The Rivals

by Joan Johnston

  Bubba’s was cheerfully noisy and warm and, to his surprise, Drew saw Morgan sitting at a booth, deep in conversation with two men he didn’t recognize. Since there was an empty seat, he told the hostess he was with friends and crossed the room to join them.

  “Hey, Morgan,” he said, smiling at his stepbrother.

  “Drew! Son of a gun! I didn’t realize you were in town.”

  Morgan was sitting by himself on one side of the booth, and he slid out and threw an arm around Drew, turning him toward the other two men. “This is my little brother Drew,” Morgan said. “Drew, this is Niles Taylor and Jimmy Joe Stovall.”

  Each man rose up and reached across the table to greet Drew and shake his hand.

  “Are you with someone? Can you join us?” Morgan asked.

  “I’m all yours.” Drew gestured toward the booth and said to Morgan, “After you.”

  Drew crowded in after his stepbrother and ordered his breakfast from the waitress who magically appeared. Without asking, she poured him a cup of coffee. Drew reached for the hot cup and only then noticed that no one had said another word since he’d sat down.

  “What’s got all of you up so early?” he asked.

  “Clay, of course,” Morgan said.

  “I feel like this is all my fault,” Niles said. “I was the one who invited him to that party last night and introduced him to that girl. Who knew he would drink so much?”

  “I believe he was drugged,” Drew said.

  “Well, yes, that’s what he says,” Niles said.

  Drew knew that if any of the more sophisticated drugs had been used, there would be no evidence of any drug left in Clay’s body to prove his point. “I believe Clay,” he said.

  “I feel bad because I was working at the house,” Jimmy Joe said. “I just didn’t see any suspicious characters or hear anything out of the ordinary.”

  “Working? But not on duty?” Drew said, staring at the Teton County patrolman’s uniform Jimmy Joe was wearing. “Aren’t you a deputy sheriff?”

  Jimmy Joe swallowed the coffee in his mouth and said, “I was off-duty, working as a rent-a-cop to earn a little cash, keeping an eye on things for the homeowner.”

  Drew wasn’t going to say what he was thinking. That Jimmy Joe hadn’t done his job very well, and a girl had ended up dead. “Who owns that home on Bear Island?” Drew asked.

  “A friend of mine, a congressman,” Niles said. “He offered it to me for the party. I hired Jimmy Joe here at his recommendation.”

  “Has this friend of yours loaned you his home before?” Drew said. For other parties where other women got killed and other men got blackmailed?

  “Once or twice.” Niles smiled and said, “Don’t imagine he’ll be loaning it to anyone again anytime soon.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Whose name?” Niles asked.

  “This congressman friend of yours.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “I can look it up in the county records,” Drew said. Only it was more of a threat.

  Niles narrowed his eyes, turned to Morgan and said, “Your brother doesn’t play nice.”

  Morgan grinned and said, “You don’t want to get him mad. Drew’s hell on wheels when—”

  “The name?” Drew interrupted.

  “Harvey Donnelly,” Niles said.

  “He’s not a congressman,” Drew said sharply. “He’s the governor of Texas!”

  “I suppose I never think of him as Governor Donnelly,” Niles said. “He was Congressman Harvey Donnelly when I met him.”

  Drew could see all the puzzle pieces fitting nicely into place. He’d often been guilty of making a leap in logic: A therefore D, skipping steps B and C. It had gotten him into trouble before, and it likely would again. But if he laid everything out, he got the same result.

  A. Clay’s office in Washington was investigating an oil consortium doing business with the Japanese.

  B. Niles Taylor was the Midland oilman who’d organized the consortium.

  C. With incriminating pictures of Clay in bed with a dead woman, Niles could force Clay to end his investigation, or at least make sure it never turned up anything negative.

  Jimmy Joe Stovall was on hand to ensure that the local police and county deputies stayed away while the girl was murdered and the body removed. Except, Sarah’s kids had interfered, and Sarah had shot the gunman from Midland, the possible—make that probable—murderer of Lourdes Ramirez.

  Dupes like Congressman—now Governor—Donnelly, who might himself have been a blackmail victim once upon a time, provided the site of the intrigue, while being able to offer the alibi of being far, far from the scene of the crime.

  D. Crime solved. Villains exposed.

  Drew had heard it said that the most obvious solution to a puzzle was often the right one. It had only taken one mistake—not removing Lourdes’s body before Clay woke up and called the police—to bring the whole scheme tumbling down.

  The problem now, of course, was how to prove his theory and clear Clay’s name.

  The biggest question remaining was how Kate’s abduction fit into the picture. He could see no purpose for her kidnapping if Niles had intended to blackmail Clay all along. Or maybe he’d worried that the blackmail scheme would fail and wanted insurance that Clay would cooperate. That was still a possibility.

  “If you gentlemen will excuse me,” Drew said, “There’s something I need to discuss privately with my brother.” He stood and said, “Can you step outside with me a minute, Morgan?”

  “We’re done with our breakfast,” Niles said, swiping his mouth with his napkin. “Why don’t we excuse ourselves?”

  Jimmy Joe picked up his coffee cup and slurped the rest of it down, then scooted across the booth after Niles and said, “Nice seeing you, Morgan. Drew.”

  When they were gone, Drew sat down on the other side of the booth.

  The waitress cleared the table and said, “Your breakfast will be right up.”

  “What is it, little brother?” Morgan asked.

  “Clay wants to know if you’ve discovered who sent that e-mail to Kate.”

  Morgan shook his head. “Somebody clever, is all I know.”

  “How is it you ended up having breakfast with Niles and his friend?” Drew asked.

  Morgan’s eyes narrowed. “Why do you ask?”

  “Why don’t you want to tell me?”

  Morgan grinned. “Why so suspicious?”

  “You’re avoiding my question.”

  Morgan shook his head and said, “I knew Niles had hosted the party last night—”

  “How did you know that?” Drew interrupted.

  “Clay told me. Hey,” Morgan said. “What’s going on here? I’m one of the good guys.”

  “Then how do you know Niles Taylor?”

  “Only in the context of the ongoing investigation of his oil consortium,” Morgan said. “I sat down here to see if I could find out any more about what happened last night on Bear Island.”

  “Who else is involved in that oil consortium?” Drew asked.

  “A bunch of Texas oilmen, including Niles Taylor. And the Grayhawks—King and North.”

  Drew hissed in a breath. “Why are a couple of Wyoming oilmen involved in a Texas oil deal?”

  “King bought up a lot of mineral leases in Texas when the bottom fell out of the oil industry. He owns just about as much oil—and land—in Texas as he does in Wyoming.”

  Drew suddenly realized why Kate Grayhawk might have been taken. Not as a threat against Clay, but as a threat to be used against King. There was no question that Kate was King Grayhawk’s granddaughter. If what Clay had told him was true, the old man might have wanted Kate aborted before she was born, but once she’d shown up, he’d claimed her as his progeny.

  So what was it Niles Taylor wanted King Grayhawk to do? Get out of the deal? Be quiet about whatever was wrong with it? Give up more of the profits to the consortium—or to Niles himself? The best way to
find out was to ask the old man. And the sooner the better.

  “I’ve got someone to see,” Drew said abruptly.

  “If I’m not mistaken, that’s the waitress with your breakfast,” Morgan said, as the waitress set a plate in front of Drew.

  Drew took one long, regretful look at the steaming white gravy with sausage that had been ladled over fluffy homemade biscuits. He knew if he took one bite he’d want to eat it all, and he had a lot to do before the hearing. He shoved the plate aside and said, “How would you like to give me a ride out to Forgotten Valley?”

  “Sure. No problem.”

  Morgan’s rental car turned out to be a four-wheel drive Jeep. It looked like his stepbrother had already done a great deal of back-country driving.

  “Where have you been to sling up this much mud?” Drew asked as he eyed the Jeep.

  “I took a drive out to the elk refuge at dawn.”

  Drew had made the drive north out of town himself a couple of times to watch the elk in the early morning. It wasn’t a muddy trip. As he buckled himself into the passenger’s seat, Drew eyed his stepbrother, wondering if Morgan himself might be a victim of blackmail.

  As Clay’s chief of staff in Washington, Morgan wielded a great deal of power. As Clay moved on and became governor of Texas, and eventually president, Morgan would almost certainly go with him as a trusted advisor.

  That made Drew’s stepbrother a very powerful man, and a potential target for the kind of blackmail scheme that had been tried on Clay.

  “Are you in trouble?” Drew asked, as his brother made the turn onto Spring Gulch Road.

  Morgan shot Drew a startled glance. “What?”

  “Has someone tried to blackmail you? Are you being blackmailed right now?”

  Morgan spluttered and laughed. “Are you crazy? What gave you an idea like that?”

  “Clay’s current predicament,” Drew replied. “It was a set-up, Morgan. Someone wants a hold on Clay and planned to get it by blackmailing him with pictures of him in bed with a dead girl.”

  “Is that what Clay told you?”

  “I figured it out for myself.”

  “That sounds like a pretty elaborate set-up when Clay was only invited to the party yesterday morning,” Morgan said.

  “How do you know he was only invited yesterday morning?”

  “Niles mentioned it at breakfast,” Morgan said. “Which means that if what Clay says is true, someone set up this intricate blackmail scheme in less than twelve hours. That doesn’t make sense to me.”

  Drew understood now why Clay prized Morgan’s advice. Drew had never looked at it that way. But he knew for a fact that Clay hadn’t intended to go to the party on Bear Island before yesterday at breakfast.

  “They snatched the girl three months ago,” Drew mused aloud. “She was available on the spur of the moment. They could easily have had the drug handy. All they needed was Clay.”

  “And someone to commit the murder,” Morgan pointed out. “Jimmy Joe told me that he didn’t see anyone suspicious coming or going from the house. He had a guest list and was checking people off as they came in, which means the murderer was someone who was invited to the party.”

  “Or that Jimmy Joe left the door sometime during the night and the murderer walked in without being noticed,” Drew suggested.

  “Which sounds more likely,” Morgan agreed. “Although it probably wouldn’t hurt to talk to everyone on the guest list.”

  “The cops are already on it,” Drew said. But he wondered how cooperative the influential guests had been, considering their high profiles and the fact this was a homicide.

  “Here we are,” Morgan said as he pulled up to the back door of the main house at Forgotten Valley.

  “You’re welcome to stay here,” Drew said.

  “Thanks, but I’ve got a room in town.”

  Drew didn’t question Morgan further. All the DeWitt kids had their quirks. Needing his own space was one of Morgan’s.

  “Are you going to be at the bail hearing?” Drew asked.

  “Clay will get in touch when he needs me.” Morgan grinned and said, “I hear you’re his attorney.”

  Drew made a face. “Against all good sense. He keeps telling me it’s a done deal, that all I have to do is show up, and he’ll be out of jail on bail.”

  “I’m betting that’s exactly what will happen.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Drew said as he let himself out of the Jeep. “See you…when?”

  “Later,” Morgan said.

  Drew watched his stepbrother back up and drive away. He wished they were closer. He wished they saw each other more often, or at least talked on the phone. Drew wasn’t in touch with his other step-siblings, either. It was as though they’d all made a pact to disavow the past and live their lives forward, never looking back.

  Drew glanced into the garage on his way into the house and saw his foreman had retrieved his fishing boat and pickup. He crossed to the pickup and retrieved his cell phone. And found three messages—all of them from Sarah. He remembered he’d written the number on a pad and left it by the phone in her kitchen last night, with a note to call if she needed him.

  He debated whether to call her back. Until he realized all three calls had been made after he’d left her house this morning. After she’d sent him away.

  Had something happened? Was she all right? Were the kids all right? Had some new information come in about Tom’s murder? Or the charges against Clay?

  Drew felt his heart racing as he reached for the button to call Sarah back.

  Before he could punch in her number, the phone rang.

  18

  Drew had never before been nervous in a courtroom, except perhaps for his first appearance before a judge. He’d also never before represented a client accused of murder. He’d spent time on the phone with Clay’s criminal attorney in New York, confirming what he ought to say on Clay’s behalf and what Clay ought to say. Drew didn’t know why he felt so anxious. He only knew he was.

  The hickory benches in the Teton County circuit courtroom were packed with interested spectators, including media and townspeople. More troubling to Drew was the presence of both Jackson Blackthorne and King Grayhawk. He knew from stories Clay had told him just how much the two men hated each other. He knew King wanted to keep Clay in jail. Drew only hoped Blackjack had as much sway with the circuit court judge as Clay had said his father did.

  Clay sat beside Drew at the defendant’s table dressed in a dark gray wool-blend suit Drew had brought to him, with a crisply starched white shirt and a subdued tie. He looked like the influential and respectable political figure he was. What amazed Drew was the total lack of concern in his cousin’s demeanor.

  “You look like you’re here as a spectator, rather than the defendant,” he said to Clay.

  Clay smiled, an easy, confident smile, and said, “That’s because I know I’m innocent.”

  “Lots of innocent men have gone to jail,” Drew retorted.

  “Once I’m out of here,” Clay said, “you and I are going to get together with Detective Barndollar and figure out who the real murderer is.”

  Drew groaned.

  “What’s wrong?” Clay asked.

  “Nothing that can’t be fixed.” Clay’s mention of Sarah had reminded Drew that he’d never returned her three calls. Clay’s high-priced New York attorney had called immediately after Drew had seen the notice of Sarah’s calls and kept him on the phone so long that he’d neither called Sarah back nor sought out King Grayhawk. He’d raced just to get showered and dressed for court.

  Whatever Sarah wanted to talk about must have been important, or she wouldn’t have called three times. Now that he had time to think about it, that niggling worry was back. Was she all right? Were the kids all right? He needed to know why she’d called.

  As he reached for his cell phone, the excited hum in the background was replaced by scraping feet and rustling clothes as the bailiff said, “All rise.”
>
  “That’s not Judge Wilkerson,” Clay said under his breath.

  One of the part-time magistrates entered the courtroom and took a seat at the bench, which was on a raised dais angled in the corner of the courtroom. Drew heard the ripple of excitement run through the crowd as everyone realized a substitution had been made.

  “Be seated,” the judge said. “I’m Judge Warner. Judge Wilkerson has recused himself because of a close relationship to the defendant through his father.”

  Drew heard a buzzing in his ears. He’d known things would go to hell. He just hadn’t been sure how it would happen. He glanced at Clay, whose head was turned and whose eyes were locked with his father’s.

  Drew turned his own gaze across the courtroom and saw the smug look on King Grayhawk’s face. Apparently King had done a little wheeling and dealing of his own overnight.

  The district attorney rose and began his presentation, in very short order coming to precisely the conclusion Drew had expected. “The state believes there is a significant risk of flight if the defendant is released on bail, and therefore asks that bail be denied.”

  Drew wiped his sweaty hands on his suit trousers under the table as he listened to the DA list the reasons why he believed flight to be a possibility, ending with, “The defendant has a personal jet waiting at the airport as we speak.”

  The judge called on Drew to speak next.

  Drew made all the arguments he’d discussed with Clay’s high-priced New York criminal attorney, wishing with his heart and soul that Clay had been wise enough to wait, or that he’d been a big enough bastard to refuse to help his cousin. Because he knew, as sure as hogs made bacon, what was going to happen the instant he sat down.

  “Bail is denied,” the magistrate said.

  The courtroom erupted, with the media running for the doors to file their stories, while a deputy put handcuffs on Clay and led him away. Drew had to hand it to his cousin. Clay’s face never showed one bit of the fury Drew was sure he felt.

  Drew heard low, angry voices and turned to find King and Blackjack faced off behind him in the nearly empty courtroom.