Best Kept Secrets(62)

the door handle. Forcibly quelling her uneasiness, she slid

inside and pulled the door closed behind her.

Her eyewitness was an ugly little man. He had stark, Indian-like

cheekbones with pockmarked craters scooped out

beneath them. He was unkempt, and smelled like he didn't



shower frequently. He was scrawny and wrinkled and grizzled.

He was also dead.



Seventeen



When it registered why he just sat there staring at her with

a vacuous, unfocused, and somewhat surprised expression,

Alex tried to scream, but nothing came out. Her mouth had

turned to cotton. Reaching behind her, she tried to open the

pickup door. It stubbornly resisted.

After frantically tugging on the handle, she gave it her

shoulder. It swung open so suddenly that she almost fell out.

In her scrambling haste to put distance between her and the

bloody corpse, the toe of her shoe got caught in the gravel.

She stumbled and fell, landing hard on the heels of her hands

and scraping her knees.

She cried out in pain and fear and tried to stand. Plunging

headlong into the darkness, she was suddenly blinded by a

pair of headlights and petrified by the blasting of a horn.

Reflexively, she raised her hand to shield her eyes. Against

the backdrop of brilliant light, she made out the outline of a

man approaching her. Before she could run or utter a peep,

he said, "You get around, don't you?"

"Reede!" she cried in a mix of relief and terror.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

He didn't sound at all sympathetic. That enraged her. "I

could ask you the same question. That man," she said, pointing

a shaky finger toward the pickup, "is dead."

"Yeah, I know."

"You know?"



"His name is, uh, was Pasty Hickam. He's a ranch hand

who used to work for Angus." He peered through the bug-splattered

windshield and shook his head. "Jesus, what a

mess."

"Is that all you can say?"

He turned on her. "No, I could say that the only reason

I'm not taking you in on suspicion of murder is because

whoever phoned in the tip that Pasty was sitting in his pickup

with his throat cut didn't mention that there was a broad with

him."

"Somebody tipped you?"

"That's right. Any idea who?"

"I guess whoever knew I was coming here to meet him,"

she shouted. Then, when another thought struck her, she

became still and quiet.' 'How'd you get here so fast, Reede?''

"You think I headed him off and put a knife to his throat?"

he asked with an incredulous laugh.

"It's possible."

Holding her stare, he called for one of his deputies. Alex

hadn't realized until then that there was someone with him.

She became aware of a couple of things at once--the wail

of an approaching siren, the appearance of curious customers,

who were rushing out the door of the bar to see what the

commotion was about.

"Escort her back to her motel," Reede curtly instructed

the deputy. "See that she gets inside her room."

"Yes, sir."

"Keep an eye on her till daylight. Make sure she doesn't

go anywhere."

Alex and the sheriff exchanged a hostile stare before she

allowed the deputy to lead her back to her car.



'' Sheriff?'' The deputy tapped hesitantly on the door before

daring to open it. The word around the office that morning

was that Reede was in a bitch of a mood, and only partially

because of Pasty Hickam's death the night before. Everybody

was walking on eggshells.

"What is it?"



"I've got some papers for you to sign."

"Give them here." Reede eased up from his half-reclining

position in the swivel chair and reached for the stack of official

documents and letters. He scrawled his signature where it

was called for.

"How's Ruby Faye this morning?"

Pasty's lover had been found in her mobile home when the

sheriff arrived there to question her, beaten to a pulp. Before

passing out, she named her cuckolded husband as the culprit.

"Lyle did almost as good a number on her as he did on

Pasty. She's gonna have to stay in the hospital a week or so.

The kids have been packed off to her mama's house."

Reede's expression turned even surlier. He had no tolerance

for men who physically abused women, no matter what the

provocation. He had been on the receiving end of too many

beatings from his old man to stomach domestic violence.

He passed the paperwork back to the clerk. "Any feedback

on that APR?"

"No, sir. I'll let you know. And you told me to remind

you that you're scheduled to testify in Judge Wallace's court