Always Time to Die

by Elizabeth Lowell

  Dan’s mouth took on a sardonic curve. Nothing much had changed. Nothing ever would. The law benefited those in power. Lawlessness benefited those without power. The good and the law-abiding got ground up between law and outlaw. People who tried to change that woke up with bullets in their body.

  If they woke up at all.

  “The Castillos didn’t obey any laws they didn’t have to. That was the way of New Mexico, where no government really got a grip on the rural people,” Winifred said. “Everyone thinks it’s different now. It isn’t.” She handed an envelope to Carly. “You asked for pictures of Sylvia. Here are some school photos, wedding photos, birthday and Christmas, that sort of thing. The last photos, the ones of me in the garden, were from 1964. I came back in to the ranch for good the following year, when Sylvia had her stroke. The Senator was going to put her in an institution, but I told him to forget it. He needed the Sandoval vote to get elected again, and I’d see that he lost it unless Sylvia stayed at the ranch.”

  Dan was glad that he’d learned to have a poker face at an early age. He’d always wondered why the Senator hadn’t walked away from his hopelessly ill wife. Now he knew.

  And now he wondered how deep Winifred’s ties to the Sandovals really were.

  “Could you have done that?” Carly asked.

  “Yes.” Winifred looked straight at Dan. “Castillos and Sandovals have intermarried for three hundred years. Two of my father’s sisters married into the Sandoval family. One Sandoval in Mexico. Another in Colombia. They had no use for Yankee laws. Their sons and daughters and grandchildren feel the same. They remember a time when poppy and peyote, morning glory and cocoa leaf were legal, the medicines of the curanderos. They remember when they walked tall and Anglos were carpetbaggers.”

  “That was a long time ago,” Dan said quietly.

  “Not to those who lost. To them, it’s new and bitter. It always will be until the wrongs of the past are righted.”

  “That will never happen,” Dan said. “The remembered wrongs will always be bigger than anything the present can offer as payment.”

  “I don’t believe that.” Winifred’s voice was thin, harsh.

  Carly looked between the two of them, surprised by the undercurrents. She’d never been in a family where history ran so close and hard beneath the surface of today. It was exciting and…unsettling. She felt like she was walking through a minefield of past emotions that might explode at any instant.

  Winifred let out a long breath and wiped her forehead on the back of her arm. Silver gleamed from the thick cuff bracelet she wore. She looked at the herbs spread across the coffee table and felt much older than her years. She felt ancient.

  He’s wrong.

  I will have my vengeance.

  Winifred picked up the small clay pot that was surrounded by herbs and went to Sylvia’s bedside.

  Silence grew until Carly was sure everyone could hear her breathe. She cleared her throat and tried to find a neutral topic. Her glance fell on the packages of herbs.

  “Is that what your mother was growing in her greenhouse?” Carly asked Dan. “Herbs and such?”

  “Herbs, pepper and tomato seedlings, garlic and onion starts, even some rare kinds of beans,” he said. And some other things best left unmentioned. “At seven thousand feet, the growing season is short. Mom gives her garden a head start.”

  Carly opened her mouth to ask another question.

  “Do you need anything else?” Dan asked Winifred quickly. “Mom will be happy to send whatever you want.”

  “All I need is luck and time.” Then, to Carly, “Spit it out, girl. I don’t have all night.”

  “I just wondered who taught Mrs. Duran about herbs and potions.”

  “I did, but she has her great-great-grandmother’s uncanny way with plants.”

  “Is Mrs. Duran related to you?” Carly asked, startled. “She wasn’t on the list of relatives you gave me.”

  “If your family has been here for more than three generations, everyone’s related, one way or another,” Dan said before Winifred could. “Like any other old village, you have all kinds and degrees of cousins under every bush.”

  Winifred’s mouth thinned. “You wouldn’t believe how close to the bone some of the old families bred.”

  Carly’s eyes gleamed gold. “I’d love to do a DNA study of—”

  “What’s that?” Winifred cut in.

  “You remember the Dillons of Phoenix? You mentioned them when you first called me.”

  Winifred nodded. “I heard about them on Behind the Scenes. When I called you and you sent me the article on the Dillons, I ordered your family history of them, and hired you on the spot. There was something about DNA in the article, and how it helped them to connect up parts of their family they didn’t know about.”

  “Right,” Carly said eagerly. “They were looking for a lost great-grandfather, so they traced the Y-DNA, which is passed down through the male germ cell. Turns out that they were related to Thomas Jefferson through—”

  “I should have figured the test would only be for men,” Winifred cut in. “I’m interested in my family’s women. Men get more than their share of everything just by being men.”

  “That’s true,” Dan said quickly, trying to cut Carly off.

  It didn’t work.

  “If you’re more concerned with female relatives,” Carly said over his words, “you work with mtDNA, which comes down only from the female germ cell. Mothers pass it to daughters, who pass it to their own daughters, and so on. If a woman doesn’t have any daughters, her mtDNA line dies out.”

  Don’t take the bait, Winifred, Dan urged silently. More people are hurt by having too much knowledge than by having too little.

  “Wait.” Winifred frowned and tried to concentrate. The small fever she was running didn’t help. “Are you telling me that you can know who is or isn’t related to a woman by using special DNA tests? Does it work for men, too?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?” Winifred asked, intrigued despite herself.

  “The male’s germ cell can’t carry his mtDNA to the female germ cell, so the only way you get mtDNA—man or woman—is from the maternal line.”

  “Is the test expensive or painful?” Winifred asked.

  “No pain at all,” Carly reassured her. “There are several labs around the country that specialize in just such tests. It’s not cheap, but if genetic certainty is important to you, then it’s worth the cost.”

  For a moment, more than fever brightened Winifred’s dark eyes. “What do you need for the test?”

  “Almost anything will do. A swab from the inside of your cheek, a few drops of blood, the root of a hair. If you like, I’ll order the test packet.”

  “Do that. Order a bunch.”

  “A bunch? Four? Six? More?”

  “Ten. Ten should do it. Get them here quick. I’ll pay for it.”

  Ten? Carly thought. Is she going to test everyone in the household? But all she said was, “They’ll be here by Wednesday.”

  “Send them in my name.”

  “Of course.”

  Winifred nodded curtly and turned her attention to the herbs Dan had brought. “Thank your mother for me.”

  “I will. She asked after Lucia’s two youngest kids. They missed her weekend reading classes.”

  “Alma was complaining that Lucia didn’t come in to work today. Bet the kids are sick.” Winifred sighed. “I’ll check on them first thing in the morning.”

  “I’ll do it on my way home,” Dan said. “You shouldn’t be out in the wind until you’re better.”

  Winifred looked like she was going to object, but didn’t. “I don’t like leaving Sylvia alone. I have a feeling…” Her voice died. She rubbed her gnarled hands together. “Saw a raven flying alone over the cemetery. Not a good sign.” She glanced at Carly. “Go with Dan to the Sandovals. The men haven’t been worth a damn, but the women have lived in the valley since the Rebellion. Maybe they’ll be
able to answer some of your local history questions.”

  “They might not want company right now,” Dan said quickly.

  “Why?”

  “Armando just got busted for cockfighting.”

  Winifred said something in the old Spanish that Carly had been struggling with in the archives. Then Winifred sighed and went to a cupboard across the room. She opened a drawer and came back to Dan with some limp bills in her hands.

  “Put this where Lucia will find it,” Winifred said. “Those no-good brothers of hers never leave any cash in the house.”

  QUINTRELL RANCH

  MONDAY NIGHT

  13

  THE KITCHEN DOOR SHUT BEHIND CARLY, LEAVING HER LITERALLY OUT IN THE COLD. She shivered and clutched her computer closer as the night air bit through her thin clothes. Stars glittered thickly overhead.

  “Is Lucia a Sandoval by birth or marriage?” Carly asked.

  “Both. Third cousins, I think.” He saw another shiver take Carly. Now that the storm had passed, it was much colder. “This is stupid,” he said. “You don’t have to come along with me. Winifred won’t know. She just wanted a way to get rid of you without admitting how worn out she is.”

  “And you’ll take any excuse handy to do the same,” Carly said. “You lose. I’m coming. A family that’s been living side by side with the Quintrells and Castillos for the last few hundred years, and marrying back and forth, is just what I need. Despite Winifred’s bias, men and their personal histories are necessary to a family narration.”

  “Don’t tell her that.”

  “Do I look stupid?” Then Carly thought of her wild curls and bare feet shoved into tennis shoes while she froze solid in the icy wind. “Never mind. I’m not. Besides, every time I bring up the necessity of men, she changes the subject.”

  Her teeth chattered.

  “You wore sensible clothes to the funeral,” Dan said impatiently. “Where are they?”

  “In my room, and how do you know what I wore to the funeral?”

  “Are you staying in the old house?”

  “Y-yes.”

  He took her arm in a grip that was more impatient than polite. “Hurry up. You’re freezing.”

  She didn’t argue or try to pull away. The difference between the hothouse temperature of Sylvia’s room and the frigid night was making Carly light-headed.

  When they came to the big double doors of the old house, she took out the skeleton key. Her hand was shaking so much that Dan grabbed the key, stuck it in, and said, “It’s unlocked.”

  “I locked it.”

  He didn’t argue. He just shoved the key back into her hand, opened the door, and pushed her through to warmth. Without pausing he closed the door and automatically gave it just enough push so that the ancient lock mechanism settled into place.

  “Do you live here?” Carly asked.

  “No.”

  “Then how did you know the door is sticky?”

  “Lucky guess.”

  Carly didn’t believe it and was certain he wasn’t going to talk about it. “You know,” she said reasonably, “the more you don’t answer questions, the more curious I get.”

  “The more questions I answer, the more you ask.” He started down the hall toward the big guest room.

  “Wrong way,” she said. “I’m across the courtyard to the right.”

  His left eyebrow shot up. He wondered who had assigned Carly to what had once been the lowest housemaid’s quarters.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Nothing.” Dan realized that his breath was visible even in the entry hall. It was warmer than the outside, but hardly comfortable. “Somebody forgot to turn up the heat.”

  “Doesn’t matter to me.” Carly pulled a key out of her back pocket and unlocked the door leading to the courtyard. “My room never was modernized.”

  “Meaning?”

  “No connection to central heating. I use the corner fireplace to warm up.” She turned the handle and leaned in. The door didn’t open.

  “Why did you lock it?” Dan asked.

  “I didn’t. I unlocked it.” She frowned and turned the key the opposite way. The door opened. “At least I thought I did.”

  Dan looked at the deserted courtyard. Several sets of tracks crisscrossed the snow. Fresh tracks. He stopped being irritated at himself for being attracted to Carly and started thinking. Fast.

  “Did you come back here after it stopped snowing?” he asked.

  “If I had, I’d be wearing my coat. I just sprinted over there in light clothes so I wouldn’t suffocate once I got there. It was snowing then, and about twenty degrees warmer. Why?”

  Training that Dan had tried to leave behind clicked into focus. Adrenaline hummed, tuning his body for fight or flight. “Did someone come to clean your room while you were with Winifred?”

  “I doubt it. Once I pried clean sheets and towels out of Alma, she vanished.”

  “You expecting company? A boyfriend?”

  Carly put her hands on her hips. “You’re real good at questions yourself.”

  “Be good at answers,” he said, focusing on her.

  The bleak intensity of his eyes chilled her as much as the night. “I’m not expecting company of any kind or maid service or Santa and his hustling elves. Does that cover it?”

  “Wait here for me.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Your room.”

  “Then you’ll need me. I know I locked my door.”

  Dan started to argue, then stopped. Unlike the people he was used to working with, Carly wasn’t trained for self-defense or strategic offense. She’d probably faint at the sight of a gun.

  He couldn’t leave her alone.

  Damn.

  “Stay two steps behind me,” he said in a low voice. “Don’t talk. If I stop, you stop. If I say run, you run. If I say hit the floor, do it.”

  Her mouth opened, then shut without one word.

  “No questions?” he said. “I’ll savor the moment.”

  Before she could change her mind about questions, he turned and went down the long hallway. It would have been quicker to cross the frozen courtyard, but once outside, the bright moonlight made everything that moved into a target. He’d take the wide, shadowed gallery with its centuries-old Persian rugs, massive dark furniture, and gilt-framed paintings.

  Carly stayed a precise two steps behind, hugging her computer close to her body. She couldn’t believe how quiet Dan was. Her tennis shoes made more noise on the patches of bare tile than his boots did. He moved differently, now. No impatience. No vague limp. Just a kind of poised readiness that made the hair at her nape stir.

  What did he do before he came back home?

  The question was silent. The answer was equally silent, the noiseless stalk of a predator when prey is in sight.

  He stopped.

  She froze.

  He gave a hand signal which meant Don’t move.

  At least she hoped that was what it meant, because she wasn’t going to take one step closer to him while moonlight turned half his face to silver intensity and the other half to black mystery.

  He flattened against the wall, took a quick look around the corner, and signaled for Carly to follow him again. She wondered if it was accident or intent that took his steps to every bit of shadow the hall offered. Then she all but laughed out loud. There was nothing accidental about the man right now. He was pure dark purpose.

  At the next corner Dan repeated the stop, flatten, sneak a peek, and go on. As he moved from shadow to shadow, Carly started to tell him that her room was the next door on the right. Before she made a sound, she remembered how easily he’d closed the sticky outer door of the house. Obviously he was more familiar with the place than she was.

  But he didn’t know that she’d turned off the light in her room.

  She touched his arm. He froze. She pointed to the ragged stripe of light showing around the warped door, then pointed to herself and shook her head.
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  He nodded. With a gentle, immovable grip he eased her down behind the only cover available, next to a thick mahogany buffet that was as old as the house itself. Scarred and scuffed, the buffet held old towels and cleaning rags these days rather than heavy silver and freshly pressed linen.

  Dan turned Carly’s chin up with his fingertip and looked at her, willing her to stay where he put her. She nodded slightly. He brushed his fingertip over her mouth, a warning, a caress, a plea, or all together. She was too shocked by the touch and his poised violence to do more than nod again. He moved away from her with a silent purpose that chilled her.

  It also told her that he, too, had noticed the watery shine of fresh footprints on the tile in front of her doorway.

  After a moment he was standing to the side of her bedroom door. It was ajar just enough that he knew it wasn’t locked. Motionless, he listened for any sound.

  All he heard was his own light breaths and a shifting of weight that told him Carly was getting uncomfortable huddled in the uncertain shelter of old mahogany furniture. His hand grasped the cold wrought-iron metal of the door handle. Since there was no way something that old and massive would give way silently, he made it part of his attack.

  The door slammed back against the wall with enough noise to startle any intruder. Before the echo faded, Dan was inside, diving low and to the right, searching for a human figure even as he hit the floor and rolled.

  He didn’t see anyone. Even so, he waited, listening.

  Silence.

  The flow of adrenaline eased in his blood, letting him notice ordinary things once more—like the bitch-ache in his leg. He stood and went through the room’s few hiding places with ruthless efficiency, finding exactly what he’d expected. Nothing dangerous.

  It was ugly, though.

  Somebody had gutted a rat and put it on Carly’s pillow. The blood was fresh enough to shine. The rat was still warm.

  “Sweet,” he said under his breath. “Really sweet.”