One Texas Night

by Sylvie Kurtz

  "She saw something. It was right there. I thought maybe I could help her put an end to this nightmare."

  "Yeah, well, you've chased it right back into her subconscious. Good going, Grady!"

  The front door slammed. Both of them turned to look in that direction.

  Grady scraped a hand through his hair and kneaded the base of his neck. Des was right. He'd really messed up this time. "That sure would put a crack in Amery's reputation if the world knew he abused his wife."

  "He wouldn't be the first man to lead a double life."

  "You're probably right on that count. Can I borrow the sketch she made? I want to compare it to the ones I found in her house."

  "Sure." Desiree picked up the sketchpad and slapped it into his hands. "Better go after her. This has been a traumatic experience. Keep an eye on her. Make sure she doesn't drift off."

  Grady frowned, worried. "If she does?"

  She looked at him over her shoulder. "Bring her back."

  "How?"

  "Any way you can."

  Soon after, the front door snicked closed and Desiree's car started in a rough sputter.

  He leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. The cicadas' hiss jeered at him. The sun grilled the exposed skin at the back of his neck. He could see Seth, Brasswell, and Angela all shaking their heads at him. He'd failed. He'd alienated his witness and hadn't gotten the information he needed. As bad as that was, he also knew he'd broken the tentative trust forged between him and Melinda the evening before. She wouldn't go through hypnosis again. Not for him. Maybe not even for herself.

  She'd go through with the interview, though. He'd seen the determination beneath the soul sadness of her eyes. He couldn't stop her, and she wouldn't let him keep her safe.

  He punched the top of the wall and swore.

  Maybe the town council was right. Maybe he wasn't ready to fill Seth's shoes.

  Chapter 11

  Melinda stomped through The Essential Gardener's parking lot. She kicked at the door when her key hesitated in the lock. After finally getting the stubborn thing opened, she wrenched the door locked again. As she made her way to her cubicle, she allowed the low growl of pent-up frustration to escape.

  Blurred shadows, bits and pieces of memories that refused to collate themselves into a concrete whole fluttered on the edge of her consciousness like hummingbird wings. She needed work, mindless busywork, to let them think they were safely hidden in her mind. Then, when they least expected, she'd turn around and face them head-on; face the truth and find a way to deal with it—on her own, without leaning on her father, Dolores … or Grady.

  She'd always felt different, and now the returning memories of a forgotten portion of her childhood made her feel even more like a freak. Emotionally vulnerable and seeking reassurance, she'd almost succumbed to Grady's silent invitation to let herself be soothed by his strength and solidity. When she'd turned to him, she'd almost leaned into him, almost let him take over, almost let him take care of her. Hiding in his self-assurance would have been so easy. But when she'd seen the warm, yet insistent look in his eyes, she'd known she couldn't.

  She needed to know she could rely on her own inner fiber to sort through this mess, or she'd always wonder if it was the man, or the strength that was so much a part of him, that she was falling in love with.

  Collapsing into her chair, she groaned. How could she possibly be falling in love with someone like Grady Sloan? What had he done for her, except make her life miserable?

  Her gaze sought the watercolor of the rose arch still pinned to her cubicle wall. She fingered the couple kissing beneath the cascade of morning glories.

  He could be gruff, determined. He was self-assured, strong. But he could also be gentle. And it was when he was gentle, when he whispered softly into her ear, that the essence of him infiltrated her, wound itself deep inside her, reaching her soul. He could touch her in a way no one else ever had. And the frank desire she'd seen in his blue eyes made her feel very much like a woman.

  But the thought of caring for him so much, of wanting him in a way that came close to a need, frightened her.

  A loud, determined knock on the glass door startled her. When she looked up over the partition, she wasn't surprised to see Grady standing there.

  "Go away," she said, not daring to get too close to the door, as if he could reach through the glass, if he wanted, and bend her will to his. "I need to be alone for a while."

  "We need to talk."

  "Later."

  She turned away, but his authoritative bark stopped her. "Now. Open the door Melinda!"

  She shook her head. "I'll call you."

  "Open the damned door!"

  With a resigned sigh, she reached into her pocket for the key and cranked the lock open. Easier to deal with things as they came up rather than let them build in importance by putting them off. If nothing else, she was learning that lesson clearly. If she talked to Grady now, he'd go away and leave her alone. For a while, anyway.

  "What's going on down there?" Dolores's voice carried to them from the top of the stairs.

  "It's nothing, Dolores," Melinda said, looking over her shoulder. She hadn't realized anyone else was here. Grady pushed his way in while she was distracted.

  "All that racket doesn't sound like nothing to me." The metal stairs rattled beneath Dolores's feet.

  Melinda grabbed Grady's shirtsleeve and tried to usher him back out the door, but he proved as immovable as the bronze statue she'd once wished he were. "I have everything under control."

  "I don't want you to do the interview," he growled into her ear. "It's too dangerous."

  She opened the door wider, and whispered back, "I'll keep your opinion in mind."

  "And do whatever the hell you want anyway."

  She shrugged. "I need time alone, Grady. To think."

  And time, she knew, was the one commodity Grady had little of when it came to this investigation.

  He scraped a hand through his hair. His jaw tightened. He blew out a huff of frustration, then relented. "I'll be back to pick you up after my shift's over."

  "That's not necessary."

  "Maybe so, but if you're going to insist on setting yourself up as bait, I want to make sure you come out of it alive. Don't leave the building."

  She jutted her chin up. Her fingers tightened around the door handle. "I have a business to run."

  "Run it from your desk today." She could tell the action cost him, but he softened his voice. "Okay?"

  If he could give an inch, so could she. "It was my plan all along."

  "Is there anything wrong, Lieutenant?" Dolores asked as she came to stand next to Melinda.

  "Everything's fine. Are you planning on being here for a while?"

  "Until I can put that darned hydroponic system together." Hands in constant motion, Dolores waved in the direction of the stairs. "Why?"

  "I don't want her left alone."

  "I—" Melinda started.

  "She'll be fine," Dolores said, wrapping an arm around Melinda's waist. "I'll look after her."

  Melinda leaned her head back and shook it in short, sharp strokes. "I wish both of you would stop treating me like a naughty four-year-old."

  "I'm beginning to think a four-year-old would be easier to handle," Grady said. "At least I could send her to her room." With that, he left, rattling the door behind him.

  "What was that all about?" Dolores asked.

  "A simple misunderstanding about my ability to take care of myself. So, which system are you putting together?"

  "Come up and I'll show you."

  The second floor was laid out in two sections. One held a large conference table that was presently littered with competitors' catalogs and information packets sent by suppliers for their spring tool and seed catalog. On the other half lay dozens of projects in various stages of assembly and testing. In the middle of it all stood a huge cardboard box marked Deluxe Pumping Hydroponic System with Stand.

&nb
sp; "You didn't carry this up all by yourself, did you?" Melinda asked, giving Dolores's small frame a disbelieving look.

  Dressed in jeans, sneakers and a sleeveless turquoise shirt, Dolores struggled with the large box. Small muscles bulging, she manhandled the box into the position she wanted and ripped open one end. "No, I had a couple of the warehouse boys carry it up yesterday."

  "Want some help with that?"

  "No, according to that worthless engineer you hired, someone dumber than a box of rocks could set this up on his own in less than an hour. With the instructions written in 'geek,' though, I'm expecting you'll have a lot of rewriting to do. So, why is the lieutenant worried about your ability to take care of yourself?"

  Leaning against the doorway, Melinda shrugged. "It's a long story."

  "I've got the time." Dolores laid out the various pieces of the wooden frame.

  "Do you remember two years ago when you came to pick me up at the police station?" During a September storm when thunder and lightning had battered the house, she'd heard her father arguing with someone. She'd ended up wandering the streets of his neighborhood until the police picked her up. She couldn't remember much of anything, except waking up scared to death in that Fort Worth jail cell.

  "I knew something was wrong when you didn't show up to sign the partnership papers. I had to find you. And your father—" She shrugged and squinted at the instructions.

  "What about my father?"

  Dolores turned away and reached for the toolbox near the conference table. "He had a court appearance that morning."

  She didn't need to mention that court dates took precedence over everything else. How many times had her father's absence at important times disappointed Melinda?

  Her mother's death had taken all the warmth out of her world. After her death, a series of nannies had paraded through Melinda's life. Most of them had seemed more interested in her father's money than in taking care of her. None had stayed around long enough to form a lasting attachment. Dolores had proved to be the only constant in her life. She'd been there mother's best friend, and was now hers. How often she'd searched for her father in a crowd, and found Dolores's smiling face beaming at her instead!

  Melinda shook away the sad memories. "The same thing happened the day Angela died. They hadn't brought me to the station for questioning about Angela, like I told you, but because I couldn't remember who I was."

  "Oh, hon, why didn't you tell me?" Dolores looked up from her pretzeled position on the floor.

  "Because you worry too much about me as it is. I wanted everything to go back to normal."

  "And it hasn't, has it?"

  Melinda shook her head. Gazing intently at her twining fingers, she took in a long shaky breath. "What do you know about my mother's death?"

  Dolores looked up from her task and stared at her for a moment. "It was an accident. Lightning struck her greenhouse. There was a fire, and she was caught inside."

  Like dabs of paint thrown against a canvas, the bits and pieces in Melinda's mind flecked with color and feelings. Green, black, red. The look of horror on her mother's face. Her dead eyes. Ancient feelings of helplessness, of knowing, climbed up Melinda's spine like a poisonous vine. She fought the anxiety tightening her chest, making her palms sweat. "I-I don't think it was an accident."

  "What?" The screwdriver Dolores held slipped and gouged into the fingers of the opposite hand. She shook her hand, then stuck the tiny wound into her mouth.

  "I think something else happened," Melinda said, searching the ceiling tiles as if they held an answer. "I remember—"

  "'Remember'?" Dolores grunted, and looked once again at the instructions. "You were eight and asleep—what could you possibly remember?"

  "Do you know anything about my father … hurting my mother?"

  Dolores snorted. "Your father's main goal in life is to hurt people."

  "No, I mean, you know, did he physically abuse her?"

  Dolores sighed and put aside the instructions. "When things were going well for him business-wise, he was good to her. When they weren't, he took it out on her."

  Though Dolores's words confirmed her memories, Melinda found little comfort in the truth. Because if that was real, was the suspicion beginning to form in her mind also true? The possibility dropped a ball of lead into her stomach, "Why didn't she leave him?"

  "She had her reasons."

  "I don't understand," Melinda said.

  "Which is probably best." Dolores resolutely turned her back on Melinda, and hefted the frame into position. She tested the stability, adjusted the wobbly section, then proceeded to tighten all the screws.

  "I need to know Dolores. Please, tell me."

  "Ely was your grandfather's choice of husband for Abigail. She was in love with someone else. When she tried to defy him, your grandfather cut her off. She didn't have any money, no skills. Gardening was a hobby to her, not something she ever thought of exploiting." Dolores shook her head, face downcast. "She had no choice but to bow under his demands. She was going to leave after your grandfather died, but her inheritance went straight to your father. And there was you to consider. She didn't think she could take care of you on her own."

  "Why would my grandfather do that?"

  "Who know why men do anything?" She slapped the wooden tray parts together and reached for the screwdriver once more. "I'm really not sure. In the last few years, your mother got depressed a lot and closed in."

  "I don't remember ever seeing her sad." Melinda had heard her cry, but she'd never seen anything but a large smile on her mother's lips and the shine of happiness in her eyes. "Why didn't you say anything before?"

  "Because I thought your present happiness was more important than a painful past."

  Melinda digested the information, not quite knowing how to react. The feeling, rolling inside her like tides, crashed and ebbed before she could label any of them. "I went through hypnosis this morning."

  Dolores's screwdriver stopped, then seemed to move at double speed. "Why on earth would you do that?"

  "I found a bloody knife buried in one of my plants."

  Eyes wide, Dolores spun to face her. "Oh, Melinda, no …"

  Melinda saw the unasked question, the fear, the worry in Dolores's pale blue eyes. She averted her gaze to the artificial light shining on a bunch of African violets in the corner. "I don't know. Maybe violence is genetic …."

  Saying the horrifying thought out loud actually brought a measure of relief.

  "Of course it isn't." Dolores uncoiled a length of tubing. "There's not a mean bone in your body."

  "That's why I tried the hypnosis. I had to know."

  "Did you … I mean …" She shrugged and twisted the tubing in her hand. "Did you see the … murder?"

  "Not yet, but I know I will."

  Dolores's brown knit in worry. "Does your father know about this hypnosis thing?"

  "He will when he sees tomorrow's paper."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I'm going to let Gail Goldwin from the paper interview me."

  Dolores cleared her throat. "Are you sure that's wise?"

  "No, but I have to do it."

  Giving in, letting someone else take charge, would be so easy. She now knew she shared her mother's weakness of spirit, but she wouldn't make the same mistake her mother had. Not with Grady. Though she wanted him, she didn't want a skewed relationship like the one her mother and her father shared. She wanted to be able to come to him as an equal, solid on her own two feet. She cared about him too much to settle for less.

  "Melinda …"

  She lifted her gaze to the older woman standing beside the frame holding a heavy wooden tray in her hands. "Don't think ill of your mother. She had her reasons. Do you understand?"

  She didn't, but she nodded anyway. The truth would come out soon, and this time, she would face it squarely. Time to stop hiding. Time to act.

  "I have to make a call."

  The sound of the tray falling into
place on the stand sounded like a gunshot in the cavernous room. "And I still have to finish wrestling this system into place."

  * * *

  "Grady, a moment of your time, please." Betty Brasswell commanded as she charged into his office. She slapped a copy of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram on his desk, scattering papers in its wake. "I want an explanation about this. Why wasn't I informed that Miss Amery had recovered her memory?"

  "Because she hasn't," he said, leaning his chair back and crossing his arms beneath his chest. "She's taken it upon herself to set herself up as bait."

  "And you let her?" Her eyebrows arched in surprise, then crimped in a frown. "What were you thinking of? Do you know how much trouble I've gone through to make sure Ely Amery wouldn't cause our town any grief?"

  "Yes, ma'am, I'm well aware of it."

  She leaned forward, poking one stubby finger at the top of his desk. "Then why didn't you stop her before she committed this grievous act?"

  "Mayor Brass—"

  "Now I'm going to have to call for extra help." She swiveled away, pacing the small confines of his office.

  "What? You think Wayne can do a better job than me?" Grady asked, sarcasm oozing.

  "That's exactly my thought, but I wasn't thinking of Wayne. He's busy with the rash of car thefts we've had lately. The State Police have more resources than we do—"

  "They don't know the people of this town like we do." Grady's chair slammed back to the floor.

  "That doesn't seem to have gained you any advantage so far."

  "I'm—"

  She leaned across his desk one more time, both hands flat against the top, glaring at him straight and square. "I know you like to buck the system, but sometimes, to get what you need, it's best to play the game. I want this settled before the Fall Festival starts—whatever it takes. Am I making myself clear?"

  "Crystal."

  "If I see no new development in the next few days, I'll call in reinforcements."

  She turned on her heel to leave, then paused. "One more thing. I've heard rumors that the relationship between you and Miss Amery has crossed the lines of propriety."

  "It's business, not social," he said, knowing how blurred the lines had become.