Confessing to the Cowboy Read online

  “Does somebody want to tell me what the hell is going on here?” he demanded, not removing the barrel of his gun from the center of Junior’s body. Adrenaline fired through him with a heat that could melt the snow on the ground outside.

  “I was out here checking on the cabins and noticed the curtains in this one. I’d just stepped inside when Junior showed up and now you’re here,” Mary said, her voice reflecting both relief and the same kind of stunned disbelief that Cameron felt.

  Cameron turned his attention to Junior. “What’s going on, Junior. What have you done?” The young man standing before him would have been the last person Cameron would have thought capable of the crimes, but this place, the clippings, spoke of an obsession with the women who had been killed.

  Too many serial killers liked to keep souvenirs of their crimes and the clippings and pictures on the wall could definitely be considered souvenirs.

  Tears began to stream from Junior’s eyes. “My mom, she told me that I’d never be able to have a place of my own, that I’d always have to live with her. But this was my place, all by myself.”

  Awkwardly he ambled over to the lamp and touched the broken shade. “I bought this with my own money at the thrift store, and I...I got the microwave at the same store. I can live here and turn on my lamp when it gets dark and cook in the microwave for myself and maybe have friends come over. My mom is wrong and I want to prove her wrong. I’m responsible and this is my place all to myself.” He jutted his chin forward, his eyes still gleaming with tears.

  Cameron holstered his gun, his gut instinct telling him that Junior had no weapons on him, that he was harmless and harboring some misguided mission. He pointed to the wall with the clippings. “What’s that?” he asked.

  Junior’s eyes once again filled with tears that spilled onto his cheeks. “That’s my sad wall. They were all my friends and now they are all gone. But I’m making a happy wall over there.” Junior pointed to the opposite wall and pulled a photo out of his coat pocket. “This is my first picture for my happy wall.” He handed the photo to Cameron.

  It was a picture of Junior and Mary standing side by side at the picnic Mary had sponsored last summer for her staff. Junior stood tall and proud, and Mary’s face was wreathed with a smile that softened her features.

  He handed the photo to Mary, who looked at it and released a deep sigh. It was obvious to him that Mary didn’t believe Junior had anything to do with the murders, either.

  This was like when Cameron was twelve and Bobby was eleven and they’d gotten angry with their parents and had built an elaborate fort up in hay loft. They’d stocked it with cookies and fruit and decided they could live there alone for the rest of their lives.

  Of course the rest of their lives had ended when darkness came, when the old barn had creaked and groaned and made frightening noises. That’s when they’d decided maybe sleeping in the house in their own beds wasn’t such a bad idea.

  Junior had wanted his own fort, a place where he could pretend he was in charge and away from his overprotective mother. He’d wanted to feel normal...like a man.

  Junior Lempke wasn’t the killer they sought. Cameron knew it in his gut. He completely believed Junior’s story. “Are you going to arrest me, Sheriff Cam?” Junior asked, his voice trembling like that of a young child’s. “My mom is really going to be mad at me if I end up in jail.”

  “No, I’m not going to arrest you, Junior,” Cameron said and slid a glance to Mary, who nodded her head in agreement.

  “But you have to get your things out of the cabin,” she said. “I can’t let you use this place, Junior.” She gazed toward the open door where the snow was falling in sheets of white. “You wait until this snow moves out and then you get your things from here and never come around the cabins again.”

  Junior’s lower lip quivered. “Am I fired, Mary?”

  Mary moved over to stand next to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Of course you aren’t fired. What would I do without you, Junior? You help me keep the café running smoothly.”

  Junior’s chest puffed out with pride and Cameron admired Mary’s compassion, her gentleness with Junior. “You need to get on home now,” Cameron said to the man. “I doubt if Mary is going to need you in the kitchen. The snow is going to keep everyone inside for the night.”

  “Call me tomorrow, Junior, and I’ll see if I need you to come in to work,” Mary added.

  Junior pulled his cell phone from his pocket. “Two is for Mary.”

  “That’s right,” Mary replied.

  “Okay, I’ll call you tomorrow,” and with that Junior turned and ran out of the cabin.

  Mary appeared to deflate, slumping down on the sofa atop Junior’s navy sleeping bag. “I stepped in here and knew I’d found Jason’s lair...right in my own backyard. My heart beat so hard it hurt and then I turned around to see Junior standing in the doorway. He told me I’d ruined everything and for one insane minute I thought he was the killer, and then you showed up.”

  She reached over and attempted to straighten the lamp shade on the crooked lamp. “Poor Junior. He just wanted to feel normal, to have his own place without his mommy around.”

  “Junior isn’t our killer,” Cameron said and sank down next to her on the sofa, instantly engulfed by the familiar raspberry scent of her. “But you got lucky because this could have been where the killer was staying. You could have walked inside this cabin and never left it again.” His heart filled his throat at the very thought. “You should have never come out here alone.”

  “I know. I was foolish.” She looked at him and offered him a half smile. “Although I did tell Rusty that if I wasn’t back inside the café in twenty minutes to call you.”

  “A lot of bad things could have happened to you in twenty minutes.” He took the strand of hair she twirled between two fingers and instead twirled it between his finger and thumb. Despite the circumstances she looked lovely with her cheeks pinked by the cold and her black winter coat making her hair appear almost as pale as the snow falling outside the cabin.

  He so wanted to kiss her. When he’d walked into the cabin and had seen Junior standing in front of her and the wall filled with the news clippings, he’d thought about how easily he could lose her.

  Dropping the piece of her hair, he leaned forward, wanting a kiss to assure himself she was really safe, but was surprised when she jumped up off the sofa and headed for the door. “We’d better get back to the café before we can’t find our way back.”

  She had her back to him and he knew in his gut that she’d intentionally avoided his kiss. Maybe she regretted those moments they’d shared in her bed. He’d hoped the time they’d shared had been a beginning, but maybe he was wrong. Maybe it had simply been an awakening for her and there was no place in her future for him except as the local lawman. Maybe the truth of the matter was that he was simply a transitional man to her and nothing more.

  He rose from the sofa. “Yeah, we should get back to the café. I forgot to leave breadcrumbs behind me and the snow is really coming down.”

  Together they left the cabin and raced toward the café’s back door. By the time they reached the kitchen, they both looked like snowmen.

  As they shook off the snow that covered them, Mary sent all her waitresses home but one for the night shift and then turned to Cameron.

  “Thank you and now you’d better get out of here because I’m sure you’re going to have a busy night with the weather and everything else that’s going on,” she said as she walked with him out of the kitchen and into the main eating area.

  He grabbed his hat from the hook on the wall, wanting to say something...needing to say something but unsure what it was. “Don’t be foolish again,” he finally said gruffly and then he walked out into the near-blizzard conditions.

  Chapter 12

  Just as Mary expected, the café was dead for the evening rush. The snow continued to fall until dusk and then finally stopped, leaving behind about thre
e inches of the fluffy stuff.

  She popped popcorn for her and Matt and they sat at one of the tables eating from the big bowl and drinking hot chocolate. As she talked to her son about snow days and making snow angels and how excited she’d been the first time she’d seen snow, in the back of her mind her thoughts were of Cameron.

  While they’d sat in the cabin she’d seen the kiss in his eyes before he’d leand forward and fear had shuttered through her, fear for him.

  What if Jason stood just outside the window, watching them?

  What if Jason somehow figured out how deep in her heart Cameron had crawled? Then Cameron would have a target placed firmly in the center of his back.

  Mary couldn’t let that happen. Cameron had owned part of her heart long before they’d fallen into bed together. She knew he wanted her again, but that wasn’t going to happen, either.

  Her biggest fear was that Jason would never be done with her, that he would just keep killing waitresses and friends and neighbors until there was nobody left in town but the two of them and Matt. He wouldn’t stop until she was as alone, as isolated as she had been when they’d been married. Maybe she’d be insane by then, her mind fractured from all the losses she’d endured.

  “Mom? Are you okay?”

  Matt’s voice pulled her from her horrible thoughts. “I’m fine,” she assured him with a forced smile and patted his hand on the table. “I was just wondering if this snow is going to melt by morning.”

  “I hope not! I’m ready for a snow day from school. Jimmy and I already have plans to build a snowman in front of the café and put a cowboy hat on his head.”

  “Hmm, sounds just like the kind of advertising I could use,” she replied with a smile. “But I wouldn’t count on a snow day so early in the school year. I have a feeling the plows will be out all night cleaning off the roads.”

  Rusty left the kitchen carrying an old checkerboard set and challenged Matt to a game. As they played, Mary walked over to the window and stared outside where night had quickly stolen over the land despite the fact that it was just a little before seven.

  Mary had never been afraid of the dark before, but since learning that Jason was still alive and the murders had occurred in the middle of the night, darkness brought with it a simmering anxiety that gnawed at her soul.

  However, she didn’t expect Jason to come at her in the night. She had a feeling he’d want to see her face in the starkness of sunshine, in the brightness of light when he came for her. He’d want her to see his glee when he killed her and wrapped their son in his arms.

  The evening seemed endlessly long. At eight she sent home Regina, the only waitress working, and that left only Rusty in the place.

  She allowed the checker games to last until nine and then she sent Matt to bed just in case the school buses ran in the morning.

  “You might as well head home,” she told Rusty. “If anyone comes in I can handle the grill, although I’m not expecting anyone this late on such a night.”

  “I heard the latest forecast on the radio earlier and this is all supposed to melt off in the next couple of days,” Rusty said as he pulled on his coat. “And they’ll have the roads cleared by morning now that it’s stopped snowing. I imagine it will be business as usual tomorrow.”

  “I hope so,” she replied. “It’s far too early in the year for this place to have a quiet night like this.”

  “Definitely.” Rusty pulled his collar up and withdrew a pair of gloves from his pocket. “I’ll lock up the back door as I go and see you in the morning.”

  “’Night, Rusty,” she said.

  Minutes later Mary sat at one of the tables nursing a cup of hot tea. She’d already locked the front door and turned the sign in the window to closed. She didn’t expect Cameron to stop by at closing time nor did she expect anyone else to come in for a quick meal.

  She should just go on to bed and take advantage of an early night, but she wasn’t a bit sleepy. Far too many thoughts weighed heavy on her mind.

  When would the killer strike again? Would the next victim be another waitress or Mary herself? She hadn’t had a chance to ask Cameron who he’d taken off the suspect list and who might have been added onto it.

  Was Denver’s new truck bought and paid for by Jason? She’d heard through the grapevine that the twins, Jeff and John Taylor, were planning on a new barn in the spring...possibly financed by her crazed ex-husband?

  Or had Thomas Manning been easy pickings as Jason’s dupe? Thomas had a waitress wife who’d betrayed him. Had he maintained a simmering rage after that, a rage that had eventually been tapped into by the manipulative Jason?

  Or was the murderer just a local rancher down on his luck, with a stomach to kill and a willingness to take whatever money Jason might offer him?

  She didn’t want to think about her feelings for Cameron, not with the headache that had begun to pound with a nauseating intensity across her forehead. She cared about him, but their passion had exploded under odd circumstances.

  She didn’t know if what she felt for him was love or gratitude. She wasn’t sure if she thought she loved him because he was the only man she’d allowed remotely in her life.

  She finished her tea, rinsed the cup and then turned off the overhead lights, leaving on only the faint glow of the security lights above the counter.

  Maybe an early night would ease some of the anxiety that had become a constant thrum inside her for the past couple of days. It certainly wouldn’t hurt her headache either to get an extra hour or two of sleep.

  Within thirty minutes she was in her bed, wishing she didn’t feel so alone, wishing that Cameron was beside her. If the world was a different place and she’d met Cameron at a different time would he be the right man for her?

  She’d once thought Jason was perfect and obviously that had turned out badly. She wasn’t sure she trusted her own instincts when it came to men. There was no way she believed that Cameron was anything like Jason, but she also didn’t know if she was drawn to him simply because he was the keeper of her secret and the first man she’d interacted with intimately since Jason.

  It was easy to imagine love for lust and a sense of security. Easy to imagine loving a man who was solid and moral and adored by her own son. But did that mean she was in love with Cameron?

  She fell asleep before an answer could form in her head and awakened disoriented as she heard a crackling noise and smelled the scent of something burning.

  At first she thought it was some kind of a dream, but as complete consciousness claimed her, she realized it wasn’t a dream, it was very real.

  Had she left the grill on in the kitchen? Had Rusty left on an appliance that had shorted out? She rolled over and turned on her bedside lamp, shock jerking her upright as she realized the room was filled with dark smoke.

  It took a moment for the last of her sleep to completely fall away and reality to grab her by the throat with sheer panic. The café was on fire.

  Matt! His name screamed through her head. She had to get to her son.

  She jumped out of the bed and raced to her bedroom doorway, stunned to see that the sofa had been turned on its side and was not only engulfed in flames but also blocked any entry or exit from Matt’s bedroom.

  Despite the roar of the fire and the fact that Matt’s bedroom door was closed, she screamed his name at the top of her voice, and then half collapsed with a coughing spasm. Her eyes burned and began to tear from the black smoke that roiled in the air.

  Horror stuttered through her as she realized she couldn’t get to Matt’s room...to Matt himself, unless she could somehow move the blazing sofa from where it sat.

  The red-and-yellow flames lighting the room made it look like a rendition of hell. But true hell was knowing that her son was on the other side of the burning barrier.

  She was about to attempt to push the sofa to one side when over the din of the fire she heard a shatter of glass from her bedroom and somebody yelling her name.

&nb
sp; She raced back to the bedroom to see Cameron at the window. “Come on,” he yelled, urging her out the window.

  “I can’t,” she cried. “I can’t get to Matt.” She began to cough again, nearly falling to her knees.

  “I’ve got him. Matt’s out here with me. He’s safe, Mary.” Cameron reached a hand through the broken glass. “Come on. You need to get out of there now.”

  Trusting that what he’d told her about Matt was true, she grabbed his hand and he helped her out of the window. At the same time she heard the distant sound of sirens. Hopefully they were from an approaching fire truck.

  Matt stood shivering in the snow, tears streaming from his eyes. “Mom, Twinkie is still in there,” he said with a sob. “I couldn’t find her in the smoke when the man told me to get out of my window.” His tears falling on his cheeks glistened as if on the verge of turning into ice. “She’s gonna die in there.”

  Cameron’s features looked hard and determined in the faint light of the moon and the whisper of smoke that had drifted outside. He handed Mary his car keys. “Go on, the two of you get in my car and turn on the heater before you both get frostbite or worse.”

  Matt turned and ran toward Cameron’s car. Mary hesitated. “What are you going to do?” she asked as they hurried around the building.

  “I’m going in to get Twinkie.”

  Despite Mary’s protests, there was no way Cameron was going to force Matt to live with the fact that cute little Twinkie had fried in his bedroom. The kid would be traumatized for the rest of his life.

  Although Mary tried to stop him, clinging to his arm and begging him not to attempt a rescue, Cameron was determined. He raced back to Matt’s room and climbed in through the broken window and hit the floor.

  The room was dark except for the faint glow of the greedy fire beneath the closed door. The fire made a hissing noise, as if it were a dark and ominous snake attempting to sneak beneath the door.

  The smoke stung his eyes and pressed tight against his lungs. He stayed low to the ground, where the air was still just barely breathable. “Twinkie,” he called.