Lone Star Justice (8 page)

"Did anyone follow you? Or could anyone have overheard you discussing your plans?"

"I don't think so. Rand, what is this all about?"

"Someone knows you're here. A package arrived this morning, addressed to you, General Delivery. Old Harold Sims brought it to my office."

"I don't understand. Shouldn't the post office hold any mail for me until I pick it up? Why did he bring it to you?"

He watched her closely as he told her about the package and its putrefied contents. If she was going to pass out, he would be at her side in a split second. But instead of fear, what he saw was anger.

"This guy was in my house while I slept. Not just in the house, but in my daughter's bedroom. The dummy he left was a warning, but this latest stunt sounds like someone's toying with me, trying to scare me rather than trying to kill me."

Rand had to agree. "That may be true, but I'm still worried about you, Maddie. And about Brandy. I also don't like the idea that some psycho might be on his way to my town or already here. I have a responsibility to the townspeople to keep them safe. That's hard to do when I don't know who or what I'm dealing with." He pulled the list of possible suspects from his pocket and handed it to her. "Tell me about the people on this list."

She unfolded the paper, her movements sure and methodical. Her index finger smoothed over the creases as she read the names.

Rand pulled a legal pad from his desk and selected a sharp pencil from the Dallas Stars cup that served as his pen and pencil holder. "Start with the first name on the list. We'll go through them one by one."

"This is going to take all night," she muttered under her breath. "Okay, the first one is Max Lucas. He was released from prison a few days ago. I sent him up several years ago for child pornography, kidnapping, and manslaughter. Two of the children died before police found where he'd been holding them."

Rand wrote the information down and looked up when she didn't offer anything further. "How in the hell did he get out so soon?"

"Anne had to offer him a deal to get him to tell the police where the kids were. She didn't know they were dead at the time. She tried to break the deal when they were found, but he had a high-priced lawyer who pretty much shredded the evidence in court."

"Anything else? Why did he make the list?"

"He made some wild threats during the sentencing. Threatened me and Anne. I didn't think much of it at the time, but Anne was murdered a few days ago, and then someone invaded my house and left the dummy. Both things happened just after Lucas was released from prison."

"Well, hell. Why didn't you tell me this sooner? Any idea where he is now?"

Maddie leaned forward and laced her hands together, resting them on top of the desk. "I don't know. Detective Thacker is trying to track him down."

Rand made a note to call Thacker in the morning. "Tell me about him. I want to know everything."

"I don't know what you're looking for. What good is this going to do?"

He set the pencil on the desk and rested his chin in his hands. "I want to know how you ended up with his case, and why he threatened you."

"Max's girlfriend was my hairdresser. She was chatting about the remodeling they were doing on their house and mentioned something that triggered a memory of a tip that had come in to the police department. Anne had told me about it because I was so worried about Brandy while all these girls were disappearing."

"So you were responsible for his capture, as well as sending him to prison?"

"Yes. Anne prosecuted the case and managed to humiliate him in front of his family and the community in the process."

"Okay, what about the next one?"

"Mark Reilly. He's a petty thief and con man. Targeted the elderly and fleeced them out of their life savings with real estate scams. He also wasn't above lifting things from their houses while he was making his presentations. He lost a lot of money when he was convicted, and I ordered him to pay back every penny he'd swindled. He wasn't too happy about that. I thought he was still in prison."

Rand made a notation to check on the man's whereabouts. "He may be. I'll find out."

Two hours later, they were down to the last name on the list. Maddie frowned as she looked at it, and he saw her shudder as her mouth curled in distaste.

"What is it? Why does the name Greg Matthews bother you?"

"I didn't try this case. But I'm the one who turned him in, and I'm supposed to testify against him at his trial next month."

"What did he do?" Rand made a note on his legal pad to check this one out as carefully as he planned to check out Lucas.

Maddie took a deep breath and wiped her palms on her shorts. "He was a teacher at Brandy's school. One of her friends was in the man's math class. I found out he'd sexually assaulted Caroline several times during the school year when he was supposedly tutoring her."

"Where is he now?"

"In jail. And I know he was there the night Anne was killed. I checked. So we can cross him off the list."

Rand shook his head. "I'm not eliminating anyone as a suspect unless I find out they're dead."

"How could he have anything to do with this? He's behind bars. He's not a threat. We need to concentrate on the ones that are." Her hands twisted together before she realized what she was doing and made a visible effort to relax.

Her words made sense, but her actions told him she was more worried about the man than she was willing to admit. Probably because of her daughter. Any man who would rape a child was capable of anything, as far as Rand was concerned.

They had twelve potential suspects. Except for the ones who were still locked up, any one of those twelve could be on their way to Greendale. How could he keep Maddie and her daughter safe from a psychopath when he had no idea who he was supposed to protect her from?

He couldn't watch Maddie and Brandy every second by himself. Even if he put all of his deputies on the job, it would be nearly impossible for them to carry on their normal duties and protect Maddie and Brandy at the same time.

Too bad he couldn't deputize the whole town.

CHAPTER FOUR

Maddie glanced at her watch. Six forty-five. She'd nearly forgotten about meeting Ellie for dinner. She called Linda to check on Brandy, and Linda assured her the girls were just fine and hitting it off. Maddie promised to pick Brandy up by nine, then drove up to the restaurant on the Interstate. When she'd lived in Greendale, the place was just an old gas station. But they'd added on a small store and a lean to for the catfish place.

Almost every table was full when she stepped inside, but Ellie was already seated at a table by the window. She stood and gave Maddie a perfume-infused hug. Ellie had always been a hugger, while Maddie preferred to keep a little distance. But she and Ellie had been best friends all through high school, so Maddie hugged her back.

"Here," Ellie said, grabbing Maddie's hand. "Let's get our food, then we can talk."

The food was laid out buffet style, with catfish, fried shrimp, boiled shrimp, boiled crawdads, baked potatoes and French fries, and a variety of salads and desserts.

"It's all you can eat, so just get whatever you want." Ellie piled her plate high with fish and shrimp, then added a healthy--or unhealthy, depending on your point of view--serving of crawdads.

Maddie shuddered. She loved fish, but she drew the line at crawdads. The waitress brought them tall glasses of sweet iced tea and a basket of fresh yeast rolls. She shouldn't be hungry, but Maddie's stomach growled at the smell of those rolls. She took a bite of the catfish. She'd forgotten just how good it was. She could remember her mother frying up catfish her dad and brother had brought home from the lake.

"Hey, Maddie! Back to the present, girl. Isn't this just the best food ever?" Ellie peeled a piece of boiled shrimp, dragged it through the bowl of horseradish sauce and popped it into her mouth. "Mmmm, heaven."

Maddie did the same, the sauce nearly setting her mouth on fire. She gulped down half of the tea. "Wow, that's hot."

Ellie giggle. "Girl, you've been gone too long. You've forgotten how to eat real food. Now, tell me everything. I want to know why you were here one day and gone the next, and why you never came back. And tell me about your daughter. She's Rand's kid, right?"

Maddie choked on her tea. "Shhh." She looked around, but no one paid any attention to them. The noise level was so high, she doubted anyone would hear her if she yelled. "How did you know?"

Ellie looked puzzled. "How could I not? She looks just like him, and she's the right age. Are you telling me he doesn't know?"

Maddie shook her head. "No one does. Well, except you. And I need you to keep that quiet for right now, okay? At least until I have a chance to tell Rand."

"Oh, sure, honey. But you'd better do that sooner rather than later, because I'm sure I'm not the only one who can see the resemblance."

Ellie was right. Anyone who knew their history would realize Brandy belonged to Rand. "So why hasn't Rand figured it out on his own? Does he think I ran away and got pregnant by the first guy I met?"

Ellie propped her arms on the table and leaned forward. "Honey, that's exactly what he thinks."

Maddie groaned. "This just gets more and more complicated. But I'm telling him tomorrow. I'm taking Brandy out to the ranch, and I'm not leaving until he knows the truth."

Ellie nodded. "Truth is good."

They caught up on their lives over the past few years while pigging out on catfish. Maddie had missed this so much. While she and Anne had been friends, they hadn't had a past in common so there was no remembering old times, no gossiping about people they'd known their entire lives, no speculating about what had happened to this person or that one.

"Hey, whatever happened to Susie Campbell?" Maddie asked Ellie. They'd all run together in high school, the three musketeers of Greendale High. "I haven't seen or heard from her since graduation."

Ellie's face paled. "You didn't hear?"

"Hear what? I haven't heard a thing about anyone in this town since I left."

"The story made the national news, Maddie. How did you miss it? Susie was murdered, right after you left."

Maddie breath caught in her throat. Murdered? "Here in Greendale?" What had the town been through? First Rand's parents, then Susie? No wonder no one seemed glad to see her. Her boyfriend's parents, then her best friend.

And what they both had in common was Maddie.

Ellie didn't seem to notice Maddie's preoccupation. "No, not here. Up around Lindale somewhere. At first the cops thought she'd killed herself. They found her hanging from a tree. But since she'd had her tongue cut out, they abandoned that theory pretty quick."

Maddie's stomach rolled. It was exactly like Anne's murder. But this one had happened years ago, several hundred miles from Montgomery county.

Ellie went on. "Yep, we had ourselves a serial killer. Killed a girl every year at the end of May or first part of June, like clockwork. Then suddenly, five years ago, the murders stopped. Papers never said he was caught, so I figure he got tired of it, or he moved on somewhere else since they'd 'a killed him on the spot if they'd a caught him. Wouldn't 'a bothered with a trial."

Maddie grabbed a notebook from her purse and started writing.

"What 'cha doing?" Ellie tried to read upside down, but gave up.

"Taking notes. Listen. If anything happens to me, make sure Rand gets this." She ripped the sheet from the notebook and handed it to Ellie. "The reason I'm here is because someone killed my best friend back in Oklahoma, in exactly the same way. Then he started threatening Brandy. I came home to be safe, but I may have stumbled back into his comfort zone."

Maddie pushed her chair back and dropped a few bills on the table for a tip. "I have to go pick up my daughter. Walk out with me?"

Ellie grabbed her purse and followed Maddie out the door. "What's going on? You think someone's going to
kill
you?"

Maddie nodded. "And you need to be careful. He's already killed two of my best friends. You're the only one I have left."

Except for Rand
.

"Well," Ellie said with a toss of her head, "thank God I'm a blonde."

***

By the time Maddie collected Brandy and returned to the motel, she was close to the boiling point. If she ever got her hands on this wacko, she wouldn't let go until he was sentenced to life in prison without parole. She had no sympathy for men who hurt women, no matter what the reason. Whether they beat them up or killed them in cold blood. It was one of the things that made her so popular with the D.A.'s office. They knew if they could present the evidence, she would hand down a tough sentence.

The press loved to hate her. She'd been given many colorful nicknames over the last few years, most of them less than complimentary. Castrating Cooper was the one most often used when the story broke about the math teacher. Mad Maddie was the press favorite during the trial for the con man who targeted senior citizens.