The Lockwood Legacy - Books 1-6: Plus Bonus Short Stories

by Juliette Harper

  “No,” Jenny said. “They’re fine. And perfect for the girls. We’re good to go on the after-school ride."

  "Okay," Kate said. "Then what's up?"

  Turning to Dusty, Jenny said, "Why don't you tell Katie what you told me?"

  “Well,” Dusty said, “you may need more than black coffee when you hear this. It seems like Josh Baxter and my brother have struck up a friendship."

  Kate stared at her for several heartbeats, then put down her pen. "Start at the beginning."

  She listened as Dusty went over everything Mary Ellen told her about what she had seen at the cafe. The longer the narrative continued, the more Kate's expression darkened. When Dusty finished, Kate asked, “Is that all?”

  “Yes.”

  “And when exactly were you planning to tell me about this?”

  “Don’t you go slinging your head at me, Katie Lockwood,” Dusty said. "I wanted to run it by Jenny first. She knows Josh better than any of us. This information wasn’t going to do anything but make you mad, which it has."

  Kate swiveled in her chair and looked at her sister. "So, what do you think?"

  "I don't have a clue," Jenny said honestly. "I didn't believe anything could shock me more than Josh turning into a barfly, but this did it. Josh knows damn good and well what Rafe did to Dusty. I can’t believe he’s so much as giving the bastard the time of day."

  "Whatever this is about," Dusty said, "Rafe is up to no good. If he can find a way to use Josh to his advantage, he will."

  "Use him how?" Kate asked.

  "Let's face it," Dusty said, "Josh was involved in every aspect of running this place. Is there anything about your business he doesn't know?"

  Kate sighed. "Some," she said, "but not much."

  "So if Josh is drinking," Dusty said, "he may be doing a lot of talking, too. And I guarantee you, Rafe is listening."

  "Great," Jenny said, sitting down heavily. “We didn’t just let a fox in the hen house, we served him roast chicken.”

  Kate drummed her fingers on the desk. “Well,” she said, “we have one of two possible scenarios here. Rafe could be using Josh or Josh could be working with Rafe on whatever it is the two of them are cooking up.”

  “How do we figure out which one is right?” Jenny asked.

  “We sit down, all of us, and talk about everything Josh Baxter did and said when he was on this ranch,” Kate said. “Maybe we’re just overreacting after everything that’s happened.”

  A sick look came over Jenny’s face. “I don’t think we’re overreacting, Katie,” she said in a small voice.

  “Why not, honey?”

  “Turn around and look at that picture behind you,” Jenny said.

  Kate rotated her chair and looked up at the wall. “The heron? What about it?”

  “Look at it,” Jenny said. “Really look at it. What do you see?”

  Kate studied the image for a few seconds, before leaning forward, and then finally standing up. “Son of a bitch,” she said slowly. “He wasn’t photographing the bird. He was taking a picture of the back door to the cave.”

  “I think so, too,” Jenny said, her voice breaking. “Which means he was working with Robert all along. That’s why he photographed the barn the day Daddy killed himself. That’s why he heard the shot and didn’t do anything. Josh was Robert’s spy from the beginning. Every time I think Robert is gone for good, he comes back.”

  Kate sat down across from Jenny and reached for her hand. “Stop it,” she said. “Robert Marino is dead.”

  “And how do we know Josh wasn’t behind that, too?” Jenny asked. “How do we know Josh isn’t going to just take up where Robert left off?”

  “We don’t,” Kate admitted, “but we are going to get to the bottom of this. I promise you that.”

  Since it would be evening before the whole family could assemble, and no one wanted to disappoint the twins, Kate and Dusty found themselves in the saddle circling the big pasture with Sissy and Missy at 4 o’clock. By the second time around, Kate let the girls ride a little ways ahead while she and Dusty fell back and talked in low tones.

  “How’s Jenny doing?” Dusty asked.

  “Okay,” Kate said. “She’s over at the studio going through all the pictures Josh took of Baxter’s Draw before we found the cave. She still has everything on her computer and she wanted to go over the whole house to see if Josh left anything behind by mistake.”

  “What did Jake say when you talked to him?”

  “He couldn’t believe this business about Rafe either,” Kate said. “Apparently Josh has been showing up on time every day and doing his work as usual. Jake says other than being a little distant, he’s doing his job and acting pretty normal.”

  “Do you think Josh was working with Marino?” Dusty asked.

  Kate reined Bracelet to a stop and called out to the girls. “Sissy, Missy, you all ride down to the bottom of the pasture and back by yourselves. No cutting up. We’ll sit here and wait for you.”

  Both girls answered her with a big grin and a respectful “yes, ma’am.” When they were out of earshot, Kate said, “I’m going to tell you something I haven’t told anybody else. You know about Mandy shooting Marino in the gut, right?”

  “Yes,” Dusty nodded.

  “Well,” Kate said, “when Josh came in, he said he forgot his camera bag and only remembered it when he got halfway to Austin. What kind of professional photographer does that?”

  Dusty shrugged. “Anybody can get forgetful.”

  “Sure,” Kate said, “but his camera bag was at the studio, not at the main house.”

  “Well, yeah,” Dusty said, “but maybe he saw Marino’s car and came over to the house to check it out.”

  “That’s the same explanation I came up with,” Kate said. “But if that’s true, he had to have heard the gunshot. So he just comes strolling in the back door and walks up to the front of the house empty handed? There’s a whole rack of rifles right there on the kitchen wall.”

  Dusty considered her words. “You know that puts a whole different spin on what happened that night.”

  “I do,” Kate said. “We all thought Josh was saving Jenny from committing cold-blooded murder, but maybe what he was really doing was saving Robert Marino’s life.”

  That evening after supper, while Sissy and Missy romped in the yard with the puppies, everyone gathered in the living room at the main ranch house. Kate laid out the facts as they knew them and then looked around the room. "Does anyone have anything to say?" she asked.

  Mandy, who looked absolutely miserable, said, "I don't want it to be true."

  "None of us do, honey," Jenny said. "But can't you see that some things are starting to seem a little odd?"

  "Yes," Mandy said. "I do. I just wish I didn’t."

  Jim Bob cleared his throat. "There's something that's always kinda nagged at me," he said.

  "Go on," Kate said.

  "You know the night John Fisk got shot?" he asked.

  "Yes."

  "Well, I found out something was going on out here because I was at the courthouse when the call came in, but how did Josh find out? Did he ever say?"

  Jenny shook her head. "I don't think we ever talked about it. I just know he came into the yard with you."

  "He met me at the front gate," Joe Bob said, "but he wasn't coming from his place."

  "Where was he coming from?" Kate asked.

  "The lane that runs up to Clint and Clara Wyler's old house," Joe Bob said.

  A deadly silence fell over the group. “Am I missing something?” Jake asked.

  “Clint and Clara’s house sits at the base of the ridge where the shooter had to be positioned to make that shot,” Kate explained. “There’s only one way in and one way out.”

  Phil held his hand up. In spite of herself, Kate laughed. “Phil, you must have been a very good little boy in class,” she said.

  He grinned. “I was. Would you mind showing me where that shot came from?"
<
br />   "Sure," Kate said. She walked to the window and opened the shutter. "This is the window the bullet came through. It hit the center pane, so the Rangers figured the shot came from the high ground over there. It's a mile and a quarter. Whoever made the kill was a hell of a marksman."

  Phil, who was now standing beside her, said quietly, "That's not a mile and a quarter. It's just a mile."

  Kate looked at him strangely. "That's what Josh said the day of the shooting. How do you know how far it is?"

  "Because I was a sniper in Vietnam," Phil said. "If you put a rangefinder on it, I'm telling you, that's a mile."

  "How would Josh know the exact distance?" Kate asked.

  "I don't like to think about the possible answer to that question," Phil admitted.

  In a flat voice, Jake said, "Josh carries a rangefinder in his camera bag."

  Kate turned toward him. "Why would he do that?"

  "He says it helps him to select the right lens when he's working with wildlife shots," Jake replied.

  Mandy swiveled her head back and forth between the two of them. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing,” she said in a stunned voice. “Are the two of you actually thinking Josh shot John Fisk? Why would he? And where would he have learned to shoot like that?”

  Dusty cleared her throat. "Do any of you know anything about Josh other than the things he's said about himself?" she asked. "I mean, did you look into his background or check out any of his stories or anything?"

  Kate and Jenny exchanged a look. "No," Kate answered. "We didn't check him out. As soon as it became clear that John Fisk was the one working with Marino, we left it at that."

  "That was a pretty convenient explanation," Dusty pointed out. "Seeing as how Fisk was dead and couldn't defend himself or give you any other details."

  Jenny sagged back into the sofa cushions. Jake put his hand on her shoulder. "I hate to have to ask you this, but what did you tell Josh about Robert Marino?"

  "The first time we talked about it, Jake just wanted to know if Robert ever hit me. He was angry when I said ‘yes’ and acted like he wanted to get on a plane and go to New York to kick his ass," she said. "There were . . . are . . . lots of things about my relationship with Robert I don't talk to anyone about."

  "Not even when you and Josh were alone?" Jake asked gently.

  Jenny's face reddened. "Especially not then," she said. "Robert was . . . cruel. I didn't ever want that experience to color what Josh and I had."

  Across the room, Joe Bob shifted uneasily. "What?" Jake asked.

  "You weren't here the night Katie got shot," Joe Bob said. "Josh and I were the ones who dragged that man out into the draw and shut the cave up."

  "What about it?" Kate asked.

  "When we were wrestling the body outside, Josh said, `the boss needs to learn to hire better men.’"

  "What in the hell was that supposed to mean?" Jake asked.

  "I just thought he meant that guy wasn't much of a hired gun if Katie could get the drop on him," Joe Bob said. "But now it sounds like Josh actually knew Marino."

  Kate cocked an eyebrow in his direction. “What do you mean ‘if Katie could get the drop on him?’”

  Joe Bob squirmed in his chair and then, realizing she was just giving him a hard time, blushed and shrugged. “I’m just saying,” he offered weakly.

  His comical discomfiture offered a welcome break from the air of tension in the room. Mandy patted her husband’s knee and advised sweetly, “Honey, I think you can hush now.” Everyone chuckled as Joe Bob earnestly bobbed his head in agreement.

  “Okay,” Kate said, “we have a lot of suppositions, but no real proof. Jenny, did you find anything in those photo files?”

  “Not yet,” Jenny said. “There are hundreds of images in there. I’ll work on them some more tonight.”

  “What should the rest of us do?” Jake asked.

  “You keep an eye on Josh,” Kate replied. “Joe Bob, can you find out if there’s any scuttlebutt around town about what Rafe might be up to?”

  “Sure,” he said. “I need a haircut. There’s no better place than the barber shop to find out information.”

  Jenny coughed and muttered “gossip” under her breath.

  “Men do not gossip,” Jake said archly.

  “I don’t care what you call it,” Kate said, “just see what you can find out. In the meantime, I’m going to have a talk with Pablo Espinosa.”

  “With Pablo?” Jenny asked. “Why?”

  “Because he and Ramon were the only other people on this ranch in the days leading up to Daddy’s death,” Kate said. “I want to know if they saw or heard anything out of the ordinary.”

  “You don’t think Josh had anything to do with Langston’s suicide, do you?” Phil asked.

  “No,” Kate said. “Jack Swinton’s people say it was suicide and I believe them, but it is possible that John Fisk wasn’t the only other person in the barn with Daddy when he did it.”

  “I don’t like this, Katie,” Mandy said. “I don’t like this at all.”

  “I don’t either, Baby Sister.” Kate said. “But we have to know once and for all.”

  119

  The beam from Josh’s headlamp played over the small chamber. The light created shifting shadows that danced beside him as he carefully negotiated the sloping floor. He’d been forced to go down on his hands and knees to make his way into the room, but the exit was large enough for him to walk through upright.

  As usual, he was breaking Jake’s rule about solo exploration in the lower levels of the cave, but he didn’t care. Josh loved the solitary comfort of the interlocking spaces nestled beneath the mountain. He felt no apprehension about going progressively deeper into the earth. In fact, the metaphor struck him as absurdly amusing. Right now, all he seemed to be doing was digging himself deeper into the mess that was supposed to be his life.

  The cave’s temperature stayed at a constant 70 degrees. Josh found the chilled, earthy pungency of the dank air to be soft and soothing. After his firelit conversation with Retta Thornton on Rafe Jackson’s patio, Josh had a concrete reason to enter the cave's unknown depths, but even if he'd never met the woman, he'd still be in the same place right now.

  The lurid tale she shared with him that night did, however, give Josh a specific goal. Somewhere in this cave, undisturbed for 78 years, lay the body of a man. It was now Josh’s job to find it.

  The next room was much larger and filled with boulders. Josh took a small battery-powered lantern out of his bag and balanced it on a low ledge. Then he unwrapped the sandwich he’d made that morning and twisted the top off a bottle of water. He took a drink and then bit into his sandwich, chewing rhythmically and thoughtfully.

  Retta Thornton. Now there was some piece of work. Josh thought back to the way she’d described her early life to him, almost as if she were speaking about a pathetic character in a B-grade film.

  “I was the daughter of a born-again, holy roller preacher,” she said, curling long, well-manicured fingers around the stem of her wine glass. “Daddy spoke most eloquently in tongues, never mind no one understood a word of his ecstatic gibberish.”

  She paused while Rafe lit her cigarette and then continued in the same acid vein. “Even at the tender age of ten,” she said, “I knew the man was unhinged. But that’s not the sort of thing good little girls say about their preacher daddies, so I played the vestal virgin decked out in my Biblically mandated frumpery.”

  Josh allowed his eyes to roam unabashedly over her figure. “You don’t look like a frump now,” he said.

  “Thank you,” she replied, “but let’s get one thing straight. I am out of your league.”

  “Are you now?” Josh said.

  “Out of your league and off limits,” she replied in an icy voice. “Keep your mind on business.”

  “I’m still unclear what business we have together,” Josh said.

  “If you’ll pay attention, I’ll explain it to you," she snapped. "Now,
as I was saying before we had to pause for your little testosterone tsunami, I could show you school pictures of myself that would give you nightmares. It was not a pleasant phase of my life, but it did afford me useful invisibility as I endured the scorn of pretty girls and their hormone-driven jock boyfriends."

  “And how did you use your invisible super power?” he asked.

  “I listened,” Retta said, “which is a skill you should develop. The story I want to share with you has to do with my aunt, Sarah Williams Lockwood.”

  Josh allowed that information to sink in for a moment before asking slowly, "But wouldn’t that make you the Lockwood girls’ second cousin?”

  “Very good,” Retta purred. “You do have the ability to use the organ located between your ears.”

  “If you’re their cousin,” Josh asked, “why haven’t they ever mentioned you?”

  “My Aunt Sarah was decades younger than Milton Lockwood,” Retta replied. “He was 64-years-old when they married. She was just 18. When she was 19, she gave birth to Langston. She was a widow by age 38. Her son never gave her the time of day. She barely knew Kate and Jenny, and then only because their mother arranged covert visits against Langston’s wishes.”

  “And you’re older than Kate?” Josh asked.

  “How indelicate of you,” Retta said. “But, yes, by 5 years. Since I’ve come back to this miserable town, I’ve seen the holier than thou Katherine on the street, but she didn’t recognize me.”

  Josh drew deeply on the expensive cigar Rafe had put in his hand, igniting the tip to a glowing cherry red. When he exhaled, a cloud of fragrant smoke curled into the night air. “Why did you come back?” he asked.

  “Revenge,” Retta said. “Pure, sweet, deliciously cold revenge against everything this hidebound little backwater represents. My business associates are set to carve up and develop all this hallowed ranch land to bored city dwellers with an itch for the occasional 48-hours of faux rustic charm. As mayor, I will facilitate those negotiations in the name of economic advancement.”