Slate opened a window in the dining room and dropped to the ground outside. He was halfway down the block before he slowed enough to turn around.
Somehow he’d gotten a break. He’d escaped without anyone seeing him.
He got into the borrowed truck and headed to the Comfort Ranch Bank. Dray Tyree was next on his list.
CASSIDY HAD CONVINCED the sheriff to send units to Amanda’s house to bring her in for questioning. Sheriff Owens, with alarm evident in his face, had listened to the tape that Cassidy had made of her conversation with Amanda. Owens had also sent a car to the Comfort Ranch Bank to see if Dray Tyree was indeed missing.
As Cassidy helplessly waited, the radio on the dispatcher’s desk crackled to life.
“This is car eleven. We need the fingerprint team at the Tyree residence. The house has been ransacked and there is no sign of Mrs. Tyree. I repeat, Mrs. Tyree is missing from the premises and the house has been thoroughly trashed.”
“I’ll send the investigators right away,” Owens answered. “Search the area. Question the neighbors.”
He stood up and walked to Cassidy. When he stood in front of her, his eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t know anything about that, now, would you?”
“I told you, Sheriff. Amanda promised to wait there. She was worried about her husband, and I promised I would try to help her.”
“You should have reported all of this to me the minute you knew about it.”
She could see that he was getting angry. “I didn’t know if I could trust you,” she answered simply. “As I told you, Slate and I aren’t certain who we can trust.”
“I’m in the same predicament,” he said. “Every time something around here goes wrong, I find that you or Slate have been there. It isn’t exactly a situation that builds my trust in you.”
Cassidy saw his point. “I talked with Amanda. She was fine and the house was fine when I left.”
“How do I know you weren’t threatening Mrs. Tyree to get her to say all of those things on that tape? How do I know you didn’t take her somewhere?”
“It’s in my best interest for Amanda to be found safe. I know that tape isn’t admissible as evidence that Slate was framed,” Cassidy countered. She lifted her chin. “How do I know you and Rusty Jones didn’t plant that replica gun at the bank?”
Owens stared into her eyes, unflinching. “It looks like a standoff.”
“Maybe.” But Cassidy felt the first real hope she’d had since talking to Amanda. She didn’t know who’d framed Slate for the bank robbery, but her gut instinct told her that Sheriff Owens had not been involved. At least not wittingly.
Across the room, the dispatcher called out to the sheriff. Cassidy followed him over to the desk and listened to the deputy from the bank call in.
“Dray Tyree is missing. Mr. Barlow said Dray went to lunch and never returned. They’re worried about him.”
“Start canvassing the town,” the sheriff said. “I’ll be out there to give you a hand.” He turned back to Cassidy. “You’re going to have to wait in a holding cell, I’m afraid.”
The door to the sheriff’s office opened and Cassidy heard her daughter’s voice.
“Mama! Are they going to put you in jail?”
She turned toward Lindsey and held out her arms. As she caught her daughter tightly to her chest, she heard Kip’s angry voice.
“We’ve come for Miss Cassidy, and we’re not leaving here without her.”
“Well I’ll be damned,” Sheriff Owens said in exasperation. “I don’t need this right now.”
SLATE DROVE the speed limit to the Comfort Ranch Bank. The one thing he didn’t want to do was attract attention from the law. He was glad of his precautions when he turned the corner and saw the brown-and-tan patrol car parked in the lot. As he watched, two deputies came out of the bank and split up. One headed toward town and the other walked to the nearby businesses.
They were canvassing the area.
Slate parked and made his way on foot to the back of the bank. The Comfort Ranch Bank had once been an old general store, and though it offered a lot of history and was highly touted by the Texas Preservation Society, the old structure had a number of weaknesses as a bank.
It occurred to Slate, not for the first time, that anyone hell-bent on robbing the place would have been a lot smarter to wait until the bank was closed and break into the back. A frontal robbery, in broad daylight while the employees were in the bank, didn’t make good sense.
He found the window that gave him a glimpse of Clyde Barlow’s office. When he peeped inside he saw Barlow pacing the room. Seated in front of his desk was Karlie Mason, sobbing as if her heart would break.
Slate watched in fascination as Clyde went to his secretary and pulled her into his arms. The comfort Clyde was giving Karlie was a lot more than employee-employer. Slate leaned his forehead against the bulletproof glass of the window.
At last he understood.
Slate shifted to the corner of the building, checked for the deputies, and when the coast was clear he walked in the front door. The young blond woman behind the counter smiled at him and started to call out a greeting. It was almost a rerun of the sequence of events that had happened five years before. Slate saw her expression shift from welcoming to one of alarm, but he kept going past her and entered Clyde Barlow’s private office.
He swept past Karlie’s desk and pushed open the inner office door. Clyde stepped away from Karlie as if he’d been scalded. Guilt turned to anger as he recognized Slate.
“How dare you—”
“I dare because you lied.” Slate kept his voice low, but there was no hiding the anger that permeated each syllable. “You lied to cover your own butt.” His gaze drilled into Clyde. The banker looked helplessly at Karlie, then he sank back into his chair.
“Yes, I lied.”
“Clyde!” Karlie’s voice was a cry of protest.
“I can’t lie anymore, Karlie. Whatever we’ve done that’s wrong, none of it is worse than the lies I told about Slate.” He covered his eyes with his hand.
“Why?” Slate demanded. “Why me?”
Clyde lowered his hand and met Slate’s gaze. “Believe it or not, it didn’t have a thing to do with you. You were just the luckless bastard who got caught up in it.”
“I lost five years. I had a daughter and didn’t know it. My mother died while I was in prison, and I didn’t even know enough to grieve for her.” Slate felt as if the hot, angry words would tear his throat. He saw Karlie cower and sink down in her chair, her sobs steady and hopeless.
“I can’t undo any of what I’ve done, Slate. But don’t ever think that I haven’t suffered for it.”
“Not nearly as much as you’re going to suffer.”
Clyde’s smile was thin. “My wife is dying of cancer. I had hoped to give her the last of her life in peace. I thought I was doing a kindness by not asking for a divorce, by keeping my true feelings hidden.” He got up and went to Karlie and put his hand on her shoulder. “I can see that I haven’t been kind to anyone. Only cowardly. The result is that I’ve managed to hurt everyone I love, and even acquaintances.”
Clyde’s words were so completely hopeless that Slate felt his anger lessen. It didn’t seem possible, but he actually felt sorry for the banker. “Who put you up to lying about me?”
Instead of answering, Clyde walked to the door. He closed it gently. “Don’t ask me that, Slate. Dray is missing. I’m afraid something terrible has happened to him.”
“You were all in on it You and Amanda and Dray. And you, too, Karlie.”
“No,” Clyde said. “Karlie didn’t know a thing. I swear that.”
“As if I’d believe anything you swore to,” Slate answered sarcastically. “You took an oath in that courtroom.”
“Yes I did,” Clyde asserted. “Every word I said was the truth. I didn’t see what happened in the front of the bank.” He lowered his gaze. “I made it a point not to look.”
“Oh,
Clyde.” Karlie went to him and put her arms around him.
The anger had slipped away from Slate and he felt only bitterness. “Who told you not to look?” he asked.
“Dray,” Clyde answered in a voice that broke. “Dray said he was in serious trouble, that he’d gotten the bank into trouble. He said that if what he’d done was discovered, I would go down, too, because I hadn’t done my job. And he said that he’d have to tell about Karlie.”
“And Dray told you to make the appointment for me at noon on that day?”
“Yes, he was very specific about the time.”
Slate took a few steps closer to Clyde. “Who was in that office with Dray?”
“I don’t know,” Clyde said. “There wasn’t supposed to be anyone else in the bank.”
“Think,” Slate demanded. “I saw him, the back of his head. There was someone in there with Dray.”
“I didn’t come out of my office. I told Amanda to keep you in the bank lobby, like Dray said. The door was half open, but I never looked out.”
Slate believed Clyde was telling the truth, but it wasn’t good enough. “Dray is missing, and so is Amanda. Someone ransacked their house. There’s a good chance that the man in Dray’s office is the man who has both of them. Think, Clyde. And think hard.”
SHERIFF OWENS PICKED UP the telephone. “I’m calling Rusty,” he said.
Cassidy was across the space and put her hand on the switch hook. “No,” she said as calmly as she could.
“I have to…” He let the sentence die as he stared at her. “You think it might have been Rusty?”
“He knew Slate’s father’s gun had been thrown into the pond. He knew there was no way the gun at the trial could be Slate’s.” She took her time. “He knew this and yet he prosecuted Slate.”
“I don’t know,” the sheriff said slowly. “Rusty never struck me as a man who’d do something like that.”
“Did Slate strike you as the kind of man who’d rob a bank? Do I strike you as the kind of woman who’d kill Lucky Hill?” She nodded. “You arrested both of us, remember?”
Sheriff Owens replaced the phone. “Okay, you’re free to go with your family. But go straight out to the Double O and stay there until we find the Tyrees.”
Cassidy hugged Lindsey to her.
“You’re not going to jail?” Lindsey asked in a whisper loud enough for everyone to hear.
“Not today,” Cassidy answered, smiling. She looked up at Kip and Nita. “Thanks for coming to the rescue.”
“We weren’t necessary,” Nita pointed out. “But where is Slate?”
Cassidy saw the sheriff’s interest pick up immediately. “I’m sure he’s out on the range somewhere with Joker.” She gathered her purse and the tape recorder. “We’ll head home.”
“Be sure that’s where you go,” Sheriff Owens said.
“Let us know the minute you hear anything,” Cassidy said. She carried her daughter out of the sheriff’s office and into the sunshine. When she had Lindsey safely buckled in her seat in the back of the car, she turned to Kip. “Where is Slate?” she asked, unable to hide her worry any longer.
“He didn’t say where he was going,” Kip said.
“I have to find him.” Cassidy tried to figure where he’d go. Perhaps to Amanda’s. “Drive through Comfort,” she told Kip. “Go by the bank.”
IT WAS JUST A HUNCH, but Cassidy knew that Slate would take action. Dray was the logical step. She sat in the back seat, holding her daughter’s hand and answering the million and one questions Lindsey asked with such passion. Several times Nita looked back at her, a question in her eyes.
“I’m fine,” Cassidy assured her as she gritted her teeth against the slow passage of each mile. Kip was driving the speed limit, but Cassidy wanted to move with hypersonic velocity.
As soon as the bank appeared, Cassidy saw the patrol car. Soon Sheriff Owens would be there, and he would be aware that she hadn’t stuck to the letter of her agreement to go back to the ranch.
“Let me out here,” she said.
“Cassidy, I don’t think this is a good idea.” Nita reached over the back seat and touched Cassidy’s arm. “Think about it. This could be dangerous.”
Cassidy looked at her daughter. Lindsey was the most important thing in her life. And Slate was her father. He was also the man she loved, the only man she would ever love. She’d accepted that five long years before.
What she was about to do was dangerous. There was no hiding from that truth. Her reasons were many. She wanted justice for Slate, and for herself. She wanted to be with Slate, to be at his side, because they would protect each other.
Also, in a strange way, she felt responsible for what had happened to Amanda. She had no evidence, but she felt it was probable that someone had followed her to Amanda’s house. When she’d left, they’d snatched Amanda and destroyed the house.
But Lindsey was the primary reason she was going into the bank. Lindsey deserved to know the truth about her father. Lindsey needed his love, and his presence in her life.
Cassidy leaned across the seat and kissed Lindsey. She turned to Kip and Nita. “Keep her safe for me. Don’t let anyone near her, except me or Slate.”
Nita grasped her hand. “You can count on us.”
Kip nodded. “We’ll be at the ranch, waiting for you.”
Blinking back tears, Cassidy closed the car door and began walking to the bank.
The minute she entered, she knew something was wrong. The teller’s face was strained with distress, and she made no attempt to stop Cassidy as she went into Clyde Barlow’s office.
Slate was the first thing Cassidy saw when she entered, and she went to him with a soft cry of relief.
With his arm still around her, Slate turned to Clyde. “Who was the man in Dray’s office? Was it Rusty?”
Karlie had managed to gain control of her emotions, and she stood up. “I don’t know who was in the bank five years ago, but today, just before lunch, Dray was talking on the telephone with someone. He was upset.” She brushed a tear away. “I heard him say that he’d kept up his end of the bargain, and he was angry. But I could tell he was scared, too. He was arguing. I didn’t know what it was about, but he was going out to meet someone. He wrote something down on the pad in his office.”
Slate didn’t give her a chance to finish. He was out of Clyde’s office and into Dray’s, searching for the notepad. Cassidy was on his heels. Slate found the pad and examined the blank top page. “It’s an old trick,” he said, searching the desk until he found a pencil. Turning the lead sideways, he gently colored the page.
The words created by the indentation in the pad were faint, but they were there. “Highway 51, near the junction.” Slate read them aloud and turned to Cassidy.
“That’s where Lucky Hill was murdered,” Cassidy said. She had a terrible feeling that Dray’s body, too, was somewhere near that location.
“Let’s go.” Slate handed the notepad to Clyde, who’d followed them into the office. “You should give this to the deputies.”
“You should wait for them,” Clyde said.
“Amanda and Dray may still be alive,” Cassidy answered. “Even if I didn’t care what happened to them, Slate and I need their testimony to clear his name.”
She felt Slate’s fingers close over her hand, and they ran out of the bank and into the slanting afternoon light. It was summer and the days were long, but darkness wasn’t too far away. Cassidy stretched her legs to keep up with Slate as they ran to the pickup.
IT WASN’T FAR to the place where Lucky had been killed, and Cassidy filled Slate in about her conversation with Amanda as they drove.
His emotions vacillated from pride in Cassidy’s courage to fear at the realization that she could have been hurt. He kept her hand in his, wanting to force her to stay behind in Comfort, to be someplace safe. But he knew better than to bring up that issue. No place was really safe for either of them, until his name was cleared and the guilty parties arr
ested.
“Why Highway 51?” Cassidy asked softly as she intently stared out the front windshield. “The side of a highway is a strange meeting place. And Highway 51 is sort of a local dead end.”
“It is,” Slate agreed. Unless it was specifically set up for a drive-by shooting. Highway 51 was isolated, leading toward the Guadalupe River and rugged terrain where hiding places were plentiful. It had once been an important local road, but the interstate had destroyed its importance.
As Slate and Cassidy bumped along it, Slate noted that the county was no longer even maintaining it.
Lucky’s truck marked the spot. Slate noted that the sheriff hadn’t had time to send a tow truck out to remove the vehicle. Surely they’d searched it, but he and Cassidy had to try for themselves. Slate pulled up in front of it and they got out, walking slowly toward the place where Lucky’s blood still marked the dry summer grass.
“He wasn’t my favorite cowhand, but I hate this,” Cassidy said as she skirted the area and went to examine the truck. Slate searched the bed of the vehicle while Cassidy took the cab.
Lucky’s saddle was there, untouched, and Slate guessed it was because no one had happened along on the road. Highway 51 was that deserted. There were empty drink cans, a bedroll and a few tools, but nothing of significance.
“What about it?” he called to Cassidy.
She held up a fistful of papers. “Receipts for meals and things from the tack store.” She shrugged. “Nothing helpful.”
Slate jumped to the ground and looked at the tires. He could find nothing embedded in the treads that gave him any leads. It looked hopeless.
Cassidy leaned dejectedly against the bumper. “I’m worried sick about Amanda and Dray. There’s nothing we can do, it seems.”
“I know.” Slate stood beside her, pulling her against him for comfort. “I keep trying to figure it out. Lucky left the ranch and probably went straight to the sheriff’s office to file the complaint about Joker. And then he went somewhere else—”
“Or he could have telephoned someone,” Cassidy pointed out.
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