by Brenda Novak
She wasn’t buying it. “You knew exactly who I was,” she said, rolling her eyes.
That was the point. She’d been different from every other woman. Better. But he wasn’t about to admit it.
“You were probably pretending we were back in high school and doing it in the cab of some pickup after the Homecoming Dance. Maybe you were even dreaming that Stuart stumbled upon us. Vindicated at last, right?”
Because she’d hit somewhere fairly close to the truth—he hadn’t needed to pretend they were in high school, but it had been particularly satisfying to get what he’d wanted for so long—he laughed. “Not yet, but it’s not too late.” Rising up on one elbow, he nuzzled her neck. “How ’bout you put on your old cheerleader uniform?”
“I was wondering when we were going to get to that,” she said dryly.
“Without the little panties,” he added.
She hid a yawn. “You have cheerleader fantasies?”
Only when it came to her. “I could put on a cowboy hat and play the wealthy rancher, pretend to be someone you’d consider good enough.”
She winced as though he’d slapped her, and he instantly regretted the barbed reminder. He wasn’t even sure why he’d said it.
“I have to get up,” she mumbled, and moved away from him, taking the bedding with her.
“I didn’t mean anything by that,” he said.
“Yes, you did. You still resent me, still want to punish me for how I treated you in the past. To you, I’m no different from Bruce or Stuart or any of the other Dunlaps.”
“Sophia—”
“Don’t worry about it. You wanted me, and I rejected you. And now you’ve come back to town and nailed the girl who turned you down. Your job is done. Except for rubbing Stuart’s nose in the fact that you got what he wanted, of course. There’s still that to enjoy.”
He sat up. “I said I wouldn’t tell anyone, and I meant it.”
“Go ahead. Like I said last night, I don’t have much more to lose.”
“What were you talking about?” he asked, but he never got an answer. The doorbell interrupted them.
Her gaze darted to the clock—7:10. “It’s too early for visitors,” she murmured, and dropped the bedding so she could pull on some clothes.
She didn’t need to say it. He knew what she was thinking: More murders.
Bruce Dunlap was waiting on Sophia’s doorstep, dressed in his usual—jeans and a golf shirt with cowboy boots. Only today he was also wearing a worried expression. He was about the last person she’d expected to see. He’d never visited her at home. She’d thought it was Officer Fitzer coming by to break some news that was too catastrophic to be shared over the phone.
So what was this? What could Bruce Dunlap possibly want from her?
Self-consciously smoothing down her hair, she glanced at the bedroom door, which she’d closed as she came out. Rod was behind that door. She shouldn’t have let him stay with her, shouldn’t have let herself get intimately involved. She’d known that. He’d come back to Bordertown to prove he was better than everyone who’d once shut him out or looked down on him. And that included her. But she wasn’t going to let him laugh victoriously while breaking her heart.
Good thing her heart had nothing to do with it. She’d wanted what he had to offer last night. It was that simple. She wasn’t willing to torture herself with regret, wouldn’t make it more than it was. As long as she didn’t care about him any more deeply than he cared about her, she’d be fine.
Wondering what Bruce wanted, she opened the door, but because she had his illegitimate son hidden away in her bedroom, she stood in the doorway rather than invite him in. “Bruce. What can I do for you?”
He adjusted his baseball cap. “Sorry to bother you, Sophia, but I stopped by the station to see Officer Fitzer and he suggested I talk to you.”
She couldn’t imagine Joe had meant he should drag her out of bed, but she didn’t mention that. Bruce was obviously upset. “About what?”
“He said you were working graveyard last night.”
“That’s true…”
Drawing a deep breath, he scratched his neck. “You didn’t run into Stuart in town, did you?”
She thought of the vandalized motel room and wondered if Bruce had heard about that but didn’t bring it up in case he hadn’t. She wanted to see where this conversation was going first. “No, I didn’t.” Even after they’d started actively looking for him. “Why?”
“He hasn’t shown up for work today. We’re doing a lot of soil prep, getting ready to plant. He was supposed to drive the tractor.”
“What time?”
“Six. We’d planned to meet in the clearing, but he wasn’t there. He’s never done that before.”
“You’ve checked his house, of course.”
“Of course. From the looks of it, he never came home last night.”
“Is that unusual?”
“Extremely.”
“Maybe he had too much to drink and passed out somewhere.”
“Where? I’ve spent the past thirty minutes driving through town, hoping to see some sign of him or his truck. But he just…disappeared.”
“Could he be with a woman?”
“You’re the only one he talks about.”
“I didn’t necessarily mean someone he was interested in dating.”
He shifted his feet. “You’re talking about a call girl or a hooker?”
“Maybe someone from Douglas or Sierra Vista,” she said. Or Trudy. Sophia knew Stuart visited her on occasion.
“If so, it’d be the first time he’s pulled this. I can’t even get him on his cell.”
“It’s still early.”
“Listen, Patrick told me something that has his mother a little…concerned.”
Bruce seemed concerned, too. “What’s that?”
“He said that Roderick came by last night, looking for Stuart. According to Pat, Rod wouldn’t say what he wanted, but he seemed angry, upset.”
“You’re not suggesting Rod had anything to do with Stuart’s disappearance.”
There was a moment of silence as he stared at the ground. Then he said, “No, I can’t believe that. I wouldn’t have asked Rod to come back here if I thought something like that could ever happen. Except…except I know there’s never been any love lost between them. And Edna…” He blew out a sigh.
“Edna?” she repeated, prompting him to finish.
He rubbed his face. “She’s sure Rod’s the devil incarnate. She won’t give him a chance, never has. I hoped bringing him back to Bordertown might…I don’t know…allow us to do things…better. He’s never really had a family. I feel guilty about that. But maybe I was stupid to think our relationship would be different now that so much time has passed. Edna is as bitter as she ever was. Maybe more so. What happened thirty years ago is a thorn in her side that still festers.”
That was a lot for Bruce to reveal. He’d certainly never taken Sophia into his confidence before. She knew he wouldn’t be doing it now if he wasn’t so upset. And although he stopped short of saying Edna had become impossible to live with, she got the impression they’d just had a big argument. The push-pull of his obligations to his legitimate family and the guilt he felt for neglecting his illegitimate son obviously ate at him and had been eating at him as long as that thorn had been festering in his wife’s side. Sophia actually felt sorry for him.
“If it’ll help, I know why Rod was looking for Stuart,” she said.
He’d been nervously jingling the change in his pocket, but at this, he went still. “You do?”
“Someone trashed his motel room last night. He wanted to ask Stuart about it.”
“Why would Stuart do that?”
Her cell phone vibrated. She could hear it shaking against the counter, where she’d plugged it in to charge after coming home last night. But she made no move to answer. She’d call whoever it was back after she’d finished speaking to Bruce. “I think you already know.”
“But are you sure it wasn’t an attempted burglary or—”
“Nothing was stolen, Bruce. Someone cut up Rod’s clothes, wrote obscenities on the wall, broke his computer, that sort of thing.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. I wanted him to feel welcome, accepted. So he’s not staying at the Mother Lode anymore?”
“He couldn’t. His room had to be cleaned and repaired. Even the door was broken.”
“The door seemed fine a few minutes ago. His Hummer wasn’t in the lot, but I knocked to be sure he wasn’t there.”
Apparently, Leland had managed to get the door fixed. He’d probably known all along that it wouldn’t take much, but he preferred to rent to someone who didn’t attract trouble. No doubt he also realized that he could now demand a higher price, given the sudden shortage of lodging. “It was broken when I was there after ten.”
“So where’s Rod?”
Sophia had been in law enforcement long enough that she hated a liar and didn’t want to be one. She tried to sidestep the question rather than answer it directly. “Have you tried his cell?”
“At least a dozen times. He’s not answering.”
“I’m pretty sure he never found Stuart, if that’s what you want to ask him. We were at a safe house that might be connected to the UDA murders until pretty late.”
“But someone has to know where Stuart is. And if Rod was out searching for him, maybe he found him….”
Her home phone began to ring. Sophia glanced at it. This interruption was harder to ignore because she wasn’t the only one to hear it. Excusing herself for a minute, she went to answer.
Because she’d left the door open, he stepped into her living room. Knowing Rod was so close, she felt a jolt of alarm, but Bruce stayed by the door as she lifted the receiver. “Hello?”
“Chief?”
Her alarm grew but for a different reason. It was Joe, and his tone was somber. “Yes?”
“We’ve got another murder on our hands.”
Closing her eyes, she dropped her head in her free hand, bracing for the worst. “Just one?”
“Just one.”
“Another UDA?”
“Not this time.”
She snapped up straight and eyed Bruce, who was watching her curiously. “Who, then?”
“Stuart Dunlap. Someone shot him in the head.”
21
Rod had no idea how to react. He dropped the sheet he’d been holding around his waist while listening at the door, and simply stood there, waiting for the reality of what Sophia had told his father to sink in. The wail Bruce had emitted when he learned his youngest son—youngest with Edna, anyway—was dead set Rod’s teeth on edge. It was a wail of torment, of pain.
All the time he was growing up, Rod had told himself he hated the Dunlaps. At times, he’d grown so bitter he’d wished them dead. But he wasn’t glad to hear of Stuart’s murder.
The door opened and almost hit him before he could make himself move. Once he’d stepped aside, Sophia came in, but she was so busy staring at his face she didn’t seem to notice he’d dropped his only covering. He didn’t care, couldn’t care, about modesty or propriety. He couldn’t feel anything at all, except guilt. He wasn’t sure why. He’d had nothing to do with his half brother’s death. Was it just because he’d always hated Stuart? There were times when the depth of his hate made him feel capable of almost anything. Or maybe his return to Bordertown had in some way contributed….
He closed his eyes as the truth—the truth he’d refused to face—became clearer. He didn’t really hate Stuart. His feelings about Stuart were strong but they had more to do with jealousy than hate.
“You heard?” she murmured.
“Yeah.” He bent to reclaim the sheet. He had to get out of here. He didn’t want her to see how deeply this affected him. He’d acted so tough where Stuart and Patrick and his father were concerned. And now, somehow, he didn’t feel tough at all. He felt raw and vulnerable and as exposed emotionally as he was physically….
“Hey.” She put a hand on his bare back. Her fingers were cool, delicate. He could remember her threading them through his as he made love to her, remembered thinking that Stuart would give anything to be in his place for once.
God, he was screwed up. Was that why he’d stayed with her—to punish his half brother? “I gotta go.”
“Where?” she said.
He wasn’t sure. He wanted to leave town and pretend he’d never returned, wanted to ignore that Stuart’s death had ever happened, as if it didn’t relate to him in any way. His life in California was so far removed. He felt compelled to get back to it right away, to force down all the emotions that’d been dredged up since he drove into town, including his attraction to Sophia, which suddenly seemed as threatening as everything else.
But his father’s wail would stay with him forever. He knew that. Just as he knew Bruce had to be wondering if he’d killed Stuart. “I’ve gotta get some toiletries so I can at least brush my teeth and replace the clothes that were ruined in my motel room. Then I’ll get to work on the UDA murders.”
Folding her arms, she leaned against the wall as she watched him dress. “This could be related.”
“You can brief me on any similarities you find later.”
He had his shorts on and was reaching for his T-shirt when she came over and held it away from him. “Of course he thinks it’s you, Rod.” She didn’t have to say who “he” was. “As far as he knows, Stuart doesn’t have any other enemies. You come back to town, your motel room gets trashed, you go on the warpath searching for the person who was most likely responsible and that person winds up dead. It doesn’t look good, but it’s all circumstantial. So why don’t we go to the crime scene and find some evidence that proves otherwise?”
He didn’t want to see Stuart’s body, didn’t want to witness any more of Bruce’s heartbreak.
“Someone could be setting you up,” she went on. “You realize that.”
He hadn’t thought about it until this moment. He’d been dealing with the sudden panic.
“Why let them get away with it?” she pressed.
“I shouldn’t have come back here.” He grabbed his shirt from her.
She released it but didn’t back off. “Yet you did. And this happened. And now you have to make sure the right person gets punished.”
He didn’t know how to describe to her how it would feel to have his father blame him. Stuart’s murder would destroy the few ounces of pride Bruce was finally exhibiting in his bastard son, would make Bruce regret the overtures he’d made in recent years. And although Rod had told himself all along that he didn’t care whether his father was proud of him or not, that Bruce was wasting his time hoping for forgiveness, he knew now it wasn’t true. Maybe he’d rejected his father’s advances, but only because he was afraid to trust them. More than anything, he wanted to avoid feeling the way he’d felt as a child—worthless, unloved, less than his white half brothers.
“If I show up there, things could get ugly. I don’t want to wind up making this worse by hurting Bruce or Patrick.”
“They don’t even know where his body is yet. They may get word somehow and show up, but if that happens, you’ll just have to control yourself. Because if you take off, they’ll have one more reason to think you did it.”
She had a point. Now that he’d stopped reacting and started thinking, he knew he had to go to wherever Stuart had been shot. He wanted to go, wasn’t sure why he’d initially thought the opposite. He didn’t care about the Dunlaps. How could he have forgotten? Not caring was the only way to survive.
Setting his jaw, he found his flip-flops where she’d placed them neatly in her closet and put them on. “Fine. Let’s go.”
Sophia drove in silence. Rod sat in the passenger seat. He wouldn’t have a vehicle until they could get over to the tow yard to pick up the Hummer, but now wasn’t the time to worry about that. It was just something to fixate on instead of thinking about the
fact that Stuart Dunlap, a man she’d known her whole life, had been murdered. It was difficult enough to confront a crime scene involving complete strangers. Sophia had no idea how she was going to hold up while viewing Stuart—who’d been very much alive when she’d last seen him at the jail—gazing sightlessly up at her.
Despite the early hour, it was ninety degrees outside. She unfastened the top button of her uniform, then turned on the air-conditioning and stole a glance at Rod. He sat rigidly, staring straight ahead. A bruise blossomed on his left cheek, more purple than red now that some time had passed since the injury occurred. And there was a cut on his lip, which was still a little swollen. But those injuries hadn’t slowed him down last night, and she knew they weren’t bothering him now. He was dealing with something deeper.
Not that he’d be willing to share what was going on in his head. He’d completely withdrawn. As open and gentle, even funny, as he’d been last night, he connected her with his past, and when he couldn’t bear the pain associated with those years, he shut her out. She was a reminder of who he’d been, part of the town and everything he’d worked so hard to escape since he was sixteen.
Sophia understood, but it was difficult not to try and comfort him. Knowing she’d be rebuffed was all that stopped her. “You okay?” she asked, in spite of herself.
His manner remained aloof, his eyes flat when they shifted to her face, nothing like the eyes he’d turned on her yesterday. And that stony look was the only response he gave her.
“Okay,” she said. “Good to know.”
Another mile passed before he spoke. “Who would do this? You’ve been here your whole life. What enemies did Stuart have?”
She couldn’t name any. He was popular among single men because he was a frequent visitor at the Firelight and bought them a lot of drinks. He had a Harley and occasionally rode with Starkey and his friends, so he blended with a variety of groups, even the Hells Angels. He was just as popular among single women because he was considered a “catch.” Even married couples and families seemed to like him, mostly because of Bruce’s and Edna’s standing in the community, but that borrowed respectability hadn’t been difficult for him to maintain. He wasn’t a nuisance to anyone except her. He used to call and ask her out much more often than she wanted to hear from him, and it became awkward to keep refusing him. But…
