by Dana Marton
“Booth or table?” the waitress asked as soon as they walked through the door.
“Booth,” Kenny responded.
Molly ignored the curious looks as they were seated.
“Pie?” Kenny pointed to the large color ad on the wall, pretty enough to set her mouth salivating. “The chocolate-meringue pie is killer here.”
“Better stick with the coffee.” On her short frame, any extra pounds showed way too fast. She’d gained several since Dylan’s death. She needed to stop trying to eat her grief.
“So what was that in there with Missy Nasher?” Kenny asked with an easy smile.
Oh, God, he’d noticed that, had he?
She gave a dismissive shake of her head. “She never really liked me. It doesn’t matter. Old high-school rivalry.”
Kenny drew up an eyebrow. “People who stick their noses in the air like that usually fall flat on their faces sooner or later.”
The support felt nice. “Thanks.”
But the truth was, even beyond Missy, she’d never been one of the popular people in town. She had never told anyone who Logan’s father’s was, which had started a rumor that he was a married man. It made most married women hate her on sight, because they wondered if it was their husband she’d slept with. And of course, married men went out of their way to avoid her so as not to fall under the cloud of suspicion.
Some of the single guys had come around, thinking she was an easy conquest. When she turned them down, they got offended and spread false rumors to pay her back for the rejection.
“Hullett is a small town with small-town morals. People have little to do for entertainment but gossip about their neighbors,” Kenny was saying. “Move to Pebble Creek.”
“Because that’s, what, five hundred heads bigger?” she teased.
“All right, then just ignore the idiots here.”
Easier said than done. With Dylan’s death, the gossip mill was running full force again. But she nodded.
“Must be difficult out there alone,” he said after the waitress filled their mugs.
She took a sip, the coffee burning the tip of her tongue. She set the mug down. “I’ll manage.”
He shook his head. “Having to go through Dylan’s things can’t be easy.”
She closed her eyes for a second. “I haven’t done it yet.”
He leaned forward in his seat. “If you need help—”
She shook her head. “Not ready for that yet. But thank you.” She could handle only so much at once. Someday she would deal with all that, but for now she was still grieving.
“You ever think about selling?”
She forced a smile. “Are you buying?”
He gave a white-toothed smile. “I wish I had the money. It’s a fine piece of land.”
She nodded. The farm had been in her family for generations.
“I have the animals,” she said. “And I like it there. It’s the only place I’ve ever lived.” The only place her son had ever lived, too.
And it would stay that way if she got her wish. She wasn’t exactly a big fan of change. Change always brought trouble.
Kenny stirred his coffee. “Still, out there, alone...”
“I have the dogs.” Who weren’t exactly guard dogs, admittedly. She took another sip, more carefully than the first time. Her ranch wasn’t in Kenny’s jurisdiction, but he was so nice to her, while Shane was such a... “I think someone’s been in one of the outbuildings last night,” she blurted.
Kenny sat up straighter, his full attention on her. “What happened? Did they take anything?”
“Nothing’s missing. It’s weird.” She told him about the scratches on the floorboards and the rest. Then she told him about her tires.
“You should be careful. Illegal crossings have slowed to a trickle, with the economy as it is, but there’s still smuggling. Those are not people you want to tangle with.”
That he believed her and didn’t brush her off like Shane felt nice. Kenny was a good guy. He’d always been a good friend to Dylan. “I’m always careful.”
“Maybe you should move into Dylan’s apartment in Hullett,” he suggested. “I’d be happy to help you. In the meantime, I’ll make sure to drive by the ranch when I’m on the night shift. It’s not my jurisdiction, but—” He shrugged. “Helping friends is what it’s about, right?”
Was he her friend? She felt grateful for the sentiment. She didn’t have too many friends these days. So she nodded and thanked him, then asked about that horse that needed boarding. A little bit of extra money always came in handy. And even beyond that, she was happy to help Kenny out if she could.
Making a friend was exactly what she needed.
“If anything else happens, you come to me,” he told her. “It might be even better not to involve Shane at all.”
“He’s just upset over Dylan.”
Kenny shrugged. “If Dylan was framed, we have no way of knowing right now who framed him.” He grimaced, as if having said more than he’d meant to say.
She leaned forward, her mind buzzing suddenly. “You mean Shane could be involved?” She had a hard time believing that. She’d known Shane forever.
Kenny made a dismissive gesture. “Maybe not Shane, but somebody from his office. A couple of times a year, we bust someone either on the police force or at CBP for selling out to the smugglers.”
His face turned serious. “If you find out anything about Dylan and all the bad business that went down, you come to me. Promise me, Molly.”
“I promise.”
* * *
SINCE SHE WASN’T HOME, Mo walked around the house and the outbuildings. He wasn’t sure if he was doing it to check that everything was okay and she was safe, or because he was trying to find evidence that she’d been in cahoots with her brother.
He didn’t like the ambiguity. It hadn’t happened to him often. He’d always been able to keep his professional and personal lives separate.
The dogs followed him around, tails wagging, tongues lolling, a goofy bunch. He sincerely hoped she wasn’t counting on them for protection. He checked the outbuildings, since she kept them all unlocked. Everything looked fine. Until he stepped into the shed. He didn’t like what he found there.
He had worked himself into a right dark mood by the time her red pickup rolled down the road and pulled into the driveway.
“Someone’s been here, searching your place,” he said in the way of greeting as he strode forward to meet her. “Any idea who that might have been?”
She stood by her vehicle, her posture stiff. “What are you doing here?”
The jean shorts and pink tank top she wore kicked his heart rate up a notch. “Checking on you.”
He lusted after her body. So there, he admitted it. He appreciated her curves, her loyalty to her brother and her dedication to her son, and was drawn by that hint of vulnerability in her eyes. She wasn’t tough the way Grace Cordero was or some of the women he’d worked with on overseas missions. Yet she was plenty strong in her own way. She intrigued him.
He pushed all that out of his mind. “Somebody was out here, looking for something.”
“I know. Last night.”
“Who?”
“Maybe someone headed north, looking for food.”
“Under floorboards?”
She stayed silent.
“The same week that someone slashed your tires?” He shook his head. “Too much of a coincidence for my taste. It could be one of your brother’s smuggling partners looking for something.”
“My brother had no smuggling partners, because he wasn’t smuggling anything. Just as nobody was trying to send me a message with those tires. This has nothing to do with Dylan.” She emphasized the last words, saying them slowly, as if she thought he ha
d trouble understanding.
Part of him wanted to let her have the fantasies that she clung to. But with the situation she was in, denial could be dangerous. He didn’t want her in danger.
He looked her straight in the eye. “You need to accept the truth so you can start dealing with it.”
She stuck out her chin, her spine ramrod straight. “If I want free life-management advice, I’ll tune in to Dr. Phil. I do own a television,” she said in an icy tone, instead of telling him to go to hell. Oh, but she wanted to. Her eyes flashed with fire.
She had plenty of restraint, but underneath all that she hid heat and passion. Not that he needed to be intrigued any further by Molly Rogers. He filled his lungs. He was here for a reason.
He cleared his throat. “Do you know a Garcia Cruz?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Who?”
“Have you ever heard the name before? Maybe from your brother?”
She shook her head. “Who is he?”
“Are you aware of any links between your brother and the local gangs?”
She rolled her eyes at him. “There are no gangs in Hullett.”
He nearly rolled his eyes back at her. “How about we let go of the delusion that small towns are paradises untouched by crime and that bad things happen only in the inner cities?” She needed a reality check, and he was the man to give it to her. “Who do you think handles the drugs and the guns and all the other illegal activity?”
She stared at him.
Could she be that naive? Maybe she was, living out here in the middle of nowhere, her life revolving around the ranch and her son. But oblivious was a dangerous way to be in today’s world.
He didn’t like the thought of her out here alone with only an eight-year-old for company. “You should stay in town for a while in your brother’s apartment.”
“I have animals.”
“You can drive out twice a day to do what needs to be done. You don’t need to spend the nights out here.”
“The apartment hasn’t been released yet.”
“Still?” That seemed odd. It had been searched, everything cataloged. It wasn’t a crime scene. He wondered what the holdup was. “I’ll see what I can do about that. I don’t want you here alone at night.”
“I don’t want to move.” She turned her back to him, signaling that was her final word on the subject, then went around to the passenger side of the pickup to grab some groceries. He helped her, even though it only earned him a glare.
“Where is Logan?” he asked.
“In school.”
“Any more trouble?”
She shook her head.
“He must miss your brother.”
She stared for a moment, then blinked hard. She turned away and began walking toward the house. “I don’t think he can even fully comprehend that Dylan is gone forever. I’m not sure I can. Sometimes I still almost call him to check when he’ll be home for dinner.”
She wasn’t one of those stick women a man was afraid to look at for fear of breaking, but there was an aura of fragility to her as she walked away from him, and he suddenly had to fight the urge to comfort her. “I’ll stop by as often as I can.”
“I’d prefer it if you didn’t.”
“It’d be good for whoever is messing with you to see that you’re not alone.”
“Nobody is messing with me,” she said over her shoulder. “It’s all just random stuff. Bored teenagers.”
She was in denial through and through, about too many things. He wanted her to be careful, to be safe, but for that, she first had to admit that she was in danger.
So when they were inside and the grocery bags were sitting on the table, he reached for her and turned her to him before she could bustle away. His palms tingled on her bare skin. In addition to tingles in other places.
He let his hands fall. He seriously needed to get over whatever crazy attraction he felt for her. So he focused on the trouble she was in. “I’d appreciate it if you kept what I’m about to say between us. It’s part of our investigation.”
She stepped back from him but nodded.
“The same knife that was used to slash your tires was also used in a vicious gang murder. The people who are coming around here, they are the wrong kind of people, Molly.”
Chapter Three
“Almost done,” Molly said, patting Nelly’s flank as she finished up the evening milking. The smell of hay and fresh milk filled the barn, but her thoughts were only partially on what she was doing. They kept returning to Moses Mann, as they had all through the day.
He had told her she should stay away from the ranch at night for a while. Kenny had said the same thing.
“I don’t want to go anywhere,” she told Nelly and the other cows.
But she wouldn’t put her son in danger just because she wasn’t good with change. So if things got worse... “I can do it if I have to.”
Nelly’s gaze was doubtful, but the other cows nodded in silent support as they chewed their cud.
The first step was to have the apartment released, then she would have an option, at least, whether or not she decided to take it. Grace could do it. She’d move anywhere in the blink of an eye. She’d traveled the world with the Army. If Grace could go someplace where people were shooting at her, Molly thought, then she could go to Hullett, for heaven’s sake.
She set the milk pails out of kicking distance from Nelly, her most ornery cow, then pulled out her phone and called the police station again. Margie May answered.
“It’s Molly. Is Shane in yet?”
“Just went out on another call.”
“I would really like access to my brother’s apartment. I need to know when I can come in to pick up the keys. Could you have him call me back?”
“Sure, hon.”
“That’s what you said before,” she said without accusation. Shane was avoiding her, and they both knew it.
A moment of silence passed between them. “Listen. I think, and I shouldn’t be telling you this...” Margie May paused. “Since Shane missed the whole thing that was going on with Dylan, he wants to score some points in the rest of the investigation. So he’s going through everything with a fine-tooth comb. All the reports, the apartment, your brother’s truck. It might be a while yet.”
“He is doing all that?” Relief washed over her. “Thanks.”
If Shane was giving the case his full attention, he would realize sooner or later that Dylan had been framed. She wanted that, first and foremost. Maybe an official announcement of Dylan’s innocence would get whoever was harassing her to quit. If people thought Dylan had drugs and Lord knew what else stashed around the ranch...
Mo’s ominous announcement about gang connections sent chills running down her spine every time she thought of it. The knife that had slashed her tires had been used in a murder. That was creepy and scary.
And it didn’t make any sense whatsoever.
The gang murder had happened in San Antonio, according to Mo. She barely knew anyone in the city, certainly no criminals.
She grabbed the milk pails, said good-night to the cows and closed up the barn. Then she glanced at the light in Logan’s window.
He’d already had his dinner and bath and was in bed, playing “Calvin Cat Counting” on his handheld player. The game taught kids math without them realizing they were learning. Logan loved the action; she loved the A’s he brought home.
Learning was a big thing in the house; she’d made sure of that. And so was eating healthy and running around outside in fresh air. She tried to make up for her son not having a father and was raising him to the best of her abilities.
She took the milk to the old farm kitchen at the back of the house where she processed everything she sold. A car came up the driveway as she reached t
he door. A police cruiser. Kenny. She stopped and waited for him.
The dogs ran to check him out then dashed back to her, not nearly as excited about the visitor as they usually were about Mo. As much as Mo annoyed her, her animals and Logan seemed to like him. Logan had asked if he could go on a ride in his fancy car with him. Probably just wanted to push the siren button.
Kenny waved at her then walked back to where she waited for him. “Thought I’d make sure everything is all right out here.”
“Pretty good so far.” Aside from Mo’s startling revelation, which she couldn’t talk about. “Are you bringing the horse this weekend?”
“Charlie. He’s a good one. In a couple of days.”
She walked into the processing room and he came in after her. The dogs stopped outside the door. They knew they weren’t allowed in there. She didn’t want dog hair in the milk she sold.
“Night shift?” she asked as she screened the milk through cheesecloth, making sure it didn’t have any stray pieces of hay.
He shook his head. “Just coming off shift. Long day. Had a couple of speed traps up today. Weekend comes and people start driving like they’re on a racetrack.”
“Hand out any tickets?”
He gave a smug smile. “Filled up the tiller.”
She tidied up. “I better close up for the night.”
He followed her out and took his time looking around the shed, but said nothing about the break-in, just shook his head. She was tempted to ask his advice on the gang angle, the words on her lips a couple of times, but each time she held back, as Mo had asked.
The chickens were in their coop already, had gone in on their own once it started getting dark. All her animals knew the schedule. All she had to do was bar the doors so no stray coyote could get in. “You think I should put up padlocks?”
He thought about that for a second or two before he nodded. “I have a few extras at home. I can bring those over when I bring Charlie.”
“Thanks.”
“So coffee was nice the other day,” Kenny said when they were finished. “How about we do it again? I would like to take you to dinner.”
A second passed before full comprehension came. A date.
