Sinister

by Nancy Bush

  There’d been talk of a drifter—a firebug—who’d roamed down through most of the Plains States and into Texas. Maybe he’d done it. That would explain the string of fires in Prairie Creek eighteen years ago—blazes that hadn’t hurt anyone, aside from the insurance companies that had to cough up dough to mend the fire damage.

  But Ira had always thought it was the Kincaids. Sheepherders who owned the neighboring parcel of land, the Kincaids had been at war with the Dillingers for as long as Ira could remember. In the past few years the rivalry had boiled down to a relationship of simmering distrust. Grazing rights, water rights, the issues of cattle guards and whether or not to pave roads—any issue was fodder for dispute with the Kincaids. Most recently the Kincaids had thrown up some cabins near government land at the base of the mountains with a plan to turn the serene landscape into a goddamned retreat, or some such folly. Once the shacks were done, they had demanded that the Dillingers keep their cattle away from the tourists. Ira had tried to look the other way and laugh it off. The Major’s health was failing, and an unfair battle wasn’t worth winning. Still, the rivalry lived on.

  “Son of a bitch,” Ira said now as the wind kicked up, momentarily blinding him with a spray of tiny ice crystals. Blinking, he stared up at falling snow and remembered the newel post at the top of the stairs, its varnish worn down to the wood from being rubbed for good luck by generations of Dillinger children. In his mind’s eye he saw the faded pattern of the hall runner that separated the north side bedrooms from the south. A boxy, square bathroom had sat at the end of the hall, an add-on when indoor plumbing became a must.

  All gone.

  Ira should have bulldozed the place years before, but he’d held on out of nostalgia and respect for his brother. Rachel had pushed a little, but when Ira had pushed back, she’d quickly given it up.

  Now Pilar wanted the ruins razed, cleared away for a guest house with a built-in pool inside the house. Aiming to finance her dream, Ira had been working on a deal to sell oil rights. That woman kept forgetting that she was living on a working cattle ranch now, but there was a trade-off in these things. She made Ira forget that he was pushing seventy, and if he needed to build a pool to keep his wife happy, so be it.

  Somewhere in the distance, he heard the cry of a wolf.

  Darkness was settling in so he squared his Stetson on his head again, then made his way to his rig. It was time to look ahead, not backward. He had a new life stretching in front of him.

  He still had a few years left on this planet and he intended on making the most of them.

  Marrying Pilar Larson was the first step.

  And, damn it, he wanted his children at the church to witness the event.

  Colt was the key. Firstborn, possibly the most obstinate. If he came, the others would capitulate. Ricki was already involved, and the other two girls—Delilah and Nell—would probably show. Despite their stubborn, self-centered antics, they’d learned the meaning of family duty from their mother. Tyler was a wild card, but his wife, Jen, wouldn’t miss a Dillinger event for the life of her; she was too damned interested in the value of Tyler’s inheritance to stay away for long. Too bad: Ira despised her.

  Disgusted with his offspring, Ira fired up the Dodge Ram and did a quick turn. As he glanced in his rearview mirror, a shadow skittered across the house.

  A shadow of what?

  “Jesus,” he whispered, his heartbeat racing.

  Quickly he turned in the driver’s seat to stare through the rear window.

  Nothing … just snow clinging to the charred bones of the old building.

  Flipping on the wipers, he eased onto the gas again. He was losing it tonight. That was it. Seeing the mutilated coyote corpse and then visiting this old homestead where too many Dillinger ghosts resided was messing with his mind.

  He sniffed at himself for being a sissy. He’d grown up Wyoming-tough and there was little in life that really scared him, and what he’d “seen” could have been nothing more than one of the floaters in his eyes that sometimes caused tiny shadows or flashes to appear in his range of vision.

  Nothing to worry about.

  As he drove toward the heart of the ranch, where the “new” house stared from a copse of pine, windows glowing brightly in the gloom, he ignored the little chill that slid down his spine and concentrated instead on how to get Colton to come to the wedding.

  Chapter Four

  “Brook!” Ricki Dillinger called over her shoulder as she stood at the kitchen sink, arms deep in warm suds. “If you’ve got anything that needs to be put in the dishwasher, bring it in now!”

  As usual, her daughter didn’t respond and probably hadn’t even heard the request. “Great.” Ricki frowned at the photo on the windowsill of a bright-eyed, giggling child of four. “What happened to you?” she said aloud.

  That little girl was long gone. At fourteen, Brook rarely scared up a smile and barely spoke to her mother except to criticize or pout.

  “Brooklyn? Did you hear me?” Again her request was met with teenaged silence—loaded, negative space punctuated by voices from the television. “No, Mom, I cleared all my dirty dishes last night,” Ricki mimicked her daughter as she finished cleaning the coffeepot. Sometimes it was lonesome, living alone with a teenager. Ricki craved adult company, but she was relieved to be away from the hornet’s nest buzzing around her ex in New York.

  Loneliness beat addiction any day of the week.

  Ricki glanced out the window mounted over the sink of this house she’d claimed a year before when she’d returned home to care for her mom. Beyond the sheet of softly falling snow, she spied her father’s Dodge Ram pulling into a garage designed to hold six vehicles. Good. He’d be alone. Tonight the bride was out. Pilar had farmed her son off on friends and had headed to Denver for a “girls’” getaway. Tonight was Ricki’s last chance to talk some sense into her father.

  Tossing her dishrag into a hamper, she then rounded the corner to the living room, where the TV was tuned to some reality show about an outrageous celebrity family. But the overstuffed chair where Brook had been camping out was vacant, aside from her favorite rumpled quilt. Only then, over a hysterical shrieking from the television, did she hear the sound of the shower running. Using the remote she found buried under two magazines and a power bar wrapper, Ricki switched off the television. She tossed the remote onto the coffee table, then walked into the hallway.

  “Brook?” She rapped on the bathroom door and yelled, “I’m going up to the main house.” Again, no response. “Brook?”

  “I heard you!”

  “Then answer the first time,” Ricki called through the panels, but knew her words were lost in the teen void. She went to the closet and grabbed her coat and scarf.

  In my next life I will not uproot my only child and move her across the country. When they had left New York, Ricki had told Brook about her three-month plan to care for her mother in her final weeks. A good death, Rachel Dillinger had said in her gutsy way that exuded courage and tore at Ricki’s heart. She’d passed away on Valentine’s Day, and as they were planning for the funeral, Ricki had realized she had no intention of booking a flight back to New York. “I need to stay on for a while,” she had told her sister Delilah after the funeral. “I think it will be good for me, good for Brook, too.” Back in Queens, trouble had been brewing amongst Brook’s friends. One girl had gotten expelled for setting fire to a trash can, and she’d almost dragged Brook into the clink with her. Others were making up stories that, though untrue, had gotten other parents riled up. Tension was the order of the day, so, in many ways, Brook had also needed a fresh start.

  “If you make it a month living with Dad, you’re a better woman than I,” Delilah had muttered. Living in Santa Monica, her sister was a thousand miles and several light-years away from Prairie Creek. Her youngest sis, Nell, too, had expressed her feelings on the subject with a laugh and then, “Good luck with that. If you hadn’t noticed, he’s a pain in the ass at the best of
times.”

  Oh, she’d noticed.

  Shortly after the funeral, she and Brook had packed their things and moved over to the old ranch foreman’s quarters. It was twice the size of their Queens apartment and rent-free. The small house had a kitchen and bath, and two small bedrooms that gave them both enough privacy, while Ricki was able to have her daughter close enough to keep an eye on. So far, this place had served them well, and there was plenty of work for Ricki to do on the ranch. Her old riding skills had come back to her, and the physical labor, the endless vistas and the big sky had been therapeutic.

  But things were changing here at the Rocking D. Pilar would soon be the lady of the house, and already Ricki could feel herself becoming enmeshed in her father’s dealings with his bride-to-be. Maybe it was time to find some other line of work away from the ranch. It was one thing to live here, another to be under her father’s thumb twenty-four-seven. Next chance she got, she planned to head into town and check with Molly, the owner of Molly’s Diner, to see if she needed anyone to wait tables for her.

  Tucking her wild red curls under her scarf, she stepped into the boots she’d left by the front door. Seconds later, she was outside and marching up a winding path to the main house, where lights were blazing in windows that seemed to reach to the sky. New-fallen snow stretched over every surface as far as the eye could see, a blanket of white, covering the pale grass and frozen earth. The wind had kicked up, keening, almost a voice in the night, warning of more storms to come.

  She understood Dad’s desire to begin a new life. Ricki was looking to build a new life, too. But she wasn’t going to hook up with someone half her age to do it.

  She knocked on the door out of courtesy, then let herself in, leaving her boots in the tiled foyer. “Hey, Dad, it’s me!” she yelled, unwrapping her scarf only to spy the carry-on bag standing at the foot of the stairs.

  So he was serious. Earlier in the day he’d mentioned that he might have to head up to Montana to convince Colton to return for the wedding.

  No time like the present to have that talk.

  “Going somewhere?” she asked as she headed down the wide hallway to the great room situated at the back of the house. A gourmet kitchen occupied one end and opened up to a casual seating area, complete with soaring ceilings, wood beams and a massive rock fireplace that climbed one wall a full two stories.

  “To Montana.” Her father was seated in his favorite recliner. “In the morning.”

  “Are you out of your mind? You’re actually flying in a blizzard just to make sure that Colton comes to your wedding?”

  “It’s not a blizzard.” He glanced out the window and snorted, as if he could measure the intensity of the storm.

  “Yet.” She paused, then added, “Y’know, you can’t force Colt to come back, Dad.” She went to the clock in the nook of the wall, her mother’s gold clock. Under a glass globe, the clock had a gold pendulum that rotated underneath—an object of fascination for her as a child. “You’re wasting your time and energy.”

  “It’s not a waste. I’ll take the plane over to Cheyenne afterward. Got some business to take care of.”

  Her father stared at her hard, his gaze boring into her as it had all of her life. “And Colton is a part of this family. He needs to be here.”

  “He’s got a history with Pilar. It’s … awkward.” Ricki wouldn’t give up the things her brother had told her in confidence, but she shouldn’t have to. Wasn’t it enough that their father was about to marry one of his son’s ex-lovers?

  “Colton is a big boy, and Pilar’s not the only filly he chased. He’ll get over it.”

  Not when you expect him to stand in the church facing the son he never knew he had. It was a heartbreak, the way Pilar had manipulated Ricki’s brother, the way she was manipulating Dad right now. Ricki made a stab at the big issue. “Colt and I have been talking about this wedding.”

  “Tell me something I don’t already know.”

  “We’re worried about you,” she said, walking closer to the recliner where he sat, reading glasses propped on the end of his nose, half-drunk glass of whiskey on the table at his side. The television, a behemoth of seventy-some inches or more, was turned to a satellite station that catered to rodeo and stock car enthusiasts, but, thankfully, the sound was muted as her father was scanning the newspaper.

  “Call it off, Dad. Call it off and I will stand behind you one hundred percent. Or at least postpone this wedding. Give yourself some time to grieve for Mom and readjust to life on your own.”

  He stared up at her as if she were speaking a foreign language. “I’ve made the adjustment, and I don’t have to live alone. Pilar and her boy moved in two months ago.”

  “Pilar’s half your age.”

  “I know how old she is.”

  “You’re old enough to be the grandfather of her son. The great-grandfather even! It’s kind of sick.”

  “American families are no longer the typical two parents, two point five children.” Ira glared at her over his glasses. “You of all people should know that.”

  Ricki frowned and turned back to the clock. “Thanks for reminding me.” Yes, she was divorced with a fourteen-year-old daughter and a wayward ex-husband back East, and she wasn’t a perfect parent, but she was trying.

  “We’re not talking about me, Dad. We’re talking about you marrying Pilar, a woman young enough to be your daughter who just happened to have had an affair with your son. A woman who’s already sent one husband to his grave.”

  “Damn it, Ricki. You sound like a broken record!” He yanked off his reading glasses. “I’m marrying Pilar because I love her and I don’t want to spend the rest of my years alone.”

  “Mom hasn’t been gone a year.”

  “Ah. So now we’re getting to it.” He reached down and hit the lever that lowered his footrest. “How long am I supposed to wait?” Climbing to his feet, he squared his body in a stance Ricki knew well from police work. Confrontation.

  She hated confrontation, but she had learned to stand her ground. “The last time our family was together, we were burying Mom. To come together again, ten months later, for your wedding … it just feels wrong. All I’m asking is for you to give it time.”

  “What’s an acceptable waiting period for you, Ricki?” His voice was rising. “Am I supposed to read Emily Post or consult a high-priced therapist to figure it all out?”

  “Dad, calm down.”

  “I was calm until you sashayed in here and started telling me what to do. You think I was born yesterday? I know Pilar is younger than me. I know she dated your brother. I know exactly when your mother died, thank you, and I loved her all my adult life. But she’s gone, Ricki. And I’m not one to sit around and cry in my whiskey.”

  “No,” she agreed reluctantly.

  “You’re wasting your time and mine.” He threw himself back down in the recliner and grabbed the newspaper, snapping it open. “The wedding’s in less than three weeks, and I’ll thank you and your siblings to shut up and show up, if you know what’s good for you.”

  “What are you going to do, send us to bed without supper?” She fought back the annoyance flaring in her chest. “I’m over thirty, Dad. Idle threats don’t work anymore.”

  “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out,” he muttered, eyes glued to his paper.

  “Fine.” Nothing was more infuriating than her father when he was in a snit. Ricki stalked out, pausing in the hallway to retrieve a stack of mail that had been left for her. “If I can’t get you to postpone the wedding, at least leave Colt out of it.”

  Again, he refused to look up at her. “My plane leaves in the morning.”

  “Then have a great trip.” She tucked her mail under one arm and wished she could make a more dramatic exit, but she had to pause to put on her boots. Still, she gave the door a good slam behind her.

  Ira was an ornery cuss … and so was Brook, his granddaughter, Ricki thought as she headed down the path to her “home.”
The place looked charming right now with its windows glowing against the snow. Ricki had tossed out the idea of stringing up some Christmas lights around the door, but Brook had just told her “whatever” as she’d tapped in another text message.

  Unlike Ricki, Brook did not want to be here.

  “It was only supposed to be temporary … a visit,” she’d reminded Ricki over and over again. “You lied!” The accusation was usually accompanied by the slamming of a door and furious text messaging to her father, decrying her horrid situation out here in the middle of nowhere.

  “Someday, you’ll thank me for this,” Ricki said as she stomped the snow off her boots on the front porch. Inside she found her daughter lounging on the couch.

  Rudolph, the white kitten Brook had adopted two weeks earlier, was curled on the back of the couch, while a quilt was tossed over Brook’s legs. She was splitting her attention between the Real Housewives of Somewhere and her cell phone, where she texted with lightning speed.

  “Homework done?” Ricki asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “All of it?”

  “I said yeah.” She sounded bored rather than irritated, as if she’d expected to be interrogated.

  “Okay.” Ricki was opening a Visa bill when Brook started up.

  “I want to go home,” she said with a sad little sigh.

  “You are home.”

  “I mean to New York.” Her voice, for the first time in a week, held some passion, some hope.

  “That’s not going to happen right now, honey.”

  “Mom! You don’t get it. I hate it here! I hate everybody here. They’re all weird.”

  “No, they’re not.”

  “I told you I bumped into that old Kincaid lady, and she looked like she wanted to kill me!”

  “You knocked her purse down when she was coming out of her daughter’s dress shop,” Ricki said with forced patience. Georgina Kincaid wasn’t a forgiving sort on the best of days. She could just imagine how she felt after Brook barreled into her.

  “And she had drugs and a gun, Mom,” Brook reminded her. “They fell out on the sidewalk.”