Deadly Texas Summer

by Colleen Thompson

  “She needs to be removed immediately, Beau. This evening,” his aunt insisted.

  He shook his head, looking at the dimming sky outside the window. “I know you’re upset, Aunt Alicia. And maybe a little embarrassed because of how this evening went. But Emma’s had an exhausting day, and mine’s been hellacious. So yes, she’s going, I promise you. But not until first thing tomorrow.”

  Tonight, he told himself, would have to be completely dedicated to the most painful decision of his life.

  Chapter 15

  Sitting on the guest room’s bed, Emma tried to focus on the avalanche of e-mails clogging her laptop’s inbox. There were routine bills to be paid and urgent inquiries from her department head that she couldn’t put off much longer. She even received a message from her mother with several photos of her and Emma’s stepdad smiling in front of European landmarks. But after dashing off a quick reply, Emma soon lapsed back into misery, her brain squirming with embarrassment over the way she’d snapped at Beau’s aunt Alicia. Yes, the woman had been annoyingly intrusive, but Emma regretted not deflecting her questions more gently, perhaps with a joke or by excusing herself to elevate her leg.

  In truth, the injury was healing nicely, the bruising and soreness so much reduced the she was able to move from the bed, where she’d been working, to the bathroom if she took things slow and easy. But as she downed an over-the-counter painkiller to counter the ache from the day’s activities, she couldn’t help but wonder if Beau would show up to take her to task for repaying his family’s hospitality with rudeness.

  Instead of walking down to the guest wing, he only sent a text, apologizing for once more getting called away from their meal and asking whether it was okay that the boys were holed up in the family room snuggling with both dogs watching movies.

  No problem about the business call, she replied carefully, followed by, River will love the company.

  After a moment’s hesitation, she sent another message. Is your aunt okay? Afraid I’ve hurt her feelings. Will come apologize if it will help.

  For some time, he didn’t respond, leaving her to wonder if Beau had gone to ask his aunt what happened. For several minutes, she listened anxiously for his footsteps in the hallway.

  About the time she figured that he’d gotten sidetracked, her cell chimed again.

  Better let it rest, I think. Breakfast in town in the morning around seven thirty and then Nadine’s?

  So that was it, Emma realized. He’s being polite enough, but he’s washing his hands of me, leaving me alone the way I wanted. Ignoring the sense of loss welling up inside her, she replied, Thanks and have a good night, before turning back to her computer.

  As she responded to a colleague’s email sometime later, her cell rang. She caught her breath, seeing it was someone from the sheriff’s department calling. What now?

  Knowing she would never sleep tonight unless she found out, Emma swallowed back her fear and answered.

  To her surprise, Wallace Fleming’s greeting sounded almost cheerful, with some lively music playing in the background. “My deputy tells me there’s been a little misunderstanding, Dr. Copley. I just figured that since we’ve gotten on so well in the past, I’d give you a call personally this evening and see if I can ease any worries you might’ve had regarding the return of your handgun.”

  “We have?”

  “Have what?” he asked, his confused tone overriding a country singer’s muffled voice.

  “‘Gotten on so well,’” she quoted. “Is that what you would call it?”

  “I know we’ve had our ups ’n’ downs,” he said, “but what two strong-willed people don’t, from time to time? The point is, I wanted you to know that Jim Kendall may’ve misinterpreted my wishes. I never meant for him to take that danged gun over there, only to remind you that you could come on in and sign for it any time you wanted, in case you felt the need.”

  She made a face. “So you’re throwing him under the bus now, in case the Texas Rangers end up getting interested in your behavior?”

  “Anyone ever tell you you’ve got a hell of a contrary streak? Especially in a woman, it’s not the most attractive quality.”

  “I’ve found it beats being a doormat...or a punching bag.”

  “There’s a happy medium, you know.”

  She rolled her eyes. “So did you call for any other reason, Sheriff? Other than advising me on how to become more attractive to men?”

  “That’s not what I meant and you know it.” Met by her frosty silence, he laughed and added, “My wife and my girls would probably advise me to shut up now before I get another taste of my own boot leather. But as I’m a glutton for punishment, yes, I did have something else to tell you.”

  “You’ve found Jeremy?” she asked, feeling a flutter of hope that he would confess to everything and this nightmare could be over.

  “We’re still working on that, but with a statewide BOLO out on him now, it’s only a matter of time.”

  She wished she could trust the sheriff enough to tell him about the items Fernando had found in the equipment building. But between Wallace’s feud with Beau and his possible conflict of interest over Green Horizons Energy, she couldn’t afford to take the chance.

  “What about Russell’s laptop?” she asked instead. “Have you found anything useful there?”

  “I’ve gone ahead and turned it over to the state boys. They’ve got their best geeks workin’ on that password, though it could be a while.”

  “That seems to be a common theme, things taking forever.”

  “Welcome to the real world of law enforcement, missy. Nothing like you see on TV, is it? I did check out that memory card you got me from the game camera, though.”

  “So you saw him, then? The armed man near the turbine a few hours before Russell died.”

  “I did,” he admitted, sounding none too happy over the development.

  “So you finally believe me? You see what I’ve been saying all along about Russell being murdered?” she asked, unable to keep the hope from flooding her voice.

  Wallace hesitated, the only sound the hum of what she was now certain was his car radio. Finally, he said, “I’ve got to admit, this raises one hell of a lot of questions. Questions I’ll be asking when I have him brought in tomorrow.”

  “Him? You mean you recognized him? From just that one lousy photo?”

  “Not well enough to satisfy a judge, maybe, but yeah, I think I might’ve. Something about the shape of the ear and that jawline—which is why I’ve called to warn you.”

  “Called to warn me about what? Did you compare it with those photos I sent you earlier?”

  “It’s definitely not your ex-husband, because it was Beau Kingston out there that night. I’d swear on anything it was.”

  A beat passed before she blurted, “Oh, come on. The guy you’re out to get this ranch from?” As obsessed as the sheriff clearly was with his rival, he would probably pick Beau out of a lineup while standing in the dark, blindfolded.

  “I know how it probably sounds, but yeah,” said Wallace. “I’m serious enough that I’m on my way to get you. You can’t possibly risk your life by staying another night in that house.”

  “You might as well turn around now,” she told him. “I’m locked into my guest suite for the evening, and I’m not coming out until I’m ready to leave first thing tomorrow for new accommodations.”

  “Dr. Copley—Emma, I’m serious about this. If anything happened to you, I’d never forgive myself for—”

  “Nothing’s going to happen, and I’m serious, too, Sheriff, when I tell you that when it comes to Beau, you’ve lost all perspective.”

  “You wouldn’t think that if you had any idea—”

  “Save it,” she said before it hit her that, as deluded as the sheriff was, he was truly concerned about her safety. “But if it makes yo
u feel better, I’ll check in with you in the morning. But right now, I’m turning off the light and going straight to bed.”

  “If I don’t hear from you by no later than eight, I swear I’m personally coming out to get you.”

  “Make it nine,” she said irritably. “And in the meantime, I’d suggest you get some sleep. And maybe switch to decaf.”

  After ending the call, Emma closed and set aside her laptop on the bedside table. Realizing she was missing River, she told herself the hairy traitor must be conked out next to Maverick in the family room. Or maybe she’d sneaked into one of the boys’ rooms to indulge in a little stealth bed snuggling. Emma told herself it was no big deal, sleeping without the presence of her beloved companion for one night.

  Still, she lay there for a long time, missing the reassuring sound of soft canine snores on the floor beside her. And struggling to put Wallace’s warning—and the memory of the weapons that had clattered to the floor of the equipment shed—out of her mind.

  * * *

  Sometime later that night, hot tears soaked Emma’s pillow. She lay on a bed in the hospital’s ultrasound room, where the technician’s face had gradually turned ashen, her reassuring patter giving way to silence with her failure to detect a fetal heartbeat. I’ll be just a moment. The young woman avoided Emma’s eyes as she spoke. I—I need to get the doctor.

  Instead, it was Jeremy who burst in, Jeremy, screaming into Emma’s burning face, Why so upset? We both know that kid was Russell’s bastard anyway, not mine!

  It’s not true, she screamed, desperate to wake up from this horror, to open her eyes to a time when her baby was okay, when Emma herself could still pretend that she was.

  Instead, Jeremy pulled out a fine straw cowboy hat from somewhere—Dream Emma recognized it instantly as Beau’s—and laughed, So you were sleeping with that rancher then. I knew it—but don’t you worry. I’ve taken care of him, too, you cheating bitch.

  Only then did she notice the bullet hole that pierced the hat’s crown and the dark blood dripping from it. So much blood that she jerked awake, her stomach lurching with the knowledge that, because of her, Beau Kingston, too, was dead.

  Disentangling herself from sweat-soaked sheets, she hugged her knees to her chest and tried to rock her body past the terror of what she told herself was just another nightmare. This one lingered, though, the vivid memories leaving her jumping at every sound, from the air-conditioning switching on to the faint swish of the tall ornamental grasses planted outside the window in the wind.

  Knowing she wouldn’t soon risk sleep again, she decided to shower away the acrid clamminess that coated her body like a second skin. Maybe afterward, she’d manage at least a few hours of blessed, dreamless sleep.

  Stripping off her damp nightshirt, she crumpled it into a ball and tossed it toward her packed bag before limping to the shower. She stood beneath the spray a long time, allowing the warm water to her shaking body and soothe her frazzled mind. Steam billowing around her, she at last began to feel her eyelids drooping. By the time she shut off the faucet and blotted her body with a thick white towel, she could no longer hold back a yawn.

  But when she opened the bathroom door, she froze, sensing something in the air before the wrongness of it hit her. Hyperaware with the adrenaline flooding her brain and body, she took in the scene in an instant: the humid breeze, the rumbling of thunder, and the window standing wide open, though she was sure she’d left it closed and locked. Then came a heavy clatter as a silhouetted male shape exited the opening, at the last instant sending something heavy crashing to the floor inside.

  Before she could scream, the figure vanished into the inky darkness, leaving the window open in its wake. Desperate to close and lock it to keep the intruder from returning, Emma wrapped the towel around her body and surged forward, her sore leg forgotten in her hurry.

  Or at least it was forgotten until she heard the horrifying sound rising from the floor.

  Chapter 16

  Beau hadn’t been asleep long when the sound of a phone woke him. Not his cell, but the landline, which scarcely anyone used since they’d signed up for a service that blocked nearly all their nuisance calls.

  Determined to give what he felt certain was a telemarketer a piece of his mind for calling in the middle of the damned night, he reached for the handset—only to see from a flashing button that the call was coming from one of the mansion’s in-house lines.

  “Everything all right, Aunt Alicia?” he asked as he picked up, praying that she wasn’t ill.

  “He was—he was here! In my room!” cried Emma. “I—I tried to—”

  Springing from his tangled sheets, Beau heard a shriek and a clatter. It sounded as if her handset had fallen to the floor.

  “Emma?” he shouted. “Emma, can you hear? Pick up. Pick up!”

  His mouth bone-dry, he strained his ears but heard nothing but muffled sobbing in the background and a peal of thunder from outside. But it wasn’t the forecast storm that had his pulse crashing in his ears.

  He switched on a bedside lamp, the marine in him forcing him to take stock of his options, to plan the best way to neutralize any threat and keep it from coming upstairs where his aunt and his children slept.

  Barefoot and clad only in the boxers and black tee he had worn to bed, he headed downstairs to the den, where he unlocked the gun safe and took out the big revolver that his father had favored for home defense.

  Closing the safe behind him, he exited the room and sprinted for the guest wing hallway, where a series of motion-activated night-lights flared like fireflies to dimly light his passage. A few doors shy of Emma’s room, he paused to catch his breath and listen for any steps behind him that might indicate that a family member had heard him and come running to investigate.

  Hearing only the faint patter of rain outside, he fought to quiet the questions running riot in his brain. Was Emma being hurt—or even killed—now? Could she be dead already? How the hell had an intruder defeated the mansion’s security system, and how well-armed might he be?

  Looking up and down the curving hallway, Beau saw nothing out of place, and heard nothing to indicate that the call he’d gotten had been anything but a particularly vivid nightmare. But the memory of Emma’s panic kept him moving forward, his gun raised and his heart pumping like a piston.

  Though muffled by the closed door, he heard the sound of her voice, high and tight with fear.

  “Beau? Are you out there? Please be out there. Please!”

  “I’m right here,” he called to her, hurrying to key in the master code to disengage the lock. “I’m coming inside.”

  As it chirped and the tiny light flashed green, she cried, “No! You can’t! Don’t open it!”

  “What’s going on?” he demanded, stopped cold by the terror ringing in her voice. “Emma—are you alone?”

  “N-no! I’m afraid that I have company—except—except it isn’t human.”

  “Isn’t—what the hell?” Ignoring her directive, he pushed the door inward, hard enough that it banged against the wall. Inside, he could see a section of wood flooring lit by a slanted rectangle of light coming from the bathroom. Beyond that, he made out the room’s small desk and the window to its right. Wide open, it looked out onto a swath of darkness where a security light should have illuminated a landscaped area.

  From outside, thunder rumbled, and he could smell as well as hear the rain.

  “Don’t move. It’s on the floor,” Emma warned from somewhere out of his line of sight—the bed maybe, he thought.

  “What is?” he asked, leaning far enough to reach a wall switch that flooded the entryway with light. Gun aimed toward the floor, he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye as something brownish-gray and mottled made for deeper shadow.

  “S-snake!” Emma said just as he realized what he was seeing. And hearing. The warning rattle of a d
iamondback far longer than the one that had bitten her before.

  “It’s under the bed,” Emma told him as the tail disappeared from view. “If it climbs up here with me—I can’t do this again! I can’t!”

  Entering the room farther, he saw that she was standing on top of the bed, her hair damp and her nude body wrapped only in a towel. He spotted, too, the phone’s handset on the small rug near the bed’s edge, where she must have dropped it earlier.

  On the floor close to the window, a wooden box lay on it size, its hinged lid broken open. He quickly decided that the man who’d come to terrorize Emma must have used the container to transport the rattler.

  “I know this is hard, but you’re a tough woman and I need you to pull yourself together. Right now, Emma,” he said in his firmest voice. “I’m here for you. All right? And the only way you’re going to end up hurt is if you panic. And panic’s what whoever came here wants from you. That’s why he chose the snake instead of attacking you directly.”

  “I don’t care why that lunatic did it—or how he even knew how much this would freak me out. I just want it gone. This minute!”

  “I need you to slowly crouch down.” Beau deliberately infused his words with a sense of calm authority. “No sudden movements, Emma. I just want you to lower your center of gravity so you don’t fall down.”

  “What if it comes up here?” she asked.

  “Rattlesnakes can’t climb,” he lied, worried because she looked to be balancing on one leg and, with the wall so far from the bed, she had nothing to brace herself against.

  She made a huffing sound. “Next time you want to patronize a woman with some made-up nonsense about reptiles, don’t pick a wildlife biologist.”

  “I’ll tried to remember that if it comes up in the future,” he assured her, coming a step closer, yet keeping about a body’s length of distance between himself and the bed. “Now crouch down, before you end up falling on your charming new friend—and getting bitten again.”