Hell to Pay (What Doesn’t Kill You, #7): An Emily Romantic Mystery

by Pamela Fagan Hutchins

  Sighing, I sat up and checked my email on my phone. I had a flood of messages, but one caught my attention. An answer about the job in Dallas.

  We’re Uptown, but not too far from Downtown. The email listed the attorneys with the firm, some of whom I was familiar with, and the other paralegal, who I knew and liked. It was very promising. So promising that a giant sob escaped from my throat.

  I cried myself to sleep, but Legolas didn’t seem to mind.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Legolas shook me off and got to his feet. He snorted and pawed the dirt in the dark stall. Clearly, there would be no more sleep for me in such close quarters with him.

  “I’m up.” I kneeled with my hands on my thighs while I got my bearings.

  I pulled up the time on my phone. It was 4:00 a.m. I was due to get on the road with Michele in an hour—she was bicycling at Lake Meredith. That left time to get Legolas out of this stable for some exercise. I ran into the house and changed my rumpled, dirty dress for some jeans and a long sleeved T-shirt. Then I went back out and saddled up my new friend.

  I rode by moonlight in the open fields behind our back fence. I’d always loved riding in the dark, the feeling of floating, the sensation of charging into the unknown. It forced me to concentrate on what was happening in the now, instead of worrying about the future. And Legolas was a dream. Not as high-strung as Jarhead, but just as graceful. He danced across the prairie grass and I sang “Wide Open Spaces” to him. A half hour passed quicker than a minute. By the time I had cooled him off, mucked his stall, and given him hay, feed, and fresh water, I had to hustle to stay on schedule.

  But I made it, and a neon Lycra-clad Michele and I were on the road to Lake Meredith before sunrise. She was meeting a group of bicyclists that largely hailed from Amarillo and could have hitched a ride with them, but Lake Meredith was conveniently close to Sanford. I’d offered to take her so we’d have some time to chat, then I could check on the Canadian River Ventures property. That qualified it as a work trip. It would also be near the Mighty is His Word compound, but after sleeping on it, I’d decided to gather my information some way other than the risky—for me—new members retreat.

  I drank coffee while Michele talked. First she gushed over my teeth. Then we moved on to more interesting topics.

  “So right now I’m trying to decide whether to build on the property Adrian left for me and move out there once Sam’s out of high school.” Her voice was bright but contemplative.

  “Wouldn’t you miss your friends?”

  “Some.” She smiled. “I’m not the girlfriend type, though. My boss is my best friend. I think I’ve won him over to the idea. Still, I’m not sure what I want to do.”

  Sadness about the boss that was my best friend tugged at me, and I had to physically shake my head to break free. “What’s holding you back?”

  “My tie to the area was a love for bicycling there with Adrian. It was all about us. It feels kind of pitiful to move out there alone. And if I did it and hated it, would I be stuck there? I don’t know.”

  I thought about my ties to New Mexico. Would I feel pitiful doing equine therapy with Laura if Jack and I were no more? Probably, but it would be different if we’d been married and he’d passed away. Plus I had made friends in New Mexico and in Amarillo, and I had family to tie me to the area. But I also had a job offer weighing on me, one far away. More money. More prestige. A simpler life without all the painful complications I’d acquired here.

  But that was me. This was about Michele, and me lost in reverie was not a conversation. I rolled my lips inward, trying to pick up our thread. “What about something temporary? Try it out to see how you like it?” Even as I said the words my thoughts returned to my situation, and I knew that if I left, I had to leave for good.

  “You know, I was thinking about renting a travel trailer for a few months for exactly that reason. I think it would be easier to sell the land than a house if I bailed out.”

  “Could you stand a travel trailer?”

  “I think streamlining my possessions to only what fit inside would be liberating.”

  I’d left all my stuff in Dallas when Rich cheated on me, and I’d moved to Amarillo with nothing. I hadn’t thought about it as liberating at the time, but she was right. It was.

  I checked the dashboard clock. “We’re early. Do you want to run look at a property with me real quick? It’s related to the murder case against my friend, the one Wallace and I were telling you about.”

  “Sure. I haven’t almost gotten killed since last time I went sleuthing. Life’s been boring.” She grinned.

  We passed the turn-off to Lake Meredith and continued north. Michele programmed Siri for the address to the Canadian River Ventures property, and the robotic voice spouted directions.

  “What you do is so exciting. It was never like that when I worked in the law. And it’s sure not like that as an editor.”

  “Yeah, Jack’s practice is pretty interesting.”

  “So have you talked to him?”

  “He left me a nice note and some messages, but none of them have said he loves me. I ran into him last night, too. We weren’t able to talk, and he ducked my call afterwards.”

  “It sounds like he’s hurt.”

  “Maybe so. Probably. Oh, who am I kidding? I know he is, and I am, too, and I’m just a mess about all of this.” I turned to look at her. “I don’t want to spend my life with a man that doesn’t adore me. I’ve done that. I want the real thing.” I returned my eyes to the road. “And yet I love him, and all I can think about is missing him. Until I remember the price.”

  “The price?”

  “Being stuck again with someone without having real love.”

  “Real love.” She nodded. “Adrian and I called it ‘the big love.’ The crazy passionate stuff that makes it impossible to live without each other. I’d never had it before. I hadn’t known I wanted it or was capable of it. But now that I’ve had it, I’ll never be the same.”

  “I almost have it. That’s the way I feel about Jack. Sometimes I think that’s the way he feels about me. Like when we’re naked.”

  Michele laughed. “Nothing wrong with that.”

  “But other times, the times he refuses to say a word . . . I don’t know. And the more I think about it, the more confused I am, and the more stressed I get until I’m worried I’m going crazy.”

  “You’re not doing as bad as you think. After Adrian was murdered, Sam was in danger and no one would believe me. All the pressure just built up in me until I was convinced I was the knife-winged butterfly warrior from my grandmother’s Aztec mythology. That’s crazy from stress.”

  My brows rose. “I don’t think I’m a knife-winged anything, but it might be pretty awesome.”

  She snorted. “Not as much as you’d think.”

  My phone chimed with a text. I held the home button down. “Check text messages.”

  Siri said, “You have one text message from John Phelps. Do you want me to read it to you?”

  “Yes.”

  Siri’s voice droned, “Hey, hot stuff meet me in bed at noon. I’ll be the naked guy under the sheets.”

  “Jesus!” I yelled.

  Michele’s eyes were wide, then she busted out laughing.

  “Do you want to reply?” Siri asked.

  “No!” To Michele I said, “That will scar me for life. I think my parents have learned how to sext.”

  “Your parents are adorable.”

  I wondered if she knew about my dad. I hadn’t told her, but I felt sure she did. “If you say so.”

  “Seriously, I love them.”

  Siri told me to turn right in five hundred feet. The street name rang a memory bell. Where had I heard it before? I turned right. The Mustang started to buck and pitch. The road hadn’t been repaved in my lifetime, it seemed.

  Siri chanted to us. “In one mile, the destination is on your left.”

  “Wowza, would you look at that,” Michele
said, pointing.

  The topography changed suddenly, giving way to a jagged river bottom with high, rocky bluffs on either side. Cottonwood trees crowded the gulch to the edge of the wide, flat bed of a river. A small trickle of water coursed through the sand, and a deer leaped into the trees away from us, a spotted fawn on its heels.

  “Yeah, it’s gorgeous out here. These are the Canadian River bottoms.”

  “I never dreamed the Panhandle was so gorgeous. First, Palo Duro Canyon. Now this.”

  I shook my head. “It’s still mostly cows, pump jacks, prairie dogs, and tumbleweeds, but even those aren’t bad once you get used to them.”

  Michele pointed again, this time to the right, to a small sign beside a gate. “Mighty is His Word Training Facility. What’s that, do you think?”

  My head swiveled back to the right. That’s where I’d heard the street name. The retreat for Mighty is His Word was out here. “A church. A very strange and somewhat scary church.”

  “Like Jim Jones and the People’s Temple in Jonestown, Guyana strange or like Scientology strange?”

  “I wish I knew. The couple that’s getting Betsy are members.”

  “Betsy the little girl you were trying to adopt?”

  I nodded.

  “The destination is on your left,” Siri announced.

  I pulled the Mustang to a stop. “Want to come with me? I just want to look around for a minute.”

  “Try to stop me.”

  There was a FOR SALE sign stuck into the ground. ANGELA MARTINEZ, LAKE MEREDITH REALTY. I took a picture of the sign and her phone number. Michele and I walked to the metal swing gate in the fence. It led to a very faint pair of parallel lines. Vehicle tracks over crushed wildflowers. A road of sorts. The gate was chained but not locked, so I opened it up, and we walked through.

  Michele held her blowing hair back and rotated three hundred sixty degrees, looking like an emergency beacon in all her neon. “What are we looking for?”

  “I’m not sure. Get this: Dennis, the guy Phil’s accused of killing, owned this property with Melinda Stafford, the ADA prosecuting the case. And Phil may have owned an interest in it, too, although that’s just a hunch.”

  She whistled. “Sounds like a conflict of interest for the ADA.”

  “That’s what I think.”

  The wheel tracks led down toward the river bottoms. I scanned the drop off and sandy expanse below us. The fence was about a quarter mile away back toward town and another half mile in the other direction.

  “It sure is a gorgeous piece of property,” Michele said.

  My phone rang. An Amarillo number. I was surprised and happy to see I had signal. I pressed accept and said, “Hello, this is Emily.”

  A young woman’s voice said, “This is The Works car wash. Your car is ready. You can pick it up anytime.”

  “Thank you. I’ll be in this afternoon.” Finally I could have my car back. I wondered if it would ever be the same.

  Michele and I turned and walked back toward the gate. As we did, I noticed a sign that had been knocked over, inside the fence. It was lying facedown. I looked around for something to flip it with, since I didn’t want to end up with a rattlesnake bite, but there was nothing. I had on boots and jeans, so I gritted my teeth and used the tip of my toe, then yanked my foot back. No snake came at me, and I relaxed. The sign was freshly painted and said FUTURE HOME OF CANADIAN RIVER VENTURES ADULT RESORT.

  “Adult resort,” Michele said, amusement in her voice. She put air quotes around her head. “As in sexy adventures? Nudist vacations?”

  “As in those, I think.” Phil’s involvement suddenly seemed more likely. Mighty is His Word had to hate the resort planned across the street, if they knew about it. Not that I’d love having an adult resort in my front yard either.

  “Yucky.”

  “Agreed.” But a clue. Not only did Melinda Stafford own property with Dennis, and maybe with Phil, but she was part owner in a potential sex getaway. My brain kicked into high gear. Heavens to Murgatroyd, that wasn’t all. She hadn’t disclosed any of this, and it wasn’t just a conflict of interest. If she was the one behind the break-in at Phil’s, or hiding or destroying evidence, like the email forwarded from Dennis to Phil, then she was obstructing justice. For a fraction of a second, I remembered her frail figure hunched over the toilet in Abuelo’s vomiting, her stumbling and weaving gait, and I almost felt sorry for her, until it all crystallized for me. I rubbed my palms together, my juices flowing. If she was obstructing justice, it meant she had something to hide, something big and worth putting herself at risk for.

  “Hey,” Michele said, pointing into the distance down nearer the bottoms. “Aren’t those marijuana plants?”

  We looked at each other and simultaneously broke into a run to go check it out.

  I cackled with joy when we got to them. “It is. Pot. This is awesome.” Shipping runs from Borger to Colorado, fields of pot? Dennis was a drug smuggler. My day—and Phil’s—just kept getting better and better.

  Michele slapped me a high five. I walked closer and snapped pictures with my phone from all angles.

  Then I sent up a quick prayer to the big guy: Dear God, please forgive me for wanting this to be the takedown that self-righteous witch deserves. He didn’t answer, but I wasn’t struck by lightning either, so I figured he was taking my side on this one.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  I dropped Michele off at Lake Meredith with three underfed female athletes—one of whom was lending her a bicycle—then waved good-bye to her with one hand and held down the home button on my phone with the other. Siri’s tone sounded. “Call Lake Meredith Realty in Fritch, Texas.” I set my phone down and put the car in drive.

  The receptionist picked up on the first ring. “Lake Meredith Realty.” Her voice was as old and wavery as Clyde’s had been. Thinking of him sent a wave of grief through me.

  “May I speak to Angela Martinez, please?”

  “She’ll be in any minute. May I take a message?”

  “I want to drop by to discuss a property she’s listing. What’s your address?”

  She gave a downtown Fritch street and number. “May I tell her to expect you?”

  “Sure. My name is Emily.”

  I hung up. Fritch. Lake Meredith Realty was only ten minutes away. That still left me time to call Nadine and give her an update. She deserved some hopeful news.

  After she answered, I said, “Did I catch you at an okay time?”

  “Hey, Emily. Yes, and I’ve got great news!”

  “About Phil?”

  “He opened his eyes this morning!”

  “Oh, Nadine, oh my gosh, that’s the best news.” I coasted into a turn without using my blinker. The car behind me honked. I saluted and the car raced its engine as it barreled past me.

  “I told him to squeeze my hand twice if he knew who I was, and he did. They’ve still got his tube in, so he can’t talk, but his vital signs are perfect, and the doctors and nurses are over the moon.”

  “Honey, I am so happy for you.”

  Nadine let out a sob. “He’s going to make it.”

  “Yes, he is. And I have more good news for you, as long as you can keep it totally confidential.”

  “I’ll take it to the grave.”

  “Well, I hope not that, but thank you. Remember Canadian River Ventures?”

  “I do. Was it a good lead?”

  “It was. It owns a property outside Sanford. And you’ll never believe who with.”

  “Who?”

  “Melinda Stafford.”

  “The ADA?” Nadine shouted.

  I held the phone away from my ear. “Yes, ma’am. I still don’t know if Phil was in on the deal, honestly, but I am one hundred percent sure that Dennis was. I was out there this morning, and it’s up for sale. I checked with the mortgage company, and it’s about to go into foreclosure. And there’s a ton of marijuana growing on it and a sign kicked over on the property that says ‘Future Home
of Canadian River Ventures Adult Resort.’”

  “Wait. Melinda is in on a sex camp and pot farm?”

  “Possibly. But think about it, Nadine. She owned property with Dennis and didn’t disclose it. That’s a conflict of interest. And you heard Phil talking about an email from Dennis that I can’t find. She was in a position to destroy or hide evidence. And if she’s hiding things —”

  “Then she’s a suspect. As good as Phil.”

  “Exactly.”

  Nadine started sobbing again. “She might have even killed Dennis, for real.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Oh, Emily, oh my God, thank you so much.”

  I swallowed a sudden lump in my throat. “Of course, Nadine. I love you guys. And I’m headed to the real estate agent’s office now to see what else I can find out.”

  “Keep me posted. And if Phil’s up to it, I’ll ask him about the property. He’s never told me about it, which I hope means he isn’t in on it. I want to believe in him, Emily.”

  Even though I was driving, I allowed my eyes to flick closed for a second. Yes, Nadine, I’m right there with you. Aloud, I said, “I’ll talk to you soon, hon.”

  We hung up, and I cruised up to Lake Meredith Realty. It was in an old wooden house updated with fresh yellow paint and a new metal roof. The lot beside it had been paved for cars. Mine was the only vehicle in the visitor spaces, but there were three cars in the back of the building past the EMPLOYEE PARKING sign. I hustled in with a new bounce in my step. I burst through the front door and slammed on the brakes. The foyer was tiny and I’d all but vaulted over the receptionist’s desk.