Here Comes Trouble (23 page)

"I worked on her for about thirty minutes, but
she was still unresponsive," Terri told the medic with chattering
teeth, "Time of death was seven twenty-five...well it was probably
earlier, because Rigor Mortis had already set in before I started
working on her." The young medic checked for a pulse, then looked
up with sad eyes and nodded, before he gently recovered Karen's
face.

"I'll call the coroner to pick her up," he
said and turned toward her. "The police will probably want to
investigate, before they move her body. Let's close the door and go
out front to wait."

Terri nodded and walked back down the hall to
the front room. It was filled with fire, medical and police
personnel. Joel was on the sofa, still sitting there like a zombie.
Seeing him like that made her heart twist, and Terri fought the
urge to go over there and comfort him. He looked so desolate and
alone. A strong man in the middle of chaos trying to deal with
something he didn't know how to deal with. Terri knew that feeling,
she was feeling the same way.

A hand touched her shoulder, before someone
asked. "Ma'am...were you the one who found the body? She turned to
face the speaker and saw it was a younger, fresh-faced man in a
Texas Ranger uniform.

"Yeah, I found her around seven and tried to
revive her," she replied.

"I need to get a statement from you,
please."

She nodded and followed the man to the
kitchen, where he pulled out a chair and asked her to sit. Thirty
minutes later, the coldness inside of her was gone, thoroughly
thawed by the heat of her anger. When the Ranger started
questioning her, she quickly figured out two things. First, the man
was not as young as she thought, and secondly he was building a
case against Joel, by trying to trick her into saying things that
weren't true. He wasn't investigating the crime with an open mind
looking at other options. He asked leading questions that pointed
in one direction...toward Joel.

She might have thought it was possible that
Joel was guilty, but dammit, they were supposed to look at all the
possibilities.

She didn't know Karen, or know about her life
other than she had been married to Joel, they were getting divorced
and she was giving him hell over the property settlement. As far as
Terri knew, Joel had been here alone with Karen after Terri left,
and she had no idea what happened after she left them to go to the
hospital. When she left they'd been arguing, and the guests had
gone upstairs. He'd gotten to the hospital after midnight, and she
had no idea who brought him there. Terri had gone looking for him
this morning and found Karen unresponsive in his
bedroom.

That's all Terri could tell him, but the way
he asked the question convicted Joel, even in her mind! "I'm not
answering any more questions, until I talk to an attorney," Terri
finally told him when he kept badgering her.

"Ma'am when people lawyer up, it usually means
they have something to hide. If you know something, you need to
tell me now, or you could be in trouble yourself."

"I've told you what I know, but that obviously
isn't what you want to hear," she told him then huffed a frustrated
breath. "Joel Rhodes is a good man, and he couldn't have done that
to her...bitch or not."

"Sounds like you didn't like her much either,"
the man said and his eyes narrowed.

"I didn't
know
her, only met her today,
so don't try and go there again," Terri told him then folded her
arms over her chest to glare at him.

"Are you involved with Mr. Rhodes?" he asked
suspiciously and made a note on his notepad. She wanted to take
that notepad and set fire to it.

"He and I are friends, and I work for him,"
she told him, leaving out the
'with benefits'
she was sure
he filled in for her.

"What kind of work do you do for him?" he
asked and she saw the corner of his lip twitch.

"Not the kind you're thinking, buddy," she
said and scraped the chair back to stand. "I'm done with your
insinuations," she told him through gritted teeth.

"Terri, are you okay?" Chase's voice was music
to her ears. She turned toward him and ran and threw herself into
his arms. His arms closed around her and he hugged her tightly to
him, then kissed the top of her hair.

"No, I'm not okay," she mumbled into his
chest. "You need to get Joel a lawyer fast," she told him. "The
best one you can find."

"I know, sugar," he said gravely and her heart
bounced in her chest. "It's early, but daddy is working on
it."

She heard a chair scrape on the hardwood
floor, then the abrasive policeman walked over to them. "Don't
leave town, Miss Cassidy, I'll have more questions for you," he
told her then walked into the living room.

"Why are they questioning you?" Chase asked
her.

"They weren't questioning, they were grilling.
That guy is on a witch hunt, and I think he wants to burn Joel at
the stake."

Chase groaned and squeezed her tighter. "This
whole thing is a nightmare...something we definitely don't need
right now," Chase told her.

His words had a ring of desperation to them,
but she attributed it to worrying about Jenny and the baby. "I
know, with the baby and all--"

"Not the baby, darlin'," he corrected. "Joel
is in some deep financial trouble with this ranch. He's spread
himself too thin, and the money he needs is frozen pending the
settlement with Karen, and his business partner, Larry. I invested
my part of our grandpa's inheritance, but he talked to me yesterday
about finding another investor. I spoke with our dad and he said
no...bills are coming due for the last of the
construction."

"Oh, god..." Terri groaned and looked up at
him. "How the hell is he going to run the ranch if he's in
jail?"

"We'll just have to figure things out as we
go, but from talking to some of the police here, and a few friends,
they'll most likely take him in for questioning and keep him for a
while. Joel refused to talk to them, until he has a lawyer. Smart
in a way, but it doesn't give them the answers they want...and
makes it look like he has something to hide."

Dread poured through her, if he was in jail,
the ranch would surely go down the toilet. It wasn't producing
income yet, and he was paying salaries on top of the bills he had
for the construction. "He said there were new guests coming on
Saturday, FBI people or something. Who's gonna make sure everything
is handled?"

"I would do it, but I don't know a damned
thing about ranching, and I've got to worry about Jenny right now,"
Chase told her with regret in his eyes.

"Yes, you do," Terri agreed. She didn't know a
damned thing about ranching either, or running a ranch, or even a
business.

Terri did know one thing though, she wasn't
running back to Henrietta.

Guilty or not, there was no way she could just
sit back and watch Joel sink. He'd put too much blood, sweat and
tears into getting the ranch started to let that happen, because
these guys were railroading him.

Besides, he was innocent until proven guilty,
and Terri had forgotten that fact. Until someone showed her hard
evidence that he'd killed his ex-wife, she wasn't going to believe
it. "I can't think of anyone to call to help..."

Something flickered in Chase's eyes, then he
smiled that beautiful smile of his. "I know someone, let me call
her," he told Terri then stepped away to pull his phone out of his
pocket.

"Mom, Joel's in trouble and needs your help,"
Chase said and Terri smiled when she realized who he had called.
Their mother, Curly Rhodes, was a farm-raised country girl who
looked like a spoiled princess, but could ride and shoot with the
best of them, according to Jenny. "Yeah, we're at the ranch...did
dad tell you what's going on yet?"

Chase filled her in then flinched and held the
phone away from his ear. Terri could hear his mother telling him
exactly what she thought of Karen Rhodes, and how upset she was
that nobody had called her to tell her before now. Evidently, she
hung up on him and he put his phone back in his pocket.

He forced a smile and told her, "She's on her
way."

Terri glanced through the opening between the
kitchen and family room and saw Joel leaning on the fireplace
mantle spread eagle, while the same Texas Ranger who'd interrogated
her frisked him. Her heart shot to her throat when the man jerked
one of Joel's arms behind his back and clicked a cuff around his
wrist, before repeating the process with his other arm.

"They're arresting him," Terri whispered past
the lump in her throat.

"I'll call my dad, so he can have the attorney
meet them at the station," Chase told her as she stumbled past him
into the living room.

When the man led a grim-faced Joel toward the
front door, she stepped in front of him. Joel wouldn't look her in
the eyes, and a muscle worked at his jaw.

"Joel, look at me," she told him and grabbed
his chin, he jerked it away. "We're going to keep the ranch going,
while you're gone...your mom's coming to help," she told him. He
had enough to worry about, and she wanted to ease his mind a
little.

Joel finally looked down at her and hatred,
betrayal and accusation blasted her, before his words. "Get the
fuck off my ranch, Terri...you've done enough to
help
me,"
he grated then started forward, pulling the man holding his arm
toward the door.

The sheer force of his words and the anger
behind them hit her like a punch in the gut, taking her breath
away. She wobbled and Chase came up behind her and put his arms
around her waist to steady her. "It's okay, sugar...he's just
upset."

"I didn't say anything that wasn't true, but
that Ranger tried to twist my words," she told Chase in a trembling
voice. Joel hated her, the loathing in his eyes before he left was
the same way he had looked at Karen. There was no telling what that
Ranger had told him and sick dread filled her. Whatever it was
must've been damning.

"I'll see what the hell he said to Joel, and
let you know," Chase told her, then pushed her aside and walked out
the front door.

After Chase left her side, Terri's heart rate
ramped up and it felt like someone was sitting on her chest. Her
throat closed and her breathing was coming in short gasps. Dots
swam before her eyes, and she knew she was having a panic attack.
The first one she'd ever had in her life. The walls felt like they
were closing in, and she had to get out of the house now, or she
was going to pass out.

An endless stream of people with cameras,
tools and equipment flitted past her and down the hallway to the
bedroom. Others crowded the living room talking and speculating.
Staggering blindly, Terri headed for the front door, then across
the porch and down the stairs. She needed air and space or she was
going to pass out.

Her foot missed the third step and she felt
herself falling, before she landed with a jarring impact on her
left shoulder.

"
Terri
!" she heard Chase yell from
across the yard, before the black dots closed in and she welcomed
blissful peace.

Joel looked out the back window of the police
car and his heart lurched when he saw Terri fall off the porch. He
took a deep breath and twisted back around in the seat. Chase would
take care of her, he told himself.

Chase took care of everything, he made
everyone's problems his own. That was just his big brother, it was
what he did. Like the man didn't have enough of his own problems
with his wife twelve-months pregnant.

Regardless, Chase had assured Joel he was
going to take care of this situation too. Joel was sure he'd try,
but he had his doubts he'd succeed.

After what the woman who claimed she might be
falling in love with him told the police, he'd be lucky if they
didn't drag him through the street and publicly flog him,
before
they gave him the electric chair.

If that was love, he could definitely go a
lifetime without it.

According to the smug, wet-behind-the-ears
Ranger that arrested him, supposedly with Terri's testimony, and
his lack of an alibi for the hour and a half between when she left
the house, and when Joel arrived at the hospital, he was a dead
man, so he'd better start talking.

Joel had nothing to say, because he didn't
fucking do it, had no idea who had killed Karen. Larry might be a
good prospect for them to look at, but he wasn't going to offer
that information. Joel had gone to law school, graduated at the top
of his class. He wasn't a greenhorn, he knew the best thing he
could do right now was keep his trap shut. So that's exactly what
he had done.

It had frustrated Deputy Dog when he tried to
roast him with his poor imitation of Columbo, and failed to get a
single word out of him. Somehow Joel had kept from laughing in the
midst of crying. He should be up for some kind of award for
restraint.

For a minute there, he had actually fantasized
about closing his hands around the irritating Ranger's
neck...especially when Terri's name had passed his lips. If he'd
given Joel the bamboo splints beneath the fingernail treatment, he
could only imagine what the bastard had done to Terri.