Cowboy's Legacy. B.J. Daniels

Anvil asked as he put down the cup he was holding and moved to the sink to carefully fold the dish towel and hang it over a rack.

      “Sure,” Flint said, studying the man’s back. The news he had was a double-edged sword. He feared it would draw blood from a man who had already been put through the mill over Jenna’s first disappearance.

      Not only had Anvil found out disturbing things about the woman he’d spent twenty-four years with, but also he’d lost her. The worse part was that most everyone in the county still believed that he’d killed her.

      * * *

      “WHEN JENNA DISAPPEARED, what did she take with her?” Nettie asked in the Sheridan, Wyoming, café.

      Reiner looked up at her in surprise. “You mean did she take her clothes and stuff?”

      “Did she?”

      “No.” He looked insulted. “She was...abducted. I told you, the apartment was torn up as if she’d struggled. I was at work. I came home and she was gone.”

      “None of her things were missing?” Frank asked.

      The man seemed to consider that. “Her purse was gone, some of the money I kept in the apartment for groceries. I figured that’s where she was headed when whoever took her showed up at the apartment.”

      “How much money was missing?” Frank asked.

      Reiner looked as if he didn’t want to answer. “She took all that was in the drawer. Maybe a couple hundred. Maybe less.” He looked sick. “You’re thinking she bailed on me, but you’re wrong. She wouldn’t have done that. You don’t know her like I do.”

      Frank wondered if her husband of more than twenty years had told Flint the same thing when she’d disappeared back in March. He doubted either man had really known this woman.

      “She ever talk about her past?”

      “You mean like her husband?”

      “More like old boyfriends before or after her husband,” Nettie said.

      Reiner seemed to think for a moment. “She mentioned growing up in some hellhole in North Dakota. Her parents were really strict. She said she never saw them touch each other. Seriously, not a hug, a kiss, even hold hands. She wondered how they’d conceived her.”

      “Where was this in North Dakota?” Frank asked.

      “Some wide spot in the road.” He frowned as if thinking. “Radville. That’s right, because she said it was anything but rad. I thought that was pretty funny. She had that kind of sense of humor.”

      “Did she say why she left there?” Nettie asked.

      He shrugged. “Who wouldn’t? She might have said that her parents were glad to see her go. They didn’t want her dating. I think they wanted her to become a nun. Not really, but you know what I mean.” He laughed. “Jenna a nun? Jenna was the horniest woman I’d ever—” He stopped, his gaze going to Nettie. “Sorry.”

      “So she had a sexual appetite?” Nettie asked.

      “Boy howdy. I got the feeling she hadn’t had any in years, if you know what I mean.”

      Frank thought he did. “She like it kinky?”

      Reiner colored and shot Nettie a look before turning back to him. “Seriously?”

      “Nettie can handle it,” he assured the man. “Jenna like it rough?”

      Looking embarrassed, Reiner looked away and said, “I think it was all that pent-up stuff from first her parents and then that straitlaced old man she was married to.”

      Frank had to smile to himself. He’d called Anvil Holloway an old man and Holloway was nearly ten years Frank’s junior. He saw that Nettie was amused since even at their ages there was nothing wrong with either of their own sexual appetites.

      “What about friends?” Nettie asked. “Surely she had a friend back home that she kept in contact with.”

      “Dana,” he said with a nod. “Apparently she didn’t escape Radville. Jenna felt bad for her, talked about helping her out, you know?”

      “Like sending her money?” Frank asked.

      “She sent her some. I didn’t mind.” He looked defensive. “She didn’t send much. Like I said, I didn’t mind giving it to her.”

      “She call her?” Nettie asked.

      He shrugged. “A few times. But I don’t see what—”

      “We’re going to need Jenna’s cell phone number.”

      “She didn’t have one. She used mine.”

      “Then we are going to need it and your passcode,” Frank said. “Sorry. We’ll get it back to you as soon as we’re done with it. I can give you money for a new phone.”

      Reiner looked as if he might leap up and make a run for it. But after a moment, he reached into his pocket, brought out the phone and laid it on the table with a gesture that said, “I have nothing to hide.” Nettie wrote down the passcode, and turning on the cell, she keyed it in. Seeing that it worked, she pocketed the phone.

      “Dana have a last name?” Frank asked.

      Reiner shrugged. “I never heard it mentioned.”

      “What about friends since the two of you have been living here in Wyoming?” Nettie asked. “Friends from work maybe?”

      He shook his head. “She didn’t have a job. We thought it best, you know, under the circumstances.”

      “What did she do all day?” Frank asked.

      “Hang. Watch TV. She cooked,” he said, brightening. “She was a great cook.” He looked at his watch. “I really need to get to work.”

      “We’ll keep in touch, but if you hear from her, call me,” Frank said, sliding his business card and a hundred-dollar bill across the table. “You did good calling the sheriff. We’ll find her.”

      Reiner looked like a man badly beaten with regrets. “Right.”

      “We’ll mail your phone to your apartment address,” Frank said to the man’s retreating back and got a dismissive wave.

      “A waste of postage,” Nettie said. “You know he’s taking off. Won’t be hearing from him again.” She brought up the photo of the man and Jenna on the cell phone.

      Frank sighed. “I think we got all we could from him,” he said, watching through the window as Reiner drove away in an old compact car, the back bumper covered with stickers.

      The sky was a dull gray as they stepped out of the café and walked toward their SUV. The cold air smelled as if it might start snowing at any moment.

      “We need to know more about Jenna,” Nettie said as she climbed into the passenger side of the SUV.

      “My thought exactly.” Frank smiled over at her as he slid behind the wheel. They’d always had this wondrous connection. She smiled back. It still amazed him how much he loved this woman and had since he was a boy. He’d lost her to another man for a while, but getting her back was the smartest thing he’d ever done. She fulfilled him in every way. Having her as a partner in their investigative business was just the cherry on top.

      So far their business was doing better than even he’d hoped. Which he thought proved it was never too late. Never too late for love, he thought, looking at Nettie. Never too late to take a chance on something you loved doing. And the two of them loved investigating. That was, he did. Nettie loved snooping into other people’s business, he thought with a smile.

      “Jenna knew who was after her,” Nettie said after Frank called the Gilt Edge sheriff’s cell, only to have to leave a message. “This man is someone from her past.”

      “Some