Lady Killer

Chapter 7

Walking into the motel room he’d been sharing with Holt for the past several days, Tony experienced what he thought of as a reverse epiphany-not a burst of light and knowledge, but an enveloping shroud of shadowy self-doubt.

What was he thinking? Just because his belly was full of the best blueberry pancakes he’d ever eaten in his life, his ego pumped up with the hero worship of a fatherless boy, and his libido in a state of itchy alert brought on by the unexpected embrace of the most beautiful woman he’d met in a long, long time, that was no excuse for completely losing his functioning mind.

“What are we doing?” he said to Holt, who was bent over his laptop, peering intently at the screen. “Why are we trusting this woman? Okay, I know we decided to proceed on the assumption she did not kill her ex. But what if we’re wrong and all the evidence that says she did is right?”

Holt glanced up at him and said mildly, “Afraid you’re losing your perspective?”

Tony snorted. “Like I ever had any. I told you at the beginning, she’s my best friend’s long-lost baby sister, I want her to be innocent. Then there’s the fact that I’ve never seen a more beautiful woman in my life. And I’m a photographer, man-I mean, I’ve seen some beautiful woman, you know?”

Holt’s smile was sardonic. “Come on.”

“That’s right, I forgot. You’ve never seen her.” He picked up the camera he’d been doing most of his shooting with and popped out the flash card. From the front pocket of his accessory case, he took a card reader, inserted the card and handed the whole thing to Holt. “Here-that thing’s got a USB port, right? Plug this in. Maybe you’ll see what I’m dealing with.”

Holt took the card reader with a shrug and plugged it into his laptop, and a few moments later both men watched in silence-a silence that bordered on reverence-as a slide show of images flashed across the computer screen. Presently, Holt cleared his throat and said, “Okay. Just because she’s…”

“Gorgeous…”

“Okay, that works-gorgeous, yeah. That doesn’t make her an evil person.”

“What? I never said that.”

“Then why,” Holt said blandly, “are you holding it against her?”

“What? I’m not. That’s just…”

Holt ejected the card and reader and handed it back to him. “Look, you’ve been out there every day for the past…what? Three days? Spending time with the lady. You haven’t had these doubts about her before, so…what’s up? What’s changed?”

“Nothing,” said Tony, with all the conviction of a kid standing in front of a broken window with a slingshot in his pocket.

Holt gave him a narrow look, then grinned. “Ah-I see. Getting a little too close for comfort, are we? Looking for a reason to bail out while you still can?”

“No! What are you talking about? Nothing of the kind, man. She’s my buddy’s baby sister, she’s in a jam, and I’m trying to help her out-that’s all. End of story.” He paused, then added, with an uncomfortable shrug, “Anything else would be creepy.”

“Yeah, yeah…” Holt was on his feet, shrugging into a leather jacket. “Having been a commitment-phobe all my life, believe me, I know one when I see one. Anyway-beside the point. It’s not just a matter of taking Brooke Grant on faith. We know there’s something off about those deputies, Doyle in particular. If this were a court of law and we were the jury, we’d have all kinds of grounds for reasonable doubt. You ask me, I think the kid’s got reason to be worried, and I think it’s a good idea you plan on staying out there with them for the time being.”

“You know something I don’t?” Tony asked, going still inside.

Holt nodded, looking grim as he pocketed his wallet and tucked his weapon into its holster in the small of his back. “Finally got hold of Sam. She contacted a friend in DEA. Seems they, in cooperation with ICE, have been looking at our local sheriff’s department for a while now.” He reached for the doorknob, then turned. “I’m heading into Austin now to talk with the agents. I don’t know what, if anything, this has to do with the murder of Duncan Grant, but you watch your back, understand?” He went out, muttering under his breath.

“You betcha,” Tony said to the closing door. He wasn’t absolutely certain, but what it sounded like the detective had said there at the last was, “Just what I need…get my clients’ best friend killed…”

He hauled in a breath to quiet his accelerating pulse and began to pack.

Driving back to Brooke’s, he tried to direct his thoughts toward the ramifications of a whole sheriff’s department engaged in corruption and illegal activities of various kinds, and what that might mean as far as Brooke’s and Daniel’s-and his own-personal safety was concerned. But, like a badly trained horse, his mind kept wanting to go somewhere else.

Commitment-phobe? Me?

Ridiculous, he told himself. This woman is my best friend’s baby sister, and she’s in trouble. Taking advantage of her would be unforgivable.

And his mind whispered in Brooke’s voice, It would have explained…why someone like you isn’t married.

Look, he told himself, I have perfectly good reasons for avoiding permanence in relationships, number one being a job that takes me to the far corners of the earth most of the time.

And his mind replied, You grew up mostly without a dad for the same reason, didn’t you?

Yes, he told himself, through mentally clenched teeth, but that doesn’t make me a commitment-phobe. I intend to settle down someday…at the right time…with the right person. I will.

Lost in the dismal swamp of his thoughts, he almost missed the turnoff to Brooke’s driveway. Did miss it, in fact, and had to back up a few yards to make the turn. As he was doing that, he noticed a man working with a horse in the pasture across the road. The man was wearing jeans and a blue work shirt and a straw cowboy hat, and looked Hispanic. Being the son of a cowboy, and with some considerable experience with horses himself, Tony paused to watch the man in action. He was admiring the trainer’s skill and patience when the fellow looked up and noticed he had an audience. Tony nodded and waved. The horse trainer quickly ducked his head to hide his face and turned away. Coiling his rope to make a short lead, he led the mare at a brisk trot back toward the barn and corrals, which were just visible on the other side of a stand of live oaks.

Huh, Tony thought as he turned into Brooke’s lane. Friendly fellow.

Brooke came out to meet him when he parked in what had become his usual spot, beside her pickup truck. She looked flushed and eager, as if she’d been waiting for him. Watching for him.

Inside his chest he felt a little tremor of gladness at the thought. Gladness…and some unease.

“Everything okay?” he asked her.

She nodded. “Daniel…?”

“Made it to school just fine.”

Then, for a moment, there was silence while they looked at each other, and there was a new awkwardness, which hadn’t been there the other times he’d come, loaded down with his cameras, to spend the day taking pictures of the cougar. This was no longer about the cougar, and they both knew it. Somewhere, somehow, when he wasn’t paying attention, a line had been crossed. Just what kind of line and what it meant, he didn’t know.

“Uh, hey,” he said, clutching at something to fill the awkward moment, “I was just watching your neighbor over there across the road. Has some nice horses.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s Rocky.” She poked the tips of her fingers into the back pockets of her jeans and hitched one shoulder. “The Mirandas-they’re great. They help me out sometimes-a lot, actually.”

“Huh,” said Tony. “Must be me, then. He practically ran off when I waved.”

She smiled and made a little gesture as if to hide it-a kind of shyness he’d glimpsed in her a time or two before. “Oh, that was probably one of their, um, cousins.”

“Cousins?”

“Yeah. Rocky and Isabel have a lot of, uh, cousins. They come and work for them sometimes…you know?” He stared at her blankly, and she gave him a sideways look of exasperation. “Oh, for heaven’s sake. Illegals, Tony. He probably thought you were INS, or ICE-whatever they call themselves now. Poor guy-he’s probably packing to leave as we speak. Well, I’ll call Isabel…tell her you’re harmless.”

Are you harmless, Tony? Why is it I doubt you when you’re out of my sight, and the minute I see you, I’m right back there, trusting you again?

Now, when I’ve got no business trusting anyone, much less a man who looks like a gang enforcer.

Feeling awkward suddenly, needing something to do with her hands, she opened the backseat passenger-side door and peered in. On the other side of the car, Tony was gathering up various camera and equipment bags, leaving a small duffel bag on the seat. “Do you want this, too?” she asked, picking it up.

“Yeah-here. Give me that.” He took the duffel bag from her, then held it, hefted it and looked at her in a way that made her wonder suddenly if he felt as awkward about this as she did. The idea made her want to smile, with a strange shivery excitement that made her think of her twelve-year-old self passing notes to Tommy Hanson in English class.

“I hope you don’t mind,” he said. “I thought it would be best if I stayed…you know, for a while. If you don’t have a spare room, I can sleep on the couch.”

“Oh. Well, are you sure? That’s…Thank you.” The shivery feeling expanded inside her, and her heart began to beat faster. She folded her arms across her chest and laughed a little as she turned to walk beside him. “You don’t have to sleep on the couch, though. I’ve got a spare room, if you don’t mind the mess.” Glancing down at the duffel bag, she said, “Is that all you’ve got? No suitcase?”

He gave a wry puff of laughter. “Nope-that’s it. I came kind of on the spur of the moment.”

“Well then…” She paused to look over at him. “You must be about out of clean clothes. If you have any laundry, I’d be glad to-”

Having preceded her up the back porch steps, he opened the door for her, even though he was the one loaded down with bags. And smiled down at her as she came up the steps after him. “Okay, I wouldn’t mind the use of your washing machine, but I’m capable of doing my own laundry.”

“But I don’t mind, really-” She was facing him on the top step, crowded close to him while he held the door for her to slip through. She should have felt claustrophobic, being so close to such a big man, one she barely knew. But his eyes had that mellow honey glow, and the distance between them seemed…not too narrow, but too wide.

“Brooke,” he said softly, in a voice that reminded her of the mountain lion’s purr, and her vision grew shimmery around the edges. “We’re letting the flies in.”

“Oh.” Unnerved, she moved past him, onto the screened porch. He followed her, letting the door slam shut, and she watched the way the muscles bunched in his arms and back as he lifted the duffel bag onto the washing machine. She hoped he hadn’t noticed her schoolgirlish lapse, prayed that that revealing moment at the top of the steps had somehow slipped past him.

He turned back to her, shifting the bags hanging by their straps from various parts of his body. “I do not expect you to wash my clothes.” And he was smiling that incongruously sweet, heart-melting smile. “See, I was raised by a mom, along with seven sisters, not one of whom believed they were put on this earth to wait on a man.”

She let go a laugh, which emerged sounding light and casual; only she would know it was rooted in desperation. “Wow, tell me again why it is you aren’t married?”

“Funny,” he said as his smile slipped awry. “My sisters keep asking me the same thing.”

What is it with everybody lately? Tony thought as he followed Brooke down the hallway to what really was more of a “spare” than a “guest” room, being cluttered with all the usual things there was simply no other place for-sewing machine and ironing board and books and a boy’s outgrown toys. Suddenly everyone he knew seemed to be interested in his marital status. And, frankly, it was beginning to irritate him. Holt calling him a commitment-phobe…his sisters pointing out to him the fact that he was the last unmarried holdout in the family…What should it matter to them, anyhow? It wasn’t as if his mom was desperate for grandkids-she had so many now, he didn’t know how she kept track of them all. A couple of his oldest brothers and sisters even had grandkids, for God’s sake!

He’d chosen a career that wasn’t conducive to hearth, home and rug rats, that was all. What was he supposed to do? Give up his livelihood? Find a new one? The hell with that!

He dumped his cameras on the double bed that occupied a good bit of the available space in the small room and stood for a moment, frowning at nothing as a memory came crowding into his mind. A memory from a few years back, a time when he’d come close to losing everything-including his best friends and his own life.

Cory…and he’s had more beer than he usually drinks, and he’s leaning in toward me, across the table in a restaurant in the Philippines, and I can hear him saying, “…I’m thinking maybe it’s time to be settling down, cut down on the travel, have some kids before I’m too old to enjoy ’em.”

And me, nodding my head like I know all the answers and saying, “You’ve got the old nesting urge. Happens. Hasn’t happened to me yet, but I’ve heard about it.”

And he thought about Sam, and how she had thought she couldn’t have her career and Cory both, and had almost lost everything by waiting too long. And now look at the two of them-happily married and both still off to the far corners, doing their thing…

No kids yet, though. Kids make all the difference. Kids need their parents around while they’re growing up. Both of ’em, preferably.

He still had a few things to bring in from the car-his computer, mainly. He went down the hall and through the kitchen, and was struck by how quiet it seemed-and how empty-without Brooke. It had been all of five minutes since she’d left him in the spare room and had gone out to take care of some chore or other. And already he missed her.

And what the hell was that?

He went outside, telling himself he was just going to get his laptop, that he wasn’t going to go looking for Brooke, who had her own business to attend to, after all, and didn’t need him tagging along, getting in her way. He’d gotten as far as unlocking the trunk when he looked up and saw three people walking up the lane. One of them was the horse trainer he’d been watching earlier, and he was accompanied by a Hispanic couple, who Tony assumed must be the nice neighbors, Rocky and Isabel.

Intrigued, especially after what Brooke had told him about the nature of the neighbors’ “cousins,” Tony looped the strap of his laptop carrier over his shoulder, closed the trunk and waited.

The trio had reached the yard when Hilda came bounding out of the barn to greet them, with her whole body wagging, along with her tail. Obviously, the neighbors were on her favorites list. Brooke followed a moment later, and she and the woman-pretty, and shorter and plumper than Brooke but probably about the same age-exchanged hugs. The woman’s husband spoke to Brooke, gesturing from time to time toward his “cousin,” who stood by with his hat in his hands, looking exceedingly uneasy. Tony had already started to amble toward them, in what he hoped was a non-threatening manner, when Brooke’s head jerked toward him, and the look on her face made him quicken his step and his pulse kick into high gear.

“What is it?” he asked in a low voice as he moved close beside her. “Something wrong?”

She opened her mouth, but before she could say anything, Tony said, “Hi, I’m Tony,” nodded at the woman and leaned forward to offer his hand, first to her husband, then to his cousin. The cousin hesitated, then shook his hand, bobbed his head and mumbled something in Spanish, while Brooke made hurried introductions.

“Rocky and Isabel-my neighbors. This is Tony. He’s, uh…”

“You are her friend,” Rocky said. “We have seen you here. That is why when my cousin told me what he saw, I told him he should tell you.”

Tony nodded but didn’t prompt him. His senses felt honed, razor sharp, and he had in his mind an image of a cougar watching a fawn…eyes like lasers, body gone still and taut, only the tip of her tail twitching…

Beside him he felt a tremor run through Brooke, like a fine electrical current. He wanted to put his arm around her and nestle her against his side. Wanted to so badly, he folded his arms to keep himself from doing it.

“Tell him,” Brooke said in a rasping voice.

Rocky nodded and glanced at his cousin, who looked at the ground. “The day Duncan-Mr. Grant-was killed, my cousin, he was working there-” he made a sweeping gesture with his arm “-with the horses. He saw a sheriff’s car-one of the four-wheel-drive ones-drive out of the lane over there, the one nobody uses.”

“Where Duncan’s car was found.” Brooke’s voice was barely audible. She cleared her throat, and Rocky went on.

“Sí-yes. And that was also a sheriff’s SUV. But that is not the one that drove away.”

“You’re saying,” said Tony slowly, “there were two sheriff’s vehicles here that day?” His heart knocked hard against his breastbone.

Rocky nodded. “Sí-yes. That’s right. And one drove away. My cousin didn’t say anything at first, because he didn’t want any trouble with the police, you know?” He glanced at his cousin, who continued to stare steadfastly at the ground. “And when he told me, I didn’t want to say anything, because I was afraid for her.” He tipped his head toward Brooke, but he spoke to Tony, in a low and intense voice. “She was alone, you know? I didn’t know what they might do. But now that you are here…” It was his wife he looked at now, and she stepped up beside him and he slipped his arm around her waist.

“You can do something,” said Isabel fervently, and her dark eyes glistened with appeal. “Maybe?”

It was late that evening before Tony managed to pass the news along to Holt. He’d been leaving messages on the detective’s voice mail all day, and finally got a call back around ten, while he was in his room, folding his freshly washed underwear.

“Sorry-I’ve been in conference with members of various federal law-enforcement agencies all day. What’s up?”

Tony told him. “As far as I’m concerned,” he concluded, “this cinches it. One of Grant’s fellow deputies killed him. Most likely Lonnie.”

“Only one problem. A little thing called motive.”

Tony let out an explosive breath. “I was hoping you’d come up with something on your end.”

“Wish I could say I had. The feds are investigating the Colton County Sheriff’s Department, along with several others in reasonable proximity to the border, on suspicion of trafficking in drugs and illegals. All they’ll tell me is it’s an ongoing investigation, and they don’t want anybody coming in and messing up their case until they’re ready to make their move. They did say both Duncan Grant and Lonnie Doyle are-or in Grant’s case, were-quote, ‘persons of interest.’”

“Okay, so…a falling-out between partners in crime? That doesn’t seem much of a stretch, given these two were always going at each other anyway.”

“True. But why do it like that-with a tranquilizer gun and a mountain lion? At the guy’s ex-wife’s place? That’s what doesn’t make any sense.”

“And now Lonnie Doyle wants the lion dead. That doesn’t make sense, either. It’s not like she’s an eyewitness, not one that could testify against him, anyway.”

On the other end of the line, there was a soft hissing sound-an exhalation. “The key to this whole thing,” Holt said, “is that cat.”

After that conversation with Holt, Tony felt too wired to even think about sleep. The house was silent, and in the stillness, those words keep playing over and over in his head: the key is that cat.

He opened his door and stepped out into the hallway. Brooke’s door, across and a little way down from his, was closed. Daniel’s was open a couple of inches-for the light, Tony imagined, remembering how he’d liked to leave his door open when he was a kid, because there was just enough light from the one left burning on the front porch to dilute the darkness in his room to shadowy grays. Here the light was from the kitchen-Brooke had left one on above the stove. He moved through the kitchen and onto the back porch, treading lightly and opening and closing doors without sound.

Standing on the porch and looking out, he discovered the yard and the landscape beyond bathed in the pewter glow of a rising full moon. He paused there for a moment to appreciate the subtle variations of blue and silver and gray, wishing he’d thought to bring a camera with him, unwilling to make the trip back to his room lest he wake someone, knowing he didn’t really have the equipment with him to capture the magical quality of the light, anyway.

Opening the screen door-with only one squeak, though it seemed incredibly loud in the stillness of the night-he went outside and down the steps. And a magnificent beast with a silvery-white coat that seemed to lift and float around her like feathers came romping toward him from the direction of the barn.

“Hey, Hilda,” he whispered, offering his hand. “How you doin’, girl?”

The dog accepted his hug with a lick and a grin and went dancing back toward the barn, clearly delighted with the night, the moon and his company. Tony didn’t know whether he’d intended to go that way, but with the dog as his flagship, her tail floating behind her like a banner in a light wind, how could he not follow?

He went through the deeply shadowed barn, and when he stepped out into the moonlit lane that led down between the animal pens to the cougar’s enclosure, he wondered if it had been more than restlessness and the cougar’s haunting…more even than moonlight and the dog’s guidance…that had brought him to that place. He’d never thought of himself as a mystical soul, and no doubt the influence of the moonlight had something to do with it, but he found himself thinking of things like…fate. And whether there really might be something to the notion that some people…some souls…were simply destined to find each other, no matter the time or place or the odds against it.

Inside the cougar’s compound, blurred by the silvery netting of the chain-link fence, he could see the dark and slender form turn when she heard the dog come bounding up…turn, then stand, waiting, alert and still, with one hand resting on the head of the magnificent animal beside her.

His breath stopped; his heartbeat surged. He yearned…grieved…mourned for his cameras, the way only another photographer might understand.

It was, simply, the most breathtakingly beautiful thing he’d ever seen. The stuff of legend and fantasy, woman and lion, motionless in the moonlight, frozen in time and space. They stared at him and he stared back, while memory returned him to that moment on the trail in the High Sierras when he’d come face-to-face with a beast that could have killed him with one swipe of her paw. He’d been afraid then, of course, because he was old enough to know he should be afraid. But mostly what he’d felt was a profound sense of wonder. Of awe.

Now, gazing at the woman and the lion in the moonlight, his grown-up self felt the same wonder, the same awe…and the deepest fear, a kind of fear he’d never known before.

He felt stripped and vulnerable, naked and afraid. Because he knew…he knew in the depths of his being that his heart wasn’t his anymore. That somehow, when he wasn’t paying attention, he’d given it away. And in doing so, had given to another human being-to this woman-the power to hurt him as he’d never been hurt before.

All of this-the changing of his life forever-took place in the space of a moment, a few dozen heartbeats, no more. Then the cougar turned on herself in the fluid, boneless way of all felines and went streaking across the compound like a trick of the light, toward the rocky outcropping, flowed up and over it like quicksilver, and was gone.

Brooke came on, and he knew her eyes were locked with his, even though her expression was undecipherable to him, its subtle nuances lost to the moonlight shadows. He waited for her in silence, fingers of one hand woven through the chain-link fabric, those of the other through the silky fur of the dog panting happily beside him. And he understood now why Brooke so often did the same. He waited while she opened the gate and stepped through, then closed it carefully behind her and clicked the padlock into place.

She turned to him, and he would have spoken then. He drew breath to break the silence. And she reached up and touched his face…laid her hand along the side of his face while she looked into his eyes. He saw the moon reflected in the blackness of her eyes just for a moment. Then she swayed upward, just enough, and kissed him.