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When she finally stopped shaking, it was a long time before she felt safe enough to switch off a few of the lights. Even then she was still too nervous to go back to bed or to sort through her flea market purchases, so she curled up in her favorite armchair and clutched the arm-rests as if her life depended on it.
The night seemed endless. If only she could wake Ruben and tell him about the skull and the laughter.
But he would only think her stupid. He would tell her it was nothing and order her to bed. Because he was a man, he thought he knew everything.
“Ya verás. You’ll see, viejo. You’ll see when somebody dies,” she whispered, hugging herself as the shadowy forms of the tall furniture in her living room shaped themselves into snakes and cougars and alligators.
Somebody was going to die!
Soon.
As soon as they reached the Double Crown Ranch, everything would be under control again, and he could focus on his plan to get even with Ryan Fortune.
The man who was driving fought to stay calm. He was as unnerved by his passenger as he was by the automatic with the silencer he’d concealed under his own floor mat, which felt like a lump under his left heel.
He disliked guns, but he liked order. He had to have everything in its exact place. His slacks were all hung together in his closet; his shoes were in shoe racks. The gun was a tool to help restore order. That was all. That was why he’d had plastic surgery, why he’d come to Texas.
Neither moon nor stars lit the wild, desolate ranch land that was owned by the man he was determined to destroy. Except for the twin cones of light arcing every time he struck a pothole or an overlarge rock and except for the interior lights of the big car, the passenger and driver were lost in a strange, pink-tinted, black void that seemed as deep and dark and endless as outer space.
“What the hell are you doing down here in Texas?” his passenger whispered in a low, raw tone from his side of the car.
The driver was tempted to brag about his clever plan. Instead he bit his lips as he whipped down the gravel county road at an even faster speed, sending rocks flying into the dark encroaching walls of cedar and oak. One of his large, perfectly manicured, suntanned hands gripped the steering wheel; the other held a silver flask half filled with vodka. Both fists were white knuckled and shaking.
“You shouldn’t have run out in the middle of those psychological tests,” the passenger said in that cool, kindly voice that sent chills through him.
The hell I need more psychological testing!
“What do you know about it?” the driver muttered, his body rigid. “I’m fine. I’m just fine.”
“Then why’d you come here? Why’d you change your face? If I didn’t know you, I wouldn’t have recognized you.” There was anguish and what sounded like genuine concern in his passenger’s voice.
Not being recognizable was the point, of course. “Like I told you, I was in an accident.”
“Why are you stalking these people?”
The driver forced himself to take a calming breath before he replied. “You think you’re so smart! You always act so nice! What do you know about anything? About me?”
“I have to try to help you—for your own good.”
The driver’s mouth went dry. He could taste his fear.
Yes. His unwanted visitor could ruin everything…if he didn’t tidy things up fast.
When they rumbled over a cattle guard, every bump seemed to trigger an electric current that snapped up and down the driver’s legs and spine. Thoroughly shaken, he could barely control the big car as it raced almost blindly down the narrow road through buttery-thick pockets of Hill Country ground fog before it burst out of the murk into the warm, black night again.
“Slow down,” his passenger ordered. “Are you crazy? You could hit a deer or wrap us around a tree.”
The driver lifted his flask and sipped the burning liquor as his silent brain screamed shrilly. Who do you think you are—giving me orders? You? You! Ever since we were kids? And calling me crazy?
“Sure,” he replied easily as his toe tapped a little harder on the accelerator. “I’ll slow down. Sure I will. Hey, relax. We’re nearly there.”
“You don’t want me here, do you?” came that kindly, superior, all-knowing voice. “I could tell. Your eyes were colder than chips of black marble when you opened your door tonight. But I didn’t come to scare you or hurt you.”
“Scared? Who’s scared? If I seemed upset, maybe you should have called first.”
“Right. Give you time to roll out the welcome mat.” His passenger laughed.
The driver rubbed his brow where the scars from his accident should have been. Then he took another sip from the flask. Not too much. He didn’t want to alarm his passenger by acting any more nervous than he had to. Slowly he dropped his hand back to the seat. He had to focus. He had to concentrate.
“No. You didn’t want me here,” his passenger insisted, again in that hateful, kindly, yet all-knowing tone that the driver loathed.
The moon broke out of the cloud cover, and instantly the driver wished it hadn’t. The bloodred globe was huge and obscene and ringed with flame. Strange-looking, crimson-stained clouds scudded beneath it.
He’d never seen anything like it. Was it even real? Or was it just the mad, blistering fury throbbing in his temples that made it seem so ominous? Was he that charged on adrenaline?
No sooner had it appeared, than the livid moon vanished, leaving the night blacker than pitch again.
His lips felt dry, as did his throat. Every cell in his being screamed with the need to drain the whole damn flask. But he didn’t dare take even the shortest pull. He knew he was close to some fatal edge.
Later he could drink all he wanted.
Later. When it was over. When he felt brave and strong—when he was safe again. Later he would gloat about tonight, about how smart he’d been when he’d played this hand. Later he would review his clever revenge plot, too.
Later, after drinks and sex. Lots of sex with a woman who was good at it. Thinking about sex with her, thinking about what she would do to him with her hands and lips, cooled his temper just enough.
“Of course I want you here,” he lied smoothly, whipping the steering wheel to the right so fast the car skidded and spit gravel. “It’s just that I’ve got a lot on my mind.”
“Slow down.” The voice in the shadowy car was razor sharp now.
“All right.” The driver slammed on the brakes, and the car spun crazily in the gravel, throwing them toward the dash, before it stopped.
“Where the hell are we?” his passenger demanded.
“The Double Crown Ranch.”
“I don’t believe you. Where’s the house?”
“Over there.” He pointed. “See the light? Just through the trees.”
The juniper and oak were a solid mass of darkness. Still, a faint glow of silver had been visible seconds before.
“What are you trying to pull this time?”
He dug under the floor mat. Grabbing the big automatic, he pointed it at the other man’s belly. “Shut up and get out of the car!”
“What?”
“Now!”
“I want to talk to Ryan Fortune.”
“All in good time.”
“I came here to help you. I told people where I was going and whom I was coming to see.”
“Sure you did.”
The driver was smiling and yanking out the keys and opening his own door all at the same time. The other man lunged, grabbing the hand that held the gun.
“Bastard!” The driver threw him off and catapulted out of the car onto the sharp, limestone rocks. Vaguely he was aware of cicadas singing in the trees, aware too of the warm, sultry, summer heat.
The other man sprang on top of him and wrapped his wide hands around the wrist that held the gun and squeezed. Still, somehow the driver managed to lift the automatic and smash it onto his assailant’s brow.
The other man collapsed, blood pouring down his face. His body sagged to the ground as limply as a heavy bag of feed.
The driver bent over him. “Always acting nice when all you’ve ever wanted was to destroy me.”
“I…I came here to help you.”
Holding the gun close to his assailant’s head, the driver smiled. “Thanks.” He pulled the trigger. Once. Twice.
And then again, just to make sure. He shot him right between the eyes the last time, eyes that were soft and pleading and almost the same color as his own.
The other man lay where he’d fallen, soundless, still. The driver rolled away from the body to avoid the awful rush of blood that flowed from the back of his head and drenched the hard, dry earth.
Slowly the killer pulled himself to his feet. Funny, how the suffocating night smelled sweet and woodsy again. Funny, how the cicadas never let up. Summer bugs. How he loved summer bugs.
Suddenly he felt light-headed, dizzy. A strange weakness in his muscles made him fall to his knees again. Shock? Revulsion?
In the next moment his stomach heaved, and he threw up all over his expensive shirt and slacks. For a long moment he was too weak to stand.
Visions of the dead man when he’d been a boy bombarded his mind. He remembered the cool, bright day they’d learned to ride bikes together. He never would have gotten the hang of it if the dead man hadn’t encouraged him.
Don’t think about the past.
His mind raced. He had to get out of here.
But the body…
He couldn’t leave the body at the Double Crown Ranch. He had to dump it somewhere.
Where? Where? His mind raced in panic-stricken circles.
He grabbed his flask out of the car and drained the last of the vodka. He threw it down. Then he picked it up and tossed it into the car.
Lake Mondo, he thought dully. Water destroyed evidence. He’d wash himself off there, too, before any body saw him.
His heart was thundering in his chest and throat as he got up, still weaving drunkenly. When he caught his breath, he grabbed the body by the legs and began tugging it over the rocks toward the trunk of his car.
When a band of coyotes began to yelp, the driver laughed out loud along with them, and once he started hooting, he couldn’t stop, even after the coyotes did.
Suddenly he was aware of a listening, knowing presence. He stopped laughing and stared at the dark trees that surrounded him.
If there’d been a light in the trees, it had damn sure gone out now. Whoever or whatever had been there couldn’t have seen much.
He threw the body in the trunk, inspected the ground with a flashlight and then drove off in a hurry, little caring that his tires spun gravel. The stench of fresh vomit was so powerful he had to roll all the windows down to keep from gagging.
There was no one to stop him now. Now he could focus on his clever plan to topple that self-serving, arrogant bastard, Ryan Fortune, who saw himself as the king of Texas.
One
Austin, Texas
W hy do people visit graves when there’s nobody here?
Amy Burke-Sinclair’s long, slim fingers involuntarily knotted around the steering wheel of her Toyota Camry.
Lush green lawns peppered with neat tombstones stretched into the hazy distance as Amy followed the familiar, narrow lane that wound through cedar and oak. At this early hour the sun that could be brutal by midday was no more than a soft orange ball peeping timidly above the horizon, sending long, purple shadows across this perfectly manicured, emerald patch of earth.
Not that its sleeping inhabitants knew or cared.
Not that Lexie cared.
Amy imagined Lexie’s gray face inside her casket and flinched. Again her hands tightened as she fought for some happier image.
She saw Lexie galloping beside her on her colt, Smoky, her red hair flying behind her as she leaned forward. She saw her slow dancing in skintight jeans with a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other on the deck of her parents’ lake house that last night.
Amy swallowed a deep, ragged breath. As always, memories of Lexie alive brought even more guilt than thoughts of her in her grave.
Amy hadn’t seen any other cars or even pedestrians in the cemetery. Which was good. She couldn’t have endured another accidental meeting with Robert Vale, Lexie’s father.
Last year they’d come at the same time. He’d seen her and walked over to her car, stiffly handsome in a pressed black suit. He’d smiled, but his silver eyes hadn’t.
“I’m sorry,” she’d said, unable to look at him. “So sorry.”
“The hell you are. I’ll call and tell your mother I saw you here. Then you’ll be sorry.”
“Please…”
Robert Vale had given her a single, killing glance before he’d stridden over to his own car and started it. He’d called her mother, and her mother had called her.
“Why can’t you just do as you’re told?” she’d said. “Just stay away from that grave. How difficult is that?”
“I…I didn’t even get out of my car.”
“That’s something I suppose.”
Rebellion at her mother’s criticism had flared briefly inside Amy. Then her mother had said, “Dear, you’ve got to let this go.”
