Secrets in the Sand

by Carolyn Brown

Angel turned off her office lights and pulled the door shut. She carried a burgundy leather briefcase in one hand and her laptop in the other. She pushed the button for the elevator to take her down to the ground-floor garage where her black Jaguar was parked. It was time to go home. The two-story Conrad Oil Enterprises, Inc. building disappeared in her rearview mirror as she drove to Main Street in Denison and then east on a farm road.

  She thought about the first days when she and the girls had formed the band and played the border-town dives in Cartwright, Colbert, Yuba, and Willis. They didn’t even have a name then, just a few instruments and a need to make a couple of dollars on the weekends to keep them in college. That was before Conrad Oil Enterprises had been even a glimmer of an idea.

  One night they’d unloaded their equipment at the Dixie Pixie club in Yuba while an old man wearing faded overalls watched. He swilled his liquor from a mason jar and said to his wife, a big woman in red stretch pants, “Well, looky here, Momma. There’s a pretty little angel with her honky-tonk band. Guess we died and went to heaven.” The old man had named their band right then, and Angel wondered if he was even around anymore to know how far she and the Honky Tonk Band had come in the past years.

  She crossed the river bridge and turned left into Hendrix, Oklahoma, then drove several more miles to her farm. It was only twenty acres, but it was home, and home was where her heart was this morning.

  The sun was an orange ball on the horizon when she pulled the car into the oval driveway. When she opened the door, she could smell the welcoming fragrance of roses. Jimmy’s gardening skills kept the rosebushes looking wonderful, even if the Oklahoma winds and hot, blistering sun tried to rob the blooms at this time of year. But, as she’d told him so many times, his thumbs were greener than spring grass, and he could make silk plants reproduce if he wanted to. The house was dark, but then she hadn’t expected her housekeeper, Hilda, to be there yet. She didn’t usually arrive until midmorning and then left in the middle of the afternoon, unless Angel was there and needed her longer.

  She opened the gate to the white picket fence surrounding the two-story farmhouse that looked like it had been there since the turn of the century. But she’d had the house custom-built just four years before. It was her dream house, and Angel loved everything about it. She crossed the veranda that wrapped the house on three sides and noticed that the blue morning glories climbing the porch posts were starting to open with the approach of dawn. She unlocked the front door. Arriving early in the morning and grabbing a few hours by herself after a gig was just what she needed that morning. She’d wanted closure, but she sure hadn’t gotten any. If anything, she was more agitated than ever.

  She boiled a kettle of water and poured it over green tea leaves in a ceramic pot and waited for the tea to steep. She propped up her feet on the hassock beside the cold fireplace and watched the sun come up through the French doors leading out onto the patio. As the sun topped the well house, she could see the silhouette of her first oil well, now standing as a silent sentinel to all that was hers, and the beginning of the successful enterprise known as Conrad Oil, which had grown so fast it still didn’t seem quite real.

  Dawn was gone and a new Sunday was born before Angel poured the lukewarm tea in a cup and put a slice of Hilda’s homemade bread in the toaster. Granny would have liked this house. She would have fussed about the cost of it, but she would have grinned that big smile that made her eyes disappear in a face so full of wrinkles it looked like a road map. And she would have turned over in her grave if she knew Angel paid a gardener these days to keep the roses blooming and the morning glories watered, and had a housekeeper. But then, when Granny had inherited this property from her father and moved with Angel to the original three-room house on these twenty acres, Angel hadn’t owned an oil company.

  Angel buttered the bread with sweet butter. Someday she might have to watch fat grams and calories, but not today. She liked real butter on her toast, just as her granny had. Thoughts of the past flitted through her mind.

  She and her grandmother had arrived with all their belongings in the back of that old, rusty green truck that looked like an accident waiting for a place to happen. The old house had only three rooms—a small living room and kitchen, a tiny bathroom, and one bedroom where she and Granny put their twin beds. They’d lived there happily enough until four years later, when her granny had died peacefully in her sleep.

  The preacher had read a poem and the Twenty-Third Psalm at the graveside service, and a few church members showed up along with the girls in her band. Three months later, Angel had mortgaged the property and drilled a gusher. From there, she’d taken one giant step after another, until today she was the major stockholder and president of her own oil company, based in Denison, with branch offices in Oklahoma and Louisiana.

  Angel closed her eyes. She had all the money she could spend in a lifetime…all the excitement of unexpected success…all the peacefulness of a country home to enjoy for the rest of her life…but none of it would ever ease the cold, blue loneliness in her heart.

  Chapter 3

  The next Friday night, Clancy parked his Ford Bronco a comfortable distance away from the big, black bus sitting in the crowded parking lot of the Twisted Spur Honky Tonk, just off I-35 south of Davis. He could hear the thump, thump, thump of the music every time the doors opened and someone went in or came back out.

  He wanted to pay the cover charge and go inside to listen to Angel sing, to watch her move with that sexy confidence she hadn’t had in high school, to breathe in the essence of her that sent his senses reeling, but he didn’t want her to know he was there. He had thought at first that he would simply wait beside the bus and try to talk to her when she finished the gig.

  Whether she liked it or not, he was going to find out what really happened after he went away to college. It occurred to him that he didn’t deserve to know after the way he’d treated her, but perhaps she’d forgiven him. They were adults, now, after all, and he had a feeling that he wouldn’t be at peace until he knew the whole story.

  The doors opened, but it wasn’t the band members who came out. A big man dressed in black jeans and cowboy boots with silver tips on the pointed toes stumbled out with his arm around a skinny, hard-looking blond wearing a denim miniskirt and red cowboy boots. Then another couple staggered forth, giggling as they held each other up long enough to get the car door open and drive away. Angel finally came out of the honky-tonk with her band members and started loading equipment. The lady she’d introduced as Patty, the rhythm guitar player, sat down in the driver’s seat and revved up the motor.

  The bus pulled into the parking lot of an all-night convenience store across the highway from the honky-tonk. Patty went inside and came out carrying a big bag of chips and a brown bag full of what Clancy supposed was junk food. As he followed the bus, she made a sharp turn at the overpass bridge and headed south on the interstate.

  Traffic was sparse at that time of night, so Clancy lingered a quarter of a mile behind them. They crossed the Red River into Texas. The bus made a quick stop in Whitesboro, and one of the girls got out. Allie, the drummer, waved and hopped into a new-model red minivan and drove north. Then the bus went on to Denison.

  Clancy managed to keep the taillights in view as the bus stopped and started through town, finally going down an alley and disappearing through huge garage doors in the bottom floor of an enormous building. He eased into a parking place reserved for banking customers only in the lot across the alley and studied the sign, which was lit up with overhead bulbs.

  “Conrad Oil Enterprises?” he said aloud. “Holy cow. Angel must have a rich uncle.” He wondered why she had never mentioned anyone in her family having money.

  The garage doors opened again and four vehicles drove out of the building’s garage. The first one was a dark Lincoln with the window rolled down, driven by Bonnie, the steel guitar player. A red Cadillac followed her,
and Susan, the girl who’d played the fiddle, waved to the car behind her as she pulled out onto the road and went south. The third car was a black convertible with Mindy behind the wheel. The last one was a white pickup, and although Clancy could tell there was only one person in the truck, he didn’t know if it was Patty or Angel. Just as he turned the key to start up the engine, he caught a glimpse of Angel, still wearing her sequined vest, standing beside the bus and watching the doors of the garage close.

  Clancy slid down in the seat and waited an hour. Finally, just after dawn, a black Jaguar rolled out of the garage and turned north. He followed it out of the alley, down the side street, and onto Main Street where she turned right and almost lost him. Angel drove faster than the speed limit and crossed the railroad tracks as if they weren’t even there. When he hit the tracks, he bounced around like a puppet inside a rain barrel, but he managed to hold on to the wheel and keep the back end of her car in sight. The road they were traveling had to have more doglegs in it than the city pound, twisting this way and that, and Angel never seemed to even tap the brakes.

  Then her car made an abrupt left turn. He was sure that she glanced up in the rearview mirror and spotted him, but evidently, she hadn’t, because she squealed the tires and took off across a bridge. The sides were so short that he could see the Red River down below, looking like a small creek rather than a river. Clancy hated heights. He didn’t mind bridges that had something over the top or even tall sides, but this one looked like he could practically drive right over the edge of that short side. When he peered over the edge as he drove across, his heart did a flip-flop. Anything higher than a two-foot stepladder made him nervous. He shuddered again but didn’t look down at the muddy water. Why in the devil would Angel want to take this route to her house when there had to be a perfectly good road somewhere else? Maybe she remembered he was afraid of heights and was torturing him.

  The Jaguar took another sharp turn and sped down the road past a café on one side and a beer hall on the other. Then suddenly it stopped in front of him so fast that he almost slammed into the rear bumper. Before he could collect his wits, Angel had the door jerked open and was standing with her left hand on her hip, an angry look in her eye and a pistol in her right hand pointed right at his nose.

  “Why in the hell are you following me?” she demanded, then realized who was behind the wheel. “Clancy? What in the hell are you following me for?”

  “Well, I…I just…” he stammered. “Put that damn gun down, Angela. I’m not here to hurt you.”

  She lowered the weapon. “Just why the hell are you here?”

  “I just wanted to know where you lived. I asked around and no one knew,” he said honestly.

  “Oh, and why were you asking about me?”

  “Got a problem here, Miss Conrad?” A middle-aged policeman opened the door of the café.

  “Nope. I thought I did, but it turns out I know this man,” she told him.

  “Sure?” the policeman asked cautiously as he noticed the gun still in her hand.

  “Yes, I’m sure,” she said. “He’s an old classmate of mine. I’m fine, Bruce. Thanks for checking on me.”

  “Okay. I know you have a permit for that gun. But be careful who you point it at. If he really is an old classmate, I don’t know why you have it out of your purse,” the officer warned. He got into his black-and-white patrol car and drove away.

  “We need to talk,” Clancy demanded.

  “Oh, really?” Angel growled at him. “Well, darlin’, I wanted to talk about our future ten years ago. But you only gave me some unsolicited advice about marrying Billy Joe. So, what gives you the right to expect answers now?” Her hands shook so badly, she nearly dropped her pearl-handled .22 pistol. She couldn’t decide whether she wanted to kill him…or kiss him.

  “Maybe I don’t have any right to talk to you at all,” Clancy said. “I’ll leave you alone if that’s what you want. I just wanted to satisfy my curiosity, I guess. I waited in the parking lot at that honky-tonk up in Davis and followed you. Do you work for that oil company or something?”

  “It’s none of your damned business where I work or what I do, and that’s called stalking. Go home to your small town, Clancy. I’m not a naive little girl anymore. And I’m sure as hell not impressed with you. You want to talk, just follow me.” She slammed the door to his car and stomped back to her vehicle.

  Clancy noticed a sign that said Muddy Creek Road when they turned right and suddenly his tires were crunching over gravel, but Angel didn’t slow down much. Just when he thought it was as bad as it could get, the road turned into little more than a pathway with tall weeds on either side towering over his vehicle. He’d need a machete to chop his way out of this mess if he ran out of gas. Grass grew at least knee-high in the middle of the two ruts, and he wondered if she was leading him out into the middle of someone’s farm pond to drown him.

  Then she whipped the Jaguar into a cemetery. She parked and got out of her car, crossed over to a grave, and dropped down on her knees in the fenced enclosure at the far east side of the little cemetery. He got out of his vehicle and followed her.

  “I didn’t want to come to a cemetery. I want to talk about what happened after that night after I left you at the creek,” he said. “Is this where your grandmother is buried?” He read the name on the center granite stone, DOROTHY JUNE CONRAD, then turned and read the one to her right, JOHN HERMAN CONRAD. Before he could look at the one to the left, Angel was standing in front of the tombstone, shielding it.

  “You don’t deserve this,” she declared.

  “What happened, Angel? Did you marry someone? Did you have our baby and give it away, or did you keep it? God, I thought you’d embarrass me and tell everyone in Tishomingo it was mine, but you didn’t. Then you were gone, and I was so relieved…but now—”

  “But now what?” She tried to will the tears to dry up, but they dripped down her cheeks.

  “I want to know what happened. Angel, give me some answers. What happened to our child?”

  She stepped to one side and sat down on the park bench beside the third tombstone. “There is your answer,” she whispered.

  And he read aloud, “Clancy Morgan Conrad.”

  “Our son was stillborn. Eight pounds, and so beautiful he would take your breath away, but he couldn’t live—not any more than your love for me could live. Now you’ve got your answers, so go away, Clancy Morgan, and leave me alone,” she said through clenched teeth.

  Chapter 4

  Clancy’s gut clenched. Tears filled his eyes. No wonder she hated him. He should walk away but he couldn’t force his eyes away from his son’s name, birthday, and death date—which were the same.

  “Did he live long?” he asked.

  “He didn’t even take a breath. He was stillborn.” Tears dripped off her jaw. “I wanted him so badly, but I didn’t get to keep him. God punished me for being ashamed that I was pregnant. I’m going home. You can stay here as long as you want.”

  “Can we please talk some more?” he pleaded. “I’ll leave you alone if you’ll just talk to me.”

  “You can follow me home,” she said, “but then I don’t want to see you again after we talk.”

  He hurried back to his vehicle and once again fell in behind her. Emotions ran through his heart like they were on a fast roller coaster. He had a son, but he didn’t, and Angel had named the baby after him after the way he’d treated her. She drove a mile to the north, and then took a road to the right and drove down a beautiful macadam lane with trees and flowers growing on both sides.

  Angel didn’t stop to smell the roses or enjoy the morning glories as she stomped across the wooden porch to the front door of the farmhouse. She opened the door and was about to flip the light switch when she heard the scrunch of gravel as Clancy drove up.

  She heard his car door slam and turned to see Clancy walking up t
he flower-edged sidewalk to the porch. Her first thought was to pull that little revolver out of her purse and shoot him before he reached her porch; her second was to meet him halfway and drag him up to her bedroom.

  “This where you live?” he asked casually. Leave it to Clancy to act as if nothing important had ever happened between them.

  “No, this is where my boyfriend and I live together,” she retorted as hatefully as she could, and then wondered where that lie came from.

  “Oh, really?” He was beside her. “What’s his name?”

  “Nosy, aren’t you?” she said.

  “You still haven’t told me the story of your life,” he said calmly.

  Clancy sat down in the porch swing as if he owned the place.

  “I’m too tired and emotional to talk right now. If you really want to talk to me, then you can wait right here on the porch until I settle down. I need a few hours rest. I played a gig half the night, and I plan to work here all weekend. Looks like you’ve been up all night, too, but that’s your problem, Clancy. Good night or morning or whatever. We’ll talk when I wake up if you still want to hear anything about me,” Angel said, and closed the door.

  She bypassed the kitchen and went straight upstairs, took a quick shower and crawled into the four-poster bed. So now he knew where she lived and where she worked. She pulled a pillow over her eyes and willed her tired mind and body to go to sleep. She awoke in the middle of the afternoon. She could hear a lawn mower in the backyard, so evidently Jimmy was working back there. The noise of the vacuum cleaner in the living room let her know Hilda was busy.

  What would her granny have told her to do about a problem like Clancy ten years after that horrible night? Every word he’d said still rang in her ears. “Angela, you mean to say you aren’t on the pill? Hellfire and damnation, I never would’ve—” Clancy stopped and glared at her. “Well, it won’t work. I’m not going to marry you. Lord, I’d be the laughingstock of the whole damn town of Tishomingo.”