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Rough Creek
Author: Kaki Warner

PROLOGUE

 


   At five thirty A.M., Dalton Cardwell walked through his cell door at the Walls Unit for the last time and began the lengthy process of being discharged from the state prison at Huntsville, Texas.

   He showered and ate, then went to the dispensary, where he was issued dress-outs—a set of clothing only marginally better than his prison garb and a size too small for his six-foot-four, two-hundred-thirty-pound frame. He was allowed to keep his shoes, which he intended to exchange for boots as soon as he was able. He wanted no reminders of this place.

   He was then taken to the infirmary, where he waited to be fingerprinted and have blood drawn for the HIV test. At the business office, he sat for over an hour while his prison account was scanned and a check was processed for the remaining seven dollars and thirty-one cents. After another half-hour wait, he was handed a packet containing a state-issued check for one hundred dollars, a voucher for a bus ticket anywhere within the state of Texas, and the certificate of discharge ending his eighteen-month-long association with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

   The clock was edging toward eleven o’clock—the time inmates were normally released—when he was ushered out the front door, told one of the taxis outside would take him to the army-navy store near the bus depot, where he could cash his state check, and was warned not to come back because they always went harder on return offenders.

   Then the door slammed shut behind him, cutting off the noise, the stink of despair, and the endless clang of locks and doors in a place that never slept.

   The silence was deafening.

   For a moment, Dalton stood motionless on the top step, trapped between immense relief, euphoria to have nothing but open sky above him, and a heart-pounding fear that the door behind him would fly open, a hand would jerk him back inside, and a laughing voice would say, Just kidding.

   When nothing happened, he took a deep breath and walked briskly toward one of the taxis waiting at the curb.

   An hour later, he had five twenty-dollar bills and change in his pocket, a hot cup of coffee in his hand, and a window seat on an air-conditioned Greyhound bus headed up Highway 75 to Dallas, where he would change buses and continue on to Rough Creek.

   Twelve fifteen P.M. Tuesday, March 21, 2017. Five hundred and fifty-five days of being caged like an animal for a crime he confessed to but didn’t commit.

   Done. Over. And heading home.

   Finally.

 

 

CHAPTER 1

 


   With grim determination, Coralee Lennox Whitcomb sat at her dressing table and set to work transforming a sixty-year-old grandmother into a confident woman in her prime. Her later prime.

   In truth, she was tired. Tired of trying so hard. Tired of pretending sixty was the new thirty-nine. Tired of being tired. It was that empty, unsettled kind of weariness that came to those fortunate enough to have once lived full, useful lives, but who now had nothing to do. She didn’t like the feeling.

   She tried to convince herself that the face staring back at her wasn’t truly old, but even she could see it lacked the vitality it once had. The top lip was a little longer and the smile lines sagged a little more. Her hair was still thick and shiny, but there was more gray than brown now, and the hair coloring never seemed to cover it all. But if she looked hard enough into the slightly faded blue eyes, she could still see the dynamic, energetic young woman she had once been. There was still time to make a change and hopefully find that woman again. But what change?

   “What are you frowning about?” a voice asked.

   Coralee turned to see her second daughter, Raney, come up behind her. “Do I look older to you?”

   “Older than what?”

   “Don’t equivocate. I’m serious.” Coralee turned back to the mirror. “I think I look old.”

   “Some days I do, too.”

   “You’re not yet thirty, dear.”

   “Near enough.” A pause, then: “Is this about your birthday?”

   “My sixtieth birthday,” Coralee reminded her. “That’s over half a century.”

   “But not yet two-thirds of one. I hear that’s when the real aging starts.”

   “You’re not helping.”

   “Then stop fishing for compliments. You know you’re beautiful.” Raney stood at Coralee’s shoulder and studied her in the mirror. “I thought you’d be happy, Mama, with all your chicks flocking back home to toast yet another year in your amazingly long life. Plus, you still have all your teeth.”

   Coralee smiled into eyes the same bright, electric blue hers once were. “Still not helping.”

   Despite her tendency toward sarcasm and a disinterest in anything not having to do with the ranch, Raney was the daughter most like her. She got things done. And with as little fuss or drama as possible.

   Coralee had always considered herself the driving force behind the ranch—and her husband, if truth be told—but Raney was its heart and soul. She was the one who had stepped into her father’s boots after his death, and in the nine years since, had given up everything—college, marriage, a family of her own—to keep Charlie’s legacy going. Other than one ghastly near-marriage, Raney had never even made an attempt to build a life apart from the ranch. Perhaps she was as stuck as Coralee was.

   “I am happy,” Coralee insisted now. “But I think I might need a change.” And with those words, an idea formed. Why shouldn’t she try something new?

   Dating was out of the question. Not in a town as small as Rough Creek. Pickings were too slim and gossip too rampant. She’d learned that after her “date” with Walter Esterbrook, a man she’d known for two decades and who faithfully attended her church every Sunday. At least, she’d thought she knew him.

   She could start a business, or manage something. If Rough Creek had a zoo or museum or even a hospital, she could do volunteer work, other than her weekly afternoon at the food bank. But the only thing around worth managing was the ranch, and Raney already did an excellent job of that.

   Despite her sometimes-frivolous facade, Coralee considered herself an astute manager. She always had been, whether it was finding ways to double the size of the Lennox family farm or helping guide her husband through the backwaters of Texas politics toward a lucrative career in the oil and gas industry, or ensuring that she and her daughters were well protected and financially independent after his death. If she was relentless, she’d had to be. And it had paid off. By the time of Charlie’s passing, the Lennox farm had doubled yet again, been renamed the Whitcomb Four Star Ranch in honor of their four lovely daughters, and was known for breeding prize-winning Angus cattle. But what had she done lately?

   “You’re scheming again, aren’t you?” With a sigh, Raney sank down onto the edge of Coralee’s bed. “What is it this time? A parade of acceptable marriage prospects for your unweddable daughter?”

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