Texas! Lucky by Sandra Brown

slight?"
    "I, uh, don't know her name."
    * * *
    "You don't know her name?"
    "No, sir."
    This day would go down in Lucky's private annals as one of the worst in his life. His head still felt as though it had a flock of industrious woodpeckers living in it. His vision was blurry in the eye that had connected with Little Alvin's fist. Every muscle in his body was screaming at the abuse it had taken. He was suspected of setting a destructive fire to his place of business. Everybody, including members of his own family, was treating him like a leper because he'd spent the night with a woman he couldn't identify.
    And he had thought yesterday was bad. According to their expressions, neither the sheriff and his deputies nor the federal investigators believed him any more than his family had that morning.
    One of the investigators turned to Pat Bush. "You didn't get her name at the scene of the fight?"
    Pat harrumphed. "No. It occurred to me later that I had failed to, but there didn't seem any need for it at the time. She wasn't interested in pressing charges."
    A skeptical 'hmm' was the agent's only response. He turned to Lucky again. "Didn't you think to ask her her name?"
    "Sure. She told me it was Dovey, but—"
    "Would you spell that please?" The request was made by another agent taking notes in a spiral notebook.
    "Spell what?"
    "Dovey."
    Lucky blew out a breath of exasperation and looked toward Pat Bush for assistance. The sheriff's terse nod merely indicated that Lucky should go along with the ridiculous request. Lucky succinctly spelled the name.
    "At least I think that's right. She registered at the motel as Mary Smith of Dallas." He snapped his fingers and raised his head hopefully. "Listen, the clerk there will remember me."
    "He does. We already checked."
    Earlier Lucky had provided the investigators with the name of the motel on the interstate, located about midway between Milton Point and Dallas. "Then why the hell are you still busy with me? If I've been cleared, why aren't you out looking for the guy who burned our building?"
    "The clerk could only testify to seeing you this morning," the senior agent informed him. "He didn't see you going into the room last evening. And even if he had, he couldn't vouch for your staying there all night without leaving."
    Lucky glanced at his brother, who was leaning against a battered army-green metal filing cabinet in Sheriff Bush's office. Lucky shook his head as though to say that this was a lost cause, and he was tired of playing cops and robbers by their rules.
    Meeting the agent's cold stare, he arrogantly asked, "Do you have any physical evidence connecting me with this crime?"
    The agent shifted from one wing-tipped shoe to the other. "The exact cause of the fire hasn't yet been ascertained."
    "Do you have anything linking me with that fire?" Lucky repeated.
    Backed against a wall, the agent replied, "No."
    "Then I'm leaving." Lucky came out of his straight chair and headed for the door.
    "You'll be under surveillance, so don't even try to leave town."
    "Go to hell," Chase told the agent on his way out, following his brother. "Lucky, wait up!" he called as he emerged from the courthouse a few seconds later. Lucky was already at the curb in front of the official building with his hand on the door handle of his car. He waited for Chase to catch up with him.
    "Can you believe this crap?" he asked, angrily jutting his chin toward the first-floor office where the interrogation had taken place.
    "It's crap, but they're serious."
    "You're telling me," Lucky muttered. "The hair on the back of my neck is standing on end. I had enough of jail the night we got arrested for knocking down old man Bledsoe's fence. It was an accident! How the hell were we supposed to know his thoroughbred mare was in that pasture? Or that she was in season?"
    Chase peered up at his brother from beneath his heavy brows, and, together, they started laughing. "He went nuts when that jackass raced in there and