Texas Reckless by Gerry Bartlett

Author:Gerry Bartlett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lyrical Press
Published: 2019-07-18T17:03:22+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

Darrel woke up suddenly. His leg! Where the hell was that nurse? He punched the call button and waited. Then he realized what had really made him wake up. Not the sharp pain in his leg, that was bad enough. No, it was the squeal of that special ringtone on his phone. He’d given it to the number of that burner phone. No name, but the caller was always the same voice. It hurt him to reach for it, but at least someone had set it on the nightstand.

“Yeah?”

“I heard you had an accident.”

“Busted my leg.” He could tell this wasn’t a sympathy call.

“Didn’t I tell you to wait for instructions?” Oh, yeah, “mad as hell” was putting it mildly. “What were you thinking? Oh wait. I told you not to think at all. Remember that?”

“Listen here. I had it all worked out. My headlights were in her eyes. How was I to know she’d bring that new boyfriend of hers with her? It should have worked. If she’d fallen into that hole, it would have scared the shit out of her. Put her out for a good while too if her leg had been broken. That family of hers would have made her sell the ranch. Then your troubles would be over.” Darrel was getting mad himself. Goddamn it, he’d put his life on the line. And now he was laid up and in pain. Not a bit of appreciation.

“Just how dumb are you?” The voice wasn’t really asking. “Who the hell else could have dug that hole? Oh, yes. I’ve heard all about what went down out there. In case you haven’t noticed, I have people everywhere. What was your half-assed plan to explain that away? And don’t give me that bullshit about a utility pole. No one believes that.” There was a long string of curses that Darrel would have admired if he wasn’t starting to sweat.

“I figured everyone would be too upset, excited, you know, to think too much about it. Sierra would be taken off to Austin or Houston to fix her leg and that would give me time to fix the hole. She ordered me to bury them dead cattle. I could claim I tried to put them there but the ground was too hard.”

“I don’t know a single rancher who wouldn’t have gone by and checked their property after ordering something buried. I’m sure Sierra knew exactly where you put her dead cattle. Didn’t she?”

“Maybe, I don’t know. What do you want me to do about it now?” Darrel couldn’t catch his breath, sweat was running down his armpits and he figured that heart monitor thing had let off a shrill sound that made a nurse appear in the doorway. She frowned when she saw him on the phone.

“I want you to disappear, you fucking moron. If the sheriff comes by your room, you sure as hell better not be there. Your story doesn’t hold water. Can’t you see that?”

“I, uh, got to go.

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