Those Texas Nights

by Delores Fossen

  Z.T.’s old house.

  She climbed from the saddle and looped Moonlight’s reins around an old hitching post. Sophie hadn’t thought it possible, but the house looked worse every time she saw it. This was despite the maintenance the ranch hands did on it from time to time. The purple paint had blistered and was peeling in spots, and there were squirrels skittering across the leaf-strewn porch.

  No one had lived here since the sixties when it’d been occupied by her great-aunt Matilda. According to whispers Sophie had heard, Matilda had agoraphobia and had come here to get help from a doctor at the local hospital who’d dealt with that sort of disorder. Apparently, it’d worked because Matilda left after only a few months.

  There’d probably be spiders and other critters inside, but maybe during Garrett’s recent visits, he’d cleaned up a bit.

  He hadn’t.

  Sophie got proof of that when she went inside. There was a thick coating of dust on the floor. Cobwebs, confirming her spider theory. Judging from the tiny tracks in the dust next to Garrett’s footprints, they had a rodent problem, too.

  Clearly, this was not a thinking place after all, and she turned to leave when she took another look at the footprints. Garrett had a big foot, a size twelve, and these were smaller. She considered that maybe one of the hands had been out here.

  Or Tate.

  She took out her phone to text Roman and make sure her nephew hadn’t run away again, but the sound stopped her. Not just any old ordinary sound. But someone’s voice.

  “Sophie,” someone said. And it was a voice that she instantly recognized.

  Billy Lee Seaver was no longer missing.

  * * *

  WELL, THE SIGHT of Billy Lee was the cure for her tears, that’s for sure. Sophie no longer felt weepy, just really, really pissed off.

  “Don’t run,” Billy Lee told her.

  Sophie had no intention of running. But she did consider punching him. Not in his face, either, because she wouldn’t be able to hit hard enough to hurt him. But a swift kick to the balls should do it.

  “And don’t call the cops,” Billy Lee tacked onto that. “I hadn’t planned on you or anyone else seeing me, but now that you’re here, we need to talk before you do anything else.”

  She wasn’t sure how she could see him because her eyes had narrowed to the point of being painful, but she saw him start down the stairs. At least someone with Billy Lee’s voice did, anyway.

  The person was wearing a billowing white nightgown and nightcap that made him look as if he’d stolen Scrooge’s clothes. Except Sophie recognized that gown and droopy hat. It had been in a chest of old clothes stored in one of the bedrooms. She’d seen it there when she was a kid. However, she’d never seen Billy Lee’s bare legs. They were spindly and stuck out like hairy pretzel sticks from beneath the gown.

  “I had to wash my clothes,” Billy Lee said as if this were a normal conversation. “They’re not dry yet, and it was cold so I put these on.”

  Her eyelids weren’t the only thing narrowed and tight. Her jaw felt like stone.

  “I guess you’re wondering how I got here,” he added.

  “I’m wondering a lot of things,” she said through clenched teeth. “Where have you been all this time?’

  “A hotel at first. One of those fleabag places that didn’t cost too much. After that, I bought a truck and have been sleeping in that.” He scratched his head around the nightcap. “I drove the truck here, and it’s parked out back. I used the old trails to get here so that nobody from the ranch would see me. I’ve been staying here for the past couple of nights. There’s a decent bed in one of the rooms, and there were plenty of blankets in the attic.”

  She didn’t care a rat’s droppings about any of this. “What’d you do with the money you stole from us?”

  “I didn’t steal anything,” he insisted.

  Sophie made a show of looking him over from head to toe. “Innocent men don’t run, hide out and wear garbs like that.”

  She hadn’t meant to add that last part, but it was distracting. And ugly. If Victorian men went to bed looking like that, it’s a wonder how they managed to ever impregnate Victorian women.

  “Innocent men do if they don’t have any other options.” On a heavy sigh, Billy Lee sank down, his knees landing wide apart, and she hoped he’d found some spare underpants in that trunk. This visit was already disturbing enough without adding a gross peepshow. Of course, it would make it easier to kick him in the balls if it came to that.

  “The FBI doesn’t believe you’re innocent,” she fired back.

  “And what about you?” He lifted his head, met her gaze. “Do you honestly believe I’d steal from Garrett and you? You’re my goddaughter, for Christ’s sake.”

  Yes, she was. Sophie gave her own heavy sigh. “I don’t want to believe it, but Billy Lee, there’s a lot of evidence against you. The FBI found proof of embezzlement and money laundering. Did you know that they could have put Garrett and me in jail for that?”

  His eyes widened, and while she wanted to believe it was a genuinely surprised reaction, there were still too many unanswered questions.

  “What happened?” Sophie demanded.

  “Where do I start?” he mumbled. He did another head scratching, encountered the cap again and yanked it off his head. “Shortly before all of our lives took a ride on the highway to hell, I started noticing some anomalies. There were payments for some custom saddles to a start-up company, and on the surface it seemed legit, but the shipments from that company went missing at least half the time.”

  That was indeed an anomaly. A suspicious one.

  “I called one of the accountants, Martin Crowley,” Billy Lee continued, “and I asked him to give me all the records on the company. I wanted orders, invoices, tracking numbers...everything. That was the Friday before your wedding, and he said he would have it for me by the end of the day. He didn’t. So, the next morning, that Saturday, I went over to the admin building to see if Crowley had left the report on his desk.”

  Not a long trip. The admin building was just around the corner from the main offices, but it was the first Sophie was hearing about any of this.

  “Any reason you didn’t alert Garrett or me that there might be a problem?” she asked.

  “Because it wasn’t a problem. At least I didn’t think it was. I thought we were dealing with a company that didn’t know how to manage its inventory or shipping channels. It happens. Plus, you were about to get married, or so I thought, and I didn’t want to bother you with it. At that point, I was just looking for what was going wrong.” He paused. “And I found it.”

  “Found what?’ she pressed when he didn’t continue.

  Billy Lee groaned softly. “There was no sign of a report, but when I booted up Crowley’s computer, that’s when I found all kinds of fake files about sales that I know none of us authorized. And it was my name on those invoices. Sophie, it was hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

  She tried to process that, but her brain was on overload after looking through the files she’d gotten from Clay. Still, she wasn’t so overloaded that she couldn’t think of what to say because there was a really obvious thing that Billy Lee should have done.

  “Why didn’t you call the cops, Garrett or me right then and there?”

  “I’d planned to do just that,” he answered without hesitation, “but I kept looking, to see how far all of this went. I lost track of time, I guess, and then I got a call from Marcum. He said the cops were looking for me, that they thought I’d committed all these crimes. I didn’t.”

  She looked for holes in that story and soon found one. “Why didn’t you show the cops what was on Crowley’s computer?”

  “Crowley had set up a virus or something because while I was talking to Marcum, they disappeared. He deleted
them off the server.”

  “Those files turned up on your own computer,” Sophie pointed out.

  “Yes, but I didn’t put them there. That’s why I ran. I knew I was being set up and would be arrested. I couldn’t go to jail, Sophie. You know how I am about closed-in spaces.”

  She did. Billy Lee was definitely claustrophobic along with being seriously squeamish around anyone who farted. “That doesn’t explain why you didn’t call Garrett or me.”

  “Because I was trying to keep you two out of it. I wanted to go into hiding and catch Crowley.”

  “Trust me—you didn’t keep us out of it.” She huffed. “The FBI has investigated everyone who had a connection to Granger Western. Including Garrett and me. And I’m sure they’ve looked at Crowley and every computer ever associated with the business.”

  “I need them to look again. I was going to tell Arlo all of this so he could pass it along to the FBI, but now that you know, you can tell them.”

  “Arlo?” That gave her a new surge of anger, and the ball-kicking idea was regaining ground. “You planned to talk to him and not Garrett or me?”

  His gaze darted from hers. “I didn’t figure either of you wanted to hear anything I had to say. Plus, I’m...embarrassed.”

  “Well, you should be. Not just for not telling us this before now but for those god-awful clothes you’re wearing.”

  “Sophie?” someone called out.

  Clay.

  That caused her to freeze, and she wished Billy Lee had frozen, too, but he didn’t. He jumped up from the stairs and wasn’t mindful of the way the movement would swish the gown.

  And he was commando.

  Good gravy. Talk about an image she couldn’t unsee.

  “Sophie?” Clay, again.

  “Put on your clothes,” Sophie ordered Billy Lee, and she went outside and onto the porch. She was ready to blurt out that Billy Lee was there, but the words sort of died on her lips when she saw him.

  Clay was riding up on one of the horses from the stables. She’d seen him in cowboy mode before, of course, but the sight of him today caused her mouth to go a little dry. Maybe because he wasn’t just a cowboy cop, he was her cowboy cop lover. And she got a rush of all that attraction that had sent her to his bed.

  But it didn’t last.

  Because that troubled look on his face trumped her lustful thoughts and attraction-rush.

  “I was worried about you,” he said, getting off the horse. “Mila dropped by the office and said you were upset and crying.”

  “I didn’t cry in front of Mila,” she grumbled. But her friend knew her well enough to know the tears would come. She couldn’t exactly deny that she’d been crying, either, since her eyes were almost certainly red and puffy.

  “I came right over to the ranch,” Clay added before she could say anything else. “And one of the hands told me he saw you riding out in this direction. He said you hadn’t been gone long so I saddled up and came to find you.”

  Of course, someone had seen her. Despite the ranch being hundreds and hundreds of acres, it was almost impossible to find a hiding place. Even Billy Lee hadn’t found one for long.

  Clay came up the steps toward her. “You read the file.”

  She nodded, and while this conversation was important, it would have to wait. Sophie fluttered her fingers to the inside of the house. “I found Billy Lee.”

  Clay pulled back his shoulders, cursed and bolted past her. Even over the sound of his footsteps on the creaky floors, she heard something else.

  An engine.

  Mercy, no. Billy Lee couldn’t be running.

  Sophie was, though. So was Clay, and they followed the footprints in the dust to the back door. Which was wide-open. About ten yards away, she spotted a black truck. The one that Billy Lee had obviously parked in a cluster of trees.

  But it was no longer parked.

  Billy Lee was speeding away.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CLAY CURSED AGAIN, something he’d been doing all day. First, over Brody’s showing up at his house, then Mila’s visit to tell him how upset Sophie was over that file and now Billy Lee’s disappearing act.

  If Clay had been in his truck instead of on horseback, he could have caught up to the man and hauled him in. Or at least gotten close enough to read the license plate. But the horse hadn’t been much competition for Billy Lee’s truck, and the former CFO was on the lam again.

  Clay cursed now because there’d been no reports of anyone seeing Billy Lee in the four hours he’d been gone, and Rowdy, the deputy, hadn’t found anything inside Z.T.’s old house to indicate where Billy Lee might be heading. However, Rowdy had found the man’s pants, underwear and shirt drying on a makeshift clothesline in an upstairs bedroom. If Billy Lee was still wearing the garb that Sophie had described, then the moment he stepped out of his truck, he’d draw attention. If there was anyone around with attention to draw, that is. There were plenty of woods and trails where he could hide.

  “You still there?” Mike asked, coming back on the line. Clay wasn’t sure how long the agent had had him on hold, but he hoped it was worth the wait.

  “I’m here. Did you find out anything on Martin Crowley?” Clay had reported to Mike everything that Billy Lee had told Sophie, including the name of the man that Billy Lee thought was responsible for the financial fiasco.

  “I’d already investigated Crowley, of course, but I’m taking another look at him. Specifically looking to see if there’s any trace of those computer files that Billy Lee claims he saw.”

  Mike didn’t sound convinced of Billy Lee’s innocence. Neither was Clay, but he went back to one of his original questions. “Where’s the money? Because Billy Lee certainly isn’t living like a man who’s sitting on a fortune.”

  “The money trail might be impossible to trace. Billy Lee, Crowley or whoever’s responsible could have it stashed in offshore accounts. Or it could have been laundered in small enough amounts not to be noticed.”

  Yeah, Clay knew all of that, but it still didn’t make sense. “Billy Lee would have held back enough cash for living expenses.”

  And maybe he had. Maybe he’d already blown through what he had and for some reason couldn’t access his other funds. Hell, maybe someone had stolen the money from him. There really wasn’t much honor among thieves.

  “I’m bringing Crowley in for questioning in a couple of hours,” Mike went on. “I can pressure him, make him believe I have some evidence against him, but I’ve got squat unless something new turns up about those computer files Billy Lee says he saw.”

  Clay knew that, too, but sometimes people broke during interrogation. Sometimes, they just lawyered up. If Crowley did that, it might put a guilty light on him, but that didn’t mean it would clear Billy Lee of anything.

  There was a knock on his door, and Clay was about to shout out that he didn’t want visitors. But the door opened, and Sophie stuck her head inside.

  “Got a minute?” she asked.

  No, he didn’t, but he nodded anyway. “Call me after you’ve talked to Crowley,” Clay told Mike, and he ended the call.

  Sophie stepped into his office and closed the door behind her. Her eyes were no longer red from crying, but Clay figured her troubled look pretty much mirrored his.

  “I can’t stay long,” she said. “I’m on my way to talk to Mila. I want her to start texting me whenever she’s on one of her fantasy dates. Just so I’ll know she’s okay. But I wanted to drop by and see if there was anything new on Billy Lee.”

  “Nothing. Something might turn up on Crowley, though.” He wouldn’t get into the slim-to-none chance of that happening.

  “I’ve been going over everything Billy Lee said.” She stopped and shook her head. “I want to believe him.”

  Clay was sur
e she did, but there was doubt in her voice. “If he’s innocent, he probably wouldn’t have run,” Clay reminded her. “And yes, I know about his claustrophobia. Arlo mentioned it. But he must know what you and your family have been through. That should have outweighed the phobia.”

  “Yes, you’d think that.” Again there was doubt but not as much as Clay had expected there to be. “But Billy Lee’s always been an odd duck, which you probably also guessed since his closest friends were a guy who never bathes and my father, a man few people liked.”

  Yeah, he had guessed that, but he wasn’t giving Billy Lee any passes here. “At least we know he’s in the area, and if he’s as short on cash as he appears to be, he should turn up soon.”

  Now that Clay had addressed that, he needed to get something else off his chest. “Mila said you might be suicidal,” he explained. “That’s why I hurried out to the ranch.”

  Sophie frowned. “She told you that to get you to do exactly what you did—hurry to me. She wants us to kiss and make up.”

  He felt the tension in his stomach ease up a bit. Sophie hadn’t seemed like the suicide type, but then Clay knew he’d dumped a nightmare in the form of old baggage right in her lap.

  “Mila wouldn’t want that if she knew what was in that file,” Clay pointed out.

  “She does know. She was with me when I opened it.” Sophie went to him, gripped his arms and kissed his cheek. “Clay, I’m so sorry.” Then, she kissed him on the mouth.

  Sorry? That wasn’t the right response. She should have been disgusted with him. And she darn sure shouldn’t have been kissing him. It had to stop, and Clay thought he knew the fastest way to do that.

  “You need to know something else about Delaney,” he confessed. “I was in love with her.”

  She nodded. “I suspected as much. That’s probably why you took her death so hard.”

  Again, that wasn’t the right response. Clay huffed. “You should be horrified that I shot and killed the woman I loved. The sight of me should send you running to find someone suitable to live out that life plan of yours. Because I’m not life plan material, Sophie.”