by Kelly, Diane
The woman scurried off to round up their drinks.
The man turned back to her. “May I ask your name?”
You may. But you’re not going to get it. “Robin,” she said without hesitation. She might not have a red breast, but the name worked just as well for a spunky redhead, which she was tonight thanks to another Jessica Simpson hairpiece.
“Robin,” the man repeated, as if committing her name to memory. “I’m Sloane.”
She fought a laugh. She’d pegged him as a Bill or a Bob or maybe even an Earl. Sloane sounded like a character from a soap opera or an action movie. “It’s nice to meet you, Sloane.”
His lip twitched. “The pleasure is all mine.”
Yeah, she thought. It is.
They made small talk for a few minutes, and she learned he was a widower from the small town of Kermit out in west Texas. Oil country.
“What about you?” he asked.
“My friend and I drove down from Norman,” she said, referencing the city that was home to the University of Oklahoma.
“You a Sooner?”
“Sure am.”
“What are you studying up there?”
“Business.”
The part about attending college was a lie, of course, but Robin did consider herself a business student of sorts. To her life was a business, the ultimate goal to acquire more income and assets while investing the least amount of time and effort. Why give a hundred percent when you could find a sugar daddy to do it for you? Of course Sloane would not be that sugar daddy. She had no intention of playing grandma to a bunch of sticky-fingered children, and no way in hell would she move out to the sticks, especially not to west Texas where the air reeked of petrochemicals and dust storms were common. There was also no way would she live in a town that shared its name with what was assuredly a homosexual frog puppet. Why Miss Piggy kept chasing Kermit she would never know. Didn’t that “Rainbow Connection” song he loved to sing give the pig a clue? If Robin lived on Sesame Street, she’d set her sights on the Count. He might talk with a goofy accent, but he did have a castle.
The waitress returned with their drinks. Sloane paid for them, then asked if he could join her at her table, evidently sensing that his odds with Robin Hood were good enough that he no longer cared much what his friends’ wives might say.
“Of course.” She put her foot to the edge of the seat across from her and pushed it back in invitation.
Ten minutes later, Sloane was leading her around the dance floor. Two more beers and one hour later, and he was leading her out to his vehicle in the parking lot. Crystal and Heather trailed behind, keeping a dozen yards between them so it wouldn’t be obvious they were together.
Robin Hood and Sloan reached his truck. She noted that it was one of those king-cab super-duty Lariat models that ran around fifty grand. Not too shabby. Still, it was a pickup. She’d much rather ride in Kevin Trang’s Porsche. Besides, the infant car seat in the back was a total turnoff. No doubt about it now. This guy was someone’s granddaddy.
As the man went to open the passenger door for her, she grabbed his arm and looked up at him with bedroom eyes. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to do since I spotted you across the dance floor.”
His eyes flashed with desire. “And just what might that be?”
She stepped toward him, pushing herself up against him. “This.” She angled her head back and stood on tiptoe to kiss him.
This guy wasn’t nearly as repulsive as the man she’d ripped off last night. Tonight she’d be able to engage in a little parking lot make-out session with help from Ryan Gosling alone. No need for Bradley Cooper and Adam Levine. They could have the night off.
Sloane pulled back for a moment. “That was nice.”
“Then why stop?” She stretched up for another kiss, opening her mouth to him.
The two had been going at it for a full minute when Robin slid her hands down from the man’s neck to his chest. Her left hand kept going, down to his hip, which she cupped to pull him tighter against her. She could tell he was aroused from the bulge in the front of his pants, but she was much more interested in the bulge in his back pocket.
Moaning erotically to distract him, she slipped two fingers into the back pocket of his jeans and slowly eased his wallet out. Heather and Crystal stepped up to the front of the truck, ready to catch the wallet when she tossed it their way. Yeah, men are so easy.
Bam! The back of her-head hit against the passenger window as the man forced her back and grabbed her wrist so tightly her hand was immobilized. His wallet hung limply from her fingers.
Shit! Caught in the act!
Her frantic heartbeat roared in her ears and Sloane’s voice roared along with it. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
What the hell do I think I’m doing? The better question is what the hell does he think he is doing? Manhandling her like this, as if she were some common hooker? How dare he!
He’ll pay for this.
And he’ll pay good.
She tried to push him back with her right hand, but had little luck. His grip was like a tight manacle, holding her in place. So much for making him pay.
She turned to her sisters. “Help me!” she shrieked. “Get him!”
But the two just stood there, frozen, mouths agape. Much longer and they’d catch flies. Dammit, those two are useless!
Panic set her mind racing as fast as her heart.
Ohmigod-ohmigod-ohmigod! What should I do?
“Look,” the man said, “just drop my wallet and I’ll let you go. Okay? No harm. No foul.”
No harm, no foul meant no cash, either.
No deal. She hadn’t spent all that time with this guy earlier, coaxing him with her feminine wiles, to end up empty-handed.
With a primal cry, she brought her knee up, hard and fast, giving him a blow to the balls sure to put him out of commission for months.
The man crumpled and stepped back, but managed to hang on to her wrist so tight it felt like her bones would snap. “You nasty little bitch!”
She swung her purse at him, hitting him upside the head, but when she tried again he batted it away.
I need to get free!
I need to run!
I need a better weapon!
As they wrangled, her eyes searched for anything she could use to free herself from this man’s relentless grip. Something stuck up from the bed of his pickup, some kind of metal or plastic handle attached to a rod. She had no idea what the thing might be, but whatever it was would have to do. She dropped her purse to the ground, seized the handle, and swung the stick, hitting the man smartly upside the head. Whack!
While the strike dazed him temporarily and left a welt along his temple and cheek, he still hadn’t let go of her wrist.
Damn! This rancher is as tenacious as the bulls he raises.
She pulled the stick back and hit him with it again. Whack! If he were a piñata, his head would’ve split open then, spilling out candy and gum. But given that he was made of thick flesh and sturdy bones rather than papier-mâché, his head was still intact.
As she pulled the stick back for a third hit, she realized exactly what she held in her hands.
A cattle prod.
He threw up an open palm, fingers splayed, apparently expecting her to come at him again from the side, but she surprised him by coming in from below. She shoved the two tips up under the man’s chin with all the force she could muster. Hell, she half expected the thing to punch through his skin and come out of his opposite cheek. Would serve him right if it did.
She pressed the button to activate the prod.
Zzzzzt!
The man cried out, performed some involuntary and graceless twerk moves, and let go of her wrist.
Ha!
“No!” Crystal screamed, running toward them. “Stop!”
“Shut up, Crystal!” Robin Hood spat. Couldn’t her sister see this force was necessary? If she didn’t get free from this man, t
hey’d all be up shit creek—without a paddle, a boat, or even a snorkel. The cops would figure out they’d been the ones to steal the purses and rings last weekend and the wallet last night. They’d end up in the county jail.
She pressed the button again. Zzzzzt!
The man made no sound this time. Instead, he just flopped his arms and legs around like a marionette with an untrained puppeteer, then crumpled to the ground.
She dropped the cattle prod and retrieved her purse. She turned to her sisters, who continued to gape like wide-mouth bass. “Run!”
FORTY
NOSFERATU VISITS FORT WORTH
Megan
The Big Dick, Brigit, and I stood over the man, who lay on the ground, rolling side to side and groaning. His neck bore two small round marks.
Derek chuckled. “Looks like we’ve got us a vampire.”
I rolled my eyes. “More likely that cattle prod lying next to him had something to do with this.” Rather than pick up the prod, I left it in place for the crime scene techs to handle.
Derek looked down at the man. “I feel for ya’, buddy. More than you will ever know.”
The Big Dick sent a knowing look my way, a look with such an edge I instinctively stepped back to avoid decapitation. Yeah, thanks to yours truly Tasering him in the groin, Derek knew what it was like to be electrocuted.
A twinge of guilt cramped my gut. My former partner might be an oversexed, offensive boor with a body odor problem and poor manners, a rude and obnoxious jerk, an overly aggressive, sexist pig … Wait, where am I going with this? Oh, yeah. Despite Derek’s many, many, MANY faults, he had been the one to find me when I’d been tied to the carousel with the bomb strapped to my chest. I wouldn’t have been standing here today if it weren’t for him.
“What if I give your truck nuts back?” I’d won them fair and square in our bet, but frankly I’d be more than happy to return them to Derek. The pendulous rubber things were hideous, and they were severely hampering my gas mileage. Besides, I was tired of people pulling up next to me at stoplights and giving me weird looks. “Could we call it even if I return them?”
He yanked on his waistband and juggled his junk. “It would be a start.”
“Consider it done.”
The man stopped rolling and looked up at us.
“An ambulance is on the way, sir,” I told him. Luckily for him, paramedics were already on site for the rodeo. He wouldn’t have long to wait. Also lucky for him was the couple who’d happened upon him writhing on the ground and immediately dialed 911. “Are you up to answering some questions?”
He managed to push himself into a sitting position. “That little bitch! That little redheaded bitch from the dance hall! She took my wallet and hit me with my own cattle prod!”
A redhead now? My goodness, how many women were involved in these thefts?
I pulled my notepad and pen from my pocket and knelt down to his level. “Tell me what happened. From the beginning.”
The man, whose name was Sloane Gallatin—a soap opera name if ever I’d heard one—said he’d been in the dance hall with some associates from the earlier cattle auction when he’d spotted the redhead eyeing him from across the way. He’d gone over and bought her a beer. “She told me she was a student at OU and that her name was Robin.”
Robin? The blond thief who’d stolen the purses and rings in the ladies’ room had given that same name to the barista at Starbucks. Surely it wasn’t coincidence. Tonight’s cattle-prod-wielding redhead had to be the same woman.
I was certain she’d lied about both her name and her college attendance, but nevertheless I jotted them down. If nothing else, it meant I could rule out any girl named Robin who was a student at OU as a potential suspect. That left only approximately 13.5 million other females between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five in the U.S. who could possibly be the guilty party. My odds of finding this young woman were approximately the same as winning the Powerball. Then again, I had something the megalottery did not. A nimble brain that could assess clues, follow leads, and narrow down the list of potential suspects.
Sloane continued his story. “After a couple of beers and some dancing, we decided to leave. We came out here and the next thing I knew she was all over me like a bitch in heat.”
The Big Dick snorted. “You lucky dog.”
“Lucky?” The man cut him an incredulous look. “I got fried with a cattle prod, remember?”
“Oh, right,” Derek said. “That was a kick in the nuts, huh?”
“No,” the man said, angling bladed hands to indicate his groin. “The kick in the nuts was the kick in the nuts.”
“Uh-uh-uh.” I waved a hand between them to break up their conversation. This was my interview. Besides, I didn’t want to hear any more about anyone’s groin. Yick. “Go on,” I told the man.
“When I felt her take my wallet out of my back pocket I grabbed her wrist. She fought me for a few seconds, kneed me in the testicles, then grabbed the cattle prod out of the back of my truck. She hit me with it first, then zapped me with it. Twice!” He put a hand to the marks on his neck. “Damned prod burned right through my skin!”
It was a good thing the guy didn’t have a heart condition or we might have a corpse on our hands. I’d faced a lot of things in my days as a cop, but so far had been fortunate enough to avoid a murder scene.
“Anything else you can tell us?” I asked. “What she was wearing? Any distinguishing marks?”
“She was wearing jeans and a light blue sweater.” He made an X mark over his chest. “The kind that crosses in the front.”
And thus reveals a lot of cleavage. This thief was no idiot.
“Did you notice her eye color?” I asked. “Moles or scars? Tattoos? Birthmarks?”
“Didn’t notice any of that. But she had two other girls with her. Kinda plain girls with brown hair.”
He definitely had my attention now.
“These other two girls you mentioned. Were they with Robin in the dance hall?”
“No,” he said. “She was alone then. But once she grabbed my wallet, they came up out of nowhere and watched the whole thing. One of them yelled at Robin to stop when she hit me with the prod. She hollered back at them. She called one of them Crystal.”
Crystal, huh?
Finally!
A solid lead!
I wrote the name Crystal in all caps on my pad and underlined it three times for good measure. “Did you see what these other two girls were wearing? Crystal and the other one?”
“Jeans, I guess,” the man said. “I only got a quick look before Robin zapped me. The one called Crystal was wearing boots. Purple ones.”
A third pair of colorful boots? It was clear what Crystal was spending her share of the take on. Talk about a shoe whore.
“When you say purple,” I asked the man, “what exactly do you mean?”
The man chuffed. “When I say purple, I mean purple. What kind of question is that?”
“I understand you’re upset, Mr. Gallatin,” I said, “but—”
“I’m not just upset!” he yelled. “My balls are bruised and I’ve got holes in my neck! I drove halfway across the state of Texas to come to this godforsaken stock show and this is what I get?”
I held up a palm. “I’m very sorry for what you’ve gone through, sir. But keep in mind that I’m trying to help you here. What I meant by my earlier question is do you mean the boots were a plum color? Or a lighter color, like lavender? Or more of a pink-type purple? These details could be important.”
“Hell, I don’t know. Lavender, I guess.”
“Were the boots solid purple?”
“No. Just the upper part.”
Derek punched the mic for his radio. “Everyone keep an eye out for a hot redhead in jeans and a low-cut light blue sweater. Also for a couple of fuglies, one with purple boots.”
“He didn’t say the women were ugly,” I admonished Derek.
The Big Dick rolled his eyes this time.
“He said they were plain. That’s guy-speak for fugly.”
“Point taken.” Things would be a lot easier if men and women would use the same language. I stood. “I’ll be right back,” I said, looking down at the victim. “Stay here.”
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered. “Where do you think I’d go in this condition?”
Leaving Derek in charge of the victim, I jogged over to my cruiser, Brigit running along beside me, her tags jingling like a Christmas sleigh. When I reached the patrol car, I unlocked it and pulled the printouts from the boot stores out of my bag. After locking the cruiser back up, I hurried back to Gallatin.
I held the documents out to him. “Look through this. See if you spot those boots.”
Before Gallatin could take the papers from me, Derek snatched them out of my hand. He paged through them then eyed me suspiciously as he held up the documents. “What’s this?”
I had to tell him the truth. For one, it would help him do his job as a cop. For two, he had a direct line to Chief Garelik. If I wasn’t up front with Derek, he could sic the chief on my ass. “Everyone who’s been robbed here has reported a potential accomplice with colorful boots.”
Derek’s eyes narrowed. “Why didn’t you tell the rest of us?”
“I did. Remember when I told everyone to look out for a girl wearing black and green boots? You asked if that was all she was wearing. Suggested we put out an APB.”
Derek’s expression turned sour. He couldn’t deny it.
“Besides,” I added. “All of those details were in my reports. I left copies along with a summary memo in the office here. It read urgent across the top in twenty-four-point type. Didn’t you read it?”
He didn’t bother answering me verbally, responding only with a snort.
I snatched the printout back out of his hands and passed it to Gallatin. “Take a look.”
The man glanced down at the pages. “It’s too dark. I can hardly tell what I’m looking at here.”
I activated the flashlight app on my phone and shined the illuminated screen down on the pages. He flipped through them, stopping on a pair of boots identified as the Tan Arizona model. He jabbed a finger at the picture. “That’s what they looked like.”
