Gambling On A Dream. Sara Walter Ellwood
and nodded. Wanting to change the subject, she asked about his younger sister. “How’s Rachel? I heard she came home the other day.”
“Rachel’s home, but having a tough time.”
“I’ll have to come over and visit her.” She and Rachel McPherson had been friends in school. But they’d grown apart as high school friends do. Dawn went off to the police academy in Austin, while Rachel went to the University of Texas, graduating as a registered nurse. She ended up joining the Army, being commissioned, and was deployed to Afghanistan. This last deployment had been her third time over there, and it would also be her last. She’d been shot multiple times and had lost her lower leg.
The damned war. Post traumatic stress disorder had screwed up Zack in a big way. He’d all but been an alcoholic, and she believed if it hadn’t been for his little girl, he would’ve put a bullet in his own head after his wife died. His depression, and her fear that he’d go off the deep end, had been what convinced her to talk him into running for sheriff after her father retired, instead of running for the office herself.
“I just wish there was something I could do.” He sipped his coffee and shook his head. “Yesterday, after I brought her home from the Waco VA hospital, Audrey showed up. I love my twin, but I wish she would stay away for a little while. Rachel seemed more depressed after Audrey left, and of course, that upset Mom.”
“Was Lance there too?” What a mess. Lance Cartwright was the last person Rachel needed to see right now.
She understood Rachel’s pain. Nothing worse than being thrown away by a man you loved. Dawn had taken a bullet for Wyatt, costing her their baby’s life. He left her the moment he discovered she’d been pregnant. Like she’d always feared he would, which had been exactly why she hadn’t told him.
“No, he had the good sense to stay away.” Wyatt rubbed the back of his neck. “But my mother thinks everything will be fine and dandy if they all make up. She’s planning a huge dinner Sunday and invited Lance and Audrey over.”
Dawn let out a breath and hugged her mug between her hands, hoping the warmth would take away her sudden chill. “Damn. I mean… This has to be brutal for Rachel. Doesn’t your mom realize how she must feel?”
Not only was Rachel now sterile after being shot in the gut, but there was a time she loved Lance before her sister stole him away by seducing him.
“I think Mom’s in denial. She wants all of us to get along.”
When he looked up, the love for his sister shining in his eyes twisted her heart. He’d always been there for his sisters, but he hadn’t stuck by her when she needed him.
“My baby sister can’t take much more, and without her friends, I’m afraid for her.”
She nodded, but her friend’s welfare wasn’t what had her reeling; it was the man she had once loved.
Chapter 2
Dawn paced the length of the conference room. The tapping of her boots echoing through the room only served to grate on her nerves as much as the kooky bird sounds emitting from Wyatt’s phone. The familiar scents of burnt coffee and lemon furniture polish made the oppressive air somewhat tolerable.
She stopped only to start up in her restless movement again as she and Wyatt waited for Chet and his brother-in-law to show up. Wyatt leaned against the large wall map of Texas at the end of the room and stared down at his iPhone.
She ignored him, or at least tried to. But ignoring him was as easy as pretending the conference room wasn’t about a hundred degrees. Sweat gathered in her hair and between her breasts causing her skin to itch and feel over-exposed.
“Damn it, where are they?” She looked out the glass window of the conference room door.
“It’s only been a half hour. Gene probably had to find someone to cover at the Quick Fill.” Wyatt pushed away from the wall and sat on one of the chairs at the square table in the center of the room, but continued to play his game.
She couldn’t help but smile. When they were kids, he and her brother had been addicted to video games. They’d spend hours during the winter sitting on her family’s couch, hogging the only TV to play on Talon’s old Nintendo.
A cackling sounded from his phone, and he hissed a curse.
She took a few steps toward him and chuckled. “The pigs won?”
“This round.” He glanced up, his blue eyes bright with amusement as his lips quirked in a one-sided grin. “I love this damned game as much as I hate it.”
She sat beside him and folded her hands in her lap. They’d spent a lot of time together on stakeouts, playing card games and doing crosswords. “I refuse to play games on my phone. I’d be addicted in a minute and never get any work done.”
“I’m not addicted.” He glanced down at his phone with a pucker on his lips.
God, he looked so damn kissable.
She shifted in her seat and stood, crossing her arms over her chest. “Right. When did you start playing it?”
He set his phone on the table. “Two weeks ago. One of the guys in the Rangers got me started.”
There was a knock on the door and it opened. She turned toward Chet and his brother-in-law as they entered the room.
After the greetings and formalities, Gene Murphy sat in the seat across from her and Wyatt with a tape recorder in the middle.
She pulled a notepad from her folder and smiled. “Tell us exactly what you remember from yesterday morning between four and five AM.”
Gene shifted his broad shoulders and glanced at Chet, who’d taken the seat beside Wyatt; then he rubbed his hand over his dark beard. “I’d just opened up when I saw Talon Blackwell walk by in front of the Longhorn. I thought it was real odd that he’d be around at that time. The saloon had closed two hours before, and there’s nothing else in that part of town other than the downtown bank branch, old lady Pratt’s boarding house, and the daycare center her daughter runs two blocks down.”
Wyatt leaned forward over his arms. “What was he doing when you saw him?”
“Just walking.” Gene scrunched up his brows as if that would help him to remember better. “He was looking at a piece of paper or something, and he looked a little out of it. You know, like he was dazed or something. And he wiped his face on a rag.”
“Do you know what time this was?” Wyatt asked.
Gene folded his hands on the table. For someone who worked in a gas station, he had extremely clean hands.
“It was exactly four twenty-five.” Gene pulled his hands from the table and hid them in his lap as if Dawn’s scrutiny made him nervous. “I know because I glanced at the clock.”
Dawn’s heart thundered in her chest. How could Talon be involved with murdering a kid? When she’d lost her baby, her brother had been one of the few people who knew about it and had been there for her. “Did you see him either go into the ally to the parking lot behind the bar or come out of it?”
She held her breath as Gene glanced at Chet and shook his head. “I didn’t see him come from behind the bar, but I know he did.”
“What happened that you didn’t see him?” Wyatt’s voice held an edge of warning. She’d heard it more than once when they’d been in vice and questioned bystanders. He never liked when a witness made conclusions that might not be true and could color their perceptions.
Gene frowned and glanced at Chet, then met her and Wyatt straight on. “I got a costumer then. A truck driver pulled up and came in for a burrito and coffee.”
Sweat trickled down Dawn’s neck into her collar. She wasn’t sure if the heat of the room caused it or the memories of her and Wyatt. She rubbed the back of her neck. “Do you know this driver?”