by Cait London
At five-thirty, the rubble had been pulled apart, growing piles of pipe and metal beside those of wood to be burned. He was sweaty and dirty and fiercely afraid that he couldn’t give Uma what she deserved. I love you.
Why wouldn’t those words come easily to him?
Instead the word “oneness” curled around him, the sense that Uma was forever a part of him. Mitchell watched a rabbit hop away from the disturbed rubble and into the brush, then glanced at the approaching Lincoln town car. Walter burst from it, stalking toward Mitchell. “Hey, you. Warren. I’m on to you now.”
Taking his time, Mitchell stripped his leather gloves and stuck them in his back pocket. He removed the red bandana serving as a sweatband and wiped his face and bare chest with it. Clearly Walter was in a snit, not just his natural offensive self. “How so?”
Walter paced back and forth and then delivered a rapid-fire attack. “You may be a big hotshot from a major corporation, but you’re not buying your way into the position of Madrid’s mayor. There are people who want you to get Rogers to build here, to stimulate the town’s economy.”
“I’ve been asked to think about contacting Rogers. But I’m not working for them anymore.”
“People think you’re so high and mighty, that you have important business contacts. I say you’re lowdown, Warren, you’re just here to make trouble…to pay Madrid back for treating your dad as he deserved. You’ll be gone soon enough.”
“And if I’m not?”
Walter had never been so bold, but agitated now, he puffed up in his three-piece suit and glared at Mitchell. “Not one person in this town will vote for a man who beats Uma Thornton.”
Mitchell threw down the bandana. He wanted to hit Walter, but the man wasn’t strong enough to face him without some backing, some proof. “Where did you get that?”
Walter’s hand slashed through the summer evening. “Everyone is talking about it this morning down at the coffee shop. It’s common knowledge that she’s changed. She ran you down at the garage that day and lit into you. She’s sharp with Pearl, and she’s never been that. She’s always been kind to my wife, poor little delicate thing. You had even messed up Uma that day you and she went after Everett who was drinking at Mike’s. I heard you beat her so bad that she’s hiding out today, ashamed to show herself, poor thing.”
“Where is she?” Fear snaked over Mitchell, freezing him inside, despite the hot August sun.
“No one knows. She’s probably just waiting for the bruises to fade. I tell you, Warren, you’d better get out of town fast. Uma is respected here, or was until you came back, ready to wreck our lives, our town. I’m the best thing for Madrid, and I’m not letting you get the mayor’s office. I’ll run you right out—”
Mitchell reached out to catch Walter’s tie, wrapped it around his fist, and lifted to stretch it tight. “I said, ‘where is Uma’? If you have any idea, now would be a good time to say so.”
Walter struggled for breath, his hands trying to grip the taut Italian tie as his eyes bulged with fear. “I don’t know…I don’t know. I just know that I went to comfort her—”
“‘Comfort’?” Mitchell lifted his fist just an inch.
“She isn’t in her house,” Walter said quickly, his expression that of stark fear. “She isn’t anywhere, and Roman is looking for Shelly. Shelly is probably with Uma, trying to help her—”
He breathed deeply when Mitchell released his tie and hurried toward his pickup. Walter rubbed his throat and huffily straightened his clothing. He decided he would wait until another time to chat with Mitchell—a time when other people were there to help him.
Fearing for Uma, Mitchell raced toward town. He couldn’t breathe, his heart racing as his truck skidded to a stop by the Lawrence house. He shoved open the door, calling, “Uma?”
Deadly silence answered him, and Mitchell pushed up the stairs, two at a time, his body cold. Uma’s office was neat…and empty.
The bullethole in the window reminded him that she could be—
He swallowed, hurrying down the stairs and through the kitchen and out the back door to the garden. The roses she loved were beautiful, glossy and rich, and perfumed, and too still, the air seeming thick and layered and cool on his naked chest…too still, as if they were waiting…
Tail twitching, the gray cat watched him from his back steps. The cat leaped aside as Mitchell hurried inside to call, “Uma!”
The word echoed hollowly back to him, and the house was still and cool and trembling, as if—he could feel the stillness inside him, the prickling of the hair at his nape and on his body, and he knew that Uma was in danger—that the stalker had chosen his time.
Mitchell had made a mistake…he’d been certain that the danger walked in the night, but now it was only evening and still light, the sun barely fingering through the growing shadows on Lawrence Street. “Lauren, take care of her…Please…”
NINETEEN
“Mike, whoever you’re protecting has got Uma and Shelly. We’d appreciate any help you can give us.” Mitchell knew better than to push the big bartender too far; he got confused easily. Beside Mitchell, Roman stood in Mike’s small, cluttered hobby gun shop, located in his garage. Children’s excited yells sounded in the other part of Mike’s house, his wife calling to quiet them, the television was too loud.
Outlaw guns lined the rough walls of Mike’s shop, a model 1887 ten-gauge “riot gun” gleaming on the rack with a Remington “Whipit” gun, and a Remington Model 11 “sawed-off.”
Mike, seated at his workbench, held his head in his hands, sobbing quietly. “I had to fix the guns, repair them, show her how to use them, or she’d take everything—the bar, the house—and she threatened to—”
Wrapped in anguish, he reached out an arm and swept his gun repair tools from the workbench; they clattered to the floor. The surprised poodle sitting at his feet yelped, and he picked her up to press his face against her coat. “She said no one would believe me. She said she’d…she’d hurt my kids, and my little Lily…and she’d see that I lost everything, the house and the bar. I inherited the bar from Dad. I had to do as she said. I knew that when she just said, ‘Whoops. Spot could be a dot on the road.’ This is my Spot, my dog. My poor cute little puppy, and I knew she’d hurt my dog.”
“Who, Mike? Who?”
Mike shook his head and tears covered his ravaged face. “I knew I should have told Lonny. Now, he’ll be mad. It was Pearl Whiteford. She found some guns that she thinks Bonnie and Clyde must have stashed in that old motel her husband bought for storage. Who knows if they were really Clyde Barrow’s, but she thought they were and they needed repair. She came to me. At first, I thought it was just a rich woman’s fancy, something she’d give her husband for a present…and then, after the body—that Pete Jones—was found and Lonny came to me for information on the guns, I had some idea, but I didn’t want to think about it—that I might have been responsible for that Colt .45.”
He reached behind gun repair manuals and brought out a whiskey bottle, tipping it high. “I don’t drink, can’t afford to when you run a bar, but I need this.”
While Mitchell and Roman waited, their nerves taut, Mike wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. A slow-thinking man, he had to be allowed time to tell his story. “She went nuts. Came in here one night through a window while I was working, dressed like Clyde Barrow. Had the hat, the tie, the suit, everything. That’s when I knew—and that’s when she told me that I was going to prison and nothing could protect my family…all because I repaired those guns for her. I knew it was wrong, but I—”
“The old motel…” Mitchell said quietly, meeting Roman’s eyes.
“What do I do? Can I help?” Mike asked urgently. “I don’t want anything to happen to Uma and Shelly. Uma tutored me to get through high school and she helped me on setting up the bar.”
“You stay here and take care of your family,” Mitchell said quietly, as he and Roman moved toward the outside door. “Don’t say a
nything to anyone. We don’t know who else is in this.”
“Pearl is real smart, crazy-like,” Mike muttered as his five-year-old boy burst into the room, holding a truck that needed repair. The big man’s eyes pleaded with Mitchell and Roman. “I’ll stay put and take what I deserve,” he promised unevenly.
A half hour later, Roman rode beside Mitchell, the horses borrowed fromw LeRoy moving quietly over a back trail to the old motel. Expert horsemen, they kept to the shadows of the trees. No words were necessary; both men feared for the women, terrified that they might already be killed.
I’ll always be with you… Mitchell remembered how Uma rubbed her hands, still seeing Lauren’s blood. With a good heart, Uma had been blind to the madwoman, and now she was in danger—Uma…
It had taken forty-five minutes to convince Mike that he had to tell everything, and now, at almost eight o’clock, rain-clouds darkened the summer night, layering close to the earth, the air damp on Mitchell’s face. Roman grimaced occasionally as he had to put weight on the stirrup, his knee paining him, but he never slowed or complained.
The old motel lay in shadows, the windows boarded, the garages locked. Mitchell eased around the back and Roman waited at the front corner. When they met, Roman said, “Small car marks going into the garage. No sounds inside. Dani had said there was someone using this place, but I didn’t think about it because the Whitefords use it for storage.”
Mitchell slipped a small tool kit from his pocket and tried the massive lock. It came free, but an alarm sounded inside. The brothers looked at each other, and together, pushed their shoulders against the old wooden doors. It wouldn’t give, and Mitchell and Roman backed the horses up to the doors; Mitchell flapped his western hat in front of their heads. On cue from their rodeo experiences, the horses back hooves lifted and kicked and the doors flew open, torn from their hinges. Inside the garage, Roman turned off a digital alarm.
Mitchell moved the horses to one of the motel doors, and they kicked the doors open, alarms ringing. Inside, the sweep of Mitchell’s flashlight proved the small room was filled with storage boxes. Another room, more boxes, and then the third unit, which was empty and neat. A mussed cot was bolted to the floor, a table with an ice chest near it.
The flashlight’s beam pinpointed a hairpin on the floor, which Roman scooped up and gripped in his fist. An elastic band with Uma’s long mink-brown hair was on the bed with a note in her handwriting that said, “Tell anyone and we die.”
Mitchell wrapped his hand around the opened bottle of water. “Still cold. They haven’t been gone very long.”
“New wood,” Roman noted, as he moved his hands over the walls. At one point he pressed harder, and with a click, a secret closet opened to reveal clothing. Holding a small men’s suit high, Roman shook his head.
Replacing it, he noted another inset of new wood and pressed it. Another small, high closet opened to reveal a lethal compound bow and accessories. The arrow quiver held steel-tipped practice arrows, but there were three hunting arrows carefully hung in line. Below them were marked the names Shelly, Uma, and Mitchell.
“Lauren wasn’t in the plan,” Mitchell noted softly.
“That must have really gotten Pearl—to know that Pete had killed the wrong woman. Just an innocent bystander. That was probably why Shelly got that scar and her house peppered with slugs…Pearl was really mad and lost it.”
Mitchell lifted the compound bow out of the closet and tested the pull. “She’s stronger than she looks. The old windmill was a moving target—she practiced on that.”
“And from what she did to Rosy, she likes to see pain, enjoys watching it.”
Mitchell pushed away the image of Uma, bleeding as Lauren had done. He had to find Uma. “Let’s go.”
The brothers grimly mounted their horses. “Which way?” Roman asked, his grim features etched in the dim light.
Mitchell tried not to let his terror ride over logic. “Any root cellar, any old shack, any house.”
“Not the Whitefords. That’s too obvious.”
“Pearl doesn’t like messes. She’s meticulous about that. She’ll pick somewhere else.”
“That old garage where they found the body?”
Mitchell shook his head. “I burned it to the ground.”
“Does Pearl know?”
With a look at each other, the brothers nudged the horses into a run toward the old Warren ranch. They took the back trails, rounding over the hills and down into the valleys. Then, in the low-lying clouds of the brewing storm, Lonny’s buffalo churned; beyond them was the old windmill, paddles circling quickly in the rising wind.
The wind pushed against the two women tethered to the windmill, while another stalked back and forth, waving the glint of a gun. Roman cursed silently, and Mitchell’s body ran cold as they dismounted and tied the horses to a stand of brush.
“I hated tending those roses,” Pearl was yelling fiercely in the wind. “My mother actually threw me into the bushes when I didn’t get good grades, when my dress was wrinkled, when I cried. I hated her. She loved them more than me.”
“Pearl…” Uma was trying to talk softly to the raging woman, dressed in a man’s suit. “Pearl, you don’t want to hurt your friends.”
Pearl pointed the gun at Shelly. “She had Walter’s child, shaming me. He told me so.”
She pointed the gun at Uma, and Mitchell went cold as the men moved, crouching, easing closer in the cloud shadows that hurled across the rolling hills. “You had the audacity, Uma, to tell me that my esteemed great-great-great-grandmother ran a bordello. You can’t malign my family that way. I’m going to shoot both of you, and then I’m going to kill him, my yard man. I can’t have him winning an election for mayor. I really can’t have that, not a Warren. You chose a Warren over me. Over me. I tried to warn you off, but you just weren’t paying attention, Uma,” Pearl crooned.
“But she did,” Mitchell said slowly, rising to stand just yards away from Pearl. He hoped he could hold Pearl’s attention, long enough for Roman to come up behind her. Mitchell started walking toward the woman with the gun. It was the Colt .45, and Pearl was good with it, good enough to kill Pete.
Her eyes were wild, her face white, her smile a grimace. “You,” she whispered. “Now I’ve got all of you in one place.”
“They love you, Pearl. Don’t do this,” Mitchell said quietly, slowly walking toward Pearl.
“Stay back. I’ll shoot them.”
Mitchell shot the flashlight’s powerful beam at Pearl, and blinded, she held up one hand covering her eyes, and fire leaped from her other hand, the .45’s slugs hissing by him. “Turn it off, or I’ll shoot them right now.”
The searing burn on his arm said the .45 had skimmed his flesh, blood dripping down his hand. Roman hadn’t had time to get around the back of the windmill and they needed more time. Mitchell killed the flashlight beam and started walking toward Pearl again.
“Lauren is here, you know. She’s always near Uma. That’s what she said when she died that night, ‘I’ll always be with you.’ Lauren is waiting for you, Pearl. Remember how my house feels, how you felt that Lauren was still there? She’s with Uma and Shelly now, waiting for you.”
“Lauren is dead,” Pearl cried wildly, glancing into the night shadows. “I was there. She didn’t say anything.”
“She told me. She’s here. In the wind. In the trees. Listen to her. Feel her.”
“She’s dead…she’s dead…I saw Lauren die.”
“She’s stayed to protect Uma and Shelly. She’s their friend, and your friend, too. You don’t want to hurt your friends. Uma understands how badly you’ve been treated. You’re her friend. You don’t want to hurt her. Who will you talk to? Who will you tell about your new clothes and your elegant parties? Who will help you send out invitations and help with your charities? And Shelly—she’s really an excellent housekeeper, Pearl. They’re hard to replace.”
Pearl looked confused, as if torn between two worlds, and s
he wavered, looking fearfully into the night, turning one way, then another. The sounds of the buffalo moving through the night seemed to terrify her. “Lauren? Are you there? I didn’t mean it to be you. It was Shelly. Shelly had Walter’s child. He told me so…Lauren?”
Just then Roman stood, and startled Pearl misfired into the ground. The shot shook the damp air, and the weapon sprang from her hand. In the distance, the already nervous buffalo began to stampede toward the windmill, the sound of their hooves like thunder. Wild with fear of the huge approaching beasts, and seeing the two big men closing in on her, Pearl began to climb the wooden bars of the windmill.
“Mitchell, help me,” Uma cried out, and he hurried to her. His hands shook as he used the small tool on her handcuff and it came free. Uma hurled herself into his arms and Mitchell buried his face against her throat, his body shaking, gathering her close and safe against him. He realized then that in the aftermath of fear, his heart pounded louder than the buffalo hooves.
The ground shook, and both men flattened themselves protectively against their loves, holding firmly to the old windmill as the buffalo swept past, thundering into the dim light, flowing like one beast over the hill.
Then Roman quickly freed Shelly, who was crying in his arms, and then Uma was pushing Mitchell away. “I’ve got to help her.”
Fearing for her, his grip on her wrist tethered her. Uma’s eyes begged him. “She’s sick, Mitchell. I’ve got to help her.”
“No.” He looked up to where Pearl stood, on the platform in front of the whirling paddles, looking terrified. If one of the paddles caught her, she could lose her balance and fall. “Let her go. For what’s she’s done, maybe it’s better. Maybe it’s justice.”
“I have to, Mitchell,” Uma whispered desperately, and hurled herself into his arms, holding him tightly. “I love you, Mitchell. But I love Pearl in a different way. She’s been tormented all her life, a victim. Walter lied and drove her to this. I can’t have her death on my conscience.”
