The sight flooded her with an overload of feelings—rage, grief, confusion. In the distance, she glimpsed a couple of people riding toward her. She couldn’t tell for sure, but she thought one of them was Brody. Who else? She didn’t want to be around other people. Later she would have to be. Not now. She thought of spurring Angel Fire toward the western part of the ranch, where she could seek some alone time, but knowing Brody, he would worry and follow her.
Shifting away from the galloping horses coming at her, she continued her search of the ground. Beneath a prickly pear, a silver flash caught her attention.
4
Rebecca swung her leg over Angel Fire’s rump and hopped to the ground. Kneeling beside the cactus, she peered at a cellphone she was sure was Thomas’s. She started to reach for it, but instead balled her hand and kept it at her side. It could be evidence.
She scanned the area toward the gully. It was obvious the phone came free while her brother was dragged by Rocket. And this explained why he wouldn’t have answered anyone trying to call him.
The sound of galloping horses brought her to her feet. She spun around to see Brody and his father riding toward her. She hadn’t seen Sean Calhoun in a few months. She’d paid him a visit at the hospital, hoping to also see Brody. But her childhood friend had left not twenty minutes before she’d arrived. She’d stayed even longer than planned in case Brody returned, but he hadn’t.
Brody jumped to the ground and marched toward her. “What are you doing out here?”
She backed up a step, squaring her shoulders. “Riding.”
“You should have at least waited until I came.”
“Why? I often ride early in the morning before it gets too hot.”
“We don’t know for sure what happened to Thomas. You should stay close to the ranch house until—”
“Hold it right there. I don’t have to account for my whereabouts to you.” She leaned to the side and smiled. “Hello, Sean. It’s good to see you again.”
“You, too.” He tipped his Stetson at her. “My son has a point. You should be cautious until we know if it’s an accident or attempted murder.”
Brody glanced at his dad. “We?”
“Yes, I’m here to give my expert opinion after investigating many murder cases in my thirty-two-year career as a police officer. Or have you forgotten?”
Brody grumbled and turned back to Rebecca. “Why did you stop here?”
She pointed at the prickly pear. “That looks like Thomas’s cellphone, and just so you know, I didn’t touch it. I’m letting the experts deal with it.”
He thumped his chest. “Oh, you mean me.”
“Yes. If this isn’t an accident, I want the chain-of-evidence strictly adhered to.”
He strode back to his gelding and withdrew a small paper sack, then came back to retrieve the cellphone. Using the point of a pen, he switched the phone on and held it up for Rebecca to see.
“That’s Thomas’s. Is the ringer on?”
Brody checked, then dropped the phone into a bag. “No. I’ll have the lab go over this, but my thought is it fell off him when he was dragged.”
“I agree. But what if someone called him out to this location? Lured him here. It would mean this was attempted murder.”
“We’ll check everything on it. Fingerprints. Calls.”
Rebecca took the reins of her horse, then mounted. Having been a prosecutor and now a judge who presided over murder cases, she’d seen the worst in human beings. It tended to shade her view of life—especially when her husband was killed. She needed concrete answers. She spurred Angel Fire toward the place where this all had started.
Brody, with his father right behind him, quickly caught up with her. “Slow down. We might miss a piece of evidence if we rush. If you found the cellphone, think of what else we might find. About all the sheriff found last night was Thomas’s hat.”
She pulled back on the reins. “Sorry. I know impatience doesn’t help an investigation.”
“Son, I’m going to the left to check the ground.” Sean traveled in a back-and-forth pattern to cover an area more level and not as rocky as the rest near the gully.
“I’m going to the right. We’ll make a sweep on horseback and foot.” Brody headed in the opposite direction from his father, leaving Rebecca to check the middle section.
From her height on Angel Fire she had a good vantage point. She poured all of her concentration into inspecting every inch of the ground, trying not to think of Thomas lying in the hospital bed, hanging onto life. But the image of his battered body wouldn’t leave her mind. Making a zigzag pattern toward the gully and outcropping of rocks, she saw nothing other than an occasional bootprint or hoofprint where the earth wasn’t as hard as stone.
When Brody approached from the right, his expression told her that he’d come up empty-handed, too. “What few prints I found could have been from Jake, Gus, the sheriff, or his deputy.”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
Sean joined them. “Nothing. You two?”
Brody shook his head while Rebecca said, “No. Just some prints.”
“That’s the problem with this.” Brody swept his arm wide. “The more people search the area the more damage is done to the original scene.”
“Not to mention the elements and what animals can do. I’ll cover this section. Meet you at the gully.” Sean started to dismount.
“No, Dad. You promised. If you came, you wouldn’t tire yourself. Getting up and down on a horse and walking over rough ground is too much. I shouldn’t have even let you come out here. Cover what you can on horseback. Rebecca and I will check on foot.”
Again, Rebecca took the ground between father and son and examined the rocky surface with an occasional bush or cactus popping up through the cracks in the hard earth. Then to her right she spotted smears of blood staining the stony surface, and her step faltered. Here, the wind blowing dust over the ground didn’t obscure the path her brother’s body had taken.
A rock with red stained into its pores riveted her attention. What injury had it caused? One of the gashes on Thomas’s head? Or his back? Along his arm? Visualizing the path her brother had been dragged made a band contract about her chest. How long was he conscious? An invisible force yanked the band until she couldn’t draw a decent breath. She forced air into her lungs, determined to see this to the end. In the heat of the sun rising higher in the sky, she shivered.
Brody came up behind her—so close that all she had to do was take a step back to encounter his solid body, full of warmth.
She didn’t step back, but she wanted to. “I can’t lose Thomas, too. I’ve lost too many lately.”
“Your brother is a fighter. You aren’t going to lose him.” He grasped her arms.
She looked over her shoulder into those gray eyes, like molten pewter. “How do you know? What if he never regains consciousness and stays in a coma? People stay like that for years and just waste away. I don’t want that for my brother.”
“I can’t predict the future, but I do know that worrying about it won’t change anything except your stress level. Pray instead of worrying. Much more productive.” Brody shook his head. “A wise man told me that recently, but don’t tell Dad I said that.”
“You make it sound easy.” She turned to face him.
“Easy? No. Necessary? Yes. When Dad had his heart attack, I thought I was going to lose him. I stewed for days, my stomach tied in such huge knots that I felt like a hot poker had been thrust through it. I finally went to God. I should have done that from the beginning. He gave me the peace I needed to get through those tough days when Dad’s doctors weren’t sure he would pull through.”
“I didn’t realize it had been that bad. Thomas didn’t tell me that. I should have been there for you.”
He glanced away. “I didn’t let others know how bad it was.”
“Why?”
“It’s not easy sharing that with others.”
“You mean lett
ing someone get close to help you?”
“I’m used to handling it by myself. With the Lord.”
“Sometimes God sends others to help you. You have to be open to those others. If something like that happens to you again, you’d better let me know, or else.”
He arched a brow. “Or else? I’m afraid to ask what that would be.”
“My wrath. And you know how wrathful I can be.”
“I can remember a couple of times when we were growing up, and you got so angry with Thomas and me.”
“Yeah, anyone who disrupted a thirteen-year-old’s sleepover deserved my wrath.”
“Ah, but what I learned about how girls think was very interesting.” His eyes twinkled as he stepped back from her.
“Eavesdropping is wrong.”
“That didn’t stop you from listening in on Thomas and me.”
“I was paying you back.”
“An eye for an eye?”
“Exactly.” She planted her fist on her hip.
“Hey, you two, what’s keeping you?” Sean called from the edge of the gully.
Rebecca glanced toward the older man, a smile crinkling the lines at the corner of his eyes. For a few minutes, she had forgotten why she was here. That surprised her. She peered back at Brody. They hadn’t seen each other in ten years, and all of a sudden it was as if those ten years hadn’t existed. That she hadn’t married, become a widow, lost her father, and now, might lose her brother.
She backed away. “Coming. We got sidetracked.” That won’t happen again.
Rebecca entered the back door into the kitchen with Brody and Sean behind her. The scent of frying bacon infused the air, vying with the aroma of baking bread and coffee. “You need to bottle this smell, Hattie.”
At the stove the housekeeper finished taking the last piece of bacon from the frying pan, then prepared it for scrambled eggs, Hattie style. “Did y’all find anything?”
“No, but I sure worked up an appetite. I’m hoping a certain pretty lady will ask me to stay for breakfast.” Sean removed his Stetson and set it on a peg by the door.
Blushing, Hattie dumped her egg mixture into the hot skillet. “You have a standing invitation here. No need to ask.”
“Are the girls up?” Rebecca crossed the large kitchen, over to the door that led into the hallway.
“They’re getting dressed. They both asked where their dad was.”
Rebecca paused in the entrance. “Have you said anything to them?”
“No, it’s not my place to tell them, and Tory is still sleeping. She may be their stepmother, but it needs to come from you.”
“I know,” Rebecca whispered and went in search of her two nieces.
But the closer she got to their upstairs bedrooms the slower her pace became. She didn’t know what she was going to say to them.
I don’t want to do this. I want time to turn back to yesterday at this time. Have a second chance to redo the day.
Then she remembered the trial she was hearing, the long road ahead on the Petrov trial. What would Dmitri Petrov think he could accomplish by killing her brother? She wasn’t a witness against him. Yes, she controlled how the trial proceeded, but a guilty verdict could be appealed if she didn’t conduct the trial according to the law. Ultimately, nothing they saw at the scene today had confirmed that it was attempted murder. Everything at the moment pointed to an accident. Unless the cellphone revealed something or Thomas woke up and said otherwise, she had to accept that it was an accident.
Before she could knock on Kim’s door, it was flung open and her older niece stood in front of Rebecca. “Aunt Becky, when I woke up, you were gone. I thought you had left the ranch.” Her niece’s voice wavered, and her bottom lip quivered until she bit down on it.
Rebecca drew Kim to her. “Have I ever left you and Aubrey without telling you?”
Kim shook her head against Rebecca’s chest.
“I came up here to talk with you and Aubrey about what happened yesterday and to answer any questions you two might have.”
The door across the hall opened, and her younger niece raced out of her room and straight into Rebecca, pressing herself against the two of them. “I heard you talking.”
“Let’s go into Kim’s room and talk,” Rebecca said, hugging both girls to her as she moved forward. Sitting between them on the bed, Rebecca wrapped her arms around their shoulders. “First, I want you to know your dad is being taken care of at Mercy Memorial. They have an excellent staff.”
“We want to see him.” Kim shifted around to look at Rebecca, her large blue eyes wide and fringed with long dark lashes.
“Yes, Daddy needs us.”
“He’s recovering from having surgery late last night. If the doctor allows him visitors, I’ll take you tomorrow. Okay?”
“Why not today?” Kim lifted her chin, determination in her expression.
“Because he’s been through a lot and he’s sleeping. He needs the rest to help his body recover.”
“But we need to see him.”
“Yes, Aunt Becky, please.” Aubrey clung to her, burying her face against her.
“This afternoon I’ll talk with the doctor and see what he says. We have to do what is best for your dad.” She didn’t want the children to see their dad’s battered and bruised condition, but maybe it was better if they did. Their imaginations might come up with something worse—although she wasn’t sure what it could be.
“What happened to Daddy? Hattie couldn’t tell us much. No one is telling us anything.”
“It was an accident. He was trying to save a calf and got caught in the rope.” Muffled sobs from Aubrey intruded into Rebecca’s train of thought. She stopped and grasped for the right words to say. She couldn’t lie in order to try to protect them, but the truth was hard to tell them. “Rocket was spooked and ran with your dad behind him.”
Kim’s mouth fell open. “Dad is alive?”
Rebecca smoothed her niece’s hair behind her ear then turned Kim to look at her. “I won’t ever lie to you. He is alive but seriously hurt. He’ll need you two to be brave and to pray for him.”
Aubrey wrenched herself away from Rebecca. “We need to pray now.”
“That’s a very good idea. Do you want to?”
Aubrey folded her hands together and bowed her head. “God, make my daddy all well. Please.”
“Kim, do you have anything to add to it?”
She shook her head, tears running down her cheeks.
“I understand. I think Aubrey said it all.” Rebecca hugged both her nieces closer. She would protect them at all costs. “I love you two.”
Brody took a sip of his coffee and glanced at the doorway where Rebecca had disappeared twenty minutes ago. Each moment she was gone solidified his gut into a hard rock until he could only eat a few bites of a delicious meal that at any other time he would have wolfed down.
“Mmm, Hattie, this hit the spot.” Sean lounged back in his chair at the kitchen table and patted his stomach. “I’d forgotten how good you cook.”
“You have a short memory, Sean Calhoun. I brought you several casseroles while you were recuperating.”
Sean laughed. “Oh, that’s right. My only defense is that I wasn’t myself back then. But I’m fit as a fiddle now, even if my son doesn’t think so.”
“I can see, Brody, that you’ve got your hands full with this old coot.”
“Old? I’m wounded,” his father said with a frown, but a sparkle danced in his eyes and before long a smile broke out on his face. Brody had missed seeing that expression from his dad.
A movement out of the corner of his eye caught Brody’s attention, and he shifted his gaze to the entrance into the kitchen. The girls stood there with Rebecca right behind them.
“We smelled the food and got hungry,” Rebecca said as she ushered her nieces into the room. “You remember Mr. Calhoun and his father?”
“Sure. Mr. Calhoun went with us to Sea World and had lunch with Dad and me.” Kim
sat in the chair across from Brody. “And we visited you in the . . .” She swallowed hard and hung her head.
“That’s right,” Sean said immediately. “I remember you and your sister coming with your dad right before I got to come home. I sure appreciated those cards you two made for me. I still have them on the dresser in my bedroom.”
“You do?” Aubrey took the seat next to Sean.
Hattie scooted her chair back from the table. “It won’t take me long to whip up some scrambled eggs for you. I have the mixture already to go. Rebecca, there’s some orange juice in the fridge.”
The tired lines on Rebecca’s face spoke of a sleepless night. Brody wished he could take her pain away. After seeing the scene at the gully, he hadn’t found any evidence that pointed to anything hinting at foul play. But he still had to talk with the medical staff attending to Thomas. Were there any injuries that seemed suspect to them? Then there was the possibility of his friend waking up and eventually remembering what had happened. With the head wounds Thomas had sustained, Brody wasn’t going to count on that, though. Even when Thomas came out of his coma, chances were he wouldn’t recall anything about his accident.
“Brody?” Rebecca’s voice penetrated his musing, and he blinked, looking at her.
“Would you like more coffee?” She held up the pot.
“I can always use a cup.” He met her gaze, trying to convey his support from across the table where she sat.
After she poured the brew into his mug, she refilled his father’s cup, too. “I hope y’all can spend some time here.”
The plea in her gaze pulled at him, and he noticed her hand shook as she put the coffeepot down. “I have to go into Dry Gully, but, Dad, you can stay if you want. I’ll be back in the early afternoon.”
“You can come with us to the hospital. Aunt Becky is taking us this afternoon.” Kim downed half of her glass of orange juice.
Rebecca shot her niece a look.
“Well, after she talks with the doctor and gets his okay,” Kim added quickly.
Scorned Justice: The Men of Texas Rangers Series #3 (Men of the Texas Rangers) Page 5