One Hot Forty-Five. B.J. Daniels

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СКАЧАТЬ But how did Violet—

      The sudden blare of the fire alarm made Dede jump.

      But it was the closer, quieter sound that sent her heart racing: the soft clunk of her cell door unlocking.

      Through the bars of her window, Dede saw Violet smile and mouth, “You’re coming with us.”

      The door swung up, and Violet reached in, grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her out into the hallway. Violet shoved a Santa costume at her before giving her a shove toward the confusion at the end of the hallway.

      “Come on, Texas escape artist,” Violet said. “Let’s see if you can get out of here alive.”

      LNTRY CORBETT WASN’T USED to the phone ringing in the wee hours of morning. Unlike his brother Shane, who was a deputy sheriff, Lantry’s business didn’t require middle-of-the-night calls.

      That’s why it took him a few minutes to realize what had awakened him.

      “Yeah?” he said after fumbling around half-asleep and finally snatching up his cell phone.

      “Lantry?” Shane’s voice made him reach for the lamp beside the bed. The light came on, momentarily blinding him. His bedside clock read 3:22 a.m. His pulse took off, and he sat up, scaring himself fully awake.

      “Sorry to call you so late, but one of your clients has been arrested and is demanding to see you.”

      “What?” He threw his legs over the side of the bed and dropped his head to his free hand. “You scared the hell out of me. I thought something had happened to …” He shook his head as he tried to shake off the fear that this call was about their father.

      It had been a crazy thought, since the family had turned in early down at the ranch’s main lodge, and none of them would have been out on a night like this.

      Lantry padded barefoot to look out the front window of his cabin toward the main ranch house a good quarter mile away. Nothing moved, no lights shone, no sign of life. Everyone was in bed asleep—but him and his brother Shane.

      Snow covered everything in sight, and more was falling, making the night glow with a white radiance. For a moment, he stared at the snowflakes suspended in the ranch yard light outside, wondering what he was still doing in Montana.

      “Lantry, are you listening to me?”

      He hadn’t been. “There’s some mistake. No client of mine is in your jail cell. All my former clients are in Texas.” Which was where he should be—and would be, once Christmas was over.

      “Not this one. She has the Texas accent to prove it,” Shane said. “Look, this is kind of a special case, or I wouldn’t have called you at this hour. They’re coming for her at first light to take her back.”

      “Back to Texas?”

      “Back to the state mental hospital here first, then back to the mental facility she escaped from in Texas.”

      Lantry let out a curse. “A mental patient? Why would you believe her when she said she was my client?”

      “She asked for you by name.”

      He shook his head, still half-asleep he assumed, since this wasn’t making any sense. “Who is this woman?”

      “Dede Chamberlain.”

      Lantry let out a string of curses. “The woman’s crazy. Why do you think she’s been locked up? You call me in the middle of the night for this?” He started to hang up.

      “She says it’s a matter of life and death—yours. She swears your life is in danger because you were involved in her divorce.”

      Lantry couldn’t believe this. “I represented her husband in the divorce. I’ve never even laid eyes on this woman, and I can’t imagine why I would be in danger. Frank Chamberlain was extremely happy with the job I did for him.” Lantry thought of how well paid he’d been. “The only danger I might be in is from his lunatic ex-wife. Just keep her locked up until the hospital comes to take her back.”

      “She said you might need convincing. If you refused to see her, she said to tell you to have someone check the brake line on your wrecked Ferrari.”

      “My wrecked Ferrari?”

      “I know, you don’t have a Ferrari,” Shane said.

      No, but he had owned a Lamborghini. That was, until the accident just before he’d left Texas. His stomach lurched at the memory of losing control of the car. He’d been lucky to get out alive.

      “I’ll call her a court-appointed attorney,” Shane was saying. “Sorry to have woken you for nothing. But she was so convincing, I felt I had to call.”

      “What time did you say they were coming to get her?”

      JUST BEFORE FIVE O’CLOCK, Lantry walked into the Whitehorse, Montana, sheriff’s department brushing snow from his coat. “Is Dede Chamberlain still here?”

      Shane looked up in obvious surprise to see him standing in his office doorway. “Yes, but I didn’t think you were interested in representing her. Something change your mind?”

      “Can I see her or not?” Lantry asked.

      “You might want to work on your bedside manner.”

      “I’m a divorce lawyer, not a doctor, and after being rudely awakened, I couldn’t get back to sleep.”

      Shane picked up a large set of keys. “I had forgotten you get a little testy when you don’t get your rest.”

      Lantry didn’t take the bait as he followed his brother through the offices toward the attached jail. He nodded to a deputy who didn’t look like he was out of high school, obviously a very recent hire given the fact that his uniform looked straight out of the box.

      Shane led Lantry through a door and down a hallway between a half-dozen cells. All but one was empty. He noticed that Dede Chamberlain had been put in the last cell at the end of the row and guessed that was probably because she’d been disruptive and they hadn’t wanted to hear it.

      Lantry had dealt with his share of young wives married to rich older men. He knew the type. Privileged, spoiled, demanding, born with a sense of entitlement.

      As he neared the former Mrs. Frank Chamberlain’s cell, he saw a small curled-up ball under what looked like red fake fur. He cleared his throat, and she sat up looking sleepy-eyed for an instant before she became alert.

      Lantry had never laid eyes on the woman before and was more than a little surprised. Dede Chamberlain had already been locked up in the Texas mental facility by that time so the only person Lantry had dealt with was her lawyer. When he’d handled her husband’s side of the divorce, he’d assumed the fiftyish Frank Chamberlain hadn’t been far off base when he’d claimed his younger wife was a gold-digging, vindictive, crazy bitch who was trying to take all of his money—if not his life.

      Having seen his share of crazed trophy wives, Lantry had put Dede Chamberlain in the same category. He’d СКАЧАТЬ