingernails as she took the rolled up paper. Nothing like the chipped ones she’d seen on Natalie’s hands in the hospital.
“Thanks,” she said, dropped it into the toilet and flushed before she pushed open her door. She was washing her hands when the woman came out of the stall and swore.
Mo saw her looking around. “Lose something?”
“My purse. I left it right there.” She shook her head, exasperated. “I hope my friend picked it up for me.”
“Any chance you had your car keys in it?” Mo asked. The woman’s eyes widened in answer.
As they walked out of the bathroom, she told Brick what had happened. He stepped outside with the woman who’d lost her purse—and her car, as it turned out. He called it in to the marshal’s department.
Mo was considering getting a drink while she waited for Brick to return when a male voice said, “Bartender, give that woman a beer on me.” She turned in surprise as she recognized the voice.
“Shane, what are you doing here?”
Shane Danby laughed. “Same thing you are, I would imagine. Thought we had come to take Natalie Berkshire back to Billings. But got here too late. The nurse nanny got away. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you? Maybe it had something to do with you being on the wrong side of the law?”
His laugh told her that he knew about her being arrested. “Sorry, but I’m not interested in discussing it with you.”
“Not interested in discussing it with me?” he mocked, his voice rough with anger. “You always thought you were better than the rest of us, didn’t you, Mo? Well, you aren’t the only one looking for Natalie. There’s a bounty on her head. That’s right, some father of a kid she killed is offering a reward to anyone who brings her in—dead or alive. Everyone in four states is looking to collect. If I find her first I’m going to shoot and ask questions later.”
Mo feared it might be true. “And what if she’s innocent?” she demanded. She realized that she was starting to sound like Brick. But she couldn’t bear the thought that some trigger-happy lawman killed Natalie before she could get to the truth when it hadn’t been that long ago that she’d thought that was exactly what she’d wanted. “She deserves a