it to him. It had taken him a lot longer than he’d hoped to learn how to play it. But he’d stayed with it until he’d finally mastered a few of his favorite tunes. As was his character, he wasn’t one to give up.
That was why it hurt so much to realize that he hadn’t played the harmonica since the events up on the mountain in Wyoming. Nor did he want to. He put it back in his pocket and had to swallow the lump in his throat. Maybe he wasn’t as well as he thought he was. Not yet. But he would be.
He needed to solve this puzzle for his own sake. It seemed to him that at least two people were after Natalie Berkshire. One was a suspended cop. The other was the person who’d caught up to her, abducted her and abused her. The clerk at the convenience store had said that all the other clerk had seen was a large motor home driven by an elderly man.
Starting his pickup’s engine, he realized a place to begin would be finding where Natalie had been held. He’d discovered her on his street, but he knew she could have come from anywhere. All he knew for certain was the first spot she’d appeared.
He drove to his neighborhood. The businesses were all open now, the streets busy since it was June in Montana and the beginning of tourist season. He circled the block, extending his circles further out with each lap.
If he were going to abduct someone he would need a safe place to keep the person. Somewhere away from other people. In a way this could be the perfect neighborhood—at least at night. But during the day, there were too many construction workers around as well as tourists and shop owners and workers. Also, most of the new structures didn’t have basements, so where had Natalie been held?
Brick had just turned down another street when he saw that he was running out of town. The landscape around Big Sky was sagebrush before the terrain went up into towering pine-covered mountains. The Gallatin River cut through it, forming the deep, often dark canyon. A sign caught his eye. Campground.
He felt as if he’d been touched with a cattle prod. The clerk at the convenience store had seen a motor home pull in when she’d lost sight of Natalie. He’d at first assumed that the motor home had blocked her view of whoever had taken the woman. But what if whoever had taken the woman had been driving the motor home?
He pointed his truck down the road to the south, but he hadn’t gone far when he heard the bleep of a siren. Glancing in his rearview mirror, he saw the quick flash of the light bar on the patrol SUV that was now behind him.
With a curse, he pulled over and got out to walk back to talk to his father.
“I know what you’re doing,” Hud said with a sigh.
Brick wasn’t going to deny it. “I think I know where she was held. That motor home that pulled in. I think she was being held at the campground up the road.”
His father shook his head in exasperation before saying, “Get in. I was just headed there. How did I know you’d be going my way?”
Brick grinned at him as he slid in. “You’re psychic. I remember when Angus and I were boys. You were always one step ahead of us.”
“And you were always the ringleader and the one that never did what you were told, let alone listened to any advice I gave you.”
“Her feet were covered in dirt from walking through soil before she reached my neighborhood.”
His father didn’t respond, but he saw a small smile curve the man’s lips as he drove and Brick buckled up. The campground was just off Highway 191 in stands of pines that offered privacy for campers. It also allowed self-contained rigs to stay for several weeks for free because there were no outhouses or water. Just as there was no campground host. The isolated campsites were large enough to accommodate a motor home.
Even this time of day with the sun high in the sky, the canyon was cold and dark. Brick had been away from home for so long he’d forgotten just how tight the Gallatin Canyon was in places. Highway 191 was a narrow strip of pavement hemmed in on one side by the river and mountain cliffs on the other.