Avenging Angel. Alice Sharpe

      AFTER A RESTLESS NIGHT spent wrestling the blankets, Elle was up and dressed early.

      She’d had the nightmare again last night. Her father, facedown on the floor. Her standing at the top of the stairs. Her crying out, him turning, his face dissolving into a pulpy, bloody mess as he got to his feet, his flesh slipping from his rotting corpse as he started up the stairs toward her.

      Always the same dream, not as often now as before, but always the same. She’d finally told her grandfather about it and he’d shaken his white head. “Janey, it’s clear to me your father wants justice for himself, for your mother and for your baby brother,” he’d said. He’d continued calling her Janey despite the judge’s protests. “I’ve been thinking about this ever since I was diagnosed with this blasted cancer. I shouldn’t have allowed their deaths to go unavenged and now it’s too late. Unless—”

      That conversation had set everything else in motion and had strangely almost ended the dream, as though her father knew she was committed to avenge them all.

      And now she was finally on the brink of making good on that promise.

      The conversation with the judge the night before had been horrific. He’d demanded she return with him, she’d refused. He’d called her spoiled, she’d called him controlling. They’d finally agreed to meet for lunch, a promise she’d known she couldn’t keep. She’d be long gone by then. She felt wretched lying to him. Justified, but wretched.

      She didn’t know what game Pete was playing or even if he was playing a game, but she knew she couldn’t afford to take the papers about her family’s deaths with her to Mexico. Pete seemed to have a penchant for spontaneous searches and every document she carried was way too incriminating.

      Leaving the pink slip and the car keys on the table for Mike, she left her cabin at the first sign of daylight. She carried her purse strapped across her chest along with her duffel bag, packed with her clothes and the gun as well as a box of ammunition. It wasn’t chilly enough to wear both jackets, but she did so anyway as they wouldn’t fit in the duffel and she needed to have her hands empty.

      The burn pile was located beside the hay barn and she made her way to it over uneven, dew-soaked grass. The papers went up in a cheery little blaze that did nothing to cheer her. The enormity of what she’d set in motion the day before had begun to sink in, creating a dandy case of performance anxiety.

      She would have to flirt her way south today. She’d have to keep up the sexy, provocative persona whenever Alazandro was around. Playful, but not too easy because the goal was to avoid sleeping with him.

      She heard approaching footsteps and turned to find Peg wearing a loose Windbreaker over jeans, a jacket Elle had never seen before. Peg’s face looked drawn as though she, too, hadn’t slept much.

      “I saw the open flame,” she said, pulling the collar up around her throat with one hand as she raised a cigarette to her lips with the other.

      “I had some old love letters to get rid of,” Elle lied.

      Peg nodded as she flipped the cigarette into the last of the blaze. She exhaled a breath of smoke that mingled with the campfire’s. The two women stood there for a few seconds as the blaze flickered and died. Then they both started to speak at once. Elle said, “Go ahead, please.”

      Peg glanced at Elle’s face, then away. “I was out of line yesterday,” she finally said as though each word took effort.

      “Peg—”

      “No, listen. I made a mistake getting involved with Alazandro. It was before I hired you, right after my husband died. I was broke. The mortgage we’d taken to see Bill through his illness—well, anyway, Alazandro somehow heard about my problems and swept in here like a conquering hero. He promised me I could keep everything as it was. He promised me the moon. My lawyer warned me but I couldn’t see any other way out. I signed papers and now—well, now it’s too late.”

      Peg’s voice had softened to a whisper as she tucked both hands in her pockets and stared at the smoldering ashes. One side of her jacket hung lower than the other and obviously held a heavy cylindrical object like a flashlight. The thought of Peg wandering around her beloved property in the dark dressed in what looked like her late husband’s old coat made Elle’s throat swell.

      Peg added, “But that has nothing to do with you. I shouldn’t have done what I did.”

      “You didn’t do anything, Peg. You just expressed your opinions and—”

      “I called your father.”

      Elle closed her eyes and rocked back on her heels.

      “I was just so blasted mad! Víctor Alazandro is one of those people who destroy everything and everybody they touch.”

      Elle took a steadying breath. The judge wasn’t home, he was here, in Nevada, Peg couldn’t have talked to him. It was okay.

      Peg said, “Mike told me your father was staying at the Lakefront Inn. So I called his room early this morning. Woke him up, but I had to do something. I told him you were leaving this morning with Alazandro. He said something about over his dead body and hung up the phone and then I saw you down here and I know I should have minded my own business, but it’s too late now. I wanted to tell you about this myself. Before he got here and—”

      Elle grabbed Peg’s arm. “The judge is coming here?”

      Peg nodded miserably. “There’s only one way out of this mess,” she said. “It’s up to me.”

      Elle didn’t know or care much what Peg meant by that. She grabbed her duffel bag and took off toward the dirt parking area located by the largest stable. That’s where Pete and Alazandro would arrive. She glanced at her watch. It was almost six.

      What would the judge do?

      Threaten her? Threaten Alazandro? Would he say something that would alarm Alazandro enough to make him back out of taking her to Puerta Del Sol with him?

      Of course he would.

      She glanced back to ask how long ago Peg had talked to the judge. It took twenty minutes to drive here from town and if he’d been asleep, he would have had to dress—

      Peg was nowhere in sight.

      Elle scanned the area around the hay barn until a movement twenty feet above