Chapter 15 Reid
The line shack wasn’t built for sleeping. The cot was narrow, and the roof ticked in the heat, and the door didn’t hang quite straight. None of that had mattered much last night. It mattered a little now, at least to the crick in my lower back.
Jennie was on my chest. Her glasses were on the floor beside her boots.
One hand tucked under her chin, hair loose, and I’d been lying there awake for a while just listening to the dark.
Grass moving outside. A nighthawk making its rounds.
Ghost shifting his weight at the post, the creak of the lead rope going taut and then slack again.
Ghost. I’d deal with that in a minute.
“I know what you are.”
I didn’t move, just kept my eyes on the ceiling. “Yeah.”
“I’ve known for a while.”
“How long’s a while?”
She shifted, propped her chin on her hand, and looked at me in the dark. “A week. Give or take. I have drone footage. You and three others, out in the rain by the gun stash. I watched the whole thing.”
A week. I ran the count back. A week of me watching her and thinking I was the one doing the watching. “You didn’t run,” I said.
“No.”
“Why not?”
She was quiet for a second. “Because you didn’t act like something I needed to run from.”
Outside, the nighthawk had quit. The grass had gone still. Ghost shifted again at the post, one hoof, then settled.
“What’s on the footage?” I asked.
“Your face. Clear enough. Buck’s too. The young one, the tall one.”
Eli. Three of us on camera. Calder. He’d want to know. Not yet, though.
“You send it to anyone?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
She held my eyes. “Same reason I didn’t run.”
She was telling me something, but she was making me work it out for myself, which felt about right. “You’re not a geologist,” I said.
Her mouth curved at the corners. She didn’t look embarrassed about it.
“Private investigator. The Beaumont family hired me. They own the land that the Colemans are leasing. There really was an oil company sniffing around a while back, but they determined there wasn’t oil, or not enough maybe.
While they were here, they saw enough to make them thing the Colemans were doing something shady. ”
Holy shit. I thought the Colemans owned the ranch. I had no idea it still belonged to the old owners. I’d only heard rumor of them. They moved away generations ago. “So they sent you to Coleman Ranch to live on-site.”
“Lacette Beaumont insisted.”
I thought about that. About all the mornings she had been at the gate before me, notebook already out, GPS already running. About how her questions always landed just off from where a geologist’s questions should. “You’ve been working the whole time.”
“So have you.”
Hard to argue with that. “The footage. The guns. What’s your play?”
“Whatever’s in those crates isn’t for ranch security. The caliber, the way it’s staged, the concealment. That’s criminal. You know it too, or you wouldn’t have taken me to it.”
She was right. “You trust me with this, I trust you with that footage.” I nodded toward her phone on the floor. “Deal?”
She didn’t jump at it. She thought about it, which I respected. Then said, “Deal.”
We lay there another minute. “One more thing,” I said.
She waited.
“You want to see it. That’s part of why you’re here?”
She didn’t deny it. Didn’t even hesitate. “Yes.”
I sat up and reached for my boots. “Come on.”
Ghost was at the post right where I’d left him, lead rope still tied.
His ear swiveled toward me when I came out.
I went to him first, ran a hand down his neck, and said low, “Sorry, bud. That wasn’t the plan.
I didn’t mean to be in there so long.” He blew out through his nose and bumped my shoulder with his head, which was as much forgiveness as I deserved.
I untied him, let him stretch his legs a little, and got him a handful of grain from the saddlebag.
The sky had gone from black to the dark blue that comes just ahead of first light. We walked out past the shack to the far side of the clearing, where the ground was flat, and the grass ran long, far enough from the horses that they wouldn’t spook.
I told her to stand where she was. She did, arms loose eyes steady. I didn’t ask if she was sure. She wouldn’t have come out here if she weren’t.
I let it come slowly this time. I don’t usually bother with slow, but she was watching, and I wanted her to see the whole thing, not just the end of it. Every joint and tendon working the way it was made to. By the time it was done, I was four-legged in the dark, and I turned to face her.
She didn’t flinch. Didn’t step back. She stood there and looked at me the way she looked at everything, patient and exact, her eyes moving from my ears to my shoulders. Then she took one step forward. Held out her hand, low and open, the way you’d offer it to a dog you weren’t sure about.
It was really tempting to nip at her fingers, make her jump a bit, but I decided not to be mean. Not yet. She found the line of my jaw, and she kept her hand there a long time. Not petting. Just feeling.
She said, “My grandfather would love this.” She pulled her hand back. I shifted, slow again, and then I straightened up and looked at her.
She looked back. “Thank you,” she said. “For trusting me.”
“Didn’t have much choice.”
She laughed and took my hand. We turned toward Ghost, who was a little antsy. He was ready to get home. We’d need to ride back before the ranch was fully awake and people started wondering where I’d gotten to. I found I wasn’t in any particular hurry.