Armstrong gave her another dangerous smile. “I have something I want you to see.” He slid the envelope over the table.
Instinctively, she knew she didn’t want to know what was in there, because whatever it was, it was the end of the world as she knew it. She refused. She wouldn’t take it.
Some circuit in her brain must have tripped in the thunder-clap, because unexpectedly, she saw her hands reach down and pick up the envelope. No! her brain screamed. Don’t open it!
But her body wasn’t listening. Mentally frozen in a state of horror, she saw her hands undo the clasp on the envelope and slide out a short stack of photos.
Of her.
Naked.
With Dan.
A searing pain cut across her forehead, for a second, and all she could think was that she was back in the bar with someone ready to scalp her. Her hand moved up to her forehead and then down to her eyes, but she saw no blood.
“I should think you’d be very flattered,” Armstrong was saying. “Some of those are quite good shots. You photograph well. Have you considered a career in modeling?”
The pain got sharper, but her hands kept flipping the pages over and over. Her, stripping off Dan’s pants in front of the fire. Her, wiggling out of her jeans. Her, straddling Dan.
Dan, pulling her legs wide apart. Dan, sucking on her nipple. Dan, clearly sliding into her.
“Oh, that’s my favorite.” Armstrong was still talking, but his voice seemed farther away. “Enough to make me wish I was a younger man. Would have loved to have had a run at you in my prime.”
She wanted to throw up. She wanted to scream, to fight back, to show this man what a true Lakota woman could do. But she was frozen solid, her body operating mechanically without her express permission.
All she could do was count. Thirteen in all. Thirteen photos of her having sex with Dan.
“There’s a jump drive in there, as well.” Armstrong’s voice seemed to float to her from somewhere in another state. “With the video version on it.”
Operating on automatic, her hands tipped the envelope up, and out spilled a small black stick drive. Her, naked, having sex with Dan—screaming. Crying. Being reduced to a babbling idiot, because that’s what she’d been—the world’s biggest idiot to ever trust a white man. To trust an Armstrong.
And Cecil Armstrong had the pictures to prove just how much of an idiot she’d been. She’d believed Dan when he said he would protect her, when he told her they were safely hidden at the cabin. Lies. All lies. He wasn’t even answering her calls now. For all she knew, he was already back in Texas. Maybe he’d already called that Tiffany. Maybe Rosebud had never meant anything to him beyond a means to an end—the end of everything.
“What do you want?” Somehow, she was able to talk.
His voice still seemed far away, but that shark smile was close enough to bite her. “What I want is very simple, Miss Donnelly. I want all past, current and future legal proceedings against Armstrong Holdings dropped. And I’ll tell you what else—I’ll tell you what I don’t want. I don’t want to see you in court tomorrow. In fact,” he went on, like this whole conversation was the most natural thing in the world, “if you show up, a website named RosebudDonnellyHasSex.com will go live from a remote location. Someone already had the domain name RosebudDoesDan.com,” he said with a chuckle.
Scalped alive, that’s what this felt like, but instead of taking her hair, he was taking her soul. She’d let herself get conned into falling in love and conned right out of her home, her life.
Her hands were flipping through the photos again, and her eyes couldn’t look away. Dan’s face was hard to make out because his head was buried in her breasts in most of the shots, but Armstrong was right. She photographed well. Everybody would see. Everybody would know about her betrayal.
“You’ve got until tomorrow to think about it. And you can keep those for your scrapbook. I have others.” She heard the briefcase shut. “Miss Donnelly, it’s been a pleasure.” She felt a hand stroke her arm. “A real pleasure.”
From the other side of the ocean, the door shut. And Rosebud lost the world.
Sixteen
“Maria?” Dan stuck his head into the kitchen. She was where she always was, making something for lunch that promised to be good. A pan of muffins sat cooling next to her, ready to take to Rosebud today. “Cecil’s not here. Do you know where he went?”
Maria’s head popped up and she looked around like she was worried about something. “No. He left muy early today.”
“Huh.” It was Thursday. If Cecil left the office at all, he did it on Saturday. Something wasn’t right. “Thanks,” Dan said, digging out his cell phone as he turned to go. He needed to check in with Rosebud.
“Señor Armstrong? I…”
The way Maria said it—all nervouslike—pulled him up short. He turned back around and saw her twisting her hands in her apron. She was always a timid woman, but right now she looked like she was on the verge of disappearing entirely. “What is it?” he asked in his calmest voice.
“I found…something.”
The hair on the back of his neck shot to attention. She’d found the box. He shut his phone off. “Where is it?” Maria scanned the room again, but no one else was in the house. “Is it here?”
“Sí. Come.” She led him down into the basement—a place Dan had not been before—and over to a small metal door fastened to the wall. Without speaking, she opened the door and pulled out a garbage bag, which was covered with a thin layer of black dust.
Coal—a coal chute. He’d had no idea it existed. Dan peeled back the bag and there it was. The box. Twelve inches wide, three inches deep and almost two feet long, like a safety deposit box from an old, old bank. His pulse picked up the pace. He wasn’t sure what was in here, but he had a hunch that it was enough to get Cecil out of the picture and save Rosebud’s reservation. “When did you find it?”
“Two days ago.” She was still whispering, even though they were in the basement. The whole place reeked of old onions and rotten potatoes.
“And it was here?” Maria might not realize it just yet, but she had the mother of all retention bonuses coming her way. “How did you find it?”
At that, she managed to look proud. “It was not in any place I clean. So I started looking in all the places I do not clean.”
Dan fought the urge to hug the woman. “The key?” Although the key was secondary. If he had to, he’d bust this damn box open with a sledgehammer—although a busted box was harder to hide from Cecil, if he needed to keep it hidden.
“Sí.” The basement was dark, but he was sure he saw her wide smile. “Come.”
They went back upstairs, Dan clutching the box to his chest. In the sitting room, she stood on tiptoe and reached up behind the mounted buffalo head hanging on the wall. She pulled out a small silver key on an Armstrong Holdings key chain. “I checked. It works.”
“Maria, I love you.” Which, of course, made her blush like a prairie fire, but he couldn’t help it. “You will always have a job with me, okay? But no one knows about this. No one, got it?”
“Sí, señor.”
Dan all but ran to his room. When he got there, he shoved the old dresser up against the door, just to be safe. Then he sat down on the bed and opened the box.
The first file was filled with detailed schematics for a lakeside resort. Dan stared at the plans in dumb shock. Over four hundred and twenty acres of golf, horseback riding and luxury hotel accommodations—all situated on the edge of the soon-to-be-constructed Dakota Lake. There was even a casino, because part of the resort was located on what was left of the Red Creek reservation.
So that was it. Dan was stunned. He hadn’t come close to guessing Cecil’s intent, branching out into real estate. The old man was financing construction with Armstrong Holdings money, but the resort would be all his.
He wasn’t pushing the dam—he was pushing the reservoir. He was pushing beachfront property in South Dakota.<
br />
Finally, Dan set the resort plans aside, confident they would be enough to get Cecil permanently removed from Armstrong Holdings. He picked up the next file. At first, it was just lists of names, some with dates written next to them. He couldn’t make heads or tails out of any of it. None of the names rang the slightest of bells. But then the lists began to include dollar figures in the hundreds of thousands next to the dates. The third list had job titles. Royce Maynard, Chief Judge—$250,000; 4/12/10.
Holy hell. Cecil had been bribing government officials.
His hands now shaking, Dan kept flipping until he got to a file marked Indians. A jump drive fell out when Dan opened the file folder. He grabbed the drive, but didn’t get much further into the file before he got to names he recognized.
Rosebud Donnelly. It was circled, with a date written next to it that Dan recognized as his first meeting written above today’s date—but no dollar amount. Joe White Thunder was there, as was Emily Mankiller. No money, just circles and dates. Near the back of the file, he found an envelope labeled Tanner Donnelly and dated over three years ago. He opened it and pulled out a set of dog tags.
He closed his eyes, not wanting to see any more. Not that he’d ever doubted Rosebud’s murder theory, but there had always been the possibility that his uncle, his family—his business—wasn’t involved. Not for a dam and not for a resort. But he held the proof in his hands.
Damn his hunches. Always proving themselves right.
There was more—much more—in the box, but Dan made the snap decision that ignorance was not only bliss, but also a matter of self-preservation.
He had to tell someone about this. His first inclination was to call Rosebud, but God only knew what that woman would do with hard evidence. She’d promised not to take another shot at him, but Cecil? Fair game.
He needed the authorities. What had that guy’s name been? Tom…Yellow something? Dan dug into his wallet and found the card. Yellow Bird.
He turned his phone back on. One missed call from Rosebud, probably wondering where he was. He glanced at the clock. Man, he was late. Hell, it would take almost as much time to call her as it would to get there, and he needed some serious backup on this issue. Dan dialed Yellow Bird’s number and then began putting the files back into the box.
“Yellow Bird,” the gruff voice answered.
“This is Armstrong. Dan Armstrong.” He locked the box. He couldn’t afford to lose any of this, and he couldn’t afford to give Cecil the chance to destroy the evidence.
“Officially or unofficially?” Yellow Bird asked after a long pause.
“I found something you’ve been looking for. I need to get it to the right person.” What was that guy’s name? Dan raced to his desk and flipped through his files. “Do you know who James Carlson is?”
“Don’t jerk my chain, Armstrong.” Yellow Bird’s voice was sharp, but quieter, like he was trying not to be heard.
Dan bristled. “I can forget the whole damn thing if you’d like, Yellow Bird.”
He heard Yellow Bird sniff. “I know Carlson. What do you have?”
“I’m not at liberty to say at this moment.” All those weeks with Rosebud were wearing off on him. “Enough,” he added.
“I’m going to hold you to that. Give me twenty.” The line went dead.
That went well, Dan thought as he shoved his phone in his pocket and wrapped up the box in his pillowcase. If he floored it, he could be at Rosebud’s office in twenty. He didn’t even stop to grab the muffins.
He held all the winning cards, and he wanted to show her the hand.
The first thing that tipped him off was Judy—more specifically, the fact that she was crying. The second thing was when she looked up and saw him and physically recoiled in horror. The third thing was when she said, “What are you doing here?” like he’d just come back from clubbing baby seals.
If the hair on the back of his neck stood up any more, he’d be halfway to bald. “Is Rosebud here?”
“She left.” The hatred in Judy’s voice was unmistakable as she scooted back from her desk. If Dan didn’t know any better, he’d think the woman was actually afraid of him.
He tried again, hoping to calm her down. “What happened?”
“What happened?” Judy gaped at him like he’d gone stupid. “What happened was that you didn’t warn us that your uncle and some scary man named Shane Thrasher were going to show up an hour ago. What happened was that Joe had to escort that Shane guy out to his car because he had a gun under his coat. What happened was that your uncle left five minutes later, smiling like he’d won the freaking lottery, and what happened was that ten minutes after that, Rosebud walked out of here like she’d been zombified while you were nowhere to be seen. That’s what happened.”
“My uncle and Thrasher were here?” For a second, he didn’t want to believe it. It was just not possible that Cecil would come here—with Thrasher, for God’s sake—one day before the court date. The man never got his hands dirty.
“I’m sure you knew all about Cecil’s visit, didn’t you? Why else weren’t you here? Oh, I should have warned Rosebud. I did. I told her to be careful with you—but did she listen to me?” Judy was a full five seconds from bolting down the hall, screaming bloody murder. “No. Instead, we let you in here, we let you bring us cookies and brownies, and we let you do…” Here she faltered, but the pause didn’t last long enough for Dan to get a word in edgewise. “Something to her. And now it’s all on your head.”
She was talking like he’d set up Rosebud. Like he was already guilty just because of his last name. “Judy. You know me. You know I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you—any of you.” She didn’t have a gun, but that hadn’t stopped Dan’s hands from going up. “Where did she go?”
“I’m not telling you anything. Get out!” Judy picked up the only weapon she had—the coffeepot—and threw it.
He was gone before it smashed behind him.
He’d start with Rosebud’s house, he decided as he peeled out of the parking lot. Dan had only been there once—after the bar fight—and everything looked a little different in broad daylight. He tried calling her, but it went straight to voice mail, and he didn’t think he could even get close to explaining himself in thirty seconds, so he kept trying.
As the phone rang and rang, he wavered between trying to figure out what Cecil had pulled and not wanting to know. Whatever it was, it was going to be bad. After all, the man had not only bought off public officials, but had even had at least one person killed. If Dan ever saw Thrasher again… Dan checked the glove box. He had enough shotgun shells to do the job right, law be damned.
Finally, he thought he recognized a dirt road. Another half mile down was a house that looked a hell of a lot more like a run-down shack than he remembered. The windows were spider-webbed with tape—more tape than glass, he guessed. No wonder she wouldn’t let him visit her. This was what a top-flight lawyer could afford around here?
He was going to make this—all of it—up to her. He had to.
Dan was out the door, hauling the pillow-cased box with him. He was going to need all the backup he could get.
The first thing he noticed was the way a hard silence had come down on the world like a hammer. Nothing made a noise. Not even the wind managed to shush through the weeds.
“Rosebud, please!”
A woman’s cry snapped through the silence like a pistol shot. Behind the house. Dan ran around the side just in time to see his Indian princess shake off Emily Mankiller like she was a fly. The older woman landed with a thud on her backside.
Emily saw him, too. During the one awful second when she looked up at him, he saw a world of hurt in her eyes. “No.”
It was a warning—but not for Rosebud. For him.
Rosebud froze. She was wearing the buckskin dress with the moccasins. Her hair hung long and loose behind her, the ends blowing in a breeze he couldn’t feel. She stood next to her paint horse, the reins in one hand. Her bag was
slung over her shoulders.
He couldn’t see her other hand.
The whole thing happened in slow motion. She turned around and locked eyes with him. It was like part of her wasn’t even there—her eyes were dead. Zombified, Judy had said, and that wasn’t far off.
She dropped the reins as her other hand came up, and Dan found himself staring down the barrel of a too-familiar pistol. Instinct kicked in. He let go of the box and stuck his hands up in the air. The box bounced off the tip of his boot, but not hard enough to make him break his stance.
“I should have known better.” Her voice was mechanical, and despite how damn quiet the world had gotten, he could barely hear her over the rush of blood in his ears. “I did know better, but I…” She blinked at glacial speed, but the pistol didn’t waver. “I have no excuse.”
“Rosebud, don’t!” Emily pleaded again.
“I don’t know why you’re so surprised. You’re the one who told me to get close to him. You’re the one who told me to muddle his thinking, to see what I could get out of him. I was just doing what I was told. Like I always do.” Rosebud’s voice cracked at the end. “I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to give anything up to you. I thought I could lead you on with a wink and a kiss and not lose who I was. I knew you were trouble, but I couldn’t help myself.” She laughed, a rote sound that held no pleasure. “I guess that makes me the naive one, doesn’t it?”
A small sting quickly blossomed into a gut-clenching pain—not unlike the one time he’d tangled with a scorpion. She had been leading him on—the possibility had never occurred to him. He’d been too caught up in the chase, in the catch, to even realize that she was trying to catch him, too.
“I’m sorry!” Emily’s cry was bordering on hysteria. “I didn’t want it to be like this!” She turned to Dan. “She never told me anything—nothing about you, I swear!”
The pain dulled, but only a little. He had no idea if he’d been double-crossed. But whether or not Rosebud had set him up was immaterial right now. He might be holding all the cards, but she was the one holding the gun.
A Man of His Word Page 14
