Lone Star Diary. Darlene Graham

on the soft leather sectional that dominated their den.

      Mentally waving away thoughts of the pusillanimous Kyle, she wondered how old Luke Driscoll was. Forty? Forty-five? Again, her eyes were drawn to the gold band that appeared to have hugged that finger for many a year. Stop salivating over him, Ms. Separated-and-Rejected-Middle-Aged-Wife. This man, this very sexy man sitting next to you is obviously married. Why did she have to keep reminding herself?

      She turned her face to the window, determined to think about something else. But it was no good. The man was an absolute eye magnet. She gave him another covert look. Immediately he said, “What?”

      “Nothing,” she lied.

      More details of his person registered. Tan complexion. Hawkish nose. Square jaw. Threads of gray in the thick dark hair at his temples.

      He had a smattering of gray, also, in the trim goatee that accented his face. It seemed incongruous, a Ranger with a goatee…and the rest growing out in a five o’clock shadow. She supposed traveling from the border all night explained his unshaven face. He didn’t seem the least bit tired, though. On the contrary. He seemed alert, intent on his purpose.

      “You drove all night?”

      He scrubbed a hand down his face as if she’d reminded him how fatigued he was. “The illegals walk it all the time. At least we had Old Bossie, here.”

      His pickup was not old. Texans loved to give their trucks pet names, even if said truck had a leather interior and XM stereo.

      “Why this urgency to see the caves?”

      He frowned at her. “I’m under a little time pressure. Remember how I said Yolonda was a witness to a murder and a rape?”

      “A rape?” Frankie’s eyes widened.

      The look he gave her was sympathetic. “She hid in the mesquite bushes while some very dangerous men raped and killed her friend Maria Morales.”

      Frankie covered her mouth. “That poor child.” Then she dropped her hand. “Morales? Like the brothers who were seen out by my brother-in-law’s barn?” Frankie’s voice grew bright with realization. “The ones who ran away and hid—”

      “—after the fire that killed your brother-in-law. That is why this has become part of my investigation.”

      Robbie had said this Luke Driscoll was very thorough, very sharp, when she’d contacted him for help in uncovering the truth about Danny’s murder. Frankie checked him out again.

      And again without looking at her, he said, “What?”

      “Do you always snap at people when you imagine they’re looking at you?”

      “Did I imagine it?” He gave her a sidelong glance.

      No, he hadn’t. He had some kind of radar. Frankie felt herself blushing again so she steered back to the subject at hand. “So this girl, who was…raped,” she could hardly utter the word, “by this guy—”

      “Guys.”

      “Oh, dear,” Frankie whispered. “More than one?”

      “Yes. But that’s not the point. It was meant to look like the motive was sexual assault, but I don’t think that’s the way of it.”

      “Lord. Why would someone rape an innocent girl to cover up something else? I mean, how could anything be worse?”

      “That’s what her brothers are supposed to think. The real reason that the Coyotes killed the girl was to draw her brothers out of hiding.”

      “Coyotes?”

      “Border runners. Smugglers. They take the money of poor, desperate people in exchange for passage into the States. Besides smuggling human beings, they’re often involved in other criminal activity.”

      “Oh,” Frankie said. She’d heard of such things, but they never touched a doctor’s wife in her secure world.

      “I’d like to see what’s in these caves before these Coyotes beat me to it. If they haven’t already. Maria Morales was wearing a vest that had a special pattern woven into it. The men who killed her kept that vest. I’m thinking it’s a map of sorts.”

      “You mean to the caves?”

      He shrugged. “I expect the Morales boys could tell us. Yolonda claims it was an ancient Mayan pattern.”

      “What kind of pattern?”

      “Something worth killing for. Do we turn off here?” Driscoll was slowing the truck.

      “Yes. Then, you remember, we’ll have to proceed on foot.”

      “I don’t remember much besides getting shot at,” Driscoll said as he strong-armed the truck down the rutted drive of the Tellchick farm.

      Frankie’s cheeks flushed again as she recalled the day they’d first met. Then she smiled slyly, thinking how her aim had been dang good. “I suppose I could have let the snake get you.”

      The whine of the truck engine continued for some seconds before he deadpanned, “But then…what would you be staring at now?” He kept his gaze trained out the windshield.

      “Aren’t you the humble one,” Frankie scoffed, though her cheeks were so hot now she thought she might have to roll down the window. A grin formed above the goatee. Maybe this Luke guy wasn’t so grim after all.

      “Park up there,” Frankie pointed to an ancient limestone structure squatting among cedars and low live oaks.

      “Built by the original Kilgore settlers,” Frankie explained as the pickup came to a stop next to the abandoned one-room dwelling. “Way back in the nineteenth century.”

      “I love old places like this.” Driscoll jerked on the parking brake.

      He got out and marched around the perimeter of the building. Not sure what else to do, Frankie followed.

      “Looks like someone’s been here more recently than the nineteenth century.” He pointed to the charred remains of a fire ring.

      “My sister had some workers staying out here for a while,” Frankie explained as they walked toward the ashes.

      “Mexicans?”

      “Yes. Guys from the Light at Five Points, actually.”

      Luke sauntered to the edge of the rise and Frankie followed. “The caves are under those mounds.” She pointed.

      Below them a shadowed valley spread between banks of hills. The only road into the area stuck out like a winding gray ribbon. In the distance their goal—mounds of yellowish native limestone—shone like a bald pate in the gray-green landscape.

      “How far is that from up here?” He nodded at the mounds.

      “Half a mile by the road, but it’s been closed off with barbed wire and a padlocked ranch gate.”

      “Trueblood’s doing?”

      “No. Kilgore’s.”

      “Ah. The congressman again.” Luke frowned. “I thought Trueblood owned this farm now.”

      “He cut some kind of deal with Kilgore and agreed to steer clear of the caves. But we can circle around and come up along the river.” She pointed at the channel of the Blue River below. “When we were kids, my sisters and I came up that way a couple of times, exploring. There’s a shaft that drops pretty much straight down. We were forbidden to go there, but we did. Robbie didn’t allow her kids out this way, either. But she believes Danny had discovered another entrance the night he came upon the Mexicans.”

      “Did he tell her where it was?”

      “No. He never got the chance.”

      They stared out at the valley for a moment, silenced by the memory of the fire and the way Danny Tellchick