Death Rides Again (A Jocelyn Shore Mystery) Read Free

long dark hair falling in perfect waves around her shoulders, a gold necklace looking rich against her soft yellow cashmere sweater. Even her jeans looked crisp and pressed. My hair was still yanked back in the same ponytail I’d made when I first woke up, my rumpled sweatshirt bore the University of Texas longhorn on a burnt orange background, and my jeans had a small stubborn coffee stain just above the knee from a long ago breakfast incident. I told myself that I didn’t care. I was, of course, lying.
    I turned back onto the highway heading toward the Sand Creek feed store because, ever practical, Elaine had asked us to pick up a load of cattle cubes after we dropped Ruby June at her house. On the left side of the highway, an enormous green tractor was busy plowing the brown stubble of shorn winter wheat back into the earth, leaving a trail of rich dark soil behind it. On the other side, a single Mexican buzzard traced a lazy circle over a field dotted with goats and cacti, its primary feathers fluttering like fingers at the tips of black wings. In front of us, coming from the opposite direction, the driver of a white pickup truck lazily lifted a couple of his own fingers from the steering wheel as he sped by. I mimicked the laconic gesture.
    “That someone we know?” asked Kyla.
    “Didn’t recognize him,” I answered.
    She rolled her eyes but then grinned. “You think they’d get tired of doing that. Still, it’s nice to be back out here. I forget sometimes how much I like it.”
    “That’s because you don’t.”
    “I like it,” she protested. “Lots. I just don’t like every single thing about it the way you do. I have discriminating taste.”
    “You don’t like the heat or the cold, the bugs or the animals.”
    “Well, who does?”
    “You don’t like riding, hiking, hunting, fishing, camping, or picnicking.”
    “Again … who does? Besides, I like picnicking okay.”
    “Except for the heat, the cold, the bugs, and the animals.”
    “Yeah, except for them. But so what? I’m here, right?”
    I grinned at her. “You’re here.”
    And right now, “here” was the town of Sand Creek. The single-lane highway widened into two lanes, and I slowed the truck to the posted speed limit of fifty, then forty-five, and finally thirty-five. Along the shoulders, small houses mostly painted white gave way to shops, restaurants, and gas stations in no particular order, followed again by a sprinkling of larger, older houses, some with mansard roofs and gingerbread trim and all surrounded by massive oak and pecan trees, limbs adorned by gray clumps of ball moss. We bumped across an abandoned train track and passed by the old train station, currently being restored to its former glory by an active, if underfunded, historical preservation society. Thanksgiving might be tomorrow, but that retail holy of holies, Christmas, was only a month away, and the storefronts lining the square were having an identity crisis. In one display, pilgrims nestled under boughs of holly, in another Frosty the Snowman towered over a faded turkey that looked as though it had just molted and wasn’t feeling well. In the center of the square, the courthouse, a massive buff-colored sandstone building complete with rounded turrets and a red roof topped by a clock tower, presided over the town as it had done for the last hundred and twenty years. The old hanging tree, famous as the site of countless legitimate hangings as well as a few lynchings, was located conveniently on the grounds. Workmen swarmed the area armed with staple guns and ornaments.
    I sighed happily. “Nothing says Christmas like twinkle lights in a hanging tree.”
    I maneuvered the truck around the square, pausing twice to wait for pedestrians to amble across the street, and then we were free and clear and picking up speed on the other side of town. On the western outskirts, we passed a funeral home with a marquee out front with the catchy slogan, “Drive Safe—We Can