Read Ten-Gallon Tensions in Texas: A Kate on Vacation Mystery (The Kate on Vacation Mysteries Book 3) Online

Authors: Kassandra Lamb

Tags: #psychological mystery, #Suspense, #female sleuths, #Mystery

Ten-Gallon Tensions in Texas: A Kate on Vacation Mystery (The Kate on Vacation Mysteries Book 3) (16 page)

BOOK: Ten-Gallon Tensions in Texas: A Kate on Vacation Mystery (The Kate on Vacation Mysteries Book 3)
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Kate took her hand and gave it a squeeze. “It was great seeing you have so much fun with them.”

Her mother-in-law squeezed back. “Come back soon.”

“We will. We’re coming for the Cowboy Festival in November.”

Billy heard her and whirled around. “We are?”

“Yes, son,” Skip said, flashing Kate a grin.

“Woot!”

Kate sighed.

Skip said, “Inside voice, Billy.”

In the basement of the church, paper plates of brownies and cookies were spread out along a table, with a punch bowl on the far end. Its bright red contents looked suspiciously sugary.

“No punch,” Kate said. “Just cookies.” She supervised the kids’ selections of their two cookies. Billy wangled for a brownie and a cookie.

“Half a brownie counts as one cookie.” Kate broke a brownie in half, putting one half on his plate and popping the other half into her mouth.

Jimmy and Suzanne joined them.

Kate shooed the children toward their grandmother, knowing she would want to show them off to any of her friends who hadn’t already seen them this week.

Jimmy stuck out his hand toward Skip. It was trembling. “I’m gonna do it,” he said in a low voice.

“Twelve step programs really help,” Kate said gently. “I’m sure there’s an AA meeting in town.”

Suzanne sniffed loudly. “I doubt anybody ’round here would admit to havin’ a drinkin’ problem.”

“Ah, but that’s the point of AA. It’s a safe place to admit that. Hey Suzanne, come over here for a minute.” She wanted to give the men a chance to talk privately, and she needed to warn her sister-in-law.

Once they were out of earshot, she said quietly, “He really needs to be in a detox center. Withdrawal from alcohol is dangerous without medical supervision.”

Suzanne’s eyes went wide but she didn’t say anything.

“People sometimes have convulsions and die.”

“They can?” Her sister-in-law’s voice shook.

“Yes. I’ll look up some places on my laptop when we get back to the house. Do you have good health insurance?”

Suzanne nodded, looking a little less scared.

“That should cover at least a week, maybe two.”

Suzanne nodded once more.

“Hey, have you seen Walt and Carolyn Beauford?” Kate changed the subject. “Their sons are here, so I’m assuming they normally attend.”

“They do, but they stayed home today. I heard they were takin’ Sammy in.”

Kate was amazed at the efficiency of small town rumor mills. “They’ve got their hands full today then.”

And probably for a long time to come.

She had the e-mail address for Carolyn’s shop. She would e-mail her when they got home. She wondered for a moment who would now be collecting Sam Beauford’s mail, and said a silent prayer that Carolyn would be able to intercept the DNA results before anyone else saw them.

As they exited the church, José Gutierrez approached them. He greeted Kate and shook Skip’s hand.

“Got a full confession outta Joellen,” José said in a low voice. “Her gun was the murder weapon. And she was the one who put the sugar in the cars’ gas tanks. She was trying to set it up to look like Jimmy killed Sam, but then he’d be exonerated when the bullet wasn’t from his gun. She borrowed her brother’s jacket, without his knowledge, and one of his old hats, as a disguise to get into the men’s room and hide in a booth to wait for Sam. She knew he’d need to do a line of cocaine eventually.”

“Why didn’t she get rid of the gun?” Skip asked.

“Said she thought about it but it was her daddy’s and she couldn’t bring herself to do it, so she hid it and lied that she hadn’t seen it in ages.”

“Was she tryin’ to frame her brother?” Skip said. “That night, she was actin’ like he was at the reunion.”

“She figured if anybody noticed her, they’d think she was Bobby Joe, like you did. But she knew he had an alibi. She ran into the men’s room, when you were trying to keep the crowd back, so there’d be a good explanation for any of her hair or fingerprints in there.”

Skip blew out air. “You gotta admit, it was a clever plan. No one would be quick to suspect a woman of a crime committed in a men’s room.”

“Oh,” José said, “she also egged Willy and Sid into attackin’ you. She knew you’d seen her there and might eventually figure things out, so she was tryin’ to get you to leave town early.”

Kate shook her head. “She killed to protect her son’s inheritance, and now he’s going to be an orphan.”

“Carolyn and Walt are takin’ him in,” José said.

Skip’s eyebrows shot up.

“I heard that,” Kate said, perversely pleased to be privy to the small-town gossip before her husband was. “He was a messed-up kid before all this happened.”

José nodded. “I hope they can straighten him out.”

~~~~~~~~

“I’ll take the kids this time,” Skip said as they boarded their flight on Monday afternoon. They found their seats and got the children settled in.

Skip lowered himself into the aisle seat and tucked his feet back under the seat, his knees sticking out in both directions. Once everyone was on board, he’d be able to shift around and stick one foot out into the aisle. But in the meantime, he felt like a cricket jammed into a matchbox.

To distract himself from the discomfort, he focused on his parting conversation with José over an early coffee at the diner that morning. He’d apologized again for letting their friendship slide and vowed to do better in the future.


No problema, amigo
,” José replied. “Can’t say as I blame you. Sam picked on all of us, but he really singled you out.”

Skip nodded. “Every day of school was torture even if I managed to avoid them, until my senior year. And even then I was lookin’ over my shoulder, waiting for the three of them to ambush me when I was alone.”

José chuckled. “Sam was smart enough to know that even three against one, it wasn’t a guaranteed win, and he’d get hurt some in the process. He didn’t like
gettin’
hurt, just givin’ it out.” He paused, fiddled with his coffee cup. “Uh, I told Willy and Sid that you
might
go along with a lesser charge, if they confessed and promised to leave town.”

“What lesser charge?”

“Straight assault. No battery, no deadly weapon. They’d get a few months in my jail and then I escort their sorry butts outta town. And if they ever come back, I arrest them and throw the book at them.”

Skip wasn’t so sure how legal that latter scenario might be, but he doubted Willy and Sid would put it to the test. He felt his body relax against the back of the booth’s bench at the thought that all of his former tormentors would be gone from his hometown forever.

“I’ll drink to that.” He raised his coffee cup, then clinked José’s cup with it.

A grin had flashed white against his friend’s tan face.

Kate dragged him out of his reverie by reaching across the aisle and taking his hand. He glanced over at her. She tilted her head and looked past him at the kids.

He turned to Billy on his left. Both he and his sister were slumped over in their seats. Exhaustion from an active week had combined with the white noise of the jet’s engines to lull them into a sound sleep.

Kate squeezed his hand. He turned back to her.

“I’m sorry I pushed you to make this trip,” she said.

“I’m not. More good than not came out of it, for me at least.”

“You exorcized some demons?”

“Yup, both figuratively and literally.” He told her about the plea bargain.

She leaned over, gesturing for him to do the same. When their heads were almost touching in the middle of the aisle, she whispered, “I love you, Mr. Canfield.”

He lifted her hand and kissed her fingertips.

She sucked in her breath, then glanced at the passengers around them. Most were ignoring them. “Behave, cowboy,” she whispered.

He let a slow grin spread across his face. “Only ’til tonight, darlin’. Only ’til tonight.”

~~~~~~<>~~~~~~

AUTHOR’S NOTES

If you enjoyed this book
, please take a moment to leave a short review on Amazon and/or other retailers. Reviews help to sell books and sales help keep the series going! You can readily find the links to these retailers at the
misterio press
bookstore
.

Sign up for my newsletter at
http://kassandralamb.com
, then e-mail me to let me know you’ve done so, and I’ll send you a
free e-copy
of the first Kate on Vacation novella,
An Unsaintly Season in St. Augustine
. My e-mail is
[email protected]
. Heck, go ahead and e-mail me just to say hi; I love hearing from readers!

This manuscript was proofread many times by many sets of eyes, but proofreaders are human. If you found errors in this book, please e-mail me and let me know. Thanks!

 

My daughter-in-law said to me one day, “I’ve always been fascinated by stories about high school reunions. I know it’s weird but I just am. Why don’t you write a story about a high school reunion.”

I agreed that it was a weird thing, and then I thought about it. A high school reunion would work with my Kate Huntington characters, or more precisely, with her husband Skip, who had a rough time with bullies in high school. And thus this story was born.

So, thank you, Gina, for the idea, and for your meticulous critiquing. Also I owe much gratitude to Melinda VanLone and Rhonda Hopkins, two native Texans, who read this manuscript and consulted on all things Texan. Any errors in verisimilitude are strictly mine. And a big thank you to my brother for his helpful comments about guns, guys and cars. He actually did the research about what damage sugar does to engines, and we were both surprised to discover it is a myth that it does great harm. And I must not forget to thank my fellow
misterio press
authors, Shannon Esposito and Vinnie Hansen, and my husband for their feedback and proofreading.

 

Bullies, unfortunately, are a fact of life in the human species. As long as there are dysfunctional families that produce insecure children, there will be some who cope with that insecurity by bullying others.

Fortunately, in this country, most school systems are now actively striving to combat bullying. This is a very good thing indeed!

On a lighter note, the next Kate on Vacation mystery will be set in Hawaii. My husband and I are traveling there in a few months for a “research” trip. It’s a tough job, but somebody’s gotta do it! So stay tuned for some fun and sun (and murder and mayhem) in the Aloha State.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kassandra Lamb has never been able to decide which she loves more, psychology or writing. In college, she realized that writers need a day job in order to eat, so she studied psychology. After a career as a psychotherapist and college professor, she is now retired and can pursue her passion for writing.

She spends most of her time in an alternate universe with her characters. The portal to this universe, aka her computer, is located in Florida, where her husband and dog catch occasional glimpses of her. She and her husband spend part of each summer in her native Maryland, where the Kate Huntington series is based.

Kass has completed seven books in the series, plus three Kate on Vacation novellas (somewhat lighter reads along the lines of cozy mysteries). She is currently working on Book 8 of the main series,
Suicidal Suspicions
.

To read and see more about Kate Huntington you can go to
http://kassandralamb.com
. Be sure to sign up for the newsletter there to get a heads up about new releases, plus special offers and bonuses for subscribers.

Kass’s e-mail is
[email protected]
and she loves hearing from readers! She’s also on
Facebook
and
Goodreads
and hangs out some on Twitter @KassandraLamb. She’s starting to stick her toe into the
Pinterest
pond, and she blogs about psychological topics and other random things at
http://misteriopress.com
.

~~~

Please check out these other great
misterio press
series:

Karma’s A Bitch: The Pet Psychic series
by Shannon Esposito

Multiple Motives: The Kate Huntington series
by Kassandra Lamb

Maui Widow Waltz: The Islands of Aloha series
by JoAnn Bassett

The Metaphysical Detective: The Riga Hayworth series
by Kirsten Weiss

Dangerous and Unseemly: The Concordia Wells series
by K.B. Owen

Murder, Honey: The Carol Sabala series
by Vinnie Hansen

Plus even more great mysteries/thrillers in the
misterio press
bookstore
.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table of Contents

Books by Kassandra Lamb

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

AUTHOR’S NOTES

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

BOOK: Ten-Gallon Tensions in Texas: A Kate on Vacation Mystery (The Kate on Vacation Mysteries Book 3)
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