Martin Steele had denied it. Juniper had reportedly cut a deal with the state’s attorney general to give evidence against the sheriff. And Martin had killed himself.
And now Cara had evidence that Ranger Corporation had been involved with that, too. Could Mitch take this information and learn the truth—a truth that would exonerate his father?
Cara sped out of town toward where she’d changed clothes before. She was going to resume her identity as Cara Hamilton, ace reporter. And then she’d go see Mitch.
IN THE CLUTTERED FILE ROOM next to the deputy admin room at the Sheriff’s Department, Mitch carefully photocopied every page of the book on Shotgun Sally—including the handwritten notes. He needed to send the book to the lab for further handling, but not before he had a copy.
It was tedious work, since the book was old and brittle. He handled it gingerly, touching only outer edges to preserve fingerprints. He carefully removed the notes to make some copies.
He’d started this task nearly as soon as he’d returned to the department, ignoring the stack of messages on his desk. Ignoring Hurley Zeller’s particularly viperous grin as he’d told Mitch the sheriff was looking for him.
Deputy Stephanie Greglets came in. “Hi, Mitch. What are you doing?” She eyed the copy machine and the book in his hand.
“Just copying some possible evidence.”
She drew closer. “I can help you with that.” She glanced down at the book.
“No, thanks.” Mitch pulled the copier’s cover down low enough that Stephanie wouldn’t be able to see the book’s cover. He wasn’t certain why. Stephanie had offered her assistance more than once on this case.
Maybe that, in itself, made him mistrustful, though he couldn’t say what he was suspicious of.
“Steele, what the hell are you doing in this room?”
Damn. Mitch turned at the sound of Ben Wilson’s voice. The sheriff stood in the doorway, his narrowed eyes and compressed lips making it clear he had something on his mind.
Stephanie stepped back, leaving them both at the machine.
“I found something at the Wilks murder scene,” Mitch replied to Ben’s question. “I’m making copies before sending it to the lab for analysis.”
“What is it?” As Ben reached out for the old book, Mitch stopped him with a gloved hand.
“We need to check for prints,” he reminded his boss.
“Yeah. So what’s its significance?”
Aware that Stephanie was listening, too, Mitch explained his theory that the book was what Nancy Wilks had called Cara about. “I don’t understand the notes, though,” he admitted. “We need to find out if they were Nancy’s or someone else’s. They seem to tie the old legends in the book to Ranger Corporation, but I don’t follow the significance. Like this one—‘Consider this for Ranger’s best yet.’”
“Best what?” Stephanie asked.
“Damned if I know,” Mitch said.
“Look, Steele,” Ben said, his eyes no longer on the book. “I hear you’ve been spending time with that reporter Hamilton again instead of sending her to me, like I told you.”
Mitch refused to allow himself to react, though he silently cursed Hurley Zeller for his big mouth and even bigger need to hurt Mitch. So Zeller would increase his chances of becoming sheriff if Ben became mayor? Not if Mitch could prevent it.
“Someone tried to poison Cara yesterday,” he said mildly, “and it looks like it has something to do with my case. I’m not about to let a civilian get hurt if I can prevent it.”
“So you protect her by shacking up with her?” Sarcasm dripped from Ben’s voice.
Mitch felt his body go rigid. Stephanie rolled her eyes and left the room. Only Ben and he remained.
“Who told you that?” Mitch asked. Had he been seen at Cara’s? Well, so what? He’d gone there to protect her. As far as anyone else knew, he could just as well have spent the night on the couch as he’d planned.
“Just be careful, Steele,” Ben continued. “The woman wants something from you—a story. And there’s more than one way for a man to be bribed.”
“What the hell are you implying, Ben?” But Mitch knew. He was suggesting that more than one Steele was susceptible to taking kickbacks. And this from a man Mitch was all but certain knew a lot more about what had happened to his father. And was the most likely of anyone to have set him up, then made his murder appear a suicide.
If only Mitch could prove it.
“I’m not implying anything, Mitch.” The sheriff’s voice was softer now, though no less noxious. “I’m just saying you could compromise your case, and your career, too, if you’re not careful.”
“I’m being careful. Don’t worry about it.”
“So careful that you’re not going to give her that.” Ben made it a statement as he nodded toward the book, and Mitch figured he’d been given a warning.
Why did it seem so important to Ben that Mitch not share this bit of information with Cara? Not that he was certain he would, anyway. He had to weigh the pros and cons.
He leaned toward sharing this with Cara, though off the record for now. Nancy had probably intended to show the book to Cara. Cara was a fan of Shotgun Sally and might understand the significance of the notes. She could help with the case.
But he wouldn’t lose sight of the fact that the book was evidence in a murder investigation. It should not be made public in the media, especially if it somehow pointed to, and could be used to convict, a suspect. Cara would have to honor his insistence that she not reveal its existence.
So far, she’d given him no major reason not to trust her.
Trust her? Heck, he was falling ass over beer bottle in love with her, if last night was any indication.
Not that he would act on it, other than to share pleasure with her. His life had no room for complications like a relationship. And right now he had to deal with his boss. Although Mitch knew Cara wasn’t using her luscious, fiery little body to bribe him, he wasn’t about to try to explain that to Ben.
“You know how much I wanted to be the lead on a big case like this, Ben,” Mitch said. “I appreciate your trusting me to handle it.” Mitch hated bootlicking, especially this man’s. But he’d put up with a lot before now to dig out the truth. He would continue for as long as it took. No matter how much it galled him. “I’ll do what I need to, to get the answers.” In both matters. All matters.
“So you’ll send your pretty little reporter to me to handle?”
Like hell he would. “If she needs handling.”
“And you’ll keep knowledge of that damned book from her?”
“Of course.”
Mitch heard a sound from the doorway behind them. He turned.
Cara stood there, ashen. Her hazel eyes were so huge they’d nearly turned black, and she looked ready to spit fire. “What more, exactly, do you intend to hide from me, Mitch?”
More? What was she talking about? And he couldn’t explain now. He shot her a pleading look that he immediately turned stony before the sheriff caught it. “How long have you been standing there?” he demanded. “And why are you there?”
“Because, unlike someone else I know, I live up to my promises. I had something to show you. Something important. But you can forget about it.”
Ben responded first. “If it has something to do with a criminal case under investigation by this department, you’ll hand it over, Ms. Hamilton, or I’ll throw you in jail. Understand?”
“You ever hear of First Amendment rights, Sheriff? Or reporters going to jail rather than reveal sources they have to protect? Think of the bad publicity you’ll get. And this at a time when rumors are flying that you want to run for mayor. Did you want that?” She stalked into the room and looked up into the obviously furious Ben’s face.
“Don’t threaten me, young lady, or I’ll take you up on—”
“Take it easy, both of you,” Mitch interceded. He had to break this up.
He had to talk to Cara. Alone.
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But she was jumping to conclusions based on eavesdropping on a conversation she had no business hearing.
“Now, Ms. Hamilton,” he said, taking a step toward her to put Ben behind him. He kept his tone cool, as if she were any citizen he needed to handle professionally and not the woman he’d handled so passionately the night before. “You heard right. I’ve found something that might be an important piece of evidence in this case. I need to review it further before determining if it’s something the media can report on.”
“Of course it can’t—” exploded Ben behind him.
But Mitch didn’t stop. “That has nothing to do with whether you’re obstructing justice by not turning over something else pertinent to the case. Are you?”
“If you think you’ll take the fruit of my research without giving me anything in return, you can forget it, Mitchell Steele. And to hand it to another reporter—I saw the message on your desk that Beau’s famous nephew, Jerry Jennings, called. Well, go ahead and cuddle up to him next time, Deputy.”
She pivoted and headed out the door. But before she got far, she turned back. “Oh, and by the way, Deputy Steele, I just might have learned something from my sources that would clear your dad from those bribery charges a couple of years ago. Too bad we aren’t sharing information, isn’t it?”
And before Mitch could say anything more, Cara was gone.
Chapter Fourteen
Cara couldn’t believe it.
Tears of fury flooded her eyes as she tried to start her car. She brushed them away.
Mitch Steele was no better than that damned Jerry Jennings. Worse, he was even conspiring with Jerry to rob her, once again, of the best story in her life.
She probably shouldn’t have blurted anything out about clearing Mitch’s father. After all, even if Juniper Holdings was affiliated with Ranger Corporation, that didn’t mean it hadn’t bribed Martin Steele, as claimed.
But the ties with Ranger…
She drove to her office. Of course, when she least wanted to talk to him, Beau was lying in wait.
“How’d you get Sheriff Wilson riled this time, Cara?”
“Why don’t you ask Jerry?” she snapped.
“Jerry? What does my nephew—”
Resisting the urge to snap her boss’s ugly red suspenders against his thick body—hard—Cara didn’t wait to hear the rest. She slammed her office door closed behind her and slammed the case she had been carrying onto the floor beneath her desk.
Her office. Had it been only yesterday when Della had eaten that damned chocolate right here? So much had happened since then.
She looked at the place as if it belonged to a stranger. And a bunch of strangers had made it appear to be someone else’s. The forensics gang had rolled through, taking whatever they wanted, dusting the rest with ugly black fingerprint powder. It even smelled different—like chemicals and throw up. She pulled from a drawer a small can of disinfectant she kept for those days when Beau ordered in pizzas with onions and extra garlic, and sprayed it into the air in a futile attempt to mask the odor.
Since the light on her phone was blinking, she checked her messages—three, according to the digital display. She drew in her breath at the first, when Mitch’s voice blared into her domain. She quickly pressed erase. And then again and again. All three were from Mitch. And she was damned if she would listen to him, let alone return the calls.
Forcing Mitch from her mind, she began to straighten the things on top of her desk. Article drafts, printed pages of Internet research, memos from Beau—sure, a lot of stuff had been in her myriad piles, but those piles had been organized, darn it. Now she had to sort through every page to determine where it belonged.
After digging through the materials on the right side of her desk, she started on the left. That was when she found the yellow file folder with the neatly printed label: Shotgun Sally. It wasn’t Cara’s file. And that meant it was what Della had come here yesterday to give her.
Smiling for the first time that morning—since awakening with Mitch beside her—she began to read.
Della had copied pages from anthologies of Texas legends that referred to Sally, focusing on the story of her sister’s murder. Reading them gave Cara chills. Sally’s sister had been mistaken for her and had died, right near the ranch house on the property owned by the siblings’ wealthy family.
Cara had asked where that property was. Della had apparently researched it and included a map of what today was Mustang County. She’d circled an area a few miles east of town, noting, “Shotgun Sally’s ancestral land.” She’d included some citations to book references, written by hand.
Interesting, Cara thought. She’d have to visit it. She thought she could picture it—not particularly pretty, fairly flat and with few trees. How could Sally have hidden? Her story suggested she’d holed up there while figuring out how to capture the true culprit in her sister’s murder. Sure, Zachary, her lawman lover, had nabbed the drifter only hours after the killing, but Sally had insisted someone else was behind the murder. How else could the drifter have gotten so much cash?
She’d laid a trap for the real killer, right there on her family’s ranch. Except he’d laid a trap for her first—on the same land. Zachary got snared first, but Sally saved him. Only then did he begin to believe her tale of conspiracy. And that had led to a beautiful relationship.
Sally and her lawman lover, and Cara and… Damn!
Impulsively Cara called Della’s hospital room. “You caught me just in time,” Della said. “They’re releasing me.”
“How do you feel?”
“Like a herd of steer stampeded on my stomach, but I’ll get over it.”
“I found the file you left on my desk,” Cara said. “Thanks. I guess I didn’t need to know where Sally lived, but I’ve always wondered.” Not that she’d given it much thought, for Sally was such an integral part of Mustang Valley lore, Cara had considered the entire county Sally’s domain. But Cara realized that her curiosity had been prodded since the story she was researching these days involved large tracts of land in Mustang County. Of course, the properties being scarfed up by Ranger Corporation and its subsidiaries were on the opposite side of town from Sally’s—the western part of Mustang County.
“You’re welcome,” Della said. “We’ll have to get together and toast Sally when I’m able to drink again.”
“You got it,” Cara said. “Drinks’ll be on me.”
The phone rang almost as soon as she’d hung up. Cara was glad she had caller ID; it was Mitch. She would answer and hang up on him, but then he’d know she was there. Instead, she let the call roll into her voice mail. Of course she checked the message right away, just in case it was someone else calling about something important. She gritted her teeth when she heard Mitch’s remote voice asking her to call him. When the hounds of hell are on my tail, she thought.
After letting all her calls go into voice mail, she ignored two more messages from Mitch before she’d finished reorganizing her office. Didn’t that dratted deputy ever give up?
When she came back from lunch, more messages were on her machine. And late that afternoon Beau buzzed her on the intercom to tell her Mitch was there to see her and that she was ordered to talk to him.
Give your commands to your nephew, Jerry, why don’t you? Cara thought. Leaving Beau to entertain Mitch, she slipped out the back door.
She considered heading for her parents’, since Mitch was unlikely to confront her there, but decided against it. She didn’t want her folks to worry about her—any more than they would when the next bunch of rumors reached their ears.
Instead she headed for the Hit ’Em Again Saloon.
Too bad her closest friend Kelly McGovern, now Lansing, was still on her honeymoon. This popular dive belonged to her husband, Wade, so it was now part Kelly’s, too. Cara would have loved to have belted down a couple of beers with Kelly, told her everything about her story and her research, and how Deputy Mitch Steele had screwed he
r—figuratively and literally. Well, maybe she’d keep some things to herself. Even though Kelly, in her own sometimes prissy, top-of-the-social-tree ways, had her own earthy side.
Tonight, wanting to get so high she’d fly, Cara didn’t even bother trying to find an empty table in the overflowing lounge. She sat at the bar by herself and had a glass of wine. But she could hardly swallow it. Some sobbing lush she’d be.
“Can I get you another?” the bartender asked.
“Not tonight.” Cara paid her tab, left a generous tip and headed out the door.
She drove home slowly. Not that she was drunk, but she certainly didn’t want to be pulled over by some deputy sheriff who’d report the stop to Mitch.
She turned off Main Street onto a road that led toward her apartment complex. It was twilight. Why did it feel so much later? Maybe because so much had happened that day.
She’d woken up satiated, happy and in love. She was going to go to bed tonight alone and angry. And… Well, maybe she’d still be in love, though she’d get over it. But Mitch’s perfidy hurt particularly badly because of how she felt about him.
Had he only slept with her to ensure her cooperation?
A flash from behind her startled her. Damn. A white Sheriff’s Department car had blinked its lights. Was it Mitch? Had he followed her?
Why did the thought make her feel so warm and fuzzy inside despite how she wanted to hate him? It had to be the wine. As she pulled to the curb of the residential street, she just hoped she’d pass the Breathalyzer.
But the deputy who approached the driver’s side window wasn’t Mitch but that pig-shaped lout Hurley Zeller.
She pushed the button to roll down her window. “Is there a problem, Deputy Zeller?”
“Yeah. I thought that was you. I was just on my way to a crime scene and figured you’d want to know about it, if you don’t already. It’ll make a good news story.”
There was something in the smug pleasure on this miserable, fat excuse-for-a-deputy’s face that made Cara’s blood chill. “What’s going on?” she asked quietly.
Lawful Engagement - Linda O Johnston Page 18