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Judging by the vulgar poetry scratched on the wall, the new jail had been suitably christened by former occupants of the cells. Ty had read them all at least twice. The isolation and confinement tore at his nerves. He swung up restlessly to sit on the edge of the cot, rubbing his hands on his thighs.
A door opened in the offices beyond the lockup door, and Ty rose to his feet, moving to the bars. It was hell not knowing what was happening at the ranch or how soon he was going to be released.
“Where’s my brother? What have you done with him?” Cat’s voice filtered clearly into the cell area. “Why haven’t you let him go?” He didn’t hear the murmured answer. He strained, listening for another voice to learn who had come with his sister to obtain his release, but it soon became apparent she was alone. “I want to see him,” she demanded, her voice closer to the locked door between the cells and the office.
“I can’t allow you to see the prisoner just now—not till we get all the forms processed and the charges filed. Jails aren’t a place for young girls anyway,” the sheriff insisted. Ty agreed. He didn’t want Cat in here.
“How do I know he’s all right? How do I know you haven’t beat him up?” Cat persisted belligerently.
Stubborn little minx, Ty thought to himself and wondered who had let her come into town by herself . . . not that his little sister was ever very concerned about obtaining permission to do something she wanted.
“Cat! I’m all right!” Ty shouted to make sure she heard him. “Now go on home!”
“No! I’m staying here until they let you go!”
Releasing a long breath of exasperation, Ty shook his head at her stubbornness. He didn’t want her hanging around the jail. “I’m out of cigarettes. Go buy me a pack.” For a minute, Ty thought she was going to refuse his request.
“I’ll be right back.” She called the promise to him. Then he heard a door open and shut, and the noises from the outer office became the usual sounds of telephones ringing, and the squawk of the dispatcher’s radio, and the pecking of typewriter keys. With an impatient turn of his long body, he walked back to the cot to wait some more.
The powerless feeling had Cat trapped halfway between anger and fear. Everyone knew the sheriff was in Dyson’s pocket, and she was afraid for Ty. No matter how wildly she searched, she couldn’t come up with an answer.
She charged blindly out of the sheriff’s office and onto the new concrete sidewalk. At first, she was too preoccupied to notice the man coming toward her. But her headlong pace slowed the instant she recognized Stricklin. All the bottled-up frustration came to a seething boil when he paused, his glance running past her to the building.
“Have you been to see your brother?” His question was sharp with interest as his eyes, opaque behind the glasses, studied her.
“They wouldn’t let me see him.” Cat was all taut and glaring, recklessly abandoning any sense of caution. “Ty isn’t the one who belongs behind bars. You are! I can’t prove that you murdered my mother
yet, but I will!” She hurled the threat at him, then angrily brushed past him to continue toward the pickup truck she had borrowed from one of the ranch hands.
The open accusation had briefly stunned him. He glanced around in alarm, but no one had heard or seen the encounter. A truck door slammed. With the calculating swiftness of a computer, Stricklin weighed his chances. It was unlikely he’d be presented with another opportunity like this, nor could he count on her keeping silent.
As Cat was easing the truck onto the street, the passenger door was jerked open. She jerked around with startled alarm as Stricklin clambered into the cab and shut the door. She started to lift her foot off the accelerator to step on the brake, but his foot came down hard on her boot, pushing the accelerator pedal down. The truck leaped forward with the sudden surge of power. In the first second, her concentration centered on keeping the pickup on a straight course up the street.
“What are you doing? Are you crazy?” She shot the panicked and angry questions at Stricklin, then realized who she was talking to and the implications of his actions.
“Just drive where I say,” he ordered.
Cat had no intention of doing anything of the sort. Her first thought was to put the truck in the ditch, but his hand grabbed the wheel before she could whip it to the side and kept it heading straight. Even though the pickup was traveling at a good clip, she tried to open the door so she could jump out and get away from him, but Stricklin easily thwarted that attempt, too, and twisted her arm behind her back. The pain was so intense Cat felt any minute her bones would snap.
“You’ll never get away with this,” she warned him on a moaning sob of breath, but even she was afraid he could.
He had crowded close to her to have better control of the vehicle as he turned it onto the highway. Out the side window, Cat noticed the cars and trucks parked in front of Sally’s Place and the small grocery store and service station. With her free hand, she tried to slap at the horn and attract somebody’s attention, but she missed and the pressure on her arm increased until she cried out.
Too quickly, they were out of town and any chance of someone seeing them was gone. She was frightened, finally realizing how much danger she was in. Except for Ty, nobody even knew she had come to town.
Five miles from town, Stricklin left the two-lane to follow a dirt road, studded with weeds and grass that marked its lack of use. It led to some abandoned buildings, not visible from the highway. The barns and sheds had collapsed in a rubble of wood, but the house was still standing, grayed and weathered, its roof sagging dejectedly.
After he’d stopped the truck, he pushed Cat out the driver’s side ahead of him, never relaxing his grip on her arm. A checking jerk stopped her from walking as he paused to look around in a considering manner.
“I remember flying over this place and thinking how utterly forgotten it looked—so far from the highway,” he murmured, somewhat pleased with himself for recalling its existence, since it was so ideally suited to his present needs. He changed the pressure on her arm, twisted high on her back, and forced her to back up to the pickup. “Ranch vehicles always seem to be stocked with nearly any item a man might need.” A coiled rope was jammed behind the seat. He took it out, then shoved Cat ahead of him toward the ramshackle house.
All the windows were boarded over, although some daylight sifted in through the many cracks. The air was stale and hot inside, rank with old, musty odors and dust. Cobwebs snatched at her face and hair, trying to catch her in their many silken threads. She waved at them with frantic, impatient little gestures of her free arm.
After they had wandered through three rooms of the house, picking their way across the rotten floorboards, Stricklin stopped in the fourth and released her arm with a shove that pushed her into the middle of the room. It appeared to be a bedroom, and the only way out was through the door where Stricklin was standing. Cat eyed him warily and rubbed at the agonizing ache in her arm.
“Who else knows about the plane crash?” he asked with ominous softness.
Her chin lifted defiantly. “No one.”
