Big Sky Dynasty

by B. J Daniels

  “Good thinking.”

  “Then I’m going to the sheriff and tell him what Nicci did.”

  “You might want to give that more thought,” Rory said. “Unless he has enough evidence to arrest her—”

  “He’ll question her and scare her enough to keep her from doing anything else,” Georgia argued. “At the same time, I’ll have him evict her.”

  “Didn’t you say Dalton warned you against doing anything rash?” Rory asked, sounding scared.

  Georgia thought of the gun Nicci had shown her. Unless she didn’t have a permit for a concealed weapon, then there was no law against her carrying it. “I need to talk to Dalton before I contact the sheriff.”

  “Good idea.”

  “There she is,” Georgia said from her spot by the window. “She’s headed for her car. Wait a minute, she’s stopping to talk to someone.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t recognize her. A tall woman with long blond hair, definitely a tourist from the way she’s dressed. The woman appears to be asking directions. Nicci’s pointing down the street.”

  “You know Nicci’s been here too long if she’s giving directions,” Rory quipped.

  “She’s getting into her car.” Nicci shot a look back at Georgia’s apartment window—just as Georgia had anticipated. Georgia was ready, ducking out of sight. “She knows I’ve been watching her from the window. She looked again.”

  “You’re scaring me.”

  “Okay, she’s driving away.”

  “Get out of there! Come stay with me until we can figure out what to do.”

  “I need to talk to Dalton,” Georgia said. “I have to go before she comes back. But I’m worried about you.”

  “Don’t be. Devlin isn’t letting me out of his sight. Nicci wouldn’t be able to get within a mile of the place.”

  She didn’t know where Nicci was off to now and it scared her. “I have to warn you, Nicci asked how to get out to your place.” She could almost hear Rory’s shudder.

  “We have to stop that woman.”

  “You just take care of yourself and your baby. No more snooping into Nicci’s past lives.”

  Snapping her phone shut, she grabbed her purse and rushed downstairs to the back door.

  Her truck was parked just outside. She slid behind the wheel, locking the doors before she put the key in the ignition. A thought struck her, making her freeze. Dalton said he’d disabled Nicci’s car yesterday, but it seemed to be working fine. Nicci must have had someone fix it. Was it the man Dalton had warned her about? Ambrose?

  Georgia’s pulse thrummed in her ears. Why wouldn’t Nicci tell her? Because Nicci didn’t trust her even before this happened.

  She started the car and drove west toward the fairgrounds just outside of town. Summer wheat and prairie grasses had turned the rolling hills to a vibrant summer green. A breeze rolled through the grass like waves. Overhead in the sea of blue, clouds bobbed along, the summer day so at odds with Georgia’s emotions.

  Normally she loved summer, the warm sunny days, the rich smells, that feeling of being a kid again. She’d had an idyllic childhood growing up in Montana, wading in the creek, climbing trees, building forts.

  In the hot quiet afternoons, she would sit with Nana and learn to knit. Later, after she became proficient at it, they would knit and talk, drink frosty glasses of homemade lemonade and eat tiny cucumber sandwiches. Nana thought cucumber sandwiches decadent after reading about them in a magazine and decided it was what real ladies did.

  Georgia had never felt afraid in Whitehorse. Not until Nicci moved in across the hall. She slowed at the turnoff for the fairgrounds, having misgivings about not going straight to the sheriff.

  But Rory was right. Georgia needed to produce solid evidence to support her suspicions.

  Her only hope was Dalton. She’d had the feeling since the beginning that he knew a lot more about Nicci than he’d told her. She needed to know what she was truly up against with the woman. What had happened on Dalton and Nicci’s honeymoon to make him think his wife had been dead the past nine years?

  She shuddered, remembering Nicci’s scar. Dalton couldn’t have done that. Nicci was lying. She had to be.

  Georgia realized she was putting all her faith in Dalton Corbett. It was more than the fact that he was the one person who knew Nicci better than anyone. She’d felt something with him, a trust, a closeness, a bond. She was depending on him to know what to do. He had to, she thought as she parked and headed for the livestock barns.

  But all that aside, she’d felt something else when she was around Dalton, something she hadn’t even mentioned to Rory, she thought with a shy grin. Desire. Just the thought of being in Dalton’s arms—She told herself she had more important things to think about as her face heated at the thought of Dalton’s mouth on her own.

  Anyway, Dalton didn’t think of her that way, she told herself. Their only connection was Nicci. Once Nicci was gone…

  Georgia concentrated on what she had to tell Dalton about Rory and what she’d discovered in Nicci’s closet. If it had been anyone but him, she might have feared he wouldn’t believe her. It did sound certifiably crazy.

  “Did I mention that I believe my tenant is a homicidal maniac who tried to kill my pregnant best friend because my friend is suspicious of her?”

  Or was it even crazier than that? Had Nicci tried to get rid of Rory only because she was Georgia’s best friend?

  Not that it mattered what Nicci’s motives had been. Georgia knew she should be more worried about what Nicci would do next, especially since the woman had a gun.

  AGNES SAT down at her kitchen table and picked up her knitting. A light breeze played at the curtains over the sink. She could smell clover in the nearby field and heard a meadowlark singing from the clothesline.

  She should be out at the fairgrounds doing her volunteer work. Her needles clicked rhythmically, the movements of her hands not as calming as they usually were. Through the window, she could see the brilliant blue sky. Not a cloud in sight. The weatherman had said it would remain clear and dry over the next few days.

  Agnes knew differently. A storm would blow in late tonight.

  She still wasn’t used to knowing things. Things she didn’t need—or want—to know. Just this morning after knitting class she’d stopped at the grocery store. Joe in produce touched her arm when he passed her a ripe melon as he always did when she came in and she knew that he was about to get his heart broken by his girlfriend.

  Ella, the clerk who gave her change, would get a another grandson before midnight—the sixth boy. Lloyd at the gas station was about to lose his mother to a fast-talking elderly con man and that awful gossip Ruth Napier wouldn’t be long with this world.

  Agnes knew all of this to be true. Just as she knew Nicci would be paying her a visit.

  She frowned, trying to understand this strange phenomenon that only seemed to work when it felt like it. Wasn’t like she could pick a winning lottery number or even say who the next president would be.

  She’d just touch someone and know way too much about them and their lives. With Nicci, though, it was different. The feelings Agnes got with her were much stronger—and frightening.

  Thinking back, Agnes tried to remember the first time she’d noticed this new talent of hers. That day out in the garden trying to save her tomatoes when the lightning hit and…and when she woke up on the ground she’d had the strangest thought: Georgia’s found a renter for her apartment.

  How about that? Agnes smiled to herself, feeling better now that she recalled when it had started and possibly why. Not that she was happy about it.

  But the way she saw it, she had two choices. She could sit around bemoaning this new gift or she could accept it as God’s will. How she was supposed to use it was another question she would have to ponder at some length since she apparently had no control over it.

  Agnes paused, knitting needles gone still, as she listened. A vehicle. Headed this way
. Nicci.

  She listened as the car pulled into her yard, tires crunching gravel, the thrum of a car engine as it slowed to an idle, then silence.

  Agnes waited. The car door opened and closed. A few moments later the old wood on the porch creaked under the weight of a foot.

  Would Nicci knock? Or simply try the door?

  The knock was soft, barely audible. The doorknob rattled, hinges groaning as the door swung in.

  “Agnes?” Nicci singsonged. “Ag…nes?” She dropped her voice. “I know you’re home, you meddlin’ old woman. Just like last time.”

  Nicci stopped in the living room. “Agnes?” Her footfalls came down the short hall toward the kitchen.

  Agnes felt as if an icy hand had wrapped around her heart as Nicci rounded the corner.

  “There you are, you old dear,” Nicci said, moving toward the kitchen table where Agnes sat knitting. “Didn’t you hear me knock?”

  “I heard you,” Agnes said, continuing to knit, praying her hands didn’t tremble and give her away. “I was ignoring you. Just like last time.”

  Her first and only encounter with true evil all alone and face-to-face, Agnes could only treat it as she would a mad dog. She wouldn’t run. Nor would she show fear. Because to do either, she feared, could be deadly.

  She could feel the woman’s gaze on her, but pretended to concentrate on her knitting although it wasn’t necessary. It had been years since she’d had to look at the needles when she knitted.

  Nicci seemed confused that Agnes didn’t appear afraid of her. She’d already treated Agnes as if she was deaf earlier in the living room. Now she really must think Agnes was just a doddering old fool who didn’t have the sense to be terrified.

  “Did you bring me another cupcake?” Agnes asked.

  “No,” Nicci snapped with obvious irritation as she pulled out a chair and sat down across the table from her. “But if I had you would damn sure eat it this time if I had to shove it down your throat.”

  Agnes glanced up at her, not surprised by the outburst. Nicci was no longer pretending to be anything other than what she was. As frightening as that was, it was also a relief. If Nicci was disturbed sufficiently maybe she would make a mistake. Or give up. Either way, Agnes knew this would be over soon.

  She feared, though, how it would end and who would have to suffer or die before Nicci was through.

  With a laugh, Nicci glanced toward the phone on the wall by the back door as if suddenly understanding. “You called the sheriff as I drove in, didn’t you?”

  “Maybe,” Agnes said without looking up from her knitting.

  “Too bad he won’t get here in time to save you.”

  GEORGIA FOUND Dalton in the horse barn. The fair wouldn’t start for a while. The only people around were volunteers or participants.

  She stopped just inside the door, studying him. He hadn’t heard her approach because he was talking to one of the horses. She couldn’t hear the soft words he spoke, but she could tell by his tone that he was trying to soothe the nervous horse.

  She smiled, touched by this tender man. This was not a man who could hurt anyone, let alone try to kill them.

  He must have sensed her presence because he turned and, seeing her, smiled clear up into the blue of his eyes. He gave the horse a final pat before joining her.

  Georgia felt a little piece of her heart melt.

  “You’re shaking,” he said with concern as he looked into her eyes. “Something’s happened.”

  She nodded and felt tears fill her eyes.

  “Let’s get a lemonade and find a cool place in the shade where we can talk,” he said, putting his arm around her as they left the barn.

  “Tell me what’s happened,” he said, after he’d purchased two cups of lemonade and found them a spot under a cottonwood tree some distance from all the activity. The sun slanted across the open prairie as the day waned.

  Georgia blurted out everything, about Rory’s accident, the discovery of the cut brake lines, finding the recently cleaned clothing in Nicci’s closet and the weapons she carried in her purse.

  Dalton listened, saying nothing, but all the color had drained from his face.

  “You aren’t surprised.”

  “No, I wasn’t sure how much to tell you about Nicci.”

  “She’s done this before?”

  “Truthfully, I don’t know.”

  “Dalton, you told me she was dangerous. You didn’t tell me she…” Georgia waved a hand through the air.

  “That she was capable of murder? I knew that, but I never dreamed…” He shook his head. “I should have told you everything right away. I just didn’t think you would believe me.”

  Georgia thought about the first time he’d told her about Nicci. She’d thought it was a disgruntled spouse talking. That was back when Nicci had seemed so nice and normal. “You’re right. I wouldn’t have believed you.”

  He pulled off his Stetson and raked a hand through his hair as he looked toward the fairgrounds. The carnival rides gleamed in the last of the day’s sun. Soon lights would begin popping out across the fairgrounds.

  She didn’t dare look at him as she asked, “Nicci showed me a scar on her side. She said you tried to kill her.”

  He sighed. “It’s true. But would you have believed me if I told you it was self-defense? Do you even believe me now?”

  Georgia hugged herself against the chill of his words. “Why would you—”

  “We were out at sea. I’d found some drugs she had hidden and surmised that she’d drugged me to get me to marry her. She’d planned a special supper that night up on deck. I’d seen a motorboat following us at some distance. I just had a bad feeling so I switched the wineglasses at the last minute.”

  “She tried to drug you again?”

  He nodded. “Apparently her plan was to get rid of me at sea. That’s why I reacted the way I did when you told me about her marrying someone in Seattle and the husband being lost at sea.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  “Nicci’s sick. That’s the only thing that explains it.”

  “Why isn’t she in jail? I mean, didn’t the police look for her after you told them what had happened on your honeymoon?”

  “You have to understand what happened that night,” he said. “After I switched the wineglasses, Nicci and I got into it. She threw my glass of wine in my face. I went below to change. She followed me.”

  Georgia realized she was holding her breath.

  “She hadn’t consumed enough of the wine for the drug to affect her much. I accused her of tricking me into marrying her. She admitted it. When I glanced in the mirror over the sink, I saw her right behind me.” He looked away. “She had a knife in her hand.”

  NICCI ROSE to her feet and leaned across the kitchen table toward Agnes. “Stop that damned knitting. You’re driving me crazy.”

  “You’re already insane.”

  “This from a demented old woman who doesn’t have the sense to know she’s about to die?” Nicci gave a rueful shake of her head. “I already told Georgia that you’re losing your mind.”

  “She didn’t believe you.”

  “She will,” Nicci said with a smile. “You poor thing. A woman in your condition really shouldn’t be living alone. What if you fell down and couldn’t get up? Why it might be days before anyone found you.”

  “Georgia would come looking for me if I didn’t show up for knitting class.”

  “Georgia just puts up with you because you pay her to,” Nicci snapped.

  “Is that why you’re so worried about what I told her about you?” Agnes asked, keeping her tone conversational.

  “Georgia is my friend. She wouldn’t listen to some addled old woman and anyway, what could you possibly have said to her?”

  “Maybe I told her about that night on the ocean when you and your friend tried to kill Dalton Corbett,” Agnes said, looking up from her knitting.

  Nicci’s tanned face paled. “How…?”r />
  “It’s the strangest thing,” Agnes said. “I was struck by lightning and now I seem to have the sight.”

  Nicci scoffed. “Dalton must have told you.” Her eyes widened farther. “Did he tell Georgia?”

  “I wouldn’t know. I just saw it when we shook hands that first day I met you.”

  “There was something scary about you the moment I met you,” Nicci said, looking worried now. “If you would have just eaten that damned cupcake like you were supposed to…”

  She reached into her purse, came out with a small, snub-nosed pistol and pointed the barrel at Agnes’s head. “This is better though. A nasty fall down your cellar stairs. You really should have been more careful. At least I found you before you laid there for days. Now get up.”

  “I didn’t tell Georgia about that night,” Agnes said as she put down her knitting and rose. “Just as I didn’t mention it to the sheriff when I called him. I wouldn’t want him to think I was getting senile because how could I possibly know anything about your honeymoon?” Agnes cocked her head. “Ah, there’s the sheriff now. Right on time.”

  Nicci’s eyes widened in alarm at the sound of a vehicle pulling into the drive. “That can’t be the sheriff. Even if you called him when you saw my car, it would take him longer to get here than that.”

  “It’s that annoying sight. I knew you were coming plenty ahead of time. So I called the sheriff saying I thought I saw someone out by the barn. After I turned over those poisoned dead birds to him to send to the crime lab, he warned me to let him know if anyone came around the place who I didn’t know. Or trust,” Agnes said and glanced at the gun Nicci was still holding as the sheriff knocked on the front door.

  “Come on in, Sheriff, the door’s open,” Agnes called. “I’d suggest you put that away,” she said, dropping her voice.

  Angrily, Nicci stuffed the gun into her shoulder bag. Those icy green eyes bored into her. “You say a word to him,” she whispered, “and I’ll hurt Georgia. And since you have the ‘sight,’” she mocked, “you know I can.”

  “Look who’s here, Sheriff,” Agnes said as he came into the kitchen. “It’s Georgia Michaels’s renter. Have you met her? Nicci Corbett meet Sheriff Carter Jackson.”