Proof of Innocence: Yesterday's Lies / Devil's Gambit

He winced slightly.

“I trusted you and you used me.” The paper crumpled in her hand. “Take this letter and leave before I say things that I’ll regret later.”

“Tory...” He attempted to draw her close, but she pulled back, away from his lying eyes and familiar touch.

“I don’t want to hear it, Trask. And I don’t want to see you again. Now leave me alone—”

A loud knock resounded in the room and the hinges on the front door groaned as Rex Engels let himself into the house.

“Tory?” the foreman called. His steps slowed in the hallway, as if he was hesitant to intrude.

“In here.” Tory was relieved at the intrusion. She stepped away from Trask and walked toward the door. When Rex entered he stopped and stared for a moment at Trask McFadden. His lips thinned as he took off his dusty Stetson and ran his fingers over the silver stubble on his chin. At five foot eight, he was several inches shorter than Trask, but his body was whip-lean from the physical labor he imposed on himself. Rugged and dependable, Rex Engels had been with the Lazy W for as long as Tory could remember.

The foreman was obviously uncomfortable; he shifted from one foot to the other and his eyes darted from Tory to Trask and back again.

“What happened?” Tory asked, knowing immediately that something was wrong and fearing that Keith was in the hospital or worse...

“I got a call from Len Ross about an hour ago,” Rex stated, his mouth hardening into a frown. Tory nodded, encouraging him to continue. Ross was a neighboring rancher. “One of Ross’s boys was mending fence this afternoon and he noticed a dead calf on the Lazy W.”

Tory’s shoulders slumped a little. It was always difficult losing livestock, especially the young ones. But it wasn’t unexpected; it happened more often than she would like to admit and it certainly didn’t warrant Rex driving over to the main house after dark. There had to be something more. Something he didn’t want to discuss in front of Trask. “And?”

Rex rubbed his hand over his neck. He looked meaningfully at Trask. “The calf was shot.”

“What?” Tory stiffened.

“From the looks of it, I’d guess it was done by a twenty-two.”

“Then you saw the calf?” Trask cut in, his entire body tensing as he leaned one shoulder against the arch between den and entryway.

“Yep.”

“And you don’t think it was an accident?” Tory guessed.

“It’s not hunting season,” the foreman pointed out, moving his gaze to Trask in silent accusation. “And there were three bullet holes in the carcass.”

Tory swallowed against the sickening feeling overtaking her. First Trask with his anonymous letter and the threat of dredging up the past again and now evidence that someone was deliberately threatening her livestock. “Why?” she wondered aloud.

“Maybe kids...” Rex offered, shifting his gaze uneasily between Tory and Trask. “It’s happened before.”

“Hardly seems like a prank,” Trask interjected. There were too many unfortunate coincidences to suit him. Trask wasn’t a man who believed in coincidence or luck.

Rex shrugged, unwilling to discuss the situation with the man who had sent Calvin Wilson to prison. He didn’t trust Trask McFadden and his brown eyes made it clear.

Once the initial shock had worn off, Tory became furious that someone would deliberately kill the livestock. “I’ll call Paul Barnett’s office when we get back,” she said.

“Get back?”

“I want to see the calf.” Her gray-green eyes gleamed in determination; she knew that Rex would try to protect her from the ugly sight.

“There’s not much to see,” Rex protested. “It’s dark.”

“And this is my ranch. If someone has been deliberately molesting the livestock, I want to know what I’m up against. Let’s go.”

Rex knew there was no deterring her once she had set her mind on a plan of action. In more ways than one, Victoria was Calvin’s daughter. He looked inquiringly at Trask and without words asked, what about him?

“Trask was just leaving.”

“Not yet,” Trask argued. “I’ll come with you.”

“Forget it.”

“Listen to me. I think that this might have something to do with what we were discussing.”

The anonymous letter? Her father’s imprisonment? The horse swindle of five years ago? “I don’t see how—” she protested.

“It won’t hurt for me to take a look.”

He was so damned logical. Seeing no reasonable argument, and not wanting to make a scene in front of Rex, Tory reluctantly agreed. “I don’t like this,” she mumbled, reaching for her jacket that hung on a wooden peg near the door and bracing herself for the unpleasant scene in the fields near the Ross property.

“Neither do I.”

The tone of Trask’s voice sent a shiver of dread down Tory’s spine.

Rex cast her a worried glance, forced his gray Stetson onto his head and started for the door. As Tory grabbed the keys to her pickup she wondered what was happening to her life. Everything seemed to be turning upside down. All because of Trask McFadden.

CHAPTER THREE

TRASK SAT ON the passenger side of the pickup, his eyes looking steadily forward, his pensive gaze was following the disappearing taillights of Rex’s truck.

Tory’s eyebrows were drawn together in concentration as she attempted to follow Rex. Her fingers curled around the steering wheel as she tried to maneuver the bouncing pickup down the rutted dirt road that ran the length of the Lazy W toward the mountains.

The tension within the darkened interior of the pickup was thick enough to cut with a knife. Silence stretched tautly between Tory and Trask and she had to bite her tongue to keep from screaming at him that she didn’t want him forcing himself back into her life.

She downshifted and slowed to a stop near the property line separating the Lazy W from Len Ross’s spread.

“Over here,” Rex announced when she shut off the engine, grabbed a flashlight out of the glove box and jumped from the cab of the truck. Trask held apart the strands of barbed wire, which surrounded the pastures, as she wrapped her skirt around her thighs, climbed through the fence and followed the beam of Rex’s flashlight. Trask slid through the fence after her. Though he said nothing, she was conscious of his presence, his long legs taking one stride to every two of her smaller steps.

The first large drops of rain began to fall just as Tory approached the crumpled heap near a solitary pine tree. The beam of Rex’s flashlight was trained on the lifeless white face of the calf. Dull eyes looked unseeingly skyward and a large pink tongue lolled out of the side of the heifer’s mouth.

“Dear God,” Tory whispered, bending over and touching the inert form. Her stomach lurched uncomfortably as she brushed the flies from the curly red coat of the lifeless animal. Living on the ranch as she had for most of her twenty-seven years, Tory was used to death. But she had never been able to accept the unnecessary wanton destruction of life that had taken the small Hereford. It was all so pointless. Her throat tightened as she patted the rough hide and then let her hands fall to her sides.

Rex ran his flashlight over the calf’s body and Tory noticed the three darkened splotches on the heifer’s abdomen. Dried blood had clotted over the red and white hairs. Tory closed her eyes for a second. Whoever had killed the calf hadn’t even had the decency to make it a clean kill. The poor creature had probably suffered for several hours before dying beneath the solitary ponderosa pine tree.

“What about the cow—the mother of the calf?”

“I took care of her,” Rex stated. “She’s with the rest of the herd in the south pasture.”

Tory nodded thoughtfully and cocked her head toward the dead calf. “Let’s cover her up,” she whispered. “I’ve got a tarp in the back of the truck.”