The Rivals by Joan Johnston

Dollar Cowboy Bar with its saddles for bar stools, the Cadillac Grill, and the Stagecoach Bar in Wilson, on the chance that Kate might have stopped in one of them.
    When she got no results, she headed to Teton Village, the ski resort outside of town. Where she got a hit.
    When she stuck Kate’s picture under the nose of the bartender at the Mangy Moose, he said, “Sure. Stunner like that, long black hair and those silvery gray eyes, you notice her. She was in here when I started my shift, around four. Left with some man.”
    â€œWhat man?” Libby demanded.
    â€œHaven’t seen him in here before,” the bartender said. “Doesn’t mean he isn’t a regular. I just started working here a couple weeks ago.”
    Jackson Hole was a resort town, and the hired help came and went as quickly as the tourists. The perennially young bartenders and waitresses worked long enough to earn the money for a season ski pass, then disappeared to the black diamond slopes. The transient town had an infinitesimally small local population—less than ten thousand—but ten times that many passed through during the summer on their way to Yellowstone National Park, a mere hour’s drive away.
    â€œWhat did the man who left with this girl look like?” Libby asked, holding the picture of Kate in front of his face.
    The bartender shrugged. “Six feet maybe. Brown hair, maybe brown eyes, I don’t know. Wearing ski clothes like everybody else.”
    Libby realized the bartender’s description probably fit half the men in town. “Was there anything different about the man with my daughter, anything that would help us find him?”
    The bartender frowned in concentration. “He was good looking. Clean shaven.” He shook his head. “Sorry. He was just a normal guy.”
    Normal. Except that he might have been a kidnapper, Libby thought, as her stomach clenched with fear. Though she’d persisted, the bartender hadn’t been able to remember anything else.
    As she paced her living room, Libby didn’t let herself think the worst. It was too frightening.
    There wasn’t much breaking news in a small town like Jackson, and the Jackson Hole News and Guide had reminded everyone—when the most recent young woman had gone missing three months ago—of the girl who’d disappeared fifteen months ago, and the girl who’d been found shot to death in the mountains.
    â€œWhy didn’t Kate just come home and wait here for me?” Libby wailed. “Why would she go to a bar, of all places?” Libby couldn’t help thinking of the phone message Kate had left for her. Now she saw all sorts of sinister possibilities. What kind of trouble was Kate in? Was her disappearance related to her desperate message?
    â€œWhy did I have to be gone at just this time?” she said to her brother. “Why couldn’t I have driven faster?”
    Which reminded Libby of her nearly catastrophic accident on the road south of Jackson. No, she couldn’t have driven any faster than she had. But that didn’t make her feel any better. She glanced at her watch. “It’s nearly nine-fifteen. She would have called by now if she could.”
    North set his coffee cup on the table beside his chair. “Kate’s a Grayhawk. She knows how to handle herself when the chips are down.”
    â€œI’ll bet the mothers of those other two girls thought the same thing.” Libby had a bad feeling, deep in her gut, that wouldn’t go away.
    North pounded a fist into the palm of his other hand and said, “When she shows up—and I think she will—that sonofabitch who was with her at the Mangy Moose is going to answer to me.”
    Snoopy was up and headed for the door a half second before the knock sounded. Doc and Magnum joined him, nearly tripping Libby as she crossed in front of them to get to the door.
    Libby reached for the doorknob with her