Read Online After Sundown by Shelly Thacker - Free Book Online Page A

but a low-born tramp.” Anger made his voice sharp. “She was my brother’s mistress for the last three years. He took her in off the streets, set her up in a fine place of her own, gave her the best of everything. And she showed her gratitude by stealing all the cash from his safe and shooting him through the heart.”
    One tall, skinny matron pursed her lips, turning to a friend. “I just knew something wasn’t right. I knew all along there was something not right about that girl—”
    “You hush up, Priscilla Kearney. You did not,” the woman named Rebecca said, her earrings and the plume in her hat fluttering as she shook her head. “It’s not true. He’s made a mistake!”
    Few people looked or sounded convinced of Antoinette’s guilt. Travis came running up with Lucas’s saddlebags and black drover’s coat, and his hat, which had fallen to the dirt when he lit out on the bay gelding. Lucas put on the coat and hat and pulled a crumpled wanted poster from his bag. He smoothed it out, then took his hunting knife and stabbed it through the top of the paper, attaching it to the wooden clapboards of the doctor’s house.
    The townspeople gathered around it, lifting their lanterns to study the sketch and read the description of Miss Antoinette Sutton of St. Charles, Missouri.
    “It is her,” Rebecca whispered, echoing the stunned and distressed opinions of many others.
    “But... but what kind of evidence do you have that she’s guilty?” one lady asked plaintively.
    “There’s no question of her guilt.” Lucas didn’t understand why they were so damned reluctant to believe him. And he wasn’t used to having to explain himself in situations like this. Normally when he rode into a town and arrested an outlaw, people were glad , grateful to have their streets made safer, eager to see justice done.
    “You keep sayin’ that.” Another woman turned toward him. “But what kind of proof is there?”
    Lucas gritted his teeth. He proceeded to describe the crime, trying to do it the way he had described dozens of crimes before to fellow lawmen or lawyers.
    Coolly. Unemotionally. “My brother apparently wanted to end the relationship, and she disagreed. So she went to his house , where his wife and children live. The servants overheard Antoinette arguing with him, in the study. Then they heard a gunshot. She was seen running from the grounds, through the gardens. The murder weapon was never found—which means she must have brought it with her and then disposed of it later. Everything was planned and carried out perfectly. She got her revenge and she got away with fifteen thousand dollars.”
    “Fifteen thousand?” someone asked.
    Travis whistled in disbelief.
    “But she doesn’t have any money,” one man said. “She’s poor as Job’s turkey—”
    “And if you could have seen the way she mourned her baby,” Rebecca added, her voice quivering, “visiting the cemetery every day—”
    “She’s so tenderhearted—”
    “How can you stand here and defend her?” Lucas stared at them in disbelief, feeling ready to explode. “After everything I’ve just told you, you still don’t believe she’s guilty?”
    The crowd fell silent for a moment.
    “We know her, mister,” one of the women told him quietly, her eyes as stubborn as the tilt of her chin. “We don’t know you a’tall.”
    A few of the townsfolk—the skinny matron by the name of Priscilla Kearney, and three or four other sensible types, who were apparently in favor of law and order—started to drift away from the crowd, whispering among themselves.
    But most stayed right where they were.
    Lucas shook his head in disgust. God Almighty, how many people in this town had Antoinette duped with her lies and her pretty smiles? “I don’t know what kind of theatrical act she’s put on for you people—but I’m telling you she is not a sweet, innocent widow. She’s the daughter of a whore. She’s a thief who doesn’t care about anything