B.J. Daniels - Forsaken

He felt desperate to take her in his arms and protect her—just as he had last February when he’d learned who she was. Until then, he hadn’t known he had a daughter. Still didn’t, actually.

After she’d tried to kill him, the county attorney had sent her for a mental evaluation to see if she could stand trial. The state had also insisted on running a paternity test to see if the teenager actually was Frank’s birth daughter.

The report had come in a large brown envelope, but Frank had never opened it. He felt Tiffany was his responsibility no matter what blood ran through her veins because she was the creation of his vindictive ex-wife.

When he thought of his ex-wife, Pam, he often thought of killing her. That thought only lasted an instant because he wasn’t a killer—and because he had created Pam, just as she had created Tiffany. Pam had kept the pregnancy from him, raising the girl alone and programming her to ultimately take revenge against the man they both now hated.

“How are you doing?” he asked Tiffany, gripping the brim of his hat when he wanted more than anything to hold this poor child. But the nurse had warned him not to try.

“How do you think I’m doing in this crazy bin?” Tiffany spat.

Better than prison, he wanted to tell her. But he couldn’t be sure that prison wasn’t still in her future. It would be up to the state eventually. Right now, he was fighting to keep her from going before a judge on attempted-murder charges against an officer of the law. He feared she would be tried as an adult, and he couldn’t bear the thought of her in prison.

“Is there anything you need, anything I can get for you?” he asked.

“You’ve done quite enough. If that’s all...” She started to turn away.

“Tiffany, the doctor said you haven’t been cooperating.”

She raised one very pale blond brow at him as she let her blue eyes return to him.

“If you get well—”

“Is that what you’re telling them?” She crossed her skinny arms over her skinny chest. “That I’m unwell? Crazy? A lunatic just like my mother?” The nurse put a hand on her shoulder, but Tiffany shook it off. “I’m just fine. And so was my mother before she met you.”

He hated that she wouldn’t take responsibility for what she’d done any more than her mother had the one time he’d talked to her after he’d found out about Tiffany.

“You tried to kill me,” he said to the girl now.

Her eyes glittered an instant before she gave him a slow smile. “I’m just sorry I failed.”

“It’s talk like that that will end you up in prison. Don’t you understand I’m trying to help you?”

“By pressing charges against me?”

“That was the state because I am a county sheriff.” And Tiffany was dangerous, no matter how much he might want to argue otherwise. He sighed, his heart breaking with frustration. He wanted to help her. Why couldn’t she see that?

“Tiffany, I love you. You’re my daughter. I want time to make up for the past since I didn’t even know you existed. Give us that time by working with the doctor so you can get out of here.”

Tears suddenly filled her eyes. “You turned my mother against me.”

His fury at his ex-wife boiled to the surface. She’d sent her only child to seek revenge in the most deadly, destructive way for both him and Tiffany. And now she’d washed her hands of the girl. What mother could do such a thing?

Pam was the one who needed to be in a mental institution, he thought, tamping down his murderous rage. “You know I have no control over your mother. She wants to hurt us both. By making you think I’m responsible, it’s just another way for her to drive us apart.”

Tiffany shook her head, tears now streaming down her face. “She said you would blame her.”

Frank balled his fists at his sides. He didn’t know where Pam was, afraid sometimes of what he would do if he found her. He unclenched his fists, not wanting to give his daughter any more ammunition against him.

“This is your fault,” Tiffany cried. “If you had loved my mother and not that horrible Nettie Benton...”

Frank felt his heart clinch at his former lover’s name on his daughter’s lips. There was only one other person Tiffany and her mother hated more than him.

“None of this has anything to do with Lynette,” he said, using the name he’d always called Nettie. “She was married to Bob when your mother and I were together, and there was nothing going on between us.”

“Mother said you never got over the bitch.”

He would have loved arguing that, but he couldn’t. His daughter would have seen the truth. “I married your mother because I loved her.” That much at least was true. Pam’s jealousy had destroyed the marriage, but Tiffany wouldn’t believe that. He hated even thinking about those dark days, never knowing what mood Pam would be in when he returned home.

“Mother said you never tried to get her back.”

They’d had this discussion too many times, and nothing he could say weakened the venom Pam had injected into their daughter’s veins.

“I can’t change the past. Had I known about you, I would have gone after your mother and brought you both back. She never gave me that chance.”

The girl shook her head, her big blue eyes filling with tears. “If I had known that Nettie Benton was the woman you were in love with...” She didn’t have to continue. He knew. Tiffany had come to Beartooth with a gun and a heart full of hate.

She knew where to find him, but she’d been looking for Lynette Johnson. That had been Lynette’s name when the two of them were in their early twenties and lovers. Tiffany hadn’t known that Lynette went by the name Nettie Benton.

Frank wished more than anything that he and Lynette had married and had children of their own. Instead Lynette had married Bob Benton. And years later, he’d foolishly married Pam Chandler. Their marriage had been short and far from sweet.

It wasn’t enough that Pam and Tiffany had brought him to his knees. But he lived in fear that Tiffany, if released, would go after Lynette, the woman he’d loved and lost years ago and still loved now.

Or that Pam, realizing her daughter might never be free again, might decide to take matters into her own hands.

* * *

JAMISON CALLED HIS office in Big Timber and discussed the situation with the undersheriff in charge. They both agreed he should go up into the mountains with Mrs. Conner.

“At this point, it doesn’t warrant sending search and rescue up there,” Undersheriff Dillon Lawson said. “We don’t know that a crime has been committed or even if the sheepherder is actually missing.”

They wouldn’t know about the blood on the boy’s coat until the forensics came back from the state lab, and who knew how long that would take?

“The boy’s been in a fight,” Jamison said. “Something happened up there. Something bad enough that the boy is terrified. But you’re right—there’s no smoking gun.” Not yet anyway.

“Okay. This could take you a few days, though. You’re scheduled off this weekend. If this case runs over...”

“I doubt it will. If it does, it isn’t a problem.”

“Let me know what you find—if you can get cell-phone coverage from one of the higher peaks up there, call me. Coverage up there is sketchy at best. If it becomes a rescue operation or worse, we can send in a helicopter once we have the location. So it is just going to be you and Maddie Conner going up there?”

“She’s not keen on my going along.”

Dillon chuckled. “I’ll just bet. Good luck.”

Jamison hung up and went to check on Dewey Putman. He got the feeling that the undersheriff thought his going up into the mountains would be good for him. Knock some of the back-East off of him. Apparently Maddie’s reputation had also preceded her since the undersheriff found some humor in his going with her.