The Lockwood Legacy - Books 1-6: Plus Bonus Short Stories

by Juliette Harper

  “We have to get down to the house and tell her before the phone starts ringing,” Kate said. “It’ll be all over town pretty soon. If we don’t tell her, someone else will.”

  “Do you want to call Jake?” Jenny asked.

  Kate shook her head, “He and the interns have already headed up to the draw for the day. I saw them leave just before Lester called with the news.”

  When the four of them walked out on the porch, they were startled to see an owl perched on the post by the yard gate. Kate swore under her breath.

  “What?” Jenny asked.

  To her surprise, it was Josh who answered. “An owl in daylight means someone is going to die,” he said.

  “Someone has already died,” Jenny said. “And since when do either one of you believe in omens? I can’t imagine this day getting any worse.”

  In the hours to come, Jenny would remember those words with regret, but as Joe Bob drove them down the hill, her thoughts were of Mandy only.

  They found her seated at the table under the cabana having breakfast with Jessica. Mandy looked up at their approach and smiled, but within seconds fearful suspicion filled her face. “What?” she asked.

  Joe tried to speak, but when he couldn’t get the words out, Kate stepped forward. “Baby Sister,” she said gently, “I’ve got some bad news about Jolene and Rick.”

  Mandy stood up so abruptly her chair fell over with a clatter. She backed away as if putting distance between herself and Kate would stop what was about to happen. “Don’t be silly, Katie,” she said, in a bright, brittle tone. “Rick and Jolene are on vacation with the girls.”

  Kate moved toward her, one hand extended in a placating gesture, almost as if she was calming a skittish horse. “Mandy, honey,” she said, “there was an accident. The girls are okay, but Rick and Jolene didn’t make it.”

  Shaking her head mechanically, Mandy continued backing away, moving along the rim of the pool. “No,” she said. “Jolene and I have plans as soon as she gets back. You heard wrong.”

  Jenny moved up beside Kate, “Mandy,” she said soothingly, “come on back over here and sit down.”

  Mandy glanced around wildly and said, “My goodness! Have you ever seen such a beautiful morning?” She moved quickly down to the end of the pool and stood at the edge of the patio. “I swear you can see all the way up to Baxter’s Draw from here.”

  When Joe started toward her, holding his arms out, Mandy’s voice grew shrill. “Now, Joe Bob Mason, you need to get yourself on to work. This is all just nonsense. There’s not a word of truth to it. I won’t listen to it.”

  “Baby, please,” Joe pleaded.

  “No!” Mandy said, her voice strident and harsh. “I told you I won’t listen and I won’t.” She whirled around and lost her balance, teetering on the edge of the patio.

  “Mandy!” Joe cried, lunging for her. His fingers grazed her shoulder and then she fell, landing on the hard ground below in a crumpled heap.

  Later, as Kate sat in the hospital waiting room, the weight of her head resting on her good hand, she remembered everything that happened after Mandy fell as if it took place in exaggerated slow motion.

  She saw Josh vault over the patio wall and land crouched beside Mandy and heard him yell, as if from a great distance, “Call the ambulance. Now!”

  By then Joe was beside him, and Josh was wrestling him away from Mandy’s form. “Joe Bob, no!” he commanded. “We can’t move her.”

  It was Jenny who thought to call Miles Riley. His security men were field trained in combat medicine. They arrived in a thunder of pounding boots, lifting Mandy onto a stretcher and back to the level of the patio.

  Kate remembered glimpses of Cousin Jessica on the periphery of the scene, fetching blankets, holding an IV bottle when Brad McManus pushed it into her hand. And then the ambulance came and there was the wild ride here, and now just the endless waiting.

  At some point Jake called from the draw, his voice tinny and distant over the satellite phone provided by a member of the security team. “I’m coming,” he told her.

  “No,” Kate said. “I need you to stay there. Somebody needs to be at the ranch in case Marino pulls something.”

  He agreed reluctantly, and then said, very quietly, “Kate, I . . .”

  “I know, Jake,” she said, cutting him off. “Me, too. Just hold down the fort for me, okay?”

  In front of her Joe paced relentlessly. Eight steps across the room. A pivot. Eight steps back. Over and over again until Kate wanted to scream. But she didn’t. She grit her teeth. She drank the coffee Jenny brought her, and she didn’t protest when Josh put his strong hands on her injured shoulder and skillfully worked at the tense knots sending lightning bolts of pain down her arm.

  Finally, after an eternity, a doctor dressed in scrubs came into the room and said, “Mr. Mason?”

  “Here,” Joe said. “Tell me.”

  “Your wife will be fine,” the doctor said. “There are no broken bones, but I’m sorry to tell you she lost the baby. There was some minor bleeding, but no complications.”

  “Is she awake?” Joe asked.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “I want to see her,” Joe said.

  The doctor looked uncomfortable for a moment and then said, “She’s asking for her sisters.”

  The briefest suggestion of hurt crossed Joe’s face, and then it was gone. “Sure. Of course,” he said. “Whatever she needs.”

  Kate and Jenny exchanged a look. “Joe, you go first,” Kate said. “She’s not thinking straight right now.”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “This isn’t about me. It’s about her. I can wait a few more minutes. She needs the two of you.” His voice was steady, but he still bowed his head and studied the floor tiles intently.

  Kate caught his hand. “Look at me,” she ordered.

  Joe looked up, his eyes red-rimmed with tears. “What?” he asked defensively.

  “Mandy loves you with all her heart,” she said. “Don’t you doubt that for a second.”

  Joe nodded quickly. “Go help her,” he said.

  When Kate and Jenny walked in the room, Mandy looked at them in bewilderment. “Well, there you are,” she said. “They’re telling me I fell off the patio. Did I really do that?”

  Moving to either side of the bed, they each took one of her hands. “Yes, you did,” Kate said. “You don’t remember what happened?”

  “Well,” Mandy said, “I was having breakfast with Jessica and then you all came and . . . for heaven’s sake, why in the world would I fall off my own patio?”

  “You were upset,” Jenny said gently. “About something we told you.”

  Mandy’s brow furrowed in concentration. “I do remember having this awful dream about Jolene and Rick being in a car accident,” she said, looking back and forth from Jenny to Kate. “Was I sleepwalking?” she asked. “Is that what happened?”

  “Honey,” Kate said, “I’m so sorry, but that wasn’t a dream. Rick and Jolene are gone.”

  Mandy’s face grew very still. “And my baby is gone?” she said in a small voice.

  “Yes,” Kate said, her voice breaking on the word.

  All expression bled away from Mandy’s features. She let go of her sisters’ hands and said simply, “Then I want to be gone, too.” And those were the last words she spoke for the next three days.

  88

  Although one of them stayed with Mandy at all times, no one could get her to respond, not even Joe. She simply stared at the ceiling, unblinking, an IV dripping nutrients into her system.

  The doctor counseled patience. “She’s had two enormous shocks, Mr. Mason,” he said. “Just keep talking to her. She’s young and otherwise healthy. Let’s give her some time.”

  Privately, Kate and Jenny discussed the similarity of Mandy’s condition to their mother’s catatonic reaction to the discovery of Langston Lockwood’s secret hideaway in Baxter’s Draw.

  “Daddy had to send her to a men
tal hospital,” Jenny said worriedly.

  “He sent her to a mental hospital,” Kate said. “I don’t know that there was any had to it.”

  “Regardless,” Jenny persisted, “our mother was hospitalized for a catatonic reaction to an emotional shock.”

  “That was almost 30 years ago,” Kate said stubbornly. “The doctor’s right. We just need to give Mandy some time. I know you think there’s mental illness in the family, but you need to get that out of your head.”

  “I don’t think it, Katie,” Jenny said. “I know it.”

  “Baby Sister is not mentally ill,” Kate said, setting her jaw. “She just can’t face the pain right now. Everybody deals with grief in their own way. She’ll come back to us when she’s ready.”

  “And what do we do in the meantime?” Jenny asked.

  “We tend to business,” Kate said. “Just like always.”

  True to that line of thinking, Kate went to see Rick Wilson’s parents, Lura Lee and Bill, the day after Mandy’s fall. Rick’s father was confined to a wheelchair and his mother could barely move around the house on a walker. Kate expected their caretaker, Rosalina, to answer the door, but a slender man with gray hair and bright blue eyes greeted her instead.

  The stranger looked at Kate for a moment and then said, “You’re one of Irene’s girls.”

  Kate knew instantly who he was. “Phillip Baxter?” she asked.

  “It’s just Phil,” he said, opening the screen door.

  “I’m Kate Lockwood,” she said, taking his hand.

  Before either of them could say more, Sissy and Missy pushed past Phil crying, “Katie! Katie!”

  Kate went down on one knee as they both wrapped themselves around her, sobbing. “Where’s Mandy?” Sissy asked, her face buried in Kate’s shirt. “We want Mandy!”

  Kate rubbed comforting circles on the little girl’s back. “Mandy can’t come right now, honey,” she said. “But she will. I promise. Let’s go back in the house now. I need to talk to your grandparents.”

  When the four of them stepped into the living room, Rosalina nodded at Kate and quietly ushered the twins into another room.

  “Lura Lee, Bill, I am so sorry,” Kate said.

  “Oh, Katie,” Lura Lee cried. “What are we going to do?”

  Kate sat down beside the old woman on the couch and took her hand. “You don’t fret about all that,” she said. “We’ll take care of it. I came to see what you and Bill need right now.”

  “People have been bringing food all day,” Lura Lee said, taking off her thick glasses and dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. “Everybody wants to know about the funeral, but we’re both in such bad shape and it costs so much money, we just don’t know what to do.”

  “Forget about the money,” Kate said. “That’s not an issue.”

  “We can’t take your money,” Lura Lee protested.

  “Rick and Jolene were just like family to us,” Kate said. “Besides, I’m sure they had something set aside for an emergency. Like I said, we’ll get that all sorted out. Have you thought about when you want to have the funeral?”

  Lura Lee shook her head. “No,” she said. “I don’t want Sissy and Missy going through that without Mandy. Where is she, Katie? Why isn’t she here?”

  Kate passed a tired hand over her eyes. “We have a problem,” she said, explaining about Mandy’s fall and describing her current mental state.

  “Oh, that poor girl,” Lura Lee said when Kate finished. “How will she ever be able to do what Jolene wanted now?”

  Glancing from the crying old woman to Phil Baxter, who was sitting in a nearby chair, Kate said. “I don’t understand. What did Jolene want?”

  “Before . . . before she . . . died . . . Jolene told me that in their will, Mandy and her husband are to get custody of the girls,” Phil said. “Sissy and Missy have been asking for Mandy since the accident.”

  Kate’s eyes filled with compassion. “You were there with her,” she said, “when the car exploded?”

  Phil nodded. “She made me leave,” he said. “She made me get to a safe distance.”

  “Where were the girls?”

  “The driver of the truck had already taken them away,” Phil said. “They heard the explosion, but they didn’t see it.”

  Kate sighed and shook her head. “Thank God for that, at least. How are they holding up?”

  “They have nightmares,” Phil said. “They’re scared. They keep asking for Mandy.”

  “It’s not going to help for them to see her the way she is right now,” Kate said. She turned back to Lura Lee. “Can the girls stay here for now?”

  “Of course they can stay,” Lura Lee said, “but Rosalina’s got her hands full taking care of us.”

  “If it’s okay,” Phil said, “I’ll stay, too.”

  “Mr. Baxter,” Lura Lee said, “you’ve been so very kind already bringing Sissy and Missy home all the way from Marfa. We can’t ask you to do more.”

  “I want to,” he said. “I want to help in any way I can. And besides, Sissy and Missy know me now. The fewer changes for them right now, the better.”

  Kate studied Phil’s features. The concern etching his tanned, still youthful face was genuine. She didn’t quite understand why, but she instinctively trusted the man. For his part, Phil didn’t flinch under her gaze, meeting her eyes without blinking. He seemed to understand she was sizing him up, and submitted himself openly to her assessment.

  Finally Kate said, “Phil, I hope you’ll understand, but we can’t tell Mandy you’re here just yet.”

  “I don’t want you to,” he said. “She’s going through too much already. At least let me do something useful by lending a hand with Mr. and Mrs. Wilson and the girls.”

  Kate looked at Lura Lee, who nodded her agreement. “Thank you,” Kate said. “That really will be a big help.”

  “If it isn’t rude of me to ask,” Phil said, “what are you going to do about Mandy?”

  “Joe wants to take her home,” Kate said. “He thinks she’ll do better in her own house. The doctor says she has to stay in the hospital one more night, and then we’re going to move her home to the ranch.”

  She turned to Lura Lee, “But we certainly don’t expect you all to wait to have the funeral just so Mandy can be there, especially since we don’t know what’s going to happen. Just tell me when you want to do the service and we’ll do it.”

  Lura Lee turned to her husband. “Bill, honey, what do you think?”

  The old man’s rheumy eyes were wet with tears. “Can we just do whatever Katie says?” he asked.

  Lura Lee patted his hand, “Yes, honey. Do you need to lie down?”

  The old man nodded sadly. “I’m tired, Mother,” he said. “I’m just so very tired.”

  After Rosalina and Phil got Bill settled in his room, it was decided that the service would be postponed for a few days. Phil would stay with the elderly Wilsons and help look after the twins until, hopefully, Mandy improved enough to see them.

  When Kate stood to leave, Phil moved to walk out with her. “Is Mandy really going to be alright?” he asked anxiously. “Is there anything else I can do?”

  “Not right now,” Kate said. “And, yes, she’s going to be alright.”

  “How do you know?” Phil asked.

  “I know because she has to be alright,” Kate said, in a tone that clearly indicated the subject was not up for debate. “We need her, and those little girls need her.”

  Phil looked down at the sidewalk and said shyly, “I need her, too.”

  Kate regarded him curiously. “How did you know who I was when you opened the door?” she asked.

  “The look in your eyes,” he answered immediately. “You have Irene’s strength. It was her gift.”

  “You knew that, too?” Kate asked softly.

  “Yes,” Phil said. “Her strength saved my life all those years ago.” He hesitated, and then said, “Mandy has that strength, too. I just know it.”

&nb
sp; Unable to speak around the knot that rose in her throat, Kate nodded and got in her truck. As she drove away, Phil whispered, “Help your girls, Irene. Please help them.”

  After stopping at the hospital and finding no improvement in Mandy’s condition, Kate drove back to the ranch fighting back her growing sense of despair. She knew she needed sleep, but her body refused to cooperate.

  When she reached the ranch house, she found Miles Riley and Jake waiting for her. “God,” she said, getting out of the truck, “now what?”

  “How’s Mandy?” Jake asked.

  “The same,” Kate said. “Jenny is with her. Now come on, out with it. What’s going on?”

  Miles cut straight to the chase. “Robert Marino crossed your south fence line two hours ago. He’s moving toward Baxter’s Draw. We think he’s going to try to get into the cave tonight.”

  “How do you know?” she asked.

  “We’ve been patrolling the perimeter of the ranch with drones,” Miles said. “We have him on video if you want to see it.”

  “No,” Kate said, “I believe you. But damn it all to hell, we do not need this right now.”

  “Let us deal with him,” Miles said. “That’s what you pay us to do.”

  Kate shook her head. “No,” she said. “I want to be there when you take this guy down.”

  “That goes for me, too,” Jake said. “Marino told Jessica he’s only looking for one thing in that cave. I don’t trust him to tell us what that is, so I need to be able to watch him and see what he’s after.”

  Miles chewed his lip in consternation. “Okay,” he said, “if we leave for the draw within the hour, I can get the two of you hidden in a blind on the canyon floor. There’s a little patch of brush across from the entrance we’ve augmented to serve as our observation post. Once Marino is inside the cave, we’ll be able to see him on the video feed. We can go in and apprehend him any time you’re ready.”

  “How many men are you planning on having up there?” Kate asked.

  “We don’t want to arouse suspicion,” Miles said. “Jessica told him that there is a 30-minute interval between security shifts when the cave is empty. He needs to see three of my men go out of the draw on schedule. McManus and I will be in the blind with the two of you. I think we can handle Mr. Marino without any extra assistance.”