Sixteen

It was no longer sleeting, but it was still very cold. Patches of thin ice crunched beneath Alex's boots as she carefully made her way from her parked car toward the practice track. The brilliant sunshine, which had not deigned to appear for the last several days, now blinded her. The sky was a vivid blue. Jets, looking no larger than pinpoints, trailed puffy lines that sometimes crisscrossed, matching the miles of white fencing on the Minton ranch that divided the compound into separate pens and paddocks.
The ground between the gravel road and the practice track was uneven. Tire tracks had worn permanent ruts in it over the years. It was muddy in spots where ice had already surrendered to the sun's rays.
Alex had dressed appropriately in old boots and jeans. Even though her hands were gloved in kid leather, she raised her fists to her mouth and blew on them for additional warmth. She took a pair of sunglasses out of her coat pocket and slid
them on to combat the sunlight. From behind their tinted lenses, she watched Reede. He was standing at the rail clock-big
the horses between the timing poles placed every sixteenth of a mile.
She held back a moment to study him unobserved. Instead of the leather bomber jacket, he had on a long, light-colored
duster. One boot was propped on the lowest rail of the fence, a stance that drew attention to his narrow buttocks and long
thighs.
The boot she could see was scuffed and well worn. His jeans were clean, but the hems were frayed, their denim threads bleached white. It occurred to her that the flies of all his jeans were similarly worn, and she was shocked to realize that she knew that.
His wrists were propped on the top fence rail, his hands dangling over the other side. He was wearing leather gloves, the same ones he'd had on when he'd pulled her against him the other night and held her while she cried. It was odd, and
deliciously disturbing, to reflect on how his hands had moved over her back with nothing except a terry-cloth robe separating them from her nakedness. A stopwatch lay in the palm of the hand that had cupped her head and pressed it against his chest.
He had on the cowboy hat she'd first seen him in, pulled down low over his brows. Dark blond hair brushed the collar of his coat. When he turned his head, she noticed that the angles of his profile were sharp and clear. There were no indecisive shapes, no subtle contours. When he breathed, a vapor formed around the lips that had kissed her damp hair after he'd told her about Celina's body.
"Let 'em go," he shouted to the practice riders. His voice was as masculine as all his features. Whether he was shouting
orders or making innuendos, it never failed to elicit a response low in her body.
As the horses came around--four, in all--then-hooves pounded and raised clumps of turf that a track conditioner had loosened earlier that morning. Flaring nostrils sent up billows of steam. When the riders slowed them to a walk, they were directed back toward the stables. Reede called out to one. "Ginger, how's he doing?"
"I've been holding him back. He's bouncy."
"Give him his head. He wants to run. Walk him around once, then let him go again."
"Okay."
The diminutive rider, who Alex hadn't initially realized was a young woman, tipped the bill of her cap with her quirt and nudged her splendid mount back onto the track.
"What's his name?"
Reede's head came around. He speared Alex with eyes shaded against the sun only by the brim of his hat and a natural squint that had left him with appealing crow's-feet at the outer corners of his eyes. "She's a girl."
"The horse?"
"Oh. The horse's name is Double Time."
Alex moved up beside him at the rail and rested her forearms on it. "Is he yours?"
"Yes."
"A winner?"
"He keeps me in pocket change."
Alex watched the rider crouched over the saddle. "She seems to know just what to do," she remarked. "That's a lot of horse for such a tiny person to handle."
"Ginger's one of the Mintons' best gallop boys--that's what they're called." He returned his attention to the horse and rider as they came around the track at a full-out gallop.
"Atta boy, atta boy," he whispered. "Comin' through like a pro." He whooped when Double Time streaked past them, a blur of well-coordinated muscle, agility, and immense strength.
"Good work," Reede told the rider when she brought the horse around.
"Better?"
"Several seconds better."
Reede had more encouraging words for the horse. He patted him affectionately and spoke in a language the animal seemed to understand. The stallion pranced off friskily, tail fanning, knowing that a rewarding breakfast was awaiting him in the stable for having performed so well for his owner.
"You seem to have a real rapport with him," Alex observed.
"I was there the day his sire covered the mare. I was there when he was foaled. They thought he was a dummy, and wanted to put him down."
"A what?"
"A dummy's a foal that was deprived of oxygen during the birthing." He shook his head as he watched the horse enter the stable. "I didn't think so. I was right. His lineage indicated he had every chance to be good, and he has been. Never a disappointment. Always runs his heart out, even when he's outclassed."
"You've got good reason to be proud of him."
"I guess."
Alex wasn't fooled by his pretended indifference. "Do they always run the horses full out like that?"
"No, they're breezing them today, seeing how they run against each other. Four days a week, they're galloped once or twice around the track. Comparable to a jog. Two days after breezing them, they're just walked."
He turned and headed toward a saddled horse that was tied to a fence post. "Where are you going?"
"Home." He mounted with the loose-limbed grace of a range cowboy.
"I need to talk to you," Alex cried in consternation.
He bent down and extended his hand. "Get on." From beneath the brim of his hat, green eyes challenged her. She pushed her sunglasses higher on the bridge of her nose and approached the horse with an outward show of confidence she didn't actually feel.
Clasping Reede's hand was the tough part. He hauled her up with very little effort, though it was left to her to get situated between his buttocks and the sloping back of the saddle.
That was disconcerting enough, but when he kneed the horse forward, Alex was thrown against his broad back. Out of necessity, her arms encircled his waist. She was careful to keep her hands well above his belt. Her mind wasn't as easy to control. It kept straying to his damned, well-worn fly.
"Warm enough?" he asked her over his shoulder.
"Yes," she lied.

She had thought his long white duster with the steep pleat in the back was all for show. She'd never seen one outside a Clint Eastwood western. Now, however, she realized the coat was designed to keep a rider's thighs warm.
"Who were you meeting in the bar last night?"
"That's my business, Reede. Why did you follow me?"
"That's my business."
Impasse. For the time being, she let it go. She had a file of questions she wanted to ask him, but it was difficult to keep her mind on her task when her open cleft kept bumping into his hips with each rocking motion of the horse. She blurted out the first question that came to mind. "How did you and my mother get to be such close friends?"
"We grew up together," he said dismissively. "It started out on the jungle gym on the school playground and evolved as we got older."
"It never became awkward?"
"Nope. We had no secrets from each other. We'd even played doctor a few times."
" 'I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours'?"
He grinned. "You must've played doctor, too."
Alex didn't rise to the bait, knowing that he was trying to sidetrack her. "I guess the two of you eventually grew out of that stage."
"We didn't play doctor anymore, no, but we talked about everything. No subject was taboo between Celina and me."
"Isn't that the kind of relationship a girl usually has with another girl?"
"Usually, but Celina didn't have many girlfriends. Most of the girls were jealous of her."
"Why?" Alex already knew the answer. She knew even before he shrugged, a move that rubbed his shoulder blade against her breast. Alex was hardly able to speak. She had to force herself to ask. "It was because of you, wasn't it? Her friendship with you?"
"Maybe. That, and the fact that she was by far the prettiest girl around. Most of the girls considered her a rival, not a friend. Hold on," he warned her before guiding the horse into a dry gully.
Inertia pushed her forward, closer to him. Instinctively, she hugged his torso tighter. He made a grunting sound. She asked, "What's the matter?"
"Nothing."
"You sounded . . . uncomfortable."
"If you were a guy sitting astride a horse taking a steep incline and were being crammed against the pommel of the saddle so that your manhood pushed into your lap, you'd be uncomfortable, too."
"Oh."
"Jesus," he swore beneath his breath.
Until the ground leveled out, there was an awkward silence between them, broken only by the horse's clumping tread as he carefully picked his way over the rocky ground. To hide her embarrassment and keep the cold wind off her, Alex buried her face in the flannel-lined collar of his coat. Eventually, she said, "So, Mother came to you with all her problems."
"Yes. When she didn't, and I knew something was wrong, I went to her. One day she was absent from school. I got worried and went to her house during lunch break. Your grandmother was at work, so Celina was there alone. She'd been crying. I got scared and refused to leave until she told me what was wrong."
"What was the matter?"
"She got her period for the first time."
"Oh."
"From what I gathered, Mrs. Graham had made her feel ashamed of it. She'd told her all kinds of horror stories about Eve's curse--crap like that." There was disapproval in his voice. "Was she that way with you?"
Alex shook her head no, but didn't remove it from the protection of his collar. His neck was warm, and smelled like him. "Not that severe. Maybe Grandma had become more enlightened by the time I reached puberty." Until Reede reined in the horse and dismounted, Alex hadn't realized that they'd reached a small frame house. "What about Mother?"
"I consoled her and told her that it was normal, nothing to be ashamed of, that she had officially become a woman."
He looped the reins around a hitching post.
"Did it work?"
"I guess so. She stopped crying and--"
"And . . .?" Alex prodded him to continue, knowing that he had omitted the most important part of the story.
"Nothing. Swing your leg over." He reached up to help her down, taking her around the waist with sure, strong hands and lifting her to the ground.
"Something, Reede."
She clutched the sleeves of his coat. His lips were drawn into a thin, stubborn line. They looked chapped and consummately
masculine. She remembered looking at the newspaper picture of him kissing Celina when he crowned her homecoming
queen. As before, Alex's stomach swelled and receded like a wave far out in the gulf.
"You kissed her, didn't you?"
He made an uneasy movement with his shoulder. "I'd kissed her before."
"But that was the first real kiss, wasn't it?"
He released her and, crossing the shallow front porch, thrust open the door. "You can come in or not," he said over his shoulder, "it's up to you."
He disappeared through the door, leaving it open. Despondent but curious, Alex followed. The front door opened directly into the living room. Through an arched opening on her left, she could see a dining area and kitchen. A hallway on the opposite side presumably led into a bedroom, where she could hear him rummaging about. Absently, she closed the front door, removed her glasses and gloves, and looked around.
The house had the stamp of a bachelor. Furniture had been arranged for comfort and convenience, not with any decorative
flair. He'd set his hat on a table and tossed his coat and gloves onto a chair. Other surfaces were clear, but the bookshelves were cluttered, as though straightening up amounted to cramming anything lying around onto a shelf.
There were cobwebs in the corners of the ceiling that caught the sunlight as it poured in through the dusty Venetian blinds.
He caught her looking up at one of the cobwebs as he reappeared, carrying a pair of aviator sunglasses. "Lupe sends one of her nieces out here every few weeks. It's about that time." It was an explanation, but hardly an excuse or apology. "Want some coffee?"
"Please."
He went into the kitchen. Alex continued to walk around the room as she stamped circulation back into her frozen feet. Her attention was drawn to a tall trophy in one of the built-in bookshelves. "Most Valuable Player" was engraved on it in block letters, along with Reede's name and the date.
"Is this the right color?" He had moved up behind her.
When she turned he was holding a mug of coffee out to her. He had remembered to add milk.
"Fine, thanks." Inclining her head toward the trophy, she asked, "Your senior year, right?"
"Hmm."
"That's quite an honor."
"I guess so."
Alex noticed that he resorted to that catchall phrase when he wanted the conversation to end. He remained an enigma in all other respects. "You're not sure it was an honor?"
He dropped into an easy chair and thrust his feet out in front of him. "I felt then, and still feel, that I had a good team backing me up. The other nominated players were just as valuable as me."
"Junior?"
"He was one of them, yeah," he replied, instantly defensive.
"But you won the award and Junior didn't."
His eyes glared at hers. "Is that supposed to be significant?"
"I don't know. Is it?"

He gave a scoffing laugh. "Stop playing lawyer games with me and say what's on your mind."
"Okay." She leaned against the padded arm of the sofa and considered him carefully as she asked,' 'Did Junior resent your getting named most valuable player?"
"Ask him."
"Maybe I will. I'll also ask Angus if he minded."
"Angus couldn't have been prouder the night of the awards banquet."
"Except if his son had been named most valuable player instead of you."
Reede's expression turned stony. "You're full of shit, you know that?"
"I'm sure Angus was proud of you, glad for you, but you can't expect me to believe that he wouldn't have rather seen Junior get the trophy."
"Believe whatever you goddamn want to. It makes no difference to me." He emptied his coffee mug in three swallows, set it on the low coffee table in front of him, then stood up. "Ready?"
She set her coffee down, too, but she made no move to leave. "Why are you so touchy about this?"
' 'Not touchy, bored.'' He leaned down to put his face close to hers. "That trophy is a twenty-five-year-old, tarnished piece of junk that's good for nothing except to collect dust."
"Then, why have you kept it all these years?"
He plowed his fingers through his hair. "Look, it doesn't mean anything now."
"But it did then."
"Precious little. Not enough to get me an athletic scholarship, which I was counting on to go to college."
"What did you do?"
"I went anyway."
"How?"
"A loan."
"A government loan?"
"No, a private one," he answered evasively.
"Who lent you the money--Angus?"
"So? I paid back every friggin' cent of it."
"By working for him?"
"Until I left ME."
"Why'd you leave?"
"Because I'd paid him back and wanted to do something else."
"That was as soon as you got out of college?"
He shook his head. "The air force."
"You were in the air force?"
"Four years of officers' training during college, then active duty after graduation. For six years my ass belonged to Uncle
Sam. Two of those years were spent bombing gooks in Vietnam."
Alex hadn't known he'd been involved in the war, but she should have guessed. He'd been at draftable age during the height of it. "Did Junior serve, too?"
"Junior at war? Can you picture that?" he asked with a rough laugh. "No, he didn't go. Angus pulled some strings and got him into the reserves."
"Why not you, too?"
"I didn't want him to. I wanted to go into the air force."
"To learn to fly?"
"I already knew how to fly. I had my pilot's license before I had my driver's license."
She contemplated him for a moment. The information was coming too fast and furious to absorb. "You're just full of surprises this morning, aren't you? I didn't know you could fly."
"No reason you should, Counselor."
"Why aren't there any pictures of you in uniform?" she asked, indicating the bookcase.
"I hated what I was doing over there. No mementos of wartime, thanks." He backed away from her, picked up his hat, gloves, and coat, then went to the front door and ungraciously pulled it open.
Alex remained where she was. "You and Junior must have missed each other white you were serving your six years in the air force."
"What's that supposed to mean? Do you think we're queer for each other?"
"No," she said with diminishing patience. "I just meant that you're good friends who, up till that point, had spent a lot of time together."
He slammed the door closed and slung down his outerwear.
"By then we were used to being apart."
"You spent four years of college together," she pointed out.
"No, we didn't. We were attending Texas Tech at the same time, but since he was married--"
"Married?"
"Another surprise?" he asked tauntingly. "Didn't you know? Junior got married just a few weeks after we graduated from high school."
No, Alex hadn't known that. She hadn't realized that Junior's first marriage had come on the heels of high school graduation, and consequently, so soon after Celina's murder. The timing seemed strange.
"For a long while, then, you and Junior didn't see much of each other."
"That's right," was Reede's clipped response.
"Did my mother's death have anything to do with that?"
"Maybe. We didn't--couldn't talk about it."
"Why?"
"It was too damned hard. Why the hell do you think?"
"Why was it hard to be around Junior and talk about Celina's death?"
"Because we'd always been a trio. One of us was suddenly missing. It didn't feel right to be together."
Alex weighed the advisability of pressing him on this, but decided to take the plunge. "You were a trio, yes, but if it was ever odd man out, the odd man was Junior, not Celina. Right? You and she were an inseparable duo before you became an inseparable trio."

"You keep the hell out of my life," he ground out. "You don't know a damn thing about it, about me."
" There's no need for you to get mad, Reede."
"Oh, no? Why shouldn't I get mad? You want to resurrect the past, everything from my first real kiss to some ****ing football trophy that has about as much value as a pile of horse shit, but I'm not supposed to get mad."
"Most people enjoy reminiscing."
"I don't. I want to leave my past in the past."
"Because it's hurtful?"
"Some of it."
"Is it hurtful to remember the first time you kissed my mother for real?"
He strode toward the sofa and bridged her hips with his hands, keeping his arms stiff. His voice changed from a ranting pitch to pure silk. "That kiss sure as hell intrigues you, doesn't it, Counselor?"
He overwhelmed her. She could say nothing.
"Well, if you're so interested in how I kiss, maybe you should experience it firsthand."
He pushed his hands inside her coat and linked them together at the small of her back. Giving a swift yank, he pulled her to her feet. She caught herself against his chest, gasping soundlessly before he bent his head down low and covered her lips with his.
At first she was so stunned she didn't move. When she realized what was happening, she placed both her fists firmly against his chest. She tried to turn her head aside, but he trapped her jaw in one hand and held it still. His lips expertly
rubbed hers apart, then he thrust his tongue between them.
He kissed her thoroughly, sweeping her mouth with his tongue and making stabbing motions toward the back of her throat. His lips were chapped. She felt their roughness against hers as well as the thrilling contrast of their sleek lining. She might have uttered a small whimper of surprise and need. Her body might have become pliant enough to conform to his. He might have made a low, hungry, growling sound deep in his throat. Then again, she might have imagined it all.
But she didn't imagine the feathering sensation between her thighs, or the tingling in her breasts, or the heat spreading
through her middle like melting butter. She didn't mistake the rare and wonderful taste of his mouth, or the scent of wind and sunlight that clung to his hair and clothing. He raised his head and looked into her dazed eyes. His own mirrored her bewilderment. But the smile that lifted one corner of his mouth was sardonic. "Just so you don't feel cheated," he murmured.
He pecked a series of soft, quick kisses across her damp lips, then ran his tongue over them lightly and teasingly. He probed the corner of her lips with the tip of his tongue, and the suggestive caress caused a ribbon of sensation in her belly
to slowly uncurl.
Then he sealed his open mouth upon hers again. His tongue sank into it, as invasive as her response was involuntary. He
stroked her mouth with deeply satisfying leisure while his hands moved over her back, then up her sides to her breasts. He rubbed them softly with the heels of his hands, creating a hunger inside her for him to touch their crests. Instead, he slid his hands down to her bottom, cupped it, and tilted her hips forward against his. He matched the motions of his tongue with his hips, an ebb and flow that whetted her appetite for fulfillment and eroded her resistance.
Before she could submit to the delicious weakness stealing through her, he abruptly released her. His face still close, he
whispered, "Curious to know what I usually do next?"
Alex stepped back, mortified over how close she had come to total capitulation. She wiped his kiss off her lips with the back of her hand. He merely smirked. "No, I didn't think so."
He put on his sunglasses and hat, giving the brim a tug that pulled it low over his eyes. "From now on, Counselor, I suggest you save your cross-examination for the courtroom. It's much safer."


The Derrick Lounge was far worse than the Last Chance. Alex approached it from the south, so when she rounded the corner of the building and saw a battered, rusty, red pickup parked there, she breathed a sigh of relief. She'd already made up her mind that if the eyewitness wasn't there, she wasn't going to hang around waiting on him.
When she had left the Westerner Motel, she'd made certain she wasn't followed. She felt ridiculous playing such cat-and-mouse games, but she was willing to go to any lengths to speak to this man who claimed to be an eyewitness to her mother's murder. If this meeting produced nothing but a telephone prankster looking for new thrills, it would be the crowning touch to a perfectly horrible day. The longest horseback ride in history had been the one she'd made with Reede back to the practice track where she'd left her car. "Have a nice day," he had called mockingly after she slid from the saddle.
"Go to hell," had been her angry response. As he wheeled his horse around, she could hear him chuckling.
"Arrogant bastard," she whispered to herself now as she got out of her car and moved toward the pickup. She could see the driver sitting behind the steering wheel, and although she was glad he had shown up, she wondered how she would feel if he cited Reede as the man who had killed her mother.
It was a disquieting possibility.
She went around the hood of the truck, her shoes crunching noisily in the loose gravel. The Derrick Lounge hadn't spent any money on outdoor lighting, so it was dark at the side of the building. No other vehicles were parked nearby.
Alex entertained a moment's trepidation as she reached for the door handle. Forcibly quelling her uneasiness, she slid inside and pulled the door closed behind her.
Her eyewitness was an ugly little man. He had stark, Indian-like cheekbones with pockmarked craters scooped out beneath them. He was unkempt, and smelled like he didn't shower frequently. He was scrawny and wrinkled and grizzled.
He was also dead.

Seventeen


When it registered why he just sat there staring at her with a vacuous, unfocused, and somewhat surprised expression, Alex tried to scream, but nothing came out. Her mouth had turned to cotton. Reaching behind her, she tried to open the pickup door. It stubbornly resisted.
After frantically tugging on the handle, she gave it her shoulder. It swung open so suddenly that she almost fell out. In her scrambling haste to put distance between her and the bloody corpse, the toe of her shoe got caught in the gravel. She stumbled and fell, landing hard on the heels of her hands and scraping her knees.
She cried out in pain and fear and tried to stand. Plunging headlong into the darkness, she was suddenly blinded by a pair of headlights and petrified by the blasting of a horn.
Reflexively, she raised her hand to shield her eyes. Against the backdrop of brilliant light, she made out the outline of a man approaching her. Before she could run or utter a peep, he said, "You get around, don't you?"
"Reede!" she cried in a mix of relief and terror.
"What the hell are you doing here?"
He didn't sound at all sympathetic. That enraged her. "I could ask you the same question. That man," she said, pointing
a shaky finger toward the pickup, "is dead."
"Yeah, I know."
"You know?"


"His name is, uh, was Pasty Hickam. He's a ranch hand who used to work for Angus." He peered through the bug-splattered
windshield and shook his head. "Jesus, what a mess."
"Is that all you can say?"
He turned on her. "No, I could say that the only reason I'm not taking you in on suspicion of murder is because whoever phoned in the tip that Pasty was sitting in his pickup with his throat cut didn't mention that there was a broad with him."
"Somebody tipped you?"
"That's right. Any idea who?"
"I guess whoever knew I was coming here to meet him," she shouted. Then, when another thought struck her, she became still and quiet.' 'How'd you get here so fast, Reede?''
"You think I headed him off and put a knife to his throat?" he asked with an incredulous laugh.
"It's possible."
Holding her stare, he called for one of his deputies. Alex hadn't realized until then that there was someone with him. She became aware of a couple of things at once--the wail of an approaching siren, the appearance of curious customers, who were rushing out the door of the bar to see what the commotion was about.
"Escort her back to her motel," Reede curtly instructed the deputy. "See that she gets inside her room."
"Yes, sir."
"Keep an eye on her till daylight. Make sure she doesn't go anywhere."
Alex and the sheriff exchanged a hostile stare before she allowed the deputy to lead her back to her car.

'' Sheriff?'' The deputy tapped hesitantly on the door before daring to open it. The word around the office that morning was that Reede was in a bitch of a mood, and only partially because of Pasty Hickam's death the night before. Everybody was walking on eggshells.
"What is it?"
"I've got some papers for you to sign."
"Give them here." Reede eased up from his half-reclining position in the swivel chair and reached for the stack of official
documents and letters. He scrawled his signature where it was called for.
"How's Ruby Faye this morning?"
Pasty's lover had been found in her mobile home when the sheriff arrived there to question her, beaten to a pulp. Before
passing out, she named her cuckolded husband as the culprit.
"Lyle did almost as good a number on her as he did on Pasty. She's gonna have to stay in the hospital a week or so. The kids have been packed off to her mama's house."
Reede's expression turned even surlier. He had no tolerance for men who physically abused women, no matter what the
provocation. He had been on the receiving end of too many beatings from his old man to stomach domestic violence.
He passed the paperwork back to the clerk. "Any feedback on that APR?"
"No, sir. I'll let you know. And you told me to remind you that you're scheduled to testify in Judge Wallace's court this afternoon."
"Shit, I would've forgotten. Okay, thanks." The deputy gratefully withdrew, but Reede had mentally dismissed him from his mind even before the door clicked shut.
He couldn't hold a thought for longer than a few seconds this morning. The image of Alex left little room for any others.
Swearing liberally, he left his chair and moved to the window.
Outside, it was another sunny day. He was reminded of yesterday, when he'd pulled her up on that horse with him and the sunlight had turned her hair a deep, mahogany red.
That's what he must have been thinking about when he'd started shooting off his mouth about that stupid football trophy.
Why, for crissake, had he kept it all this time? Every time he looked at it his emotions were split right down the middle, the way they'd been the night he had received it. His elation had been dampened because Junior hadn't been named most
valuable player. Crazy as the notion was, he had wanted to apologize to Angus and Junior for winning the award. He'd
deserved it because he was the better athlete, but winning over Junior had tainted the prize.
Alex had figured all that out by herself. She was smart, all right. But she wasn't as tough as she pretended to be. She'd had the daylights scared out of her last night, and justifiably so. Pasty had never been a pretty sight, but dead, with blood congealing on his down jacket, he was even uglier.
Maybe it had been good for her to see that. Maybe she wouldn't be so eager to uncover secrets that were none of her concern. Maybe Pasty's grisly murder would scare her out of investigating Celina's. Maybe she'd leave Purcell and never come back.
That possibility should have cheered him. It didn't. It made him angrier with her and with himself. Kissing her yesterday had been a dumb move. He had let her provoke him. He'd lost his temper. He hadn't been in control of himself. The excuse relieved his conscience, just enough for him to live with what had happened. At the same time, however, it scared the hell out of him. Alex had pushed him over the edge of sound reason. Only one other person had ever been able to do that--Celina.
How had the clever little witch tricked him into mentioning that kiss, he wondered. He hadn't thought about it in years, but all of a sudden, it had been vivid in his mind. It had been a hot September day, he remembered, when he had gone to check on Celina after she had failed to report to school. The old window air-conditioning unit had labored to cool the stifling little house without much success. The air was hot and humid, instead of hot and dry.
Celina wasn't acting like herself. She had let him in, but had acted subdued, as though this first rite of passage into
womanhood had robbed her of girlish animation. Her eyes had been puffy from crying. He had been scared that something
was terribly wrong.

When she had told him about her period, he'd been so relieved he had wanted to laugh. He hadn't, though. Her bleak expression had quashed any levity. He had put his arms around her, held her tenderly, stroked her hair, and reassured her that it was something wonderful, not shameful. Seeking comfort, she had wrapped her arms around his waist and nuzzled her face against his collarbone. For a long time, they had just clung to each other, as they had so many times in the past when it seemed that the two of them were at odds with the rest of the world. But he felt a need to solemnize this occasion, to officially mark her departure from childhood.
He had kissed her cheek first. Tears had left it damp and salty. He kissed his way down. She caught her breath suddenly,
and held it, until he pressed his lips firmly upon hers. It was a fervent but chaste kiss.
He had kissed other girls using his tongue. The Gail sisters were already adept at French kissing, and had been eager to share their expertise with him. At least once a week he met the three of them in the abandoned VFW hall and took turns
kissing them, feeling their breasts, and slipping his hand into the elastic legs of their cotton panties to touch the hair between their thighs. They quarreled over which one got to undo his pants and fondle him first.
Those sweaty, sordid interludes made life with his father bearable. They were also the only secret he kept from Celina. What he did with the Gail sisters would probably embarrass her if she knew. It might also make her mad. Either way, it was better that she didn't know about the condemned VFW hall and what he did there.
But when he felt Celina's mouth beneath his, and heard that little catch in her throat, he had wanted to kiss her the correct way--the good and exciting and forbidden way. Unable to resist the temptation, his body had overruled his mind. He'd barely touched the seam of her lips with the tip of his tongue before he felt them separate. Heart pounding, blood boiling, he drew her closer and pushed his tongue into her mouth. When she didn't recoil, he moved it around. She clutched his waist. Her small, pointed breasts burned like brands against his chest.
God, he had thought he was going to die of pleasure. It was immense. The experience rocked the foundations of his adolescent soul. His body had vibrated with volcanic energy. He had wanted to go on kissing Celina Graham forever. But
when his penis became so engorged it pressed against her middle, he pushed her away and began babbling apologies.
Celina had stared at him for several seconds, wide-eyed and breathless, then threw herself against him, wrapped her arms around his neck, and told him that she was glad he had kissed her like that. She loved him. He loved her. They were
going to get married someday, and nothing was going to come between them, ever.
Now Reede, rubbing his eyes tiredly, returned to his desk and flopped down into the creaky chair. He had been furious with Alex for calling forth memories he had strived for years to keep at bay. It had been his intention to punish and insult her with that kiss.
But, dammit, he hadn't counted on her feeling so good against him--all fur coat and soft wool and warm skin. He hadn't expected her mouth to taste so goddamn sweet.That sweetness still lingered on his tongue. How could he have guessed that her breasts would be that full and soft?
He sure as hell hadn't bargained on his body becoming embarrassingly, instantly aroused for Celina's daughter. It was harder than he'd ever gotten for the Gail sisters--harder than he'd ever gotten period. Hell, he was still hard. That was just one reason why the impetuous embrace had left him feeling mad as hell at her and not much kinder toward himself. Alex Gaither, the woman he had kissed like crazy yesterday, had all but accused him of two murders, first Celina's, then Pasty's. Even if she couldn't make those allegations stick, she could still spoil all his plans for the future.
He was so close to realizing his dreams. He was about to be where he'd worked hard all his life to get. She could mess it up royally. She didn't even have to finger him. If she indicted any one of them, she would snatch his future away from him before he had fully grasped it. For that, he could easily choke her.
But when he thought about putting his hands on her again, it wasn't to choke her.

"They told me you were in."
"Did they also tell you that I'm due in court in a few minutes, and that between now and then I'm too busy to see anyone?"
Alex stepped into Reede's office and closed the door behind her. "They mentioned it."
"Where'd you get the idea that you're exempt?"
"I thought you'd want to question me about the man who got killed."
"You aren't really a suspect. You were just at the wrong place at the wrong time, something you have a bad habit of doing.'
"You don't think there's a connection between me and his murder?"
"No, but obviously you do." Propping his feet on the corner of his desk and stacking his hands behind his head, he said, "Let's hear it."
"I think you already know it. Pasty Hickam witnessed Celina's murder."
"How do you know?"
"He told me over the telephone."
"He was a legendary liar. Ask anybody."
"I believed him. He sounded nervous and terribly afraid. We made an appointment to meet at the Last Chance, but when he saw you following me, he got frightened off."
"So, that makes me Celina's killer?"
"Or someone who's covering up for the killer."
"Let me tell you what's wrong with your theory." He lowered his feet to the floor. "Angus fired Pasty the other day. He was on a revenge trip, something you should be able to relate to, Counselor. He made up some cock-and-bull story that you wanted to believe because so far, your investigation hasn't turned up one goddamn scrap of concrete evidence.
"You think the two murders are connected, right? Wrong," he said. "Think about it. Last night's killing doesn't match Celina's murder. The M.O.'s wrong. The guy who cut Pasty a new smile found out Pasty was humping his wife while he was working over at the potash plant near Carlsbad. We've got an APB out on him."
It sounded so plausible that Alex squirmed under his direct gaze. "Isn't it possible that this ranch hand witnessed my mother's murder? He kept quiet until now out of fear of retribution, or simply because no one ever conducted a thorough
investigation. Knowing what he did got him killed before he could identify the killer. That's what I choose to believe."
"Suit yourself. But waste your time on it, not mine."
Reede made to stand up, but she said, "That's not all."
Resigned, he sat back down.
Alex took an envelope out of her purse and handed it to him. "This came in the mail this morning. It was addressed to me at the motel."
Reede scanned the letter quickly and handed it back to her. She stared at him in amazement. "You don't seem very disturbed by it, Sheriff Lambert.''
"I've already read it."
"What? When?"
"Day before yesterday, if I'm remembering right."
"And you let them send it?"
"Why not? It's not obscene. I figure even the postmaster general would agree that it meets postal regulations. It's got the correct amount of postage on it. As far as I can tell, that letter isn't illegal, Counselor."
Alex wanted to reach across his desk and slap the gloating smile off his face. The impulse was so strong she had to curl her hand into a fist to keep from doing so.

"Did you read between the lines? The people who signed this, all--" she paused to count the signatures, "--all fourteen
of them, have threatened to ran me out of town."
"Surely not, Miss Gaither," he said, feigning shock.
"You're just being paranoid because you found Pasty. That letter simply underlines what I've been telling you all along. Angus and Junior Minton mean a lot to this town. So does that racetrack.
"You get somebody's attention quicker by kicking him in the bank account than you do by kicking him in the nuts. You've put some sizable investments in jeopardy. Did you expect folks to stand by and watch all then-dreams go down the tubes because of your vindictiveness?"
"I'm not being vindictive. I'm conducting a valid and long-overdue investigation into a severe miscarriage of justice."
"Spare me."
"The district attorney of Travis County sanctioned my investigation."
His eyes drifted over her insultingly as he drawled, "In exchange for what?"
"Oh, that's good. Very professional, Sheriff. When you run out of viable ammunition, you resort to throwing sexist rocks at my character."
With angry, jerky motions, she stuffed the letter back into the envelope and replaced it in her purse, snapping the catch
firmly.
''I don't have to explain my reasons to you. Just understand this," she enunciated. "I won't quit until I can draw some
satisfactory conclusions about my mother's murder."
"Well, I wouldn't worry about being mugged, if I were you," Reede told her with an air of boredom. "As I've explained, Pasty's killing had absolutely nothing to do with you. The people who signed that letter are pillars of the community--bankers, businessmen, professionals. They're hardly types who would accost you in a dark alley.
"Although," he went on, "I'd recommend that you stop cruising in hotbeds of trouble like you have the last two evenings. If you've just got to have it, there are a couple of fellas I could recommend."
She released a slow, contemptuous breath.' 'Do you dislike all professional women, or is it me in particular?"
"It's you in particular."
His bluntness was an affront. She was tempted to remind him that his kiss yesterday hadn't conveyed dislike, but she didn't. She didn't want to remind him of it. She hoped to forget it herself, pretend that it had never happened, but she
couldn't. It had left her feeling drastically and irrevocably altered.
No, she couldn't forget it. The best she could hope for was to learn to cope with the memory of it, and the addictive craving it had instigated.
His statement hurt her deeply. She heard herself asking, "Why don't you like me?"
"Because you're a meddler. I don't like people who meddle in other people's business."
"This is my business."
"How could it be? You were peeing in your diapers when Celina was killed," he shouted.
"I'm glad you brought that up. Since I was only two months old at the time, what was she doing out at the ranch that night?"
His stunned reaction to the question was swiftly covered.
"I forget. Look, I'm due--"
"I doubt you ever forget anything, Reede Lambert, much as you pretend that you do. What was she doing there? Please
tell me."
He stood up. So did Alex. "Junior had invited her for supper, that's all."
"Was it a special occasion?"
"Ask him."
"I'm asking you. What was the occasion? And don't tell me you don't remember."
"Maybe he felt sorry for her."
"Sorry? Why?"
"For being cooped up with a kid, not getting out. Her social life had gone to zilch. She was only eighteen, for crissake." He stepped around her and headed for the door. Alex wasn't ready to let it go at that. His answer was too pat. She caught his arm and forced him to face her. "Were you there at dinner that night?"
"Yeah, I was there." He jerked his arm free.
"The entire evening?"
"I left before dessert."
"Why?"
"I don't like cherry pie."
She groaned with frustration. "Answer me, Reede. Why did you leave?"
"I had a date."
"With whom? Does she still live here in town?"
"What the hell difference does it make?"
"She's your alibi. I'd like to talk to her."
"Forget it. I'll never drag her into this."
"You might have to, or plead the Fifth."
"Don't you ever give up?" he asked through bared teeth.
"Never. Did you return to the ranch that night?"
"No."
"Not at all?"
"No."
"Not even to sleep?"
"I told you, I had a date." He put his face close enough to hers that she could feel his breath against her lips. "And she was hot."
He gave a terse bob of his head to emphasize his point, then turned to leave. "I'm due in court. Close the door on your way out, will ya?"

Eighteen


"Miss Gaither?"
"Yes?"
Alex didn't feel like having company. Her latest altercation with Reede had left her drained. After last night, her nerves were shot. Neither Reede's glib explanation of the Hickam man's murder or any amount of her own sound reasoning had
convinced her that she wasn't in danger.
So, when someone knocked on her motel room door, she had approached it cautiously and looked through the peephole.
A strange, but evidently harmless couple, were on her threshold. She opened the door and looked at them expectantly.
Suddenly, the man stuck out his hand. Startled, Alex jumped back. "Reverend Fergus Plummet." Feeling foolish, Alex shook hands with him. "Did I frighten you? I'm dreadfully sorry. I didn't mean to."
The reverend's mannerisms were so deferential, his tone of voice so sympathetic, he hardly posed a threat. He had a slight build and was shorter than average, but held himself erect with almost military posture. His black suit was shiny in spots and inadequate for the season. He wore no overcoat and nothing to cover his wavy dark hair, which was fuller than current fashion dictated. In a community where almost every male from the age of twelve wore either a cowboy hat or bill cap, it looked odd to see a man without one.

"This is my wife, Wanda."
"Hello, Mrs. Plummet, Reverend."
Mrs. Plummet was a large woman, with a notable bosom that she'd tried to minimize by covering it with a drab olive cardigan sweater. Her hair was pulled back into a knot on the back of her head, which she kept meekly lowered. Her husband had referred to her with no more personal regard than he might give a lamppost.
"How'd you know my name?" Alex asked, curious about the couple.
"Everybody does," he replied with a brief smile. "There's talk going around town about you."
The minister had a Bible tucked under one arm. Alex couldn't imagine what a minister was doing at her door-- recruiting new members?
"I guess you're wondering why I'm here," he said, correctly reading her puzzled expression.
"Frankly, yes. Would you like to come in?"
They stepped into the room. Mrs. Plummet seemed ill at ease and unsure where to sit until her husband pointed her to a corner of the bed. He took the only chair. Alex sat down on the edge of the bed, but far enough away from Mrs. Plummet for both of them to be comfortable.
The preacher gazed about him. He seemed to be in no hurry to disclose the reason he was there. Finally, and with a trace of impatience, Alex asked, "Is there something I can do for you, Reverend Plummet?"
Closing his eyes, he raised his hand heavenward and evoked a blessing. "May heaven's rich blessings pour down on this beloved daughter of God," he intoned in a deep, vibrating voice.
He began to pray with loud earnestness. Alex had the wildest impulse to giggle. Merle Graham had seen to it that she was raised with traditional Protestant beliefs. They had attended church regularly. Though she had never embraced the fundamentalist dogma her grandmother adhered to, Alex's Christian faith was well cemented.

"Please, Reverend Plummet," she interrupted when his prayer extended into overtime, "I've had a very long day. Could we get to the point of your visit, please?"
He looked rather piqued over her interruption, but said with a mysterious air, "I can assist you with your investigation
of Minton Enterprises."
She was stunned. She had never expected him to be connected in any way to her investigation. She reminded herself,
however, to proceed with caution. She was, after all, extremely skeptical. What deep, dark secrets could this weird little man know about Celina, Reede Lambert, or the Mintons?
Ministers were privy to confidences, but experience had taught her that professional ethics usually prevented them from revealing any confessions. They strictly abided by the rules of privileged information, and only imparted it in life threatening situations.
It didn't seem likely that either Angus or Junior would bare his soul to a mousy little man like Plummet. Based wholly on outward appearance, he would have a minimal amount of influence with the Almighty. The thought of Reede Lambert confessing a sin was preposterous.
She responded with a professional detachment that Greg Harper would have been proud of: "Oh, really? How can you do that? Did you know my mother?"
"Unfortunately, no. But I can speed along your investigation just the same. We--my congregation of saints and I--believe
that you're on our side. And our side is God's side.''
"Th-thank you," she stammered, hoping that was the correct response.
Obviously, it was. It earned a soft amen from Mrs. Plummet, who had been silently praying all this time.
"Reverend Plummet," Alex said uncertainly, "I'm not sure you understand. I'm here at the behest of the district attorney's office to--"
"The Lord uses people as his holy instruments."
"--to investigate the murder of my mother, which occurred here in Purcell twenty-five years ago."

"God be praised . . . that this wrong . . . will soon be set right!" He shook his fists heavenward.
Alex was flabbergasted. She gave a nervous laugh. "Yes, well, I hope so, too. But I fail to see how my investigation concerns you and your ministry. Do you have inside knowledge of the crime?"
"Oh, that I did, Miss Gaither," Plummet wailed. "Oh, that I did, so that we could speed along God's work and punish the iniquitous."
"The iniquitous?"
"Sinners!" he shouted fervently. "Those who would corrupt this town and all the innocent children of God living here. They want to build Satan's playground, fill the precious veins of our children with narcotics, their sweet mouths with foul liquor, their fertile little minds with carnality."
From the corner of her eye, Alex glanced at Mrs. Plummet, who sat with her head bowed, her hands folded in her lap, her knees and ankles decorously pressed together, as though they had been glued that way.
"Are you referring to Purcell Downs?" Alex asked tentatively.
Just as she had feared, the very words opened up a wellspring of evangelical fervor. Prophecies came spewing out of the preacher's mouth like a fountain run amok. Alex endured a sermon on the evils of horserace gambling and all the ungodly elements that accompanied it. But when Plummet began to tout her as a missionary sent to Purcell to vanquish the sons of Satan, she felt compelled to bring the fiery sermon to a halt.
"Reverend Plummet, please." After several attempted interruptions, he stopped speaking and looked at her blankly. She licked her lips anxiously, not wanting to offend him, but wanting to make herself explicitly clear.
"I have absolutely nothing to do with whether or not Minton Enterprises is granted a gambling license. The fact is that they've already been approved by the racing commission. All that remains are the formalities."

"But the Mintons are under investigation for murder."
Choosing her words carefully, and omitting any direct reference to the Mintons, she said, "If enough evidence or probable cause is found as a result of my investigation, the case could be brought before the grand jury. It would be up to it to bring forth an indictment. In any instance, the parties involved are to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, in accordance with our Constitution."
She held up a hand to stave off his interruption. "Please, let me finish. Whatever happens regarding the proposed racetrack
after I conclude my investigation will be the responsibility of the racing commission. I will have nothing to do with its final decision on this or any other application for a gambling license.
"Actually, it's coincidental that the Mintons are personally involved with both issues simultaneously. I reopened my mother's murder case because, as a public prosecutor, I was dissatisfied with its resolution, and thought that it warranted
further investigation. I do not hold a personal grudge against this town, or anyone in it."
Plummet was squirming with the need to speak, so she let him. "You don't want to see gambling come to Purcell, do you? Aren't you against this device of the devil that snatches food from children's mouths, destroys marriages, and plunges the weak onto paths bound for hell and damnation?''
"My views on pari-mutuel betting--or anything else, for that matter--are none of your business, Reverend Plummet.''
Alex came to her feet. She was tired, and he was a wacko. She'd given him more time than he deserved. "I must ask you and Mrs. Plummet to leave now."
He wasn't an educated and eloquent churchman, who had researched the issue and drawn enlightened conclusions. There were well-founded arguments for both sides. But whether pari-mutuel gambling came to Purcell County or not, Alex had nothing to do with it.
"We're not giving up," Plummet said, following her to the door. "We're willing to make any sacrifice to see that God's will is carried out."
"God's will? If it's God's will that the Mintons be denied that gambling license, then nothing you do will help or hinder, right?"
He couldn't be trapped with logic. "God uses us to do his work. He's using you, though you might not know it yet."
His eyes smoldered with fanatical fire. It gave Alex goose bumps. "You are the answer to our prayers. Oh, yes, Miss Gaither, the answer to our prayers. Call on us. You've been anointed by God, and we're your humble and willing servants."
"I, uh, I'll keep that in mind. Goodbye."
Reverend Plummet's theology was warped. He gave her the creeps. She couldn't get her door closed behind him fast enough. As soon as she did, her telephone rang.

Nineteen

"How does dinner and dancing sound?" Junior Minton asked without preamble.
"Like a fairy tale."
"It's not. Just say yes."
"You're inviting me out for dinner and dancing?"
"It's the monthly fete at the Purcell Horse and Gun Club. Please say you'll go with me. Otherwise, it'll be boring as hell."
Alex laughed. "Junior, I doubt you're ever bored. Especially when there are women around. Do most of them fall for your b.s.?"

"Almost without exception. If you go with me tonight, it'll be unanimous."
"Tonight?"
"Sure, tonight. Did I fail to mention that? Sorry I couldn't give you more notice."
"You're actually serious?"
"Would I joke about something as important as the monthly get-together at the Horse and Gun Club?"
"Of course you wouldn't. Forgive my flippancy."
"All's forgiven if you'll go."
"I really can't. I'm exhausted. Last night--"
"Yeah, I heard about that. Jeez, that must've been awful, you finding Pasty Hickam that way. I want to help take your mind off it."
"I appreciate your consideration, but I can't go."
"I refuse to take no for an answer."
While talking, she had struggled out of her dress and was now standing in her slip and stockings, cradling the telephone
receiver between her shoulder and her ear while trying to pull on her robe. The housekeeper always turned off the heat after she cleaned the room. Every evening Alex had a frigid homecoming to dread.
She glanced toward the alcove where her clothes were hanging. "I really can't go, Junior."
"How come?"
"All my dressy clothes are in Austin. I don't have anything to wear."
"Surely a lady as articulate as you isn't resorting to that cliche?"
"It happens to be the truth."
"And the occasion calls for casual. Wear that leather skirt you had on the other day. It's a knockout."
Alex had finally managed to wriggle herself into the robe without dropping the phone. She sat down on the edge of the bed and snuggled deeper into the terry cloth. "I still have to say no."
"Why? I know it's rude to put you on the spot like this, but I'm not going to be gracious and let you bow out without giving me a valid reason."
"I just don't think it would be a good idea for us to socialize."
"Because you're hoping I'll soon be a resident of the Huntsville State Prison?"
"No!"
"Then, what?"
"I don't want to send you to prison, but you are a key suspect in a murder case."
"Alex, you've had time to form an opinion of me. Do you honestly believe that I could commit such a violent crime?"
She remembered how Reede had laughed at the notion of Junior going to war. He was lazy, unambitious, a philanderer.
Violent outbursts didn't fit into his image. "No, I don't," she replied softly. "But you're still a suspect. It wouldn't do for us to be seen fraternizing."
"I like that word," he snarled. "It sounds dirty, incestuous. And for your peace of mind, I do all my fraternizing privately. That is, except for a few times, when I was younger. Reede and I used to--"
"Please," she groaned, "I don't want to know."
"Okay, I'll spare you the lurid details, on one condition."
"What?"
"Say you'll go tonight. I'll pick you up at seven."
"I can't."
"Alex, Alex," he moaned dramatically, "look at it this way. During the course of the evening I'll have a drink or two, possibly more. I might start reminiscing, get maudlin, say something indiscreet. When I do, you'll be there to hear it. No telling what stunning confessions I might blurt out in my inebriation. Consider this evening one long interrogation. It's part of your job to wear down the defenses of your suspects, isn't it?
"You'd be shirking your duty if you didn't take advantage of every opportunity to rout out the truth. How can you selfishly languish in the luxury of the Westerner Motel while a suspect is shooting off his mouth over drinks at the Horse and Gun Club? Shame on you. You owe this to the taxpaying public who've footing the bill for this investigation. Do it for your country, Alex."
Again, she groaned dramatically. "If I consent to go, will you promise not to make any more speeches?"
"Seven o'clock."
She could hear the triumph in his voice.

The moment she entered the clubhouse, she was glad she had come. There was music and laughter. She caught snatches
of several conversations, none of which were centered around Celina Gaither's murder. That in itself was a refreshing
change. She looked forward to several hours of relaxation, and felt that the break had been earned.
Nevertheless, she rationalized being there. Not for a minute did she believe that Junior would make a public spectacle of
himself while under the influence. She wasn't likely to hear any startling confessions.
All the same, something beneficial might come out of the evening. The exclusivity of the Horse and Gun Club suggested that only Purcell's upper crust were members. Reede had told her that the people who had signed the letter she had received were local businessmen and professionals. It was conceivable that she would meet some of them tonight, and get a feel for the extent of their animosity.
More important, she would have an opportunity to mingle with locals, people who knew the Mintons and Reede well and might shed light on their characters. Junior had picked her up in his red Jaguar. He'd driven it with a lack of regard for the speed limit. His festive mood had been contagious. Whether she was acting in a professional capacity or not, it felt good to be standing beside the handsomest man in the room, with his hand riding lightly, but proprietorially, on the small of her back.
"The bar's this way," he said close to her ear, making himself heard over the music. They wended their way through the crowd.
The club wasn't glitzy. It didn't resemble the slick, neon nightclubs that were bursting out like new stars in the cities, catering to yuppies who flocked to them in BMWs and designer couture.
The Purcell Horse and Gun Club was quintessentially Texan. The bartender could have been sent over by Central Casting. He had a handlebar mustache, black bow tie and vest, and red satin garters on his sleeves. A pair of longhorns, which spanned six feet from polished tip to polished tip, were mounted above the ornately carved nineteenth-century bar.
The walls were adorned with pictures of racehorses, prizewinning bulls with testicles as large as punching bags, and landscapes where either yucca or bluebonnets abounded. In almost every instance the paintings featured an obligatory
windmill, looking lonesome and stark against the sun-streaked horizon. Alex was Texan enough to find it comfortable and endearing. She was sophisticated enough to recognize its gaucheness.
"White wine," she told the bartender, who was unabashedly giving her a once-over.
"Lucky son of a bitch," he muttered to Junior as he served them their drinks. The grin beneath the lavish mustache was
lecherous.
Junior saluted him with his scotch and water. "Ain't I just?" He propped his elbow on the bar and turned to face Alex, who was seated on the stool. "The music's a little too country and western for my taste, but if you want to dance, I'm game."
She shook her head. "Thanks, but no. I'd rather watch."
A few songs later, Junior leaned close and whispered, "Most of them learned to dance in a pasture. They still look like they're trying to avoid stepping in a pile of cow shit."
The wine had taken effect. Her eyes were bright, her cheeks flushed. Feeling a pleasant buzz, she tossed her hair over her
shoulder and laughed.


"Come on," he said, placing his hand beneath her elbow and helping her off the stool. "Mother and Dad are at their table."
Alex moved with him along the perimeter of the dance floor to the cluster of tables set up for dining. Sarah Jo and Angus were seated at one. He was puffing on a cigar. Sarah Jo was idly waving the offensive smoke away from her face. Alex had been apprehensive about wearing the russet leather skirt and matching, leather-trimmed sweater, but she felt more comfortable in them than she would have wearing Sarah Jo's burgundy satin dress and looking out of place in a room where people were stamping out "Cotton-Eyed Joe," yelling "bullshit" in the appropriate places, and drinking beer straight from opaque amber bottles.
"Hello, Alex," Angus said around his cigar.
"Hello. Junior was hospitable enough to invite me," she said as she sat down in the chair Junior was holding out for her.
"I had to do some arm-twisting," he told his parents, taking the chair next to her. "She plays hard to get."
"Her mother certainly didn't."
Sarah Jo's cool, catty remark momentarily stifled the conversation. It served to counteract the potency of Alex's glass of wine. Her giddiness fizzled and went flat as day-old soda. She nodded toward Sarah Jo and said, "Hello, Mrs. Minton. You look lovely tonight."
Even though her dress was inappropriate, she did look lovely in it. Not vibrant, Alex thought. Sarah Jo could never look vivacious and animated. Her beauty had an ethereal quality, as though her visitation on earth was temporary and tenuous. She gave Alex one of her vague, secretive smiles and murmured a thank-you as she took a sip of wine.
"Heard you were the one who discovered Pasty's body."
"Dad, this is a party," Junior said. "Alex won't want to talk about something nasty like that."
"No, it's all right, Junior. I would have brought it up myself, sooner or later."
"I don't reckon it was coincidence that you met him at that honky-tonk and climbed into his pickup with him," Angus said, rolling the cigar from one corner of his lips to the other.
"No." She paraphrased for them her telephone conversations with Pasty.
"That cowboy was a liar, a fornicator, and, worse than all his other vices put together, he cheated at poker," Angus said with some vehemence. "In the last few years he'd gone plumb goofy and irresponsible. That's why I had to let him go. I figure you've got better sense than to put any stock in what he told you."
In the middle of his monologue, Angus signaled the waiter to bring another round of drinks. "Oh, sure, Pasty might've seen who went into that stable with Celina, but the one he saw was Gooney Bud."
Having said his piece, and giving Alex no opportunity to dispute it, he launched into a glowing review of a jockey from Ruidoso that he wanted to ride for them. Since the Mintons were her hosts, Alex graciously let the topic of Pasty Hickam die for the moment.
When they'd finished their drinks, Angus and Junior offered to go through the barbecue buffet for the ladies. Alex would just as soon have gone through the line herself. She found it difficult to make small talk with Sarah Jo, but after the men withdrew, she valiantly made an attempt.
"Have you been members of the club for a long time?"
"Angus was one of the charter members," Sarah Jo supplied distractedly. She kept her eyes on the couples doing the two-step in an eternal circle around the dance floor.
"He seems to have a finger in just about every pie in town," Alex remarked.
"Hmm, he likes to know everything that's going on."
"And be a part of it."
"Yes. He makes things happen and spreads himself thin."
She gave a delicate sigh. "Angus has this need to be well liked, you see. He's always politicking, as though it matters what other people think."

Alex folded her hands beneath her chin and propped her elbows on the table. "You don't believe it matters?"
"No." Her entrancement with the dancers ended. For the first time that evening, she looked directly at Alex. "Don't read too much into the way Junior treats you."
"Oh?"
"He flirts with every woman he meets."
Alex slowly lowered her hands to her lap. Anger roiled inside, but she managed to keep her voice low and level. "I resent your implication, Mrs. Minton."
Sarah Jo lifted one shoulder indifferently. "Both of my men are charming and they know it. Most women don't realize that their flirting is meaningless."
"I'm sure that's true of Angus, but I don't know about Junior. Three ex-wives might disagree with you about his flirting."
"They were all wrong for him."
"What about my mother? Would she have been wrong for him?"
Sarah Jo fixed her empty stare on Alex again. "Absolutely wrong. You're a lot like her, you know."
"Am I?"
"You enjoy causing dissonance. Your mother was never content to leave bothersome things alone. The only difference is that you're even better at making trouble and creating ill will than she was. You're direct to the point of being tactless, a trait I've always attributed to bad breeding." She lifted her eyes to someone who had moved up behind Alex.
"Good evening, Sarah Jo."
"Judge Wallace." A sweet smile broke across Sarah Jo's face. One would never guess she had had her stinger out seconds earlier. "Hello, Stacey."
Alex, her face hot with indignation over Sarah Jo's unwarranted criticism, turned around. Judge Joe Wallace was staring down at her with disapproval, as though her being there was a breach of the club's standards.
"Miss Gaither."

"Hello, Judge Wallace." The woman standing beside him looked at Alex with a censure that matched his, though for what reason, Alex couldn't guess. Obviously, Junior was the only friendly face she was going to find in this crowd. The judge gave the woman's arm a nudge and they moved toward another table. "Is that his wife?" Alex asked, following their progress.
"Good heavens, no," Sarah Jo said. "His daughter. Poor Stacey. Eternally dowdy."
Stacey Wallace was still staring at Alex with such malice that she was captivated by it. She didn't break her stare until Junior's knee bumped hers when he resumed his seat and set two plates of food on the table.
"I hope you like ribs and beans." His gaze followed the direction of hers. "Hey, Stacey." He winked at her and raised his hand in a friendly wave.
The woman's puckered mouth relaxed into a faltering smile. Blushing, she raised her hand to her neckline like a flustered girl and called back shyly, "Hi, Junior."
"Well?"
Though she was still curious about the judge and his chameleon daughter, Junior's one-word inquiry brought Alex's head around. "Sorry?"
"Do you like ribs and beans?"
"Watch me," she laughed, spreading the napkin over her lap.
She did unladylike damage to her plate of food, but her healthy appetite earned her a compliment from Angus. "Sarah Jo eats like a bird. Don't you like the ribs, honey?" he asked, looking into her plate, which had barely been disturbed.
"They're a little dry."
"Want me to order you something else?"
"No, thank you."
After they'd eaten, Angus took a fresh cigar from his pocket and lit it. Fanning out the match, he said, "Why don't you two dance?"
"Are you game?" Junior asked.

"Sure." Alex pushed back her chair and stood up. "But this kind of dancing isn't my forte, so nothing too fancy, please."
Junior drew her into his arms and, disobeying her request, executed a series of intricate turns and dips. "Very nice," he said, smiling down at her when they lapsed into a more sedate two-step. Using the arm he had placed around her waist, he pulled her tighter against him. "Very, very nice."
Alex let him hold her close because it felt good to have two strong arms around her. Her partner was handsome and charming and knew how to make a woman feel beautiful.
She was a victim of his charm, but knowing it was her safety net.
She could never actually fall for a glib charmer like Junior, but small doses of attention from one was fun temporarily, especially since every time she was around Reede, her confidence and ego took a beating.
"Is Reede a club member?" she asked casually.
"Are you kiddin'?"
"He hasn't been invited to join?"
"Oh, sure, as soon as he won sheriff the first time. It's just that he feels more at home in another crowd. He doesn't give a ****--excuse me--for society stuff." He stroked her back. "You seem more relaxed than when I picked you up. Having fun?"
"Yes, but you got me here under false pretenses," she accused. "You're a long way from becoming drunk and talkative."
His smile was unrepentant. "Ask me anything."
"Okay. Who's the man over there, the one with the white hair?" Junior identified him by name. Her instincts proved correct. His name had been among those at the bottom of her letter. "Introduce us when the band takes its next break."
"He's married."
She shot him a look. "My interest in him isn't romantic."
"Ah, good, good."
He did as she asked. The banker she had picked out of the crowd seemed disconcerted when Junior introduced her. As she shook hands with him, she said, "I received your letter, Mr. Longstreet."
Her straightforwardness surprised him, but he recovered admirably. "I see that you're taking it to heart." He slid a knowing glance toward Junior.
"Don't let my being here tonight with Junior fool you. I can appreciate what he, his father, and Mr. Lambert mean to Purcell and its economy, but that does not mean I'll suspend my investigation. It'll take more than a letter to scare me off."
Clearly irritated, Junior spoke to her out of the side of his mouth as he escorted her back onto the dance floor a few minutes later. "You could have warned me."
"About what?"
"That you are armed and dangerous. Longstreet's a big wheel who shouldn't be put on the defensive. What's all this about a letter, anyway?"
She explained, reciting as many of the names as she could recall. "I hoped to meet some of them here tonight."
He pulled a deep frown, regarding her with asperity. Eventually, however, he shrugged and fashioned a beguiling smile.
"And here I thought I'd swept you off your feet." Sighing in resignation, he added, "Well, I'd just as well help you out. Want to meet the rest of your adversaries?"
Trying to make it appear as casual as possible, Junior moved her through the crowd, introducing her to those there who had signed their names to that subtly threatening letter.
A half hour later they moved away from a couple who owned a chain of convenience stores throughout West Texas. They had invested heavily in Purcell Downs and were the most demonstratively hostile. By that time, though, word had gotten around who Junior's date was, so they'd been laying for her.
"There, that's everybody," he told her.
' 'Thank God,'' Alex whispered. "Are the knives still sticking out of my back?"

"You're not going to let that old biddy's rapier tongue get to you, are you? Look, she's a dried up old shrew who hales any woman who doesn't have a mustache as thick as hers."
Alex smiled in spite of herself. "She all but said, 'Be on the next stage leaving town ... or else.' "
He squeezed her arm. "Come on, let's dance again. It will take your mind off your troubles."
"I need to repair the damages," she said, slipping out of his grasp. "Excuse me."
"Okay. The little girls' room is thataway." He pointed down a narrow hallway.
There was no one in the powder room when she went in, but when she came out of the cubicle, the judge's daughter was standing in front of the dressing table, staring at her reflection in the mirror. She turned and faced Alex.
Alex smiled. "Hi."
"Hello."
Alex moved to the sink and washed her hands. "We haven't been formally introduced. I'm Alex Gaither." She plucked two coarse paper towels from the dispenser.
"Yes, I know."
Alex dropped the used towels into the wastepaper basket.
"You're Judge Wallace's daughter." She attempted to break the ice in an atmosphere that was glacial and getting colder by the second. The woman had dropped all vestiges of the shy, insecure maiden she had assumed when Junior had spoken to her. Her face was stony and uncompromisingly antagonistic.
"Stacey, wasn't it?"
"Yes. Stacey. But the last name isn't Wallace. It's Min-ton."
"Minton?"
"That's right. I am Junior's wife. His first wife."

Twenty


"I can see that's news to you," Stacey said, laughing humorlessly at Alex's dumbfounded expression.
''Yes,'' she replied in a hollow tone.' 'No one's mentioned that."

Stacey's composure, always intact, deserted her. Flattening a hand on her meager bosom, she cried out, "Do you have any idea the damage you're doing?"
"To whom?"
"To me," she shouted, pounding her chest. Immediately she dropped her hand and rolled her lips inward, as though mortified by her outburst. She closed her eyes momentarily. When she opened them, they were filled with animosity, but
she appeared to have regained control of herself.' 'For twenty-five years I've had to live down the generally held belief that
Junior Minton married me on the rebound from your mother.''

Alex didn't state the obvious, but guiltily lowered her eyes.

"I see that you hold to that belief, too."
"I'm sorry, Miss . . . Stacey. May I call you Stacey?"
"Of course," she replied stiffly.
"I'm sorry that my investigation has distressed you."
"How could it not? You're dredging up the past. By doing so, you're airing my dirty linen for all the town to see. Again."
"I had no idea who Junior's first wife was, or that she even lived in Purcell."

"Would it have mattered?"
"Probably not," Alex answered with rueful honesty. "I can't see that your marriage to Junior has any bearing on the case. It's a peripheral association that I can't help."
"What about my father?" Stacey asked, switching subjects.
"What about him?"
"This petty investigation of yours is going to cause him embarrassment. It already has."
"How so?"
"The fact that you're questioning his original ruling."
"I'm sorry. I can't help that, either."
"Can't--or won't?" Stacey held her arms straight at her sides and shuddered with revulsion. "I abhor people who trample on the reputations of others for their own personal gain."
"Is that what you think I'm doing?" Alex asked, taking umbrage. "Do you think I devised this investigation to advance my career?"
"Didn't you?"
"No," she answered, firmly shaking her head. "My mother was murdered in that stable. I don't believe that the man accused of it was capable of committing that crime. I want to know what really happened. I will know what happened. And I'll make the one responsible pay for making me an orphan."
"I was prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt, but I see it's only revenge you want, after all."
"I want justice."
"No matter what it costs other people?"
"I've already apologized for any unhappiness it causes you."
Stacey made a scoffing sound. "You want to publicly crucify my father. Don't deny it," she snapped when Alex started to object. "No matter how much you deny it, you're leaving him open to ridicule. At the very least, you're accusing him of making a serious error in judgment."

To deny that would be a lie. "Yes, I believe he made a bad judgment in the case of Buddy Hicks."
"Daddy's got forty impeccable years on the bench that vouch for his wisdom and integrity."
"If my investigation is petty, as you call it, it won't affect his record, will it, Mrs. Minton? A lofty judge couldn't possibly be brought down by a lowly public prosecutor with nothing except spite and vengeance for ammunition. Evidence would be necessary to support my allegations."
"You don't have any."
"I believe I will before I'm finished. If your father's reputation suffers as a result ..." She drew a deep breath and raised a weary hand to her forehead. Her expression was earnest, her words heartfelt. "Stacey, I don't want to ruin your father's career or besmirch his tenure on the bench. I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings or cause any innocent bystander grief or embarrassment. I only want to see justice done."
"Justice," Stacey sneered, her eyes narrowing with malice.
"You've got no right to even speak the word. You're just like your mother--pretty, but shallow. Single-minded and selfish. Uncaring of other people's feelings. Unable to see beyond your own superficial desires."
"I take it you didn't like my mother very much," Alex remarked, her voice laced with sarcasm.
Stacey took her seriously. "I hated her."
"Why? Because Junior was in love with her?"
Alex reasoned that if Stacey were going to hit below the belt, she might as well, too. It worked. Stacey fell back a step and groped for the dressing table to support herself.
Reflexively, Alex extended a helping hand, but the judge's daughter recoiled from her touch.
"Stacey, I know that Junior married you only a few weeks after my mother was killed. You must realize how odd that strikes me."
"It might have seemed sudden, but we'd been dating for years."
That surprised Alex. "You had?"

"Yes. And for most of that time, we'd been lovers."
Stacey threw that piece of news at Alex like a dart, sharply and triumphantly. All it served, however, was to make Alex pity her more. She had the full picture now of a plain girl, hopelessly in love with the affable and handsome football hero, willing to sacrifice anything, including her pride, to have even scraps of his attention. She would do anything to keep him near her. "I see."
"I doubt it. Just like Junior, you're blind to the truth."
"What is the truth, Stacey?"
"That Celina was wrong for him. Like everybody else, she constantly compared him to Reede. Junior always came out in second place. I didn't care how he measured up to anybody. I loved him for what he was. Junior didn't want to believe it, but in spite of your father and you, Celina would have always loved Reede."
'' If she loved him so much, why did she marry my father?''
That question had been plaguing Alex for days.
"Celina and Reede had a falling out the spring of our junior year. As soon as school was out for the summer, she went to visit cousins in El Paso."
"That's where she met my father." Alex knew this much of the story from her grandmother. "He was going through boot camp at Port Bliss. Soon after they were married, he got shipped to Vietnam."
Stacey sneered, "And after he died, she wanted to take back up with Reede, but he wouldn't have her. That's when she kindled Junior's hopes. She knew he'd always wanted her, but he never would have pursued it, on account of Reede. It was disgraceful how she played up to Junior, involving him with her pregnancy. She might have toyed with the idea of marrying him, but it never would have happened as long as Reede Lambert drew breath.
"Your mother kept Junior dangling by a thread of hope. She made his life miserable. She would have gone on making him miserable if she had lived." The former Mrs. Minton drew a choppy breath that caused her shapeless chest to stagger as it rose and fell. "I was glad when Celina died."

A spark of suspicion leaped into Alex's eyes.' 'Where were you that night?"
"At home unpacking. I'd just returned from a week's vacation in Galveston."
Would she lie over something so easily checked? "You married Junior right away."
"That's right. He needed me. I knew that I was only a panacea for his grief, just like I'd always known when he made love to me that it was Celina he really wanted. But I didn't care if he used me. I wanted to be used. I cooked his meals, took care of his clothes, nurtured him in bed and out."
Her expression changed as she lapsed into a private reverie.
"I overlooked the first time he was unfaithful to me. I was crushed, naturally, but I could understand how easily it had happened. Whenever we went out, women flocked to him. What man could resist such a strong temptation? The affair didn't last long before he lost interest.'' She clasped her hands and studied them as she spoke softly. "Then there was another. And another. I would have tolerated all his lovers if only he'd stayed married to me.
"But he asked me for a divorce. At first I refused. He kept on and on, telling me that he hated hurting me with his affairs.
When I was left no option, I granted the divorce. It broke my heart, but I gave him what he wanted, knowing, knowing," she repeated with emphasis, "that no other woman would ever be as right for him as I was. I thought I'd die with the pain of loving him too well."
She shook herself out of the reflective mood and beaded on Alex. "And I still have to stand by and watch him move from woman to woman, all the time searching for what I can and want to give him. I had to watch him dance and flirt with you tonight. You! My God," she sobbed, tilting her face toward the ceiling and pressing her fist to her forehead, eyes squeezed shut. "You want to ruin him, and he still can't see beyond your pretty face and body."
She lowered her hand and glared at Alex. "You are poison, Miss Gaither. I feel the same way about you tonight as I did twenty-five years ago." Closing the distance between them and putting her narrow, angular face close to Alex's site hissed, "I wish you'd never been born."

Alex's attempts to compose herself after Stacey's departure had been in vain. Her face was pale and she was trembling as she walked out of the powder room.
"I was about to come in and get you." Junior was waiting for Alex in the hallway. At first he didn't notice her troubled expression. When he did, he was instantly concerned. "Alex? What's the matter?"
"I'd like to leave now."
"Are you sick? What's--"
"Please. We'll talk on the way."
Without further argument, Junior took her arm and steered her toward the cloakroom, where he asked the attendant for their coats. "Wait here." Alex watched him reenter the club, skirt the dance floor, and move to the table where they had eaten dinner. After a brief exchange with Angus and Sarah Jo, he returned in time to claim their coats.
He hustled her outside and into the red Jaguar. He waited until they were a good distance from the club and the car's heater was pumping warm air before he addressed her across the plush interior. "All right, what gives?"
"Why didn't you tell me that you were married to Stacey Wallace?"
He stared at her until it became a driving hazard, then turned his head and fixed his eyes on the road ahead. "You didn't ask."
"How glib."
She laid her head against the cold passenger window, feeling like she'd just sustained a beating with a chain and was due to enter the ring for round two. Just when she thought she had finished sorting through all the pieces of the various liaisons of Purcell, another intricate twist emerged.
"Is it important?" Junior asked.
"I don't know." She turned her shoulders toward him and rested the back of her head on the window. "You tell me. Is it?"
"No. The marriage lasted less than a year. We parted friends."
"You parted friends. She's still in love with you."
He winced. "That was one of our problems. Stacey's love is obsessive and possessive. She shackled me. I couldn't breathe. We--"
"Junior, you screwed around," she interrupted impatiently. "Spare me the banal explanations. I really don't care."
"Then why'd you bring it up?"
"Because she confronted me in the powder room and accused me of ruining her father's life with this investigation."
"For crissake, Alex, Joe Wallace is a big crybaby. Stacey mothers him. I don't doubt for a minute that he's whined and carried on about you something awful in front of her. It's a ploy to get her sympathy. They feed each other's neuroses. Don't worry about it."
Alex didn't like Junior Minton very much at that moment.
His cavalier attitude toward a woman's--any woman's-- love reduced him in Alex's eyes. She'd watched him tonight, doing just as Stacey had described, moving from woman to woman. The young and old, attractive and homely, married and unattached, all seemed to be fair game. He was charming with each, like a mall Easter bunny working the crowd, doling out treats to greedy children who didn't realize they'd be better off without them.
He seemed to take their fawning as his due. Alex had never found that kind of conceit commendable or appealing. Junior took for granted that he would elicit a response from every woman he spoke to. Ruling was an involuntary action to him, as natural as breathing. It would never occur to him that someone might misinterpret his intentions and suffer emotional pain.
Perhaps if she hadn't had the conversation with Stacey, Alex would have smiled indulgently, as all the other women and accepted his suaveness as part of his personality, instead, she now felt irritable toward him and wanted to know she couldn't be so blithely dismissed.
"It wasn't just the judge Stacey took issue with. She said I was stirring up memories of her marriage to you, airing her dirty linen. I get the impression that being your ex has been a real trial for her."
"That's not really my problem, is it?"
"Maybe it should be."
Her harsh backlash surprised him. "You sound mad at me. Why?"
"I don't know." The flare of her temper had been short and sweet. Now, she felt drained. "I'm sorry. Maybe it's just that I always pull for the underdog."
He reached across the car and covered her knee with his hand.' 'An admirable quality that hasn't escaped my notice.''
Alex picked up his hand and dropped it back onto the leather seat between them. "Uh-oh, I'm not off the hook yet."
She resisted his smile. "Why did you marry Stacey?"
"Is this really what you want to talk about?" He wheeled the car up to the breezeway of the Westerner Motel and shifted the gear into Park.
"Yes."
Frowning, he cut the engine and laid his arm along the seat, turning toward her. "It seemed like the thing to do at the time."
"You didn't love her."
"No shit."
"But you made love to her." He raised an inquisitive eyebrow. "Stacey told me that you'd been lovers for a long time before you got married."
"Not lovers, Alex. I took her out every now and then."
"How often?"
"You want it plain?"
"Shoot."
"I called on Stacey whenever I got horny and the Gail sisters were busy, or had their periods, or--"

"The who?"
"The Gail sisters. Another story." He waved off the questions he could see rising in her mind.
"I've got all night." She settled more comfortably against her door.
"Doesn't anything escape you?"
"Very little. What about these sisters?"
"There were three of them--triplets, in fact. All named Gail."
"That stands to reason."
"No, it wasn't their last name. Their names were Wanda Gail, Nora Gail, and Peggy Gail."
"Is this a joke?"
He drew an x across his chest. "Cross my heart. Reede had already initiated them, so to speak, before I arrived on the scene. He introduced me to them." He snickered, as though recalling a particularly sordid incident of his youth.
"In short, the Gail sisters put out. They liked putting out. Every guy in Purcell High School must of had them at least once."
"Okay, I get the picture. But when they were unavailable you called on Stacey Wallace, because she put out, too."
He looked at her levelly. "I've never coerced a woman. She was willing, Alex."
"Only for you."
He shrugged an admission.
"And you took advantage of that."
"Name me one guy who wouldn't."
"You've got a point," she said dryly. "I would venture to say that you're the only man Stacey's ever been with."
He had the grace to look a little ashamed. "Yeah, I'd say so, too."
"I felt sorry for her tonight, Junior. She was hateful to me, but I couldn't help but feel sorry for her."
"I never understood why she latched onto me, but she shadowed me from the day I enrolled into Purcell High School. She was a brainy kid, you know. Always the teachers' favorite because she was so conscientious and never got into trouble." He chuckled. "They'd never believe what she was willing to do in the back seat of my Chevy."
Alex gazed distractedly into space, not really listening.
"Stacey despised Celina."
"She was jealous of her."
"Mainly because when you made love to Stacey, she knew it was my mother you were wishing for."
"Jesus," he swore softly, his smile collapsing.
"That's what she said. Is that true?"
"Celina was always with Reede. That's just the way it was. It was a fact of life."
"But you did want her, even though she belonged to your best friend?"
After a lengthy pause, he admitted, "I'd be lying if I said otherwise."
Very softly, Alex said, "Stacey told me something else. It was an offhanded comment, not a revelation. She said it as though it was common knowledge--something I should already know."
"What?"
"That you wanted to marry my mother." She refocused on him and asked huskily, "Did you?"
He averted his head for a second, then said, "Yes."
"Before or after she got married and had me?"
"Both." When he saw her apparent confusion, he said, "I don't think a man could look at Celina and not want her for his own. She was beautiful and funny and had this way of making you think you were special to her. She had ..."
He groped for the adequate word. "Something," he said, closing his fist around the elusive noun, "something that made you want to possess her."
"Did you ever possess her?"
"Physically?"
"Did you ever sleep with my mother?"
His expression was baldly honest and terribly sad. "No, Alex. Never."

"Did you ever try? Would she have?"
"I don't think so. I never tried. At least, not very hard."
"Why not, if you wanted her so much?"
"Because Reede would have killed us."
Stunned, she gazed at him. "Do you really think so?"
He shrugged as his disarming smile moved into place.
"Figure of speech."
Alex wasn't so sure. It had sounded literal when he said it.
He scooted along the seat of his Jaguar until they were sitting very close. He slid his fingers up through her hair, laid his thumb along her neck and stroked it lightly.
"That's sure a dreary subject. Let's change it," he whispered, brushing an airy kiss across her mouth. "How about leaving the past for a while and thinking about the present?"
His eyes wandered over her face while his fingertips touched each feature. "I want to sleep with you, Alex."
For a moment, she was too stunned to speak. "You're not serious?"
"Wanna bet?"
He kissed her in earnest then. At least, he tried to. Tilting his head, he rested his lips upon hers, pressed, tested, pressed
harder. When she didn't respond, he pulled back and gave her a puzzled look.
"No?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"You know without my telling you. It would be crazy. Wrong."
"I've done crazier things." He lowered his hand to the front of her sweater and fingered a patch of soft suede.
"Wronger things, too."
"Well, I haven't."
"We'd be good together, Alex."
"We'll never know."
He ran his thumb along her lower lip, tracking its slow progress with his eyes. "Never say never." He bent his head and kissed her again--affectionately, not passionately--then returned to the driver's side of the car and got out. At the door, he gave her a chaste good-night kiss, but his expression was indulgent and amused. Alex knew he thought she was just being coy and that wearing her down was only a matter of time.
She was so befuddled by his come-on that it was several minutes before she noticed that the red message light on her telephone was blinking. She called the motel's front desk, retrieved her message, and called the specified number. Even
before the doctor got on the line, she knew what he would say. Nevertheless, his words shocked her.
"Miss Gaither, I'm terribly sorry. Mrs. Graham passed away earlier this evening without ever regaining consciousness."

Twenty-one

Alex knocked and waited until Reede called out, "Come in," before entering his office. "Good morning. Thank you for seeing me on such short notice."
She sat down in the chair in front of his desk. Without asking, he poured her a cup of coffee to her liking and placed it in front of her. She thanked him with a nod.
"I'm sorry about your grandmother, Alex," he said as he resumed his seat in the creaky swivel chair.
"Thank you."
Alex had been away for a week, handling the details of her grandmother's funeral. Only Alex, a handful of former coworkers, and a few of the nursing home patients had attended the chapel service. After the burial, Alex had begun the unwelcome chore of clearing out her grandmother's room at the nursing home. The staff had been kind, but there was a waiting list, so they had needed the room emptied immediately.
It had been an emotionally stressful week. As she had sat staring at the modest casket, while organ music played softly in the background, she had felt an overwhelming sense of defeat. She had failed to fulfill the promise she had made to herself and to her grandmother: She hadn't produced Celina's murderer in time.
More defeating than that, she had failed to win her grandmother's absolution and love. That had been her last chance; she wouldn't have another.
She had given serious consideration to throwing in the towel, telling Greg that he'd been right, and that she should have taken his advice from the beginning. He would enjoy seeing her humility, and he would immediately assign her another case.
That would have been the easier course. She would never have to enter the city limits of Purcell again, or cope with the hostility that flew at her like missiles from everyone she met, or look into the face of this man, who generated myriad ambiguous feelings inside her.
From a legal viewpoint, she still had a case too weak to stand up in court. But from a personal perspective, she couldn't quit. She had become intrigued by the men who had loved her mother. She had to know which one of them had killed her, and whether or not she was responsible for her mother's murder. She would either have to deny her guilt, or learn to live with it, but she couldn't let it go forever unresolved.
So, she had returned to Purcell. She was staring into the pair of green eyes that had haunted her thoughts for a week, and they were as compelling and disturbing as she remembered.
"I wasn't sure you'd be back," he told her bluntly.
"You should have been. I told you I wouldn't give up."
"Yeah, I remember," he said grimly. "How was the dance the other night?"
His question came out of the blue and evoked a knee-jerk response. "How did you know I went?"
"Word gets around."
"Junior told you."
"No."
"I can hardly stand the suspense," Alex said. "How did you find out I went to the Horse and Gun Club?"
"One of my deputies clocked Junior doing eighty-one that night out on the highway. Around eleven o'clock, he said. He saw you in the car with him." He was no longer looking at her, but studying the toes of his boots. "You sure were in a hell of a hurry to get back to your motel."
"I was ready to leave the club, that's all. I wasn't feeling well."
"The barbecue didn't sit well with you? Or was it the people? Some of them make me sick to my stomach, too."
"It wasn't the food or the people. It was, well, one person: Stacey Wallace . . . Minton." Alex closely watched for his reaction. His face remained impassive. "Why didn't anyone tell me that Stacey had been married to Junior?"
"You didn't ask."
Miraculously, she was able to hold her temper in check.
"Didn't it occur to anybody that their hasty marriage might be significant?"
"It wasn't."
''I reserve the right to decide the significance of it myself.''
"Be my guest. Do you think it's significant?"
"Yes, I do. The timing of Junior's first marriage always struck me as strange. It's even stranger that the bride turned out to be the judge's daughter."
"That's not strange at all."
"Coincidental, certainly."
"Not even that. Stacey Wallace had been in love, or lust, with Junior since the day she first laid eyes on him. Everybody knew it, including Junior. She certainly made no secret of her devotion. When Celina died, Stacey saw her chance and seized it."
"Stacey didn't strike me as an opportunist."
"Grow up, Alex. We're all opportunists when we want something bad enough. She loved the guy," he pointed out impatiently.' 'He was sick over Celina's death. I guess Stacey figured her love could make his hurt go away, that it would be enough."
"It wasn't."
"Obviously. She couldn't make Junior love her back. She sure as hell couldn't weld his zippers shut." Vexed, he gnawed on the corner of his lip. "Who spilled the beans about this? Junior?"
"Stacey herself. She confronted me in the powder room and accused me of upsetting her life by reopening this case.''
"Gutsy lady," he said, nodding approval. "I always liked her."
"Oh, really? Did you sleep with her, too? Or did the Gail sisters keep you satiated?"
"The Gail sisters, huh?" He barked a short laugh. "I know Stacey didn't talk to you about Purcell's notorious triplets."
"Junior filled in the gaps."
"Must have been quite an evening."
''Most revealing.''
"Oh, yeah?" he drawled. "What'd you reveal?"
She ignored this well-placed insinuation. "Reede, what was the rush? Junior wasn't in love with Stacey. For the sake of argument, let's say he talked himself into marrying her. Why did they marry when they did?"
"Maybe she wanted to be a June bride."
"Don't make fun of me!" She shot out of her chair and moved to the window.
He whistled low and long. "Boy, are you ever in a rotten mood."
"I just buried my only living relative, remember?" she flared.

He cursed beneath his breath and raked his fingers through his hair. "For a minute there, I did forget. Look, Alex, I'm sorry. I remember how bad I felt when I buried my old man.''
She turned to face him, but he was staring at nothing.
"Angus and Junior were the only ones out of the whole goddamn town who came to the funeral. We didn't even hold it in a church or the funeral home, just at the grave site. Angus went back to work. Junior returned to school so he wouldn't miss a biology test. I went home.
"Not long after lunch, Celina came to my house. She had skipped school just to come and be with me. She knew I'd feel low, even though I hated the son of a bitch while he was alive. We lay down together on my bed and stayed there until it got dark. She knew if she didn't go home, her mother I would get worried. She cried for me because I couldn't." When he stopped speaking, there was a ponderous silence in the room. Alex was still standing by the window, motionless and transfixed by his story. Her chest hurt with heartache for the lonely young man he'd been.
"Was that the first time you made love to Celina?"
He looked straight at her, got out of his chair, and approached her. "Since you broached the subject of love lives, how's yours?"
The tension snapped, as did her temper. "Why don't you stop beating around the bush and come right out and ask?"
"Okay," he sneered. "Has Junior made it into your pants yet?"
"You bastard."
"Has he?"
"No!"
"I'll bet he's tried. He always tries." His laugh was deep and stirring. "Bingo." He raised his hand and stroked her cheek with the backs of his fingers. "You're blushing, Counselor."
She swatted his hand aside. "Go to hell."
She was furious with herself for blushing like a schoolgirl in front of him. It was none of his business who she slept with. What bothered her most, however, was that he didn't seem to care. If she had to describe that glint in his eyes she would call it amusement, possibly contempt, but certainly not jealousy.
To retaliate, she asked suddenly, "What did you and Celina quarrel about?"
"Celina and I? When?"
"The spring of your junior year. Why did she go to El Paso for the summer and start dating my father?"
"Maybe she needed a change of scenery," he said flippantly.
"Did you know how much your best friend loved her?"
His goading grin vanished. "Did Junior tell you that?"
"I knew before he told me. Did you know, at the time, that he loved her?"
He rolled his shoulders forward in a semblance of a shrug.
"Nearly every guy in school--"
"I'm not talking about infatuation with a popular girl, Reede." She grabbed his shirtsleeve to show just how important this was to her. ' 'Did you know how Junior felt about her?"
"What if I did?"
"He said you would have killed him if he'd tried anything with her. He said you would have killed them both if they had betrayed you."
"A figure of speech."
"That's what Junior said, too, but I don't think so," she said evenly. "There were a lot of passions stirring. Your relationships with each other were overlapping and complex."
"Whose relationships?"
"You and my mother loved each other, but you both loved Junior, too. Wasn't it a love triangle in the strictest sense of the word?"
"What the hell are you talking about? Do you think Junior and I are a couple of queers?"
Unexpectedly, he grabbed her hand and flattened it against his fly. "Feel that, baby? It's been hard more than it's been soft, but it's never been hard for a fag."
Stunned and shaken, she pried her hand away, subconsciously rubbing the palm of it against her thigh, as though it had been branded. "You have a redneck mentality, Sheriff Lambert," she said, supremely agitated. "I think you and Junior love each other the way Indian blood brothers do. But you're competitive, too."
"I don't compete with Junior."
"Maybe not consciously, but other people have pitted you against each other. And guess which one of you always came out on top? You. That bothered you. It still does."
"Is this more of your psychological bullshit?"
"It's not just my opinion. Stacey mentioned it the other night, and not at my prompting. She said people always compared the two of you, and that Junior always came in second."
"I can't help what people think."
"Your competitiveness came to a head over Celina, didn't it?"
"Why ask me? You've got all the answers."
"You had the edge there, too. Junior wanted to be Celina's lover, but you actually were."
A long silence followed. Reede regarded her with the concentration of a hunter who finally has his quarry in the cross hairs. The sunlight streaming through the blinds glinted in his eyes, on his hair, on his eyebrows, which were slanted dangerously.
Very quietly, he said, "Good try, Alex, but I'm not admitting anything."
He tried to move away then, but she caught his arms. "Well, weren't you her lover? What difference does it make if you say so now?"
"Because I never kiss and tell." His eyes slid down to her pulsing throat, then back up. "And you should be damned glad I don't."
Want surged through her, as warm and golden as the morning sunlight. She craved to feel his hard lips on hers again, the rough, powerful mastery of his tongue inside her mouth. She became dewy with desire and tearful with remorse for what she desperately wanted and couldn't have.
Eyes locked, neither realized that they were being observed from across the street. The sun was as good as a spotlight on them.
Willing herself out of the dubious present and into the disturbing past, she said, "Junior told me that you and Celina were more than just childhood sweethearts." It was a bluff, but she gambled on it working. "He told me everything about your relationship with her, so it really doesn't matter whether you admit it or not. When did you and she first . . .'" you know?"
"****?"
The vulgarity, spoken in a low, thrumming rasp, sent shafts of heat through her. Never had that word sounded erotic to her before. She swallowed and made an almost imperceptible nod of acknowledgment.
Suddenly, he hooked his hand around the back of her neck and pulled her against him, placing her face directly beneath his. His eyes bore into hers.
"Junior didn't tell you shit, Counselor," he whispered.
"Don't try your fancy, courtroom-lawyer bluffs on me. I've got eighteen years on you, and I was born smart. The tricks I've got up my sleeve, you've never even heard about. I'm damn sure not ignorant enough to fall for yours."
His fist clenched tighter around the handful of her hair he was holding. His breath felt hotter and came faster against her face. "Don't ever try to come between Junior and me again, you hear? Fight us both or **** us both, but don't tamper with something outside your understanding."
His eyes narrowed with sinister intensity. "Your mama had a bad habit of playing both ends against the middle, Alex. Somebody got a bellyful of it and killed her before she learned her lesson. You'd do well to learn it before something like
that happens to you."


The morning was a washout in terms of discovering new clues. Nothing diverted her mind from the disturbing conversation
she had had with Reede. If a deputy hadn't knocked on the office door and interrupted them, she didn't know whether she would have clawed at Reede's eyes or yielded to her stronger urge to press her body close to his and kiss him.
At noon she stopped trying to concentrate and crossed the street to have lunch at the B & B Cafe. Like most people who worked downtown, that had become her habit. No longer were conversations suspended when she went in. Every now and then she even merited a greeting from Pete if he wasn't too busy in the kitchen.
She dawdled over her meal as long as possible, scooting the yellow ceramic armadillo ashtray back and forth across her table and leafing through Pete's printed brochure on the proper way to prepare rattlesnake.
She was killing time, loath to return to the dingy little office in the basement of the courthouse and stare into space, recounting unsettling thoughts and reviewing hypotheses that seemed more farfetched by the hour. But one thought kept
haunting her. Was there any connection between Celina's death and Junior's hasty marriage to Stacey Wallace?
Her mind was steeped in speculation when she left the cafe. Ducking her head against the cold wind, she walked toward the corner. The traffic light, one of the few downtown, changed just as she reached the corner. She was about to step off the cracked and buckled concrete curb when her arm was caught from behind.
"Reverend Plummet," she stated in surprise. Subsequent events had quickly dismissed him and his timid wife from her mind.
"Miss Gaither," he said in a censorious tone, "I saw you with the sheriff this morning." He could have tacked on any number of deadly sins to account for the accusation smoldering in his deep-set eyes. "You've disappointed me."

"I fail to see--"
"Furthermore," he interrupted with the rolling intonation of a sidewalk evangelist, "you've disappointed the Almighty."
His eyes rounded largely, then closed to mere slits.
"I warn you, the Lord will not tolerate being mocked."
She nervously moistened her lips and glanced around, hoping to see some avenue of escape, though she didn't know what form it might take. "I haven't meant to offend you or God," she said, feeling foolish for even making such a statement.
"You haven't locked the iniquitous behind bars yet."
"I haven't found any reason to. My investigation isn't complete. And just to set the record straight, Reverend Plummet, I didn't come here to lock anybody behind bars."
"You're being too soft on the ungodly."
"If by that you mean that I've approached this investigation impartially, then yes, I have."
"I saw you this morning fraternizing with that son of the devil."
His maniacal eyes were arresting, if repellent. She caught herself staring into them. "You mean Reede?"
He made a hissing sound, as though the very name conjured up an evil spirit that must be warded off. "Don't be taken in by his wily devices."
"I assure you, I'm not."
He came a step closer. "The devil knows where women are weak. He uses their soft, vulnerable bodies as channels for his evil powers. They're tainted, and must be cleansed by a regular outpouring of blood."
He isn't only nutty, he's sick, Alex thought in horror.
He slapped his hand upon his Bible, causing Alex to jump. Raising his index finger into the air, he shouted, "Resist all temptation, daughter! I command every lascivious impulse to desert your heart and mind and body. Now," he bellowed.
He slumped, as though the exorcism had totally drained him of energy. Alex stood transfixed by disbelief. Coming to her senses, she glanced around uneasily, hoping that no one had witnessed this madness and her unwitting involvement in it.
"As far as I know, I have no lascivious impulses. Now, I must go. I'm late." She stepped off the curb despite the fact that the traffic light was flashing instructions not to walk.
"God is counting on you. He's impatient. If you betray his trust--"
"Yes, well, I'll try harder. Goodbye."
He lunged off the curb and grabbed her by the shoulders.
"God bless you, daughter. God bless you and your holy mission." Clasping her hand, he pressed a cheaply printed pamphlet into it.
"Thank you."
Alex worked her hand free and jogged across the street, quickly putting two lanes of traffic between her and the preacher. She trotted up the steps and barreled through the courthouse doors.
Glancing over her shoulder to see if Plummet had followed her, she ran right into Reede.
He caught her against his chest. "What the hell's the matter with you? Where have you been?"
She wanted to lean against him, feel his protective strength, until her heart stopped racing, but didn't allow herself the luxury. "Nowhere. I mean, I went out. To lunch. At the, uh, the B & B. I walked."
He studied her, taking in her windblown hair and ruddy cheeks. "What's that?" He nodded down at the pamphlet she was clutching in her white-knuckled hand.
''Nothing.'' She tried to stuff it into the pocket of her coat.
Reede snatched it out of her hand. He scanned the cover, flipped it open, and read the message heralding doomsday.
"You into this?"
"Of course not. A sidewalk preacher handed it to me. You really should devote some attention to clearing the panhandlers
off your city's streets, Sheriff," she said haughtily.
"They're a nuisance."
She stepped around him and continued downstairs.

Twenty-two


Nora Gail sat up and retrieved the filmy garment she'd worn into the room.

"Thanks," Reede said to her.

She gave him a reproving glance over her milky-white shoulder. Drolly she replied, "How romantic." After shoving her arms through the ruffled sleeves of the peignoir, she left the bed and moved toward the door. "I've got to go check on things, but I'll be back, and we can talk." Patting her beehive hairdo, she left the room.

Reede watched her go. Her body was compact now, but in a few years it would go to fat. The large breasts would sag. Her
oversized nipples would look grotesque without any muscle tone supporting them. Her smooth, slightly convex belly would become spongy. Her thighs and ass would dimple.

Even though they were friends, he hated her at the moment. He hated himself more. He hated the physical necessity that
propelled him through this travesty of intimacy with a woman.

They rutted, probably more mindlessly and heartlessly than some species of animals. The release should have been cleansing and cathartic. It should have felt great. It didn't. It rarely did anymore, certainly not recently.

"Shit," he muttered. He would probably go on sleeping with her through their old age. It was convenient and uncomplicated.
Each knew what the other was able to give and demanded nothing more. As far as Reede was concerned, passion was based on need, not desire, and sure as hell not on love.
He got off. So did she. She had often told him he was one of the few men who could make her come. He wasn't particularly
flattered because that might be, and probably was, a lie.
Disgusted, he threw his legs over the side of the bed. There was a pack of cigarettes on the bedside table, courtesy of the
house. The carefully rolled joints you had to pay for. He lit one of the cigarettes, something he rarely did anymore, and drew the tobacco deep into his lungs. He missed the postcoital cigarettes more than any others, maybe because the tobacco punished and polluted the body that continually betrayed him with a healthy sex drive.
He poured himself a drink from the bottle on the nightstand--that would be added to his bill, even if he did **** the madam herself--and tossed it down in one swallow. Rebeling, his esophagus contracted. His eyes teared. The whiskey spread a slow, languid heat through his belly and groin. He began to feel marginally better.
He lay back down and stared at the ceiling, wishing he could sleep, but welcoming this coveted time of relaxation when he wasn't called on to speak, move, or think. His eyes closed. An image of a face, bathed in sunlight and wreathed by loose, dark-auburn hair, was projected on the backs of his eyelids. His cock, which should have been limp with exhaustion, swelled and stretched with more pleasure than it had felt earlier tonight.
Reede didn't whisk the image away, as he usually did.
This time he let it stay, evolve. The fantasy was welcomed and indulged. He watched her blue eyes blink with surprise at her own eroticism, watched her tongue nervously flick over her lower lip. He felt her against him, her heart beating in time with his, her hair tangled in his fingers. He tasted her mouth again, felt her tongue shyly flirting with his.
He didn't realize that he made a low moan or that his penis twitched reflexively. A drop of moisture pearled the tip. Yearning pressed down on him suffocatingly.
"Reede!"
The door to the room was flung open and the madam rushed back in, no longer looking cool and elegant.
"Reede," she repeated breathlessly.
"What the hell?" He swung his feet to the floor again and stood up in one economical motion. He didn't think to be embarrassed by his evident arousal. Something was desperately wrong.
As long as he'd known her, he'd never seen her rattled, but now, her eyes were wide with alarm. He was stepping into his briefs before she even started speaking.
"They just called."
"Who?"
"Your office. There's an emergency."
"Where?" Already standing in jeans and an unbuttoned shirt, he crammed his feet into his boots.
"The ranch."
He froze and swiveled his head toward her. "The Minton ranch?" She nodded. "What kind of emergency?"
"The deputy didn't say. Swear to God he didn't," she added hurriedly when she could see that Reede was about to question that.
"Personal or professional emergency?"
"I don't know, Reede. I got the impression that it's a combination of both. He just said you're wanted out there pronto. Is there anything I can do?"
"Call back and tell them I'm on my way." Grabbing his coat and hat, he pushed her aside and ran into the hallway.
"Thanks."
"Let me know what happened," she called down to him, leaning over the banister, watching his hasty descent.
"When I can." Seconds later he slammed the door behind him, leaped over the porch rail, and hit the ground running.

Alex was in a deep slumber, which was why she didn't associate the knocking on her door with reality. Subconsciously, she thought the racket was an extension of her dream. A voice finally roused her.
"Get up and open the door."
Groggily, she sat up and reached for the switch to the bedside lamp, which always seemed to elude her. When the lamp came on, she blinked against the sudden light.
"Alex, dammit! Get op!"
The door was vibrating with each fall of his fist. "Reede?" she croaked.
"If you're not up in ten seconds ..."
She checked the digital clock on the nightstand. It was almost two in the morning. The sheriff was either drunk or crazy. Either way, she wasn't about to open her door to him in his present frame of mind. "What do you want?"
Alex couldn't account for the change in the sound of the thumping until the wood began to splinter, then shatter. Reede kicked the door open and let himself in.
"Just what the hell do you think you're doing?" she shouted, gathering the covers against her as she sat bolt upright.
"Coming to get you."
He grabbed her, covers and all, plucked her off the bed and stood her on her feet, then ripped the covers away from her grasping hands. She stood shivering in front of him, wearing only panties and a T-shirt, her usual sleeping en semble. It would be difficult to say which of them was the more furious or riveted.
Alex recovered her voice first: "I hope you have a damn good reason for kicking in my door, Sheriff."
"I do." He crossed to the dresser, yanked open a drawer, and began riffling through articles of clothing.
"I'd like to hear it."
"You will." Another drawer fell victim to his searching hands. She moved beside him and pushed the drawer shut with her hip, almost slamming it on his fingers.
"What are you looking for?"
"Clothes. Unless you'd rather go out like that."
He gestured down toward the panties with their high, French-cut legs. The spot where the sheer lace panel tapered between her thighs seemed to capture his attention for several tense seconds before he dragged his eyes toward the alcove where her clothes were hanging. "Where are your jeans?" he asked, his voice thick.
"I'm not going anywhere. Do you know what time it is?"
He jerked the jeans off the hanger. It rocked on the rod, then fell unheeded to the floor. "Yes." None too gently, he tossed the jeans at her.' 'Put those on. These, too." He threw her casual boots at her feet, then faced her, hands on hips, looking mean. "Well? Want me to do it for you?"
She couldn't imagine what she had done to provoke him.
It was obvious, however, that he was livid over something. If he wanted to play out this caveman game, let him. She would go along, but she wouldn't do it graciously. Turning her back on him, she stepped into her jeans and wiggled them over her hips. She took a pair of socks from one of the ravaged bureau drawers, shook them out, then pulled them on. The boots came next. Finally, she turned and glared up at him.
"There, I'm dressed. Now, are you going to tell me what this is all about?"
"On the way."
He yanked a sweater from a hanger and moved toward her as he gathered the material up to the turtleneck. He pulled it over her head, then shoved her arms into the sleeves and tugged the hem to her hips. The narrow neck had trapped her
hair. He lifted it out. Instead of withdrawing his hands, he closed his fingers tightly around her scalp, then roughly tilted her head up and back. He was shaking with rage.
"I ought to break your neck."
He didn't. He kissed her--hard.
His lips crushed hers, bruised them against her teeth. He thrust his tongue inside her mouth with no semblance of tenderness. It was an angry kiss, spawned by angry passion. It ended abruptly. Her coat was lying across a chair. He tossed it at her. "Here."
Alex was too shaken to think of arguing. She put it on.
He pushed her over the threshold. "What about the door?" she asked inanely.
"I'll send someone to fix it."
"At this time of night?"
"Forget the goddamn door," he roared. Cupping her bottom in his palm, he boosted her up into the cab of the Blazer, which he'd kept running. The light bar across the roof of it was flashing a tricolor code of emergency,
"How long before I get an explanation?" she asked as the Blazer careened onto the highway. Her seat belt did little good. She was thrown against him, and had to clutch his thigh to keep from being pitched into the floorboard. "For heaven's sake, Reede, tell me what's happened."
"The Minton ranch has been set afire."

Twenty-three



"Set afire?" she repeated in a thready voice.
"Drop the innocent act, will ya?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
He banged his fist on the steering wheel. "How could you sleep through it?"
She stared at him, aghast. "Are you suggesting that I had something to do with it?"
Reede turned his attention back to the road. His face was taut and rigid in the greenish light emanating from the dashboard.
The police radio discharged its scratchy static. The transmissions were loud and intrusive. There was no other traffic on the highway, so the siren wasn't necessary, but the lights overhead continued to whirl and flash, making Alex feel like she was caught in a weird kaleidoscope.
"I think you had a lot to do with it, you and your close friend and associate." Her bewilderment only seemed to infuriate him more. "Reverend Fergus Plummet," he shouted.
"The preacher's a good friend of yours, isn't he?"
"Plummet?"
" 'Plummet?' " he mimicked nastily. "When did the two of you cook up this idea, the evening he paid a visit to your motel room, or the other day, on the sidewalk in front of the B & B Cafe"?"

She took a series of quick, shallow breaths. "How'd you know?"
"I know, okay? Who called who first?"
"He and his wife showed up at my room. I'd never heard of him before that. The man's a maniac."
"That didn't stop you from enlisting him to your cause."
"I did no such thing."
Swearing beneath his breath, he pulled the transmitter of his radio toward his mouth and notified one of his deputies at the scene that he was only minutes away.
"Ten-four, Reede. When you get here, go to barn number two."
"How come?"
"Don't know. Somebody said to tell you that."
"Ten-four. I'm at the gate now."
They turned off the highway and took the private road.
Alex's stomach turned over when she saw a column of smoke rising from one of the horse barns. Flames were no longer
visible, but the roof and those of the adjacent buildings were still being doused with fire hoses. Firemen, wearing slickers
and rubber boots, were frantically trying to contain the fire.
"They got to it before it did too much damage," Reede informed her harshly.

Emergency vehicles were parked near the smoking stable and in front of the house. Nearly every downstairs window had been broken out. All exterior walls had dire warnings of Armageddon spray-painted on them.
"There were three carloads of them. Apparently they circled the premises several times, throwing rocks through the windows, but only after they'd done their real dirty work. You can see how well K-Mart did tonight in the spray-paint department." His lip curled snidely. "They dumped shit into the drinking troughs. Fine class of friends you've got there, Counselor."
"Was anybody hurt?" It was a horrendous scene. She was unable to draw sufficient air into her lungs.
"One of the gallop boys." Alex turned toward him for elaboration. "He heard the racket, rushed outside the bunkhouse, stumbled, fell and broke his arm."
Barn number two was the one with the smoldering roof.
Reede braked the Blazer in front and left her sitting in the truck when he went inside. Alex, feeling like each limb weighed a thousand pounds, shoved open the door and followed him through the wide doors, shouldering her way through the scurrying firemen.
"What's the matter?" she heard Reede demand as he jogged down the center aisle of the stable.
A horse was screaming, obviously in pain. It was the most hideous sound Alex had ever heard. Reede picked up speed.
The Mintons were gathered in a somber, pajama-clad huddle outside one of the stalls. Sarah Jo was weeping copiously Angus was fervently, but ineffectually, patting her back. Junior was holding her hand and using his other to cover a yawn. Reede pushed them aside, but drew up short at the entrance to the stall.
"Jesus Christ." He cursed a stream of blue words, then let out a tortured roar that caused Alex to shrink back into the shadows.
A pot-bellied, bespectacled man stepped into Alex's line of vision. By all appearances, he'd come straight from his bed. His corduroy jacket had been pulled on over a pair of pajamas. Laying a hand on Reede's arm, he shook his balding head gravely. "There's nothing I can do for him, Reede. We'll have to put him down."
Reede stared at the man blankly, wordlessly. His chest rose and fell as though he were about to heave up his supper. Sarah Jo's sobs increased. She covered her face with her hands. "Mother, please let me take you back to the house."
Junior placed his arm around her waist and turned her away.
Angus's arm dropped to his side. Mother and son moved slowly down the center aisle.
They were almost even with Alex before they noticed her.
The instant Sarah Jo saw her, she released a high, keening sound and pointed an accusing finger. "You. You did this to us."
Alex recoiled. "I--"
"It's your fault, you meddlesome, spiteful little bitch!"
"Mother," Junior said, not in chastisement, but commiseration.
Spent by her outburst, Sarah Jo collapsed against him. He gave Alex a penetrating look, but it seemed more puzzled than accusatory. Without speaking again, he moved on with Sarah Jo, whose head was now bent in misery against her son's chest.
"What happened, Ely?" Reede asked, seemingly unaware of the other drama.
"A falling beam must've landed square on him. He went down hard and broke his shoulder," the man called Ely said quietly. Apparently, he was a veterinarian.
"Give him some painkiller, for crissake."
"I already have. It's strong, but it can't anesthetize this."
He gazed down at the suffering animal. "His femur's busted, too. I can only guess at his internal injuries. Even if I could
patch him up, he'd likely be sickly from now on, and no use to you as a stud."
They stood silent a moment, listening to the pitiful sounds coming from the animal. At last Angus said, "Thank you, Ely. We know you've done all you could."
"I'm sorry, Angus, Reede," the vet said, meaning it.

"Y'all go on outta here. I need to make a quick trip to the office and get the drug, then I'll come back and give him the injection."
"No." The word came hoarsely from Reede's lips. "I'll do it."
"You oughtn't to do that, Reede. The injection is--"
"I can't let him wait that long."
"It won't take me ten minutes."
"I said, I'll do it," Reede shouted impatiently.
Angus intervened, clapping the well-meaning vet hard on the shoulder to stem any further arguments. "Go on home, Ely. Sorry to have dragged you out for this."
"I'm damned sorry. I've been treating Double Time since he was foaled."
Alex's hand flew up to cover her mouth. Double Time was Reede's adored racehorse. The vet left by another door. He didn't see Alex.
Firemen shouted back and forth to each other outside. Other horses snorted fearfully, and restlessly tramped the floors of
their stalls. Those sounds seemed distant and detached from the tense silence in that one single stall.
"Reede, you gonna be all right, boy?"
"Yes. Go see to Sarah Jo. I'll take care of this."
The older man looked ready to argue, but finally turned away. He gave Alex a hard, pointed look as he passed her, but said nothing before stamping out.
She wanted to cry as she watched Reede kneel in the hay.
He rubbed the injured horse's muzzle. "You were good-- the best," he whispered softly. "You gave it all you had, and then some." The animal nickered in what sounded like a plea.
Reede slowly came to his feet and reached for the pistol in his holster. He took it out, checked the chamber, and pointed it down at the racehorse.
"No!" Alex rushed out of the shadows and grabbed his arm. "Reede, no, don't. Let someone else."
She had seen hardened criminals, after being sentenced to death, turn on their prosecutors, the judge, the jury, and vituperatively swear vengeance, even if from beyond the grave.
But she had never seen such deadly intent on a face as when Reede looked down at her. His eyes were glazed with tears and hatred. With uncanny speed, he encircled her waist and drew her backward against his chest. She struggled. He cursed and increased the pressure of his arm across her midriff.
He took her right hand in his left and forcibly wrapped her reluctant fingers around the pistol, so that she was actually holding it when he aimed the barrel between the horse's eyes and pulled the trigger.
"No!"
She screamed the instant the pistol went off in her hand.
The deadly sound seemed to ricochet off the stone walls of the stable and reverberate forever. Horses whinnied and tramped in fear. Someone outside shouted, and several of the firemen scrambled through the door to see what the shot
meant.
Reede shoved Alex away from him. His voice crackling with rage, he said, "You should have done it clean like that in the first place, and spared him the agony."

"The fire's completely put out, Mr. Minton," the fire chief reported. "We checked all the wiring, insulation, everything in the roof. All the damage was superficial." He clicked his lips against his gums. "Damn shame about Reede Lambert's Thoroughbred, though."
"Thank you for all you've done. I've always said our fire department is the finest in West Texas."
Some of Angus's heartiness had been restored, though his features were heavy with fatigue. He was putting up a good front, as though he was determined not to let this be a setback.
Alex could only admire his stamina and optimism.
He was sitting at the kitchen table with Junior, looking like he might have been wrapping up an all-night poker game, instead of holding a wake for a destroyed racehorse and his vandalized property.
"Guess we'll be taking off, then." The fireman picked up his hard hat and moved toward the back door. "Someone will be out tomorrow to look for clues. It's a definite arson.''
"We'll cooperate any way we can. I'm just glad you responded so quickly and kept the fire from spreading."
"So long." As the fireman went through the back door, he met Reede coming in. Reede ignored Alex, who was standing self-consciously against the wall, and poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot Lupe had brewed.
"The troughs are pure again. The horses won't be poisoned by their own excrement," he said emotionlessly. "We got all the windows boarded up so you won't freeze tonight.
There's still a lot of cleanup to do."
"Well," Angus sighed, coming to his feet, "we can't start on that till daylight, so I'm going up to bed. Thanks, Reede. You went above and beyond your duties as sheriff."
Reede bobbed his head in quick acknowledgment. "How's Sarah Jo?"
"Junior made her take a tranquilizer."
"She's sleeping now." Junior stood up also. "Would you like me to drive you back to town now, Alex? You've got no business being out here at this time of night."
"I wanted her to see her handiwork," Reede said.
"I had nothing to do with it!" she cried.
"Maybe not directly," Angus said sternly, "but this damn fool investigation of yours put things in motion. We've been fighting that loud-mouthed hellfire-and-damnation preacher for years. He was just looking for an excuse to pull a malicious
stunt like this. You handed him a golden opportunity."
"I'm sorry if you see it that way, Angus."
The air was thick with tension. No one moved. Even the housekeeper stopped washing empty coffee cups. Finally, Junior stepped forward and took her arm. "Come on. It's getting late."
"I'll take her back," Reede said curtly.

"I don't mind."
"I'm going anyway."
"You'll just harp on what happened here."
"What the hell do you care what I say to her?"
"All right then, you take her home," Junior said testily.
"You're the one who brought her, aren't you?" With that, he turned and left the room.
"'Night, Reede, Alex." An unsmiling Angus followed his son out.
Reede tossed the dregs of his coffee into the sink. "Come on," he ordered her.
Retrieving her coat, she went outside with him and dejectedly climbed into his truck. She wanted to say something to break the dreadful silence, but couldn't bring herself to utter a single word. Reede seemed disinclined to converse. His eyes remained resolutely on the center stripe of the highway.
Finally, the growing knot of anxiety in her chest got to be too much and she blurted out, "I had nothing to do with what happened tonight."
He merely turned his head and looked at her, his expression one of patent disbelief.
"I think Junior believes me," she cried defensively.
"What the hell does he know? You've dazzled him. He took one look into those baby blues of yours and sank like a rock. He's up to his ass in sentimental bullshit about you being Celina's daughter. He remembers how he used to dote on you and wants to do it again--only in an entirely different way. The toy he wants to give you to play with now doesn't rattle."
"You're disgusting."
"It must have given you a thrill to see us coming close to blows over you."
She ground her teeth. "Think what you want to about my designs on Junior and his on me, but I won't have you thinking I was responsible for the damage done to his ranch tonight."
"You were responsible. You incited Plummet."

"Not intentionally. Plummet got it into his head that I was an answer to his prayers--that God sent me to purge Purcell of sinners, the Mintons, anyone connected to or a proponent of pari-mutuel gambling."
"He's crazier than I thought."
She rubbed her upper arms as though recollections of Plummet gave her chills. "You don't know the half of it. He says God is angry because I haven't locked all of you away. He accused me of fraternizing with the devil, meaning you."
She refrained from telling him the sexual parallels Plummet had drawn.
Reede parked in front of her motel room. The door was still in shambles and standing ajar. "I thought you said you'd take care of that."
"Prop a chair under the doorknob till morning. You'll be all right."
He didn't turn off the Blazer's engine, but let it idle. The police radio crackled with its monotonous static, but there were no
transmissions now. The noise was grating on her nerves.
"I'm sorry about Double Time, Reede. I know how attached to him you were."
His leather jacket made a squeaking sound against the upholstery when he shrugged indifferently. "He was insured."
Alex uttered a small cry of anguish and anger. He wouldn't let her apologize. He wouldn't let her feel sad or sorry because he wouldn't allow himself those emotions. She had witnessed the heartache he had suffered seconds before he put a bullet
through the horse's brain. She had heard it when he talked about his father's pathetic funeral.
And that's what Reede couldn't forgive. More than once he had let down his guard and revealed to her that he was a feeling human being after all.
She balled her fists, pressed her wrists together, and thrust them across the console toward him. He looked at her with a dark, questioning frown. "What does that signify?"

"Handcuff me," she said. "Haul me in. Arrest me. Charge me with the crime. You said I was responsible."
"You are," he ground out, his previous rage returning.
"Angus was right. If you hadn't come here and started snooping around, none of this would have happened."
"I refuse to take the blame for what happened tonight, Reede. It was the act of an unbalanced man and his misled followers. If my investigation hadn't been their catalyst, something else would have been. I've apologized for the horse. What more do you want from me?"
He gave her a sharp look. She withdrew her hands, snatching them back as though they'd been placed too close to the maws of some terrible beast, and she had realized it in the nick of time.
Inside her mouth was the taste of his kiss--whiskey-and tobacco-flavored. As though it were happening again, she felt the swirling search of his tongue, the possessive pressure of his fingers on her scalp, the solid presence of his thighs against
hers.
"You'd better go inside, Counselor." His voice was quiet and husky.
He dropped the truck's transmission into reverse. Alex took his advice and got out.

Twenty-four



Alex groped for the ringing telephone. She answered it on the fifth ring and said groggily, "Hello?"
"Miss Gaither? I didn't wake you, did I? If so, I'm terribly sorry."


Alex shoved hair out of her eyes, licked her dry lips, blinked puffy eyes into focus, and struggled into a sitting position. "No, I was just, uh, doing some, uh, stuff." The nightstand clock said ten o'clock. She'd had no idea she was sleeping that late, but then, it had been almost dawn before she'd gone to bed. "I'm sorry, I'm not sure--"
"Sarah Jo Minton."
She couldn't hold back her exclamation of surprise. She could name at least a hundred people who might call her before Sarah Jo Minton would. "Are you ... is everything all right?"
"I'm feeling well, but terribly ashamed for the horrible things I said to you last night."
The confession, spoken so contritely, shocked Alex. "You were understandably upset."
"Would you care to have tea with me this afternoon?"
Maybe she was still asleep, after all, and this was a dream. Nowadays, people said, "Let's do lunch," or "How 'bout a beer?" or "Let's get together for a drink." No one ever said, "Would you care to have tea?"
"That . . . that sounds nice."
"Good. Three o'clock."
"Where?"
"Why, here at the ranch, of course. I'll look forward to seeing you then, Miss Gaither. Goodbye."
Alex stared at the receiver for several seconds before slowly hanging it up. What in the world had prompted Sarah Jo Minton to invite her to tea?

Dr. Ely Collins's office was probably the most cluttered room Alex had ever been in. It was clean but disorganized, and as unpretentious as the veterinarian.
"Thank you for agreeing to see me, Dr. Collins.'
"No trouble. I was free this afternoon. Come on in. Sit down." He removed a stack of trade journals from the seat of the straight, wooden chair, making it available for Alex.
He sat behind a desk cluttered with mountains of paperwork.

"I wasn't all that surprised to hear from you," he remarked candidly.
"Why?"
"Pat Chastain called and said you'd probably get around to asking me some questions."
"I thought he was out of town."
' 'This was a couple of weeks ago, right after you got here.''
"I see."
Alex had decided to utilize the hours before her appointment with Sarah Jo by questioning the veterinarian. When she'd phoned, he had readily agreed to see her.
"Are you familiar with the murder of Celina Gaither?" she began, intentionally playing down her personal involvement.
"Sure am. She was a sweet girl. Everybody was sick about it."
"Thank you. It was your father who attended the foaling at the Minton ranch earlier that day, wasn't it?"
"That's right. I took over his practice after he died."
"I'd like some background information. Do you work exclusively for the Mintons?"
"No, I'm not a resident vet. I have a practice. However, I must be honest and tell you that the Mintons give me so much business I could almost work for them exclusively. I'm out there nearly every day."
"It was the same with your father?"
"Yes, but if you're suggesting that I wouldn't rat on the Mintons at the risk of cutting off my meal ticket, you're wrong."
"I didn't mean to imply that."
"This is horse and cattle country. I have to turn down more business than I can accept. I'm an honest man. So was my
daddy."
Alex apologized to him a second time, although it had crossed her mind that he might be reluctant to divulge information
that would tend to incriminate his well-paying clients.
"Did your father talk to you about Celina's murder?"

"He cried like a baby when he heard that she'd been killed with one of his instruments."
"Dr. Collins positively identified the murder weapon as his scalpel?"
"There was never any question. Mama had given him that set of sterling silver instruments for their twenty-fifth wedding
anniversary. They had his initials engraved on the handles. That scalpel was his, all right. What he couldn't get over is that he'd been careless enough to lose it."
Alex scooted to the edge of her chair. "It would be unlike him to be careless with that scalpel if it was an engraved gift from his wife, wouldn't it?"
He scratched his cheek. "Daddy treasured those things-- kept them in a velvet-lined box. I never could figure out how that scalpel fell out of his bag, except that the mare had everyone's attention that day. In all the commotion, I guess it just got jostled out."
"You were there?"
"I figured you already knew that. I'd gone along to observe and assist if Daddy needed me. 'Course, Reede was there, too. He had helped in other births."
"Reede was there?"
"All day."
' 'Did your father ever leave him alone with his black bag?''
Ely Collins gnawed the inside of his cheek. She could tell he didn't want to answer. "Daddy could have and wouldn't have given it a second thought," he said finally, "but don't get the notion I'm accusing Reede."
"No, of course not. Who else was in the stable that day?"
"Well, now, let's see." He tugged on his lower lip while he thought back. "Just about everybody, at one time or another--Angus, Junior, Reede, all the stable hands and gallop boys."
"Pasty Hickam."
"Sure. Everybody at the ranch was pulling for that mare. Even Stacey Wallace stopped by. As I recall, she'd just gotten
back from a trip to the coast."

Everything inside Alex went still. She worked hard at keeping her expression impassive. "Did she stay long?"
"Who, Stacey? No. Said she had to go home and unpack."
"What about Gooney Bud? Was he around?"
"He meandered everywhere. I don't remember seeing him, but that doesn't mean he wasn't there."
"If you didn't see him, weren't you surprised when he turned up with the scalpel covered with Celina's blood?"
"Not really. Daddy hadn't noticed it was missing until they found it on Gooney Bud. We believed what they said--that it had fallen out of Daddy's bag, that Gooney Bud had seen it, picked it up, and killed your mother with it."
"But it's conceivable that someone, in the midst of all the confusion and concern for the mare and her foal, sneaked it out of your father's bag."
"Conceivable, sure."
He admitted it with reluctance because it implicated the men he worked for. Alex remembered how concerned he'd been the night before, over Reede's racehorse. Ely Collins was a friend to all three suspects. Alex had forced him to divide his loyalties between his own integrity and the men who made hand-tooled Lucchese boots affordable. The task was unpalatable, but necessary.
She stood up to leave and extended the doctor her hand.
He shook it, and she said good-bye. "Oh, one more thing, Dr. Collins. Would you mind if I looked at the scalpel?"
He was taken aback. "I wouldn't mind at all, if I had it."
"You don't?"
"No."
"Your mother?"
"She never got it back."
"Even after Gooney Bud was incarcerated?"
"She and Daddy didn't press too hard to get it back because of what had happened with it."
"You mean, it's still floating around somewhere?"
"I don't know what happened to it."

The Minton ranch was a beehive of activity. Cleanup crews were sorting through debris and hauling it away. Fire in-were
picking through the charred lumber and insulation, searching for clues into the origin of the fire.
Around the house, a sandblasting crew was erasing the apocalyptic messages spray-painted on the stone walls. The window openings were being measured for replacement glass.
Reede was in the thick of it, serving in several capacities at once. He was unshaven and unclean; he looked like he'd personally sifted through soot and ash searching for clues. His shirttail was out and unbuttoned; the sleeves had been rolled
up. He was hatless, but was wearing leather work gloves.
He spotted Alex as she alighted from her car, but before he could speak, he was summoned by a fire inspector. "You might want to take a look at this, Sheriff."
Reede made an about-face and walked toward barn number two. Alex followed him. "A rock? What the hell does a rock have to do with the fire?" Reede was asking when she approached.
The fireman scratched his head through his Houston Astros baseball cap. "Looks to me like the fire was an accident. What I mean is, whoever done all this was using something, like a slingshot to knock out the windows and such."
"Like David going up against Goliath," Alex murmured.
Reede's lips narrowed as he nodded in agreement.
The fireman said, "My guess is that this-here rock went flying, landed in one of the vents on the roof of the stable, and shorted out some of the wiring. That's what caused your fire.''
"You don't think it was deliberately set?"
The investigator frowned. "Naw, I can't rightly say it looks that way. If I was gonna start a fire, I'd've pitched a Molotov
cocktail or shot a flaming arrow." His frown reversed itself into a silly grin. "I wouldn't've throwed no rock."
Reede bounced the heavy rock in his palm. "Thanks.''
After the fireman ambled away, Reede said to Alex, "So much for holding Plummet on an arson charge."

Because the day was unseasonably warm, Reede smelted salty and sweaty, but it wasn't an offensive odor. In fact, she liked it. His dense chest hair fanned out over the upper part of his torso and funneled to a narrow line that disappeared
into his belt. Up close she could see that perspiration had made it damp and curly. It whorled over the muscles and around his nipples, which the cooling breeze had drawn erect.
Noticing that made her warm inside. She raised her eyes to his face. A bead of sweat trickled from beneath his loose, windblown hair and ran into his eyebrow. She curbed the temptation to catch it on her fingertip. His day-old beard went well with the grime and sweat on his face.
It was an effort for her to keep her mind on business.
"Have you arrested Plummet?"
"We tried," he said. "He's vanished."
"His family?"
"They're all at home, looking guilty as hell, but playing dumb about the preacher's whereabouts. I'm not worried about it. He won't go far. We'll run down the roster of his congregation. Somebody's hiding him. He'll surface sooner or later."
"When he does, I'd like to be there when you question him."
He tossed the rock to the ground. "What are you doing here?"
"I came to have tea with Sarah Jo." In response to his incredulous expression, she said, "Her idea, not mine."
"Well, have fun," he said sardonically. He turned his back on her and sauntered toward the barn.
Angus was standing on the porch of the house, feet widespread, overseeing the activity. As she approached, she tried not to let her apprehension show. She wasn't certain how she would be received.
"You're right on time," he said.
So, he knew she was expected. "Hello, Angus."
"Punctuality is a virtue. So's having guts. You've got 'em, little lady." He nodded his approval. "It took guts for you show your face around here today." He appraised her squinted eyes. "In that respect, you're a lot like your mama. She was no shrinking violet."
"No?"
He chuckled. "I saw her hold her own with those two hellions--Reede and Junior--many a time."
His chuckles faded into silent smiles of fond remembrance as he contemplated the horizon. "If she'd lived, she'd've become quite a woman." His eyes came back to Alex.
"She'd've been like you, I guess. If I'd ever had a daughter, I'd have wanted her to be like you."
Discomfited by the unexpected statement, she said, "I apologize for being even remotely connected to this, Angus."
She made a sweeping gesture that encompassed all the damage.
"I hope Reede finds whoever did it. I hope they're prosecuted and convicted."
"Yeah, so do I. Most of it I can overlook." He glanced down at the broken window glass on the porch.' 'But that was a terrible waste of good horseflesh. I hate like hell that Reede I lost him. He took pride in saving up enough to buy him.''
"He seemed extremely upset," Alex said, turning to watch as Reede went to his truck and spoke into the radio transmitter.
"More like enraged. He's as jealous as a mama bear when it comes to anything that belongs to him. It's understandable, I guess, considering how he grew up. Didn't have a pot to piss in, not even anybody to look out for him. Lived on hand me-downs and handouts. Once you've been a scavenger in aider to survive, I reckon it's a tough habit to break. He's mean and testy 'cause at times his life depended on it."
Junior breezed through the front door then, beaming his famous smile. He was in an inappropriately jovial mood. Unlike Reede and Angus, his clothes were spotless. If he'd ever broken a sweat, one couldn't tell it by looking at him now.
After greeting Alex warmly, he said, "Y'all wouldn't believe the telephone conversation I just had. One of the owners called to check on her mare mat's in foal. Bad news travels fast in racehorse circles," he informed Alex.

"Anyway, she had this high, falsetto voice and was saying, 'My poor baby must have been scared out of her wits.' I reassured her that the mare was in another barn, but she kept me on the phone for half an hour, making me swear that her baby and her baby's baby were okay."
He had imitated the woman's warbling, soprano voice.
Angus and Alex were laughing. Suddenly, from the corner of her eye, Alex caught Reede watching them. He was standing
perfectly still, and, though it was too far away to tell, she was certain he didn't like what he saw. His resentment seemed to ride the airwaves until they struck her with near-palpable force.
"I'd better go inside or I'll be late for tea," she told the men.
Junior laid a hand on her shoulder. "Mother wants to make amends for her outburst last night. She was tickled pink when you accepted her invitation. She's looking forward to seeing you."

Twenty-five



Lupe took her coat and led her upstairs. The maid paused outside a door and gave it a soft tap.
"Come in."
Lupe swung the door open, but didn't go in. Taking that as her cue, Alex stepped across the threshold into a room that could have been a movie set. Her remark was spontaneous and genuine. "What a beautiful room!"
"Thank you. I like it." Sarah Jo looked beyond Alex's shoulder. "Close the door, please, Lupe. You know I can't stand that draft, and the racket those workers are making is deplorable. Bring up the tea tray right away."
"Yes, ma'am." The housekeeper withdrew, leaving them

Alex stood near the door, feeling self-conscious in her low-suede boots and long wool skirt. There was nothing wrong with her totally black ensemble, but it seemed glaringly modern and out of place in this ultrafeminine Victorian room, which smelled like a perfumery.
Her hostess looked as right in the setting as a whirling ballerina in a musical jewelry box. The ruffles along the neckline of her white blouse were duplicated around her slender wrists. She was wearing a soft beige skirt that fanned out around her where she sat on a robin's egg-blue damask divan near the window. The afternoon sunlight created a halo around her hair.
"Come in and sit down." She motioned toward a dainty chair near her.
Usually poised, Alex felt gauche as she crossed the carpeted floor. "Thank you for inviting me. This was a very good idea."
"It was mandatory that I apologize as soon as possible for what I said to you last night."
"Never mind. It's forgotten." Junior and Angus seemed to have forgiven her for the unwitting role she had played in the act of vandalism. In return, she could be forgiving toward Sarah Jo.
Curious, she took in her surroundings. "This truly is a lovely room. Did you decorate it yourself?"
Sarah Jo offered a laugh as frail as the hand she raised to her throat to fiddle with the ruffles. "My, yes. I wouldn't let one of those dreadful decorators inside my house. Actually, I copied my room back home item by item, as closely as I could. Angus says it's too fussy."
Alex searched discreetly for something masculine, a shred of evidence that a man had been inside the room. There was none. As though reading her mind, Sarah Jo said, "He keeps his things in another room, through there." Alex followed the direction of her gaze to a closed door.
"Come in, Lupe," Sarah Jo said at the housekeeper's soft knock. "Here's our tea."
While Lupe was arranging the silver service on the tea table, Alex asked conversationally, "You mentioned home, Mrs. Minton. Kentucky, right?"
"Yes, horse country. Hunt country. I loved it so."
Her wistful gaze drifted toward the window. The panorama didn't offer much to please the eyes, just miles of dun-colored
earth, until it blurred into the horizon. They watched a tumbleweed roll across the stone patio and land in the swimming
pool. The landscaping around it was as dead and brown as a cotton field after harvest.
"It's so barren here. I miss the green. Of course, we have acres of irrigated pasture for the horses, but somehow, it's not the same." Her head came back around slowly and she thanked the maid with a nod. Lupe withdrew. "How do you take your tea?"
"Lemon and sugar, please. One lump."
Sarah Jo practiced the ritual that Alex thought had died two generations ago. She did it meticulously. Her pale, translucent
hands moved fluidly. Alex realized then why the custom had died in contemporary America. No one would have the time.
"Sandwich? Cucumber and cream cheese."
"Then, by all means," Alex replied with a smile.
Sarah Jo also added two tea cakes to the small plate before passing it to Alex, who had spread a lacy napkin over her lap. "Thank you."
She sipped her tea and pronounced it perfect. The sandwich was only a sliver of crust-trimmed bread, but the filling was
cool and creamy. She hoped her stomach wouldn't make a rude noise when it greedily devoured the inadequate portion.
She had slept through breakfast; it had seemed superfluous to eat lunch so soon before teatime.
Starting on one of the tea cakes, she asked, "Have you returned to Kentucky often for visits?"

Her hostess prepared her own tea and stirred it idly.' 'Only for my parents' funerals."
"I didn't mean to bring up a sad topic."
"I have no family left, except for Angus and Junior. Anyone with character learns to live with losses." She replaced cup and saucer on the table so carefully that the china didn't even clink. Keeping her head lowered, she looked up Alex from beneath her brows. "Only you haven't, have you?"
Alex returned the uneaten half of the sugar cookie to her plate, knowing intuitively that they had reached the reason behind this invitation to tea. "Haven't what?"
'You haven't learned that it's best to let the dead remain dead."
The lines of battle had been drawn. Alex returned all the tea implements to the silver tray, even the spider-webby napkin
from her lap. "Are you referring to my mother?"
' 'Precisely. This investigation of yours has upset my entire household, Miss Gaither."
"I apologize for the inconvenience. The circumstances make it unavoidable."
"Thugs vandalized my property, threatening the health and life of every horse we own or board, thereby our livelihood."
"That was an unfortunate incident. I can't tell you how truly sorry I am for it," Alex said, appealing to the woman to understand.' `I had nothing to do with it. You must believe that."
Sarah Jo drew a deep breath. The ruffles around her neck quivered with suppressed indignation and dislike. Her hostility was so palpable that Alex wondered again what possible reason she had had for inviting her here. The need to apologize had been a ruse. Apparently, Sarah Jo wanted to vent a long-harbored grudge.
"How much do you know about your mother and her relationships with Junior and Reede Lambert?"
"Only what my grandmother told me, coupled with what I've gathered since talking to people here in Purcell."

"They were like a unit," she said, lapsing into a faint, reflective voice, and Alex realized that she had slipped into her own private world. "A little club unto themselves. You rarely saw one without seeing the other two."
"I've noticed that in candid shots in their high school yearbooks. There are lots of pictures of the three of them."
Alex had pored over the photographs on those glossy pages, looking for clues, anything, that might benefit her investigation.
"I didn't want Junior to get so deeply involved with them,'' Sarah Jo was saying. "Reede was a hoodlum, the son of the town drunk, of all things. And your mother . . . well, there were many reasons why I didn't want him to become attached
to her."
"Name one."
"Mainly because of how it was between her and Reede. I knew Junior would always be her second choice. It galled me that she could even exercise a choice. She wasn't worthy of the right to choose," she said bitterly.
"But Junior adored her, no matter what I said. Just as I feared, he fell in love with her." Suddenly, her eyes focused sharply on her guest. "And I have a sick feeling that he'll fall in love with you, too."
"You're wrong."
"Oh, I'm sure you'll see to it that he does. Reede, too, probably. That would round out the triangle again, wouldn't it? Don't you want to pit them against each other, like she did?"
"No!"
Sarah Jo's eyes narrowed with malice. "Your mother was a tramp."
Up to this point, Alex had carefully controlled her tongue.
But since her hostess was maligning her late mother, she dismissed her manners. "I take exception to that slanderous
remark, Mrs. Minton."
Sarah Jo gave a negligent wave of her hand. "No matter. It's the truth. I knew she was common and coarse the first I met her. Oh, she was pretty, in a lush, flamboyant way. Much like you."
Her eyes moved over Alex critically. Alex was tempted to get up and walk out. The only thing that kept her sitting in that spindly chair was the hope that Sarah Jo would inadvertently impart some scrap of valuable information.
"Your mother laughed too loud, played too hard, loved too well. Emotions were to her what a bottle of liquor is to a drunkard. She overindulged, and had no control over exhibitingher feelings."
"She sounds very honest," Alex said with pride. "The world might be better off if people openly expressed what they were feeling." Her words fell on deaf ears.
"Whatever a man needed or wanted her to be at the moment," Sarah Jo continued, "she was. Celina was an unconscionable flirt. Every man she met fell in love with her. She made certain of it. She would do anything to guarantee it."
Enough was enough. "I won't let you disparage a woman who's not around to defend herself. It's ugly and cruel of you, Mrs. Minton." The room, which had been as fresh as a greenhouse when she had come in, now seemed suffocating.
She had to get out. "I'm leaving."
"Not yet." Sarah Jo stood up when Alex did. "Celina loved Reede as much as she was capable of loving anyone except herself."
"What concern was that of yours?"
"Because she wanted Junior, too, and she let him know it. Your grandmother, that stupid woman, was giddy over the idea of a match between our children. As if I'd let Junior marry Celina," she sneered. "Merle Graham even called me once and suggested that we, as future in-laws, get together and become better acquainted. God, I would have sooner died! She was a telephone operator," she said, laughing scornfully.
''There was never any chance of Celina Graham becoming my daughter-in-law. I made that quite clear to your grandmother and to Junior. He moped and whined over that girl until I wanted to scream.'' She raised her small fists, as though she still might do so. "Why couldn't he see her for what she was--a selfish, manipulative little bitch? And now you."
She stepped around the small tea table to confront Alex.
Alex was taller, but Sarah Jo had years of cultivated anger to make her strong. Her delicate body was trembling with wrath.
"Lately, all he can talk about is you, just like it used to be with Celina."
"I have not led Junior on, Mrs. Minton. There could never be a romantic entanglement between us. We could be friends, maybe, once this investigation is resolved."
"Don't you see," Sarah Jo cried, "that's exactly how it was with her? She abused his friendship because he was clinging to the vain hope that it would develop into something deeper. All he is to you is a suspect in a murder case. You'll use him, just like your mother did."
"That simply isn't true."
Sarah Jo swayed, as though about to swoon. "Why did you have to come here?"
"I want to know why my mother was murdered."
"You're the reason!" she said, pointing a finger straight at Alex's heart. "Celina's illegitimate baby."
Alex fell back a step, sucking in a sharp, painful breath.
"What did you say?" she gasped.
Sarah Jo composed herself. The suffusion of color in her face receded and it returned to its normal porcelain hue. ''You were illegitimate."
"That's a lie," Alex denied breathlessly. "My mother was married to Al Gaither. I've seen the marriage license. Grandma Graham saved it."
"They were married, but not until after she came back from El Paso and discovered she was pregnant."
"You're a liar!" Alex gripped the back of the chair. "Why are you lying to me?"
"It's not a lie. The reason I'm telling you should be clear. I'm trying to protect my family from your vengeful destruction.
Being the richest woman in this horrid, ugly little town is the only thing that makes it tolerable. I like being married to the most influential man in the county. I won't let you destroy everything Angus has created for me. I won't let you cause dissent in my family. Celina did. This time, I won't allow it."
"Ladies, ladies." Junior came into the room, laughing indulgently. "What is all the shouting about? See a spider?"
His manner changed drastically when he sensed the seething animosity between them. It was sulfuric, as real as the ozone in the air after lightning has struck nearby. "Mother? Alex? What's wrong?"
Alex stared at Sarah Jo, whose face was as serene and complacent as a cameo. Alex spun toward the door, sending the small chair toppling over. She rushed from the room and clambered down the stairs.
Junior gave his mother a searching look. She turned her back on him and returned to the divan, picked up her teacup, and took a sip.
Junior raced down the stairs after Alex and caught up with her at the front door, where she was unsuccessfully trying to work her arms into the sleeves of her coat.
He grabbed her upper arms. "What the hell is going on?"
Alex averted her head so he wouldn't see her tears. She tried to disengage his hands. "Nothing."
"You hardly look like you've been to a tea party."
"Tea? Ha!" Alex said, tossing back her head. "She didn't invite me out here to drink tea." She sniffed and batted her eyes in an effort to keep the tears from falling. "I guess I should thank her for telling me."
"Telling you what?"
"That I was a biological accident." Junior's face went blank with shock. "It's true, then, isn't it?" Junior's hands fell away from her arms and he tried to turn away. Reversing their positions, Alex gripped his arm and forced him back around. "Isn't it?" Her tears finally overflowed her eyelids.
"Say something, Junior!"
He looked uncomfortable with admitting the truth. It was Alex who verbally pieced together the scenario.
"Celina came back from El Paso. She'd had her fling with a soldier and was ready to reconcile with Reede. They probably
would have, too, if it hadn't been for me, right?" She covered her face with her hands. "Oh, God, no wonder he hates me so much."
Junior pulled her hands away from her face and looked at her with sincere blue eyes. "Reede doesn't hate you, Alex. None of us did then, or do now."
She laughed shortly, bitterly. "I'll bet Albert Gaither hated the very thought of me. He was forced to get married." Her eyes went round, and she spoke in a rapid, short-winded, staccato voice. "This explains so much. So much. Why Grandma Graham was strict about my dating--who I went with, what time I got home, where I'd been.
"I resented her for being so inflexible because I'd never given her any reason to mistrust me. I guess her overprotectiveness was justified, wasn't it?" Her voice rose to a near-hysterical pitch. "Her daughter got knocked up, and twenty-five years ago, that was still a definite sin."
"Alex, stop this."
"That explains why Grandma never really loved me. I ruined Celina's life, and she never forgave me for it. Celina couldn't have Reede, couldn't have you, couldn't have a future. And all because of me. Oh God!"
The curse, or prayer, was cried in a wailing voice. Alex turned away from him and yanked the door open. She ran across the porch and down the steps toward her car.
"Alex!" He started after her.
"What the hell's going on?" Angus demanded as Alex rushed past him toward her car.
"Leave her alone, you two." Sarah Jo was standing at the top of the stairs, where she had watched and overheard everything.

Junior spun around. "Mother, how could you? How could you hurt Alex that way?"
"I didn't tell her to hurt her."
'What'd you tell her?" Angus asked. He filled up the open doorway, baffled and impatient because no one was answering
his questions.
"Of course it hurt her," Junior said. "You knew it would. Why tell her at all?"
'Because she needed to know. The only one who can hurt Alex is Alex herself. She's chasing an illusion. The mother she's looking for didn't exist in Celina Gaither. Merle filled her head with a lot of nonsense about how wonderful Celina was. She forgot to tell the girl how devious her mother was. It was time Alex found out."
"Shit!" Angus cursed. "Will somebody please tell me what the hell is going on?"

Twenty-six



Angus quietly closed the bedroom door behind him as he came in. Sarah Jo, propped against the pillows on their bed, laid her book aside and peered at him over the rims of the glasses that were perched on the tip of her nose. "Coming to bed so early?"
She looked about as harmful as a butterfly, but Angus knew that her frail appearance camouflaged an iron will. If she ever
gave ground it was out of indifference, not defeat. "I want to talk to you."
"About what?"
"About what happened this afternoon.'

She pressed her fingers to her temples. "It gave me quite a headache. That's why I didn't come down to dinner."
"Taken anything?"
"Yes. It's better now."
They had repeated this same exchange regarding her headaches nearly every day of their marriage.
"Don't sit on the bedspread," she scolded as he lowered himself to the edge of the bed. He waited until she had folded back the quilted satin spread, then sat down close to her hip.
"My, you look so downcast tonight, Angus," she said with concern.' 'What's the matter? Not more maniacs on our property,
I hope."
"No."
"Thank God the only horse that was injured belonged to Reede."
Angus let that pass without comment. Sarah Jo resented Reede, and Angus knew why. Her feelings toward him would never change, so berating her for the uncharitable remark would serve no purpose.
What he had come to discuss was a delicate subject. He took a moment to choose his words carefully. "Sarah Jo, about this afternoon--"
"I was quite upset by it," she said, drawing her lips into a pretty frown.
"You were upset?" Angus forcibly tamped down his impatience. He needed to hear her side of the story before jumping to conclusions. "What about Alex's feelings?"
"She was upset, too, naturally. Wouldn't you be if you'd found out you were a bastard?"
"No," he said with a gruff, humorless laugh. "Wouldn't surprise me if I was. I never checked to see if my parents had a marriage license, and it wouldn't have mattered to me if they didn't.'' His brows drew together. "But I'm an ornery old cuss, and Alex is a sensitive young woman."
"I felt that she was strong enough to take it."
"Obviously, she wasn't. She ran past me without even seeing me. She was practically in hysterics when she left."

Sarah Jo's smile crumpled. "Are you blaming me for telling her? Do you think it was wrong?"
When she looked up at him with that apprehensive, little-lost-girl look, his heart melted. It always had. Angus took her hand. He could have crushed it like a flower between his rough palms, but he had learned over the years not to exert too much pressure when he caressed her.
"I'm not blaming you for telling her, honey. I'm just questioning the wisdom of it. I wish you had discussed it with Junior and me before you did. It was something she could have gone throughout her life not knowing."
"I disagree," Sarah Jo argued petulantly.
' 'What difference does it make now if her mama and daddy weren't married until after she was in the oven? Hell, that's so commonplace now it's not even considered a sin anymore."
"It makes a difference in the way she views Celina. Up until now, she's had her on a pedestal."
"So what?"
"Celina hardly deserves a pedestal," Sarah Jo snapped.
"I thought it was time everybody stopped pussyfooting around with Alex and set her straight about her mother."
"Why?"
"Why? Because she's trying to ruin us, that's why. I decided to stop catering to her and to fight back. I used the only ammunition I had." As usual, during scenes like this, Sarah Jo became overwrought. "I was only trying to protect you and Junior."
Actually, Angus thought, it had taken a tremendous amount of courage for Sarah Jo to confront a self-assured woman like
Alex. He still thought Sarah Jo could have refrained from telling Alex about her folks, but her motive had been unselfish.
She'd been protecting her family. Her valiant effort deserved better than his criticism. He leaned down and kissed her forehead.
"I appreciate your fighting spirit, but none of us needs your protection, honey." He laughed at the thought. "How could a little thing like you protect one of us big, strapping boys? I've got plenty of money and plenty of know-how to handle any little problem that crops up. A redhead that only stands five feet six inches tall is hardly worth a second's worry."
"If you could resurrect that odious Pasty Hickam, I'm sure he would disagree," she said. "Look what happened to him. Unlike you and Junior, and obviously, every other man, I'm immune to the girl's charms." Her voice developed an edge of desperation. "Angus, can't you see it? Junior is falling in love with her."
"I fail to see why that's so god-awful," he said with a beaming smile.
"It would be a disaster," Sarah Jo cried softly. "Her mother broke his heart. Don't you care about that?"
Frowning, Angus reminded her, "That was a long time ago. And Alex isn't like her mother."
"I'm not so sure." Sarah Jo stared into space.
"Alex isn't fickle and flighty like Celina was," he said.
"She's a tad too bossy, but maybe Junior needs that. He walked all over his other wives, and they laid down and let him do it. Maybe he needs a wife who'll tell him what's what."
"Where is he, by the way? Is he still angry with me?" she asked anxiously.
"He was upset, but he'll get over it, like he always does. He said he was going out to get drunk."
They laughed together. Sarah Jo was the first to turn serious again. "I hope he'll drive safely."
"He, uh, will probably be spending the night out."
"Oh?"
"Wouldn't surprise me," Angus said. "Alex needs some time to sort herself out. Junior might be carrying a torch, but he's not dead from the waist down. He'll find a woman who'll give him the comfort he needs tonight."
His gaze lowered to his wife's decolletage, which was smooth and luminescent with the body powder she had used after her bath. "He's got a man's appetites, just like his daddy."
"Oh, Angus," she sighed wearily, as his hand waded through layers of lace in search of her breast.
"I could use some comforting myself."
"You men! Is that all you ever think about? You make me--"
"You make me horny."
"Don't use that kind of language. It's crude. And I don't want to do this tonight. My headache's coming back."
His kiss cut off any further objections. She submitted, as he knew she would. She always put up token resistance, but she never refused him. From the cradle, she had been coached to accept her marital duties, just as she had to properly serve tea.
That she responded to him out of a sense of obligation rather than passion didn't stop him from wanting her; it might even have enhanced his desire. Angus enjoyed a challenge. He undressed quickly and lowered himself on top of her. He fumbled with the buttons on her gown and finally managed, with no assistance from her, to get it open. Her breasts were as pert and shapely as they had been on their wedding night, when he had first beheld and touched them.
He kissed them now with polite restraint. Her nipples were small. His stroking tongue was rarely successful in coaxing them erect. He doubted she knew they were supposed to get erect, unless some of those novels she read were more sexually
explicit than he suspected.
She winced slightly when he entered her. He pretended not to see her grimace. He tried not to sweat or make a sound or do anything that she would consider nasty and unpleasant. He saved all his raunchiness for the widow lady he supported in the neighboring county. She didn't mind his crude language. In fact, she hooted with laughter over some of his more colorful expressions.
She was as lusty a lover as he. She had large, dark, milky-tasting nipples that she would let him diddle with for hours if he wanted to. She even went down on him and let him go down on her. Each time he mounted her, her round thighs gripped his ass like a vise. She was a noisy comer, and the only woman he'd ever met who could laugh in downright joy while she was screwing.
They'd been together for over twenty years. She never asked for more of a commitment; she didn't expect one. They had a damn good time together, and he didn't know what he would do without her in his life, but he didn't love her.
He loved Sarah Jo. Or, at least, he loved what she was: dainty and pure and refined and beautiful. He loved her as an art collector would love a sculpture of priceless alabaster that was to be touched only on special occasions, and then with the utmost care.
Because she demanded it, he always wore a condom, and when he was done, he removed it carefully so her silk sheets wouldn't get soiled. While he was doing so tonight, he watched Sarah Jo fold down the hem of her nightgown, re-button the buttons, and straighten the covers.
Angus got back in bed, kissed her cheek, and put his arms around her. He loved holding her tiny body against his, loved touching her smooth, fragrant skin. He wanted to cherish her.
To his disappointment, she removed his arm and said, "Go on to sleep now, Angus. I want to finish this chapter."
She reopened her novel, which was no doubt as dry and lifeless as her lovemaking. Angus was ashamed of the disloyal thought as he rolled to his other side, away from the light of her reading lamp.
It never occurred to him to be ashamed of making the thirty-mile trip to his mistress's house, which he planned to do tomorrow night.

Stacey dropped the ceramic mug. It crashed and broke on the tile kitchen floor. "Good Lord," she breathed, clutching together the lapels of her velour robe.
"Stacey, it's me."
The first knock on the back door had startled her so badly the mug had slipped from her hand. The voice speaking her name did nothing to restore her heart to its proper beat. For several moments she stood staring at the door, then rushed
across the kitchen and pushed back the stiff, starched curtain.
"Junior?!"
She didn't have sufficient air to say his name aloud. Her lips formed it soundlessly. Fumbling with the lock, she hastily unlatched the door and pulled it open, as though afraid he would vanish before she could do it.
"Hi." His smile was uncomplicated and open, as if he knocked on her back door every night about this time. "Did I hear something break?"
She reached up to touch his face and reassure herself he was really there, then shyly dropped her hand. "What are you doing here?"
"I came to see you."
She glanced past him, searching her backyard for a plausible reason for her ex-husband to be standing on the steps.
He laughed. "I've come alone. I just didn't want to ring the bell, in case the judge had already gone to bed."
"He has. He ... uh, come in." Remembering her manners, she moved aside. Junior stepped in. They stood facing each other in the harsh kitchen light, which wasn't very flattering to Stacy, who had already cleaned her face and prepared for bed.
She had fantasized about him coming to her one night, but now that it had happened, she was immobilized and rendered
mute by disbelief. Myriad professions of love and devotion rushed through her mind, but she knew he wouldn't welcome
hearing them. She resorted to safe subjects.
"Dad went to bed early. His stomach was upset. I made him some warm milk. I decided to make cocoa out of what I had left over.'' Unable to take her eyes off him, she gestured nervously toward the stove, where the milk was about to scorch in the pan.
Junior went to the range and turned off the burner.' 'Cocoa, huh? Your cocoa? There's none better. Got enough for two cups?"
"Of ... of course. You mean you're staying?"
"For a while. If you'll have me."
"Yes," she said with a rash of air. "Yes."
Usually adept in the kitchen, Stacey clumsily prepared two cups of cocoa. She couldn't imagine why he'd chosen tonight to come see her. She didn't care. It was enough that he was here.
When she handed him his cocoa, he smiled disarmingly and asked, "Do you have any spirits in the house?"
He followed her into the living room, where several bottles of liquor were stored in a cabinet, to be taken out only on the most special occasions.
"This isn't your first drink of the night, is it?" she asked as she tilted the spout of the brandy bottle against his mug of chocolate.
"No, it isn't." Lowering his voice, he whispered, "I smoked a joint, too."
Her lips pursed with stern disapproval. "You know how I feel about dope, Junior."
"Marijuana isn't dope."
"It is so."
"Ah, Stacey," he whined, bending down to kiss her ear. "An ex-wife has no right to scold."
The touch of his lips made her insides flutter. Her censure melted as quickly as ice cream in August. "I didn't mean to scold. I just wondered why, after all this time, you came to me tonight."
"I wanted to." She knew that to Junior's mind, that was reason enough. He sprawled on the sofa and pulled her down beside him. "No, leave the lamp off," he told her when she reached for the switch. "Let's just sit here and drink our cocoa together."
"I heard about the trouble out at the ranch," she said after a quiet moment.
"It's all cleaned up now. Can't tell it ever happened. It could have been a lot worse."
She touched him hesitantly. "You could have been hurt."
He set his empty cup on the coffee table and sighed.
"You're still concerned for my safety?"

"Always."
"No one's ever been as sweet to me as you, Stacey. I've missed you.'' He reached for her hand and pressed it between his.
"You look worn out and troubled."
"lam."
"Over the vandalism?"
"No." He slumped deeper into the cushions of the couch and rested his head on the back of it. "This mess we're in about Celina's murder. It's depressing as hell." He tilted his head until it was lying on her shoulder. "Hmm, you smell good. It's a smell I've missed. So clean." He nuzzled her neck.
"What bothers you so much about this investigation?"
"Nothing specific. It's Alex. She and Mother had a row today. Mother let it slip that Celina got knocked up and had to get married to her soldier. It wasn't a pretty scene."
His arm slid around her waist. Automatically, Stacey lifted her hand to cradle his cheek and pressed his head against her
breasts.
"I lied to her," she confessed in a small voice. "A lie of omission."
Junior mumbled with disinterest.
"I never told her I was in the barn the day Celina was killed."
"How come you did that?"
"I didn't want her hounding me with questions. I hate her for causing you trouble again, Junior."
"Alex can't help it. It's not her fault."
It was a familiar refrain, one that set Stacey's teeth on edge. Junior had often said the same thing about Celina. No matter how shabbily she treated him, he had never spoken a harsh, critical word against her.
"I hate this girl of Celina's as much as I did her," Stacey whispered.
The alcohol and strong Mexican grass had dulled Junior's thinking. "Never mind all that now. This feels good, doesn't it?" he murmured as his lips followed his hand inside her robe to her breast. His damp tongue glanced her nipple. ' 'You always liked for me to do that."
"I still do."
"Really? And this? Do you still like this?" he asked, sucking her nipple into his mouth and pushing his hand into the furry, damp warmth between her thighs.
She groaned his name.
"I'll understand if you don't want me to." He pulled away slightly.
"No," she said quickly, guiding his head back down and clenching her thighs closed around his hand. "I do want you to. Please."
"Stacey, Stacey, your tender loving care is just what I need tonight. I could always count on you to make me feel better."
He raised his head from her breast and gave her mouth a long, slow, thorough kiss. "Remember what always made me feel
better than anything?'' he asked, his lips resting on hers.
"Yes." She looked up at him solemnly. He smiled as beatifically as an angel. When he looked at her that way, she couldn't deny him anything--not when they were teenagers, not when they were married, not now, not ever.
Stacey Wallace Minton, the judge's proper, straitlaced daughter, immediately dropped to her knees in front of him, hastily opened his fly, and took him into her hungry mouth.

"Miz Gaither, ma'am? Miz Gaither? You in there?"
Alex had been dozing. Roused by the knocking on her door, which had been repaired, she woke up to find that she was sprawled on top of the bedspread, stiff and cold. Her eyes were swollen from crying.
"What do you want?" Her voice amounted to little more than a croak. "Go away."
"Is your phone off the hook, ma'am?"
"Damn." She swung her feet to the side of the bed. Her clothes were wrinkled and bunched around her. She shook them back into place as she walked to the window and pulled aside the drape. The motel's night clerk was standing at the door.

"I took the phone off the hook so I wouldn't be disturbed,'' she told him through the window.
He peered in at her, obviously glad to see that she was still alive. "Sorry to bother you then, ma'am, but there's this guy trying to get in touch with you. He's been arguin' with me, saying you couldn't be talking on your phone for this long.''
"What guy?"
"Happer or Harris or something,'' he mumbled, consulting the slip of paper he'd brought with him. He held it closer to the light over her door. "Can't quite make out my writin' here . . . spellin' ain't so good."
"Harper? Greg Harper?"
"I reckon that's it, yes, ma'am."
Alex dropped the drape back into place, slid the chain lock free, and opened the door. "Did he say what he wanted?"
"Sure did. Said for me to tell you that you was to be in Austin tomorrow morning for a ten o'clock meeting."
Alex stared at the clerk, stupefied. "You must have gotten the message wrong. Ten o'clock tomorrow morning?"
"That's what he said, and I didn't git it wrong, 'cause I wrote it down right here." He showed her the slip of paper with the message scrawled in pencil. "The man's been callin' you all afternoon and was p.o.'d 'cause he couldn't git you. Finally, he said he was goin' out for the evenin' and for me to come to your room and hand-deliver the message, which I done. So, good night."
"Wait!"
"Look, I'm s'posed to be tending the switchboard."
"Did he say what kind of meeting this was, why it was so urgent?"
"Naw, only that you're s'posed to be there."
He stood mere expectantly. With mumbled thanks, she pressed a dollar bill into his hand, and he loped off in the direction of the lobby.
Thoughtfully, Alex closed her door and reread the message.
It made no sense. It wasn't like Greg to be so cryptic. It wasn't like him to call meetings that were virtually impossible to make, either.
When the bafflement began to wear off, the enormity of her dilemma set in. She had to be in Austin by ten o'clock in the morning. It was already dark. If she left now, she would have to drive most of the night, and would arrive in Austin in the wee hours.
If she waited until morning, she would have to leave dreadfully early and then be on a deadline to get there in time. Either choice was wretched, and she wasn't mentally or emotionally fit to make a decision.
Then, an idea occurred to her. Before she could talk herself out of it, she placed a telephone call.
"Sheriffs department."
"Sheriff Lambert, please."
"He's not here. Can anybody else help?"
"No, thank you. I need to speak with him personally."
"Excuse me, ma'am, but is this Ms. Gaither?"
"Yes, it is."
"Where are you?"
"In my motel room. Why?"
"That's where Reede's headed. He should be there by now." Then he paused and asked, "Say, are you all right?"
"Of course I'm all right. I think I hear the sheriff pulling up now. Thank you." Alex hung up and moved to the window in time to see Reede get out of his truck and rush toward her door.
She flung it open. He drew up abruptly, almost losing his balance. "Please don't kick it in again."
"Don't be cute with me," he said, glowering darkly.
"What the hell is going on?"
"Nothing."
"Like hell." He gestured toward the bedside telephone. Its innocence seemed to provoke him further. He pointed toward it accusingly. "I've been calling for hours, and all I got is a busy signal."
"I took it off the hook. What was so important?"


"I heard what happened this afternoon between you and Sarah Jo."
Her shoulders dropped dejectedly and she released a long breath. She had almost forgotten about that in her perplexity
over Greg's summons.
She had never checked the date on her parents' marriage license. It wouldn't necessarily be conclusive, anyway. As an attorney, she knew that dates, even on so-called legal documents, could be falsified. The way everyone had reacted to Sarah Jo's revelation, she knew it was true. She had been conceived illegitimately.
"You should have been there, Sheriff. I made a spectacle of myself. You would have been thoroughly entertained."
Her flippancy didn't improve his mood. "Why'd you take your phone off the hook?"
"To get some rest. What did you think, that I took an overdose of sleeping pills or gave my wrists a close shave?"
He gave the sarcastic question credence. "Maybe."
"Then, you don't know me very well," she told him angrily. "I don't give in that easily. And I'm not ashamed that my parents had to get married."
"I didn't say you were or that you should be."
"That was their mistake. It has nothing to do with me as a person, okay?"
"Okay."
"So stop thinking . . . Oh, hell, I don't care what you're thinking," she said, rubbing her temples. She was more annoyed
with herself than with him. Lashing out was only an indication of how upset she really was.' 'I need your help, Reede.''
"What kind of help?"
"Can you fly me to Austin?"
The request took him by surprise. He pulled himself upright from where he had complacently slouched against the framework of the recently repaired doorway.
"Fly you to Austin? Why?"
"Business with Greg Harper. I need to be there at ten o'clock in the morning for a meeting."

Twenty-seven


They were in the air less than an hour later, on a southeasterly course toward the state capital. Alex had used a quarter of
that hour to get herself looking human again. She had washed her face in cold water, applied fresh makeup, brushed her
hair, and changed into a pair of wool slacks and a sweater. Whatever she wore to the meeting in the morning could come
out of her closet at home.

On the way to Purcell's municipal airfield, Reede stopped at a hamburger joint and picked up the order he'd phoned ahead for. There was a single-engine Cessna waiting for them on the tarmac when they arrived at the landing strip. The sheriff knew how to pull strings.

Purcell was no more than a patch of glittering light on the black carpet beneath them before she thought to ask, "Does this plane belong to you?"

"Minton Enterprises. Angus gave me permission to use it. Pass me one of those cheeseburgers."

She devoured almost half of hers--Sarah Jo's cucumber sandwich hadn't gone far--before she came up for air. "When did you learn to fly?"

Reede munched a french fry. "I was about eight."

"Eight!"

"I had salvaged an old beat-up bike from a junkyard and repaired it well enough to get around on. I pedaled out to the
airfield every chance I got."
"It must be three miles from town," she exclaimed.
"I didn't care. I'd have gone twice that far. The planes intrigued me. The old guy who ran the place was as testy as a rattlesnake, a real loner, but he kept a strawberry soda pop waiting for me in his ancient icebox. I guess I pestered the snot out of him, but he didn't seem to mind all my questions. One day, he looked over at me and said, 'I gotta check out
this plane. Wanna go along for the ride?' I nearly peed my pants."
Reede probably didn't realize that he was smiling over the happy memory. Alex remained silent so he wouldn't be reminded that she was there. She enjoyed his smile. It attractively emphasized the fine lines at the outer corners of his
eyes and those around his mouth.
"God, it was great," he said, as though he could feel the surge of pleasure again. "I hadn't discovered sex yet, so flying was the best thing that had happened to me. From up there, everything looked so peaceful, so clean."
An escape from the awful realities of his childhood, Alex thought compassionately. She wanted to touch him, but didn't dare. She was about to venture down a rocky, hazardous path. One wrong word or turn of phrase would spell doom, so she felt her way carefully.
Quietly, she asked, "Reede, why didn't you tell me that my mother was pregnant when she came back from El Paso?"
"Because it doesn't make any difference."
"Not now, but it did twenty-five years ago. She didn't want to marry my father. She had to."
' 'Now that you know, what does it change? Not a goddamn thing."
"Perhaps," she replied uncertainly. After another brief silence, she said, "I was the quarrel, wasn't I?"
He looked at her sharply. "What?"

Letting her head fall back on the headrest, she sighed. "I wondered why the two of you didn't kiss and make up when she got back that summer. Knowing how much and how long you had cared for each other, I wondered what could possibly
keep you apart after a silly lovers' spat. Now, I know. It wasn't silly. It was more than a spat. It was me. I kept you apart. I was the quarrel."
"It wasn't you."
"It was."
Grandma Graham had said it was her fault that Celina had been killed. Everything Alex uncovered was bearing that out. Had Celina, by having another man's child, driven her passionate, jealous, possessive lover to kill her?
"Reede, did you murder my mother because of me?"
"Damn," he swore viciously. "I could strangle Sarah Jo for telling you about that. My quarrel with Celina wasn't over you--not originally, anyway."
"Then, what?"
"Sex!" Swiveling his head around, he glared at her.
"Okay?"
"Sex?"
"Yeah, sex."
"You were pressuring her to and she wouldn't?"
His jaw tensed. ' 'It was the other way around, Counselor.''
"What?" Alex exclaimed. "You expect me to believe--"
"I don't give a rat's ass what you believe. It's the truth. Celina wanted to get a head start on our future, and I wouldn't."
"Next, you're going to tell me that you had an unselfish, noble reason," Alex said, tongue-in-cheek. "Right?"
"My own parents," he said without inflection. "My old man got my mother pregnant when she was barely fifteen. They had to get married. Look how great that turned out. I wouldn't take a chance on the same thing happening to Celina and me."
Alex's heart was thudding with gladness, disbelief and emotions that were too complex to examine. "You mean that you never--"
"No. We never."
She believed him. There was no mendacity in his expression, only bitterness, and perhaps a trace of regret. "Hadn't you heard of birth control?"
"I used rubbers with other girls, but--"
"So there were others?"
"I'm not a monk, for crissake. The Gail sisters," he said with a shrug, "lots of others. There were always willing girls available."
"Especially to you." He shot her a hard look. "Why weren't you concerned that you'd impregnate one of them?"
"They all slept around. I would be one of many."
"But Celina would have slept only with you."
"That's right."
"Until she went to El Paso and met Al Gaither," Alex mused out loud. "He was just a means to make you jealous, wasn't he?" On a humorless laugh, she added, "She overshot her mark and manufactured me."
They lapsed into silence. Alex didn't even notice. She was lost in her turbulent thoughts about her mother, Reede, and their unconsummated love affair.

"It's really beautiful up here at night, isn't it?" she said dreamily, unaware that almost half an hour had passed since they had last spoke.
"I thought you'd fallen asleep."
"No." She watched a bank of clouds drift between them and the moon. "Did you ever take my mother flying?"
"A few times."
"At night?"
He hesitated. ' 'Once.''
"Did she like it?"
"She was scared, as I recall."
"They gave her hell, didn't they?"
"Who?"
"Everybody. When word got out that Celina Graham was pregnant, I'll bet the gossip spread like wildfire."
"You know how it is in a small town."
"I kept her from graduating high school."

"Look, Alex, you didn't keep her from doing anything," he argued angrily. "All right, she made a mistake. She got too hot with a soldier boy, or he took advantage of her. However the hell it happened, it happened."
With the edge of his hand, he chopped the air between them in a gesture of finality. "You didn't have anything to do with the act or the consequences of it. You said so yourself, just a few hours ago. Remember?"
"I'm not condemning my mother or stigmatizing myself, Reede. I feel sorry for her. She couldn't attend school, even though she was legally married."
Alex wrapped her arms around her sides, giving herself a huge hug. "I think she was a very special lady. She could have given me up for adoption, but she didn't. Even after my father was killed, she kept me with her. She loved me and was willing to make tremendous sacrifices for me.
"She had the courage to carry me in a town where everybody was talking about her. Don't bother denying it. I know they did. She was popular; she fell from grace. Anyone harboring malice toward her was delighted. That's human nature."
"If they were, they didn't dare show it."
"Because you were still her knight, weren't you?"
"Junior and me."
"You closed ranks around her."
"I guess you could put it like that."
"Your friendship probably meant more to her then than at any other time." He gave a noncommittal lift of his shoulders.
She studied his profile for a moment. The rocky path had led her to the cliff, and she was about to take the plunge.
"Reede, if Celina hadn't died, would you have gotten married?"
"No."
He answered without a second's hesitation. Alex was surprised.
She didn't quite believe him. "Why not?"
"Lots of reasons, but essentially, because of Junior."

She hadn't expected that. "What about him?"
"While Celina was pregnant, they became very close. He just about had her talked into marrying him when she . . .died."
"Do you think she would have, eventually?"
"I don't know." He slid Alex a sardonic glance. "Junior's quite a ladies' man. He can be very persuasive."
"Look, Reede, I told Sarah Jo, now I'm telling you, that--"
"Shh! They're passing us off to Austin radar." He spoke into the headset. When the formalities had been dispensed with, he coaxed someone in the airport tower to arrange a rental car for him. By the time he had gone through that procedure, they were approaching the lighted runway.
"Buckled up?"
"Yes."
He executed a flawless landing. Alex thought later that she must have been in a daze, because she barely remembered
getting from the plane to the rented car. Without having to concentrate, she gave Reede directions to her condo.
It was located in a fashionable, yuppie neighborhood where Evian was the drink of preference, every kitchen had a wok, and membership in a health club was as mandatory as a driver's license.
A line of thunderstorms hadn't hampered their flight, but had moved in over the city by the time they reached her street. Raindrops began to splatter the windshield. Thunder rumbled.
"The one with all the newspapers scattered in the yard," Alex told him.
"You're a public prosecutor. Don't you know better than to advertise to thieves that you're out of town? Or is that your way of drumming up business?"
"I forgot to stop delivery."
He pulled to the curb, but he didn't turn off the motor.
Several days ago, Alex would have been jubilant at the thought of returning home, just for a temporary respite from the Westerner Motel, but as she looked at the front door now, she felt no enthusiasm for going inside. The tears that clouded
her vision weren't tears of joy.
"I've been gone for almost three weeks."
"Then I'd better Walk up with you." He turned off the ignition and got out, impervious to the rain. He walked with her up the sidewalk, picking up the outdated newspapers as he went. He tossed them into a corner of her covered porch as she unlocked the door. "Don't forget to throw those papers away tomorrow," he said.
"No, I won't." She reached inside and cut off her alarm system, which had begun to hum the moment she opened the door. "I guess that means it's safe inside."
"Do you want to meet at the airport tomorrow, or what?"
"Uh . . ." She couldn't think beyond him driving away, leaving her alone in her condo. "I hadn't thought about it."
"I'll drop by the D.A.'s office around noon and ask for you. How's that?"
"Fine. I should be finished by then."
"Okay, see ya." He turned to leave.
"Reede." Instinctively she reached for him, but when he turned, she pulled her hand back. "Would you like some coffee before you go?"
"No, thanks."
"Where are you going now?"
"I won't know till I get there."
"What did you have in mind?"
"Messing around."
"Oh, well ..."
"You'd better get inside."
"I haven't paid you yet."
"For what?"
"The plane, your time."
"No charge."
"I insist."
He cursed. "The one thing I'm not going to argue with you about is money. Got that? Now, good night."

He turned and took two long strides before she called his name again. When he came back around, his eyes bore into hers. "I don't want to be alone tonight," she admitted in a rush. Even with all the crying she'd done that afternoon, her
supply of tears hadn't been exhausted. They began to roll down her cheeks as steadily as the rainfall. "Please don't go, Reede. Stay with me."
He moved back beneath the overhang, but his hair and shoulders were already damp. Placing his hands on his hips, he demanded, "Why?"
"I just told you why."
"You've got to have a better reason than that, or you wouldn't have asked."
"All right," she shouted up at him, "I feel like crap. Is that reason enough?"
"No."
"I'm hurting for what my mother must have suffered for my sake," she said, making a swipe at her leaking eyes.
"I'm no doctor."
"I need to be held."
"Sorry. I've got other plans."
"Don't you care that I'm appealing to you for help?"
"Not really."
She hated him for making her beg. Nevertheless, she threw down the last vestiges of her pride and said, "My Grandma
Graham died resenting me for ruining Celina's life. She wanted her to marry Junior, and blamed my untimely birth when that didn't happen. Now, dammit," she said, "I need to know that you don't despise me, too.
"Can you imagine how terrible I feel, knowing that I'm the reason my mother married another man when she loved you? If it hadn't been for me, you could have married her, had children, loved each other for the rest of your lives. Reede, please stay with me tonight."
He closed the distance between them, backed her into the wall, and gave her a hard shake. "You want me to hold you and tell you that everything is okay, and that the sun will come out tomorrow and things will look better?"
"Yes!"
' 'Well, for your information, Counselor, I don't do bedtime stories. When I spend the night with a woman, it's not because I want to comfort her if she's hurting, or cheer her up if she's sad." He took a step closer. His eyes narrowed until they were mere slits. "And it's for damn sure not because I want to play daddy."

Twenty-eight




Gregory Harper, district attorney of Travis County, Texas, was clearly furious. He was on his third cigarette in five minutes. His anger was directed toward his assistant, who was seated on the other side of his desk, looking like she'd been socked hard in both eyes.
"Who've you been sleeping with, Dracula? You look like you've been sucked dry," Greg remarked with characteristic
abrasiveness.
"Could we stick to one crushing blow at a time, please? Don't confuse the issue."
"Crushing blow? Oh, you mean the part where I told you that your investigation is over and done with and you're to return to Austin pronto, posthaste, lickety-split, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars, haul ass?"
"Yes, that crushing blow." Alex flattened her hands on the edge of his desk. "Greg, you can't ask me to drop it now."
"I'm not asking--I'm telling." He left his swivel chair and moved to the window. "What the **** have you been doing out there, Alex? The governor called me yesterday, and he was pissed. I mean pissed."

"He's always pissed at you."
"That's beside the point."
"Hardly. Greg, everything you do is politically motivated. Don't pretend it isn't. I don't blame you for it, but don't play Mr. Clean with me just because your hand got slapped."
"The governor thinks his racing commission can do no wrong. To admit that the commission made a mistake in selecting Minton Enterprises for a license is tantamount to the governor admitting that he made an error in judgment, too."
"Minton Enterprises is above reproach, as far as the horse-racing business goes."
"Oh, I see. The only hitch is that you suspect one of the Mintons is a murderer, or if not them, a peace officer. Gee, for a minute there, I thought we had a problem."
"You don't have to get sarcastic."
He rubbed the back of his neck. "To hear the governor yesterday, Angus Minton is a cross between the tooth fairy and Buffalo Bill Cody."
Alex smiled at the analogy, which was uncannily accurate.
"That's a fair assessment, but that doesn't mean he's incapable of killing someone."
"What happened to his barn the other night?"
"How'd you know about that?"
"Just tell me what happened."
Reluctantly, she told him about Fergus Plummet and the vandalism done to the Minton ranch. When she was finished, Greg ran a hand down his face. "You've upset a real big apple cart, full of shiny, bright apples." He selected another cigarette and spoke around it. It bobbed up and down with each word, making lighting it difficult. "I didn't like this case to start with."
"You loved it." Alex's nerves were already frayed, so it annoyed her even more that he was shifting all the blame to her. "You thought it might embarrass the governor, and you relished that thought."
He braced his arms on his desk and leaned over it. "You said you were going out there to reopen your mother's murder case. I didn't know you were going to get a loony preacher whipped into a frenzy, a man's barn nearly burned down, a
valuable racehorse shot in the head, and offend a respected judge, who has a reputation as spotless as God's."
"Wallace?"
"Wallace. Apparently, he called our esteemed governor and complained about your unprofessional conduct, your handling
of the case, and your unfounded accusations." He sucked smoke into his lungs and blew it out in a gust. "Shall I go on?"
"Please," she said wearily, knowing he would anyway.
"Okay. Chastain's scared shitless of Wallace."
"Chastain's scared shitless of his own shadow. He won't even return my calls."
"He's disclaimed you, washed his hands cleaner of you than Ivory soap could have done. He says you've been seen partying with your suspects."
" 'Partying'? I've seen them on a few social occasions.'
"Dangerous business, Alex. We've got three gentlemen suspects and one lady prosecutor whose association with each goes way back. It's all as murky as file" gumbo."
She tried not to squirm under his incisive stare. "New tack." Standing, she circled her chair. "This is an unsolved murder case. The investigation is viable, no matter who conducts it."
"Okay," he said complacently, folding his hands behind his head and leaning his chair back, "I'll play. What have you got? No body to dig up. No murder weapon. No--"
"It was lifted out of the vet's bag."
"What?"
"The murder weapon." She told him what Dr. Ely Collins had told her. "The scalpel was never returned to the elder Dr. Collins. I've been meaning to check the evidence room on the outside chance that it's still there, but I doubt that it is."
"So do I. The bottom line is that you've still got no weapon. Has an eyewitness come forward?"

She sighed. "During this telephone call, did the governor Mention a ranch hand named Pasty Hickam?"
' "So, it's true."
"It's true. And please don't insult me by trying to trap me like that again. I was going to tell you."
"When? When were you going to slip it into the conversation that a representative of this office got involved with a cowboy who turned up dead?"
"Care to hear my side of it?" She told him about Pasty.
He was frowning more man ever when she finished. "If you're right, not only is it stupid and politically imprudent to continue this investigation, it's dangerous. I don't suppose anyone's confessed."
She made a face at him. "No. But one of them killed Celina, and probably Hickam."
Cursing, he mashed out his cigarette. "Let's stick to one murder at a time. If you had to arrest one of them tomorrow for killing your mother, who would it be?"
"I'm not sure."
"Why would the old man have iced her?"
"Angus is cantankerous and shrewd. He wields a lot of power, and definitely enjoys being the boss."
"You're smiling."
"He's extremely likable, I'll admit." She kept Angus's comment about having a daughter like her to herself. "He's inordinately rough on Junior. But, a slasher?" she asked rhetorically, shaking her head. "I don't think so. It's not his style. Besides, Angus didn't have a motive."
"What about Junior?"
"There's a possibility there. He's glib and very charming. I'm sure that everything he tells me is the truth, he just doesn't
tell me everything. I know he loved Celina. He wanted to marry her after my father was killed. Maybe she said no one too many times."
"Conjecture and more conjecture. So, that leaves Lambert. What about him?"
Alex lowered her head and stared at her bloodless fingers.
"He's the most likely suspect, I believe."

Greg's chair sprang forward. "What makes you say that?"
"Motive and opportunity. He might have felt his best friend was displacing him and killed her to prevent it."
"Pretty viable motive. What about opportunity?"
"He was at the ranch that night, but he left."
"Are you sure? Has he got an alibi?"
"He says he was with a woman."
"Do you believe him?"
She gave a short, bitter laugh. "Oh, yes. I can believe that. Neither he nor Junior has a problem with women."
"Except your mother."
"Yes," she conceded quietly.
"What has Lambert's alibi got to say?"
"Nothing. He won't tell me her name. If she exists, she's probably still around. Otherwise, what difference would it make? I'll work on tracking her down when I get back."
"Who says you're going back?"
Up till now, Alex had been pacing. Returning to her chair, she appealed to him. "I've got to go back, Greg. I can't leave it up in the air like this. I don't care if the murderer is the governor himself, I've got to see it through to the finish."
He nodded toward the telephone on his desk. "He's going to call me this afternoon and ask me if you're off the case. He expects me to say yes."
"Even if that would mean leaving a murder unsolved?"
"Judge Wallace convinced him that you've got a bee up your ass and that this is a personal vendetta."
"Well, he's wrong."
"I don't think so."
Her heart stopped beating. "You think that, too?"
"Yep, I do." He spoke softly, more like a friend than a boss. "Call it quits, Alex, while we're all still speaking to each other, and before I get my tail in a real crack with the governor."
"You gave me thirty days."
"Which I can rescind."
"I've got just a little more than a week left."


"You can do a lot of damage in that amount of time."
"I could also get to the truth."
He looked skeptical. "That's a long shot. I've got cases here that need your expert touch."
"I'll pay my own expenses," she said. "Consider this my vacation."
"In that case, I couldn't sanction anything you did out there. You'd no longer have the protection of this office."
"Okay, fine."
He shook his head stubbornly. "I wouldn't let you do that, any more than I'd let. my teenage daughter go on a date without a rubber in her purse."
"Greg, please."
"Jesus, you're a stubborn broad." He withdrew a cigarette from the pack, but didn't light it. "You know the one thing that intrigues me about this case? The judge. If he turned out to be as crooked as a dog's hind leg, it'd really get our governor's goat."
"You're mixing metaphors."
"What have you got on him?"
"Nothing more solid than dislike. He's a persnickety little man, nervous and shifty-eyed." She thought a moment.
"There is something that struck me as odd, though."
"Well?" he asked, sitting forward.
"Stacey, his daughter, married Junior Minton weeks after Celina's death."
"Unless they're brother and sister, that wasn't illegal."
She shot him a sharp look. "Stacey's not ... well, not Junior's type, you know? She still loves him." She recounted the incident in the powder room at the Horse and Gun Club.
"Junior's very attractive. Stacey isn't the kind of woman he would marry."
"Maybe she's got a golden pussy."
"I'll admit, I never thought of that," Alex said dryly. "He didn't have to marry her to sleep with her. So why did he, unless there was a very good reason? In addition to that, Stacey lied to me. She said she was home unpacking after a trip to Galveston, but failed to mention she'd been in the stable that day."
Greg gnawed on his lower lip, then poked the cigarette in his mouth and flicked the lighter at it. "It's still too weak, Alex." He exhaled. "I've got to go with my gut instincts and call you off."
They stared at each other a moment, then she calmly opened her handbag and withdrew two plain white envelopes.
She pushed them toward him. "What's this?"
"My letter of resignation, and a letter of intent to file a civil suit against the Mintons and Reede Lambert."
He almost swallowed his cigarette. "What? You can't."
"I can. I will. There's enough evidence to bring a civil suit against them for the murder of my mother. I'll sue them for so much money in damages that opening a racetrack will be out of the question. Reede Lambert's career will be shot to hell, too. They won't go to jail, but they'll be ruined."
"you win."
"It won't matter if I do or not. In a civil suit, they can't plead the Fifth to avoid incrimination. No matter what they say, everyone will presume they're lying. The racing commission would have no choice but to reverse its decision and revoke the gambling license."
"So, what this all boils down to is money?" he cried. "Is that what you've been after all along?"
Her pale cheeks sprouted dots of color. "It's beneath even you to say something like that to me. I demand your apology."
Greg muttered a string of oaths. "Okay, I'm sorry. But, you mean this, don't you?"
"Yes, I do."
He deliberated for a full minute longer before grumbling, "I ought to have my head examined." Pointing a stern finger at her, he said, "Stay the hell out of trouble. Make sure you've loaded both barrels before you go after somebody, particularly Wallace. If you screw up and I get my ass chewed on, I'll claim you were a naughty girl and that I had nothing to do with your actions. And, your original deadline sticks. Got that?"
"Got it," she said, coming to her feet. "You'll be hearing from me as soon as I know something."
"Alex?" She was already at the door. When she looked back at him, he asked, "What's going on with you?"
"What do you mean?"
"Any reason in particular why you look like the ghost of Christmas, dead and buried?"
"I'm just tired."
He didn't believe her, but he let it go. After she'd left, he reached for the two envelopes she'd shoved across his desk.
He ripped open the first, then, more hastily, the second. Greg Harper practically hurdled his desk and lunged for the door of his office. "Alex, you bitch!" he roared down the empty corridor.
"She just left," his startled secretary informed him. "With a man."
"Who?"
"A cowboy in a fur-trimmed leather jacket."
Greg returned to his desk, wadded the two empty envelopes into balls, and shot them at the wastebasket.

It was close to sundown when Reede wheeled his Blazer into the parking lot of the Westerner Motel.
"Just drop me at the lobby, please," Alex told him. "I need to check for messages."
Reede did as she asked without comment. They'd had very little to say to each other since their awkward reunion outside
the D.A.'s office. The flight home had been uneventful. Alex had dozed most of the way.
Reede had passed the time watching Alex doze.
No less than a thousand times during the night, he'd almost gone back to her condo. Looking at the crescent-shaped circles
beneath her eyes while she slept, he didn't know how he could have walked away from her. She had needed someone with her last night. He'd been the only one available.

But no one had ever presented him a prize for being a good Boy Scout. If he had stayed, he couldn't have kept his hands,
or his mouth, or his cock, away from her. That's why he had left. Their needs hadn't been compatible. Now, she was hesitating, half in, half out of the truck.
"Well, thank you."
"You're welcome."
"Are you sure you won't let me pay you?"
He didn't honor that with an answer. Instead, he asked a question of his own. "What was the big powwow about?"
"A case I was working on before I left. The other prosecutor needed some facts cleared up."
"And they couldn't be cleared up over the phone?"
"It was complicated."
He knew she was lying, but saw no reason to pursue it.
"So long."
She stepped to the ground and, pulling the strap of her heavy bag onto her shoulder, went into the motel lobby, where the clerk greeted her and handed her a stack of messages.
Reede backed up and turned the truck around. He was about to pull out when he noticed that Alex had slowed down to read one of the messages. Her face had grown even paler than it already was. He shoved the transmission into Park and got out.
"What's that?"
She squinted up at him, then hastily refolded the letter and stuffed it back into the envelope. "My mail."
"Let me see it."
"You want to see my mail?"
He snapped his fingers rapidly three times and opened his palm. Her exasperation was plain when she slapped the envelope into his hand. It didn't take him long to read the letter.
It was short and to the point. Tawny brows merged over the bridge of his nose as he frowned. " 'An abomination unto God'?"
"That's what he's calling me."
"Plummet, no doubt. Mind if I keep this?"

"No," Alex said shakily. "I've memorized it."
"Be sure to keep your door locked."
"You're not taking his threat seriously, are you?"
He wanted to shake her, hard. She was either stupid or naive, and either one could get her hurt. "Damn right, I am," he said. "And so should you. If he makes any attempt to contact you, call me. Understand?"
She looked ready to argue, but eventually nodded her head. Her exhaustion was evident. She seemed on the verge of
collapsing in the parking lot. Reede knew he could take partial credit for that, but instead of making him feel smug, it made
him feel terrible.
Closing his mind to it, he returned to his truck. He didn't drive away from the motel, however, until Alex was locked safely inside her room.

Twenty-nine
 
 
 
Reede turned his head when the corrugated tin door of the hangar crashed open. The sinking sun was behind her, so Alex's face was in shadow, but he didn't need to see her expression to know that she was furious. She looked as tense as a pulled hamstring. The vivid light shining through her hair made it appear to crackle like flame.
He calmly finished washing his hands at the industrial metal sink, rinsed them, and reached for a paper towel from the wall dispenser.
"To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?" he asked pleasantly.
"You're a liar, probably a cheat, possibly a murderer."

"That's been your opinion of me from the beginning. Tell me something I don't already know."
He dropped down onto a stool and hooked the heels of his boots on the lowest rung. Mindlessly, his hands slid up and down the tops of his thighs. He'd never wanted to touch a woman so badly in his life.
She advanced on him militantly, a package of quivering energy. She looked soft, but so goddamn alive and vibrant that he could almost feel her skin against his palms. He wanted to clutch her hair while crushing her smart mouth with nonstop kisses.
She was wearing the fur coat that never failed to elicit an erotic curl deep in his groin. Her tight jeans gloved thighs that he could think of better uses for than supporting a woman obviously on the brink of exploding with rage.
When they were but inches apart, she shook a paper in his face. He recognized the letter she'd received from the concerned citizens soon after her arrival in Purcell. The shit was about to hit the fan, all right. He'd been waiting for it. This showdown had been due to happen the minute she figured it out.
"I knew something didn't jive with this," she said through clenched teeth, "but today as I was poring over the material I have, looking for clues, I finally realized what was out of sync."
Pretending that he didn't smell her tantalizing fragrance, which made him crazy, he folded his arms over his middle.
"Well?"
"There is one more business cited in the letter than there are signatures at the bottom. Moe Blakely Airfield," she said, stabbing her finger repeatedly at the typed paragraph. "But Moe Blakely didn't sign it."
"That would have been tough to do, since he died about seven years ago."
"Moe Blakely was the old man you told me about, wasn't he? The one who taught you to fly and treated you to strawberry soda pops."

"You're batting a thousand, so far."
"You own this airfield, Mr. Lambert."
"Right down to the tumbleweeds and tarantulas. Moe willed it to me. Surprised?"
"Flabbergasted."
"Most folks around here were. Pissed off some of them, too--the ones who would have liked to get their hands on fee property. That was when they were poking holes in the ground, drilling for oil under every rock."
"We discussed this letter at length," she grated. "You said you'd already seen it, but you failed to mention that your business was listed."
"The people who drafted the letter didn't consult me first. If they had, I would have told them to leave me out of it."
"Why? Your sentiments match theirs perfectly."
"That's right, they do, but I don't make veiled threats. I told you to your face to get your ass back to Austin. Besides, I'm not a joiner, never have been. Group projects aren't my thing."
"That still doesn't explain why you didn't tell me that the airfield was yours, when you've had so many opportunities to do so."
"I didn't because I knew you'd blow it all out of proportion."
She drew herself up. "I am not blowing it out of proportion. You own this airfield free and clear, and you've got big plans for expansion and improvement."
He came off the stool slowly and loomed above her, no longer amused. His eyes were icy. "How do you know about that?"
"I did my homework this afternoon. Representing myself as your secretary, I called three commuter airlines and asked about the status of our application for service. If they had never heard of you, I would have known my hunch was wrong."
She gave a dry laugh. "They'd heard of you, all right. They were very anxious to extend their congratulations to you for ME being guaranteed the racing license. All three are excited about your charter service ideas and are currently preparing proposals. They'll be in touch as soon as their market research is completed. By the way, you owe me ten dollars in long-distance charges."
He grabbed her arm. "You had no right to meddle into my business affairs. This hasn't got a goddamn thing to do with your murder case."
"I have every right to conduct this investigation as I see fit."
"Just because I own an airfield that will prosper if that racetrack is built, doesn't mean that I took a scalpel to Celina."
"It might mean that you're protecting whoever did," she shouted.
"Who? Angus? Junior? That's crap and you know it."
She wrested her arm out of his grip. "You've hampered this investigation every step of the way. You've got a badge, so that's supposed to make you an officer of the law. Ha! Now that's crap!
"You don't want me to discover the killer, whoever he is, because any indictment would mean bye-bye racetrack and the end of your money-making schemes. No wonder your loyalty to the Mintons is so steadfast," she said scornfully.
"It has nothing to do with friendship or compensation for past favors. You're selfishly protecting your financial interests."
Her breasts quivered beneath her sweater when she pulled in an uneven breath and added, "I might just as well tell you, I think you're it."
"What, the murderer?" His voice was sibilant and sinister.
He backed her against the fuselage of the airplane he'd been tinkering with before she had arrived.
"Yes. I think you killed her. I think I know why."
"I'm all ears."
"You loved Celina to distraction, but she betrayed your love. I was a constant reminder of her betrayal, even before I was born. You couldn't forgive and forget, but Junior could. He welcomed the chance to take your place. He began to court her, and his efforts were effective.
"When you noticed that she was falling in love with him, you just couldn't stand losing her to your best friend and chief competitor, so you killed her. If you couldn't have her, then, by God, nobody, especially Junior, was going to."
He let one eyelid sink into a slow, congratulatory wink.
"Very good, Counselor. But you got a big, fat problem with that pile of tripe.'' He took a step closer and lowered his face nearer hers. "You can't prove it, not a frigging bit of it. It's all conjecture. You've got nothing on me, nothing on anybody. So, why don't you just make life easier on all of us and give it up?"
"Because I can't."
He heard the desperation behind her words and knew that he was more than halfway to breaking her.
''Why can't you?'' he taunted.
"Because I want to punish whoever killed her."
"Uh-uh," he said, shaking his head. "You're not doing this for Celina. You're doing it for yourself."
"I am not!"
"Your granny built Celina up to be larger than life in your eyes, and you can't forgive yourself for coming along at the wrong time in her life and messing it up."
"Now who's talking psychological bullshit?" she asked angrily. "I know enough about you to know that you're selfish, Reede Lambert. The idea of another man touching what you considered your personal property would be intolerable to you."
Her expression was triumphant and challenging. "What did you find the hardest to forgive, Reede? That Celina went to bed with another man? Or couldn't you forgive yourself for not taking her when you had the chance?"
"Why are you so hung up on who I did or didn't take!" He nudged her body with his, then inclined forward until they were touching middle to middle. "I warned you once to keep your curiosity at bay," he whispered. "Isn't that what you've been doing with Junior, satisfying your curiosity about why your mama found him so appealing?" He took perverse pleasure in watching the color drain from her face.
"No," she denied hoarsely.
"I think it is."
"You're sick."
"Not me, baby." His breath trailed across her lips.
"You're the one who's curious."
He bent his head and kissed her. She stubbornly resisted the pressure of his mouth, but he finally succeeded in maneuvering her lips apart. His tongue raked her teeth and the inner linings of her lips.
She opened to him. He felt the breath leave her body on a ragged sigh. It was moist and warm and sweet inside his mouth. His erection stretched, pushing painfully against his fly, against hers. He reached inside her coat and covered her breast with his hand. Beneath his revolving thumb her nipple
hardened, and when he swept it lightly, a low moan rose out of her throat.
He raised his head and looked down into her face. Her head was resting against the body of the airplane, her throat arched and exposed. She was breathing hard. Her chest rose and fell swiftly. He could feel her heart, like a small, wild, frightened creature that had become trapped in his palm. Her lips were slightly parted, wet and glistening. Her eyes were closed. Slowly, they came open. They looked at each other with wariness and confusion.
Oh Jesus, was Reede's last coherent thought. His mouth lowered to hers again, hungrier, but much more temperate. He pressed his tongue into her mouth, giving, not taking. He fondled her breast with more finesse. Eventually losing patience with her clothing, he dropped his hand to her waist. Her sweater was pushed up, the cup of her bra was pushed down, and her warm, soft flesh filled his hand. Reflexively, she arched her back, plumping her breast against his callused fingers and palm. He kneaded it and continued to agitate its tight, feverish center with the pad of his thumb.
Kissing her as though this was his first kiss ever, or the last one he would ever be granted, he worked her legs apart with his knee and angled his hips toward her cleft. From the edge of his mind it registered that she made a helpless little sound and lifted her arms to encircle his neck, but he could focus on nothing except her mouth, his invasion of it, and how damn much he wanted to be buried snugly inside her.
His free hand slid over her butt, down the back of her thigh, and caught her behind the knee. He lifted it, propped it on his hip, and made a grinding motion against her. He fit his rigid body into the notch of her thighs and stroked her there until the tempo escalated to a breathless pace. She spoke his name on a sudden, catchy little breath that fanned his passions hotter.
Several seconds later, he heard his name again, coming to him dimly and from afar. Vaguely, he wondered how she had managed to speak when her tongue was so actively engaged with his.
He heard his name called again and realized that it wasn't Alex's voice.
"Reede? Where are you, boy?"
His head snapped up. Alex blinked her eyes back into focus. He hastily withdrew his hand from inside her sweater.
She yanked her coat closed.
"In here." His voice sounded like he'd recently gargled nails.
Angus stepped through the door Alex had left open.
Reede noticed that the sun had set.

Thirty
 
 
To her credit, Alex recovered remarkably well, Angus thought. Except for the dazed expression in her eyes and her slightly swollen lips, she seemed perfectly composed.
"Hello, Angus," she said.
"Hi, Alex. Get things straightened out in Austin?"
"Yes. Thank you for lending me your airplane."
"Don't mention it."
"I, uh, was just on my way out." To Reede she said, "I'll get back to you about this later." She left in a hurry. Reede picked up a wrench and stuck his head into the exposed engine of the small aircraft.
"What's she up to now?" Angus asked as he lowered himself onto the stool Reede had occupied earlier.
"She discovered that I own this place. I never kept it a secret, but I never advertised it, either. She figures I'd have a lot to lose if she takes this case to a grand jury, whether I'm the killer or not."
"She's right," the older man observed. Reede merely shrugged, tossed the wrench on a worktable and closed the motor casing. "Ely told me she came to his office asking questions about his daddy's scalpel and the day of the murder."
"The scalpel, huh?"
"Yeah. Know anything about that?"
"Hell, no, do you?"
 
"Hell, no."
Reede went to a cabinet where he kept a supply of liquor and beer. He poured himself a hefty shot of Jack Daniels and tossed it down. He tilted the bottle toward Angus. "Want one?"
"Sure, thanks." As he sipped the whiskey, he watched Reede slam back another one.
Catching Angus's curious stare, he said, "It's been that kind of day."
"Alex?"
Reede ran his hands through his hair like a man plagued by demons. "Yeah. Damn, she's tenacious."
"There's no telling what kind of crap Merle Graham filled her head with."
"No wonder she's vengeful." He blew out a breath of extreme agitation. "If ME doesn't get that racetrack, all my future plans will be affected."
"It's that important to you, huh?"
"What did you think, that I want to be a ****ing sheriff for the rest of my life?"
"You worry too much, boy!" Angus said heartily. "We'll get it, and your future looks nothing but sunny. That's what I came out here to talk about."
Reede regarded him curiously. "My future?"
Angus finished his whiskey in one hefty swallow and crushed the paper cup in his fist. He pushed his cowboy hat back further on his head and looked up at Reede, smiling devilishly.
"I want you to come back and be an active part of Minton Enterprises again."
For a moment, Reede was rendered speechless by shock. He fell back a step, laughed, and said, "Are you shittin' me?"
"Nope." Angus raised a callused hand. "Before you say anything, hear me out."
He had already outlined in his mind what he was going to say. After receiving disturbing calls from two worried members of the racing commission who had read about Alex's investigation in the Austin newspaper, he'd decided he'd better get more aggressive about putting a stop to it.
This thing wasn't going to blow over, like he'd originally hoped.
The long-distance conversations had ended on an optimistic note. He'd pooh-poohed Alex's allegations, told them a few dirty jokes, and had them laughing by the time they hung up. He wasn't gravely concerned yet, but he definitely saw the need for ME to present a solid front. Having Reede as an integral part of the corporation again would be a positive step in that direction.
Now, his rehearsed words flowed smoothly. "You know almost as much as I do about racehorses, and more than Junior ever took the time or effort to learn. You'd come back into the company as an executive. I'd divide responsibilities equally between you and Junior, though you'd have different functions.
"I know how much this airfield means to you. You've got a sentimental attachment to it, but you also see its moneymaking potential. So do I. I'd incorporate it into ME. The corporation could afford to finance the rebuilding and expansion you want to do. We'd also have a lot more clout with the airlines."
His smile broadened. "Shit, I'd even throw in a few shares of ME stock as incentive. You can't pass up a deal like that, boy."
He was disappointed in Reede's reaction, which he had hoped would be astonishment tinged with pleasure. Instead, it appeared to be astonishment tinged with suspicion.
"What brought this on?"
A picture of equanimity, Angus said, "You belong with us--always have. I'm in a position to get things moving for you. You'd be foolish not to take advantage of my offer."
"I'm not a boy who still needs your charity, Angus."
"I never considered you a charity case."
"I know that," Reede said evenly, "but no matter how we dress it up with fancy words, that's what I was." He peered deeply into the older man's eyes. "Don't think I'm not grateful for everything you've done for me."
' 'I never asked you for gratitude. You always did an honest day's work for anything I sent your way."
"I wouldn't have had any advantages at all if it hadn't been for you." He paused before going on. "But I paid you back, several times over, I think. When I left your company, I did it because I needed independence. I still do, Angus."
Angus was perturbed, and made no secret of it. "You wanna be begged, is that it? Okay." He took a deep breath.
"I'm getting close to retirement age. Some would consider me past it. The business needs your leadership qualities to survive." He spread his hands wide. "There. Does that satisfy your confounded ego?"
"I don't need to be stroked, Angus, and you damn well know it. I'm thinking about somebody else's ego."
"Junior's?"
"Junior's. Have you told him about this?"
"No. I didn't see any reason to, until ..."
"Until there was nothing he could do about it."
Angus's silence was as good as an admission.
Reede began to pace. "Junior is your heir, Angus, not me. He's the one you should be grooming to take over. He needs to be ready when the time comes."
Angus paced, too, while he collected his thoughts. "You're afraid Junior won't get ready as long as you're around to do everything for him and cover his tracks when he messes up."
"Angus, I don't mean--"
"It's all right," he said, raising his hand to ward off Reede's objections. "I'm his daddy. You're his best friend. We should be able to discuss him freely without wading through bullshit. Junior isn't as strong as you."
Reede looked away. Hearing the truth warmed him inside.
He knew how difficult it was for Angus to say it.
"I always wanted Junior to be more like you--aggressive, assertive, ambitious--but. ..." Angus gave an eloquent shrug. "He needs you, Reede. Hell, so do I. I didn't bust my balls all these years to see everything I've built up fall down around me. I've got my pride, but I'm a practical businessman. I face facts, bad as they sometimes are. One of those facts is that you're competent, and Junior isn't."
"That's my point, Angus. He can be. Force his hand. Delegate him more responsibility."
"And when he ****s up, you know what'll happen? I'll lose my temper, start yelling at him. He'll sulk and run to his mama, who'll mollycoddle him."
"Maybe at first, but not for long. Junior'll start yelling back one of these days. He'll figure out that the only way to deal with you is to give you tit for tat. I did."
"Is that what you're doing now, getting back at me for some slight I'm not even aware of?"
"Hell, no," Reede answered crossly. "Since when have I ever been afraid to tell you off, or anybody else, if something wasn't to my liking?"
"All right, I'll tell you since when," Angus snapped.
"Since Celina was killed. That changed everything, didn't it?" He moved closer to Reede. "I don't think any of us has had an honest conversation with the other since that morning. The thing I always feared most was that she'd come between you and Junior." He laughed with rancor. "She did anyway. Even dead, she put a blight on the friendship."
"Celina has nothing to do with my decision to say no. I want to feel that what's mine is mine. Completely. Not a part of your conglomerate."
"So, it's strictly economics?"
"That's right."
The wheels of Angus's brain were whirring with fresh arguments. "What if I decided to build an airfield of my own?"
"Then we'd be competitors," Reede replied, unruffled.
"But there's not enough business to support two, and both of us would lose."
"But I can afford to. You can't."

"You wouldn't get any satisfaction from bankrupting me, Angus."
Angus relented and snorted a laugh. "You're right. Hell, boy, you're like family."
"Like family, but not. Junior is your son, not me."
"You're turning down this opportunity on account of him, aren't you?" It was a shrewd guess and, he saw by Reede's reaction, a correct one.
Reede gave his wristwatch a needless glance. "Look, I've got to run.''
"Reede," Angus said, grabbing his arm. "You reckon Junior'll ever realize just how good a friend you are to him?"
Reede tried to sound jocular. "Let's not tell him. He's conceited enough as it is."
Angus smelled defeat, and it was obnoxious to him. "I can't let you do it, boy."
"You've got no choice."
"I won't let you say no. I'll keep after you," he promised, his crafty blue eyes gleaming.
"You're not shook up because you'll miss me. You're shook up because you aren't getting your way."
"Not this time, Reede. I need you. Junior needs you. So does ME."
"Why now? After all these years, why does ME's future rely on me coming back?" Reede's features sharpened with realization. "You're scared."
"Scared?" Angus repeated with affected surprise. "Of what? Of whom?"
"Of Alex. You're scared that she might pluck the candy apple right out of your hand. You're trying to pack all the power you can behind you."
"Wouldn't we all be stronger against her if we stood together?"
"We are standing together."
"Are we?" Angus fired.
"You've got my loyalty, Angus, just like I've got yours."
Angus stepped closer to Reede. "I damn sure hope so. But I recall the look on your face when I walked through that door a while ago," he whispered. "You looked like you'd been walloped in the nuts, boy. And she looked all rosy and wet around the mouth."
Reede said nothing. Angus hadn't expected him to. He would have considered a babbling denial or an apology a weakness. Reede's strength was one reason he'd always admired him.
Angus relaxed his tension. "I like the girl, myself. She's saucy, and cute as a button. But she's too smart for her own good." He pointed a stern finger at Reede. "See that you don't get your cock up so high you can't look around it at what she's trying to do. She wants to bring us to our knees, make us atone for Celina's murder.
"Can you afford to lose everything you've worked for? I can't. Furthermore, I won't." Ending the discussion on that grim promise, he stamped out of the hangar.
 
"Where's my boy?" he stormily demanded of the bartender, almost an hour after leaving Reede. During that time, he'd been making the rounds of Junior's haunts.
"In the back," the bartender answered, indicating the closed door at the back of the tavern.
It was a shabby watering hole, but it had the largest poker pot in town. At any time of day or night, a game was in progress in the back room. Angus shoved open the door, nearly knocking over a cocktail waitress carrying a tray of empty long-necks on her shoulder. He plowed through the cloud of tobacco smoke toward the overhead beam that spotlighted the round poker table.
"I need to talk to Junior," he bellowed.
Junior, a cigar anchored in one corner of his mouth, smiled up at his father. "Can't it wait till we finish this hand? I've got five hundred riding on it, and I'm feeling lucky."
"Your ass is riding on what I've got to tell you, and your luck just ran out."
The other players, most of whom worked for Angus in one capacity or another, quickly swept up their stakes and scuttled out. As soon as the last one cleared the door, Angus banged it shut.
"What the hell's going on?" Junior asked.
"I'll tell you what's going on. Your friend Reede is about to get the best of you again, while you're here in the back room of this dump pissing your life away."
Junior meekly extinguished his cigar. "I don't know what you're talking about."
" 'Cause you've got your head up your ass, instead of on your business, where it belongs."
By an act of will, Angus calmed himself. If he hollered, Junior would only pout. Yelling never got him anywhere.
But it was tough to keep his disappointment and anger from showing.
"Alex was at the airfield this afternoon with Reede."
"So?"
"So, if I'd gotten there ten seconds later, I'd've caught them screwing against the side of an airplane!" he roared, forgetting his resolution to restrain his temper.
Junior bolted from his chair. "The hell you say!"
"I know when animals are in heat, boy. I make part of my living breeding them, remember? I can smell when they want each other," he declared, touching the end of his nose.
"He was doing what you should have been, instead of gambling away money you didn't even earn."
Junior flinched. Defensively, he said, "Last I heard, Alex was out of town."
"Well, she's back."
"All right, I'll call her tonight."
"Do better than that. Make a date, see her."
"Okay."
"I mean it!"
"I said, okay!" Junior shouted.
"And something else, just so you'll hear it from me first. I've asked Reede to rejoin ME."
"Huh?"

"You heard me."
"What . . . what'd he say?"
"He said no, but I'm not taking that as final." Angus walked toward his son until they were nose to nose. "I'll tell you something else. I haven't decided who'll be working for whom if he takes the job."
Junior's eyes reflected his pain and anger.
Angus poked him hard in the chest. "You'd better get busy and do what I told you to do, or one of two things could happen. Either Reede'll be sitting at your desk, assigning you jobs like cleaning out the stables, or all of us will be making license plates in the Huntsville prison. Either way, you won't have afternoons to while away playing poker."
Angus stepped back and gave the edge of the table a vicious kick with the pointed toe of his lizard boot. It toppled over, sending cards, poker chips, ashtrays, and bottles of beer crashing to the floor.
Then he marched out, leaving Junior to clean up the mess.