Sinister (30 page)

“What are you doing here?” Hunter asked, looking past the man for his buddy Graves, but it looked like Whit was alone. Maybe Graves, at least, was taking his dismissal seriously.

“Gotta clear out the old locker now that I’ve been ... terminated.”

Hunter was sick of tangling with Crowley and his juvenile tactics of intimidation and he brushed past the man, hoping it was the last time.

“Can’t stop burning down the Dillingers, can ya?” Crowley called after him. “First that guest house and now the main house ... didn’t expect the lady of the house to be there ... or was that planned, too?”

Hunter ground his teeth.

“Your days are numbered, y’know. Now you’ve killed someone. And I’m gonna make sure everyone knows it.”

Hunter stopped short at the door. “Do your worst,” he ground out.

“They’re all gonna know what you did . . .” he went on, but Hunter was already out the door.

Hearing a text come in, he pulled out his cell and examined it as he headed for his truck. It was from Delilah, asking where he was and if she could meet with him.

His first instinct was to say yes, but he stopped himself. He thought about the stables and then the fire ... and the way she’d been ... the way they’d all been ... in the aftershock of Pilar’s death. He needed time to think. About Delilah. About what he wanted. About what was possible.

Climbing into the cab, he texted back: Will call you later.

Then he drove off toward the mountains, putting some time and space between himself and Prairie Creek, needing a few hours to himself, needing to shut down his mind for a while.

Even as he told himself as much, the question he’d been asking himself all day returned:
Who was at the Dillinger house at the time of both fires?

 

 

Delilah jostled along in Ira’s Jeep Cherokee. She’d stayed at the house about as long as she could stand it. Jen and Nell had returned and Jen had herded up her two children from Colton and Sabrina’s care, put them in the car and taken them to the Tumbleweed Inn, the only overnight lodging in Prairie Creek worth knowing about. Tyler had been at the impromptu meeting after Pilar’s death but hadn’t said anything. While Jen was packing up the kids, Delilah had asked him if he was going with them, and his answer had been, “I guess not.”

She’d left Nell trying to comfort Ira, who was shell-shocked, gray-skinned and spent. Delilah hadn’t been able to say anything to him. She was too angry with the way he’d treated Hunter. When she’d headed for the Jeep she’d found Tyler along the fence line, looking off in the distance as if following the invisible trail that had been left in his family’s departure.

“Where are you going?” he’d yelled at her as she drove off.

Somewhere else.
Her answer was a lifted hand in good-bye. She just couldn’t be in the house anymore, and not only because of the wet, smoky smell that permeated the place or the sense of gloom, disbelief and fear. She needed to clear her head and think things through. Too much was happening in too short a time, a free fall from her old life.

All she knew for certain was that she wanted Hunter in her new life.

She headed into Prairie Creek proper, determined to drive around in circles if need be to pass the time until Hunter got back to her. She realized with a sense of shock that tears were pooling in her eyes and she brushed them angrily away. It was terrible. Everything was terrible. She sure as hell wanted Ricki and Sam to find out who was doing this and put an end to it, but damn it all, she wanted to be with Hunter, too. Wanted to throw herself into his arms. Wanted to cry her eyes out until there was nothing left.

An hour went by . . . then two ... Delilah had parked in the Menlo’s Market lot and she woke up to find herself staring blankly through the windshield in a kind of self-induced trance. Hunter wasn’t going to text her back. Had he forgotten, or . . . did he not want to see her?

Well, tough. She was going to see him. She wasn’t about to let another eighteen years slip by. If she needed to prostrate herself at his feet and swear her undying love, it would be better than being separated again. When she thought about the possibility of having to leave him and go back to her old life, she wanted to rip her hair from her head and scream at the Fates.

This time she was going to have her say, and not with a note left in the hollow of a tree. This time she was going to have a face-to-face, and damn the consequences.

She knew where Hunter lived and she drove past his house, but the place looked deserted in the dull afternoon light diffused by the overhead cloud cover. Next, she went by Prairie Creek Fire and Rescue, but Hunter’s Chevy truck wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

Not likely. Hunter and Georgina’s relationship made Kit and Mia’s seem like it was out of a 1950s sitcom. But then Georgina’s relationship with everyone had always been difficult. Delilah didn’t really know Hunter’s mother, but she remembered her from her youth: grim, suspicious and laser-focused. As a teen, as much as Delilah had worried about Ira learning about Hunter’s and her love affair, she had woken up from more than one nightmare where Georgina learned of it.

“She’s just an older woman now,” Delilah murmured to herself as she made her way to the Kincaid property.

Swallowing her misgivings, she turned into the long drive that wound to the front of the two-story Kincaid house with its wings that flared out on both ends. Snow had been shoveled away from the track leading to the front porch and hard, dusty ground showed through. The snow that remained was in dirty piles on either side that were slowly shrinking into hard mounds.

The place was rustic. Too rustic. A shutter listed on one of the upstairs windows; another was gone altogether. Delilah felt uncomfortable as she thought of how her father gleefully had admitted that he wasn’t planning to drill for oil on Dillinger land, intimating that his deal with Georgina somehow favored him and maybe shafted the Kincaids.

Hunter’s truck wasn’t anywhere to be seen here, either. Maybe he’d driven around the house to the back to park, or more likely he wasn’t here at all. She had no wish to meet with Georgina on her own, although the Major had always been a decent man and apparently still was, the way people talked about him.

But now Ira’s Jeep was in full view. If she turned around and left, would Georgina take it as a slight? Good God, she was annoyed at herself for her indecision.

Maybe she should just leave well enough alone ...

Instead, she found herself heading up those cracked wooden steps and crossing the porch to the front door. Several hounds began baying at the sound of her knock and when the door opened suddenly, Delilah wondered if Georgina had been on the other side, just waiting for her. “Hello, Georgina. I was wondering if, um, Hunter was here.”

Georgina looked her up and down, then said, “Come in,” waving her inside.

Delilah crossed the threshold and Georgina shut the door behind her. A frisson of fear began to slide down Delilah’s back. Feeling how tense she was inside, she tried hard to relax.

“Sad business up at your place. Come sit in the kitchen,” Georgina said, stalking toward the back of the house.

Delilah followed her reluctantly. She sensed Hunter wasn’t around and she did not want to be around his mother any longer than she needed to be. “Doesn’t look like Hunter’s here,” she said, entering the kitchen where Georgina was standing in front of the back door, looking through the door’s window onto the fields beyond.

“Nope. He was yesterday. Talked to the Major.” Her face was grim and Delilah got the impression that she was having some inner dialogue with herself.

Delilah fingered her cell, which she’d stuffed in her pocket. She wanted to text Hunter but had to wait till she got through talking to Georgina.

“So, Pilar’s dead, huh.”

“Yes . . .” Delilah didn’t want to talk about it, least of all to Georgina, but she managed. “Hunter and I tried to save her.”

“Fire got her? The smoke?”

“Seemed more like she was unconscious from something else.”

Georgina lifted a brow. “What?”

“You’d have to ask the sheriff’s department. I don’t know.”

“Why are you looking for Hunter?”

“I just wanted to see how he was doing, I guess.”

“Care about him, do ya?”

Delilah hardly knew how to respond. “He really tried to save Pilar. It was just too late.”

“I know you’re sleeping with him,” she stated flatly, surprising Delilah so much she almost choked.

There was no way Hunter would have told her about the stables. No way. Not with everything that had gone on today, and not anyway. There wasn’t time and he just wouldn’t do it.

“I’d better get going,” Delilah said.

“You Dillinger girls. Think you can have anything you want.”

Delilah stared at her. This woman was the mother of the man she loved. She didn’t want to completely ruin any hope of renewed Dillinger/Kincaid relationships, but it was amazing how rude Georgina was. She fought out, “Say hello to the Major for me,” and turned for the front door.

“You can’t have my son,” she said. “I told him the same thing before he left.”

“I don’t think that’s your decision,” she said, hesitating.

“Didn’t know I’d have a chance to be telling both of you the same thing. You can’t be together.”

“I’ll let Hunter tell me that,” Delilah answered coolly.

“Sometimes a rumor’s true, you know?”

Delilah felt the hair on her arms rise and she slowly turned around to look into Georgina Kincaid’s avid eyes.
She’s enjoying herself.
“What rumor?”

“Ask your father.”

Georgina looked like she could hardly contain herself. She wanted Delilah to keep asking her questions, but it was clear she would keep up this strange cat and mouse game. Delilah turned her back on her, then headed for the front door and Ira’s Jeep. Climbing inside, she tore away from the Kincaid house and out onto the main road, aiming for the Rocking D, driving faster than she should. But she didn’t care. There was something going on . . . something uneven beneath her feet that threatened to trip her. Did Hunter know what Georgina meant? She’d said she’d warned him off Delilah as well.

About three miles separated the Kincaid ranch house from the Dillingers’ new one. The lane to the old homestead was in between. As she passed the turnoff to the homestead a truck lumbered out from the lane and followed after her in the direction of the Rocking D. She wondered what someone was doing up there; there wasn’t much other than the ruined house and more Dillinger property. Maybe it was one of Ira’s workers?

Glancing in her rearview mirror, she realized the truck was suddenly gaining on her. Here she’d thought it was slow moving, but it suddenly seemed to be pursuing her as if it were jet-propelled.

“Hey!” Delilah stomped on the accelerator. She didn’t know what the hell he was up to, but by God she wasn’t waiting around to find out.

The road was patchy with ice and snow. Her tires slipped, caught, slipped again. Her hands were sweaty on the wheel. “Shit,” she murmured, beginning to feel real fear.

Bam!
The front end of the gray truck smacked into her. Delilah hung on to the steering wheel, madly fighting for control.
BAM!
He hit her again and now her wheels locked and she screamed as the Jeep tore off the road and over a ditch and through a fence. She threw one arm up to protect herself, her head slamming into her side window. Dazed, she smashed the heel of her hand down on the horn, blasting it.
WWWAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!

The truck kept on going, zipping past her and fishtailing as the driver stomped on the brake. Then it suddenly whipped fully around, facing back at her. Delilah saw it all through a haze. If he came at her again. If he hit her broadside . . .

She saw the truck’s front tires spin and catch. The grill was coming toward her.

She unbelted herself with stiff, unresponsive fingers. Tried to scrabble across to the passenger seat.
Hurry . . . oh, God . . . hurry!

The truck zoomed right past her, racing back the way she’d come. She looked up and tried to see the license plate but it was crusted over with dirt.

Her heart was thundering. Her breath coming in gasps. Minutes passed.

Then she heard another horn and turned her head slowly toward the Rocking D. A vehicle was fast approaching.

One hand strayed to her forehead and came away bloody. When she’d banged her head into the side window, she’d split the skin next to her hairline above her left eyebrow.

She saw that it was Colton’s truck. She wanted to tell him to speed after the truck, which had disappeared around a bend in the road, but was struggling to find the energy. He sprang from the vehicle and ran to hers, yanking open the driver’s door. “Delilah. You all right? What happened?”

“I was . . . run off the road . . .”

“
What?
” He whipped out his cell phone. “I’m calling an ambulance.”

“No.” Delilah made a concentrated effort to get out of the car and show him she was all right.

“Then I’m calling Sam. Did you see who did this?”

“No . . .” All she’d seen was a gray truck, like Hunter’s.

Delilah lay on the den couch as Nell fussed over her. “I’m okay. I’m really okay,” she said for about the hundredth time.

“Someone’s trying to hurt our family.” Nell’s face was drained of color as she leaned forward and tried to put another wet compress on Delilah’s forehead.

Delilah blocked her with one arm and sat up.

“You’ve got a cut right at your hairline,” Nell said.

“It’s a scratch,” Delilah muttered.

“It’s a cut. You should probably have it stitched up.”

“A Band-Aid will do. Head wounds bleed a lot. Doesn’t mean they’re serious.”

Colton had tried again to call 9-1-1, but Delilah had managed to talk him out of it. Just. Now he was back at the bunkhouse with the kids and Sabrina. He’d been walking to his truck, planning to head into Prairie Creek for some pizza to feed the troops, when he’d heard the Jeep’s horn. Immediately, he’d jumped into the truck and driven as fast as he could to find her. He hadn’t known what to expect, but with all the danger and tragedy surrounding them, he’d acted first, figuring he could ask questions later.

“I’m okay. Better than okay,” Delilah insisted as she got to her feet. “I’ve got some things I need to do.”

“Colton’s coming right back.”

“Good. I need his truck.”

Nell shook her head. “You’re as stubborn as Dad. Worse.”

“Where is Dad?”

“In town.”

Delilah didn’t really want to see Colt. She wanted to see Hunter. But as she took three steps toward the kitchen her head felt woozy, and though she managed to hide it from Nell, she sank into a kitchen chair as soon as she was out of her sister’s sight and sighed. She needed to find her cell phone and call Hunter but didn’t have the energy to find her purse yet. She’d told Colt to grab it from Ira’s Jeep, but she wasn’t sure that had happened.

She was getting to her feet again, definitely feeling better, when she heard her father’s truck rumble into the yard. A few moments later Ira slammed inside the house. Something about the sound of that didn’t bode well for her father’s frame of mind.

But Delilah was pissed, too. At the way her father had treated Hunter, and at the wild driver who’d run her down. It gave her a cold feeling when she thought about how deliberate that attack had been. Was this the arsonist ... the killer? The one who seemed to have something against the Dillingers?

Ira stuck his head in the kitchen and said, “What the hell happened to the Cherokee?”

“I put it in the ditch.” She found she couldn’t explain, but as it turned out she didn’t have to because Nell was right there. Before he could ask anything further she started regaling her father with the events that had led to the crash, and then Colton returned and joined in, and Delilah felt the first twinges of a headache coming on and just tuned them all out.

It would be too embarrassing to admit, but she just wanted to push everything aside for a few minutes and talk to Hunter. They’d made love and it had been wonderful and they hadn’t had a moment together since. Where was he? She had an uneasy feeling inside that he’d run away from her, like she’d run away from him so long ago. But no. That wasn’t how Hunter was made.

Thoughts of Georgina and her insinuations intruded on her thoughts and she tried to push them away. She didn’t want to let Hunter’s obsessive mother inside her head. She really didn’t give a damn what either she or Abby had meant.

The din around her had turned into a shouting match with Ira blaming Hunter Kincaid for damn near everything, and Nell and Colton trying to get him to listen to reason. Delilah wanted to clap her hands over her ears.

And none of them knew yet that it had been a similar truck to Hunter’s that had run her off the road. Gray ... well, maybe dirty white, but she didn’t think so. Just wait till that shit hit the fan.

“I’ve gotta lie down,” Delilah said.

“Told you,” Nell said.

Actually, it was more an excuse to get away from them than anything else, but they didn’t have to know that. As Delilah moved past Ira, she said, “I may need to use your truck tomorrow. I’ve got some things to do.”

“So you can put it in a ditch?”

“She was run off the road,” Colton reminded him tersely.

“By a Kincaid. They’re all rattlers lying under rocks. That’s what I’ve been saying!”

“The truck,” Delilah said again, and her father pursed his lips and nodded. With that she headed back to the den.

 

 

After a full day tagging after her mother, Brook’s enthusiasm for any kind of police work, not that she’d had much to begin with, had taken a serious hit. It was so boring. Sitting around, discussing who was where at what time, and there were lists of names and phone calls to be made ... Initially she’d been eager to be a part of things, to tell her tale about the Kincaid lady, glad that her mother was finally listening to her. But then hours had passed and nothing had really happened, and she was flat-out tired of hanging around the station.

Sam had wanted to hear her story and so she’d told it, expecting action. But there were “considerations” and all kinds of reasons why they didn’t seem to want to piss the old lady off.

“She came out of that dress shop and ran right into me,” Brook had told him when he’d asked. “Her purse went flying and she dropped an ‘f’ bomb, I’m pretty sure. Then she acted like it was all my fault and practically knocked me over grabbing up her purse.”

“What exactly did you see in her purse?” Sam asked.

“Bottles of pills. You know, like drugs. And a gun.”

Apparently Mrs. Kincaid was known for having lots of guns, because nobody even batted an eye on that one.

“How do you know that they were drugs?” her mom had asked, looking really intense.

“I’m not a baby.”

“What happened after she ran into you?” Sam asked.

Brook was gratified that he at least recognized Mrs. Kincaid ran into her, not the other way around. “She snatched up her purse and tucked it under her arm, like she thought I was going to steal it, or something. And then she said, ‘You’re Ricki Dillinger’s girl,’ real mean-like. Or something like that, and I told her I was a
Vakalian
from New York. I told her she could just bite me.”

“You didn’t,” her mother warned.

Okay, maybe she hadn’t said exactly that. “Well, I told her my last name. She’s like . . . psycho.”

“Brook . . .” Her mom had sounded annoyed, and after that she and Sam had pretty much forgotten about her, which really pissed her off.

Now, she got up stiffly from the chair she’d been sitting on in Sam’s office and headed out the door to find out where they’d all gone to. As if she’d known she was looking for her, her mother was coming down the hall. “Brook, come on. We gotta go,” she urged, doing an about-face and heading for the front of the station.

“It’s about time. Where are we going?” Brook demanded, hurrying to keep up with her.

“To the lodge. Delilah was in a car accident.”

“Oh, no. She’s okay, though, right?”

“Yes. She just has a cut on her forehead.”

“What happened?”

“The Jeep’s in a ditch. Colt said someone ran her off the road.”

“Who ran her off the road?” Brook demanded, scared. When her mother didn’t answer, she declared fiercely, “I bet it’s something to do with
her.
” She was walking fast to keep up with her mom’s fast footsteps. “She’s
awful
. A total bitch. I bet she drugged Pilar with those pills and killed her. And she probably set the fire at the cottage, too. She wanted to kill me!”

“That just doesn’t make sense,” her mother muttered through her teeth as she stiff-armed the door and headed outside. Brook caught up to her and they both slammed into the truck. “Why would she do that?” her mother added. “Because you saw the drugs?”

Brook stared at her, slack-jawed. She’d been just bitching, really. It freaked her out a little that her mom was taking her so seriously. “Are you going to arrest her?”

“No. Good grief. We don’t know anything. We can’t just throw around accusations.” She yanked the seat belt over her shoulder. “But if I find out Georgina Kincaid, or anyone else, is responsible for setting our house on fire while you were in it . . .” She left the threat unfinished, but Brook felt a little better.

Her mom’s cell phone rang and she snatched it up, glancing at the screen. “Don’t know it,” she said, then answered anyway, “Deputy Dillinger.” As soon as she heard the voice on the other end of the line, her attention was grabbed hard.

“Who is it?” Brook asked, but her mother paid her no attention.

“That’s a real help, Mr. Griffin,” she said. “I’ll tell Sam. Thanks.”

She hung up and switched on the engine. Brook asked again, “Who was that?”

“Just part of the investigation.” They headed out of town. Her mom was lost in thought and didn’t say much for a long, long time. The light was fading as they rattled down the road that ran in front of the Kincaid and Dillinger properties. Just past the road to the old homestead they came across a Thomas Towing truck winching up the rear end of Ira’s Jeep Cherokee.

“Oh, my God . . .” Brook said in a hushed voice. “Mrs. Kincaid ran Aunt Delilah off the road. Her house is just back there!”

“What did I say about jumping to conclusions?”

“She tried to kill
me,
in case you’ve forgotten.”

“Brook . . . stay out of this. If anyone’s going to jump to conclusions, it’s going to be me. And I’m not there yet,” she said grimly.

 

 

Hunter watched his sister stow the dress she’d been fixing onto a hanger, tugging on the hem and examining it critically. “Mom’s crazy,” Emma said to him, never taking her eyes off the dress. “She’s crazy, and Dad’s sick. The ranch is going to shit. But you know all this.”

He’d shown up at her dress shop after he’d gone back to the station and checked with Raintree who’d seen his preoccupation and asked him what he was thinking about the fires. Hunter had tried to go over everything he knew again, and he’d come to the same conclusion as before: two doers. He’d left the station, stopped in at Molly’s for a quick sandwich, had dodged questions about the fire and Pilar’s death, then had plucked out his cell to call Delilah.

She hadn’t picked up, so he’d left a fairly terse message, saying he’d call her the next day. He was annoyed with her family. Half of them blamed
him
for the fires. Ira, Ricki . . . maybe not Delilah, but it sure as hell was goddamned convenient for them to point fingers at the Kincaids.

He’d stopped by Emma’s dress shop in a dark mood, and she’d taken one look at his face and ushered him into the back room, hurriedly shooing the other employees out. “The Major?” she’d asked anxiously as soon as they were alone.

No, not really. That hadn’t been what was driving him, but their father’s health was definitely something they needed to discuss, so he’d nodded and they’d talked about his rapidly failing health for a while.

Hunter finished with, “He asked me to call Berkley Price.” He’d already told her how their father didn’t feel Georgina was capable of keeping the ranch going, which wasn’t a surprise based on the dilapidated state it was in. What he didn’t tell her was the Major’s belief that Georgina wouldn’t be fair to her own children when she was in total control.

“Why Price?” Emma asked. “He’s not the family lawyer.”

“I don’t know, and I don’t want to know.”

His sister gave him a long look and said, “Something else is bothering you. What is it?”

He didn’t talk to Emma often. He certainly didn’t come to her place of work, so he got why she thought there was something else. And, well, there was something else.

“When I was at the ranch Mom guessed that I was seeing someone.”

“You are? Who?” Emma asked, a smile forming on her face.

“Delilah Dillinger.”

Emma didn’t hide her surprise. “How did that happen?”

Like everyone else, Emma had been kept in the dark about his teen love affair with Delilah. And, well, he didn’t feel like going into it now. “It just did. Mom knows and she told me I couldn’t see Delilah anymore.”

Emma half laughed. “I’m sure you listened to her.”

He snorted. “Like always.”

“Why does she care, because Delilah’s a Dillinger? I thought we were past that.”

“I thought so, too, but maybe not for her. Although she is in that oil deal with Ira.”

“What oil deal?” Hunter quickly brought her up to date with what he knew, and Emma made a clucking sound in her throat. “She doesn’t hate Ira Dillinger as much as she puts on. And the way she hated Pilar, you’d think she was a jilted lover. Wonder if she feels bad that Pilar’s dead.”

Her words twigged something in his mind. He had to search around for what it was and finally remembered. “When I saw Dad yesterday, I told him about Mom and Ira meeting about oil rights with Century Petroleum. He didn’t believe me. He said that Mom didn’t have anything to do with Ira
anymore.
She’s never had anything to do with Ira, as far as I know.”

Emma made a face. “Well, there are those rumors.”

“The only rumors I know are the ones about me being a firebug, and those are alive and well.”

“There’ve always been whispers about Ira and other women, Mom included. You musta heard them.”

“They’re not true. Not about Mom.”

“Well, how would you know?” Emma posed. “It was before she got with Dad, supposedly. They haven’t always been at war.”

He tried to imagine his mother with Ira Dillinger, but the picture failed to materialize. Ira had married Rachel about the same time Georgina had hooked up with the Major, and before that he was pretty sure his mother had been involved with some guy from Cheyenne.

“It just doesn’t sound right,” Hunter said.