Page 18 of Christmas Ransom

Chapter Twelve

Jesse came out of the kitchen bringing the smell of fried chicken like a cloud around her. He could hear music playing at the back of the house. It could have been any other day. Except that Jesse hadn’t brought home takeout. She was apparentlycookingdinner.

Not just that. She looked happy.

Jud frowned as he glanced past her, still expecting the feds to come bursting out, weapons drawn and a SWAT team hiding in the alley.

“I hope you’re hungry,” she said, smiling as she leaned in to kiss him. “I made us a special meal to celebrate. Smarter than going out for dinner.”

They were celebrating? He wondered if this was his last meal before he ended up behind bars. It dawned on him that making a deal with the feds was just one way she could have betrayed him. There was also Leon Trainer, the loan shark who’d sent the goons to collect his debt. She could nark him out to Leon.

He realized that Jesse had all kinds of ways to come out of this on top. He thought of the other women he’d known. None of them would have given a thought to double-crossing him. Did he really believe this one was different?

“What are we celebrating?” he asked, the words coming out slow and awkward.

“Are you kidding?” She laughed, making him feel as if he should go out and come in again. Had she forgotten how much trouble they were in? Leon’s goons wouldn’t hesitate to refresh her memory. Good luck convincing the feds that she wasn’t involved from the beginning.

“Carla Richmond didn’t tell the feds.”

He shook his head as if to clear it. “How do you know that?”

Jesse grinned. “I know because I took care of it.”

He suddenly had a vision of her holding a pillow down on Carla Richmond’s face at the hospital. “How did you—”

“I’ll tell you over dinner. Come on, I don’t want the chicken to burn.”

Like a sleepwalker, he followed her into the kitchen. She had the table set and candles burning. She wasn’t kidding. This was a celebratory dinner. He just wished he felt like celebrating after the day he’d had.

But he wasn’t in handcuffs. Yet. And Jesse was cooking. His stomach growled as she put a bowl of real mashed potatoes on the table and motioned him into his chair. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had anything but instant potatoes from some drive-through.

She plated the fried chicken, put it down next to the mountain of potatoes and then she brought out a bowl of corn. He could see the can still sitting on the counter, but he wasn’t about to complain that it wasn’t fresh from the cob.

“Eat,” she said as she joined him.

He began to load his plate, not sure how much longer he could wait to hear what was going on. “Jesse—”

“Not until you take a bite of my chicken. My grandma used to make the best fried chicken. She taught me how. I’d thought I’d forgotten.” She loaded her own plate while humming along with the song on the radio.

He took a bite out of a drumstick. It was delicious and he said as much. She beamed at the compliment. He took another bite and asked around it, “Come on, Jesse, what did you do?”

“I made sure she got the message.”

He listened while she explained how she’d gotten a note onto Carla Richmond’s dinner tray and been the one to bring the woman’s tray to her hospital room.

“You should have seen her face when I went back in to get the tray,” Jesse said and laughed. “She was scared spitless. Couldn’t eat any of her meal.” She took a big bite of the mashed potatoes, still grinning.

“How do you know she didn’t tell the feds?”

Jesse gave him an impatient look. “Because the note was still on top of the brownie. Don’t you see? If she was going to tell, she would have taken the note and shown it to the federal agent. He was right outside her door waiting for her to finish her meal.” She shrugged as if all this was child’s play for her. “When I came in to take her tray, the lid was still on, the note under it. She could have given it to the feds, but she didn’t. She got the message.” She laughed, then sobered. “There’s one problem though.”

He had to wait as she took a bite of her dinner. He wondered if she’d heard about some of the money being marked.

“There’s a long, lanky cowboy with her,” Jesse said as she chewed. “Davy Colt? You know him?”

Jud swore. “Everyone in four counties around us knows about the Colt brothers. They’re wild rodeo cowboys.” At least they used to be, he realized. He’d lived in Lonesome long enough to know who they were—not that he’d ever met any of them. But he’d heard about them. “Two of them took over their father’s old private-investigation business on Main Street. I think another was just hired as a deputy sheriff.”

“Should we be worried?”

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