Night of Shadows

Night of Shadows

By

Marilyn Haddrill and Doris Holmes

Text Copyright © 2012 Marilyn A.
Haddrill and James W. Holmes

Cover Art by Steve Bagi (Bagi
Design), Chester Springs, Pennsylvania

All Rights Reserved

All the characters in this book are
fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely
coincidental.

Kindle eBooks by Marilyn Haddrill

Romantic Suspense (with co-author
Doris Holmes)

Night
of Shadows

Sting
of the Scorpion

Romantic Fantasy (Dec. 1, 2012
Release Date)

Ten
Crescent Moons (Moonquest Series, Book 1)

This book originally was dedicated
in loving memory of my father, Jess Willard Holmes, who believed in our dream.
The dedication now extends to my co-author and mother, Doris Holmes, who passed
away in 2011. May the warmth of her humor and her love of family continue to
live on in this book we so enjoyed creating together. - Marilyn Haddrill

Preface

Originally
published as a hardback in 1992 by Avalon Books (Thomas Bouregy and Company
Inc., New York),
Night of Shadows
is a timeless tale of romance and
intrigue set on a fictional ranch in remote southern New Mexico. This story was
revised and updated in late 2012 for release as a Kindle eBook.

The insistent ringing of the
telephone at Melinda's elbow was just one more interruption in a day
complicated by decisions, cranky co-workers, and a headache that now pounded
through her temples. Work was piled up. She had been absent from her Atlanta
office all last week to make a series of presentations on proposed magazine
advertising layouts and TV ads for a Florida orange juice company.

At least her efforts to land the
corporation as a client had been successful. In fact, the public relations firm
she represented had given her a substantial bonus. But Melinda wondered if the
time spent away from demands here had been worth it.

Melinda glared at the telephone,
and then yanked off her glasses. She scowled over at Millie, the newly hired
receptionist. Melinda distinctly had asked the girl to hold all calls. Millie
shrugged her shoulders in an apologetic gesture.

"Sorry, Ms. Bailey," she
said in her raspy voice. "They told me it was an emergency."

Sighing, Melinda picked up the
phone. Some emergency. It was Mrs. Johnson, owner of the Great South Travel
Agency. She informed Melinda that she hated the clothes selected for the models
in the Bahamas excursion packet. Melinda soothed her client's ruffled feelings
with a promise that they would meet at lunch the next day and discuss exactly
what Mrs. Johnson had in mind.

The results of about a week's worth
of photo sessions would have to be scrapped. But it taught Melinda a valuable
lesson. Never again would she trust a client who said to use her own judgement.

When at last the conversation
ended, Melinda grabbed for a pencil behind her ear and reached for her
appointment pad. The phone buzzed again.

"I'm not taking this one,
Millie," Melinda said emphatically. "I told you — no more calls. And
don't tell me this is another one of your emergencies."

Millie shrugged in her usual
lackadaisical style and punched the hold button to inform the waiting party.

"Sorry, Mr. McClure. Like I told
you before, Ms. Bailey isn't available."

Melinda looked up. "McClure? Preston
McClure?"

"Yeah," Millie answered. "Sez
he's your brother-in-law. Sez he's been trying to reach you for days."

Melinda punched the button with the
flashing red light to make the connection. Preston? Calling her at work? That
was odd. Particularly since she had exchanged hardly more than two or three
sentences of pleasantries with the man since her sister married him less than a
year ago.

"Man, you're hard to track
down!" Preston's voice crackled through the distortion of a poor long
distance connection. "Listen, Melinda. I hate to alarm you this way, but
there's something you need to know. Joannie's been missing since last
Monday."

Melinda clinched the telephone
receiver closer to her ear to make his voice more audible. The office noises
subsided into a muted background of clatter.

"That's a week ago. Why didn't
you tell me sooner?"

"I've been trying to get in
touch with you since the day after she disappeared. Your office never could get
any messages through."

"That's ridiculous. They knew
exactly where I was."

Struck by a thought, Melinda
swiveled her chair to stare right at Millie. The receptionist's head with its
frizzed red hair was bent over a novel kept hidden in her desk drawer. It was
quite likely Millie had either forgotten Preston's messages or never bothered
with them in the first place.

"I take it you haven't heard
from her then," Preston said.

"No. Not a word."

Millie's foggy world insulated her
from Melinda's irate scrutiny that continued for several seconds. Then Melinda
whirled her chair around, turning her back to the bustling office scene. She
had to collect her wits. Think. Her sister could be unpredictable at times. Joan
might have decided, on impulse, to take a trip. But surely not without telling
Preston.

His voice crackled over the phone
again. "We've had the county rescue squad out for days combing the area,
searching for her. So far not a clue — nothing. They're treating it now
strictly as a missing person. They seem to think she left on her own. I was
praying she might have shown up there. Have you heard from her at all within
the last few weeks? Did she give you any indication that she might be going
somewhere?"

"Hold on. I might have
something here."

Yes, Melinda had heard from Joan. She
attacked a pile of papers on her desk and dug through them until she found the
letter, which she had skimmed just that morning. The postmark was June 9, the
day before Joan disappeared. Melinda snatched it from the envelope and reviewed
the contents.

Joan had asked her to come out to
New Mexico for a visit. But for some bizarre reason, she had wanted Melinda to
pretend she had just dropped in without any prior invitation. Because there was
no Internet service at the remote ranch, Joan had chosen to send the
handwritten invitation by conventional mail.

Melinda had been amused with her
sister's melodrama, considering it one of Joan's attention-getting ploys
designed to lure her for a long-promised visit. Now, the letter took on deeper
significance. Guilt numbed Melinda as she realized that — even as that letter
was being written — Joan must have been in some kind of trouble. And as in the
past, she had tried turning to her capable older sister for help.

Until Melinda knew more, she decided
it was best not to mention the correspondence to Preston. The strangeness of it
caused her to shove it quickly into a dark corner of the drawer, as though to
hide it from her brother-in-law.

"No, I haven't heard from her
lately," Melinda lied.

"Well, I thought if she'd be
in touch with anyone, it would be you…" Preston began. "Just a sec. Mac
is asking me something."

Preston's voice became muffled as
he held his hand over the mouthpiece to talk to his brother in the background. As
Melinda waited, she recalled Joan's correspondence of the past year filled with
details about Preston McClure and his brother, Mac. Joan's references to Mac
had revealed clear dislike for his heavy-handed ways.

Melinda tried to remember something
specific, regretting now that she had thrown the previous letters away. She
recalled only that they contained little barbs that related to Mac's tight
control over the family business, even though Preston was supposed to be an
equal partner. The brothers bred quarter horses at a ranch near Broken Rock
located about 75 miles southwest of the resort and horse racing town of
Ruidoso, New Mexico. That's where Joan had met Preston the previous summer.

They had married following a
whirlwind courtship that troubled Melinda. From the beginning, she had grave
doubts that a marriage between two people who knew so little about each other
could survive. Maybe that was the trouble to which Joan was referring. Maybe
her little sister had quit her husband, and would be showing up at any time to
admit she had made a mistake. At that moment, Preston’s voice interrupted
Melinda's thoughts.

"Okay, Melinda, I'm
back."

As yet, Melinda never had met
Preston. Their brief conversations in the past had been limited to the
telephone. So it was hard to know what approach to take with him to get to the
truth.

"Preston, you know you can be
honest with me. Did you and Joan by chance have an argument?"

"Absolutely not!" he
protested. "I mean, we've had the usual spats, like any married couple,
but — nothing serious. We love each other." His voice broke. "If she
had left me, you know she would have taken a few things with her. Even her
purse is still here. She's just gone — that's all."

"Do you think Joan is all
right? Do you think she was hurt, or maybe — " Melinda's voice quivered.

Even though she was unable to
finished the question, she knew Preston understood the meaning. Preston's
silence echoed her own concern.

"I'm catching the first plane
out there," Melinda announced.

"No!" Preston practically
shouted his protest. "I can't have that!  I can't risk another — " He
cut off what he was about to say. "I'll keep you informed. There's nothing
you can do here."

The phone clicked and the line went
dead, as though the matter had been settled. What he meant by that final remark
was — stay away! 

Melinda slowly hung up the receiver
and sank back into the thick, padded chair behind her desk. She gazed out over
the hectic office scene now as though it were an alien world. The stack of
advertising accounts before her, which minutes ago had been the most important
thing in her life, now seemed meaningless. The dozen or so other executives
around her continued with business as usual, too preoccupied even to notice her
despair.

She looked at the nameplate before
her —
MELINDA BAILEY, Account Manager
. Soon she was to be promoted to a
vice president's position with her own separate office and private secretary.

She had so relished the thought of
the substantial salary increase accompanying the step up that she had excluded
almost everything from her life lately except her obsession with this job. Maybe
she had been so caught up in her dreams that she had chosen to ignore the
undertones in Joan's letter.

She pulled open the drawer,
retrieved the letter, and this time read it carefully. The first part of the
writing sounded like the old Joan. She happily babbled about horses and
racetracks and life at the ranch. But now did the words seem contrived? Melinda
read the last part over and over, as she tried to find some hidden clue.

Melinda, I know you're busy, but
please come here as soon as possible. Next month, if you can. Please? It's
terribly important to me. When you get here, would you do me a favor? Just tell
everyone you decided to drop in as a surprise. Don't say I invited you. I'm
sending you some detailed directions so you'll be able to find your way out
here without anyone meeting you at the airport.

Melinda should have paid more
attention to that weird request when she first read it. Why the secrecy? It was
normal that Joan would want to invite her only sister — her only close family,
really — to visit her. Melinda had in fact planned to go there — on her very
next vacation, whenever she could manage one. Now, it was time.

The first obstacle was her
workaholic boss, Mr. Grissom. It was difficult to read his expression as she
stood before him in his large, oval office surrounded by plate glass that gave
him a view of his employees at their work stations. Melinda tried not to stare
at his shiny bald head, the subject of many jokes made behind his back. He had
his fingers steepled together in a pose of thought, as he stared out over
glasses perched on the tip of his nose.

"I understand your problem,
Melinda — believe me, I do. But I depend on you. That's why you're getting this
promotion. Surely you understand that, in a growing firm like ours, we can't
spare anyone for very long. Emerson is off on maternity leave. Bernhart and
Walls both are on vacation right now, too. We can let you go a week or two — but
what happens after that?"

Melinda wet her lips and tried to
sound firm. "I might have to ask for a leave of absence, sir."

"And I'll have to deny it. We're
in the middle of that new promotion for the mall. Jordon will have to handle
your clients, and he's already working overtime with his own load as it
is."

"I'll get with him right away.
I'll do everything I can to make it easier for him."

"Two weeks. Sorry, that's all
I can give you." Grissom opened his desk drawer and pulled out a form that
he quickly signed and handed to her. "Take this over to accounting and
they'll cut you a check for your vacation pay. We expect you back after
that."

***

That night, Melinda packed some of
the travel items she had laid out and critically surveyed the few practical
clothes she had available to wear at a ranch. One pair of stone-washed jeans,
some shorts, and a few casual tops. That was it. Her wardrobe was devoted
almost exclusively to business and evening attire. Melinda's association with
the outdoors in recent years had been confined to gazing down at city lights
from exclusive cafes atop some towering office building handy for business
meetings with clients.

When the doorbell rang, Melinda
straightened in alarm.

"Oh, no!" She looked at
her watch. "I forgot all about him."

She stood, nibbling on a fingertip,
while she decided what to do.

"Perry?" she called out. "Hold
on. I'll be there in a second."

She ran to the telephone, punched
in a quick series of numbers and ordered a pizza to be delivered. Then she
grabbed a brush and ran three or four strokes through her hair before she went
to the door and opened it to his startled expression.

"Melinda, you look — interesting."

Melinda tugged self-consciously at
some straying hair, then stepped back to let him enter. His disappointment was
not surprising. She knew he expected her to be dressed in the flowered, silky
yellow lounging outfit that she sometimes wore during evenings at home. Instead,
she had uncharacteristically donned faded shorts and an oversized man's work shirt.
He was supposed to be treated to a home-cooked dinner, but he would have to be
satisfied with the pizza she ordered. She didn't have the time to humor Perry
Rhine right now.