Culprits

by Richard Brewer

  Wary of saying anything that might induce more agony, Gracella kept silent. It didn’t help her. Steel fingers bit into her flesh and she screamed again. Vaguely distant, she heard the man with the bandaged leg protesting, being told to “sit the fuck down.”

  “Ain’t nobody to hear you, honey. I sent the staff home.” Harrington rose, knees creaking, and nodded to the man standing over his wife as she writhed weakly. “Just be sure you don’t mark her where it will show,” he said. “She’ll talk soon enough.”

  “They all do,” the man said without undue conceit—he was simply stating a fact.

  And he was right. Gracella held out another couple of minutes, until she prayed for unconsciousness that was never allowed to her, before she caved. She closed her eyes briefly, felt the slide of tears from the corner of her eyes, and gave them what they wanted—Zach Culhane’s name.

  . . .

  Six Months Ago

  His mistake was thinking he could fuck her, and then fuck her over.

  Feigning sleep on the tumbled bed, Gracella watched through slit eyelids as the cowboy stealthily rifled through her purse. She never carried much cash—maybe five hundred for emergencies. If he’d asked, she would have given him what she had in any case. It was chickenfeed, and Lord alone knew the boy had been worth it, but what was his name?

  When they got back to her suite, they’d each been in too much of an all-fired rush getting the other naked to bother making introductions, or even closing the drapes. Now, the glittering midnight skyline of Dallas provided enough light for her to admire the cut of his abs as he folded the bills into the pocket of his unbuttoned Levi’s.

  That same denim molded to his perfectly formed ass when he bent to retrieve the boots and shirt he’d thrown aside. Gracella groaned, managed to turn it into the kind of noise that one satisfied woman might be expected to make in a post-fuck dream. And for once she was only half faking it.

  He froze, eyes raking over her. She was still in a face-down sprawl across the king-size bed, head turned toward him, with her right arm under the pillow, her left dangling off the edge of the mattress.

  As he came closer, Gracella concentrated on keeping her breathing steady and slow.

  But she barely suppressed a flinch when his fingertips touched her hair at the nape of her neck. He let out a sigh as he drew a soft line along bicep and forearm to her exposed wrist. Then those dextrous fingers circled, flicked, and the white gold Cartier Le Dona watch—an anniversary gift from her husband—dropped loose into his waiting paw.

  What the fuck? Okay, cowboy, you’ve had your fun…

  Gracella grabbed his hand, twisting her body to yank him off balance and halfway onto the bed. As she did so, her right hand snaked out from under the pillow. In it was her Smith & Wesson revolver, chambered for .357 Magnum rounds. Right at that moment there were five of the little beauties available at the twitch of her right forefinger.

  Since she was eight years old, Gracella had been able to hit a rattlesnake from the back of a moving horse with less than three rounds. Considering she had the front blade sight rammed up hard under his jawbone, she reckoned she’d need just the one.

  She’d slipped the gun out of her purse when he’d gone to the bathroom, something about the way he’d gotten out of bed setting her alarm bells ringing.

  There was considerate—not wanting to disturb her—and then there was downright sneaky.

  Now, he reared back as far as his spine would bend. It wasn’t far enough to escape the prod of the S&W’s muzzle. He swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing jerkily in his throat, and spoke past gritted teeth.

  “Hey, babe! Ease up, will you?”

  “Now why would I wanna go and do a dumb thing like that, huh, cowboy?”

  “It’s not what it looks like—”

  “Oh no, by my guess it’s exactly what it looks like,” she cut in. “Now back off and put the watch on the goddamn table.”

  He shifted his weight as if to comply, then lunged, knocking her hand away and pinning it to the mattress. She expected he’d either try to wrench the gun from her grasp or make a run for it, but instead he dropped his head and sucked her exposed nipple into his mouth.

  The unexpected jolt of pleasure made her breath hitch sharply in her throat. Her back arched of its own accord. When he released her with a last nip of his teeth, he paused a moment, as if expecting her to punch him, or shoot him—or both.

  When she did neither, he carefully laid the watch between her breasts like an offering and straightened, reaching into his back pocket for the money.

  “Keep it,” Gracella said. “You’ve got some nerve, cowboy, but I like your style.”

  He grinned and tipped the brim of an imaginary Stetson. “Ma’am.”

  Raised up on her elbows, she watched him get halfway to the door before she asked, “This how you make your living—rolling bored rich bitches?”

  “There are worse ways, babe,” he said. “But no, this I do just for fun.”

  “What else do you do?”

  He shrugged. “Whatever will earn me a few bucks.”

  “Legal? Or otherwise?”

  “‘Legal’ is okay.” He grinned again, a flash of white teeth in the gloom. “But otherwise is a whole lot better.”

  Gracella threw him a sultry look as she threw off the sheets. “Then come back to bed, cowboy. I may just have work for you.”

  . . .

  Twelve Hours Earlier

  “Gracella, my dear, you look awful. Whatever did those animals do to you?”

  Gracella lifted her wan cheek for the federal court judge’s kiss, aware of the residual pain in her body caused even by so slight a movement. She caught her husband’s unyielding gaze from across the great room, holding sway among his political cronies, and gave the judge a fractional smile.

  “It was a most unpleasant experience,” she said without inflection. “Something you hope will never occur in your own home.”

  The elderly man followed her sightline and sighed. “Ah. Yes, I’m sure it was,” he murmured. He put a gentle hand on her arm. “My dear, I wish there was something I could—”

  But Harrington had crossed the distance between them with every appearance of playing the attentive host.

  “Judge,” he greeted with icy cordiality. “And how’s that lovely goddaughter of yours?”

  The judge paled and muttered some conventional response. As a warning, Harrington’s words came across loud and clear. The girl in question had fallen in with the wrong crowd, hooked into drugs, been tricked into muling for one of the Mexican cartels. Getting her out, and clean, and hushing the whole thing up had taken more money and influence than the judge alone could provide.

  He would hardly meet Gracella’s eyes as she edged away, trying not to limp. Harrington curved an arm round her ribcage and she went instantly still. He knew where to find every bruise and tender spot under the concealing long gown.

  “Goin’ somewhere, honey?”

  “To my room,” she said, voice brittle. “I have a headache—the stress of today’s…events, no doubt.”

  “No doubt,” Harrington echoed, his eyes mocking her. “You run along now, and be a good girl.”

  And those words were a warning too.

  She excused herself to their guests and left the great room, with its twenty-four-foot ceiling, flaming fire in the fieldstone hearth, and wagon wheel chandeliers. But as she tottered along the corridors toward the main staircase, Gracella’s spine began to stiffen—and not simply from the beating.

  With a glance behind her, she slipped off her heels and made her way to the cellar steps. As she descended, noises from the rest of the house faded behind her. Instead, she heard the faint rasp of someone trying to breathe around the pain, a scuffle of cloth against the concrete floor, the clink of metal.

  And she became aware of something else too. Something that brought the hairs bolt upright at the back of her neck.
r />   The smell of charred flesh like an outdoor barbecue.

  Her mind recoiled even as her feet took her forward. In the far recesses of the cellar, out of reach of her husband’s precious wine, slumped a man in bloodied clothing. He didn’t move as she approached. Only when she bent to touch his leg did he jerk in reaction, loosing a hoarse cry of protest and drawing his knees up to his chest. Or he tried to. The chain locked around one ankle brought him up short.

  “Zach?”

  She knelt and tipped his head back, almost wept at what she saw there. Burned into the side of her lover’s face was a Q inside a diamond—the same mark branded into every head of cattle on the Crystal Q.

  Gracella swore softly and ran her hands down his body. She found numerous other matted, scorched patches where they hadn’t even bothered to remove his clothing first before they’d applied the red-hot iron, fusing the fabric into his flesh.

  “Zach!” she said again, more urgently this time. “Jesús, cowboy.”

  His head lifted slowly and he looked at her with glazed eyes. They’d given him something to take the edge off, she realized. Or, more likely, to keep him quiet while the party went on above his head.

  “Hey, babe,” he slurred. “Sure am a cowboy now, ain’t I?”

  She sat back, moving slow against the pain stabbing through her own body. Nothing to what he must be enduring, but bad enough, even so.

  At last, she said in a small voice, “You were always planning to run out on me, weren’t you? I was just another rich bitch to roll.”

  He hesitated, and that told her all she needed to know.

  “Nothing personal, babe.”

  “S’okay.” She shrugged, forgetting, and flinched at the sudden spike through her shoulder. “If I’m honest, I never expected you to do anything different.”

  Despite the admission, he looked momentarily affronted, then let out a long, careful breath. “My one chance to make some serious money.” He gave a lopsided smile tinged with sadness. “Blow this town and go live like a king down in South America, y’know? Honduras maybe. Shack on the beach. Pretty maid all my own to cook and clean…” His voice drifted away, hazy, then he blinked and dragged his focus back onto her. She could see what the effort cost him. “You know he’s gonna kill the both of us, don’t you?”

  She gave a little nod.

  “So run, babe, while you still got the chance.” He rolled his head back against the wall, letting his eyes close. “Run fast, and go long.”

  “Uh-huh. I’m looking at how well that worked out for you.”

  The same lopsided smile again, the best he could manage. “You’re smarter than I ever was, Gracella. If anyone can stay ahead of that old bastard, I’d put my money on you.”

  She bit back the comment that “his” money had been stolen twice over. Then it was a groan she was biting back as she struggled to her feet and had to grab the nearest wine rack to get her there.

  “I’ve nowhere to run where Clovis wouldn’t find me,” she said, “so what’s the point in running? I’d only die tired.”

  . . .

  Three Years Ago

  Gracella shoved through the doors to the emergency room at a dead run and skidded to a stop on sequined white cowboy boots. She almost bowled over a junior doctor who was too busy gaping at her sudden appearance to pay attention to his own feet.

  “I need help! Please!” she begged, grabbing hold of his arm with bloodied fingers. He just froze and she glared at him.

  The doctor—who must have seen just about everything in his time—was reduced from weary efficiency to tongue-tied stuttering. “B-but you…you’re the Range Rider girl!”

  Gracella bit back a shriek of frustration, realizing belatedly that she was still in her full promotional outfit. Her attire consisted of the boots, pearl-laden Stetson over wild black curls, a miniscule fringed bikini bra, and suede chaps worn over a diamante G-string that left her ass out in the wind.

  “I sure am, honey chil’,” she assured him, plastering on the Southern twang her Range Rider contract specified. She was already linking her arm firmly through his and swinging him toward the doors. “Now step right this way.”

  The sudden chill of the hospital air conditioning had her nipples standing out almost as far as his eyes. As long as she kept her chest thrust out, Gracella knew she could lead him by the cock wherever she needed to.

  And right now, she needed him outside.

  Out in the windswept night, under the glare of the lights covering the ambulance loading dock, she’d abandoned her car with the driver’s door open and the engine still running. The wipers still scraped across the now-dry windshield.

  And her best friend in the world still lay unconscious and broken in the passenger seat, bleeding into the cloth upholstery.

  As soon as Gracella yanked the door open and the doctor saw Ashleigh, his big brain finally took over from his little brain. He elbowed Gracella aside and leaned over the girl, checking her vital signs and yelling for assistance.

  Everything happened fast after that.

  Her part over, Gracella sagged, delayed reaction making her tremble like a foal in its first thunderstorm. They wrapped a blanket around her shoulders, pushed a vending machine cup of something hot and sweet into her hands.

  Later, she recalled only odd images that imprinted almost randomly on her mind. Running figures in ill-fitting surgical scrubs. A gurney with one wheel that skittered on the wet concrete. Sterile wrappings ripped from needles and drips and tubes, and strewn to flutter away into the night. An inflatable bag over Ashleigh’s nose and mouth with a nurse squeezing it rhythmically to force air into the girl’s unwilling lungs.

  One of the hospital staff was asking her questions—Ashleigh’s personal details, a number for her parents, whether she had Medicare. Gracella mumbled answers through chattering teeth.

  “And can you tell us what happened to your friend? It looks like she’s taken quite a fall.”

  Gracella straightened too quickly and the room lurched around her. “That was no fall! Her bastard of a boyfriend showed up, accusin’ Ashleigh of flirtin’ when she was only doing the promo work she’s paid for, same as me.” She jerked a hand dismissively toward her clothing, or lack of it. “Just because the folks at Range Rider dress us up like hookers, that don’t mean we behave like ’em. But he kicked her down the damn stairs and kept right on kickin’ her.”

  The woman glanced at her sharply. “Did you call the cops?”

  Gracella shook her head. “Didn’t have my cell, and if I’d left her there to go get it, the bastard would’a killed her.”

  The woman hurried away, returning a short while later with two uniformed officers. Gracella repeated her story. They seemed more interested in the event the Range Rider girls had been attending—and who else might have been there.

  One cop moved out of earshot and spoke into his radio. When he returned he murmured something to the other man, who nodded without expression. Then he turned to Gracella again.

  “Ma’am, have you been drinking this evening?”

  “What?” She threw up her hands. “What’s that got to do with any damn thing?”

  “Just the facts, ma’am. We’ve gotten reports that your vehicle was seen driving erratically and I smell booze on you. Are you willing to perform a Field Sobriety Test?”

  “I work for Range Rider and I just spent the entire evening handing out free beer at some fancy party after the Cowboys game. You think I’m not gonna smell of booze?”

  But even as she spoke, she recalled the couple of cocktails she’d been persuaded to drink by the vice president of Range Rider as the party wound down, and the glass of champagne. Or was it two?

  Anxiety manifested as temper. “Of course I was driving erratically,” she spat. “I’d just watched that bastard Kyle tryin’ to kick my best friend to death! How would you expect me to drive after that?”

  “Nevertheless, ma’am, if you ar
e not willin’ to perform the FST, I will be forced to place you under arrest and have the folks here carry out a chemical blood test.”

  The two cops stepped apart, an automatic move to split her attention. One of them shook loose the cuffs from his belt.

  Seriously rattled now, Gracella shot to her feet, the blanket dropping from her shoulders. She needed this job to pay her way through school. “Wait a damn minute—”

  By the time her immediate boss arrived, with several other men in tow from the party including the Range Rider VP who’d plied her with drink, she was facedown on the tile floor with her hands cuffed behind her and one cop’s knee between her shoulder blades to keep her there. She was cussing long and loud.

  They all started arguing over the top of her, indistinguishable harsh voices. She closed her eyes against it all. She knew without being told that bringing the Range Rider brand into disrepute was cause for instant dismissal.

  But getting caught on a DUI would mean more stringent penalties. They could even demand she repay everything she’d earned so far this season, and most of it was already long spent…

  “Now hold hard,” said a loud male voice above her, enough authority in his tone to quell the other men instantly. “Sounds to me like this young lady was on a mission o’ mercy, and maybe we should be cuttin’ her a little slack.”

  And before she knew it, she was back on her feet with her hands freed and a silk-soft tuxedo jacket draped around her shivering shoulders.

  The voice, and the jacket, belonged to a tall, lean man with the tan of the great outdoors and the watchful eyes of an old-time lawman. She vaguely remembered him from the party. He was quite a bit older than Gracella, but expensively dressed and still attractive. And clearly, he had power—enough power to hold others to his command—which was his most attractive feature of all.

  Within ten minutes she was gliding through night-time Dallas in the back of his stretch Lincoln, all charges dropped. He made calls to the hospital on his cell, bullied his way through the bureaucracy to find out Ashleigh’s condition. She was stable, her parents already on their way down from Tulsa. Alongside him, Gracella sat in what she recognized later was a star struck daze.