by Jodi Thomas
Lucas reminded her of a recurring dream that never ended. Part love story, part nightmare. She sometimes told herself he was the reason she never made up her mind about anything.
Maybe this was just puppy love that hung around ten years too long. But the truth was, she hadn’t met anyone she wanted to move on with.
Sometimes hanging on to a maybe was enough to last awhile. She’d let go of the dream of her and Lucas so slowly it had drifted out of sight before she realized it was gone. Even when he’d kissed her last night, she hadn’t allowed hope to crawl into her heart again.
She glared through the glass door at the antiques store across the street, which usually looked abandoned except on Saturdays. Maybe the town had evacuated and had forgotten to tell her. Zombies were probably roaming the streets looking for fresh brains, and here she was worrying about an almost-love she couldn’t get over.
She’d die of boredom here in her ten-by-twelve office. Passing tourists visiting the ghost town years from now would find her skeleton at her keyboard. Her fingers typed her thoughts almost as if she were really working.
Lauren hit Delete. Even when jotting down her thoughts she was overwriting. Overthinking everything.
Back to the legend of Hamilton Acres.
“Ring,” she whispered to the phone. If something didn’t happen soon, she’d fall asleep at her desk...again.
A rapping on the wall made Lauren jump. Three knocks. Dakota’s code for “ready for lunch.” It must be after one o’clock.
Lauren rapped back once and reached for her purse. The soup special at Dorothy’s Café would do today. She’d be going out with Tim tonight and he had the money to buy steak.
Lauren stepped out just as Dakota came out her door. “Have a good morning?”
“No. Not enough sleep.”
Lauren grinned. “The Hamilton ghost haunting your dreams again?”
Dakota laughed. “It’s more than that. This Hamilton is very much alive.” She giggled as if she were sixteen and not twenty-five. “I’ll tell you about it over lunch, but first, I have a surprise. I got a call off the website you set up for me.”
The conversation turned to the real estate business as they walked to the café. Lauren wanted to talk about her idea for her series, “Legends of the Plains,” but it could wait. If one of the Hamilton clan was still alive, she planned to interview him as soon as possible. If she could include pictures, Texas Monthly might be impressed.
Just as they reached their destination, Lauren’s phone rang. She waved Dakota in and answered, noticing the call was coming in from the county sheriff’s office.
“Hi, Pop, I thought you’d be sleeping by now. Brandi called to check in and said you were out at the Collins place all night.”
“It’s Pearly,” a high-pitched woman’s voice said. “Your dad doesn’t know I’m calling. He’s still out at the ranch.”
Lauren waited. As the county clerk, Pearly was one of her best sources of info on the happenings around town. Lost dogs. Wrecks on the highway. Bobcat sightings near Ransom Canyon. “What’s new?” Lauren asked, already digging in her purse for a pen.
“Your father’s been calling in orders all morning. He’s finishing up at the ranch and heading back in soon. Wanted me to know he hired a new deputy on the spot.” Pearly hesitated.
New deputy, Lauren wrote down, then waited for the name. “Fill me in on details, Pearly. Was he already in law enforcement? Where’d he find the guy? What’s his name? Old? Young?”
“That’s not why I called.” Pearly ignored all the questions. “They found a body in one of the barns that burned.”
“What!” Lauren’s mind was already running through a list of possibilities.
A homeless person bedding down—the barn was not too far from the road. He could have been trapped.
A drunk cowboy—not likely; everyone was moving out, but one might have decided to get drunk first, then leave.
A thief caught at the crime scene—went into the barn to steal something and was caught when lightning struck.
A murder—someone thought they’d cover the evidence with a fire. No, not in Crossroads.
Pearly ended her guessing game. “The body was burned too badly to tell who it was. The sheriff’s made all the right calls and secured the crime scene. I just called to give you the heads-up. Sheriff says he’s got a real special agent on scene investigating. Only, where he’d find one of them this far from nowhere, I haven’t got a clue.”
“Thanks, Pearly.” Lauren hung up, thinking of how she’d put the news together so everyone in town would check in on her site. Then she’d email the stations in Amarillo, Lubbock, and Abilene. They might run the story and give her credit, or even send out a crew.
Suddenly she felt guilty. Someone had died. Maybe he had been dead a long time, years even, buried in the back of a hay barn. Whatever the facts were, she needed to get them to the press first. She couldn’t change what had happened, but like they say, If it bleeds, it leads. A burned body might not bleed, but it was a violent death in a small town. Unless some old cowboy just died of old age and accidently got cremated when lightning struck the barn.
That didn’t make sense. There wasn’t much lightning last night, and she was out there when the barn fired up.
She rushed into Dorothy’s Café, ordering her soup as she passed the waitress, and sat down across from Dakota. “I’ve got a crime scene. A burned body. A real mystery.”
Dakota, like Lauren, would probably feel guilty later, but she said, “It’s not in a house that’s for sale? I’d hate to have to put up a this-house-is-not-haunted sign on one of my listings.”
“No. It’s at the Collins ranch, you know that big spread they call the Bar W,” Lauren said as she began jotting down questions.
“Reid Collins’s place?”
“Yeah. You know him?” Lauren was writing, only half listening.
Dakota nodded. “He’s older than me by a few years. I know he’s a town hero, but the guy always struck me as a little on the creepy side. His only topic of conversation is himself.”
Lauren grinned. “You know him, all right. He was a year ahead of me in school and we had a few dates in college. Our fathers were friends years ago, so he invited me to a few football games at Tech. I was bored to death on those dates.”
Dakota added sugar to her tea. “He asked me out last year. I hadn’t been on a date in months but I said no. I told him to ask again in ten years. I’m not that desperate yet.”
Both women laughed as they downed their cup of soup and hurried back to their little offices. Lauren had news to report and Dakota always feared she’d miss a call. Of course, since she was the only housing agent in Crossroads, whoever called once would probably call back or try her cell.
As if on cue, Lauren’s cell started ringing as she unlocked the door.
She stepped inside as she waved at Dakota.
“More news, Pearly?” Lauren said as she tugged off her jacket. Two calls in a row from the sheriff’s office.
There was a long pause, and then her Pop said, “No, this is your father.”
Lauren cringed. He never used that tone unless he was angry.
“I’m guessing Pearly has already called you.” At least Pop was quick enough to recognize the facts, even if he hadn’t had any sleep. “I fear the leak in this office is more like a waterfall.”
“Yes. She’s just keeping the press informed, Pop. Don’t yell at her.” Lauren was already typing out the few facts she knew on her website.
His voice was scary calm now. “I never yell at Pearly. She’d probably yell back.”
Lauren laughed. For twenty years she’d always suspected her brave father was a bit afraid of the county secretary. “What’s new with the investigation that I can put out? I know you found a body
in one of the barns that burned. That’s all the facts. Give me more.”
Another long pause. Lauren typed in all caps, BODY FOUND AT LOCAL RANCH. This was big. Everyone in town would be reading her news site today. She’d feed them one fact at a time.
“Nothing to report beside the facts you already have, Lauren, but I thought you should know that we’re bringing Lucas Reyes, along with pretty much everyone from the Bar W, in for questioning.”
Lauren’s fingers froze on the keyboard.
Her father’s voice sounded more worried than official. “Several people have reported seeing him on the county road that runs between the Collinses’ spread and Kirkland’s land. And he did have a reason to be mad at Reid. After all, Collins fired his father yesterday. Everyone I’ve talked to this morning thinks Reid Collins handled the closing of his ranch badly. He didn’t even give the notices himself. He hired a ranch manager to do it. I don’t blame Lucas for being angry.”
“Oh, no.” Part of her wanted to tell her father that she’d been with Lucas when the first fire flamed. “You don’t think he did it, Pop? Not Lucas.”
“No, I don’t. But if he was on that road, he may have seen something out of the ordinary. Right now I’m following any lead I have.” He hesitated. “You can report that Reid was fighting to keep the sale of the ranch quiet until it was completed. As of this morning that sale has been put on hold until we find out more about both the body and the fires.”
Before she could say anything, he said he had to run and then hung up. Her father’s way of never answering questions.
Lauren sat back in her chair. The sale of one of the big ranches would be front-page news. Her father wouldn’t have told her about it unless he wanted it out. The sale of land owned for generations and the body found must be somehow linked. What a mystery!
She’d heard rumors that Reid and his dad had been selling off small sections the last few years, but not the whole ranch. She also knew Reid hated ranching, but didn’t he realize that if he sold, the income stream would stop? The older Collins probably had plenty of money for his lifetime, but Reid lived big. He’d run through whatever he made from the sell in a few years.
Lauren hesitated, her fingers over the keys. Another problem. If she told Pop she was with Lucas last night, she’d have to tell him that Lucas had punched Reid. That would only make Lucas look more guilty. But if she didn’t tell her father, the sheriff, she might be somehow withholding evidence.
She typed more details to follow and posted the few lines under Breaking News. There would be no mention of Lucas.
Lauren snapped her laptop closed. More news on the story could wait twenty minutes. Right now, she had to talk to Tim, her best friend. Maybe they could think of a way to help Lucas without making him look guilty.
If Lucas needed her testimony, she’d gladly tell the world he was with her, but if he didn’t, Lauren promised herself she wouldn’t say a word. If her dad knew about the fight earlier, he’d know there was bad blood between the two men.
“Be home, Tim,” she whispered as she headed for her car.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
AFTER LUNCH DAKOTA walked the few feet to her office, catching only bits of Lauren’s phone conversation, but what she did hear hinted that something must be happening. Lauren would be off doing her investigative reporting, and she, Dakota, was heading in to wait for emails. At least she’d had one call about a house, and it sounded promising.
A couple from Plainview, Reta and Howard Wilson, had called this morning and wanted to come down and look at everything Crossroads had under a hundred-fifty thousand. Something with trees, he’d said. Something away from any railroad tracks or grade schools, she’d insisted. Something with a sunset view, they both claimed, was a must.
Dakota had emailed them the two listings that kind of fit. One had huge pecan trees in the big yard, but it needed work—one branch of the tree nearest the house had crashed into the front window. The sellers were a thousand miles away and in no hurry to do repairs. The second listing fit all their musts but it was small—very small.
As Dakota always did, she also sent houses that cost more, but fit their musts otherwise. She’d been told people often said they were looking for less than they could actually afford.
She’d included a map of the town and a list of this month’s activities at the library before she pushed Send and tapped on the wall to go to lunch.
Now all she had to do this afternoon was wait until the Wilsons got back to her. If they did?
Open time. She smiled as the sun reflected off her office door. Rainy nights always made the next day seem so much brighter. She just wished it were that way in real life too.
Afternoons, her favorite time each day, when she allowed herself a slice of freedom. She’d pull out her notebook and draw up plans for a house that had been drifting in her mind all morning. A big house with the family rooms in the center and wings for bedrooms spread out like spokes on a wagon wheel in every direction.
She smiled, thinking she’d spend an hour designing a house for generations to live in, but where everyone would still have their privacy. A house with more than one bathroom.
As she reached to unlock her office door, it gave to her touch and her daydream was shoved aside by reality.
Dakota fought down a few swear words. Forgetting to lock the door was something that often happened. After all, there was nothing to steal but paper and a ten-year-old computer. The worst thing that could happen was someone would break in and buy a house while she was gone. She had the same philosophy about the old farm pickup. If someone stole it, let them pay the repair bills.
She bumped her way into the office, purse in one hand, the refill on her tea from the café in the other.
The afternoon sun came into the tiny office with her and spotlighted her desk. Nothing amiss. Stacks of flyers, notepads, two phone books, and three siphoned cups from past days.
Dakota glanced over the mess and froze. Someone was sitting in her chair. A big broad-shouldered shadow.
Correction. A Hamilton.
“About time you got back,” he said. “I’ve been talking to the Wilsons and they want to drive over to look at the houses you emailed them.”
“You answered my phone?” Dakota glared at him in disbelief.
“Sure. It rang.” He didn’t look the least bit sorry. “Took me a minute to find it on this desk.”
She set down her take-out cup of tea, looped her purse strap on the one wall hook and pulled off her jacket. “How’d you get in? What are you doing here? Get out of my chair.” She might as well spill everything out at once before he killed her. Murder was the only reason she could think of that he’d drop by.
And if he didn’t murder her, she’d be surprised. After all, he’d simply walked into her office, answered her phone, and took over her desk. Murder was the only crime left.
She fought down the urge to swear again. She wasn’t mad, she was furious. It wasn’t that she could pinpoint why. It was more like her anger was coming from too many reasons to settle on just one. Fury swirled like a tornado in her mind and sitting in the middle of it, all calm and comfortable, was her new neighbor.
He stood, making the office seem even smaller. “You left your computer on. I looked at the Wilsons’ potential homes. If I were you, I wouldn’t even bother showing them the one with a tree in it. Howard Wilson said he uses a walker so he’d have trouble moving around in a living room full of branches.”
Dakota was starting to shake with anger. She’d spent the past five years hiding all her emotions and now they were exploding inside her.
Blade Hamilton walked around to the front of her desk and sat down on a stack of flyers. “While I was waiting, I ordered a few things online since it looks like I’m going to need more than one change of clothes. I had them overnighted here
because I probably won’t be home during the day and they can’t deliver them to my house because the bridge is out.”
When she just glared at him, he added, “Oh, I forgot to tell you. I have to stay around this area for a while. I got a job.”
“I thought you had a job.”
“I did. Correction, I do. This is just helping out the sheriff. It’s kind of my vacation job.”
He folded his arms and leaned his head sideways as he studied her. “Is something wrong with you?”
She thought of yelling, You. You are the thing that is wrong. But she just looked into those gray eyes and said, “No, I’m just tired and have a great deal of work to do. If you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to my desk.” When he didn’t move, she added, “I work best alone in my office.”
He slowly stood. “Oh, sure. I didn’t mean to interrupt. I’ve just had a busy day and thought it would be nice to see a friendly face.”
She grinned a no-teeth smiley-face grin. If he thought of her as a friendly face, the man must have no survival skills.
“Oh, a Dodge Ram I rented is being delivered to the sheriff’s office this afternoon, so you don’t need to worry about taking me home.”
“I wasn’t worried,” she answered. She hadn’t planned on taking him home. After all, the sheriff had driven off with him, so Blade was no longer her problem.
“Unless it rains again, that truck will have no problem crossing the stream or hauling my bike. I borrowed your internet to get a carpenter to go out to give me an estimate on the bridge. Sounds like a nice guy and said he’d start today. He seemed excited about the job. Said he just got laid off yesterday and appreciated any work he could get.”
Blade was walking too close to her life. Dakota didn’t have that much time or space to call her own. She didn’t want this stranger so near, but if he used her computer to make calls and her office as a drop for his clothes, maybe that would help get him gone sooner.
“Fine. The house will be easier to sell if we can get to it. So build the bridge. As soon as you get the place cleaned out, I’ll post the property. That should keep you very busy while you’re not working your vacation job.” She wondered if posting a sign near the highway that said Not Haunted would hurt or help. His place wasn’t big, but the land rolled nicely with fruit trees in the low spots out of the wind and wild plum trees so thick a horse couldn’t walk through them.