“TRACE?”
Trace heard his name being called from a long distance away. It was dark. Was he out on the range? Had night fallen before he’d driven the cattle back home? No, no…he was lying on the hard ground. Where was Jo?
“Hit him with the bucket,” another voice said.
Bucket? Who was going to hit him with a bucket?
Then he remembered what had happened. Vern’s truck. The bottle of chloroform. The pillowcase sleeve. Was that what he’d been hit with? A bucket?
He struggled to focus his gaze and sit up, even as what seemed like a ton of water landed on top of his head.
He sputtered and struggled to his feet, wiping the water away. He finally focused on the two men in front of him, his brother and Clinton.
“Damn it all to hell, what did you go and do that for?” Trace demanded.
The two men looked at each other.
“Seems fine to me,” the stable manager said.
Eric answered Trace. “Clint found you lying just inside the stable doors, dead to the world. When he couldn’t wake you, he came to get me.” He held up the bucket. “Water did the trick.”
Trace shook his hands to rid them of water and then pushed his soaked hair back from his face.
“What in the hell happened?” Eric asked. “You put back one too many?”
Trace felt the blood stop cold in his veins. “Jo!”
“Whoa.” His brother caught him by the shoulder when he tried to bolt through the open door. “Where do you think you’re going?”
Trace stared at him. “Jo’s in danger. The rapist wasn’t Southard at all. It was Vern…”
“I OWE YOU A DEBT OF gratitude, little lady,” Vern said, resting his hand against his Colt revolver, secured in the holster at his hip. “Thanks to you, I found the perfect scapegoat for…well, let’s say my extracurricular activities.”
Jo’s heartbeat raced and her mind filled with images of the night at the stables, the smell of chloroform as strong as if she had just inhaled it again.
She recalled defending Carter, convinced he hadn’t been her attacker. But at the time she’d been unable to identify why. Then when the additional evidence against him had been produced, she was forced to question her own gut feeling.
Oh, God…
“You planted that pillowcase in Carter’s bike,” she said aloud.
Vern appeared pleased that she had figured everything out. “I always thought you were quick. In fact, it’s what made you such a superb target. The others…the others had no way of identifying me, because I’d never met them before. But you. You were a challenge. You knew who I was. One wrong move, and my little escapade would be over.”
“How were you able to plant the evidence?”
“Easy enough. The night that Southard boy snuck in to see you, and Trace hurried to protect your honor?” Vern snorted and looked as if he wanted to spit again. “I was left behind to deal with the bike. That’s when the idea occurred to me—like the scent of a woman’s perfume before she even enters the room.”
The door suddenly swung inward, making Jo jump. She watched Vern draw his gun and cock it, even as Trace and Eric appeared in the doorway, shotguns raised in front of them.
“Christ, Vern,” Trace said, the butt of his weapon braced against his shoulder, his left eye closed as he placed the old ranch foreman in his crosshairs. “What in the hell were you thinking?”
Jo began backing up. The best place to be just now was well out of the line of fire. With her standing so close to Vern, the brothers would risk hitting her if they shot at him.
Vern appeared to catch on to her intentions, and grabbed her, moving faster than she would have thought possible. He swung her around to stand in front of him, his left arm bent around her neck.
“Let her go!” Trace said, taking aim.
Eric touched his arm. “You’ll hit them both.”
That seemed to make Trace even angrier. “Let her go, you old messed up son of a bitch.”
Vern’s head was next to Jo’s. He took a deep sniff, as if smelling her, and then chuckled. “You’re not giving the orders anymore, boy. I am. As it should have been all along.”
Jo watched the two brothers look at each other.
She tried not to lean against Vern as she reviewed her options. Particularly those that didn’t end with someone other than him getting shot.
She swallowed hard. “All those people,” she said hoarsely, feeling his arm against her windpipe. “All those women you hurt…”
He gave a short laugh. “You have no idea, girlie.” He shuffled her toward the bed, probably for better cover. “The local idiot sheriff thinks my deeds go back only six months. He didn’t think about looking outside the county.”
Not good. Jo didn’t want him to confess. Because if he did, it would make them all witnesses. And if Vern held out a hope of coming through this unscathed, he’d have to kill everyone who suspected him.
“I don’t give a shit what you’ve done, Vern,” Trace said, his stance unchanged. “Set Jo free and you can go on your way.”
“Stupid, stupid boy. I always told your father you weren’t going to amount to much. And you’ve proved me right at every turn.” He spat again. “Of course, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation right now if everything had gone down the way I planned six years ago.”
Jo froze, watching the brothers’ faces darken.
“You two were supposed to be in that car with your parents the night they died.” His dry cackle sent a sheet of ice cascading down Jo’s spine. “Then things would have been as they should have.”
“Are you saying you killed our parents?” Eric asked.
Vern shrugged, forcing Jo’s chin up with the move. “If the boot fits.”
“They died in a flash flood coming home from a barbecue.”
“Which is exactly the way I planned for it to look. Their injuries and the damage to the car were in line with what might have happened during an accident. The flash flood…well, that was the cherry on top. There was no need to look beyond the obvious.”
“But why?” Eric asked.
“Because your damn fool father was too much like your brother, that’s why. He stumbled upon evidence of one of my…conquests.”
Jo felt like she was making her way through a dark, twisted labyrinth as she followed his logic. The laid-back guy who appeared to have nothing to worry about but cattle was no such thing. Instead, his job had given him plenty of time to think up airtight schemes to cover his crimes. Crimes that included the murder of Trace’s parents.
And as she listened, she realized what he was going to do now.
He was planning to kill all three of them.
“Now, you two be smart boys and put your guns down,” Vern said, pressing the muzzle of his Colt tighter against Jo’s temple. She winced. “Now.”
“Don’t you dare,” Jo said between clenched teeth. “He’s going to kill us all.”
Vern tightened his arm around her neck, making it almost impossible to breathe. “Shut up.”
Trace and Eric appeared uncertain. But Jo was one hundred percent sure that if Vern was the only armed person in the room, he would be the only one to come out alive.
“Now, goddamn it!” the foreman ordered, pulling back the hammer and cocking the revolver.
Jo spotted her duffel on the bed just a few inches to her right. Hope rose in her chest. Vern had relaxed his hold to allow her to get sufficient air. Since she was his only bargaining chip, it stood to reason that a dead hostage was no good to him.
She met Trace’s angry gaze, and nodded her head almost imperceptibly. He squinted at her and she nodded again, trying to tell him that she could take care of this. But she needed him and Eric to cooperate in order to do it.
“Okay,” Trace said. He slowly lifted his shotgun up in the air. “We’ll lay down our arms. But you have to promise to leave us all alive.”
“What in the hell are you doing?” Eric asked, gripping his gun tighter.
Listen to your brother, Jo silently beseeched him.
“Do you really think that son of a bitch is going to let any of us get out of here alive?” Eric asked.
“Jo’s life is on the line here,” Trace stressed, even as he leaned down and laid his shotgun on the floor at his feet.
“Good,” Vern said. “No—you, too.”
Eric appeared to understand that something was up, that Jo and Trace had a plan, but he looked wary. Jo could understand why. He had a fiancée and baby to worry about.
Finally, Eric slowly laid his shotgun on the floor.
“Good. Very good.” Vern jerked the arm he’d wrapped around Jo’s neck, and she coughed. He edged her toward the guns, using his boot to move Eric’s shotgun away from him. “Now I’ll finally get what’s coming to me,” he said. “I’m the reason why this ranch is successful. It’s only right that it should become mine.”
“You’ll never get away with this,” Trace said.
“Won’t I, now? Let’s see. Everybody and their brother saw you two go at it like a couple of wild bulls last night.” He shrugged. “And Trace and this one have been sneaking off into the bushes every chance they get.” He motioned toward Jo. “A couple of well-placed words and it won’t be difficult to get that idiot sheriff to believe some sort of love triangle was going on.”
“That’s bullshit,” Eric said.
“Is it? We’ll see about that. Oh, wait a minute. You won’t. Because you won’t be here.” Vern stretched his boot toward Trace’s shotgun. “Oh, and in case you think that pretty little filly you moved into the house is going to inherit anything, you’re dead wrong. And I just might have to have a little fun with her first. Ain’t never done a pregnant woman before. You know, right before she commits suicide because she can’t handle that her man was doing one of the ranch hands and that she’s left to live in shame.”
With his foot stretched out, Vern was easily pushed off balance. Jo brought her left elbow back sharply, hitting him solidly in the solar plexus even as she twisted out of his hold and knocked his gun arm away from her. A shot rang out, but the bullet harmlessly embedded itself in the wall above the bed. Jo snaked out her ankle and tripped Vern up, causing him to stumble even as she reached for her duffel. In no time she located the gun, which had settled to the bottom of the bag. As Vern swung on her, Colt outstretched, she squeezed the trigger through the canvas, hitting him first in the right shoulder and then in the knee.
Both Trace and Eric had recovered their guns. They stepped back, allowing Vern to slam to the floor, his Colt skidding out of reach.
“I guess you were right about one thing, Vern,” Trace said, holding his shotgun on the man. “You are getting exactly what you have coming to you.”
He cocked the gun even as Jo flung herself at him. “No!”