Page 42 of Rawhide and Ransom

Though Tucker had been fiddling with his equipment, Annalee sensed he’d been watching them closely. No doubt he was trying to figure out her relationship with Hawk. She was secretly delighted that Hawk wasn’t making any effort to keep his interest in her a secret.

“What’s the number?” Tucker finally asked.

She rattled off Miley’s old phone number. “It’s probably best if I do the talking.” She looked at Hawk for confirmation, and he nodded.

“If your imposter picks up, she won’t even know we’re in the room,” he promised.

Tucker fiddled with the equipment some more. Then he dialed the number.

It rang a few times.

Annalee’s lips turned down in disappointment.Oh, well.It had been worth a try.

The phone stopped ringing, and a woman’s voice rang shrilly across the conference room. “It took you long enough to reach out.”

You were expecting me?Annalee’s heart thudded with trepidation. “Why do you have my daughter’s cell phone?” It wasn’t one of the questions she’d rehearsed. It had simply slipped out.

“It’s mine now.” There were some rustling noises in the background. “She left it behind after she pulled that window breaking stunt.”

Annalee gasped in outrage. “She had no choice! You were burning the house down.”

The woman talked over her as if she hadn’t heard her. “It’s expensive paying for an extra phone number.” She sounded indignant, as if she was the victim instead of the offender.

Not for the first time, Annalee wondered what kind of loony tune she was dealing with. “Who are you?” she asked. “And don’t bother repeating my own name to me. We both know you’re not the real Annalee Gilbert.”

The woman was silent for a moment. “You still haven’t figured it out.” She gave a long-suffering sigh. “That surprises me, considering how much effort I’ve put into getting your attention.”

She was lying. She wasn’t trying to get Annalee’s attention. She was trying to kill her.

“Did you kill my husband?” Annalee hated how thready her voice became.

“That’s not a very nice thing to ask a family member.” There was a mechanical quality to her voice that Annalee remembered all too well.

Family?Annalee mouthed the word at Hawk, unsure what to say next. There was no way the creep on the other end of the phone was related to her and Miley.Only in your demented dreams!

He motioned for her to keep talking, which she could only assume meant that Tucker hadn’t yet pinpointed her imposter’s location.

She cleared her throat and tried a different tactic. “Why are you using a voice changer? What are you hiding?”

“Hiding! You think I’ve been hiding?” The woman sounded outraged. “I’ve spent most of my life locked up while you got to live like a queen in foster care.”

The fact that someone in prison had managed to find out so much about Annalee’s personal life was unnerving. “Nobody lives like a queen in foster care,” she retorted bitterly. “And nobody in their right mind would say something like that.” Her stint in foster care was the darkest spot in her life. She was trying her hardest to forget it.

“You think I’m crazy, too?” the woman spat.

And then some, you maniac!Annalee’s imposter was starting to remind her of her late husband’s stepmother. Rosamund Dakota was her own brand of lunatic, someone who was beyond being reasoned with.

“I never said you were crazy, ma’am.” Their conversation had taken such a bizarre turn that Annalee was starting to feel a little nutso herself.

“Well, somebody did,” the woman snarled, “and I paid dearly for it. But those days are behind me. Now that I’ve escaped their clutches, I’m gonna take back everything that should’ve been mine. So, if you want your life back, it’s going to cost you. You owe me, Annalee Gilbert!”

The line went dead.

“No-o-o!” Annalee dropped her head on the table in defeat. The woman hadn’t given her a single direct answer, leaving her with more questions than she’d started off with.

“Were you able to trace her location?” Hawk asked quickly.

“Nope. Sorry.” Tucker sounded regretful. “I recorded every second of it, though. We’ll analyze the feed and see if anything pops that might help us pinpoint her location.”

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