Mercy. B.J. Daniels

      “The state. Loaded all those girls into a few vans and off they went. Just like that, they were gone and the place was closed.”

      “So it was state run?”

      She shook her head. “It was privately owned by some big corporation from Michigan or some place. The state finally stepped in.”

      “So you don’t know who would have the names of the girls who were there?”

      “Names?” She scoffed at that. “Maybe first names. Most of them were dumped there in the middle of the night. Babies left on the doorstep. Older girls brought there in handcuffs from other towns. The sounds that came from that place at night...” She shuddered again. “Then one day the state shows up and takes the whole lot of them, never to be seen again.”

      Edwin told himself that the woman was probably exaggerating, and yet he felt a chill move up his spine as he remembered what Pete had said about it being haunted. “Where did they take them?”

      “No one ever knew what became of them,” she said, then looked around the empty room as if she thought someone might be listening, before leaning toward him conspiratorially. “I think they got rid of them. Some of those girls were the worst there was.” She shook her head. “There’s a whole lot of country around here where you could dispose of bodies that would never be found. And with at least one of them being a murderer...”

      “I beg your pardon?”

      She looked surprised that he didn’t know what she was talking about. “That’s why they finally shut the place down. The murder of the young man who worked there.” She grimaced. “I heard it was brutal. Used a knife from the kitchen and cut him up bad.”

      * * *

      WITHIN MINUTES OF the construction crews arriving, the Branding Iron Café was a madhouse. Callie tried to keep up with the tables, all the time aware of the cowboy. She was glad to see that he’d gotten his order and seemed to be more interested in eating than in studying her. And yet, she suspected he was just as aware of her as she was of him.

      “What’s going on?” one of the regulars asked her, surprising her for a moment. She’d thought he’d seen her staring at the stranger at the front table.

      “You hear yet what’s going on across the street?” The rancher was seated at a large table by the window where the bunch gathered each morning to discuss cattle prices, the weather and complain about the government over coffee.

      “One came in to refill his Thermos with coffee and said they’re rebuilding the store,” Callie told him. She felt disoriented by the clatter of dishes, the roar of voices, the crush of bodies packed into the space. She was doing her best to tune out the flashes of information that kept coming from the construction workers who wandered in and out.

      “So it’s not Nettie Benton’s doin’?” another rancher asked.

      The Beartooth General Store, which had stood across from the café for more than a hundred years, had burned down last spring. There’d been all kinds of speculation about what owner Nettie Benton would do now.

      “Doesn’t take five truckloads of men to rebuild one general store,” another commented as he looked toward the street where more men were unloading materials next to the old hotel.

      Callie shrugged. “That’s all I’ve heard.” She moved on, refilling cups, leaving bills and clearing dishes as she went. She’d been as surprised as anyone when she’d overheard one of the construction crew talking about rebuilding the store.

      For the year Callie had worked as a waitress at the café, Beartooth, Montana, had looked and acted like a near ghost town. It was one of the reasons she’d taken the job. She had loved that it was twenty miles from the nearest “real” town. She’d loved the isolation, the quiet and the remoteness of the small old mining town.

      That the waitress job came with an apartment over the café made it perfect. Callie loved the feeling of being far from everything, as if living at the end of the earth. She’d settled in quickly, liking that people here didn’t ask a lot of questions, and had swiftly fallen into the rhythm of this easygoing life.

      Her days all blended together in a familiar pattern. Each morning like clockwork, a group of ranchers would come in and take the large table by the window, order the same thing and talk about the same topics. At lunchtime, cowboys often stopped in from the many ranches around the area.

      By afternoon, the quilters would come for pie and coffee and a visit. Some nights they would all gather at the café and change out the quilts on the walls. Callie often came down to the café from her apartment to listen to their chatter. She and Kate agreed they couldn’t sew a stitch, but they loved the patterns and colors and the enthusiasm of the quilters.

      The rest of the evenings the café crowd could be large, depending on whatever “special” owner Kate French was serving that day. This was a community of women who cooked. They went all out for potlucks and made huge meals for the help at brandings, cattle drives and harvesting. So eating at the café a few nights a week seemed to be a treat for them.

      It was comfortable, living over the café and mixing with the locals of this small ranching and farming community. Callie had found herself relaxing. She felt as if she’d escaped the trouble in Seattle. She’d even thought she might end up staying here.

      Then this morning all that changed in more ways than one, she thought, as the cowboy finally got up. She just hoped he kept going and didn’t come back. But as he paid his bill and turned to leave, he tipped his Stetson in her direction. She felt ice cold. Why hadn’t she picked up even the slightest psychic peek as to who he was and what he wanted?

      All her instincts told her that she had reason to be scared. It was as if an ill wind had blown into Beartooth, bringing not only change, but also a handsome cowboy with a look in his dark eyes that foretold trouble.

      * * *

      ROURKE WAS LEAVING the café when he realized with a start that he knew the big older man coming in. He ducked his head to hide his face beneath the brim of his Stetson, shocked to recognize Sheriff Frank Curry. He’d met the sheriff when he’d first started with the U.S. Marshals. It had been only in passing on a drug-seizure case, but Rourke remembered Frank. Who wouldn’t? Sheriff Frank Curry was a large handsome man, about sixty, who looked like an old-timey sheriff, with a thick horseshoe-style mustache, a six-gun on his hip and a Stetson on his thick head of graying blond hair.

      Pushing on out the door into the cool fall weather, Rourke hoped Frank hadn’t recognized him. How would he explain what he was doing in Beartooth if the sheriff did? How also would he explain the fact that he didn’t want anyone knowing he was with the U.S. Marshals’ office?

      He was almost to his SUV parked to the side of the café, telling himself that there was a good chance Frank Curry wouldn’t remember him, when Frank’s big voice boomed behind him. “Rourke, right?”

      Rourke had no choice. He turned and smiled at the sheriff.

      “Rourke... No, don’t tell me,” Frank Curry said as he approached, those keen blue eyes intent on him. “Just give me a moment.” He ran two fingers down his mustache and then smiled. “Kincaid. U.S. Marshals’ office.” He frowned as he glanced at Rourke’s SUV, which lacked the logo that would identify him as a U.S. marshal. “What brings you to our little town of Beartooth, Montana?”

CHAPTER SIX

      ROURKE STOOD OUTSIDE the Branding Iron with Sheriff Frank Curry, trying to decide how much he wanted to tell the man. If he hoped to keep his identity a secret, then he couldn’t see any way around this other than to confide in Frank. “Can we talk about this somewhere...private?”

      The sheriff nodded slowly. “There’s my office in Big Timber.”

      “I was hoping for somewhere even more private