by Mari Manning
A woman appeared at the top of the wide staircase that rose from the far end of the hall. “What are you doing with Bobby?”
The macaw fluttered and screeched against the bars of its cage. Bobby leaped to a nearby ficus and skittered away. The rawboned woman charged down the stairs, aiming for Kirby. Her loose, gray flannel slacks hung over ample hips, and a high-collared blouse flapped against narrow shoulders and long, bony arms. Gray hair secured into a tight bun framed her gaunt face and a thin, high-bridged nose not unlike the macaw’s beak. Deep black eyes brimmed with hatred. Miss Bea Vine, the housekeeper. Frankie’s nickname for her—the she-hawk—seemed fitting.
Up close, the woman reeked of disinfectant and fear. She stretched her hands toward Kirby, gnarled fingers curled into claws. But she stopped short of touching her. “You have no business with Bobby.”
Kirby ran an assessing eye over the woman. A few inches taller, but at least twenty years older. According to Frankie, Miss Bea had been at the ranch forever. An obvious exaggeration. But she’d been here for a while, and she’d devoted herself to taking care of Mr. Shaw. Had she been jealous when Mr. Shaw’s lawyers identified Charleen and Frankie as next of kin? Had Mr. Shaw already promised her the ranch or a large sum of money when he died? Kirby glanced down at Miss Bea’s fingernails. Neat and trimmed short, but long enough to make the nasty scratch on Frankie’s forearm.
“I didn’t touch Bobby. He jumped on my shoulder.”
Miss Bea’s eyes narrowed. “Why would he do that when he’s afraid of you?”
Good question, and there was a good answer. Because she wasn’t Frankie. Weariness washed over Kirby, so strong her eyelids felt heavy. She’d come here to help, to recapture the sense of purpose she’d lost when Grandy passed a year ago. She’d come here seeking herself every bit as much as Charleen’s abductor. Only now that she’d arrived, it seemed like a bad idea. Charleen’s best chance of survival was getting the police involved. As for Kirby, how could she expect to find herself in the midst of Frankie’s life?
Maguire chose this moment to step between her and Miss Bea. “Come on, ladies. No reason to get your dander up. Miss Frankie has returned, and Bobby is just fine. Everything is under control.” His eyes narrowed into Miss Bea’s when he mentioned Frankie’s return, and an unspoken message passed between them.
Miss Bea dropped her arms to her sides. “You know what would happen if Eenie saw Bobby…” But her words trailed off, limp and defeated. The fight had left her.
Watching the silent communication pass between Maguire and Miss Bea, a finger of ice touched the back of Kirby’s neck. Could they be working together to get rid of Charleen and Frankie? Frankie had talked like Charleen was tied up somewhere. But what was the point of tying up an heiress if you wanted to get to her money? She’d have to be dead, wouldn’t she?
Kirby’s gaze leaped to her suitcase. It leaned against Maguire’s leg, and occasionally he’d reach down and steady it. Had he made an educated guess as to what was inside? It weighed a ton, and when he’d snatched it from her, there had been a metallic thunk.
Maguire’s gaze followed Kirby’s to the case. He shoved the bag at her. “I guess you can manage to get this up to your room, can’t you?”
“Sure thing,” Kirby said. Relief had never felt so sweet, nor so short-lived.
He hefted the bag. “Seems like you got a king’s ransom in jewels, or a case of whiskey in here.”
Miss Bea gasped.
“Of course not,” Kirby said. Although a more reasonable explanation escaped her.
She dropped a shoulder and nudged Maguire’s arm away from the bag. “I got it.” The touch of the leather-bound handle brought with it a sense of relief. She strode across the hall as fast as a sexy Frankie-style walk would allow. She needed Frankie’s room. She needed to regroup.
She half-climbed, half-stumbled up the stairs in Frankie’s ridiculous shoes. Dead silence followed in her wake, along with the hostile interest of Maguire and Miss Bea. Those two were definitely not to be trusted. She hit the landing with relief, dragging with her aching feet, raw nerves, and sore shoulder muscles, as well as a suitcase that got heavier by the second.
Kirby pressed herself into a dark corner of the landing as Maguire’s and Miss Bea’s voices rose in angry whispers. “Tie a bell around…the police…damn babysitter…your priority…”
The “tie a bell around” and “damn babysitter” no doubt referred to Frankie’s escape the other night, which had earlier bothered Maguire and, it appeared from the current conversation, Miss Bea, too. Had they attacked Frankie? Mention of the police was interesting. Folks with guilty consciences were always keeping an eye out for the police, and Frankie had reported Charleen’s disappearance. If Kirby could find some evidence of a crime, maybe the local cops would assign Charleen’s case to a detective. Or at least show up at the ranch and ask the residents some hard questions about Charleen’s whereabouts.
The argument between Maguire and Miss Bea wound down. The front door opened. “Good night,” Maguire said. The door shut behind him.
Miss Bea’s footsteps echoed against the marble floor then disappeared into a room below. Kirby stepped out of the shadows and surveyed the steps on each side of the landing. One led to the mansion’s east wing and one led to its west wing. The question was, which side was east and which side was west?
Frankie had been clear—very clear—on getting this right. Charles Ender Shaw III, Frankie’s cousin Eenie and patriarch of the ranch, lived in the west wing. And the west wing was forbidden to everyone except Miss Bea. She cleaned, carted up food trays, made beds, and even slept in one of the rooms. The east wing belonged to Frankie, Charleen, and Brittany, the maid. Maguire slept in the coach house above the garage.
Both wings looked murky and endless with barrel-shaped ceilings, worn burgundy runners, longhorns carved into lintels, and flocked wallpaper in bordello red. Thick doors with brass locks stood open before each wing. Nothing stirred up here. It felt like a tomb, dark and still and dusty. Hell, the whole damn house felt like a tomb. Kirby thought about Charleen. Maybe it was.
A door slammed. Miss Bea pounded up the staircase and came at Kirby. She jerked her chin to the left. “Go on now, Miss Frances. You know better than to poke around.”
Poke around? “Now why would I do a thing like that?”
A flicker of surprise flashed across Miss Bea’s face. “You won’t succeed. Not while I have anything to do with it.”
This is interesting. “How are you going to stop me?” She delivered the line Frankie-style, with a flip of her hair and a thrust of her shoulder.
“How?” Miss Bea looked blank, as if she hadn’t considered the details of ridding Shaw Valley Ranch of Frankie.
“The same way you stopped my mother?”
A deep flush rose from the high collar of Miss Bea’s blouse. “How dare you.” The color deepened. Her beady eyes narrowed. “Don’t play your little girl games with me. Maybe that works on Mr. Maguire, but it doesn’t fool me.” Miss Bea thrust her face into Kirby’s. Her sour breath smelled of fear and garlic. “The day of reckoning is at hand, Miss Frances.”
“Are you threatening me?” Kirby wanted to throw open her bag, grab her badge and handcuffs, and arrest this woman on the spot. Of course, evidence of a crime was still in short supply.
Miss Bea backed up a pace. “I’m not threatening, I’m telling.”
“Telling what?”
Miss Bea’s face, red as a beet, looked like it was about to explode. A suspect with a temper. “Go on, now. Get to your room. Brittany will bring along your dinner tray.” Pushing past Kirby, she marched up the right staircase and into the gaping west corridor. The heavy door thundered shut behind her.
The landing grew silent and dark. The warmth fell out of the air. Kirby shivered.
Hoisting her bag, she climbed the short flight of stairs from the landing and stepped into her wing. The old floorboards creaked and moaned beneath her feet. As she walked,
she reached out and tested doorknobs. All locked. The third on the right was Frankie’s room. Mercifully, that door swung open with a light push.
She flipped on the light switch by the door and gasped. “Lord Almighty.” Behind door number three was a suite so luxurious, Kim Kardashian would be jealous.
How had Frankie created this beautiful space in the midst of so much decrepitude? In the sitting room, plush chairs covered in cream-colored silk, contemporary teak tables, and cut-crystal lamps shimmered against a thick champagne carpet and sleek, pistachio-green walls. The sophisticated effect was scarred only by a poster-size painting of Frankie lying half naked across a chaise longue. Frankie, the narcissist. A Venus de Milo with arms.
Kirby shook her head. How could two women who looked so much alike and shared the same daddy be so different? It was truly a mystery.
The adjoining bedroom held a king-size bed with leather headboard and a teak dresser. A colossal gilt mirror leaned against the wall beside the bed. Creamy silk curtains hung at tall windows. With a deep sigh of relief and a sense she’d just run a gauntlet, Kirby dropped the suitcase and flopped on the bed.
She’d made it past Maguire and Miss Bea and Bobby. And that noisy bird. Tomorrow she’d try to meet Mr. Shaw, Brittany, and the ranch hand, Manny. In the next day or so, she’d have to drive to the police station in nearby El Royo to follow up on Frankie’s missing-person report. But first, she needed to call Frankie. Kirby pulled her cell phone out and hit Frankie’s number.
Frankie answered on the first ring. “What happened? Did you make it?”
“I’m sitting on your bed staring at my reflection in the biggest mirror in Texas.”
Frankie laughed. Full and throaty. “I knew you could do it, sis. Did you get shit from any of them?”
“Maguire and Miss Bea. Neither seemed happy to see me. I mean, you. Maguire kept asking me to promise him something, but I couldn’t exactly tell what.”
For a few moments, Frankie was quiet. “Do you think it’s him?”
“Maybe. What does he want from you?”
“I don’t know.” She sounded like she knew exactly what Maguire wanted.
“Come on, Frankie. The guy grabbed me. I even thought he was going to kiss me. He got right in my face, and—and, I don’t know. Was he?”
“For crissake, Kirby. What are you? Sixteen? Are you so naive you can’t tell if a guy’s trying to kiss you?” Now she sounded pissed.
Kirby’s face felt warm. “Of course not. I’m trying to find out what’s going on between you and Maguire.”
“Nothing. He tried to hook up with me.”
“Hook up as in have sex?”
Another throaty laugh. “I told him I would, but I can’t decide if I want to. He’s cute but a little crazy.”
“You might have mentioned this fact before I got down here. What if he expects me to sleep with him?”
“Stay away from him. I think he’s stalking me.”
“Stalking you how?”
“Making me do things with him on the ranch, trying to keep me out of town. He wants me for himself.”
Maguire’s angry face and half mocking, half pleading voice swam through her memory. He seemed too sane, too smart to be a stalker. Too bent out of shape about something to be following Frankie around like a lovesick puppy. “That wasn’t the impression I got. There’s something else going on, Frankie.”
Frankie sniffed. “After Momma disappeared, he said he wanted to…to marry me. For the ranch.”
“He said that he wanted to marry you for the ranch?”
“You can be as dumb as a brick sometimes. Of course, he didn’t say it in so many words.”
“What did he say exactly?”
“The usual. Haven’t you ever been proposed to?” Frankie asked.
No. “He didn’t say so, but you got the impression he’s after the ranch, and that he might have gotten rid of Charleen with the expectation of marrying you and inheriting the ranch?”
“It’s a possibility.”
And it made sense. Hadn’t Maguire said something about saying yes because he couldn’t afford to get thrown off the ranch? “What about Miss Bea?” Kirby asked. “She hates you.”
“The she-hawk? She’s a frustrated old woman who’s devoted her whole life to Cousin Eenie, and he won’t give her the time of day. She’s as much as told me she’d have the ranch if Cousin Eenie’s lawyers hadn’t found me. And Momma, of course.”
“Her behavior went beyond jealousy. She was genuinely angry, especially when that squirrel jumped on me.”
“Bobby jumped on you? She must have gone nuts. No pun intended.”
Kirby smiled anyway. “Did you have a run-in with Bobby?”
Frankie laughed. “Yes. I was winning until the she-hawk came in on Bobby’s side.”
“Winning?”
“It wandered into my sitting room,” Frankie said. “I might have been trying to smash it with a tennis racket when the she-hawk caught me.”
“That’s what she’s mad about?”
“She’s a frustrated old maid. She’s always threatening to fire Seth, and whenever things don’t go her way, she blames him. Hell, if she knew that we’d switched places, she’d probably blame him for that, too.”
“Ah. That makes sense.” So Maguire thought if he could get Frankie to marry him, he’d no longer be under Miss Bea’s thumb or in danger of being fired.
A muted horn blared on Frankie’s end of line.
“Where are you?” Kirby asked.
“Driving around. I took your car. You don’t mind, do you?”
She didn’t. It felt nice to have family to share with. “Of course not.”
“Hey, I’m at the mall. One last thing I forgot to mention,” Frankie said. “Keep your gun out of sight. Cousin Eenie’s a hippie or something. No weapons allowed.”
Kirby glanced around the room. “I guess I could put them in the closet.”
“Leave everything in the suitcase and leave the suitcase in the closet. I’ve got to go.” The phone went dead.
…
From the coach house window, Seth watched the last rays of the sun drop behind the western ridge. Shadows piled up in the valley. At least darkness hid the broken fences and weedy garden, the unpainted barn, the rutted lanes.
If he owned this spread, it would be kick-ass. He’d bring in fifteen thousand head like they had before Shaw took over from his daddy. Then he’d hire on some cowboys. Open up the bunkhouses year-round. As for plowing under the lavender and damn fruit trees, he’d do that himself and savor every minute of it.
Shaw thought he could run a fifty-thousand-acre ranch like a crazy hippie commune—treat the animals as friends and the insects as dinner guests. He was farming all of fifty acres at best. And the other 49,950? Awaiting the second coming of Buddha.
What Seth wouldn’t do to buy a little piece right out from under Shaw. He grimaced. Getting his own spread was going to take a lot more money than he had in the bank.
So much for dreams.
His gaze swept across the run-down ranch one last time before night settled. The work was endless, but since Shaw’s lawyers brought Frankie and her momma to the ranch, time had become his enemy. Time and the Swallow women. They’d swooped down on Shaw Valley like a plague of pampered, perfumed locusts, threatening the ranch’s precarious existence with incessant demands for money and attention. It left little time for the business of ranching.
But Shaw was stuck with them. He was old and sick and childless, and they were his heirs. His daddy—damn him—had fixed his will to favor Shaw blood. Made it ironclad. Unbreakable. Even unbendable.
A light blinked on in the east wing. Frankie’s room. The curtains were drawn back, which wasn’t like Frankie. Something about her didn’t feel right this evening. He couldn’t exactly put his finger on it, but she was different. Where was the cloud of eye-watering perfume she liked to wear? And the ass-wiggling strut that drove the boys in town crazy? That afternoon s
he’d wobbled up the path like she’d never worn heels in her life. And the way she’d acted. Approachable…almost normal. He grimaced again. Yeah, right.
“What are you up to, Frankie?” He meant to keep her close until he figured it out.
Chapter Two
A sliver of sunlight pierced Kirby’s eyelids. She lifted her head and peered at the bedside clock. Quarter to eight. Then she flopped against the pillows and groaned. Day two as Frankie Swallow had begun. She’d have given anything to be home, sipping coffee as she pulled on her uniform.
For a long moment she studied the ceiling. A tiny crack reminded her of a crooked smile. It seemed to mock her. She sat up. The tawdry bedside mirror greeted her, reflecting a dark-haired girl in a rumpled tee. Not Frankie-ish at all. But Frankie’s nighties were as modest as Dolly Parton’s cleavage, which would be damn embarrassing if there was a fire. Digging through Frankie’s drawers had uncovered an extra-large Rangers shirt stuffed behind a stack of sheer panties and camisoles. Kirby had grabbed it as if it was a lifeline.
The floor creaked outside Kirby’s suite. Knuckles rapped softly against the bedroom door. A key scraped in the lock. The doorknob twisted. Her heart stopped.
Kirby slid her hand under her pillow. Smooth metal warmed her fingers. She released the safety. She’d listened to Frankie, stashing the case—locked—in the back of the closet. But she’d be damned if she was going to face Frankie’s attacker unarmed.
“Miss Frances? Are you awake?” Miss Bea’s voice was sticky sweet with ill will.
Kirby gazed in the mirror as she tried to think. A brown-eyed girl in an oversize T-shirt stared back at her. The door to the sitting room brushed over the thick carpet. No creaky hinges on Frankie’s door. Was this on purpose? Had whoever attacked Frankie wanted to make sure Frankie wouldn’t hear them coming?
“Miss Frances?”
She’d never pass as Frankie. What would Miss Bea do if she knew Kirby was an impostor? Kirby’s hand tightened on the Glock.
“Miss Frances? Are you awake?” The softness in the woman’s croaky voice sounded sinister, witchy and up to no good.