Unspoken (34 page)
Authors: Lisa Jackson
Tags: #Contemporary, #General, #Romance, #Romantic Suspense Fiction, #Suspense, #Fiction, #Texas
The house was stuffy. Fans only blew hot air around.
“ ’Bout time,” Peggy Sue said as he entered the kitchen. The skillet was already set on a burner, tomatoes and lettuce chopped on a cutting board, corn tortillas dripping oil on a rack, ready to be filled. “And next time don’t give the kids any ice cream,” she added without missing a beat. “You know it ruins their dinner.”
How she knew he’d bought the kids a treat, he didn’t bother to guess. Peggy Sue had a sixth sense when it came to that kind of thing. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said dryly, and she shot him a look that said she didn’t take kindly to his sarcasm.
He handed her the small sack of groceries and she started in, breaking the meat into small chunks and firing up the stove. As the hamburger sizzled, she minced the onions, then tossed the pieces into the skillet.
Shep reached for a beer in the refrigerator and wondered why all those years ago he’d been so hot for Peggy Sue. She’d been different then, before the kids. Demanded less of him. He popped the tab of his Coors and headed for the living room, where Timmy and Robby were playing a video game. Half-grown, they either spent their time acting like little kids, fighting over the controls of the game, or looking at copies of
Playboy
or
Penthouse
they’d hidden on the top shelf of their closets under old boxes of baseball cards. These days they didn’t seem to know if they were eight years old or eighteen.
Playboy
or
Penthouse
they’d hidden on the top shelf of their closets under old boxes of baseball cards. These days they didn’t seem to know if they were eight years old or eighteen.
“We’re watchin’ the news now,” he announced, frowning at Timmy, who was lounging in Shep’s worn recliner.
“After I kill this guy—”
“Now! Turn that danged thing off.”
The phone jangled loudly and Peggy Sue shouted, “Get that, would you? Someone’s been callin’ and hangin’ up all afternoon.”
The boys ignored her and Shep grabbed the receiver. “Marson,” he said.
There was a moment’s hesitation. Robby let out a whoop. Some video bad guy had just bit the dust.
“Anyone there?” he asked again.
A muffled voice said, “The gun that killed Ramón Estevan is at the rock quarry at the old Adams place. In the cave.”
Shep’s blood ran cold. “What?” he asked. His pulse jumped. “Who is this?”
Click!
“Hello?”
The line was dead.
“Hello? Damn it!” He stared at the receiver a minute, then hung up. His hands were sweating and his heart was pounding like a damned tom-tom. He strode through the house, stopping at the pantry for his favorite flashlight with the big head. “I’m goin’ out,” he said as Peggy Sue lifted the skillet from the stove and began to drain off the grease.
“But it’s nearly dinner time.” Her eyes narrowed, and she set the pan aside as he flicked on the flashlight, making sure it didn’t need batteries. “Who was on the phone and whatcha plannin’ to do with that?”
“I got me an anonymous tip.”
“About what?” She was suddenly really interested.
“I’m not sure yet,” he said, not wanting to let on to anyone, not even Peggy Sue. Not until he checked it out. “Might be nothin’.”
“But you don’t think so.”
“I jest don’t know. I’ll be back later,” he called over his shoulder as he strode outside. The screen door slammed shut behind him, and adrenaline raced through his bloodstream. He had a few hours before sunlight faded, and he planned to make use of them. He’d get himself a metal detector and find the damned gun himself. Getting a search warrant wouldn’t be a problem, even if he did it after the fact. He knew enough judges in Blanco County who trusted him and would fudge a little. Then he’d take the evidence to the lab—if he found it. But this was gonna be his collar. His alone. Hell, yes!
Shep Marson stepped quicker than he had in ten years. He was either on a wild-goose chase or he was about to solve a ten-year-old crime and claim his fifteen minutes of well-deserved fame.
Maybe he would run for sheriff after all.
Sheriff Shepherd Belmont Marson.
It had a nice ring to it. A damned nice ring.
“That’s right,” the Judge was saying as he stood leaning on his cane in front of the cold fireplace. “Katrina is my daughter.”
Shelby felt as if all the underpinnings of her life had been pulled, one by one, out from beneath her. As if by the sheer force of gravity, she sank into a chair covered in apricot-colored velveteen. “But why didn’t you tell me?”
“I meant to,” he said, but she wasn’t sure she believed him. “But time slipped away. At first you were too young. Then there never seemed to be the right moment, and later I was afraid that it might turn you against me, disrupt your life—” He lifted a hand. “All excuses, I know.”
“And what about me?” Katrina demanded. She’d reseated herself on the floral settee, but the starch had drained from her spine and instead of coming on like gangbusters, she seemed smaller and more vulnerable when facing the Judge. She cleared her throat. “Were you just going to let me go on thinking that my father was some kind of drifter, a cowboy who had blown through town, gotten my mother pregnant and taken off on her?”
“I thought it would be best.”
“For whom?” Katrina whispered.
“All of us.”
“So I spent the first sixteen years of my life not knowing the truth.”
“Which is what?” Shelby asked. “Who’s your mother?” Raising her eyebrows, Katrina glared at the Judge, silently encouraging him to tell the truth.
“Sweet Jesus.” He drew in a long breath, then braced his shoulders. “I got involved with a woman, a waitress named Nell Hart,” he admitted.
He kept a file on Nell Hart.
Shelby had read it. She saw a movement through the French doors and realized Lydia was mopping the floor, edging closer.
Shelby had read it. She saw a movement through the French doors and realized Lydia was mopping the floor, edging closer.
“I thought—I mean, I heard she was involved with Ramón Estevan and that’s why she left town.”
“I didn’t even know you knew of her.”
“It’s a small town, Judge.”
“Anyway, this was when you were very young.” Guilt riddled his expression, and for the first time Shelby understood him.
“When Mom was still alive?” she whispered, a dull roar thundering in her head.
“Yes. While I was still on the bench.”
Shelby blinked hard, turned disbelieving eyes to Katrina perched on the edge of Jasmine Cole’s settee. “Are you telling me that ... what? Mom found out and ...” She swallowed, her head ringing with denial.
“Your mother was upset,” he said, nodding slowly and sniffing as if he were about to cry. “She, um, wanted a divorce and I refused. Told her it would ruin everything. So she demanded that I pay Nell off, stop seeing her and send her packing.”
“But Nell was already pregnant,” Katrina finished bitterly. “With me. I changed my name to Nedelesky a few years back when I got married and kept it after my divorce.”
“Your mother couldn’t stand the fact that Nell was pregnant,” the Judge continued. “It was one thing that I was unfaithful, another that I’d fathered another child. I should have seen it coming, I guess, forced her into some kind of therapy, or ... hell, let her have the damned divorce. Instead she ...”
“Killed herself,” Shelby supplied, her insides twisting, her stomach threatening to empty when she remembered the rumors that she’d lived with while growing up. “An accident, you said, and Doc Pritchart agreed.” She shot to her feet, advanced upon her father. “The story I was told was that Mom drank too much at a party, was feeling sick and took the wrong medication by mistake—sleeping pills instead of pain relievers, a whole handful of ’em—but there was always a question about whether it had been intentional or an accident.”
“It wasn’t,” the Judge insisted as Shelby angled her face up to his. “Your mother didn’t commit suicide, not on purpose. She left no note, said no good-byes. She just made a mistake.” His spine stiffened and he drew himself up to his full height, transforming himself before Shelby’s eyes from a weak, guilt-riddled old man to the strong, determined, manipulating son of a bitch who had sired her.
“She wasn’t the first to make a mistake, now, was she?” Shelby threw out, stunned and feeling bereft. Alone. Motherless. “And why should I believe you anyway? All my life you’ve lied to me through your teeth.” She was vaguely aware of Katrina, knew that she should hold her tongue, but she couldn’t stop herself. “Well, it’s over, okay? The secrets stop now, and there’s one you haven’t given up yet.”
“This isn’t the time,” the Judge warned, slanting a glance at Katrina who sat, transfixed, on the other side of a glass-topped coffee table.
“No more excuses. I want to find Elizabeth, Dad. And I’m going to do it even if I have to take out an ad in the
Coopersville Gazette
or even”—she threw an arm out toward Katrina—“the next issue of
Lone Star
magazine.”
Coopersville Gazette
or even”—she threw an arm out toward Katrina—“the next issue of
Lone Star
magazine.”
“Who’s Elizabeth?” Katrina asked.
“Elizabeth Jasmine Cole. My daughter. I thought she was dead. I was told she died right after birth, but it turns out that she’s alive.”
“Holy shit!” Katrina’s mouth fell open.
Shelby skirted the coffee table and stared at the younger woman—this intruder who was her half-sister—stared her down. “Now listen to me, you’re not to print a word of this, not one word, until I tell you it’s all right. We had a deal, remember?”
“But—”
“Not until I give the word, or I’ll sue you so fast your head will spin!” She turned on her father again. “Think about it, Dad—either you tell me where Elizabeth is, or I unleash the press and none of this family’s secrets will ever be safe again!”
With that she was out the door and nearly tripped over Lydia and her mop bucket
“Oh, excuse me,” she said automatically.
“No, no, it was not your fault.” Guiltily, Lydia picked up her pail and carried the dirty water and mop quickly out of the foyer. Shelby watched her leave and realized that the housekeeper had been eavesdropping. But why? Idle curiosity? Or did she somehow have a stake in all the secrets as well?
As she stood with one hand on the doorknob, she saw her father watching her from his spot in the living room. What kind of man was he? A lawyer. A judge, for crying out loud and yet a man who bulldozed his way through life without regard to anyone else’s feelings, a man who had abandoned his child and expected her to do the same.
No way in hell!
“I’ve got to get out of here.”
“Where are you going?” Lydia asked.
“It doesn’t matter. Anywhere away from here.” Shelby yanked the door open. Despite her hard words and determination, she felt a sense of unreality and betrayal as she strode across the lawn and grasshoppers flew in her path. She’d known her father lied to her, bent the law to his own needs, played by his own misguided set of rules, but she’d never expected mis—that he would hide his own child, deny his own flesh and blood, inadvertently cause his own wife’s demise, all for the sake of saving his already-blackened reputation.
Well, all that was over.
Shelby’s head was pounding, her muscles tense, her stomach twitching. She had to get away, to think, to put everything she’d just learned into perspective.
“Just take your time,” she told herself as she climbed into her rental car, twisted the ignition and, as the engine fired, opened the sun roof. She could run to Nevada, fall into his arms, unburden her soul and let him hold her all for the sake of hoping that he would tell her everything would be all right and they would find their daughter.
But she didn’t.
This was her fight. She wasn’t going to play the helpless female victim and throw herself at a man.
Nosing the Cadillac north, toward the ranch and the Cole family cemetery, she gunned the engine. The ranch had once been her sanctuary, then later a place she’d avoided for ten long years. All because of Ross McCallum and how he’d defiled her.
But all that had changed, she decided, sliding a pair of sunglasses onto the bridge of her nose and clamping her fingers more firmly around the Cadillac’s hot steering wheel while the sun burned in the hazy sky.
Shelby Cole wasn’t going to allow any man—not her father and certainly not that snake McCallum—to ever manipulate or abuse her again. She’d damned-well die first.
Chapter Fifteen
Like storm clouds gathering over the eastern hills, the sense that something was wrong kept building in Nevada’s mind, causing the muscles in his shoulders and back to tighten. He drove down the lane to the old Adams place, the addition to his current spread, and told himself not to borrow trouble. But the fact that he’d seen Ross McCallum and Shep Marson in Bad Luck within the span of a heartbeat didn’t bode well, not well at all.
As the lane forked, he glanced in the direction of the old gravel pit that was located on the property, thought he spied a cloud of dust, but again told himself he was overreacting. He was hot, tired, and had been fighting the urge to call Shelby Cole all day.
He guided the truck to a stop by an ancient cottonwood that stood near the barn and whistled to Crockett as he climbed out of the cab. As the sun beat down, he started unloading sacks of grain from the pickup. He carried the burlap bags of oats into the barn while Crockett nosed around the fence posts and porch, looking for rabbits or squirrels or whatever else he could scare up. A woodpecker drilled in the copse of live oaks near the barn, and a crow flapped its way to the roof of the barn.
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