The otter’s dark eyes stared at Paradise as if pleading for help. Roger moved out of the way to allow her to get closer. They stood behind Roger’s biggest barn a couple hundred yards away from the pond where the otter had likely lived. A few curious cows stared their way before heading to the pond.
When Paradise got the call from Roger, she’d been on her way to Mary’s from Bea’s house, but she’d swung around and headed back. It wouldn’t hurt to ask Roger about Lloyd Adams since they were related. Being with Roger might help her dig up that memory that refused to surface.
Paradise knelt on the muddy ground. The moisture soaked through the knees of her jeans. “Could you get her some water?”
Roger nodded before grabbing a bucket and heading to the hose spigot by the barn. The poor thing’s leg was mangled by the trap, and Paradise’s gaze moved from the injury to the animal’s belly. The otter needed to be out of the sun more than anything right now.
She pulled on thick leather gloves to make sure the animal didn’t try to bite in a frenzy of fear and pain. “I’ll get her fixed up. I think she’s pregnant.”
Roger pushed his cowboy hat off his forehead. “Quinn found it before school, and I released it from the trap before calling you. I didn’t want to move it in case I did more damage.”
He grabbed a stainless-steel bowl and carried it back with the bucket of water. The breeze carried a whiff of his cologne, a masculine scent of leather and hints of tobacco and citrus. She’d usually seen him later in the day when the smell had worn off, and something about the leather and citrus combination brought familiarity that tugged at her memories. She struggled to grasp the shadowy thoughts as she wrapped the otter’s leg and transferred her to a cage.
That whiff came again and this time brought an innate sense of revulsion. What was going on with her? Maybe the stress from yesterday and the lack of sleep were playing with her emotions. She put the crate containing the otter in the back seat of her Kia and turned to find Roger in her personal space. Her adrenaline surged, but she controlled her initial flight response and smiled at him.
“I heard something interesting today. I didn’t realize you and Lloyd Adams were cousins.”
The smile on Roger’s face ebbed, and his gray eyes narrowed. “Who told you that?”
She didn’t want to implicate Bea in whatever had caused his mood change. “Does it matter if it’s true?”
He regarded her with a hard, appraising look, and in that instant she remembered. He’d been at the Adamses’ house the night Lloyd had come into her bedroom. She’d run shouting and crying out into the yard where she’d stood hugging herself. A faint conversation from the side yard had filtered through her hysteria. It had been between Mrs. Adams and Roger, and it sounded like a lovers’ quarrel.
While she stood absorbing the facts in the dark of a moonless night, he’d come around to the front yard, and Mrs. Adams had followed. They both saw her standing there, and Roger had come toward her with his fists clenched. “You saw nothing tonight.”
“No,” she agreed, because she hadn’t. “Mr. Adams, h-he tried...”
His hard gaze took in her pajama top torn from one shoulder, and he cut her off. “Go back to your room and I’ll handle it.”
She’d done just that and had propped her desk chair under the doorknob to keep Adams from coming back in. There’d been no argument or shouting from the other side of the door, so she didn’t know what he’d said. The next morning she wasn’t sure he’d said anything at all. And maybe he hadn’t, but at least Adams hadn’t tried the door again.
The memory slammed into her. “You were having an affair with your cousin’s wife. Is that why you and Abby never talk about him? Lloyd is trying to run us all off The Sanctuary.”
“I don’t intend to discuss it, not with you or anyone.”
His back rigid, he stalked off without another word toward the barn, where he disappeared from view. His reaction astounded her since the affair had been fifteen years ago. Why would he be upset she remembered now?
She got behind the wheel and drove back to the park with the little otter. Once the animal was resting, she headed out Fort Morgan Road toward the Steerforth house. The storm gathering on the horizon matched Paradise’s mood, and she dreaded the coming confrontation as she mentally rehearsed what she intended to say to Mary. It might get as turbulent as the clouds roiling over the water.
Mary was nowhere around when Paradise got out of the car. Lightning flickered overhead, and the faint odor of ozone waftedto her. She started to duck back into her car but spotted Mary under the house pilings. She lay unmoving on the concrete near the storage door. Lightning crackled as Paradise ran to kneel next to her on the cold concrete.
She touched Mary’s arm, and the woman groaned and moved her head. A large gash ran from her forehead to her chin, and blood pooled under that side of her face. Her pulse was thready and fading. Paradise needed to stop the bleeding. She noticed an open trash bag with clothing spilling out the top and grabbed a tee. The material sopped up the blood as she pressed it against Mary’s wound.
Mary moaned, and her lids fluttered open. “I hoped he’d get arrested for Allen’s death, but it never happened. I’m sorry,” she whispered. “All that money. And they had to have both properties.”
Both properties? “I’m calling an ambulance, Mary. Hang tight.” Paradise rose to run back for her phone.
The clouds opened up and dumped buckets of rain on her head as she thrust her phone into the pocket of her loose sweats.The gun.She pulled the little pistol out of her purse and tucked it into her other pocket, then ran through the deluge to rejoin Mary. Water dripped from her hair and ran down her face.
A furtive shuffle came from her left, and spinning on her heel, she started to turn to face whoever was there.
Something struck her on the head, and she crumpled into the darkness.
Chapter 41
When his last tour disembarked and left, Blake decided to see how Paradise’s talk with Mary had gone. He checked for her at the clinic and found Warren tending to a new otter. “Where’d the pregnant otter come from?”
“Roger found her injured on his ranch and called Doc this morning. She taped her up and brought her here. She’s got a few more days before she gives birth.”
