Home Fires

by W L Ripley

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Jake was back home, suitcase packed and lit a cigarette as he watched the Cadillac drive up his lane, slow to a stop.

  Looks like Pam made bail. Jake’s cell phone ringing earlier but he hadn’t answered because he wanted to sleep longer. Looking at the phone’s memory he saw it was Buddy. Probably warning him.

  Pam exited the vehicle. She was wearing tennis shoes and Capri’s, a duster coat over that, like the old cowboys wore on a cattle drive against the chill evening air.

  He took a drag on the first cigarette he’d had in days. The autumn sun was low in the western sky, the trees casting long shadows across his lawn stretching toward where he sat, smoking and thinking. It crossed his mind this scenario was B-movie hokey.

  She seemed different, flavored with something. Rage? Vengeance. Looking at him now, as if deciding something.

  “Hello, Jake,” she said, without warmth. “You always disappoint, Jake. You think of yourself as intelligent when you’re only clever. You’re just another asshole.”

  “There,” Jake said, stepping off the porch. “Much better. A little honest hostility. I like it.”

  “You’re one to talk about honesty. You betrayed me.”

  Another car burning up his lane. Alex Mitchell’s car.

  Well, the gang’s all here. Alex skidded to a stop.

  First thing out of Alex’s mouth?

  “Did you come back for a farewell fuck, Pam?”

  It never stops.

  That’s when the handgun, a nasty heavily blued revolver, appeared from Pam’s duster coat. Heightened emotion setting things on fire. A domestic squabble had brought him here and ironically another would be his end.

  A mourning dove moaned in the distance. Haunting.

  “You killed dad,” Alex said. His chest heaving with anger. “Then you run back here to your boyfriend.”

  “None of that here, Alex,” Jake said. “I think she’s here for a different reason. Pretty fatalistic. No way out of this, Pam.”

  “Open your eyes, Alex,” she said. “He’s the one set me up. Fat Boy killed your father and this guy framed me out of jealousy for what we have. You know it’s true, darling. We’ve had some bad moments, but we can recover.”

  Jake watching her work her magic on Alex, a man hopelessly caught in her spell. Jake could see Alex wavering.

  “Alex,” Jake said. “Ask yourself who has reason to lie.”

  Alex looked at his wife.

  Pam saying now. “Don’t let him fool you, darling. He’s still angry I dumped him years ago.”

  “Yeah,” Jake said. “That’s why she snuck into my house the night we had the scene at Hank’s.”

  Pam raised the revolver, her hand shaking now. “He’s a dirty lying bastard and I’ll never forget what he done to me. To us.”

  She’d already killed one man. She had nothing to lose.

  “Decide, Alex,” she said. “Are you going to believe me or him? He tried to wreck our marriage.” Working up the tears now remembering Alex saying she never cried. She pointed the gun at Jake. “Tell him you framed me.”

  Jake shaking his head. “No. You killed Vernon. That is the truth.”

  Pam snapped back the hammer on the big revolver.

  He looked at the dark hole at the end of the revolver. Rush her, make her miss. Her hand was shaking and that would help.

  “Put it down,” said a voice sounding like Alex only from somewhere deep inside of him.

  Jake looked at Alex, now with a weapon in his hand. Everybody with a gun except him.

  “Alex, what are you doing?” Pam said.

  “You killed Dad.” His teeth gritted.

  “Maybe I can help,” Jake said. Calm things down. “Put away your weapons and everybody ease back a notch.”

  “Don’t you point a gun at me, Alex,” Pam said, meaning it. How many times had she given Alex a command and Alex complied? Not this time. Jake could see it. Jake thinking the best way to get to her.

  “Alex, don’t listen to this asshole. He wants me to leave you and go back to Texas with him.”

  Quiet for a moment as Alex looked at his wife. “I knew you were fucking Burnell. I can’t trust you. I won’t. You followed Morgan to his car that day at Dad’s,” Alex said. His jaw was tight, and his eyes were heavy-lidded.

  “Maybe you had Gage killed, Alex,” she said. She was groping for an edge, anything. She was cornered and didn’t like it. “You were jealous of him.”

  Alex closed his eyes and dropped his head. “You’re not worth it. I wouldn’t kill Gage for that.”

  “No,” Jake said. “You wouldn’t. I know you wouldn’t.”

  “Put the gun down, Pam,” said Alex. “I won’t let you kill anyone else.”

  “Alex, darling,” Pam said, in a soothing voice. “We can make this work. Fix things. We can be together. We both want that. You and me.”

  Alex was faltering. Jake set himself for his rush. Maybe she would only wound him before he tackled her. Once he knocked her off her feet, he could disarm her. Every time she looked at Alex, Jake moved closer.

  Twenty feet between them now. He could do it. Maybe get lucky. Jake thinking he might die on his father’s place after the old man had gone to all the trouble of getting it ready to turn over to him. A strange thing to come back home hoping for a little peace, a reconciliation with his past and then maybe dying where he grew up, gunned down by a woman who had once worn his high school ring on a chain around her neck. Stolen kisses behind corners, notes passed from her friends to him. Football nights and school dances. His high school sweetheart killing him.

  Get ready. Feint and zigzag. Ignore the impact of the bullet.

  “Goodbye, Jake,” she said, her voice sounding as if in a dream, detached from reality.

  Alex saying, his voice choked, “No.”

  Move. Now! Feint left then move right. Hitting a moving target with a handgun wasn’t easy. Not like the movies. It took training to handle a handgun with accuracy. Running now, straight at her...adrenaline pumping in his temple.

  He heard the loud report of a weapon. You never hear the one kills you. She missed.

  Then he heard a second report and a cry of pain. A female cry. Everything in slow motion. Pam falling, her hair dancing, gun slipping from her hands. She hit the ground, bounced once and Jake saw the flower of blood on her shoulder.

  Alex Mitchell shot her. Alex had saved his life. It had happened quickly but seemed longer. Alex still had the gun pointed at her.

  Jake stayed ready watching Alex.

  “You shot me, you prick,” screamed Pam, in pain, lying on the ground. “You son of a bitch, you shot me.”

  Jake moved quickly to secure her weapon. She didn’t reach for it as he picked it up. Her shoulder was shattered. She was crying in anguish and rage, like a wounded animal, Pam still dangerous.

  Alex sagged and he dropped his weapon. His legs buckled and he dropped to his knees, head bowed.

  Jake didn’t know what to say.

  “Hey, Alex,” Jake said. He reached down to console the man.

  Without looking up, Alex said, “Don’t fucking touch me, Morgan.”

  Jake stopped. No one moved or spoke for several long moments.

  Silence screamed in the autumn air. A cold burst of winter whistled down from the north.

  A strange moan coming from Alex, and then:

  “Why?” Alex said, looking at the ground. His shoulders began to tremble, and his voice cracked. “Why did you have to come back?”

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Friday morning, Cal, Buddy and Jake drinking coffee at Paradise PD when Alex Mitchell walked in.

  “Look at this,” Buddy said to Jake, as Alex walked toward them, eyes set on Jake.

  What now?

  Alex walked closer. Alex was under a cloud of remorse and mourning his losses. Jake set down his coffee and waited.

  Alex stopped close to Jake. Cal Bannister saying, “Careful, Alex.”
<
br />   Buddy stepped between Alex and Jake.

  Alex held up a hand and said, “It’s okay, Buddy. Alex working up to it, as if he had to free the words in his mouth before they suffocated him. Alex’s face vacant, drained of emotion, looking at Jake, said. “I still love her.”

  “I know,” Jake said, nodding at Alex. “Sorry about your dad, Alex. Sorry about all of this. None of your doing. Thank you for saving my life.”

  Alex started to speak, nodded in resignation, then turned and wordlessly walked back out the door.

  After Alex left, Cal said, “Never cared much for him but I don’t wish this on anyone.”

  Buddy said, “You think he’ll be all right?”

  Jake shook his head, then said, “He won’t be all right for a long time now. His entire world is shattered. Glad I’m not him.” Thinking, he could’ve been. “The good thing is Pam’s defused.”

  Buddy gave him a funny look. “Defused?”

  “She’s dangerous. Gun or no gun.”

  “You still have feelings for her, don’t you?”

  Jake shrugged. Who knew? He didn’t.

  Buddy saying now, “Pam shot at you when you were hunting. Then tried to kill you. Jake, buddy, when you piss a woman off you get the job done.”

  “Life’s seldom clean,” Cal said.

  Steve Barb died of his wound with no one to mourn his passing.

  DNA evidence confirmed that Christine McKee was, in fact, the biological daughter of Vernon Mitchell. She could now put in a claim for her share of the Mitchell Empire. However, Alex Mitchell, satisfied by DNA evidence Christine was his half-sister and not wanting a wrongful death suit, was formulating a settlement through the Mitchell family attorneys. Alex stepping up despite all his troubles. Jake gaining a new respect for the man who had long been his rival.

  Gage had discovered Christine’s possible parentage and had foolishly let Pam know about it. Pam seduced him, gaining the information, playing Lady D’Winter to Gage’s trusting nature. Gage’s propensity for adventure proved to be his undoing.

  Prosecuting Attorney Darcy Hillman granted a search warrant for two locations on Mitchell property, formerly Franklin Yoder property, where the excavation for a new airport was underway. Skeletal remains of two individuals were uncovered. The disappearance of Franklin and Caroline Yoder four decades earlier was no longer a mystery.

  Buddy Johnson would now run unopposed for the office of sheriff.

  “My first official act will be to run you out of town,” Buddy told Jake.

  “Maybe I won’t go.”

  “That,” Buddy said, “is my second greatest fear.”

  “What’s your first?”

  “I’m going to offer you a position in the department. Afraid you’ll take it.”

  “Could make things interesting.”

  “For who?” Buddy said.

  Jake thinking about that now.

  Things were changing.

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Still in Paradise County a week later.

  Jake’s “leave of absence” was over so he was burning vacation days, Captain Parmalee okayed the extended vacation in view of what had transpired. Jake was packing to return to Texas when Harper knocked on his door.

  Jake glad to see her. She said she wanted, no “needed”, to talk to him. They were awkward at first, neither knowing how to close the emotional space between them created by events. After a few moments Harper spoke.

  “I’m glad you weren’t hurt. Could’ve been though. You take too many chances. Frightens me. Looks like everything is going to turn out well,” she said.

  “Most of it,” Jake said. He offered her a seat and she accepted, sitting in a kitchen chair. “It’s done but there’s not much satisfaction in it.”

  “Pam was fixated on you, Jake.” She smiled coyly before saying, “Hard to understand.” Having fun with him.

  “Where are we, going forward?”

  “We?” Challenge in her voice.

  “You and me,” Jake said.

  She took a breath and set her chin. “I care about you,” she said. She stopped and her eyes searched his.

  He said nothing.

  She said, “You live in a different world. Dad’s world is like yours, but he’s never shot anyone.”

  “No choice.”

  “That part I understand. How do you live with it, killing another person? Seems you’re good at it.”

  “You want me to explain, make you understand.” Knowing he couldn’t clarify it.

  She turned away shaking her head. He watched her shoulders rise and fall as she sighed. She turned back to him.

  “I don’t want you to go,” she said. “Stay.”

  “My life’s in Texas.”

  She stood, placed hands on her hips, defiant, now. “Is it?”

  Something in her voice. Something making him contemplate possibilities. Hope.

  “You’re feeling bad about your choices,” she said, brushing hair from his forehead. “What you did to Pam had to be done. Don’t doubt that,” she said. “You’ve done things you regret. Hard things you wish you could take back. You made mistakes and screwed up. Everybody does and you’re not the best little boy ever graduated from Paradise High School.”

  “I’m at least in the top ten.”

  “Buddy said he offered you a position when he becomes sheriff. Take the job,” she said. “I think Buddy and Dad are working out a deal where they share you. Work for both the county and the city.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Because,” she said, “you want to stay.”

  “And?”

  She cupped his face in her hands and said, “Because you’re crazy for me and I love you, stupid.”

  “I believe you.”

  Shaking her head now. Being cute. “Haven’t learned a thing, have you?”

  “A few things.”

  “Believe you have. Both of us.”

  He pulled her to him. She smelled of soap and fresh strawberries.

  And hope.

  Home at last, the fires out.

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  Ex-Secret Service agent, Cole Springer, has exchanged his badge for a piano and the high-altitude life of Aspen, Colorado but has not lost his appetite for danger.

  Springer delights in playing button men and gangsters for personal gain and amusement. Springer, while an affable man, is double tough, hard to kill and has an ironic sense of humor. His girlfriend, determined CBI agent Tobi Ryder, doesn’t know whether to love him, forget him, or arrest him for his escapades that skirt the edges of law…

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  W. L. Ripley

  About the Author

  W.L. Ripley is the author of the critically acclaimed Wyatt Storme and Cole Springer mystery-thriller series’ featuring modern knight errant Wyatt Storme, and Maverick ex-secret service agent, Cole Springer.

  W.L. Ripley is a lifetime Missouri resident who has been a sportswriter, award-winning career educator and NCAA Div. II basketball coach. Ripley enjoys watching football, golf, and spending time with friends and family. He’s a father, grandfather, and unapologetic Schnauzer lover.

  In addition to the Storme & Springer series, Ripley has crafted two new series’ heroes – Jake Morgan (Home Fires) and Conner McBride (McBride Doubles Down) for Wolfpack Publishing. Wolfpack is reissuing the Cole Springer series a
nd Ripley is developing a new Cole Springer thriller for Wolfpack.

  Ripley is represented by the Donald Maass Literary Agency.