Confessing to the Cowboy

Several of the waitresses teased her and told her that it was obvious Cameron was crazy about her and was just waiting for her to give him a signal that she was open to him. She hoped that wasn’t the case, for he would wait forever. She didn’t want Cameron to live the rest of his life alone—that was a choice she had made for herself, but would never choose for anyone else.

As always, the dinner rush pushed all thoughts out of her head as she focused all her concentration on running a successful café.

By the time the café closed and all the cleanup was finished, Mary was tired. Despite her aching feet and overall exhaustion it always took her a little while to wind down before going to sleep.

After checking that Matt was sleeping peacefully, she took a long, hot shower and then pulled on the oversize Cowboy Café T-shirt that she used as nightwear. Finally she sank down on the sofa, the pile of mail in a stack on the coffee table.

The first thing she did was separate the stack into three piles—catalogs, bills and advertising trash. She frowned as she picked up what was obviously a card envelope in her favorite lavender color. It was addressed to the Cowboy Café. Curious, she opened it and pulled out a glittery card that read Happy Anniversary.

She frowned in confusion. She opened it to discover a traditional anniversary verse printed inside and no signature. Why would anyone send such a card to the café? Had the café originally opened its doors on November 10?

As the day’s date reverberated around in her head, she gasped and the card fell from her hands to the floor.

Her heart beat with a frantic rhythm that threatened darkness at the edges of her consciousness. She bent over, with her head nearly in her lap and tried to regulate her breathing as images from the past crashed through her brain.

It had to be a coincidence, she thought as she finally raised her head. Her heartbeat slowed from an explosive rapidity to one of simmering panic.

Coincidence, her brain repeated, desperate to believe it so. After all, the card hadn’t been addressed to her personally, but rather to the café.

It couldn’t have anything to do with her or her past. She leaned over and picked up the envelope from the coffee table. The postmark was from right here in Grady Gulch.

“Nobody knows,” she whispered, her voice making the words sound more like a mantra, a prayer rather than a statement of fact.

With a new panicked wildness she ripped both the envelope and the card into tiny little pieces and carried them to the trash can in her bedroom.

She sat on the edge of the bed and clasped her trembling hands together. Who had sent the card and what could it possibly mean?

Over the past eight years had she mentioned anything that personal to anyone? She didn’t think so, but how could anyone in Grady Gulch know that thirteen years ago on November 10 she’d married a monster named Jason McKnight. Who in town might know about her past? Who in Grady Gulch might know what she had done?

* * *

He wished he could have been there when she’d opened up the card. He wished he could have seen the stunned horror wash across her pretty features as she realized what it was, what it meant.

Everyone in town loved Mary Mathis...everyone but him. He hated her. Everyone thought she was good and kind, but she wasn’t. She was a selfish bitch who only pretended there was goodness in her heart.

The Waitress Waster, that’s who he considered himself to be, a cheesy name for a serial killer, but he’d claimed it as his own. He only wished he’d been present each time that Mary had learned that one of her precious waitresses had been killed.

He’d wanted to see her grief in the dimming of the brightness of her blue eyes, in the tremble of her lush lower lip. By now she had to realize that the murders were all related and that they were all aimed at the place she called home, at her personally.

He hoped her heart beat with frantic fear each time she got into bed to sleep. He hoped she feared everyone around her, unsure where danger might arise.

Foreplay, that’s what the dead waitresses had been to him...a prelude to the big event and of course the big event was the destruction of the café and all that Mary loved, the final big event would be the utter destruction of Mary Mathis.

Chapter 4

Dorothy Blake’s funeral took place on Friday morning at eleven o’clock. The weather provided an appropriate setting for the somber affair with gray low-hanging clouds, blustery wind and frigid temperatures. It was as if nature wasn’t any happier about the event than the people attending.

Cameron tugged his jacket collar up closer against his neck as he perused the crowd...and it was a big one. It appeared as if nearly everyone in the small town had turned out despite the nasty, wintry day. It didn’t help that the Grady Gulch cemetery was on a rise, with few trees to break the wind gusts.

His men were all stationed around the area, also keeping an eye on the people attending. They were looking for somebody who shouldn’t be here, somebody expressing inappropriate actions or emotions, anything suspicious that might make them take a second look.

Serial killers often attended the funerals of their victims or returned to the cemetery alone afterward to relive the kill in his mind. They also sometimes worked their way into the center of the investigation, secretly enjoying their role as volunteer avenger in a death they’d committed.

Cameron had already assigned Deputy Brooks to do surveillance on the three grave sites of the victims during the night and Deputy John Mills would take the daytime hours.

He saw Mary standing next to Lynette Shivers in the middle of the crowd. She always closed down the café during funerals and then reopened for anyone who might need food and the comfort of friends afterward.

Mary was dressed in a pair of black dress slacks and a black winter coat. Although her features were stoic, she had an arm around Lynette, who was openly weeping.

He directed his gaze to Sarah Blake, Dorothy’s younger sister. She stood with her back stiff, her eyes dry as the minister began the service. Cameron had found her to be a sour woman who’d had little nice to say about her older sister. All Sarah had wanted was to get the funeral over with as quickly as possible so she could get back to her own life.

She was leaving town the minute the service was over. Good riddance, Cameron thought wryly. She’d had nothing to offer to help in any way, had confessed that the two sisters had fallen out years ago and had maintained only phone contact once a year at Christmastime since the falling-out.

Cameron couldn’t help but think of his brother, Bobby, and his heart ached with loss. Bobby had been two years younger than Cameron and the brothers had been close. Bobby was one of those people who could light up a room, who, no matter what your mood, could make you laugh.

Bobby had loved the ranch work but had understood that the ranch wasn’t Cameron’s calling. Ten years ago when Cameron had decided to run for sheriff, Bobby had been his biggest supporter. Cameron couldn’t imagine anything driving a wedge between him and his brother. Only death had been a powerful enough force to rob Cameron of that precious relationship.

He forced his concentration back to the crowd, this time trying to discern who wasn’t in attendance. Who wasn’t here was just as important as who was as far as he was concerned.

One person notably missing from the crowd was Thomas Manning, the loner who had moved to town months ago. Cameron frowned trying to remember if the man had attended any of the funerals of the victims. He didn’t think so. It might mean something, it might mean nothing.

A sigh of frustration escaped Cameron’s lips. A break, they just needed some kind of a damned break. They’d spent the past two days chasing down all the businesses that helped keep the café running smoothly. Nothing had come from any of those interviews.

As Ben Temple sidled up next to him, he gave his deputy a grim nod. “Nothing suspicious that I can see so far. What about you?”

“Nada,” Ben replied. “Other than the fact that Dorothy’s sister appears eager to dash, nobody looks out of the ordinary.” Ben raised his collar as a cold gust of wind swept through where they stood.