Chapter Nine
Josie knew the moment she heard Max’s voice.
It had taken her a moment to answer the call because Goldie had been shaking her head, whispering, “If it’s Max, I don’t want to talk to him.
” She nodded and waved her friend off as she stepped out of the living room.
Since arriving back at Goldie’s cousin’s house, Josie had been waiting for Max’s call after the text and mug shot he’d sent earlier.
Her vision had gone dark when she looked into the man’s eyes.
Was this what she’d seen coming? Was he what they all had to fear?
“Tell me who Roger Grimes is.” She heard Max hesitate.
“It’s about yours and Cordell’s past, isn’t it?
That’s why you sent me the mug shot. He’s whatever you’ve spent your life running from. ”
Max sighed. “He was recently released from prison. He might be coming after me and Cordell. Unfortunately, he knows about you and Goldie. Rance and I will be watching for him. But this man is the kind who will come out of the dark like the dangerous animal he is.”
She’d feared it was something like this.
And still her stomach dropped, her heart aching.
She could hear the fear in Max’s voice; it melded with her own.
She swallowed and fought back tears as she heard Max’s pain.
“Cordell is with you,” she said, knowing it was true, just as she knew Roger Grimes had done something awful to the man she loved as well as to Max.
“You’re still in town?” She feared that the man would lure the two of them away.
But she didn’t even try to talk him out of whatever he was planning to do.
She knew Max, knew he would do what he thought was right.
“Tell Cordell—” She wasn’t sure what she was going to say, but the sheriff didn’t give her a chance anyway.
“I know how you feel about him. Just stay safe. Are you with Goldie?”
“Yes. I showed her the mug shot of Roger Grimes and warned her.”
“Thank you.” With that, Max was gone.
Josie looked up to find her friend standing in the doorway.
“It’s bad, isn’t it?” Goldie whispered.
Josie’s heart was in her throat so all she could do was nod. “But you know Max. He’ll do whatever it takes to keep us safe, to keep Dry Gulch safe.” To keep Cordell safe, she told herself.
* * *
“Are you sure Max never mentioned where he and his brother came from? Family? Anything?” Josie asked Goldie later when the two of them sat on separate ends of the couch, feet up, another bottle of wine on the coffee table between them.
“He never talked to me about his life before he came to Dry Gulch,” Goldie said. “It was obviously something he wanted to forget so I never pushed him on it. The only thing he said was that they were orphans, their parents dead and no other family.”
“Did you believe him?” Josie asked.
“Isn’t that the same story Cordell told you?”
“I didn’t believe it, either.”
“I wonder if Iris knew more,” Goldie suggested. “She took them under her wing. The whole town did. I guess we all knew that they’d had a rough life before they landed here. But if they’re in trouble now, what can we do?”
“Pray for them to be safe,” Josie said. “And be careful ourselves.”
“That man in the mug shot gives me the willies. What do you think he was to them?”
“Someone who hurt them from their past who might be after them, might be headed for Dry Gulch. Max is worried that it has put the two of us in danger.”
Goldie frowned. “This man knows about us? How is that possible if he’s been in prison?”
“That’s what I want to know,” Josie said. “Someone has to know about their past and who might have told this man where they can find Max and Cordell.”
“I wish Iris were still alive,” Goldie said. “If anyone knew something that might help about Max and Cordell, it was her.”
“Or her sister,” Josie said.
Goldie looked up in surprise. “Esther? You think she knows something?”
“If there was dirt to be dug up, Esther would have been manning the shovel. She always was the worst old busybody,” Josie said.
“But if she’d found out, she would have told everyone.
The only reason she wouldn’t was if there was something in it for her.
” Goldie flushed and put down her half-empty wineglass.
“I shouldn’t have said that, but that woman would have eaten her young.
I was surprised that Iris put up with her as long as she did.
You know that expression, ‘If you don’t have anything nice to say, then say nothing at all’?
Esther wouldn’t have been able to get a syllable out.
” They both laughed, but it sounded hollow.
Max’s text, then his call had left them both subdued.
Not even the wine seemed to help. “What was her problem, anyway?”
“I heard she got her heart broken when she was young and never got over it.” Josie’s sister had warned her that she was going to turn into Esther Mason if she didn’t get over Cordell. “I think I might drive down to Grass Range tomorrow and pay her a visit.”
Josie knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep—even after the wine.
She kept trying to see into the darkness for what was coming.
Outside, the town of Dry Gulch seemed unearthly quiet tonight.
It unnerved her almost as much as the images she kept seeing.
Flashes like in a dream on a dark highway, the rattle of a pickup, sagebrush and more darkness.
She tried to see more but it made her head ache.
“Mind if I stay here tonight?” she asked, not wanting to drive in her condition out to the farm, but also not wanting to leave Goldie alone.
“I’ll call Amy Sue and tell her.” She stepped away to make the call even though she’d told her sister she would be staying the night.
What she really wanted to do was warn Amy Sue to keep the doors locked tonight.
When Josie returned to the couch, Goldie said, “Are you sure you want to drive all the way down to Grass Range? You know how Esther is.”
“I’m sure she’ll be happy to help,” Josie said sarcastically, and they both mugged faces. Esther had never made it a secret that she didn’t like Max and Cordell living in her sister’s boardinghouse. She’d started all kinds of rumors about the boys until Iris kicked her out.
But it would be just like the woman to want to prove she was right about the Lander men, Josie thought. Esther did love seeing the worst in everyone.
If she knew about this man from Max’s and Cordell’s pasts, she was keeping it to herself for some reason.
Josie was determined to find out.
* * *
Leaving his house again, Max patrolled the town as usual with his new deputy. He made a point of driving past Clancy Roberts’s house, glad to see both Goldie’s vehicle and Josie’s parked outside. All the lights were on inside. He told himself that both women were safe. At least for now.
“I was thinking,” Cordell said. He’d always needed to talk things out while Max preferred to mull them over silently inside his head alone.
“We know Grimes stopped long enough to buy a van. Which means that he didn’t have everything he needed when he got out of prison.
He had to pick up the bank robbery money, which probably means he has access to guns and ammunition.
Maybe more worrisome, he might not be traveling alone. ”
“I’ve already thought of that,” Max said. He could just imagine the kind of men Grimes befriended behind bars or out. Maybe even the men he’d pulled off the robbery with who hadn’t been caught.
“If there are two of them traveling together, then they can trade off drivers and make even better time than I did getting here. Maybe he is bringing some equally psychotic friend with him.”
Max had been worrying about the same thing. The last time he checked, no more of the stolen bank money had shown up and neither had Grimes or his van.
“Maybe he changed his mind or got picked up and his arrest hasn’t gone into the data bank yet,” Cordell said. When Max said nothing, he asked, “Going to the homestead when he might be waiting for us… That’s probably the worst idea ever, huh?”
“Nope, the worst idea was our mother letting that jerk into our lives,” Max said wearily. He drove in silence for a few blocks. His brother fell silent for so long, he wondered if he had fallen asleep. Cordell could sleep anywhere, under any circumstances, he’d proved that.
“You know he killed her.” His brother’s voice was a whisper as if afraid to say something they had suspected for years.
“Unfortunately, without a body we can’t even prove that she’s dead, let alone that he killed her,” Max said, sounding like the law enforcement officer he was.
Cordell didn’t bother to argue the point.
They both knew Grimes had killed her. They’d both told the cop who’d come to the house not just their suspicions but how the man had abused her and them, as well.
They’d both gotten beaten after the cops left for even suggesting Grimes could do such a thing.
“Either of you ever talk to the cops again, you’ll be finding yourself at the bottom of the stairs like your mother—or worse,” he’d said as he’d picked up the piece of rubber tubing he’d use to beat them and looked as if he just might go ahead and kill them.
When Max didn’t answer now, Cordell said, “I’ve often thought about finding those cops, you know?”
Max nodded. He did know. “We got away. There’s no looking back.” Those words had been a mantra he’d repeated those weeks they were on the run and even later when they’d settled in the boardinghouse in Dry Gulch.
Cordell scoffed. “Are you serious? We didn’t get away, because here we are. This sure as hell feels like looking back.”
Max couldn’t argue that. He recalled the one time he’d told anyone about his youth. It had been a man he’d befriended in the academy. “My so-called stepfather killed my mother and got away with it.”
“Didn’t you go to the cops?” his friend had asked innocently.
“My brother and I told the cops. They didn’t believe us. We also told them what the man was doing to us with the same results.”
“Wait. Are you saying you don’t trust the cops?” he’d laughed. “Then what are you doing becoming one?”
“I wanted to be a better lawman. If anyone came to me with the same kind of story, I would believe them. Or at least find out if it was true.”
“You’re an avenger,” his friend had said. “Good for you. But your stepfather got away with all of it? Didn’t you ever want to right that wrong?”
“You aren’t sure what you’re going to do when we come face-to-face with him again, are you,” Cordell said, dragging him from the memory.
Max didn’t answer. Instead, he thought about the night they’d finally run away, Grimes’s pickup’s headlights cutting a swatch of gold down the two-lane highway, the man’s body wrapped in a tarp in the bed behind them.
He’d been so sure that Grimes would never hurt anyone ever again. But he’d been wrong. He couldn’t repeat that mistake.