Unspoken (8 page)

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Authors: Lisa Jackson

Tags: #Contemporary, #General, #Romance, #Romantic Suspense Fiction, #Suspense, #Fiction, #Texas

BOOK: Unspoken
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Nevada walked to the door.
“And Smith?”
He turned and found a sickly smile curving Caleb’s thin, dry lips. “May the Lord be with you.”
Chapter Four
 
Bang!
The doors of the prison clanged shut.
Ross McCallum was finally a free man.
About time.
It had been ten years of his life—eight actually behind bars but ten long years of this nightmare—a decade of his life he could never retrieve. One part of him wanted to find the nearest bar and a hot-blooded woman. A fifth of José Cuervo and a cheap motel would round out the night. Another part of him wanted vengeance and wanted it bad.
He drew in a deep breath of fresh air. God, it felt good. Looking over a shoulder, he flipped off the guard in the watch tower and thought
fuck you
to every last sorry-hided inmate, every shit-head of a guard and especially
fuck you
to the bastard of a warden who ruled the place like he was some kind of a goddamned king.
“Stop it,” he growled under his breath, then spat hard on the pockmarked concrete of the drive. He was out. That was all that mattered. He’d never go back. He’d promised himself that each and every morning when he woke up and found himself staring at the ceiling and smelling the stench of the place. Nope. He’d die first.
Hauling a grimy duffel bag filled with his meager belongings, he swaggered to the beat-up station wagon that idled in the shade of the tower wall. Behind the wheel, smoking a cigarette and listening to some whiney-ass country song sat the one person on this earth he could count on: Mary Beth Looney, his twice-divorced younger sister. With the fingers of one hand she was tapping out time on the steering wheel, while the other held her cigarette. She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. That was probably good news, considering her taste in men.
“ ‘Bout time,” she said through the open window. Her hair was the color of straw and cut in shaggy layers round her face, but it was shiny and soft-looking, no hint of a dark root showing, and she watched him through a fringe of bangs.
“Hey—the government don’t move fast. How’re ya, Mary Beth?”
“Tired.”
“You look good.”
A ghost of a smile crossed apricot-tinged lips as she tucked her cigarette into the comer of her mouth. “Wish I could say the same for you.”
He threw his duffel bag onto the backseat that was littered with paper wrappers from McDonald’s and Taco Bell. A few used packets of hot sauce lay forgotten, the remnants of red goop congealing on the tufted vinyl where half-a-dozen rock-hard French fries were scattered.
“Where’re the kids?” he asked, sliding onto the bench seat next to her.
“With their dads.”
“Didn’t think your exes were around much.”
“They’re not.” She yanked the wagon into gear. “I guess I just got lucky.” Smoke escaped from her nostrils as she gunned the accelerator.
In a spray of gravel, they were off.
Ross rolled down his window, felt the air rush through the interior and felt ten years of vengeance burn through his brain. He’d fed his hatred each and every day, vowing retribution, and now his time had come. Names whirled through his head, the names of those he’d get even with. Ruby Dee, Caleb Swaggart, Shelby Cole, the Judge, Nevada Smith. Especially Smith.
Cracking his knuckles, Ross stared through the dusty, bug-spattered windshield and studied the vast Texas countryside with new eyes.
The sumacs and prickly pear he’d once taken for granted seemed to display a new-found beauty. The rolling hills of dry range grass were scaled by sheep and goats he’d once ignored, and the sky—Christ, the sky went on forever. His throat threatened to close and he gritted his back teeth together. No reason to get maudlin and start blubbering like a baby. He was a free man and he’d never live again behind concrete walls topped with barbed wire and guarded by silent, humorless men wearing reflective glasses and toting rifles they itched to use. No, sir.
“Where to?” Mary Beth asked as they sped along the highway and crossed the slow-moving Guadalupe River.
“Bad Luck.”
Mary Beth slid him a look from the corner of her eye. “Don’t you think you should start over somewhere else?”
“Nope.”
“Where you goin’ to live?”
“In the folks’ place.”
She shook her head and her fingers gripped the wheel as if she planned to rip it from the steering column. “Hell, Ross, what’s there? Grandpa’s old cabin has just about fallen down. What’s left is rotten and filled with termites.”
“What about the trailer?”
She sighed. “The single-wide’s still there, and I kicked out the renters, like you asked, but it’s a pigsty, believe me.”
“Couldn’t be any worse than where I been.” But Ross glanced into the backseat. His sister’s standards on cleanliness weren’t all that high. In fact, if what they said about cleanliness and godliness were true, it seemed Mary Beth might not have much of a chance of gettin’ through the Pearly Gates when the Lord called her home. Not that Ross cared much. “Gotta start somewhere,” he said as she squashed her smoke in an ashtray already overflowing with lipstick-stained cigarette butts.
“I guess. But there’s a lot of bad blood back there.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder and pretended that she wasn’t watching for a reaction. “Shelby Cole’s back in town.”
Ross couldn’t swallow the smile of satisfaction that crept from one side of his mouth to the other. Shelby? In Bad Luck? Well, well, things were looking up. “Is that right? Go figure.”
“Don’t suppose you had anything to do with it.”
“You forget where I’ve been.”
“Well, you’d best stay away from her,” she warned, then twisted on the knob of the radio, increasing the volume as a song he’d never heard before, some down-and-out country-and-western lament by a woman with a clear voice, filled the interior. Mary Beth sang along with the lyrics and she wasn’t all that bad—a little flat maybe, but Ross didn’t care.
But then he didn’t care about much. Except getting even.
Leaning back in the seat, Ross lapsed into silence as they flew down the highway, letting memories of faces from the past—especially Shelby Cole’s fresh face—surface. Blue, wide-eyed innocence, pert little nose, and a few freckles on a perfect oval of a face. Yep, Shelby was somethin’. He’d have to look her up. They had some unfinished business.
Mary Beth eased up on the accelerator only when they sped through half-a-dozen small towns on their way to Bad Luck. Yep, things were going to be better.
She shook another cigarette from the pack lying on the seat between them and punched in the lighter. He helped himself to one of her Marlboro Lights. “So where’re you plannin’ to get a job?”
Ross twisted the rearview mirror in his direction and rubbed the stubble on his cheeks. He’d once been a handsome man, but the years behind bars hadn’t been kind. Deep grooves etched his forehead and the corners of his eyes. He had a few scars from more than one fistfight, a knife wound in his right thigh and if he moved his right arm just so, he could still feel a knot and tight little pain where Nevada Smith had broken his ribs in their last bout.
The lighter clicked and they each lit up. Smoke laced with nicotine filled his lungs. “Don’t suppose you have anything to drink on ya?” he asked. “Hell, it’s been a long time since I had a shot of whiskey or tequila or even a damned beer.”
“Stay away from liquor, okay?” Mary Beth turned the mirror back so she could look into it. “Keep your nose clean, Ross. I don’t intend to make a career out of pickin’ you up from jail.”
“You won’t,” he said fervently, feeling himself key up a bit as they crossed the river that was barely more than a creek this time of year, then sped by the cemetery east of town. Headstones, some beginning to crumble, stood like odd-shaped sentinels beneath a few scattered shade trees. Ross wondered how many new souls had been interned since old Ramón Estevan met his maker. He didn’t bother to ask.
Bad Luck was just over the next rise.
Taking a final drag on her filter tip, Mary Beth glanced in the rearview mirror. “Oh, shit.”
“What?”
“Looks like you already attracted your share of attention. It’s the cops.”
“Damn it all!” He twisted in the seat and spied a county cruiser, lights flashing, behind them. “I ain’t goin’ back, Mary Beth. No matter what, I
ain’t
goin’ back. They’d have to kill me first!” Adrenalin fired his blood. His heart went wild, beating furiously.
“Just hold on!” She steered the wagon over to the shoulder and the cop’s car, lights still flashing like the goddamned Fourth of July, followed them.
“What the hell did you do?”
“Nothin’, okay? I did nothin’ wrong!” she insisted. “Oh, crap, it’s Shep Marson.”
Ross’s stomach turned instantly sour. He glanced through the grimy back window and saw a face that was etched in his memory. Shep’s features were grim, shaded by the brim of his hat, and a little jowlier than Ross remembered. “What’s he want?”
“We’re about to find out.” She squashed her cigarette into the tray, fluffed her hair with nervous fingers, then stuck her head out the window and called, “What’s up, Shep?”
Ross heard the crunch of boots on gravel. Sweat prickled his scalp and ran down the back of his neck and he wished to God he had a shotgun in the backseat. He’d blow Marson, his badge and cocky, self-righteous attitude five miles south of hell.
Damn it, no! He couldn’t think like that. A dull roar swelled in his brain. His palms began to sweat and itch. Hold tight. Just play it
cool.
Through clenched teeth, he managed to take a drag.
A shadow passed over Mary Beth’s face, and Ross trained his eyes on the open driver’s-side window. All he saw was the uniform—a torso covered with a tired-looking and stained county-issued shirt.
“Do you know your tags are expired?” Shep asked over the thunder in Ross’s ears. The deputy leaned down so that his face was framed by the window, the brim of his hat nearly brushing Mary Beth’s cheek.
“No—I mean, I just haven’t gotten around to—” Mary Beth shrugged and Ross wanted to strangle her. What was she thinking, picking him up in a car with expired license plates? Shit, was she a moron?
“Well, now, I just thought I’d give you a verbal warnin’ this time,” Shep said, and he looked past Mary Beth to her passenger. The weight of his gaze behind those damned reflective sunglasses was almost more than Ross could bear. Almost. “Well, look who you’ve got with you.” With a friendly nod, he said, “I’d like to say it’s good to see you again, McCallum, but we both know that it’d be a lie.”
Ross didn’t respond.
“I don’t want no trouble from you,” Shep said. “This ain’t just a warnin’ to your sister, you understand.” His smile was as tight as his ass. “You. McCallum. You’re walkin’ a thin line, already, son. This here’s my county.”
“I remember,” Ross ground out.
“Good. That’s good. Don’t you go forgettin’.” Shep tipped the brim of his hat at Ross’s sister. “And you, Mary Beth, you take care of them tags.”
“I will,” she said sweetly as he sauntered back to his cruiser. She slapped the old Ford into drive and waited for a truck filled with Mexicans in the cab and piled high with hay to swoosh past. As she gunned the engine, she grumbled, “It’s already startin‘, Ross.” Her face was pale beneath her tan, and her lips drew into a line of disapproval. “Goddamn it, it’s already startin’.”
Yep,
he thought, tossing the butt of his cigarette out the window.
And he couldn’t wait.
 
Shelby snapped off her laptop computer. Curled into a striped chair that was tucked between the window and the bed in her room, she’d been on-line for hours, searching websites that promised to find missing people, posting inquiries on message boards, wracking her brain in her efforts to locate Dr. Ned Charles Pritchart. Her back hurt, her neck ached and her head pounded. Frustration was fast becoming her closest companion.
And then there was Nevada. His image kept floating in and out of her mind, bothering her like a pesky insect that wouldn’t go away. The worst of it was, she still found him attractive—in an earthy, Texan kind of way. Though she’d told herself time and time again that soon she’d need to settle down, that she wasn’t getting any younger, that she needed a rock-steady man who worked nine to five or even longer, a businessman with an easy smile but a hard edge, one who wanted children, a family, a house in the suburbs of Seattle ... certainly not some broken-down cowboy who had walked on both sides of the law.

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