Last Stand Ranch (2 page)

“Olivia!” Through the phone, Claudia was trying to get her attention.

“I'm here,” Olivia mumbled, sounding dazed.

“Why don't you hand the phone back to Elijah? Let me talk to him and find out where you are so I can figure out what we need to do.”

“Okay.” Olivia held out the phone to Elijah. “She wants to talk to you.”

“I'll have your niece on her way as soon as I can,” Elijah said into the phone.

“Would you take me off speaker?”

“Sure.” He hit the button. “You're off speaker.”

“Is she really all right?” Claudia asked.

Elijah wondered that himself as he started walking around her car to take a closer look. The glow from a dozen motorcycle headlights gave him a pretty decent view. There were the expected scrapes and scratches along the sides of the car that probably came from the rocks and trees once she'd gone off road. But there were dents on the back bumper, too.

“She seems all right,” he said into the phone. “Her car's wrecked, though. One of us needs to hang up and call Ricky so he can fire up his tow truck and get her car.”

“I'll do that right now,” Claudia said.

After they disconnected, he walked down the highway looking for the spot where Olivia's car had left the road.

He found it. It looked as if Olivia had turned off the road deliberately. If there were skid marks showing she'd tried to brake, it was too dark to see them.

“A tow truck will be here soon,” he said when he got back to her. “Want to tell me what happened?”

“I ran off the road.” She turned away, suddenly very interested in looking everywhere but at him.

She was hiding something.

Elijah would have to find out what that was. Claudia Sweeney might be Olivia's blood relative, but she'd been Elijah's neighbor for his entire life. He was not about to let anything happen to her. Painted Rock was full of people he cared about. If trouble was coming to his town, he wanted to know about it.

TWO

A
s soon as Olivia's car was loaded onto the flatbed of the tow truck and Olivia was safely stowed in the cab with Ricky, Elijah's fellow riders headed for their homes while Elijah rode ahead to Claudia's house to wait for Olivia's arrival. He wasn't leaving until he knew exactly what was going on.

“It's a shame Olivia had car trouble on top of everything else,” Claudia said quietly.

“Yes, ma'am,” Elijah agreed. He didn't know what “everything else” was, but he would find out.

He was sitting on his motorcycle in front of Claudia's house, a frontier Victorian with pink, yellow and lavender gingerbread. Claudia stood near the bottom of the wooden steps leading to the wraparound porch. At just over six feet tall, Claudia's regal bearing hadn't been stooped by the advancing years. But it had turned her formerly auburn hair to silver. She wore it tied in a loose bun, like usual, but in honor of her niece's visit, she'd dressed up in a long denim skirt and a red flowery blouse. Two of her dogs, Jasper and Feldspar, sat by her feet while the third, Opal, nosed around a flower bed.

“So you and the guys were just out riding and happened to come across Olivia?” Claudia asked.

“We were coming back from a home visit. We dropped off a gift card to the grocery store, then rode around and gunned the engines a few times for the kids. I took the oldest kid for a short ride, we handed out a few toys and then we left. We were on our way back when I saw her.”

The tow truck with Olivia's car finally turned into the circular drive. Elijah got off his bike and walked over to stand beside his adopted “aunt.” She clenched her blue-veined hands with impatient excitement while waiting for Olivia to climb out of Ricky's tow truck. Elijah hadn't breathed a word of his wariness about her grandniece to her. She'd been so anxious for this moment, he didn't want to spoil it. Not unless he had to.

The tow truck squeaked to a stop and Olivia opened her cab door. Elijah strode over and offered up a hand to help her out.

“I can manage,” she said tightly, so he stepped back.

Ricky hopped out of the driver's side of the truck and started to pull Olivia's luggage from the compartment behind the cab.

Elijah grabbed a couple of bags. If that annoyed Olivia, too bad.

Olivia grabbed a duffel bag and frowned at him. “Thanks for your help, but I can take care of things from here.”

She thought she could dismiss him? That was cute.

He walked beside her across the drive and caught her biting her bottom lip when she saw an Oso County Sheriff's Department patrol car pull in.

Ricky had called for a deputy while they were still out on the highway. Olivia had stepped away to talk to the lawman when he arrived, so Elijah hadn't been able to hear their conversation. Deputy Bedford was newly assigned to Painted Rock. He'd been pretty closemouthed after talking to Olivia, walking around with a flashlight and looking at her car and at the surface of the road.

Since it was impossible to see very far down the winding road in the darkness, even using the spotlight on his patrol car, Bedford had wanted to drive down the highway and look for skid marks or debris. He'd told them he'd meet them at Claudia's house to wrap up the incident.

Elijah and Olivia reached the bottom of the porch steps and set down their bags.

“You made it!” Claudia cried out in delight, wrapping her arms around her niece and rocking her slightly from side to side.

“Finally.” Olivia's voice was muffled as she obediently stayed wrapped in her great-aunt's enthusiastic embrace.

Elijah couldn't see any resemblance between them. Claudia, with her big bones and impressive height, towered over Olivia, who was average height, but scrawny looking.

Ricky yelled out “good-bye” as he jumped back in his truck and headed for his garage with Olivia's car.

Deputy Bedford got out of his patrol car carrying a clipboard.

“Good evening, Mrs. Sweeney.” He nodded at Claudia as he walked up. Claudia and Olivia were still at the bottom of the porch steps, each with an arm wrapped around the other. Elijah noticed Claudia tightening her hold on her niece as the deputy came closer.

“I saw some fresh skid marks on the road that came from wider tires than yours, just as you described,” Bedford said. Olivia nodded.

“Any chance there's a bigger story you want to tell me?” Bedford added.

“What do you mean?”

Bedford looked at her for a moment. “Someone taps your bumper twice, passes you, then comes back and forces you off the highway. That doesn't sound like an accident. That sounds personal. Who would do that? And why?”

Those were the questions Elijah wanted to ask.

“Someone threatened to kill me back in Las Vegas,” Olivia said. “Maybe the guy who drove me off the road tonight was him. Maybe not.” She glanced at Claudia, her eyebrows raised in an unspoken plea for understanding. “I'd hoped I'd get away from him here, but now it looks like I'll have to move on.”

So that was why Olivia had come to Painted Rock. She was running for her life. And potentially putting Claudia in harm's way.

Deputy Bedford cocked his head slightly to one side. “Who was the man who threatened your life?”

“His name is Ted Kurtz. He's an attorney in Las Vegas.”

“The man you testified against? I ran your name through the computer. As soon as I saw the pictures, I recognized you from the news stories on TV.”

Olivia had been on TV? Las Vegas was less than three hundred miles away. If anything made the news there, it usually made the news in Painted Rock. But Elijah didn't have much time for TV. “What happened?” he asked.

Olivia glared at him. Then she turned back to the deputy and lifted her chin, as if daring him to take his best shot. She was tough. Elijah had to give her that. She might have looked terrified crouching by her car out on the highway, but she'd looked determined then, too.

“I worked at a safe house for battered women in Las Vegas,” Olivia said, her voice flat and emotionless. “We had a woman stay with us on three different occasions over the course of about six months. Eventually she told us her name, Marion Kurtz, and that her husband was Ted Kurtz. He's a big-shot defense attorney with links to organized crime.”

Her gaze shifted to something just beyond Elijah's shoulder. Sorrow filled her eyes and the defiant line of her lips slackened. Elijah knew from experience what was happening. She was looking into the past.

“We tried to get Marion into counseling, get her out of danger, get her to file a police report and press charges. She'd show some interest, but then she wouldn't follow through.” Olivia's voice began to waver a little. “Finally, Marion came in with a black eye, a broken nose and a split lip. She said she was ready to press charges and leave her husband.”

Elijah dreaded hearing where her story might go.

“But she didn't leave him and she never filed a police report. She decided to give him one more chance after he promised he would change. A week later Marion ended up in the hospital ICU, unconscious for two days.” Olivia's voice caught, and she stopped talking for a few seconds to clear her throat. “When she regained consciousness, she claimed it had been a random attack. But later, she told me her husband had done it. She wouldn't repeat that to the police, though, because Ted told her she wouldn't survive if she did. He'd defended people in court who owed him favors. People who could make her disappear.”

Claudia reached over to brush the hair from Olivia's face. “Honey, given the situation, no one can blame you for what you did.”

Olivia looked up at her. “If it hadn't been for you...” Her voice trailed off and she shook her head. “I knew his alibi was a complete lie,” she continued. “I wanted to make any potential jurors question it, so when I testified before the grand jury, so they could determine whether the case would go to trial, I claimed I saw him at a time and place when I actually didn't.”

“Oh, honey.” Claudia shook her head.

“I
saw
Marion in the hospital. I saw what he did to her. I was angry and I wanted to do something to make sure he wouldn't be able to hurt her again.” Olivia shoved her hands in her pockets. “I regretted the lie almost as soon as I told it. A few days later I retracted my statement.”

She turned to Elijah. “Without enough evidence to move forward with the trial, the charges against Kurtz were dropped. Charges were filed against me, but they were eventually dropped, too. Marion had permanent hearing loss and some other physical issues, but she did file for divorce. Things looked like they were blowing over.

“Then three weeks ago Kurtz came up to me while I was walking down a sidewalk. I didn't see him coming—he was just suddenly there beside me. He told me he was going to kill me. Things hadn't blown over for him. Old rumors about him had taken on a new life. Stories that he was violent, that his hair-trigger temper made him unhinged. That he'd hurt people before.

“The law firm where he works has to maintain a thin veneer of respectability and they were angry with him for marring that. His future there is in question, even now. He told me that getting rid of me would send a message to the women he's hurt in the past about the consequences of standing up to him.” Her voice was hard with bitterness now, and shimmering tears were forming in the corners of her eyes.

“That's why you're here?” Elijah asked. “To get away from him?”

Olivia nodded. “Aunt Claudia saw me on TV during the worst of it and called me. She invited me to come for a visit, but I could barely bring myself to leave my apartment.” She impatiently rubbed her eyes, smearing away the tears that lingered there. “I lost my job after I told the truth. I was hoping to start a new life here.”

Silence followed. Finally, Bedford spoke. “Are you sure you've told me the truth about what happened on the road?”

“I'm not making it up.”

“You do realize Ted Kurtz probably bills his clients in the neighborhood of a thousand bucks an hour? Can you really imagine him taking the time to personally trail you all the way from Las Vegas to Painted Rock just to bump your car a few times and drive you off the road?”

“I never said I was sure it was him. Maybe he hired someone.”

“What's
your
theory?” Elijah asked Bedford. He wasn't thrilled that Olivia had brought trouble to Claudia's house, but it sounded as if she did have a good reason to fear for her life. Now Bedford wanted to dismiss everything she'd said, leaving her alone and vulnerable, just because she'd made a bad decision in the past?

Bedford held up a hand. “I don't have a theory. I want to help.” He glanced at Claudia. “Right now I'm just collecting the facts. Trying to figure out what to believe. And Miss Dillon has a track record of not telling the truth.”

He was interrupted by a radio transmission and stepped away to respond through his collar mic. “Dispatch says a couple of calls have come in about someone driving erratically on the highway,” he said when he came back. “But given your history, I can't ask Las Vegas PD to go to Ted Kurtz's home to see if he's there based solely on your word. Are you sure you can't tell me anything about the driver or the vehicle?”

“It was a dark-colored truck. His lights were even with my back window. I don't have any more details. I couldn't see very well.”

“There's not much I can do with that.” Bedford took a business card from his clipboard and jotted a number on the back. “Here's your incident report number. You'll be able to access the report by eight o'clock tomorrow morning.”

Olivia took the card.

“Good night,” Bedford said, and he left.

* * *

“I can stay here tonight if you'd like,” Elijah said to Claudia.

After Deputy Bedford drove off, they'd walked into the house. Olivia watched Elijah wrap an arm around Claudia's shoulder as they stood in her kitchen. It was an easy gesture that made Olivia give herself a swift mental kick. She was the one who should have that relaxed, familiar relationship with her great-aunt. She should have visited Claudia years ago. She shouldn't have waited until she had no other options.

“That's okay, honey.” Claudia patted Elijah on the arm. “We've got the dogs, and they're the best alarm I could have. Plus, Denise and Raymond are in the cottage out back.” She turned to Olivia. “They're the couple I hired to help me run the place. Here, let me text them and tell them you're here so you can meet them.” She picked up a phone and started tapping the screen. “Don't worry,” she said, glancing up at Elijah. “We'll be fine.”

“It wouldn't be any trouble to stay,” Elijah said. “You know I'd like nothing more than to hang around here and take care of my favorite aunt.”

“Laying it on a little thick, aren't you?” Olivia groused. She hadn't meant to say that out loud, but where did he get off calling Claudia “aunt”?

Elijah grinned at Olivia and hugged Claudia tighter.

Seriously? That's how it was going to be? After everything she'd been through tonight, he was going to needle her? He still looked tough, but now that they were inside and in better light, she could see a hint of mischief in his dark eyes. It was already getting on her nerves.

“I think we'll be okay.” Olivia glanced at the windows she would lock and the shades she would pull before going to bed. She would go through the whole house, checking and double-checking that everything was secure. It was part of the ritual that helped her sleep at night.

“I don't mind staying.” Elijah's bantering tone was gone in an instant. The mischievous glint in his eyes was replaced with a look like cold black ice. “I'd love to be here if he decides to stop by.”

Olivia's attention was drawn to the sound of a woman's voice just before she heard a door open. It was followed by the sound of footsteps.