“Kelso here.” He answered, grumpy as a bear.
“It’s Jake,” he said softly.
“Jake?” Kelso didn’t sound sleepy now. “Where the hell have you been? The boss is steamed. He thought you’d have Castillo in custody by now. He sent Staton up to Payson to keep an eye on you from the sheriff’s office. What’s going on?”
“Staton’s here?” Shit, that meant the boss had already lost faith in him. “Castillo’s disappeared.” Jake opened the fridge and found a bottle of water. Unscrewing the cap, he took a long drink. “I need detailed information on his sister. Her name is Castaña. Around twenty-four — five.”
“Also, is there any record of Martin marrying? A woman calling herself Briar Rose is at the house. I don’t know what, if any, relation she is to the Castillos.” He described her.
“Going to be kinda tough, not knowing her last name or date of birth,” Kelso grumbled.
“That’s why I came to the best.”
“Yeah, yeah. Flattery’ll get you everywhere. I’ll even call you in the morning.” Kelso hung up without a goodbye.
Jake grinned and replaced the phone in its charge station. Kelso was the best at his job. If there were any dirt to dig up on Castaña or Briar Rose, he would find it
• • •
Castaña wandered around the old house, exhausted but unable to relax. Daylight couldn’t come soon enough for her to go talk to the sheriff. Her fingertips trailed over Mama’s quilts hanging over the back of the sofa. She took the quilt and wrapped it around her shoulders. Was it her imagination, or could she still smell Mama’s herbs in the folds?
Tears formed in her eyes and she blinked them away. Crying hadn’t helped her mother when she was alive. It wouldn’t bring her back now. Neither Magdalena nor Castaña had been able to make Ramon love them, though they had tried. When Martin joined his father’s cause, turning hard and bitter just like him, Mama died a little inside. Castaña believed Martin’s criminal turn broke her mother’s heart.
Where was her brother?
Was Briar Rose in charge around here? Castaña doubted it. The girl didn’t seem to be able to take care of herself, much less a house and a herd of horses. Where was she? Had she gone to bed? If she were still up, maybe she could be convinced to talk.
Castaña wandered out to the porch. A soft, snuffling sound alerted her to the girl curled up in the porch swing. Castaña hesitated, unsure whether to bother her or not. Overriding concern about Martin propelled her forward. She sank into the seat next to Briar Rose who had her face buried in her shoulder. “Hey. You okay?”
More muffled sobs her only answer.
“How old are you?” Castaña kept her voice low, like she did when she worked with a nervous colt. She hated pressing the girl, but she had to get some answers.
“Twenty-one.”
Castaña doubted that, but she didn’t argue. “Where are you from?”
“Phoenix.”
At least she answered. “Can you tell me about you and Martin?”
Briar kept her face turned away. “What do you want to know?”
“Everything. How you met.” Castaña eyed Briar Rose’s big belly. “Your baby.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” Her hand stroked her stomach.
“Do you know where he is? Or what happened to him?” Castaña pressed, her nerves stretched tight from the long drive, almost running over a man and now this stonewalling. Why was this girl making it so difficult?
“Not sure where he is.” Briar Rose wouldn’t look up and she sniffed again.
“When did he leave?”
Another snuffle. “I don’t know for sure. A few days ago.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand what you mean by ‘you don’t know.’” Castaña fought to keep her voice even. “Were you here or not?”
Without warning, Briar Rose jumped up and fled into the dark.
Castaña started to follow, then fell back in the chair with a thud. What was she so afraid of? Pressuring Briar Rose wasn’t getting Castaña anywhere. She tipped her head back and stared at the Arizona sky. Why did the stars here look so much bigger and sharper than back in Dallas? She inhaled the scent of the ancient pines surrounding the ranch. Nothing smelled so good back in the city either. She had a good life in the Big D. A career she’d worked hard for, friends she loved. There was no reason for her chest to ache for something she’d left behind a long time ago.
She jumped when a male form silhouetted the shadows.
“Martin?” Hope flared and died when the guy she’d rescued from the road limped into the light. Her heart picked up speed, but she ignored her reaction. “Oh, it’s you.”
His lips curled in a wry grin. “Just me.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean … I thought you were in bed … you should still be in
bed …” The image of his mostly nude body came to mind and she swallowed hard. “Oh, forget it. How are you feeling?” He looked worse for wear, if anything. His exposed skin was brighter than a red neon sign, and his lips were chapped and raw.
He ignored her question as he eased down beside her. “I needed to get up and move around before I got stiff.” The image of him stiff created a wave of damp awareness in her. His hip brushed hers, and she fought the urge to press closer. “Who did you think I was?”
She shifted away, trying not to be obvious. The pressure of his leg against hers was too distracting. “I thought you might’ve been my brother.”
He stayed silent, but questions swam in his eyes.
The tiny thought nagged, maybe Jake was dangerous. He could be the reason Martin was missing. She shivered and inched away.
But her gut told her it was the opposite, that he was someone she could trust.
She didn’t sense her life was in danger. She felt safe around him. Besides, he would leave in the morning. What harm was there in confiding in him? He would leave in the morning. Maybe he’d even be useful as someone to bounce ideas off. God knew she didn’t have an exact plan. There were thousands of acres to search. Maybe Jake had bumped into him out there, or at least had an idea where to look.
“No one seems to know where Martin went, or why. He doesn’t get along with the sheriff in town and I doubt they’d lift a finger to look for him.”
“Why’s that?” He sounded interested, but not judgmental.
“Because my father and brother didn’t always follow the rules,” she admitted in a rush of honesty. What was she saying? Her father had never followed any rules. Ramon Castillo had lived life the way he saw fit, with no thought to society’s restrictions or conventions. If he wanted to ignore his wife, he did. If he wanted to pretend his daughter didn’t exist, he did. He hadn’t given a rat’s ass about being arrested time and again for interfering with the government. His stints in jail hadn’t changed him one bit. If anything, they only made him more determined to do what he wanted.
“What did they do that the sheriff didn’t like?” Jake asked.
“My dad thought he was above the law,” she told him. “Was arrested countless times for sabotaging the BLM agents who oversee the wild horse herds. And Martin was just as determined as Pop to save the horses.”
“Save them from what?”
A wave of old bitterness flooded her as she remembered the way her father and brother shut her and Mama out of their lives. “They worship wild horses more than anything. Both my father and brother have made it their life’s work to save the mustangs from slaughter. Government interference enrages — enraged — them. In their opinion, the wild horses should be free. Some of their methods have been … extreme.”
“But isn’t it true that if the government doesn’t step in and remove some of the horses, won’t they overpopulate the area and starve to death?” He used the same argument she herself had on more than one occasion with Pop and Martin. But an outsider preaching about mustangs annoyed her all the same.
“Yeah, that’s right.” Her tone grew short. “But the public doesn’t know the whole truth about what happens to the horses.”
“Which is?” He almost sounded like he cared.
“The horses are offered for adoption through government sponsored auctions. That’s great. But what happens to the horses not adopted is so sad. They used to be shipped off to holding pens, feedlots, where they spent the rest of their lives. The law just changed so some of them can be sold at public sales. They often end up at meat packing plants in Mexico and Canada. It’s not right, and I agree with Martin that there’s got to be a better way.” Her voice sounded brittle even to her own ears.
Castaña felt his eyes on her, but she kept her own gaze firmly on the horizon. If she met his eyes, he’d see her resentment that still lingered after all these years.
“How far would your dad and brother go to keep the horses safe?”
Still staring at the dark purple hills, she shrugged. “I don’t know everything.”
She risked a glance at him and he nodded, waiting for her to continue.
It shouldn’t hurt after all this time, but the wound still throbbed like a fresh cut. Her tone went bleak. “My mother died eight years ago. There wasn’t anything wrong with her that we knew of, but her heart just gave up. Pop took off, didn’t even come to the funeral. Two months later, a hiker discovered his body in a canyon. We don’t know how he got there, or why.”
“I’m sorry.” He sounded like he meant it. Most folks around here hadn’t spent much sympathy on Ramon Castillo.
“Me too.” Her throat tightened. “Martin’s all I have left.”
“When’s the last time you heard from your brother?”
“Christmas.” She closed her eyes, willing away the memory of their last argument. She blinked away the tears building behind her eyelids. “I’ve gone on too long about me and my crazy family. Are you feeling better?”
He shifted and their thighs bumped together. “Yeah. A little.”
“You’ve got to tell the sheriff about what happened to your stuff. It might be related to Martin’s disappearance.”
“I doubt it,” Jake said. “But there’s no point. I can’t tell him enough to start an investigation. I just want to forget it. I won’t be dumb enough to camp alone again.”
“You went camping by yourself? Why?” She supposed some people would camp solo. Just not most that she knew.
“Ever been to Phoenix?” he countered. “There’s a lot to be said for being alone.”
“Is there someone at home who’ll be worried about you?” An attractive man like him wouldn’t stay single for long. A little bug of jealousy jumped around in her stomach. “A wife? A girlfriend?”
“Don’t have either.” He shrugged. “Too busy.”
An image of his nearly nude body leapt into her mind. He wouldn’t have a hard time finding female companionship. Her heart skipped a beat, but she ignored it. “What do you do?” He hesitated just long enough to make her wonder if he was honest. “This and that.”
She arched her brows at him. “Really? And what exactly does ‘this and that’ entail?” She wasn’t going to bare her soul to have him elude the simplest questions. “I, for instance, train working cow horses.”
“Really? Tell me about it.”
His diversion tactics were almost working. She loved talking about horses, their bloodlines, their records, and their owners. She could spend hours thinking about her favorite subject, but right now Jake interested her more. “Do you work with horses, too?” She used her sweetest voice. He grinned and her breath caught. What had she asked him?
“You aren’t going to give up, are you?” He sounded resigned and she knew she’d won.
“No.”
He sighed. “Okay. Fair is fair. I’m an IRS agent. I have the most boring job in the world. Now do you understand why I’m reluctant to talk about it? Compared to what you do, my life isn’t very exciting.”
Castaña’s jaw went slack. In her mind, all tax people were nerds. Jake didn’t come close to being a nerd. Unless one counted Clark Kent as a nerd. The comparison was accurate, she realized. All she could come up with was, “I’m sorry.” She let the fact he was a taxman sink in for a minute. Then she grinned at him. “Did the people who trashed your camp know what you do?”
He grinned back and her pulse throbbed. “I don’t know. I doubt it. My guess is they were on the lookout for someone to steal from. Maybe they needed drug money or something. I don’t see why they would have targeted me.”
“You need to report them,” Castaña said. “And go to the doctor, too.”
“Didn’t we cover this earlier? I don’t need a doctor. It looks worse than it feels, and the sheriff doesn’t sound like a peach.”
“He’s not, but he does want to keep this area crime free. A lot of tourists come here and if they’re being robbed they aren’t going to come rushing in.”
“I get that,” Jake said. “Okay, I’ll fill out a report. Then I need to get a ride back to my campsite so I can gather up what’s left of my stuff.”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t take you.”
“No problem. I’ll call Triple A after I speak to the sheriff.” He smiled and her pulse sped up. “Satisfied?”
Not by a long shot.
Chapter Three
The closer Castaña drove to Payson the bigger the knot of apprehension in her stomach grew. Stranger or not, having Jake along helped. She glanced at him. He had his head turned, looking out the window. A faint shadow grazed his jaw. She let her gaze drop to his hand resting on his thigh. She’d like it on her thigh. She swallowed. Ridiculous. She made an effort to focus on the task ahead.
Talking to the police was the last thing she wanted to do, but she needed to fill out a missing person’s report, and Jake needed to tell someone about the vandalism to his camp. Rare rain clouds hung over the skyline turning the enormous pine trees lining the highway a darker shade than their normal silvery green. A cool breeze blew through the open windows, and Toby Keith blasted out of the CD player.
The city had grown in the past six years. She hoped the sheriff was new, too. Whoever he was, he would no doubt recognize her last name from the many times he’d arrested Pop or Martin.
Turning off Main Street, she parked in front of the sheriff’s office and took a few deep breaths. Her knuckles bent around the steering wheel were white. Calm down, it’s just a report. In her family, cops had always been the enemy. Coming to arrest Pop, Martin or both.
Her knees shook as they walked in together. After telling the receptionist what they needed, they were directed to separate rooms. A wave of fear washed over her, and for a brief moment, Castaña wished Jake could stay with her.