Official Duty Read online

  “I don’t drink beer anymore. A glass of white wine would be good, though.”

  The corner of his mouth lifted in a cynical smile. “Oh, right. I forgot. City gals don’t drink beer.”

  It shouldn’t have hurt. She wasn’t sure why it did. On the defensive, she said crisply, “We city folk tend to be civilized.”

  “Is that what they’re calling it nowadays?” He shoved his chair back, scraping the feet on the hardwood floor. “I’ll be right back.”

  She watched him get up and head for the bar. She wasn’t surprised to hear he’d gone into law enforcement. He’d once told her that he’d run away from home when he was a kid and a friendly cop had found him a place in the Corbett household. He’d talked a lot about being a cop.

  Mabel had told her that he’d left the ranch and gone to Rapid City for training. That was right after she’d turned her back on the town for good. It hadn’t taken him long to be assigned as deputy in McKewen County and eventually located in Gold Peak. She might have known he’d end up back here.

  He came back with her wine and set it in front of her. She murmured her thanks and waited for him to sit down.

  Before she could ask what she wanted to know, he said casually, “Paul’s reading the will at ten o’clock tomorrow morning at his office. I’ll pick you up at the motel and run you over there.”

  She gave a decisive shake of her head. “Sorry, I’m booked to fly back on the midday flight. I have to be back at work the next day.”

  He drained the last of his beer. “They can’t do without you for a couple of days?”

  She almost smiled. “No, they can’t.”

  “Must be a tough job if you’re so indispensable.”

  “It’s a responsible one. I’m head fashion buyer for a well-known department store. I’m supposed to be ordering for the spring line and the samples will be coming in any day now.” She sent him a cynical look from under her lashes. “I don’t expect you to understand.”

  If he was stung by the remark, he showed no sign of it. “Paul was pretty insistent you be there. He’s been trying to get ahold of you. No one knew where you were. Not even Mabel or Jim. I didn’t even know you were in touch with them until you called yesterday.”

  She dropped her gaze and fiddled with the stem of her wineglass. “I can’t imagine why their lawyer would need me there.”

  Cully shrugged. “Maybe he wants you to take care of their personal effects. What with Jim or Mabel not having any family and all, someone needs to clear out the house before it’s sold. Though I think Paul has a list of things they wanted to leave to some of the kids.”

  For a long time she stared at her glass, struggling with indecision. Then she said wearily, “I suppose I could talk to him. I really hadn’t planned on staying that long.”

  “So you said.”

  Ignoring the irony in his voice she said sharply, “There’s something I don’t understand about the accident. You said it happened late at night?”

  “Yep.” He reached for his second beer and she had the feeling he was deliberately avoiding her gaze.

  “How late?”

  He shrugged and answered reluctantly, “Around two in the morning.”

  “And Jim was driving?”

  He swallowed several mouthfuls of the golden liquid then slowly set the glass mug down in front of him. “He was behind the wheel when the truck crashed.”

  She knew him well enough to know when he was keeping something from her. Her hand trembled as she lifted her glass. She let the mellow wine slide down her throat, then said carefully, “Cully, you know as well as I do that Jim never drove at night. He had night blindness. They rarely went out at night, certainly never that late and if they did, Mabel always drove.”

  The silence between them stretched into minutes, while a nasal voice from the speakers, accompanied by guitars, sang about a mangled heart.

  Finally Cully sighed. “I know. I had the same thought. Which is why I had the wreck investigated. I guess this is as good a time as any to tell you. I figured you wouldn’t want to be alone when you heard. It wasn’t an accident, Ginny. Jim and Mabel were already dead when the truck went off the road. I’m real sorry.”

  Her breath seemed to be caught somewhere in her throat. This was worse than anything she could have imagined. For some silly reason, it was on the tip of her tongue to remind him her name wasn’t Ginny anymore. Except it didn’t seem to matter now. She’d always been Ginny in her heart, no matter how hard she’d tried to escape the past.

  She made her lips move. “What happened?”

  “They’d both been shot at close range. We think by Jim’s shotgun, which is missing. Could have been a burglary that went bad, though there was no sign of a break-in. Then again, it could have been a drifter looking for a handout. Knowing Jim and Mabel, they might have invited him in for a meal and things got ugly. The house looked like a tornado had gone through it. Lamps smashed, chairs overturned, drawers pulled out of dressers…a real mess.”

  She shuddered. “And you have no idea who it was?”

  “Not yet.” His mouth tightened in a grim line. “But I will.” For a long moment he kept his gaze on his hands then slowly, he raised his chin.

  Her twinge of awareness took her by surprise. She felt as she had that first time, the little kid in awe of the big, bold cowboy. She hadn’t expected to be still affected by him like this. If she had, she would have refused his invitation. She made herself look into his eyes and saw nothing there but concern.

  “Look,” he said softly, “I know all this is a shock to you and that you’ll need some time to deal with it. But I could use your help. You probably remember better than I do what the Corbetts had in their home. I need you to take a look and see if you can figure out if there’s anything missing. It might help catch the bastard who did this.”

  Still dazed, she muttered, “I don’t understand how anyone could hurt Mabel and Jim.”

  “I know,” Cully said grimly. “I have a bad feeling about this. A feeling somehow that this isn’t the end of it.”

  His words made the back of her neck prickle. At that precise moment, a shadow appeared at the window behind him. She hadn’t been directly looking in that direction and by the time she did, whoever it was had disappeared. It was more an impression than anything but something about that fleeting silhouette disturbed her.

  She shook her head, impatient with her erratic mind. Cully’s words had put her on edge, making her imagine things that weren’t there. The very idea of someone killing Jim and Mabel shocked and sickened her. No wonder she was feeling jittery. She couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to harm such generous, giving people as the Corbetts, people who just about everyone in Gold Peak had known and loved.

  The steaks arrived, brought to the table by a young man with a scruffy stubble darkening his jaw and a plaited gold ring in his right ear. He stared hard at Ginny as he set down the plates.

  “This is Luke Sorensen.” Cully waved his hand at the frankly curious man. “He helps out on Sally’s night off. He lived with the Corbetts for a while, right Luke? Meet another one of the Corbetts’ foster kids. Ginny Matthews.”

  “My name’s not…” she began, then shrugged her tired shoulders. It didn’t matter anymore. Brandon was dead. It didn’t matter what people called her now.

  She shook the reluctant hand Luke held out. “I was so sad to hear about the Corbetts’ deaths. I wish I could have been at the funeral.”

  “Yeah, it was bad news,” Luke muttered. He dropped his hand and slunk back to the bar.

  Ginny frowned at Cully. “You said something about Sally. You don’t mean Sally Irwin, do you?”

  Cully picked up his steak knife. “Yeah, that’s our Sally. Oh, right, I forgot. You two used to be pretty good buddies.”

  “Best friends.” She stared at the thick steak on her plate, wondering how on earth she was going to eat anything at all. “We lost touch over the years.”

  “Yeah, city l
ife will do that to you.”

  Deciding to ignore the sarcasm in his voice, she tackled the steak, realizing all of a sudden that she was starving.

  Across the table, Cully watched her out of the corner of his eye. She’d changed. It shocked him how much she’d changed. It wasn’t so much the hair, cut short and lighter than he remembered. It wasn’t even that she was older. She didn’t look that much older than the day she’d left town to move to Phoenix. The Arizona sun had given her a few faint lines here and there but she still had that fresh, clear skin. In the tight jeans and T-shirt she wore her body looked just as firm and as slender as the night he’d covered her with his naked body and taken them both to another world.

  Angry about his obsession with the past, he concentrated on the present. She’d become citified. Even the jeans couldn’t hide that air of sophistication that set them worlds apart. She looked out of place, like a tourist trying to blend in somewhere she didn’t belong.

  It was more than that, though. There was something else. It was in her eyes. That unforgettable blend of green and gold still reminded him of cool forests and sunlit waterfalls but there was a look in them that worried him.

  He’d seen that look before, in the eyes of a bruised and battered woman he’d pulled out of busted-up trailer after arresting her raging, drunken husband. The look of the hunted. The terrified. The victim.

  He swallowed a bite of steak then asked abruptly, “How come your husband didn’t come with you?”

  He saw the expression he dreaded in her face—the flicker of fear, the tightening of her jaw. Then she said something he hadn’t expected.

  Her words were flat, as if she were making a conscious effort to erase all emotion from her voice. “My husband’s dead. He was killed in a plane crash three months ago.”

  He choked, grabbed his beer and took a huge gulp. “I’m sorry. Thank God you weren’t with him.”

  She sawed at her steak, her face a cold, hard mask. “Yes,” she said deliberately. “Thank God.”

  Something about the way she said it put a chill right through his bones. “That must have been real tough,” he said awkwardly.

  Carefully, she lifted a small, neat square of meat to her mouth, chewed it and swallowed. “I’m sorry I missed Sally. I would have enjoyed talking to her.”

  His mouth twisted. So she didn’t want to talk about it. Well, okay. It was none of his business anyway.

  He shouldn’t feel so damn pleased about it. It wasn’t right to feel glad a man had died. Maybe he wouldn’t if he didn’t have a gut feeling that her marriage hadn’t exactly been made in paradise. Then again, if he were really honest with himself, the news that she was no longer married wasn’t going to upset him too much, no matter how happy or miserable she’d been.

  Still feeling guilty about his lack of sympathy for the dead man, he accepted her switch in the conversation. For the next half hour or so he caught her up to date on various people she’d known when she’d lived in Gold Peak.

  She was sipping at a steaming cup of coffee when she brought up the subject of the Corbetts’ deaths again. “I assume you’ve searched the house,” she said, placing her mug carefully on the table.

  “Yep. Judging by the way the place was messed up, Jim put up a pretty good fight. He didn’t go down easy.” He swallowed hard. “We think Mabel was killed in the hallway. Looks like she was trying to make a run for it when he caught up with her.”

  She shuddered, her face pale. “Didn’t you find anything that might help find out who killed them?”

  “So far we’ve got nothing to go on. Without a motive it’s hard to know where to start.” He thought about getting another beer, then decided against it. “The worst part is knowing that maniac is still running around out there. I need to stop him before he gets his hands bloody again.”

  She seemed to think about it for a long moment or two, then said quietly, “You’re right. He has to pay for what he did. I’m not sure how much help I can be but I’ll take a look at the house if you think it will help.”

  It wasn’t until he relaxed his muscles that he realized just how tense he’d been. “Thanks, Ginny. I sure appreciate your cooperation.”

  Her face was bleak when she nodded. “I guess I can stop by to see the Corbetts’ lawyer, then I’ll go with you to the house.”

  “Great. I’ll pick you up at eight-forty-five.”

  “I have a car. I’ll find it.”

  “I have to be there, too. I might as well pick you up.”

  Her indifferent shrug stung his pride. “If you like.”

  She reached for her purse and he said quickly, “I’ll take care of it.”

  She gave him a tight smile. “Thanks. You were right. The steaks are still good here.”

  “My pleasure, ma’am.” He pushed his chair back. “Can I give you a ride back to the Sagebrush?”

  She stood with him, avoiding his gaze. “Thanks, but I have my car. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  He watched her leave, cursing the ache under his ribs. He knew better than to let his emotions get the better of him. She was even more out of his reach now than she’d been twelve years ago, when he’d watched her march away from him and out of his life.

  She’d taken his heart with her that day and she’d cared so little about him it had taken her exactly ten months to forget him and find someone else to fall in love with. Ten months, while he’d waited and hoped. What a damn fool he’d been.

  He picked up his hat and jammed it on his head. Well, there would be polar bears roaming the desert before he let anyone make an ass out of him again. He turned his back on the table and headed for the door.

  GINNY CLIMBED into her car and gunned the engine. She was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to go back to the motel and fall into bed. She couldn’t do that just yet. She couldn’t go to sleep in this town without having visited the graves of the people who meant the world to her. She couldn’t rest easy until she’d said her goodbyes. She deeply regretted having missed the funeral. This was all she had left. This last final farewell over their graves.

  Cully had told her the Corbetts were buried in the cemetery on the hill. It was a beautiful spot, shaded by cottonwood trees, with a clear view of the mountain range in the west, where the sun had already dipped below the peaks.

  In the shaded light of dusk the haphazard rows of gravestones rose and fell like undulating waves of a silent ocean. Her sneakers made hardly a sound on the pathway as she hurried past bouquets of roses and lilies of the valley, their sweet fragrance blending with the pungent smell of the pines.

  She found the graves, freshly dug and with a gleaming white headstone with both their names carved on it. The coarse grass felt prickly beneath her knees but she knelt for a long time, allowing the bittersweet memories to take her back to a happier, carefree time, when she was loved and protected and safe from the world.

  The darkness settled around her and the rustling of night creatures whispered among the trees, disturbing her thoughts. A cool breeze wafted a lock of her hair across her forehead and sighing, she climbed wearily to her feet. “Goodbye, Jim,” she whispered. “Goodbye, Mabel. Thank you for the love you gave me and for the ten years of happiness I’ll never forget.” A sob choked her words and she struggled for a moment, striving to control her grief.

  In the silence she thought she heard Jim’s voice, whispering urgently in her ear. The words weren’t clear to her but the message was.

  “Cully will find out who did this to you,” she said, her voice loud in the darkness. “I promise you both that Cully will hunt him down and see that he pays. No matter what it takes. Then you’ll both be able to rest in peace.”

  The whispering stopped, bringing her the first small measure of peace she’d felt since hearing Cully’s voice utter the inconceivable. With an ache in her heart she headed back to where she’d left the car.

  The night had drawn in now, with only a tiny sliver of moon in the starlit sky to light the way. Below her sh
e could see the lights of the little town, glowing like the embers of a dying fire. She shivered in the desert breeze that had suddenly grown cool.

  She had neared the end of the path when without warning the shadow of a man crossed in front of her. For a startling second he was illuminated between her and the flickering lights below. Then, almost at once, he vanished.

  Feeling cold and shaken, she assured herself her eyes were playing tricks with her. A deserted graveyard at night was no place to hang around on her own. No wonder she was seeing things.

  She started walking…faster…and then she heard them. Distinct footsteps, echoing from behind her, keeping in time with her own.

  Heart pounding in her throat she spun around, her gaze probing the shadows for a sign of movement. The footsteps had stopped, too. All she could see were the branches of the cottonwoods swaying gently in the night wind.

  She started off again, running now. There they were again…the footsteps…running with her, closer than before. A man’s voice, low and guttural, laughing softly, the sound barely audible above the pounding of feet.

  The terror gripped her like hands of steel, closing around her lungs, making it hard to breathe. Only a few more yards to go. Could she make it? Her legs were already trembling and weak. She had to make it, for she knew as sure as she knew her own name, that if those footsteps caught up with her, she’d end up just like Mabel and Jim, buried deep in the dark, cold ground.

  Chapter Three

  Reaching the car, Ginny fumbled in her purse for her keys. Her hand shook so badly she couldn’t fit the key into the lock. He had to be right behind her. He had to be….

  With a sob of relief she got the door open and slid inside. It was then that she realized the footsteps were no longer echoing out of the darkness. She slammed the door and locked it, then struggled to fit the key into the ignition. The engine fired and the beams from her headlights poured a wide swath of yellow light across the road ahead of her.

  As she pulled out onto the road, she glanced into the rearview mirror, fully expecting to see her pursuer standing there, watching her leave.