Deadly Noel

by Margaret Daley

  Not when his daughter was at the ranch. She’d been crying because her mommy had called and postponed their time together for a couple of days—again. He hated seeing Abbey so upset. He needed to make Marcie realize what cancelling repeatedly was doing to their daughter. But what occurred later was far worse.

  Gabriel shook those memories away, determined to put the past behind him. He had too much that demanded his attention now to focus any more energy on what had happened. His daughter needed him more than ever. His ranch did, too. Jessie and Hank, his cowhand, had tried to keep things going, but his absence had taken a toll on their income.

  As he rose, an image of a tall woman with long blond hair that hung about her shoulders in thick waves and blue eyes that were stabbing in their assessment of him flooded his mind. He tensed, his hands balling at his sides. Kira Davis, the county assistant DA responsible for sending him to prison, should have at least listened to his story.

  He thought of all that had happened since his conviction, and he couldn’t contain his anger. It bolted through him as swift as lightning. Seeing the cell door slam on him had killed his mother from a broken heart. Now he was fighting to retain full custody of his own daughter from her grandmother, Ruth Morgan, a powerful woman who had all the time and money to spend on her fight to save her only granddaughter from a nightmarish fate, as she had called living with him.

  Gabriel picked up the legal documents announcing Ruth’s intention to seek at least partial custody of Abbey. He crushed them in his hand, tossing them into the trashcan. He wished he could rid himself of the problem as easily as throwing the papers away. But the next few months would be even worse than the previous ones. Abbey was his daughter, and no one was going to take her away from him even if he had to sell his ranch to fight this in court.

  No one.

  The sound of a car approaching drew Gabriel’s attention back to the window. As Kira climbed from her Chevy, scanned the yard, then walked toward the porch, he froze. She was all legs, which were emphasized by her short black skirt. In spite of his anger at her, Gabriel admired the way the woman carried herself, proud with an almost defiant attitude.

  Why is she here? Hadn’t she done enough?

  He pushed himself away from the desk and headed toward the front door. Wanting to throw her off guard as much as possible, he opened it before she had a chance to knock. She dropped her hand to her side and faced him with the screen door the only thing that separated them—that and the fact this woman was one of the reasons his life had fallen apart.

  “Lost?” he drawled, leaning against the doorjamb as though he had not a care in the world while inside he was wound so tight he wondered if he would explode right before her eyes. “The main highway is that way.” He nodded toward the north.

  “I came to see you.”

  He heard the trace of unease in her voice, and for some reason that bothered him. “I couldn’t have killed the other two women. Thankfully, I have the perfect alibi. I was in prison at the time those murders were committed.”

  “May I come in?”

  He didn’t want her in his house, invading his sanctuary, disturbing his daughter. He opened the screen door and stepped out onto the porch. “What do you want?”

  Her gaze that had been on him the whole time slid away, panned the yard as if she was looking for a way to escape. She swallowed hard. “I came to apologize for”—she faltered, swallowing again—“I’m sorry for everything.”

  “Fine. I’m sure you feel better. You’ve done what you came here to do, so now you can leave.”

  She looked him in the eye. “I was doing my job. It wasn’t personal.”

  “Ma’am, from where I was sitting in the courtroom, it was very personal. You were Marcie’s best friend. You, along with her esteemed family, didn’t approve of her marrying below her station, as they told me on more than one occasion. It wasn’t enough that we were getting divorced. No, it was important that y’all pin the assault and supposed murder on me even though I had an alibi.”

  “Your mother was considered bias.”

  “I couldn’t change who I was with at the time of the assault to have a more impartial alibi. If I’d known I needed one, I would have stood in the middle of Main Street and caused a scene so people would remember me.”

  A flush stained her cheeks. “I’m sorry about your mother.”

  “That she died? Or that she had to see her only son dragged away to prison for a crime he didn’t commit?”

  She flinched. “Both.”

  He had to give her credit for having guts. Most people wouldn’t have set foot on his ranch after what she’d done. But here she was, standing in front of him with the sun quickly sinking below the flat horizon as she offered him an apology. “Well, as you said, it was your job.” He turned toward the door, wanting to end the conversation as quickly as possible.

  “Please, don’t go yet.”

  The plea in her voice touched his hardened heart, and he hesitated, his back to her, his hand on the door handle. God wanted him to forgive her for the past, but he didn’t know if he could.

  “I need your help.”

  He pivoted, bringing him only a foot from her. He could smell her scent of lilacs and was momentarily taken back. He was reminded of softness and a warm spring day, like the day he’d been hauled off to prison. Clamping down his jaw to keep his temper in control, he stared at her, swallowing the words, “Have you gone mad?”

  “I’ll understand if you don’t want to help me, but you knew Marcie better than anyone. You were married to her for eight years. Maybe you know something that could help us find the man committing these crimes.”

  He threw back his head and laughed, not even remotely humorous. “Now, y’all want to know what I know. Don’t you think it’s eleven months too late?”

  “It’s never too late to help.”

  He thrust his face into hers, relishing the fear that leaped into her eyes. “Lady, get off my property. I don’t owe you or anyone in Pinecrest a thing.”

  “But—”

  He slammed into the house and struck the doorjamb with his fist, welcoming the pain that shot up his arm. His anger shook him to his core. He sucked in deep breaths to rein in his rage. Abbey was in the kitchen with his sister. He wouldn’t allow this whole ugly affair to touch her any more than it already had. He had to protect his daughter.

  “Daddy, is someone here? I heard voices.” His daughter came from the back of the house, her forehead furrowed.

  “It was no one, princess.” He walked to her and tousled her blond hair. When she looked up at him, his heart seemed to stop beating for a second. She was an exact replica of her mother.

  “I finished my homework. Jessie and me are gonna fix dinner. What do you want?”

  “Surprise me, honey.”

  “Ah, Daddy, you always say that.”

  “I like surprises.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “Okay, maybe only ones from you.”

  Abbey threw her arms around his waist and hugged him. “I love you. We’ll make something special. One of your favorites.”

  As his daughter skipped into the kitchen, his throat thickened. His eyes blurred. He closed them, continuing to inhale calming breaths until his ironclad control fell back into place. He still saw the fear in her eyes. She was scared he would go away again. She was trying to be brave, but she had hardly let him out of her sight when she wasn’t at school. The Lord and thoughts of Abbey were the reason he had kept his sanity in prison. No one would ever take her away from him again, especially her grandmother. He had promised Abbey that the day he’d returned home, and he would keep that promise no matter what.

  * * *

  What had she expected? The welcome wagon? Kira stared at the closed door, fighting the urge to pound on it in frustration.

  Whatever had possessed her to apologize one minute and ask for his help the next? Desperation. She pivoted and stalked to her car. When she’d come out to the ranc
h, she hadn’t intended to ask for his help. But after it slipped out, gaining Gabriel’s help in the search for the murderer made a lot of sense. He knew Marcie better than she had because until two years ago she’d lived in Tulsa where she’d gone to college then become an assistant district attorney. She’d been away from Pinecrest except for an occasional visit for over nine years.

  Definitely, she was desperate—and frightened—at what was happening in town. The police chief would tell her that very thing when she told him what she had in mind. They needed anyone and everyone’s help—even Gabriel—to find this killer before he took another life. She couldn’t shake the feeling the last two women’s deaths were her fault. If only she and the police had dug deeper into Marcie’s disappearance last January. They should have investigated all the possibilities as Gabriel had urged. But they had circumstantial and forensic evidence placing him at the scene of the crime. No one lost that much blood and didn’t die. If only they had accepted his alibi and looked at other possible perpetrators.

  Kira shuddered. These regrets would get her nowhere. She would have to go home and start over, reviewing everything that had been gathered at the crime scenes and the place where the murderer buried the three women. There was a clue somewhere in all those pages of collected evidence. She had to find it before someone else died. It wasn’t her job to investigate, but this time when they arrested the killer, she wanted no doubt of his guilt.

  She yanked open her car door and climbed inside then glanced once more at Gabriel’s one story adobe style house. How could she get the man to help? She could send the police to question him again about Marcie, but she knew instinctively that would only encourage his silence. He might hate her, but his feelings toward the police in Pinecrest ran even deeper. Marcie’s family had a lot of pull in the town, practically owning half of it and, no doubt, they were behind Gabriel’s quick arrest and trial. And she hadn’t protested at the time.

  A knot of tension in her neck spread through her shoulders. She rolled her head, massaging the tautness, but nothing she did alleviated the pain. Starting the car, she decided she would try again in a day or so. She needed Gabriel’s input about Marcie’s actions those last years.

  She wouldn’t wait long, though, because she had a gut feeling that the murderer would kill again. Soon. The second and third disappearances were only ten weeks apart while he’d waited six months after Marcie’s. With each corpse, he left a note with stop me stuffed into their mouths. And short of being caught, more women would be murdered. He wasn’t through.

  Cranking her window down a few inches, Kira aimed her car down the graded dirt drive. She saw Gabriel’s ranch as if for the first time. The vastness. The absolute isolation. Burnt orange, umber, and sienna streaked the darkening sky, lending eeriness to the already lonely scene. The high thin clouds resembled a demon’s long, slender fingers stirring the evil already pulsating in the town’s air.

  Eager to slip out of her pensive mood and into the hot bath she’d been craving, Kira nudged her foot a little harder on the gas, relieved when about a quarter mile up the road, she caught sight of the ranch’s main gate.

  Pop!

  Her car lurched to the right. A blow out? The noise came again, sounding more like firecrackers than a blown tire. She slammed on the brakes.

  Pop. Pop. Pop, pop, pop.

  Struggling to compensate for the car’s violent right pull, she steered hard to the left while pumping the brakes. But it was no use. The Chevy had started a slow spin on the bone-dry dirt. Already, the front wheels—or what was left of them—pointed in a sickening yaw toward the deep ditch lining the road.

  I forgot to put on my seatbelt.

  With no time for that, she braced herself for the impact. Crashing into the ditch pitched her forward, smashing her forehead into the steering wheel then whipping her neck back. At a sixty-degree angle, she fell against the steering wheel. Blackness swirled about the edges of her mind as she tried to lift her head. Pain streaked down her neck.

  She moaned and rested her cheek against the cold plastic she was still gripping so tightly her hands felt numb.

  The dark void edged closer. She fought to stay alert. Something wasn’t right.

  Someone shot at me.

  Chapter Two

  Gabriel stood in the kitchen doorway watching Abbey help Jessie fix dinner. He had a lot of work to do, but he couldn’t seem to see enough of his daughter. He was as bad as she about not being far from one another for too long.

  When he’d gone to prison, he’d thought he would never see her again. Marcie’s mother swooped in and took Abbey to live with her. She began seeking full custody of his daughter. With Ruth’s connections in town and the state, his mother and Jessie didn’t have a choice. Ruth Morgan, his daughter’s grandmother, wouldn’t even let Abbey come to see him when Jessie did, and with his finances exhausted completely because of his trial, he didn’t have the money to fight Ruth in court. Ultimately, he didn’t even try because he hadn’t wanted his daughter to see him like that. Nor had he wanted Abbey dragged through a court battle and forced to choose between her grandmother Morgan and his sister. At least, he’d been able to talk to her once a week on the phone, but that hadn’t been enough. Later, when new evidence came forward to free him, the court terminated Ruth’s request for full custody.

  But when he returned to Pinecrest, Ruth had to bring his daughter back to the ranch. The next day, Ruth filed for partial custody.

  Sitting in his cell, he’d thought of what he would miss in Abbey’s life: her first date, her high school graduation, her wedding. That realization nearly killed him more than dealing with the lowlifes in prison, more than knowing he was innocent and not able to prove it.

  Those feeling of hopelessness swamped him anew. His throat closed. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t go back to that place in his mind. In prison, he’d fought it and hung onto his faith. He had to believe the Lord was with him every step of the way.

  Abbey giggled at something Jessie said, looked back at him, and grinned then resumed working on the salad.

  The sound of her laughter nearly choked him. He gritted his teeth and turned into the dining room. Walking through it, he crossed his living room to the large window and stared at the road and Kira’s Chevy. It crested an incline not far from the highway and disappeared from view.

  He started to turn away when a sound like a car backfiring resonated in the air. Then similar noises followed.

  Gunshots?

  Gabriel whipped around, snatched his rifle and a box of ammunition from the closet, and raced for the front door. “Jessie, Abbey, stay in the house,” he shouted over his shoulder as he hurried outside into the gray light of early evening.

  More rapid-fire pops punctured the twilight quiet. Gabriel slowed only long enough to load his rifle then ran down his dirt road toward the highway.

  Was Kira in trouble?

  He came to a stop at the top of the rise, his rifle clutched in his hands. The rear end of the Chevy stuck up in a ditch. Although quiet now, there was no way her car backfired that many times. Before charging down the incline, he scanned the terrain. Multiple hiding places taunted him. What if she was hurt?

  Lord, protect me.

  With his gun raised, he hurried toward the wreck. His heart hammered against his rib cage as he rushed to the car, one part of him acknowledging the foolishness of exposing himself to a shooter. But the other part couldn’t have stopped if he’d wanted. This was his land, and no one was going to hurt anyone while he was around. Not even Kira Davis.

  “Are you okay?” he yelled as he slid a few feet down into the ditch, his pulse rapid, his breathing shallow.

  * * *

  Through the foggy haze, Kira heard the question and started to answer. Then she realized who had asked it, and for once, she couldn’t speak. The one person who had more reason than most to shoot at her inquired if she was all right.

  Lifting her throbbing head from the steering wheel, she fumble
d for her black purse and the gun she kept inside. The sudden movement caused her world to tilt then spin. She closed her eyes for a second then tried to focus on the interior of the car, but the shadows of night were creeping closer. She couldn’t see her handbag on the passenger seat. She squinted at the floorboard in case it was thrown off in the crash. Still too dark. Panic gripped her.

  Could Gabriel have shot at her car?

  “Kira.”

  His voice was nearer. This time she heard the concern in it and tried to think what to do. Her mind couldn’t latch onto a string of words to say. She sank back against the seat, briefly wondering why her airbag hadn’t deployed. Thinking took too much energy. All she wanted to do was close her eyes and go to sleep. Maybe then she would awaken in her own bed, safe, alone, all the nightmares of the past few weeks gone.

  But Gabriel’s face appeared at her driver’s side window, his harsh lines cut into a frown of anger—or was it worry? She raised her hand to her temple to massage the spot above her right eye where it hurt. When she touched the area, pain lanced through her. As she sucked in a gulp of air, she pulled her fingers away. A sticky wetness covered them, the scent of blood wafting to her.

  “Kira, are you all right?”

  That was concern. He wasn’t going to kill her. She attempted a smile that she knew faded instantly. She sank against the steering wheel, the effort to hold herself upright too much. “Glad you’re here,” she murmured, her eyes closing halfway.

  Gabriel wrenched the door open and checked her head, his fingertips grazing her cheeks, forehead. “I’ll have to go back to the house to call for an ambulance.”

  “No. Don’t. Someone was shooting at me.” Her gaze latched onto the rifle slung over his shoulder. She tried to scramble away.

  He clasped her arm and stilled her movement. “I don’t want to move you in case—”