by Cindi Myers
By the time they made it back to the house, the sun was setting, and Cody’s fingers and toes ached with cold. “Let’s check around back here and we’ll call it a night,” Travis said, leading the way around the side of the house.
“The killer really has nerve if he’s stashing his car this close to the house,” Cody said, but he trudged along behind his friend, toward the back door, and the beckoning warmth of the kitchen. They had almost reached that warmth when Travis stopped. “What is it?” Cody asked. He followed his friend’s gaze toward the shadows at the edge of the glow from the light shining through the kitchen window. He could just make out the bumper of a car.
He followed Travis over to the car and the sheriff played the beam of his flashlight over the windshield and hood. A scant half inch of snow coated the vehicle, compared with the much thicker coatings they had found on the other ranch vehicles. Travis directed the light to the ground around the car. “Does it look like there’s less snow behind the back wheels to you?” he asked.
“That’s harder to tell,” Cody said. “Maybe. Whose vehicle is this?”
“It belongs to Rainey.” He switched off the flashlight. “Let’s see what she has to say.”
* * *
“I’M GOING TO be fine,” Bette said, struggling to keep all trace of annoyance out of her voice. Lacy and Emily meant well, fussing over her like two mother hens, but she was beginning to feel a little smothered. They had plied her with tea, ibuprofen, blankets and offers of chicken soup and a hot water bottle, and they didn’t want to let her out of their sight, even to go to the bathroom. She pushed aside the blankets and pillows and stood. “I’m going to go check on the groceries Cody put away, and then I’m going out to my cabin. I’m going to take a shower and go to bed early, get a good night’s sleep and I’m sure I’ll be fine in the morning.”
“Shouldn’t someone check on you during the night?” Lacy asked. “I mean, aren’t you supposed to wake up someone with a head injury periodically, so they don’t go into a coma or something?”
“If anyone wakes me up out of a sound sleep I can’t be held responsible for the consequences,” Bette said.
“You can’t blame us for being worried about you,” Lacy said.
“I know,” Bette said. “And you’re being really sweet, but I’ll be fine. I’m feeling much better now. I hardly even have a headache.” Not exactly true—her head still hurt a lot. But she wasn’t going to let on about it or they would insist on taking turns waking her up all night to make sure she didn’t die. And if they did that, the only lives that would be at risk would be theirs.
Lacy and Emily exchanged looks. Bette was sure they were going to argue with her. Before they got the chance, she headed for the kitchen.
Rainey looked up from the pot she was stirring on the stove. “What do you want?” she asked. “I’m in the middle of fixing dinner.”
“I don’t need anything from you,” Bette said. “I’m just going through to the garage.”
Once safely in the garage, she switched on the light and pulled open the door to the refrigerator. As she had expected, Cody had shoved both bags full of groceries on top of the cases of beer, not bothering to sort out what required refrigeration and what didn’t. Sighing, she pulled out the bags and took out the dried fruit and several other items that didn’t need to be kept cold. She would store these in her cabin until she needed them. She wouldn’t give Rainey an excuse to complain that Bette’s supplies were taking up space in her pantry.
She closed the refrigerator, hooked the bag of groceries to take to her cabin over one wrist and returned to the kitchen—and almost collided with Cody.
He reached out to steady her. “What were you doing in the garage?” he asked.
“I needed some things from the refrigerator.” She looked past him, to where Travis stood with Rainey. Neither of them looked happy about something. Travis was scowling and Rainey was hunched, arms folded tightly across her chest.
Rainey glanced at Bette, then looked back to the sheriff. “I always park my car back there,” she said. “I don’t see what business it is of yours. If your parents have a problem with it, they can tell me themselves.”
“I don’t care where you park, Rainey,” Travis said. “I asked you when the last time you moved the car was.”
“Why do you need to know that?” she asked.
“Just answer the question, please.”
“Yesterday,” she said. “I ran some errands in town and it’s been parked there ever since.”
“Are you sure?” Travis asked.
“Of course I’m sure,” she said. “What is all this about?”
“I noticed there isn’t much snow on the car,” Travis said. “Not as much as you’d expect if it had been sitting there over twenty-four hours.”
Rainey hunched her shoulders more. “Doug cleaned it off for me. I don’t like letting snow pile up on it too high. Then it’s that much more trouble to clean off. So he swept it off for me.”
“When was this?” Travis asked.
“I don’t know. Sometime after lunch.”
“Where is Doug?” Travis looked around the kitchen. “Shouldn’t he be helping you with supper?”
“He wasn’t feeling well, so I sent him to his room to lie down. I think he might be coming down with the flu or something.”
“I’ll need to talk to him,” Travis said.
“Why? He hasn’t done anything wrong.”
“Then there won’t be any problem with him answering some questions for me.”
“What kind of questions?” Rainey demanded.
“He’s a grown man,” Travis said. “I think he can speak for himself.”
Rainey uncrossed her arms and whirled to face him. “Do you think that badge gives you the right to pick on him?” she shouted. “Just because that woman lied about him in court and he had to go to prison, you think you can blame anything that happens around here on him. When you’ve invited someone else into your home who is so much worse. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Travis Walker.”
“Rainey.” His voice carried a sharp edge of warning.
Bette shrank back, half hiding behind Cody as Rainey turned on her. “She’s the one you ought to be questioning,” she said, pointing to Bette. “She robbed a bank, and she’s probably planning to rob you all blind as soon as you turn your backs.”
Rage fogged Bette’s vision. How dare this woman accuse her of wanting to harm people who had been so kind to her. If anyone had dared to say something like that to her in prison, she would have lit into them then and there. Fighting meant losing privileges, maybe even having time added to your sentence. But that was better than losing face. If some of those cons learned they could take advantage of you, they would make your time behind bars a living hell.
This isn’t prison, she reminded herself. This was a respectable home, and Bette was here to do a job. She wouldn’t let this spiteful woman take that from her. So she held her head up and forced herself to move into the middle of the room. “The sheriff knows I’m happy to answer any questions he has,” she said, finding and holding Rainey’s gaze. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to say good-night. It’s been a trying day.”
She was halfway across the yard, cold wind freezing the tears that streamed down her face, when Cody caught up with her. “Hey,” he said, taking hold of her arm.
“Leave me alone,” she said, wrenching away from him.
“I’m going to walk you to your cabin,” he said, falling into step beside her.
“I didn’t ask you to be my bodyguard,” she said.
“No. But someone has threatened you twice in the last two days—and this morning you might have been killed. I’m not going to ignore that, even if you are.”
She didn’t know what to say to that, so they walked without speaking the rest of the way to her
cabin, their footsteps crunching on the snow. “No messages on the door,” he said as they climbed the steps to the little porch. “That’s good.”
“Everything looks fine.” She faced him, key in her hand. “All right, you saw me here, you can go now.”
“Not until we make sure everything inside is all right.” He took the key from her and inserted it into the lock.
She followed him into the room. Everything looked as she had left it. “Everything’s fine,” she said. Just—go, she thought.
But he didn’t leave. “I’m sorry about what happened back there, in the kitchen,” he said. “But it was all on Rainey. Travis will see that, too. She was upset about him questioning her, so she tried to create a distraction.”
Bette sat on the side of the bed. “What was all that about the car?” she asked. “Why was Travis questioning her?”
“We were looking for the car driven by whoever attacked you,” he said. “Neither of us passed another vehicle between the turnoff for the country road and your car. If your attacker didn’t travel that way, the only other direction he could have gone was toward the ranch. When we looked at cars on the ranch, Rainey’s was the only one we found that looked as if it had been cleared of snow in the last few hours.”
“Rainey hates me, but forcing me off the road and attacking me with a rock?” Bette shook her head. “She doesn’t strike me as the type. She’d rather spit in my soup, or spread rumors behind my back—or announce to everyone that I’m a bank robber and I can’t be trusted.” That moment in the kitchen when everyone had turned to look at her still stung.
“What about Doug?” Cody asked. “Do you think he was the one who attacked you?”
“I don’t know.” She curled her hands into fists. “I honestly don’t remember anything from the time I was standing in the grocery story with Brenda, until I woke up with you shaking me. It’s frightening, having a chunk of your life just missing that way.”
“But you can’t say Doug wasn’t the one who hurt you?”
“No. I guess Doug could have done it, but why?”
“He has a record,” Cody said. “He served time for beating up his girlfriend. He put her in the hospital.”
“Not exactly a comforting thought, but I can’t see why he’d want to hurt me,” Bette said. “We haven’t said more than half a dozen words to each other since I got here.”
“He could have hurt you out of some misguided attempt to protect his mother,” Cody said.
“Oh, please!” Bette grabbed a pillow and hugged it to her stomach. “I know Rainey resents my getting to cater the wedding, but it’s not like she’s out of a job. She’s still doing what she’s done for years, doing the cooking for the ranch. After the wedding I’ll be gone and she’ll still be here. That isn’t a good reason to physically hurt someone. The petty harassment—sure, maybe she’ll make me miserable enough and I’ll leave. But violence?” She shook her head. “It’s not worth the risk of getting caught.”
“Is there someone else who might be a threat to you, then?”
“Who? I know it’s a cliché for someone to say she doesn’t have enemies, but honestly, I don’t.”
“What about your ex? The one who talked you into robbing the bank?”
“He’s still in prison.”
“Do you know that for sure?”
She frowned. When she had first been released, she had been almost obsessive about keeping tabs on Eddie. Lately, that obsession had faded. “The last time I checked was six months ago, but yes, he was still serving his sentence.”
“A lot of cons have connections outside prison—people who are loyal to them who will do things for them, like check up on an old girlfriend to make sure she doesn’t say something she shouldn’t.”
“But he’s in prison. Nothing I say can hurt him worse,” she said.
“There was one member of the gang who was never caught,” Cody said.
“So you did check up on me.”
His expression remained cool. “Are you really surprised?”
“No. I guess I’d have been more surprised if you hadn’t. So yes, the guy who drove the getaway car was never caught.”
“You didn’t testify against him.” A statement, not a question. Oh, yeah, he had gotten all the details, hadn’t he?
“I didn’t know anything to testify,” she said. “I saw him for a few minutes exactly once, and I don’t remember anything about him.”
“Does your ex know that?”
“Yes. He was the one who made sure I knew as little as possible. He said it was for my protection, but it worked both ways. The less I knew, the less I could testify to.”
“All right, so you don’t know who the getaway driver is—but he probably knows you. Maybe he’s come after you to shut you up.”
“That’s pretty far-fetched.” She held up her hand and began counting off the reasons. “One—how does he know I’m in Eagle Mountain? Two—when did he get here? There was only, what, a two-day window when the pass was open so he could follow me here. And three—and this is the biggest reason I think you’re wrong—it’s been nine years since that robbery. What are the chances that he’s still out there walking around? He probably committed other crimes and is locked up for one of them.”
“Maybe he was like you—a dupe for your ex. The near miss scared him into going straight.”
“In which case, why would he throw all that away to shut me up?”
“If you identify him, you ruin his life. He might have a good job now, a wife and a family. Those things are worth taking risks for.”
“But this is a crazy risk. And really foolish. Because I don’t know anything.”
“All right,” he said. “But until we find out who’s behind these threats, I’m going to be keeping a closer eye on you than you may like.”
“Why? Why do you even care?”
“Let’s just say it gives me something to do. I can only take so much shoveling snow and chopping firewood.”
“What are you doing here at the ranch anyway?” she asked.
“I’m one of the groomsmen.”
“Yeah, but the wedding is two weeks away. Why are you here so early?”
He studied her for a long moment, silent.
“It’s a simple question,” she said.
“But it doesn’t have a simple answer.” He stared at the floor, then let out a long, slow breath. “I told you before I’m on vacation, but that’s just the polite word for it. Actually, it was more of a forced leave.”
“What happened?” she asked. “Did you screw up? Shoot someone you shouldn’t have?”
He winced, and she wanted to take the words back. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have assumed.”
“It’s okay. I’d rather you said what you were thinking than try to tiptoe around my feelings. I’ve had enough of that.”
She waited for him to say more. The silence stretched, until she became aware of the gentle sigh of his breath and the brush of the denim of his jeans when he shifted in the chair. “I was on a job,” he said finally, his voice low and tight, as if he was forcing out the words. “Routine stuff—pursuing a fugitive with a warrant. The guy was wanted for sexually molesting his ten-year-old niece. Nice, upstanding citizen—a banker. A girls’ soccer coach, so there was a question of whether other girls were involved. Basically, I thought he was scum, but I would never have let him know that. I did my job—tracked him down at a friend’s cabin where he had gone in a pretty feeble attempt to hide from the cops. I gave him my usual spiel of how he should come with me quietly.”
He closed his eyes, and she sensed he was replaying the scene in his head. “He had a gun. He was waving it around. One of those cases you hate, because the way he was holding the gun, I could tell he wasn’t really going to shoot me. He was trying to commit what we call suicide by cop. B
ut I wasn’t going to let that happen.”
He opened his eyes again. “It’s a matter of pride for me that when I go after someone, I bring them back alive ninety-nine percent of the time. I knew I could handle this guy. I wasn’t in a hurry. I had all the time in a world to talk him off the ledge, get him to put the gun down. There are rules for handling these kinds of things and I knew how to follow them to reach a good outcome.”
He fell silent again, the lines around his eyes so deep, the hunch of his shoulders that of a man in pain. “What happened?” she whispered.
He licked his lips. “He didn’t know the rules. I was right that he didn’t want to shoot me. Instead, he shot himself. Put the barrel of the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. He was looking me right in the eye when he did it.”
She put a hand to her mouth to stifle the cry she couldn’t keep back.
Cody shook his head, like a boxer shaking off a blow to the chin. “It rattles you, something like that. But I knew I could deal. I told my boss the best thing for it was to get back out in the field, but he didn’t see it that way. He ordered me to take time off—to get out in nature, to see a counselor if I needed. But not to come back on the job until February.”
“So you came here.”
“I couldn’t just sit around my apartment. And Travis is a great guy for giving you perspective. You might not see it, but the man is beyond calm in a crisis. I figured he and I could hang out, go fishing, I could work on the ranch. But he’s tied up chasing a killer, and I’m going crazy.” His eyes met hers again. “That’s where you come in.”
“So I’m going to be your distraction.”
“Oh, you’re a distraction all right.”