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The last clear thought Echo had was the realization that it was happening again, only quicker and this time and without forewarning.
The vision began. She was looking at Paul McGuire through Ann’s eyes. A wicked smile, more like a grimace, played on Paul’s mouth as it clamped around the breathing regulator. Reaching out, he ripped the regulator from her mouth—or was it Ann’s mouth? An unbearable feeling of shock, dismay, fear, horror, and dread slammed through Echo’s and Ann’s souls. They had become fused as one. It didn’t matter who she was—the horrendous impressions stunned her. Echo watched every movement, felt every emotion.
Moving close, Paul reached out. Grabbing her hair, he tugged on it, causing Ann’s sharp chin to jut upward. He crushed her body to his. A lover’s embrace that guaranteed Ann’s death.
Ann kicked out with her feet, clawing at Paul’s breathing regulator in a desperate struggle for the life-giving oxygen it provided. Paul easily overpowered her, erratically flailing hands as she battled for life.
Echo continued to watch Paul’s eyes. Showing no change of expression, Paul watched Ann’s last surge of air escape in a thin string of bubbles resembling a strand of pearls.
Echo’s heavy eyelids closed as she floated away from the dreadful scene. God forbid! The man really had killed his wife!
~ * ~
NAVIGATING HIS CAR across the old bridge outside Sage, Randall began the sixty-mile drive north to the ranch, his upcoming talk with Paul dominating his thoughts. He could not wait any longer to confront the man. He’d been running scenarios through his mind since the shooting at The Yellow Bordello.
Over the past two weeks, he had curbed his desire to confront Paul with his suspicions, hoping the police could produce some proof that it had been Paul doing the shooting. He wanted to throttle the hell out of him, but the police had come up with nothing. It made him physically ill to think he had to let the local police oversee the situation. They hadn’t been able to do any more than the larger one in Hawaii. All they had said was that they wouldn’t stop investigating Ann’s death, but they held little hope of proving Paul was a murderer.
The sun had just risen over the contour of the earth and the dew-fresh air filled the car with the sweet smells of clover and wildflowers. As the car crested the top of the hill and leveled out, three deer stood at the side of the road on the driver’s side. Quickly checking the rearview mirror for any cars behind him, he slowed down. The deer were notably jumpy, and it took little to scare them. Suddenly, a fawn entered the roadway from the other side. He got the car stopped only inches from the tiny thing.
Shaking, Rand gripped the steering wheel, white-knuckled, as Bambi gracefully darted back across the road into the thick grass-filled barrow ditch lining the road and leaped away with its friends. Rand’s heart bounded in his broad chest in time with the bobbing heads as they sprang for safety in a field of knee-high corn.
Accelerating, Rand remembered how many times he had driven this road during his extracurricular activities while he was in school just so he wouldn’t have to spend much time at home.
When he was only a teenager, his mother, a demanding, stern disciplinarian, tried to make him take his absent father’s place in decisions regarding the ranch. Some father he had been—running out on his family before Rand and Ann were born, but Randall had wanted his own life, and it hadn’t included the ranch. Slowly, his mother had turned all the decisions over to the hired man, Wiley Grant.
Rand detested the ranch. Not the beautiful scenery or the two-story log house nestled in the pine trees, but all the hurtful memories. He never understood what kept Ann there or why keeping the ranch functioning had been so important to her.
He approached the turnoff, forcing him out of his malaise. Making the sharp corner and the cattle guard too fast caused the car to jolt across it, bouncing Rand’s head off the rooftop.
“Damn,” he muttered as he steered the car under the sign chiseled into a huge tree trunk, reading Halstead. Once he had been proud of his name. Now all he felt was sadness and anger. He hated his unrealistic anger at Ann. She had died, leaving all the decisions about the ranch to him. Stinging tears filled his eyes, blurring the sign. He swept them away with his knuckles and drove on down the narrow dirt road.
The three miles leading into the yard sped by swiftly, quicker than he wanted. A circular drive curved in front of the house. Two horses stood tethered to a hitching rail in front of the rustic building. A long, covered porch spanned the length of the house.
Rand braked the car, then sat scrutinizing the lodging. Remembering his last visit to the ranch, hot tears stung his eyes. He and Ann had stood silently over their mother’s grave in the family cemetery in the barren and cheerless February afternoon. The bitter Wyoming wind had battered against their warm coats as Rand pulled Ann to his side to warm and comfort her, something her husband wasn’t doing. Paul had stood across from the grave, unaffected by his wife’s grief.
This was his first trip to the ranch since his mother and Ann had died. Grief pummeled his soul like a boxer punching a training bag. His sister wouldn’t race out through the heavy front door ever again. Rand shifted his body so he could reach a bandana-print handkerchief in his back pocket and wiped at the salty tears slowly rolling from the outer corners of his eyes. He didn’t care if it was unpopular for the strong, male species to cry—his tears helped heal his aching heart.
He wondered how he was going to prove to the legal system that Paul McGuire had killed his sister. He swallowed his anger, knowing it would not help with the confrontation with Paul.
As he sat in his state of mental numbness, Paul McGuire and Wiley Grant rounded the corner of the wooden porch, talking. Wiley gestured with his hands spread wide, his leathered face reddened with agitation.
Randall had known the old man all his life and knew he could be a pain in the butt. He always wanted, and normally got, his own way, just as if he were the owner of the property. Wiley’s possessive attitude about the ranch had been reinforced by Rand’s mother, and by Ann after her mother’s death. Ann hadn’t let Wiley go because he would lose the only place he had to call home.
The men spotted him sitting in the car, and abruptly their conversation ceased. Rand opened the car door and stepped out onto the gravel drive. “Morning, Paul. Wiley.”
Neither of them responded. Their gazes reflected their shared hatred of him.
“Do you have some time, Paul? I need to talk to you.”
Paul shrugged, his boots making a hollow, lonely sound as he walked across the covered, rough wood porch. “I don’t know if we have anything to talk about, Randall. Seems like we can’t get along when we converse.”
Shading his eyes from the glare of the morning sun, Rand leaned against the car. “I want the things from the house that were left to me in Mother’s will.”
“Ah, hell, come on in,” Paul grumbled, giving Wiley a disconcerted glance. “I don’t suppose you’ll go away if I don’t invite you in.” Turning the conversation toward Wiley, he said in a low grumble, “Go ahead and handle the problem your way. I’ll talk to you about it later.”
Wiley nodded, reached up, tipped his old, battered cowboy hat at Rand, then turning on his heel, walked back around the corner of the porch. Watching him leave, Rand realized Wiley hadn’t uttered one word to him.
Paul pushed open the front door. It swung silently on oiled hinges. Stinging memories assaulted Rand as he entered, blending hurts from the present along with the past. The ghosts of all his hopes and dreams wafted over him like gentle rain on a summer night, the feelings both glorious and painful. Too late, Rand realized just how much he really loved this house. Now it belonged to Paul...but just for the time being, if Rand had anything to say about it. Rand remembered the will his mother had written, still wondering why she had written it the way she had. Had it been hoping her children would pool their resources, form a consortium, and make the ranch profitable as it had been in the fifties?
Whatever the reason, her plotting hadn’t worked.
“My lawyer tells me that, since Ann didn’t leave a will, I can fight you for the ranch.” Rand closely watched Paul. He wanted to see the look on his murdering face. He had a small fortune to use on lawyer fees. “I plan on doing that, too. I have the money to keep this tied up in court for years, Paul. Where are you going to get the funds to fight me for the ranch?”
Paul shrugged. “I have my ways. We’ll just have to wait and see who gets the property.”
The heels of Paul’s boots clattered as he strolled across the plank floor. “Randall, what do you want?”
“I want to know if you’re the person who shot up The Yellow Bordello last week.” Again, Rand watched Paul’s expression with interest. The look of contempt on Paul’s face didn’t change.
“You think I’m responsible for the shooting spree?”
“The thought had entered my mind. You have a lot to gain if I die,” Rand said. “First, you’ve got to know that I’m going after the ranch, and second, I’ve accused you of murder. I’ll hound you until the truth comes out.” Rand paced the large room as his eyes swept around, looking for the family photographs that, at one time, had decorated the rock fireplace. The room was void of any familiar touches.
Paul observed Rand’s surveillance of the room with a cold stare. “I took them all down. I just couldn’t see pictures of Ann. They...they caused me a lot of grief.”
I’ll bet, Rand thought bitterly. He had to remain calm; he had to use this trip to the ranch for information, and not to irritate the despicable man. Rand turned, gazing out the window at the meadow that seemed to touch the foot of the Rawhide Mountains rising from the floor of the valley. He missed the view nearly as much as he missed his sister. Strange, though, he didn’t miss his mother at all.
“Sell me the ranch, Paul. Then we’ll both have what we want. You, money, and me—” Rand turned from the window. Ann loved the ranch so much. Sometimes he thought he felt her in a corner of his heart pleading with him to keep their home.
He hoped Paul would relent if he heard what he was willing to pay him for the ranch. The real estate agent had stated the property was worth hundreds of dollars an acre because of the hayfields and the creek running from one end of the property to the other.
The amount wouldn’t even dent his inheritance. A legacy that made no sense—no sense at all.
Paul’s face paled slightly. “No damn way!” His snarled words pulled Rand out of his thoughts.
Paul shook his head, his long, curly ponytail swinging across his wide back. “I’m not selling. Besides, you said you had enough money to hire all this legal help...so hire them. Try to take it.”
The smug grin on Paul’s face caused Rand to clench his fists. He wanted to smash Paul’s flaring nostrils flat against his ruddy cheeks. “I want you off Halstead land, Paul. I know you’re up to something and I mean to find out what it is.”
Paul remained silent. The muscle in his jaw jumped as he clenched his teeth. Bitter, narrow eyes glared out at him. From Paul’s reaction, Randall knew he must have hit it squarely on the head. Paul was up to something.
“Since you’ve taken down all the family photographs, do you mind if I take them with me?” Not knowing where the question had come from, Rand realized how much he wanted to surround himself with the memories of his family. Grief was a funny thing. As much as he wanted to forget his childhood years, something inside him needed to remember. He had heard of identical twins feeling the same pain, sharing emotions, and experiencing the same heartaches. He and his sister shared those feelings as well.
He had known when Ann and Paul had problems with their relationship. He’d spent over a month in a black depression. He had been working in England on the largest project of his career. He hadn’t understood the depression until he finally called Ann, forcing her to talk to him. She was contemplating leaving Paul. She never said why, but after meeting the man, Rand had understood.
“You can have them. They’re in the den on the piano. Pick them up on your way out.” Paul shot Rand a scathing glare. “Randall, I really don’t think you know how it was between Ann and me.”
“How was it?”
“She was more like your mother than you can know. She wanted to know where I was every minute. She even gave me an allowance, for God’s sake!”
Dropping on the overstuffed couch, Rand sagged, his head in his hands and his elbows on his knees. He pulled off his Chicago Bulls baseball cap, running his fingers through his shoulder length hair. He looked up, watching Paul nervously pace the room. “Maybe she had good reasons to keep track of you, Paul.”
Jamming his hands into the pockets of his jeans, Paul glared at Rand. “Just take the pictures and go. Your sister was an unreasonable witch and sometimes...sometimes I-I’m glad she’s dead. Does that shock you?” His voice tapered off into a whisper filled with acid and hate.
Rand stood to leave. He’d planned to stay long enough to collect the other things he wanted from the house. He didn’t know where he would put them, but leaving now would give him the excuse he needed to come back out to the ranch.
Sometimes he thought Paul had been responsible for his mother’s death, too. Ann and Paul had moved to the ranch two weeks before his mother’s death so she could stay at home while she fought to survive the terminal cancer that had been spreading through her body. She had seemed better after their move back.
He had received the call late one night and had barely made it home for her services. The funeral had been set to begin at one o’clock the next day. He had arrived in Denver at nine o’clock in the morning of the funeral with a five-hour drive ahead of him. Rand knew Paul had wanted him to miss the funeral. Instead, he had arrived just as the services began.
“I’ll bring out a rental truck for my old bedroom furniture and other things from my room.” He walked out of the room into the den across the hall, grabbed the picture frames and walked back down the hallway to the front door. This meeting hadn’t gone the way he had expected, but then, what had he expected? Had he really thought Paul would admit to killing his sister, or say he shot up The Yellow Bordello?
Standing on the porch looking out over the valley, he saw a car speeding down the dirt road toward the house. This might be his chance to learn something else. The thought crossed his mind that by moving out here, he could keep a close watch on Paul. No sooner had the idea presented itself than he dismissed it. Out here, there would be no way to keep Paul from killing him.
The car turned onto the path leading to the house. He couldn’t tell who was driving because of the way the sun shone against the windshield. He had only a brief time to wonder.
Rand’s heart sank. He felt nauseated—rooted to the rough-hewn planks on the deck—as the car door opened and Echo stepped out onto the gravel drive.
This was what he had been too afraid to think about. Echo and Paul. The looks between them on the day of Ann’s funeral hadn’t been a figment of his imagination. There was something between them. His intuition had been right. If he stayed close to Echo, he’d find something—some way to explain Ann’s death.
His anger grew. He had wanted to trust Echo because he had a real interest in the beautiful woman and now...this.
~ * ~
ECHO STEPPED OUT OF the car, looking toward the large ranch house. This had to be the right one. She had followed the directions Alexis had given her. There was only one way to know—she would walk up to the door and ask. That’s what she would do.
Taking a deep breath, she prepared herself to face Paul McGuire. It frightened her. She knew deep down he was the one who shot up her office because he had to know she had witnessed the murder through the vision from her reaction to him at the funeral.
After slamming the car door, she had started toward the house when she heard someone call her name.
Randall.
The sound of his voice caused her stomach to make a funny little lurch, and her heart felt as if it skipped a beat. The breeze touched the fine stray hairs against her damp skin at her collar line and set the ponytail on the back of her head moving ever so slightly.
“What are you doing here, Echo?” His hands full of photo albums and frames, Randall stepped off the porch. His cold voice penetrated the warm summer morning.
She felt his cold tone deep in her. “Is something wrong?” She dreaded his answer. Of course, there was a problem here. Why else would he speak to her like this?
“Did you and Paul have an argument? Can I help?”
“Don’t answer my question with another one. What are you doing here?” As she drew closer to him, she could see the anger written on his handsome, chiseled features.
He shouldered past her, walking toward his car.
A thin film of nervous perspiration covered her body. She was reacting as she always did while she had been married to James. Randall was upset with her. Echo wanted to shrink back to her car—go hide from his ire.
No! She wouldn’t let herself drop back into those unhealthy patterns. No matter how hard she tried to stop, she ended up acting in the same frightened way. She wouldn’t react this way with Rand. She had learned too much from the classes to allow the old patterns to take over and send her newfound self-esteem into hiding.
“Randall Halstead, stop right there!” she cried. “Alexis told me you had come out here, and I came to talk to you. And, by damn, you’re going to listen to me.”
Echo blinked in stunned wonder. Where had those words come from? Apparently, her tone worked, because Rand spun around, facing her.
“What did you say?” His eyes opened wide, and his lips slackened with bewilderment and disbelief. “Just who the hell do you think you are?” Randall glared at her as if she had changed into a three-headed snake. His eyes snapped with anger and his face flushed red.
“An important phone call came into the hotel for you and I—”
“How convenient an excuse. Admit it, Echo, you’re lying. The only reason you’re here is to see Paul.”
“What?” His flat intonation rang in her ears. All the frustration and irritation building within her bubbled to a head. If she didn’t say something to him right at this moment, Echo feared her temper would blow. Looking directly at him she continued, “Someone by the name of Elliot called. He said it was important.”
Her scathing retort set his superior attitude down a notch. “You took my damn message?”
“Well, of course I did! What did you expect me to do? And Randall...” Her eyes narrowed dangerously. “...don’t you ever swear at me again!” Her heart squeezed sadly and painfully, reminding her of her past hopeless relationship. Why would he treat me so rudely? she wondered.
“And you’re missing the point. I took the time to come all the way here to give you an extremely important message from Elliot.”
Paul came out and leaned against the wood railing surrounding the porch. “Lover’s spat, you two?” he asked with a laughing lilt in his voice.
Rand turned toward him. “This is none of your business. Why don’t you go back inside and leave us alone?”
Disgustedly, Paul turned and walked back inside the house.
Randall didn’t say a word until Paul could no longer hear their conversation. He turned back to Echo and asked, “Elliot called? Did he say what’s going on?” A shy smile pulled at the corners of his mouth.
Echo had a notion to ignore him. It wasn’t in her character to be so decidedly nasty, and he did deserve it, but she couldn’t. “Something about a special job. He wants you to call him back by noon.”
“Noon, huh?” He stretched his arm slightly, then bent his elbow to look at his watch. “Oh, that’s not much time.”
“He tried to call your cell phone number, but you didn’t answer.”
“That’s because once you leave Sage, there are no communication towers. I can transmit and receive from the top of hills, but not in the valleys.”
After the way he had just treated her, she wanted to drive back into town and forget Randall Halstead. The thought saddened her, but her budding ego couldn’t take too much of this man’s sharp tongue. He had the power to rip her apart at a whim, but she was proud of herself. I stood my ground with him. Her spirits soared.
He grinned at her sheepishly. “Echo...I really am sorry for the way I acted a few minutes ago. I felt so sure you were meeting Paul.”
She shook her head slightly. “Why did you think that?”
Rand didn’t answer, remaining silent, the finely lined skin between his eyes creased as he contemplated her question. “I-I saw you together at the funeral—talking. I could feel the connection between you.”
Echo swallowed past the lump in her throat.