Death on Heels (40 page)

“God, yes, it’s important.” He took another deep breath. “Lacey, will you marry me?”

“What?!”
Did I hear him correctly?

“Marry me, Lacey. Sickness, health, richer, poorer, all of it. For as long as we live, though that might not be very long. In danger and in safety, though I’d really like to know what that
safe
part might look like with you around. Hasn’t happened yet, but in any case, our marriage will never be boring. But will you? Please?”

“Marry you?”

“Marry me.”

Lacey’s heart was beating like a jackhammer, but everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. She felt dizzy. She willed herself to forget the others for a moment, which was difficult. They were all staring at her. Even Emily seemed to forget her pain. She nodded to Lacey encouragingly. They all waited for an answer.

“If I say yes, will you still take me to that restaurant and that beach?” Lacey’s fingertips smoothed his curl off his face.

“Flowers and music? Yes. Do you love me, Lacey?”

“Oh, Vic. I have loved you for the longest time.”

“So it’s yes?”

“Yes! Yes, yes. Of course, it’s yes!” Lacey said, and Vic kissed her.

“Are you freaking kidding me?” Tony said in a stage whisper. “Guys with guns are trying to kill us and you two are playing kissy-face?”

There was another shot. Very close to the door.
Three.

Vic was instantly on his feet. In command mode. “Stay away from the door. Grab anything you can for a weapon. Lacey, darlin’, take care of Emily.”

The men sprang up from the floor. Emily tried to get up but she seemed dazed and in pain, hugging her ribs. Lacey held her tight. “Everything is going to work out,” she whispered. “We’re going to make it.”

“Alive?” Emily asked, on the verge of tears again. “Please. So you can get married?”

“I promise.” The silence on the outside was menacing.
What are they doing now? Are they still out there?

“Stay out of sight until I say
clear
.” Vic kicked the table away from the door and yanked it open. Behind him, Ben hefted one of his ski poles like a spear. Mac took the other one, holding it like a club. Lacey picked up two of the coiled ropes. She threw one to Tony, who hung it around his shoulder while he readied his “crowbar” and his camera. Vic stood in the open door, covering all four men with his revolver.

“What the hell—?” Lacey couldn’t see through the
crowded doorway, but it was Stanford’s voice again. “God damn! If it ain’t Chief Donovan. Join the party, Chief. We’re just, uh, having a little—ah, target practice.”

“Drop the rifle, Stanford.” Vic’s voice, very calm. Lacey listened for the sound of a rifle being dropped. She didn’t hear it. She peered out the door over Mac’s shoulder. All eyes were on Vic. No one moved for a moment.

Lacey played nervously with her coil of rope. It was something to do. As she watched the standoff, she tied a honda at the end without looking, securing it with a stopper knot, and slipped the rope through it, forming
a loop, which she held in her right hand. She coiled the rest of the rope in her left, slipping it over her shoulder, like Tony.

“You’re not top cop anymore, Donovan,” Virgil Avery was complaining. “I don’t care what it says on your hat. And you’re trespassing on private property.”

“Not going to matter when they see Emily Ogden here,” Vic said. “Hands on your heads, gentlemen, or I’ll drop you all where you stand. Stanford, drop your weapon. Everyone on the ground. Now.” Vic took a big step toward the killer. Lacey saw the rifle land in the mud.

“Now, Donovan, let’s be reasonable men,” Stanford blurted. “Maybe we can work something out? I can make you a mighty rich man—”

“Don’t give me a reason to blow your head off, Stanford. On your knees, all of you. Hands behind your heads.”

“Rush him!” Stanford yelled. “Get him! We can’t let him live.”

Lacey’s heart leapt in fear. Homer was still kneeling as he’d been told, but Virgil and Grady were rushing toward Vic, while Stanford, the big talker, was running hard the other way, away from the cabin and the ATVs. Vic sidestepped Virgil, kicked Grady aside, and followed the escaping Stanford, who was already disappearing into the sagebrush. Mac, Ben, and Tony burst out after Vic. Lacey pushed Emily safely out of sight, her rope at the ready. She tried to keep her eyes on Stanford, and on Vic in hot pursuit, but there was a brawl happening right in front of her.

Mac and Ben were going after Virgil and Grady with ski poles. Virgil swung a fist at Ben and Ben knocked him down with his pole.

“Homer, help me,” Virgil yelled from the mud.

“But he. He told me to get down. On my knees,” Homer explained patiently, his hands behind his head. “He has a gun, Virgil. He’s a. A policeman.”

Virgil bounced back swinging and brought his fist up into Ben’s face. Mac sliced the air with his pole like a saber, holding Grady off, but the deputy was younger and faster. He grabbed Mac’s pole and they struggled over it, like a tug-of-war gone very wrong. Tony dropped his rope and whacked Grady across the back with his metal pipe. Grady staggered and let go of the pole. Mac went down in the mud and took Grady with him. Mac and Grady rolled in the mud, trading punches.

Tony looked for an opening to impale Grady with his pipe. Grady rolled away and Tony impaled the mud instead. The pipe was stuck fast, so he switched to his camera and started snapping away. Mac connected a beefy fist with Grady’s jaw and stretched the deputy face-first into the mud.

Although he got a few good licks in, attorney Benjamin was taking a beating from Virgil Avery. Lacey saw Vic turn back from pursuing Stanford, who was clearly running the wrong way. She figured the pudgy oil man would soon have to turn around if he meant to grab an ATV and get away. Vic leveled his revolver at Homer’s brother.

“Let him go, Virgil, or I shoot.”

Virgil twisted out of Ben’s grip and spun toward Vic, but he slipped in the mud. Vic took his best shot, but as Virgil fell he turned to the side and took the bullet in his right buttock. He toppled and rolled in the mud in pain, clutching his butt with both hands.

“My God, Donovan, you shot me in the ass! What the hell!”

Homer tentatively took his hands off his head. “Are you okay, Virgil?”

“Hell no, I’m not okay! He shot me in my damn ass!”

“I don’t think you can die from. A butt shot.” Homer
put his hands back behind his head. Vic looked disgusted. It wasn’t the shot he had planned.

Ben got to his feet, breathing hard. He was going to have quite a shiner, but he had a silly grin on his face.

“Chief Donovan. Can I get up? To help my brother?” Homer asked plaintively. “He says he’s been shot. In the ass.”

“No, Homer, you stay right where you are,” Vic replied evenly, “or I’ll shoot you in the ass too.”

“Yes, sir.” Homer stayed on his knees. Vic fished his backup handcuffs out of his fanny pack for Grady, and sent Tony inside for the pair Lacey had taken off Emily. They would do for Homer.

The brawl seemed to be over, and the good guys had won. Vic was busy cuffing wrists and roping up the losers. Tony, Mac, and Ben were covered in mud and blood, trying to catch their breath.

But where’s Mitch? Still out there running toward the bluffs?Away from the ATVs? What is he thinking?
Lacey wondered.
He’s going to climb those bluffs? He’s out of his mind!

Just then, Stanford emerged from the sagebrush not twenty feet away, muddy and scratched and sweating like a pig, but still trotting pretty fast for a fat man. He’d circled around the cabin, heading for the ATVs, his only chance for a getaway. He looked at Lacey. She looked at him. He skidded in the mud and ran the other way. Lacey shouted for Vic and took off running after Stanford, rope in hand.

She wasn’t a cowgirl, and Mitch Stanford wasn’t a calf. Still, she had the lasso in her hand, she knew how to use it, and she was chasing a killer. It felt good to be taking action, any action, after waiting in the cabin for the shooting and fighting to stop. Stanford looked over his shoulder to see her closing in on him. He stumbled in the sagebrush, sprawled, and dropped his hat. He staggered to his feet, which gave her one precious extra moment.

Lacey stopped, lifted her arm, and swung the rope over her head, preparing to throw the lariat. She held her breath, opened her hand, and let the rope go, keeping
her arm and wrist straight, the way Tucker had taught her years ago. She willed it to land where it was supposed to land, around Stanford’s chest.

To her complete astonishment, the rope met its target, and took Stanford by surprise. He tried to shrug it off, but Lacey tightened the rope and pulled out the slack as he struggled to get out of the loop. She was unprepared for what happened next.

Stanford stood up and ran away, jerking the rope taut. It was the same reaction a startled calf would have had. Lacey held on tight even though she was skidding on her bottom, heels first, through the mud and snow and sagebrush, pulled along by the big man. Until Vic caught up with her. He grabbed the rope with her, his hands on her hands, planted his heels hard, and together they brought Stanford down.

“I had him, you know,” she said, huffing and puffing.

“Course you did, sweetheart. I’m just helping.” Stanford was rolling in the mud, clawing helplessly at the rope and cursing a blue streak, when Lacey heard a horse snuffle somewhere off to her right. She looked up and over the sagebrush.

“That was pretty good ropin’, Chantilly,” Tucker called out.

It wasn’t a wild pony. It was Ricochet and his rider. Cole Tucker dismounted rodeo-style, no hands, tipped his hat, and took the rope from Vic and Lacey. The fugitive cowboy reeled in a swearing Mitch Stanford and trussed up him professionally, like a stray cow on the Tuckered Out Ranch. Lacey stared open-mouthed.

“Nice timing, Tucker.” Vic caught his breath. “Riding in for the big finish
after
we dogged him down.”

“Heck, if you’d let him run a little farther I’d have roped him myself.” Tucker grinned wide. His voice softened, all the mocking gone. “Chantilly Lace, you’ll make a cowgirl yet. Where you been practicing?”

“Cole, where on God’s green earth have you been?” Lacey asked.

Tucker shrugged. “Here and there. Ricochet and I been nosing around. Didn’t know if you got my map.
Thought I’d give this place another look. When I heard the gunshots we came as fast as Rickie could run.”

“God damn!” Stanford cried. “You can’t leave me here, tied up like an animal.” He kicked and rolled and stamped and swore, but the rope held fast. He made it to his knees, but he couldn’t struggle to his feet.

“Sure we can.” Lacey was so angry she was practically spitting. “That’s what you did with those women, before you killed them. Isn’t it?”

“Ricochet will be happy to drag you back to Sagebrush on the end of a rope, Stanford,” Tucker said to the roped man on the ground. “Might not be much left of you though. Just enough to hang.”

“We don’t hang them anymore,” Lacey said.

“Technicality.”

“I appreciate the offer, Cole, but the CBI ought to be along here pretty soon,” Vic said. “Firestone or T-Rex will trade that rope for some cold metal handcuffs. For now, let’s just drag him back to the cabin.”

Tucker pushed his hat back off his face. “So this is the animal who killed Corazon and Ally, and poor little Rae?”

“He murdered them, but he had friends.” Lacey suddenly wondered what was going on back at the cabin. She turned to see Trujillo and Mac standing in the door, dusting themselves off. The Avery brothers and Grady were neatly tied up just outside the door. Mac was scraping mud off his new boots and hat.

Emily had pulled on one of her cowboy boots and she was leaning against the doorjamb, holding on to the other boot, the ankle chain trailing on the floor. Trujillo gave her his arm. Ben was making his way toward Lacey and Vic.

Tucker pulled tight on the rope, toppling Stanford into the mud on his face. The man on the ground screamed in pain and outrage. “You deserve more than I can give you,” Tucker said. “Corazon didn’t deserve to die.” He tightened the rope again. “None of them did.”

“You can’t do this to me,” Stanford managed to say between painful breaths. “You’ll take the rap for those girls! Not me! Not me!” Tucker pulled back his foot for a kick, aimed right at Stanford’s soft gut.

“That’s enough.” Vic stopped Tucker. He squatted next to Stanford and pushed the oil man’s face back into the mud. “You’re lucky to be alive, Stanford. If I’d had a clear shot, I’d have killed you and saved the state the trouble. I’d let Tucker here hang you on a fence like a dead coyote. Not a living soul would miss you.” Stanford shut up.

Tucker put his hand on Lacey’s shoulder. “You figured it out, Chantilly. Girl, you impress me.”

Vic stepped casually in between Tucker and Lacey. “I’m just glad she’s safe.”

“Emily is alive because of you, Tucker,” Lacey said.

“And because you wouldn’t give up, darlin’,” Vic said.

Lacey studied each man’s face. Cole, the sun-bronzed, windblown cowboy with the Western, aw-shucks-ma’am charm. Vic, the Western cop turned Eastern private eye, with those disarming green eyes and unruly dark curls, who moved back East to be near her, who had braved bullets for her.

Tucker taught her how to throw a rope; Vic showed her how to shoot a gun. She had such warm memories of Cole. But her heart skipped a beat for Vic. She reached for his hand, and he nuzzled her hair.

There may have been a momentary pang that showed in Tucker’s face, but he smiled and tipped his hat to her. “I’ll never forget you, Chantilly Lace. You ever change your mind, I’ll be here.”

Ben reached the group and put his hand out. “I take it you’re the famous Cole Younger Tucker, fugitive from justice.”

“I’m Cole Tucker,” Tucker said guardedly.

“Benjamin Barton here, criminal defense attorney with Barton, Barton and Barton, of Washington, D.C.” Ben was smiling, his eyes glassy with excitement. He looked a lot like his sister right at that moment.

“You’re a bit far from home, aren’t you, Mr. Barton?”

“Yes indeed, Mr. Tucker, and you’re going to need a good lawyer. Not for the murders—it’s clear those charges will be dropped—but there is that matter of escaping from a courthouse, evading arrest, obstructing
justice, embarrassing the sheriff and the judge, and so forth. And of course you took physical custody of Lacey and hauled her out of the Yampa County courthouse without her permission.”