by Janet Dailey
“Good morning, O’Rourke. I must say I didn’t expect to see you in town,” Markham declared while the pump meter spun, ticking off the gallons his vehicle guzzled.
“Needed gas,” Culley replied in clipped explanation, then added slyly, “Did Jessy put ya up t’ stealin’ that paper from Cat’s desk?”
Openmouthed, Markham stared at him for a split second. “Paper?” he echoed with a great show of blankness. “I don’t believe I know what you are talking about.”
“You know,” Culley pronounced. “And I know, too. I saw ya pokin’ around her desk that day.”
“I was merely admiring it,” Monte chided lightly. “It’s a fine example of workmanship, and I have always had an appreciation of old things. I suspect it comes with being British.”
Culley hadn’t expected the man to fess up. At the same time it galled him that Markham would think he was gullible enough to believe such malarkey. It pushed Culley to take a step beyond the truth.
“Was it the desk you were admirin’ or that paper you slipped in your pocket? I may be old, but my eyes are as sharp as they ever was.”
Markham forced out a brief laugh. “My good man, I have no idea what you think you saw, but I took nothing from that desk.”
Culley ignored the denial. “I’m curious—did ya give the paper to Jessy or that Laredo fella?”
“Are you referring to Laredo Smith?” Monte frowned in surprise. “The cowboy Jessy hired to work at the feedlot?”
“Yeah. He’s your partner, ain’t he?”
“Wherever did you get that idea? You have the most extraordinary imagination, Mr. O’Rourke,” Markham declared with amusement.
“It jus’ makes sense,” Culley replied, undeterred. “He shows up outa the blue. Jessy hides him away up in that old abandoned line shack in the foothills, then keeps slippin’ off to see him. Then, boom, after years of never allowin’ a cow on the place that don’t wear a Calder brand, you’re fillin’ the feedlot with your cattle. I figger you an’ that Laredo guy got somethin’ on Jessy.”
“Obviously I cannot speak for Mr. Smith, but you are wrong about my involvement. It was a straightforward business arrangement I made with Jessy concerning the feedlot. There was absolutely no one else involved in it.”
“So you say.” Culley retained his skepticism. “You make all the deals ya want, but you keep Cat outa it. You mess with her an’ you’ll mess with me.”
“I have no desire to mess with either of you, as you put it,” Markham assured him, then cocked his head at a curious angle. “But what was that you said earlier about a—what did you call it?—a line shack? I am not familiar with that term. Is it a building?”
“It’s a cabin they built in the old days, on the outskirts of the ranch so’s a cowboy wouldn’t have so far t’ride at day’s end.” The sudden shift to answering questions instead of asking them made Culley uncomfortable. He edged closer to his truck.
“And this one is located in the foothills, you say. Sounds like an ideal location for a hunting lodge. Where is it, exactly?” Immediately Monte smiled and held up a detaining hand. “It would be pointless to tell me. The sort of directions people give here, I have found impossible to follow. Perhaps you could show me where it is. Not today, though. I have several appointments. Perhaps tomorrow morning we could meet. Say, around nine o’clock?”
“Have Jessy take ya.” Culley turned toward his pickup.
“I would much rather that you took me. I can make it worth your while.”
Culley hesitated. But curiosity got the better of him and he turned back to listen.
Chapter Sixteen
Astiff breeze swirled around the Boar’s Nest, searching for an opening. A raised window provided an entrance, and it swept in, riffling through the notepad on the table in front of Chase. Hattie sat opposite him, holding two playing cards in her hand. Positioned between them was a cribbage board.
Chase removed a ten of hearts from his playing hand and placed it on the table. “Ten.”
Hattie laid down an eight of clubs. “Eighteen.”
“Nine for twenty-seven,” Chase said as he put a nine of hearts on his stack.
A trifle smugly, Hattie played her last card, a four of diamonds. “And four for thirty-one, and two,” she said, moving her white peg two positions on the board.
“You are on a hot streak this morning,” Chase accused in mild complaint and began counting up the score in his hand. “Fifteen two, fifteen four, fifteen six . . .” He paused, tuning in to the distant sound of a vehicle. “Somebody’s on the road,” he remarked idly.
Hattie paused to listen. “Sounds like it stopped. Should I go look?”
Chase shook his head. “There’s no need. It isn’t that close to us.” He moved his peg the necessary number of holes. “What do you have in your crib?”
“Enough to beat you again,” she declared, eyes sparkling when she showed him the cards. “Do you want to try for three out of five?”
“With your luck at cards, I’ll pass, thank you.” He gathered up the playing cards and returned them to the packet while Hattie put away the cribbage board.
“Want some coffee?”
“No, thanks. I’ve had enough this morning.” With too little to do and too much time on his hands, Chase rose from his chair and wandered restlessly to the window. “It’s going to be another hot one today.”
“Not as hot as it would be in Texas. Why don’t I cut up that leftover chicken and make a cold salad for lunch? Does that sound good to you?”
Chase turned from the window, arching an eyebrow in her direction. “You aren’t already thinking about lunch, are you? It wasn’t that long ago that we finished breakfast.”
“Do I detect a testy note?” she countered lightly. “It wouldn’t surprise me if you came down with a touch of cabin fever considering how long you have been cooped up here. If that vehicle is gone, why don’t you take a walk?”
The breeze carried the faint rumble of an engine turning over. “Sounds like it’s leaving now. And as for the walk, as much as I would like to get out and move around, I better not. O’Rourke hasn’t been around in a while, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t hunkered down somewhere watching the place.”
“He’s always snooping around, isn’t he,” Hattie said with disapproval and set a container of leftover chicken on the countertop.
“He doesn’t have anything else to do. Even if he did, he’s too much like his father to get too friendly with hard work.”
“You remember a lot more, don’t you?” Hattie remarked as she set about deboning and cutting up the chicken.
“Maybe, but I still can’t remember why I needed to see the banker in person. There was a reason, and it had to do with Markham and something about cattle.” Chase frowned, straining to recall the exact details. “I was puzzled about something.”
“It will come to you,” she said confidently.
“There is another name whirling around in my brain, too. Pauley or Monte, something like that.”
She gave him a startled look. “You aren’t thinking about Carlo Ponti, the Italian movie director—Sophia Loren’s husband.”
Chase drew his head back in surprise. “I don’t think so.”
“You’re beginning to worry me, Duke.” Hattie glanced at him with narrowed eyes. “It’s one thing to stand around and daydream about Sophia Loren. And quite another to be thinking about her husband.”
Chase laughed in genuine amusement and slipped up behind her, sliding his arms around her waist. “If I was thinking about him, it was probably with envy,” he murmured near her ear and bent his head to nibble at her neck.
“Stop that,” Hattie said in false protest while a pleased smile curved her lips. “If that isn’t just like a man. Here I am, trying to fix something for lunch and you start feeling frisky.”
“Is that bad?” he teased.
Turning in his arms, she looped her hands around his neck, still holding the knife. “Now, I never said th
at,” she said, tilting back her head to invite his kiss.
Cat stood in the barn’s lengthening shadow and anxiously scanned the broken country to the south and east. With the lowering of the sun, the afternoon breeze had died, leaving a sultry quality in the air that added to the tension she felt.
“What are you looking at, Mom?” Joining her, Quint glanced in the direction she was looking.
“I thought I might catch a glimpse of your uncle Culley,” she admitted, careful not to voice the uneasiness she felt at his continued absence. “Have you finished haying the horses?”
“All done,” he announced. “Dad will be surprised when he gets home and finds out we already did the evening chores for him, won’t he?”
“He certainly will.” Cat managed a smile and stole another look at the empty land. She knew Culley wasn’t anywhere out there; it was a feeling she had. “Let’s go to the house and get out of this heat,” she said to Quint.
Side by side, they set off for the house. “Dad said the hay should be ready to bale this weekend,” Quint announced in a businesslike tone. “It looks like we’ll have a good crop this year.”
Cat was too used to his adultlike ways to take much notice of it. “Let’s hope it will be enough to carry us through the winter and we won’t have to buy more.” As they drew close to the house, Cat automatically looked toward the stand of trees beyond it.
“He’s not there, Mom,” Quint said.
With a guilty start, she jerked her gaze away from it then smiled ruefully at her son. “You see too much.”
“Why don’t you call Dad and have him swing by Shamrock on his way home?” he suggested. “Uncle Culley might be there.”
“That’s a good idea. I’ll do it. And you can go take a shower. You are covered with hay chaff.” She brushed at the bits clinging to the sleeve of his T-shirt.
“Yeah.” He nodded in agreement. “I’m already starting to itch.”
Once inside the house, Cat waited until Quint turned the shower on before she went to the phone and called Logan. “Hi, it’s me,” she said when he came on the line.
“What’s up? Need me to pick up something at the store?”
“No. If you don’t mind, would you stop at Uncle Culley’s place and see whether he’s around?” She added in a rush, “There’s probably nothing to worry, but he didn’t come by this morning and he wasn’t here last night. Knowing Uncle Culley, he probably camped out somewhere overnight and—”
“You think something has happened to him.” Logan’s statement carried no trace of disagreement.
Cat was relieved that he didn’t make light of her concern. “It’s not like him to stay away this long, Logan. Uncle Culley is an old man. Heaven knows where he might be or what might have happened.” She heard the frantic note in her voice and didn’t care. “I don’t even know where to start looking for him. He roams all over the place.”
“You’re right. He could be anywhere. Just to be on the safe side, give Jessy a call and have her spread the word to keep an eye out for him,” Logan suggested. “It’s better to look foolish when he turns up than to let more time go by and live with the regret of that.”
“I’ll call her as soon as I hang up,” Cat promised as the screen door’s hinge creaked nosily. “Wait. Somebody just walked in. Maybe—” She turned, but the loudness of the footsteps crossing the living room already told her they weren’t made by her soft-footed uncle. “Never mind,” she said into the phone. “It’s Tara. I’ll talk to you when you get home.”
“Honestly, Cat, you promised you would call,” Tara began with impatience the instant she hung up the phone. “And I have yet to hear from you. Which can only mean that you haven’t found the note. Have you?”
“No, I haven’t. And I don’t have time to discuss it with you, either,” Cat retorted with equal sharpness and rapidly punched the numbers for the Triple C.
“Who are you calling now?” Tara demanded with dramatic exasperation.
“Jessy, if it’s any of your business,” she replied and listened to the ringing on the other end of the line.
“It’s about time.” Tara took a seat and gracefully crossed her legs. “At least you finally realize that she was the one who took it.”
There was a heaviness to the air that seemed to warn of an approaching storm, but the sky over the Triple C headquarters held only a few puffy clouds. Jessy sighed with regret, even though she knew there was too much hay down for rain to be a welcome event right now. Later, after it was dry and baled and stored, it could rain all it wanted. She also knew Mother Nature didn’t always pay attention to whether it was the right time for something or not.
As she neared the steps to The Homestead, the front door opened and Trey tumbled out of the house to race across the veranda to meet her. “You been gone a long time, Mom,” he declared in a backhanded welcome.
“I know I have. So what did you do all day?”
“Nothin’.” He waited at the top of the steps.
“You must have done something,” Jessy chided.
“Nothin’ fun. Next time can I go with you?”
“We’ll see. Where is Laura?”
He fell in beside her as she crossed to the door. “Her an’ Beth are havin’ a tea party.” The derisive stress he placed on the last two words made it clear what he thought of it.
The air-conditioned coolness of the house greeted Jessy when she walked inside. It washed over her like a balm. She could almost feel her tiredness sliding away.
“Jessy,” Beth called to her from the living room. “Cat’s on the phone. She wants to talk to you. She says it’s important.”
“I’ll take it in the den, ” Jessy called back and made a slight alteration in her course, aiming for the room. “You can go home anytime you like, Becky. I’m back for the rest of the evening.”
She didn’t bother to ask the girl if there had been any problems. Jessy knew she would get a blow-by-blow account of the day’s activities from Laura, especially any mischief Trey might have caused.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to wait until you’ve talked to Cat, just in case?” Beth said, rising from the living-room sofa where Laura was holding her tea party.
“No, you run along. I’ll manage,” Jessy assured her and made the swing into the den.
Trey stayed right on her heels. “What’re we gonna have for supper, Mom? I’m hungry.”
“You are always hungry.” But his question served as a reminder that she had yet to find someone to prepare their meals.
“So what’re we gonna eat?” he repeated.
“We’ll discuss it after I talk to your aunt.” She crossed to the desk and picked up the phone. “Hi, Cat. It’s Jessy. What did you need?”
“It’s Uncle Culley,” Cat said in reply. “I haven’t seen him in—it’s been more than a day and a half now. He’s probably fine, but I’m worried about him. I was wondering if you could—”
Guessing at the request, Jessy said, “I’ll pass the word to keep a lookout for him.”
“Thanks. He’ll probably show up, but . . .” Cat left the sentence unfinished.
“I know.”
“That’s all I wanted,” Cat said. “I’ll let you go ahead and start making your calls.”
In the background came Tara’s voice, “Aren’t you going to ask her about the note?” she demanded. “For heaven’s sake, Cat, you know she took it.”
Tension raced along her nerve ends. “Was that Tara?” Jessy asked, certain of the answer.
“Yes.” But there was a hesitancy in Cat’s reply.
“She mentioned a note. What was that about?” Unconsciously she held her breath, little alarms going off in her mind.
“That note you found, the one Dad had written, I’ve misplaced it,” Cat explained. “But that’s the least of my worries right now. Make your calls, and let me know if anyone has seen him.”
“I will,” Jessy promised and held down the cradle’s disconnect button.
“How ’bout s’ghetti, Mom?” Trey suggested.
“Let Mom make a couple calls first. Then we’ll talk about it.”
Ignoring Trey’s exaggerated sigh and roll of the eyes, Jessy phoned her father first and passed on Cat’s request. “Will you start spreading the word?” After receiving an affirmative response, she hung up.
“One more call,” she told Trey and dialed the feedlot. One of the ranch hands answered. “Kirby. It’s Jessy Calder.”
“Yeah, Jessy. What do you need?”
“I spoke to Cat a few minutes ago. O’Rourke has come up missing.”
“Are you putting together a search party? Finding him could be a tall order. There’s no telling where his wanderings might have taken him.”
“She doesn’t plan to organize a search yet. For the time being she just wants everyone to keep an eye out.”
“We can do that.”
“Thanks. Is Laredo still there?”
“He’s getting ready to leave. I’ll see if he’s gone yet.”
Seconds after he laid the phone down, Jessy heard a piercing whistle, followed by a shout telling Laredo he was wanted on the phone. There was a brief mumble of voices. Then Laredo came on the line.
“Did Kirby tell you about Culley?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Good. There’s more. It may not mean anything.” Yet Jessy had an uneasy feeling that it did. “The note with all those jottings about the feedlot that Chase wrote—I just found out it’s missing. Right now Cat says she misplaced it, but Tara is trying to convince her I took it.”
“Wonderful,” he murmured dryly as Trey scrambled over to the window.
“Somebody’s here, Mom,” he announced.
“I wanted to let you know about that,” she said into the phone. “Trey tells me we have company, so I’d better go.” She glanced out the window to identify the caller and tensed a little at the sight of Monte’s vehicle parked in front of The Homestead. “It’s Markham.”
“Watch yourself,” Laredo warned.
“I will.”