For the moment, at least. he knew he was alone.
Not that he’d had to be, but he hadn’t been willing to put Reine in potential jeopardy, just in case. The low rider incident was indelibly etched in his memory.
Knowing that nothing would stop her once the sun rose, he’d agreed to meet Reine here at first light. Until then, he was going to have himself a good look around, make certain the area was safe and secure it for her arrival.
Entering the abandoned building, he snapped on the mag light.
The bedroll and ropes were as Reine had described them. But there was so much more—little details she’d neglected to mention or hadn’t noticed.
A small bag lay in one corner. He opened it and the food smell she’d described assaulted him—some dried sauce on the paper. A couple of crushed beer cans formed a little pile near the wall, as if someone had been sitting there, watching over Gray as he slept.
Or had they talked?
Surely not, or Gray would be able to point a finger at his kidnapper. Not a safe situation at all.
Spotting something small and shiny near his boot toe, he bent over to pick up the item—and recognized it as a paper ring from a cigar.
The kind Evan Bixler smoked?
Cash didn’t have time to wonder before he heard the distant sound of a vehicle above the rising wind. He shut off his light at the same time the driver cut the engine.
Pulse thrumming, he slipped out of the building and silently glided a few yards up the hillside to a bent cottonwood, where he lost himself in some of its lower branches. He hunkered down and waited, the skin along his spine crawling each time wind shimmied the leaves or shook some loose board on the building.
Finally, between gusts, he heard the shuffling of boots against rocky soil. A break in the clouds revealed some movement, but the swaying of a branch before his eyes kept him from seeing more.
Then, when clouds swallowed the moon yet again, he was dependent on following the intruder by sound. He was moving closer and closer, straight for the mill.
The moment a boot hit board, Cash shouldered his rifle and snapped on his mag light, snarling, “Stop right there and turn around!”
The person below followed directions.
Cash didn’t know why he was surprised when he heard Reine say, “Abreu, I knew I couldn’t trust yon!”
“WHAT IF rr HADN’T BEEN me in that tree?” Cash demanded, the moment he stepped close enough that they were practically nose-to-nose.
“But it was you, so it’s a moot point, isn’t it?”
Reine couldn’t believe he was acting all macho-protective when he should be on the defensive.
Instinct had told her Cash wouldn’t wait until dawn to ride out. When she hadn’t been able to sleep, she’d decided to be a one-woman welcoming committee, to prevent him from acting without her. She hadn’t counted on his beating her to the mill.
Feeling droplets of water splash against her face, she said, “We’d better take shelter if we don’t want to be soaked.”
Inside, the only place to sit in any comfort was the bedroll. Reine avoided it, sauntering across the floor to a gaping hole that used to hold a window. Gusts of damp air assaulted her. Needing to stay sharp around Cash, she wedged a shoulder against an exposed joint and stared out into the rainy night.
Hopefully, any traces of Gray wouldn’t be washed away....
“Do you really not trust me?”
Cash’s soft question came from so close it made her tremble. “How do you expect me to answer that?” She turned, but could barely see more than Cash’s silhouette. “Should I lie?”
“I was hoping you wouldn’t have to.”
“And I was hoping you were being totally upfront with me. No, not hoping. Expecting. Believing. I guess the thought that you might have some ulterior motive for going along with me in this search just never came up in my mind.”
“My deal with Valdez had nothing to do with you.”
“Please.”
“It didn’t.”
“What does it matter now, anyway?”
“What you think of me does matter, Reine. And you can’t think too badly of me deep down, because it’s me you came to for help, isn’t it?”
“I do believe you don’t want anything bad to happen to Gray,” she admitted, steeling herself against the emotions he always stirred up in her. “That has nothing to do with us.”
“It has everything to do with us.”
His moving even closer both thrilled and frightened her. She didn’t want to lose her head only to open her eyes to more unpleasant facts about the man.
She put out a hand. “Keep your distance.”
“Afraid of your dark side, Reine?” Cash asked. “The part of you that still wants me no matter what you think I’ve done?”
“Get over yourself,” she said without much conviction.
“I’m trying to be honest.”
“Stop trying and be honest.”
“What would you have me do, Reine?”
“For one, stop your vendetta against Uncle Jasper.” She could sense his immediate withdrawal. “You’ve been telling yourself and anyone who’ll listen that destroying Matlock Construction is just business, but that’s a lie and we both know it.”
“I already decided you were right about the ranch being Gray’s inheritance. I won’t go after it again.”
That was a move in the right direction, if not exactly what she’d asked for.
“How about you?” he asked. “When will you stop choosing the old man over me?”
“Is that how you see it?”
“That’s how it is. How it has been since he caught us together right here. You remember that, don’t you, Reine.”
She remembered every wonderful minute they’d spent together. And the terrible aftermath. She couldn’t justify what Uncle Jasper had done—violence was never justified—but she thought she understood.
“Uncle Jasper is like my father, Cash. I think you held that against me...and that was the reason you shoved me out of your life, just like you did Gray. But Aunt Marlene and Uncle Jasper took care of me and loved me when I had no one else. I couldn’t turn my back on him.”
“And you still won’t.”
“Is that what you think I should do?”
His silence was his answer.
“For what it’s worth,” she said, “I don’t think he hates you, Cash. He’s obsessed with you just as you are with him.”
“Ha! He wishes I’d never been born.”
“I think his feelings are far more complex. Don’t you think it’s weird that he didn’t send Luna away somewhere else to have her child? Instead, he tied her—and you—to this spread by getting Zane to marry her.”
“So what do you propose he had in mind for my future? Taking over as foreman when my daddy retired?”
“Why not? Then you would have stuck around forever, had a relationship with your brother—”
“Who he forbade to hang out with me.”
“I think he suddenly got scared that one of you would figure it out because you were unnaturally close for friends. I think guilt eats at him always for having made a pact with the devil—not that he’d admit it. And he may have married for the wrong reason, but he grew to love Aunt Marlene. He’s loyal to her and to Gray, and what he might feel for you tears at that loyalty, so he strikes out. It’s not right, but what you’ve been doing to him is no better. This greed of yours is a grown-up’s ploy for attention. You want his and you’re speaking to him in a voice he understands.”
“I vowed to strip him of what he cares about because of what he did to my mother.”
“No, that’s an excuse, Cash. Luna has always wanted you to let go just as she has. But you’re hurt because you think Jasper Matlock doesn’t care about the natural relationship he has with you. You care, or you really would have walked away and never looked back as soon as you were able. But you couldn’t do that any more than he could let you go.”
Cash had no response. Tension radiated from him but he was a master at control, even over himself.
Sighing, Reine moved from the window to the bedroll. Trying to make herself comfortable was futile. She lay there, listening to the drumming on the roof and the sound of leaks all around her.
It was going to be a long night.
Monday
A NIGHT HAD NEVER LASTED so long, but finally the sky lightened and Cash could put the thoughts that had been eating at him for hours to the back of his mind. At least for a while. He’d have to deal with them sometime. Soon, he supposed.
He wondered how so young a woman as Reine had gotten such wisdom.
Even as he pushed himself up from the spot where he’d sat all night, his back to the wall, Reine stirred on the bedroll.
“What time is it?” she asked with a big yawn. Her golden hair was tousled around her face, and her eyes were only half open. Her lovely face was sleep-filled and sexy. He’d never get tired of seeing her like this...and he knew damn well he might never see her like this again.
“Time to find the third musketeer,” he said, moving over to the bedroll and holding out his hand.
Assuming Gray was findable, he thought.
Seeming reluctant at first, Reine finally allowed him to help her to her feet. The warmth of sleep radiated from her, enticing him...
It took all his will to step back.
“Rain’s stopped,” she murmured in a husky voice.
“More than an hour ago.”
Her concerned gaze met his. “Did you sleep at all?”
“Some.”
A few minutes here and there. Not that he couldn’t function no matter the circumstances, and right now he was running on pure adrenaline. There was so much to do, so little time. If they didn’t find Gray now, though, he’d switch to Plan B.
Leaving the mill, Cash fetched Akando and they set out on foot. Reine showed him where she’d thought Gray had broken from the brush to the path. The prints she’d followed were half washed away, but Cash was as certain as she was that they were Gray’s.
They passed the vehicle Reine had left at the mouth of the canyon. She led him off to the right. They hadn’t gone uphill very far when she stopped.
“This is as far as I got last night,” she said. “It looked like he might have fallen here.”
A little fact that she’d omitted, Cash thought, though he didn’t comment as he stooped to examine the area more closely. Although the rain had made things more difficult, it had stayed light enough that it hadn’t done much damage.
That was why he was concerned when he saw a discoloration lingering along the roots of some plant life. He dipped his fingers into it. The tips came away a washed-out brown, almost like rust.
Only he knew it wasn’t.
“What?” Reine asked, her voice tight when he rose without saying anything and picked up some more tracks. “Cash!”
Ignoring her plea, he tightened his grip on Akando’s reins as he followed the scuffs in the earth a hundred yards or so until they disappeared as they got to the rocks. He secured the horse, then kept going, looking for some kind of hiding place. Finally he saw it—a narrow opening, barely wide enough for a man to wedge himself in. But once inside, he would be nearly invisible unless a pursuer came right up to the entrance.
Reine was directly behind him, literally breathing down his neck, as he examined the area carefully. Then he found it. More of the rust-colored stain. Only this one hadn’t been washed by the rain because it had been protected. And there was so much of it, it made his stomach knot.
Cash swore and barely resisted the temptation to slam his fist into the rock.
Beside him, Reine was silent but for her ragged breathing. He looked into her eyes. She already knew, but he had to say it anyway.
“The bastard shot him, Reine.”
What he couldn’t put into words was that they were back to where they’d started: not knowing if Gray was even alive.
Chapter Thirteen
“We’ll have the money, Marlene,” Jasper told his wife at noon when she entered his office at his request. He watched her expression lighten with hope and knew he’d done right. “We’re gonna get our boy back.”
“I—I don’t understand. How?”
“I agreed to sell the ranch.”
Evan Bixler had seemed to take particular pleasure in that agreement, as if he’d been getting what was due him. And all because Jasper had refused to let the man buy into his construction business.
“You mean you’ve finally agreed to let go of the river property?” Marlene asked.
“No. I’m talking about the whole damn thing. He wouldn’t buy it any other way.”
He didn’t even know why a man like Bixler wanted rangeland. He wasn’t a cowman and never would be. Undoubtedly he would subdivide.
Jasper only hoped that seeing the results wouldn’t kill him.
“We’ll have to be out in thirty days,” he said sadly. “You and me and Gray. We’ll have to start over, but we’ll do it together. I already signed the agreement. The money will be delivered sometime this afternoon. Now, if only the kidnapper would call with the drop-off—”
Marlene stopped him by throwing her arms around his neck. She was sobbing so hard she was shaking. That woman had some waterworks, he thought. He hugged her to him, only then noticing Reine standing in the doorway. From her expression, he figured she’d heard everything.
He also sensed something off with her.
He patted Marlene’s back. “Reine’s here.” Then, when his wife let go her stranglehold, he asked, “Honey, where have you been?”
“Out looking for Gray myself.”
She probably had, though she couldn’t have done it in the dead of night. He doubted she’d slept in either of her beds. He could only guess whose she had been in and how she’d gotten here. He knew she’d been driving his old rattler rather than her own car. But she was a grown woman. And he needn’t be criticizing anyone else’s behavior at this point.
So, instead, he said, “You look tired.”
“I didn’t get much sleep.”
“What about food?” Marlene asked. “Have you eaten?”
“Not today.”
“Me, neither. It’s time we all broke bread together, don’t you think? All of us. We need to fortify ourselves—”
The telephone ringing stopped Marlene’s prattling.
All three stared at the instrument until it rang again. His heart in his throat, Jasper lunged for it and turned on the speaker phone.
Then, hands flat on his desk, as calmly as his heart would let him, he said, “Matlock.”
“Anxious?” asked that sexless voice that he both hated and needed to hear.
“Sundown can’t come soon enough for me.”
“Good. That means you’ll be prompt.”
“Where?” Jasper demanded.
“The abandoned chile mill.”
“Gray’ll be there?”
“Bring the money in a set of saddlebags. Leave them on the stoop and get out. You’ll be watched, so don’t try anything. Once the money is counted—”
“Forget it. You want the money, you give me my son.”
“You want your son, you’ll do as I say. You leave the money and, after we make sure it’s all there, we’ll leave your boy at the mill.”
Jasper knew when he was defeated. He couldn’t chance Gray. Not now.
“All right.”
The laugh at the other end made his skin crawl. He flashed a look at Marlene and Reine. Both women seemed to be holding their breath.
He’d leave the money as instructed, but he wouldn’t go far, he decided. He’d retreat to a place up on the ridge where he could get a bead on whoever rode up to collect.
And if Gray wasn’t with the pickup man, he would shoot the bastard dead.
REINE WAS SICK AT HEART. All the way back to the house, she’d tried to figure out what to say to her aunt and uncle, and in the end, had
kept silent about what she knew.
For the first time since this horror story had begun, they stood united. She couldn’t ruin what little hope they had by telling them Gray might already be dead. She couldn’t think that way, either. Gray couldn’t he dead.
He wasn’t!
So why hadn’t she and Cash been able to find him?
It was as if he’d just disappeared. They’d looked everywhere.
Or had they?
A vague memory from her childhood stirred—of a space dark and dank, isolated, the entrance nearly impossible to find, even when you knew it was supposed to be there somewhere.
The cave... They hadn’t even thought of it!
Now that she had, a chill shuddered through her—she’d hated the place.
Even so, she had to admit that with its branching tunnels, the cave made a perfect refuge. Even if the person who’d likely shot Gray had tracked him to the entrance, Gray could have lost him, possibly even come out in any number of spots.
Not that she’d ever investigated far enough in to find one. Reine still remembered the confusing network of underground passages with distaste. She’d been inside only once, and that had been twenty years before.
Thinking she could cover more rough ground on a horse, she tacked up Gold Mine and loaded the saddlebags with some snack bars, a first-aid kit and a couple of flashlights with strong batteries. Then she filled a canteen with fresh water and secured it to the saddle.
As she rode out, Reine tried to visualize the entrance to the cave. Cash had been the one to find it, of course. The three of them had only gone inside together that once, though she suspected the boys might have returned without her.
If only Cash were with her. She could use his help and support about now. But after they’d given up their search that morning, he’d seemed distracted and eager to get away from her. He’d used the excuse of having some business or other he had to attend to. She’d been appalled that he could even now put business above Gray.
But she hadn’t been much surprised.
Besides which, Cash hadn’t taken her heartfelt-if amateur analysis of his psyche where Uncle Jasper was concerned too well. He probably hadn’t wanted to be around her after that.
Cowboy Justice Page 17