Mrs. Sibley doesn’t look up.
“What does your little sister do?” Laura asks in the uncomfortable silence.
Sheila giggles. “Oh, she doesn’t do anything but go to school. She’s only nine.”
Under her breath, Maggie mutters, “They’re practically twins.”
Gene nearly chokes on a bite of fried chicken and hits her knee with his.
Laura’s voice is polite and friendly. “Oh wow. Are you the oldest?”
“No. I have a big brother. Like you do.”
Sheila’s perky voice and expressions are making Maggie nauseous. She plans her getaway in case she heaves. She’ll go right behind Sheila, and if she happens to blow on that pretty blonde hair, well, it won’t be Maggie’s fault.
“How old is your brother?” Laura asks.
“Thirty-five.”
Laura’s lips move like she’s talking to herself. Then she says, “So if he’s thirty-five, and your little sister isn’t even ten yet, that’s twenty-five years between them. And your mother is . . .”
Sheila shoots a look at Hank, who’s studying his mashed potatoes. “A saint.” She puts a hand on his arm. “Hanky Panky, don’t forget we’ve got Chet’s funeral this afternoon. We need to get going as soon as we finish lunch.”
The idiotic nickname almost does it for Maggie. She tenses, ready to flee.
Hank’s voice is taut like a barbed-wire fence. “We’re fine.”
Maggie relaxes. She may be pissed at Hank, but that doesn’t stop her from doing a little internal fist pump that he’s unhappy with Sheila. The woman is easy to root against.
Sheila fakes a pouty face. “Somebody isn’t happy he has to skip a hunting day with his buddies.”
Laura swallows a miniscule bite of corn from the child-size portion on her plate. No wonder she’s so lean. Maggie glances at her plate. Three pieces of chicken and a generous scoop of all the sides. A biscuit, plus one she’s already downed. She’s always had an overactive metabolism, but she feels like a glutton.
Laura puts her fork down. “Hunting season. God. It’s like all the men in Wyoming go into rut when the animals do.”
Sheila leans toward her. “Tell me about it. Hank got all cranky and ran off and left me after our date last Thursday so he could spend the night in the mountains and be ready to go after an elk at dawn.”
“What’d you get?” Laura asks him.
Hank mumbles around one of Trudy’s biscuits. “Skunked.”
Maggie frowns. Hank told her he hadn’t been hunting yet. His eyes lift slowly and find hers. They stare at each other for a long moment. He shakes his head at her, just barely. A chill ripples through Maggie. Hank hadn’t spent last Thursday night with Sheila, and, unless she’s drastically misreading things, he’d lied to Sheila about hunting. All of this after he’d seen Maggie with Chet. The chill sneaks up and over her scalp.
Where had he been?
No. She can’t get sucked into caring. Not her problem.
She pushes her plate back, her fried chicken nearly untouched. She’s had enough of this drama. She’s got to get away from here. She’ll convince the police to let her go back to Texas. Hell, she’ll find the killer herself and gift wrap it for them if she has to. But what if it’s Hank? Nonsense. Hank’s no killer. So she’ll have to find the killer who isn’t Hank. Meanwhile, she can put Bess up for sale online. If the truck sells before it’s fixed, she’ll use the money for a plane ticket and to ship her junk back to Texas.
As if reading her mind, Laura says, “Maggie, when are you going back to Texas?”
Maggie glances at Hank. He’s no longer looking at her. Good. He’s the only one who knows she’s been ordered to stay until Friday, and why. “As soon as I can, but I’m waiting on a part. Until then, I’m staying out of the way, and preparing all the great junk I bought here for a fall antique show.”
Gene wipes orange Cheetos dust from his hands onto a napkin. His was the only plate Trudy had added them to. “And keeping Lily exercised. I hear she got her speed work today, Maggie.”
Hank’s head snaps up. “What?”
“Maggie took Lily out, and they ran into a bear. At least that’s what Paco told me.”
“Is that true?” Hank asks her. His eyes are navy blue, dark and dangerous.
Paco brandishes a biscuit. “Truth.”
Saved from answering, Maggie reaches out to her plate. She fills her mouth with potatoes, hoping to end the conversation.
“Were you hurt?”
Maggie motions to her full mouth. Hank folds his arms over his chest. She shoots him two thumbs-up.
Sheila’s eyes are darting back and forth between the two of them. It’s been five whole minutes since she was the center of attention. A crease between her brows deepens.
Gene isn’t done ratting Maggie out. “Maggie’s had a big day. Someone’s been stealing her things out of her cabin, and today she spooked him in the act.”
Maggie mutters, “Traitor. You said I had until dinner.”
Hank comes off his chair. “How come I’m just now hearing about this?”
Maggie picks up a chicken leg and stabs it in his direction. “This is the first time I’ve seen you since it happened.”
“Gene?”
“Ditto.” Gene doesn’t even look at his partner, but the corner of his mouth is twitching. “Oh, Maggie, I almost forgot.” He digs in his pocket, comes up with a key on a ring with a leather strap, and hands it to her. “Cabin key. So you can lock up.”
Gene is using me to get Hank riled up. Sheila’s face contorts, turning her features unlovely, and suddenly Maggie understands. Gene doesn’t like Hank’s girlfriend. But after their earlier conversation, she doesn’t think Gene’s Team Maggie either.
Hank forces words through gritted teeth. “Did you call the sheriff?”
Gene says, “Maggie promised she’ll call them this afternoon.”
“And I’m going to.” She locks eyes with Hank, the contact giving off sparks like two light sabers in battle. “They didn’t take much.”
“It happened here on the ranch. The Sibley ranch. You and I need to talk about this.”
Maggie leans toward him, her tone and clipped words the equivalent of squaring off and bumping chests. “After I get back.”
“Where are you going?” Laura’s face scrunches.
“Oh my God, Hank told me about your police interview!” Sheila’s voice is exultant and her eyes reptilian. “That you were the last person to see Chet alive before he was murdered. That’s so sad. And he is—was—totally hot. You naughty, naughty girl, spending the night with him.”
“I, um . . .” Hank says, then trails off.
Laura’s eyebrows are in her hairline. “You’re a suspect in a murder investigation?”
Maggie glares at Hank, then Sheila. “Just giving a statement.”
Sheila smiles, then bats her eyes. “Then how come they’re not letting you leave town until Friday? Isn’t that almost like being arrested? House arrest or something?”
Maggie wants to kill Hank for flapping his big mouth. This must be why Gene doesn’t like Sheila. The woman is a passive-aggressive beast. Maggie wants to kick her ass all the way back to the elementary wing of the Sunday school where she teaches kids to ask themselves “What would Jesus do?” Not act like you, mean girl.
“Pie, anyone?” Trudy is balancing two on each forearm. “Chokecherries are in season. I have homemade whipped cream and vanilla ice cream coming up, too.”
Maggie wants to kiss the cook for the timing of her interruption. “Make mine a double.”
“It’s pie, not whiskey, Maggie,” Laura says.
Maggie’s voice is badlands dry. “Who said I was talking about pie?”
Twenty-Three
After taking time to write a quick Craigslist ad for Bess, Maggie feels marginally less homicidal, although the ad gouges a chunk out of her soul. She and Bess have been together for a lot of years, bad, better, and pretty good. Emotional su
rvival, however, comes first. She closes her eyes and clicks to post, then takes a second to breathe.
When she’s recovered, she puts Louise out and hustles to the Tahoe. It’s way too early to leave for Buffalo to give her statement, but she doesn’t want Hank to corner her about the intruder in her cabin. Or for any other reason. She’s still seething about him arm-twisting her to come to lunch with his mother, sister, and girlfriend. Some surprise. He had to have known how bad it would suck for her. Or he should have. Either way, she’s pissed. Not to mention rattled about his lies. The only question is whether he’s lying to Sheila, to her, or to both of them. Killer dimples and eyes like the deep end of the ocean don’t make up for all that.
No, she definitely doesn’t want to be alone with that jackweed Pinocchio.
She jams earbuds in her ears before she’s even exited Piney Bottoms Ranch. She has so many people to call she can’t keep them straight. Sheridan County to report the break-in. Junior with Lee County in Texas. Gary. Michele. And, while she’s at it, her mom and Boyd deserve to hear from her, too. The “who first” decision is made for her when her phone rings.
She braces herself and answers. “Hey, Gary.”
“Maggie, what is this bullshit—” is all she gets before static breaks up the call.
“Gary? Hello, Gary?”
The line spits, crackles, and squeaks.
“If you can hear me, I’m so sorry. I should have gotten back to you sooner. And I hate that you’ve gotten dragged into this business with my shop. I’m coming home soon. I’ll call you. I promise.” She smiles. Dodged a bullet on that one. Thank you, Wyoming and T-Mobile.
Washboard road bumps jostle her phone out of her hand. It lands near her feet. She leans over, trying to keep one eye on the road, but she can’t quite reach it. She slides it toward her hand with her left foot. Still no dice. Steering straight and slow down the middle of the road, she dives down for it. Her fingers knock it further away, toward the door. She stretches, wiggling her fingers.
A horn blares. Maggie shoots upward and jams her brakes at the same time. Her head cracks into the underside of the dash and then the steering wheel. The Tahoe jerks to a stop. She jukes around the wheel and her mouth drops. She’s on the left hand side of the road, nose to nose with an enormous white truck. The first black person Maggie has seen in the state of Wyoming is barreling toward her window. She deserves an ass-chewing. She rolls down the window, ready to woman up.
“Listen, I’m—” she starts to say.
“Lady, are you okay?” The man’s pupils are dilated and nostrils flaring, but his voice is nothing but concerned.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I’m so sorry.”
“I nearly hit you.”
“More like I nearly hit you. Really, I can’t apologize enough.”
His expression changes, and his head tilts slightly. “Hey, I know you.”
“I don’t think we’ve met.”
“You look so familiar. My names Brendan Tucker. Does that ring a bell?”
“Nope. Again, my apologies. But I’m late for an appointment.”
“Yeah, I gotta get to a funeral.” Maggie wonders if it’s Chet’s he’s going to, like Sheila and Hank, but she doesn’t ask. “But you be careful. If you run off the road here, it won’t go well for you.”
For the first time, Maggie notices the steep embankment to her left, the one she’d been careening toward before Brendan honked. Beyond the twenty-foot drop-off is fast-moving Little Piney Creek. “Thank you. I will.” Shaking, she rolls her window up and accidentally gooses the accelerator, spraying gravel. The man is going to think she’s crazy. Or on drugs. She’s been both before, but right now she’s only dazed. Completely sober, and she nearly kills herself, after all the years she survived drunk and strung out. It’s funny, but she doesn’t laugh.
She gives herself until she reaches paved road to pull herself together before she makes her next call. Deputy Junior. She presses his number in her Recents. As his number is ringing, she passes a series of houses with small acreages on the creek. The houses are well kept, if modular and bland, with four times their value in motorized vehicles out front. RVs, ATVs, snowmobiles, tractors, and trucks, with at least one at each place that looks like it hasn’t run in her lifetime. In the last front yard before the turn onto the highway, five trucks are arranged in order of their apparent death. Over-the-hill, vintage, antique, ancient, and decomposing.
Her call to Junior ends up in voicemail. “I had a break-in up here in Wyoming. Some of my things were stolen. I thought you should know. Call me.”
Maggie defies death merging onto the seventy-five-mile-per-hour interstate in between a truck hauling a trailer full of black cattle and an eighteen-wheeler weaving in the wind. She white-knuckles the steering wheel through a gust of wind. Four calls to go. Boyd, Mom, Sheridan County, and Michele. She sets the Tahoe’s cruise control to one mile per hour over the speed limit. A ticket outside Casper on the trip north taught her not to target nine miles over in Wyoming like she does in Texas.
When the controller catches, she rolls her shoulders and neck. “Ah.”
Cruise control is a luxury Bess doesn’t offer, one in a long list. Seat heaters. Defrost. Automatic transmission. A back seat. Maybe trading up to a newer vehicle wouldn’t be all bad. She looks around the front seat and dash of the Tahoe. Compared to Bess, it’s completely devoid of personality. Bess has style. Attitude. A one-of-a-kind paint job. When Maggie crawled out of her second rehab stint with only the decrepit shop to her name, she found Bess under a mountain of trash in the barn. It was love at first sight. The first bright spot in a long dark spell. She nursed the truck back to health while she healed. Bess and the new Maggie are synonymous. Vibrant, unapologetic throwbacks, two star-shaped pegs in a world of round holes. Contemplating parting with her—well, it shows how close Maggie is to the end of her rope.
Maggie’s eyes burn. The feeling is more than guilt, loss, or sadness. She’s scared of the person she was before Bess and Flown the Coop. Back when she’d lost Hank and was circling the drain. Now here she is again, and one of her safety nets is up for sale and the other violated and vandalized. But let the chips fall where they may, she has to get back to Texas and save herself, with or without Bess.
She’d just prefer they make the trip together.
Heaving a sigh, she returns her mind to her list and tackles it in order of difficulty, Mom first.
Her mother answers on the first ring. “Maggie, honey.”
“Hey, Mom.”
“Are you home?”
“No, just calling to give you an update.”
“And?”
“I’ll be home by Sunday or Monday.”
“You’re going to just miss the Lindenhauers’ big estate sale.” Her mother delights in monitoring local papers for deaths and property liquidations in the area. Maggie has a news clipping service that does the same thing online, but some of her best junk has come from Charlotte’s finds.
“Do you want to shop it for me?” Maggie developed her eye at Charlotte’s knee.
“Oh, honey, I wish I could.” Charlotte doesn’t elaborate.
Maggie puzzles this over. The mom she knows would jump at the chance. But she’s not up for twenty questions. “Listen, I don’t want to alarm you, but I have some bad news.”
Charlotte’s voice goes up an octave. “Are you hurt?”
“No, nothing like that. There was a break-in and some damage at Flown the Coop. Probably some drunk teenagers. I just wanted you to hear about it from me.”
“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry. And right before the fall antique show.”
“No worries. A minor speed bump.”
“Does this have anything to do with that new antique store that’s opening near you? The owner is bragging about how he’s going to put you out of business. I try to ignore that kind of gossip, but he burns me up.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Hmm. He’s been
telling people he tried to buy your place but you turned him down.”
Maggie remembers an offer from months before. She hadn’t taken it seriously. A man with far too high an opinion of himself had walked in and demanded to know how much she wanted for the Coop. His visit was like an earthquake, his vibe and mannerisms so at odds with the store that she’d had a vision of it falling down around their ears. She’d sent him packing. She dredges up his name. “Rickey Sayles?”
“That might be him.”
“So he bought a place. Good luck to him, then.” He’ll need it, because she’s going to make him eat his words about putting her under.
The low-gas indicator lights up on the dash. Damn Hank. She’d been rushing to avoid him. They stock bulk fuel for the equipment at the ranch, and she could have filled up there.
“Have you talked to Michele?”
“Not today. Why?”
“No reason. Can we plan on dinner Monday night? Remember, I need to talk to you.”
“Monday night.”
“Yes.”
Maggie almost argues in favor of a phone call. She stops herself. Don’t be a shitheel. “Monday it is. Bye, Mom.” She ends the call.
A sign announces Buffalo. She veers onto the first exit and stops at the Maverik. While gas is pumping, she takes the easy way out with Boyd. A text.
Sending up smoke signals from WY. Having a run of bad luck. Haven’t seen any Crow. Home in a week.
Maggie feels moderately virtuous and completely drained. Both living parents dealt with. She assumes the nonliving ones are keeping an eye on her whenever the fancy strikes, but she whispers a hello to them both anyway.
“Maggie, isn’t it?” a male voice—it’s always a male voice here—asks.
She puts her hand on the gas nozzle and pretends not to hear the guy.
“Excuse me, miss?”
He didn’t call her ma’am. She can reward that. “Yes?” She turns to him. It’s the Occidental bartender. Patchy face.
“Were you at the Ox last week?”
Live Wire (Maggie #1) Page 16