Skin Dancer

by Haines, Carolyn

  “You look a mite peaked. You want a drink or something?”

  “No.” She shook her head slowly. “No thank you.”

  Her thoughts were fast. Frankie had never believed her father abandoned her. Never.

  A sick little girl, brutally damaged, dreaming of a lost father. Rachel understood the power of such a dream. But what if it were true? What if Dub Jackson was murdered? What if Frankie was tracking down the men who killed her father and stole her life?

  Yuma rose from the chair. In the darkness, he was barely visible. “Come back to see me, and I’ll make you some earrings. Something with horses.”

  “I’d like that.” She nearly stumbled in her haste to leave. It was after eight, and she was bone weary. Her legs and seat felt as if she’d been beaten with a pipe.

  “What did you tell the young woman who called about the boot clips?” If she was right, Frankie Jackson had been on the trail of Hank and Mullet for a long, long time.

  “I told her I did one commission and didn’t accept that kind of work anymore.”

  “Did you give her Hank Welford’s name?”

  “Now that you mention it, I think I did.” He inhaled sharply enough that Rachel heard him. “You think I talked to someone connected to the killer?”

  “It’s a good possibility, Mr. Pete. Now you lock up behind me and take care.”

  # # #

  Sitting in the study at his ranch, Harvey Dilson gripped the telephone more firmly, and his voice rose. “If you can’t get this under control, Gordon, I can and will bring in federal assistance.”

  “What do you think federal agents will accomplish that we can’t?” Gordon’s voice came through the phone line, equally loud and angry.

  “Success!” Dilson signaled to his assistant to refill his drink. Jeremy Parker took the Waterford highball glass, dropped in several cubes of ice and filled it with Maker’s Mark. He put it back in the Senator’s hand. Harvey sipped the drink, letting the burn of the premium bourbon slide down his throat and into his stomach. He’d worked too hard to bring Paradise to fruition to let some maniac with a hard–on for poachers stop the project.

  “Rachel Redmond is a twenty–four–year–old rookie from trailer trash! What were you thinking when you put her in charge of the case?” Harvey rose from his chair. He was running for his third term as U.S. Senator from Criss County with an eye toward the White House, and he’d built a power base in Washington. He’d also invested three–quarters of his personal fortune in Paradise.

  “Have you seen my budget, Harvey? It isn’t like I’ve got a Washington surplus to play around with. I have two deputies and a host of volunteers.”

  “I’m offering you federal agents.”

  “Who we’d have to baby–sit in that wilderness. That’s no help at all.”

  “I talked to Frankie today. She said half her road crew has stopped showing up for work.” The highway was what he had to focus on. Without it, Paradise would never be born. “The road is dead. Do you hear me—dead!” He roared the last word. “The men are afraid to go up there to work. Most everything I own is on the line—”

  “You aren’t the only one with everything riding on this development.”

  Harvey felt his blood pressure surge again. “And you might want to talk to Richard, too. He’s running around with that red–haired bitch who thinks she knows everything. I met her at Frankie’s house, and she’s an opinionated little piece of ass. Richard acts like a puppy at her heels.”

  “Justine Morgan may be involved with WAR.”

  Harvey took another swallow of bourbon. “Now that’s good news. If we could link that little whore into something illegal, it might break the spell she’s cast on Richard.” Harvey signaled Jeremy for another drink. Richard was the weak link. The one he’d always worried about.

  Gordon’s voice was soft, but edged with something else. “Harvey, the question I’ve been asking myself is why someone murdered Hank and Mullet. Why them? And why skin and decapitate them?”

  “I have no idea. Call me when you have an answer.” He put the phone down, but Gordon’s question had triggered a series of unpleasant images. Frankie had finagled copies of the crime scene photos for him to see. Damn good photographs, in fact. He’d had to drink a lot of whiskey to get to sleep after he’d looked at the photos. He drained his glass and handed it to Jeremy. His assistant shook his head.

  “Slow down, Senator.”

  Harvey drew back the glass, aiming at Jeremy. At the last moment, he smashed it against the stone fireplace that was large enough to roast an ox. Jeremy didn’t flinch. He simply stood there, waiting.

  “I’ve earned the right to drink when and however much I want.” He looked around the room at the mounted heads of a moose, a grizzly and a big–horned sheep. When he’d bought the old Jackson ranch on the auction block, he’d seen the potential to turn the ranch house into a showplace. With a decorator from Sioux Falls, he’d done just that. Elegant, western, solid, it was a place where a man could relax in solitude. He frequently loaned it to people he needed to woo in his political career, people who liked a bit of hunting without too much hard work.

  Jeremy lifted his chin only a fraction, but it showed the stubbornness that Harvey admired. “You need to keep your head. Last night you were so drunk you thought someone was in your bedroom. A couple of the ranch hands heard the commotion. You may have this election sewn up, but if you start acting like a fool and the word gets out, the public will turn on you like a rabid dog.”

  Harvey suffered the lecture, and he listened. Jeremy was one of the smartest Beltway advisors around. He paid him a high six–figure salary for his advice.

  “You’re right. I have meetings with the Paradise group all day tomorrow. I think I’ll turn in now.”

  Jeremy looked at the shattered glass on the stones of the fireplace. “Try to get some sleep.”

  Harvey walked down the hall, past the many photos that showed him with men of power. Often the pictures gave him comfort, documenting his rise from South Dakota state house to the corridors of D.C. The world had changed greatly in the twelve years he’d served in the nation’s capitol, and so had he. A moment of longing for the simpler days when he’d focused on South Dakota politics touched him. But like it or not, he’d been destined for greatness.

  He entered his bedroom, a master suite with triple French doors that led out to a shadowed veranda where potted palms rustled in the night breeze. The doors were open and the sheer curtains billowed, causing him to catch his breath and step backward. He stopped himself before he let out a yell. Damn doors. He’d asked Bettina to lock them after she’d tidied his room.

  The navy blue carpet was thick and plush as he crossed the room to close the doors. In the near darkness, he saw something on his bed. Nearly twelve inches long and two inches wide, it lay stark against the white silk bedspread.

  Puzzled, he picked it up. It was filthy and stank to high heaven. It was a piece of hide, something one of his hounds had undoubtedly found. But how had it gotten inside his house and on his bed? He didn’t allow animals in the house. Anger at his staff gripped him. He paid good money, and the maids left something like this on his bed. He started toward the doors, intending to throw the filthy thing into the yard.

  A shaft of clear moonlight struck it. It was crusty with filth, but there was no hair. It wasn’t animal skin. A terrible suspicion stopped him in his tracks. Turning on the light, he looked at it. He saw the skin, the layer of fat, the muscle. His stomach heaved, and a scream caught in his throat. He ordered his fingers to release the skin, but they didn’t obey. Lurching and panting, he struggled back down the hall into the den still clutching the skin.

  “Jeremy!” He stumbled over a chair and went down. “Jeremy!”

  His assistant came out of the kitchen, a disgusted look on his face. When he saw Harvey on the floor, the skin in his hand, the color fled his face.

  “What the hell? Where’d you get that?” Jeremy rushed to his si
de, reaching out to help Harvey, then stepping back as he caught the full view and smell of the flesh.

  “Someone put it on my bed. Someone put it on my bed.” Harvey repeated the sentence over and over.

  “How?” Jeremy looked around the room as if he expected the killer to jump out from behind the drapes.

  Harvey took several deep breaths. He had to get a grip on himself. If the killer had been hiding in the bedroom intent on killing him, he’d be dead.

  “My doors were open.”

  “Betinna always locks them. She never forgets.”

  “They were open!” Harvey got to his knees and stood. He stared at his hand until the fingers obeyed and the skin dropped on the dove gray carpet.

  “I’m calling the sheriff.” Jeremy started for the phone.

  “No!” Harvey took another breath. He’d regained some measure of control, and with it his wits had returned.

  “We have to inform the authorities.” Jeremy was insistent. “This is a threat against your life. This involves federal authorities. Now we can call in the FBI or the CIA. We can get agents assigned to protect you. We can—”

  “We’re not calling anyone.” Harvey walked around the skin. “Get me another drink.”

  “A drink? Now?”

  “A bourbon. Right this minute. And stop questioning my orders. You work for me, remember?”

  “Yes, sir.” Jeremy made the drink and handed it to Harvey. “What are you going to do?”

  “I need to make some phone calls. Until then, get some tongs from the kitchen. Seal the skin in a plastic bag and put it in the refrigerator.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  Any other time, Harvey would have found the expression on Jeremy’s face priceless. “If I have to repeat myself, you’re fired.”

  “But this is a threat.” Jeremy hurried to get the bag and tongs even as he objected.

  Harvey picked up his address book from a drawer in his desk. The skin was more than a threat, it was a promise.

  “Put the skin in the refrigerator, then get on the phone to Dr. Akmar Myss in Montgomery, Alabama.”

  “You want me to call a doctor in Montgomery, Alabama now?” Jeremy didn’t hide his confusion.

  “I don’t care how you do it or what strings you pull. He’s a neurosurgeon at a private clinic in Montgomery. Get him on the phone and then get out.” Harvey’s fingers closed over the portable telephone.

  “But—”

  “Once he’s on the line, you go down to the bunk house and ask the hands if they saw anyone on the property. Tell them to stay away from the house. Now go. I need to make a private call.” Before he heard Jeremy making calls on the land line, Harvey had already picked up his cell phone and dialed Richard Jones’s emergency number. He counted ten rings before he hung up.

  # # #

  Rachel headed toward Bisonville as fast as she dared drive. Fumbling on the seat she picked up her cell phone and dialed the S.O.

  “What can I do you for?” Gladys asked when she answered.

  “Is Scott there?” Rachel asked. If she was correct, the killings had something to do with Frankie and the disappearance of Frankie’s father. Gordon had been involved in the investigation when Dub vanished. What was it Frankie had said—horse tracks that disappeared into a trailer. Reported sightings of Dub in Texas. All things that could easily be arranged if a law officer was involved.

  “Rachel, did you hear me? I said Scott’s at home with his wife and new baby. He left at five.” Gladys was almost yelling.

  “Sorry. Is anyone else in the office?”

  “Me, myself and I. Voncille never showed up for her shift, so I’m stuck here. Again.” Gladys cleared her throat. “Is something wrong, Rachel? You sound peculiar.”

  “I’m not sure.” She felt her own panic growing.

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m headed back into town. Do I have any messages?”

  “Yeah, let me get the pink slips.” The phone clattered to the desk and there was the sound of Gladys pushing her creaking chair back and walking to Rachel’s desk. She returned with a rustle of paper. “Frankie called and wanted you to meet her and Jake.” Another shuffle of paper. “And Jake called, said it was urgent. That’s it. Oh, yeah, the locksmith left three sets of keys for you. I gave Jake one set like before and put the others in your desk drawer.”

  Rachel could feel the hammer of her heart in her chest. “Thanks, Gladys. What time did Frankie call?”

  “About two hours ago.”

  “Did Frankie say where she was?”

  “Nope, but she left a number.”

  Rachel memorized the number. She hung up and blinked her dry eyes as she pressed harder on the accelerator. She dialed the number for Frankie as she drove, but there was no answer. The tinny sound of the ring continued as she drove fast through the night.

  CHAPTER TWENTY–ONE

  She was a goddess carved from ivory and fire. Richard Jones leaned on his elbow and stared at the sleeping woman in his bed. He was a man who made his living with his brain, and he could tick off the benefits and drawbacks of the relationship he’d fallen into with Justine Morgan, but for the first time in his life, he didn’t care about the bottom line or the risk percentage or the profit potential.

  Justine had taken him to her bed, or his bed as it turned out, and shown him a taste of her feminine powers. Not that he wasn’t experienced with women. A man with his money had no dearth of opportunity. He’d known women who were eager to please his smallest whim, and he’d used them without a thought.

  The woman asleep in his bed, auburn hair spread over the pillows like a burst of sunset, was different. He thought about the hours just past and smiled. In the middle of lovemaking, she’d started an argument about the four–lane. Her passion only deepened his desire for her. And though they hadn’t agreed on the issue, they’d found orgasm within seconds of each other. The sexual stimulation, coupled with the intellectual, was almost more than Richard could bear. It worked on him like a drug, and he was tempted to wake her up so they could debate and make love again.

  He heard his cell phone ringing, his private number that only a few people knew. He considered answering it, but instead he let his hand drift to Justine’s slender waist. His fingers glided over the smoothness of her hip. She was exquisite. Lying on her side, her breasts gently sloping and her face soft and tender with sleep, he knew he was falling in love. It was the most extraordinary sensation, like dropping out of an airplane without any means to stop himself.

  The tone from his cell phone continued. Fearing that it might awaken Justine and she would decide to go home for the night, he slipped out of bed to answer it. Before he picked it up, another noise stopped him.

  Someone was downstairs.

  He heard the unmistakable sound of footsteps on the stairs and then in the hallway outside his bedroom.

  Such a thing wasn’t possible. He had a high–tech alarm system that was infallible. The only way to get in a door or window without setting off the alarm was with a specific code.

  Yet he was certain he heard footsteps.

  The cell phone had stopped ringing, and he moved to the door. His heart hammered. Mullet Bellows had been working with the alarm company when he’d had the system installed in his home. He’d never considered that Mullet might have access to his codes—or that Mullet could’ve been tempted to sell that information to someone.

  That was all he could think about now.

  Alongside the sound of his heart beat and the thrum of his blood, he heard something else. At first he wasn’t certain what it was, but as the noise drew closer to the door, he recognized it.

  The soft sigh of a bone rattle whispered under the door. Richard froze. He searched his memory for the connection, and with it came real fear. He knew the legend of the Skin Dancer. Since Hank and Mullet’s murders, he’d tried not to connect the dots that tied his past to the two dead men. With the nervous rattle of the bones outside his door, he c
ould no longer ignore it. The past had come calling.

  Hank and Mullet, both skinned and decapitated in a ritualistic fashion, had been useful in the past for setting up hunting expeditions for potential investors in Paradise. Harvey had always handled the details, since Harvey still enjoyed the kill. Richard had given up hunting long ago. After the Dub Jackson incident, he’d had no stomach for killing anything.

  He hadn’t really been involved in what happened to Dub. He hadn’t. He’d been there, but he’d never been part of it.

  Harvey had been laying the groundwork for his first U.S. Senate race, but his eye had been on the potential of Paradise. He’d arranged a “hunting trip” for several of the most lucrative backers. The men who’d flown into Criss County for a big game kill were influential in D.C. circles, known to make things happen. Harvey was a man with vision, even then. He’d seen the way his ambitions and Richard’s infant plans for Paradise would dovetail into the perfect partnership. So Harvey had asked Richard along on the illegal hunt.

  Richard had never cared much for hunting, and he’d been sickened when he saw the gray wolf in the leg trap. The plan was for Mullet to release the wounded animal only minutes before the hunters, who were waiting at a cabin, arrived at the scene. With only three working legs and half–starved, the animal would be an easy kill.

  Hank had been baiting the wounded animal, teasing it by shooting his .22 caliber pistol near its legs, until it lunged and snapped at the end of the trap chain, when Dub Jackson had ridden over the ridge, alone. He’d ridden straight into the group of men, pulled his revolver and shot the wolf.

  When he turned to Harvey, he’d said, “I’ll end your political aspirations over this, Dilson. You won’t be serving the public–you’re going to serve time in a federal prison. No one has the right to treat an animal that way.”

  Leaning against the cool door of his bedroom, Richard saw it all again. He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his forehead into the wood, but he couldn’t stop the memories.