No one could care as much about solving this case as Holt did. With most of the county’s cases involving drunk drivers, domestic disputes, and kids sowing wild oats, the sheriff’s department didn’t have much experience with homicides. “Exactly what I propose to find out, Sheriff, if you won’t. Or can’t.”
“Too bad the Legal Eagle here can’t help you find the killer’s tracks.” Rafferty’s smile was as thin as splintered wood. “Thought you people were great hunters and trackers.”
Chris moved to stand beside his client. “My ancestors, yeah, Rafferty. Just like yours used to be straight-shooters.”
The deputy tensed, ready to escalate the confrontation. A cough from the sheriff broke the strain. Rafferty subsided.
Chris strolled out of the office as if nothing had happened.
“Be careful, Holt.” Sheriff Foley sat and put up his feet. “The DEA has no jurisdiction in this case.”
“All I’m going to do is talk to people.” Since he’d resigned, Holt had no status with the DEA. He wouldn’t disabuse the sheriff of his mistake. For the time being, his reputation as a government agent would serve his purpose. “Anything I learn I’ll share with your office.”
After Holt dropped Chris Hawke off at his law office in Rangewood, he stopped at the feed store for calf vitamins.
A man was loading grain sacks into the back of a black Ford 250 pickup that might have been the one behind him earlier. If Rob’s killer was still around, he might worry about Holt involving himself in the case. He parked beside the truck and eased out.
“Hey, Holt, you’ve been a stranger. Good to see you, man.” It was Will Rafferty, Luke’s brother and the manager of the Circle-S. He was as tall as Holt and a few years older. His powerful build reminded Holt of the man’s steer wrestling days. A compassionate expression on his face, he slipped off his work gloves and stuck out a beefy hand.
Holt took it. “Good to see you, Will. Guess I’ve stuck to home since the funeral.”
“How’s that little nephew of yours?” Will leaned one elbow against the truck and slapped the grain dust from his gloves on the tailgate. “You managing okay? You must be now you have a house guest.”
Holt forced back a groan. Didn’t take long for Faith to tell her brother Maddy’d moved in. “Just fine now that Maddy’s there.” It had been only one day, so he wasn’t lying.
Humor glimmered in the former bulldogger’s eyes. He lowered one eyelid in a conspiratorial wink. “I reckon you’re a lucky man as long as you two don’t battle it out like the Hatfields and McCoys. Or maybe you’ve made up. How about it?”
“We grew up together. We’re old friends. That’s all.” Old friends and old enemies and old...nothing, under a white-diaper flag of truce. So far.
Holt noticed for the first time the Circle-S brand logo on the side of the Ford truck. Distinctive. If it was the same one from earlier, Will had spent an awful long time at the feed store. Had to have been some other black truck.
“If you folks want a break from diapers and formula, come on over. My sister wants time to get reacquainted with Maddy.”
“How is Faith, anyway? She came to the funeral, but I didn’t talk to her much.” He pictured the brown-haired woman, once a champion barrel racer, now confined to a wheelchair after a horse fell on her, crushing her spine.
The other man shrugged. “She’s mostly okay, but she hardly leaves the ranch. She does manage to organize the children’s activities for the guests. We’re all just grateful she’s alive. She’s using a walker a bit now. So that’s progress.”
“That accident was a terrible tragedy,” Holt said.
For a few more minutes, they discussed their calf crops and the weather. Will slammed the tailgate, prepared to drive away. “I meant what I said, Holt, about coming over to the Circle-S anytime. Bring Maddy.”
“Sure thing. You might as well know. I’m not entirely satisfied with Sheriff Foley’s handling of my brother’s case. I’d like to come talk to you about that day and about Rob.”
“About Rob?” Will glanced away as he keyed the ignition. When his gaze again met Holt’s, his expression was guarded. “I’ll tell you whatever I can, but I don’t know much.”
Holt watched the 250 vanish down the highway. Unease edged into suspicion. Will Rafferty would be the first rancher he’d question.
*****
He punched in the number he’d been given. The phone rang once, twice, three times before someone picked up. He gave the coded Spanish words.
His employer’s accented voice, when it came nerve-wracking moments later, rasped in his ear. “What news do you have for me?”
“He has a woman now. Been there about three days.”
“That could be promising. Do not wait too long.”
“Can’t rush things. You said he wasn’t to know for now. Making it look accidental requires planning and time.” He knew his fuckin’ job. He didn’t like dealing long distance this way. The guy had a hell of a nerve.
“If you cannot accomplish a simple task, I will find someone who can. I want no more mistakes.”
Adrenaline revved his pulse. He licked his lips. He knew what they’d done to the guy he’d replaced. Gutted like a brook trout wasn’t the way he wanted to buy it. He wouldn’t fail. “You won’t need someone else, señor. I’ll earn my money.”
“See that you do so—and soon.”
*****
“Who? Whazzit?” Maddy’s eyes wouldn’t open, but she could see.
Rob stood outside the truck. Smooth-cheeked and slim in his charcoal wedding suit, he was the twenty-year-old boy she’d left at the altar standing beside his dad. He said nothing, a mournful expression on his usually cheerful face.
Her neck hurt. Sleeping in the back of her truck had contorted her to unnatural angles. She opened her mouth, but the air disappeared, forcing her to gasp like a fish on a line. Sweat beaded her brow, and her heart raced. After endless minutes, she managed to breathe, but terror engulfed her.
No, no! Go away! She clawed at the door handle, but her hand kept slipping away.
She screamed soundlessly. A siren rent the mist. Rob disintegrated into the darkness. Again the siren’s shriek dragged her from her inertia. She fumbled again, but the door handle had morphed into a table lamp. She turned the button on its base.
The glare shocked her senses and illuminated reality. No car. She was in a king-size bed. Blinking against the grogginess that threatened to drag her back under, she sat up. A nightmare. Only a nightmare. Her clattering heartbeat slowed, and she sucked in air. Anguish wrenched a sob from deep in her soul. She dragged shaking fingers through her hair.
Finally the noise pierced her consciousness. No siren. Her alarm.
Bobby. Two in the morning. Bottle time. She pushed the button and forced herself to sit up. When she swung her feet to the carpet, her heel struck the book that had lulled her to sleep.
Baby’s First Months. She’d found it in the bedside table her first night. Whoever had carted away Sara’s and Rob’s personal belongings and clothing had missed this valuable resource. It was her bible, her treasure, her mine of knowledge on baby care. With what she gleaned from its pages, she was impressing Holt with her expertise.
Then Bobby the foghorn cranked up an ear-splitting wail that was no dream.
“Coming, sweetie,” she whispered. Her bare legs chilly beneath the sleep shirt, she padded to the door. Since the first night Holt had allowed her the privilege of feeding time and answering nocturnal sirens.
He avoided her as much as he could during the rest of the day too. Though Holt spent time with the baby, it wasn’t in her presence. He trundled him out to the graveside or the barn, or he urged Maddy to saddle a horse and take off.
She needed to talk to Holt, to explain about Rob—at least in part—if he’d let her. Holt had once been her friend, and she was living in his house, caring for Rob’s child. The absence of peace between them was too awkward, too agonizing. If she could manage her t
houghts and feelings, she had to make him understand her desertion wasn’t as hasty as it seemed. That he shouldered some of the blame didn’t ease her guilt or make her proud, but it was a fact.
She arrived at the nursery door as Holt emerged with his sobbing nephew. The sight of the big man holding the tiny child melted her midsection. Barefoot, Holt wore faded jeans, aged to a softness that molded to horseman’s thighs and lean hips. His chambray shirt hung untucked and unbuttoned. The sight drew her gaze more than did the furious infant.
Chapter 6
“About time you heard him.” Holt jiggled his nephew. His thunderous gaze swept her scanty attire.
How dare he snipe at her for being two seconds late! She glared at him. “Bobby just started crying.” But she discerned not disapproval but dismay, maybe at unwanted heat. Tough if he didn’t approve. Tough if it turned him on. Tough that it turned her on. But pulling on more clothes would have delayed her even longer.
“We have to stop meeting like this,” she quipped.
“I was already up.” His jaw worked as he seemed to retrench. “Some folks say it spoils a baby to pick him up every time he cries. But he’s so little.” His expression relaxed as he turned his gaze to Bobby, who continued to fret.
“You can’t spoil a young infant. Crying’s the only way he has to communicate, and he needs the assurance that someone cares.” Smiling, she silently blessed Baby’s First Months—and Sara. “Besides, he’s not so little. This pumpkin must weigh close to thirteen pounds. A bruiser, like the other Donovan men.”
“Fourteen, according to Doc Warner today.” Holt’s grim mouth curved in a radiant smile that softened his harsh features. Love and pride in his nephew shone in that smile. His dedication to raising his nephew and maintaining the ranch made her wish he didn’t resent her so much.
Her pulse skittered at his effect on her, and she took a step backward. She had to shake this attraction to Holt. She had nowhere to go yet that didn’t involve a sleeping bag, and Holt needed— No, Bobby needed her.
She forced her gaze to the baby. “He’s getting your shirt all wet. Give him here, and I’ll change him.”
Holt glanced at the stain spreading on his blue shirt. As if Bobby were a rain-slicked football, he handed off the soggy child. “I’ll grab a dry shirt and get the bottle ready.” Peeling off the offending garment, he stalked to his bedroom.
Enjoying the play of muscles in the departing male back, Maddy sighed. It didn’t hurt to look. Stepping over the boundary Holt—and she, if she were truthful—had set could ignite the tinder of their chemistry into a wildfire. As it almost had eight years ago.
Bobby gulped a sob and blinked glistening eyes at Maddy. “A-aaga.” He continued to squawk, but the screeching ceased.
“Guess he doesn’t worry about me dropping you anymore. Come on, pumpkin. Auntie Maddy’ll get you cleaned up and dry.”
When she finished, she pulled on jeans beneath her sleep shirt before carrying Bobby, calmer but still sniffling, to the kitchen. Having his sleepy weight in her arms soothed her jangled nerves.
Clad in a tee shirt tucked into his jeans, Holt lounged against the counter. He watched the microwave as if it might float away without his stare to anchor it. “Be ready a minute.”
“The microwave, just one way this house has changed,” she said, noting alterations as she walked and rocked the baby. Gone was the boot-worn linoleum, replaced by the polished boards beneath it. A digital-control range with a smooth electric cook top instead of gas burners. Bright yellow curtains hung in the windows, and in the living room balloon-valanced burgundy draperies and a matching carpet. “Very classy. Rob’s wife kept herself busy.”
“I hardly know the old place. Rob took out an equity loan so Sara could fix up the house to her liking,” he said without turning to face her. “There’s more.”
“The baby’s room. Your old room. The master bedroom.”
“Some of it’s okay. Place needed a face-lift.”
Because she noted disapproval edging his voice, she had to probe. “Sara wasn’t from around here. Colorado Springs, right?”
He nodded. “The Pattersons moved here five years ago. Edgar Patterson’s manager of the Valley Bank in Rangewood. Sara was a city girl. Like you. Rob wanted to please her.”
He’d look at anything but her, would he? He spoke to her only when he had to and only about the baby. She longed to talk to him now about Rob. But how to begin? A glance at the dining table gave her an opener. On yellow sheets from a legal tablet she saw lists of names and a roughly sketched map of the area.
Not cattle records. He did that work on the computer in the office off the living room. What was he doing in the middle of the night?
Holt handed her the bottle and sat at the end of the table. When she settled the baby with the bottle, he said, “Chows down like a hungry calf. You’d think the way he’s growing he’d adjust to the stuff by now.”
She refused to keep to their single topic. “Holt, what are you working on here?” She nodded toward the papers.
Elbows on the table, he propped his forehead on the heels of his hands. His expression, when he raised his eyes, was bleak. “I might as well tell you before you hear it from somewhere else, like the Raffertys.” His brow-pleating glower expressed his reluctance to trust her with his secret.
“Dear God, what is it? The Pattersons haven’t done something to take Bobby away this soon, have they?”
“It’s not that.” He shoved his fingers through his hair. “But I did get bad news from Chris Hawke today.”
“Your attorney? Chris Hawke used to be pretty wild, tearing up the roads on his motorcycle. Didn’t he spend the night in jail for pummeling a boy who insulted his sister?”
“That’s Chris’s old-fashioned sense of justice. These days he attacks legally.”
“Then he must be a fierce defender for his friends.”
One corner of Holt’s mouth quirked in acknowledgment. “He said the custody case went to Judge Gilbert.”
“That’s bad?”
“Couldn’t be worse. According to Chris, Gilbert’s so conservative he thinks the only decent family consists of two parents—mom and dad, no single parents, no same-sex couples, God forbid—and two-point-five kids.”
Maddy grinned. “Do you think Bobby qualifies as about a point-five?”
“Maybe Espie’d donate her two boys to make up the rest.”
His deadpan expression stopped her for a moment. Then the gleam in his startling blue eyes clued her that the man who never smiled had made a joke. She almost added a quip about Holt and her being the parents in this little equation. Don’t go there. “But you were starting to tell me something else.”
His jaw worked with the words before he could spit them out. “It’s Rob and Sara. The crash. It was no accident.”
“What do you mean?” Dread congealed in her stomach like soured milk.
“Some bastard deliberately shot out the front tires on his pickup. That’s what sent them over the cliff.” Banked fury glowed in his eyes. “It was murder.”
Maddy sat in stunned silence as he spelled out the whole story. How someone had lain in wait. The high-powered, high-tech rifle with exploding bullets. The sheriff’s reluctance to call it murder. How Holt was conducting a private investigation.
Bobby finished the bottle, and Maddy turned him over her shoulder to pat his back. The perfunctory duty diffused her focus, but didn’t ease her distress at what she’d heard. Tears burned, but she blinked them back. “Why would someone kill Rob and Sara? Murder. It makes no sense.”
“Lack of a motive is the biggest roadblock. I’ve talked to some of the townspeople already. The only motive I can imagine is Rob’s temper.”
“Quick to explode and quick to fizzle.”
“I thought he might have had a run-in with some cowboy who held a grudge.” He sagged in the chair. “But I’ve found nothing so far. Thought I’d visit the Circle-S. Have a talk with Will. Or one of the han
ds there might know something.”
Murder. The idea made the loss new again. She reeled with the horror of it and fisted her hands behind Bobby’s back. He whimpered at the pressure, and she forced herself to relax. “I’ve done a little investigative reporting. I have a pretty good sense of people. I could go with you.”
He made no comment on her offer. Some things he seemed to need time to accept. “Will’s busy with the first guests of the season. Maybe later this week. There’s some other ranches to visit first.” He pointed to his map. “I’ve gone over the scene of the crime and made lists of everyone Rob knew and everyone around who uses that road regularly.”
“Could it be someone you know?”
“No telling. It occurred to me the killer might have shot the wrong person.”
An idea straightened her shoulders. “What if someone else has a truck like Rob’s? What if that was the reason? Someone else could still be in danger.”
The baby produced a loud belch.
“Good boy.” Maddy cuddled him and rocked. “Now maybe he’ll go back to sleep.”
“I don’t think the sheriff’s thought of it being the wrong vehicle.” Holt scribbled the word truck. He circled it. “Thanks. It’s worth checking out.”
Her eyes stung again and her chest ached. Feeling the drowsing little one in her lap only served to heighten the tragedy. She had to help if Holt would let her. “Do you have photographs of the accident scene?”
“Sheriff does. Won’t give them to me. Says it’s police business, not DEA. I should keep out of the case. Butt out, in other words.”
“Do the photos show where the shooter was in relation to the truck? Or what view the shooter had?”
He looked up from his notes. “They don’t show much. Reckon I’ve been so overwrought about the whole damn affair I haven’t been much of a detective. What are you getting at?”
Twice A Target (Task Force Eagle) Page 5
