Ominous

by Lisa Jackson

  They both nodded.

  “Okay, then.” Mellie turned her attention to a table of four women sipping wine.

  Kat said, “You seriously think the missing girls—well, women now—will return after fifteen years of silence?”

  “It could happen.” But Shiloh was playing devil’s advocate because Kat’s conviction made her feel itchy and uncomfortable and guilty. “It’s a long shot, I know.”

  “It is a long shot,” Kat agreed, taking a shallow sip from her soda. “I’m not trying to make it all sound like it was your fault.”

  “Good, ’cause it’s not my fault.”

  Kat lifted her hands in surrender at Shiloh’s irritated tone. “It’s high time we came forward—you, me, and Ruth—and told what we know about the guy who attacked Ruthie that night.”

  “After all this time?”

  “Yeah, after all this time.”

  “Have you talked to Ruthie about it? I mean, if we say something and she denies it … well, it won’t work. Do you even know where she is?”

  “She’s here.”

  “In Prairie Creek?” Shiloh was dumbfounded. “She never left? Like you?”

  “Ruthie did leave and ended up in California somewhere. Santa Barbara, I think, or somewhere around there. She went to college, got married, had a kid, a girl, then divorced and ended up back here. I really don’t know all the details.”

  “You haven’t talked to her?”

  “Not yet. I heard she’s a psychologist.”

  “Wow.”

  “And she goes by Ruth now.”

  “As in Dr. Ruth?”

  “As in Ruth Baker, LPCC. I understand she goes by Dr. Baker, but I’m sure clients love calling her Dr. Ruth.”

  Shiloh absorbed that, then said, “Sounds like she’s been busy.”

  “Yeah.” Kat circled the bottom of her glass against the table, smearing the condensation. “We have to get Ruth on board, which might be a trick. Or maybe she’ll agree to it now. It’s not like she’s a teenager who’ll get punished for sneaking out of the house.”

  “She was sure scared of her dad at the time.”

  “She was a kid.”

  “We all were.”

  “And we made some dumb choices. Even if we can’t fix the mistakes we made, we can try to make them better. So … ?” She raised her eyebrows.

  Shiloh finished her now room-temperature beer. “If Ruthie—Ruth’s—in, I’m in. Only then. Otherwise we’ll have to let sleeping dogs lie.”

  “Wish I could do that, but I can’t.” Kat grabbed her purse and dug out some bills, which she dropped on the table. “Whether Ruth agrees or not, I’m working up to put the truth out there. I’m a cop now, and I can’t go on with a secret that might be obstructing an investigation. We need to tell what we know, and maybe it’ll help break something open.”

  *

  So she was back. Shiloh Silva had returned to Prairie Creek. She was the wildest of the three—the crazy blonde—and he did like them with a wild streak. It had taken her mother’s death to drag her back here, but now, he thought, as he sat on his porch and honed the blade of his Bowie knife, the time was right. He’d waited a long time for the revenge that was due him.

  The scar on his forehead, where she’d hurled the rock at him fifteen years earlier, seemed to throb. It wasn’t even noticeable any longer, but he reached up and traced the thin line with his thumb. The scar was a reminder that his work wasn’t finished. He had another small scar on the back of his hand from the screwdriver one of them had jabbed him with. Payback was coming … oh yeah.

  Licking his lips, he examined his newly sharpened blade. It winked in the light of the fading sun, reflecting gold on its nearly mirrorlike surface. Perfect for slicing. Perfect for carving. Perfect for getting a little of his own back.

  His cock twitched at the thought.

  So now all of them were back. All three of the bitches who had tried to kill him.

  Good. His jaw tightened. He’d managed to contain his urges, keeping with one girlfriend for a long time now. Longer than the fifteen years since those three had turned on him. Now the thought of taking them all made him go hard.

  Revenge and lust in one fell swoop. The time had come, at long last. Anticipation warmed his blood. Recent losses became memories.

  Stretching, he picked up the package lying on the porch, scowled at his dried lawn, then circled the house to the flight of stairs that led to the basement. He used the knife to slice open the package. There were several items inside, but it was the four pairs of handcuffs, their cuffs covered in fuzzy pink padding to shield the skin on the wrists, that he drew out. Pink. He smiled grimly. Good quality. No more barbed wire, except for what was out of reach in the shack. A woman couldn’t be trusted with it.

  At his workbench, he opened a drawer filled with nuts, nails, and screws, all arranged perfectly in little glass jars the size of baby-food containers. Reaching to the back of the drawer, he pushed a button. The spring latch released, and he was able to pull on the inner lining of the drawer, removing it from its resting space in the drawer casing. Carefully he set the lining onto the workbench’s surface, just behind the old vise that had been clamped in position for as long as he could remember.

  Still within the drawer were several plastic bags, carefully sealed, the pictures within preserved. He flipped through them until he came to the handful of photos he sought, photos he’d processed himself in the small darkroom he used to use.

  “Payback time,” he said, eyeing the girls by the lake. In the photos, he had caught them splashing in the water or stretching their arms to dive off the dock. Their young, nubile bodies with high breasts and dark triangles at the joining of their legs brought back memories. His mouth turned dust dry with desire.

  Katrina, the detective.

  Ruth, a mother and psychologist.

  And now, Shiloh, the runaway cowgirl.

  All home to roost. At least for a while. He didn’t know, hadn’t heard how long Shiloh intended to stay.

  He’d have to work fast.

  He stared at the images.

  He couldn’t wait.

  Chapter 9

  Seeing Kat again brought back all the old memories, painful thoughts that Shiloh had tried like hell to tamp down. But as she drove back to her mother’s house, she couldn’t shake them. It was as if the ghosts of the past, her mother, Larimer Tate, and that damned bastard who’d attacked them swirled over her vehicle as it rolled home over the hot asphalt.

  Once parked in her usual spot, she noticed that Beau’s truck was missing. Unbidden, a drip of disappointment ran through her blood. “You’re an idiot,” she told herself as she shielded her eyes and headed inside, where despite the windows being open, the house was hot. Stuffy. Empty.

  For the first time since landing in Prairie Creek over a week earlier, she was alone on the property. Inside the little house, she felt suffocated. According to her mother’s lawyer, the place had been left to Morgan for use as a home while she was raised by Beau and Shiloh. A bad arrangement, she thought, and again felt her mother’s spirit hovering nearby, which was flat-out ridiculous.

  She opened the refrigerator, poured herself a glass of water, and took a long swallow.

  Setting down her glass, she eyed the Formica table where she’d sat for so many meals. She could envision her mother seated in her favorite chair. Over the years, Faye had given her advice from that very seat: “Eat your asparagus; it’s good for you.” Then, “I wouldn’t worry too much about what Mary Jordan thinks, or anyone else, for that matter.” Or, “Be careful, Shiloh. I know you don’t get along with Larimer, but all this wild acting out is not going to help.” Over the years, her mother’s face had grown thinner, the lines more visible, the bits of silver showing through her naturally blond hair, while Larimer Tate had become more and more of a presence to the point that Mom had seemed to shrink as he’d loomed larger. She’d withered beneath his shadow.

  But was it fair to blame
Beau for all his father’s faults? Probably no more than it would be to point a finger at Shiloh for Faye’s failings or for the genes of Frank Silva, her dead father.

  Things had changed so much since she’d first come here. Her whole attitude about the town, her family, and especially Beau Tate, had altered, which was probably a mistake. “You’re getting soft, Shiloh,” she chided herself, and thought about calling Morgan’s phone to see if she was okay, or Beau’s to make certain the girl had been dropped off at Ayla’s place.

  Again.

  She wasn’t used to this mothering thing, or the big sister thing. She didn’t recall ever having an emotional tie to a younger, dependent human being. Now, being another person’s guardian and provider felt right, before it felt wrong, before it felt awkward.

  Give it time, she thought she heard her mother say and took another swift glance at the table to see if Faye’s ghost was there, smoking a cigarette while flipping through the coupon section of the weekly freebie advertising paper.

  With all the memories, ghosts of the past, and recriminations crowded in her head, she drained her glass, then slammed it onto the counter, nearly cracking it.

  Enough!

  She had to clear her head, get rid of the images of the past, and look to the future, whatever that might be.

  Walking onto the back porch, she couldn’t help a glance at the windows to the attic over the garage. If a light burned within, she wouldn’t be able to see it as the glass panes had become opaque with the reflection from the evening sky. The vibrant colors of a Wyoming sunset were the only thing visible.

  What did she care if Beau was inside, which he wasn’t? He was an irritation. Nothing more. Larimer Tate’s son.

  But her thinking about him had changed. He wasn’t the same kind of man as his father. If anything, he seemed nearly diametrically opposite to the man who had sired him, at least from what she’d observed in the past week or so. He was kind to the animals, had a sense of humor, and was straight and caring with Morgan. Shiloh had assumed that his connection to their mutual half sister might be tenuous at best, or even all for show, but from the moment she’d first spied him with Morgan, Shiloh had been aware of the incredibly strong bond between Beau and his only sibling.

  Not faked.

  Not temporary.

  The real thing.

  Shiloh was the outsider.

  She was the one who didn’t belong, the sibling Morgan didn’t trust—and with good reason. Morgan hadn’t known her. She was a stranger.

  She crossed the porch that had become her bedroom and jogged along the path leading to the barn. The horses were grazing in the closest pasture, so she grabbed a bridle from the tack area and called to Dot, a dappled mare with more than a little fire in her eye. “Come on, girl, let’s go,” she said.

  With the bridle in place, she flung herself onto the gray’s back and headed toward the back end of her mother’s property. Along the western border, a creek snaked beneath the fence line, and a pool collected in the surrounding pines. Leaning forward, she urged the mare faster, and the horse responded, stretching out, galloping across the dry earth and the sun-bleached grass. Squinting against the brilliance of the western horizon, Shiloh felt the gray’s muscles bunch and stretch beneath her. The wind tore at her hair as Dot’s hoofs threw up clouds of dust, thundering over the song of crickets greeting the coming night.

  Riding had always been an exhilarating experience for Shiloh—her escape—and often she found being around horses easier than dealing with people. She pulled on the reins, and Dot, breathing hard, slowed to a walk to pick her way through the scrub brush and pines where the creek flowed. The sound of water rushing over stones and roots filled the air. It was cooler here, and Shiloh relaxed as she guided Dot to an area where the water eddied and swirled, the stream colliding with another brook and creating a pool deep enough to submerge in when the winter snow melted and the icy spring runoff filled the banks.

  She dismounted, kicked off her boots, and hesitated for a moment, while Dot bent her head to the dry grasses. Then she thought what the hell and stripped out of her clothes. One step into the cold stream nearly changed her mind, but then she walked on into the water, which was still cold enough to cause her breath to catch in her lungs. “Geez,” she whispered, and Dot nickered softly, as if in agreement.

  She waded deeper, sucking in her stomach, then finally taking the plunge and letting her entire body be enveloped in the frigid creek. Beneath the surface, she blew out her breath, watching the air bubbles rise, and couldn’t help thinking back to another time, another place, another body of water.

  Don’t go there, she warned herself, but images of the horror of that night, pictures in her mind of a bloody knife, of poor Ruth being raped, of a monster of a masked man intent on murder, all slipped through her mind in a kaleidoscope of brutality.

  She flung herself to the surface and tossed the wet hair from her eyes.

  For a second, while water drops clung to her eyelashes, she thought she spied the silhouette of a man in the shadows.

  Her heart began to pound, and she glanced at her mare, still plucking at a few blades of grass poking up from the ground. Dot was as calm as ever, her bridle jangling softly as she moved toward another riderless horse, Thor, the largest gelding in their small herd.

  What the devil—

  “Hey!” a male voice said, and she gasped just as she recognized that it belonged to Beau. He stepped away from a low branch, and she saw him, all six feet of him, on the bank.

  “What’re you doing here?” she demanded, heart still racing. She eyed her messy pile of discarded clothes.

  “Spying on you, I guess.”

  She hoped the water was moving quickly enough and the evening shadows were long enough that her body was at least distorted. What were the chances of that in this clear mountain water? “Wanna hand me my clothes?” She raised an arm out of the pool.

  “Want the truth?” He smiled lazily.

  “Come on, come on,” she said, wiggling her fingers.

  “Maybe you should come get them.”

  “And maybe you shouldn’t be such an ass about it.”

  He didn’t move, and that damned smile stretched a little wider. He was enjoying this.

  Narrowing her eyes, trying to figure him out, she wondered at the game he was playing, flirting with her when she was pretty certain he resented her being on her mother’s plot and taking up residence in Faye’s house. She laid her hand out flat, and eventually he reached for the pile of clothes—bra, panties, T-shirt, and shorts—that she’d dropped on the bank.

  “A shame,” he said, reaching over the water and handing her the clothes.

  “Is it? I don’t think so.” She snatched her belongings and, before she could think twice, grabbed his empty fingers with her free hand and yanked. Hard. Momentum pulled him forward, and he tumbled into the pool, splashing and gasping in surprise. “Damn!”

  “Serves you right,” she mumbled under her breath as she tried to climb to the shore while keeping her clothes dry.

  No such luck. She was halfway out of the pool when she felt strong fingers wrap around her ankle and give a sharp tug.

  “Beau!” Falling forward, she lost her footing. Her four pieces of apparel flew upward to flutter down into the water just as she too slid under the surface again. What a colossal mistake!

  Why had she baited him? Sputtering to the surface, she found him next to her, his wet face inches from her own.

  “To think I was worried about you,” he said.

  “Worried? Why?”

  “You weren’t at the house, but your Explorer was there.”

  “And that concerned you?”

  “Yeah, a little. ’Til I saw Dot wasn’t in the herd and figured you might’ve gone for a ride. I rounded up Thor and thought I’d check it out. See that you were okay.”

  “I’m perfectly fine.”

  “I can see that.”

  Inching her chin up a fraction, s
he said, “Trust me, I can take care of myself.”

  Again the amused grin, but he was so much closer now, his eyes as clear as the water, his gaze finding hers and causing her heart to beat faster once more.

  “I can,” she insisted, though the fact that he’d just toppled her into the pool argued the point.

  “Let’s see.” There was a bit of mischief in his expression, a touch of the rebel boy she’d imagined he once was. She wondered fleetingly if, had they met as teenagers, sparks would have flared, if a wild, almost taboo, romance would have ensued? He was, after all, not just Larimer Tate’s son, but her stepbrother as well. Not that it really mattered. Except in her mind.

  “What are you thinking?” Geez, did she sound breathless? What was wrong with her?

  His gaze took in every dripping inch of her face.

  Her blood began to pound in her ears.

  Get out of the water, Shiloh. Whatever you’re contemplating, forget it. Any involvement with Beau Tate is a mistake of cataclysmic proportions.

  “How about this?” he asked, and before she could back up, he licked a drop of water from her chin. When she gasped, he kissed her on the mouth. Hard. Warm wet lips met hers, and strong arms surrounded her, wrapping around her naked torso and crushing her to him. Though she wasn’t able to stand, he was, and he held her floating above the bottom of the pool.

  Her eyes closed, and her mind spun. Despite the cold water, a flush spread up her body, radiating from her core outward, causing her skin to tingle and her brain to fill with the same incredible, erotic visions of her dreams.

  This is dangerous, Shiloh. Get out now. While you still can.

  Calloused fingers splayed over her back, and she ignored the warnings sliding through her mind, chased them away as she let herself go … let herself get caught up in the wonder of him.

  Why not throw caution to the wind?

  What would it hurt?

  Everything. Every damned thing. Think, Shiloh, think!

  But she didn’t, and when she felt him start to slide out of his jeans and shirt, she helped him shed the clingy wet clothes until she felt skin on skin, body on body, desire on desire.