To Protect Their Child Page 2

  “Ric—”

  “Go to hell.”

  He made his clumsy way to the bar where he asked to borrow the telephone. Tate gave him a hard once-over, then did the same to Bobby. Ric felt every eye in the place squarely on him, but no longer cared. Tate handed him a cordless phone.

  “Ric,” Bobby said. “Let’s talk. Please.” Paused in the midst of punching in the number to his uncle’s wood shop, Ric turned his head slowly. He glared into Bobby’s eyes. “I think you’ve mistaken me for a much bigger man. Like I mistook you for someone with integrity.”

  Bobby looked as if he had more to say. Then he whipped a baseball cap from his back pocket and settled it on his head. He strode out of the bar. Ric watched him go, unable to decide which was worse, the pain in his back or the pain in his heart.

  ELAINE GREENE ate supper with her mother and her daughter. On one side, Jodi talked excitedly about the upcoming Halloween party at the McClintock elementary school. As a sixth grader and class president, Jodi was head of the haunted house committee. Her classmates were in for a real treat with Jodi’s wild imagination running the show. On the other side of the table, Lillian Crowder complained about her husband.

  In the middle, Elaine attempted to give both the attention they craved. “More chicken, baby?” she asked her daughter.

  “—so Joey Taylor wants to use tapioca pudding for the bowl of guts. How stupid is that? I told him we gotta use sausage casings and he says—”

  “Mama? More chicken?”

  “—he doesn’t fool me for one second. I know why he went up to the lodge, and it’s not so he can work on business! He’s up there drinking. He thinks I don’t know about his bourbon stash. Do you know what his cholesterol count is? His medication won’t do any good if he drinks.” Lillian pointed with a fork. “Jodi, baby, eat some more chicken. You’re skinny as a rail, child. What’s this about a bowl of guts?”

  Elaine sighed, wishing Bobby were home for supper. He had a calming influence on Jodi and Lillian. Around her, however, their natural exuberance ran wild. Sometimes being in the same room with both of them plumb wore her out.

  Jodi leaped away from the table and ran down the hallway to fetch her Halloween costume to show her grandmother.

  Lillian leaned in close and lowered her voice. “Do you know why I’m really mad? Axton!”

  A few weeks ago Lillian had been crowing with delight that her husband and Axton Cross had signed the paperwork making them full partners in Crowder Realty. From Lillian’s point of view, it meant her husband could relax and spend more time at home. Elaine raised her eyebrows. “I thought you liked Axton.”

  “I do—I did…I don’t know!” She sighed. “You know he’s got his eye on the riverfront. He wants to chop it up into ranchettes and build mini-mansions for city folks.”

  “That’s the price of living in such pretty country, Mama. Can’t stop people from wanting to live here.”

  “I know for a fact that Axton has been talking to King. That section along the river belongs to him, you know.”

  That made her laugh. “Oh come on, Mama! Uncle King would no more sell off any portion of the ranch than you would.”

  “I don’t know about that. He’s been sheriff going on twenty-five years now. He’s getting bored, making noises about dabbling in politics. Running for office takes real money. Way things are, if he wants to sell there isn’t a thing I can do to stop it.”

  Right, Elaine thought with amusement. Nothing on McClintock Ranch happened without Lillian McClintock Crowder’s full approval.

  Jodi returned, nearly hidden by a froth of bright orange taffeta. “It’s gonna be a pumpkin, Grandma. I’m making it myself.” She tossed an impish grin at her mother. “With a little help from Mommy.” She struggled with the bulky outfit, mindful of pins while stretching it out for display.

  The telephone rang. Hoping it was Bobby saying he was on his way home, Elaine rose from the table.

  “If that’s Bobby,” Lillian said, “remind him that the vet is coming first thing in the morning to check out Big Red. I need every hand to help me with that ornery critter.”

  “I like Big Red,” Jodi said. “I feed him apples, and he just loves me!”

  Jodi was fearless around animals. Big Red, however, was a thousand pounds of full-blooded shorthorn who liked nothing better than hurting men and horses. He’d turn a skinny eleven-year-old into oatmeal mush. “I better not ever catch you getting in the pen with that bull, young lady.” Elaine emphasized the words with a glare while she picked up the phone. “Hello.”

  “Elaine? It’s Uncle King, honey. Is your mama over there at your house?”

  “Sure. She’s sitting right—”

  “Hold on. Just sit tight and keep her there. I’ll be over in a minute.”

  Only then did she catch the strange, tight quality of his voice. Her nape prickled and gooseflesh covered her arms. “Is everything okay?”

  “I’ll be there in one minute.” He hung up, leaving her with a dead line and dread in her heart. She forced a smile. “Jodi? Don’t you still have some homework to do?”

  “Just reading, Mommy.”

  “You go on to your room and do it.”

  “But—”

  “I’ll clean the kitchen, okay?”

  The little girl didn’t need any more incentive than that. She gathered her costume and scampered away.

  Lillian drew her head warily aside. “What’s going on, honey? Who was that?”

  Swallowing hard, Elaine turned her gaze out the window over the sink. The big ranch house where she’d grown up was less than a hundred yards away, sitting big and sprawling and silent in the dark autumn night. King had asked for Mama, which meant whatever made him sound so worried had to do with Daddy.

  Daddy with his bad habits and high cholesterol and angina attacks. She swallowed hard again. “That was Uncle King. He’s coming over. He wants you here.”

  Lillian leaped to her feet. “Delbert…?” she whispered.

  Elaine reached for her mother. When lights swept the side of the house, preceding the sheriff’s cruiser pulling into the driveway, the two women walked outside into the crisp night to meet him. Elaine shivered but barely noticed the cold. Her parents had been married thirty-five years. They’d be lost without each other.

  She, herself, would be lost without her father.

  King emerged from the car. His normally square shoulders sagged, and he lurched as if asleep. “There’s been an accident,” he said, his voice raw.

  Lillian straightened her spine and lifted her chin. “Is it Delbert…where…what happened? Where is he?”

  King herded them into the house. His eyes were red-rimmed and swollen. He made them both sit before he would speak. “They were up at the lodge. Looks like a gun discharged by accident. Del tried…I know he tried…his heart must have give out. He called for help, but—”

  “Who is they? What are you talking about?” Elaine demanded to know. Bloody splotches stained the front of King’s uniform shirt.

  “They’re gone, honey. Bobby and Del. Both of them…we tried, but there was nothing anybody could do. We lost them and now they’re gone.”

  “ELAINE, HONEY, why don’t you sit down?” Alice Darby tapped the kitchen table. Her normally sweet face was stiff with concern.

  No! Sitting down meant relaxing. Relaxing meant thinking. If she began to think for even one moment, she’d go out of her mind. Elaine kept scrubbing the stovetop. The smell of cleanser burned her nose. She avoided looking at Alice. Her friend had accompanied her to the funeral home yesterday and today, to arrange for the double funeral and service. Though it was nearly midnight, Alice refused to leave Elaine alone.

  “You need some sleep,” Alice said. “You’re going to end up sick.”

  “I can’t…I just can’t.” She slapped a wet rag over the stovetop. She concentrated on her task, her temples throbbing.

  “Take one of those pills the doctor gave you.”

  Drug-
induced oblivion tempted her. Escape the pain, escape the horror. She couldn’t, not yet. Lillian had collapsed; the doctor was keeping her sedated and monitoring her blood pressure. Elaine’s brother and sister had raced home from college and now prowled like lost puppies through the big ranch house. Bobby’s parents seemed to have aged twenty years overnight. It was up to Elaine to make sure her father and her husband were buried properly.

  “At least eat something,” Alice said.

  “I’ll throw up.” A sob rose in her throat, and she choked it down.

  “You don’t have to be this strong, Laney.”

  Oh, but she did. Somebody had to be strong.

  She flung the rag into the sink and moved restlessly into the laundry room off the kitchen. She began sorting dirty clothes into piles. Bobby’s boxer shorts, T-shirts, socks, shirts and jeans. Each item she touched made her dizzy and sick with the reminder that he was never coming home again. She went through the pockets of Bobby’s work shirts and jeans. The last time she’d seen him, he had dropped Jodi off from school and changed his dirty clothes before he went out again.

  He’d been distracted, worried. He was always worrying. About pregnant cows, horses with sore feet, hired hands, how Jodi was doing in school, and, if everything were okay, he worried that he was missing something. Caught up in his thoughts, he hadn’t even kissed her goodbye.

  She hadn’t told him she loved him. The last thing she’d told him, the last thing he’d heard from her mouth was, “Don’t get caught up yakking with those old coots at the feed store.”

  She should have told him she loved him. Now it was too late.

  He’d been a tidy man but had a quirky habit of filling his pockets with junk. For years she’d been nagging him to please clean his pockets before he put clothes in the hamper. He kept forgetting.

  She pulled a folded receipt from the feed store from a shirt pocket. A blue jay feather, striped glossy blue and black, came out of another pocket: a gift for his daughter. Tears burned her eyes. Packs of gum, a drill bit, more receipts. A sheet of paper folded into a tight square. More tears as she recognized the logo for Crowder Realty. Her father had pads of this paper made up by the hundreds, passing them out like candy around the valley—as if anyone could forget that he would gladly handle all real estate needs.

  The message was typewritten. Uneven printing and faded letters distracted her. Everybody used computers these days. Who even owned a typewriter? She imagined some elderly rancher pounding away on an ancient manual keyboard in an attempt to make his missive look businesslike.

  She blinked away tears.

  Maybe some folks ought to mind their own business! Especially folks in glass houses! Ric Buchanan is back in town. How would he like knowing what you really did to him? You don’t know what you think you know, so you better just keep your big mouth shut! You go blabbing, and I’ll do some blabbing myself.

  The tea kettle began to whistle. Startled, Elaine crunched the note in her fist.

  “I’m forcing some soup down your throat,” Alice said, one hand inside an open cupboard. “You will not throw up.”

  “Sure.” With fumbling fingers, she folded the note back into a little square then shoved it into her pocket.

  Ric Buchanan? Blabbing?

  It finally occurred to her to wonder why her husband had been at her father’s lodge. Daddy had never invited Bobby up to the lodge for a visit or to join a hunting party. Nor had he ever asked Bobby to run supplies or make repairs on the place. The lodge was Del Crowder’s private domain.

  It had been a horrible, terrible, unthinkable accident. Her father had accidentally shot Bobby, then died of a heart attack while trying to save him. Her father wasn’t a murderer, and Bobby hadn’t died because he blabbed.

  “Elaine?”

  Her friend’s voice seemed to come from far, far away. A gray curtain teased the edges of Elaine’s vision, coming closer, widening, closing again. Hands clutched her arms. Her knees buckled. Blessed oblivion finally found her.

  Chapter Two

  “Did you do it, Daddy?” Elaine whispered through clenched teeth. She pawed through a file cabinet drawer. “Show me you didn’t murder Bobby.”

  Uncle King called it an accidental weapon discharge. Elaine couldn’t get her mind around it. Daddy had been an absolute fanatic about firearms safety. She couldn’t count how many times she’d heard “always assume it’s loaded” while she was growing up.

  She looked wildly around her father’s home office. Despite Del’s being enamored of computers, constantly upgrading his systems and glomming onto every new gadget that came on the market, a paper-free environment remained a pipe dream. The office contained thirty-plus years of paperwork. And this mess accounted for only the papers he kept at home. She hadn’t been to the realty office in town yet.

  She hadn’t found a typewriter. Could not remember if her father owned a typewriter. She lifted her gaze to the ceiling. The attic was stuffed full of belongings accumulated by five generations of McClintocks.

  She slammed the drawer shut and sat back on her heels. Her heart fluttered painfully. She refused to believe her father was a killer. He’d been aggressive, had an awful temper and could be self-righteous to a fault, but not a murderer, never that.

  She couldn’t explain away the threatening note. She couldn’t ignore that Bobby was dead because of a bullet fired from Daddy’s gun.

  Questions were making her insane. She didn’t want to search her parents’ home for a typewriter. She didn’t want proof that Daddy was a cold-blooded killer. She was terrified someone else might stumble over something incriminating.

  She pulled open another drawer and began rifling through contracts and receipts.

  Rumbling startled her. She slammed the drawer shut just as her sister slid open the office doors. Marlee’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. With a six-year age difference, the sisters had never been close, but Marlee had always been too intuitive for her own good. Elaine felt as if she’d been caught stealing from a collection plate.

  “You have a visitor, Laney,” Marlee said.

  Visitors had been streaming through her mother’s house ever since the funeral. The entire valley was in mourning. Folks expressed their sorrow by filling the ranch kitchen with flowers, baked goods and covered dishes. Love and kindness expressed in small ways and large bolstered Elaine, gave her strength. At the same time she felt horrible. Everyone who knew Bobby had loved him. Her father, being a non-native, wasn’t as well liked, but even his detractors respected him. She couldn’t bear it if his legacy were clouded by suspicions of murder.

  She cast a guilty look at the file cabinet. “I don’t feel up to a visitor right now.”

  “You can’t hide in here forever.” Marlee pushed the doors all the way open and stepped aside. “What are you doing anyway? Look at the mess you’re making. Mama will have a fit when she sees.”

  What if Daddy is a killer? she wanted to scream. Instead, she forced her expression into what she hoped was a picture of calm. “I’m helping. Some of these papers are thirty years old. You know Daddy. He saved everything.”

  Marlee made a skeptical noise. She whispered something Elaine didn’t catch. A man, leaning heavily on crutches, hobbled into the office. Marlee graced Elaine with an enigmatic smile then left, her boots tapping crisply on the hardwood floor.

  Elaine bumped a window sill, and realized she’d been backing away, seeking escape. She gave herself a shake, meaning to stop staring, but she couldn’t help it. It was Ric. Oh, but he looked awful! His complexion was sallow, and his cheekbones jutted like blades over gaunt cheeks. His coat sleeves rode up, revealing bony wrists and hands. What caught her attention and roused her sympathy was his hair. No longer a crisp crewcut with a golden sheen outlining a noble head, it hung untidily over his ears, dull brown in color.

  “Ric?”

  Ric Buchanan is back in town…how would he like knowing what you really did to him?

  “Hey, Laney.” He glanced o
ver his shoulder. “If you really don’t want visitors, I can come some other time.”

  She noticed the way he shifted his legs. “Please, have a seat.” She hurried to a leather chair and turned it toward him. “What happened to you?” As soon as she asked, she was embarrassed. She sounded like a schoolteacher chastising a tardy child.

  He eased onto the chair and blew a long relieved-sounding breath. When he lifted his head, his eyes caught and held her. Beautiful eyes, exotically slanted, of a rich, dark blue, like sapphires in moonlight. His eyes hadn’t changed. They had the same gleam of intelligence and watchful intensity. Nor, it seemed, had their affect on her lessened.

  She turned abruptly. Her gaze fell on the photographs covering her father’s desk. As the only grandchild of Del and Lillian Crowder, Jodi had been photographed more often than a movie star. Jodi laughing on a swing set; Jodi riding a horse; Jodi looking prim in a school photo. Jodi with golden hair and slightly slanted eyes the color of dark blue denim.

  Ric had seen Jodi only a few times years ago when she was very young. When Ric had come home on leave, Bobby went to town to visit with him. She and Bobby had shared a tacit agreement to not parade their daughter before Ric.

  Elaine perched on the edge of the desk, blocking his view of the photographs. “When did you get into town?”

  “About a week ago. I was at the funeral. How are you doing?”

  Terrible! Frantic! Overwrought. Falling apart. Going out of her mind. “I’m hanging in there. Were you in a car accident?” Her cheeks warmed. It wasn’t her place to pry.

  “Something like that. I’m so sorry about Bobby and your dad. I don’t know what to say.”

  “I don’t know what to say either. I keep listening for Bobby’s truck. Expecting him to walk through the door. None of this seems quite real.”

  “I saw Bobby the day…I’m glad I got to see him.”

  The day he died, she filled in. She craved knowing what Bobby had said to Ric. Maybe someone else had threatened Bobby. Perhaps Ric would tell her Bobby had gone to Daddy for help. But if he claimed Daddy had threatened Bobby, she didn’t know what she’d do.