by Sandra Brown
They’d all been right. They’d tried to warn her, but she had refused to listen. Compelled by guilt, headstrong and fearless, armed to the teeth with an unshakable sense of right and wrong, cheered on by the recklessness of immaturity, she had excavated in forbidden territory and disturbed its sanctity. She had aroused the ire of bad spirits long laid to rest. Against sound counsel, she had kept digging. Now those spirits were protesting, making themselves manifest.
She had been brainwashed to believe that Celina was a fragile heroine, tragically struck down in the full bloom of womanhood, a heartbroken young widow with a newborn infant in her arms, looking out on the cruel world with dismay. Instead, she had been manipulative, selfish, and even cruel to the people who had loved her.
Merle had made her believe that she had been responsible for her mother’s death. With every gesture, word, and deed, whether overt or implied, she had made Alex feel inadequate and at fault.
Well, Merle was wrong. Celina was responsible for her slaying. By an act of will, Alex unburdened herself of all guilt and remorse. She was free! It no longer really mattered to her whose hand had wielded that scalpel. It hadn’t been because of her.
Her first thought was that she must share this sense of freedom with Reede. She parked the Blazer in front of his house, got out, and ran across the porch. At the door, she hesitated and knocked softly. After several seconds, she pulled it open and stepped inside. “Reede?” The house was gloomy and empty.
Moving toward the bedroom, she called his name again, but it was obvious that he wasn’t there. As she turned, she noticed her handbag, lying forgotten on the nightstand. She checked the adjoining bathroom for items she might have left behind, gathered them up, and dropped them into her handbag.
As she snapped it closed, she thought she heard the unfamiliar squeak of the screened front door. She paused and listened. “Reede?” The sound didn’t come again.
Lost in the sweet reverie of the night before, she touched Reede’s things on the nightstand—a pair of sunglasses, a comb that was rarely used, an extra brass belt buckle with the state seal of Texas on it. Her heart swelling with love, she turned to go, but was brought up short.
The woman standing in the doorway of the bedroom had a knife in her hand.
Chapter 46
“What the hell is going on here?”
Reede grabbed Junior’s collar and hauled him off Angus, who was sprawled on the floor. Blood was dribbling down his chin from a cut on his lip. Oddly enough, the old man was laughing.
“Where’d you learn to fight like that, boy, and why haven’t you done it more often?” He sat up and extended his hand to Reede. “Help me up.” Reede, after giving Junior a warning glance, let go of his collar and assisted Angus to his feet.
“One of you want to tell me what the devil that was all about?” Reede demanded.
When the Jeep arrived, he had driven straight to the ranch house, where an anxious Lupe had greeted him at the door with the news that Mr. Minton and Junior were fighting.
Reede had run into the den and found the two men locked in combat, rolling on the floor. Junior had been throwing earnest, but largely ineffective, punches at his father’s head.
“He wanted Celina for himself,” Junior declared, his chest heaving with exertion and fury. “I overheard him telling Alex. He wanted to set Celina up as his mistress. When she said no, he killed her.”
Angus was calmly dabbing at the blood on his chin with a handkerchief. “Do you really believe that, son? Do you think I would sacrifice everything—your mother, you, this place—for that little chippy?”
“I heard you tell Alex that you wanted her.”
“I did, from the belt down, but I didn’t love her. I didn’t like the way she came between you and Reede. I sure as hell wouldn’t gamble away everything else in my life by killing her. I might have felt like it when she laughed at my offer, but I didn’t.” His eyes roved over both the younger men. “My pride was spared when one of you did it for me.”
The three men exchanged uneasy glances. The past twenty-five years had dwindled down to this crucial moment. Until now, none of them had had the courage to pose the question. The truth would have been too painful to bear, so they had let the identity of the murderer remain a mystery.
Their silence had been tacitly agreed upon. It had protected them from knowing who had ended Celina’s life. None had wanted to know.
“I did not kill that girl,” Angus said. “As I told Alex, I gave her the keys to one of the cars and told her to drive herself home. The last time I saw her, she was leaving by the front door.”
“I was upset because she turned me down,” Junior said. “I made the rounds of the beer joints and got shit-faced. I don’t remember where I was or who I was with. But I think I would remember slashing Celina to ribbons.”
“When dessert was passed around I left,” Reede told them. “I spent the night humping Nora Gail. I got to the stable about six that morning. That’s when I found her.”
Angus shook his head in bafflement. “Then everything we’ve told Alex is true.”
“Alex?” Reede exclaimed. “Didn’t you say she was just here?”
“Dad was talking to her when I came in.”
“Where is she now?”
“She was sitting right there,” Angus said, pointing at the empty spot on the sofa. “I didn’t see anything after Junior came sailing toward me and knocked me down. Felt like a goddamn bull falling on me,” he said, jovially socking his son beneath the chin. Junior grinned with boyish pleasure.
“Would you two cut it out and tell me where Alex went?”
“Calm down, Reede. She’s gotta be around here somewhere.”
“I didn’t see her when I came in,” he argued stubbornly as he rushed into the hall.
“It couldn’t have been but a couple of minutes in between,” Junior said. “Why are you so anxious about—”
“Don’t you get it?” Reede asked over his shoulder. “If none of us killed Celina, whoever did is still out there, and he’s just as pissed off at Alex as we’ve been.”
“Jesus, I didn’t think—”
“You’re right, Reede.”
“Come on.”
The three men rushed through the front door. As they were clambering down the steps, Stacey Wallace wheeled into the drive and stepped out of her car.
“Junior, Angus, Reede, I’m glad I caught you. It’s about Alex.”
Reede drove the Jeep like a bat out of hell. At the crossroads of the highway and the Mintons’ private road, he caught up with the deputies who had delivered him the Jeep and flagged down the patrol car.
“Have you seen my Blazer?” he shouted to them. “Alex Gaither was driving it.”
“Yeah, Reede, we did. She was headed back toward your place.”
“Much obliged.” To his passengers he shouted, “Hang on,” and executed a hairpin turn.
“What’s going on?” Stacey asked. The Jeep’s top was off, so she was clinging to the roll bar for dear life. In her staid world, nothing this death-defying had ever happened.
Trying to detain the Mintons and Reede had been impossible. They had almost mowed her down in their haste to scramble into the Jeep. She’d been summarily told that if she must speak with them right then, she had to go along. She had climbed into the backseat with Junior, while Angus sat in the front seat, next to Reede.
“Alex could be in danger,” Junior shouted into Stacey’s ear to make himself heard. The cold north wind sucked the words out of his mouth.
“Danger?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I went to her motel,” Stacey shouted. “The desk clerk told me she might be at the ranch.”
“What’s so important?” Reede asked over his shoulder.
“I didn’t get everything off my chest last night. She didn’t hold the pistol or pull the trigger, but she caused Daddy’s suicide.”
Junior placed his arm around her, drew her close, and k
issed her temple. “Stacey, let it drop. Alex isn’t the reason Joe killed himself.”
“It’s not just that,” Stacey said, distraught. “Her investigation has raised questions about… well, we got married so soon after Celina was killed. People thought… you know how suspicious and narrow-minded they can be. They’re talking about it again.” She gazed up at him imploringly. “Junior, why did you marry me?”
He placed a finger beneath her chin. “Because you’re a beautiful, dynamic woman, the best damn thing that ever happened to me, Stacey,” he said, meaning it. He couldn’t love her, but he appreciated her kindness and goodness, and her unflagging love for him.
“Then, you do love me a little?”
He smiled down at her and, for her sake, said, “Hell, girl, I love you a lot.”
Her eyes glistened with tears. The radiance with which her face shone made her almost pretty. “Thank you, Junior.”
Angus suddenly leaned forward and pointed toward the horizon. “My God, that looks like—”
“Smoke,” Reede grimly supplied, and floored the accelerator.
Chapter 47
“Sarah Jo!” Alex cried. “What on earth are you doing?”
Sarah Jo smiled placidly. “I followed you here from my house.”
“Why?”
Alex’s eyes were on the knife. It was an ordinary kitchen knife, but it didn’t look all that ordinary in Sarah Jo’s hand. Always before, her hand had looked feminine and frail. Now it looked skeletal and ominous around the handle of the knife.
“I came to rid my life of another nuisance.” Her eyes opened wide, then narrowed. “Just like I did back in Kentucky. My brother got the colt I wanted. It wasn’t fair. I had to get rid of him and that colt, or I could never be happy again.”
“What… what did you do?”
“I lured him into the stable by telling him the colt had colic. Then, I locked the door and started the fire.”
Alex swayed in terror. “How horrible.”
“Yes, it was, actually. You could smell burning horseflesh for miles. The stench hung on for days.”
Alex raised a trembling hand to her lips. The woman was obviously psychotic, and therefore, all the more terrifying.
“I didn’t have to start a fire the night I murdered Celina.”
“Why not?”
“That idiot man, Gooney Bud, had followed her to the ranch. I met him on my way out of the stable. He scared the living daylights out of me, standing there in the shadows so quiet. He went in and saw her. He fell down on top of her and started carrying on something awful. I saw him pick up Dr. Collins’s knife.” She smiled gleefully. “That’s when I knew I wouldn’t have to start a fire and destroy all those lovely horses.”
“You killed my mother,” Alex stated tearfully. “You killed my mother.”
“She was a trashy girl.” Sarah Jo’s expression changed drastically, becoming spiteful. “I prayed every night that she would marry Reede Lambert. That way, I’d get both of them out of my life. Angus didn’t need but one son, the one I gave him,” she cried, thumping her chest with her free fist. “Why did he have to keep that mongrel around?”
“What did that have to do with Celina?”
“That stupid girl let herself get pregnant. Reede wouldn’t have her after that.” She clenched her teeth, distorting her delicate features. “And I had to watch when Junior stepped in to take Reede’s place. He actually wanted to marry her. Imagine a Presley marrying a lowlife with an illegitimate baby. I wasn’t going to let my son ruin his life.”
“So, you looked for an opportunity to kill her.”
“She dropped it into my lap. Junior left the house that night, disconsolate. Then, Angus made a complete fool of himself over her.”
“You overheard their conversation?”
“I eavesdropped.”
“And you were jealous.”
“Jealous?” she said with a musical little laugh. “Good heavens, no. Angus has had other women for almost as long as we’ve been married. I might not even have minded him having Celina, so long as he set her up out of town and away from Junior. But that silly bitch laughed at him—laughed in my husband’s face after he had poured out his heart to her!”
Her eyes were blinking rapidly now, and her meager breasts were rising and falling with each strenuous breath. Her voice had grown shrill. Alex knew that if she was going to talk herself out of this, she had to tread softly. She was still trying to choose her next words when she caught the first whiff of smoke.
Her eyes moved beyond Sarah Jo to the hall. It was filling with smoke. Flames were licking up the walls of the living room beyond.
“Sarah Jo,” Alex said in a quavering voice, “I want to talk to you about this, but—”
“Stay where you are!” Sarah Jo commanded sharply, brandishing the knife when Alex took a hesitant step. “You came here and started causing trouble, just like her. You favor Reede over my Junior. You’re breaking his heart. Angus is upset and worried over Joe Wallace’s death, which is all your fault. You see, Angus thought one of the boys killed her.”
She smiled impishly. “I knew he would. I knew that the boys wouldn’t ask any questions, either. I depended on their loyalty to each other. It was the perfect crime. Angus, thinking he was protecting the boys, made his deal with the judge. I hated that Junior had to get married so young, but I was glad it was to Stacey rather than Celina.”
The smoke was growing thicker. It was swirling around Sarah Jo, though she seemed unaware of it. “You started asking too many questions,” she told Alex, drawing a sad face. “I tried to scare you off with that letter. I made it look like it had come from that crazy Reverend Plummet, but I sent it.” She seemed quite pleased with herself. Alex used her complacency to creep forward, moving slowly, one step at a time.
“You still didn’t take the hint, so I ran you off the road with one of the company pickups. Judge Wallace would probably still be alive, and the deal Angus made with him would still be a secret, if only you had died when your car crashed.” She seemed genuinely perturbed. “But, after today, I won’t have to—”
Alex lunged forward and struck Sarah Jo’s wrist. She was stronger than she appeared. She managed to maintain her grip on the knife. Alex grabbed her wrist and hung on, trying to dodge the stabbing motions aimed toward her body.
“I won’t let you destroy my family,” Sarah Jo grunted as she plunged the knife toward Alex’s midsection.
The two women struggled over control of the knife. They fell to their knees. Alex tried to dodge the downward arcs of the blade, but the smoke was getting too thick for her to see it well. Her eyes filled with tears. She began to choke. Sarah Jo knocked her into the wall. Upon impact, she felt the stitches in her scalp pop open.
Somehow, she managed to get to her feet, and began dragging Sarah Jo down the hallway, where smoke was billowing around them. All the rules of fire escape fled Alex’s mind. She tried to hold her breath, but her lungs demanded oxygen for the difficult task of pulling Sarah Jo along with her.
They had almost reached the living room before Sarah Jo realized that Alex had gained the upper hand. She renewed her efforts and came back stronger than ever. The knife slashed Alex’s ankle and she screamed. Its serrated edge caught her again in the calf, and she staggered back toward the living room.
Suddenly, she lost her grip on Sarah Jo. While seconds ago, she’d been fighting for her freedom, she now panicked at the thought of losing her attacker in the suffocating black smoke. It was so thick that she couldn’t even distinguish an outline of the other woman.
“Sarah Jo! Where are you?” Alex gagged on a mouthful of smoke. Stretching her arms far out in front of her, she groped for the woman, but touched nothing except the searing air.
Then, survival instincts took over. She turned, ducked, and plunged through the hallway. In the living room, she dodged burning furniture and ran blindly in the direction of the door. The door was intact, but smoldering. She grabbed the knob
; it branded the palm of her hand.
Screaming in fear and pain, she barreled through the door and out onto the porch.
“Alex!”
She stumbled in the direction of Reede’s voice and saw through smoke-damaged eyes the wavering image of a Jeep coming to a screeching halt only yards in front of her.
“Reede,” she croaked, reaching for him. She fell. He leaped from behind the steering wheel and bent over her. “Sarah Jo,” she wheezed. With an effort, she raised her hand and pointed toward the house.
“My God, Mother!” Junior went over the side of the Jeep and hit the ground at a run.
“Junior, come back!” Stacey screamed. “No, God, no!”
“Son, don’t!” Angus reached for Junior’s arm as he sped past. “It’s too late!”
Reede was already on the porch when Junior knocked him aside. Reede fell backward down the steps and onto the ground. He made an unsuccessful grab for Junior’s ankle. “Junior, you can’t!” he roared.
Junior turned and looked down at him. “This time, Reede, I’ll get the glory.”
He flashed Reede his most beautiful smile, then ran into the burning house.
Epilogue
“I thought you might be here.”
Reede gave no impression of having heard Alex approach until she spoke to him. He glanced at her over his shoulder, then back at the two fresh graves. For a moment, there was an awkward silence, then he said, “I promised Angus I would come out every day to check on things. He’s not feeling quite up to it yet.”
Alex moved nearer. “I stopped by to see him this afternoon. He made a feeble attempt to be the hale fellow well met,” she remarked sadly. “He’s entitled to grieve. I told him so. I hope he took it to heart.”
“I’m sure he appreciated your visit.”
“I’m not so sure.” Reede came around to face her. She nervously swept back her hair, which the strong wind was blowing across her face. “If I’d never come here, never reopened the case—”