see the last of the older man, but he couldn't have said why. Impatient to tell Sara the results of his morning's work, he shook off the strange feeling of unease and hurried to find his wife.
He found her sitting in the shade of the large willow tree in the courtyard, a pitcher of sangria and some glasses resting in the center of the table, along with several pieces of fruit. After greeting Sara with a kiss, he poured himself some of the sangria and, taking a chair across from her, stretched his long legs out before him. Grinning at her over the rim of his glass, he said, "You'll be happy to know that before the week is ended, we should be rid of our, um, guests!"
Her eyes soft with love as she gazed at him, she inquired, "So it went well?"
He nodded. "As well as I expected, but there was something about Tom . .." He shrugged and said, "Enough about them—tell me of your morning." And Sara proceeded to do just that.
Several hours later, as he sat alone in the courtyard, waiting for Sara to appear from their afternoon siesta, Yancy was still mulling over Tom's manner. It had made him uneasy but he couldn't say why, and that made him even more uneasy! And the envelope that Maria delivered to him just a few minutes later only increased his feeling that there was something afoot. . . something he wasn't going to like very much!
A scowl between his brows, he glanced at the small sheet of paper the envelope had contained. Why the devil did Ann want to meet him secretly in the small bam tonight? What was she up to now? He studied a phrase from her note—"you are to tell no one—it is too dangerousV What the hell did she mean by that? He read the message again, his mind racing. Was it just Ann being melodramatic, or did she really have "something of the utmost importance" to tell him? His
scowl deepened. There were several things he could do about the note, but it really narrowed down to only two options: he could toss it over his shoulder and ignore it, or he could meet with the damned woman and find out what was so blasted important that she couldn't just walk up to the hacienda and tell him. He was sorely tempted to follow the first option, but sighing resignedly, he knew he wasn't going to. Like a lamb to the slaughter, he was going to be at the meeting place at the stated time. But unlike the lamb—he smiled savagely—he wouldn't be walking blindly into a trap.
Shortly thereafter, when he sought out Sara in the privacy of their bedroom and apprised her of his plan to follow Ann's instructions, Sara was furious with him. "How can you be so stupid?" she asked, springing up from the dressing stool, where she had been sitting brushing her hair. "It has to be a trap! She and Hyrum are going to try to kill you. They're probably furious with the way you've arranged to split them up! She can't be happy with Hyrum leaving for California while she's to go with Tom to San Antonio. She means to harm you, I just know it!"
"I thought you said she might decide that Tom was not such a bad husband, after all, and mend her ways," Yancy commented innocently, his amber-gold eyes gleaming with laughter.
"And pigs might fly!" Sara retorted wrathfully, her green eyes flashing as, arms akimbo, she glared at him. "You will not meet that dreadful woman alone! I forbid it!"
The laughter fled from his gaze, and catching her up in his arms, he murmured against her ear, ''Querida, I have to meet her! Suppose the note is genuine? Suppose she really does know something of the utmost importance? Something that is so dangerous that she dared not approach me directly? What then?"
Sara made a little fist and hit him in the shoulder. A hint of tears in her voice, she muttered, "I don't care! I just don't want anything to happen to you!"
He caressed her hair. "Nothing is going to happen to me. It is not as if I am walking into her web without warning."
Her features resolute, Sara looked up at him. "I'm going with you!"
"No, you're not," he said gently, his eyes warm and tender as they roamed over her lovely face. "You're going to wait here for me. If it is a trap, I don't want to be worrying about saving your lovely neck as well as my far-less-fragile one!"
Sara argued at length and with great vehemence, but in the end, she remained where she was and it was Yancy who glided out of the hacienda sometime later into the murky shadows of dusk. A knife hidden in his boot, the ever-present pistol hanging from his gun belt, every nerve alert for danger, he stealthily made his way to the bam where Ann had indicated she would be waiting for him. It was a small one, located some distance from the rest of the other outbuildings, nestled in the middle of several sprawling pecan and willow trees. As he approached it, Yancy glanced around carefully one more time, and seeing nothing to alarm him, he slowly pushed open one of the doors and silently entered the building. Only gloomy shadows met his gaze and, his hand resting on the butt of his gun, he walked in farther. By now full dusk had fallen and it was even darker inside the bam, but there was just enough light left for him to make out the motionless form lying on the floor near the ladder which led to the loft twenty feet above.
He cursed under his breath, but before mshing to the aid of the fallen figure before him, he took another slow and thorough inventory of the area. The bam had been used to store various odds and ends, and a jumble of
barely discernible shapes met his gaze. Again he saw nothing to cause alarm, but he was extremely uneasy. He listened intently for any abnormal sound, yet still there was nothing.
Not liking the situation, but having no choice but to play the cards dealt him, he cautiously approached the dark shape on the bam floor. To his astonishment, he discovered that it was Hyrum lying there! A very dead Hyrum, he learned a second later when he crouched and sought for a pulse. His hand came away wet and sticky, and though he could not see its color, he knew that his hand was covered in blood. From his quick inspection of the body, it appeared that someone had struck a fatal blow to the back of Hyrum's head.
The violent rush of air behind him was the only warning Yancy had, and he was already rising and turning, the gun in his hand, when a powerful blow caught him on the temple. With a soft groan, he fell to the floor beside Hyrum's body. It was only his quick reaction that had saved him from sharing Hyrum's fate, but the blow had been forceful enough to render him unconscious for a precious few minutes—minutes in which his hands and feet were swiftly bound.
When consciousness returned, the faint, deadly scent of smoke was in his nostrils, and it was then that he discovered his helpless and dangerous state. Rolling quickly over onto his back, he stared toward the shadowy figure busily adding small bits of wood and straw to the as-yet-tiny fire that flickered near the base of the ladder which led up to the loft. With every second that passed, with every piece of added fuel, the fire grew brighter and stronger, and a thrill of horror went through Yancy when the figure turned and in the dancing light of the yellow-and-red flames he recognized Tom Shelldrake's features.
"Po/- DiosV he exclaimed. "What the hell is going on? What are you doing?"
In the fiery light, Tom looked at him queerly, the expression in his brown eyes making Yancy's flesh crawl. "Oh, I am sorry," Tom said regretfully. "I had hoped that I'd hit you hard enough so that you wouldn't have to suffer. After all, you have been so kind to me." He sighed. "I really am sorry for this, you know, but a little rancho outside San Antonio just wouldn't do, you see— not when I can have del Sol and all that bountiful silver from your mines." Momentarily heedless of the growing flames near his feet, Tom went on gently. "It was actually Hyrum who gave me the idea for it—did you know that he planned to kill you and marry your widow? And, of course, he and that slut of a wife of mine intended for me to die, too. I overheard them planning it one night at del Sol. They thought they were so damned clever. But not as clever as I am!" A high-pitched giggle came from him, a chilling sound that made Yancy realize in that tense moment that he was totally in the power of a madman, and he carefully began to test the strength of the bonds that held him. "It won't do any good," Tom said as he watched Yancy's actions. "I tied them very tight. ... Of course, I didn't have to worry about Hyrum." He giggled again. "Nor my sweet wife
, now that I think of it."
Yancy's head snapped up at that and he demanded, "What the hell do you mean by that? Where is Ann?"
Tom smiled and glanced upward. "My dear, dear wife is up there—after all, it won't do any good if I get rid of you and I am still chained to that little slut! Besides," he continued conversationally, "she deserves to die! Planning with her lover to kill me! The very idea!"
Hoping to keep him distracted, and stalling for time, Yancy asked, "Why kill Hyrum? He was leaving in the morning."
Tom absently stroked his chin. "The bastard planned to kill me, which should be reason enough for me to
kill him, and don't forget, he was enjoying my wife's favors. Can you blame me?" He looked accusingly at Yancy. "You know you precipitated all of this, don't you? You brought it on yourself. If you hadn't decided to finally get rid of all of us, who knows how much longer you might have lived? But once Hyrum got his marching orders and you made it clear that Ann and I were also being ejected from your household, everything changed!"
"How?" Yancy asked tightly. "I thought I had been rather generous to all of you."
"Oh, but you had, my dear boy! Very generous. But your generosity paled to nothing when compared to your great fortune. Why should I settle for Domingo when I can have it all—once, of course, I marry your widow." Tom looked pleased. "Sara seems to like older men, doesn't she? She married Sam, didn't she? With Hyrum gone and you gone, I don't think I shall have much trouble convincing her to marry me. After all, I will be a grieving spouse also—just think how we can console each other!"
Yancy's teeth gritted together and he took advantage of the shadows that hid most of his body from Tom's view, inching his fingers desperately toward the knife hidden in his boot. His wary gaze flicking between Tom and the glowing fire, Yancy said dryly, "It would appear that you have it all thought out."
"Well, I actually can't take all the credit—I told you Hyrum and Ann came up with the idea first. I merely refined it and shaped it to my advantage." He glanced at Hyrum's still form. "I enjoyed killing him, you know. Oh, and by the way, the men you had watching him? You'll be happy to learn that I didn't kill them; someone will eventually find them tied up in Hyrum's house—I was careful not to let them see me, and it'll be just one more little mystery for the others to ponder over."
Something suddenly dawned on Yancy. "Your arm," he said slowly. "You're using it!"
Tom smiled slyly. "Oh, yes. I have been for some time, but it seemed so convenient to have everyone think of me as a cripple. People look at you differently when you are crippled—they think you're harmless." He glanced up toward the loft. "It made my wife grow careless and allowed me to spy on her and her lover whenever it suited me. I knew everything they planned! Eveiythingl They were such fools! Acting as if a crippled arm had turned me into some sort of doddering idiot! She'd been quite brazen lately, letting her true feelings show a little too much. But in the end, I fooled her!" Tom's mouth twisted. "Her and that sister of hers, thinking they could manipulate me any way they wanted. Well, I showed Margaret the folly of her ways, and now I've shown Ann that I am not the simple lapdog she thought I was!"
"Margaret?" Yancy said carefully, an arrested expression on his face. "What do you mean, you showed Margaret?"
That bone-chilling giggle drifted on the smoke-scented air. "Why, only that the silly little bitch thought that she could force me to divorce Ann and marry her!" Tom looked petulant. "She knew that I wanted to be the next judge—tried to tell me that the scandal wouldn't make any difference. Stupid slut! As if I ever could have been elected judge after doing such an outrageous thing. Divorce my wife to marry her sister—who divorced her husband to marry me! It was ludicrous! It wasn't to be considered, not even for a moment! I tried to explain all that to her, but she just wouldn't listen!" He turned to the fire and dropped a few more pieces of wood on the flames, saying idly, "She was so beautiful. I'd never met anyone like her in my life and she utterly dazzled me. I was mad for her, even though I suspected
that it was only my money she wanted." He glanced back at Yancy. "I was much richer than Sam in those days, maybe even richer than you are! Much more affluent and more socially active than your father, and I think Margaret had decided that I would be a better bargain, even if she had to cause a terrible scandal to get what she wanted. She was determined to let nothing stand in her way." He giggled again. "I didn't let anything stand in my way either. When she realized that I wasn't about to fall in with her schemes, she threatened to tell Sam that it was my baby and that she would cause a scandal anyway, just to spite me. I couldn't let that happen, so I stole Bartholomew's dagger and I killed her."
As he listened to Tom's careless confession, Yancy was uneasily aware that the bam was steadily filling with smoke and that the fire was now burning merrily on its own, fiery tendrils licking out greedily to consume whatever it touched. The air was still fairly fresh near the ground where he lay, but it wasn't going to stay that way for very long, not with the fire spreading with every second that passed. He tested his bonds again, to no avail, and with a careful eye on his captor, strained to get his fingers on the knife concealed in his boot top.
At the moment, Tom wasn't paying attention to him; he was far too busy watching the fire and bragging about his exploits, and Yancy prayed that he stayed that way long enough for him to reach the knife. Suddenly Tom swung around and looked directly at him and Yancy froze.
Somewhat proudly, Tom said, "I was the one who put the snake in Sara's bed. I thought she knew that I had killed Margaret, and I wanted to prevent her from saying anything." He shook his head. "What a mistake that would have been! I nearly got bitten myself transporting it to her room, and it was only later that I perceived
that Sara had not understood the significance of the conversation she had overheard between Ann and Margaret that night at Magnolia Grove." A moody expression on his face, he continued softly, almost to himself. "I was so frightened at first that I could think of nothing but shutting Sara's mouth, and the snake seemed like a good idea. I realize now that it would have been terrible if my plan had worked and she had died." He smiled. "If I don't marry Sara, how else can I get my hands on your fortune?"
"How else indeed," Yancy replied dryly, wondering that none of them had ever suspected how dangerously ill Tom had become. Probably, he decided grimly, because everyone had looked upon him as a broken, pitiful man, never seeing what was lurking beneath the surface.
"I am sorry, you know, that you have to die this way," Tom muttered. "I always liked you, Yancy. You're a fine man, and Sam was good to me after I lost everything. Granted, since I saved his life during the war, he should have been, but still. . ."
"You don't have to kill me, you know—you could let me go," Yancy suggested blandly.
"Oh, no, I can't change my plans now," Tom replied earnestly. "I've already killed Hyrum and Ann, and you know about Margaret, so I simply have no choice but to arrange your death, too, now that you know everything."
Tom looked around him, obviously satisfied with the way events were going, and Yancy took a chance and began to struggle away from the fire, towards the doors of the bam. The fire was beginning to crackle ominously, the smoke becoming thicker and more rank, voracious gold-and-scarlet tongues curling around the posts of the loft, the inside of the bam eerily illuminated by the growing flames. In a scant few moments more, the place would be an infemo; no one would get out alive. ...
Tom suddenly glanced over at Yancy and, seeing him wiggling toward the bam doors, cried out in a scolding tone, "No, no, you must not escape!" Rushing after him, he grabbed Yancy's feet and dragged his protesting body back toward the fire. Nearly breathless from his exertions, he complained, "I planned this too well for you to ruin it! It will be so tragic, all three of you killed in the fire." He gave another of those chilling giggles. "I have to tell you—I'm afraid I pilfered another one of Hyrum's plans. He and Ann had a most interesting meeting this afternoon, and I'm afraid that we
were to die in the fire! That's why Ann wrote you that note— to lure you here so that Hyrum could kill you. Ann was supposed to get me to go for a walk with her in this direction, where Hyrum would be lying in wait for me Once they had rendered me dead or unconscious, Hyrum was to start the fire, which would bum up all traces of the crime."
Almost oblivious of Tom's aimless chatter, Yancy risked a glance in the direction of the blaze and his blood ran cold. The fire was nearly in full fury, leaping wildly toward the ceiling, wicked whips of red and gold lashing in all directions. The heat was intense and Yancy's skin felt as if it had been scorched; the smoke burned his eyes and lungs and he knew there was not a moment to lose. Unless he got out in the next few seconds, he wasn't going to get out!
Lost in his own thoughts, Tom Shelldrake seemed to be completely heedless of the growing danger. Nearly pleading for Yancy's approval, he explained, "I couldn't let that happen, could I? Don't you agree it really was very clever of me to figure out a way to get rid of all three of you at once?"
"Not as clever as you think, you crazy son of a bitch!" Yancy growled, and putting all his power behind it, he angled his body upward and aimed both his feet at Tom's
chest. Tom went down with an astonished grunt, and, all his energies focused once more on escape, Yancy snaked and rolled himself toward the bam doors as swiftly as he could. A sigh of satisfaction went through him when at last he bumped into the solid bulk of the doors. Frantic now to get out, terrified that he would never see Sara again, never see his child bom, he stmggled clumsily to get the doors open with his feet, only realizing after futile seconds that Tom must have lodged them shut from the inside. Dragging in deep gulps of air from the small crack between the doors, his body pressed tightly along their wooden length, Yancy strained to get his hands on the knife.
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