Dark Paradise (69 page)

There was the rattlesnake.

Of course, she knew the snake wasn't a real threat. It was in a cage.

Obviously, it was too large to crawl through the double layers of

chicken wire, or it would have done so. It couldn't actually bite her.

Unless the force of its striking body ripped the flimsy wire, in which

case it would probably land on her shoulder and bite her in the neck.

She swallowed hard and grimaced at the taste and grit of dust.

"Del Rafferty goes through that door every day and doesn't worry about

getting bit," she mumbled. "Of course, Del Rafferty is insane."

Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. A roan gelding stuck his

muzzle in the water trough and splashed himself and Clyde on the other

side of the fence. Clyde cracked an eye open and gave the horse a dirty

look.

Marilee checked her watch again and tried to sigh, but her throat closed

up and stuck to itself like a wad of plastic wrap.

Mustering her nerve, she set off across the yard toward the cabin at a

brisk, no-nonsense pace. The rattlesnake lay in its cage like a coiled

length of hose. Its head came up when she was twenty feet away. Its

tongue flicked the air experimentally. Fifteen feet away and its early

warning system came on, the sound of the rattle skating over her skin

like skeletal fingers. Ten feet away from the cage, she dropped down on

her hands and knees, praying she was out of sight of the watching snake

and praying the door wouldn't be locked.

She scrambled across the packed dirt, her heart sounding like the

snake's rattle. Then her hand was turning the
 
knob.

The shot came as she pushed the door in, and she lunged instinctively

for the shelter of the cabin just as the bullet struck the snake box and

smashed into the side of the building. Its latch sheered off, the door

of the snake box and flopped down and the rattler dropped to the ground

six inches behind Marilee's right foot.

Marilee screamed and hurled herself forward into the main room of the

cabin, scuttling to get her feet under her. The snake collected itself

and followed her in, winding its way across the floor. Marilee stared at

it, her eyes burning from not blinking. Sweat beaded on her forehead,

ran into her eyebrows, and dripped down. She could stay in a crackerbox

cabin with a venomous snake or run outside and be shot by a madman.

Wonderful options.

"You couldn't just become a tax attorney, could you, Marilee?" she

muttered, backing toward the kitchen as the snake slithered its way

across the pine floor, displaying a body that had to be in excess of

four feet in length and as thick around as her forearm. "You've never

seen any tax attorneys scrambling to get away from rattlesnakes, have

you?

"Stupid question, Marilee. All the attorneys you know are snakes."

She saw too late that she had backed herself into a corner. There was no

escape from the small galley area without going over the snake that was

snuggling up to a pair of cowboy boots on a mat beside the stove.

Marilee pulled out a kitchen chair and stood on the seat, trying to

recall if any of her Montana studies had mentioned rattler's abilities

to scale chrome chair legs. Her legs were shaking visibly. As she stared

down at the snake, she could see her heart fluttering beneath her

lavender T-shirt. Her tongue felt like a dead gerbil in her mouth.

This wasn't going at all the way she had envisioned.

She had expected to approach Del Rafferty cautiously, beaming good

intentions and trustworthiness. She would open with an overture of

friendship and segway into an apology for intruding on his privacy. He

would sense her innate goodness and tell her everything.

But the man who stepped into the doorway of the bin didn't look ready to

confide in anyone. He held an ugly black rifle at the ready and wore a

black baseball cap backward on his head, presumably so the bill wouldn't

interfere with the scope when he was taking aim. His eyes were slits

beneath his heavy brow. His mouth pulled down at the corner, evilly down

on the side with the scar. Saliva leaked across his lower lip and ran in

a thin trail to the knot of flesh and down his jaw.

Marilee tried to put together a coherent sentence as she raised her

hands in surrender. They were shaking like a palsy victim's. "P-please

don't shoot."

"I don't want you here," Del growled. He squared his shoulders to her

and brought the rifle up. "You maybe fooled J.D. You don't fool me.

You're one of them blondes."

What was she supposed to say to that?
 
She couldn't deny being blonde.

"Y-yes, but I'm the good blonde," she improvised. "Remember?
 
I'm not

Lucy. I'm not the dead blonde."

He squinted at her until his eyes looked like pencil lines across his

face. "I know that," he grumbled defensively. "I don't want you in my

place. Nobody walks into my place."

"I'm sorry. My mother tried to raise me right, but I missed out on the

gene for etiquette. It probably skipped a generation with me. My

children will undoubtedly have impeccable manners - provided I live to

bear them," she added under her breath.

On the mat beside the stove, the rattlesnake had coiled itself and

reared up, drawing a head on Del. Its tail buzzed ominously. Its mouth

flashed pink as it hissed at him. Del flicked a glance at it, backed

across the small room to the hearth, and came back with the rifle

cradled in his right arm and a fire tongs in his left hand. He moved

close enough to entice the snake to strike, then stepped gingerly on its

head and took hold of it by the neck with the tongs. All this as if it

were the most ordinary of household chores.

Marilee shuddered as he lifted the writhing creature off the floor and

carried it to the door, where he dropped it into the woodbox outside and

flipped the lid down with the nose of the rifle barrel. She climbed down

off the chair, but kept her arms up.

Del swung the rifle toward her as he stepped back inside. "What do you

want?
 
What did you come here for?"

To taunt him, he thought. To seduce him, maybe, the way she had seduced

J.D. Then he would be under the spell too, and the ranch would be lost.

He would have to stay alert if he was to redeem himself. His fingers

flexed on the stock of the rifle.

Marilee's gaze darted from the business end of the rifle to his face.

The suspicion in his eyes boded ill. He wouldn't talk if he didn't trust

her. Trust did not appear imminent.

"I need to talk with you, Del," she said as calmly as she could. "I need

to talk to you about the tigers."

He jolted as if he had been hit with a cattle prod. The tigers. She knew

about the tigers. "Is this a trick?"

"No."

"Do you dance with the dog-boys?"

"No," she whispered, tears crowding her throat. "Did Lucy?
 
The dead

blonde-did she?"

Del didn't answer. His brain was cooking beneath the metal plate,

bubbling and throbbing. Throbbing so hard he thought it might pop his

eyeballs right out of his head.

He stared at the little blonde. Her eyes were deep-set and clear as

colored glass. She looked right at him. Most people didn't. Most people

looked at the deformed part of his face or looked past him as if he

didn't have a head at all.

"It's important, Del," she said softly. "I know you saw the tigers. I

know they're real."

Del just stared at her.

It's a trick. She'll put you under the spell too.

He didn't know what to do. He backed away a step, then turned to pace

the width of the cabin, the 700 pointed at the floor. He paced hard,

making military turns, as if the precise, purposeful motion would

somehow direct his thoughts into some kind of order. He couldn't trust

her. She was an outsider. She was a blonde, had come into his home

uninvited. Come to take what was left of his mind, no doubt. She would

lure him with talk of the tigers and pull him over the edge.

He couldn't allow that. He had to stop the blondes and make the dog-boys

go away. There couldn't be tigers on the mountain. It was up to him. He

could be a hero.

He mumbled some of this out loud, not aware that he was speaking, never

thinking that the woman could hear him.

"I saw the tiger too," she said. "I know they shot it. Bryce's people. I

think one of them might have shot Lucy too.

His eyes cut hard to her. He did not slow his pacing.

"She's the dead one. You're not the dead one; you're the talker. Stop

talking."

"But, Del, we need to talk. You need to tell me-"

"Stop talking!" he roared. He wheeled on her, bringing the rifle up, and

charged her, screaming at the top of his lungs. "Stop talking! Stop!
 
I

told you to stop!"

Marilee stumbled backward and crashed into the counter.

The back of her head smacked against a shelf, and three cans of Dr.

Pepper tumbled off, bouncing onto the floor.

There was nowhere to go. She was leaning back as far as she could, the

thin edge of the countertop biting into her back. The muzzle of Del

Rafferty's ugly black rifle bit into her right cheek in the hollow just

below the bone. At the other end of the gun, Del was trembling as if he

were standing on the epicenter of an earthquake. His eyes were wild,

the irises swirling like liquid pewter, the pupils expanding outward

like ink dropped into the mix. The muscles of his face pulled taut

against the bone. His mouth tore open as if the mutilated side had been

caught with an invisible fishhook.

The face of death. Somehow she had expected death to be calm and sane,

as if there were some logic to the scheme. She wondered if she would

feel the bullet. She wondered if she would see that same revelation that

had stricken MacDonald Townsend in the instant of his death. She didn't

want to find out. The will to live pumped inside her. Her mind spun like

the wheels of a Swiss watch, scanning for a plan, a way out.

Jesus, Marilee, if you survive this, J.D. will kill you.

"Don't do it, Del," she said softly. The charged air seemed to magnify

the sound a hundred times. He made an animal-like growl in his throat

and the muscles of his forearm contracted as he prepared to pull the

trigger.

Marilee fought the urge to close her eyes. Her lips barely moved. The

words were a breath between them. "A hero wouldn't."

Hero. The word pierced his pounding brain like a lance. He could be a

hero. Make the family proud. Redeem himself. If he pulled the trigger?

If he didn't?
 
The questions wrestled inside him, slamming against his

ribs, jostling his aching mind. His hands were shaking on the gun, the

palms sweating. He could end it and kill her. But that wouldn't be it.

The dead didn't go away. He knew. She would haunt him, and he would have

to pretend she didn't, or J.D. would be ashamed of him.

Marilee watched the battle wage within him, watched his brow tighten and

furrow, watched the moisture come up in his eyes and his mouth quiver.

It broke her heart. Even with his gun in her face, it broke her heart.

His mind was fractured. He wanted so badly to do the right thing, but he

didn't seem to know what the right thing was.

"You can be a hero, Del," she murmured, fighting her own tears. "Help

me, Del. J.D. will be so proud of you."

She was offering everything he wanted. Small things to most men, but

small things were all he dared ask for. To do the right thing. To make

J.D. proud. He didn't ask to be made whole. He didn't ask for the kind

of life other men had. Just to be a help and not a burden. To be a hero

to his family, not the world. It didn't seem too much to ask, but all

the prayers had gone unanswered.