The Salt Maiden (Leisure Romantic Suspense)

by Colleen Thompson

  “You know, if you’d have this boy neutered he wouldn’t get into so many catfights,” she suggested, “or leave the neighborhood knee-deep in kittens, either.”

  Mrs. Lockett tittered and waved off the suggestion. “But Eleanor’s a girl cat. I named her after Mrs. Roosevelt.”

  “And a fine name it is, too,” Dana told her, except this Eleanor has testes.

  “Why, just this winter she had the cutest babies,” Mrs. Lockett claimed. “The children had such fun playing with them.”

  The woman was too disoriented to be left alone, Dana decided, before she went to the old woman’s telephone, where she kept a list of numbers posted.

  By the time her son Nestor arrived and Dana was able to leave—along with the part-time preacher’s thanks and a bag of fresh-baked muffins—the desert sky was strewn with stars, and her rental was the sole remaining vehicle outside the courthouse.

  “Well, damn,” she muttered, then decided that now that it was dark, Jay was likely to be home. She tried his number, only to get voice mail. Might as well stop by his place anyway and show him the letter she’d received before she headed to the hotel room she’d reserved in Pecos.

  If I need the room.

  No sooner had the thought slipped through than Dana slapped it down. She wasn’t putting Jay’s job at further risk; nor was she climbing back aboard the emotional roller coaster—not for a few scant hours’ pleasure.

  She groaned, fighting the memory of his hands and mouth on her heated flesh. No more hiding from reality, she told herself. It’s time to face the facts and get on with your life.

  As she headed out of town, she concentrated on that thought. As if, with repetition, she could force it to sink in.

  With each long scrape of blade against steel, the knife sang, a whirring note that rose to a bright zing.

  A thrill of sheer excitement set the Hunter’s pulse to racing as its music blended with the memory of the spatter of hot blood and the bawling of the half-grown heifers. For Angelina’s sister had been lured by his letter like a doe drawn to a feeder on the first day of open season.

  Or the first night, better yet. Because after the last failure he had made some preparations, one of which involved a very special addition to his arsenal: night-vision field glasses that would allow him to track her in the dark with the efficiency of a big lion. He expected to use them, but not quite yet.

  Not when he could easily follow the taillights as they receded on a lonely road heading out of town. He wasn’t certain where Dana Vanover thought she was going.

  But he damned sure knew where she would end up before this night was through.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  One of the strangest plants of the desert, the night-blooming cereus is a member of the cactus family that resembles nothing more than a dead bush most of the year. It is rarely seen in the wild because of its inconspicuousness. But for one midsummer’s night each year, its exquisitely scented flower opens as night falls, then closes forever with the first rays of the morning sun.

  —“Night-Blooming Cereus,” entry by A.R. Royo,

  from www.DesertUSA.com

  “I’ll head out tonight—should be down your way first thing in the morning,” Special Agent Steve Petit told Jay over the phone. “Meanwhile, I wouldn’t advise you to go out on any calls alone.”

  Jay put his coffee down on the kitchen counter and rubbed his burning eyes. “Sure, Petit. I’ll be puttin’ all our vast reserves on babysitting duty.”

  “No need for sarcasm. It’d put me to a lot of trouble if I had to investigate your murder along with all the rest.”

  All the rest, Jay knew, included both his and the agent’s presumption that R.C. Eversole, too, had met with foul play, later disguised by the fire that ravaged his home. With the forensic evidence—including the body—gone forever, their only chance to prove his murder would be to solve both the Vanover and the Piper-Gold killings. Once a suspect or suspects were in custody, there was always a chance of wringing out a confession, particularly if the investigators played one conspirator against the other.

  “Hell knows, I wouldn’t want to put the FBI to any inconvenience,” Jay said. “But I don’t imagine Hooks and his buddies will come after me. For one thing, they know I’ll be watching for ’em. And they’ll have to figure I’ll pass their names on to you and Tomlin.”

  “Speaking of which, I’ll get started on those background checks tonight,” Petit promised. “See if the FBI computers turn up anything of interest on the three of them.”

  “While you’re at it,” Jay suggested as he stifled a yawn, “maybe you ought to take a look at Bill Navarro. He’s supposed to have had some kind of a drug thing a few years back. And Wallace Hooks, too, just to see. Since he is Abe Hooks’s son.”

  “Your deputy? His record’s clean, as far as we’ve learned, other than the one marijuana-possession charge back in New York City about ten years ago.”

  Jay wasn’t terribly surprised. As an aspiring actor just out of high school, Hooks had probably been trying to fit in with a faster-living crowd. Or the arrest had simply been a part of what he sardonically referred to as his “wild oats” years.

  “There’s nothing since then,” Petit told him. “And nothing suspicious about his banking situation, either.”

  “You dug into Wallace’s accounts?” Annoyance flared at the invasion of privacy.

  “Well, yeah, we ran him earlier, when we checked on…We had to check out both the local—”

  “There’s no need to play coy,” Jay said. “I’ve long since figured you’ve thoroughly investigated me. Can’t say I’m thrilled about it, but I would’ve done the same in your shoes.”

  Petit hesitated before saying, “You should know that my partner, Agent Tomlin…he’s not so sure you’re fit for office. Not after the incident in Dallas, and what we read in the VA file on your…medical history.”

  Jay waited for his irritation to flash over before responding, “Then I guess it’s a lucky thing for me he’s not a county commissioner in these parts. So what about you? You think I’m a few fries short of a Happy Meal, too?”

  “Hell, I think anybody who’d willingly live in that one-horse hellhole fits that description.” The chip-toothed grin came through loud and clear, though Jay couldn’t see it. “But I don’t suppose you’re any worse than most.”

  “Comin’ from you, that means a whole lot…Cowboy.” Jay smiled as he tossed off Petit’s hated nickname.

  Petit lobbed back a good-natured but anatomically impossible suggestion before sobering. “Seriously, Eversole. If I didn’t think you were okay, would I have faxed you copies of those extra journal pages we recovered inside the wall of that adobe? Especially with my partner suggestin’ we keep you out of the loop.”

  “So why’d you do it, then?”

  “Thought maybe all that crazy journal stuff would make more sense to you than us, since you’ve been digging into this mess longer. So did it?”

  As Jay considered the two entries, something important hovered at the edge of his awareness. But when he tried to bring it into focus, his tired brain lost its grip.

  “Let me get back to you on that,” he said. “I need to take another look.”

  “Meanwhile,” Petit told him, “you need to stay alive till I can get there. These people may be playing for a lot more than we thought. We’ve uncovered evidence that Miriam Piper-Gold took a hell of a lot more than fifty K with her to grease some wheels in Rimrock County.”

  “How much?”

  “As far as we’ve determined, it could’ve been a million, maybe more.”

  When he’d served as a cop in Dallas, Jay had been in on million-dollar drug busts. Though his salary as a public servant was far humbler, he had grown used to seeing ads touting multimillion-dollar mansions and reading reports of million-dollar-plus contracts for everyone from CEOs to sports stars. After a while the number had begun to lose its magic.

  But here in Rimrock County a milli
on dollars was still considered an obscene amount of money. A wild dream that the average man could work his whole life without approaching.

  Even a man as grounded as his uncle might have his head turned by such a figure. And a man like Abe Hooks, who had scrambled for decades to build a two-bit empire, might be willing to kill to secure a portion of that sum.

  “Way we hear it,” Petit said, “Roman Goldsmith was mad as hell when he discovered the amount. Wish we could get a line on that slick son of a bitch, but so far, nothing. I’m starting to think he’s fled the country.”

  “If he isn’t dead.”

  “Could be. But those kind of scum suckers are like roaches. No matter what else has gone down, we usually find ’em hiding under some rock. Eventually, anyway.”

  “So where do you go from here?”

  “Believe it or not we’ve been talking to some people at America’s Most Wanted. Walsh lives to go after assholes who fleece little old ladies out of their life savings. Besides, goldsmith’s starting to look good for his wife’s death, and with the public’s interest in the Salt Maiden mummy and the tie-in to an adorable cancer kid, this story has more than enough sex appeal to turn over his particular rock.”

  “Amen to that,” Jay said. Amen to anything that would bring justice for his uncle, as well as Dana’s wayward sister. And if the program motivated more Americans to volunteer as marrow donors, maybe a match would turn up to save Nikki Harrison.

  Though he knew it was a long shot, he fervently hoped so, not only for the child’s sake, but for Dana’s. With all the losses she had suffered, he couldn’t imagine how she’d shoulder the death of Angie’s daughter, too. Once more he found himself wondering how Dana was doing, where she was this minute, and what she was thinking. A craving to call her nearly bowled him over, though he knew damned well that hearing her voice would only inflame his need to have her for his own.

  And even if she didn’t turn him down flat, the last thing she needed in her life was a wreck of a West Texas sheriff—even one who loved her beyond all reason.

  The thought blindsided him, but he couldn’t deny it. Like a damned fool he’d gone and fallen for a woman he could never have. The thought deepened the shadow threatening to overwhelm him—a darkness he was no longer certain he wanted to keep fighting.

  “Still there, Eversole?” asked Petit.

  Jay apologized and told him, “Too much on my mind, I guess.” And with the lack of sleep, his focus was unraveling more quickly by the minute.

  As they ended the call, Jay tried Wallace’s cell number. Though the deputy should have been available, his number rang a few times before going to voice mail.

  “I need a word with you.” Jay wondered if he was crazy to trust his deputy to choose duty over his own father. Despite Petit’s assurance that he and his partner believed Wallace to be clean, Jay relied on the same instinct he’d once used to tell whether the men and women of his unit could be trusted and how far they might be pushed. But if he was wrong, the consequences could be disastrous, maybe even fatal. “Tonight, if possible. Had some trouble earlier that I need to get your take on. Could be something ugly brewing—and you might want to check on your aunt Dorothy tonight. Just drive by her place and keep an eye out for anything suspicious.”

  You mean Uncle Dorothy? Jay could almost hear his deputy asking with a wicked grin on his face.

  If there had been a call he needed Wallace to take, Jay would have tried the Hooks’s house phone number, too. But since either Abe or Estelle might answer, Jay decided he could wait for Wallace to check his messages, something he was normally conscientious about doing.

  Jay laid his phone down on the kitchen counter and took out a filter before making a fresh pot of coffee to help him stay alert for any signs of trouble. He sat, intending only to wait out its gurgling cycle, but before he knew what hit him his head nodded toward his chest.

  He wasn’t sure how much time had passed when he jerked back to wakefulness at the sound of Max’s toenails clicking on the tiled floor. Rising from the bar stool, Jay followed the shepherd into the living room, where the animal growled softly, as if he heard something—or someone—outside.

  Jay felt the rise of his own hackles. Could Petit have been right about the threat to him? Were Hooks, Navarro, and Schlitz out there, skulking around with guns and gasoline cans in the hope of getting to him before he mentioned their names to outsiders?

  With a muscle twitching at the side of his mouth, Jay switched off the lights and drew his handgun. He moved through the house with deliberate stealth, his senses straining for an unfamiliar sound, a smell, a flicker or vibration…

  For anything to warn him that the enemy he and his troops had come to ferret out of this apartment complex awaited him with their machine guns and their homemade bombs, with the Molotov cocktails that cooked men alive inside their body armor.

  That isn’t right, some distant recess of his tired brain whispered. But adrenaline overrode the warning as he heard an engine rumble to a stop outside.

  That would be the hajjis, pulling their bomb-rigged vehicle close to the building’s base—where they meant to detonate it while Jay’s men searched the floors above.

  If he didn’t somehow stop the bombers they’d bring down the building, killing not only U.S. soldiers but innocent civilians. And hadn’t he seen children playing in the streets around this building—those beautiful Baghdad children with their dark eyes and mischievous laughter?

  No way could he let them die. He refused to be too late again.

  Jay crept to the back door and pushed past the K-9, who was wagging his docked tail and whining to get outside.

  “Stay in here,” Jay whispered to him as he heard the vehicle door shut. “Stay.”

  If the enemy heard barking he would set off the car bomb for certain. Jay’s only chance was to slip up on the combatant holding the remote detonator and take him out before he could accomplish his murderous mission. The enemy was probably moving a safe distance from the blast zone, but Jay knew from hard experience that such terrorists were willing to die to carry out their missions—not only willing, but eager, thanks to the martyrs’ glories they believed awaited them in heaven.

  This isn’t right. More adamant this time, the warning shook him. But when Jay caught sight of the silhouetted figure, he crept forward, propelled by the fearful power of his waking dream.

  The house had gone dark, though Dana was almost certain she had seen a window lit as she’d pulled in. Had he already gone to bed?

  She walked a few steps from her vehicle, her hunger to see him—to touch him, if she were being honest with herself—warring with the oppressive blackness closing in around her. With no sign of the moon, the only illumination was the ancient star shine from ten million distant suns.

  Far too distant for her eyes to make out anything but a few deeper patches of shadow around her. It was too dark, in fact, to move any farther from her vehicle for fear of tripping on a rock or catching a leg on yet another spiny plant.

  A distant yowl shattered the stillness, what sounded like a woman in excruciating pain. With a yelp catching in her throat, Dana lurched back toward the safety of her rental before recalling something she’d read about the area’s mountain lions—how their cries were often mistaken for the sounds of women screaming.

  But coupled with the darkness, the eerie sound had left her shaken, reminded her that the desert held a host of creatures at home with the night. Unnerved, she decided to make the drive to Pecos and hole up in her brightly lit motel room. Tomorrow she would come back—by the light of day.

  Resolved, she reached for the SUV’s door handle. But a split second before she could retreat to safety something slammed against her, cracking both her head and shoulder hard against unyielding glass and metal.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Out here, so many forgotten lives have withered and died quietly beneath the burning sun.

  People ought to take time to remember, to pay tri
bute.

  They should decorate the grave sites and stand at attention in the kind of old-fashioned yearly ceremonies that bore the hell out of the living.

  Because it’s the ones who came before who got us where we are now.

  Not the cheap flash and empty promises of modern charlatans.

  That’s the shit that should be buried and forgotten before it destroys the last traces of people who got by on sweat and tears and even more grit than came flying at them on the desert wind.

  —Undated entry

  Angie’s sobriety journal

  (recovered July 10, interior wall, Webb adobe)

  Dana dropped onto her hands and knees and screamed as a hard kick glanced off her rib cage. Desperate to escape the onslaught, she rolled beneath the SUV and fought to draw breath.

  Pain exploded in her left side, outstripping the throbbing of her right shoulder and her skull where she had struck the rental. Bruised ribs at least, maybe even cracked, she thought as she struggled to piece together what was happening.

  The mountain lion she’d heard—could it have been closer than she’d realized? Terror—the primal fear of being torn apart and eaten—had her curling into a fetal ball, whimpering and shaking. But it was no lion that grasped her ankle in an iron grip and started pulling, no lion shouting foreign words in a hoarse voice.

  Kicking out, she screamed again, despite the agony it cost her. She dug her nails into the gravel, frantic to keep from being dragged out into the open, where she surely would be murdered.

  Yet she was losing ground, inch by hard-fought inch.

  “Jay,” she shouted, praying he would hear her from the house. “Jay! Help me. Please, Jay.”

  From inside she heard Max’s desperate barking. Surely Jay would hear that—surely he would come to save her.