Chance of a Lifetime (31 page)

Rick noticed Trace standing just behind Sam. He hadn’t seen her come up.

“You know, Matheson, I think you’re taking advantage of Martha Q. It ain’t right, you staying there free while she’s gone and it sure ain’t right if you stay once she gets back.”

“Thanks for the judgment.” Rick tried to keep his voice calm, but the old man was butting in where he didn’t belong. “I’ll be sure to keep that in mind.”

“Rick.” Trace made the old man jump. “We’d better get going.”

He walked past Sam before he said something he’d regret.

Halfway down the stairs, Sam called, “I don’t guess you’ll be coming to the writers’ group anymore since she’s coming back.”

“I’ll be there,” Rick answered without slowing. Until that moment he hadn’t thought he’d come, but something about the old guy bothered him just enough to change his plans.

Trace dropped him off at his office and said she wanted to talk to Alex. He didn’t ask about what. He needed to be alone. The cut-up note, the possibility that Beau was involved, the nosy janitor—all were winds making the storm of his bad mood worsen.

He was halfway up the front stairs to his office when George Hatcher came running out of the bookstore.

Rick wasn’t up for another ghost theory. He thought of bolting up the steps before the chubby little man could stop him, but he didn’t; after all, he was a nice guy. “Morning, George.”

“Don’t have time to talk. Got three customers. Just wanted to hand you these notes. I wrote down the names of folks who dropped by your office.” He shoved several cards toward Rick and headed back to his store.

Rick carried them into his office and tossed them on his desk. As they scattered, he was relieved to see that no square envelope was among them.

After pulling his drapes open so he could see the town and locking his door, Rick gave the notes his full attention. Two were from people who wanted him to do their wills, one was from a man who wanted him to look over contracts, and one was from a woman who wanted to file divorce papers on a husband she hadn’t seen in six months but who was still using her credit card. All had numbers and names on the back.

It wasn’t exactly the legal-eagle kind of work he’d hoped for, but it was work. Rick smiled. It was also a way to step out of his problems for a while and climb into someone else’s.

Trace called twice to check on him and promised to be back by noon. Whatever she and the sheriff were up to didn’t include informing him. Which was fine. He was tired of talking about the stalker.

He called all his future clients back and set up times they could come in. It felt good to be working.

At about eleven o’clock, a woman dressed in what looked like scarves tapped on his door. She introduced herself as Mrs. Weatherbee and said she was a friend of George’s downstairs.

Rick offered her a seat. “How can I help you, Mrs. Weatherbee?”

She smiled. “I’m not here to ask for help, Mr. Matheson. I’m here to offer it. I’ve seen your future.”

“How much do I owe you, Mrs. Weatherbee?”

“But, sir, I haven’t told you it yet.”

Rick pulled out a ten. “It doesn’t matter, just the fact that you saw one makes my day.”

She giggled. “You’re one of those ‘fly by the seat of their pants’ people who wants to turn the pages of life one at a time to see what happens.”

“That’s me.”

The strange lady stood. “Then I’ll leave you to your adventure.”

T
HURSDAY AFTERNOON

B
ORDER
B
IGGS HAD PULLED HIS
H
ARLEY INTO THE FRONT
yard to work on it when the sun finally showed itself. Beau leaned against the window off Ronny’s little kitchen and smiled. “Sun’s out,” he said to no one.

Ronny nodded as she cleaned her counter. Beau had always thought she was a pretty lady, but lately he swore she had a glow about her. If she’d been eight or ten years younger, she would have made him nervous, but somehow over the months she’d become a member of his new family. The knowledge that she had a secret that made her smile made Beau happy.

“Thanks for teaching me to make French toast. It wasn’t near as hard as I thought it might be.”

She smiled. “You’re welcome. How about I teach you something new to cook every Thursday afternoon? It’s my only early day off and I’m usually studying at night. I’ll leave the post office about two, pick up whatever we need,
and we can be cooking by three. That too early for you?” She laughed.

“I’ll try to make it up by then.” Beau moved closer. “About the other night. It’s none of my business but how’d—”

She stopped him. “I went for a ride with an old friend. Nothing else. When I got back and saw a cop parked out front, I figured my mother had done something crazy. I panicked and went to the office. I thought I’d just work an hour or two, but the fear of what I’d find back here kept me working.” Ronny patted his hand. “I’m sorry, Beau, that she got you and Border involved.”

“It didn’t matter. Gave me some jailhouse experience I’ll write a song about one day.”

“You might get your chance to add another chapter,” Border yelled through the open window. “Looks like the sheriff pulling up.”

Beau watched the sheriff and Martha Q’s niece he’d met at Winter’s Inn climb out of the cruiser. Border already had his hands in the air, but they walked right past him.

“Beau,” Alex called as her boots tapped across the porch. “You home?”

“I’m over here,” he said as he opened Ronny’s apartment door. “We’re making French toast.” It crossed his mind that he’d just said the dumbest thing anyone about to be arrested ever said. The only good news was that neither woman was pointing a gun at him.

“Could we talk to you in private?” the sheriff asked.

“I’m with friends,” Beau said, forcing himself not to back away. “We can talk.”

“Someone accused you of writing the note Rick Matheson found on his car,” she said point-blank.

“Not again.” Border puffed up like a bear.

To Beau’s surprise, Alex smiled. “Calm down, Border. I know he didn’t do it. How could he have when he was in my jail? Only why’d you guess the letters came from a picture book?”

Beau shrugged. “I don’t know. The library was the only
place my old man would let me go alone. I must have read every book in the children’s section by the time I was ten.”

“Fair enough. Makes sense. Now, do you know someone who hates you enough to try and pin what’s happening to Rick Matheson on you?”

Beau shrugged. “No. Right now my dad hates me, but having a son play in a bar is not as bad as having one in jail.”

“Maybe it’s someone who hates our music,” Border offered.

No one acted as if they were listening to him.

“Watch your back, Beau,” the sheriff said. “Call me if anything strange happens.”

Beau had the feeling she wasn’t talking about midnight rides with a girl named Trouble.

F
RIDAY MORNING

T
ANNON WALKED IN THE COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE AND
removed his hat. “I’d like to see Sheriff McAllen,” he said to the first person he saw.

“I’m Deputy Phil Gentry, Mr. Parker, I’ve met you a few times at fund-raisers for the fire department. Thanks for supplying the beef for that last cookout. Your support went a long way to making us one of the best volunteer fire departments in the state.”

When Tannon didn’t say anything, the deputy continued, “Maybe I can help you. I’d be happy to if I can.”

Tannon thanked the man with a handshake and said again that he’d like to see Sheriff Alex McAllen.

“This way.” Gentry began walking toward the back of the building. “But you might want to call her Matheson now—she’s been married a few years to Hank.”

“Right.” Tannon knew about Hank and Alex. The whole town did. For a month, the women at his office talked about
the way they got married. With half the town kin planning a big wedding, they ran off to tie the knot. Word was some of Hank’s aunts didn’t speak to him for a year.

Alex stepped to her open door when she saw Tannon and the deputy coming. She offered her hand. “Tannon,” she said with a smile. “Tannon Parker.”

“Alex.” He’d known her since she first ran for sheriff and walked in his office to ask if she could put up a sign. They spoke whenever they saw each other, and she’d worked a few wrecks over the years that his rigs had been involved in. Both had always been professional and friendly enough to be on a first-name basis. He hoped that paid off for him now.

He knew two facts about her that were important: She was honest and she didn’t gossip.

The deputy walked off and Alex invited him in. “How may I be of service?” she asked, knowing that he wasn’t a man who would just drop by to visit.

“I have a favor to ask. A big favor.”

“All right.” Her intelligent eyes studied him. “I’ll do what I can to help.”

Tannon shifted, knowing he was about to tell her something he’d never told anyone. “Fifteen years ago when I was in high school, I found Emily Tomlinson beat up in the parking lot by the stadium. She almost died from a random beating and never returned to school. I don’t think she knows it was me who found her and held her until the ambulance came.”

Alex leaned back in her chair. “I remember looking over that case once. They never found the boys who attacked her. Notes at the time suggested it might have been one of several groups of boys who attended the game and then got drunk in the parking lot. If I remember right, she could give very few details. First she was fighting for her life and later the doctors didn’t think it would be good for her to try to make her relive the attack. The sheriff back then was good, but had his hands full with a murder trial that had been moved to Lubbock, and the deputies left here were running shorthanded.”

Alex paused and took a deep breath. “You didn’t have anything to do with that did you, Tannon? You didn’t see anything that is not in the records?”

“I wasn’t there when it happened, if that’s what you’re thinking, but it was my fault.” Slowly Tannon began to tell her every detail. The end of the big game. The newspaper staff working late. A girl asking him questions and slowing him down when he went for his car. The run across blacktop to stadium parking.

“I remember hearing a few people standing around drinking after the game, but I didn’t see anyone, not even one car I could ID. All I was thinking about at the time was Emily waiting on the front steps of the school a half mile away.”

He was silent for a while before he told of hearing her wild, haunting cry. He’d parked on the last row and he’d found her between other parked cars and an old wire fence. He’d held her until the ambulance arrived, trying to keep her warm, trying to wipe away blood, trying to calm her, but she never heard him. She was beyond listening.

His words were choppy, but he got every detail out, including throwing his letter jacket in the trash on the walk home.

“Your statement wasn’t in the file.” It was more of a statement than a question.

“I didn’t see anything that would help catch the guys, and that night while the EMTs were working on her, they barely noticed me. One of them kept yelling that she had to hang on until they got to the hospital. They didn’t even ask me my name. I was sixteen. She was my best friend. I thought if I didn’t talk about it I wouldn’t think about it, but months passed before I could get the memory out of my head.”

He looked down at his hands thinking about how he should have come forward. Even not knowing anything, maybe he could have helped. But then he’d have to tell some stranger how he’d seen Emily like that all hurt and beaten. Somehow by not talking he thought he’d given her some small amount of privacy. He’d been wrong.

“I thought it might have been you in the ambulance that night when I read the report.” Alex stood and walked to the window.

“What?” He looked up, seeing only her outline against the sunshine.

“The report from one of the groundskeepers at the stadium said a kid found her and yelled for someone to call 911. The man also said he saw the kid holding someone, but he couldn’t tell in the dark if it was a man or woman from where he stood. The groundskeeper couldn’t give us any information about you because he said he didn’t want to get involved with fights in the parking lot. Apparently some drunk minors were doing damage to the locker rooms and the groundskeeper saw that as his territory. At least he took the time to call 911.”