Something Borrowed, Something Bleu (20 page)

So she had been
there. And Bobby Lee hadn’t been, at least not until later. I wanted to crow over this small victory, this tiny bit of information I’d finally managed to extract.
But I kept my voice even when I said, “Thank you for finally admitting that. I mean it.”
She gave a tiny nod in response.
“So Joe was there with you? Why couldn’t he take you home?”
Her shoulders slumped, and she covered her face with both hands as something inside of her let go. She half-sat on the table. Her arms fell to her sides, knocking photographs of her dead husband to the floor. Tabby didn’t seem to notice. Red-rimmed eyes regarded me for a long moment then her gaze shunted away.
“We came out here with Gwen and Krista. In Krista’s car. I wanted to leave, but she wouldn’t take me home.” Her words were hesitant, heavy with memory.
As gently as I could, I asked, “What happened that night, Tabby?”
She looked out the window behind me, toward the river. I followed her gaze. The water she was remembering was invisible from where we were, but I could see the thunderheads, gray and threatening, stacked high on the horizon. The hay in the field undulated in waves as the wind picked up. Distant rumblings through the thick summer air gave fair warning of an impending storm.
“It was late.” Her voice had a dreamy quality to it. “The cold was bitter, raw. We didn’t care—we were just stupid kids, goofing around, joking and smoking. A little snow had fallen, and the moon was almost full. It was almost as bright as daylight, but everything was in black and white. It was so beautiful.”
She licked her lips. “Then Gwen screamed. From behind me. She … she fell in the water, slipped and went under. It wasn’t that deep, but she couldn’t get out. Maybe she hit her head. I don’t know. So Joe waded in and took hold of her arm and dragged her to the riverbank. God.” She closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead. Opened her eyes. “Gwen was so cold. So was Joe, but he hadn’t been in the water as long as she had, and he was only wet to his thighs. We tried to walk her back to the house, but she kept falling. Joe and Ray had to carry her between them. Krista ran ahead to get Ray’s dad out of bed.”
“What did Ogden do?” I asked when she paused.
“He met us in the yard, helped get her inside. Tried to get her warm. Wrapped her in blankets, put heating pads around her, rubbed her hands and feet.”
“He didn’t take her straight to the hospital then.”
Hesitation, then, “Not right away. He tried to save her, tried really hard. Her lips were blue. I could see she wasn’t going to make it.”
“Is that what scared you?”
“Yeah. That and Ray. He was so angry, yelling at her to wake up, telling her how stupid she was to fall in like that.” She licked her lips. “Krista wasn’t going to leave her friend, but I wanted to leave. Joe’s feet were in bad shape, too, from wading in the freezing water, but no one paid any attention to him. So I called Bobby Lee to come get us.”
“You called him at home? That late?”
“I told him I’d call when I got home that night. As long as we planned it ahead of time your parents never woke up when the phone rang.”
I knew why, too. I’d taught Bobby Lee how to unplug all the phones in the house except the one in the basement when he was expecting a phone call after Dad and Anna Belle went to bed.
“And he came and got you?”
She nodded. “By then they were talking about taking Gwen to the hospital. There wasn’t room for us in the car anyway, with her lying in the backseat. Joe pulled Ogden aside and talked to him for a few minutes. Then everyone else left, and we waited until Bobby Lee showed up.”
“Why didn’t you follow them to the hospital in Krista’s car?”
Tabby looked out the window. “We didn’t want to be involved. Joe had been in some trouble with the police—minor stuff, but only a few weeks before. And there wasn’t anything I could do to help. There was no reason for us to go to the hospital.”
I didn’t know what to say. Their behavior wouldn’t win them any awards for bravery, but I could understand it, too. They were kids—not little children, but not adults, either. And there was an adult present who was supposed to know what to do in emergencies. Plus, it didn’t help that they’d probably been sampling some of Ray Dunner’s illegal offerings.
What I still didn’t understand was why no one had admitted Tabby and Joe had been there in the first place. Why the story about the runaway siblings?
Tires crunched on gravel outside.
Tabby whirled and peered out the window. Her eyes widened. “Oh, no.”
I joined her. The same big black pickup that had been parked in front of my parents’ house when I’d come home from my walk had pulled in next to the dairy’s delivery van.
Her fingers closed on my arm. “He’s here for me.”
Ray Dunner climbed down from the driver’s seat and slammed the door. His ruddy face was visible from our vantage. He stood with his fists on his hips and surveyed the area.
“Here for you?” I asked, even though I knew.
Her fingers tightened, and I winced. “To kill me.”
Hearing the words sent a trill of terror through my veins, but there was a part of me that resisted panic, too busy trying to figure out the rest of the puzzle. “I don’t get it. Nothing you told me—wait a minute, what about the blackmail? Was it completely unrelated to Gwen Miller’s death?”
Ray walked over and looked in the window of Anna Belle’s car.
Tabby whispered, “Joe saw Ray push her in.”
My mind scrambled to make sense of her words. Ray had killed Gwen. Joe witnessed it and made a deal with Ogden, who had given up his dream to protect his son. It explained the antagonism between Ray and Joe, the frequent fights. Joe got the land and the girl with the pretty blue eyes; Ray got to work in a rundown car dealership and wake up every day to the knowledge of his father’s sacrifice. It all added up to more than enough motive for murder.
Ray opened the door of the Audi and pulled out my tote bag. I groaned as I saw him take the car keys out and put them in his pocket. My cell phone followed, and then he rifled my wallet. Holding it up to the light, he eyeballed my driver’s license. Then he took the cash out and stuffed that in his pocket, too.
What a jerk.
That’ll teach you not to leave your keys in the car, small town or no small town.
Ray started up the little hill to the house. As he walked, he reached around to the small of his back and pulled something out of his waistband. It glinted in the odd gray light of the oncoming storm.
“Gun,” I said without thinking.
Beside me, Tabby nodded.
She was right about Ray’s lethal intentions. This time there would be no spur-of-the-moment use of whatever weapon came to hand; this time he’d come prepared. Whether or not she had been directly involved, Tabby knew Joe had blackmailed Ogden. Ray had crossed the line when he killed Joe, and for someone with such a violent nature, my bet was that the second time it would be easier. Make that the third time, since he’d been responsible for Gwen Miller’s death as well.
A new reason for panic surfaced. “Is Delight up there?” I asked.
Tabby shook her head. “She’s at my mom’s.”
Gently, I tried to pry her grasp from my arm. “Where are Gretchen and Eduardo?”
“Eduardo’s day off. Gretchen wasn’t feeling well, so I sent her home early.”
“We’re here alone?”
Tabby nodded, and I heard her swallow. “I should have known. Why didn’t I think to bring it with me?” Her voice rose.
“Shh. Bring what?”
“My gun. It’s up at the house. On the kitchen counter.” Fear laced the words.
My jaw slackened as the realization struck me. Good Lord. She’d been expecting something like this. It was why Delight wasn’t home. It was probably why her help wasn’t here either.
And I’d walked right into it.
“You’ve known all along who killed Joe,” I breathed. Turned to look at her.
Her face was a mask of hard determination, but her chin swung back and forth. “I only suspected. They had a history.”
Well, that was true enough. Even Schumaker had admitted that.
“We have to get my gun,” she said.
“I’d rather get a phone. Or get out of here,” I said. “Do you have the keys to your Jeep on you? Or to the delivery truck?”
Her response was an impatient shake of her head.
“Cell phone?”
“Not with me.”
Crap. “Then we’d better leave before he comes back out of the house. Run down to the county road and flag someone down.”
She looked at me and bit her lip, indecision all over her face.
“Let the authorities take care of Ray Dunner.”
Tabby still didn’t move.
“We have to get out of here.
Now
.”
“Right. Okay.” She put her hand on the door handle. “Let’s go.” Her hip brushed against one of the crates stacked against the wall. The empty milk bottles inside rattled and clanked against each other.
The crate began to tip. Tabby opened the door.
My hand flew out to steady the crate.
Not in time.
It fell to the floor with an unholy crash audible in Kansas. If Ray Dunner hadn’t known where we were before, he certainly did now.
I grabbed her hand. “Come on!”
“Tabitha …” Ray’s voice drifted in from the parking lot, and he walked around the back of the delivery van to find us half out of the doorway. We hadn’t seen him return from the house.
He smiled and held up a hand gun. “This yours, Tabby?”
Thunder rolled across the sky as we ducked back into the classroom. I slammed the door shut and threw the bolt lock.
“Now, what did you go and do that for?” His voice drew closer.
Tabby and I stared at each other like scared rabbits. I swear my nose twitched with fright.
“Enough is enough, Tabitha,” Ray yelled from the other side of the door. “You have our land. You can’t have anything else. I’m putting a stop to it.”
“I don’t want anything from your family,” Tabby called. “I never asked for anything in the first place. That was all Joe.”
Ray kicked the door, and we jumped.
“Stop antagonizing him,” I hissed.
Barr was going to kill me when he found out about this—if I weren’t dead already. The thought galvanized me. I was going to get married, damn it, and I wasn’t about to die at the hands of this violent nutcase. My gaze swept the room, weighing the options. Hoping.
There.
I hurried to the window in the back and slid it open. It was three feet wide and low to the ground. Piece of cake to climb out. The wind blasted in, scattering the photos of Joe around the room. I hiked one leg over the sill and lifted myself through.
Tabby was right behind me. The sound of the front window breaking followed us as we veered to the right and ran up toward the house. The sky loomed above, packed with volatile potential. A few fat drops of rain splatted down. We reached the front door, and I turned to see Ray lumbering up the hill.
“Do you have another gun?” I yelled to Tabby, my heart loud in my ears. Why weren’t we inside yet?
“That son of a—he locked the door!”
“Don’t you keep a spare key out here?”
She shook her head in disgust. Together, we launched off the step and sprinted around to the rear of the house. Tabby started for the back door, but I grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the barn. If he’d locked the front door, he’d probably locked the back one, too.
We zig-zagged to the far side of the milking barn and stood with our backs flat against it. The small herd of dairy cows crowded into the covered area near the doors. I didn’t know whether it was time for them to be milked, or if they didn’t like the weather. The temperature had dropped, and the wind had a bite to it. The rain came down faster. Bigger.
Harder. Rounder.
Great
.
“We have to get inside the barn,” I shouted as the hail increased in intensity. The ground around us squirmed with half-inch ice pellets.
“No. He’ll look there, and we can’t keep him out. Come on.” She took off toward the trailer that housed the mold-ripened cheeses.
I followed, the hail bouncing off my skull, striking the bare flesh of my arms and shoulders. The smooth soles of my sandals slid on the slippery ground, and I went down on the same knee I’d scraped when Billy the goat sent me flying.
Ow.
We stumbled in through the door. Tabby slammed the door closed and twisted the dead bolt home.

The sudden darkness made
me blink. Humid air brushed clammy fingers against my cheek. Hailstones pummeled the metal roof above, an inescapable, earsplitting roar of pure sound. The concentrated odor of mold lodged in my throat and sinuses. I gagged. My arms, neck, and back tingled and stung from a hundred tiny blows, and my damp clothes clung to my skin. Shivers ran from my scalp all the way to my toes, and I clamped my jaw shut so my teeth would stop chattering.
I took a step and ran into a table. Turned the other direction and earned another bruise. Something grabbed at my arm, and I shrieked, flailing. The greater cacophony buried my screams. Whatever it was, it let go.
Sinking to the floor, I sat huddled, rocking. Waiting. I couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, and could barely breathe. Tears streamed down my face from the smell.
At least I blamed the smell.
Oh, and I was probably going to die, too.
A curtain twitched at the end of the trailer. The tiniest bit of light seeped in, granting instant vision to my fully dilated eyes. Tabby stood by a small square of window. Thick black plastic covered most of it, but she’d worked the staples out of one corner.
Mold grew better in the dark and the wet. Hence the caves. Of course. We were in a simulated cave.
I shook my head and stood, trying to orient myself. Shelves stacked with rounds of cheese ran down both sides of a narrow aisle. Strips of plastic sheeting hung from the ceiling to provide crude cover. One of them must have touched my arm in the dark.
Nice, Sophie Mae. Panicked by a sneeze guard.
Like a pan of popcorn cooking on the stove, the hail slowed, gave a few more raps on the roof, and ceased. An eerie silence descended for a long moment. Then a crack of thunder split the air, and my slowing heartbeat jumped again.
My hands were shaking. But nothing had grabbed me. We were still alive. I could hear myself think. My nose was becoming inured to the odor of mold, and we had enough cheese to survive in here for months.
So why did the light from the window reveal such intense fear on Tabby’s face?
I lurched to her side, scanning the artificial twilight outside for danger. No sign of Ray Dunner.
She pointed up.
Dark gray clouds scudded overhead, but to the northeast the sky loomed an evil slate-green. A flash rent the rumpled flannel, then another. Constant, almost conversational thunder rolled all around us. Staying in a metal building during a nasty thunderstorm wouldn’t be terribly smart. At least the hail seemed to be over.
Tabby swirled her finger in the air. I frowned, and then my eyes widened in comprehension.
Uh oh.
The thunderhead spread dark fingers toward the landscape, and, while we watched, a spiral of clouds slowly tightened. A hailstorm was one thing, but a tornado? In August? That was a whole different can of worms.
“This isn’t necessary.” It was a man’s voice.
We jerked back from the window.
“You have to trust me, son. Just go on home.”
I almost wept again. We were going to be all right. “It’s Ogden Dunner,” I whispered.
Tabby put her hand on my arm and bent close to my ear. “Wait.”
Well, I hadn’t been planning to run right out and hug him.
“Give me the gun,” Ogden said. A pause, then, “Okay, good.”
A grin spread across my face, and I gave Tabby a thumbs-up. Slowly, I pulled up the corner of the window covering again. A quick peek revealed more dark, rotating clouds, but neither of the Dunners were visible. The voices had come from below us and to the right.
Leaning forward, Tabby whispered into my ear. “Ray has my thirty-eight, too. He may not have given both of them to his dad.”
Ogden’s voice again. “Now go. I’ll take care of this.”
“What are you going to do?” Ray asked. He sounded angry, but I didn’t think it was at his father. “Once Tabitha’s gone, we won’t have to worry any more. No one else knows anything.”
“We can’t count on that,” his father said.
“But you said there was nothing in Watson’s letter.” Ray’s tone had a whiny edge to it.
“His sister’s asking a lot of questions, and now the sheriff’s people are looking into everything that has to do with this property again, digging up old relationships. They’re investigating you. It’s my fault, I know. But Joe didn’t exactly give me a choice. I’m afraid I’ve backed us into a real corner, son.”
Tabby’s shaking hand still gripped my arm. I watched the sky and listened.
“We can’t keep trying to patch this mess. Trying only made it worse.” Ogden continued. “You haven’t killed anyone yet. At least not that anyone can prove. I’ve thought long and hard about what to tell the authorities about the Miller girl, and I don’t think you’ll have to serve time. Or at least not much time. After what I did, I don’t think I’ll be so lucky.”
Holy crap: Ogden Dunner had killed Joe!
I strained to hear more.
“I’m not serving any time, old man.” Ray’s voice dripped with disgust. “Not then, and not now. Gwen’s death was an accident. You were so ready to believe Joe, to believe I’d hurt her, that you gave away everything we had.”
“Ray—”
“You were a fool then and you’re a fool now if you think I’m going to jail.”
“They think you killed Joe.”
“But we know better, don’t we …” Ray’s voice faded as the pair walked away.
Tabby’s grip on my arm was starting to cut off blood flow. I pulled away. “What were you thinking, trying to blackmail the Dunners all over again?”
She shook her head. “I wasn’t. Ray thought I was, but I never wanted anything from them. The blackmail was all Joe’s doing. I didn’t even see Gwen go in the river that night; I told you that.”
“You wanted the dairy,” I said. “More than anything.”
“But by the time I married him, Joe already had this land.”
“Is that the reason you married him?”
She licked her lips and looked away. “Partly.”
“And you knew how he got the Rancho Sueńo property, didn’t you.”
“Well … yeah.”
Whatever look crossed my face made her flinch.
Outside, something hit the mold house with a loud crunching noise. The trailer rocked, and we stumbled. Rounds of cheese flew off the shelf, and I ducked as one narrowly missed my head. Tabby tore the blackout covering from the window, exposing the fully formed funnel cloud now dancing across the landscape. It was still miles away, and it was unclear which direction it was moving. In the artificial gloaming, the muscular twister conveyed power and malevolence.
I’d grown up in this area. May and June dinners were often eaten in the basement because of tornado warnings. Old hat, but that thing still scared the bejesus out of me.
Frightened me more, even, than the two men with guns searching the dairy for Tabitha Bines and yours truly.
“We have to get out of here,” I said, no longer trying to be quiet. “Where?” This wouldn’t be Tabby’s first experience with a tornado, either. She’d know the best place to hunker down.
“We always go in the basement when there’s a warning, but if the house is still locked we can’t get in.”
“Nowhere else? Storage under the barn?”
“Barn’s right on the ground. Too open. The classroom has those big windows.”
Not to mention all the glass bottles.
“What about the river cut bank?” she suggested.
A cut bank was where the river had eaten away at the soil, leaving a vertical drop to the water. “How deep?” I asked.
“Maybe three feet in places.”
I shook my head. “Might be enough, but there are all those cottonwoods, and with the lightning it’s better to avoid the water. We’ll try for the basement.”
My hand grasped the doorknob. A short nod from Tabby, and I turned it.
The wind yanked the door away and slammed it against the metal exterior of the trailer with a loud report. We dashed into the maelstrom.
Gusts tore at our hair and clothes. The yard was littered with detritus. I dodged a four-foot tumbleweed and turned to see a mountain of them towering above us, piled against the side of the barn and held there by the force of the wind. The temperature had dropped even more, and stray raindrops struck my bare arms and legs. A low roar reverberated through the gloom, punctuated by cows lowing in panic.
I shivered from cold and fear. Thought of Barr. Of my family. Of my friends. I just had to weather this storm—and avoid two killers—and everything would be all right. I’d wear that amazing dress. I’d marry the love of my life. I’d live happily ever after.
Keeping one eye on the funnel cloud and the other out for the Dunners, I started for the house.
Tabby went the opposite direction.
I sprinted back and spun her around. “What are you doing?” I yelled in her face. “Don’t be stupid.”
“I have to get the cows inside,” she yelled back. “Too much debris flying around, and they’re terrified. They’ll feel safer in the barn.”
Crap. “I’ll help you.”
But she shook her head and pushed me away. “They don’t know you, and you don’t know anything about cattle. You’ll just make things worse. Get to the house. Break a window if you have to and get inside. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” She plunged back into the wind, toward her bellowing charges.
The fact that I didn’t trust her as far as I could throw her didn’t stop me from turning back toward the house. And she was right—I didn’t have the first idea of how to get a frightened bovine to do anything.
I stopped and looked around the corner of the barn. Billy the goat led the three kids around to the southwest side of the chicken house to shelter from the wind. The hens had already gone to roost as if the day were done. I didn’t see the Dunners anywhere, so I started for the back of the Bines’ house.
The explosion of a gunshot down the hill gave my feet wings.
As I ran I glimpsed the parking lot below. A surge of hope coursed through me when I saw the new arrival: a white Suburban with a light bar and county logo on the side.
The cavalry had arrived.