Cowboy Secrets

“What?” she said as though she’d been thinking of way different things than work. “My case?”

“The one you had to leave to come here.”

She shrugged. “I have a client who is separated from her husband. She wants a divorce. She’s the one with the money. She signed a prenup that gives him a good hunk of cash if the marriage dissolves unless she can prove he cheated on her.”

“And you were employed to gather evidence.”

“Yes. So, she got wind he was seeing a woman out of town. I followed that woman to Jersey to a seedy bar. When a man who looked like my client’s husband joined the woman, I snapped pictures, but then I decided he was the wrong guy. Now I’m wondering if I made too quick a judgment.”

“Why?”

“Gut feeling, I guess.”

“Is that why you seem worried about it?”

“I suppose. It’s weird, really. There’s no reason to second-guess myself, I just do sometimes, and when that happens it invariably proves I noticed something, you know, like subliminally.”

“Did you contact your client already?”

“Emailed her, yes. She doesn’t like to talk on the phone. She always emails me unless we meet face-to-face, which only happened once. I’ll have to look at the pictures again when we get back to your place.”

He looked into her green eyes, eyes as clear as ocean-washed bottle glass. What he saw were things he admired in a human being: passion about their life and convictions, truthfulness and the desire to help. “Do you like your job, Sierra?” he asked.

“Most of the time. How about you?”

He smiled. “Most of the time.”

The nurse announced they could go see Tess. Sierra didn’t need any more encouragement. She walked briskly down the hall, still wearing Pike’s jacket, which, while way too big for her, looked sexy as hell on her lithe body. Her legs in the jeans and boots were shapely, tantalizing, and just to prove how long this day was getting, he found himself wishing the two of them were on an island somewhere, on a beach, lots of bare skin and warm sunshine...

“She’s in here,” a nurse said and the fantasy died a timely death.

Tess was an elfin-like girl with huge violet eyes and sun-streaked short blond hair. She could be very friendly and sweet or she could be testy and secretive, but the last two days were the only time Pike had seen her scared and he hated it.

Sierra immediately leaned over Tess and hugged her, then smoothed her hair away from her face. Tess looked pale and wasted and about ten years old instead of eighteen. Pike took her hand and squeezed it.

“I’m sorry I messed up,” Tess said. Her voice was even more hoarse than it had been and her nose was red.

“Don’t worry about it,” Sierra and Pike said in unison.

“I take Dad’s pills sometimes, but they must be different.”

Pike bit back recrimination. They could talk about being stupid on another day.

Sierra lowered her voice. “Tess, sweetheart, what’s going on?” she asked gently. “What’s the matter?”

Pike scooted a chair close so she could sit down. He stood on the other side of the bed.

Tess’s eyes filled with tears and she shook her head.

“Start with where you went when you left your dad and Mona’s place,” Pike suggested.

“Danny,” she said.

“Danny? You mean you ran off with that guy you met last summer?” Sierra asked.

Tess nodded.

There was a look on Sierra’s face and a tone to the way she’d said “Danny” that rang a few alarm bells in Pike’s head. “Who’s Danny?” he asked.

More tears rolled down Tess’s wan cheeks and she sobbed into her hands. Sierra offered the tissue box and met Pike’s gaze, but she didn’t say anything. They waited until Tess calmed down. By now she was sitting up as she was apparently unable to handle the tears and congestion in a prone condition. Her breathing was raspy.

“My—my boyfriend.”

“They met at the beach,” Sierra explained. “He’s a lot older than she is and—”

“He’s dead,” Tess mumbled.

Sierra sucked in her breath. Pike leaned forward. “How did he die?”

“Someone—someone shot him.” She buried her face in her hands and cried so hard her whole body shook. Pike hadn’t expended much energy in his life being unsure of himself, but he had to admit that in the face of all this grief he wasn’t certain where to start.

“Who shot him?” he asked at last.

Tess shook her head.

“Drug dealers?” Sierra asked. “Tess, was he dealing again?”

“I didn’t know he was doing that anymore,” Tess mumbled. “After I found out, he promised he’d quit because it scared me. And then we were in the car that Dad bought me, you know, the blue one? We were going to go for a hamburger. He said he had to talk to a friend and he parked outside a yellow house. He took the keys and left me in the car. I waited and waited but he didn’t come back out, so I went up to the porch. I heard someone yell from inside and then the door opened and Danny was standing there. He looked straight into my eyes. And then...and then I heard a shot and Danny just collapsed like someone let all the air out of him. I knew he was dead before he hit the floor. A man was standing behind him with a gun in his hand. I—I ran away. I didn’t have the car keys, so I just ran and ran.”

The last part had come out all in one breath while her voice got more and more ragged until, at the end, they almost had to guess what she was saying. After a few seconds of stunned silence, she added, “The man who killed Danny looked right at me.”

“Who was he?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“What did the police say?” Sierra asked. “Why didn’t someone call Pike or me?”

“I didn’t go to the police.”

“Oh, Tess.”

“All I wanted to do was blow LA. I didn’t know where else to go so I came here. But what if he finds me? He has the car so he knows my name, he could find out about me, he could come here and kill...and kill me.”

“We have to call the Los Angeles police and your father—”

“No, please, no,” Tess begged.

She was shaking so hard by now and crying so pitifully that the nurse showed up at the curtain. “Is everything okay in here?” she asked.