St Kilda Consulting 01 - Always Time to Die

up.”
    “I couldn’t see him go hungry!”
    Josh snorted. “Fat chance of that and you know it. When he’s sober, he can charm chrome off a trailer hitch.”
    Her fingers twisted together. “I know you’re right. It’s just…he was such a beautiful little boy.”
    “Liza was a beautiful little girl. As an adult she was a liar, a whore, and a junkie.” Josh stood and went to Anne. He needed her for the campaign to come, needed her as first lady if he won. And he had a very good chance of doing just that. The other candidates from his party would drop out after a few primaries. After that his only opposition was the aging vice president to a president nobody liked anymore. “I can’t do this without you. Are you in or out?”
    “In,” she whispered.
    He nodded. “You’ll be the most beautiful first lady ever. Designers will stand in line to have you wear their creations. You’ll be able to chair committees, lobby politicians at parties, and get the nation interested in your favorite charities.”
    She smiled. “I’m looking forward to that—the committees, fashion shows, charities. One of the first things we should do is cut the Senator’s standing contributions so that we can make our own name on the charity circuit.”
    “I put Pete to work on it already.”
    “Perhaps a more high-powered accountant,” she began. Then she saw Melissa out in the hallway. “I’m sure Pete will get the job done,” Anne said loudly, telling Josh that they weren’t alone anymore.
    “He always has,” Josh said, turning toward the doorway. “What is it, Melissa?”
    “You asked me to tell you when Miss Winifred and her personal historian were together. They’re working in the Sisters’ Suite right now.”

QUINTRELL RANCH
TUESDAY MORNING
17
    CARLY FLIPPED QUICKLY THROUGH PHOTOGRAPHS , PLACING THEM IN A KIND OF rough generational order based on clothes, faces, or what she’d managed to get out of Winifred. The older woman had very definite feelings about what was important and what should be ignored. Carly had pointed out repeatedly that a family history that left out the men wasn’t a “history” at all. Winifred had finally said she’d think about it, and while she did, Carly could work on the Castillo women.
    So Carly set her teeth and looked at photos of women. It was better than thinking about the frightening call, the screams, the husky whisper threatening her.
    Get out of Taos or you’ll be the one screaming.
    Carly told herself that the sweaty, clammy feeling she had was because of the hothouse temperature of the room. She’d dressed for it by cutting off a pair of jeans and knotting the tails of a blue work shirt below her breasts. Her feet were bare. Her boots, scarf, mittens, and winter coat were stacked to one side of the door. The heat of the sickroom was suffocating.
    That’s why she was sweating. The temperature, not the awful screams and ugly words.
    “I understand that the Senator held yearly barbecues at the ranch,” Carly said.
    Winifred answered without stopping the repetitious exercises that, along with liberal amounts of herbal salve, were supposed to awaken or maintain nerve pathways in Sylvia’s body. Or at least to keep the body as healthy as possible. “Yes.” Bend and two and three and four and hold. “He loved playing el patrón .”
    The good news for Carly was that after the first fifteen minutes, her nose had stopped protesting the smell of the homemade salve Winifred rubbed into her sister’s unresponsive body. The bad news was that Carly had to get used to it all over again every time she left the room.
    She studied the picture she was holding. It showed a much younger Andrew Jackson Quintrell III, soon to be known as the Senator, standing near a young woman whose body was as lush as her smile. The sexual speculation in his expression was unmistakable, yet he was still dressed in his wedding suit and his beautiful bride was laughing on his arm.
    “Do you recognize this girl?” Carly stretched to show the photo but didn’t stand. She’d been up and down with pictures so often this morning she felt like a yo-yo.
    Winifred glanced over without breaking the exercise routine. “Guadalupe Mendoza y Escalante. One of Sylvia’s bridesmaids.”
    “Did she know the Senator?”
    Winifred made a rough sound. “She was female. He liked women. A lot of them.”
    “Then Guadalupe was his lover?”
    Winifred flexed her hands, dipped some more reeking cream from a