“No,” Clay quickly assured him. “It’s not from your father.”
Garrett leaned in, had a closer look, and he must have noticed the heart o because the corner of his mouth lifted into a near smile. “Good. Because so far my dad’s letters have been, well, a mixed bag of news, and you’ve already had enough of that.”
Yeah, he had. And Clay didn’t want to include Sophie in any of his personal mixed bag.
As Vita had done, Garrett left and shut the door behind him. Clay waited to see if there’d be more interruptions, but when a couple of minutes crawled by without another knock, he knew he should just get this done. Fast. Like ripping off a bandage. It would still hurt, but at least it’d be over.
For another month, anyway.
The sender, however, probably wouldn’t wait a month to leave a message on the landline phone at Clay’s house. Those didn’t come with the same regularity as the letters. But still, they came.
Clay used scissors to open the envelope, and he eased out the three pieces of paper. Two were pictures. One before. One after. He looked at both with the same reverence a good priest would look at a dying patient getting last rites.
Seeing the pictures was a sort of penance. They told a story, but they sure as hell didn’t change anything.
Neither did the third paper.
But he studied it anyway. Not that there was much to study. Like the other three pages in the other envelopes, this one had a single word handwritten on it.
Killer.
* * *
CLAY PULLED HIS cruiser to a stop on the side of Arlo’s Pump and Ride. He wanted to think that Arlo Betterton hadn’t had a dirty mind when he’d named the place back in the early ’70s, but since Clay had gotten complaints about Arlo’s too-prominent display of adult magazines, the name had likely been intentional.
Before Clay even made it to the front, the door opened, the bell attached to it clanging, and Arlo stepped out. “If you’re needing some gas, you’re parked in the wrong place, Chief.” Arlo was wiping his greasy hands on an equally greasy rag.
There were no other customers, no employees, either, which meant Arlo and he might be able to have a private conversation. Clay wasn’t holding out hope that it would be a productive one, but he wanted to be able to tell Garrett that he’d tried.
Clay glanced around, taking in his surroundings. Old habits. The only danger here was slipping on some motor oil and throwing out his back, but after so many years of being a cop, it was hard to turn off his cop’s eyes. Hard to turn off his brain, too, and since the contents of the pink envelope were still plenty fresh he hadn’t been able to wrestle away the demons.
Killer.
Not a pretty label.
“If you’re not needing gas then,” Arlo went on, “come inside, and I’ll get you some coffee. Made it myself just a couple minutes ago. It’ll give you something to drink when you tell me why you’re here.”
“I’ll pass on the coffee.” And not because he didn’t want to drink anything Arlo had made with those hands but because Clay’s nerves were already jangling. No need to fuel those nerves with caffeine.
“Suit yourself. I’ll pour myself one.” Arlo went to the counter. Also grease stained. Ditto for the coffeepot. Probably the coffee, as well, since there seemed to be a mini oil slick swirling on top of the cup. “So, are you here because of Vita?”
Clay tried not to look surprised and held back from saying “why the hell would I be here because of Vita?” He’d learned that some folks gave him more info when he didn’t actually question them so he just raised an eyebrow.
Arlo huffed. “Vita was in earlier, whining about feed. She accused me of feeding those chickens that’ve been pestering you out at your place. She said she saw feed on the ground. Well, it wasn’t me. I got no reason to want chickens to stay around so they can go after you.”
All that from a raised eyebrow so Clay raised his other one. Later, he’d check and see if there really was feed on the ground near his house.
“It’s true.” Arlo huffed again. “But there are some folks who might want to see you...pecked a little. But not me. I’m not bothered by cops, even when they’re just an intern one, but some folks are.”
Clay just kept his eyebrows raised and didn’t correct “intern” to “interim.”
Arlo added some profanity to his huff. “Ask Ordell Busby about the feed ’cause I’m betting it was one of his boys. They’re always up for a good prank.”
Clay knew about the Busby boys’ penchant for pranking. It was harmless stuff like TP’ing yards and trying to tip a cow. To the best of his knowledge, they’d never actually succeeded at a prank without getting caught, but it wouldn’t be hard to get away with tossing out some chicken feed.
“I’ll talk to them,” Clay said, and he didn’t budge. He just stood there, eyebrows raised and perhaps looking as if his forehead had had a run-in with some extra potent Botox.
The seconds crawled by. And crawled. But Arlo eventually huffed. “So, you’re really here about Sophie.”
Clay made a sound that could have meant anything. Or nothing. Arlo opted for the something because he started huffing, cursing and talking again.
“I heard Sophie’s down in the dumps. Heard it might be more than just down, that she might have that depression people have to take pills for. Guess you haven’t been able to cheer her up any?”
Clay had to lower his eyebrows because his facial muscles were starting to twitch, but Arlo must have taken it as a cue to continue.
“Don’t guess anything but getting her business back would chase away those blues. Well, I can’t help you there, intern Chief. I don’t know anything about where Billy Lee is right now at this moment.”
You didn’t have to be a cop to hear the slight pause Arlo made before right now at this moment, but Clay decided it was time to do more than offer up facial gestures. “Do you know where Billy Lee is, was or has been in the past month since he’s been missing?”
That brought on more cursing from Arlo. “I already told those FBI fellas I didn’t know, and now I’m telling you the same thing. Billy Lee’s not here, and I haven’t seen him.”
Clay decided to use his cop’s voice for the next question. “Have you communicated with Billy Lee in any way in the past month?”
Arlo looked him straight in the eyes. “No.”
Clay studied him, trying to decide if he was lying. Strange but he didn’t seem to be. Just in case though, Clay upped his stare a while longer, waiting to see if Arlo would break down and start blabbing. But he was literally saved by the bell. The one clanging over the door.
“Gotta go,” Arlo said. “Got a customer.”
Clay didn’t stop him, but he did make a mental note. There was something going on with Arlo. Maybe something connected to Billy Lee. And he needed to keep an eye on it.
CHAPTER FIVE
THIS WAS A new level of Hell. Sophie was sure of it.
It was barely 8:00 a.m.; she hadn’t even finished her first cup of coffee and had paperwork to do on the sperm and the bull pump Garrett wanted her to purchase. But she wasn’t doing paperwork. Mila was on one side of her, Sophie’s mother, Belle, on the other, and they both had opened tablets to show Sophie what they’d found through their internet search.
They’d found Hell aka dating sites.
“It’s been six months since the unfortunate incident,” her mother reminded her. “It’s time to move on before winter sets in.”
Maybe winter was a metaphor for life passing her by, but knowing her mother she could simply be thinking of Sophie needing someone to snuggle with once it got cold. And she did miss snuggling. But she doubted she’d find that on a site called Type-A-Businessmen.com.
“They’re all professionals,” her mom said as if that would help.
> “Brantley was a professional,” Sophie pointed out. A lawyer. On paper he was perfect for her, but Sophie hadn’t been able to marry the paper.
Her mother hesitated, no doubt thinking up a comeback. “Well these are professionals who haven’t jilted anyone.”
Sophie had no idea if that was actually in the bios or if her mother was just making that up to get her to take that first step into Hell.
“There are plenty of other sites,” Mila piped up. To prove that, she promptly showed Sophie the page for Cowboy-Match.com.
After one glance, Sophie concluded that not all cowboys were hot. Some were downright ugly and one had what appeared to be a lump of chewing tobacco in his jaw, complete with brown spittle on his chin.
“You like cowboys,” Mila added, frowning at the spittle guy.
Sophie did. When she was looking at shirtless pictures of them on the internet. She liked the snug jeans, boots and hats. She liked the way chaps framed their junk. But those cowboys who’d posed for man candy pictures probably didn’t need dating sites.
“How about this one?” Her mother pulled up another site. “This one is Well-Endowed-Hunks.com.”
Both Mila and Sophie turned to her mother, giving her blank stares.
“What?” Belle protested. “There’s nothing wrong with a man being large in that area.” She pointed to her own nether region.
So, her mother did know what it meant. Sophie had considered that maybe she thought that meant they’d inherited a lot of money.
You couldn’t always tell if her mother was clued into reality or not. She looked prim and proper as if she should be on one of those TV shows from the sixties, the ones where the moms wore high heels to do housework. Not a hair out of place. Lipstick was a necessity, and she wore hard padded bras that could bruise you when she gave you a hug.
“Well, if you don’t want a large endowment,” Belle went on, “I’ll look for a site for men with small weenies.”
Sophie groaned. “Don’t. Please don’t. In fact, you both need to leave so I can get some work done. Mila, shouldn’t you be at the bookstore?”
“It doesn’t open for another hour.”
Sophie groaned again. “Well, I need you both to leave. I have to order a machine to jack off the bulls. After that, I have to order some sperm.” If she’d had her coffee, Sophie was certain she would have phrased that better. Supplies for the ranch would have sufficed.
The color blanched from her mother’s face. Not a pretty sight since that only made her bright red lipstick glare like a baboon’s butt. “God, Sophie, you’re not thinking of artificial insemination.”
She wanted to groan again, but her throat was getting sore. “No. It’s bull semen for all those cows that were delivered yesterday. Garrett wanted the machine so the hands could, well, get some from the bulls we already have. But it apparently won’t be enough so I have to buy more. And I really do need to get it ordered this morning to stop the cows and Garrett from getting testy.”
Sophie might as well have been talking to her coffee because once her mother got back her color she just continued advancing into those levels of Hell.
“Here’s one I bookmarked. NicheDating.org, and you put in exactly what you want, and it matches you with your dream guy.”
Sophie laughed and didn’t bother to take the sarcasm out of it. She drank some more of her coffee and started filling out the sperm order, hoping it would prompt her best friend and mother to leave. It didn’t.
“Go ahead,” her mother insisted. “Tell me your dream man, and I’ll type it in for you.”
“Tall,” Mila answered for her. “And dark hair.” She stopped, snapped her fingers. “What about Shane Whitlock, the hand who used to work here? He owns his own ranch now near Bulverde, and I’m pretty sure he’s single.”
Shane. The guy Sophie had had a semicrush on in middle school. Because her attention had turned to Brantley in tenth grade, the crush hadn’t led to anything, and it wouldn’t now.
“I’ll look up his number for you.” Mila opened another browser screen and got started on that.
“I don’t want Shane’s number,” Sophie said. “And I don’t want my dream guy from Niche.com.”
They didn’t listen so Sophie ignored them, too, and got busy on the paperwork. Hard to tune out their comments, though.
Her mother: “You really should get serious about this. You’re only weeks away from your thirtieth birthday.”
Mila: “You’re not like me. You like having a man in your life.”
Her mother: “And I’ll never get grandchildren if you stay a virgin like Mila.”
Mila was indeed a virgin, but Sophie didn’t tell her mom that she’d lost her virginity when she was eighteen. Not to Brantley, either. They’d just broken up for the umpteenth time, and Sophie had met a bull rider in San Antonio. Lucky McCord. She had some sweet memories of him, but even if she’d wanted to reconnect with him, she couldn’t because she heard he’d gotten married.
“If these dating sites are so great,” Sophie argued, “then why haven’t the two of you used them? Mom, you’ve been a widow for ten years, and Mila, you could certainly find that special someone you’ve been looking for on a site called NicheDating.org.”
Her mother: “I don’t want another man. Your father was more than enough for me.”
Which could be taken several ways since her father could be an overbearing control freak. He was still controlling them in a way with letters he’d written and had arranged to be opened after his death. Heck, he’d even left her mother appointment calendars with reminders of birthdays, to schedule physicals, etc.
Mila: “I’m not looking for a man.”
Oh, yes, she was. But she was looking for Mr. Special.
Sophie wouldn’t bring it up in front of her mother, but Mila was obsessed with a BDSM Fifty Shades of Grey guy and wanted that kind of experience for her first lover. Sophie had figured her friend would give up by now, but the obsession was hanging on a little longer than her previous obsessions with Mr. Darcy, Captain Jack and assorted The Lord of the Rings characters.
Mila had somewhat eclectic tastes when it came to her fantasies.
“Seeing someone will help you get over Brantley,” Mila said, obviously moving this conversation back to her.
“I am over Brantley,” Sophie insisted.
But they ignored her again.
Her mother: “People feel sorry for you. I feel sorry for you.”
Sophie suddenly felt sorry for herself. And not because she’d been jilted six months ago but because two people she normally loved were making her insane.
“What about Chief McKinnon? He’s hot, and you like him,” Mila asked.
This was an easy argument to win. “He’s Brantley’s brother-in-law.”
And it didn’t matter that last she heard he still wasn’t happy about his sister’s marriage. Sophie didn’t want to get involved with someone who had that close a connection to a man she now saw as navel lint. Of course, she’d seen Clay since then. Hard to miss anyone in a small town, but thankfully he’d seemed as eager to avoid her as she had been to avoid him.
Man, oh man, she’d made a fool of herself twice in front of him. Once the day of the wedding that didn’t happen and again when she’d gone mute after hearing that Brantley and April were married. It was best if she didn’t get close enough for round three. Her foolery seemed to escalate whenever she was near him.
“Probably for the best that you aren’t looking in Clay’s direction,” Mila went on. “There’s something a little off there.”
That got Sophie’s attention. “What do you mean?”
“Well, there’s almost nothing about him on the internet. No social media accounts, only a smidge of info about him being a cop. You’d think there would be plenty more since
Reena said he’d been a Houston cop for twelve years.”
Sophie shrugged. “Not everybody splashes their lives on social media.” Though it did seem off that there’d been nothing about his investigations.
“Reena thinks maybe Clay did hush-hush cases, like undercover stuff,” Mila went on. “But whatever he did, something must have happened for him to give it up and move here.”
“He moved here for his sister.” At least that was the main reason. But maybe there was something else.
“Ohmygod,” her mother blurted out. “Look who popped up as a match when I put in all the things you wanted in a man.”
Since Sophie was reasonably sure her mother didn’t know what she wanted in a man, she didn’t hold out much hope for an accurate match. Still, she had no choice but to look because her mother put the tablet right in her face. And she saw a familiar face.
Shane’s.
Mila squealed. “It must be fate because I just found his phone number.” She scribbled it down on a piece of paper and tried to hand it to Sophie, but when she didn’t take it, Mila stuffed it in the back pocket of Sophie’s jeans.
Fate. Was this really some kind of cosmic sign that she needed to start dating? She didn’t have to think long on that.
No.
It wasn’t a sign. It was a coincidence, and she wasn’t ready to risk her heart again on an eerie happenstance.
“Am I, um, interrupting anything?” someone asked from the doorway.
It was her sister-in-law, Meredith, looking her usual perfect self despite the fact Meredith wasn’t a morning person.
“Not interrupting a thing,” Sophie assured her.
“Sophie’s going on a date with this hunk,” her mother announced, turning the tablet so that Meredith could see Shane’s picture.
“No, I’m not,” Sophie mumbled, but she must not have said it loud enough because Meredith didn’t seem to hear her.
“Uh, that’s nice.” Meredith barely looked at the tablet. Barely looked at any of them. “I just wanted to let you know that I’ll be back in Austin for a while.”
Those Texas Nights Page 6
