Wild Enough For Willa. Ann Major

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      Luke’s fist had slammed into that golden jawline before he could finish his sentence. They hadn’t spoken for a year. After that run-in they’d graduated, gotten jobs and been on opposite sides of a case.

      The phone started up once more.

      Again, Luke avoided it. He went to the window and watched a boat speeding across that brilliant expanse of blue. He picked up his binoculars. A man held a woman with golden hair in his arms as they raced across the lake.

      Marcie and he had gone boating most evenings. He hadn’t used the boat once since. Luke watched the white speedboat until it vanished behind an island. When it didn’t reappear on the far side of the island, he knew they’d thrown an anchor out, probably gone below to enjoy each other.

      High on his hill, Luke felt alone, cut off from every living being on earth. Suddenly, he felt restless in the big, empty house. He needed to talk to somebody. The phone rang again. Luke went to the kitchen, grabbed a beer out of the fridge and then the receiver.

      “Where the hell have you been?” Baines demanded.

      “Funeral.” Luke took a long pull from the bottle.

      Baines’s quick, inappropriate laugh was a little hollow. “This is good—yours or mine?”

      “My wife’s.”

      “Sorry. Hey—I heard she left you.”

      “We’d decided to get back together.” Not that Baines cared.

      “Your brother’s here.”

      Alert suddenly, Luke felt his hair spike on the back of his neck. Carefully he kept his voice casual. “Give him my regards.”

      “He’s got a gun.”

      “So does every other macho Texan.”

      “You know what I mean. He threatened—”

      “If you’re scared, call the cops. He’s violated parole. They’ll send him back to prison.”

      “He’s sick. Cancer.”

      Luke sucked in a breath. He was glad Baines couldn’t see him, couldn’t detect…Luke felt cold, so cold. And it was a hot night.

      Baines was still talking. “But do you think the crazy little bastard went home to his old man or checked himself into a hospital?”

      Old man…

      “Didn’t he?”

      “Hell, no. Says he’s dying. The cocky little shit says he’s gonna kill himself a lawyer first. You know who…yours truly.” Baines paused. “He’s after Spook, too. And then…after he does us, guess who’s next, old buddy—”

      Luke stood unmoving, his hand frozen on his icy bottle. Cancer? Little Red…?

      “You really want me to call the cops? That’ll mean publicity. I thought you said you didn’t want anybody to know you had a piece of scum like him for a brother.”

      Scum? Once Baines and his rich white law school buddies had called Luke scum.

      Cancer? The kid was barely twenty-three. Five years in prison…and now a diagnosis like that. Would he die young like Marcie?

      A quietness stole over Luke. His computerlike mind raced. What the hell kind of cancer? Could something be done? Options? Doctors? Experimental treatments? M.D. Anderson Cancer Center?

      He thought of the stacks of sealed manila envelopes in that locked safe in his bedroom closet. Reports in those envelopes told all about the kid whose existence Luke publicly denied, whom Luke had denied to himself—until the day the old man had barged into his office and said, “I need a lawyer.”

      “I would have thought a man with your connections would have any number of lawyers of his own.”

      “I need a dope dealer’s lawyer. I hear you’re friends with that piece of slime in the valley—Brandon Baines.”

      “Friends? Call Baines yourself. I’m busy. Kate, show this…er…this gentleman out.”

      “You can’t throw me out like I’m nobody.”

      “What exactly are we to each other? Are you my father?”

      Big Red had glared at him. Then he’d looked away. Finally the old man had broken the silence.

      “Baines says he’s too busy to see me.”

      “That’s too bad.”

      Luke knew, as he’d known that day, a whole lot more about the kid than he had ever let on. Oh, yes he knew a lot. He’d been keeping tabs for years. Even then he’d had a secret filing cabinet bulging with information about the kid.

      Not that Luke had personally set foot in New Mexico to get that information. He hated that state, the people and the culture—what they’d done to him; what they’d done to his mother. Most of all what the old man had done to her.

      Still, Luke knew the exact day, the exact minute, the exact place Little Red had been born. He had every school picture stapled to a single sheet of typing paper. He knew every basketball game the kid had ever won, knew every grade he’d ever made, knew the kid could add like a computer the same as he could. The kid was lousy in English the same as he was, too. Knew the kid had had a complex in high school because he’d been skinny and unattractive to girls.

      Luke even knew the name of the first girl Little Red had screwed in college, knew they’d gotten high on pot and done it in the back seat of the brand-new, red Chevy the old man had given Little Red so he could make a splash in college.

      Luke hadn’t had a car in college or law school. He’d had jobs. He hadn’t gotten to screw girls. At least not as often as he’d wanted. He’d had to work too damn hard.

      Every time Luke had read a report he had visualized the boy and his charmed life, trying to get into his head the experiences he’d only dreamed about. He had wanted to know what it was like to be beloved and legitimate—to be the pure-white son.

      Luke knew the brand of the first cigarette the kid had smoked. Just as he knew when the kid had taken the first false step, made the first bad friend that had led toward his dealing dope for Spook. Luke could have called the old man, could have warned him long before the kid went bad. Big Red had cut the free-spending kid off when he’d flunked out. The kid had been desperate. Instead of getting a real job, he’d started selling dope to friends.

      He’d been a natural salesman. Girls had been easy to get after that. His life and travels had made fascinating reading. And the ritzy Longworths had been fooled by the lies the kid told them, believing he was a whiz in the computer business and had a real job.

      Will Sanders, a private detective in Albuquerque, still made his monthly visits to Austin to update Luke’s files. Sanders had even had contacts in prison, so Luke knew everything that had happened to Little Red during the past five years, too. He knew about that night seven guys had held the kid down in his cell and nearly killed him.

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