Chapter 37
He walked Claudia out. Zach was walking around the rear of the house with Em showing him the back entrances. Zach would leave in a moment. For now…Cal looked at his little sister. “Be careful driving back.”
“I’m good. Zach will be out on the road, too, you know. We are the cops, the good guys. I can take care of myself.”
She’d always been fiercely independent. That had just gotten worse since she’d pinned on that badge. He was still getting used to the idea of his baby sister being a cop and carrying a gun for a living. Getting used to the idea that he couldn’t protect her from the bad guys out there.
That gun had saved her life and Junie’s and Auggie’s that day on the street when Larry Kellman had opened fire.
He would never forget that. “I’m thinking of starting to carry.
I have Granddad’s pistol.” He had been given the pistol in his grandfather’s will—ten years before his father had been arrested and all of his father’s weapons seized.
They’d just gotten the guns his father had collected back in the last year or so.
Cadell had them now. “And I know how to use it.”
“I’m not going to tell you not to. It scares me for them. That he’s still out here. And I am glad you were here tonight. But I know you are hurt more than you are letting on. Are you even up to guard duty?”
“Yes. In a heartbeat. He’s not getting near her, them, again. Not on my watch. Did you see how afraid that little girl inside was? Jan doesn’t deserve to be so afraid. And neither does Auggie. What he put them all through—I want to rip him apart. With my bare hands.”
Or Junie and Em, or any of the rest. Junie had been so pale and frightened, her blue eyes had stood out. And Em…she’d been practically vibrating.
“No, they don’t. And we just don’t know what it is he is doing or what he is after.
A smart man would have already headed out of Wyoming, toward the border, or back to Texas.
Yet he keeps hanging around. We just can’t seem to track him down anywhere.
” His sister’s frustration was hard to miss.
He knew she’d made Bruce Tyler something of a personal quest. “And so many of us have our hands tied for one reason or another. It’s just me and Zach who can look for him, and even that is iffy, since he and Sage are related.
I have to sign off on everything, but since Bruce is also responsible for injuries I sustained…
we’ll have to turn him over to the FBI or to the WHP when we do catch him.
Boone is also looking for him. All of us are looking for him.
And none of us are getting anywhere. How much longer can this go on before someone else is killed?
No one man should be able to evade us all like this. It just doesn’t make any sense.”
“I don’t know. I’m just…I can’t leave her, Claud. I just can’t.”
“Just…if you are going to stay out here, please watch yourself. Bruce Tyler is involved in some seriously heavy things. I don’t want you to get caught up in the middle of it. More than you already have been.”
“I’m not going to be in the middle of it. I’m going to be standing between them and any of it that I can.” He just couldn’t walk away. Not now. “However she’ll let me. There is something about that woman that I…hell…”
Claudia laughed at him, quietly. “I think…maybe the two of you can see each other’s scars and not be frightened away. I think you both need that. I love you both. Remember that. Watch yourself out here tonight. I think…demons are coming out to haunt us all.”