The Barefoot Summer(13)

Before Amanda could answer, another voice called out, “Who’s here? Show yourself.”

Kate recognized wife number two—Jamie, was it? Amanda whipped around as fast as her big belly would allow and stomped into the living room with Kate right behind her.

“Get out! Both of you, get out! This is my cabin,” Amanda shouted and waved her arms around. “Conrad told me when he brought me here for my honeymoon that he was leaving it to me in his will. So get off my property and don’t ever set foot on it again.”

Jamie took a step around the suitcases in the middle of the floor. “And he promised me and Gracie the same thing. You can leave. I’m staying right here the rest of the summer and there’s not a damn thing either of you can do about it.”

“Just for the record, I’m the first wife and this property is mine unless there is a will. So far there’s nothing filed in Fort Worth or the surrounding counties,” Kate said.

“He’s only been dead”—Amanda winced at the word—“nine days. Give it time and it will turn up, just like his divorces from both of you, and when it does, you are both leaving my house.”

Jamie crossed her arms over her chest. “And if it’s my house, then you two can get out of it. How long will it take to figure this out?” She frowned at Kate.

“I have no idea,” Kate answered. “Why would either of you even want to stay here?”

“It’s where Conrad brought me last December on our honeymoon. We started off the new year right here on the deck and watched the fireworks display out on the lake,” Amanda answered.

Jamie drew her eyebrows down in a frown. “And I suppose he said he’d bring you back here for a week out of every summer?”

Amanda nodded. “We were supposed to arrive tomorrow, and now”—she sniffled—“I’ll have to just imagine that he is here with me.”

Gracie tugged on her mother’s shirttail. “Mommy, are they really going to live with us?”

“Looks like it, because we aren’t leaving.” Jamie grabbed the handles of two suitcases and rolled them down the hallway.

Kate wrapped her arms around her body in a hug, but it didn’t help. Her blood still ran cold through her veins. Conrad had been a smart con. He kept his stories straight by keeping them the same, starting with her. Or did he? Was there another wife out there who was even older than Kate?

A week in the same house with those two was not the peaceful time she’d been looking forward to, but there was no way she was backing down from the challenge. Whether she wanted to be or not, she was the real wife at the time of his death. She’d paid for his funeral, and it would cost her a lot of money to get all this crap cleared up, so she was staying right here.

Amanda tilted her chin up a notch. “I’m having the master bedroom.”

“I don’t want it,” Jamie said. “Gracie and I were planning to use her room anyway.”

Kate shrugged and turned around, her high heels sounding like a BB gun on the hardwood floor. Jamie’s cowboy boots echoed like shotgun blasts as she stomped down the hallway. Amanda’s blinged-out flip-flops reminded Kate of a series of slaps as she stormed toward the master bedroom.

Two doors slammed before Kate eased hers shut. She fell back into the rocker and closed her eyes. Evidently, Amanda had kicked off her flip-flops, because Kate heard bare feet pacing from one side of the room to the other. Jamie had shut the door to her room, and although Kate couldn’t understand a word of the rapid-fire Spanish, there was no doubt that she was ready to blow.

I’m going to stay until I get all this stuff settled, not only with the cabin but with the investigation. I’m not going back until everyone knows that I was not responsible for Conrad’s death.

A hard rap jerked her into an upright position. She opened the door so she could discern between the noise of the washing machine and maybe someone knocking on the door. The second rat-a-tat-tat assured her that someone was at the door.

She headed that way, wondering the whole time if wife number four might be standing on the other side. If so, she was shit outta luck unless she wanted to sleep on the sofa or out on the deck, because the honeymoon cabin had no vacancies.

Kate found Waylon Kramer standing there, cowboy hat tilted back so she could see his blue eyes, a smile as big as a happy Cheshire cat on his face.

“Miz Steele,” he said.

“How did you find me?” she asked.

“Easy. I called your office and your mother told me where you’d gone. She’s as eager as I am to get this solved. Am I right in assuming that all three of the wives are going to spend time together in this house? Are you sure that you never met any of those women before the funeral?”

“I guess that’s what’s about to happen. And I’m very sure I never met them before then.”

“Did y’all plan to be here at the same time?”

“Hell, no,” she said.

He chuckled.

She crossed her arms over her chest. “What’s so funny?”

“A cussword coming out of your prim and proper mouth.”

“I don’t think you can arrest me for cussing on my own property, can you?” she asked.

“No, ma’am. But I’m beginning to think maybe you all three did find out about the others and planned a perfect murder. You’ve all got alibis, but one of you had to come up with the money, and I’ll bet that person was you. And honey, I will close this case,” he answered.