by Lisa Jackson
“There’s someone here I think you should meet,” Shelby said as she handed the tray to Lydia’s unsteady hands, then wiped at the liquid running down her face.
“Who in tarnation—?” His gaze moved from Shelby to the French doors, and from the corner of her eye Shelby spied Katrina standing on the other side of the paned glass.
“For the love of God,” her father whispered, his jaw suddenly slack, his shoulders slumping beneath his suit jacket.
Shelby knew then that Katrina’s claims were true. The reporter from Dallas was her half-sister. Her throat was instantly as dry as cotton, her mind spinning with nearly twenty-five years of lies. “I think we need to talk, Dad,” she forced out. “Straight talk this time.”
The Judge stared at the younger woman in the living room. “You’re right, Shelby-girl,” he admitted softly, his expression bordering on tragic, his gaze never leaving Katrina. “We do need to talk. And I guess it had better be now.”
So Caleb Swaggert had been murdered, Shep thought as he squinted through the bug-splattered windshield of his Dodge pickup.
Someone had wanted the old man dead—someone who hadn’t been patient enough to let time take its course.
Who?
With the question still nagging at him, Shep drove into the driveway of his house and noticed that the satellite dish mounted on the roof was listing again. He should adjust it, as well as tack down a few new asphalt shingles while he was up there. Well, the roof, paint, satellite dish and all the other domestic chores that Peggy Sue had listed and tacked to the refrigerator with a magnet would have to wait. He just didn’t have time for that right now—not when he had another murder on his hands. The D.A. was gonna want an answer and so would the sheriff. Pronto. This was the time for Shep to make a name for himself.
Caleb Swaggert’s doctors were certain the old man had been helped into a grave, and the autopsy that had been ordered was nothing more than a formality. Bruises on Swaggert’s scrawny neck indicated that someone had held him down, probably after putting a pillow on his face. But who would want him dead? Who would risk facing a murder rap just so that Caleb went to his grave a week or two before he was scheduled to be knocking at the Pearly Gates?
He stopped his truck in front of the garage, climbed out and felt the heat of late afternoon press against his chest. Sweat ran down his back and under his arms. It seemed to him that as the years and pounds piled on, the summers in Texas just got hotter and more uncomfortable. Peggy Sue’s minivan was parked inside the garage, so she and the kids were home. Why the fact that his family was waiting for him depressed him, he didn’t understand, but it did put him in a foul mood.
The laundry hanging from the clothesline didn’t help, nor the fact that most of the tomato plants had wilted in the garden. Nothing about this place that he’d called home for nearly twenty years was the least bit endearing to him. In fact, this dusty house that desperately needed paint seemed more of a trap than a sanctuary these days. The phrase that a man’s home was his castle had never rung so false.
Extracting his tin of Copenhagen from his back pocket, he thought of Vianca Estevan, as he had on and off all day. Shit, she was more woman than Peggy Sue ever thought of being. And he’d lay odds ten to one that she was a hell-cat in bed.
He pinched a chaw, stuffed it behind his lower lip and stopped to scratch Skip’s ears as the dog pulled at his chain and tried to jump on Shep’s uniform. “Down, boy, there ya go,” Shep said, feeling a jab of guilt that the hound had to be tethered. It didn’t seem right to tie him up just because he wanted to do something as natural as dig under the fence and service the neighbor’s bitch. What was the harm? It was only natural.
Boy, howdy, did he know it. The hour or so he’d been with Vianca in the hospital had made him hornier than a bull in a field of heifers in season. In the hospital last night, Vianca had turned to him, cried on his shoulder, and he’d felt her trembling lip against his shirt, noticed her firm breasts pressed against his abdomen, and smelled the perfume in her hair. It had been all he could do not to wrap his arms around her, kiss her and promise her that everything would be all right. But he hadn’t; he’d remained stoic and outwardly detached, all the while hoping his damned hard-on wasn’t visible to the rest of the worried loved ones hanging around the waiting room.
As for old Aloise, she’d been whisked off to the psychiatric unit and there had been talk, because of her age, that she would have to be transferred down to Austin, where there was a geriatric psychiatric unit. Vianca had refused. When the doctor had suggested that Aloise might be better off in a nursing home, Vianca had nearly spat on the man.
“Not Madre,” she’d said, shaking her head and explaining that she wanted to take her mother home as soon as possible. Roberto had finally shown up, and Shep had made good an excuse to leave. Vianca had turned those big brown eyes of hers toward him and said a sweet “Gracias, deputy. For this I owe you.” He’d corrected her, insisted she call him Shep and walked down the corridor of the hospital and out the door, certain that his feet never once touched the floor.
“Shep!”
His daydream was interrupted and he straightened at the sound of Peggy Sue’s shrill voice. He felt the muscles at the base of his skull knot while Skip strained at his chain.
Turning, Shep discovered his wife standing at the back door, her eyes narrowed on him. “Did you stop at the store and pick up the hamburger and onions like I told ya?”
Shit. “I plumb fergot,” he admitted and watched her mouth draw into an I-figured-as-much frown. Little lines framed her mouth and appeared between finely plucked eyebrows. “But I’ll run down to the market and grab some now.”
“Well, you just do that, would ya, cause I can’t very well watch the kids, cook, and be at the market at the same time.” She looked tired and beaten down. Lined and discouraged. As sick of her lot in life as he was with his.
“I’ll be back in a jiff.” He was surprised at how anxious he was to leave. There had been a time when all he wanted to do was get home, turn on the news, read the paper in his La-Z-Boy and wrestle with the kids while he heard her rattling around in the kitchen, cooking for the family while humming in that sweet voice of hers. On his way to the truck he wondered how long it had been since he’d heard her sing anything. A year? Two? Ten?
Hell, he couldn’t remember the last time.
He climbed into the cab as Donny and Candice raced out of the house, dust rising beneath their sneakers as they ran past the doghouse. Skip put up a helluva ruckus and lunged against his collar.
“I come, too!” Donny cried.
“No, me!” Candice pushed her younger brother out of the way, and Shep felt a surge of pride that his little girl showed some pluck while his whiney-assed son started crying and sniveling. God, that kid was a pain. The older boys hadn’t been such wimps.
Shep reached over and opened the passenger door. Both kids tumbled inside. “Be good,” he growled, but they didn’t pay him any notice and he had to remind them to buckle up. They sniped all the way to Estevans’ market and Shep, handing Donny his hankie for Donny’s perennial runny nose, promised them each an ice cream if they’d stay in the cab while he grabbed the groceries. He was hoping for a glimpse of Vianca, of course, but she was nowhere in sight.
A Mexican boy of about twenty with pockmarked skin and downcast eyes, a kid Shep only vaguely recognized, was manning the till and Shep suspected the kid was probably an illegal. Not that he cared. The boy seemed nervous as he eyed Shep’s uniform and handed him back change from his twenty without saying a word.
“Vianca here?” Shep asked as he grabbed the paper sack.
The boy shook his head.
“Nope? Know when she’ll be back?”
Again the mute shake of short black hair. This time he also shrugged.
“She still at the hospital?”
The boy stopped. Nodded. “Sí. Hospital,” he said, showing off a gap between his front teeth.
“What�
��s your name?”
The kid froze. “Enrique.”
That was it. Shep remembered now. Enrique was one of the Ramirez kids. Related to the Estevans somehow.
“Thanks, Enrique.” Shep knew it was foolish, but he felt a wave of disappointment that he hadn’t been able to see Vianca. She’d been an obsession with him these past few days, and he couldn’t resist trying to catch a glimpse of her at any opportunity.
Maybe it was the heat. Or his age. Or just plain restlessness. He couldn’t figure it; he’d never thought he’d want to cheat on Peggy Sue, but damn it, a man had needs.
He returned to his sun-baked truck and cranky kids, then handed them each an ice cream sandwich and warned them not to spill any in his truck. He told them it was their duty to eat every bit of their treats before they got home. “Don’t tell Mom that you had ice cream before dinner, or I won’t buy you any again,” he warned as he backed out of the lot and pulled into the street. “And you’d better eat your dinner tonight or she’ll be suspicious. You know your mom. Sometimes, I swear, that woman’s got eyes in the back of her head.”
“I eat it all,” Donny promised solemnly, and Candice threw him a look that silently called him a kiss-ass.
Shep jammed the Dodge into first, tried to avoid a pothole and nosed the truck down the street.
He drove past the White Horse and noticed Ross McCallum, as big as life, swagger out of the bar and stand in the shade of the awning that supported a rearing, life-sized plastic stallion. The hairs on Shep’s forearms prickled.
“Son of a bitch,” he said under his breath.
“Mommy doesn’t like it when you swear.” Candice licked her lips, flicking away a piece of chocolate with her little tongue.
“Don’t tell her.” Shep had no time for his daughter’s precociousness. Not now.
“But—”
“I said, keep yer mouth shut, Candy, and eat yer damned ice cream.”
“Yeah!” Donny chimed in and Shep wanted to cuff the kid. He didn’t. Instead he drove slowly and kept one eye in the rearview mirror as Ross lit a cigarette and sauntered over to a rattletrap of a pickup that had seen far better years. “He’s up to no good,” he muttered under his breath again, “no damned good.”
“You did it again!” Candice cocked her little head at a superior angle, mimicking Peggy Sue’s holier-than-thou attitude.
Shep didn’t respond, just watched as Ross eased his truck into traffic and headed north, out of town. If it weren’t for the fact that he had the kids with him and that the hamburger was probably already cooking itself in the hot cab, Shep would’ve followed the bastard.
He turned the corner and eased off the gas at the traffic light. Why was McCallum back? Why didn’t he move on, relocate in a town where his reputation wasn’t known-where people didn’t know him capable of hellish crimes? What was it that dragged him back to Bad Luck?
Tapping a finger nervously on the steering wheel. Shep started through the intersection when he noticed Nevada Smith’s rig driving past the bank, heading toward the center of town. Nevada was at the wheel, his dog on the passenger side, head out the window, tongue hanging out. Nevada’s rifle was mounted on the rack behind his head, mirrored aviator glasses covered his eyes and his jaw was hard and set as if he was expecting a fight.
Yep, Nevada Smith looked like a man with a purpose, and as if by instinct, he turned onto the street that ran in front of the White Horse, following Ross’s lead northward.
Again, Shep paid more attention to his rearview mirror than he did to the oncoming traffic, and he told himself that it was just coincidence—that in a town the size of Bad Luck, spotting a couple of enemies within a few minutes of each other wasn’t that big a deal.
But he wouldn’t forget it either.
McCallum and Smith had always been dangerous together.
Shep stewed about seeing Smith tailing McCallum all the way home. He barely noticed that the kids were fighting as he swiped at their faces with his handkerchief. Avoiding anything close to a washing, they scrambled out of the hot truck, dashed across the back yard and up the steps. Once out of the Dodge, Shep stuffed the hankie into a back pocket, ignored Skip, though the dog was barking like mad, and headed inside.
The house was stuffy. Fans only blew hot air around.
“ ’Bout time,” Peggy Sue said as he entered the kitchen. The skillet was already set on a burner, tomatoes and lettuce chopped on a cutting board, corn tortillas dripping oil on a rack, ready to be filled. “And next time don’t give the kids any ice cream,” she added without missing a beat. “You know it ruins their dinner.”
How she knew he’d bought the kids a treat, he didn’t bother to guess. Peggy Sue had a sixth sense when it came to that kind of thing. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said dryly, and she shot him a look that said she didn’t take kindly to his sarcasm.
He handed her the small sack of groceries and she started in, breaking the meat into small chunks and firing up the stove. As the hamburger sizzled, she minced the onions, then tossed the pieces into the skillet.
Shep reached for a beer in the refrigerator and wondered why all those years ago he’d been so hot for Peggy Sue. She’d been different then, before the kids. Demanded less of him. He popped the tab of his Coors and headed for the living room, where Timmy and Robby were playing a video game. Half-grown, they either spent their time acting like little kids, fighting over the controls of the game, or looking at copies of Playboy or Penthouse they’d hidden on the top shelf of their closets under old boxes of baseball cards. These days they didn’t seem to know if they were eight years old or eighteen.
“We’re watchin’ the news now,” he announced, frowning at Timmy, who was lounging in Shep’s worn recliner.
“After I kill this guy—”
“Now! Turn that danged thing off.”
The phone jangled loudly and Peggy Sue shouted, “Get that, would you? Someone’s been callin’ and hangin’ up all afternoon.”
The boys ignored her and Shep grabbed the receiver. “Marson,” he said.
There was a moment’s hesitation. Robby let out a whoop. Some video bad guy had just bit the dust.
“Anyone there?” he asked again.
A muffled voice said, “The gun that killed Ramón Estevan is at the rock quarry at the old Adams place. In the cave.”
Shep’s blood ran cold. “What?” he asked. His pulse jumped. “Who is this?”
Click!
“Hello?”
The line was dead.
“Hello? Damn it!” He stared at the receiver a minute, then hung up. His hands were sweating and his heart was pounding like a damned tom-tom. He strode through the house, stopping at the pantry for his favorite flashlight with the big head. “I’m goin’ out,” he said as Peggy Sue lifted the skillet from the stove and began to drain off the grease.
“But it’s nearly dinner time.” Her eyes narrowed, and she set the pan aside as he flicked on the flashlight, making sure it didn’t need batteries. “Who was on the phone and whatcha plannin’ to do with that?”
“I got me an anonymous tip.”
“About what?” She was suddenly really interested.
“I’m not sure yet,” he said, not wanting to let on to anyone, not even Peggy Sue. Not until he checked it out. “Might be nothin’.”
“But you don’t think so.”
“I jest don’t know. I’ll be back later,” he called over his shoulder as he strode outside. The screen door slammed shut behind him, and adrenaline raced through his bloodstream. He had a few hours before sunlight faded, and he planned to make use of them. He’d get himself a metal detector and find the damned gun himself. Getting a search warrant wouldn’t be a problem, even if he did it after the fact. He knew enough judges in Blanco County who trusted him and would fudge a little. Then he’d take the evidence to the lab—if he found it. But this was gonna be his collar. His alone. Hell, yes!
Shep Marson stepped quicker than he had in ten year
s. He was either on a wild-goose chase or he was about to solve a ten-year-old crime and claim his fifteen minutes of well-deserved fame.
Maybe he would run for sheriff after all.
Sheriff Shepherd Belmont Marson.
It had a nice ring to it. A damned nice ring.
“That’s right,” the Judge was saying as he stood leaning on his cane in front of the cold fireplace. “Katrina is my daughter.”
Shelby felt as if all the underpinnings of her life had been pulled, one by one, out from beneath her. As if by the sheer force of gravity, she sank into a chair covered in apricot-colored velveteen. “But why didn’t you tell me?”
“I meant to,” he said, but she wasn’t sure she believed him. “But time slipped away. At first you were too young. Then there never seemed to be the right moment, and later I was afraid that it might turn you against me, disrupt your life—” He lifted a hand. “All excuses, I know.”
“And what about me?” Katrina demanded. She’d reseated herself on the floral settee, but the starch had drained from her spine and instead of coming on like gangbusters, she seemed smaller and more vulnerable when facing the Judge. She cleared her throat. “Were you just going to let me go on thinking that my father was some kind of drifter, a cowboy who had blown through town, gotten my mother pregnant and taken off on her?”
“I thought it would be best.”
“For whom?” Katrina whispered.
“All of us.”
“So I spent the first sixteen years of my life not knowing the truth.”
“Which is what?” Shelby asked. “Who’s your mother?” Raising her eyebrows, Katrina glared at the Judge, silently encouraging him to tell the truth.
“Sweet Jesus.” He drew in a long breath, then braced his shoulders. “I got involved with a woman, a waitress named Nell Hart,” he admitted.
He kept a file on Nell Hart. Shelby had read it. She saw a movement through the French doors and realized Lydia was mopping the floor, edging closer.
“I thought—I mean, I heard she was involved with Ramón Estevan and that’s why she left town.”