Chapter 11
Pedro looked through the peephole, then back toward Myrna. “It’s Clark,” he said as he opened the door, and welcomed Clark into the bunktel. When they both entered, Myrna was in the kitchen area.
“Clark, what brings you here? Not that you’re not welcome in the home you built,” Myrna stammered over her words.
“Stop,” Clark said as he raised his hand. “As long as you stay here, this is your home. I came because Duane got a call and he sent me here.”
“From whom?” Myrna and Pedro asked at the same time. Pedro had stepped closer to her and wrapped an arm around her.
“His friend, Supervisory Special Agent Yvonne Wilson.”
“What about her?” Myrna asked.
“She’s on her way here and would like to interview Myrna.”
“When and where?” Myrna asked as she looked between Pedro and Clark.
“Over at Erin’s Way, in an hour.”
“Why there?” Myrna asked, and when she saw the looks on their faces, she held up her hand with a heavy sigh. “Because no one knows I’m at New Double. You’re here to tell me about this FBI agent coming to talk to me, and both you and Pedro will be escorting me over to Erin’s Way.”
Clark smirked as he looked at Pedro. “Smart lady.”
They shook their heads and Myrna stepped away from Pedro, went to the refrigerator and looked at Clark. “Do we have time for a quick bite?”
“Yes, I’ll step out.”
“You can join us.”
“And have Naomi kick my ass that I don’t eat what she tossed in the crockpot this morning?
” They all laughed and as he stepped out, the two of them pulled out some leftovers, fixed a plate, and warmed it up in the microwave.
They ate standing up, and thirty minutes later, they walked out the door, and Pedro locked up after them.
He checked his gun, and put it back in the holster at his side.
When they heard a noise, they saw Clark and Shay walking toward them
Shay nodded and didn’t say anything to Pedro.
He climbed into his truck, and with unspoken words they caravaned over to Erin’s Way, with Clark leading the way, Pedro in the middle, and Shay bringing up the rear.
As soon as they entered the other ranch, and rounded the bend, several men stood there, and Myrna recognized them as Clark’s former military team.
They parked, and when they entered Duane’s office, no one really spoke.
“Thank you for coming,” Duane said. “SSA Wilson should be here any minute.”
“Do you know what it’s about besides her wanting to question me?”
“That’s all she said.”
They sat there with untouched bottles of water as they waited, and it didn’t take long before the men outside started sending text message to Duane. He rose and looked at them.
“Someone’s coming.” They all rose and went to the entrance to the barn that held Duane’s office, with Pedro and Duane standing side by side. Myrna had her hand gripping the back of Pedro’s shirt. He reached back and put his hand on her hip, reassuring her.
“That’s my vehicle,” Myrna said as she saw the first vehicle to pull into the parking area, then a big black SUV followed. A woman stepped out of the small truck, and looked around. As soon as she spotted Duane, she smiled and started forward.
“Manchester, it’s been a while.”
“It has, what fifteen, twenty years?” Duane asked as he shook her offered hand.
“More like eighteen.” She turned and held her hand out to Pedro. “Supervisory Special Agent Yvonne Wilson.”
“Pedro Alvarez.” He stepped aside and held onto Myrna’s hand.
“Myrna Trenton,” she said as she shook the agent’s hand.
“Good, I want to show you something first, then if you agree, I’d like to interview you.”
“Am I in any trouble?”
“No, I have some questions. I’m sure Agent Manchester told you something, I know him, and he never ever leaves a stone unturned.” She turned to him with a grin. “Am I right?”
“You are.” Duane grinned.
“What do you want to ask me?”
“First, I need to tell you that Duane called me and gave me the suggestion of serving a warrant on you. It was all fake, and I was able to get all of your things from the list he gave me. In your vehicle, is your purse, your cash, clothes, important papers, everything you mentioned from the rooms you showed Duane. We put everything back so nothing looked out of place.”
“Thank you, did you run into any problems?”
Instead of answering her she looked around, and sighed. “I take it if I want to question you, all those men outside have to be present?”
“Yes,” Duane said, and nodded as a truck pulled in, parked, and four men emerged.
“Who are they?”
“The guy leading is Jake Cogburn, he’s the head of Brotherhood Protectors out of Fool’s Gold.” He smirked at Yvonne. “They are all former military, and they work for Hank Patterson.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah, and those guys that you had to show your ID to when you arrived?”
“Yes, what about them?”
“Former SEALs.”
“Shit,” she said again as she shook her head. It wasn’t long before others started arriving, and Duane directed them over to what Myrna knew as the meeting room. By the time they settled there were almost fifty people present.
Yvonne looked at Duane. “Do you always act like this?”
“Yep,” a woman said. She walked over and held out her left hand, and that’s when Yvonne noticed her right one was missing. They shook, and she only raised a brow at her.
“Erin Riceman, owner of Erin’s Way.”
“And everything else,” Clark said, and shook his head at Erin. “It’s true.”
“Be that as it may, this is about keeping Myrna safe, as a family, that’s why we’re here. What can you tell us about her case?”
Yvonne liked the no-nonsense way Erin talked, and she saw respect on everyone’s face. As she did, she wondered if her team looked at her that way, but she shook her head because this wasn’t about her, it was about Myrna Trenton and her current case. Myrna.
“Before we discuss anything else,” Myrna began, “Where’s my purse?”
One of the men standing in the back of the room went outside and he was back with the item she requested. Myrna sighed in relief as she started digging through it right there. She nodded as she pulled two items from deep in its depths.
“I’m not trying to stall you, but before we get into what you did and or found out, I have a couple of questions for you. It might help with your investigation, or it might not.”
“What are your trying to say?” Pedro asked when everyone looked at her in confusion.
Myrna turned to him, and spoke to only him as she held out the two items she had dug from her purse.
“Remember when you came home from work, and I explained about my bed?”
“Yes, what about it?”
She handed him a prescription bottle. “This is what the doctor prescribes to me for the pain.” She then turned to look at the others.
“I have arthritis in my hips. I take these powerful pain pills when I need them, otherwise, I take over-the-counter arthritis pain meds. Anyway, the day Pedro found me, I had been riding Sally, bareback, for three days. She came up lame, and we walked for another two days. I think, it’s all a blur right now.
Anyway, I had just decided that I was going to remove Sally’s halter, slap her on the ass, to let her go, and I was going to lie down and not get up again.
” She saw the shock on everyone’s faces and held up her hand.
“Not suicide, please don’t think that, but I was in so much pain, all I wanted to do was sleep.
Because we traveled in the darkness, I was paranoid enough that I didn’t get more than three or four hours sleep after I took Sally from Gus’s place.
” She shook her head and handed the bottle to Agent Wilson.
She didn’t say anything as the other woman took the bottle and looked at it.
“Damn, these are some powerful pain pills.”
“Yes, and I have to show my ID when I pick up a new prescription. However, I can guaran-damn-tee you that the pills in that bottle is not what the label says.” She opened her hand to the second item she had removed from her purse and held it in her hand, palm up.
“What’s that?” Agent Wilson looked at her in confusion.
“A flash drive of Randy Godwin messing with my pills. I have nothing to back up my claim, but I think he’s selling these and replacing them with fakes.”
Duane took the flash drive, put it into his computer, and someone on the other side of the room pulled down a screen. They all watched as they saw a bedroom, a man walked in, looked directly at the camera, and Duane paused it.
“Is this Randy Godwin?”
“Yes, this was taken the night before I broke up with him, months ago. Because of what you’re about to see is the reason he beat me enough to put me in the hospital. I confronted him about a week after I saw that he messed with my pills.”
They all went back to watching, and they saw Randy, clear as day, pick up the prescription bottle on the nightstand empty the contents into his hand.
He took his other one and looked like he was counting them, then he took the handful of pills and stuffed them into his pocket.
He then opened a bottle that everyone recognized as an over-the-counter brand of pain pills, counted out a certain number, put them back in the prescription bottle, and walked back out of the room.
No one said anything when the screen went back to just the empty bedroom.
“Randy and I never had sex. He should never have been in my bedroom, and I had never invited him to live with me. I never gave him a key either. When I’d come home from work, or doing errands, he would be there waiting for me.
When he tried to move in with me, along with Gus, I refused to allow it.
Things went downhill from there. It wasn’t until after I broke it off with him that I realized my pills weren’t working like they did.
I only took them when I really needed them, so I didn’t refill them every thirty days. ”
“Damn,” Agent Wilson said. “That could be a felony charge, because these are some heavy duty narcotics. If he’s selling them, then that adds more charges against him.”
“I don’t know if he sold them, or used them for himself.”
“Can you do a hair test for drugs on Randy?” someone in the crowd asked. “You probably won’t find anything in his blood, but what about his hair, don’t certain drugs last for months?”
“I never thought of that, but I’ll work on getting that into a court order.” She looked around with a gigantic sigh, and asked more questions. When she was done, she looked at Myrna with a sad expression
“Shit,” Myrna said.
“What?” Pedro asked
Instead of answering him, she looked at Agent Wilson. “You found out something, and need me as bait.”
“Absolutely not!” Pedro yelled, causing everyone to start speaking at once.