Chapter 21 Reid
I was about to head out to check on the horses when I heard the crunch of gravel outside the cabin.
It wasn’t a sound I expected, first light, not yet five, nothing moving but the whippoorwills and a deer or two.
I cracked the door and there was Jennie, already up the steps, hand raised mid-knock. She hadn’t slept, clearly.
I nodded her in, moved aside, and she ducked under my arm, shucking her bag and dropping onto the second chair. Her hair was up, as always, but it had the frazzled quality of a night spent fighting with the world.
She didn’t wait for me to start. “I need to tell you something,” she said, voice tight. “And it’s not urgent, but if you want to be mad, let’s just do it now so I can get back to work.”
There are two ways people confess, with regret, or with the conviction that whatever they did, they'd do again if pushed. She was the second kind, and I'd known it before she'd even plopped in the chair.
“All right,” I said. “Floor’s yours.”
She pulled her glasses off and wiped the lenses on her shirt, put the glasses back on and looked me dead in the eye. “I broke into the office at the Coleman house last night. I ran the safe. I didn’t open it, just powdered the keypad and got the digits. I have the possible combinations.”
She waited, not breathing. I counted to three and then shrugged.
“Okay,” I said. “Why are you acting like I’ll be mad?”
A flicker of surprise crossed her face. She'd been braced for a fight, not an assist. “Because I think there’s something in there that’ll blow this open. And I didn’t want to move on it alone. And also—” she shifted, mouth twisting, “if I go missing, I want someone to know where to start looking.”
That made sense. “Next time, wake me up before you decide to rob a bank. I could at least drive the truck.”
She laughed, quick and loud, then covered it with her hand. “I’ll consider it.”
My coffee maker still had a cup’s worth in it. I poured it for her without asking and handed it over. “You got plans today?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Not till late tonight, when the house is asleep again. I’ll try to get in the safe.”
I checked my phone, thumbed off the lock screen, and shot a text to Calder.
You need me today? I’d like to take Jennie to the fair.
He replied within seconds.
Go for it. We’re fine here.
I put the phone face down.
“Want to get out of here?” I asked. “I know a place.”
“Where?” she asked.
“It’s a surprise if you’re up for it,” I said.
She was quiet for a second, then grinned and said, “As long as it’s not within fifty miles of the Colemans.”
“Done.”
We left her rental behind and took my truck. I topped the tank at the only gas station in town, and pointed us northwest, away from the valley, the ranch, the entire county if we felt like it. She didn't ask where. Good instinct.
We drove with the windows down for an hour, passing nothing but scrub and barbed wire and, every so often, a mailbox with the name half worn off. She watched the land more than the road, taking mental notes even when she didn’t have a pen in her hand.
At some point she said, “What’s the farthest you’ve ever driven in one shot?”
I considered it. “Once made it to Idaho for a cattle run. Didn’t stop for anything but fuel and breakfast. Got out of the truck with a numb butt.”
She nodded, filing that away. “I did Flagstaff to Tallahassee once, three days, no sleep. Had to bribe a gas station clerk in New Mexico to let me use the shower in back.”
We didn’t talk after that for a while. When we hit the county line, I turned north on 87 and pointed at a billboard for the county fair. “Ever had real peach preserves? Like, not from the grocery store?”
She shook her head. “Never.”
I turned off the main road, and we took the back way, past a bleached-out brick high school and a cemetery with the names worn off the headstones.
The market was just as I remembered, two rows of cars and pickups, every vendor under a white tent, the air sweet with fruit and sweat and diesel from a generator that sounded one bad morning from dying.
There weren’t any big crowds yet, but enough people that we didn’t stand out. It’d get busier on the weekend.
We walked the line of stalls. There was produce, tomatoes with dirt still clinging, peaches soft enough to eat with a spoon.
There was honey, goat cheese, tamales, jars of moonshine marked “for novelty use only.” A kid with a BB gun shot balloons for tips.
The guy at the end sold birdhouses he made himself and couldn’t stop talking about the difference between cedar and pine, long after I’d stopped listening.
She liked the tamales. We split one, steaming hot, the pork inside delicious. She moaned, scarfed it and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
“This is the best meal I’ve had in I don’t know when,” she said.
“Then you’ve never had the hot sauce,” I said, and led her to a table with twenty small bottles in a row. The vendor was a woman in a tank top with boxer's arms and a voice that sounded like she smoked two packs a day.
Jennie took her time, read every label, asked about the ingredients and where the peppers were grown.
She grilled the woman, and the woman gave as good as she got.
By the time they were done, I’d bought three bottles, one for her, one for me, and one because I felt bad for the vendor.
Easier than watching them go two more rounds over Scoville ratings.
She laughed when I paid. “You didn’t have to get that.”
“You weren’t going to let her go until she admitted you were right about the pH balance.”
Jennie grinned, crooked. “I was getting there.”
We drifted to the next tent. She grabbed a peach, paid the farmer, and bit into it, juice running down her wrist. She looked so happy for that half second that I almost forgot why we were here.
She wiped her chin and said, “Thank you. This is exactly what I needed.”
I shrugged. “I like it out here.”
She didn’t say more, but she moved closer, shoulder to mine.
At the far end of the line of tents, there was a woman browsing at the preserves table, silver hair pinned back, earrings that looked like they cost more than my pickup. She wore black jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, crisp even in the heat. Cordelia Coleman.
Jennie saw her next, and I watched two apex predators line each other up across a minefield of jam jars and folding tables.
Cordelia’s smile didn’t change, but something behind her eyes flicked on, sharp and assessing.
She moved over and greeted us both with that false ease.
“My goodness,” she said, and it sounded like a compliment, but it was anything but, “how far your work takes you, Ms. Cardin.”
Jennie smiled. “Couldn’t miss the preserves, Mrs. Coleman.”
They shook hands, and that was that.
Cordelia turned to me. “Reid. I see you survived another drought.”
“Yes ma’am. You too.”
“I always do,” she said, and then she was back to Jennie, eyes full of laser focus. “What brings you this far north?” she asked.
“Everyone needs a day off now and then,” Jennie said.
“I hope the geology’s been more exciting than the last report we got from Ms. Beaumont. Heard it was slow going.”
“It picked up,” Jennie said. “More productive than I expected, actually.”
The words were warm, but the tension between them was thick enough to chew.
Cordelia said, “And what about your family, dear? Are they worried, with you being out here alone so long?”
Jennie didn’t blink. “I’m not really alone, ma’am. Lots of company out in Hollow Ridge.”
Cordelia gave a smile, not quite a sneer. “I imagine that’s true.”
They traded small talk, neither raising the bet, both waiting for the other to show a tell.
Cordelia changed tack. “You should try the peach preserves. They’re the best in the state.”
“Only if you help me pick a jar,” Jennie said.
Cordelia couldn’t refuse, not without giving ground. She picked a jar, and Jennie held it up to the light, reading the label.
She set the jar down and smiled. “Thank you, Mrs. Coleman. Always nice seeing you.”
“The pleasure’s mine,” Cordelia replied, looked at me and nodded, and then she was gone.
I waited until she was a hundred yards away, then said, “You didn’t need me for that.”
Jennie turned the jar in her hand, eyes still on the label. “No,” she said. “But it was nice to have you there.”
We paid then walked to the truck in silence. She held the preserves with a grip that would have cracked glass, but when she got in the passenger seat, she just set it in the cupholder and looked out the window.
On the drive back, I watched the way her shoulders relaxed, the way her breathing eased when we put enough miles between ourselves and the church lot. I didn’t say anything because there was nothing to say.
We made it back to the ranch just after noon, the sun so high and mean it beat the bugs into silence. I pulled up to the barn, where it was cooler by ten degrees.
She followed me in, carrying the bag of sauces and the jar, but set them both on the feed barrel and just stood, hands on her hips.
“You okay?” I asked.
She nodded, then caught herself. “No. I mean, yes, but—” She stopped and turned the thought over. “I’m just tired. It’s been a lot.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I said, “You want to eat lunch?”
She nodded again. “Yeah.”
We went to my cabin. I made simple ham sandwiches, which she jazzed up with the new hot sauce. It looked good so I did the same.
“I hope you don’t think I’m helpless,” she said, mouth full, “just because I let you buy me hot sauce.”
“I think you’re the opposite of helpless,” I said. “I think you’re dangerous.”
She looked at me, eyes bright. “Maybe so.”