down the hallway to her parents’ bedroom.
If she’d called out a warning, would she have frightened the killer away? Or would she and Lily have met with the same fate as their parents?
There was no way of knowing, of course. And if she’d learned anything in the twenty-three years since that night, it was that guilt couldn’t change a damn thing about the past, but it could sure play hell with the present.
Using the key Lily had begrudgingly given her, Grace let herself into the quiet house. Since their grandmother had died, her sister had been living there all alone.
I couldn’t do it.
Even after all these years, Grace still didn’t like being alone in that house.
I’m not as brave as Lily, she thought as she climbed the stairs.
The door to her and her sister’s old bedroom was ajar, and Grace couldn’t resist peeking in. She knew she should respect her sister’s privacy, but curiosity got the better of her. Lily had been so careful about keeping that door closed, about shutting Grace out from the space they’d once shared, that the room had become almost symbolic of the barrier she’d erected between them.
She knocked on the door. “Lily, you in there?”
Her sister’s truck hadn’t been in the driveway, but she could have pulled around back to park.
Grace pushed the door open a little wider. The scent of her sister’s perfume—a floral scent with a woodsy undertone—drifted out.
“I just came back to pack up my things. I’ll be out of your hair in no time.”
Grace stood on the threshold and glanced around. Gone were the pink ruffles from their childhood and the rock-band posters from their adolescence. Lily had redone the room in a sophisticated palette of beige and grayish blue. Gone, too, were the canopied twin beds with matching coverlets and piles of pillows. In their place was a spacious queen-size with chic but minimalist bedding.
The room could have come straight from Grace’s townhouse in Austin. The sleek, urban furnishings seemed much more in keeping with her taste than Lily’s. Her sister had always been such a romantic. But then, what did she really know about Lily these days? They hadn’t been truly close since they were kids.
Regret tightened Grace’s chest as she backed out the door. She’d been staying in Rachel’s old bedroom since her return, and she hurried there now to pack up her things. As she fastened the lid on her last suitcase, she heard the squeak of a door and went out into the hallway to see if her sister had come in.
“Lily?”
Grace went to the top of the stairs and peered over the railing. “Lily, is that you?”
No answer.
She went back to Rachel’s room, grabbed the suitcases and carried them down the hallway.
As she approached the landing, she heard another sound, this time from Lily’s room.
Or so she thought.
As Grace started to turn, she caught a blur of movement out of the corner of her eye a split second before something hit her from behind.
Her bags tumbled down the stairs as she tried to grab hold of the banister to check her fall.
But it was too late. Already, she was plunging headlong down the wooden staircase.
When she hit the bottom, she rolled onto her back, so dazed she couldn’t immediately process what had happened. Nor did she feel any pain.
In the space of a heartbeat, the only thing that registered was a face at the top of the stairs, peering down at her.
Chapter Two
As Cage Nichols watched the cloud of steam mushroom over the hood of his car, he was reminded of his mother’s favorite saying: “Son, if we didn’t have bad luck, we wouldn’t have no luck at all.”
Back then, Cage hadn’t entirely subscribed to Darleen’s pessimistic outlook on life. Sure, they’d seen a lot of hard times after the old man took off, but Cage had been a good-looking, popular kid with a talent for football and girls, and he’d never minded hard work. Growing up in a small East Texas town, he hadn’t needed much else.
But out in the real world, he’d discovered soon enough that a man needed more than looks and gumption to get by. Even a good education and the right connections could only take him so far. What a man really had to have was a little luck.
Cage could remember the exact moment when his had run out—at precisely 9:56 on a Friday night sixteen years ago.
He’d caught the winning touchdown in the last game of the season just as the clock wound down. In that moment of mindless exhilaration, he’d failed to note the two-hundred-and-fifty-pound linebacker still bearing down on him from his left. The late hit had caught him completely off guard, and the resulting knee injury had ended his dream of a full-ride scholarship to Southern Methodist University.
Ten years later, a hollow-nose bullet fired at close range from a thug’s 9mm handgun into the same knee had ended his career as a SWAT officer with the Dallas P.D.
Now Cage sold oilfield equipment for his brother-in-law, Wayne Cordell. Or tried to.
His sales record had been pretty dismal thus far, partly because of the downturn in the economy, but mostly because Cage wasn’t much of a salesman.
Which was why he desperately needed to close the El Paso deal.
Which was why the steam pouring out of the grill of his car as he coasted to the shoulder of the road made him want to put his fist through the windshield.
Instead, he got out, raised the hood, then slammed it shut a few minutes later. Just his luck. He’d blown a damn radiator hose.
Helluva place to be stranded, he thought, as he took stock of his surroundings. He was literally in the middle of nowhere. A good hundred and eighty miles from El Paso and less than twenty miles from the Mexican border. A no-man’s-land of tumbleweed, cholla cactus, and whatever wildlife could survive the blistering Chihuahuan Desert heat.
Sweat trickled down Cage’s back as he got out his phone and checked for a signal. Nada.
Well, that figured.
What aggravated him more than the inconvenience of the breakdown was Wayne’s warning before Cage left Dallas. “That clunker won’t get you as far as Waco, much less El Paso. Just fly down there tomorrow, close the deal, and get your ass back here with that contract. Or else don’t bother coming back at all,” he’d added with an ominous glare.
If Cage had followed his brother-in-law’s advice, he’d already be in El Paso working on his pitch for the four o’clock meeting. Afterward, he could have hopped on a Southwest Airlines jet and been back home in time for the Mavericks tip-off since they were playing on the West Coast that night.
But, no.
Cage had had the bright idea to drive down overnight, drop in on a few of their best customers and hope that the personal touch and a little charm might persuade them to throw a couple of bones his way.
But that hadn’t exactly worked out like gangbusters. Mostly, it had been a big waste of time.
So, not only would he end up getting canned for blowing the El Paso deal, he’d have to listen to Wayne’s I told you so from now until eternity—or until his sister wised up and divorced the smug bastard.
Not that Cage was in any position to cast stones. He was hardly a catch himself these days. And if he hadn’t been so damn hardheaded, he wouldn’t be in his current predicament—miles off the beaten track, stuck in the desert with a half-empty water bottle and a dead cell phone to his name.
Things are really looking up for you, buddy.
He tried to find the bright side as he watched an earless lizard