Deep in the Heart (20 page)

She’d just walked to the post office to pick up the mail only to be told that it had accidentally gone out on the route with the rural mail carrier. She wasn’t expecting anything since no one in Los Angeles knew where she’d gone, but the thought of driving out to get it was still appealing. Convincing Johnny that it would be safe for her to do so was another matter altogether. And from the looks of the waiting room, talking to him might prove impossible.

Carol Ann walked in with a handful of papers. A wide grin spread across her face when she saw Samantha looking apprehensively at the two old men.

“I don’t suppose you’d like to apply for a job?” she asked. “The secretary who’s been out sick called in this morning and quit. Her husband’s job transferred him to Waco. Meanwhile, because of a bull, Wiley Smith and Pete Hardy here have suddenly decided to dispute a fence line that’s stood between their property for the last fifty-five years.”

The disgust in her drawl was impossible to miss. Both old men ducked their heads and reminded Samantha of kids waiting to be called into the principal’s office. She stared at them, wondering which was Wiley and which was Pete.

“Why does it suddenly matter where the fence is?” she asked them, and then wished she’d kept quiet as both men started talking at once.

“I thought I told you two to shut up!” John Thomas bellowed from the other room.

Samantha grinned as the two old men instantly hushed.

Carol Ann’s eyebrows arched and she shrugged, a silent show of sympathy to Samantha. It was all she dared before she left the room. The sheriff was in rare form.

But John Thomas’s bad mood seemed to disappear when he came out of his office and saw Samantha waiting with Pete and Wiley.

“Sam! I didn’t know you were here. What’s up?” he asked, relishing the spurt of pleasure he got from the smile on her face.

“I can see you’re busy.” She grinned when he rolled his eyes at the understatement. “I just came from the post office. Dan said he forgot to pull your mail for pickup and accidentally let it go out on the route today. One of us will have to go get it.”

John Thomas frowned as he considered their options. “I guess we could go this evening after I get off work. At least it’ll give us a chance to check on Rebel. He’s probably lonesome and thinks I’ve abandoned him.”

“I could go now,” Samantha offered, and then could tell from the frown on Johnny’s forehead that the idea didn’t appeal to him.

“You could not!” he said sharply.

Both old men sat up from their slump and gave the arguing couple their undivided attention, obviously pleased that someone else besides them was in trouble. But Samantha refused to take the first no as gospel.

“I could drive one of the squad cars. It has a radio in it. I wouldn’t even get out. I’d just drive up to the mailbox, get the mail, and come straight back to town. Please.”

Instinct told him to refuse, but the wistfulness on her face was hard to ignore. His mind raced as he considered the wisdom of letting her have her way.

“I’d be happy to ride escort with the little lady,” one of the elderly men offered.

John Thomas snorted softly and tried not to smile. It wouldn’t do to let them know that they weren’t in nearly as much trouble as they thought.

“You’re not going anywhere, Wiley,” he said. “You punched your best friend in the nose this morning and have yet to tell me why. I don’t intend to let either of you leave this room until you start talking. If this isn’t settled now, the next call I get concerning you two might be over a shooting, and I don’t think either of you want that to happen, do you?”

They both looked down, seeming unwilling to look at the other, and finally nodded their heads in agreement.

Then the door opened. A small, gray-haired woman came into the room, accompanied by another rounded, taller version of the same sex.

“Well now,” John Thomas said with a grin. “It looks like the cavalry has arrived.”

Samantha tried not to smile. From the nervous expression on the old men’s faces, she could tell all hell was about to break loose.

John Thomas stepped between them as the two elderly women came scurrying into the room. “Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Hardy, I’m glad you could come in and help me out,” he said.

“Wiley Smith, I never! What will the preacher say in church Sunday when he finds out you’ve been fighting? And at your age!”

Wiley looked sick as the smaller woman pushed the sheriff aside and stomped toward him with a gleam in her eye. He didn’t even notice when the other woman laid into Pete.

“So, Pete Hardy. This is a fine mess you’ve gotten yourself into. I don’t know what’s wrong, but I suggest you start talking and do it now or I won’t be responsible for what I do to you later,” she said.

Pete looked as if someone had just offered to hand him his head on a plate.

Suddenly the room was alive with the sounds of four separate voices all shouting at once to be heard. John Thomas raked his fingers through his hair in frustration, and looked as if he would like to throttle them all. Samantha knew it was now or never. She entered her last plea.

“Johnny? Please let me go. I hate hiding like a rat in a hole. “I’ll be careful, and I’ll be right back.”

He saw the wanting on her face, and nodded. But before she could bolt, he grabbed her arm, dug in his pocket, and handed her the keys to the extra squad car. “If you have to, don’t hesitate to use the radio for contact. And come right back, okay?”

She nodded and grabbed the keys from his hand before he could change his mind. As she darted out the door she blew him a kiss. She had one last glimpse of John Thomas trying to interrupt the shouts of the elderly quartet. At least he could never complain that his job was boring.

On her way out of Rusk, she stopped at the apartment and picked up a foil-wrapped package of bones she’d been saving for Rebel. She’d promised Johnny she wouldn’t get out of the car, but knowing Rebel, he would come to greet her when she stopped at the mailbox at the edge of the yard. The least she could do was scratch that itchy spot behind his left ear and tell him how much she loved him.

“Poor baby,” she said to herself as she took the turn toward Cotton, imagining the hound’s lonesome expression.

Then she laughed aloud. Thanks to his drooping jaw and huge, soulful eyes, that dog’s expression was always lonesome.

Happy to be on her own, she accelerated and the miles sped by. Before she knew it, the driveway leading to the farm came into view. She took the turn carefully, pulling to a stop beside the mailbox.

The mail carrier had already come and gone. She could tell that from the fresh set of tracks. His four-wheel drive tires had funny little knobs on them that left perfect, doughnut-hole shapes in the loose sand, and there was a clear set beside the post.

Rebel bayed a welcome as he recognized the engine’s familiar sound. Samantha quickly glanced around before opening the door, checking to make sure that the only witness to her arrival bore four legs.

“Hey, boy,” she said, crooning in a low-pitched voice as she leaned out and patted and scratched on all of the dog’s necessary places. When she began unwrapping the bones he all but crawled into the seat with her.

She laughed, pushing him back out the door. “I brought you a surprise. This is for being a good dog,” she said, as she put one bone in his mouth and tossed the others toward the shade tree beside the porch. “Now, scoot. I’ve got to get back before your master comes after me.”

Rebel sauntered off with his treasure. Samantha watched as he flopped down beneath the shade tree, eyed the assortment of other bones tossed on the grass, and then began gnawing indelicately on the long, T-bone.

Samantha brushed her hands on her jeans, then leaned out, scooped the handful of mail from the box, and shut and locked the car door just as she’d promised.

Humming absently, she sorted through the stack of papers and letters, and then stopped short at a large brown envelope addressed to her.

The hair on the back of her neck began to crawl.

She turned the envelope over and over in her hands, noticing that it did not have a postmark or a stamp; only her name printed in red block letters. Someone had to have driven out and personally placed it in the box. This was too much like the stalker’s style to ignore.

With a pounding heart, she scanned the road in front of her, but there were so many tracks and footprints, it was impossible to say who’d put them there, or even when.

Sweat popped out across her upper lip as she turned the envelope over and realized that it wasn’t sealed.

Her hands shook as she reached in and pulled out the contents, then her eyes widened and the blood drained from her face.

What should have been fear turned to instant rage. How dare he? How dare the bastard taunt her? Shaking with fury, she dropped the envelope and its contents onto the seat beside her and made a wild U-turn in the road.

In seconds she was back on the highway. And if someone had seen her flying past, they would have imagined that the sheriff was in hot pursuit of some criminal. What they didn’t know was that it was only the sheriff’s lady, and she was in pursuit of a stalker who wouldn’t let go.

Montgomery Turner opened the door to the sheriff’s department just far enough to poke his head in and shout, “Sheriff! You better come quick! It’s Samantha!”

John Thomas was out of his office and on the street in seconds, looking around in panic. From the tone of his deputy’s voice, it had to be bad news, but he didn’t see her or the squad car anywhere. For a moment he even lost sight of Monty, until he looked past the trees on the other side of the street and saw him running toward the town square.

“What the hell,” he muttered, and bolted across the street.

The patrol car she’d been driving was parked at the wrong angle against the curb. A crowd had gathered just beyond it.

But where was Sam?

His own question was answered as the crowd parted for his arrival.

Unaware of the tears running down her face, Samantha alternated between screaming with rage, or shouting in uncontrollable fury as she waved a handful of papers in the air. Every now and then she would pick one from her hand and toss it onto the ground.

“You sorry son of a bitch!” she sobbed, and threw a paper onto the ground beneath her feet.

John Thomas reached for her, but she pulled away, continuing to vent her rage.

“You’re a coward! A miserable, sneaking coward!” she shouted, and waved the handful of papers in the air over her head.

“Sam, darlin’, what’s wrong?” he said, but she yanked away again in a vicious jerk. Her shouts rang in his ears as she refused to acknowledge his existence.

“You pervert! I’m sick and tired of playing this game with you!” She ripped a picture from the handful she was holding and waved it in the air before throwing it to the ground along with the others.

Several people in the crowd stepped back in shock, as if by their mere presence, they were guilty of causing her pain.

“There! That’s what I think about you and your stupid methods of intimidation,” she cried. “You’re the one who’s afraid. Do you hear me, you snake? You hide behind letters sent through the mail. You make secret little phone calls because you don’t have the guts to say what you want to my face. And now this!”

John Thomas caught the next picture before it hit the ground. Seconds later he remembered to breathe again and inhaled sharply, trying to maintain his equilibrium in the face of shock.

The stalker had struck again!

“Look at this!” Samantha ran toward a man at the edge of the crowd. “This is what cowards do. This kind of man can’t even look at himself in the mirror.”

The man’s face twisted in sympathy.

“Damn,” Monty said, and handed the pictures she’d thrown on the ground to the sheriff, then swiped his hand across his face. “She’s going make herself sick, boss, that’s what. Someone’s got to stop her.”

John Thomas looked down at the pictures. They, like the one he’d caught, were equally threatening. The pictures were of Samantha as she walked about the streets of Rusk, while some of them had been taken in Cotton.

There was one of her coming out of the grocery store with a bag of groceries on her hip. Another of her visiting with friends on the street, even one of her holding someone’s baby. Each and every picture had a big red circle drawn right over her heart. And in the center of each circle was a big X, like the cross hairs on the scope of a rifle pointing directly at her.

John Thomas shuddered. How could he stop her hysteria when he felt like succumbing to the same reaction himself? Just as he started toward her, instinct delayed his actions, and he suddenly knew that stopping her was the worst thing he could do.

“She’s already sick, Monty. Let her get it out of her system now,” he said. “If she doesn’t, it’ll eat her alive.”

Monty nodded, and then turned away from the square. His eyes narrowed as he looked down at the ground to a picture that bore a promise that seemed bound to come true.

You will die!

His mouth twisted as he read, and then he muttered beneath his breath as he bent down to pick it up. “I guess everyone has to go sometime.”

And then suddenly Samantha was silent. John Thomas spun just in time to see her take a deep breath and toss the rest of the pictures onto the ground. She started walking as if hypnotized, staring straight ahead without meeting anyone’s gaze. The crowd silently parted to let her pass.

“Monty, get the rest of those pictures as evidence and take everything down to the office, including the car. I’ll be there later.” John Thomas started after her.

“Yes sir,” he said, and began picking up the scattered black-and-white 8 × 10s that she’d tossed away.

Samantha hurt. Everywhere there was a place to ache throbbed as if she’d been beaten. When she breathed she felt as if someone were poking her with hot needles. Taking a step was even worse, and yet she kept moving, one foot after the other, as she followed the yellow line down the middle of the street. It was her last act of anger—daring the stalker to strike.