Beef Stolen-Off (23 page)

She wanted to turn back but couldn’t. For Sandy’s sake, she had to find a rational explanation for the noise. Jordan prayed whatever was around the corner fit that category.

Rounding the curve, she saw what looked like stadium lights in the distance, off the main road about a hundred yards from her. She approached the turnoff to get there and saw headlights coming directly toward her from the opposite direction.

Gasping, she quickly moved into the shadows of the thick underbrush at the side of the road. As the headlights drew closer, she decided the smart thing to do was to stay hidden. Moving deeper into the brush, she could only hope there weren’t any animals nearby who might be thinking a redheaded Irish girl sounded delicious.

With the full moon shining above, Jordan was able to identify the vehicle as a dark-colored pickup. When it slowed to turn down the gravel road toward the tall lights, she caught a glimpse of the driver, and she bit her lip to keep from screaming out in surprise.

What in the world was Cooper Harrison doing out here in the boonies? Watching the pickup stir up dirt and gravel as it raced toward the lights, she covered her mouth to stifle the cough from the dust.

And why was he hauling a cattle trailer?

She pulled out her cell phone to call Danny, then suddenly closed it. What would she say to her brother? “Hey, Danny, I know it’s two in the morning, but I just saw Cooper hauling a cattle trailer.” In this neck of the woods nearly every pickup had a trailer hitch and hauled either boats or animals. Maybe there was a horse in the trailer behind Cooper’s truck.

She pocketed the phone, thinking there was no way she was going to give her brother that kind of ammunition. She’d have to listen to Danny whine about being awakened for at least a week or two, all because Cooper wanted to ride his stallion in the middle of the night.

Okay, maybe that was a little far-fetched, but Jordan couldn’t think of any other logical explanation for Cooper’s being here, now. Letting her curiosity get the best of her, she wheeled the bike out of the bushes and followed Cooper down the road. Once again, the pounding abruptly ceased, jacking up her anxiety level another notch.

Ten minutes later, she pedaled into a medium-size parking lot with a large warehouselike building on the right. She spotted Cooper’s navy truck parked close to what looked like a loading ramp. Taking a deep breath, she was instantly sorry because the smell nearly wiped her out.
Glancing at the sign that read N
ORTH
T
EXAS
B
EEF
D
ISTRIBUTORS
, she realized why.

This was Carole Anne’s company where they processed and packaged beef.

She jumped when she saw Cooper and another man appear at the back of the trailer. Scrambling off to hide behind a tree, she hoped they hadn’t seen her.

Cooper opened the back of the trailer, and the other guy walked up the ramp and disappeared inside. A moment later, he reappeared, leading a cow down the ramp. Cooper hopped up into the trailer, and after a few minutes, he came out, leading another animal. Safely hidden in the shadows, Jordan was mesmerized as the two men led the cows around the side of the building and out of sight.

Cooper offloading cows at a meatpacking plant in the middle of the night could mean only one thing. Since he didn’t raise cattle himself, and he certainly didn’t need to moonlight for extra cash, Jordan realized she was probably witnessing Cooper and the other man in the midst of cattle rustling.

Though stunned, she didn’t hesitate. With shaking hands, she reached for her cell phone to call her brother. He could inform the local police and have them out here in thirty minutes or less.

Crap!
There were no signal bars on her phone.

Praying that Cooper and his friend were still on the side of the building, she hopped off the bike and held her hand out as far as she dared without exposing herself.

Still no signal.

She knew she should hightail it back to Sandy’s house and use the landline to call Danny, but her curiosity and the urgency of the situation beat out her better sense. She had to find out what they were doing before they climbed back
into the truck and disappeared. If the operation was as slick as Danny and Alex had insinuated, there was a good chance there would be no physical evidence to incriminate Cooper by the time the cops made it out this way.

It took all of two seconds for Jordan to make a decision she hoped wouldn’t be her last one. She had to get pictures so that it wouldn’t matter how much Cooper denied being there. She’d have the evidence that proved he was a liar, and it would no longer be her word against his.

Cursing the full moon she’d been grateful for up until now, Jordan scrambled from her safe spot and took off in a dead run toward the pickup before she lost her courage. The closer she got to the truck the more unbearable the stench became, and she pulled the scarf over her nose. Stopping every few steps to make sure she hadn’t been spotted, she was prepared to bolt if necessary. If what she suspected was true, the critters hiding in the dark were probably a whole lot less dangerous than the criminals who’d arrived in the truck.

When she’d made it to the pickup without setting off some major alarm, she slowed to catch her breath. Glancing up, she noticed security cameras on several of the steel poles in the lot and wondered if someone was watching her every move—waiting for her to get close enough so that escape would be impossible.

Puffing out white smoky breaths into the nippy Texas air, she knew she had to take that chance if she was going to get a photo of Cooper in the act. Besides, if they
were
watching her, wouldn’t they have already sent someone out to intercept her?

Finally, she talked herself into moving away from the truck and toward where Cooper and his friend had taken the cows. She heard his voice as soon as she got close to the
corner of the building, and then there was silence. She inched closer and spied the cows in a large pen, but there was no sign of Cooper or the other guy.

Taking a few steps forward, she was careful to stay in the shadows in case they suddenly reappeared. When she was almost to the pen, she realized they must have gone into the packing plant through a side door. Moving to a window, she took a quick peek.

The large room was empty except for several rows of hanging carcasses off to the left. She figured Cooper and his friend must have gone into a room in the back. Pulling up the scarf to cover more of her nose, she turned back to the pen and snapped several pictures of the cows.

Satisfied she had enough, she decided to head back to the front to hide out in the shadows again and wait for Cooper to come out. That way she could catch him before he got back into his truck. As she turned away, her scarf caught on a nail sticking out from the side of the window and ripped.

Crap!

She’d just found the perfect place to snap a shot of the rustlers that would include the N
ORTH
T
EXAS
B
EEF
D
ISTRIBUTORS
sign above the door when she heard the distinct sound of a gunshot, followed by another.

Swallowing a scream, she turned and ran as fast as she could back to the tree where she’d hidden the bike. When her scarf blew off halfway there, she was too frightened to stop and pick it up. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Cooper running from the building and heading for his truck. For a split second their eyes met.

Out of breath, she collapsed in the bushes next to the bike, feeling like her heart was about to thump out of her chest. When her hands finally stopped shaking, she climbed
onto the bike and made a mad dash in the opposite direction of Cooper’s pickup, which was now rumbling down the main road, kicking up dirt and gravel.

Taking a quick glimpse back, she watched the truck’s tail lights disappear down the road, and then she pedaled like there really was someone chasing her. She had to get back to Sandy’s before Cooper decided she’d seen too much.

She shivered just thinking about that. Had she really seen anything worth silencing her over? Was it possible Rusty had stumbled onto this and was killed because he, too, had seen too much? What if the gunfire was standard operating procedure in places like this where the meat was processed in the dead of night and Cooper was running because he was simply in a hurry to get out of there?

If so, then why had he driven away like he’d actually seen the Loch Ness monster?

By the time she reached Sandy’s house, Jordan was out of breath, and her nose was so cold she could barely feel it. Guiding the bike back through the side door of the garage, she put it in the corner next to the other one, then raced into the house to see if her cell phone worked.

There were two bars.

She quickly dialed Danny’s number, glancing up at the ornate fish-shaped clock on the wall. It was almost three. After five rings, he finally picked up.

“Danny, you have to come to Sandy’s house now. I saw Cooper with stolen cows, and then I heard gunshots.” She stopped to take a breath.

“Jordan? What the hell are you doing calling me at three in the morning?”

“Didn’t you hear what I just said?” She flopped down on the couch and grabbed the blanket from the back of the sofa, wrapping it around her legs.

“I don’t hear so good when you babble on like that. What’s so freaking important that it couldn’t wait till—say, ten?”

Jordan repeated the information.

“First, how do you know the cows were stolen?”

She heard excitement creeping into Danny’s voice as the information finally registered. She pictured him jumping up from the couch and reaching for his jeans.

“Ouch! Hold on. My foot got caught in my pants and I darn near wiped myself out.” A minute later he began again. “Are you and Sandy safe, or do I need to call the Texoma security patrol and have them get over there ASAP?”

“We’re safe right now,” Jordan said, popping up to recheck the locks on all the doors just in case. “I can’t be sure, but I think Cooper may have seen me.”

“Jesus! Make sure the doors are locked. I should be there in about thirty-five or forty minutes with the Ranchero cops. They have jurisdiction in that cove.”

Jordan hung up and slumped back onto the couch. It didn’t make any sense to wake up Sandy until the last minute, and even then, it was probably not going to be easy.

What a waste of a good sleeping pill!
Jordan thought, tapping her foot on the carpet while she waited.

She reached for the romance novel on the end table, but after five minutes of staring at the same word, she decided it was a losing battle. If only she’d thought to bring a crossword puzzle to occupy her mind, but then, she sucked at those kinds of things, anyway.

The earlier scene kept playing over and over in her mind. She wanted to believe there was a logical reason for Cooper to be hauling cattle to a processing plant at this time of night.

One that didn’t involve theft and possibly murder.

She straightened up when a more ominous thought occurred to her. Cooper had been alone when he’d run from the building and driven away. What happened to the man who had arrived with him? Had he been on the other end of a bullet? For a second, a flash of guilt creeped over her. She should have stayed to find out if anyone needed help, especially after she saw Cooper leave.

But she’d been too frightened, and she wasn’t totally convinced the gunfire meant someone was even hurt. What if she’d walked into the plant right in the middle of a crime going down? Just thinking about it made her shudder.

No, she’d done the only thing she could: hauled butt and called her brother. It was comforting to know he was on his way.

Her thoughts wandered back to Cooper. Given the very real possibility he had just killed his partner in the cattle-rustling ring, his involvement in Rusty’s death was looking more and more probable. He’d been close enough to Rusty at the Cattlemen’s Ball to slip him the poison.

When she’d first suspected he might be Rusty’s killer, she’d assumed the motive had been Carole Anne. Cooper had flirted with Jordan outrageously that night, yet she remembered the way his nostrils flared and his eyes flashed anger every time Carole Anne looked Rusty’s way, though he’d pretended not to notice. Now it seemed there might be a less passionate reason for murder than the proverbial green monster.

Money could make the most honest of men do strange things. Maybe Cooper wanted to be the one calling the shots and decided to take matters into his own hands.

Deep in thought, Jordan nearly jumped out of her skin
when Sandy appeared in the doorway, wiping the sleep from her eyes.

“Why are you still up?”

“I don’t have time to explain,” Jordan said, wishing her nerves would quit acting like hamsters on speed. “Get dressed, Sandy. Danny and the cops will be here any minute.”

Sandy’s eyes widened. “The cops?”

“Hurry, there’s not much time before they arrive. I’ll fill you in after you change clothes.”

Before Sandy finished dressing and came back into the living room, Jordan heard the wail of sirens nearby. She raced to the window and peered out from behind the thick green curtains just as Danny’s car pulled into the gravel driveway. Rushing to the door, she flung it open and waited while her brother climbed out of the car. Two police cruisers pulled up behind him, their sirens still blaring.