Big Bad John
Chapter One
“So when you said you grew up in Texas, you meant the third circle of Hell. You should have warned me. I would have known how to pack for that.”
Trudy bit her lip to hold back her chuckle, lifting one hand from the wheel of the rental car to turn up the air conditioning, pointing another of the small vents directly at her friend. “I think Dante’s third circle was gluttony, not humidity. But I did warn you, Caroline. Repeatedly. You simply chose not to listen.”
Caroline lifted her long dark hair and twisted it into a stylish knot on the top of her head, leaning forward so the icy blast of air went down the snug black tank top emblazoned with skulls and roses. “Don’t say gluttony, it makes me wish we’d stopped for ice cream in the last town and ordered enough to bathe in. And I thought you were exaggerating. It’s not like I haven’t dealt with heat before. Los Angeles is blazing in the summer. But this is so…” She pursed her glossed lips and narrowed her bright green eyes, as if searching for an adjective to do the weather justice. “…moist. Walking from the airport to the rental car was like a trek through the deepest, darkest Amazon.”
“Now who’s exaggerating?” But Trudy understood. Texas in the summer was not for the faint of heart.
She’d left this place thirteen years ago, only coming back once for her father’s funeral. With each mile marker that brought her closer to her family’s land, she was remembering all the reasons she’d had for her great escape. And while weather might have been on her seemingly endless list, it was closer to the bottom.
The reasons up near the top…she didn’t want to think about right now. But she couldn’t stop herself. Coming home brought everything back. Maybe that’s why she’d avoided it for so long.
“I’m old,” Caroline grumbled. “An old but soon to be infamous author of a weekly gossip column. Of course I exaggerate. Good lord, is that a rabid bear?” She pointed to a cow standing on the side of the road, calmly chewing its cud as it watched them pass. She snickered. “You see? I did it again.”
“Old, your smart ass.” Trudy rolled her eyes, but her mood lightened. She really was glad Caroline had insisted on coming along. It was fate, she’d assured Trudy, that had granted her ability to kill two birds with one stone—to be there offering moral support while she hunted down her story at the same time.
Caroline was chasing a mystery for a magazine piece, something that would increase her name recognition in the industry and possibly even result in a book deal. The clues to that mystery had all coalesced around one location.
The same spot Trudy had left behind all those years ago in a cloud of “I’ll show you” and dust.
La Grange, Texas.
Unlike the eternally youthful forty-five-year-old Caroline, this town really was old. A tired, quiet community whose only claim to fame was the closed-down brothel known as the Chicken Ranch and the song ZZ Top had written about it. La Grange had been going through its final death throes for decades now, long since killed by a highway bypass and trapped in time between Brenham and Bastrop. It was only a few hours away from the young, thriving city of Austin, but those hours might as well have been a century. The only excitement this forgotten town could look forward to came from people visiting for the antiques festivals…and the possibility that someday the burned down building that used to be the movie theater would be rebuilt.
Not exactly a thriving metropolis.
So why did you agree to come back?
She’d been asking herself that question all day. During the long flight from LAX to Austin and during the two-hour drive down highway seventy-one. Her brother needed her, the email had said. Headstrong, reckless Jefferson had broken his leg—something she was surprised hadn’t happened more often—but he’d assured her he was fine. Everything was fine.
But that email…
It had been from him. John Brown. The most ordinary, innocuous signature in the world, except that it was attached to this particular John Brown. The broad-shouldered mysterious John Brown who’d drifted into Trudy’s world when she was seventeen, won over her father and brother and never left. The quiet, hardworking John Brown who’d made sure the house was still left standing after her father died, despite all her brother’s harebrained schemes for expansion. The ones that always fell through.
The rugged, handsome and brooding John Brown who’d awoken something inside her years ago, something that had scared her as much as it had aroused her. Something that had sped up her plans to leave for California as if her ass were on fire. Before she gave in. Before she begged to give in.
“So when you said you grew up in Texas, you meant the third circle of Hell. You should have warned me. I would have known how to pack for that.”
Trudy bit her lip to hold back her chuckle, lifting one hand from the wheel of the rental car to turn up the air conditioning, pointing another of the small vents directly at her friend. “I think Dante’s third circle was gluttony, not humidity. But I did warn you, Caroline. Repeatedly. You simply chose not to listen.”
Caroline lifted her long dark hair and twisted it into a stylish knot on the top of her head, leaning forward so the icy blast of air went down the snug black tank top emblazoned with skulls and roses. “Don’t say gluttony, it makes me wish we’d stopped for ice cream in the last town and ordered enough to bathe in. And I thought you were exaggerating. It’s not like I haven’t dealt with heat before. Los Angeles is blazing in the summer. But this is so…” She pursed her glossed lips and narrowed her bright green eyes, as if searching for an adjective to do the weather justice. “…moist. Walking from the airport to the rental car was like a trek through the deepest, darkest Amazon.”
“Now who’s exaggerating?” But Trudy understood. Texas in the summer was not for the faint of heart.
She’d left this place thirteen years ago, only coming back once for her father’s funeral. With each mile marker that brought her closer to her family’s land, she was remembering all the reasons she’d had for her great escape. And while weather might have been on her seemingly endless list, it was closer to the bottom.
The reasons up near the top…she didn’t want to think about right now. But she couldn’t stop herself. Coming home brought everything back. Maybe that’s why she’d avoided it for so long.
“I’m old,” Caroline grumbled. “An old but soon to be infamous author of a weekly gossip column. Of course I exaggerate. Good lord, is that a rabid bear?” She pointed to a cow standing on the side of the road, calmly chewing its cud as it watched them pass. She snickered. “You see? I did it again.”
“Old, your smart ass.” Trudy rolled her eyes, but her mood lightened. She really was glad Caroline had insisted on coming along. It was fate, she’d assured Trudy, that had granted her ability to kill two birds with one stone—to be there offering moral support while she hunted down her story at the same time.
Caroline was chasing a mystery for a magazine piece, something that would increase her name recognition in the industry and possibly even result in a book deal. The clues to that mystery had all coalesced around one location.
The same spot Trudy had left behind all those years ago in a cloud of “I’ll show you” and dust.
La Grange, Texas.
Unlike the eternally youthful forty-five-year-old Caroline, this town really was old. A tired, quiet community whose only claim to fame was the closed-down brothel known as the Chicken Ranch and the song ZZ Top had written about it. La Grange had been going through its final death throes for decades now, long since killed by a highway bypass and trapped in time between Brenham and Bastrop. It was only a few hours away from the young, thriving city of Austin, but those hours might as well have been a century. The only excitement this forgotten town could look forward to came from people visiting for the antiques festivals…and the possibility that someday the burned down building that used to be the movie theater would be rebuilt.
Not exactly a thriving metropolis.
So why did you agree to come back?
She’d been asking herself that question all day. During the long flight from LAX to Austin and during the two-hour drive down highway seventy-one. Her brother needed her, the email had said. Headstrong, reckless Jefferson had broken his leg—something she was surprised hadn’t happened more often—but he’d assured her he was fine. Everything was fine.
But that email…
It had been from him. John Brown. The most ordinary, innocuous signature in the world, except that it was attached to this particular John Brown. The broad-shouldered mysterious John Brown who’d drifted into Trudy’s world when she was seventeen, won over her father and brother and never left. The quiet, hardworking John Brown who’d made sure the house was still left standing after her father died, despite all her brother’s harebrained schemes for expansion. The ones that always fell through.
The rugged, handsome and brooding John Brown who’d awoken something inside her years ago, something that had scared her as much as it had aroused her. Something that had sped up her plans to leave for California as if her ass were on fire. Before she gave in. Before she begged to give in.