Heat Wave (Riders Up) (29 page)

“You don’t know
much about drinking, and apparently neither does the sheriff’s department.”

“What do you mean?”

“In the first
place, I doubt there is a human being alive who could consume this much booze
and not be comatose. Secondly, a heavy drinker, particularly an alcoholic, is
not going to smash these bottles like this. A time might come when a guy could
almost kill for a swallow. And one of those bottles might not have been
completely drained. Or he might be able to pour just a little water into a
whiskey bottle and still get a taste.”

Maggie tried to
think through a heavy mind-fog. What did her brother mean? He certainly had
more experience with alcohol that she did.

“So what are you
saying?” She heard a trace of hope in her own question.

“I’m saying all of
this evidence is a set up. Why, I don’t know. What happened to Harrington, I
don’t know. But this truck cab is to make you and the authorities believe that
Harrington was driving drunk. I doubt very much that he was.”

Maggie slumped to
sit on the running board of the pickup. Looking up at her brother, she said, “So
you agree with Carolyn? That somebody got to Ed. That he might be hurt.” Her
hand flew to her throat. “Or worse.”

Brad stooped down
on his haunches. “It’s too early to jump to conclusions. But I expect Ed’s in
trouble.”

Maggie held her
head in her hands. “This is too much. Why didn’t I trust him? Why is it Carolyn
and now you?

“I know it’s hard
for you to believe that I am actually on your side, but I am.” Brad coughed and
pulled the zipper of his jacket up to keep out the wind. “You have a difficult
time accepting that I no longer harbor ill will toward you, Maggie. My issue
was always much more with dad than with you. I haven’t told you, but part of
the reason I know this is I’m in therapy. I’ve been working hard on my shit.”

Maggie’s mouth fell
open. “Really?” she squeaked.

“Really.” He
blinked. “You might wonder a little bit about why you don’t trust more easily. Dad
always set you up as the perfect kid. But he wasn’t doing you any favors—not
really. You wound up having to stay on the farm to measure up, while I got to
run off to college. On the surface I was the loser, but I’m less certain
anymore.”

“But this is where
I’ve always wanted to be,” Maggie protested.

“But whose idea was
that? You were brainwashed from day one to inherit the land, to protect the
family legacy. Since Mom and Dad were killed, Maggie, you’ve been obsessed with
this land. At first I wanted you to sell because I was so angry with Dad that I
didn’t want a trace of him left. Then, since Mason died and since some of my
own head work, I’ve wanted you to sell because I thought it was unhealthy for
you to stay. But Harrington changed my mind about that.”

“He did?” Maggie
struggled to concentrate. She’d never known her brother was capable of caring
about her.

“Yeah, with him,
certainly more than with Mason, you’ve been able to share a dream where the
land serves you rather than always the other way around.” Brad smirked. “Harrington
is the only person with whom I’ve seen you willing to share equally. Maybe it’s
the first time you’ve encountered a man who is man enough for you.” Brad
glanced toward the barn. “I’ve probably said more than you wanted to hear. I’m
sorry, but I think you needed to hear it.”

 Maggie sighed
deeply. “Don’t be sorry. You’re right in more ways than you may know.” She
paused a long time before continuing. “In ways I didn’t want to face, I guess. This
farm has been a mixed blessing for me. I did resent you running off without a
care in the world, leaving me to cope with family expectations. I blamed you
and held our parents faultless. Maybe I’ve had too much pride in what this
place means.”

Maggie struggled to
her feet. “I need to be alone for awhile. Why don’t you go on into the house? Please
don’t leave.”

“I won’t. You can
count on that.”

Approaching the
barn, Maggie felt warmed by the now familiar smells of horse and leather. She
walked to Midnight Dancer’s stall. The mare stuck her head over the stall door,
encouraging Maggie’s touch.

Maggie smiled
through her tears. “You’ll always be here, won’t you Dancer?” The horse’s ears
twitched forward.

“Why is it so hard
to admit when you’ve been wrong?” Maggie stared at Dancer’s soft eyes. “I guess
you wouldn’t really know about that.”

Running her fingers
up and down Dancer’s neck, Maggie tried to name and confront her own demons. All
these years she’d seen Brad as the bad boy. And he had been a hellion in many
ways, yet she’d been guilty of so much tunnel vision and so much pride. How
often had she puffed up her chest when her dad listed her successes to egg on
her brother? And had she ever really treated Mason as an equal? It’d always
been her family’s land. Her land.

Why hadn’t she ever
questioned the sacrosanct status of the land? Both her mom and dad had coached
her over and over about her responsibility to the land—to nurture it, value it,
and at all costs protect it as her children’s legacy. When had it become an
icon, to be worshipped?

Maggie closed her
eyes as if in prayer. No more, she vowed. No more would she let an obsession
with the land run her life. “Dancer,” she murmured, “I like the idea of land
furthering my dream, for a change. I can still nurture it, or I can sell it and
move on. The family will survive. Maybe a new legacy will emerge. Maybe you’re
part of that new legacy, Dancer. What do you think about that?” Maggie stood
back to stare at the mare. “You’re not going to give me a clue, are you? Well,
maybe I’m done struggling to live out other people’s dream. It’s about time,
huh?”

Dancer nickered
softly.

Maggie plopped down
on a bale of hay. Dancer retreated to the far corner of her stall.

There was still the
matter of Ed. She clasped her knees tightly to her chest. Why had it taken her
daughter and her brother to see what was happening?

Maggie rose and
walked with renewed purpose toward the house. Her bones hummed an unfamiliar
but upbeat tune.

When she entered
the kitchen, the first person she saw was Brad, standing by the sink.

“Give me a hug,
will you Brad? I think I need that, a lot.”

“Gladly.”

“What about Ed?” Maggie’s
voice shook. “I feel so terrible. I was so quick to judge him. Will he ever
forgive me? God, how can we find him? Is he alive? I can’t give up. Not now.”

Brad chuckled in
her ear. “That won’t happen, Sis. You have the tenacity of a badger; you always
have. Before this is over, though, you may need the patience of a cat. I expect
we’ll hear from Ed soon. He’s not going to leave you stranded here facing
danger by yourself.”  

- o -

 Thirty-six hours
later, Ed Harrington struggled to open his eyes. Had someone glued them shut? His
head pounded as if some damn idiot was trying to open a coconut with a dull
knife. His too-heavy tongue wouldn’t move. His heart sputtered. Something was
terribly wrong.

Like an amateur
cameraman trying to bring a blurred image into focus on a projector screen, Ed
focused and refocused his brain. His eyes slit open. A TV silently stared back
at him. Flowered wallpaper covered the walls, just barely. The background might
have been white at some time. Where did people grow brown tulips? The shag rug
might have been orange once—now, it matched the walls. The only furniture he
could see was a dresser and the bed on which he lay.

His eyelids fell
shut. The place smelled musty. Where the hell was he? Memory traces glacially
emerged. His fingers traced the shape of the lump on his head.

He ran his tongue
across dry lips. Images started to surface. He remembered walking down the
sidewalk from the jewelry store to his truck when something slammed him from
behind. Faintly, he recalled being dragged away. He’d felt the prick of a
needle in his right arm. That was all he remembered.

No, not quite all. He
pressed his finger against his front pocket. The ring was still there in its
box. Ed sighed. Now what?

He swung his legs
off the bed, one at a time. On his third try, he was able to stand. Walking
unsteadily, he moved toward the window of the cheap hotel. He must be about
four floors up. He could make out a half empty parking lot below; he assumed he
was looking out of the backside of the building. The next block contained two
apartment buildings, a gasoline station, and a couple nondescript businesses. He
looked toward the horizon, shading his eyes from the glare of the rising sun. He
cussed softly as he recognized in the distance a very familiar skyline.

He was back in
Chicago.

His nose twitched. Was
he dreaming, or what? His clothes smelled like they’d taken a bath in a brewery
vat. But he knew he hadn’t been drinking.

That
he wouldn’t
forget. And while he thought someone must have hammered on his body long and
hard trying to reshape it, he did not have a hangover. Ed rubbed a hand roughly
across his whiskers. He most assuredly knew what hangovers were like; this was
not one of them.

Ed collapsed back onto
the slumping bed. Reality materialized—only in droplets at first, and then in
torrents threatening to overwhelm. He’d been beaten and drugged and then his
ass was hauled to Chicago and deposited in this hellhole. Somebody was trying
to send a strong message: Chicago was where he belonged.

Ed rose to a sitting
position. Bent over, he held his head in his hands trying to put the pieces
together.

What was Maggie
doing? Where was his truck? What the hell day was it, anyway? He checked his
watch, which still kept time as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. He’d
been out about two days. “Holy shit,” he muttered.

No doubt he’d been
set up to take a fall, but what kind of fall? What did Maggie and the kids
think happened to him? What did they think he’d done? Did she believe he’d left
on his own? That he was running from her? Shit. He’d have to call her and make
sure she understood.

Why didn’t they
just kill him and get it over with? Like the last time, his wallet was still
intact. He rummaged quickly through it: driver’s license, credit cards, social
security. Even his cash hadn’t been touched.

He reached for his
jacket, which had been thrown across a nearby chair. A large envelop fell to
the floor. Awkwardly, he bent to pick it up. His eyes widened at its contents. There
was a fist full of bills inside. Slowly, he counted the money. He hadn’t seen a
hundred dollar bill since his high rolling days, and there were a hundred of
them. Ten thousand dollars. Ed whistled a low curse. This was serious money.

Attached to the
last bill was a sticky note with a few words scrawled on it: “Take the money
and stay away from Maggie Anderson. If you come back, you’ll be buried in Iowa.
This is your last warning.”

Ed rubbed his
temple and puzzled over the message. They were all in much more danger than he’d
realized. He hesitated. Maybe that wasn’t true. Maggie and her kids were not at
risk as long as it looked like she would belly-up the farm. She was at risk if
she looked successful, or if he went running back to help her.

He decided against
giving her a knee-jerk phone call. He had to think. He had to consider their
options. Some bastard was threatening their lives. No more scare tactics. This
nutcase wasn’t going to settle for anything less than Maggie’s farm and
destroying her future.

Ed sat across from
Clint and Cassie Travers in their McHenry County farmhouse office thirty miles
outside of Chicago. His brow furrowed as he studied the receipts and papers
spread out on the table. A man working for Clint’s detective agency had come up
with incriminating evidence regarding Maggie’s situation.

“So it’s been
Prater all along. The bastard,” Ed snarled, drumming his fingers lightly on the
oak table.

Nodding in
agreement, Clint responded cautiously, “It looks to be the case, but that
receipt for accelerant would only be circumstantial evidence in a courtroom.”

“But according to
this police report, it’s the same type of fuel use for the barn fire.”

“It’s still
circumstantial. It is an unusual accelerant that catches and spreads rapidly. But
not everyone who buys it plans on burning down a barn.”

“Right. So now
what?” Ed threw the papers on the table. “Do we simply wait until Prater
strikes again? Do I just disappear? I don’t think anyone’s going to be really
safe until we have the nut behind bars.”

“No need for
despair,” Clint observed. “My man is still following a couple leads trying to link
the fellows who beat you up to Prater. We’re fairly certain who the attackers
are, at least the first time. The link tying them to Prater is still missing. We’re
very close.”

The grandfather
clock standing next to a floor to ceiling bookcase chimed ten evenly placed
strokes. Early winter sun rays spilled through the tall windows, warming the
spacious den.