“I’m headed there now.”
She nods and follows him through a gate and into a pasture behind her cabin, to a grassy section against a stand of pines. There are three targets backed by round bales of hay six feet high. Louise bounds to and fro around the two of them.
Her voice is still flat. “I didn’t know there was a shooting range out here.”
“Only for bows. We have some heavy-duty backstops for guns, farther from the buildings.”
Hank’s phone rings. Maggie tenses and looks away. An intrusion from his girlfriend is even worse after his judgment about her tryst with Chet. Never mind that she judges herself and expected him to. It still sucks.
“It’s the dealership.”
Maggie’s insides unclench.
Hank presses the screen. “Hello. Hank Sibley here.” He pauses. “She’s right here.” He hands Maggie his phone.
“This is Maggie Killian.”
The Southern mechanic’s voice is instantly recognizable. “Good news, Mrs. Killian.”
Maggie wants badly to correct the Mrs., but she holds her tongue. “I like good news.”
Hank sets down his quiver and nocks an arrow into his bow.
“We found you a part.”
Mixed emotions flood her, Hank’s nearness causing a short in her circuitry. The Clash’s “Should I Stay or Should I Go” was one of her favorite songs as a young teen. The Clash. Appropriate. Running through her head now, it amps up her giddiness and confusion. Lust. That’s it. Any time she’s within three feet of Hank, she’s lust crazy. She needs to go home. Period. “That’s great. How soon can you have it installed?”
“Welp, first we gotta get it here. It’s in Florida.”
“Florida.”
“Yes, ma’am. They can overnight it.”
“So, tomorrow.”
“Actually, no. Wednesday. Overnight in Wyoming takes two days, if they get it out for shipment today, and if the weather holds.”
“Weather holds? You mean like snow. It’s only September.”
“Right. It should be fine. But sometimes it isn’t. You just never know.”
She squeezes her eyes shut. She hears a thud and opens her eyes again. There’s an arrow just left of the bull’s-eye in the center target. Louise whines. Maggie strokes her ears.
“So do you want us to order it?”
“Yes. Please.” She recites her credit card information.
“We’ll get you up and running as soon as it comes in. Don’t you worry.”
“Thank you.” She hands the phone to Hank.
“What did they say?”
“Wednesday. Or Thursday.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah.” Then, despite herself, she smiles. She’s becoming as mercurial as Wyoming. It wouldn’t have made a difference if the part could come earlier. The police have grounded her until Friday. The part will be installed before she can hit the road. Her voice is almost cheerful as she says, “Fuck my life.”
“About that.” He lays the bow on the ground. “Um, I was wrong. Yesterday. I’m sorry.”
“No argument here. You’ve got no right to be jealous.”
“I don’t know what came over me. Seeing you with Chet, well, there’s more to it than you know.”
Maggie snorts. “To it, or to you?”
“Both.”
In her strange new mood, another song from her distant past comes to her. She hums a few bars, then sings a line about a live wire.
“What’s that?”
“‘Psycho Killer.’ By the Talking Heads. I thought it was appropriate.”
He pinches his lower lip. “I know you’re no murderer.”
“Just a slut.”
“No.” He takes her hand. “You’re you, which is exactly who I think you should be.”
“You could have fooled me.” Her words are light, but her voice is husky. She summons her pheromones. Channels the lust that’s tormenting her.
“We’ve had our rough patches.”
“You think?” Maggie laughs and leans closer. Kiss me, Hank. Kiss me again.
“But I think we’re hitting our stride. And I’m sorry about that kiss. I shouldn’t have done that to Sheila or confused things between us. We’re friends now. For the first time. And I’m here for you, whatever you need.”
His words are like mule kicks, with twice the punch in half the package. Maggie straightens and pulls her hand away.
“Did I say something wrong?”
“No. Thank you.” For cover, she points at the bow. “Can I give it a try?”
He stares at her, looking like she’s a puzzle piece he can’t quite fit in. “Sure.” He launches into an explanation of how to hold the bow, sight, and shoot.
Maggie nocks an arrow. “Carbon fiber?”
“The arrows? Yes.”
She lifts the bow and extends it in front of her with her left arm, then draws the bowstring with her right. She aims through the magnifying front sight. When she lets the arrow fly, it hits the target within inches of Hank’s shot. Louise makes an anguished cry that sounds like a human baby.
“Nice!”
Without acknowledging his comment, Maggie fires three more arrows, each one closer in, until on the fourth, she hits dead center. The focus and effort are a godsend. The heat inside her has cooled. Her pheromones are at bay. Louise is not as good. She cowers at Maggie’s feet, moaning. Maggie is perplexed. She’s heard of dogs scared of loud gunshots, but never arrows.
Hank has watched silently until then. “Okay, so you’re a hotshot. Where’d you learn?”
She shakes off the last of her funk. “Camp champion. Must be like riding a bicycle. But I’ve never hunted or shot a moving target.”
Hank holds out his hand for a turn. “You’re one sexy badass, woman.”
Just not sexy enough. Maggie relinquishes the bow.
Hank shoots, but his arrow pierces the target farther from the bull’s-eye than any of Maggie’s shots. He shakes his head. “I’m usually better at this.”
Her voice is dry. “I’ll bet that’s what you tell all the girls. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Seriously, besides worrying about you and feeling like an asshole, I got some bad news last night. I think it’s messing with my aim.” With the bow still in one hand, Hank bends and swipes a tall blade of brown grass. “You may have noticed there’s no love lost between us and Patrick Rhodes?” He chews on the stem.
Maggie nods. “Slightly.”
“Pretty bad coincidence our biggest competitor on the rough stock circuit has the ranch next door.”
“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”
Hank picks up the quiver and bow and walks toward the targets, Maggie alongside. “Yes. And we found out that he underbid us on the contract for the National Finals Rodeo.”
“Which means what?”
Hank pulls an arrow out and returns it to the quiver. “Which means that for the first time in eight years, we won’t be the stock contractor for the National Finals Rodeo. Patrick will. It’s a really big deal, and he’s going to rub our noses in it.”
Maggie adds arrows to the quiver from each hand. “That sucks.”
“It does suck. And our horses are far better. He has some great bulls. I could have understood if they’d split the contract—I still think our bulls are better, overall, but I could have lived with him getting the bulls contract. But he lumped in his horses on his deal, and the NFR didn’t even give us a chance to match his bid.”
“Would you have matched?”
He sighs. Arrows loaded, he walks back toward Maggie’s cabin. “We couldn’t have. It’s too low. Sets a bad precedent that leads to unprofitability.”
Louise runs ahead of them, tail up, her relief at the cessation of the shooting session obvious.
“So he’ll put himself out of business.”
“One can only hope. If he keeps this up, someone is going to put him out of business for good, six feet und
er. I’d be happy with that honor myself.”
“Hank, can I ask you something?”
“You can ask. Whether I answer depends on what it is.”
“Patrick said your feud goes way, way back. He made it sound like something other than rough stock. And he said if I wanted to know what it was, I should ask you.” She almost adds the part about Patrick’s suggestion that she could charm it out of him, but she doesn’t want Hank focusing on the wrong issue.
“He did, did he?”
“Yes.”
“There’s your answer, then.”
“But you didn’t answer me.”
“You asked if you could ask me a question. I said you could, but whether I’d answer it depended on the question.”
Hank’s answer is the beginning of a headache for Maggie. “Oh.”
Hank stops by the gate to the tape fence around Maggie’s yard. “Well, I’m getting back to work. Are we good?”
Maggie thinks of her plans earlier to move to Sheridan, rent a hotel room and car. Hank’s apology makes it seem like a whole lot of trouble for nothing. “We are. Except for one thing.”
A look of something almost like fear flashes across Hank’s face. “What is it?”
“Can I borrow a vehicle to drive into Buffalo? I have to give a statement at the police station. And I may have a few other things to do over the next few days.”
Hank relaxes. What had he thought I was going to say? “I’ll commandeer you something to drive. We’ve got Mom’s old Tahoe. I should have thought of it earlier. You can drive it until you get yours back. If you’ll come to lunch, I’ll give you the keys.”
“That old battle-ax hates me.”
“Who, my mother?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
“Sure you did. And it’s okay. But she doesn’t hate you. She acts like that to everyone now. I wish you’d met her before Alzheimer’s. She’s a different person inside.”
His words stir something in her. Memories of her own dad. She pushes them away but not before a thought jolts her. Her dad’s health precipitated her retirement from music. Hank’s dad’s health did the same to him, minus the rehab stints. And now his mother has Alzheimer’s. It must be so hard for him. “If you say so.”
“Anyway, I’ll have a surprise at lunch.”
“What?”
“Hence the use of the word surprise.”
Maggie has had far too many surprises this week, none of them good. But still, when she opens her mouth, what comes out is “See you there.”
Twenty
Maggie returns to the cabin, cursing under her breath. A lunch surprise. And she fell for it. She has to immunize herself from Hank. Before, her solution was cocaine. Lately, her alcohol consumption is way up, and it had already been over the recommended daily allowance. Mindless sex hadn’t worked too well for her either. Exhibit number one: Chet Moore. And she’s not the yoga, meditation, or random-acts-of-kindness type. She opens the cabin door, lost in thought.
The back door slams shut.
“Hey,” Maggie yells.
She freezes, but only for a split second. Then she runs for the rifle, grabs it, and sprints to the back door. It’s closed, but unlocked. She searches her memory. Had she left it locked? Surely she had, as paranoid as she’s been after the belt buckle went missing. She looks around the cabin. At first, nothing appears out of place. Then she sees her guitar case. It’s unlatched. She opens it.
Her precious Martin is there, and she cries out in relief. See? I just left the door unlocked. The wind opened it. Then when I opened the front door, the change in pressure slammed the back door. She lifts her guitar to hold it close, and that’s when she notices the peace sign strap is missing.
“Son of a bitch!”
Someone has touched her baby. They’ve taken her belt buckle and her peace strap, and stolen her inner peace along with them. She hears a bark from the front porch. Louise had gotten trapped outside. She lets the dog in and consents to a flurry of face kisses.
“Come on, girl.”
Together they walk out the back door. I’m an idiot. Why hadn’t she done this in the first place? She might have caught a glimpse of whoever made off with her strap. She scans the landscape. The pasture where she and Hank had been shooting. The forest beyond. Pastures on either side. Horses in one. Cattle in another.
But no humans.
She searches the ground for footprints. There’s no trace, except an unlocked back door, unlatched guitar case, and missing strap. She lifts her gaze, concentrating on the near view. The yard is bare of bushes, but her eyes arrest on the tape fence protecting the grass from loose livestock and other hooved creatures. The tape is sagging. She follows it to the right, then to the left. One of the white plastic fence posts is misplaced. It’s not stuck in the ground, and it’s side by side with the next post, hanging slanted from the tape itself.
Odd. Had the post been like that before? She hadn’t done a fence check. Besides, what would a pulled-up post have to do with anything?
And then she gets it.
If someone ran out through the backyard, they had to go under the fence to escape. Which meant lifting it, in a rush. The tape is strung through notches in the posts. She remembers Andy showing her how the posts can move freely along the tape. Now she can visualize a man with an arm over his head, tape in his hand. The post is jerked out of the ground and sliding down the raised tape, coming to rest when it hits the next post in line.
Shit, shit, shit. Someone had run out the door, right as she was coming in the house, and he’d left under the tape, right here, while she was checking her guitar.
She examines the grass. There are no footprints, but could there be depressions from footsteps? She’s no tracker. She glides her hand over the grass. It seems crushed to her.
“What are you doing?”
She startles, whirls. Gene is standing inside the back door.
“Why are you in my cabin?”
He holds his hands up. “I knocked. No one answered. I hollered in—you weren’t here, but the back door was open. I came to see if you wanted me to saddle Lily for you. It’s a pretty day for a ride.”
Maggie drops her shoulders, which had risen up her neck. “Sorry. Someone just ran out the back door of the cabin. I’m missing a few things. I’m jumpy.”
“What do you mean?” Gene is by her side in a few quick strides.
She tells him about the belt, the guitar strap, and the slamming door, and shows him the fence post.
“Did you tell Hank?”
“No.”
“Maggie May, you should have told one of us.”
“I was hoping I was wrong, when it was just the buckle. That I’d misplaced it. But I wasn’t. Someone is coming in and stealing my things.”
He clomps around, but wide of the path she suspects the intruder used to flee, his eyes trained on the grass. He ducks under the tape and keeps walking. She tents her eyes and watches him.
“There’s definitely been someone here. Boot prints.” He points at the ground. Native grasses, rock, and sagebrush grow beyond the yard, with visible patches of dirt occasionally.
“That could have been any of you guys. Everyone in this country wears boots.”
“Not like these. Come here, but be careful. Don’t mess up the trail.”
She joins him, staring at a print in the dirt. Gene takes a close-up picture with his phone.
“That’s a tactical-boot print.”
“What’s a tactical boot?”
“See the tread at the forefoot? And no square heel print?”
“Yeah.”
“Everyone here wears cowboy boots, because we ride all the time. Our prints would have smooth forefoots, and you’d see a differential heel. These are more like hiking boots. Or work boots.”
Maggie nods. “I see it.”
“Whoever it is wears a wide boot. Maybe a ten or so. We need to call the cops.”
“I have an appointment th
is afternoon to give a statement. I can report it then.” She wants further involvement with them like she wants a hole in her head, but this shit is getting scary.
“I heard. Sorry.”
She cuts her eyes away. Of course he has. Everyone knows about her rendezvous with Chet now. And those that don’t know her are speculating, like the old-timer at the Wagon Box Inn. Did she do it? Hell, even the people that know her are probably wondering. It’s exactly what she hadn’t wanted to happen.
Gene’s voice is gentle, sympathetic even. “But the Buffalo cops don’t cover us. We’re under the jurisdiction of the Sheridan County Sheriff’s Department out here. In Sheridan.”
“Great.”
“They’re not bad.”
She rubs her temple. She officially has a whopper headache. “It’s a belt buckle. And a guitar strap. They’ll laugh at me.”
“It’s a break-in.”
“The door wasn’t locked.”
“It doesn’t matter. Besides, aren’t you forgetting something?”
“What?”
“The break-in and theft at your store in Texas.”
Maggie scowls. And the sabotage, but she doesn’t bring it up. “How’d you know about that?”
“Michele. Do you think they could be related?”
Michele. Best friends don’t rely on fresh-out-of-the-box stepbrothers to update best friends on their significant life events, like murdered hookups, cop visits, truck sabotage, and break-ins. Not if they want to stay best friends, which Maggie does. Michele’s the only best girlfriend she’s ever had. Hell, only best friend of either—any?—gender. She’s got to call her. And Junior, dammit, because if there’s even the slimmest of chances these events fourteen hundred miles apart are linked, he needs to know. “If they are, I don’t see how.”
Gene shakes his head, lips in a line. “You’ve got a big red target on your forehead, Maggie. I’d call the sheriff if I were you.”
“You’re not me.”
“Suit yourself. But if you don’t, I have to. And I have to tell Hank.”
“Fine. I’ll call.”
“When?”
“On my way to Buffalo.”
“Good. I’ll tell Hank at dinner.”
“You’re pushy.”
Maggie Box Set Page 14