Lone Star Lonely (3 page)

“Get her out of here, Adam. I’ll field the
rangers’ questions,” Garrett said.

Adam nodded, kept his arm where it was and
guided her out of the room.

His hand on her was gentle but firm.
Supportive. As if he thought she might need his strength to keep
her upright and mobile.

She didn’t.

She took a step away to let him know that,
and instantly felt weakness set in. Her pace slowed. Her knees
quivered. His hand returned, but to her arm this time. A less
intimate embrace, but every bit as strong and supportive.

“Hold on,” he whispered.

He guided her to the stairs and up them. He
didn’t let go again. She didn’t ask him to. She didn’t want him to.
And she hated her own lack of strength and resolve.

“Where’s your bedroom?”

She licked paper-dry lips, but the effect was
minimal. “This way.” Like a bullfrog’s croak, her voice. She turned
down the hallway, but paused to look at the stains her feet were
making in the carpet. Glancing backward down the stairs, she saw
that she’d left a trail of them, each one a little darker, all the
way to the bottom.

“It’ll clean,” Adam said.

“I don’t care. I really don’t. In fact, I
hope it’s ruined. I hope they have to tear it up. Hell, I hope they
burn this place to the ground.”

He looked at her, eyes soft and blue and
puzzled. “That’s an odd thing to say.”

“Is it?”

He searched her face. “What the hell happened
here this morning, Kirsten?”

She shrugged. “The king is dead,” she
whispered, not even sure why. But slowly, slowly, a weight seemed
to be lifting from her shoulders. The yoke of slavery. Of bondage.
Of imprisonment. That was what her two years with Joseph Cowan had
been. Was she free of him now? Was it even possible?

“Long live the fucking queen,” she muttered
and turned toward her room. And she mashed her bloody footprints
into the carpet as she walked.

She didn’t say another word, but then again,
maybe she didn’t need to. She’d said too much already, and Adam
found himself absurdly glad he was the only one who’d heard the
sarcasm in her voice. She hardly seemed to fit the role of the
grieving widow just now. And what the hell was he supposed to make
of that? She walked with purpose along the palatial corridor with
the thick carpet that had, by now, wiped her feet clean. Finally
she paused just outside the huge hardwood bedroom door. An ornate
bench sat against the wall alongside it. Cherry, he thought.
Probably an antique. Straight backed, thin cushioned and claw
footed, it looked about as comfortable for sitting as a
half-starved, swaybacked nag, but he guessed that was what she
wanted him to do. She caught his eye, nodded at the bench, then
ducked her hoity-toity ass right through the bedroom door without
missing a beat. And she closed it behind her. Not hard, but not
gently. Just firmly enough to send the message.

Stay out.

Sure. Okay, he could handle that.

Adam sat. He could hear the distant, muffled
voices of the men downstairs, and the vehicles coming and going
outside. The place was going to be a circus for the rest of the
day. Forensics teams would be in and out. He’d thought Cowan’s
death was pretty obviously a suicide…until Kirsten said she’d fired
at a masked intruder.

Adam’s throat went dry. For a second down
there he thought he’d seen the old Kirsten peering out from behind
her ice-coated eyes. The real Kirsten. The girl she used to be back
when she’d loved him more than she’d loved an old man’s money.

Or maybe that Kirsten hadn’t been real after
all. Maybe this was the real Kirsten, complete with ice water
running in her veins and a face so glasslike and emotionless it
would crack if she smiled.

The bench was every bit as inhospitable as it
looked. When his back started aching in protest, he got up and
paced, even studied the framed print of a fairy trying to enchant
some poor fool of a knight. “Big mistake, pal,” Adam warned, but
from the stunned expression on the knight’s face, it looked as if
it was already too late. “Big mistake.” There was no sound from
beyond the bedroom door. And the longer Kirsten took, the more
antsy Adam got. A half hour ticked by. He was halfway to thinking
maybe she’d climbed out a window and headed for the border. It had
gone quiet downstairs. Sounded as if the rangers had packed up and
gone, for the moment. But their forensics crews would be back soon
enough. Still, if she had slipped out, maybe no one would have
seen….

But that was stupid. She wouldn’t run. She
had no reason to. Not unless….

The photo clicked into place in his head,
that scene he’d walked in on a short while ago appearing in
freeze-frame in his mind. Kirsten standing over her husband’s dead
body, blood on her clothes, a gun clutched in her hand. In her eyes
a killing frost, and maybe…just maybe… a hint of relief.

But she couldn’t have done it.

Wrong
, a little voice inside him
muttered. The old Kirsten couldn’t have done it. Kirsten Armstrong.
The girl with the barely suppressed wild side and the zest for
living that got her into trouble more often than not. The girl
who’d loved him.

That wasn’t who she was anymore.

Adam hadn’t seen her often in the years since
she’d run off with old man Cowan. Not often. But often enough to
know she was a different woman now. And the change was so thorough,
it was as if the old Kirsten had been put to rest—dead and
buried.

Now she dressed like a woman out to impress,
and she wore her clothes like armor. Cold, carefully chosen
conservative designer suits in harsh primary colors. And everything
matching, all the time. The skirts matched the jackets, the shoes
matched the bag. She was too put together now. As if maybe she was
hiding something. Hair, always perfect. Makeup, always complete.
Nails, always polished to a glossy shine.

She never smiled anymore.

This Kirsten was not the woman he’d known.
Maybe this Kirsten was entirely capable of murder. No way to tell
for sure.

Adam got more uneasy as those thoughts
assailed him. He heaved a sigh, expelling the last of his patience
along with his breath, marched to the door and rapped three
times.

No answer.

He tried the knob.

It turned, and he stepped hesitantly
inside.

His first thought was that this was more like
an apartment than a bedroom. It was a freaking suite. Complete with
all the amenities.

Kirsten sat at a dressing table with a tube
of lipstick in one hand. She met his gaze in the mirror. “Are they
gone yet?”

Her hair was dry and as sleek as if she’d
just stepped out of a salon. Her eyes were lined and shadowed, and
every trace of shock or trauma her face might reveal was buried
under makeup. She wore white. Spotless, sterile white. Leg-hugging
skintight pants with little slits at the ankles, and strappy white
sandals on her feet. White sleeveless blouse, tucked in. Nice and
neat. White bolero jacket on the back of her chair, ready to don.
White opals in her ears, pearls at her throat. Even the damned
wristband on her damned diamond-studded Bulova watch was white.

Adam tore his gaze away from her and took a
quick glance around the room, saw the open door to the adjoining
bathroom, the wet footprints, the damp towels, the steamed-up
mirrors. “You showered?” he asked her in disbelief. “Kirsten, they
told you—”

“I don’t give a damn what they told me.” Her
words were measured, level. She capped the lipstick tube, set it
down with a precise click. It tipped over. She reached to right it
and knocked it off the stand. Then she went still and clasped her
hands around each other to hide the fact that they were so unsteady
she could barely hold them still. Her face was a mask, both
literally and figuratively. But her tension showed in those pale,
shaking hands.

“I had Joseph’s blood all over me, Adam. They
couldn’t expect me to just leave it.” She returned her gaze to her
own reflection, met her own eyes and looked away so fast it made
Adam wonder why. “So are they gone?”

“Yeah,” Adam said, staring at her back and
wondering what the hell had happened to the Kirsten he’d known.
“For now. They’ll be back.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

He stepped farther into the room. There were
a lot of things unsaid between the two of them. He supposed it
ought to seem strange to be here and not say them. Not ask her
why…and yet it was for the best. It didn’t matter why. He was over
her. And this was neither the time nor the place for questions
about their past. For quite a while he’d been going along as if it
had never happened, and he thought he’d pretty well got the hang of
it by now. A little game of make-believe. Making believe he’d never
felt a thing for her. Forgetting every night he’d spent with her
body wrapped around him. Pretending none of it had ever
happened.

He met her eyes in the mirror. For just an
instant he thought he saw those same memories flash and vanish. As
if she was pretending, too.

“Do you have any idea who did this,
Kirsten?”

She turned around to face him this time. “Why
don’t you say what you mean, Adam? You’re asking if I did it,
aren’t you?”

“No, he’s not.”

Kirsten looked up fast. Adam turned to see
his brother in the doorway. Garrett stepped inside, noted the
evidence of her recent shower, thinned his lips, but didn’t
comment. “But those rangers are gonna be asking, and soon. They’ll
find your prints on the weapon. And if you fired it, powder burn
traces on your hands. Traces that are going to show up whether you
showered or not.”

“They don’t need to check for that,” she told
Garrett. “I freely admit I fired the gun. Once. At the killer. What
was I supposed to do, let him murder me, too?”

“You say once. They’ll say twice. Once at a
make-believe intruder, to validate your alibi, and once at your
husband. Now, maybe if they find another set of prints on that
gun—a set that doesn’t belong to you—then they’ll believe your
story.”

Kirsten bit her lip, averting her eyes
abruptly. Adam found his gaze focused on her hands again. Her
expressionless face told him nothing. It was all in the hands. They
clenched into fists in her lap, perfectly painted nails digging
into her palms.

“I think the killer was wearing gloves,
Garrett.”

“Great,” Adam said, rolling his eyes and
expelling all the air in his lungs at once. “That’s just
great.”

“You say that as if it’s my fault. I didn’t
dress the man, Adam.”

Adam looked at her. God, she sounded so cold.
So unmoved. Didn’t she even care that the guy she’d been married to
for two years had just been zipped into a body bag?

“All they’ll be lacking is motive, Kirsten,”
Garrett said slowly. “I think you probably ought to contact a
lawyer.”

She closed her eyes, opened them again. “I
didn’t kill him.” She folded her hands together as if to hold them
still.

“Hell, Kirsten, I know that.” Garrett sounded
sincere, and that surprised Adam. How could his brother be so sure
of her when even he had his doubts? “You’d still best get yourself
a lawyer,” Garrett went on. “Once they confirm that Joseph left
everything to you in his will, it’s gonna be—”

Kirsten exhaled in a burst, a sarcastic kind
of sound. “He’d rather burn in hell than see me with his precious
money. Trust me, I won’t be named in my husband’s will.”

Garrett frowned and sent Adam a questioning
look.

Adam shrugged and tried not to let his shock
show on his face. He didn’t like the way her declaration had made
his stomach clench up tight. The way his brain had whispered what
his foolish heart hadn’t wanted to believe two years ago. That
Kirsten would never marry for money. That if she married old Joseph
Cowan it had to be because she loved him.

Maybe that love had gone bad, but if the cash
hadn’t been her motive, then what else was there?

And why the hell did it feel as if she’d just
stabbed him in the back all over again, only with a blade made of
ice this time, instead of the red-hot steel she’d skewered him with
before?

“Why wouldn’t your husband name you as his
heir?” Garrett was asking. “You were his wife. He had no
children.”

“Not for lack of trying,” she said, a slight
curl marring the perfection of her tinted upper lip. A brief lapse.
Then she wore the glass face again. The one that told Adam nothing.
He glanced down. Her fingers were claws now, nails gripping her
thighs like talons gripping meat. She was holding on as if for dear
life.

Tough to care when her words hit Adam like a
two-by-four in the softest part of his belly. One more blow to the
midsection and he would be reeling.

She’s been married to the man for over two
years. Did I really think they never had sex? That the old geezer
never laid his cold, arthritic hands on her?

Kirsten pressed her lips tight, as if to keep
herself from saying any more. Her gaze slid to Adam’s; then she
turned away.

“It doesn’t matter why. I won’t inherit a
thing, and therefore….” her head came up slowly. “Therefore…I had
no motive. They aren’t going to arrest me without a motive, are
they, Garrett?”

Garrett didn’t answer. “You ready to go to El
Paso now? They want you to make a statement, maybe answer a few
questions.”

She looked scared for just a second. A slight
widening in those eyes that had, until now, been like sheets of
brown ice. Her hands unfolded, trembled visibly against the
leggings, their skin nearly as pale as the white they lay upon. But
a second later she pressed her palms together and stilled her
features. “I suppose now is as good a time as any.”