Judging by the disc of brilliance that tried, unsuccessfully, to burn through the overhead gloom, Cass guessed he reached the cemetery's gate around half-past four. Orange marigolds and rusty leaves tumbled across his path as he hid Pancake in a shrubby area, partly to protect the buckskin from the brewing storm, and partly to avoid discovery. His Tejano informants might not have seen Hank, but that didn't mean the bastard had abandoned the premises.
A quick scan of the main path allowed Cass to find Collie's tracks. They were easy to recognize, thanks to the coon prints accompanying them. Unlike the vast majority of foot traffic, Collie's trail traveled south, following the fence and its hedgerows. For some reason, the boy had skirted the central fountain, which still smoldered with the pungent aroma of burnt cedar. Cass guessed the kid had wanted to avoid Joaquin's gang of Tejano revelers. Until Cass had gotten the boy interested in Texas and Rangerhood, Collie used to shun most human company.
Straining his senses for bushwhackers, Cass followed Collie's trail to a lightning-sheared oak. Or maybe the tree's limbs had been sheared by gunfire, Cass mused, spying a slug in the trunk about a foot above his head. A large, rotted limb had crashed across a tombstone, where coon prints abounded, suggesting Vandy had frisked for treats. A crushed patch of grass told where Collie had parked his rear; broken marigold planters marked where Hank's potshots had struck pay dirt.
Tamping down a surge of rage, Cass continued tracking. He spotted an orange napkin fluttering in a bush; the scattered shards of a bourbon bottle; and long, running strides where Collie had dodged bullets. Then Cass found the vomit on the mausoleum stoop.
About three feet further south, twin gouges told the story of boot heels being dragged off the stoop onto the lawn.
Five yards further, Hank had heaved Collie onto his shoulder.
Sick with dread, Cass picked up his pace, loping through the rain-starved grasses. He soon realized Hank's tracks weren't heading toward the caretaker's cottage; instead, they were leading toward a park-like area, dominated by a ponderous, granite structure.
Good God. Was Collie locked inside that mausoleum?
As if in answer, a ring-tailed wraith lumbered back and forth along the building's stoop. Every so often, Vandy would rise on his haunches, scratch the door, and whine in a pitiful manner.
Cass's heart wrenched.
The rustic little house of death looked as gloomy as the lowering thunderheads. Mildew-colored lichen dotted the weathered stone and the twin colonnades that flanked the entry; the weeping angel topping the roof was missing several fingers and toes. Unlike most Victorian mausoleums, which incorporated light to uplift the spirits within, this tomb had no windows. Nor was it engraved with a family name, although Cass suspected the bones inside belonged to White men. He found himself missing the colorful skeleton dolls that lent a festive, almost friendly feel to the Tejano tombs.
He forced his feet forward.
To approach a mausoleum—with the intention of entering it—would have been spooky on any day of the year. On Halloween, the proposition was downright ghoulish. Cass's palms grew damp as he removed the trigger guards from his guns.
Suddenly, Vandy grew excited. The door was beginning to move; its rusted hinges squealed in protest. The eager coon galloped into the shaft of candlelight that pierced the cemetery's gloom. Scratching and wriggling, he squeezed his girth past the door.
Cass held his breath. He expected to hear Collie's muffled greeting.
Instead, the sound that reverberated through the ruddy interior was Vandy's growl.
"Quit playing around," a female voice snapped. "And hurry! We have preparations to make at the house."
Cass slowed his strides. His hands flexed instinctively over his holsters.
Within moments, Poppy pushed her way onto the lawn. She was dressed in a peculiar fashion: a black monk's robe with bell-shaped sleeves. Cass hiked an eyebrow. Why was she wearing a Halloween costume in a mausoleum? Why wasn't she at the hospital with Baron?
He halted a judicious 20 yards from the tomb's doorway. When she turned and saw him, she shrieked, making a great show of clutching her heart and fanning her face.
"Good heavens, Cass! You gave me such a fright!"
"Did I?" he countered in gravelly tones. He had no patience for her theatrics today, not after the whoppers she'd been telling Sid about Collie. Part of Cass wanted to believe she was prone to hysterics, that she'd merely leaped to some unflattering conclusions about an insolent young man, whom she considered backwards and crass.
Another part of him feared she had deliberately implicated Collie in Tito's murder.
"Where's Collie?" he demanded.
She raised her chin a notch. "Honestly. You don't have to bite my head off. He's inside."
"Doing what?"
"Helping me arrange the memorial flowers, of course."
Cass's eyes narrowed as he considered her response. He supposed it could be true. But then, why hadn't Collie greeted Vandy?
"Aren't you jumping the gun?" Warily, he began to close the distance between them. "Baron isn't dead yet."
She blew out her breath. "The flowers aren't for Baron; they're to commemorate the Day of the Dead—a church holiday."
Lightning spat above the angel on the roof. Undaunted, Poppy held her ground, blocking the door and toying with the emerald ring below her scarlet fingernails. The flickering glow that emanated from the mausoleum limned her head and shoulders in orange. For some reason, Cass was reminded of Jazi's vision: the witch with the bloody claws and flaming hair.
He pushed the absurdity aside.
"I wasn't aware you had kinfolk in Lampasas," he probed in dubious tones.
"I don't like to speak of him."
"Because he's dead?"
"Because he's a bastard."
Cass halted before her. Whether she'd meant her kinsman was illegitimate or unscrupulous wasn't clear. "So that's why there's no surname over the keystone?"
She nodded. An oddly intense glow had kindled in her stare.
Suddenly, the utter silence in the mausoleum registered on Cass's senses. If Collie was really arranging pots of marigolds behind that door, wouldn't he be grumbling to Vandy about the task? Wouldn't Cass hear scraping and rustling? Footsteps and coon snuffling?
"I'm glad we ran into each other," Poppy said, distracting him with her husky tone. "I'm glad we'll have this opportunity to put last night behind us." She pasted on a smile—one that looked a tad ghoulish beneath the color-leeching flash of sky fire. "I'd hate for Baron to get the wrong idea."
"Me, too."
"So it'll be our secret. Forever."
"Uh-huh." He was only half listening. In fact, he was trying to see past her shoulder into the tomb.
Maybe that's why he was so surprised when she sprang at him like a sex-starved alley cat. Their chests collided, and he oomphed, staggering. She threw her arms around his neck, and something sharp pricked his skin. He thought it must have been her ring, but he was too busy muttering oaths and disentangling himself from her headlock to give the matter much thought.
"Dammit, woman! Enough!" He shoved her aside.
"My sentiments exactly." A vicious little smile curved her lips. "Good-bye, Cass."
He crossed the lawn toward the tomb. Dizziness assailed him by the third step. With his fourth step, pinwheels of light were spinning in his brain. His heart was speeding. His lungs were wheezing. His mouth tasted like sand.
Against the backdrop of candlelight, a shadowy figure in a brown Stetson swam into focus. The silhouette shoved the tomb's door wider. Instinctively, Cass reached for a Colt, but his knees were buckling. The ground was speeding upward at an alarming rate.
He never felt the bone-jarring jolt of that collision. He was unconscious before he hit the dirt.
Chapter 20
Sadie woke with a start. Dark purple shadows were creeping across the bed. She was cold, and her heart was pounding harder than usual. For a moment, she wasn't sure why.
/>
Then she realized she was clutching a pillow, not her lover. Cass had left her. Again!
Fighting off an inexplicable sense of dread, she threw back the quilt and turned up the gas lamp by the bed. According to the timepiece on the mantel, the hour was after 5 p.m. Masked revelers were probably prowling the streets, demanding candy and singing for soul cakes.
Turning her back on her battered reflection, she threw on a shirt and trousers. Since Wilma was two inches shorter—and enviably rounder in the hips—the Cajun had ordered Gator to haul Sadie's traveling trunk from the cave to the boudoir. That meant Sadie had mostly men's clothing to choose from. However, the wardrobe suited her. No lady walked the streets, looking like she'd brawled in a saloon. Even whores didn't show their faces in public after a beating, since damaged goods raised less money.
She returned to the vanity, where she encountered Wilma's ritual implements. Before Cass's arrival, the Mambo had insisted on chanting a healing spell for Sadie's eye and imploring Loa Eshu to protect her from evil. Sadie hadn't dared to protest, although she had cracked a few nervous jokes. Needless to say, Wilma hadn't considered them funny.
Confronted once more by the evidence of the Cajun's spooky side—a side which Sadie didn't understand, and wasn't sure she wanted to—she glanced over her shoulder like a guilty child. Satisfied the door was closed, she wrinkled her nose and gingerly pushed aside dried rosemary and peony root, guttered candles and etched bones, and a cotton poppet with red hair and a black eye. The doll looked alarmingly like her.
Remind me never to piss off Wilma.
At last feeling safe enough to reach for her brush, Sadie perched on the vanity stool and began working the snarls from her curls. She'd just about finished the process when she heard voices arguing in the hall.
"Thanks to some pranking kids and their ghost stories, the uncurried fool decided to play hero," Rex growled. "He rode off to a potential hostage situation. Without backup. Now no one knows where he is."
"If you didn't think Cass was ready to ride alone," Wilma retorted, "you shouldn't have made him a Ranger."
Sadie lowered her hair brush.
Cass is missing?
She stomped on boots, all the while straining her ears to hear the escalating argument.
"I pinned Cassidy to give him immunity in case he had to draw his gun," Rex said, "not so he could run half-cocked through the streets on a personal vendetta. You were supposed to keep him out of the brothel."
"I did send him away, cher, but—"
"You didn't stop to think he might sneak back? To flap his jaw?"
"Cass is a braggart," Wilma conceded. "But he's not malicious. He won't break a pact just to cause pain."
"That's easy for you to say."
"Non, cher. In truth, it is not. Cass discovered a long time ago I am not what I pretend to be. He has kept his silence on my account with great nobility."
Sadie frowned. Wilma was talking about her Octoroon ancestry, right?
"Dammit!" Rex said. "I wanted to tell her in my own time. In my own way."
"And so you shall, cher. Sadie's not the type to fume in silence. Don't you think she would have confronted you by now?"
Wait a minute. They're talking about me?
"Wilma!" Sadie bellowed, proving her old friend right about the fuming part. "What are you two yammering about?"
Dead silence came from the hallway.
Sadie stormed to the door and grabbed the handle.
It wouldn't budge.
She frowned. She tugged. She twisted the lock. Her mind flashed back to that horrific night in Galveston, and panic welled inside her. She half expected a bomb to crash through the window at any moment.
"Rex!" She started pounding on the door. "I can't get out!"
She heard the rumble of masculine ire. Then came the jingle of spurs. Someone jiggled the handle—to no avail.
"The lock is jammed. Looks like it was broken. From the outside."
Sadie sputtered an oath at Rex's assessment. This time the vision flashing through her mind was of one thoroughly dead Coyote.
"Cass did it!" She kicked the brass housing of the keyhole. "On purpose!"
"Why would Cassidy lock her inside?" Rex murmured.
"Love games," Wilma answered breezily. "The chirens are always playing dungeon prisoner and pleasure slave—"
"I am not playing, dammit!" Sadie was banging both fists on the door now. "Let me out! So I can kill him!"
"No one's killing anybody," Rex snapped. "You got a screwdriver?" he asked Wilma.
"I have many things for screwing, but—"
"Why do I get the feeling you're stalling?"
Wilma made an exasperated sound. "Must you read treachery into every single—"
"And now you're hiding something."
"Impossible man! Don't you have a killer to hunt? Not to mention a rogue Ranger? Cotton is perfectly capable of removing a door from its hinges—"
"So am I."
A Colt cylinder clicked. Sadie bit her lip. She'd suddenly remembered why Wilma had cautioned her to keep out of Rex's sight.
"Don't you dare put a dent in my brass!" Wilma flared. "I just polished—"
"Are you clear, Sadie?" Rex demanded in gravelly tones.
She cursed herself. Maybe if her shiner had hurt worse, she wouldn't have forgotten about it!
"Wilma's right," she said sheepishly. "You should be hunting Hank. And Cass is probably playing Halloween drinking games with Collie... "
"Step back," Rex commanded. "Now."
Sadie gulped. Desperately glad she wasn't the target of Rex's bullets, she fled to the corner, covering her ears. Sparks spit through the keyhole. A heartbeat later, he was kicking in the door. She glimpsed Wilma behind his shoulder, shaking her head in exasperation. Sadie actually considered diving under the bed.
Instead, she somehow managed to straighten her spine. She mustered the courage to face the man who'd been like a father to her for four years. Wintry-gray eyes raked her for damage, but they didn't have to look far.
The icy hellbroth darkening that gaze made Cass's outrage seem tame.
"It wasn't Cass!" she blurted. "It was Baron!"
Rex's chest heaved at this news.
"Come into the light."
The thread of iron underlying that deceptively calm voice would not be disobeyed. Sadie dragged her feet a few steps. She couldn't bring herself to meet his eyes.
"Sadie," he said in a soft, grim tone. "We have a great deal to discuss. Not the least of which is..." He gestured toward her cheek. "I should never have allowed you to masquerade as my lover."
"No!" Sadie hurried toward him then, afraid of what he might do. "Bruises heal. I knew the risks. I took them anyway. For God's sake, Rex, don't do anything rash! I could never forgive myself if harm came to you or Cass because of some stupid shiner! I'm a Pinkerton! I was doing my job."
His jaw hardened. "And I'm a Ranger. It's time I did mine."
He released her from that vise-like stare. Nodding curtly, he turned on his heel, his spurs chinking as he headed down the hall. The glance he tossed at Wilma was raw with accusation.
The Cajun's dark eyes grew bright with tears.
Burning with remorse, Sadie joined her friend in the hall. "I'm sorry, Wilma. I was so upset about the lock, I didn't stop to think."
"You're more like him than you know, chere." Wilma's lips curved wistfully as she watched her lover's brawny shoulders descend out of sight. "Now we must trust our men to do their jobs, so we can do ours."
Sadie frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Boo was playing hide-and-seek with Gator this afternoon, and no one has seen her since. Was she in the bedroom with you?"
"No." Sadie's face heated to think what an eyeful Jazi would have gotten if she'd been hiding under the bed. "Thank heaven for small miracles, eh?"
But Wilma didn't look amused. In fact, she looked downright disturbed. "It is strange, non? Just last night, the child couldn't stop t
alking about trick-or-treating and singing for soul cakes. She pestered the devil out of me to help her stitch a Mambo headdress and apron. Now the time has come for apple-bobbing and candlestick-jumping, but she cannot be found."
"Did you search the cave? If I were Jazi, I'd be hiding in your contraband and playing pirate-princess."
Wilma sighed. "Mira has turned this house upside-down. But I shall search myself. Perhaps Boo has fallen asleep in a wardrobe."
"Where is Mira?"
"Questioning the cook." Wilma shot Sadie a suspicious glance. "Why?"
"No reason."
"Bien." Wilma didn't look fooled. "Just to be clear: you are forbidden to scratch out any eyes or bite off any ears until further notice."
"You really know how to take all the fun out of a full moon," Sadie said dryly.
"Coming?" Wilma was walking to the staircase.
"Sure. Just as soon as I find a suitably ghoulish mask to cover what's left of my face."
"Bottom drawer of the chiffonier," Wilma called as her head descended out of sight.
Sadie waited until the creaking of the stairs faded into the buzz of gruff male voices and husky female laughter in the parlor, below. Then she hurried to the far end of the hall and lowered the staircase to the attic.
Time to see if Miranda Reynolds sent me that basket of poison.
The more Sadie thought about Randie's presence in Lampasas, the more she thought it was suspicious. Why was the bawd hiding in the brothel's attic? Why wasn't she earning her keep like the rest of Wilma's girls? Surely there was more to the mystery than Jazi's childhood innocence.
Sadie thought back to all the investigative reports she'd read about the Galveston blaze: Mace's, the fire marshal's, the police chief's, the insurance adjuster's. An important fact stood out in her mind: in every document, Baron had vouched for Randie's character. So just how well did Baron and Randie know each other?
To answer that question, Sadie began to search through the meager belongings Randie and Jazi had shoved into carpetbags for their trip to Lampasas. Despite Randie's claim she had brought her daughter to convalesce in the baths, Sadie could find no bathing gown anywhere in the cramped and stifling quarters.
Devil in Texas (Lady Law & The Gunslinger Series, Book 1) Page 25
