Sinister

by Nancy Bush

  Hunter forced himself not to look at Emma, knowing he would give himself away.

  A cell phone began singing in Georgina’s purse and she pulled it out, eyeing it suspiciously. “Century Petroleum,” she muttered, walking away from them.

  “Good God,” Emma said. “Who is that woman?”

  Hunter was beginning to think she was someone neither of them had ever known.

  “You think she’ll go through with the oil drilling?” Emma asked.

  “With Dad gone, she can do what she likes.”

  “This place needs money. She doesn’t have anyone working here anymore. She’d rather be helping at the dress shop than at the ranch, and she doesn’t like that much, either.”

  Suddenly Georgina’s voice rose. “If Ira Dillinger’s pulling out, so am I!” She listened a moment longer, then added furiously, “You’re not drilling on Kincaid land if you’re not drilling on Dillinger property. That wasn’t the deal. Ira’s a part of this. I don’t care what his reasons are. Ira’s a part of this!”

  She clicked off and let out a roar of fury. When she stomped back through the kitchen, her eyes glittered with rage. “What are you both still doing here?”

  “Mom,” Emma said, aghast.

  “The oil deal’s off?” Hunter asked.

  “Ira pulled out!” Georgina sputtered.

  “He just lost Pilar,” Hunter pointed out. “He’s got to be reeling. Maybe his priorities changed.”

  She was so enraged she struggled for words. “He never loved that money-grubbing whore. He should be thanking whoever killed her that she’s gone! My God. How can he do this to me? After all I’ve done for him. Well, he’s not getting away with it!”

  “Where are you going?” Hunter asked.

  “I’m going to drink on it. And I’ll take care of things like I always do.” She waved her hands furiously, motioning them out of the house, and Hunter and Emma had little choice but to leave. Hunter held the door for Emma and they walked down the back steps together and toward their respective vehicles.

  Emma stopped at her car and stared back at the house. “What the hell’s wrong with her? Has she always been this way?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Why does it feel like she was married to Ira more than our father? She absolutely hated Pilar, and I thought she hated Ira, too, but …”

  Hunter didn’t respond, and after a few moments and a shake of her head, Emma climbed in her vehicle and drove away. Hunter followed after her a few moments later, his thoughts churning. His mother was acting like Ira had jilted her again. She’d been involved with him romantically once, and she’d gotten involved with him again recently, at least in a business sense. Maybe she’d just never gotten over him.

  She absolutely hated Pilar.

  Emma’s words haunted him. He ground his teeth together, thinking about the bottle of oxycodone sitting beside the Major’s tray. He felt like a traitor even letting his mind touch on the thoughts that plagued him. But the thoughts wouldn’t go away. He worried them like a tongue against the hole left by a missing tooth.

  Was his mother a killer?

  Pilar was overdosed and the killer had set the place on fire. Like an afterthought. An emotional choice, like the foreman’s cottage. Not like the Pioneer Church.

  Two different arsonists.

  No!

  But she had the means, and she’d been at the Dillinger house, over and over again, meeting with Ira and the oilmen. Her SUV had been there a lot. It was an expected car. No one would consider it suspicious.

  She’d been there the day of the sleigh ride … the day the foreman’s cottage was torched. She and the oilmen were the reason Ira hadn’t gone with the others.

  Was she there yesterday? When Pilar was drugged and killed?

  He shook his head, clearing it. No … no … it didn’t make sense.

  And Delilah Dillinger’s your half sister.

  He didn’t believe that for a second. He didn’t. He was too much like the Major.

  But why did she say it? There had to be a reason.

  Or was she the monster he was starting to believe she might be … ?

  He needed to talk to Delilah.

  He needed to talk to Ira.

  With a last look in his rearview mirror at his parents’ ranch, he drove away, turning west toward the Rocking D.

  Chapter Thirty

  Delilah saw Hunter’s truck coming through the front window and hurried outside to greet him. She wanted to throw herself in his arms and let out all her fears from the accident, fears she’d hidden from everyone else. Instead she stopped about ten feet away and waited until he’d climbed from the cab.

  “Hey,” she greeted him.

  “Hey,” he responded, walking toward her in that slow, cowboy way that she loved. How had she ever thought she could find a man for herself in Tinseltown?

  “I’m so sorry about the Major,” she said, heartfelt.

  “We knew he didn’t have long. Doesn’t mean it wasn’t a shock.” He’d been looking past her at the house, his thoughts elsewhere, but now his attention zeroed in on her. “What happened?” He gestured to the bandage at her hairline.

  She reached up and touched it. “I was going to call you, but there just hasn’t been the time. I was run off the road last night by a man in a gray pickup.”

  “Run off the road.” His laser gaze cut into her.

  Drawing a breath, she told him about the events when she’d come back from talking to his mother, finishing with, “… the license plate was mudded over.”

  “The sheriff’s department is looking for this gray truck. Where did it come from? Was it behind you when you left my mother?”

  Something in the cold way he said “my mother” caught at her attention, but she had to confess, “It might have been dirty white. I don’t know. It was growing dark.”

  “But it’s somewhere around that color.”

  She lifted a hand and then dropped it to her side. “I didn’t want to say gray. After what had happened the night before with Ira blaming you, I just didn’t want a witch hunt.”

  “You thought they’d think it was me.” He drew a long breath. “God. How do you know it wasn’t? Everybody else thinks I’m an arsonist hiding out as a fireman. What’s wrong with you?”

  “Nobody thinks that.”

  “Yes, they do.”

  “They’re just scared,” Delilah defended. “So am I. So sue me. I didn’t tell them right away because I didn’t want Ricki and Sam and everybody else coming down on you. I know it wasn’t you, and they do, too, but everybody’s on edge. And … no, he didn’t follow me from your mother’s. He came out of the road from the old homestead.”

  “There’s nothing down there but the house,” Hunter said, caught by her words.

  Delilah looked at him. “Maybe he was just … lying in wait.”

  “You think he followed you?”

  A cold feeling filled the pit of her stomach. “Is he one of us?”

  When Hunter headed back for his truck, Delilah was at his heels. “Where are you going?”

  “To the old homestead.”

  She wrenched open the passenger door. “You’re not leaving without me.”

  “I don’t want you—”

  “Shut up. I mean it. You’re not leaving without me.”

  She surprised him. She could tell. Then a faint smile slid across his lips as he sent her a sideways look that warmed her heart.

  Fifteen minutes later Hunter’s truck was shimmying along the rutted lane that led to the old homestead house. Delilah clung to the hand grip above the door to keep from being thrown around. As they approached the burned wreckage, she recognized a vehicle already parked in front: her father’s Dodge Ram truck.

  “What’s Dad doing here?” she asked.

  “Good question.” Hunter’s gaze traveled past Ira’s truck and the house, and he was looking at the fence line that divided Kincaid and Dillinger property.

  “Is he inside?�
�� she asked as Hunter pulled the truck to a stop beside Ira’s.

  She reached for the door handle, but he put his hand on her arm, stopping her. “I gotta tell you something,” he said. “The reason I want to talk to Ira. I didn’t think we were going to run into him so soon.”

  She gazed at him expectantly, waiting.

  “My mother said the Major wasn’t my father. She said Ira was my father.”

  Delilah half laughed. “You’re kidding.”

  “No.”

  Delilah remembered how Georgina had been with her, too. “No … no …”

  “I don’t believe it, but she told me to talk to Ira about it.”

  “Why would she say something like that?” Delilah sputtered.

  “She and Ira had an affair. I think maybe she wanted it to be true.”

  “But they hate each other.”

  “I think we might’ve been sold a bill of goods. I just wanted you to know, in case it comes up.”

  She shook her head in disbelief then looked toward Ira’s truck. Her father was nowhere to be seen. “What’s he doing here?” she asked again.

  At that moment the boards creaked and Ira stepped outside from beneath the aged and blackened timbers above what had been the front door. He stared across the frozen ground to where they were parked as Delilah climbed out of the passenger side and Hunter got out of the driver’s.

  “What are you doing in there?” Delilah demanded.

  “Just looking around.” To put action to words, he glanced from left to right, along the rotting, burned porch.

  “It’s dangerous, Dad. Condemned. You’re the one who’s always told us not to go inside.”

  “What are you doing here … both of you?” he asked, stepping off the porch and crossing the weed-choked ground toward them. It was as if he’d aged twenty years since Pilar’s death.

  “The Major died this morning,” Hunter said.

  Ira’s head jerked up and he gazed at Hunter in surprise. He ran a hand over his mouth. “He’s battled it a long time. I thought he’d beat it.”

  “Not this time,” Hunter said.

  “I’m sorry.” He looked like he wanted to say something else, but he just shook his head and sighed. Then, as if recalling himself, “How’s your mother?”

  “Drinking to my father somewhere.”

  Ira frowned. “That doesn’t sound like Georgina.”

  Hunter’s gaze traveled back to the fence line. “Did you make those tire tracks along the fence?”

  “Onto Kincaid land?” Ira grunted. “More likely it’s one of your people.”

  Delilah didn’t think Georgina had any “people.” “The truck that ran into me pulled out of here,” she said.

  “Well, there’s nobody here. I’ve been through the place, as much as you can walk through it, and it’s empty,” Ira said. “And I sure as hell didn’t run you down.”

  “Somebody’s been here,” Hunter said.

  “The oilmen have been all over Dillinger and Kincaid property, but the place is vacant most of the time.”

  Hunter said, “My mother got a call from one of those Century Petroleum men today, who told her you’d backed out of the oil deal.”

  Ira demanded, “Who called her?”

  “I don’t know. One of them. I thought she might have come after you. She was upset and furious.”

  Ira started to defend himself then clamped his mouth shut. Delilah had known that he never intended to drill on Dillinger land; he’d said as much. Georgina and Ira had played cat and mouse with each other for years. Maybe that’s what had prompted her to say what she had about Hunter.

  She suddenly wanted to clear the air on that issue once and for all. Address it and put it to rest. “Georgina also told Hunter that …” She stumbled a bit, finding the words harder to say than she’d expected. Gathering her courage, she finished in a rush, “That she and you had an affair and that Hunter could be your son.”

  Ira reacted as if he’d been slapped. “What the hell? Hell, no. She knows that’s not true! What the God … damn …”

  “Why would she say something like that?” Delilah demanded. “Abby Flanders mentioned a rumor about Hunter. She knew it, too, and it wasn’t about the fires.”

  “Well, it’s not true. If you were my son …” Ira gazed at Hunter, wrestling with himself. “I was wrong about you and what happened,” he said. His way of apologizing.

  Hunter nodded, silently accepting.

  “Why did Georgina say it?” Delilah demanded again. “How did Abby know?”

  He shrugged. “Georgina’s always had a crazy streak. She liked saying stuff …”

  “The rumor came from her?” Delilah wasn’t giving up. “Were you lovers? Was that part true at least?” she demanded.

  “I loved your mother,” her father sidestepped.

  “Nobody’s saying you didn’t,” Delilah said.

  “When Rachel was gone, I was lonely. Georgina came by right after she died … and I told her to get the hell out.”

  “But before,” Delilah pressed. “Years ago …”

  Ira rubbed a hand tiredly over his chin. “What we had … was small. Nothing, really. Years after you were born,” he added quickly to Hunter. “A mistake from the beginning, so I ended it. Ended everything with her, and she was just as happy to be rid of me. Wouldn’t have even started the oil deal with her if she hadn’t been so pesky about it. Bothering me, all the time, so I thought I’d just go along and pretend I was in, but I never intended to drill on Dillinger land. They can drill on Kincaid land all they want. That’s what I told ’em, and I guess that’s what they just told Georgina.”

  Delilah was silent, absorbing. She’d always heard about her father’s infidelity, but it disappointed her all the same.

  Ira looked back at the house. “Georgina and I used to meet here,” he admitted. “That’s what gave Judd the idea to bring Mia. He was in love with Mia. He kept going on about leaving Lila, and I tried to talk him out of it.” He lifted a hand to encompass the crumbling, ruined house. “Then it all ended with the fire.” Ira shot a look Hunter’s way. “I thought it was you. I thought you knew about me and your mom and burned the place down. I just didn’t ever believe it could be plain bad luck. Some drifter cruising through and setting fires. Couldn’t be just some firebug chose my house and I lost my brother because of it.”

  “Hunter was meeting me,” Delilah put in. “That’s why he was here. We were seeing each other.”

  Ira looked from her to Hunter. “S’that right?”

  “Yes,” Hunter said.

  “It sounds like my mother’s had ideas about you and her all along,” Hunter added to Ira.

  “No. It was years ago,” Ira protested.

  Hunter said, “I don’t know. Sounds like this lie about you being my father, she started years ago. Maybe she wanted it to be true.”

  Ira shook his head. “You were a kid running around when Georgina and I … started seeing each other.”

  They were all quiet for a few moments, thinking things over, then Hunter said, “She hated Pilar. Maybe she thought that after Rachel was gone …”

  Delilah stared at him in horror. Her mind traveled over what Brook and Ricki had said about Georgina. “What are you saying?”

  “She’s been in and out of your house for weeks with this oil deal. She hated Pilar and maybe never got over whatever she had with Ira. I think I need to find her and ask her some questions.”

  “I’m going with you,” Ira said, heading to his truck.

  Delilah quickly let herself back into the passenger’s side of Hunter’s Chevy. “I’m going with you, too.”

  Ricki looked around the Prairie Dog Saloon. It was afternoon by the time she’d left Sam and the station, and the bright sun outside reached into the darkened interior of the rough-and-tumble bar, throwing the scuffed chairs and worn floorboards into sharp relief. The Prairie Dog was popular but not as well kept up as Big Bart’s Buffalo Lounge, and right now there were only
a few people seated at the tables, two couples, three guys watching a fishing program on the soundless television and a bald guy in the corner with a large belly and nursing a beer.

  “Can I help you?” a woman bartender asked. She wore a red checkered shirt, a matching neckerchief and a white cowboy hat as she gazed at Ricki expectantly.

  “I hope so. I’m working for the sheriff’s department and we’re looking into the deaths of two women. Maybe you’ve seen it on the news.”

  “Sure have. The one at the church fire and Mia Collins. I knew Mia a little. She’s got the animal whisperer daughter. Kit.” She leaned forward eagerly. “You’re a Dillinger, right? Your sisters were in here the other night.”

  “That’s right.” Ricki was surprised by how much she knew.

  “I wasn’t working when they were here, but I heard about them. We’ve got a group of regulars who play darts and they were distracted by your sisters.” She snorted. “Men, huh. The brains go right down to their crotches when they see a pretty girl.”

  The bartender wasn’t half-bad-looking herself. Ricki could imagine she’d had her share of unwanted male attention and had grown somewhat cynical. “I’m looking for a guy who was at Big Bart’s the night Amber Barstow disappeared. I don’t have much of a description. He’s a big man and that night he wore a black Stetson and black alligator boots.”

  “You think he’s the guy that killed her and Mia?”

  “He’s a person of interest.”

  “We get a lot of guys that kinda fit that description.” She exhaled and thought hard, frowning. Ricki could practically see the wheels turning. “Alligator boots, huh?”

  “Black ones.”

  “You know, my relief, Hal, comes on in half an hour. You should talk to him ’cuz he remembers everything. You want something to drink while you wait?”