The Salt Maiden (9 page)

The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears, or the sea.

—Isak Dinesen

Dana woke from a deep and healing sleep as dawn’s first rays bathed the bed in coppery light. Smiling lazily, she sighed at the warm weight of Jay’s arm draped over her hip, at the solidity of his body spooning hers from behind.

Tempting to roll toward him, to rouse him again with kisses. Or to duck her head beneath the sheets and give him a proper wake-up call.

But the thought of the last few pages of her sister’s journal lying unread on the table reminded her that this was no vacation. She could accept that she’d been human, allowing fear and loneliness—and raw attraction—to land her in Jay’s bed. But she couldn’t indulge herself by enjoying endless encores of last night’s incredible performance.

Even as she thought it, Dana knew Jay hadn’t been
performing.
He wasn’t some lothario intent on showing off his technique or scoring a conquest. What had arced between them had felt more honest and elemental than even the best sex, forging a deeper connection that she refused to name—to even think about for fear of opening herself to any more pain.

She closed her eyes, forcing herself to refocus; she had come here to find her sister, not shack up with some small-town sheriff.
Angie. Angie. Angie.
The one-two beat turned to ticking, a countdown clock’s race toward a tiny coffin…

When Nikki’s face flashed through her consciousness, Dana wriggled free of Jay’s embrace. With shaking hands she unearthed a comb and travel toothbrush from the depths of her purse and then used the bathroom’s cramped shower stall.
The water felt hard and tasted briny—better than nothing, but she didn’t linger. Because she’d left Angie’s place in such a panic, she had to dress in the same shorts and T-shirt she’d changed into before collapsing on the cot last night, but she could make do until she headed back to the adobe.

Her stomach fluttered at the memory of Max lunging toward the window, of the silhouetted figure lurking on the moonlit salt plain. If the dog hadn’t warned her, would the gunman have come right up to the house? Would he have balanced the barrel of his weapon on the window ledge and shot her in her sleep?

She leaned over the counter as a wave of dizziness broke over her. Forcing her gaze higher, she stared into her hazy reflection in the still-steamy mirror.

“I’m not letting this stop me,” she told her double as a stubborn impulse reared up, one that made her want to dig in her heels, drive to Pecos, and buy herself the biggest, loudest rifle she could find. Or an elephant gun, maybe.

Except she’d never fired a weapon, probably wouldn’t if she could. Since she couldn’t even bring herself to eat shellfish—which had all the self-awareness of animated snot—it was ridiculous to think she’d turn into Dirty Harriet overnight.

Not only ridiculous but dangerously delusional. No way could she outgun or outfight this skulking shadow. Her only hope was to outthink him if she could.

Emerging from the bathroom, she smelled fresh coffee brewing. The outside door had been propped open, letting in the cool breath of the morning, and both Jay and Max were missing.

She stuck her head outside and spotted the Suburban. So they couldn’t have gone far, maybe to the house for something. After swiping half a mug of coffee from the still-dripping machine, she sat back down at the table—and saw that someone had flipped to the last legible page of Angie’s journal.

Had Jay read further while she’d been in the shower? As she scanned the paper, her gaze snagged on two words amidst the scribbles, a name that made her gut tighten in response.

Sheriff Eversole
, it said in Angie’s angry slash strokes.

His uncle’s bedroom had been one of the first spots the volunteer restorers tackled before Jay’s arrival. He had been relieved beyond measure to find the walls torn down to the studs and the furnishings and rugs all hauled off. Though no one had come right out and said it, he knew his neighbors didn’t want him facing the room where his uncle R.C. had burned to death, where the fire appeared to have ignited.

As stunned as Jay had been to lose the one unshakable fixture of his childhood, in retrospect he might have seen it coming. During his years living here, he’d often spotted a red-orange cigar tip glowing in the darkness. Most times Uncle R.C. would be reclining in an old chair that permanently reeked of burning tobacco.
“Thinking the day through and the people,”
as R.C. had always put it, adding only once,
“and maybe wondering a little over how things could’ve been.”
But every now and again Jay would catch Rimrock County’s sheriff smoking in his bed with the lights off.

If Jay had visited after his discharge, as he should have, would he have thought to warn his uncle of the danger? Or would he have remained as fixated on his own wounds as he had been as a kid?

Grimacing, he squatted to survey the bare wood flooring, his gaze searching out the uneven slats Angie had mentioned in her journal.

Old R.C.’s stashed Haz-Vestment’s money somewhere. He thinks I’ve just been screwing him out of gratitude for bringing me those groceries—like I’m so hard up I’d put out for canned tuna, wheat crackers, and a few goddamned rolls of toilet paper.

I’d probably do him for tequila, or maybe even beer (my mouth’s watering to think of it, though I’ve been dry for three whole months now!) but Eversole’s never offered that much. Only his lectures and his johnson—tight-assed old man…

At around that point Angie’s handwriting disintegrated into a rat-chewed patchwork. A few recognizable words remained, including
bedroom
,
floorboards
, and the one that seared Jay’s gut like a hot coal:
bribes.

He damned well didn’t buy it, refused to believe that his uncle, a lifelong bachelor with a reputation as straight-edged as a ruler, would get mixed up in anything of the kind.

Still, Jay needed to look for himself, to put his mind at ease. The trouble was, the flooring had been sanded and refinished. Carl Navarro had mentioned that a few boards had to be replaced, and Jay picked them out by their slightly darker color. But there was no discernible unevenness, and certainly no one had mentioned finding hidden money during the repairs. There had been a few smiles over the few well-thumbed
Penthouse
magazines they’d unearthed, but nothing more notable than the same naked women most of the county’s bachelors knew by heart.

Max turned toward the doorway, his short nails clicking on the wood floor as he pranced in excitement.

“I-I figured I’d find the two of you…here.” Dana’s words came out off-kilter, and she ignored the dog to lock eyes with Jay instead. “Considering what I read at your table.”

As he looked up at the gorgeous blonde fresh out of his bed, regret hit him. He’d expected tenderness, maybe a little nervous joking this morning, or, if he didn’t go and say the wrong thing, the chance to lay her on that kitchen table and have a fantasy for breakfast. But Angie’s journal had taken up that spot, and he saw in Dana’s face that she had swallowed the whole damned pack of lies.

“Caught my eye while I was making coffee,” he said.

Dana thrust one of the two mugs she carried toward him, its contents black as his mood. “At first, when I read ‘Eversole,’ I thought she was talking about you.”

“Me? Angie was long gone before I ever got here. And besides that—”

“Yes, I know now. When I read further I could see she meant your uncle. Your uncle who was taking bribes, who was using my sister—”

“That’s bullshit.” The surface of Jay’s coffee trembled, even after he stood. “My uncle mostly raised me. Taught me to work cattle. Taught me to handle life—at least when I would listen.”

He’d been the one to push, too, for Jay to take a stab at making himself a life outside of Rimrock County—handing Jay a bus ticket to Dallas and three hundred dollars right after his high school graduation, saying,
“It’s not a lot, but it’s sure a hell of a lot more of a chance than I was given. So don’t blow it.”

Jay had felt lost—and scared shitless—but he’d never doubted the good intentions of the man who’d given him the boot. “He was the most honest man I knew, a man who always stepped up to do what needed doing. He took care of my grandfather when he was dying. Took me in when no one else would. In all the time I knew him, I never saw him take a cent he hadn’t earned. And I sure as hell can’t imagine him taking advantage of a woman in your sister’s situa—”

“I’ll admit, it’s obvious Angie had her own agenda. But I can’t help wondering how your uncle felt about
that.
”

What the hell was she implying? Jay sipped the bitter brew to give himself a moment.

“She was delusional,” he told her, trying to keep it a professional rather than a personal judgment. “When alcoholics dry out they can get pretty paranoid. This one old
man in Dallas kept calling nine-one-one to report bats flying out of his TV set. He insisted they were working under the orders of Jay Leno. Some of the stuff your sister wrote made just about as much sense.”

Dana shook her head. “The thing is, the part about your uncle seemed lucid. Not like that nonsense about the Salt Woman she was going on about.”

“So you’re saying you believe it? The accusations of your drug-addled, drunken sister against a man I know damned well would never—”

She threw up a hand, anger sparking in her green eyes. “Whoa, there, cowboy. Angie has her problems, but purposeful dishonesty’s never been one of them. If anything it’s the opposite. It’s her penchant for blurting out the brutal truth that’s gotten her into trouble in the past. Besides, who would she be lying to in the pages of a journal she kept hidden? Herself?”

He thought about it as he swallowed another mouthful before conceding, “You’ve got a point there, and I’m sorry. I was out of line to talk that way about your sister. It’s just that—”

“If you’d ever met her,” Dana told him, “you’d understand there’s a whole lot more to Angie than chemical dependency and a history of hell-raising. She’s smart, Jay, and she’s talented, and for all the trouble she’s caused me, I still miss her—every bit as much as I’m sure you miss your uncle.”

He nodded stiffly, wishing again that he had been a better nephew.

“But I’m still wondering,” she said, “if he ever figured out my sister was looking for that cash.”

“If there was even money—which I’m not saying I believe—what if Angie found it? Maybe she stole it and ran off to Aruba or wherever, and that’s why no one’s heard from her.”

Dana blew across the surface of her coffee, and the sight of her pursed lips filled Jay with sharp regret.

“Angie wouldn’t leave her loom behind,” she said.

“She could buy a hell of a lot of looms with that money, if it was as much as she implied. Drugs, too, and whatever she was drinking.”

“But
that
loom meant something to her. It was her one constant, the only thing I knew she’d never hock. She told me that some old
curandero
put some kind of mojo on it, cast a spell so it could never turn against her. She believed in all that stuff. She loved it. Besides, Angie doesn’t give a rat’s rump about money. The trust fund I told you about earlier, the one that pays us each a monthly stipend—she’s due to get the balance before the year is up. And it’s…it’s substantial money by most people’s standards, a couple of million plus. Maybe more by now, I don’t know. I haven’t really kept up with my statements.”

Jay had known Dana’s family had money, but not that she and Angie were both rich in their own right. He’d slept with a
millionaire.
An
heiress.
But instead of cheering him, the thought felt wrong. After all, who was he but some screwed-up Dallas PD reject, a man who’d fouled up in the army so badly he’d gotten his men killed, then couldn’t even handle—

“Whenever she’s gotten into trouble, my mother’s always bailed her out,” Dana went on, “and so have I, on occasion.”

Jay sucked in a deep breath, tried to focus his mind on her point.

“So
if
this money’s real, and
if
your sister wouldn’t steal it for her own sake”—he heard the skepticism in his own voice; saw Dana glower at it. Clearly sex on the RV’s table had moved beyond the realm of possibility—“what the hell are you saying about my uncle?”

“I’m saying that a lot of men would kill to keep that kind of money. Especially a guy who’s crossed the line to get it in the first place.”

“So first you’re accusing him of being dirty, and now you’re calling him a killer.” Jay’s anger hammered flat each word. “Guess it’s a good thing you weren’t available to do
his eulogy. Too busy back in Houston, living rich, while your sister scraped by like some kind of two-bit crack whore—”

“Stop. Right there. Right now.” She pointed at him, making it an order.

“And who’s to say your sister’s way of getting to that money wasn’t to set fire to her so-called ‘lover’ in his bed?”

“But Angie’d never hurt a—”

“That ‘never’ slices both ways, Dana. If you expect me to consider your theory about a sheriff well-known for his honesty, you can at least open yourself to the chance that your sister’s not the victim in all this.”

Dana stared at him. “Last night. Last night I thought you were someone different.”

“If you thought I was someone different from a lawman, then I’m sorry. I…I can’t let my relationship with my uncle affect my investigation. Any more than I can let what happened between us…”

When she nodded he let the rest go.

“So what’s next?” she asked to end the unwieldy silence. “Do you want me to help you pry up this wood flooring?”

Jay felt a muscle twitch beside his mouth. Though he still meant to do it himself, her suggestion grated.

“That’ll have to wait,” he told her. “Right now it’s more important to get a look around the Webb place, see if your evening visitor left anything behind. Wallace’s meeting me out there at seven, so I need to grab some breakfast and get moving. I’ve got a couple extra honey-oat muffins if you want ’em. Mrs. Lockett bakes ’em, and they’re pretty good.”