Lucky Ride (The Lucky O'Toole Vegas Adventure Series Book 8)

by Deborah Coonts

  “So, who had the rope?” Romeo sounded confused.

  I elaborated, making a point. “It was just…there?”

  “Yeah.” Sinclair’s eyes had the wide-eyed fear thing going on.

  Romeo looked at me. I knew there was another question. I reached for it. Thankfully, it appeared. “I’ll ask again—the knot, did you tie it?”

  A bead of sweat trickled down the side of his face. “No, that’s why I grabbed it—it was already tied. I didn’t have the time to stop and tie the thing. Besides, I don’t know nuthin’ about tying knots.”

  I leaned across the table, getting as much in his face as I could. “What about extortion? What do you know about that?”

  He leaned back, his gaze darting as if desperate to avoid me and my question.

  “What did Dora Bates have on you? She was shaking you down, right?”

  “Bates?” His eyes locked on mine. “What’s she got to do with this?” He swallowed hard.

  “She’s dead.”

  That wiped the smirk off his face. “Dead?” Relief, then fear. “I didn’t have anything to do with that. Not that I’m sorry to see her get what was coming.”

  “Where’d you go last evening after the rodeo?” Romeo’s voice had lost a bit of its warmth. The buddy act was over.

  “This lady put me in the hospital.”

  “Between the show being interrupted by Mr. Turnbull’s death and when you and Ms. O’Toole had your encounter.”

  “I stayed in the arena area.”

  “Did you see Mrs. Bates?”

  “No.”

  I sure hoped Flash was getting somewhere with the YouTube videos—who was where would prove enlightening, I felt sure. “What’d she have on you?”

  Romeo opened his folder. “I can answer that.” He pulled out a few sheets of paper, then turned them around so Sinclair could read them. “You’ve got a pretty long rap sheet here. Assaults, mainly. Even did some time in Nebraska. But I bet the rodeo organizers don’t know, do they?”

  A bad cowboy—somehow that diminished the world as we knew it.

  Sinclair did a slow burn, the red creeping up his neck then coloring his face. “No.”

  “And you really need that job.” I turned the screw tighter.

  “Yeah. Most folks these days run your background before giving you the gig. With the rodeo, my Championship got me in.”

  Secrets, such delicate dangerous things.

  “Did you kill her?” I asked, even though he’d denied it once.

  “No.” He looked at me with cold eyes. “But when you find the killer, I want to know. I’d like to shake his hand.”

  Either the guy had a sociopath’s set of balls, or he wasn’t guilty.

  He pressed at the bandage covering the cut on his forehead. The anesthetic would be wearing off. “Bates was hitting a bunch of us, scraping off the cream so none of us could get ahead. Beckham was trying to rally everyone to put an end to her act. He had the most to lose, I think. That pony, his kid, they were his last hope.”

  “You think he finally snapped and took care of the problem?” Romeo asked.

  “Possible. His temper could get away from him.”

  “Same could be said about you,” I added, unable to resist, which got me a narrowed-eyed look. “Anybody else seem particularly hot around the collar when it came to Bates?”

  He snorted. “Everyone. But Cole had something to hide. Don’t know what exactly, but he was running scared.”

  I resisted rolling my eyes. “Two things are wrong with that statement, Mr. Sinclair. First, it holds as much weight as a spouse’s accusation in divorce court, and he certainly was running scared, but not from Bates. He was running scared from you.” Having heard enough, I got up and, without a word, walked out the door. Romeo wasn’t far behind. The minute the door closed behind him, I whirled around. “Oh, please, tell me we can slap that guy in irons and haul him off. He’s got to be guilty of some actionable offense.”

  “Unless Mr. Turnbull presses charges…”

  “Mr. Turnbull is dead.”

  Romeo tucked his folder back under his arm like an officious Gestapo official or something. “I thought it safer to let you reach the obvious conclusion on your own. We all know what happens to the messenger.”

  I took a deep breath, then grabbed him in a bear hug. “You’re back. Do you have a rap sheet on anyone else in that folder? Any more secrets someone would kill to hide?”

  “Actually, yes. Beckham has a felony assault charge—old and only one, so not a huge motivator, but you never know.”

  “Interesting. Anything on Turnbull?”

  “Clean as new snow.”

  “I think that’s white as new snow.”

  “I made myself clear.” Oh, a bit of an attitude—yep, he was carrying a load.

  “Did you run anything on Doc Latham?”

  “Didn’t get a hit. He’s a vet. He handles controlled substances. His fingerprints should be on file. But, I’ve got a new kid on it. He’s screwed up before. I’m sure we’ll find them. We’ll keep looking. But now that you put Sinclair back on his heels—good job, by the way—I’m going to step back in there and see if he can give me a full definition of ‘everyone’ or if he’s just casting the seeds of blame trying to obscure his own.”

  “Poetic.”

  “Poetic justice would be even better.”

  I’d given the kid his second fifty and made it as far as my car before Squash caught up. To be honest, I wasn’t trying to get away. Lost in short straws and theories that had gone nowhere, I’d forgotten about him.

  The engine purring, the car ready, and nowhere to go. I sat there at idle, my mind racing.

  “You win.” Squash thrust a bill through the open window.

  I didn’t even jump. Either I was dead or seriously distracted. “Losing is never an option.”

  “My kind of gal.”

  We’d reached that moment—that one you can’t define but you just know. Either we jumped in, or the opportunity would be lost forever. I hated those kinds of absolutes. Keeping my options open was more my style.

  For the first time ever, that idea bothered me.

  At some point, one had to commit. I knew that.

  And it terrified me.

  I’d never admitted that—not even to myself in the deepest, darkest part of the night where anxiety and second-guessing assaulted me.

  I eyed the bill. “Apply it to my account.” Squinting against the light, I closed one eye and angled a look at him. “I may not have all the fancy degrees, but I am living proof that who you know can be as important as what you learned.”

  “I am clay for you to mold.”

  “Not a good idea, Mr. Trenton.”

  He stepped back. The closed look on his face told me he’d gotten all the meanings and subtext in that comment. “Understood. Where are you going now?”

  “Did you know our little Miss Bethany Fiorelli is wanted for questioning in two deaths in Reno?”

  “I did.”

  That took the bluster right out of me. “And you didn’t mention it because?”

  “That attorney-client thing, and I’ve got it covered.” His flat expression told me I wouldn’t get any more.

  “Have you been talking with my father?” Why I said that, I don’t know.

  He put his hand on my shoulder. “Let me take care of this one, okay?”

  “Sure,” I flipped the car into gear. “I’ve got work to do.” Everyone knew more about what was going on than I did, but they all looked to me to solve the problem.

  Not that this was unusual or anything.

  Darrin Cole was next on my list, a fact I didn’t share with the good attorney.

  I didn’t tell him that I was going to corner Darrin Cole before he got the word that Sinclair would be unleashed upon the world to continue terrorizing him—Romeo could hold the guy for twenty-four hours. After that, he had to have a solid reason. Unless the ladies pressed charges…which wouldn’t happ
en…he had nothing.

  First Darrin Cole, then Mona. Then some digging into Miss Bethany Fiorelli.

  As a life, mine right now could use some work.

  With the event for tonight cancelled, I wasn’t sure where to look for Darrin Cole. Luck was with me and I caught him throwing loops in the warm-up arena behind the Thomas and Mack. A plastic calf bobbed on springs thirty feet away. Catching the loop of the rope in his right hand, he weighed it, then let it slip through his fingers as he moved his arm in a circle. Slowly letting out rope, he grew the loop. Stepping into it, he let it fly. A bull’s-eye—the plastic bull was captured.

  My clapping caught his attention.

  “It’s much harder when they actually move,” he said as he advanced on the bull, flipped the loop from around it, then re-coiled the rope. This time he used his left hand to pull in the rope, gathering it in his right.

  “I’ll take your word for it.” I slid through the gap in the pole fence. “Show me how?”

  “Sure.”

  He placed himself behind me, his arms around me, his hands guiding mine. “You’re right-handed?”

  “Yes. Which is easier for you?” I let the question slip out naturally.

  “I’m naturally a leftie, but I can throw with either. Okay, keep the coil in your left hand. Grab the loop here at the knot.” He slid the rope until the knot was across my palm.

  Not wanting to pay undue attention to the knot itself, I let my fingers do the seeing for me. It wasn’t the same as the knots on the ropes around Turnbull and Dora. Not the answer I was hoping for, but it didn’t rule him out either.

  “Start swinging it in a circle. As the pressure increases, feed more rope into it, letting out rope from your left hand and letting it slip through the knot in your right.”

  I did as he said as best I could. The whole left-hand-doesn’t-know-what-the-right-is-doing thing always tripped me up. Back in the day, Mona had harbored dreams of me as a great pianist. Something to legitimize the illegitimate. But I’d failed at her dream.

  Not the first time, not the last.

  As I swung harder, the loop grew. “Like this?”

  “You’re doing great.” As my poor flaccid loop limped around in a lazy circle, I realized that while bulls may be Toby’s purview, bullshit was Darrin’s. “Now, just as it comes around and you feel the weight shift forward, let it loose.”

  I did as he said with less than spectacular results. My loop fell harmlessly ten feet short—the plastic calf would live another day.

  “A great first try. You’re a natural.” He had no idea.

  Pretending to be devastated, I pulled the rope back in, rewinding it in my left hand. “Hardly.” As I gathered the rope, I hefted it, trying to show appreciation. “Nice rope. I’d like to practice. Where would I buy one?”

  “From me. I’ll cut you a deal.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “I like you. I buy the ropes off a guy in Wichita Falls—one of the old guard. He doesn’t make many. In fact, I think I buy most of his production.”

  “Really?” I coiled the rest of the rope, fingering it appreciatively—it looked like the others. “You lose a lot of ropes?”

  He laughed at my stupidity. “No. I teach roping. I buy a bunch, then sell them for like three times the cost to my students. Sometimes the kids leave them around. Better for me, right?”

  “Nice.” I veiled the sarcasm.

  He leaned over to look. I caught a whiff of Aramis. Did they even make the stuff anymore? “A man’s got to make a living. I take my opportunities where I find them.”

  “The rope artist have a name?”

  “Sure, but I keep it a secret. Wouldn’t want anyone going behind my back.”

  I thought about throwing the rope around him and tying him up, just for the satisfaction of it, but he probably wasn’t the right guy. “Who do you teach?”

  “Oh, mainly rodeo folks. Helps pass the time. Despite what people think, we have a lot of downtime.”

  “Where were you before Turnbull got killed?”

  “That afternoon I was giving some lessons to the kids.”

  “Which ones?”

  “Mainly Poppy. She’s pretty keen on it. Her friend Bethany was here, too.”

  “You were here all afternoon?”

  “I never left. Went and got some grub at the steak place upstairs with a couple of the other guys, then we came back down, and that’s when all the ruckus started.”

  I made a note to have Romeo check out Darrin’s dinner accommodations. “Did you ever cross paths with Dora Bates?”

  The skin between his eyes puckered and his mouth lost its upturn. But he did sorta seem happy not to be talking about Turnbull.

  “I take that as a yes.”

  “I hadn’t talked to her much until yesterday. I’d heard the rumors, so I’d stayed out of her way. I don’t have anything to hide, so I figured she’d leave me alone.”

  “So you knew about her extracurricular activities? Extortion being the main one?”

  “Sure. The rodeo is a tight family. We usually have each other’s backs.”

  “Even when something bad goes down?” I watched his face, his eyes, trying to read him.

  “You mean like me and Sinclair?”

  I nodded.

  “That was some bad shit. I didn’t do my job. The bull looked at me, and I knew he would kill me. I froze, not for more than a second or two, but long enough. Toby’s finding it hard to forgive me, but he’s got nothing on the guilt I live with.”

  “You think Turnbull got caught in one of Toby’s anger exercises?”

  “Makes sense if he thought it was me.” He twirled the loop at his feet, parallel to the ground, letting it get larger. Then he stepped in and out of it as he kept it spinning and growing. A great distraction so he didn’t have to face my questions…or me. “He likes to rough me up a bit to remind me, but he never goes too far. He doesn’t want to kill me.” Darrin let the loop drop to the ground. “Living with the guilt is much worse than being relieved of it. He just wants to make sure I never forget.”

  One sick cuss, but pretty normal. “What did Mrs. Bates want yesterday?”

  “She wanted to know if I needed anyone to help me put Toby Sinclair in his place. At least that’s how she framed it.”

  An offer of help, a lifetime of blackmail. The lady was a peach. “What’d you say?”

  “I told her that sort of thing wasn’t my jam.” He slowly gathered the rope. “I’ll take care of Toby in my own time, my own way.”

  “You think he let the bull into the arena?”

  “Could’ve, but I doubt it.”

  “And then there’s the whole thing with Turnbull wearing your clown suit.”

  “Was that not totally weird? Turnbull? He never said much to anyone. I can’t imagine he pissed someone off to the point of homicide. We all keep our stuff in lockers set up by the arena gate. They’re not locked. Who would’ve thought someone would take my clown stuff?”

  Yeah, who woulda thought? “Any idea why he decided to put on your stuff?”

  “Not a clue. I never talked to the guy. He kept to himself mostly. I just wished he hadn’t torn up my getup. We don’t make that much money as it is, and the costume is on us.”

  The bane of employees everywhere. “Any idea why Poppy thought I needed to talk to you about Turnbull getting killed?”

  “Maybe because I talked to him right before…”

  “You did? Why didn’t you tell that to the cops?”

  “I did.”

  Reynolds. “What did he say to you?”

  “Huntsville.”

  “Huntsville? Alabama?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve been hearing that in my dreams but I don’t know what to make of it.”

  “And Bethany? You put the cops on to her. Why?”

  “I just told them she and Turnbull had a little tête-á-tête in the barn. He had her by the arm, then she ran away. After that, he staggered i
nto the arena and croaked. What was I supposed to think?”

  “That she went for help?”

  “I’d heard the whispers.”

  “Whispers?”

  “She’d left some dead folks behind in Reno.”

  “Where’d you hear that from?”

  He gave me the side-eye. “Around. I’ve been with the rodeo a long time. Things come my way.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  As he weighed the rope, he looked at me as if I was the next calf he would rope. “None of this should’ve happened. The bull shouldn’t have been there. That bull especially.”

  “That bull?” A moment of clarity and I knew. “That bull was Blindside, right? The one that got between you and Toby Sinclair.” And the one Toby Sinclair and Turnbull had argued over.

  “Yeah, they should’ve killed that bull after he got Sinclair. Sinclair wasn’t the bull’s first, which made it hard to understand when he refused to get rid of the bull. Frankly, that animal’s highest and best use is dog food. Some animals are just broken, you know?”

  Did I ever.

  As I started to leave, Darrin stopped me with a hand on my arm. “I do have one thing on Huntsville, but it makes no sense.”

  “What?”

  “Huntsville, Texas. There’s a big prison there. They used to have a famous rodeo there every year.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  AFTER I left Cole, I headed to the barns, ostensibly to check on Poppy’s pony, but something kept niggling at me, something I couldn’t quite remember or place. Maybe I’d find the answer in the barn. That’s where it all happened and there was something I was missing. The rodeo was quiet, the pall of Mr. Turnbull’s death hanging over the place like smoke from a forest fire.

  Nobody was around as I approached the stall. The pony perked up at the sound of my voice. He was munching hay and looked as if his brush with death was nothing more than a forgotten memory. Having a brain the size of a walnut could be a good thing sometimes. I stuck my fingers through the slats. He nuzzled them, then, realizing they weren’t carrots, went back to his hay.

  I turned to go. The halter, still hanging on the rope caught my eye.