LITMIR.BIZ

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blood-spattered ground. The sun was strong and he had to shield his eyes from the glare given off by the white rocks. Heat waves shimmied up from the ground, insects hummed in his face. He batted them away and thought about Carl Totes.

      The ranch hand knew Lilah’s habits, knew which of the six horses she was likely to ride. He had access, he could easily obtain means—some drug to alter the horse’s behavior. What could possibly be his motive? If Lilah were dead, his days at the ranch would be numbered. Decker couldn’t imagine any of the clan keeping him on. He couldn’t imagine any one of the greedy bunch holding the ranch, period. They impressed Decker as the “liquidate the assets just as soon as the body’s buried” kind.

      Maybe Totes had been hired by someone to kill his boss. But it was damn near impossible to picture Totes lifting a finger against Lilah. His affection for her was nothing short of idol worship. Decker thought about the look on Totes’s face when he’d brought Lilah back to the stables. As he explained what had happened, Totes’s nutmeg skin had blanched, a genuine expression of shock and fear.

      Despite all that, Decker wasn’t quite ready to proclaim the ranch hand innocent. He was the only one—besides Lilah—who’d been around this morning. Of course, someone could have sneaked in and done the dirty work. But Totes was never far from the stables—hell, he lived in one of the stalls. Surely he would have noticed a trespasser.

      Decker checked his watch. Two hours since the horse did a kamikaze, but the heat was already doing a number on the animal’s body. He took another full-body shot.

      Totes and Lilah …

      Lilah. Lilah monkeying with her own horse?

      But why?

      For attention … maybe even his attention. Maybe she’d liked being rescued the first time. Maybe this was a weak attempt to relive it.

      Except that she didn’t know he could ride. And she had been legitimately terrified.

      Decker heard sneakers scraping against the dirt and stood. Some kid was running toward him at full speed.

      Swell. Someone new to muck up the works.

      The kid turned out to be a man in his twenties. He stopped short, almost crashing into the face of the mountain, not the least bit winded by a sprint in hundred-degree heat. He was sweated up but smelled minty fresh. His eyes went to the dead horse.

      “My God, what happened?”

      “Who are you?” Decker asked.

      “Oh, Christ, that’s right. We’ve never met.” The guy stuck out his hand. “Mike Ness. I work at the spa—aerobics and weight training. I talked to the other one … Detective Dunn, was it?”

      “Yeah, it was.” Decker shook Ness’s hand and caught his eye. They squared off. “Still is, as a matter of fact.”

      A slow smile spread across Ness’s face. “You have a finely tuned bullshit detector. Is it from years of experience or were you born like that?”

      “You’re good, Mike. Clever but cocky. It’s going to trip you up one day.”

      Ness shrugged. Decker studied Ness’s face. Dots of sweat patterned his upper lip. Dark hair, blue eyes, a James Dean pout—a pretty boy except he needed a shave. But maybe that was part of his look, a deliberate attempt to make a sweet face appear more masculine. Decker touched his own cheeks. He could do with a razor himself.

      “So who invited you down, Mike?”

      “No one. I just popped in to do some harvesting for the kitchen. Zucchini. We’ve already got a couple of baseball bats growing on the vine. We’ll stuff and slice those, but Lilah likes them small. Actually they’re bitter when they’re small, but the guests love the mini veggies. We also wilt the blossoms and toss them in our salads served with a pungent vinaigrette. That really knocks the ladies’ socks off.”

      “Aerobics instructor, weight lifter, vegetable picker, and culinary expert. You’re a regular jack-of-all-trades.”

      Decker pulled a cigarette out of his pocket. The kid had a light waiting before he could put the smoke in his mouth. Decker blew out the match.

      “I just chew on them.”

      “Trying to quit? We’ve got a wonderful program for that at the spa.”

      “You’re an awfully devoted employee. Anything in it for you if the boss kicks suddenly?”

      Ness’s eyes darkened. “Not a fucking thing.”

      “No need for profanity, Mike. I was just asking you a question.”

      “Look, you and your lady partner don’t like me, it’s your problem. But I didn’t have anything to do with Lilah’s misfortune—not with the rape, not with this—whatever it was. I love Lilah and not in the way you’re thinking—”

      “What am I thinking?”

      “That I’m only interested in fucking her.”

      “Are you?”

      “Yeah, I am, but I don’t.”

      “Just like Ms. Betham—”

      “Oh, man …” Ness threw his arms in the air and dropped them by his sides. “I don’t fuck the clientele. That’s not what I do, okay?”

      “Who does?”

      “Who says anyone does? Last I heard, Lilah runs a spa, not a stud rental.”

      “That’s not what I hear about your good buddy, Mike. The tennis instructor …” Decker smiled. “Eubie Jeffers, is it?”

      Ness shrugged. “What about him?”

      “I hear he has a hard time keeping his pants zipped.”

      “Never a shortage of rumors, huh?”

      “I also hear he was with a woman the night Lilah was raped.”

      “You’ll have to ask him.”

      “We did. You know what else he told us, Mike?”

      “That I was with him. That what you want to hear?”

      Decker stopped to reappraise his questioning. The kid was very good. He took out his notebook and pencil. “How long were you with him?”

      “’Bout an hour.”

      “He told my partner he was with you all night.”

      It was Ness’s turn to stop and analyze. Decker could see him thinking: Is he trying to trick me or what? The boys obviously didn’t get their story straight—or someone had changed it.

      Ness said, “Eubie has trouble remembering things.”

      “He didn’t sleep over your place?” Decker asked.

      “No.”

      “Then how long was he there?”

      “I already answered that. About an hour … maybe it was two hours …”

      Good old Mike giving Eubie some slack. Decker said, “What time did he arrive?”

      “Late.”

      “How late?”

      “I don’t know. Probably after midnight.”

      “And stayed until about two?”

      “Sounds about right.”

      “Okay.” Decker’s eyes were on his notebook. “Were you two fucking?”

      Silence. Decker looked up. Ness had turned crimson. Guilt or anger?

      Nostrils flaring, Ness whispered, “You expect me to answer that?”

      “You have a problem answering that?”

      “I wasn’t fucking him. I don’t

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