Stevie Rae slid from Willow’s back as Brock did the same and glanced through the window. The office was very small. Two desks were crammed into the space with a narrow walkway between them, and a single unoccupied jail cell with a bunk bed ran the width of building toward the back. A small Ben Franklin stove, its smoke pipe rising up to the ceiling, sat in a corner.
A young man sat at one of the desks, his feet up on the desktop, a magazine open on his lap. He brought a cup to his lips and drank deeply. She assumed by the level of comfort he exuded, he must be a deputy. She would have been surprised if he was the sheriff. He seemed too young.
“We’re looking for Sheriff Newbold,” Brock announced as they entered the office, his boot heels loud on the bare wooden floor. The deputy’s badge winked in the sunlight streaming in through the open door.
The young man jumped up from his seat, startled. The magazine dropped to the floor. Liquid sloshed out of the cup in his hand, but she doubted it was coffee as there was no coffeepot in sight. Redness stained his face, almost matching the shock of thick, wavy hair on his head.
“What do you need him for?” The question wasn’t asked with any amount of courtesy. In fact, the tone was downright rude. Stevie Rae glanced at Brock. His jaw tightened and she wondered, however briefly, if he would give the young man the comeuppance he deserved.
He did not. Though his hands were clenched at his sides and the muscle in his jaw jumped, he took a deep breath and remained calm. His voice low and menacing, he said, “My name is Brock MacDermott. Sheriff Newbold sent for me.”
The boy swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. If possible, the redness on his face grew deeper. Tiny beads of sweat popped out on his forehead. “My…my apologies, Mr. MacDermott.” Again, he swallowed, then reached down to pick up the fallen magazine. “The sheriff ain’t here. He’s out at the Weston place.”
“And how would I find the Weston place?”
“It’s just outside town. Take a right at the rail station and keep riding. Can’t miss it. It’s the only one out there.”
Brock gave a slight nod and left the room without a word. Stevie Rae followed, just as silent.
“Where we headed?” Sam asked as he lightly jerked the reins in his hands. His horse, a beautiful black and white mare with the unlikely name of Daisy, moved slightly and snorted.
“The Weston place,” Brock answered as he unwrapped Resolute’s reins from the post in front of the office.
As she climbed into Willow’s saddle, Stevie Rae glanced through the window and grinned when she saw the deputy sink into his chair and wipe the sweat from his brow. MacDermott sometimes had that effect on people.
It wasn’t hard to find the Weston place. The house wasn’t quite finished yet. It needed a coat of paint, but that was all. The barn, however, was completed and a bright red color. There were horses in the corral, and Stevie Rae heard the plaintive lowing of a milk cow as they cantered into the homestead. Chickens clucked and pecked at the feed on the ground while a rooster strutted in front of them, fanning his feathers and crowing. A small vegetable garden, its rows freshly tilled, already had sprouts of green.
A man walked out of the freshly painted barn leading a horse by the reins and pulled the brim of his hat lower to shade his eyes. He stopped and wrapped the leather straps around the top rail of the corral, a warm, sad smile creasing his face. “Brock,” he said with a nod, his voice low and gravelly. “Glad my telegram found you. Knew you’d want to see this.”
“Paul.” Brock dismounted and moved toward the man, his hand extended in greeting. They shook, then, as old friends do, grabbed each other in a bear hug.
Stevie Rae watched as the men broke apart. For a man as quiet and stoic as Brock MacDermott, he sure had a lot of friends and acquaintances, but then, maybe he was only silent around her.
“Who’s riding with you?” Paul asked as they approached.
Brock completed the introductions, then nodded toward the house. “Who were they?”
“The Westons? Easterners. From Connecticut.” Paul removed his hat and wiped his brow before fitting the headgear back on his head. “Jared Weston was a nice enough fellow and Mrs. Weston—Clara—was a real sweetheart, though a little sickly. Gave up his law practice and came out here for her health, or so he told me when I first met him.” Sadness reflected on his face, and his voice held a poignancy that was hard to bear. “Clara and my wife took to each other like ducks to water. Broke my heart to have to tell Sarah about this. She hasn’t stopped crying since.”
Stevie could imagine how difficult it had been for the man to tell his wife about their friends. Clearly, the Newbolds had been fond of the Westons and vice versa. Sorrow gleamed from his eyes before he blinked and his jaw set, replacing the sadness. “I ain’t sayin’ Logan was the one who did this, but it sure seems to fit everything I’ve heard about him.”
Brock didn’t speak much, but his eyes took in everything as he helped her from the saddle. “Who found them?” he asked over his shoulder.
“I did. Sarah wanted them to come to dinner. Knew something was wrong the minute I rode up.” He drew in a breath in an attempt to keep the reins on his emotions tight, though it didn’t seem to help. Stevie Rae understood. Those same emotions attacked her on a daily basis, making it difficult sometimes to hold on to the desire for something besides vengeance.
“Come into the house. Gotta warn ya, though, it ain’t pretty.” Paul Newbold led the way toward the house like a man going to the gallows. Stevie Rae had noticed when she first met him that his actions were well thought out, his movements full of purpose, but right now, he walked across the dirt yard as though lead weights were tied to his ankles. He stepped on the front porch and reached for the door, then stopped, his hand resting on the doorknob.
Brock stepped up behind him and rested his hand on the sheriff’s shoulder. “You don’t have to do this, Paul. I can take a look by myself.”
The man visibly relaxed, his breath blowing out between his lips in a relieved huff as he stepped away from the door. “Thanks. I’ve seen a lot in my fifteen years as sheriff, but this was…different. The brutality. The senselessness of it all. The Westons were good people.” He turned and looked at Brock before his watery gaze traveled to her. “There are no words.”
Tears smarted Stevie Rae’s eyes, and her throat constricted. If a lawman as tough and experienced as Paul Newbold had a hard time going into a house where a murder had been committed, how would she feel? Her thoughts traveled back to the little ramshackle lean-to they’d found in the Sangre de Cristos and the sure knowledge that Zeb Logan had been there to mete out his particular brand of cruelty. His evilness seemed to live and breathe and haunt the places where he committed his horrible acts. She’d felt that in her own home after Logan had killed her father.
Would she experience the same feelings here?
Her stomach clenched and her hands began to shake, but she steeled herself for what she was about to see.
Brock opened the door and stopped on the threshold, effectively blocking her passage, his body stiff, tension thrumming through every tendon and sinew, but he couldn’t stop the odor from wafting out the door. The pungent odor of death and misery and heartache—even though she stood behind him—hit her immediately. Stevie slapped her hand over her mouth and nose in a vain attempt to keep from breathing it in, but it didn’t work. The smell was too strong, the misery too new.
He turned toward her. “You should stay outside.” Concern for her well-being reflected in his clear gray eyes, but she couldn’t wait outside. She had to see for herself.
“I’ll be all right.” She removed her hat and held it in her hands, her fingers worrying the brim as she slipped past Brock and stepped into the main room of the little house. The icy bite of evil struck her immediately, like a blow to the belly, making her heart thunder in her chest.
Brock stepped behind her and laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Stevie Rae?”
She couldn’t speak. As Sheriff
Newbold had stated, there were no words to describe what she saw. She nodded, but didn’t turn to look at him, afraid of what she might see on his face.
Sam touched her hand, offering comfort, as he, too, just stopped in the middle of the parlor.
Jared and Clara Weston were no longer here—Sheriff Newbold must have taken care of them—but the evidence of what had happened to them remained. Dark crimson stained the wooden planks of the floor as well as a small rag rug crumpled in the corner of the room. Splatters of the same color marked the walls and freshly painted ceiling. Even the settee pushed against the wall beneath the window had not been spared—splotches of blood marred the pale blue fabric.
Someone—Mr. Weston, perhaps—had fought back against the assault. Splinters and larger pieces of what remained of a kitchen chair littered the floor. The chair, which should have been around the table with its mates, had been shattered, perhaps over someone’s head or across someone’s back. Shards of what once were plates with a pretty rose pattern were scattered throughout the tiny kitchen. Blood stained the pristine porcelain of the sink and the lacy curtains hanging over the window above the basin.
She didn’t need to be shown where Mr. and Mrs. Weston had lain after they’d been killed. The dark stains on the floor told the tale without words.
And there, on the freshly painted cabinet door, a bloody handprint. Left hand. Missing little finger.
Stevie Rae closed her eyes against the sight of so much mayhem, but that was a mistake. With her eyes shut, her other senses heightened and she could almost hear the screams in her ears, smell the Westons’ fear. Her eyes flew open. Nausea coiled her stomach and bile rose, scalding the back of her throat. Logan had been here. He had hurt these people. His malevolence lingered, leaving her cold and angry and so utterly sad. She shivered despite the heat of the day and blinked back the tears blurring her vision.
What made a man be so vicious? What drove someone to kill without remorse? Without censure? What had the Westons ever done to him to make him behave in so deadly a fashion? The questions running through her head had no answers and were useless to even ask. Zeb Logan didn’t need a reason to hurt anyone. He might actually enjoy it. She remembered seeing him through the slats of the root cellar’s trapdoor and the deadly smile that crossed his face when he shot her father. And then his laughter, as if the blood seeping from her father’s mortal wound amused him.
Some people—men and women both—were that way—exerting their power, their strength. Some did it like Logan. Viciously. Brutally. In plain view. Others were a bit more devious, hiding their nasty deeds and malicious intent behind dazzling smiles and soft-spoken words.
She ran outside and stood at the end of the porch, her hands gripping the railing, gulping in air in an effort to tamp down the rising nausea. She shook, so violently she thought her bones would rattle loose beneath her skin and leave her a quivering mess with the consistency of pudding.
Brock approached her, his footfalls heavy on the wooden planks. She turned toward him and drew in a ragged breath, then another and another until she could control the urge to cry and scream and rail at the heavens for what had been done to these decent people. She almost lost what little control she had gained when she looked into his eyes. Concern for her had softened his features and she didn’t think twice when he opened his arms. She stepped into his embrace and clung to him, gathering strength from his solid body. His heart pounded in a steady rhythm beneath her ear as she laid her head against his chest.
“Are you all right?” His voice, low and tight with suppressed emotion, cut through the chaos of her thoughts.
Stevie Rae nodded against him and she took that moment in his arms to try to erase the images burned in her brain, but it did little good. She cleared her throat, then pulled away from him to stare into his eyes.
“It was Logan, wasn’t it?” he asked before she could say a word. “I saw the handprint this time. Couldn’t not see it.”
She nodded, uncertain of her voice, still fighting the nausea twisting her stomach, but absolutely certain Logan had done the killing.
Paul and Sam approached as well, but it was the sheriff who spoke. “I’m sorry you had to see that, miss.”
Beside the sheriff, Sam had finally run out of words, probably for the first time in his life, but sympathy and pain radiated from his dark eyes. He shifted his weight from one leg to the other, clearly uncomfortable, his muscles poised to flee at the first opportunity. A peculiar expression settled on his face, and Stevie wondered if perhaps his stomach protested at the amount of violence Logan had left behind. Though a bounty hunter of some fame, it all seemed to be too much for him at the moment.
She didn’t dare look at Brock again as she pulled herself together and scrubbed her hands over her face to remove the wetness from her cheeks, unaware until this moment she had shed tears for the Westons. She reached out and laid her hand lightly on the sheriff’s arm, offering what little reassurance she could. “It’s all right. I had to know.”
The man nodded and turned away, his hands resting on the porch railing as he studied the flowers blooming in the small garden below him. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “He took everything of value he could find. Jared’s gold watch. The string of pearls Clara always wore. The money from the little glass jar next to the coffee canister where Clara kept it. Some food. He even took their Bible, the bastard.”
“When did this happen?” Brock asked Paul, though his eyes darted to her continually and worry left its indelible mark on his face.
Paul took off his hat and wiped the sweat from his brow before finally turning to face them. Stevie Rae felt his loss as keenly as she felt her own. The Westons might not have been related by blood, but sometimes friends were closer than family.
“Can’t be sure, but I’d say three days ago at the most. The last time I saw Jared was Saturday, when he picked up supplies at Kirby’s General Store.” Paul’s voice grew hoarse and he swallowed several times. When he spoke again, his words were clipped and terse. “I found them the day before yesterday, which was what? Tuesday? I took care of them. Sent you that wire and sent one to Jared’s son in Connecticut. Took out a posse, but it was too late. Logan was long gone. Son of a bitch didn’t even leave a broken branch in his wake. At least, not that we found.”
He stepped off the porch, his movements stiff, his expression a strange combination of disgust and heartache. “I’m heading back into town. Nothing more I can do here except arrange for someone to come out and take care of the livestock until Jared’s son arrives.” He hitched up his trousers, then adjusted the gun belt around his hips. “You’re welcome to stay with Sarah and me at the house, if you’re of a mind to stay in Española.”
Brock looked at her and tilted his head to the side. “Stevie, do you want to stay?”
She shook her head, deciding in an instant that staying with Paul and Sarah would be a bad idea. Not only would Logan get farther away, free to roam the country and commit more acts as heinous as the ones he’d already committed, but she just didn’t think she could bear to stay with people who were grieving. Their sadness would be contagious and she already had buckets of her own grief to deal with. Sharing sympathy with Paul and Sarah would be her undoing. She needed to stay angry and determined in order to keep on the trail of a madman. “Thank you, no. I think we should ride out. It may not be too late to pick up his trail.”
“Sam? What about you?” Newbold asked as he turned toward the bounty hunter.
Sam declined the kind offer with a quick shake of his head. Sheriff Newbold gave a slight nod, then almost staggered to his horse, a weary, heartsick man who’d seen too much. He climbed into the saddle, touched the brim of his hat, and rode off.
Stevie Rae watched him go, her heart hurting for him, then turned toward Sam, a question on her lips, but she never had the chance to ask as Brock studied the man. “You all right, Sam? Never known you to be this quiet.”
Sam blushed and opened his
mouth several times, but no words poured forth. He removed his hat and fingered the brim while he rocked on his heels until finally, he found his voice. “Ain’t nothin’ to say,” he murmured, then jammed his hat back on his head. His eyes held a gleam of sorrow. “Been nice riding with you two, but I think this is where we’ll part ways.” He scratched his chin beneath the scraggly beard covering it. “The bounty on Logan would be welcome in my bank account, but truth to tell, I ain’t got the stomach for chasing him down. Give me a straightforward bank robber or cattle rustler, and I’ll follow him to the ends of the earth, but this is too much.”
He held out his hand toward Brock. “Godspeed, MacDermott. I hope you catch that bastard.”
“Thank you, Sam.”
“If you need me, I’ll be in El Paso. Got me a girl who wants to settle down and I’m thinking now might be the time to make an honest woman out of her.”
Stevie Rae watched the display. There was genuine fondness between the two men and the embarrassment that sometimes accompanied it. Redness colored Sam’s face as he stepped away from Brock, then moved toward her, his mustache stretching across his upper lip when he gave her a somewhat shy smile. She was unprepared for the bear hug he wrapped her in.
“And you.” He sighed as he hugged her tighter. “It’s been my pleasure to meet you.”
Her throat constricted and she swallowed hard as she nodded against his chest. “You as well, Sam.”
“You keep safe and keep MacDermott safe, too. And don’t let him rile you.”
Stevie Rae almost lost her balance when he let her go.
He touched the brim of his hat and winked. “Keep your pistol holstered, sweetheart.”
Before she could offer a wisecrack in response, he took the porch steps in his loose-hipped swagger, sauntered across the yard, and climbed into the saddle. One last time, he nodded in their direction, then dug his heels into Daisy’s sides and rode off, leaving a plume of dust.
Chapter 12
“If I was Logan, where would I go? He seems to have no fear of being caught.” Stevie Rae took a sip of her coffee and settled herself on her bedroll with a sigh. Exhausted and heartsore didn’t begin to define what she felt. After Sam left the Westons’ ranch, she and Brock stayed around for a little while, looking for anything that might tell them in which direction Logan had gone, but the man was careful. He’d left no clues. At least, none that they could find.
A Kiss in the Shadows Page 13