He quickly stepped back to the driver’s side of his pickup and grabbed his flashlight. Walking through the glow of his headlights, he headed into the darkness beyond the street. The narrow beam of light skittered to the edge of the pavement and froze on a spot of blood.
Deeper into the dirt alley, the beam came to rest on the woman as she tried to crawl away. She clawed at the ground, clearly exhausted, clearly terrified, before collapsing halfway down the alley.
She wasn’t an apparition. And she was alive! He rushed to her. Her forehead was bleeding from a small cut, and her hands and knees were scraped from crawling across the rough pavement and then the dirt to escape. In the flashlight’s glow, he saw that her face was bruised from injuries she’d suffered before tonight. From what he could tell, his pickup hadn’t hit her.
But there was no doubt that she was terrified. Her eyes widened in horror at the sight of him. A high-pitched keening sound filled the air and she kicked at him and stumbled to her feet. He could see that she was exhausted because she hadn’t taken more than few steps when she dropped to her knees and tried to crawl away again.
She was shivering uncontrollably in the tattered sheet wrapped around her. He caught up to her, took off his jacket and put it over her, fearing she was suffering from hypothermia. He could see that her wrists and ankles were chafed where she’d been bound with the duct tape. She was barefoot and naked except for the soiled white sheet she was wrapped in.
“It’s all right,” he said as he pulled out his cell phone to call for help. “You’re all right now. I’m going to get help.” She lay breathing hard, collapsed in the dirt. “Can you tell me who did this to you? Miss, can you hear me?” he asked, leaning closer to make sure she was still breathing. Her pale eyes flew open, startling him as much as the high-pitched scream that erupted from her.
As the 911 operator came on the line, he had to yell to be heard over the woman’s shrieks. “This is Deputy Marshal Brick Savage,” he said as he gave the address, asking for assistance and an ambulance ASAP.
Chapter Two
After very little sleep and an early call from his father the next morning, Brick dressed in his uniform and drove down to the law enforcement building. He was hoping that this would be the day that his father, Marshal Hud Savage, told him he would finally be on active duty. He couldn’t wait to get his teeth into something, a real investigation. After finding that woman last night, he wanted more than anything to be the one to get her justice.
“Come in and close the door,” his father said before motioning him into a chair across from his desk.
“Is this about the woman I encountered last night?” he asked as he removed his Stetson and dropped into a chair across from him. He’d stayed at the hospital until the doctor had sent him home. When he called this morning, he’d been told that the woman appeared to be in a catatonic state and was unresponsive.
“We have a name on your Jane Doe,” his father said now. “Natalie Berkshire.”
Brick frowned. The name sounded vaguely familiar. But that wasn’t what surprised him. “Already? Her fingerprints?”
Hud nodded and slid a copy of the Billings Gazette toward him. He picked it up and saw the headline sprawled across the front page, Alleged Infant Killer Released for Lack of Evidence. The newspaper was two weeks old.
Brick felt a jolt rock him back in his chair. “She’s that woman?” He couldn’t help his shock. He thought of the terrified woman who’d crossed in front of his truck last night. Nothing like the woman he remembered seeing on television coming out of the law enforcement building in Billings after being released.
“I don’t know what to say.” Nor did he know what to think. The woman he’d found had definitely been victimized. He thought he’d saved her. He’d been hell-bent on getting her justice. With his Stetson balanced on his knee, he raked his fingers through his hair.
“I’m trying to make sense of this, as well,” his father said. “Since her release, more evidence had come out in former cases. She’s now wanted for questioning in more deaths of patients who’d been under her care from not just Montana. Apparently, the moment she was released, she disappeared. Billings PD checked her apartment. It appeared that she’d left in a hurry and hasn’t been seen since.”
“Until last night when she stumbled in front of my pickup,” Brick said. “You think she’s been held captive all this time?”
“Looks that way,” Hud said. “We found her older model sedan parked behind the convenience store down on Highway 191. We’re assuming she’d stopped for gas. The attendant who was on duty recognized her from a photo. She remembered seeing Natalie at the gas pumps and thinking she looked familiar but couldn’t place her at the time. The attendant said a large motor home pulled in and she lost sight of her and didn’t see her again.”
“When was this?” Brick asked.
“Two weeks ago. Both the back seat and the trunk of her car were full of her belongings.”
“So she was running away when she was abducted.” Brick couldn’t really blame her. “After all the bad publicity, I can see why she couldn’t stay in Billings. But taking off like that makes her either look guilty—or scared.”
“Or both. This case got a lot of national coverage for months. Unfortunately, her case was tried in the press and she was found guilty. When there wasn’t sufficient evidence in the Billings case to prosecute, they had no choice but to let her go. My guess is that
