Colby Law

Prentice held up his hands. “You’ve made several valid points.” He looked directly at Victoria. “Still, the only way I’m agreeing to this is if you keep me posted on your every step.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “That said, I have no choice but to inform the district attorney. If he has a problem with our decision, he and I will work it out.” He exhaled a burdened breath. “There’s no denying Barker has something up his sleeve, and I don’t want any time wasted on bureaucracy. We’ll do what we have to do.”

Handshakes and more assurances were exchanged before Victoria led the way from Warden Prentice’s office. Conversation was out of the question until they exited the facility. As soon as they were back at the agency’s offices, Lyle would prepare to move forward. He was champing at the bit, anxious to get down to business putting together the pieces of this bizarre puzzle of depravity.

“When we have Tolliver’s address,” Victoria said to Lyle, “I want you to approach her as if she represents a flight risk. Slow and easy. If Barker is telling the truth, she has kept this secret for a very long time. She may not be prepared to let go now. Particularly to a stranger.”

For the first time since Lyle had met Victoria Colby-Camp he noted uncertainty in those wise, dark eyes. He smiled. “You have my word. But, I have a feeling you believe I have the skills to handle the situation or I wouldn’t be here.”

Victoria returned the smile. “I just needed to confirm that you are as convinced as we are. This case will be anything but simple, I fear.”

Lyle imagined he’d have to wake up pretty early in the morning to get a step ahead of this lady.

In the visitors’ parking area, Simon hesitated before settling into his sedan. He pulled his cell phone from the interior pocket of his suit jacket and checked the screen before accepting the call. “Ruhl.”

Simon Ruhl had the look and the bearing of a lead agent in a Secret Service team rather than a mere P.I., but then this was the Colby Agency. Made sense that Ruhl set the classic high-end example, since he was former FBI. Lyle had never met a federal agent that he cared for until now. Maybe he’d misjudged the whole barrel based on a couple of bad apples. Whatever the case, Simon knew his stuff and Lyle respected him. So far his experience at the Colby Agency was a good fit. The Houston office was nearly fully staffed, and Lyle was impressed with the lineup.

“We’re on our way,” Simon assured the caller before putting away his cell. “That was Lucas,” he said, shifting his attention to Victoria. To Lyle he added, “Janet Tolliver is dead.”

Frustration drilled deep into Lyle’s gut. “When?” Not five minutes before the meeting with the warden Lucas had notified Simon that Tolliver’s last known address was in the process of being confirmed. Prentice had been kept in the dark about this update until the address and the woman’s connection to Barker could be verified. This news was seriously going to set back Lyle’s efforts to determine if the Barker girls were alive. Janet Tolliver was the only name Barker had given Victoria. Allegedly, she was his co-conspirator in getting the children to safety before the law descended upon the Barkers’ modest home in Granger. Tolliver had moved from Austin immediately after that. She’d jumped around for years. Obviously her final location had been found … along with her body.

“Sometime this morning.” Simon hit the remote, unlocking his sedan. “A neighbor found her. The police aren’t talking yet.” Lyle opened the front passenger door for Victoria as Simon continued, “Turns out she had relatives in Copperas Cove. She had moved there just a few months ago. Coincidentally, only a few miles from Clare Barker’s new Five Hills address.” Simon held Lyle’s gaze a moment before tacking on, “your hometown, McCaleb. That may prove the only good thing about this news, as long as you don’t have any conflicts with going back home for at least the first step of your investigation.”

Lyle shook his head. “No conflicts.” None to speak of anyway. He hadn’t been home in a while. Looked as if that was about to change. He closed Victoria’s door and gave Simon a nod. “As soon as we’re back at the office I can move out.”

No big deal. Lyle had dug up the deads’ secrets before. He could do it again. As long as no one else died before he got what he needed, he could work with that.

And, for the record, he didn’t believe in coincidences.

11:00 p.m., Copperas Cove

LYLE WAITED IN THE darkness. The local detectives had finished their initial investigation of the scene and called it a night. According to his contact, a retired sheriff’s detective, the fifty-eight-year-old woman had been bludgeoned to death. In spite of that fact, there was no sign of forced entry, no indication of a true struggle. A broken lamp, an overturned table, both the result of her fall, but nothing else, discounting the blood-stained rug. If not for the blood and the obvious blows her body had absorbed, she might have merely suffered a heart attack and crumpled to the floor.

The violent attack came suddenly, unexpectedly, from a perpetrator Janet Tolliver had known and allowed into her home. The estimated time of death was between 2:00 and 4:00 a.m. Lucas’s contact had located Clare Barker’s position at ten that morning, moments after Victoria’s meeting with Rafe Barker. Sufficient time for her to have committed the crime, except that there was no indication she’d left the apartment rented by her attorney not half an hour’s drive from the Tolliver home. Barker had no vehicle as of yet, and no taxis serving the area had a record of a pickup at that address during that critical window of time.

Robbery didn’t appear to be the motive, since Tolliver’s purse still contained fifty dollars in cash and her one credit card and none of the usual targets in the home appeared to have been disturbed. Tolliver’s great-niece would arrive tomorrow to confirm that presumption and to handle the deceased’s final arrangements. The police had not questioned Clare Barker, since they were unaware of any connection between her and Tolliver. Clare’s whereabouts between her arrival at her new home at 2:00 a.m. and when Lucas ferreted out her location could not be confirmed beyond the apparent lack of transportation. Seemed pretty damning that Tolliver was dead only a few hours after Barker’s release. Even more so since Clare had requested Copperas Cove as her landing point. Had she known about Tolliver? Did this brutal murder confirm Rafe Barker’s allegations?

Then again, based on what Lyle had read about Clare in the trial transcripts, she was one sharp cookie. Definitely not the type to act rashly. She’d had a long time to lay out a strategy for life after her release and any revenge she hoped to wield. Seemed to him that she would have taken a bit more care. Then again, anyone involved with murdering young girls couldn’t be called logical or rational, and care wasn’t likely a part of the person’s psychological makeup.

Lyle emerged from his truck and locked the doors manually to avoid the click. He surveyed the quiet neighborhood until he was satisfied the residents were tucked in for the night. Moonlight and streetlamps washed the eight houses lining this end of the street with a grayish glow. There was only one way in or out, since the street dead-ended here, abutting a copse of trees that flanked the rear parking lot and playground of a school. He hoped his investigation wasn’t headed for a dead end, as well. All the homes were owner occupied. The police had questioned the neighbors. No one had seen or heard anything. Most of the residents were older folks. Chances were every last one had been sound asleep between two and four this morning. By tomorrow the detectives on the case should be able to determine if Tolliver had received any phone calls that might have preceded the late-night visitor.

Since Tolliver was the only person who could have confirmed Rafe Barker’s story, her murder had changed Lyle’s strategy completely. There were a number of alternative steps he could take. Search the house, and that was called breaking and entering. Not to mention tampering with a crime scene. He could check out any items she might have stored in bank security-deposit boxes or with an attorney in hopes a journal or notes of some sort related to her dealings with Rafe Barker existed. If Lyle played his cards right he might get an interview with the great-niece, who could facilitate the other steps on his agenda. A list of Tolliver’s friends, the church she attended and any enemies she might have had would be useful. The downside to collecting that kind of information was the time required, and time was the enemy, on several levels.

He strolled along the sidewalk, studying the modest architecture with the aid of the streetlamps. Felt strange to be this close to home without having seen his family already. The ranch where he’d grown up wasn’t far from Copperas Cove proper. His folks would be disappointed if he didn’t stop by and at least say hello. But stopping by the old home place meant risking running into her. And that was a risk he had no intention of taking. The longer he was in the Cove, the more that risk increased.

This was not the time to get distracted with ancient history.

Lyle slipped into the darkness at the corner of the last house on the right and moved across the well-manicured back lawns until he reached the home belonging to the victim. Both the front and rear entrances were secured with official crime-scene warnings. A cat crouched on the rear stoop yowled for entrance. Lyle supposed the great-niece would see after any pets now orphaned. Or maybe one of the neighbors would step up to the plate. He’d been lucky so far that no dogs had spotted him or sensed a stranger’s presence.

The houses were only a few feet apart, boundaries marked with neatly clipped shrubs. Moving silently, Lyle eased toward the front of the Tolliver house once more, scanning the dark windows as he passed and mentally measuring the distance between the crime scene and the neighbor on this side. Most of the houses were one-story bungalow-style homes. Few had garages or fences, just decades-old shrubs setting the perimeters agreed upon nearly a century ago. Other than the different makes and models of the vehicles in the driveways, one house looked much like the other.

The distinct thwack of a shotgun being racked stopped Lyle dead in his tracks. The threat came from behind him, beyond the row of shrubs.

“I’ve already called the police.”

The voice was female. Older. Steady. No fear. Gave new meaning to the concept of neighborhood watch.

“I don’t want any trouble, ma’am.” He raised his hands. “I’m going to turn around now.”

“You do anything I don’t like and I’m shooting,” she warned.

Lyle didn’t doubt it for a second. “I can guarantee I won’t do that, ma’am,” he offered. “I grew up in the Cove. Worked as a sheriff’s deputy for two years right out of high school.”

The elderly woman’s gray hair hung over her shoulders. A patchwork robe swaddled her slight body. The shotgun was as big as she was. The streetlamp five or so yards away provided sufficient light for him to see that the lady meant business. Folks in Texas didn’t play with guns. If they owned one, they were well versed in how to use it.

“My neighbor was murdered this morning.” Her gaze narrowed as she blatantly sized him up. “You got no business prowling around out here in the dark unless you’re an officer of the law.” She looked him up and down, concluding what she would about his well-worn jeans and tee sporting the Texas Longhorns logo. “You don’t look like no cop to me.”

“You a friend of Ms. Tolliver’s?” He decided not to refer to the victim in the past tense.

“Maybe. What’s it to you?”

Well, there was a question he hadn’t anticipated.

“I came all the way from Houston to talk to her.” He jerked his head toward the crime scene. “I wasn’t expecting this. You mind telling me what happened?”

She kept a perfect bead on the center of his chest. “You got a name?”

“Lyle McCaleb.”

She considered his name a moment, then shook her head. “I know all Janet’s friends, and I’ve met her niece and her husband. And you ain’t none of the above.” The lady adjusted her steady hold on the small-gauge shotgun. “Now, what’re you really doing here, and who sent you?”

There was nothing to be gained by hedging the question. She’d called the police. No point avoiding the inevitable. For now there was no confirmed connection between the Barkers and Tolliver, no reason to provide a cover to protect his agenda for now. “I was sent by the Colby Agency, a private investigations firm in Houston.”

Something like recognition kicked aside the suspicion in the neighbor’s expression and in her posture. She relaxed just a fraction. “Let’s see some ID.”

Her reaction was something else he hadn’t anticipated. There had been a lot of that on this case, and he’d barely scratched the surface of step one. He reached for his wallet.

“My finger’s on the trigger, Mr. McCaleb,” she warned, “don’t make me shoot you.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He removed his wallet from his back pocket and held it up for her inspection, then opened it and displayed his Colby Agency identification.

She studied the picture ID a moment then lowered the weapon. “Well, all right then. Come on in. I’ve been waiting for you.”

Lyle mentally wrestled back the astonishment that wanted to make an appearance on his face and gave the lady a nod. “Yes, ma’am. After you.”

It looked as if surprises were the theme for the night. He parted the shrubs and followed the lady to her front steps and across the porch. At the front door he hesitated. This was beyond strange. She had been waiting for him?

“Come on,” she urged, obviously waiting to close the door behind him.

Lyle played along. Why not? A lit lamp on an end table and the discarded newspaper on the sofa suggested she had been up watching television or watching for someone. Seemed a reasonable conclusion that she would be, since after seeing his ID she announced she had been expecting him. Though he couldn’t fathom how that was possible.

“Have a seat, Mr. McCaleb.” She gestured to the well-used sofa. “I have something for you.” And just like that, she disappeared into the darkness around the corner from the dining room.

Not about to put the lady off by ignoring her hospitality, Lyle settled on the sofa. A couple of retirement magazines lay on the coffee table. He picked up one and read the address label. Rhoda Strong. Since this was her address, he assumed his hostess and the subscription recipient were one and the same. Her demeanor certainly matched the surname. To say it was a little out of the ordinary to invite a complete stranger into one’s home in the middle of the night after the murder of a neighbor would be a monumental understatement. But then, Ms. Rhoda Strong appeared fully capable of protecting herself.

Still toting her shotgun, the lady of the house returned with an armload of what looked like photo albums.

“You have me at a disadvantage.” Lyle stood as she approached the sofa. “I don’t know your name.”

“Rhoda.” She plopped down on the sofa, leaned the shotgun against her right knee and settled the albums in her lap. “Rhoda Strong. Now, sit back down.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Lyle couldn’t wait. Whatever the lady was about to reveal, he didn’t want to miss a word. The possibility that she was a brick or two shy of a load poked into the lump of perplexing conclusions taking shape in his head.

“Okay.” She huffed as if the whole effort of reaching this point had proved taxing then rested her attention on him. “Don’t bother asking me any questions because I have no answers. All I can tell you is that I’ve known Janet her whole life. She came here from Austin every summer as a kid to spend time at her aunt’s house. Janet never married or had any children of her own. She never got into any trouble I know about, but—” she stared down at the albums “—a week ago she said she needed me to keep these three picture books safe for her. She didn’t offer any explanations and I didn’t ask any questions. I promised her I would and that was that.” Her expression turned troubled and distant. “Until yesterday. She come over here and asked if I’d be home all day. Said she might be coming over to get the albums if the company she was expecting arrived. I told her I reckoned I’d be here. Before she left she got this funny look on her face and made me promise one more thing.”

Lyle searched the elderly woman’s eyes, saw the understanding there that the items she now held had cost her friend her life.

“She made me swear that if anything happened to her I wouldn’t go to the police with these pictures or even to her niece. I was to stay right here and be on the lookout for someone. When that someone arrived I was to give these books to that person and that person only.”

Before Lyle could assimilate a reasonable response, Rhoda thrust the stack of photo albums at him. He accepted the load that carried far more weight than could be measured in mere pounds and ounces.

“There. I’ve done what she asked.”

Lyle shook his head. “Ms. Strong, I’m confused. There is no way your friend could have known my name.”

The older woman shrugged. “Don’t suppose she did. She just said someone from the Colby Agency would be coming.” She stared straight into his eyes with a certainty that twisted through his chest. “And here you are.”

Not ashamed to admit he was rattled, Lyle opened the first of the three albums. Page one displayed a birth certificate for Elizabeth Barker. Parents: Raymond and Clare Barker. His heart pounding, he turned to the next page. A new birth certificate, this one for an Olivia Westfield. There were newspaper clippings and photos, obviously taken without the subject’s knowledge, from around kindergarten age to the present. The woman, Olivia, according to her birth certificate was twenty-seven—the oldest of the three missing Barker girls. The second album was the same, Lisa Barker aka Laney Seagers, age twenty-six.

“These are …” Incredible, shocking. No word that came to mind adequately conveyed what he wanted to say. He had to call Simon and Victoria. They had held out some hope of finding Rafe Barker’s daughters alive, but this was … mind-blowing.

“I know who they are, Mr. McCaleb,” Rhoda said to him, dragging his attention from the carefully detailed history of the Barker children—women. “My friend is dead because she kept this secret all these years. You do whatever you have to do to make sure she didn’t die for nothing, and I’ll do the same.”

“You have my word, ma’am.” Adrenaline searing through his blood vessels, Lyle shuffled to the final album. Selma Barker aka Sadie Gilmore.

His heart stopped. No. Not possible.

“Yes,” Rhoda countered.

Lyle hadn’t realized he’d uttered the word aloud until the woman still sitting next to him spoke.

“That one lives right here in Copperas Cove.” She tapped the photo of the young woman touted in the newspaper clipping as an animal rights activist. “Do you know her?”

Lyle stared at the face he hadn’t seen in seven years, except in his dreams, his gut twisting into knot after knot. “Yes, ma’am. I know her.” If he lived a hundred lifetimes, he couldn’t forget this woman.

Chapter Three

May 21, Second Chance Ranch, 6:30 a.m.

“Get off my ranch.” Sadie Gilmore held her ground, feet spread wide apart, the business end of her shotgun leveled on that no-good Billy Sizemore’s black heart. Maybe he thought just because he played straw boss for her equally no-good daddy that he could tell her what to do. Not in this lifetime.

Sizemore laughed. Threw his head back so far if he hadn’t been holding his designer cowboy hat it would have hit the dirt for sure, and he hooted. This wasn’t the first time Sadie had been blazing mad at her daddy’s henchmen, especially this knucklehead. Well, she’d had enough. She poked him in the chest with the muzzle of her twenty-gauge best friend. The echo of his laughter died an instant death. A razor-sharp gaze sliced clean through her. She gritted her teeth to conquer a flinch. “Three seconds,” she warned, “or I swear I’ll risk prison just to see the look on your sorry face when this ball of lead blasts a great big hole in your chest.”

“You stole that horse,” he accused. “Don’t even try denying it.”

Sadie was the one who laughed this time. “Prove it.”

The standoff lasted another couple of seconds before he surrendered a step. “You’ll regret this,” he warned, then turned his back to her. It took every speck of self-control she possessed not to shoot him before he reached his dually. But then that would make her the same kind of cheating sneak Gus Gilmore was.

Sadie lowered the barrel of the shotgun she’d inherited from her Grandma Gilmore and let go the breath that had been trapped in her lungs for the past half a minute or so. Sizemore spun away, the tires of his truck sending gravel and dirt spewing through the air and the horse trailer hitched to it bouncing precariously.

“Lying bastard.” Billy Sizemore might be a champion when it came to bronc riding, but as a human he scarcely hung on the first link of the food chain, in her opinion. Cow flies had more compassion. Could damn sure be trusted more.

Sadie swiped the perspiration from her brow with the sleeve of her cotton blouse and worked at slowing her heart rate. Usually she didn’t let guys like Size-more get to her, but this time was different. This time the stakes were extra high. No way was she allowing her father to get his way. She’d bought old Dare Devil fair and square. The gelding was done with his rodeo career. Too old to perform for the bronc riders and too riddled with arthritis for chuck wagon races or anything else. Just because Gus claimed the former competition star had been shipped off to the auction by mistake was no concern of hers. Sadie knew exactly what happened to those horses in far too many cases, and she couldn’t bear it. Gus didn’t need to know that she still had a friend or two on his side of the five-foot barbed wire fence that divided their properties.

“What you don’t know won’t hurt you, old man,” she proclaimed with a hard look to the west before visually tracking Sizemore’s big old truck and trailer roaring down the last leg of her half-mile-long drive.

When the dust had settled and the dually was long gone, Sadie walked back to the house. Three furry heads peeked out from under the front porch, big soulful eyes peering up at her hopefully.

“Worthless.” She shook her head at the mutts. “That’s what you three are.”

Gator, the Lab, Frisco, an Australian shepherd mix, and Abigail, a Chihuahua, scurried from their hiding place and padded into the house behind her. That first cup of coffee was long gone, and the lingering scent of the seasoned scrambled eggs she’d turned off fifteen minutes ago had her stomach rumbling. The enemy’s arrival had interrupted her peaceful morning.

With her shotgun propped in the corner near the kitchen table, she adjusted the flame beneath the skillet to warm up the eggs. Another more pungent odor sifted through her preoccupation with the sharp gnawing pains in her belly. Smelled like something scorched …

“My biscuits!” Sadie grabbed a mitt and yanked the oven door open. “Well, hell.” Not exactly burned but definitely well done and probably as hard as rocks. She plopped the hot tray on the stove top and tossed the mitt aside. How could a grown woman screw up a can of ready-to-bake biscuits? “One who’s spent her whole life in the barn,” she muttered.

Her mother had passed away before Sadie was old enough to sit still long enough to learn any culinary skills. The rodeo was all her father had bothered to teach her, and most of the lessons she’d gleaned were ones she wanted to forget. Gus Gilmore was heartless. But then, she’d understood that by the time she was fifteen. He’d tried to keep her away from her grandparents when she was a kid, but she always found a way to sneak in a visit. He had worked overtime to keep her away from everything she loved until she was twenty-one. That date had been more than a significant birthday; it had been her personal independence day. Prevented from taking anything from her childhood home other than the clothes on her back, she’d walked into the lawyer’s office and claimed the inheritance her grandparents had left for her—despite Gus’s every attempt to overturn their will—and hadn’t looked back.