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It didn’t. It didn’t help Sophie with her anger, and judging from the way Clay looked, it didn’t help him, either.
“Real love?” Clay repeated. His voice had a dangerous edge to it that sent Sophie’s pulse skittering. “My sister’s barely out of one bad marriage. She doesn’t need another one. Her boys don’t need another one.” The edge in his voice had gone up a notch.
“This isn’t a bad marriage,” Brantley argued. He huffed. “Look, I didn’t think this news would be such a shock. In fact, I thought it’d be welcome now that Sophie and you are seeing each other. Sophie has moved on, and that’s a good thing.”
Oh, if only that were true. Then again, she had moved on from the raging anger to wanting to throw that turdy turkey at him. But that probably wasn’t the direction Brantley was looking for her to go. Nor was it the direction Clay was taking.
Clay’s index finger landed on Brantley’s chest. “If you hurt my sister or my nephews, this badge will come off and I will make you pay. In fact, I might make you pay even if you don’t hurt them.”
It didn’t sound like a bluff, but Brantley didn’t have time to call him on it. Garrett came strolling out of one of the nearby barns, cursed, his profanity waffling on the air so they caught every word, and made a beeline toward them.
Great. Now, he’d get involved. At least she wasn’t crying, though. Maybe it would stay that way.
As Garrett got closer, Sophie caught his usual scent. A mixture of bullshit from his boots, sweat and the woodsy aftershave he sometimes remembered to use on the days he remembered to shave. It was hit or miss, but he’d hit today, and there was the added aroma of leather from his saddle. Heaven knew where he’d been riding, but he was always looking for any excuse to be anywhere but inside his office.
“It’s true?” Garrett snarled, looking not at Clay or her but at Brantley. “You’re married? Meredith told me,” he added to Sophie before she could ask how he’d found out.
Meredith, Garrett’s wife. Apparently, the gossip flow had taken the direct route to her. Ironic since Meredith spent more time at her dad’s house in Austin than she did at the ranch, but she did spend more time on the phone than Sophie did.
Brantley bobbed his head in a series of nods, a motion that mimicked the movement of his Adam’s apple. He lobbed some very concerned glances between her brother and Clay as if debating which of these two were about to end his existence on Earth. It was a toss-up, but since she didn’t want either to go to jail, she stepped between them.
“Yes, Brantley is married,” Sophie volunteered. “And he was just leaving.”
“No, he wasn’t,” Clay argued. “Not until he explains to me what the hell he was thinking by marrying my kid sister.”
“And when the shit bag is done explaining that, he can tell me why he jilted my kid sister.” That from Garrett. “You’ve been dodging me. Lawson, too. And it’s high time you grew a pair and manned up about why you did this.”
Brantley looked at her as if she might have the answers to prevent him from getting a butt-whipping. She did. Well, she had answers to her brother’s question. Brantley hadn’t loved her. Not enough, anyway. But while that was true, it might not stop said butt-whipping.
This was what she’d tried to avoid that day at the police station, and part of her knew she had to grow her own pair and stop it from happening now.
“I have moved on with my life,” Sophie said to no one in particular and hoped they didn’t ask for proof of that. She also hoped this next part didn’t stick in her throat. “Brantley did me a favor by breaking things off.”
Clay and Garrett stared at her, and both looked about as unconvinced of that as anyone could.
“See?” Brantley added. “It’s all okay. Sophie and Clay are together, and April and I will start our lives as newlyweds.”
“We’re not together,” Sophie said.
Clay talked right over her, though, so she wasn’t sure anyone heard her. “You’re not starting anything,” he warned Brantley. “Where’s April?”
“My house here in Wrangler’s Creek. Our house,” Brantley corrected. “I just moved her and the boys in.” And despite Clay’s intense glare, Brantley managed to hike up his chin and look as if he’d located his backbone.
The backbone display didn’t last long, though.
The color bleached from Brantley’s face when Clay took hold of his arm. Hard. The kind of grip he no doubt used when making an arrest. “Come on. You, April and me are about to have a little talk.”
* * *
TALKING SUCKED, TOO.
At least it did when a big brother was talking to a knot-headed kid sister. After an hour of trying to drill home why marrying Brantley was a stupid idea, Clay had left to regroup and try to come up with an argument that might get April to come to her senses and annul the marriage. Or at least rethink it.
In the meantime, he hoped Brantley didn’t a) break her heart b) stunt the emotional development of his nephews or c) knock April up. Just in case of the latter, Clay made a mental note to send April a jumbo box of condoms.
That hadn’t worked with Spike and her, but maybe this time April would remember to have Brantley use them. Even though he wouldn’t trade his nephews for the world, his sister needed another kid to raise even less than she needed another dickweed husband.
Clay walked into the police station, and of course, all eyes immediately went to him. Ellie’s, Rowdy’s and Reena’s. The gossip had probably already reached them, and they might be concerned that he’d assaulted Brantley.
“Brantley’s alive and in one piece,” Clay greeted to put their minds at ease and to stop them from asking him anything. But it was clear that it eased nothing.
“Uh, you got another of those envelopes,” Reena said, scrubbing her hands down the sides of her jeans, and she immediately looked away. “I put it on your desk.”
Clay didn’t ask for any details because he knew what she meant by those envelopes. Reena and the crew had no idea what was in them, though. They only knew he got one on the first of each month and that he only opened them behind closed doors. They also knew the envelopes put him in a shit-kicking mood. Since his mood was already at the shit-kicking level, it didn’t bode well for workplace morale.
He made his way to his office, and right off he spotted the large document-sized envelope in the center of his desk. Hard to miss it since it was Pepto-Bismol pink. Like the others, it was addressed to Detective Clay McKinnon, care of the Wrangler’s Creek PD and was postmarked from Houston. Also like the others, the sender had made a heart of the o in his surname.
Because he needed a minute—he always did when it came to these deliveries—Clay sank down into his chair and considered a drink. He kept a bottle of cheap Irish whiskey in his bottom drawer. It was on top of a copy of his resignation papers from Houston PD, which in turn was on top of his last case file when he’d worked there. Beneath that were more pink envelopes, one for every month he’d been at Wrangler’s Creek PD.
Just opening the drawer was like going into his “shit to forget” box in his head so he decided to pass on the whiskey. Good thing, too, because there was a knock at the door, and it opened.
Before the woman even stepped into his office, he caught a whiff of her. Garlic, for sure. Limburger cheese, maybe. And Listerine. It was his neighbor, Vita.
Clay wasn’t sure exactly how old Vita was, but she had to be a lot younger than she looked because she had a thirty-year-old daughter, Mila. Yet she looked to be a hundred and sixty. Or maybe that wasn’t actually wrinkles upon wrinkles but instead she was smearing her face with Limburger cheese.
Like the other times he’d seen her, Vita was wearing a long brown skirt, so long that the hem was dusting the floor, and enough cheap bead necklaces to act as an anchor if she ever got caught in a tornado.
“I came,” Vita announced as if he was expecting her. He wasn’t. But then you never really expected Vita. She was like a cold sore and just showed up.
Best to cut her off at the pass and make this visit as short as possible. The longer she stayed the more air freshener he’d have to use. “If this is about my sister and Brantley—”
“No. There’s nothing to be done about that.” Her attention landed on the pink envelope. “Or that, either.”
Well, this was a cheery visit. Not that he had any faith whatsoever in Vita’s future-telling/ESP powers that she claimed were in her gypsy blood, but if she’d offered him any hope, he might have latched on to it.
“I came about the chickens,” Vita said. “They’ll attack again soon.”
That got his attention, and Clay frowned over the way his gut suddenly tensed. “How do you know this? Have the chickens been talking to you?”
The woman didn’t crack a smile at his bad joke, but she did take something from her skirt pocket. An egg. Not a clean one that came in a carton from the grocery store. This one had what he was pretty sure was a smear of chicken shit on it and a bit of a feather.
“It belongs to one of them,” Vita went on, her voice all low and dramatic. “Keep it with you at all times, and they won’t attack. Their scent is on it, and they won’t risk hurting one of their own.”
Clay had no idea how to respond to that so he just grunted. Vita must have taken that as an agreement that he would go along with this because now she smiled. The joke hadn’t amused her but a grunt had.
He made a mental note to talk to her daughter about getting her some psychological help.
Vita pulled something else from her pocket. A massive can of Mighty Lube. It was shaped like a penis but double the size.
“For Sophie,” Vita said.
All right. Clay wanted to know why Vita believed Sophie would need glorified vegetable oil and why the woman couldn’t just give it to Sophie herself. But he was afraid this was meant to be a sex aid, and like feral chickens, he didn’t want to discuss that with Vita. He just thanked her, said goodbye and asked her to close the door on her way out. She did those things but not before uttering what sounded like a threat.
“If you hurt Sophie, you’ll be sorry. I’ve read her palm so I know your paths cross.”
“Of course they cross. It’s a small town.”
But he seriously doubted that Vita meant that.
“They’ll cross,” she went on, “but it’ll be up to you which direction she takes after that. Hurt her, and you’ll have to deal with me.”
As the interim chief of police, Clay supposed he should remind her that it wasn’t a good idea to threaten a cop, but instead he reached for the air freshener in his bottom left drawer. It was next to the whiskey. Once the Limburger smell had been cloaked with the scent of fake flowers, Clay turned back to the envelope. Best not to put this off. He reached for it, but reaching was as far as he got because there was another knock at the door.
Hell.
“Yeah?” he snapped, not bothering to sound even remotely receptive to a repeat visit from Vita. But it wasn’t her. It was Garrett.
“Got a minute?” Garrett asked, coming in before waiting for an answer.
Reena was right behind him, and since she was frantically trying to fix her hair, it was obvious she wanted to impress their visitor. Clay had noticed that a lot whenever he’d observed women near Garrett. Even though he was married to the town’s former prom queen, Sophie’s brother caused women to primp, flirt and do other things that were normally directed at good-looking, single men.
Clay had seen a whole lot of eyelash batting going on.
“Vita,” Garrett remarked, glancing at the egg.
Maybe the air freshener hadn’t done its job. Or else Garrett guessed that Clay wasn’t the sort to have a shit-streaked egg on his desk. Thankfully, his attention didn’t seem to land on the Mighty Lube, or Garrett might have had some questions that Clay couldn’t answer.
Garrett looked at Reena. Smiled. It seemed a little forced to Clay, but he wasn’t exactly a smile expert. Still, it started the eyelash batting, and Reena coiled a strand of hair around her finger.
“I need to speak to Clay in private,” Garrett added to the deputy.
“Oh, sure.” Reena stuttered out a few more syllables, and eyelash batted her way out the door. Which she closed.
Clay had already done some bud-nipping with Vita, but he figured he was going to need another round of it with Garrett. “If you’re here to threaten me not to hurt Sophie—”
“I am. In part. But since you’re not involved with her, not yet anyway, just keep the threat for future reference.”
It probably wasn’t the average response, but Clay liked the guy. It’s something he would have said to anyone getting involved with April. Of course, Clay’s threats hadn’t worked, and in Garrett’s case, it wasn’t needed. Clay wasn’t getting involved with Sophie.
“The other part of why I’m here is something I’d like to keep just between us,” Garrett went on. “I’d like for you to question Arlo Betterton.”
Clay knew the name. Arlo owned the run-down gas station on the edge of town. He was in his sixties and resembled Santa Claus in grease-splattered overalls. “Has he committed a crime?”
Garrett shrugged, put his hands on his hips. “He was Billy Lee Seaver’s best friend when they were kids.” No need for Garrett to clarify who Billy Lee was. “The feds have already talked to him, but Arlo probably didn’t do much talking back. He might know something, though, and you might have better luck getting it out of him.”
“I doubt it. To Arlo I’d be as much of an outsider as the feds or Skunk the pig farmer.”
Garrett didn’t argue with that. “Lie to him. Cops can do that. Tell him you’re sleeping with Sophie, and you’re worried about her. Tell him that you need to find Billy Lee because you’re afraid Sophie’s about to fall apart.”
“Is she about to fall apart?” Clay asked before he could think about why he shouldn’t ask it.
It was a personal question, not related to this investigation. And it was what his granddaddy would have called a red pecker flag. Pecker as in dick. Flag as in Clay’s dick that had prompted the personal question about Sophie. Garrett picked up on it right away and scowled.
“No, she’s not about to fall apart,” Garrett assured him. “She’s a lot tougher than she realizes, and that means she doesn’t need a shoulder to cry on or a fuck buddy to console her. She just needs time to realize that Brantley is cow shit and that she deserves a whole lot better. Sorry,” he added, no doubt because Garrett remembered that the cow shit was now Clay’s brother-in-law.
Clay was sure he scowled, too, at that thought, but it was easy to push cow shit aside when Garrett had just dished up some official business. “Wouldn’t you have better luck talking to Arlo than I would?”
“No. He doesn’t trust me. He thinks all I want is to find Billy Lee, lock him up and throw away the key.”
“Don’t you?”
Garrett opened his mouth as if he might say something to contradict that, but he shook his head. “Just talk to Arlo when you get a chance.”
“Okay. I will.” It was the closest thing to any real police work as Clay might get. Plus, he might get lucky if he played the fake dating-Sophie card. Of course, that would only keep the rumor mill spinning about them, but as long as Garrett seemed to know the truth, that was okay with him. “And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry about what happened to your business.”
Garrett shrugged. “It was something my great-granddad started, a family legacy of sorts. Personally, I thought the ranch was legacy enough, but my dad and granddad wanted to keep the business going so we did. But it meant more to Sophie and my wife than me. And it’s not like we’re homeless or broke.”
No, even though the gossips were divided on the Grangers’ adjusted net worth. It varied from ten million to six billion. Clay figured it was on the lower end of those estimates, which meant they were still rich but had perhaps fallen out of the stinkin’ rich tax bracket. With all the work Garrett was doing at the ranch though, they’d be back in that bracket in no time at all.
Garrett tipped his head to Clay’s desk. “Sophie has one that looks exactly like that.”
It took Clay a moment to realize Garrett was looking at the envelope, and his ribs nearly cracked when his heart slammed against his chest. “Sophie got a letter like this?”
“Similar to it.”
Garrett kept on talking, but Clay could no longer hear him. That’s because his pulse was drumming in his ears. Hell. Sophie wasn’t part of this. Clay was about to snatch up the phone, but then he caught some of Garrett’s words.
Father. Thirtieth birthday.
“What did you say?” Clay asked.
Another head tip toward the envelope. “I was saying that my father died ten years ago when I was twenty-four, but he left us letters to be opened on our thirtieth birthdays. Sophie’ll open hers in November. For some reason, he put hers in a pink envelope. Mine and Roman’s were in white ones. For a second there, I thought maybe Dad had left you some kind of instructions, too.”
“No,” Clay quickly assured him. “It’s not from your father.”
Garrett leaned in, had a closer look, and he must have noticed the heart o because the corner of his mouth lifted into a near smile. “Good. Because so far my dad’s letters have been, well, a mixed bag of news, and you’ve already had enough of that.”
Yeah, he had. And Clay didn’t want to include Sophie in any of his personal mixed bag.
As Vita had done, Garrett left and shut the door behind him. Clay waited to see if there’d be more interruptions, but when a couple of minutes crawled by without another knock, he knew he should just get this done. Fast. Like ripping off a bandage. It would still hurt, but at least it’d be over.
For another month, anyway.
The sender, however, probably wouldn’t wait a month to leave a message on the landline phone at Clay’s house. Those didn’t come with the same regularity as the letters. But still, they came.
Clay used scissors to open the envelope, and he eased out the three pieces of paper. Two were pictures. One before. One after. He looked at both with the same reverence a good priest would look at a dying patient getting last rites.
Seeing the pictures was a sort of penance. They told a story, but they sure as hell didn’t change anything.
Neither did the third paper.
But he studied it anyway. Not that there was much to study. Like the other three pages in the other envelopes, this one had a single word handwritten on it.
Killer.
* * *
CLAY PULLED HIS cruiser to a stop on the side of Arlo’s Pump and Ride. He wanted to think that Arlo Betterton hadn’t had a dirty mind when he’d named the place back in the early ’70s, but since Clay had gotten complaints about Arlo’s too-prominent display of adult magazines, the name had likely been intentional.
Before Clay even made it to the front, the door opened, the bell attached to it clanging, and Arlo stepped out. “If you’re needing some gas, you’re parked in the wrong place, Chief.” Arlo was wiping his greasy hands on an equally greasy rag.
There were no other customers, no employees, either, which meant Arlo and he might be able to have a private conversation. Clay wasn’t holding out hope that it would be a productive one, but he wanted to be able to tell Garrett that he’d tried.
Clay glanced around, taking in his surroundings. Old habits. The only danger here was slipping on some motor oil and throwing out his back, but after so many years of being a cop, it was hard to turn off his cop’s eyes. Hard to turn off his brain, too, and since the contents of the pink envelope were still plenty fresh he hadn’t been able to wrestle away the demons.
Killer.
Not a pretty label.
“If you’re not needing gas then,” Arlo went on, “come inside, and I’ll get you some coffee. Made it myself just a couple minutes ago. It’ll give you something to drink when you tell me why you’re here.”
“I’ll pass on the coffee.” And not because he didn’t want to drink anything Arlo had made with those hands but because Clay’s nerves were already jangling. No need to fuel those nerves with caffeine.
“Suit yourself. I’ll pour myself one.” Arlo went to the counter. Also grease stained. Ditto for the coffeepot. Probably the coffee, as well, since there seemed to be a mini oil slick swirling on top of the cup. “So, are you here because of Vita?”
Clay tried not to look surprised and held back from saying “why the hell would I be here because of Vita?” He’d learned that some folks gave him more info when he didn’t actually question them so he just raised an eyebrow.
Arlo huffed. “Vita was in earlier, whining about feed. She accused me of feeding those chickens that’ve been pestering you out at your place. She said she saw feed on the ground. Well, it wasn’t me. I got no reason to want chickens to stay around so they can go after you.”
All that from a raised eyebrow so Clay raised his other one. Later, he’d check and see if there really was feed on the ground near his house.
“It’s true.” Arlo huffed again. “But there are some folks who might want to see you...pecked a little. But not me. I’m not bothered by cops, even when they’re just an intern one, but some folks are.”
Clay just kept his eyebrows raised and didn’t correct “intern” to “interim.”
Arlo added some profanity to his huff. “Ask Ordell Busby about the feed ’cause I’m betting it was one of his boys. They’re always up for a good prank.”
Clay knew about the Busby boys’ penchant for pranking. It was harmless stuff like TP’ing yards and trying to tip a cow. To the best of his knowledge, they’d never actually succeeded at a prank without getting caught, but it wouldn’t be hard to get away with tossing out some chicken feed.
“I’ll talk to them,” Clay said, and he didn’t budge. He just stood there, eyebrows raised and perhaps looking as if his forehead had had a run-in with some extra potent Botox.
The seconds crawled by. And crawled. But Arlo eventually huffed. “So, you’re really here about Sophie.”
Clay made a sound that could have meant anything. Or nothing. Arlo opted for the something because he started huffing, cursing and talking again.
“I heard Sophie’s down in the dumps. Heard it might be more than just down, that she might have that depression people have to take pills for. Guess you haven’t been able to cheer her up any?”
Clay had to lower his eyebrows because his facial muscles were starting to twitch, but Arlo must have taken it as a cue to continue.
“Don’t guess anything but getting her business back would chase away those blues. Well, I can’t help you there, intern Chief. I don’t know anything about where Billy Lee is right now at this moment.”
You didn’t have to be a cop to hear the slight pause Arlo made before right now at this moment, but Clay decided it was time to do more than offer up facial gestures. “Do you know where Billy Lee is, was or has been in the past month since he’s been missing?”
That brought on more cursing from Arlo. “I already told those FBI fellas I didn’t know, and now I’m telling you the same thing. Billy Lee’s not here, and I haven’t seen him.”
Clay decided to use his cop’s voice for the next question. “Have you communicated with Billy Lee in any way in the past month?”
Arlo looked him straight in the eyes. “No.”
Clay studied him, trying to decide if he was lying. Strange but he didn’t seem to be. Just in case though, Clay upped his stare a while longer, waiting to see if Arlo would break down and start blabbing. But he was literally saved by the bell. The one clanging over the door.
“Gotta go,” Arlo said. “Got a customer.”
Clay didn’t stop him, but he did make a mental note. There was something going on with Arlo. Maybe something connected to Billy Lee. And he needed to keep an eye on it.
CHAPTER FIVE
THIS WAS A new level of Hell. Sophie was sure of it.