by Jodi Thomas
“What can I do?” she asked, meaning every word.
“Keep Trooper Davis out of my hair. The guy gets on my nerves.”
“Done.”
The middle-aged major interrupted. “Gas,” she announced from about five feet away. “Someone’s seeded the grass here and there with gas. That’s why it’s flaring in spots. That’s why it’s moving so fast.”
“But how?”
“I understand this land is owned by a company in Dallas. I assume no one patrols it.” She didn’t give Alex or Hank time to comment. “An arsonist would have had no problem crossing this land on a jeep or ATV, or even a pickup. He could have spread gas for a mile if he had barrels of it in the back of a truck. But he couldn’t have crossed onto Matheson land,” she said as she looked at Hank. “You have a working ranch, I understand. A stranger would be noticed.” She made a face. “What I can’t figure out is how he could get out here with a load of gasoline. Looks like someone would have noticed.”
Hank had been so busy lately, he might not have noticed someone on his land, but the highway patrol had been watching the roads. “How’d you know all this?” he asked the major.
“I do my homework. You may have been up all night watching this fire, but I’ve been up learning all I could.” She winked at him boldly. “If it matters, Mr. Matheson, I figured out the circle about three this morning. I’m glad to see that you did also. It’s always good to know there is a logical man in charge.”
“What do you think the gas means?” He found himself admiring the major. She might be short and built like an apartment refrigerator, but she had the most interesting eyes and a razor-sharp mind.
“I think”—she raised one eyebrow as if pleased to be asked—“that he’s getting restless. He’s tired of waiting for his big fire. If this one doesn’t burn bright enough, I think he’ll set another soon.”
Hank agreed. “So, what do you know for sure, Major?”
“First, we know this was set. That’s a matter for law enforcement. We let them do their job. Second, get your people back and let it burn. If one of your men is standing in a puddle of gasoline when the fire line reaches him, we could have a casualty. I’m thinking he wouldn’t have had time to make more than one run spreading the gas. The chances he’d get caught were too great.”
When Hank started to argue, she continued, “If we act fast and move back, we can form a break; the tanks can water it down before the fire line gets to it. Those folks in Dallas won’t be happy that we let their land burn, but it’s our best chance of stopping the fire.”
“How far back?”
She pointed past his fence line. “Three, maybe four hundred yards that way.”
Hank agreed. It was a hard course to take, but it might be their only chance.
Like an army of ants, they all began to move. Hank drove his truck, loaded down with men, to the fence. By the time the others reached his land, he’d pulled out enough fence poles to let them pass.
Alex banished the reporters to Lone Oak Road and Trooper Davis to the roadblock. The highway patrolman looked like he might argue, but in the end he didn’t. Two more volunteer fire departments joined the fight. There should have been a half dozen more by now, but Hank would take what he got.
For the first time in hours, Hank thought they might have a chance.
While they waited for trackers to plow a row and trucks to water the barrier down, Hank picked up the radio and asked Andy to patch him through to his mother. He needed to know she was safe. He didn’t want her to know that they were fighting a fire on his land.
“Mom,” he said when he heard her voice.
“Yes, dear,” she answered. “Are you all right?”
“Fine, and you?”
“Pat, Fat, and I are at the bed-and-breakfast. We didn’t get any sleep packing up last night, so we’ve checked in and are having breakfast before we take a morning nap. You’re not going to believe what colors they’ve painted this place. I’ve already decided to suggest a better color scheme for a house this age.”
“Good.” Hank hated listening to his mother talk about colors. It crossed his mind that maybe she should have spent more time talking to his sister Claire, who only painted in black, white, and red.
She continued, oblivious to the fact that Hank hadn’t commented. “Claire packed her paintings in the pickup and is going to drive them on to Fort Worth before something else threatens to harm them. Liz and Saralynn went over to Liz’s friend’s house who has a pool. They plan on swimming a few hours if it gets warm enough today and then joining us here.”
Hank didn’t like the idea of Saralynn swimming with Liz. His younger sister might be smart, but she’d never been able to keep a goldfish alive. If he didn’t have his hands full, he’d go get the little princess right now. “Mom,” he said. “Do me a favor and call Liz. Tell her not to let Saralynn in the water unless she’s right there.”
“All right, but you should give her some credit. She’s not ten years old, she’s twenty-seven.”
“Promise,” he insisted.
“All right. I promise. When I finish breakfast, I’ll call.”
“Good.” He clicked the radio off, but he couldn’t shake his anxiety.
Chapter 43
TYLER LET HIMSELF IN THE BASEMENT DOOR OF THE funeral home, slipped out of his shoes, and rushed up the back stairs to his bedroom. He could hear Willamina in the kitchen making breakfast with CNN blaring away on the kitchen TV. His housekeeper had insisted on the TV ten years ago and, to Tyler’s knowledge, she never watched anything but the news and Oprah.
He crossed to his bathroom and stripped off his bloody shirt. Crawling out the window in the sheriff’s office hadn’t been easy. Halfway through he’d gotten stuck and decided he’d probably be there until he lost ten pounds, but after finally wiggling out of his suit jacket and vest, he’d dropped to the rosebushes below the office window.
There, he’d been bloodied and unfortunately several of the rosebushes died in the battle for him to break free.
Like a thief in an old film, he darted through the darkened streets, constantly on the move and completely out of breath by the time he’d gone the two blocks to the funeral home.
Now he didn’t bother with treating his wounds; he simply slipped on another white T-shirt and then pulled on an old sweatshirt he hadn’t worn in years and a pair of even older tennis shoes. Sometime over the past twenty years he’d begun dressing the same way every day. Always a starched dress shirt. Always a suit or sports jacket if it was the weekend. Always polished shoes.
He glanced in the mirror and decided he looked like a pumpkin in his orange UT shirt, but he had no time to worry about it. He was on a quest.
Running back down the stairs, he slipped out the basement door and climbed into the old van they used for moving flowers from the home to the grave. The seats smelled like dusty potpourri and damp cardboard, but Tyler hoped the van wouldn’t be missed or noticed.
Saralynn called just as he reached the city limit sign. “Are you still coming, Sir Knight?” she whispered.
“I’m coming, Princess. Did you walk around the house one more time like I told you?” He’d hoped someone was still there packing and thought the kid was sleeping. He couldn’t believe she was really alone.
“I did. I even called up to Momma’s studio. I can’t climb the stairs.” She took a breath and continued, “No one is in the house but me. Momma told me to ride with Aunt Liz, but by the time I got out to her car she said it was too full and I’d have to ride with Momma and the aunts in the van. When I got all the way back to the garage, the van was gone.”
He could hear her crying, and it broke his heart. He’d seen her walk using crutches a few times. Each step looked like it was slow and painful. The Matheson house was big, and she’d had to walk the length of it from the front steps to the back.
“They left me,” she said between gulps for air. “They all forgot about me.”
“No they didn�
��t, Princess. You’re the most important person of all. They just each thought that you were with someone else.”
He heard her sobbing and wished he had more knowledge of kids. “I’m coming,” he said. “I promise. I’m on my way.” His foot shoved the gas pedal harder. “I’ll be there soon. Can you get your bag of medicine ready?”
“I saw it on the counter. Someone must have packed it.”
“Good. Get it and meet me at the front door.”
“Can I call you back? Uncle Hank’s phone number is the only one I remember. He got it special because of me. When I spell out my name on any phone, I get him. I can even leave off the last N and still get him.”
“You bet you can call back. I’ll keep your uncle Hank’s phone in my hand until I get there.” Tyler smiled at the interesting way Hank had taught her not only to spell her name, but to call him. “You get all your things together and then call me right back.”
“What things?”
“Well . . .” He had no idea what little girls would think were important. “Things a princess should always have with her.”
“Oh,” she said. “I’ll pack.”
When she hung up, he closed the phone, hoping he’d be within sight of the ranch house by the time she collected her things.
He turned onto Lone Oak Road and saw the roadblock just past the Truman gate. To get to Saralynn, he’d have to pass Jeremiah’s place and, from the number of cars, there was no way. After all, he’d escaped from a locked office. Somehow that couldn’t be a plus. He was now a man on the run. The last thing he needed to happen was to be caught before he reached Saralynn.
Laughing to himself, he could hardly wait to e-mail Katherine tonight and tell her of his adventure. Of course, he’d have to leave out a few details.
Tyler pulled off the road and tried to think. He had no map with him, but he could see every back road in his mind. He’d even mentioned one to Hank yesterday.
Turning around, Tyler headed for a back road that would run into a trail that would lead to wagon ruts still marking a path where buffalo bones had been hauled off Matheson land a hundred years ago.
It was full daylight by the time he reached where the path would have been, and to his delight, he could see slight impressions in the earth now and then, marking the way. As he drove, he also saw something else. Smoke, moving like a long rolling cloud toward him. It was still miles away, but it looked to be on a direct path to the ranch house.
Tyler gunned the engine, not caring that he was probably sending the old van to the junk heap. He had to get to Saralynn.
The house was dark when he pulled up at the front door. Leaving the van running, he jumped out and bounded up the steps.
“Saralynn!” he yelled.
She was nowhere in sight.
He tried the door.
Locked.
Panic jolted through his entire body. He tried pounding on the door, then listening. Nothing. Out of his mind with worry and smelling the fire growing closer, he started around the house, stomping on flowers and knocking over pots as he tried every window, every door.
All were locked. How could five women leave the house, locking every door, and forget to take Saralynn?
He took a tumble in the mud where someone had left a garden hose dripping in what looked like a newly planted garden. Getting to his feet, he tugged off the orange shirt, now soaked and dirty, and kept circling the house.
“Saralynn!” He wouldn’t leave, couldn’t leave until he found her. He tripped again, watching only the windows and not his footing. A branch caught his shoulder and bloodied the skin as it ripped the cotton of his shirt.
He’d made a complete circle and started another when he felt the phone in his pocket shaking.
“Saralynn!” He tried to sound calm. “I’m here.”
“Sir Knight,” she said. “I can’t carry my things and walk with the crutches. Will you help me?”
“Where are you?” He could smell the fire now and knew it was getting closer. They had no time to waste. If she’d been another child, he would have yelled for her to run, but his little princess could barely walk and, if she hurried, she might fall and hurt herself.
“I’m in my bedroom next to the kitchen.”
Tyler looked over at what looked like it might be a kitchen door. A few feet away, on a bench, he saw the gardening tools. Without hesitation, he committed a crime. He grabbed the hoe, raised it like a bat, and smashed the window in the door.
A moment later, he was in and moving toward the first room off the kitchen. “Princess?” he yelled.
He opened the door to the laundry room and almost swore aloud. “Princess,” he called again as he moved to another doorway
“Yes,” she answered just as he opened the next door.
She was sitting on her bed, her toys all around her. Relief washed over him.
She smiled up at him. “You are a mess, Sir Knight.”
He caught a glimpse of himself in her dresser mirror—his shirt bloody in spots, mud on his face and hands, and not even a hat to cover hair he didn’t remember combing since yesterday. “I’ve been fighting my share of dragons today.”
Taking a step toward her, he bowed as politely as he knew how. “Are you ready to go, Princess?”
She stuffed the toys into what looked like a laundry bag. “I’m ready.”
Tyler strapped her medical bag over one shoulder and a bag of toys over the other, then lifted her up as carefully as he’d seen Hank do in the diner.
She put her thin little arms around his neck and held on tightly as he moved though the house to the front door. He didn’t want her to see the broken glass or the smoke moving toward the back of her home.
“I’m very tired,” she whispered and rested her cheek against his shoulder.
“You sleep now, little one; I’ll get you to town. It shouldn’t be hard to find your aunt’s sports car or your grandmother’s old van. In no time you’ll be tucked into a blanket and down for a morning nap.”
“Okay.” She sounded almost asleep.
Tyler smiled. He’d gotten her in time.
At the front door, he turned the knob and stepped out into chaos.
Chapter 44
ALEX HEARD THE REPORT OF A BREAK-IN AT THE MATHESON home on her radio. Hank was one of the few ranchers who’d installed alarms, to satisfy the fears of the women in his household. Hank’s house wasn’t anything fancy, but between his mother’s pots and his sister’s art, someone might have decided to take advantage of the fire to do a little looting.
Katherine caught her attention. “Go,” she’d said. “Check out that alarm. There’s not much you can do here.”
Alex nodded and climbed into her car. She had to cross over open ground to get to the road and then go back almost to Lone Oak Road to enter the Matheson ranch entrance.
It took her five minutes and, by the time she pulled up, Trooper Davis was already there, his gun pulled and waiting.
“He’s in there,” Davis snapped. “He left his van running so he could make a fast getaway. Let me handle this, McAllen.”
Just then, the door opened and a mud-and-blood-covered man pushed his way out. He had bags on both shoulders and a child in his arms.
Saralynn!
Alex started to move, but Davis shoved her back with one hand as he yelled. “Take another step and you’re dead, Wright.”
Tyler Wright? She hadn’t even recognized him. This was impossible. Some kind of sick dream. She’d never seen Tyler with even a smudge on his suit, and why would he be taking Saralynn?
Alex glanced at the van. It was the one usually parked at the back of the funeral home.
“Put the kid down and step away from the door,” Davis ordered.
“No,” Tyler answered. “I’m not putting her down.”
Davis raised his service weapon at Tyler’s head.
Alex reacted. No matter what it looked like, Hank’s words came back to her. Tyler isn’t guilty.
“Hold your fire, Davis!” she ordered as she stepped out in front of the trooper and moved toward Hank’s friend. If Hank believed in the man so completely, she could believe in him a little.
“What’s going on here, Tyler?” Alex snapped.
He looked at her with fear in his eyes.
“Get out of the way, McAllen. You’re blocking my shot!” Davis yelled. “There’s only one thing to do with a pervert who kidnaps a child.”
Alex didn’t move, and she heard Davis mumble “Bitch” under his breath.
Tyler lowered his head slightly and spoke softly. “They accidentally left Saralynn, and I had to break out of your office to come get her. I’ll replace the roses I fell on and the window I broke here, but I’m not putting her on the hard ground.”
Alex looked down at the little girl. “Are you all right, honey?”
“I’m a princess,” she whispered in a sleepy little voice, “and Sir Knight came to rescue me.”
Alex smiled at Tyler. “You’ve had a rough time of it, even for a knight.”
He managed a smile. “Just part of the job.”
Alex extended her arms and lifted Saralynn. “How about you ride with me? There’s a blanket in my car and I’ll drive you around until we find your grandmother.”
When she stepped away from the porch, Trooper Davis slammed Tyler Wright to the ground. His head made a thud like a melon as it hit the stones steps. Alex twisted to block Saralynn’s view as Davis jerked Tyler’s hands behind him and began reading him his rights.
“That was not necessary, Davis,” Alex said.
He smiled as he pulled Tyler to his feet. “Oh, yeah, you know right from wrong, don’t you, Sheriff? Sleeping your way into the job teach you all you needed to know about being a cop?”
Alex headed toward her car. She’d deal with Davis as soon as she’d made sure Saralynn was safe. He’d had something against her from the day she’d been sworn in, and now hatred was boiling to the surface. Davis wasn’t mad about the crime he thought Tyler had committed or frustrated about the fires. He was furious at her. She could hear it in his words, feel it in his stares. Maybe it had always been there, boiling deep inside, but she knew without doubt that he wished it had been her head that hit the walk.
