by Jodi Thomas
“Rick,” a woman yelled. “Rick!” She was moving closer. “Oh my God, Rick!”
Someone had found him. He tried to call out but couldn’t.
“Phil, call an ambulance,” the woman snapped orders as her hand touched Rick’s throat. “Then call the hospital and tell them we’re bringing Rick Matheson in. They’d better be ready. Looks like a head injury, back injuries, and maybe broken bones in legs.”
The light moved closer to his face. “Rick,” a woman said again. “Can you hear me? It’s Alex.” Her badge flashed in the light of others moving in. “We’re not moving you until the EMTs get here, but don’t worry, I’m with you.” He could hear clicking on a phone, then her hushed words. “Dispatch, call Hank and tell him I’ve found his cousin. He’s hurt bad. The ambulance has been called, but he can get here first.” She paused for a few seconds, then added, “Back of used bookstore.”
She knelt close, shining the light on his face. “Rick, hang on. Hank’s on his way. We’ll get you some help.”
“Thanks for coming,” he tried to say, but he wasn’t sure the words came out right. A coldness crossed over him and he drifted into a place where there was no thought, no pain.
When he pulled back to the world again, he was surrounded by light so bright it hurt his eyes. For a second he thought he might be in heaven, but the sound of two women arguing almost made him wish for the blackness again.
He managed to open one eye a slit. Dr. Addison Spencer was yelling at his cousin’s wife, Alex Matheson, the sheriff.
“I’m taking him in to examine him, Sheriff,” the slim blond doctor yelled. “As soon as I know he’s not bleeding internally, I’ll let you question him.”
Alex wasn’t giving an inch. “I have to know who did this. The steps were cut, Doc. Don’t you understand? Someone tried to kill him.”
Dr. Spencer wasn’t slowing down. “Get out of my way or I’ll have you kicked out of my hospital.”
Alex looked like she might argue. She closed her mouth so tight white lines formed around her lips as she nodded once. “All right. Take care of him first, and then I’ll find out who did this.”
The doc gave a signal to move the bed, then turned back to Alex. “I’ll make sure you get to ask those questions as soon as possible.”
“In the meantime I’m posting a guard.” The sheriff’s words ended with the closing of a door and people in masks rushing toward Rick like vultures at a fresh kill.
He lay perfectly still, but he felt like the six-foot buffet at the Golden Corral with everyone poking on him. Slowly, the pain eased enough for him to take a deep breath, but he didn’t want to look at what they were doing. Someone was cutting his clothes off, needles were stuck in his arm and someone had taped something cold to his chest. He guessed he was lying nude for a viewing. In his shattered thoughts, he got the idea that if he didn’t open his eyes maybe no one could see him if he couldn’t see them.
Another breath and the pain eased a fraction more, but the poking and twisting of his body continued.
About the time he fell asleep, someone patted his cheek to wake him up to tell him that it was almost over.
He felt his entire body being lifted and shifted onto another cold surface. His mind decided to drift off and the next thing he felt was a warm blanket being spread over him.
“Rick?” Dr. Spencer said. “Rick, you’re going to be all right. Just try not to move. Rick, are you awake?”
“Yes,” he said, and the word almost sounded believable.
“The sheriff wants to ask you a few questions. Are you up for it?”
“Yes.” He sounded better. At least the word made sense.
“Good.” The kind doctor patted his arm as if he were a child. “We’ll talk later, but you are a very lucky man to have survived such a fall.”
He didn’t feel very lucky.
He decided to risk opening his eyes. Sheriff Alex Matheson was standing over him with her husband Hank at her side. She looked worried, but his cousin looked angry.
“What happened?” Rick said, looking straight at Hank. The rancher might be a few years older than he was, and he’d never known Hank Matheson to lie about anything. If the Matheson clan in Harmony had a head, it would be this one strong man. Hank not only ran one of the biggest ranches around, he also served as the volunteer fire chief.
Alex answered for Hank. “We think someone tried to hurt, maybe even kill, you tonight. The stairs were in good shape around four when Liz dropped off some papers. It’s pretty dark out there now, but my deputy had no trouble seeing that a couple of the steps had been sawed out. You took a twenty-foot fall.”
She leaned close. “Did you hear anything?”
Rick shook his head. “George is always banging around downstairs. I didn’t hear anything unusual.”
Hank’s frown deepened. “You know anyone who would want to kill you?”
Rick tried to smile. “Yeah, most of the people I’ve represented. One mentioned yesterday that I should watch out for accidents, but he didn’t do this. He’s locked up and I’d be real surprised if Mouse had a friend who’d help him carry out his threat.”
“Anyone else? We think you might have been robbed.” Alex pulled out her pad and pen. “Your briefcase was empty.”
“It’s always empty unless I’m heading into court.” Rick didn’t want to say that he had nothing besides his lunch to put into it most days. “I thought I saw a shadow of a man moving away, but I can’t be sure.”
Alex nodded. “Whoever did this could have stayed around to make sure you fell. Could you identify him from a lineup?”
“No. He was little more than a shadow. I didn’t get a good look at him.”
“How tall?”
“I don’t know.” Rick knew the drill. “Baseball hat, maybe. Dark jacket. I didn’t see or hear anything else except the chiming of the clock.”
Rick forgot about the doc’s warning and grabbed for his billfold. If the plan was robbery, the guy went to a lot of trouble for seven dollars. A machine above his head immediately started making all kinds of noises.
Dr. Spencer was back. “That’s it for tonight, Sheriff. Rick needs to rest.” She moved around Rick, checking him as if he were a broken clock that had fallen off the wall and she needed to know he was still ticking.
“All right.” Alex smiled at the doc, then took Hank’s hand. “Sorry about earlier. I was just trying to do my job.”
“Me too,” the doc admitted. “We’re all worried about him, Alex. Me, you, the whole town. Half the nurses already have a crush on this Matheson.” She glanced from Hank to Rick. “They’re all so good-looking, but this one is single.”
“Which half of the nurses?” Rick asked just before he fell asleep, too exhausted to wait for the answer.
Chapter 7
SUNSHINE SLICED INTO THE HOSPITAL ROOM THROUGH the blinds when Rick finally woke. He vaguely remembered talking to the doc before dawn. She’d gone through all the things wrong with him, including a mild concussion, two cracked ribs, and a gash in his back that needed stitches. Both his legs were badly bruised but no broken bones. Then, with a smile that would have made him fall in love on the spot if she wasn’t already attached to a rancher named Tinch Turner, Addison told him to rest a day, then get out of her hospital. They needed the beds.
Rick had drifted off to sleep when she’d left, but the hospital staff had been waking him up every hour since. One wanted his blood. One wanted to feed him and the last one wanted to bathe him. He said no to them all. He’d keep his blood. He wasn’t hungry and he’d take a bath when they got all these tubes out of him.
Only this time the staff hadn’t wakened him, a smell had. The warm, wonderful smell of his mother’s sausage-cheese balls. He took a deep breath and knew they had to be in the room with him. “Mom?”
“Morning, Rick,” Marian Matheson said. “It’s about time you woke up. These won’t be hot much longer. I had to make them before I came because I knew you wouldn’t
eat the hospital breakfast. How I managed to spoil all my kids rotten is beyond me.”
Rick smiled up at his mother. Her hair had turned white in her forties after being widowed, but she still looked young to him.
She put her hand against the side of his face. “That sweet doctor told me not to worry, but I had to come up and see for myself. I don’t care how old you get or how tall, you’re still my boy.”
Rick tried to smile. “I’m all right, Mom. Just an accident.”
She nodded and moved away so he wouldn’t see her tear up. His mom cried at weddings, funerals, holidays, and birthdays. Sometimes she cried at sappy movies and cute things her grandchildren said, but not one of her five children ever doubted for a minute that she loved them. Rick didn’t doubt it now.
“Roll me up, Mom. I can’t wait to eat a few of those sausage balls. I think they may be the cure I’ve been waiting for.”
She laughed. “I knew they’d make you feel better. Hospital food is nothing more than school cafeteria food without the salt. You don’t eat right as it is so you might not have the strength to resist the meals here.” Now she was back to being the busy, bossy mom he loved. She raised up his bed, got him a towel to serve as a napkin, moved the basket within reach, and hurried out to get juice.
By the time he’d finished off half the basket, the room had filled with his relatives. His mother’s three sisters all came with their knitting and sat in the corner by the window. They were the stock for all Matheson mixes, be it wedding or funeral. They kept a sewing bag hospital-ready at all times. Everyone else stood around asking him the same questions over and over: “How you feeling?” “How’d such a thing happen?” “What can we do to help?”
Mathesons in Harmony were like fleas on a dog. No one knew how many there were, but everyone knew they were there.
Over a hundred years ago, when the old man who founded Harmony hired three men, Truman, Matheson, and McAllen, to help him, he probably never dreamed that one, Matheson, would multiply so rapidly. The Trumans had died out except for Reagan Truman, who’d left them last month to go study on an apple farm in Georgia. She was small, but like her old uncle, no one crossed her unless they were ready to fight.
The McAllen family, like the sheriff, Alex, had mostly married into the other families. Rick thought of the McAllens as warriors, and warriors die out. Alex’s older brother, Warren, had been a highway patrolman killed in the line of duty and her little brother, Noah, rode bulls for a living.
But the Mathesons produced tall, lean men born to survive in this country. They were mostly ranchers and farmers, and one lawyer, Rick, who was thought to be missing that rugged survival gene his relatives seemed to have.
His three sisters and one brother were scattered around the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles but were keeping his mother busy calling and texting to monitor his condition. With all the cousins dropping by, the place was starting to look like a family reunion.
Rick was relieved when the sheriff came by and politely asked everyone to leave. They all stood their ground, even his aunt May, who was deaf as a post, until Hank said the cafeteria served free coffee and rolls from ten to eleven.
The Matheson gang marched out, leaving Rick alone with the sheriff and Hank.
“Is your head clear?” Alex asked as she pulled out a notepad.
“I think so. I told the doc I didn’t want any painkillers except the over-the-counter kind. That other stuff messes with my mind. One of the nurses came in last night to ask me how my leg felt and I told her the two on the right were fine, but the three on the left hurt like hell.”
Alex smiled. “You’re sane. We need to talk.”
Hank stood next to his wife as Alex walked Rick through every detail he could remember about last night. She asked questions now and then, but Rick knew what she wanted and didn’t leave out a thing that might be helpful.
When he finished, she said simply, “Someone tried to kill you, Rick. We have to face that fact.”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t make sense. Most lawyers practice for fifty years without anyone ever coming after them. Why me? I haven’t handled anything big. Most of the men I’ve represented are looking at five or ten years of hard time. Hardly enough to kill the lawyer.”
“What about someone else?” Hank asked. “Old girlfriends. Husbands of a lover you had.” He grinned. “I’ve seen you, Rick, women flock to you. Maybe it’s that little-lost-puppy-dog look you got going.”
Rick shook his head. “All my old girlfriends were glad to get rid of me. I guess they didn’t want to housebreak me. And, as far as I know, I’ve never dated a married woman.”
“What about now?”
He shook his head. “I haven’t had a date in six months unless you count Martha Q Patterson taking me to lunch now and then. She tells everyone I’m her new boyfriend, but it’s just her way of joking.”
“Martha Q doesn’t count. She just feels sorry for starving lawyers. Some folks feed pigeons; she feeds lawyers. Before you, she used to take Liz out to lunch.”
Rick frowned and continued, “I meet a girl my age now and then and think she’s perfect. She takes me home, but after a few months she’d driving me crazy keeping up with every detail of my life. Then she figures out I’m not that fascinating guy she met. We usually end up with one of us saying, ‘Let’s be friends.’” Rick winked at Hank. “Unlike you, I’ve never met a girl that knocked me off my feet.”
Hank put his arm around the sheriff’s shoulder. He didn’t have to say a word. Everyone in town knew how much he loved Alex. Every time she took the night shift at the sheriff’s office, Hank was right across the street at the volunteer fire department waiting. He’d built her a house that sat half on McAllen land and half on his ranch. They watched the sun rise over McAllen acres and the sun set over Matheson property.
Alex straightened back into her job. “The point is, Rick, someone tried to kill you and they might try again. I had one of the deputies go by your apartment. The back door lock had been broken and the place was a wreck. Any way you look at it, someone was planning to get to you last night.”
“Did they rob me?” Rick wanted to swear. Bad luck was piling up.
“Did you have anything of value in the apartment?”
“No.”
“Well, the nothing of value was still there. Dirty clothes, empty pizza boxes, and a jar of pennies you used as a door stop. My guess is they broke the lock so they could get in quick in case the stair trap didn’t work. The deputy said the phone line had been cut and every bulb inside was missing from every light fixture.”
Rick closed his eyes. His life was shaping up to be a bad mystery novel.
Hank pulled him out of his pity party. “While you’re at work or at the courthouse, you’re probably safe as long as you park in front and stay where folks can see you. We need to get you somewhere safer than that little apartment you’re in when you leave the hospital. How about coming out to the ranch with me? Mom’s got a few empty bedrooms at the main house.”
Rick shook his head. He liked his privacy too much. He had moved out of the dorm in college before he’d ever had a room to himself. Every summer he’d worked two jobs just to make sure he could afford a place alone when he went back to school.
“Your mom’s place might be safer,” Hank continued. “It’s small, but her condo complex has security.”
Rick shook his head. He didn’t want to put her in danger. “Don’t tell her any of this, would you guys? If she thinks something’s wrong, she’ll stay home to help and miss her vacation to visit all her grandkids. It’s probably nothing, but if trouble is heading my way, I’d feel better knowing Mom is out of danger. I’ve got to convince her to leave.”
Hank agreed.
“I’ve made a list of our relatives who have places where you’d be safer. Whoever did this is not likely to come onto a farm or ranch, and with all the Matheson farms and ranches around, someone would notice a stranger hanging around long before he could find
where you’d gone.”
“No.” Rick knew he sounded stubborn. “I like staying in town.” He knew he couldn’t afford a better place with security, even for a few months, but he’d go mad laid up on some farm. “I’ll not let some bully run me out of town.”
“Well,” Alex said with a shrug, “there’s always the jail. We could rent you a room.”
“Maybe I could just double my locks. The apartment will have to do.”
The door bumped suddenly, and a round ball of fake green fur waddled into the room. Nearing her sixties, she’d reached that “who cares” stage about everything in her life from her dress to her manners.
Martha Q Patterson made no pretense that she hadn’t been listening to every word they’d said. “I’ve got your problem solved, Sheriff,” she said in a voice raspy from years of smoking. “My lawyer can stay at my place. Winter’s Inn Bed-and-Breakfast is within walking distance to his work and I’ve got a first-rate security system, so he’ll be safe.”
“Thanks for the offer, Mrs. Patterson, but I can’t afford…” Rick knew the only reason Martha Q thought he was her lawyer was simply because she took him to lunch once a month. Martha Q didn’t need a lawyer, but she did very much want company.
“I’m not giving it to you.” She straightened. “I’m asking if you’d consider watching over the place for me. I’ve decided to go to Dallas for a little work on Saturday, and Mrs. Biggs, my cook, says she won’t stay in the house alone because those grandsons of hers have convinced her that the place is haunted. I’ve no guests coming in for the next few weeks. By then you”—she pointed at Alex—“should be able to find out who’s trying to kill my lawyer.”
She stared at Rick. “I’ve got a yard man, a cook, and a housekeeper, and you can stay in a first-floor bedroom, but I’m not paying but a hundred a day, so don’t think about charging those lawyer rates on me. One hundred a day to run the place plus room and board seems fair.” She raised one eyebrow and looked him up and down. “From the looks of you, you’re not running at full speed so maybe I should only pay seventy-five a day.”