by Joanna Wayne
“Rube said he was in the office most of the morning, plenty close enough to hear a scream. He didn’t hear a thing.”
“He sure got to me fast when I screamed.”
“I asked about that. He said he’d seen you go in and was on his way over to see how you were doing. He’d already heard about your accident.”
“New travels fast in Dry Creek. What about Rube’s wife? Did she hear or see anything?”
Matt tapped his fingers against the glass. “She claims she’d taken medicine for a migraine and had fallen into a dead sleep.”
“I detect a little doubt on your part.”
Matt finished his lemonade and set the glass on the floor under the swing. “She seemed a little nervous when I talked to her at the motel after the shooting. Shaky, but not out of it as she would have been if Rube had roused her from a drugged sleep.”
“Couldn’t the shock of hearing about Ariana have caused that reaction?”
Matt slipped an arm over the back of the swing and wound a finger in Heather’s hair. “Are you looking for a job with the department?” The humor in his voice was strained. “I’m supposed to be the know-it-all Ranger, and you’re supposed to stare at me with those big, gray eyes, admiring my brilliance.”
“I would, but I can’t see well enough to stare from under the swelling.”
Matt traced the tender area around her eye and down her right cheek. “Does it still hurt?”
“Only when I laugh.”
“Then I don’t guess you’ll be needing any painkillers tonight.”
“Not likely.” She felt Matt’s hand come to rest on her shoulder. As always, his touch jolted her senses. No matter how grim the discussion, it never totally overshadowed the effect of his nearness. She’d have to work all the harder at staying focused.
“Do you think Ariana could have known something about Kathy Warren, that whoever was determined I not ask questions about her thought Ariana might talk?”
“I can’t imagine what the connection would be. Ariana would have been five years old at the time your mother was said to be in Dry Creek.”
Heather’s mind flashed back to the body in the bloody bathroom. “So she was thirty. So young to die.”
“Way too young.” His mouth twisted into a frown. “Are you sure it would have been twenty-five years ago this fall that Kathy Warren was supposed to have been in Dry Creek?”
“That’s what I was told. I’ll be twenty-five the fifth of October, and I was only a few days old when she dropped me off.”
“A year of trouble in Dry Creek.” His muscles tensed. “One woman beaten and left for dead, and another one who apparently left secrets that still haunt the town today.”
“I’m not following you.”
Matt leaned forward and propped his elbows on his knees. “I was just starting school that year, finally big enough to tag along with my half-brothers when they went hunting. It was about this time of the night, not quite dark but late enough—we were supposed to be home.”
A coyote howled in the distance, and Heather shivered, but didn’t interrupt. For once Matt was opening up, talking in more than clipped sentences that delivered cold facts.
“We heard a moan,” he continued, staring into space. “I thought it was a wild animal and started to run, but my brothers went over to investigate. They found a woman, bloody and bruised. She was barely breathing, but she opened her eyes and looked at us: We went and got the pickup truck—my oldest brother was too young to have a license, but he knew how to drive. We put her in the back and took her home, never once realizing that we could have killed her in the process.”
“Did she live?”
He nodded and leaned back in the swing. “She did. She always said our finding her was a miracle. My brothers and I agreed, but we thought the miracle was for us. She turned out to be the best cook in the county and the best nurse for stomach aches, poison ivy and bruised pride a boy ever had.”
His eyes lit up, softening the rugged lines in his face and easing the defiant jut of his jaw. “And the best all-around substitute mom in the state of Texas.”
“The Susan who taught you to cook?”
“That was her. Susan Hathaway.”
“You mean she stayed with you? What a wonderful story.”
“She stuck with us like a poor uncle come dinnertime, as my grandfather liked to say.”
“Did you find out why she’d been beaten?”
“No. She recovered slowly, but never remembered anything about the attack.”
“Were the men who did it to her prosecuted?”
“They were never arrested. It was the one crime my dad never solved. Strange, don’t you think, for a sheriff not to follow up on a crime that hit so close to home?”
“What does he say about it?”
“Jake McQuaid? He doesn’t explain himself to anyone.” The bitterness in Matt’s tone left no doubt that he had not paid his father a compliment.
Heather scooted closer, envisioning Matt at seven, motherless, frightened at animal sounds. She stole her hand into his, reconciling the strength of him now with the boy of the past.
“So you have a long history of saving women who’ve been attacked,” she said. “No wonder you’re so good at it.”
He turned to face her. She couldn’t read the message in his eyes. They were dark as the night had become, piercing, but mysterious.
“I’m just thankful it wasn’t your body I found today, Heather.” His voice was low and husky.
Heather’s insides quaked, emotion swelling inside her. How could a man she barely knew have such a devastating effect on her? “We should go in,” she whispered.
“I know.”
Their eyes met, kindling a crackling surge of desire that left her breathless. And then she was in his arms, his lips on hers. Lost in the kiss, she forgot everything except the passion soaring inside her.
She wasn’t sure how many times the phone rang before they were aware of its jingling coming from inside. “I have to get that,” Matt said, pulling away. “It could be about the case.”
She nodded, and he headed across the porch and into the house. Wrapping her arms around her chest, she thought only of Matt, unwilling to lose the magic of the moment. But the magic died on her kiss-swollen lips the moment he reappeared.
“I’m afraid to ask,” she said, “but what’s happened now?”
“That was Rube. We don’t have to wait for fingerprints. The white sandals belong to his wife.”
Chapter Seven
“What does that mean?” Heather asked. “Why were her shoes in my room? Did Rube’s wife see the killer? Is she involved in this?”
Matt shook his head. “Don’t you have to come up for air?”
“Not when something like this hits. Why didn’t she say those were her sandals while we were there this morning?”
“All I know is that Rube wants me to come over and see Edna. He said she’s hysterical and won’t tell him anything except that the white sandals are hers.”
“I’m going with you.”
“Right.” He stepped to the edge of the swing and offered a hand. “You’re going with me as far as John Billinger’s house. You can stay with him and his family until I get back.”
“No!” She jumped from the swing. “Look at me, Matt. I’m the one who got my face beat in. I’m the one who found Ariana’s body. All of this started because I asked a few questions. You are not cutting me out of the good parts of this investigation. I’ve earned my right to be there.”
“There are no ‘good parts.”’ He turned and headed down the front steps. “And you are not part of the investigating team.”
She passed him at a near-run, opened the passenger door to the truck and climbed in. “I refuse to be left out of this. Don’t even think of stopping at Billinger’s place.”
Staring straight ahead, she braced herself for an argument that didn’t come. He simply revved the engine and backed out of the narrow drive and
onto the dirt road without one look in her direction.
Matt’s muscles tensed as silence smoldered between them. Things were galloping out of hand, and it was all his fault. His job was to protect innocent citizens and apprehend the guilty, not to seduce victims.
Yet twice now he’d given in to the overwhelming attraction he felt any time Heather was near, losing his control like some love-struck schoolboy. Nothing like this had ever happened to Matt McQuaid. Now the boundary lines between duty and personal feelings were jagged instead of clean and straight. Now every decision he made had dangerous repercussions.
“Why is it you feel the need to go back to the scene of the murder?” he asked, when his irritation with himself and Heather had cooled to just below the boiling point.
She crossed her arms, stuck her nose in the air and jutted her chin out like a strutting cock. “I didn’t start any of this, but since I’m in the middle of it, I need to know what’s going on and why. Ariana’s dead. I could be next.”
“You told me you trusted me to see that you aren’t.”
She twisted in her seat, finally turning to face him. “I don’t want to argue, Matt. It won’t get us anywhere. Besides, I’m not as good at these rapid mood changes as you are. One minute you can’t keep your hands and lips off me. The next you’re all but shoving me out of your way.”
Seemingly of its own volition, Matt’s mind swept back to the kiss. Losing control like that was unforgivable in this situation and as foreign to his life-style as champagne and caviar. “I shouldn’t have kissed you, Heather. It won’t happen again.”
“Won’t it?”
Matt’s insides knotted. He knew what she was thinking, that his willpower hadn’t been worth two cents so far. She was probably used to that reaction from men and expected more of the same. If he had anything to offer, she might get what she expected, but he was who he was, a man who’d never learned the art of making relationships work. Not even a woman like her could change that.
“I was out of order, Heather, a simple mistake. Don’t go reading anything into it. I’m the kind of man you’d throw back if you caught me.”
“I don’t have a line out, Matt.” She undid her seat belt as they neared the gate.
He slowed to a stop. “I didn’t mean it that way. The kiss was my fault, not yours. But it will go better for both of us if we keep our relationship strictly business.”
She opened her door, but paused, capturing his gaze. “All business? Fine with me. Only how are we going to ignore the fact that every time we get within touching distance or even are alone in the same room, the sizzle of hormones is louder than that bacon you fried up for breakfast?”
She was out of the truck before Matt could respond. He was fresh out of arguments anyway, especially when the hormones she talked about were raging inside him even now. But he was sure he could tamp down his feelings, tuck them away so deep inside him he almost forgot they existed. He’d done it all his life and for far less reason than he had now.
A coyote howled in the distance and an owl hooted overhead. Both creatures who knew how deceptive and dangerous nights in South Texas could be. There was a killer on the loose, with elusive ties to Heather. He’d have to work fast to untangle the knots and discover what was going on.
Her life depended on it.
IT DIDN’T TAKE a Texas Ranger to figure out that Rube’s wife was lying. Heather knew it from the moment the woman opened her drawn mouth. But it wasn’t the lies that made Heather’s blood run cold. It was the fear that crouched in Edna’s eyes and turned her warm-toned complexion to pasty Swiss cheese.
“What time were you in room 4, the room that was rented to Heather Lombardi?” Gabby repeated a question that had been asked before.
Edna recrossed her legs and wrung the tissue in her hands. “I don’t know, sometime after breakfast. I went in to see if Ariana had cleaned. She hadn’t. And she wasn’t there either. I told you that already.”
Matt eased between Gabby and Edna. his relaxed manner contrasting with Gabby’s accusing one. “We’re not blaming you for anything, Edna. We just need to know the truth so we can find the killer.”
She nodded, but kept her gaze directed at the scarred wooden floor.
“How do you think your shoes got in Heather’s room?” he asked.
“I don’t know. All I know is I bad on these old tennis shoes today.” She stuck her feet in front of her as if that should settle the question. “The sandals might have been on the porch. I wear them outside when I’m working in the garden.”
“That’s quite a green thumb you have, Edna, to coax flowers out of this dry clay,” Matt commented. “The flowers around the front of the building look great. You must water them all the time.”
Edna’s lips split into a smile. “Every day. We have a deep well, you know. Ariana always said I had the prettiest flowers in the whole town.”
“You and Ariana must have gotten to be pretty good friends, what with her working here from time to time. Did you ever see her with anyone around the motel? A boyfriend, maybe?” Matt asked.
Edna’s breasts heaved beneath the cotton shirt that hung outside a pair of denim shorts. “I don’t know who Ariana sees. She’s a grown woman.”
“She was,” Matt said. His tone was insistent. “Now we need to find out who killed her. Just try to remember. Have you seen any unfamiliar men around here on the days Ariana was working?”
“She’s told you everything she knows,” Rube complained, wrapping an arm around his wife’s shoulders. “Can’t you let it go at that? Both of you know she’s not a killer.”
“We didn’t say she was, Rube.” Matt kept his voice calm and friendly. “Answer the question, Edna. Have you seen anyone hanging around with Ariana?”
“No.” She squirmed in her seat and scooted closer to Rube. “I didn’t see anyone today either. I don’t know anybody who would want to kill a sweet girl like that. I keep telling you that. Why don’t you believe me?”
Heather breathed a sigh of relief as Matt said he’d hold off on further questioning. They had been at this over an hour, and Edna showed no signs of changing her story and blurting out the truth, whatever that might be.
Matt explained to Rube that neither he nor Edna should leave town and warned them not to talk to anybody but himself or Gabby about the crime. Rube agreed and led Edna away.
Gabby watched them go, hitching up his jeans so that they could work their way back down and under his belly. “You can’t count on nobody to cooperate with the law anymore,” he muttered, stamping towards the door.
Matt took Heather’s arm and they followed the sheriff outside. The night air had grown cooler, and she breathed in the tart freshness of it. They were almost to their vehicles before Gabby made his assessment.
“That got us exactly nowhere.”
“I’d say a little further than that,” Matt corrected. “We know Edna’s awfully upset.”
Gabby snorted. “As jumpy as spit on a hot skillet. She’s scared, that’s what she is, and upset about poor Ariana. They’d gotten to be friends.”
Heather lifted her hair from her neck to let the breeze cool her skin. “I think she’s lying.”
Both men turned, eyebrows arched, as if they’d forgotten she was there. Matt leaned against the front fender of his truck. “You think she’s lying about having had the shoes on?”
“I think she’s lying about everything. She knows something, but she’s afraid to open her mouth. Every time you asked her a question, she looked to her husband before she answered. Maybe she saw the man who killed Ariana, and he threatened to kill her too if she squealed on him.”
“If that’s the case, why would he threaten her?” Gabby asked. “Why didn’t he just shoot Edna while he was at it?”
Heather didn’t back down. “Maybe he didn’t want to kill her. Maybe they’re friends, or relatives.”
Gabby shook his head. “This ain’t the big city. We don’t go around accusing our neighbors of mur
der around here, Miss Lombardi, unless we got strong evidence. Rube ain’t got a mean bone in his body, and Edna’s good as gold. She’d have no cause to lie to us.”
Heather saved her breath and let Matt and Gabby make their parting comments. Now that the questioning was over, she wondered why she had insisted on coming. She was tired and hungry and more frustrated than ever.
Finally, Gabby crawled in his truck and backed out of the dirt drive. Matt stepped behind her. “Are you too tired for a walk?”
“So that you can tell me more about how I shouldn’t think any citizen of Dry Creek could lie, much less commit a crime?”
“No.” Matt kicked at the dirt with the toe of his boot. “I agree with you. Edna was lying, no doubt about it. But she was scared, too.”
“So what are you going to do about it?”
“Give her a little time to stew. I had Gabby put a guard on this place tonight, though he argued there was no need for it. I want to know who comes around to talk to her after we’ve gone. And I want to make sure she’s not the next target for shooting practice.” Matt took Heather’s arm and guided her away from the truck and down a dirt path that ran the edge of the highway.
“I don’t get it.” she said. “If you and I could both tell Edna was lying, why didn’t Gabby see it? It’s as if he chooses what he wants to believe and ignores the other evidence.”
“That’s a problem when you’re policing people you’ve known all your life. Familiarity sometimes gets in between the investigator and the suspects and witnesses, and makes objectivity impossible.”
They walked past the motel to the front of a restaurant that had closed for the night. The windows were dark, the wood of the building old and battered, the roof a slanting line of tin.
A shiver snaked down her spine. She could swear someone was watching them. The town did this to her, made her feel the presence of ghosts. Perhaps they were the remnants of her own life, the past she didn’t know. “Does this walk have a purpose?” she asked, increasing her pace.
“This is the spot where Kathy Warren would have caught a bus if she actually did leave Dry Creek that October night.”