You're Not Safe (Texas Rangers) (9 page)

After a brief silence she said, “Vice president of commercial sales. She’d moved up the ladder quickly and managed to make a sizeable fortune beyond what her family has given her.

“By everyone’s standards she is the model of success. Perfect. Had a tight hold on the brass ring.”

“She’s not what she seems,” she said.

“I know.” But he didn’t need her pointing out Sara had mastered the art of elaborate disguise to hide bitter sadness. Once Sara had wanted to leave this life and go on to a better existence. Though she’d failed the first time, he wouldn’t fail this time.

“Can you do this alone?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll see.” Her smart-ass undertone jabbed at his temper, teasing it as if it were a bear in a cage, but he didn’t have time for another argument. He had a job to do.

Irritated, he drove into the parking lot and got out of his car. He adjusted his jacket and moved toward her, careful not to startle her. Rory’s weakness had been booze. Sara’s was making money. She was as addicted to it as Rory had been to the bottle.

“Ms. Wentworth?” His voice was clear and direct.

She started, turned abruptly, and then faced him. She studied him a beat, clearly assessing threat, and then, finding none, her painted red lips widened into a smile of white teeth. “Mr. Corwin, good to see you again.”

He grinned and extended his hand as he approached. He kept his gaze indirect, his posture slack, nonthreatening. “Sorry I had to miss our meeting yesterday. I had to fly back to D.C.”

“No problem.”

This close he could smell the subtle rich scent of her perfume. “I’m excited about the property.”

She appraised his expensive sports jacket, the rich tan accentuating a white starched shirt and his heavily creased khakis. Appreciation flared and she smiled. “I am, too. How many restaurants did you say you wanted to open in Austin?”

“I’m starting with the one. I’ve a chain back East but want to take the Texas expansion slow. I’m conservative about growth.”

“Texas loves business.”

He grinned, knowing his smile melted hearts. “That’s what I hear.”

She reached for a ring of keys and unlocked the padlock on the property’s front door. “The property is fifteen thousand square feet, three levels, and has lots of freezer space as you requested.”

“Excellent. Let’s look at the freezers first. They need to be large.”

She grinned, bright, her eyes all but flashing dollar signs at the possible sale. “Right this way.”

He thought about the other woman in the car waiting and watching. He couldn’t disappoint her. “Great.”

One down, four to go.

 

 

The site selection for Bonneville Vineyards had not been scientific. Greer’s aunt had said many times she’d chosen the land because it had felt right, whole and spiritual. Twenty years ago when the thousand-acre site had beckoned Lydia away from the social circles of Austin, she’d known little about growing grapes or
terroir
, the juxtaposition of soils, climate, and topography. She’d only understood the land rolled and swayed like a beckoning hand and the old ranch house had been in need of a new occupant.

And so on a cold January day two decades ago, Lydia had moved into the nineteenth-century ranch house made of board-and-batten walls and encircled by a wide porch. She’d spent those first months restoring the house and making it habitable and then in the spring had planted her first vines.

What Lydia lacked in science she made up for in luck. She’d inadvertently chosen the perfect site to grow grapes. Though Texas was a land of extremes—cold, heat, hail, and drought—Bonneville enjoyed the right blend of moisture-laden soil, hot Texas sunshine to nourish the vines, and gentle steady breezes to chase away pests.

And as Bonneville had welcomed Lydia, so it had greeted Greer with meandering hillsides, orange-yellow sunsets, and temperate breezes. She’d been too battered to appreciate the beauty initially, but soon the land had eased her sour moods and guided her away from grief. Now she couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.

“Good morning, Miss Templeton,” José West said.

She smiled. “Good morning, José.”

José West was a midsize man with thick arms and deeply colored skin from years in the sun. There’d been a time when he could heft one-hundred-pound sacks of fertilizer without a thought, but in the last year much of that boundless strength had waned. The graying at his temples had deepened and his eyes no longer sparked with challenge.

He had been managing Bonneville Vineyards for twenty years, and he’d not been pleased when Lydia had brought Greer to Bonneville. He’d made it clear he did not have time to babysit. Greer had made it clear she did not want to work in the dirt with a gruff man. But Lydia had insisted in a not-too-friendly tone that the two get along. “The grapes do no care about your problems,” she had shouted to them both.

Neither liked the other but both respected Lydia enough to try. And so Greer had followed José to his truck that first morning at sunrise. She’d had a terrible headache, still limped from her accident, and had wanted only to return to her bed and pull the covers over her head. José, mumbling in Spanish, had grumbled about moody teenage girls. When she’d glanced back at Lydia hoping for a reprieve, she’d found her aunt smiling.

By noon of that first day, Greer had been covered in sweat. Her hands had ached and her legs covered with scratches from the vines. To say her mood had lightened would have been a lie. José had explained how to prune the dead vines and leaves and watched as she’d practiced. Midday, he’d ordered her to return to the main house to rest her injured leg. Though she’d never have admitted it then, she would confess now there’d been a flicker of accomplishment when she’d limped to the waiting truck.

José had come again for her the next day and again on the next. She’d followed him, sullen and silent, into the fields. That first harvest season, neither had spoken more than six words to the other. But she’d learned how invasive weeds could be to the Texas Hill Country vines and how to curse them in both Spanish and English. She’d grown adept at jiggling the truck’s spark plug so it would fire and the engine would start. At harvest time, she’d learned to sharpen the blade of her pruning knife and how to cut, twist, and toss a cluster of grapes quickly and gently.

The vineyard allowed no time for self-pity or much reflection. It required her full and immediate attention all day, every day. No weekends off. No vacations and abbreviated holidays. The vineyard wanted her body and soul, and she was grateful to give herself over to it.

Over the next two seasons, José had taught her about soil, sun, rainfall, and drainage. He’d taught Greer about the life cycle of a grape and how to tell when the grapes were the sweetest. Without a lot of words spoken, they’d become friends.

By the end of her third season, her mother had started talking of college back East. But by then the land and the grapes had infected Greer’s blood and filled her mind with dreams of expansion and winemaking. To her mother’s disappointment, she’d forgone an Eastern school and earned a viticulture certificate from Texas Tech.

Now, accomplishment burned as she studied her land. This was her last season as a grower. This time next year she’d be making wine. She didn’t yearn to mass-produce wines but to create wines conveying quality.

“Your aunt would be proud,” José said.

“Yes.” It still saddened her Lydia would never taste the first Bonneville wine. “We’ll drink a toast to her with the first bottle.”

He cleared his throat but didn’t speak.

José had been hit as hard by Lydia’s death as Greer. Though they’d not made their relationship public, Greer knew José and Lydia had been lovers for years. For Lydia, he’d always grieve.

“How is the new boy working out?” she said.

He squinted against the sun as he watched Mitch watering the horses. “He’s done well with the horses.” He frowned. “We’re not a horse farm and we cannot afford to feed the horses or the man who feeds them.”

“We can afford a couple of old horses, and Mitch knows he’ll work in the fields.”

“When?”

“You can have him today. After he feeds the horses he’s all yours.”

Lines around José’s mouth deepened as he studied the animals. “Lydia gave you a dog. Why didn’t you give him a dog?”

She thought back to the mutt Lydia had given her after the first harvest. The Golden Shepherd mix had been six weeks old. Like the grapes, the dog had not cared about her past. There was simply now. Sadie had lived eight years and been there to greet her each morning, barking when she’d left for Texas Tech and when she’d returned. “I spotted the
FOR SALE
sign at the horse farm while I was driving home. Buying the horses made sense.”

José snorted and kicked the dirt with his boot. “You can’t save the world.”

“No, not the world.”

José flexed his hands, now bent and swollen by arthritis. “But you hope to do for him what Lydia did for you?”

“I promised Lydia I would help one person. Just one.”

“And he is your one?”

“I asked Dr. Stewart to give me someone to help. He gave me Mitch. So yes, he is the one.”

“Why was there a Texas Ranger here yesterday? Was it about the hanging?”

“Yes.” She shoved out a breath. José didn’t trust the law. “And he’s Mitch’s uncle.”

A string of Spanish curse words rumbled out with his next breath. “Was he here for the hanging or the boy?”

“Both.”

“Why would he ask you about the dead man?” She rubbed the back of her neck with her hands. “Because I knew him.”

“How?”

“From before Bonneville. From Shady Grove.”

José frowned. They’d never talked about that time but Lydia had told him. “That is not good.”

“No.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.”

She’d thought a lot about Shady Grove in the last twenty-four hours. She’d not kept up with any of the kids from her pod, not even Betty, whom she’d had a chance meeting with a couple of years ago at a wine festival. Greer had been taken back. Their conversation had been awkward, each anxious to gain distance from the other.

Shady Grove and the accident had been a distant dull pain until yesterday.

With Rory’s death, Mitch, and now Bragg’s watching, she feared she’d bitten off too much. “How do the grapes look today?”

“They’re plump and ripe. The spring was good to us, and if these next two or three weeks are hot and dry, we will be ready for harvest by early July.”

“How many tons do you think this year?”

“The new vines you planted five years ago will be ready. With them, I think we’ll have twenty-thousand tons.”

“A sizeable load.”

“The wineries will be pleased. We could turn a nice profit this year.”

“Next year we will be making our own wine, just as Lydia dreamed.”

Frowning, José pulled a bandana from his back pocket and glanced back toward land cleared for the winery. He disapproved. They were farmers in his mind. They grew the finest grapes in Texas and were no winemakers.

A smile teased the edge of her lips. “Go ahead and say it, José.”

For a moment he was silent. “I fear you’ve extended yourself too far, Greer.”

There were days when she thought she teetered on the edge of the cliff. “I’ve taken a risk.”

José again wiped the sweat from the back of his neck. “You’ve always done the work of three, but you are only one person.”

I’m living for me, as well as Jeff and Sydney.
“Maybe I’m tired of playing it safe.”

 

 

Bragg arrived at the forensic technician’s lab at a quarter before five. Melinda Ashburn leaned over her microscope, analyzing a section of rope. “That the rope that hanged Edwards?”

She didn’t lift her gaze as she adjusted the focus. “It is.”

“That unusual?”

“It’s a natural synthetic, heavy duty, and could be purchased at any number of hardware stores.”

“How much do you have there?”

“A couple of hundred feet. It couldn’t hurt to check area stores for anyone who bought this kind of rope.”

“That’s something. What about the cigarette butt?”

“Did get some DNA and have sent it off. It’ll take weeks or months unless your victim’s brother puts a little heat on the system.”

“I’m sure he wouldn’t mind. I’ll give him a call.”

“Good. Because I’m a little curious myself.”

“Tire tracks?”

“Got a clear print. I’m now checking databases to find the make and model. Shouldn’t be long.”

Bragg dug out a slip of paper from his pocket. “Let me know if it matches this brand.”

She glanced at the paper. “Who does the tire belong to?”

“Vineyard near the crime scene.”

“You’ll be the first I call.”

“Any other evidence from the crime scene?”

“Footprints. Size eleven. Athletic shoe. Hard to tell if it’s a man or a woman. The wearer’s left foot pronates out. Note how the back heel is worn.”

Bragg studied the print. “Another piece to the puzzle. What about fingerprints?”

“Only the victim’s on the photograph. Whoever else was out there was careful not to leave prints.”

He thought about the roads leading to the area where they’d found the body. Back rural country roads had little traffic at night. “The closest gas station to the site is five miles away.”

“And there are no cameras there. I checked on the way out.”

 

 

Bragg had barely stepped through the front door of his home when he heard Mitch’s keys in the door. He stood at the small kitchen table, his hat tossed casually in the center, and was reaching to unsnap his gun from the holster.

He straightened, doing his best not to look like a Ranger. He’d perfected this stone-faced expression during his years with DPS and the Rangers. He could slide on the expression as easily as a worn pair of boots. But with Mitch, he’d worked hard knocking down barriers. Life had done a good bit to build walls between them, and he didn’t want to add more bricks.

But the more he showed concern for Mitch the more the boy retreated into himself and so he was training himself to hold back. A little.

His boy’s face and hands were covered in dirt and his hair was askew as if he’d run his fingers through it. His jeans and T-shirt were soaked in sweat and his boots covered in mud. Rode hard and put up wet.

“How’d the job go?” Bragg couldn’t help a smile.

Mitch glanced up and met his gaze. “Good.”

“They drag you through the mud?”

A slight grin tugged the edge of his mouth. “I’m working with a couple of horses. Nags, really. One has a bad attitude.”

The black one. “That’s your job?”

His muscles didn’t constrict with customary strain. “For starters. Today I was in the field. Dude name José showed me how to weed.”

Not she. Not Greer. “You like the boss?”

“Hard to read. Kind of edgy but shoots straight.”

“José?”

“No. Greer.” As tempted as he was to press for details about Greer, he held back.

Mitch sat on the hearth and tugged off his boots. Bragg had wondered why any Central Texas builder would put a fireplace in a house. The temperatures rarely dipped below fifty even in the dead of winter, and he’d never built a fire in the damn thing. They both used it as Mitch was now: a way station to pull off or stow dirty boots.

“Judging by your clothes I’d say it’s been a good day’s work.”

“Not bad.”

“Get yourself washed up, and I’ll make us a couple of burgers.”

“Sounds good.”

Bragg watched his nephew vanish down the hallway toward the bathroom. There was a small spring in his step he’d never seen before. Mitch might not ever recapture the naïve youth he’d had before Iraq, but a bit of the darkness had lifted.

Greer had bought those nags for Mitch. She’d said the boy’s hiring had been a favor, a promise to her late aunt. He supposed he should be grateful she’d reached out to Mitch.

But why Mitch? Why now? The Ranger would not let the man enjoy this good fortune and simply let go of the gnawing suspicion tugging at his gut.