Confessing to the Cowboy Read online

  If Cameron was perfectly honest with himself he’d admit that he had no viable suspects for any of the murders. He had a couple persons of interest, but nobody who popped to the top of the pathetic list.

  Several tall trees stood sentry on either side of his house and a nice-sized pond glittered in the not-so-far distance. The barn was located behind the house and the entire back acreage was fenced to keep the three horses where they belonged.

  Once he was in the house it didn’t take him long to set up space for Twinkie in the laundry room. The dog not only had her own little wardrobe, but also food and water bowls and a tiny four-poster bed that appeared to have never been slept in.

  With the dog settled, Cameron left the house once again and headed toward the Cowboy Café and a talk with Mary. As always when he drove toward the café, myriad emotions filled his head.

  The café was the place in town to go for friendly conversation and a warm and inviting atmosphere. The food was terrific and the prices were appealing. Mary had managed to turn a restaurant into a home away from home for many of the people in the small town.

  She’d also managed to twist his heart in a million ways without doing a thing but talking to him and looking at him with her bright blue eyes. But he couldn’t go there now. At this moment he couldn’t think about Mary, except in the capacity as a piece of a puzzle to solve a series of crimes. This visit to the café was all business.

  The first thing he did as he entered the large, popular eating establishment was add his hat onto one of the hooks along the entranceway. The second thing he did was gaze toward the counter, where the pretty blonde usually stood.

  She wasn’t there. A quick glance around told him she was no place in the front of the café. In her place, behind the counter, Rusty Albright stood surveying the surroundings like a bouncer ready to pounce.

  Rusty was a big man with ice-blue eyes and a smashed, crooked nose that told a story Cameron had never heard. He was Mary’s cook and right-hand man when it came to running the place.

  “Rusty,” he said with a nod of his head. “Is Mary around?”

  Rusty shook his head. “She’s been gone since this morning. Matt’s school had a take-a-parent-to-school day and so she’s been with him all day.” He shook his head. “Had to eat one of those nasty school lunches and everything.”

  Cameron glanced at his wristwatch. It was almost four. School let out at three forty-five so if they came right back, they should be here anytime.

  “I heard we lost Dorothy.” Rusty frowned. “Any leads?” He asked the question without enthusiasm, as if knowing what Cameron would reply.

  “Not yet. It’s early in the investigation. Do you know if Mary has heard about Dorothy?”

  “Doubtful, but you can ask her yourself.” He nodded toward the door. “She and Matt just walked in.”

  Cameron turned around to see Mary and her ten-year-old son Matt entering the café. The beautiful smile that curved her lips, the sparkle that lit her eyes let him know that she hadn’t heard the latest news and he hated the fact that he would be the one to snatch away her smile, to darken her eyes with pain.

  “Hey, Sheriff Evans,” Matt greeted with a friendly grin.

  “Hey, yourself,” Cameron replied affectionately. He’d told Matt a dozen times that he could call him Cameron, but Mary had insisted her son use Cameron’s official title. “I just heard that your mom spent the day at school with you. That must have been weird.”

  Mary laughed, the sound twisting softness around Cameron’s heart. “I think embarrassing would be first on the page if we were listing adjectives.”

  “Nah, you didn’t embarrass me,” Matt replied. “At least you didn’t call me honey pie like Billy Morton’s mom did.” Matt stifled a snicker.

  “True, although I did consider calling you honey pooh bear a couple of times.”

  Matt looked horrified at the very thought, and Mary laughed.

  “You wouldn’t do that to me,” Matt said.

  “Probably not,” Mary agreed.

  At that moment Jimmy Rosario flew through the front door. “Mom, Jimmy’s here,” Matt said, stating the obvious. “We’re going to play some catch in the back, okay?”

  “You have one hour and then it’s dinner and homework time,” Mary replied. “And stay away from the cabins.” Her intense love for her son shone from her eyes as she watched him and his best friend disappear out the door.

  She turned back to Cameron and must have seen something in his features that stole some of the light from her eyes. “What are you doing here at this time of the day?”

  Normally Cameron came by at the end of the night, just before the restaurant closed to have a cup of coffee and share some friendly talk with her. Aware that the restaurant was filling quickly for the dinner rush, he was reluctant to share his information with her here in the middle of the gathering crowd.

  “Can we go someplace private to talk?”

  She gazed up at him for a long moment, biting her full lower lip in a gesture of anxiety. With a quick bob of her head she gestured for him to follow her through the kitchen and to the doorway that led to her and Matt’s living quarters behind kitchen.

  He walked into a large living room that not only had a sofa, chairs and a television, but also had a small table and chairs in one corner. In all the years he’d known her, he’d never been in these rooms in the back of the café. As far as he knew, few people were invited into this private space that she and her son called home.

  “Nice place,” he observed. The blue overstuffed sofa looked broken in and inviting, and the entertainment center held a television with the latest video game system and an array of paperback novels.

  “Thanks. There are two bedrooms. Matt’s is there,” she pointed at a doorway to the left of the room. “And mine is there,” she said, this time pointing in the opposite direction of the living room. “We also have a full bath. The only thing we don’t have is a kitchen, but of course we have the café kitchen at our disposal any time we want anything.”

  She stopped talking and tucked a tendril of her shoulder-length, light blond hair behind one ear. “But, you aren’t here to talk about my living arrangements. Something has happened.” She said the words as a statement, not as a question.

  He nodded and fought against the release of a deep, weary sigh. “There’s been another one.”

  * * *

  Mary didn’t just sit on the sofa, she crumpled into it, her legs unable to hold her upright as the horror of his words echoed in her head.

  There’s been another one. She couldn’t wrap her mind around the fact that somebody else she’d considered her café family had been murdered. If it wasn’t one of her waitresses from the café, then Cameron wouldn’t be here now.

  “Who?” The word whispered out of her on an edge of dread.

  “Dorothy Blake.”

  Pain shattered through Mary and her vision blurred with tears as she thought of the older woman who’d always come in with a bright smile, who despite enjoying her job was looking forward to retirement and planting a big vegetable garden beside her stupendous flower garden in her backyard.

  Lowering her face into her hands as she realized she had no control over her tears, she was vaguely aware of Cameron standing next to the sofa, awkwardly shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

  Overwhelmed by the pain of loss, Mary began to weep in earnest. It wasn’t just the tragic death of Dorothy that caused her heart to swell with agony, but also the recent loss of two other waitresses, both of them murdered, as well.

  She wasn’t sure how long she cried before she felt the weight of Cameron sitting down beside her, smelled the familiar spicy scent of his cologne, and in the very depths of her soul she wanted to throw herself into his arms, feel his strength surrounding her. For just a minute, for just an agonizing second, she wanted to be wrapped in his arms and feel his heart beating against her own.

  But she couldn’t do that. She wouldn’t do th
at. Instead she drew a deep shuddery breath and sat back, summoning the inner strength that had gotten her through most of her entire life.

  “Why? Why is somebody killing the women who work for me?” she asked miserably. Once again she caught her lower lip and reached up to twist a strand of her hair.

  Cameron frowned, the gesture doing nothing to detract from his handsomeness. His face was all angles and planes that radiated strength. His warm hazel eyes were now deeper in hues of brown than usual. “I don’t know. But I can tell you that two dead waitresses was a coincidence, three is a definite pattern. There’s no question in my mind now that we have a serial killer targeting your waitresses.”

  “But that’s crazy. What on earth could these women have done wrong that would warrant their deaths? Serve cold coffee?” A faint hysterical laughter attempted to escape her lips, but was instantly swallowed as she gazed at Cameron for answers.

  “I wish I could tell you why, and I definitely wish I could tell you who.” His jaw clenched tight and, for a moment, his eyes were cold and hard. “I’m just hoping Dorothy’s murder can give us something, anything that might provide a lead. This guy has been so damned careful and so damned lucky.” Frustration drifted from him in waves.

  Mary dropped her hand from her hair and instead placed it on him, able to feel the muscles in his forearm beneath the long-sleeved khaki shirt he wore. “You’ll get him. You’re an intelligent man, Cameron. You do your job well and you have good men working for you. It’s just a matter of time before you have him in custody.”

  He smiled at her, that sexy uplift of his lips that warmed her like no other man’s had ever done. “There are days I feel like I should be digging ditches instead.”

  “You know you love what you do, and hopefully you’ll catch this madman before another woman dies.” She stood from the sofa, finding his nearness slightly overwhelming. Escape. She needed to escape from him before she followed through on her impulse and leaned into him.

  “And now I’ve got a dinner rush to attend to,” she said, attempting to focus on business and not on how much she wanted Cameron’s arms around her, not on the horror of Dorothy’s horrendous death.

  “I intend to warn your waitresses again about locking up doors and windows, about safety issues before I leave the café. You might also tell them the same thing. Each and every one of them is a potential victim until I get this guy behind bars.”

  “I’ll remind them.” Her heart pounded at the knowledge that simply by working for her, women she cared about were placing their lives in potential danger.

  As the two of them reentered the main café area, Mary got to work helping expedite orders as Rusty went back to the kitchen to cook with his helper, Junior Lempke.

  The dinner rush was always busy, but with the news of Dorothy’s murder making the rounds, the restaurant was unusually full. Mary worked, always conscious of Cameron’s tall, commanding presence as he pulled each waitress aside and spoke to each of them for a couple of minutes.

  When he finally left, she focused solely on what needed to be done to keep the people in her café happy and well fed. At six o’clock Matt and Jimmy came in and sat at a small table for two near the counter. It was the usual place where Matt ate and most nights Jimmy was with him.

  Mary had a feeling Liza Rosario wasn’t much of a cook, but she often had Matt over for playdates with her son. Jimmy was a bright, nice boy who was Matt’s best friend and Mary didn’t mind feeding the kid dinner each evening as she suspected dinner at home would be something frozen and heated or from a box.

  If the boys had their way, they’d order burgers and fries every night, but Mary always ordered for them, insisting they eat real meals with real vegetables. Tonight was meatloaf, green beans and applesauce, along with two huge glasses of milk.

  The evening rush seemed to last forever. Just when she thought things were starting to slow down, more people would arrive. It was always this way when tragedy struck...friends and neighbors gathered here to find solace or laughter or just simple conversation and connection.

  Jimmy eventually went home and Matt went back to their living quarters to work on his homework before his bath and bedtime. Mary kept her mind emptied of everything but the basic minute-to-minute things she needed to do to keep the café running.

  At ten o’clock she locked the door and turned the sign hanging there from Open to Closed. She’d tucked Matt into bed an hour before and normally this was the time that Cameron would show up for a quick cup of coffee before he headed home.

  She didn’t expect him tonight. He had a murder to solve. Dorothy’s murder. Her heart crunched with pain as Rusty stepped up next to her. “Kitchen is clean, grill is ready for the morning. You want me to help you clean up out here?”

  “No thanks. I’ll take care of it.” She’d sent the waitresses home at closing time rather than have them stick around to clean their stations and sweep and mop the floors, which was part of their usual jobs.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Rusty’s tough-guy features didn’t change, but his gruff voice was softer than usual.

  Mary smiled at him with genuine affection. “I’m fine, or at least I will be fine. Cleaning up will help me decompress a little bit. Go home, Rusty.” Home for the big man was one of the cabins that Mary rented out located directly behind the café.

  Three of the cabins were currently vacant. In one of them Candy Bailey, a young waitress, had been murdered. The other one had also been rented to another waitress who had moved out right after Candy’s murder. The third had been empty for a long time and the fourth was Rusty’s place.

  “If you need me just call. You know I can be here in two minutes,” Rusty said.

  She nodded. “Thanks. Really, I’ll be fine.”

  Minutes later as she swept up the floor between the tables, her thoughts returned to the murders. She’d managed to keep her mind fairly numb until the café had closed and she was alone, but now the horror reached out to chill her to the bone.

  Three murdered women. Three dead waitresses. Had each of the women somehow offended the killer when serving him? Was he somebody who visited the café regularly? She couldn’t imagine any of her customers being capable of such a thing. But she also knew how a pleasant face, a friendly smile could hide the soul of a monster.

  She switched the broom for a mop and continued cleaning the floor while her head raced with thoughts. If the killer was a customer, then Cameron had a huge pool of potential suspects to investigate. Almost everyone in the small town of Grady Gulch, Oklahoma, came in to eat at one time or another. Many were regulars, others were occasional diners. There was also the possibility that the killer didn’t ever eat here at all.

  Three waitresses...friends...women she had considered part of her extended family were now gone. Why? What would drive somebody to kill them? A piercing ache shot through her as she finished up the floor and began to wash down tables and chairs.

  Did somebody have a grudge against the café? Against her personally? She couldn’t imagine either. The café was popular, and she and Matt had worked hard over the past eight years to fit in and become a part of the close-knit community.

  This couldn’t be about her past. Her heart iced over at the very thought. No, that was impossible. This couldn’t be about her and the man she’d once married.

  She emptied her mind of everything as she focused on finishing the chores. When the café was ready for opening the next morning she walked through the kitchen toward the door that led to her living quarters.

  The navy blue ginger jar lamp set on the end table by the sofa created a soft glow of light around the living room. The first thing she did was move to stand in Matt’s bedroom doorway.

  As she gazed at her sleeping son, her heart expanded with love, and for a moment all thoughts of murder left her mind. Matt was a well-adjusted, good boy, who rarely needed a stern word or a disapproving look.

  Sometimes she worried that he was too accommodating, that i
n his eagerness to please he’d make mistakes and trust the wrong people. But they were normal motherly concerns and she had bigger worries plaguing her mind.

  She walked through the living room and into the bathroom, needing a quick shower before going to bed. As she stood beneath the warm spray of water, her thoughts turned to Cameron.

  In another lifetime, he might have been the man she’d invite into her heart, but she was living in this lifetime and had decided long ago that nobody, especially no man, would ever be allowed too close.

  She couldn’t let any man close to her, there were too many secrets in her past, too much of herself she’d never be able to tell anyone. She feared that if she tried to have a relationship she’d slip up, make a mistake and all would be lost.

  Still, there were times when she was in her bed alone that she longed for strong arms to reach out to her, when she wished for an intimacy that she’d never really experienced before with any man.

  There were also times she wished she had somebody to talk to about Matt, someone to brag to when he did something amazing and to commiserate with when things went wrong.

  Each time she tried to imagine who that man might have been, an image of Cameron filled her mind. Over the past several years he’d made it a habit to stop in at the café right at closing time.

  He’d drink the last cup of coffee in the pot and they’d sit and talk. She’d been there for him when his younger brother had died two years ago in a tragic farming accident and his grief had not only shattered his heart, but also made him the sole child of his older parents.

  He’d been there for her when Candy Bailey had been found murdered in one of the cabins she rented behind the café. They’d gone through bad times together and had also shared a lot of laughter.

  She knew he was romantically interested in her, and although she enjoyed their evening conversations, she never allowed him to believe their relationship would be anything other than friendship.