3rd Degree Read online

  3rd Degree

  Chapter One

  I could hear their labored breathing behind me and knew they were gaining on me. I kicked the mustang, willing her forward toward the fence. If she could clear it before they caught up, I might have a chance. But I didn't trust her. She was a green two-year-old with a real penchant for bucking. Not only that, she was ornery and half-wild. Her only saving grace was that she flat-out loved to run.

  I kicked her again and she laid her ears back menacingly. The fence was only twenty yards away and as I readied myself for the jump, her muscles bunched beneath the saddle. I could hear Sheriff Booker swearing at his horse to catch up. For one brief, exhilarating moment, I felt the beginning of what was about to be a perfect jump. And then the muscles somehow unbunched themselves at the last second and I went hurtling through the air, over the fence without the horse.

  I hit the ground hard and rolled, instinctively sheltering my head from the thundering hooves of Booker's horse as he came gliding over the fence behind me. He missed me by about a foot.

  "You okay?" Booker asked, reining his Appaloosa to a halt and circling back to where I lay sprawled on the ground. I noticed his mustache was twitching and he was having a hard time keeping a straight face.

  "Just fine, thanks." I pushed myself off the ground and winced. Nothing appeared to be broken but I was quite sure my backside was already turning an interesting shade of bluish green.

  "For a second there, I thought she was gonna do it," Booker said, losing the battle with the grin that had been struggling to break through. "I told you that little filly was a handful."

  I walked back to the fence and unlatched the gate, letting myself through to the other side. The mustang stood innocently munching a mouthful of grass, her devilish eyes watching me with studied nonchalance. I was tempted to whack her a good one.

  I led her through the gate and pulled myself into the saddle, already feeling the bruises. I reached down and patted her neck, ignoring Booker, who had finally succumbed to full-fledged laughter. His horse was still panting heavily, while the mustang had barely broken a sweat.

  "I know who's gonna need to soak in the hot tub tonight," he said, laughing. "I can taste them ice cold brewskies right now." It looked like I owed him a case of Weinhard's Special Reserve.

  On the other hand, no one had said anything about having to go over the fence, I thought. He'd gone over, and I'd gone through. Well, actually, I'd gone over too. It was my horse that had decided she'd rather use the gate. But there was still a good half-mile left to the end of the race, and just because he was sitting there thinking he'd already won didn't mean I had to agree. I reached back and rubbed my neck, groaning.

  "You sure you're okay?" he said, bringing the Appaloosa up beside me. His grin had vanished. Even better, he was facing back toward the fence, away from the finish line.

  "Hey! Look at that!" I pointed toward the woods.

  Booker turned and when he did, I kicked the mustang and let out the best Indian war cry I could muster. She responded beautifully, and the two of us flew past him, leaving Sheriff Booker literally in our dust.

  To the wild whoops and hollers of our friends, I crossed the finish line a good five lengths in front of him. Booker was alternately cursing and laughing as he crossed.

  "Cassidy James, you are one lousy cheat!" he said, patting his poor horse's sweaty neck. Booker was almost as winded as his horse. He'd been shouting and cursing at me the whole way back. I had trouble catching my own breath, I was laughing so hard. The mustang was the only one who seemed unaffected by the race.

  "Guess you're gonna owe Cass a case of beer, Sheriff," Jess Martin said, coming over to congratulate me. Like the rest of us, he was wearing Levi's and boots. His long brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail and his beard was at its usual two-day stubble.

  Little Jessie came running up behind him, looking like a miniature version of her father, minus the beard. "I had my money on you all the way, Cass!" she shouted, jumping up on the fence. "Dr. Carradine owes me ten bucks!" She was only eleven, but her bank account was in better shape than her father's.

  "You bet against me?" I said to Maggie Carradine. She was looking pretty sheepish, but damned attractive I thought. She had a teal blouse tucked into her jeans, and the color almost matched her eyes.

  "I bet against that beast you were riding!" she said. I'd made Maggie ride the horse once, and she'd been bucked off almost immediately.

  "I suppose you bet against me, too?" I said, looking at Booker's wife, Rosie.

  She was a distinguished-looking woman, with a mixture of Spanish and Aztec blood that gave her the bronze skin and fierce flashing eyes of her ancestors. She smiled apologetically. "Only one dollar," she said. "I never bet against Tom."

  Booker slid off the Appaloosa and put his arm around his wife. In their fifties, they were a striking couple. His flowing silver hair and dazzling blue eyes were a sharp contrast to her dark Latin features.

  Booker led the way back to the patio, telling everyone how I'd tricked him, and going into great, exaggerated detail about my being flung like a sack of potatoes over the fence. By the time we gathered around the table, everyone was laughing.

  Rosie brought out a couple of platters of her indecently delicious Muenster-stuffed poblano chiles, and for the next half-hour the good-natured banter was accompanied by assorted moans of pleasure. This was only the first of what would be a long succession of Mexican delicacies and I tried to pace myself, knowing I'd be sorry if I was too stuffed to eat the tamales and carne asada later.

  "Come on," I said to Maggie, finally pushing myself away from the table. "Let's go for a walk. Maybe we can work off a few calories to make room for Rosie's tamales." We excused ourselves from the others and made our way toward the lake.

  Booker's ranch lay on the outskirts of Cedar Hills and was accessible by both boat and car. His front yard looked out onto a lush valley surrounded by tall cedar and Douglas fir. His back yard was on one of the last and most secluded arms of Rainbow Lake. I lived about a mile away, in another cove. Since I had no road access, I'd brought Maggie by boat.

  Maggie and I were in an awkward state, somewhere between lovers and friends. Everyone I knew was trying to help us back into the lover-state, including Booker and Rosie, who kept inviting the two of us over, but Maggie was resisting. The problem wasn't us, though. It was Erica Trinidad.

  From the moment we'd met, Maggie and I had hit it off. She was everything I wanted in a woman — smart, sexy, fun and good-hearted. To top it off, she had her head on straight, which normally would have been a big plus. But it was her very "togetherness" that was keeping us apart. Because no matter how hard I tried to convince her otherwise, Maggie worried that I was still in love with Erica Trinidad.

  "I know what I want," I'd told her more than once. "I want you."

  "Sure you do," she'd answered in that calm, wise shrink-voice that drove me crazy. "But you also want Erica Trinidad. It's in your eyes, Cass. I see it, even if you don't."

  "Bullshit!" I tend to resort to profanity when flustered.

  "I told you before," she'd gone on serenely, "I'm not into martyrdom, but I'm also not into sadomasochism. I just want you to be sure. When you decide you really want me, I don't want you changing your mind."

  One of the drawbacks of dating a psychologist is that they tend to act like they know more about you than you know yourself. It's also very difficult to actually win an argument. Even after you've made a seemingly brilliant point, they just nod and smile, like they've been waiting for you to get around to saying whatever it was you just said.

  What saved Maggie from being unbearable, though, was that she was genuinely good inside. And she directed her laser beam insights as much at herself as she did at me
.

  As we walked down the pebbled path toward the lake and horse corrals, I slipped my arm around her waist. We were about the same height, but Maggie was full of soft curves, while I tended toward the lean and muscled look. Not that she wasn't athletic. Maggie was a true adventure-loving thrill-seeker. She liked to climb mountains, jump from airplanes and scuba dive. Last month she'd tried to talk me into bungee jumping. It had been a very short conversation. Now, as we walked along, drinking in the beautiful Oregon scenery, she leaned into my arm.

  "How big is this place, anyway?"

  "It must be over twenty acres," I said. "But in the winter, about a third of it is under water. That's why they built their house on stilts. Last winter, I drove my boat right up to their front porch."

  I led her around to the last corral where a big red mare had her nose buried in hay, while a spindly-legged colt nursed contentedly. In the next stall I noticed that the mustang, true to form, had rolled in the mud right after Marcos, the ranch hand, had finished grooming her. When she saw me, she gave a belligerent snort and then reared up and whinnied. Either she was awfully glad to see me, or she was letting me know how she felt about jumping fences. Maggie laughed out loud at the antics.

  "Don't encourage her," I said. I looked around to make sure Marcos was nowhere in sight. Except for the rebellious mustang, it seemed we were all alone. I pulled Maggie toward me, letting my fingers trail through her dark curly hair. She came into my arms after a brief hesitation, and we kissed with passion.

  Suddenly there was a noise behind us, and we pulled apart in time to see little Jessie running hard down the path.

  "Damn," Maggie murmured.

  "Cassidy! Come quick!" Jessie was short of breath. "Rosie says someone's on the phone for you and they sound scared."

  I looked at Maggie and shrugged. I wasn't even sure who knew I was here. My best friend Martha had been invited, but ever since being promoted to detective on the Kings Harbor Police Force, she'd been putting in longer hours, trying to prove they'd made the right decision. Just about everyone else I really cared about was right here, except, of course, Erica Trinidad. And I seriously doubted the call would be from her.

  Erica was still in town, living at her uncle's place out on the lake, not five minutes away from my own house, but she'd been steering clear of me all summer. In fact, I'd only seen her twice since the day she'd come waltzing back into Cedar Hills, apparently assuming that I'd be waiting for her like a loyal dog. When I'd told her I was involved with someone else, she seemed genuinely crushed.

  Not that I was about to feel sorry for her. She'd been gallivanting around Southern California with some famous woman movie director for nine months while I'd waited for her to return. The problem was, patience never has been one of my virtues.

  "Come on! Rosie says it sounds like an emergency!"

  Maggie and I ran behind her and when we got to the house, Rosie was inside the kitchen, pacing.

  "She hung up," Rosie said when we entered. "Wouldn't even leave her name. Said she'd call back in ten minutes. But, Cass, it sounded like someone I know. I just can't place the voice. Whoever it is has been crying."

  "Not Martha," I said, worried.

  "Oh, no. I'd know her voice. And besides, she'd have told me who it was."

  A few minutes later the phone rang, and I snatched it off the wall. "This is Cassidy James."

  "Cassie. Thank God. I need to see you right away." The voice was strained, filled with something between anger and fear. And even though I'd never seen or heard her so upset before, I recognized Lizzie Thompson's voice immediately.

  "Where are you?" I asked, turning away from Maggie and Rosie, who were looking at me with raised brows.

  "I'm at home. Please don't say anything to anyone, Cass. I know everyone is over there. This is personal. Please, just make some excuse to get away and come over here." Before I could answer, the phone went dead. Lizzie wasn't giving me the opportunity to say no.

  "Well?" Rosie said, hands on her hips, her dark eyes full of concern.

  "It's a client," I said. "Unfortunately, she asked me to keep this confidential. I'm afraid I'm going to have to go."

  "Is everything okay?" Maggie asked, following me to the door.

  "I don't know. I'll try to call you as soon as I can. If I'm not back by the time you're ready to leave, can you get a ride with Jess?"

  "Don't give it another thought," she said.

  I started jogging toward the boat dock, and Maggie kept up with me.

  "This isn't one of those things that requires a gun, is it?" she asked.

  "I don't know anything yet," I said. The last case I'd been on, I'd nearly gotten us both killed. I could understand why Maggie might be a little nervous.

  "Just one more question, Cass."

  I hopped into my blue open-bow Sea Swirl while she untied the bow line.

  "This doesn't have anything to do with Erica Trinidad, does it?"

  I looked into her lovely green eyes, and smiled reassuringly. "It definitely does not."

  But as I pulled away from the dock, I couldn't ignore the fact that my heart had pounded at the thought that the call might be from Erica.

  Chapter Two

  It was almost five o' clock by the time I pulled up to the county dock, and because it was Sunday, most of the weekenders had already headed back for the city. There were still quite a few locals fishing from the pier, and a handful of families had spread blankets on the park lawn. People lazed in the late afternoon sun and I could smell hamburgers sizzling on the barbecues nearby. It was late August and people were trying to squeeze every ounce out of what remained of summer.

  I'd never been to Lizzie Thompson's house, but I knew where she lived. It was my habit to walk the streets of Cedar Hills as often as possible, and I recognized almost everyone's house because of it. Lizzie spent most of her time at Logger's Tavern, which she owned and ran. For a bartender, who was both popular and outgoing on the job, she seemed an intensely private woman — one of those people adept at listening to other people's life stories without revealing much about their own. I often suspected that she'd have been better off running a woman's bar, but this was pure speculation on my part. She was in her forties, which should have been old enough to know what she wanted. She knew I was gay, as did quite a few other people in town, and every now and then, I thought she might actually be coming on to me, but I did my best to discourage anything more than a friendship with her. At the moment, I had all the women in my life I could handle.

  I turned down Main Street and headed for Osprey Lane. From there, it was only a few blocks to Third Street, and Lizzie's house was about half-way down on the left. When I knocked on the door, I noticed a movement behind the living room curtains and a moment later the door opened a crack.

  She didn't say a word, just motioned me in and locked the door behind me. I'd never seen such a change in a person in my life. Normally confident and energetic, Lizzie walked with the shuffled gait of someone who'd been given too much Thorazine. But it was her eyes that had me most alarmed. They were wild and full of fear.

  "Lizzie, what happened?" I asked, following her into the kitchen.

  She sat in a wooden chair, put her head in her hands and proceeded to sob. I wasn't sure what to do. I put my hand on her shoulder and left it there. Finally, her sobs subsided and I pulled up a chair across from her.

  "Thanks for coming," she said, wiping her face on her sleeve. She blew her nose in an already sopping wet paper towel and tried to smile. It nearly broke my heart.

  "Please, Lizzie. You've got to tell me what happened."

  "I need you to find someone," she finally said, looking directly at me. Her eyes had a crazed determination, and I wondered if she'd gone completely around the bend.

  "Find someone?"

  "I want to hire you to find the one who, who ..." Her mouth twisted with rage as she tried to find a way to say it.

  "Who what?" I asked as gently as possible.

&nbs
p; "I'm not sure what to call it!" She was on the verge of hysteria. Her eyes were red-rimmed and glassy and I could almost smell her fear.

  "I don't know how to explain what happened," she said more quietly, sounding defeated. "I'm not even sure what did happen."

  Again, she started to weep, and I was at a loss for words. Lizzie was normally so strong and stoic. I couldn't imagine what could bring her to such despair.

  "Were you hurt?" I finally asked.

  Her eyes shot up at me with wild fury. It was as if I'd asked a question for which there was no correct answer. Finally, with a great deal of coaxing, I got her to tell me what had happened.

  Lizzie had returned from grocery shopping at about two o'clock. She was bringing the last two sacks into the kitchen when she heard a noise behind her. Startled, she turned in time to see the flash of some kind of rod, wielded by a man wearing a ski mask. She dropped the sacks and prepared to fight off her attacker.

  Lizzie was a strong woman, unafraid of physical confrontation. But her first swing was met with the devastating shock of an electrical jolt that surged through her body and dropped her to the floor in a crumpled heap. The next thing she remembered, she was lying face down on her bedroom floor, spread-eagle and completely naked. Her hands and feet had been tied to the bed frame and dresser, and there was some kind of rag stuffed into her mouth.

  "I didn't realize until later," she said, her strong chin quivering, "that he'd used my own underwear to gag me."

  The hair on the back of my neck was standing at attention, and my insides were churning.

  "He used nylons to tie my wrists and ankles, so I couldn't move. I think what scared me the most was that he didn't blindfold me. In all those movies, it's the ones that don't blindfold their victims that intend to kill them."

  "Go on," I encouraged, trying not to appear impatient.

  "I think he wanted me to see him," she continued. "I mean, he had his head covered with the ski mask, so I couldn't see his face, but he kept parading back and forth in front of me, like he was showing off."