Kitabı oku: «A Wanted Man», sayfa 2

Chapter Three

Harlan had no idea what to expect when he walked into the Williamson County Sheriff’s Department.

He was feeling humiliated and out of sorts after last night’s debacle, the side of his head still throbbing where Billy Boy Lyman had left a Glock-size bruise.

When he came to, he’d found himself lying in the restroom doorway, the room swaying, his weapon long gone. But what hurt most was the blow to his pride. In the span of less than a minute, he had lost a prisoner, a gun and a sizable chunk of his reputation. All because he’d been stupid enough to lower his guard, and was just biased enough to assume that the girl behind the counter wasn’t a threat to him.

Something he’d have to work on.

Whatever the case, he didn’t doubt that these mistakes would haunt him for many months to come. And as he pulled into the Williamson County Sheriff’s Office parking structure, he had no idea what he was walking into.

The locals would undoubtedly blame him for the death of one of their own, but the question was whether they’d take the professional route and hide their animosity, or—as was so often the case—treat him like a hostile intruder.

The moment he stepped into the conference room, however, such concerns immediately vacated his mind. This could have been a war zone, with bullets flying, and Harlan wouldn’t have noticed.

Of the six people sitting at the long table, only one of them—the lone woman in the room—commanded his attention, despite the fact that she refused to look him directly in the eye.

It was none other than Callie Glass.

Harlan’s internal alarm bells suddenly went off, and he knew he’d better sit down before he fell down. While he would’ve loved to have blamed his sudden disorientation on his head injury, that was only part of it. The sight of his old college flame sitting not ten feet away from him had thrown him completely off balance.

Was he imagining things? Had the bump on his noggin brought on some cruel hallucination?

No. She was real, all right. As real as a heartbeat. A little older but even more beautiful than he remembered—which, until this moment, he would’ve deemed an impossibility. He knew she was from Williamson, but he’d never imagined he’d find her here like this.

Not now. Not today.

“Deputy Cole, I’m Sheriff Mercer.”

Harlan blinked, then swiveled his head to his left to find a sunbaked cowboy in a gray suit with a string tie rising from his chair, his hand extended.

Harlan reached out and shook it, happy for the distraction. “Good to meet you, Sheriff. I wish it were under better circumstances.”

“You sure you’re up to this? Looks like your boy did quite a job on you.”

Harlan had hoped that the bruise wouldn’t be that noticeable—a symbol of his failure—but it didn’t much matter. He’d just have to learn to live with it for the next several days.

“I’ll be fine, thanks. But if you don’t mind, I think I’ll sit down.”

Mercer gestured to a chair. “By all means.”

Harlan glanced at Callie, then pulled the chair out, as Mercer introduced the people around the table. The names and faces came at him too quickly to process, but when the sheriff got to the only one Harlan really cared about, she finally looked up at him, offering him a curt, professional smile.

Her eyes weren’t smiling, however. Not even close. And her voice had a clipped, unfriendly tone. “Hello, Harlan.”

He nodded. “Callie.”

Mercer’s eyebrows went up. “You two know each other?”

“Long time ago,” she said. “Back in graduate school. We took a couple of criminology classes together.”

She’d said this with about as much warmth and enthusiasm as an accountant reciting the tax code. There was a lot more to it than that, but she wasn’t offering any details. Which was fine by Harlan. He didn’t want to think about those details—although he was finding it difficult not to.

Mercer said, “Denver, right? University of Colorado?”

“Right,” they said in unison.

They exchanged an awkward glance as Mercer studied them curiously, then sat back down.

“Small world,” he said, “but I reckon you two can catch up some other time. Right now we’ve got business to attend to.” He looked at Harlan. “Your supervising deputy says you’ve got some information to share.”

Harlan tore his gaze away from Callie and nodded. He had spent the better part of his morning at the Torrington marshal’s substation gathering up as much intel on Billy Boy Lyman as he could find. He hadn’t had much sleep since the incident, and his supervisor back in Colorado Springs had urged him to take it easy and let someone else handle the heavy lifting.

But Harlan had refused.

He preferred to clean up his own messes.

When he’d heard that his Glock had been found under a burned-out pickup truck near Williamson—a vehicle carrying the body of a local rancher—he’d made a vow right then and there that he wouldn’t rest until Billy Boy was back in custody.

Or begging St. Peter to open up the pearly gates.

“First,” he said, “I want to apologize to all of you for making any of this necessary. If I hadn’t been derelict in my duties, none of us would be sitting here right now.”

He glanced at Callie again but got nothing back. She was carefully examining her fingernails.

“Let’s not worry about blame,” Mercer said. “The way I look at it, the only reason we’re here is because of this boy Lyman.”

“Thanks, Sheriff, I appreciate that.” Harlan reached into his coat pocket and brought out a small stack of photographs. “I assume you all saw the mug shot I faxed over?”

There were nods and murmurs around the room.

“Lyman’s a Nebraska native who moved with his mother to Wyoming when he was sixteen years old. He’s been in and out of custody ever since, his latest bust for an aborted robbery attempt at the Colorado Springs Bank and Trust three weeks ago. He was out on parole at the time, and since the courts are backed up, someone on high figured it wouldn’t hurt to ship his butt up to Torrington to finish out his state sentence while he’s waiting for trial. That’s where I came in.”

He laid the stack of photos on the table. “We took these from the convenience store’s surveillance footage. The main unit was destroyed, but the owner keeps a backup in his office closet.”

“How’s the clerk doing?”

The question came from a young guy sitting next to Callie. Rusty-something.

“Touch and go, last I heard.”

Harlan had found the clerk tied up and shoved into a storeroom, his head caved in by a blow much harder than the one he himself had received. Once he saw the poor guy, he knew that he could easily have wound up in the very same condition. So maybe getting beaned by Billy Boy instead of the girlfriend or the potato chip lover was a blessing he should be thankful for.

Tapping the photos, he said, “These are the two perpetrators who helped Lyman escape. We think they may have been his partners in the bank job, but they were wearing ski masks at the time and managed to get away.”

Mercer said, “You run those photos through facial recognition?”

Harlan nodded. “No hits so far, which isn’t much of a surprise considering how bad the resolution is.” He looked at the others. “We found their Chevy Malibu dumped in a field about sixty miles north of the convenience store. Broken water pump. That’s probably where they hitched a ride with the victim. And since people tend to go where they feel most comfortable, I’m hoping they might be local. Maybe one of you crossed paths with them at one time or another.”

He slid the photos to Mercer, who picked up the stack and started shuffling through it. Within seconds, something shifted in the sheriff’s eyes. “Well I’ll be damned. This is getting cozier and cozier.”

“You recognize them?”

Mercer didn’t answer. Instead he took a photo off the top of the stack and spun it across the table toward Callie. “That face look familiar to you?”

Callie caught it, then dropped her gaze, studying the image carefully.

After a moment, she said, “Looks like Megan Pritchard, but this is a little fuzzy and it’s been a while. She hasn’t been around much since her last stint in juvie, and that was like—what?—three, four years ago?”

Mercer shrugged. “Give or take.”

“So who is she?” Harlan asked.

“Megan Pritchard-Breen,” Callie said. “Only nobody uses the Breen part since her mother got a divorce years ago. She’s one of our local troublemakers. Sheriff here likes to call her a wild child, but I think he’s being polite in deference to the family. Sociopath is more accurate.”

“She’s also a bit of a fire bug,” Mercer told him. “So draw your own conclusions.”

“And she’s got family up here?”

Mercer glanced at Callie, and Harlan followed his lead, but she once again averted her gaze. He sensed, however, that this time it had nothing to do with their past. There was a different kind of history at play here. An underlying discomfort she wasn’t anxious to address. And Harlan had the feeling he was the only one in the room who didn’t know about it.

“She’s the granddaughter of Jonah Pritchard,” Mercer said. “And if you spent any significant amount of time in Williamson, you’d recognize the name.”

“Local celebrity?”

“That’s one way of putting it, if you like ‘em old and mean and wealthier than the crown prince of Tangiers.”

“I take it you’re not a fan.”

“Let’s just say the pathology seems to run in the family, only Jonah is a little better at hiding it.” He looked at Callie. “And if that is Megan Pritchard, I think you know what it means.”

She frowned. “You want Rusty and me to go out there.”

“I know you’ve got issues with the old coot, but you are the lead deputy on this case.”

“Out where?” Harlan asked.

“Pritchard Ranch,” Mercer said. “If Meg’s in trouble, she’d go to her grandpa for help. Always has, always will.”

“Which means Billy Boy might be there, as well.”

“That’s the logical assumption. So I’d suggest you three saddle up, pronto. We don’t have a warrant, but maybe the Pritchards will cooperate.”

Harlan nodded, then got to his feet.

“Wait a minute,” Callie said, her frown deepening. “You want him to go with us?”

Mercer’s brows went up again. “Is that a problem? I thought you two were old friends.”

Harlan and Callie exchanged another glance, neither of them willing to tackle that one in public, and Harlan could feel the eyes of everyone in the room shifting in his direction. The office gossip line would be buzzing this afternoon.

Mercer tapped his watch. “Tick tock, Deputy Glass. We’ve got a trio of killers to catch.”

Looking like a woman who had just been condemned to a decade of indentured servitude, Callie reluctantly rolled her chair back and stood up.

Harlan knew exactly how she felt.

Chapter Four

“How much farther is it?” Harlan asked.

These were more or less the first words spoken since the three of them had climbed into Callie’s cruiser. Now that Harlan had broken the silence, Rusty—who had probably sensed the tension in the air and had been smart enough to keep his mouth shut—gestured from the front passenger seat, saying, “Just up the road apiece. About five or six miles.”

To Callie’s mind, it might as well be five or six hundred. With all due respect to the late Jim Farber and his family, she couldn’t wait until this day was over. From Nana Jean’s matchmaking to the surprise appearance of a man she loathed and now this trip out to Pritchard Ranch—the last place she wanted to go—this was turning out to be a record breaker. All future days would surely be measured against this one.

Callie had never considered herself a vindictive woman. She’d never been one to hold on to a grudge. More often than not she found she could remain civil with the tiny handful of men she’d been intimate with. She had long ago convinced herself that she was a much better friend than lover.

But the breakup with Harlan had been different. Maybe it was her immaturity, or maybe it was the simple fact that she had been so head over heels in love with him. Whatever the cause, she had carried this burning resentment toward him a lot longer than she wanted to admit.

It rarely came to the surface, however. No reason it should. She hadn’t seen Harlan in nearly a decade, and had long since learned to get through a day, a week, sometimes even a whole month, without thinking about him. But every time she did, she found herself hating him all over again.

She knew, of course, that her anger was simply a way of masking the pain. Not just because of the breakup, but because of the circumstances surrounding it.

She’d bet good money that if the accident hadn’t happened, she and Harlan would still be together. No question. But that tragic night had forced such an enormous wedge between them that it was no wonder they could barely stand to look at each other.

Callie didn’t think she would ever forgive Harlan for what he’d done. And until today it hadn’t been much of an issue.

Now here he was, sitting in the backseat of her SUV, and it took every bit of inner strength she could muster to keep from slamming the brakes and throwing him out in the middle of the highway.

The thing that really galled her, however, was that despite her turmoil she couldn’t stop thinking about how good he looked. The years had given his face and body an angularity, a solid, rustic dignity that had only been hinted at in his younger days. He’d been attractive back then, no doubt about it, but now he looked as if he’d just stepped out of a movie screen, his blue-eyed Hollywood good looks tempered with just enough real-world ruggedness to make him a genuine human being.

And that was all the more reason to hate him. He should be suffering for what he’d done. Balding and getting too fat and covered in festering boils.

Tell us how you really feel, Callie.

Gripping the wheel tighter, she punched the accelerator and picked up speed.

THE PRITCHARD FAMILY had always displayed their wealth without apology. Nestled in the foothills of the Bighorn Mountains, the ranch was seven thousand acres of rolling hills, grassy flatland and a sleekly modern, three-story dream house that was big enough to hold the population of a small third-world country.

As she pulled up to the gate, Callie thought about her connection to the family. Despite the shared blood, she had long ago realized that there really wasn’t one. Not the kind that mattered, at least. Before she was even born, Jonah Pritchard had made it clear that neither she nor her mother were worth spitting on, and Callie herself couldn’t care less about his money.

Everyone in town knew the history between the two families. A few of her friends—including Sheriff Mercer—had urged her to pursue her stake in the Pritchard fortune. When her father was killed, he’d left behind a sizable trust that rightfully belonged to her. But pursuing it meant lawsuits and court hearings and exhumed bodies and DNA tests and a lot of bad feelings all around.

If Callie went forward, she knew full well that Jonah would wage a smear campaign against the memory of her mother. He’d hire a platoon of lawyers and PR flacks to claim the DNA tests had somehow been tainted or tampered with, claiming the girl had slept around like a common whore and that Callie could be just about anyone’s child.

There was no amount of money that would dull the sting of such an attack, especially in a town the size of Williamson, which had less than seven thousand residents—the majority of whom loved to gossip. And with Nana Jean getting frailer by the week, it just wasn’t worth it.

Callie was content to know that she had earned her place in this world. And she couldn’t help thinking how ironic it was that Megan, the so-called real Pritchard granddaughter, had turned out to be a family embarrassment. No smear campaign necessary.

Callie had to admit she’d found a certain satisfaction in this knowledge.

As she pulled her cruiser to a stop, the guard manning the gate came out of his booth and approached her window with a smile on his face. Landry Bickham was a grizzled old cowboy who had been working for the Pritchard family as long as anyone could remember, and Callie didn’t think she’d ever seen him without that smile.

“Afternoon, Deputy Glass. You sure you didn’t make a wrong turn?”

“If only,” she said. “I need to go up to the house. Police business.”

Bickham grunted. “You make an appointment?”

Callie just stared at him.

Bickham nodded, then went back to the booth and picked up the phone. Callie knew she could ask him if he’d seen Megan in the past few hours, but there wasn’t much point. Landry was loyal to a fault—the secret behind his longevity on the job.

After his call was done, he came back shaking his head, the smile still intact. “Jonah is a little under the weather today, isn’t taking any visitors.”

“I already told you, this isn’t a social call.”

Bickham shrugged. “You might try again tomorrow morning.”

“Open the gate, Landry.”

“I really wish I could do that, Callie, but I’ve got my—”

Before Landry could finish his sentence, Harlan had his door open and was climbing out. He brushed the flap of his coat back, revealing the star clipped to his belt. “U.S. Marshals Service. Open that gate now or consider yourself under arrest.”

Bickham’s smile faltered slightly. “For what?”

“For aiding and abetting a fugitive. Or for being a general pain in the butt. Take your choice.”

Callie couldn’t help feeling a little annoyed by Harlan’s intrusion. Didn’t he think she could get the job done?

Apparently not.

“Fugitive? What fugitive?” Bickham said. “I’m just following orders.”

Callie gestured impatiently. “Do what he asks, Landry. I’ll make sure Jonah knows you put up a good fight.”

“Is this fella really gonna arrest me?”

“Not if you cooperate.”

“All right, then,” Bickham said, then shuffled back to his booth and flipped a switch. The gate rumbled and started rolling to one side.

As Harlan got back in the car, Callie hit the gas, shooting forward before he had a chance to sit down and get his door closed.

He yelped, letting loose a string of profanities, and she eyed him in her rearview mirror.

“You okay back there?”

Struggling to collect himself, Harlan shot her a look of annoyance that kept her smiling all the way up the drive.

No, she wasn’t vindictive.

Not one little bit.

Chapter Five

Landry Bickham hadn’t wasted any time in sounding the alarm.

They were greeted at the top of the drive by Gloria Pritchard, a woman whose beauty had been starkly diminished by years of starvation, alcohol and cosmetic surgery. The result was the exact opposite of what she had intended, her skin stretched so tautly over her sharp bones that she looked much older than her fifty-one years.

Callie only knew her actual age because Gloria and her mother had been best friends in high school. Not that this mattered much. Gloria visibly stiffened at the sight of Callie as they climbed out of the SUV.

Neither of them offered any pleasantries.

“So what has my little darling done now?” Gloria asked. The little darling being her wayward daughter Meg.

“Is she here?”

“I haven’t seen her in a good six months.”

“Then what makes you think that’s what this is about?”

Gloria smiled humorlessly. “Experience,” she said. “I don’t need to tell you what a handful that girl has been since the day she was born.”

To put it mildly, Callie thought. Megan Pritchard was the devil incarnate as far as she was concerned. But without the brains. Even her own mother had stopped trying to cover for her.

Not that Gloria was the model of a loving parent. Twice divorced and always shopping for a replacement, she paid about as much attention to her own daughter as she might a pet hamster.

Meg’s grandfather Jonah, on the other hand, would do just about anything for his girl—whether Gloria liked it or not.

“What about your father?”

Gloria seemed to grow even more tense. “What about him?”

“Has he seen her? Recently, I mean. Like the last twelve or so hours.”

“I’m afraid I wouldn’t know,” she said. “This is a big house, and Jonah and I tend to avoid each other as much as possible.”

One thing you could say about Gloria was that, despite her family’s money and the Hollywood housewife exterior, she was always brutally frank and open about her feelings, even when it meant exposing the truth about their not-so-happy family.

Maybe it was the years of AA meetings.

“You still haven’t answered my question,” she said. “What’s Meg done now?”

Harlan apparently took this as his cue to step forward, reaching into his inner coat pocket as he did.

“Ma’am, I’m Deputy U.S. Marshal Harlan Cole. I’d like you to take a look at this, if you don’t mind.”

He brought out one of the surveillance photographs and handed it to her.

“Is this your daughter?”

Gloria took a long moment to study the image, then said, “I think so, yes.”

Harlan nodded. “You say you haven’t seen her in six months, but when’s the last time you spoke to her?”

Gloria returned the photograph. “She called me a few days ago. Just to remind me how much she despises me.”

“She happen to mention she was headed your way?”

“No,” Gloria said.

“Well, we have reason to believe she was, and after last night, she’s in the company of at least one wanted fugitive and may well have participated in a bank robbery and a murder.” He paused, glancing at Callie as if seeking some kind of approval. She wasn’t sure why. He seemed content with running the show. “In light of this,” he said to Gloria, “I’d like your permission to search the premises.”

Before Gloria could answer, a stern baritone boomed. “I’m afraid you’re out of luck, Marshal.”

They all turned to find Jonah Pritchard standing in the doorway, a tall man in blue jeans and a dark flannel shirt. He was close to Nana Jean’s age, but with none of the frailty. In fact, he was as solid as a twenty-year-old and didn’t look even remotely under the weather.

Callie knew she should probably feel something. After all, he was her grandfather, too. But feelings are reserved for those you care about, and she’d have to reach down pretty deep to find anything that resembled an emotional attachment to this man.

“I own this house,” he said to Harlan, “and permission is definitely not granted.”

Harlan stepped toward him now, once again flashing the badge on his hip. “Then I guess you’d be Jonah Pritchard.”

“That’s right,” the old man said.

“Well, I was only asking to be polite, sir, so if you’ll move to one side, we’d like to get started.”

Callie threw him a look.

Say what?

Jonah shook his head. “Without a warrant? If you want to come in, you’ll need a judge’s signature.”

Harlan cocked a brow at him, then turned to Callie and Rusty. “Did you two hear that?”

Callie frowned, not sure what he was getting at. “What?”

“He just asked me if I want to come in. Sounded like an invitation to me.”

Uh-oh, Callie thought. So Harlan was one of those. She was a strong believer in procedure and didn’t appreciate the cowboys who ignored it in hopes of getting a pass from the courts. She should’ve realized he was a “Wyatt Earp” the minute he jumped out of her SUV to confront Landry.

But before she could tell him that neither she nor Rusty were about to play along, Jonah stepped aside, moving out onto the wide front porch. Not to invite them in, but to make room for a couple of burly ranch hands who emerged from the doorway behind him.

He looked pointedly at Harlan. “You take one more step in this direction, I’m within my rights to stop you.”

Callie watched as Harlan studied the two ranch hands. They weren’t carrying weapons, but then they didn’t need to.

Harlan said, “Not like this, you aren’t. The law doesn’t look too kindly on assault against peace officers.”

Jonah shrugged. “It isn’t too thrilled about illegal search and seizure, either. And it won’t keep these boys from putting you three in the hospital.” He gestured to his daughter. “Gloria, get in the house. No reason for you to be here for this.”

In other words, get lost.

Callie could see the resentment in Gloria’s eyes. Resentment that went back many years. But Gloria did as she was told. And without protest.

When she was gone, Jonah said, “There’s no need for this to get ugly, Marshal.”

Now Callie spoke up. “Tell that to Megan, Mr. Pritchard. And to Jim Farber’s family. She and her friends left him in quite a state.”

“I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

“Wouldn’t you?”

He gave her a look that said he was offended by the remark, but she sensed he was feigning it. Nothing she said could offend him. The old guy was bulletproof.

“Meg decided a long time ago that she wasn’t interested in associating with this family,” he said. “Not that that’s any of your business.”

Callie knew that his words were meant to cut much deeper than they did, but after thirty-four years she was immune to him. She’d long been aware that Jonah despised her. By his skewed logic, his son wouldn’t be dead if it weren’t for her whore of a mother.

The thought of this suddenly brought to surface another part of her life—her years with Harlan—and she wondered for a brief moment if she’d applied her own skewed logic to that situation.

But no. That was different. And she had no desire to wander into any dark alleys right now.

Focus, Callie.

Concentrate on the matter at hand.

“We could clear all this up,” Harlan said to Jonah, “if you’d just let us do our job. If you’ve got nothing to hide, then this conversation is over.”

“It’s already over,” a voice said, and Callie heard the ratchet of a scatter-gun behind them.

She and Harlan and Rusty all turned to find a smiling Landry Bickham holding a pump-action twelve-gauge. He kept it pointed at the ground, but Callie knew he’d use it if the old man gave him the nod.

Her heart started thumping.

This wasn’t the direction she’d wanted this afternoon to go.

Harlan turned back to Jonah. “You’re making a grave mistake, Mr. Pritchard. I could arrest you for obstruction, right now.”

“I suppose you could try,” Jonah said.

They were all silent for a long moment, and Callie could see the fury creeping into Harlan’s gaze. She’d seen that fury before, when she told him she never wanted to lay eyes on him again.

Jonah gestured. “You go on, now, try to get your warrant. If the judge says I’ve gotta open up my house, I’ll open up my house. In the meantime, you’re just trespassing, far as I can see.”

For a moment Callie thought Harlan might do something stupid, but he held back. Thank God.

“This isn’t over,” he said quietly.

Jonah’s gaze didn’t waver. “I don’t doubt that for a minute.”

Harlan stared at him a while longer, then his fury seemed to dissipate and he turned, moving back to the cruiser.

Then they were all inside, Callie feeling both frustrated and relieved as she started the engine and watched Jonah and the others go back into the house.

“You think they’re in there?” Harlan asked.

Callie wanted to punch him. “Even if they are, unless Pritchard cooperates, there’s not much we can do about it right now.”

“He’s one nasty piece of work, isn’t he?”

Callie jammed the car in gear. “Pot … meet kettle,” she said.

Then she turned them around and headed down the drive.