Rivals (56 page)

“Excuse me,” Ben Canon spoke up. “I think I can clear up this matter. You see, on behalf of my late client Hattie Morgan, I engaged the services of a private detective in San Francisco—a man by the name of Sid Barker—first to locate Ms. Bennett, then to…look out after her.”

Flame swung around to stare at him. “You hired him to follow me?” she demanded, reacting with a mixture of shock and outrage.

His smile was meant to calm. “You were the heir to Morgan's Walk at that point. And Hattie was anxious that…nothing happen to you.” His deliberate hesitation made it obvious to Flame that Hattie had been trying to warn her away from Chance.

“Why didn't you tell me this before?” But it was too late to be angry about it, especially when she knew how right Hattie had been to warn her about Chance.

“It never occurred to me,” Ben said ruefully. “I'm sorry.”

“Then who's making these calls? Who's trying to kill me?” She didn't want to think Chance was behind all this. But, with the hawk-faced man eliminated, who else could it be?

“There must be someone, Ms. Bennett,” the detective insisted. “An ex-husband, a former boyfriend, a jealous lover, an angry wife—someone.”

Diedre. Did Malcom's wife feel so threatened by her affair with him that she would do something this drastic? No, it wasn't possible. She was in San Francisco; that was much too far away. The same was true with Lucianna…unless she or Diedre hired someone. But Flame rejected that possibility, too, unable to visualize either woman actually hiring someone to kill her.

She lifted her head in challenge. “My ex-husband is Chance Stuart. Does that help you?”

He breathed in deeply at that. “Stuart, eh.”

“Yes,” she said, her voice clipped and sharp, betraying her strained nerves. “Tell me, Mr. Barnes, exactly what are you going to do about the attempt on my life tonight?”

His shoulder lifted a vague shrug. “Check your car over, see if the lab can pick up any traces of paint from the other vehicle that might help us identify at least the make of it.” He paused briefly. “But to be perfectly honest with you, Ms. Bennett, even if we are lucky enough to track down the owner of the car, it still doesn't mean he or she was the driver of it. And even if we could, it's doubtful that they could be charged with anything more than reckless driving.”

“But what about the phone calls? The threats on my life?” she demanded. “You can't simply disregard them.”

“To make a case for attempted murder, we'd have to be able to prove the driver of the car made those phone calls. We could put a tap on your line and monitor all your calls, but—from what you've told me—the caller never stays on the line for more than fifteen or twenty seconds. Which means there wouldn't be time enough to trace the call.”

Flame read between the lines, a fine tension gripping her. “And if you could, what then?”

The detective had the grace to look uncomfortable as Ben Canon spoke up. “The caller would probably be charged with a misdemeanor.”

“A misdemeanor,” she repeated in a stunned voice.

“That's assuming we can't prove the caller was the driver of the car that tried to run you down,” the detective explained. “I'm sorry, Ms. Bennett, but until a felony is actually committed—”

“You mean until—this person—actually kills me, there's nothing you can do,” Flame accused, trembling now with an anger born out of this awful feeling of helplessness.

He said nothing to that, instead closing his notebook and slipping it into his jacket pocket. “If you think of anything else that could be useful, you have my card. You know how to get hold of me. And if you receive any more threatening calls, mark the time and the exact message, and keep me informed.”

Ben stood up. “I'll see you to the door, Mr. Barnes.”

“That isn't necessary.” The detective rose from the wing-backed chair and nodded politely to Flame. “I can find my way out.”

There was silence in the parlor, broken only by the sound of his footsteps in the entrance hall, then the final click of the front door closing behind him. Flame was conscious of both Charlie and Ben watching her.

“I think it's obvious the police aren't going to be much help in this.” She tried to sound nonchalant, cynical, but the words came out stiff and brittle.

“You think it's Chance, don't you?” Ben said.

“I don't know what to think,” she replied, agitation putting a sharp edge on her answer. She didn't want to believe it was Chance even though he was the only one it could be. He had vowed to stop her. Yet she couldn't imagine him resorting to violence to accomplish it. Could she be that wrong about him?

“Flame, I—” Ben began.

Briskly, she interrupted him. “I'm sorry, but I don't want to talk about this anymore. I'm tired and I…just want to get out of these clothes.” And forget, she thought to herself, but she knew that was impossible even as she walked from the room.

41

W
ith
the ease and deftness of long experience, Charlie Rainwater reached down and unlatched the pasture gate without dismounting from his horse. Flame waited on her mount while he swung it open for her. She rode through the opening, then reined in her horse on the other side and watched as he swung his horse through and closed the gate, again from horseback. Satisfied it was securely fastened, he straightened in his saddle and looked for a moment at a pair of white-faced calves cavorting about under the contented eyes of their Hereford mommas.

“That's a sight these old eyes of mine never get tired of seein',” Charlie declared as he turned his horse away from the gate and walked it up to hers. His faded blue eyes studied her thoughtfully. “Are you really goin' through with your plans for that development?”

“If I can.” Assuming she didn't get killed first, Flame thought, the memory of her near brush with death too fresh yet.

These last five days, she'd thought of little else, becoming tense and on edge—and suspicious of everyone. She'd sworn Charlie and Ben to secrecy, extracting their promise not to mention the threatening phone calls or the attempt on her life to anyone—not even Malcom. If he found out, she knew he'd insist that she return to San Francisco. In her mind, to run from these threats would be the equivalent of giving up, and she wasn't about to do that. Neither could she totally discard the possibility that Malcom's wife might be the one behind them. Or Maxine, who had looked after Chance as a child and believed he should have inherited Morgan's Walk. Or Lucianna Colton, who might want Flame completely out of Chance's life. Or some crazy environmentalist who didn't want the river dammed and made into a lake. Dammit, it could be anybody. It didn't have to be Chance.

Frustrated and confused, Flame pointed her horse toward the imposing brick mansion that crowned the gentle knoll and overlooked the entire valley—the mansion her great-grandfather had designed and built. Suddenly it hit her. Morgan's Walk had to pass to a blood relative! All along Chance had been the obvious suspect, but now she realized that he had an even better reason to want her dead—Morgan's Walk would automatically pass to him. The facts seemed inescapable: he was the only one who stood to gain if she either gave up the fight—or was killed.

Yet, when she remembered the times she'd been with him, the tender strength of his arms, the loving stroke of his hands, Flame couldn't imagine, no matter how she tried, that Chance actually would hurt her, not physically. He was trying to scare her. That's what he was doing. He thought he could frighten her off. She was angry then, angry that he thought she could be intimidated by the threat of violence. But why should that be a surprise? It wasn't the first time he'd underestimated her.

She was so engrossed in her own thoughts, that she barely heard Charlie when he said, “Every time I look at those Herefords scattered across that green pasture, I try to picture a bunch of rich folks riding around in those electric carts chasin' a dimpled ball. But it just won't come to me. I just keep seein' the river, the trees, and the cattle.” His horse snorted and pricked its ears in the direction of the house. “Looks like you've got some company, Miss Flame.”

“What?” Frowning, she gave him a blank look.

“I said you got company.” He nodded in the direction of the dusty pickup parked in front of the house.

“I wonder who it is?” Someone was at the front door—a woman. Maxine appeared to be arguing with her. Flame lifted her horse into a trot and cut across the front lawn, the thick grass reducing the echo of hoofbeats behind her to a dull thud as Charlie followed.

Nearing the house, she heard the woman's voice raise in angry challenge. “I know she's in there. You just march right back and tell her that I'm not leaving until I see her!”

“But she isn't here,” Maxine protested. “She went—” She stopped, catching sight of Flame riding up with Charlie.

The woman turned, giving Flame her first good look at her as she reined her horse to a halt short of the portico steps. Somewhere in her early thirties, she was a tall woman, a solid woman, dressed in a pair of polyester knit slacks, the kind with the elastic waistband and stitched-in creases, an overblouse of print cotton giving her upper body an extra heaviness. Her light brown hair was cut short and curled in a tight frizz that required little care. She faced Flame in tight-lipped anger.

“What seems to be the problem, Maxine?” Flame swung down from her horse and passed the reins to Charlie.

“This woman—” Maxine began but never got a chance to finish.

“So you're the Bennett woman—the new duchess of Morgan's Walk,” the woman spat with contempt. “This place was big enough for Hattie. Why isn't it big enough for you?”

“I don't believe we've met.”

“No. You're too high and mighty to come yourself. You send that agent of yours instead to dangle all that money in front of us.” She took a step closer, her broad face taut with resentment. “And in case you haven't guessed, I'm Martha
Crowder
Matthews.”

“The daughter,” Flame murmured, unintentionally out loud.

“Yes, ‘the daughter,'” the woman snapped. “And I'm telling you to your face that our farm isn't for sale! I don't know who you think you are to come around here waving money in our face and thinking we'll snatch at it. Four generations of Crowders have farmed that land, and someday my sons or daughter will work it. My great-grandfather and my grandfather are buried there, and when my father passes on, he'll be buried there, too. Everybody's wondering what's happening to the family farm when it's people like you who are destroying it.”

“Mrs. Crowder—Mrs. Matthews,” Flame quickly corrected herself. “I'm not trying to destroy—”

But the woman wasn't interested in listening. “I sent that real estate agent of yours packing this morning. If he ever comes back to badger my father again about selling, and making him feel bad because he can't take care of his family the way he'd like, you're going to answer to
me
! Now, I'm warning you to stop—and you'd better listen.”

Flame stiffened, the phrasing almost an exact echo of the threatening messages she'd received. Was this woman the one who'd made all those calls? And ran her off the road? Remembering those terrifying seconds when the car had been bearing down on her, Flame grew angry.

“Don't threaten me, Mrs. Matthews.”

“I'm not threatening anything—I'm telling you!” she said and stormed off the portico, straight to the pickup truck coated with a film of red dust.

Spinning tires spit gravel as the truck lurched forward under a heavy foot. Flame watched it speed away from the house.

“Looks like you aren't going to be able to get the Crowder land,” Charlie observed, leaning loosely on the saddlehorn.

She flashed him a sharp glance, any sympathy she might have felt toward the woman banished by yet another threat. “We'll see about that.”

“What's he talking about?”

At Maxine's probing question, Flame turned, realizing the housekeeper had overheard everything. “Nothing that concerns you,” she said curtly, and climbed the portico steps, removing her riding gloves. “Have you cleared away all those boxes from upstairs? I don't want that mess there when Mr. Powell arrives tomorrow evening.”

“No, ma'am, but I will.”

Thunder rumbled in the far distance, nearly masking the sound of the car's engine as Charlie drove the ranch's Lincoln around to the front of the house. Crossing the foyer, Flame glanced out the window at the ominous black clouds that darkened the sky. As yet, it hadn't begun to rain, so she left her raincoat draped over her arm and her umbrella closed.

She stopped at the door of the staircase and called up, “Maxine, I'm leaving to pick up Mr. Powell at the airport. When you're through laying out the extra towels, you can go home.”

A muffled reply came from one of the upstairs rooms, acknowledging the message. As Flame started for the door, the telephone rang. She hesitated, then walked over to the table and picked it up.

“Morgan's Walk.”

“You have been warned,” the mechanical voice intoned. “Why have you not listened?”

“You don't frighten me,” she retorted angrily, but as usual, the connection had already been broken. She slammed the receiver down and stood there, vibrating. Why had that Matthews woman called again? Did she think she hadn't made herself clear yesterday? Then Flame grew still, realizing it was an assumption on her part that the Crowders' daughter was the one behind the threatening calls. She had no proof. Again she felt the rawness of anger. Who was doing this to her?

“Ms. Bennett?” Maxine stood at the top of the stairs, frowning in surprise. “I thought you'd left.”