Killer Reads: A Collection of the Best in Inspirational Suspense

by Luana Ehrlich

  She quickly skimmed through the rest in her size and lifted up the last one. A peacock-blue two-piece. The top reminded me of the type of thing starlets wore during Hollywood's golden age. The bottoms were boy-shorts. "And this?"

  I took half a step back and scrutinized it. "There's something catchy about it."

  She took all the suits and disappeared into the dressing room. Hangers clattered. After close to ten minutes she came out in the peacock-blue suit. "This is the only one I liked. Catchy enough?"

  "Wow, yeah. Beguilin', in a classy way."

  I pulled out my credit card at the register, but she absolutely refused to allow me to purchase the suit for her. After she paid, we piled into the Ram and headed for Route 277.

  I gave her a broad wink. "How about another challenge. Bet I beat you at miniature golf."

  Her eyes sparkled. "You're on. Of course, you know I cheat."

  I stifled a grin. This was going to be quite a day. Fantastic.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Buzzard Mountain

  Day Fourteen, Late Morning

  Veronica "Ronnie" Ingels, PI

  Roustabout Adventure Land sat at the bottom of a low, rounded peak covered in scraggly pine and what I'd come to learn were Texas ash. My mind's eye conjured up a solitary Native American warrior, in the distance, mounted on his painted pony. This was lonesome, gorgeous country and it was slowly captivating me.

  Hughes found a spot for the Ram in the parking lot. We took a trolley designed to resemble the pioneer steam engines that had traversed the old west. It soon deposited us at the front gate where Hughes paid the entrance fee.

  To our left, a gargantuan acrylic cowboy wearing chaps and waving a ten-gallon hat beckoned us to play miniature golf. To our right, the water park's lazy river coursed by. We opted to first work up a sweat putting around the golf course, and then cool off in an inner tube floating along with other park goers.

  I hit a hole-in-one on my first try and the ball eased through the front door of a tiny ranch house.

  Hughes eyebrows rose. "You said you cheated, not that you were a putt-putt golf pro."

  As much as I would've liked him to believe that, I knew my performance at the next hole would give me away. I shrugged. "Lucky shot."

  It took Hughes two shots to get the ball into the hole on his next try. Just as I had supposed, I smacked the ball into the horse's head emerging from the barn's half-door at the second hole. The ball sailed past the next two holes and wound up in some tall grass. Hughes laughed while I hustled to retrieve it.

  As far as I was concerned the third hole was war. Hughes took two shots and still hadn't driven his ball into the hole. I gasped and pointed at a mousy-brunette with chin-length hair. "Isn't that Arroyo's mayor?" When Hughes turned to look, I kicked his ball five feet farther away from the hole.

  He turned back shaking his head in the negative, then noticed his ball. "Hey!"

  I wagged my head with faux smugness. "Told you I cheat."

  After that, he didn't have a prayer.

  At the ninth hole, he came up behind me. Circling me with his arms, he repositioned my hands on the club, pulled it back, and guided me to smoothly strike the ball with some force. It stopped two inches from the hole.

  When he released me, my arms tingled with an electric current where his skin had touched mine. I forced myself to focus on what I had to do next, walked toward my ball, and tapped it into the hole.

  He clapped. "See, you only have to improve your form and you'll play much better." Then he slanted his head to the side and peered at me. "On second thought, I can't see a thing wrong with your form."

  His gaze had an unsettling effect on me. I tugged at the side-seams of the pair of navy Capri pants I'd picked up the week before at Wal-Mart's. My mouth went dry. Was this where I wanted to go? What if it wound up like every other relationship I'd ever had? Shattered.

  He strode toward me and retrieved my ball and handed it to me. After walking back to the tee, he made a hole-in-one.

  The game was on again for the remaining nine holes. I won, but only due to masterful cheating.

  We stopped for lunch at the park's Hacienda Food Court. After ordering two taco platters with large Cokes, we took our trays and sat at a bright red plastic picnic table. We both grabbed for the small packets of hot sauce and his hand rested on top of mine.

  In a slalom-like motion, he lightly traced my fingers, one then the next, with his index finger. Heat raced up my arm. "You have lovely, fingers. Have you ever considered hand-modelin'?"

  Now my cheeks burned. Handling complements gracefully wasn't in my repertoire of social skills. "Not really. I sometimes think of them in terms of pulling a trigger."

  He turned my hand over. "And what a lovely trigger finger you have."

  "How you do go on." I grinned. Only two law enforcement types could turn the subject of trigger fingers into something sensual. Which probably meant he was as awkward at romance as I was. Oh, brother.

  Somehow we managed to finish lunch without stumbling over our intentions, whatever they might be, which was unclear… and without making complete fools of ourselves.

  We changed into our swim suits and Hughes insisted on lifting me into my inner tube at the lazy river. I fought the objection on the tip of my tongue and allowed myself to melt into his arms. For a mere moment, I rested my head against his shoulder. Then he released me and I plopped into the tube. Cool water splashed over me, which felt wonderful, but not as wonderful as Hughes' shoulder had.

  We each sat in our own tubes, holding hands as we floated with the current. An invisible sound system played the old Bing Crosby song, "I'm An Old Cow Hand."

  Hughes sang along at the refrain. "Yippie ki yo ki yay."

  All I could think of was the Bruce Willis take on it in one of the Die Hard movies. I shook my head to dispel the image of the Willis character and his daughter with guns to their heads. Mark had been shot in the head.

  My hand bore down on Hughes' hand, squeezing it none too gently.

  His head jerked toward me. "Are you okay?"

  "I'm fine. It's just when you hit those high notes, I'm afraid you might attract buzzards."

  "Well, this is Buzzard Mountain, so that might be possible." He laughed.

  We drifted past the cattle round up with its piped in mooing sounds. Then it was on to the Painted Desert, and the Can-Can Saloon, after that Rustler's Cove. We finally made a full circle and, quite aptly, jumped out of our tubes at the sheriff's office and jail.

  Hughes wrapped his arm around my waist and guided me into Waterfall Fantasia, a series of waterfalls that increased in intensity. The first was a gentle spray, the second cascaded upon us. The third, quite unexpectedly, had an alcove in the fake boulders behind it. Hughes led me into the recess and pulled me toward him. His lips found mine. He kissed me gently, then captured my lips again. As the passion of this kiss increased, his hands caressed my back.

  I slid my arms around his neck and pressed my body to his, allowing him to kiss me with abandon. Then, without warning, in one sudden movement, I jerked away and ran under the large thunderous waterfall as fast as I could. Tears coursing down my face were sloughed away by the torrential onslaught. I gasped for breath, swallowed water, and started choking.

  Hughes materialized at my side and whisked me out of the roaring waterfall. He brushed strands of hair off my face that had fallen out of my ponytail. "I'm sorry. I rushed things. Just give me the chance to apologize."

  I turned my back on him. "Don't you get it? It's not you, Hughes, it's me. It's always me. I can't do this."

  He circled his hand around my shoulder and shepherded me to one side of the raging waterfall just outside of most of its spray. "We don't have much privacy here, but at least we can't be overheard. And I don't want you to blame yourself for anythin'." He had raised his voice a decibel to overcome the sound of the water barrage.

  "You're not hearing me." I stamped my foot.

  He stroked
my face. "I take full responsibility for all this awkwardness between us."

  I grabbed him and shook him. "How can I make you hear me? Do I have to spell it out for you? I'm lousy at intimacy. I get skittish, scared. Aw, heck… even go all cold fish. I thought Mark understood, but apparently not. He took another lover."

  He clasped both my hands in his and kissed them. "I've always believed the best part of makin' love is truly and deeply bein' in love with your spouse... the person you trust with your deepest, darkest secrets and fears. Modus operandi isn't so important."

  I clung to him and sobbed.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Arroyo

  Day Fifteen, Morning

  Veronica "Ronnie" Ingels, PI

  His back is to me. I drop my Barbie doll, the one he gave me. I'm running, running toward him, but I'm not getting closer. I cry out, "Daddy. Daddy!" He won't turn to face me. Why is his back always to me?

  Green mist swirls around the playground jungle-gym and sandbox. Dad stands outside the fence surrounding the play area. His back still to me, he chats with a smiling man in a pinstripe suit and horned rimmed glasses. The slide shape-shifts into a roller coaster and Dad's companion collects tickets. He beckons to me. "Come for a ride, little girl."

  The mist turns yellow and the slide returns to its regular shape and size. The man climbs up the slide's ladder. At the top, he waves to a woman flying on a trapeze who looks just like my mom. He walks to the front door of the fun house, knocks, and in a singsong voice taunts, "You can't hide from me. I know you're in there."

  More knocking.

  Kicking at the damp sheet didn't free me of it. I'd twisted myself into some kind of cocoon. My PJs were soaked, and sticking to my skin. "Just a minute," I croaked.

  "Oh, Ronnie, I just want to make sure you're okay. You overslept." Bertha's voice is filled with concern.

  I grabbed my alarm clock and stared at it through bleary eyes. It hadn't rung. I was now half an hour late for my breakfast shift. "Sorry, I'll be right down. Sorry."

  "Aw, honey, don't feel sorry. If you're all right, that's all that matters."

  "I'm fine, really I am. I don't know why my alarm didn't go off." I had just put on my most cheerful voice and hated that I sounded so much like my mother.

  It had been years since I'd dreamt my dad wouldn't look at me. I'd often had this type of nightmare as a little girl when my mom responded to my dad's transgressions with overly cheerful displays, which were invariably met by his silence. This nocturnal haunting stopped when I went to college. When I returned home, the dream reoccurred but not with any great frequency. Eventually it stopped all together.

  But who was the man with the glasses? He was a new addition to this alarming scenario. Something about him niggled at me. I brushed the feeling aside. That the dream had come back, more vivid and disturbing than before, could only mean I was under greater stress than I realized.

  Years ago, I told my mother about the original dream starring my dad as its sole character. She'd held me in her arms, kissed my brow, and advised me not to read too much into it. For some strange reason, that one time, I agreed with her.

  After rubbing the sand out of my eyes, I stretched, but the lethargy, as the aftermath of the dream, had a grip on me. I struggled into a pair of jeans, pulled on a tee, and splashed water on my face. Thankfully, it was easy to pull my hair into its usual ponytail. I hustled down the stairs and into the dining room, grabbed the aspirin bottle under the counter and dry swallowed two. Anything that might put a dent in the throbbing at my temples. "Sorry, sorry. I overslept."

  My cheering section at the counter all wanted more coffee.

  "Fill 'er up, sleepin' beauty." Amos chortled, while plucking at his red suspenders. One of them slipped out of his fingers and snapped back, hitting his chest. "Ouch."

  Curly ignored his friend's pain and focused on me, grinning. "Now, don't you go and strain yerself, none."

  "You sure you got yerself enough rest?" Jasper tugged on his mustache.

  The front door opened with such force the trio gave up their poor excuses for joking.

  Everyone turned around to look.

  A rail thin figure in black, skin-tight jeans and black hand-tooled, western riding-boots strode in. From the waist up, the individual sported a neon-yellow hoodie with the brim of a black baseball cap protruding low on the brow. Just under that, a huge pair of silver aviator glasses sat on a perky nose. That facial feature, the only indication this was a woman.

  I came around the counter and pointed to a booth in the front.

  She swept by me. The back of the hoodie read 'CHANEL' in block letters. The second indication this was most likely a woman.

  Amos grabbed hold of his suspenders again and gave a low, "Woo-wee."

  Curly blurted, "Now, ain't that a sight to behold."

  Jasper looked as if he might pull one side of his mustache off. "All that yeller, like to blind a body."

  I took two steps, following her. "Any booth in the back is fine. I'll bring you coffee and a menu."

  She glanced over her shoulder at me, but kept walking. "Could you make it herbal tea? Any variety is fine. I don't need a menu."

  I knew that voice. The question was, from where? "Oh, sure. Milk, honey, or lemon?"

  "Just honey."

  I pivoted and headed behind the counter to get the hot tea.

  She walked to the last booth and paused as if she couldn't decide which side to sit on. After a quick pivot and an intense scrutiny of the front door, she took the far side. This gave her a clear view of the entrance. She craned her neck once as if to test that.

  A moment later, I set down a cup of cranberry-apple tea. "Will there be anything else?"

  She removed the glasses, and Uma Kantrel peered up at me, eyes wild, akin to those of a cornered cat. "I have to talk to you."

  I slid into the booth opposite her. "You wanna tell me what this is all about?"

  She mixed two teaspoons of honey into the tea, but said nothing.

  I waited. The pounding in my head had not diminished any, so I was glad for a moment of quiet.

  She took a sip of the tea. "I caught Cassidy and Reece together." She ducked her head so low I could barely hear her words. One of them sounded like witch, but I'd bet anything it started with a B.

  "When did this happen? You were with Morgan when he left the funeral to pick Cassidy up at the airport."

  "He dropped her off at her apartment, but then said he was tired and dropped me off at my bungalow. I never was the jealous type, but see, he'd been getting all these nonstop calls from her while she was in New York." She had a slight accent. Maybe Alaskan? Her cadence was like that of the former governor.

  "I understand." Boy, did I. The ache in my gut was still hollow and deep. "I guess with Mark gone, she has to steal somebody else's man."

  "Oh, no, it didn't go down that way. They set him up… um, your husband, Mark, that is."

  I raised my hand, palm out, to her in a stopping gesture. "Hold on. How do you know that?"

  "Okay, so, let me backtrack and tell you everything." She shot a feral look at the front door and then slouched down, making herself smaller in the chair. "When Reece told me he was tired last night and wasn't going to come in, I acted like it was fine and dandy with me. I went into my place and turned on the vestibule and living room lights, but as soon as he pulled out of the driveway, I left the house and ran for my car. I broke every speed limit, ran half the stop signs, and beat the louse to Cassidy's apartment building."

  That's what hurt and jealousy will do to a woman. Turn her into a maniac behind the wheel with no regard to her safety or anybody else's.

  "Cassidy never loved Mark. She was trying to get him hooked on drugs so she could stop doing the fandango with him… if you know what I mean. But he wasn't a druggie. He was more of a health nut."

  My back went ramrod stiff. "So, she killed him."

  "Oh, I have no idea who killed him, but I do know why he fre
aked-out two days before he was murdered."

  My mouth went dry. "Why?"

  "I don't want to talk here. There's no telling who's involved, or who might drop in for a bite to eat and then innocently say something that gets back to the spa. I'm not even taking a chance on my car being seen here. I borrowed my neighbor's van and wore this get up."

  I nearly laughed. "You thought nobody would spot you in canary yellow?"

  "They might, but they wouldn't know it was me as long as my pink hair was covered. I grabbed the hoodie on my way out." She gave a small shrug.

  "Where do you want to talk?"

  Her eyes darted toward the door again. "Give me a head start so I can stay ahead of you in Abilene traffic. I'll drive into the next county and meet you at the penny arcade in Clyde."

  My mouth went dry, or drier than it had been. If this was a trap and anything happened to me there, Hughes would have no jurisdiction in the next county. "Let me think about where to meet. I've got about twenty minutes left to my shift and I'll let you know then."

  She gave the Uma pout. "I don't feel comfortable sitting here."

  "Pull the van around to the back of the Chuck Wagon and park there."

  I drove myself crazy looking at the clock on the wall, not to mention trying to figure out how to waylay a trap, if one had been planned.

  After my shift, I walked out the back door. A fanny pack for a concealed weapon sat on my left hip with my Glock inside, my banker's special strapped to my ankle. I rapped at the driver's window of the van and she lowered it. "Let's meet one hundred yards south of the Bar None Stables in Buffalo Gap."

  She nodded. "Okay."

  "Drive around front and wait for me to pull out. I want to leave first."

  She nodded again and started the van's engine.

  I walked through the diner slowly, giving her plenty of time to phone any accomplice, if there was one, with the new location. When I got out front, I tapped her window again. "Changed my mind. I want to go west to Merkel."

  Her nose wriggled. "Merkel? Where in Merkel?"