Country Proud (Painted Pony Creek #2) - Linda Lael Miller Page 0,62

been in a hurry to get out here, to this isolated, lonely place, not because he’d expected to find another body—he hadn’t—but because of this canvas bag, with its shiny new zipper. He’d known it had a story to tell, an important one.

And he hadn’t been wrong.

Inside were a pair of wrinkled jeans, a crumpled blue hoodie, some dingy underwear and—bingo—a cheap wallet, pink, with rhinestones glued to the flap. Many had already fallen away.

Eli fumbled a little, trying to open the wallet, and Melba took it from him, opened it, drew in an audible breath.

“Here’s our girl,” she said, handing Eli a driver’s license.

The DMV photo was a few years old, and the young woman’s hair was short, instead of long, brown instead of blond, but this was definitely the person Russ Schafer had found on his back lot, shot to death, only the day before.

Her name was—had been—Tiffany Ulbridge, age nineteen, and she hailed from Lubbock, Texas.

Eli got out his phone and speed-dialed Dan Summers.

“Yo,” Dan greeted him. “Find anything?”

“Sure did. Freddie Lansing, for starters, hanging from one of the barn rafters.”

Dan let out a long, low whistle of exclamation. “What else?”

“ID for yesterday’s dead body. Mind running it for me? Since you’re sitting all warm and toasty and full of my sister’s good cooking and we’re out here freezing our asses off, waiting for the coroner?”

“You got a name, Sheriff Andy, or do I have to wait for a Howler?”

Despite the events of the last twenty minutes, Eli chuckled. It was a dry sound, and it hurt his throat a little. “Tiffany Ulbridge.”

“Spelled like it sounds?”

“Yeah,” Eli replied, following up with the address in Lubbock.

He could hear the rapid clicking of Dan’s surprisingly deft fingers on the keyboard. “Let me guess. The info was in the backpack we saw in the pictures.”

“Affirmative. Got anything?”

“Give me a minute, will you? I shifted mental gears after you and Melba shot out of here like clowns out of a cannon—the ball game’s on.”

Eli huffed out a sigh.

Melba pulled Eli’s uniform jacket around her, a little more tightly now, as the wind picked up.

“This has been one hell of a New Year’s,” Dan remarked, still busy. “Makes a man dread Valentine’s Day. Gotta get myself back to the war zone, where it’s safe.”

Eli said nothing; he just waited. He figured if Melba picked up on the gist of this conversation, she’d crawl right into his phone, shimmy through some wormhole in the time/space continuum and rip Dan Summers a new one.

“Okay—yeah—” Dan mused aloud. “Tiffany’s been on the run from home for three years. Looks like the local PD and the home folks searched for her for a while, then gave up. I imagine our brothers and sisters in blue are as overworked and underfunded in Lubbock as they are everywhere else.”

“Anything on social media?”

“Yeah,” Dan said thoughtfully, “but they’re not our Tiffany.”

“Ulbridge can’t be that common a name,” Eli prodded.

He heard vehicles in the distance, bumping over hard ranch roads.

“I’m looking, I’m looking,” Dan chided. “Chill.”

“Oh, I’m chill all right. It’s a wonder my teeth aren’t chattering.”

Melba began to shrug off his coat, and Eli signaled her to keep it on, which she reluctantly did.

J.P.’s old truck arrived first, flanked by two deputies and Alec’s van.

“Look, I’ve got to get off the phone now,” Eli told Dan. “Keep looking. I want to know as much about this girl as I can.”

“Wait. You said you found Freddie Lansing dead? That’s the kid who threatened your niece and nephew, am I right?”

“That’s him. Keep it to yourself, Dan. His folks have to be told before this is made public.”

“Ten-four, good buddy,” Dan replied. “I’ll get the details later.”

“Much later,” Eli answered, with a sigh.

The call ended.

J.P. approached, handed Melba a woman’s ski jacket, red like her dress, and she took it gratefully, wriggling out of Eli’s coat and handing it back.

“Belongs to my sister,” J.P. clarified, though no one had asked about the provenance of the red jacket. “One of them, anyway.”

“Thanks,” Melba said, donning the jacket and zipping it to her chin.

Alec and Sam were climbing out of the van, equipment bags in hand.

“Not again,” Alec said.

“Sorry, but yeah,” Eli replied. “It’s Freddie Lansing. Looks as though he hanged himself, but you never know.”

Sam, thinking his own thoughts, as usual, said nothing.

Eli led them toward the barn. The doors had been partially off their hinges for years, so the entrance was clear.

If Freddie—and maybe Tiffany Ulbridge—had used this place for a