Skin Dancer

by Haines, Carolyn

  Harvey had tried to reason with Dub. Mullet and Hank had flanked Harvey like the thugs they were.

  “I’m rounding up my cows, and when I get home, I’m going to call the game warden,” Dub said. Richard could still see the disgust in his clear blue eyes as he surveyed all the men.

  “It won’t do any good,” Harvey had responded. “The game warden isn’t interested in this hunt.”

  “Then I’ll take it to the newspaper. Lots of ranchers don’t want the wolves back in these hills, but this kind of crap,” he’d pointed at the leg trap, “is inexcusable.”

  He’d turned his horse to ride away when Harvey grabbed the pistol from Hank’s hip. “Don’t make me hurt you,” Harvey had said.

  Dub had kept riding. He’d never even turned around. Harvey shot him in the back of the head.

  No one had anticipated the girl, riding up from the opposite direction. No one had noticed, tucked as she was behind a rock outcropping. Once she screamed, there was no doubt she’d seen Harvey shoot her father.

  Richard put his hands over his ears, trying to block the memories. The bone rattle chattered in his head, and he heard the echo of Frankie’s sharp scream, then the sound of another shot, and finally the deep silence of the wilderness that fell over all of them.

  Mullet had gone to check on the girl and come back saying she was beyond help. She’d been shot in the head. So they’d left her. It was just a miracle that she hadn’t remembered any of it.

  “Richard?” Justine’s gentle voice touched him like a warm hand. “What’s wrong?”

  “Do you hear it?” he asked.

  “Hear what?”

  “The rattle. It’s—” But the sound was gone. If it had ever been there at all.

  “What’s wrong?” Justine asked again as she grabbed the sheet from the bed, wrapped her naked body and came to him. She rubbed his back and pulled him into her arms. “Don’t tell me you have nightmares?” she asked, a teasing note in her voice.

  “It must have been a dream. I thought I heard someone in the house.”

  “Not in this fortress. I don’t think James Bond could infiltrate your security system.”

  He let her lead him back to the bed. “I heard something.”

  “I’ll get you some water.”

  The sheet had fallen from her body, and he was mesmerized by her perfection yet again. “Okay.”

  She wrapped the sheet toga style and walked across the room barefoot. At the door she turned slightly to give him a smile.

  The door blasted open with such force that the edge of it caught Justine in the face. He heard her nose crunch, and bright red blood poured down her face and chest and onto the sheet.

  “Uh–uh–uh.” She made a strange guttural sound as she fell to the floor.

  Richard had no time to think. A person dressed all in black kicked him in the face and he fell backward onto the bed. Before he could even react, something hard slammed into the side of his head. He fought for consciousness and was aware that he was being dragged on the bedspread through the bedroom and down the hall.

  At the top of the stairs, he felt a boot in his back and he began to fall, bumping on each step, turning and thudding until the blackness swallowed him.

  # # #

  It didn’t take Rachel five minutes to drive to the Le Chateau Apartments. She’d tried to call Frankie, but with no success, and the engineer wasn’t at her home. So she’d taken the next course of action open to her—Justine Morgan.

  The spacious townhouses had been built to cater to the young elite of Bisonville—a growing segment of the population. These were single residents with a good income and a desire for a luxury lifestyle.

  Rachel knocked at Justine’s door. By so conveniently finding the hair clamp at the mannequin scene, Frankie had made it a point to implicate Justine in WAR—yet she’d also introduced Justine to Richard Jones. Rachel was beginning to see that everything Frankie did, she did with an agenda. And Frankie had found the hairclip at the mannequin scene. Very convenient. She probably planted it there. One way to find out was to confront Justine and ask if she was at the mannequin scene. If Frankie planted that evidence, it was all Rachel needed to make an arrest.

  Rachel rapped on Justine’s door harder. It was impossible to tell if anyone was home, but the sound of her fist on wood echoed hollowly, as if the place were empty. Based on what she’d seen at the Paradise meeting, Justine was likely at Richard Jones’s house.

  She hesitated and tried Jake’s number. He’d always had her back in the past, and now she really needed him. After six rings, she snapped the phone shut. She had to get moving.

  Jones had built a palatial home on the west side of town. She’d never been there, but she’d seen the stone and glass building from the road. It was a half–hour drive.

  And Mel Ortiz’s house was right on the way. He would know the truth about Frankie and Dub.

  # # #

  Derek found Justine’s car parked in Richard Jones’s circular drive. She’d left it in plain view for anyone to see, which told him more than he wanted to know about her relationship with Richard. She was sleeping with the guy and didn’t care who knew it. Wanted him to know it, in fact. She was rubbing his nose in it. The two of them were probably upstairs, in bed, laughing at him and how he’d fallen for Justine.

  Until this very moment he hadn’t believed that Justine would compromise her beliefs. He’d convinced himself that Justine was playing Richard, that she was sacrificing herself for the cause of WAR. That wasn’t true, though. Of all the things that Justine might be, she wasn’t a whore. She wouldn’t sell her body—not even for WAR. She was with Richard Jones because that was where she wanted to be.

  He’d suspected Justine of many things, but the truth was even harder to swallow. She didn’t care enough to set him up with a mannequin.

  He walked up to the huge wrought–iron gates that worked on a pass code, or perhaps a laser beam. A ten–foot fence surrounded the entire estate. Richard didn’t need a security guard. His place was protected by technology.

  Derek closed his fingers around the iron bars and looked up at the palatial home. He’d always had money, the finer things, the pleasures that a trust–fund baby could afford without thought. The only thing he’d ever really wanted that eluded him was Justine. Until this very moment, he’d felt he had a chance with her.

  WAR was all he had left now. And it wasn’t too late to make a sensation with it.

  An idea occurred to him, one that would let both of them know he wasn’t going to roll over and play dead. Justine loved her car. He got in his vehicle and sped away. He needed a small gas container, some rags and a lighter.

  # # #

  Mel answered the door at Rachel’s knock, and she was warmed by the smile he gave her.

  “Rachel, what a wonderful surprise. Mom’s going to be upset she missed you, but she’s over in Pierre visiting her sister.” He ushered her into the house. “You look like you need a drink, and you’re moving like someone beat you up. What gives?”

  Mel’s arm slipped around her, and Rachel yielded to the strong comfort. “I went horseback riding, but I’m fine. I need to talk to you about some things that happened in the past, Mel.”

  The happiness left his eyes. “This sounds serious. Bourbon?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t have time to stay. I need to know some things about Frankie and her dad.”

  Mel pointed to the wing chair that faced his. She sat gingerly, aware of the soreness.

  “Frankie’s story is a sad one. You know, I’ll bet she’d prefer to tell it to you herself.”

  Rachel nodded. “Probably, but I’m asking you.”

  He arched his eyebrows. “This sounds like serious business.”

  “It might be.”

  “You two women should get together and talk. It wasn’t so long ago that Frankie was here, asking me questions about your past.”

  The muscles in her back and chest were so constricted she found
it hard to take a deep breath. “What did she want to know about me?”

  Mel’s smile faded. “Nothing really personal. She just has this idea that you two are blood sisters or something like that. You know, loss of parents, that kind of thing.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “Not much. Just a bit about how you came to be part of our family. And a little about Junie.”

  Rachel had her answer now. She knew who’d left the figurine and the photo. Where Frankie had gotten the picture of Junie, she didn’t know. But she’d find out, as soon as she had the evidence necessary to arrest her.

  “What really happened to Dub Jackson?” Rachel asked.

  Mel leaned forward. “That’s a question I’ve asked myself a thousand times, Rachel. I finally gave up looking for him, but I was never satisfied that he abandoned his wife and daughter. Frankie was everything to him.”

  “You found evidence that Dub had left. Tracks leading to a horse trailer. Reports of seeing Dub around the Southwest.”

  “You’ve done your homework on this.” Mel gave a nod of approval. “I found the tracks. Dub’s horse was shod, and it was clear the animal had gone through the woods to the highway and was put in a trailer. That was all I could tell. Gordon got the reports about Dub in different towns. He checked them, but by the time he could get on a lead, it was cold.”

  “Did you ever believe Dub might have been killed?”

  Mel rubbed his chin. “I certainly thought about it. But we searched those woods high and low, Rachel. We searched for days. We never found even a trace of evidence that would support that idea.”

  “Frankie’s head wound. It totally destroyed her memory?”

  “She was literally a vegetable when she came riding back to the ranch. Her mother took her to every specialist in South Dakota. They gave her no hope. Then she went down to a clinic in Montgomery. I think Polly had a sister down there who could help with Frankie, and there was a doctor doing research on that exact brain injury. Frankie was a chore—couldn’t eat or go to the bathroom. Like a ninety–pound baby. Folks never thought she’d live, much less recover.”

  Rachel gripped the arms of the chair to keep her hands steady. “She overcame the physical disabilities. Is it possible she regained her memory?”

  Mel shrugged. “I’ve talked with Frankie a number of times since she came back here to build the road. She doesn’t remember a thing, as far as I can tell. You know, sometimes the past can be more of a burden than a solace.”

  Rachel used her arms to push herself to her feet. “Thanks, Mel.”

  “What’s this about?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure.” She wanted to tell him about how Hank and Mullet were partners back when Dub disappeared. That Hank had commissioned a fancy pair of boot clips and that replicas of them were now showing up stabbed into the chest of brutally murdered men. And that those men were implicated in the disappearance of Dub and the near fatal shooting of Frankie. But she didn’t tell him. “If you hear from Jake, tell him I really need to talk to him.”

  “Be careful, Rachel.” Mel kissed her on the forehead. “I couldn’t stand it if anything happened to you.”

  “I’ll be fine.” She walked out the door and to her truck. Once there, she called the S.O. again. Jake hadn’t been there or called, and neither had Gordon.

  She had to find Justine. All she needed was one solid piece of evidence. Or at least solid enough to support an arrest.

  CHAPTER TWENTY–TWO

  Frankie used the hot shot to prod Richard Jones into the cabin. He wanted to balk and plead with her, but she gave him a jolt of the electricity that could make a seven–hundred–pound cow jump through a wooden fence. Jones was smart. It only took two jolts to convince him to walk forward and quit trying to talk.

  He entered and slowed, taking in the interior, the bars on the windows. The claw marks on the floor where Mullet had tried to gain purchase as she dragged him out into the woods. He knew. She could see it on his face. He knew this was where Mullet had spent his last days. She’d have to be careful with him. Mullet had been critically wounded, therefore less of an escape risk. For all of his tumble down the stairs, Richard could walk.

  “Was Justine alive when we left her?” he asked.

  Frankie felt the anger sweep into her ears with the sound of a tidal surge. “How charming that you’re concerned about Justine Morgan.” She smiled at the expression on his face because he realized his fatal error. She removed the ski mask and saw the disbelief and horror that touched his features. “I recall a time sixteen years ago when you abandoned a bleeding twelve year–old–girl in the wilderness.”

  Richard was shirtless, shoeless and wearing only his boxer shorts. Blood still seeped from gashes on his shin and back, and his thin body twitched and trembled. Pathetic.

  “May I sit?” he asked.

  She pointed to a chair at the table.

  He moved toward it and saw a streak of blood on the seat and blanched. He sat down anyway, probably because his legs were about to collapse.

  “I never intended to be part of what happened to your father or you.” He spoke softly.

  Frankie watched him, fascinated. He was different from Mullet and Hank. He wasn’t begging. That, in and of itself, slowed her hand from what she had to do. “When I was recovering, I had these bits of memory that didn’t make sense in the framework of the story that everyone told—that my father had abandoned us and that I was the unlucky victim of a target–practice or hunting accident. Everything was confused and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t make sense of what had happened to me.”

  Richard looked down at the table. His thumb traced a worn groove in the oak. “I was afraid to say anything.”

  “I had this image in my brain. I was lying on the ground, and this man walks up to me. He stands over me. I can’t look up. I can’t move. All I can see are his boots. There’re these fancy silver toe clips on his boots. Almost like alphabet letters, but not quite. I tried to make meaning of them. To understand that when he said to leave me, he meant for me to die. I thought if I could make sense of those silver letters, everything would be right again. That silver boot ornament was the only thing I had to begin to figure out who’d killed my father and shot me.” She licked her lips. “It took a lot of effort to find the man with those silver toe clips. Lucky for me Hank Welford had more vanity than sense. Once I had him, I knew I could find out who else was involved. I drew the clips and had a silver smith in Montgomery make them up for me. One for each of you.”

  “I’m sorry, Frankie. I did everything I could for you.” His head was bowed as he spoke.

  “I almost died. I don’t know how I got home. Do you know how long it took me to learn to walk?”

  Richard shook his head. “Not exactly. I know some of it, because I kept up with you.” His voice was a whisper.

  “More than two years. The bullet, when it went in, struck the part of my brain that governed motor control. When it came out, another part of my brain was damaged. And then there were the complications from the swelling.” She walked around the table. “I was twelve. I saw my father murdered, and I couldn’t even tell anyone because those memories were all scrambled in my head.”

  He closed his eyes. “You’re going to kill me.”

  “Yes. But not right away.”

  He choked back a sob. “Please, Frankie. I tried to make amends. I sent money to your mother for your treatment. Didn’t she ever tell you?”

  “My mother grew to hate me, Richard. I was a bad seed, something that drained the life from her. She had to wipe my ass, spoon food into my mouth, take my notes in school. And all along she suspected something was very wrong with me.” She grinned. “She was oh, so right about that. She was the first to see me as I really am, and it terrified her to the point that she wouldn’t even speak my name.”

  He put his elbows on the table and leaned his forehead into his hands. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything. I told Harvey to be
sure you got this job for the roadway. I knew I could never make up for what happened, but I did try. I put you up on that horse, Frankie. I went back and when you weren’t dead, I saw that you got home. I sent money for your doctors.”

  “You’re right, Richard. You can never make it up to me, and I’m going to give you a sample of hell. All of you think there’s a difference between animals and humans. I’ve been trapped, unable to communicate, seeing and hearing things that I couldn’t tell anyone else. Like a dumb animal. That’s what Harvey said about me. I was “another dumb animal.” Well, I’m going to put you in touch with your animal nature.” She laughed. “You can bark and howl and scream all you want. The only thing left will be the basest elements of suffering. I’m going to enjoy this a lot.”

  “I’m not going to beg. I deserve all of this. But don’t harm Justine. If she’s alive, don’t hurt her.”

  “Don’t hurt Justine,” she mocked him. “Oh, Justine shouldn’t suffer. Where was all of this compassion when I was bleeding in the dirt?”

  “I was a coward.” He spoke softly. “I accept that. I deserve whatever you want to do to me.”

  “You’re so noble, Richard.” She laughed. “Aren’t you afraid now? We’re here all alone in a cabin where no one would ever think to look. Hank gave me the key. Is this the cabin Harvey used all those years ago, when he brought his powerful friends up for trophy kills and whores?” When he looked at her, she saw the fear in his face and felt a stab of pleasure. “I learned a lot from Hank. Before he lost his head.”

  He held her gaze as he spoke. “I wish I could go back in time and undo everything.”

  “What? All your success and wealth and dreams?”

  “They aren’t worth this.”

  “Why didn’t you tell someone what happened?” She circled the table again, coming to stand in front of him. “Everyone thought my father abandoned us. He didn’t. He wouldn’t. What did you do with his body?”

  “I don’t know where it is. They never told me.”

  “And you never asked.”