The Cowboy's Shadow Part 12

"So you don't know. Dr. Chase's lovely bride flew the coop."

"Moira Chase? Run off?" Kyla dashed around the truck, then felt a bit awkward standing close to Whit, as if he belonged to her and she had a right...But the cowboys did not give her a second glance.

"Run away for sure," crowed the one with the beard. "She went jogging this morning and never bothered to go back home. Sheriff Neligh's taking it real serious."

"Chase?" Whit asked.

"We're not supposed to know, but Colton told us privately that the doctor's cool. He keeps saying she'll come home. He wasn't the one who reported her missing. The ladies of the women's club did, because they had a meeting this morning...were supposed to meet at the Chase house. They got there and no Moira.

No cookies and tea."

"Ky," Whit said, "this is Jim -- " he pointed to the man with the straggly Vand.y.k.e beard "-- and Vince. Kyla Rogers."

"You been gone so much lately, I expected you to introduce Mrs. Whitaker," Vince said. He grinned at Jim, Jim winked, so vigorously the beard twitched.

Whit frowned, the beard settled into position. "Does anyone have any idea where she's gone? Mrs. Chase I mean."

"Moira's gone hunting better p.r.i.c.k," Vince said heavily. He turned to Kyla.

"Sorry, ma'am. No offense meant."

"Colton says she left her purse, with two hundred dollars in it," Jim said.

"Left behind the big smas.h.i.+ng diamond Chase gave her to get married with. We helped Colton hunt the low spots off that road where she jogs. Colton thinks Chase got fed up with her shenanigans and did her in. Easy for a doctor, who knows just where to put the knife. Colton says wherever we go, keep our eyes peeled for fresh dug ground."

Kyla fought the sensation that the green chili-burger was on its way up.

"The search -- " Whit said.

"Called off until daylight," Vince said. "Sheriff says if she's with a younger Sugar Daddy, they're in Vegas by now. He's got in touch with her old haunts down there, and they'll call if she turns up. He expects to hear by morning."

"Old haunts?"

"She was a lounge singer in a casino so far off the Strip you never heard of it." Vince grinned, conveying without words his opinion of Moira's secondary occupation.

"Okay. We'll call the sheriff first thing in the morning and ask if we're needed. Ky, give Vince your car keys and he'll move your car around back of the sheds."

"Back?" Vince seemed stunned.

"There's someone who doesn't want Miss Rogers in town. She's staying here tonight."

Leering grins, dissolving to happy smiles. Vince folded himself behind the steering wheel and moved the seat back while Kyla pulled her rucksack from the shadows. Enough clothes for one more night, but only because they had not undressed last night. Whit stood beside her, his arms full of box. The statue.

It had been riding in the pickup all over half of Nevada.

Whit put the box on the floor of the entry hall and led her left, not right. A hall with windows on one side and pierced arches on the other, through which she could see the long room. Living room, except there was nothing in it to liveon .

Only a light tan carpet. Into a short hall. He opened a door.

"There's only one bed in the house. I'll bunk out in one of the apartments and sleep -- "

"No one's opening any unused room on this ranch," she said firmly. "Without a face mask and disinfectant, anyway. Do you think I don't want you with me? This afternoon we nearly made love on top of an ichthyosaur!"

"We didn't know Moira Chase had been ab...was lost then," he said. He didn't want to upset her by saying abducted.

"I'd like a bath," she said.

"Bath!" he cried. "Have I got the thing for you! Wait, let me get a towel." He came out of the bathroom bearing a heap of light blue. Into the hall, another door, a light that glared uncomfortably on the bare walls of another empty room, through it to a bathroom the size of the average suburban living room.

"You can't turn on the jets," he said, pointing to an oval tub, "because I don't maintain the pumps and filters. And there's no bubble bath."

"Fine."

He dumped the towels on the long pullman, placed a new bar of soap on the edge of the tub. "Wait, I'll get you a robe."

A mirror covered the wall above the huge tub, and the wall opposite, so the unhappy truth about the width of one's hips and the cellulite on one's thighs would be reflected and re-reflected. Did Whit intend to get in with her? Not a bad beginning to the night, and it would help her forget the image of the scalpel slitting Moira Chase's throat.

She peered into the bedroom. The wall at the other end bent in an identical curve. The gentleman's bath. Square in the middle sat a carpeted dais, large enough for a king-sized bed. Hooks in the ceiling showed where, once, regal drapes had hung.

"Here. It's clean." He handed her a dark blue cotton robe with a golden dragon on the back. "I'll get my shower. Don't worry about hot water, each bathroom has a separate instant water heater."

So he would not join her. He did not close a single door, and she could hear the pounding of the shower across the hall. She adjusted the water temperature, but in her grimy impatience could not wait for the tub to fill. She lowered herself into a shallow puddle that barely covered her legs.

Marry me. Be my wife. This fabulous, illogically-situated house could be hers, if she were materialistic enough to take Whit at his word. If she had no future of her own.

His shadow preceded him, water came with him, dripping from under the towel wrapped around his hips. She moved aside, an invitation to join her. He dropped the towel.

"I was pretty dirty, and didn't want to foul your bath water," he explained.

"Here, let me wash your back."

Not the slightest smirk at finding her naked. No moment of awkwardness as he knelt behind her, the tip of his p.e.n.i.s gentle on her back. Like husband and wife, accustomed to one another.

Married, to Whit and to this crazy house.

Chapter Nine.

Whit woke to the martial strains of John Phillip Sousa. Ky clutched his shoulder so hard her fingernails must be drawing blood.

"Doorbell!" he yelled to calm her.

"Doorbell?" she whimpered.

"Push the right b.u.t.tons and the doorbell plays music suitable to the season." He hunted for his jeans, where he normally dumped them on the floor. If he got married he would have to start being neater. He recalled that he had stuck his dirty jeans in the clothes hamper. He searched blindly in the closet, touched denim, broke the plastic hanger as he dragged them free. "I don't know how to change the songs, but Jim figured it out. I guess he's ready for the Fourth of July and wants to show it off."

"Stars and Stripes Forever?" Kyla said. She looked half asleep. "How romantic."

"Valentine's Day, 'Till the End of Time.'"

Whit plunged down the hallway as the march began a second run through. Only a hint of dawn visible through the front windows. He would strangle Jim for waking him at this unearthly...Fists pounded on the solid wood door, and someone begged hoa.r.s.ely for admission. Not Jim. He knew the door wasn't locked.

The outside lights and one in the hall had switched on automatically the moment feet touched the front walk. Through the one-way gla.s.s of the side-light Whit made out a figure in baggy clothes. He opened the coat closet, checked for the revolver in its holster hanging on a hook. He jerked the door open just as the Stars and Stripes embarked on another chorus.

Chase. In gray sweat pants and s.h.i.+rt, dirty athletic shoes. His face looked gray as his clothes.

"Moira," he choked. "Just tell me she's okay."

"How the h.e.l.l should I know -- " Whit stepped back, suddenly wary. Someone had told Chase his wife had the hots for T. J. Whitaker.

"She's here," Chase said, determined, but he made no move to step over the threshold. "Just so I know."

"She's not here. Why should you think she is?" Chase sagged against the stone facing of the porch, leaned on the doorbell, and the Stars and Stripes Forever rang out.

"You swear?" he asked, anguished, disbelieving.

Whit raised his right hand. With the musical accompaniment he felt foolish, like a swearing-in scene in a patriotic movie. He wanted to giggle, except Chase looked to be as distraught as any man he had ever seen. "On my honor, Mrs. Chase is not in my house, has not been in my house since I got home at dark last night. She was not in my truck at any moment yesterday."

"Oh G.o.d!"

Be kind to your web-footed friends."Get away from the doorbell." Chase shuffled to the steps.

"Heard you were out of town, so naturally supposed that you and Moira...Then heard you'd come home, and you didn't drop her off. I called her friends in Vegas, even the girl who moved to Mesquite, and the -- "

"Chase." The doctor lifted his head without meeting Whit's eyes. "Go back to town, get two or three cups of coffee at the new coffee shop. They've got some very good blends. Then go home and get a shower. By that time it'll be light enough for everyone to start searching again."

Chase nodded, stood very still, as if digesting the orders, then turned his back and shuffled off. Whit closed the door when the motor of the pickup turned over.

Coffee. Not a bad idea. His toes kicked something. The box containing the statue. He carried it into the family room, opened it, and placed the horse and its rider on the only flat surface, the counter of the wet bar. He would have to think about getting a table or something for it to sit on.

The clock on the microwave flicked to 4:28. What coffee today? A blend of Kona and Colombian. He cleaned the electric mill so not the slightest residue of New Guinea remained to contaminate the new beans. He fitted the filter, poured water in the top of the coffee maker, left it to gurgle while he turned on the computer in the office. Back through the kitchen -- coffee not quite ready -- to the family room. The light from the hall cast a shadow of the bronc rider across the tan rug. A ghost in an empty room. He had once seen a Remington displayed on a pedestal of weathered wood. Very effective. Very western. Come fall, when there wasn't so much work demanding his attention, he would round up some planks from an old shack and make a stand for the thing. Or perhaps a heavy, rough-hewn coffee table, so visitors could sit on the couch and see the thing at eye-level.

Except he didn't have a couch.

"Whit?" Her shadow crossed that of the cowboy.

"I'm making coffee. Come into the kitchen." She wore the blue robe. It had no b.u.t.tons, only a belt, and flipped open with every step, revealing most of her thigh. "Sit down." He searched through the cupboard for two unchipped mugs. He should buy some thin china ones, better for appreciating the taste of fine coffee.

He turned around, and all the muscles of his back cramped in sudden spasm. She sat at the mahogany table, leaning on her elbows. Leaning on Jenny's table, the one she had spotted in a roadside store on her way back to Pasadena, the table he had picked up on his way home from Arizona, crowding the heifers. He had not thought of the table when he brought Ky here, had not considered anything but the comfort of Ky's body next to his.

Jenny, I'm sorry.A sudden concern that he had spoken aloud. He listened for echoes. Heard nothing.I don't love her, Jenny. It's l.u.s.t, it's because it's been so long since the night in the tree house, and a man can only wait so long, Jenny .

The crash of the mug jarred him out of his trance. Ky came out of the chair like a gun had gone off. A mug he seldom used because it was too small, printed with his name and Plum Sky Ranch, a gift at a cattleman's convention in Reno. He saw his hands shaking when he put the remaining mug beside the coffee maker.

"Where's the broom?" Kyla asked. He started to push the shards aside with his foot, realized at the last second that he was barefoot. Amazing, that he could stay upright. Open the closet; pull out the broom. She set to work.

"Watch your feet," he said.

"I am." She stepped back, holding the broom at arm's length.

He found another pristine mug -- picture of a prospector, I Lost my a.s.s in Reno.

His father had bought thatbefore the final coin in the slot machine.

"Who was at the door?" she asked as she poured the coffee. Just like a wife.

Like a woman who has the right to inquire into a man's business. He had allowed himself to be drawn deeper than he wanted to be. Too deep.

"Chase."

She put the mugs on the table, slopping a little coffee, and dashed for a paper towel. As she leaned over his shoulder to mop up the spill, she said, "He knows I'm here."

"No, he was looking for Moira. Seems he expected to find her with me."

She sat down and her eyelids sank to half-mast. Either not completely awake or thinking. She embraced the cup, as she had held his shaft last night in the tub.

Such a blatant, sensual gesture, and on Jenny's table.

"This may sound silly, but I woke up wondering -- "

"Nothing you say is silly," he protested.

"If the hide-away where Rod took Moira...How far is Chase's house from the road where Moira jogs?" A careful present tense. In the midst of love she had cried out, shocked at the possibility of murder, and had quivered in his arms.

"Across town, but across Argentia's not all that far."

"What if Moira woke feeling a bit under the weather. Maybe she hadn't slept well. She thinks, 'A run will straighten me out.' But instead, running makes her feel worse. She might go to the shack or house or trailer, whatever it is, where she and Rod made love, to rest before walking home. She lies down, the fever comes on, she's feeling worse and worse."

"Hantavirus, from some cabin near the national park. But it's been at least six weeks," he said. They should have driven to the other three ranches yesterday, but he had been negligent, playing instead of searching for hantavirus.

"Not necessarily. What if Rod picked up hantavirus when he cleaned up the shack to create their love nest? Rod got full exposure, lifting dust with a broom.

Moira wasn't in the place until the next morning, so she's okay, up to now. But Rod didn't clean out the mouse nests beneath the floor. Maybe they took a thermos of coffee and a couple Danish. After they leave, the mice come to feast on the crumbs. Even the warmth of the blankets, the mattress..."

He drank half his coffee, knowing what she meant to say. s.e.x would leave a residue attractive to mice.

"No use hunting until it's a bit lighter," he said. "You got any ideas?"

"I noticed a road on the edge of town, a bunch of trailers parked on both sides."

"Generator Flat."

"Generator!"