Riding Shotgun. Joanna Wayne

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       Prologue

      Esther Kavanaugh lifted the lid and sniffed the aroma of pinto beans, spices and the hunk of pork she’d added for flavor. Probably too much salt and fat for their health, but it was just the way Charlie liked it. Fifty-three years of eating her cooking and he still bragged that she was the best cook in Texas.

      She grabbed her oversize metal spoon and gave the beans a final stir before cutting off the gas. Beans were ready. So were the turnip greens and corn bread. Fresh onion was sliced. She didn’t need the clock to tell her it was lunchtime. Her stomach was doing that for her.

      Still, she glanced up and checked the hands on the loud ticking metal clock hanging on the opposite wall. Ten after twelve, which meant it was pushing twelve thirty. Old clock always ran slow, but it was close enough for Esther. At seventy-two, she was starting to run a bit slow herself these days.

      Charlie had never worried much with punctuality, though he was up with the sun each morning. Claimed his cows didn’t watch the clock, so why should he.

      He was seldom late for lunch, though. Must be trying to finish up some chore, probably working on that old tractor of his. She tried to get him to replace it, but he wouldn’t hear of it. Never throw away what can be fixed, he insisted.

      She filled two glasses with ice and poured one to the top with fresh brewed sweet tea. She took her drink to the back porch to wait for Charlie. Mid-September but the sun was blazing down like August, making the humid air practically steamy.

      Settling in the wooden rocker, she let her thoughts drift to the past. That was another thing about getting older, not that seventy-two was all that old, but she did find herself thinking backward more and more these days.

      Like the first time she’d seen Charlie come hurtling through the gate at their small-town rodeo on the back of a snorting, kicking giant of a bull. He hadn’t lasted the required eight seconds. Hadn’t even lasted two.

      But when he’d gotten up, dusted off his jeans, looked right at her and tipped his hat, she was a goner. She’d loved that man every day since.

      She sipped her tea and rocked.

      Thirty minutes later, her glass was empty except for small chunks of melting ice. Where in the world was that old man of hers? It wasn’t like Charlie to be this late when he knew food was waiting. She went back inside, picked up the house phone and called his cell number.

      No answer. She called again. And again.

      Finally, she left a message urging him to call her back. No use to panic, she reminded herself as her nerves grew edgier. His hearing wasn’t that great anymore and he was too damned stubborn to admit he needed hearing aids. He probably couldn’t hear the phone over the equipment he was operating.

      No doubt he’d be calling her back any moment. After all, the only reason he’d agreed to carry what he called the most annoying invention of all time was in case she had an emergency and needed him.

      Ten minutes later, he hadn’t called back. Her stomach churned, though she’d lost her appetite.

      She’d best go check on Charlie. She took off down the worn path, past the chicken coop and to the barn. The tractor was in plain sight. Charlie wasn’t. She was almost running by the time she neared the open barn door.

      She stopped stock-still. A stream of crimson snaked out of the barn and spread over the dirt. She went numb, struck with sudden, paralyzing fear.

      Then, heart pounding, she grabbed her chest and stumbled inside.

      A pool of blood. A head split wide-open. A gun.

      The images ripped through her. Icy fingers wrapped around her heart, squeezing so hard that her chest seemed to explode. The last thing she remembered was the metallic taste on her tongue as she collapsed face-first into the river of Charlie’s blood.