Justice for None: Texas Justice Book #1

by Harvey, JM

  “I’m supposed to be at daddy’s tomorrow at 9:00, but tonight I just want you to take me to bed. I don’t want to fight; I don’t even want to talk. Okay?”

  Val nodded. It was as much as he could have hoped for. It wasn’t forgiveness or understanding, but it wasn’t rejection either.

  For the moment he could live with that.

  34

  Victoria awoke alone in bed, Val’s side of the covers thrown back in a tangled mess. She turned out of bed and almost screamed when her injured toe hit the floor. After a moment of muttered cursing, she limped down the hall, not bothering to brush her hair or her teeth, and looked into the nursery. The crib was empty. Then she heard the boys in the kitchen below. Max was laughing and squealing while Kyle was chanting gibberish at top volume. Val shushed them.

  “Keep it down, there, buckaroos,” he said in his best John Wayne imitation, which sounded more like Slim Pickens, “You’re mother is still in the bunkhouse counting sheep. Eat them there vittles.”

  Victoria hesitated for a moment before turning back the way she had come, her troubled thoughts on Valentine. The man was just too damned stubborn to be turned off any path he chose for himself. And this path, facing down Jasper Smith and Garland Sutton, could only lead to more violence, but what could she do about it? He wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t even talk about it. The whole situation made her beyond weary. She wanted to crawl back into bed and pull the covers over her head. Instead, she trudged back to the master bedroom, grabbed some clothes and headed for the bathroom. She propped her foot on the side of the tub and peeled the bandages off her toe. God it looked awful, black and blue and yellow. Her right hand wasn’t any prettier. The cut wasn’t large, but it looked bad, a crooked line of scabbed and welted flesh. The jailhouse doctor had put six stitches in it.

  She stripped out of her nightshirt and climbed under the steaming spray. As she soaped and scrubbed, wincing as the washcloth found a fresh bruise or scrape at every curve and corner, she considered how she would deal with Valentine. She knew he wasn’t going to let Jack handle this. Val would either kill someone or get killed, but what could she do about it? She knew screaming and threats wouldn’t work, nor would begging, which she wasn’t good at anyway, but she was good at one thing, thanks to years of criminals and trials: being a ball-busting witch. So, no sex and no conversation beyond the absolutely necessary. She doubted that would break him, but her only other option was divorce and that wasn’t an option. She’d kill him first.

  By the time she had applied the rudiments of makeup, re-bandaged her wounds and dried her hair it was almost 8:15. She was supposed to be at her father’s in Fort Worth at 9:00. There was no way she was going to make it on time. Quickly, she dressed in faded jeans and a yellow blouse, slung her purse over her shoulder and hurried downstairs.

  With breakfast finished, Val was kneeling on the living room floor wiggling Kyle into a pair of blue pull-up diapers. Max was sitting nearby with a Raggedy Andy book in his hand, tracing the lines of text with one chubby finger and moving his lips, pretending to read. As Victoria entered the room, Valentine bent down, pressed his mouth against Kyle’s belly and blew, making a loud farting sound. Kyle squealed and wriggled, waving his arms and laughing so hard that snot bubbled from his nose.

  Val pulled Kyle’s shorts up over the diaper and settled back on his haunches. “Remember, when you have to go potty, you tell paw-paw or mommy,” he told him. “They’ll take you to the big boy’s bathroom. Got it?”

  “Pee-pee!” Kyle yelled up at his father, grinning so wide that drool spooled from his chin. “Poopy!”

  “Poopy! Pee-pee!” Max echoed, looking up from his book, his finger still marking his spot.

  “Let’s stick with potty. And not so loud,” Val said as he lifted Kyle up and set him on his feet. “Whisper it.”

  “Potty!” Kyle bellowed in his father’s face, spraying Val with spit.

  Victoria stood quietly on the threshold of the room. Val was so good with the twins. He hated the ‘Mr. Mom’ tag, but he was as nurturing as any mother, yet the dark side of him, the razor’s edge, was always there. Which one was the real Valentine and which the mask? She didn’t have a clue. She wasn’t even sure if Val knew the answer to that. Though she loved him desperately, the danger he seemed to crave made her fear for the safety of her children, a fear she wasn’t sure she could live with.

  “Who wants to see Paw-Paw?” she called out as she strode briskly into the room. She didn’t even glance at Valentine as she grabbed the diaper bag off the sofa. She had nothing to say to him. She was all out of words.

  “Paw-Paw!” The boys exploded into hopping, yelping dervishes. “Paw-Paw!” They charged their mother, grabbed her legs and tried to climb her like a tree.

  “Hold up there monkeys.” Val rose and scooped up Max, shifted the boy to his left hip then picked up Kyle and tucked him under his right arm like an oversized football. “Watch your tails as you go through the door.”

  Val carried them to the front door, jouncing and jiggling them with every step. Victoria held the door open and he carried them down the front walk to the Jeep. He had already transferred the twins’ car seats from the tow truck. He piled them in, kissed them both then turned to his wife.

  She didn’t meet his eyes. Didn’t say anything. Not a good sign.

  “There’s two days’ worth of clothes there and I packed those cowboy shirts your dad gave them last Christmas. They fit now, but they’re still ugly as hell.”

  Victoria nodded without looking at him. She reached for the Jeep’s door handle.

  “I’m sorry about all of this,” he said, but she didn’t look up. She pushed the button and started to open the door. Valentine put a hand on the doorframe and kept it from opening. Her eyes flashed up at him then, her expression icy. Her courtroom face. The face that scared defendants and their lawyers into plea deals. It was just as effective on her husband.

  “Don’t stand there and lie to me, Valentine,” she warned him. “Not again. Don’t you dare.”

  Val started to protest but stopped himself just in time. He finally just nodded.

  “I’m going to be late,” she said and tugged at the door. Val removed his hand and stepped out of the way. She slid in.

  “I love you,” he said. “That’s no lie.” He knew he was on thin ice, but he hesitated to say more.

  “I know that,” she replied. “But it doesn’t change anything. You’re going to do what you want to do no matter what I say. You’ll kill them and go to jail or they’ll kill you.”

  “I—” Val began, but she wasn’t waiting for a reply. She pulled the door closed, cranked the engine and backed down the driveway without looking back.

  Shit.

  35

  Valentine waited until the Jeep had made the corner before he sprinted to the tow truck and clambered inside. He backed quickly down the driveway and headed for the highway, making the turn onto the westbound service road just as the Jeep was entering the onramp.

  Val hung back, checking his mirrors regularly as they headed west on IH 30 toward Fort Worth, keeping an eye out for rednecks with crosses branded on their chests or Special Tactics Unit thugs brandishing warrants or shotguns. All he saw was a shifting sea of vehicles full of people chattering on cell phones or singing along with the radio. Still, it helped keep his mind off the way Victoria had looked at him last night when he woke her. The fear in her eyes. Fear of him. A fear that still shadowed her eyes that morning.

  He cursed himself again for telling her how he felt about the men he had killed. How little they meant to him. He knew that wasn’t normal. He had seen other cops suffer through years of guilt and remorse or walk away from the job altogether after a killing. So, why had all that death had no such impact on him? It didn’t take much to figure that out: he liked the danger, the blood and the terror. Hell, he thrived on it.

  No. He had thrived on it. Past tense. Four years off the job and two years of raising twin boys had chan
ged him. Softened him. Right? Val flashed back to his confrontation with Jasper Smith the night before and that train of reasoning went off the rails and into the gorge. He remembered Kyle screaming, the terror in Jasper Smith’s eyes, the broken teeth in the gutter. He had been trying to kill Smith right there in front of his children. That knocked the wind out of him. What kind of father was he? What kind of man?

  His teeth ground and his fingers throttled the steering wheel. Vicious Valentine, he thought bitterly. No, it was worse than that. What had Erath said they called him behind his back? The Executioner. That knocked him even lower. It felt far too close to the truth. But that didn’t change the situation. It wasn’t about Val anymore; it was about protecting his family. He’d do what it took even if that meant killing Jasper and Garland.

  Eight and nine.

  Jesus.

  Victoria stayed on IH 30 until just short of downtown Fort Worth, its Art Deco skyline peppered with a few modern high-rises. Unlike Dallas, Fort Worth had dug its boot heels in and maintained its western heritage. They didn’t call it Cow Town for nothing, though the historic stockyards were now more about honky-tonk bars and trendy restaurants than the beef industry. She took the second exit for the City of Burleson, a rural suburb that was changing rapidly into an urban subdivision.

  Val followed her, falling farther and farther back as the roads grew narrower and narrower. He pulled to the grass shoulder when he reached the white slat fence that marked the southern border of the Montague Ranch. On the opposite side of the road a suburban subdivision had been carved out of the hillside, its winding streets fronting one-acre lots dotted with mini-mansions. Andrew Montague’s rural oasis was being overrun by lawyers, dentists and accountants.

  Val watched Victoria roll up the long gravel drive, her tires stirring up a dust cloud from the parched roadbed. A half-dozen horses were crowded close to the roadside fence. Two of them broke loose to race alongside the Jeep. Val watched them until they and the Jeep had disappeared behind a low hill.

  Val breathed a lot easier knowing that his wife and the boys were with Andrew. The old man was one tough SOB. And mean. A trait that ran in the family. Jasper Smith would be a fool to go up against the combination of Andrew and Victoria with anything less than a rocket launcher. God knows the pair scared the hell out of Valentine, especially Andrew. The guy was a gun nut and an overprotective father, not a good combination.

  Val made a K-turn on the narrow band of asphalt and headed back to Dallas. While he drove, he considered what he was going to do, trying to come up with a plan. But planning wasn’t his strong suit. He was more Dirty Harry than Sherlock Holmes. The only clear thought he had was that if he could find the Suttons’ stash, all of this would be over…and that wasn’t exactly a ‘clear’ thought. Half of the country had looked for the gold and cash and no one had ever found a single dollar.

  Forty-five minutes later, Val pulled back into his driveway, still without a plan. He went inside and checked his email for the tenth time in the last twenty-four hours. Petersen had finally come through with the list of Confederate Syndicate members along with their last known addresses. Forty-odd names in all, but the list didn’t do him much good. More than twenty of them were listed as deceased, and all but three of the others were in prison or jail. He sent the file to the printer.

  Also attached to the email was an Excel file listing the Sutton brothers’ crimes that was seven pages long. Seventeen individual robberies and more than a dozen homicides. The Suttons had been busy boys right up until the moment Val had gunned them down. Val printed out that document as well and started reading, wondering what good it was going to do? He had no idea; it was just the homicide cop in him coming out. He was gathering all the facts together, all the puzzle pieces.

  The Athens Savings and Loan, the First Priority armored car, and the Martinson’s Wholesale Gold robberies jumped out at him. These robberies were the only crimes committed against legitimate businesses. Prior to that, the Suttons had hit only other criminals. Big time drug dealers, thieves and hijackers. They had even taken down an Oklahoma arms dealer who was under surveillance by a dozen state and federal agencies. Their choice of targets was part of the reason the brothers had been able to stay on the run for so long; criminals don’t report crimes or give testimony at a trial. All the task force had had for evidence was a trail of corpses. Until the Suttons had hit the savings and loan, the armored car and Martinson’s all in the span of less than two weeks.

  The change in pattern bothered Val now just as it had four years ago. But what did it mean? Anything? Nothing? He didn’t have a clue. He folded the paper into a square, tucked it into his back pocket and headed for the gun safe in the garage. He unlocked it and retrieved his .45 Combat Commander and a 20-round box of low velocity wad-cutters. He loaded two eight-round clips, popped one into the .45 and tucked the pistol into the waistband of his jeans, tight against his lower back. It dragged his pants down on his hips. If he was going to start carrying again he’d have to buy a new holster.

  He went to the kitchen and microwaved a frozen burrito, carried it back out to the truck and cranked the engine, then sat there, looking at the short list of living and un-incarcerated Syndicate members. Three names. And exactly what the hell was he going to do with them? Track them down, stick a gun in their faces and demand answers? Maybe spend a few weeks trailing them, hoping they’d give him some clue as to why Abby had suddenly decided that Valentine had her brothers’ stash? And then what? Try to prove to Jasper and Garland that Abby had been wrong?

  Right. That was a brilliant idea. Christ, it was amazing that he had ever made detective. Val took a bite of the burrito.

  Detective, he thought sourly. Victoria was right, he was thinking more like RoboCop – heading out to wave a gun around and scare the bad guys into submission. If he was still a detective assigned to finding the gold and cash, he’d be working the case, collecting evidence, examining and reexamining the crime scene…

  The crime scene.

  Val stopped chewing. Suddenly he wasn’t hungry anymore. The Suttons’ last crime scene was the one place in the world he never wanted to see again. And the most logical place to start his search…

  After a moment’s grim hesitation, he bundled his uneaten food into the wrapper, pitched it into the passenger seat floorboard and backed down the driveway. He headed south.

  Back to the heart of his worst nightmares.

  36

  Victoria’s father’s horse farm sprawled across two hundred acres of rolling, heavily wooded land surrounded by miles of tract homes that the developers called ranchettes, a suburban sprawl that stretched all the way to the historic stockyards of downtown Fort Worth.

  Fifty years ago herds of longhorns and whiteface cattle had roamed these low hills and shallow washes, but, one by one, Andrew Montague’s rancher neighbors had sold out to the developers and land speculators. Finally only the stubborn old horse breeder remained, scowling down on the yuppie mob from his rambling stucco ranch house. A ranch house with sun-bleached walls that still showed the bullet scars of a Comanchero raid that had claimed the lives of three of Andrew’s ancestors on June third, eighteen-fifty-six.

  Victoria used a plastic swipe card to activate the gate’s electric motor, bumped over a cattle guard of steel pipe, then followed a twisting gravel drive that climbed through a half-mile of oak trees and open pastures. Horses clustered under the trees and along the fence line, cropping grass, all Morgans and Appaloosas. Two of them abandoned their grazing to race the Jeep for a few hundred yards before they were stopped by an intervening fence, one of dozens that divided the acreage into smaller pastures.

  What Victoria wouldn’t give for the escape of a long ride through the wild, scrub-choked hills and gullies that surrounded the ranch house. The release of racing downhill, tucked low against a horse’s surging shoulders, her mind purged of everything but the clarity of the moment, the speed and the power, but there would be no escape today.

&
nbsp; Andrew Montague was waiting for his daughter, seated on a glider in the shade of his front porch, deep under the eaves. He stepped down to the gravel as Victoria rolled to a stop in a cloud of white dust that settled like sifted flour on the Jeep’s black paint. Andrew had the back passenger side door of the Jeep open before Victoria had even taken the key out of the ignition. He manhandled a delighted Max out of his car seat

  “Three inches, at least!” he said delightedly. “Growing like Johnson grass!”

  “Hi Daddy,” Victoria said as she climbed down and opened the rear driver’s side door. He shot her a smile.

  “Sweet-pea,” he said. His eyes narrowed as he took in her scraped forehead and her bandaged hand. He frowned. “You need to put an end to your goddanged Annie Oakley routine,” he snapped. “Acting like a fool’s going to get you killed one day.”

  “We had this conversation last night,” Victoria reminded him. “My butt’s still raw from that chewing. Give it time to heal before you start in again.”

  Andrew snorted, but he let the subject drop as Victoria freed Kyle from his seat. She grabbed the diaper bag and hip-bumped the door closed then circled the car to join Andrew. Kyle immediately lunged for his grandfather, almost hopping right out of Victoria’s grip.

  “Paw-paw!” the boy bellowed.

  “Give him here,” Andrew said, propping Max on his right hip, his arm wrapped around the boy’s waist. He took Kyle in the same fashion. “All right, all cowboys into the bunkhouse. Time for beans and biscuits!”

  Andrew led the way, but Victoria got the front door. They crossed the gleaming tile of the high-ceilinged foyer and entered Andrew’s massive study. A playpen had been set up on the Oriental rug that dominated the floor, directly beneath a stuffed boar’s head. The boar had long yellow tusks and a moth-eaten, mangy gray hide. Victoria hated the thing. Its eyes followed you around the room. As a child, she had made her father cover it with an Indian rug.