Cowboy Up(88)

I don’t look away, my eyes struggling to make sense of what’s before me. John Lewis, the man who deserves whatever hell is waiting on him, lying half burned on my property. “What did he do? Start the damn fire and fall in?” I ask no one in particular.

“Not sure, son,” Holden says, coming to stand next to me. “Your brother tells me that there’s a connection here?”

I nod, looking away and at the older man. “He’s my wife’s ex. There’s not one good thing about what he shared with her either. Not to mention his history of erratic behavior from a few years ago.”

He clicks his teeth, looking back down at the body. “That’s right. I remember that. Such a shame, those horses of yours.”

“I hadn’t seen him after that until a month or two ago when I was pickin’ up Caroline in Wire Creek. Didn’t say a word to us, but saw him there watchin’ and not hidin’ it one bit.”

“Has he contacted your wife?”

“Shit,” I hiss, looking away from the dead man. “Earlier today. I don’t know everything that was said, but she mentioned him approaching her briefly. Shit just got busy with the weddin’ and I haven’t talked to her about it since.”

“Tucker says he saw them outside the grocery earlier yesterday.”

I glance in the direction he’s pointing to see the younger police officer. He dips his chin but doesn’t say anything.

“With all due respect, Sheriff, I hope you can understand how it slipped my mind, seein’ that aside from us sayin’ I do, there wasn’t much time to talk about our day.”

“I didn’t mean anything by it, Clay. Just pointin’ out that this clearly wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment thing if not even twenty-four hours after approaching your wife, he’s here.”

“What the hell was burnin’ somethin’ down in the middle of my property goin’ to prove anyway? It doesn’t make a lick of sense.”

“I understand your wife’s store in Wire Creek had some fire issues as well recently?”

I scoff. “You could say that. Someone tried to burn her inside of there the first time. Shit got tampered with while she was in the rebuildin’ stage, and the second she put the place on the market, they came back and sparked it up real good. That wasn’t long before when she officially moved in to the ranch.”

Holden bobs his head, listening to me while one of the younger cops writes some notes down.

“Coroner’s here,” someone mumbles.

I glance up at Spencer Russell, the town’s coroner, as he climbs down from his truck. The man’s old as dirt but wise as hell. He walks toward our huddle and shakes hands with Holden and Mav before getting to me.

“Nice night for a barbecue?” he cryptically jokes, grunting out a belly laugh while walking toward John’s body.

Mav snickers under his breath and I see the sheriff shake his head, a small grin on his lips. I keep my silence. It’s not like John being behind all this isn’t believable. But Caroline’s words about how he wouldn’t have hidden behind the fires echo through my mind. That’s why I’m having a hard time believing this is clear-cut. Someone like John Lewis would have made his point in an irrefutable kind of way. He would have been in your face and proud, hungry to see the fear he had produced. What he wouldn’t have done was spent months hiding behind fires and petty construction-site mischief.

“Well, well,” Spencer mutters, using his gloved hands to turn John’s head. “Y’all see a gun anywhere round here?”

Ice-cold dread fills my veins.

“No, sir. We checked the area real good when we got here, too.”

“Linney,” I wheeze, already turning and running back to the four-wheeler. I toss my leg over the seat and reach for the key. Before I can fire it up, the unmistakable sound of a gunshot echoes through the night. “Caroline!”

“Clay!” I hear bellowed at the same time my engine kicks over. Before I can get the four-wheeler into gear, my brother is jumping on the back rack with his legs hanging over one side. I don’t spare him a glance, flipping my wrist and gunning it back to the ranch knowing he’ll hold on but not giving a shit if he falls off. I need to get back to my wife.

“Kill it back behind the barn,” Mav yells into my ear.

I nod, changing gears and picking up speed. When we come into the clearing that the house is in, I flip the lights off and drive to the back of the barn and turn off the four-wheeler, running toward the house not even a second later. I don’t look to see if my brother is following; the only thing I care about is making sure Caroline’s okay. My feet have just cleared the top step of the porch when I hear the second gunshot and all rational thoughts vanish. I lift my boot and kick the front door, the wood splintering as the lock gives. Shouldering the broken door out of the way, I stand in the doorway, my eyes searching and my heart praying.