by Desiree Holt
“If you get any more envelopes, don’t let everyone handle them,” he warned. “Tell whoever finds it to pick it up with a tissue or paper towel and set it aside until I can come over to get it.”
Lindsey nodded. “I understand. We’ll be careful handling anything that shows up. Although I hope this is a one-time thing.”
They shook hands, and she walked with him to the reception area. When the door had closed behind him, Brianna said, “Well?”
“Well, nothing. I told you.” Lindsey shrugged, trying to appear more nonchalant than she felt. “It’s just one episode, and it may never happen again. He took down all the information, but I really didn’t have any to give him. We’ll just hope this is the end of it. I’m sure it is.”
“Lindsey, you shouldn’t brush this off so easily,” Brianna protested. Her forehead wrinkled with worry. “Someone could mean you real harm.”
“I don’t think so. Like I told Detective McCune, I really can’t think of a single soul who would be after me like this. I’m chalking it up to malicious mischief.”
“Still,” Brianna said, “you need to be careful. Are you leaving to go to the ranch now?”
“Yes. I might as well cut out early. Everything I have can wait until Monday when I can really get into it.” She grinned. “This new house is going to be fun to design. The Marquezes are nice people, and if we do a good job for them, they’ll refer us to others in their circle.”
“Well, you pay attention this weekend,” Bri cautioned. “I still don’t feel right about all this.”
“Nothing will happen at Cibolo,” Lindsey assured her. “A stranger would stick out like a sore thumb. I’m just going to relax and ride and try not to think about this.”
Chapter Two
The minute she turned off the Interstate and onto the two-lane country road, Lindsey felt the coil of tension in her body unwind. The road led directly to the ranch, which sat in solitary comfort unfettered by neighbors. This place was her sanctuary, her protection from the world.
The scene as she pulled into the gravel parking area was better than a tranquilizer. The sun bathed everything in a late afternoon glow, the prairie grasses like strands of gold dancing in the breeze. The smell of horseflesh, combined with sage and sycamore, created a scent better than the most expensive perfume.
The big two-story ranch house sat like a queen, its gabled windows looking out like knowing eyes over the landscape. The downstairs windows were open to catch some air, and the aromas coming from the kitchen made Lindsey’s mouth water.
In the barn to the left, she could hear the soft nickers of the mares penned with their new foals, two of them spindly little things that trembled when they stood. The breeding business her father had begun continued to thrive under Ruben’s guidance. The other horses romped outside in the fenced pasture, enjoying their playtime.
Here she could shut out stalkers and pranksters and every other kind of disruption. Except for the nightmares. They seemed to follow her everywhere. Death seemed to be the catalyst for them, first her father, then her mother. Only the death in the dreams seemed to be hers. She hoped they didn’t start up again.
Shrugging off her pessimistic thoughts, she waved to Ruben, who was walking toward her from the barn.
“Go on in,” he hollered. “I’ll put your car away and get your horse ready.”
“Thanks.”
She called to Mary to let her know she was home, then hurried upstairs. By the time she changed into jeans and boots, Ruben had Jingo saddled and set to go. He handed her the reins and gave her a leg up into the saddle.
“This horse has been feeling his oats today,” he told her, “so he should give you a pretty good ride.”
This was exactly what she needed. Sitting comfortably in the saddle, as if she were one with the horse, she kept Jingo to an easy lope as they crossed the closest meadow. But when they hit the next piece of pasture, she let the big bay have his head, and he raced full out. She didn’t pull him up until they reached the creek at the back of the property. Then she slid off his back and let him drink the cool water while she leaned against the trunk of a tree.
Unbidden, the picture from the office intruded on her thoughts. “I’m watching you.” Who had written those words? Why was she being watched? What did this unknown person want with her? She looked around nervously, as if a stranger might pop out of a copse of trees or from behind a giant boulder.
Climbing back on Jingo, she tried to put the situation out of her mind while she finished her ride. The unsettled feeling lingered, even through dinner and into the evening. She tried to go through the bookkeeping records for the ranch but found it impossible to concentrate.
The episode still nagged at her the next day while she talked to Ruben about some of the things she wanted done around the ranch and checked the vet records for the horses. And it rode on her shoulders Saturday night when she had dinner with Quinn and his wife, Kate, two of her closest friends.
Quinn had been a prosecutor for Bexar County when his first wife was brutally murdered seven years ago. He’d hunted the killers down and exacted justice, then closed himself off from the world.
Kate had quite literally dropped into his life one night with her own problems. By the time Quinn resolved them for her, they had fallen deeply in love, and Kate had been able to bring him back to the land of the living. Now he had a law practice in nearby Windswept that covered most of the county. He and Kate had an adorable little boy, barely two, and she was expecting again.
Marriage and motherhood more than agreed with Kate. She radiated happiness, her eyes sparkling, an air of vibrancy surrounding her. She could say the same thing about Quinn. No more darkness and sorrow for her good friend. He looked like a man who had life by the tail. She wondered for a brief, dark moment if she would ever find that kind of happiness for herself. So far it didn’t seem likely.
No matter how happy she tried to convince herself she was, those nightmares kept dragging her back into the darkness. When she wasn’t having them, she was worried they’d return. Even the growing success of her client list wasn’t giving her the peace she hoped it would.
She was relaxing on the back porch with the Quinns, enjoying coffee after the meal, young John Quinn safely tucked in for the night.
Quinn finally broke the silence. “All right, let’s have it.”
“Have what?” Lindsey worked at keeping her face a blank.
“I know you too well, Linds. You’ve got the fidgets about something. Out with it.”
Lindsey sighed. “I’m sure it’s probably nothing, but something very weird happened yesterday.” In brief sentences she told them about the picture and the message on it, and about filing the police report.
“You really need to take this more seriously. Someone could be stalking you.” Kate turned to Quinn. “Aren’t I right?”
“You are. And Lindsey, I’m glad you called the police. There are all kinds of nuts out there in the world today.” He took a swallow of his coffee. “Want me to call Jake Garza and see if he can check on the police report? He’s still on the staff of the prosecutor’s office in San Antonio.” Quinn and Jake had been close friends since college.
“No.” Lindsey shook her head. “Not yet. Let’s wait and see if anything happens again. I don’t want people to think I’m a Nervous Nellie old maid.”
Kate laughed out loud. “The last thing anyone would ever call you is an old maid. And take it from someone who knows, you can never be too careful.” Her eyes caught Quinn’s.
None of them would forget when she and Quinn met, she’d had killers hot on her trail and had run out of options.
“I promise I’ll be careful,” Lindsey assured her. “Truly. But it’s only one incident. I’m hoping it’s just some prank and we won’t ever hear from whoever it is again.”
Quinn frowned. “Linds, you can’t just blow this off the way you tend to do with things. You’re so determined to control every aspect of your life, but this
may well be beyond your capabilities. Again, you don’t know what kind of weirdo sent this.”
“I don’t need help yet,” she insisted. “And I refuse to run scared because some idiot sent me a picture of myself. I just wanted a sounding board.”
“I want you to let us know if there’s another incident,” Quinn insisted. He and Kate exchanged meaningful glances again. “I’m not without resources, you know.”
Lindsey knew all about his contacts. If this turned out to be more than a casual incident, Quinn would be first on her list to call.
Again, she tried to wipe it from her mind. But that night when she finally went to bed, the sleep she fell into was troubled and restless.
****
She was drowning, water filling her lungs and her nostrils.
“Help me! Help me!”
She thought she was the one screaming, but the voice was thin, younger, far away. She tried to push through the water, but her arms and legs were like lead weights.
“Help me! Please!
She opened her mouth to answer, and water flowed in, choking her. Her lungs were bursting, and her head pounded. One more push and she could reach the top. Then she was falling away, falling down, tumbling, her breath gone.
“Help me!”
Lindsey sat upright in bed, drenched in sweat, the sheets twisted around her. Dragging in huge gulps of air, she managed to get her racing heart under control. Yanking the sheets away from her body, she stumbled into the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face and neck. When she raised her eyes to the mirror, she saw such a haunted look that it frightened her. She popped two aspirin into her mouth and swallowed them with water, then made her way back to the bed. Straightening the covers, she lay down again, but fear kept sleep at bay.
She hadn’t had the nightmare in so long she’d thought—hoped, foolishly, it seemed—it was gone for good. After her mother’s death, they returned with a vengeance, then unexplainably went away again. Until now. What had triggered them this time? Could the photo be another trigger that kept them recurring? Was any emotional upheaval the ignition switch? And why was she drowning? What was the significance of that? So many questions, and no one to help her find the answers.
She lay staring at the ceiling, wondering if she was losing her mind. Finally, at five o’clock, she fell into a fitful sleep. When she awoke, it was late morning, and she felt as if a truck had rolled over her and dragged her down the highway.
Mary cast a critical eye over her when she came into the kitchen for breakfast but said nothing, just plied her with food and shooed her outside.
Lindsey usually loved sitting on the front porch, her feet up on the rail, the house comfortably shaded by giant ancient oaks clustered here and there. Sometimes she read, but today her mind wouldn’t settle down enough to concentrate on anything. Her mind was a whirling cauldron of unanswered questions and fear of everything she didn’t know.
She was still sitting, staring at nothing, when Mary brought her a glass of lemonade and some molasses cookies.
“What’s going on, Lindsey?” Concern lined the woman’s face. “I hate to say it, but you look a wreck.”
Lindsey forced a smile. “I’m fine. Just a little tired. Busy at work.”
Mary shook her head. “You don’t fool me, niña. Something’s troubling you. Your mother would be very sad to see you like this. “
“I miss her.” Lindsey squeezed back the threatening tears.
“I know you do.” Mary brushed a stray curl back from Lindsey’s face. “We all do. But life goes on, you know. She didn’t want you to live like a nun.”
“I’m fine. Really.” Except for recurring nightmares and a possible stalker. “Let it be, okay?”
But thinking of her mother brought something else to mind. She had yet to go up in the attic and haul down the boxes of photos and whatever else her mother had kept taped shut all these years. No one had ever opened them and shared them with her. She thought when her father died it might be the time to do so, but her mother just shook her head. Lindsey always thought the memories might be too painful for her mother, that there must have been sadness in the past both of her parents had locked away.
As she’d grown older, she’d wondered at the lack of an extended family, but her parents always waved away her questions so she’d stopped asking. Now they were both gone, so maybe the time had come at last to look through the stuff. To find what treasures or memorabilia the boxes held. She needed a distraction, and the project might just be the thing to take her mind off the nightmares and the shocking photo.
“Agitating or cogitating?”
She looked up to see Ruben watching her. She hadn’t even heard him approach.
“I guess cogitating.” She sighed. “Mom wasn’t very big, but this place sure seems empty without her.”
“Your mother was a great woman,” he told her. “Her presence filled up a room. We miss her a lot, too.” He leaned against the porch rail. “But she wouldn’t want you moping around over her, either. She always said the greatest honor you can give someone you really love is to live a full life when they’re gone.”
Lindsey stared up at him. “Is that what she did when my dad died?”
Ruben nodded. “You bet. She grieved hard for him, but she had you to think of and the ranch to run.”
“I’m surprised she didn’t sell this place.”
“Are you kidding?” He shook his head. “Your folks built their life here. She knew your daddy would turn over in his grave if she didn’t raise you here and teach you to love the same things they did.”
“You’ve been with them since they bought the ranch, haven’t you?”
He smiled. “Me and Mary. We once thought about having kids and getting a place of our own, but the kids never came and this ranch became more home to us than any other place ever could. You and your folks were all the family we needed. And you were ours as much as theirs.”
“I wish I knew more about them before they came here.” She sighed. “They only told me their own parents were dead and they had no brothers and sisters. I felt like I grew up in a vacuum. Everyone has family. Even distant cousins. Why didn’t we?”
“Now listen here, kiddo,” he admonished. “Your folks were mighty happy with things the way they were. I guess if they had wanted more family, they would have gone looking for them.”
“You’re probably right.” She shrugged. “It just seems so strange with both of them gone and all. I feel like one of those orphans you read about in books.”
“Not while you’ve got Mary and me,” he told her and squeezed her shoulder.
Lindsey tried to put everything out of her mind and enjoy the rest of the weekend. She would leave the attic for a time when her mind was more settled, and opted instead for working in the garden and riding Jingo. She had a busy schedule ahead of her in the coming weeks and needed a clear mind.
Back at her office Monday morning she hit the deck running. She had a schedule for the day packed with client appointments that left her little time to think about the picture, her parents, or the nightmares. The Marquezes expected preliminary sketches by the end of the week. The Randolphs wanted changes made on their plans and would be in that afternoon to discuss them. The Romeros had approved plans and selected a builder. Now they wanted Lindsey to meet with him and address the list of questions they’d faxed to her.
Brianna stacked the folders for these and other clients that needed her attention on Lindsey’s desk in order of priority. Corresponding sketches and information for designs were clipped to the top of her worktable. Bent over the table, light streaming in on her, she worked in complete absorption throughout the morning, everything else forgotten, including the nightmare. She was stunned to realize how much time had passed when Brianna poked her head in.
“I’m taking off for lunch,” she said. “Do you want me to pick up a sandwich or something for you?”
“Is it that time already?” Lindsey looked at her watch, amazed th
at it was already one o’clock. “Lord, I’m on a roll here and didn’t even check the time.” She got up from her table and stretched, working out the kinks from sitting so long. “Can you ask Mark to come in for a minute before you go?”
“Oh, honey, he left for lunch thirty minutes ago.”
“Darn. I wanted to talk to him about this project.” She pushed her glasses back up on her nose. “I can do it when he gets back, I guess.”
Brianna looked at her with an apologetic expression. “He had to stop for some supplies while he was out. He didn’t want to wait on delivery for some things, so he’ll be back about two.”
“Okay.” Lindsey stretched and rolled her neck. “Just leave a note on his worktable to come and see me later.”
“No prob. So what about it? Can I get something for you?”
“No. I think I’ll close up and go make myself a sandwich in the apartment. I can put up my feet and veg out until the clients get here. “
“Okay. See you in about an hour.” She flounced the end of a scarf playfully.
Brianna had a slightly exotic flair about her, accentuated by her choice of wardrobe and the way she carried herself. She favored bright colors and outfits that just pushed the envelope of outrageous. Her hair, a highlighted brown, was worn long in artfully arranged corkscrew curls. Bright lipstick and earrings that just brushed her shoulders completed every outfit. Without all the glitz and makeup, she would be considered fairly unremarkable, a description she seemed to do her best to defy.
With both of her staff members gone, Lindsey locked all the office doors, then went through the side door from her office to the adjoining apartment. Although the place was actually small, she had created a feeling of spaciousness, and she loved hiding away in it. The living room was all glass on one side and looked over the city, with three sets of draperies that could adjust the amount of light she allowed in. The far end of the room served as a dining nook, with a kitchen area along the wall opposite the windows. A door opening off the living room led into her master suite.
