Triple Exposure (18 page)

“So do better.”

“Shouldn’t be hard. How ’bout…” She glanced back toward the ghostly letters on the side of the building. “How about Candle—short for Candelilla. That’s a plant, too. And it sounds a whole lot prettier than Yucca. You like that better, don’t you, Candle.”

“If you say so.” Zeke doubted horses cared what anybody called them. But if it pleased Rachel to name the mare, he didn’t see the harm. “Candle it is, then. But if I ever get myself a dog, I’ve got dibs on Bastard Toadflax.”

“I can think of only one dog deserving of the honor,” she said as the newly christened Candle followed Cholla and the pack mule. “My grandma’s Boston terrier’s mad at me for spoiling his reign of terror.
And
having him neutered.”

“Hell, woman. Remind me never to cross you.”

A wry smile tilted across her pretty face. “That’s a very good idea.”

The crunch of shod hooves on the hard ground, the creak of leather, and the snorts of the animals curtailed their conversation. Cholla was more full of himself than usual, dancing and bucking as his passage startled a bright blue Mexican jay from a clump of smaller piñons.

“Looks like he wants a gallop,” Rachel suggested.

“Probably needs one after being stuck in the corral,” Zeke admitted as he settled the buckskin, “but I’m not risking Gus’s stitches—or your seat—by letting him have his head.”

As herding animals, both horse and mule would try to follow Cholla’s lead.

“Your confidence in my riding ability is a real inspiration,” Rachel said.

“Aren’t you still getting over having your brain rattled last week?” he asked, causing her to grimace in reply.

As the pinto walked, Rachel shifted uncomfortably and said, “Bony as this horse’s back is, I have a feeling it’s not going to be my head that’s sore once this is over.”

Zeke wished he could allow Cholla a good workout. Anything to distract him from thinking of the body parts her innocent words had painted in his guilty mind.

After all this time, it was almost impossible to remain so close yet still stay quiet. Hands trembled, and the field glasses they
were holding shook, too, as did the murderer brought into focus.

A murderer who smiled, even laughed. A killer out for a pleasant ride with an attractive companion. In the distance, mountains formed a scenic backdrop, while the first hints of a fiery sunset stained thin, stippled clouds. The vegetation, too, added to the beauty, the shrubs and pale, yellow grasses clothing the dry land in deceptive softness.

The image jerked as the watcher’s hands spasmed at the injustice, the
fucking wrongness
of the scene. Where were the lost boy’s smiles and laughter? Where were
his
twilight rides, his dates, and his enjoyment of a crisp, late winter evening? She imagined herself taking snapshots, putting them into an album.

His murderer had robbed her of that, of that and all the countless happy memories they would have made together. Had robbed her of her family, too, as she had dashed it all to pieces against the rocks of grief.

But to night, this very night, she was going to balance the scales of those injustices in a way the legal system had been too corrupt or cowardly to do. And her way would be more satisfying, she suspected, already relishing the soothing balm of blood upon her hands.

As the sun consorted with the Chinati Mountains, jackrabbits nibbled at tender new shoots, early harbingers of spring.

“Better eat quick, before those big-ass owls come calling,” Rachel encouraged, thinking of the shredded-fur and picked-bone remnants left by the pair residing at The Roost. Pellets, too, when their prey were smaller creatures, whose indigestible remains were neatly packaged and coughed up.

Zeke turned to look at Rachel, amusement flickering in his pale green eyes.

“Do you always talk to the animals?” he asked.

When he looked at her like that, his smile lazy and his posture relaxed aboard the huge horse, Rachel wanted to pull out her camera and take a photo of him burnished by the amber light. She knew better than to try it, knew his ease would tighten into anger if he even guessed what she was thinking. But that didn’t stop her from aching with the beauty of the moment.

“You have to admit,” she answered, “the jackrabbits are only slightly less likely to answer me than you are.”

“Hell, I run on at the mouth like a babbling idiot around you.”

“You need to get out more if you call what you manage
babbling
, or even halfway sociable.”

“Why muck up a good ride with a lot of chatter?”

The rough path they were following opened out into flat, grassy rangeland dotted with only a few small junipers and jutting clusters of spine-tipped agave, many of which
sported dried stalks that rose like ships’ masts from their centers. Rachel touched her heels to the mare’s sides, prompting Candle to trot around Gus and come abreast of Cholla.

Rachel’s heartbeat quickened as she told Zeke, “I’ll tell you why. Because it’s how two people get to know each other.”

Instead of looking at her, Zeke’s gaze tracked what appeared to be a line of mule deer trotting over a low ridge to avoid them. “Can’t see why we’d need to do that, Rachel. Since things aren’t going any further.”

“Is there a woman somewhere?” she asked so quietly, the words were nearly trampled beneath the shuffling hooves. “Some woman with a claim on you?”

Zeke snorted. “Have to be a mighty patient woman, being as how I’ve lived alone in Marfa for the past fourteen years.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Why?” He looked at her sharply. “Why does it matter?”

“Gee, I can’t imagine.” The words came out sarcastic, even angry, but she couldn’t seem to stop them. “Could it be because you had your damned tongue halfway down my throat and I liked the way you touched my breast? Because I’d like to feel—I’d like to feel more,
need
to feel more than the freaking stress and grief and worry I’ve dealt with this past year.” She wanted to prove, too, that she
could
feel, that she was ignoring Dr. Thomas’s and her new attorney’s repeated messages only because she’d moved on with her life.

“But as much as I want that, Zeke,” she continued, “want
you
, I won’t have it if you’re married, or if you ran out on a kid or three to stay ahead of child support. I’m not living with that sin, too.”

He tugged the reins to stop dead and fix her with a flinty stare. “Is that who you think I am? Some irresponsible bastard who would leave my own—”

“I don’t think it. But I’ve been wrong before, so badly wrong you can’t imagine. I thought Kyle was harmless—maybe a little vain, a little too smooth for a kid his age. But
it never occurred to me that he was interested in anything but taking pictures, maybe even making art. And instead he…” Her eyes snapped shut, screwing tight against the memory of the first set of pornographic images she’d been forced to look at—the images he’d sent to
everyone
he knew after his attempts to manipulate her failed.

“I’ve never married, never had kids.” His voice was tight, controlled, belying the tension that seemed to dance beneath his skin. “But don’t assume your situation gives you a free pass on the questions. Patsy’s right. This can’t work between us, and I’ve been a damned fool to imagine I could—”

She held up one palm. “Even a damned fool needs a friend from time to time. And if that’s all you want, I’ll accept—”

“It’s sure as hell not
all
I want,” he snarled, the rough edge of his voice enough to make Cholla dance sideways. “I want—I want what I have no right wanting. And what you’d have to be a fool to settle for.”

Candle was a responsive mount, turning on a dime at Rachel’s bidding. Turning back toward Zeke’s place.

“Then I won’t waste any more of your time.” She must be insane, thinking there was something more between them than a foolish physical attraction. People had been right to warn her. Zeke Pike liked the prison he had made for himself, with his monklike cell and his stupid Vow of Gruffness.

“Rachel, please don’t—”

Both horses and the mule swung their heads toward a clatter: the hooves of the deer rushing over the rise, bounding with their strange, stiff-legged leaps. On spotting the riders, the deer swerved to the east, yet their fear—even some thirty yards away—was infectious. Gus brayed and leaned back against the rope, Cholla tried to turn toward home, and Rachel was nearly unseated as the pinto bolted.

Remembering a decades-old riding lesson, Rachel pulled the mare’s head sideways until she trotted in tight circles and then slowed to a stop.

Zeke, who had gotten the other two in hand, asked, “You all right? Thought you’d fall for sure.”

“Me, too, for a moment,” Rachel told him. “What do you think scared the deer like that?”

“Coyotes, maybe. Or…could be the vet was wrong and there’s a wild cat around here after all.”

Rachel’s heart fluttered, and she pictured the cougar toying with them the way a cat played with its victims. “Let’s go back then. The horses are all freaked out, and we’re losing the light anyway. Besides, I’m—”

But Rachel never got the chance to admit she was scared out here, with the looming silence and encroaching darkness. Because as that moment, a predator topped the rise and headed straight for them.

A predator that bore no resemblance to the killer either had imagined.

At first Zeke couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing, so he wasted precious seconds staring at the headlights and listening to the growl of the engine barreling toward them.

Even after he understood it was an SUV, his mind struggled for an explanation. Scofflaw hunters? Rowdy teens offroading, chasing deer for sport or trying to catch a little air as they raced over the ridge? As he fought to keep control of his mount, Zeke bellowed “Stop” and waved an arm, certain the driver would change course the instant he realized there were riders down here. Not defenseless wildlife but
people
.

Yet the big, dark vehicle kept coming, picking up speed. Gus sat on his haunches, braying, while Cholla reared. When Zeke looked around, he saw the pinto bolting toward home, until the horse—or maybe Rachel—realized the vehicle’s trajectory would cut off their escape. Wheeling around, the mare settled for second best—veering in the direction the deer had taken. Zeke had a glimpse of Rachel clinging to the mare’s neck, the reins torn loose from her hands and whipping wildly around her.

The SUV was nearly on him when with a scraping thump, its front bumper hooked a thick-based double yucca. The bloody wash of sunset reflected from the windshield, allowing Zeke only a bare glimpse of the driver. As the vehicle, still stuck, reversed and spun its tires, Zeke realized he needed to get clear of this idiot and find Rachel before she fell.

After releasing Gus, who galloped toward home, Zeke took off in the direction the pinto had run. In the thunder of his mount’s hooves, he nearly missed the sound of sharp cracks just behind him, casting him back in time to the incident at the viewing area. Was this the same son of a bitch, now firing from the still-stranded vehicle behind him? Somehow that didn’t seem right, didn’t mesh with the glimpse he’d had of what looked like a smaller driver. Was there a passenger inside as well? Maybe even more than one?

Zeke didn’t wait around to get a better look. Instead, he ducked low and prayed the shooter’s aim had not improved. Because as fast as Cholla moved, the horse stood not a chance in hell of outracing bullets.

Rachel was in trouble. Damned big trouble from the moment the panicked mare tore the reins from her hands. Stunned by the revving engine and the blinding headlights in a place no vehicle should be, Rachel had been momentarily distracted—giving Candle the moment she needed to render her rider all but helpless.

Helpless to control their flight. Helpless to save them—for nothing but disaster could come of this blind gallop.

Clinging to the thrusting neck, Rachel wound the fingers of one hand through the mare’s thick mane. She tried to think of how to communicate—how to stop this madness—but it was all she could do to keep her balance as her mount shifted to avoid a rocky outcrop, then veered around a patch of prickly pear.

Surely, the mare couldn’t keep this pace up much longer. Rachel heard her breathing hard, felt the heat rolling off her in waves. And the back she sat astride was sweating, making her perch slippery, as the mare plunged on and on.

“Don’t you fall on me,” Rachel begged the runaway. “You stay on your feet, and I’ll stay on your back ’til you get tired.”

But the newly named Candle wasn’t the one who broke faith with their unholy contract. Instead, it was Rachel
who—when the mare gathered herself to leap a fallen juniper—tumbled from her mount’s back with a shout of horror.

A shout cut short by the hard-packed desert soil that rushed up to meet her.

Like a vast eye, darkness closed upon the desert. As the bloody rim of twilight drifted off to plum, straight above, an obsidian dome dreamed star after brilliant star.

“Rachel!” Again and again, Zeke strained his throat to shout her name, then stopped his horse to listen. Again and again, the high plain returned only the distant howling of the clan of the coyote. From somewhat nearer came the chirping calls of tiny elf owls.

But nothing more, now that the engine noises had receded and the final echoes of the gunshots faded. No answering calls nor any hoofbeats, nothing to distract Zeke from the deepening darkness and the rapid cooling of the crisp, dry air around him.

He thought of Rachel declining his offer of a sweatshirt to augment her denim jacket. Thought about the other morning, when he’d awakened to light frost. He nudged Cholla with his boot heels, encouraging the horse to a brisk trot, though he doubted his mount could see much better than he could.

A stumble proved him right, nearly unseating Zeke and forcing him to stop. Once more, he called out Rachel’s name, praying she was close enough to hear him.

Maybe she’s close enough but can’t hear. Me or anybody
. In his mind’s eye, he could see her, blood and brain matter

splattered on a rock or crushed beneath the pinto’s flailing body.

Zeke Pike trembled, though he’d begun to sweat.

“Rachel!” he roared. “Goddamn it, Rachel. Answer.”

Unnerved by his eruption, Cholla danced nervously and tossed back his head. Zeke fought to master the horse’s rising panic. Fought to tamp down his own terror.

Fear spilled over into fury. At the maniac—he suspected Rachel’s stalker—who’d tried to run them down and then fired after them. At Kyle Underwood, for getting himself killed and causing all this trouble. Even at Rachel, for insisting she’d be warm enough, for volunteering to ride bareback….

For making him feel
responsible
, damn her, when he’d forgotten how to tend another person. Forgotten how it hurt to care, how it could be so unutterably painful….

Stupid, to let someone get this close. Bad enough the way he hungered to touch her warm skin and smooth the silk of her hair, to taste and feel and push himself inside her until his frozen core burst into bright flame. But to let her smile get inside him, to be infected by her conversation—it was insanity. It was death—or worse yet, the realization that its opposite, as he’d experienced it for all these long years, wasn’t life at all, only a crude mockery of what existence could be.

Enraged with himself above all others, Zeke swore, tearing a shrill neigh from the horse beneath him. Cholla fought to take the bit in his teeth, struggled to bolt home. Home, where hay and grain were, where his pasture mates should be, too.

Home, where the pinto bearing Rachel might have gone.

Had
the mare circled around and headed—as horses would—for the familiarity of her pen and shelter? Could Rachel still be clinging to her, waiting and worrying about his return?

He blew on the spark of the image, kindling it into a vision warm as fire. Rachel, whole and unharmed, only a bit shaken. She would tend his animals, both the mare and Gus,
but every few moments, she would stop to peer into the darkness. She would cup her hands around her mouth and call the name she thought was his.

Would he hear her from here if he listened? Would her voice carry so far on the clear night air?

With a terrible effort, he forced himself to stillness, a calm as dark and measureless as the night that slept around him. As Zeke silenced terror, mastered rage, the horse that he rode quieted until the only sounds left were their breathing.

And the whinny of another animal off in the blackness.

Cholla stepped forward and trumpeted his answer. A neigh of greeting to his pasture mate.

“Rachel,” Zeke called, the calm inside him splintering beneath the weight of hope.

Hooves clopped against hard soil, and Zeke recognized the shuffling off-cadence of a limping horse. The gelding beneath him shifted and stepped forward, nickering low as he stretched his neck eagerly.

Though the moon had not yet risen, the scant light of a million distant suns illuminated a dark form approaching. A horse, he saw, a pinto.

It came forth riderless.