Saddles & Sabotage

by Nellie K Neves

  As she explained her relationship to Tumbleweed Tim, I watched the rest of the room with a critical eye. Dayton’s breath rushed from his chest in an aggravated groan. Words began and stopped as he struggled for a response. Ryder’s mouth fell open at the news as he stared at his mother in disbelief for the lies he’d been fed for years. Tate, however, watched the room with a puffed chest and a smug smile, as if he couldn’t have planned her confession better himself.

  I didn’t let him revel in the feeling long. As Isabelle wrapped up her explanation, I said to the detective, “You see now that it becomes complicated. Tim is no longer a crazy guy who stores deer blood, but rather a jealous older brother who was swindled out of his inheritance.” Before Tate could agree I added, “Granted, it’s easy enough to look at it from the other side. Perhaps Tate has done all of this to be rid of the older brother he never wanted.”

  “Lindy!” Ryder’s tone told me I’d crossed a line.

  The rage in Tate’s eyes burned into me, but Dayton agreed. “Tate, we may need to have you in for questioning as well.” The detective looked back at me. “Is there anything else, Miss Johnson?”

  I’d debated telling them about the theft, mostly because it was circumstantial, but with his increased resources, I was sure Dayton would have better luck than I did with my dial up connection.

  “There was a robbery at a medical office in Pocatello shortly after the murders began. Not much was taken, IV equipment, a box of empty blood bags, and some blood typing kits. I have no way of knowing whether it’s related, but it was too close to ignore.”

  The detective chewed on the information before he said. “Obviously it’s for the blood he’s collected, but what’s he doing with it?”

  Isabelle’s voice answered, small, but confident. “He’s doing transfusions.” Her glare fell on Tate as if she wanted to say more, but held back.

  I cocked an eye brow with my cynic nature. “And how do you know that with such a surety?”

  She matched my defiance with her own. “Because of Charles, I’ve seen more than most doctor’s wives.”

  Ryder agreed with his mother. “She’s right, depending on what those IV lines are used for, it’s everything you need to perform a successful transfusion, among other things.”

  “But why? Why a transfusion?” Dayton asked.

  “People get sick and need blood. Maybe he’s using it to keep healthy,” Tate offered. The statement only made him look guilty. “It’s not me,” he said before anyone else could accuse him.

  “Can you get a police report on the crime?” I asked Dayton.

  “I have a buddy up there. I’ll see what I can do. Is that all you’ve got?”

  “For now,” I agreed.

  “Then Belle and I need to have a talk. We can check in again later.”

  We watched them go and the air thickened. Tate looked to me and asked, “Do you want me to walk you back?” I could sense his reluctance; after all I’d accused him of murder.

  I shook my head and said the words that scared me most. “I need to talk to Ryder, alone.”

  Tate glanced back at his nephew with an apologetic expression. Then he kept his eyes on the floor as he exited and a minute later the front door closed. I didn’t know what I wanted to say, and starting felt like a hurdle I couldn’t climb.

  “What’s going on with you, Ryder?”

  He turned away from me and faced the window. With his hand against the frame, I was amazed to see the similarities between him and his mother. The cold stare into the dark night, the brooding frustrated aura, and the silence, oh how they could both stretch a silence.

  “Well?” I prodded again.

  Ryder hesitated as he watched the night. Maybe he knew a copout answer like, “nothing” would never stand with me, or maybe honesty felt like rapids he’d never survive.

  “You didn’t tell me about a lot of that.” His chin pulled in. “The waterfall, the rainstorm, the shower. Lindy, why did you keep all that from me?”

  My shoulders slumped under his accusatory tone. “I tried to tell you when I called, but you got all over my case for breaking protocol.”

  He moved back toward me from the window. “I was upset.”

  “But why?”

  His lips clamped shut, perhaps to hold back the words he couldn’t say. We faced each other in a silent stalemate, equally matched in our stubborn resolve.

  “I shouldn’t have,” Ryder said in a softer tone. “I’ve been struggling since you left.”

  Our friendship had been damaged, but it meant too much to me to let it go. I took a step forward and asked, “What’s been going on?”

  His lips tightened and then released, and then tightened again. “I’ve been looking through my father’s files. It’s disturbing.” He sank onto the arm of his mother’s chair. “She wasn’t kidding; my mother saw procedures done at the house. Charles ran experiments a couple doors down from his office. The society brought in vagrants and paid him to run tests with different medications and treatments. I found the secret room. There are records from tests he ran on me as a kid, even though I don’t remember any of it.” Ryder rubbed his face with his palm... “It’s messed up. The society was tangled up with his regular work. I can’t find where the honest money ends and the blood money begins.”

  I kept my voice soft and tucked my hands into my back pockets. “That must be hard. I know how much it has meant to you to paint without having to take on a dozen side jobs.” A teasing smile crept into the side of my mouth. “I’m sure Vanessa appreciates that you don’t work at the fish market.” He didn’t react and another thought occurred to me. “It must be difficult keeping all these secrets from her.”

  Lines appeared between his thick eyebrows. “She knows everything. I’ve been upfront with her.”

  “Oh.” I should’ve guessed as much, I thought maybe he’d kept some of it hidden. “What does she think?”

  His chest deflated. “She doesn’t see the problem with keeping the money. Spending it helps people and that makes up for how it was earned in the first place.”

  I sensed his doubt before he voiced it. “But?”

  “But, I worry that she likes having a rich boyfriend. The gifts, the travel, my ability to invest in her career. I worry she only cares about me for the money.” I sank into his dark brown eyes as I looked at him. “It’s not something I ever had to worry about with you.”

  The words left me unsettled and I broke his stare to escape. “You’ll figure it out, Ryder. You’re smart and you make good decisions.”

  “Do I?” It was quick and though I couldn’t see his face with my back turned, I felt the regret.

  “Don’t do this,” I begged.

  I heard the chair creak as he stood again. “Do what?”

  I couldn’t look at him. “You know what.”

  He paused, but only once our separation was reduced to three feet. “You asked a lot of questions, Lindy. I think it’s my turn.”

  I didn’t make a move to stop him, but I faced the fire in defiance.

  “Why him?” Ryder didn’t see the twitch of confusion that crossed my face, but somehow he felt it. “Why’d you pick him? Why does he get what I never could have with you?”

  My face burned from the intensity of the flame. I moved away from the fire, but Ryder caught my arm. “He’s not better looking than I am. It sounds conceited, but it’s true. What does he have that I didn’t? Give me an answer, Huckleberry, I think I deserve that.”

  The nickname cut at me and I jerked away in response. “You don’t get to call me that, not while she’s waiting upstairs for you. It’s not fair to keep pulling me back to be your lady in waiting. Dallas is here, and he’s good to me. It’s not serious, not like you two.”

  “I don’t know where I’m at with Vanessa,” he snapped as his volume rose, “but when I saw you with him tonight, it hurt, because I never got that from you, not ever.”

  “Got what?” I snapped.

  “That look y
ou gave him. I tried to pull it out of you, but I never got close.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Ryder.” I swore if he said love was the look, I’d slap him clean across his face.

  “Happiness. He’s managed to find this carefree attitude inside of you, and it’s not your cover. I want to know. Why him? Why did he find that and I couldn’t?”

  “It’s timing, Ryder, don’t you get it? Even with the death threats, I’ve never felt healthier. I forget injections because I forget that I’m sick. Without that weight on me I feel normal. For the first time in I don’t know how long, I’m happy.”

  “You shouldn’t forget your medication, no matter how good you feel. Relapse can happen even when you feel—”

  The shriek ripped from my lungs and cut him short. “That, Ryder. That’s why you didn’t get this side of me, because you couldn’t forget my disease. Look at me! I am a thousand times better than the last time you saw me, and I have to think that some of it is because of Dallas. He doesn’t know that I’m sick, and I don’t intend to tell him. He adores me—”

  “He adores Cassidy,” Ryder corrected me with an all too familiar edge. “What happens when the case is over and you go back to your life as Lindy? What then?”

  I wanted to pull my hair out. “It doesn’t matter! None of this is long term. He’s not looking for picket fence and three point five kids. He wants me for the time he can have me, and it works.”

  His mouth pinched shut and I couldn’t stand it.

  “No Ryder, if you have something to say, say it. I get this tight-lipped suppression from your mother all week and I can’t take another minute of it!” I grabbed a tin of lemon drops from the desk and lobbed it to him. “Maybe those will loosen your tongue.”

  He caught it and pulled the lid free. As quickly as he opened it, he slammed it shut and cracked it against the side table. The dam broke as his secret thoughts spilled out in rapid succession.

  “Fine, you want to know what I think, Huckleberry? I think this is another version of you running away. You’re sinking into Cassidy’s life because it’s easier than yours. He’s bad for you, I can see it. Pick someone, but not him.”

  “Did you drag me back here so you could yell at me?”

  Anger flashed in his eyes. “No, I brought you back here so I could yell at you with your real name!”

  “Why him?” I repeated his question back to him. “This is why, Ryder, this is exactly why.”

  Tears burned behind my eyes, then welled up and spilled over. I was unable to stay with him another second. I heard him call my name as I ran from the house, but I wouldn’t stop. He followed me off the porch, but I was faster. The party raged in the distance, fire flickering through the trees, but I wasn’t sure if that was where I wanted to go. I looked back once, to see if Ryder was still trailing me.

  “Lindy! Watch out!”

  But his words found me too late.

  My body collided against something hard and immoveable. I skidded back against the gravel. Working my gaze from the bottom, I saw boots, ripped jeans, a flannel button up, then the battered, burned face of Tumbleweed Tim. My scream pierced the distant sounds of the party, shrill and terrified until my throat burned. He represented my worst nightmares, the night Jackie was stolen, the night I’d fought off St. Anthony, and the night that Tumbleweed himself had tried to drown me in the river. His hands reached forward as I scrambled backward, blood stained the skin. I thought I heard Ryder yell again, but I couldn’t focus above my own terror.

  Another scream broke the night, but it wasn’t mine. In the moment of distraction, Tumbleweed Tim dashed into the forest. I stayed on the ground, still too paralyzed to move. A third scream set my heart on fire and I struggled to get my feet under me. I found traction just as Ryder arrived at my side.

  “Did you hear that?” he asked breathlessly.

  A fourth inhuman scream spurred me to a sprint for the tack barn. I stumbled once, but Ryder caught my arm and righted me easily before I hit the ground. The dark, uneven earth shifted and veered in my vision as my balance went off center. Light cropped up in the distance, then people, and then the clamor of confused voices. Without any concern for manners or social protocol, I shoved through the crowd and burst out the other side.

  In the dim light, I saw the pale, limp body of a young man. He was dressed in cargo pants; a fisherman’s jacket hung haphazardly from his shoulders. Crimson stained his clothes, but from the pale, vacant expression he wore, I knew he’d been drained of his blood. I’d lost another victim. I’d been too busy dealing with relationships to keep watch. Had he been one of the guests who I’d seen wander off into the night?

  Detective Dayton broke through the huddled mass of gawkers next. A few choice words escaped his lips. He felt the same guilt that I did. His personal life had cost someone else theirs.

  “Let me through. Move out of my way, I have to—” I heard Dallas’ agitated objections long before he ever pushed into the inner circle. His mouth dropped open in relief when he saw me. “Cass, you’re okay.” He captured me in his arms and buried his face into my blonde hair. “I thought I heard you scream. I thought he— are you okay?” He pulled back and pressed his palms over my hair at the temples. “Did he hurt you?”

  I let myself fall forward into his comfort. His hands clutched me tight and wrapped up into my hair.

  “I’m okay,” I told him. “I’ll be okay.”

  I was faintly aware of Ryder’s movement away from the scene. Like a whisper in the wind, I thought I heard his words, “Why not me, Lindy?”

  Chapter 23

  Police swarmed the scene within the hour. Busses arrived to transport guests back into town. Red and blue lights spun across the walls within my cabin until two am. I wanted to join the investigation, have a closer inspection of the body, but my cover couldn’t afford the discrepancy. As it was, I had to hide my curiosity behind disgust and fear. Granted, the longer I played at Cassidy, the more I loathed the blood and gore of my work. Girls like Cassidy couldn’t look at crime scene photos without feeling sick.

  The next day people only spoke about the death in hushed tones, and only if they felt that they wouldn’t be heard. I kept to myself, though I did let Dallas slip an arm around my waist at dinner. Rides were cancelled pending the investigation and the staff morale fell into the tank. I hoped that Detective Dayton would pass along some sort of information before I left for Kip’s wedding, but as I kissed Dallas goodbye the next morning, I still knew nothing.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  I pulled into Blackfoot an hour after lunch. Dana’s house was on the outskirts of town, set on a huge plot of dairy land. My gutless sedan bounced over potholes and ruts in the driveway until I came to rest beside Kip’s hybrid. I was no sooner out of the car than I heard my name.

  “Lindy!”

  As Kip called to me, it didn’t feel natural. It wasn’t my name anymore.

  I opened my arms and he crushed me in an enormous hug. My feet lifted from the ground as he held me tight. His words were muffled against my hair. “It’s so good to see you.”

  Everything about him was familiar, like a favorite song you never forget. I bit back the tears and returned his embrace with my own strength. “I have missed you old friend.”

  Kip pulled away first and I wiped at my eyes while he was busy peering in the windows of my car. “You didn’t bring anyone?”

  My mouth dropped open. “You didn’t give me a plus one. I didn’t want to bring an uninvited guest.”

  The grin that played on his face was nothing less than mischievous. “Good, because I have your plus one covered.”

  We had so few friends in common; I wasn’t sure who he’d mean. It wasn’t until I heard her voice that I knew exactly who he’d brought for me, and my heart soared.

  “Hey Lindy.”

  Eleanor.

  My little sister, Eleanor.

  There was no fighting the tears, or my feet as I dashed to meet her embrace. We s
pun as we hugged on the green, plush grass. My head became dizzy and I fell to the ground, dragging her with me. She wiped at my tears and said, “Don’t cry, big sister.”

  Her dark hair was longer than I remembered, but her alabaster skin was clear and perfect. She was perfect. All my desperation, all my fear and frustration that had welled up inside of me since the night I’d turned right, spilled right out of my eyes. Confusion passed between Kip and Eleanor. It was supposed to be a happy surprise, and yet there I was, completely unraveled.

  “What’s wrong, Lindy?” Eleanor asked.

  “Everything,” I confessed, “everything is a terrible mess.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Kip left us in the guest room with all of my baggage as I tried to catch my younger sister up on my past four months. It was unreal when I thought about everything I’d faced, from the scandal of a secret society, to the uncertainty of the case at the Rockin’ B. She stayed quiet and listened, braiding my hair as she always had when I babbled on. When I reached the part about Jackie, I stopped. I wasn’t sure how much my parents had told her and I didn’t want to be the one who broke the news. Instead, I lied and told her I’d met St. Anthony about another case. She was easily distracted with the drama between Ryder and me and equally enthralled with my news about Dallas. But it surprised me when she sided with Ryder.

  “I think you’re crazy not to drop this whole case and run off with him,” she said after I had related our argument from the night of the bon fire. “He sounds dreamy, and you don’t know this Dallas guy very well.”

  “Sure, I do,” I said. “He’s loyal and sweet, and he takes me as I am.”

  “No,” she dragged the word out dramatically, “he takes you as whatever you’ve fed him. Wasn’t it you that taught me to always be myself in a relationship? What’s going on with you? You’ve changed since I last saw you.”

  I twisted my fingers up into my hair and let it slide free. “I don’t think I’m that different, I mean, I’m wearing makeup every day and that’s unusual, and my hair is a new color, but it’s superficial.”