Confessing to the Cowboy

It was late, almost ten, and he knew that on Wednesday nights ten was closing time at the café. Mary would probably be waiting for him with a last cup of coffee ready to pour. She’d have questions he couldn’t answer and he had questions for her, as well.

With three Cowboy Café waitresses dead, he couldn’t help but believe in the possibility that Mary was somehow in the center of the storm.

* * *

Minutes before ten, with the café empty and Mary ready to call it a night, Cameron walked in the front door. He flipped the sign on the door to Closed and then hung his hat on a hook.

She hadn’t been sure he’d make his usual stop given the fact that he had a fresh murder to investigate, but she couldn’t help the way her heart beat just a little more rapidly at the sight of his handsome face. And she couldn’t help but recognize her beating heart was a combination of pleasure and a faint edge of dread as she studied his grim features.

“Bad day?” she asked.

“Bad life,” he replied and sat on one of the stools at the counter.

She turned to pour him a cup of coffee and tried to ignore his spicy cologne scent that always shot a hint of warmth through her. It wasn’t a particularly unusual fragrance. She’d smelled it on other men, but it didn’t affect her in the same way when worn by anyone else.

“No leads?” she asked as she placed the cup of strong hot brew in front of him.

“Nothing to brag about. Dorothy’s sister is flying in sometime tomorrow from back East.”

Mary looked at him in surprise. “I didn’t know Dorothy had a sister. She never mentioned having any family.”

Cameron took a sip of his coffee, his hazel eyes more brown than green. “Younger sister. Apparently the two weren’t close, so I doubt that she’ll have any information that would be helpful to the case.”

The weary lines that creased his forehead did nothing to take away from his sexy features. Mary had been drawn to him since the first day she’d met him, like a moth to a flame that would quickly burn her to death.

“Did you talk to Winneta Baker? She and Dorothy were close friends,” she said, trying to stay focused on the conversation rather than her desire to stroke her hand across his brow to somehow ease those lines of stress.

He nodded and raked a hand through his thick hat-tousled dark brown hair. “Adam spoke with her. She provided the only information that might prove to be a clue. Apparently the night before her murder Dorothy saw somebody skulking around in her yard.”

Mary leaned forward, her heart beginning a new rapid beat. “Casing the place?”

“Possibly. Unfortunately Dorothy couldn’t tell who it was in the dark. All she told Winneta was that she thought it was a big man.”

“Gee, that narrows the suspect pool,” Mary said wryly. “You-all grow them big here in Grady Gulch. At least half the men around here would be considered big.”

He took another drink of his coffee, his eyes narrowed above the cup as he looked at her. Something in that gaze clenched a knot in her stomach.

He doesn’t know, she told herself. He can’t know. I covered my tracks too well. It’s been too many years. Still the intensity of his gaze made her feel as if he could see right through her, straight through to her soul and all the secrets she’d kept there for so long.

He lowered the cup once again, his gaze still holding hers. “I think we have to talk about the possibility that somehow these murders are related to you.”

A gasp escaped Mary. Even though in her darkest nightmares she’d worried that somehow she was a part of the madness that had been taking place, that somehow she was responsible for the deaths of the three women, hearing her fears spoken aloud by him horrified her.

“Me? You mean the café. It’s obvious the murders are tied to the café,” she replied.

“No, I mean you personally.” He leaned forward, as if aware of the impact his words had on her, as if he wanted to somehow touch her, to reassure her that everything was going to be all right. “We have to consider it, Mary,” he said softly.

“I know.” She pulled up a stool on the opposite side of the counter and sat. “I’d already considered the possibility when Shirley Cook was murdered. Now, with Dorothy’s murder, the possibility that somebody is killing my waitresses in an attempt to hurt me and the café is even stronger.” She was aware of the slight tremble of her voice.

“Has somebody given you any trouble over the last couple of months? Have you fired somebody who might have a grudge against you? Have you sensed any ill feelings coming from any of your customers or friends or even the people you’re working with now? Has anyone expressed interest in buying the café?” He was all lawman now, the questions firing from him like bullets from a gun.

She held up a hand to stop the questions as her brain felt as if it might explode. “Trust me, I’ve racked my brain all day, Cameron, trying to come up with a name, the face of anybody who would want to hurt me, but I’ve come up completely empty. Since I’ve owned this place nobody has ever mentioned anything about wanting to buy the café and I haven’t had problems with anyone.” The only person who’d ever wanted to hurt her was gone forever. She’d seen to that personally.

There was no way she could believe this attack on the waitresses had anything to do with the life she’d lived before the one she’d built here in Grady Gulch. There was no reason for her to tell him anything about the horrors she’d suffered in that previous lifetime, the sins that she’d committed to protect all that she held dear. It was history and that particular part of her history couldn’t ever hurt her again unless somehow Cameron discovered what she’d done.

Cameron sighed, the lines across his forehead cutting deeper than usual. “I figured that would be your answer. I’ve tried and tried to think about who might hold a grudge against you, but I can’t think of anyone, either. As far as I know you’ve only made friends here in town, no enemies that I’m aware of.”

Before he could say anything more, the back door of the café opened and Junior Lempke came running in. “Junior!” Mary said in stunned surprise. She’d given the mentally challenged man a key to the back door six months before, but he’d never used it before.

“Mary, Mary.” He raced toward her, his moon-shaped face radiating happiness. “Look, look what I have.” He held out a cell phone. “Mom got it for me as a surprise. It’s just for me.”

“That’s wonderful, Junior,” Mary replied. Junior was thirty-two years old but had the capabilities of a twelve-year-old. A lack of oxygen at birth had resulted in his diminished capacities. Mary had hired him as a busboy over a year ago and now had him doing some of the prep work and cooking.

“Sheriff Cameron, it’s my very own phone,” Junior said as he turned his attention from Mary. “My mom programmed it for me. If I punch one I call home. If I punch two I call Mary.” He flashed her a bright smile. “And if I punch three I call 911.”

“That’s great, Junior. Your mother must think you’re very responsible,” Cameron said with a smile at him.

“I am responsible. I am, aren’t I, Mary?”

“You’re one of the most responsible workers I’ve ever had,” Mary agreed with a gentle smile.

Junior nodded, obviously satisfied and proud of her answer. “Okay, I’ve got to go back home now. I’ll lock up behind me because I’m responsible.” Without waiting for replies, Junior turned and headed back to the kitchen door he’d come through.

Mary found herself smiling after him. She’d taken a chance on hiring him and discovered that people had underestimated his abilities and his need to feel productive. She turned back to look at Cameron, whose eyes were narrowed in thought.

“Wonder what Junior does at night. I know his mother pretty much lets him come and go as he pleases.”

Mary turned back to look at him in surprise. “Surely you don’t think Junior is capable of such crimes. He doesn’t have the cunning, he doesn’t have the mental capacity to make plans and assure escape without detection. Besides, Junior loves me and he loves the women who work here.”

“What about Rusty?”

“What about him?” Mary realized her tone had become slightly defensive. “You know Rusty has worked for me for years. Yes, he has a temper, but he also has a strong protective streak when it comes to the waitresses.”

“But what do you know about his past?” Cameron persisted.

“Enough. I know he lost his wife and child in a house fire years ago. I know that he drifted from place to place, eaten up by grief and drinking too much for a long time and he finally wound up here working for me. Cameron, you’re looking at the wrong people.”

“I have to look at everyone,” he replied. “I’ve got to either dismiss them completely as suspects or put them on my list of potential suspects.”

“You have a list of potential suspects?” she asked hopefully.

His lips curved up in a slow, rueful smile. “I’m working on it. Right now I have a list with every man in town on it and I’m trying to weed it down.”

“Maybe it’s a woman,” Mary said.

Cameron stared at her in surprise and leaned against the back of the stool. “To be honest, we hadn’t even considered the possibility.”

“But there have been no sexual overtones to the murders, so a woman could have been responsible, right?”

Once again Cameron worried a hand through his hair, and for just a moment Mary wondered what that brown richness would feel like beneath her fingertips.

“Thanks, you just put all the members of town over twelve years old on my potential suspect list.”

She smiled sympathetically. “Sorry, it was just a thought.”

“Unfortunately it’s a viable thought. Even though Dorothy told Winneta she saw a large man outside her house the night before her murder, it could have been a big woman or a normal-sized person casting a large shadow in the moonlight.” He raised his cup and drained the last of the coffee. “Walk me to the door?”

She nodded. In another lifetime she would have walked with him to her bedroom. They would have made beautiful love that would banish all thoughts of murders and evil. But in this lifetime she walked him to the front door of the café.

He grabbed his hat from the hook and set it on his head, looking every inch an intelligent, sexy man. Instead of reaching for the door, he placed his hands on her shoulders, his eyes lightening to a more golden-green hue.

She wanted to fall into that light, an illumination that whispered of desire and safety and all the things she dreamed about at night. But she knew it was a false light, a mirage that would disappear if he knew about her past.

“I’m worried about you,” he said softly.

“About me?”

His hands slid down her arms and then back up again to her shoulders. “You might be the owner of this café, but that makes you the head waitress and somebody is killing waitresses and we don’t know if that somebody might consider you the ultimate prize.”

His words shot a shuddering chill down her body. Until Dorothy’s murder nobody had been sure what was driving the murderer. Now they could make an educated guess that whoever it was had a thing for waitresses.

“But I’m different,” she said, her voice a faint whisper. “I’m different than the other waitresses who have been killed. I don’t live alone and I have Matt.”

“And we don’t know how this killer might escalate.” He raised a hand to her cheek and she found the impulse to lean into him and instead took a step back, away from his touch. He dropped his hand and instead shoved both of his hands into his coat pockets. “I’m just saying you need to be careful, Mary.”

“I promise I will be. Doors and windows firmly locked and I’ll sleep with one eye open,” she said in an effort to lighten what had suddenly become a tense tone.

“I’m not kidding. Life wouldn’t be the same for me without you in it.” He frowned as if irritated with himself. “Grady Gulch wouldn’t be the same without your famous apple pie. Lock up after me,” he said.

“Always,” she replied.

When he’d stepped out the door she carefully locked it, then turned out all the lights except the dim security ones over the long counter and went back to her living quarters. Her cheek still burned from his touch and the desire she’d had to lean into him.

She stopped at Matt’s bedroom door, surprised to find him still awake. “Hey, buddy, why aren’t you asleep?” She eased down on the edge of his bed as he sat up, his blond hair tousled with the beginnings of a bed head.

“I heard what Sheriff Evans said and I just want you to know that I’ll never let anyone hurt you.” His voice held all the vehemence a ten-year-old could hold. “I’ll protect you always.”

Mary’s heart squeezed tight and she reached out and shoved a strand of his pale blond hair off his forehead. “Thanks, but that’s not your job. That’s the sheriff’s business. Your job is just to be my favorite son.”

He eyed her with a small smile. “Mom, I’m your only son.”

“Well, then, that makes your job easy.” She rose from the bed and kissed him on the forehead. “Don’t worry, Matt. Sheriff Evans is a good sheriff and he’s going to get the bad guy and nothing bad is going to happen to me.”

“You promise?” Matt asked, this time his voice filled with youthful concern.

“I promise,” she replied firmly. “Now, get to sleep. I don’t want you snoozing through math class in the morning. If you can’t go back to sleep right away, then think about what you want to do for your birthday on Saturday.”

Matt’s tension wafted away as a smile touched his lips. “My birthday...yeah, I’ll think about that,” he said and then dutifully closed his eyes. Within minutes he’d fallen asleep, hopefully to dreams of birthday cake and colorful balloons, and Mary moved away from his door and fell onto the sofa in the living room.

The left side of her head suffered a faint pounding that spoke of the beginnings of a headache. Three dead women...not just employees, but also friends.

She’d scarcely had time to grieve for Dorothy as the café had buzzed with business all day. Weddings and deaths brought people out of their isolation and into the café to talk with friends and neighbors.

Now, in the quiet of the room, she still couldn’t find the grief that Dorothy deserved. Instead the only emotion she could tap into was a simmering anxiety that bordered on terror.

Was Cameron right? Were these murders really about somebody trying to get to her? Was somebody toying with her?

Destroying the people she loved, the business she’d built before finally killing her?

Why? And who? She’d never gotten any negative vibes from anyone who had entered the café, the people she visited with day after day.

But Mary knew better than most that monsters could wear smiling faces. They were chameleons who could blend into any setting, who appeared like ordinary human beings. They could be charming and make you believe any of their lies.

Oh, yes, Mary knew very well about monsters. A little over thirteen years ago she’d married one...and then she’d killed him.

Chapter 3

“I think we need to look at all the newcomers to town,” Cameron said as he faced his men the next morning.

“How new of newcomers?” Deputy Larry Brooks asked.

Cameron frowned thoughtfully. “Let’s say anyone who has moved to town within the last year or so. I also want somebody checking into anyone Mary Mathis does business with, vendors and services she utilizes and people who repair the café equipment.”

“You have a premonition or something that she’s our next victim?” Deputy John Mills asked as he moved a toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other.

“No, but I think we can all agree that these murders revolve around the café and that’s where our investigation should stay focused,” Cameron replied.

What he didn’t need to focus on was how soft her cheek had been when he’d touched it the night before, how he believed he’d seen desire flame up sharp and hot in the depths of her blue eyes. Wishful thinking, he mused as he also remembered how quickly she’d stepped back from him.

He dismissed these wayward thoughts and once again gazed at the men who worked for him. “Brent, I want you to check to see if any murders like these have occurred any place else in Oklahoma. If you find nothing, then expand the search to include Texas and Kansas. This killer is just too good for Candy Bailey to have been his first. Someplace he’s honed his craft and if we can find where, then maybe we can identify who.”

“Unless he’s a local,” Adam Benson said.

There was a moment of silence. Nobody wanted to believe that a killer walked among them, that somebody who had been born and raised in the small town was a cold-blooded murderer.

“Damn, but I hate this case,” Ben Temple said as he twirled a pen between his fingers as he broke the momentary silence.

“We also can’t rule out a female killer,” Cameron said. The room exploded as the deputies talked about the pros and cons of the possibility of a woman perp.

“I just don’t want to think about any woman I know being capable of doing something like this to another woman,” Adam said. “But I can’t forget it was a woman who tried to kill Courtney Chambers and take my brother’s baby from her.”

“And I don’t like the idea of one of our own home-grown men involved in this,” Brent said. “We’re a close-knit community. I know most every single man by name, have talked to them over a cup of coffee or been to their houses.”

By eight o’clock everyone had their assignments and had dispersed from the room. Only Adam remained behind. “You look exhausted and the day has barely begun,” he observed with a critical gaze at Cameron.

“I’m all right, just couldn’t sleep much last night.”

“I don’t think any of us are going to get a lot of sleep until this creep is behind bars.”

Cameron nodded. “How’s Melanie?”

Softness swept over Adam’s features. “She’s terrific. Her dance costume business is really starting to take off and she’s keeping busy with it. I’m trying to talk her into a Christmas wedding.”

“That’s great,” Cameron replied, truly pleased for the couple who had been to hell and back. Melanie had been a successful dancer in New York when idiopathic neuropathy and foot drop had landed her permanently in a wheelchair. Adam had moved into her upstairs apartment and the two had fallen in love.

Before their love could be fully realized Melanie had been kidnapped and left in a field to die. The perpetrator had been Deputy Jim Collins, one of Cameron’s best men, and Cameron would forever feel more than a bit of guilt for not seeing how sick Jim was, sick enough that he’d harbored an obsession that had turned into a sick rage against Melanie.

“What worries me is that our perp is somebody like Jim, somebody who wears the face of a friend or neighbor and easily hides the evil in his soul,” Cameron said thoughtfully.

Adam stood and clapped him on the shoulder. “Stop beating yourself up about Jim. He didn’t just fool you, he had us all fooled. We’re going to find this creep, Cameron. We’re all committed to finding him so we can give you back your quiet, beautiful town.” With these words he left the conference room.

Cameron remained seated, working over in his mind the duties he’d given his deputies, making sure that everything that had to be done was being done.

A million possibilities roared through his head. Could it be another waitress who was killing women she didn’t like working with? Was it perhaps a man who hated the fact that his wife worked at the café? Or was somebody trying to destroy the café itself?

Certainly Mary had already felt the effects of the first two murders. Several of her regular waitresses had quit working based on fear. Now, with Dorothy’s murder, he had a feeling she would lose more waitresses.

How long could she keep the café open with a dwindling staff? And why would anyone want the popular place that was the hub of the small town closed down?

Nothing about these murders made sense. No matter how he twisted what little facts he knew around in his head, there was no easy explanation to find, no answers haunting the edges of his consciousness.

Frustration drove him up from the table. Nothing would get accomplished by him sitting here thinking. He needed to do something in order to advance the investigation.

And he needed to find a home for Twinkie.

She was getting under his skin with her tiny kisses and happy dances. Whenever he sat anywhere in the house she managed to get into his lap and curl up with a contented sigh. He’d actually dressed her in a little furry leopard print dress this morning, worried that she might get too cold in the drafty old farm house where he lived.

He should have a bulldog or a German shepherd, if he was going to have a dog. Not some designer diva who already thought she owned not just his house, but him, as well.

With a change in the direction of his thoughts, he decided to head to the café for breakfast and to check out the crowd. While he ate a couple of eggs sunny-side up he might see somebody who piqued his interest as a potential suspect or find out something Mary had thought about while they’d been apart.

When he arrived at the café the breakfast rush was in full swing. The parking lot was almost full and most of the table space was taken. Cameron rarely sat at a table, preferring a stool at the counter where Mary served the customers.

Cameron moved to an empty stool and smiled at Mary, who looked tired and slightly overwhelmed by the amount of people inside.

A glance around the place let him know only three regular waitresses were working the large floor. Normally there were five or six during this time of the morning.

Mary greeted him with a cup of coffee and a forced smile. “We don’t usually see you here at this time of the day,” she said.

“You’re going to be seeing me a lot around here,” he replied. Her eyes were red-rimmed, as if she’d already been weeping that morning.

“Casing the joint?” Her smile didn’t quite reach the center of her eyes.

“Casing the customers,” he replied. “Are you doing okay?”

She nodded, the artificial light overhead sparkled in her pale blond hair, accentuated by the black Cowboy Café T-shirt that clung to her full breasts and emphasized her small waist. “Fine, although three of my waitresses called in sick this morning and I have a feeling their illness is going to be permanent.”

“They’ll come back once we solve the crime,” he said with an optimism he didn’t quite feel. His town would be scarred after this. People would talk for years to come about the reign of terror when good women working at the café had been killed. He hated that, he hated that already the killer had left a lasting mark on Cameron’s hometown.

“You want some breakfast?” Mary asked.

“Absolutely, give me the Cowboy special with the eggs sunny-side up.” He watched as she walked away to place the order with the kitchen, unable to help but notice the sway of her shapely hips in the tight jeans.

He whirled around on the stool. He was here on business, not to appreciate the sexy shape of Mary Mathis. He’d already spent almost eight years lusting after Mary.

Several of the diners nodded in greeting as their gazes met his. Familiar faces, friendly faces, and yet one of them might be the killer. The thought brought a knot of anxiety into the pit of his stomach, making the idea of breakfast far less appealing.

Mary returned to where he sat, as usual the countertop between them. “So, I’m guessing there’s nothing new.”

“The mayor got me out of bed this morning with a call for action,” he said, grimacing as he remembered the early-morning phone call. “Dorothy’s sister is flying into Oklahoma City late this afternoon and is renting a car and meeting me at the office around six. I’ve got everyone on the team working different angles, but there’s really nothing new. I still have three dead women and no real leads.”