Missing in the Desert Read online

  “Were both of you here for the last thirty minutes or so?” Jude asked.

  “Yes,” Teegan said, affronted. “Except when we carried boxes to my car. Why? What are we supposed to have done now?”

  “Levi’s vehicle was broken into,” Jude said. “The painting Mara bought from Amelia was stolen.”

  Amelia blinked. “It was? Who would want it?”

  Levi could not decipher any emotion from Teegan. Was he surprised to hear of the break-in? He didn’t look it. Maybe he knew already because he’d done it or asked someone else to.

  “Did you see anyone loitering around Levi’s truck when you were outside?” Jude asked.

  “It’s not my job to do parking-lot security. That’s yours, isn’t it?”

  No one other than a close friend or cousin likely could have detected the slight tightening of Jude’s jaw. His tone remained calm and pleasant. “I didn’t catch your answer. You did or did not see anyone loitering around Levi’s truck?”

  “I did not,” Teegan snapped.

  Gene came over, cheeks flushed. He held a crate filled with rolls of blank price stickers. “What’s going on? What’s happened?”

  “Nothing, Dad,” Teegan snapped again. “Everything is fine. Just cleaning up.”

  Gene set aside his box to hoist Peter who had crawled out from under the table. Amelia shifted anxiously.

  “Hey, buddy,” he said, tugging on Peter’s baseball cap. “How about Grandpa Gene takes you over to the ice-cream parlor for a scoop?”

  Peter held his grandpa tight around the neck and did not look at the adults who were gathered around him.

  He stuck his last two fingers in his mouth.

  Amelia sighed. “No sucking your fingers, big boy, remember?”

  Peter slid them out of his mouth. Teegan said “Dad, go ahead and take Peter now. I’ll meet you later at the ice-cream shop.”

  Gene’s eyes were troubled, but he nodded and carried Peter out.

  “Are we done here, then, Sheriff?” Teegan asked. “I don’t know what happened to this mysterious painting. I never even saw it, so I don’t know what you all are talking about. In any case, it’s gone, apparently stolen. If you want to buy something else, Mara, come on back tomorrow. Otherwise, we have work to do.”

  “Thank you for your time,” Jude said.

  They rejoined Austin and Willow.

  “I’m guessing you didn’t learn anything?” Willow asked.

  Levi nodded. “And without the painting we are sort of stalled again.”

  “I should have taken a picture of it with my cell phone,” Mara said with a groan.

  A broad smile dawned across Willow’s face. “Hold on a minute.” Quickly she opened her bag and clicked through the digital photos in her camera. “Here. I guess it pays off to be nosy.”

  Levi enjoyed his twin’s discomfiture. “You were spying on Mara, weren’t you?”

  A faint blush tinted her cheeks. “Well, um, yeah, I guess I was. When I saw how interested you both were over at Amelia’s table, I just had to find out what you were looking at. I used my telephoto and zoomed in.” She offered a wry grin to Mara. “Sorry. My brothers both say I have a curiosity that won’t quit.”

  “Yes,” Austin said, “and you exercise it regularly and without restraint. How does Tony stand it?”

  “For your information, Tony admires my inquisitive nature, even if he does say I ask more questions than his kids.” She cocked her chin. “And in this case, my nosiness might actually be helpful.” She held the camera up so they could see the tiny viewfinder. “Look at this shot. You can see Mara holding up the painting in her hand. I can zoom in. The quality won’t be awesome, but you can see a little of it. Just a blur of mountain and a smear of white cloud.” Her tone sobered. “I guess it isn’t really all that helpful, is it?”

  Mara grabbed her around the shoulders and hugged her. “It is to me. I was beginning to think I was imagining things. That cloud, blurry as it is, still looks like a teapot. The theft makes me think something is going on, even if it isn’t going to lead me to my sister alive and well.”

  “There is definitely a connection here,” said Jude.

  “Beckett told me Herm said that Teegan and his dad went into seclusion after his mom died. He actually did some of his high school classwork via a home-study program. Sort of reemerged six months after her death and met Amelia because her dad was a driver for Gene’s trucking company.”

  “All that jibes with what Gene told us earlier today,” Levi said. He tossed the wad of bloody tissues into the wastebasket.

  “Oh, Levi. You’re going to have such a shiner tomorrow,” Willow said.

  Levi shrugged. “How is any of this connected? The shooting, the tampering with the saddle, the mess at Jerry’s place. I don’t get what it has to do with Corinne.”

  “That’s what’s been sticking in my craw,” Jude said. “I have been studying Corrine’s case file in depth. There’s nothing that awakens any question except for one thing—why was nothing else found of her belongings? Why not a purse? Her phone? A jacket? Why just the shoe?”

  Mara bit her lip, and Levi touched her forearm.

  Jude noticed the gesture. “Mara, I feel obligated to say that there is very little to support the notion that your sister is alive. False hope is the worst kind of torture. Like you said, almost five years have passed. The statistics of—”

  She stopped him. “You don’t need to tell me. I know she’s likely dead. If you can find out what actually happened, there will be some peace in that.” She looked at the group surrounding her. “Thank you, all of you, for taking me seriously. I wasn’t very gracious about the ranch or coming back here, and you all have been better to me than I deserve.”

  Levi felt a surge of guilt. Had he taken her seriously enough? He certainly had not jumped on her idea that Corinne had painted the landscape.

  There were too many balls spinning in the air for his one-track mind to manage.

  His failing ranch.

  Seth’s fight to come back to health.

  Her parents’ massive load of worry.

  The unaccountable way Mara was becoming twined in his every thought and emotion.

  That last realization startled him so much that he tensed, and his hand fell away from her shoulder, leaving a strange sense of loss, as if his body too was beginning to crave her proximity.

  What could he do? What should he do? Thoughts thudded in helpless confusion around his brain...except for one.

  He had to keep Mara close and safe until Jude could work out what was going on. The emotional chaos should and would be stowed away for later like precisely stacked bales of hay.

  With new resolution, he cleared his throat. “Willow, can you drive Mara back to the ranch since my passenger seat is filled with glass? I’ll drop my truck at the shop and get a ride back.”

  “You can borrow my truck while yours is being fixed,” Austin offered. “Any excuse for me to ride my motorcycle.”

  “Sounds good,” Willow said, though her frown led Levi to believe she did not think Austin should be riding his motorcycle with his shoulder not fully healed. Like him, she would not hurt his pride by questioning. Willow paused. “Umm, maybe this isn’t the time, but are we still going to tackle the Johnson tour tomorrow?”

  “No,” he said at the exact moment Mara said “Yes.”

  “We’ll cancel.” Levi said over her exclamation.

  “Oh, no, we won’t,” she countered.

  He went for a logical, even-tempered response. “Things have changed.”

  Mara flicked her wave of dark hair aside. “Some things haven’t. The horses need to be fed, and my brother is going to want to know we did our best. We’re doing the tour. We took a deposit, and we have to deliver.” She swept off, following a grinning Willow.

 
Austin looked as though he was smothering a grin as well. “My brother, I think you are about to lose an argument.”

  “No, I’m not.” Anyone would agree that he was right. It was smart; it was common sense.

  “Right. Anyway, my schedule is clear for tomorrow so I can go along on the tour as your wingman.”

  “I said—”

  “I know what you said.” He winked at Levi. “See you tomorrow, Levi.”

  Levi climbed into his bashed truck and jammed the engine to life. If she wouldn’t listen, then he’d have to tell her he’d decided to sell the Rocking Horse. It was the right thing to do, and no amount of impassioned resistance was going to change his mind. The Dukes did right by people they loved, even when it hurt.

  Seth would understand, he had no doubt.

  He did not feel quite so confident about Seth’s sister.

  THIRTEEN

  Mara’s skull was thumping with a tension headache, but she was too keyed up to sit still at the Rocking Horse. Willow kept her company until Levi returned in Austin’s borrowed truck. Willow surprised her with a hug when she left.

  “I’m sorry that your picture was stolen.”

  “At least you got a photo of it. Thank you.”

  “Good that my nosiness pays off sometimes,” she said.

  Levi had immediately started in on chores, so Mara decided to make dinner for the two of them. She watched him out the kitchen window as he passed through the fenced corral. Even from afar, she could tell he was unusually somber, filling the horses’ troughs with fresh water before stalking around the barn.

  She figured he was stewing about her insistence that they carry out the tour. She’d somehow have to explain it to him. To her, it was more than just a tour. The ranch was the only part of her life she seemed able to take hold of. The needs of the place continued on, no matter how her personal life was falling to pieces. There was no danger, really, she felt, as long as she stayed with others and didn’t go prowling around on her own asking questions. The burglary of his truck didn’t change that. Besides, there was something she desperately had to check out, something she’d seen on the Warrington property that stuck in her mind.

  What had changed, she admitted to herself, was the increasing sense that she did not know the whole story behind her sister’s death. She’d promised Levi to let go of the guilt over the argument with her sister, and for the most part she’d succeeded, but her spirit was still not at rest. Her growing sadness and unease was pressing with ever-more urgency on her consciousness. The painting, she felt deep in her bones, must have been done by her sister recently, which proved to Mara that she must have come to Teegan’s before she drove into Death Valley. Had Teegan killed her, made it look like a suicide?

  Pain cut at her. She had an image again of Corinne, her stubborn, bucktoothed little sister. They’d bickered, fought and loved each other deeply. She’d been just beginning to grow into the beauty she would have become when she’d disappeared, her overbite corrected, hair cut into an attractive bob, legs long and athletic.

  Mara pulled out a fry pan and set it on the stove to heat. Maybe Teegan was a good father and a good man, like Gene insisted, but if he’d killed Corinne, all of that was null and void, as far as she was concerned. Corinne had been guilty of nothing more than a teen crush on a boy who didn’t want her. What happened to you, Corinne? And who is trying to leave clues for me?

  Her own helplessness buzzed in her nerves. She was not a sleuth or investigator. Would the police put a teen’s cold case back on their radar? She trusted Jude enough to believe he would. It was all she could hang on to. It was purely a police matter, except for the one thing she needed to see for herself on Gene’s property.

  Inserting slices of cheddar between pieces of buttered bread, she set the sandwiches to toast in the hot pan and gathered greens for Rabbit. Banjo and Tiny were occupied chasing each other around the yard, so they would be fed later. Rabbit snuck up to grab the greens while Mara stood there. He was growing used to her presence. Banjo barked from the grass. In spite of her heavy spirit, it made her laugh to see the lug of a dog drop down on his front paws, backside in the air, barking at the tiny cat with the itty-bitty, raised paw.

  Willow’s earlier comment rose in her memory. Levi has one of those exceptional-type hearts... She agreed. Right now, though, she had to deal with his stubborn proclamation that they’d have to cancel the Johnson tour.

  When Levi finally joined her in the main house, he washed his hands and sat heavily in the chair, calloused fingers drumming on the table. The bruise on his face was darkening to a livid purple, and his eye was puffy.

  Mara decided to dispense with any small talk. “You look ready for battle,” she said.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Are we gonna have one? I’d rather not if we can avoid it.”

  “I’d like to avoid one, too, but I am going to help you with that tour tomorrow. Willow said she’ll go...” She heard his teeth grind together.

  “It’s not a matter of how many people are there. Someone’s pot has been stirred by things we’ve done that we don’t even understand. There’s no way to be protected against a situation like that. Someone is watching, don’t you get that?”

  “I do,” she said calmly. “And I will be careful, but we need the money, and you need the help.”

  He jammed a finger on the table for emphasis. “Mara, Seth wouldn’t want you to do this, to risk yourself, and you know it.”

  She raised her chin. “Don’t you bring my brother into this.”

  “He’s already in this.” Exasperation radiated off him. “When I took you out on that date our senior year, do you know what Seth said to me?”

  This wasn’t at all what she’d expected to hear. She waited.

  “Seth said, ‘You are the only one on this planet I would trust with my sister.’”

  Moisture built in her eyes, and she blinked hard. “I didn’t know that.”

  “I would never be able to look him in the face if I let something bad happen to you.”

  “He’s my brother, Levi,” she reminded him. “I know him better than you and he wouldn’t want me to sit in a cabin and be afraid of my own shadow and let you struggle to keep this place afloat. Nothing dangerous happened today except your window got broken.”

  “Things are escalating.” He drew out the last word in a way that irritated her.

  His eyes flashed. It was so unlike him to be angry that she had to check herself from staring. He was not the kind of man to order people around, either. His ways were quiet, patient, but right now she hardly recognized him. “I’m coming with you.”

  “No, you’re not,” he said, enunciating each word.

  Her irritation flicked up a notch. “Sorry, but no one put you in charge of me, Levi. I’m here of my own volition, and I make my own decisions.”

  He was silent for several seconds. “I’m selling it.”

  The words startled her retort clean out of her head. “Selling what?”

  He blew out a breath. “I’m selling the Rocking Horse as soon as Camp Town Days are over. Seth’s going to get his money back or at least a chunk of it.”

  The shock left her immobile. “You can’t do that,” she finally said. “This ranch is everything to you.”

  “No,” he said slowly, pain showing on his bruised face. Weariness bracketed his mouth in lines. “You and Seth are everything to me. I can’t let you scrimp and suffer financially through Seth’s recovery because he bankrolled this place on a whim. I can’t and I won’t.”

  She could only gape. He was serious. “But...what would you do without the Rocking Horse? Where would you go?”

  “I dunno. I’ll figure it out. I’ve been putting out feelers to see who might be interested in taking in the horses. I’d like them to stay together, but that’s not going to happen. The older ones will be harder to place. Han
k might take Cookie back.” His eyes darkened as he stared out the window.

  So he’d worked out the whole thing, had he? Without a word to her? Without considering how Seth would feel about it? A trickle of desperate anger ignited in Mara’s stomach. From there it started a fire in her heart that flamed out of her mouth before she could stop it. “You are not going to sell this ranch, Levi Duke.”

  He stared at the tabletop. “Yes, I am,” he said, expression flat. “I didn’t want to tell you, but there’s no point in risking yourself for it now that you know my decision.”

  “Your decision.” She glared at him. “Is my brother’s name on the deed?”

  He finally looked straight at her. “What?”

  “Seth is a co-owner of this property, and you need his permission to sell it, even if the paperwork isn’t finalized.”

  He looked at her as if she’d grown a head. “I am making the decision since he’s unable to, as you well know.”

  It took every ounce of effort for her to keep her voice level. “I have power of attorney for Seth until he recovers.”

  “You’re sure of that?”

  “Pretty sure.” She did remember something of the sort in the trust he’d arranged several years before which would probably render her current pronouncement factual.

  “What’s the point of this standoff? We’re not going to save this ranch.”

  “Like I said, you don’t get to decide that for my brother.”

  “Mara—” he started, then coughed.

  A cloud of acrid smoke made her eyes tear.

  “Your sandwiches are on fire,” Levi said.

  She whirled around. Smoke was pouring from the pan and a bit of cheese had ignited. In a flash she turned off the heat, whacking a lid on the fry pan until the flames were out. Then she dumped his blackened cheese sandwich onto one plate and hers onto another. Plunking it down on the table in front of him, she announced “You’re not selling this ranch unless I agree.” He opened his mouth to retort, but she gathered her own plate and swooped toward the door so quickly her sandwich almost ended up on the floor.