Lone Star Lonely (22 page)

“Hey, don’t look so disappointed. You pack a
mean punch. Just not quite as mean as my jawbone.” Garrett rubbed
the spot. “Besides, it left a respectable bruise.” Then he stopped
kidding and looked around the room. “What happened here?”

“Elliot didn’t tell you on the phone when he
called to tell you to get over here?”

Elliot appeared from another room. He and
Adam had been searching the house for clues, but so far, they’d
found nothing. “Hell, no, I didn’t tell him on the phone,” he said.
“I didn’t know who might be with him. God knows half the El Paso
rangers were over at Hawkins’ place with him earlier. I sure didn’t
want them all showing up here.”

“Well, I’m here, and I’m alone, so you can
tell me now. What the hell happened?”

“Someone broke in and took Kirsten,” Elliot
announced. “And we’re afraid it’s the same guy who murdered Joseph
Cowan.”

“Garrett, we have to find her,” Adam said,
and he could hear the desperation in his own voice, but he didn’t
care. “The son of a bitch took a shot at the border patrol last
night and damn near started a war. She could have been killed,
Garrett, and I think that’s exactly what this guy wants. He wants
her dead.” Adam paced away, pushing a hand through his hair. “I
know we didn’t part on the best of terms, but I need your help.
Kirsten needs your help. And it wasn’t her fault, what I

did—”

“Can it, Adam. You’re my brother. You know
I’ll do whatever I can.”

“I’m running outside the law here, Garrett,”
Adam said, a warning tone to his voice.

“The hell with the law. This is blood.”

Adam met Garrett’s eyes, saw the bond they
shared reflected there, and nodded once.

Garrett turned to Elliot. “Did you find
anything here?”

“Nothing.”

Shaking his head, Garrett looked around. “You
say you think this clown wants her dead. But if that’s the case,
Adam, why didn’t he just kill her right here? Why drag her off
someplace else?”

Adam blew air through clenched teeth. “I
don’t know. Hell, maybe he wants to make it look like an accident
or a sui—” There he stopped, his head coming up slowly. “Or a
suicide.”

“Just like Madden Hawkins, maybe,” Elliot
interjected. When both men swung their stunned gazes his way, he
went on. “Hell, boys, I don’t know about you, but it sure seems
strange to me that old boy got a hankering to hang himself right in
the middle of all of this.”

“But he left a note,” Adam said, recalling
Elliot’s earlier reporting of the event. “You said he left a note.”
Elliot nodded, looking at Garrett.

Garrett nodded. “Yeah, there was a note, all
right. A very brief note. ‘A gentleman knows not to linger too long
at the dance’ was all it said. It was in his handwriting. But
sloppy as hell. Like he was good and drunk when he wrote it…or
something.”

“I’d bet on the ‘or something,’” Elliot
muttered. “Hawkins didn’t drink.”

“When will we get some autopsy results to
tell us for sure?” Adam asked.

“Not as soon as we need ‘em. But I might be
able to get a blood alcohol on him by now. The pathologist is an
old friend. He’s had Hawkins for over an hour now, and I asked him
to run a few tests of his own, so we won’t have to wait for the
results on the samples sent to the state crime lab. Won’t be
admissible in court, but at least we’ll know.” Garrett headed for
Jessi’s telephone, then seemed to think better of it and went
outside instead. Adam and Elliot followed.

Sliding into the front seat of his pickup,
leaving the door open, Garrett yanked up his mobile phone and
tapped in a number. A second later he was speaking. “Sheriff Brand
here. Get me Doc Leighy.” There was a pause, then, “John, it’s
Garrett. Got anything for me?” He nodded at the phone, waited a
moment, then lifted his brows. “Just what is that, John? Sleeping
pills?” Pause. “Um-hmm. I see. Okay.” Another pause. “My brother?”
And his eyes met Adam’s. “Nope, no sign of him. He takes off like
this when he gets upset, sometimes. Tell your friend the ranger I
said he’ll turn up soon enough. And that no, I have no reason to
suspect he’s anywhere near Kirsten Armstrong. They hate each
other’s guts, you know.”

Garrett replaced the receiver, sent Adam a
level, serious look.

“Thanks,” Adam said.

“
De nada
. They didn’t find alcohol in
Hawkins’ blood, but they did find large amounts of a tranquilizer
commonly used in over-the-counter sleeping pills.”

Adam blinked. “Sleeping pills? Does that make
Hawkins’ death a murder, as well?”

Garrett shook his head. “Not necessarily.
Pretty common for a suicide to take piles of sleeping pills and
either vomit them up or decide they aren’t working fast enough and
then move on to another method. The rangers are working on that
assumption.”

“You agree with them?”

“No.”

“Neither do I,” Elliot said softly. He looked
at Garrett. “Did you find Joe Cowan’s will in any of Madden
Hawkins’ files?”

Garrett shook his head. “No. We turned the
place upside down, but there was no sign of it.”

“I didn’t think there would be,” Elliot said.
“And isn’t it odd how reluctant Hawkins seemed to be to turn it
over? First he tells the rangers he doesn’t remember what was in
it, then he says he’ll pull the file and send it over, then he
stalls and delays, and finally he kills himself, and the will is
still nowhere to be found.”

“You think the killer took it?” Adam
asked.

“Either that, or Hawkins hid it himself. The
question is, why would he do that?”

Adam racked his brain, but found no answer
there. He glanced at Garrett. “What do you think?”

“Well, I don’t think Hawkins’ death was a
suicide, boys. And if that proves to be the case, then it makes
sense to assume that anything missing from his home was taken by
whoever killed him.”

Adam nodded toward Jessi’s trashed house. “I
noticed you didn’t tell the rangers about the break-in and Kirsten
being abducted.”

“No, I didn’t,” Garrett said. “I suppose
there’s a chance they could help us track Kirsten down, but they’d
haul her off to jail the second they found her. I’m thinking we can
do just as well on our own. Maybe better. As soon as you took off
with Kirsten, Adam, I realized that this…this was a family
thing.”

“Family,” Adam repeated, not sure he
understood what his brother was getting at.

“You love her, don’t you?”

Adam lowered his head quickly, avoiding
Garrett’s eyes, but doubting that it did much good.

“He loves her,” Elliot said.

“He’d damn well better love her,” Garrett
went on. “I’d hate to think he cold-cocked his favorite brother for
anything less.”

Adam sighed, shaking his head. He didn’t know
what he felt for Kirsten right now. He just knew he wanted her
back, alive, safe…so he could find out.

“So in my book,” Garrett went on, “that makes
her family.” Garrett slapped Adam’s shoulder. “So the family’s
involved now.”

Adam blinked, looking from Elliot to Garrett
and back again. The two exchanged knowing looks. “What do you mean,
the family’s involved?”

Garrett shrugged. “You know how it goes with
this crew. So damned close knit that when one Brand gets kicked,
another one yips. And it’s sheer hell to keep a secret in this
family.”

Elliot nodded. “Jessi and Lash will be
arriving any time now. They cut their trip short the second Chelsea
called to tell them what was going on. The minute they get here,
we’ll have Jessi take a look around. Well, once she gets done
screaming about the mess in her house, that is. If there’s a sign
which way that son of a bitch took Kirsten and by what means, you
know Jessi will spot it.”

Garrett picked up there. “Wes is already
canvassing town, and if anybody knows a thing, you know they’re
gonna tell him. Wes scares people. If that isn’t enough to make ‘em
talk, then Taylor will charm the information out of them.”

“Ben and Penny are over at Madden Hawkins’
place,” Elliot said. That earned him a glare from Garrett, but he
only shrugged sheepishly. “I know, it’s a crime scene. But we
couldn’t wait. Not when Penny and I already came to the conclusion
that the lawyer’s death has to be involved in all this somehow. And
Cowan’s missing will seemed fishy to her, too, right from the
start. So Penny and Ben are searching Hawkins’ house, office and
even his car for any files he has on Cowan.”

“Waste of time,” Garrett said. “I told you,
Elliot, the rangers and I went through that place with a fine-tooth
comb. For God’s sake, they only cleared out of there within the
last half hour.”

“Yeah, well, Nancy Drew they ain’t,” Elliot
drawled.

“Neither is Penny,” Garrett retorted.

“Don’t let her hear you say that,” Elliot
said, grinning.

Garrett rolled his eyes. “Great. I wonder
who’s gonna be sheriff when I get run out of town on a rail?’’ But
then he lifted his head and continued. “Out at the ranch, Chelsea’s
got a list of Cowan’s household employees, and she’s tracking them
down by phone. Said she couldn’t sit still and do nothing. Sara’s
out there helping her. She came up from El Paso as soon as she
heard what was going on. Marcus and Casey stayed there. They’re
working through that computer network Marcus’s old friend Graham
uses. Checking out business contacts of Cowan’s and so on.”

“Hell. Sounds like we’ve got every Brand in
Texas working on this thing,” Adam said slowly. He was touched. Not
surprised, but moved beyond words. No wonder he’d been so miserable
in New York. He’d been away from this damned bunch of meddling
pains in the backside. Too far away. And he’d missed them.

“You got that right,” Elliot interjected.
“And if that isn’t enough, we can always call in the Oklahoma
branch of the family. Though I hesitate to get that rowdy bunch
involved in anything this volatile.” He sent Adam a wink.

Adam wished he could feel as upbeat as Elliot
sounded. But he didn’t. He was scared, damned scared. “None of
that’s gonna do a bit of good if this guy—whoever he is—has already
killed her,” he said slowly. He paced away from the pickup, stared
off down the road. “I never should have stormed out on her the way
I did. I just…. When she told me what she’d done, I just…”

Garrett looked at him. “I guess I’m missing
something here.”

Adam and Elliot exchanged glances. Elliot put
a hand on Garrett’s arm. “It’s not the time for that now, Garrett.
But we do have to talk. All of us, the whole clan. But later. After
Kirsten is safe and sound.”

Garrett eyed him, then Adam.

“No,” Adam said. “If he’s going to be risking
his badge to help her, he has to know about this first. It’s only
right, Elliot.”

“Know about what?” Garrett demanded.

“Fine,” Elliot said. “But we’re wasting time
standing here. Let’s head over to the Cowan mansion and go from
there. We’ll tell you on the way, Garrett.”

“No one is ever going to believe I killed
myself,” Kirsten said slowly. She watched Phillip’s eyes. And what
she saw there shook her. Madness. Sickness. There was something
just not right about those eyes. And she had a feeling that
reasoning with the man wasn’t going to work. He was beyond reason.
But she had to try. “This isn’t going to work.”

“Of course they’ll believe it. Now, come on,
swallow the tablet like a good girl.” He pressed the barrel of the
gun harder against her temple, thumbed the hammer back. The sound
of it was like a jolt to her nervous system. God, if his finger
slipped, if he even moved wrong….

“Okay, okay, just move that damned thing away
from my head.”

The barrel stayed put. Thick, salty
fingertips pushed a capsule between her lips, and she felt the urge
to rinse her mouth out with soap. Then a glass was put in their
place, and she sipped the water, but didn’t swallow the pill. She
moved it underneath her tongue. It began to dissolve there, its
bitter taste coating her mouth, but she managed not to grimace, and
she forced herself not to swallow it.

The glass moved away fast. “Now open up, and
let me see.”

Obediently, Kirsten opened her mouth. He
leaned close, looking inside, then thrust his big fingers in, to
check under her tongue. She bit him. It was the only thing she
could think of to do.

Phillip leapt backward, yelping in pain.
“Damn you!” he cried.

“Damn you!’” she said. “You’re the one going
around killing people, not me.”

“I’m going to be a millionaire,” he said.
“And you’re just going to be a dead woman. Hell, I’d rather be the
killer than the victim any day.” He smiled slowly. “And I’d far
rather be the millionaire than the lowly driver and devoted
sidekick. Wouldn’t you?”

“Well, you aren’t going to be either one,
Phillip. The only thing you’re going to be is a prisoner of the
state of Texas.”