LITMIR.BIZ

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      She tried to answer but couldn’t form the words. Quaid lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bed. As he laid her down, she felt his hands at her throat.

      She closed her eyes and when she opened them, he was floating above her in an opaque mist as if he were being swallowed by the suffocating vapor.

      He wasn’t alone. Reggie Lassiter was there, as well. Shadowy figures lurked in the background.

      Loud voices. Reggie pointing a gun.

      And then it all whirled away in a cloud as dark as midnight.

       Chapter Two

      R.J. Dalton stepped through the front door, sipped his coffee and stared out over his front lawn. It was getting harder and harder to recognize the place where he’d spent all his life. Almost eight decades.

      His daughters-in-law, Hadley and Faith, had spent hours sprucing up the place. New flower beds bordered the freshly painted porch. A dozen or more blooming plants he couldn’t name were tucked in with the morning glories, zinnias, marigolds and petunias. Hanging pots overflowed with geraniums.

      Colorful pillows and cushions not only brightened the porch swing and outdoor rockers but made them a lot more comfortable.

      He appreciated the effort, but still more often than not, it was flashes of the past that gripped him when he settled in his favorite rocker. The memories ran roughshod through his mind, good and bad, hit and miss, the events in no coherent order.

      His short-term memory was even less dependable. Countless times a day he walked from one room to another only to forget why or what he was looking for. Some of that he figured was just old age.

      But the gaps in time, the shaky hands and the dizzy spells he chalked up to the inoperable tumor in his brain. The dang thing was growing again, according to his neurosurgeon.

      Not that R.J. had any right to complain. The cancer should have killed him over a year ago. Hell, his lifestyle should have killed him long before he got to be an old man.

      Boozing. Wild women. Aces up his sleeve. Bar fights. Not that he was proud of his past. It just was what it was and regret couldn’t change it. Wallowing in guilt wouldn’t change it, either, so he didn’t waste his time trying.

      He planned to spend his remaining days enjoying the good life he was lucky enough to have now. Four sons—Adam, Leif, Travis and Cannon—all making their homes with their families right here on the Dry Gulch Ranch, though only Cannon and his wife and baby girl, Kimmie, lived in the big house with R.J.

      Sons who had no reason to give a damn about R.J., yet they’d forgiven him his sorry parenting. Or at least they were making a stab at it and doing a bang-up job of not following in his footsteps.

      R.J. walked over and dropped into the old wooden rocker. The floorboards creaked as he rocked, about the only sound around this morning. Not that he minded the quiet, especially since he knew it wouldn’t last for long.

      One or the other of his sons, daughters-in-law or grandchildren were constantly stopping by to check on him. When they couldn’t, they made sure his housekeeper and friend, Mattie Mae, was around to see that he was taken care of.

      Only, Mattie Mae was off at her granddaughter’s college graduation this week. Lucky her. It would take a miracle for R.J. to live long enough to see one of his grandchildren graduate from college.

      The sound of a car’s engine interrupted R.J.’s reverie. He leaned forward, shielding his eyes from the sun’s glare with his wrinkled right hand as he tried to figure out who was coming down the ranch road.

      A surge of warmth washed through him when he recognized the silver Mercedes. Feeling much sprier than he had minutes ago, he stood and walked to the edge of the porch to greet his favorite neighbor.

      Carolina Lambert stepped out of the car and started up the walk to meet him. In her early fifties, she was still one of the best-looking women in the county. Rich, smart and a damn good cook, too.

      “You’re mighty dressed up to be making neighborly house calls,” he said.

      “I’m on my way to Dallas.”

      “Got a date?”

      “You know better than that. I have a meeting with some of the major donors for my for my Saddle-Up charity.”

      “How’s that going?”

      “It’s gaining speed. I’m hoping to enlist at least a dozen additional ranchers to join the program this year. It’s truly amazing what a month in the summer spent on a working ranch can do for troubled inner-city kids.”

      R.J. smiled. “Always the do-gooder.”

      “I’m blessed. It would be a travesty if I didn’t share.”

      “So, what brings you to the Dry Gulch this morning? Not that I’m complaining, mind you.”

      The smile disappeared from her lips. “Let’s sit,” she said, joining him on the porch.

      He spied a brown envelope she was holding in her right hand. “If that’s bad news you’re bringing, I’m not sure I want it.” But he sat back down in his rocker as Carolina settled in the porch swing.

      “Have you ever heard of a man named Quaid Vaquero?” she asked.

      “No. Should I have?”

      “He’s a well-known jewelry designer from Spain.”

      “Last piece of jewelry I purchased was this here Timex.” He pushed up the sleeve of his cotton shirt to show her the watch. “Not likely I’d know some wealthy diamond peddler. What about him?”

      “He was murdered last night in his New York hotel room.”

      “That’s a tough way to go.”

      “The young woman who was in charge of scheduling and planning his New York exhibitions has disappeared, along with jewelry valued at two hundred and twenty-five million dollars.”

      “So she killed him, stole the jewels and went on the run. It’s about what you’d expect these days. Can’t trust those big-city people. So what does this have to do with me?”

      “The name of the young woman who disappeared is Jade Dalton.”

      His stomach knotted. “Not my Jade?”

      “Take a look for yourself.” She opened the envelope, pulled some folded sheets of paper from it and handed them to him.

      He glanced at the headline of the printed article:

      Famed Jeweler Murdered in New York Hotel.

      A picture of Quaid Vaquero and an article followed. Jade Dalton’s name jumped out at him.

      “Where did you get this?”

      “Off the internet,” Carolina said. “I was checking the national news while I drank my coffee. There’s a picture of Jade on the next page.”

      R.J.’s throat dried up so fast he couldn’t swallow as he stared at the photo. It had been almost two years since his daughter showed up right here on the Dry Gulch Ranch for the reading of his will. He’d forgotten a lot of things. Jade wasn’t one of them.

      His hands shook and he felt as if he was getting ready to lose his breakfast.

      “It’s my Jade, all right.”

      “I hated to tell you this, but I thought you’d want to know.”

      “Damn straight I want to know.” He shook his head. “It’s just hard to get my mind around this. Jade—a murderer. If she killed him, she must have had a very good reason.”

      “Two hundred million dollars plus is a lot of reasons,” Carolina reminded him.

      “Nope.

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