St Kilda Consulting 01 - Always Time to Die

envelopes in with the ranch’s normal outgoing mail, bundled everything up again, and set it neatly on the tray. Whoever took them in to town tomorrow morning—the Snead boys or Alma or Lucia—wouldn’t notice the extra mail.
    Winifred hesitated, but finally couldn’t resist. She wanted the Senator’s son to know. She wanted him to understand that she’d won. Grimly she dialed the governor’s cell number. The governor answered after four rings.
    “What is it, Pete?” Josh asked. “More problems with the books?”
    “It’s not Pete,” Winifred said. “But you have more problems than balancing the ranch books.”
    “Winifred? Is something wrong?”
    “No, something’s right.” She coughed but managed to get her breath. “Finally it will be right.”
    “Look, it’s late. I have a speech to edit, a plane to catch in four hours, and I’m still sick from whatever—”
    “Oh, it’s late all right,” she interrupted. “Late for you and the Senator’s plans. I fixed him, and you.” She wanted to laugh but was afraid it would dissolve into coughing.
    At the other end of the line, Josh pinched the bridge of his nose, shook himself like a dog coming out of water, and wondered what in hell was going on. Had the old woman finally cracked?
    Just what I need right now—a certifiably nutty aunt.
    “Winifred,” he said curtly, “you’re not making sense. Put Melissa on the line and—”
    “Sylvia’s great-grandmother, Isobel’s mother, was una bruja ,” Winifred said, ignoring Josh’s attempt to talk. “She knew the Senator couldn’t be trusted with the land. She made him sign a document agreeing that—”
    “Isobel? Isobel who?” Josh said impatiently. “What’s this all about?”
    “Castillo,” Winifred hissed. “It’s about the marriage between Castillo and Quintrell.”
    “That was a long time ago, long before the Senator was even born. How could anyone trust or not trust a man who wouldn’t be born for forty years?”
    Winifred took a shallow, careful breath. She had to focus so that the governor would understand.
    So that he would know she’d won.
    “They signed a marriage agreement,” Winifred said. “Sylvia and the second Quintrell. One of the things they agreed was that only children with Sylvia Castillo’s blood in them could inherit the land. Her children, not his.”
    “And your point would be?” Josh asked sarcastically. “Sylvia and the Senator had kids, and only one survived. That would be me. I inherited the ranch, and this whole conversation is nuts.”
    “Can you prove it?” Winifred asked, her voice hoarse and triumphant. “Can you prove Sylvia Castillo Quintrell is your mother?”
    “Of course I—”
    “No you can’t,” Winifred said, her voice trembling with victory and rage and illness. “You’re no more a Castillo than I’m a Quintrell.”
    “You’re crazy. Don’t make me prove it and lock you up. You don’t want to spend whatever time you have left wearing a hug-me jacket in a padded room. And that’s just what will happen if you keep flogging this nonsense.”
    The governor hung up before Winifred could say another word.
    You’re crazy. Don’t make me prove it and lock you up.
    “You can threaten me and brush me off like a fly,” Winifred said to the dead phone, “but not Jeanette Dykstra.”
    The thought made Winifred smile, then laugh, then cough until she was dizzy. Leaving the office was harder than entering had been. She was feeling age and sin and illness like a thousand cuts bleeding her strength away, even the raging strength of hatred. Death was coming to her in the body of a raven soaring on the wind. She didn’t know when it would come, but she was certain it was soon.
    If the pneumonia didn’t kill her, the Senator’s son would.

TAOS
FRIDAY MORNING
37
    CARLY AWOKE WITH THE FIRST LIGHT SLIPPING PAST THE CURTAINS INTO DAN ’ S BEDROOM . She felt a moment of disorientation at the warm weight along her left side and over her waist. Then she remembered what had happened the night before.
    Part of her still didn’t believe someone wanted her dead.
    Most of her did.
    None of her liked it.
    “You awake, honey?” Dan asked very softly.
    His breath stirred her hair.
    “Yes,” she said.
    “How do you feel?”
    “Like myself. Mostly.”
    His arm tightened around her waist, pulling her closer. He made a low sound as her rear fit against his crotch. “What’s not like you?”
    “I’m scared,” she said.
    He