The Strong, Silent Type

by Jule McBride

  Alice just wished things were as fine as the picture she presented, but the locket tucked in her blazer pocket was a reminder of the truth. Her fingers trembled as she traced the smooth, cool metal, and she inhaled sharply, hoping to quiet the unexpectedly rapid beat of her heart Earlier, seeing her own defiled picture had left her so terrified that she hadn’t even heard Dylan come downstairs. She’d still been registering the horrible chicken-scratched letters written in bloodred, while her eyes roved over the knife pricks marring her face.

  See her bleed.

  See her bleed.

  See her bleed.

  The words kept turning in her mind like a broken record. And then the deeper thought Oh, God. Someone wants to kill me.

  “See her bleed.” Alice now caught herself mouthing those sick, vile words, as if forming them with her lips would make them seem more real. It didn’t Was this really happening? she wondered in panic. Did someone—maybe even Dylan—want to harm her? To kill her? And why? What had she ever done to hurt anyone? Growing up, she’d always been a good girl. She’d been nice to people. Made a lot of friends.

  Earlier today, coming from the stairs, Dylan’s voice had startled her. “What’s that?”

  Her heart pounding, Alice had realized he’d stopped at the entrance to the living room. “Nothing,” she’d managed to say, avoiding his eyes as she impulsively shoved the locket down between the couch cushions again. She’d tried to steady the tremor in her voice. “It’s just your bag. The sheriff got it from the motel where you were staying, and he dropped it by.”

  Dylan stared at the bag as if he’d never seen it before, and somehow, the disturbed puzzlement in his gaze made her heart race—and made her persist. “The desk clerk said you were carrying this bag when you checked in.”

  There was no response, only another slight widening of Dylan’s eyes.

  “What?” she’d demanded sharply. Why are you looking at the bag like that? Why did he look so scared? Or at least as close to scared as such a self-possessed man could look.

  He’d run a hand raggedly through his wavy black hair and shrugged. “Nothing.” There was a twinge of irony in his voice. “It’s just awful nice of the sheriff to drop by with my things.”

  If it was Dylan’s bag, why had he looked at it so suspiciously? Blowing out another anxious sigh, Alice wished Dylan would talk to her. She’d tried again, but he’d merely watched her, his eyes too hard to read. She definitely had to get some answers before Sheriff Sawyer questioned him.

  Especially now that she’d seen the locket. That changed everything. Dylan could never hurt her, so there had to be some explanation for what had been done to her picture.

  Glancing around the personnel office, her heart hammered. Adorned with lively children’s artwork and fresh flowers, the office was so...nice. Just like all of Rock Canyon. At least on the surface. Alice thought of Main Street’s clean sidewalks, well-lit stores and country-style restaurants.

  Dammit. It was all such a lie: her nice clothes, the bright, cheerful office, the town in which she lived. Beneath the surface, Alice had glimpsed too many other things. Jan Sawyer in a pool of her own blood. And Nancy Nolan’s beaten, unconscious body stretched on a hospital bed, hooked to monitors. And now, finally, a locket containing Alice’s own defiled picture.

  See me bleed.

  Alice shuddered. After finding the locket, she’d tried to get Dylan to talk, but she’d been too scared to push him. Lord, what if he had meant to kill her on their wedding day? And what if he’d killed Jan? Did their marriage really make him go crazy, somehow, the way some people had claimed it did?

  But no, Alice couldn’t believe such things of Dylan.

  And yet ever since she’d found the locket, a horrible feeling of foreboding had threatened to overwhelm her. She felt sure that Jan’s murder was about to be rehashed, somehow.

  Or reenacted.

  Lord, what if he’d come back to torture her, to toy with her like a mouse? Quit thinking like this, Alice! Are you crazy? She firmly pushed aside the fears. If she began doubting Dylan now, they’d both be lost.

  “Oh, c’mon, LaVryle,” she muttered nervously, turning her gaze to a window. Outside, the hospital grounds seemed unnervingly quiet, like a menacing still life. Hard to believe her world had once been all summers and sunshine. Now it seemed so dark, so touched by evil. Unbidden, the dead rock-icon, Lang Devlyn, entered her thoughts. Had it been this way for him, too? In his last moments, had the old man wondered at his own fall from grace? Had he remembered his innocent, smiling fans as he crawled from room to room in his mansion? How long had he trailed smears across marble floors, slowly bleeding to death, before he realized his attempts to evade his killer were utterly futile?

  See him bleed.

  A slow chill crept down Alice’s spine. Her eyes continued scanning the grounds. Why, she didn’t know. What, exactly, was she searching for? Maybe for some reassuring sign of life—some birds or a squirrel—but there was nothing. Not even wind touched the barren, snow-blanketed ground.

  “Don’t spend it all in one place!”

  Alice gasped, startled. Clamping a hand over her heart, she drew in a quick breath. “Thanks, LaVryle.” Her fingers trembling, she took the envelope containing her paycheck.

  “You all right?” LaVryle peered at her. “You’re shaking like a leaf.”

  “Sure,” Alice murmured. “Guess I’m just cold.” Cold in such a soul-deep way that I feel like I’ll never get warm again.

  “Yep, it’s colder’n a witch’s you-know-what!” LaVryle announced, then she shrugged. “Oh, c’mon, Alice. Confide in old LaVryle. Everybody knows you and Leland didn’t get married yesterday. And the nurses from the third floor said you took home some vagrant who was brought into the ER last night. Not that anybody blames you. Fact is, they were green as grass with envy. Every dam gal on the night shift agreed he was the best-looking fellow to ever get hit by a car in Rock Canyon. They’re glad to know he’s fine, too. Nevertheless, we are all dying to know who he is.”

  Dying? I’m the one who might be dying. Oh, LaVryle, I’m going crazy, and I can’t talk about it, but I think someone wants me dead.

  Not that Alice could say that, since it would also mean divulging the “vagrant’s” real identity. God only knew what would happen if people realized the stranger was Dylan. There’d be a lynch mob, no doubt headed by Sheriff Sawyer. Alice was still searching for an appropriate response, when LaVryle continued, “While I was fetching your check, another nurse called. She says you brought that man back here today, that he’s up in Nancy Nolan’s room right now, sitting next to her on the bed and talking to her as if he’s her long-lost kin.”

  “He’s in Nancy’s room?” Alice said, foreboding shooting through her. She’d left him in the lobby! What if Dylan really had attacked his mother, the way some people assumed? She didn’t actually believe it, but she had to consider it. What if he was in his mother’s room now, getting ready to hurt her again?

  “Alice?”

  Her heart was racing. “Sorry, LaVryle. I’ve got to go.”

  Bolting for the elevator, Alice realized her fingers felt frozen, like ice. Folding her paycheck, she shoved it into her pocket, next to the locket.

  As the elevator ascended, she didn’t take her eyes from the lit-up numbers overhead, not until it reached Nancy’s floor.

  At Nancy’s doorway, Alice released an inaudible sigh of relief. Nothing was amiss. Only now did she realize just how hard her heart was pounding. Lord, had she really expected to find Nancy dead and Dylan gone? She shook her head, dispelling the confusion. She had to get a grip. To stick to the facts and reality. Dylan was no more capable of murder than she was, and she couldn’t let her imagination get the best of her.

  Dylan hadn’t yet heard her. Seated on the edge of Nancy’s bed, he leaned close, holding one of Nancy’s pale lifeless hands between both of his. He was talking—uttering a slow, steady stream of words—but his voice was such a low murmur
that Alice couldn’t tell what he was saying. Listening to the seductive rumble, she heard the tender emotion, though, and her heart did a jittery flip-flop. She didn’t know what was happening here, but how could she doubt this man? Ever since she’d found that locket, her emotions had seesawed.

  As she took another tentative step inside the room, her fingers grazed the locket in her pocket again. Just the touch of it made her heart thud harder. The locket seemed like a living thing, and her whole body absorbed the cold chill of its metal. She kept eyeing Dylan. She was so tired of asking him what was going on. Every time she did, he offered nothing. And, if the truth be told, maybe she was afraid of the answers he’d give. Just how scary was the truth?

  She crept closer.

  Suddenly his head jerked toward her, and he stared at her, slack-jawed. His voice was a gruff accusation. “You scared the hell out of me.”

  “Why, Dylan? What are you afraid of?”

  He still didn’t affirm or deny that was his name; he only glanced away and disentangled his hand from his mother’s.

  There was a long silence. Alice tried not to notice how everything in the room seemed so deathly white—the sheets, the hospital gown, the walls, the floor. Nancy Nolan’s chalky face.

  Not that Nancy had looked this way when she was first brought to the hospital. Even now, Alice shuddered to think of what Nancy’s attacker had done to her. When Alice had first visited, she hadn’t even recognized her mother-in-law. Nancy’s lips were cracked and swollen, her skin dark with bruises. One eye drooped, the other was swollen shut.

  Seeing the damage, Alice had been sure Sheriff Sawyer was wrong. No mere robber did that kind of damage to a woman. The man—no, monster—had wanted something more...to hurt this beautiful woman, to mar her lovely face.

  To see her bleed.

  “Look,” Alice found herself saying to Dylan, mustering all her courage. “We need to talk. I...found something earlier.” She paused, swallowing hard. “Something disturbing...”

  His eyes narrowed, the brown irises looking darker in the low light. “Disturbing?”

  She nodded, her heart beating so hard that she could hear it pounding in her ears. “Yes...”

  His lips parted. He was about to say something more, when an out-of-sequence beep sounded from Nancy’s monitors. Then came a quicker succession. Beep-beep-beep. Beep-beep-beep. Turning, Alice gasped. “Oh, God, her eyelids!” They were fluttering.

  Suddenly, Nancy Nolan’s eyes were flung wide open. She gasped—a harsh, suffocating inhalation.

  Grabbing the call button, Alice rang, even though the monitors were being read from the nurse’s station. “Take it easy,” she told her, her own heart racing. It wasn’t every day that a comatose patient awakened; these first moments were crucial.

  From down the hallway, footsteps pounded, coming closer.

  Dylan’s voice caught. “Is she all right?”

  Alice barely felt him beside her as she ministered to Nancy, adjusting the woman’s IV’s. “I don’t know.”

  “What can I do?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Alice,” a nurse said from the doorway. “You’re here.”

  Alice gave her a quick nod. “Is Dr. Macintosh in the hospital?”

  “Sure is.”

  “Page him. She’s stable. I’ll stay.”

  The nurse took off. Even as Alice checked the dilation of Nancy’s pupils, she realized that the eyes held sheer terror. The trauma of awakening, Alice thought.

  But it was more. Nancy wasn’t darting her eyes around the room to get her bearings. She seemed to know exactly where she was. And who she was looking at.

  Dylan.

  She was staring at him. Of course she recognized him, Alice thought. A mother always knew her son. But suddenly, with superhuman effort, Nancy lifted her hand. Clawing the air, she clutched Alice’s fingers, drawing Alice close. “Don’t try to talk,” Alice murmured. “You’ll be fine. Your doctor’s on his way. Don’t use up your strength.”

  Nancy’s rasp came from a bone-dry throat. “Be...” Even with her ear to Nancy’s mouth, Alice could barely hear. “Care...ful.”

  Tingles slid down Alice’s spine.

  “Son...tried...to kill me.”

  Alice was still registering the words when Dr. Macintosh flew into the room, and pushed her away from Nancy. A second later, Dylan’s words sounded so close to Alice’s ear that tingles of an altogether different kind coursed through her body. His voice was soft, insistent. “What did she say, Alice?”

  Alice glanced up. Unbidden, she thought of the phone call she’d received, the locket and Nancy’s warning. Despite the changes in Dylan, his mother had recognized his eyes. Now, gazing into the brown depths, Alice didn’t know what to believe. Nancy Nolan loved her son. And yet she’d identified him as her attacker.

  Son...tried...to kill me.

  Alice suddenly felt nauseated. And so alone. Other horrible words she’d been privy to in these past twenty-four hours washed over her once more. See her bleed. Want to come through the looking glass, Alice?

  “Nothing,” Alice somehow managed to say. “I—I tried, but I couldn’t make out the words.”

  LELAND’s VOICE dripped with irony. “Well, howdy there, Alice. Long time, no see.”

  Great. This was the last thing she needed. What happened at the hospital was bad enough. So was wondering if she was right to maintain her composure around Dylan. Even worse, Sheriff Sawyer had left Dylan in an interrogation room because he wanted to talk with her alone.

  And now Leland.

  He was leaning against a whitewashed cinder block wall, between a water fountain and a bulletin board tacked with most-wanted posters, absently tweaking his mustache. He was wearing jeans and a faded denim shirt; his black Stetson was pulled so low over his forehead that Alice could barely see his eyes. Despite his casual stance, his whole body communicated danger. As if Alice hadn’t felt enough fear today, between finding the locket and hearing Nancy Nolan’s warning.

  “Hello, Leland.”

  The challenge in his eyes made her blood boil every bit as much as the obvious suggestion in his voice. “Have a good time with your new boyfriend last night, Alice?”

  She tamped down the unwanted heat that threatened to rise in her cheeks. “Look,” she found herself saying, wishing he’d respond to reason, “I’d love to talk, Leland, but—” She jerked her head toward Sheriff Sawyer who was waiting for her inside a conference room.

  “But what?” Leland’s angry eyes drifted over her. “Too ashamed of your behavior?” Before she could answer, he added, “Hmm. A wayward girl like you...maybe she oughtta be punished.”

  Her voice was sharp. “A wayward girl like me?” Once more, she felt convinced that Leland’s jealousy could have driven him to murder. Had he tried to get Dylan out of the picture so he could marry her?

  “That’s what I said. Maybe you ought to be punished.”

  See her bleed. Her eyes narrowed. “Leland, are you threatening me?”

  “Take it however you like.”

  Somehow, she kept her composure. She wished she could talk to the sheriff about how Leland was treating her. And about Leland’s claims that he hadn’t loved Jan. Not that she could tell Jan’s father that. “When you cool off, we’ll talk.”

  He crossed his arms, making the rolled-up sleeves of his denim shirt pull so tight over his corded forearms that she half thought the fabric would rip. “Sorry,” he said in a deceptively. soft drawl. “I do believe I’ve had just about all the talking I can stand. Fact is, I’ve got better things to do than talk.”

  “Then what are you hanging around here for?” she returned with anger that was calculated to mask her fear. When he didn’t answer, she glanced through a window at the far end of the hallway. Birds that had been perched in a stark-looking barren tree suddenly took flight, scattering into the sky. Something had startled them. Damn if Alice didn’t know the feeling. “Look, Leland,” she continued, turning back to him a
nd feeling determined not to let him see her fear. “The fact is, you do have better things to take care of today.”

  Again that deceptively lazy voice rolled over her ears. “You mean besides tailing you, Alice?”

  Her pulse quickened. It figured. All morning, she could swear someone was watching her, though she’d written off the feeling to her own suppressed anxiety. At the thought of Leland’s spying, she felt another rush of anger. “Yes,” she returned, surprised to hear how even her voice sounded. “You should be running the ranch. My family pays you good money to do your job.” The job that was Dylan’s before he vanished

  Leland leveled her with a dark stare. “Too bad. I quit.”

  “What?” She couldn’t believe this. Leland had worked the Eastman ranch since he was a teenager, and he’d been overseeing things since Dylan disappeared. Which meant Dylan’s disappearance had translated into a big promotion for Leland, too. While both boys had started working the ranch when they were sixteen, Alice’s dad had always said Dylan was quicker than Leland, that he had a natural way with cattle. Not to mention a better head for numbers. Exactly how angry was Leland about the fact that Dylan had gotten what Leland most wanted—a position running the largest ranch in this part of Wyoming....

  And my love.

  Alice swallowed hard and looked at Leland one last time. “If that’s what you want,” she found herself saying. She couldn’t keep the sudden haughtiness from her voice. “Whenever you decide you want to have a real conversation with me, you just let me know.” With that, she strode into the conference room, her gaze now settling on Sheriff Sawyer who loudly shut the door behind her.

  Alice glanced toward a two-way mirror that looked into the interrogation room where Dylan waited. Dylan gazed back at her through the glass. Obviously he knew the mirror into which he was staring did a heck of a lot more than reflect his good looks.

  Watching him, Alice wished for the umpteenth time that he wasn’t so hard to read. Or that she knew how much to say—or leave unsaid. Was she in danger from him, or not? She looked at the sheriff. “What is it you want to say to me that you can’t say in front of that man?”