No such luck. Bobby’s smile widened. “Stop lying, Kelly. I know you didn’t tell anyone because they wouldn’t have let you come. Not with that broken foot.” He pointed at her cast. “Bad sprain, my ass. I knew you were lying on the phone. I could tell.”
Panic closed in. Bobby could almost read her mind. In fact, he already had. Bobby had lured her here. He’d spread bread crumbs, and she had followed the trail. She’d deliberately ignored her instinct that warned her not to come. She walked right into his trap.
The big male alpaca snorted and shuffled in front of her. She grabbed his coat with one free hand. Without him, there was nothing between her and a cold-blooded killer. Fear clawed up her throat again.
“Nobody’s going to believe it was an accident, Bobby.”
“Sure they will,” he said in an arrogant tone. “Same old Kelly, always snooping around, came up to the ranch looking for clues. Of course, you’re pretty clumsy with that cast on your foot. So it’s easy to believe that you tripped over something in the barn, bumped your head as you fell, and knocked yourself out. Fire started when you dropped the lantern, catching you on fire as you lay there unconscious.” Bobby held up the lantern. “It happens to campers all the time. They get careless or clumsy and whoosh! They’re on fire.”
Kelly froze. Bobby had it all planned. Her death would look like an accident. How could she get away? She couldn’t run. Talking had run out. Time had run out. He was going to kill her.
Then the little voice whispered, The lantern. Grab the lantern.
Kelly didn’t understand. How could she wrestle the lantern away from Bobby? He was bigger than she was and he wasn’t crippled. What could she do?
Suddenly she glimpsed her crutch and started edging toward it. Maybe she could hit him with the crutch, and he’d drop the lantern. And then what? Kelly didn’t know, but she grabbed the crutch anyway, trying to obscure her motion behind the alpaca.
Maybe she could frighten him into backing down. Tell him the cops were already on the way. She held her phone out for Bobby to see. “Give it up, Bobby. I’ve had the phone on all this time. The cops have been listening to us.”
Bobby just smirked. “Stop lying, Kelly. Half the time we can’t even get a signal up here. And if you did, it would sound like static in the barn. You give it up.” With that, he bent to the ground again, pulled a lighter from his pocket, and lit the lantern, fanning the flame to life.
Kelly watched in horror as he unscrewed the top of the gas can. Holy God. He was going to douse her with kerosene. Burn her alive.
Something shifted inside Kelly. She didn’t know what, but she could feel it. She pocketed her phone. She’d gone cold all over. She couldn’t feel her cast. She couldn’t feel anything. All Kelly could see was Bobby and the gas can and the lantern. And the flame.
“You really think I’m going to stand here and let you burn me alive?” she said in a low voice, a voice that came from somewhere else.
Bobby looked up at her and grinned. “No, I expect you to try and get away. But you won’t get far. Not with that cast. Don’t worry, Kelly. I’m gonna hit you on the head. You’ll be unconscious when I set you on fire. You won’t feel a thing. Probably.” His smile turned dark.
Kelly had seen that same dark evil once before— glowering out at her from Geri Norbert’s eyes. She’d faced it before. She’d face it again.
“I’m not going down easy, Bobby. No way.”
“Good. I love a fight,” he taunted as he approached, gas can in hand. “Go on, git,” he yelled and smacked the alpaca standing in front of Kelly.
The animal bolted, and Kelly swung her crutch as hard as she could. Wham! She caught Bobby on the side of his head. Bobby let out a surprised cry, the lantern and gas can dropping from his hands as he fell to his knees.
Kelly swung the crutch again, knocking Bobby flat on the ground.
“You bitch! Wait’ll I get my hands on you!” he yelped in pain.
Knowing she could never escape Bobby once he regained his footing, Kelly whacked him once more on the back of his head, then dropped the crutch and grabbed the gas can.
Moving from some inner direction, she poured a stream of kerosene in a swooping arc on the hay then threw the rest of it onto Bobby’s face and shoulders as he tried to stand.
Bobby shrieked and fell to his knees again, pawing at his eyes. He grabbed some hay, trying to wipe his eyes while he screamed obscenities.
Kelly clumped over to the lantern and grabbed it. Heaving it over her head, she smashed it to the kerosene-soaked hay at her feet. The lantern’s flame leaped to the hay and ignited it, sending a flame rippling in an arc surrounding Bobby.
Scrambling to the spot where Bobby first lit the lantern, Kelly searched for the lighter. Her hand fumbled through the straw until she found it at last. Grabbing a handful of straw, she stumbled back to the flaming corner. Fire encircled a screaming Bobby, who had staggered to his feet by now.
“You crazy bitch! I’m gonna beat you to death,” he swore, blinking his raw, red eyes. His gaze darted around, clearly looking for a path through the flames to get to Kelly.
Kelly snapped open the lighter and set the straw afire. “Stay where you are, Bobby, or I’m gonna light you up like a firecracker, I swear to God I will!”
Bobby stood where he was, chest heaving, eyes darting between the fire at his feet and the torch in Kelly’s hand.
Kelly fumbled in her pocket for the phone and prayed that someone, anyone was on the line. “Hello, hello . . . anyone there?”
And then she heard it. In the distance. The unmistakable sound of a siren wailing up the canyon road. She glanced to Bobby and saw real fear for the first time.
Twenty-One
"Don’t do it, Bobby. There’s nowhere to run,” Kelly warned as the police siren’s wail grew louder, echoing through the barn.
Bobby’s eyes darted from the licking flames at his feet to the lighted torch in Kelly’s hand, aimed right at his kerosene-soaked face.
“What’s going on here?” a gruff male voice yelled from the barn door.
Kelly spun around and saw a county policeman stride into the barn, followed by a younger officer with Burt right behind.
Bobby clearly saw his chance and took it. He leaped over the fire ring and charged into Kelly, sending her sprawling backwards onto the barn floor. The lighted torch dropped from her grasp. Bobby raced to the back of the barn and crashed through the glass window.
“What the hell? Go get ’im, Bill!” the county cop directed the younger officer. The young blond man took off like a bullet, diving through the window, as he raced after Bobby.
Kelly scrambled to her knees, as Burt hurried up and helped her to her feet. “Kelly, did he hurt you?”
“No, I’m okay.”
“Whoa, Don, let me help you,” Burt said, as he joined Don in stamping out the ring of burning hay.
“Exactly what’s been happening here, Ms. Flynn?” the older officer asked as he stomped out the last embers.
“Kelly, this is Deputy Don. I called him as soon as your phone call came in. Rosa told me you’d taken her car.” He shook his head, face gray with worry. “Good God, Kelly, you took a chance coming here.”
“Yeah, I know, Burt, and I fell right into his trap,” Kelly said, brushing herself off.
“Start at the beginning, miss,” Deputy Don instructed, peering over his shoulder at the window. “I want to hear your side before Bill hauls Lester back here.”
“Bobby called me this morning. Said he was going to Colorado Springs to help his family and asked if I could come out and feed the animals.” She closed her eyes and wagged her head. “And I took the bait, hook, line, and sinker. I figured I could search the ranch house while he was gone. Maybe find something to link him to Tracy Putnam’s death. When he walked in on me, holding the gas can and a lantern, I knew he’d set me up.”
“That was right risky, miss,” the deputy admonished. “What was he planning to do? Burn down the ba
rn with you in it?”
“Yeah, after he’d knocked me unconscious. He said everyone would think I’d tripped and fallen when I was poking around for clues.” She stared off through the window. Sure enough, there was the young officer trudging through the snow, dragging a handcuffed Bobby beside him. “He’d left his car parked on a back road and snowshoed in so no one would see him. He planned to head down to the Springs afterward and swore his aunt would vouch he’d been there all day.”
“Pretty clever,” Deputy Don said, his eyebrows furrowing.
“Pretty damn diabolical,” Burt muttered.
“I kept him talking as long as I could, hoping you guys would get here. That worked for a while, then he opened up the gas can and came at me. That’s when I hit him with my crutch.”
Deputy Don snorted, a smile peeking out. “You knocked him out with that thing?”
“No, but he dropped the gas can and lantern. I hit him again, then threw gas on him and set fire to the hay. It was the only thing I could think of to keep him away from me.”
“Let me go! I didn’t do anything! That crazy bitch tried to kill me! She was gonna set me on fire!” Bobby yelled as Officer Bill pushed him into the barn.
“Settle down!” Deputy Don commanded as he confronted Bobby. “Why don’t you tell me what you’re doing here with that gas can? How’d you get here? Where’s your truck, Mr. Lester?”
“I snowshoed here. What’s wrong with that? Why aren’t you asking her any questions? She near killed me! She would have if you guys hadn’t shown up.”
“Is that the truth, now?” Don nodded sagely. “Well, that sounds real different than the version Ms. Flynn just told us. She said you were threatening to kill her.”
Bobby sneered. “I told you, she’s crazy! She thinks I’m out to get her or something.”
Kelly couldn’t hold herself back. “Check out his right hand. You’ll see it’s bandaged. That’s from the burn he got when he held Tracy Putnam under the scalding hot dye water until she drowned.”
“Shut up, you crazy bitch! I did no such thing.”
“Hey, watch your mouth!” Don ordered, finger in Bobby’s face. “Let’s take a look at that hand.”
Officer Bill removed Bobby’s right handcuff and yanked his arm from behind his back. “Don’t try to make a break for it. I caught you once, I’ll catch you again.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Bobby said derisively. “So I’ve got a hurt hand. So what?”
“I’ll bet if you check his skin, you’ll find traces of blue dye,” Kelly said, leveling her gaze on Bobby. “I’ll bet that hand was too tender for him to scrub all the dye away.”
Bobby’s smirk faded as Deputy Don pulled back the sleeve of Bobby’s shirt, examining his wrist. “Well, well, seems like there’s something dark under your skin, boy. We’ll just have to take a closer look, won’t we? I think you’ll be coming in for some questioning.”
“For what? I haven’t done anything!” Bobby protested as Officer Bill secured the handcuffs and yanked him toward the barn door.
“Well, Ms. Flynn is charging you with assault, for starters, ” Don said as they headed outside. “We’ll be bringing that gas can, too. It matches the description of one found last fall at a Fort Connor construction site that was torched. Another can was found up here at the ranch, too. In fact, I’ve got that one back at the department.”
Kelly followed the police officers into the barnyard, Burt beside her. She glanced up at the cloudy gray sky. Bobby was right. No one would have noticed the smoke at first, especially since the barn was set behind the ranch house.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bobby spewed. “I bought a can of kerosene, so what? I needed it for the lantern, for God’s sake.”
“Well, the Fort Connor police have some questions for you anyway, Mr. Lester. Especially after they check out your fingerprints. Seems Tracy Putnam’s killer left a print at the scene of her murder,” Don said as they walked toward the police cruiser.
Kelly wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw Bobby’s face pale. Then she caught a glimpse of a red truck barreling down the canyon road.
“Bobby and his family have been trying to get Geri Norbert’s ranch back in their hands. That’s what this is all about,” Kelly blurted out, unable to hold back. “Bobby is Geri Norbert’s son.”
Bobby jerked around, despite Officer Bill’s grip. “You shut your mouth, bitch! Leave my mother out of this!” he shouted, glaring at Kelly.
“Hey, I said watch your mouth, boy!” Deputy Don yelled, nose to nose with Bobby.
The sound of a huge engine roared up the ranch driveway. Sure enough, it was Steve. He jerked his truck to a stop and leaped out.
“Is that the guy? Is that the one?” he demanded as he strode up.
“Who the hell is this?” Don demanded, clearly unnerved by Steve’s arrival and appearance.
Steve’s face was dark with fury. He marched up to Bobby, then hauled off and punched him in the face. Bobby reeled out of Officer Bill’s grasp and fell flat on the ground.
“You son of a bitch! If you ever get near Kelly again, I’ll beat the crap out of you!”
“Jesus bloody Christ!” Deputy Don yelled as he stared at Steve. “Who the hell are you?”
Officer Bill bent to check the unconscious Bobby sprawled on the ground. “He’s out cold, sir.”
Kelly stood speechless. She’d never seen Steve mad. Annoyed, irritated, disappointed, worried, but never mad. Really, really mad. Whoa.
“Son, you’re gonna have to come down to the station with us,” Don said, approaching Steve.
“Wait!” Kelly cried, hobbling over to Steve. “Don’t arrest him, Deputy. He’s my boyfriend. He’s just...”
“You okay, Kelly?” Steve said, shaking his right hand.
“I’m fine, I’m okay now,” Kelly said, grabbing his arm.
Burt rushed up between a fuming Deputy Don and a rapidly cooling Steve. “Steve can explain, I’m sure he can, Don. I don’t think an arrest is warranted.” Burt gave Steve a stern look. “I’m sure Steve will keep himself in check.”
Steve pointed to Bobby. “You guys better keep him in jail, okay?”
“Is that a threat, son?” Don asked, clearly exasperated. “I swear, you’d better get outta here before I change my mind. Go on, get!” He made a shooing gesture. “Ms. Flynn, we’ll take your statement down at the station. Follow me, okay? Your boyfriend can wait in the truck.”
Steve slid his arm around Kelly’s waist. “Come on, Kelly. Let’s do as the deputy says.” A smile appeared. “Burt, you’d better drive Rosa’s car back. She and Mimi are worried sick.”
Burt followed behind them. “I’ll call Mimi and tell her to send the word out. Let everybody know Kelly’s okay.”
“Hey . . . Kelly’s boyfriend!” Officer Bill yelled. “Nice punch!”
Twenty-Two
"Come on in, you two.” Pete beckoned Kelly and Steve into the café later that evening. “Everybody’s waiting.”
“Whoa,” Kelly said, as she shed her winter jacket and hobbled into the café’s dining room. Pete wasn’t kidding. All her friends were scattered around the tables, where they sat hunched over coffee cups. Burt was seated with his arm around Mimi.
Coffee had never smelled so good. And was that the irresistible aroma of pecan pie? A silent prayer of thanks rushed from Kelly into the heavens. It was good to be alive.
Megan sprang to her feet and raced over, throwing her arms around Kelly. “Oh, Kelly, we were so worried! Please, please don’t do that again!”
Kelly embraced her friend as Lisa and Jennifer and Mimi hurried over to join them. Reaching their arms about Kelly, they swallowed her in hugs. She could barely breathe. When she could, she called to the guys who were hanging awkwardly at the edges. “Okay, everybody! Group hug! Group hug!”
The tension broken at last, everyone joined in, joking and laughing and teasing in a huge cluster.
“No tickling, Marty!” Mega
n cried.
“That wasn’t me, it was Greg.”
“Dude, touch me and you’re a dead man.”
That caused the group hive to shake with laughter, just as Curt and Jayleen charged into the room.
“What in Sam Hill are you folks doing?” Curt cried out. “Kelly, are you in there?”
“I’m here, Curt,” Kelly called when she stopped laughing.
“Lord, girl, you sure gave us a scare,” Jayleen said as she pulled out a chair. “What were you thinkin’ when you drove up to that ranch?”
“She wasn’t,” Lisa declared sternly. “You know Kelly. Act first, think last. I swear to God, you’re going to give us all a heart attack one day.”
“I agree with you, Lisa,” Mimi said. “And I’ve decided to take action.”
“What are you going to do, Mimi, cut off Kelly’s yarn credit?” Greg teased.
“Since we can’t stop Kelly’s sleuthing, I’m taking countermeasures, so I can survive the stress.” Mimi lifted her chin. “I’ve enrolled in a tai chi class. I’m going to learn to relax. Burt’s coming, too. He doesn’t want another heart attack.”
“Oh, wow, now I’m feeling way guilty,” Kelly said, as she clumped to the chair Steve held out for her.
Curt pulled out a chair beside Jayleen and leveled a stern gaze at Kelly. “That may not be a bad thing, Kelly girl. Whatever it takes to change that risky behavior of yours. If a cast on your foot doesn’t slow you down, I don’t know what will.”
“How about house arrest?” Jennifer suggested. “How does that work, Marty?”
Marty, hunched over the pie remains, looked up with a smile. “I’m afraid it doesn’t apply to Kelly. She hasn’t committed a crime.”
“Well, if she gives us all heart attacks, it’s a crime,” Megan said.
Kelly held up her hands, surrendering to the group’s goodwill. She could feel it wrap around her. Warm had never felt so good. “Folks, I promise I will put the sleuthing on hold.”
“Ha!” Lisa scoffed. “That’ll be the day.”
“I’ve heard that before.”
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