Spy in the Saddle. Dana Marton
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car was at the office, but The Yellow Armadillo was just a few blocks away. A chance to clear her head was more than welcome. And she could use the walk to get a better feel for Pebble Creek. She took the stairs, adding a little more to the exercise.
Her phone rang. Unknown number.
“Hey, it’s Jamie. Shep said you got shot. How are you doing?”
Okay, that was weird. She wasn’t used to family checking up on her. “Just a scratch. Not to worry.”
“If you need anything—”
“I’m fine.” As a rule, she handled her life on her own. She didn’t depend on people.
Jamie paused for a second. “Okay. Just wanted to check in.”
The day was hot but not unbearable as she hung up and walked out onto the street from the hotel lobby. She turned right after the bank and walked down the side street until she found the bar.
Its sun-faded, chipped sign hung over a reinforced steel door, every inch scuffed, crying for a paint job. The parking lot was half-empty. Still, considering that it was before noon, that didn’t seem like bad business. But if the bar turned a profit, the owner sure didn’t invest in appearances.
When she stepped inside, the smell of beer and unwashed bodies hit her. At least a dozen people were drinking and talking at the tables. Could be they’d been out on the border, smuggling all night, then came here to grab a drink before they went home to sleep. Their gazes followed her as she cozied up to the bar.
The bartender towered more than a foot over her, drying glasses. Definitely a bruiser.
“Howdy.” He glanced at the bandage on her arm, but said nothing about it. The bar wasn’t the kind of place where people would ask questions about something like that, apparently.
“Hey.” She sat by one of the columns that extended from bar to ceiling, holding a dozen ratty ads for local services and whatever. That way, at least one side of her was protected. She scanned the short hallway in the back, could see a turn at the end that probably led to the office, then the back exit.
The bartender looked her over. “What’s your pleasure, little lady?” He raised a bushy eyebrow. She didn’t belong here and they both knew it.
She thought about a beer before lunch, and her stomach revolted. “Wouldn’t mind starting with coffee.”
He pushed a bowl of peanuts a few inches closer to her and turned to the coffee corner. He was back with her cup in two minutes, powdered creamer and sugar on the side. “You new in town?”
“Traveling through.”
A waitress sailed by and winked at her. “Looking for your next heartache?”
Lilly gave a smile, hoping like anything that she hadn’t already found it. “No, definitely not.” Letting her teenage crush with Shep reemerge would be beyond stupid. “Nice town, though. Might stay awhile,” she added, suddenly inspired by the bottom ad on the post that caught her eye. The bar band was looking for a new singer.
“If I can find a gig.” She nodded toward the ad and tried not to think how many years it’d been since she’d been onstage. But hanging out at the bar wouldn’t give her half the chance to snoop around as working here a few hours a night would. It’d make her an insider.
“You sing?” the waitress asked as she waited for her orders to be filled. She was in her early forties, a bottle blonde, slim, wearing a white T-shirt with the bar’s logo on it and a short black skirt with an apron.
“Ain’t much else I can do. I got just the voice the good Lord gave me.” Lilly tried to sound country, as if she might just fit in.
The woman looked doubtful, but she said, “Come back tonight. Brian’s the boss. He’ll be holding tryouts.”
“Thanks—”
“Mazie. And this one here’s Shorty.” She snorted as she indicated the bartender with her head. He fairly towered over the both of them, busy with the beer tap.
“Lilly. I think I might just try for that gig.”
Even if Shep was totally going to kill her for it.
Chapter Three
Night had fallen by the time Shep and Keith made their way into town and pulled up in front of The Yellow Armadillo, after a long and dusty shift on border patrol that netted them nothing whatsoever. Normally, they would have taken a break before going into the office in the morning. But as close as they were to D-day, they’d decided to snoop around the bar a little first.
Lilly’s hotel was just up the road. Not that Shep planned on stopping by for a visit. He watched for an empty space in the parking lot. He had to drive around to find a spot.
“Looks like they do good business.” Keith scanned the cars, then turned to Shep. “So, did Lilly Tanner really burn down your house and steal your car and all that?”
“Don’t want to talk about it.”
But Keith kept waiting.
Fine. “It was an accident.”
“How does somebody steal a car by accident?”
“The fire was an accident. She needed the car and...” He shrugged. There was really no good way to explain. “She wanted to start over.” He’d never really held a grudge. “She was a messed-up kid and with reason. She had rough beginnings.”
“True that. Sold for drugs by her own parents. That’s harsh. Can you imagine?”
“Not really.” He’d grown up in a happy, loving family.
“That’s why you never reported the car stolen?”
He parked the car and shut off the engine. “She was just turning eighteen—she would have gone to jail. Being locked up would have broken her. She’d always been special, always stood out. I didn’t want to see her broken.”
He was glad she’d turned out okay. He would be even gladder when she left again. He stopped for a second and turned to Keith. “And now we’re done talking about her. She’s only here for a few days. It’s not important.”
Keith flashed one of his quick grins. “Whatever you say.”
The bar sat on a side street a little back from the main drag, among service-type businesses: dry cleaner’s, key copying and photocopying, a car mechanic a little farther down. The road back here was narrower and darker, the streetlights smaller and not as fancy as Main Street’s, no lone-star flags, no advertising posters on the poles.
Keith got out. “Hope Wagner is here.”
Shep followed. “Or the guy who was with him at the shooting. Look for anyone with a damaged wrist.”
They’d put out a call to the local hospitals, but none had a patient with a gunshot wound like that. He might have gone to one of the underground clinics that served illegal immigrants. If so, they’d have no way of finding him through the health-care system.
Music filtered out to the street through the front door as they walked up, the smell of stale air and beer hitting them as they stepped inside.
Mostly men filled the bar, very few women. It seemed like the kind of place where farmhands would go to get sloppy drunk at the end of the day. A scrawny cowboy wailed on the stage, a sad song about losing his girl. The clientele paid little attention to him.
Shep and Keith bellied up to the bar and flagged down two beers. They were dressed as rodeo cowboys. With all the cowboy shirts, jeans and cowboy boots surrounding them, they fit right in.
He didn’t spot anyone suspicious at first glance, except a bookie in the far corner doing some business, probably taking bets on the rodeo that would start later in the week.
The bartender