Fateful Waters

by Jackie Anton

  Cutter had taken up where Lexie’s mother and grandmother left off. He gave her a beautiful diamond and sapphire pendant with matching earrings. She hadn’t a clue where she would ever wear them, but she loved them just the same. The thought occurred to her that they would complement her gray gown, if she could ever get into it again.

  What can you get for a man who can buy failing farms at will? Lexie decided on useful and functional; she gave him a diver’s watch, a new leather belt, a new cell phone carrier, and on a whim, a new blue plaid shirt to replace the one she’d adopted as sleepwear. Mom and Gram sent him a huge handmade quilt in brown, green, and burgundy colors that matched the décor in their bedroom. That gift really seemed to move him. It was something that money couldn’t buy; there was love in every stitch.

  The normal routine picked up by Tuesday, and that morning Lexie asked what the Rocking R did for New Year’s Eve. Maria’s blank stare gave her the answer: nada. It was too late to organize anything for this year, but she had plenty of time to plan next year’s party.

  Before starting on the year-end reconciliations and tax prep, Lexie potted the dogs, then searched online for some deals on maternity clothes. Post-Christmas sales in stock were very limited, so she ordered what she liked on her credit card and had the items shipped. It was becoming impossible to zip up her jeans or fasten them; she was swelling up like a balloon. Even her rings were even getting tight and uncomfortable; it took liquid soap along with a lot of pulling and twisting to remove them. She rinsed them off, dried them, and placed the rings in her small jewelry case on top of the dresser in their room before returning to the year-end tax issue.

  Things went south quickly after lunch. First Cutter demanded to know where her rings were. Lexie didn’t like his accusatory tone, so she told him she had pawned them. He didn’t see any humor in her answer, so she broke down, and told him where they were and why. He went to look to be assured the rings were indeed where she had told him. She took her glass of tea and returned to the office willing her eyes not to tear up. I am so damned emotional lately!

  Two hours later, Patrick Boyd phoned her. David Decker had been spotted in Oklahoma City. The sheriff had put out an extradition request, should the authorities in Oklahoma apprehend him. Patrick informed her, “We have a warrant out for him for kidnapping. The toxicology reports showed several doses of Rohypnol stashed in the bottom of an aspirin bottle taken from Decker’s medicine cabinet. Xanax was also found in a non-prescription bottle retrieved from Mel’s handbag.”

  The bottom line was that law enforcement had kept this information close to their vest once they found out the body retrieved from the rubble at the Lazy K was not David Decker. Once David was eliminated the forensic people went to work trying to identify the burn victim found in the rubble of the ranch house. Mr. Potter had also hired a PI to track Decker. The investigator followed him from Miami back to Oklahoma, and Booker contacted Patrick with the information. Booker also notified her before the Deputy had that Decker was on the move and headed west.

  The best that the sheriff ’s office or other police could do was arrest him on the kidnapping charge. Mel would have to press charges and agree to testify; only then could the law attempt to lock him away. Patrick was of the opinion that prosecutors would be hard pressed to prove that Decker had drugged her.

  The whole thing was depressing. Even if they arrested him, the courts would probably let him off. Lexie was certain of one thing. If the law didn’t exact justice for Mel and her unborn child, Mr. Potter would.

  22

  The weather continued to be erratic for the next couple of days, and Lexie was going stir crazy. Her riding was curtailed to the indoor arena, and Blue was suspiciously absent, so she had to make herself content with Blaze. Once their child was born, she was seriously going to find a horse of her own, and God help the person that put a hand on it.

  She coerced Maria to join her for a day in town, citing the need to purchase some clothes that would fit her expanding waistline. The winter clothing that she had brought along ended up being useless as a result of her new bulging form. “You know Cutter will have a royal tantrum if I go to Lubbock alone.”

  They roamed the stores for bargains to supplement what she had purchased online that had not yet been delivered. Going up sizes was depressing, so she and Maria went to lunch and then to an afternoon movie in an effort to banish her persistent funk.

  David was having a covert meeting with a couple of local thieves that had joined forces with him a few times in the past. Both had connections with people who could fix him with up a multitude of narcotics. He had blown through the funds left from the sale of the ranch, after paying off his gambling debts. Moving drugs had the potential to be more profitable than a nine to five. A dark Suburban with Ohio plates caught his attention. He would know the blond driver anywhere; she was the one responsible for messing up his plans, and sicking Melinda’s dad on him. He was just passing through on his way south of the border when a new opportunity presented itself. He recognized the passenger as the longtime cook at the Rocking R. That must mean that Melinda’s little pain-in-the-ass friend was in residence there. He’d heard that she was working as a live-in bookkeeper, but had returned to Ohio before his intended fiancé and her father. So what is she doing here now?

  He couldn’t follow her, because she knew him. Instead, he assigned Clint, the brighter of his two cohorts, to track her and find out what he could. Clint was an average-looking guy: just shy of six foot, slightly hefty with a receding nondescript brown hairline, and brown eyes that effectively let him blended in nicely. Hernando was much too seedy looking for this assignment. Taller than his partner, he was also a lot heavier, with black hair, dark eyes, and a perpetual black shadow of stubble on his face. He was great when it came to intimidation, but he would draw too much attention for this job.

  David was getting nervous being in one spot too long. He was sure that the hapless look-alike that Clint and Hernando had followed out of a cantina near San Antonio had passed for him, but it paid to be careful. His two companions had shot up the ranch house to make it look like a hit on him covered up by the fire, but the word was Deputy Boyd was still looking into the suspicious fire.

  It was almost an hour later when Clint reappeared. As soon as he entered the back seat of the old dark blue Buick, Hernando eased in to traffic while Clint filled them in.

  “I followed the two women around. They shopped for underwear and then wandered over to check out the maternity department. The second store they entered had higher-end dresses. It was there that they ran into to a man shopping with his pregnant wife. He greeted both of the women by name. The plump, dark-haired one he called Maria, but he was real polite when speaking with the little blond that he called Mrs. Ross when he introduced his wife.”

  By the time they circled back to where Lexie had parked, the women were gone. Snatching her from in town was too risky. If Cutter Ross finally took the plunge, he would pay plenty to get his wife and unborn child back. It was time to work out a plan of action, and then head for the border with their captive.

  Lexie stashed her purchased expectant mommy clothes, then potted the dogs and fed them before pitching in to make the salad for dinner. She set the table while Maria worked on the steaks and baked yams. They had stopped at the bakery where Maria purchased the heavenly hard rolls, and Lexie bought a yummy-looking carrot cake for their desert. There goes another dress size, briefly flitted through her mind when she purchased the confection.

  Dinner was a big hit, and neither Cutter nor Jim had a clue that they’d thrown the meal together in approximately thirty minutes.

  Friday morning, Lexie entered the few remaining invoices for the year, and then made out the payroll checks. The checks were now ready for Cutter to sign after lunch and distribute later that afternoon. Dinner was a little more involved than the day before, and they were back to the Tex-Mex fare. Their husbands went back out to attend to some ranch chore or another follow
ing several helpings of dessert. It was getting dark when they returned to find Lexie kneading bread dough at the kitchen table while Maria placed the finished product in loaf pans. That was one of the last normal chores of the day.

  Cutter and Jim were about to call it a day when shouts from the cookhouse sent them on a run out the door. Bright flames lit up the night sky to the east. Cutter had stopped back at the house long enough to tell her. “Lexie, if Sam tells you to evacuate, you and Maria get out!”

  He sure was good at barking orders, but he was even better at kissing her breathless before he ran from the house. In a flash, most of the men were following in Cutter’s wake as the ranch pickup roared out of her view toward the fire. She prayed that nothing happened to him or anyone else. Fire was a tricky thing, especially if the wind kicked up.

  Sam and Pete were left to evacuate the horses, should the fire spread in their direction.

  Maria had set the last of the bread loaves to rise, and was cleaning up what remained of the dinner pots and pans in addition to their floury bread-making mess.

  “Maria, I am going to change my flour caked shirt before I pot the dogs.”

  Lexie had just put on a clean shirt when she heard Maria scream; the first thing that came to her mind was that the horse and/or the hay barns were on fire. She ran up the hall returning to the kitchen, and then skidded to an abrupt halt. There, she came face to face with a man holding a gun on Maria. It took her a few seconds to recognize the home invader as David Decker; his face was bearded and he wore dark tinted glasses under a battered, tan Stetson.

  David hadn’t expected Maria to still be at the ranch this time of the evening. The fire diversion had worked fine, and he’d waited for the men to be several miles away before entering the house. It would have been much simpler if his quarry had been alone; now, he had the cook to deal with. He kept the gun on Maria. Her panicked scream had brought his intended prey running straight to him. He ordered the new Mrs. Ross, “You come over here; we are going for a ride.”

  “Not damn likely, Decker.”

  Lexie heard a low, threatening growl, and fired off a few commands, “Sie ruhig! Bleib wachsam, wir haben einen Eindringling!” praying that the intruder didn’t understand German.

  “What did you just say?”

  “I was just cussing you out in my grandmother’s native tongue.”

  “Well, try this on for size. If you don’t come over here I am going to shoot your cook.”

  “Go ahead and shoot her. I am sick to death of her jalapeño-laced meals.”

  He wasn’t expecting her to give up the other woman. David noticed that her hands were missing the wedding rings he had heard could pay off a good part of the national debt.

  “Where are your rings?”

  “Why?”

  “If we don’t have your rings, the only other way we can convince your husband we have you, and that he should pay the ransom, is to remove one of your fingers to send him.”

  She just glared at him, jutting out a defiant chin, but the cook fainted dead away. He moved around the Hispanic lump on the floor and closed the space between himself and Cutter’s belligerent wife.

  Lexie didn’t think that Maria, who dressed wounds and had wrung chicken’s necks as a child, would faint at the thought of someone else losing a finger. She backed away from his advance to draw him away from Maria’s prone form.

  David felt more confident with her retreat. Maybe she was more scared than she let on? He pointed the gun at her just for added intimidation. He had no intention of shooting her, though it was tempting. She wasn’t of any use to him dead. “Last chance, bitch. Where are your rings?”

  “They are in the wall safe in the ranch office across the hall, with the other valuables and what cash we have on hand.” She was improvising, trying to delay the inevitable. Decker should have never entered this house, and he was going to pay for it dearly if she could manipulate him to the other side of the house.

  He didn’t trust her. “Why are your rings in the safe and not on your finger?”

  “We were baking bread, and I didn’t want to get dough in the settings.”

  He looked in the direction she waved her hand, and sure enough, pans of dough were lined up waiting to be baked. It only took that moment of distraction to send him ducking the cast iron skillet aimed at his head. Instead, the potentially deadly skillet impacted his shoulder, and the gun went off.

  As soon as Lexie latched on to the heavy skillet, aiming it at his head, she ordered Maria to run for it. Damn! She’d missed his head! The sound of the shot reverberated off the walls and inside her head, but she felt a stabbing pain in her left shoulder.

  David was really fighting the urge to finish off the witch—his shoulder was killing him where the iron pan had impacted—but he needed her to access the safe. It would be easier to clean out the safe than deal with a crazy woman. “Bist du bereit zu ihn angreifen! Vorschict, pass auf! Er hat eine Waffe!” Cutter’s harpy was cussing him out in German again. He reached across to grab her, and slapped her across the face. David took a fistful of her blond tresses and forced her across the hall. Little did he know that he was playing right into her hands. It was obvious to her that he hadn’t understood a word she’d said, and she had succeeded with making her commands sound like cuss words.

  David was losing patience, and running out of time. “Open the door and be quick about it.”

  Lexie was trying to stall, hoping Maria could avoid his companion and reach Sam. She also prayed there was only one other culprit standing guard. David had said “we”, meaning he was not alone in this kidnap attempt. She turned with her back to the door and warned him “You don’t want to go through with this David. Cut your losses and leave now.”

  That little speech cost her a blow with the butt of his gun on the left side of her forehead, just above her temple. She fumbled with the doorknob, frustrating him to the point that he opened it himself, shoving her in before him. Lexie used the momentum of his push to fall to the floor. David’s gun fell to the floor beside her as he fought off over a hundred pounds of canine fury. David was propelled backward into the hall by Skip’s impact. Her dog had him down and was intent on reaching his jugular.

  She must have blacked out. Lexie heard Sam’s voice, but she didn’t recall him arriving.

  “Lexie, call the dogs off!”

  She called off Skip; he returned to sit beside her, but she didn’t know that the puppies had joined in the attack, following the lead of their mentor. Fortunately, they were small enough that Maria was able to pluck them off David’s writhing form.

  Sam and Pete took the injured house invader and would-be kidnapper to the cookhouse to bind his wounds and wait for the Sheriff.

  Cutter and Jim were there before the Sheriff or the medical helicopter dispatched by Doctor Callahan. Maria had been busy. After summoning Sam and Pete, she notified Cutter, and then the doctor.

  Lexie woke once more in a hospital bed in Amarillo. At first she thought that the past six and a half months had all been in her mind, but this room was different. She was in recovery, and again hooked up to an IV.

  She looked around for a familiar face, but found none, so just closed her eyes and drifted back to sleep. Her next sojourn to reality lasted most of the early morning hours and well past breakfast. Her private room must have been a clone of the one from which she had escaped in June. She wondered whether it was the same room or just looked that way.

  Dr. Callahan arrived shortly after the removal of the breakfast tray.

  “How are we doing this morning, Lexie?”

  She always found it extremely irritating when medical people used “we”, like they were really in the same situation. “I don’t know about you, Doc, but I feel pretty lousy—like someone shot me, and tried to cave in my skull.”

  “I wasn’t referring to you and me, but you and your unborn child. I can order some ibuprofen to ease your pain, but I hesitate to give you anything too strong. It could ca
use issues with fetus. We only gave you a local to remove the bullet and stitch up your head wound.”

  “What’s with the IV?”

  “One is just saline, the other is plasma. You lost a lot of blood, and the paramedics needed to stabilize you during transport; we opted to keep the feed going during surgery and recovery. If you check out okay, we will most likely disconnect both later today.”

  After he checked her vitals and her wounds, he sat down in the chair and lowered the boom. “You need to take better care of yourself; confronting gun-wielding thugs is not an activity for a pregnant lady.”

  “I suppose you think I should have gone meekly along with his kidnap plans. Sorry, Doc, but if I am going out, I am going out fighting.”

  “I kind of figured that, but why am I just now finding out you are expecting?”

  “No offense, Doc, but I preferred a woman physician, and one that didn’t know Cutter.”

  “Well, I need to have her name so we can coordinate your care.”

  Lexie reluctantly gave him the doctor’s name as well as the clinic address. She closed her eyes and blocked out the constant hospital hustle and bustle. Doctor Callahan told her the fatigue was due to blood loss and her body trying to recoup from the trauma as well as surgery. This was not the way she’d figured on spending New Year’s Eve. She sure hoped 2012 progressed more smoothly than 2011 had.

  Patrick Boyd arrived to a scene of chaos and gore. He quickly stepped around the blood-spattered area of the hall to check on the status of Lexie Parker-Ross, who was being cradled by her husband while he pressed a folded, once-white towel to her shoulder wound. Jim had met him and his partner as soon as they parked in the drive. Sam and Pete had Decker confined to the cookhouse. Boyd was unable to trust himself not to shoot Decker on the spot. Instead of personally taking custody of Decker, he sent Deputy Smith to secure the prisoner while he tried to help in the house. Before he could offer assistance, he needed to secure the crime scene. The dogs must have taken exception to his tone of voice when he ordered the occupants of the house to stay clear of the blood-splattered area, so as not to contaminate any evidence. The big, blood-soaked Shepherd growled threateningly, but didn’t leave Mrs. Ross’s side.