Cold Case at Cobra Creek

“Yes. Damn dental records. I should have extracted all his teeth.”

A tense second passed. “Hell, you should have burned the bastard’s body in that car.”

“I thought it was taken care of.”

“Yeah, well, it wasn’t. And Sage Freeport is asking questions again. Knowing her, she’ll be pushing to get the case reopened. She’s like a bloodhound.”

“If she doesn’t settle down, I’ll take care of her.”

“This time make sure nothing can come back to haunt us.”

“No problem. When she disappears, it’ll be for good.”

Chapter Four

“Did Lewis always stay in this same room?” Dugan asked.

“Yes.”

“How long was he here?”

Sage rubbed her temple. “The first time he came, he stayed a couple of weeks. Then he left for a month. When he returned, he stayed about six months.”

“Where did he go when he left?”

“He was traveling around Texas. Said he worked with this company that looked for property across the state, small towns that were in need of rebuilding. Part of his job was to scout out the country and make suggestions to them.”

“Where was his home?”

Sage straightened a pillow on top of the homemade quilt, which had imprints of horses on the squares. “He said he was from South Texas, I think. That he grew up in a little town not too far from Laredo.”

Dugan made a mental note to check out his story. Maybe someone in that town knew more about Lewis.

He walked through the room again, the boards creaking beneath his boots as he stepped inside the closet. His toe caught on something and when he looked down, he realized a plank was loose.

He knelt and ran his finger along the wooden slat, his senses prickling. Was something beneath the board?

He yanked at it several times, and it finally gave way. He pulled it free, laid it to the side and felt the one next to it. It was loose, too, so he tugged it free, as well.

His curiosity spiking, he peered beneath the flooring. Something yellow caught his eye. He slid his hand below and felt inside the hole. His fingers connected with a small manila envelope.

“What are you doing?” Sage asked over his shoulder.

“Something’s under here.” He wiggled his fingers until he snagged the envelope, then removed it from the hole.

“What is that?” Sage asked.

“I don’t know, but we’ll find out.” Dugan felt again just to make sure there wasn’t anything else lodged beneath the floor, but the space was empty. Standing, he walked back to the corner desk, opened the envelope and dumped it upside down.

Sage gasped as the contents spilled out. “What in the world?”

Dugan picked up a driver’s license and flipped it open. A picture of Ron Lewis stared back at him.

But the name on the license read Mike Martin.

“That’s a fake driver’s license,” Sage said.

Dugan raked his hand over the lot of them, spreading a half dozen different licenses across the bed. “Each one of these has a different name.”

“My God, Dugan,” Sage whispered. “Ron Lewis wasn’t his real name.”

“No.” Dugan met her gaze. Aliases indicated the man might have been a professional con man. “And if he lied about who he was, no telling what else he lied about.”

* * *

SAGE SANK ONTO the bed, in shock. “I can’t believe he lied to me, that he had all these other identities.” She felt like such a fool. “Why would he do that, Dugan? Why come here and make me think he was someone else? Just to make me fall for him?”

Dugan’s mouth flattened. “Do you have a lot of money, Sage?”

“No.” She gestured around the room. “I put everything into remodeling this house as a bed and breakfast.”

“You don’t have a trust fund somewhere?”

“God, no,” Sage said, embarrassed to admit the truth, “I’m in debt up to my eyeballs.”

“Then he didn’t fabricate his lies to swindle you out of money,” Dugan said. “My guess is that this business of a land development was some kind of sham. You just happened to get caught in the middle.”

“So, he never really cared for me,” Sage said. She’d asked herself that a thousand times the past two years, but facing the truth was humiliating. It also meant she’d endangered her son by falling for Ron Lewis’s lies.

Dugan’s apologetic look made her feel even more like an idiot.

“Even if he was running a con, maybe he really did fall in love with you and Benji,” Dugan suggested.

“Yeah,” Sage said wryly. “Maybe he was going to change for me.” She picked up one of the fake IDs, read the name, then threw it against the wall. “More like, he took me for a moron and used me.” She studied another name, her mind racing. “But why take Benji that day?”

“I don’t know.” Dugan shrugged. “Did he know about your debt?”

Sage nodded. “He told me not to worry, that when this deal came through, my B and B would be overflowing with business and we’d make a fortune.”

“Maybe he meant that,” Dugan said. “Maybe he really wanted to make things better for you and your son.”

Sage made a sound of disgust. “Like you said before, Dugan, he lied about his name. What else was he lying about?” She scattered the IDs around, trying to recall if he’d mentioned any of the other names he’d used. “I can’t believe I fell for everything he said.” Because she’d been lonely. Vulnerable.

Had liked the idea of having a father for her son.

Never again would she let down her guard.

Not for any man, no matter what.

* * *

DUGAN GATHERED THE fake IDs to investigate them. As much as he wanted to assure her that Lewis had been sincere about his intentions with her, the phony IDs said otherwise.

A liar was a liar, and Dugan hadn’t found just one alias. The man had a string of them.

Meaning he probably had a rap sheet, as well, and maybe had committed numerous crimes.

It also opened up a Pandora’s box. Any one of the persons he’d conned or lied to might have wanted revenge against him.

The fact that he’d lied to Sage suggested he might have lied to other women. Hell, he might have a slew of girlfriends or wives scattered across Texas. Maybe one in each city where he’d worked or visited.

All with motive, as well.

“Do you know who Lewis met with in town about the new development?”

“George Bates, from the bank,” Sage said. “He also met with the town council and talked to several landowners, but I’m not certain which ones or how far he got with them.”

“I’ll start with Bates.” Dugan stuck the envelope of IDs inside his rawhide jacket.

Sage followed him to the door. “Are you going to the sheriff with this?”

Dugan shook his head. “I don’t think he’d like me nosing into this, and I don’t trust him to find the truth.”

“I agree.” Sage rubbed her hands up and down her arms, as if to warm herself. The temptation to comfort her pulled at Dugan.

God, she was beautiful. He’d admired her from afar ever since the first time he laid eyes on her. But he’d known then that she was too good for a jaded man like him. She and her little boy deserved a good man who’d take care of them.

And that man wasn’t him.

But just because he couldn’t have her for himself didn’t mean that he wouldn’t do right by her. He would take this case.

Because there was the possibility that Benji was alive.

Dugan wouldn’t rest until he found him and Sage knew the truth about what had happened two years ago.

Sage caught his arm as he started to leave the room. “Dugan, promise me one thing.”

He studied her solemn face. Hated the pain in her eyes. “What?”

“That you won’t keep things from me. No matter what you find, I want—I need—to know the truth. I’ve been lied to too many times already.”

He cradled her hand in his and squeezed it, ignoring the heat that shot through him at her touch. “I promise, Sage.”

Hell, he wanted to promise more.

But he hurried down the steps to keep himself from becoming like Lewis and telling her what she wanted to hear instead of the truth.

Because the truth was that he had no idea what answers he would find.

* * *

SAGE WATCHED DUGAN LEAVE, a sense of trepidation filling her.

At least he was willing to help her look for the answers. But the phony drivers’ licenses had shocked her to the core.

How could she have been so gullible when Ron was obviously a professional liar? And now that she knew Ron Lewis wasn’t his real name, who was he?

Had he planned to marry her and take care of her and Benji?

No...everything about the man was probably false. He’d obviously fabricated a story to fit his agenda.

But why use her? To worm his way into the town and make residents believe he cared about them, that he was part of them?

Devious. But it made sense in a twisted kind of way.

She straightened the flooring in the closet, then went to Benji’s room. Benji had loved jungle animals, so she’d painted a mural of a jungle scene on one wall and painted the other walls a bright blue. She walked over to the shelf above his bed and ran her finger over each of his stuffed animals. His friends, he’d called them.

At night he’d pile them all in bed around him, so she could barely find him when she went to tuck him in. His blankie, the one she’d crocheted before he was born, was folded neatly on his pillow, still waiting for his return.

Where was her son? If he’d survived, was he being taken care of? Had someone given him a blanket to sleep with at night and animal friends to comfort him in bed?

She thought she’d cried all her tears, but more slipped down her cheeks, her emotions as raw as they were the day she’d discovered that Benji was gone.

The news usually ran stories about missing children. For a few weeks after the car crash, they carried the story about Ron and her son. Although the implication was that both had died in the fire, a request had been made for any information regarding the accident. They’d hoped to find a witness who’d seen the wreck, someone who could tell them if another car had been involved.

But no word had come and eventually other stories had replaced Benji’s on the front page. With this new development, maybe she could arouse the media’s interest again.

She hurried downstairs to the kitchen and retrieved the scrapbook with clippings she’d morbidly kept of the crash and the coverage afterward. Why she’d kept them, she didn’t know. Maybe she’d hoped one day she’d find something in them that might explain what had happened to Benji.

The small town of Cobra Creek wasn’t big enough for a newspaper, but a reporter from Laredo had interviewed her and covered the investigation. At least, what little investigation Sheriff Gandt had instigated.

She noted the reporter’s name on the story. Ashlynn Fontaine.

Hoping that the reporter might revive the story and the public’s interest, now that Ron’s body had been found and that his death was considered a homicide, she decided to call the paper the next morning and speak to Ashlynn.

* * *

DUGAN DROVE TO the bank the next day to speak with George Bates, the president. One woman sat at a desk to the left, and a teller was perched behind her station, at a computer.

He paused by the first woman and asked for Bates, and she escorted him to an office down a hallway. A tall, middle-aged man with wiry hair and a suit that looked ten years old shook his hand. “George Bates. You here to open an account?”

Dugan shook his head. “No, sir, I need to ask you some questions about Ron Lewis.”

Bates’s pudgy face broke into a scowl. “What about him? He’s been dead for two years.”

“True,” Dugan said. “I don’t know if you heard, but his body was discovered this morning at Cobra Creek. It turns out he didn’t die in that car crash or fire. He was murdered.”

Bates’s eyes widened. “What?”

“Yes, he was shot.”

Bates rolled his shoulders back in a defensive gesture. “You think I know something about that?”

“That’s not what I meant to imply,” Dugan said, using a low voice to calm the man. “But the fact that Ms. Freeport’s little boy wasn’t with him raises questions about where he is. Ms. Freeport asked me to look into his disappearance. Learning who killed Lewis might lead us to that innocent little boy.” Dugan paused. “You do want to help find that child, don’t you?”

His comment seemed to steal the wind out of Bates’s sails. “Well, yes, of course.”

“Then tell me everything you can about Ron Lewis.”

Bates tugged at his suit jacket, then motioned for Dugan to take a seat.

“Lewis came in here with all kinds of plans for the town,” Bates said. “He had sketches of how he wanted to renovate the downtown area, parks that would be added, housing developments, a giant equestrian center and a dude ranch, along with an outlet mall and new storefronts for the downtown area.”

“Did he have backing?” Dugan asked.

Bates scratched his chin. “Well, that was the sketchy part. At first he said he did. Then, when it got down to it, he approached me to invest. I think he may have hit on some others around town. Especially Lloyd Riley and Ken Canter. They own a lot of land in the prime spots for the equestrian center and dude ranch.”

“He made them offers?”

“You’d have to talk to them about it,” Bates said. “Neither one wanted to tell me any specifics. But I think Riley signed something with him and so did Canter.”

So, what had happened to those deals?

“Were most of the people in town in favor of the project?”

“A few of the store owners thought it would be good for business. But some old-timers didn’t want that dude ranch or the mall.”

“When he asked you to invest, did you check out Lewis’s financial background?”

Bates frowned. “I was going to, but then he had that crash and I figured there wasn’t no need.”

“Was he working with a partner? Another contact to deal with on the project?”

“If he was, he didn’t tell me.”

Probably because he was running a scam. Lewis had never had backing and was going to swindle the locals into investing, then run off with their money.

Had one of them discovered Lewis’s plans to cheat him and killed Lewis because of it?

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