Chapter 8 #2
Sawyer glanced over at Mitch and Randy’s table. The men were in deep conversation, which couldn’t be good.
“I’ve gotta motor.” Jace reached for his wallet and Sawyer swatted his hand away.
“I’ll take care of the bill. You can get it next time.”
Jace and Cash left at the same time. Sawyer squared up with Laney at the register and went into the kitchen to say hello to Jimmy Ray, who was up to his ass in alligators. The dining room was hopping.
Every Wednesday the local cattlemen met for breakfast. As always, five big tables had been pushed together to accommodate them.
“Sawyer,” one of the cowboys called him over. “How you boys doin’?”
It didn’t matter that he and his cousins were all in their mid-thirties or that Jace was the county’s sheriff. To this group of ranchers, his grandfather’s best friends, Sawyer, Jace, and Cash would always be “boys.”
Sawyer took an empty chair at the table. “Fair to middling. How ’bout you, Joe?”
“Real fine as long as the price of beef holds.” He grinned. “Your grandfather would’ve been real proud of you boys.” Joe turned to look at Mitch’s table and in a low voice said, “Randy’s kids are already counting the money. Damned shame.”
Sawyer didn’t say anything even though Joe was right. He had no love for Jill Beals Tucker or her brother, Pete. “I got to get home and do some writing. It was good seeing you, Joe.”
“When’s that war book coming out?”
“Late next year.”
“I’m looking forward to reading it. Say hi to Jace and Cash for me.”
“You just missed them,” Sawyer said.
“Both of them are doing a good job. I heard Cash caught those rustlers out of Plumas County. Heard he traced the thieves to a Nevada ring trafficking in stolen livestock, farm equipment, and methamphetamine.”
It was the first Sawyer had gotten wind of it, but wasn’t surprised. Cash was a great cop and unfortunately livestock theft was often tied to the drug trade. Sawyer rose before Joe jawed his ear off. He still had to finish the piece for Forbes.
By the time he got outside, the temperature had climbed into the nineties. In a few hours, it would soar to triple digits.
He passed Gina’s cabin on the way to his barn apartment.
Her BMW was parked in front. He considered stopping in but decided against it.
The undeniable zing between them had ratcheted up a few dozen notches since he’d learned she wasn’t involved with a married man.
Now, it was the kind of zing that resulted in two people getting naked and falling into bed together.
And in their situation that wasn’t advisable for all the reasons he’d already determined—namely, that she was his mother’s client, a wreck, and he didn’t need the drama.
But that didn’t mean she didn’t tempt him beyond reason.
So it was best to avoid her as much as possible.
It was difficult because she’d made herself at home in his house.
Then again, he hadn’t exactly dissuaded her from using his kitchen.
He’d like to say it was because he enjoyed eating her food.
But on the days she didn’t show up it wasn’t her mouthwatering meals he missed.
It was her company, her smart mouth, and her impressive capacity to give as good as she got.
And of course, there was the fact that she was nice to look at. All legs and sweet curves.
He passed her place and went directly home. Inside, he switched on the air-conditioning and booted up his laptop. He planned to make a sizable dent in the article that was due at the end of the month. But instead of working on the piece, he found himself noodling around on the internet.
First, he pulled up Gina’s website, read her bio, and flipped through her photo gallery. There were lots of pictures of her on the set of her show, making various dishes in the test kitchen. There were also shots of her posing with a number of celebrities, including the cast of the Today show.
The woman was damned photogenic. But the bright lights, makeup, and overly coiffed hair made her look a bit like a Barbie doll. Plastic. He preferred her without all the shine and gloss.
After spending a good thirty minutes trolling around her site, he went in search of the infamous photo.
It only took two minutes to find it again.
The beach shot of her and Danny was plastered on every celebrity site and tabloid on the internet.
He searched for the photo with the best resolution and blew it up on the screen.
For a while he just studied it, examining the different angles of the picture.
To the naked eye—at least his—he couldn’t tell whether the photograph had been doctored.
It looked like the real deal to him. There was no question the woman in the photo was Gina.
Was it a cut-and-paste job? The answer to that was above his pay grade. But surely there were experts who could tell.
Sawyer suspected his mother had already consulted with a few forensic photographers. He picked up the phone to call her, then, just as quickly put it down. His mother was too professional to discuss Gina’s case with him, even if Gina had.
Unable to leave it alone, he searched through his contacts, found who he was looking for, and punched in his number.
“Hey Shooter, it’s your buddy, Sawyer Dalton.
” The two had worked together at the Times, been roommates in Tel Aviv when he was the bureau chief there, and had kept in touch over the years.
Carlos Gonzales, aka Shooter, was one of the best photographers in the business.
“How good are you at determining whether a photo has been doctored?”
“You mean like photoshopped?”
“Yeah, like sticking somebody’s head on somebody else’s body. Or splicing two people together. That sort of thing.”
Shooter laughed. “Dude, what are you working on?”
“You’ll keep this on the Q.T., right?” Shooter was good people.
Not the kind to spread confidential information.
“It’s for a friend. She’s a celebrity chef who the tabloids are having a ball with.
Love triangle, racy photos, that kind of bullshit.
But she says the picture that’s getting all the attention is fabricated.
I was hoping you could take a look at it, see what you think. ”
“Is this that Gina DeRose thing?”
“Yeah,” Sawyer said, surprised. He wouldn’t have expected Shooter to pay attention to tabloid fodder. The guy had been in Turkey for the last six months, covering the plight of Syrian refugees. “How’d you know about it?”
“Dude, you’d have to live under a rock not to. Send over the original and I’ll take a look.”
“I don’t have the original, just a copy from the internet. Will that work?”
There was a long pause. “It’ll be tough but I’ll see what I can do. Email it to me.”
“Thanks, buddy. I owe you one.”
He saved the photo and sent it as an attachment to Shooter. Instead of pulling up the article he was supposed to be working on, he searched a few sites on flower farming. Damn, Cash was right. There was good money in growing cut flowers.
He continued procrastinating when notification of an incoming email flashed in the right-hand corner of his computer screen.
On the small chance it was Shooter responding with a verdict, he went to his inbox.
Nope, not Shooter. A note with a Gmail address he didn’t recognize.
Probably a press release. He got lots of those.
Nope, not a press release. Just a concise message. Only six words.
Stop searching for me. I’m safe.
He stared at the note for a while, reading the two sentences over and over again.
Was it some sort of a very unfunny joke?
Or was it Angie reaching out to him? But why after five years?
It didn’t make sense. No, it was probably someone trying to mess with him.
But who in God’s name would do something like that?
For a second, his mind flitted to his conversation with Gina. She’d offered to go with him to New Mexico and search for Angie.
Nah, he told himself. She had no reason to toy with him that way. She might be self-centered, but from his observations she wasn’t sadistic. Only someone really warped would do something like this.
He replied to the message, Who are you? but a few minutes later his email ricocheted back to his inbox with the heading that it was undeliverable.
A person with mad computer skills might be able to trace it. But cyber forensics wasn’t in Sawyer’s wheelhouse. It might be in Cash’s, though. And if not, his cousin would surely know someone from his FBI days who could track where the email had come from.
He wondered if the sender could possibly be the woman in Santa Fe. The one who’d been reticent to talk to him. Perhaps she was trying to throw him off. Whoever it was clearly wanted him to stop searching for answers.
But why? He suspected the reason would lead him to Angie. Dead or alive.