The High Country Rancher (11 page)

“Arrested her, for killing her husband?” She glanced at Baylor, who stood frozen in the kitchen.

He set down the plate he was holding and moved toward her.

“No. We’re holding her on a felony vehicular manslaughter charge for now, if it doesn’t get reduced.”

Confusion laced through her brain. “Vehicular manslaughter? Who?”

“Amy McCullough.”

Mariah’s breath caught in her throat and nothing would come out for a moment as she tried to link the facts. “How?”

“Get your tail to the station, you can watch the interview…bring Baylor along. He needs to hear this, too.”

The line went dead in her hand and she replaced the receiver, feeling like she’d been hit by a bus.

“What the hell?” He put his hands on her shoulders.

Mariah looked up into his face. “Rachel Endicott
has been charged with vehicular manslaughter in Amy’s death.”

A look of surprise widened his eyes for a moment. “How?”

“I don’t know, but my dad wants us both to listen to the interview ASAP.”

“I’ll get dressed.” Baylor headed for the bedroom and she followed along behind him, trying to put it all together. Dammit, she’d never even seen this coming.

B
AYLOR COULD SWEAR
there wasn’t a liter of air in the viewing room as Chief Ellis put the VHS tape into the recorder. The ride into town had been hell on his nerves and worse on his memories of that night.

Near as he could tell, he’d been the one behind the wheel. He’d been the husband who couldn’t swim.

He’d let her slip away and hadn’t been able to go after her, but nowhere in the scenario did Rachel Endicott fit, not physically, and not mentally.

Ellis pushed the start button and snagged the remote. “Came as a hell of a surprise to me.” He pulled up a chair next to Mariah and leaned back.

“State your name and date of birth for the record.”

“Rachel Jean Endicott. February twenty-second, nineteen seventy-two.”

“I’m going to assume you’re here with your law
yer to tell us about the disappearance and murder of your husband, James Charles Endicott?”

She glanced at her lawyer then back at the camera. “No.”

Rachel Endicott cleared her throat, and took a drink of water from a glass sitting on the table. “No. I want to talk about the night Amy McCullough died.”

Dread seeped from deep inside of Baylor’s body, his muscles pulled tight, and he strained to hear the next words coming out of Rachel’s mouth.

“I tampered with her car in the parking lot of the Steak House that night.” Rachel’s voice quivered with emotion. “I didn’t know her car would go off into the river…I didn’t know I’d kill her. She was messing with my husband. I only wanted to scare the hell out of her. I wanted her to stop tearing my family apart.” A choked sob shook her body and a hand appeared at the edge of the screen holding a tissue.

Rachel took it, dabbed at her eyes and took another drink from her glass.

“You’re aware that you’ve admitted to a vehicular manslaughter charge?”

“Yes, sir. I am.”

“Can you tell me specifically what you did to Amy McCullough’s car and how you believe that caused her death?”

“I come from a family of auto mechanics. It’s amazing what you can do with an eleven-dollar ball
joint and tie rod separator fork. I broke the press fit on the bolt, pulled the carter key and screwed the nut back on with a couple of threads. It vibrated loose…and that’s when the McCulloughs went into the river.”

Baylor felt like he’d been kicked in the gut. He stood up. He’d felt the damn thing snap when he’d yanked on the steering wheel to avoid hitting the deer. Anger and relief intertwined in his body.

“I was driving, Chief Ellis. I was driving that night and I felt it pop. I can testify to the fact.”

“I didn’t find that in the statement you gave.” The chief hit Pause on the video recorder remote and came to his feet, followed by Mariah, who stepped between the two men.

“He told me the truth, and I believe him. It doesn’t make any difference who was behind the wheel that night. Amy is still dead, and now we know Rachel Endicott caused the accident. Don’t we?” Mariah stared at her father and saw sympathy soften his features.

He didn’t say another word, just hit the play button. The machine clunked and continued.

“So you knew about the affair between your husband, James, and Amy McCullough?”

“Yes.”

“How did you find out about that affair, Mrs. Endicott?”

Rachel dropped her head forward and rubbed her
eyes, then straightened and pulled in an audible breath. “I found some pictures in my husband’s briefcase one morning.”

“And what was the subject matter in the pictures?”

“Him and her, screwing around.” Rachel cleared her throat and took another drink from her water glass. “The bastard couldn’t deny it. I asked him to stop seeing her, but he said he wanted a divorce.” She made a loud sniffing noise and mopped at her nose.

“What did you do with the pictures, Mrs. Endicott?”

“He took them away from me, and put them back in his briefcase. I didn’t see them again until after he disappeared. They were in the bottom drawer of his dresser, but you’ve got the same ones.”

“What do you mean?”

“I saw them when Detective Ellis put them out in front of me at the interview.”

“Do you know who took them?”

“No.”

Her lawyer, Deiter Pruett, laid his briefcase on the table and opened it, pulling out an envelope. “You’ll find the photos in here, Chief. We’ll turn them over if you promise to lessen the charge.”

“Now, Deiter, you know I can’t promise anything without the prosecutor’s consent.”

“Give them to him. I feel bad enough about what happened to Amy. Just give him the damn pictures. Now!” Rachel’s face contorted and she rubbed at her eyes.

Deiter promptly handed the envelope over to the chief. “Will you be charging my client?”

“Yes. But I have one more question. Do you know where your husband was going on April fifth, Mrs. Endicott?”

Rachel looked down at the floor, “No, sir. I don’t have a clue.”

Mariah felt her blood pressure shoot up. “She’s lying. Look at her body language. That’s the only question she answered with her head down. She couldn’t look at you, Dad, because she’s being deceptive.”

Ted Ellis paused the tape. “I’m with you. Maybe she had him killed and framed Baylor so she could get off the hook.”

Mariah considered her father’s suspicion, but couldn’t quite buy into it. They were still missing something, something huge.

A knock sounded at the door of the viewing room and the door was pushed open. A uniformed officer poked his head inside.

“Chief, I thought you might like to know that Judge Moorehouse reduced the charge to a misdemeanor and cut Rachel Endicott loose half an hour ago on bond. She’s picking her things up right now in booking.”

“Dammit! Get an unmarked car on her pronto. Don’t let her out of your sight.”

“You’ve got it.” The door closed with a bang
behind the officer and Mariah felt the tension in the room explode.

“I want in on this. We want in on this.” She nodded toward Baylor.

“In case you’ve forgotten, honey, you’re on leave. Go home.” He turned to face Baylor. “Take her home, son. I’ve got a notion that’s where her heart has been anyway.”

Chief Ellis left the room with a slam of the door.

“He’s right, Mariah. This could get ugly. Rachel Endicott is a desperate woman. Let the police handle it.”

Baylor was right, her father was right, but she couldn’t shake that tiny niggling in the back of her mind.

They’d missed something, or someone.

“Play it back again.” Mariah sat in the dispatcher’s office, clinging to her notion that there was someone else involved in Endicott’s murder.

“911, what is your emergency?”

“Fire. Bellwether Ranch.” The first garbled 911 call ended.

“911, what is your emergency?”

“The barn’s on fire at the Bellwether Ranch. Hurry.” The line went dead.

Baylor cocked his head, his eyes narrowing. “Can you play the first call again?” he asked.

The technician respooled the tape and hit the play button for the eighth time.

“Fire. Bellwether Ranch.”

“Do you recognize the caller?”

“I can’t be sure but it sounds like my neighbor, Harley Neville, after he has had a few drinks at the Long Branch. The second caller is my ranch hand, Travis.”

“Is there any way to clean up the first call?” Mariah asked.

“I can clear out some of the background noise, amplify the voice, but I can’t do anything about the quality.” The technician sat back in his chair.

Mariah glanced at Baylor. “We can go and talk to him. See if he reported the fire, too.”

“It’s worth a try, but so what if Harley called it in. He drives past the ranch every day in order to reach his place. There’s nothing suspicious about it. He saw the flames and phoned it in.”

“Thanks.” She nodded to the technician and they left the dispatch center. Baylor had a point, Neville did drive by the ranch every day.

“Maybe it was a murder for hire,” she suggested.

He pushed open the door for her and they stepped out into the afternoon sunshine. “Could have been, but there’s too much drama. Why not just have him shot and buried?”

“And then there are the pictures. The mates to the ones we received. Which means our set most likely came from whoever was blackmailing Endicott.”

Baylor stopped her beside the car and touched her cheek. “Stop, Mariah. Stop second-guessing everything. Your dad will figure it out.”

“I hope so.” But she couldn’t silence the nagging dread that leaked from her bones and tainted her thoughts. Two people were dead, Endicott and Ray Buckner, three if she counted Amy whose involvement
wasn’t clear, and maybe never would be. Then there were the ongoing attempts on her and Baylor’s lives.

“Let’s swing by the vet’s, see if we can pick up Bess.”

“Sure.” Mariah tossed the keys to him and climbed in the passenger’s-side door feeling dissatisfied.

B
AYLOR GLANCED OVER
his right shoulder at Bess, who lay on a towel in the backseat of Mariah’s car. It felt good to be taking her home.

“I’ve got something for you.” He cast a sideways glance at Mariah, who stared out the open car window, watching the scenery flit past as the breeze moved her hair.

She looked over at him. “A surprise? I like a good surprise, as long as it’s not rattlesnakes, gas explosions or a slick road.”

He refocused ahead, feeling his heart beat faster and his palms begin to sweat.

They rounded the curve before the ranch entrance and Baylor braked, then came to a stop next to Harley Neville’s pickup.

“What the…” He put the car in Park and climbed out.

Harley met him halfway. “Damn lucky you didn’t take the plunge. I thought I’d help you out by getting your rig back on the road.”

“Thanks.” Baylor stared at his pickup and the
heavy chain Harley had secured to the rear axle. The truck was now parked on the edge of the road, feet away from where they’d left it teetering last night.

“I tried to start it to move it up to your place, but the battery’s dead.”

“I had to leave the lights on.” He could have shut them off, but they’d been the only constant light source, and pitch-black would have terrified Mariah even more.

“I can tow it up your driveway.”

Baylor reached out and shook Harley’s hand. “No, thanks. I’ll bring the tractor down later and tow it to the house so I can put a charge on the battery.”

“Sounds good.” Harley moved away to unhook the chain from the axle.

“I owe you one.” Baylor snagged the keys out of the ignition, shoved them into his pants pocket and climbed back inside the car. He put it in Drive and eased past on the right side.

In the backseat, Bess’s ears perked up and she sat up, her nose sniffing the breeze blowing through the open window next to her.

A low growl rumbled in her throat and raised the hair on the back of Baylor’s neck.

Had she caught the scent of a predator? There were plenty to contend with. Cougars, bears and wolves.

He pulled into the head of the driveway and
braked hard as a mother bear and her cub trekked across the road in front of them.

“Look at that,” Mariah said from beside him. “I’d like to capture them on canvas.”

“There’s nothing stopping you now.”

She smiled at him. “I lost everything in the explosion. I’m going to have to make a trip to the art supply store after I find a place to live.”

“Yeah.” He squeezed the steering wheel a little harder and curbed a grin.

Why was he so tense? Mariah wondered while she watched him maneuver the car up the road and ease into the parking spot in front of the garage.

“Stay put.” He climbed out of the car, opened the rear door and let Bess out before coming around to the passenger’s side to open her door. She couldn’t take another second of it.

“Okay, what’s going on?”

He took her hand and helped her out of the car. “Just come with me.”

Excitement latched on to her insides as she followed him around the side of the house and into the backyard where a large table was positioned and covered with a sheet. Next to it was a standing easel, which was also covered.

“I know how much this passion means to you, Mariah. And I want you to explore it. I picked up a few things after your house went up.” Baylor pulled the sheet off the table, uncovering a selection of
artist’s supplies that would make Vincent van Gogh jealous. It was everything she’d lost, and more.

Mariah’s throat tightened and she stepped into Baylor’s arms, breathing him in, feeling happiness overtake her.

“Thank you.”

“There’s more.”

She pulled back and stared up into his eyes. The twinkle of anticipation she saw there made her smile.

“This is great. I don’t need anything else.”

“I do.” He sobered and she felt her heart jump in her chest as he led her over to the standing easel and pulled the sheet off, exposing a large blank canvas.

She looked at it, her gaze locking on the bottom right-hand corner. Her throat tightened and she mentally traced each letter. There, written in oil paint was the artist’s signature, Mariah McCullough.

“Stay, Mariah. Let me love you.” Baylor’s words soaked into her stunned mind and took hold. He wanted her to marry him, he wanted her to be his wife? “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes.”

He pulled her against him and she reveled in the feel of him. Breathed in his outdoorsy scent. Listened to his heart beat in his chest as he held her like he’d never let her go. She was home, she realized when he scooped her up in his arms and headed for the front of the house.

“A ceremonious carry over the threshold?” She relaxed in his arms, and breathed him in.

The clatter of thundering horse hooves drew her attention to the driveway.

Riderless, Jericho galloped up the drive and bucked to a stop in a cloud of dust and gravel.

Baylor sobered and set Mariah down.

He bolted to the winded horse, who stood heaving, his nostrils flaring.

Baylor’s gut knotted with tension as he circled the horse Travis had ridden off on this morning.

His gaze locked on the darkened leather of the saddle. Reaching out, he brushed his finger against it and pulled it back.

Blood.

He heard Mariah’s gasp, and turned toward her, but she was already running down the driveway.

He took off after her, spotting what she ran toward.

Travis lay in the middle of the driveway, not moving.

Dread leaked from Baylor’s bones as he sprinted and stopped beside Mariah, who sat on the ground next to Travis, trying to get him to talk to her.

He’d been severely injured. His face was almost unrecognizable. Several huge gashes covered his head. He wasn’t responding to her questions, and he was bleeding profusely.

“I’m going to call an ambulance.”

Mariah nodded, and went back to work trying to revive him.

Baylor raced for the phone and help.

T
HE ROTOR BLADES WHINED
and stirred up dust as the medical helicopter lifted off the driveway and took off for the hospital with Travis on board.

Baylor held Mariah next to him, watching and praying the kid made it. He tensed with caution. Without Travis to tell them what had happened to him, they had no way of knowing if it was an accident, or if someone had caused his injuries.

He released Mariah and headed for Jericho. The horse flinched as he approached, going wide-eyed and nervous.

“Easy,” he coaxed, moving in slow, before stroking the horse’s neck.

“Is he okay?” Mariah asked, standing next to him as he checked the horse over with his hands.

“Yeah. But he’s still shaking. He’s a seasoned horse. Whatever happened to Travis up there couldn’t have been good.”

Mariah worked her way around Jericho, looking for anything that might hint at what happened, but besides the blood on the right side of the saddle, there was nothing.

“Do you suppose he came in contact with a booby trap?”

She saw Baylor swallow, his eyes narrowing as he
worked out the scenario in his head. “Could be. Dammit, I should have ridden out and seen if there were more.”

She brushed his arm. “So you could be a victim, too?”

Pain flashed in his eyes. “Who would do this? He’s just a kid, like Ray Buckner was just a kid. Did your CSI ever come up with anything in his case?”

“It was ruled an accident, but I think he was pushed in just like I was.”

He had to agree, as he unsaddled Jericho and brushed him down before turning him out into the pasture.

The Bellwether Ranch had become a dangerous place to be, a fact that stirred anger in his blood and made him more determined to find the SOB responsible, before anyone else got hurt.