Harold got into his car and drove out of the parking lot, circled the block rapidly to see if he could spot anyone suspicious in the vicinity, then whipped through an alley and came out four blocks over before turning in the opposite direction from home. He sped through the streets, taking back roads and shortcuts to get to the Jameson. Now that he knew the woman always valet parked, he knew where to look for her car. It took him a few minutes to find it once he entered the garage. The fact that it was there meant that either she was in the hotel or sight-seeing on foot. He drove out of the garage and around to the front of the hotel, found himself a parking spot where he could see the front entrance and settled down to wait. The longer he sat, the more amped he became. He was doing what he did best: waiting for game. The Hunter was back on track.
First thing that morning, Bud called home to check on his uncle and see how things were going at the Triple S. Delbert Walker didn’t carry a cell phone, so Bud knew he had to call early enough to catch him in the house in the morning, or wait until night. His main concern was to make sure he hadn’t given the old man too much to handle.
He was counting the rings while admiring the way Holly’s jeans fit the curve of her backside when Delbert answered the phone.
“Start talkin’,” Delbert yelled.
Bud grinned. Why waste a hello? “Hey, Uncle Delbert, it’s me, Bud.”
“Hey, Buddy. You got things under control out there?”
“Yes, things are under control,” Bud said.
Holly heard what he said and turned to face him with a “How dare you?” look on her face.
Bud winked. “Are you having any problems? I watched the weather. Looks like a clear forecast for at least a week.”
“Yeah, the weather’s just fine,” Delbert said. “You got yourself a good crew out here. They pretty much know what they’re doin’ and just let me pretend I’m givin’ orders.”
Relieved to know there were no fires to put out, Bud visited for a few minutes more, then hung up. By that time Holly had finished getting ready. She came out of the bathroom patting her hair into place, then caught Bud’s gaze and stopped.
“What?”
He shook his head. “Nothing, honey. I’m just admiring the view.”
“So am I,” she said, eyeing the tailored Western-cut shirt and the Wranglers hugging his butt. In her opinion, nothing fit better on a good-looking man than a pair of jeans.
“I hope you have a plan,” Bud said. “Because if you don’t, I do.”
“I have plans,” Holly said. “We can save yours for later.”
He closed the space between them with two long strides and then slid his hands around her back to cup her hips, leaving her in no doubt as to the fact that he meant what he said. Then he lowered his head and nestled his face in the curve of her neck.
“Lord, but you smell good.”
“I wish Daddy was still alive to know this was happening.”
“He knew how I felt. You were the unknown in the equation.”
“He did? You told him?”
Bud sighed. “I didn’t have to. He saw it in my face every time I looked at you. The only thing he ever told me was, ‘Don’t hurt her.’ That went without saying.”
“I can’t believe I didn’t know.”
“I’m fourteen years older than you are, honey. You were all busy growing up.”
“Well, I’m all grown up now,” Holly said, and then kissed him.
Bud groaned as want surged through him; they had to stop before they wound up back in bed again.
“You ready to go eat breakfast?”
She nodded.
After a late breakfast, instead of driving, they walked back down to the riverfront. They’d seen the riverboats the night before, and Holly wanted to take the one-hour cruise. When they got off, they had their next destination in mind.
A tour of the nearby Anheuser-Busch factory lasted into the early hours of the afternoon. By the time the tour reached the paddock and stables to see the famous Clydesdales, Holly was tired. Then she took one look at the magnificent animals and was excited all over again.
“Oh, my gosh, would you look at the size of them!”
Bud eyed them with the skill of a man who knew horses, admiring not only their size, but also their conformation. “The smallest one of these guys would probably scare the hell out of Andrew’s old Jim Beam. They’re huge.”
“Not to mention the hassle of trying to get up on one,” she said, which made Bud laugh. Everyone at the Triple S knew Holly could ride, but she wasn’t an avid outdoorswoman. Her heart revolved around her home and the people she loved.
By late afternoon their steps were dragging. They’d just left Union Station, an old-time railroad station that had been renovated years ago into an enormous two-story shopping mall.
They were heading back to the hotel when Bud spied a horse-drawn carriage parked on a street corner. The old-world charm of the carriage and driver, plus the perfectly matched horses, made a package too good to pass up. He pointed.
“Hey, honey, how about a ride back to the hotel in one of those?” he asked.
“I’ll take a ride back to the hotel in anything. My feet are killing me.”
A few minutes later they were on their way, their sacks of souvenirs on the seat beside them. The gentle motion of the carriage and the repetitive clip-clop of the horses’ feet lulled Holly to relax. She leaned her head against Bud’s shoulder. He took her hand, then lifted it up to his lips and kissed it.
“Thank you, Bud,” she said, and kissed him full on the lips. “This has been the most marvelous day.”
It was one of those moments in life when, for the space of that instant, everything was perfect. Bud couldn’t speak for the emotion he was feeling. Instead of talking, he just hugged her.
The sun beamed down on them as they rode, but there was always that cooling breeze off the Mississippi River to take away the heat. Once back at the hotel, the driver got down to help them out.
Bud stepped out first, carrying the sacks, then turned to help Holly down. She clasped his hand to steady herself, and just before she reached the last step he grabbed her around the waist with both hands and swung her down onto her feet.
She threw back her head, laughing from sheer delight. They walked back into the hotel, arm in arm.
Harold saw the carriage coming long before he was able to see the people in it. When they got close enough, he recognized Holly.
But it wasn’t her arrival that shifted his world off its axis. The moment she stepped down from the carriage and tossed her head back as she laughed, his heart stopped. He’d seen Twila do that a thousand times. Just like that.
His gut began to rumble. Either he was about to pass gas or shit his pants. Everything was beginning to make sense. That had to be Harriet, and if it was, his days as a free man were numbered. She’d seen his utmost secret, and he’d let her live. Twila had surprised him by sending her away and had died without telling him where she’d gone. Now here she was, grown up and back to talk about what she’d seen. He had no one to blame but himself. If he’d needed to keep his trophies, he shouldn’t have stayed in St. Louis. And even though he’d blocked off access to where they were hidden, he was no longer going to bet his life on them staying undiscovered. But there was a problem. Now that he knew the cops were on to him, he didn’t dare try to get his collection off the property.
The only option he had was to get rid of her and make it look like an accident or a robbery gone bad.
He frowned as he watched the big man walking her into the hotel. The guy was at least as tall as he was himself, and a good twenty years younger. Harold didn’t like the fact that he’d let this slide until she had protection. It would have been a lot easier to get her while she’d still been alone. But it was just one man. Harold had faced more difficult situations and lived to tell.
The dream started in the wee hours of the morning, long after Bud and Holly had fallen asleep in a tangle of arms and legs.
She could hear her mother’s footsteps coming toward her room as the sound of her daddy’s truck disappeared down the street. Good. At least he was gone for a while. Maybe if she kept her head down and kept coloring, Mama wouldn’t be able to tell she’d been crying. She discarded the yellow crayon for a pink one and began coloring in the Easter Bunny’s hat as if her life depended on it.
“There you are, honey,” Mama said. “I’m back from getting groceries. Do you want to come help me put them up?”
She shook her head no and kept coloring, hoping that her refusal to do something she always liked to do hadn’t set off warning bells in her mother’s head.
When her mother’s footsteps came into the room instead of receding back down the hall, Holly flinched, then gripped the crayon so hard it suddenly snapped in two.
Relieved to have an excuse, she began crying again as her mother knelt beside her.
“Don’t cry, honey. It’s just a crayon. Look. Now you have two pieces instead of one.”
Mama peeled back a little bit of the paper so the crayon would work from either end, but it didn’t help. The fact that Harriet had an honest reason to cry was alleviating the sheer terror that was in her heart.
“Honey…can you tell Mama why you’re so sad?”
“No,” Harriet said. “I can’t tell. Ever.”
“Who said you couldn’t tell?” Mama asked.
“Daddy. He said he’d make me sorry.”
Mama started to shake. She grabbed Harriet by her shoulders and then pulled her fiercely against her chest.
“No, baby, he won’t do anything to you. Mama won’t let him. Now tell me, what happened to make you cry?”
“I saw in Daddy’s secret room, and I wasn’t supposed to,” she said, and then started sobbing all over again.
Mama frowned. “What did you see in Daddy’s room?”
“Hair like on Daddy’s trophies, lots of hair. All kinds of colors of hair. It got tangled in my fingers. I tried to put it back, but he got mad.”
She couldn’t see her mother’s reaction, but she felt her body suddenly shudder.
“Hair? You mean fur, like on animal skins?” Twila asked.
“No. People hair. Stuck to his wooden trophy boards.”
“Oh, dear God.”
All of a sudden her mother sat her down on the bed and jumped up. “I’ll be right back.”
Harriet jumped up and ran after her mother, crying all the way. “No, Mama, no. You can’t look. He’ll know I told. He’ll know I told!”
Twelve
H
olly sat up in bed, choking on tears, a scream caught at the back of her throat.
Bud was awake within seconds, reaching for her and pulling her into his arms.
“What’s wrong, honey? What’s wrong? Were you having a bad dream?”
Holly turned and buried her face against his chest as she started to sob.
“I told. Oh, my God, he told me not to, but I told her anyway.”
“Look at me, Holly.” When she wouldn’t look up, he grabbed her by the shoulders and forced her. “Look at me.”
She lifted her head as tears streamed down her face.
“Talk to me. Tell me what you remembered.”
“Mama came home and found me crying as Daddy was driving away. She began asking me what happened, and I told her, even though he’d told me not to.”
Bud was still confused. “Exactly what did you tell her?”
“That Daddy had trophies in his secret room, that there were pieces of hair on trophy boards, and that he told me I’d be sorry if I said anything.”
“Oh, hell,” Bud said. He got out of bed to get her some tissues, returned with the box, then crawled back in bed.
“What did she do?” Bud asked.
“I’m not sure. I woke up from the dream as she was heading for the cellar, but I’m sure she found them. That’s got to be the reason she sent me away with Andrew. She was afraid of what my father would do to me. I think I blocked it all out because when she sent me away, I believed it was because I was the one who’d done something bad. I’d told when I wasn’t supposed to. I didn’t understand that it was for my protection, and not because of what she was afraid my father might do.”
Bud ached for the torment he could see in her eyes. Poor little girl. No wonder she’d blocked it all out.
“I’m sorry, honey, so sorry.” He scooted her into his lap and rocked her where they sat. “As an adult, you can see how much she loved you, and what a sacrifice she made to get you safe before she went to the police.”
Holly nodded as she continued to cry. “And that’s part of the reason I feel like I have to stay. I need to find my mother. I need to know what he did to her. I know now she must be dead, but I have to find her body. She deserved a long and happy life. At least I can find her and make sure she’s buried properly in holy ground. That would matter to her. It would matter a lot.”
“Then we’ll stay awhile longer,” Bud said. “Surely they’ll connect the dots soon and he’ll be arrested.”
Holly nodded as she pulled a fresh handful of tissues from the box.
“Thank you, Bud. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“You’re welcome, darlin’. And the feeling is mutual.” He glanced at the clock. “It’s too early to get up. It doesn’t matter if you can’t go back to sleep, but we can stay here and cuddle, okay?”
“Okay.”
Holly slid beneath the covers as Bud spooned himself against her. She tried to sleep, but the devil was still too fresh from the dream. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the rage on her father’s face, then heard the sound of her mother’s footsteps disappearing down the cellar steps.
Holly was in the shower when she heard the bathroom door open. The shower curtain slid back, and before she knew it, Bud was in the tub behind her.
She laughed. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Multitasking,” he said, and took the washcloth out of her hand. “You missed a spot.”
He ran the washcloth across her breasts, then beneath them, gently cupping the ivory globes before giving the dusky pink nipples a brief tweak.