Cowboy Trouble

by Joanne Kennedy

  The abandoned homestead was old fashioned and pic turesque, but it needed an awful lot of work. The porch roof sagged over broken pillars, and the windows hung crooked in their frames. Libby stepped up onto the porch and peered into the dark interior. An old wood-burning stove took up most of the far wall, along with an ancient refrigerator. A crowd of mismatched kitchen chairs clut tered the room, along with two battered wooden tables.

  She moved around to the back of the house and peeked through another window. A white canopy bed with frilly lace hangings dominated this room, and an old-fashioned dresser with an oval mirror stood against the far wall. Tiny glass horses bucked and reared in front of the mirror, and pictures of horses hung on the walls. The whole room was covered with a thin coat of dust. Libby wondered if Cash had a daughter he hadn't told her about. Maybe he'd been married before, she mused. This was clearly a room designed especially for a young girl. A horse-crazy teenager.

  Like Della.

  She framed her eyes with her hands to block out the sunlight and looked a little closer, then wished she hadn't.

  There was a pair of handcuffs hanging from the bedpost.

  Chapter 43

  LIBBY STARED AT THE HANDCUFFS, SO OUT OF PLACE among all the trappings of girlhood, and the sick feeling in her stomach intensified. She needed to go home. The scene in that bedroom told her everything she needed to know about Cash and his secrets.

  She remembered their meeting with Brandy. He'd looked so threatening, so intense. "I'm really good at tak ing care of things," he'd said. He was warning her. He was Della's secret lover—and he was afraid Brandy knew.

  Everything began to fall into place. The way he stared at Libby, looking almost angry. The way he fell silent when Josie called her a "commitmentphobe." The way he insisted he needed to be with her all the time, to pro tect her. His hostile attitude toward Luke. The man was obsessive—first about Della, now about her. Everything else was a cover-up—a thin fabric of lies to conceal his real nature.

  Brandy was right. He really was one of the bad guys.

  She glanced at her watch. 11:45. She had just enough time to get home before Luke started worrying.

  "Come on, dogs," she called. "Time to go." The tall grass rustled behind her as she turned away from the window. She blinked in the bright sun, squinting up at a looming silhouette. For half a second, she thought it was Luke. Then she took in the size of it, the breadth of the shoulders. It was Cash.

  "Libby," he said. He reached out and grabbed her arm.

  "Cash." The sight of him made her dizzy, and her heart fluttered high in her chest, stealing her breath. "You're home early." She tried to smile, but he must have real ized from her expression that she'd seen the room.

  That she knew.

  "I can explain this," he said, squeezing her arm.

  "You don't have to." She shook her arm free, and he let it go, dropping his arms to his sides but keep ing them bowed and stiff, like a gunfighter ready to draw. She scanned his hips and shoulders, checking for the bulk of a holster. As far as she could tell he was unarmed. "That was Della's room, wasn't it? Where is she, Cash? What happened?"

  "I don't know," he said, shaking his head. "Honestly, Libby, I don't know. She just never came back. I don't know why. I loved her."

  His voice broke on the last sentence. As far as Libby could tell, he was telling the truth. "That's sick, Cash," she said. "She was a child."

  "She was seventeen," he said. "Old enough."

  "Not according to the law."

  "She was a woman, Libby, I swear." He shook her arm roughly, as if he could force her to understand. "As much as you are. It was her that made it happen, not me. I wasn't looking for trouble. I wouldn't have touched her. But she kept rubbing up against me, touching me, looking at me that way. I couldn't help it. And then—it got to be so special. I loved her."

  He nodded toward the room. "I fixed this up for— for visits." Libby felt her stomach clench tight as a fist. "I set it up with all the things she liked—to make her feel at home when we were together. To show her—I don't know." He slumped his shoulders and unclenched his hands, looking away. "It didn't work anyway. She stopped coming. We only used it a couple times." He lifted his head and gave her a pleading look. "You won't tell, will you?"

  Sickened as she was by Cash's admission, Libby was even more repelled by his suggestion that she become a co-conspirator in his secret life.

  "I have to tell, Cash," she said.

  He lowered his head, and when he looked up again, his face was contorted with anger. Looking at him now, she wondered how she'd thought him attractive that first night at the Roundup. The angular jut of his cheekbones, the sharp-cut line of his jaw, the unearthly blue of his eyes—every facet of his appearance seemed frightening now as his mood shifted in a half-second from repentant to furious. He grabbed her arms, roughly this time, and almost jerked her off her feet as he shoved her against the wall of the house.

  "I didn't kill her," he said. "I had an affair with her, but I didn't kill her."

  She wanted to believe him. Could he be telling the truth? Maybe he'd really loved Della. Maybe it was like he said—she'd just stopped coming.

  "Nobody will believe you," he said, giving her an other shake. "And who are you going to tell? The state cops? They're all my friends, Libby. They're not going to listen to you."

  She didn't say a word—just nodded toward the win dow and the room beyond it.

  "That'll be gone," he said. "By the time anyone gets here, there won't be a shred of evidence left. You've got nothing, Libby." He moved closer, pressing up against her. She could smell his desperation as he clutched her arms tighter, his fists shaking. Blood rushed to his face and a sheen of sweat broke out on his brow and cheeks.

  "You've got worse than nothing," he said. His voice was hoarse and thick. "You've got me to deal with. Who knows you're here?" He shook her twice, hard. "Does anybody know?" He shook her, knocking the back of her head against the wall of the old house. His fists clenched tighter around her arms, almost lifting her off the ground as he stared into her eyes with frightening intensity.

  "Luke knows," she said. "He'll be here any minute. You'd better let me go."

  Cash glanced wildly right and left, then grabbed her arm and hauled her away from the house. Dammit, why had she spilled the beans about Luke? All he had going for him was surprise. He had no idea what he was walking into.

  Dragging her into the barn, Cash fumbled with the padlock on the tack room door. The horse screamed as he flung it open and shoved her inside.

  "Wait there," he said. "I'll take care of you later."

  Chapter 44

  LIBBY COWERED IN THE HAY AS SKYDANCER REARED and let out another panicked shriek. Great. If the sheriff didn't get around to killing her, the horse probably would. There was no sound from outside. What had hap pened to her dogs? She strained her ears, trying to hear what was going on outside, but the room was paneled, and apparently insulated. She remembered how muffled Skydancer's whinnies had been. No one would hear her if she screamed. And for all she knew, Cash was out there killing her dogs one by one. She stifled a sob.

  The horse had stopped screaming, but his eyes were rolling crazily, and his face was pulled taut by a distorted grimace that made every vein stand out.

  "Skydancer," she said softly. "It's all right, Skydancer." She tried to remember the Spanish name Larissa had mentioned. "Cielo?"

  He calmed a little. She tried to remember how you were supposed to approach a frightened horse, what you were supposed to do, but all she could remember was how to hypnotize a chicken, and that probably wouldn't work. Skydancer might have lost his mind, but he was still probably smarter than a chicken.

  "Look, baby, I won't hurt you. And if we ever get out of here, I'll introduce you to a friend of mine." She remembered Luke's soothing touch, his caring gaze. He'd calmed her own fears; she had no doubt he could do the same for this frightened, damaged horse. "He'll fix you right up."

&n
bsp; She sat up and pulled Luke's jacket off her shoul ders, then rolled it into a ball and rested her head on the worn corduroy. It smelled faintly of woodsmoke and leather, with a hint of horse. The scent stirred up her memory, bringing a series of images to the surface— Luke stacking hay, Luke lying on her sofa asleep, Luke standing beside her, drying dishes as she washed them. Luke bringing her tea the morning after Crazy Mike's attack. Luke touching her hair, tucking a flyaway strand behind her ear. Luke kissing her, holding her.

  She glanced at her watch. It was almost noon. She pictured Luke pulling into Cash's driveway; Cash run ning out of the house, gun raised; the windshield of Luke's truck exploding in a spider web of cracks around a jagged bullet-hole.

  And she saw her life stretching out in front of her, empty as the barren plains outside the barn.

  She had to do something. She couldn't just lie here and let Luke walk into a trap. Standing up, she shrugged into Luke's jacket. A bulletproof vest might have been a better choice, but the jacket would have to do.

  She closed her eyes, trying to remember the hasp that held the tack room door closed. It had been old, and it hung crooked.

  Maybe she could break it. She glanced around the room, searching for a tool. A crowbar would have been nice, but all she could find was a shovel. She snatched it up and shoved the blade between the door and the jamb.

  Skydancer snorted and jerked his head back, then let out a panicked neigh and extended his neck toward her, teeth snapping inches from her sleeve. Instinctively, she spun and he stumbled backward, his eyes on the blade of the shovel as it swung toward him. She hadn't meant to scare him, dammit. She just needed him to stay back.

  "Just let me get out of here, baby," she whispered. "I'll come back for you, I promise."

  She wedged the shovel blade in the door again and shoved the handle hard. The top of the door popped open and slammed against the wall. Skydancer flattened himself against the far wall, ears back, trembling, and she vaulted over the lower half of the door.

  She was free. Now what? She edged along the barn wall, making for the door. Maybe Luke was here. Maybe it was going to be okay.

  Or maybe Cash had already gunned him down.

  ***

  She stepped out of the barn, half-expecting a scene out of the Charlie Manson playbook—bodies and blood strewn around the landscape, bloating and baking under the sun. But the place was eerily quiet. Luke's truck wasn't there, and Cash's cruiser was gone.

  Gone? Where would he go? Maybe he was trying to cut Luke off. Or maybe he'd gone off to hide the evi dence somewhere off the property.

  She stepped out into the sunlight, the gravel crunch ing underfoot sounding like fireworks to her hyper alert senses.

  "Hello?" Her voice came out in a shattered croak. She tried again. "Penny?"

  She took one step away from the barn, then two, walking like a cat in wet grass, mincing over the lawn to the old house behind the barn and peering into the window of Della's room. Cash hadn't actually removed anything but the handcuffs, but the room looked utterly different—and totally unlike an actual room. It looked more like the rest of the house—like a storage area, with the bed and dresser shoved up against the wall, the pictures removed from the walls and piled on the floor. If she'd seen the room she was looking at now, she never would have suspected its true use.

  A sharp bark sounded from behind the barn. She glanced around the corner and there was Rotgut, covered in cow shit. He was beyond hearing her, but he wasn't dead like she'd feared. Instead, he was still feverishly digging at the manure pile with the blind concentration Jack Russells bring to everything they do.

  "Come on, Rotty," she called, her voice quavering. At least she had one dog left. "Time to go." She strode briskly toward her truck, hoping he'd follow, but he barely lifted his head from the hole where his frantic paws were tossing up a cloud of flaked manure.

  Libby walked over to pick up the dog, intending to carry his struggling body back to the truck, but she caught a glint of sunlight sparking off something where he'd been digging.

  "What did you find, buddy?" Her stomach clenched with dread. "Come on. Just leave it."

  The dog ignored her, paws scrambling, dirt flying. She watched, frozen in fear and fascination, as he un covered his treasure. Then he yipped once and disap peared into the ground as it gave way beneath him.

  Libby knelt and shoveled dirt away with her hands, uncovering the hole he'd fallen through, her stomach heaving in anticipation of what she'd find. The hole was about two feet long and a foot wide, and it opened into a cavernous underground space. She reached in and grabbed the dog, hauling him out by the scruff of his neck. Then she braced herself and looked inside.

  It was a car. She'd uncovered the open sunroof, which let in just enough light so she could make out the compost-heaped seats and the steering wheel. She peered inside. There was nothing in there but a couple of beer cans and some fast-food wrappers. A graduation tassel hung from the rearview mirror.

  This had to be Della's car. Buried under the manure pile at Cash's house.

  Libby straightened, her mind scrambling, readjusting to the sure knowledge that Cash had, in fact, killed Della.

  He must have. He had Della's horse. He'd hidden her car. And that room…

  She didn't know why he hadn't killed Libby herself yet. Maybe she'd just gotten lucky, but she didn't expect that luck to hold out for long. "Come on," she whispered to Rotgut.

  Maybe she could get away. Or maybe Luke would finally get here.

  She hoped Cash hadn't intercepted him somehow.

  She'd barely taken one step toward freedom when she heard the sound of an engine roaring up the driveway, then cutting off. Gravel crunched in the driveway.

  Someone was coming. Please, please, let it be Luke, she thought. Please.

  A car door slammed and someone swore in a low, angry voice.

  It wasn't Luke.

  Chapter 45

  CASH STEPPED AROUND THE CORNER, HIS FACE SET IN A tense scowl. Rotgut ran at him, barking, and Cash kicked him out of the way. The little dog hightailed it around the side of the barn, yelping with pain.

  "Having an interesting time, Libby?" he asked. Casually, he leaned against the corner of the barn. This time he was armed. He pulled his sidearm from the holster and eyed her through the sights. "Got the case cracked now, don't you?"

  "No, Cash," she stammered. "I know it looks bad, but I figure you've got an explanation. I mean, you didn't want anyone to know the car was here. That's okay. You probably found her, didn't you? You knew she was dead, and you didn't want to tell her mother, right? Or something like that. There are lots of reasons for the car to be here, Cash."

  "No, there's only one reason, and you know what it is," Cash said grimly. "What are we going to do here, Libby?"

  He was going to shoot her. That much was obvious— unless she could think of something to say—something that would make him give up. Something that would speak to his good side. He had to have a good side, didn't he? Doesn't everyone?

  Her mind dashed through every true crime book she'd ever read, looking for a way out of this situation. Murderers had big egos, didn't they? Maybe she could convince Cash she was in love with him. Too much in love to tell. The idea made her sick, but it was worth a try. "It's okay, Cash. I won't tell," she said. "I understand."

  "Sure you do," he said roughly. "You don't under stand, Libby. The only thing you understand is that damned career of yours. You'd be the big hero, wouldn't you, if you found Della? The big investigative reporter who made a fool of the town sheriff. Well, that's never going to happen. Not in my town."

  Stepping forward, he raised the gun and cocked it. Libby grabbed a shovel that was slanted into the dung heap and swung it at him, but he grabbed it with one hand and wrenched it away, spinning it and slamming the blade against the side of her head. She barely had time to see the rusty metal coming toward her before the whole world exploded in a flash of pain. You re ally do see stars when som
ebody hits you on the head, she thought. Green ones, and purple. Her legs collapsed beneath her.

  When she came to, Cash was bending over her. She started to reach for him to pull herself up, then thought better of it. If he thought she was unconscious, or even dead, he'd be more careless. Maybe he'd slip up and she could get away.

  She visualized herself as a sack of sand and went limp as he lifted her, letting her mouth hang open. She even drooled a little bit. Usually she drooled for a different reason around men, and she faked something other than unconsciousness once in a while, but this had turned into a different kind of relationship. He swung her over his shoulder—it was all she could do not to yelp—and car ried her over to the dung heap.