Just a Cowboy

She drew a long breath. “It was a lot of money. At least I thought it was. Apparently, Dean did, too, because one night he called me and told me I wouldn’t live to collect it.”

“You believed him.”

She shook her head. “No, honestly, I didn’t. I mean, that seemed extreme under any circumstances, even though he’d banged me around a bit. I didn’t figure him for a killer.” Her blue eyes lifted to his, looking so very sad. “It seems like a huge step from hitting someone when you get mad to actually killing her.”

“For most people it would be.”

She nodded. “So I didn’t even mention it to my lawyer. All I did was tell him I didn’t want so much money. But then Dean did this really odd thing.”

“What was that?”

“He agreed to the settlement. Without a fight.”

“Why do you think that’s odd?”

“You’d have to know Dean. He was all about money. But even my lawyer didn’t think it was odd. He said Dean had a lot to lose by the publicity from a messy divorce, and probably just wanted it over with.”

“That would have been my guess.”

Kelly nodded again. “Yeah. That’s how it seems. Except I kept remembering him saying I wouldn’t live long enough to collect it. But I couldn’t put the pieces together. Or maybe I didn’t want to put them together.”

She stood up suddenly and started pacing the kitchen, rubbing her arms as if she were cold. “I couldn’t believe he’d really hurt me, more than hitting and screaming as he’d done before, and while I couldn’t believe he’d part with all that money so easily, finally it seemed like my lawyer had to be right. Dean had more to lose by fighting, because it would come out that he’d hit me. And…I’d lived with the man for eight years. As hard as it was to believe he’d accept the settlement, it was harder to believe he would do anything that extreme. In all those years, he only gave me some bruises. That’s wrong, but it’s not murderous.”

She pressed her lips together and closed her eyes. “Regardless…I guess part of me still wanted to believe he was the man I’d fallen in love with. That, after all those years, I really knew him, even his faults, and he couldn’t possibly be capable of murder. I believed that right up to the moment some guy grabbed me in the parking garage, stuffed me in his trunk and then tried to drown me.”

Hank swore. The kitchen was darkening at last, and now it felt darker with something more than the night. “How’d you get away? Did the cops get him?”

“I’m in good shape and I know some self-defense. I fought hard, and we splashed so much in the water I think he finally got afraid somebody would come. Or maybe that we’d attract an alligator. He gave up and ran.”

“My God.” He could too easily imagine her terror and desperation. Assuming it was true, of course. “And the police?”

“The cops decided it was a random crime. They didn’t think Dean had anything to do with it. Guys who are mad say things like that all the time, they said, especially ones who are being divorced. And I didn’t have any proof that Dean was behind it. Maybe he wasn’t. My lawyer didn’t even think so.”

“But you were scared enough to run.”

“Yes.” She looked at him from haunted eyes. “What kind of lunatic grabs a woman, drives her somewhere and tries to drown her? Without doing anything else? He didn’t even empty my wallet. I suppose people like that exist out there, but it just didn’t make sense to me. I couldn’t risk the possibility Dean had put the guy up to it.”

He rubbed his chin, then said gently, “Have you considered that, by running, you might have made it easier for your ex?”

“What do you mean?”

“You already reported to the cops that you thought he was behind the attack. If someone tried to get you again, he’d be the first person they’d look at…unless you were halfway across the country.”

“Maybe, but they’d have to prove it. And it won’t matter to me if I’m dead, will it?”

He couldn’t argue that point.

She came back to the table and sat again. “I could be wrong. I know I could be. But the risk is too great. So I left town with the cash I inherited from my mother and I’ve been moving ever since. I don’t even know if I’ll go back for the hearing.”

“Do you have to?”

“One of us has to show up. My lawyer thinks Dean won’t. So if I don’t show up, everything is left hanging out there unfinished. The whole divorce action might even be dismissed, and right now I don’t think that’s so bad.”

“You want to go back to him?” The idea shocked Hank, just from what little she had said.

“No. Never.” She sighed again and hugged herself. “I hate even thinking about this. I guess I’ve been doing it for too long, arguing with myself. The thing is, I already owe my lawyer a ton of money. If I don’t get at least part of that settlement, I’m going to spend years trying to pay him off. On the other hand, right now my lawyer isn’t willing to lower our settlement demand when Dean has already agreed to it. Apparently, that leaves it all but decided. Nothing left but to make an appearance in court and get the official seal. So I can see his point.”

“I can see that, too.”

“But if neither of us shows up for the court date, the case will probably be dismissed and we have to start over, and maybe I can persuade my lawyer to basically just bill me for his expenses.”

“I see.” He did indeed. “Do you feel you’re not entitled to some kind of settlement?”

She looked down. “I was mad enough when I left him to want to ruin him. Now I’m just scared. I just want to be free of him and not have to be frightened all the time.”

There was nothing Hank could say to that. But he was deeply disturbed by her story. The idea of a man hiring a killer to rid himself of a wife over money wasn’t unheard of, but it didn’t fit anywhere in the world he lived in. Those were stories you heard, and only rarely, on the news. Hell, as far as he knew, it wasn’t even as common as serial killers, although money was surely one of the leading motives for crime.

But what did he know? And her description of what had happened to her did seem strange enough. To kidnap a woman to drown her? Didn’t there have to be some kind of motive—even a sick one? Although maybe drowning people would be motive enough for one or two freaks out there.

If he was sure of anything, it was that her story was so squirrely he could understand why the cops hadn’t believed her.

She could be lying, she could be deluded or she could be right. All three meant he needed to keep an eye on her. And tomorrow he was going to give Ben what-for. Like he needed this?

But then he looked at the woman who sat hunched in the chair across from him and he realized that she needed help. Whatever was going on, she needed someone in her life right now. Someone to keep an eye on her.

He doubted he’d ever seen anyone quite as alone as she was. Coming to a strange town where she knew no one because she needed to hide from something real or imagined. That was pretty bad.

He had to find some way to come at this, a way that would reassure her and give him more information about what he needed to do, even if it was just keep an eye on her from a distance.

But how could he do that?

“Anyway,” she said finally, giving herself a visible shake, “I should be safe here while I decide if I’m even going back to Miami for the court date. This is the first time I’ve slowed down in weeks. I’ve been paying my way with cash. He shouldn’t be able to find me.”

If someone wanted to kill her, Hank thought, he wouldn’t be all that sure she’d covered her tracks well enough. There were a million things a person could do to leave a trail. It all depended on how determined someone was to find her. And he doubted she was very experienced in the kind of thing she’d been trying to do.

He reached for his coffee mug, trying to sort out his thoughts about the best way to handle this. It was possible someone had tried to kill her, strange as it seemed, given the details. He could find out if that was true just by talking to some friends in the Denver Police Department, an inquiry that wouldn’t draw any attention here to Conard County.

Looking at the way she was hunched, he felt pretty certain, deep inside, that she had been mugged. Regardless of whether she was correct about why it had happened, he found he did believe she’d been attacked. The cops might be right that it had nothing to do with her husband, but that was the question, wasn’t it?

Even she didn’t seem one hundred percent certain, but he could understand her unwillingness to take any risks: A threat had been made, and then someone had tried to kill her.

He’d heard lots of such threats in his life, often made in moments of anger or stress, that were meaningless. It was usually just a strong expression on the part of people who said it.

On the other hand, if the man—Dean, it was—had felt strongly enough about it to call her and tell her that … Maybe it would be a mistake to dismiss it. Most people said things like that in a moment of passion, not in calmer moments. Not by making a phone call.

He frowned, looking down at his mug because it was easier than looking at her. Looking at her, much as she wasn’t his type, reminded him that he was a man with a man’s needs, something he had been trying not to think about for a while now.

But looking at the mug didn’t help a whole lot, either. It wasn’t as if it held any answers.