Lone Star Winter (20 page)

“We'll pay you back,” Curt promised, and Libby nodded.

“Let's cross our bridges one at a time,” Jordan replied. “First order of business is to see if we can find any proof that she's committed a crime in the past.”

“Mabel said she was suspected in a death at a nursing home in Branntville,” she volunteered.

“So Kemp told me,” Jordan said. “This is good bacon,” he added.

“Thanks,” she said with a smile.

“Violet's father was another one of her victims,” Libby added.

Jordan nodded while Curt scowled curiously at both of them. “But they can't prove that. Not unless there's enough evidence to order an exhumation. And, considering the physical condition of Violet's mother,” he
added, “I'm afraid she'd never be able to agree to it. The shock would probably kill her mother.”

Libby sighed. “Poor Violet. She's had such a hard life. And now to have to change jobs…”

“She works for Kemp, doesn't she?” Curt asked.

“She did. She quit today,” Libby replied. “She's going to work for Duke Wright.”

“Oh, Sherry King's going to love that,” Curt chuckled.

“She doesn't own Duke,” Libby said. “He doesn't even like her.”

“She's very possessive about men she wants.”

“More power to her if she can put a net over him and lock him in her closet.”

Jordan chuckled. “He's not keen on the thought of a second wife.”

“He's still trying to get custody of his son, isn't he?” Curt asked. “Poor guy.”

“He won't be the first man who lost a woman to a career,” Jordan reminded him. “Although it's usually the other way around.” He glanced at Libby. “Just for the record, I think you're more important than a new bull, no matter what his ancestry is.”

“Gee, thanks,” she replied, tongue in cheek.

“It never hurts to clear up these little details before they become issues,” he said wryly. “On the other
hand, it would be nice if you'd tell me if you have plans to go to law school and move to a big city to practice law?”

“Not me, thanks,” she replied. “I'm very happy where I am.”

“You don't know any other life except this one,” he persisted. “What if you regret not spreading your wings further on down the road?”

“We can't see into the future, Jordan,” she replied thoughtfully. “But I don't like cities, although I'm sure they're exciting for some people. I don't like parties or business and I wouldn't trade jobs with Kemp for anything on earth. I'm happy looking up case precedents and researching options. I wouldn't like having to stand up in a courtroom and argue a case.”

“You don't know that,” he mused, and a shadow crossed his face. “What if you got a taste of it one day and couldn't live without it, but it was too late?”

“Too late?”

“What if you had kids and a husband?” he prompted.

“You're thinking about Duke Wright,” she said slowly.

He drew in a hard breath, aware that Curt was watching him curiously. “Yes,” he told her. “Duke's wife was a secretary. She took night courses to get
her law degree and then got pregnant just before she started practice. While Duke was giving bottles and changing diapers, she was climbing the ladder at a prestigious San Antonio law firm, living there during the week and coming home on weekends. Then they offered her a job in New York City.”

Libby couldn't quite figure out the look on his face. He was taking it all quite seriously and she'd thought he was teasing.

“So you see,” he continued, “she didn't know she wanted a career until it was too late. Now she's making a six-figure annual income and their little boy's in her way. She doesn't want to give him up, but she doesn't have time to take care of him properly. And Duke's caught in the middle.”

“I hadn't realized it was that bad,” she confessed. “Poor Duke.”

“He had a choice,” he told her. “He married her thinking she wanted what he did, a nice home and a comfortable living, and kids.” He drew a breath. “But she was very young,” he added, his eyes studying her covertly. “Maybe she didn't really know what she wanted. Then.”

“I suppose some women don't,” she replied. “It's a new world. Maybe it took her a long time to realize the opportunities and then it was too late to go back.”

He lowered his eyes to his boots. “That's very possible.”

“But it's Duke's problem,” she added, smiling. “Want some pie? I've got a cherry one that I made yesterday in the refrigerator.”

He shook his head. “Thanks. But I won't stay.” He got to his feet. “I'll tell Kemp to let you know what the private detective finds out. Meanwhile,” he added, glancing at Curt, “not a word to Janet. Okay?”

They both nodded.

“Thanks, Jordan,” Curt added.

“What are neighbors for?” he replied, and he chuckled. But his eyes didn't quite meet Libby's.

 

“Jordan was acting very oddly tonight, wasn't he?” Libby asked her brother after they'd washed the dishes and put them away.

“He's a man with a lot on his mind,” he replied. “Calhoun Ballenger's making a very powerful bid for that senate seat that old man Merrill's had for so many years. They say old man Merrill's worried and so's his daughter, Julie. You remember, she's been pursuing Jordan lately.”

“But he and Calhoun have been friendly for years,” she said.

“So they have. There's more. Old man Merrill got
pulled over for drunk driving by a couple of our local cops. Now Merrill's pulling strings at city hall to try and make the officers withdraw the charges. Merrill doesn't have a lot of capital. Jordan does.”

“Surely you don't think Jordan would go against Cash Grier, even for Julie?” she wondered, concerned.

He started to speak and then thought better of it. “I'm not sure I really know,” he said.

She rubbed at a clean plate thoughtfully. “Do you suppose he's serious about her? She and her father are very big socially and they have a house here that they stay in from time to time. She has a college degree. In fact, they say she may try her hand at politics. He was talking about marriage and children to us—like he was serious about it.” She frowned. “Does that kind of woman settle down? Or was that what he meant, when he said some women don't know what they want until they find it?”

“I don't know that he's got marriage on his mind,” Curt replied slowly. “But he's spent a good deal of time with Julie and the senator just lately.”

That hurt. She bit her lower lip, hard, and forced her mind away from the heat and power of Jordan's kisses. “We've got a problem of our own. What are we going to do about Janet?”

“Kemp's working on that, isn't he? And Jordan's
private detective will be working with him. They'll turn up something. She isn't going to put us out on the street, Libby,” he said gently. “I promise you she isn't.”

She smiled up at him. “You're sort of nice, for a brother.”

He grinned. “Glad you noticed!”

She didn't sleep all night, though, wondering about Jordan's odd remarks and the way he'd looked at her when he asked if she had ambitions toward law practice. She really didn't, but he seemed to think she was too young to know her own mind.

Well, it wasn't really anything to worry about, she assured herself. Jordan had no idea of marrying her, regardless of her ambition or lack thereof. But Curt had said he was seeing a lot of Julie Merrill. For some unfathomable reason, the thought made her sad.

I
t was late afternoon before Janet came back, looking out of sorts. She threw herself onto the sofa in the living room and lit a cigarette.

“You'll stink up the place,” Libby muttered, hunting for an ashtray. She put it on the table.

“Well, then, you'll have to invest in some more air freshener, won't you, darling?” the older woman asked coldly.

Libby stared at her angrily. “Where have you been for three days?”

Janet avoided looking at her. “I had some business to settle.”

“It had better not have been any sales concerning this property,” Libby told her firmly.

“And who's going to stop me?” the other woman demanded hotly.

“Mr. Kemp.”

Janet crushed out the cigarette and got to her feet. “Let him try. You try, too! I own everything here and I'm not letting you take it away from me! No matter what I have to do,” she added darkly. “I earned what I'm getting, putting up with your father handling me like a live doll. The repulsive old fool made my skin crawl!”

“My father loved you,” Libby bit off, furious that the awful woman could make such a remark about her father, the kindest man she'd ever known.

“He loved showing me off, you mean,” Janet muttered. “If he'd really loved me, he'd have given me the things I asked him for. But he was so cheap! Well, I'm not being cheated out of what's mine,” she added, with a cold glare at Libby. “Not by you or your brother. I have a lawyer, too, now.”

Libby felt sick. But she managed a calm smile. “We have locks on our bedroom doors, by the way,” she said out of the blue. “And Mr. Kemp is having a private detective check you out.”

Janet looked shocked. “W-what?”

“Violet who works in my office thinks you might have known her father— Mr. Hardy from San Antonio?”
she added deliberately. “He had a heart attack, just like Daddy…?”

Janet actually went pale. She jumped to her feet as if she'd been stung.

“Where are you going?” Libby asked seconds later, when the older woman rushed from the room.

Janet went into her bedroom and slammed the door. The sound of objects bouncing off walls followed in a furious staccato.

Libby bit her lip. She'd been warned not to do anything to make Janet panic and make a run for it, but the woman had pricked her temper. She wished she hadn't opened her mouth.

With dark thoughts, she finished baking a ham and made potato salad to go with it, along with homemade rolls. It gave her something to do besides worry.

But when Curt came home to eat, he was met by Janet with a suitcase, going out the door.

“Where are you off to?” he asked her coolly.

She threw a furious glance at the kitchen. “Anywhere I don't have to put up with your sister!” she snarled. “I'll get a motel room in town. You'll be hearing from my attorney in a day or so.”

Curt's eyebrows lifted. “Funny. I was just about to tell you the same thing. I had a phone call from Kemp while I was at work. His private investigator has turned
up some very interesting information about your former employment at a nursing home in Branntville…?”

Janet brushed by him in a mad rush toward her Mercedes. She threw her case in and jumped in behind it, spraying dirt as she spun out of the driveway.

“Well, that's clinched it,” Curt mused as he joined his troubled sister in the kitchen. “She won't be back, or I'll miss my bet.”

“I don't think it was a good idea to run her off,” she commented as she set the table. “I'd already opened my big mouth and mentioned the locks on our bedroom doors and Violet's father to her.”

“It's okay,” Curt said gently. “I'm doing what Kemp told me to. I put her on the run.”

“Mr. Kemp said to do that?”

He nodded, tossing his hat onto a side table and pulling out a chair. “Any coffee going? We've been mucking out line cabins all day. I'm beat!”

“Mucking out line cabins, not stables?”

“The river ran out of its banks right into that cabin on the north border,” he said heavily. “We've been shoveling mud all afternoon. Crazy, isn't it? We had drought for four years, now it's floods. God must really be mad at somebody!”

“Don't look at me, I haven't done a single thing out of line.”

He smiled. “When have you ever?” He studied her as she put food on the table. “Jordan says he's taking you out to a movie next week…watch it!”

Her hands almost let go of the potato salad bowl. She caught it and put it down carefully, gaping at her brother. “Jordan's taking me to a movie?”

“It's what usually happens when men start kissing women,” he said philosophically, leaning back in his chair with a wicked grin. “They get addicted.”

“How did you know he was kissing me last night?”

He grinned wickedly. “I didn't.”

She cleared her throat and turned away, reddening as she remembered the passionate kiss she and Jordan had shared before the supper he'd coaxed her to cook for him. She hadn't slept well all night thinking about it. Or about what Curt had said, that Jordan was spending a lot of time with Julie Merrill. But he couldn't be interested in the woman, if he wanted to take Libby out!

“You never got addicted to any women,” she pointed out.

He shrugged. “My day will come. It just hasn't yet.”

“What were you telling Janet about a private investigator and the nursing home?”

“Oh, yes.” He waited until she sat down and they said grace before he continued, while piling ham on his plate. “I'm not sure how much Kemp told you already but it seems that Janet has changed her legal identity since she worked in the nursing home. Also her hair color. She was under suspicion for the death of that elderly patient who liked to play the horses. She was making off with his bank account when it seems she was paid a visit by a gentleman representing a rather shadowy figure who was owed a great deal of money by the deceased. She left everything and ran for her life.” He smiled complacently. “You see, there were more debts than money left in the elderly gentleman's entire estate!”

Libby was listening intently.

“There's more.” He took a bite of ham. “This is nice!” he exclaimed when he tasted it.

“Isn't it?” She smiled. “I got it from Duke Wright. He's sidelining into a pork products shop and he's marketing on the Internet. He's doing organic bacon and ham.”

“Smart guy.”

She nodded. “There's more, you said?”

“Yes. They've just managed to convince Violet's mother that her husband might have been murdered. She's agreed to an exhumation.”

“But they said the shock might be fatal!”

“Mrs. Hardy loved her husband. She never believed it was a heart attack. He'd had an echocardiogram that was misread, leading to a heart catheterization. They found nothing that would indicate grounds for a heart attack.”

“Poor Violet,” Libby said sadly. “It's going to be hard on her, too.” She glanced up at her brother. “I still can't believe she quit and is going to work for Duke Wright.”

“I know,” he said. “She was crazy about Kemp!”

She nodded sadly. “Serves him right. He's been unpleasant to her lately. Violet's tired of eating her heart out for him. And who knows. It might prompt Mr. Kemp to do some soul-searching.”

“More than likely he'll just hire somebody else and forget all about her. If he wanted to be married, he could be,” he added.

“He doesn't date anybody, does he?” she asked curiously.

He shook his head. “But he's not gay.”

“I never thought he was. I just wondered why he keeps so much to himself.”

“Maybe he's like a lot of other bachelors in Jacobsville, he's got a secret past that he doesn't want to share!”

“We're running out of bachelors,” she retorted. “The Hart boys were the last to go and nobody ever thought they'd end up with families.”

“Biscuits were their downfall,” he pointed out.

“Jordan doesn't like biscuits,” she mused. “I did ask, you know.”

He chuckled. “Jordan doesn't have a weakness and he's never lacked dates when he wanted them.” He eyed her over his coffee cup. “But he may be at the end of his own rope.”

“Don't look at me,” she said, having spent too much time lately thinking about Jordan's intentions toward her. “I may be the flavor of the week, but Jordan isn't going to want to marry down, if you see what I mean.”

His eyes narrowed. “We may not be high society, but our people go back a long way in Jacobs County.”

“That doesn't put us in monied circles, either,” she reminded him. Her eyes were dreamy and faraway. “He's got a big, fancy house and he likes to keep company with high society. Maybe that's why he's been taking Senator Merrill's daughter around. It gets him into places he was never invited to before. We'd never fit. Especially me,” she added in a more wistful tone than she realized.

“That wouldn't matter.”

She smiled sadly. “It would and you know it. He'll need a wife who can entertain and throw parties, arrange sales, things like that. Most of all, he'll want a woman who's beautiful and intelligent, someone he'll be proud to show off. He might take me to a movie. But believe me, he won't take me to a minister.”

“You're sure of that?”

She looked up at him. “You said it yourself—Jordan has been spending a lot of time with the state senator's daughter. He's running for reelection and the latest polls say that Calhoun Ballenger is almost tied with him. He needs all the support he can get, financial and otherwise. I think Jordan's going to help him, because of Julie.”

“Then why is he kissing you?”

“To make her jealous?” she pondered. “Maybe to convince himself that he's still attractive to women. But it's not serious. Not with him.” She looked up. “And I don't have affairs, whether it's politically correct or not.”

He sighed. “I suppose we all have our pipe dreams.”

“What's yours, while we're on the subject?”

He smiled. “I'd like to start a ranch supply company. The last one left belonged to Ted Regan's father-in-law. When he died, the store went bust, and then his
daughter Corrie married Ted Regan and didn't need to make her own living. The hardware store can order most supplies, but not cattle feed or horse feed. Stuff like that.”

She hadn't realized her brother had such ambitions. “If we weren't in such a financial mess, I'd be more than willing to cosign a loan with the house as collateral.”

He stared at her intently. “You'd do that for me?”

“Of course. You're my brother. I love you.”

He reached out and caught her hand. “I love you, too, sis.”

“Pipe dreams are nice. Don't you give yours up. Eventually we'll settle this inheritance question and we might have a little capital to work with.” She studied him with pride. “I think you'd make a great success of it. You've kept us solvent, up until Janet's unexpected arrival.”

“She'll be out for blood. I should probably call Kemp and update him on what's happened.”

“That might not be a bad idea. Maybe we should get a dog,” she added slowly.

“Bad idea. We can hardly afford to feed old Bailey, your horse. We'd have to buy food for a dog, too, and it would break us.”

She saw his eyes twinkle and she burst out laughing, too.

 

Janet's attorney never showed up and two days later, Janet vanished, leaving a trail of charges to the Collinses for everything from clothes to the motel bill.

“You won't have to pay that,” Kemp told Libby when he'd related the latest news to her. “I've already alerted the merchants that she had no authority to charge anything to you or Curt, or the estate.”

“Thanks,” she said with relief. “What do we do now?”

“I've got the state police out looking for her,” he replied, his hands deep in his slacks' pockets. “On suspicion of murder. You won't like what's coming next.”

“What?”

“I want to have your father exhumed.”

She ground her teeth together. “I was afraid of that.”

“We'll be discreet. But we need to have the crime lab check for trace evidence of poisoning. You see, we know what killed the old man at the nursing home where she worked. I believe she did kill him. Poisoners tend to stick to the same routine.”

“Poor Daddy,” she said, feeling sick. Now she wondered if they might have saved him, if they'd only realized sooner that Janet was dangerous.

“Don't play mind games with yourself, Libby,” Kemp said quietly. “It does no good.”

“What a terrible way to go.”

“The poison she used was quick,” he replied. “Some can cause symptoms for months and the victim dies a painfully slow death. That wasn't the case here. It's the only good news I have for you, I'm afraid. But after they autopsy Mr. Hardy, there may be more forensic evidence to make a case against her. We've found a source for the poison.”

“But the doctor said that Daddy died of a heart attack,” she began.

“He might have,” Kemp had to admit. “But he could as easily have died of poison or an air embolism.”

“Jordan mentioned that,” she recalled.

He smiled secretively. “Jordan doesn't miss a trick.”

“But Janet's gone. What if they discover that Daddy's death was foul play and then they can't find her?” Libby pointed out. “She's gotten away with it at least two times, by being cagey.”

“Every criminal eventually makes a mistake,” he said absently. “She'll make one. Mark my words.”

She only nodded. She glanced at Violet's empty desk and winced.

“I have an ad in the paper for a new secretary,” he
said coldly. “Meanwhile, Mabel's going to do double duty,” he added, nodding toward Mabel, who was on the phone taking notes.