Shine On Oklahoma

by Maggie Shayne

  Probably not worth the risk, what with the gun and all.

  Caine twisted off the cap, took a long drink that made Jack’s throat feel dry. Then he nodded at the fancy ass box cradled in Jack’s other arm. “My cigars, too? Jackie, Jackie, Jackie.”

  Jack held the cigars out to the guy. “Here you go. All good. No need for the gun.”

  “Back inside.” He waved with the barrel and Jack obeyed, reaching behind him to open the creaking screen door, and backing into the little farmhouse. He set the cigars on the table.

  “Where are my boys, Jackie?”

  Jack inclined his head. Caine looked through into the living room where the two were sacked out, one on a ratty sofa, and the other on the floor.

  “You killed ’em?”

  “No!” Jack all but shouted it. “No, no, they’re just sleeping. I slipped ‘em some Benadryl. They’ll be fine. Might wake up with a little headache, but I bet Ace’ll stop sniffling for a day or two.”

  “You’re a little too clever for your own good, aren’t you Jack?”

  “That, I am,” he said. “All that planning, all that cooking. And it turned out I didn’t even need to escape. You’d have let me go in the morning anyway.”

  “Here it comes.” Caine rolled his eyes. “What fairy tale you gonna spin for me now?”

  “Check Phil’s phone. Kendra texted it just as I was leaving.”

  The phone was on the coffee table, right in the open where Jack had left it, so Caine marched him in, then picked it up, keeping his gun on Jack. He tapped the phone so it came to life, and the notification appeared on the lock screen when he did. His eyebrows rose.

  Jack thanked his stars for his girl and her skills. “Her timing stinks, but she got it done. I knew she would. Shit, if your guys hadn’t already passed out I’d have called the whole thing off. I was just eager to get out of this—”

  “Shup up, Jack.” Caine tossed the phone on the table again. “She says watch the Aurora Free Times tomorrow morning for proof. That’s how long you’ve got to live if this is bullshit. Now get your ass in the basement.”

  “Hell, not the basement. Look this thing’s over. You won.”

  “I always win. And you’d better believe I’ll be verifying every freaking story you or your damn kid tell me. You Kelloggs are a pack of manipulators and liars. Can’t be trusted. So you want me to put a bullet in your head right now for all the trouble you’ve given me? Or are you gonna get your skinny ass into the basement?”

  “Basement it is.”

  Caine followed him to the basement door. Jack opened it, flicked the light switch to the left, and felt a foot slam into the middle of his back. He pitched forward and tumbled down those rickety stairs like a boulder in an avalanche, breaking a couple risers on the way down. When he landed, he just lay there, not moving as pain screamed through every part of him.

  The light flicked off, and the door slammed.

  Jack wasn’t sure, but he thought his arm was broken. He also thought Vester Caine was probably going to kill him in the morning, no matter what the newspaper had to say. And regardless, his million dollar payoff was not going to happen.

  #

  Dax was an early riser by nature, but it was a ping from his cell that had stirred him awake this morning. He read the text. Then he rolled over in bed, and went real still and just looked at Kendra, lying there, her hair spread on the pillows, eyes closed, those long lashes on her cheeks. She was more beautiful than the sunlight kissing her skin. Waking up beside her was everything he wanted in life right then. It was perfect.

  And it was a fantasy.

  The text was from the accountant he had going over Aurora Downs’ books. He said someone had been using the track to launder money. Dax knew you didn’t launder money unless it was illegal money. Drug money, weapons-trade money, sex-trade money, something like that. The accountant sent a file. Dax viewed it. Saw it right away. The expenses were ten times what they should be, and many had, conveniently, been paid in cash. The accountant wanted to know what to do.

  He replied, “Follow the money. Find out who.” And then after an agonizing moment, he’d added, “Call if you find mention of Kendra Kellogg.”

  So he knew what. He just didn’t know who. And he didn’t know how Kendra was involved, or if she was involved, and he still had no idea how the hell to protect his mother.

  He needed to get away from Kendra for a little while. He couldn’t think straight when he was with her. She was like one of those hidden images you could only see when you lost your focus. He lost focus around her, and the illusion looked real.

  Yeah. He decided to head home for a shower and fresh clothes, grab a bite and go to work. The day started early at Holiday Ranch.

  He leaned in to kiss her cheek, and breathed her in. He hated to leave.

  She stirred, smiled softly without opening her eyes.

  “I’ve gotta go,” he said. “I’ll see you later, though. Okay?”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  She didn’t even wake up all the way. He slipped out of bed, dressed quietly and headed for home. On the way, his phone chimed its incoming message signal, and he glanced at it. It was a text from the lawyer, with an image too small to make out.

  He pulled into his driveway before taking a closer look.

  AURORA SPRINGS’ ONLY PRIVATE TRACK STAYS THAT WAY

  Dax had to make the screen bigger to read the rest.

  AURORA DOWNS’ new owner Dax Russell is the late Nealand Russell’s only son and heir. As his first order of business, Russell has appointed Kendra Kellogg manager. Background on Ms. Kellogg is a little hard to come by, but we’ll know more right after the holiday, when The Free Times will have an exclusive interview with both her and Dax Russell about their plans for our beloved Aurora Downs.

  Dax stared at the image filling his phone’s screen for a long time and read it twice, before he realized that he was looking at a photo of the front page of the Aurora Free Times. He could make out the edge of the lawyer’s coffee mug.

  Did you do this?

  He sighed at the phone, irritated, tapped in NO and hit send. Then he pocketed the thing, and wondered where the reporter had got his information. He thought about calling and asking the guy, but he probably wouldn’t tell him. That was some kind of reporter code, wasn’t it?

  Besides he knew who’d done this. Kendra.

  Others knew. Rob knew about Kendra’s “brilliant idea” to manage the track. Dax had confided in him. And what Rob knew, Kiley knew. And it was common knowledge that whatever any member of the Brand-McIntyre clan knew, they all knew. They had a group text busier than the AP wire.

  All those arguments came from the part of him that loved her. That was a really big part.

  But his thinking mind wasn’t dead yet. No one else had any reason to leak this lie to the press. He pulled into his driveway and shut the car off, then lowered his head to the steering wheel, not voluntarily. A wave of sadness washed over him, filled him, flooding in through a hole in his heart. It weakened his muscles. He felt heavy.

  He pulled out his phone and saw three more texts from the lawyer. He didn’t read them. He just typed “Don’t tell Mom…” Backspace, backspace, backspace. “Don’t tell Caroline and spoil her trip. I’m looking into this. Will get back to you.”

  He needed time to work through this, the grief of it. Because there was no question in his mind Kendra had tipped off the paper. He didn’t know why, but why didn’t matter. She was playing him again. He’d known it all along; he just hadn’t wanted to accept it. She was involved, somehow, with whatever criminal had been using Aurora Downs to clean his dirty money. He didn’t know who or how, but did it matter?

  He’d walked right into this with his eyes wide open, told himself he could keep his heart out of it. But he hadn’t.

  The truth hurt more than he had ever imagined. It hurt like hot railroad spikes, driven straight through his heart.

  And she was far, far crueler than he ever wo
uld’ve believed. Because she knew he loved her. And she’d played him anyway.

  So he made his mind slow down a little, and he got out of the car, went inside, and tried to go through the motions of any other morning, hoping the emotional tsunami would wash back out to sea.

  He backhanded wetness from his cheeks, made himself a single cup of coffee, spilled the cream he tried to add all over the table. His hands were shaking, he realized as he sat there, staring at the vibrations of the spoon he was holding.

  He hadn’t shaken this hard since he’d quit drinking.

  Drinking—why did he have to think of drinking? The sensation and taste of whiskey splashed over his tongue, too real to be imaginary.

  He got up, cleaned up the cream, put the carton back in the fridge. There was a muffin in there from Sunny’s Place. That might soak up the lava bubbling in his stomach. So he took that to the table with him and ate it slowly, and drank the coffee, and waited for the killing-winds inside him to abate.

  But they didn’t. And he wondered if they ever would.

  He rinsed his mug after the 2nd refill, cleaned up the muffin crumbs, and headed to the bathroom for a long hot shower.

  An hour later, still feeling no relief, he drove down Main until he hit the Falls Road, and took that up into the woods and hills north of town. He headed back to the barely used dirt road that looped around at one end, and he drove over it once to check for hazards; boulders or limbs or potholes. It looked good. So he drove back to the beginning, lined up his wheels, and sat there. There was so much power under and around him that he felt its rumble, and revved the motor just a little, so the rumble became a roar. And then he released the clutch, stomped the gas and sent twin geysers of red dirt flying behind him before the tires caught and the Charger lunged forward. He gave it all he could, let off just before the curve, turned the wheel, gave it more again, and the car drifted around the loop almost sideways, then caught traction and sped back to the start again.

  He wasn’t timing himself, but he was sure he could do it faster.

  #

  #

  Jack had fallen asleep, despite trying real hard not to, because he was afraid if he fell asleep after a concussion, he’d die. He knew that was an old wives’ tale, but he was afraid all the same.

  He wasn’t used to being afraid. So far, he didn’t like it much.

  When he woke up, there was dim gray light coming through the skinny casement windows. The sun had not yet risen. He pushed himself up onto all fours, only one arm wasn’t holding weight and screamed when he tried. So he got up on all threes. Moving hurt like a bitch. One knee was generating pulses of pain like a heartbeat and he quickly took his weight off it, and just sat on the floor, scooting back to a wall to lean against it. His head hurt, and his arm was like a bad toothache. The rest of his body seemed intact. He didn’t seem to be bleeding anywhere.

  He patted himself down, found his phone and the pocket knife, all that cash, and one lonely cigar. His head kept dropping to one side. His vision kept going dark. He yanked the phone out of his pocket, and looked down at its shattered screen. Hell.

  But still…maybe. He opened the app, tapped the command. Then he got up on his toes and used the pocket knife to start working on the casement window. Those things were never installed worth a damn.

  #

  Kendra was pounding on Dax’s door by 7:17 a.m. But she knew he wasn’t there. She could feel it—a big pulsing emptiness that, now that she thought about it, always seemed to be around when he wasn’t. The empty driveway further attested to his absence. That orange Charger didn’t go anywhere without him, that was for sure.

  Dammit, she needed to see him, make sure he hadn’t caught on to her sleight of hand. If he had, she’d have to explain, but she would really prefer not to have to. Vester Caine and his henchmen would see the headline—she’d already forwarded them a direct link to the Aurora Free Times online edition. All she had to do was confirm that her father was free, out of harm’s way, and then she’d tell Dax the truth.

  She remembered, vaguely, that tender kiss this morning. His soft voice telling her he had to leave and that he’d see her later. She hadn’t intended to let him go. She’d thought she would stick to him like glue this morning to make sure he didn’t get wind of the headline in the Aurora Springs newspaper until she’d had the chance to come clean and explain. God, why had she let him go?

  She headed out to her sister’s place, because if Dax wasn’t home or with her, then he must be out there with the horses.

  When she got to Kiley’s, she twisted her rearview mirror and looked at her reflection. A stranger looked back. Frightened eyes, all roiling with emotions, that kept filling with tears. Her lips kept quivering. Her heart was beating too fast.

  She schooled her face not to look as guilty as she felt, and saw that the big barn door was open. Good. Maybe she wouldn’t have to see her sister. Kiley could see right through her. She was the only one who could.

  So she moseyed in through the open door, and then walked through the barn, which really wasn’t a barn anymore. They’d converted it into a sprawling stable. It smelled of oats and molasses and horse. But it would always be the barn to her. The big barn. Kiley’s artsy crafty trinket shop was the little barn. Both buildings used to be full of old junk and spiderwebs and mystery, and two little girls used to sneak out and climb through them in search of treasure, even though their father had told them not to.

  So different now. No more secrets to uncover. They were open and clean and bright like Kiley’s new life. Kendra, though, was still crawling through cobwebs and shadows. She went all the way through to the rear door that opened into the pasture and closed it behind her.

  Rob was out there watching a horse run in circles around him. He held a rope that was attached to her harness, and turned with her as she trotted.

  “Hey Rob,” she called.

  He glanced her way. “Morning, Kendra.” He unclipped the lead and let the mare run off to do whatever horses did all day, then came to her. “Thank you for the shower. It was fantastic.”

  She nodded. “You’re welcome. Sophie and Emily helped. So did your stepmother. Vidalia’s something else, isn’t she?”

  “She sure is.” He frowned, looking past her. “Kiley’s in the house, if you wanted to uh—”

  “No. No, I’ll have to visit her later. Right now I’m just… I’m looking for Dax. He wasn’t home so I thought he might be here.”

  “He texted me earlier, said he’d be late.” Rob frowned. “Something wrong between you two?”

  “Not as far as I know, but it’s weird he’s nowhere to be found.”

  “You call him?”

  “I need to see him in person.”

  She could see Rob wrestling with whether he ought to ask why, so she said, “I’ll find him. No problem. I’ll visit Kiley another time. Bye.” She turned and trotted to the barn, ducked behind the door again and ran back through it to her car.

  She was a mile down the road when she saw him coming toward her. Didn’t recognize the car at first. Dax’s Charger was usually spotless, but today it wore such a thick layer of dust and dirt that it didn’t even look orange anymore. More beige.

  She pulled her car over onto the shoulder. He swung his around, and pulled it up behind hers. She sat there staring at him in the side mirror, her hands sweaty on the steering wheel. He didn’t get out for a long moment. He knows rang through her head, and then repeated in the deep tones of a Gregorian chant. It was a death knell. He knows. He knows. He knows. He knows.

  The filthy door opened. Dax got out.

  Taking a deep breath, Kendra opened her door and got out, too. She started toward him. He came a few steps, then stopped and just stood there, looking at her. The wind messed with his hair, and the sun beamed, making the gold strands shimmer. But he wasn’t smiling. His face was still, as if all the muscles had been paralyzed. As she got closer, she realized the pain only showed in his eyes. It was so intense, her f
irst thought was that something must’ve happened to his mother. But right behind it came the truth. Something happened to him, dumb ass. YOU.

  She moved closer, no longer doubting that he knew what she’d done. He’d probably seen the paper. She stopped with about a foot between his toes and hers, and looked him right in his wounded blue eyes, and tried to think of something to say.

  “You leaked a lie to the Aurora Free Times.”

  “Yes, I did, but—”

  “And they just took your word for it? Ran the story without even calling me to verify it?”

  She pressed her lips, looked at her feet. “The email was from you. I sent it from your phone last night.”

  He just looked at her, his eyes moving all over her face, like he was trying to see the monster he knew she was, trying to see the visible proof of it.

  “Before or after I told you I didn’t want the damn track?”

  “After.”

  “And after I told you seeing my name in the paper beside his was more than I could bear to think about?”

  She nodded, lowering her eyes to the road at her feet. It was like that made it ten times worse for him. He tipped back his head, turned in a slow circle, and was blinking way too frequently when he faced her again. “Do you honestly think this is gonna force me to accept the inheritance? And even if it did, that I’d still put you in charge?”

  “No. I didn’t think any of that. I don’t need you to accept the inheritance, Dax, I just need it to look like you did for a day or two.”

  He grimaced like he’d just caught a whiff of ripe limburger. “What?”

  “Your father was laundering money through the track for Vester Caine—”

  “Who the hell is Vester Caine?”

  “He’s a business man who imports heroin with his products. If the track goes to the SRA, a big spotlight shines on his deals and he’s got more trouble than you can even imagine.”

  “If the track goes to me, I’ll do the same thing.”