Live Wire: What Doesn't Kill You Super Series of Mysteries, #11

By Pamela Fagan Hutchins

A hookup turned lethal. A spurned, angry cowboy. Can rebel Maggie turn the tables before a killer adds her to the list of lost causes?

"Hutchins' Maggie is an irresistible train wreck—you can't help but turn the page to see what trouble she'll get herself into next." Robert Dugoni, #1 Amazon Bestselling Author of My Sister's Grave

 

Washed-up alt-country-rocker-turned-junker Maggie Killian is pulled to Wyoming by an irresistible force . . . former bull rider Hank Sibley, the man who broke her heart fifteen years before. When she unexpectedly meets his Sunday school-teaching-girlfriend at a saloon, Maggie seeks liquor-fueled oblivion between the sheets of a younger man's bed. But after her beloved vintage truck breaks down and leaves her stranded in the Cowboy State, she learns her hookup died minutes after leaving their rendezvous. Suddenly surrounded by men with questionable motives, Maggie searches for the murderer while fighting the electricity between herself and her old beau and her new penchant for local whiskey.

 

When the police zero in on Maggie despite a disturbing series of break-ins at her guest cabin, she realizes she's got no one to rely on but herself. To keep herself happily in bars instead of behind them, she must stop the killer before the cops realize the man she really suspects is a jealous, angry Hank.

 

Live Wire is the first standalone book in a trilogy featuring sharp-tongued protagonist Maggie Killian from the addictive What Doesn't Kill You romantic mystery series. If you like nerve-racking suspense, electric characters and relationships, and juicy plot twists, then you'll love USA Today best seller Pamela Fagan Hutchins' Silver Falchion award-winning series.

 

˃˃˃ See why Pamela wins contests and makes best seller lists.

USA Today Best Seller
#1 Amazon Best Seller
Top 50 Amazon Romantic Suspense and Mystery Author
Silver Falchion for Best Adult Mystery
USA Best Book Awards Cross-Genre Fiction
Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, Romance, Quarter-finalist

 

˃˃˃ Once Upon A Romance calls Hutchins an "up-and-coming powerhouse writer."

If you like Sandra Brown or Janet Evanovich, you will love Pamela Fagan Hutchins. A former attorney and native Texan, Pamela splits her time between Nowheresville, Texas and the frozen north of Snowheresville, Wyoming.

 

˃˃˃ The reviews are in, and they're good. Very, very good.

"Maggie's gonna break your heart—one way or another." — Tara Scheyer, Grammy-nominated musician, Long-Distance Sisters Book Club

"Hutchins nails that Wyoming scenery and captures the atmosphere of the people there." — Ken Oder, author of The Judas Murders

"You're guaranteed to love the ride!" — Kay Kendall, Silver Falchion Best Mystery Winner

 

˃˃˃ Catch more adventures with Maggie and her friends in the What Doesn't Kill You romantic mystery series.

 

Scroll up and grab your copy of Live Wire today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: SkipJack Publishing
• Release date: Mar 6, 2019
• ISBN: 9781939889805

Pamela Fagan Hutchins

Pamela Fagan Hutchins is a USA Today best seller. She writes award-winning romantic mysteries from deep in the heart of Nowheresville, Texas and way up in the frozen north of Snowheresville, Wyoming. She is passionate about long hikes with her hunky husband and pack of rescue dogs and riding her gigantic horses. If you'd like Pamela to speak to your book club, women's club, class, or writers group, by Skype or in person, shoot her an e-mail. She's very likely to say yes. You can connect with Pamela via her website (https://pamelafaganhutchins.com)or e-mail ([e-mail]).

Book preview

PROLOGUE

Half Marlboro man, half sexy bull rider, Hank Sibley stares at his former girlfriend. You came out here alone with me to ask me if I killed somebody? You either already know the answer, or you have a death wish yourself.

Maggie Killian smiles at him, shoulders back. You won’t hurt me.

Why’s that?

Because you love me.

"Aren’t you the smart one." His tone is dark. His face is darker.

He whistles for Wolf. The horse trots back to him, and Hank slips him a cookie. He clears his throat, and his expression relaxes to normal. Or semi-normal. As normal as he gets with a murder charge hanging over his head. Real cowboys don’t use horse treats. Now you know all my secrets. He remounts and takes off at a trot.

Maggie isn’t letting him run off again. She and Lily stick with them from the get-go. The horses eat up ground in a slow trot, their riders silent again. Maggie wants to tell Hank she loves him, too. That she believes in him. She needs him to answer her questions, to clear the air, but she believes in him. In them.

Hank . . .

He rushes to cut off her emotional tone. What’s the holdup with the investigation? Don’t the police have any suspects?

No, none. Unless you count me. Even though there’s a list as long as my arm of people with motive, which I don’t have a lick of.

Hank stares at her. Can he hear the tremor in her voice? Like who?

Is he testing her? Teasing her? Serious? She watches him, treading lightly and carefully. Finally, she says, I think that’s a question for the police.

At the top of a broad ridge, Hank stops Wolf. Without permission, Lily joins him in the rest. Maggie looks around. She recognizes the view in one direction, although she’s seeing it from a new angle. The creek, the fence at the property line, the neighbor’s ramshackle place.

I’ve seen a big buck out this way recently. Let’s hunker down and wait.

Okay. Maggie urges Lily forward a few feet, wanting distance from Hank and the disturbing thoughts still swirling in her mind. The grass crunches under the horse’s hooves. She sees movement in the distance on the far side of the ridge. Is that an antelope herd?

Hank whirls in his saddle. He grins. Hell yeah. No time to hunker down. Do you want to take the shot? I’ll let you have my tag.

No, that’s okay. Maggie’s in no shape to operate a weapon with her mind in a muddle.

In a few swift moves, Hank liberates his bow from Wolf’s side and throws the quiver over his back.

The herd is moving. Maggie’s emotions are roiling and her mind aflame. She feels swept along by a force bigger than herself, like she’s caught in the middle of the running hooves with no way out but to speak.

Whoa, boy. Wolf stands like a statue. Hank nocks an arrow and takes aim.

A loud pow rips through the silence, the sound lingering for several seconds. Lily jumps, then hotfoots in place. Maggie gathers the reins in.

Oomph.

The sound is from Hank, and Maggie turns toward him. His body slumps, then lists sideways. He topples from the saddle to the ground. Wolf prances and rears beside him.

Maggie screams. Hank.

There’s a second pow. Wolf spins and falls. The sounds he makes are purest animal agony. He writhes and kicks, his hooves dangerously close to Hank.

Lily panics. Her back end catapults upward, but with a funny twist. Maggie pushes down with her feet and tush. She reaches for the saddle horn, but Lily’s next buck comes too fast. The force of her motion flings Maggie’s arms upward. Lily leaps forward and to the side. Maggie feels air between her butt and the saddle, then, as her feet fly up and out of the stirrups, she thinks Gene was right—Lily bucks with enthusiasm and strength. Then she’s floating, like a dying bird, several feet above Lily’s head. But not for long. The ground comes, hard and fast. Maggie lands hard—rump first, shoulder and ribs second—in the space where Lily was a moment before.

Pain shoots up Maggie’s rear and back. She groans, rolls onto her elbows, and drags herself, hips flat against the ground. Lily’s hooves jackhammer the ground, then grow rhythmic and softer as she bolts away. Maggie twists, trying to find Hank. Wolf’s thrashing body is in the way.

Maggie, Hank calls, his voice a rasp. Are you okay?

I’m not sure. She can’t catch her breath, but she forces words out. Are you?

I’ve been shot.

Of course. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Hank and Wolf. She pants and keeps dragging her inert body toward Hank, around Wolf’s sharp, flailing hooves. Who would shoot at us?

Don’t know. Maybe a poacher. Somewhere north of us. Can you walk?

Maggie tries to stand. She doesn’t make it, but her hips rise enough for her to crawl on her hands and knees. From this height she can see Hank, beside his bloody horse. She must be in a state of shock, because everything feels like it’s moving in slow motion, including her emotions. She feels bad for the squalling horse, but she has to get to Hank, and it seems to be taking her forever.

Finally, she reaches him. He’s bloodier than Wolf, and it takes all her will power to remain calm. Hank needs her.

Another pow sends Maggie flat on her belly. It’s followed in rapid succession by two more, with the three protracted sounds overlapping for a brief moment.

Shit, Maggie says.

Maybe not a poacher.

After a few seconds of silence, she raises herself on her elbows again. His cheek looks uninjured, and she touches it. Where did it hit you?

He points slowly at his side with the hand and arm cradling it. The other arm hangs limp. Hurts like a sumbitch.

She has to get help. Her panic rises again and she feels like the sky is expanding and pressing her down. Maggie pulls out her phone and checks it. No signal. She yells at the heavy sky, Fuck you, Wyoming. She returns it to her pocket. Do you have yours?

Shirt pocket.

She pats it gingerly, but there’s no phone. Scanning in concentric circles, she spots it ten feet away lying beside a rock. She crawls to it. It’s broken nearly in half. She tries to turn it on anyway. Nothing happens. Horse hoof, she realizes.

She crawls back to Hank. Broken. I could build a travois and drag you out. If there were any trees. But there aren’t. Not any closer than there. She points to the edge of the woods up the side of the mountain, a half mile or more away.

No tools. No lashing. Try again.

I need to get you out of here.

Hank winces. You need to go for help.

She looks around for her horse, hoping for a miracle, but doesn’t see the mare, just a dark wall of clouds closing in. Lily’s gone. She rises to her knees, weight off her hands. Her tailbone sends pain shooting through her like fireworks. Still, it’s progress.

Go to the neighbor’s. Not too far. Call Gene. Tell him . . . tell him I’m where he got the buck mule deer last fall. And take my gun.

Gotta get you outta the line of fire, first. And stop the bleeding.

I’m fine.

Maggie ignores him. She becomes aware that Wolf’s cries are softer and farther apart, but she can’t worry about him. She has to help Hank. She grabs him under his arms. This time, she’s able to stand, but when she pulls he doesn’t budge. Come on, dammit. The harder she pulls, the worse it hurts.

She bends her legs, tears streaming down her face. Fuck off, pain.

Using all the strength she has, she drags Hank one foot, then falls on her injured butt. She screams.

It’s okay, Maggie. I’ll be fine.

She ignores Hank and hooks her arms under his again. Sweat joins her tears. On her next try she gets him another foot before she crashes to the ground, weeping. Then eighteen inches, then two whole feet. Finally, she props him behind a rocky outcropping. She takes off her Double S jacket. She wads up a sleeve and forces it against his wound.

Hank’s face whitens, and he cries out. Argh.

You’ve gotta press here.

He nods. He tries to get his hand in place, but he can’t get the right leverage to apply pressure.

I can put a rock on it. Or you can roll on your side.

Rock won’t work. He rolls over onto the jacket, grimacing.

Maggie shoves a rock under the coat and him, forcing the wad of fabric further and tighter against the wound.

Hank gasps, You’re enjoying this.

Not one iota. She grasps his face. Don’t you die on me.

Too ornery. But I could use help.

What do you need?

He dimples, and she’s done for. He has a girlfriend. He’s killed a man before. Maybe others. Probably not, but there’s not time to be sure. Because fuck if she doesn’t love the shit out of this man. She always has. She always will. And that’s all that matters right now. She presses her lips against his. Hard at first, then soft, and her lips cling to his.

Lightning flashes around them and thunder cracks almost instantaneously. Maggie’s body electrifies and it’s almost as if it levitates. Their lips break apart. She squeals. The unmistakable scent of ozone fills the air.

That helps, music girl. Wow. I think the earth even moved.

It helps her, too. Yeah, it was okay.

She gets more dimples, then his eyes roll back. Hank? She shakes him. Hank?

His eyes flutter open. Hurts a lot.

I have to go. I have to get help for you. Can I do anything for Wolf?

He groans. Damn good horse. Can he stand?

Wolf has quit struggling. His big barreled rib cage rises and falls with his breaths that are far too slow. No. I’m sorry.

Hank makes a choking sound, then holds the rest of his feelings in. Me, too.

Maggie stands, grabbing Hank’s bow.

Take the gun. Bows aren’t for emergencies.

She has to leave his gun. For whoever shot at them, if it isn’t a poacher. The thought rips her insides raw. The shooter could still be targeting them. Or on his way here. Hank has to be able to protect himself. Besides, he has a decision to make. About Wolf. One that he needs a gun and a bullet to carry out.

She puts as much sass in her voice as she can muster. "What, haven’t you seen Daryl with his bow on The Walking Dead?"

He shakes his head and smiles. You’re something else, Maggie Killian. Then he coughs.

She sees blood on his lips, whether from splatter or from his insides, she doesn’t know, but it’s powerfully motivating. I’ll be back as soon as I can. She turns and jogs, limping painfully, in the direction she prays will take her to the nearest neighbor’s house.

ONE

BEFORE:

Don’t tread on me. Maggie mouths the words from the Gadsden flag flying proudly from the heavy-duty four-by-four in front of her at the traffic light. The curled rattlesnake sticks its tongue out at the world. She likes it, and she likes the banging desert-camo paint job on the truck, too.

She snares her hair with a red silk scarf, then pulls flyaway strands out of her lipstick. The air is changing, losing its summer-baked feel, and the afternoon sun sheds an early fall glow on the streets of Sheridan. Windows rolled down, she tips her face out and into the golden rays. She smells spruce, fir, and pine, and something else. Smoke. She breathes in the dry air through her mouth, and she tastes the smoke, too. Everyone in town has been talking about the wildfires to the northwest.

The light turns green and she rolls slow and easy down South Main, admiring the street art. In Wyoming, that means sculpture, not graffiti. She eases off the gas to stare at a bronze of a native woman dancing in the wind, head thrown back, buckskin and hair flying. It speaks to her, in her core, like most things about this throwback town. She accelerates again. She’s drawing plenty of goggle-eyed stares in Bess, her vintage magenta Ford pickup, toting a Beverly Hillbillies–worthy mountain of estate- and garage-sale pickings in her utility trailer and the small truck bed. After three days in Wyoming, she’s figured out that the looky-loos are not just eyeing the junk and the truck, either. The population here is skewed male. The Marlboro male, bearded variety, largely appearing womanless. If she was looking for a man, she could have her pick by sundown, never mind the gray streaks in her hair, the narrow gap between her teeth, or laugh lines around her eyes.

But she’s not looking for one.

Well, technically, she is looking for one, but only one in particular. She brakes too hard at another red light and jerks to a stop. Something in the bed shifts, and her eyes cut to her rearview at the sound. Please, Lord, no yard sale here. The load settles. When she feels sure all is well, it only takes her a hot second to whip her phone out and open her Facebook app. Normally she’s not much on lipstick or social media. But desperate times call for desperate measures. Crappy connectivity and data notwithstanding, she attempts to refresh Hank Sibley’s profile, something she’s done once every five minutes for the last week, ever since she typed garage and estate sales, Sheridan, Wyoming in her search engine and hit the road to go picking in his stomping grounds.

So far, he’s been eerily silent. She’s stalked him online for six months, ever since he showed up at her best friend Michele’s house, a surprise addition to a dinner party that included Michele’s brother, Gene. Gene and Hank were in Texas scouting for broodmares to diversify bloodlines for their Double S Bucking Stock business. The shock of seeing Hank had initially paralyzed her. He was a blast from her past—literally the most explosive relationship of her life. She hadn’t been receptive to getting reacquainted at first, but pheromones and his dimples won out. Hank whisked her away for a week that nearly blew her world apart.

So she’d sent him packing, natch. Because once she regained her sanity and control of her libido, she couldn’t forget that for fifteen years—after what he’d told her was the best night of his life, one where they risked death-by-mobster to be together—he’d never called. Never come to Nashville like she’d asked him to. Never contacted her a single time. He broke her freakin’ heart. So much so that he spawned Grammy-winning songwriting—a good thing. And precipitated an ugly downward spiral that tanked her career and earned her back-to-back stints in rehab for a cocaine addiction that slid into heroin—a bad thing. Technically, she might have shared some of the blame, as did the unexpected death of her dad before she’d had time to go back and work childhood shit out with him. But Hank definitely ranked as a leading cause.

So sue her, he waltzes in and has this effect on her? It scared the crap out of her. He scared the crap out of her. She had no choice but to throw gasoline on that bridge and burn the fucker down.

But that was then and this is now. There’s empty screen where his Facebook profile should be. She growls and checks the light. Still red. She pulls the page down to refresh it.

While she’s in data limbo, her mind drifts back to the spring in Texas. The angry look in his eyes when he left had barely covered up his sadness and confusion. It had tested her resolve, but she’d held firm. Only, after he was gone, she’d realized it was too late for her to protect herself anyway. He was back in her head, back in her heart, back in her aching late-night dreams. She kept willing him to defy her edict to never contact her again. She longed for her phone to ring with his teasing voice in her ear. Of course he hadn’t. It hadn’t.

She’d finally decided she had to do something. So here she is in Wyoming, trying to casually run into him fourteen hundred miles out of the way from her normal life. Ridiculous. Yes, she knows it, yes, she should have just called and groveled, but she tamps down the thought. She’s here now. And this is going to work, because she’s going to make sure it does.

Anyway, Hank normally posts on Facebook once or twice a week. About the rodeos where Double S will be and how the horses and bulls are performing. The progress of the crop of foals, how the three-year-olds are coming along, and all of the achievements, accolades, and awards Double S is racking up in the world of stock contracting. She’s been trolling their website and knows they don’t have a rodeo right now—which is why she chose the weekend after Labor Day for her picking trip here.

The screen refresh is taking forever. God, how she wishes she hadn’t gone cheap with T-Mobile, which doesn’t seem to exist north of Denver. A car behind her honks. The light is green.

She salutes with her favorite finger. Keep your pants on, buddy.

Hank’s profile finally comes up just as she presses the accelerator. She has time to give the phone a good upward swipe, and she watches it like she’s hoping for all cherries on a quarter slot.

There’s a new post.

She makes a gentle left onto Coffeen Avenue, then props the phone on top of the steering wheel. Traffic is lightish, so she raises her knees to wedge against the steering wheel. Her right foot slips off the accelerator. The truck lurches out of its lane. The phone drops to the floorboard.

Shit, shit, shit. She grabs the wheel and corrects course gradually so as not to flip the bumper-pull trailer. The truck has been pulling hard to the left for weeks now. Time to get the front end aligned and rotate the tires, as soon as she’s home.

A tall delivery truck pulls in front of her. It’s squeezing against both sides of the lane, and she can’t search ahead for a place to pull over.

"Come on." She pounds her hand on the steering wheel.

Finally, she spies a parking lot she can get in and out of without clipping something with the trailer. She veers into it quickly. The building on the other side of the pavement looks straight out of Gunsmoke, with darkly stained wooden siding and forest-green paint on the door and window frames. TAXIDERMY is painted across the upper half of the store front in an Old West–styled script. A more modern banner flaps from rope attached to hooks in the wall: ASK ABOUT CHEMICAL-FREE BRAIN-TANNED SKINS, THE INDIAN WAY.

As she reads the words, Maggie feels a flicker—recognition?—but pushes it away. She doesn’t give a single shit about the buckskins, dead heads, and trophies on the other side of the door. All she wants is to read Hank’s post. She picks up the phone, which froze up in its scuffle with the floorboard. While the phone is rebooting, she turns up her sound system, the only modernization she’s made to her World War II–era truck. Moors & McCumber’s "Bend or Be Broken" comes on. She’d caught one of the Americana duo’s shows on her way north through Colorado, where she’d picked up the Live from Blue Rock CD. She air-guitars along, her fingers still nimble ten years after she quit playing professionally, but she doesn’t take her eyes off the phone screen. When her background appears—her pet goats, Omaha and Nebraska, named after the town she was in when she first heard one of her songs on the radio—she drops her imaginary instrument.

She types in her passcode. The phone rings. As she fumbles with the device, she accidentally answers the call. It’s her mom. She doesn’t say hello, prepares to hang up. If her mom calls back, she can let it go to voicemail.

Maggie? Honey, are you all right? Charlotte Killian’s voice is loving, sweet, and worried. Perpetually worried.

Maggie closes her eyes and puts the phone to her ear.

Margaret Elizabeth?

Mom. Hi. Yes, I’m good. What’s up?

Oh, thank God. When you weren’t answering my calls, I went by your place. There was a strange car out front, and no one answered the door when I rang the bell. I tried my key, but it didn’t work in the lock⁠—

Mom, I’m fine. And I’m traveling. I have a short-term renter. I’ll oil the lock when I get back, but I’m glad you didn’t barge in on her.

Why didn’t you tell me about your trip? Her voice changes. Hurt creeps in, with an undertone of irritation. She’d gone to a lot of trouble. She always does.

Maggie takes a deep breath. Her mother has been distracted lately. After years as a widow with no social life, suddenly she’d begun dating men like a fickle sorority girl. But she’d settled on one. Edward Lopez. Michele’s father, a veterinarian and a widower. Maggie had thought she could sneak off without her giddy, love drunk mother noticing her absence, but she should have known better.

What to tell her, though? Charlotte knew nothing about Hank. Not back then, not now. I’m sorry. It was on a whim.

You rented your house on a whim?

Sure. It’s a thing, Mom. Everybody does it. Surely you’ve heard of Airbnb? Which Maggie hadn’t used, although she’d been inspired by it. She wasn’t paying anyone a commission for something she could do herself through Craigslist.

The phone goes silent. Maggie considers coaxing her phone into double duty with the call and Facebook, but she’s afraid it doesn’t have the bandwidth.

Her mother says, So, where are you?

Wyoming.

Her mother’s reply is screechy. Wyoming? What in the world?

I had a lead on some big sales. I’ve found great items for the shop. Her store, Flown the Coop, is a regional favorite, and she knows her Wyoming pickings will sell well at the Warrenton–Round Top fall antique show.

Who’s minding it for you?

I have a Blinn College student opening it on the weekends.

The goats?

Michele is taking care of them.

Again there’s a silence. Then, And church?

Maggie bites her lip. She watches a flatbed truck drive by pulling a gooseneck trailer. A border collie balances behind the driver’s side, the wind in its fur. Wyoming is so fifty-years-ago, a throwback state, and the dogs love the freedom. Maggie loves hers, too. She doesn’t want to get into this discussion with her ultrareligious mother. She’d abandoned her upbringing twenty years ago when she ran off to chase musical stardom. Her parents were both Wendish—descendants of refugees from ethnic and religious persecution in Germany who migrated to Texas in the 1850s—and had raised her in the restrictive community of their Lutheran church. Maggie hadn’t rejoined the church when she came home ten years later, but she attended services once a month to appease her mother.

Two years ago, Maggie learned she was adopted. Her birth mother had fled the same Wendish community to chase dreams of becoming an artist. Like mother, like daughter. Nature over nurture. It helped Maggie understand better her adoptive mother Charlotte’s fears for her soul, but it didn’t lead her back to religion.

I’ll only be gone a few days.

When will you be back?

As soon as I’m done up here. I’ll let you know.

I have . . . I want . . . well, just call me when you know.

Maggie almost questions her mom about the hesitant words, but she lets it go. I will, Mom. I love you. Tell Edward hello for me.

I love you, too.

Maggie hangs up. As the home screen reappears on her phone, there’s a voice outside her open window before she can pull up her Facebook app.

Need any help, miss? Male. Of course.

She nearly screams in her frustration. She peers over her shoulder at him, unwilling to turn fully away from the screen she’s worked so hard to reach. The man is younger than her. Ten years, maybe, although exposure to the outdoors makes it hard to read. His eyes are gray, his sandy hair curly, but it’s his lipstick-red lips that draw her eyes.

Um, no, I’m fine.

I saw you pull over. Texas plates. I figured with you so far from home, you could use a friend. I’m Chet.

He may be cute, but she doesn’t give him her name. Or eye contact. Yes. Well, I’m good. Thank you.

He doesn’t leave.

She ignores him and pulls up Facebook and Hank’s profile. Thursday Night Jam tonight. Looking forward to some real bluegrass. She smiles. Now she knows what she’s doing tonight, as soon as she figures out where the heck this jam will be.

Chet is still hanging around by her window.

She beams at him. Say, Chet, you wouldn’t happen to know anything about a Thursday night jam around here, would you? Bluegrass?

At the Occidental?

"Right. That’s exactly where