If Mallory didn’t call, then who did? And why?
The winding curves suited my sedan, but the brake pedal felt sticky. Every time I touched it I felt as though it became less responsive. I only hoped it would hold out until I made it back to the ranch.
As the next corner rounded out, I set my foot to the brake, but it compressed to the floor without any effect. I pumped the gas again, but nothing. I heard my wheels squeal as I turned another corner with increased speed. Car horns blared as I narrowly avoided a collision. Though the stretch of winding road was short, it was all downhill. Driving had never been one of my talents. I certainly had never been one to test the limits. But I knew that if I could make it through a couple more turns, the road would straighten out and I’d have a chance at stopping.
I gripped the emergency brake and pulled it, but only until I felt resistance. The car shook and swerved against the force. I let go of the brake and clutched the wheel with both hands, experiment failed in my mind. My thoughts tumbled out of control, disjointed and without organization. Ahead, the road veered in a turn I couldn’t make. I pulled the emergency brake as a last resort. The car screeched in protest. I struggled for control, but the wheels locked. The world blurred as the car spun. I slowed under the pressure of the emergency brake, but not enough to stop.
The tree rushed into my vision. Breaking glass filled my ears as my car crumbled in the crash. White exploded as my air bag released. The car lurched to a stop. Pain surged through me. My body trembled beneath the stress. Consciousness faded to black.
♦ ♦ ♦
For the second time that year, I woke up in a hospital. Dixie slept nearby. Isabelle slept curled up on a couch in the corner. I tried to move my head, but my muscles protested in pain.
My cries woke Isabelle, but of course Dixie didn’t move.
Isabelle stood and rushed to my side, “Lindy, you’re awake.”
Awake was a relative term. I was conscious and that felt like enough. I wanted to reprimand her for using my name, but who was I kidding, nothing could wake Dixie.
My voice was hoarse as I spoke. “What happened? How long have I been out?”
Isabelle sank into the chair closest to my bed. “Less than a day. It’s a miracle you weren’t killed in that accident.”
“It wasn’t an accident,” I said in my husky voice.
“What?” Isabelle asked. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I know my car. I bet you that the brake line was sabotaged.” My eyes closed without my consent and I struggled to open them again. “Mallory never called, it was a message to get me out and I don’t know why.”
Tate. His name stuck to me like flypaper. He’d passed on the message. Maybe there had never been a call in the first place. No. I couldn’t allow the thought. Tate was Ryder’s uncle. Someone else had set me up.
“You’re not making any sense,” Isabelle’s full lips pulled thin and tight as the concern took over. “Listen, Spencer is trying to get you out of here early. Detectives don’t have very much pull in hospitals, but he’s worried that we won’t keep your real identity a secret in here.” She shot a furtive glance in Dixie’s direction. “I’ll leave you here with Dixie, and I’ll try to see if I can get things moving. Ryder is on his way. He’ll be here tonight.”
“No,” I said through the haze. “Not Ryder, it’ll raise too many questions. Get me back to the ranch. Someone wanted me out of the picture for awhile.” I winced as I struggled to shift. “Get me back to work before someone else dies.”
She started to speak, but instead she pushed herself up to stand. “Ryder’s worried sick about you, calling every night and—” she caught herself before she said too much. “He’s not going to be happy about this.”
I groaned and considered pulling the IV from the back of my hand. “What’s new?”
♦ ♦ ♦
Even with Detective Dayton and Isabelle both working on my release, paperwork takes time. When Dixie woke up again, we begged a worn deck of cards off of a nurse and played a wild game of Go Fish.
In the world of child psychology, play is used in therapy to facilitate a safe environment. Therapists use play in conjunction with traditional talk therapy to ease the patient and enable more liberated information disclosure. Other branches of therapy have adopted the same theory, equine facilitated mental health, marriage camps that use group work and role play to aid in deep set conflict resolution, and others. As I played go fish with Dixie in a dimly lit hospital room, I realized why. With her hands busy, her words became loose.
“What’s going on with you and Wiley?”
Her lips scrunched to one side as she considered her answer. “I don’t know. Winston can be real charming sometimes, but he has his secrets. Do you have any queens?”
I set two cards in front of her. “Winston? Is that Wiley’s real name?” Then I added, “Do you have any fours?”
“Well, you didn’t think he was actually named Wiley Fox, did you?” Her eyes flitted back and forth as she considered her next move. “I doubt Winston is the name on his birth certificate. Hardly any of us go by our real names.”
I adjusted in my bed and managed not to wince too badly. “Dixie isn’t your name?”
“Do you have any eights?” she asked, as if she hadn’t heard my question.
“Go fish,” I replied. I watched without breaking my concentration, but she kept her sight trained on the cards in front of her. Every muscle in her face twitched, as if she was trying to appear interested in her hand. Who was she kidding? It was a game of Go Fish.
After a full minute of my persistent stare, she broke. “Okay, my name is Delores, but I come from the heart of Dixieland so everyone calls me Dixie, at least while I’m at the Rockin’ B.”
“You have other names?” I asked.
“Most of us do,” she said as she shifted her cards around in her hand. “When I work on the east coast they call me Sunshine. I have a job I sometimes work over the spring in the Rocky Mountains. They call me Gypsy.” Her nose crinkled for a moment, “When I’m home in Louisiana and I work at the hospital, I go by Dorey.” She squinted like a card shark. “Got any kings?”
I matched her persona and lowered my voice. “Go fish.” She giggled at my act and drew a card. With the utmost caution I asked, “What do you do at the hospital?”
She groaned. “I work in the lab. It’s horrible. The worst. I’m cooped up all day, dealing with people who are dumber than dirt.” She raised a hand above her head. “I swear on a bible, they’re idiots.”
The idea of Dixie working in a hospital was odd. Her carefree, face in the sun attitude was a waste cooped up in a lab. Dallas had told me about his nomad lifestyle, but I’d thought his was the exception, not the rule.
“Does everyone have these other lives?”
She shrugged. “We aren’t the type to get tied down. I know that’s odd to someone as grounded as you are, but without a fancy school and a whole lot of family, we make our own way in the world.”
I realized it was my turn and asked, “Do you have any aces?”
Her blonde hair wasn’t as silky after a night in a hospital chair, and it clung like a helmet as she shook her head. “Go fish.” She shuffled her cards in her hand again and said, “I think Two-Bit has a food truck he drives around some city. His name is Raul, so you can see why he’d rather have a nickname. Phoenix fixes tractors when he’s not riding. Sixes?”
I handed her two cards and hoped she’d keep talking. She slipped the cards in with her set and smiled broadly. “They only call him Phoenix because he’s from Arizona. No one knows his real name, or his last name for that matter. I guess a lot of us have a secret side.”
“Jacks?” I asked, careful to keep the game moving. She shook her head and as I drew a jack from the pile I asked, “What about Tate?”
Her eyebrows folded inward. “He’s your uncle, don’t you know?”
I back pedaled. “Well, I’m always off at school. He’s here every ti
me I visit, but I don’t know what he does with his time the rest of the year.”
It was good enough for her. “Tate has a place in Pocatello, but I’m sure you knew that, and I’ve heard he has another place in Arizona. Rumor is he can’t go there because of some trouble with the law, assault charge. But it’s probably gossip the old packers made up.” Dixie’s smile spread across her face. “Look, I won.” She laid her cards on my table like a turkey’s fan.
I let myself fall back against my bed. “So you did.” My gaze fell on the doorway and I wondered for the tenth time that day if Ryder would ignore his mother and come any way. I’d tried to justify my need to see him with our existing friendship, but rationally I knew it was more than that.
“I feel bad that I’m keeping you from work,” I said, and it was true. There had to be something better to do than sit around with me. “I’m sure you were scheduled for something.”
Dixie stacked the cards and began to shuffle the deck. “The schedule is a joke. Those of us who’ve been around the Rockin’ B long enough know how to work it. Tate thinks Alexa is on an overnight, but really she’s meeting that bartender in town. As long as she’s at camp by dinner, no one cares. Phoenix and Wiley switch off all the time, one stays and one leaves. Last trip I went on, Dallas cooked for me and I went into town and got a pedicure. Sometimes I call in rides that don’t exist, so I can get a little spare moment of peace. Half the time we swap and Tate and Isabelle have no idea.” Dixie’s mouth fell open as she remembered I was related to her employers. “Oh please don’t tell them. I love working at the Rockin’ B.”
I looked down at my hands to disguise the rapid succession of thoughts in my mind. “Oh don’t worry, I won’t say anything.”
I processed what she’d said and thought of my chart that matched availability with opportunity. If Dixie was right, then the schedule was wrong, even someone who had been gone would still have every opportunity to slip away and… My mouth went dry as I realized I was back at square one, every member of the staff was a suspect again.
“Any way, don’t worry about me and work. I was due for a day off and the pudding here is better than the ranch.”
Her words didn’t register. The realization of how very little I’d accomplished crushed me. After a month, all I had to show was a fake relationship with a cowboy, and a pile of bodies I’d been unable to save.
A knock at my door drew my attention, but my heart sank as I saw Isabelle. Her soft tone almost had me convinced we were family as she said, “Come on Cass, it’s time to come home.”
Chapter 25
Isabelle didn’t take me back to the ranch. Instead, she brought me to the county morgue. We took the elevator to the basement where the air was as chilly as Isabelle herself.
“Spencer wants you to see the body,” she said as she pushed open two swinging doors. Officers stood nearby, but I got the feeling they’d been advised that we were coming.
I walked, but only a bit like a zombie. Her stride was longer than mine and I had to remind myself it wasn’t a race. I’d been wrapped around a tree only thirty-six hours before. I could feel the superiority as it floated off of her. I was broken, and she wasn’t.
Dayton spotted us from the end of the dim hallway. “Belle, down here,” he called. The sound of my shuffling feet bounced off the walls around us and echoed away. If Dayton was surprised or concerned about my condition, he never showed it.
“We found her yesterday,” Dayton said as he pushed open the swinging doors and ushered us inside. “At first no one thought she was connected. I didn’t get the call until this morning, but I think you’ll agree that she’s part of the case.”
Stainless steel reflected our shapes from every surface. From the body drawers, to the equipment, to the lights that bent from the ceiling like industrial arms.
“Yesterday?” I asked as the words registered in my brain. “There was another death?” I’d assumed we were seeing the body that had turned up during the party, but there’d been another. That was why my brake lines had been tampered with. The killer hadn’t wanted me to see the body.
Isabelle stayed close to Dayton. I noticed her quick glances at the draped bodies that lined the far wall. I doubted she’d ever been in such a place before. Dayton remained oblivious to her distress and for a split second I almost felt sorry for her.
Almost.
“She was weighted down in the river. Water caused all the bloating. Between that and the mutilation, she’s been difficult to identify.” He pulled back the white drape to reveal the victim. My stomach heaved and I was glad I’d avoided the hospital’s lunch. Isabelle wasn’t so lucky. She spun just in time to find a garbage can, and unloaded the previous meal inside. It was strange to see her long blonde hair buried in the wastebasket of a coroner, and I almost chuckled at the sick poetry of it all. Then I worried what Ryder might say when he found out that I had allowed his mother to see a mutilated corpse and I ceased to find humor in anything.
I pulled a set of latex gloves from the tray and slipped them on my hands. While Dayton held Isabelle’s hair back, I leaned closer to the victim. The face was bloated, the skin stretched and taut with the sort of plumpness I used to see when Eleanor would drop white bread into water. The cuts at the face weren’t deep, but the swelling made them appear longer than they were. The killer had gone to great lengths to mutilate and deform the body, most post mortem, which meant he hoped to hide the evidence from us. Ink on the arm caught my eye, and with my gloved hand I pressed the skin until part of the tattoo took shape.
“It’s a butterfly,” I said to myself. “I’ve seen this girl before.”
Dayton heard me, but focused on his girlfriend. “You have?”
I nodded as I bent to scan the neck of the victim. “I can’t place it, but I know I’ve seen this tattoo before. She’s been at the ranch, and recently.” The laceration at her artery was deep, but jagged, not as smooth as the other victims.
Pointing at the condition of the wound, I asked, “Do you think the killer was interrupted, or hesitated for some reason?”
Dayton lost focus on his girlfriend and her hair fell back into the wastepaper basket. “You saw that too? He either lost his nerve, or it’s a different guy.” Isabelle whimpered and Dayton returned to her aid.
I pulled one of the mirrors close. A long metallic arm held it steady as I positioned it on the right side of the victim’s neck. As I’d suspected, a rectangular burn mark. “Did you see the stunner burn?”
The detective finished moving Isabelle to the floor on the far side of the room before he deserted her. Her eyes took in her new space. Cold tile floors beneath her. A silver tub to her far right. But to her left, her body cowered and caved as she realized Dayton had abandoned her next to the row of corpses on gurneys.
As Dayton stepped in close, I pointed with a discarded ball point pen to the engorged slit below the earlobe. I pressed the stiff tissue back together with the pen and my finger. Though they fought the motion, once the two sections of skin were joined the burn was evident. Dayton let a low whistle escape his lips.
“None of my guys saw that. You have a keen sense about you, Lindy.” He tilted his head to the opposite side and said, “It’s definitely our guy then. Looks like he got his hands on another stunner.” Dayton turned back to Isabelle who had curled in on herself against the wall. “Belle, has anyone gotten a package in the last couple weeks?”
Isabelle’s ashen face betrayed her acute discomfort as she spoke. “People get packages all the time, and a couple keep mailboxes in town.”
Dayton returned his attention to the corpse and I let the skin spread open once more. “Needle in a haystack.”
“Have you tracked the websites that sell them?”
“I have someone on it,” he said, “but it looks like a dead end. Too many retailers, not enough manpower to search it all.”
I looked at the jagged cuts that littered the body, some deep, some shallow, all showed hesitation we hadn’t
seen before. “I have a theory,” I said slowly, “but you’re not going to like it.”
His patience was spent. “Try me.”
“We saw this hesitation early on, right? But it disappeared because he gained confidence. He wouldn’t go back to that same fear again.” Dayton followed my thinking and I was grateful. I continued, “What if this isn’t the same guy, not exactly?”
“What if this is an apprentice?” he asked.
I had to give him credit for his intelligence. I’d studied such killers in college in my criminology classes. The master has been killing for enough time that he is usually adept at the method, and more typically than not, he was tutored by his own master. The master will search out an apprentice, someone to pass his trade to when he’s no longer able to do his work. The apprentice becomes the master and the cycle begins again.
“The kills were the master’s first work. He was out on his own for the first time when he started killing here at the Rockin’ B,” I speculated. “That’s why we saw his hesitation.”
“But for whatever reason, he feels like his time is limited and he’s afraid whatever ritual this is will die with him.”
“So he takes on an apprentice a little too early, and the young buck isn’t ready for the blood bath.” Dayton’s eyes shone with excitement. We’d found a trail.
“But who are the players?” I asked.
“Tim makes the most sense, because of declining age.” Dayton said.
Isabelle found her feet and rose to her brother’s defense. “Would it help you two jackals to know that Tate has a liver condition? Insurance won’t cover transfusions much longer. He has less time than you think. Maybe you should add him to your list.”
The speed with which she was willing to sell out her brother surprised me. Granted, it was in defense of another brother. I left the issue alone for Isabelle’s sake. “And the apprentice?”
Saddles & Sabotage Page 25
