“Your father’s,” she repeated, her stare as heavy as lead, “naming Wallace as sole heir.”
* * *
Just over an hour after Emma left her motel, Sheriff Wallace Fleming strode into the small conference room where she was sitting. “We found it just like I said,” he boasted, raising her black purse, now somewhat dirty and misshapen, in his meaty hand.
Flinching at the abruptness of his intrusion, Emma looked up from the six-pack of photos of potential suspects that the deputy seated across from her had shown her. Though she’d understood that one of the men’s faces among the headshots must be that of the sex offender currently in custody—and that it would make everyone’s job easier if she’d gotten a good look at her assailant—she’d had to explain that none of the faces was at all familiar.
She hadn’t yet had the chance to bring up the handgun Josh had found, which she’d left inside her Jeep for fear of carrying a loaded weapon into a sheriff’s office without warning. But now her full attention was on her bag, which the sheriff triumphantly laid down before her.
“There you go,” he said. “Why don’t you check it out? Tell me if anything is missing.”
“Th-thanks.” Emma’s stomach squirmed with this big man looming over her while Deputy Kendall, an equally imposing figure with close-cropped prematurely silver hair and a faint fishhook-shaped scar beneath his left eye, watched her from across the table. Up until now, he’d treated her kindly, asking how she was feeling and bringing her a cup of surprisingly good coffee before gently drawing her story from her. With his boss standing over him, however, he watched her with cool gray eyes. Eyes that measured and assessed her as carefully as any cop might a potential suspect.
“Well, go on. Don’t be shy,” the sheriff urged, crossing his arms above a slight paunch. “Another of my deputies found it early this morning behind some trash cans in an alleyway between the community center and our suspect’s house. Looks like whoever snatched it got scared and tossed the thing, maybe hopin’ To throw us off his trail. But your keys are still inside, I saw. Your cell and wallet, too, with your driver’s license. Everything else present?”
“The credit and debit cards are still here—even all the cash, I think,” she confirmed before unzipping the interior pocket she cared most about. The completely empty pocket. “They’re gone. They’re—”
After rooting through the purse’s other sections, she stared up at the sheriff. “Did you take them out? Those papers I mentioned?”
“What papers?” Fleming asked, his face hardening, his vibrant blue eyes shuttered.
He remembers exactly what we talked about.
Planting her palms on the tabletop, she pushed herself to her feet. “The ones from Russell’s room. The ones that prove that his death was no accident and that my attack—there’s no way it was random.”
When the deputy rose, too, one big hand reaching for her, Fleming held up a palm to stop him. “It’s all right, Jim. She’s okay. Miss Copley—excuse me—Dr. Copley—has had a really rough week. Had a couple of things go down, one right on top of the other, that any human being would struggle to make sense of.”
“Not you, though.” Emma stared a challenge at him, not buying his patronizing show of sympathy for a minute. “You explained it all away with lightning speed. And now, when I had written proof, proof that would make hash of your theories, it just so happens to go missing.”
“Because if this proof of yours ever existed in the first place,” Fleming said, his face darkening behind the drooping mustache, “you were fool enough to go skulking around some dumpster with it looking for trouble instead of bringin’ it straight here the way any sensible woman would have. And now you’re pointin’ fingers, never stopping to think for a second that behind the scenes, we’ve been working our tails off, putting in overtime galore on this death investigation, much less thank us.”
She paused, confused—and wondered if it was remotely possible that she might have misjudged him. “So you’re telling me you really have been looking into Russell’s murd—his death?” She adjusted her wording, along with her tone, so as not to incite another argument. Because an honest investigation was all she’d wanted from the start. And justice for Russell if it turned out she was right. “Really looking into it, I mean? Including the possibility that someone wanted him silenced before he could release his data?”
Fleming straightened his spine, his gaze hard and cold as steel. “We might not have your fancy university degrees, Dr. Copley, and we might not hail from the state capital, but that doesn’t mean we’re all a bunch of ignorant hayseeds.”
“No one ever said that.”
“Glad to hear it, Professor, ’cause when you start hangin’ with the wrong sort, listening to what comes out of the big mouth that pretends like he’s somethin’ more than a stain on his family honor, an outsider like you can maybe start to get the wrong ideas about the way that things get done around this county.”
A stain on his family honor? Heat blasted through her, followed by an impulse to rush to the defense of a man her instincts told her was worth a dozen Wallace Flemings. She managed to hold her tongue, reminding herself that she needed the sheriff’s cooperation—no matter how repellent she found his attitude.
“Then maybe you can clue me in about the way you do things instead of leaving me to wonder.”
He turned up his hands. “You have to understand, Doc, that with any pending investigation, there are things we simply can’t share, certain details we have to hold back from the community at large. But I can assure you that if my deputies and I uncover one shred of hard evidence that Russell Jorgenson’s death might’ve been anything other than accidental—or that what happened to you yesterday could be at all related—I’ll reopen the case faster than Jimmy here can shoot the head off a rabid skunk.”
She glanced at the deputy. “I take it that’s pretty fast, then?”
He smiled in answer, his gray eyes hinting there was an amusing story—one not shared with civilians—somewhere behind the sheriff’s boast.
“Meanwhile,” the sheriff told Emma, “for your own mental and physical health and safety, I believe it would be in your best interest to leave this all to my department while you return to your—”
“What did you just say?” she asked, her breath catching at his phrasing. It struck Emma as well that when Mrs. Reddy had used those exact same words earlier this morning when she’d called from the university, she’d done so after dialing the motel’s number—a number she might easily have gotten from someone local.
Likely, from someone who knew about Emma’s assault and had made it clear from the start that his life would be far easier if she would quickly pack up and leave town.
It was only then that Emma decided for certain what her instincts had been trying to tell her all along. There was no need to mention the handgun hidden out in her Jeep—not if she didn’t want that particular piece of evidence to disappear just like the pages.
Instead, she’d hold on to it for the time being, if only to ensure that she was not the next to vanish, too.
Chapter 6
Personal belongings packed in the rear of her Jeep, Emma pulled past a motel exit framed with the trunks of several spindly palm trees, their fronds yellowed and drooping. Though their long shadows pointed the way east, she instead drove toward where the sun kissed the horizon, a beacon leading westward toward the Kingston Ranch.
Guiltily, she thought of the promise she’d made to Josh and Lucie to leave Pinto Creek before nightfall.
“It was only half a lie,” she told River, who stared in what Emma imagined to be silent judgment from the back seat. “I am leaving the city limits, so please stop looking at me that way.”
As the small town’s center gave way to residential neighborhoods, Emma thought about the local high school and junior college science students she and Russell had traine
d to assist them, all volunteers who’d expressed an interest in wildlife preservation. In exchange for course credit, teams of them had turned out five mornings each week to walk a grid pattern at designated turbines to search for any dead birds. Whenever a feathered mound was found, the fatality was photographed, tagged and collected so the bird’s species and probable cause of death could be recorded for the study.
If any raptor deaths weren’t being reported, there were two possibilities. Either some of their volunteers were hiding carcasses, which seemed unlikely with so many enthusiastic witnesses about, or someone was beating them to the designated spots to remove the birds of prey whose plights they were recording. Each time Emma tried to imagine how Russell might have come up with solid evidence, her mind led her to the same conclusion. He had to have been using the game cameras, a case of which had mysteriously gone missing after last spring’s butterfly study, near the bases of the Green Horizons turbines. Capable of taking still shots day or night, the cameras would mark each digital image with a time and date stamp and save it to a memory card.
But did any of the cameras remain, awaiting her discovery? And had those who might be implicated in the photos come to the same conclusion? Could they be aware, too, that one or more of these might have captured evidence from the date and time surrounding Russell’s death? For all she knew, the game cams could have long since been removed or, worse yet, destroyed. But as disappointing as it would be to come up empty-handed, she worried more about running into someone desperate to find them out here.
As she passed a grain silo near the railroad tracks, Emma shuddered, imagining herself forced up the turbine as Russell might have been and either hanged, as she feared he’d been, or flung from the maintenance platform. She thought about his gun, which she’d brought along for safety, but the prospect of actually using it left her dry-mouthed and shaky.
“Surely it won’t come to that,” she murmured, pulling alongside a desolate stretch of ranch road some thirty minutes later and checking the mirrors for signs that anyone might be coming up behind her.
With the sun long gone and dusk deepening with every minute, she spotted nothing but the faint outline of the dusty road and the indistinct silhouettes of fence posts behind her. Noting the emergence of the first few stars, she jumped when River growled from the back seat. Emma jerked her head toward a movement beyond the passenger window and gasped, startled by the movement of a deer behind the ranch gate to her right.
As what turned out to be a white-tailed buck and a couple of does disappeared in the failing light, she told River, “It’s okay. They won’t bother us,” her voice thin and shaky.
Steadying herself, she left her vehicle with a flashlight, taking the day pack with the loaded weapon and River to alert her to the approach of any other unexpected animals or strangers. As she started off in the direction of Turbine Number 43 on foot, she passed the gate. Her pants caught on a thorny shrub just as her phone vibrated in her pocket. Snapping the stick to free her leg, she pulled out the cell, remembering Lucie’s promise to call to check on her, though it would mean another white lie.
But a glance at the caller ID told her that her department head was calling, the same Dr. Lee who’d evidently conspired with Human Resources after someone, probably the sheriff, had tipped him off last night.
Upset by his betrayal, Emma answered. “I’ve been wondering when you’d call and explain why I’ll be filling in for Paulsen instead of doing research this semester.” Her own voice echoed back over a weak connection. “So which is it? Am I being punished by the dean—or was all this your idea?”
“You damned sure deserve punishment,” another voice said, distorted almost—but not quite—beyond recognition. “And you’re going to freaking get it any time now because I’m comin’ for you, darling.”
“J-Jeremy?” Her heart leaped in her chest at the realization that he was spoofing another number he’d stolen from her phone just to terrorize her. Or could she have been right before? Could his jealousy and hatred have pushed him as far as murder?
That can’t be right, she reminded herself. He was in Waco working, not here when Russell died. Wasn’t he?
“You’ve ruined my life. Ruined me,” Jeremy accused, self-pity mixed with anger.
And you nearly broke me. Destroyed my chance to be a mother, and her chance...at everything.
Emma clamped down on the bottomless grief that struck her every time that she remembered. “I don’t have time for any more of your garbage right now,” she said.
Turning back to look at her, River cocked her head and whined.
“You got me fired,” Jeremy shouted, the connection abruptly clearing so that he sounded as if he were shouting in her ear. “Are you happy now? My uncle Rob was furious over having to lie for me to the law about me sneakin’ out and makin’ one harmless little phone call. When I stupidly copped to that much, he completely lost his mind.”
“Maybe you should’ve thought through the consequences for once,” she said, though now that she could really hear Jeremy, he sounded as if he had been drinking, dropping the chances to somewhere south of zero that he’d accept responsibility for his own poor decisions.
“Fired,” he repeated, “and homeless, too, now, while you’re out screwing around like the slut you always were.”
It struck her again that this Jeremy sounded nothing like the man who’d worked so hard to overcome a chaotic childhood and an undiagnosed learning disability that had made school a struggle to prove that he was smart and steady enough to build a successful business and win her heart with his drive and dedication. And nothing like the man she’d seen with tears running down his grinning face the day she’d shown him her home pregnancy test, the shock of its unmistakable plus sign seeming like the magical solution to their troubled marriage. But that Jeremy was long gone, drowned in a bitter brew of alcohol and disappointment. And leaving behind something far more dangerous in its wake.
“Did you decide to punish me by going after my student?” she demanded, knowing she might never get another chance to ask him directly. A chance she had to take if she ever hoped to quiet the nightmares she kept having, where Russell’s friends and family packed her classroom, pointing as they shouted, It was your fault! Yours! “Or did you pay someone to—to come hurt him?”
“When Uncle Rob cut me loose, I—I put my fist right through a window where I was living. Got me tossed me out like I was trash, a criminal. No notice, nowhere to go, and absolutely nothing left to lose.”
His words sent chills ripping through her, prompting Emma to reach for her dog for support. As darkness cloaked the rolling coastal prairie, the cry of a lone night bird pierced the emptiness around them.
“Where are you, Jeremy?” she managed, hating how small and shaky her voice sounded. Because a man with nothing left to anchor him might well be on the road already, especially one who’d threatened her before. “Where are you right now?”
“I’m right behind you. Boo, bitch—” Her ex’s laughter cut off abruptly, leaving her only with a dead connection and the gooseflesh that had broken out from head to toe.
* * *
While Beau watched helplessly, Wallace sneered at Cort and Leland, who were sobbing as they shoved their toys into pillowcases in preparation to leave the home their family was about to be kicked out of. The home that Wallace had lusted after since the days when he’d been invited to the mansion for family get-togethers as a kid.
“Be sure you don’t leave any of your fleas behind now, little mongrels,” he said, the silver star on his chest winking in the light. “We got some gen-u-wine purebreds comin’ in now.” With that, he gestured toward his elegant blonde daughters, who were wearing tiaras with pink evening gowns as they glided in waving like parade queens.
Seething with fury, Beau struggled to confront his cousin, only to realize he was trapped in the same wheelchair where he’d spent mo
nths after the accident that cost Melissa her life. Fury turning to horror, he lurched against the straps—
“No!” Not bindings, but blankets tangled around him as he fought free of the nightmare. On his bedside nightstand, where he’d left his phone to charge, it buzzed, vibrating against the rich and glossy wood.
He sucked in a deep breath to clear his head and sat up in the bed to answer, though a glance at the digital clock told him it was only 4:34 a.m.
Fernando Galvez’s deep voice came in a rush. “Sorry to wake you, jefe, but my Antonio was coming home from another shift at that fire station he insists on playing at this morning.” At the mention of his youngest’s position in the all-volunteer department, which Antonio hoped would one day lead to a paid position in one of the state’s larger cities, disapproval darkened Fernando’s tone. As he’d grumbled on many an occasion, he saw no reason why the path that he had thrived on—the same that each of Antonio’s older vaquero brothers had so wisely chosen—wasn’t good enough for this son, too, or why Antonio would want to venture anywhere beyond the ranch and community that were home to all of his extensive familia.
“He was stinking of the filthy smoke and soot again instead of the honest smells of horse and cattle,” Fernando went on, getting in one last complaint about the boy he’d spent so many hours teaching the finer points of his work, “when he spotted the Jeep you asked us to watch for. It was the same silver Wrangler, parked in the brush behind that turbine where that young man met his fate, may God and all the angels have mercy on his soul.”
Turbine Number 43. An image of a slender female body hanging broken from its platform sent adrenaline crashing through Beau’s system, followed by a punch of white-hot anger.
“Emma Copley’s back? After I specifically told her not to come here?” Beau swore under his breath, cursing himself for falling into the trap, after only a few months officially on the job, of expecting unquestioning obedience to his orders concerning all ranch matters. As if that headstrong woman gave a damn about his status in this county—or anything but the evidence she was convinced that she could find.
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