“I’ll take the upstairs,” she said.
Sloan walked through the dining room, the kitchen, Caleb Hough’s office and cigar room, the pantry. Nothing seemed to be out of order. Maybe his instincts had been wrong. Explaining why he’d shot through a lock to get onto private property—when he’d gone there to tell a woman that her husband had been murdered—wasn’t going to be easy.
“Hey, Sloan!” Jane called. “Up here.”
He ran up the stairs. She was in Jimmy Hough’s bedroom. It looked as if there’d been a scuffle. Pillows were on the ground and the sheets were halfway ripped off the bed.
“But where is Jimmy now?” Sloan asked rhetorically. He felt ill; Caleb Hough had been a blowhard, but no one deserved to die the way he had. Jimmy was a good kid with the potential of becoming a fine man.
Jane set an arm on his shoulder. “This doesn’t mean he’s lying dead somewhere. Maybe he’s been kidnapped.”
“But the father is dead, so why would someone hold Jimmy?” Sloan asked. He turned on his heel.
“Where now?” Jane asked.
“The garage.”
He ran down the stairs and back to the kitchen. A door opened out to the garage. It was locked, but it was a thin wooden door and, that one, he did slam his shoulder against. The door gave.
“Carbon monoxide,” Jane said.
He swore. There were three cars in the garage. While he could smell the gas, it had faded, and he couldn’t see anyone. He strode quickly to the Mercedes Benz at the far end of the garage while Jane started with the Acura SUV closest to the house. They reached the ’57 Chevy in the center together. He yanked open the passenger side while Jane opened the driver’s door.
There they were, Jimmy and his mother—both looking as if they were dead. Covered in sheets like children playing at being ghosts.
They ripped the sheets off the pair.
Zoe Hough was in the driver’s seat and her son was in the passenger seat.
Sloan felt for Jimmy’s pulse. He found a flicker of life in the vein at the boy’s neck. Glancing at Jane, he was relieved when she nodded.
“Weak—but she has a pulse.”
Sloan pulled out his phone and called in an emergency.
“I’ll open the doors, get air,” Jane said. She rushed to the garage doors and, even as they slid up, Sloan saw cop cars coming down the drive. One was from his office and two were from county.
No one could have answered an emergency call that fast, but he was glad they were there.
Declan McCarthy, his managing night deputy, was the first to reach him. “Sloan—wow, you’re here. What the hell happened now? I heard about Caleb Hough, and that, so far, we hadn’t found his wife and son,” Declan told him.
“We need an ambulance. It’s on the way,” Sloan said. “How did you get here so quickly?”
“The house alarm went off. The security company called county, and county called me,” Declan explained.
“Let’s get them out of the garage,” Sloan said.
The two officers from county didn’t pull their guns, recognizing the situation before they reached the door. Jane had Zoe Hough halfway out of the car; the county men assisted her. Declan helped Sloan maneuver Jimmy out from the other side. They got them into the driveway. There was no real grass on the lawn anywhere, but Declan got a blanket from the back of his patrol car and Jimmy and Zoe were placed on it. “Mrs. Hough is breathing,” he said. “Jimmy, he’s got a pulse, faint...but I’m not feeling his breath.”
Sloan fell to his knees by Jimmy’s side, and began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, breathing into his lungs. Declan went into emergency mode with him, counting, pressing on the boy’s chest.
Jimmy choked, then he started breathing on his own. Sloan felt the tension ease from his body. The kid was going to live. He didn’t know how long he and his mother had inhaled poisonous gas; he didn’t know how Jimmy would be when he woke up, what brain damage he might have sustained. But he would live.
The ambulance arrived, and the emergency medical technicians took over.
One of the officers from county introduced himself as Sergeant Johnson. “I was here earlier today,” he said. “Never occurred to me to break in. Thank God you decided to do it, Sheriff. I’ll let Newsome know.” He shook his head. “It’s a real miracle those two are still breathing.”
“I’m not the reason for the miracle,” Sloan said. “One of those two got the car turned off. They saved themselves, really.”
“Yeah, but if they’d spent the night in there, they might not have come back from it,” Johnson told him. “You want to cover this scene, Sheriff?”
“Officer McCarthy will stay here, representing the town,” Sloan said. “I know this kid. I’d like to ride with him.”
“I’ll hang in with the mother,” Jane said.
As the emergency med techs began work, Sloan noted that three men were coming from the stables. They were obviously ranch employees—they wore boots, jeans and cotton shirts that showed signs of sand and mud. The Hough ranch was one of the few places in the area that had a stream and a steady water supply; Hough had paid a great deal of money for the water rights so his place would be a viable location to raise beefalo in the middle of a desert.
A burly fellow came forward, his ranch hat in his hand. There was deep concern wrinkled into his face. “I am Inego Garcia, one of the managers,” he introduced himself. “What has happened here?”
“These two were apparently attacked,” Sloan said. “Sometime earlier today. Did you see anyone here, anyone who could have done this?”
Sloan was sure the man was sincere when he shook his head. “We’ve been working, moving the herd. We’ve had a dry spell and needed to get the animals to the second pasture. Mr. Hough—he doesn’t like us around the house. He says the house is his home and the ranch is where we work. Mrs. Hough, now, she’s a nice lady. She doesn’t mind dirt and mud. She sometimes brings us cupcakes or cookies. She is a fine lady. Is she—”
“She’s alive right now,” Sloan told him.
“And Jimmy—the boy?” Inego asked, tears glistening in his eyes.
“Alive, too,” Jane said, gently touching his arm.
“Have you been able to reach Mr. Hough? I have tried to get him several times during the day. I can keep trying if you like.”
Sloan took a breath before answering him. “Mr. Hough is dead, Inego. I’m sorry to tell you this. We’ve been trying to get hold of the family all day to tell them, and now, of course, we know why we couldn’t. Inego, we’ll need your help. We need to know who might have had an argument with Mr. Hough. We have to find out who did this—who killed him and tried to kill his family.”
Inego Garcia worried the ball cap he’d removed and held between his hands. He glanced at his fellow workers. “Well, Sheriff, he had a major argument with you. Said you were going to ruin his son’s life—and turn the boy against him.”
Sloan felt the county men look his way.
Yes, he had really disliked Caleb Hough. And now, he’d been the one to find him in the mine shaft—and he and Jane had found the family in the garage. He imagined he wasn’t looking so good.
“Anyone else?” Sloan asked.
Again, the workers glanced at one another.
Inego coughed. “Well...everyone,” he said.
“Everyone?”
Another of the men stepped up. “I’m Lee Cho,” he told Sloan. “I was in the barn the other day when he came in swearing about the man who owned Desert Diamonds. Grant Winston. He said that Winston was—” He paused, clearing his throat as he fixed his gaze on Jane.
“Please, repeat what he said. I’m a federal agent, Mr. Cho. I’ve heard some pretty nasty language in my time,” Jane said.
“Mr. Hough was saying that Mr. Winston was a g
rade-A, motherfucking stupid asshole who had no appreciation for the fact that without his ranch, Lily was a godforsaken dust pool,” Lee Cho said, staring at the ground as he spoke.
The third man cleared his throat, as well. “He hated the theater, too. The Gilded Lily. He was ranting and raving about Henri Coque being a womanizing—” he paused, but continued quickly “—a womanizing small-peckered fuck-face,” he said. “I don’t know what his fight was with Mr. Coque. He never said. Mr. Hough didn’t mind ranting in front of us, but he didn’t consider us his friends. We kept our mouths shut.”
Sloan felt a tap on his shoulder. It was one of the emergency med techs. “We’re ready to roll, Sheriff.”
Sloan turned to Declan and the county officers. “You’ll get statements from these men?”
He received solemn nods in reply.
“And we’ll get the crime-scene folks out here, too,” Johnson said. “This is the busiest they’ve been in a hell of a long time!”
“You ready to go?” Sloan asked Jane.
“Ready,” she said.
Only one of them could ride in the ambulance, and Jane felt it should be him. “I’ll drive behind in your patrol car,” she said.
“No, you get in there,” he insisted. “You were diagnosed with a concussion a little while ago. I’ll drive the car. Stay with them for me.”
She didn’t argue. As he followed, he realized she was just about the perfect agent. She was a listener, not butting in when others were questioning people, responding when she needed to respond and keeping quiet when something more might be learned.
She was a talented artist, too. He had the feeling that she worked well with her Krewe, handling the street work and the action, as well as the office work.
She’d never leave her job.
But what about him?
He hadn’t known how much Lily, his home, meant to him until someone had brought murder to it.
Not something to think about now, he told himself.
But he felt numb, like someone other than himself. So much had happened in Lily, and so fast. Lily, Arizona—where all the violence had been in the past.
Until they’d found Sage McCormick’s skull.
* * *
In the hospital, Jane dozed off, exhaustion taking its toll while they sat waiting. She woke with a start when Sloan nudged her; she’d fallen asleep on his shoulder.
“I’m going in. They said I could go in,” he muttered. He sounded weary. Beyond weary.
She nodded. “I’ll be here.”
He smiled briefly and joined the doctor, who was allowing him to see the patients. She started when her phone rang. Logan. She winced; she should have reported in already. Glancing at her watch, she realized it was almost 1:00 a.m. on the East Coast.
“News services have picked up reports about a second murder in Lily,” he told her.
She reported in on the day, glossing over her own experience in the basement of the theater. When she’d explained it all, she paused.
Sloan seemed fine working with the county police. She didn’t know what his concern seemed to be when it came to his own people—other than that they were all from Lily.
“Sloan thinks that everything’s connected. And I believe it’s more than possible. He also doesn’t seem to trust his own people....”
“Sloan is probably right about a connection. And if Lily is the source of all these crimes, he might just figure that his own people are too close to too many of the players,” Logan said.
It wasn’t her place, but she decided she should make the suggestion, anyway. “Maybe you and Kelsey could head out here.”
“I’ll talk to Sloan,” Logan said. “See if he’ll issue an invitation.”
“Jay Berman crossed state lines to get murdered here,” Jane pointed out.
“We’ll see.” He must have been sitting at the computer. “We can catch an 8:00 a.m. direct flight that’ll get us out there at about eleven tomorrow. Do you think the facial reconstruction started all this?” he asked.
“No.” She thought for a minute. “I think it started before the skull showed up on the wig rack. Something major has to be going on. Two men don’t die out in the desert—one shot, one with his throat slit—because of some minor disagreement. Men who shouldn’t even have known each other. And now we have three people hospitalized—Jennie in a coma from head trauma, and Hough’s son and wife with carbon monoxide poisoning.”
“And a skull and two corpses removed from their graves,” Logan said. “Sloan and I were friends. I’m sure he’ll be fine with us going out there.”
“He’s in with the wife and son of the murder victim now,” Jane told him.
“Have him give me a call,” Logan said.
“You should call him,” Jane began, but Logan didn’t reply. She heard a dial tone and realized he’d already hung up.
* * *
Jimmy Hough was conscious but drowsy. He looked at Sloan through glazed eyes when Sloan came and sat by his bed.
“My dad is dead,” he muttered.
“Yes, I’m sorry,” Sloan said.
Jimmy’s jaw tightened. “He was such a jerk. He was a bully. He beat me up with a spoon when I was a kid. He stopped doing that, though. Once he figured I could be a football star. Then he started telling me that...that I should seize the world. I’d have everything, money, women, anything I wanted. The bigger a jerk I became, the better he liked me.” He paused and tears welled up in his eyes. “I know he was a jerk, but he was my dad.”
“Yes, he was your dad and you should mourn him, Jimmy,” Sloan said quietly. He waited a minute and then leaned forward. “Jimmy, who attacked you and your mom?”
Jimmy shook his head. “I don’t know. We were getting ready to leave. I was going to help Heidi out at the stables. And my mom...she loves all the Silverfest activities. Dad’s never gone with her and she gets to...she gets to kind of be herself. She watches all the stuff the actors do, she shops at all the vendors’ booths...she has a beer at the saloon. She doesn’t drink—that’s her big thing. A beer at the saloon during Silverfest.” Tears welled in his eyes again.
Sloan put a hand on Jimmy’s and squeezed it. “Can you tell me what happened today? If I can find the people who attacked you, I can find the people who killed your dad.”
Jimmy shut his eyes. “I didn’t see anything. I didn’t see anything at all. Mom had just called me from downstairs, telling me she was ready. I was opening the door to leave and when I did a sheet came down over my head. I fought. I fought like crazy. But whoever it was...” He stopped for a minute. “There were two of them. There had to be. Because when they dragged me downstairs to the garage, my mom was already there. I kept trying to struggle but they knocked me on the head with something, and the next thing I knew, I opened my eyes and I smelled the exhaust fumes and the car was running. It was horrible.... I couldn’t make myself move. I knew we were dying and I couldn’t move. I wasn’t tied up, but...I don’t know. Somehow I managed to reach over and turn the car off...and then I passed out again.”
“Jimmy, did the person speak?” Sloan asked.
“He grunted a few times,” Jimmy said. There was a touch of pride in his voice when he added, “I got him in the ribs. He seemed to be about my size...but he was strong. Really strong. I’m in good shape, Sheriff. But this guy had it all over me.” He paused again. “The other one, though...”
“What is it, Jimmy?”
“The other one was a woman, I think.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because my mother’s a fighter, too. And I think she hurt the woman, because I heard her say something to the guy when they were leaving. Sounded like, ‘Bitch hurt me. I’m not in on crap like this anymore.’”
Sloan stood and set his card on the table next t
o Jimmy.
“If you remember anything else, call me, Jimmy.”
Jimmy nodded. “My mom’s going to make it, isn’t she?” he asked.
“Yeah, I think so. You saved her life. You saved both your lives when you managed to switch off the ignition.”
At the door, Sloan found himself called back one more time.
“Sheriff?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re not a bad guy. My dad thought you were a puffed-up dick who’d spent too much time in Houston to be an Arizona lawman. But I never believed him. You were right to say I had to be locked up. And I’m lucky that you didn’t kill my record. I learned from that.”
“You’re going to be fine, Jimmy. You’re going to be just fine,” Sloan assured him.
He left Jimmy and the nurse directed him down the hall to Zoe Hough’s room. She hadn’t come around yet, the nurse said, but she was breathing easily and all her vital signs were good.
Sloan stepped in, anyway. Zoe Hough was a pretty, blonde woman. Her hair was always impeccable, her nails always manicured; she worked out every day in her home gym and often visited the spa in the old town. Caleb Hough would have expected his wife to be perfectly put together at all times.
As he stood there, her eyes opened. She blinked, and he knew it was taking her a minute to realize where she was.
“Sloan?” she said. His name, her single word, was a raspy whisper.
“Let me get you some water,” he said, pouring her a cup from the plastic dispenser. “Take it easy. You’ve been out of it. They’re feeding you fluids through that IV, but your mouth must be dry.” He helped her take a sip of the water. She lay back, gasping, eyes fluttering closed. Then they opened again. Her eyes were blue, usually a pretty color; tonight, they had a dullness about them.
“Jimmy?” she asked anxiously, trying to rise.
“Jimmy’s recovering. He’s right down the hall,” Sloan told her. “He’s a good kid, Zoe. He got the car turned off. Saved your lives.”
Krewe of Hunters, Volume 3: The Night Is WatchingThe Night Is AliveThe Night Is Forever Page 19