Death Rides Again (A Jocelyn Shore Mystery) (8 page)

He dropped Eddy like a used tissue. “This is none of your business,” he repeated.

I stared coldly at Carl, reminded strongly of the black malevolent stares of the Brahman bulls Kyla and I had seen earlier in the day. “For better or worse, Eddy’s a Shore now, which makes it my business. And I’m telling you to leave him alone.”

Hopefully Eddy wouldn’t be a Shore for long, I thought to myself, but as long as he was married to Ruby June we could hardly let someone like Carl Cress beat the snot out of him.

The three of us stared at one another for a long moment. Above us, the stands had grown relatively quiet, the rodeo obviously between events, patrons moving about more than usual to stock up on beer and peanuts and fried things on sticks. Eddy met my eyes with a look I would be unable to forget, an odd pathetic gaze, half grateful, half pleading. Then he darted off, leaving me alone with a very large and very angry Carl Cress.

I lifted the beer cans I still clutched in a death grip and announced, “I’ll be getting back to my friends.”

I walked forward, moving within a couple of feet of the belly with its gleaming buckle and feeling Carl’s angry eyes on the back of my neck as I passed. I suppressed a shiver and managed to keep a sedate and hopefully nonchalant pace until I rounded the corner. Then, I allowed myself to bolt back to the stands where Colin waited. I’d never been so glad to see anyone, I thought, taking in his broad shoulders and lean hard muscles. Even Carl Cress would hesitate before taking on Colin. I slid very close to him on the bench, feeling much safer.

Colin took the beer I handed him with a word of thanks and a questioning look.

“Long line?” he asked, popping the top.

Beer spewed like a geyser at Yellowstone, catching him in the chin and frothing over his hand in an icy golden flow. With a yelp, he leaped to his feet trying to stop it from drenching his clothes.

I jumped up, too, clapping a hand over my mouth. It hadn’t occurred to me that breaking up a fight while holding a can of beer was likely to shake it up a bit. My mind worked quickly and decided there was no way for him to know it was my fault. After all, the vendor might have handed it to me like that. I went for a look of appalled innocence, although I wasn’t entirely successful at preventing my shoulders from shaking.

Colin just stared at me and then shook his head. “I know you’re laughing, and I know this is somehow your fault, so you might as well tell,” he said.

It was hell dating a detective.

“You know, the smell of beer is really sexy,” I said in my best sultry voice.

“And trust me, I’ll be reminding you that you said that a little later on. Now, what did you do?” He was trying to look stern but not pulling it off very well. His lips kept wanting to twitch into a grin.

“I’ll tell you later,” I said, snuggling up to his dry side. Actually, on him the smell of beer-soaked denim wasn’t at all bad, I thought. I held out my can. “Would you open my beer for me?” I asked.

The low rumble in his throat would have made a Doberman proud. In the ring below, another bull exploded from the pen and hurled its rider through the air in one graceful arc. The rodeo clowns ran to distract it before it could complete its mission of stomping the prone figure to death, and the cowboy leaped to safety with an impressive burst of speed. The portion of the crowd that was actually watching erupted into wild cheers, and Colin put his damp arm around my shoulders. Without thinking, I lifted my face for a kiss and instantly forgot about Eddy and Carl. And Alan.

*   *   *

We returned alone to the ranch house after the last bull riding event, having seen no sign of Kyla. My phone, which showed a single flickering signal bar, contained a text message from her saying she had gone dancing. I did not need to ask with whom, although I wondered what effect it would have on Uncle Kel’s blood pressure if and when he found out.

As we walked in the door, shouts of “About time!” and “It’s Stinkalyn!” greeted us, a dead giveaway that my brothers had arrived while we were gone.

Two years younger than I and apparently incapable of maturing beyond the age of fourteen, Sam and Will were fraternal twins, their only identical feature being the ability to yank my chain. Sam, the older by about six minutes, had the Shore looks through and through—tall, rangy, and dark haired. Will, on the other hand, most unfairly took after our petite French mother, from his short compact frame to his auburn hair, cropped close to hide the curls. If there was any justice in the world, those looks should have been mine. Both brothers had grown up to be surprisingly successful, something I would never have predicted for them when we were kids. In fact, back then I would have said that their reaching adulthood was something of a long shot. However, Sam was now an architect living in San Jose, married to his high school sweetheart who was expecting their first child, and earning recognition and awards in his field. Will was some sort of international investment banker who spent part of his time traveling back and forth to Europe and the other part raking up the enormous piles of cash his employers heaved at him.

Now, Sam gave me a hug while Will slapped me lightly on the back of my head. With a sigh, I introduced them to Colin, watching with some concern while they did the manly handshaking thing, everybody squeezing just a little too hard. I also took note of the narrowed glances they gave Colin, looking him over with suspicion. Neither of my brothers had liked my ex-husband, and being right about that made them insufferable. I hadn’t told them that I had started dating again, and no one except Aunt Elaine had known in advance that I was bringing Colin to the reunion. Now Will sniffed a little too audibly to make sure I knew he could smell beer on my boyfriend, while Sam began asking the kind of questions usually uttered by overprotective Victorian fathers or particularly zealous members of the paparazzi. I glared at them from behind Colin’s shoulder.

Some of my relatives gathered to watch, Aunt Gladys joining us with a bowl of popcorn and holding it out so the idle bystanders could grab a handful. And why not? As entertainment, it didn’t get much better than this. Hardened criminals wanted for heinous acts of violence hardly got this type of grilling. What did Colin do for a living? Where did he grow up? Where did he go to school? Colin, however, just smiled pleasantly and answered in a light amused tone.

Uncle Kel stiffened. “Detective? I didn’t hear that earlier. Maybe you can answer this, then. Why aren’t the cops interested in helping me find my daughter?”

Colin blinked. “I was under the impression that she’s only been gone a few hours, sir, and that she’s an adult.”

“What difference does that make? You think giving a kidnapper a head start is a good idea?”

We all looked at Kel with some concern. Color was already rising in his face, a deep anger obvious just below the barely controlled words. What in the world was going on with him?

Colin chose to address the issue with logic. “Do you have any reason to think that she’s been kidnapped?”

“Goddamn it, I know she has! That son of a bitch she’s married to has taken her somewhere.”

“But Kel,” I protested. “I saw Eddy at the rodeo. Ruby June wasn’t with him.”

He whipped around on me, eyes wild. “Where? Where was he? Why the hell didn’t you call me?”

At the sound of her husband’s rising voice, Aunt Elaine materialized from somewhere in the back of the house. She laid a hand on his arm. “Honey, the rodeo is over, Eddy’s not there anymore, and Ruby June is going to walk back in here tomorrow for Thanksgiving supper and wonder what you were fussing about. Now, come on. You said you’d play Hearts with Scotty and Gladys and me. Let’s go and let the kids have a chance to catch up with each other.”

We watched as she herded him into the kitchen, followed closely and somewhat reluctantly by Gladys and Scotty.

Scotty was already protesting. “Hearts? I can’t even remember how to play that. What about poker?”

“Hearts,” answered Gladys firmly.

The rest of us stood silent, processing what had just happened. My mind raced. Why in the world was Kel so worried about Ruby June, and what else was going on to make him so volatile? This was not the steady, reasonable, and almost placid man that I remembered from my teenage summers on this ranch. Maybe Colin was right to be concerned about his mental state.

After a moment, Will turned to Colin and asked, “So you’re a cop, huh? You ever shoot anyone?”

“Not yet,” answered Colin with a pointed look at him.

This produced a burst of appreciative laughter, and I gave a sigh of relief. The mysterious man-grilling was over, and Colin had passed.

Sam grinned. “It’s still early. Who wants to go varmint hunting?”

*   *   *

Twenty minutes later, the red ranch truck bounced over uneven roads, outraged shock absorbers squeaking in protest, wheels throwing a plume of white dust into the darkness behind us. Overhead, the stars were brilliant crystals in the vast black pool of the sky, and the moon, almost full, cast its silvery light over the rolling fields, so bright that the single live oak in the center of a field cast a perfect shadow onto the surrounding grass. The white caliche turned the road into a pale ribbon undulating through mysterious turns and twists, appearing on hillcrest, then vanishing over a ridge. The breeze in our faces was cold and smelled of dry grass, cattle, and cedar. Standing in the bed of the truck, I clung to the metal bars of the rear window guard, alternately laughing and pounding on the roof of the cab for the driver, my brother Sam, to slow down. Beside me, Colin gripped the guard with one hand, but gamely held a spotlight high with the other, sweeping the brilliant light back and forth in front of the truck. From inside the truck, Sam, his wife Christy, and my other brother Will shouted conflicting suggestions about where to shine the beam.

Colin swept the light along the left side of the truck, and the eyes of some animal flashed like two bright white sparks.

“There!” Colin shouted, and held the beam steady.

I pounded on the roof again, and my brother turned into the field, bumping through the long grass and over invisible bumps and ridges with bone-jarring speed. As we drew closer, the white sparks blinked off briefly, then appeared again.

“Oh, man!” came a disappointed shout from the cab. “It’s just a goat.”

And sure enough, we pulled up beside a brown and white mottled goat, blinking sleepily at us from a nest in the long grass. She could have been the twin of the pushy beast who’d invaded our pickup truck earlier, but this one just eyed us suspiciously without bothering to get up.

“Wonder what she’s doing out here by herself,” I said. “I thought they stuck together.”

Colin grinned and swung the beam of the light into the stand of trees just behind her. Instantly, the spaces between the dark branches were filled with dozens of matching white sparks. Most were near the ground, but a couple peered out from the low sprawling branches of a mesquite tree. I wished Kyla had been there to see, because I knew she hadn’t believed me about goats in trees.

“Where to now?” asked Sam over the thrumming of the engine.

“Let’s go through the Evil,” I shouted back.

“The what?” asked Colin, turning to me as my brother swung the truck wide of the goats and bumped back toward the road.

“The Forest Primeval,” I explained. “It’s about a hundred acres on the south side of the ranch that Kel leaves untouched for the deer. I don’t know who started calling it the Forest Primeval, but when we were kids, all we heard was the ‘evil’ part. It made it seem very mysterious and creepy.”

“And is it?”

“Well, there used to be an old house that’s pretty much a ruin now. You can still see part of the chimney and a bit of the foundation. And there’s an old concrete root cellar that’s full of broken bottles and junk. It’s a snake’s paradise.” I thought about this, then added, “Yeah, it’s pretty creepy.”

“So are we looking for anything special out here?” he asked, still diligently sweeping the spotlight beam from side to side.

“Coyotes,” I answered. “Well, that’s the pretext anyway. Kel’s had a couple of goats turn up without their kids, and a few of the neighbors say they’ve seen a couple of big males.”

“And if we see one?”

“Then we shall shine the light of vengeance upon it,” I answered in my best wrath-of-God announcer voice.

“What?”

I dropped back to my normal tone. “Seriously. We don’t do anything. In the unlikely event that we come across one, we’ll shine the spotlight in its eyes and maybe shout some insults.”

“Then what’s the deal with the rifle?” Here he tapped the back windshield with one finger where a gun hung on a rack.

“Oh, Kel always makes us take that, but none of us is going to shoot anything. We just like looking for nocturnal critters. Our dad used to take us out at least one night every time we visited the ranch when we were kids—it made a big change from Paris, that’s for sure, and we absolutely loved it. You can see some cool animals out here at night that you can’t see any other time—owls, armadillos, ringtails, possums—well, you know that. You grew up out this way. Anyway, coyote spotting is just tonight’s excuse.”

The truck bumped into a serious pothole, and I staggered. Colin moved closer, briefly releasing his grip on the guard to steady me. Another bump made him rethink that plan, but it was nice to be standing shoulder to shoulder. Two gates and a cattle guard later, we came to a narrow lane leading through the heart of the Evil. Sam did not bother to slow down. A branch scraped along the side of the truck like a long fingernail against a chalkboard.

“You two better sit down!” Will shouted, somewhat unnecessarily, because we had both dropped into the bed of the truck at the first shriek of branch against paint.

Colin snapped the light off, and I let him pull me against him, unashamedly deciding that using him as a cushion outweighed my concerns about too much physical intimacy. He didn’t seem to mind. He wrapped his arms around me and rested his cheek against my hair. Under the essence of eau de beer, he smelled of soap and shaving cream, warm skin, and maybe just a little bit of dusty feed sack. It was intoxicating. The darkness wrapped around us like a protective blanket, trying to push away thoughts of a problematic future, or in fact any thoughts at all. Overhead, branches moved like shadows against a black sky, stars flickering on and off in between. His lips brushed against my forehead, sending a shiver southward in a very nice way. I was not sure I would ever understand the intense attraction between us, but then I probably didn’t need to.