The Bodyguard's Return
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Carla Cassidy
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14
Chapter 1
She’d never meant to make Cotter Creek, Oklahoma, her home. Savannah Marie Clarion had been on her way to nowhere when the transmission in her car had decided to go wonky. She’d managed to pull it into Mechanic’s Mansion on Main Street before it had died completely.
She’d taken one look around the dusty small town and had decided Cotter Creek sure felt like nowhere to her.
That had been three months ago. She now hurried down Main Street toward the Sunny Side Up Café where she was meeting Meredith West for lunch. After that she had an interview to conduct for her job as a reporter for the Cotter Creek Chronicle, the daily newspaper.
“Good morning, Mr. Rhenquist.” She smiled at the old man who sat in a chair in front of the barbershop. His deeply weathered face looked like the cracked Oklahoma earth as he scowled at her.
“Somebody eat the bottom of your britches?” he asked.
She flashed him a bright smile. “It’s the latest style, Mr. Rhenquist. They’re cropped short on purpose.”
“Looks silly to me,” he replied. “No place for fashion in Cotter Creek.”
“If they ever ban grouchy old farts from Cotter Creek, you’d better pack your bags,” she retorted. She instantly bit her lower lip and hurried on, trying not to feel self-conscious in the short gray pants, sleek black boots and pink sweater that clashed cheerfully with her bright red curly hair.
She could almost hear her mother’s voice ringing in her ears as she hurried toward the café. “You’re brash, Savannah Marie. You’re outspoken and it’s quite unbecoming.”
She stuffed her mother’s voice in the mental box where she kept all the unpleasantness of her life as she entered the Sunny Side Up Café. She was greeted by the lingering breakfast scents of fried bacon and strong coffee now being overwhelmed by burgers and onions and the lunchtime fare.
Immediately she spied Meredith at a booth near the back of the busy café. At the sight of her friend, Savannah couldn’t help the smile that curved her lips.
Meredith West had been one of the first people Savannah had met when she’d settled into the upstairs of a house owned by Ms. Winnie Halifax. Meredith had been visiting the sweet old lady when Savannah had been moving in.
On the surface Savannah and Meredith couldn’t be more different. Meredith always looked like she’d dressed in the dark, pulling on whatever her hands managed to land on while still half-asleep. On the other hand, Savannah had been breast-fed fashion sense by a superficial mother who had believed physical beauty was the second most important thing to being rich.
“Don’t you look spiffy,” Meredith said as Savannah slid into the booth opposite her.
“Thanks. Rhenquist just asked me what happened to the bottom of my britches.”
Meredith’s full lips curved into a smile. “Rhenquist is an old boob.”
A young waitress appeared at their table to take their order, interrupting their conversation momentarily. “So, what’s up with you?” Savannah asked when the waitress had left their booth. “Are you off on another adventure?”
Meredith worked for the family business, Wild West Protective Services. Savannah had been intrigued when she’d learned her new friend worked as a bodyguard. “And when are you going to let me interview you for my column?”
“No, and never,” Meredith replied. “I’ve decided to take some time off.” She leaned forward, her green eyes sparkling. “My brother, Joshua is coming home. He should be here sometime today or tomorrow.”
“You have too many brothers. Which one is Joshua?”
“The baby. He’s been in New York for the past year and a half and we’ve all missed him desperately.” Her affection for her younger sibling was obvious in her voice.
“Is this a visit?”
“No, he’s decided to move back here. He says he’s had enough of the big city. He’d probably love for you to interview him. Joshua has never shied away from attention.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Savannah replied. “I’m interviewing Charlie Summit this afternoon.”
“Now that should be interesting. I can’t believe Cotter Creek’s epitome of crazy as a loon is going to talk to you.” Meredith shoved a strand of her long dark hair behind one ear.
“Actually, beneath his gruff exterior and eccentricities, Charlie is a very nice man. I sometimes go over to his place in the evenings and we play chess together. He’s lonely and he was thrilled when I told him I wanted to talk to him for one of my ‘People and Personality’ columns.”
“When we were kids he used to scare the hell out of us,” Meredith said after the waitress had returned to serve their orders. “He lived all alone out there in the middle of nowhere and looked like Grizzly Adams on a bad day. There was a rumor that his root cellar was filled with children who had disobeyed their parents.”
Savannah laughed. “I wonder who started that particular rumor?”
“Probably some parent with disobedient children.”
Meredith paused to take a sip of her iced tea, then continued. “Actually, Joshua became good friends with him when Joshua was about fifteen years old. You know that weather vane that Charlie has stuck in the ground next to his house?”
“You mean that copper monstrosity with the rooster?”
Meredith nodded. “One night a bunch of Joshua’s friends dared him to steal it. Joshua sneaked up and Charlie was waiting for him with a shotgun in hand.”
“So, what happened?”
“Charlie made Joshua go inside the house and call my father. As punishment Joshua had to go over to Charlie’s twice a week after school and work. I think he’s kept in touch with Charlie even while he’s been in New York.”
“If your brother is his friend, that makes two friends for Charlie. I’m hoping my article on him will humanize him and make people look beyond the scruffy beard and gruff exterior.”
“Oh, I almost forgot.” Meredith opened her purse and pulled out a cream-colored envelope and handed it across the table to Savannah.
“What’s this?”
“A wedding invitation. Clay and Libby are getting married a week from next Saturday.”
“Wow, that’s kind of fast, isn’t it?” Savannah knew a little about the romance between Meredith’s brother Clay and the beautiful blonde from Hollywood.
Clay had been sent to Hollywood to play bodyguard to Libby’s daughter, Gracie, who was a little movie star and had been receiving threatening notes in the mail. Clay and Libby had fallen in love, and Libby and her daughter had moved to Cotter Creek a couple of weeks ago.
Meredith smiled, a touch of wistfulness in her eyes. “Yes, it’s fast, but, according to Clay and Libby, when you know something is right you don’t waste any time.”
The two women continued to visit as they ate their lunch, then all too quickly it was time for Savannah to head to her interview with Charlie.
It was almost one o’clock as Savannah drove down Main Street, headed to the outskirts of town and the small ranch house where Charlie Summit lived.
Every morning for the past three months she had awakened and been vaguely surprised to discover herself for the most part content with her new life. And content was something she couldn’t ever remember feeling in her twenty-four years of life.
Savannah had awakened one morning in her beautiful bedroom in her parents’ beautiful house and had realized if she didn’t get away from the criticism and unrealistic expectations she’d never know who she was and what she was capable of being.
And so she’d headed for the biggest adventure of her life…finding her life.
It had been that faulty transmission that had brought her to Cotter Creek and a further stroke of luck that Raymond Buchannan, the owner of the local newspaper, was getting old and tired. When she’d approached him with her journalism degree in one hand and an idea for profiling the locals in a column each week in the other, he’d hired her.
In the time she’d been here, she’d grown to love Cotter Creek, but she’d begun to think something bad was happening here. There had been too many accidental deaths of local ranchers lately. On a whim she’d done some research and the results were troubling, to say the least.
She shoved away thoughts of those deaths and rolled down her window to allow in the crisp early-October air, so different from the desert heat in Scottsdale, Arizona, where she’d grown up.
She was looking forward to the interview with Charlie. All her teachers in her journalism classes had told her that she was particularly good at the art of interviewing.
She always managed to glean one little nugget of information that exposed the very center of a person. It was one of her strengths. Her mother had spent her lifetime cataloging Savannah’s weaknesses.
Charlie Summit lived, as most of the ranchers in the area did, in the middle of nowhere. But, unlike most of the flat pastures of his neighbors, Charlie’s little two-bedroom ranch house was surrounded by woods and a yard that hadn’t seen the blade of a lawnmower in the past twenty years.
A rusted-out pickup truck body sat on cinder blocks on the east side of the house, surrounded by old scraps of tin and the infamous, huge, elaborate copper weather vane.
The junkyard collection, coupled with his hermitlike tendencies, certainly helped add to Charlie’s reputation as an odd duck.
What was definitely odd was that, as Savannah pulled her car to a halt in front of the overgrown path that led to Charlie’s front door, his two dogs, Judd and Jessie, were pacing the porch, obviously agitated.
Charlie never let the dogs stay out on their own. He’d always told her the two mutts were too dumb to know to scratch an itch unless he was sitting beside them telling them how to do it.
As she got out of her car, the two came running to her. They raced around her feet, releasing sharp whines. “What’s the matter, boys?” she asked and knelt down to pet first the tall, mostly golden retriever then the smaller, mostly fox terrier. Savannah loved dogs, one of her many character flaws where her parents were concerned.
She stood and looked toward the house, where the front door was open, but no sound drifted outward. Odd. Charlie never left his door open. He’d always told her that an open door invited in trouble.
The curly red hairs on the nape of her neck sprang to attention as a sense of apprehension slithered through her,
“Charlie?” she called as she stepped closer to the porch. Judd and Jessie whined at her feet. “Charlie, it’s me, Savannah.”
She climbed the steps and paused at the front door as she caught a whiff of a scent that didn’t belong. It smelled like a firecracker seconds after explosion. She rapped her knuckles on the screen door, then stepped inside.
“Charlie? Are you home?” She walked the short distance through the foyer, then took a single step into the living room.
Charlie was home. He sat in his favorite recliner in the cluttered living room, a handgun on the floor beside him and the pieces of his head decorating the wall in bloody splatters behind him.
Savannah froze, for a moment her mind refused to make sense of the scene before her. In that instant of immobility she was acutely conscious of the pitiful yowls of the dogs coming from the porch, the laughter of a live audience drifting from the television and a mewling noise that she suddenly realized was coming from her.
That moment of blessed denial passed, and the horror struck her like a fist to the stomach. Charlie’s sightless blue eyes stared at her as she stumbled backward, fighting the need to be sick, swallowing against the scream that begged to be released.
Tears blurred her vision as she backed out the screen door. She turned blindly, intent on getting to her car, where her cell phone was in her purse on the front seat.
The scream that had been trapped in the back of her throat released itself as a pair of strong hands grabbed her shoulders.
The red-haired, pink-clad woman nearly barreled over Joshua West as he stepped up on the porch of Charlie’s house. The shriek she emitted as he caught her by the shoulders nearly shattered his eardrums, but the kick she delivered to his shin sent him backward with a stream of cuss words that would have daunted the devil.
“What in the hell is wrong with you, lady?” he exclaimed as he grabbed the porch rail to steady himself.
She stared up at him, whiskey-colored eyes wide and filled with tears. Her mouth worked, opening and closing, but it was as if the act of speech had left her. Her skin appeared unnaturally pale, a smattering of freckles seeming to stand out a full inch from her cheeks.
As he scowled at her she raised a hand and pointed a trembling finger toward the inside of the house. It was only then that Joshua realized it was fear and horror that rode her features.
He had no idea who she was or what she was doing here, but several other questions quickly filled his head. Why hadn’t her ear-splitting scream brought Charlie careening out the door to see what was going on, and why were the dogs running loose?
He took a good, long look at the young woman, in case he had to describe her later, then he went into the house. He’d only taken a single step inside the tiny foyer when he noticed the acrid smell of gunpowder and his gut twisted with a sense of dread.
Smelling gunpowder inside a house was never a good sign. As he took a step into the living room his sense of dread exploded into something deeper, darker. As he stared at Charlie’s body, disbelief fought with shock and a quick stab of grief.
It was obvious in a glance that the old man was dead. Joshua was smart enough to know not to disturb anything, although it looked like an open-and-shut case of suicide.
He needed to do something. He needed to call Sheriff Ramsey. Grief threatened to overwhelm the denial, but he shoved it back, knowing there were things that needed to be done.
What had happened here? How on earth had this happened? Dammit, what had made Charlie do such a thing? What had happened to make the man take his own life? Of all the men Joshua had known, he would have thought Charlie the last one who would do something like this.
It was only when he stepped back out of the house that he remembered the woman. She was crouched down next to her car, a hand on Jessie’s furry back. As he walked down the steps to the path, she stood, a wary suspicion on her features.
“I called the sheriff,” she said, obviously recovering her gift of speech. “He should be here any minute now. Don’t come any closer.” She held up a can of pepper spray.
Joshua stopped in his tracks. She would have looked quite menacing if the hand holding the spray can weren’t shaking so badly.
Some of her color had returned to her face and the freckles now looked as if they belonged on her skin. It was obvious she didn’t belong here, didn’t belong in Cotter Creek.
She had the sheen of the big city on her, from the toe of her polished boots to the top of her short, curly gelled hair. She represented everything he’d left behind in New York City.
Her hair suited her small, delicate features. She wasn’t beautiful, but she was striking. More importantly, there was no blood on her pink sweater or gray cropped slacks. No splatters on the tops of her polished boots.
“Who are you and what are you doing here?” he asked. What had happened in Charlie’s house before he’d arrived, and what did she have to do with the old man’s death?
“I could ask you the same,” she replied, eyes narrowed and finger poised above the sprayer on the can.
“I’m Joshua West and I was just on my way home and decided to stop and say hello to Charlie.”
Relief filled her amber-colored eyes and she lowered the can. “I heard they were expecting you either today or tomorrow.”
“You didn’t answer my questions. Who are you and what in the hell is going on here?” Anger swept through him, much more agreeable than the grief that clawed at his insides as he thought of Charlie.
The relief that had shone from her eyes was short-lived. A frown tugged her thin eyebrows closer together. “My name is Savannah Clarion and I don’t know what the hell is going on. I got here about two minutes before you did, just long enough to go inside and find…” She bit her bottom lip as tears welled up.
The anger that had momentarily reared to life dissipated. “Why are you here? Charlie isn’t…wasn’t exactly the type who liked to entertain guests.” And he couldn’t imagine that a young woman like her would have an interest in visiting with the old man.
“I was going to interview him. I write a column for the Cotter Creek Chronicle called ‘People and Personalities.’” Tears spilled onto her cheeks. “Why would he do something like this? I can’t believe it.”
Joshua raked a hand through his thick, dark hair and frowned. “I just spoke with him two days ago. He seemed fine, his usual self.” Judd nuzzled Joshua’s hand, seeking a reassuring pat on the head.
“What’s going to happen to Judd and Jessie?” Savannah asked. “Who’s going to take care of them?”
“I’ll take them with me. They’ll be well taken care of at Dad’s.”
“I don’t understand this.” She wrapped her arms around herself, as if chilled to the bone. “Seems like a drastic way to get out of an interview.” She gulped in a deep breath.
He wondered if she was about to get hysterical on him. The last thing he wanted was a hysterical woman on his hands. He shoved his hands in his slacks pockets as he heard the wail of a siren in the distance.
The joyous homecoming he’d expected had transformed into something horrible, and he knew the full realization that Charlie was dead hadn’t even struck him yet. What he couldn’t yet comprehend was the fact that Charlie hadn’t died in his sleep or suffered a heart attack, but, instead, from all indications Charlie had eaten the business end of his gun.
He said no more to Savannah as the sheriff’s car pulled onto Charlie’s property. Things have changed, he thought as he watched Sheriff Jim Ramsey lumber out of his car. The sheriff had put on a bit of weight in the year and a half that Joshua had been gone. His hair was more salt than pepper, and as his gaze fell on Savannah an expression of annoyance flashed on his features. What was that about?
The West family and Sheriff Ramsey had always shared a precarious tolerance for one another. A tolerance that often threatened to dissolve whenever the sheriff felt that the West work stepped on his toes.
Ramsey nodded to Savannah, then walked past her. “Joshua,” he greeted with a touch of surprise. “Heard you were expected back here. Hell of a welcome home. Want to tell me what’s going on?”
“I was on my way into town and decided to stop and say hello to Charlie. I stepped up on the porch as Ms. Clarion came crashing out the door. I went inside to see Charlie. It looks like he shot himself.”
“I came out here to interview him for my column,” Savannah said and stepped closer to the two men. “Something isn’t right here. Charlie was excited about being interviewed. He would have never done something like this. I want a full investigation into his death.”
Ramsey sighed audibly. “I’m going inside. I’ve already put in a call to Burke McReynolds.”
“Burke McReynolds?” Joshua didn’t know the name.
“You haven’t met him. We hired him on a month ago as a part-time medical examiner. If I have any more questions for the two of you, I know where to find you both. There’s no reason for you to hang around here.”
It was an obvious dismissal, and Joshua was more than ready to leave this place of death. There was nothing he could do for Charlie, and more than anything he was eager to get home to his family.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Savannah replied. Although her eyes still shone with tears, she raised her chin and looked at the sheriff defiantly. “I have a responsibility to my readers, a responsibility to Charlie.”
The annoyance that had flashed momentarily across Ramsey’s features appeared again. “Savannah, you write a gossip column and there’s nothing you can do for Charlie. Now you go on and get out of here. We don’t need you in the way as we go about our business.”
If her face had lacked color before, it didn’t now. A flush of red swept up her slender neck and took over her face, nearly matching the bright red of her hair.
“There’s something rotten in this town, Sheriff Ramsey, and I’m not going to quit until I figure out what it is.” She stomped to her car and got inside.
“What was that all about?” Joshua asked Ramsey as she pealed out and took off down the road.
“Who knows. Just spare me from Lois Lane wannabes.” Jim sighed again. “I got work to do.” As he headed for Charlie’s front door, Joshua loaded Jessie and Judd into the backseat of his car, then got in behind the steering wheel.
As Ramsey disappeared into the house, Joshua thought of Savannah Clarion’s parting words. “Something was rotten in Cotter Creek.”
What was she talking about? What in the hell had happened in his town in the time that he’d been gone?
