Home Is Where Your Boots Are (13 page)

“No. Go home.” I ignored him.

“What’s going on? What happened? She’s really dead?”

“Their house is gone. Up in flames. I’ve got a dead body matching her description, although not identifiable. I’ve got her mama telling me that’s where she was going. And I’ve got Cash Stetson with no alibi. Please don’t tell me you’re his alibi,” he said as an afterthought. “Fae said you had your shit together.”

I bristled. “I do have my shit together. I’m not his alibi. But Cash wouldn’t do this, Scotty, you know that.”

“Maybe. I don’t know.” He rubbed his forehead. “I’ve got to go. They’re not going to release him tonight. Don’t even try.” He walked away agitated
,
and I ignored him again and went to the front desk. After being informed that they were holding him all night because he was a murder suspect, and no, there wasn’t anything I could do about it, and no, they really didn’t care who my Daddy was, I made my way back to the car, feeling more than a little sick. I got in and explained to Tally what was going on. She didn’t ask for details. I was sure she’d been on the phone with Fae, who probably knew more than Scotty by now.

“Buckle up then,” she said, “Home again, home again.” I rolled the window down to let the air blow off some of my nausea.

She finally pulled in the drive
,
and we got out and made our way to the front porch.

I chose a rocker and stayed there even after Tally had unlocked the door and moved to go in. With a sigh, she took pity on me.

“Oh sissy, you okay?” she asked.

“Fine,” I answered with a sigh.

“Liar,” she shot back, “Nobody who leaves karaoke, intent on bailing her ex-boyfriend out of jail
,
can be ‘fine’,” she lectured.
“You can be bad or worn out,
or worried, but fine is a weak ass answer.” She shook her head softly.

“Fine,” I eye-rolled. “My life is apparently one big, big…” 

“Fucktastrophe?” Tally went ahead and finished for me.

I grimaced.

“Yes.”

“Like a cosmic clusterfuck?”

“Yes. That kind of hits the nail on the head.” I ignored the fact that my mother would be appalled at that word, although perhaps impressed with the creative usage. Tally could get away
with it. She giggled devilishly;
I joined in
,
and before long we were holding on to each other in hysteria, both from laughter and stress.

“Thanks, sister,” I said once I’d gotten a hold of myself. She sat down by me and put her long arm around my shoulders, while I rested my head on hers.

“We’ll get down to the bottom of this,
” she assured me. “I called Fae.
She’s gonna pick us up.” My head went up.

“Excuse me?” I asked. Tally did her own eye-roll.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t take Mr. Cash Stetson’s keys from his little manila envelope at the police station?” she berated me.

“I did but…” I trailed off.

“Sister, just because you’ve been living down with those hoity-toity society Texans and I’ve been up there with those Yankees doesn’t mean either one of us has turned into an idiot,” she chastised. I nodded.

“True.”

“So where first? The hospital or his house?”

“The hospital,” I answered and got up to go in the house.

“So what was that thing between you and the new lawyer?” she asked
,
as I stepped into the light. It was unfortunate that my faux-twit of a little sister missed nothing.

“Nothing.” I said shortly and went in to change my clothes and wait for Fae Lynn.

Tally followed me back to my bedroom and watched as I sank down on the bed and unzipped my boots.

“What happened to your lipstick?” I threw my pink and purple ostrich-skin boot across the room. Hard.

“He kissed me.”

“No shit?” I nodded affirmatively.

“Shit.  I very loudl
y had a white-trash hissy fit
before you came out to rescue me. So he kissed me to shut me up. I blame you.” I dramatically tossed my hair.

“Huh. Fun.”

Fae Lynn parked her minivan in the hospital parking lot and looked at me sideways.

“So what’s the plan, Nancy?” Tally
asked as she
leaned forward from the backseat, her hair barely fitting between the seats. I doubt my sister had had an inconspicuous day in her life. Great for her career, but bad for our Nancy Drew routine.

“The only plan I have is to dig through some of the files in Cash’s office and see if we find something incriminating.” My initial suspicions about Cash I’d attributed to the fact that I was always suspicious of him for some reason or another. But now I was wondering if maybe he was guilty of something beyond heartbreak.

“That’s a pretty good start, but how do you p
lan on getting in Cash’s office, c
onsidering it’s after hours and his being in jail and all?” she asked me warily. Tally laughed gleefully and did a little drumroll.

“Well, I filched his key from all his stuff they were holding. Amanda let me look through it all, since everyone down there thinks I’m his lawyer.” Fae Lynn slapped the steering wheel and laughed. She grabbed me in a big hug.

In another world, another town, this scenario wouldn’t be possible. But seeing as how Cash was in jail
,
and it was three o’clock in the morning, we weren’t worried about the scene being secured or taped off. Scotty was in bed and no one was in a hurry, or worried about someone hiding any evidence. The police force would figure out the details in the morning, after a round of coffee and sausage rolls. Our amateur detective routine was safe for the next few hours. The first forty-eight weren’t a big issue here in Brooks.

Supposedly, allegedly, Tina had died in an intentional fire. Cash’s house, elaborate and befitting his station, so I’d heard, was gone. Singed all the way back down to the foundation. They’d found a body, a lot of gasoline-soaked rags, and were hanging it on Cash.

“You are your mama’s daughter,” she laughed. Pulling back, she looked at me hard. “You think he did it?” she asked bluntly. I sighed again; I was doing a lot of sighing lately.

“I don’t know. And I hate that I don’t know.” I hedged
. “I don’t think he killed Tina;
he really doesn’t have the heart for that, but he may be involved in something dirty that he’s not telling. I’d hate to think that.” I mean Cash was a menace, but he’d always been a menace with morals. Sort of.

“Maybe it’s nothing,” she consoled, “maybe it’s all Tina and Cash is guilty by proxy. We know she was nuts. Not to speak ill of the dead, but there’s no telling what she could’ve been involved in.” That was a skewed rationalization, but one that cheered me up a bit.

“You just don’t want to kill any lingering fantasies. That’s your problem,” Tally taunted.

“Maybe. But a few more got killed tonight.” Fae and Tally exchanged a look and Tally grinned with glee.

“Yes! Finally.” Fae Lynn, annoyed at being left out of the loop, was looking between us.

“What? Who?”

“Spencer Locke,” Tally supplied. Fae started nodding appreciatively. 

“It’s not as good as it sounds. I kind of had a little hissy fit bordering on a breakdown in the parking lot at Chester’s after they arrested Cash.”

“And...”

“And he kissed me.”

“Maybe he’s a S
outherner after all.”

“Maybe.”

“Sooo…how’d that work for you?”

“Amazing,” I said dryly. “Sparks flew, a flame was lit, the fire burned high. And then once our lips weren’t occupied, he went back to being annoyed at me.”

“He
is
a Yankee.”

“Exactly.”

“But a hot one.” Fae Lynn started to pull the door handle, but turned back to me. “What are we looking for exactly?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I said, getting out of the car, “But it’s like porn; we’ll know it when we see it.”

xxx

The three of us walked toward the hospital entrance, attempting to enter covertly. Considering it was three in the morning and you’d be hard pressed to find someone in this town that didn’t know who we were, it wasn’t an easy task. We strode through the automatic doors, waved to the nurse sitting a
t the desk (who Tally’d gone to
high school with),
marched to the elevator, and managed to make it to Cash’s office without being accosted by anyone else we knew. I found the key to Cash’s office and unlocked the door. Flipping on the light switch, I looked around. Tally reached into her purse.

“Maybe we shouldn’t call more attention to ourselves than necessary,” she reasoned, handing us both a mini-flashlight and flipping the light back off. There was no telling why Tally had flashlights in her purse. I didn’t ask.

“Nice touch,” I commented.

“Thanks,” she shot back, clicking on her flashlight and making her way over to the cabinets at the back of the room. Fae Lynn started going through Cash’s desk while I began systematically checking his file cabinet. We searched for about two minutes, whispering back and forth as we did, until Fae Lynn called me over to the closet.

“Locked safe,” she hissed, pointing to a small fireproof safe on the top shelf. Tally reached up above us and dragged down the safe from the handle.

“Key ring,” I responded pulling Cash’s keys out of my pocket.

“Sis, I know you think Cash is an idiot, but if he’s doing illegal crap, and it’s in this safe, would there really be a key on the key ring?” Tally burst my bubble.

Fae Lynn shone her flashlight around until it picked up the glint from Cash’s shoehorn. If you are a male person in
rural
Oklahoma
,
there are three things you will have: cowboy boots, an accessor
y to put the tight boots on,
and an apparatus to take the tight boots off.

Tally, who, with the size of her boobs was by far the strongest of the three
of us
, jammed the sterling silver (I know this because my mama paid a pretty penny for it when Cash had graduated from high school) in between the top and bottom pieces of the safe. She jiggled it and tried to wedge it further.

“It’s not going to work,” Fae Lynn finally said, after we’d watched her for a few moments with dry mouthed apprehension.

“Damn.” Tally sighed and got up from the floor. She took two steps across the room, reaching into her purse and tossing it aside as she pulled out a gun.

“What is that?!” I hissed at her.

“Is that a Taurus .22?” Fae Lynn asked, jealousy creeping into her voice. Tally showed it off triumphantly.

“Yep. With a pink pearl handle. Cute, huh?”

“Heck yes. I need to ask for one of those for Christmas.”

Tally nodded. “Poppa Joe got me this when I moved to New York City. That, and a concealed-carry class.”

“Guys!” I
hissed again. “What exactly are
you planning to do with that gun?” Tally looked at me with disappointment.

“Sister.” She closed her eyes, turned her head and pointed the gun at the safe.

There was no sound in the office except for the ping as the entire locking piece blew off the mini-safe. Tally opened one eye and glanced cautiously at the safe.

“Did I get it?”

“Hell yeah, you did.” Fae Lynn answered affirmatively, kneeling down to open the now destroyed safe. I looked at her quizzically.

“How’d you manage to do that with no sound?”

“I had Poppa Joe put a silencer on it before I left. I hate the sound of gunfire. It reminds me of killing baby deer.” She twisted her infamous butt over to her purse and dropped the gun back in, clicking on the safety smoothly as it fell.

“Nothing.” Fae said in a tone more disappointed than I thought was appropriate. I frowned at the top of her head.

“Really?” Tally said.

“You just wanted to shoot something,” I called her out.

“Yeah,” she smiled. I rolled my eyes.

“Now what?
”
I asked Fae.

“Back to the files. Let’s at least finish so we know we’ve done due diligence.” We went back to searching the dusty files. I wasn’t all that surprised Brooks Regional wasn’t on a total electronic system yet. Their lack of technology made this search possible. And slow.

“I think I found the transplant files,” Tally broke the silence. Fae and I made our way over.

“This all looks legal,” I said.

“Would you know otherwise?” Fae Lynn asked.

“No,” I admitted. “Is Mark on there?” I took a closer look.

“Yes,” Fae Lynn said, finding him before me. “Boxes checked for all organs to be donated.”

“Which is the opposite of what Kelli said was reality.”

“Damnit, Cash,” I heard Fae Lynn curse.

“What?” I asked, crowding her and looking over her shoulder.

“It’s a list,” she mused, “of body parts. Shit.” She began sifting through the other papers. “These are all donee and donor records and price lists for…” She looked up and our eyes met, both drawing the same conclusion. Tally was silent for a moment; then spoke.

“Why would they be in here with everything out in the open for God and everyone to find?”

“Plain sight is always the best way to hide something,” Fae said, shaking her head.

“Fine,” I said, “But we haven’t found a murder weapon. And Cash’s office is open during normal business hours. Anyone could have put that there. These files aren’t
his
, they’re the hospital’s.”

“Girlfriend. Please look down at those boots and stop defending him.”

“Whateve
r,” I said. “Are we taking that
or leaving it?” Fae Lynn raised her eyebrows.

“Leaving. Scotty almost killed me the last time I tampered with evidence.”

“Well, we need to make sure they find it,” Tally said, slipping it under a paperweight on Cash’s desk. “Is that tampering?”

“Pretty much,” I told her.

“I’ll take my chances,” she said. We gathered our stuff. One step closer to implicating Cash in something. Steps further from proving his innocence.

“Let’s go out back,” Fae suggested. We agreed
,
and followed her through the bowels of the hospital to find a back entrance. We burst out into the sultry night air, heavy with humidity, moisture dripping from the green foliage that clung to the fringes of the hospital.

Then, like one of my daddy’s expensive hunting dogs, my head went left
,
and I spotted Spencer Locke. His back was to us, and he was quite a distance away, but I’d recognize those shoulders any day. No one had shoulders like those in Brooks. And considering I’d just been clinging to them a few hours earlier, I should know. He had on jeans, loafers and a lightweight jacket he didn’t need. His hand rested on the raised trunk hatch of a dark sports sedan, his posture irritated. And then apparently his phone buzzed. He reached into his back pocket
,
and his answer barked out across the back lot.

After a short exchange, he shoved the phone back in, slammed the trunk down
,
and opened the driver’s door. He went to get in and reached to adjust his jacket as moonlight glinted off what was under his jacket. A very not pink, not pearl-handled, intimidating gunmetal pistol was jammed into his back waistband.

We stood in somewhat stunned silence. Which was a stretch for us. I wanted to stalk across the parking lot and ask him what the hell he was doing, and could we give that kiss one more try? A try where I had my game face on and wasn’t in the middle of a meltdown. Considering the time, the gun, and the crackling agitation he’d displayed, it seemed like a bad idea. So I stayed huddled with my sister and Fae.

“What the hell?” Tally said, once he’d driven off, curious.

“What do you think he’s doing here? In the back lot, at this time of night?” I asked Fae Lynn, who usually knew everything.

“Don’t know. Probably not sure we want to. Damn Yankee gets more Southern by the minute.”

“You think he’s tied to Cash?”

“I’ve never seen them together. Scotty’s never mentioned anything like that. He and Spencer have been very friendly since he came to town. Spencer’s pretty much the opposite of Cash.”

I sighed. Two hot kisses in the past two weeks. Both with men who were appearing more criminal by the minute. Next on my Christmas list was God giving me a little more discernment.