Lone Star Lonely (23 page)

The pill. The pill was gone. Thoroughly
dissolved in her mouth now. Gooey slime lingered, coating her
tongue and the roof of her mouth. She wanted to spit, but if she
did, he would see. She couldn’t even bring a hand to her mouth,
because they were tied to the sides of the chair, and her ankles
were bound to the legs of it, as they had been since he’d brought
her here.

They were in Phillip’s apartment. The
spacious apartment above the large garage at the estate. The
detested mansion was right next door. But no one was there. No one
would know she was anywhere near this place. No one would have any
reason to think she might be, or to look for her here.

Phillip jammed another pill into her mouth,
shoved the water glass to her lips so hard its rim hit her teeth,
and tipped it up. She pressed her lips against the water that
flowed. Icy cold, it ran down her chin, soaked the front of her
blouse, chilled her tension-warmed skin. She shivered in reaction
to the cold and the fear.

Phillip pinched her nose, swearing at her.
“Open. Open, dammit!”

Kirsten twisted, writhed, and her lungs
pulled against her sealed airways, starving, screaming, until she
had to open her mouth for air. When she did, Phillip poured water
into her mouth instead. Water she inhaled and choked and gagged on.
Gasping, panting, coughing, she tried to speak, but the words were
hoarse and raspy.

“You nearly drowned me!”

“I’m going to do worse to you if you don’t
cooperate and do what you’re told.” He checked her mouth. The pill
was gone. She supposed she must have swallowed it, despite her best
efforts not to.

She leaned back in the chair, head tipped
back, eyes focused on the ceiling. “You’re really going to kill me,
aren’t you?”

He glanced at her briefly, and when their
eyes locked, she thought she saw something flash in his— some spark
of remorse—but it was so brief she couldn’t even be certain it was
real.

“I don’t have any choice,” he said, looking
away, sullen, eyes downcast.

“Will you…will you at least tell me why? I’ve
always been kind to you, haven’t I, Phillip? I never did anything
to hurt you….”

“That’s got nothing to do with it.” His back
was toward her now. He paced. She was shaking him up, just a bit,
with her questions. Good. She would keep going, then. Shake him up
as much as she could.

“I just don’t see why you think killing me
will make you a millionaire,” she said.

“You don’t see anything, do you, Kirsten?
You’re blind.”

She drew a breath, slow, deep. “I…I could,
though. If you let me live, I could make you as rich as you want. I
don’t want Joseph’s money. I hated the man, you know that. I could
give it all to you. All of it. I’d sign it over right now.”

He stopped pacing and turned to face her,
eyes narrow. “And you’d take me to court later, claiming I forced
you. No. Joseph cared for me. I was loyal to him. I took care of
him. And unlike you, you ungrateful, faithless bitch, I always did
what he wanted. And this, Kirsten Cowan, is exactly what he
wanted.”

Fear clutched her heart. The phone started
shrilling again, but he ignored it as he’d done every time it had
rung before. He reached for another capsule. Distract him, she
thought.

“You killed him. How can you claim to have
loved Joseph when you killed him?”

Phillip went still for a moment. His eyes
closed tight. “He was suffering so much. The pain meds…hell, they
weren’t strong enough. He didn’t care. He only wanted to live long
enough to have an heir, anyway, but you denied him that. Denied a
dying man’s last wish! Deceived him!” Phillip shook his head
slowly.

“Then…he knew?”

“About your secret little stash of birth
control pills? Yeah. He knew. That was when he planned all this,
Kirsten, right after he found out about those pills. That was the
one thing you did that he couldn’t forgive, and he decided then and
there to make you pay.”

Lifting her chin, she faced him. “I knew it,”
she whispered. “I knew he was somehow pulling the strings, making
all this happen to me.”

Phillip smiled a sick, twisted smile. “Oh,
yeah. He was too smart for you. He’s been playing you like a
fiddle, Kirsten, and you’ve been dancing in time. You thought you
could beat him. Even the cancer thought it could beat him. But he
won in the end. He cheated the cancer. Wouldn’t let it kill him.
No, not Joseph. He died on his own terms and arranged things so
that you’d pay for your betrayal, as well.”

“And so you’d be rewarded for your loyalty?
Is that how it is?”

Phillip nodded, leaned closer. “That’s how it
is. He arranged it so I would get everything. All I have to do is
make sure you’re out of the way first.”

He gripped her chin in one hand and stuffed
another pill into her mouth. This time he crammed his hand so far
into her throat that the capsule went partway down dry. Then he
clamped her chin hard, to force her mouth to stay closed, and he
held her nose. She had to swallow if she wanted to breathe again.
Her head began to swim. From lack of oxygen or the sleeping pills.
She wasn’t certain which. Maybe both.

She swallowed the pill to avoid choking or
suffocation.

He let go, and Kirsten sucked in huge gulps
of air, letting her head fall back against the wooden chair. The
ceiling was spinning now.

Phillip smiled. “Time to write the suicide
note, Kirsten.”

“I won’t,” she managed to croak. “You can’t
make me do this.”

He laughed a little. Opened a drawer. Pulled
out an odd-looking device and thumbed a button. A crackling sound,
a flash and sparks. “Stun gun,” he said. “Believe me, you’ll do
what I tell you.”

She eyed the thing in his hand. And she
wished to God Adam had kept his word not to turn his back on her
this time. But more than that. She wished she’d told him how much
she loved him. And how she had never stopped. Not in all this time.
She wished she could see him just once more before her husband’s
insane driver took her life. But wishes were pretty much useless to
her now.

The only chance she had left was to stall for
time and pray someone would come looking for her. Even the Texas
Rangers. Anyone.

Stalling for time, however, was going to cost
her. It was going to cost her dearly.

Phillip held the stun gun close to her skin
and let it crackle and spark. “You ready to write the note,
Kirsten?” he asked her, the thing poised and ready.

She lifted her head, called up her resolve,
met his eyes and said firmly, “No.”

Of all of Cowan’s employees, the only one
Chelsea Brand had been unable to contact was Phillip Carr, the
driver. A driver named Carr. She should have known right away
something was wrong with that. The address she had for him was the
same as the estate, so he must have an apartment out there.

“Sara?” she called.

Her young cousin by marriage popped into the
kitchen at once, holding little Bubba’s chubby hand in hers. A
schoolteacher, Sara was terrific with kids of any age. “Yeah,
Chelsea?”

“Would you stay with Bubba while I run an
errand?”

Sara nodded, but she looked a little worried.
Still, she knew better than to argue. “Sure” was all she said.

Chelsea nodded, grabbed her keys and headed
out. She was going out to that Cowan estate herself, and she wasn’t
coming back until she had some answers.

“Tell me what you know or I’ll damn well beat
it out of you!” Wes grabbed the bartender by the lapels and shook
him.

The man shook his head fast. “I thought you’d
turned peaceable, Wes! Didn’t I hear you were some kinda medicine
man or—”

“Yeah. One with a temper. Now talk!”

“Honey, maybe if we just asked nicely?”
Taylor suggested, easing the frightened man from Wes’s grip,
smoothing his shirt down, smiling up at him with huge dark eyes.
“It
is
asking a lot.”

“Dern right it is,” the bartender said.
“Cowan’s dead, Hawkins is dead, and now young Kirsten’s gone
missing. I could be next.”

“You’re damn straight you could,” Wes
growled. “Might be sooner than you think.”

The guy swallowed with a loud gulping sound.
“Okay, but you didn’t hear this from me. That driver of
Cowan’s…Carr’s his name…well, Nora—you know Nora? My best
waitress?”

“I know her.”

“Her boy Joey works over at the drugstore
part-time, and he told her that Carr came in the other day and
bought himself three bottles of sleepin’ pills. Now, I thought that
was kinda odd. Don’t you?”

“Where’s this Carr live?”

“Out at the Cowan estate, far as I know.”

Wes nodded once, turned to his wife. “Stay
here.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Right. You know darn well
I’m gonna do just that, hon.”

He scowled at her. She smiled at him. “That
legendary temper of yours doesn’t scare me one bit, Wes.”

His scowl died. “Never did. Stay beside me,
then, okay? There could be trouble.”

She nodded and stayed close beside him as
they headed out the door.

Jessi handed Lash the baby as she scanned the
mess inside her house. Her eyes wide and round, she cussed a blue
streak, then turned and walked right back outside again.
“Something’s happened here. And ten to one it all has to do with my
brother Adam and the woman he never should have let get away. Dang,
Lash, come out here and look at this!”

Lash followed, with little Maria Michele
snuggling happily in his arms. He looked down at the ground. Saw
grass. Dirt. A couple of stones. And knew darned well his wife saw
far more.

“Someone was dragged outta here kicking and
screaming. A woman.” Jessi thrust a forefinger toward the ground.
“Small feet.”

“Obviously,” Lash said, still seeing nothing.
He wondered if his gun was still in the house, or if the intruder
had stolen it, whoever he was. He didn’t even think to doubt his
wife’s words about what she saw in that ordinary-looking patch of
lawn and sidewalk.

He hurried inside, located his gun and badge
safe and sound in the closet, took them out and headed back
outside, baby still bouncing merrily on his hip, wearing her Mickey
Mouse ears proudly on her head.

By now Jessi was hunkered down, examining the
road. Lash trotted to catch up. When he reached her, she was
squatting over a set of tire tracks that he could at least see.

“He pulled, dragged or carried her this far.
The car was here.” Her fingers touched the marks on the road.
“Shoot, honey, he was driving a limo.”

“But nobody around here has a limo…except
Cowan, and he’s—” With a glance at his daughter, Lash censored
himself.

“We’d better get over there,” Jessi said.
“We’ll drop Maria Michele at Mrs. Plunkwell’s on the way.” She
glanced at the gun he carried. “Did you bring one for me?”

Great, Lash thought. It was going to be
another shoot-out, another one of those insane episodes that were
only supposed to happen in old movies and Louis L’Amour novels.
He’d married into the most trouble-prone bunch of Texans in the
entire Lone Star state.

“Never mind,” Jessi said. “I’ll go get it.”
She ruffled the baby’s hair and hurried back to the house for her
cannon—with which she was fully capable of shooting the eye out of
a mosquito at fifty yards.

Hell of a woman. Hell of a family. Lash
didn’t regret getting involved with either of them.

The baby cooed. Lash looked over to see Mrs.
Plunkwell standing on her lawn, watching him. He waved, she waved
back and he carried the baby over.