I gasped, jumped about six inches, and felt his strong hands twisting me around to face him. I was pinned against the VW, Weathers's strong arms on either side of me, his face inches from my own.

"Maggie, why do you keep lying to me?" he asked, his voice menacingly soft.

"I just have to get to work and it's late," I answered.

"Nice try, but I don't think that's it." He wasn't moving. He had me trapped, and the only way to move would've been to try and wriggle out under his arms. Something he knew I'd considered, because he brought his elbows down and moved in still closer.

To anyone passing by, we would've appeared to be lovers, embracing. He was so close that I could feel his breath on my cheek and smell his cologne. It felt intoxicating, the smells, the sensations, my fear, all snowballing into a reaction I felt powerless to control.

"Trust me, Maggie," he breathed. "Talk to me." His voice was hypnotic. "Trust me."

I snapped out of it, jerking my head forward. "There's nothing to tell," I said. "I have to go to work. You can follow me, or ride with me, but I have to go!"

"What did Jimmy do to hurt you, Maggie?" he asked softly.

"Nothing, I'm telling you!"

Weathers was staring at me, his eyes burning into mine. He wasn't ready to let me go, not just yet.

"Maggie, I know he did something to you. People like you, they don't just take a life unprovoked. Let me help you, Maggie."

"Damn it! No!" I cried, stamping my stockinged foot on the cold ground. "I didn't shoot Jimmy!"

"Shhh," he whispered, his voice a warm caress, "Where's the gun, Maggie?"

"Listen to me," I said, "if I was gonna kill someone, I sure wouldn't do as sloppy a job as this. Believe me, if I were to kill you, there wouldn't be a trace left behind. And right now, I'm giving homicide some serious consideration. If you don't clear away from me and let me go, I'm liable to take matters into my own hands. Trust me, you won't like that, Detective."

He pushed back slowly, dropping his arms to his sides. "I'm not through with you, Maggie. I know you've got something you're not saying. You don't lie well." Well, he was right on that count. I wasn't one to go long without talking, but he was dead wrong about everything else.

"You can trust me, Maggie," he said softly. "I want to help you."

For one split instant I let his voice get to me, reaching deep inside, starting up a bank of feelings I hadn't let out in years, but just as quickly I boxed it back up. I could trust him, sure I could. Like Mama always said, if you put your faith in a bucket but let someone else do all the toting, you'll come up empty-handed every time.

The only person who could help me was me. I would have to find Jimmy's killer on my own. The police didn't believe a word I said. My daughter was living in the midst of a nest of vipers. And I was the number one suspect in a murder investigation. The way I saw it, it certainly fell to me to put things to rights.

Now I knew two other things that I hadn't known an hour ago. One was that Detective Marshall Weathers was dangerous. If I didn't watch him, he'd lull me into admitting all kinds of things, only half of them true. The second thing I'd learned frightened me even more: Sheila was involved somehow in this whole situation. No matter what else happened, I had to help her, even if it meant that the police thought I was guilty of a crime I didn't commit.

Chapter Eight

Every night before I go on stage, just before the band strikes up the tune that the regulars all know as mine, I get sick. I rush for the ladies room, shove my way into a stall, and break into a cold sweat, my stomach churning like Mama's old Sunbeam electric mixer. I am just sure that I am going to throw up, but I never do.

This little ritual has not changed in all the months I've been singing at the Golden Stallion, and so I do not look for anything to be different in the near future. I figure they wrote the line "You gotta suffer if you want to sing the blues" just for my benefit.

When the band starts the set, they always do so without me. They play one song, then break into Maggie's tune. Out I come from the restroom, my lipstick fresh, my hat on straight, and a smile on my face. The second I set foot on that stage, my stomach problems vanish, my life outside of the club fades away, and I am there, live, and ready to steal your heart.

It was no different the night after Jimmy died. I ran up the five steps to the stage, grabbed the mike from Larry the stage hand, and strutted out to the middle of the stage. I threw my head back, let my free hand swing out to my side, and started to croon my signature song: "He Was Just a Lonely Cowboy till I Lassoed Him with Love."

Right in the middle of the third verse, I whip out a little lasso and make a big show of roping in one of the young studs who wanders a little too close to the stage. It's kind of expected now, so a whole crowd of them come down front, shouting out my name and trying to get me to reel them in.

Tonight was no different from all the others, except that the man I lassoed bore a strong resemblance to my ex-husband. Of course, it couldn't have been him. Vernell Spivey wouldn't have been caught dead in a club like the Golden Stallion. He had a reputation to uphold.

Nowadays, Vernell frequented the Guilford Country Club. I don't know how he got a membership, because they don't normally let uneducated country bumpkins in. I guess he must've had some dirt on somebody, or else paid a wad of nouveau riche bucks to smooth his entrance. Whatever, once he learned about me and the Drivin' Wheel, old Vernell had increased motivation to stay away from the Golden Stallion.

So, it couldn't have been him. Besides, the Vernell Spivey I knew didn't drink hard liquor. At least, I thought he'd given up the hard stuff three years ago. But Vernell came by his lyin' easy, and many's the time he'd pulled the wool over my eyes. This man in front of me was blind drunk. He was wearing a powder blue polyester cowboy suit, with fancy white cording on the lapels and down the sides of his pants, another thing that Vernell would never do. Vernell was vain as a peacock. Once he learned about rich folks and Ralph Lauren, Vernell made the switch and, to my knowledge, never looked back at man-made fiber. Of course, in his heart of hearts, I knew Vernell and his roots were country, West Virginia country.

But, doggone, that sure looked like Vernell, with his dull brown hair, his pencil-thin mustache, and his little pot belly.

"Eee-haw!" he yelled, as I threw the noose around his shoulders. "She got me!!"

The band was playing, I was singing, and at the same time roping this strange man toward me. My mouth was singing about the lasso of love, but my mind was saying something completely different. Something I really did not want to hear. My brain was saying, "This here's your ex-husband, and honey, he's lookin' volatile."

Sure enough, there was an ugly, snakelike look in Vernell's beady eyes, a look I'd seen all too often in our marriage. I looked over at the band, hoping for help. Sugar Bear was the biggest, but he was picking out a solo and totally unaware that he was even in the Golden Stallion. Sparks was sitting at the pedal steel, lost underneath his white ten-gallon hat, and too short to be a match for Vernell anyway. Jack was watching me, but he was also tracking yet another cutie who was waving to him from the edge of the dance floor. The situation was too complicated to communicate to a man whose mind was divided by female attention.

"Maggie," Vernell said, his voice slurred with liquor. "The most horrible thing has happened." Sugar Bear was picking out his instrumental, so I could speak, but only for a moment. I roped Vernell closer, which took some doing as his body didn't or couldn't cooperate.