The Salt Maiden (Leisure Romantic Suspense)

by Colleen Thompson

  So who would Uncle R.C. have trusted? “Dennis? Or Henry Schlitz—or what about Abe?”

  Dorothy’s lips pursed, wrinkling around their outer margins. “I only told you what I did because the sheriff was kin to you. And you’re the sheriff now, so you ought to know how we handle the likes of these outsiders.”

  “What about Angie Vanover? Was she ‘handled’ after making a big fuss at the Haz-Vestment meeting?”

  Dorothy shrugged, but behind the glasses malice smoldered in her brown eyes.

  “You were part of it,” he guessed, thinking her participation would be one way of proving she was just “one of the boys.” “You could tell me everything.”

  “No, I damn well couldn’t,” she said sharply. “Now it’s time for you to leave.”

  He tried persuading her, only to be met with stony silence.

  “We’ll talk again later,” he assured her before opening the door to leave.

  As he started his Suburban, Jay got one last glimpse of the postmistress through the window. Or rather, of the middle finger she used to wave good-bye.

  Friday, July 13, 4:48 P.M.

  102 Degrees Fahrenheit

  It wasn’t lost on Dana that she rolled across the Rimrock County line on the afternoon of Friday the thirteenth. But given how bad her luck had been during her prior visits, she couldn’t conceive that the desert had any worse fortune left to hurl in her direction.

  She hoped this wasn’t merely a failure of imagination on her part.

  She had flown into Carlsbad, New Mexico, where she had picked up a rental SUV. Paranoid about being caught out on Rimrock County’s rugged roads, she’d swallowed the premium and sprung for a four-wheel-drive model with GPS. She had also rented another satellite phone before leaving Houston, but had stopped short of picking up the elephant gun she’d been daydreaming about with alarming frequency.

  But last night’s dreams had leaned less toward violence and more toward sex, a sign that her subconscious had picked up on her proximity to Jay. Erotic as the scenes were—including the schmaltziest, where they’d made love as a wild surf crashed around them—each one had gradually twisted into wrongness. At four-twenty this morning she’d awakened trembling and weeping after seeing Angie rising from the depths to point an accusation their way. She shuddered, recalling how her sister’s mummified hand dripped with seaweed and—worse yet—most of her face was a black and charred-edged hole.

  It’s that letter working on me, that’s all, Dana told herself. Sent to her clinic address and not her home, it had raised goose bumps when she’d read the coffee-stained and crumpled sheet.

  Dear Doc Vanover,

  Too bad about that little girl. But your sister got what she had coming.

  Shouldn’t have come out here in the first place, stirring up trouble for the father.

  Only thing that man wants is to forget that time, be left alone. After what he’s been through, he deserves that much.

  So a word to the wise. You and yours stay the FUCK clear the future if you know what’s good for you!!!

  The writer was no Hemingway, but the message came through loud and clear. As Dana spotted Devil’s Claw on the horizon, her stomach tightened in a delayed reaction to the threat.

  Up until this point she had managed to keep from focusing on the danger. Though she hadn’t wanted to get either her mother’s or the Harrisons’ hopes up by giving them the details, she’d concentrated on the fact that the father of Angie’s child was somewhere in or around Devil’s Claw, and that if she could find him, there still might be a shot at salvaging something—namely Nikki—from this horror. A shot at salvaging something worthwhile from her sister’s life.

  After counting backward nine months from the child’s birth date and cross-matching the dates against her mother’s records, Dana had been excited to learn that Angie had been in rehab around that time at a facility in Las Cruces, New Mexico. With a place and time period to work with, Dana felt certain she could track down the man who had fathered Nikki, especially if she could talk Jay into helping.

  She couldn’t be certain he’d be willing, or that he wouldn’t insist on taking the letter to the FBI team now handling the investigation into the Haz-Vestment murders. She might have gone to them herself, except that the last time they’d spoken—in a brief call before the arrival of the letter—Agent Tomlin had informed her that the bureau’s investigation was limited in scope. He had neither the time nor the authority to expand it to include what he’d called a “snipe hunt” for the father of the child one of the two victims had given up years before.

  Dana worried about keeping what could be relevant evidence to herself, and she felt guilty for lying to her mother, telling her she’d been asked to come back to be reinter-viewed about the night of Angie’s murder. To ease her conscience she instead focused on the excitement of making contact with a friend Angie had met around that time—a woman with vague memories of Angie “sneaking off ” to meet some lover. But Rainbow, as she called herself, had no memory of the man involved—couldn’t even say for certain whether he had been another patient or someone who worked at the facility. Since Rainbow had volunteered the fact that she’d been sweating out some “majorly warped” acid flashbacks at the time, Dana was surprised she recalled anything at all from those weeks.

  She was also more than a little suspicious that the “memories” were manufactured, a conscious or unconscious attempt to please a grieving sister or simply gain attention. Yet Dana refused to let suspicion stop her, any more than she would allow fear to keep her from making up for the part she’d played in getting Angie killed.

  She lifted her foot from the accelerator and coasted as something loped across the road before her. Though the shimmer of rising heat obscured the gray-brown form, its size and movement made her think coyote before it disappeared into the scrub.

  Beside her the satellite phone began to ring. Dana considered ignoring it, since the only person with the number was her mother. Had she found out Dana had lied about her reason for leaving Houston? Or was it Jerome calling to say Isabel had taken a high dive off the deep end?

  Guilt kicked in, so she answered before the voice mail could pick up. “Everything okay, Mom?”

  “Dana…”

  Fumbling the phone, Dana pulled off onto the road’s margin. Rocks crunched beneath the tires, sending a tan snake whipping off toward safety. With an involuntary shudder—more at the voice than the serpent—she picked up the dropped phone and demanded, “How the hell did you manage to charm my mother, of all people, into giving you this number? Do you have any idea how much money she lost on dresses and deposits—not to mention how embarrassed she was to have her daughter dumped the way you—”

  “I know, and I’m sorry.” Alex sounded like a chastened schoolboy. “It’s just…I was having cold feet, that’s all. I was so confused and…Dana, I’m an idiot.”

  “At last, one thing we can agree on.” An ugly desire rocketed to the surface, a need to wound him a fraction of the amount he had hurt her. “My new lover thinks so, too.”

  There was a long pause before he managed, “I guess I deserved that. But you don’t have to make up stories to get me to realize how badly I’ve screwed things up. If I could do anything to take it back, Day, if I could do anything to fix this…”

  Instead of relief to hear him groveling, she felt the insult mushrooming inside her. He didn’t believe she’d found another lover. Didn’t think it possible.

  “So what brought you to this conclusion?” she asked coolly. “Figure out you didn’t want little Alex clones after all?”

  “I figured out I wanted you. I want to stand by you through this crisis.”

  She rolled her eyes and thought, How freaking noble of him.

  “I…I heard about your sister,” he added, “and I’m so, so sorry.”

  She was tempted to agree that yes, he was certainly that. But since her last bit of vitriol had backfired, Dana forced herself to take the high road
and to acknowledge what this phone call must have cost the man in pride. “I appreciate that, Alex. And I understand it’s natural, after a transition, to have second thoughts. But—”

  “Don’t say ‘but,’ Dana. Please don’t close the door on what I’m saying. Please don’t close the door on us.”

  She spotted first the dust cloud and then the dark blue pickup heading her way. But it barely registered, so caught up was she in the swirl of her emotions.

  “You made me feel like garbage, Alex. Like some broken piece of trash. You humiliated me and then skipped town so you wouldn’t have to face people looking at you like you were the biggest jerk in Houston—which, I might add, you were. You even stuck me with returning all the gifts with ‘I’m sorry I’m such a pathetic loser’ notes.”

  Notes she’d begun tackling a few days earlier, since putting it off hadn’t solved the problem—or gotten rid of all the boxed gifts stacked in her condo’s dining room.

  “I’m the one who’s a pathetic loser,” he told her. “And if you give me one more chance, I swear I’ll spend every day of my life making it up to you.”

  As the pickup closed the gap between them, a frisson of alarm skated up her spine. She squinted through her sunglasses, but she honestly couldn’t tell if the truck’s grille looked familiar. And the sun’s glare across the windshield prevented her from seeing inside.

  As it neared, the truck slowed.

  “I have to go, Alex.”

  “Just tell me I’ve got some chance. If you want, I’ll fly out there and help you. Your mom said you could use a man looking out for you in that place. I saw it on the news, Day. It’s appalling, practically a third-world country—and after everything that’s happened—”

  “Sorry. No chance at all, but thanks for calling. Gotta run now.” Every tiny hair stood on end as Dana switched off the phone and jammed her rental back in gear. What was she doing, sitting on the roadside, presenting a target for anyone with a good pair of field glasses—or a rifle scope?

  But before she could mash down on the pedal, the pickup’s driver’s-side window glided downward, giving her a glimpse of a face she had been hoping to avoid.

  Heart pummeling her chest wall, she rolled down her own window.

  “You’re back. Surprised to see that,” Bill Navarro said. His sun-creased blue eyes were as flat as his voice.

  “Umm, yes. I have a few last things to wrap up.” Clearly she’d offended him the last time they had spoken. She wondered if he still had that enormous pistol of his tucked beneath his front seat.

  “Don’t mean to intrude or anything, but I was on my way to pick up some supplies in Pecos when I saw this vehicle pulled over. Just wanted to make sure you hadn’t overheated. Or broke a belt or something. Hot day like this one, person could expire walkin’. ’Specially a woman not used to the sun.”

  “My rental’s fine, thanks.” Dana tried to keep a quaver from her voice but only partially succeeded. “I just stopped to take a phone call.”

  The disturbing emptiness of his expression made the explanation seem important, to let him know she was connected, in case of an emergency. His gaze lingered on hers for several moments longer before he tipped his hat and nodded.

  Both rolled up their windows, but Dana didn’t breathe again until Bill continued on his way. Leaving her to wonder why he was heading off toward the New Mexico border instead of south toward Pecos, as he’d claimed.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  DEVIL’S CLAW, July 13—Area rancher Bo “Weevil”Jenkins, 47, complained to Rimrock County Commissioners that the recently hired sheriff, embattled Jay Eversole, has failed to adequately investigate the deaths of three Angus heifer calves in separate range incidents occurring over the past two months.

  “They all had the exact same damage,”Jenkins reported. “Missing eyes and lips and parts that I won’t mention in a lady’s presence. And there was [were] grooves down their flanks, too, like they’d been carved up with a knife.”

  Sheriff Eversole, 34, dismissed Jenkins’s claims that “some weird cult”was responsible and suggested that the damage to the one carcass he was called to examine was consistent with natural predation by the area’s coyotes or possibly a mountain lion. After Eversole was called away to respond to another matter, a heated debate broke out regarding his possible “preoccupation” with matters related to the recent salt-dome project murders.

  County Judge Abraham “Abe”Hooks, 62, said, “Regardless of any other issues, Rimrock County officials, including whoever holds the office of sheriff, must remain mindful of the welfare of the ranchers who have forged the area’s past and will continue to shape its future.”

  —Front page item,

  Pecos Enterprise

  It was late afternoon when Jay took the accident report: Hereford bull versus TV news van on the ranch road leading toward the Lost Lake area. No human injuries, but the bull was down and bellowing, and according to a furious Henry Schlitz, the female field reporter was bawling her fool head off.

  Just what Jay needed to cap a week already brimful of aggravations: a hysterical reporter and a rancher spitting mad about the loss of his valuable herd sire, which would almost undoubtedly end up as ground beef before the day was out.

  After asking Wallace to stand by in the office and letting Estelle know where he was headed, Jay piled into the Suburban with Max, who was back on duty, and raced toward the scene, his hurry due in part to a desire to prevent Henry from making hamburger out of the news crew. Who—the way Jay’s luck was running—would probably have a camera rolling with a live link, via satellite.

  As he crossed the metal grating of a cattle guard, Jay automatically slowed down and scanned the area for loose stock, as every local had been brought up to do. Outsiders, unfortunately, rarely paid the warning signs much heed. It simply never occurred to most that there were rural areas where the grazing was so sparse that cattle were allowed to freely cross public roads for better forage. Predictably this resulted in periodic collisions, which killed not only cattle but the occasional driver.

  Even more predictably, Rimrock County ranchers shed more tears about the former losses than the latter, which they considered a fitting punishment for the stupidity of those behind the wheel. But as Jay approached a trio of familiar pickups—evidently Henry had called in reinforcements—he saw no sign of either the news van or the injured bull, only miles of desert and a twinkling, pale expanse that bore witness to what had once been a salt lake.

  No van, no beef, no accident, he realized. Only a different brand of trouble, one he ought to have seen coming.

  He parked behind a truck he recognized as Abe Hooks’s before striding toward the assembled men. Their arms were crossed and their expressions hard beneath the shadows of the hats’ brims. Beside him Max growled softly as Jay recognized Carl Navarro standing at Abe’s right, and Henry Schlitz, who took the left flank. Jay fought both the urge to grimace and the impulse to rest his right hand on his Colt’s butt.

  They appeared to be unarmed, though Jay didn’t have to look to know that each truck’s gun rack would hold at least one rifle. He tried to remember that these were the same men who had welcomed him back to Rimrock County, that each had worked his ass off rebuilding the burned house he now called home. In the past few weeks they’d drunk his beer and swapped old stories, commiserated over the “hard luck” of Haz-Vestment as if they were old friends.

  But what had passed for camaraderie had abruptly ended after the report of Jay’s past troubles had hit the news. Abe Hooks had been the most outspoken, openly suggesting that the county had mistakenly “acted on sentiment instead of good sense” in choosing R.C. Eversole’s nephew to complete the dead man’s term of office. So it didn’t surprise Jay when the county judge stepped forward to signal his intention to speak for the group.

  Rather than allowing Hooks to start or asking pointless questions about the so-called accident, Jay snatched the offensive. “You three had better have a damned good e
xplanation. Otherwise don’t think I won’t charge you with filing a false report. You could get six months for that, along with a stiff fine.”

  The threat hung in the heated air. Though all three knew the odds of Jay’s getting a conviction in this county ranged from long to laughable, they also knew he could throw their asses in jail and drag his heels with the proceedings, creating an ordeal as inconvenient as it would be embarrassing.

  Abe raised his palms as if in supplication. “There’s no need to get excited, Jay. We just wanted a private word, that’s all.”

  “Well, you damned sure could’ve picked a cooler spot for it.” But not one less likely to be witnessed.

  “The last few weeks have been pretty rough.” Carl scrubbed his hand over whiskers silvered with an early frost of gray.

  “Rough on everybody.” Peering from behind his round-rimmed glasses, Henry Schlitz crossed thick arms over a barrel chest. “And ’specially on you, what with them federal agents runnin’ you off your own case and that bullshit story playin’ on the TV—like anybody gives a rat’s ass that you pounded some towel-headed asshole.”

  Though Jay had heard worse slurs during his time overseas, he winced. The need to dehumanize the enemy was the common denominator in all conflicts—one that had damned sure left a bad taste in his mouth.

  “That was a mistake,” he said, “and not one that I’m proud of.”

  “The thing is,” Abe Hooks said, “that’s the kind of mistake that opens the county up to a chance of getting sued. If something happens, that is.”

  “Nothing else’s going to happen,” Jay said, as if Angie Vanover’s dead body hadn’t been making nightly appearances in his recent Baghdad nightmares. More disturbing still had been his dream of making love to Dana, only to find her flesh drying like a mummy’s and peeling away with every touch, and her eyes staring, opaquely white, from her dead face. Though it had left him exhausted and irritable, he’d spent the better part of the past few nights pacing and downing strong black coffee, for fear that the images would return to haunt him if he lay down again.