Darkling I Listen (4 page)

He stared at her.

She stared back, the scratch on her face starting to puff and a solitary thread of blood trickling down her cheek. For an infinitesimal second something that felt annoyingly like respect flickered in his chest.

"Take her in," he repeated, as sweet and
slow
as molasses. "I'll be down later to press charges."

"You creep!" she cried.
Cornwall
holstered his gun and reached for her arm. She snatched it away, her gaze still fixed on
Brandon
as he joined Betty, and on Henry, who continued to munch on his sandwich and regard the interloper with an amused smile. "Arrogant bull. Fine. Be that way. You don't deserve me, anyway. Take your hands off me," she snapped at the officer, "or I'll see you brought up on charges of police brutality!"

Cornwall
, who perpetually looked borderline skittish, took a quick step back and adjusted the gun on his hip.

"You're making a mistake," she declared, moving toward the cruiser, her gaze never faltering even as she tripped over a tree root and nearly dropped her camera. "I came here to help you. Don't stand there looking all full of yourself and tell me you don't need my help. If you weren't terrified of what the world thinks of you, you wouldn't be hiding away in this Twilight Zone of a town. At least give me a chance to explain!"

Cornwall
opened the cruiser door for her, placed his hand on top of her head, and eased her down into the seat. She stared through the window at
Brandon
, her eyes big, her mouth petulant. He turned his back on her and walked off.

*

Charlotte Minger crammed three sticks of Big Red chewing
gum into her mouth and tossed the silver wrappers onto Wal-Mart's glistening floor, grinning to herself. Cy Ricky Wheeler was responsible for floor maintenance. Might as well give him something to occupy his time instead of hitting on her every chance he got. As if she'd go out with him! Just the thought of it gave her the willies. He looked like a cross between Ichabod Crane and Jimmy Cricket. And he smelled like Clearasil and B.O. As the recently crowned Miss Yamboree, she had her reputation to consider.

There was precious little left worth buying on the fifty-percent-off rack, she noted. Mostly summer stuff that the Goodwill would turn away. She didn't want to have to drive into town and poke around Patsy's Dress Shop. Patsy Crumm charged too much just because she had the only decent ladies' apparel shop in Ticky Creek. Besides,
Charlotte
got a fifteen percent employee discount if she bought at Wal-Mart.

Then again, it wasn't every night that a girl had a date with Brandon Carlyle. In fact, as far as she knew, no one in Ticky Creek had managed to pin down the elusive hunk. He barely spoke to people, much less took them out for a burger at the Dairy Queen. She surmised that if she impressed him enough, on their next date he might take her to
Tyler
for Mexican food. Good plan. If the press caught wind of it and reporters just happened to be at the restaurant when they arrived, she'd get her photograph plastered in every magazine and tabloid in the country. She'd be famous overnight. The
National Enquirer
and the
Galaxy Gazette
would pay her a fortune to tell her story. Maybe Lifetime Network would make a movie about how she won and rehabilitated Brandon Carlyle's heart.

"Hey,
Charlotte
."

Charlotte
looked around, into
Cy
Ricky's bumpy red face. "Hey," she replied, and turned back to the rack, removing a cropped western shirt with fringe on the hem.

"Thought maybe I could talk you into a movie tonight. We could drive into
Tyler
if you want. Go to the new Cinemark. I got paid today."

"I have a date, in case you ain't heard." She held the garment against her and assessed herself in the full-length mirror on the wall. The fringe was sorta sexy. And the rich purple of the material made her platinum hair look shimmery. The top might look good with her new Gap jeans, purchased last month at the Galleria in
Houston
.

"Oh, yeah?" Cy Ricky's mouth quirked to one side as he stared over her shoulder at her mirrored image. The Ping-Pong ball in his throat slid up and down as he swallowed. "Who you got a date with?"

"If I told you, you wouldn't believe me."

"Try me."

"Brandon Carlyle." She grinned and met his brown eyes in the mirror, anticipating his reaction.

He frowned and shuffled his feet. "Uh-uh. No way."

"The man himself. Like he came in the store to buy some malted milk balls for his uncle and some talcum powder for his aunt? He's been in before, of course, lots of times, and
me and him
sorta hit it off, I guess. I think he kept coming back just so he could see me. Anyway, he came through my checkout, and as I was ringing him up, he asked me out. Cool, huh?"

"I don't know." Cy Ricky shook his head, and his thin shoulders shifted uncomfortably. "He's old enough to be your daddy, Charlotte."

"Don't be stupid. And so what if he is? Movie stars always go for young women. Makes 'em feel studly or something, I guess."

"Your parents won't like it much, what with his reputation and all. Don't forget what he did to that porn star."

"She died in a car crash. It wasn't like he shot her or strangled her or something."

"He raped her." Cy Ricky's eyes bugged for emphasis.

"You've been reading too many tabloids, Cy Ricky. I watched Court TV. He testified that the sex with Emerald Marcella was consensual, and she was the one who got all hot and kinky and started doing weird stuff 'cause she was high on coke. She practically raped him."

"What are you gonna do after you eat?"

She turned the price tag over to check the cost of the shirt, decided that with her employee discount she could afford it, and tucked it under her arm. Maybe she should buy some new underwear, too. With any luck Carlyle would be in the mood for more than a DQ Beltbuster and a dip cone. And if he wasn't in the mood, well, maybe she'd just get him in the mood. From what she'd read about his sexual appetites, it wouldn't take much to get him buzzed.

She started for the lingerie department,
Cy
Ricky trailing at her heels. "Well?" he prodded. "Answer me."

"None of your beeswax, Cy Ricky. Why don't you go back to your mopping, and stop worrying about what I'm gonna do with Brandon Carlyle?"

"I don't like this one little bit,
Charlotte
."

"As if I care." Rounding a display of Halloween candies and ghoulish plastic masks,
Charlotte
stopped short. Sheriff Jack Dillman stood in her path, hands on his hips, his big gun fixed to his right thigh and his brown cowboy hat positioned low over his eyes. He glared down at her, unsmiling beneath his straw-colored mustache.

Without shifting his dark eyes from hers, he said to
Cy
Ricky, "Scram. I've got a bone to pick with Miss Yamboree here."

Cy Ricky scrammed.

Dillman's expression didn't change as he reached for the purple shirt with fringe and held it up between them. "Pretty. I assume you're gonna pay for this one?"

She frowned as her cheeks turned warm. "I don't know what you mean."

"I'm meanin' I got a call from Ben Roberts over at the Discount Drugs. He said you and he got into a little fray a couple days ago. Somethin' about you pocketin' some lipsticks and earrings and tryin' to slip out of the store without payin' for them."

Damn Ben Roberts, that piece of shit night manager. He'd promised to forget about the incident if she gave him a blow job in the back of the store after quitting time. Which she did. After all, she simply couldn't compromise her Miss Yamboree title. It was her first step out of Ticky Creek. Brandon Carlyle was going to be her second.

She chewed her Big Red and wondered what she was supposed to do now. In a quiet voice, she said, "If you're gonna arrest me, do it outside. I can't afford to lose this job."

"I ain't gonna arrest you. At least not yet. Ben Roberts is still thinkin' about whether or not he wants to press charges."

"Ben Roberts can take a flying leap—"

"Rumor is
,
you've got a date tonight with Brandon Carlyle."

She stopped chewing and looked around at Rita Weir at checkout five.
Charlotte
had confided to Rita about her date no more than half an hour ago, and already it was rushing through the store like a hay field fire. "Yeah. So what?"

"So we need to talk."

"You gonna tell me that he's too old for me? Or that I'm takin' my life in my hands by sharin' a freakin' burger and soda with him?"

"I'm tellin' you that if you want to priss your pretty little ass across stage durin' the Yamboree celebration, you'll listen to what I have to offer. Of course, if you'd rather have Ben Roberts press charges against you,
that's
fine, too. I'm sure First Runner-up Sally Davenport would appreciate havin' her picture circulated as Miss Yamboree."

With a sigh and a roll of her eyes,
Charlotte
set aside the shirt and accompanied Dillman out of the store.

*

The county courthouse had been built in 1857 out of limestone
blocks hauled all the way from a quarry near
Georgetown
,
Texas
. By the looks of the interior walls and floors, there hadn't been a great many renovations to the building in the last century and a half. The green paint on the walls was peeling off in large, curling flakes. The wood floor was dull, pocked, and rutted. Aside from a telephone sitting on Cornwall's desk and a soda machine humming against the far wall, one would be hard-pressed to believe they hadn't stepped into a time machine and been sucked back to the nineteenth century. She expected to see Marshal Dillon walk through the door at any minute.

For the last two hours, since
Cornwall
had hauled her away from the Carlyle farm, Alyson had waited in the small, stuffy room with only a view of the square to occupy her time. Normally, she might have found the goings-on up and down the bricked street relaxing if not amusing: two bald old men sat on a bench feeding peanuts to squirrels. A group of young people draped banners from streetlight to streetlight, the tall red and blue letters on the banners spelling out
TICKY CREEK YAMBOREE
. Across the courthouse lawn, vendors were setting up booths where they intended to sell cotton candy, taffy apples, and sweet potato pies to the hundreds of people who would pour into town to participate in the festivities celebrating the harvest of the revered yam. And across the street, between Martha's Old and New Antiquities and Crawford's Hardware, a group of men in grease-stained shirts were busily erecting carnival rides: a Ferris wheel, a carousel, an Octopus, and a Tilt-A-Whirl. There were game booths as well, tempting prospective players with heaps of brightly colored stuffed animals. Norman Rockwell would have felt right at home.

Alyson walked to the door and stared hard at
Cornwall
, who sat hunched over a tuna sandwich and a newspaper. He glanced her way, offered her an apologetic smile, obviously embarrassed over having to detain her.

"Aren't you supposed to be taking mug shots of me or something?"

"You ain't been formally charged with anything yet. That'll be up to the Carlyles. I don't expect Henry will do anything, but I ain't so sure about
Brandon
. He gets pretty sore when it comes to people intrudin' on his privacy." He chewed and swallowed. "Sure you don't want half my sandwich, Ms. James? It's good. Dime
A
Cup Café can't be beat when it comes to tuna salad sandwiches. They don't scrimp on the sweet relish and eggs, like a lot of places."

She shrugged. "Why not?" And while he was sharing a little tuna and sweet relish, maybe she could pick his brains about Carlyle's life in Ticky Creek.

Cornwall
gathered up the paper plate heaped with sandwich, potato chips, and a dill pickle spear, and carried it into the holding room. He placed it on the table and backed away, rubbing his hands together. He looked a little like Barney Fife, only bigger and with more hair.

"Sorry 'bout this wait, Ms. James. I'm sure
Brandon
will be by shortly. I called the house. That nurse of Bernice's said he and Henry left for town a while back. Henry has a doctor's appointment. Got a bad heart, ya know. They gotta keep a real close eye on his blood pressure and such." He pointed out the window. "That's his doctor's office right there. Doc Simpson. Been doctor in these parts for forty years. I don't see Henry's truck yet. They may have stopped off somewhere. Feed store or something."

Alyson bit into the sandwich.
Cornwall
was right. Sure as heck beat the package of Twinkies and Dr Pepper she'd had for breakfast.

Cornwall
slid his fingertips into his back pockets. "I'll try and talk to him if you want.
Brandon
, I mean. I think I can convince him not to press trespassing charges against you if you promise to leave him alone and go back where you came from. And promise not to tell anyone you saw him here, of course."