Beef Stolen-Off (5 page)

Jordan nodded, then stood up and followed them out to the car. Once settled, Lucas immediately reached for the Blue Label Johnnie Walker and poured two fingers into the glass. He downed the liquor in one swift motion. Visibly upset, he refilled the glass, his hands shaking. He took a sip before asking if either of them wanted a drink. Both Bella and Jordan nodded.

“Could I have more of the champagne?” Jordan asked, knowing the Scotch would set her insides on fire.

When he handed her a nearly full glass, she took a couple of big gulps, then leaned back against the seat to let the expensive Cristal do its thing by warming her insides and calming her emotions.

Her mind raced back over the last few hours, searching her brain for any sign she might have missed before Rusty’s seizure. Other than the shortness of breath, he really hadn’t complained of anything inside the ballroom. Not until he sat on the bench did he mention his numb face and tongue. She’d watched her grandmother live through angina attacks before a major heart attack killed her. Nana always had chest pain but never complained of numbness around the face and mouth.

And she’d never had a seizure.

Jordan remembered how she’d panicked when Rusty went into convulsions. Could he have had epilepsy? She’d never been around anyone with the disorder, so she had no idea if the symptoms that precede an actual seizure matched Rusty’s.

She caught Santana staring at her.

“It would be nice if you’d come out to the ranch for the memorial service and the luncheon afterward,” he said, more as a statement than a question.

“Of course,” she replied, wishing she could say no without feeling guilty.

All she wanted to do was forget about tonight. Although she barely knew Rusty, her first impression was that he was a nice guy. She wondered if that would’ve changed if she’d had more time with him, remembering how sitting near him had given her goose bumps.

By the time the limo pulled to the curb in front of
Empire Apartments, Jordan had finished her second glass of champagne. Thankfully, there had been little conversation during the hour’s drive back to Ranchero.

Before getting out of the car, she reached for Santana’s hand. “I’m so sorry, Lucas. If there’s anything I can do, please let me know.”

He held her hand a little too long before releasing it. “I’ll call you in a few days to tell you when my driver will pick you up for the memorial service.”

She nodded and got out of the car. She would attend the services. She owed Rusty that much.

Jordan showered under a spray of the hottest water she could stand, then quickly dried off and slipped on a C
OWBOYS
T-shirt and a pair of running shorts, her usual sleep attire. It was much too late to tell any of her friends about Rusty. With the exception of Ray and Lola, none of her apartment pals made it past the ten o’clock news.

Funny that the two oldest residents were Empire’s night owls, but even their lights had been out when the limo pulled up to the curb.

Climbing into bed, she wondered whether Brenda Sue had calmed down or was now suffering through a totally sleepless night. And what about Cooper and Blake? She’d only caught a quick glimpse of them after the police arrived, but unlike Brenda Sue, they hadn’t looked too grief stricken. When Cooper whispered something in Blake’s ear, they had both laughed. That was just after the ambulance arrived.

An odd reaction to Rusty’s death,
she thought, certain she wouldn’t see either of them at the memorial service.

The memorial service. No way could she even think
about going without a friendly face beside her. Ever since her grandmother’s funeral, she had developed a genuine hatred for the ritual. Even the cloying scent of gladiolas now made her nauseous.

She’d bribe Victor into accompanying her. Maybe if she had a guy with her, Lucas would keep his hands to himself. As if anyone would believe Victor was her boyfriend. The man dressed better than she did and flirted outrageously with every male in the room.

After tossing and turning for over an hour, Jordan finally fell asleep, although it wasn’t a restful one. She awoke the following morning still thinking about Rusty and wondering what had caused his death.

As soon as her feet hit the floor, the little man with the hammer began pounding in her head, and she cursed the two glasses of champagne she’d had in the limo on the way home. Padding to the kitchen, she made a cup of coffee with her new little one-cup coffeemaker, compliments of Loretta Moseley.

Well sort of. She’d actually bought the machine on sale, justifying the purchase with the extra money she would make as the new Kitchen Kupboard columnist.

Okay, so she had yet to see any extra money, but Egan promised it was coming, and coffee tasted so fresh made one cup at time. She blew out a slow breath and stretched over the sink to get the bottle of ibuprofen on the shelf above. Maybe between the drugs and the caffeine, she could squash the little pest in her forehead.

She opened the cabinet looking for something to fill her stomach. No Pop-Tarts or English muffins. Another Mother Hubbard moment. She moaned, remembering today was grocery day. Snagging the last Hostess Ho Ho, she threw the
empty box in the trash and plopped into a chair at the kitchen table.

Rusty continued to weigh heavily on her mind. Turning on the TV, she was disappointed when after fifteen minutes she didn’t hear one word about the freakish death at the society event the night before. She guessed a thirty-something, otherwise healthy man having a heart attack after eating a high-fat meal didn’t warrant the Sunday morning Dallas news. She switched to the Texoma station, thinking a local rancher’s death for any reason would get at least a few minutes of airtime.

Nothing. Apparently, even the local news didn’t think Rusty’s demise was important enough to interrupt the Sunday morning cartoons.

Wishing she had a paper, she decided to run to the 7-Eleven, maybe even grab a breakfast burrito and a bag of powdered doughnuts while she was there. She slipped on a bra under her T-shirt, grabbed her purse, and headed for the door.

Halfway there, the doorbell rang.

It’s Sunday, people.
Even God didn’t have to answer the door on the Sabbath.

Thinking about that, she scolded herself for missing church yet another week. After nearly dying twice in the past few months, it would be wise to stay in His good graces.

Annoyed, she flung the door open, fully expecting to go off on some kid about how she had neither the time nor the money for overpriced magazines. One look at the person standing there, his eyes and hair color almost identical to hers and wearing a sheepish grin on his face, made her gasp with pleasure.

“Hey, sis, where you going?”

“Danny, what are you doing here? Does Mom know you’re here?” She pulled him into her apartment and shut the door. “Are you in some kind of trouble?”

Danny McAllister laughed. “You wish,” he said, crushing her in a bear hug. “You’d love nothing better than to call Mom and rat me out.”

“What are you—like twelve?” she asked between gig-gles.

Two years older than her, Danny was her favorite of all four brothers and still lived close to their parents. He’d gone straight from college into the Texas Department of Agriculture where he was basically a gofer.

“I’m starving. I’ve been driving since four this morning looking for this godforsaken place. Why in the hell did you move here, Jordan?” He dragged his five-eleven frame to the kitchen and stared at the empty cupboards. “Okay, give it up. I know you have Ho Hos stashed somewhere. You’d be shaking like an addict if you didn’t.”

She grinned. He knew her so well. “Sorry. Just ate the last one less than five minutes ago. I was on my way out the door for doughnuts.”

His eyes scanned the countertop. “You must be coming up in the world, little sis. This is some fancy coffeepot. Didn’t Dad teach you the best cup of java comes from a percolator?”

“Talk to me after you’ve tasted a cup from this jewel,” she fired back. While she fixed him a cup, she took a few minutes to study her brother.

She hadn’t seen him since last summer, right after Brett dumped her in Dallas, and she’d had nowhere else to go but back home. Of course, she hadn’t told her family about
that, or they would never have let her leave Amarillo and return to the big city all alone.

She loved all her brothers, but Danny really was special, probably because he didn’t tease her mercilessly like the other three. In fact, he caught a lot of their teasing himself, so the two of them had bonded.

“What brings you here at ten in the morning?”

He took a sip of coffee, and from his expression, Jordan could tell he was impressed. Not that he would ever fess up.

“I’m on a case.”

“A case? Since when did you get cases? Last I heard, you were working a desk in downtown Amarillo.”

“Yeah, well, you heard wrong. I left that job in September. Didn’t Mom tell you?”

Jordan bit her lower lip to hide her amusement. He looked like a kid who had just been told he hadn’t made the team. “She may have, but your job isn’t a high priority with me right now,” she teased. “Congrats, bro, I knew you’d either piss someone off and get fired, or knock the socks off your employer and have your boss’s job by now. You never could do anything halfway.”

“Oh, like you can?” He flashed an impish grin. “Mom told me what happened to you a few months ago. Freaked her out that you almost got yourself killed. It’s a wonder she didn’t send the McAllister Swat Team down here to hog-tie you and drag your sorry butt home. Sean and Patrick wanted to drop everything, and even Mr. ‘I’m so important’ Tommy told his boss he needed a few days’ personal leave.”

Jordan found herself at a loss for words. Her mother had gone psycho when Jordan’s friends had called from the hospital to assure her that Jordan was all right. This was
the first time she’d heard how close her mom had come to sending the band of brothers to drag her out of Ranchero, kicking and screaming.

Lord only knew what might have happened if her parents had known the whole story.

“It was nothing,” she lied, thankful she’d been given nine lives and still had seven good ones remaining. If she’d learned anything from that adventure, it was that she was a reporter and not an amateur sleuth. The bad guys were best left for the police.

“So what’s this new job?” she asked.

“You’re looking at a field officer for TSCRA,” he said, beaming.

“TSCRA?”

“Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association—”

“You don’t raise cattle.”

“I know. For once in your life, will you listen without interrupting?”

When she nodded, he continued. “Like I said, I was sent here on my first big case. I have no idea how long this investigation will take, but I need a place to crash.” He grinned sheepishly. “That’s why they handed me this case. We don’t have a huge budget, and when I said I wouldn’t need a hotel room—voilà! They couldn’t get the case files in my hand fast enough.”

“You still haven’t told me what this big case is.”

His eyes lit up like they had when he told her about the fish he caught the first time he was allowed to go out on the boat with their dad and older brothers.

“You can’t tell anyone,” he said, moving closer. “Did you know some of the biggest ranches in Texas and Oklahoma are being hit really hard by cattle rustlers?”

“What? Have you gone loony on me? We’re not talking
about the old
Bonanza
episodes Gramps used to make us watch when he babysat us. This is the twenty-first century, Danny boy.”

“Some things never change. You’re still a smart-ass. For your information, not only have the ranchers already lost millions in revenue this year alone, but they’re also finding themselves in danger. Three weeks ago, one owner caught the thieves in the act and fired at them. They jumped in their pickup and nearly ran him down to get away.”

A sound bite from the toastmaster at last night’s Cattlemen’s Ball replayed in Jordan’s head. The man had raised his glass to “putting all the thieving cattle rustlers behind bars.” She’d had no clue what he meant. Now she did.

“Why you? That doesn’t sound like something for a newbie to undertake.”

Danny frowned. “I may be a newbie, but you’re forgetting how I got all that extra money in college to wine and dine the ladies.” His stern expression turned to amusement. “When they discovered I’d worked at that Lubbock ranch and had a criminal justice degree, they foamed at the mouth to get me.”

Jordan couldn’t stop the grin from spreading across her face. Danny always did have an inflated view of himself, despite the other three brothers’ nearly constant attempts to bring him down a notch. He might not have been the biggest guy in the huddle at the Amarillo High football games, but no one on the other team wanted to get hit by him. His reputation earned him a free ride at Texas Tech, where he still held the record for most quarterback sacks in a single season.

“So they sent you to investigate. Why Ranchero?”

“They sent about six of us all over the state, and one guy even went to Oklahoma. I was supposed to go to Abilene to
help out the agent there, but last night something big happened and my plans changed. I was packed and on my way here in less than two hours.”

“Something big in Ranchero? What?” He had her full attention now.

“Not in Ranchero, per se,” Danny explained. “In Fort Worth, but it involved a guy from here.”

Jordan cocked one eyebrow. “You don’t mean Rusty Morales, do you?”

Danny shook his head as if he didn’t hear her right. “You know him?”

“I was the last one to see him alive.”

“Shit, Jordan! Why didn’t you tell me that ten minutes ago? I could’ve been on the phone telling my boss about it and not wasting time jawing with you.”

Jordan took a deep breath, not sure she should ask the next question but too curious to stop. “Why are you interested in a man who died of a heart attack after dinner?”

“Because Rusty Morales has been on our radar for over a month. We think he was the brains behind the biggest cattle-rustling ring in the state, operating right here in North Texas.”