Cowboy Secrets. Alice Sharpe

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      “Tess’s breathing is really loud. I’m worried about her.”

      “Head colds aren’t any fun,” he said.

      “I tried to wake her and she was limp and didn’t even open her eyes. Kinsey said she hadn’t given her any medications, right?”

      “Beyond acetaminophen, no.”

      “She spent the night at their house,” Sierra said, a new element of fear in her voice.

      “Yes, but—”

      Kinsey walked into the foyer followed, closely by Grace. Though a generation apart, both women were small of stature, dainty and pretty in their own way, which made sense because they were related. In a twist of fate, mother and daughter had been reunited. Sierra towered over them. “Is Tess all right?” Kinsey asked.

      “I don’t know,” Sierra said. “She seems so out of it. Did you talk to her this morning?”

      “Of course. Like I said, she had a restless night. I drove her over here late this morning because Pike had left early to get to the airport. She didn’t have a lot to say, but she was awake and coherent.”

      “What are you thinking?” Grace asked.

      “I don’t know for sure,” Sierra said. “She was alone while you were on the phone, right?”

      “Yes. By the time I found the humidifier and got upstairs, it had been about thirty minutes,” Kinsey said. “She was sound asleep and then you guys arrived.”

      “If she took something it must have been within that thirty-minute window. But where would she find something to take?”

      “I’m pretty sure she didn’t bring anything with her from LA,” Pike volunteered. “She was traveling light and didn’t have any money. She didn’t even have the car Doug gave her. God knows how she got here. She wasn’t saying.”

      “Who would know if she found something at this house?”

      “I would,” Grace said.

      “We’d appreciate it if you could look,” Pike said.

      “Of course I’ll look. We’ll all look. Come on.”

      They hurried up the stairs. “We’ll start with the bathrooms,” Grace said. As the three women started their search of drawers and cabinets, Pike went into his old bedroom and opened the drapes. He sat down beside Tess and picked up her limp hand.

      He’d had a college roommate years before who partied himself into a stupor every single weekend, and that was the last time Pike had seen someone so oblivious. He shook Tess’s fragile shoulders and called her name. Her eyes opened briefly, she sort of smiled and faded back away. He searched the garbage can and the night table for some indication of what she might have taken.

      And then he picked up the phone and called the doctor. By the time Sierra, Kinsey and Grace arrived with ashen faces and a brown prescription bottle, he had already lifted Tess into his arms and was exiting the room.

      “An ambulance is on its way,” he told them. “I’m going to meet it on the road to cut down travel time. What did you find?”

      “Some of your father’s sedatives are missing,” Grace said with a concerned face. “I don’t think very many, but I don’t know for sure.”

      “We’re not taking any chances,” Pike said. “She’s going to get her stomach pumped.”

      “I’m coming with you,” Tess said. He nodded once and they all descended the stairs in a hurry, Tess stopping to accept the blanket and pillow Kinsey pushed into her arms. A moment later, in Kinsey’s car now since Pike’s still had a saddle in the back, they tore up the hill and down the long, long roadway, Tess prone in the backseat, her head on Sierra’s lap, the blanket tucked around her still body.

      * * *

      THEY MET THE ambulance in a pull-off. The EMTs were at the door with a gurney within seconds, hooking up Tess to bags and drips, calling her name. Sierra stood off to the side with Pike, both of them trying to stay out of the way. Pike handed over the prescription bottle and soon after the ambulance took off with sirens wailing while Pike and Sierra climbed back in Kinsey’s car and followed behind.

      “Where are they taking her?” Sierra asked.

      “The urgent care center in Falls Bluff. The doctor will meet us there.”

      “Why would she do this?” Sierra asked as tears burned her eyes. She didn’t know if they were tears of anger or hurt. “She asked me to come, so why would she choose now to drug herself? Is it to punish me?”

      “Don’t borrow trouble,” Pike said, sparing a hand to cover her arm. In the rush to leave the house, she’d forgotten to put her jacket back on and now, with the warmth of his touch, she realized how cold she’d become. “Tess did know you were coming, true, but she also knew it would take most of three hours to get to the ranch from the airport. Kinsey said she heard Tess pacing all night. Maybe she just wanted to get some sleep. If her motives were any more than that, wouldn’t she have emptied the bottle?”

      Sierra stared at him for a few heartbeats. “I guess so,” she admitted. She rubbed her forehead with her fingers. It was difficult to believe that it had been less than twenty-four hours before when she followed Natalia Bonaparte out of New York to that bar and waited for her companion to show up.

      A sudden thought popped into Sierra’s head, a flash of intuition, perhaps. Was it possible the man last night had been Spiro Papadakis, after all? What if he’d recognized Sierra that first time she walked past their table? Hadn’t she detected a glimmer of recognition on his face when their gazes met? Perhaps he’d been spying on his wife spying on him! He could have seen Sierra and his wife meet somewhere. Could it be that he’d learned to hide his accent and sound like he was fresh from the Atlantic City boardwalk at least for a second or two? Had he, in fact, fooled her?

      As a non sequitur went, this one was a doozy, but it often happened that way: get your mind flooded with one problem and an insight into another problem floats in to announce itself.

      Her laptop was in her carry-on. As soon as they got back to the ranch, she could download the photos onto the computer and then email the images to Savannah. All she’d told Savannah last night was that she wasn’t sure if it was Spiro or not and to be prepared for photographs. She’d also asked about accents but hadn’t gotten a response yet.

      “You’ve gotten kind of quiet over there,” Pike said as they finally left the riverside road and drew close to a small town proclaiming itself Falls Bluff. Icy rain slithered down the windshield as Pike drove to the urgent care center. The town hardly looked big enough to support such a thing, but that’s probably the exact kind of community that needed an emergency facility the most.

      “I was thinking,” she said. “Not just about Tess, but about a case.”

      “Does that case have anything to do with why you looked over your shoulder this morning at the airport?” he asked.

      She turned to face him as he pulled into a parking spot. “I’m not sure if it does or not,” she said, then СКАЧАТЬ