Whiplash, page 1
Don’t miss any of Janet Dailey’s bestsellers
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Paradise Peak
Sunrise Canyon
Refuge Cove
Letters from Peaceful Lane
Hart’s Hollow Farm
The Tylers of Texas
Texas Forever
Texas Free
Texas Fierce
Texas Tall
Texas Tough
Texas True
Bannon Brothers: Triumph
Bannon Brothers: Honor
Bannon Brothers: Trust
American Destiny
American Dreams
Masquerade
Tangled Vines
Heiress
Rivals
JAN ET DAILEY
WHIPLASH
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Table of Contents
Also by
Title Page
Copyright Page
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Teaser chapter
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.
KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2021 by Revocable Trust Created by Jimmy Dean Dailey and Mary Sue Dailey Dated December 22, 2016
After the passing of Janet Dailey, the Dailey family worked with a close associate of Janet’s to continue her literary legacy, using her notes, ideas and favorite themes to complete her novels and create new ones, inspired by the American men and women she loved to portray.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
The K logo is a trademark of Kensington Publishing Corp.
Library of Congress Card Catalogue Number: 2021935324
ISBN: 978-1-4967-2736-7
First Kensington Hardcover Edition: September 2021
ISBN-13: 978-1-4967-2739-8
ISBN-10: 1-4967-2739-8
First Kensington Trade Edition: September 2021
ISBN-13: 978-1-4967-2742-8 (ebook)
ISBN-10: 1-4967-2742-8 (ebook)
CHAPTER ONE
Las Vegas, Nevada
Early November
CASEY BOZEMAN PLANTED HIS FEET IN THE THICK DIRT THAT COVERED the floor of the vast T-Mobile Arena. As he waited for the first chute to swing open, he willed himself to ignore the lights, the noise, the TV camera crews, and the crowd of nearly 20,000 people who’d come to watch the World Finals of the Professional Bull Riders. His mind was laser focused on one job—protecting the rider who would explode out of the gate astride 1,900 pounds of bucking bull.
A glance to either side confirmed that his teammates, Joel Hatcher and Marcus Jefferson, were in place. Like Casey, they were dressed in loose-fitting athletic gear. Underneath baggy shirts they wore padded vests covered with a rigid shell of high-impact plastic. Another layer of padding was worn under their shorts. The team of bullfighters, as they were called, had worked together for the past five PBR seasons. They trusted each other with their lives. But it was a given that, whatever the cost, the rider’s safety always came first.
Farther out in the arena, a mounted roper waited with his lasso ready. If a riderless bull got out of control, it would be his job to rope the animal and herd it back to the exit gate.
The announcer’s voice blared over the public address system, introducing the first rider and bull, in sync with the images that flashed onto the huge display screens. In the gated chute, wearing a safety helmet, twenty-year-old Cody Woodbine, ranked fifth in the world standings, was lowering his body onto Cactus Jack, a surly, white-faced behemoth with blunted horns as wide as the front end of a ’69 Cadillac.
Casey had faced Cactus Jack before. Some bulls, the good ones, just wanted to dump the cowboy and head back to the pen. Others had murder on their minds. Cactus Jack was one of the second kind.
Inside the chute, the bull was body-slamming the thick steel bars, a move that could break a rider’s leg. One of the men, perched on the chute’s side rail, shoved a wooden wedge down next to the huge animal to hold him in place. Others pulled the bull rope tight around the animal’s body, just behind the shoulders. Cody Woodbine thrust his gloved left hand, fingers up, into the rope handle and wrapped the rope around the handle’s base. Casey shifted and danced to keep his muscles loose. His teammates did the same. They had to be ready for anything.
The rules were always the same. At the rider’s nod, the gate man would pull a rope to open the chute. When the bull’s shoulders cleared the gate, the clock would start. With one hand gripping the rope handle and the other hand in the air, the rider had to stay on the bull for a full eight seconds. For a successful ride, both the bull and the rider would be scored on the basis of fifty points each. For a buck-off, only the bull would be scored.
It was a simple system, but fraught with dangerous surprises.
All eyes were on Cody Woodbine as he hitched forward on the bull until he was sitting almost over his hand. At his nod, the gate swung open, freeing a ton of raw fury.
Streaming snot and manure, Cactus Jack leaped and twisted, then went into a bucking spin to the right—bad for a left-handed rider—but the young cowboy hung on as the digital clock ran up the time, displaying each second by hundredths.
From the back of a bull, eight seconds could seem like forever.
The three bullfighters circled the kicking, spinning bull, ready for a dismount or a buck-off. Casey could see that Woodbine was losing his seat, leaning too far right as he struggled to outlast the clock. But the determined cowboy hung on.
The eight-second whistle blasted. Woodbine had done it. But the young rider was in trouble. As he tumbled off to the right, his left hand twisted under the rope handle and caught fast. Trapped, he flopped like a helpless rag doll against the side of the kicking, spinning bull.
Casey flung himself at the bull, his left arm supporting Woodbine, his right hand clawing at the twisted rope. Joel and Marcus darted in to slow the beast, getting in the bull’s face, even grabbing a horn.
Seconds of spinning, jolting terror crawled past before Casey felt the glove loosen. He pulled Woodbine’s hand free. The cowboy tumbled aside and rolled clear of the pounding hooves. Dragged away by Marcus and Joel, he was safe. But Casey had gone down with him, and Cactus Jack was looking for somebody to hurt.
As Casey struggled to rise, the massive head filled his vision. He tried to roll to one side, but the horns caught his padded vest with enough force to toss him high over the broad back. As the roper closed in, Casey’s body glanced off the bull’s side and crashed to earth.
* * *
Watching the event alone, on closed circuit TV, Val Champion swallowed a scream. She pressed her hands to her face to block her view of the screen, but she could still hear the announcer’s voice over the cheers of the crowd.
“It’s 87.5 points for Cody Woodbine on Cactus Jack. But he’s going to need that shoulder checked. From here, it looks like it might be dislocated.” There was a pause. “And Casey Bozeman is back on his feet, shaken but ready to go. Those bullfighters are tough hombres. They’ve saved a lot of lives. And now, let’s take a look at our next ride.”
Lowering her hands, Val sank onto one of the two beds in her room at the Park MGM Hotel. Casey was all right. He would live to face the next bull. And the next. But she wouldn’t be watching. She couldn’t stand it.
She and Casey were ancient history. She wasn’t supposed to care about him anymore. But heaven help her, she did. And caring hurt. It hurt so much that she never wanted to care again.
She needed a drink. She needed more than a drink. But she’d been clean and sober for the five months she’d been out of rehab. She had vowed to stay that way. Besides, her sister Tess would kill her if she smelled the faintest whiff of alcohol on her breath.
The Champion family had come to Vegas bringing two bulls from their Arizona ranch—Whirlwind, a rising star in the rankings, and his younger brother, Whiplash, here as a last-minute reride alternate.
Val’s family—big sister, Tess, and adorably pregnant little sister, Lexie, with her wheelchair-bound husband, Shane, were down in the arena watching the event live. Val had tickets, too. But she’d gotten cold feet. Pleading a headache, she’d locked herself in the room she shared with Tess and opted to watch round one on the big-sc
She’d told herself she could handle this. But eight seconds of watching Casey almost die had been enough to convince her she’d misjudged. She’d be smart to sell her tickets for the remaining four nights and spend the money on a flight back to Tucson, with a long Uber ride to the family’s remote mountain ranch.
Standing, she switched off the TV, turned off the lights, and walked to the window. The darkened room offered a view of the nearby T-Mobile Arena, lit up like the Fourth of July. Northward, as far as Val’s eyes could see, Las Vegas glittered like an endless dumping ground for used Christmas lights and gaudy costume jewelry.
Tacky but strangely beautiful, it called to her with a siren’s seductive voice. The hotels and casinos, which she knew by sight, whispered names that resonated like islands in a tale from Sinbad the Sailor. Bellagio . . . Mirage . . . Aria . . . Paris . . . Venetian . . . Mandalay Bay . . .
Val turned away from the window. Out there, beyond the glass, was everything she’d left behind, everything she’d run away from to save her body and soul. Four months ago, she’d come home to her family and the ranch, hoping they could make her whole again. She was doing better now. But something was missing. She’d realized it the moment she saw Casey on TV.
Casey. Her first love.
The man she could never be with again.
She’d meant to stay in the room, but her innate restlessness was eating her alive. It wouldn’t hurt to take the elevator down to the street and go for a little walk. She didn’t have enough money to get into trouble. She’d locked her credit card in the room safe, and she barely had enough cash on her to buy a candy bar or drop a few coins in a cheap slot machine.
She slipped on a flannel-lined denim jacket, twisted up her long red hair with a clip, and covered it with a battered Stetson. For a moment she debated wearing her sunglasses. But it was night outside. Besides, she wanted to blend in with the cowboys and rodeo fans who had swarmed into Vegas for the PBR finals. The movie-star glasses would be out of place.
Deciding to leave her purse, she slipped the key card into the hip pocket of her jeans, put her cell phone in her jacket pocket, and left the room. Tess wouldn’t be back here for at least an hour. If she needed to get in touch, she could always call.
Stepping out of the jammed elevator was like plunging into an ocean of noise. People shouted to each other across the crowded lobby and at the registration desk, their voices raised to be heard above the din. From the nearby casino the relentless ding of the slots mingled with the calls of the dealers and occasional whoops from lucky winners. In the bar off the lobby, a country western singer was belting out old Merle Haggard songs.
In the old days, Val could’ve wandered into the bar and bought herself a free drink with a smile and an empty promise. But those times were behind her. Tonight, she would settle for fresh air.
Zigzagging through the crowd, she made her way out the main entrance to the busy sidewalk. There were signs everywhere welcoming PBR fans and inviting them to come on in and spend their money. People in western gear wandered past, taking in the sights. Ticket hawkers, most of them scammers, waved their wares in front of unwary customers. Girls in skin-tight denim skirts and low-cut blouses prowled the edges of the sidewalk, smiling when a man made eye contact. Val couldn’t help feeling sorry for them. She’d known desperate times herself—but never that desperate, thank God.
As she left the shelter of the hotel entrance and launched herself up the Strip, she took a moment to check her surroundings and scan the crowd for anyone who might seem a bit too interested. Old habits died hard. But Val knew there was no need for caution. Nobody was going to recognize her and ask for her autograph. Not that many ever had.
She’d tried the Hollywood thing and had gotten a few small movie parts. But she’d never made it past the bottom third of the credit list. At the time, she’d rationalized that it was because she wouldn’t go the casting couch route. But Val knew better. She knew what real talent was. She’d seen it in women like Meryl Streep, Laura Dern, and Cate Blanchett—and she knew she didn’t have it. She was merely pretty. And in Hollywood, pretty girls were a dime a dozen.
She’d made a few TV commercials and done some modeling. Between gigs, she’d waited tables to make rent on a one-room studio with roaches in the walls and the bathroom down the hall.
Then she’d met Lenny Fortunato.
The blinking signal at the corner crosswalk ended Val’s musings. The light was changing, and she’d already stepped off the curb.
For an instant she hesitated, torn between stepping back and making a dash ahead of the heavy Las Vegas traffic. It was just enough time for a black limo with darkened windows to come barreling around the corner, heading straight toward her.
Val jumped out of the way as it hurtled past, swerving just enough to miss her by an inch.
Pulse slamming, she watched the vehicle merge with the traffic and vanish from sight. A few people glanced at her as they passed, as if curious to see what kind of idiot would step off the curb in front of a moving vehicle. She could just imagine the limo driver cursing the fool woman who’d almost gotten herself killed, which would have caused a major inconvenience for his passengers and probably cut into his tip.
No damage done, except that she’d drawn attention to herself, something she never liked to do. But the walk she’d set out to enjoy was spoiled. It was time to head back to her hotel and wait for Tess to return.
But as she turned around and wove her way back through the crowds, a feeling crept over her—sickening in its familiarity. It was the vague, prickling sense that something was wrong.
The close brush with the limo couldn’t have been anything but a coincidence. No one could have known she’d be at that corner, and if anyone inside the vehicle had meant her any harm, the driver wouldn’t have swerved.
Maybe she was imagining things. But the chill that crawled along her nerves was too real to be ignored. She should never have left the hotel alone.
Correction—she should’ve known better than to come to Las Vegas in the first place.
Resisting the urge to rush, she entered the hotel and crossed the lobby to the elevator. A tired-looking couple with two whiny children rode up to her floor and got off with her. Val followed them down the corridor, continuing on after they stopped at their room. Would that have been her life if she’d followed a different path and married Casey? Would it have been enough?
But there was no point in thinking about that now.
Her hand shook as she used the key card to open the door. When she went inside and double locked it behind her, she could feel a headache coming on—maybe karma for lying to Tess earlier. In her purse, she found a bottle of ibuprofen, shook a couple of tablets into her hand, and swallowed them with tap water. There was an ice dispenser and a soda vending machine at the end of the hall, but she didn’t want to go out again.
Kicking off her boots, she picked up the TV remote. She wasn’t up to watching the PBR finals, but maybe she could find a good movie to pass the time.
As she flipped through channels, she found just the thing—Voyage to the Black Hole, a low-budget sci-fi film she’d made years ago with a crew of barely known actors. She’d played a member of a spaceship crew, her single spoken line: “No damage to report, sir.”
Watching it now might at least be good for a few laughs.
She propped a couple of pillows against the headboard and settled back to watch. She’d known the movie was bad, but until now she hadn’t realized what a stinker it really was.
She was chuckling over a dramatic battle scene when the room telephone on the nightstand rang. Val reached for it, then hesitated as the phone rang again, then again. Tess or Lexie would call her cell, not the room number. But what if there was some emergency? Or some question at the front desk? With the phone still ringing, Val picked up the receiver.
“Hello?”
