Paradise Ranch (Jack and Ashley detective series Book 2)

  Paradise Ranch

  By

  R.D. Sherrill

  Other books by R.D. Sherrill:

  Red Dog Saloon

  Average Joe

  Murder U

  For the beginning of the Jack and Ashley detective series

  Friday Night Frights

  For more information about R.D. Sherrill, go to:

  www.rdsherrillbooks.com or his author page

  Copyright © 2016 R.D. SHERRILL

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-10: 1539427773

  ISBN-13: 978-1539427773

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  MINTS MAKE IT WORSE

  TWO TICKETS TO PARADISE

  CAPTIVE AUDIENCE

  OUT PAST CURFEW

  PAIN IN THE BACKSIDE

  THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HILL

  PASSING NOTES

  BEGINNING OF THE END

  UP IN FLAMES

  FLYING HIGH AGAIN

  EPILOGUE

  PROLOGUE

  Ashley started to stand but was knocked back to the floor by the rumble of an explosion somewhere from inside the wall of flames. A pillar of fire rushed just above her, the heat taking her breath as it swept by. Flames were pouring from the ignited tanks around the room, spewing out of one of the ruptured containers, the hiss warning her it could detonate at any second.

  “Jack!” she screamed as she pushed herself back on the floor, the water under her now hot enough to burn her hands and backside.

  Her shouts were answered by a scream from within the inferno. Ashley kept pushing herself backwards across the scalding water as her eyes searched for the source of the howl. Then she saw movement inside the fire. Something was coming at her from inside the blaze. It was the figure of a man!

  An otherworldly scream came from the form as it emerged, covered from head to toe in flames like a human torch. Ashley reached for her gun as the figure advanced. Her gun wasn’t there.

  Ashley flinched as the man staggered toward her, stopping only feet away. He seemed to stare at her from the cloak of fire, then fell to the floor in front of her, his still-burning body slamming face-first onto the concrete. The body twitched for a moment before becoming motionless. She gagged at the smell of burning flesh that permeated the space around her.

  She froze, her gaze locked on the hideous sight in front of her. Was it Jack? The form was burned beyond recognition.

  Snapping from her daze, Ashley again pushed herself away from the flames, leaving the burned body smoldering near the tank. Overtaken by panic and forced away from the scorching heat, she turned onto her hands and knees and started crawling away from the epicenter of the fire. She had no idea where the door was. The room was starting to fill with smoke, reducing visibility by the second. If she didn’t get out soon, she would be trapped.

  She forced herself to her feet and began to run to-ward where she thought the door was located. However, she took only two steps before her toe was snagged, causing her to slam to the scorching concrete. The impact knocked the breath out of her. She started to stand back up, fighting to fill her lungs again, even if it was with smoky air.

  A second explosion hurled Ashley through the air before she could take the breath. She slammed against a metal container and fell to the concrete floor in a heap. The heat wave from the blast followed as she was trying to shake off the cobwebs.

  “Jack! Jack!” she coughed through the billowing black smoke as she stood up on unsteady legs. She was having trouble focusing.

  Before she could listen for an answer she felt a sharp pain on top of her head. Her hair was on fire!

  She swatted at the flames, resisting the urge to run as she pawed at her long, dark hair. She smothered out the fire, the putrid smell making her sick at her stomach.

  Get down, Ashley. Smoke rises.

  She dropped back to her hands and knees, hoping to get under the smoke that was now filling the room. She crawled toward an open spot in the advancing wall of flames. That’s when she found him.

  “Jack!” she screamed, finding her partner lying un-conscious, blood pouring from a wound to his head.

  “Jack! Wake up!’ We’re going to die!”

  MINTS MAKE IT WORSE

  Six days earlier – the skies over southern Arizona

  Ashley’s fingernails dug into the drab green vinyl passenger seat of the cramped aircraft. The remote rural airport appeared on the horizon like a mirage emerging from the rising waves of Arizona heat. It was the first sign of civilization she had seen since they took off from El Paso nearly two hours before, although from what she could make out in the distance, calling their destination an airport might be exaggerating a bit. What lay before them, welcoming them to the wilderness outpost, was little more than a dirt runway and a few small buildings scattered about.

  “There she is,” her pilot and boss, Federal Agent Jack Looper nodded toward the small airfield. “She’s a sight for sore eyes, ain’t she?”

  “There what is?” Ashley choked out, realizing they would be making their landing on the makeshift tarmac in a few minutes. “I thought airports were supposed to have runways and towers and things like that. You know … things that make landing … safe?”

  Jack looked over and grinned at his nervous passenger as he casually loosened his tie, intentionally taking his hands off the yoke. He realized there were few things in life Ashley dreaded more than flying, especially when he was behind the controls of the small air-craft. He was enjoying watching her eyes glued on the horizon in front of them, eyeing their destination like a hawk from behind her thick glasses. It was his boyish mean streak, something that still held fast, though he wasn’t too far short of forty and was one of the country’s most respected lawmen. He couldn't help it. Some things you never outgrow. He was getting a kick out of seeing his partner sweating bullets next to him.

  “Eh, landing isn’t much more than a controlled crash anyway, sweetheart,” Jack smirked, giving Ashley a mischievous wink. “At least we don’t stand much chance of hitting anything, other than maybe a tumble weed or two. Hey! It’s better than driving. We would have been in the car six hours if we’d drove out. This way, we make it short and sweet.”

  “I don’t know about the sweet part,” Ashley responded as she continued looking nervously at their destination. “I’ll be happy when you get this thing on the ground.”

  It was all she could do to get on the plane in the first place before they took off from El Paso hours before. It took her a full half hour before she was able to convince herself not to throw up as the light plane bounced up and down against the wind currents over New Mexico and then into Arizona. She had repressed an all-out panic attack for at least half the trip. She forced herself to go to her happy place, which incidentally was any-where but the inside of Jack Looper’s cockpit.

  Despite her phobia, she wasn’t about to let on about her anxiety to the cocky pilot since he would surely take advantage of the situation, all in the name of good, clean fun. As it was, she was toeing the fine edge be-tween fear and outright panic. She concentrated on her breathing while trying to stop her uncontrollable trembling.

  “You really need to get over your fear of flying,” Jack noted as he looked over at his passenger, noticing she was still a bit green around the gills. “Besides, flying is statistically the safest form of transportation. I haven’t got you killed.”

  “Not yet, anyway,” Ashley retorted as she forced herself to look over at Jack only to find him looking back at her.

  “Stop looking at ME!” she yelled, pointing t
oward the horizon. “The sky is out THERE!”

  Jack smiled and promptly put the plane into a dive. The hum of the engine reminded Ashley of old barnstormers as they plummeted toward the ground at breakneck speed.

  “What are you doing!” she snapped, digging her nails deeper into the upholstery.

  “You have to get low to land,” Jack quipped as he began leveling off. “I’m just getting low is all. Don’t have a conniption over there, doll face. Usually you’re supposed to descend two thousand feet a minute but you said you were in a hurry to get on the ground so I thought I’d dispense with the formalities and get your feet back on good ol' terra firma. Settle back, sweetie. You’re in good hands.”

  Ashley gritted her teeth as she felt her anxiety begin to rise again. She couldn’t get on the ground quick enough. She could feel the blood pulsing in her face.

  “You know, I’m serious. You really need to get over your fear of flying,” Jack began as he again looked to-ward Ashley. She promptly reached over and pushed his face forward.

  “Watch the road,” she coarsely commanded. “And, I never said I had a fear of flying. I have a fear of you flying.”

  “You’re a federal agent now, honey,” Jack continued. “That means you have nationwide jurisdiction. You can’t be hopping around the country in trains and cars. Time is of an essence in our business. By the time you get on the scene at your snail’s pace, the crime scene will already be cold.”

  While Jack was right, it did little to settle the knot in Ashley’s stomach. Perhaps a little preparation would have helped. She had no advance warning of the mission she was on.

  She had been whisked away from Quantico the day after her graduation from the FBI Academy and put on a commercial flight to Texas with not so much as a hint of explanation of what was going on. She had just dis-embarked when she was accosted by Jack as she at-tempted to grab a quick snack at the airport. He gave her little time to protest, grabbing her by the arm and leading her across the tarmac to his small personal plane. He was concerned that if he gave her time to think about it, he would have to throw her over his shoulder and carry her kicking and screaming to the plane. He already knew from their past association in Texas six months before that Ashley was not a happy flier. Getting her on his airplane was like herding cats.

  “Get in,” he had ordered her in no uncertain terms. She stopped dead outside the plane, looking at it as if it were a savage beast about to eat her.

  “But I …" she began, only to be cut off.

  “That’s an order,” Jack snapped. “You work for me now, Agent Reynolds. Get in the plane.”

  Jack put the plane in gear and tore down the runway only moments after Ashley strapped herself into the passenger seat. He wasn’t going to give her a chance to make excuses. He didn’t feel like having to chase her across the tarmac and drag her back to the airplane. It wouldn’t be becoming of an FBI agent.

  Their flight was spent in conversation about her time at Quantico and catching up on the ten weeks she had spent at the academy. In actuality, Jack had used the conversation to take her mind off flying. While he had a mean streak, he had no desire to see whatever she had eaten for lunch on the floor of his cockpit.

  His monopolization of the conversation left Ashley at a disadvantage. They were in the middle of nowhere, about to land on an airstrip that more resembled a vacant lot, and she had no idea why they were there. So much for a briefing.

  It was an assignment and she had obviously been hand-picked by Jack to ride shotgun. But why? Sure, she had served four years as a profiler with the Texas Rangers in her home state before being recruited by Jack and the FBI after a case they had worked on together, but as far as being a federal agent went, she was as green as could be. The ink on her diploma was barely dry. But then, she had learned that Jack tended to keep things to himself, only giving away information on a “need to know” basis, something she found very irritating since it seemed she never needed to know, in Jack’s opinion.

  “So, you care to share why you brought me out to the middle of nowhere?” Ashley asked as they approached the airfield, her eyes darting nervously back and forth from the windshield to Jack. “This isn’t some kind of agent initiation, is it? You aren’t going to leave me out here and have me find my way back or anything like that … are you?"

  “Don’t tempt me,” Jack grinned. “I’ve been on a couple of snipe hunts in my younger years. No, this is official business. I’ll brief you when we get on the ground.”

  Landing was just a minute away as the battered old frontier airport was now looming in their front window. While she dreaded the actual landing part, the feeling of being on solid ground was a welcome thought.

  “Hey, you got a minute?” Jack asked as he looked slyly over at his partner.

  “What?” Ashley snapped.

  “Let’s take a little side trip. What you say, darlin’?” Jack said as he pulled the nose of the plane up, taking Ashley’s stomach with it.

  “What you say we don’t!?” Ashley shot back as she mimicked Jack’s southern drawl and held on for dear life. “Just land this thing!”

  “In a minute,” Jack responded as he pointed the nose of the plane away from the airport.

  A couple of minutes later they were over a small hamlet located a few miles from the airstrip. A large water tower in the middle of the town read “New Hope.”

  “Welcome to New Hope. Population seven-hundred and ninety-five. Say-lute” Jack said, doing his best Hee-Haw imitation, something that was wasted on his partner who was only in her late twenties and likely had no idea who Buck Owens and Roy Clark were.

  “Okay, we’ve seen it,” Ashley said brushing off his attempt at humor. “Now, if you don’t mind, can we get this thing on the ground?”

  “Hold your horses, honey,” Jack urged as he continued heading away from the airfield and further into the barren frontier. “There’s one more thing I want you to see.”

  A few more minutes of flying and they topped a ridge outside of the town. As soon as they emerged over the small plateau, Ashley saw something she hadn’t seen in a couple of hours – the color green.

  “What is that?” Ashley said, her eyes wide, but this time not out of fear. “It’s like an oasis in the middle of … nothing.”

  “Paradise Ranch,” Jack said as they flew over what looked to be an island of vivid color in the middle of the otherwise brown scrubland.

  Below them, Ashley could make out several large wooden buildings surrounded by green grass and foli-age in the otherwise nondescript landscape. She also made out something else – a large fence that enclosed the oasis. Inside the fence she could make out people walking about, some looking skyward toward their plane which was still cruising at a low altitude.

  “What is Paradise Ranch?” Ashley quizzed as Jack did a pass over the compound and then turned the plane back toward the airport.

  “You’re 'bout to find out, dear,” Jack cryptically answered. “That’s why we’re here.”

  As Jack banked the plane, Ashley leaned over to take a last glance at the unusual sight, making sure it wasn’t a mirage in the otherwise barren landscape.

  “We're getting a little low on fuel. That is, if my gauge is working again,” Jack said as he tapped on the dial. “Sometimes the needle on this thing sticks a bit, so you never know,” Jack volunteered, explaining his hurried return from Paradise Ranch to the airport. “I figured we wouldn’t want to run out. Better safe than sorry, huh?”

  “You know, you could feel free to go ahead and top off the gas tank,” Ashley said, quickly brushing a strand of hair out of her face before again resuming her death grip on the dash. “I’ll chip in next time.”

  Jack shook his head. “I know what I’m doing. Gas is like a quarter a gallon cheaper here. Hey, we made it, no problem. Hmm, now … did I put the landing gear down?”

  “Jack!” she yelled as she dug her nails into the cheap material of the dash, hearing the bark of the tires as they kissed t
he airstrip.

  “Yeah,” Jack grinned. “They’re down.”

  The plane bounced on the uneven ground, hopping across the country airfield and leaving a plume of dust in its wake before pulling up to the terminal which was little more than a trailer.

  Ashley didn’t give time for the propellers to stop turning as she jumped out of the plane, theatrically falling to the gritty ground.

  “Come on, darlin’, it wasn’t that bad,” Jack laughed as Ashley picked herself up from her mock-smooch with sandy Arizona soil.

  Jack pulled their bags from the cockpit, throwing Ashley’s toward her. She snatched the duffle out of the air moments before it slapped her in the face.

  “Don’t forget to put on your fancy new badge,” Jack directed. “You’ll need it … and your gun.”

  Ashley didn’t care for his last comment. Although she was a career law enforcement officer and an excel-lent shot, gunplay wasn’t her forte. She preferred using her brain to unravel the tangled webs and solve cases with her keen sense of deductive reasoning. She didn’t have much of a taste for the whole "shoot ‘em up" thing. Jack, on the other hand, was more of a cowboy when it came to gunplay.

  “So, care to fill me in now?” Ashley asked as she shielded her eyes from the early afternoon sun, a trickle of sweat dripping down her back courtesy of the south-ern Arizona heat. So much for it being a dry heat.

  Ashley looked at Jack who was strapping his backup weapon to his ankle. “We’re on the ground, it would appear, so now might be a good time for a briefing … boss.” She rolled her eyes.

  “You got a signal on that 'stupid phone' of yours?” Jack asked, ignoring Ashley’s request to be brought into the loop.

  He was referring to Ashley’s old-school flip phone which she doggedly hung on to, shunning advances in technology and refusing to upgrade to a smart phone.

  “What do you think?” Ashley responded as she took out her phone and found no bars, indicating she had no cellular reception. “This is the end of the sunshine pump. I wouldn’t expect anything.”