Death Rides Again (A Jocelyn Shore Mystery) (9 page)

“Jocelyn,” he said, voice low. “I…” He stopped.

I shifted my shoulders to try to look into his face, but it was impossible to see his expression in the dim light the moon provided. I waited, but he did not continue. The silence stretched between us like a rubber band waiting to snap, and I braced myself for something either overly romantic or heartbreakingly final. I wasn’t quite sure which I feared most.

At last he said, “I’m glad you invited me here.”

My sigh of relief wheezed out in a gasp, and I realized I’d been holding my breath. I’d been afraid he was going to try to talk about our relationship. I’d forgotten for a moment how unlikely that was, seeing that he was a man.

“Me, too,” I answered a little more heartily than necessary.

“Are you?” he asked.

Apparently I’d experienced premature exhalation. Again, I strained unsuccessfully to see his expression in the darkness, but he didn’t sound like he was teasing.

“Of course I am,” I said automatically. Then reaching for something a little more genuine, I added, “I thought it might be awkward, but with the exception of that last little scene with my idiot brothers, it’s been really fun. I’m glad you came.”

And with mild surprise, I realized this was true. Colin fit in with my large and strange extended family. Even in the short time we’d had before the rodeo, he’d spoken ranch with Uncle Kel, football with Scotty, leaped to his feet to assist Aunt Elaine with groceries, and gently teased the younger cousins. He’d even handled the intrusive questions of both my brothers and my insane uncle without blinking. In fact, he seemed more at ease with most of them than I was. And best of all, he did it while keeping one eye on me, the connection between us constant and almost palpable. If this had been a boyfriend test, which it wasn’t, he would have passed with flying colors.

I felt him relax at least a little. “I know it was Kyla’s idea,” he said.

“But it was a good one,” I reassured him. I searched around for a change of topic, but he was too quick for me.

Reaching for my hand, he said, “We’ve been seeing each other for a couple of months now.”

I sat up abruptly and pulled my hand away. Were we really going to have this conversation in the back of a moving truck? “One month,” I countered.

Thank goodness just then the truck made a bone-jarring thump across something large and a shower of leaves and twigs sprinkled onto our heads like rain. We were bounced apart, and when he tried to steady me, his chin collided with my forehead hard enough to make us both yelp. Then the truck was out of the forest and both of us were left rubbing our bruises and feeling unhappy.

“What are you two doing back there? Spotlight!” Will shouted impatiently from the cab.

We hauled ourselves to our feet, and Colin fumbled with the switch. The brilliant white beam cut through the darkness far ahead of the headlights and almost instantly reflected off something large.

Sam braked, bringing the truck to a hard stop, and I gave a yip of protest, deciding right then that I was going to drive on the way back. I raised my eyes to follow the beam of light.

About twenty yards ahead of us stood an animal that had no business on a Texas ranch. In fact, I wasn’t even sure what it was, although I could tell it was some type of antelope, and most likely the type of antelope that should have been grazing on an African savannah. Exceptionally tall and leggy, it had a gray-brown coat that was interrupted by a handful of narrow white streaks running vertically from spine to belly and long twisting horns that looked as though they belonged on some mythical beast in a medieval fairy tale. For one long moment, the creature stood frozen in the light, eyes reflecting like white stars, then whirled and leaped away. Colin kept the light trained on it. At the edge of the trees, it halted briefly, turning to gaze back at us with another flash of its eyes, then vanished into the undergrowth.

Switching off the engine, Sam got out, followed by Will and Christy.

“What the heck was that?” asked Will, still staring into the darkness where the antelope had disappeared.

“That,” said Christy, “was a kudu.”

She stretched, putting both arms above her head, and then moving them to her lower back. She was eight months pregnant, her belly round and hard as a large melon. My first niece or nephew to be.

We all turned to look at her.

“How do you know that?” asked Will.

She shrugged. “Everyone knows that. Haven’t you ever been to a zoo?”

“Yeah, but not to look at boring stuff like that,” he answered. “I’m strictly a lions, tigers, and bears sort of guy. You know, the manly animals.”

“I would have said you were more of a monkey man,” Sam said, but he wasn’t really paying attention to his brother. He stared off into the darkness.

“What are you looking at?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I thought I saw something move.” He reached into the cab and turned the key enough to start the electrical system. “Hey, Gallagher, shine that light over there, will you?”

The brilliant white beam sliced through the night air, panning first left then right, following a line of trees and at last dipping down into a depression. Two pairs of green eyes reflected back, weird and alien in the darkness.

“Coyotes,” said Sam, sounding pleased. “Big ones, too.”

I stood on tiptoes so I could get a better view. Sure enough, two large coyotes, looking very much like lean and somewhat flea-bitten dogs stared back at us, confused by the light. The ground under their feet was powdery and white, and I realized they were standing in an old caliche pit. The ranch was dotted with pits of this type, depressions made when ranchers, both past and present, dug up the soft caliche clay to repair their roads. When the clay played out, the pits were used as garbage dumps.

This particular pit was large, one side sloping gently downward like the shallow end of a swimming pool and ending at the deepest some twelve feet below the surface. The deep end was now filled with the refuse of fifty years of ranch life. Anything that couldn’t be repurposed or burned was dumped into the pit. Sometimes it was dumped into the pit and then burned. The moonlight illuminated rusting old barrels, rotten pieces of wood from a decrepit shed, tires, and even the shredded remains of a stained mattress, now probably the home for untold hordes of rats. Trash pits were a haven for rodents of all descriptions, which also made them a favorite hunting ground for snakes, who dug their tunnels in the soft soil. Fortunately, at this time of year, the snakes were hibernating.

Colin, however, was interested in neither the coyotes nor the contents of the caliche pit. He swung the light a few paces to the right and asked, “What do they have there?”

I looked again. The coyotes were standing near a dark lump. The beam moved over the shape, and I saw what looked like the bottom of a boot. A few inches more, and an unmistakable white shape materialized out of the shadows. A human hand.

Colin pushed the spotlight into my hands and vaulted over the side of the truck, a move I’d always envied. How did men do that?

“Flashlight!” he shouted, and Will dove for the glove compartment. The two of them set off at a run, shouting at the coyotes who bolted into the darkness.

I dropped the light, ignoring Colin’s immediate cry of protest, and clambered over the back of the truck, half falling in my haste. Sam hurried to join me.

“They need the light!” he said.

I grabbed the power cord and hauled the spotlight over the side and thrust it into his hands, then raced after them. Behind me, the beam sparked to life, throwing my own shadow into the scrubby grass before me, elongated and black.

“Stay back!” shouted Colin, throwing up a hand.

I skidded to a stop at the edge of the pit next to Will, looking down the incline to where Colin was inching forward, sweeping the flashlight over the ground at his own feet.

“Who is it?” I called. “Is he … she … Are they all right?”

Colin raised his head briefly, but didn’t answer. He reached the still form and squatted beside it.

Will swallowed. “I don’t think coyotes would come that close to a human if he was alive,” he said in a low tone.

My thoughts flashed with sudden horror to Ruby June, still missing.

“Colin, who is it?” I asked sharply.

Colin stood and began retracing his own steps, careful not to disturb the scene more than necessary.

“I don’t know,” he answered as he drew near. “It’s a man, though. Young, maybe early twenties. We need to call the police.”

I relaxed slightly and heard Will blow out his breath. He must have been thinking about Ruby June as well.

“Either of you have a phone?” asked Colin, holding a hand up to shade his eyes against the beam of the spotlight, which either Christy or Sam was now training directly on us.

We both shook out heads. “Left mine in my purse,” I said.

Will said, “Mine gets zero reception out here. I don’t even bother to take it out of my car.”

We started back to the truck. The spotlight was absolutely blinding. No wonder the animals always froze. You couldn’t see six inches in front of your own nose.

“Hey! Point that thing somewhere else,” Will shouted, and the beam abruptly jerked to the side.

“Your eyes are bright red,” came Sam’s voice. “Kinda creepy. So what’s going on down there.”

“Dead guy,” said Will, always succinct if not exactly sensitive. “Either of you got a cell phone?”

They hadn’t. Sam now pointed the spotlight at the ground, the light reflecting back up from the ground so we could see each other in an eerie campfire storytelling sort of way.

“What happened to him?” asked Christy in an anxious tone.

“You think it was a hunting accident? There’s a lot of guys with guns and beer out here this weekend,” asked Sam, his eyes on Colin.

“There’s no way to tell right now,” said Colin, shaking his head. “You four go back to the house and call the sheriff. When he arrives, one of you can show him the way.”

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

“I’ll wait here, keep an eye on things.”

Christy nodded and climbed into the truck without protest, looking sick and shaken. Sam joined her and started the engine.

“I’ll wait with you,” I said to Colin.

Will glanced around uneasily. “I’m not sure sticking around is a good idea. Why don’t you both come back? You don’t know who or what else might be out here. Besides, it’s not like that guy’s going to get any deader.”

“I need to secure the scene,” said Colin. “But you should go back with them, Jocelyn.”

I felt a flicker of alarm. “You don’t really think it’s dangerous, do you?”

“No, not at all,” he said, tone bright and reassuring like that of a doctor telling a toddler the shot wasn’t going to hurt a bit. “The only thing that might come back are those coyotes, and they aren’t any danger to a man.”

“Then I’m staying, too.”

He frowned at me. “I’d feel better if you left.”

“I’d feel better if we hadn’t found a dead guy,” I said, then turned to Will. “Hurry back. Tell Sheriff Bob it’s an emergency.”

He took me at my word and moved quickly to the passenger door, hopping in as Sam shifted into first gear with a grinding noise. Like a barge on choppy water, the red truck turned a huge slow circle and then bumped off into the forest. As the headlights vanished, the night closed in around us, moon and stars brighter, shadows behind every blade of grass darker. The breeze played over my skin like a breath from a graveyard. I sneezed and then, with a glance toward the pit, gave a little shiver.

“You’re so stubborn,” said Colin. “There wasn’t any reason we both had to stay.”

“I couldn’t leave you alone,” I protested. “Don’t killers sometimes return to the scene of the crime? What if whoever did this comes back?”

He snorted. “That’s ridiculous. He’s already dumped the body—there’s no other reason to come here. And anyway, if he does, what are you going to do about it?”

“Probably wet my pants and hide behind you. Or,” I added brightly, “you could use me as a human shield.”

He started laughing. “As long as you know you have only yourself to blame. It’s cold and it’ll be close to two hours before anyone can get here.”

“Sheriff Bob will take two hours, but someone will be back in forty minutes tops, probably with snacks and beer.”

“What? You’re not serious.”

“You met my family, right? At least half of them are basically rabid hillbillies hopped up on
Judge Judy
and reruns of
CSI
. You’d need riot gear to keep them away from their very own crime scene.”

“Maybe Will and Sam will have the sense to keep it quiet.”

I laughed at that. Scornfully.

He sighed, shining the flashlight around us. “We might as well sit down while we wait,” he said, leading the way to a couple of low rocks.

I stamped my feet against the cold, my breath a puff of smoke in the frosty air, and decided to remain standing. It was too cold for snakes to be moving about, but I still didn’t care for the look of the crevasses and deep grass.

“This is a crime scene, right? No chance it’s just an accident?” Even I could hear the forlorn note in my voice.

“The guy was shot in the chest at close range and dumped here.”

“Are you sure? Maybe it was a hunting accident. Bullets travel pretty far you know,” I said, realizing how stupid it sounded even as I spoke.

“Some bullets do, but this one stopped pretty damn quick.” He saw me wince, and added, “Yeah. Well, I suppose it’s possible that the gun went off by mistake, and then the shooter panicked instead of calling the police.”

“Now you’re just patronizing me.”

“Look, we won’t know anything for sure until we can check things out. And we probably won’t be able to do that properly until daylight. Try not to think about it.” He reached for my hand. “I wish you’d gone back,” he said for the third time.

“You know, if you’re not careful, you’re going to make me think you wish I’d gone back.” I could feel his eyes roll even if I couldn’t see them clearly, and added, “Besides, you do this kind of thing all the time.”