The Cowgirl in Question Part 24

She shook her head, smiling. She was already intoxicated on life. On Rourke.

"Well, at least let me pour it in a gla.s.s for you." Les laughed as he went down the bar to get her beer. Several other bartenders were behind the long bar, serving up drinks to the lively crowd. Music blared from the jukebox and voices tried to talk over the music.

Everyone in town seemed to be here. The tables were full and people were spilling in and out of the larger rooms at the back.

She noticed Blaze and Easton were at the center of it all. Blaze saw her, whispered something to Easton and headed her way.

Ca.s.sidy groaned inwardly. It was one thing to celebrate her cousin's engagement, it was another to actually be forced to talk to her. Was that why Cash had wanted to talk to Rourke, because he'd discovered that Blaze had stolen Rourke's gun, which her stepbrother used to kill Forrest?

"Ca.s.sidy, I'm so glad you came tonight," Blaze said. "There is something I need to say to you."

Ca.s.sidy braced herself.

"I'm sorry."

Sorry? Ca.s.sidy couldn't help her surprise.

"I've always resented the h.e.l.l out of you," Blaze said with a laugh. "In truth, I wanted to be you." She laughed again. "That's not going to happen so I'm just trying to deal with being me."

Ca.s.sidy was speechless.

"I'm really happy about you and Rourke. That's the way it should have always been. If I hadn't messed things up for you years ago..."

Ca.s.sidy was shaking her head. "Rourke and I aren't-"

"Maybe things worked out for the best, you know? Rourke has changed and that's good." Someone began to make a toast to the lucky couple. "Anyway, I'm sorry. I'd better get back to Easton."

"Congratulations," Ca.s.sidy managed to say before Blaze left. She stared after her in shock. Had Blaze really said she'd always wanted to be her and that she was sorry?

Les put her beer down in front of her at the end of the bar and she took a drink. "How is it?" he asked.

"Great. Thanks."

"So Gavin killed Yvonne and Forrest?" Les asked, shaking his head in disbelief.

"Looks that way. I'm just glad that it's over."

"You all right? I heard Yvonne Ames's place was ransacked and you were the one to find her."

She nodded, not letting herself remember what she'd found behind the shower curtain.

"Any idea what Gavin was looking for?"

She hesitated, not sure how much of what she knew was public knowledge. She shook her head and took a sip of beer.

Les was watching her closely, as if he knew she wasn't telling him everything. Les was worse than a hairdresser when it came to wanting all the good gossip.

"So Yvonne saw Gavin kill Forrest?" he asked.

"We may never know."

"Too bad all this didn't come out eleven years ago at the trial," he said. "Could have saved Rourke a lot of heartache."

She nodded.

"I wonder why Yvonne called you? I didn't realize the two of you were friends," Les said.

"She'd heard that I was helping Rourke look for the real killer."

Les was shaking his head. "All these years she never said a word. Who would have known? How's your head? I heard you got hit pretty hard. You didn't see Gavin hit you?"

"No, I..." Again she hesitated. She could see the dark hallway, someone coming toward her, remembered thinking it was Cash, then realizing it couldn't be Cash.

"You remember something?" he asked.

She shook her head and smiled. "I feel like it's just right there, like on the tip of my brain."

He glanced at her beer gla.s.s. "Drink up. I'll make you something special that's bound to help you remember."

Ca.s.sidy took another sip of her beer as Les went down to the other end of the bar to make her drink. She wondered what was keeping Rourke and Cash.

ROURKE DIDN'T LIKE leaving Ca.s.sidy alone. Not because he was worried about her anymore. He just liked being with her. "What's so important we have to do this now?"

"Forensics found something that doesn't make any sense," Cash said, once he and Rourke were outside the bar and away from earshot. "Yvonne had had s.e.x right before she was killed."

Rourke stared at him in shock. "You aren't going to tell me-"

"Gavin's DNA was found inside her."

"Was she raped?"

Cash was shaking his head.

"What the h.e.l.l?" Rourke said, pacing in a tight circle. "She had s.e.x with him and then he put her clothes back on and drowned her in the tub?"

"They could have had a lovers' quarrel afterward, after they were both dressed," Cash suggested.

"A man who's worried that she's going to talk and get him sent to prison for murder isn't going to make love to her first," Rourke snapped. "You're telling me he might not be the killer."

"I talked to one neighbor," Cash said. "This wasn't the first time Gavin spent time at Yvonne's. It seems they were lovers. The neighbor also heard them fighting a lot. One time, Yvonne had a black eye the next day. That could explain the scratches this time."

Rourke swore and looked toward the Mello Dee. "Gavin didn't kill her."

"Then why did he run when I tried to pull him over?" Cash said.

"Guilty conscience over something else maybe."

Cash nodded. "I talked to Holt VanHorn, asked him why Gavin was driving his car. He broke down and told me that Gavin had been blackmailing him." He sighed. "Holt admitted to stealing the murder weapon from your bedroom the night of your birthday party."

Rourke swore.

"Holt swears the gun was stolen out of his car and he doesn't know who killed Forrest," Cash said. "It looks like the killer is still out there."

LES RETURNED to Ca.s.sidy at the end of the bar, laughing at some joke someone had told him. He had a drink for her in his hand. "Come here," he said, motioning for her to follow him.

She took a quick glance toward the room full of people. Everyone was gathered around Easton and Blaze. She looked toward the door. Rourke and Cash must still be outside talking.

"You've got to hear this," Les said, motioning her toward the hallway to the back door.

She slid off the stool, feeling woozy. She hardly ever drank. The beer had gone to her head. Or she was still unsteady from the blow she'd taken yesterday. She started down the short narrow hallway toward the back of the Mello Dee.

"Easy," Les said, suddenly at her side.

"I just need a little air."

"Here, let me help you. You don't look so good." He led her down the hallway, the music and voices growing dimmer. As he walked beside her, his keys jingled softly. She tried to remember where she'd heard that sound, but her brain seemed fuzzy and she could barely lift her feet.

"Where are you taking..."

"Just need to cool you off," he said, and opened the large walk-in beer cooler. He shoved her in before she could react. She stumbled and fell to her knees. The door closed with a soft whoosh.

She turned as she grabbed a shelf and pulled herself up to her feet. Her legs felt like water. She had to lean against the shelf full of cases of beer and wine. Her mouth felt cottony and she could see her breath when she breathed. Les seemed to waver in front of her like heat waves on pavement in the hot summer sun.

"What are you doing?" Her voice sounded funny. But her brain was still working, just too slowly. "You put something in my beer." She opened her mouth to scream.

"Don't bother screaming. The walls are too thick. Even if the music wasn't so loud, no one would hear you."

Her scream died before it made it to her throat. She swallowed, her mouth so dry she could barely talk let alone scream.

"You saw me, didn't you," Les said.

She tried to focus on him, focus on his words.

"You looked right at me. I knew I should have finished you right then, but I could hear that d.a.m.ned siren." He was shaking his head.

"It was you you in the hallway at Yvonne's?" in the hallway at Yvonne's?"

"Right on the tip of your brain, huh? At the cafe, I heard you on the phone with Yvonne, heard what you said about Wild Horse Gulch and the mystery woman Forrest had called. Everyone thought it was Blaze."

Ca.s.sidy shivered as his words registered. The cold air in the cooler was already working its way to her bones and she felt sick and weak.

"The back door of Yvonne's house was open," Les continued as if talking more to himself. "I heard Gavin upstairs with her, the radio blaring, the two of them fighting, then making love. I knew Yvonne had no imagination if she was doing Gavin, so it was easy to figure out where she would hide my Saint Christopher medal. I knew I had to tie up all of the loose ends." He took a breath. "I put the medal in the car Gavin was driving, then I waited for him to leave. The problem was he came back a second time. He'd forgotten his hat. He saw Yvonne in the tub and freaked." Les laughed. "Serves the worthless puke right. Beating up women."

He abhorred beating up women, but he'd killed Yvonne? And Forrest?

He rubbed a hand over his face. His words came out in puffs of white. "I thought Forrest was dead, then he made a grab for me. I could hear the car coming up the road. Any moment I'd be caught in the headlights. I tried to pry his fingers loose from the chain, but there wasn't time."

Ca.s.sidy fought to stay awake. She could feel the effects of the drug coursing through her system. If she fell asleep in here, she'd die of hypothermia.

"I didn't stick around. That property used to be mine before Mason VanHorn cheated me out of it. I knew every inch of it. Forrest couldn't have picked a better spot. He never expected anyone to come by horseback."

Les seemed lost in his story, as if he'd needed to tell someone and now he had a captive audience. She couldn't move. Feared if she tried to take a step her legs would fail her.

"I just a.s.sumed the vehicle coming up the road was Rourke's. Or Blaze. I'd hoped my Saint Christopher medal was lost in the rain that night when it didn't turn up."

She mouthed one word. "Why?"

He seemed surprised she could still talk. "Why? That b.a.s.t.a.r.d Forrest was blackmailing me. He'd seen me vandalize Mason VanHorn's coal-bed methane wells. He was bleeding me dry. Mason knew about the methane on my land. He knew I was losing the place, he offered me pennies on the dollar for my land, then made a fortune. So I destroyed a few of his precious wells out of spite and I knew it was just a matter of time before Forrest gave me up and collected the reward Mason was offering. I had no choice but to kill him."

The words she muttered were almost indistinguishable. "Rourke's gun."

Les must have been antic.i.p.ating the question. "I stole it out of the back of Holt VanHorn's rig, thinking I'd get back at Mason when his son was arrested for murder. I had no idea it wasn't Holt's gun. I was sick when it turned out to be Rourke's. I could have killed Holt."

Les looked at his watch as if worried he'd been gone too long. Surely he wouldn't leave her here to die. He stripped off his belt and came toward her.

She tried to dodge him, but her legs gave way. Her fingers clasped the front of his shirt as she fell. She heard the tinkle of b.u.t.tons. .h.i.tting the cold floor, heard him let out an oath.

He was on her at once, using the belt to tie her to a metal shelf. Her teeth chattered. She licked her lips, tried to form the words. "Don't...Les."

"I'm sorry, Ca.s.sidy. If Gavin hadn't come back, I wouldn't have been trapped in the bedroom, I wouldn't have had to hit you, you wouldn't have seen me." He shook his head. "I never wanted any of this. But I couldn't take the chance you would remember seeing me."

She pulled against the restraints as he rose to his feet. She was too weak to pull free. She watched him push open the door. She tried to scream, but nothing came out, then Les was gone, taking a case of beer with him. The door closed and she was alone, freezing cold and scared she would never see Rourke again.

ROURKE RUSHED BACK into the Mello Dee, fear tightening his insides the moment he saw the empty stool at the end of the bar where Ca.s.sidy had been sitting.

"Have you seen Ca.s.sidy?" he asked as he moved through the bar. No one had.

He got Les's attention.

"Ca.s.sidy?" Les asked over the din. "Ladies' rest room?"

Rourke started to head for the opposite end of the bar where the rest rooms were found when he noticed that Les's shirt was open, the b.u.t.tons missing. He frowned. A memory from a night Rourke had spent eleven years trying to forget. Les breaking up the fight between him and Forrest. A flicker of light, something cool swinging down and touching his cheek as Les bent over him and separated him and Forrest.

"You used to wear a Saint Christopher medal."

Les met his gaze. "What?"