Six hours later, Marco drove his Chevy along the county line road toward the Rio Rojo, or as Amelia had called it, the Triple R. She’d put up a fight about him driving her here.
“I can get myself to the ranch,” she’d huffed once he told her they needed to leave Wildflower while it was still dark out.
“On what? Your bicycle?”
“My bike is a Harley,” she’d explained after they’d watched the firefighter put out the last embers of the fire.
“Was it parked in that little shed by the back door?”
She glanced around, then shook her head. “It was.”
“Amelia, that went up right after the firefighters arrived. I think your bike is toast, and even if you could ride it to San Antonio in the middle of the night, that would be too dangerous. You’d be an easy target on a motorcycle.”
“Then I guess I’m stuck with you,” she’d retorted, tugging at the old boots she’d found stored away in what was left of her closet. They were soggy on the outside but fairly comfortable, she’d insisted. She’d also grabbed a few things that hadn’t melted or burned, but for the most part her home was gone.
After they’d checked everything and found nothing left to save, she’d talked to the sheriff about looters.
“We’ll keep an eye out until you get back.” Then he warned them to alert him if anything else happened. “You might be in trouble, Miss Garcia. So don’t take this lightly.”
Amelia grabbed what little she had left. “I’m taking this very seriously, Sheriff, I can assure you.”
Now she sat tense and silent, her eyes straight ahead. The sun peeked through the trees to the west, a muted golden-pink awakening that gave the facade of a perfect morning. Marco thought she’d sleep, but she didn’t. Nor did she talk all that much. He’d offered her food and drink, but she’d only sipped the bottled water he had in the truck.
“Hey, you okay over there?”
She shifted and nodded. Then she asked, “Why did you become a private investigator?”
Surprised at that train of thought, he glanced over at her, seeing her in the shimmer of the sun’s wink. Her hair glistened, but her eyes filled with dread and expectation. She needed a distraction. “I don’t know. Kind of stumbled into it after a few bad runs.”
“I guess you catch a lot of people doing a lot of bad things, right?”
“I’ve surveilled a few in my life, yes. Some are meaner than a snake, and some have just been betrayed one time too many. I see couples break up after one had an affair, or people reunited, after they’ve been apart a long time.”
“One of them could be after you. One of the bad ones, I mean. Someone you spied on and reported on.”
“I don’t think this is about me.”
“Well, where did you grow up?”
“Oh, so you want my life history—after hours of giving me the stink-eye?”
“Did I do that?”
“Several times.”
“I’d like to know more about you.” She rearranged herself, but still held the tense attitude, her face framed in a perpetual frown. “I mean you did spend the night in my house.”
“Okay, here’s the rundown. I grew up on a small ranch near Austin. But when I was a teenager, we almost lost the ranch, but we all got jobs to pay the mortgage—me, my mom and even my drunkard dad. We barely managed to hold on, but we did somehow. I own it now, but it’s fallow land, no cattle, not even a house. Some construction company wants to build a subdivision there, but I’m holding out as long as I can. I want to rebuild and make something of the old place.”
She gave him a look that held a tad of respect and understanding. “So you left as soon as you could, I mean, after your folks and you held on to the place?”
“No, not for a while. I had to stay and help my mom. My daddy died of a heart attack—stress can do that to a man. Especially a man who drank too much, messed up his liver and didn’t care about providing for his family.” Shaking his head, he said, “In the end, he did try. But it was too late. He wasted away into nothing. I pray I won’t turn out like him.”
“You obviously haven’t, Marco. You seem focused and good at what you do.”
“Yep, but the money doesn’t come easy.”
“I’m sorry. So is your mother still there?”
“We lived in a small apartment for a while, since the house was a mess, and the land was even worse.” He shrugged. “Then her brother found us and took us in. That’s when I left and joined the Army. He and I clashed on just about everything. My mom has her own place now, a small apartment on the outskirts of Austin. She works in a hospital cafeteria. She’s doing good.” And he made sure she had money to tide her over.
“You still haven’t told me about you.”
“I served the Army Rangers, after joining up and training at Fort Benning, Georgia. Did two tours.”
Amelia sat up straight and stared over at him. “Well, that explains a lot.”
“Yeah, a lot is what it became.”
Marco decided to skip over the details of his military background. No need for her to know too much about him or his bad memories. He’d be gone soon enough. “After I returned from my last tour of duty, I moved from job to job and got in trouble until a nice police officer took me under his wing. He worked with a lot of PIs, and I got interested, so I took the necessary courses and training to get my license. And here we are, six years later.”
“You don’t like to talk about yourself, right?”
“I see no need. I don’t owe my clients any explanations.”
“I’m not your client.”
“No, you’re not. Even more reason to keep my private life private.”
“While you know everything about mine.”
“Yep.”
She glanced at the road signs, then sat up straight. “We’re almost there.”
And just like that, she changed the subject. Into silence.
“Why is it so hard?” he asked, needing to know.
She wrapped the jacket he’d loaned her around her stomach. “I can’t talk about it. I don’t want to be here, accepting that yet another person I love has died.”
Marco nodded and regretted snapping at her. “I’m sorry, Amelia.”
“Yeah, me, too.”
Then she turned and stared out at the countryside.
Marco didn’t get emotionally involved with his clients. Usually he did his job, got the right information to the right people, took his money and left. He didn’t like messy, and he tried to keep things tidy and done. His childhood had been chaos, so now he liked to keep things on track. And he did not get involved with clients. Or the people he sometimes had to find.
But this one was different, tough as nails but vulnerable, too. Something she didn’t want the world to see. Only he’d seen it, and she resented that. She was a lot like him, keeping her secrets to herself.
He turned the truck to the left and saw the gate to the ranch. It was sparse and understated compared with most Texas ranch entrances. A long solid beam of what looked like oak wood went across the top and two similar beams held it up on both sides.
The name of the ranch was carved in the crossbeam with the smaller carving of Triple R underneath it. Wrought iron gates protected the perimeters of the main property, but the ranch extended for a thousand acres as far as the eye could see. Marco pulled his truck up to the intercom and waited for someone to speak.
“Yes,” came a voice surrounded by static.
“Marco Landon. I have Amelia Garcia with me.”
The gate swung open. And then slowly closed behind them.
Amelia seemed to curl into the passenger side of the truck, her expression pinched with agony, her eyes glued to the road ahead. “I don’t think I can do this, Marco.”
Sensing a panic attack, he grabbed her hand. “You’re not alone here. I’ll stay. I’m going wherever you go until we get to the bottom of what happened last night.”
“I’m not the one who hired you.”
“No, but you’re the one I’m going to protect.”
“I can protect myself.”
“Amelia, you don’t look so sure about that. You don’t have to be brave with me. You were shot at, you lost your home and you found out the man who raised you is dead. You’re entitled to a meltdown.”
“I don’t do drama.”
Marco found that hard to believe. His ex-girlfriend had perfected the art of dramatic fits—in public. He needed to remember that and get Amelia inside and get his money in his pocket. He refused to deal with any woman who didn’t know what she really wanted. “Maybe a good fit is what you need.”
She gave him a hard stare. “I can’t have a meltdown, or a hissy fit, or any kind of fit. If I truly own this place now, I have to be strong for everyone. For Leo and Siri and the memories I have of them, and for Daniel. Even for my own parents. I have to make this work, Marco. For their sakes.”
Marco stopped the truck midway to the imposing stone-and-wood house that sat long and lofty at the end of the tree-lined drive. “Then I’m staying here until you think you’ve got it all under control. Someone doesn’t want you here, Amelia. We need to find out who that someone is.”
Amelia took in the grandeur of the Rio Rojo. This place had always taken her breath away, but now it made her eyes get misty. Memories floated to the surface of her emotions, stirring up the old anxiety and angst. She’d loved this place the first time her parents had brought her here and now, she missed it with the intensity of missing a piece of her heart.
The heavy rounded stones from the foundation reached to meet the solid wood of the twists and angles of the house. Built as a true hacienda, it was shaped in a wide U style that held a flower-infused courtyard with a trickling fountain that always lulled her to sleep at night. Back when she could sleep.
“It hasn’t changed much,” she said now. “They keep it painted and pretty, always have updated it as the years move on. But this house was built solid in the early part of last century so it’s well over a hundred years old.”
“It holds its secrets, I reckon.”
“It does. Too many secrets.”
“Don’t we all have secrets?” he asked, ready to get her inside, where Samuel Chastain was probably waiting. He wouldn’t feel guilty about leaving her with this mess. Not his mess to deal with, but then he’d told her he was sticking around until she had some answers. Samuel would take care of her once this was over. He hoped.
“I’m not as much worried about who’s after me as I am the memories of this place and what I’ll have to go through over the next few days. I don’t know if I can ever live here.”
“Is it that bad?”
“I love the Triple R, but I was forced to live here when I had no one else, no other place to go. Leo was my godfather and the obvious choice. Siri was so good to me. I was a teenager, Marco. So confused and alone. But they welcomed me and pampered me, even offered to adopt me. But I wanted to keep my name and my heritage. I wanted to remember my parents and their struggles.”
“I get that.”
“I think you might,” she said. “My parents worked here, you see. Same as the Mercers. My daddy was the ranch foreman, and my mother was an assistant to Siri—an artist. The paintings I lost last night came from Siri and my mother.”
“Wow.” Surprise colored his dark eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“Well, that’s life. Now I have to go in there and figure all of this out.”
“And you resent my part in this.”
“I resent that this had to happen. I was content in my little cabin. I had it built to my specifications and I’ve lived there for close to six years. Now it’s gone. Thankfully, I have my work stored in an electronic cloud somewhere. I can bring up most of my photos. But those paintings were priceless.”
“You mean money-wise?”
“I mean emotional-wise to me. But yes, they were valuable, too.”
“You have a lot to work through. Were they insured?”
“Yes, only because Leo made sure of that.”
“I know that won’t soothe your pain, but that is something.”
“I don’t care. I’d rather have my life back the way it was before you darkened my door.” Then she relented. “I’m sorry. You’ve helped me and I do appreciate that. This is just all too much.”
He nodded and opened the truck door. “Then let’s get on this so I can leave the way I came.”
“I’m not saying I want you to leave,” she amended, her heart doing strange things each time she looked into those deep brown eyes. “I’m saying I wish you didn’t have such an awful reason to find me.”
Had she just said that? She was too stressed to watch her words. “I’m sorry. I need to think this through and say a lot of prayers for wisdom and for our safety. All of our safety.”
“I wish we’d met under different circumstances, too,” he replied, his tone husky and hushed. “I think in spite of you being so prickly, we could have hit it off. Now I can see that’s not possible.”
He got out and came around to open the door for her. Amelia sat shocked at his declaration. He was here for a purpose and that included getting her here, only so he’d get his salary and then he’d be gone.
One more person out of her life.
She slid out of the truck, dreading every minute she’d have to spend here. This house held all of her hopes and dreams and also all of her woes and failures, and her losses.
How could she ever survive this? Amelia silently asked God to guide her. Her mother had shown her faith and Siri and Leo had carried on that tradition. Sometimes she thought her faith was the only true cornerstone of her life.
Marco’s gaze moved over her. “Hey, before we go in, I hope you figure things out.” He brushed his hand over his jacket and glanced back at the road out.
Amelia appreciated him, but she could see he wanted to be gone. “Thank you.” He’d told her enough about his past to show he had a lot of torment hiding behind those dark eyes. Too much for her to deal with right now.
Marco held a hand against the small of her back as they reached the front door. But when they heard a spine-chilling scream from inside, they looked at each other and hurried. Marcus didn’t bother knocking, but the door wasn’t locked so he rushed inside, Amelia right behind him, her hand holding on to his arm, her mind whirling with what they might find.
Apparently, trouble had followed them to the Triple R.