Devil in Texas (Lady Law & The Gunslinger Series, Book 1)

by Adrienne deWolfe

What she did find on Jazi's cot were a toy pony with Baron's ranching brand embroidered on its flank; colorful satin hair ribbons, much like those that had decorated Poppy's hotel altar; and a dog-eared edition of Little Women, which had been inscribed, "Happy Birthday, Sugar Plum... Papa B."

  Sadie's eyes narrowed as she recalled how Baron used "Sugar Plum" as an endearment.

  Then she remembered something Jazi had said in the cave:

  "I never told anyone who really paid for my medicine when I was sick."

  So Randie must be the mysterious mistress who'd been "competing" with Chantelle O'Leary for Baron. But just how far would Randie go to eliminate a female rival?

  Sadie crossed to Randie's side of the room. The elder Reynolds had arranged her prized bottles of perfume on a whitewashed, pine vanity. Grimly, Sadie began the methodical task of tugging stoppers to inhale three scent-aphrodisiacs known to bawds: cinnamon-vanilla, jasmine-rose, and patchouli.

  No violets.

  Sadie released a ragged breath. So Randie hadn't forged Cass's signature. But some woman had. The question was, why?

  She turned back toward the center of the room. A small yellow sphere on the floor caught her attention. Then another. Frowning, she crossed to a trunk, where she found a toppled tin of Serenata's nostrums, along with a few crushed throat lozenges in the shape of a man's boot heel. Uneasily, she crouched. Floorboards creaked beneath her feet as she stretched a finger and tasted some pastille powder with her tongue.

  The residue had a cloyingly sweet taste. More like molasses than lemon. She spit it out.

  "Boo? Tu'est ce que tu fais?"

  Sadie nearly jumped out of her skin to hear Randie's hopeful voice calling from the second floor.

  "Boo?" Randie called more insistently. "Are you up there?"

  Now the attic's ladder was shaking. Sadie muttered an oath as Randie climbed to the third story. Caught in the act of snooping, there was nothing Sadie could do except straighten her spine, hike her chin, and fire the first bullet.

  "Is Senator Westerfield Jazi's real father?" she demanded the minute Randie's dyed curls bobbed into view.

  The older bawd grew pale, despite her exertion.

  "You!"

  "In the flesh."

  "What are you doing in my private quarters?"

  "Searching for Boo. Like everyone else."

  Randie didn't look convinced. Her eyes narrowed as she gestured toward the shiner. "Did Cass give you that?"

  "Don't be absurd. Cass doesn't slap women, unless they're naked and begging for it. But then, I don't have to tell you what Cass is like in the bedroom."

  Randie blew out her breath and climbed the remaining rungs of the ladder. "Honestly, Cassie. Or Maisy. Or Sadie. Or whatever your name is today. Cass is the last person on my mind. So kindly slink back to your dungeon. I've got my own problems."

  "You mean like Papa B?"

  Randie's cheeks mottled. She snatched Little Women from Sadie's hands. "You have no right to pry into my daughter's affairs!"

  "I think you mean your affairs."

  Randie's chest heaved. Her usually perfect coiffure was slipping from its French braid, and the powder on her face had smeared, as if she'd recently shed tears. "I don't have time to argue. My daughter is missing!"

  "And yet, chere," Wilma interceded, her voice floating up from the second story, "you will answer the question. For I, too, am curious. Especially about this patron, who insists you hide your face by day and rendezvous with him after midnight—in some establishment other than mine."

  Randie looked like she might like to crawl under a bed.

  "I told you," Randie whined as Wilma climbed to the attic. "He swore me to silence. If I break his confidence, he'll be angry—"

  "I'm angry," Wilma snapped. "You've broken my confidence. And I deserve to know why you've been lying to me."

  "But Wilma, I didn't have a choice—"

  "C'est n'importe quoi!"

  Even Sadie winced to hear the thunder in the Mambo's voice. Randie looked on the verge of tears.

  "You don't understand! He's trying to protect me and Boo!"

  Sadie frowned. She remembered Baron's talk of Poppy's "talent" for revenge. She remembered his outrage when he'd described how his wife had found a strand of red hair in his underwear drawer. Then she remembered how Poppy had tried to hide her tins of lemon lozenges behind her back.

  Maybe Baron really was trying to protect Randie!

  Uneasiness flurried through Sadie's gut.

  "Neither Wilma nor I want harm to come to you," she told Randie. "We want to help."

  "You want to help?"

  "Enough," Wilma interceded. "You will answer questions. Now. When did Senator Westerfield learn about Boo?"

  Randie fidgeted, averting her eyes. "Last spring. When Boo was sick. I was desperate! I couldn't afford her medicine! I begged Baron for a loan. We rekindled our affair. Then he got it into his head Boo might be his daughter..."

  "So you let him believe the lie," Wilma accused.

  Randie's chin quivered. She hiked it. "You know what a whore's life is like. I want more for my daughter. Boo deserves more. But I never dreamed Baron would take matters as far as he did. I never dreamed he'd add her to his will!"

  Wilma's eyes locked with Sadie's.

  "When did Mrs. Westerfield learn about the change in Baron's will?" Sadie asked, beginning to piece together a new motive for several unsolved crimes.

  Randie shrugged. "About two weeks later, I suppose. Baron was pretty shaken up about the fire. He leaped to the conclusion that some granger faction or political rival wanted him dead. No amount of rationales could dissuade him otherwise.

  "But I didn't know anything about the will until Tito met me at the train depot. When I reached Lampasas, he confided he and Cass had witnessed the signing in private, while Mrs. Westerfield was out of town."

  Which explains why someone might want to steal Tito's and Cass's signatures from a hotel register. "So you followed Baron to Lampasas," Sadie said. "A rather rash move for a mistress, when the patron's wife is in tow."

  Randie's eyes flashed like emerald lightning. "I was invited to Lampasas. I received a letter from Baron, encouraging me to bring Boo for the mineral baths. But when I sent word we'd arrived, Baron flew into a rage! He said he'd never written a letter! He accused us of trying to sabotage his re-election campaign. So naturally, I showed him the page with his signature."

  "And what did Baron say?" Wilma demanded.

  "He... he said he'd get to the bottom of the matter."

  "And has he?"

  Randie winced. "I don't know. I've been afraid to ask. He's been on edge. Especially about that sniper. And Tito's death... "

  "Understandably so." Sadie folded her arms across her chest. "Apparently, someone has been forging his signature. This 'someone' stands to lose a great deal of money if Baron gets any sicker and Jazi remains in his will. My guess is that 'someone' is Poppy."

  "Tito was poisoned," Wilma interjected thoughtfully. "And poison is a woman's weapon."

  "And Poppy favors violet perfume," Sadie said, recalling the gift card inside the Halloween basket. "The scent of violets accompanied at least one document that I can prove was forged."

  Randie's complexion turned ashen. "But surely you don't think Poppy would hurt Boo! She loves children. She has always wanted children!"

  "Oui. Children of her own," Wilma said grimly. "Not the child of her husband's mistress. What you may not realize, chere, is that Mrs. Westerfield used to clerk in her father's law office. She is more than capable of writing a credible will."

  Randie cried out, covering her mouth with a shaking hand. "Oh God, this is all my fault." Tears were streaming down her face as she pulled a crumpled paper from a pocket in her skirt. "About 20 minutes ago, I found this letter on my pillow. I thought it was a joke. A Halloween prank."

  Frowning, Sadie took the page and read it aloud for Wilma's benefit:

  "If you want to find your daugh
ter, look in the cemetery. Come alone, or you'll both become permanent residents."

  Wilma plucked the paper from Sadie's hand. A moment later, she dropped the page as if she'd been burned. She was muttering invectives and making arcane gestures.

  "What?" Randie cried. "What did you see?"

  "Blood on the moon. There's no time to lose. I will alert Marshal Wright. Sadie will go with you."

  "But the paper said—"

  "Irrelevant." Wilma waved this protest away like it was smoke. "You will wear identical costumes. You will work as a team to lure the madwoman out."

  "We must operate under the assumption Poppy has an accomplice," Sadie said. But she refrained from mentioning the crushed pastilles. She figured Randie would escalate from fear to hysteria if she thought Jazi had been drugged—or worse. "We should wear bullet proof vests."

  Randie frowned. "There's a vest that stops bullets?"

  Sadie's neck heated as she realized she'd just betrayed the true nature of her work. "Uh... yeah. Rex wears them. We can borrow a few of his."

  Randie looked like she was about to question the efficacy of this plan, but Wilma interceded.

  "Dépêche-toi!" The Mambo was herding them like goslings toward the ladder. "You're burning daylight, as Cass would say!"

  Chapter 21

  Cass had a roaring in his brain, a burning in his gut, and a weight on his ankles that kept trying to drag him into the darkness. Dimly, he realized he tottered on the edge of the abyss. If he let go, he could ooze into a deep dullness. No pain. No worries. No struggles. An eternity of nothingness yawned before him.

  But to an adrenaline junkie like Cass, "nothingness" was the definition of Hell. So he fought his way back to the surface. Scratching and clawing at shreds of shadow, he embraced the pain. He welcomed the nausea. He opened to the flashing cyclone of light, funneling through his brain.

  "Damnation," he groaned as pinpricks of sensation became screaming nerves. He was lying on his side, staring at a lumpy, stinking puddle that he suspected was vomit. Maybe even his vomit. None of his limbs worked.

  "Did you have a nice nap, Snake Bait?"

  "You're alive?!" Cass had never been so happy to hear a wisecracking pain-in-the-ass in his life.

  "Of course, I'm alive," Collie retorted. "God hates me, and Satan fears me."

  Cass laughed—or rather, he tried. The sound came out more like a wheeze. The boy was somewhere behind him in the gloom. Cass hadn't yet figured out how to turn his body so he could see more than the vomit, and five inches beyond that, the black expanse that looked like a marble wall.

  "Just for the record," Collie said. "That wasn't much of a rescue."

  "You're welcome." Cass grunted. He was wrestling the hemp that bound his wrists behind his back. "Where are we?"

  "Judging by the lack of windows, the R.I.P., and the coffin—"

  "We're in a tomb?!"

  "I was going to say a really lame Halloween party, but yeah. 'Tomb' works, too."

  Cass cursed again, this time succeeding in rolling to his haunches. Now he could see the light source that cast a dim, ruddy glow on the walls. A candle sputtered inside a canvas sack, which was lined with sand. The luminaria sat on the coffin. Judging by the low level of the flame, the wick would soon gutter.

  "How long have I been out?" Cass demanded.

  "Long enough for Vandy to chew through my ankle ropes."

  "Good. Get your butt over here."

  Pressing the sides of his feet together, Cass triggered a special mechanism in his right boot heel. A knife sprang from the toe.

  Collie grunted with satisfaction. Apparently, he'd been looking forward to this moment. Plopping down on his buttocks, he started the tedious task of cutting his wrist bonds on the blade.

  Meanwhile, Cass craned his neck to the side and spied a ray of light. It came from the outside, piercing a keyhole. "Can you pick the door's lock?"

  "It's got a keyhole, don't it?"

  "Doesn't it."

  "Doesn't it what?"

  "Your grammar, boy."

  "You think I give a rat's ass about book-learning right now?"

  "Do you ever?"

  "Nope."

  Cass sighed. At this rate, he'd be edifying the kid for the rest of his life. "So how did you wind up in here?"

  "I was stupid."

  "You?"

  "It happens."

  The ghost of a smile touched Cass's lips. Considering the nightmare Collie had lived through, the kid was remarkably calm.

  "It happens? That's all you're going to tell me?"

  Collie shrugged. His hands were free, so he started working the knots that bound Cass's wrists. "Poppy gave me some soul cakes. Vandy took one whiff and refused to eat them. That's when I suspected something was wrong with the cakes. Unfortunately, I'd already washed one down with bourbon."

  "You think she used bad eggs?" Cass asked cautiously, remembering the suspicious stinging sensation on his neck moments before he'd passed out.

  Collie snorted. "I think Poppy is a bad egg. That woman's so crazy twisted up inside, her brain's rotting out. I heard her talking to Hank. They're in cahoots. They arranged for Bodine's rifle to backfire. And the Satin Siren to burn down. And a half dozen sodbusters to have 'fatal accidents.' They even arranged for some sugar planter back in Galveston to drown, after he jilted Poppy and asked some other woman to marry him. Apparently, Hank is Poppy's nephew. He knocks off folks she doesn't like, and she keeps him out of jail."

  Well, that certainly explains a few things.

  "So you're saying Poppy doesn't like me?" Cass asked dryly.

  "Well, you did help Baron make a new will," Collie deadpanned. "Apparently, she got Hank paroled so he could plug you and Tito from the grocer's roof. Only in your case, she had a change of heart 'cause she wants babies."

  Cass's neck heated as he realized just how close he'd come to being buzzard bait that day. Apparently, when Poppy had bailed him out of jail, she'd intended to lure him into an ambush. Her "change of heart" would explain why she'd kept throwing herself between him and a hail of bullets.

  "So when Hank failed to gun down Tito," Cass theorized, "Poppy tried to poison him—and you and Sadie, too, because she decided you were threats. When Baron visited Sadie in her dressing room, he ate the soul cakes Poppy sent. Now Baron's in the hospital. That proves he didn't know about the poison."

  Collie grunted. "I don't think Baron pays enough attention to Poppy to know what the hell she's doing—whether it's forging his name or tampering with his medicine."

  Cass muttered an oath at this revelation.

  At last, the ropes fell away from his wrists.

  Collie climbed to his feet. "I don't blame you for staying clear of Poppy's bed," the boy said grimly. "But since you refused to give her babies, she ain't feeling so forgiving anymore. She told Hank to fetch some kerosene. My guess is, she doesn't want our bodies—or Jazi's, either—to be identified when this tomb gets re-opened on All Souls Day."

  "Jazi?"

  "Hank kidnapped her and took her to the cottage."

  Cass cursed vehemently. So Jazi was the "Miss Reynolds" whom Baron had written into his will.

  Since Cass's gun belt and Bowie knife were missing—and no doubt in Hank's possession—Cass drew a stiletto from his shirt collar and started sawing his ankle bonds. "When did you hear Hank and Poppy talking?"

  "Hard to tell. A minute feels like a day in this place."

  "Then we're burning daylight."

  "Got ya covered, pard." Collie pulled a lock pick from his cuff.

  By the time Cass had sawed through the last loop of hemp, thunder was concealing the sound of the opening door and its squealing hinges.

  "Nice timing, kid."

  "That was planned," Collie said loftily.

  Cass didn't doubt the kid's word. Collie's survival instincts were downright uncanny.

  As Cass joined the boy on the threshold, wind kicked up brown, crackling leaves and whisked them inside th
e mausoleum.

  "Hand me the Remington in your boot."

  Collie didn't argue for once. But then, he wasn't the deadeye Cass was.

  "You'll find a Winchester in Pancake's saddleboot," Cass said.

  "Assuming Hank didn't get to Pancake first."

  "Good point. You got some other plan?"

  Collie's smile was grim. "I stashed my Winchester and my ammo under a bush."

  Cass nodded, snapping open the Remington to check for bullets. "Once you get your rifle, circle through the woods to the front of the house. Create a diversion. I'll take the back."

  With a terse nod, the boy set off with his coon for the treeline. Cass covered them until they were out of the .38's range. Then he turned his attention to the house. He'd sent Collie on the safer route—the landscaped route—because little more than tombstones stretched between the mausoleum and the back porch. The last grave marker was positioned some 20 yards below the wall of limestone ringing the yard.

  Even if a sniper wasn't the best of marksmen, all he'd have to do is sit in an upper window—or behind the chimney—to pick off anyone who approached the wall from Cass's direction. Under those circumstances, running up the hill would be suicide.

  Cass hoped Hank had reached this conclusion, too, and therefore, was focusing his rifle on the front of the house.

  Grimly, Cass waited for Collie to fetch his Winchester and get in position.

  Daylight was fading fast.

  * * *

  Boiling black thunderheads obscured the setting sun as Randie and Sadie crouched in a thicket about 50 yards below the front of the caretaker's cottage. For ease of movement, they'd donned white linen tunics and denim trousers, which they'd rolled to their knees. Only their boot toes could be seen beneath woolen mantles of forest-green and chocolate-brown plaid, which Wilma had hoped would be hard to spot against the backdrop of autumn trees.

  To complete their disguises, they'd styled their hair in similar fashions and tied on black velvet masks. Under the gloom of a thunderstorm, Sadie felt confident she could pass for Randie—as long as Poppy didn't get too close. If her mask was challenged, Sadie would say she had come directly from a Halloween party.

  As for Randie, the plan was to use her as a diversion, mostly because Randie had insisted on galloping heroically, if futilely, into hell to save her daughter. Sadie had the devil of a time convincing the older woman to wait in the woods for Marshal Wright. God only knew where Rex and Cass were.