Rustler's Moon

by Jodi Thomas

  Her hands shook as she looked down at the note. Part of her wanted to run again. She’d be smarter this time. She’d leave in the middle of the night. Drive in circles. Change cars every other day until she knew it was safe to buy something she could keep.

  Maybe she would ship her belongings and travel by train somewhere, then ship them again and again until she knew no one would be able to follow the trail. That might work next time. Whoever was bothering her might not be able to track her if she changed names, maybe dyed her hair. Or she could walk away from everything and hitchhike with truckers across the country.

  Angie laughed at her own thoughts. She was hiding in a safe office in a safe building in a safe town. She’d never be able to go on the run.

  Besides, she’d already spent a third of the money her father had deposited into her account, and if the Mercury found her again, she might not have enough to escape a third time.

  A knock on the door made her jump.

  She didn’t answer.

  It came again. Harder, faster.

  She didn’t breathe.

  “Open the door, Angie.” Wilkes sounded worried. “I know you’re in there.”

  She straightened, lifted her chin, opened the door and ran into his arms.

  Wrapping her in a bear hug, Wilkes lifted her off the ground. For a long time he just stood there holding her. When he finally lowered her to the floor, he said, “Tell me all about it.”

  Angie showed him the note and watched as he read. There was no reaction until he looked up at her. For a blink she saw anger in his blue eyes, then it was gone, as if he had been well trained to hide emotions. “Any idea who put this on your van?”

  She shook her head.

  “No old boyfriend or jilted lover? Some guy you forgot to give the ring back to when you broke up?”

  “No.”

  Wilkes looked frustrated. “Did you ever take anything that wasn’t yours?”

  “No.”

  “What about Jones’s name when he didn’t come along with you? Maybe he’s pissed.”

  She didn’t meet his gaze when she answered, “No. He’s not the one stalking me.”

  Wilkes stroked her arms as if warming her. He pulled her close and kissed her forehead, letting his words brush gently into her hair. “You got your secrets, lady. I guess we all do, but I’m afraid this one might get you hurt, and for some crazy reason I’m not going to let that happen.”

  She managed a smile. “Thanks, but I don’t need a knight in shining armor. I’ll settle for a friend.”

  “That’s a good place to start. I can be that. When the sheriff gets here, we’ll come up with a plan to find this nut. The easiest way to stop this guy is to have a talk with him. If you have no idea what he wants, maybe he’s got the wrong person.”

  Angie didn’t think she’d get that lucky. “Wait a minute. How’d you know I was in trouble?”

  “I told Carter to call me if he noticed anything. On my way over here, I called my uncle Vern and told him to call the sheriff and both to meet me at the museum.”

  Angie shook her head. “It was just a note on my car. I’m causing too much of a fuss.” She’d spent her life being invisible, never the center of attention.

  “You’re not alone now. I don’t like seeing you so afraid. None of us do.”

  “Thanks.” She leaned in and kissed his cheek. “But I can take care of myself.” The lie was so obvious she wouldn’t have been surprised if he rolled his eyes.

  He smiled at her. “Any chance you stole that old cat of yours from someone back home, Angie? People get real attached to their pets.”

  “No. The old lady who gave him to me said she’d found him when she moved in and planned to leave him in the empty house when she left.”

  Before Wilkes could ask any more questions, Dan Brigman appeared at her office door. This time the sheriff was all business. One call could have been a wrong number. A guy following them into the canyon might have simply been going the same way, but a note on her car had the markings of a crime about to happen.

  Wilkes filled Dan in on all the facts, then offered to stay at the museum until closing time.

  The sheriff said Uncle Vern had already stationed himself at the front door with the O’Grady women and the two volunteers for the next shift. When Dan passed by, he said the old cowboy was trying to talk them into playing Spin the Bottle and they were all acting as if they weren’t old enough to know what he meant.

  All the attention made Angie uncomfortable. “This isn’t a siege on the museum. It was simply a note on my car.” She faced both men. Now that her panic was over, she felt embarrassed and just wanted to forget the whole thing. “I’ve decided that maybe you’re right, Wilkes. Maybe whoever this is has the wrong person. I haven’t stolen anything. No one is looking for me.”

  Wilkes studied her. The caring in his gaze surprised her.

  Dan didn’t look up from his notes. They might not know all the facts, but she had no doubt they were both taking this seriously.

  If someone was following her. She knew it all the way to her bones. They must mean her harm. Just like they had her father. She could almost see them waiting for him out in the alley that night. Had they planned to kill him, or just beat him before the heart attack did the job for them.

  “No one is looking for me,” she said again, no longer believing her own lie. Her father’s old ledger crossed her mind. Maybe it held a secret someone would travel half a continent to keep hidden.

  Someone had broken into her father’s house in Florida. Someone had shattered his office window. Was it possible that someone might have tracked her here?

  But why? She had nothing. She knew nothing.

  When neither man could offer an answer, she walked out of her office and left them to think it over.

  Fifteen minutes later the sheriff found her in the kitchen making more coffee for Uncle Vern and three shifts of volunteers who refused to leave the front desk.

  Dan leaned back against the counter and folded his arms. “I didn’t mean to worry you, Angie. I’m sure you’re right. This may be nothing, but we need to take precautions nevertheless.”

  “Wilkes doesn’t think so. He seems to want an around-the-clock guard on me, and I don’t think that is needed.” Her emotions were jumping around in her mind like hot popcorn but she didn’t want the panic to show.

  Dan studied her and finally asked calmly, “What else besides the note and the call?”

  Angie couldn’t lie and she couldn’t tell the whole truth. She had no proof. So, she stuck to the facts. “The day before I left Florida, my house was broken into.”

  “Did you report it?”

  She nodded. “My father died a few days before and my aunt told me his office was also broken into, but I don’t know if that was reported or if anything was taken. My aunt said the windows were broken and papers were scattered everywhere.”

  “Any chance your fiancé did it?”

  Angie almost laughed. Her imaginary ex-fiancé was getting a rap sheet all of his own. “No. It wasn’t him.”

  Dan wrote down a few facts. “How did your father die?”

  “He was mugged and suffered a heart attack.” She didn’t want to tell him her suspicions.

  The sheriff was silent for a few heartbeats, then he lowered his voice and said, “I’ll check a few things out, Angie. In the meantime, let the Wagners watch over you. Wilkes is a good man. He seems easygoing, but near as I can tell he hasn’t cared about anybody in a long time. He’s been sleepwalking through this life, and for some reason he woke up and decided to care about you.”

  Angie glared at the sheriff. “What are you saying, Dan? That somehow my stalker might be good therapy for Wilkes?”

  “No, of course not.” The sheriff held his hands up
in surrender. “But there is a chance this problem is real. This guy hasn’t committed a crime—yet. I can’t do much until he does. The bottom line is, I can’t be everywhere. All I’m saying is let Wilkes help. Let him care about something for once.” He lowered his hands and his voice. “Let him care about you.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Lauren

  LUCAS REYES HAD BEEN right about the rain coming in. Lauren could hear the tapping on her dorm window as she put new sheets on Polly’s bed.

  “Rainy days and Mondays.” Lauren thought of the old song her pop sometimes played in his study. He’d said his mother used to dance with him in her arms to the Carpenters’ song, and he’d done the same with Lauren when she was a baby. For the first time since she’d moved into the dorm six weeks ago, she missed her father.

  Maybe she’d go home next weekend and tell him she got the Thanksgiving dates mixed up. Knowing Pop, he’d probably order a turkey dinner for two.

  Lauren finished dressing. She didn’t want to call and tell Lucas about the rain. The kiss they’d shared after midnight last night had changed her somehow. She’d tasted passion, if only a drop.

  Lucas’s words still hurt. She needed time to think it all out, to cry, to decide if she wanted anyone, including Lucas, to chart her life.

  All her problems could wait. She had Polly to deal with first.

  By the time Tim picked Lauren up to go to the hospital, it was pouring rain as if the whole world were crying.

  She’d packed Polly a bag of clothes and anything she saw that she thought Polly might need. As an afterthought, she added two pairs of socks and the shoes she’d cleaned the blood from earlier.

  When Lauren climbed into Tim’s old Jeep, he asked, “You think she’s getting out today?”

  “No. I called to ask what she wanted me to bring up, but a nurse answered. Polly locked herself in the bathroom when they said she had to stay at least two more days. Apparently, her steady diet of alcohol, no sun and pills has left her anemic. She’s got two infections. You don’t want to know where. And the nurse says Polly refused to call in any family. She told the hospital we’re all she has.”

  “Me and you?” Tim wiped his face, but rain still dripped from his red hair. “We got a kid and I don’t even remember the sex?”

  Lauren laughed. “If you’re her dad, I have to tell you, we messed up. Our daughter is locked in the bathroom.”

  Tim tried three times before he got his Jeep started. It finally rattled to life, sending rain through the rips in the canvas roof as the heater blew a blast of cold air. “Is it too late to put her up for adoption?” he asked. “I can’t afford a kid.”

  Lauren leaned back in the worn seat. “You know, Tim, I think this is one of those ‘step in’ or ‘step out’ moments. My pop told me about them. When you see someone who’s sick or hurt or down, you can step in and help, or you can step out and send flowers.”

  Tires splashed through puddles as Tim drove. “I think I’m a ‘step out’ kind of guy, but I know you, Lauren. You’ll step in.”

  She nodded. “You’re right.”

  He looked at her when he stopped at a red light. “Like you and Lucas, you know, when I was hurt. If it hadn’t been for you both dropping by all the time, I would have gone out of my mind. My leg was broke, but my mom would have spoon-fed me if I’d let her.”

  Grinning, she offered her hand. “So we’re in?”

  “We’re in.” He shook her hand and squeezed it as if making a silent bargain.

  Lauren didn’t let go for a moment, and he held on, too.

  Lauren almost didn’t recognize her roommate when they got to her room. A white bandage covered her arm, but nothing else looked like the girl who’d checked in twenty hours ago.

  Polly had somehow managed a shower. Her hair was clean and braided into pigtails. No smeared makeup. No sexy clothes, only a white T-shirt that said Lubbock Rocks across the front. When she smiled up at Lauren, Polly looked about sixteen.

  “Morning, roomie,” she said.

  Lauren set down the clothes bag. “An hour ago they said you were locked in the bathroom.”

  “I know. Turns out the nurse didn’t seem to care. I think she would have left me there. After ten minutes of standing around in that gown with the back gaping open, I took her up on her offer to help me take a shower. I called down and asked if the gift shop could send up a shirt.” She looked down. “This is what I got.”

  Tim perched on the edge of her bed. “You look great, sunshine,” he lied.

  Polly smiled. “No, I don’t.”

  No one in the room argued. The dark lines under her eyes were still there, and her arms looked bone thin even though they were partly covered by the T-shirt.

  Polly turned to Lauren. “Did they say I could leave? I’m dying of hunger. The food in here is worse than the dorm. Can you believe it—they bring the tray by at six? Who in their right mind gets up at six?”

  Lauren didn’t want to tell Polly she might as well get used to it. She wasn’t leaving.

  Thankfully, Tim jumped in. “The good news is they want to keep you a few days to fatten you up, Polly Anna. Make sure the wound is healing correctly, I’m guessing.” He took her hand. “The bad news is you’ve got me and Lauren to keep you company. And I’m wild about Star Wars movies. Once the nurses get finished poking on you, I’ll bring up my laptop and we’ll watch them all. If you’re still alive by dark, I’ll smuggle you in chili fries.”

  Both girls looked at him as if he’d gone mad, but since it was the only plan presented, they went with it. Two hours later, with the laptop propped on her tray table, Polly and Tim were watching a movie, and Lauren was studying in the corner.

  Every time Polly fell asleep and missed a part, Tim would rewind and she would groan. After dark, Tim ate her hospital dinner, then went out in the rain and bought the girls hamburgers and chili fries.

  Lauren was used to Tim, she’d known him most of her life, but Polly had to adjust to his humor and his endless chatter about nothing. When he suggested another movie, Polly said she’d agree to it just to get him to stop talking, but the nurse had to give her a sleeping pill first. She didn’t want to take the chance of seeing the entire movie.

  Half an hour later, Tim whispered, “Lauren?”

  She looked up and saw Polly curled against his shoulder, her arms circling one of his as if he were her teddy bear.

  “She’s not so bad when she’s asleep,” he whispered and smiled as he brushed a stray hair from her face. “The nurse said they may keep her until Wednesday. Apparently, even without the cut, she was one sick girl.”

  “I didn’t think she put up too big a fight to get out. Maybe she doesn’t want to go back to the dorm. It’s a shame her family couldn’t come.”

  “Couldn’t or wouldn’t?” he whispered.

  Lauren shrugged. No one had helped Polly move in. No calls, no letters, not even any emails that she knew about from family.

  “We could take her home,” Tim whispered. “Not the dorm, home-home. I could skip my Friday lecture. I usually sleep through it anyway. You could join her after class Friday if you don’t want to skip.”

  “But...”

  “My mom is well trained at smothering the sick, and your pop has an extra room if she wants to stay at your house. A few days away from here would do her good, and from what I hear her grades couldn’t get much worse.”

  Lauren thought that was a terrible plan, but she couldn’t think of another one. “You know, Tim, she’s not a stray kitten we’re taking in.”

  He carefully tugged his arms free and covered Polly’s shoulders with the blanket. “Step in or step out, Lauren. Make up your mind.”

  She tugged on her coat and answered. “I’ll pack her books. If we take her to the lake, there will be nothing for he
r to do but study. I’ll see if I can’t get her professors’ permission to help her with her work online for a few weeks.”

  Glancing back at Polly, Lauren thought about the haunting possibility that she’d tried to kill herself. Polly had told everyone it was an accident that the mirror fell on her. Everyone believed her.

  Everyone except Lauren and Tim.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Wilkes

  TUESDAY AFTERNOON IN the museum dragged by for Wilkes. He had a dozen things he needed to do at the ranch, but he didn’t want to let Angie out of his sight.

  Grinning, he admitted watching her move wasn’t a bad way to spend his time. She looked great in a dress. This was the second day she’d worn one. He hadn’t commented, but he thought of suggesting she burn all her other clothes. The dress she’d worn yesterday had been the colors of fall, but today’s dress was dark blue, almost black, and he liked the way it swayed around her legs like midnight water.

  They’d postponed the dinner party to Tuesday night after all yesterday’s excitement. Angie had insisted on going back to her cabin. She said she couldn’t leave Doc Holliday alone. Wilkes thought it would be safe with the sheriff near, but when he’d seen her, he could tell she hadn’t slept.

  By noon when Wilkes took over watching her, she was wound up on coffee and doughnuts.

  Keeping up with her turned out to be harder than following a rabbit in the middle of a wildfire. She, unlike he, was working. He finally gave up trailing her from room to room and set up a desk by the open door of the records hallway. At least he could search old newspapers for any mention of the Gypsy House, which he now knew had been owned by a man named Stanley.

  From just outside the archive’s door, he could hear her high heels tapping across the hard floors downstairs and see her circling through the foyer as she rushed from one project to another.

  He liked her heels. She still didn’t come up to his chin, but she didn’t seem so short, and the dress was far easier to look at than those baggy pants she must have stolen off a street performer. The sweaters had made her look boxy. The dress showed off her curves.