He looked her up and down, his brown eyes wary. “Well, you sure are as white as I remember, Snowflake.”
“So I am,” she said.
Though they were Jack’s legacy, there was no real connection between the two. They shared no childhood memories, or even DNA since she was adopted.
“Who told you about Pop?” Dirk asked.
“The Texas Rangers. And you?”
“Got a voicemail from Ledbetter.” A small muscle pulsed in his jaw.
“You live on the property, and I bet the cops still had a hard time finding you,” she said.
“They did.” He shifted, his gaze narrowing as he looked at the lawn chair. “Ledbetter tells me Jack is at the morgue.”
“Yeah.”
“He wouldn’t want a funeral.”
“I know. I’ll have him cremated.”
“Why you?”
“Do you want to do it?” she asked.
“No. If you know anything about me, you know I don’t like to get into town, and last I checked the funeral home is in town.”
“Fair enough. That’s why I’ll do it.” Her brother lived somewhere on the property and from what Jack said was good at keeping an eye on things and keeping the varmints away. “Where were you yesterday?”
He rubbed his temple. “I was in El Paso on business. I came back as soon as I got the message.”
No sense asking what he’d been doing in El Paso. He’d not been here, and that was enough.
“Jack trusted you with all the paperwork,” he said. “Is there a will?”
“That’s the last thing on my mind right now. I want to know who killed Pop. Do you have any idea?”
Dirk’s nostrils thinned and he drew in a breath, and then he scratched the black-and-gray stubble on his chin. “How the hell am I supposed to know?”
“Because you’re the one who stuck around. You saw him all the time. And you’d know better than anyone if he’d done something to piss someone off.”
“I hadn’t seen Jack in over a week.”
“And if Jack were into something he shouldn’t have been, you wouldn’t try to hide it, would you?” she asked.
“What do I have to hide from an FBI agent, sister?” he asked.
“I doubt we have time to talk about all that you’re hiding, but unless it related to Pop, I don’t care.” She’d learned to bluff really well as an agent, knowing if she went in hot with a suspect and acted like she had the answers, they’d give up more than intended.
“Aren’t you the badass agent?” He shook his head as he rubbed a splintered spot on the deck with the tip of his worn boot.
“When’s the last time Jack went into Austin?” she asked.
“I have no idea.”
“What about the local diner near here?” she countered. “Had he been there lately?”
“He barely left the yard in the last year. Why are you so worked up about where he’s been? He was killed right here.”
“Our old man was tortured and murdered. Everything he did in the last few weeks matters to me. What he did and who he saw is all a part of the puzzle.”
Dirk shifted, as if he were trying to shake off the edginess that was eating at them both, but couldn’t manage it. “Jack serviced a rough crowd from time to time. He patched up some dangerous people.”
She’d warned Jack more times than she could count to keep clear of helping those who peddled in human flesh and drugs. “When was the last time he did that?”
“It’s been a couple of years. Like I said, he’s been a hermit mostly.”
“Do you think he helped someone while you were gone?”
“How would I know?” He reached into his jeans pocket, pulled out a can of dip, and wedged a pinch between his cheek and gum. “You think someone like that killed him?”
“Or someone looking for one of his patients.”
“He was stubborn. He’d not have ratted out anyone.” Pride rang under the words.
“I know.” She shook her head, some of the steam venting from her temper. “I’m going to find out who did this to Jack. I won’t let his death go unsolved.”
“That’s good. Pop deserves as much.”
She grabbed her backpack and walked out of the trailer, slamming the door behind her. She kept Dirk in her line of sight and a safe distance away, knowing a guy his size could beat the hell out of her without really trying. The truth was she didn’t know or trust her brother.
He followed, holding up both his hands in surrender. “We got off on the wrong foot, Macy. I didn’t come up here to stir trouble between us. I’m as upset as you, and I can be a blockhead like Jack used to be. Truce?”
Macy could play nice while she investigated Jack’s murder. She crossed the deck and the hard red soil toward Jack’s truck. “Sure. Truce.”
“Where are you going?” Dirk asked.
“To a hotel.”
She tossed her backpack into the front seat and slid behind the wheel before slamming the truck door and turning on the engine. As she pulled out of the yard, she glanced in her rearview mirror and caught Dirk opening the trailer door. If Jack had told him about the hidden compartment, he was in for a treat.
She drove for almost a mile before she hit a stoplight and pulled out the phone to check her browser for information on Faith McIntyre.
The pathologist’s picture appeared, and the instant Macy got a good look, she did a double take. The woman was her age, she had blond hair, and they shared the same blue eyes. The likeness was so similar that she thought for a moment she was staring at her own picture. A closer look told her she wasn’t. Faith’s face was slightly rounder than hers, and her eyes looked a little less jaded.
The light turned green, and she drove ahead a few hundred yards toward a gas station. She pulled into the parking lot, not trusting herself to drive.
The close resemblance was unsettling. “What the hell?”
When she’d heard Dr. McIntyre’s thick Texas drawl, she had never once thought it sounded familiar or even remotely like her own.
An unsettled feeling rolled through her, as if a quake were shaking the earth under her. Most kids might have fantasized about being adopted or wondered what it felt like, but she’d never had to wonder. Ever since she’d realized most raven-haired, olive-skinned parents didn’t usually make blond-haired, blue-eyed babies nicknamed Snowflake, she’d assumed something was off. Now as she looked at Faith’s picture, she knew if they weren’t twins, there had to be a strong genetic connection between them. Her parents had come clean about her adoption when she was eight, but they’d never once mentioned she had siblings. Jesus, why hadn’t they told her she wasn’t alone?
Her head was spinning as the screen image glowed. She wasn’t sure how long she sat before she drew in a steadying breath. “Shit, Jack. A simple conversation would have made better sense than all the secrets.”
One way or another, she’d meet Faith McIntyre. But for now, the Hill Country and East Austin addresses waited. She typed in the rural address, and when it loaded, she took a right onto the road and drove past a lone strip mall and scattered homes before the turnoff to Blanco, Texas, appeared.
The moonlight was bright enough to illuminate sparse brown land covered with scrub trees and bushes. But the land and her surroundings barely registered as her mind spiraled around the idea that she might have a sister. Did Faith McIntyre know about her? One way or another, they would have questions for each other.
Which led to renewed questions about her birth mother, who had always been shrouded in we-don’t-knows and mumbled comments about a closed adoption. If her mother or Jack really knew who she was, they’d never said, regardless of how often she’d pressed.
Her headlights cut into the deepening darkness. Hoping to settle her racing mind, she switched on the radio and found a country western station. She’d lived in Dallas growing up before moving east for college and then the academy, but despite all the bland apartments scattered across the country, she always felt at home when she heard country music. She cranked it, hoping the melody would drown out her thoughts.
The Maps app on Jack’s phone reminded her of an upcoming turn, snapping her back to the present. She slowed as she searched the road for a sign. There wasn’t one, and she was halfway past a small rusted mailbox when she realized she’d found her turn. She backed up and took the left, grimacing as the dry brown dust kicked up around her car.
Ahead, her headlights sliced over a brick house that faced east. The windows were boarded up, and the roof looked like it had taken a beating in a recent storm. It had a low porch that ran across the entire front and a single rocker that stood eerily still.
She stopped. As the engine idled, she studied the house bathed in moonlight. Out here unexpected guests could just as easily be met with the barrel of a shotgun as a welcome, a lesson she’d learned in the Colorado mountains her first year on the job. She’d been searching for several missing girls. The woman on the other end of the gun had demanded her name as her gnarled finger twitched above the trigger. Macy had grabbed the gun and twisted it out of her hands, but her supervisor had reamed her out for ending up in the tight spot.
After a few minutes and still no signs of life, she shut off her truck’s engine, checked the gun holstered on her hip, and got out of the car. The day’s blazing heat still hadn’t dissipated.
Sweat beaded on her back almost as soon as she started walking toward the house. A rusted wind vane squeaked softly as her gaze swept the entire area a second time.
Climbing the front steps, she noticed the shades were drawn. There were also footprints in the dust scattered on the porch. “Was that you, Jack?”
She stood to the right of the door. Hand tightening on the grip of her weapon, she knocked on the front door and waited. Being out here alone at night wasn’t the smartest maneuver and something she’d never dare if this wasn’t so damn personal. A round object caught her peripheral vision, and she looked up to find a small camera covering the front porch.