Killing Casanova (14 page)

“I haven’t been hiding, Carter, just working.” Cassie was tempted to let go of her cane long enough to open her laptop case and show him her computer, slung behind her, but the feeling of treachery clinging to this exchange prompted her to leave her hands grasping the only weapon she owned.

Carter made a wet noise in his throat, and she felt his body heat drawing nearer. The intensity of the moment was shattered as a computerized voice announced. “The voice recorder is now off.”

Carter’s motion halted, as if the sound had chained his will to move. Cassie’s breath shuddered in her chest, and Carter swore again.

“Give me that recorder,” he commanded.

For a man bogged down in beer and mud, Carter moved incredibly fast. He was on her in a fracture of a second, grabbing her shoulders and growling his foul breath into her face. If he hadn’t been so close to her, she knew he could have seen the flash of her stark white cane coming toward him as she levered it upward and smashed it between his legs. His grip tightened and he howled, but he did not let go.

“You’ll pay for that, you little …” Before the words had slid from his forked tongue, Cassie screamed.

The sounds of panic tumbled all around her as if she were immersed in a waterfall of noises. The horses stomped and snorted, voices, footsteps, and shouts erupted all around her and Carter.

She smiled. “If I were you I would step back.”

The barrage of questions and concerns piled all around them as the partygoers showed up to the commotion.

Carter was mostly silent in the interrogation as Cassie reassured Jana and Troy that she had just slipped in the mud, and Carter had caught the end of her stick before she fell. He had complained loudly, and she was startled with his presence. It was just a misunderstanding. She waited for Carter to slink away somewhere as soon as possible.

She wanted to check the recording and make sure the unintentional confession had been captured by the device, but Carter was ever-present. She should have told them he had attacked her, but she needed to get that recording to someone safely, and she was almost sure Carter’s diligence in staying was meant to prevent that from happening.

She finally got away from him on their return through Navajo Canyon, but Jana took a couple of other girls back with her and there was no chance for Cassie to listen to her notes.

• • •

After saying goodnight to the others and locking herself in her apartment, Cassie listened to her notes for the day. She wasn’t sure if the bit of broken conversation she had would be enough to arrest Carter, but if she gave it to Jake, he would at least be able to watch more carefully.

After downloading the recordings from her sim card, Cassie put the card in a zipper bag, sliding it between the phone books Miriam put in the kitchen drawer. A part of her rushing emotion had been quelled as she focused on the monotony of what needed to be done. In the quiet of her apartment and the hum of far off crickets, the tears now flowed.

Cassie took a towel from the countertop and pressed it into her mouth as she sobbed. She knew her reaction disproportionate to the circumstances, but she did not try to dam it. Open wounds from Dylan, the fluctuating emotions that Jake aroused in her, and now this. It was too much. Nothing had happened with Carter tonight, at least not much. The knowledge that she was somehow caught up in Jake’s tragic past could have made her angry. She wanted to feel vindicated; he deserved to be plagued for his reputation. That’s what her mind said. Although, deep in her heart, she felt none of that when she heard the truth about the fire. She didn’t believe Jake deserved any of this, Casanova or not.

“Congratulations, Jake,” he muttered bitterly to himself while pulling the truck over next to the white rail fence outside The Rocking J.

He wasn’t sure how he had ended up back here. He had purposely been avoiding The Rocking J for the last couple of days. Tonight, though, Cassie was finished with work and waiting for him in the ranch house. She told him over the phone that she wanted to give him something, and now that he was here, his heart pounded, leaving him anxious and sweating.

It didn’t seem like such a good idea. This was the only time she had ever called him. They all called, eventually, no matter how shy or uninterested they pretended to be, all the girls who knew him called him about dancing, or going out. Now she had …

He wondered for the thousandth time what he was doing. She called him, and he came running. He couldn’t tell if he felt triumphant with her request for him to come over, or if he was dreading the possibility that Cassie was just like all the others. Waning confidence and dying pride told him to pull himself together and feel victorious. He had won. Jolts of bitter anger argued that claim. He had won nothing.

He could see the lemon yellow light from the apartment above the garage and the movement of a shadowed figure in the light. He couldn’t convince himself not to watch her moving behind the curtains. He would just watch for a moment, and then he would get it over with.

The bulky shadow registered in Jake’s mind suddenly. The shoulders were too broad, the waist and torso too thick to be Cassie. Maybe she had a date in the apartment with her. That thought was almost more painful than his previous ones, and Jake swore.

Jake shook his head. His thoughts were getting out of control. Of course it was her. That explanation only created new questions, though. Why did she have a light on? It would have made no difference to her.

As Jake watched, the light turned off, and the door to her apartment opened.

Carter Langdon’s face glowed briefly in the moonlight as he descended the staircase next to the garage, and then disappeared into the alfalfa field beyond the house.

Jake sat stunned. His previous wonderings about Cassie’s visitor resurfaced as his mind tried to make sense of what he had just seen. Carter was in Cassie’s apartment? Was she going out with Carter? Did she even know Carter’s voice well enough to know that he was trouble? Jake’s stampeding thoughts became hobbled as he realized Cassie knew nothing of his history with the Langdons or why she shouldn’t trust Carter.

A new feeling of protectiveness washed over him, and he jumped from his truck and ran the length of the driveway toward the wooden staircase. Determined to fill her in on the truth of her predicament with Carter, Jake was halfway up the stairs when Cassie’s voice stopped him.

“I called the sheriff’s department. You had better get out of here or be prepared to answer questions about what you’re doing breaking into my house.”

“Cassie? I thought you were up there. It’s Jake.”

“Jake!” Cassie snapped. “Why are you prowling around in my apartment? I told you to meet me down here.”

“No, Cass. I just got here. I thought you were upstairs with a … date … or something.”

The color drained from Cassie’s tan, and Jake moved quickly to her side. Her lips quivered only slightly, but he could feel her reaction to the information as he laid his hands on her arms.

“Did you really call the sheriff? You look terrified.”

“I haven’t called yet, but all I have to do is press send and the call will go out.”

“You look like you want to make that call. What’s wrong?”

Cassie took a shuddered breath and filled Jake in on the party the night before. Pulling her voice recorder out of her pocket, she played back the overheard conversation between Carter and his friend.

“That’s why I called you to come over tonight. I don’t know if it’s enough or even if you want to do anything about it, but I thought you should at least have it.”

Jake was nodding without realizing she couldn’t see it.

Cassie impatiently asked, “Jake? Why does this guy want you dead? Why aren’t you calling the police yourself? I think he’s dangerous.”

“It’s not that simple, Cassie. This is a very small, very old town. The Langdons are well known. Carter and his problems are well known, but everyone just sort of ignores him. The sheriff is his uncle for hell’s sake. And ever since high school, I have been an outsider.”

“I understand all that, Jake, I’m not trying to step on small-town politics, but he set fire to your corrals knowing you were inside. That’s a little more serious than just drinking too much and needing to sleep it off.”

Jake shuffled his feet distractedly. He was listening to her but her words were needling the back of his mind. The surer she sounded about Carter being dangerous, the more the other guy’s presence that night worried Jake.

“I hate to interrupt your righteous indignation, and I appreciate your concern for me. I really do. I think you should ask yourself what he was doing in your apartment, though.”

Cassie turned for the staircase, and Jake took her hand firmly.

“I think you should stay here and press the send button. Let me go find out what’s going on upstairs.”

“Jake, I can’t … I don’t think …”

He could hear in her voice she was amenable to this plan, and her attempt at bravery caused him to reach out and pull her against him.

“Make the call for me, please,” he whispered into her hair. “I’m not sure I’ll survive another fire or worse if he booby-trapped your house. Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

• • •

Vaulting the steps two at a time and bursting open the door to Cassie’s apartment, Jake only half heard Cassie speak to the dispatcher on her phone. When a firebomb didn’t greet Jake’s appearance in the small room, Jake breathed easier. Reaching out his hand for the light switch, Jake felt around for the uneven surface, listening intently. The room remained dark as he felt around, but his undisguised movements brought a distinct sound. He heard the threat long before he flipped the lights on and saw the snake coiled and rattling in the center of Cassie’s floor.

The copperhead and diamond pattern of the reptilian body was six feet long. Its tail vibrated in clear annoyance, and its black eyes glimmered at Jake, frozen outside the door. The diamondback rattler drew its head back to strike, and Jake felt the shock of seeing it push him further back onto the landing. It moved fast, its long, dripping teeth imbedding themselves into the linoleum at the apartment’s entrance. As the viper pulled itself into another coil, Jake reached for the knob and slammed the fiberglass door between them.

Jake collapsed onto the top step of the landing, breathing deeply and waiting for the buzz of adrenaline to clear from his blood. The hiss and slither of reptilian scales across the linoleum behind her door made his skin crawl as he closed his eyes and heard what she would have.

The creeping sensation in his flesh vanished as he heard the sound of screeching tires and screaming sirens racing down the driveway into the ranch yard. Jake stood quivering in the flashing lights of the county sheriff’s car.

“Jake?” Ed Harris’s voice boomed. “What are you doing, son?”

Jake took a deep breath as he heard the hiss of the snake beyond the doorway and then descended the stairs to meet Ed’s calloused features.

“Miss Taylor reported a prowler and when I get here, you are breaking in to her residence. You want to explain yourself?”

Jake saw Cassie step from the doorway of the ranch house with the ever present calm on her face. As he explained what he had seen to Sheriff Harris, Cassie moved down the stairs to listen to his description. As he spoke of the sound that had first caught his attention, Cassie gasped and unconsciously stepped back from where he was talking quietly. He had kept his voice low in hopes of sparing her too many details, but she had heard every word. Now, the panic he saw earlier in her pale blue eyes was replaced with sheer terror, and Jake could only imagine the fear of walking into a room to hear that sound and be helpless to know where the attack would come from.

Jake unconsciously reached out and took her hand firmly in his, attempting to reassure them both. She explained Jake’s presence to the deputy’s, and Jake moved his arm around her shoulders, not sure her knees would keep her upright. As the two officers emerged with a rough cloth sack, they reported the specifics of the incident to the sheriff as quietly and confidentially as possible, but Jake could see by the look on her face she heard every grizzly word of the sprung trap that had been set for her.

They had cut off the snake’s head, killing it, and removed its body. It now lay in an empty burlap bag in the bed of the sheriff’s truck.

Jake was thankful Cassie did not have the ability to watch what happened. Color had not yet returned to her cheeks, and the sight of the burlap sack was giving him the creeps. Cole Butler, one of the deputies, walked awkwardly to their grouping and whistled under his breath. He shot a doubtful look at Jake, followed by an apologetic smile before returning to the sheriff’s truck.

“Jake, there’s no sign of Carter or anyone else here tonight.” Sheriff Harris’ voice snapped his attention back. “It’s dark out tonight, and you said yourself you only saw his face in the moonlight. Considering your history with the Langdons, is it possible you only thought it was Carter?”

Jake stared dumbfounded for a moment, then glanced at Cassie. She was scowling suspiciously as well, but not at him. Her open mistrust was focused on the sheriff’s careful questioning, and Jake automatically stood a little straighter. If his words had wound strength and structure into Cassie’s body, she would share it with him now. Standing their ground, she pulled away from his arm around her, and Jake crossed them over his chest.

“It was him. Like you said I’ve got a history with that guy. I would not mistake him,” he said firmly.

Sheriff Harris mumbled something about tracking Carter down and questioning him, but both Cassie and Jake knew it would just be a formality. There was no proof of anything except that someone had pulled a cruel and dangerous prank on her, and there was nothing left to do about it.

After the police retreated back down the driveway, Cassie and Jake stood motionless before the dark ranch house. The hot, sticky breeze blew the wind chimes hanging from the covered porch, and Jake took Cassie’s hand and began walking with her back up the driveway. She pulled her fingers from his and slid her hand up to the crook of his arm, gently wrapping her hand around his bicep just above the elbow. Falling in step one stride behind him, Cassie followed Jake as he moved silently through the night.