Stripped Bare (20 page)

Her hands wound around each other. In a stilted voice, she said, “Sausage, egg, and cheese Texas toast breakfast sandwich?”

I nearly threw up at the mention of it. “Come on, Nat. Talk to me.”

Her fingers trembled as she stabbed at the order kiosk. “And a country-fried chicken and gravy breakfast platter.”

A crew of teens pushed through the doors, heading for the counter. I leaned across to Nat. “Look, I barely survived a car wreck just now and I think someone doesn't want me to look into Eldon's murder. I don't know if it has anything to do with Carly or not, but if you know something, you need to tell me.”

Her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh. Oh, no.”

I grabbed her arm. “What is it? I won't tell Rope you talked to me.”

She gasped and leaped back, whipping her head from side to side to see if anyone was watching us. She took a split second to steady herself, then stepped up to the order line. “Eleven dollars and twenty-three cents,” she said.

I pulled out my credit card and handed it to her for food I didn't want. “Please. Talk to me.”

Her hand stopped midswipe, then she had to put the card through again. “I was afraid he'd do something to stop you.”

“Who?”

She handed the card back. “Glenn.” Her words were so low I had to read her lips.

“Baxter? Why would he want to hurt me?”

She zeroed in on my face and bit her thin upper lip. “He thinks you'll tell Carly not to sell the ranch.”

A whole herd of questions popped into my head. “You talked to Glenn Baxter?”

Nat's hands kept working. “He came out to the ranch yesterday. He asked a bunch of questions about Carly. Rope told him how close you are.”

The object of the girls' attention poked his head around me. He addressed Nat politely. “Sorry. But we're gonna be late for school. Can I get six breakfast burritos?”

Nat acted flustered to be confronted by the teenager. It must be terrible to be so timid.

I waited while she totaled up his order and took his money. He stepped over to the pickup counter and I crowded as close to Nat as possible.

Her perpetual look of worry cranked up about ten degrees. “He wanted us to talk to Carly and convince her to sell to him. He seems desperate to own that land.”

“Hey, Nat.” A bone of a woman with few teeth and bad skin leaned against the back counter. Proof the meth trade was alive and well in rural Nebraska. “Order up.”

Like a sparrow, Nat flew to the warming bins and extracted boxes and wrapped food. She filled two bags and scurried to the pickup area. I met her there.

The burrito kid took his bag.

“Do you think Baxter and Eldon really had a deal?”

She shoved food in a bag and thrust it at me. I picked it up, the warmth of the container uncomfortable on my palm. I followed her back to the order line.

Her eyes flitted to the rancher waiting to give his order. She stopped before she reached the computer, and leaned toward me. In a voice like a horsefly close to the ear, she said, “I think Eldon backed out of the deal and now he's dead.”

She hurried to take the rancher's order.

I bumped in front of him. He was too polite to do anything but give me space. Whether it was interfering or not, I'd better do the responsible-parent thing. “Do you know where Danny is?”

Her hands trembled and she stared at the cash register. “Yes.”

She was lying to protect him. “I saw him in Hodgekiss early this morning,” I said.

Watery eyes turned up to mine and she squeaked, “Was he alone?”

Interesting question for her to ask. “Seemed like it.” I leaned closer to her. “I hate to tell you this, but he looked drunk or high.”

She gave her head a violent wag. “No. He's not doing that stuff anymore.”

There was no sense in arguing. “He was pretty miserable and wouldn't let me take him home.”

Nat avoided eye contact, and she bobbed her head several times. “Okay. Yes. Fine. Yes. I'll collect him after my shift.”

I hated what I was about to say, but the kid needed help. “Maybe I can have Carly give him a call.”

For the first time, I caught a glimpse of what Aunt Twyla had talked about. The tiniest bit of animosity flickered deep in Nat's eyes before she lowered them again. “No. Don't do that.” She waved me away. “I gotta get to work.”

“Can we talk later?”

“I got nothing more to say.” She leaned to her right to look around me at the rancher. “Can I take your order?”

I hesitated a moment, but I shouldn't harass her anymore in the middle of Hardee's, so I left. On the way out I off-loaded my order to a bottomless pit of a teenage boy, who acted as though he'd won the lottery.

Next stop, Ted. Why did he confess and what did he remember? Plus, there was the issue of leashing Roxy.

Buds brushed the old elms and cottonwoods with a pale green. Cheerful daffodils poked through the flower beds that highlighted the center median along Main Street. Here, in the big city of Broken Butte, they employed a full-time maintenance person who plowed snow in the winter and tended to the medians in the summer. Many of the people who lived in Broken Butte took the time to water and mow their grass, and more than half even planted flowers and had some landscaping. On a bright April morning such as this, the town looked welcoming and spiffy, as if it wore a new Easter bonnet.

I pulled into the hospital parking lot and slid from the pickup. My boots on the concrete reminded me how much I'd rather be shuffling through the ranch's sand than chasing murderers. A shiver ran over me and I clenched my fists. Did someone really tamper with Elvis? Did they mean to hurt me?

The hospital office staffers were settling in, chatting with one another, getting cups of coffee. I recognized a few and nodded hello as I strode past. On the wing outside Ted's room, the orderly loaded breakfast trays onto a cart. Even if I weren't put off by food, it would have smelled as appetizing as wet silage. I almost felt sorry for Ted.

I made my way to Ted's room, pausing outside to listen. Al Roker blasted good cheer about the unseasonable spring weather in New York City. I poked my head in and surveyed the room, looking for the enemy.

Propped on pillows, Ted's fresh-shaved face appeared tense as he frowned at the sign-waving crowds outside 30 Rockefeller Center. The pajamas I'd picked out for him lay on the bedside table.

“No Dahlia?” I eased my way inside.

Ted turned his face to me and grimaced. “I asked her to go after she shaved me this morning. She was pretty upset.”

Maybe I'm touchy, but I thought letting his mother shave him, when it was his legs that couldn't move, not his arms, was kind of weird. Big difference between me and Ted: it'd take a broken tie rod and threats to my niece's well-being to make me ask for help, and even then I hated doing it. Ted seemed to enjoy having other people do for him, especially if he could do it himself.

He reached for a button on the handle of the bed and a mechanical groan played while the head raised him to a sitting position. He pointed the remote control toward the overhead television and silenced Savannah Guthrie midsentence.

“God, it's good to see you,” Ted said.

I hated that it felt good to see him, too.

He narrowed his eyes. “Are you okay? You look pale.”

Possible pregnancy, mixed with a car wreck that might have been intentional, could drain a little color from my face. “Has Doc Kennedy been in?”

His hands clenched the blanket. “Yeah. He didn't say much. I still can't move my toes.”

Weird how I could almost forget that he had destroyed the foundations of my life. “It's early yet. Doc said it could take a while for the swelling to go down. And your nerves could take months to rejuvenate.”

I didn't want to recall all the things I loved about Ted. But there they were, running past me like the feed on the bottom of the CNN screen. He gave me back rubs more often than I gave them to him. He not only tolerated the tidal wave of Foxes, he seemed to love them. He made me laugh. He could focus on me and make me feel like the only person in the world. He loved me.

But I wasn't his one and only.

He worked his jaws back and forth. If he'd had ice in his pitcher, he'd be crunching away. “You're going to leave me.”

Was I? My hand snaked to my belly before I realized it, and I pulled it away. “We need to talk about what happened that night.”

His eyes glistened. “You should find another man, someone better than me.”

I felt like crunching on something myself. “Did you shoot Eldon?”

He didn't look at me. “Yes.”

Why was my heart thudding, my lungs feeling crushed? “I don't believe you.”

Like water turning to ice, Ted seemed to harden in front of my eyes. “I did it. It was self-defense. I burst into the office and startled him and he shot me. I reacted. It's a tragic mistake I'll have to live with the rest of my life.”

“Oh, come on. That sounds like you're an actor in the junior-class play.”

That accusation didn't sit well with him. “I heard you announced to the whole county that we're going to find Eldon's killer. Well, now you know I did it, so you can stop searching.”

“Maybe Milo can't see through this, but you're full of malarkey.”

Anger settled into lines around his eyes. “You're always so sure of yourself, aren't you? Well, we aren't all perfect. Sometimes I make mistakes.”

Did he consider his affair with Roxy a mistake? Or our marriage? “Confessing to a crime you didn't commit is a pretty big blunder.” I shrugged. “I don't care if you want to go to jail. Maybe Roxy's alibi isn't as tight as Milo thinks and you're taking the fall for her.”

His jaw twitched, but whatever he thought to say he kept to himself.

“What I do care about is Carly,” I said.

There was no faking the alarm that flashed in his eyes. “Have you talked to her?”

I quashed that tenderness I felt when he showed kindness toward my family. “Roxy has the power to sell the Bar J to Glenn Baxter. You can't let her do it.”

Fatigued dragged at his face. “I can't do anything about Roxy. You told me I'm not even allowed talk to her.”

“This is serious.” I didn't need his childish reaction.

He closed his eyes for a moment. “Okay. I'll make you a deal. If you promise not to investigate Eldon's murder, I promise to do what I can to stop Roxy.”

I saw no reason to tell him I'd do what I darn well pleased about the investigation. “Deal.”

We remained silent for a few moments. Finally, Ted said, “I'm sorry about cheating. You didn't deserve that.”

My hands fisted. Pressure pushed behind my eyes. “No, Ted. I surely did not.”

He fought back tears. “I wish I could take it back.”

“Take what back?” I waited to see what he regretted.

He blinked the moisture from his eyes. “I wish you didn't hurt so much.”

Wrong answer. He wasn't sorry he'd been with Roxy; he was sorry he got caught. “Yeah. Roxy's sorry, too.”

He frowned at me. “She's not a monster. She's had some tough breaks in her life.”

“Tough, sure,” I muttered. “Big new house, leather seats and climate control in her spanking new Expedition.”

“You've never liked Roxy. But she's not that different from you.”

By the grace of God I kept from choking him. “We're nothing alike.”

He raised his eyebrows and shrugged as if to say he knew better.

The law might frown on assault and battery of a hospital patient. I didn't want to spend time in jail on account of Ted. “See ya,” I said.

“Wait.” He grabbed my arm.

I stared at his hand and sent a deadly warning with my eyes when I shifted them to his.

He released me. “I want you to know I love you. I've always loved you and I always will.”

“That sounds about as true as your murder confession.”

I left him looking like a barn after a tornado had ripped through it. I think Aunt Tutti said hi to me on my way out, but with the steam spewing from my head I couldn't be sure. I hit the front doors and shot out of the hospital into the parking lot.

Like me, April had her dander up. The wind nearly tore my hair out by its roots as I walked back to the pickup. I bowed my head, keeping my eyes on the pavement until I closed my hand on the latch, jerked the door open, hurled myself inside, and slammed it shut before the wind could wrench it from my hands.

“Hi.”

“Aah!” I threw myself against the door as if a giant, hairy skunk had spoken from the passenger seat. That might have been preferable to what actually faced me.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked Roxy.

 

17

“It's too windy to wait outside,” Roxy said.

“I ought to start locking the doors.” No one in Grand County ever locked a car or house door. In fact, our house didn't even have locks.

She lowered the visor and grimaced in the mirror. She probably didn't want to face me with lipstick on her teeth. “Where are we going?”

“I'm heading back to Hodgekiss. I'm pretty sure you're going straight to hell.” Her perfume wound around my head like a boa constrictor. If I knew about such things, I'd probably be able to tell what designer fragrance she wore. To me, it smelled like slut.

She slapped the visor up and turned to me. “Did Ted tell you why he confessed?”

What evil magic made her look so fresh? “I'll have to get your hangover remedy. You don't even have a headache, do you?”

She reached into a silver lamé bag that could have held the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and their little brothers. Out came a pair of sunglasses with so many rhinestones on the frame I risked being blinded. “I don't remember everything I said to you last night. I was understandably upset. My lover had been shot and I don't know if he'll ever walk again.”