by Kym Roberts
If her goal was to shut me up, it worked. We sat in silence, both of us deep in thought until the app reset.
“What was the name of the bull his brother rode in that picture?” I asked.
“Lucifer.”
I choked on the cool drink of water that felt anything but smooth as it grabbed hold of my windpipe. “His last ride was on the devil?”
Scarlet ignored my question, went back to the app, and typed in the word Lucifer. The screen changed, allowing us to choose between three items to locate: Dalton’s iPad, which we already had, his MacBook Pro, and his phone. Scarlet looked at me for approval and I immediately gave it to her. I needed to know where Dalton was almost as badly as she did, but for an entirely different reason. I wanted to make sure his branding iron was never used again.
Scarlet tapped the icon for his phone and we waited while the little circle went around and round, at the top of the page. The screen finally displayed a map of North America and quickly zoomed into the state of Texas. We held our breath as it narrowed the search to the woods surrounding Enchanted Rock, a state park about thirty minutes away.
Scarlet’s eyes filled with tears. “Do you think he went for a hike and got hurt?”
“I think he’s probably holed up in a cabin in the park. That’s what my daddy likes to do when he wants to be alone.” Or when he was hiding from the law. But unlike Dalton, my dad had been innocent at the time. Dalton was as guilty as the day was long.
“Should I call him?”
“Has he answered the phone any other time you called him?”
“No.”
“Has he answered any of the messages you left him?”
“No. Should I play the sound so he knows I’m looking for him when his phone starts to buzz?”
“I wouldn’t. He already knows from your messages that you’re looking for him. How many have you left?”
Scarlet seemed embarrassed but answered the question. “Five.”
If I doubted before how hard she’d fallen, my doubt was completely erased. Scarlet’s heart was as soft as a one-minute egg for Dalton Hibbs.
“Then let’s go find him—and the next message, you can deliver in person.”
Chapter Eleven
I called my dad and asked him to man the store. I didn’t expect it to be too busy because it was Betty Walker’s turn to have the auction at her Bluebonnet Quilt Shop to benefit The Cowboy Ranch. She was serving breakfast with goodies that just happened to be made by her ever-present companion, Franz, the owner/baker of the town’s only bakery. The quilts were gorgeous, and the food would leave her customers content with full stomachs.
There was just one hiccup in our plan, though. As we exited the trailer Scarlet and I were bombarded with reporters who seemed to be led by Erik Piper and Taylor, his promotion partner for the Championship Bull Riding circuit. We’d hadn’t heard the commotion over the air conditioner blasting inside the tiny trailer. Taylor, whose big mouth had spoken poorly of Dalton the previous day during the book art auction, wasn’t mincing any words. It was like she’d set up a press conference in front of Scarlet’s trailer to call Dalton out as a spoiled child. I would probably agree, if Scarlet wouldn’t be so hurt by it.
“Dalton is leading the circuit in points, and like his brother, he tends to play the pampered champ very well,” said Taylor. “This isn’t the first time he’s failed to show up for the preliminary events.” She swung her long brown hair behind her shoulders like it was a silk curtain, all sleek and smooth and muttered. “It won’t be his last, either.”
Peter was the first to spot us and spit out a question directed toward Scarlet, as his cameraman Aiden edged young Aubrey out of the best spot for the best shot. Aubrey glared at her older rival, and snuck up under his arm, capturing the same viewpoint from a lower angle.
“Where are you hiding Dalton, Scarlet?” Peter held his mic past me for Scarlet’s response. I knocked his hand back and scowled, but he was undaunted. Aiden was even pushier and I wondered if Aubrey would end up on the ground. Other reporters began throwing questions in our direction from all sides.
“Are you going to meet him now?”
“When will he be here?”
“Will he be here for the qualifying rounds tomorrow?”
I pushed Scarlet back in the trailer and slammed the door closed, which made several of the reporters less than pleased. Too bad.
“We need a plan B,” I told her.
Scarlet’s eyes filled to the brim as she clutched the iPad to her chest. “I don’t have a plan B.”
I hugged her, then pushed back, holding her at arm’s length by her shoulders, and tried to give her the confidence I didn’t feel. “I’ve got a plan.”
I didn’t, but my mind was racing to find one as I filled in the dead air between us with meaningless words that were meant to make her believe in me. “We’re going to go out there and make them work hard for a story that has nothing to tell. It’ll be so boring it’ll make them border on fits of narcolepsy.”
That brought a smile to her face and I hugged her again as the plan began to develop.
“Here’s what we’re going to do…”
Fifteen minutes later we walked out of her trailer and the microphones stopped in mid-air. Scarlet and I were ready to play our parts, at least until we managed to escape their hounding questions.
“I absolutely love what you did with my hair, Scarlet. Why if I was any happier, I’d drop my harp right through the clouds!” I added a giggle to my deepest Southern twang and bobbed my head like there was absolutely nothing in it. “And the bounce!” I was the living, breathing example of the gross overgeneralization of a Southern belle that the general public seemed to eat up. Daisy Duke had nothing on me. Other than curves, that is. The bottom of my T-shirt was pulled through the neck showing off my midriff and my jean shorts were slung low on my hips. Scarlet’s boots were on my feet—killing me a thousand times over with each step since they were two and a half sizes too small.
“Girl, no man will be able to resist you.” Scarlet played her role to a tee. Her hand was on her shapely hip as she took the steps one at a time like she was a famous Madame at a brothel and I was one of her girls. Her form-fitting red dress hugged her curves, which she flaunted like the most experienced seductress I’d ever seen wearing five-inch stilettos. “If y’all have girlfriends or special women who want to add a little spice to their lives, y’all send them my way, ya hear? Beaus and Beauties is a full-service salon.”
Mouths dropped open. Reporters backed away as we walked into the back, and then out the front door of the salon without anyone following us.
Except Aubrey. She knew the drill. Her mom worked at Beaus and Beauties, and she came running through the alley completely out of breath as we were getting in my truck. Luckily for us, she’d had to push and shove her way through much bigger reporters only to get a glimpse of us closing the doors on my daddy’s pick-up truck, which luckily was parked and waiting for us on Main Street.
“I don’t know what you’re up to, but I’m betting Scarlet will need a pair of shoes that are a little more versatile.” Aubrey pulled a pair of tennis shoes out of her shoulder bag and passed them through the open window to Scarlet, who looked like a proud auntie.
“Thank you. Your momma will be very proud.”
“And Liza’s gonna be pretty P.O.’d,” I added.
Aubrey cocked her head, a pout crossing her mouth. “Y’all know I’m just all sweetness and light.”
I bumped fists with the young girl and we all laughed. Then Scarlet and I drove off into the rising morning sun.
We hit the freeway and I pushed the speed limit, knowing if Mateo stopped me, I could honestly blame it on the lack of feeling in my feet. Scarlet whooped out the passenger window like a teenager on a joy ride, her hands in the air, as her hair lost its perfection and her grin got bigger than all get-out. It was the happiest I’d seen her since she’d danced with
Dalton.
We stopped in the next biggest town, Oak Grove, and I made a quick trip into Country Mart, the local department store, after I undid the knot in my T-shirt and put on a pair of my combat boots that were behind the driver’s seat. I left Scarlet in the truck while I bought her a Rangers T-shirt and a pair of jean shorts. I didn’t think I’d ever seen her wear something so plain, but it was meant to make her blend in a little bit. She was one of those women that commanded attention when she walked into a room. With her alabaster complexion and deep auburn hair, her big blue eyes drew you in and you couldn’t look away.
Once we were on the road again Scarlet changed her clothes during the short spurts of open freeway between passing cars. We headed north on Highway 16 and then turned East on 965. If we’d been going to the park, we would have kept heading southeast, but the locator app had us turning off on a dirt road that led us to another one and then another. The last one lead to a dead end.
“Are there any cabins up here?” Scarlet asked, her tone hopeful.
“There must be.” Although I was fairly certain there hadn’t been any in this area when I was a kid. Hopefully, someone had built one.
I parked the truck and it chugged and clanked before the engine finally gave out what sounded like it’s last breath. We looked around before getting out, and I locked the doors.
Scarlet gasped. “O.M.W. It just went off-line.”
“What went off-line?”
“His phone! It went off-line!” Panic laced her voice with an unnatural shrill.
“We can still trace his last position, though, can’t we?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” Scarlet played with the iPad and let out a heavy sigh. “Yes. We just need to follow this path.”
It wasn’t exactly a path meant for humans, although I saw several pieces of very human trash like a milk jug, candy wrappers, a tire, a couple of rusty cans, and even a red high heel sticking out from under a bunch of leaves.
Well-worn, but extremely narrow, the path had probably been created by deer or coyotes. Despite it being broad daylight, I was starting to get a little spooked. The temperature had already reached the nineties at ten-thirty in the morning and sweat had immediately begun to drip down the middle of my back when we headed for the trail.
“Okay, I’ll lead. Keep your hand on my shoulder and watch your screen so you can direct me which way to go.”
“Deal.”
The woods were made up of Live Oak trees that had stunted growth because of the lack of rain in the area. The ground was rocky, but the scraggly underbrush was still able to thrive and scratch our bare legs. Branches pulled at my hair and scraped across our arms as we turned this way and that.
“Are we close?” I asked. We’d walked for over ten minutes and I was beginning to worry that we wouldn’t be able to find our way back out of the woods. A squirrel chattered to my left as if scolding me for being that stupid. Or worried, I’m not sure which.
“Just around the bend. That’s where the cabin should be.”
“You’re sure? Cause you said that the last two bends.” I could tell she was squinting at the screen from the grip on my shoulder getting tighter. She did that every time she concentrated.
We turned the corner and I stopped. Scarlet ran into my back. The iPad jabbing my eighth vertebrae.
“Ow!” Scarlet exclaimed. “Is it there? Do you see the cabin?”
I tried to answer, but all I could do was back away slowly. My stomach bottomed out, and my brained stopped working beyond my desire to protect Scarlet. I did everything I could to block her view as she struggled to get past me. It was an ugly dance of desperation on both sides. But this was the last thing I wanted Scarlet to see. It was the last thing anyone should see.
Because Dalton was there in front of me—buried much less than six feet under the dirt, with his arms outstretched, as if he’d been reaching through the earth in a mangled attempt to escape death. I recognized the tattered sleeves of his shirt; the same shirt he’d worn when he’d tried to brand my face…and his prized belt buckle, was the only headstone he’d been given.
Chapter Twelve
A couple hours ago, Scarlet and I had been celebrating our show for the media, now we were surrounded by them and we couldn’t have cared less. There were more important things to worry about. Like the crime scene tape that not only circled the grave site, but also the path and area where I’d parked my daddy’s truck. We couldn’t see the truck from our current location, neither could the reporters gathering around the crime scene tape fifty feet behind Mateo’s car, but they had helicopters flying overhead. And they knew who was sitting inside the police vehicle. We weren’t about to slip through their fingers again.
Mateo had gone to some serious lengths to block off the dirt road at the last intersection before leading us to his car. Now I was sitting in the back seat, which was made smaller by a Plexiglas shield that the sheriff could fold up any time he wanted to. Then I’d be stuck in a cage, unable to open the door, unable to crawl over the seat. It made me somewhat claustrophobic. I would rather have been scrunched in the front seat between Mateo and Scarlet with his car computer under my backside and the barrel of his rifle pushed against my nose.
Instead I was sitting in back trying to control my breathing before I started to hyperventilate while the media waited to pounce on us as soon as we exited the car. Scarlet was shedding a bucket load of tears and the more she tried to stop, the more they flowed. Which softened Mateo’s just-the-facts-ma’am attitude and allowed me to do most of the talking for the time being.
“Tell me again why you thought it would be a bright idea to use his iPad to locate his phone without telling me about it?”
“Because no one believed there was foul play involved. Everyone thought he went rogue. Off wilding with women or playing games to catch the attention of the media. You heard the other cowboys. Even the promoter said not to worry about him. It was all a joke to them.” I shook my head; I’d been one of those people—not worried a bit about the man buried in the middle of the woods. But this was about as far from a joke as it got.
Mateo sighed, a long drawn out breath of capitulation that was completely out of character. He didn’t give up information—not to me, anyway. “His manager reported him missing.”
“What?” Scarlet and I asked in unison.
“His manager couldn’t make this trip. His wife had surgery and he wasn’t too concerned about the news reports until Dalton didn’t return any of his messages. He started checking up on Dalton, but couldn’t find him. He said it wasn’t like Dalton at all and he reported him missing last night.”
“O.M.W.” Scarlet sobbed.
I reached for Scarlet’s shoulder in the front seat and squeezed, but it didn’t help. “He left his backpack at Scarlet’s the night they went dancing. He was supposed to go back to her place afterward.”
Mateo handed her a small packet of tissues. “Is that right, Scarlet?”
Scarlet blew her nose and sniffed. “Yes.”
“Do you still have his backpack?”
She nodded, tears silently falling down her blotchy-colored cheeks.
Mateo jotted down something in his notebook and as hard as I tried to read it from the backseat, I couldn’t.
“Before you work yourself up in a tizzy, Charli,” Mateo’s voice took that tone I didn’t like, “I’m going to need both of you to come to the station and give statements. Okay?”
I started to argue. “Mateo, you know darned well—”
“I want to help. If there’s anything I can do to help, please, please let me.” Scarlet grabbed Mateo’s forearm, her desperation obvious in the marks her fingernails were leaving. He didn’t bat an eye, but rather patted her hand. His voice soothed and comforted. “I know you will Scarlet. There was never any doubt in my mind.”
Scarlet’s head bobbed up and down as if she was glad he understood her need to do everything she could to find
justice for Dalton. Mateo’s right eyebrow rose as he looked at me over the front seat and nodded in Scarlet’s direction.
I got the hint loud and clear. Cooperation would take me far in my dealings with law enforcement.
“Can you tell me about the belt buckles you found in the woods?” he asked.
“I didn’t see them; Charli wouldn’t let me.”
If she had, she’d have been haunted for the rest of her days. I didn’t want that for her. It was hard enough for me.
“I saw it lying in the dirt like it was a marker…or a headstone at the end of the grave.”
“What about the second one?”
“The second one?”
“There’s another buckle.”
Scarlet’s eyes searched his. “O.M.W. Is it another grave?”
“We won’t know for sure until the crime scene guys start excavating the site. But it looks like it’s been there a while. I’m surprised the buckle was still there.”
That brought more tears from Scarlet, the sting of sorrow burning in my own eyes as well. This really couldn’t be happening. The blame, for the torment Scarlet was going through, rested solidly on my shoulders. I should have worked harder at convincing her to turn the iPad over to Mateo. But I’d failed her, and in the process, I’d failed Dalton as well.
I barely heard Scarlet’s next question, but we were definitely on the same wavelength. “Do you think it’s Wyatt?”
“Could be. Again, we won’t know until the scene is processed and the lab runs some tests.”
But we were all thinking the same thing—two brothers missing, two graves found.
“If I showed you photos of the belt buckles, could you tell me if they belonged to Dalton or Wyatt?”
“Dalton’s, for sure. Wyatt, I don’t know if I can or not.”
I saw where that belt buckle was and there was no way I wanted Scarlet to get a look at it as well.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said, shaking my head.
