“Do not swear,” she said. “Do not take the name of the Lord in vain.”
“I do not, Madre.”
Appearing as weak as a ghost, Aloise seemed to lose her concentration and turned her glazed eyes toward the television, where a muted sitcom flickered.
“What do you want?” Vianca demanded, facing Shelby again.
“Your help.”
“My help?” Vianca walked to the coffee table and reached for a cigarette.
“Nevada didn’t kill your father.”
Bam! Bam! Bam! Ross McCallum pounded on the front door.
Vianca dropped her cigarette. “What does he want?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t realize he was following me until I got here.”
“Go away!” Vianca called through the door.
“Hey, now, I jest wanna see Shelby. We’re old friends,” Ross yelled through the panels. Shelby walked to the door.
“Leave me alone, McCallum. I’ve got nothing to say to you.” She closed her mind to the slide show of pictures that slipped through her brain, snapshots of the night he’d caught up with her at the ranch, climbed into the cab of her father’s pickup, pressed her against the seat ...
“I will call the police!” Vianca said.
“You just do that, okay? But remember, I didn’t kill your old man.”
“Ramón?” Aloise asked, turning to stare at a small table complete with pictures of her late husband and five or six candles burning beneath it and an elaborate back-lit portrait of Jesus Christ.
Vianca managed to pick up and light a Marlboro. “You have to leave, Shelby. Madre, she is ill and I cannot help you—”
“Just tell me what you remember about the night your father was killed.”
“Nothing. I remember nothing. It was a long time ago.”
“Ram6n?” Aloise said and turned dark, haunted eyes up at Shelby. “Ram6n?” she repeated.
“He’s not here, Madre. Remember?” Vianca took a nervous drag on her cigarette, then let out a cloud of smoke. “She gets confused sometimes.”
“Shelby, come on out!” Ross called, knocking loudly. “Hey, can’t you and I be friends?”
“He is drunk,” Vianca said, then more loudly toward the door, “I am not joking—I will call the police if you do not leave. Now!”
“No way, José,” Ross said and laughed at his own little joke. Vianca swore roundly in Spanish as Shelby took in the small house with its tidy furniture and shrine to Ramón. “Hey, what have you got against me, Vianca? I didn’t do it, remember? I’m a free man.”
“A free man who is trespassing on private property! Oh, for the love of the Holy Mother!” Vianca walked to the front door and threw it open. Through the screen Shelby saw the angry, rough-hewn features of the man who had raped her.
“Leave, Ross,” she said, stepping forward. “I don’t want to see you. Not tonight. Not ever.”
“And why not? You know, Shelby-girl, I been waitin’ ten years for you.”
Shelby’s stomach roiled. Her insides shook, but she managed to keep her voice calm. “Leave, now. Don’t bother me or these people again.”
“These people. You think they’re your friends?” He laughed wickedly. “Don’t you know they stick to their own kind? And Vianca, you have some explaining to do. I saw you that night, didn’t I? I was drunk, yeah, and I stole the bastard’s truck, but you were there, too ...” His eyes narrowed, and Vianca looked suddenly as white as porcelain. “I forgot until now,” he said, his expression fierce. “You were in the truck. Well, shit a brick, were you the one who killed your old man? Was that it? Were you tired of him roughing you up?”
“Enough!”
“You won’t call the police,” he said, no longer shouting, “because I might tell them something that will incriminate you. Right now Nevada’s set to take the rap, but you, Spickgirl, you’re the one.”
“Is that true?” Shelby asked, shocked. Her head was spinning, and in the living room Aloise began talking again, a monotone of Spanish interspersed with her husband’s name.
“This is nonsense. Lies,” Vianca insisted.
Ross leered through the screen. “Is it? I don’t think so. And what about you, Shelby? What do you believe? Have you been waiting for me, too?”
“Go to hell, McCallum.” Tension crackled in the air.
“Maybe I will,” he said, then smiled evilly. “No, come to think of it, I’ve already been there, haven’t I? But now it’s somebody else’s turn, ain’t it? Nevada, he finally got his.”
“And you set him up, didn’t you?” Shelby shot back, no longer afraid of this man. She stepped closer to the door and with only the flimsy mesh separating her from the man who had raped her, she said, “I don’t give a damn about the fact that you can’t be tried for a crime a second time. If you framed Nevada, I swear I’ll hunt you down and see that you get the justice you deserve.”
“No, don’t.” Vianca was shaking her head wildly.
“Well, come on, little girl,” he said, his eyes sparking with a malicious, wicked light. “Let’s see what you’ve got. If I remember right you were the hottest piece of pussy I ever had. And that daughter of yours ... now, isn’t there a chance she might be mine?”
“You keep her out of this.” Fear like she’d never experienced before swept through Shelby.
As if she finally understood the tenor of the conversation, Vianca made a hasty sign of the cross over her chest and turned the color of paste.
From the couch, Aloise stirred again and began to rave in Spanish.
“Come on, Shelby. What are you waiting for? Still boldin’ out for Nevada? Well, let me clue you in, Shelby-girl—he ain’t comin’ back.”
“Go away!” Vianca ordered.
The television flickered eerily. Rain drummed on the roof. Aloise mumbled her dead husband’s name.
“No, siree, he’s gonna pay for puttin’ a bullet in ol’ Ramón’s head.”
“He didn’t do it!”
“Well, someone sure as hell did, otherwise Aloise wouldn’t be a widow now and Vianca’d still have her father slappin’ her around and callin’ her the cunt she is!”
“No!” the old lady cried. “No! No! Ramón, do not!”
“Shut up!” Vianca ordered, not to McCallum, but her mother.
Wait a minute. What was going on here? Vianca had access to the gun that killed Ramón?
“Ain’t we havin’ fun?” Ross taunted.
“You are a bastard,” Shelby accused him, seeing movement from the corner of her eye as Aloise hoisted herself off the couch. “You deserved every day you spent in prison.”
“Madre, no!”
“Ramón,” Aloise screamed, as if she were witnessing her husband doing something vile. “Oh, Dios, no, Ram6n, no! Do not!”
“Shhh! Madre, please,” Vianca begged, picking up the phone as if she was going to make good her threats and call the police.
“The children. Do not hurt the children.” Aloise was sobbing now, screaming, spouting off streams of Spanish.
Vianca dropped the phone and dashed to her mother. “Do not speak. No more. No more.”
For a split second, Shelby looked at the older woman. Ross lunged, plunging his hand through a hole in the screen. Crash! The door splintered. Vianca screamed. Reaching through the screen, he unlocked what was left of the frame.
“Get out!” Shelby ordered.
It was too late. He was in the room.
“Get the hell out, McCallum,” she said again.
“Make me, Shelby-girl. You just make me.” Smelling of booze, he leaped forward. Shelby dodged. A huge hand caught hold of her wrist, spun her around.
“Let go.”
“No way, honey. I’ve been waitin’ too long for this and you—” He pinned Vianca with his cold eyes. “Don’t you do anything foolish, or you and your mother will end up in jail for killing your pa.”
“Stop this,” Shelby ordered, yanking her hand back to no avail. His fingers were a mana
cle. She tried slugging him with her free hand, and he sucked in his breath and caught her wrist, holding them both in one hand.
“That was a mistake.”
“Do not do this!” Vianca cried. “Leave us alone, por favor.”
“Just you wait, cunt,” Ross growled. “Your turn will come. All of you who set me up, you’ll pay.”
Shelby struggled, but he was stronger. He pulled her close. She kneed him. Hard. In the groin. He doubled over, but didn’t let go.
“You goddamned bitch.”
Somewhere outside a siren shrieked through the night, but it was too late. Ross’s heavy arms surrounded Shelby. She kicked, fought, scratched, but he wouldn’t let go.
Aloise collapsed. Vianca was at her side on her knees, crying and sobbing hysterically.
“Madre, oh, Madre.”
“You can’t do this, McCallum,” Shelby said. “You’ll go back to prison. I’ve got witnesses.”
“It’ll be worth it. Besides, you wouldn’t send the father of your kid to prison.”
“You’re not Elizabeth’s father.” She fought him and stumbled, fell back against the wall. Her shoulder exploded in pain. Candles flickered. Tumbled. Wax sprayed and the flames caught on the lace cloth, igniting it.
Shelby slid down the wall.
Ross slammed her head against the floor.
Pain burst behind her eyes. She fought to stay conscious.
Through the curtain of blackness that loomed before her eyes, Shelby heard Aloise as the older woman began to pray, crying as she crawled toward the fallen shrine while Vianca, tears streaming down her face, tried to shepherd her out of the house.
“Tía V?” a frightened voice cried, and Shelby, trying to throw Ross’s dead weight from her, saw a small, round-faced boy in the hallway.
“Little Ramón, get away—oh. Sweet Jesus!” Vianca was hysterical. She climbed to her feet and swept the crying child into her arms as the flames found the curtains. Crackling and hungry, spewing smoke, the fire climbed toward the ceiling.
“Come on, Shelby,” Ross said, hauling her to her feet. She wobbled, swung at him and missed. Smoke filled her nose and lungs. She began to cough. Still she fought, and Ross threw her over his shoulder. “You and I got to get out of here and find us a more private place.”
“No,” she yelled and then felt something crack hard against the back of her head before she gratefully lost consciousness.
“Holy shit!” Shep heard the report, flicked on his siren and lights, did a police U turn in his cruiser and pressed hard on the accelerator.
Nevada, in the cage of a backseat, was thrown from one side of the car to the other.
“Hang on,” Shep ordered as the lights of Bad Luck loomed ahead. “Slight change of plan.”
He didn’t elaborate and Nevada was thankful for any relief. He’d been booked, questioned and was on his way to the county jail when a call came over the radio about a fire, changing Shep’s course.
Other sirens screamed through the night. Firetrucks, an ambulance, a city cop car all raced toward one section of town.
Nevada’s stomach clenched as Shep flew through the back streets and screamed around corners. Smoke filled the air. Flames rose sky-high from a house on the east side of Bad Luck.
The steady rain had little effect on the inferno, and Nevada’s gut tightened. In an instant he knew where they were going, had pinpointed the source of the blaze.
“What happened?” he demanded.
“Hell if I know,” Shep admitted. “But your friend McCallum’s been spotted.” Shep said, rounding a final comer and standing on the brakes. Nevada’s gut clenched. His gaze took in the horrifying scenario. Vianca stood on the lawn holding a small child to her. Aloise, her mother, was being escorted by paramedics to an ambulance, but the woman looked out of it, as if she didn’t understand what was happening.
Firemen barked orders and battled the flames, trying to keep the conflagration confined while police and dogs attempted to keep the crowd away from the blaze. It was a nightmare. Then he saw the Cadillac. Shelby’s white rental car. Parked at the curb, not too far from Ross McCallum’s beat-up pickup. His stomach plummeted.
“Let me out,” he ordered as Shep opened the door and stepped into the mayhem.
“No way.”
“I mean it, Shep. Shelby’s here somewhere. So’s McCallum.” Fear drove Nevada. Though handcuffed, he tried to shove open the door.
No dice.
Shep shook his head. “Well, you’ll just have to think about that, won’t cha?”
Frantic, Nevada watched in horror. Firemen stretched giant hoses across the street. From the huge nozzles, geysers of water plumed into the night, shooting gallons of water over the flames.
Nevada squinted against the night and the intensity of the fire, scouring the street and yards of neighboring houses. A crowd had gathered, police were controlling the onlookers, hospital workers were seeing to the Estevan family. Where the hell was Shelby? Oh, God, she couldn’t be with McCallum. He felt the tendons in his neck stand out, was certain he was about to explode.
“Let me out, Marson!”
“Forget it, son.” Shep started to close his door.
“You’ll get your confession.”
The deputy stopped. “What?”
“Let me out. Unlock the cuffs and I’ll give you what you want.” Nevada was desperate, didn’t care about the consequences.
Shep hesitated and looked over at Vianca who, holding her nephew close to her, stared back at him with anxious, haunted eyes. Men shouted. Women screamed.
“Do it, Marson.”
“Okay. I’ll let you out. But the cuffs stay on. And if you cross me, Smith, I swear, I shoot first and ask questions later. Deal?”
“Deal.” Nevada didn’t quibble. Didn’t care. He had to find Shelby. Shep unlocked the door and Nevada took off, stumbling through the crowd, not caring that people parted and stared at him. He jogged, slipping over hoses, his blood pumping, his brain screaming. He ran along the fence to the back of the house and ignored the shouts of men trying to stop him. Ahead he saw someone moving through the shadows.
With speed borne of fear, he followed. Sure enough, he made out Ross McCallum’s shape in a thicket of live oaks. Ross was struggling, hauling the body of a woman over his shoulders.
Shelby.
Oh, darlin‘, don’t be dead. You can’t be, he thought desperately. I love you, Shelby, and I can’t, I won’t, lose you again.
Shelby opened her eyes and felt instantly sick. A man was carrying her, trying to climb a fence, and rain was drizzling from the night sky. Coughing, she smelled smoke, felt dizzy and started to scream as flames illuminated the night and she realized she was with Ross McCallum.
“Shut up!” He was breathing hard, and she kicked and fought as he mounted the fence while holding her wrists in one big hand. She was slung over his shoulders and squirmed, adrenalin firing her blood.
“I’ll kill you,” she screamed as he started over the fence. Her head banged against a tree branch. Again the world tilted. But she wouldn’t give up. Not without a fight. She had too much to live for, too much to do. There was Elizabeth and Nevada ... oh, God, she had to help Nevada. She began to fight in earnest.
“For the love of God—” He managed to land on the other side of the fence, where he dropped them both to the ground and, straddling her, tried to subdue her. “Now listen to me—if you want to live and you want that daughter of yours to grow to be a woman, you’ll do as I say.”
“Leave Elizabeth out of this.”
“Only if you come along quietly, Shelby. Otherwise I’ll hurt her,” he said, and she knew he meant it. Sweating, his eyes reflecting the fire’s hellish light, he put one hand to her throat.
“You wouldn’t want me to do this to her, now, would you? And the other—what I did to you before, you wouldn’t want your daughter to suffer through that. Or would you?”
Shelby fought back the paralyzing fear that threatened
her. Through gritted teeth, she vowed, “I swear, McCallum, if you so much as touch a hair on her head, I’ll hunt you down like the lying dog you are and kill you with my bare hands.”
“Try, Shelby-girl,” he said, spittle evident in the corners of his mouth. “You just damned well try.”
She stared up at him and saw the pure joy in his eyes, but beyond that, above him, poised on the fence, there was a man. Her heart took flight as Nevada pounced.
In a jangle of chains he landed on McCallum.
Oof!
“What the fuck?” McCallum convulsed.
Shelby rolled away. Nevada swung his arms over Ross’s head, and the chain holding his handcuffs together covered the convict’s windpipe.
“Get off me!” McCallum screamed.
“Never.” Nevada jerked hard on the cuffs. Pulled back.
McCallum squealed in terror and pain.
Nevada’s face pulled into a mask of tension. He jerked.
Ross’s eyes bulged white. He clutched at the chain slicing through his neck and cutting off his air supply. Spittle sprayed.
Shelby was on her feet as the men rolled together on the wet grass beneath the trees. Oh, God, Nevada, be careful. She searched around for a weapon, heard Ross’s painful cries.
“Die, fucker!” a slow Texas drawl commanded. Over the fence Shep vaulted, his sidearm aimed at the two men.
“No!” Shelby cried, certain Nevada would be shot.
Crack!
The pistol fired.
Both men slumped forward onto the ground.
Numb, shell-shocked, Shelby screamed and ran to the two entwined bodies. A bullet hole was dead center in Ross McCallum’s forehead. His eyes were blank. Nevada lay beside him, but shifted, throwing his arms over the dead man’s head as his chains jangled. Shelby fell into his waiting arms and began to cry like a damned-fool woman. She couldn’t stop herself.
“Shh, darlin’,” Nevada said, drawing her further into the few scattered trees and away from Ross McCallum’s lifeless body. “It’s over. Finally.”
“Promise?” she asked, and Shep turned his back on them, giving them a bit of privacy.
“Oh, yeah, I promise.”