The Hopechest Bride. Kasey Michaels

looked toward the mirror once more. “Send him in, Kade, and then join us. Ms. Portman,” he continued, leaning his elbows on the tabletop, “I know you waived your Miranda rights. You waived them several times, in fact. But even the innocent are advised to accept the services of a lawyer, and Mr. Roberts is one of the best defense attorneys in the state.”

      Patsy gave a toss of her head. “Sure. And who’s paying him? Joe? The man’s demented, lost his mind. Why not just lock me up and throw away the key? And my name is Colton, Thaddeus. Meredith Colton. I was a guest at your wedding, remember? I believe we gave you crystal. Baccarrat crystal. Do try to keep that straight in your head, all right?”

      “Kade,” Thad called out as the door opened once more and attorney Jim Roberts entered the room, Gucci briefcase in hand. “Three more coffees, if you please. This is going to take a while.”

      “Ms. Portman,” Attorney Roberts said after introducing himself, “I’m advising you not to say another word until we’ve been able to confer. And I’d like to have you examined by a psychiatrist as soon as possible.”

      “Why? Because Joe says I’m nuts? Oh, yeah, he’d love that, wouldn’t he? He’d just love that. You’d all love that.” Patsy shook her head, then glared up at the attorney, her eyes spitting fire. “No deal. No shrinks. Bring one in here and I’ll have the cops throw out the both of you. I can do that, you know. I have my rights.”

      “Yes, you do, Patsy. You do have rights. So let’s forget the doctor for the moment. We’ll take this one step at a time. Detective Law?” the attorney asked, looking at Thad. “I’d like a few moments alone with my client.”

      “I am not your client,” Patsy said angrily. “There is no way in hell I’m going to let Joe Colton pick my lawyer.” She shook her head, laughed, a hint of the mania Thad had already glimpsed creeping into her voice. “Man, then I would be nuts, wouldn’t I?” She closed her eyes tightly for a moment, her face contorted, before her features smoothed once again. “Oh, hell, why not? Thaddeus, take a hike why don’t you, and we’ll see what Joe’s offering. He is offering something, isn’t he? They always do…they always do…they always— What? You’re waiting for a bus, Thaddeus? Get out of here!”

      Roberts gave a small jerk of his head, indicating that Thad should leave the room, which he did after switching off the video camera, going to join Joe and Rand Colton behind the two-way mirror, but turning off the sound that was piped in from the interrogation room to maintain attorney-client privilege.

      “I hope he can persuade her to cooperate before she loses all control,” Thad said, watching as Joe Colton turned away from the glass, his whole posture one of extreme fatigue. “She’s hanging on by a thread, you know. Must be all that practice she’s had, impersonating your wife.”

      “He’ll get her to cooperate, Thad,” Rand said, putting a hand on Joe’s shoulder. “All of a sudden Silas Pike is singing his lungs out up in Keyhole. He’s identified Patsy as the woman who hired him to kill Emily. And then there’s Sheriff Toby Atkins. Pike’s facing Wyoming’s stiffest sentence for killing a police officer, remember? He doesn’t have many bargaining chips, and he’d sell his own mother up the river for a chance at serving his time in the most modern facility available.”

      Thad nodded. “Oh, he’s singing all right. I got a fax this morning, Rand, one you’re not going to like. According to Pike, he was responsible for Nora Hickman’s hit-and-run death last year. You know we haven’t had any luck solving that one, but Pike knows particulars only the killer would know, so we’re pretty sure we’ve got our man. He says the same woman who hired him to do Emily, hired him to kill Nora, supposedly to shut her up about something. We’ll level charges, of course, but it’s going to be about two lifetimes before Wyoming is done with him. I’m sorry, Joe. I’m really sorry.”

      “Poor Nora,” Joe said as Rand rubbed his father’s back. “She worked for us for years, was a part of the family in many ways. Why would Patsy need to silence her? Nora couldn’t have known anything, could she?”

      “We’ll find out, Dad,” Rand told him, looking at Thad. “We’ll find it all out, if Jim can get Patsy to agree to an insanity plea in exchange for being committed to a psychiatric hospital. According to Jim, both the district attorney and the judge he spoke to are amenable to a not guilty by reason of insanity plea, if she tells all. She can’t testify against Pike if she’s judged mentally incompetent, but Wyoming says it doesn’t need her, not with Pike spilling his guts faster than the stenographer can type his confession. She goes away, she stays away, and in exchange, as Jim is probably telling her now, we’ll keep Joe, Jr. and Teddy, continue to raise them as they’re being raised.”

      “We would have done that anyway,” Joe said, glaring at his son. “It sounded like a good idea when I first had it, but not now. I don’t like threatening her this way.”

      “Nobody likes it, Dad, but if we’re going to have answers, and closure, we’ve got to get Patsy talking, don’t we?”

      There was a rap on the two-way glass, and they all turned to see Jim Roberts motioning for Thad to reenter the interrogation room. Thad turned up the volume once more, before rejoining the lawyer and activating the video camera.

      “It worked,” the lawyer told them all in a whisper, standing close to the glass as Thad went through his little time-and-place speech one more time, “and thank God it did, because this woman is highly disturbed. Highly disturbed. I would have pressed for an insanity plea in any case.” More loudly, looking at Thad, he said, “My client is willing to plead in exchange for immunity from prosecution and commitment to a psychiatric facility, and will make a complete statement immediately. Can we get a stenographer in here?”

      “A mother’s love,” Joe said in the small, dark room beyond the two-way mirror. “Even sick as she is, we could touch her love for Teddy and Joe, Jr.”

      “There will still be press, Dad, but it will blow over much more quickly now, as Jim can plead to have everything handled in chambers, without anything said in open court. Pike gets punished, and Patsy is placed in an institution for the criminally insane, most probably for the rest of her life.”

      “And we get our answers. All the answers,” Joe said, taking a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “It’s enough. It’s got to be enough.”

      Josh Atkins shifted his body slightly in the saddle and looked across the distance, toward the outbuildings, the red tile roof of the Hacienda de Alegria.

      Must be nice, living in a place like this. Safe, protected. Money coming out your ears.

      Money to buy safety, to buy silence. Money enough to sweep all the nastiness under a hand-braided rug and forget about it, go on your merry way, get on with your life. Laugh, dance, sing. Eat good food, sleep in a warm bed.

      While Toby lay in his cold grave. Forgotten in his cold grave.

      Josh tipped back his Stetson, exposing his thick, unruly brown hair, the piercing blue eyes that narrowed toward the rapidly setting sun. His skin was deeply tanned, with sharp lines around his eyes from a lifetime spent squinting into that sun, riding the range in between stints on the rodeo circuit. Slashing lines bracketed his mouth, grown deeper, harder, since the news had come to him about Toby just as he was up for a big ride in Denver.

      Josh’s body was whipcord lean, taut, and solid muscle. Taller than Toby, older than Toby by four years, definitely less handsome than Toby, whose boyish good looks had mirrored a pure and caring soul.

      There was nothing pure or caring or good in Josh’s soul as he glared toward the Hacienda de Alegria. There was only hate, a deep and abiding hatred he’d fed with newspaper articles about the grand and glorious Coltons, a hate he nurtured every time he looked at photographs of his brother. His laughing, loving brother who had died because Emily Colton had tricked him into thinking she loved him.

      That was how Josh saw it, and he had reason to believe he was right. He had the letters Toby had sent him, letters full of the beautiful Emma Logan, how much Toby admired her, loved her,