Buch lesen: «Deadly Christmas Pretense»

ONE

Maggie Lofton punched the speed in her twin sister’s Corvette as a car rounded the corner behind her a little too fast. The twisting road cut along California’s central coast was lit only by the moon and her headlights. Was the person behind her a random stranger or the man she’d been warned about? Tammy’s terrified phone conversation from late the night before rang in Maggie’s memory.

“I took something from my boss’s house...but I had a good reason. I hid it in Driftwood with someone I trust. You have to get it before his nephew Virgil Salvador does.”

“His nephew?” Maggie had tried. “Why would he...?”

“Mags, I’m in trouble. Deep trouble.”

“The police...”

“No. I’ll be arrested. Just pick up my car at Fine Motors Garage and meet me at the lighthouse near the Roughwater Ranch on Thursday night. I’ll tell you everything. Don’t talk to anyone. No police. Please, Mags.”

“Where are you now?”

“I’m safe.”

Maggie had gripped the phone tightly at the fear in her sister’s voice. Then the call had been abruptly cut off.

Oh, Tammy. Why do you get yourself into these jams?

A smile quirked her face as she imagined Tammy’s reply. “Because I fire first then aim, just like Daddy always says.”

Everything from bad romances, getting kicked out of her apartment, taking jobs that sounded too good to be true and were—Tammy had fallen into all of them and Maggie had been there to pick up the pieces. As she would be this time as well, if she could just figure out what new kind of trouble Tammy had landed herself in.

The car behind her edged closer, further proof that it wasn’t someone out for a leisurely evening drive. Was it Virgil, the nephew? She knew Tammy had taken a job caring for the elderly Bill Salvador in the nearby town of Sand Bar, but Maggie had never met Bill or his nephew.

The whole situation made no sense.

She had to get away from whoever it was long enough to make the meeting with Tammy and sort out the details. If it was the person her sister feared, he must have caught her trail as she’d blown into town. Further, if he believed the woman driving the green Corvette was Tammy, that meant her sister was still safe, in hiding maybe, waiting for Maggie to arrive for their rendezvous. But if Tammy was fine, why had there been no answer to Maggie’s follow-up texts and calls?

The car behind her was large. Black. So close now that the headlights blazed in her rearview mirror. The road was slick from a December frost. Dark. Was that a train whistle? Quickly she rolled down the window as the tires struggled to grip the icy road.

“Don’t they believe in streetlights here in Driftwood?” she mumbled, pressing harder on the accelerator. She knew every spark plug and bolt in the car, having given it a complete tune-up a month ago after she’d paid the outstanding loan and gotten it out of repossession for her sister.

Per Tammy’s instructions, she’d picked it up that very morning from a garage ten miles outside of Sand Dune. There was a formidable dent in the front driver’s side and the mechanic said it had been towed in to have the front axle replaced. Clearly, Tammy had been in an accident. Maggie jerked a look in the rearview. Had it been caused by the person currently glued to her bumper? Whoever it was swerved and accelerated. Maggie stomped on the gas. Her pursuer inched closer.

Teeth clenched, she gunned the engine, but it was all she could do to keep the car from lurching off into the split rail fence that now hemmed in both sides of the road. The black vehicle crept over onto the opposite lane until it was level with her driver’s door, forcing her within inches of the fence. She could see only a hint of the driver, not enough to decide if it was male or female or to notice any other identifying characteristics.

Whatever they wanted, they weren’t going to get it or anything else from Maggie until she knew without question that her sister was safe.

Tam Tam, I got your back, like always. Tam Tam and Mags, twin sisters and besties for the thirty-two years since they’d arrived together on the planet. That would never change.

The two cars flew almost side by side. The other fender tapped hers and the Vette shuddered and bucked, but she kept it on the road. Panic bit at her. Again came the sound of the train whistle. The speed disoriented her. Was it coming from beyond? Beside? She wanted to slow, but her pursuer had fallen back now, tucking in behind her.

Maggie wasn’t a reckless speedster and this all felt like some kind of nightmare. Knuckles white, she held on to the steering wheel and floored it, pulling several car lengths ahead.

Was this man actually trying to kill her?

No, she thought. He’s trying to kill your sister.

Teeth gritted, Maggie fought the steering wheel and the monstrous fear rising inside her.

Liam Pike dismounted his horse, banged his cowboy hat against his thigh to dislodge the dust and rammed a hand through his thatch of unruly auburn hair. His hip throbbed, courtesy of a 1,200-pound heifer who had taken offense at his notion to move her and the herd to the upper pasture on the Roughwater Ranch.

Now that he was in his midthirties, these little injuries seemed to hang on longer, adding to the collection of pains he’d accumulated in his time as a Green Beret. At least he’d finally managed to wrangle the feisty animal just after sunset, in spite of constant interference from a mutt named Jingles. An early Christmas gift from his sister, Helen, Jingles was rapidly turning out to be a four-legged disaster.

Resting his boot on the lower rail of the fence, Liam surveyed the road that bisected the rich pastureland on one side and the vast Pacific coast on the other. Phone pressed to his good ear, barn jacket shielding him from the California winter, he just barely picked out the distant whistle of the steam train. It eased his mind to know that he could still hear it, at least for the time being. “Little sis, I love you,” he said when Helen picked up the phone, “but we gotta talk about this dog.” His North Carolina accent was thick, thicker when he was tired and thickest of all when he wanted it to be.

“Isn’t he great?” Helen gushed. “The shelter said he’d been there for almost three months and no one wanted him. Can you believe that? They called him Goofy, but Jingles is much better, don’t you think, in light of the season?”

“Well, now...”

“He has natural herding instinct, doesn’t he? I know he’s got Australian shepherd in him.”

Liam tried to lasso the conversation back to the point. “Yeah, but that’s part of the problem. The critter won’t leave me alone. I can’t even take a shower without him wanting to join in.”

“Excellent. He’s devoted to you. You’re bonding.”

“I don’t—”

“Can you call me later, Liam? I need to see to an issue.”

An issue...

There was something in her tone...something underlying the jovial teasing that made him think it wasn’t a routine situation at the Roughwater Lodge she managed. Prickles danced across the back of his neck. Was something wrong with his baby sister? It was not that long ago, while he was still deployed, that her best friend had been murdered on the Lodge property. Her scars ran deep and raw after the senseless tragedy. His protective instincts buzzed. “What’s—?”

“Stop worrying. It’s nothing I can’t handle, big brother. Go play with your dog.” She hung up.

He stared at his phone. Since his father train-wrecked their lives when Liam was a kid, it had been his number one job to care for Helen. Neither his past service as a Green Beret nor his current duties as a cowboy on the sprawling Roughwater Ranch diverted him from tending to her, whether or not she welcomed his assistance.

He heard only a dull hum in his left ear, courtesy of the otosclerosis that had wrecked his hearing and forced him out of military service. He could still get along with a hearing aid in the other, and he prayed every night that God would preserve that sliver of precious auditory function. He jammed the phone into his pocket.

The distant sound of the nine o’clock train whispered again through the December night and he thought with a pang of Tammy, the woman with whom he’d broken up eight months before. He remembered when they’d first started dating, he’d taken her for a ride on that historic steam train and she’d gone pink-cheeked with joy. Dark-haired, boisterous, impulsive Tammy.

Loneliness churned his stomach.

He felt rather than heard the movement behind him. Whirling around, hand on the rifle secured to his saddle, he found Jingles, tongue lolling, one ear up and one down, staring at him with that look of unadulterated adoration that made Liam squirm.

He gaped. “What are you doin’ here? I put you out with the respectable herding dogs behind the bunkhouse. Haven’t you caused enough trouble for one day?”

Jingles wagged his crooked tail, staring unblinkingly with those inscrutable amber eyes.

Liam folded his arms. “You busted out and followed me, didn’tcha? This has got to stop, dog.”

The dog sat, front feet turned outward in that odd pigeon-toed way of his, tail scuffing the grass. “Jingles—” Liam broke off abruptly as he heard the roar of an engine. The vibrations under his feet told him more than his ears. The car was coming too fast along the winding road.

He unlatched the gate and stepped through to get a closer look, Jingles glued to his boot heels.

The car came around the bend, a sleek green bullet. Everything twisted up inside him. He knew that car, a sweet 1972 Chevy Corvette that made his mouth water. Further, he knew the driver, the woman who’d left him and the little town of Driftwood without a backward glance. Tammy Lofton. It could be no one else.

He tracked her progress. Too fast, at the outer edge of control. She was always a bit of a lead foot, but why would she be driving like that? Why here? Now?

Then he saw the second car—dark, also moving rapidly—closing the gap.

“What in the world?” he said aloud, earning an answering yip from the dog he’d temporarily forgotten about. The second fact dropped into his mind, hard and sharp like a collar awl he used for making saddles. The train crossing was two miles ahead. He did the mental math calculations: Tammy’s speed, her pursuer, the train. No time to work out much of a plan.

“Stay here,” he shouted to Jingles, leaping onto his horse and urging Streak into a gallop toward the crossing. It took a few minutes of hard riding and a sneaky shortcut to catch up with her, Streak flying along the grassy field, above and parallel to her car.

“Tammy!” he hollered. “Stop!”

She was staring out the front window, hair concealing her profile, but the body language read fear, terror even.

“Stop the car,” he shouted as loudly as he could manage. “Train!”

But still she drove on, clutching the wheel as the other driver flew around the turn behind her.

Maggie’s nerves were screaming as she tried to escape her pursuer, momentarily distracted by a galloping horseman who appeared to be trying to keep pace with her. “One problem at a time,” she ground out through gritted teeth. The cowboy would have to wait. The horseman peeled off abruptly and she breathed a smidgen easier.

Glancing at the car behind her, she was thrilled when it dropped back several yards. She let out a shaky breath. Good, she thought, breathing slowing a notch. Go ahead and give up.

Instead he accelerated and rammed her. The Vette shimmied and slid. She screamed, fingers clawing the wheel for control. He was dropping back again and this time she wasn’t about to let him regain the advantage.

The Corvette was practically flying when, without warning, a man leaped onto the road twenty yards ahead. Strangely backlit by the moonlight, she could just make out the silhouette of the horseman who’d been tracking her. He must have taken a detour to cut her off. He was standing on the road, a big guy in a cowboy hat, broad-shouldered, arms held up in warning, like something out of a dream.

“Get out of the way!” she shrieked.

He waved one hand and fired a rifle she hadn’t noticed into the air. The shot cracked through the night. She had no choice but to jerk the Corvette around in a wide, bumping arc to avoid running him down. The tires jostled and jumped, taking her off the road. The wheels spun fruitlessly on the frosted grass and she struggled to control the bucking steering wheel. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted the cowboy, still waving frantically.

What was he doing? Finally the piercing noise and commotion ahead sank into her panicked brain. The clang of signals and flash of lights told her the sickening truth. She was about to drive directly into the path of an oncoming train. She slammed on the brakes but the speed was too much. The whistle pierced the night like a shriek as the Corvette skidded through the signal light, heading straight for the tracks.

She wrenched the wheel and the car whirled in circles, dizzying her. For one heart-stopping moment, she thought her vehicle would hurtle onto the tracks, but it halted some ten feet back, illuminated by the red flashing train lights.

The dark sedan that had been pursuing her came to a sudden stop in a shower of loose rocks, engine idling. She sat, panting, shaking convulsively. In the rearview she saw the cowboy sprint up to her pursuer’s car, shouting something. Paralysis stole her ability to move. What should she do? At least one of her car’s tires was shredded; she’d heard it explode. Get out and run away from her pursuer and the cowboy? Or stay until the showdown behind her was finished? Should she take her chances with the darkness or the cowboy?

Tammy, what kind of a mess have you gotten us into this time?

She shoved open the door and stepped into a deep rut that sent her to one knee. The cold pierced her body but it hardly registered past the fear. The Corvette had spun and come to a halt facing her pursuer, his headlights blinding her.

“Step away from the car,” a voice shouted. It was low and husky. Angry. The cowboy. It had to be. Was he shouting at her? She squatted next to the open driver’s-side door. The Vette had skidded to a stop on a grassy clearing. The slight odor of rubber burned her nostrils and she looked down to see the remains of her ruined front tire. She wasn’t going to be driving out of there, even if the way wasn’t blocked by the sedan. The train barreled on, the noise waning in the distance. For a fleeting moment she wished she could run after it. Instead she was left to cobble together her own escape plan. There was no convenient cover nearby, no structures to hide behind or even trees to conceal her.

The cowboy took a few steps toward the stranger’s idling car. “I said get out of the vehicle, mister, unless you want your tires flattened,” he shouted again.

While both men were distracted, she should run. But her shaky legs would not cooperate. She clung to the car door, trying to steady her nerves.

A half second later the sedan jerked into Reverse, squealed backward until the driver peeled around and floored it, receding into the distance.

“Coward,” she heard the cowboy say.

The sound of his boots plowing through the grass toward her car made her pulse ratchet even higher.

What should she do? What would Tammy do?

He stopped at the other side of her car, silent. More movement sounded in the still night and, all of a sudden, a sturdy white dog raced around the side of the car and barked.

She screamed.

At the sound, the animal lunged forward, swabbed a wet tongue over her forehead and sat, tail wagging.

A hysterical squeal rose to her lips but she kept it in. The boots came closer, until the cowboy rounded the front fender of her car.

“And you teased me about my driving,” he said. A strong Southern accent colored his words though she could not make out his features, only the hint of a wide chin and a cowboy hat.

What is he talking about? Teased him?

“Tam?” he said. “You’ve got some explaining to do.”

Tam. The pieces fell into place. This had to be Liam Pike, Tammy’s ex-boyfriend.

She leaned her dog-dampened forehead against the metal. What were the chances she’d hit town, nearly get driven off the road, narrowly avoid being hit by a train and finish up by running into her sister’s ex?

The dog let loose with a howl.

Maggie felt like doing the same.