Sleepless in Montana by Cait London Page B

beer braced on
his stomach. He flipped open the buttons of his shirt.
    “Jemma probably has a dozen backup plans.
I’ve still got scars from the last ones. We’d better pull this off
quick—”
    “Or that creep will go underground for
another eighteen years,” Mitch finished roughly.
    Crouched by the fire, Hogan studied his two
brothers: Quick to smile and laugh, with black waving hair and the
black sweatshirt, Mitch’s black jeans, and biker’s boots heightened
his bad-boy looks.
    Aaron was smoother, harder, his jeans
meticulous, pressed to a sharp crease, and his shirt custom-made.
“We’ll have to stay at the ranch— all of us. I don’t like the idea
of Dad’s faked illness, but it is a good cover, especially if
Carley won’t leave Seattle. We can protect her better here.”
    Mitch snorted. “What about you, Hogan? You’ve
got a house here. You can’t logically stay at the old place.”
    “I’ll be there often enough,” Hogan said. He
nodded toward the thick file Jemma had mailed overnight to him. He
almost appreciated her quick mind for details. The report was
thorough, mostly due to her relentless prodding; the detectives
would have closed their case long before, except for Jemma’s
insistence that they continue. She’d paid the bill, not wanting to
alarm Dinah or Carley.
    From the letters and faxes, Jemma had
insisted on a list of every sex offender in the area eighteen years
ago. She’d paid to have each located and their lives examined.
    Hogan noted Jackson Reeves’s name. When they
were in high school, Jackson hadn’t liked Hogan taking away his
switchblade and breaking the blade. That incident and Hogan’s
blocking of his bullying might be the motive to hurt Carley.
Jackson would know of the Celestial Virgins rumor and Jackson liked
to hurt the unprotected— Hogan decided to chat with Jackson.
    “There’s a possible serial killer around
here, and no one knows,” Mitch stated grimly as he flipped through
the file. He whistled at the fee Jemma had paid to separate
agencies. “She’s good. She’s hacked, bullied, and flirted her way
getting info from the police who don’t want to alarm anyone by
releasing the facts. Missing women.... Known virgins.... Or
supposed virgins.... Three of them in ten years.”
    “He spread it out,” Hogan noted. “He’s been
practicing.”
    Mitch nodded. “Maybe not just here. He’s
probably worked elsewhere, too.”
    “We’re sure then, that it’s a man,” Hogan
stated flatly. “It was a man that night. Carley’s skin was
whisker-burned.”
    “I wouldn’t leave a woman out. Maybe one is
involved somehow. Could be a woman, jealous of Carley, put some guy
up to it.” Aaron studied the file Mitch had handed him. “Jemma paid
a chunk for all this. Look at the matrix she worked up.... Those
women are all the same body type and coloring as Carley.”
    Mitch knew about women being stalked; working
for social services, he’d seen too much. “Now he wants to finish
the job.”
    “He’s not getting Carley,” Hogan said,
meaning it.
    After the brooding silence, Aaron chuckled.
“You have to hand it to Jemma. Carley is in danger and wouldn’t
leave her job or let Mom sell the business. Ben’s request that his
family be together was a great plan.”
    Hogan sat back to enjoy his brothers’
expressions as he dropped a Jemma-fact into their laps. “She’s got
others. Jemma’s trying to get a producer interested in starring her
in a women’s fly-fishing television series.”
    Mitch scratched his head and shook it. “No
way. Not Jemma. She’d lay on the bank, painting her toenails while
we fished. Played her boom box loud enough to scare any fish
away.”
    Aaron closed his eyes as if reliving a
nightmare. “I see hooks flying everywhere. I remember when we were
kids and she tried that beauty-operator thing—’’
    “You looked great with orange hair.”
    Mitch almost spewed his beer as Aaron elbowed
him. Mitch rubbed his side, bruised days