Framed in Death Valley

by Dana Mentink

  He’d decided the tent was too far away to protect her properly. How comfortable could it be after the battering he’d taken at the borax mines? Gathering up a soft quilt and a pillow, she tiptoed onto the porch and unfolded it gently over him.

  He stirred, eyes flying wide, mouth open to speak.

  “Don’t talk,” she ordered. “Just follow directions.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “But...”

  “Quiet.”

  He closed his mouth.

  “If you’re going to be stubborn and sleep on the bench, at least lift up your head,” she directed.

  He did so and she slid the pillow into position. He didn’t reach out to touch her, or talk, but his smile was stunning in the darkness, a silent thank-you that made him look like a love-struck teen.

  Love struck.

  He loves you? Or he wants you back because of the baby?

  There would be plenty of time to think about that in the morning.

  She’d had enough angst for one day.

  * * *

  Beckett folded the blanket and stacked the pillow neatly on top. Levi had kept an eye on the cabin while he’d showered, shaved, fixed a pot of coffee and checked on Rita, who was asleep on a sofa in the lodge.

  In a dreamlike state, he remembered Laney draping him with a blanket and her response when he’d asked for a second chance.

  Was it possible she might consider it? She was not the same woman he’d proposed to and married. She was stronger somehow; her first priority was the wee life tucked in the merest bump of her belly. He found this different Laney to be even more breathtaking than the one he’d known. And he was changed too, wasn’t he? Wasn’t God showing him that he could be a different man through Laney? He had let what happened in high school mold his perception of himself.

  But Laney said there was no condemnation...not from God and not from her...for what he’d done to Dan. No condemnation.

  Two words that gave him a sliver of hope.

  Laney opened the door of the cabin, emerging in leggings and one of his oversize T-shirts that had to be the most fetching outfit he’d ever clapped eyes on.

  “Are you staring?” she asked.

  “No,” he said, handing her a cup of decaf. “I like the outfit, that’s all.”

  She groaned. “I might have gained too much this week, on account of the shake and a few other snacks I won’t admit to. Dr. Irene will scold me.”

  “She won’t dare.”

  “She might. We’re good enough friends that we can tell each other things.”

  He pulled at his baseball cap. “You’ve talked about me plenty, huh?”

  She went pink and he hastened to reply.

  “It’s okay. I’m glad you had someone. It must have been brutal when I was arrested.”

  “It was brutal when you stopped taking my calls or letting me see you.”

  He swallowed the shame. “I’m sorry.”

  She sipped the coffee as they walked back to the lodge. A frown creased her forehead. Regret from what she’d said the night before? He couldn’t bear it, but he couldn’t stand not knowing either.

  “Are you okay?”

  She let out a sigh. “I always feel anxious on doctor appointment days, even when there isn’t a killer lurking and fires burning or...”

  Or reliving her husband’s betrayal. He took her hand. “Muffin is strong, like her mama.”

  She smiled. “You think it’s a girl too?”

  “Man’s intuition.”

  She fired a look of mock surprise at him. “Men have intuition? I didn’t know that.”

  “We like to tell ourselves we do, anyway.”

  In the lodge, Herm was sitting at the table, eating a plate of scrambled eggs and reading a fishing magazine. “Fix you something?” he asked, half rising.

  “No,” she reassured him. “I have to fast for a blood test.” She peeked into the sitting room. Rita’s suitcase had been rescued from the smoke and delivered to the lodge, where it sat next to the door. “Where’s Rita?”

  “Just stepped into the bathroom, I think. Clouder stayed with her until she fell asleep.”

  “That was nice of him,” Laney said.

  Beckett finished his coffee when Rita came into the kitchen looking rumpled and sleepy.

  “I’m going to call a taxi to take me to town,” she said. “What’s the local company?”

  “No need. I’m driving Laney to a doctor’s appointment at noon, but I can drive you before then or Herm might be up for it.”

  “Course,” Herm said. “Happy to.”

  She looked uneasy. “No, really, it’s fine. I’ll find my own way.”

  “It’s the least we can do after what happened,” Laney said.

  “No,” Rita snapped. She must have realized the abruptness of her tone. “Thank you, but I will find my own way.”

  She looked uneasy as a chicken in a fox hole. Worried about Kenny? It still made no sense what had happened the night before. She had the answers and it was killing him not to interrogate her, and he could not hold back the question. “What about the proof, about Pauline?”

  She shook her head. “Like I said, as soon as I’m safely away from here, I’ll call you.”

  “How do we know you’ll do it?”

  “You don’t. Truth is I’m not interested in bringing a killer to justice or anything so noble. The matter will be yours to deal with. You can follow through and we’ll all be safer with a murderer off the streets.”

  Beckett’s stomach tensed. She knew the answer, the key that would free him and ensure Laney’s safety. He stepped forward to press her but caught Laney’s frown. She was right. If he spooked her, they might never know.

  Instead he handed her a business card with the name of a taxi company. “If you’re sure I can’t take you.”

  She took the card and disappeared back into the lodge. He resisted the urge to run after her. Let her go, he thought, but keep her in your sights for as long as you can. He telephoned Jude to fill him in on Rita’s plans.

  When the cab pulled onto the property, she stood by with her purse, ready to go. He opened the passenger door and helped her in.

  She gave him a long look. “I’m sorry. I never should have gotten involved in this.”

  Then the taxi driver started the engine and drove off.

  Had he allowed his only chance at redemption to hop into a taxi and ride away?

  No, he hadn’t been given hope just to have it all stripped away again.

  Muscles taut, he returned to the hotel.

  FIFTEEN

  Laney peered into the front window of the mechanic’s shop as Beckett drove them along the quiet street. She pulled the ratty sweater closer around herself, though it was not at all cold. It was like some sort of armor, that tattered sweater with the lighter in the pocket and the sewn-up hole in the elbow. A vein jumped in Beckett’s jaw as he idled the truck at the corner.

  “I don’t see her. She must have gotten her car and left town.” He drummed on the steering wheel. “Maybe I should have tried to follow her.”

  “That wouldn’t have helped. We’ve got to wait it out and see if she makes good on her word.” Waiting, ugh.

  He huffed out a breath. “I’m not content relying on her word.”

  “Me neither, but Jude is checking her out closely now too.”

  They pulled into the parking lot of the doctor’s office.

  The nurse greeted them. “Hello, Mrs. Duke. Please come on back to the exam room.”

  Beckett hesitated. “Can I...? I mean, am I allowed?”

  Laney felt her face flood with color before she nodded.

  “Wait right here,” the nurse said. “I’ll get her settled, get a blood sample and call you in, okay?”

  When Irene entered twenty minute
s later, she ushered Beckett in too. Irene was her usual upbeat self, but there was concern written in the lines around her mouth. “Sorry I’m late.” She looked harried. “Before we get around to baby business, what happened last night? I heard from Trent this morning that you had a fire.”

  “Trent Clouder?” Laney said with an eyebrow raised. “You just happened to run into him?”

  Irene pulled a face. “Okay, we had breakfast together at the café.” She put on a pair of glasses. “Before you start, it was a friendly chat, nothing more.”

  “Sounds like a date to me,” Laney said.

  “You’re evading the question.” She assisted Laney onto the table with a pillow behind her neck.

  “Somebody set fire to Rita’s room,” Beckett said.

  Her eyes widened. “Is it Kenny?”

  “We don’t know,” Beckett said.

  She paused with her stethoscope in hand. “Wait a minute. You told me that this Rita woman was trying to dig up dirt about Pauline’s murder. Did she uncover something?”

  “She might have a way to prove Beckett innocent,” Laney said.

  Irene gaped. “Really? How?”

  Beckett shot her a warning look.

  “I can’t say any more, but I’m just hanging on to the hope that this nightmare might be over at long last,” she said.

  “Absolutely. We need this baby to come into a bright new world for his or her parents.” Irene winked at Laney. “Both of them.”

  Touché. It was Laney’s turn to squirm.

  Irene listened to Laney’s heart with her stethoscope and took blood while Beckett hovered. She typed notes in her computer file. “Speaking of baby business, let’s see how our customer is doing today, shall we?”

  Irene called her nurse, who held the ultrasound wand. “Your next appointment is all checked in, Doctor.”

  “I thought Laney was my last one.”

  The nurse shook her head. “Nope. You have two more back-to-back since we had to cancel two earlier.”

  Laney grinned. “Dates take precedence.”

  Irene groaned. “I can remember when I was thrilled to have two or three appointments a day.”

  She directed the nurse, who began to move the wand around. “There’s the bambino,” Irene said. “Pretty as a picture.” She clicked the computer and took some measurements, which she also recorded in her chart. Laney watched the tiny figure on the screen. At first, she could not decipher what she was seeing.

  “Here are the head and the feet,” Irene said. “One arm up. Baby is waving.”

  Laney watched the wiggling figure. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Beckett go pale as he looked at their child. His bug-eyed stare went from the screen to Dr. Irene and back again.

  “Is...everything okay? All that stuff you’re writing down?” he said.

  “Yes. I’m a compulsive note taker. I learned that early on. Your baby is a perfect four-month specimen. Would you like to know the gender?”

  “No,” Beckett and Laney said at exactly the same moment.

  “Okay, then.” Irene sat back and glanced at her nurse. “Would you tell my next appointment I’ll be there in a moment?”

  The nurse excused herself.

  “I’ve got a full schedule, otherwise I would join you for a break. I’m afraid to let you out of my sight with all that’s gone on.”

  Laney’s heart swelled at her dear friend. “No problem. We have to go, but I’ll have the coffee ready next time you’re out running.”

  Irene glanced over her shoulder at Beckett and smiled. “It may take some time for him to snap out of it.”

  He was ogling the strip of paper photos printed from the ultrasound machine that she’d left next to her computer. He was quite oblivious to anything else. Irene squeezed Laney’s hand. “Talk to you later.”

  Laney sat up on the exam table and pulled the gown around her. “Beckett?” Astonished, she realized that two perfect tears were sliding down his tanned cheeks.

  He tore his gaze from the paper and looked at her. “That’s our baby,” he croaked.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “And in five months, you’re going to deliver him or her.”

  “Yes, that is how it works in all the books I’ve read.”

  He didn’t crack a smile. Slowly, millimeter by millimeter, his gaze moved from the screen to her face. She realized with a fright that he had actually begun to sway on his feet. Grabbing the hospital gown around herself with one hand, she leaped from the table and shoved him into a chair with the other.

  He collapsed into it and she pushed his head down between his knees. “Breathe deep. Come on. Three breaths in and out.”

  He complied. She was considering calling the nurse back in when he sat up again, looking dazed, but fully conscious.

  “Laney,” he said.

  “What?”

  “This is real, isn’t it?”

  Laney blinked back a wash of tears. “As real as it gets, Beckett.”

  * * *

  Beckett insisted on stopping at the store to buy some ingredients to make a special dinner.

  “Herm has the night off from cooking,” he said. He was going to suggest he cook her favorite trout dish with the capers and almonds, but the last time he’d fixed it for her had been the weekend before the murder. It was time to start making some new memories, or at least, treating her to something nice while they waited to see if Rita would make good on her promise. “What would you like?”

  When she finished declining for the second time, she blew out a breath and said, “Pancakes.”

  He blinked. “Pancakes? Not steak or fancy pasta?”

  “Pancakes,” she repeated. “With gallons of maple syrup. And butter. Real butter, not margarine.”

  He could not restrain his delight. She wanted pancakes. This woman, amazing and strong, had an actual child growing inside her. God had gifted them with the impossible. The sheer incredulity of it made his head spin again. “All right.” Since they had all the fixings for pancakes at the hotel, he drove straight there. She was yawning by the time they returned.

  “I need a nap, I think,” Laney said.

  “Great idea. I want to check on some things anyway.”

  “If it were me, you’d tell me to stay out of trouble.”

  He laughed. “And if it were you, you wouldn’t listen to me at all.”

  Now she laughed and the sun caught the dimple in her cheek and gilded her hair to molten platinum. “See you later.”

  She was almost over the threshold when she stopped and turned. “Here,” she said.

  He took the strip of ultrasound pictures. “You want me to have them?”

  “Yes. There will be more, but you should have these.”

  He stared as she closed the door. What did the offering mean? That he wasn’t going to be included in the rest of the pregnancy? Had she already decided she would not allow him back into her life? Or was it a tender gesture, since he’d made such a grand fool out of himself when he’d clapped eyes on the baby’s image in the first place?

  He wasn’t sure, but he went to his tent and tucked the paper carefully in his Bible. No matter what happened, he would have the pictures close, a present from the woman who had been his greatest gift.

  With a lighter step than he’d felt in forever, he began to tinker around the courtyard. He yearned to start on the repairs to the burned room, but he did not want to be out of sight of Laney’s door. He contented himself leveling some stepping-stones that had become askew. He thought about the screw Aunt Kitty had discovered. Had Rita found something Pauline left behind, a second copy of whatever incriminating info she’d been using to blackmail someone?

  Who? It had to have been a local, someone who knew their way around Death Valley, someone who had known Pauline would reach out to Beckett? Or
perhaps the note to arrange the meeting with Pauline that fateful night had been written by the killer in the first place.

  Before he realized it, the afternoon had passed and he’d reset the entire walkway, correcting all the crooked stones and adding new gravel to the low spots. He couldn’t have Laney or the child tripping.

  Laney, his Laney. The thought was audacious, breathtaking. Could he possibly believe he might put his family back together with God’s help? Was he worthy of such a treasure? Laney emerged with Admiral at her heels as the sun mellowed toward evening.

  She eyed his work. “You’ve been productive. Are you rebuilding from the ground up?”

  Maybe, just maybe, he was. He shrugged. “Keeping busy, but I’m ready for pancakes. How about you?”

  They entered the kitchen. He found the flour container empty. “Be right back.” The finicky basement door was slightly ajar. He jogged down steps. The fourth one was still wobbly. A few of the newspapers piled there were knocked over, so he straightened them before fetching the flour.

  In the kitchen he whistled as he whisked up the ingredients. A sizzle of butter, perfect scoops of batter into the pan and, in a few moments, he’d cooked up a platter of golden pancakes. She’d retrieved the required jug of syrup.

  She reached for his hand to say grace. She thanked the Lord for the food, while he expressed silent gratitude for her presence.

  Laney had always been a fairly light eater, but she polished off her first pancake and he forked her a second one.

  “Don’t tell Doc Irene?”

  “My lips are sealed.”

  The sweetness dancing along his senses had nothing to do with the maple syrup. They talked, chatted with relative ease. The kitchen was the same old worn space, but he felt like a different person, looking at a woman who was both the same woman he’d married and completely new to him, so strong, so incredibly brave.